Hello, I've been running this deck for a few months now and wanted to share a some thoughts and hear from the other players.

I pretty much have the exact deck save for Imperial Seal - I'm running Imp's Mischief just as another pseudo counter or messing with certain cantrips / resurrections. Also, I don't have a Bazaar of Baghdad for obvious reasons.

Also, I found Null Rod & Collector Ouphe a bit redundant, and because Ouphe feeds Gaea's Cradle and is easier to fetch with the creature tutoring, I left him in and swapped the Rod for Torpor Orb - anyone share these sentiments?

Finally, I've been wondering about introducing either Dosan the Falling Leaf, City of Solitude or Defense Grid as a way to disrupt counter magic - I feel like either it eats up a counter or it resolves and we win. We do have a fair bit of protection with Autumn's Veil & Veil of Summer and the combo itself is insanely resilient, but having more in there seems helpful. Dosan and City have the downside of practically handing someone else the win if you don't go off though, while Grid is sort of like a constant [Spell Pierce]. For one of them I would swap out Grafdigger's Cage - while the card is amazing, I don't have anyone running the Fish Hulk build in my playgroup.

Anyway, if you read all that, I'm excited to hear input from people that have been running this deck a lot longer than me.

day1dlc

I know it has been a while since you got a reply.. so i'll give it a shot.

You have some good ideas about Dosan the Falling Leaf, City of Solitude and Defense Grid. But those cards can work in a way that lets opponents win. On top of that this deck does not need those kind of protection. Example: Someone tries to disrupt your dredge combo, then just toss another land (or sacrifice a land through Safekeeper or Squandered Resources) and get a draw trigger on the stack. Bottom line is that this deck has no need of such protection and can play other, more useful cards, instead.

Grafdigger's Cage Does not really stop Thassa's Oracle ETB ability. Players will hard cast Oracle in response to Cage being on the board instead of getting Oracle from Hulk. Although Torpor Orb does a better job than Grafdigger's Cage in stopping ETB triggers.

Null Rod and Collector Ouphe are easily removed and played around therefore we have them both in this deck.

VaalVanir

You're absolutely right! This deck does not need shortcuts ... It is a combo killer... and cards that retard the opponent's victory are unnecessary. I have a very similar deck and I added Glacial Chasm to, in extreme cases, help me to survive one, two turns .. Enough for the victory .... And still give me a draw trigger and use urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to be able to use it like Swamp ... And Crop Rotation is a good friend!

Watched the video, was wondering if anyone could help me understand why Bitter Ordeal is not in the deck?

jimmys17

You have a very good question regarding Bitter Ordeal. The reason why Bitter Ordeal is not in this deck is because we have Praetor's Grasp already. For the exact CMC of 3 we get to exile a card AND get to play it. Imagine going after someone else's win con, tutor, or even mana rock. You deny their chances of winning while furthering your own agenda. This is probably the best kind of 2 for 1.

I hope this answers your question.

VaalVanir

Sure I can understand that. What I mean is why go through all those complicated loops just to exile their library or maybe get a labman or whatever, when a Bitter Ordeal will just outright kill the whole table

jimmys17

Situation: It's turn 3, you cast Praetor's Grasp on an opponent and get Mana Crypt for free, versus only exiling their Laboratory Maniac. Getting the Mana Crypt is more beneficial than exiling a small part of their win con.

At this level we are expecting the opponents to have multiple ways to coming back from their win con, or part of their win con, exiled.

Simply put, Bitter Ordeal is only good when we are trying to win. It has little to no value outside of the combo. Praetor's Grasp, on the other hand, is useful as a tutor, either by getting what we want out of an opponent's deck or getting a tutor for our deck. Grasp itself is already a contentious slot as some Frog pilots choose to eschew a sorcery speed wincon since they can generate infinite green with Lotus Petal to win in a myriad of other ways.

Leptys Hi! I'm currently running this deck with a few personal twists, and I was wondering - what do you think of a Doomsday inclusion? My main wincon is the Geth's Verdict loop, so with a Doomsday pile of Dakmor, Kozilek, Verdict, Dark Ritual and a land, it's still possible to achieve all the steps; and you can crack the pile simply by sacrificing or discarding a land thanks to Gitrog. How does that sound?

lavalampmasterrace what's your discard outlet?

Yeah, you definitely need a discard outlet

@syngerybuild Ender666666 This is assuming I have a discard outlet on the board. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

n0bunga It's another way to tutor for Dakmor, and it streamlines your combo slightly for skeptics about whether it'll work

lavalampmasterrace Why tho, you can show them it, and a 3 mana tutor that kills you if you are stopped like, immediately worse than Grim Tutor in mana cost too, and that is bad for this deck, and tutors to hand too.

Fair enough. Just a thought

lavalampmasterrace Which thought? I was asking why? Idk that it's a bad idea, I just don't see the use of streamlining for skeptics, have you ever seen a skeptic of a pretty normal combo?

SynergyBuild I've had quite a few people ask me about how the Gitrog combo works, and not really believing it works. But maybe that's just my playgroup. And I meant the idea of running Doomsday - it was just an idea.

I love this deck! How do you think people would react if I ran a bunch of proxies?

ChildrenOfBodom I have yet to see a player who is not pro-proxies. We want to play you, not your wallet.

merrowMania cool! That's what I thought.

ChildrenOfBodom I have no problems with proxies, even if your whole deck is proxies it will be fine with me.

Proxies will always be okay with me, as the complexity and fun is what I seek. The only thing off this list I dont personally own is Bazaar of Baghdad, and Imperial Seal.

Anywhoo, What is the deck looking like now that Flash got the hammer and Hulk piles are going away? I foresee more Demonic Consultation decks as well as a possible Necrotic Ooze decks again. I'm willing to bet the deck doesn't change an awful lot, considering we were about 50/50 with those decks in the first place. In every pod the opponents really have to respect our deck as we are as deadly fast (and sometimes instant speed) as FlashHulk in the first place.

I have been thinking, and I have a suggestion to add: Elvish Reclaimer. When you have creature tutors but also have the discard outlet in hand, this could really come in handy to get dakmor. What do you guys think?

Unfortunately it takes at least a turn cycle before being able to get Dakmor. Best case scenario is you would fetch Dakmor in response to the Frog upkeep trigger. But this also requires Frog in play and heavily signals your plan to go off.

When you find yourself with a creature tutor and a discard outlet, you can fetch Golgari Grave Troll and use the dredge tutor technique (discard it, dredge it, probably hit a land, discard it in response to the new draw trigger, repeat until you mill Dakmor and proceed to combo).

^^^Well Said^^^