In the comments, Elsik states you can loop brutality or surgical. Academy can only get artifacts. Am I missing something?
Crack a Codex Shredder to get back the non-artifact you want to hand, then Academy Ruins to put the Shredder back on top to redraw and replay it. For 8 mana (1 Shredder, 5 activate, 1U put shredder on top) you can rebuy any card every turn.
Does anyone know how the Infect Matchup is? I would like to play the deck on the upcoming RPTQ but don't really know if I can face infect.
Infect is generally miserable for any RG Valakut deck, and is probably one of the main reasons these decks don't start edging into the top tier. You can easily devote 10+ cards of your sideboard and still not have a good infect matchup. It basically comes down to Chalice on 1 in the first turn or two or bust. Very occasionally the absolute god draw of Bolts, Angers and Sudden Shocks can give you just enough time to combo kill them. Some people go so far as to run Fog just for the Infect matchup.
As for infect I believe adding Elesh Norn should help out a lot, since stormtide alone can't stop Inkmoth Nexus. Elesh norn should also shut down/detour many other aggro decks.
A one-of Elesh Norn is definitely a big help against Infect, Burn, and Affinity.
I've also been thinking of an answers to removal spells and come up with several ways to deal with them. One is protecting stormtide as you mentioned, second is playing different creature with either protection or creature that can generate enough tokens that can override removal spell.
For protecting stormtide, I'm considering adding the following in the sideboard: Not of this World, Spell Pierce, Duress, and possibly more copy of Collective Brutality. I personally think hand disruption spell is the most effective way to protect stormtide.
The problem with hand disruption is the same problem that Jund often has; you can't Thoughtseize the top of their deck. Topping a Path or a Snapcaster for a previous discarded Terminate, or anything of the sort leaves you in a precarious spot. I think a few Dispel or Not of this World are probably better options over more discard. Spell Pierce or Mana Leak are interesting in that you might be able to "get" them with a Choke more easily as a result, but hard counters seem better. Negate in the side may actually be the right choice, as it stops not only targeted removal, but most board wipes (including ones like O-Stone) and also planeswalkers.
I think both of these paths are diluting the core of the deck a little too much. I like how reliable the current set up is for digging into a turn 3 or 4 Leviathan, and how following that up with a Choke is basically game over for most decks. Of these, I think only Empyrial Archangel really offers even close to the same sort of inevitability while protecting itself; this would be another good 1 of in the sideboard for matches with lots of targeted hard removal (Terminate/Path) or burn. Terastadon is cute, in that it offers a better clock (especially if hitting your own lands) and can double as a hate card, but again I think keeping it as a sideboard card makes more sense.
So this is the sort of deck I enjoy. Last Friday I ran it our modern FNM, using the original version without Probes or additional Evolution targets.
Round 1, I choked out an Affinity player 2-1, against decent draws. Game 1 he had no answer, game 2 he got under me and killed me before I got anything going, and game 3 a turn 4 Leviathan into a turn 5 choke sealed the deal.
Infect in round 2 just blew me out. First game was my bad, as I did the math wrong and took a Might of Old Krosa over a Become Immense, and died to an Inkmoth attack. Game 2 he brought in counters and I was unable to find enough action or disruption before I died to infect critters. 0-2
Sadly, rounds 3 and 4 I ran into back to back decks with mainboard Path to Exile.
Round 3 was Soul Sisters, who pathed most of my creatures and even under the Stormtide moat was able to gain enough life to keep ahead of an 8/8 block and then finally won on the back of Serra Ascendants and/or Squadron Hawks wearing Sword of Light and Shadow. In that game I probably did between 80 and 100 damage with a single Stormtide, but he just kept gaining it back. 1-2
Round 4 was UW Control, and despite landing early chokes in two games, basic plains plus Glacial Fortresses let him path every creature I ever played. Game 3 he pathed all 3 Tasigurs, 2 Mandrills, and both Leviathans, between casting and snapping back paths. 1-2 again.
Overall it felt pretty consistent, but lacking a good answer to removal hurts. I'm inclined to pull the Spreading Seas in the board and replace them with a set of Surgical Extractions and/or Blossoming Defense. Possibly a few Dispels as well. Anything that would let me stop removal spells and then get rid of them permanently.
I decided to try a slightly different approach. Instead of going all in trying to control the board until you can Refurbish, I think that providing a grave-based aggro package would compliment the main deck better.
The idea is that against midrange and slower combo decks, early pressure or blockers gives you time to get your Refurbish/Gearhulk chain going. Against control decks with counters, the recursive graveyard aggro gives you plenty of late game even if they have counters for your Refurbishes and exile effects against the top end threats. Aggro seems like the hardest match up, which is why the sideboard is set up to allow you to bring in large amounts of removal.
Like some of the Emerge/Madness style decks, this can put 9+ power into play on turn 3 or 4 via Prized Amalgams, Haunted Dead and rummage spells like Cathartic Reunion. Turn 2 Smuggler's Copter into turn 3 Scrapheap Scrounger provides an early start that also provides a discard outlet for the rest of your graveyard cards along with early magnets for removal to clear the way for Gearhulks.
The absolute nuts is something like Turn 2 Reunion, pitching a Gearhulk and Haunted Dead. Turn three you bring back the Dead, pitching a pair of Amalgams, putting 9 power into play. Turn 4 you Refurbish the Gearhulk, hopefully flipping over 3 more Gearhulks/Ever After for 18 damage.
Since you're working towards a combo finish, it's very common to have one or more combo pieces in hand while you wait on finding the things you need to kick it off. Casting Shattered Perception is going to put those in the graveyard. Having to choose to cast this and losing a Nourshing Shoal or Goryo's Vengeance is not where you want to be.
It's a better fit in a dredge-oriented sort of deck, where you don't care what's in your hand, and drawing extra cards just enables dredge.
This feels like the direction this deck needs to move, based on my experiences with it. Darkblast gives you plenty of interaction for the linear aggro decks (it's probably the single best spell to have against both Infect and Affinity). Thoughtseize lets you interact with both combo and control decks to either stop them going off or give you a clear path to go off. Jace lets you rebuy any of those from the graveyard along with your dig spells.
I'm still not sold on Glimpse the Unthinkable, but I can see the thought process behind it, especially with Jace.
All those ideas you mention slow down and dilute the deck, or are just outright bad
That is the point of the cards in the deck to dig for the combo
Agreed on all points.
In turn, my point is that as the deck stands, with almost nothing but land, dig spells and combo pieces that don't do anything outside of an actively going off combo, it's not really a very viable deck. It can get hot and win matches and even maybe a smaller events or once in a great while a bigger event. But over time, in most bigger events, or over multiple smaller events, variance (or pairings, or the meta) will catch up, and this deck does not have sufficient tools to deal with in the current configuration.
It's not faster on average than Amulet Bloom or Grishoalbrand. It's more consistent than either if it can go off, but feels marginally less consistent than either in terms of being able to get to that combo.
It doesn't have the interaction of Scapeshift. Half its defensive tools are only good to protect an active combo attempt. It's ability to dodge hate is very limited and some hate is nearly impossible, especially if that hate is backed by counters or other protection.
It has no protection at all against linear aggro decks if it doesn't have an early combo already in hand.
My personal feeling is that if you want to use the very nice and incredibly hard to disrupt Hulk->Body Double+Reveilark combo, then something in the deck has to change to help ensure that you can:
Reliably hit the combo (dig spells help, but as I said, it's still too easy to simply not ever see a hulk or all the combo pieces on their own)
Have time to hit the combo. (this requires some form of interaction; hand disruption, counters, kill spells, etc)
Still do something in the face of an active hate card (Leyline, RIP, Cage, Relic, Scooze) that shuts off your graveyard.
Have at least some possible (even if unlikely) way to win if one or more of the combo pieces is extracted etc.
Twin decks evolved from 8 untappers and 4 splinter twins and some number of Kiki-Jiki to their current form with often only 4-6 untappers and a smaller number of copiers, plus more interaction. Scapeshift likewise went from mostly RG Ramp into a more RUG oriented control deck with a combo finish. Even Grishoalbrand was originally a straight glass cannon combo deck that had to evolve a more complicated combo to help it play around hate and disruption. I feel that Hulk Combo is probably going to have to do the same, as its not inherently and consistently fast enough to overcome that hate and disruption reliably as a pure combo deck.
i think that you are just listing weakneses of any combo deck
True, to some extent, but more so for Hulk Combo than others.
Grishoalbrand, for instance, has backup routes to victory. Through the Breach a Griselbrand or even Worldspine Wurm is usually good for a win, if they have grave hate you can't get around. Goryo's Vengeance on a naked Borborygmos Enraged isn't ideal, but if you've sculpted your hand it can still win if they've extracted your Griselbrand. And in the face of a fast linear deck like Burn or Affinity, you can still Shoal a Wurm outside the combo to stay alive.
Living End's cyclers are both combo enablers and part of the payoff for the combo, so just the act of digging for the cascade combo improves its strength when it goes off. Likewise, utility creatures and answers to hate like Ingot Chewer, Wispmare, and Fulminator Mage also end up improving the combo or generating extra value.
Scapeshift is called a "one card combo", and like Hulk combo usually just wins if its namesake resolves. But the actual other parts of the combo are just lands, and you can play them out of hand if you draw them without needing an enabler like a looting spell. And one of the primary ramp spells is Sakura Tribe Elder, which works as a blocker without impacting its function, unlike Viscera Seer. Even its mainboard counter suite both works as protection and anti-hate, as Cryptics can bounce Leylines, one of the few useful hate cards.
One of my take aways was that nothing in the Hulk combo except Izzet Charm (and maybe Lightning Axe if you mainboard one) does much of anything except in the context of the combo, and none of the enablers are really good for anything except digging for the combo.
I don't have any concrete suggestions, but my first thought is to see if there's a way we can modify the dig or combo suite so that they have a greater cross-functionality, or maybe add some cards that take advantage of the game state we set up even if we're not in combo-mode.
Off the top of my head:
I mentioned Dimir Charm. It's not great at anything, but all 3 modes are at least somewhat relevant in this deck. Stops early aggression and hate bear creatures, counters hand disruption and some ramp and combo cards, and can function as a mini-schemings.
Snapcaster Mage. We're putting a ton of cards in the graveyard with schemings and lootings and charms. Flashing back reanimation spells, Pact of Negations, or even just more dig spells all see good.
Electrolyze and Thought Scour don't dig as much as some options, but the former is interaction and the latter is a combo enabler, and both pair especially well with the previously mentioned Snapcasters. Maybe turn into more of a Twin-like deck, with burn and counters and stalling until the combo is ready and closes the game?
Delve spells. Again, putting a ton of cards in bin is normal for the deck. Some of the games where it took a long time to find a Hulk I could easily have cast a Empty the Pits for 20 or 30 power worth of zombies. Likewise, Turn 2 or 3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Gurmag Angler is well within the realm of possibility to give us a clock or defense while we dig. Delve counters or bounces like Logic Knot or Set Adrift might be playable.
Could the manabase be tuned to support Cryptic Command? Counter, dig, stall, and anti-hate bounce all-in-one make this pretty attractive if we don't have a turn 3 sort of hand.
Jarad's Orders is slow, but it does guarantee that we get both a Seer in hand to cast and a Hulk in bin to reanimate to ensure we go off with protection against removal. Might be an alternative to Summoner's Pact. Likewise Congregation at Dawn can ensure that your whole combo is on top of your deck (end step stack Seer then Hulk then Body Double or Reveilark, then draw and cast Seer, cast a looting or scheming to put the Hulk in bin and reanimate, for instance).
There's also some other kill combo packages that could be explored. The Disciple of the Vault and Hangarback Walker one seems to take up too many slots while still being not too hard to disrupt. But it seems like there could be other Hulk packages that either win on the spot or guarantee a near win.
I don't really know what the right path is, but my experience is definitely that the current state of the deck is probably not going to propel it into Tier 1 or even Tier 2 status. Even if the other combo alternatives get bans, this deck is just too easy to hate out if it gets remotely popular.
I posted this in the previous thread just before it was locked, so I'll repost it here with a few expanded thoughts, where new eyes will see it.
I'm a combo player at heart, and the core idea of Hulk combo has always intrigued me, and I've run it a few time before (the last time being about 5-6 months ago), and with the recent noise, I pulled it back out and ran it through a couple of FNMs. The list I ran was a pretty standard Makeshift Mannequin build, with the only major change being a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, as my experience with Grishoalbrand is that there's a balance needed between dig and things to dig to.
Setting the Stage
My local meta is reasonably competitive (Mox Boarding House, in the Seattle area), and we've got a pretty good mix of deck types and the crowd is usually between 35 and 50 people for FNM and a smaller crowd of 15-30 for Thursday night Modern, with a fixed 4 round format, with payout by record. I ran the deck for a few weeks, and all told I think I played around 15 matches with the deck.
Additionally, as with all combo decks, I tend to keep my cards on my desk and goldfish while I'm waiting for things to happen. I've probably goldfished a couple hundred hands by this point.
My experiences were not been all that great. It can win games. It can even win matches. But I've found it very inconsistent overall, even compared to decks like Goryo's with Shoals.
Deck Upsides
The pros of the deck seem very nice on paper.
The fact that it almost never fizzles once there's a hulk in play is a huge bonus compared to Grishoalbrand and similar. I think I failed to go off successfully twice in all my games, once through operator error (I sequenced triggers wrong in one of my first games back on the deck), and once through a having to run out a hulk into open white mana facing lethal on board and he did, in fact, have the Path. That's definitely better than my fizzle rate with Grishoalbrand, which is probably closer to 10-15%.
The fact that it can win at instant speed is great. It never came up, but the fact that you can win with a pact trigger on the stack let me be fairly aggressive with those, unlike many combo decks, where not being able to pay for pact is actually just game over.
Deck velocity is also fantastic; I routinely had seen a full 1/3rd to half my deck by turn 4 or five. Taigam's Scheming is not a card for most decks, but here it's extremely good. Basically an Ancient Stirrings with even more upsides. Enough so that I actually am considering a Grixis build of Goryo's with Scheming as a way to dump reanimation targets in the bin.
Mana was very easy to deal with. Not needing black mana until turn 3 or 4, I think I averaged about one game in about 20 that I had any mana issues at all, which is honestly better than most decks. The sheer amount of dig and looting helps make sure you get exactly enough.
The deck is nicely resilient to non-grave oriented hate. Hand disruption and even counterspells don't go that far with the amount of dig power and resiliency. I had no issues finding reanimation spells. Since I chose to run a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, I had maybe one game where I had everything else and failed to find a reanimation spell. Even being thoughtseized and countered rarely put me off more than a turn or two.
Unlike Grishoalbrand, this deck does not need a decent life total when going off. As long as you're not dead, the combo is going to succeed, and being at 1 life makes no difference than being at 20 as to your success rate.
Deck Downsides
However, it's clearly not all upsides, or everyone would be playing it.
First, the deck is very reliant on a few pieces. If it doesn't see a hulk, the chances to assemble the combo manually are abysmally low. I had probably a good half dozen games where by random chance, I simply didn't see any Hulks after multiple schemings, visions, lootings, and charms. With 2 each Body Doubles and Reveilarks, those aren't too hard to find, but with only 1 Mogg Fanatic, you can very easily dig for turns on end and not find it.
Another downside is that while resistant to non-graveyard hate, it's basically completely cold to persistent grave hate. You can fight through crypts and bogs and usually even Relics, but Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace require that you draw into your one or two of sideboard hate cards like Echoing Truth, or be lucky enough to be able to Swan Song or Steel Sabotage it on the way down, and only then can you start actually setting up your combo. And if they can win a counter fight over your answer? You're just done. Grave Titan beats are about your only plan B, and that's really more like plan F (and this, in fact, is one reason to keep Grave Titan over Thopter Engineer or Venser, as neither of those are going to win you a game if your combo is shut off by grave hate you can't remove)
Likewise, if they've got a Slaughter Games or Surgical and can hit Hulk, the game is almost certainly done. An extract effect on Body Double or Reveilark is usually game over, too.
Once your opponents know what's up, the deck is pretty easy to hate out.
Despite the compactness of the core combo, it doesn't have a ton of interaction either. Prior to going off, maybe 1 Lightning Axe if you're running it main and the Izzet Charms. Some of the linear aggro decks can easily match this combo for speed against a goldfish (which this deck basically is). Yeah, extremely rarely the deck gets the god hands that kill on T1. It can get T2 kills every so often (I think I had maybe 2 over about 35 games). T3 Hulk kills are pretty common. But infect, burn, and affinity can all kill on T3, too.
Some of the more common combo decks can also match it in speed. Bloom Titan and Grishoalbrand can kill Hulk on T2 more often than Hulk will kill them on the same, and probably have similar T3 kill rates, and they have at least some degree more interaction (Titan has lands which gain life, make blockers, etc, Grishoalbrand can gain 11 or more life at instant speed and some builds pack hand disruption). Storm is probably a half turn slower, and not much more interactive, but can win through some amount of grave hate.
Conclusion
All in all, my recent experience pretty much proved what I'd found during my previous outings with the deck. Taigam's Scheming is an improvement to the deck, but despite that, the reliance on Hulk to get things going and needing the graveyard to combo makes this deck more inconsistent and easier to hate out than many of the other top pure combo decks already in the format. Its advantages just don't balance out the problems with assembling the combo that has only 4 primary starter pieces. Barring the banning of cards out of either Bloom Titan or Grishoalbrand, I'd be unlikely to take Hulk Footsteps combo to any sort of event beyond an FNM.
Things this deck needs to be a tier one contender, in my opinion:
A way to guarantee that if all your Protean Hulks are in the bottom quarter of your library that you can fetch them out. Summoner's Pact might do this, but would require some mana base changes so that you don't immediately die to your own pacts in the Mannequin build. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good answers for this in Modern. Dark Petition might work, as might Congregation at Dawn, but those are both relatively expensive, and in the latter case, requires mana colors not normally used.
Better answers to grave hate. Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void in particular are very difficult to deal with in the deck's current form. 1 or 2 Echoing Truth and a Wear//Tear will probably not dig you out from under one unless you've got them in your opening hand.
Alternately to the above: a way to go off, or least have game, if the graveyard is shut off. Possibly via transformational sideboard. Grave Titan is not the worst answer here. Breach-based builds have better options, as they can at least bring in Emrakuls or other game-enders.
Possibly some better early game interaction. Izzet Charm is nice as all three modes are relevant. Maybe Dimir Charm is playable? The mini-schemings mode is useful, while the mini-smother mode also answers early threats like Goblin Guides, Eidolons, Glistener Elves, etc, and the counter mode is not completely dead in a format with Summer Bloom, Scapeshift and similar.
I wouldn't call it a gimmick, but I also don't think this is going to be a tier 1 deck anytime soon, in its current configuration.
I'm a combo player at heart, and the core idea of Hulk combo has always intrigued me, and I've run it a few time before (the last time being about 5-6 months ago), and with the current noise I pulled it back out and ran it through a couple of FNMs.
Setting the Stage
My local meta is reasonably competitive (Mox Boarding House, in the Seattle area), and we've got a pretty good mix of deck types and the crowd is usually between 35 and 50 people for FNM and a smaller crowd of 15-30 for Thursday night modern, with a fixed 4 round format, with payout by record. I ran the deck for a few weeks, and all told I think I played around 15 matches with the deck.
Additionally, as with all combo decks, I tend to keep my cards on my desk and goldfish while I'm waiting for things to happen. I've probably goldfished a couple hundred hands by this point.
My experiences were not been all that great. It can win games. It can even win matches. But I've found it very inconsistent overall, even compared to decks like Goryo's with Shoals.
Deck Upsides
The pros of the deck seem very nice on paper.
The fact that it almost never fizzles once there's a hulk in play is a huge bonus compared to Grishoalbrand and similar. I think I failed to go off successfully twice in all my games, once through operator error (I sequenced triggers wrong in one of my first games back on the deck), and once through a having to run out a hulk into open white mana facing lethal on board and he did, in fact, have the Path. That's definitely better than my fizzle rate with Grishoalbrand, which is probably closer to 10-15%.
The fact that it can win at instant speed is great. It never came up, but the fact that you can win with a pact trigger on the stack let me be fairly aggressive with those, unlike many combo decks, where not being able to pay for pact is actually just game over.
Deck velocity is also fantastic; I routinely had seen a full 1/3rd to half my deck by turn 4 or five. Taigam's Scheming is not a card for most decks, but here it's extremely good. Basically an Ancient Stirrings with even more upsides. Enough so that I actually am considering a Grixis build of Goryo's with Scheming as a way to dump reanimation targets in the bin.
Mana was very easy to deal with. Not needing black mana until turn 3 or 4, I think I averaged about one game in about 20 that I had any mana issues at all, which is honestly better than most decks. The sheer amount of dig and looting helps make sure you get exactly enough.
The deck is nicely resilient to non-grave oriented hate. Hand disruption and even counterspells don't go that far with the amount of dig power and resiliency. I had no issues finding reanimation spells. I chose to run a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, and had maybe one game where I had everything else and failed to find a reanimation spell. Even being thoughtseized and countered rarely put me off more than a turn or two.
Unlike Grishoalbrand, this deck does not need a decent life total when going off. As long as you're not dead, the combo is going to succeed, and being at 1 life makes no difference than being at 20 as to your success rate.
Deck Downsides
However, it's clearly not all upsides, or everyone would be playing it.
First, the deck is very reliant on a few pieces. If it doesn't see a hulk, the chances to assemble the combo manually are abysmally low. I had probably a good half dozen games where by random chance, I simply didn't see any Hulks after multiple schemings, visions, lootings, and charms. With 2 each Body Doubles and Reveilarks, those aren't too hard to find, but with only 1 Mogg Fanatic, you can very easily dig for turns on end and not find it.
Another downside is that while resistant to non-graveyard hate, it's basically completely cold to persistent grave hate. You can fight through crypts and bogs and usually even Relics, but Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace require that you draw into your one or two of sideboard hate cards like Echoing Truth, or be lucky enough to be able to Swan Song or Steel Sabotage it on the way down, and only then can you start actually setting up your combo. And if they can win a counter fight over your answer? You're just done. Grave Titan beats are about your only plan B, and that's really more like plan F (and this, in fact, is one reason to keep Grave Titan over Thopter Engineer or Venser, as neither of those are going to win you a game if your combo is shut off by grave hate you can't remove)
Likewise, if they've got a Slaughter Games or Surgical and can hit Hulk, the game is almost certainly done. An extract effect on Body Double or Reveilark is usually game over, too.
Once your opponents know what's up, the deck is pretty easy to hate out.
Despite the compactness of the core combo, it doesn't have a ton of interaction either. Prior to going off, maybe 1 Lightning Axe if you're running it main and the Izzet Charms. Some of the linear aggro decks can easily match this combo for speed against a goldfish (which this deck basically is). Yeah, extremely rarely the deck gets the god hands that kill on T1. It can get T2 kills every so often (I think I had maybe 2 over about 35 games). T3 Hulk kills are pretty common. But infect, burn, and affinity can all kill on T3, too.
Some of the more common combo decks can also match it in speed. Bloom Titan and Grishoalbrand can kill Hulk on T2 more often than Hulk will kill them on the same, and probably have similar T3 kill rates, and they have at least some degree more interaction (Titan has lands which gain life, make blockers, etc, Grishoalbrand can gain 11 or more life at instant speed and some builds pack hand disruption). Storm is probably a half turn slower, and not much more interactive, but can win through some amount of grave hate.
Conclusion
All in all, my recent experience pretty much proved what I'd found during my previous outings with the deck. Taigam's Scheming is an improvement to the deck, but despite that, the reliance on Hulk to get things going and the graveyard to combo makes this deck more inconsistent and easier to hate out than many of the other top pure combo decks already in the format. Its advantages just don't balance out the problems with assembling the combo that has only 4 primary starter pieces. Barring the banning of cards out of either Bloom Titan or Grishoalbrand, I'd be unlikely to take Hulk Footsteps combo to any sort of event beyond an FNM.
I will grant that discard is better than counters if you've got an active Jace.
However, my experience has been that Jace tends to die almost immediately, and if I'm going to flash something back, it's almost always a Goryo's or a dig spell (Ideas, Gifts) first, or a Path second. I can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten to use any one Jace a second time. I don't really mind, since he's drawing removal or burn that would otherwise be hitting more important things. But the end result is that I rarely can "waste" a Jace -3 for something that's at best a 1-for-1.
Part of this is that my meta is pretty varied. There's a lot of linear aggro decks like Burn, Zoo and Affinity that are going to kill my Jace with bolts, helixes, galvanics or the like before it flips or kill it with more creatures than I can kill if it does. Plus, discard tends to be pretty bad against these decks mid to late game, while counters at least retain some amount of relevancy.
But there's also a lot of Grixis, Mono-U tron, and UW-control type decks, which oddly seem not care much if I resolve an Ideas (probably because most people have to read it and don't necessarily realize how important it is to this deck), but rarely let a Jace resolve, and if they do, will almost always bolt, terminate, k-command, or electrolyze it if they can. Discard is certainly good against those decks, which is why I still keep some in the sideboard.
That said, when I'm playing the deck, I definitely play far more like a control deck with a large graveyard based toolbox, rather than a jund-esque midrange deck that's trying to grind incremental advantage. I'm not sure either is "right" or "wrong", or even "better". I suspect a lot of it is playstyle and local meta.
This is the list i've been playing.
So yeah, with only 2 Rituals, I wouldn't wan't to drop Manamorphose, but that's part of the argument; That we would rather be running 4 Rituals over Manamorphose anyways. The Rituals give you more Splice cards, more ramp for Breach, and a more consistent combo turn- Where Manamorphose isn't really doing anything except opening up the Goryo combo line if you have no floating mana, which is completely unnecessary anyways.
Another reason to drop Morphose, is that we would rather be comboing out at instant speed anyway. That's one of the major draws to this deck, and an advantage it has over other combos. The Ritual-Morphose-Looting-Gory line is sorcery speed, which is a major downside.
This is one of the reasons I've always been a big proponent of keeping a single Lightning Axe in the main. In addition to killing Scavenging Oozes and the like, it enables an instant speed discard outlet that can turn on a Goryo's mid combo.
The other minor benefit to keeping in a Manamorphose or two is that they they're sometimes the only green card you've got in hand to kick start a combo with a shoal. Especially if you're baiting out a likely (or known) counter at end step. Not wasting a wurm on that makes fizzling out a bit less likely.
Not keeping them is certainly a legitimate option, though.
How are you liking Remands? It seems like Discard can be very strong for us so I'm interested in your choice.
They're a necessary evil for me. I don't especially like Remand in general; I'd vastly prefer to permanently deal with threats. But this deck plays more on the control-ing end of midrange, and not so much like a straight combo deck like most Goryo's decks. So it desperately wants to get to turn 4 or 5 with 4 lands on board and the option to do things like endstep Gifts and then untap and Unburial, or cast Ideas Unbound and hold up a Goryo's or another counter. Late game, not many decks can outpower this one, but getting there is the trick.
Discard often gets the best card out of their hand, but it doesn't tie up their mana, and often they've got another threat that might not be quite as good, but is still good. Take their Goyf on T1, and they'll still cast Bob or Voice or whatever on T2. Plus, discard also can't do anything about top decks. About the only real advantages for discard as that all the usual options are only 1 mana as opposed to 2, and they can be used on yourself in an emergency as an outlet to get a fattie in the bin for a reanimation.
Late game, going with counters over discard also means you have lines like gifts for a couple of counters and a snapcaster to do something about a top deck or sandbagged threat, while you can't instant speed gifts and discard in response to the same.
Remand, specifically, also helps draw into action (or another land), ties up their mana for a turn, and often means you know exactly what they're going to do next turn (jam it again, because you clearly didn't want them to do it the first time!), and can plan around it. A lot of times I don't even care what I'm remanding on turn 2 or 3. Anything will do, just to cycle me into something relevant and keep them from advancing their board.
Having Gifts let me play around with certain 1-ofs for testing. Thirst for Knowledge, Delay, Geist of Saint Traft, and a few others have been in and out of the main and side as tests.
Overall it's been a lot of fun to play, and I've not done worse than 2-2 in a fairly competitive 4 round FNM with it. There's an insane variety of lines to play, which keeps it interesting, unlike a lot of the more linear combo decks I tend to gravitate towards.
Crack a Codex Shredder to get back the non-artifact you want to hand, then Academy Ruins to put the Shredder back on top to redraw and replay it. For 8 mana (1 Shredder, 5 activate, 1U put shredder on top) you can rebuy any card every turn.
Infect is generally miserable for any RG Valakut deck, and is probably one of the main reasons these decks don't start edging into the top tier. You can easily devote 10+ cards of your sideboard and still not have a good infect matchup. It basically comes down to Chalice on 1 in the first turn or two or bust. Very occasionally the absolute god draw of Bolts, Angers and Sudden Shocks can give you just enough time to combo kill them. Some people go so far as to run Fog just for the Infect matchup.
A one-of Elesh Norn is definitely a big help against Infect, Burn, and Affinity.
The problem with hand disruption is the same problem that Jund often has; you can't Thoughtseize the top of their deck. Topping a Path or a Snapcaster for a previous discarded Terminate, or anything of the sort leaves you in a precarious spot. I think a few Dispel or Not of this World are probably better options over more discard. Spell Pierce or Mana Leak are interesting in that you might be able to "get" them with a Choke more easily as a result, but hard counters seem better. Negate in the side may actually be the right choice, as it stops not only targeted removal, but most board wipes (including ones like O-Stone) and also planeswalkers.
I think both of these paths are diluting the core of the deck a little too much. I like how reliable the current set up is for digging into a turn 3 or 4 Leviathan, and how following that up with a Choke is basically game over for most decks. Of these, I think only Empyrial Archangel really offers even close to the same sort of inevitability while protecting itself; this would be another good 1 of in the sideboard for matches with lots of targeted hard removal (Terminate/Path) or burn. Terastadon is cute, in that it offers a better clock (especially if hitting your own lands) and can double as a hate card, but again I think keeping it as a sideboard card makes more sense.
Round 1, I choked out an Affinity player 2-1, against decent draws. Game 1 he had no answer, game 2 he got under me and killed me before I got anything going, and game 3 a turn 4 Leviathan into a turn 5 choke sealed the deal.
Infect in round 2 just blew me out. First game was my bad, as I did the math wrong and took a Might of Old Krosa over a Become Immense, and died to an Inkmoth attack. Game 2 he brought in counters and I was unable to find enough action or disruption before I died to infect critters. 0-2
Sadly, rounds 3 and 4 I ran into back to back decks with mainboard Path to Exile.
Round 3 was Soul Sisters, who pathed most of my creatures and even under the Stormtide moat was able to gain enough life to keep ahead of an 8/8 block and then finally won on the back of Serra Ascendants and/or Squadron Hawks wearing Sword of Light and Shadow. In that game I probably did between 80 and 100 damage with a single Stormtide, but he just kept gaining it back. 1-2
Round 4 was UW Control, and despite landing early chokes in two games, basic plains plus Glacial Fortresses let him path every creature I ever played. Game 3 he pathed all 3 Tasigurs, 2 Mandrills, and both Leviathans, between casting and snapping back paths. 1-2 again.
Overall it felt pretty consistent, but lacking a good answer to removal hurts. I'm inclined to pull the Spreading Seas in the board and replace them with a set of Surgical Extractions and/or Blossoming Defense. Possibly a few Dispels as well. Anything that would let me stop removal spells and then get rid of them permanently.
The idea is that against midrange and slower combo decks, early pressure or blockers gives you time to get your Refurbish/Gearhulk chain going. Against control decks with counters, the recursive graveyard aggro gives you plenty of late game even if they have counters for your Refurbishes and exile effects against the top end threats. Aggro seems like the hardest match up, which is why the sideboard is set up to allow you to bring in large amounts of removal.
Like some of the Emerge/Madness style decks, this can put 9+ power into play on turn 3 or 4 via Prized Amalgams, Haunted Dead and rummage spells like Cathartic Reunion. Turn 2 Smuggler's Copter into turn 3 Scrapheap Scrounger provides an early start that also provides a discard outlet for the rest of your graveyard cards along with early magnets for removal to clear the way for Gearhulks.
The absolute nuts is something like Turn 2 Reunion, pitching a Gearhulk and Haunted Dead. Turn three you bring back the Dead, pitching a pair of Amalgams, putting 9 power into play. Turn 4 you Refurbish the Gearhulk, hopefully flipping over 3 more Gearhulks/Ever After for 18 damage.
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Haunted Dead
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
4 Combustible Gearhulk
2 Noxious Gearhulk
Artifacts (4)
4 Smuggler's Copter
Sorcery (13)
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Refurbish
4 Tormenting Voice
1 Ever After
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Lands (23)
3 Aether Hub
1 Concealed Courtyard
4 Evolving Wilds
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
3 Inspiring Vantage
1 Island
3 Mountain
2 Plains
3 Smoldering Marsh
2 Swamp
4 Collective Brutality
3 Fragmentize
3 Radiant Flames
2 Transgress the Mind
3 Unlicensed Disintegration
Thoughts?
Shattered Perception doesn't really fit in this deck.
Since you're working towards a combo finish, it's very common to have one or more combo pieces in hand while you wait on finding the things you need to kick it off. Casting Shattered Perception is going to put those in the graveyard. Having to choose to cast this and losing a Nourshing Shoal or Goryo's Vengeance is not where you want to be.
It's a better fit in a dredge-oriented sort of deck, where you don't care what's in your hand, and drawing extra cards just enables dredge.
This feels like the direction this deck needs to move, based on my experiences with it. Darkblast gives you plenty of interaction for the linear aggro decks (it's probably the single best spell to have against both Infect and Affinity). Thoughtseize lets you interact with both combo and control decks to either stop them going off or give you a clear path to go off. Jace lets you rebuy any of those from the graveyard along with your dig spells.
I'm still not sold on Glimpse the Unthinkable, but I can see the thought process behind it, especially with Jace.
Agreed on all points.
In turn, my point is that as the deck stands, with almost nothing but land, dig spells and combo pieces that don't do anything outside of an actively going off combo, it's not really a very viable deck. It can get hot and win matches and even maybe a smaller events or once in a great while a bigger event. But over time, in most bigger events, or over multiple smaller events, variance (or pairings, or the meta) will catch up, and this deck does not have sufficient tools to deal with in the current configuration.
It's not faster on average than Amulet Bloom or Grishoalbrand. It's more consistent than either if it can go off, but feels marginally less consistent than either in terms of being able to get to that combo.
It doesn't have the interaction of Scapeshift. Half its defensive tools are only good to protect an active combo attempt. It's ability to dodge hate is very limited and some hate is nearly impossible, especially if that hate is backed by counters or other protection.
It has no protection at all against linear aggro decks if it doesn't have an early combo already in hand.
My personal feeling is that if you want to use the very nice and incredibly hard to disrupt Hulk->Body Double+Reveilark combo, then something in the deck has to change to help ensure that you can:
Twin decks evolved from 8 untappers and 4 splinter twins and some number of Kiki-Jiki to their current form with often only 4-6 untappers and a smaller number of copiers, plus more interaction. Scapeshift likewise went from mostly RG Ramp into a more RUG oriented control deck with a combo finish. Even Grishoalbrand was originally a straight glass cannon combo deck that had to evolve a more complicated combo to help it play around hate and disruption. I feel that Hulk Combo is probably going to have to do the same, as its not inherently and consistently fast enough to overcome that hate and disruption reliably as a pure combo deck.
True, to some extent, but more so for Hulk Combo than others.
Grishoalbrand, for instance, has backup routes to victory. Through the Breach a Griselbrand or even Worldspine Wurm is usually good for a win, if they have grave hate you can't get around. Goryo's Vengeance on a naked Borborygmos Enraged isn't ideal, but if you've sculpted your hand it can still win if they've extracted your Griselbrand. And in the face of a fast linear deck like Burn or Affinity, you can still Shoal a Wurm outside the combo to stay alive.
Living End's cyclers are both combo enablers and part of the payoff for the combo, so just the act of digging for the cascade combo improves its strength when it goes off. Likewise, utility creatures and answers to hate like Ingot Chewer, Wispmare, and Fulminator Mage also end up improving the combo or generating extra value.
Scapeshift is called a "one card combo", and like Hulk combo usually just wins if its namesake resolves. But the actual other parts of the combo are just lands, and you can play them out of hand if you draw them without needing an enabler like a looting spell. And one of the primary ramp spells is Sakura Tribe Elder, which works as a blocker without impacting its function, unlike Viscera Seer. Even its mainboard counter suite both works as protection and anti-hate, as Cryptics can bounce Leylines, one of the few useful hate cards.
One of my take aways was that nothing in the Hulk combo except Izzet Charm (and maybe Lightning Axe if you mainboard one) does much of anything except in the context of the combo, and none of the enablers are really good for anything except digging for the combo.
I don't have any concrete suggestions, but my first thought is to see if there's a way we can modify the dig or combo suite so that they have a greater cross-functionality, or maybe add some cards that take advantage of the game state we set up even if we're not in combo-mode.
Off the top of my head:
There's also some other kill combo packages that could be explored. The Disciple of the Vault and Hangarback Walker one seems to take up too many slots while still being not too hard to disrupt. But it seems like there could be other Hulk packages that either win on the spot or guarantee a near win.
Some of the Abzan Company deck combos are fetchable with a single Hulk activation for instance. Melira, Sylvok Outcast or Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Murderous Redcap to win on the spot if you've got a Seer, or a Kitchen Finks and Viscera Seer to give you infinite health and scry if you don't.
I don't really know what the right path is, but my experience is definitely that the current state of the deck is probably not going to propel it into Tier 1 or even Tier 2 status. Even if the other combo alternatives get bans, this deck is just too easy to hate out if it gets remotely popular.
I'm a combo player at heart, and the core idea of Hulk combo has always intrigued me, and I've run it a few time before (the last time being about 5-6 months ago), and with the recent noise, I pulled it back out and ran it through a couple of FNMs. The list I ran was a pretty standard Makeshift Mannequin build, with the only major change being a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, as my experience with Grishoalbrand is that there's a balance needed between dig and things to dig to.
Setting the Stage
My local meta is reasonably competitive (Mox Boarding House, in the Seattle area), and we've got a pretty good mix of deck types and the crowd is usually between 35 and 50 people for FNM and a smaller crowd of 15-30 for Thursday night Modern, with a fixed 4 round format, with payout by record. I ran the deck for a few weeks, and all told I think I played around 15 matches with the deck.
Additionally, as with all combo decks, I tend to keep my cards on my desk and goldfish while I'm waiting for things to happen. I've probably goldfished a couple hundred hands by this point.
My experiences were not been all that great. It can win games. It can even win matches. But I've found it very inconsistent overall, even compared to decks like Goryo's with Shoals.
Deck Upsides
The pros of the deck seem very nice on paper.
The fact that it almost never fizzles once there's a hulk in play is a huge bonus compared to Grishoalbrand and similar. I think I failed to go off successfully twice in all my games, once through operator error (I sequenced triggers wrong in one of my first games back on the deck), and once through a having to run out a hulk into open white mana facing lethal on board and he did, in fact, have the Path. That's definitely better than my fizzle rate with Grishoalbrand, which is probably closer to 10-15%.
The fact that it can win at instant speed is great. It never came up, but the fact that you can win with a pact trigger on the stack let me be fairly aggressive with those, unlike many combo decks, where not being able to pay for pact is actually just game over.
Deck velocity is also fantastic; I routinely had seen a full 1/3rd to half my deck by turn 4 or five. Taigam's Scheming is not a card for most decks, but here it's extremely good. Basically an Ancient Stirrings with even more upsides. Enough so that I actually am considering a Grixis build of Goryo's with Scheming as a way to dump reanimation targets in the bin.
Mana was very easy to deal with. Not needing black mana until turn 3 or 4, I think I averaged about one game in about 20 that I had any mana issues at all, which is honestly better than most decks. The sheer amount of dig and looting helps make sure you get exactly enough.
The deck is nicely resilient to non-grave oriented hate. Hand disruption and even counterspells don't go that far with the amount of dig power and resiliency. I had no issues finding reanimation spells. Since I chose to run a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, I had maybe one game where I had everything else and failed to find a reanimation spell. Even being thoughtseized and countered rarely put me off more than a turn or two.
Unlike Grishoalbrand, this deck does not need a decent life total when going off. As long as you're not dead, the combo is going to succeed, and being at 1 life makes no difference than being at 20 as to your success rate.
Deck Downsides
However, it's clearly not all upsides, or everyone would be playing it.
First, the deck is very reliant on a few pieces. If it doesn't see a hulk, the chances to assemble the combo manually are abysmally low. I had probably a good half dozen games where by random chance, I simply didn't see any Hulks after multiple schemings, visions, lootings, and charms. With 2 each Body Doubles and Reveilarks, those aren't too hard to find, but with only 1 Mogg Fanatic, you can very easily dig for turns on end and not find it.
Another downside is that while resistant to non-graveyard hate, it's basically completely cold to persistent grave hate. You can fight through crypts and bogs and usually even Relics, but Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace require that you draw into your one or two of sideboard hate cards like Echoing Truth, or be lucky enough to be able to Swan Song or Steel Sabotage it on the way down, and only then can you start actually setting up your combo. And if they can win a counter fight over your answer? You're just done. Grave Titan beats are about your only plan B, and that's really more like plan F (and this, in fact, is one reason to keep Grave Titan over Thopter Engineer or Venser, as neither of those are going to win you a game if your combo is shut off by grave hate you can't remove)
Likewise, if they've got a Slaughter Games or Surgical and can hit Hulk, the game is almost certainly done. An extract effect on Body Double or Reveilark is usually game over, too.
Once your opponents know what's up, the deck is pretty easy to hate out.
Despite the compactness of the core combo, it doesn't have a ton of interaction either. Prior to going off, maybe 1 Lightning Axe if you're running it main and the Izzet Charms. Some of the linear aggro decks can easily match this combo for speed against a goldfish (which this deck basically is). Yeah, extremely rarely the deck gets the god hands that kill on T1. It can get T2 kills every so often (I think I had maybe 2 over about 35 games). T3 Hulk kills are pretty common. But infect, burn, and affinity can all kill on T3, too.
Some of the more common combo decks can also match it in speed. Bloom Titan and Grishoalbrand can kill Hulk on T2 more often than Hulk will kill them on the same, and probably have similar T3 kill rates, and they have at least some degree more interaction (Titan has lands which gain life, make blockers, etc, Grishoalbrand can gain 11 or more life at instant speed and some builds pack hand disruption). Storm is probably a half turn slower, and not much more interactive, but can win through some amount of grave hate.
Conclusion
All in all, my recent experience pretty much proved what I'd found during my previous outings with the deck. Taigam's Scheming is an improvement to the deck, but despite that, the reliance on Hulk to get things going and needing the graveyard to combo makes this deck more inconsistent and easier to hate out than many of the other top pure combo decks already in the format. Its advantages just don't balance out the problems with assembling the combo that has only 4 primary starter pieces. Barring the banning of cards out of either Bloom Titan or Grishoalbrand, I'd be unlikely to take Hulk Footsteps combo to any sort of event beyond an FNM.
Things this deck needs to be a tier one contender, in my opinion:
I'm a combo player at heart, and the core idea of Hulk combo has always intrigued me, and I've run it a few time before (the last time being about 5-6 months ago), and with the current noise I pulled it back out and ran it through a couple of FNMs.
Setting the Stage
My local meta is reasonably competitive (Mox Boarding House, in the Seattle area), and we've got a pretty good mix of deck types and the crowd is usually between 35 and 50 people for FNM and a smaller crowd of 15-30 for Thursday night modern, with a fixed 4 round format, with payout by record. I ran the deck for a few weeks, and all told I think I played around 15 matches with the deck.
Additionally, as with all combo decks, I tend to keep my cards on my desk and goldfish while I'm waiting for things to happen. I've probably goldfished a couple hundred hands by this point.
My experiences were not been all that great. It can win games. It can even win matches. But I've found it very inconsistent overall, even compared to decks like Goryo's with Shoals.
Deck Upsides
The pros of the deck seem very nice on paper.
The fact that it almost never fizzles once there's a hulk in play is a huge bonus compared to Grishoalbrand and similar. I think I failed to go off successfully twice in all my games, once through operator error (I sequenced triggers wrong in one of my first games back on the deck), and once through a having to run out a hulk into open white mana facing lethal on board and he did, in fact, have the Path. That's definitely better than my fizzle rate with Grishoalbrand, which is probably closer to 10-15%.
The fact that it can win at instant speed is great. It never came up, but the fact that you can win with a pact trigger on the stack let me be fairly aggressive with those, unlike many combo decks, where not being able to pay for pact is actually just game over.
Deck velocity is also fantastic; I routinely had seen a full 1/3rd to half my deck by turn 4 or five. Taigam's Scheming is not a card for most decks, but here it's extremely good. Basically an Ancient Stirrings with even more upsides. Enough so that I actually am considering a Grixis build of Goryo's with Scheming as a way to dump reanimation targets in the bin.
Mana was very easy to deal with. Not needing black mana until turn 3 or 4, I think I averaged about one game in about 20 that I had any mana issues at all, which is honestly better than most decks. The sheer amount of dig and looting helps make sure you get exactly enough.
The deck is nicely resilient to non-grave oriented hate. Hand disruption and even counterspells don't go that far with the amount of dig power and resiliency. I had no issues finding reanimation spells. I chose to run a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, and had maybe one game where I had everything else and failed to find a reanimation spell. Even being thoughtseized and countered rarely put me off more than a turn or two.
Unlike Grishoalbrand, this deck does not need a decent life total when going off. As long as you're not dead, the combo is going to succeed, and being at 1 life makes no difference than being at 20 as to your success rate.
Deck Downsides
However, it's clearly not all upsides, or everyone would be playing it.
First, the deck is very reliant on a few pieces. If it doesn't see a hulk, the chances to assemble the combo manually are abysmally low. I had probably a good half dozen games where by random chance, I simply didn't see any Hulks after multiple schemings, visions, lootings, and charms. With 2 each Body Doubles and Reveilarks, those aren't too hard to find, but with only 1 Mogg Fanatic, you can very easily dig for turns on end and not find it.
Another downside is that while resistant to non-graveyard hate, it's basically completely cold to persistent grave hate. You can fight through crypts and bogs and usually even Relics, but Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace require that you draw into your one or two of sideboard hate cards like Echoing Truth, or be lucky enough to be able to Swan Song or Steel Sabotage it on the way down, and only then can you start actually setting up your combo. And if they can win a counter fight over your answer? You're just done. Grave Titan beats are about your only plan B, and that's really more like plan F (and this, in fact, is one reason to keep Grave Titan over Thopter Engineer or Venser, as neither of those are going to win you a game if your combo is shut off by grave hate you can't remove)
Likewise, if they've got a Slaughter Games or Surgical and can hit Hulk, the game is almost certainly done. An extract effect on Body Double or Reveilark is usually game over, too.
Once your opponents know what's up, the deck is pretty easy to hate out.
Despite the compactness of the core combo, it doesn't have a ton of interaction either. Prior to going off, maybe 1 Lightning Axe if you're running it main and the Izzet Charms. Some of the linear aggro decks can easily match this combo for speed against a goldfish (which this deck basically is). Yeah, extremely rarely the deck gets the god hands that kill on T1. It can get T2 kills every so often (I think I had maybe 2 over about 35 games). T3 Hulk kills are pretty common. But infect, burn, and affinity can all kill on T3, too.
Some of the more common combo decks can also match it in speed. Bloom Titan and Grishoalbrand can kill Hulk on T2 more often than Hulk will kill them on the same, and probably have similar T3 kill rates, and they have at least some degree more interaction (Titan has lands which gain life, make blockers, etc, Grishoalbrand can gain 11 or more life at instant speed and some builds pack hand disruption). Storm is probably a half turn slower, and not much more interactive, but can win through some amount of grave hate.
Conclusion
All in all, my recent experience pretty much proved what I'd found during my previous outings with the deck. Taigam's Scheming is an improvement to the deck, but despite that, the reliance on Hulk to get things going and the graveyard to combo makes this deck more inconsistent and easier to hate out than many of the other top pure combo decks already in the format. Its advantages just don't balance out the problems with assembling the combo that has only 4 primary starter pieces. Barring the banning of cards out of either Bloom Titan or Grishoalbrand, I'd be unlikely to take Hulk Footsteps combo to any sort of event beyond an FNM.
However, my experience has been that Jace tends to die almost immediately, and if I'm going to flash something back, it's almost always a Goryo's or a dig spell (Ideas, Gifts) first, or a Path second. I can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten to use any one Jace a second time. I don't really mind, since he's drawing removal or burn that would otherwise be hitting more important things. But the end result is that I rarely can "waste" a Jace -3 for something that's at best a 1-for-1.
Part of this is that my meta is pretty varied. There's a lot of linear aggro decks like Burn, Zoo and Affinity that are going to kill my Jace with bolts, helixes, galvanics or the like before it flips or kill it with more creatures than I can kill if it does. Plus, discard tends to be pretty bad against these decks mid to late game, while counters at least retain some amount of relevancy.
But there's also a lot of Grixis, Mono-U tron, and UW-control type decks, which oddly seem not care much if I resolve an Ideas (probably because most people have to read it and don't necessarily realize how important it is to this deck), but rarely let a Jace resolve, and if they do, will almost always bolt, terminate, k-command, or electrolyze it if they can. Discard is certainly good against those decks, which is why I still keep some in the sideboard.
That said, when I'm playing the deck, I definitely play far more like a control deck with a large graveyard based toolbox, rather than a jund-esque midrange deck that's trying to grind incremental advantage. I'm not sure either is "right" or "wrong", or even "better". I suspect a lot of it is playstyle and local meta.
This is one of the reasons I've always been a big proponent of keeping a single Lightning Axe in the main. In addition to killing Scavenging Oozes and the like, it enables an instant speed discard outlet that can turn on a Goryo's mid combo.
The other minor benefit to keeping in a Manamorphose or two is that they they're sometimes the only green card you've got in hand to kick start a combo with a shoal. Especially if you're baiting out a likely (or known) counter at end step. Not wasting a wurm on that makes fizzling out a bit less likely.
Not keeping them is certainly a legitimate option, though.
They're a necessary evil for me. I don't especially like Remand in general; I'd vastly prefer to permanently deal with threats. But this deck plays more on the control-ing end of midrange, and not so much like a straight combo deck like most Goryo's decks. So it desperately wants to get to turn 4 or 5 with 4 lands on board and the option to do things like endstep Gifts and then untap and Unburial, or cast Ideas Unbound and hold up a Goryo's or another counter. Late game, not many decks can outpower this one, but getting there is the trick.
Discard often gets the best card out of their hand, but it doesn't tie up their mana, and often they've got another threat that might not be quite as good, but is still good. Take their Goyf on T1, and they'll still cast Bob or Voice or whatever on T2. Plus, discard also can't do anything about top decks. About the only real advantages for discard as that all the usual options are only 1 mana as opposed to 2, and they can be used on yourself in an emergency as an outlet to get a fattie in the bin for a reanimation.
Late game, going with counters over discard also means you have lines like gifts for a couple of counters and a snapcaster to do something about a top deck or sandbagged threat, while you can't instant speed gifts and discard in response to the same.
Remand, specifically, also helps draw into action (or another land), ties up their mana for a turn, and often means you know exactly what they're going to do next turn (jam it again, because you clearly didn't want them to do it the first time!), and can plan around it. A lot of times I don't even care what I'm remanding on turn 2 or 3. Anything will do, just to cycle me into something relevant and keep them from advancing their board.
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Sorceries:8
4 Ideas Unbound
2 Lingering Souls
2 Unburial Rites
Instants:15
1 Dispel
3 Path to Exile
4 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Negate
3 Remand
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Murderous Cut
1 Drowned Catacomb
3 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Watery Grave
2 Mangara of Corondor
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Terastodon
2 Thoughtseize
1 Damnation
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Dispel
1 Path to Exile
2 Negate
1 Dismember
1 Gifts Ungiven
Having Gifts let me play around with certain 1-ofs for testing. Thirst for Knowledge, Delay, Geist of Saint Traft, and a few others have been in and out of the main and side as tests.
Overall it's been a lot of fun to play, and I've not done worse than 2-2 in a fairly competitive 4 round FNM with it. There's an insane variety of lines to play, which keeps it interesting, unlike a lot of the more linear combo decks I tend to gravitate towards.