A Tuffnut to Crack

The Ruler is here. Bow before your new 3 Intellect overlord.

I haven't been this enthusiastic about deck building since Vynnset was spoiled. Flesh and Blood releases plenty of interesting heroes, but the number of heroes that fundamentally alter your play experience in such a unique way are much more rare. Well, Tuffnut and his 3 Intellect do just that. I love the challenge of building heroes with these sorts of restrictions, and taking that challenge head on paid off. I've played nothing but Tuffnut in Classic Constructed since the Super Slam World Premiere, and I was fortunate enough to win Tuffnut his very first LL points at a Las Vegas Pro Quest. Here's my winning list for anyone interested - but the list you should really be interested in comes at the end of this article, which is my up-to-date working list. If you want to know what my 80 is, just look for the Sturdy Pistachio at the end!

I started working on this article last September. With Tuffnut being a bottom tier hero, I figured I'd have plenty of time before he'd really be able to hit his stride and make some noise in the meta. That gave me plenty of time to experiment with the hundreds of cards in the maybe board of my decklist and see if, as with Vynnset, there was something special hidden underneath the "3 Int" exterior. Compendium of Rathe was very good to Tuffnut; but before I can go into details as to why it was so good for him, I need to set the table with the way things looked prior to Compendium.

Buckle up brother, because we are going to go over a LOT of cards today.

Don't tell the Tuffnut doubters, but in practice, Tuffnut doesn't really have 3 Intellect. He is just obligated to pitch at least one card per turn cycle. He gets all the resources that card would pitch for from hand, and additionally gets a Toughness from being cheered if the pitched card has 6 or more power, making blue 6's just as valuable to Tuffnut as they are to his Bloodrush-wielding Brute brethren. 

Yes, that is a downside at times. Decks trying to go very wide have one less card to contend with before they start connecting, and you have limited control over the top of your deck during first cycle. But there is upside too, and that upside is Rok.

Rok is Tuffnut's signature weapon. This is his superpower, the thing he can do that is better than everyone else. If winning is your goal and you're not interesting in playing Rok, I'd suggest playing any other Brute. My original draft of this article went into detail on the handful of weapon options, but in reality it's just not necessary. Mandible Claws went to LL with Kayo, Armed and Dangerous, and every other one-handed weapon is dramatically worse; plus, Bloodrush Bellow wasn't even a card we were interested in before losing Claws. Romping Club could have a niche dealing with ally decks, but its rate just can't compete. Ravenous Meataxe can do interesting things into hyper-aggressive linear decks that fatigue themselves while attacking us, but the modicum of consistency you could gain is outweighed by the inferior damage output. The reality is that it's just not that difficult to swing Rok consistently in Tuffnut, and when the drawback of Rok can mostly be ignored, Rok is the best fair weapon in the game.

3 Int doesn't look so bad when the "fourth" card in your hand each turn is a 0-for-7.

My original version of this article got quite granular with potential archetypes. On one end of the spectrum, you had the pinnacle of consistency, mono-blue "Block'n'Rok". 60 blue 3-blocks swinging Rok every turn means 16 average value per turn. While this is an excellent baseline rate, in practice it will fall apart the minute it faces an unfair deck (Wizards with a combo, Runeblades that setup massively overrate turns, board state decks, etc.). The other end of the spectrum is unbridled aggression: Buckwild, Wild Ride, Pulping, and a near-zero non-6 count combined with a general disregard for playing good defense. 

Most builds have coalesced around two versions. The first is more aggressively slanted, aiming to use one card on defense per turn to get Toughness value, then using the other 3 cards to attack for 5/6/7 with go again into Rok for 7 or 8 thanks to Gauntlets of Tyrannical Rex. The second version is the one I am championing and will be focusing on for the remainder of this article: a more midrange version with better defensive capabilities. With Fyendal's Spring Tunic, more 3-blocks, and less no blocks, the build allows you to change gears as the flow of the game dictates, and turns some matchups that are rough for the aggressive version into real games.

While it would be hyperbole to say that my Tuffnut deck is just 60 copies of yellow Raging Onslaught, the truth is that the more things I try and the more I test and play the deck, the closer my list moves to being just a pile of Raging Onslaughts. A resource from a Vigor or Tunic plus a yellow off the top is a Rok swing. Make that a blue 6, and you can turn that Vigor into a pseudo-Might token thanks to our arm equipment. Any 6 off the top means we get cheered, and we have a healthy number of cheer synergies we can consider. However, hitting a red off the top can be devastating, since a single resource can't swing Rok even with Tunic. Likewise, missing out on a cheer can really sting. Because of this, my biggest aim with this deck is to not have any cards in it that are double misses, which means no red non-6's.

Gauntlets of Tyrannical Rex are a must for Tuffnut. They let you squeeze extra value out of spare resources, and give you flexibility to get cards out of your hand to allow for a Rok swing. The Temper 2 is icing on the cake, but you should be playing the game as though it's just Guardwell 2 until the last possible moment. Apex Bonebreaker are your next best option, but the downgrade is substantial.

Scowling Fleshbag remains the best-in-slot option for Brutes, but it's also the most replaceable equipment slot for him. Crown of Providence can fix a hand with multiple 6-blocks (you'll see why that's actually a drawback after), and Helm of Safe Haven lets Tuffnut pretend to have a 4-card defending hand once per game to stymie go-wide decks.

The chest slot is the biggest difference between the midrange and aggressive builds. Rok provides a certain inevitability; and playing better defense extends the game to reach that stage of inevitability; and longer games make Tunic a no-brainer. Predatory Plating is a powerful new addition from Compendium of Rathe that we'll use into certain matchups where the upfront defensive value is particularly important (Dash I/O is one such matchup).

For me, the legs are Scabskin Leathers and don't look back. Every game that I've tried the other options there's at least one turn I regret it, and times where I wish Scabs were another piece of equipment have been much more rare. Our offensive output can be more reliant on Scabs for extra action points than our aggressive counterparts, and it's hard to overstate how much more threatening a random Tuffnut hand looks with them in play.

Tuffnut is pretty spoiled for arcane protection with Skullhorn and Skera Strapping. Shamanic Shinbones look awesome, but with Vynnset being the only deck in the format we want to bring AB against, I think Nullrune Gloves or Hood are the better are the better options (and I don't bring any AB against Oscilio). Omens of the Third Age will require us to reevaluate our options here, but Tuffnut is better armed than most heroes to deal with arcane opponents.

Tuffnut's best offensive tools are displayed above. Jaws of Victory can be a 7-value play with go again. When it isn't enabled by the lower life clause, you can still give it go again by using Tuffnut's ability after damage has been dealt, so you don't give any information away. You might miss on the cheer, but neither you nor your opponent will know that, so they'll need to block like Rok is the follow-up either way. 

Crowd Goes Wild is a fantastic glue card and a great arsenal target. Hit a red or yellow off the top without Tunic up? Put that resource into Gauntlets and send Crowd Goes Wild for 7. It's also a great follow-up to any of our go again attacks when you wouldn't otherwise be able to attack again, and it's the best card to have available when you roll your 6 on Scabskin Leathers.

Song of Sinew is incredibly powerful and deserving of its own paragraph. Song and Jaws of Victory are the two misses that are still automatic inclusions. We're already incentivized to build our deck in such a way that Song will be at least a +3 most of the time, and as the card's floor, a red Nimblism that pitches for 2 is solid. Getting +4 feels almost dirty. If you're blind-activating Tuffnut, you can Song before activating Tuffnut to try and find a blue to put on top. If you're already set to swing Rok thanks to a Vigor, Tunic, or a clash reveal, you can activate Tuffnut before playing Song of Sinew and set up your Tuffnut activation for next turn. If Song nets you an extra resource, we're up to 5 value. If it nets you a cheer you wouldn't otherwise have gotten, that's another point of value. More niche but still possible, you can put Back Alley Breakline in place to flip and give you an extra action point, or position a Rapturous Applause or Unexpected Backhand so they'll be your clash reveal. Song of Sinew is just exceptional.

The allure of this trio of cards is what made me originally want to pick up the deck. 3-card hands that can still get 12 defensive value as the compliment to Rok? Sign me up! 

Thick Hide Hunter and Good Natured Brutality are best when they're able to block big chain enders (Gate #2 out of Vynnset, Salt the Wound from Fai, etc.). But in practice, six cards that need to be the last card left in your hand has led to too many times where I end up with multiples in hand at once, forcing you to block for 12 on things where you almost certainly don't need to do that sort of over-blocking. This is where Boots to the Boards could give some extra value, allowing you to clear a card from hand without necessarily squandering its defensive value. Crown of Providence can also unclog us from having two in hand together, but if you don't draw two together you've downgraded your head equipment slot for no gain. 

No Hero Stands Alone is very matchup-dependent, but it absolutely shines against Warriors, Assassins, and any other heroes where we're heavy clash favorites. No Hero started out as my least favorite of the 6-blocks, but over time has proven its worth and would be the last of the bunch to be cut or trimmed.

Blue 6's and Brute go together like Rok and your opponent's face. If Tuffnut pitches a blue 6 off the top, your 1-card-7 just became a 1-card-8. If only we could run more than six of them...

Buckwild got Kayo over the LL hump in CC and Tuffnut makes similarly good use of them. "Overpitch for Buckwild, swing Rok" is how Tuffnut can keep good pressure on opponents. While technically I have the reds and blues in my sideboard, don't leave home without nine trusty Buckwilds in your list.

Felling of the who? Plow what? While we're taking a step away from Tuffnut's most powerful cards, each card in the Dis cycle provides its own special payoff for piling on the Toughness and getting them to that 6-defense threshold. Disarm is definitely the best of the bunch (just like Felling of the Crown is much stronger than Plow Under in most instances), but Disperse is no slouch, and each card punches above its weight offensively thanks to the extra Toughness they give you if you've been cheered. The builds I've seen and tried that lean heavily into Toughness are a bit too one-dimensional, but if we can get enough passive Toughness generation into the deck without compromising our other deckbuilding principles, people will learn to despise these cards for what they can do.

Toughness-oriented builds exist, but I don't think they're quite good enough due to how difficult it can be to fully realize the value of a large stack of Toughness tokens into too many heroes. I desperately want to see the Shining Courage cycle completed, as a yellow copy would be a perfect inclusion since we'll have Toughness most turns anyways, and suddenly the Dis cards would pose a real threat much more frequently. Let me Felling of the Crown people defensively, LSS!

Yellows and blues of both Smashups give us some degree of built-in topdeck manipulation, which can be invaluable for increasing our Rok consistency. Getting a Vigor token is great because it means any yellow is live, and if we get lucky and hit a blue 6, we can pretend our Vigor was Might token all along by laundering it through Gauntlets of T-Rex. Tough Smashup is a little worse, but it's a key contributor to threatening Disarm and Disperse defensive activations throughout a game.

The original clash cards are both on the short list for blue inclusions, competing with Disperse, Dig In, and Energetic Impact for space. Clash of Might is mostly a free roll, since we love it on Rok and don't mind matching our Toughness up against their Might if we lose the clash. Clash of Agility increases our ability to go wide despite not being the aggressive build, but it has a more real downside since defending wide is more difficult for Tuffnut than defending tall.

Reckless Stampede was a neat inclusion for the aggressive builds when Florian and Verdance were still around, but the remaining decks that are looking to take Tuffnut into a long game don't have the advantage of arcane shenanigans, so I'm of the opinion that it's no longer necessary. I tried Rapturous Applause and Unexpected Backhand together in a build with 18 clash cards, but hitting one of these payoffs is still so rare that I'd rather prioritize the offensive stats of the cards for those deck slots rather than hoping to score some low percentage value.

Next up we have one of my favorite inclusions, given that it's viewed as a conventionally bad card: Barraging Big Horn. It'll often be the first card you block with, but this card checks all the stat boxes while also letting us convert full hands when opponents just arsenal and pass it back to us. Do I like giving opponents the ability to stop our go again? Of course not. But I do like incentivizing my opponents to block. Trading small hands back and forth favors the Rok deck, and BBH plays into that game plan. Good opponents will know how to deal with a deck like Tuffnut, and you can expect to see off turns where they set up explosive 5-card hands to go over the top of our defenses. It's windows like these where BBH will shine, either forcing them to play a smaller hand, or letting you convert your whole hand for at least 13 value. 

Agile Windup and Assault and Battery are next on the list of cards that could come in if we decide we need more ways to make hands convert, but they haven't felt necessary up to this point, and Agility ends up being wasted too frequently.

Enlightened Strike is the most playable double miss that isn't currently in my deck. If I do ever add it in, it would likely be as a 1- or 2-of to augment our suite of go again cards without compromising our defensive numbers. Back Alley Breakline is an awesome card to set up either with Song of Sinew or just pitching for second cycle to set up a surprise Rok swing to close out a game late.

There are plenty more options and shapes for go again cards we could consider, but I'm not going to go deep into any of them since most of them go against our deckbuilding goal of minimizing misses. Here's my short list of go again options depending on what we're trying to contend with:

• Breakneck Battery
• Zealous Belting
• Out Muscle
• Blow for a Blow
• Life for a Life
• Scar for a Scar
• Seek Horizon
• Brandish
• Heroic Pose
• Lead with Might

One of the challenges with Tuffnut is fully utilizing our Toughness value. It's a face-up known quantity, so whenever possible, opponents are going to lead with smaller attacks to make us decide to either waste the Toughness or keep accepting death by a thousand paper cuts. We're not completely helpless in the face of this though, as there are a number of options we can explore to help us recoup our defensive value in a different way.

Battlefront Bastion is an anti-Flick Knives mainstay, and it gets along great with Toughness. Captain of the Guard is more niche, as most decks where it would be effective can just break the chain to undo its upside, but in the right scenario it threatens to be a blue worth up to 5 value on defense. Fyendal's Fighting Spirit is more conditional than Sirens of Safe Harbor, but it gets bonus points for having a yellow 6 version. Rally the Coast Guard and Rally the Rear Guard give Tuffnut access to some defense reactions without actually having to run them.

Actual defense reactions are a tough ask, since they're all misses for cheering, and you don't want to miss cheering when you're in a defensively-oriented matchup. That said, Toughness only applies to actions, so defense reactions and block cards let you defend and still "pass" the Toughness to whatever action you block with later in the turn, letting you counteract how your opponents will tend to sequence attacks against you.

Never Give Up is a card that has so much text on it that I think we're supposed to be playing it, but my experience is that it has one too many hoops to be worth it. I play plenty of games where I'm higher life than my opponent the whole time. Getting cheered defensively is far from trivial (at least not without forfeiting our Rok value for the turn). And why does it only apply to blocking actions? Why not any defensive card (even if it has to be non-equipment card)?! I get that Never Give Up is supposed to be on-board support from the graveyard to trigger the Dis cards, but it's just asking too much to be worthwhile. 

Darling of the Crowd is more of the same, given the lack of good defensive cheer options. Asking for Trouble would have been a staple include if it gave away a Might rather than a Vigor, but sadly that's not the world we live in. None of these are making the cut for me right now.

These blues are all solid role players, but compete with things like Tough Smashup, Clash of Might/Agility, and Disperse for space. Bonus points to Ripple Away and Fearless Confrontation for allowing us to discard them so we can swing Rok.

Reckless Swing is the classic Brute finisher. I'm not on it right now, but I'm not above running one just to reestablish fear in the heart of my opponents.

When it comes to filling out the rest of the deck, we dig deep into the barrel of Raging Onslaughts. Send Packing, Strongest Survive, and Smash Instinct all represent some kind of disruption when we attack with it, which is exactly what we want.

Dig In plays well with the Dis cards, our 6-blocks that want us to be empty handed, and can let us double dip on defensive value in longer, slower games. Comeback Kid and Old Favorite are just the best includes from a pure rate perspective, since they each can give an extra point or two of value when you attack with them.

Kick the Hornet's Nest is my favorite Raging Onslaught that isn't in the deck right now, and it won't take much to get me to add it back in, but for some reason most disruption right now banishes rather than discarding. 

Give 'Em a Piece of Your Mind and Who's the Tough Guy? are both interesting since they're 2-cost yellow 6s, and while they have a downside if blocked, we don't mind incentivizing our opponents to block us at all.

Tuffnut was eating good with Compendium. We already touched on several new staple armor pieces for him with Predatory Plating and Skera Strapping, but those two aren't the biggest new additions to the team...

I know I built it up a fair bit, but I could almost stop talking about Compendium after these 3 cards. Two and a half more blue 6s for Tuffnut absolutely blew my mind when they were spoiled. Hulk Up and Tough as a Rok didn't surprise me, and then Rockyard Rodeo entered the chat and my brain did a record scratch. Doubling the number of blue 6's Tuffnut can run, at a minimum, seemed like a crazy proposition, and it feels exactly as powerful as you'd imagine. That's 6 more slots in the deck that cheer, while keeping our blue count high to keep sending Buckwilds and getting Gauntlet activations. Tuffnut gets to run 12 blue 6's, and it's a thing of beauty.

Despite having great art, Tough as a Rok is tragically a huge step down from any of the other blue 6's, to the point where it'll never again be more than a 1-of in my 80 (trust me, you never want to see a hand of Tough as a Rok, Tough as a Rok, Song of Sinew when you're at higher life than your opponent), and even then it's very cuttable if I find something I need that space for.

Rip of the Top is a card I started off super high on and was let down enough that I removed it from my list entirely. It seems great on paper: a red Swiftwater Swell that's just a yellow 2-block seems like a fine trade-off, but my conclusion was that it was solving a problem that I was no longer having with the other additions from Compendium: having the resources to swing Rok whenever I wanted. The fact that it can be awkward with Vigor at times also didn't help.  

Stadium Security is on my short list of cards I really want to try, as it allows you to recoup some value on defense when the opponent sticks you with a full grip, without requiring a Scabs roll.

Glory Plate could be cool if the Toughness builds ever take off (Carrion Husk with no blood debt is pretty sweet), but coming out in the same set as Predatory Plating is rough for its future outlook where Revered Brutes are concerned. Emboldened by the Crowd is a another card I started off very high on but quickly fell off the hype train. Burning Tuffnut's ability to cheer defensively is terrible value compared to swinging Rok, unless you hit a blue 6 off the top and have a Dig In or Boots to the Boards to dump the resources into - and even if you're able to realize all that value, it's still one less value than Rok!

Bear Hug is a Silver Age card. It has effectively the same drawback as Rok, which makes it nearly impossible to swing in the same turn as Rok without a very specific setup. Comeback Kicks aren't as reliable to trigger as it's Brutish predecessors, so it's not making the cut in CC either.

It's no secret that Brutes hate technology.

And auras.

And allies.

And whatever the hell Oscilio is doing.

Tuffnut has no hate in his heart, but he has hate cards for every occasion. He'll be particularly well suited to running Warmonger's Diplomacy to slow down Rangers and Runeblades in the future.

Tuffnut is a fatigue deck, just not in the way we're used to seeing with Oldhim and Pleiades. Rok gives Tuffnut an inherent fatigue-by-damage inevitability that every deck must contend with. Every time you swing rock, you're going +2 for deck damage math. Hunter or Hunted is arguably the strongest fatigue/deck damage card in the game, as it goes +3 on the exchange (since it blocks for 4 in addition to eating the 3 cards from your deck); if you swing Rok 5 times in a game, you have out-traded Arakni's best fatigue tool. 

There are decks in Flesh and Blood that Tuffnut just *will* beat because the numbers are on his side, and the onus is heavily on the opponent to find a tricky or evasive way to beat Tuffnut before the math takes its course. RKO, Dorinthea, Riptide, and Arakni Huntsman are a few decks that come to mind for this. It's for this same reason that I think Tuffnut is innately favored against the dedicated fatigue decks like Pleiades as well, even if they fat deck and run copies of Remembrance. If you find yourself getting fatigued, there is a good chance you are blocking too much. If you're sure you're not blocking too much and still find yourself struggling with fatigue, some Dig Up Dinners should do the trick.

It took Verdance hitting LL and several great cards from Compendium, but Tuffnut has emerged from his bashful cocoon of obscurity and is going to continue making his presence felt. Tuffnut's done the math, and he says 3 is greater than 4, and I don't disagree.

For the skeptics out there convinced that Tuffnut is dead on arrival against any deck trying to go wide because of his 3 Intellect, I'd encourage you to change your approach to those matchups. Most decks don't beat aggro decks purely by blocking with four cards every turn. Rok is a fundamentally busted weapon that puts opponents on two very real clocks as soon as it starts swinging, and Tuffnut's avenue to defeating aggressive go-wide decks is to simply out-value them. When opponents realize they're being out-valued, they'll start taking turns to set up, and when they take those turns, you hit them with a yellow Barraging Big Horn that no one saw coming. 

If you can get a decent handle against aggressive decks, we're already innately favored into most slower decks by virtue of the Rok math. 

What's left? Unfair decks (like Verdance, Oscilio, and DIO) that don't just spam attacks but take the time to set up are by far the biggest issue for Tuffnut; but even those matchups aren't unwinnable thanks to the Buckwild brigade and Tuffnut's fantastic armor suite.

Is Tuffnut the next big thing? I sure think so.

Will Omens try to rain on his parade with a flood of new, unfair heroes? Almost certainly.

Am I going to be repping Tuffnut at Pro Tour: Las Vegas regardless? I'd Wage Gold on it.