So, isn't there anyone here who plays a BUG value list with push strix tracker leopold meren and walkers (jace nissa)?
I'd love to shift from jund to try the new bug deck, but since it is a slow process and a pricey commitment I want to hear opinions from you guys before.
No one is brewing podless bug?
Jace isn't very impressive right now - we don't protect him as well as Miracles does and he's pretty bad against any unfair matchup, and only good against fair decks as a followup to a sweeper. He's the only real reason to stick to BUG rather than run four colours with Atraxa IMO. I did some brewing with it but I think 4C value is just better than BUG for us. Having Atraxa and swords and a couple white creatures (SFM, Rhino, or whatever) makes our aggro matchups way better where they can go under BUG sometimes.
Speaking of Atraxa, she is good of course, but I'm starting to think she is a win more type of card. We stomp creature decks already with rhino, and Atraxa is worse than Sigarda in the control match up.
The blue seems to be better only for the counters we have access to in the sideboard, but even then I don't know if U is the absolutely best splash we can do. Leovold instead of tracker n 2 is nice but I'm not spending 35 for a single splash card
If you're playing a Rhinos build you've already sacrificed your control and combo matchups, might as well make fair deck matchups even better.
Atraxa isn't Sigarda. She isn't there to kill control - she's there as a Baneslayer that you can Zenith. She should (IMO) be replacing your Rhino slot/s as a creature that stabilizes better and kills more reliably due to the flying/vigilance/lifelink keyword soup.
IMO the #1 reason to play blue in Nic Fit is Baleful Strix. Great against a lot of the unfair decks (trades w/ Griselbrand, blocks Marit Lage), and is relevant against miracles while putting you up a card which is pretty huge. Also carries equipment very well which is relevant. Leovold is naturally amazing too, but if you don't want to spend on him that's reasonable.
I'm not yet sure that she should. Both Rhino and Atraxa have their strong points under different circumstances. I've been testing her in a straight Junk list for some time now and am still unable to decide whether I like her in the list or that I'd rather have Rhino #4.
Maybe I just have to ditch my Diabolic Intent and go 4 Rhino AND Atraxa.
I think we have sacrificed those match up in the very moment we decided we enjoy to jam veteran explorers and cabal therapy together. Atraxa or strix won't change that.
I thought that, after all this time, the majority of us decided that SFM builds were sub par configurations/bad stoneblade imitations..after leaving rhino once, I have realised that rhino is a 4of or nothing type of card. The drain is what kills them a lot of the times.
Any build can run enough card advantage to have a reasonable chance against Miracles, and Strix is highly relevant there. Combo finishes are naturally better against other combo deck, and we do run Therapy. None of the current 'fair' Nic Fit lists have particularly good combo matchups, but that's not something that's guaranteed with Explorer and Therapy - we could do a lot better in those matchups if we ran effects that interacted with them, which we do have available. We could make our combo matchups significantly better, but the path to do so does not involve running as many irrelevant cards as Rhinos does currently.
Not going to go into Stoneforge / Rhino discussion again.
I have been going back and forth between Junk splashing blue and BUG splashing white.
The main deck differences are:
Path to Exile
Vindicate
Sigarda, Host of Herons
vs
Brainstorm
Baleful Strix
Jace, the Mind Sculptor (maybe as a 1 of in BUG splashing white?)
Both decks can still play Leovold, Siege Rhino, and Atraxa. Thoughts on which build is currently better?
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
3 Phyrexian Tower
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dead Weight
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library
3 Sterling Grove
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Academy Rector
1 Humility
1 Living Plane
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Doomwake Giant
2 Starfield of Nyx
1 Nissa, Vital Force
3 Green Sun's Zenith
Side:
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Thoughtseize
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Seal of Primordium
To be honest, I think the problem lies somewhere else.
Liliana of the Veil is, in my very humble opinion, missing in most builds I've seen here.
There is not really any other card that can attack every other existing archetype (aggro, control, combo).
It is a swiss army knife. Yet many just don't play her.
Furthermore there is not so much to tweak in those decks to break her symmetry as:
1) we are already playing CT which already is, in mid/lategame, a dead draw. Hence an easy food to liliana.
2) we are playing SDT which has a built-in synergy with Liliana
Add a few other cards (2 to 4 max, I think) that have a good synergy with her (the balance has yet to be found) and call it a day.
Now the new question is: Are Rhino + LoTV a good couple ?
Dunno the answer to that...
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Have you found the STE to be useful much? I ended up cutting him, never felt like he got much done.
Did you ever have any problems with not being able to Zenith up pressure? Not having a reasonable clock off a GSZ always seemed tough to me - I ended up slotting a Sigarda.
Is Curse of Death's Hold really necessary in the maindeck? I put it in the sideboard, since Doomwake Giant does most of what Curse does anyway while presenting a clock and being more castable into Thalia etc. I also put Humilty in the sideboard.
Have you tried Parallax Wave? It's like Humility in terms of ruining creature matchups, but also goes infinite with Starfield and does things with Witness.
Is Library good? I never liked it and dropped it in the end for the third Top - you never search for it anyway since you have other better CA engines to be getting with Grove / Rector.
Liliana definitely helps a lot of the deck's bad matchups and should probably be looked into more. Unfortunately because the deck plans to grind out the late game with all of its x-for-1s, sweepers and powerful value creatures, it's not really wanting to empty its hand out the way Liliana makes look good. That means we want some form of recurring effect - preferably not just something we want to discard (in which case Therapy and Lingering Souls do the job) but something that actually regularly comes back to hand and turns Liliana's ability into real card advantage.
As far as the available options go, the problem is that basically all of them are vulnerable to Deathrite which is pretty awful. Asylum Visitor actually looks like it might be one of the better options, since it's good off Lili and doesn't restrict deckbuilding by as much as Dark Confidant does while applying more pressure to combo/control decks (since she has 3 power).
What about a GB list featuring hymn + good liliana and some number (2-3) of trackers? Seems insane value. Hymns become additional food for liliana in the late game.
Removal: 4 decay and 2 pushes.
The problem is the win condition: 4 rhino count both as a win condition AND a stabilisation card. That is the main reason that made me come back to rhinos after trying the PWs build posted by Arian in June. Without rhino we have to rely on something clunkier like Prime Time and Thragtusk, and we are worse against fast aggro decks.
The combination of drs, tracker, hymn and liliana seems insane against combo and control decks though.
The only reason you don't see Lili in my builds at least is because I don't own her online, I always play her in paper, but I haven't felt like putting 90tix into an online Lili yet. I definitely felt like when I went from online games to paper, Lili was amazing though.
Might be worth testing. You lose hard to anything playing Loam/Pfire, though, especially Lands. Not having any good stabilization options against Burn might also be a problem. Also your clock is super slow, although a few copies of Nissa might help that quite a bit with your clock, and you can always just slam Thragtusks.
Maybe try and fit in Contamination (ruins Lands/Tron/Miracles) and/or Recurring Nightmare (good with Liliana and Thragtusk), with some token generators like Garruk Relentless? Might be too clunky though.
To be honest, for a lot of these questions I just need more reps with the deck. I probably haven't even breached 40 matches with it.
And also I'm not too sure if that is really a STE in that spot, I couldn't remember the last spot in my list. Will confirm later. I was kind of waffling on the guy at least in Sneak Fit, spot could probably be a DRS. Or another Dead Weight - I really like the weights in this list.
Now that Curse is working online, I really like it plus Doomwake (again, I need more matches to see since this is the first I've had both working). Curse is so hard to remove. Against D&T I'd rather have something more permanent since Doomwake is removed by enchantment hate -and- STP. Lands are destroyed either way with one or the other + Living Plane I suppose. If I feel like I really need a slot, then I'll consider moving Curse out. Humility is just way better with Curse available too. Lot of creature decks fold to either, but having both will seal the deal. I feel like this trifecta is pretty nice, Humility also having applications against Reanimator and Sneak/Show for game 1.
I like Library. This is about the best Nic Fit list to put it in. This subforum seems to hate the thing, but it's actual CA when you are not pressured, works to get occasional trigger for Blossoms or increase the ench count with Starfield. I think having 1 improves the deck more than weakens it. More testing will tell - though it is awfully nice to pop Grove and then flip Top to play whatever you tutor in the same turn.
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Tracker and push could revive the old GB list posted by CalebD 3 years ago. Value + pseudo path at 1 cmc, yes please. Garruk seems better in GB now that you mention him, in my Junk list I have concluded that in the cmc 4 spot rhino/atraxa outclass Garruk. Nissa and Sorin are just stronger.
Maybe a GB walkers version? Liliana (good against combo control and midrange) Nissa (best pw, recurs other walkers) and Garruk (replaces rhino as a 4 cmc threat). Seems awesome, I'm not gonna lie.
Gearhulk to complement garruk and a strong 5 mana guy?
I already lose HARD against Lands regularly, regardless of what I play. I might be a bad player, but that mu always felt very very difficult to handle.
In the 8 rhino deck I play path, not push. I think that push has space only in BUG/GB.
E. We are cooking here boys. Now, if only someone had 300 bucks for those lilianas though...
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