[Primer] Shuffle Hulk

Commander / EDH sickrobot

SCORE: 123 | 81 COMMENTS | 55127 VIEWS | IN 53 FOLDERS


ELD update —Oct. 17, 2019

Mainboard Changes

+Aven Mindcensor

Mindcensor has always been a great sideboard option for the deck in specific metas, but recently I've felt that there are more and more reasons to play it in the mainboard. First of all, having a 3cmc creature to Neoform Thrasios into in a pinch is something I hadn't considered when I first added the card, but which I've felt the need to more and more recently. Additionally, the overall meta, at least from where I stand, has gotten to the point where Mindcensor is just way too good. It breaks the Flash mirror wide open, by shutting the opposing Flash player off of their win, while leaving yours free to be cast, while also being a great card in general against any other deck in the format. (It's even a flying body to draw cards off of Tymna easily!)


+Summoner's Pact

Alright, so: I'm a bad person. I told everyone to cut this thing a while back, cause it was the easiest cut for Neoform, and I still agree with the reasoning that I gave at the time, but what really ended up happening here was that I'm lazy and my irl list never cut Summoner's Pact (as well as a bunch of other questionable cards), and because I was far too lazy to cut it once I had a functional 100, I've been playing with it for probably 1/2 a year at this point. That all being said, I think Spellseeker tutoring for Summoner's Pact is actually a line of play that I go for much more often than I would have thought, and just having it in the deck yields a lot of Flash wins that would have been slower or less well-protected if it wasn't in the deck due to mana requirements. So here it is, it's back for all you people who never cut it.


+Oakhame Adversary

Hey look, it's an actual good Dark Confidant stand-in for once! Grob is great and basically being a Bob that can draw the extra card off of Tymna much more easily is a staple in my books.


+Veil of Summer

I never mentioned that I put this in way back, but I did, and it's way too good. You should be on it too.


+Force of Vigor

So I know this has been in the maybeboard forever, but I've been playing it in the main in my personal list for a while at this point, and I could just never consider cutting it. We play 25 Green cards not counting Force of Vigor or Thrasios, Triton Hero, which means it's almost always live early in the game, and later in the game it gives us a great use for all those dorks that you draw in the later stages of the game. But aside from just being able to cast it early, being able to tag wincons and minor hate pieces for no mana investment (or for free when you don't have any mana to invest in the first place) has proven to be extremely strong in far too many cases, and that's not even touching the fact that you can trade a dork in hand for cleaning up two major hate pieces at once, or the fact that it can clean up a Blood Moon without even needing any colored mana. Super good card, it's pretty much a staple for me at this point.


-Arbor Elf

-Freed from the Real

Ok, this is a big one that I made a while ago but never really covered in an update, but which becomes much more relevant with the release of Faeburrow Elder. The base idea behind this whole thing is that slots are honestly just way too tight to spend them on backup wincons in the generic list. I found that while there were a lot of pod compositions and metas where I really liked Freed from the Real, there were also a lot where it really didn't matter all that much, and I would have much rather just had better general card quality to support the main hulk win. For that reason (among others, I can explain in real time in the discord if you want a deeper discussion on this), I've decided to move the pieces for the Freed from the Real win to the maybe/sideboard as a choice for metas where having the graveyard hate-resistant win is valuable. How do you manage to fit these back in if needed? That is a great question, and the answer to it is definitely going to be a bit controversial among established pilots, but I am currently operating under the current logic: In the current list, if you are finding that you are having more problems with Rest in Peace and Grafdigger's Cage than you are with Cursed Totem and Linvala, Keeper of Silence, I would suggest these swaps: -Leonin Relic-Warder, -Entomb, -Summoner's Pact, +Arbor Elf, +Freed from the Real, +Faeburrow Elder. Swapping out Leonin Relic-Warder seems sacrilegious, but the idea is that the additional padding of the Leonin Relic-Warder backup combo becomes much less valuable with additional grave hate in a game, and the additional card quality of the bigger dorks and a combo that can win through that hate is going to be much more valuable, without sacrificing slots in the rest of the deck to attempt to fit 3 full combos into it.


-Noxious Revival

Sort of had to go to make space honestly(ish). This is still a good card, I'd still play it in the deck, and I'm sure many Shuffle pilots will in fact continue to play it, but slots are getting reaaaaaaaaal tight, and something needed to go. We don't use the proactive mode of Noxious Revival all that well, as we don't really do the turbo-churn stuff like storm or blue-heavier decks, and we tend to not stock our graveyard as well as I'd like to be able to use Noxious Revival to its fullest


-Eladamri's Call

Honestly, this cut is just because at this point, we're running out of slots to cut from for new, better cards (Sort of a running theme with this update). Eladamri's Call has always been the worst of the tutors in the deck because of its restriction to only creatures, as well as both its cmc and casting cost making it less consistent to be able to cast than a lot of the other tutors in the deck. Thanks for the help Eladamri|Eladamri, lord of leaves, we'll remember you.


-Pongify/Swords to Plowshares

I've recently found that with Assassin's Trophy, Abrupt Decay, Gilded Drake, and Chain of Vapor, I've had less and less of a need for the additional hard removal spell which doesn't have any mode aside from just removing a creature. While this is coming out of the mainboard here, as always, remember to alter the deck to your meta, so if you're having problems with larger creatures that you need removed, don't shy away from playing one of these.

Sideboard Changes

+Cyclonic Rift

This should have always been in the sideboard, don't know how it went missing for so long. Cyc rift is a great choice into metas where you're expecting to be making land drops for a long time, and where the overload mode is a reasonable option.


+Grand Abolisher

Will be adding this to potential swaps in the primer, but Grand Abolisher's use in Shuffle is interesting, and is something I'm exploring. The main usages right now are primarily to increase resilience to removal during the combo, which can be needed in extremely removal-heavy metas (It also helps when people start to go very deep with Extirpate, by locking them out of being able to cast it at a reasonable time), as well as being a great secondary threat in very slow and countermagic-heavy metas, where forcing an answer to a non-Flash threat can help you force through a win.


+Arbor Elf

+Faeburrow Elder

+Freed from the Real

+Noxious Revival

+Pongify/Swords to Plowshares

See above

maxmcnugget says... #1

So with Rest in Peace in play for example. How do you win once you assemble Bloom Tender + Freed from the Real ? After you get infinite mana, potentially draw your library with Trasios, how do you win?

June 19, 2019 10:05 a.m.

Soren841 says... #2

maxmcnugget u could just remove RIP then.. and then do whatever you want. Loop Swan Song etc.

June 19, 2019 12:59 p.m.

gabetuf says... #3

Hi. i registered on tapped out to ask about this interaction. Comboing through cursed totem is great! I understand how you can stack relic-warder trigger with sac outlet to make totem go away forever, but how do you sac to viscera seer/carrion feeder if the totem is still technically in play before warder's etb trigger resolves? isn't the activation cost of viscera/feeder an activation cost? (there is a : in the text) Thanks for clarifying this conundrum.

here is the primer text that inspired my query:

"If getting Body Snatcher with this pile, stack your triggers so that Body Snatcher's ETB trigger is below Leonin Relic-Warder's, then target the cursed totem with Leonin Relic-Warder's ETB, then hold priority and sacrifice Leonin Relic-Warder. This makes it so that destroying the Leonin Relic-Warder won't bring the Cursed Totem back, and it will stay exiled."

July 1, 2019 2:02 p.m.

sickrobot says... #4

gabetuf Nice catch! Yea that exact ordering doesn't work under cursed totem, I guess I thought I was writing a generic LRW line.

July 1, 2019 3:28 p.m.

Has Siren Stormtamer been discussed in addition to memory's journey? It could be the extra creature to get with the Hulk doublers, so it stops interaction with combo pieces or Crop Rotation targeting Bojuka Bog , Tormod's Crypt , Nihil Spellbomb , Rakdos Charm , Primal Command , etc.

July 1, 2019 5:30 p.m.

gabetuf says... #6

thought so. cursed totem is annoying! my friend runs it in his groan-worthy lavinia stax. this lr-w line is still powerful though. so what you could try to do instead is let it stay in play and fade interaction in the critical turn and hope your leonin relic warder doesn't eat it to removal. though not as good, maybe there is some card out there that enables this easier?

i like the way, oliveoilonmyass... thinks though. regarding stormtamer, it wouldn't do anything about the crop rot bojuka. seems like a decent way to protect lrw outside a quickened toxic deluge. i think it's a bit narrow, however.

I noticed you added quicken. how is that working for you with only ten sorceries? i get that it can just cantrip in a pinch, but wouldn't running dovin's veto AND delay give you a decent volume of catch-all countermagic, or does having two high cmc counterspells raise the curve a bit too much? narsets reverse and veil of summer are awesome! i might consider/recommend just running autumns veil and veil of summer, since they do WORK in my meta. and quickened toxic deluge, though delicious, might be too costly om the mana. how about quickened yawg will? would nonbo your win on the critical turn... nevermind. need more lavinia killers. any suggestions? So much respect for you doing so much winning sans LEDtimetwister. to hell with those cards. my group and i were just raving about how viscera/feeder are hands down the best black commons printed.

July 1, 2019 7:47 p.m.

gabetuf says... #7

oh i see it now that's great. stormtamer can target bojbog's ability.

July 1, 2019 7:51 p.m.

gabetuf says... #8

that new imperial seal-type sorcery is just terrible, right? considered it briefly, since i have yet been unable to acquire an actual imperial seal.

July 1, 2019 7:58 p.m.

gabetuf says... #9

i have been toying with a great card for this build that preys on other, less resilient flash hulk players. containment priest! when people flashhulk in response to your flash, or first hulk trigger, this has been an amazing panic button that turns off both combos, but you have more recursion tgan they do, and you can simply sacrifice it when you're ready to try again, whereas they are basically neutered. what do you think? sorry for pseudospamming the thread with my ideas. last one for awhile.

July 1, 2019 8:12 p.m.

sickrobot says... #10

gabetuf No problem! I'll go through your points individually

oliveoilonyaasscureshemorrhoid I'm not convinced about stormtamer, it doesn't really solve a lot of the problems of multihulking because you're going to need to fill hulk triggers already most of the time, it's really just way too situational, and I'm not into adding more dead cards into the deck to solve niche problems

I haven't added Quicken

As for the 2 mana countermagic, they're fine to slot in, but they don't add much to to the deck, as they don't protect early win attempts at all. If you're motivated to test them out though, the 4 primary options are Narset's Reversal , Dovin's Veto , Mana Drain , and Counterspell , I would go no further than those.

Autumn's Veil and Veil of Summer are currently being tested, Veil of Summer will almost 100% make it into the stock build, due to just how well it fits the strategy.

Scheming Symmetry is terrible, yes

Containment Priest is much too narrow, as if you don't have a sacrifice outlet, you lock yourself out of the game entirely, if you're looking for mirror-breakers, I'd look to Aven Mindcensor and Ashiok, Dream Render as alternative options that are much better as standalones.

July 1, 2019 9:20 p.m.

gabetuf says... #11

thanks! oh right quicken was added to a different list i browsed. sorry! yes ashiok is good. how about narset, parter of veils?

July 1, 2019 9:58 p.m.

sickrobot says... #12

Narset's fine, but not super in line with what we want to be doing generally. If we were on a more wheel-friendly strategy I'd definitely be considering it, but just as a stax piece that gets beat to death, I'm not a fan for Shuffle.

July 2, 2019 9:31 a.m.

Megalomania says... #13

Hi there. I’ve started using shuffle hulk a few weeks ago. I noticed I often drew into combo pieces which slows the deck down quite a bit. Have you considered adding discard outlets ( Tireless Tribe )? Cards like Cloud of Faeries was suggested and I think it might work unless it’s an Eldrazi Titan that we need to get rid of.

July 8, 2019 6:56 p.m.

Dr3vvn45ty says... #14

Megalomania you have Body Snatcher , Survival of the Fittest , Brainstorm , etc., to get cards out of your hand. Adding dedicated discard outlets that don't do anything else would hurt the efficiency of the deck.

July 18, 2019 11:58 a.m.

Megalomania says... #15

Dr3vvn45ty thanks! Instead of a discard outlet, I decided to add Cloud of Faeries. I’m not sure if it’s just as bad but I can’t find another way around drawing pieces that I need in play like Nomads en-Kor and Cephalid Illusionist.

I’m also curious about how effective is Neoform in the deck. From the looks of it, it seems more useful as a sac outlet than a tutor.

August 2, 2019 11 a.m.

sickrobot says... #16

Megalomania I would heavily recommend reading the primer. Body Snatcher allows comboing with any piece aside from Nomads in hand, without any extra mana, along with still being able to win at instant speed. Cloud of Faeries is mostly redundant and not a great use of a slot.

Neoform has been fantastic, it can be used to turn Tymna or Spellseeker into Academy Rector, to allow sorcery speed piling through Cursed Totem and Linvala, and just as a generally good utility tutor when needed.

August 2, 2019 3:52 p.m.

Megalomania says... #17

Thanks! I re-read the primer and now understand the deck better. I was trying not to include cards like Gilded Drake, Academy Rector and Survival of the Fittest in the deck due to budget concerns but I guess they really are essential. Guess i’ll need to sell a kidney or something. Lol.

Anyways, would you say Force of Negation is worse than any of the counter-magic currently in the deck?

August 2, 2019 6:01 p.m.

sickrobot says... #18

Megalomania I'd say so, yes, as it protects the instant speed flash, but not much else for the most part. I'd much rather have a card that costs 1cmc, but can protect a win on our own turn.

August 2, 2019 6:55 p.m.

Ijui says... #19

Great deck and primer! I have just one question, does this deck works with two shufflers instead of just one? And if it does, isnt a second shuffler better than Memory's Journey to fight single hates?

August 14, 2019 10:16 p.m.

Snige says... #20

I'd have you complete the combo every time, if you play a shitty combo like this I'd rather have you be shuffling 50 min and get a draw than concede :p

August 17, 2019 7:41 a.m.

I run Flash Hulk in my Muldrotha deck, but the combo involves fetching a sac outlet plus Body Double , then copying Hulk, Sacrificing it, then getting Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Walking Ballista to pull off the combo. It’s much easier to shut down, but it can be shortcutted.

Now that I’ve seen this list, I’m considering the possibility of adding Extirpate as a means to shut down specifically this combo, but also targeted reanimate effects. Is it even worth considering any possible ways to stop Extirpate ? There’s also Sudden Shock to consider, but I don’t think either sees as much play as it should (I understand they aren’t the most effective ways to stop a lot of cards, but they are among the few cards that can stop self protecting loops like this one).

August 24, 2019 12:09 a.m.

Rider777 says... #22

Quick question Does this list have a winning line from 0 with Survival? Or is it used as an op tutor

September 10, 2019 11:24 a.m.

sickrobot says... #23

SamuraiNinjaSpy Sorry for the late response, if you're seeing a lot of Extirpate in your local meta, including Grand Abolisher can be an option to combat it. Otherwise though, I wouldn't consider it as heavily, Extirpate and sudden shock are fairly narrow hate pieces, and I don't think you're likely to see them in a blind meta for the most part.

Rider777 The main line with Survival if you want to go straight for the win (which is covered in the primer) is going for Apprentice Necromancer and then pitching hulk. There isn't currently a same-turn win from no setup. For the most part though, yes, Survival is used as a fantastically powerful tutor, and usually it will let us just continuously threaten a win

September 12, 2019 9:20 a.m.

eduardoaguiar says... #24

Hello sickrobot, I've played this list for 7 months now, and I enjoy it so much. I use a line with Shallow Grave that I liked. First, SG is a card that works very well with Hulk lines from graveyard, like Entomb lines. It’s also instant speed, so you just have to be able to sac Hulk at the same turn. But the lines that realy are the main thing about using it are both for comboing with Cursed Totem or Linvala without a sac outlet in play:

Comboing through Cursed Totem without a Sac Outlet in play First Hulk trigger: Spellseeker + Leonin Relic-Warder + Viscera Seer Warder exiles the Totem. Spellseeker fetches for Shallow Grave, that you use to reanimate Hulk. Sac Hulk for Seer. Second Hulk trigger: Academy Rector + Blood Artist Sac Rector for Seer to fetch Necromancy, hold priority and sac Warder. Necromancy will reanimate Warder for the loop.

You can do the same with Gilded Drake for Linvala: First Hulk trigger: Spellseeker + Guilded Drake + Viscera Seer Drake exchanges control with Linvala. Spellseeker fetches for Shallow Grave, that you use to reanimate Hulk. Sac Hulk for Seer. Second Hulk trigger: Blood Artist + Cephalid Ilusionist + Nomads em-Kor + anything else.

So, those lines costs just 1B more to cast at a normal combo turn. I think is a nice price for comboing with one of those two cards in play in instant speed. Also I don’t think that we should use the slot of Body Snatcher for this. I use your slot of Swords to Plowshares. After all, congrats for your list!

September 17, 2019 3:58 p.m.

TheIconOfSin says... #25

Hello, I'm am currently learning to pilot this list, and I'm afraid I've run into a "scrub" problem. How exactly does the use of the Hulk Doublers allow you to reanimate Cephalid Illusionist?

October 12, 2019 12:14 a.m.