[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

[Navsi]

games removes ... dark depths

No it doesn't.

If you want an effect that straight up ends the game against tendrils decks, aren't there cheaper effects than Painful Quandary? Teeg, Rule of Law and Canonist come to mind. They're vulnerable to Decay, but even if you want resistance to Decay is why you're playing PQ isn't Leyline of Sanctity or Nether Void still more relevant?

[Ricardio]

IMO if you want 5-mana value / removal walker, I'm more inclined towards Ob Nixilis Reignited over Vraska. His +1 is significantly more relevant, and his ultimate is probably just as good at winning the game.

planeswalkers don't have ultimates. Vraska also kills almost anything where as nix is just CA for a while. I like neither personally. Ajani seems better.

Rip hurts us just a little bit, while instead obliterates the opponents strategy (of course in the specific match ups we board it in); I'm fine with this trade.

Games is just additional surgical effects, I run games mainly for miracles and storm but the splash damage they can provide against lands decks is brutal; these matches are always long and games removes loam and/or dark depths of even fires.

HM is my (pretty much only) flex spot in my sb: I need to play it more to decide if its a keeper, but it cannot be denied that as a one of it hurts a lot of unfair strategies. I like it on paper, I will report my results with it in the future.

E. Against degenerate strategies sometimes we have to play those weird sub games in my opinion.

RIP hurts us a lot and isn't really necessary since we have fine mu's against the decks you want it against. Shutting off vet is HUGE.
Games is just not good enough against lands.
there is something better than hallowed moonlight but I don't know what you are really looking for with that last slot. holding up mana each turn becomes a tell and you start losing tempo. its a waste imho.

RIP hurts a lot, most notably it shuts off Veteran Explorer triggers and doesn't get along well with Deed.

Yes, albeit the decks we bring in rip, we don't need deed for more than 0(tokens, mana rocks). I don't think deed is a problem in conjunction with rip. I will not play rip in my nic fit 75. there must be extenuating circumstances at which point I should just be playing an entirely different deck.

[rubblekill]

I had to read again Slaughter Games, my bad. That doesn't mean that the card hasn't won me multiple games against lands.
I don't actually think that the card is the best solution against lands, but since I have this additional surgical effect in the sideboard why not put it to good use to extract loams?

RIP hurts a lot, most notably it shuts off Veteran Explorer triggers and doesn't get along well with Deed.

I have disagree here good sir. We have to take into consideration the match ups in which we would bring in Rest in Peace. These are:

-Reanimator
-Lands
-Storm
-Dredge
(am I forgetting something else?)

Why would RIP hurt us? Because of the following card that are the undisputed "core" of the Nic-Fit strategy: cabal therapy, deed, Meren (she is to a lesser extent a part of the "core" of the deck, however it seems that most people play her), eternal witness, ooze, DRS. With RIP on the table these cards cannot provide us the value they usually provide.

Why do I say that in the match ups listed above RIP does NOT hurt us? That's because RIP single handedly obliterates some of those strategies (Lands and Dredge) and I'm really happy to trade that huge advantage with the inability to abuse cabal therapy and veteran, deed and witness. Witness and veteran aside, these cards are not extremely good against those decks anyways. And against lands I'd rather nuke their graveyard than triggering vet.

What about Reanimator? Unless they bring in Show and Tell, RIP buys enough time to search for and put ooze/DRS on the ground, and as long as they don't find decay they cannot win at all.
What if they bring in Show and tell, what do we do? We do what we do against Sneak and Show already, and that is dying a horrible death. This is where Hallowed Moonlight shows its flexibility and the ability to invalidate certain unfair strategies on the stack, and not via discard/hate bears. Remember that even if they decay RIP, the graveyard remains nuked and the same applies for the creatures that were in it when RIP entered the battlefield. Look at it like a reset button.

Now, storm is a different beast. They can still win with RIP on the field via natural storm, but that requires more time for the opponent and this is the window of time we can take advantage of in order to find/cast discard spells-play our hate bears/reach 4 mana and press the win button via Slaughter Games.
With RIP we lose flashback-cabal therapy, deed, Meren, eternal witness. Amongst those cards I only care for the flashback therapy against storm, but we bring in 2-3 surgicals + 3 additional discard spells from the sb to compensate that. Fair trade in my opinion.

I find it silly to not run the best gy hate ever printed while we play white already; and it only takes 1 slot in the sideboard. In my humble opinion the cost vs. benefit analysis leads me to believe that in the match ups listed above RIP hurts the opponent WAY MORE than it hurts us.

Games is just not good enough against lands.
There is something better than hallowed moonlight but I don't know what you are really looking for with that last slot. holding up mana each turn becomes a tell and you start losing tempo. its a waste imho..

Games has won me multiple games against lands, bar the super early Marit Lage that can be dealt with via paths.
HM is a mean that allow us to not die and stay alive, what's the point of tempo against a T2-3 (or earlier, and in that case HM is useless like the rest of our deck) Griselbrand? It is a card I'm only testing for now, as I said I like it in paper, I might dislike it when I play it.

[Bobmans]

Could you post list which was tested ?

Sure. note; It took me more time to post the list then it did thinking it up. I wanted to feel how both 'things' would feel during play, hence Eldrazi creatures in a NicFit deck and the spaghetti monster endgame. I don't think you need both, just either is fine.


4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Matter Reshaper
2 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Warping Wail
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Llanowar Wastes
1 Wastes
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost

sideboard
2 Warping Wail
1 Dismember
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm
2 Memoricide
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trinisphere


Edit; after posting i did get to the point of resolving Emrakul. Pretty sweet, but i was already winning at that point.

[Ricardio]

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/382111#paper

Told ya. I did it.

[Tom4ik]

I died some horrible deaths on saturday with Team America control on saturday. I am going to play nic fit tomorrow.

proposed list :

22 land

2 bayou
2 tropical island
2 underground sea
2 island
2 forest
2 swamp
9 fetches
volrath's stronghold

12
4 veteran explorer
4 baleful strix
1 eternal witness
2 thragtusk
1 grave titan

25
2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 liliana, of the veil
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxian probe
4 cabal therapy
2 painful truths
3 pernicious deed
3 abrupt decay
1 recurring nightmare
1 green sun's zenith

[Ricardio]

I died some horrible deaths on saturday with Team America control on saturday. I am going to play nic fit tomorrow.

proposed list :

22 land

2 bayou
2 tropical island
2 underground sea
2 island
2 forest
2 swamp
9 fetches
volrath's stronghold

12
4 veteran explorer
4 baleful strix
1 eternal witness
2 thragtusk
1 grave titan

25
2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 liliana, of the veil
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxian probe
4 cabal therapy
2 painful truths
3 pernicious deed
3 abrupt decay
1 recurring nightmare
1 green sun's zenith

Gsz and nightmare seems ambitious. I believe deluge main would be ideal along with some number of innocent blood. MOAR planewalkers? Glissa for strix value?

[Tom4ik]

The removal package of 2 lily, 3 decay, 3 deed -> 2 deed, 1 deluge, 2 decay, 2 capsule (to go with Glissa). Drop Titan for Glissa. Drop nightmare for a second GSZ. Could play flip Garruk and make a better tutor situation.

[Ricardio]

The removal package of 2 lily, 3 decay, 3 deed -> 2 deed, 1 deluge, 2 decay, 2 capsule (to go with Glissa). Drop Titan for Glissa. Drop nightmare for a second GSZ. Could play flip Garruk and make a better tutor situation.

those sound good. maybe a karn or ugin? If you are going up on gsz, prime time looks appealing.

[Tom4ik]

I wonder if actually meren would also be good. Maybe play that instead of Garruk and add a Ptower. Setting up Meren with strix should be a fine source of CA. I could buy her tomorrow.

What about a trinket mage package? That goes well with running a singleton top, EE, capsule.

Godamn this deck....... why do I visit this thread.... Lol

[Ricardio]

I wonder if actually meren would also be good. Maybe play that instead of Garruk and add a Ptower. Setting up Meren with strix should be a fine source of CA. I could buy her tomorrow.

What about a trinket mage package? That goes well with running a singleton top, EE, capsule.

Godamn this deck....... why do I visit this thread.... Lol

haha this deck is overflowing with value. WE ARE HERE TO HELP!

revise your list and lets see where we are at now.

[Ganfar]

RIP hurts a lot, most notably it shuts off Veteran Explorer triggers and doesn't get along well with Deed.

I had people sideboarding RIP agianst me. Yes, it make somethins worse but it's easy to play around it.

[Ricardio]

I had people sideboarding RIP agianst me. Yes, it make somethins worse but it's easy to play around it.

I am referring to playing the card ourselves. its less of a lock piece and more of a bee sting against us. slows down some hands and doesn't effect others.

I think that between the mb and sb we have, rip is totally unnecessary. In the meta where its needed, major changes should have already been made to fix your matchups. Like fortifying your car to go underwater when you should just change to a submarine.

[Jain_Mor]

Currently 15-10 in League matches, 36-23 in games, with various tweaks on a SFM build.
I'm convinced the majority of loses are because of me, (first time playing on modo and magic is hard you guys..), which is great cause the deck has legs, I just need to get better at kicking people over with them, and then miracles (winning game 1 a lot and then losing to wear//tear on deed or needle or equipment or all of those end of turn, to free a jace or mentor or entreat etc)

Game Win / Losses:

Miracles 3 / 6
Elves 2 / 4 (just needed a land in the top 3.. and for him not to top deck NO one turn. Don't think match is bad)
Shardless 4 / 5
BUG Fit 2 / 0 (Sunyveil on stream, sweet match!: http://www.twitch.tv/sunyveil/v/46712955?t=01h49m25s)
Eldrompy 3 / 1
Storm 2 / 0
bug delver 2 / 0
Reanimator 4 / 3
UR delver 2 / 1
Sneak Show 2 / 1
Infect 2 / 0
MUD 2 / 1
Merfolk 2 / 0
Belcher 1 / 2
Dredge 2 / 0
Aggro Loam 1 / 2

So I guess I'm going to try the slaughter games plan for miracles,
and keep grinding away.

[Ricardio]

Currently 15-10 in League matches, 36-23 in games, with various tweaks on a SFM build.
I'm convinced the majority of loses are because of me, (first time playing on modo and magic is hard you guys..), which is great cause the deck has legs, I just need to get better at kicking people over with them, and then miracles (winning game 1 a lot and then losing to wear//tear on deed or needle or equipment or all of those end of turn, to free a jace or mentor or entreat etc)

Game Win / Losses:

Miracles 3 / 6
Elves 2 / 4 (just needed a land in the top 3.. and for him not to top deck NO one turn. Don't think match is bad)
Shardless 4 / 5
BUG Fit 2 / 0 (Sunyveil on stream, sweet match!: http://www.twitch.tv/sunyveil/v/46712955?t=01h49m25s)
Eldrompy 3 / 1
Storm 2 / 0
bug delver 2 / 0
Reanimator 4 / 3
UR delver 2 / 1
Sneak Show 2 / 1
Infect 2 / 0
MUD 2 / 1
Merfolk 2 / 0
Belcher 1 / 2
Dredge 2 / 0
Aggro Loam 1 / 2

So I guess I'm going to try the slaughter games plan for miracles,
and keep grinding away.

Miracles is definitely a pulling teeth kind of feel. super grindy and slow. Keep going man, nice numbers so far. keep raising them!

[Warden]

I died some horrible deaths on saturday with Team America control on saturday. I am going to play nic fit tomorrow.

proposed list :

22 land

2 bayou
2 tropical island
2 underground sea
2 island
2 forest
2 swamp
9 fetches
volrath's stronghold

12
4 veteran explorer
4 baleful strix
1 eternal witness
2 thragtusk
1 grave titan

25
2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 liliana, of the veil
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxian probe
4 cabal therapy
2 painful truths
3 pernicious deed
3 abrupt decay
1 recurring nightmare
1 green sun's zenith

My eyes have cancer.
Seriously though, I can't find a strategy in this list. Everything is competing for attention. I would either build around deed + PWers or go value with a variety of big creatures and cantrips. As-is, there's so much fluff to draw cards you're putting yourself into "card X has to come out and save me".

@Spicy cards: I'm growing more and more fond of Humility and Armageddon for Eldrazi.dec. I would also consider Glissa in the 75 should my meta warrant it.

Last month I watched a kid play Necroplasm as tech against Elves. It's also applicable against Miracles and other low cc swarm strategies. Plasm was a goddamn house. Kev can attest to the trainwreck deck this kid played that demolished an Elves player. Super Grindy Pox with discard, bloodghast, vindicate, necroplasm, and darkblast.

@weekend: March monthly coming up. Last month's top 8 was combo (omni, painter, elves, dredge), stompy (red), and delver (Eli UR, BUG, Shardless). There was a surprising lack of Miracles, which will likely be corrected this time around. If combo and Eldrazi persist, I need a new angle. I may need Leylines and Thalias. Or just switch decks but I'm digging the Abbondanza.

[Arianrhod]

My eyes have cancer.
Seriously though, I can't find a strategy in this list. Everything is competing for attention. I would either build around deed + PWers or go value with a variety of big creatures and cantrips. As-is, there's so much fluff to draw cards you're putting yourself into "card X has to come out and save me".

@Spicy cards: I'm growing more and more fond of Humility and Armageddon for Eldrazi.dec. I would also consider Glissa in the 75 should my meta warrant it.

Last month I watched a kid play Necroplasm as tech against Elves. It's also applicable against Miracles and other low cc swarm strategies. Plasm was a goddamn house. Kev can attest to the trainwreck deck this kid played that demolished an Elves player. Super Grindy Pox with discard, bloodghast, vindicate, necroplasm, and darkblast.

@weekend: March monthly coming up. Last month's top 8 was combo (omni, painter, elves, dredge), stompy (red), and delver (Eli UR, BUG, Shardless). There was a surprising lack of Miracles, which will likely be corrected this time around. If combo and Eldrazi persist, I need a new angle. I may need Leylines and Thalias. Or just switch decks but I'm digging the Abbondanza.

That shit was goddamn hilarious.

I've slowly come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, people simply will not play Miracles at Mythic. There's always a couple, but they never do well for one reason or another. I wouldn't bother worrying about them specifically -- splash hate is fine (Slaughter Games, etc) -- but they're not worth focusing on.

The meta at Mythic has quietly been moving to a combo vs delver dichotomy for a while now. Delver isn't surprising -- Mythic, and Jupiter before it, has always had a strong Delver presence going back as far as I can remember, and it was Canadian Thresh before that. The prevalence of combo, and its success as well, has been surprising to me.

Dredge guy has made top 8 the last two months running, and per my knowledge is the only person in the room playing dredge. Not sure what to think about that. Painter has been gaining ground, and I expect will continue to do so in the face of the Eldrazi deck and the surge in RG Lands to counter it. There was a lot of Lands at Mythic last month, and we need to go into the event with a plan for that matchup. Surgicals and Pithing Needles are musts. I don't think we're in extreme territory (Conversion + planeswalkers), but it's no longer prudent to ignore it.

I -believe- Bryant will be at GP Detroit, so there's no real reason to bring specific storm hate. I wouldn't touch Thalia for this event. Nobody plays Storm in upstate NY other than Bryant these days. I don't know why that is, exactly, but that's what I've noticed. Might be he's the only one who can play through the mass of Delver, might be because Ning and Royce moved away. Regardless, I'm likely opting out of Trinisphere, Nether Void, and all of that type of hate for this event. I'll trade % vs Storm to gain elsewhere.

I almost want to say that Scape with maindeck Slaughter Games would be insane for the meta, but that runs into the problem of Delver then. Wouldn't play // can't play Scape anyway, but, just a thought. Maindecking some form of combo hate that's reasonable against other matchups is likely going to be very good. I'm reminded for like the 40th time that I really wish there was a Leyline/Helm version of Nic Fit, but no matter how many times I've tried it just doesn't work.

My thoughts on Mythic are thus and as follows:

-) Delver and various forms of combo will be big, specifically
-----) Elves and RG Lands, with a minor Infect subtheme running through the lower/mid tables.

This suggests that mini-sweepers will be very good, especially with the presence of the Young Pyro-fueled Grixis Delver decks. Pyroclasm is probably stupidly strong.

-) There will be a TON of random shit. The room last time ran the full gamut of tier 3 decks, the type of stuff that you can't really prepare for.

This suggests that you need a strong, proactive game-plan of your own, while still being very flexible and running answers that can solve multiple problems. Luckily, this is something Nic Fit is good at.

-) There were a lot of Nic Fit players last time...something like 5-7 out of ~50-60. I don't know if there will be that many this time, but it's reasonable to expect mirrors. This tends to favor Scape and Pasta, but as long as you have some semblance of a plan for the mirror you should be fine.

-) Eldrazi will be there. Not in force, but will be there. I don't plan to make many serious alterations to any list for their possible presence. I'm expecting them to field similar numbers to the Nic Fit community: probably something like 4-5 in the room. Further testing has shown that we do in fact have a positive matchup vs Eldrazi. We can lose it, but it IS positive. Glissa might be fine for board, but she's not required by any stretch. I don't think I'm worried about Eldrazi enough to bother with her.

This suggests that Baleful Strix's stock is ++, Baneslayer's stock is ++, and Dismember's stock is ++. Ensnaring Bridge's stock is also ++, as is Enchantress. This in turn means that being able to kill without needing the attack step is going to be relevant. Rhino lists should be running Nightmare for this event, for sure. K-Grip is going to be almost mandatory in the sideboard, probably as a 2-of for most lists.

At this point I'm either on Pastafarians or Baneslayers. The lifegain in Rhino attracts me, and getting to play the sweet grindy game is among my favorite things to do in Magic, but the Eldrazi list's matchups are actually pretty good at Mythic, and it can straight-up kill without needing to use the attack step, which Rhino can approximate but can't go arbitrarily large. I'm mostly worried about randomgarbage.dec -- Eldrazi has a strong, proactive plan, but it's like a turn 6 goldfish, which gives the opponent a lot of time to do random bad shit.

I dunno. If you held a gun to my head right now I would play Rhinos, but I'm looking for reasons to sling Pasta-people at opposing faces.

@Jain: I watched that stream battle. Games were amusing, dude's stream was HILARIOUSLY passive-aggressive and toxic. I don't think the streamer built his deck very well -- it had all the hallmarks of a bad BUG version that we've come to identify. It seemed like he was kind of put off on the archetype, which is a shame, but being as his deck was built poorly and Nic Fit takes a long time to master in general anyway, I can't say that I'm really surprised.

[Echelon]

What really makes top though in my opinion (and this will vary by meta) is the interaction with Courser of Kruphix, which allows you to start gaining multiple life and cards each and every turn. If your meta has a lot of decks like Shardles BUG this interaction just flat out wins the game, if you have a top down your opponents cannot out grind you their only option is to go faster.

Try a build with 10 fetch, 4 Vet Ex, 4 GSZ, 2 Diabolic Intent and if the mood hits you a Fierce Empath. Running 20/21 shuffle effects makes Courser good enough without the help of Top.

Also, Courser doesn't allow you to gain multiple life per turn as long as you can only play 1 land per turn.

Shardless remains a fine MU without Top. I have yet to get my first loss against it w/ my pile of madness.

[Ganfar]

I am referring to playing the card ourselves. its less of a lock piece and more of a bee sting against us. slows down some hands and doesn't effect others.

I think that between the mb and sb we have, rip is totally unnecessary. In the meta where its needed, major changes should have already been made to fix your matchups. Like fortifying your car to go underwater when you should just change to a submarine.

I agree, but I think it's funny to see RIP to be sideboraded agianst me. D&T don't like my P.Fire

[Ricardio]

I hate dnt. That deck is awful.

I've been testing the new bg 8 post. It's wonky but entertaining. I got to draw 7 against rug delver with koz. Boners everywhere.