Stuffy Doll - strength and weakness

Yesterday we talked a bit about an eternity loop with Stuffy Doll. Today I thought I'd share some more combos and discuss the cards strength and weaknesses given the rule changes that has come out since the card was released.

This is what the card say:

"As Stuffy Doll enters the battlefield, choose a player.

Stuffy Doll is indestructible.

Whenever Stuffy Doll is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to the chosen player.

: Stuffy Doll deals 1 damage to itself."

 

This means that when you play the card from anywhere (not only your hand), you  get to chose a player (preferably your strongest opponent) and all damage taken by stuffy doll will be removed (in most cases), then Stuffy Doll does that much damage to the chosen player.

However, if the damage was done by a creature with Infect, Stuffy Doll gets -1/-1 counters. It will still deal its damage, but it will die at the end of that combat.

How can we use this to our advantage? Let's say you're playing a black and white deck with Pariah's Shield and Phyresis. You can equip Pariah's Sheild on Stuffy Doll and enchant it with Phyresis and all damage the other player would do to you will be tossed back to him in the form of poison counters instead.

Another powerful combo is Stuffy Doll, Pariah's Shield and Armadillo Cloak to not only throw back the damage, but also gain the damage the opponent would do in life.

Stuffy Doll is weak against infect thou, and with the Pariah or Pariah's Shield combos it will die due to the -1/-1 counters. That's where its tap ability comes in handy.

Skip Pariah and instead enchant it with Guilty Conscience to make a damage loop. Unless your opponent can destroy Guilty Conscience, divert the damage (wich isn't Combat Damage) or in some way get rid of, or tap Stuffy Doll, he will take infinity damage and die if you use Stuffy Dolls tap ability.

 

However, don't rely too much on this, as it will take time to get these combos going. First, you need the mana for all cards, then you need to have the cards in your hand.  In games with more than 2 players it's also an inferior tactic, because Stuffy Doll would be virtually useless once its targeted opponent is dead. There are ways around this, like the blue card Boomerang that lets you pick cards back up, however to rely on it is futile. You would need enough boomerangs to pick all cards in the combo up and you need them in your hand when your primary target is dead.

Another drawback to this tactic is that you would use so much of your deck dedicated to Stuffy Doll that you won't have any defense or offense to speak of.