Source
r/CompetitiveEDH•
IzzyJM

Protean Hulk as a complement or replacement in Boonweaver Karador?

As most of you know by now, [[Protean Hulk]] is unbanned in edh. I've been running mostly tuned Boonweaver Karador list the last few months to great success, and seeing the unban I unashamedly got visibly excited and found my lone copy to jam into the deck.

After doing about 50 goldfish hands, I came to the conclusion that it's so much easier setting up a hulk win vs boonweaver+pattern of rebirth, almost invalidating the boonweaver combo altogether. Which ultimately brings me to my question-

Should I run both or streamline towards a mostly hulk package? I can see benefits of both, but I'd love to hear opinions. Thanks for your time!

Posted Apr 25, 2017, 9:07 AM UTC

1822
cobblepottlike a skinny white teddy bear •

I'm dropping Boonweaver and going all in on Hulk. Green has a lot of specifically green tutor capability (Summoner's Pact, GSV, Natural Order) that improve dramatically when, after you resolve them, you win the game.

23
pandamanhood•

Is gsv supposed to be gsz?

Also what do you think about keeping it midrange/h8 bearish if moving to thrasios tymna, along eith runing girm/power artifact as a back plan?

4
cobblepottlike a skinny white teddy bear •

Is gsv supposed to be gsz?

Yes.

Also what do you think about keeping it midrange/h8 bearish if moving to Thrasios Tymna, along eith runing girm/Power Artifact as a back plan?

That remains to be seen. The combo is really fast, so justification can be made for going all in on it. However, if everyone starts running it, finding fast ways to slow everyone down will become a priority. Also, now is the time to buy RIP and Grafdigger's Cage. (RIP is already sold out most places, Cage will follow soon).

9
IzzyJMOP•

Why GSZ? I can see it being good to tutor early for say bloom tender or a stax creature like Gaddock Teeg, but it seems a bit rough to pay 8 to get hulk, if not more if there's a cost adder like Thalia on the field.

2
cobblepottlike a skinny white teddy bear •

Not to get Hulk, but to guarantee a green creature on the board for things like Natural Order.

1
PilotParker•

I've been playing a version of your Boonweaver for a bit, and part of why I like it is the ability to cheat BW into play with little mana with Pattern. I assume that Pattern stays in to find Hulk, but isn't Summoner's Pact a bit slower since you would need the seven mana to cast Hulk from your hand?

2
djmoneghanRIPweaver•

Not if you have Flash in hand too.

2
PilotParker•

I should have been clearer - I'm talking about Karador Boonweaver, so no blue unfortunately.

2
warddav16•

Are you keeping Pattern in?

1
joseph6708•

I certainly would. It's just another convenient way to grab hulk if needed.

2
rektinlargehippos•

yeah it lets you still have sac outlet + rector for the win

1
SaakelinSaakeliAKA. Reversemermaid•

Hulk still works with the donger + sac outlet + pattern line and is easier to assemble otherwise. Even the combo is pretty much identical and doesn't require any new cards:

Sac Hulk, get Viscera Seer and Karmic Guide, get Hulk back, sac for Reveillark, sac Lark for Guide which brings back Hulk, sac Hulk for Blood artist and Saffi, sac Saffi for Guide, sac Guide which brings back Lark and now you have Guide-Lark assembled with Blood Artist in play. Bonus points from Hulk fetching both the sac outlet and Guide by itself if you manage to get it into play and kill to some non-sac outlet.

I'd say that there's no reason to play Boonweaver anymore.

8
pandamanhood•

You dont even have to run all those cards you should be able yo cut down on the amount of combo cards in thr deck right?

1
SaakelinSaakeliAKA. Reversemermaid•

You could cut Saffi and Blood Artist and just go Hulk -> Guide + Viscera Seer -> Reveillark + Death Cultist, though since I don't play the deck I'm not sure if running Saffi and Blood Artist is worse than running Death Cultist. Two card slots vs. one, but Death Cultist is more dead than Saffi or Artist, but Saffi and Artist neither are much more than combo pieces anyway.

3
IzzyJMOP•

If you can sac hulk with lets say a High Market, you can get Seer +Guide, bringing back hulk. Sac again with Seer, and all you need is saffi and blood artist or Zulaport Cutthroat. You can win off of just two sacs of hulk. It's insanely faster than showing the boonweaver line.

2
Fellipe000•

I will run both in my Karador deck. Redundancy is always good and we just have to find a slot, since we already run all other pieces of the combo in our decks.

2
warddav16•

7 mana redundancy hurts quite a bit though. I think I'm going to keep my Elesh Norn/Living plane in as the backup instead of Boonweaver

2
xVisageBalance •

I see no reason to play [[Boonweaver Giant]] at all anymore now with [[Protean Hulk]] available, it's a 1 card swap and everything is just overall more synergistic, especially since all the lines that Boonweaver had work with Protean Hulk.

Considering Boonweaver + [[Pattern of Rebirth]] has 2 primary lines of play:

Survival > Boonweaver > Reanimate + Sac Outlet > Find Pattern

[[Academy Rector]] + Sac Outlet > Pattern on a dork/hatebear > Boonweaver

You can play Hulk in place of Boonweaver, and the 1st line becomes more efficient because 1) You don't need Pattern to go off, and 2) you don't need a continuous sac-outlet, you can just use [[High Market]] or [[Phyrexian Tower]]. It's also easier to hard cast since it only requires green, can be found off of [[Natural Order]] and [[Green Sun's Zenith]], and also has the added benefit of being able to run a [[Grand Abolisher]] line to avoid any potential interaction (Find Rector if you have a sac outlet + Grand Abolisher, or [[Heliod's Pilgrim]] + Sac Outlet + Abolisher, Pilgrim searching for [[Animate Dead]])

Overall, [[Protean Hulk]] is just better in every way for Karador, and I suspect the same is true for any other colour combination, especially since non-white can now play a similar line with just Green/Black.

2
MTGCardFetcher•

#####

######

####

Boonweaver Giant - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Protean Hulk - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Pattern of Rebirth - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
High Market - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Phyrexian Tower - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Natural Order - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Green Sun's Zenith - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Grand Abolisher - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Heliod's Pilgrim - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Animate Dead - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call

1
MTGCardFetcher•

Protean Hulk - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call

1
PrecisionHat•

Hulk is awesome even if you don't use him to achieve a combo win, so I don't see why you wouldn't run both. I mean, if your Karador deck is super tuned and you really can't find another card to cut, I can see going one way or the other.

I don't play Karador, but I use the boonweaver combo in my [[Selvala, Explorer Returned]] deck. I already use [[Tooth and Nail]] which is an I win card. I'm going to include Hulk as well.

1
MTGCardFetcher•

Selvala, Explorer Returned - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
Tooth and Nail - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD) (ER)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call

1