Hulk for pirate

What's the main plan with Raza

Buried Alive+Victimize to put Raza and Hulk together for up to 7 demonic tutor effects which can assemble food chain combo or just hulk combo

Or just flood the board with creatures and get Raza into play and sac until I have assembled a free food chain or flash hulk combo. He is the mid to late game hammer essentially

Have you considered Prized Amalgam as well? Buried Alive for Amalgam+Hulk+Razaketh seems like THE pile since you get 2 tutors right away and potentially much more.

Nevermind, Amalgam doesn't return until end step.

Gates88: Raz does not do buried alive particularly well tbh. We just include buried alive due to the general lack of creature to graveyard effects at our disposal. Entomb is our best enabler in the mid to late game so an expensive entomb is still good enough especially since if we have additional mana or disposable creatures we can get there with just Buried Alive+Reanimate. I am currently just using Hulk, Raz and Phyrexian delver for my pile who gives us a single free creature. If we have spare mana we can sac delver for a Reanimate or Animate Dead for hulk sac hulk to raz, grab 6 one drop creatures for more tutoring and then use our fast mana to assemble food chain for free. Narcomoeba would do what you are looking for and while 2 Demonic Tutor effects is good it is not a big enough improvement to justify an otherwise low impact card like narco.

Can't you just hulk for Mikaeus and Ballista? Razaketh can be your sac outlet and then you just ping and fetch Petal and Viscera Seer for infinite damage.

What you say is true merrowMania. Thank you for the insight!

No problem! I may not be a savant at deckbuilding from scratch, but I am confident in my play ability :)

I'm curious about the purpose of Ixidron

Ixidron is a card that I am not 100% sold on but it does alot of things. It may be a meta dependent but it can shut down a ton of creature based strategies without hampering our own gameplan much. This deck has several ways to get it into play at instant speed (flash; necromancy) and/or cheaply (reanimate). Its better than something like toxic deluge because its a creature, leaves us bodies for Raz, cradle and FC, and it is blue (FOW).

Any commander centric deck is absolutely ruined by it ex. (Narset, gitrog edric)

It can destroy labman victories, neutralize hate bears, stop most hulk decks, hermit druid combo, kiki jiki etc. It can be hardcast in a pinch but its really only (maybe) viable since our shell supports tutoring for and cheating creatures into play and the effect is unique, powerful, and universal

Walking Ballista dies as soon as it enters the battlefeild as a 0/0.

Mikaeus gives him +1/+1

I do like the deck, but I've always felt like competitive edh is missing the point of edh as a format. You're winning turn 2-3 in a format designed to last 8 or more turns at least. I run SBT as well, but I avoided all the early game combos, opted for more synergies instead for a more overall fun piloting experience. Still upvoted. Objectively a very solid deck, can't argue the mechanics.

Shiek200: Thank you for the upvote. While I get where you are coming from I do not think cEDH violates the spirit of the format or is any less fun for the persons involved. I have played a great deal of casual edh and while I love slower synergistic decks that turn sideways, and have had fun playing a 4 hour games with incredibly complex board states and strange interactions such games were always the exception rather than the rule.

The issue I have always encountered is that unless you have a dedicated playgroup that is all on the same page in terms of power level the games are usually unsatisfying. For instance, there have been many games where I was playing fairly and simply grinding value and a combo player killed the table on turn 4 while everyone else was ramping. I have also encountered people in casual edh who's decks were so woefully underpowered that they simply get crushed by the rest of the table no matter how the rest of the table plays. I have also encountered games where someone decided to hard lock the table and keep everyone sitting around for 45 minutes while they durdled.

Many casual players view these issues as a competitive player ruining everyones fun but I feel like its more an issue of people not being on the same page. The issue with casual edh is simply that its hard to know what game other people are playing and there are so many unspoken rules. Some people are horrified by mass land destruction but will not hesistate to turn 2 flash hulk or Stasis lock the table. Some people hate counterspells but will laugh with glee as they It That Betrays+Living Death the table. Some feel as though tutors are bad but will masturbate with their izzet storm deck for an hour on a single tutn, fizzle and then pass turn.

I enjoy cEDH simply because I always know what I am up against. I don't have to hold back. I can simply play to the best of my abilities and try to win. If I turn 2 the table then my playgroup can laugh about it (appreciating the good play) and get another game in where they hopefully find a better answer. It simply comes down to expectation for me. I would never play this style of deck at a game shop. That is what my comboless Sharuum reanimatior deck is for. Sorry for the longwinded response. I wish you great fun with your SBT brew. I am also glad that while you don't care for cEDH you can still appreciate a well constructed deck for what it is. Cheers!

Actually I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and I can definitely appreciate and even relate to a lot of them. I had a competitive mimeo deck that often locked the board down turn 2, and killed a player each following turn, and I'm currently running a competitive Selvala deck that wins turn 3-4 every game unless I'm dead, or turn 5 if selvala gets removed and I don't have an answer. The consistency of that deck is insane. My playgroup appreciates big plays like ITB+Living death, but most of the decks in my meta are either reactionary or based around synergistic combos that don't always win but rather put you in a dominant position to win next turn, giving everyone a chance to respond. They also don't like land destruction UNLESS it's for the purpose of winning, not locking the board down. (ie, Zurgo+worldslayer) For me, the most fun games of EDH were always when you do something huge and flashy, and then try to maintain that position for a rotation while everyone attempts to respond. If they do, then everyone attempts to deal with the new threat and so on until someone builds and holds a dominant enough position to win the game. It becomes a game of chess where everyone is trying to extend as far as they can without overextending and being left without answers or combo pieces. That's generally where my enjoyment comes from, though I can definitely appreciate your mentality in this regard, as it's never fun to see the uber-casual player get dumpstered because their deck isn't up to par.

Upvote, mostly for the very interesting thoughts on EDH as a format.

I am a very casual player, and love EDH for the more casual play and longer games. cEDH always seemed to ruin the spirit of the game for us, and infinite combos are booed down loudly among the players I play with.

But the points are well take, I have a regular group of about 8 players that always plays together. So we have a very good idea of power level and what we find fun and not fun.

I think the real joy of EDH is as Shiek200 says above, it's taking a 'lead' and trying to hold it. This perspective always allows the less competitive at our players to stick around and have fun. Because they are rarely in the lead, they are rarely in anyone's crosshairs. And as none of us have combos that can wipe out the table (well, a lot of big flashy moves can wipe out a table - but that feels different than a combo) we generally have to hold a lead for a round or two.

We have so much fun with this setup that the cEDH decks out there make me sad. But it's interesting to hear thoughtful points about how these decks have their place in less regular playgroups.

gebell: Thank you for adding to the conversation! I thoroughly enjoy the games you and Shiek200 describe. Its unfortunate that I have only been able to experience such games a few times when I played casual EDH. However, if you ever played cEDH I think you may be suprised how similar 4 highly tuned deck can mimic the types of games you cherish. Turn 2-3 wins are highly unlikely tbh even for a deck like this, given how many tools the other 3 decks have to stop fast combo.

I feel the need to clarify something. I suspect that your views on cEDH are distorted by encountering pubstompers. No cEDH player would ever bring a deck like this to a casual setting, but Pubstompers get great joy out of pooping in the punch so to speak.

I would encourage you to read Clay_Puppington's Excellent article on this very subject. I assure you a truly competitive EDH player is not the problem. They would either play a casual deck at commander night or not play at all. There is no joy in smashing a mono white angel deck with Flash Hulk. With that being said, competitively minded players cannot help if someone takes our decks/ideas and uses them for mischief. As I have said before it comes down to expectation. If everyone is clear on the type of game we all want to play we can coexist peacefully.

I love your point of view because mine is very similar. For a very long time i disliked cedh. However i moved recently and there is a large group of cedh players at this shop. So my decks are slowly becoming more competitive and ive noticed as long as everyone has a similar power level its still a blast to play. You may be able yo flash hulk turn 2 or ad naus turn 2 for the win but other cedh decks usually have answers and responses. Its still lots of reaction and fun but as long as you have a couple good combos and interaction you can compete too! I run a bant combo deck thats missing some great combos buts still fun to play against them!

have you tried Misthollow Griffin? it's another Eternal Scourge

Eternal Scourge is better for this deck as it's purely a combo piece that you don't need colored mana for, and it costs one less which makes it more valuable with Protean Hulk

Yeah, I've had some really great games of cEDH as well, I usually design my decks to be able to win by turn 6 on average, and my Selvala deck wins on turn 3 or 4 almost every single game barring an early path or swords. The problem I have is that my meta is made up of highly non-competitive decks as well as midrange to top tire decks, and your average game at my table almost never has balanced power levels, so all the decks on my list reflect that. I've got a few gimmick decks, but my serious ones are all designed to be viable against any power level barring legitimate top tier $2000 decks and still be able to hold their own while attempting to maintain fun for each player at the table, even when you've got a cEDH deck and a kitchen sink deck at the same table. My own SBT build has netted me a 25 creature living death on turn 5, as well as infinite zombies turn 3, but neither of these states immediately win me the game. Instead I build for resilience so that people CAN respond (so there's still room for the kitchen sink decks to board wipe, or what have you) but I can still come back from it and take on the more competitive players at the table.

Anyway, I'll stop cluttering the comments for the people who actually want to read and comment about YOUR deck, haha.

I've been working on a similar list, i've had times where I have some of the hulk pieces in the yard or in my hand, do you have any good ways to solve said issues? Body Double seems like it would have it's use in this list. Specifically in times when you have phyrexian delver in your hand or yard.

Shiek200 I have had some serious fun with living death. Its the best card ever for a varied meta.

mlequesne As shiek said scourge is much better for our purposes. Voidia and I have been doing these layered multicombo decks for a while. What we found is that to make it work all your combos have to be compact as possible and all your enablers have to work for each combo as much as possible. Adding redundancy to FC with anoher combo only piece weakens every other combo. In a dedicated FC build griffin is good.

wylwist: It is certainly an issue but unfortunately the solutions are generally more costly than the issue itself. If we get ballista in hand no biggie just cast it for 0 after mike is in play. Same with Viscera Seer for 1. Also seer in play allows us to skip the whole delver step and go straight to mike and ballista. That leaves Mike or delver in hand as the issue. Body Double helps with the delver issue but does nothing for Mike. One card I have considered is Body Snatcher but its kind of meh on its own and I think it may also require another card (ex. Golgari Thug to work, which weakens the rest of the deck. At the end of the day if our pile does not work we attempt to pivot to a different wincondition. For instance, I have used flash hulk to grab something like eternal witness and eternal scourge/fauna shaman to assemble food chain.

Most CEDH players only bring out a deck such as this against similarly equipped tables. Also as a deterrent to that pubstomper you mentioned. Many stores have that one guy and after getting destroyed by a deck like this often that guy will be the first to recommend playing different decks--they hate losing. Politics can be about protecting the rest of the table as about winning. And I never feel bad casting that blood moon against a player who is violating the spirit of the game.

I love the list. I'm currently testing Voidia's SBT Combo, which I am enjoying. But I just have a few questions about this list and some different situations that you may run into and how you would work around them. 1) With the Raz combo if you get Petal, flash, and hulk you can win that turn. Where as if you get crypt, scourge, and FC you cannot cast all of them so you will have to wait until next turn to win correct? 2) I also was wondering about drawing a lot of the combo pieces. What if you draw Mik, ballista, seer, delver, or anything you are trying to get off of hulk how do you deal with that? 3) Opening hands with this or even the classic hermit list, is it almost always worth mulling unless you have the combo in hand or a definite way to get the combo by turn 2-4? 4) How does this list compare to Voidia's SBT Hermit combo. My current meta is a lot of control Tasigur just wondering if this list has a better long term or do you want to sneak under tasigur fast and early with the hermit.

Thanks so much for the help.(I have been playing magic competitively for quite a while, more in the modern and legacy formats and recently getting into cEDH)