You might not know me, but I’m your local Brute enjoyer from Koreatown, Los Angeles. I brought Tuffnut, Bumbling Hulkster to the April AGE Los Angeles Open and was able to get on stream Round 2 for a Super Slam Reviled and Revered Brute off. Scabskins were rolled, 6s were thrown, Boos were chanted, but Tuffnut came out victorious. I ultimately fell short of making the Top 8 for the event, but wanted to share with other aspiring Brutes the insight I gained into this simple yet surprisingly complex hero.  

1.     I want to Rok and Roll all night and part of every day.

Tuffnut, Bumbling Hulkster is a Revered Brute hero from Super Slam and the first adult hero with three intellect. Which begs the question: “Why would anyone want to play a hero with such a big drawback?” Maybe it’s all of the puns you can come up with. Maybe it’s a blend of masochistic tendencies and a chip on your shoulder (my locals know I have a soft spot for F-tier heroes). Maybe only drawing three cards makes FAB math easier for smooth brains like me. 

Behind the easy answers, however, is an amazing ability that unlocks one of the best weapons printed in Flesh and Blood – ROK. In exchange for a three-card handicap, LSS has bestowed our friendly Brute with the ability to pitch the top card of his deck at instant speed, essentially giving Tuffnut 4 intellect. More importantly, by allowing Tuffnut to pitch from the top of his deck, he is able to easily and consistently swing Rok.

 For those of you who don’t know Rok, the most important thing for you to understand is that you can only activate this weapon if you have no cards in hand. Remember, activation happens before pitching. Before Tuffnut was released, intrepid Brute gamers would attempt to run a Rhinar list utilizing various 1-cost Go Again cards to set up a Rok attack every couple of turns. However, without the ability to pitch off the top of the deck, such Rhinars would either have to wait every three turns for their Tunic activation or hope that they were able to score an Energy Potion in between. While it allowed for some crazy power turns, it was never consistent enough to justify your purchase of a marvel Rok from Dynasty.

Our benevolent yacht-cruising, Kiwi god must have heard the bellows of Brutes worldwide because he authorized Tuffnut to enter the spotlight. With Tuffnut’s ability and a well-built deck, you can threaten a one-card 7 almost every turn and present, at a minimum, 16 value turn over turn. Which is why I brought Tuffnut to the April AGE Los Angeles Open. In a field overrun by Marios, Oscilios and Victors, I thought the meta would allow for Tuffnut to thrive (i.e., barely get top 16 at AGE while all the heavy hitters were at Pro Tour Yokohama).  

2.     Lean wit it, Rok wit it.

If you are a millennial like me, you probably learned how to play Tuffnut from that one Dem Franchize Boyz song.  However, our 3 intellect hero is a lot more complicated than humming, “Lean wit it, Rok with it” every turn.

a.     Clear Your Hand. 

This is probably the most important thing to keep in mind when playing Tuffnut. If you can’t clear your hand, Tuffnut loses his ability to swing Rok. Sometimes, it even makes sense to over block just to clear your hands. The only time you should keep cards in your hand is if you can play a go-wide turn ending with a Rok swing. This is even more important because you will find turns where you can’t clear your hand, no matter how hard you try. Tuffnut can suffer from his own success. Picking up too much tempo can leave you with a full grip of yellow 3-cost 6s and a lackluster turn – there is nothing better than IP2-ing yourself and not arsenaling a card. In addition, astute opponents may even juke you into holding your last card or two, thwarting your next turn.

b.     Roll Scabskins. 

Don’t be afraid to roll Scabskin Leathers when you are forced to hold a full hand. Some Brute mathers out there probably have the probability down, but I roll purely based on vibes. In addition to his low intellect, Tuffnut’s other weakness is his good-natured brutality – if he sees his opponent getting pummeled, he might just take a break to let you catch your breath. This is when you roll Scabskins and turn a two-card 6, IP2 hand into a 14, possibly even 20, damage turn.

 c.     Block Smart. 

A key learning curve with Tuffnut is learning how to block correctly. Block order matters. While FAB is not a game of absolutes, here are a few pointers to consider when blocking.

i.     Two Clashes in Hand. If you have two Clash cards in hand, block or activate them in the order of least importance. For example, if you have a Vigorous Smashup and a Tough Smashup, it probably makes more sense to trigger Tough Smashup before Vigorous Smashup as Tuffnut will likely prefer the Vigor token over the Toughness token. Similarly, you could use Pack Call as a way to ensure that there is a 6 power attack on top of your deck to guarantee you win your clashes.

ii.     Toughness. The Toughness token’s greatest weakness is that it is an automatic trigger and applies to the first action block. Low to the ground aggro decks might throw irrelevant, damage-only attacks first in order to force you to overblock and waste your Toughness token. Trying to explain the aggro matchup probably needs another article, so my only advice in this piece is if you want to play Tuffnut you need to learn your aggro matchups. Knowing which cards to block with and when will be key to winning the aggro race.

iii.     Counter Punch. As I mentioned before, smart opponents may juke you into keeping a card for the last attack, only to leave you in the lurch with a card in hand. There are many cards in the deck that will help you get out of this position (e.g., Song of Sinew, Rip Off the Top, Vigorous Windup). However, the deck also runs a few additional counter measures, which is why it is important to be considerate when blocking. For example, Crowd Goes Wild, Bear Hug and Send Packing are decent cards to be stuck with in hand. Crowd Goes Wild will usually allow you to throw a two-card 7, assuming the card you pitch is a 6 power attack. Bear Hug will allow you to throw a solid two-card 6 and sometimes even a two-card 7. Send Packing will allow you to access disruption. While these options aren’t better than swinging Rok, it’s better than burning a Tunic counter to send a 3 cost 6 attack, or worse, IPing yourself.

 d.     Resource Management. 

This is an easy skill but super important for Tuffnut. Many of Tuffnut’s cards care about cards with 6 power. For example, Gauntlets of Tyrannical Rex and Buckwild’s true power can only be unlocked with a 6 power attack in the pitch zone. Try to figure out how to convert the example hands below. Obviously, there are more factors that will determine your decision and we don’t work in absolutes. I would also love to hear your thoughts on the proper play.

 i.     On your turn you have a red Buckwild, a blue Wrecker Romp and a blue Vigorous Smashup in hand. Tunic is not up.

1. If you said (a) play Buckwild, pitching the Wrecker Romp, (b) activate Gauntlets of Tyrannical Rex with the Vigorous Smashup, and (c) activate Tuffnut and swing Rok, you’re probably right!

ii.     At the start of your opponent’s turn you have a Jaws of Victory, a yellow Vigorous Smashup and a blue Vigorous Smashup. Tunic is not up. You have more life than your opponent.

1. There are a multitude of ways to play this and it might depend on what card is on top of your deck. Against a go-wide deck, you might start by blocking with a yellow Smashup to peek at the top of your deck. Assuming you win and create a Vigor and assuming the top card is a 6 power attack, you’ve found yourself with a 16+ value turn (three block, Vigor, 6 attack Go Again, Toughness token, 7 possibly 8 attack Rok). You might even consider full blocking, likely creating two Vigor tokens and throwing a Rok for 8. Against a go-wide deck, you may even be able to plan to full block, only to realize that you have a blue 6 on top and keep the Jaws behind to throw a two card 13 back at your opponent.

iii.     On your turn, you have a Crowd Goes Wild, a yellow Unexpected Backhand and a blue Vigorous Smashup. Tunic is up.

1. This is the dreaded ‘failing from your own success’ hand. If you could, you would rarely ever keep a hand like this. However, if you’re stuck with a hand like this, you should almost always roll Scabskins. If you roll a one, you can activate Tuffnut and arsenal Crowd Goes Wild for the next turn. If you roll a two or a three, you can activate Tuffnut; if the pitched card is a six, activate Gauntlets and send the Unexpected Backhand for 7 and arsenal the remaining card. But let’s say you roll a four or five. I would swing with the Unexpected Backhand, pitching the Crowd Goes Wild and the Vigorous Smashup. I would then activate Tuffnut and, depending, activate gauntlets and swing Rok. But maybe, just maybe, you channeled your inner Eugene C and rolled a six. Then you might just be able to lean into variance further to send the Unexpected Backhand, the Crowd Goes Wild and the Rok for a 19 damage turn. How’s that for Brute Math?

 Obviously the answers I provided above need a lot of things to align: The top card needs to be a 6 or a blue or you need to have Tunic up. But that’s why the next skill is so important. 

e.     Believe in the Heart of the Cards. 

One of the great things about Tuffnut is that you probably don’t need to memorize your pitch stack. Nevertheless, you should try to keep a mental tally of the cards that you have pitched. Like most other Brute decks, you will constantly be calculating the blue pitch and 6 attack densities left in your deck. Most Tuffnut decks will have between 18-21 blues, of which you will have 12 blue 6s, six yellow misses and six to nine reds. Keeping track of what’s left in deck will let you cosplay Oscilio and give your Buckwilds or Jaws of Victory Go Again at instant speed. You still have a ton of reds, yellow misses and blue misses left in your deck? Maybe the answers I gave for the last two scenarios become riskier and you need to find a new way to play your cards.  

3.     If you smell what the Rok is cooking.

Below is the list that I took to the April AGE Los Angeles Open. I netdecked Spendog’s list and removed a few cards to include Send Packings and yellow Strongest Survives. The deck can be split into a few categories:

 a.     Opt Cards. 

In order to swing Rok consistently, Tuffnut demands top-deck knowledge and management. Therefore, it is crucial that we run the Super Slam Clash cards. Running these will help you fix the top of your deck. You may even get a Vigor token in the process. Pack Call serves a similar role but can also be a dual-edged sword. I have, on occasion, blocked with Pack Call only to send a blue 5 attack to the bottom of my deck and pitch a yellow 6 next turn.

There are a few other ‘opt’ cards out there. However, I believe many of these do not work in Tuffnut. For example, not only is Eye of Ophidia a great way to flex your financial illiteracy, it is also a trap. While a pitch of Eye from the top can seem game changing, having an Eye in hand can ruin your turn and leave you to block with one card and send a two-card 6. More importantly, it is not a blue card 6.

 Right Behind You seems to have its uses, especially against taller decks. However, against go-wide decks, it becomes a vanilla 3 cost 6 attack with 2 block. Since Tuffnut already excels against tall decks, I feel like this card is a ‘win-more’ that severely weakens your block density against go-wide decks.

 The other Clash cards (e.g., Clash of Agility) seem great in practice but are far inferior to the Super Slam clashes since you can’t sink the top of the deck with them.

 b.      Safety Nets. 

Compendium of Rathe made Tuffnut a viable deck. Not only did it give Tuffnut the most blue 6s of any legal Brute (RIP to the homie, KAYO A/D), it also gave Tuffnut Rip Off the Top. As I alluded to in this article, Tuffnut’s greatest weakness is his ability to whiff. Rip a red or yellow card off the top of your deck, you’ve just timewalked yourself. Rip Off the Top is a truly versatile card. It lets you go tall and in some wild instances can give you enough resources to go extra wide (trust me bro, I once played a Buckwild, Rip Off the Top, Buckwild, Rok turn on Talishar). But the most important part of Rip Off the Top is that it can guarantee your Rok swing even when you don’t have Tunic up. A lone Rip Off the Top has saved my tempo on so many occasions that when I draw one turn 0, I usually value arsenaling it higher than rolling Scabs to leak some damage (which as a Brute is almost second nature).

 Similarly, Wind Up the Crowd and Song of Sinew can also provide safety nets for those turns where you don’t have a Tunic up. However, both of these cards pose their own issues. Song of Sinew has failed me more than once by providing four yellow 6s. Wind Up the Crowd is a 0 block and sometimes becomes a dead card in hand, especially when you’re resource rich. It’s almost like someone at LSS is afraid to let Brutes have fun.

 Finally, as discussed above, I believe Crowd Goes Wild is also a final safety net card. It can be played as a 0-cost 7 if it is the last card in your hand. See above for more ideas but I think you get the point.

 c.    Go Wide/Go Tall. 

I don’t think I need to go too deep into this. Buckwild, Wild Ride, Jaws of Defeat, Song of Sinew and Rip Off the Top take your turn from a mere 7 damage to 10, 11, and 14 damage turns.

d.      Defensive Cards. 

Tuffnut is a very resilient deck. It has a high density of 3-blocks. It also has access to some amazing defensive tools. No Hero Stands Alone comes in against most aggro decks and Warriors (and by Warrior I mean Marionette). If you had a Toughness token, this card can present at minimum 6 value defensively while also giving you insight into your top card. Obviously, this shouldn’t come in against heroes like Victor, but against Marionette, it might as well be a defensive Tarantula Toxin.

 Battlefront Bastion is also a great defensive tool against low to the ground aggro decks and decks that care about flick damage. This card was always good but the card is even more powerful in Tuffnut. You have one Toughness token? This is a 4-block. You have two Toughness tokens? Sorry, Cindra, looks like your flick won’t go through.

 Thick Hide Hunter is the final defensive card worth mentioning. Thick Hide Hunter is a 6-block 6 power attack with the Brute downside - you need to discard a card on attack or defense. However, in Tuffnut this is actually a boon. Against aggro decks, this can be the last block to stop a combo ender (think Ninjas). Against Victor, or decks that like to leverage Overpower or Dominate, this card blocks 6 and potentially lets you clear your hand to throw Rok the next turn.

 e.     Blue 6s. 

I don’t think I need to say too much here. So I will drop this meme instead.

 As an aside, you read correctly when I said you have twelve blue 6s. While Tough as a Rok is technically a blue 6, in many match ups you won’t ever be lower in life than your opponent. Which means that 90 percent of the time, it is a 3 cost 0 attack blue that will make you lose your clashes.

 f.      Honorable Mentions. 

Here are a few other cards I wanted to mention:

 Predatory Plating: This is a tech piece against DIO. The thought process behind this matchup is that you shouldn’t expect to go more than six turns against a DIO. Therefore, you will probably get more value out of a 2-block and 1 resource than the 1 to 2 resources you might receive from your Tunic. Anecdotally, bringing Predatory Plating in round four against Anthony Camacho on DIO was my undoing. Due to some bad hands on Anthony’s part, the game went way past 6 turns. I was able to take tempo with both me and Anthony at the low single digits. However, a blind Tuffnut activation and no Tunic counter gave Anthony the breathing room to wreck my world. On that note, I’ve never won a game against Anthony Camacho. I’ll beat him one day *shakes fist.

 Unexpected Backhand: This card is probably my favorite Brute card printed in a long time. When this card was spoiled in Super Slam, I tried to build a Kayo Clash list with rainbow Unexpected Backhands. Since that time, I’ve notched multiple wins against opponents winning a Clash with Unexpected Backhand. My latest victim was a local Fai (sorry, Bryce) who dropped to one life and would have won that turn if it wasn’t for the Backhand (he was presenting close to 24 damage that turn and I was at 11). Reckless Swing range? More like Unexpected Backhand range. I also have a running theory that on make or break turns, if you have a Clash card in hand you might as well activate Tuffnut before starting the Clash. For the mems.

4. Tuffnut 2.0.

Since the April AGE Los Angeles Open, I have made some additional tweaks to the deck.

1. Bear Hug: I have been testing Bear Hug as a “safety net” card. At worst it’s a block 3 yellow 6 attack. At best, it can help you maintain tempo, no matter how crafty your opponent gets.

2. Energetic Impact: This card has been coming in and out. It’s great in that it can give you a Vigor token. The downside is that it’s a useless blue card that isn’t a 6 attack against aggro decks (our worst matchup).

3. Emboldened by the Crowd: This card can be useful against Mario. It’s a reaction, I don’t think I need to say more. However, where the card really shines is against decks like Victor, Teklovossen and Marlynn. Attacks with Overpower and Dominate are your greatest enemies because they leak a ton of damage and leave you with useless cards in hand, stopping you from throwing Rok. Emboldened by the Crowd will let you clear your hand and mitigate more damage than a measly 3-block.

4. Skera Strapping and Skullhorn: During AGE, I only brought Arcane Barrier 1 (Nullrune Hood). This was mostly to target Vynnset. However, Vynnset seems to have lost meta share while Oscillio has moved towards a more arcane heavy build. I’ve been testing Skullhorn and Skera Strapping to try and account for this. Skera Strapping might ultimately drop since Gauntlets are so integral to your gameplay.

 Here are a few other cards that are worth considering.

1. Crown of Providence/Helm of Safe Haven: Fleshbag is mid against Gravy, Victor and other go-tall decks. Crown of Providence or Helm of Safe Haven might be the answer. Remember, Overpower will prevent you from fully utilizing Helm’s ability.

2. Comeback Kicks: I tried to use this as a Beaten Trackers alternative against the aggro matchup. The condition that you have less life than your opponent might make this card unplayable but requires more testing.

3. Call for Backup: Anti-fatigue and lets you put a blue back on top of your deck. It probably won’t make the cut as it is a red card.

4. Captain of the Guard: This has been a pet card ever since it was released during the Cindra meta and might be brought in to combat Fais and Katsus. It does lose some points in being a 5 power.

5.     I didn't choose the Tuff life. The Tuff life chose me.

No matter how much I love our Hulkster, I do need to acknowledge that Tuffnut won't be a top meta pick, at least for a while. However, Tuffnut has proven himself to be a solid B-tier deck with play into certain metas. Not only that, Tuffnut is just fun to play. And isn't that what we are here for?

Big shout out to BoostingSpendog, the tuffest of nuts. Check out his YouTube page for the cutting edge of Tuffnut tech.

Also another shout out to the apes in the Brute Discord channels. I apologize in advance for not sourcing the Brute memes I found. These have been sitting in my personal folder for some time, and I struggled to find the source in time. @ me if you know original creators of the first, third and fourth images.