Lilbrudder I'm not doubting that the combo is good. I'm doubting the consistency and efficiency that you claim the combo has.

Maybe it's just me, but I play in a meta that runs quite a lot of graveyard hate. I have the featured SBT deck in my meta (the one that's been stomping the online cEDH tournament) and people have learned to play quite a bit of hate. I just don't see Hulk being that much more problematic than many other graveyard combo lists when a lot of people are prepared for graveyard combos.

Human_Wizard in all honestly its more like one card that can combo off with a gigantic number of different cards. It turns into: sac outlet+hulk, with the 7cmc being easily dealt with by the insane amount of fast mana in edh. Flash is just by far the most efficient one

How can you doubt the efficiency? Its a 2 mana combo. Nothing is more efficient. If you have the necessary parts it will always win by turn 3 at the latest. Ive said it before this combo is your plan a line. If you run other overlapping combos with it you can get turn 3-4 wins elsewhere. I am not saying a devoted hulk deck gets turn 1-3 victories 80% of the time. I am merely saying it can be the best combo in a deck that wins by turn 3 close to 80% of the time.

I mean just run demonic tutor, vamp tutor, mystical tutor, worldly tutor, sylvan tutor, and all the tutors you can and that more or less it all that's needed. And given how much tutoring there is in cEDH, it will rarely matter

If you play voidias list, then you should be able to appreciate that a combo that does what his best combo does (nooze) with twice the mana efficiency and no drawback is kind of hard to stop. Basically if an opponent cant drop early gravehate or counter the spell they lose. Given that the combo is instant speed and requires no setup there are only a handful of cards that will shut it down. SBT actually has a great new flashulk package that works with preexisting cards in the deck.

What would be the best way to ask for help bringing two decks up to snuff in the cEDH realm? I'm not completely inexperienced, but I can't say I understand cEDH enough to know how good these two decks are.

The decks in question are Trying to do Purphoros cEDH, what I believe to be the fastest aggro deck possible in cEDH by utilizing fast mana to consistently deal a total of 120 damage by turn 7 in a typical 4-player pod, and Infinity Torments You (Thrasios + Tymna), an infinite combo deck containing 19 possible infinite mana combos using only 15 cards plus the commander as an infinite mana dump which gets Walking Ballista as the infinite mana dump AND a Protean Hulk package that requires the addition of only 4 cards to the deck, including Protean Hulk.

I am proud of the amount of building I have done to this point, but I definitely appreciate any help regarding upgrading these decks to as high of a power-level as possible. Thank you in advance!

Again these are the decks:

Trying to do Purphoros cEDH

Infinity Torments You (Thrasios + Tymna)

I don't play Voidia's list, I play against him. The primary point I was trying to make in the first place was that the combo isn't that bad. I understand that all it takes is casting Flash and putting Protean into play. But if you let the game get past turn 2 without comboing off it's really not gonna be that much more op than pre-existing combos. People play plenty of early answers in cEDH. The part that makes Protean scary is the fact that he goes off if you have Flash. I'm just of the opinion that the percentage of games where playing him as a dedicated combo over some other slightly less fast combo deck are going to minimal. Time will tell if I'm wrong.

I thought since so much of the discussion is about Protean Hulk right now I'd help everyone out and come up with the simplest combos in each color pair:

/:

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista

This one doesn't win the game outright, since Walking Ballista needs to ping itself if you don't have a sac outlet, but it is infinite ETB and gravestorm, and it becomes infinite damage with numerous cards.

/:

Flash OC... but also Laboratory Maniac + Hermit Druid

Hulk should die during your end step, and you can't have basics, naturally. You also have a 1 mana flex slot to grab another creature with, my go to would be Sylvan Safekeeper or Caustic Caterpillar if you need something gone.

/:

Karmic Guide + Reveillark + Fiend Hunter + a sac outlet.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you how this goes.

/ & Just :

...Ummmm.... idk. Ideas?

That is fair. We shall see

We have a new banned commander guys, and I say GOOD Riddance!

@sonnet666 Best thing I can think of in is Kiki-Jiki and Great Oak Guardian, though there's probably something better.

Hey there! So this will be an odd suggestion, but I think that Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician can actually be built to compete higher than the T4 that he is currently listed at.

He breaks Stax parity pretty well, can handle Mass Land Destruction/Resource Denial better than most other decks, and even benefits from being Blood Mooned. It is still a Monored aggro deck at heart, so not T1 or T2 deck by any stretch, but I think T3 is definitely a more accurate evaluation of how he can be built.

Thoughts?

yavimaya_eldred, That doesn't work. All the creatures being searched by Hulk need to have their CMC add up to 6. My first thought was Kiki-Jiki too, but so far there's no 1 CMC creature that combos with him. The bigger problem is that there are very few ways to recur Hulk's trigger in Green or Red without returning it to hand and recasting.

Here's the best I can come up with:

With a sac outlet: first Hulk grabs Feldon of the Third Path + Quirion Ranger + Crimson Mage, to get a second Hulk, return a forest to untap Feldon, sac Hulk to grab Burning-Tree Emissary and Treasonous Ogre, use the and 3 life Feldon a third Hulk, grab Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Kiki copies Quirion Ranger, return another Forest to untap Feldon again, 9 life for a fourth Hulk that grabs Zealous Conscripts.

Total cost: , 12 life, 2 forests in play, a sac outlet, Hulk and 7 other card slots devoted to the combo.

Not nearly as elegant as the combos I posted above.

As far as mono-green goes, I think your best bet is to play Hulk in decks that were planning on comboing out with Umbral Mantle, Staff of Domination, or Sword of the Paruns already, and then just use him as a surefire way to grab the creatures you need once you have one of them out.

Liquidbeaver, How exactly does sacing your own lands break stax?

For comparison, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Krenko, Mob Boss, and Zada, Hedron Grinder are all T3 generals, and all of them are capable of combo-ing out by turn five or six. Hell even Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient, and Feldon of the Third Path are T3, ad they're just value generals. I think Ib is fine where he is.

So the kiki jiki pile is Karmic Guide+Viscera Seer reanimate and sac hulk grab kiki, copy guide, sac hulk, get village bell ringer gg. It only works in 4 or 5 color lists, but it is probably the best overall hulk pile since that same exact pile forms a perfect buried alive+reanimate pile and also does kiki combo and splinter twin combo easily. It even does easy revillark loops. That will be the combo deck I am building next. I will make alara baby tier 1

Before i list combos, do we assume sac outlet in play already or we flash hulked? Going to assume RG cause otherwise start karmic guide combos. So baby alaras not looking too bad as a general for the 5c

Leovold, Emissary of Trest is on the mtgcommander.net banlist

Kaalia of the Vast should be tier 2.5. See my build Kaalia, the Purifier

I know she gets threat, but show me another $50 Tier 3 commander (take of eh Rasputin Dreamweaver).

If Melek, Izzet Paragon or Queen Marchesa is Tier 2.5, Kaalia of the Vast should be there!

Caveat: Probably a better argument for Melek, Izzet Paragon to be Tier 3.

@Spirits unfortunately Kaalia is waaay too predictable to merit the power she can bring. Most aggro based strategies straight up die at tier 2.5. And unfortunately, kaalia is more suited to aggro than anything else. Sure she can cheat out combo pieces...but given her 2/2 body and the fact it requires you to get a combat phase with her, most tier 2.5 decks would shred it. Besides, once you look closely at the tier lists, the vast majority of the top tiers combo off directly with single cards. The few that aren't are either used for their ability to add consistency, or to provide a way to deter the opponents efforts. That being said, kaalia is by no means a bad commander. She honestly falls under the pubstomper definition: dominates casual metas but has a really hard time winning against someone who uses well timed interruption. And about her cost... I suspect that might have to do with the fact that she appeals to timmies

In my honest opinion, I don't think the Yidris list is the most optimal list out there. It lacks in a few areas, and it has some questionable cards. As someone who's been testing Storm/DD/AN for quite a while, I don't see how this can be the top list out of all.

@sonnet666 Sorry, brainfarted and thought you meant simplest combo overall, not just with Hulk. Yeah, Gruul is clunky as hell.

We've probably gotten more questions or comments about Kaalia and Geist in the history of this thread than any other general. Pubstomp reputation is real.

@yavimaya_eldred

I dunno, I think the near monthly Sliver Overlord vs. Sliver Queen comments that pop up give the Kaalia and Geist comments a run for their money.

Advice: Leovold is banned now, please take him off the list. Otherwise, this was really useful! Thanks a lot!

I'd like to nominate Maelstrom_Artificer's Yidris deck. He's got an excellent primer that's very well-written along with a powerful design for the deck.:

YIDRIS: Stormageddon [[Primer]]

Commander / EDH Maelstrom_Artificer

SCORE: 11 | 11 COMMENTS | 1518 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS

Edric, Spymaster of Trest is now tier 1 again due to the banning of the hatebear commander Leovold, Emissary of Trest in my opinion