The unfortunate fate of most offbeat lists. At the end of the day Rhino is just the most efficient way to go.Originally Posted by removedfromgame
Its kind of frustrating. I added a gitrog last minute because i thought it would be sexy tech with all the rotations and crucible of guy. It performed well but not having rhinos and sigarda was actively just bad for me when all these midrange/control decks just keep dealing with my trackers.
Post sadness list:
3 forest
2 swamp
1 plains
2 bayou
2 scrubland
1 savannah
4 verdant
3 heath
1 waste
1 karakas
1 tower
1 arbor
3 vet
3 drs
1 QPM
1 ooze
2 tracker
1 witness
1 excavator
2 rhino
1 meren
1 gitrog
1 sigarda
4 green sun
4 therapy
2 push
2 crop rotation
3 decay
1 diabolic edict
1 library
3 deed
1 nissa, vf
Board:
3 surgical
2 thoughtseize
1 needle
2 golgari charm
1 to the slaughter
1 garruk relentless
1 deluge
1 massacre
1 rec sage
2 lost legacy
(The board is kind of thrown together right now so there are some slots than can be manuvered)
I guess if it ain't broke, right?
Check out my lists, seriously. They may not look it at first glance, but going by the various tournament reports I have the best unfair deck matchup out of everything. You pay a price in some of the fair matches (shardless and delver are no longer massively favored) but it all depends on what you want to lose to. I think mine is currently very close to 50/50 against everything except Elves which is an autoloss.
Reanimator+Dark Depths can be beaten with a combination of discard, edicts, GY hate, and sweepers backed by a clock. To put names to that: Cabal Therapy, Collective Brutality, Crop Rotation, Karakas, Deathrite Shaman, Bojuka Bog, and Toxic Deluge. You may have noticed I play all of those mainboard. All of these can be fired off by T2 and sometimes by T1. These are some of the matches where I highly suggest having a non Veteran Explorer ramp plan. They benefit from the basics more than you (and Reanimator has a bunch of them), so it's very important to reach 3 mana on T2 in other ways.
Building the deck is only half the battle though, even if you're prepared you still need to quickly figure out what you're playing against and make the proper opening moves. At any paper event this is "easy". I always take a trip through the room before tournament time and note what each person is playing. It's not 100% because people sometimes switch decks, but it's data you can match up with opening plays to figure out what you're going to do.
This advice also holds for Show and Tell.
Crop Rotation is more of a staple for me at this point than Veteran Explorer is. There are many postboard games where I'm running 0-1 Explorer and 3 Crop Rotations. The meta is fine for Nic Fit right now, but it's not fine for Explorer. You NEED alternative mana ramp plans.
There's not much need for Thoughtseize to see the opponents hand. I would rather use that slot on Surgical Extraction. You can often times treat it as a Thoughtseize, it's less mana, better late game, and has better utility. Even then, I try to not rely on those. In any given match there's really only a handfull of cards to call in 90% of situations. Just focus on those cards and you'll play Therapy at a high enough skill ceiling to get value out of it. Remember, decks like Storm play Therapy with no ability to flash back. Our situation isn't that different, there's a handfull of cards to worry about. If you can effectively clear those cards out, you're in good shape.
If you're worried about this, sideboard 4 Leyline of the Void as additional GY hate. It's also pretty good against a few other decks.B/R Reanimator more often than not gets down a turn one Griselbrand and combos off and wins with it that same turn using Children of Korolis and Laboratory Maniac, or alternatively they play a turn one Sire of Insanity and make you discard your hand. So if you can't interact with them on turn one, there typically won't be a turn two.
Don't play Wasteland. Veteran Explorers give your opponents all the colors they need. So you can really only use it to blow up utility lands. If that's your gameplan Ghost Quarter is actually better, because you can run them out of basics and make it a Strip Mine. It can also be aimed at your own lands to get a basic at times. But, in general I don't recommend land destruction in this deck. If you really want it, use Vindicate.Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try incorporating some crop rotation, a karakas, a wasteland and a bajuka bog into my build. It helps that I also play a Dryad Arbor I can grab with it if I need a creature at instant speed.
This happens. Small guys are fine and all, but they only work if you have enough cards to fight through the removal. You need a bunch of card draw. The idea is that you play a bunch of 2 for 1's, and your opponent kills your creatures with 1 for 1's. After a few turns of this, they'll be left with nothing and you'll be left with a bunch of cards. At that point you can win the game with essentially anything. That's why all of my card choices involve creatures that generate CA.
It's late and I'm tired, so I might trail off here but let me try and explain what's going on with this list of yours;Post sadness list:
3 forest
2 swamp
1 plains
2 bayou
2 scrubland
1 savannah
4 verdant
3 heath
1 waste
1 karakas
1 tower
1 arbor
3 vet
3 drs
1 QPM
1 ooze
2 tracker
1 witness
1 excavator
2 rhino
1 meren
1 gitrog
1 sigarda
4 green sun
4 therapy
2 push
2 crop rotation
3 decay
1 diabolic edict
1 library
3 deed
1 nissa, vf
Board:
3 surgical
2 thoughtseize
1 needle
2 golgari charm
1 to the slaughter
1 garruk relentless
1 deluge
1 massacre
1 rec sage
2 lost legacy
First of all you have 22 lands, but Wasteland is never meant to be tapped so you have 21. Then you're not running a good tutor selection. One of the big advantages to Crop Rotation is that if you do it right, you free up slots in your deck for other things. I'm in too much of a pre sleep haze at the moment to remember the number we came up with before for a 61 card deck, but I think it was 35. 35 pieces of interaction in a list. You have 27. Crop Rotation is how you cheat those numbers into the list. Bojuka Bog hits Graveyards, Tower rebuys board presence (and that presence gets you cards), Karakas stops some stuff, Maze of Ith stops some stuff (and super charges your weak guys). That's how you achieve those numbers. At the same time though, Crop Rotation has the single most powerful interaction in Magic (and I will be happy to write pages on this if necessary). It efficiently turns mana sources into mana sinks and vice versa. It's honestly above Brainstorm in it's ability to convert resources. You absolutely need to build for Crop Rotation properly, and one aspect of doing that is running more than 22 (21) lands. It's hard to discipline but shoot for 24. My preferred build right now is actually 25 (but one is a Maze).
Not only does this give you so many more opening lines of play (which is key because all future turns branch from this) through more lands in hand, but you'll mulligan less and better, and even a flood can be mitigated with Crop Rotations.
Enough on mana for now. Next I want to talk about your creature selection.
Vets are a card that should be either 4 or 0 in G1. It's an integral part of ramping, and our fastest ramp card. The only reason to go under 4 is a very basic heavy meta, or a poor sideboard plan. In your case, I think it's a poor sideboard plan. You have no replacement ramp cards to replace Explorer with. When you pull them out, your entire deck slows down so you have less mana, but you're also bringing in more expensive cards. So now you're casting fewer cards with less mana. That's not how you win with a low to the ground deck. You win through velocity and advantage.
Basically, you went low but you didn't really embrace it. Your CMC of your deck is 80 (not counting SB), in order to really make the cards fly it needs to be around 65 with the appropriate mana sources. To give some brief math here: At 80 you're paying 1.3 mana per card. At 65 you're paying 1.1 per card.
So I'm going to play out some early turns here
80 T1: Land, DRS
65 T1: Land, DRS
80 T2: Tireless Tracker, Land, Clue
65 T2: Tireless Tracker, Land, Clue, Crop Rotation, Fetch, Clue, Crack Fetch, Clue, GSZ Arbor, Clue
In this situation, the higher mana deck got a value play, but the Tireless Tracker drew you 4 extra cards, and the mana acceleration to use 3 of them on the next turn (while holding up your DRS). Do that a bunch, and the opponent will lose to attrition.
Without repeating all the math we did before (it's in the old thread if you're interested... search my history for SE Fit), low to the ground creatures, lots of card advantage, and mana acceleration to go wide works well. It's the best way to overwhelm any removal plan in the format. Legacy is very removal light, if they can show you 5 pieces, that means your 6th creature wins the game. So keep the cards flowing to make that happen.
On Gitrog specifically. I'm coming around on it lately. Not ready to put it in my list, but ready to consider it again, I'm currently under my mana budget so it's possible. It's more robust than Titania, harder to kill, a better reward, resource conversion, and so on. But it's not GSZable on an early start. Even if you can get it out early, eating lands sets you back too much. And most times you can't get it early because early mana tops at 5 and the frog needs 6 for a GSZ.
Edit: I think I have a viable Wasteland like deck in mind, for those who are stuck on the card. I'll post it in the morning.
Edit 2: Wasteland deck has a flaw, I'm going to keep at the idea but if you want to play mana denial, Maverick is probably a better deck choice.
Last edited by Brael; 07-25-2017 at 05:01 AM.
Dude, reread this in the morning...
Land, DRS, land gives you 3 mana. You cannot cast Crop Rotation on your T2 after you've cast Tracker. And how often will you do it anyways? Daze is still a card. And if the point is that that's what your T3 might look like - in that particular case you could also just drop Siege Rhino T3 and call it a day. Sometimes I hate deckbuilding...
Oh whoops, I wasn't clear enough on the T1 and that got the sequence messed up. I was assuming a Tower opening in there. In which case you can make the sequence
T1: Bayou, DRS
T2: Tap Bayou, Crop Rotation for Tower, tap DRS, use Tower. That gives you 3 mana. From there you can Tireless Tracker followed by a land (hopefully a Fetch). That's good for 2 clues. A GSZ for Arbor at that point will make it 3 clues or a second Crop Rotation will make it 4 clues, 5 clues with both (but I would probably save the GSZ in the situation I have 2 Rotations). There's a slower alternative line in there where you GSZ for an Explorer and feed it to the Tower for 2 lands/clues but it requires Tracker surviving a turn.
As far as Daze goes, you'll have to evaluate the matchup. Different openings are good against different decks. This happens to be a powerful one against something like D&T or Lands. It's less good against Delver. Delver is where a traditional Veteran Explorer opening shines.
I don't like opening with Bayou. Getting your first land Wastelanded can be such a blowout.
Forest works equally well for my above scenario. But given I have a choice due to a fetchland I'll go Bayou first if my opening is DRS. Worst case scenario is my opponent Wastelands me, and now my DRS has fuel for two activations, I have a DRS on board, and they have nothing. That's a good enough turn 1 provided there's other lands in my hand. In that scenario for example if I could follow it up on T2 with land+activation for 2 mana to play a Dark Confidant, I think I'm already 80% to win that game.
The main reason to avoid Wasteland is that you need to ensure you get some mana development. Veteran Explorer can't do that, so you usually want to open on Explorer off of a Forest. DRS produces mana right away though which enables Bayou starts, and in a low curve build you come out ahead if the opponent trades lands like that. In fact, in that specific hand (Bayou, DRS, Bob, 1 more land, 3 other cards on the play) I would argue Bayou first is your best possible sequence because you actively want the opponent to set themselves back with a Wasteland. Plus, it disguises what you're playing. To help facilitate that, I actually switched my Windswept Heaths to Misty Rainforests in BG just for a little bit of value in representing another deck early against an unknown opponent.
The flipside is that they can be on the play, EoT Bolt your DRS, on their turn drop Delver, Wasteland your Bayou and have Daze in hand for whatever you might cast next turn.
I might be a little bit paranoid 'cause my regular sparring buddy can be a very lucky bastard and does this to me on a regular basis.
That's why I specified on the play. On the draw it's trickier. Regardless, my point is that it's all contextual. When to Rotate for a Tower, when to play a Forest, when to play a Bayou, etc... having the cards in your deck that give you the ability to make better contextual choices is one of the best things you can do to raise your overall win precentage. Having lots of ways to develop and accelerate your mana is key.
In your scenario, the optimal opening wouldn't even be Forest though. It would be Swamp into Therapy (likely for Force of Will) followed by a T2 land (anything green), to play Veteran Explorer with a mana up to get through Daze, and then flashback Therapy followed by a 3 drop (at that type of mana advantage you would rather just put them back a land and clear the Daze for a bigger threat on the following turn). Assuming those cards were in your hand of course.
Sarkahn Vol-raths Petshop
CREATURES
4 veteran explorer
2 deathrite shaman
2 siege-gang commander
1 kitchen finks
1 nissa, vastwood seer
1 Deranged Hermit
1 thragtusk
1 broodmate dragon
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Scavenging Ooze
SPELLS
4 punishing fire
4 green sun's zenith
2 abrupt decay
3 fatal push
4 cabal therapy
WALKERS
2 sarkhan vol
1 garruk relentless
1 Nissa, Vital Force
LANDS
4 wooded foothills
4 bloodstained mire
4 grove of the burnwillows
4 forest
3 swamp
2 mountain
1 taiga
1 badlands
1 Volrath's Stronghold
SB
1 Choke
1 Golgari Charm
1 Krosan Grip
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Slaughter Games
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
--------------
So, I wanna get into legacy and i thought nic fit was a good place to start. I do like Sarkhan Vol alot, the card is amazing with tokens. Thus, token generators (siege-gang and hermit) has been added. Huntmaster and broodmate both produce tokens ETB which can be hasted and pumped with Sarkhan. Relentless-G is added for the same reason, solid walker who produces dudes. The rest of the card choices are fairly standard I think.
The manabase at the current stage consists of what i own. I have not tried the deck much (only 2 real games), and it's a quite fun deck! It is very unclear how it fares versus more established decks tho. Anyway, do you have any ideas or tips? (the sideboard is kind of a mess)
Well, right off the bat I'd say cut the >=5 mana cards down to 1/2 max and cut the cute token stuff. Incorporate some sweepers and other CA cards/engines. Nic Fit wins by burying your opponent in cards and steadily applying pressure.
1. Punishing Fire is not well positioned right now. A lot of the decks PFire is good against right now (decks with walkers you can slowly grind down, or lots of cheap low-toughness threats) are either too fast for you to reliably use it against, or running Leovold.
2. A lot of your creatures fulfil the same role (flood the board, hope your opponent doesn't have an answer). You can probably cut a lot of these and just Zenith them when needed. In that situation, your best options are Huntmaster (wins games solo), Hermit/Thragtusk (lots of power + zenithable) and Nissa VS (attacks on a different angle, zenithable, hard to remove). If you want to make a ton of tokens and kill people very fast, Titania is also a solid choice - I've had some success with her recently, although she is allergic to Deathrites, Lightning Bolt is not super popular right now. Mayor of Avabruck is also a low-cmc choice who puts power on the table quickly.
3. If you're playing a ton of creatures with token making ETBs, you should possibly look into Recurring Nightmare.
4. You don't have much interaction. Combo decks will kill you faster than you kill them, so you have to have disruption. 4 Cabal Therapy is not enough. I'd recommend some number of Collective Brutality in the maindeck, with more in the sideboard. I personally run 2 Lost Legacy, 2 Thoughtseize, 3 Surgical, and some hatebears. Without white your hate options get worse, but Blood Moon would do plenty of work out of the sideboard.
5. As echelon mentioned you probably want to cut some of the big, expensive cards for more cheap pieces. I can't recommend Tireless Tracker enough. You also probably want an Eternal Witness as a zenith target. If you want to run a few bigger things that's fine, but try not to go overboard.
I'd go for something like this:
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Collective Brutality
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 To The Slaughter
2 Sylvan Library
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Garruk Relentless
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Phyrexian Tower
Sideboard:
3 Lost Legacy
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Blood Moon
2 Pithing Needle
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 To The Slaughter
1 Kolaghan's Command
More data for my Cloudpost/NicFit/Depths-hybrid (still the same maindeck as in this post: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...=1#post1015935 ) - i'm now at over 250 matches on xmage, overall 198-66. I wanted to make a similar list like last time how the matches went, try to keep it a little more organized in categories this time:
Bloood Moon: 10-3
(Dragon-Stompy: 5-0, BigRed: 4-3, Elementals: 1-0)
Burn: 6-4
Delver/Tempo: 24-7
(BUG: 2-1, Grixis: 6-2, RUG: 4-3, UR: 5-0, UWR: 4-0, Infect: 3-0, UB-DeathsShadow: 0-1)
Dredge: 7-2
(LED: 3-2, Manaless: 4-0)
Elves: 3-5
Lands: 8-3
Non-Blue Midrange: 30-7
(Aggro-Loam: 5-0, Deadguye Ale: 2-1, Death&Taxes: 6-2, Jund: 5-3, Maverick: 7-1, NicFit: 3-0, The Rock: 2-0)
Ux-Midrange/Control: 27-8
(4-Color-Leovold: 3-1, Grixis Control: 3-3, Miracles: 3-0, Shardless BUG: 4-0, Stoneblade: 9-4 (4-Color: 4-4, Esper: 3-0, UW: 2-0), Other/Brews: 5-0 (BUG: 1-0, RUG: 2-0, UB-Landstill: 1-0, Waterfalls: 1-0))
Pox: 15-3
Reanimator: 9-1
(BG: 1-0, BR: 5-0, UB: 2-1, Depths: 1-0)
Show&Tell: 5-0
(Eureka: 1-0, Hypergenesis: 2-0, Omnisneak: 2-0)
Storm: 14-1
(ANT: 9-1, TES: 5-0)
Other Combo: 19-10
(12-Post: 3-2 (G: 0-1, MUD: 1-0, RUG: 0-1, UG: 2-0), Aluren: 1-0, Belcher: 2-1, BUG-Natural Order: 2-0, Doomsday: 1-0, Enchantress: 3-0, Food Chain: 1-1, High Tide: 1-0, Leylines: 4-0, OopsAllSpells: 1-1, Turbo-Depths: 0-3, UW-Painter: 0-2)
Other Fair: 16-11
(Affinity: 1-2, Eldrazi: 1-1, Goblins: 2-1, Mardu-Mentor: 3-3, Parfait: 1-0, RG-Zoo: 1-0, Soldier-Stompy: 1-0, Grixis Daretti: 0-1, Tezzeret: 1-3, Turbo-Planeswalkers: 2-0, Zombies: 1-0).
(not listed: 7-1 against different sub-optimal decks that were at least semi-competitive)
Overall the results especially categorized like that show pretty clearly:
1. Among the Tier decks, there is no fair deck that's clearly problematic. The results against some decks could be better, but usually the results against very similar decks are so much better this will probably be just a matter of samplesize. I'm clearly beating Delver decks, Lands, Ux midrange decks and non-blue midrange decks with a very convincing winrate.
2. Blood Moon decks are not a big problem - BigRed might be difficult, but it's clearly far from being unwinnable (and that's the default for Cloudpost decks). This is important if you want to look at this data from the Cloudpost point of view, less surprising for NicFit decks.
3. Other more fringe fair strategies are more problematic (with the exception of Pox, that is very good and clearly overrepresented on xmage). This is not just a matter of samplesize, i think some of those matchups are bad for me. But i don't think they are relevant enough to do something about that.
4. My results against the most played combo decks are for the most part really good, Storm and Reanimator are some of my best matchups, Dredge too. The results against Show&Tell have to be a fluke, i'm still convinced any kind of Omnitell deck is one of my worst matchups. But apparently not unwinnable, i underestimated how often my opponents would just go for it without Omniscience (in case you're wondering: against a Cloudpost deck, you should almost never just play Show&Tell->Emrakul).
5. Elves is the big exception. The matchup is far from unwinnable, but clearly not as good as i would like. I have to watch that more, the samplesize is still small. One thing that divides Elves from every other matchup: The fair gameplan is so bad i actually board out all my Trackers. I think most games are only winnable with either Marit Lage or Emrakul, so i focus on one of these combo option and try to disrupt them otherwise.
6. Other combo decks are ok, but maybe not as good as the Tier 1-2 combo decks. I think this is fine, some of the more allin combo decks are hard to fight without FoW, and i don't see a reason to change cards because of this (and i think my "worst" other combo matchup with Turbo Depths is actually pretty good, i was just unlucky and he has an unusual list that lined up well against me).
I kept an eye on some of the possible weaknesses others pointed out in this thread:
Titania was still great. I see absolutely no reason to replace her - i think in the last 1-2 weeks i had just one game where a Gearhulk for example would have won the game while Titania lost it, and very many games i won with Titania that i would have lost with something like a Gearhulk.
On that note, the Cloudpost package is very important against the slower fair decks. If i would cut that, those matchups would get worse even if maybe some other matchups would get better. Right now, the matchups that could get better are probably even better than the matchups that would get worse, so removing that angle of attack from the deck would be very counterproductive.
Crop Rotation was still great, while Collective Brutality was good as a sideboard card against many decks, but imo not a strong enough replacement in the maindeck. This deck wants 4 Crop Rotations. It might even want more than 4 if that would be possible.
I am happy with just 2 Explorers: I never wanted to get an Explorer when i didn't have one left in the deck, i never want to crack more than 2 Explorers in one game (because i only play 5 basics), and topdecking an Explorer later in the game is usually pretty bad. While i have my most explosive openings with Explorer, between Mox Diamond and Cloudposts i have other ways to ramp and opening hands without Explorer can still be very good.
The lack of more maindeck removal doesn't seem to hurt the deck against Delver or other fair decks. Being proactive and having an actual combo kill myself with Marit Lage (against the fast decks like Delver) or Eldrazi (against the slower decks) more than makes up for that preboard, the way the games play out i can often just kill them instead of dealing with their threats if i can't keep up with my own fair cards. Since removal means more dead cards against combo decks and is often worse than threats against slower fair decks, i see no reason to change that.
Out of the sideboard, i tried a few things, this is my current sideboard and for now i'm happy with it:
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Pernicious Deed
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Collective Brutality
2x Lingering Souls
2x Nissa, Vital Force
All the sideboard cards have performed pretty well. Lingering Souls keeps overperforming, it's a very strong card in many matchups and it's completely unexpected out of this deck. Nissa has done a very good job, i lost only one game with her so far. Pernicious Deed out of the board has been great, i still think with 2x Toxic Deluge maindeck i'm better off. I board Deed in against every fair deck, but that's fine: Game 1 they don't know they have to be really aggressive, postboard they do and even slower control decks will be more aggressive, that makes sweepers better. And Toxic Deluge is just the more effective sweeper against the actual aggressive decks. The one Explosives i still like instead of for example another Deed, it's often good to have a split especially against things like Pithing Needle or Revoker (or Sanctum Prelate that shuts of Deed and Deluge).
I'll keep making notes and updating my results. I personally really like to have this data for myself to analyze better what problems the deck could have and find possible improvements. And i would love to see more data like that - i think it takes time to get enough data for specific matchups, but you can clearly see some trends in the data i posted.
This deck is really strong and i think i have found ways to deal with all the usual bad matchups for either 12-Post or NicFit without sacrificing the good matchups (maybe making them worse, but not by enough to make them actually bad). You need to practice with this deck because it requires some format knowledge and experience with the different matchups to find the right lines all the time, it's not a straightforward deck and games even against the same deck can play out very differently (and it's not very forgiving, i still lose a lot to my own mistakes - meaning the winrate could be even higher than the current 75%), but i think it can deal with pretty much everything - it seems to have almost no bad matchups and even in the few bad matchups it doesn't seem to be very far behind.
I might try something similar. It's still about a month before I can get any more Legacy in as there's no scene around here locally in the summer. I like a lot of what your list has done though. But, I think I disagree with the Mox Diamond route. I think I get why it's there but I would rather have the sacrifice fodder for Cabal Therapy and I think I would go either straight BG, or use blue over white. You aren't using any white removal so nothing is being given up there. I've been messing around with the idea of a BUG deck using Vet (4), DRS (2), Baleful Strix (4), Grim Flayer (3), Tireless Tracker (4), and Courser of Kruphix (2), Emrakul (1) as a creature suite alongside Crop Rotation and a Traverse the Ulvenwald to help tutor. I think I like Traverse over the Eye of Ugin plan. I had been tossing around some ideas to use Gaea's Cradle to power clue based card draw but I think the Locus route is even better.
Would be nice to see results with something similar like that. I'll still go over why i play the cards i play instead of the other options:
1. Mox Diamond: I wrote about that in my initial post, because it's probably the most unique thing i do. Without it, you will have some problems getting to enough colored mana sources. I'm at 14/11/11 for G/B/W untapped sources, i don't really want to go lower, it's really hard to find lands to replace with more colored lands and you really don't want to play even more lands either - many actual 12-Post decks play something like just 10 green sources, but that can't work for this hybrid. And you lose some of your most explosive starts without the Mox. The combination of Mox and Explorer especially can lead to some very explosive starts. (The most extreme examples are the possible Turn 2 kill with a Turn 1 Marit Lage, also i played a Turn 2 Primeval Titan at least once, both involve also a Tower, but just a simple thing i often do is playing Turn 1 Explorer + Therapy and then a Library as follow up.) And i still think the fast mana with Mox Diamond gives me some much needed speed against combo decks.
But you can try it without the Mox, just keep the option in mind.
2. White cards: I have given my reasons why i want to play at least 1 Knight of the Reliquary. Other than that, the white cards are the maindeck Gaddock Teeg and the 2 Ethersworn Canonists in the sideboard. I think those cards are much stronger combohate than for example additional discard, and they are the most important reason why my Storm matchup is so good. The Lingering Souls in the board are certainly replaceable, they just overperformed for me so far and since i don't plan to cut the white there is no reason to get rid of that.
I think it's possible to play without the white splash, but you have to watch especially the Storm matchup, and losing the Knight could hurt (mostly against Delver).
I played 1 DRS in the past, eventually cut it. Without Mox Diamonds you will need it for sure. I was messing around with Baleful Strix in a 4-color version of this, if the manabase can support it the card should be really good. My manabase couldn't support it.
Never tried Grim Flayer. A 2nd Courser is good, i just have no room for that.
Traverse needs Delirium (one more argument for Mox Diamond?), to set that up could be difficult. On that note, i was messing around with Grapple with the Past in some earlier builds. Cut it eventually, but if you go for Delirium it might be playable.
The big advantage with the Eye of Ugin plan: The decks where you want the Cloudpost package with Emrakul the most (Ux control decks) are usually light on Wastelands (often they don't play any), meaning they can't really interact with Eye of Ugin - if you have enough mana and Eye of Ugin they can have any number of counterspells, they still lose. But they can counter Traverse. And sometimes those decks can deal with one Emrakul, Terminus is still a card and in the lategame it's also possible they can take one hit and then get rid of it, with Eye of Ugin it will just come back.
I was thinking Grim Flayer because it's similar to Dark Confidant but without the life hit Eldrazi give. It also plays well into Delirium for another tutor. Courser+Strix is probably enough of an enabler (artifact and enchantment)
My initial plan right now is one of each Emrakul. That gives ~9 and 15 mana options. A 13/13 with a Mindslaver effect and protection from most of the removal in the format could very well address the issue of someone coming back from a single big Emrakul hit while at other times you just want to Annihilator 6 someone.The big advantage with the Eye of Ugin plan: The decks where you want the Cloudpost package with Emrakul the most (Ux control decks) are usually light on Wastelands (often they don't play any), meaning they can't really interact with Eye of Ugin - if you have enough mana and Eye of Ugin they can have any number of counterspells, they still lose. But they can counter Traverse. And sometimes those decks can deal with one Emrakul, Terminus is still a card and in the lategame it's also possible they can take one hit and then get rid of it, with Eye of Ugin it will just come back.
I do like that Traverse grabs any part of either win condition. It gets an Eldrazi or it gets Marit Lage. I see what you're saying about colored mana issues though, that may force the deck into BG in my case, I'm just not a fan of Mox Diamond here (though I hadn't considered the play+sacrifice line to enable delirium). Either way, your build is something I'm strongly considering. For what it's worth, you've got more games than me but our matchup percentages seem very similar.
Have you considered a 1/1 Thespian's Stage/Vesuva split? Stage combos with Dark Depths but Vesuva is stronger with Locus lands.
I played 1/1 in my older builds, eventually i cut the Vesuva to make room for enough colored sources. The 2nd Stage was a suggestion by another 12-Post player who often watches my games, because i was using the Depths combo much more often than he did in his build. It replaced the 4th Glimmerpost, and i think i'm happy with that change (it has definitely cost me 1 or 2 games not to have 4 Glimmerposts, but i think i won more games because of the 2nd Stage). So going back on that would actually mean replacing a Glimmerpost with a Vesuva, and i think the last Glimmerpost is the stronger card for the deck if i want to make the Locus aspect stronger.
I think the drawbacks of Vesuva (comes into play tapped, can only copy what you already have in play and not be reset like a Stage) make Stage so much better in this deck that i prefer the 2nd Stage over the 1st Vesuva - compared to regular 12-post decks, we will more often than them not have a Cloudpost to copy (they play cards like Expedition Map). If i could fit a Vesuva into the manabase, i would still play it, it's probably the next best utility land for the deck.
Utility lands i have tested and i'm currently not playing, ordered by how likely i am to try them again: Vesuva, Volrath's Stronghold, Glacial Chasm, Maze of Ith, Ghost Quarter, Tabernacle, Wasteland, Sea Gate Wreckage, Horizon Canopy. (Stronghold is still good like in other NicFit decks, just probably not needed and there is no room. Glacial Chasm would be a way to deal with Elves - if that matchup doesn't get better and becomes more popular again, i have to reconsider it as an option. Maze was always ok, but never more. Ghost Quarter is an option if i would somehow get Ramunap Excavator into the list. Everything else is just bad.)
I think that I would play a second Tower over the first Stronghold, but I'm also planning on Delirium for now. I like the idea of using Towers to kill Courser/Strix as an enabler. Plus, I want to max out on the Crop Rotation starts.
@Leshrac82: You ever play paper Magic at, say, a local game store?
Or, you know, Verdurous Gearhulk. It's a nice 5 mana GSZ'able 8/8 trample dude that only dies to StP. Simple and clean. It's pretty much a 1 mana cheaper Broodmate Dragon.
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