[Primer] Nic Fit

[Purple Blood]

Made a Jund SE list taking the Imperial Recruiter idea.

Land 23
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Phyrexian Tower

Creatures 18
1 Endless One
1 Walking Ballista
1 Hangarback Walker
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Dragonmaster Outcast
4 Dark Confidant
2 Imperial Recruiter
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Deranged Hermit

Spells 19
2 Punishing Fire
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Crop Rotation
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Mirri's Guile

Thoughts from the Jund players?

Interesting idea. Bringing up Recruiter had me thinking of other tutor effects. Has anyone tested Burning Wish? There's obviously Scapeshift but you have other nice targets like Innocent Blood, Thoughtseize, Lost Legacy/Slaughter Games, Deluge, Pyroclasm/Fiery Confluence, Massacre, Maelstrom Pulse, etc.

Are there enough slots if you build SE style but then mash in a Wish board? I kind of like the idea of being able to pivot from overwhelming them with multiple plays a turn to comboing out or grabbing the perfect card for the situation.

[Brael]

Burning Wish has been played in Jund before, but the builds look a little different. They're less creature focused.

[fireiced]

Creatures 16
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Fierce Empath
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Courser of Khrupix
1 Thragtusk
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Inferno Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sorcery 11
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Night's Whispers

Instant 5
2 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command

Enchantment 6
2 Pernicious Deed
4 Sneak Attack

Planeswalker 1
1 Nissa Vital Force

Lands 21
2 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard::
2 Blood Moon
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Engineered Plague
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Slaughter Games
2 Pyroblast
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Kolaghan's Command


The more I play Sneak Fit post Top ban, the more I love Night's Whispers. Fills up the empty T2s with a decent CA spell when I keep a okish hand. Its 2 cmc also helps a lot of double spelling turns while pulls me very ahead in tempo or at least reach tempo parity against the more aggressive decks. I have also added 1 Courser for the life gain to cover some life loss from running 3 Night's Whispers. Have cut off Diabolic Intent for the 3rd Night's Whispers as most of the time it is just there rotting in my hand. Might want to bring it back by shaving the 4th Sneak Attack.

As for sideboard, the Carpets are amazing against control. Hard casting Emmy always feels great :cool:
Blood Moons are dropping in usefulness as players are playing more basics and the BUG menace seems to be subsiding.
Engineered Plague has singlehandedly won for me against tribal decks and D&T. Elf felt so much easier with EP around and buys a lot of time to engage the Sneak into Emmy combo to seal the deal.

[Echelon]

Interesting idea. Bringing up Recruiter had me thinking of other tutor effects. Has anyone tested Burning Wish? There's obviously Scapeshift but you have other nice targets like Innocent Blood, Thoughtseize, Lost Legacy/Slaughter Games, Deluge, Pyroclasm/Fiery Confluence, Massacre, Maelstrom Pulse, etc.

Are there enough slots if you build SE style but then mash in a Wish board? I kind of like the idea of being able to pivot from overwhelming them with multiple plays a turn to comboing out or grabbing the perfect card for the situation.

Well, kinda depends what you're aiming to get with it. If the plan is to Wish for a certain category of card 9 out of 10 times, you might just want to run a card from that specific category instead. Would be awesome if you could come up with some kind of combo kill that'd fit right in your regular shell though.

[Brael]

Interesting idea. Bringing up Recruiter had me thinking of other tutor effects. Has anyone tested Burning Wish? There's obviously Scapeshift but you have other nice targets like Innocent Blood, Thoughtseize, Lost Legacy/Slaughter Games, Deluge, Pyroclasm/Fiery Confluence, Massacre, Maelstrom Pulse, etc.

Are there enough slots if you build SE style but then mash in a Wish board? I kind of like the idea of being able to pivot from overwhelming them with multiple plays a turn to comboing out or grabbing the perfect card for the situation.

Been thinking about it more and I think BUG using Trinket Mage is a better option. There's a lot of overlap in the cards you want to tutor, but blue offers some better options than red. I'll think on this tonight and see if I can come up with anything I like.

[pettdan]

Bringing up Recruiter had me thinking of other tutor effects. Has anyone tested Burning Wish? There's obviously Scapeshift but you have other nice targets like Innocent Blood, Thoughtseize, Lost Legacy/Slaughter Games, Deluge, Pyroclasm/Fiery Confluence, Massacre, Maelstrom Pulse, etc.

I played Burning Wish for value/flexibility (as opposed to combo) about two years ago. I'll link two posts on the topic, it would probably be impossible to find using the search function.. Perhaps it will give some inspiration. It was quite a different meta though. I think I stopped playing Punishing Fire decks, and with them the wishes, because they were so extremely grindy and games would always go to time.

The first post contains a general motivation of why you may want to play a Wish-board:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28548-Primer-Deck-Nic-Fit&p=885999&viewfull=1#post885999

The second post contains the list I was playing and experimenting with:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28548-Primer-Deck-Nic-Fit&p=886121&viewfull=1#post886121

[Leshrac82]

I played some more on xmage with my NicFit-Cloudpost hybrid (see last page), only change i made: The Obstinate Baloths in the board were decent against Liliana, but otherwise pretty useless - including Burn (too slow, i really don't want to die with a sideboard card in hand in half of the games). Instead i'm now playing two Nissa, Vital Force. Good card in NicFit, should be decent against grindy decks - including decks with Liliana, but not limited to that. So far i have been pretty happy with her (but this is probably the most flexible spot right now). No changes to the maindeck - tried out the new Ramunap Excavator instead of the 4th Tracker for 10 matches and every single time i drew it i wished it was a Tracker, and i never wanted to search for it. Might still try it again later, but there is just nothing to cut and i think it's not really needed (it would probably be really good against Lands, but Lands is one of my best matchups, i don't need any help there). Thought about Sylvan Safekeeper some more, but didn't try it for a similar reason: I don't think i have any problems winning the games where it could be useful.

Overall, my results are still great, 104-33 now, so still around 75% winrate. Not everything against Tier 1 or 2 decks, there were some brews, but i think pretty much everything i faced was at least reasonable competitive, and i actually lost more against Tier 3-4 decks than against Tier 1-2 decks.

Results against most decks (alphabetical order, i left out some very unreasonable stuff):
12-Post (G): 0-1
12-Post (UG): 1-0
12-Post (RUG): 0-1
Affinity: 0-1
Aggro Loam: 3-0
Aluren: 1-0
Belcher: 1-1
BUG: 1-0
Burn: 3-1
Deadguy Ale: 2-1
Death&Taxes: 3-1
Delver (BUG): 1-1
Delver (Grixis): 3-1
Delver (RUG): 2-2
Delver (UR): 2-0
Delver (UWR): 1-0
Dragon-Stompy: 4-0
Dredge (LED): 2-2
Dredge (Manaless): 2-0
Eldrazi: 1-1
Elves: 3-3
Enchantress: 1-0
Goblins: 2-1
Grixis Control: 1-2
Infect: 2-0
Jund: 0-2
Lands: 5-0
Leylines: 3-0
Maverick: 3-0
Mentor (Jeskai): 1-0
Mentor (Mardu): 2-3
Miracles: 1-0
Mono-Red Sneakattack: 2-1
MUD: 1-0
NicFit (Jund): 1-0
OopsAllSpells: 1-0
Parfait (Mono-W Control): 1-0
Painter (UW): 0-1
Pox: 8-2
Reanimator (BG): 1-0
Reanimator (BR): 4-0
RUG: 1-0
Show&Tell (Eureka): 1-0
Show&Tell (Hypergenesis): 2-0
Show&Tell (Omnisneak): 1-0
Soldier Stompy: 1-0
Stoneblade (4-Color): 3-1
Stoneblade (Esper): 1-0
Stoneblade (UW): 1-0
Storm (ANT): 5-1
Storm (TES): 2-0
Tezzeret: 0-1
Turbo-Planeswalkers: 2-0
UB-Landstill: 1-0
Waterfalls (BURG-Cascade): 1-0
Zombies: 1-0

The only decks with 3 lost matches so far were Elves and a Mardu-Mentor brew, both decks going wide, and i'm 1-2 against Grixis Control with Pyromancer, also going wide. There is a reasonable chance i want more sweepers against these decks, or better a permanent solution, because these decks can rebuild very fast after a sweeper and that's often how i lose these games. Liliana, the Last Hope looks interesting, but i really don't think my deck can support the BB mana cost. Engineered Plague could be playable. For additional sweepers, i could maybe get away with a 3rd Toxic Deluge, i could play Golgari Charm and even though i think it's not great with Mox Diamond, Pernicious Deed is an option, maybe even the best option since it would help to deal with non-creature permanents. The more i look at the results, the more i think Pernicious Deed might really be what i want - in the sideboard for now, i really don't like to kill my Mox Diamonds with it.

[Purple Blood]

I played Burning Wish for value/flexibility (as opposed to combo) about two years ago. I'll link two posts on the topic, it would probably be impossible to find using the search function.. Perhaps it will give some inspiration. It was quite a different meta though. I think I stopped playing Punishing Fire decks, and with them the wishes, because they were so extremely grindy and games would always go to time.

The first post contains a general motivation of why you may want to play a Wish-board:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28548-Primer-Deck-Nic-Fit&p=885999&viewfull=1#post885999

The second post contains the list I was playing and experimenting with:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28548-Primer-Deck-Nic-Fit&p=886121&viewfull=1#post886121

Thanks for those links. Interesting stuff to think about.

[Purple Blood]

Well, kinda depends what you're aiming to get with it. If the plan is to Wish for a certain category of card 9 out of 10 times, you might just want to run a card from that specific category instead. Would be awesome if you could come up with some kind of combo kill that'd fit right in your regular shell though.

My idea would be to use Wish as a catch all / versatile answer that doubles as a win con if the coast is clear. I suppose it comes down to, as you eluded to, whether the added versatility is worth the extra 1R you are essentially adding to the mana cost. You'd have to really have a solid list together and weigh out how many cards you'd be moving to the Wish board and what those cards would be replaced with other than Wish to begin to answer that though.

[Echelon]

Stuff

I may be nitpicking here, but if a 4 mana card is too slow to be reliably used as a SB card, why would you replace it with 2 5(!) mana cards..? Seems very counterproductive.

[Leshrac82]

I may be nitpicking here, but if a 4 mana card is too slow to be reliably used as a SB card, why would you replace it with 2 5(!) mana cards..? Seems very counterproductive.

The idea behind Baloth was to have a Sideboard card against discard heavy decks with Liliana and have an additional splash use against Burn. It turned out, the splash use against Burn didn't exist because it was too slow, so it turned into a sideboard card that was only relevant against Liliana decks. So instead i play Nissa to have a different card that's useful against Liliana decks and also useful against other slow decks (like UWx decks), but unfortunately useless against Burn.

I don't have enough data yet to know if i need something against Burn in that slot instead, but probably not - i can disrupt them with discard and race them with Marit Lage, if i want lifegain i have Courser and Scooze. Technically, i don't have enough data to know if i want these slots against slower decks at all, so maybe i end up with something completely different. (Yesterday i tried it with just 1 Nissa and only 1 Explosives and 2 Pernicious Deed instead. In 11 matches Deed was relevant exactly once, but in that spot won me the game.)

[Navsi]

If you want to improve your burn matchup, Collective Brutality.

[Leshrac82]

If you want to improve your burn matchup, Collective Brutality.

Already 3 in the sideboard, i like that card a lot. That's one reason why i don't think i really need more for that.
(So far i'm 3-1 against Burn with this build, 7-4 in games. So it's probably fine.)

[Navsi]

Already 3 in the sideboard, i like that card a lot. That's one reason why i don't think i really need more for that.
(So far i'm 3-1 against Burn with this build, 7-4 in games. So it's probably fine.)

Move it to the maindeck. Why play a card that's good against basically every matchup in the side? You'll just board it in every game anyway.

[Gruby]

Hi. Long time no see with Magic. I'm planning to go at least play some legacy and I need some advice. Which nicfit would be better in meta filled with delvers? abzan-fit or punishing-jund-fit?
There are also DnT, some storm decks and rarely lands/reanimator

[Leshrac82]

Move it to the maindeck. Why play a card that's good against basically every matchup in the side? You'll just board it in every game anyway.

But what should i cut from the maindeck? Going with that logic, i shouldn't cut cards that are good against everything and rather cut cards i board out a lot - but those are cards with a very high impact in certain matchups: Gaddock Teeg, Bojuka Bog - there is no way i'm cutting either of these cards, they turn some otherwise very unfavorable preboard matchups into even and sometimes favorable preboard matchups. I also board out either Dark Depths or the Eldrazi package in many matchups, but in the matchups i don't board it out it's very important to have access to it. The next card i board out a lot is Cabal Therapy, but that's probably needed for the NicFit engine (not enough experience with NicFit in general, so maybe boarding it out is wrong, but so far i think it has worked out fine to cut it against all the slow and grindy decks).

In the past i played less than 4 Crop Rotations for more interaction in the maindeck, and i had Brutality maindeck for a while, but i've come the conclusion Crop Rotation is just too important and too good in this deck to play less than 4. I also played less than 4 Tireless Trackers, but the card is just really strong in almost every matchup and my results with more Trackers have always been better.

I think Brutality as a sideboard card is fine, even though i bring it in in almost every game. It's never the best card in any matchup, it just replaces the cards that are worse in the particular matchup. Most of my sideboard cards could be played in the maindeck, i just prefer to have the narrow high impact silver bullets maindeck instead and to board them out when i don't need them.

[Brael]

But what should i cut from the maindeck? Going with that logic, i shouldn't cut cards that are good against everything and rather cut cards i board out a lot - but those are cards with a very high impact in certain matchups: Gaddock Teeg, Bojuka Bog - there is no way i'm cutting either of these cards, they turn some otherwise very unfavorable preboard matchups into even and sometimes favorable preboard matchups. I also board out either Dark Depths or the Eldrazi package in many matchups, but in the matchups i don't board it out it's very important to have access to it. The next card i board out a lot is Cabal Therapy, but that's probably needed for the NicFit engine (not enough experience with NicFit in general, so maybe boarding it out is wrong, but so far i think it has worked out fine to cut it against all the slow and grindy decks).

In the past i played less than 4 Crop Rotations for more interaction in the maindeck, and i had Brutality maindeck for a while, but i've come the conclusion Crop Rotation is just too important and too good in this deck to play less than 4. I also played less than 4 Tireless Trackers, but the card is just really strong in almost every matchup and my results with more Trackers have always been better.

I think Brutality as a sideboard card is fine, even though i bring it in in almost every game. It's never the best card in any matchup, it just replaces the cards that are worse in the particular matchup. Most of my sideboard cards could be played in the maindeck, i just prefer to have the narrow high impact silver bullets maindeck instead and to board them out when i don't need them.

I've struggled with that question when it comes to Brutality too, it's sort of occupying the same space as Rotation as a versatile card. You could try a 2-2 or 3/1 split of Crop Rotation/Collective Brutality.

I plan to try and incorporate Brutality in my GB build. I've identified a slot for a single copy right now, but I wouldn't mind making it two copies. It's possible I could do so as a 61st card, but right now I'm at 60 which is where I would rather be. I'm considering it over my Maze of Ith.

This is what I'm considering with Brutality added to my deck, it brings it back up to 61:

Land 24
3 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
5 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dryad Arbor

Creature 18
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Spells 19
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Collective Brutality
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Nissa, Vital Force

Sideboard 15
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Crop Rotation
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Golgari Charm
4 Lost Legacy
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Treetop Village
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Open

Of course, this wrecks my plan to include 1 Mirri's Guile MB. I do feel like this is homing in on the post SDT list that I want to be on though.

[Leshrac82]

I've struggled with that question when it comes to Brutality too, it's sort of occupying the same space as Rotation as a versatile card. You could try a 2-2 or 3/1 split of Crop Rotation/Collective Brutality.

I plan to try and incorporate Brutality in my GB build. I've identified a slot for a single copy right now, but I wouldn't mind making it two copies. It's possible I could do so as a 61st card, but right now I'm at 60 which is where I would rather be. I'm considering it over my Maze of Ith.

Your build has some similiraties to mine, mostly the focus on Tracker and the Crop Rotations. Now consider: I have the Dark Depths combo as additional Crop Rotation targets and in many games just getting Cloudposts or Eye of Ugin is the way to win the game - and i play Titania, that can turn a Crop Rotation into two 5/3 creatures. I think that makes Crop Rotation even better in my build. And that's why i'm currently thinking just playing the full 4 is better than a split. I played the split before, but i'm thinking in the current metagame this is just the better option. (Against old Miracles Crop Rotation was awful because of CounterTop, that was the primary reason to play less than the full set for me. If Chalice decks get much more popular, i might go back to less than 4 Crop Rotations.)

I played Maze of Ith in earlier builds. I cut it eventually because i realized i almost never searched for it - it was often ok when i had it, but not more. Since you don't have Mox Diamonds to discard it if you don't want it, it's probably even worse for you. So it's probably safe to cut it.

[Brael]

Your build has some similiraties to mine, mostly the focus on Tracker and the Crop Rotations. Now consider: I have the Dark Depths combo as additional Crop Rotation targets and in many games just getting Cloudposts or Eye of Ugin is the way to win the game - and i play Titania, that can turn a Crop Rotation into two 5/3 creatures. I think that makes Crop Rotation even better in my build. And that's why i'm currently thinking just playing the full 4 is better than a split. I played the split before, but i'm thinking in the current metagame this is just the better option. (Against old Miracles Crop Rotation was awful because of CounterTop, that was the primary reason to play less than the full set for me. If Chalice decks get much more popular, i might go back to less than 4 Crop Rotations.)

I played Maze of Ith in earlier builds. I cut it eventually because i realized i almost never searched for it - it was often ok when i had it, but not more. Since you don't have Mox Diamonds to discard it if you don't want it, it's probably even worse for you. So it's probably safe to cut it.

I tried the Dark Depths combo but it just wasn't strong enough, that combo is what lead me to trying Crop Rotation in the first place. Ultimately, the combo wasn't good enough but Crop Rotation quickly proved itself to be a keeper. I've never gone beyond 2. I could probably fit a third if I were willing to cut one Phyrexian Tower for a copy but 2 has just felt right. I think over extending into Crop Rotation into a format of Force of Will is a bit risky, two has been the perfect balance.

Titania is good, but a bit too slow I feel. I've tried it but just wasn't a fan. 5 CMC really needs to be something special in my opinion, and if you include a GSZ and a Crop Rotation you're up to needing 7 mana. I think that's too much to dump into a card that doesn't have an immediate impact. Granted, the board presence does make a big difference on the following turn but I just want something faster. I think Nissa does a better job of offering speed. Also there's something special about 5 CMC: It's the highest mana opening you can have. So I like to look at powerful 4 drops I can GSZ or 5 drops I can't for those high impact T2's. Titania is one mana too expensive for that with a GSZ.

[Leshrac82]

I tried the Dark Depths combo but it just wasn't strong enough, that combo is what lead me to trying Crop Rotation in the first place. Ultimately, the combo wasn't good enough but Crop Rotation quickly proved itself to be a keeper. I've never gone beyond 2. I could probably fit a third if I were willing to cut one Phyrexian Tower for a copy but 2 has just felt right. I think over extending into Crop Rotation into a format of Force of Will is a bit risky, two has been the perfect balance.

Titania is good, but a bit too slow I feel. I've tried it but just wasn't a fan. 5 CMC really needs to be something special in my opinion, and if you include a GSZ and a Crop Rotation you're up to needing 7 mana. I think that's too much to dump into a card that doesn't have an immediate impact. Granted, the board presence does make a big difference on the following turn but I just want something faster. I think Nissa does a better job of offering speed. Also there's something special about 5 CMC: It's the highest mana opening you can have. So I like to look at powerful 4 drops I can GSZ or 5 drops I can't for those high impact T2's. Titania is one mana too expensive for that with a GSZ.

Advantage for me with the Dark Depths combo: Stage can just copy a Cloudpost - i'm not playing any Vesuvas in this list in comparison to other 12post lists, this helps to get enough Posts if i need them.
Otherwise, i was always very happy with the combo - when i started the deck i didn't play it and a few months ago i tried a build without it, and both builds were considerably worse than any other build i tried so far. I'm winning many games with the combo - at some point i counted for a while, and it was like that: 25% of my wins were with Marit Lage, 30% with Eldrazi, 45% with the midrange plan. Now i'm even playing a 2nd Stage, i think this pushes that percentage even more.
Also to consider: I'm playing Mox Diamond. That makes a Turn 3 Marit Lage for a Turn 4 kill much more likely, and on the other hand i can discard the Depths if i don't want it.
I think playing the combo gives me the edge against many combo decks: I can disrupt them a little bit, but often not long enough to win with just a midrange plan or Eldrazi, but it buys the 1-2 turns my combo is slower than their combo. And occasionally the combo is even fast enough without any disruption - Turn 3 kills are possible, just rare (in theory a Turn 2 kill is possible, but that needs a perfect hand: Tower, Mox, 2x Crop Rotation, Explorer, any Land makes a Turn 1 Marit Lage).
Afaik you are struggling against Elves, i usually beat them with Marit Lage (it's the worst matchup for a grindy plan, either Emrakul or Marit Lage works with some disruption to buy the time, and Marit Lage is usually faster).

Crop Rotation against FoW: Against FoW decks i don't just go for it with Crop Rotation. It's Wasteland protection first, i go for it proactively only when either: 1. I'm sure it resolves. 2. I don't care that much if it doesn't resolve. 3. I have to because if it doesn't resolve i'm dead.
Most of the time i draw out their FoWs with my other stuff - it that resolves it's also fine, almost all my threats win the game if they don't deal with them.

I don't go for Titania as fast as possible in most cases - my primary payoff with GSZ is Primeval Titan. Titania has two roles in this deck: 1. It can get a land back - i don't play Witness (no room, i tried it and it's fine but not good enough in comparison to other options) and sometimes i have to get back a Cloudpost, Eye of Ugin or part of the Depths combo. Or just any land to ramp. (Most of the time i have to get back Eye of Ugin, because i often discard that Turn 1 to a Mox.) 2. It's a backup win condition to go wide. My deck isn't expected to go wide, i have Marit Lage or Eldrazi as big payoffs, this is another and often unexpected angle. Having the option to go wide can beat cards like Liliana, and Liliana can be a really big problem for my deck.
Nissa could be a replacement, but i use GSZ to get Titania a lot. And Nissa can not beat a strong board presence against an aggro deck like Titania can. I'm probably facing that problem more often than you because of my overall higher curve.

[Echelon]

Hi. Long time no see with Magic. I'm planning to go at least play some legacy and I need some advice. Which nicfit would be better in meta filled with delvers? abzan-fit or punishing-jund-fit?
There are also DnT, some storm decks and rarely lands/reanimator

Delver equals Abzan. PtE is a damn good card, they don't like to handle Siege Rhinos (even if it's just the lifeswing from the EtB trigger) and they fold to Sigarda. W/ a full set of Wasteland, they're well equiped to deal w/ Grove of the Burnwillows.

@Leshrac82: I've gone through your list of wins/defeats, but looking at that you seem to do just fine vs. decks that would run Liliana (or a lot of discard). Why would you want SB answers for specifically that when you seem to have more trouble w/ RUG Delver/LED Dredge/Grixis Control..? Seems like a total waste of space.

As for Titania - Lightning Bolt is still a card, people. Having your big 5/6 mana play answered by a 1 mana card is not where you want to be. If it's going to cost 5 mana, better make sure you can ride it to victory. Just run Verdurous Gearhulk instead - a 5 mana, 8/8 trample will get you there, quick.

[Leshrac82]

@Leshrac82: I've gone through your list of wins/defeats, but looking at that you seem to do just fine vs. decks that would run Liliana (or a lot of discard). Why would you want SB answers for specifically that when you seem to have more trouble w/ RUG Delver/LED Dredge/Grixis Control..? Seems like a total waste of space.

As for Titania - Lightning Bolt is still a card, people. Having your big 5/6 mana play answered by a 1 mana card is not where you want to be. If it's going to cost 5 mana, better make sure you can ride it to victory. Just run Verdurous Gearhulk instead - a 5 mana, 8/8 trample will get you there, quick.

At the point is was changing the sideboard to include cards against Liliana, i was 2-7 against decks with Liliana and 32-6 against decks without Liliana.
And that included one game against Jund where i kept 7, he mulliganed to 3 and he completely destroyed me. With Lingering Souls and Baloth/Nissa, things got better. Maybe i was overreacting, some of those losses could have other reasons, but i had problems against Liliana with my older lists too. I know last year i was barely at 50% winrate against Shardless BUG. And Aggro-Loam was almost unwinnable, i don't really know how i got to 3-0 it with this build, maybe the samplesize is too small. I will definitely keep the Lingering Souls, since they did good work in many other matchups too, including Delver. Nissa is debatable, if i can think of something more important she is probably gone.

RUG Delver is probably ok - it will never be a great matchup, with a Cloudpost deck i can't expect to be a huge favourite against any Delver deck, but i think it's better than BUG Delver and it's probably slightly favorable. LED Dredge should be a very good matchup, probably just a matter of samplesize. I don't worry that much about it, i played a lot against Manaless Dredge with older builds and i'm sure it's 90%+ for me, i don't think LED Dredge is that much worse. Grixis Control could be a problem. I haven't played enough against it, but i lost another match yesterday - i need to make myself familiar with their typical decklists and stop treating it like Grixis Delver (doing that cost me a game yesterday, playing around Wasteland and not around Jace was just stupid). And if i keep losing i probably need to make some changes.

Titania is not really aimed at the decks playing Bolt, those are actually the only fair matchups where i board her out. Gearhulk has absolutely no synergy with my deck, i don't see where that would help any of my problems. If the metagame has too many Bolts i will probably replace Titania with something else, but not Gearhulk. So far i think the advantage to have Titania against fair decks without Bolt outweighs the disadvantage to have her against Bolts, but i could be wrong and i will keep an eye on that, probably make notes about what Titania does for a few days and then reevaluate.

[Echelon]

Gearhulk has absolutely no synergy with my deck, i don't see where that would help any of my problems. If the metagame has too many Bolts i will probably replace Titania with something else, but not Gearhulk. So far i think the advantage to have Titania against fair decks without Bolt outweighs the disadvantage to have her against Bolts, but i could be wrong and i will keep an eye on that, probably make notes about what Titania does for a few days and then reevaluate.

A few points:
- Why should "I win in 2/3 swings" need synergy with the rest of your deck? Sigarda does nothing for Junk Fit but kill the opponent without fail and that's considered perfectly fine.
- It would allow you to dump the Eldrazi/Cloudpost/Glimmerpost package, discounting your backup plan from 8 (Ulamog + a non-Wastelanded Eye) mana to 6 (if we assume we'll never, ever draw into it and will always need to GSZ for it)

Doing so would allow you to operate on less land and more Explorers, boosting speed & resilience to mana denial strategies (improving your RUG Delver MU in the process). You might have to run some Life From The Loam though, to offset opposing Wasteland now you're running less non-basics.

[genuine fugazi]

This is what I'm considering with Brutality added to my deck, it brings it back up to 61:
You have Bojuka Bog listed twice...

[Brael]

You have Bojuka Bog listed twice...

Whoops, it should be a third Bayou.

[studderingdave]

Having a modicum of success with my Punishing Jund built. I know Jund isn't in the vogue right now but I really like Punishing Fire and being able to play with laughable fatties decently makes me smile. I am currently playing with:


Creature (15)

1x Broodmate Dragon
2x Eternal Witness
1x Huntmaster of the Fells
1x Primeval Titan
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Thragtusk
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
4x Veteran Explorer

Instant (5)

2x Abrupt Decay
3x Punishing Fire

Land (24)

2x Badlands
2x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Forest
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Mountain
3x Swamp
1x Taiga
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (3)

3x Pernicious Deed

Sorcery (10)

4x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
4x Green Sun's Zenith

Planeswalker (3)

3x Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard (15)

1x Choke
1x Golgari Charm
1x Krosan Grip
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Slaughter Games
3x Surgical Extraction
3x Thoughtseize
1x Toxic Deluge

Pretty stock from the primer selection for the deck, I am not a great deckbuilder so I tend to tinker with known archtypes to find my grove. Titania and Ruric Thar are personal additions, and have served me well. I have never used SDT in Legacy so the sting of its loss does not apply to me, but I do feel like library manipulation is important.

[Echelon]

I have never used SDT in Legacy so the sting of its loss does not apply to me, but I do feel like library manipulation is important.

Well... Mirri's Guile is a (fine) card.

[Whitefaces]

Why SDT was so good in the deck was because it could hide from a Deed, I don't think Guile is a good idea in a list with three.

[Navsi]

I don't think Guile is worth it. If you want that sort of effect, run Sylvan Library - but personally, I've had plenty of success leaning on Trackers / Nissa / Stoneforge as my card advantage engines.

[square_two]

I finished a modo league run last night, it's been forever since I've done one.

Ran Nyx Fit with Curse of Death's Hold, Overwhelming Splendor, Starfield of Nyx (feel better calling it Nyx Fit when Starfield is in), and Dovescape. Also trying out 2 Vessel of Nascency but was not able to use them yet. List was otherwise pretty similar to my last posted list, heavy on removal, still including Dryad Arbor. Leylines/Lost Legacy/Deluge making up most of the sideboard. I'll try to do another run before posting a list, just to try to get a better impression of the new changes.

Beat 2 ANT lists and also some 4c list that scooped to hardcast Curse and then scooped again after a poor mulligan. Lost to TES and Lands. ANT seemed very easy, TES being faster was problematic (although we have so many ways to deal with goblins), Lands saw me having some poor hands. But small sample size as usual, so who knows.

Overwhelming Splendor so far seems pretty decent. Only downside to Humility is that exorbitant cost. Otherwise huge upside. It's a great first tutor target that slows the opponent down, protects yourself, and allows you to continue your gameplan. Shuts off utility lands, equipment, deathrite, random ability combos like Painter/Grindstone. Not impacting your own Rectors and E Witness is huuuuge.

I'm mainly curious about the Vessels and Starfield - haven't actually ran with Starfield again ever since trying out Cruel/Sandwurm from Amonkhet.

[Echelon]

Why SDT was so good in the deck was because it could hide from a Deed, I don't think Guile is a good idea in a list with three.

I don't think Guile is worth it. If you want that sort of effect, run Sylvan Library - but personally, I've had plenty of success leaning on Trackers / Nissa / Stoneforge as my card advantage engines.

Actually try instead of think. I'll see you both on the other side afterwards.

By the way, I've gone -1 Deed, +1 Toxic Deluge to accomodate the Guiles while maintaining the same number of sweepers. You can fibd my list a few pages back.

[square_two]

Actually try instead of think. I'll see you both on the other side afterwards.

Personally, this type of response makes me absolutely never want to try Mirri's Guile.

You're telling me that being 1 mana cheaper is such a completely and un-questionably obvious advantage compared against Library which can DRAW you cards when you are in a position to use them to pull ahead? I'm not convinced, and neither are others here.

Sure, I can see having Guile on turn 1 against combo is nice. But having that + relevant disruption in the top 3 + being in a situation in the first place where you -need- that opening is so very slim. It can't possibly outweigh other similarly statistical openers enough to make a difference. Surely t1 Thoughtseize -> Library is just as powerful? Or Library drawing you TWO necessary discard/disruption in a single turn to close the door? Because that's a possibility just the same as t1 Guile into ohmygod thank-goodness-that-saved-me.

Is it Leovold that worries you? Is he so predominant in your meta that you can't afford to have a blank Library? I regret even mentioning him and doing the helpful work of discussion on your part.

[Leshrac82]

A few points:
- Why should "I win in 2/3 swings" need synergy with the rest of your deck? Sigarda does nothing for Junk Fit but kill the opponent without fail and that's considered perfectly fine.
- It would allow you to dump the Eldrazi/Cloudpost/Glimmerpost package, discounting your backup plan from 8 (Ulamog + a non-Wastelanded Eye) mana to 6 (if we assume we'll never, ever draw into it and will always need to GSZ for it)

Doing so would allow you to operate on less land and more Explorers, boosting speed & resilience to mana denial strategies (improving your RUG Delver MU in the process). You might have to run some Life From The Loam though, to offset opposing Wasteland now you're running less non-basics.

You are underestimating the Cloudpost package. Removing that would turn the deck into something completely different, and in my opinion make it much weaker in the process. A 5 mana 8/8 trample is nice, but dies to Swords to Plowshares and a bunch of other stuff (Liliana for example) without doing anything, and in the spots were i go for Eldrazi it would usually not win the game. Ulamog is there to deal with problematic permanents and often good enough, but Emrakul is the end goal. Casting Emrakul wins the game on the spot 99/100 times, and i haven't lost a game yet where i had Emrakul + Karakas for infinite turns going. And it's not always just the backup plan, what's the backup plan and what's the primary plan changes from matchup to matchup (and sometimes game to game) between Marit Lage, Eldrazi and grindy midrange plan, in my opinion it makes the deck stronger and more unpredictable to have these different plans.

With the Eldrazi package i have the inevitability and win the lategame against every deck, removing it would probably improve the Delver matchup but make many other matchups much worse. And it's not like i'm losing to Delver decks all the time, i'm confident i'm slightly favored against most Delver decks and certainly never a huge underdog. Maybe even favored against RUG-Delver (now 3-2 in matches and 7-5 in games, and i lost 2 games because i punted).

Also, if i would remove the Eldrazi package and some lands, i wouldn't have enough lands to run Mox Diamond any more. Losing that would actually make the starts slower and less explosive, and in consequence make all the combo matchups worse, and probably Delver too. Even though the Eldrazi themselves are bad in those matchups, the end result could be a deck that's weaker even in some of those matchups. I don't see a reason to try radical changes like that, the deck is doing fine - it might need some minor tweaking, but nothing so extreme.

[Navsi]

Actually try instead of think. I'll see you both on the other side afterwards.

By the way, I've gone -1 Deed, +1 Toxic Deluge to accomodate the Guiles while maintaining the same number of sweepers. You can fibd my list a few pages back.

I'm not playing Dark Confidants, so I can't offset the card disadvantage as easily as your builds can. I'm more interested in making all my cards relevant individually (with immediate value or resiliency) rather than hoping to overwhelm the opponent with sheer volume of small threats that accrue incremental value. Obviously some cards overlap between the two (Tireless Tracker, say) but I'd much rather run Stoneforge Mystic or Baleful Strix than Dark Confidant, personally. The best-case scenario for you is really good (you get to run high-impact card disadvantage effects like crop rotation which aren't resilient enough for me) but I'm not willing to sacrifice that resiliency and consistency for the sake of the possibility to run away with a game or two if my opponent bricks on removal - if they can't deal with a two-drop, Stoneforge probably ends the game almost as effectively as Bob does.

[Whitefaces]

Actually try instead of think. I'll see you both on the other side afterwards.

What a shitty response.

Guile is a very simple and proactive card, meaning theory will go a long way with it as opposed to, say, choosing a removal suite based on the metagame. I've played Nic Fit for a very long time, but obviously never with Guile while SDT was around. But looking at his list (note, not yours), with three Pernicious Deeds, it wouldn't be a good inclusion.

[Echelon]

Personally, this type of response makes me absolutely never want to try Mirri's Guile.

You're telling me that being 1 mana cheaper is such a completely and un-questionably obvious advantage compared against Library which can DRAW you cards when you are in a position to use them to pull ahead? I'm not convinced, and neither are others here.

Sure, I can see having Guile on turn 1 against combo is nice. But having that + relevant disruption in the top 3 + being in a situation in the first place where you -need- that opening is so very slim. It can't possibly outweigh other similarly statistical openers enough to make a difference. Surely t1 Thoughtseize -> Library is just as powerful? Or Library drawing you TWO necessary discard/disruption in a single turn to close the door? Because that's a possibility just the same as t1 Guile into ohmygod thank-goodness-that-saved-me.

Is it Leovold that worries you? Is he so predominant in your meta that you can't afford to have a blank Library? I regret even mentioning him and doing the helpful work of discussion on your part.

Then don't. Your loss, lol. All the theorycrafting in the world then won't convince you and I don't care.

As for Library/Leovold, who said anything about not running Library and who gives a damn about the interaction w/ Leovold? Seriously, it's so fringe, why the hell would I bring it up as a valid reason to pick Guile over Library?


What a shitty response.

Guile is a very simple and proactive card, meaning theory will go a long way with it as opposed to, say, choosing a removal suite based on the metagame. I've played Nic Fit for a very long time, but obviously never with Guile while SDT was around. But looking at his list (note, not yours), with three Pernicious Deeds, it wouldn't be a good inclusion.

Yes, saying "Actually try something before dismissing it b/c I tried it and loved it" is the shittiest thing ever. I'm a monster. Sheesh.

As for the list - his 3 Deeds can also turn into 2 Deeds + Deluge when tweaking it.


I'm not playing Dark Confidants, so I can't offset the card disadvantage as easily as your builds can. I'm more interested in making all my cards relevant individually (with immediate value or resiliency) rather than hoping to overwhelm the opponent with sheer volume of small threats that accrue incremental value. Obviously some cards overlap between the two (Tireless Tracker, say) but I'd much rather run Stoneforge Mystic or Baleful Strix than Dark Confidant, personally. The best-case scenario for you is really good (you get to run high-impact card disadvantage effects like crop rotation which aren't resilient enough for me) but I'm not willing to sacrifice that resiliency and consistency for the sake of the possibility to run away with a game or two if my opponent bricks on removal - if they can't deal with a two-drop, Stoneforge probably ends the game almost as effectively as Bob does.

I don't run Confidants and Crop Rotations... That's Brael. I run shitty Confidants (Courser/Vizier) and a lot of shuffle effects. Runs like a dream.

[Whitefaces]

Ah yeah, now I remember why I don't come in this thread anymore.

[joXerus]

Thanks Echelon and Brael for your advice.

I tried to trim my mana costs and change some cards. At this moment my decklist looks like this:

18 Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

6 Instants
4 Path to Exile
1 Crop Rotation
1 Abrupt Decay

11 Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Painful Truths

3 Enchantments
1 Sylvan Library
2 Pernicious Deed
0 Mirri's Guile

22 Lands
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
2 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Bayou (actually I have overgrown tomb at this moment, but I hope that friend will lend me bayou for next tournament)
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah

15 Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Lost Legacy
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Duress
1 Golgari Charm
1 Zealous Persecution

I hope that it will be better than my last version (with Dromoka :tongue: - page 82)
Next week I'll get some new cards: Bojuka Bog, second Crop Rotation, Sylvan Safekeeper, second Golgari Charm and Mirri's Guile.
In my LGS are some reanimators etc., so Bojuka Bog and second Crop Rotation might be useful. Bojuka will replace basic (swamp or forest?). I'm not sure, what should be switched with second Crop Rotation :frown:
I saw some decklists running Sylvan Safekeeper, is he good? I'll try him :)
Second Golgari Charm will replace fourth Duress in the sideboard.
I really don't know, what to replace with Mirri's Guile :cry: second Painful Truths?

I want to try Volrath's Stronghold, before buying it. Is it worth?

[Navsi]

I don't run Confidants and Crop Rotations... That's Brael. I run shitty Confidants (Courser/Vizier) and a lot of shuffle effects. Runs like a dream.

Wow. Okay then. How do you generate card advantage? If you're running Guile and Rotation on top of Explorers, you're playing a lot of cards that put you down in cards compared to the opponent. You must be running a lot of Trackers or planeswalkers to draw cards. It's not like you can rely on two card combos to get the effect a Tracker gets via Courser + Guile, not when they're also vulnerable to 1 for 1 removal. You'd just trade 1 for 1 a couple times then die to Liliana / Jace / whatever threat your opponent has left in hand all game, if you aren't playing card draw and you're playing 0 for 1s like Rotation and Mirri's Guile.

[Brael]

I want to try Volrath's Stronghold, before buying it. Is it worth?

Stronghold is very good.

Maybe ease up on your anti combo cards in the sideboard. I only see 9 that you could justify removing, but you have 11 to bring in.


Wow. Okay then. How do you generate card advantage? If you're running Guile and Rotation on top of Explorers, you're playing a lot of cards that put you down in cards compared to the opponent. You must be running a lot of Trackers or planeswalkers to draw cards. It's not like you can rely on two card combos to get the effect a Tracker gets via Courser + Guile, not when they're also vulnerable to 1 for 1 removal. You'd just trade 1 for 1 a couple times then die to Liliana / Jace / whatever threat your opponent has left in hand all game, if you aren't playing card draw and you're playing 0 for 1s like Rotation and Mirri's Guile.

Crop Rotation isn't a 0 for 1, if it resolves it trades 1 for 1, or you draw 2 cards off it with a Tracker, or it gets you 4 mana for 1 card, last I checked Dark Ritual was playable at a worse rate.

Crop Rotation wins games. It's one of the best cards you can have in your opener if you're racing, one of the best cards you can have if you're facing land disruption, and one of the best cards you can have if you're dealing with combo. It's versatile and powerful.

[JackaBo]

I finished a modo league run last night, it's been forever since I've done one.

Ran Nyx Fit with Curse of Death's Hold, Overwhelming Splendor, Starfield of Nyx (feel better calling it Nyx Fit when Starfield is in), and Dovescape. Also trying out 2 Vessel of Nascency but was not able to use them yet. List was otherwise pretty similar to my last posted list, heavy on removal, still including Dryad Arbor. Leylines/Lost Legacy/Deluge making up most of the sideboard. I'll try to do another run before posting a list, just to try to get a better impression of the new changes.

Beat 2 ANT lists and also some 4c list that scooped to hardcast Curse and then scooped again after a poor mulligan. Lost to TES and Lands. ANT seemed very easy, TES being faster was problematic (although we have so many ways to deal with goblins), Lands saw me having some poor hands. But small sample size as usual, so who knows.

Overwhelming Splendor so far seems pretty decent. Only downside to Humility is that exorbitant cost. Otherwise huge upside. It's a great first tutor target that slows the opponent down, protects yourself, and allows you to continue your gameplan. Shuts off utility lands, equipment, deathrite, random ability combos like Painter/Grindstone. Not impacting your own Rectors and E Witness is huuuuge.

I'm mainly curious about the Vessels and Starfield - haven't actually ran with Starfield again ever since trying out Cruel/Sandwurm from Amonkhet.

I'm interested in your list and your results with it. My latest playtesting put me off and now I'm thinking about running less dead-on-its-own-cards, like Evo leap, and instead run more gsz-targets. Id like to see your balance between disruption, threats and "combopieces"

[square_two]

Then don't. Your loss, lol. All the theorycrafting in the world then won't convince you and I don't care.

As for Library/Leovold, who said anything about not running Library and who gives a damn about the interaction w/ Leovold? Seriously, it's so fringe, why the hell would I bring it up as a valid reason to pick Guile over Library?

You assume I won't listen to any theorycrafting or logic...therefore you don't have to work to provide any! Wowza, that's neat. Makes life simple for you.

Most rational people on here would like to hear something a bit more in depth than "Shutup, I tried it and it worked".

No one would seriously run Guile AND Library. They fill the exact same role, and they don't work any better when both in play. Odds are, one is better suited for that same role. By suggesting Mirri's Guile, any rational person would also reach the conclusion that you are suggesting to NOT run Library.

Edit: To any newcomers - welcome and try out Sylvan Library! It has worked for me. There we go, I've done my contributing for the day. Can't beat personal experience amirite?

[Navsi]

Crop Rotation isn't a 0 for 1, if it resolves it trades 1 for 1, or you draw 2 cards off it with a Tracker, or it gets you 4 mana for 1 card, last I checked Dark Ritual was playable at a worse rate.

Crop Rotation wins games. It's one of the best cards you can have in your opener if you're racing, one of the best cards you can have if you're facing land disruption, and one of the best cards you can have if you're dealing with combo. It's versatile and powerful.

So if you're facing land disruption, rather than get wastelanded you want to hold up G every turn to Rotation instead. I'm not sure how helpful that is. In that situation you're still not dealing with any pressure your opponent has, and you're spending a card in your hand to functionally leave the board the same as it was previously. Wasteland decks are either playing a Tempo plan (in which case not affecting the board means you lose) or are Lands (in which case Rotation won't help much against their disruption plan, since you are still going to lose unless you proactively pressure them, which Rotation doesn't help you do unless they misplay horribly).

Using rotation as a 5 mana divination if you have a Tracker does not impress me. Nor does using it as a Culling the Weak - Dark Ritual sees play because it accelerates you into some form of game ender immediately, which is worth the card disadvantage when it's Ad Nauseam, or Entomb/Exhume, or whatever. There's a reason fair decks don't play dark ritual, and it's because spending cards to accelerate into non-Griselbrand creatures is not good enough.

For dealing with Combo, Rotation is good against Reanimator and potentially Storm - the two combo decks against which reactive combo hate is the worst, since they play discard. You only get to hate on Storm if they decide to go for a graveyard reliant plan, and in most situations against these decks the spell is functionally similar to a discard spell, only if they don't go off next turn you slowed your ability to apply pressure by needing to hold mana up again. Rotation does very little against a Sneak Attack, nothing against Omniscience, and very little against the red Sneak decks (since you're facing down either Moon or Chalice).

A hand of Crop Rotation / Mirri's Guile / Veteran Explorer / Deathrite Shaman / 3 lands is hardly keepable and does very little against many decks. A hand of Collective Brutality / Sylvan Library / Veteran Explorer / Deathrite Shaman / 3 lands is a hand I'd rather have against basically anything.

- Against aggro/tempo decks you stabilize better and can answer some of their pressure. Rotation does nothing, at best protecting your mana while not interacting with their board.
- Against midrange decks you will end up in a grindfest either way, but Library puts you ahead on card if you need it and Brutality can clear the way of countermagic /removal when it finds you a threat. Rotation, again, does nothing.
- Against control Library is way better than Guile and actually puts you up cards, Brutality lets you force through countermagic again and Rotation does nothing unless you run Cavern (in which case it still doesn't help you against removal spells or sweepers).
- Against combo decks Brutality much more reliably prevents them going off as mentioned above, and lets you see their hand for any therapies you find, while Library lets you dig for more disruption / threats more efficiently than Guile does.

[square_two]

I'm interested in your list and your results with it. My latest playtesting put me off and now I'm thinking about running less dead-on-its-own-cards, like Evo leap, and instead run more gsz-targets. Id like to see your balance between disruption, threats and "combopieces"

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
4 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Cast Out
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Dovescape
1 Overwhelming Splendor

3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Vessel of Nascency
3 Evolutionary Leap
2 Lingering Souls

3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath

side:
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Lost Legacy
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Chromanticore
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Thoughtseize

Arbor has made Evo Leap much more consistent. Honestly, if you get Leap + any creature, then it is very rare to lose. Vessel and starfield I'm still curious about. Could see -1 removal +1 lingering souls since souls can be similar to removal in function, and works well with vessel. Maybe I'll drop the singleton Decay in favor of a third souls.

Leyline of Sanctity in the side has seemed lackluster and I usually can't find room to board in more than 1-2 - least that was what was happening against ANT. Could take out 1-2 and add in...2nd Canonist? Ensnaring Bridge also fills a couple of oddball matchups. Chromanticore could also be replaced I guess. Will do some tinkering with the side.

[Echelon]

I want to try Volrath's Stronghold, before buying it. Is it worth?

I've held off on buying Stronghold for the longest time. Recently I pulled the trigger and honestly, I don't think I'll ever want to play without it anymore.


Wow. Okay then. How do you generate card advantage? If you're running Guile and Rotation on top of Explorers, you're playing a lot of cards that put you down in cards compared to the opponent. You must be running a lot of Trackers or planeswalkers to draw cards. It's not like you can rely on two card combos to get the effect a Tracker gets via Courser + Guile, not when they're also vulnerable to 1 for 1 removal. You'd just trade 1 for 1 a couple times then die to Liliana / Jace / whatever threat your opponent has left in hand all game, if you aren't playing card draw and you're playing 0 for 1s like Rotation and Mirri's Guile.

I'll be addressing your point below.


You assume I won't listen to any theorycrafting or logic...therefore you don't have to work to provide any! Wowza, that's neat. Makes life simple for you.

Most rational people on here would like to hear something a bit more in depth than "Shutup, I tried it and it worked".

No one would seriously run Guile AND Library. They fill the exact same role, and they don't work any better when both in play. Odds are, one is better suited for that same role. By suggesting Mirri's Guile, any rational person would also reach the conclusion that you are suggesting to NOT run Library.

Edit: To any newcomers - welcome and try out Sylvan Library! It has worked for me. There we go, I've done my contributing for the day. Can't beat personal experience amirite?

Actually enjoyed reading this. Kinda made my morning. So alright, let me put some effort into this. Here goes.

To be perfectly clear - my list runs 3 Guiles, 1 Library, no Crop Rotations, no Dark Confidants, 1 Courser of Kruphix and 1 Vizier of the Menagerie.

There's 2 major points to Guile. First off, there's card selection. It's why blue is so powerful - it makes it consistent and allows it to keep up card quality. While Brainstorm/Ponder do replace themselves, they don't generate CA - they allow blue players to maintain card quality. Guile does the same for us, with every shuffle effect (and we do a lot of shuffling) allowing us to select the best from 3 new cards rather than topdecking a fully random card. Vs. a lot of decks it's fine for us to be down 1 card, especially if we get to look at a more more cards than our opponents. A lot of decks play Wasteland - they're basically dead vs. us at least 50% of the time (being conservative here), so 50% of the time our opponents are down a card as well when they draw/have a Wasteland, basically putting us on par as far as cards are concerned while massively improving our draws. Then there's FoW - that's a 2-for-1 in our favor that we just need to bait out with the right card. This again puts us on par while massively improving our draws. And what if we're down a card? The point of Nic Fit is that its cards are more powerful and more impactful than whatever 90% of the field plays. And unlike most other decks we do run actual CA w/ our sweeper suite, ironing out any advantage our opponent might have had in the early game. As for generating actual CA w/ Guile and assorted other cards - that's mostly incidental. It's nice when it works out, but it's still fine when it isn't. Guile is mostly a tool for keeping up card quality, allowing you to build up pressure until your opponent buckles.

The second thing is card velocity. Nic Fit is a slow deck. Sometimes too slow. For this we can compensate by improving card velocity. Tone down the mana curve and even try to spread the colours of mana needed to cast spells. It's why I run Path to Exile over Abrupt Decay (cheaper and lessens the demand on specifically green mana) and why we ran SDT over stuff like Painful Truths. Falling too far behind on cards played can be devastating. And this is where Guile helps as well. Imagine one of our worst MUs - ANT/TES. Tapping out T2 to cast Sylvan Library is considerably worse than casting, say, Guile and a discard spell. Or, on T3, Guile and Ethersworn Canonist/Gaddock Teeg. The alternative is that you don't cast Library, but that means it's just a dead card in your hand. Odds of that happening w/ Guile are smaller due to the fact that it's cheaper. And then there're plenty of cases of having to choose to play either a 1 mana spell or Sylvan Library on T2. Guile will allow you to play both in some of those cases.

As for Sylvan Library drawing cards - I often don't find myself doing that until the late game. The problem is though that we need to get there first. And that's what Guile helps us achieve.

And on Pernicious Deed destroying Guile - sure, but often enough Guile will help you find Deed when you actually need it, in which case it just becomes "Sever a limb to save the whole". Replacing a Deed w/ a Toxic Deluge helps mitigate that somewhat though. It also gives you a use for multiples you might run into. I've blown up (or shuffled away) my share of Tops b/c I had a copy to spare.

That all being said, Guile just looks kinda "Meh" on paper. In this case seeing really is believing. As for anecdotal evidence, there's the game where I had Guile + Courser + Vizier out and the 1 upkeep I got with it got me nothing. And then there's the games where dropping it in the early game (T1-3) allowed me to keep up with my opponent and answering his every move in some form or another and the games (yes, plural) where a more late game Guile allowed me to go Rhino, Rhino, Rhino for the win while my opponent got stuck in topdeck limbo.

[rubblekill]

So if you're facing land disruption, rather than get wastelanded you want to hold up G every turn to Rotation instead. I'm not sure how helpful that is. In that situation you're still not dealing with any pressure your opponent has, and you're spending a card in your hand to functionally leave the board the same as it was previously. Wasteland decks are either playing a Tempo plan (in which case not affecting the board means you lose) or are Lands (in which case Rotation won't help much against their disruption plan, since you are still going to lose unless you proactively pressure them, which Rotation doesn't help you do unless they misplay horribly).

Using rotation as a 5 mana divination if you have a Tracker does not impress me. Nor does using it as a Culling the Weak - Dark Ritual sees play because it accelerates you into some form of game ender immediately, which is worth the card disadvantage when it's Ad Nauseam, or Entomb/Exhume, or whatever. There's a reason fair decks don't play dark ritual, and it's because spending cards to accelerate into non-Griselbrand creatures is not good enough.

For dealing with Combo, Rotation is good against Reanimator and potentially Storm - the two combo decks against which reactive combo hate is the worst, since they play discard. You only get to hate on Storm if they decide to go for a graveyard reliant plan, and in most situations against these decks the spell is functionally similar to a discard spell, only if they don't go off next turn you slowed your ability to apply pressure by needing to hold mana up again. Rotation does very little against a Sneak Attack, nothing against Omniscience, and very little against the red Sneak decks (since you're facing down either Moon or Chalice).

A hand of Crop Rotation / Mirri's Guile / Veteran Explorer / Deathrite Shaman / 3 lands is hardly keepable and does very little against many decks. A hand of Collective Brutality / Sylvan Library / Veteran Explorer / Deathrite Shaman / 3 lands is a hand I'd rather have against basically anything.

- Against aggro/tempo decks you stabilize better and can answer some of their pressure. Rotation does nothing, at best protecting your mana while not interacting with their board.
- Against midrange decks you will end up in a grindfest either way, but Library puts you ahead on card if you need it and Brutality can clear the way of countermagic /removal when it finds you a threat. Rotation, again, does nothing.
- Against control Library is way better than Guile and actually puts you up cards, Brutality lets you force through countermagic again and Rotation does nothing unless you run Cavern (in which case it still doesn't help you against removal spells or sweepers).
- Against combo decks Brutality much more reliably prevents them going off as mentioned above, and lets you see their hand for any therapies you find, while Library lets you dig for more disruption / threats more efficiently than Guile does.

I have played rotation in the past, and I still think that in the right shell it's a nice card to have if you build around it, but I have to say that your analysis is spot on and was a nice read. Thanks for posting your detailed insight Navsi, this kind of posts it's what makes me come back in this thread.

[Navsi]

- Card selection with high impact cards

- Early game velocity with cheaper mana cost

I'm not saying card selection is not a useful effect to have. Personally I prefer actual card draw - I tend to run builds with a high threat/answer rather than utility density (equipment makes all your random 1/1s better threats, which helps) which means that the average card strength of my draws is higher, so raw draw is very useful. I also think it works well to play versatile effects (collective brutality again!) that are very rarely dead and so improve the effectiveness of draw as opposed to selection again. The nice thing about library, though, is that it is selection when you need it (finding the answer to pressure) and draw when you need it (overwhelming opponent with card advantage or multiple lock pieces).

Early game velocity is nice, but I don't think you really want to be casting either card before before turn three against combo anyway unless something has gone horribly wrong. You have a lot of other effects to be using early - 8+ discard spells, canonists, extraction effects, zeniths and hate creatures like teeg and deathrite and ooze, or applying pressure with whatever dumb beaters you haven't sideboarded out. Putting your card selection on the board is probably secondary to all of these, and usually you want to be doing so in order to refill your hand / continue to apply pressure after the initial stuff you drop, to prevent the opposition from drawing their way into more combo pieces or otherwise regaining the advantage. I don't think Library is any worse than Guile in that situation - Guile might come down a turn earlier (which is lovely) but if it does, it's probably because you're low on interaction and need something ASAP. Library is significantly more useful if you don't have a shuffle effect, since you can just draw-3 and hope to dig deeper next turn (or if the shuffle is one of the top 3).

[Brael]

I'm not saying card selection is not a useful effect to have. Personally I prefer actual card draw - I tend to run builds with a high threat/answer rather than utility density (equipment makes all your random 1/1s better threats, which helps) which means that the average card strength of my draws is higher, so raw draw is very useful. I also think it works well to play versatile effects (collective brutality again!) that are very rarely dead and so improve the effectiveness of draw as opposed to selection again. The nice thing about library, though, is that it is selection when you need it (finding the answer to pressure) and draw when you need it (overwhelming opponent with card advantage or multiple lock pieces).

Early game velocity is nice, but I don't think you really want to be casting either card before before turn three against combo anyway unless something has gone horribly wrong. You have a lot of other effects to be using early - 8+ discard spells, canonists, extraction effects, zeniths and hate creatures like teeg and deathrite and ooze, or applying pressure with whatever dumb beaters you haven't sideboarded out. Putting your card selection on the board is probably secondary to all of these, and usually you want to be doing so in order to refill your hand / continue to apply pressure after the initial stuff you drop, to prevent the opposition from drawing their way into more combo pieces or otherwise regaining the advantage. I don't think Library is any worse than Guile in that situation - Guile might come down a turn earlier (which is lovely) but if it does, it's probably because you're low on interaction and need something ASAP. Library is significantly more useful if you don't have a shuffle effect, since you can just draw-3 and hope to dig deeper next turn (or if the shuffle is one of the top 3).

One thing to keep in mind is that your turn 1 play is optimally used in getting to 3 mana on turn 2. That means your turn 2 play is either going to be a 3 drop or a 1 drop+2 drop. Guile opens up the possibility of 2 drop hate cards (I bet Guile+Brutality play well together), while Library limits you to 1 drops like Therapy or Thoughtseize or whatever. After playing it a bit, I haven't been too impressed with Library, I greatly prefer 1 mana manipulation because it opens the door for more powerful interaction.

[square_two]

Actually enjoyed reading this. Kinda made my morning. So alright, let me put some effort into this. Here goes.

To be perfectly clear - my list runs 3 Guiles, 1 Library, no Crop Rotations, no Dark Confidants, 1 Courser of Kruphix and 1 Vizier of the Menagerie.

There's 2 major points to Guile. First off, there's card selection. It's why blue is so powerful - it makes it consistent and allows it to keep up card quality. While Brainstorm/Ponder do replace themselves, they don't generate CA - they allow blue players to maintain card quality. Guile does the same for us, with every shuffle effect (and we do a lot of shuffling) allowing us to select the best from 3 new cards rather than topdecking a fully random card. Vs. a lot of decks it's fine for us to be down 1 card, especially if we get to look at a more more cards than our opponents. A lot of decks play Wasteland - they're basically dead vs. us at least 50% of the time (being conservative here), so 50% of the time our opponents are down a card as well when they draw/have a Wasteland, basically putting us on par as far as cards are concerned while massively improving our draws. Then there's FoW - that's a 2-for-1 in our favor that we just need to bait out with the right card. This again puts us on par while massively improving our draws. And what if we're down a card? The point of Nic Fit is that its cards are more powerful and more impactful than whatever 90% of the field plays. And unlike most other decks we do run actual CA w/ our sweeper suite, ironing out any advantage our opponent might have had in the early game. As for generating actual CA w/ Guile and assorted other cards - that's mostly incidental. It's nice when it works out, but it's still fine when it isn't. Guile is mostly a tool for keeping up card quality, allowing you to build up pressure until your opponent buckles.

The second thing is card velocity. Nic Fit is a slow deck. Sometimes too slow. For this we can compensate by improving card velocity. Tone down the mana curve and even try to spread the colours of mana needed to cast spells. It's why I run Path to Exile over Abrupt Decay (cheaper and lessens the demand on specifically green mana) and why we ran SDT over stuff like Painful Truths. Falling too far behind on cards played can be devastating. And this is where Guile helps as well. Imagine one of our worst MUs - ANT/TES. Tapping out T2 to cast Sylvan Library is considerably worse than casting, say, Guile and a discard spell. Or, on T3, Guile and Ethersworn Canonist/Gaddock Teeg. The alternative is that you don't cast Library, but that means it's just a dead card in your hand. Odds of that happening w/ Guile are smaller due to the fact that it's cheaper. And then there're plenty of cases of having to choose to play either a 1 mana spell or Sylvan Library on T2. Guile will allow you to play both in some of those cases.

As for Sylvan Library drawing cards - I often don't find myself doing that until the late game. The problem is though that we need to get there first. And that's what Guile helps us achieve.

And on Pernicious Deed destroying Guile - sure, but often enough Guile will help you find Deed when you actually need it, in which case it just becomes "Sever a limb to save the whole". Replacing a Deed w/ a Toxic Deluge helps mitigate that somewhat though. It also gives you a use for multiples you might run into. I've blown up (or shuffled away) my share of Tops b/c I had a copy to spare.

That all being said, Guile just looks kinda "Meh" on paper. In this case seeing really is believing. As for anecdotal evidence, there's the game where I had Guile + Courser + Vizier out and the 1 upkeep I got with it got me nothing. And then there's the games where dropping it in the early game (T1-3) allowed me to keep up with my opponent and answering his every move in some form or another and the games (yes, plural) where a more late game Guile allowed me to go Rhino, Rhino, Rhino for the win while my opponent got stuck in topdeck limbo.

Thanks. I enjoy seeing the thoughts laid out here.

Question - what's the average number of fetches that you run? Do you also run Arbor as a fetch? Maybe we play with a significant difference in shuffle effects. Lot of the time, I spend my fetches to necessarily play things that turn and don't have the time to spend checking with Library/Guile. I see shuffle effects as a potential bonus when they line up that way. Mid-to-late game I will definitely hold fetches up for that effect though. Top was such a huge loss to us, it allowed us to just go crazy with consistency at just about any point in the game - any point in the TURN for that matter.

Is there a significant difference between Library and Guile in reference to card selection? Getting a shuffle at end of opp's turn is the same for both enchantments - you see 3 different cards. Guile lets you have a shuffle effect between the check/order top 3 and drawing which allows you to draw a random card as opposed to a known bad 3. Library means you are stuck with a single enhanced draw (though I guess you could shuffle in response to its trigger too? I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that in order to see 2 different cards).

IMO, Guile has zero card advantage. You play the card, and you get no cards back. It is -only- selection. This is the key difference which I think makes Library quite a bit better. When you exhaust your shuffle effects and are at a board stall/need pressure, then Library CAN dig you deeper all on its own.

I do think Leovold is an issue with Library though - a bug heavy meta would influence my decision on running it.

Agreed about toning down cmc - I love the lower to the ground bug fit lists. I like those backed up by a ton of card advantage in order to keep up pressure though. Guile being one cheaper isn't a key factor in considering the list as lower cmc though - to me, that is doing stuff like cutting 6-drops, limiting the number of 5's, etc. Having a buttload of 1-drops does make you weaker to chalice and I've noticed a drop in matches against those decks when I do try to run more and more 1 drops.

My own background is either with bug lists or combo-centric lists. I feel that Library/Guile effects simply aren't needed when you are running 4 Strix, 3-4 Tracker, 3 Jace, x Brainstorm, etc. Sneak fit wants the ability of Library to draw multiple things and suddenly combo out. Nyx fit likewise wants that ability (think I'm trying my next league with libraries back in).

[Navsi]

One thing to keep in mind is that your turn 1 play is optimally used in getting to 3 mana on turn 2. That means your turn 2 play is either going to be a 3 drop or a 1 drop+2 drop. Guile opens up the possibility of 2 drop hate cards (I bet Guile+Brutality play well together), while Library limits you to 1 drops like Therapy or Thoughtseize or whatever. After playing it a bit, I haven't been too impressed with Library, I greatly prefer 1 mana manipulation because it opens the door for more powerful interaction.

Optimally, you want to be spending 3 mana on turn 2 and then 4-5 mana on turn 5. However I don't know if this is necessarily a situation to be concerned about.

If you have 3 mana on turn two, one of three things happened:

- you Zenithed for Dryad Arbor. In this situation you probably have another Zenith in hand (so you can find Teeg now) or you need 3 mana for another specific piece of hate you're casting. Otherwise you would have waited with Zenith to make a Teeg on turn three. If you have Zenith and follow it up spending mana on library/guile, you are probably better off not casting the Zenith and holding it for X=2. In this situation, having Guile over Library does not help you.

- you cast Deathrite Shaman on turn one. In this situation, you still don't want to be spending mana on Guile or Library turn two. If you have disruption in hand you're casting it, or you're holding mana up to use Deathrite if you don't have anything else. Guile does have an advantage here (you can cast it while keeping a mana open to use Deathrite as graveyard hate) but I don't think that situation is going to be one that comes up frequently - or rather, casting Guile rather than holding up Library doesn't make that much difference to your game plan. You'd rather be casting disruption than either of them, still.

- you cast Explorer and Therapy, so now you have 3 mana available. In this situation you are probably happy to play either card, since you just cast two Cabal Therapies and your opponent is unlikely to go off and kill you immediately if you just flashbacked therapy, so you have a turn to dig for more disruption either way, and Library is better at actually getting you enough disruption to keep the opponent locked for long enough to actually kill them before they go off. You might be happier going explorer - therapy - guile + threat than you are going explorer - therapy - library/threat - pass turn - library/threat, but I'm not sure what I would prefer between a one turn faster clock and 2+ more cards in hand to disrupt / pressure with.

[Echelon]

Thanks. I enjoy seeing the thoughts laid out here.

Question - what's the average number of fetches that you run? Do you also run Arbor as a fetch? Maybe we play with a significant difference in shuffle effects. Lot of the time, I spend my fetches to necessarily play things that turn and don't have the time to spend checking with Library/Guile. I see shuffle effects as a potential bonus when they line up that way. Mid-to-late game I will definitely hold fetches up for that effect though. Top was such a huge loss to us, it allowed us to just go crazy with consistency at just about any point in the game - any point in the TURN for that matter.

Is there a significant difference between Library and Guile in reference to card selection? Getting a shuffle at end of opp's turn is the same for both enchantments - you see 3 different cards. Guile lets you have a shuffle effect between the check/order top 3 and drawing which allows you to draw a random card as opposed to a known bad 3. Library means you are stuck with a single enhanced draw (though I guess you could shuffle in response to its trigger too? I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that in order to see 2 different cards).

IMO, Guile has zero card advantage. You play the card, and you get no cards back. It is -only- selection. This is the key difference which I think makes Library quite a bit better. When you exhaust your shuffle effects and are at a board stall/need pressure, then Library CAN dig you deeper all on its own.

I do think Leovold is an issue with Library though - a bug heavy meta would influence my decision on running it.

Agreed about toning down cmc - I love the lower to the ground bug fit lists. I like those backed up by a ton of card advantage in order to keep up pressure though. Guile being one cheaper isn't a key factor in considering the list as lower cmc though - to me, that is doing stuff like cutting 6-drops, limiting the number of 5's, etc. Having a buttload of 1-drops does make you weaker to chalice and I've noticed a drop in matches against those decks when I do try to run more and more 1 drops.

My own background is either with bug lists or combo-centric lists. I feel that Library/Guile effects simply aren't needed when you are running 4 Strix, 3-4 Tracker, 3 Jace, x Brainstorm, etc. Sneak fit wants the ability of Library to draw multiple things and suddenly combo out. Nyx fit likewise wants that ability (think I'm trying my next league with libraries back in).

I always run 10 fetches. 4 Catacombs, 4 Heath and 2 Flats. And Dryad Arbor's a staple in my list as well. I rely very heavily on my fetches the first few turns. I fetch basics as much as possible. I don't run them specifically to interact w/ Guile though, I run them b/c it allows me to run only 21 lands (counting Arbor as a creature here, not a land) and still have 14 initial mana sources of every colour. Now here's the thing - if I know I'm running this many shuffle effects (10 fetch, 4 GSZ and 4 Explorers), why not create some synergy and get some extra value out of them? Whether you run Guile or Library, it allows you to be on par w/ blue in the card selection department without interfering w/ your gameplan. You get value from them simply by doing what you always do - fetch and GSZ like a madman.

On the quality of the card selection of Guile or Library - it doesn't matter all that much. If for some reason you can shuffle between Guile and Library triggers, it's probably b/c you set it up and chose not to shuffle at an earlier moment.

As for 1-drops vs. Chalice decks - that's more of a question of whether they have it or not (they'll only have it in hand about 40% of the time, and they'll also need a Sol-land to go with it), of whether or not you'll revert back to running a number of Abrupt Decay or of whether or not you'll try to get creative and either ignore it and execute your plan via GSZ or GSZ for Qasali Pridemage or something similar to deal with it.


Optimally, you want to be spending 3 mana on turn 2 and then 4-5 mana on turn 5. However I don't know if this is necessarily a situation to be concerned about.

If you have 3 mana on turn two, one of three things happened:

- you Zenithed for Dryad Arbor. In this situation you probably have another Zenith in hand (so you can find Teeg now) or you need 3 mana for another specific piece of hate you're casting. Otherwise you would have waited with Zenith to make a Teeg on turn three. If you have Zenith and follow it up spending mana on library/guile, you are probably better off not casting the Zenith and holding it for X=2. In this situation, having Guile over Library does not help you.

- you cast Deathrite Shaman on turn one. In this situation, you still don't want to be spending mana on Guile or Library turn two. If you have disruption in hand you're casting it, or you're holding mana up to use Deathrite if you don't have anything else. Guile does have an advantage here (you can cast it while keeping a mana open to use Deathrite as graveyard hate) but I don't think that situation is going to be one that comes up frequently - or rather, casting Guile rather than holding up Library doesn't make that much difference to your game plan. You'd rather be casting disruption than either of them, still.

- you cast Explorer and Therapy, so now you have 3 mana available. In this situation you are probably happy to play either card, since you just cast two Cabal Therapies and your opponent is unlikely to go off and kill you immediately if you just flashbacked therapy, so you have a turn to dig for more disruption either way, and Library is better at actually getting you enough disruption to keep the opponent locked for long enough to actually kill them before they go off. You might be happier going explorer - therapy - guile + threat than you are going explorer - therapy - library/threat - pass turn - library/threat, but I'm not sure what I would prefer between a one turn faster clock and 2+ more cards in hand to disrupt / pressure with.

Actually, in your second case having Guile out over having Library in hand makes a lot of difference. The chance of you getting your next hate card just got 3 times bigger, seeing as next turn you'll see 3 new cards instead of 1. Even if you don't have a single shuffle effect, you now have access to cards 2 turns earlier than you would have otherwise. Continuing that line into Lost Legacy b/c you dug it up early w/ Guile is considerably better than drawing into something that doesn't interact w/ your opponent for 1/2 turns and then drawing into Lost Legacy. You might have gotten Library out the turn after you dropped Guile, but that still means you would've waited for that Legacy an extra turn.

As for your last case - Paying 8 life to draw 2 w/ Library vs. ANT/TES seems like a rather dangerous proposition. You're now dead at stormcount 5. 4 if you've played 2 fetches.

[Navsi]

Actually, in your second case having Guile out over having Library in hand makes a lot of difference. The chance of you getting your next hate card just got 3 times bigger, seeing as next turn you'll see 3 new cards instead of 1. Even if you don't have a single shuffle effect, you now have access to cards 2 turns earlier than you would have otherwise. Continuing that line into Lost Legacy b/c you dug it up early w/ Guile is considerably better than drawing into something that doesn't interact w/ your opponent for 1/2 turns and then drawing into Lost Legacy. You might have gotten Library out the turn after you dropped Guile, but that still means you would've waited for that Legacy an extra turn.

As for your last case - Paying 8 life to draw 2 w/ Library vs. ANT/TES seems like a rather dangerous proposition. You're now dead at stormcount 5. 4 if you've played 2 fetches.

The point I was making in the second case is that you don't want to be doing either of them, because you have no interaction before turn 3 and need to topdeck something to have some at that point. You should probably mulligan if your opener is deathrite + guile/library + no disruption, so which is better is not particularly relevant unless you're already looking at a 4-5 card hand.

You only pay life to draw cards with Library if it puts you at a significant advantage. If you're drawing 3 with Library, you just drew 3 business spells which means they definitely aren't going off any time soon.

[Echelon]

The point I was making in the second case is that you don't want to be doing either of them, because you have no interaction before turn 3 and need to topdeck something to have some at that point. You should probably mulligan if your opener is deathrite + guile/library + no disruption, so which is better is not particularly relevant unless you're already looking at a 4-5 card hand.

You only pay life to draw cards with Library if it puts you at a significant advantage. If you're drawing 3 with Library, you just drew 3 business spells which means they definitely aren't going off any time soon.

Drawing cards with Library is something you can only do when you're ahead though. It's a bit of a win-more function.

[Navsi]

Drawing cards with Library is something you can only do when you're ahead though. It's a bit of a win-more function.

Drawing cards with library is something you can only do when you're not under pressure, or your life total is irrelevant, or the cards will win you the game. Against combo decks in particular, paying 4 life to remove one of their cards with an additional discard spell is pretty much always worth it. Thing is, you can choose whether to pay the life after you see what they are, so it's not like you ever need to pay life needlessly.

[joXerus]

Hello guys, report here :smile:
I was playing Nic Fit this Saturday.

18 Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

6 Instants
4 Path to Exile
1 Crop Rotation
1 Abrupt Decay

11 Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Painful Truths

3 Enchantments
1 Sylvan Library
2 Pernicious Deed

22 Lands
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
2 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah

15 Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Lost Legacy
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Duress
1 Golgari Charm
1 Zealous Persecution

Round 1, vs. 4C Loam (1-1)
I saw in the first game only Dark Depths, then killed him.
In the second game, I tried lost legacy on Vampire Hexmage. There weren't any :laugh: just Thespian´s Stage stage, damn. He killed me.
In the third game, I stripped his KotR, he disrupted my creatures and we weren't able to finish in time.

Round 2, vs. Burn (2-1)
The first game he killed me really fast. Then he was very confident.
I showed him in second and third game couple of Rhinos and he went cry.

Round 3, vs. Sultai Death´s Shadow (1:2)
This was really weird. In the first game, I was at 24 and attacked with rhino, while he had 2 Death´s Shadows around 5-7. He took his life to 1 and killed me from that point.
In the second game, I stripped his Death´s Shadows through Lost in Legacy, then the same for Tarmogoyfs and GG.
The third game was really big problem and I'm really upset because of this :mad:
I raced him pretty well. Then he dropped Spellskite. I was ok with that, I had Qasali Pridemage on my hand. Then he started using his ability in his main phase with an empty stack. I told him, he cants do that. He called the judge. The judge went to PC and we were waiting for the result like 5 minutes. Then he returned with the result - he can pay the ability without the target, same as the wasteland. Ok, he shocked himself to 11 and dropped two Death´s Shadows. I Pridemaged his Spellskite and killed Death´s Shadows. Dropped Rhino, then attacked. When I was running for lethal, he sacrificed the wasteland without any target (I had just basic lands) and pushed my Rhino. Dropped something like DrS. I had like 3 turns to get GSZ or one of three Rhinos in the deck. Topdecked just lands, GG

I reported score 1-2 and went to the toilet. When I returned, first one told me to draw, to get into top4 for both. I repeated that I lost, so new pairings were made.

Round 4, vs. Grixis (0:1)
The first game was hard and really grindy. Made some mistake and lost.
The second game went better. Almost killed him, but then he dropped two Gurmags and I was pretty stuck. Time ran out and I was like 1 turn from the win after the game ended.

I was looking on top4 for a while and then went out. Near the entrance of LGS owner/judge apologies to me: "I don't know, if it would be different, but my judgment was bad. He couldn't do that".

Ok, I missed my first top with nic fit because of bad ruling :mad:


Echelon, I modified after that tournament my list to look more like your list from page87 (07-03-2017):
I bought today a Vizier, so It's just:
-2 Mirri's Guile
-Volrath's Stronghold
+Karakas
+Painful Truths
+Sylvan Library

1) No love for Karakas? :tongue:
2) I'm still thinking about the package of 2 Crop Rotations + Bojuka Bog, but there is no place for this. I would have to put out 2 Libraries and 1 Guilde, but I like them more that Rotation + Bog
3) What do you think about Ramunap Excavator?

[fireiced]

Then he started using his ability in his main phase with an empty stack. I told him, he cants do that. He called the judge. The judge went to PC and we were waiting for the result like 5 minutes. Then he returned with the result - he can pay the ability without the target, same as the wasteland. Ok, he shocked himself to 11 and dropped two Death´s Shadows. I Pridemaged his Spellskite and killed Death´s Shadows. Dropped Rhino, then attacked. When I was running for lethal, he sacrificed the wasteland without any target (I had just basic lands) and pushed my Rhino. Dropped something like DrS. I had like 3 turns to get GSZ or one of three Rhinos in the deck. Topdecked just lands, GG

Pretty sure he cannot activate Spellskite without any spell or ability on an empty stack. Spellskite has the ability that has a targeting requirement of "Target spell or ability". This is checked on activation and resolution.

However he is able to activate wasteland for wasteland itself is a legal target, just there it would be sacrificed as part of the activation cost and the destroy trigger will be countered upon resolution due to illegal target.

[Echelon]

Drawing cards with library is something you can only do when you're not under pressure, or your life total is irrelevant, or the cards will win you the game. Against combo decks in particular, paying 4 life to remove one of their cards with an additional discard spell is pretty much always worth it. Thing is, you can choose whether to pay the life after you see what they are, so it's not like you ever need to pay life needlessly.

So when you're ahead (basically), or facing Infect. Gotcha.


Hello guys, report here :smile:
I was playing Nic Fit this Saturday.

...List and report...

Echelon, I modified after that tournament my list to look more like your list from page87 (07-03-2017):
I bought today a Vizier, so It's just:
-2 Mirri's Guile
-Volrath's Stronghold
+Karakas
+Painful Truths
+Sylvan Library

1) No love for Karakas? :tongue:
2) I'm still thinking about the package of 2 Crop Rotations + Bojuka Bog, but there is no place for this. I would have to put out 2 Libraries and 1 Guilde, but I like them more that Rotation + Bog
3) What do you think about Ramunap Excavator?

That just made my day! As for your points:
1) I love Karakas, especially when you plan to run some Crop Rotation. It actually does something for a few of our worse MUs - Reanimator and Sneak & Show. I wouldn't know what to cut from my list to support the package though. And then there's the price of Karakas - since I haven't found a way to run it yet, I've held off on buying one.
3) However much I love it I probably have to say it's The Danger Of Cool Things. You can do a lot of cool stuff if you build around it, but your deck will probably end up suffering for it in the end. It's probably best in a deck w/ Mox Diamonds, Explorations and such. In Nic Fit as it is now it's probably just a way of ensuring you get all your lands out. There's ofcourse the interaction of fetchland + Guile/Library, but I'm unsure of whether or not that's worth it.

[joXerus]

Pretty sure he cannot activate Spellskite without any spell or ability on an empty stack. Spellskite has the ability that has a targeting requirement of "Target spell or ability". This is checked on activation and resolution.

However he is able to activate wasteland for wasteland itself is a legal target, just there it would be sacrificed as part of the activation cost and the destroy trigger will be countered upon resolution due to illegal target.

Yes, I was checking the web and I found that you can wasteland itself, but that is another story. My opponent clearly didn't know about that and judge also told it a bad way. You can't sacrifice that just without any target (yes, you can target that itself)



So when you're ahead (basically), or facing Infect. Gotcha.
That just made my day! As for your points:
1) I love Karakas, especially when you plan to run some Crop Rotation. It actually does something for a few of our worse MUs - Reanimator and Sneak & Show. I wouldn't know what to cut from my list to support the package though. And then there's the price of Karakas - since I haven't found a way to run it yet, I've held off on buying one.
3) However much I love it I probably have to say it's The Danger Of Cool Things. You can do a lot of cool stuff if you build around it, but your deck will probably end up suffering for it in the end. It's probably best in a deck w/ Mox Diamonds, Explorations and such. In Nic Fit as it is now it's probably just a way of ensuring you get all your lands out. There's ofcourse the interaction of fetchland + Guile/Library, but I'm unsure of whether or not that's worth it.

What part concretely made your day? :smile:
1) The price of Karakas isn't the issue, I've got that from times when I tried miracles. But now it's problem for me to buy Volrath (and Mirri's Guiles) :laugh:
3) Ok, maybe time will show us :smile: I think that it would be nice in maverick, where you can tutor for this naga, KotR, and wasteland and cycle them over and over again :smile:

[Echelon]

@joXerus: It's always very flattering when someone takes inspiration from your lists.

[Navsi]

So when you're ahead (basically), or facing Infect. Gotcha.

No, it's really not. Often you draw cards because you're behind and need more haymakers to stabilize or you need both a removal spell and a creature this turn, or you want to slam Deed but also need to discard countermagic first. Or you need both additional disruption and a threat to lock out a combo deck. These situations are not uncommon.

[square_two]

No, it's really not. Often you draw cards because you're behind and need more haymakers to stabilize or you need both a removal spell and a creature this turn, or you want to slam Deed but also need to discard countermagic first. Or you need both additional disruption and a threat to lock out a combo deck. These situations are not uncommon.

Or it's a typically normal early-to-mid game and you want 2 cards out of the 3, and you want to shuffle the third away so you can see a fresh 3 next turn. That one comes up most often for me - last night against ANT I grabbed a 3rd land + Lost Legacy. Yeah that basically said "pay 4 life to win the game".

Edit: Finished my second league with updated nyx fit - this time with two libraries instead of the vessels. Happy to say I'm 4-0 in matches against ANT. Feels good.

[Hmmm_Really?]

Are any of you fellow Nic-Fit reprobates planning to be at GP Toronto this weekend, July 22nd? I'll be the guy with a bag.....

[Therealmslayer]

I swear to god if I had the verdant catacombs for this, I'd be on it so fast it wouldn't even be funny. I have a list drawn up and everything.

[Bärmudas]

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
4 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Cast Out
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Dovescape
1 Overwhelming Splendor

3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Vessel of Nascency
3 Evolutionary Leap
2 Lingering Souls

3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath

side:
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Lost Legacy
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Chromanticore
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Thoughtseize

Why do you play Swords to Plowshares and not Fatal Push? I prefer Push, because you can also kill and trigger your Academy Rector with it.

[Echelon]

I swear to god if I had the verdant catacombs for this, I'd be on it so fast it wouldn't even be funny. I have a list drawn up and everything.

Well... YOLO..?


Are any of you fellow Nic-Fit reprobates planning to be at GP Toronto this weekend, July 22nd? I'll be the guy with a bag.....

Unfortunately it's a bit of a drive from the Netherlands (and my car doesn't come with scuba gear), so I won't be making it.

[Navsi]

Why do you play Swords to Plowshares and not Fatal Push? I prefer Push, because you can also kill and trigger your Academy Rector with it.

Swords kills Angler, Marit Lage, Griselbrand, Worldspine Wurm, Sire of Insanity, and you don't need Revolt to kill the format's 3-4 drops like KOTR, Magus of the Moon, and Leovold. Revolt isn't super easy for the list to get, especially in the opponent's turn. You have fetchlands, but that's about it.

Killing Rector isn't really difficult - we already have 11 sacrifice outlets for him which is a ton. Push has basically zero other upsides, because we're assembling a lock and don't really care about the opponent's life total very much.

[Vervandi]

I'm trying to build a junk list with Dark Depths. Has anyone tested Dark Depths, and if so, what were the results? Here is the list I am working on at the moment:

Creatures:19
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
2 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Centaur Vinecrasher
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Primeval Titan

Spells:19
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Path to Exile
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Into the North
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Vindicate

Lands:22
1 Bayou
1 Dark Depths
1 Karakas
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Savannah
4 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Windswept Heath

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[moseby]

Are any of you fellow Nic-Fit reprobates planning to be at GP Toronto this weekend, July 22nd? I'll be the guy with a bag.....

Yes strongly contemplating going

[Leshrac82]

I'm trying to build a junk list with Dark Depths. Has anyone tested Dark Depths, and if so, what were the results? Here is the list I am working on at the moment:
(list)
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

That has some similarities with my Cloudpost/NicFit hybrid, see here http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31293-Primer-Nic-Fit&p=1015935&viewfull=1#post1015935 . The maindeck is still the same, the sideboard is going through some minor changes.

Also, Brael tried Dark Depths in his earlier lists, but cut it and just kept the Crop Rotation package.

So, unless you want to try my actual list including the Cloudpost package (i like the list a lot, but it's of course different from your deck), one thing i would do at least:
You want to play Crop Rotation in this deck. Maybe not the full 4 copies like me, but at least 2. And you want Karakas and Bojuka Bog to get with that to deal with a couple otherwise problematic matchups. Knight can get those cards too, just Crop Rotation is faster and against combo decks you need all the speed you can get.

About results: I have still around 75% winrate on xmage after ~200 matches with this now. Depths plays a major role in my deck. Access to the combo has 3 big advantages:
1. Delver decks have not many answers to Marit Lage, if you can get the token into play they will usually lose. That allows me to get away with very few removal spells and still have a good Delver matchup (now i'm at 17-6 combined against different Delver decks - considering i'm playing Cloudposts, and Cloudpost decks are usually awful against Delver, i'm very happy with that).
2. Against combo decks, you have access to your own fast combo. That's rarely fast enough on its own (but it can happen), but it means you can often get away with just enough to disruption to stop their kill for 1 or 2 turns. My combo matchups are for the most part really good and almost certainly better than for other NicFit decks - that has other reasons too (Mox Diamonds, maindeck Gaddock Teeg), but without Marit Lage it would definitely be worse.
3. Against some BGx midrange decks, you have access to an "i win"-button - that way i have stolen lots of games i could never win with a fair game plan.

Notably, the combo is pretty bad against fair decks with white mana, especially Death&Taxes, so in those matchups you should board out the Depths and probably have a good alternative plan (for me, that plan involves Cloudposts, because those are the matchups where that plan is usually at its best).

With your deck, you will probably be a big favourite against Delver anyway, but the impact against combo decks is very relevant and the ability to steal hopeless games against other midrange decks is always relevant.

[Vervandi]

That has some similarities with my Cloudpost/NicFit hybrid, see here http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31293-Primer-Nic-Fit&p=1015935&viewfull=1#post1015935 . The maindeck is still the same, the sideboard is going through some minor changes.

Also, Brael tried Dark Depths in his earlier lists, but cut it and just kept the Crop Rotation package.

So, unless you want to try my actual list including the Cloudpost package (i like the list a lot, but it's of course different from your deck), one thing i would do at least:
You want to play Crop Rotation in this deck. Maybe not the full 4 copies like me, but at least 2. And you want Karakas and Bojuka Bog to get with that to deal with a couple otherwise problematic matchups. Knight can get those cards too, just Crop Rotation is faster and against combo decks you need all the speed you can get.

About results: I have still around 75% winrate on xmage after ~200 matches with this now. Depths plays a major role in my deck. Access to the combo has 3 big advantages:
1. Delver decks have not many answers to Marit Lage, if you can get the token into play they will usually lose. That allows me to get away with very few removal spells and still have a good Delver matchup (now i'm at 17-6 combined against different Delver decks - considering i'm playing Cloudposts, and Cloudpost decks are usually awful against Delver, i'm very happy with that).
2. Against combo decks, you have access to your own fast combo. That's rarely fast enough on its own (but it can happen), but it means you can often get away with just enough to disruption to stop their kill for 1 or 2 turns. My combo matchups are for the most part really good and almost certainly better than for other NicFit decks - that has other reasons too (Mox Diamonds, maindeck Gaddock Teeg), but without Marit Lage it would definitely be worse.
3. Against some BGx midrange decks, you have access to an "i win"-button - that way i have stolen lots of games i could never win with a fair game plan.

Notably, the combo is pretty bad against fair decks with white mana, especially Death&Taxes, so in those matchups you should board out the Depths and probably have a good alternative plan (for me, that plan involves Cloudposts, because those are the matchups where that plan is usually at its best).

With your deck, you will probably be a big favourite against Delver anyway, but the impact against combo decks is very relevant and the ability to steal hopeless games against other midrange decks is always relevant.

That's really interesting. I saw your list a while back (I lurk these boards but rarely post), and I even copy / pasted your list into tappedout and goldfished it a bit. Subconsciously, that may be where I got the idea for putting Dark Depths in my list. I had difficulty navigating the deck when I goldfished it, do you have any gameplay videos on Youtube or Twitch? Also, it is important that I finish a deck up that can hold it's own against Infect, Stoneblade and Burn, but not be too overly oppressive to them, as that is what my play group runs. How does your deck do in those matchups?

[Leshrac82]

That's really interesting. I saw your list a while back (I lurk these boards but rarely post), and I even copy / pasted your list into tappedout and goldfished it a bit. Subconsciously, that may be where I got the idea for putting Dark Depths in my list. I had difficulty navigating the deck when I goldfished it, do you have any gameplay videos on Youtube or Twitch? Also, it is important that I finish a deck up that can hold it's own against Infect, Stoneblade and Burn, but not be too overly oppressive to them, as that is what my play group runs. How does your deck do in those matchups?

No videos, sorry - i have never streamed anything and i currently have no plans to change that.

About these matchups:
Infect i need more data with this build. I'm currently 3-0 against it, but some of my older lists had big problems with Infect, so i would be surprised if it stayed that good.
How to play that matchup: The Cloudpost plan is usually too slow, and i board out the Eldrazi package including 2 Cloudposts. Depths is often good - they can chumpblock it with Inkmoth and postboard they could have Submerge, but otherwise it's hard to beat. The midrange plan also works. Discard their pumpspells (unless they have no threats on board and just 1 threat in hand). Lingering Souls as a sideboard card has overperformed against them, since it can block Inkmoth. In my current sideboard i play 2 Pernicious Deed, in this matchup that's probably better than Toxic Deluge because it kills Inkmoth. The most problematic games are those where they have just 1 threat and enough pumpspells to kill in 1 attack, almost impossible to win those games, especially if they have protection too - but those are the nuthands, everything else is beatable. My older lists without the NicFit package and without spotremoval had around 30-40% winrate against them, but i think Cabal Therapy alone makes this much better already, Lingering Souls and Pernicious Deed out of the board too, so i think it's probably favorable now - but needs more testing. (If you want more spotremoval, i would go for Swords to Plowshares.)

Stoneblade is a Cloudpost matchup. Depths is not good (because they have Swords to Plowshares - you can sometimes check for this with Therapy and go for it, but i would still board it out, they have Jace too and with Batterskull they are often over 20 life). Usually you try to stay alive and keep up with them with a grindy game plan. If a Tracker lives and keeps drawing you cards, it can be good enough to win the game. Many games you will fall behind, but often get the time to get the mana and Eye of Ugin for an Eldrazi and cast that - Ulamog is often good enough to win the game, Emrakul almost certainly is (and with Karakas you can cast Emrakul every turn, that's always good enough - with more mana and no active graveyard hate on their side, Tower + Eye of Ugin can also make an infinite Emrakul loop). The easiest way to get there is probably to resolve a Primeval Titan (if you can, check for FoW before you go for it).
Overall i think the matchup is favorable, but it depends on the list how favorable. Esper Stoneblade is probably the easiest matchup, i think 70%+ winrate. Didn't play enough against 4-Color yet, i think it could be slightly worse, but should still be pretty favorable. UW Stoneblade could play Back to Basics, and that can be problematic for the Cloudpost plan, but if they don't it's probably even easier than the rest.
(With this build i'm 3-3 against 4-Color, 2-0 against Esper and 1-0 against UW. When i was playing my older builds, 4-Color didn't exist yet.)

Burn is a race. I'm 3-1 with this build against Burn, with my older builds i also had around 70% winrate, but everybody else who tried my older builds had problems against Burn and when i tried to play both decks against each other, i had real problems against Burn too. Maybe the Burn players on xmage are just bad, i don't know. I think this build has more options against Burn than my older builds, but it's hard to tell if it's favorable or not - more Collective Brutalities (and maybe some maindeck) can make it better in case it's not good enough yet.
General strategy: If your hand can do it, kill them as fast as possible. Dark Depths is the best way to do it and Crop Rotation often very important to help with that - very rarely i have a hand that can play Turn 4 Emrakul, but usually that plan is too slow and i board out the Eldrazi package including 2 Cloudposts. A couple Trackers or just a large Knight can sometimes race them too (try to play the Knight as a 4/4 at least). Discard can buy you life. Collective Brutality out of the board is very good. Scooze and Courser can bring some life. Glimmerposts are a way to gain life, but keep Price of Progress in mind (i have attacked with Primeval Titan against them without searching out any lands because of that).

Overall, the current build can keep up with those decks, but it definitely doesn't dominate them. And if you are only facing those 3 decks, you can get rid of some cards like Gaddock Teeg or Bojuka Bog and probably play some other sideboard cards too (out of the current sideboard, i wouldn't board in Surgical against either of these decks, and while Ethersworn is ok against Infect, something else could be better too for those matchups - among cards i have played in my board in the past, i would board in Krosan Grip in all 3 matchups: kills Inkmoth through any protection, kills Equipment, kills Eidolon + Sulfuric Vortex and some possible Burn sideboard cards like Ensnaring Bridge. and i could see a couple Swords to Plowshares, it's good against Infect and Burn and probably playable against Stoneforge).

I would practice online with the deck - it's not always straight forward, there are many possible lines and just goldfishing is probably not enough.

[Vervandi]

No videos, sorry - i have never streamed anything and i currently have no plans to change that.

About these matchups:
Infect i need more data with this build. I'm currently 3-0 against it, but some of my older lists had big problems with Infect, so i would be surprised if it stayed that good.
How to play that matchup: The Cloudpost plan is usually too slow, and i board out the Eldrazi package including 2 Cloudposts. Depths is often good - they can chumpblock it with Inkmoth and postboard they could have Submerge, but otherwise it's hard to beat. The midrange plan also works. Discard their pumpspells (unless they have no threats on board and just 1 threat in hand). Lingering Souls as a sideboard card has overperformed against them, since it can block Inkmoth. In my current sideboard i play 2 Pernicious Deed, in this matchup that's probably better than Toxic Deluge because it kills Inkmoth. The most problematic games are those where they have just 1 threat and enough pumpspells to kill in 1 attack, almost impossible to win those games, especially if they have protection too - but those are the nuthands, everything else is beatable. My older lists without the NicFit package and without spotremoval had around 30-40% winrate against them, but i think Cabal Therapy alone makes this much better already, Lingering Souls and Pernicious Deed out of the board too, so i think it's probably favorable now - but needs more testing. (If you want more spotremoval, i would go for Swords to Plowshares.)

Stoneblade is a Cloudpost matchup. Depths is not good (because they have Swords to Plowshares - you can sometimes check for this with Therapy and go for it, but i would still board it out, they have Jace too and with Batterskull they are often over 20 life). Usually you try to stay alive and keep up with them with a grindy game plan. If a Tracker lives and keeps drawing you cards, it can be good enough to win the game. Many games you will fall behind, but often get the time to get the mana and Eye of Ugin for an Eldrazi and cast that - Ulamog is often good enough to win the game, Emrakul almost certainly is (and with Karakas you can cast Emrakul every turn, that's always good enough - with more mana and no active graveyard hate on their side, Tower + Eye of Ugin can also make an infinite Emrakul loop). The easiest way to get there is probably to resolve a Primeval Titan (if you can, check for FoW before you go for it).
Overall i think the matchup is favorable, but it depends on the list how favorable. Esper Stoneblade is probably the easiest matchup, i think 70%+ winrate. Didn't play enough against 4-Color yet, i think it could be slightly worse, but should still be pretty favorable. UW Stoneblade could play Back to Basics, and that can be problematic for the Cloudpost plan, but if they don't it's probably even easier than the rest.
(With this build i'm 3-3 against 4-Color, 2-0 against Esper and 1-0 against UW. When i was playing my older builds, 4-Color didn't exist yet.)

Burn is a race. I'm 3-1 with this build against Burn, with my older builds i also had around 70% winrate, but everybody else who tried my older builds had problems against Burn and when i tried to play both decks against each other, i had real problems against Burn too. Maybe the Burn players on xmage are just bad, i don't know. I think this build has more options against Burn than my older builds, but it's hard to tell if it's favorable or not - more Collective Brutalities (and maybe some maindeck) can make it better in case it's not good enough yet.
General strategy: If your hand can do it, kill them as fast as possible. Dark Depths is the best way to do it and Crop Rotation often very important to help with that - very rarely i have a hand that can play Turn 4 Emrakul, but usually that plan is too slow and i board out the Eldrazi package including 2 Cloudposts. A couple Trackers or just a large Knight can sometimes race them too (try to play the Knight as a 4/4 at least). Discard can buy you life. Collective Brutality out of the board is very good. Scooze and Courser can bring some life. Glimmerposts are a way to gain life, but keep Price of Progress in mind (i have attacked with Primeval Titan against them without searching out any lands because of that).

Overall, the current build can keep up with those decks, but it definitely doesn't dominate them. And if you are only facing those 3 decks, you can get rid of some cards like Gaddock Teeg or Bojuka Bog and probably play some other sideboard cards too (out of the current sideboard, i wouldn't board in Surgical against either of these decks, and while Ethersworn is ok against Infect, something else could be better too for those matchups - among cards i have played in my board in the past, i would board in Krosan Grip in all 3 matchups: kills Inkmoth through any protection, kills Equipment, kills Eidolon + Sulfuric Vortex and some possible Burn sideboard cards like Ensnaring Bridge. and i could see a couple Swords to Plowshares, it's good against Infect and Burn and probably playable against Stoneforge).

I would practice online with the deck - it's not always straight forward, there are many possible lines and just goldfishing is probably not enough.

That's a very thorough reply, thank you for your time.

[Brael]

I'm trying to build a junk list with Dark Depths. Has anyone tested Dark Depths, and if so, what were the results? Here is the list I am working on at the moment:

Search my posting history, I tried it extensively. It won me a few games, but I used it as a SB option and it mostly went unused. I actually sided in Thespian's Stage just to be an additional land more often than I sided in the full combo.


Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Use Crop Rotation over Knight of the Reliquary. It's a full 2 turns faster. Also, each piece being a 1 of isn't enough to combo off consistently. For that you need to run multiples. I used 3 DD 4 Stage.

[Echelon]

I'd keep in 1 Knight as a GSZ target. Can't do that w/ Crop Rotation.

[Leshrac82]

Search my posting history, I tried it extensively. It won me a few games, but I used it as a SB option and it mostly went unused. I actually sided in Thespian's Stage just to be an additional land more often than I sided in the full combo.



Use Crop Rotation over Knight of the Reliquary. It's a full 2 turns faster. Also, each piece being a 1 of isn't enough to combo off consistently. For that you need to run multiples. I used 3 DD 4 Stage.

Knight is what makes the combo more consistent, even though it's slower. One is enough as a GSZ target, but that one you want. (Of course you want Crop Rotations too.)
With Knight you can combo often enough with just one of each land. Very often you will have 1 Crop Rotation too, so just 1 active turn with Knight is good enough. Also, Knight is much better against Delver - they can counter Crop Rotation, but they can't counter the Knight activation - maybe they Stifle it, but then you're still only 1 turn slower. They often can't kill a big Knight either, and being 1 or 2 turns slower is usually not a problem against Delver (especially with a big Knight that can block on the ground) - and if they can deal with the combo (usually by leaving up a Wasteland), the Knight alone is often good enough to kill them.

I think with 3 DD and 4 Stage you are too Allin on the combo plan. The only decks playing more than 1 Depths and 1 Stage are Turbo-Depths and Lands, and those decks don't really have another reliable wincondition. Maverick, Aggro-Loam and 12-Post sometimes play the combo, but always just 1 of each land. I'm playing 2 Stage right now (and it took me very long to try that, i'm still not 100% convinced it's good), but you really don't want a 2nd Depths, drawing that when you don't want it hurts too much - especially in a deck without Mox Diamond.

And i think sacrificing 7 sideboard slots just for that is almost certainly not good. You want the combo against combo decks, but actual combo hate is much more important postboard (because your combo is still slower than their combo most of the time), with those 7 slots reserved for the combo you can't run enough other relevant cards, and i'm not surprised that didn't work out.

[removedfromgame]

So im going to play in the side events in a GP this weekend and im sleeving up something that looks like this:

3 vet
3 drs
1 ooze
1 witness
3 tracker
1 courser of kruphix
1 ramunap excavator
1 meren of clan nel toth
1 woodland bellower

4 gsz
4 therapy
4 crop rotation
1 fatal push
3 abrupt decay
1 diabolic edict
1 library
2 pernicious deed
1 to the slaughter

1 nissa vital force

3 forest
3 swamp
2 bayou
4 verdant
3 heath
1 flats
1 dryad arbor
1 wasteland
1 karakas
1 treetop village
1 bojuka bog
1 phyrexian tower
1 maze of ith

Board:
3 surgical
3 thoughtsieze
1 pithing needle
2 golgari charm
1 toxic deluge
1 to the slaughter
1 massacre
1 reclamation sage
2 lost legacy

The list isnt perfect but it seems to be doing okay in testing. I want another needle in the board somewhere and maybe a garruk relentless. I might cut a crop rotation for another push, but that's kind of where im at right now.

[square_two]

So im going to play in the side events in a GP this weekend and im sleeving up something that looks like this:

The list isnt perfect but it seems to be doing okay in testing. I want another needle in the board somewhere and maybe a garruk relentless. I might cut a crop rotation for another push, but that's kind of where im at right now.

I like the Woodland Bellower tech. Are you missing GSZ from the list? I did a quick count and it didn't seem to add to 60.

Food for thought: 1 Azusa, Lost But Seeking + 1 Ghost Quarter. Combined with Ramunap, that is 3 GQ activations every single turn. I'm salivating at the thought lol. Bit weak to removal (hi Meren), but you have GSZ/Bellower to find the creatures, and Crop Rotation to find the Ghost Quarter, so it is both fairly consistent and won't screw your regular plan.

[removedfromgame]

I like the Woodland Bellower tech. Are you missing GSZ from the list? I did a quick count and it didn't seem to add to 60.

Food for thought: 1 Azusa, Lost But Seeking + 1 Ghost Quarter. Combined with Ramunap, that is 3 GQ activations every single turn. I'm salivating at the thought lol. Bit weak to removal (hi Meren), but you have GSZ/Bellower to find the creatures, and Crop Rotation to find the Ghost Quarter, so it is both fairly consistent and won't screw your regular plan.

Yeah i just realised i forgot to add in gsz. Theyre a 4 of.

GQ might actually also make the cut. I was not sure if i wanted to add another waste effect but with vet it makes sense. Azusa seems great but kind of win more-y. There's potential i think.

[Brael]

Knight is what makes the combo more consistent, even though it's slower. One is enough as a GSZ target, but that one you want. (Of course you want Crop Rotations too.)

Speed matters. The KotR route takes 4 turns. 1 to summon, 1 for each land, and 1 to swing. Crop Rotation can assemble it all at the end of a single turn and kill from nowhere.

I've found that my builds grind extremely well, too well in fact. As a result I've spent a pretty significant amount of effort in finding ways to speed the clock. Crop Rotation vs KotR is one of those. You don't want to add 4 turns to your clock, that way lies madness and miracles.

[Echelon]

@removedfromthegame: Please do well. I so want this to work.

[ToastyToast]

I normally run an Abzan list of Nic Fit but i am trying to make a GB version work this is my tentative list

// 60 Maindeck
// 17 Creature
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Thragtusk
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Reclamation Sage
2 The Gitrog Monster
2 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Ramunap Excavator

// 4 Enchantment
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare

// 5 Instant
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Fatal Push

// 24 Land
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
4 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Wasteland
2 Dust Bowl
1 Phyrexian Tower

// 10 Sorcery
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Life from the Loam


// 15 Sideboard
// 4 Artifact
SB: 2 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 2 Trinisphere

// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Choke

// 7 Instant
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Fatal Push

// 2 Sorcery
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge

Any input would help.

[Brael]

I normally run an Abzan list of Nic Fit but i am trying to make a GB version work this is my tentative list

Any input would help.

I've done a lot of work with GB. In order to justify GB, you need to answer four questions;
What is White not doing for you?
What is Blue not doing for you?
What is Red not doing for you?
What are you hoping to gain from two color?

With the builds I like to run, my answers to those questions for reference are:
White: Removal exists in other colors, my build doesn't want Sigarda.
Blue: Too many sacrifices need to be made for FoW. The cantrip cabal can be matched in GB.
Red: Punishing Fire wrecks the mana, Huntmaster isn't enough in the 4.
What I hope to gain: Consistency and speed.

First, your land. I don't like the mana denial strategy here, with GB you'll gain more consistency and that means you want mana to play your cards on time. Denying your opponent a color when Veteran Explorer fixes them seems like a bad idea. Also, those colorless slots have a cost, you only have 13 green and 12 black sources with your current setup. Considering you're only two colors that's not good. Ideally you want to be in the range of 15 t1 green sources.

The other thing I would look at is speed. Being just two colors you should be able to act faster than a deck that needs 3 colors. That probably means having more cards to act on our fast starts. Below average starts should get you to 3 mana on T2 while best possible starts get you to 5 mana. This means setting your curve up to use that mana. I see lots of 5's in your list, but few 4's. Thus, on a good start (which isn't consistent in your build anyways) you can't GSZ for something.

With Titania specifically but Gitrog too you need more fetches, and you probably want Crop Rotation as well.

Finally, what's your plan to cast these cards when you're giving up 3 lands per game to land destruction?

[Captain Hammer]

Increasingly, b/r reanimator and dark depths decks are taking over my meta. Abrupt Decay and Deeds do little and if I can't interact with them on turn one, the game is lost.

How can I gear the deck to have a chance against b/r reanimator and dark depths?

Cut deeds and Decay to make room for 4 Thoughtseize?

Play 4 Needles and 4 Leylines in the side?

Give up on Nic Fit and switch to a deck that can beat Depths and B/r reanimator? If so, what decks have a good matchup against these two decks?

[Leshrac82]

Increasingly, b/r reanimator and dark depths decks are taking over my meta. Abrupt Decay and Deeds do little and if I can't interact with them on turn one, the game is lost.

How can I gear the deck to have a chance against b/r reanimator and dark depths?

Cut deeds and Decay to make room for 4 Thoughtseize?

Play 4 Needles and 4 Leylines in the side?

Give up on Nic Fit and switch to a deck that can beat Depths and B/r reanimator? If so, what decks have a good matchup against these two decks?

Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog (against Reanimator) and Karakas (against both) help a lot against these two decks (and having the Depths combo myself helps too). My winrate against Reanimator has always been pretty high with my deck, and most of it is because of Crop Rotation (still need Surgical postboard, but Crop Rotation gives me another card to blow them out). Not enough data against Turbo Depths, but i'm pretty sure that matchup is good for me too. And Lands is one of my best matchups, to a large part because of Crop Rotation with those 2 Lands to get.
And while my build is pretty unique with the Cloudpost part, other builds are starting to play a few Crop Rotations too, so it should work in every NicFit deck if you are playing those 2 utility lands at least and gets better if you play a few other things. Look up my build a few pages back for my NicFit-Cloudpost-Depths hybrid, or Braels build for a more fair approach with Crop Rotations.

[Echelon]

Junk Fit has tools to answer threats of either.

[Captain Hammer]

Which tools? Most of the Nic Fit lists I've seen here don't play crop rotation and Scooze and Shaman are far too slow to help against B/R Reanimator. Most lists don't even play a full play set of Thoughtseize to accompany the Cabal Therapy which I think is a mistake in a format where some decks routinely combo off and win turn one or turn two.

B/R Reanimator more often than not gets down a turn one Griselbrand and combos off and wins with it that same turn using Children of Korolis and Laboratory Maniac, or alternatively they play a turn one Sire of Insanity and make you discard your hand. So if you can't interact with them on turn one, there typically won't be a turn two.


Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog (against Reanimator) and Karakas (against both) help a lot against these two decks (and having the Depths combo myself helps too). My winrate against Reanimator has always been pretty high with my deck, and most of it is because of Crop Rotation (still need Surgical postboard, but Crop Rotation gives me another card to blow them out). Not enough data against Turbo Depths, but i'm pretty sure that matchup is good for me too. And Lands is one of my best matchups, to a large part because of Crop Rotation with those 2 Lands to get.
And while my build is pretty unique with the Cloudpost part, other builds are starting to play a few Crop Rotations too, so it should work in every NicFit deck if you are playing those 2 utility lands at least and gets better if you play a few other things. Look up my build a few pages back for my NicFit-Cloudpost-Depths hybrid, or Braels build for a more fair approach with Crop Rotations.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try incorporating some crop rotation, a karakas, a wasteland and a bajuka bog into my build. It helps that I also play a Dryad Arbor I can grab with it if I need a creature at instant speed.

[Brael]

Which tools? Most of the Nic Fit lists I've seen here don't play crop rotation and Scooze and Shaman are far too slow to help against B/R Reanimator. Most lists don't even play a full play set of Thoughtseize to accompany the Cabal Therapy which I think is a mistake in a format where some decks routinely combo off and win turn one or turn two.

B/R Reanimator more often than not gets down a turn one Griselbrand and combos off and wins with it that same turn using Children of Korolis and Laboratory Maniac, or alternatively they play a turn one Sire of Insanity and make you discard your hand. So if you can't interact with them on turn one, there typically won't be a turn two.



Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try incorporating some crop rotation, a karakas, a wasteland and a bajuka bog into my build. It helps that I also play a Dryad Arbor I can grab with it if I need a creature at instant speed.

Another card I like in GB is Diabolic Edict. It fills the same type of role, killing a big creature like Emrakul, Marit Lage, or Griselbrand that Swords/Path do for junk builds.

[Echelon]

Which tools? Most of the Nic Fit lists I've seen here don't play crop rotation and Scooze and Shaman are far too slow to help against B/R Reanimator. Most lists don't even play a full play set of Thoughtseize to accompany the Cabal Therapy which I think is a mistake in a format where some decks routinely combo off and win turn one or turn two.

B/R Reanimator more often than not gets down a turn one Griselbrand and combos off and wins with it that same turn using Children of Korolis and Laboratory Maniac, or alternatively they play a turn one Sire of Insanity and make you discard your hand. So if you can't interact with them on turn one, there typically won't be a turn two.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try incorporating some crop rotation, a karakas, a wasteland and a bajuka bog into my build. It helps that I also play a Dryad Arbor I can grab with it if I need a creature at instant speed.

Junk Fit is one of the few decks that can support Path to Exile, which lets you get away with quite a lot of stuff.

Your description of B/R Reanimator leads me to believe you're talking about Tin Fins, though. Not a single B/R Reanimator list on The Source runs Children of Korlis. And since ours is a non-blue deck, ofcourse we're going to have a problem vs. such glass cannon combo decks. Crop Rotation for Bog is nice and all, but does very little for you when they're on the play. And just 1 Bog won't save you G1.

G2/3 you usually have at least 7 discard spells and a number of Lost Legacy and Surgical Extraction. This, combined with your DRS/PtE, is usually enough to take G2. G3 is where the real challenge lies, since they'll likely be on the play. If they have the nuts, there's nothing you (or most other decks, for that matter) can do. I've had the pleasure of seeing B/R Reanimator's T1 end with them having Griselbrand, Iona/Chancellor of the Annex (I forgot which it was) AND Sire of Insanity on the board while I had a wonderful hand of everything that was good vs. them.

[removedfromgame]

So Eschelon, i took that list to the side events and it was not good. The deck has a lot of play to it, but it suffers in not being able to really apply pressure amd close games. All my losses were heartbreakingly close, but later of i jammed a bunch of games against Wilson Hunter's grixis control and i was not even in the games. I decided to revert back to rhinos, but keep in a crop rotation sub package. I'll post a list later.

[Leshrac82]

And since ours is a non-blue deck, ofcourse we're going to have a problem vs. such glass cannon combo decks. Crop Rotation for Bog is nice and all, but does very little for you when they're on the play. And just 1 Bog won't save you G1.

Going over my matches against Reanimator (currently 8-1 against different flavors, no Tin-Fins but most of it BR):
1. As you said, they are a glass cannon combo deck. Long term that means there will be a decent number of games where their deck just doesn't work. I won some games where my opponent's deck did just that, they either mulliganed into oblivion and conceded or they never found a combo.
2. Crop Rotation was by far the most important card for me and responsible for the majority of my wins. Again, they are a glass cannon deck. Crop Rotation for Bog is just a blowout, they have to completely rebuild from that, meaning get another creature in the graveyard and find another reanimaton spell, and the creature they actually wanted is gone forever - much stronger than just a discard spell. That gives me a lot of time to either find more disruption in the form of discard, get Scooze to lock up the game, or just kill them with other stuff. Many games, just one Crop Rotation was enough to win me the game.
3. Crop Rotation for Karakas is an out if they did get a Griselbrand into play. It's not always good enough if they got other stuff too, but more often than not, they don't have something to get around Karakas.

You can't win every game against a deck like BR-Reanimator. Sometimes they are on the play and just have the Nuts - only Surgical can save you then, but against a Chancellor even that is not good enough. Just try to win the games you can actually win, and Crop Rotation helps a lot with that.

Other options: I played Swords to Plowshares in earlier builds. It's good against Reanimator and definitely helps, but Crop Rotation is still stronger - you don't really want that Griselbrand to get into play at all, if they draw 7-14 cards most of the damage is done. Path to Exile does pretty much the same.
Diabolic Edict is less good, because they just need another reanimation spell to go off again and they could have Grave Titan.
I have Toxic Deluge in the deck, has the same problems as Edict but actually deals with Grave Titan at least. Sometimes this will do something, and it's certainly better in the matchup than Pernicious Deed.

[Echelon]

So Eschelon, i took that list to the side events and it was not good. The deck has a lot of play to it, but it suffers in not being able to really apply pressure amd close games. All my losses were heartbreakingly close, but later of i jammed a bunch of games against Wilson Hunter's grixis control and i was not even in the games. I decided to revert back to rhinos, but keep in a crop rotation sub package. I'll post a list later.

The unfortunate fate of most offbeat lists. At the end of the day Rhino is just the most efficient way to go.

[removedfromgame]

The unfortunate fate of most offbeat lists. At the end of the day Rhino is just the most efficient way to go.

Its kind of frustrating. I added a gitrog last minute because i thought it would be sexy tech with all the rotations and crucible of guy. It performed well but not having rhinos and sigarda was actively just bad for me when all these midrange/control decks just keep dealing with my trackers.

Post sadness list:

3 forest
2 swamp
1 plains
2 bayou
2 scrubland
1 savannah
4 verdant
3 heath
1 waste
1 karakas
1 tower
1 arbor

3 vet
3 drs
1 QPM
1 ooze
2 tracker
1 witness
1 excavator
2 rhino
1 meren
1 gitrog
1 sigarda

4 green sun
4 therapy
2 push
2 crop rotation
3 decay
1 diabolic edict
1 library
3 deed
1 nissa, vf

Board:

3 surgical
2 thoughtseize
1 needle
2 golgari charm
1 to the slaughter
1 garruk relentless
1 deluge
1 massacre
1 rec sage
2 lost legacy

(The board is kind of thrown together right now so there are some slots than can be manuvered)

I guess if it ain't broke, right?

[Brael]

Increasingly, b/r reanimator and dark depths decks are taking over my meta. Abrupt Decay and Deeds do little and if I can't interact with them on turn one, the game is lost.

How can I gear the deck to have a chance against b/r reanimator and dark depths?

Cut deeds and Decay to make room for 4 Thoughtseize?

Play 4 Needles and 4 Leylines in the side?

Give up on Nic Fit and switch to a deck that can beat Depths and B/r reanimator? If so, what decks have a good matchup against these two decks?

Check out my lists, seriously. They may not look it at first glance, but going by the various tournament reports I have the best unfair deck matchup out of everything. You pay a price in some of the fair matches (shardless and delver are no longer massively favored) but it all depends on what you want to lose to. I think mine is currently very close to 50/50 against everything except Elves which is an autoloss.

Reanimator+Dark Depths can be beaten with a combination of discard, edicts, GY hate, and sweepers backed by a clock. To put names to that: Cabal Therapy, Collective Brutality, Crop Rotation, Karakas, Deathrite Shaman, Bojuka Bog, and Toxic Deluge. You may have noticed I play all of those mainboard. All of these can be fired off by T2 and sometimes by T1. These are some of the matches where I highly suggest having a non Veteran Explorer ramp plan. They benefit from the basics more than you (and Reanimator has a bunch of them), so it's very important to reach 3 mana on T2 in other ways.

Building the deck is only half the battle though, even if you're prepared you still need to quickly figure out what you're playing against and make the proper opening moves. At any paper event this is "easy". I always take a trip through the room before tournament time and note what each person is playing. It's not 100% because people sometimes switch decks, but it's data you can match up with opening plays to figure out what you're going to do.

This advice also holds for Show and Tell.

[Brael]

And while my build is pretty unique with the Cloudpost part, other builds are starting to play a few Crop Rotations too, so it should work in every NicFit deck if you are playing those 2 utility lands at least and gets better if you play a few other things. Look up my build a few pages back for my NicFit-Cloudpost-Depths hybrid, or Braels build for a more fair approach with Crop Rotations.

Crop Rotation is more of a staple for me at this point than Veteran Explorer is. There are many postboard games where I'm running 0-1 Explorer and 3 Crop Rotations. The meta is fine for Nic Fit right now, but it's not fine for Explorer. You NEED alternative mana ramp plans.


Which tools? Most of the Nic Fit lists I've seen here don't play crop rotation and Scooze and Shaman are far too slow to help against B/R Reanimator. Most lists don't even play a full play set of Thoughtseize to accompany the Cabal Therapy which I think is a mistake in a format where some decks routinely combo off and win turn one or turn two.

There's not much need for Thoughtseize to see the opponents hand. I would rather use that slot on Surgical Extraction. You can often times treat it as a Thoughtseize, it's less mana, better late game, and has better utility. Even then, I try to not rely on those. In any given match there's really only a handfull of cards to call in 90% of situations. Just focus on those cards and you'll play Therapy at a high enough skill ceiling to get value out of it. Remember, decks like Storm play Therapy with no ability to flash back. Our situation isn't that different, there's a handfull of cards to worry about. If you can effectively clear those cards out, you're in good shape.


B/R Reanimator more often than not gets down a turn one Griselbrand and combos off and wins with it that same turn using Children of Korolis and Laboratory Maniac, or alternatively they play a turn one Sire of Insanity and make you discard your hand. So if you can't interact with them on turn one, there typically won't be a turn two.

If you're worried about this, sideboard 4 Leyline of the Void as additional GY hate. It's also pretty good against a few other decks.


Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try incorporating some crop rotation, a karakas, a wasteland and a bajuka bog into my build. It helps that I also play a Dryad Arbor I can grab with it if I need a creature at instant speed.

Don't play Wasteland. Veteran Explorers give your opponents all the colors they need. So you can really only use it to blow up utility lands. If that's your gameplan Ghost Quarter is actually better, because you can run them out of basics and make it a Strip Mine. It can also be aimed at your own lands to get a basic at times. But, in general I don't recommend land destruction in this deck. If you really want it, use Vindicate.


Its kind of frustrating. I added a gitrog last minute because i thought it would be sexy tech with all the rotations and crucible of guy. It performed well but not having rhinos and sigarda was actively just bad for me when all these midrange/control decks just keep dealing with my trackers.

This happens. Small guys are fine and all, but they only work if you have enough cards to fight through the removal. You need a bunch of card draw. The idea is that you play a bunch of 2 for 1's, and your opponent kills your creatures with 1 for 1's. After a few turns of this, they'll be left with nothing and you'll be left with a bunch of cards. At that point you can win the game with essentially anything. That's why all of my card choices involve creatures that generate CA.


Post sadness list:

3 forest
2 swamp
1 plains
2 bayou
2 scrubland
1 savannah
4 verdant
3 heath
1 waste
1 karakas
1 tower
1 arbor

3 vet
3 drs
1 QPM
1 ooze
2 tracker
1 witness
1 excavator
2 rhino
1 meren
1 gitrog
1 sigarda

4 green sun
4 therapy
2 push
2 crop rotation
3 decay
1 diabolic edict
1 library
3 deed
1 nissa, vf

Board:

3 surgical
2 thoughtseize
1 needle
2 golgari charm
1 to the slaughter
1 garruk relentless
1 deluge
1 massacre
1 rec sage
2 lost legacy


It's late and I'm tired, so I might trail off here but let me try and explain what's going on with this list of yours;
First of all you have 22 lands, but Wasteland is never meant to be tapped so you have 21. Then you're not running a good tutor selection. One of the big advantages to Crop Rotation is that if you do it right, you free up slots in your deck for other things. I'm in too much of a pre sleep haze at the moment to remember the number we came up with before for a 61 card deck, but I think it was 35. 35 pieces of interaction in a list. You have 27. Crop Rotation is how you cheat those numbers into the list. Bojuka Bog hits Graveyards, Tower rebuys board presence (and that presence gets you cards), Karakas stops some stuff, Maze of Ith stops some stuff (and super charges your weak guys). That's how you achieve those numbers. At the same time though, Crop Rotation has the single most powerful interaction in Magic (and I will be happy to write pages on this if necessary). It efficiently turns mana sources into mana sinks and vice versa. It's honestly above Brainstorm in it's ability to convert resources. You absolutely need to build for Crop Rotation properly, and one aspect of doing that is running more than 22 (21) lands. It's hard to discipline but shoot for 24. My preferred build right now is actually 25 (but one is a Maze).

Not only does this give you so many more opening lines of play (which is key because all future turns branch from this) through more lands in hand, but you'll mulligan less and better, and even a flood can be mitigated with Crop Rotations.

Enough on mana for now. Next I want to talk about your creature selection.
Vets are a card that should be either 4 or 0 in G1. It's an integral part of ramping, and our fastest ramp card. The only reason to go under 4 is a very basic heavy meta, or a poor sideboard plan. In your case, I think it's a poor sideboard plan. You have no replacement ramp cards to replace Explorer with. When you pull them out, your entire deck slows down so you have less mana, but you're also bringing in more expensive cards. So now you're casting fewer cards with less mana. That's not how you win with a low to the ground deck. You win through velocity and advantage.

Basically, you went low but you didn't really embrace it. Your CMC of your deck is 80 (not counting SB), in order to really make the cards fly it needs to be around 65 with the appropriate mana sources. To give some brief math here: At 80 you're paying 1.3 mana per card. At 65 you're paying 1.1 per card.

So I'm going to play out some early turns here
80 T1: Land, DRS
65 T1: Land, DRS

80 T2: Tireless Tracker, Land, Clue
65 T2: Tireless Tracker, Land, Clue, Crop Rotation, Fetch, Clue, Crack Fetch, Clue, GSZ Arbor, Clue

In this situation, the higher mana deck got a value play, but the Tireless Tracker drew you 4 extra cards, and the mana acceleration to use 3 of them on the next turn (while holding up your DRS). Do that a bunch, and the opponent will lose to attrition.

Without repeating all the math we did before (it's in the old thread if you're interested... search my history for SE Fit), low to the ground creatures, lots of card advantage, and mana acceleration to go wide works well. It's the best way to overwhelm any removal plan in the format. Legacy is very removal light, if they can show you 5 pieces, that means your 6th creature wins the game. So keep the cards flowing to make that happen.

On Gitrog specifically. I'm coming around on it lately. Not ready to put it in my list, but ready to consider it again, I'm currently under my mana budget so it's possible. It's more robust than Titania, harder to kill, a better reward, resource conversion, and so on. But it's not GSZable on an early start. Even if you can get it out early, eating lands sets you back too much. And most times you can't get it early because early mana tops at 5 and the frog needs 6 for a GSZ.

Edit: I think I have a viable Wasteland like deck in mind, for those who are stuck on the card. I'll post it in the morning.

Edit 2: Wasteland deck has a flaw, I'm going to keep at the idea but if you want to play mana denial, Maverick is probably a better deck choice.

[Echelon]

80 T2: Tireless Tracker, Land, Clue
65 T2: Tireless Tracker, Land, Clue, Crop Rotation, Fetch, Clue, Crack Fetch, Clue, GSZ Arbor, Clue

Dude, reread this in the morning...

Land, DRS, land gives you 3 mana. You cannot cast Crop Rotation on your T2 after you've cast Tracker. And how often will you do it anyways? Daze is still a card. And if the point is that that's what your T3 might look like - in that particular case you could also just drop Siege Rhino T3 and call it a day. Sometimes I hate deckbuilding...

[Brael]

Dude, reread this in the morning...

Land, DRS, land gives you 3 mana. You cannot cast Crop Rotation on your T2 after you've cast Tracker. And how often will you do it anyways? Daze is still a card. And if the point is that that's what your T3 might look like - in that particular case you could also just drop Siege Rhino T3 and call it a day. Sometimes I hate deckbuilding...

Oh whoops, I wasn't clear enough on the T1 and that got the sequence messed up. I was assuming a Tower opening in there. In which case you can make the sequence
T1: Bayou, DRS
T2: Tap Bayou, Crop Rotation for Tower, tap DRS, use Tower. That gives you 3 mana. From there you can Tireless Tracker followed by a land (hopefully a Fetch). That's good for 2 clues. A GSZ for Arbor at that point will make it 3 clues or a second Crop Rotation will make it 4 clues, 5 clues with both (but I would probably save the GSZ in the situation I have 2 Rotations). There's a slower alternative line in there where you GSZ for an Explorer and feed it to the Tower for 2 lands/clues but it requires Tracker surviving a turn.

As far as Daze goes, you'll have to evaluate the matchup. Different openings are good against different decks. This happens to be a powerful one against something like D&T or Lands. It's less good against Delver. Delver is where a traditional Veteran Explorer opening shines.

[Echelon]

I don't like opening with Bayou. Getting your first land Wastelanded can be such a blowout.

[Brael]

I don't like opening with Bayou. Getting your first land Wastelanded can be such a blowout.

Forest works equally well for my above scenario. But given I have a choice due to a fetchland I'll go Bayou first if my opening is DRS. Worst case scenario is my opponent Wastelands me, and now my DRS has fuel for two activations, I have a DRS on board, and they have nothing. That's a good enough turn 1 provided there's other lands in my hand. In that scenario for example if I could follow it up on T2 with land+activation for 2 mana to play a Dark Confidant, I think I'm already 80% to win that game.

The main reason to avoid Wasteland is that you need to ensure you get some mana development. Veteran Explorer can't do that, so you usually want to open on Explorer off of a Forest. DRS produces mana right away though which enables Bayou starts, and in a low curve build you come out ahead if the opponent trades lands like that. In fact, in that specific hand (Bayou, DRS, Bob, 1 more land, 3 other cards on the play) I would argue Bayou first is your best possible sequence because you actively want the opponent to set themselves back with a Wasteland. Plus, it disguises what you're playing. To help facilitate that, I actually switched my Windswept Heaths to Misty Rainforests in BG just for a little bit of value in representing another deck early against an unknown opponent.

[Echelon]

The flipside is that they can be on the play, EoT Bolt your DRS, on their turn drop Delver, Wasteland your Bayou and have Daze in hand for whatever you might cast next turn.

I might be a little bit paranoid 'cause my regular sparring buddy can be a very lucky bastard and does this to me on a regular basis.

[Brael]

The flipside is that they can be on the play, EoT Bolt your DRS, on their turn drop Delver, Wasteland your Bayou and have Daze in hand for whatever you might cast next turn.

I might be a little bit paranoid 'cause my regular sparring buddy can be a very lucky bastard and does this to me on a regular basis.

That's why I specified on the play. On the draw it's trickier. Regardless, my point is that it's all contextual. When to Rotate for a Tower, when to play a Forest, when to play a Bayou, etc... having the cards in your deck that give you the ability to make better contextual choices is one of the best things you can do to raise your overall win precentage. Having lots of ways to develop and accelerate your mana is key.

In your scenario, the optimal opening wouldn't even be Forest though. It would be Swamp into Therapy (likely for Force of Will) followed by a T2 land (anything green), to play Veteran Explorer with a mana up to get through Daze, and then flashback Therapy followed by a 3 drop (at that type of mana advantage you would rather just put them back a land and clear the Daze for a bigger threat on the following turn). Assuming those cards were in your hand of course.

[madake]

Sarkahn Vol-raths Petshop

CREATURES
4 veteran explorer
2 deathrite shaman
2 siege-gang commander
1 kitchen finks
1 nissa, vastwood seer
1 Deranged Hermit
1 thragtusk
1 broodmate dragon
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Scavenging Ooze

SPELLS
4 punishing fire
4 green sun's zenith
2 abrupt decay
3 fatal push
4 cabal therapy

WALKERS
2 sarkhan vol
1 garruk relentless
1 Nissa, Vital Force

LANDS
4 wooded foothills
4 bloodstained mire
4 grove of the burnwillows
4 forest
3 swamp
2 mountain
1 taiga
1 badlands
1 Volrath's Stronghold

SB
1 Choke
1 Golgari Charm
1 Krosan Grip
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Slaughter Games
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

--------------

So, I wanna get into legacy and i thought nic fit was a good place to start. I do like Sarkhan Vol alot, the card is amazing with tokens. Thus, token generators (siege-gang and hermit) has been added. Huntmaster and broodmate both produce tokens ETB which can be hasted and pumped with Sarkhan. Relentless-G is added for the same reason, solid walker who produces dudes. The rest of the card choices are fairly standard I think.

The manabase at the current stage consists of what i own. I have not tried the deck much (only 2 real games), and it's a quite fun deck! It is very unclear how it fares versus more established decks tho. Anyway, do you have any ideas or tips? (the sideboard is kind of a mess)

[Echelon]

Sarkahn Vol-raths Petshop

...List...

So, I wanna get into legacy and i thought nic fit was a good place to start. I do like Sarkhan Vol alot, the card is amazing with tokens. Thus, token generators (siege-gang and hermit) has been added. Huntmaster and broodmate both produce tokens ETB which can be hasted and pumped with Sarkhan. Relentless-G is added for the same reason, solid walker who produces dudes. The rest of the card choices are fairly standard I think.

The manabase at the current stage consists of what i own. I have not tried the deck much (only 2 real games), and it's a quite fun deck! It is very unclear how it fares versus more established decks tho. Anyway, do you have any ideas or tips? (the sideboard is kind of a mess)

Well, right off the bat I'd say cut the >=5 mana cards down to 1/2 max and cut the cute token stuff. Incorporate some sweepers and other CA cards/engines. Nic Fit wins by burying your opponent in cards and steadily applying pressure.

[Navsi]

Sarkahn Vol-raths Petshop

CREATURES
4 veteran explorer
2 deathrite shaman
2 siege-gang commander
1 kitchen finks
1 nissa, vastwood seer
1 Deranged Hermit
1 thragtusk
1 broodmate dragon
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Scavenging Ooze

SPELLS
4 punishing fire
4 green sun's zenith
2 abrupt decay
3 fatal push
4 cabal therapy

WALKERS
2 sarkhan vol
1 garruk relentless
1 Nissa, Vital Force

LANDS
4 wooded foothills
4 bloodstained mire
4 grove of the burnwillows
4 forest
3 swamp
2 mountain
1 taiga
1 badlands
1 Volrath's Stronghold

SB
1 Choke
1 Golgari Charm
1 Krosan Grip
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Slaughter Games
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

1. Punishing Fire is not well positioned right now. A lot of the decks PFire is good against right now (decks with walkers you can slowly grind down, or lots of cheap low-toughness threats) are either too fast for you to reliably use it against, or running Leovold.

2. A lot of your creatures fulfil the same role (flood the board, hope your opponent doesn't have an answer). You can probably cut a lot of these and just Zenith them when needed. In that situation, your best options are Huntmaster (wins games solo), Hermit/Thragtusk (lots of power + zenithable) and Nissa VS (attacks on a different angle, zenithable, hard to remove). If you want to make a ton of tokens and kill people very fast, Titania is also a solid choice - I've had some success with her recently, although she is allergic to Deathrites, Lightning Bolt is not super popular right now. Mayor of Avabruck is also a low-cmc choice who puts power on the table quickly.

3. If you're playing a ton of creatures with token making ETBs, you should possibly look into Recurring Nightmare.

4. You don't have much interaction. Combo decks will kill you faster than you kill them, so you have to have disruption. 4 Cabal Therapy is not enough. I'd recommend some number of Collective Brutality in the maindeck, with more in the sideboard. I personally run 2 Lost Legacy, 2 Thoughtseize, 3 Surgical, and some hatebears. Without white your hate options get worse, but Blood Moon would do plenty of work out of the sideboard.

5. As echelon mentioned you probably want to cut some of the big, expensive cards for more cheap pieces. I can't recommend Tireless Tracker enough. You also probably want an Eternal Witness as a zenith target. If you want to run a few bigger things that's fine, but try not to go overboard.

I'd go for something like this:

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Collective Brutality
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 To The Slaughter

2 Sylvan Library

1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Garruk Relentless

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Phyrexian Tower

Sideboard:
3 Lost Legacy
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Blood Moon
2 Pithing Needle
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 To The Slaughter
1 Kolaghan's Command

[Leshrac82]

More data for my Cloudpost/NicFit/Depths-hybrid (still the same maindeck as in this post: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31293-Primer-Nic-Fit&p=1015935&viewfull=1#post1015935 ) - i'm now at over 250 matches on xmage, overall 198-66. I wanted to make a similar list like last time how the matches went, try to keep it a little more organized in categories this time:

Bloood Moon: 10-3
(Dragon-Stompy: 5-0, BigRed: 4-3, Elementals: 1-0)
Burn: 6-4
Delver/Tempo: 24-7
(BUG: 2-1, Grixis: 6-2, RUG: 4-3, UR: 5-0, UWR: 4-0, Infect: 3-0, UB-DeathsShadow: 0-1)
Dredge: 7-2
(LED: 3-2, Manaless: 4-0)
Elves: 3-5
Lands: 8-3
Non-Blue Midrange: 30-7
(Aggro-Loam: 5-0, Deadguye Ale: 2-1, Death&Taxes: 6-2, Jund: 5-3, Maverick: 7-1, NicFit: 3-0, The Rock: 2-0)
Ux-Midrange/Control: 27-8
(4-Color-Leovold: 3-1, Grixis Control: 3-3, Miracles: 3-0, Shardless BUG: 4-0, Stoneblade: 9-4 (4-Color: 4-4, Esper: 3-0, UW: 2-0), Other/Brews: 5-0 (BUG: 1-0, RUG: 2-0, UB-Landstill: 1-0, Waterfalls: 1-0))
Pox: 15-3
Reanimator: 9-1
(BG: 1-0, BR: 5-0, UB: 2-1, Depths: 1-0)
Show&Tell: 5-0
(Eureka: 1-0, Hypergenesis: 2-0, Omnisneak: 2-0)
Storm: 14-1
(ANT: 9-1, TES: 5-0)
Other Combo: 19-10
(12-Post: 3-2 (G: 0-1, MUD: 1-0, RUG: 0-1, UG: 2-0), Aluren: 1-0, Belcher: 2-1, BUG-Natural Order: 2-0, Doomsday: 1-0, Enchantress: 3-0, Food Chain: 1-1, High Tide: 1-0, Leylines: 4-0, OopsAllSpells: 1-1, Turbo-Depths: 0-3, UW-Painter: 0-2)
Other Fair: 16-11
(Affinity: 1-2, Eldrazi: 1-1, Goblins: 2-1, Mardu-Mentor: 3-3, Parfait: 1-0, RG-Zoo: 1-0, Soldier-Stompy: 1-0, Grixis Daretti: 0-1, Tezzeret: 1-3, Turbo-Planeswalkers: 2-0, Zombies: 1-0).
(not listed: 7-1 against different sub-optimal decks that were at least semi-competitive)

Overall the results especially categorized like that show pretty clearly:
1. Among the Tier decks, there is no fair deck that's clearly problematic. The results against some decks could be better, but usually the results against very similar decks are so much better this will probably be just a matter of samplesize. I'm clearly beating Delver decks, Lands, Ux midrange decks and non-blue midrange decks with a very convincing winrate.
2. Blood Moon decks are not a big problem - BigRed might be difficult, but it's clearly far from being unwinnable (and that's the default for Cloudpost decks). This is important if you want to look at this data from the Cloudpost point of view, less surprising for NicFit decks.
3. Other more fringe fair strategies are more problematic (with the exception of Pox, that is very good and clearly overrepresented on xmage). This is not just a matter of samplesize, i think some of those matchups are bad for me. But i don't think they are relevant enough to do something about that.
4. My results against the most played combo decks are for the most part really good, Storm and Reanimator are some of my best matchups, Dredge too. The results against Show&Tell have to be a fluke, i'm still convinced any kind of Omnitell deck is one of my worst matchups. But apparently not unwinnable, i underestimated how often my opponents would just go for it without Omniscience (in case you're wondering: against a Cloudpost deck, you should almost never just play Show&Tell->Emrakul).
5. Elves is the big exception. The matchup is far from unwinnable, but clearly not as good as i would like. I have to watch that more, the samplesize is still small. One thing that divides Elves from every other matchup: The fair gameplan is so bad i actually board out all my Trackers. I think most games are only winnable with either Marit Lage or Emrakul, so i focus on one of these combo option and try to disrupt them otherwise.
6. Other combo decks are ok, but maybe not as good as the Tier 1-2 combo decks. I think this is fine, some of the more allin combo decks are hard to fight without FoW, and i don't see a reason to change cards because of this (and i think my "worst" other combo matchup with Turbo Depths is actually pretty good, i was just unlucky and he has an unusual list that lined up well against me).

I kept an eye on some of the possible weaknesses others pointed out in this thread:
Titania was still great. I see absolutely no reason to replace her - i think in the last 1-2 weeks i had just one game where a Gearhulk for example would have won the game while Titania lost it, and very many games i won with Titania that i would have lost with something like a Gearhulk.
On that note, the Cloudpost package is very important against the slower fair decks. If i would cut that, those matchups would get worse even if maybe some other matchups would get better. Right now, the matchups that could get better are probably even better than the matchups that would get worse, so removing that angle of attack from the deck would be very counterproductive.
Crop Rotation was still great, while Collective Brutality was good as a sideboard card against many decks, but imo not a strong enough replacement in the maindeck. This deck wants 4 Crop Rotations. It might even want more than 4 if that would be possible.
I am happy with just 2 Explorers: I never wanted to get an Explorer when i didn't have one left in the deck, i never want to crack more than 2 Explorers in one game (because i only play 5 basics), and topdecking an Explorer later in the game is usually pretty bad. While i have my most explosive openings with Explorer, between Mox Diamond and Cloudposts i have other ways to ramp and opening hands without Explorer can still be very good.
The lack of more maindeck removal doesn't seem to hurt the deck against Delver or other fair decks. Being proactive and having an actual combo kill myself with Marit Lage (against the fast decks like Delver) or Eldrazi (against the slower decks) more than makes up for that preboard, the way the games play out i can often just kill them instead of dealing with their threats if i can't keep up with my own fair cards. Since removal means more dead cards against combo decks and is often worse than threats against slower fair decks, i see no reason to change that.

Out of the sideboard, i tried a few things, this is my current sideboard and for now i'm happy with it:

2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Pernicious Deed
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Collective Brutality
2x Lingering Souls
2x Nissa, Vital Force


All the sideboard cards have performed pretty well. Lingering Souls keeps overperforming, it's a very strong card in many matchups and it's completely unexpected out of this deck. Nissa has done a very good job, i lost only one game with her so far. Pernicious Deed out of the board has been great, i still think with 2x Toxic Deluge maindeck i'm better off. I board Deed in against every fair deck, but that's fine: Game 1 they don't know they have to be really aggressive, postboard they do and even slower control decks will be more aggressive, that makes sweepers better. And Toxic Deluge is just the more effective sweeper against the actual aggressive decks. The one Explosives i still like instead of for example another Deed, it's often good to have a split especially against things like Pithing Needle or Revoker (or Sanctum Prelate that shuts of Deed and Deluge).

I'll keep making notes and updating my results. I personally really like to have this data for myself to analyze better what problems the deck could have and find possible improvements. And i would love to see more data like that - i think it takes time to get enough data for specific matchups, but you can clearly see some trends in the data i posted.

This deck is really strong and i think i have found ways to deal with all the usual bad matchups for either 12-Post or NicFit without sacrificing the good matchups (maybe making them worse, but not by enough to make them actually bad). You need to practice with this deck because it requires some format knowledge and experience with the different matchups to find the right lines all the time, it's not a straightforward deck and games even against the same deck can play out very differently (and it's not very forgiving, i still lose a lot to my own mistakes - meaning the winrate could be even higher than the current 75%), but i think it can deal with pretty much everything - it seems to have almost no bad matchups and even in the few bad matchups it doesn't seem to be very far behind.

[Brael]

More data for my Cloudpost/NicFit/Depths-hybrid (still the same maindeck as in this post: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31293-Primer-Nic-Fit&p=1015935&viewfull=1#post1015935 ) - i'm now at over 250 matches on xmage, overall 198-66. I wanted to make a similar list like last time how the matches went, try to keep it a little more organized in categories this time:

I might try something similar. It's still about a month before I can get any more Legacy in as there's no scene around here locally in the summer. I like a lot of what your list has done though. But, I think I disagree with the Mox Diamond route. I think I get why it's there but I would rather have the sacrifice fodder for Cabal Therapy and I think I would go either straight BG, or use blue over white. You aren't using any white removal so nothing is being given up there. I've been messing around with the idea of a BUG deck using Vet (4), DRS (2), Baleful Strix (4), Grim Flayer (3), Tireless Tracker (4), and Courser of Kruphix (2), Emrakul (1) as a creature suite alongside Crop Rotation and a Traverse the Ulvenwald to help tutor. I think I like Traverse over the Eye of Ugin plan. I had been tossing around some ideas to use Gaea's Cradle to power clue based card draw but I think the Locus route is even better.

[Leshrac82]

I might try something similar. It's still about a month before I can get any more Legacy in as there's no scene around here locally in the summer. I like a lot of what your list has done though. But, I think I disagree with the Mox Diamond route. I think I get why it's there but I would rather have the sacrifice fodder for Cabal Therapy and I think I would go either straight BG, or use blue over white. You aren't using any white removal so nothing is being given up there. I've been messing around with the idea of a BUG deck using Vet (4), DRS (2), Baleful Strix (4), Grim Flayer (3), Tireless Tracker (4), and Courser of Kruphix (2), Emrakul (1) as a creature suite alongside Crop Rotation and a Traverse the Ulvenwald to help tutor. I think I like Traverse over the Eye of Ugin plan. I had been tossing around some ideas to use Gaea's Cradle to power clue based card draw but I think the Locus route is even better.

Would be nice to see results with something similar like that. I'll still go over why i play the cards i play instead of the other options:

1. Mox Diamond: I wrote about that in my initial post, because it's probably the most unique thing i do. Without it, you will have some problems getting to enough colored mana sources. I'm at 14/11/11 for G/B/W untapped sources, i don't really want to go lower, it's really hard to find lands to replace with more colored lands and you really don't want to play even more lands either - many actual 12-Post decks play something like just 10 green sources, but that can't work for this hybrid. And you lose some of your most explosive starts without the Mox. The combination of Mox and Explorer especially can lead to some very explosive starts. (The most extreme examples are the possible Turn 2 kill with a Turn 1 Marit Lage, also i played a Turn 2 Primeval Titan at least once, both involve also a Tower, but just a simple thing i often do is playing Turn 1 Explorer + Therapy and then a Library as follow up.) And i still think the fast mana with Mox Diamond gives me some much needed speed against combo decks.
But you can try it without the Mox, just keep the option in mind.
2. White cards: I have given my reasons why i want to play at least 1 Knight of the Reliquary. Other than that, the white cards are the maindeck Gaddock Teeg and the 2 Ethersworn Canonists in the sideboard. I think those cards are much stronger combohate than for example additional discard, and they are the most important reason why my Storm matchup is so good. The Lingering Souls in the board are certainly replaceable, they just overperformed for me so far and since i don't plan to cut the white there is no reason to get rid of that.
I think it's possible to play without the white splash, but you have to watch especially the Storm matchup, and losing the Knight could hurt (mostly against Delver).

I played 1 DRS in the past, eventually cut it. Without Mox Diamonds you will need it for sure. I was messing around with Baleful Strix in a 4-color version of this, if the manabase can support it the card should be really good. My manabase couldn't support it.
Never tried Grim Flayer. A 2nd Courser is good, i just have no room for that.
Traverse needs Delirium (one more argument for Mox Diamond?), to set that up could be difficult. On that note, i was messing around with Grapple with the Past in some earlier builds. Cut it eventually, but if you go for Delirium it might be playable.

The big advantage with the Eye of Ugin plan: The decks where you want the Cloudpost package with Emrakul the most (Ux control decks) are usually light on Wastelands (often they don't play any), meaning they can't really interact with Eye of Ugin - if you have enough mana and Eye of Ugin they can have any number of counterspells, they still lose. But they can counter Traverse. And sometimes those decks can deal with one Emrakul, Terminus is still a card and in the lategame it's also possible they can take one hit and then get rid of it, with Eye of Ugin it will just come back.

[Brael]

I played 1 DRS in the past, eventually cut it. Without Mox Diamonds you will need it for sure. I was messing around with Baleful Strix in a 4-color version of this, if the manabase can support it the card should be really good. My manabase couldn't support it.
Never tried Grim Flayer. A 2nd Courser is good, i just have no room for that.
Traverse needs Delirium (one more argument for Mox Diamond?), to set that up could be difficult. On that note, i was messing around with Grapple with the Past in some earlier builds. Cut it eventually, but if you go for Delirium it might be playable.


I was thinking Grim Flayer because it's similar to Dark Confidant but without the life hit Eldrazi give. It also plays well into Delirium for another tutor. Courser+Strix is probably enough of an enabler (artifact and enchantment)



The big advantage with the Eye of Ugin plan: The decks where you want the Cloudpost package with Emrakul the most (Ux control decks) are usually light on Wastelands (often they don't play any), meaning they can't really interact with Eye of Ugin - if you have enough mana and Eye of Ugin they can have any number of counterspells, they still lose. But they can counter Traverse. And sometimes those decks can deal with one Emrakul, Terminus is still a card and in the lategame it's also possible they can take one hit and then get rid of it, with Eye of Ugin it will just come back.

My initial plan right now is one of each Emrakul. That gives ~9 and 15 mana options. A 13/13 with a Mindslaver effect and protection from most of the removal in the format could very well address the issue of someone coming back from a single big Emrakul hit while at other times you just want to Annihilator 6 someone.

I do like that Traverse grabs any part of either win condition. It gets an Eldrazi or it gets Marit Lage. I see what you're saying about colored mana issues though, that may force the deck into BG in my case, I'm just not a fan of Mox Diamond here (though I hadn't considered the play+sacrifice line to enable delirium). Either way, your build is something I'm strongly considering. For what it's worth, you've got more games than me but our matchup percentages seem very similar.

Have you considered a 1/1 Thespian's Stage/Vesuva split? Stage combos with Dark Depths but Vesuva is stronger with Locus lands.

[Leshrac82]

Have you considered a 1/1 Thespian's Stage/Vesuva split? Stage combos with Dark Depths but Vesuva is stronger with Locus lands.

I played 1/1 in my older builds, eventually i cut the Vesuva to make room for enough colored sources. The 2nd Stage was a suggestion by another 12-Post player who often watches my games, because i was using the Depths combo much more often than he did in his build. It replaced the 4th Glimmerpost, and i think i'm happy with that change (it has definitely cost me 1 or 2 games not to have 4 Glimmerposts, but i think i won more games because of the 2nd Stage). So going back on that would actually mean replacing a Glimmerpost with a Vesuva, and i think the last Glimmerpost is the stronger card for the deck if i want to make the Locus aspect stronger.

I think the drawbacks of Vesuva (comes into play tapped, can only copy what you already have in play and not be reset like a Stage) make Stage so much better in this deck that i prefer the 2nd Stage over the 1st Vesuva - compared to regular 12-post decks, we will more often than them not have a Cloudpost to copy (they play cards like Expedition Map). If i could fit a Vesuva into the manabase, i would still play it, it's probably the next best utility land for the deck.

Utility lands i have tested and i'm currently not playing, ordered by how likely i am to try them again: Vesuva, Volrath's Stronghold, Glacial Chasm, Maze of Ith, Ghost Quarter, Tabernacle, Wasteland, Sea Gate Wreckage, Horizon Canopy. (Stronghold is still good like in other NicFit decks, just probably not needed and there is no room. Glacial Chasm would be a way to deal with Elves - if that matchup doesn't get better and becomes more popular again, i have to reconsider it as an option. Maze was always ok, but never more. Ghost Quarter is an option if i would somehow get Ramunap Excavator into the list. Everything else is just bad.)

[Brael]

I think that I would play a second Tower over the first Stronghold, but I'm also planning on Delirium for now. I like the idea of using Towers to kill Courser/Strix as an enabler. Plus, I want to max out on the Crop Rotation starts.

[Echelon]

@Leshrac82: You ever play paper Magic at, say, a local game store?


2. A lot of your creatures fulfil the same role (flood the board, hope your opponent doesn't have an answer). You can probably cut a lot of these and just Zenith them when needed. In that situation, your best options are Huntmaster (wins games solo), Hermit/Thragtusk (lots of power + zenithable) and Nissa VS (attacks on a different angle, zenithable, hard to remove). If you want to make a ton of tokens and kill people very fast, Titania is also a solid choice - I've had some success with her recently, although she is allergic to Deathrites, Lightning Bolt is not super popular right now. Mayor of Avabruck is also a low-cmc choice who puts power on the table quickly.

Or, you know, Verdurous Gearhulk. It's a nice 5 mana GSZ'able 8/8 trample dude that only dies to StP. Simple and clean. It's pretty much a 1 mana cheaper Broodmate Dragon.

[Navsi]

Or, you know, Verdurous Gearhulk. It's a nice 5 mana GSZ'able 8/8 trample dude that only dies to StP. Simple and clean. It's pretty much a 1 mana cheaper Broodmate Dragon.

I like my giant haymaker finishers to not die to Kolaghan's Command, thanks all the same.

(it also dies to Liliana, Dismember and Diabolic Edict, for what it's worth).

[Echelon]

I've yet to encounter my first Kolaghan's Command, but sure.

And apart from Sigarda pretty much anything dies to Liliana/Dismember/Edict (and since when are those cards problems for Nic Fit anyways?).

[Ralf]

Kalonian Hydra is also a very good finisher.

As far as Nic Fit's dynamic is involved, I think it is better than Verdurous Gearhulk.

[Navsi]

I've yet to encounter my first Kolaghan's Command, but sure.

And apart from Sigarda pretty much anything dies to Liliana/Dismember/Edict (and since when are those cards problems for Nic Fit anyways?).

I hit the damn card all the time.

Creatures with ETBs that give card advantage or multiple bodies (Huntmaster, Titania, Thragtusk, etc) are significantly less cold to spot removal than big dumb beaters, which was my point.

[Echelon]

I hit the damn card all the time.

Creatures with ETBs that give card advantage or multiple bodies (Huntmaster, Titania, Thragtusk, etc) are significantly less cold to spot removal than big dumb beaters, which was my point.

Sure, but at some point big dumb beaters either get too big to get handled by spot removal (that is not StP/PtE) or get big enough to offer benefits you wouldn't have w/ multiple bodies (an 8/8 facing 2 5/5s lets you safely block them to death, where 2 4/4s wouldn't). It's not that having multiple bodies is by definition better than having 1 huge body, it's all contextual. Is your opponent running StP/PtE, you want multiple bodies/EtB effects/other payoff. Is your opponent running Toxic Deluge, you might prefer that single big body.

[Navsi]

Sure, but at some point big dumb beaters either get too big to get handled by spot removal (that is not StP/PtE) or get big enough to offer benefits you wouldn't have w/ multiple bodies (an 8/8 facing 2 5/5s lets you safely block them to death, where 2 4/4s wouldn't). It's not that having multiple bodies is by definition better than having 1 huge body, it's all contextual. Is your opponent running StP/PtE, you want multiple bodies/EtB effects/other payoff. Is your opponent running Toxic Deluge, you might prefer that single big body.

Sure, but pretty much every deck runs spot removal while plenty don't run sweepers. Almost every deck with Deluge in it also runs an edict effect of some form (either Liliana or Diabolic), or goes wider than we do with Pyromancer or Mentor (where multiple bodies help a lot). I see Kommand more than I see Bolt.

[Whitefaces]

Kolaghan's Command is a huge part of the format at the moment (if you're playing at larger competitive events). If you're just playing at your LGS then sure, you might not see it as much as it's casual.

[Echelon]

I doubt people side them in against me. I just run Rhinos and Sigarda, no Gearhulk.

[Whitefaces]

It's a 2-of maindeck in every 4c/Grixis pile at the moment, a pretty convincing argument against it.

[Echelon]

It's a 2-of maindeck in every 4c/Grixis pile at the moment, a pretty convincing argument against it.

You're shitting me.

[Whitefaces]

You're shitting me.

Not in the slightest, run through these lists.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-four-color-levold#paper

A bunch of them even have three.

[Echelon]

Not in the slightest, run through these lists.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-four-color-levold#paper

A bunch of them even have three.

Cool. The only Grixis we get at the LGS is Delver, not Control. And still - Command doesn't seem that great vs. Junk Fit.

[Navsi]

Cool. The only Grixis we get at the LGS is Delver, not Control. And still - Command doesn't seem that great vs. Junk Fit.

It's good if you're playing Stoneforge or Gearhulk. Otherwise it's still probably going to stay in the deck, even just as a 'draw step, you discard, get back a relevant creature' which they're probably happy with.

[Leshrac82]

@Leshrac82: You ever play paper Magic at, say, a local game store?


No. That's why i always write that the games are on xmage. The next LGS is too far away and i have no friends who play magic any more - playing online is much easier, and i can get to a real samplesize much faster. I know there is some bias against the quality of the average xmage player, not completely undeserved, but most of the decks i'm facing are real decks and most of the players i'm facing are playing there a lot and have some experience (and the few real casual decks i'm seeing i'm just not counting). I doubt the average player at a local game store is significantly better than the average player on xmage, even though for bigger events it's probably very different.

I'm thinking about buying into Magic Online, but the only reason to do that would be to get better opponents, as software i think xmage is probably even better than Magic Online.

[Kobra_D]

Evening Everyone,

I'm on Rhino fit, and came across GW Maverick today at my lgs. I always assumed that we had game against the fair decks but I ended up losing that one and never really felt hugely in control either.

Thoughts/play style when coming across this kind of deck?

Is it just familiarity with the match up and practice that could help?

[Echelon]

Evening Everyone,

I'm on Rhino fit, and came across GW Maverick today at my lgs. I always assumed that we had game against the fair decks but I ended up losing that one and never really felt hugely in control either.

Thoughts/play style when coming across this kind of deck?

Is it just familiarity with the match up and practice that could help?

Would you share your list?

Familiarity and practice always help. GW Maverick basically is like D&T with slightly bigger creatures and often a lands toolbox. Just be wary of the Dark Depths combo - some lists do play that. Oh, and fetch basics. Blanking their mana denial is important. Sweepers are what win you the day here. Wipe the board and turn the game around with Sigarda. They're a slow non blue deck - you should do fine against them. You go bigger and can answer whatever they throw at you.

[Kobra_D]

Would you share your list?

Familiarity and practice always help. GW Maverick basically is like D&T with slightly bigger creatures and often a lands toolbox. Just be wary of the Dark Depths combo - some lists do play that. Oh, and fetch basics. Blanking their mana denial is important. Sweepers are what win you the day here. Wipe the board and turn the game around with Sigarda. They're a slow non blue deck - you should do fine against them. You go bigger and can answer whatever they throw at you.

Yeah, maybe it was just some poor draws. I ended up facing down a birds of paradise wearing batterskull after we traded so many resources before hand. G2 didn't even have enough time to finish *Kanye Shrug*.

I know everyone in the forums seems to feel comfortable with the D&T match up but I always feel it is super grindy and can easily slide away from me.


Overall the list is feeling good, matches decent with combo given 6 T1 discard spells, matches great against delver and even Eldrazi, I just never feel good sitting across SFM decks but I also don't think playing more pridemages/rec. sages isn't right.


//Creatures:
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of clan Nel Toth
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda Host of Herons

//Enchantments:
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Sylvan Library

//Inst./Sorc.:
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Green sun's zenith
1 maelstrom pulse
2 path to exile
2 abrupt decay
1 Diabolic Edict

//Lands:
8 Basics
8 Fetchlands
3 Duals
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

//Sideboard:
2 Crop Rotation
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Golgari Charm
1 Painful Truths
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Lost Legacy
1 Dryad Militant
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Choke
1 Glissa, the Traitor

[Echelon]

@Kobra_D: D&T can be grindy as hell, but Deed & Toxic Deluge are total blowouts vs. that deck. Take some beats in the early game, wipe the board and turn the game around. Clever and technical play are very important in that MU.

Couple of points:
- Why a single Knight of the Reliquary? It doesn't do much for your list
- Why a single Ghost Quarter? Same point as the Knight
- Your manabase is unstable. You will lose more games to colourscrew than necessary. I'd go -2 basics (putting you @2 each, +2 fetch)
- Bump GSZ up to 4
- Your SB seems to be all over the place (and contain some odd choices). What MUs in your meta do you need to improve?

[Navsi]

//Creatures:
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of clan Nel Toth
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda Host of Herons

//Enchantments:
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Sylvan Library

//Inst./Sorc.:
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Green sun's zenith
1 maelstrom pulse
2 path to exile
2 abrupt decay
1 Diabolic Edict

//Lands:
8 Basics
8 Fetchlands
3 Duals
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

//Sideboard:
2 Crop Rotation
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Golgari Charm
1 Painful Truths
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Lost Legacy
1 Dryad Militant
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Choke
1 Glissa, the Traitor


Going up to 3 Pernicious Deeds might help quite a bit. Your mana base is also quite unstable and vulnerable to Port - I normally play 8 Fetchlands, 6 Basics, 5-6 duals and 2-3 utility lands (usually a Tower and a flex slot).

I'd swap the Thoughtseizes for Collective Brutality - still helps your combo matchup, but also kills Thalias and other similar junk that's pressuring you, and improves your Burn matchup significantly.

If you want to play KOTR, go deeper and play a Ranumap Excavator and Azusa, and swap one of your 5-drops for Titania. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. Scryb Ranger isn't bad either.

I think you would probably rather have a third Tracker than a third Rhino.

You should be playing 4 Zeniths. If you're playing Meren you might get good use out of a Dryad Arbor, also. It's also good with Ranger, Titania, Excavator and KOTR.

Maelstrom Pulse and Diabolic Edict are probably just worse than To The Slaughter. I'd drop them both for one TTS and a third Deed.

Basically, if you want to be standard fair abzan midrange, I would go with something like this:

-1 Pulse
-1 Edict
-1 KOTR
-1 Rhino
-1 Deathrite
-2 Thoughtseize
-2 Basics
-1 GQ

+1 TTS
+1 Deed
+1 Zenith
+1 Dryad Arbor
+2 Collective Brutality
+1 Tireless Tracker
+1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
+2 Duals (Bayou, Savannah)
+1 Fetchland (probably Misty or Foothills, since it fetches most of your duals and Arbor)

[wsurugby10]

Just wondering why no one is talking about Nyx Fit anymore. Is it the general consensus that Nyx Fit is just a weaker variant of Nic Fit? I finally have all of the cards to play it and I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on how it's positioned now. I'm thinking about playing it in a tournament Saturday in a town where I have no idea of what the meta could be.

[Brael]

Kalonian Hydra is also a very good finisher.

As far as Nic Fit's dynamic is involved, I think it is better than Verdurous Gearhulk.

If you want to hit with an 8/8 use Chameleon Colossus. Pro black is pretty relevant.

[Brael]

Just wondering why no one is talking about Nyx Fit anymore. Is it the general consensus that Nyx Fit is just a weaker variant of Nic Fit? I finally have all of the cards to play it and I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on how it's positioned now. I'm thinking about playing it in a tournament Saturday in a town where I have no idea of what the meta could be.

For the number of people playing it, it gets a disproportionate amount of discussion.

[pettdan]

Just wondering why no one is talking about Nyx Fit anymore. Is it the general consensus that Nyx Fit is just a weaker variant of Nic Fit? I finally have all of the cards to play it and I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on how it's positioned now. I'm thinking about playing it in a tournament Saturday in a town where I have no idea of what the meta could be.


For the number of people playing it, it gets a disproportionate amount of discussion.

It's usually the case that a few people are interested in experimenting with a certain approach and engage in discussions. It doesn't mean that the version being discussed is necessarily more successful or better, just that no one is currently working on other versions. The primer includes major results for different versions of Nic Fit, I don't think there have been major successes since Arianrhod last updated the primer, but I may be wrong. Of course Sensei's Divining Top was banned since then so historic results may be less relevant than they normally would be.

I don't think Nyx Fit has ever been considered one of the stronger versions [edit: unless you consider it an updated version of Rector Fit, which may have been], but it has been experimented with recently. I think it may have been good vs Miracles before the top ban and the enchantments are powerful so experimenting with it still seems relevant.

PS I think Leshrac's list seems really interesting, will try it.

[square_two]

It's usually the case that a few people are interested in experimenting with a certain approach and engage in discussions. It doesn't mean that the version being discussed is necessarily more successful or better, just that no one is currently working on other versions. The primer includes major results for different versions of Nic Fit, I don't think there have been major successes since Arianrhod last updated the primer, but I may be wrong. Of course Sensei's Divining Top was banned since then so historic results may be less relevant than they normally would be.

I don't think Nyx Fit has ever been considered one of the stronger versions, but it has been experimented with recently. I think it may have been good vs Miracles before the top ban and the enchantments are powerful so experimenting with it still seems relevant.

PS I think Leshrac's list seems really interesting, will try it.

I only know of one other person who has tested it as extensively (or moreso) than I have. We both don't really have any news for it, our last posted lists are about where we are still at. Evo Leap approach with Lingering Souls seems to be most consistent so far, with an Arbor as another source to get the engine going. Overwhelming Splendor is a great addition, the Dovescape package also still working fine. I will mention again that I had an overwhelmingly positive record against storm, specifically ANT. If that is dominant in your meta then Nyx Fit is a great version to play (perhaps roughly equal to BUG Fit's ability to handle it).

Most recent idea is to run a couple Ground Seals in the sideboard to combat Snapcaster, DRS, Surgical, Loam, reanimation targets, etc. I haven't been able to try this out yet. I've sold off my nic fit pieces online and my local legacy scene is not consistent, but I plan to run Nyx whenever I get the chance to and if anything changes then I'll be happy to report back.

Edit: I still believe the list to be powerful, the only challenge remaining (now that plenty of removal/interaction has been added) is optimal ways to improve the consistency. Splendor has helped, personally I think it reduces the need for either Cruel Reality or Sandwurm, which further lessens dead draws.

[Kobra_D]

1) Why a single Knight of the Reliquary? It doesn't do much for your list
2) Why a single Ghost Quarter? Same point as the Knight
3) Your manabase is unstable. You will lose more games to colourscrew than necessary. I'd go -2 basics (putting you @2 each, +2 fetch)
4) Bump GSZ up to 4
5) Your SB seems to be all over the place (and contain some odd choices). What MUs in your meta do you need to improve?

1) KotR is something I picked up about a week and a half ago. I'm honestly not feeling it but I wanted to give it a try.
2) GQ main helps me with the unusual amount of lands players at my locals. Although, as I have been underwhelmed with KotR I think I am dropping this as well.
3) It is SUPER unstable, I'm working my way towards more duals, but for right now this is where I'm at. I typically see the sweet spot being 6 basics in other lists, and as I come across 2 more Bayou they are slotting in real quick.
4) I dropped GSZ down to 3 when I tested Vizier of the Menagerie and never actually bumped it back up. As a side note I found Vizier unhelpful. It very much became a win more card, when ahead it pulls plenty of weight has obvious synergy with the deck but at no point if behind does it really help you stabilize.
5) It is a bit over the place true, I'm still trying to pin point what needs to be shored up, which is hard as I haven't really solidified the main at the moment. Once I handle the main deck then I will know exactly what is it's worst match ups and I can SB from there.




a) I'd swap the Thoughtseizes for Collective Brutality - still helps your combo matchup, but also kills Thalias and other similar junk that's pressuring you, and improves your Burn matchup significantly.

b) If you want to play KOTR, go deeper and play a Ranumap Excavator and Azusa, and swap one of your 5-drops for Titania. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. Scryb Ranger isn't bad either.

c) I think you would probably rather have a third Tracker than a third Rhino.

d)Maelstrom Pulse and Diabolic Edict are probably just worse than To The Slaughter. I'd drop them both for one TTS and a third Deed.


a) I was trying to keep the curve down which is why I went TS over CB (and also edict of TTS), but I think you may be right of the CB front. That is what I am going to try next.

b) I've been unimpressed with the whole lands package and I'm just going to take the whole thing out.

c) Really? I get Tracker is CA but I've always wanted Rhino. Maybe I just need to stick Tracker more and realize how good it really is.

d) I had TTS and deed and switched to pulse and edict. Completely a meta call, not a lot of planeswalkers. A decent amount of eldrazi and pyromancer tokens. But I have found myself wanting a 3rd deed enough that I think that is going back up.


Thanks everyone for the feedback.

[Brael]

a) I was trying to keep the curve down which is why I went TS over CB (and also edict of TTS), but I think you may be right of the CB front. That is what I am going to try next.

b) I've been unimpressed with the whole lands package and I'm just going to take the whole thing out.

c) Really? I get Tracker is CA but I've always wanted Rhino. Maybe I just need to stick Tracker more and realize how good it really is.

d) I had TTS and deed and switched to pulse and edict. Completely a meta call, not a lot of planeswalkers. A decent amount of eldrazi and pyromancer tokens. But I have found myself wanting a 3rd deed enough that I think that is going back up.


Thanks everyone for the feedback.


A tip for your curve, find a total CMC you're looking for. Add up your mana pips and use that. I shoot for ~70 with my Dark Confidant build and <75 in any SE build. In a traditional build I shoot for <85. You still have to look at the actual curve, but it's a quick and easy way to think about things. For example, by taking out To the Slaughter and using an edict, you save 1 pip, which you could then put into changing a Thoughtseize into a Brutality.

Tracker is very curve specific. It works best when you have low cost cards so that you can both pop clues and cast things on the same turn. I think it's better in non rhino builds because Rhino builds tend to push towards too many 4's and 5's. I've also not been impressed in Tracker builds that use lots of Deeds. Blowing up your clues isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's not great either. Lower curves that rely less on Deed utilize it better.

[Echelon]

A tip for your curve, find a total CMC you're looking for. Add up your mana pips and use that. I shoot for ~70 with my Dark Confidant build and <75 in any SE build. In a traditional build I shoot for <85. You still have to look at the actual curve, but it's a quick and easy way to think about things. For example, by taking out To the Slaughter and using an edict, you save 1 pip, which you could then put into changing a Thoughtseize into a Brutality.

Tracker is very curve specific. It works best when you have low cost cards so that you can both pop clues and cast things on the same turn. I think it's better in non rhino builds because Rhino builds tend to push towards too many 4's and 5's. I've also not been impressed in Tracker builds that use lots of Deeds. Blowing up your clues isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's not great either. Lower curves that rely less on Deed utilize it better.

I just calculated the total CMC of my current Rhino list. I'm @71 (although I abuse the hell out of GSZ, not really sure if you can count that as a 1-mana card. Bump it up to a virtual 4.5 mana card and I'm @85).

@Kobra_D: I'm not sold yet on Vizier either. It does become better when you run 20-ish creatures and 4 or so Sylvan Library/Mirri's Guile. Drawing you an extra card every 3 turns or so and letting you know when (and when not) to shuffle away the top card of your library when both you and your opponent are in topdeck mode puts you at quite an advantage. As for Tracker/Rhino - I'm at 4 Rhino and 1 Tracker. But Vizier might turn into a Tracker in the long run, I'm not sure yet. I also have other replacements to test. Rhino is not going below 4 anywhere in the foreseeable future though.

[Navsi]

a) I was trying to keep the curve down which is why I went TS over CB (and also edict of TTS), but I think you may be right of the CB front. That is what I am going to try next.

b) I've been unimpressed with the whole lands package and I'm just going to take the whole thing out.

c) Really? I get Tracker is CA but I've always wanted Rhino. Maybe I just need to stick Tracker more and realize how good it really is.

d) I had TTS and deed and switched to pulse and edict. Completely a meta call, not a lot of planeswalkers. A decent amount of eldrazi and pyromancer tokens. But I have found myself wanting a 3rd deed enough that I think that is going back up.

I think keeping the overall curve down is great, but I'd rather run some 2-3 mana threats and 2-3 mana answers than 4-5 mana threats that are very hard to cast and 1-2 mana answers that don't reliably deal with some things. If you literally never see planeswalkers, then fair enough - I have to deal with JTMS at least once per event.

I dislike Rhino as a primary gameplan. Trading 1 for 1 with Push, countermagic and Swords is just hugely underwhelming a lot of the time. Tracker trades up in cards and is still a very fast clock while costing less mana. It makes your Burn matchup worse, but you can resolve that with more copies of Collective Brutality instead.

[Brael]

I just calculated the total CMC of my current Rhino list. I'm @71 (although I abuse the hell out of GSZ, not really sure if you can count that as a 1-mana card. Bump it up to a virtual 4.5 mana card and I'm @85).

Since I originally came up with the metrics to measure Bob damage I was counting GSZ as 1 for this purpose. In actual practice it's higher. Using your most recent posted list that I saw in post history I count you at 75. With my current SE build I'm at 72 so pretty similar (I also run 2 more lands than you, so on a non land average I might be even higher). Which illustrates the downfall of this method, I play a lot more 2's than you. It's good for quick comparisons, but bad for more indepth ones. Normal lists have always had a big problem with the 2 slot.



@Kobra_D: I'm not sold yet on Vizier either. It does become better when you run 20-ish creatures and 4 or so Sylvan Library/Mirri's Guile. Drawing you an extra card every 3 turns or so and letting you know when (and when not) to shuffle away the top card of your library when both you and your opponent are in topdeck mode puts you at quite an advantage. As for Tracker/Rhino - I'm at 4 Rhino and 1 Tracker. But Vizier might turn into a Tracker in the long run, I'm not sure yet. I also have other replacements to test. Rhino is not going below 4 anywhere in the foreseeable future though.

I like Tracker, but I don't think I like it with your build. Instead I would go with a Nissa Vital Force if you want to go high, or a Nissa Vastwood Seer if you want to go low.

In my case, I'm in town for once (I've been all over the place for work the last 3 weeks, so no chances to play) so I can hopefully get a few casual Legacy games in tonight. Still another month before we'll have the people to start up a league. The local meta is pretty unfair, lots of blue combo but I'm generally not too bad against those lists. No idea how much testing I can get in tonight (probably just a couple games) but I am going to finally get a chance to try Navsi's Collective Brutality suggestion. This is the list I'll be playing.

Land 24
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
5 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dryad Arbor

Creatures 18
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Spells 19
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Collective Brutality
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Nissa, Vital Force

Sideboard 15
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Sylvan Library
2 Mirri's Guile
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Duress
1 Crop Rotation
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman


Traverse needs Delirium (one more argument for Mox Diamond?), to set that up could be difficult. On that note, i was messing around with Grapple with the Past in some earlier builds. Cut it eventually, but if you go for Delirium it might be playable.


Still brainstorming a bit (I might have a rough draft list later today) but another advantage to blue would be Nissa, Steward of Elements. It's a walker that can be cast off of lots of colorless mana to good effect, it's deck manipulation, and it can even be easily put into the GY to power Delirium (and dodge DRS eating the GY types too).

[Echelon]

I think keeping the overall curve down is great, but I'd rather run some 2-3 mana threats and 2-3 mana answers than 4-5 mana threats that are very hard to cast and 1-2 mana answers that don't reliably deal with some things. If you literally never see planeswalkers, then fair enough - I have to deal with JTMS at least once per event.

I dislike Rhino as a primary gameplan. Trading 1 for 1 with Push, countermagic and Swords is just hugely underwhelming a lot of the time. Tracker trades up in cards and is still a very fast clock while costing less mana. It makes your Burn matchup worse, but you can resolve that with more copies of Collective Brutality instead.

Even when trading w/ StP or Push, you still have the lifeswing. But that's also why you run 8 Rhinos - so you can just cast another one (and another). Besides, you start off w/ small fries to soak up removal. After that you wipe the board and go Rhino, Rhino Rhino.

I'm also a big fan of low mana half assed interaction. Speed kills. Or saves your ass. To each their own, I suppose.

[Kobra_D]

I'm going to drop meren, kotr, swamp #3, and an pulse for eternal witness #2, deed #3, CoBru, and fetch #9.

The land becomes another dual when I come across one but for now marsh flats is mostly a better swamp. They might become Gsz but it's hard to cut the tusk.

As for the other cards it will just require more testing.

Thanks again for advice everyone.

[Brael]

Got a couple rounds in tonight, it went pretty poorly. Most notably was my round against Esper Stoneblade.

Game 1 I don't know what I'm up against (the player has his preferences, but a very expansive Legacy collection so he can be on literally anything) and lose the roll. I get 6 lands+Abrupt Decay and mulligan to 6, keep 3 lands, GSZ, Crop Rotation, and Brutality on the theory that the hand can probably handle a combo deck and if it's non combo I have time.

Opponent opens on a Tundra and I figure he's on the new Miracles deck. I open on Bayou, GSZ. He Brainstorms then Dazes me, untaps and Wastelands the Bayou. I play my other fetch and pass. He lands a DRS then over the next 2 turns a SFM and Batterskull. I hold on for a little while but ultimately die. I think I could have won the game had my Karakas been a Maze of Ith (a switch I make in games 2 and 3) but that opening was basically the worst possible outcome for me. It didn't help that my next 4 draws were lands either (2 of them being Bog/Arbor).

Game 2 my opponent mulligans to 6 while I keep a 7 of 2 lands, Brutality, Vet, GSZ x2, Dark Confidant. I T1 "blind" Therapy naming Brainstorm and hit 2 of them. The rest of my opponents hand is Force of Will, True Name Nemesis, Tropical Island, Misty Rainforest. Next turn I play the Vet which he doesn't FoW, flashback Therapy and take the TNN then follow it up with a Dark Confidant. I win a couple turns later after a Tireless Tracker gets me 5 clue tokens.

In game 3 I mulligan to 6 and keep something super risky. GSZ, Vet, Dryad Arbor, Tower, Meren, Crop Rotation. I keep it on the basis that I didn't really want to go to 5, and I had 2 draws (scry+draw step) to find a real land. With the right draws this hand could go places, but it's notably lacking in interaction for this match. I manage to hit a Windswept Heath and fetch a Bayou for Explorer. Opponent has the STP. I get stuck on land and lose.

Basically, I made the same mistake in games 1 and 3. I let my mana get disrupted. I believe both of them were winnable if I had taken better lines. These games were a good example of the risk entailed in fetching Bayou first. G1 is a bit more questionable because I was blindsided by the deck choice but in G3 I had a lot of opportunity to play around mana disruption. Fetching a forest, waiting a turn for the Veteran Explorer so I could sac that turn, keeping G up to defend myself against Wasteland, and even getting a DRS. Lots of mistakes to go around in that game.

In the end I played against Show and Tell, Stoneblade, and Tin Fins tonight. I was never happy with Brutality, 90% of the time the only mode I was interested in was Duress and if I want Duress I can already do that at a mana less.

[studderingdave]

I have been playing this Punishing Fit list for a few weeks, getting some experience with reps. Some odd choices I know. Looking for some critiques on my build. I definitely see the "EDH feel" but each choice was weighed heavily for my meta, Ruric Thar choking out blue players when they can't assemble a combo fast.

Creature (15)

1x Broodmate Dragon
1x Eternal Witness
1x Olivia Voldaren
1x Primeval Titan
1x Ramunap Excavator
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Thragtusk
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
4x Veteran Explorer

Land (24)

2x Badlands
2x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Forest
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Mountain
3x Swamp
1x Taiga
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (3)

3x Pernicious Deed

Sorcery (10)

4x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
4x Green Sun's Zenith

Instant (5)

2x Abrupt Decay
3x Punishing Fire

Planeswalker (3)

3x Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard (15)

2x Big Game Hunter
1x Choke
2x Faerie Macabre
3x Red Elemental Blast
4x Surgical Extraction
3x Thoughtseize

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Does ramunap excavator do enough work to justify it's place? I haven't played nic fit in forever but e-wit #2, meren, or something else grindy seems better. It's fun with titania but if that's your goal you should try a sylvan safekeeper.

[studderingdave]

Does ramunap excavator do enough work to justify it's place? I haven't played nic fit in forever but e-wit #2, meren, or something else grindy seems better. It's fun with titania but if that's your goal you should try a sylvan safekeeper.

it is a test slot for now. it works well with Titania as you stated and it helps if i run into mana denial strategies but i can see it being a safekeeper or something else.

[wsurugby10]

Well yesterday I took finally got to play Nyx Fit for the first time. There was an SCG Invitational Qualifier in my area and I thought it would be a good time to test it for the first time. I ended the day at 4-2 losing my win and in to the top 8 because of a misplay on my part. The deck felt strong and of course everyone was gathered around my matches and wondering what the heck I was playing. My favorite was winning a match against Burn with Chromanticore. Fun times.

Match 1:
4 Color Devler (2-0) This match was a pretty easy honestly. In both games I was able to chain together Pernicious Deeds to keep him from getting anything going. After boarding, Toxic Deluge did some work as well. Both games ended with Overwhelming Splendor closing things out.

Match 2:
Burn (2-1) I lost the first game of the match to a chain of burn spell spells to the face followed up by a Goblin Guide. Game 2 started with a turn zero Leyline of Sanctity which really helped out followed by good old Chromanticore. Game 3 was closer but ultimately lead to Chromanticore closing things out. The burn matchup seemed really tough and I think I dodge a bullet on this one.

Match 3:
4 Color Delver (1-2) Game 1 I absolutely got wrecked. Turn 2 Hymn, Turn 3 Thoughtseize followed by another Hymn. Losing 5 cards in 2 turns was absolutely terrible. Game 2 was a grind fest with Lingering Souls getting the job done. Game 3 was more of the Game 1 results. Tons of hands destruction kept me from doing anything and he closed it out quickly.

Match 4:
Death and Taxes (2-1) He took Game 1 on the back of a Mirran Crusader equipped with a Jitte I couldn't handle. It felt terrible not being able to find removal for the Crusader. Game 2 I won pretty easily. Only fetching basics kept his Wasteland shut off and Pernicious Deed followed by Toxic Deluge is hard to come back from. Game 3 he did a great job using Swords on my Veteran Explorers but I was able to get Sigarda out and she clogged everything up buying me enough time to drop an Overwhelming Splendor for the win.

Match 5:
Lands (2-1) Game 1 totally surprised him. He had watched a few of my matches before hand so he sort of knew what to expect. What caught him off guard was Cruel Reality. I hadn't played the before and he was all in on Marit Lage. Things ended pretty quickly losing 5 life a turn. Game 2 was a quick one in favor of him. Dark Depths on Turn 3 I believe and I didn't have a Swords in hand. Game 3 was little grindier. I needed to Swords a Lage and start the game with a Leyline of the Void on table. Eventually I was able to assemble the Overwhelming Splendor/Curse of Death's Hold/Ground Seal lock and I got there.

Match 6:
4 Color Delver (1-2) Well this one was the heart breaker. Game 1 was so grindy and I felt in it the entire time. A Veteran Explorer, 2x Lingering Souls and 3x Cabal Therapy were all I needed. The only enchantment I saw was Sylvan Library. It was fun to see the deck play an entirely different line and get there. Game 2 was tough. He got there on the back of 2x True-Names and 2x Deathrite Shaman. He countered all of my removal attempts. Game 3 was another grindy one. At one point I was chumping with Spirit Tokens to stay alive. I was down to one life at the end and got a little excited and cast an Academy Rector instead of casting Curse of Death's Hold which would have killed his True Name and giving me a blocker for his Leovold. Instead I sacrificed Rector to Evo Leap to find Overwhelming Splendor and I only had one blocker and 4 mana left. I counted wrong and missed the Top 8.


Main Deck:
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
4 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Lingering Souls

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Swords to Plowshares

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Sylvan Library
1 Dovescape
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor
1 Starfield of Nyx

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chromanticore
1 Ground Seal
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Lost Legacy

Observations:
1. I think the deck is positioned well right now because it plays on a completely different plane than people are expecting. Enchantments are a thing no one is ready for.
2. Overwhelming Splendor is a house. It is so back breaking.
3. Cruel Reality, outside of one match, really didn't do much. I don't know if Sandwurm Convergence would be better to have in the main.
4. We can play the grindy matchup well with Lingering Souls and discard.
5. Burn seems like a tough matchup. You definitely need the right cards in hand early. Does this sound right to everyone else's testing?
6. This one is personal but I need to slow down and stop rushing. Misplays cost me the most important match.

[Brael]

Been thinking about ways to make a higher curve Nic Fit work alongside Crop Rotation and I remembered Tabernacle is a card. Have we ever seriously discussed/tried it? It seems like a good way to lock up resources from the opponent once we already have a Rhino down or something.

[JackaBo]

Well yesterday I took finally got to play Nyx Fit for the first time. There was an SCG Invitational Qualifier in my area and I thought it would be a good time to test it for the first time. I ended the day at 4-2 losing my win and in to the top 8 because of a misplay on my part. The deck felt strong and of course everyone was gathered around my matches and wondering what the heck I was playing. My favorite was winning a match against Burn with Chromanticore. Fun times.

Match 1:
4 Color Devler (2-0) This match was a pretty easy honestly. In both games I was able to chain together Pernicious Deeds to keep him from getting anything going. After boarding, Toxic Deluge did some work as well. Both games ended with Overwhelming Splendor closing things out.

Match 2:
Burn (2-1) I lost the first game of the match to a chain of burn spell spells to the face followed up by a Goblin Guide. Game 2 started with a turn zero Leyline of Sanctity which really helped out followed by good old Chromanticore. Game 3 was closer but ultimately lead to Chromanticore closing things out. The burn matchup seemed really tough and I think I dodge a bullet on this one.

Match 3:
4 Color Delver (1-2) Game 1 I absolutely got wrecked. Turn 2 Hymn, Turn 3 Thoughtseize followed by another Hymn. Losing 5 cards in 2 turns was absolutely terrible. Game 2 was a grind fest with Lingering Souls getting the job done. Game 3 was more of the Game 1 results. Tons of hands destruction kept me from doing anything and he closed it out quickly.

Match 4:
Death and Taxes (2-1) He took Game 1 on the back of a Mirran Crusader equipped with a Jitte I couldn't handle. It felt terrible not being able to find removal for the Crusader. Game 2 I won pretty easily. Only fetching basics kept his Wasteland shut off and Pernicious Deed followed by Toxic Deluge is hard to come back from. Game 3 he did a great job using Swords on my Veteran Explorers but I was able to get Sigarda out and she clogged everything up buying me enough time to drop an Overwhelming Splendor for the win.

Match 5:
Lands (2-1) Game 1 totally surprised him. He had watched a few of my matches before hand so he sort of knew what to expect. What caught him off guard was Cruel Reality. I hadn't played the before and he was all in on Marit Lage. Things ended pretty quickly losing 5 life a turn. Game 2 was a quick one in favor of him. Dark Depths on Turn 3 I believe and I didn't have a Swords in hand. Game 3 was little grindier. I needed to Swords a Lage and start the game with a Leyline of the Void on table. Eventually I was able to assemble the Overwhelming Splendor/Curse of Death's Hold/Ground Seal lock and I got there.

Match 6:
4 Color Delver (1-2) Well this one was the heart breaker. Game 1 was so grindy and I felt in it the entire time. A Veteran Explorer, 2x Lingering Souls and 3x Cabal Therapy were all I needed. The only enchantment I saw was Sylvan Library. It was fun to see the deck play an entirely different line and get there. Game 2 was tough. He got there on the back of 2x True-Names and 2x Deathrite Shaman. He countered all of my removal attempts. Game 3 was another grindy one. At one point I was chumping with Spirit Tokens to stay alive. I was down to one life at the end and got a little excited and cast an Academy Rector instead of casting Curse of Death's Hold which would have killed his True Name and giving me a blocker for his Leovold. Instead I sacrificed Rector to Evo Leap to find Overwhelming Splendor and I only had one blocker and 4 mana left. I counted wrong and missed the Top 8.


Main Deck:
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
4 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Lingering Souls

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Swords to Plowshares

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Sylvan Library
1 Dovescape
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor
1 Starfield of Nyx

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chromanticore
1 Ground Seal
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Lost Legacy

Observations:
1. I think the deck is positioned well right now because it plays on a completely different plane than people are expecting. Enchantments are a thing no one is ready for.
2. Overwhelming Splendor is a house. It is so back breaking.
3. Cruel Reality, outside of one match, really didn't do much. I don't know if Sandwurm Convergence would be better to have in the main.
4. We can play the grindy matchup well with Lingering Souls and discard.
5. Burn seems like a tough matchup. You definitely need the right cards in hand early. Does this sound right to everyone else's testing?
6. This one is personal but I need to slow down and stop rushing. Misplays cost me the most important match.

List looks sweet! Mine is pretty similar. I definitly think you should go for Wurmmachine instead of Cruel reality. It wins me almost all if my wins. I do not own Splendor yet though.
How do you feel about only 2 targets for GSZ outside of ramp. I personally can't settle for few actual creatures and evolution -or- more creatures to GSZ for and diabolic intent.

[battousai555]

Death and Taxes (2-1)...Game 3 he did a great job using Swords on my Veteran Explorers...
Don't we usually want to wait until we have a Therapy in the bin to cast a Vet in order to play around STP? Of course if you're going to be dead on board and have no other options you may be forced to cast him by himself.

[Leshrac82]

Been thinking about ways to make a higher curve Nic Fit work alongside Crop Rotation and I remembered Tabernacle is a card. Have we ever seriously discussed/tried it? It seems like a good way to lock up resources from the opponent once we already have a Rhino down or something.

I played Tabernacle for a while in my build. The deck was different then, it didn't have the NicFit part and some other things were different, but overall the playstyle didn't change that much. Anyway: The biggest advantage with Tabernacle was probably having much more answers to Empty the Warrens out of Belcher or sometimes Storm. It was decent against many fair decks and also against Elves, but overall the problem for me was simply that it didn't really get rid of their threats most of the time. Going for Tabernacle meant hurting my own mana development, and i think that overall while i won some games with Tabernacle, i problaby lost more because of it. I can't say my Delver matchup for example was better at that point (it was in fact much worse, in the early stages of building this deck, Delver was one of my worst matchups and the last versions i had last year were still at best at 50%). The only matchups that were better then compared to now are probably Elves and Belcher, and Tabernacle was probaby not the main reason the Elves matchup was better (they often neutralized it with Cradle - in the end it felt like Tabernacle was a trap in that matchup and it would have been better to be aggressive with the Crop Rotation and go halfway for Marit Lage instead, that way i would have a better chance to actually close the game. that realization was the biggest reason why i cut the Tabernacle).

So overall, i don't think it's good enough - i don't think it will do that much more in a slightly different deck than at that point. (What i did the most with Tabernacle was probably discarding it to Mox Diamond, and since you don't want to play any Mox, having another land that doesn't produce mana will be even worse for you.)

[arj]

Leshrac82:

I tried your build yesterday and it went better than I expected. I was a bit skeptical about some of the choices but it actually worked out quite well.

- Toxic Deluge is really strong, I'm thinking of maybe going up to 3 MD
- I never killed with the Emrakul / eldrazi, but the lands was okay. Only problem was coming into play tapped sucks, but having so many lands saved me against D&T.
- Tracker is a beast, and I can understand the Crufix as a mini 5th, that card is the backbone of this deck
- 2 Veteran Explorer actually worked out really well.

It's a joy playing a deck where a resolved jace doesn't do much because your threats are actually better (tracker, primeval). The biggest problem was infect and fast combo.

[Navsi]

List looks sweet! Mine is pretty similar. I definitly think you should go for Wurmmachine instead of Cruel reality. It wins me almost all if my wins. I do not own Splendor yet though.
How do you feel about only 2 targets for GSZ outside of ramp. I personally can't settle for few actual creatures and evolution -or- more creatures to GSZ for and diabolic intent.

Cruel Reality is there, at least when I play it, solely so we have a Rector target that deals with JTMS. It does so very well. The problem is that if you cut Cruel Reality, the only things you can reasonably replace it with are Faith's Fetters or Cast Out, which are fine but nowhere near as impactful.

Faith's Fetters helps the Burn matchup quite a bit, though, which helps. The other option is to run more copies of Collective Brutality. It's always going to be bad though. Dropping the Leap engine for maindeck Chromanticore would help, but it makes the deck clunkier elsewhere.

[Leshrac82]

Leshrac82:

I tried your build yesterday and it went better than I expected. I was a bit skeptical about some of the choices but it actually worked out quite well.

- Toxic Deluge is really strong, I'm thinking of maybe going up to 3 MD
- I never killed with the Emrakul / eldrazi, but the lands was okay. Only problem was coming into play tapped sucks, but having so many lands saved me against D&T.
- Tracker is a beast, and I can understand the Crufix as a mini 5th, that card is the backbone of this deck
- 2 Veteran Explorer actually worked out really well.

It's a joy playing a deck where a resolved jace doesn't do much because your threats are actually better (tracker, primeval). The biggest problem was infect and fast combo.

Toxic Deluge is really strong. I have played 3 before, so it's possible that's better - just don't really see anything to cut right now.

This deck is killing less with Eldrazi than a typical 12-post build, but in some matchups it can make the difference. The most extreme example is probably Miracles, i don't think there is any other deck where i kill so often with Eldrazi because they can just deal with everything else. In general, they are good against everything fair and slow - i usually board them out against most fast combo decks and Delver. (It's always a package of 2 Eldrazi, 1 Eye of Ugin, 2 Cloudposts - because without the Eldrazi you don't need that many lands, and the Cloudposts come into play tapped which makes them a liability in these fast matchups.)

About fast combo decks: Always depends on the combo deck, i think the matchups are fine longterm - but there is a high variance and you need to mulligan to relevant cards, and sometimes you just die on Turn 1 and can't do anything.
Storm: Preboard you win the game if you can get Gaddock Teeg into play (at least against most ANT lists, and against everything else it's still very strong), so that's really the main goal. Otherwise: Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog can blow them out if they go for Past in Flames. Cabal Therapy should help a little and maybe slow them down. Marit Lage is a nice and fast kill, and sometimes it's even faster than them without any disruption.
Postboard they probably have some answers for Teeg, but we have Ethersworn Canonist too and some more interaction, and we get rid of all our clunky stuff. My sideboard plan against Storm:
-1 Emrakul, -1 Ulamog, -1 Eye of Ugin, -2 Cloudpost, -1 Primeval Titan, -1 Titania, -1 Courser. +3 Surgical, +2 Brutality, +2 Ethersworn, +1 Pernicious Deed. (Toxic Deluge, Explosives and Pernicious Deed are all interchangeable - i usually want 3 of them postboard to answer Emtpy the Warrens, could be less and could be more.)
Similar decks like Belcher have a similar boardplan and game plan, the next cards to cut if you bring in more cards are usually some Trackers.
BR-Reanimator: Preboard it's all about Crop Rotation, usually for Bojuka Bog to blow them out, sometimes for Karakas. Therapy is useful disruption too, Scooze is good to lock up the game, but usually only after you dealt with their first combo attempt with Crop Rotation, most of the time it's too slow otherwise. Postboard i mulligan very aggressively (especially if they keep 7), most of the time into a hand with either Crop Rotation or Surgical, sometimes i settle for some discard spells. My sideboardplan against Reanimator is almost the same as against Storm:
-1 Emrakul, -1 Ulamog, -1 Eye of Ugin, -2 Cloudpost, -1 Primeval Titan, -1 Titania, -1 Courser, -1 Gaddock Teeg. +3 Surgical, +2 Brutality, +2 Ethersworn, +1 RecSage, +1 Pernicious Deed. (RecSage and the 1 Deed are mostly a hedge against Pithing Needle or Blood Moon, and they can deal with Animate Dead. Against UB-Reanimator, it's possible to have a very different sideboard plan if you know they bring in Show&Tell, but i'm not actually sure it's better to keep the big creatures in the deck even then.)
Mox Diamond is a key card in these fast combo matchups, to have 2 mana on turn 1 and be this one turn faster can make the difference.

I still need more data against Infect. In the few games i played so far, i was able to take them off pump spells most of the time with discard and won the race against their creatures or was able to block them (Lingering Souls as a sideboard card overperformed), but i don't think that will always work. It's possible to play 2 Swords to Plowshares in the board, that would help. (Flex slots in the board right now are the 2 Nissas. They have been pretty good against slower fair decks, but it's unclear if they are really necessary.)

[arj]

Thanks for your in depth answer. I didn't play against miracles, that might explain the eldrazi story a bit better. It was D&T, stoneblade/tnn/jace, eldrazi and infect. stoneblade & eldrazi were good matchups, D&T depends a lot on toxic and infect is rather hard especially because they have their lands which is hard to do anything against pre-board. I'll try to make room for Toxic as elves and D&T are stable decks in our local scene.

[Koplinchen]

I played Bug Nic Fit yesterday in Prague MKM series.

I got the list from user Testacular. You can watch his 5-0 run here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6sfxnsyeSqGdnhM7SJcl9g
List: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15748&d=296522&f=LE

I might disagree with some of his choices in the list or some plays he made during this streaming but what a great aproach in deckbuilding and really cool stream experience. Thank you!

Veteran Tracker BUG:

3 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Leovold Emissary of Trest
1 Thragtusk
4 Baleful Strix

2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ponder
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstorm Pulse

4 Brainstrom
2 Fatal Push
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Diabolic Edict

1 Pernicious Deed
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest

60 cards

Sideboard:

3 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Golgari Chamr
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Umezawa's Jitte


I was working on the list with Marco Montani. The meta is now very grindy, very greedy decks everywhere so nic fit seems like an obvious choice as we go bigger than anybody. The problem is cosistency - we all know that. So we tried a nic fit that goes big only a little but does it in every game.

The backbone of the deck - veteran combo empowered by ponders, storms, stirxes leads a us to tracker+fetch or jace. And its not like that we have nothing to ramp into - stronghold+strix; mana for the clues; doing more things in the same round... Its not Grave Titan or some dragon but good enough against all those greedy 4c (Czech pile) decks. Cool thing is that if we dont want to ramp oponent but we want to flashback therapy, strix is an ideal target for this.

Some cards seem a little bit random in term of numbers but it works very well – zenith gets one offs, deluge and deed have a similar function, same for targeted removal. Tar Pit helps to fight Jace; Stronghold gives us inevitability. Shamans cant remove Jace or Deed from graveyard so Witness can always get them.

Force of will is not a good card with all the hymns, Kolaghan's Commands around but against some decks its incredible. I like one off leyline of the Void. It totally fine to play it on T3. But having it in your opener is like another Force AND you can never draw multiples.
Changes I would make now – add Leovold for Tracker perhaps; Add Maelstorm Puls into the board to fight jace.



R1: UWR Blade
G1: I crushed him with Therapy and Jace. When I saw he doesent have white I didnt play Veteran and saced Strix.
G2: He had Jace – Pulse; Then I Thoughtseized him and saw double blast so I took it. Played Witness and instead of bringing back Pulse I got discard to push mine Jace. But he got his second Jace that was the game.
G3: Long and grindy. In the last extra round I had Tusk, double shaman and had jitte no creatures and exatcly one life. He conceded because he appriciated I was trying to win. I still owe him a beer.
1-0

R2: Czech Pile
G1: Discarded four cards with two Therapies on T3 and still lost the game. He drew like a god and a few turns later I Deluged his 3 creatures and played jace – his only card was obivously Spell Pierce! (he told me he plays 4 which is 3 to many at least <)
G2: Tracker into fetch, killed, another Tracker into fetch, killed, Pulse your Jace. Suddednly he had no card and I had 4 plus several Clues. He regretted he didnt conceded earlier.
G3: Therapy on draw naming Strix after he Pondered – double Strom, double Caster! The game was long and we got into time in which I had Stronghold and Wintess and he had no answer to this – he had jace, caster, K. Command. Probably better for him nothing definitive.
1-0-1

R3: Elves
My very nice oppononent from Sweden fogot he can fetch Arbors with Wooded Foothills…
I had tiple discard in both games and jitte after board.
2-0-1

R4: Czech Pile
G1+G3: He couldnt counter Tracker and the card it gave me was enough. Him on two nothing play – I just put shaman on the top with Stornghold – he killed it once Thanks to Sylvan but not the second time.
G2: He locked me out with T3 Leovold after discarding my removal. I had Strix, triple discard…
3-0-1

R5: Miracles
G1+G2: My oponent has everything. There was nothing I could do. When I played two Counterspell instead of two Ponders then it was a very decent matchup but when I only have 4 Therapies its not enough. In th first one he, on the draw, had Spell Snare; in the second he had counterspell T2 for my tracker and hen I casted Therapy on T4 naming Jace he had one off Gideon…
3-1-1

R6: ANT
G1: I thought I will kill him after hitting three cards with Therapy+flashback but turn before death he miraculously had it. If I had another Leovold I would kill him. (Therapied one copy I had)
G2: Leyline! Tapped out with Leovold he went for it – 20 dmg; I drew ten cards and fowed one copy – he scoped.
G3: Therapy hit Infernal and double Petal early. I had Flusterstorm, Fow, Extraction for his Infernals…
4-1-1

R7: Death and Taxes
G1: He started with Vial, double Wasteland. Three turns I only had Swamp. I almost wanted to scoop. Then I drew green souce, Veteran, Therapy, Strix. Jace next turn bounced his tapped mother (wanted to go past my strix putting me down to 3), tharapy this away. I evetualy got him into Wintess, Decay, Jace lock on one life. Yay!
G2: He only had two lands so didnt Therapy+Strix. Pulsed his Vial. Massacre during broad daylight.
5-1-1

R8: Grixis Delver
G1: He started with Probe, Therapy on my Brainstorm. I Therapy him naming Pyromancer. He showed me Bolt, Delver, Delver, Wasteland. Its hard to guess correctly when your oponent doesent play logicaly. I stabilized a one, jace put his nemesis on bottom. Then I had to brainstorm to get zenith for next turn Tusk. He drew bolt.
G2: Killed three creatures with Deluge including Angler and Nemesis. My shaman- he bolted and his second draw after Deluge he had Angler. Land. Go to 10. Veteran. Chump. Leovold. Chump. Ended up Push and Edict. He Had Pyromancer and Angler. I tried Push – Daze – token I died…
I was paired down and my oponent with two losses had no chance of making T8. He refused to continue saying its his first tournament and he wants to have fun. Fair enough.
5-2-1

R9: Bug Control
I am paired up against my friend who always plays his own brews – this time with Liliana, Wasteland, Leovold, Hymn, Sylvan Library. A really cool deck.
His deck doesent have much chance. He won the second because I was screwedn on lands and did nothing for the whole game. Last one I won easily.
6-2-1

25th out of 295. Prizes for 24 players. ;-)

The deck was fantastic. Give it a try!

[fireiced]

The deck was fantastic. Give it a try!

BUG Fit is indeed fantastic, I did try out a couple of leagues with it and its only weakness is actually the Eldrazi decks Aggor or Turbo with Posts. List below

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 True-name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Grave Titan

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Force of Will

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Fatal Push
2 Pernicious Deed

1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Nissa Vital Force

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard
2 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Fatal Push
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Krosan Grip
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Nihil Spellbomb

I guess I killed some sacred cows like Swagtusk and GSZ. Found that just slamming Planeswalkers with counterspell back up is sufficient to win the game instead of Green fat. The 8 cantrips really help smoothen the draws and made the deck quite consistent despite not having GSZ.

[hamie96]

Hey guys, former Rhino Fit player here looking to switch over to Sneak fit.

Does anyone have a good idea for what creatures I should run in Sneak fit for a meta filled with S&T, D&T, and Grixis Delver? I'm also unsure as to how much removal Sneak fit should run and whether the punishing fire combo is worth running anymore.

[Navsi]

Hey guys, former Rhino Fit player here looking to switch over to Sneak fit.

Does anyone have a good idea for what creatures I should run in Sneak fit for a meta filled with S&T, D&T, and Grixis Delver? I'm also unsure as to how much removal Sneak fit should run and whether the punishing fire combo is worth running anymore.

Punishing fire isn't generally worth it, although if you see lost of d&t and grixis (and no leovolds) it might still be worth it.

You definitely want an Emrakul, Woodland Bellower, and Inferno Titan. You can run with just those three, or add one additional creature from Massacre Wurm or Rune-Scarred Demon.

For removal, I'd probably go with 3 Pernicious Deed / 2 Abrupt Decay / 2 Bolt / 2 Collective Brutality / 1 To The Slaughter. Possibly put a Deluge in somewhere if you can. Should be plenty with the addition of Inferno Titan to clean up boards.

[Dalton!]

Fatal Push maybe. The MD Removal are something i am not sure of.
Liliana the Last Hope can take out d&t creatures, too. Deluge is still better and more versatile i believe.

[AtticusBlaqk]

Hey guys, former Rhino Fit player here looking to switch over to Sneak fit.

Does anyone have a good idea for what creatures I should run in Sneak fit for a meta filled with S&T, D&T, and Grixis Delver? I'm also unsure as to how much removal Sneak fit should run and whether the punishing fire combo is worth running anymore.

I have been running a SneakFit list lately with PFire. They seem fine in my local meta but maybe not great.

The list below took me to a 3-1 finish on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that it is closely derived from something that I saw on here before the TOP ban but I cannot recall who specifically i need to give the credit to. I've been on a bit of a break so you'll have to forgive me if my list is a little antiquated.

My loss was to BR Reanimator (0-2) in round 1 with an insanely hate heavy hand in game 2 that just seemed to line up perfectly with his heavy discard. Wins were against Sultai Delver, UBg Shadow, and Eldrazi Stompy

https://www.topdecked.me/decks/ae846e6a-e9cf-490f-9297-5912c74c53ff

[sdematt]

These are the two lists I'll be testing:

Rhinotime

4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Phyrexian Tower
21

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
4 Siege Rhino
1 Tireless Tracker
14

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
17

2 Painful Truths
3 Sylvan Library
2 Night's Whisper
7

+1/2 Free slots



4c Special

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
3 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Atraxa
2 Baleful Strix
19

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
8

2 Sylvan Library
2 Painful Truths
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
12

2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
2 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
22

Sideboard

3 Meddling Mage
3 Thoughtseize
2 Pithing Needle
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Leyline of the Void/Surgical Extraction

---------

My reasoning is that I never got to try the blue splash yet. Leovold is a good card, Atraxa is excellent. The blue splash should be similar to the red splash we used to run, so why not give it a shot? Noble gives more reliable blue mana production to help out a bit, and the exalted can help push Rhinos/Atraxa through. Might want to throw in a Qasali Pridemage, but that'll require testing before tweaking.

[Brael]

Commander spoilers are out. BUG got a neat new toy. I'm always on the lookout for stuff that could make a Trinket Mage build viable. Check out Bloodforged Battle-Axe.

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/132/969/636377126377008463.png

[Kobra_D]

I always thought spoiler season was a bit over the top until I became a nic fit player. Enjoy the new toys brethren.

[Navsi]

Commander spoilers are out. BUG got a neat new toy. I'm always on the lookout for stuff that could make a Trinket Mage build viable. Check out Bloodforged Battle-Axe.

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/132/969/636377126377008463.png

Well, I guess it's a potential finisher if you have a large pile of evasive creatures like Baleful Strixes. Is there any reasonable artifact-specific payoff beyond Trinket Mage?

[rubblekill]

In a world where K command is one of the best card of the metagame, I would never like to play any form of equipment in the main deck. Anyone of the swords is better than this one because it gives protection/evasion and more value. The anti-sinergy with deed is another downside of this card (1 cmc).

[Navsi]

In a world where K command is one of the best card of the metagame, I would never like to play any form of equipment in the main deck. Anyone of the swords is better than this one because it gives protection/evasion and more value. The anti-sinergy with deed is another downside of this card (1 cmc).

At least this equipment creates copies of itself, so Kommand only has a small window to actually trade up in cards against it. It's not like a BUG deck won't already have Kommand targets anyway, since you're definitely playing Strixes.

[Brael]

In a world where K command is one of the best card of the metagame, I would never like to play any form of equipment in the main deck. Anyone of the swords is better than this one because it gives protection/evasion and more value. The anti-sinergy with deed is another downside of this card (1 cmc).

Kolaghan's Command isn't that good though because there's a narrow window to use it. If you connect just once (and we have plenty of evasive ways to do that), you get a copy and there's no stopping it. Sure, Kommand can do work if they destroy the axe before you can hit them with a threat but it's just 3 mana to play and equip and BUG has other targets too.

[Brael]

Well, I guess it's a potential finisher if you have a large pile of evasive creatures like Baleful Strixes. Is there any reasonable artifact-specific payoff beyond Trinket Mage?

Grim Flayer pairs well with it. Leovold is good insurance against Kommand, Strix rounds out the evasive 2 drops, there's a huge Trinket Mage package these days (Hangarback, ping guy, this, engineered explosives, etc), then there's all the usual suspects plus maybe something like Yasova Dragonclaw (though that's a lot of 3's).

[square_two]

Requires an evasive creature, dies (along with tokens) extremely easily to deed, requires further mana investment (as you have to pay to equip copies), provides no board control, minimal damage return early on...yeah I'm not a fan. If I'm doing anything with Stoneforge Mystic in nic fit then I'm still relying on Batterskull and Jitte, and possibly a Sword. They are actually able to save you from bad boardstates, establish control, or reinforce a win.

There are much better shells for battleship/boggles type decks. Heck, saw a streamer couple weeks ago with legacy boggles and he was running Riding the Dilu Horse :laugh:

[Brael]

Requires an evasive creature, dies (along with tokens) extremely easily to deed, requires further mana investment (as you have to pay to equip copies), provides no board control, minimal damage return early on...yeah I'm not a fan. If I'm doing anything with Stoneforge Mystic in nic fit then I'm still relying on Batterskull and Jitte, and possibly a Sword. They are actually able to save you from bad boardstates, establish control, or reinforce a win.

There are much better shells for battleship/boggles type decks. Heck, saw a streamer couple weeks ago with legacy boggles and he was running Riding the Dilu Horse :laugh:

You wouldn't use Deed in this type of build. The mana investment is fine, you're playing a ramp deck... the card plays along with the strategy of going wide, much like Tireless Tracker does (you would be using Trinket Mage over Tracker essentially). It's not a card to play with Stoneforge Mystic, but SFM also means you're in white rather than blue.

The point of Trinket Mage isn't equipment like it is with SFM. The point of Trinket Mage is that it's a broad tutor, it finds a variety of cards. It can get equipment, removal, or threats. You can argue SFM does the same thing more efficiently but the quality of each card is different in that case, and most importantly, Trinket Mage is blue which does a lot to help against combo.

Anyways, I'm not saying this will be the next big thing, only that Trinket Mage gets a good deal better with this card, and since that's a build I've been trying to make for a while in Nic Fit I figured it worth bringing up, even though BUG is probably the weakest build right now.

[AtticusBlaqk]

Do we have any Scapewish Players with lists that they've been playing post SDT ban that they would care to share? I like to toggle my build a little to keep the local guys guessing at our small weekly events and need a little inspiration for my build.

Maindeck (60)
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Thragtusk
1 Broodmate Dragon
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Burning Wish
1 Painful Truths
2 Scapeshift
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Forest
3 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
3 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard (15)
1 Duress
2 Extirpate
1 Innocent Blood
1 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Painful Truths
1 Toxic Deluge
1 From the Ashes
1 Massacre
1 Scapeshift
2 Slaughter Games
1 Tsunami
1 Pithing Needle



Shared via TopDecked MTG
https://www.topdecked.me/decks/70f709a5-1845-41b2-9aeb-65d79d3d0722


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kobra_D]

These are the two lists I'll be testing:

Rhinotime

4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Phyrexian Tower
21

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
4 Siege Rhino
1 Tireless Tracker
14

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
17

2 Painful Truths
3 Sylvan Library
2 Night's Whisper
7

+1/2 Free slots



4c Special

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
3 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Atraxa
2 Baleful Strix
19

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
8

2 Sylvan Library
2 Painful Truths
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
12

2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
2 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
22

Sideboard

3 Meddling Mage
3 Thoughtseize
2 Pithing Needle
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Leyline of the Void/Surgical Extraction

---------

My reasoning is that I never got to try the blue splash yet. Leovold is a good card, Atraxa is excellent. The blue splash should be similar to the red splash we used to run, so why not give it a shot? Noble gives more reliable blue mana production to help out a bit, and the exalted can help push Rhinos/Atraxa through. Might want to throw in a Qasali Pridemage, but that'll require testing before tweaking.

For the rhino for list I would recommend 1 more land. 22 feels nicw giving you 48 playable while still having access to colors. It is possible to get color screwed or choked on mana with this deck as an FYI.

Another flex spot could be diabolic edict. I have a lot of eldrazi in my meta so it puts in a pot of work.

[Echelon]

For the rhino for list I would recommend 1 more land. 22 feels nicw giving you 48 playable while still having access to colors. It is possible to get color screwed or choked on mana with this deck as an FYI.

Another flex spot could be diabolic edict. I have a lot of eldrazi in my meta so it puts in a pot of work.

I count 14/13/14 G/B/W, so his manabase is stable as far as colours are concerned. As for numbers - the library manipulation he runs helps quite a lot with that, it's fine. I've been running 21 w/ a 14/14/14 spread for ages and it works like a dream. As you might notice - matt's list is quite close to the ground - he doesn't need that much mana to function and thus he runs less land.

I still have vacation so I won't be on much, but I (unfortunately) do have returned from Mauritius. If you ever want to go for an awesome vacation on an actual tropical island during the summer months of the northern hemisphere, I can highly recommend it.

[Kobra_D]

I have an absurd number of D&T and lands in my meta, so mana can get bottlenecked easily between ports, wastes, and yes ghost quarter.

Close to the ground is fine, but there are 4 rhinos, a sigarda, 4 gsz's, which let's be honest, nic fit has access to a lot of mana a lot of the time but as a result the cards get greedy. But if it works for you have at it.

[Echelon]

The key is clever play. Keep playing the control role, grind them out and apply pressure as soon as you see a gap. Library manipulation is also great here, since you'll see a lot more cards than the D&T pilot.

[Brael]

I count 14/13/14 G/B/W, so his manabase is stable as far as colours are concerned. As for numbers - the library manipulation he runs helps quite a lot with that, it's fine. I've been running 21 w/ a 14/14/14 spread for ages and it works like a dream. As you might notice - matt's list is quite close to the ground - he doesn't need that much mana to function and thus he runs less land.

I've never agreed with this view. It works with cantrip decks but without cantrips you really do need the land. You want to make sure you get 2+ lands by the time you're 8 cards into your deck and that gives you a minimum land count. The optimal land count is actually a bit high (25, though few of us play that), so you don't want your mana curve to be too low to the ground. This is where my philosophy came from. I run a low curve, but a lot of optional mana sinks so my deck can function well regardless of my land draw.

[Whitefaces]

Dusting off my Explorers to play at a new LGS, first Legacy evening tonight. Been too long since playing this deck.

Not super spicy, but this should be fairly consistent. I don’t think Rhinos are any good currently as the format is full of Gurmag Anglers and Baleful Strix. Not sure no Deeds is the right call, we’ll see, but Decay and Kommand should cover the noncreature side of things, and P Fire the rest.

[Creatures 18]
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Courser of Kruphix
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Thragtusk
1 Titania, Protector or Argoth
1 Primeval Titan

[Sorceries 12]
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Painful Truths
2 Toxic Deluge

[Instants 7]
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Kolaghan’s Command
3 Punishing Fire

[Lands 23]
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills

SB
3 Lost Legacy
2 Slaughter Games
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Duress
2 Choke
3 Leyline of the Void

[Brael]

If there's a lot of black creatures in your meta, look into Dark Betrayal as a sideboard card.

[pettdan]

Here's a short tournament report. I tried Leshrac's list in the weekly local tournament with about 30 players, no previous playtesting done. Thought I'd share my first experiment with this deck. Thanks for answering my questions in PM's by the way, quite helpful, Leshrac!

[edit: sorry for all the edits, I somehow always find a lot of things to add after posting. Anyway, here is Leshrac's list too:
Maindeck from: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31293-Primer-Nic-Fit&p=1015935&viewfull=1#post1015935
Sideboard from: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24848-Deck-Turbo-Eldrazi&p=1019612&viewfull=1#post1019612]

Changes to the list: I only had 2 Trackers so I substituted the other two copies with 2 Walking Ballista which were ok, also played the list with 3 Mox Diamonds (and not the Deathrite version from the Turbo Eldrazi-thread). I think at least 1 Ballista makes sense since Eye of Ugin can tutor for it, also with the Cloudposts you can get massive mana and he can rule the board in the late game while also offering early creature interaction which the deck is very light on. But Leshrac should of course know that better than me.


R1: BU Reanimator

New guy, it was his second time playing Legacy and Reanimator. G1 we both mulled to 5, and he didn't realize I could Crop Rotate for Bojuka Bog so he didn't discard my second copy but rather chose to discard his own Chancellor. I think GSZ for Ooze sealed it from there. Won G2 somehow, at least he didn't have t1 with Chancellor protection.

Result: 2-0, 1-0 in matches


R2: Turbo Depths

Both games felt like slightly lucky wins for him, in the first game we both had Marit Lage but he could find Sejiri Step and attack through my copy.

During the second game I felt in control throughout the game. A Ballista let me keep control of opposing Dark Confidant, it stayed in his hand. I have Karakas and one copy of Thespian's Stage in my starting hand so I lose out on the possible Crop Rotation for Lage [edit: i.e. for Karakas, versus Lage], but they are still solid answers together in play. He Needles the Karakas, Ghost Quarters Stage, my Collective Brutality can't interact with his Hexmage in hand so he plays it and gets a Marit Lage. By that time I have hit him down to 3 life points and I have 2 Lingering Souls tokens on blocking duty having attacked with 2 (and Ooze and something). I'm at 19 life and probably should have played more defensively, using Brutality to go up to 21 life points instead of summoning the extra two tokens and attacking for 2 extra damage, but we were running out of time for a third game so I was too stressed to figure everything out exactly right, was hoping to finish quickly. He topdecks Crop Rotation, gets Sejiri Step again and attacks through my tokens.

Result: 0-2, 1-1 in matches


R3: ANT

Gaddock Teeg won both games after some Therapy interaction, grindy and interactive games. Still the opponent is pretty new to ANT, but I couldn't tell he did any obvious mistakes.

Result: 2-0, 2-1 in maches


R4: UR Delver

This guy usually plays Infect so I mulled for a hand with early interaction (Ballista, Deluge, Therapy) but had to settle at 5 cards, he also mulliganed to 5 looking for lands.
First game I'm run over as usual, I feel like it's a tough deck to beat no matter what I'm on (usually fair, controlling decks). Bedlam Reveler draws him 3 extra cards in the last turns to finish the game.

It feels good boarding into 11 faster interaction spells and getting rid of the slow package. It works out relatively fine but with me at 8 and 4 lands in play for eot Crop Rotation into Marit Lage (Thespian's Stage in play, signalling it) he plays a Bedlam Reveler, draws three cards and taps is last land to Ponder. I figure he may have Pondered into a Submerge, which would probably kill me since Reveler + a bolt + anything is 8 damage. I also feel like he may be the kind of player to scoop if he sees he has no chance of winning. So I postpone Lage for a turn and play an escalated Collective Brutality to gain 2 life and make sure the coast is clear for Marit Lage. He has nothing, untaps and plays Blood Moon. Ah yes, that's a play too. I think next time I'll just go for Marit regardless. :)

Result: 0-2, 2-2 in matches


Some final comments:
I boarded out the Eldrazi package in every match, I guess this deck shines in the grindy control matchups and I met none of those. I think 2-2 with some tight losses and kind of bad matchups is pretty ok. I think regular Nic Fit lists tend to have trouble vs all these matchups. I would like to try to tune the deck to have a better Elves matchup. Oh yeah, and the Crop Rotation package is really nice to have.

[Leshrac82]

Nice to see some results with my list! 2-2 without any playtesting is ok i think, and from your report it didn't look like you were just overrun in the matches you lost.

About the 2x Deathrite version i posted in the Turbo Eldrazi deck: That version has a significantly worse manabase, i'm going from 14/11/11 G/W/B sources to 12/9/9. That definitely leads to more mulligans, but on the other hand Deathrite is a better topdeck than a Mox and in most cases than a land. I tried simulating it a bit by drawing 200 opening hands and looking for Deathrites, and the results were inconclusive (the same number of hands looked worse with the Deathrites as looked better - since Deathrite is on average the better topdeck, that would be an argument for the Deathrite, but on the other hand most of the worse hands were just unkeepable now, while most of the better hands would have been still keepable without the Deathrite). At this point, it's probably safer to play the version without Deathrites, but i'll keep testing the Deathrite version to get a better feeling if it's worth it or not.


Changes to the list: I only had 2 Trackers so I substituted the other two copies with 2 Walking Ballista which were ok, also played the list with 3 Mox Diamonds (and not the Deathrite version from the Turbo Eldrazi-thread). I think at least 1 Ballista makes sense since Eye of Ugin can tutor for it, also with the Cloudposts you can get massive mana and he can rule the board in the late game while also offering early creature interaction which the deck is very light on. But Leshrac should of course know that better than me.


Walking Ballista is on the list of cards i keep in consideration. I tried it for a while. It's great in some matchups, especially Death&Taxes and Infect, and can do something against every creature based deck.
I think i like my current list with the 4 Trackers more (Tracker is just really strong and always gets better in mulitples), and there isn't really room for cuts. But it's a card i would play again if i think the meta might move into a direction where i need it. It's less good against the control decks (really not good against Leovold) and almost useless against combo decks.

The thing with removal against creatures, and why i don't play very much in the maindeck: Those are dead cards in couple of matchups. And in almost every other matchup, there are still situations where they are dead cards. Threats, if you can cast them, are never dead cards - not always optimal, but not dead. So i try to play with as few removal spells as i can get away with, and if things don't work out i'm prepared to go up on removal. So far, i am getting away with it pretty well: Delver is the most relevant deck for cheap removal, and i'm beating Delver decks - also beating pretty much every other creature based fair deck. That's why i'm currently not seeing any reason to play more maindeck removal (but i did put 2 Swords to Plowshares into the board in comparison to my last post in this thread).
Also, if you look at the 3 decks that most influenced this deck: NicFit is playing more removal maindeck (but postboard, i think i can play almost as much removal as other NicFit decks). 12-Post isn't playing much removal, sometimes no removal at all. Turbo-Depths is usually playing no removal at all. I think it's a fair assumption that my combo plans are usually stronger preboard, and it makes sense to board into a more grindy fair plan postboard when other decks have better answers to my combo - for example Delver decks usually have no maindeck answer to Marit Lage, and slower grindy decks might board in Blood Moon against my Eldrazi, but can't deal with them at all preboard. (And slower decks might be more aggressive postboard, might even board in more threats, while in game 1 they probably don't plan to be the aggressor.)



R2: Turbo Depths

Both games felt like slightly lucky wins for him, in the first game we both had Marit Lage but he could find Sejiri Step and attack through my copy.

During the second game I felt in control throughout the game. A Ballista let me keep control of opposing Dark Confidant, it stayed in his hand. I have Karakas and one copy of Thespian's Stage in my starting hand so I lose out on the possible Crop Rotation for Lage, but they are still solid answers together in play. He Needles the Karakas, Ghost Quarters Stage, my Collective Brutality can't interact with his Hexmage in hand so he plays it and gets a Marit Lage. By that time I have hit him down to 3 life points and I have 2 Lingering Souls tokens on blocking duty having attacked with 2 (and Ooze and something). I'm at 19 life and probably should have played more defensively, using Brutality to go up to 21 life points instead of summoning the extra two tokens and attacking for 2 extra damage, but we were running out of time for a third game so I was too stressed to figure everything out exactly right, was hoping to finish quickly. He topdecks Crop Rotation, gets Sejiri Step again and attacks through my tokens.

Result: 0-2, 1-1 in matches

My results against Turbo-Depths with this build have been horrible, but i didn't want to point that out as a weakness for a simple reason: I played only against one player with that deck multiple times, and he is playing 3 copies of Rite of Consumption in his sideboard, and he won almost every game with that card (and he is also playing multiple copies of Collective Brutality, so he would often kill me even if i was over 20 life). I didn't see that very much in other lists, and i think i have the tools to beat other Turbo Depths decks - most answers to Karakas are permanent based or 1-shots. Generally, going over 20 life is often very helpful against this deck. They can often get one hit with Marit Lage through all my defense, but not a second one.



R3: ANT

Gaddock Teeg won both games after some Therapy interaction, grindy and interactive games. Still the opponent is pretty new to ANT, but I couldn't tell he did any obvious mistakes.

Result: 2-0, 2-1 in maches

This is how that often goes against Storm - grindy interactive games and in the end i win. Gaddock Teeg maindeck makes this matchup so much easier, and i think that's worth it as long as Storm is one of the most played decks.



R4: UR Delver

This guy usually plays Infect so I mulled for a hand with early interaction (Ballista, Deluge, Therapy) but had to settle at 5 cards, he also mulliganed to 5 looking for lands.
First game I'm run over as usual, I feel like it's a tough deck to beat no matter what I'm on (usually fair, controlling decks). Bedlam Reveler draws him 3 extra cards in the last turns to finish the game.

It feels good boarding into 11 faster interaction spells and getting rid of the slow package. It works out relatively fine but with me at 8 and 4 lands in play for eot Crop Rotation into Marit Lage (Thespian's Stage in play, signalling it) he plays a Bedlam Reveler, draws three cards and taps is last land to Ponder. I figure he may have Pondered into a Submerge, which would probably kill me since Reveler + a bolt + anything is 8 damage. I also feel like he may be the kind of player to scoop if he sees he has no chance of winning. So I postpone Lage for a turn and play an escalated Collective Brutality to gain 2 life and make sure the coast is clear for Marit Lage. He has nothing, untaps and plays Blood Moon. Ah yes, that's a play too. I think next time I'll just go for Marit regardless. :)

Result: 0-2, 2-2 in matches

I think Blood Moon is the more likely card to see out of UR Delver than Submerge. I would probably always go for it in that spot. If you don't EoT Crop and play a Brutality on your next Turn, you are postponing the Marit Lage for 2 turns and not just for one, even if he doesn't have Blood Moon, from 10 life there is a very real risk he just burns you out.
UR Delver is like a Burn deck, you don't have that much time, you just have to race them. Sometimes things go wrong, but i think my aggressive approach to that matchup works just fine. I don't think the matchup is that bad (i'm currently 7-0 against it - there was some luck involved and it will probably get worse, but that doesn't point to a bad matchup).



Some final comments:
I boarded out the Eldrazi package in every match, I guess this deck shines in the grindy control matchups and I met none of those. I think 2-2 with some tight losses and kind of bad matchups is pretty ok. I think regular Nic Fit lists tend to have trouble vs all these matchups. I would like to try to tune the deck to have a better Elves matchup. Oh yeah, and the Crop Rotation package is really nice to have.

Correct to board out the Eldrazi package, i also board it out in all of those matchups.

About Elves: As i wrote in my PM to you, what makes Elves such a big problem is that the fair game plan against them just doesn't work: You can never outgrind them, and attacking with a big Tracker won't work either, so you pretty much have to kill them with a combo, either Marit Lage or Emrakul. And since this deck isn't optimized to combo as fast as possible, sometimes you just wipe the board 2-3 times and they still win. I don't see a great solution to that problem. It's possible to play another Toxic Deluge, Walking Ballista isn't bad against them either (but imo usually too slow), but speeding up the combos and making them more consistent isn't really possible without some huge changes that would hurt too many other matchups.
That said, i played against Elves twice yesterday and won both matches, now i'm 6-6 against them. So the matchup isn't hopeless.

I have notes for all the matches i played, i usually don't post those (i would flood the thread if i posted how all my test matches go), but those are all the Elves matches i played:

Match 1: Game 1: I'm flooded, but Teeg prevents a combo kill and at 1 life i can kill him with Marit Lage via Knight. Game 2 doesn't happen, he concedes after some mulligans. 1-0 (1-0).
Match 2: Game 1: I have 2x Toxic, not enough. His Packmaster floods the board with tokens with Deathtouch, my strong board with Titania and Ulamog can't beat a Craterhoof on a board with so much deathtouch. Game 2: Marit Lage kills him. Game 3: I have Teeg and things seem under control, he topdecks Cradle to hardcast Craterhoof. 1-1 (2-2).
Match 3: Game 1: I'm manascrewed. Game 2: Marit Lage kills him. Game 3: I'm manascrewed. 1-2 (3-4).
Match 4: Game 1: I'm manascrewed. Game 2: Teeg and Ethersworn slow down the game enough to kill him somehow. Game 3: I'm manascrewed. 1-3 (4-6).
Match 5: Game 1: Close game, for a while i only had a Tracker, then Teeg stops his combo, i discard some of his cards, Primetime brings Marit Lage. Game 2: Brutality and 2x Explosives keep the board clean, find lots of Posts and Crop->Eye->Emrakul. Had and needed Surgical for NO on his last turn. 2-3 (6-6).
Match 6: Game 1: Mulligan to 5, he kills me on turn 3. Game 2: He reveals he doesn't know what he's doing since he kept 7 cards with Cradle as his only land. Game 3: He makes a big mistake again and loses his board including 3x Wirewood Symbiot to Toxic Deluge, easy win from there. 3-3 (8-7).
Match 7: Game 1: I have Tracker and draw many cards. He has Driven//Despair, discards all my cards and kills me. Game 2: I have Teeg and Ethersworn, he kills the Ethersworn and goes off with Glimpse, i don't find any sweeper. 3-4 (8-9).
Match 8: Game 1: My deck doesn't do anything relevant. Game 2: Marit Lage kills him. Game 3: I'm one turn short to kill him with Marit Lage, had to decide between that and another discard spell and he had (or topdecked) the NO. 3-5 (9-11).
Match 9: Game 1: He goes off with 2x Glimpse. I discard him 2x NO with Therapy, but he topdecks another and kills me. Game 2: I have Teeg and Ethersworn, but i'm stuck on 2 mana for ~10 turns and eventually he kills me. 3-6 (9-13).
Match 10: Game 1: I discard one Glimpse, he topdecks another and kills me with it. Game 2: I have Ethersworn and Toxic against his board, Marit Lage kills him, Surgical to get the Elf he just bounced with Symbiot was important to keep him off mana for NO in the final turn. Game 3: I have Ethersworn and Teeg, let him hit me with Nettle Sentinel forever and clear his smaller stuff with Toxic, eventually find 2x Crop for Marit Lage. 4-6 (11-14).
Match 11: Game 1: He goes off with Glimpse on Turn 3, i die. Game 2: I have Teeg and 2x Crop for Marit Lage, also Brutality to burn him out after he goes up to 21 with Deathrite. Game 3: I have Ethersworn and Teeg, later Knight for Marit Lage. 5-6 (13-15).
Match 12: Game 1: Toxic buys time, Therapy blind hits NO. He still finds NO, but it's not lethal and Marit Lage kills him. Game 2: He kills me on Turn 3 before i can untap with Toxic. Game 3: 2x Crop brings T3 Marit Lage, it's fast enough. 6-6 (15-16).

Not sure what conclusion to draw from that - i was manascrewed a lot, but i also won against at least one very bad player. I think if you can get Teeg and Ethersworn into play, that buys you a lot of time against Elves, often more than just a sweeper. Discard was often not good enough against topdecks. Postboad the deck seems fine, but i lost most preboard games. My best idea for a change would be to play a 3rd Toxic Deluge maindeck, but i don't think there is any other really good option.

Other cards i have played that are good against Elves:
1. Glacial Chasm. Works fine with Crop Rotation against a lethal attack. Also good against Infect and Burn. But sadly otherwise pretty bad, and unlike other utility lands this has a real cost and you really don't want to draw it.
2. Spike Weaver. Between that and Dawnstrider it's imo the better fog creature to play, even though it can be too slow if you don't have any other disruption. But it's not great in most other matchups and not even always fast enough. When i played it, i was splashing blue for Atraxa (those two are a nice little combo), but that's not possible with the NicFit package, it's hard enough to play 3 colors.

[Echelon]

I've never agreed with this view. It works with cantrip decks but without cantrips you really do need the land. You want to make sure you get 2+ lands by the time you're 8 cards into your deck and that gives you a minimum land count. The optimal land count is actually a bit high (25, though few of us play that), so you don't want your mana curve to be too low to the ground. This is where my philosophy came from. I run a low curve, but a lot of optional mana sinks so my deck can function well regardless of my land draw.

I know. It's the delta between what you should do and what you want to do. As for mana sinks - that's what Tracker is for, or any other CA cards. Casting the extra cards you draw is a fine way to spend your mana. Manipulating your library into Rhinos and GSZ for Rhinos several turns straight is also a nice way to spend your mana.

[sdematt]

My Rhino build could easily cut Tracker, add a land and 1-2 more dorks like Noble for mana consistency/exalted. Or, add a land and two ZP run Rhinos over Anglers and muck DnT/Peezy.

[Brael]

My Rhino build could easily cut Tracker, add a land and 1-2 more dorks like Noble for mana consistency/exalted. Or, add a land and two ZP run Rhinos over Anglers and muck DnT/Peezy.

For what it's worth, I really like Hierarch+Rhino. The biggest things we face tend to be 5/5's in the form of Gurmag Angler so having Rhino be a 5/6 is pretty useful. I'm finding ZP to not be all that great against D&T these days, they have too much that survives it with the recent additions. D&T is a deck where Deed is really, really good.

[sdematt]

Or Deluge and Deed, I guess ;)

[Dalton!]

Has anyone experimented with Sneak Fit latley and/or is Arianrhod still active here?
I would really like to see what the decks looks like now as some time since the banning has passed.

[AtticusBlaqk]

Has anyone experimented with Sneak Fit latley and/or is Arianrhod still active here?
I would really like to see what the decks looks like now as some time since the banning has passed.

I've been piloting Sneak Fit locally in a small weekly tournament but I doubt that my small sample size would be worth a lot of consideration.

Sneaky Fit (v2): Sneak Attack With Veteran Engine

Maindeck (60)
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan
1 Inferno Titan
1 Primeval Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
2 Painful Truths
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Sneak Attack
1 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
1 Taiga
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard (15)
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 To the Slaughter
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Slaughter Games
1 Pithing Needle
2 Carpet of Flowers



Shared via TopDecked MTG
https://www.topdecked.me/decks/ae846e6a-e9cf-490f-9297-5912c74c53ff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dalton!]

Looks good as far as i can see.

I never tested Sidisi. How is she? In theory i feel that she could be a very good addition.

Are you satisfied with your removal? I had always problems to figure out how much and what kind of removal sneak fit really needs.

Do you think painful truths ist better than Tireless Tracker?

[AtticusBlaqk]

Looks good as far as i can see.

I never tested Sidisi. How is she? In theory i feel that she could be a very good addition.

Are you satisfied with your removal? I had always problems to figure out how much and what kind of removal sneak fit really needs.

Do you think painful truths ist better than Tireless Tracker?

Sidisi can be very medium or lock up the game in some places. There is a big risk with her exploit trigger going on the stack and your creature/s getting removed before it resolves. Most often happens if she is the only creature. That turns her into a 5 mana demonic tutor that can get countered with swords, karakas, etc. She synergizes great with Volrath's Stronghold and Sneak Attack. I treat her like a variant of Fierce Empath.

I feel like the removal has been fair. Deed can do a lot to fill the gaps around Decay and Punishing Fire but I haven't explored using Push. I am also not convinced that the To the Slaughter in the SB shouldn't be a Diabolic Edict or 2.

I could see Trackers in the SB to play more of a midrange game but the immediate card draw to turn the corner and get to the combo is important. Tracker's draw is just a little slow for trying to dig into combo. I use the velocity of truths to make up for the lack of card selection (Cantrips and SDT).


I'm no expert on the deck but I hope that is helpful.

[Stevestamopz]

I don't have a decklist for you all yet but I have been informed that Nic Fit just won the Legacy portion of the New Zealand Eternal Weekend!

[Ulysse95]

Hi!

From the commander spoils, I see this one over the axe (or in a package) for a human shell:
http://www.cardkingdom.com/images/magic-the-gathering/commander-2017/heirloom-blade-61402-medium.jpg
Make me thought of skullclamp. No auto sac outlet but an offensive upgrade. "Draw" only one, but you're sure to get a creature and pass Leovold since it's not a true draw.
Even Stoneforge get an other copy of herself.

[Brael]

Hi!

From the commander spoils, I see this one over the axe (or in a package) for a human shell:
http://www.cardkingdom.com/images/magic-the-gathering/commander-2017/heirloom-blade-61402-medium.jpg
Make me thought of skullclamp. No auto sac outlet but an offensive upgrade. "Draw" only one, but you're sure to get a creature and pass Leovold since it's not a true draw.
Even Stoneforge get an other copy of herself.

I've been doing some thinking about this one actually. I think there's another way to think about the card. It's not a tribal card, it's a tutor for something you already have. I like it in Rhino builds for sure, I like it less in human builds because I don't want to hit a Veteran Explorer.

What gives me pause though is that it's a dies trigger which means Swords to Plowshares gets even stronger against us.

[kombatkiwi]

I think Evolutionary Leap is probably better if you want this kind of effect.
- Sac outlet when you want
- Cheaper mana cost

The benefit of equipping your guys and making them bigger doesn't seem that great when you have Rhinos and Inferno Titans etc etc which are bigger than everything else anyway.

[Arianrhod]

I don't have a decklist for you all yet but I have been informed that Nic Fit just won the Legacy portion of the New Zealand Eternal Weekend!

Sweet. Looking forward to seeing it!

[Echelon]

On Heirloom Blade - Blisterpod is a GSZ-able 1 mana Eldrazi (that gives you 2 Eldrazi for 1 card to boot). The plan in itself is just too fragile though.

On Nic Fit in NZ- Hooray!

[Ulysse95]

I think Evolutionary Leap is probably better if you want this kind of effect.
- Sac outlet when you want
- Cheaper mana cost

The benefit of equipping your guys and making them bigger doesn't seem that great when you have Rhinos and Inferno Titans etc etc which are bigger than everything else anyway.

Depends...
Evolutionary Leap needs to be draw, so you need several slots fill by it.
If you run a stoneforge package, 1 Heirloom Blade is enough

[kombatkiwi]

On Heirloom Blade - Blisterpod is a GSZ-able 1 mana Eldrazi (that gives you 2 Eldrazi for 1 card to boot). The plan in itself is just too fragile though.

On Nic Fit in NZ- Hooray!

Unfortunately the creature that you reveal only goes into your hand, so this probably isn't too exciting of an idea.

[Ulysse95]

Unfortunately the creature that you reveal only goes into your hand, so this probably isn't too exciting of an idea.

Depends, converting a blisterpod into 2 TKS can be sweet.
But I agree that the shell must be hard to balance.

For me I'm on an evolution of Nyx Fit shell. A Curse Fit. Need to do some tests and adjustements to see where it goes...

[RobNC]

Depends, converting a blisterpod into 2 TKS can be sweet.
But I agree that the shell must be hard to balance.

For me I'm on an evolution of Nyx Fit shell. A Curse Fit. Need to do some tests and adjustements to see where it goes...

You could also just get another Blisterpod with it, as I assume you'd be running more than 1 to hit it. Thanks to Devoid you can't GSZ for a 1-of.

[Ulysse95]

You could also just get another Blisterpod with it, as I assume you'd be running more than 1 to hit it. Thanks to Devoid you can't GSZ for a 1-of.

Good point! I think Echelon forgot the devoid thing! Damnit Echelon ! ;)

[Brael]

On Heirloom Blade - Blisterpod is a GSZ-able 1 mana Eldrazi (that gives you 2 Eldrazi for 1 card to boot). The plan in itself is just too fragile though.

On Nic Fit in NZ- Hooray!

Devoid makes it colorless, GSZ can't get it.

[amitofo]

Can I get some opinions on whether this budget list is worth throwing together? Does it have a chance to go 2-2 at my LGS ? my friend loaned me his rhino fit dec (which is super sweet thanks mark) and told me that if i start with 4 veteran explorer/4 cabal therapy I can do anything i want

// 60 Maindeck
// 2 Artifact
2 Smuggler's Copter

// 20 Creature
4 Street Wraith
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Death's Shadow
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Grim Flayer
1 Dryad Arbor

// 2 Enchantment
2 Sylvan Library

// 8 Instant
3 Orzhov Charm
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay

// 15 Land
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine

// 13 Sorcery
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

other cards to consider:
lingerining souls, sfm, vines of vastwood, berserk, anguished unmaking, hymn to tourach

[Brael]

Can I get some opinions on whether this budget list is worth throwing together? Does it have a chance to go 2-2 at my LGS ? my friend loaned me his rhino fit dec (which is super sweet thanks mark) and told me that if i start with 4 veteran explorer/4 cabal therapy I can do anything i want

// 60 Maindeck
// 2 Artifact
2 Smuggler's Copter

// 20 Creature
4 Street Wraith
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Death's Shadow
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Grim Flayer
1 Dryad Arbor

// 2 Enchantment
2 Sylvan Library

// 8 Instant
3 Orzhov Charm
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay

// 15 Land
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine

// 13 Sorcery
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

other cards to consider:
lingerining souls, sfm, vines of vastwood, berserk, anguished unmaking, hymn to tourach

I'll be honest with you, if you're very familiar with the meta you can probably get some free wins off of the Explorer/Cabal Therapy combo (and Therapy itself is just great when you get good names) but in general this list is going to lose a lot.

The first thing you need to look at is your land count. You're only playing 15 lands. Yes, you are playing some cantrips but those cantrips don't make up for the lower land count. I'll spare you the speech on the cantrip shell right now as it's something I've done extensive work with, but it's actually just not that good. It's main advantage is that the blue cantrip shell enables Force of Will and finding sideboard cards because they all dig 3 deep. Here, your cantrips only dig 1 deep and they don't enable anything. Ideally you want about 25 lands (and as a budget deck it's easier to accomplish this) though most tend to play in the 21-22 range.

After that, start looking at your spells. Gitaxian Probe/Thoughtseize+Cabal Therapy makes for some good training wheels to learn the format, but it's going to cost you wins. Playing Therapy properly involves being able to blind name. Remember, it's not always about hitting something with Therapy, 90% of the time it's just to ensure the opponent doesn't have something that's good against you. Knowing what to name requires a ton of practice, I think it's been removed from the primer now but the old saying was that you needed at least a year of experience with the deck to do this properly.

I also think your manabase is built improperly. This deck REALLY needs a Bayou, but you aren't playing the right amounts of shocks as substitutes either and your fetches are also off. Add a couple more green fetches, they don't have to be Windswept Heaths if you don't have them, just anything that gets green. You also need more basics, and because of the land situation you're going to have to commit more to a specific color. I would suggest dropping white entirely and just playing Green/Black for now, the mana base is less costly in terms of money as well as life paid per game, though the most budget friendly deck performance wise is probably Rhinos.

I would definitely move away from Grim Flayer. Delirium is pretty hard to achieve in Legacy because Deathrite Shaman takes the 4 most common creature types out of the graveyard. You can really only fill it if you devote a bunch of resources to killing opposing DRS's, which in turn weakens the rest of your board development. Don't play Varolz, scavenge is a good way to get blown out in Legacy, and the card itself is too weak to Terminus, StP, etc. Speaking of removal, get rid of those Orzhov Charms, you're paying way too much life per game with your current setup. In Legacy just paying for fetchlands is nearly too much life, shocks make things harder for you, and then you have Street Wraith, Orzhov Charm, Library, Probe, and Thoughtseize, and Deluge. This isn't Modern, you aren't rewarded for using your life total aggressively and Death's Shadow is not playable, the first time it eats a Swords to Plowshares you'll understand why.

I can give better suggestions if you give your budget for improvement but in your current list, this is all stuff I would drop
2 Smuggler's Copter
4 Death's Shadow
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Grim Flayer
3 Orzhov Charm
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Thoughtseize

Stuff I would add:
7 lands (includes some utility lands)
More threats (decide on a Rhino, SFM, or Tracker build)
2 Crop Rotation
Nissa (creature Nissa or 5 mana Nissa, creature will want an additional 2 basics)
More removal
4 GSZ
Some green stuff (ooze, eternal witness, meren, etc)

I'll also add on, that your budget here really needs to be about $150 minimum in additions because you don't have the Towers right now and those are super important, more so than a Bayou even.

[kombatkiwi]

Why would you play a Veteran Explorer deck where every non-Streetwraith card costs 2 or less?
edit: Deluge/Varolz I guess but the point still stands

[AtticusBlaqk]

Can I get some opinions on whether this budget list is worth throwing together? Does it have a chance to go 2-2 at my LGS ? my friend loaned me his rhino fit dec (which is super sweet thanks mark) and told me that if i start with 4 veteran explorer/4 cabal therapy I can do anything i want

// 60 Maindeck
// 2 Artifact
2 Smuggler's Copter

// 20 Creature
4 Street Wraith
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Death's Shadow
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Grim Flayer
1 Dryad Arbor

// 2 Enchantment
2 Sylvan Library

// 8 Instant
3 Orzhov Charm
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay

// 15 Land
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine

// 13 Sorcery
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

other cards to consider:
lingerining souls, sfm, vines of vastwood, berserk, anguished unmaking, hymn to tourach

to further what kombatkiwi said:

The NicFit's advantage is breaking the Veteran explorer symmetry not just by pushing your mana ahead but also being able to take advantage of that with higher CMC spells. If you're only using the explorer as a creature to sac to the back end of Cabal Therapy, you might find yourself accelerating your opponents into early wins. You're likely going to find yourself running out of cards before you're taking advantage of the extra mana.

The question I have is:

What do you want to play more, Veteran Explorer or Death's Shadow? It feels like these two creatures are diametrically opposed. Veteran Explorer wants to accelerate you into a high CMC spell/ability and Death's Shadow wants to take advantage of a lower mana curve.

[Echelon]

Good point! I think Echelon forgot the devoid thing! Damnit Echelon ! ;)

Indeed I did! Same goes for the hand thing, by the way.

As for the Sui Fit list - you might be able to make it work. Varolz provides a nice mana sink for your Explorer mana. There's a lot of work to be done though.

[pettdan]

@Amitofo: I agree with previous comments. If you want to play the deck, a quick fix could be to change the Veterans into Strangleroot Geist. Can be hard to cast but they synergize with Cabal Therapy while pressuring the opponent's life. Not saying it will be great, but it would seem better in the deck than sacking Veteran to give both players more lands, which your deck doesn't look like it needs. Btw, I love Varolz + Death's Shadow.

@Stevestamopz: what a cliffhanger! I can't find any info online. I would guess though, because guessing is fun, that it's a Rhino or BUG version.

[Brael]

Right, on the subject of Death's Shadow if that's the route you really want to go, you should be playing blue, not green. Blue lets you use Daze to shock, pick the shock back up, and replay it while Force of Will lets you lose life while interacting. Mashing it into Veteran Explorer doesn't really work, and the end result won't be budget because you'll need at minimum FoW and 2 Underground Sea to make it function, and likely Goyfs for your third color.

[kombatkiwi]

Here's the 1st-place list from NZ Eternal Weekend (32 Players)

2 Rhino
1 Meren
1 Sigarda
1 Thragtusk
2 Tracker
2 Deathrite
1 Teeg
4 Explorer
1 Pridemage
1 Scooze
1 Witness

4 Therapy
4 GSZ
3 Deed
1 Nissa Force
2 Decay
2 Path
2 Crop Rotation
1 Painful Truths
1 Maelstrom Pulse

2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Tower
1 Stronghold
4 Catacombs
4 Heath
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
3 Surgical
1 Glissa the Traitor
2 Thoughtseize
1 Canonist
2 Choke
1 Rec Sage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Golgari Charm
1 Sylvan Library
2 Lost Legacy

[Echelon]

Low to the ground Rhino Fit w/ the CR tech! Awesome!

[Navsi]

Oh great, now everyone's gonna be talking about Crop Rotation again for another few months.

[Echelon]

Maybe deservedly so. What's the problem?

[Navsi]

Maybe deservedly so. What's the problem?

It's not a card I have any interest in playing at all, and I think it's definitely not a card that someone new to the deck / format should be playing either.

[Echelon]

It's not a card I have any interest in playing at all, and I think it's definitely not a card that someone new to the deck / format should be playing either.

I have the same sentiment as you as far as this particular topic is concerned, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. It might provide a nice addition to the primer, though.

[Navsi]

I have the same sentiment as you as far as this particular topic is concerned, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. It might provide a nice addition to the primer, though.

The whole primer needs a rewrite again to be honest. The Top ban obsoletes a lot of the information there, and it's still written assuming Miracles is the best deck.

[Brael]

Low to the ground Rhino Fit w/ the CR tech! Awesome!

I wouldn't call that low to the ground. 3 4 drops and 3 5 drops, 81 pips in total. I think the curve is good, but it's definitely not low to the ground. I am happy to see CR though. Contrary to your and Navsi's opinions on the card I think it's fantastic. It seriously helps against many of our traditionally bad matchups while not harming our good matchups in the slightest. And it's putting up results which indicates that there's something to it.


I have the same sentiment as you as far as this particular topic is concerned, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. It might provide a nice addition to the primer, though.

I think discussion on the card is good. In the past couple months since we really started using the card, there have been a lot of successful lists using it, with a variety of numbers. Everything from 1 to 4, and different strategies to utilize the card at each number. It's not for every list, but I think it's good for a lot of them.


The whole primer needs a rewrite again to be honest. The Top ban obsoletes a lot of the information there, and it's still written assuming Miracles is the best deck.

Isn't Miracles back in DTB now? Miracles, if not the best deck is still a very good one.

[Navsi]

Isn't Miracles back in DTB now? Miracles, if not the best deck is still a very good one.

New Miracles functions quite differently to the old one, though. Mainly because Counterbalance is no longer so around.

[square_two]

Just ordered a foil Dovescape from star city. Would cause a stir if two wildly different nic fit lists won back to back eternal weekend-scale events...

As far as Crop Rotation goes, having a couple easy maindeck answers to graveyard strategies/marit lage/sneakshow seems ok to me. It's going to be sided out in most matchups, but I could see it not being terrible even in game 1 against quite a bit of stuff. 2 seems like an ok number. To me it's just a bit of spice to help improve generally unfair matchups that we struggle with.

[Brael]

Just ordered a foil Dovescape from star city. Would cause a stir if two wildly different nic fit lists won back to back eternal weekend-scale events...

As far as Crop Rotation goes, having a couple easy maindeck answers to graveyard strategies/marit lage/sneakshow seems ok to me. It's going to be sided out in most matchups, but I could see it not being terrible even in game 1 against quite a bit of stuff. 2 seems like an ok number. To me it's just a bit of spice to help improve generally unfair matchups that we struggle with.

I rarely ever want to remove my Crop Rotations. Even if you put aside the utility of lands like Karakas, Bojuka Bog, and even Maze of Ith. Crop Rotation still holds a lot of value by finding Phyrexian Tower, allowing it to act as sacrifice outlets 6+ for Veteran Explorer. That drastically speeds up your hands. It also acts as recursion with Phyrexian Tower. Just for the ability to effectively run two of each of those lands I think a single Crop Rotation is warranted in pretty much every game. The only time it's outright bad is if you play it into a Force of Will, but with even a moderate level of experience in the format you can avoid doing that.

[Arianrhod]

Part of the issue with another primer re-write atm (aside from having the time to do so) is that I don't feel like we've really collected enough data / put up enough good results to actually draw any conclusions yet. We're still in the throes of a complete deck rebuild even as the format continues to shift and change around us.

This result is an important step, for sure, but I don't think that we can really justify rewriting the primer when we have very little to effectually say at this point. It feels that we're still very much trying to find things that will work with Top gone at this point. It doesn't help that the "best" lists from pre-Top are basically stalled out dead in the water post-Top. I've tried and tried and tried to get Sneak working again and it just flat out...won't. I've tested with several BUG variants, as well as Sneak variants, on modo, and they just stall out and die. I've tried Leshrac's build and it did not go well for me -- might be pilot preference interference, but until more people are putting up results with it, I don't think we can confidently say that "this is a way forward" like I would want to be able to in the primer.

I do have something in the works that I'm cooking up with Iggins, but I could be way off base and don't want to embarrass myself without trying it a little first -- planning on taking it to Mythic this weekend.

[Leshrac82]

About Crop Rotation: I usually cut them against fair blue decks without Wastelands, like Miracles or 4-Color Leovold, also against Dragon Stompy. All for the same reason: Risk to get countered (or uncastable against Chalice) is high and reward is pretty small because i don't really need the utility lands or the Dark Depths combo. Otherwise i usually don't cut them at all.


I've tried Leshrac's build and it did not go well for me -- might be pilot preference interference, but until more people are putting up results with it, I don't think we can confidently say that "this is a way forward" like I would want to be able to in the primer.

I'm curious why it didn't work for you. I have only my results on xmage to go with, and as i wrote a couple of times, they don't point to any real problems. So i really want to know where other players who tried the deck have problems with it. Could be a different playstyle, could be lack of experience with the build, but it's always possible my results would be much worse against better players (it's really hard for me to guess how much worse the playerbase on xmage is compared to Magic Online - sometimes i see obvious mistakes, but in most games i don't).

[Ganfar]

Hi guys!

I am trying out this list now. I have removed Lliana of the Veil becasue I felt she didn't fit the deck at all. I really didn't want to discard any of my cards.

It was build after Bobmans list

https://deckstats.net/deck-13808213-18bee1e000b1a8b9ce5e6dda7c66a3d8.html

[rubblekill]

Hi guys!

I am trying out this list now. I have removed Lliana of the Veil becasue I felt she didn't fit the deck at all. I really didn't want to discard any of my cards.

It was build after Bobmans list

https://deckstats.net/deck-13808213-18bee1e000b1a8b9ce5e6dda7c66a3d8.html

You sure you don't want to discard any cabal therapy or punishing fire?

[Ganfar]

You sure you don't want to discard any cabal therapy or punishing fire?
Well yes but it's only 8 cards in the deck. I don't feel the need to have Veil in the deck even if she is one of the best planeswalker in magic. Don't fit in all decks

[Brael]

Had a random thought earlier about sacrifice outlets. Has anyone ever tried Berserk? It sacs a Vet early or it makes a Rhino hit hard late.

[kombatkiwi]

Had a random thought earlier about sacrifice outlets. Has anyone ever tried Berserk? It sacs a Vet early or it makes a Rhino hit hard late.

Assuming you only want 1 mana ways to kill an explorer for curve reasons (so no e.g. Diabolic Intent for example) is this really better than
- Bone Splinters
- Fume Spitter
- Innocent Blood
- Kjeldoran Dead
- Plagued Rusalka
- Tendrils of Despair
- Crop Rotate for Phyrexian Tower
etc

Getting the 2 lands at the end of the turn with Berserk (rather than immediately with other sac outlets) seems not-great and Berserking a random fatty also seems very win-more

[Ulysse95]

Assuming you only want 1 mana ways to kill an explorer for curve reasons (so no e.g. Diabolic Intent for example) is this really better than
- Bone Splinters
- Fume Spitter
- Innocent Blood
- Kjeldoran Dead
- Plagued Rusalka
- Tendrils of Despair
- Crop Rotate for Phyrexian Tower
etc

Getting the 2 lands at the end of the turn with Berserk (rather than immediately with other sac outlets) seems not-great and Berserking a random fatty also seems very win-more

Agreed

[Brael]

Assuming you only want 1 mana ways to kill an explorer for curve reasons (so no e.g. Diabolic Intent for example) is this really better than
- Bone Splinters
- Fume Spitter
- Innocent Blood
- Kjeldoran Dead
- Plagued Rusalka
- Tendrils of Despair
- Crop Rotate for Phyrexian Tower
etc

Getting the 2 lands at the end of the turn with Berserk (rather than immediately with other sac outlets) seems not-great and Berserking a random fatty also seems very win-more

With the exception of Crop Rotation, everything you mentioned involves giving up board position which tends to be pretty bad for us. Berserk actually translates into something. Being an instant, you can always cast it on your opponents combat step so you still get the mana first.

[Ulysse95]

With the exception of Crop Rotation, everything you mentioned involves giving up board position which tends to be pretty bad for us. Berserk actually translates into something. Being an instant, you can always cast it on your opponents combat step so you still get the mana first.

If you cast it during your opponnent turn, your Vet didn't attack and so, didn't get destroyed by berserk. Plus, being an instant isn't relevant since it doesn't destroy at instant speed...

Fatal push does more work than berserk and would be more relevant I think.

[Arianrhod]

I'm curious why it didn't work for you. I have only my results on xmage to go with, and as i wrote a couple of times, they don't point to any real problems. So i really want to know where other players who tried the deck have problems with it. Could be a different playstyle, could be lack of experience with the build, but it's always possible my results would be much worse against better players (it's really hard for me to guess how much worse the playerbase on xmage is compared to Magic Online - sometimes i see obvious mistakes, but in most games i don't).

Some of the problems were just bad hands / draws. I'd always draw the wrong pieces of everything at the wrong times. I also never drew Mox Diamonds in my opening hand, which made development very awkward....and then I'd draw them on like turn 6 when I didn't want them anymore.

I think it's mostly playstyle problems, to be honest. I'm used to interactive lists with copious removal. Another issue I had was not being able to reliably flashback Therapies, which might just be another playstyle thing, since my sequencing patterns frequently involve the flashback.

I guess I can best sum it up by saying that it felt more like 12post splashing Nic Fit, as opposed to Nic Fit splashing 12post, and I'm not really much of a post player.

I will note that you are definitely right about Lingering Souls -- that card did a lot of heavy lifting out of the sideboard. Titania also quite impressed me.

[Leshrac82]

Some of the problems were just bad hands / draws. I'd always draw the wrong pieces of everything at the wrong times. I also never drew Mox Diamonds in my opening hand, which made development very awkward....and then I'd draw them on like turn 6 when I didn't want them anymore.

I think it's mostly playstyle problems, to be honest. I'm used to interactive lists with copious removal. Another issue I had was not being able to reliably flashback Therapies, which might just be another playstyle thing, since my sequencing patterns frequently involve the flashback.

I guess I can best sum it up by saying that it felt more like 12post splashing Nic Fit, as opposed to Nic Fit splashing 12post, and I'm not really much of a post player.

I will note that you are definitely right about Lingering Souls -- that card did a lot of heavy lifting out of the sideboard. Titania also quite impressed me.

Ok, that's fair - maybe it is slightly closer to 12post than to NicFit, but i think it's somewhere in the middle. This seems to be my big problem to find more players to play this deck: It's too much like a 12post deck for NicFit players, and it's too much like a NicFit deck for 12post players, and so most players either don't even want to try it, or even if they are very good with either NicFit or 12post might lack the experience to be successful with this. I played a ton of games with this and earlier versions, and when i started that i didn't have any real experience with either 12post or NicFit, so i had to figure out what worked best without prior experience (and as a result, whenever i try a real 12post or NicFit deck, it doesn't really work for me).

Maybe i just need to put up more relevant results with it. I finally opened a Magic Online account today, just have to get the cards now, that will probably take a few days. If things work out i can maybe get some results in Magic Online leagues. If things don't work out i probably just burned some money - it definitely feels a little risky, since neither 12post nor NicFit put up any results on Magic Online, but i guess we will see.

Lingering Souls out of the sideboard just keeps overperforming for me. The main reason it is so good: Nobody expects it, they usually expect one big creature. Souls have killed a lot of Planeswalkers for me, they buy time against creatures including Delver, and occasionally they have killed an opponent for me. Titania is good for similar reasons, with the added option to bring back an important land when i really need it (usually Eye of Ugin when i have a lot of mana and that's already gone) and in general more synergy with the rest of the deck.

[Arianrhod]

Ok, that's fair - maybe it is slightly closer to 12post than to NicFit, but i think it's somewhere in the middle. This seems to be my big problem to find more players to play this deck: It's too much like a 12post deck for NicFit players, and it's too much like a NicFit deck for 12post players, and so most players either don't even want to try it, or even if they are very good with either NicFit or 12post might lack the experience to be successful with this. I played a ton of games with this and earlier versions, and when i started that i didn't have any real experience with either 12post or NicFit, so i had to figure out what worked best without prior experience (and as a result, whenever i try a real 12post or NicFit deck, it doesn't really work for me).

Maybe i just need to put up more relevant results with it. I finally opened a Magic Online account today, just have to get the cards now, that will probably take a few days. If things work out i can maybe get some results in Magic Online leagues. If things don't work out i probably just burned some money - it definitely feels a little risky, since neither 12post nor NicFit put up any results on Magic Online, but i guess we will see.

Lingering Souls out of the sideboard just keeps overperforming for me. The main reason it is so good: Nobody expects it, they usually expect one big creature. Souls have killed a lot of Planeswalkers for me, they buy time against creatures including Delver, and occasionally they have killed an opponent for me. Titania is good for similar reasons, with the added option to bring back an important land when i really need it (usually Eye of Ugin when i have a lot of mana and that's already gone) and in general more synergy with the rest of the deck.

Yeah. Souls was also great at stopping Diabolic Edicts out the wazoo from Czech Pile, which are typically very good against this sort of deck, since it likes to go tall rather than wide. Titania honestly was great even just as a nuclear deterrent for Wasteland.

I do think that the deck falls into a strange / unique place for its playstyle requirements, and I honestly think that is most of my issue with it -- partially an unwillingness to start over with something "new," and partially a lack of comfort in the tools employed. Pernicious Deed is a warm, fuzzy blanket to me anymore and I'm loathe to leave it behind -- I messed around with a couple other decks recently, and all of them were having issues with TNN. I was talking to a friend about that the other day -- it's amazing how "yeah, that's life," he was about True-Name. I was like, shouldn't you like...have answers to this? And apparently most of the format thinks it's fine that if True-Name resolves, you just flat out have to race it or sustain through it somehow. It just dumbfounded me to realize how much easier of a time we have with TNN than most of the rest of the format.

I'll definitely be interested to hear how your development goes, though -- please keep us posted. Just because there are those of us old dogs who can't/won't learn new tricks doesn't mean that newer generations of Nic Fit players wouldn't find merit in your work -- just gotta get to them before they become too set in their ways, I guess!

[arj]

I think the hybrid nic fit 12 post build has some interesting things going. If nothing else it puts the normal nic fit into a different perspective for me. I'm trying out a rhino build again with some of the tech from the hybrid build.

Good luck with magic online and keep us posted!

[Rookedwithelodin]

I used to lurk on this thread for a while and just came back and read a bunch to catch up (from ~13, I skipped a bunch but read the diabolic intent stuff and then skipped to the end around the beginning of C17 spoilers). I also haven't played legacy in a while (I went to Louisville [5-3-1] and then played probably 15 games between that and the end of the semester) but I was inspired by what I read to make some changes to my old list and ask what you all think.

Old List (post GP):
MD (61)
Creatures (20)
Arbor
2 Deathrite
4 Vet
ScOoze
Teeg
2 Voice of Resurgence
E Wit
Finks
Tireless Tracker
Murderous Redcap
2 Rhino
Sigarda
Thrag
Prime Time

Other Spells
2 Deed
Nissa, VF
4 GSZ
4 Therapy
2 AD
2 Path
4 Pod

Lands (22 + Arbor)
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
Scrubland
Karakas
P Tower
Stronghold
3 Verdant
4 Heath
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains

SB
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Surgical
2 StP
2 Thoughtseize
QPM
Faerie Macabre
Orzhov Pontiff
Rec Sage
Shriekmaw
Grave Titan
Massacre Wurm


New List:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/abzan-fitpod/
(This includes all the rationales for every change since I made the deck)
Tl;dr
-1 Pod
-1 Teeg
-1 AD
+2 Intent
+1 Vindicate

There were a number of MUs where Pod was pretty bad or really good but the deck is somewhat reliant on it. With Miracles transformation I don't think MD Teeg is as necessary although maybe I'm wrong because it's still good against ANT.... Now that I'm thinking about it, Teeg might come back in the MD soon... He's moving to the SB for now. As for Intent, a lot of talk on the Source was that Intent frequently ended up forcing you to sac 'real' creatures, but as this is a pod list, 1st it plays a lot more creatures and 2nd you're pretty okay with most of those creatures dying. 2x Intent is what I'm going to try for now. It can find pod when pod is good and it can find silver bullets too which typically had to be creatures or be in multiple copies since I don't play any actual draw spells. And now that I have 2 intent I'm moving 1 AD to be a vindicate as it is more versatile.

SB:
-1 Wurm
+1 Teeg
Teeg is still good when he's good and Wurm was too hard to cast and I couldn't pod into it quickly enough to matter.

Other thoughts:
I want MD QPM or rec sage but don't know what to cut and Canonist is something I want to add to the SB so I can grab it w/Inent but idk if that'd be too slow and I'm not sure what I'd cut for that either.

I go back to school in a week or so and then I can start jamming some games hopefully.

[MrIggins]

I've also been working on a Post hybrid build trying to capitalize on Ancient Stirrings. Still very much a work in progress but I'll try to post a list and some thoughts next week once I get another event in. I can't help but feel there's something there.

[fireiced]

This result is an important step, for sure, but I don't think that we can really justify rewriting the primer when we have very little to effectually say at this point. It feels that we're still very much trying to find things that will work with Top gone at this point. It doesn't help that the "best" lists from pre-Top are basically stalled out dead in the water post-Top. I've tried and tried and tried to get Sneak working again and it just flat out...won't. I've tested with several BUG variants, as well as Sneak variants, on modo, and they just stall out and die.

I currently have 2 lists for BUG Fit, 1 for a meta with plenty of TES and other for meta with more grindy BUG decks. On paper Magic it has been doing great and my other friend on BUG fit did quite well in our recent FNM with a BUG build slanted towards destroying fair and prison decks.

MTGO Fit (the one for meta with plenty of TES)

14 Creature
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Baleful Strix
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Grave Titan

5 Planeswalker
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Nissa, Vital Force

18 Spell
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Fatal Push
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Ponder
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will

2 Enchantment
2 Pernicious Deed

21 Land
2 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Fatal Push
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Krosan Grip
1 Dread of Night
1 Null Rod
1 Engineered Plague

Paper Fit (for paper events)

15 Creature
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Baleful Strix
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan

4 Planeswalker
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Nissa, Vital Force

18 Spell
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Fatal Push
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Ponder
2 Abrupt Decay

2 Enchantment
2 Pernicious Deed

21 Land
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Planeswalkers
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Fatal Push
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Null Rod
3 Force of Will
1 Dread of Night
1 Engineered Plague

Loss of top was painful, Night's Whisper, Painful Truths and its ilk really do not cut it as they are bulky and inefficient. Personally I feel we are just gimping ourselfs by not playing into Blue for Brainstorm and Ponder while we durdle with such clunky sources of Card Draw. BUG Fit is still very new to me but its power is undeniable where the main game plan is simply 1 → Ramp & Discard disruption 2 → Slam a walker and ride to victory.


I messed around with a couple other decks recently, and all of them were having issues with TNN. I was talking to a friend about that the other day -- it's amazing how "yeah, that's life," he was about True-Name. I was like, shouldn't you like...have answers to this? And apparently most of the format thinks it's fine that if True-Name resolves, you just flat out have to race it or sustain through it somehow. It just dumbfounded me to realize how much easier of a time we have with TNN than most of the rest of the format.

Nic Fit was my first deck eons back when I first started Legacy. TNN is a problem? Add TNN to deck! Same for JTMS is a problem? Add JTMS to deck! The game play of cantrip into ramp/discard/defender/walker every single game has allowed me to ride all my games to victory except for times I felt over confident and punted. It is amazing that every loss I had, I could just blame it on myself and my sloppy or overconfident play.

So my advice to fellow Nic Fitters, unless you are on the overwhelmingly focused strategy like Rector Fit, Post Fit or other Combo variants like Sneaky Fit / Scapewish Fit just add Blue
→ Stop struggling with garbage choices of CA/Card Selection, play blue play what the enemy has been playing for so long and so well ala Brainstorm & Ponder
→ Since we are in Blue we get to also add in training wheels for Therapy, Gitaxian Probe. For the masters of Nic Fit for so long, we already know what to call. Adding perfect information to Therapy calls make us just so much more meaner.
→ From the beginning of the release of Worldwake, we hate JTMS. Add blue play JTMS of our own and let the blue opponent despair. Their decks are not built to slam JTMS as plan A while BUG Fit is. We are the JTMS deck, we will crush the other fair blue decks with a deck built to win via JTMS!
→ We always had consistency issues and relied insanely on Top for filtering. By adding overpowered Blue cantrips, we solve the top problem for card quality (I heard Brainstorm and fetchlands are like peanut butter & jam) and we also make our singletons in MB/SB so much stronger. No more do we just rely on GSZ alone! Less dammit I did not draw my hate/that card vs Elf else I would had closed the game/stabalised. We also get to add Null Rod, a surprisingly strong card vs all the Blade nonsense and artifact mana.
→ Gets to play Fow, nuff said

:laugh:

Edit for spelling

[Echelon]

But that means I need a set of UG fetches, 2 Deltas and a Tropical Island and an Underground Sea... And all the blue toys, to boot.

[fireiced]

But that means I need a set of UG fetches, 2 Deltas and a Tropical Island and an Underground Sea... And all the blue toys, to boot.

Dammit Echelon I know! I tried extensively on MTGO before acquiring the paper duals. Deltas from KTK are sorta cheap and Misty is quite cheap after the MM3 reprint. IMHO the 1st Tropical Island is a must have. Watery Graves & Breeding Pools are acceptable, heck even Lumbering Falls was MVP in my friend's deck in his matchup vs Standstill Control!

[Navsi]

The other problems with BUG fit are the same ones it has had for years:

- Extremely slow at ending the game - no real Zenith targets that actually kill people for less than six mana (though Tireless Tracker helps), and JTMS takes a long time to finish the game. He's also way less good in a list that doesn't play as many counterspells to protect him.

- Awful matchups against aggressive decks. You don't get the stabilizing strength of Stoneforge or Rhino, your clock is extremely slow giving them time to draw more burn for reach. Strix helps but all the card advantage (and cantrips) is just dead in these matchups and you'll regularly die before you can stabilize.

- By cutting Zeniths for cantrips, you're way more vulnerable to Chalice and you are a lot less likely to be able to find a turn 1-2 Explorer (meaning you can't ramp into haymakers anywhere near as consistently, even with cantrips). Your haymaker density also goes down a lot and your lategame loses a lot of power, since Zenith shuffles back in increasing your odds of topdecking powerful cards over time.

[rubblekill]

The other problems with BUG fit are the same ones it has had for years:

- Extremely slow at ending the game - no real Zenith targets that actually kill people for less than six mana (though Tireless Tracker helps), and JTMS takes a long time to finish the game. He's also way less good in a list that doesn't play as many counterspells to protect him.

- Awful matchups against aggressive decks. You don't get the stabilizing strength of Stoneforge or Rhino, your clock is extremely slow giving them time to draw more burn for reach. Strix helps but all the card advantage (and cantrips) is just dead in these matchups and you'll regularly die before you can stabilize.

- By cutting Zeniths for cantrips, you're way more vulnerable to Chalice and you are a lot less likely to be able to find a turn 1-2 Explorer (meaning you can't ramp into haymakers anywhere near as consistently, even with cantrips). Your haymaker density also goes down a lot and your lategame loses a lot of power, since Zenith shuffles back in increasing your odds of topdecking powerful cards over time.

This sums it up perfectly, and it's the reason I abandoned BUG colors. Without real counterspells/cantrips this isn't a real blue deck, but a (although very, very grindy) midrange deck that struggles against a lot of decks, and has not a real free win like rhino used to have with delver for example. The only thing blue gives us is a real weakness to the ubiquitous red blasts effects and a shaky manabase that make the deck more vulnerable against decks like 8 moon which would be nearly a free win otherwise for nic fit.
The only blue GSZ'able dude blue offers is Leovold, but he was not worth it in my opinion: without counterspells as protection he acts like a bad tireless tracker in my experience.
The more I play the more I think that in the post-top worls the best nic fit is the BG one.

[square_two]

The other problems with BUG fit are the same ones it has had for years:

- Extremely slow at ending the game - no real Zenith targets that actually kill people for less than six mana (though Tireless Tracker helps), and JTMS takes a long time to finish the game. He's also way less good in a list that doesn't play as many counterspells to protect him.

You are exactly right about Tracker - bug in my opinion is able to play 3-4 very easily, and I feel that Tracker works best in those colors. Not sure if I could explain adequately, but he feels at home and when you are running 3-4 then you will often draw multiple a game which is just too much for many opponents (also due to card consistency that blue offers). Tracker, fetchland, next turn another Tracker, fetchland makes opponents concede on the spot. The last time I was on bug, I had Titania as my top-end (and I did include some number of GSZ) and have been surprised by her ever since - to me, she is a viable finisher and also works well in bug colors. I typically don't see Jace as a finisher, rarely tick him up, he instead ties the rest of the deck together and provides it with a boost of strength. (Who cares about protecting him when you're running 3 though?) :P

I remember back to trying Stoneforge Mystic-type junk equipment nic fit and it has felt the slowest to me out of any version I've played. I ran from it to Sneak primarily for that reason, as soon as Sneak was "released" and started being worked on by this community.



- Awful matchups against aggressive decks. You don't get the stabilizing strength of Stoneforge or Rhino, your clock is extremely slow giving them time to draw more burn for reach. Strix helps but all the card advantage (and cantrips) is just dead in these matchups and you'll regularly die before you can stabilize.

Pulse of Murasa is also a natural fit in bug colors and imo, Stryfo's use of it on his twitch channel across his bug fit and punishing fire lists has really displayed its usefulness. I'd encourage people here to give it a try. I do agree that bug is more vulnerable to burn, price of progress, and land destruction since you do have to fetch duals more often in order to get out Strix and lower cmc combinations of ticks.



- By cutting Zeniths for cantrips, you're way more vulnerable to Chalice and you are a lot less likely to be able to find a turn 1-2 Explorer (meaning you can't ramp into haymakers anywhere near as consistently, even with cantrips). Your haymaker density also goes down a lot and your lategame loses a lot of power, since Zenith shuffles back in increasing your odds of topdecking powerful cards over time.

If you do decide to cut down to 0-1 Zeniths, then yes for sure. Agreed that I felt weaker to Chalice than many other nic fit lists I've tried. That's what happens when you go with full 4 Deathrite >.>

Good ideas to chew on for anyone thinking about BUG.

[fireiced]

The other problems with BUG fit are the same ones it has had for years:

- Extremely slow at ending the game - no real Zenith targets that actually kill people for less than six mana (though Tireless Tracker helps), and JTMS takes a long time to finish the game. He's also way less good in a list that doesn't play as many counterspells to protect him.

- Awful matchups against aggressive decks. You don't get the stabilizing strength of Stoneforge or Rhino, your clock is extremely slow giving them time to draw more burn for reach. Strix helps but all the card advantage (and cantrips) is just dead in these matchups and you'll regularly die before you can stabilize.

- By cutting Zeniths for cantrips, you're way more vulnerable to Chalice and you are a lot less likely to be able to find a turn 1-2 Explorer (meaning you can't ramp into haymakers anywhere near as consistently, even with cantrips). Your haymaker density also goes down a lot and your lategame loses a lot of power, since Zenith shuffles back in increasing your odds of topdecking powerful cards over time.

- I guess you only skimed through the first list where multiple sacred cows of nic fit were slaughtered to accommodate FOW to combat the endless legion of storm combo on MTGO.
- SFM and Rhino? Did not touch them in about 1.5 years. Felt ok thus far. You are slamming the colour combi just for 1 matchup, Burn. square_two has a point on SFM, SFM is stupidly glacial and Searing Blood / Searing Blaze / Shattering Spree says hi from Burn. Then again it is 1 matchup, throwing away Burn to make it from slam dunk win to quite an underdog to have force vs storm infestation MTGO is something I will take.
- I guess I could just force the chalice on 1? 2nd BUG list still has the GSZ package with more targets.


You are exactly right about Tracker - bug in my opinion is able to play 3-4 very easily, and I feel that Tracker works best in those colors. Not sure if I could explain adequately, but he feels at home and when you are running 3-4 then you will often draw multiple a game which is just too much for many opponents (also due to card consistency that blue offers). Tracker, fetchland, next turn another Tracker, fetchland makes opponents concede on the spot. The last time I was on bug, I had Titania as my top-end (and I did include some number of GSZ) and have been surprised by her ever since - to me, she is a viable finisher and also works well in bug colors. I typically don't see Jace as a finisher, rarely tick him up, he instead ties the rest of the deck together and provides it with a boost of strength. (Who cares about protecting him when you're running 3 though?) :P

I remember back to trying Stoneforge Mystic-type junk equipment nic fit and it has felt the slowest to me out of any version I've played. I ran from it to Sneak primarily for that reason, as soon as Sneak was "released" and started being worked on by this community.

Pulse of Murasa is also a natural fit in bug colors and imo, Stryfo's use of it on his twitch channel across his bug fit and punishing fire lists has really displayed its usefulness. I'd encourage people here to give it a try. I do agree that bug is more vulnerable to burn, price of progress, and land destruction since you do have to fetch duals more often in order to get out Strix and lower cmc combinations of ticks.
.

@Navsi @ square_two
- I believe it is my mistake to omit the powerhouse that is Tireless Tracker in BUG Fit. Will see to incorporating them.


This sums it up perfectly, and it's the reason I abandoned BUG colors. Without real counterspells/cantrips this isn't a real blue deck, but a (although very, very grindy) midrange deck that struggles against a lot of decks, and has not a real free win like rhino used to have with delver for example. The only thing blue gives us is a real weakness to the ubiquitous red blasts effects and a shaky manabase that make the deck more vulnerable against decks like 8 moon which would be nearly a free win otherwise for nic fit.
The only blue GSZ'able dude blue offers is Leovold, but he was not worth it in my opinion: without counterspells as protection he acts like a bad tireless tracker in my experience.
The more I play the more I think that in the post-top worls the best nic fit is the BG one.

- 12 cantrip 3 fow feels like there are real counterspells and real cantrips :eek:
- 11 cantrip no fow version has no real counterspells I admit
- Vs delver even with Rhino is not freewin, just adds the cake to the walk. Nic Fit generally walks all over delvers due to their lack of basics which makes Explorer stupid good against them unless you sequence so poorly or get forced to walk into a stifle on explorer.


Alright guys I am not trying to flame or anything here but make a discussion for those who want to take BUG fit to somewhere in this post miracles top world. I dabbled in BUG for the following reasons
1 - We lost Top and there ain't any replacements. Miracles replaced it with adding more cantrips (Portent and Predict), I thought we could do the same plus I really like Baleful Strix vs all sorts of prison decks (Eldrazi, 8 moon and Loam)
2 - Blue means we can incorporate FOW via some deck restructuring. FOW with Therapy is good vs a multitude of decks. The resurgence of Storm due to Counterbalance leaving the format pushed me harder to this direction
3 - Miracles leaving its almost Tier 0 status meant that we get all kinds of weird control coming to play. I frequently play a topdeck war against them (as Sneaky Fit) and am always that 1 draw step away from winning the game. Cantrips definitely helped.
4 - Vs fair blue decks. I have not ceded a single game against fair blue decks with the 2nd BUG Fit I posted. Neither did my buddy. Like I said, we are the better JTMS deck and JTMS breaks open fair blue mirrors. Plus we do not play fair because of our little Explorer Therapy asymmetrical engine. Opponent has Red? Just brainstorm till he draws that REB/Pyroblast. I remember reading an article (claw blade era) saying that if your JTMS brainstorms for 3-4 turns, it is nigh impossible to lose the game. This shift in strategy means we have to swap our therapy calls to resolve JTMS and not let them resolve theirs.

Finally I would like to say, give BUG a try. There might be an inherent bias as many of us (myself included) came to try Nic Fit because we can escape the grasp of expensive blue duals. If your personal finances cannot afford or you do not want to touch the evil colour of blue, then it is ok. I will still be here lurking and giving my opinions to hopefully improve your chosen variant of Nic Fit.

[Navsi]

- I guess you only skimed through the first list where multiple sacred cows of nic fit were slaughtered to accommodate FOW to combat the endless legion of storm combo on MTGO.
- SFM and Rhino? Did not touch them in about 1.5 years. Felt ok thus far. You are slamming the colour combi just for 1 matchup, Burn. square_two has a point on SFM, SFM is stupidly glacial and Searing Blood / Searing Blaze / Shattering Spree says hi from Burn. Then again it is 1 matchup, throwing away Burn to make it from slam dunk win to quite an underdog to have force vs storm infestation MTGO is something I will take.
- I guess I could just force the chalice on 1? 2nd BUG list still has the GSZ package with more targets.
- I believe it is my mistake to omit the powerhouse that is Tireless Tracker in BUG Fit. Will see to incorporating them.
- 12 cantrip 3 fow feels like there are real counterspells and real cantrips :eek:
- 11 cantrip no fow version has no real counterspells I admit
- Vs delver even with Rhino is not freewin, just adds the cake to the walk. Nic Fit generally walks all over delvers due to their lack of basics which makes Explorer stupid good against them unless you sequence so poorly or get forced to walk into a stifle on explorer.


Alright guys I am not trying to flame or anything here but make a discussion for those who want to take BUG fit to somewhere in this post miracles top world. I dabbled in BUG for the following reasons
1 - We lost Top and there ain't any replacements. Miracles replaced it with adding more cantrips (Portent and Predict), I thought we could do the same plus I really like Baleful Strix vs all sorts of prison decks (Eldrazi, 8 moon and Loam)
2 - Blue means we can incorporate FOW via some deck restructuring. FOW with Therapy is good vs a multitude of decks. The resurgence of Storm due to Counterbalance leaving the format pushed me harder to this direction
3 - Miracles leaving its almost Tier 0 status meant that we get all kinds of weird control coming to play. I frequently play a topdeck war against them (as Sneaky Fit) and am always that 1 draw step away from winning the game. Cantrips definitely helped.
4 - Vs fair blue decks. I have not ceded a single game against fair blue decks with the 2nd BUG Fit I posted. Neither did my buddy. Like I said, we are the better JTMS deck and JTMS breaks open fair blue mirrors. Plus we do not play fair because of our little Explorer Therapy asymmetrical engine. Opponent has Red? Just brainstorm till he draws that REB/Pyroblast. I remember reading an article (claw blade era) saying that if your JTMS brainstorms for 3-4 turns, it is nigh impossible to lose the game. This shift in strategy means we have to swap our therapy calls to resolve JTMS and not let them resolve theirs.

Finally I would like to say, give BUG a try. There might be an inherent bias as many of us (myself included) came to try Nic Fit because we can escape the grasp of expensive blue duals. If your personal finances cannot afford or you do not want to touch the evil colour of blue, then it is ok. I will still be here lurking and giving my opinions to hopefully improve your chosen variant of Nic Fit.

I've played BUG fit before. I think it has the potential to be good. I just dont' think that Cantrip/FOW heavy is the way to do it. Don't assume that just because I don't think the way you're building is particularly good, that I'm not interested because of budget reasons. It's not very friendly of you to go from 'oh you don't like my BUG list' to 'you must be jealous of my bags of money'.

- If you want a good storm matchup, I'd much rather have proactive hate (hatebears, discard) than Force. Storm plays discard spells, and regularly a FOW just gets Duressed on turn two before they go off on that / the next turn. Against fair decks, discard still trades 1 for 1 and opens the way for our haymakers through counterspells, where Force 2-for-1s us, or worse when we're pitching our primary card advantage engines to it (strix, jace, cantrips). I get that you've thrown out a load of the stuff that makes Nic Fit good to accomodate FOW, and I don't think you have improved the deck for it in the slightest.
- Alright, sure, swap SFM/Rhino in my comment for Sigarda then. BUG is bad at ending the game, which means we give the opponent more time to deal with our stuff. This is a serious issue you need to look into resolving with a fast clock somewhere in the deck, preferably that can be tutored. If nothing else, it means that if you lose game 1 you probably lose the match.
- Even the second BUG list is still significantly heavier on the one mana spells than a non-blue list. You'll be stuck with 1cmc stuff in hand against chalice a lot. Even if you Force it you're still down on cards and you're relying on having your 3-of in your opening hand to not have a ton of issues over the game.

1. Have you played with Sylvan Library much? Card does a ton of work.
2. see above re: fow vs discard
3. If you want to win topdeck wars, you should probably be playing Zenith. Also it's not like Cantrips are free slots - you've cut interaction / threats for cantrips, so I don't really see how the replacement improves your topdecks much at all.
4. I don't think we are the better JTMS decks, because we have a hard time protecting him on the stack. If we are in a position where we are resolving 4+ mana spells, we are winning against almost every fair deck in the format. Making the finisher JTMS gives us more card advantage and a very slow but inevitable finisher, at the expense of not being zenithable, not being playable at all when we are behind in board position, and dying to REB. He's still a very solid card but I think you are overestimating his capabilities. He does play well with Pernicious Deed. I play him in BUG but he is a backup / secondary gameplan rather than the primary way of winning games.

[rubblekill]

4. I don't think we are the better JTMS decks, because we have a hard time protecting him on the stack. If we are in a position where we are resolving 4+ mana spells, we are winning against almost every fair deck in the format. Making the finisher JTMS gives us more card advantage and a very slow but inevitable finisher, at the expense of not being zenithable, not being playable at all when we are behind in board position, and dying to REB. He's still a very solid card but I think you are overestimating his capabilities. He does play well with Pernicious Deed. I play him in BUG but he is a backup / secondary gameplan rather than the primary way of winning games.

This right here is the main trap of BUG. I was excited to try to play Jace in Nic Fit, but he is not worth it at all: not only we can't protect him, but in sideboard games everyone is going to have REB against us: not a nice place to be after playing a 4 mana sorcery.
Blue does not have a precise, gamewinning and streamlined plan beside outgrinding to dust the opponent; the deck cannot win the game reasonably fast and doesn't have insta win buttons, unlike other versions.
If you want to play Jace and Deed, that's awesome: but the deck that's able to do it proficiently is a blue deck and it's BUG control, or BUG landstill. Not Nic Fit.
Having underground sea in the deck does not make your deck a "blue deck".

@I'm not talking to you Navsi, but to the guy you quoted in your message.

[fireiced]

I've played BUG fit before. I think it has the potential to be good. I just dont' think that Cantrip/FOW heavy is the way to do it. Don't assume that just because I don't think the way you're building is particularly good, that I'm not interested because of budget reasons. It's not very friendly of you to go from 'oh you don't like my BUG list' to 'you must be jealous of my bags of money'.


Was coming in with the "If we want to improve, we should ignore the budget issues". I do not own my Tropicals, lucky enough to be able to loan if from my LGS while Undergrounds were won eons ago with Nic Fit (have to thank Arianhod for helping me learn this deck). My sincere apologies for coming off as a scrummy scumbag.



1. Have you played with Sylvan Library much? Card does a ton of work.
2. see above re: fow vs discard
3. If you want to win topdeck wars, you should probably be playing Zenith. Also it's not like Cantrips are free slots - you've cut interaction / threats for cantrips, so I don't really see how the replacement improves your topdecks much at all.
4. I don't think we are the better JTMS decks, because we have a hard time protecting him on the stack. If we are in a position where we are resolving 4+ mana spells, we are winning against almost every fair deck in the format. Making the finisher JTMS gives us more card advantage and a very slow but inevitable finisher, at the expense of not being zenithable, not being playable at all when we are behind in board position, and dying to REB. He's still a very solid card but I think you are overestimating his capabilities. He does play well with Pernicious Deed. I play him in BUG but he is a backup / secondary gameplan rather than the primary way of winning games.

1 - Yes I did but the life sorta backfired upon me. I think it is my own problem and inexperience with using library. Would be great if you can teach me how you use it vs the top 4 decks I usually meet (Grixis Delver, Sneak n Show, 4c Control, Dnt)
2 - vs Storm. The threat of fow itself slows them down, no doubt they will just jam it sometimes but the threat will make them think twice about just going for it. I still play 4 Cabal Therapies
3 - There are still Zeniths in the 2nd list
4 - I play JTMS as Plan A vs the fair blue decks. The G creature core is still there with GSZ. I have just added Tireless Trackers back from your recommendation and I felt quite silly for cutting it =x As for red blasts/pyroblast I do not really have any problems with them, either strip it out using therapy or strand it while I play the creature plan. Leovold always eats the REB thou so JTMS is usually clear for resolution.



- Even the second BUG list is still significantly heavier on the one mana spells than a non-blue list. You'll be stuck with 1cmc stuff in hand against chalice a lot. Even if you Force it you're still down on cards and you're relying on having your 3-of in your opening hand to not have a ton of issues over the game.


I think it is just me when I get a t1 chalice from the opposing side, I will just natural an Abrupt Decay or just play on with the opponent struggling with either mana or threats. Eldrazi on the other hand, I always have that t2 Baleful Strix to make him sad till I get either deed or decay to clear the way for the spells in my hand. Below is the updated decklist :)

16 Creature
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Baleful Strix
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan

4 Planeswalker
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Nissa, Vital Force

17 Spell
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Fatal Push
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Abrupt Decay

2 Enchantment
2 Pernicious Deed

21 Land
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Negate
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Null Rod
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Dread of Night
1 Engineered Plague

Edit for spelling and add updated deck list

[benjiman13]

Hello guys, is anyone working on rector fit ?
Would like to give it a shot!

[JackaBo]

Hello guys, is anyone working on rector fit ?
Would like to give it a shot!

I do. Having quite some fun, but losing a lot.

[wsurugby10]

Hello guys, is anyone working on rector fit ?
Would like to give it a shot!

I've been playing it some with success. Here's what my list is currently looking like.


Main Deck:
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
4 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Lingering Souls

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Swords to Plowshares

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Sylvan Library
1 Dovescape
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor
1 Starfield of Nyx

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chromanticore
1 Ground Seal
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Lost Legacy

[Dalton!]

Since I can not get Sneak Fit to work, i was tinkering with straigth GB. Surprisingly good i believe. Very fast and able to operate on very few mana if needed

21 Land( 1Arbor, 2 Tower, 1 Stronghold)

4 Deathrite
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Deed
1 Toxic Deluge

4 Green Sun`s Zenith

2 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Liliana, the last hope


S:

3 Surgicals
2 Thoughtseize
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Lost Legacy
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Obstinate Baloth



Anyone else had the same ideas?

[Rome]

Since I can not get Sneak Fit to work, i was tinkering with straigth GB. Surprisingly good i believe. Very fast and able to operate on very few mana if needed

21 Land( 1Arbor, 2 Tower, 1 Stronghold)

4 Deathrite
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Deed
1 Toxic Deluge

4 Green Sun`s Zenith

2 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Liliana, the last hope


S:

3 Surgicals
2 Thoughtseize
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Lost Legacy
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Obstinate Baloth



Anyone else had the same ideas?

Since a few days I am experimanting with Bone Picker. I also endet in a streigt GB Nic Fit list with Bone Picker.
Very often you get him for B through Cabal therapy and Veteran Explorer. 3/2 Flying deathtouch is a house!

Liliana, Heretical Healer is also an idea in this deck!

[Dalton!]

Bone Picker would be cheap even if you only crack a cloue token....seems interessting. I like that addition

Flip Lilli is the next thing i will be testing. Would you mind posting a list?