[Primer] Nic Fit

[rubblekill]

@ Brael @ Rubblekill:

I truly think that any pure BG build is asking for inevitability and recursion engine.

1) The Two Towers are some sort of inevitability.
2) Thrun is some sort of inevitability
3) Since you are playing a bunch of utility lands and some crop rotation, I suggest you add one wasteland or ghost quarter (tests should tell which is better @ debate STP vs Path) in the mix with one LftL.
4) Grave Titan is one reason to play GB...
5) At last, I recommend adding a pair or one entomb.

Few tips:
- Entomb can get you a therapy
- Therapy + entomb + dryad is another mean to apply pressure against combo deck.
- Entomb will usually fetch for LftL (but you can entomb for any of your utility land when you have LftL)

I wouldn't dismiss Ooze in a BG build.

Your lists are lacking LotV:
If Terminus + Jace are Miracle's sweetest spot, Deed + Lili is our...

Ghost quarter and entomb eh? Very interesting..but I feel that the spots for entomb are currently covered by crop rotation, I don't know if both are possible without diluting the deck and going to durdle town.
And I still want to have BB on turn 2 reliably for hymn, one more colourless land could be problematic.

I don't like thrun usually, but since we can reach 2t so early and easily here, the uncounterability of thrun is so strong against miracles. You just recast him and there is nothing they can do.
If they wrath or CJ, you 2t. This is the deck for thrun imo.

Grave Titan is the strongest 6drop period, but with this attention to lands I feel like I want to play rampaging baloths. I mean it's still a 6/6 for 6 but trample is better than DT and we can GSZ for him; plus instant speed beasts is nothing to scoff at and an additional synergy with rotation.

@ooze. His problem is that I don't count him as gy hate (way too slow and dies to PF unless we have a proper setup going on with mana open and dudes in the yard - too many planets have to align here). We have a low number of dudes, even less we are going to have in the gy.
Ooze is perfect for decks like elves which have always green mana available and are going to have a lot of dead dudes to eat.

[Chatto]

Soooo... Just curious, what's the opinion of you guys about my list (posted directly under Brael's list)?

[Ralf]

Ghost quarter and entomb eh? Very interesting..but I feel that the spots for entomb are currently covered by crop rotation, I don't know if both are possible without diluting the deck and going to durdle town.

Not really diluting.
I think DRS has a *poor* synergy in a Deed deck. If you are playing 2, then you've got your Wasteland (or GQ) + LftL slots.

Those cards will give you inevitability against a lot of decks like the old "Pernicious BUG" time of glory.

Entomb is just a very cheap tutor that will help you assemble a combo. I'm not advocating for a playset, but one or two should do the trick (actually it is a huge complement to 1 or 2 crop rotation).

[Echelon]

A deck with 4 Crop Rotations and 4 Entombs sounds like crazy fun. But at that point we're not talking about Nic Fit anymore.

[Ralf]

I shall play Nic Fit next tourny (March most likely for EW or else).


***Off Topic***

I've been away from this archetype too long.

Anyway, I know this is not the right thread for it but since we are all "apprentice deck builders", I had some success with a homebrew build last weeks.

I shall open a thread in the next weeks to come, but if anyone is interested, feel free to PM me.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=14658&d=288040&f=LE

***End***

I'll post a new Fit build in the next few days.

[gth842s]

Ghost quarter and entomb eh? Very interesting..but I feel that the spots for entomb are currently covered by crop rotation, I don't know if both are possible without diluting the deck and going to durdle town.
And I still want to have BB on turn 2 reliably for hymn, one more colourless land could be problematic.

I don't like thrun usually, but since we can reach 2t so early and easily here, the uncounterability of thrun is so strong against miracles. You just recast him and there is nothing they can do.
If they wrath or CJ, you 2t. This is the deck for thrun imo.

Grave Titan is the strongest 6drop period, but with this attention to lands I feel like I want to play rampaging baloths. I mean it's still a 6/6 for 6 but trample is better than DT and we can GSZ for him; plus instant speed beasts is nothing to scoff at and an additional synergy with rotation.
.

1. Hymn is SO good in a straight GB list if you can turn the corner quickly (Tracker or Dark Depths)

2. Thrun isn't as strong as he appears against Miracles. You can't assume you'll have two towers out when you cast Thrun, so he's more likely than not to eat a Terminus. And if you have two towers out against Miracles, why aren't you winning with any old threat anyway? I'd only play the last troll in a Jund / Shardless / Deathblade heavy meta or in a list with Stoneforge.

3. Grave Titan = 10 power across 3 bodies when you cast him, 14 power across 5 bodies when you attack. Baloths is theoretically more, but you have to have other things - lands you're sandbagging, and a win-con should never be situational unless it's a game-ending combo. Titan seems like the superior option.

[rubblekill]

1. Hymn is SO good in a straight GB list if you can turn the corner quickly (Tracker or Dark Depths)

2. Thrun isn't as strong as he appears against Miracles. You can't assume you'll have two towers out when you cast Thrun, so he's more likely than not to eat a Terminus. And if you have two towers out against Miracles, why aren't you winning with any old threat anyway? I'd only play the last troll in a Jund / Shardless / Deathblade heavy meta or in a list with Stoneforge.

3. Grave Titan = 10 power across 3 bodies when you cast him, 14 power across 5 bodies when you attack. Baloths is theoretically more, but you have to have other things - lands you're sandbagging, and a win-con should never be situational unless it's a game-ending combo. Titan seems like the superior option.

The point was that with 3 crop rotations I have a decent shot at assembling 2t AND doing instant speed land shenanigans for baloth.
I still have to test it, but theoretically it works

Don't forget that in a non cantrip deck it is not that easy to find a non tutorable card like grave Titan. Baloth can be tutored for

[DNSolver]

2. Thrun isn't as strong as he appears against Miracles. You can't assume you'll have two towers out when you cast Thrun, so he's more likely than not to eat a Terminus. And if you have two towers out against Miracles, why aren't you winning with any old threat anyway? I'd only play the last troll in a Jund / Shardless / Deathblade heavy meta or in a list with Stoneforge.

Karakas as a tutor target works better with Thrun here.

[rubblekill]

Karakas as a tutor target works better with Thrun here.

Nice point!

About prime time/baloth/grave Titan: I don't really know if a 6 drop is necessary here, considering you said you had no problems without them. But I'll try them anyways

[Brael]

The ability to obtain an early vet trigger (with ct) into fetching two swamps for casting hymn the same turn is devastating against everything non reanimating griselbrand. This is one of the main attractions of the deck, it makes the deck do very nasty unfair thing against unfair decks.

It's definitely strong but I don't want to rely on a 3 card combo I need in my opening hand. If I'm going to do that, I would rather build to maximize T2 Nissa's, that's even more game breaking.

@
I truly think that any pure BG build is asking for inevitability and recursion engine.

1) The Two Towers are some sort of inevitability.
2) Thrun is some sort of inevitability
3) Since you are playing a bunch of utility lands and some crop rotation, I suggest you add one wasteland or ghost quarter (tests should tell which is better @ debate STP vs Path) in the mix with one LftL.
4) Grave Titan is one reason to play GB...
5) At last, I recommend adding a pair or one entomb.

Two towers are good, and Crop Rotation makes it happen but I run 1 Tower, 1 Stronghold, 2 Rotation. DNS ran 3 Rotation. You're still trying to assemble 2 cards from a pool of 5 in the deck. It happens at times but I don't think it's plan A. You're probably going to laugh at this but the creature I find myself using Stronghold on most often is Veteran Explorer.

Thrun is inevitability in a sense. As a 4/4 he loses to things like Angler, trades with Batterskull, is horrid against Mirran Crusader, and has a few other issues too. Thrun is good from time to time, I'm just not seeing it in the direction I'm going. I want cards that either provide more cards, or hit the opponent really hard. Thrun does neither.

When it comes to Wasteland, the manabase can't support it, note that it's my argument against a MB Karakas too. I'm running an additional land already (basically, I treat Maze of Ith as a spell slot). I just don't see the value in it considering my opponent benefits off of Vet too.

Grave Titan can't be GSZ'ed. If we're talking non GSZ threats, Nissa hits as hard as Grave Titan, has additional utility, and costs 1 mana less.

I don't have the room for Entombs. That goes double if I'm also adding in LFTL's, which I don't want to do because Dredge+1 of's isn't where I want to be.

Your lists are lacking LotV:
If Terminus + Jace are Miracle's sweetest spot, Deed + Lili is our...

On this part specifically. I don't have the slots. My cards are all generally worth 2 of my opponents cards too. I don't see myself wanting to discard them. Besides, I would argue Nissa+Deed is our sweet spot.

[rubblekill]

What 3 card combo are you talking about? That is a bonus interaction, hymn is a 1 card combo: you use one card, they discard 2 at random.
It's a very cheap and powerful card alone, and is the best card to have countered by the opponent.
No one will say that Nissa is a weak card, but I wonder what you are gonna do with her on turn 2 against storm..

[Brael]

Hymn is one card, but the sequence Vet, Therapy, Hymn to make it as powerful as you're wanting (or even to cast it in the first place because BB is hard) needs 3 cards.

[rubblekill]

I'm not wanting anything, that interaction is strong but it's not like it is the only reason to play the card. Hymn is very strong alone, even more so when we play 4 CT already..

[Brael]

Hymn is also BB and requires a very difference sequence in developing your mana from everything else in the deck.

[gth842s]

Hymn is also BB and requires a very difference sequence in developing your mana from everything else in the deck.

It's not so hard to have BB for the matchups where you actually care about having hymn. It's a subpar card against value.dec but can wreck storm, show and tell, or some other bizarre combo. Those are the decks least likely to wasteland you anyway, and that's before you factor in crop rotation or phyrexian tower. Hymn is for sure doable in a GB list.

[Brael]

It's not so hard to have BB for the matchups where you actually care about having hymn.

That depends on your manabase. 5 Forests, a Dryad Arbor, 2 colorless lands, and a Karakas/Maze (or both) means you're down to 13 sources of black.

Running Hymn means substatnially changing the rest of your deck.

[gth842s]

That depends on your manabase. 5 Forests, a Dryad Arbor, 2 colorless lands, and a Karakas/Maze (or both) means you're down to 13 sources of black.

Running Hymn means substatnially changing the rest of your deck.

I didn't say YOU had to run hymn, just that it's a legitimate option in straight GB Nic Fit. It's not like everyone is running 5 nonbasics, and most of us are running Veteran Explorers + Cabal Therapy :)

[Purple Blood]

I don't have the room for Entombs. That goes double if I'm also adding in LFTL's, which I don't want to do because Dredge+1 of's isn't where I want to be.

That's true but it works pretty damn well with top. Spin top. If you see junk flip and dredge. I've still been testing it with a Gitrog build that I posted a month or two ago. Just one Loam Dredge into three lands with a Gitrog on the board has net me up to 7 cards (i.e. Dredge three lands draw three, cast loam, cycle two lands for four more cards). That alone is enough to win the game on the spot 99% of the time. The meta I play in is almost all fair decks so it hasn't done me wrong yet. Pretty much every player is on either some BUG variant, Miracles, or a chalice deck. Save for one guy who is usually on Alluren (lost legacy is really nice here) and another dude on Bant 12-Post with Show and Tell which I have never been able to take a game against; the most hopeless matchup IMO because at least against reanimator I have Edict but that doesn't do much against Eldrazi and Karakas.

When I'm up against that I'm really just spending the early game striping their hand, wiping the board with deed, decaying their stuff, and getting a planeswalker online. I've been testing Nissa VF, Liliana Vess, Ob Nixis Reignited, and Garruk, Primal Hunter. I'm honestly surprised to see no discussion on the latter three. All three of them are super powerful in this deck. Vampiric Tutor has saved the day on numerous occasions and -3 draw 6 is pretty badass. I'm probably a bit bias because there's a certain degree of fun having multiple planeswalkers on the board. When you have access to vampiric tutor and regrowth at the same time it feels impossible to lose against a fair deck.

LftL seems like a super card for me especially with a couple cycle lands. FWIW, I can say at least my opponents seem to fear it because it's the first card to exile from a DRS activation. And for a poor bastard like myself without Bayous it allows me to run Gemstone Mine and keep a relatively stable mana base.

On this part specifically. I don't have the slots. My cards are all generally worth 2 of my opponents cards too. I don't see myself wanting to discard them. Besides, I would argue Nissa+Deed is our sweet spot.

I agree here. Deed along side Nissa is pretty boss. The only thing I love more is having Deed/EW/Meren. I've had players scoop to that on multiple occasions because there's so many decks that have no way to interact with an endless deed recursion.

---

The only thing I wish I could pull off right now is a faster victory. Maybe it's just the conservative style/build I play with but it always seems like every match against Miracles and BUG comes down to who wins game one as game two never finishes.

[lavafrogg]

I will say as someone who always reads this thread and has played against a lot of nic fit: builds with Deed are much better than builds without.

Being able to ramp everyone and then clear whatever they dropped has to be strongest line of play. Whatever game ended you choose after that is pretty irrelevant.

[Chatto]

A deck with 4 Crop Rotations and 4 Entombs sounds like crazy fun. But at that point we're not talking about Nic Fit anymore.

I'm by no means an expert (being away from this deck for years), but I agree with this.

Not really subtle, but how about: ramp into Deed, clear the board, and bash your opponent's head in.