[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

[Echelon]

Glissa is for...combat against Eldrazis? Is this choice too narrow(die to almost every known removal)?

Does Wiltleaf liege worth consideration? Target reality smasher with removal, discard liege to battlefield, pump rhinos to 6/7.

Pretty much. She's capable of stealing G1 pretty much on her own. Also, any opponent that whiffs on spotremoval has a horrible time in combat as long as she's there.

Besides, vs. the decks that can easily kill her you don't really need her so you don't mind her dying . In those cases she's a lightning rod that keeps your other stuff alive (if your opponents take the bait). If they don't take the bait you still win every ground battle.

[Jaytron]

As mentioned, stock don't exist in here. But if i where to start testing a list right now:
Edit: sorry i don't explain more about the why's. I gotta get to work atm.


4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Baleful Strix
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Eternal Witness
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Thragtusk
1 Fierce Empath
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Deadeye Navigator

2 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
1 Painful Truths

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Toxic Deluge

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

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

SB: 4 Force of Will
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Notion Thief
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
SB: 1 Pithing Needle

Thanks, this is a great starting place!

How does Nic Fit in general do against Eldrazi? I feel like Nic Fit has bigger, better threats?

[MD.Ghost]

@Bobmans:
Nice Build! I would only change -1 Painful +1 Library, -1 Deed +1 Shriekmaw and Side -1 TS +1 Extraction since and maybe -1 Archmage/Thief and +1 Venser/Sower for a very versatile control deck. Overall well build BUG deck!

@Ultimate Fit:
Anyone tried From the Ashes? Should be a big surprise and improves stuff like Lands, 12Post, Eldrazi - as i remember, Nic Fit tends to have a hard time against the few decks that can play bigger dudes. etc.

[Bobmans]

@Bobmans:
Nice Build! I would only change -1 Painful +1 Library, -1 Deed +1 Shriekmaw and Side -1 TS +1 Extraction since and maybe -1 Archmage/Thief and +1 Venser/Sower for a very versatile control deck. Overall well build BUG deck!

Thnx. I was just about to get back on responding to Jaytron.
Shriekmaw is a good meta call vs Eldrazi. I must "feel" how he plays out vs the rest of the field.
Personally i have a slight problem with Library dying to Deed >= 2. I am growing more and more into liking Painful Truths, but giving the grindy nature of BUG Sylvan Library is a good reasoning.
Sower might get a spot over Glen Elendra nr 2. TYVM for Reality Smasher or Emrakul.

So here goes:

Additional/maybeboard:
1-4 Deathrite Shaman
3-4 Green sun's Zenith
3-4 Brainstorm
1 Venser, shaper savant
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Engineered Explosives
1-2 Trinket Mage (plus optional target's)
1 Aetherling
1 Sagu Mauler
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Primeval Titan
1 Recurring Nightmare (needs higher creautere density AND see discussion as above)
1 Volrath's Stronghold (coupled with Phyrexian Tower and perhaps PrimeTime)
1-3 Negate
1-2 Dimir Charm
1 Spiritmonger
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Reclamation Sage
1-3 Shriekmaw (Eldrazi)
1-3 Diabolic Edict (Marit Lage, Reanimator, SnS)
1-2 Diabolic Intent
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1-3 Memoricide // Cranial Extraction
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy


Garruk Relentless
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Vraska the Unseen
Ob Nixilis Reignited
Liliana of the Veil
Liliana Vess
Kiora, the Crashing Wave
Kiora, Master of the Depths
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage


Probably forgetting some other nice cards or good interactions, but this to underline the fact that stock does not exist. Also we never can agree to the perfect 75, although we do have a pleasent enviroment for discussing and trying stuff. Saying that a card don't work is ok, but at least say why you think a card doesn't work and accept that others will disagree.

There is always the danger of cute cards. Every card in NicFit has a purpose. Being that it either is a part of a solid interactions or being a part of hate vs a dominant strategy (like Glissa is vs Eldrazi). While typing this i am remembering a deck from years past that plays Survival of the Fittest, Goblin Welder and Intuition along with some huge artifact's. I suddenly see some shit with Glissa, Trinket Mage, Intuition, Academy Ruins and Life from the Loam popping up. Will come back to that later.

Eldrazi:
I always think of NicFit being a reflection of basic principles of military warfare. Pernicious Deed is a key factor here because it has the ability to reset the board in our advantage to playing against most other decks. This also reflects the principle i am about to explain (in short ofcourse).

Find - Fix - Strike - Exploit

Meaning:
Finding the enemy. This can also mean you just fire in order to draw fire that will reveal enemy location.
Fixing them to the place where they are.
Strike them by out maneouvring them using another element/unit.
Exploit possible weaknesses shown by intell gained from the strike and hold momentum.

How does this reflect to NicFit:
Find your way to gain advatantage in the early game. This often means the Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy interaction. Cabal Therapy reveal them by iether forcing them to respond OR you just poke them. I always call Thought-Knot Seer unless i know he has something else i want/need to hit. Finding the opponent's weakspot so you can plan some steps ahead to HOW you want to strike them.
Fix them on the battlefield, hold back their force in order not to get overwhelmed. While doing so your also working on expanding your manabase and ability to card advantage or selection (SDT). This to get your plan going.
Strike them when they are drained a bit and when the time is right. This using a Pernicious Deed to (mostly) clear the board and deploy your (bigger) creatures and create actuall advantage.
Exploit your advantage by taking out their attempts to get back, meaning also that you ignore minor attempts and recognise actuall treats. Hence, hold momentum.

So, Eldrazi is a strong force, but smart play pays of. Is a Chalice on 1 a problem? Are they holding a Dismember? Do i have to dodge Warping Wail? NicFit can present Eldrazi a wall and gain a lot of advantage, but you have to get there in the first place. Their early game is stronger. Every splash of NicFit has their tools to fight them, but i think i would like to arrange them from Junk > BUG > Jund. Eventually you want to draw them into the mid-/lategame. That is where we shine.


Then a couple of pointers towards the BUG list.
Balance between your cardadvantage spells. Depending on your Green creature count you want more or less GSZ. This also depends on Brainstorm. On the other hand, if you play Force of Will, then you should be able to get 20 blue card in total after boarding. So 3 Brainstorm is the bare minimum. The stronger blue creatures are non green AND CMC 6. So i wanted to include Empath as a way to find them. Tasigur is another nice engine them can be dropped to the BF via Empath (thru GSZ) for the cost of 5 mana. Also Empath into Deadeye into soulbound Empath gives the ability to get Tasigur and ConSphinx.
2 Jace and 3 Strix is an obvious choice. So is Thragtusk. This is the best card to support transition to the lategame. Next to this, Thragtusk has a very strong synergy with Deadeye and Jace. Scooze is mandatory and wins games VS graveyard strategy's, but also can steal games VS Elves or other creature heavy decks. Glen Elendra provides a unique way of keeping back an opponent. When this is on the BF you often lock-out an opponent. Between Meren, Clique, Nissa and the removal package i am not going in depth. Playtesting and tweaking will be your guide to what you think works or not.

Hope it helps.

Edit:

Pretty much. She's capable of stealing G1 pretty much on her own. Also, any opponent that whiffs on spotremoval has a horrible time in combat as long as she's there.

Eldrazi also tends to run 1-3 MD/SB Dismember, making Glissa a little less reliable. Good thing is that Eldrazi is not set and build still different. Dismember can be a problem to this tactic.

[Echelon]

Also Empath into Deadeye into soulbound Empath gives the ability to get Tasigur and ConSphinx.

Oh my god, you wonderful crazy bastard. I thought I was the degenerate one, running Fierce Empath. I take my hat off to you, good sir!

Concerning strategy in Nic Fit: In my head it usually boils down to Disrupt, Stabilize, Destroy. Or Steamroll. T1 Veteran Explorer into T2 Phyrexian Tower, go balls deep, drop a Rhino and pound ass like there's no tomorrow. Games that go like that are very rare but incredibly enjoyable. Sometimes it's good to live a little.

As for Glissa: First we have Cabal Therapy if we really need her that badly. Otherwise, sometimes shit just hits the fan. Unlike Hannibal would have us believe, the plan doesn't always come together.

[Tom4ik]

The best success I had with a blue list was back when Dig was legal but I would still build it similarly. Just all the CA and eventually you to the point where you have cards and they dont. Basically Next level Shardless. I didnt run many creatures.
Typically it was smth like 4 vet, 3-4 strix, 3 snap and 2 Thragtusk. I ran 2-3 jace and 2 lily. I also ran md force but without dig in the format I wouldnt be as worried about running it in the main. Not running force means you could probably switch some of the creatures around and play gsz.

The upside to running fow and snapcaster is that as you keep making land drops you will eventually run any deck out of cards. Running a stronghold and a few thragtusks will be fine. I won plenty of games with 1 tusk and then jace bounce. Jace is also a great win con because you can sit behind strix and deed and snapping decay and not even worry about attacking. Junk decks with nightmare/rhino have some of that same feel but jace is still better than that.

Postboard bringing in TS, Negates and Surgical mean that you really shred the early hand and even a clock of 2-4 damage can be fine.

I have never been a fan of pod. I just think Jace is a better card so I would never run that version but creature heavy versions in blue do get much better combo cards like the deadeye or nightmare to break open games.

The easiest way to design the deck is to decide what type of game plan you are looking to play and then slot cards into it that fit into that style.

[Hmmm_Really?]

...but Nightmare could be hit by AD/Reclamation Sage/Qasali Pridemage.

But why cast Nightmare if you can't use the ability immediately? AD/Sage/etc. won't get priority if you resolve and sac immediately, right?

[Ricardio]

But why cast Nightmare if you can't use the ability immediately? AD/Sage/etc. won't get priority if you resolve and sac immediately, right?

You have priority once it resolves, so as long as the sac outlet is on the battlefield, you are fine. Albeit, there are sticky situations where you have to play it a turn before you actually use it. then its called reoccurring yolo.

[Navsi]

Also if you have a creature to sac and a Nightmare in hand and want to cast them both, you have to have one of them be vulnerable to removal (unless you have Dryad Arbor in hand). Can't keep them both safe.

[Ricardio]

Also if you have a creature to sac and a Nightmare in hand and want to cast them both, you have to have one of them be vulnerable to removal (unless you have Dryad Arbor in hand). Can't keep them both safe.

Dragonlord Dromoka is never gonna give you up.

[Navsi]

Looks like we will indeed be getting a new Sigarda. Pointing towards GW at a guess, maybe with some B in there.

[rubblekill]

Looks like we will indeed be getting a new Sigarda. Pointing towards GW at a guess, maybe with some B in there.

Today's UR was cool. I only hope that Sigarda 2.0 will be green, for obvious reasons. Black seems the least plausible colour she could be, but we will see, hopefully soon.

[Ricardio]

Today's UR was cool. I only hope that Sigarda 2.0 will be green, for obvious reasons. Black seems the least plausible colour she could be, but we will see, hopefully soon.

Looks like we will indeed be getting a new Sigarda. Pointing towards GW at a guess, maybe with some B in there.

I am eagerly waiting, with my hand on my gentiles.

[rubblekill]

I am eagerly waiting, with my hand on my gentiles.

I demand from wotc a 5-6 mana lifelink and shroud flyer called Sigarda 2.0. I want to replace Dromoka so bad with a better green flyer with built in protection.

[Bobmans]

I demand from wotc a 5-6 mana lifelink and shroud flyer called Sigarda 2.0. I want to replace Dromoka so bad with a better green flyer with built in protection.

It would be really awkward seeing Sigarda 1.0 and the hypothetical Sigarda 2.0 exist on the battlefield at the same time. #MirrorImageLesbianSex.

[Ricardio]

It would be really awkward seeing Sigarda 1.0 and the hypothetical Sigarda 2.0 exist on the battlefield at the same time. #MirrorImageLesbianSex.

Awkward? something might've gotten lost in translation because I think you meant entertaining or kinky.

[Bobmans]

Oh my god, you wonderful crazy bastard. I thought I was the degenerate one, running Fierce Empath. I take my hat off to you, good sir!

Lol, yeah, well... i just took the list for a spin. Outrageous. Grindy as fuck, but once you develop your board you got SOO much stuff going on and the amount of "things" your able to do it is hard to keep track of that. Other than that, it is Magical Christmas happening right there...

[Brael]

I mean, I think it's kind of bad. But, I'm also probably one of the chillest people in here. If you run Arbor and it does work for you, then hey, that's worth more than me voicing my opinion. Like, you noted about Liliana. If your metagame has a ton of Liliana, then I can see using Arbor as a protection method against her. But it takes some extraneous metaforce to justify Arbor, IMO, or else a unique deck construction (ie Natural Order).

Just Meren alone is reason enough to run Arbor honestly. The interaction is fantastic.

[Ralf]

I demand from wotc a 5-6 mana lifelink and shroud flyer called Sigarda 2.0. I want to replace Dromoka so bad with a better green flyer with built in protection.

Hexproof is what it lacks but I do find dromoka really really hard to be dealt with for numerous MU.
For the other, Sigarda gets the job done.

[BrazenSix]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to play Nic Fit this weekend at a local tournament and am looking for some sideboard advice. The meta will consist of mainly BUG variants, Miracles, RUG/UR builds, Lands, a few burn decks and undoubtedly a couple of the typical Dredge, Goblins, and Storm builds. I'm unsure if there will be any Eldrazi decks, but I'd hedge my bets and assume there will be a few.

I've been play testing Ricardo's mainboard list, but mostly want to tune the sideboard for this type of meta. I've always been a BUG player, but want to change things up and the thought of not having FoW/Daze kind of scares me, lol. Were there any changes you suggest to this list since it was posted? (Legacy League list).

Here's what I was initially thinking:

3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Garruk Relentless
3 Slaughter Games

I was thinking on cutting the mainboard Courser and moving Glissa to the mainboard which could make room for a Reclamation Sage or Dragonlord Dromoka.

Thoughts?