[Primer] Nic Fit

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I tried it in Delver lists, but you need the creature to die during your turn and after they see bone picker, they don't wait until your turn to do it. No, you need to turn the Bone Picker on yourself.

It's not slotted in to traditional nic fit. It's a nic fit shell with a build-around concept. It's a more aggressive build. It stops all early tempo beaters as well as the combo creatures. Can even kill Emmy as long as you get a fast draw and have 7 permanents, which isn't unreasonable in a list such as this.

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[sdematt]

I'll be trying the following:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Deathrite Shaman
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Eternal Witness
1x Tireless Tracker
4x Siege Rhino
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Ulvenwald Tracker
16

4x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Painful Truths
2x Sylvan Library
1x Night's Whisper
9

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Pernicious Deed
3x Path to Exile
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Vindicate
14


2x Phyrexian Tower
2x Forest
2x Plains
2x Swamp
2x Bayou
2x Savannah
1x Scrubland
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Windswept Heath
21

1 Open

//Sideboard

2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Thoughtseize
2x Choke
1x Zealous Persecution
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Pithing Needle

[Purple Blood]

I tried it in Delver lists, but you need the creature to die during your turn and after they see bone picker, they don't wait until your turn to do it. No, you need to turn the Bone Picker on yourself.

It's not slotted in to traditional nic fit. It's a nic fit shell with a build-around concept. It's a more aggressive build. It stops all early tempo beaters as well as the combo creatures. Can even kill Emmy as long as you get a fast draw and have 7 permanents, which isn't unreasonable in a list such as this.

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Yea so flashback Cabal Therapy sacing elemental token. Play Bone Picker. I see it fitting there pretty nicely.

Care to post your list?

[square_two]

I'll be trying the following:

1x Ulvenwald Tracker

Have you tested the Tracker before? I'm curious. When I tried out RUG NO last year I had a 1-of Granger Guildmage as a GSZ target that can repeatedly ping off Mom, Elves, Thalia, random other x/1's. Worked out alright. Honestly could see the guy in Jund Fit somewhere in the 75, although Punishing Fire sort of covers that role.

[Bobmans]

Have you tested the Tracker before? I'm curious. When I tried out RUG NO last year I had a 1-of Granger Guildmage as a GSZ target that can repeatedly ping off Mom, Elves, Thalia, random other x/1's. Worked out alright. Honestly could see the guy in Jund Fit somewhere in the 75, although Punishing Fire sort of covers that role.

I suppose it works out perfectly with Baleful Strix, and even more with recursion such as Volrath's Stronghold or Meren.

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[jbone2016]

I like little Nissa more in grindy versions of the deck. That said, with Dryad Arbor in the main deck; Meren of Clan Nel Toth becomes a valid choice. Dryad Arbor is excellent alternative T1 mana dork (Zenith 0), makes wasteland a bit awkward when you open with a dual > Zenith 0, sac's to Diabolic Intent and Therapy. Plus you can snipe it with a fetch against opposing Liliana or as a blocker. Meren compliments Arbor in such a way that you get to create more board preseence when you land Meren. Plus Meren is not a bad card in this deck anyway, being able to regrowth fatties. So Meren might just be a valid choice in the slot of said Wood Elves.

Only 3 Veteran Explorer?

Massacre Wurm seems to be randomly good, but mediocre most of the times. How has the card been for you?

Meren never seemed up to snuff. And it was getting spendy online, so I sold it. Same with the surgicals. You can get cute with woodland bellower/wood elves/dryad arbor. With deathrite being as popular as it is, Meren doesn't seem as good as it should. I'll played with 3 Vets for a long time now. The 4th seemed unnecessary with Miracles as popular as it was. Might be time to add it back in.

I have had Worldspine wurm before as another fattie (which I have hard cast before vs Miracles), but Massacre wurm seems better for the meta right now.

I did play against grixis delver (lost) and a BUG nic fit last night (won). I will say Stifle seems to be on the rise again.

[jbone2016]

Hmm.

Punishing Jund list with 4 bone pickers seem reasonable?

[Secretly.A.Bee]

That card is good, mark my words. It is going to end up being a staple somewhere. I think there are many spots it can fill.

I'm not posting a list til I own it all (not long, now). I also have never played nic fit before, so I need to test things first before I say something potentially stupid. I actually wasn't going to post on here til I had it finished, but I wanted to hear reactions and see if it was a possibility. Bone picker is definitely worth testing in Jund lists, both legacy and modern.

[sdematt]

I ran Tracker pre-Miracles and it was great in the metagame and did real, honest work, especially against opposing value creatures that might tend not to attack (DRS, Confidant, Leovold). Plus, once you run Garruk Relentless, the jig is up and combat is over.

I just feel like popping Delvers with Rhino, then attacking with Rhino is cool stuff.

[ShadWills]

I've generally liked Ulvenwald Tracker in casual. It's downside is it's removable, but so many creatures have this downside and are still playable. I think he gets better the more removable creatures you run alongside him- like DRS and dryad arbor and perhaps Bob. I think Brael plays with a lot of these type of creatures and could maybe provide some insight.

[LVA]

Hey everyone, I have played junk nic fit for about a year and I'm just looking for something kind of different. I was looking through some of my binders and found out I have 4 copies of scapeshift and valakut. I was curious if anyone else has been experimenting with the Scapewish variant since the banning of top and where you are at. Also, what do you think is the optimal list. I've looked through the first page of the primer, but since the decklist there is from a full year ago I was curious if there were any significant changes.

Also since sneak attack is cheaper now from eternal masters I would be willing to give it a shot if it is just a "better" combo nic fit variant.

[TTX]

Hey everyone, I have played junk nic fit for about a year and I'm just looking for something kind of different. I was looking through some of my binders and found out I have 4 copies of scapeshift and valakut. I was curious if anyone else has been experimenting with the Scapewish variant since the banning of top and where you are at. Also, what do you think is the optimal list. I've looked through the first page of the primer, but since the decklist there is from a full year ago I was curious if there were any significant changes.

Also since sneak attack is cheaper now from eternal masters I would be willing to give it a shot if it is just a "better" combo nic fit variant.

I've been playing around with the Scapewish deck again. I like the Sneak Attack deck too, but it seems kind of clunky, I hate drawing huge creatures early game and there's no way to get them back into the deck.

Anyway, here's the list I've been playing. I'd like some suggestions if anyone will give them.

// 60 Maindeck
// 15 Creature
1 Eternal Witness
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Wood Elves

// 3 Enchantment
3 Pernicious Deed

// 2 Instant
2 Abrupt Decay

// 16 Sorcery
2 Scapeshift
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Thoughtseize

// 24 Land
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Stomping Ground
1 Volrath's Stronghold

// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 2 Pithing Needle

// 2 Creature
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Glissa, the Traitor

// 2 Instant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction

// 9 Sorcery
SB: 1 Scapeshift
SB: 1 Innocent Blood
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 From the Ashes
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Lost Legacy

[Warden]

I ran Tracker pre-Miracles and it was great in the metagame and did real, honest work, especially against opposing value creatures that might tend not to attack (DRS, Confidant, Leovold). Plus, once you run Garruk Relentless, the jig is up and combat is over.

I just feel like popping Delvers with Rhino, then attacking with Rhino is cool stuff.

I don't see Tracker doing much tbh. I think at best he's win-more material since he does nothing on his own and requires quite the board state to produce anything substantial. I'd rather run a showstopper like Leo, a Titan, or Nissa in his place.

[Brael]

Have you tested the Tracker before? I'm curious. When I tried out RUG NO last year I had a 1-of Granger Guildmage as a GSZ target that can repeatedly ping off Mom, Elves, Thalia, random other x/1's. Worked out alright. Honestly could see the guy in Jund Fit somewhere in the 75, although Punishing Fire sort of covers that role.

I have in a Rhino build. It's good but not great. Along the same lines I've tried out Nightshade Peddler before, that one was kind of interesting.

[LVA]

I have in a Rhino build. It's good but not great. Along the same lines I've tried out Nightshade Peddler before, that one was kind of interesting.

Having a way to gain actual card advantage off of a zenith in pretty worth it, at least to me. Eternal witness isn't nearly as good as it used to be because of all the damn deathrites. I'm on 2 right now and that seems like a reasonable number for now. It is basically a 4 drop though since you always want to get at least one clue out of it.

[Luthiereisfun]

I think Tireless Tracker in its own right is really for grindy MU. I think what also makes it powerful is that it can become a must answer threat as well as providing CA. It's kind of inetween cards like nights whisper/p truths and the other big bomb creatures.

[Brael]

So some updates on the paper Legacy league I've been playing.

I'll start with the good, out of the 8 rounds possible I won 7 of them (due to scheduling conflicts I never got in the final match) which put me in first place.

And the bad: half the league is out of town (including me) for summer vacation now, which means we won't get to conclude it. Most of my summer will be spent around people who don't play much if any Legacy so I won't get to do much for the next few weeks. Though I'll be traveling for a bit, so I might manage to find random stores playing it here and there.

So what this means is that I need to pick a new build in the next few days and stick with it. My summer job involves a lot of travel for weeks on end, and I prefer to travel pretty light, so my card access is basically picking some cards to take with me, and then as I return from trips making a few swaps before I head out again.

I still have some time to decide, but I'm looking at returning to a Junk build. I gave a Rhino build a couple pages back that I would like to try out.

But, until I decide, I want to talk a bit about my impressions of my latest GB build now that the league is over (due to scheduling, we called off the top 4 playoffs):

As a refresher, here's the list I played. Note that the league started prior to the SDT ban, so these were our lists until it finished, only applying ban updates to the next league (it would be unfair to let people change decks mid league).

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

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

Planeswalkers 2
2 Nissa, Vital Force

Spells 19
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Crop Rotation
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top

So to start with, obviously the SDT's need to go. But that's not really what I found interesting about this list. What I actually noticed, was that a few things really felt unnecessary. I don't know if it was due to my specific matchups and how they drew, or if the cards were just conflicting with themselves but I didn't actually get that much out of the 2nd Nissa. While the deck has one of the highest chances available to generate 5 mana on turn 2, I just didn't find myself going for it all that often. The Rotation into Tower play is very powerful, but it's also really risky in a world where 60% of decks run 4 Force of Will, it's a high risk play to go for on turn 2 against virtually every deck. If your opponent doesn't have a Force, they almost certainly have a Wasteland and the Tower will only be good for one activation. I think this can be alleviated with some higher impact 4 drops though, my current selection is a little weak so the 5 mana GSZ to 4 drop plays were lackluster. Also, I rarely used the Rotation for a Maze play, with white being a possible consideration for the next iteration, I may swap Maze/Karakas in their MB/SB roles. Rotation for Bog felt great though, just like my last league I never missed the Ooze, and I always felt advantaged against GY decks.

With Chalice appearing less than I thought it would, I feel pretty comfortable taking Cavern out of the list.

Strangleroot Geist was interesting, I actually won a round due to it, but it was such a rare set of circumstances that I can't put much weight on it. Basically what happened was this (I think I told this story before):
My opponent is on Storm, I lost G1 so I'm going first.
T1 - Land, Veteran Explorer.
Opp T1 - Proceeds to attempt to T1 me. Goes to 5 life off Ad Nauseam and stops, not getting what he needed. Uses a Gitaxian Probe for 2 life, dropping to 3. Sees Strangleroot Geist in my hand, along with another green source to cast it. Opponent sighs in defeat and passes the turn.
T2 - Land, Geist, swing 3.

This is the story of how I got a T2 win playing 100% fair Magic.

Despite that story, I don't think I want to play Geist again. It was never bad, but it's main purpose was to be a way to hit JTMS and I don't think I need that anymore with Miracles gone.

Without Top, Bob gets a little worse as well due to the order of operations with Library. I've never been one to be scared of blind flips, but the loss in manipulation does reduce the value a bit. I may go down to three, and balance it out with another lifegain card, which basically means Ooze.

On the spell side I liked the balance of everything.

One thing worth noting though is the deckbuilding tax Dark Confidant adds. He strongly encourages you to lower your curve. I try to balance my deck around 75 mana pips for Bob to work on, that's 1.25 life/card on average. My GB deck comes in overbudget there by 1 pip. With SDT this was a really minor deal because you could always guarantee you would take 1 at the most by tapping it but without that manipulation it's a bigger deal now. Part of this goes back to the Sylvan Library order of operations. A flip on Bob, a draw (dig 3), draw, and then playing something off of Courser leaves you with only one card on top to upkeep flip. So there is now much less control over that. There's still some with Volrath's Stronghold (Arbor is nuts here) and Courser information, but it's not as good as it used to be. Without Rhinos I think I would want my future deck to be 4 Bob 0-1 Library, but with Rhinos 2 Library feels solid due to the lifegain, I feel the same about SFM since each Batterskull hit is worth a card.

Last, I'm abandoning the Dark Depths plan in the sideboard. It was never bad, but it wasn't really great either. With lands being more prominent now, I don't want to be hosed by hate directed at them.

So this is what I'm looking at right now:
Land 23
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Creature 18
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Dark Confidant
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Siege Rhino
1 Thragtusk

Spells 20
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
2 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sylvan Library
1 Vindicate
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Pernicious Deed

Sideboard 15
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Golgari Charm
4 Lost Legacy
1 Treetop Village
1 Maze of Ith
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Pernicious Deed

[Brael]

Having a way to gain actual card advantage off of a zenith in pretty worth it, at least to me. Eternal witness isn't nearly as good as it used to be because of all the damn deathrites. I'm on 2 right now and that seems like a reasonable number for now. It is basically a 4 drop though since you always want to get at least one clue out of it.

Getting CA off of an Ulvenwald Tracker is too hard due to summoning sickness. It can happen, but it's slow. Tireless Tracker works, but it's expensive. Cost/Benefit wise I think Meren is the best option for GSZ CA.

[square_two]

Think there is some confusion over the local Innistrad tracking authorities. Ulvenwald Tracker. Tireless Tracker.

That said, I definitely agree that Meren is well positioned right now. She isn't hot against combo, but anything else is pretty great seeing as D&T is on a decline (which had Swords + Karakas to handle her, also our other threats being exiled wasn't fun).

Personally I'm rocking BUG fit online right now and Brainstorms are providing some excellent filtering. Humorous to pretend to be a typical BUG list with DRS, Pushes, Strixes...until you slam a Deed, wipe the opponent's board, and followup with Jace, Tracker + fetch, Meren, Nissa, or Titania. Surprise, my hand wasn't full of chaff after all.

[ShadWills]

[QUOTE=Brael;1006008] I want to talk a bit about my impressions of my latest GB build now that the league is over (due to scheduling, we called off the top 4 playoffs):

This deck is closest to my latest builds in that it has a lower curve than typical NicFit lists. However I have moved away from "removable" creatures like bob in favor of creatures that can provide value immediately, or have shroud or possibly haste. I would love a great two drop, something like Baleful Strix or Stoneforge mystic, but I am really trying to keep the deck GB, mostly just 'cus I guess. You mentioned the tax of Bob requiring a lower curve. Personally I have not had much issue here. I just get so bummed when my dark confidant gets bolted. Ultimately I am asking if bob is really as good as he was way backwhen? Or is he just barely good enough? Only goodish-worth-three-slots-if-you-adjust-your-curve? Maybe I just need to try it for myself...