[Primer] Nic Fit

[Ralf]

Stronghold isn't CA. It's card selection, but doesn't actually draw you cards unless you're recurring a creature which provides CA (in which case it's the creature that's the CA, not Stronghold).

DRS - it looks to me like your only real source of advantage against an opponent that doesn't overextend into Deed is either Loam, Nissa, or a fatty. Thrag isn't super impactful (though he gets the job done), Grave Titan and Nissa you can't tutor for, and Loam is vulnerable to Deathrite - feels like you need some great topdecks or a standard boardstate like TNN+DRS or just JTMS is going to run you over in card advantage pretty quickly.

Hymn is strong early but is a pretty bad topdeck - I'd rather have more consistency, but if you like it do go ahead.

I think you don't get the general idea.
It is more some kind of a GB Fit "POX" attrition deck than a deck seeking for CA.

You want an empty "creature" board state, an empty hand state and a topdeck war.

Anything related to "CA" doesn't really mean anything.

Eventually, the sideboard will cover any difficult MU that testing would emphasis.

[Navsi]

I think you don't get the general idea.
It is more some kind of a GB Fit "POX" attrition deck than a deck seeking for CA.

You want an empty "creature" board state, an empty hand state and a topdeck war.

Anything related to "CA" doesn't really mean anything.

Eventually, the sideboard will cover any difficult MU that testing would emphasis.

Okay then. If you're going for a pox style topdeck war I don't think you have enough interaction to get there reliably.

You have ~10 answers to a permanent on the board (Decay, Lili, Deed) and ~10 discard effects (Therapy, Hymn, Lili). I don;t think that's enough to reasonably expect to lock down an opponent in a topdeck war and then be able to answer whatever they play. Maybe I'm wrong and it's enough to keep the ball rolling, but it looks to me like you have too many slots that don't disrupt your opponent (creatures, zeniths, rotation, loam, filtering) to actually answer everything they do.

I don't think getting into a topdeck war is really what we want to do in a deck running Veteran Explorer, Cabal Therapy and other dud topdeck draws in as many copies as we do.

[gth842s]

Ralf:

I don't think you can call a Nic Fit list 'pox-style' if you are going to dismiss card advantage. At its core, Pox is built to bury an opponent under card advantage - recursive threats, planeswalkers, hymns, and virtual CA (i.e. you don't have lands and can't play what you draw, I can play all of my topdecks). I do think your deck has an adequate amount of CA, but I wouldn't dismiss it the need for it. Also, Pox is at its heart a land destruction / control deck, so maybe you're really more going for 'The Rock' than 'Pox'.

Liliana also does take some of the pressure off of your topdecks in that you can safely discard a lot of draws to her.

Why run The Two Towers engine in Nic Fit and not put in a singleton Primeval Titan? It fits your grindy strategy and gives you a legitimate threat to zenith for in the late game.

Loam with just a single entomb to go find it seems like a lot of variance to be introducing to your deck, at a not insignificant deckbuilding cost. Why not just focus on the planeswalkers and grind plan? I could also see embracing more of a Dark Depths / Loam / Ghost Quarter strategy, but mixing the two seems unfocused.

[Ralf]

Ralf:

I don't think you can call a Nic Fit list 'pox-style' if you are going to dismiss card advantage. At its core, Pox is built to bury an opponent under card advantage - recursive threats, planeswalkers, hymns, and virtual CA (i.e. you don't have lands and can't play what you draw, I can play all of my topdecks). I do think your deck has an adequate amount of CA, but I wouldn't dismiss it the need for it. Also, Pox is at its heart a land destruction / control deck, so maybe you're really more going for 'The Rock' than 'Pox'.

Liliana also does take some of the pressure off of your topdecks in that you can safely discard a lot of draws to her.

Why run The Two Towers engine in Nic Fit and not put in a singleton Primeval Titan? It fits your grindy strategy and gives you a legitimate threat to zenith for in the late game.

Loam with just a single entomb to go find it seems like a lot of variance to be introducing to your deck, at a not insignificant deckbuilding cost. Why not just focus on the planeswalkers and grind plan? I could also see embracing more of a Dark Depths / Loam / Ghost Quarter strategy, but mixing the two seems unfocused.

Primeval is a very good 6 drop but we can only afford one 6 cmc drop. I chose Grave Titan on purpose.

I can understand the doubts that crop rotations & entomb raise. So far, it works until I'm no longer satisfied with them. Entombing a CT or loam is pretty neat + it fixes the number of 1 cmc drop this deck needs. Not to mention the utility you get with sideboarding options.

[gth842s]

Primeval is a very good 6 drop but we can only afford one 6 cmc drop. I chose Grave Titan on purpose.

I can understand the doubts that crop rotations & entomb raise. So far, it works until I'm no longer satisfied with them. Entombing a CT or loam is pretty neat + it fixes the number of 1 cmc drop this deck needs. Not to mention the utility you get with sideboarding options.

You absolutely should build in a way that suits your preferences and play style, but in my own experience Nic Fit can handle more than 1 six-drop with very little in the way of problems. The second six drop is especially valuable if it's green (Primeval) because you're turning your Zenith's into virtual copies against Miracles that are immune to counterbalance. For what it's worth, Sneak Fit runs 3 6 drops (Primeval Titan, Massacre Wurm / Inferno Titan, and Bellower) and has no problem hard casting them without a Loam package to provide the extra land redundancy. Just food for thought.

Can't argue with the best-case outcomes that Entomb gives you WRT sideboarding - I hope it works well for you!

[Brael]

Played my current list for awhile today against both Leovold and Miracles. Got utterly wrecked in both. I think my deck drifts too far towards dealing with unfair decks and it lost the ability to handle the fair matches.

Fatal Push doesn't really bother me though, I've got another big league coming up soon. I really wanted to give BG a shot, but now I'm drifting back towards BGw.

[Purple Blood]

I've been thinking about this - I think the card I'm looking for is Life from the Loam. There's got to be something we can do in a shell like this:

4 Veteran
1 Witness
1 Tracker

4 Zenith
4 Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
2 Life from the Loam

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nissa, Vital Force

8 Fetchlands

Lots of synergy. Loam feeds Liliana and Brutality. Fetchlands feed Loam and Tracker. Nissa rebuys important dredged cards. Lili / Brutality / Deed gives us a good removal spread (sweep/spot/sac covers basically everything, Deed kills noncreature permanents - +1 Maelstrom Pulse variant for planeswalkers). Loam is 'yard dependent but the rest of the list is synergistic without getting completely blown out by RIP. Still in two colour shell so splash whatever. 7 discard spells + 3 Liliana for combo matchups. ~12 slots left for more toolbox options and wincons.

I've been running a similar list with Gitrog and cycle lands; was using Hymns instead of CB because I don't have access to those right now. Also been testing Titania in the list. It works pretty well and lets you grind out almost every fair opponent. Even without the Frog out Loaming up cycle lands is sweet card advantage.

I still have the problem of folding to combo and decks that go over the top like 12-post. After adding Meren to the list I have a much better time against decks like Aluren and Elves. Couple of those guys run those every week and if I can assemble Meren/EW/Deed in decent enough time it's a scoop.

[Navsi]

I've been running a similar list with Gitrog and cycle lands; was using Hymns instead of CB because I don't have access to those right now. Also been testing Titania in the list. It works pretty well and lets you grind out almost every fair opponent. Even without the Frog out Loaming up cycle lands is sweet card advantage.

I still have the problem of folding to combo and decks that go over the top like 12-post. After adding Meren to the list I have a much better time against decks like Aluren and Elves. Couple of those guys run those every week and if I can assemble Meren/EW/Deed in decent enough time it's a scoop.

I'm not sure if Gitrog/Titania is the way to finish the list up. It's reasonable against midrange but doesn't feel resilient enough to deal with control or fast enough to deal with combo. Loam is a nice card advantage engine but I don't think we can lean on it to actually just end games. I'm thinking of doing some testing with the rest of the slots using the Dragon build's Intuition - Haven - DLD/Silumgar/Ugin package and some copies of Baleful Strix and Deathrite.

Trying to work out if there's a reasonable combo we can Gifts for that doesn't use up too many decklist slots and that ends the game on the spot. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears (assuming we have ~6 mana available, no cards in hand or GY beyond Gifts). A Gifts Ungiven or Intuition kill would be pretty nice in the deck, considering we can already get some good utility out of it with Loam.

Edit: Unassisted Gifts kills:
- Recurring Nightmare + Palinchron + Eternal Witness + Nostalgic Dreams - 8 mana, 7 of which must be in lands. None of the cards are 100% garbage on their own.
- Aluren + Nostalgic Dreams + Recruiter of the Guard + Noxious Revival - 6 mana. Need a load of chaff in the deck.
- Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond + Walking Ballista + Unburial Rites - 7 mana (if they give you rites + ballista), no additional chaff, but Salvagers and LED are pretty bad outside of combo. Might work okay in an artifact build?
- Academy Rector + Unburial Rites + Cabal Therapy + whatever - 6 mana, get a Rector trigger. Doesn't actually win unless you have payoff - No cards I can find for the 4th slot that win off Omniscience if opponent gives you rites + therapy as your cards in hand.

[tilzinger]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

[rubblekill]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

In my last GB Fit configuration, I'm currently playing:
2 carpets
3 lost legacy
3 choke
2 to the slaughter (JTMS)
1 giant solifuge (yes)
2 thoughtseize
1 surgical (I'm not playing 2 because I play 3 rotations and 1 Bojuka Bog)
1 additional Nissa (2 in the 75)

It's ridiculous that mtggoldfish says that miracles is at 19% meta presence: everyone online plays that deck, I should not HAVE TO play 15 cards in the side just for that deck.

I literally board in 15 cards in that match up, and that doesn't even guarantee a very substantial win percentage in g2-3 (as it should, since I'm literally dedicating all of my sideboard to miracles, with some needed splash damage against combo/gy decks).

This configuration does help a lot, though.

[square_two]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

That really depends on what version of nic fit you are running. Are you siding Vets + Therapy out? What are you bringing in?

I've found that Carpet of Flowers is quite amazing, allowing you to play out must-counter threats much earlier than they have the time to find enough answers. Deed ensures that you don't die from Angels/Mentor, but you need to have some form of answer for Jace (Nissa VF is great but you need more).

I have lately just been bringing in as much meat and card advantage as I can against them, plus Lost Legacy. Haven't bothered bringing in Surgicals for quite some time. Then again I'm on Sneak Fit which struggles with Terminus quite a bit less. Once I get Sneak Attack out then the matchup swings heavily in my favor.

[Navsi]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

Assuming you're running Rhinos:

- Volrath's Stronghold + Phyrexian Tower lets you recycle game ending threats until they run out of answers. Best with Cavern of Souls or Thrun too.
- Sylvan Safekeeper, Gaddock Teeg, City of Solitude, Carpet of Flowers are all good sideboard options.
- If you're casting noncreature threats, their only answers are FOW (card disadvantage, therapy it first) or Counterbalance (which Decay works against, and 4+cmc stuff isn't reliably hit). Kaya and Nissa are both excellent. Any of the Sorins or Garruk R is pretty good too. Elspeth is great.

If your plan is to resolve creatures they can 1-for-1 and hope to beat them to death, you're going to have a bad time.

[tilzinger]

I'm running the Rhino junk build (seem my list at the top of page 19)

I side out the Therapy and Vets, bring in Carpets. I've added a Stronghold to the list lately. I'm thinking of adding Sorin, Grim Nemesis to the side to help deal with Jace, and make it harder for them to counter. My opponents seem to always find that damn Councils Judgement to handle my walkers, so they don't stick around long.

I like the idea of adding To the Slaughter. I have 3 Lost Legacy I could try in place of Slaughter Games, but of course Lost Legacy can be countered so there is that. I've won exactly 2 games against Miracles. One was b/c I was able to resolve a Lost Legacy naming Terminus, and the other I was able to Surgical Terminus after the first one was cast.

Edit: I'm adding Dragonlord Dramoka to the main for uncounterability, and already run Thrun main.

[Hmmm_Really?]

To anyone running Master of the Wild Hunt, in the Junk Atraxa version with Leovold, are you having trouble keeping it on the field to snipe Delvers and dudes? I can't tell you how many times it gets forked, bolted, pushed, etc. before I can get to my next turn. (That's the only time I would GSZ for it, if Atraxa is unavailable.... do you use for anything else?)

I already have Garruk Relentless so do I just suck it up, take the 1 for 1, and have one less removal to worry about?

Has anyone come to the same conclusion that Kaya, Ghost Assassin might be better suited? It would be an additional Kaya in my case and, of course, not GSZ-able. Or an additional, but legendary, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice?

TL;DR: I need a green Delver-killer, with shroud ;-)

[Purple Blood]

I'm not sure if Gitrog/Titania is the way to finish the list up. It's reasonable against midrange but doesn't feel resilient enough to deal with control or fast enough to deal with combo. Loam is a nice card advantage engine but I don't think we can lean on it to actually just end games. I'm thinking of doing some testing with the rest of the slots using the Dragon build's Intuition - Haven - DLD/Silumgar/Ugin package and some copies of Baleful Strix and Deathrite.

Trying to work out if there's a reasonable combo we can Gifts for that doesn't use up too many decklist slots and that ends the game on the spot. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears (assuming we have ~6 mana available, no cards in hand or GY beyond Gifts). A Gifts Ungiven or Intuition kill would be pretty nice in the deck, considering we can already get some good utility out of it with Loam.

Edit: Unassisted Gifts kills:
- Recurring Nightmare + Palinchron + Eternal Witness + Nostalgic Dreams - 8 mana, 7 of which must be in lands. None of the cards are 100% garbage on their own.
- Aluren + Nostalgic Dreams + Recruiter of the Guard + Noxious Revival - 6 mana. Need a load of chaff in the deck.
- Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond + Walking Ballista + Unburial Rites - 7 mana (if they give you rites + ballista), no additional chaff, but Salvagers and LED are pretty bad outside of combo. Might work okay in an artifact build?
- Academy Rector + Unburial Rites + Cabal Therapy + whatever - 6 mana, get a Rector trigger. Doesn't actually win unless you have payoff - No cards I can find for the 4th slot that win off Omniscience if opponent gives you rites + therapy as your cards in hand.

Yea I don't know well my list would do in a more competitive environment but is it's fun to play and I win matches. On the bright side with this ridiculous MM spoiler we just got I'm going to be able to test some new cards I haven't bothered buying yet.

If you want to go combo kill why not Scapeshift and Burning Wish? Fits pretty well with Loam. And gives you the toolbox SB and MB having so many tutors. I suppose you have to decide if you'd rather be running BUG or Jund though. The other option is a Primeval Titan and DD strategy but from the people who've tested that in this thread it didn't work as well as it seemed on paper.

[Brael]

Here's what I'm locked in at for my upcoming Legacy league. The league rules allow for proxies (with a bonus for owning a legit deck), so with card availability not being an issue people are on everything and anything that strikes their fancy. At this point I don't know what anyone is playing, but I suspect 1 Miracles, 1 Storm, 1 Dredge, 1 Infect, and 1 Leovold Delver. Originally we were going to do a 12 person round robin, but some didn't have interest so it's down to 8. Fortunately, this one won't be a weekly deal and instead we just have X weeks to complete all of our matches so it should happen a bit faster.

Anyways, I got to thinking about some of the suggestions when we were discussing BG a couple pages back, as well as thinking over what worked from my Junk list the last time I tried this. I ended up biasing the deck a bit back towards fair matchups because I felt the previous version gave up too much in that regard.

Land 23
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Swamp
5 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Cavern of Souls

Creatures 17
2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Strangleroot Geist
4 Dark Confidant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Other 21
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force

Sideboard 15
3 Dark Depths
2 Thespian’s Stage
1 Karakas
1 Crop Rotation
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura Tribe Elder
2 Lost Legacy
1 Treetop Village
1 Sensei’s Divining Top

Long story short, I went higher on Nissa, Land, and Deed, brought back Cavern, and am keeping the Dark Depths option open. The STE slot in the SB could have just as easily been an Elves of Deep Shadow, which may even be better but I didn't feel like ordering one.

[tescrin]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

Thrun is pretty good since GSZ can get him meaning you have 5 copies and they have no good way of keeping him off. I uses man-lands in my build because it made Primeval kinda like a Grave Titan and because it improved Miracles MUs. Deed is pretty good since it can munch anything they do, and often multiple things unless they play sub-optimally; making them have trouble grinding you.

It's not a great MU; but it's doable. PFire versions have a natural advantage as you can imagine; but between Decay and Deed you should be able to keep CB off of you, and between Thrun, GSZ, and Manlands should be able to keep punching reliably.

Maverick used that guy who gives people shroud for saccing lands (forget his name) and Teeg; which basically is a lock out.


Miracles is weak in the knees to actual CA; but it's hard to get CA against them if your CA is creature based. So you want to find ways of getting cards outside of that. Aggressive Mining is an option since you can get lands via Explorer or Titan. Leovald is reasonable, even without U in the deck.

EDIT: There's no silver bullet to miracles really. You just need to have a lot of cards that happen to work against them. A couple manlands, a Thrun +GSZs, maybe a Sigarda or Aggressive Mining, some Pfires and/or Leovald, Decays and Deeds. It's an obnoxious puzzle for them to solve if you keep deed up because they can't win without losing multiple cards unless they jace; but if you have manlands or thrun they can't jace well either.

Also, Thrag is a good target for GSZ as well, because the Beasts he leaves around if they Jace, Plow, or terminus him.

[Navsi]

If you want to go combo kill why not Scapeshift and Burning Wish? Fits pretty well with Loam. And gives you the toolbox SB and MB having so many tutors. I suppose you have to decide if you'd rather be running BUG or Jund though. The other option is a Primeval Titan and DD strategy but from the people who've tested that in this thread it didn't work as well as it seemed on paper.

Might give Scapeshift another try. It puts a ton of strain on the manabase, but I might just try running 25 lands. Currently looking at a list like this:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya (might want to just be Huntmaster)
2 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Burning Wish
3 Collective Brutality
2 Scapeshift
1 Life from the Loam

3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Liliana of the Veil

2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Taiga
4 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Scapeshift
1 Life from the Loam
1 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Innocent Blood
1 Lost Legacy or Slaughter Games
2 City of Solitude
3 Thoughtseize
3 Pithing Needle

[Tokugawa]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

The primer has given some very useful suggestions. Attack JTMS(wherever it is, hand/board/library) asap. And don't trigger Explorer aggresively, their lategame play(JTMS/Entreat the angels/Venser-Karakas lock) are stronger than yours.

[emuhell]

Might give Scapeshift another try. It puts a ton of strain on the manabase, but I might just try running 25 lands. Currently looking at a list like this:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya (might want to just be Huntmaster)
2 Thragtusk
...
3 Collective Brutality
1 Life from the Loam
2 Liliana of the Veil
...

Sideboard:
1 Life from the Loam
2 City of Solitude

Finally someone returning to Scapeshift :). The problems are mostly the same as a few months ago I think. But it is a viable deck.

About some of your card choices:

• I miss some kind of creature-based ramp that really justifies 4 GSZ in this list (Sakura Tribe Elder, Wood Elves).
• I agree with running 2 Mountains - sometimes this gets the show going with explorers.
• I totally agree with not running the PFire engine. It is just so greedy and makes the manabase even more wanky.
• Collective Brutality on 3? Interesting choice! I guess to handle counters and drshamans - maybe even to survive that 1 pre-combo/thragtusk turn against burn.
• Lili + LftL is a slow "engine". Lili is not really good supported in the list and I guess in theory you want to discard a lot of lands to her. Not sure if that really is the way to go. You don't want to miss a single landdrop and you dont want to discard any other card (except sometimes Therapy).
• :D City of Solitude is spicy ^^ had to smile on that one - definitely valid and nice. Maybe just Overmaster as an additional tutor target?