Gitrog's whole combo is non deterministic /shrug doesn't matter though because a table will just scoop if Gitrog is going off

Cirridian I've found that it can be difficult to guarentee having a forest consistently to put the utopia sprawl on in this deck, but I'd encourage you to test it if you are interested in it. I would probably refrain from cutting a dork for Sprawl in the case that you are though, as we need the creature density to put NO/Pattern of Rebirth/Academy Rector on. I'd suggest cutting a flex slot instea.

Soren841 Gitrog's main combo is fully deterministic, you can always draw your deck with dakmoor + discard + Gitrog no matter what;it is the double shuffler-protected lines that are not, for reference. Please don't spread misinformation like that in the future

Kross33 Continuing from that previous point, yes, the rule does, but in a bit of a weird way; You can still fully deterministically combo with two shufflers in both Gitrog and Shuffle Hulk, full stop; But there are use cases for two shufflers in Gitrog that technically run into slow play, where you just let the first shuffle trigger resolve every time so that if someone has interaction, they can just mill into the second shuffle effect. A lot of play groups will let that use case slide, but it does technically run into the slow play rule at judged ev

sickrobot but technically you can always have a shuffle and nonland (or whatever it was) in the top 2, yes?

Soren841 yes, but you can continue to combo on top of the shuffle trigger anyway, and just let it resolve once you're far enough down in your deck, then repeat.

There was some reason why :thinking: it maybe is just because you can't give and exact amount of loops (I saw a reddit post a week or so ago so maybe u can now but that math isn't for me)

Soren841 Not being able to give a number of loops != nondeterministic/slow play, if you can't give a specific number of loops, that just means that you can't technically shortcut the loop, but it doesn't mean that the combo isn't legal, it just means that you can't shorten it under current rules. That being said, you can still give specific numbers for the gitrog loop, it just takes a lot of math to be able to give them, because you have to count number of lands left in deck.

Idk I swear they went over why it's "technically" not deterministic in the video w/ Leptys but maybe I'm dumb

Soren841 the "protected" line and end step sculpt can run into slow play rules and/or aren't super rigorously deterministic, but the main line is

Any tips or card choices for the breakfast/mirror matchup?

Kross33

Usually in hulk mirrors I tend to move more toward a slowerish build of the deck, as a lot of the time in hulk mirrors, multiple people will be threatening a flash, so the first person to cast flash is going to be responded to with someone else's flash, and then they lose, so the games generally turn into posturing and landing secondary threats that let you get your flash off uncontested.

Now that the theory is out of the way, these are the cards that I like in hulk mirrors:

• Aven Mindcensor stupid good in mirrors, it takes their hulk offline while keeping yours live, swings with evasion for Tymna, and also protects itself by making it super hard to actually find an answer for it by neutering tutors
• Crop Rotation + Boseiju, Who Shelters All as a way to force your flash through countermagic when people start having the mana to hold up countermagic every turn
• Depending on how you like to play the deck, you can also try slotting in Rhystic Study and/or Runic Armasaur

No, thank you!

Really cool as always to see what you've made of the pile, I would never have imagined this when I first posted.

Would Gaea's Blessing be better than Kozilek here because it allows me to play ad nauseam in this deck?

When kozilek is in your hand you're able to find ways to discard and therefore shuffle him back into your library (survival of the fittest, body snatcher, indirect via any protean hulk line or cast and sacc him with infinite or much, much mana available) . With blessing in hand you're stuck until you find a way to put it back into your library (just brainstorm pops into my mind here after a quick thought about this problem)

frankovar with the high density of both tutors and lines to your first hulk trigger, you already have really good odds of being able to go off, possibly with protection, by the time you'd be casting an ad naus, so it's not really worth the downsides of that swap

Your flare pic of Thrasios and Tymna and Flash committed the blasphemy of cutting off poor Thrasios' legs.

Sickrobot, thank you for this excellent primer. I am planning on piloting this in my LGS tournament series for at least one event.

Is there a video or cast of you piloting this in the Spike Feeders tournament? That would be instructive.

While goldfishing, I am having trouble drawing the pieces. Body Snatcher, Surival of the Fittest, and Chrome Mox can help deal with this. Are there other pieces that will as well? I suppose you can simply cast things like Nomads or Cephalid, but they are prone to being exiled in response to your hulk which I think is very bad. Is this less of a problem than I think it is, or am I not seeing how to deal with it?

TorinoAK Chrome Mox very much does not help with that problem. If you toss a combo piece to Chrome Mox, you've fucked up. Badly. Aside from what you already said, the only real work-arounds I'm aware of are multi-hulking (for Body Snatcher, mainly) or hardcasting the stuff you've drawn.

TorinoAK good to hear! The link to the tournament coverage is in the end of the description for the deck, which should have commentary on it. Drawing pieces can be an issue sometimes, yes, but playing them out isn't the worst thing ever, as we have backup combos to go for anyway, and in general, drawing the odd combo piece tends not to be as big of a problem as a lot of people think it is.

Thanks. I watched the recent lab maniacs video at least twice. It's definitely a complex and rewarding deck.

I am planning to play this deck tonight at my local event, I am just a little curious though how the deck does get past Rest In Peace. I couldn’t see anything in the primer specifically. Lots of talk about it, just no clear and definitive “in case of RIP, do this”. Unless I missed it totally, can someone point out to me where it is?

Thanks in advance

JonnyWS2019 The play through RIP is either remove it or go for Bloom Tender +

Why was TimeTwister removed from the deck? Is it because of a high CMC or graveyard disruption?

ProtienHulkSmash Twister just doesn't really do much for us, mass draw is already not great for hulk because of the danger of drawing hulk pieces, and we also don't have the density of fast mana to actually take advantage of an early wheel, so most of the time you're going to be casting Twister, and then just passing turn after playing like, a single mana dork, which really isn't where you want to be.

Sickrobot Thanks for the quick response! It was really helpful! I never thought of it like that. It makes a lot of sense.

What are your thoughts behind the spellseeker neoform package? I can see an additional line of neoform on a 3 drop with a sac outlet in play. But I don't see any reason to include spellseeker in a hulk pile without reanimate in the list. Is spellseeker purely for utility in finding neoform or other tutors/answers?

Recursive the Spellseeker+Neoform package has been testing very well, both are good cards as standalones, and they work together to give another level of consistency to the deck. The line for Spellseeker in a hulk pile is to use it to gain an extra cmc to get both a sac outlet and an answer to something like Cursed Totem at the same time, then use its trigger to find Neoform, and turn it into a Body Snatcher or Rector to get the next hulk trigger, which means that we can combo through Cursed Totem and Linvala at sorcery speed now, without needing an extra card, and just needing UG. Otherwise, Spellseeker can find neoform to turn itself into a rector normally to help combo, or it can just generally find other utility, removal, and combo pieces (Flash, ADecay, tutor chains, etc etc)