I don't think either Tower or Arbor can be considered a ramp card at all. They only ramp you if you already have a GSZ/DRS/Veteran, and the reason we were looking at those numbers in the first place is to give good odds of having a copy of one in our opening hand. Having a Tower or Arbor in the opening hand without a Vet or whatever doesn't give us ramp.
I think your list (the walker/ramp heavy one) is going to end up looking like this:
22 lands (2 tower)
4 vet
4 drs
1 STE
1 tracker
1 nissa
1 witness
1 sigarda
4 gsz
3 top
1 truths
4 therapy
3 deed
3 path
2 decay
1 abzan charm
1 vindicate
1 sorin
1 obnix
1 garruk R
To put it in your format:
8 interaction/removal
- 1 abzan charm (double duty)
- 1 vindicate
- 1 obnix (double duty)
- 5 path + decay
8 CA/library manipulation
- 3 top
- 1 tracker (double duty)
- 1 witness
- 1 nissa (double duty)
- 1 truths
- (1 abzan charm)
5-6 finisher
- 1 sigarda
- 1 garruk R
- (1 nissa)
- (1 obnix)
- (1 tracker)
I am gone for a weekend and shit like this happens....Now, I'm reading through what looks like a damn math experiment gone wrong with all this belcher esque analysis. I believe over quantification will only lead to frustration. Nic fit is a labor of love, don't fall into madness over making the numbers perfect.Originally Posted by Echelon
Also, Echelon, I am disappoint.
MTGO: Ricardio
Nic Fit: legacy's magical EDH deck
I came here to party and resolve prime time triggers.
"Well, I ain't calling you a truther." -Josh
IMGUR:http://ricardio69.imgur.com/all/
I will +1 this post because I am a lazy person with little time to post a comment about this magnificently in-depth (as much as convoluted and quite confusing) analysis that you beautiful people have been doing recently.
I wholeheartedly agree Ric.
Last edited by rubblekill; 04-25-2016 at 12:37 PM.
Going to interrupt y'all with some data to help feed the machine.
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
2 Spike Feeder
1 Spike Weaver
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Painful Truths
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Phyrexian Tower
sb::
2 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Golgari Charm
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Engineered Plague
2 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dueling Grounds
2 Carpet of Flowers
This is the final list I settled on for Mythic. My meta calls were almost spot on, so that was good. The bad news is that I underestimated how winnable Miracles is without Slaughter Games (or presumably Red Blasts would fill the same role), and the further bad news is that for some reason, I went to bed at 1:00am to get up at 7:30am (a little light, but I had to resleeve and get deck reg done somehow), then laid in bed unable to sleep for literally four and a half hours, so I ended up running the day, and driving, on two hours sleep. I'm completely sure that this had a detrimental effect on my day, specifically in round 5, which I'm pretty sure was the exact round that I needed to win to get in.
I'm going to be fairly brief with the actual report so that I can get more into thoughts, impressions, and data to assist in the war machine's churning through deck rebuilds.
R1: DnT
G1 he goes in on Stoneforge for Batterskull and that's basically the extent of his serious threats -- he has no Revoker, no Moms, and I Cabal'd away his Thalia before he played it, but he does have multiple Swords. He gets an early lead and goes up to like 32 life, while I drop down accordingly. I eventually stabilize by Deeding away, although I can't blow up for enough to get the Skull, which lets him Flickerwisp it. That ends up getting Pathed when he goes to equip, then I untap into a Baneslayer followed by a Thune, who do the lord's work.
Side note: along the way a Tireless Tracker drew me legit like 4 cards before eventually dying to a lethal Deed via Zenith for E.Wit.
G2 I have three sweepers and two angels before turn 5. He basically just falls over dead.
R2: Hollywood on Imperial Painter
I figured this one was going to be an uphill struggle. Hollywood is someone I've known for a long time now, although we've only infrequently actually ended up playing each other. He's a very good player, and can be credited with the creation of Imperial Painter years ago, so I know he knows his deck inside and out.
G1 I have the right combination of Deeds and spot removal to push him off of any threat of comboing. He has a quick Blood Moon, on turn 2 I believe, but I'd already fetched for a basic Forest and had a basic Plains in hand, as well as Sakura-Tribe, who got me the Swamp. After some back and forth and killing his combo pieces, Meren comes down and is generating a ton of value for me courtesy of Sakura and a Spike Feeder. I eventually just beat him to death with dorks, landing the killing blow by moving two +1/+1 counters from Spike Weaver onto the unblocked Spike Feeder.
G2 He leads with Painter on turn one off an Ancient Tomb. I hope he doesn't have it, and just play a Verdant and pass. I had basics in hand, but chose to play Verdant both because that could net me an extra basic in case of Moon (in response), and because he could Red Blast one of my basics if I led on that. He plays a Mountain and a Grindstone, but is a mana off from activating. He ships back. I mainphase Abrupt Decay on the Painter, and then Surgical them. He does take out one of my basics in response to the Decay, but is otherwise very grumpy. After a couple turns of him Recruiting for Recruiters to try to assemble something resembling a reasonable clock, I get him to Weld out his Grindstone to return a Revoker that I'd killed (which was naming Deed), and then Surgicaled his Grindstone too. The reason for this is that his best wincon at that point was to assemble Grindstone + Ensnaring Bridge, and just sit there slow milling me. I didn't want to allow that line, so I accepted my Deed being turned off in exchange for forcing him on to the beatdown plan, which he is in no way going to win against especially a Thune variant. I land a Baneslayer and beat down in the air, but get choked out by an Ensnaring Bridge. He keeps digging for non-Ancient Tomb mana sources so he could play more cards from his hand while I draw into a Thune, which can actually go in under his Bridge for two swings and kill him despite growing once.
R3: BUG Delver
G1 I land a turn two Baneslayer off of Vet/Tower, which makes his Delver look really stupid. After two swings, he manages to find a Murderous Cut and kill the Baneslayer, but I just Meren it back to my hand and replay it, which seals the game.
G2 I have removal spells and Carpet of Flowers into Dromoka, who effortlessly carries me to victory. There was a little more back and forth in the early game than it sounds like from that sentence, but I don't remember all of the finer points.
Now the wheels fall off. I know that the 3-0 meta is generally unfavorable to me. There's a Sneak/Show, which is mildly terrifying without Slaughters in the list, a Lands, which is beatable but really annoying, and a couple of very competent Delver players, who are never to be underestimated (Eli Kassis and Ed Demicco). There's also a couple of unknowns, which ended up being two Miracles and an Eldrazi.
R4: Miracles
I was initially pleased about this, because it wasn't Sneak/Show or Lands, and I had Carpets in my board for once, which are great in the matchup.
G1 Jace comes down, immediately starts +2ing, and bends me over.
G2 Jace + Mentor + 2 Tops (with a Force for my Deed) bends me over.
I'm seriously done in like 15 minutes. Like, I wish I had more data for you from this matchup to analyze, but there just isn't anything. Jace came, Jace saw, Jace conquered.
R5: Grixis Delver (Paolo Cesari)
Paolo is an old Jupiter player, and one of the best Delver pilots I know. We actually have a fairly split record, although he knows that whatever I'm on is usually awful for him. We have some friendly chatter about the Expeditions as we sit down, and actually end up in an amusing situation where we needed the judge to count cards and confirm if he'd drawn off of a Ponder or not because we were talking too much, lol.
G1 He wins the die roll, and nuts me. T1 Deathrite leads to t2 Young Peezy, which leads to turn 3 triple Ponder + Probe into Force your Deed into kill you. I didn't have any ramp this game, or else I might've been okay -- I had a Baaneslayer in hand the last turn, but only had 4 mana. He was out of cards in hand, though, so she would've resolved and would've turned the tide of Pyromancers.
G2 There's a little bit of back and forth, but Dromoka comes down off of Zenith (thanks, Carpet), and ends the game.
G3 I keep this opening hand:
3 lands (Forest, Bayou, Verdant IIRC), Vet, Deed x2, Zenith.
I am pretty firmly of the opinion that this was a bad keep and that fatigue was catching up to me, but I'm curious to see if everyone else agrees. My problem with it is that it has no t1-t3 interaction and only one ramp source, AND that ramp source has no sac outlet if he has a Delver hand. My thought process was that double Deed and protection from Pyro would be fine, but I am pretty sure that was a bad line.
Anyway, he has a double Delver draw, flips them with Brainstorm, and I basically just die. He shows me two Bolts on top of his deck if I managed to deal with his Delvers and lategame Gurmag, which were lethal. On the turn before I died, I could play the Deed but not crack for it 1, as I'd already played my land for the turn -- would have been fine, but I got Wasted the turn previous off a Ponder. This is the first time I've been dicked by the DFC rules change -- if I could've played + cracked for 0 to kill the Delvers, my Vet could've blocked the Gurmag, triggered, and given me enough mana to Zenith a Spike Feeder, which would've still left me in an awful position but not dead.
R6: Miracles (again)
Due to some math and tiebreaker weirdness, if Doug McKay wins his matchup vs the Miracles player I lost to earlier, either him or me could squeeze in at 8th place. If we both won, I would get in, but if he lost, neither of us could. He ended up losing, so I was only playing for top 16 anyway.
G1 we're having a nice back and forth for a while, and then Jace comes down and I auto lose.
G2 we're having a nice back and forth for a while, and then Dromoka comes down and he auto loses.
G3 we're having a nice back and forth for a while, and then Jace comes down and I auto lose.
It's actually a bit more complex than that, but that is admittedly what it seemed like.
I boarded somewhat differently for this opponent. I realized that without Slaughters in my deck, I needed to build my own Slaughter Games, so I left in the Therapies and brought in Surgical Extractions. This matched up a little poorly with the fact that he brought in Rest in Peaces, in multiples. I did get to Therapy/Surgical his Forces in g2, but he'd boarded two of them out so it wasn't even really valuable. I did see that his list was actually like, super toxic to Nic Fit in general -- he had multiple Council's Judgments, multiple Counterspells, multiple Snapcasters, a V.Clique, two Mentors, two Containment Priests, one Entreat, and three Jaces. He also had the RIPs, as mentioned, and IIRC 2x Wear//Tear for Pithing Needle and afk snoozing Deeds. He boarded out his Counterbalances, as well, which I think is correct but infrequently done.
I had Teeg out in g2 since like turn three. My opponent had multiple options to Swords it, but was of the opinion that it was hurting me worse than him, while I held the opposite opinion. The truth lies somewhere in between. He actively was screwing me for the first four or so turns he was in play, but then he began actively screwing my opponent instead. We joked that Teeg just made the game miserable for everybody.
Alright, let's hop to the breakdowns.
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Miracles needs special attention to be beatable. I'm going to set this down here, in bold, because of how important I feel this is:
Opting out of the Miracles matchup is not viable. We can throw away a lot of matchups. He can say eh, I feel like losing to Sneak/Show today. Hell, every time we set foot in a tournament room, we're acknowledge that we're basically open season for anyone who wants to play Belcher, Oops, MUD (not eldrazi), 12post, and Reanimator. Every single one of those decks preys on us super hard, and while we CAN win vs them, yes, certainly, it is not easy, it is not fun, and it is not something that we will prepare for.
Miracles is likely to be one of the most popular decks at GP's Columbus and Prague. Miracles is likely to gain a tremendous amount of people playing it following Eternal Masters -- I expect a lot of the deck to be in that set, and it requires relatively few duals compared to most decks, plus it has a lot of overlap with Modern in its staples. It's very attractive for people just getting into the format to build the deck. We simply cannot afford to dismiss the Miracles matchup -- if we were to do so, I believe it would waste all of the effort that Echelon, Navsi, Brael, and everyone else has put into rebuilding the deck from the math up over the past week.
I firmly believe that Slaughter Games is one of the best ways to attack the deck. Jace is basically the entire problem. We have no good ways of dealing with him. We can try to run Pulse/Vindicate/Unmaking, but those cards can only be run as a 2-of in some combination at most, and since all of them can be countered, it's unlikely that they will be able to punch through the counterwall and actually make it to Jace. We can try Mistcutter Hydra, but then we run into the problem of Swords, Path, Snap+spot, and Terminus -- or even just being blocked by Snap or Containment Priest and then disposed of at sorcery speed. We could try Banefire and just burning them out of the game, or fucking Gaea's Revenge them out. Tsunami, while disingenuous with Carpet of Flowers, is still lights out for them -- I don't like Choke because it dies too much. Shardless can get out of it via Decay off of Forest/Swamp (or just drawing lands), which they're worried about because Blood Moon already anyway, and Miracles is boarding in Wear/Tear vs us ANYWAY, so why give them another target.
The 8post version was originally worked on as a way to beat Miracles, but even going for a Cloudpost hypermana option is less attractive vs Mentor, because they actually have a super relevant and reasonable clock. Like, you die in two turns, max, when they have a Mentor out. I've died in one turn before. It happens -- sometimes they just play a billion Brainstorms and Ponders and Swords their last token because really do they care at that point.
Stripping their wincons and attacking their deck is still the best way to beat them, I feel. Slaughter is the best element of this, because it doesn't get countered and it doesn't use the graveyard. I am not sure how else to attack them. Gaddock Teeg did very little, I felt. Boarding in cards that beat Mentor feels awful when you can't beat Jace. Tireless Tracker lets you draw 2-3 cards on average, which is nice -- and my r6 opponent commented that Tracker and Painful Truths were very worrying to him, because it's bad for Miracles to fight a deck with a lot of raw card advantage. I'm reminded that Shardless has a positive win rate vs Miracles, so maybe we need more Ancestral Recalls...I don't feel like that beats Jace, though. We'd need to be able to pressure it somehow, and we can't really do that into Terminus.
I dunno. I need to think about it more.
Some closing quickhits:
-) Phil top 8'd with Ultimate Fit again this month, but lost to Lands in top 8. Lands is particularly bad for that version, I think. I don't recall all of his matchups off the top of my head. I know that he beat DnT and two Eldrazi decks, and that he also lost to Miracles once, but that loss is his own fault because he named poorly with Slaughter Games in g3 (aka, not Jace). I don't know his other two matchups.
-) Tireless Tracker, as noted, was great for me and above average at least for Phil, who I also made play the card.
-) Courser, on the other hand, was as mediocre as I remember -- even WITH Tracker in play. I re-assert my opinion that Tracker is just the better Courser.
-) Having a plethora of flying, lifelinking angels was pretty great. Warden suggested that I cut the two Rhinos for two Baneslayers, which opened some sideboard room and made me especially cancerous to Delver, which I am always a fan of. I felt like I saw the angels a lot more with a 4-pack, and they always overperformed.
-) Speaking of overperforming, Dromoka. Dromoka is great vs basically anything blue. As a meta call, she was definitely correct, and I'll be looking to run her in the maindeck at Columbus for the same reason. There are certainly plenty of times where I think she'll be better in the sideboard, but that's firmly a meta call.
-) I didn't miss Sun Titan or Nightmare, which makes me super, super sad, and I consider Nissa to be part of that package. That being said, if I were to run Rhinos instead of Angels, I would probably still include at least Nightmare.
-) Spikes mildly overperformed, as they always somehow manage to. It doesn't make any sense to me, either.
-) Meren was great in this version, as was Painful Truths. Having the Spikes to synergize with seemed to really help the former, and the raw amount of lifegain (and, yes, the spot removal) helped make Painful Truths feel like it wasn't actively killing me every time I played it.
-) The second Phyrexian Tower was likely too deep. I didn't notice that I was seeing Tower more than before, and being legendary did annoy me a couple times. I thought that it might be alright since I was heavy on the 5s, but I think it should stay at 1 copy.
-) Sakura continues to overperform. Sakura's the janitor -- you never notice him, you never respect him, but he always cleans up your messes.
-) The mana base felt fine other than the 2nd Tower. I did not miss the 2nd Swamp, and I did not appreciably miss the 7th basic. I did miss value from a Veteran activation now and then, but it wasn't anything backbreaking. It was just losing value, not, "I can't cast shit because 6 basics instead of 7." The extra fetches felt like they may have helped, but I'm unsure. They probably did and we'll just leave it at that.
Hope that helps feed the data monsters. I'll try to ruminate some more on the Miracles problem and post later when I have some thoughts on how to deal with that particular problem.
Basic summary:
- We probably want ~30 'business' cards in the deck i.e. stuff that affects the board/opponent (removal, therapy, finishers)
- GSZ is probably the best card in the deck in terms of utility (no surprises there).
- We can't reliably get the % of hands with ramp in them above ~90% without adding bad cards.
- If we want to run a lot of ramp cards, we need to be more efficient with our other slots, which means removal + finisher in one card = planeswalkers.
- Alternatively we can run a smaller number of ramp cards (3 vet, 3 drs, 0 ste rather than 4/4/1) and go with smaller more efficient finishers i.e. Stoneforge.
- No matter how heavy on ramp we go, we're still more likely to have 2 mana on turn two than 3 unless we GSZ for arbor on turn one. We probably shouldn't completely ignore two-drops (but we always have 7+ anyway because of Top and GSZ).
@Arianrhod:
So basically, Tracker is good, Courser is bad, giant flying lifelinkers are good, we need a better Miracles plan.
Do you think your mana base would be fine with a different colorless source instead of Phyrexian Tower? I'm thinking of Volrath's Stronghold.
You weren't playing a Dryad Arbor, did you ever miss it? A few people were saying that it was a lot more useful when you had Meren.
'Punishing Scape Fit' took down Ovino! Congrats to Nicola Guidi if you read this.
http://www.ovinotournament.com/legac...t-ovinospring/
Deck (61)
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging ooze
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Wood Elves
1 Eternal Witness
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Thrun, the last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Burning Wish
2 Scapeshift
4 Badlands
4 Taiga
1 Stomping Ground
2 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Sideboard (15)
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Damnation
2 Duress
1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Scapeshift
3 Slaughter Games
2 Surgical Extraction
I've played a very similar Scape/Punishing list before. The big problem is lack of access to B sources - the list below is on 8 - because a lot of your non-mountain sources are used up by Grove. Being able to Punish your Veteran Explorer to kill it is handy though - means you can get an Explorer trigger without needing Therapy / a B source.
I actually think of Dryad Arbor as more reliable ramp than Veteran Explorer. Explorer doesn't ramp us until it dies and the opponent can hold off on killing it, especially if it's a deck like Delver or Miracles. Arbor comes down on X=0, instantly puts you to 3 mana on turn 2 (barring Wasteland) and lets you start playing the game your way. Explorer will jump up to 4+ mana but it's only in 34.5% of cases even with GSZ assistance where you can curve into a dead Explorer on T2 (assuming 1 Tower).
The problem with DRS as a finisher is that it shuts off your deeds, it may still be right to go above two but there are some costs associated with doing so.Conservatively, we can also agree that DRS is at least both ramp and finisher. Adding 3 of those leaves us wanting for:
The list I posted before is generating
22 land (effectively 26 in the first 1-2 turns)
10 ramp
16 interaction/removal
13 CA/manipulation
12 finishers
That's it's on paper stats, in practice it's still a little light because Bob has been a blank since he dies right away (and you can't GSZ for them), and the Blighted Fen slot is still looking for something else, same with the Dromoka's Command slot.
I'm thinking about SFM the typical package of 3 equipment 4 SFM is basically 4 CA, 3 finishers. I'm not sure if that's efficient enough, not because the 2 for 1 on SFM is bad, but because 2 of the 3 equipment aren't multi purpose, and there doesn't seem to be slots to go around.
I disagree with cutting Siege Rhino for sure. Siege Rhino is the whole reason to play white, if you cut it you should look at another color. As an aside, over the past couple days I've been thinking about a straight B/G version and cutting the Rhinos. BG has all the tools we need from a CA/removal/finisher standpoint, and it would enable stronger discard like Hymn to fix some combo matchups. I eventually dismissed it though because the mana isn't that much better in practice:
4 Verdant Catacomb
4 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire (for the Taiga option to Slaughter Games)
4 Bayou
3 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Phyrexian Tower
That's 18 Black, 17 Green. Just barely enough to enable Hymn. It doesn't seem quite consistent enough to justify 2 colors.
Another reason to keep Rhino is that it's one of our few cards that still gets value in the face of removal. The deck has transitioned over the last few months from playing more cards where removal is bad because they get value on cast like Eternal Witness, to more cards where removal is good like DRS. And instead the strategy (particularly with these SE approach builds) instead is to overload the opponents removal. Rhino is perfect for this strategy, Sigarda is also very good, not only does she generate the value of locking out the opponents removal, but just by being a giant evasive beater there is a lot of value in keeping her on the board. So I mostly disagree with considering a cut for Sigarda as well, though I recognize it's a possibility.
Last edited by Brael; 04-25-2016 at 03:04 PM.
In evaluation of Courser, anecdotally, how many times did he simply reveal the top of your deck without providing value?
Perhaps for this deck, with its ability to thin the deck of lands, his value is lessened compared to other Junk/Rock decks where there is a higher concentration of lands in deck.
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It is Sensei's Divining Top that drastically increases the value of Courser of Kruphix.
Kagu-Tsuchi カグツチ (Jund NicFit)
Rhino's Abbondanza (Junk NicFit)
4c Aggro Loam
Even talking about cutting Sigarda is retarded. The only reason why you dont play more than one is because you have GSZ to tutor for her and she is unkillable she is legendary so you cant have two in play.
On it's own Courser will only generate an extra card about 1 in 3 turns (22 land/61 cards, 35% land). But, Courser also provides card quality in addition to quantity. Remember that getting to see your top card means you can decide if you want that top card, if you don't you can use a fetchland or GSZ to shuffle it away and get another shot at a card you would like to see. Once you combine Courser with Top you start getting a large advantage with nearly .8 cards in advantage per turn, and Courser+Tracker is worth about the same.
As a 2/4 it doesn't die very often either, and I find it rarely eats a counter/removal as well, because a 3 mana 2/4 just isn't that big of a threat compared to the other things in our deck.
I've never run Dryad Arbor. The last time I tried Dryad Arbor was like, three years ago. I don't even own one. It's possible that it's better now that Meren exists, but I still am firmly of the opinion that lands should not die to Lightning Bolt, nor to your own Pernicious Deed. If you want to Zenith for mana, wait a turn and grab Veteran or DRS, which are much better cards and don't junk up your deck. There is a modicum of value to Arbor when you have Nightmare and can grab a creature off of a fetch to activate an otherwise stalled Nightmare, but that's it - and that's not worth it, imo.
To be honest, the card that I missed most on the day was Cabal Therapy. I think I drew like two or three across the entire six rounds (and I only boarded them out vs the first Miracles opponent). Variance, etc, etc. I just never drew hand disruption...come to think of it, I had the Thoughtseizes boarded in vs Hollywood and the Delver players, and I never saw one of them either.
My problem with Volrath's has always been that it doesn't do enough. It's the same problem that the Epic spells from Kamigawa had -- if you can only draw one card for the rest of the game, that card had better be able to win you the game handily. Assuming an ideal world where your cards aren't being exiled by StP or DRS, you sit there, losing your draw step every turn, putting things on top of your deck. Rhino and Thrag are better for this, E.Wit is probably the best. But invariably you get into a position where the repeated turns of costing yourself your draw step will add up and will cost you. Its reverse advantage -- you're dumping all of your mana into this thing in the hopes that it'll force the game through for you, but it just never does. Or at least, it never has for me.
As for a colorless source in general, there was exactly once on the day where it cost me the ability to Painful for 3, so I had to Painful for 2 instead (I was looking for lands, didn't have a choice). For what it's worth, it WAS the 2nd Tower (which is usually a Karakas) -- I was borrowing my second from my roommate because I only own one; his was English whereas mine is German, so I could tell the two apart. That's probably a small enough margin of impact that running two colorless lands in a 22-land, 8-fetch/6-basic setup is fine.
Way too often he just reveals the top of your deck and does nothing. Even when you have a Top out, he's like..."alright." The only times I think he's actually good enough are in blue versions with Brainstorm, because you can make Brainstorm into a Draw 3 put 1 back for U, which is utterly and completely unreasonable. For red and white versions, I think Courser is pretty close to a dead card. I mean sure sometimes you just go runner runner lands and it feels great, but compared to what else the slot could be doing, I just don't see it.
There are two cards that this deck really needs to fire on all cylinders, I think. It needs an uncounterable, un-interactable way to remove Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and it needs a way to turn Green Sun's Zenith into a removal spell, or at least a reach creature for Delver that isn't embarrassing (looking at you, Skylasher). 95% of the games that I lose to Delver are because they have fast Delver hands that fly over my Vets, and I don't have removal spells. You can counter that I should be running more spot removal, but if we're going to have any success vs Miracles, we can't be running 10-12 removal spells maindeck. We just can't have that many dead draws in a matchup where we already want to be boarding out 8 cards. Like vs Miracles, even in my Thune list from Saturday, you need to board out 4 Vet, 4 Therapy, 2 Path, and Meren. That's 11 cards that are awful against them, which is already incredibly steep to even have that many things in the sideboard that are tangentially relevant, let alone cards that are actually good vs them. Adding more spot removal makes it basically mandatory to bring in your entire sideboard, which is just unreasonable.
As for Jace, we're kind of getting there with Slaughter Games -- that card has always done a great job of neutering Miracles, but it comes at the cost of needing a red source. You have to play this awful nonbasic Forest in the deck and it feels awful when you draw it. An option that deals with Jace effectively that isn't red would go a long way towards fixing the problem. Way, way back in the day, we used to use Academy Rector grabbing Faith's Fetters for the task, but that's pretty terrible now with the legend rule change a couple years back.
Jace and Delver are the problem children. If those individual cards can be solved in a way whereby one isn't antithetical to the other, we'll be in great shape, I think.
I have a ridiculous win percentage against Delver. Miracles is the problem which means by association so is jtms, mentor, terminus.
Gaze of granite deals with them all. jtms is the key issue and therefore warrants 3 SG in the sb. our miracles matchup is an unimaginable slog through a shit infested swamp. Incidentally it also helps our other bad matchup, combo.
Granite might be a long shot but it is in many ways deed.
MTGO: Ricardio
Nic Fit: legacy's magical EDH deck
I came here to party and resolve prime time triggers.
"Well, I ain't calling you a truther." -Josh
IMGUR:http://ricardio69.imgur.com/all/
I mean, I beat Delver way more than I lose to it, as well, but that doesn't stop it from sometimes rising up and cockblocking me out of a top 8 (ie, Saturday). The annoying thing about Miracles nowadays is how resilient the deck is. It used to be you just took their Jaces, took their Entreats, and you won -- and sometimes you didn't even have to take Entreat because AFKing a Deed in play did the same thing.
Now they've got Council's Judgment and Mentor, and it's just awful. Sigarda isn't as invulnerable as she used to be, thanks to CJ, and Mentor is too fast of a clock some games -- and impervious to spot removal, which is miserable.
I keep feeling like we're overlooking something. Jace is definitely the special snowflake around which it all revolves, though. Take out Jace and we've got a good fighting chance. Slaughter is just too critical for that role, I think, unless someone has another idea that is as effective.
The problem against Miracles is structural for Rhino Fit. There is not a single card that will change it. While Siege Rhino has good stats, it is just a bad card against Miracles (and also bad against Infect, Storm Combo, Show and Tell Combo, Elves and DnT).
If you go for more impactful finishers like Sorin and Garruk Apex, they snipe Jace EtB and live to keep being awesome. Sure they come a bit later, but at least you get a fighting chance. And midgame cards like Witness and Tracker, they will not get Sworded 1 for 1. This list does much better against Miracles, especially post board. But G1 is also much better than for Rhinos, you have Thoughtseizes that might snipe a key card and Liliana who you can use with an empty hand to reduce their CA.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post945987
I agree. there has to be something we are overlooking to deal with them. My problems against miracles is: fighting through counters, jtms and terminus.
My thoughts were mistuctter because it cant be countered and it has haste so it can fireball jtms or them barring a terminus/stp. I just feel the deck has it all and all the time. its very frustrating to lose to a deck that seems to be given everything and we have to do the best with what wotc shits out. im hoping 8post works out and I can just jam that and run over all the miracletryhards
@tao: those pw are dreamworld and to build around them is purely fantasy. You have to get to the mana and then resolve it and hope it impacts the battle field. Rhino is a great threat that is only diminished by a 1 CMC INSTANT SPEED BOARD WIPE WITH NO DRAWBACK. Weird how that works. Our deck has a problem dealing with jtms and when they get him going, they are seeing too many cards a turn and we have to climb back into a helicopter that is flying away. by all means, construct your own miracle-killer but saying that rhino fit is structurally inferior and cannot effectively beat miracles is both wrong as well as a half assed excuse for giving up.
@Ralf: I am giving Abeyance its due time in the sb and I hope it lives up to your hype.
MTGO: Ricardio
Nic Fit: legacy's magical EDH deck
I came here to party and resolve prime time triggers.
"Well, I ain't calling you a truther." -Josh
IMGUR:http://ricardio69.imgur.com/all/
@ Thread:
I can't beg you for trying abeyance against Miracle...
The card has proven to be valuable as you can deny their terminus attempt and threaten their life total.
Not to mention that getting to 6 mana to play it again, gives you plenty of time.
Coupled with surgical extraction, you can mess up pretty well with all their miracle spell.
Sure the powerlevel is not matching SLG but abeyance is far better against combo deck.
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
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You cannot win a card game if the opponent can just kill your 4-5 Mana main win condition for 1 Mana while drawing more cards than you. End of story, (Edit, phrasing) Rhino Fit cannot beat Miracles because its game plan does not work against them.
Also lol @ "it can be done I just dont know how". Also, how am I giving up? I just showed you a version that is better against Miracles and Combo, the 2 main problems that people are complaining about.
About your "Dream World" argument: Titans were always a staple of Nic Fit and Sorin costs the same Mana. He is just much better.
I'm seeing this thread continually banging its head against a wall for a problem that's already solved, and it's quite frustrating. At the moment, I can't comment more since of exams, and the only solace I have of free time is while pooping, and you're taking away my enjoyment from it. Please stop.
Miracles is likely the best anti-creature deck in the format, and we're probably in a somewhat distant second. So, why are we continually try to force a creature strategy against Miracles, when that's what it is designed to beat? We keep "Charge of the Light Brigade"-ing right into their plans. We are a battered spouse returning to the abuser, time and time again.
Miracles loses to a few things: fast combo that overwhelms their countermagic keeps, and permanent based hate.
Miracles has a very good game against creatures due to 4 Terminus, 4 STP, 2-3 Snapcasters, possibly more removal out of the board, and consistent ways to find them. So, why do you keep thinking that jamming creatures is enough?
The only creatures that matter are Gaddock Teeg, Deathrite/Scooze, Siege Rhino, and Sigarda. Teeg, although nutting us, stops their gamebreaking plays. Sylvan Safekeeper lock is a real thing against Miracles, so do consider that card. DRS and Scooze help battle Snapcaster and provide a clock. Rhino drains as long as you can get it into play. But realistically, the only creature that does real work is Sigarda. Your gameplan should revolve around getting Sigarda into play, and protecting her. Terminus is fine since it means we can go get her again later.
Miracles is dropping CJ because it's too derdly, and switching to a wider variety of threats. This is good.
So, play Slaughter Games, as I've talked about for ages. Removing Jace, Terminus, or STP can spell game over. Terminus means Sigarda WILL end the game in 4 turns of less. No Jace means you can be okay being a bit behind since Deed will clean up their board, and negates an Entreat. No STP means you can pressure with single creatures like Rhino and end the game. Slaughter Games IS very good.
Other permanent based hate is great. Sylvan Library is a card they cannot keep up with, and Painful Truths does similar work. Use your life total as a resource, since they'll usually just kill you in one go anyway. Pithing Needle stops digging with Top to leverage quality over multiple turns, as well as their Jace win/bounce/advantage. Opposing walkers are impossible for them to beat, especially removal or token generators, as it directly boinks Terminus and STP value, and they have few ways to pressure or remove them.
But, here's the thing: when you play them all together, you create a nightmare where they have to play on defensive and try to hit so many balls in the air at once.
So, play ALL of these things. Play a couple of Slaughter Games, a Sylvan main and maybe one side, a couple of walkers main, a couple of Needles side, Tsunami or Choke to break their manabase, Teeg to lock out Jace, Safekeeper to nut STP.
Just don't slam Rhino and cry that he gets Swords. If he does, turn that life into another card off Sylvan.
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