[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

[Cire_dk]

Could someone please post a link to the Match featuring Kevin playing scapewish?

[TheArchitect]

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/354563695

Right around 8:35

[Amazingxkcd]

Well played, Arianrhod!

I just simply muted the games that you were on since ari only knows like the standard t1 decks and storm, and prosak had no clue about evolution of nic fit decks at all.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Congrats Arianrhod on Top 16!

[vilnico]

Congrats Arianrhod !! :)

[Siiig]

Big Grats Kevin!

Hoping you do a report, can't wait to see how everything went down!

[Alexeezay]

Congrats on the finish :) Let me know how good Volrath's Stronghold and Blitz Hellion have been for you.

[Zombie]

Watching G2 vs. Nivmagus atm. This recovery is just plain cruel.

[slikwilly]

Good Luck to the Nic-Fitters who plays on Grand Prix Denver :cool:

I chickened out in the main and wanted a better matchup against combo so I ran a FoW deck. End result: 3-0 vs combo and 0-5 vs the rest of the field. Whoops. So Sunday in the Legacy Redux I said "Screw it, I like playing Nic Fit more, so I am playing Nic Fit." And then proceeded to face 5 combo decks in 7 rounds. Sigh. Shoulda just stuck w/ Nic Fit and been done w/ it on Saturday.

I know there was at least one deck sporting red in the main event as it lost to my friend with Show & Tell in their win & in round. I heard of another w/ red but didn't get a good enough description to determine if it was the same guy or not. I didn't see any other Nic Fit there. I did manage to draw a nice crowd on Sunday in a match against Miracles when I got him under a Yosei lock though. That was probably the highlight for me. The low light would be the two games against Belcher that I lost to an LED off the cantrip on Gitaxian Probe when in both cases if I get an untap I am going to win.


Profusion/arena is overly redundant as all hell, and I have been fairly impressed with profusion. Its a lot easier to get rolling than I was expecting.

I ran Recycle in place of Arena for the first time yesterday. Only got it out once, but when I did, it was awesome. Easily going through 3-4 cards per turn.


Got 14th. Good for 100.

So after drowning my sorrows last night, I checked the SCG results and see a Nic Fit list at 14th! I was all excited and then I see the name to which all I could say was, "Why am I not surprised?" Nice job, glad you're on Nic Fits side :)

Back to Yosei for a moment: anyone ever thought about Yosei + Phantasmal Image (or any other clone for that matter). Seems sick. Unfortunately, the mana requirements also make it a non-starter. Could work w/ Cocopuffs though, since then you're not in a fourth color (and -10 to them and +10 to you seems rather significant).

[nottz]

When I have tried playing 4-colour lists the mana issues haven't really been a problem for me. Yosei seems pretty sick with image and I think it deserves some thought. I may brew up a list and see how it works. I'm not sure what the rest of the deck would be though? Any other cool interactions to get in a list with yosei and image?

[kabards]

by the way here's my updated list of Punishing Nic-Fit that i used last January 6, 2013.

Punishing Nic-Fit

Creatures : 13

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Thragtusk
1 Eternal Witness
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Acidic Slime

Spells / Artifact / Enchantment / Planeswalker : 25

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Punishing Fire
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands : 22

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

Sideboard :

3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Slaughter Games
2 Extirpate
2 Thoughtseize
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Damnation
1 Nether Void <---- did'nt used this in any match :laugh:

[litenkatt]

I'm actually going to try out punishing version of nic fit as I just aquired my taiga and badlands.

How good is Broodmate Dragon?
Isn't Punishing Fire enough to kill Planeswalkers? Is pulse really needed?
Why not play Garruk Relentless main? I love that planeswalker rly. He's cheap, he puts out beasts, he kills stuff and can tutor for creatures and ofc good synergy with deed since he's a pw

[Zombie]

Plus he annoys Miracles. Your deck needs more Garruk Relentless. If it plays 4, it still needs more.

[kabards]

I'm actually going to try out punishing version of nic fit as I just aquired my taiga and badlands.

How good is Broodmate Dragon?
Isn't Punishing Fire enough to kill Planeswalkers? Is pulse really needed?
Why not play Garruk Relentless main? I love that planeswalker rly. He's cheap, he puts out beasts, he kills stuff and can tutor for creatures and ofc good synergy with deed since he's a pw

Broodmate can win you fast during mid game if you already enough lands, Pulse brings down planeswalkers and other stuffs. Punishing Fire can also kill planeswalkers you just only need a Burnwillows in play before you can do that. About Relentless mainboard i've already done that im just experimenting my new build if this build will work, later i would try Garruk Primal Hunter if he's also good like Relentless :laugh:

[Greenpoe]

Broodmate can win you fast during mid game if you already enough lands, Pulse brings down planeswalkers and other stuffs. Punishing Fire can also kill planeswalkers you just only need a Burnwillows in play before you can do that. About Relentless mainboard i've already done that im just experimenting my new build if this build will work, later i would try Garruk Primal Hunter if he's also good like Relentless :laugh:

Primal Hunter is really nuts, it's just that GGG & costing 5 is a tad prohibitive. In straight GB, that's where Primal Hunter can really shine I'd say. Wildspeaker shouldn't be dismissed either - he ramps in a ramp deck and makes 3/3's, both of which are pretty sweet. If you have a decent number of creatures out, Wildspeaker can +1 then ultimate, which is pretty sweet to seal away games quicker.

[TerribleTim68]

Ok, still aquiring stuff for this list. But here's where I am ATM -

Creatures - 19
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
2 Acadamy Rector
1 Fierce Empath
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Sun Titan
1 Yosei, The Morning Star
1 Baneslayer Angel
Spells - 20
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Diabolic Intent
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Vindicate
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Profusion
1 Recurring Nightmare
Lands - 22
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Phyrexian Tower
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Scrubland
4 Bayou
2 Llanowar Wastes
5 Fetchlands

Total = 61 cards

I think I'm gonna stay on the 61 cards, just a personal feel thing.

I don't know if I like the two Deathrite Shamans, in goldfishing they seem less than stellar. I'm considering swapping them for another Academy Rector and one more Maelstrom Pulse or Vindicate. Maybe that'll change when facing someone, input?

Should I find room for a couple Abrupt Decay instead (I could swap the Shaman for them)? Or just stick 'em in the SB?

I find myself quickly stripping the deck of lands between Veteran Explorers, Sakura-Tribe Elders and Primeval Titan. Hopefully that's a good thing, but mid-late game it seems like they turn into dead cards, aside from Prime-Time smashing face of course. I know I end up in these situations where I don't want to cast any more Veteran Explorers because they don't benefit me any more, or the only creature I have in the yard is Veteran Explorer and I have this psudo-dead Recurring Nightmare since the Veteran Explorer isn't helping me any more. Is this not really an issue, should I just be winning by then, thoughts?

[lambert101]

Hi all! After Kevin did so well with ScapeWish I decided to brew my own version. It is almost a carbon copy of Kevin's with the differences coming in the manabase and the addition of the 61st card. I used TheArchitect's suggestion of putting fetchlands into the deck.

Main:
1 Eternal Witness
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Primeval Titan
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Wood Elves

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Scapeshift

3 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Swamp
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Phyrexian Tower


Sideboard: (Kevin's board, have been thinking about replacing thoughtseize with life from the loam)

Fetch's seem good so far in testing. Only question is would a Volrath's Stronghold be better than 4th fetchland? I know I am cutting low on mountains, but I still have 10 for Valakut. Just want to start some conversation on any innovations for the deck.

[Oiolosse]

@Terribletim --

1. Even though you are in white I would still go Abrupt decay over Vindicate.
2. I take it you don't own Moat, what about humility.
3. Not sharing your sideboard is silly. It's 20% of your deck! Esp. since you are a Rector Deck, need some bullets in the board.
4. DRS has a place in Nic Fit, as a one of. We use 4 GSZ and have recursion in case he's deed'ed. I would not cut completely though, at the very least he or ooze should be in your sideboard.

[slikwilly]

I don't know if I like the two Deathrite Shamans, in goldfishing they seem less than stellar. I'm considering swapping them for another Academy Rector and one more Maelstrom Pulse or Vindicate. Maybe that'll change when facing someone, input?

Should I find room for a couple Abrupt Decay instead (I could swap the Shaman for them)? Or just stick 'em in the SB?

I tried Shaman a bit splitting it w/ Tribe Elder. I didn't like it. It is unreliable as ramp and dies too easily to Deed making it not so great when you need something with reach to grind out games.

My suggestion: -2 Shaman, -1 Vindicate, +1 Rector, +2 Abrupt Decay (assuming you like loads of spot removal).


I find myself quickly stripping the deck of lands between Veteran Explorers, Sakura-Tribe Elders and Primeval Titan. Hopefully that's a good thing, but mid-late game it seems like they turn into dead cards, aside from Prime-Time smashing face of course. I know I end up in these situations where I don't want to cast any more Veteran Explorers because they don't benefit me any more, or the only creature I have in the yard is Veteran Explorer and I have this psudo-dead Recurring Nightmare since the Veteran Explorer isn't helping me any more. Is this not really an issue, should I just be winning by then, thoughts?

I've had this problem myself. It's why Arianrhod recommends 2 Baneslayers and why I run Eladamri's Call (though I note you're running a 4th GSZ which provides a similar effect). This is also were Recycle really shined for me. Draw an Explorer you don't really want? So what, play it and draw something better.

It definitely feels better to be getting value on both creatures you're sacrificing for a Nightmare loop, but Titans/Yosei/Witness give you lots of value on their own. No need to feel bad about only kicking ass with one half of the loop. Killing an Explorer is also a good way to get a shuffle for your tops even if you don't need / fail to find on the lands.

And not to start this fight again but I'll point it out: 60 cards = better odds of getting the draw you want.

[TerribleTim68]

@Terribletim --

1. Even though you are in white I would still go Abrupt decay over Vindicate.
. . .
I'm curious why. Vindicate hits Jace, the Mind Sculptor or the random troublesome land such as Maze of Ith, both of which I run into a fair amount.

. . .
2. I take it you don't own Moat, what about humility.
. . .
I do not own Moat, and it's out of my reach. I can try to come up with a Humility, just don't have one at the moment. I think the reason I passed on it was because I needed my creatures to NOT be 1/1s. :wink:

. . .
3. Not sharing your sideboard is silly. It's 20% of your deck! Esp. since you are a Rector Deck, need some bullets in the board.
. . .
Fair enough. Mostly because I haven't built one yet.

. . .
4. DRS has a place in Nic Fit, as a one of. We use 4 GSZ and have recursion in case he's deed'ed. I would not cut completely though, at the very least he or ooze should be in your sideboard.
I was planning on a singleton Scavenging Ooze in the board. I only own the one and it was tough enough to aquire.

[TheArchitect]

@Lambert: How has 4 fetches been? I havent tried using more than 3. You know what I think about Volraths stonghold. Ive thought about LFtL, but I dont think it is worth it. Maybe if we had wastelands or manlands or something, but I dont think it is needed. Also, it got worse with DRS. And idk about you, but thoughtsieze is probably my most wished for target besides scapewish. Id cut a red blast or GY hate card or slaughter games before I cut thoughtsieze.


@Moat vs Humilty: those cards do totally different things. Moat straight up wins some match ups like goblins, or can stall jund/junk/mav for a long time. Humility is basically only useful against Emrakul/griselbrand decks. You dont want it against KotR or delver decks, your creatures are better than theirs, and they play more creatures than you. Moat is really really good, I didnt have it for a little while, and my deck sucked cause of it. After some discussion and testing I found the next best thing this probably dueling grounds (althoughv decay can hit that now so idk anymore).



Also, something I have been thinking about but havent really delved too deep into: can we do better than deed? Deeds ability to shit on the format is what brought me to this archtype, but lately it seems a bit lack luster. I think decay is the reason for this. Decay hits it if we are at 3-5 mana and have to cast deed and pass. We have decay ourselves now to deal with equipments and sylvan libraries and other non-creature game changers deed used to be needed for.

What if instead of 3 deeds, and the 2-3 decays a lot of people have been running, we use 2-3 damnations, 2-3 decays, for basically any version of nic fit. Rector would still want a deed for sure, but I think this might be worth trying. Im going to test it out, but if anyone beats me to it let me know how it feels. I think this might greatly improve our GBx matchups, MAYBE at the cost of weakening our UWx matchups.

[Tao]

I played two more Trials with the Punishing list. In the first I went 1-1 after beating Belcher and then losing to Jund. The second Trial I beat Jund and Loam and then was in a winning position against Jund (1-0 up, empty board with Top and a lot of Mana on my side and I was about to start Recurring Nightmare) when my Internet decided to give up so I was out, overall another 4-1 which puts the list at 7-1 at Magic League, though my opponents did make a couple of mistakes that you can't expect in a real tournament.


by the way here's my updated list of Punishing Nic-Fit that i used last January 6, 2013.

Punishing Nic-Fit

*list*



I think you run too much removal and not enough win conditions in your list. I don't like Scavenging Oozes in a format where Abrupt Decay is so popular. It is very easy to become completely immune to a card that you are very likely going to face. In most games the opponents reaction will be "Finally he plays something for this Abrupt Decay/Swords to Plowshares that has been sitting dead in my hand the entire game" when you play Scavenging Ooze. I had enough Wolf and Beast tokens decayed to know better than to run Ooze MD.

In comparison I run 2 additional Thragtusks, 2 Nightmares, an additional Witness, and a Primeval Titan and I rarely felt it was too much. Even decks like Jund, Maverick or aggressive BUG decks can often handle a surprising amount of stuff. Titan wins games against Control decks. They can usually handle a single Broodmate without much problem in G1 and you will have to find another way to win. But if you get additional Groves they will be the ones who have to come up with something special that they usually won't have in G1.




Also, something I have been thinking about but havent really delved too deep into: can we do better than deed? Deeds ability to shit on the format is what brought me to this archtype, but lately it seems a bit lack luster. I think decay is the reason for this. Decay hits it if we are at 3-5 mana and have to cast deed and pass. We have decay ourselves now to deal with equipments and sylvan libraries and other non-creature game changers deed used to be needed for.

What if instead of 3 deeds, and the 2-3 decays a lot of people have been running, we use 2-3 damnations, 2-3 decays, for basically any version of nic fit. Rector would still want a deed for sure, but I think this might be worth trying. Im going to test it out, but if anyone beats me to it let me know how it feels. I think this might greatly improve our GBx matchups, MAYBE at the cost of weakening our UWx matchups.

I like a couple of Damntions but I would still not advocate to cut Deed. A split between the two is the best. Damnation is faster, doesn't die to Stifle or to Pridemage/Decay when you don't have enough mana to use it the same turn and it gets Tombstalkers. But Deed is still a little bit better I think. It doesn't kill your own Thragtusks/Huntmaster and Titans which is quite often relevant. It also wipes the board EoT so you can be the first to commit to the board again. It gets those Vials, Sylvan Libraries and Equipments in one sweep and thus saves your Decays for creatures. Being one turn faster with easier Mana against Empty the Warrens tokens can also matter. And last but not least Deed is still MvP against random decks like Enchantress, Staxx, Dredge. Both have their advantages so a split is the correct answer.

[Qweerios]

I tied for 2nd place at a local event using the following list:


Creatures (17)
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Eternal Witness
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Fierce Empath
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sun Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Angel of Despair

Spells (21)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Vindicate

3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Pernicious Deed

Lands (22)
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains

Sideboard (15)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Memoricide
2 Extirpate
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse


0-2 vs. Rock (Flooded both games after a mull to 6)
2-1 vs. DnT (lost a match to 2X Leonin Arbiter + Ghost Quarters)
2-1 vs. UR Talrand Control
2-0 vs. BUG Control

I spent a lot of time thinking about Blossoms vs. Sakura/Ranger and finally opted for Blossoms because it is a great blocker pre-Deed and its ability is good all game long. Fun fact: I sided the same way in all four of my matches (-2 TS, -1 Teeg, +2 Decay, +1 Pulse). Also, I play 4 Deeds in nearly all of my Nic Fit decks and I wouldn't change that any time soon, especialy with Sun Titan availlable.

[Arianrhod]

I'm still working on my report from Columbus -- it should be up later today, so check back around 10am-12am EST for that.

Just wanted to note that after my experiences in the Legacy Challenge Saturday night with Rector, I'm strongly considering the 4th Deed as the mystery 61st card. Every single game I lost except one (and I lost a lot of them [0-3 drop, although two of those rounds were 1-2]) was because I just literally couldn't draw a Deed when I needed it. I think that some of that was also my bad luck purging itself before the big day, because there were definitely things that happened that should never, ever happen: like I played against a probably 65-card mirror. He had Leyline of the Void x3 in his board, which gives him an enormous edge in the mirror (although I believe that other, less specialized hate is better for vs the rest of the metagame). Game three I kept a batshit hand if he doesn't have a leyline, and a strong hand if he does. It was like Explorer, Tower, Bayou, Forest, Pulse, [card], [card]. I think one of the cards might have been a Sigarda? Anyway, he has the Leyline, and within the first three turns, we've both played BOTH of our Towers, which, being legendary, is a strip mine. The problem is that I then proceed to never draw another land for the rest of the 6-8 turns that I was alive. Having -both- of my Towers legend-ruled locked me off of the three mana for Pulse, which would have made my Explorers live again.

But yeah, funny stories aside, every other game, I lost because I couldn't hit a Deed. And in most of those cases, it HAD to be a Deed. Like, Damnation is fine as a sideboard slot and all, but maindeck, you -need- the artifact removal. If I had Damnation'd my Rock opponent, it wouldn't have mattered because Sword of Feast/Famine and Jitte would have still been in play. You need to be able to answer the various potent artifacts and enchantments that are floating around. To say nothing of how useless Damnation is vs Miracles.

Also, good job@both Tao and Qweerios!

Now, back to writing...

[Siiig]

Just to the whole thread, has anyone ever considered trying to stuff Punishing and Scapeshift into the same deck? It might be the worst idea I've ever had, but It just doesn't seem terrible.


Went 1-1-1 last night at a local tuesday night magic. Esper Blade, Esper Blade, Manaless Dredge were my matches.


R1 versus Blade was pretty tight, but I lost 1-2 I believe. This was the first time I really tried committing to the idea of siding out Burning Wish. Pulled in pulse #3 REB and I think slaughter games. Tried my best to run around Jace, but didn't get there. Tried a beat down plan on game 3, but 2 vet explorers and no GSZ/Tusk just doesn't work out.

R2 versus Blade was sick. I can't gloat to hard, because he runs a jank version of Blade (shock lands, no FOW, Geist of Saint Taft), but there was a flip top -> REB in game 3 that felt awesome. He misplayed pretty hard into a deeds @ 3 on his entire board, but I did shift him down from 25 on 8 lands ^^; Double valakut shift is cool.

R3 versus Manaless (this guy's a friend of mine so we split to get 1 pack each). On G1 he played slow but got there, I just couldn't find the right cards (I think I mulled to 4 look for a cabal). G2 was fun. I sided out deeds/wishes, and side in pulse #3, shift #3, reanimate, damnation, and 3 slaughter games. The idea was if I could land a slaughter games on his Dread Return, that would shut down his primary combo, and his beat down clock wouldn't be fast enough to out play shift combo. He got a somewhat slow hand/draw, I windmilled Reanimate on G-Brand and passed the turn. He didn't see the business he needed so he passed back.

Now, I made a big ol play mistake here. I SHOULD have swung g-brand and drew 7 looking for that slaughter games. Instead (like the newb I am) I hard cast thragtusk, tapping myself out. In the 7 was Damnation, and Slaughter Games. If I had just held the mana open, cast slaughter on his dread returns, and passed back I'm almost positive I would have closed the game next turn. (draw 7, shift lethal, LOLOLOLOL).

Anyway, can't wait to see the tournament report Kevin! I'm really looking forward to seeing your SB choices, it's the hardest thing I find with this deck. That and a little bit of luck that's never on my side.

[Arianrhod]

Okay, report time. I played Scapewish, as per the list in my sig (which will have been updated by the time you read this). It's the same list as it was, except I added in a Blitz Hellion and a Volrath's Stronghold in place of the 2x Abrupt Decay / Olivia / whatever else slots, and after having cut the deck down to a flat 60.

The event starts a little after 10am, with almost 350 players participating!

R1: Andrew with Death and Taxes.

Game one he plays a bunch of irrelevant small white creatures, including a Mirran Crusader, which is actually scary. Luckily, I have mountains. And they're furious. Note that he was at 19 when I Scapeshifted, because DnT doesn't run fetches and doesn't hurt itself as much as most decks as a result.

I don't board.

Game two I mull to 5. He has Wasteland->Vial, I have basic Mountain, pass. He ticks up his Vial, plays another Wasteland, and passes. I rip a land off the top (Bayou), and play it to Cabal Therapy him naming Revoker, seeing Thalia, Swords, Jitte, and Mangara. He wastes my Bayou, ticks up Vial (to 2) and passes. I rip another dual (Taiga), but can't do anything meaningful. He Vials in Thalia, wastes me, drops his Jitte, and beats me to death before I can hit another land. IIRC he Vialed up to 3 to put in his Mangara to eat my mountain, too. Blergh.

Game three is a short and brutal affair. I hit a Revoker with an early Therapy, seeing 2x Crusader, Stoneforge, Port, Canopy, and Vial. I take away his Crusaders on the flashback, and he drops Stoneforge to find Sword of pro-my deck (Feast/Famine). He gets me to 12 before dying to Primeval Titan -> Scapeshift.

R2: Roger with Miracles

My notes for game one as such and as follows: Me: 20, 22, 28. Him: 20. 0.

(Huntmaster, Primeval getting Swords'd).

I blind Therapied him on t1 on the play, naming Brainstorm. I hit one, and he reveals the following hand: Counterspell, Terminus, Entreat, Strand, Island, Verdict. That's a really good hand .... with Brainstorm. Without his Brainstorm, he just durdles around while I kill him.

I boarded in the 2x Slaughter Games and 3x REB. I took the Hellion out, and otherwise I shaved, taking out a pair of Explorers, a Therapy, and a Green Sun so that I could Wish for it (Wish for GSZ to find Primeval to find Valakuts).

Game two I hit a fast Slaughter Games, naming Jace TMS. I remove those, and see Geist of St Straft, Entreat, Envelop, and a Top in his hand. I also see that he has a pair of Baneslayers and 2 more Geists in his deck, alongside with the usual Cliques and Snaps. The Envelop in his hand stops me from Scapeshifting him, so I go on the Primeval Titan plan and punch him with the titan and his mountains.

R3: Kurtis with UWr Faeries

Game one, he buries me under a sea of disruption. I don't hit any Therapies or ramp, and he just runs me over with Stoneforge'd up Spellstutters and Cliques.

I board in the REBs.

Game two is a lot closer, but I still don't see any ramp. I do Therapy him after he Stoneforges for a Feast/Famine, naming the revealed Sword. I see Force, Jace, 2 Sprites, and a Strand. I manage to kill his first Jace, but he hits a 2nd and proceeds to fateseal me into oblivion. I draw a Huntmaster when Jace is at 13, and scoop 'em up.

R4: Chris with Belcher.

The miracle round.

He wins the die roll, tanks and mulls. He keeps his six. He leads with Lotus Petal, and I know immediately that this is not going somewhere happy. He makes a ton of mana, casts and activates Belcher. I'm just about ready to put my hand back in my deck, but I stop myself and make him flip it out. 6 cards down is the Taiga. The degrees of my mental fistpump will likely never be repeated within this lifetime.

I proceed to curve out (smacking him with Hellion along the way), while he draws not-Lions Eye Diamonds.

Upon consideration, I bring in the Thoughtseize from the sideboard, cutting Primeval Titan. My rationale is that I'd rather have the 5th discard spell in my deck, and that it will be more useful there than as a 3-mana spell later in the game, whereas Primeval would never be useful in this matchup.

Game two I keep the anti-combo nuts. Double Therapy, Explorer, Green Sun, Bayou, Forest, Scapeshift.

He git probes me on t1, but doesn't draw the kill. I lead with Therapy on LED, and hit one, seeing 2x Petal, Rite of Flame, Tinder Wall, Seething Song, Land Grant. He draws and passes back, and I go nuts. I strip away his Petals, seeing a topdecked LED, then I strip the LED, followed by the Land Grant. I'm not sure if Land Grant is right or not at that point, but I figured it could let him get his Taiga out so that it isn't 6-cards down this time, and I didn't want him casting Tinder Wall with it. Anyway, he bricks his draw and I scapeshift on my turn 3 for the kill.

R5: Alex with Miracles

He mulls to 5 game one, and I lead with Therapy on Brainstorm. I see Counterbalance, 2x Pierce, Glacial, Tundra, Island -- pretty decent 5. I don't recall exactly what ended up happening, but his life goes to 13 and stops there while I sit at 20, so I'm assuming that I shift him out at some point, with no Huntmasters or Tusks along the way.

I use the same boarding plan as before, except I leave the Hellion in. I believe I cut down to 3x Wish in order to leave it in.

I land an early Slaughter Games in g2, taking out his Jaces. As I look through his deck, I take note that he doesn't have the Geists and Baneslayers that Roger had earlier in the day, which makes this a much more comfortable matchup for me. His hand is 3x Swords, Snapcaster, and something else that I can't read my own handwriting to tell what it was -.-

A turn or two later I draw a Burning Wish, and I REALLY want to Wish for Therapy to nuke his 3x Swords, then go beatdown. But I realize while thinking about it that this is A: a cute line of play and doesn't actually win me the game the same way Slaughter Gamesing his Entreats does, and B: essentially meaningless because he has a Snapcaster anyway. As such, I sigh and make the good play instead of the funny one. I slam down Slaughter Games #2 and strip out his Entreats. At this point he has to try to beatdown with Snaps and Cliques, against my Huntmasters and Thragtusks. This does not go very well for him, and he succumbs thereafter.

R6: Feature match on Camera vs Reese with Mono-blue Nivmagus.dec.

This thing was scary as fuck to play against. I basically tried to treat it like I do U/R Delver, which is to say that your life-gain dudes are all-important. Play around their Dazes, but force them to use their Pierces. You can't realistically play around Pierce AND Daze, and paying 3 more for something important is horrible. That's why I ran the Green Sun into the Pierce I KNEW he had in his hand in g2. At that point, Green Sun is a discard spell. You need to force them to spend their resources on things that they don't REALLY want to counter, but that they -have- to.

If anyone has specific questions on this match, fire away -- not going to really summarize since it's recorded. I will note two things:

1. I brought in 3x Red Blast (obviously), and I also brought in the Innocent Blood, which was probably a mistake. I remember being worried about the likelihood of him having Snares, and I already knew that he had probably a full set of Pierce and Flusterstorm maindeck, so Wish was already questionable. But even so, having 4 Bloods that cost 3 was probably better than having 1 Blood that cost 1. Either way, /shrug. I do not remember exactly what I boarded out, unfortunately. I need to start writing this shit down after the match lol.

2. My opening hand game one was a slow hand, but it had -everything- that I needed. It had the Wish as an answer for anything -- if he's on RUG, I wish for Innocent Blood and wreck his day. If he's on BUG, I had like 3 or 4 lands to resist his wasteland plan, along with the lategame power. Same for Junk. When I sat down across from Reese, I got the vibe from him that he was playing a fair deck....probably a Liliana one. Obviously I was incorrect, but it is what it is. You can't read everyone correctly 100% of the time, sadly. I will freely admit that Pyroclasm saved my ass in g1, and has more than earned its slot.

R7: James with High Tide.

One mono-blue deck into another. As an aside, if anyone here ever gets an on-camera feature match and then wins it, let me forewarn you that it is one of the most amazing feelings ever. I was riding so high after that that I felt literally unstoppable. I almost was =(

Once again, I get the fair deck vibe from James as we amicably chat before the game, so I am very surprised after a few turns when I realize that he's on High Tide. As it turns out, he borrowed his deck from a friend. Welp.

My hand is amazingly non-vs-combo, with like Deeds and Huntmasters and shit, and he combos me off in quick fashion.

Obviously the red blasts come in here, as do the Slaughter Games. Two of the Deeds come out, in addition to Thragtusk x2 and Primeval Titan. Easy board is easy. I like boarding out Explorers vs High Tide usually, but the printing of Slaughter Games changed that a bit. Now we have something that we NEED 4 mana for, that they can't just derpcounter. If they have 5 lands on turn 3, it doesn't really matter if they don't have Time Spiral in their deck anymore.

Game two he keeps a shaky hand with a fuckton of cantrips. After sputtering a bit, he gets his land drops rolling while I therapy him, seeing 2x Scrolls, a Force, and a Blue Sun. Unfortunately, I don't want to flashback my Therapy because that would mean saccing an Explorer and digging him out of his mana hole. He burns a Scroll for a High Tide, but I cast Slaughter Games next turn and he scoops in the face of it.

Game three it's my turn to get mana screwed. I end up ripping his hand apart with Therapy and actually having to set off an Explorer, leaving him with Scroll and Turnabout in hand. I had a Slaughter Games that he had seen off of Gitaxian Probe, and I had also Burning Wished for Tsunami the turn I set off my Explorer. This leaves him understandably terrified. He Scrolls for High Tide, casts it, Turnabouts his lands, and slams down Preordain. Hail Mary, full of grace.

He bricks his Preordain, and I'm 6-1.

R8: Brenden with FUCK MY LIFE.

If I had won this round, I very likely would have been able to ID into the top 8 in round 9. My confidence is overwhelming. I'm playing well, and from scouting the people around my bracket, there was a ton of fair decks and a few Show and Tells that I don't especially want to see, but can probably beat. Well, I managed to miss Brenden in my scouting. He leads Ancient Tomb, pass, and I'm already concerned. My hand is good, but doesn't have black mana. It does have an Explorer and a Wood Elves, though, so I figure I'm okay. Next turn he slams Metalworker, and I'm pretty sure I just slumped in my chair a bit. Scapewish does not beat Metalworker without Pulverize in the sideboard, period, and I didn't have the Pulverize because Metalworker is a super-specific deck, and not something that you usually expect to see at the top tables because of the inherent instability of the deck. It usually falls apart long before round 8.

Anyway, I do something inconsequential, and then he activates Metalworker on his turn showing me Platinum Emperion, Steel Hellkite, Lodestone, Forgemaster, and a Mox Opal. He proceeds to cast virtually his whole hand, and you can guess what happens from there.

I think I brought in the Thoughtseize here, taking out some random card. That's the unfortunate extent of what I can do, though =(

Game two I have double Explorer, while he has like a turn 3 Battlesphere, as well as Chalice@1 and Chalice@3. Naturally my hand is full of 1- and 3- drops, and I continue drawing more. Like, Chalice@3 is the correct thing to do because Deed, but fuck man, I had both of my Wood Elves in my hand when he dropped it :|

I double block his Battlesphere to try to lessen the chances of me drawing dead, because at this point Scapeshift is my only out and I know it. He's at 12 from his Ancient Tombs, so it's not a question of range. I brick my draw, and he uses Forgemaster to make a Sundering Titan on his turn, which knocks me firmly out of Scapeshift range -- which doesn't matter, because I brick another draw anyway.

X-2 =(

R9: John with Goblins. He tries to get me to ID so that both of us are locked for top 32, but I decide that I want to at least get as close to top 8 as I can even if I can't get there anymore. So, I dreamcrush in the process.

He leads with Lackey, I lead with Explorer. Broken 1-drops, ho!

He chooses not to swing into my Explorer, and just sits back making some goblins. I eventually land the jesus christ of all Pyroclasms, sweeping his board and setting off double Explorer triggers on my side (he already had both of his basics out....awkward). He's never even in the game from this point, as I have Deeds, Huntmasters, Thragtusks, and da beats. I actually miss an opportunity to kill him with Blitz Hellion, where I attack with a Thragtusk and then Zenithed post combat for something stupid. I realized belatedly that if I'd just Zenithed Hellion, he would have been dead. Oh well. Going to take me a while to remember that.

No board here.

Game two I own his life with Huntmasters. I just keep flipping them back and forth , making dudes, gaining life, and slaughtering his board. Eventually Deed happens, although I'm careful to flip my Huntmaster back to a 4-drop first. He dies quickly thereafter.

So, I finish at 7-2. If it was a GP, I'd have Day 2'd, at least! Still good for 14th place and $100, and some small number of invitational points.

So, the two specific changes: Hellion and Stronghold.

Hellion was sad all day, because I didn't play against a single Liliana of the Veil. There were tons of them in the room, but the reason for his existence just didn't come to me. So, I can't really say how amazing it is -- all I did with it really was punch Belcher in the face for 7 and miss a chance to kill someone with it. I like having the option in the deck, though, and I think that it will continue to possess that slot for the foreseeable future until I get a better read on it.

Volrath's Stronghold was activated once. I don't remember the circumstances, but I remember that it was to put a Huntmaster back in my deck. There were a few times where I assembled Two Towers, but it just was never necessary. Like, It was a nice option to have available, but the circumstances were never right for me to actually use it. I'll leave it in the deck for now, but I'm still unconvinced of its necessity. Witnessing every turn is one of my favorite things to do in long, grindy matchups, though, because it gives you essentially infinite inevitability, and Stronghold (with Tower) does give Scapewish a way to do that. So, I dunno.

I've got Mythic on Saturday, but I'm not sure what I'm playing yet. I might take a break from Nic Fit for an event before returning to it for Jupiter -- but at the same time, I want to do well at Mythic so that I can finish my set of Goyf and pick up Show and Tells for 12post, lol. So, I dunno. We'll see what I feel like doing as I get closer to the event.

I'll close with a exciting new development from Gatecrash:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=138597&d=1357707768

This thing gives me hope for BUG Fit FINALLY getting ironed out. That's a Zenithable draw spell, ladies and gentlemen. A big one. Like, that thing strictly replaces Consecrated Sphinx as an option. Note that the way its worded interacts favorably with priority -- once we Green Sun it, they can't just be like derp Swords your Thragtusk in response, or anything. It enters with the 5 counters (or however many) already on it. So, with a Thragtusk in play, let's say, we draw 6 cards and get a 6/6 for 7 mana. That seems PERFECTLY fine to me. I'm not sure of the shell yet, but Zegana sounds exactly like that the deck wanted.

[TheArchitect]

Nice report! Thanks for sharing.

That turn 3 win against belcher must have felt awesome.

Running into MUD sucks, but I still think pulverize probably isnt worth a slot for that one matchup. I think having access to 2-3 decays would help improve this match slightly though. It hits metalwork/revoker, and can punch through chalices. Ive been playing basically your list just -1 hellion, -1 land, +2 Decay and liking the decays a lot.

I tried out swapping damnation for deed for a bit. It was really nice against BGx decks, but I think deed is still probably better in the long run. Or maybe a split even, because it was a lot better than deed at some points. I think if I was playing a more control heavy BG or BUG list, I would want definitely want like 2-3 or 2-2 split of damnation-deed.

I'll see you at mythic, and I'll be on scapeshift.

[Star|Scream]

Congrats on the finish, Kevin! Good Job.

Regarding the new UG legend, unfortunately she does nothing on her own, aside from cantrip. Topdecking a 6 mana coiling oracle isn't ideal.

With other creatures, she's better, but the only other big creatures you have are thragtusk, scavenging ooze, and maybe 1 titan. Most of the time you'll have 1/1's or 2/1's on the field when you cast her.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Hmm . . . the loss to MUD supports my Manasinks fuck us up hypothesis to some extent. How exactly I don't know lol.

Anyhow, again congrats on the Top 16! As for the legend I'm already running Primal Hunter who essentially fills the same role for less mana, plus it can draw three instead of cantrip if you can put a beast out and get to your next turn.

But these effects are really amazing for us. Nothing like drawing 5 off a Thragtusk's back.

[Ayotte]

Hmm . . . the loss to MUD supports my Manasinks fuck us up hypothesis to some extent. How exactly I don't know lol.

I have yet to beat MUD. I have only played 2 matches, but neither match was even close. Deed isn't very good against Wurmcoil engine, and even if you slow them down by killing the metalworker / cabal therapy-ing them, eventually they just explode and kill you.

[RKPW]

I went 5-2-1 on day one of the grand prix with no byes.
Was playing punishing fire Nic fit.

1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Acidic Slime
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Broodmate Dragon
2 Eternal Witness
2 Huntmaster of The Fells
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Veteran Explorer

2 Liliana of the Veil

1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Diabolic Intent
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Punishing Fire
3 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
1 Taiga
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Volrath's Stronghold

SB: 4 Duress
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Slaughter Games
SB: 1 Damnation

r1: Chase on Belcher
didn't take notes, lost quickly.

0-1

r2: Billy on High Tide
game one: during his shuffling I saw a lot of islands, so I put him on merfolk to start and kept a reasonable hand. he turn one ponders so now he's on combo. he plays three islands without playing anything and I blind cabal therapy naming high tide and hit two of them out of his hand. at some point i have him down to 1 known card in hand, blue sun's zenith. he rips time spiral of the top with enough mana to cast, thanks to my veteran explorer, and goes off and kills me.

sideboard: -3 Punishing Fire, -3 Pernicious Deed, -3 Veteran Explorer, -2 Abrupt Decay, -1 Maelstrom Pulse, 1 Recurring Nightmare, -1 Diabolic Intent
+3 Carpet of Flowers, +4 Duress, +3 Extirpate, +1RED/Pyroblast +2 Slaughter Games

game two: at some point he tries to go off, whiffs on two mediates giving me two extra turns with liliana and thragtusk in play. i play a huntmaster, swing with thragtusk. next turn he attempts to turnabout my creatures coming in for lethal and it eats a red elemental blast.

during shuffling he offers a tie because there is 45 seconds left on the clock, and we'd be in turns from the start (an advantage to him) i accept the tie rather than play it out.

0-1-1

off start to the day, but i continue playing anyways.

round 3: Allen on RUG delver
game one: lots of grove and punishing fire activations lead to him having no creatures; he concedes that game and we go to game two

i don't really have a lot of sideboarding to do. this is the best matchup.

game two: grindy game. at one point he's up to 30 life due to my only green sources being groves. i did have punishing fires as well. i land a late game thragtusk which puts me to 20 and he drops down to 6 before extending the handshake for more than lethal.

1-1-1

round 4
jason on NicFit bwg

game one: he thoughtseizes me on turn one and i reveal a hand with broodmate dragon and primeval titan in it. and he comments "this is gonna be fun." i assume this is the mirror at this point. never tested the mirror. i get ahead on game one and huntmaster takes me home.

sideboard: never playing the mirror before i sideboard out -3 veteran explorer for +1 Damnation, +2 Slaughter Games (should've probably been extirpate, i'm not sure.)

game two: another long grindy game. at one point he gets rid of my primeval titan, (who grabbed volrath's stronghold+phyrexian tower) and he lands a grave titan. i top deck the singleton damnation when he passes. and pass turn. next turn stronghold primeval, cast. grab 2 duals (i decided to add a singleton kessig wolf run after i ran into this, and also a buddy of mine was playing a singleton. it sound like a good idea) and end up taking game two.

2-1-1

round 5 Jeff on Dredge

game one: keep a hand with deathrite shaman, ooze, gsz, and turn one the DRS. i win game one with all the grave hate.

sideboard: -3 punishing fire
+3 extirpate

game two: at one point i go from 18 to 23, i extirpate the bridges and lay down thragtusk+huntmaster beats for the game.

3-1-1

round 6 Thea on Esperblade

i didn't take a lot of notes on this match, i lost both games. game two she snapcasters a perish that she already cast. that's all I recall.

3-2-1

round 7 Adam on U/G Enchantress

i small talk with adam beforehand and find out he's the owner of a local shop, Dark Matter Games. he informs me that he's legally blind and that's why i'm sitting at table number 12 with my record.

game one: pernicious deed takes the game away, but i learn he's on U/G and not g/w. I've never played against the u/g version and am not sure of it's wincon going into game two.

this match comes down to game three. he locks me out game two with Words of Wind and i scoop so we have enough time for game three.

game three: i'm on the play and i blind cabal therapy an argothian enchantress and ping TWO of them out of his hand. which also revealed 2 lands and 2 Cloud of Faeries I pass, he plays a land and passes, i play veteran explorer, land, flashback cabal therapy and name Cloud. he drew the 3rd one leaving him with just a land in hand and he's never really in game 3.

4-2-1

Round 8 Stefano on what I thought to be Mono-black/the Gate.

went 2-0 against his deck which sported Krovokian Horror




after the tournament i decided to cut the diabolic intent for a kessig wolf run as a better primeval titan target.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Wouldn't have ID'd with High Tide. Slaughter Games and win? You can easily clock him.

[.dk]

I went 5-2-1 on day one of the grand prix with no byes.


Good show - sucks you couldn't squeeze out a Day2 with Nic Fit. Seems pretty well positioned overall.

But that said, at least I was able to witness your epic G1 vs. UR Control in the Legacy redux on Sunday!

[Vandalize]

Hmm, if MUD is that much of a problem, there's always Ancient Grudge to deal with them. This card just 2-for-1 their deck, and it helps against Esperblade as well. I think it should find its way in some sideboards.

Moreover, Shattering Spree should be somewhere in the Wishboard from Scapewish versions.

[Ayotte]

What, if anything, is a good sideboard card for Scapewish against High Tide and ANT? Those are the combo decks most often played at my LGS.

[_Fe_]

Slaughter Pact to wish for + 1-2 copies to bring in, in addition to REBs for High Tide and extra discard for ANT. Those matches won't go much above 50/50 even with 5-6 SB slots to it. That's just the nature of the beast.

[CRich3]

My latest play testing: Rector Build
I was making a lot of mistakes early on but this is just play testing. Sorry for the mispelling I am tired. I worked 12 hours then played 6 games before I wrote this. I only SB one card every game because i frogot what my SB was supposed to be. 3-3 isn't bad but definately not good enough. I may have to go to the Natural Order SB plan. I need a way around Deathrite Shaman.

Round 1 vs Elves
Game 1: I screwed this up because I forgot to add Starved Rarsulka to my deck so when I green suned for one to get him to kill Rector to get deed he wasnt there so I lost. I did manage to get Moat down turn 3 to hold him off for a while.
Game 2: He comboed off turn 2.

Round 2 vs Miracles
Game 1: I layed a turn 3 deed and let it sit there and managed to get Faith Fetters on moat. Most other spells got countered. I eventually got a Baneslayer down vs his Snapcaster and V. CLique.
Game 2: My turn 1 Cabal Therapy into a turn 2 Veteran Exploer stripping his Swords to Plowshares. I got down a turn 3 Baneslayer and he concedes.

Round 3 vs Junk
Game 1: I made a huge play mistake that I was waiting on. I had and rector out. He had Liliana and Deathrite Shaman. I meant to sac deed to his liliana ability to kill deathrite at the same time but I skipped on accident.
Game 2: I made more play mistakes. I had Faith Fetters on his liliana with Baneslayer in Hand and Deed on board. He had out Batterskull and Knight of the reliquary. I mean to blow deed for 3 but did for 5 because I forgot about the Faith Fetters.

Round 4 vs MUD/Grindstone
Game 1: I go first naming Lodestone taking that. The plays turn 2 Metalwork off a Grim monolith. Then plays a Grindstone. I play my veteran explorer sacing it to take his Steel Hellkite. Next turn he dumps his hand which was just a bunch of mana. I get a turn 3 Diabolic Intenet getting Pulse off another explorer, kill his grind stone. Then my next turn I play eternal witness and pulsing another permanent. After I clear him out I play baneslayer and wipe him out.

Game 2: He plays wasteland, I swamp naming Grim Monolith which hits. But he plays city of traitors mox opal and plays lodestone. I have to play a veteran explorer for a block. Then Starved Rusulka as a blocker until I play Moat which holds him off until he gets Spine of Ish Sah about 4 turns later. But I lay a baneslayer then get a pulse to kill his lodestone. Then again eternal witness pulse to kill his next creature and keep swinging with Baneslayer for the win.

Round 5 vs Mono Black Reanimator
Game 1: He gets a turn 3 Elesh Norn.
Game 2: He gets a turn 1 Iona.

Round 6 vs Affinity:
Game one. He basically lays out his hand but one card and my turn one is just a veteran explorer. He has basics in his deck so him attacks and I pump up which leads me into a turn 2 moat. We play draw go for a few turns until I get a baneslayer. The first one he had an answer but I had both in my starting hand so next turn I played another and he conceded.
Game two he keeps a slower hand but a turn 2 double frogmite and myr enforce. I lay many chump blockers, fierce empath getting sun titan, veteran eplorers and eternal wintess. I do get off deed when he gets me down to 7. I played deed 3 times and he still me down to one until I finally drew my six land which got me a Sun Titan to block his remaining Myr Enforcer getting back deed. I draw a seventh land which was phyrexian tower. Sun Titan attacked getting back fierce empath getting Yosei. Playing Yosei just in case he has a removal spell. Next turn I just recure deed and he concedes.

[TheArchitect]

What, if anything, is a good sideboard card for Scapewish against High Tide and ANT? Those are the combo decks most often played at my LGS.

3 Slaughter games (leave one in SB) and 3-4 Red blasts helps alot. Also thoughtseizes are good. Those 2 combos are a bit slower. Tide cant win till turn 3 at the very earilest. and ANT it is very rare for a turn 1. So you have a chance to thoughtsieze or slaughter games then often.

Slaughter games hitting timespiral for high tide, and tendrils of agony for ANT (TES is a different story). Against ANT, just REB their cantrips to slow them down.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Got it! There are three types of decks Nic Fit in general just has trouble dealing with.

1. Combo, or rather Fast Combo, like Belcher. Stuff that'll win before we even get a chance to control.
2. Decks that ramp better than we do. MUD can easily get two, three, or even four mana by first turn given the right hand. Turbo Eldrazi is another, what with getting a megafuckton of mana with 12-post.
3. Decks that can use the Veteran Explorer ramp and use it better than we can. This is where Miracles comes in, with Entreat the spell that pushes this matchup towards the 50/50 gray area.

[Ayotte]

3 Slaughter games (leave one in SB) and 3-4 Red blasts helps alot. Also thoughtseizes are good. Those 2 combos are a bit slower. Tide cant win till turn 3 at the very earilest. and ANT it is very rare for a turn 1. So you have a chance to thoughtsieze or slaughter games then often.

Slaughter games hitting timespiral for high tide, and tendrils of agony for ANT (TES is a different story). Against ANT, just REB their cantrips to slow them down.

I was wondering more in addition to slaughter games and REB, as I already have those. The only good thing to wish for besides that in Arianrhod's list is Thoughtseize. When playing BG or just BGr nic fit, I've always felt a turn too slow against these decks, especially with slaughter games.

[TheArchitect]

Um, more thoughtseizes? Theres not much more room in the board but really thoughtseizes or REBs are probably your best bet. Both those combo decks, pack a ton of disruption when they are ready to go off (discard or free counterspells) so stuff like mindbreak trap is deceptive. Also, trap is only good against storm decks, where thoughtseize or REB helps against most combo decks.

Basically, you need to slow them down just enough to hit them with a card that's going to make it near impossible for them to win. REBs on cantrips and Discard on their business is the best way to do this. You follow it up with a game breaker like slaughter games naming their win con.

If you looking for other game breaking cards, another option is Ichneumon Druid, hes only going to slow them down for a short period of time though, and it is possible to win through him. But he at least turns your GSZ into possible hate. Nether Void's another option, but I wouldn't recommend it without a way to tutor for it like rector has.


Storm combo decks are always going to be tough match ups. We are not a chalice/trisphere deck, or a blue deck, so there's only so much we can do.

*Just note that TES will be much harder than ANT. Slaughter games, doesnt hurt TES very much while ANT literally can not win if you take their 1 tendrils in their 75. Druid usually only gives you a turn against TES cause they will decay him, or wish for removal. Neither deck can beat a Nether void easily, but TES will find a way if you dont put a clock on them.

[Karang029]

Hi all I have been a Nic-Fit player for a while now and have been a semi regular poster on MTGsalvation, but the the thread just sorta died so I was pointed here. I was recently testing Birthing Pod and found it leaving a lot to be desired so I dropped it. Here is the current list I am running.

Creatures:
2x Academy Rector
1x Armada Wurm
2x Eternal Witness
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Sun Titan
1x Thragtusk
4x Veteran Explorer

Enchantments:
1x Faith's Fetters
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Phyrexian Arena

Instants/Sorceries:
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Innocent Blood
2x Swords to Plowshares
1x Diabolic Intent

Planeswalkers:
2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless

Artifacts:
2x Sensei's Divining Top

Land:
3x Forest
2x Plains
3x Swamp
1x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
2x Phyrexian Tower
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
2x Misty Rainforest (sadly no G/W fetches atm)

Sideboard:
3x Mindbreak Trap
2x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Oblivion Ring
2x Memoricide
2x Leyline of the Void
1x Damnation
2x Choke
1x Nether Void


I really like the list though I'm still messing with some numbers and so far I'm loving Armada Wurm. Some of my choices may seem odd, but my meta has some troublesome combo decks I try to answer MB. Ooze, DRS,Innocent Blood and Swords are for dealing with Reanimator since Iona white used to hurt. Gaddock stops both the storm decks, and hymn is just to help more here as well as my sideboard is almost entirely to hate on combo decks it seems.

I would love some help here, and I hope to be a beneficial part to the Nic-Fit community here.

[TheArchitect]

Hi all I have been a Nic-Fit player for a while now and have been a semi regular poster on MTGsalvation, but the the thread just sorta died so I was pointed here. I was recently testing Birthing Pod and found it leaving a lot to be desired so I dropped it. Here is the current list I am running.


*list*


I really like the list though I'm still messing with some numbers and so far I'm loving Armada Wurm. Some of my choices may seem odd, but my meta has some troublesome combo decks I try to answer MB. Ooze, DRS,Innocent Blood and Swords are for dealing with Reanimator since Iona white used to hurt. Gaddock stops both the storm decks, and hymn is just to help more here as well as my sideboard is almost entirely to hate on combo decks it seems.

I would love some help here, and I hope to be a beneficial part to the Nic-Fit community here.


Well come to The Source Karang.

Your list actually looks really solid for a ground assualt based BWG approach. I think a few improvements could be made though.

You definitely want 3 tops, this deck relies on top alot and that card is something we want to see every single game. Your list has a lot of cards that need BB, WW, and GG. I would suggest lowering that count. Maybe cutting the hymns and lilys for target discard like thoughtseize or even duress. I think you could up the DRS count by 1. Also, abrupt Decay is really good, and helps with some of our problem matchups. Maybe put that in the hymn/lily spots? or cut the bloods/stps for 2-3 of them, but I understand the meta call for those removal cards.


While your SB does the job, theres a lot I would personally change about it. You should put 3 Carpet of flowers in your SB. That card is the nuts against blue decks. I would cut the leylines of the void for exitpates and mindbreak traps for discard or something too. Humility is also a great card to have if you see reanimator (or S&T) a lot.

Im really not sold on mindbreak trap as a good plan against storm. Look at my post above yours for some storm SB suggestions.

You should split memorcide and cranial extraction 1-1. I know it sounds crazy, but I have actually had a UW Miracles player surgical my memocide, cause they know if I cast another one they have no way to win. He was pretty tilted when he saw I had "2" of the card in my deck, just with different names.

Your manabase is little rough, but Im guessing that is a budget issue. Id suggest getting an 2nd bayou first, even before the fetches. GU fetches arent too bad.
I ideally, it would look like this:
3x Bayou
2x Savannah
1x Scrubland
3x Windswept Heath
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Forest
2x Swamp
3x Plains
2x Phyrexian Tower

[Arianrhod]

Gonna /barn what Architect said.

The 3rd Top is critical. I would also for sure add at least 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder. That thing has saved my bacon in many circumstances, and while Deathrite -can- ramp you too, it's an inefficient source that requires too much to go right. Ie, if you're vs RIP Miracles. You don't want to Explorer, because they'll just use the basics to combo you out. You can't for sure Deathrite, because you probably don't have a graveyard. Tribe-Elder is the best no-nonsense ramp source there is. It doesn't need Therapy, it doesn't need a Graveyard, and it gets a non-wasteland-able target.

Also /barn on splitting Cranial/Memoricide. That's come up a nonzero number of times for me, too, and I've been encouraging everyone to split them up since.

I fervently hate Teeg in this deck. I recognize it as being solid combo hate in game 1, but it's a dead card vs most fair decks, and postboard I would rather have Nether Void/Cranials/etc. Like yeah, it's fine vs Miracles if you can stick it -- but you can't protect it, and it locks you from your Green Suns, Garruk Relentless, and Fetters -- all three of which are -highly- relevant against Miracles. I'd rather have Relentless than Teeg in a non-Mother of Runes deck any day of the week.

I also don't like the Hymns and the Liliana, but I can certainly understand the need for them given what you're said about the meta.

I'd consider adding a Trostani as a Green Sun target. It gives you a bye vs Burn, which is certain to become relevant again soon given Burn's favorable matchup vs BUG and Junk, and it also gives you a solid engine whereby you can spit out Armada Wurm tokens and Garruk tokens to fight the attrition decks, like Jund.

/barn what Architect said about the mana base.

As for the board, I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do for your local. For beyond that, I don't like it very much -- but from what you've said locally, it sounds fine. Carpet of Flowers is amazing, though, even against the combo decks, because it lets you get to Cranial/Nether Void sooner, at which point you can just lock them out. Extirpate would not be a bad idea, as well, since then you can just take away some of their stupid little cards and make their life miserable while you get your mana up. Also, Extirpate lets you do some nifty tricks vs Brainstorm-based combo decks. Like if you Therapy High Tide, and they Brainstorm in response (hiding their best 2), then you can Extirpate the Brainstorm after Therapy resolves, essentially getting a free Hymn while making their deck worse.

[Karang029]

Based on what I know about the stack and therapy in that situation Iirc you don't name something until it resolves. So if they brainstorm in response to it, and then you extirpate it before therapy resolves you get to look at there hand and shuffle away whatever they brainstormed so your cabal just became a better thoughtseize lol. I intended to put them in just haven't received my order in the mail yet.

[TheArchitect]

Based on what I know about the stack and therapy in that situation Iirc you don't name something until it resolves. So if they brainstorm in response to it, and then you extirpate it before therapy resolves you get to look at there hand and shuffle away whatever they brainstormed so your cabal just became a better thoughtseize lol. I intended to put them in just haven't received my order in the mail yet.

I dont think you can do that since at the point (after extirpate resolves) only therapy is on the stack and you have already passed priorety for that. However, Im not as knowledgeable about magic rulings as I probably should be so if I am wrong, awesome.

Also, yes extirpate is great. I run 2-3 of them in rector and most of other nic variants even. Its great against combo and miracles, two of our tougher matches. Against combo thought it is trickier to get value out of it. You have to catch them off guard with their brainstorms and shuffle away their goodies, of if you can do something like thoughtseize a time spiral and then extirpate it, effectively slaughter gamesing them. Its obviously also good against dredge/reanimator.

[Arianrhod]

I'm not 100% on this, but I believe it would work as such:

You cast Cabal Therapy,
[priority passes]
Your opponent casts Brainstorm,
[priority passes]
Brainstorm resolves.
[Remove Brainstorm from the stack]
Cabal Therapy is resolving,
[priority passes (ie if they wanted to Brainstorm, then Spell Pierce it)]
Cabal Therapy resolves, naming.

I don't THINK that you get priority back once your Therapy is back to the focus of the stack. They still have the opportunity to respond to the Therapy after Brainstorm resolves, but I don't think that the active player does.

-----EDIT-----

I just checked with a judge friend of mine, and he said that we WOULD get priority before our own Therapy resolved, so theoretically this play actually goes work. I'm going to check with a level 2 as well just to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt (as this would be embarrassing to get wrong), but I trust my friend's opinion and theoretically this is actually a thing.

That's an amazingly devastating play, then.

[Tao]

Yeah that works. After a spell or ability have resolved, both players get priority again.

[TerribleTim68]

Yeah that works. After a spell or ability have resolved, both players get priority again.

Right! The Cabal Therapy should only resolve after BOTH players have passed priority once the Brainstorm has finished resolving. So technically, once the Brainstorm has finished resolving we would get priority again to do what ever we wanted. If we choose not to do anything, then the player who played the Brainstorm actually gets an opportunity to add something else to the stack. If they do not, then the Cabal Therapy resolves since BOTH players passed priority.

But we could Extirpate that Brainstorm upon it's resolution, before our Cabal Therapy resolves.

I'm not a judge, but I'm pretty sure that's how it goes down. :wink:

[slikwilly]

Right! The Cabal Therapy should only resolve after BOTH players have passed priority once the Brainstorm has finished resolving. So technically, once the Brainstorm has finished resolving we would get priority again to do what ever we wanted. If we choose not to do anything, then the player who played the Brainstorm actually gets an opportunity to add something else to the stack. If they do not, then the Cabal Therapy resolves since BOTH players passed priority.

But we could Extirpate that Brainstorm upon it's resolution, before our Cabal Therapy resolves.

I'm not a judge, but I'm pretty sure that's how it goes down. :wink:

That is exactly how it goes down.

AP = Active Player
NAP = Non-Active Player

AP plays Therapy.
AP passes priority.
NAP plays Brainstorm.
NAP passes priority. (Whoever plays a spell or ability gets priority after, though the tournament shortcut is that it is passed unless explicitly held.)
AP passes priority.
Brainstorm resolves.
AP gets priority again.
AP casts Extirpate.
AP passes priority.
NAP passes priority.
Extirpate resolves.
AP gets priority.
AP passes priority.
NAP passes priority.
Cabal Therapy resolves.

Basically every time something goes off the stack the whole priority dance starts again with AP having priority and thus an opportunity to play spells and/or abilities.

This is also a good time to point out Caleb's Cabal Therapy primer (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-therapy-session/) (especially note the answer to problem 3).

[TerribleTim68]

. . . (Whoever plays a spell or ability gets priority after, though the tournament shortcut is that it is passed unless explicitly held.). . .

As an occasional Dredge player, that one right there is super important to remember!!!!!

[Tao]

Slikwilly explained that right in his sequence summary, but I think it should read "whoever puts a spell or ability on the stack gets priority afterwards." After actually playing a spell or ability the active player gets priority again - correct me if I am wrong.

[TheArchitect]

Wow so therapy and extirpate are even better together than I thought. This is great!

[TerribleTim68]

Slikwilly explained that right in his sequence summary, but I think it should read "whoever puts a spell or ability on the stack gets priority afterwards." After actually playing a spell or ability the active player gets priority again - correct me if I am wrong.

You are correct, however -


. . .(Whoever plays a spell or ability gets priority after, though the tournament shortcut is that it is passed unless explicitly held.) . . .

That's where you must make it clear that you are NOT passing priority after playing your spell.

[slikwilly]

Slikwilly explained that right in his sequence summary, but I think it should read "whoever puts a spell or ability on the stack gets priority afterwards." After actually playing a spell or ability the active player gets priority again - correct me if I am wrong.

From the comprehensive rules:
116.3c If a player has priority when he or she casts a spell, activates an ability, or takes a special action, that player receives priority afterward.

So if you play something you get priority even if you are the NAP. But priority will go to AP after something resolves even if it was played by the NAP.

[Cire_dk]

https://www.magiccardmarket.eu/img/32709504fce48ff30a137b3a95cf0b17/cards/Gatecrash/signal_the_clans.jpg

Nice tutor for scapewish/punishing nic fit. Any thoughts?

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Nice tutor for scapewish/punishing nic fit. Any thoughts?

Terribad. The at-random out of three different dudes is just terribad.

People complain bout Cavern being a badly designed card: this is just terrible even without considering power level. Wording is clunky, the randomness denies non redundancy in building, and E. Call and Intuition already exist in other colors.

If you find one, rip it to shreds >:(
/rant

[Arianrhod]

I can also confirm that it works via my level 2 judge friend, although it seems that's unnecessary now. That's definitely a very powerful trick to remember.

[Fropper]

because of its strange wording the creatures are shuffled in unless you search for exactly three different creatures. there aren't any tricks like with gifts ungiven, so it's just a strictly worse eladamri's call.

[Cire_dk]

Terribad. The at-random out of three different dudes is just terribad.

People complain bout Cavern being a badly designed card: this is just terrible even without considering power level. Wording is clunky, the randomness denies non redundancy in building, and E. Call and Intuition already exist in other colors.

If you find one, rip it to shreds >:(
/rant

I believe this is a clear thought. I obviously did not think it over well enough before posting. :smile:
@Fropper thx for the input.

[Kich867]

The wording is really clunky on that card. It doesn't seem to explicitly tell you what to do in the event that you get 3 creature cards with the same name. The "Shuffle the rest into your library" sentence implies that something happened to one or more of them. Weird wording.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

To be frank, I think this card is more often misread than Book Burning lol.

Anyhow, holy crap! Korean stuff is expensive! No wonder why it's so pimp to have Korean Vets. (referring to Smokestack on SCG: 10 for english, 100 for korean)

EDIT: Also, sorry for off-topic posting so much :rolleyes:

[Tao]

I want to talk about the 2-drop creatures. Most people play Sakura-Tribe Elder but I think that is wrong. I think Sylvan Ranger is a better basic land searcher for Nic Fit. Elder is great against Dredge because it kills their bridges but Dredge is basically unplayable in the Deathrite Shaman meta so that is no big concern.

The acceleration of Tribe Elder is not very relevant either. Think of it: if you GSZ for a land searcher it is unlikely that you make your regular land drop and it is very likely that you sacrifice Elder at the opponent's EoT because you need the land. In that most common case Sylvan Ranger actually gives you one additional Mana (because the land drop is untapped) that you can use for a Cabal Therapy or a Top activation and it also keeps a 1/1 in play.
And this 1/1 is not irrelevant at all. Sylvan Ranger has the big advantage that you can sacrifice it to Cabal Therapy (or Phyrexian Tower / Recurring Nightmare / opponent's Liliana) and still get the land which Tribe Elder can't. I think a 1/1 split between Sylvan Ranger and Wall of Blossoms is the right way to make sure that a GSZ for 3 will be good.

[slikwilly]

I can imagine a split between Ranger and Tribe Elder, but I don't think you replace Tribe Elder completely. At least not in Rector. Elder does a few things: 1) as you say, Dredge. 2) Great for blocking Batterskull and Jitte. 3) Ensures you have a Recurring Nightmare target. All of these have been important to me in matches.

In a new list I've been working up I've got Elders and Walls. It's not running Nightmare though, so I can definitely see swapping the Elder for Ranger.

[Countertoplol]

I want to talk about the 2-drop creatures. Most people play Sakura-Tribe Elder but I think that is wrong. I think Sylvan Ranger is a better basic land searcher for Nic Fit. Elder is great against Dredge because it kills their bridges but Dredge is basically unplayable in the Deathrite Shaman meta so that is no big concern.

The acceleration of Tribe Elder is not very relevant either. Think of it: if you GSZ for a land searcher it is unlikely that you make your regular land drop and it is very likely that you sacrifice Elder at the opponent's EoT because you need the land. In that most common case Sylvan Ranger actually gives you one additional Mana (because the land drop is untapped) that you can use for a Cabal Therapy or a Top activation and it also keeps a 1/1 in play.
And this 1/1 is not irrelevant at all. Sylvan Ranger has the big advantage that you can sacrifice it to Cabal Therapy (or Phyrexian Tower / Recurring Nightmare / opponent's Liliana) and still get the land which Tribe Elder can't. I think a 1/1 split between Sylvan Ranger and Wall of Blossoms is the right way to make sure that a GSZ for 3 will be good.

Actually, because people are relying on their MD shamans and skimping on GY hate, dredge is pretty well positioned right now. As a dredge player I can tell you that both regular dredge and manaless dredge aren't scared by deathrite at all.

[Arianrhod]

Actually, because people are relying on their MD shamans and skimping on GY hate, dredge is pretty well positioned right now. As a dredge player I can tell you that both regular dredge and manaless dredge aren't scared by deathrite at all.

/barn. Dredge just placed very highly at GP Denver, right smack in the middle of Deathrite Shaman territory. Dredge doesn't give two shits about the Deathrite Shaman decks.

I dunno. I've often thought that I would like a third 2-mana guy, either a Wall of Blossoms or a Viridian Emissary. I see no reason for Sylvan Ranger over Emissary, I must confess. If you want something that is a body that can be sacced while still getting a land, IMO Emissary > Ranger. That being said, Sakura-Tribe has just been astonishingly good for me. There has only ever been one or two circumstances where I wished I could both sac to Therapy -and- get the land, and those have been very few and far between. It's entirely possible that I'm just biased in favor of it, but I'm almost never sad to draw one. They're an on-demand shuffle for Top, ensure a guy in the 'yard for Nightmare (which was a huge problem for me until I put Tribe-Elders in), fog+rampant growth, stop Jitte from gaining counters, BSkull from gaining life, pops Bridges, beats for 1 sometimes, is convenient to bring back with Sun Titan, and arguably most importantly: it ramps you game one, no matter what they do.

If I'm up against Miracles, say, the LAST thing I want to do is set off a Veteran. If I'm up against RIP Miracles, specifically, Viridian Emissary won't work, and neither will Veteran Explorer (though, we still don't want to set it off). Sakura-Tribe gives 0 fucks about either of those situations. He ramps us with no questions asked. It doesn't matter what they've done to us or how they've affected the board state. Explorer is....I wouldn't say unreliable, per se, but there are situations where we either don't want it (we don't want our opponents to have it), or we can't use it. Tribe-Elder is invaluable in combating those situations. Because, at the end of the day, if Nic Fit doesn't hit ANY ramp at all, it's gonna be a slowwwwwwwwww game. We can still pull them out sometimes, but the difference between Nic Fit with ramp and Nic Fit without ramp is like night and day. I'd rather err on the side of a little much than too little.

[CRich3]

Has anyone tried Ground Seal in the Rector build? I'm having issues vs BUG control with Deathrite. BUG Delver is pretty easy, just like RUG but with discard instead of burn.

[TerribleTim68]

I guess it would be okay as a one-of in the SB. I'd rather Rector into Rip, you're already in white, right? Seems like it would help better verses the stuff you'd be wanting Ground Seal for, wouldn't it?

Edit - Wouldn't you be better off with more discard verses BUG control? Seems like I'd rather strip their hand of control to pave the way for the end game stuff which they can't really hang with.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

I guess it would be okay as a one-of in the SB. I'd rather Rector into Rip, you're already in white, right? Seems like it would help better verses the stuff you'd be wanting Ground Seal for, wouldn't it?

Edit - Wouldn't you be better off with more discard verses BUG control? Seems like I'd rather strip their hand of control to pave the way for the end gamer::( stuff which they can't really hang with.

Well sticking my kindle in my pocket has decided to post on my behalf, so here's my two cents.

BUG is a non threat as long as we don't let DRS stick or let a Tombstalker live. I'd actually use RiP or Leyline over both Seal and discard as both cripple Tombstalker.

[Karang029]

I feel like the only reason I would run Ground Seal is in a reanimator heavy meta and then RIP is just better.

[smurphy]

After watching Arianrhod develop his deck for the last few months from double dragon to Nic Fit I have been interested in this deck and brought myself to read about the last 80 pages or so I have a suggestion. More so just a question actually. What kind of a matchup does this deck (rector build) have against Shops? I know we have Moat and thats extremely helpful but against Steel Hellkite and metamorph making multiples of it or even them just locking us down with Tangle Wire and/or Smokestack has anyone considered Caustic Wasps as a GSZ target from the board to help control the early game. It's defiantely even usable as a 1-of since its searchable so it won't take up alot of space but can definately wreak havoc if brought in early enough. Thoughts?

[Tao]

@Ground Seal: If your problem is DR Shaman and you get a Rector activation you can just Deed or Fetters or Recycle.
@Rest in Piece: That card wrecks US. It shuts down Witness, Therapy and Explorer (and depending on your version Rec. Nightmare, Rector, Punishing Fire, Volrath's Stronghold).

I don't think it is worth it to play any Yard hate in Enchantment form. They are all bad.

@Metalworker matchup: In general decks that play Eldrazis, Griselbrand or Sundering Titan are a bad matchup for Nic Fit because they go bigger. Metalworker is a bad matchup too, but at least the deck is extremely bad and unreliable compared to Sneak and Tell and you have an actual chance of wrecking them with Therapy on their fatties and Deed on their board before they get their win condition out. Steel Hellkite is also a joke compared to other giant monsters and taking 2 or 3 hits of him isn't game ending and it gives you time to find your solutions. Caustic Wasps is just a very bad card, don't play it.

Sylvan Ranger: The Jitte/Batterskull case is not important. You can either handle them or not. Two counters or four life most likely won't affect the outcome of the game. I stand by my point that Sylvan Ranger is much better than Tribe Elder atm.

[Karang029]

I agree that Rest in Peace wrecks us, but Ground Seal doesn't do much better. I personally don't run either since my GY hate comes in the form of extirpate anyways, and if needed leyline of the void(a meh solution).

As for Metalworker the matchup is difficult, but unlike our ramp there ramp dies to deed. Monolith, Metalworkers, Keys, Mox, and Dynamos are all easily exploded if need be.

[Arianrhod]

Architect and I split the top eight at mythic today. Both with scapewish.

[unemployer]

Played a gauntlet yesterday with 5 players using the Scapewish. I tried using the build of Arianrhod but I replaced 2 basic lands with Verdant Catacombs. I had times I wanted a T1 Therapy but the lands were just not black... below are my match-ups

2-0 vs Berserk Stompy
1-2 vs Dredge
2-1 vs Punishing Maverick
2-0 vs Junk
0-2 vs TES (but gave me the win so I can have the packs)
G1, my life is already at 31 and he just played 16 spells to kill me.

With this, I am having problems with Combo. Any suggestions on how to fight Dredge, TES and the like? Am I missing something? Thanks for the help :D

[TheArchitect]

Mini report time from Mythic Games monthly Legacy Tourney

List - Almost the same as Arianrhod, just extirpates in the board, 2 fetches, and no hellion or 25th land for 2 decays.
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Burning Wish
3 Sensei’s Diving Top
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Eternal Witness
2 Scapeshift
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
4 Taiga
3 Badlands
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
2 Bayou
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Sideboard:
3 Pyroblast
1 Reanimate
2 Slaughter Games
1 Scapewish
1 Pyroclasm
1 Virtue’s Ruin
1 Damnation
1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Thoughtseize
2 Extirpate

R1: Joe with GB Beserk Nit Fit -Win
Joe is usually "that goblins guy" who just always beats everyone with goblins and I had no idea he was on veteran exploreres
G1: We both had 6 lands on turn 2. He played creatures with his lands, I blew them up and played scapeshift with mine.
G2: He was cut off of black, but had the nuts if he hit it. I kept an explore alive on my side till the turn I could crack it and win.

1-0

R2: Phillup with MUD stompy (not forgemaster) - Loss
I knew he was playing MUD, I just did my best. Its a match I cant reallly win and I can live with that.
G1: I know hes on mud and hes on the play, but I mull to 6 and keep a hand with 2 lands, explorer, therapy, top and business, praying he doesnt turn 1 chalice. He doesnt t1 chalice, he t1's a trinosphere (which he later tells me he just moved to the MD). I dont see a single land till he kills me a lodestone golem and wurmcoil.
G2: No early chalices or trispheres. tribe elder DOES WORK against his wurmcoil. I keep him at <18 life sacking 2 elders, and the woodelves+phyrexian tower, to prevent the lifelinking wurm form healing his ancient tomb damage. I hit 7 lands and scapeshift.
G3: He gets an early chalice at 1, but also drops worker, i have to decay the worker, only to see him drop another another one. His next 5 or so turns go Lodestone x2, wurmcoil x2, batterskull x2. OUCH. I manage somehow to get up to like 13 lands and not lose because I see all 3 huntmasters and a thrag. Hes at 53 by the time it is down to my last turn alive. I draw the burning wish, but can only do 48 damage too him since I have 3 of my 11 mountains in play.

1-1

R3: Nick with TES - WIN
G1: I get the litteral nuts. Vet, Bayou, fetch, Phyrexian Tower, huntmaster, wish, GSZ. He duress and takes the wish I think. I draw into scapeshift and win turn 3 while he assembles his hand with ponders and brainstorms.
G2: I keep a hand that is something like therapy, GSZ, wish, scapeshift, top, land, land. He discards my top. I therapy and hit a LED and see hand full of cantrips and discard. He duresses my GSZ, and then i topdeck 2 in a row to get myself 2 explorers. He drops a bob and I wish>IB it cause I know he has just land+petal in his hand at that point. I pass, he drops petal and passes but EOT I decay his petal (he had no white producing lands) so he cant orim's chant me. I win on my turn with scapeshift.

2-1 and PUMPED that I out combo'd TES.

R4: Gabe with Mono black The Gate
Gabe usually plays BUG Nic Fit, but I know he was slinging bitterblossems and bobs today. He knew my deck well and said he had zero hope of winning.
G1: I think I overwhelmed him with huntmasters but I dont really remember.
G2: He gets like double bob, double blossom online, after we both strip eachothers hands and kill eachothers dudes. He wins that top deck war. I also didnt hit green mana that game and was banking on my top to find it (which he discarded). My mistake.
G4: I think I win like turn 4-5 with angry mountains


R5: Evan with Reanimator
G1: He has to mull to like 5 and keeps a hand full of cantrips and discard. I think he makes me discard a wish and then a turn 3 Huntmaster gets me there with a wish for thoughtseize as backup.
G2: He has to mull to 4 :/ and I keep 6 with therapy but zero other hate. After we stip eachothers hands with discard I win with angry mountains again. I wish I had drawn a burning wish instead of the scapeshift though, cause I REALLY wanted to reanimate the griselbrand that he binned.


R6: Timur with Jund
Me and Timur both know that my angry mountains usually beat Jund, we both want to be in the top 8, and both want the other to be in the top 8 so we ID.

I ended with swiss in 5th place and the top 8 was 2 Scapewish (me and Arianrhod), 2 Jund, TES (not the guy I played), Reanimtor, Mav, Team Italia

If we had played it out Im pretty sure the TES play would have taken it, while Arianrhod, me or the reanimator guy would fill out the top 4, but most of us wanted to leave and eat so we split the prizes for 145$ in credit each.


I was really happy with the whole deck. I dont think I would change anything. I liked the mana base, the abrupt decays and the board. I might tweak it slightly depending on the meta but overall it was awesome. Im not totally sold on blitz hellion, but I dont face lily/jace decks either so I really dont have an opinion yet.



The next casual LGS tourny I go to I think Im going to play GB control heavy list with NO-Pro, just for kicks. Also, I still want to play a really threat heavy, jund list with Godo+Batterskull as the "big finisher" and no wishes or p-fires. Ill let you guys no if they are anything more than cute.

[Raggedjoe]

Hey there. I was testing and I came up with some nice tech for ScapeWish: Bonfire of the Dammed. This lovely card is crazy in a ramp deck. Casting it for x=8 in the late game (especially against control) is quite possible. I actually burned out a miracle player with Bonfire for x=8 and then the next turn for the win. It combines the utility of a sweeper with the power of another buisness spell, plus can be used in a pinch to kill Explorer if need be. I've been playing the following list

Creatures:14
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Wood Elves
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Blitz Hellion
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

Spells:22
3 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Burning Wish
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Scapeshift

Lands:24
2 Badlands
3 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard:15
3 Extirpate
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Thoughtseize
1 Innocent Blood
1 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Scapeshift
1 Tsunami

I have been slowly drifting away from a tutor board. I started off with tutor targets and 4 REB. Then I added Thoughtseize and Extirpate...

[TheArchitect]

Hey there. I was testing and I came up with some nice tech for ScapeWish: Bonfire of the Dammed. This lovely card is crazy in a ramp deck. Casting it for x=8 in the late game (especially against control) is quite possible. I actually burned out a miracle player with Bonfire for x=8 and then the next turn for the win. It combines the utility of a sweeper with the power of another buisness spell, plus can be used in a pinch to kill Explorer if need be. I've been playing the following list

You should look back like 10ish pages, we had alot of discussion about bonfire. It used to be an auto-include, but with meta shift from decks like mav which play a bunch of little creatures, to everyone playing GBx with goyfs alot of people have cut it for other cards. Its still not bad in the right meta. If theres a lot of tribal, dead guy, mav, etc it could be really good. But its not too good against goyf based decks (doesnt kill them soon enough) or miracles cause jace is the only thing in their deck that you can really hit with hit, and if they have jace out, they probably brainstormed into counterspells, so you usually need a few threats to get through to him, not one big costing spell. I personally cut it for abrupt decay, cause I often just need to kill a turn 2/3 goyf/kotr so I can buy enough time to drop threats. Decay also kills counterbalance, equipment, etc. Decay has been amazing.

[XdeckX]

Thought it was time for me to add some to this thread.
I played a tourney today with ScapeWish. I was lazy and played Arianrhod -Volraths stronghold +2 abrupt decay.
So back to 61 cards ;)
30 players attended so 5 rounds with top 8.

R1 vs tendrils combo
G1 he kills me before i get anything going.
G2 i slaughter games his burning wishes since i know the list relies heavily on them. His remaining wincon is 1 empty the warrens. He manages to product 5milion of those little buggers. I flip the top card: pernicious deed. Game 3
G3 i get a good hand with veteran and therapy and the possibility of turn 4 scapeshift with a little luck. He plays land, ponder. I play therapy on brainstorm and hit seeing chrome mox, ritual, land, infernal tutor and something i cant remember. I plan on taking the tutor on my turn 2 but my opponent rips LED and kills me in his 2nd turn :/

R2 GB pile
Some casual player with a casual deck i murder 2x with scapeshift.

R3 grixis aggrocontrol
G1 i loose to delver + jitte
G2 my list plays pyroclasm over firespout. I have exactly enough mana after being wastelanded to burning wish for pyroclasm. I kill 2 delvers and a dark confidant. Lateron i get my mana goning and kill with scapeshift
G3 i ramp like crazy and kill with scapeshift.

R4 teammate with UW miracles
G1 i wish for slaughter games and take his jace. He plays only 2 next to a singleton elspeth (due to card availability) next turn i zenith for eternal witness ans return the slaughter games. I take his entreats next turn. I start drawig lots of lands and need to kill the elspeth with 2 valakut triggers not to die. Over the course of next turn i rip enough lands to remove his threats. I run into scapeshift and do almost infi damage.
G2 he gets jace, elspeth and clique. I need to drop the blitz helion i have in hand but it gets countered by counterbalance (reveals force of will). Im pressed for mana and cant rape my opponents hand with the 3 therapies i find
Eventually i loose to elspeth +3 on clique in extra turns.

R5 BR pile.
I get lucky and am paired against another pile. I ge to school him by scapeshifting for 36 and 42.

I get into top 8 at 8th seed with my 3-1-1 record.
I get paired against another teammate and the brother of my r4 opponent. He plays tempo as usualy and is not happy being paired against nicfit (his fear for the deck is unbelievable lol)
The deck descides to give in and i get manaflooed like crazy in game 1.
Game 2 i can stall a bit but eventually loose to 2 5/6 goyfs.

I get 5 boosters with jank in them.

The deck played great all day and eventhough i didnt get to play an abrupt decay they seem descent for now. The blitz helion is fun for now and would have been great in taking out a planeswalker against miracles but i do miss the 2nd eternal witness.

[litenkatt]

anyone tried running kessig wolf run + inkmoth nexus as targets for primeval titan in punishing fire decks?

[Arianrhod]

I'm going to do a quickie report just from my memory, as I don't have my notes in front of me.

R1 vs burn.

I recognize my opponent, who, like me, has multiple top 8's at Mythic. Although I had never played against him before, I knew he was a religious burn player.

Game one I shred his hand with Therapies and then enter the Angry Mountains Phase. He dies quickly thereafter.

Game two he has double Goblin Guide into Grim Lavamancer. I -almost- stabilize, but I couldn't quite get there, as I was both dead to an untapped Grim Lavamancer and one land short being able to Scapeshift him.

Game three is derpy. I set off an early Explorer, getting Forest/Mountain (as I had like a Bayou and a Badlands or two Bayous....I had two black sources, moral of the story). He slams down Blood Moon. I resolve a pair of Huntmasters, while he then drops a Sulfuric Vortex. I'm at like 21 and he's at 17ish. He ends up having to Fireblast both of my Huntmasters to stay alive and keep them from flipping. I assemble more dudes while he bleeds out. I drew into a Swamp and had a Deed on board in case I had to get rid of his enchantments, but the board state never necessitated it.

R2 vs Asher with White Stax.

Because we have to play every single ****ing event.

I know three things going into this match: Asher is actually really good with that deck, he has at least 3 and possibly 4 Armageddons, and I don't have Pulverize in my sideboard. Awkward.

Game one takes something like 35 minutes. I try to control his Crucibles as best as I can so as to work out from Wastelock, and only partially succeed because he's added Trading Post to his deck, which allows him to get back his Crucibles basically on demand. After a pair of Deeds I've finally got him in a decent position -- then he drops the rest of his hand. Another Crucible, a Smokestack, and an Elspeth. I manage to Top into my 3rd and final Deed, and opt to play it and pass the turn so that I can his manlands if he tries to attack me for the turn. He makes a HUGE misplay here, and tries to O-Ring my Deed. I crack it in response to the cast, which means that when O-Ring comes into play, the only eligible permanent for its trigger to hit is his Elspeth. I end up taking it down from there, since he was completely out of gas. He hadn't hit a Geddon, but I was ready for it -- I chose to fail to find off of my Primeval Titan and was stockpiling lands in my hand. I've lost enough games to that card.

Game two we don't even get to finish, and I win 1-0-1. By far the coolest thing in this matchup was Scapeshifting my 5 dual lands into 5 basics so that he couldn't Wastelock me. I feel that too often, Scapewish players forget that Scapeshift can be used for other things besides killing people. It's perfectly fine to thin your deck out or just make your manabase wasteland-proof.

R3 vs Neo-Survival Maverick

I don't really have much to say about this. Virtue's Ruin did work, Deed did work, Damnation did work in game two when I was mana screwed with double Explorer in play and he Retainers'd in Emrakul, which then let me Burning Wish for Damnation. Pretty sure he got Scapeshifted both games.

R4 vs Jund

Game one I got mana flooded to hell and back while he just kept drawing Bloodbraids. It was one of those awkward games where I had approximately a million live draws and just didn't hit any. It didn't help that he was on the play, which meant he got to Thoughtseize my Top away.

Game two was the exact opposite: I had like triple Explorer, but no sac outlet and barely any lands. He had double Wasteland + a Hymn that hit lands, so I was kind of on my back foot. I remember I did Burning Wish for a Pyroclasm that would have killed his Deathrite and his Bob, as well as two Explorers on my side, but he ripped a Thoughtseize for it, as I didn't have the mana to do it all in one shot. Really unfortunate. I'm fairly certain that this is actually a really good matchup and I just got unlucky, but as that was the first match I've played vs the new Jund deck, I can't say for sure.

R5 vs Ning with TES

He gets revenge for my slaying him in the top 8 of the last Jupiter =(

Game one I mull aggressively looking for a Therapy. I eventually hit a sexy-as-fuck double Therapy+Explorer+Huntmaster(or Deed, can't remember) hand, which is everything that I'm looking for in the matchup. The problem: no black mana. I decide that going to 4? 5? isn't going to be better, so I sit on it. He sculpts his hand for a turn or two while I fail to draw black mana. I die shortly thereafter.

Game one he discards a REB, then tries to go off via Time Spiral. I naturally draw into another REB off of his Spiral, and counter his Brainstorm....only to have him play another one. He ends up whiffing, though, and passes the turn with the storm count at like 15. I drop a Thragtusk and ship it back. He does a few cantrips, finds what he needs, and storms off via Past in Flames for an arbitrarily large number.

R6 vs Patnode with TES, again.

I think he was running card-for-card the same list as Ning, but he might have stuck with D. Returns instead of Ning's trademark Time Spiral...not sure, as it didn't come up. I always hate playing against Patnode, because while he's a great guy outside of playing him, it never matters how friendly I am during the match. It doesn't help that he has two false assumptions: that his combo deck can't lose to Nic Fit (a "durdle midrange deck"), and that Nic Fit also isn't even a "real" deck -- completely ignoring the number of times I've moneyed with Nic Fit now, it's still pretty infuriating.

Anyway.

I mull to 5 game one, and draw the nuts to shred his hand and curve Huntmaster into Thragtusk. He makes some goblins to chump block, but I sweep them away and kill him.

Game two I have him really far on his back foot, but I think I misplayed and it cost me the game. He had double Burning Wish + Infernal Tutor in hand. I have a Slaughter Games coming, and am currently flashing back a Therapy on him. I name the Wish, with the plan to Slaughter his Tutor next turn. This all happens, except that later in the game he Burning Wishes for a Tendrils and kills me while I had Deed on board. I didn't want him to use one of the Wishes just for value, which is why I took the Wishes, but as I think about it, hitting the Wishes with Slaughter Games seems much better, since it forces them on the Empty the Warrens plan (they can't Wish for Tendrils to just kill you). Live and learn -- something to think about for the future.

Game three I tear his hand apart while he rages about my blind Therapies, and I just apply too much pressure for him to keep up. He makes a bunch of goblins to block my Thragtusk again, and I resolve a Green Sun. Now, I could have made him REALLY tilt by getting Blitz Hellion and forcing him to lose 8 of his 12 goblins, but I decide to make the "correct" play: getting a Huntmaster. With Hunts, I could just pass the turn and the flip would kill him -- which is exactly what ended up happening.

I snuck into 7th place at 4-2, and the top 8 decided to chop and go eat, which was good for almost 150. I would have been paired vs Jund-guy again if we had played it out, so I think that my odds of top 4ing were quite high. Then, beyond that, it's anyone's guess because who knows what I would have gotten paired with. it was definitely the type of top 8 setup where Scapewish could have easily gone the whole way, depending on the pairings. But, all good.

At the rate we're going this month, we MIGHT be able to get back into DTB this month, or at least get close. Nic Fit's picking up a lot of finishes so far. We just need to make sure that we upload all of them to Council.es, and point out anything that gets mislabeled on there. I have every intention of picking up my 4th money finish in a row this upcoming Saturday at Jupiter, so we'll see what happens =)

[XdeckX]

@Arianrhod
Have you missed the 2nd Eternal Witness since you cut it?
Last weekend I missed it on at least 2 occations where even the Stronghold wouldnt have helped. The deck is really tight right now so I'm unsure what to cut to add the 2nd Witness again. It feels like its either Blitz Helion of Witness as I don't want to cut the Decays I've been playing in my current meta.

Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )

[fireiced]

Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )

After a long hitaus I am back playing Scapewish and I had every opponent and onlooker go 'wth is this a real deck?' or 'dude you sure you playing legacy?':eek:

[Siiig]

After a long hitaus I am back playing Scapewish and I had every opponent and onlooker go 'wth is this a real deck?' or 'dude you sure you playing legacy?':eek:

Haha, I get these comments all the time.

Arch/Arianrhod: You guys going to be up at Jupiter? I'm assuming Kevin will since he mentioned aiming for his 4th money finish.

I'm planning to go so that would be three nicshifts up there haha, has anyone tested in the mirror?

[Arianrhod]

@Arianrhod
Have you missed the 2nd Eternal Witness since you cut it?
Last weekend I missed it on at least 2 occations where even the Stronghold wouldnt have helped. The deck is really tight right now so I'm unsure what to cut to add the 2nd Witness again. It feels like its either Blitz Helion of Witness as I don't want to cut the Decays I've been playing in my current meta.

Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )

Yeah, I actually haven't missed the 2nd E.Wit at all. There have been exactly 0 situations where I've wanted the 2nd copy =/

Note that I'm still unsure about the Stronghold. Like, I can rationally understand how Stronghold is good, and I do like it as a kind of "security blanket" to where once it gets online, in a late-enough game, you just win -- but that situation STILL hasn't come up for me, so I'm not sure that it's worth it. It might just be a playstyle thing, like Liliana. Hellion's been fine so far, but it's actually ending up kind of like the Stronghold. I haven't actually killed a Jace or a Liliana with it yet. Some of that is matchups (I've played against like one Liliana deck since I put it in). It gives a nice feeling of security that I have that tool available to me should I need it, but it hasn't actually come up yet. So, I dunno. I'll keep testing both of them for now and see what happens.

And yeah, we have been perpetually maligned since becoming a deck about a year and a half ago now. Nobody gives the deck it's full credit, which leads to a lot of comments that I find very derogatory. Like, I just try to ignore and brush off the people who are like "hey look a standard deck." I WANT to just flip my shit and be like, "look retards, see these Huntmasters and these Thragtusks? THOSE ARE THE ONLY STANDARD LEGAL CARDS IN THE DECK. NOW KINDLY SHUT THE FUCK UP."

....But I keep my mouth shut. It's just frustrating that we run fewer standard legal cards than basically any Delver deck, but WE'RE the standard deck. Clearly. I think that this will go away with time, once Huntmaster and Tusk rotate out of standard and we're still playing them, but it's going to be a long 9 months until that happens. But hey, whatever. Like you said, we're getting top eights and they aren't, so if they want to keep bashing it, I guess that's their prerogative. We'll just keep winning.

[Arianrhod]

Haha, I get these comments all the time.

Arch/Arianrhod: You guys going to be up at Jupiter? I'm assuming Kevin will since he mentioned aiming for his 4th money finish.

I'm planning to go so that would be three nicshifts up there haha, has anyone tested in the mirror?

I will be -- I believe Evan said that he's not sure at the moment, but he might be.

The mirror is really strange for the deck. I haven't done -much- testing of it, but a lot of it comes down to Explorer control. Like, each deck wants to be setting off their Explorers and winning on that turn. The aggro plan is basically completely meaningless, because both decks have access to almost infinite removal between Deeds and Wishes. It just comes down to who combos off first, really. Prime Time is big money. I would IMAGINE that Blitz Hellion would actually give you more mileage in the mirror than Thragtusk would, since most of Scapewish's removal is Sorcery speed by definition, and gaining 5 life is completely meaningless in the face of angry mountains. 35-50 damage is -easily- possible....a Thragtusk and a Huntmaster or two isn't going to help that. Not when 8 lands does 36 damage, and then each land thereafter adds 6.

[Siiig]

I will be -- I believe Evan said that he's not sure at the moment, but he might be.

The mirror is really strange for the deck. I haven't done -much- testing of it, but a lot of it comes down to Explorer control. Like, each deck wants to be setting off their Explorers and winning on that turn. The aggro plan is basically completely meaningless, because both decks have access to almost infinite removal between Deeds and Wishes. It just comes down to who combos off first, really. Prime Time is big money. I would IMAGINE that Blitz Hellion would actually give you more mileage in the mirror than Thragtusk would, since most of Scapewish's removal is Sorcery speed by definition, and gaining 5 life is completely meaningless in the face of angry mountains. 35-50 damage is -easily- possible....a Thragtusk and a Huntmaster or two isn't going to help that. Not when 8 lands does 36 damage, and then each land thereafter adds 6.

Pretty much what I figured. The closest thing I've played up against was BUG-Fit. That was fun, maelstrom pulse naming explorer (hits mine and his)... shift for lethal?

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Yeah, I actually haven't missed the 2nd E.Wit at all. There have been exactly 0 situations where I've wanted the 2nd copy =/

Note that I'm still unsure about the Stronghold. Like, I can rationally understand how Stronghold is good, and I do like it as a kind of "security blanket" to where once it gets online, in a late-enough game, you just win -- but that situation STILL hasn't come up for me, so I'm not sure that it's worth it. It might just be a playstyle thing, like Liliana. Hellion's been fine so far, but it's actually ending up kind of like the Stronghold. I haven't actually killed a Jace or a Liliana with it yet. Some of that is matchups (I've played against like one Liliana deck since I put it in). It gives a nice feeling of security that I have that tool available to me should I need it, but it hasn't actually come up yet. So, I dunno. I'll keep testing both of them for now and see what happens.

And yeah, we have been perpetually maligned since becoming a deck about a year and a half ago now. Nobody gives the deck it's full credit, which leads to a lot of comments that I find very derogatory. Like, I just try to ignore and brush off the people who are like "hey look a standard deck." I WANT to just flip my shit and be like, "look retards, see these Huntmasters and these Thragtusks? THOSE ARE THE ONLY STANDARD LEGAL CARDS IN THE DECK. NOW KINDLY SHUT THE FUCK UP."

....But I keep my mouth shut. It's just frustrating that we run fewer standard legal cards than basically any Delver deck, but WE'RE the standard deck. Clearly. I think that this will go away with time, once Huntmaster and Tusk rotate out of standard and we're still playing them, but it's going to be a long 9 months until that happens. But hey, whatever. Like you said, we're getting top eights and they aren't, so if they want to keep bashing it, I guess that's their prerogative. We'll just keep winning.

I don't mind the standard comments as much as it is the fun comments when I lose. Like it seems like fun is slang for unplayable in the tournament community, and that cheeses me off.

[Siiig]

Yeah, I actually haven't missed the 2nd E.Wit at all. There have been exactly 0 situations where I've wanted the 2nd copy =/

Note that I'm still unsure about the Stronghold. Like, I can rationally understand how Stronghold is good, and I do like it as a kind of "security blanket" to where once it gets online, in a late-enough game, you just win -- but that situation STILL hasn't come up for me, so I'm not sure that it's worth it. It might just be a playstyle thing, like Liliana. Hellion's been fine so far, but it's actually ending up kind of like the Stronghold. I haven't actually killed a Jace or a Liliana with it yet. Some of that is matchups (I've played against like one Liliana deck since I put it in). It gives a nice feeling of security that I have that tool available to me should I need it, but it hasn't actually come up yet. So, I dunno. I'll keep testing both of them for now and see what happens.


On the card tech, I've actually switched my build around quite a bit from yours. My primary opponent in my meta is Esperblade, and I wanted to try a different flavor for my deck.

Blitz Hellion GSZ feels really darn good. Especially when they're either low (scapeshift for 18 when they're above 18), or when Jace get's windmilled.

For stronghold, I don't run one. I tried it for a single tournament, and just didn't understand the need in shift. The only thing I can think of would be to return a card in place of witness, or return witness to witness something else. I prefer wish->reanimate for that.

Someone mentioned Bonfire in the last few comments. Running a singleton. Miracle flip for 9 is pretty hot.

[TheArchitect]

While stronghold can be good in rare other occasions, the most common use is getting it and phyrexian tower when you hit a prime titan. It lets you recast prime titan, thrag, ewit whatever you need turn after turn even in the face of removal (even terminus/stps, thanks to the phyrexian tower). I use it alot and like it, if you don't that's ok I guess.


I'm not sure if I will be at jupiter yet. But in the Nic fit Mirror, scapeshift beats all the other variants with ease (except maybe BUG?). And in the scapeshift mirror, you are basically playing a combo deck. The aggro plan is meaningless and you cant be setting off explorers until the turn you are ready to win or your opponent will use the land to win.

There's a weird poker game that happens where each player can "check" and just pass the turn keeping their GSZ/explorers in their hand till they get the sac outlet and scapeshift all in hand as well, at the risk of losing pieces to discard. Or they can "raise" and cast their explorers betting on their opponent not having a way to blow up your explorers on their turn and use them to fuel their scapeshift. And it goes the other way too, where you can keep a hand with sweeper, discard and scapewish, forcing your opponent to dump their explorers so you can use them for your own scapeshift. Mirror matches are weird, but this one doesnt even feel like MTG.

[Arianrhod]

While stronghold can be good in rare other occasions, the most common use is getting it and phyrexian tower when you hit a prime titan. It lets you recast prime titan, thrag, ewit whatever you need turn after turn even in the face of removal (even terminus/stps, thanks to the phyrexian tower). I use it alot and like it, if you don't that's ok I guess.


I'm not sure if I will be at jupiter yet. But in the Nic fit Mirror, scapeshift beats all the other variants with ease (except maybe BUG?). And in the scapeshift mirror, you are basically playing a combo deck. The aggro plan is meaningless and you cant be setting off explorers until the turn you are ready to win or your opponent will use the land to win.

There's a weird poker game that happens where each player can "check" and just pass the turn keeping their GSZ/explorers in their hand till they get the sac outlet and scapeshift all in hand as well, at the risk of losing pieces to discard. Or they can "raise" and cast their explorers betting on their opponent not having a way to blow up your explorers on their turn and use them to fuel their scapeshift. And it goes the other way too, where you can keep a hand with sweeper, discard and scapewish, forcing your opponent to dump their explorers so you can use them for your own scapeshift. Mirror matches are weird, but this one doesnt even feel like MTG.

I think that the core difference is that when I drop Prime Time, I tend to just get two durdle lands out of my deck, because I'm building for Scapeshift and I don't want to sac Volrath's/Phyrexian to the Scapeshift. Like Prime Time -> fetching a Bayou and a Forest is a pretty common thing, albeit six kinds of boring. Alternatively, I'm on the slow-roll Valakut plan, in which case I'm fetching either Valakut and/or mountains to start dealing damage. Considering that we both have a good track record with Scapewish, I don't believe that either option is notably better or worse than the other -- in fact, probably the best way about it is to try to learn to recognize the situations when each of our respective styles is correct, and then employ them from there. As I said, I do like what Stronghold brings to the deck from a theoretical point of view, I just haven't achieved it in practice yet.

As for the different versions, I think that eventually, long-term, what I would LIKE to see would be a rock/paper/scissors amongst Nic Fit, wherein Rector beats Blue, Blue beats Scapewish, and Scapewish beats Rector.

Of course, it's rather hard to know considering that after almost a year now, we STILL don't have a legit blue version ironed out. That's also ignoring the presence of the other varieties like Punishing and straight G/B. As of right now, all we can definitively say is that Scapewish crushes Rector mercilessly; and that I would agree with Evan's assessment of the Scapewish mirror -- it's a bizarre combination of draw-dependency and poker to the point that it doesn't even resemble a game of Magic anymore. By contrast, I would say that the Rector mirror is basically just about who pulls the trigger last. Every time I've played a Rector mirror, I've won because I've had the 2nd Sigarda, or the 2nd Recycle, or whatever. Whoever runs their power cards out first loses, generally speaking.

[soiber2000]

Sorry for breaking your interesting debate about Scapewish, it's an extremely fun deck I want to try in the near future, but yesterday I had my first real tournament with GB version, and second experience of Nic Fit (the other one was months ago with GBW).

I played a 125 people tournament with a diverse metagame and experienced players. My result was not as good as I thought, 4-3 but maybe was the tournament I enjoyed most, and with more practice, your little help and more luck with pairings (4 combo decks!) I can improve my results.

My list was the same as Qwerios (or HoneyT, sorry I don't remember) with little changes:

4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswepth Heath
4 Bayou
2 Treetop Village
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun
1 Acidic Slime
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

4 Cabal therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Hymn to tourach
3 Sensei's divining top
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Innocent Blood
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Sideboard:
3 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Extirpate
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
2 Engineered Plague
1 Infest (should have been the 3d plague but I didn't find it)
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Carpet of Flowers (only own 1)

Quick report:

R1: UWR Miracles 1-0

G1:A long game I manage to win with Thrun killing Jace and Pulse killing 4 angel tokens.
G2: Go to time after I Extirpate Jace.

R2: Reanimator 1-2

G1: Second turn Griselbrand
G2: Discard+extirapte+Nihil+thrun do the job.
G3: I thoughtseize and see 2 reanimate an exhume and Angel of Despair. Discard exhume hoping for a therapy, I have and extirpate in hand, but I don't draw lands nor explorer and stay with 3 lands for some turns. He tries to reanimate a Griselbrand which I extirpate, then show and tells the angel which I can kill with pulse, but then he can reanimate the angel and kills one land.

R3: BUG (no Jace) 2-0

Both games are close but I can rip his hand and sacrifice explorer, then kill him with some dudes.

R4:UWB stoneblade 0-2

R1: a very long game, 40 minutes or so, but I thought I could win the war to a Jace, but fail to find any answer and then batterskull joins the party.
R2: Jace again, but this time joins snapcaster+ Sword of feast and famine, quite devastating.

R5: Omnitell 2-0

R1:Best thing ever. T4 Show and tell into Emrakul, I put Primeval Titan, and play Garruk make a 3/3 (I have no more creatures in my attempt to find Innocent blood), then sacrifice 5 lands and an explorer to emrakul, and in my turn I draw 6 and Innocent blood appears. Epic victory.
R2: I rip his hand with discard and extirpate/extract some key cards.

R6: GU Infect 1-2

R1: turn 3 kill, double Invigorate an Inkmoth.
R2: I can discard some pump and counters, kill dudes with pernicious deed, and kill him with thrun.
R3: Try to discard T1 but he dazes, try to discard T2 with hymn to tourach but he spell pierces. The game goes long but I can kill all his dudes...except for Inmoth. Finally I GSZ for 5 just to realize I side out my Acidic Slime, so I find Eternal witness and return a Pernicious deed to control his ground, but some turns later he draws invigorate when I am at 6 counters, and Inkmoth kills me.

R7: Belcher 2-1

R1: He is on the play and wins me T1 with lethal belcher. He doesn't know what I'm playing.
R2: I have a hand with duress, therapy and explorer, so I can discard chrome mox and then double burning wish. He can't recover for the later discard.
R3: I have thoughtseize, Hymn and pernicious deed, but if he comboes T1 I can do nothing. He keeps his seven and passes the turn. I discard and accelerator seeing no win condition but a Manamorphose. In his turn he decides to go off and finds an empty the warrens that puts 10 goblins. In my T2 I destroy his chrome mox then takes 10 damage, but pernicious deed restarts the board. At this point, I can hymn his 2 cards, then cranial extract Belcher, Extirpate Burning wish, and Extract Empty the warrens, so no win condition for him and concedes.

To sum up it was very fun to play, and considering I had very bad luck with pairings I am not disappointed. Jace in the battlefield is imposible to beat, and sometimes I wished my second Thragtusk would have been e a flying beater or sweeper, Silklash Spider beeing my preference. I could have won R6 infect but stoneblade was imposible and Reanimator is a bad matchup also, so overall I'm happy with my first performance. Maybe a white splash again but this time for vindicate (could have killed Jace, Inkmoth and Angel of despair, in my loses) Sigarda and Gaddock sideboard.

Hope you can help me and give me some advice.

[Tao]

@soiber2000: You should consider a splash. Academy Rector beats Jace by going over the Top with Recycle or by Faith's Fettering him. Blue lists can play their own Jace. Punishing Fire lists can burn Jace dead and Scapewish lists can just brute force a Scapeshift to resolve with Therapies and kill the opponent. Red lists also have access to Slaughter Games post board which is great against UW Jace decks.


@Played another Trial. I changed -1 Recurring Nightmare +1 Punishing Fire to my signature list because of everyone playing DR Shaman and I replaced the Krosan Grip in my SB with a Decay.

R1: some kind of Veteran Explorer / Rector deck with Verdant Succession, Ashnod's Altar but no Cabal Therapies.
G1 he assembles a Semi-Combo with Rector and nukes too many of my lands.

+ 3 Slaughter Games
+ 4 Thoughtseize
- 2 Damnation
- 2 Veteran Explorer
- 2 Punishing Fire
- 1 Abrupt Decay
Not entirely sure how I sideboarded.

G2 and G3 I destroy his janky deck and he complains like a 5 year old. Not sure if he was trolling or just stupid.

2-1
1-0


R2: Belcher
G1 he just kills me T1

SB
+ 4 Thoughtseize
+ 3 Slaughter Games
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
- 4 Punishing Fire
- 1 Broodmate Dragon
- 1 Primecal Titan
- 2 Thragtusk
- 1 Recurring Nightmare

G2 I Thoughtseize him T1 and take his only win condition. Then Therapy on a double and a single and Slaughter Games. Huntmaster finishes things quickly.
G3 I keep Thoughtseize, Top, Explorer and 4 Land. At least it has the potential to lucksack into Deed/Damnation/Plague if he has Warrens. He Probes me, makes 18 Goblins and passes the turn. I block with Explorer, go to three, brick in draw step, play Top, activate blind and find the Deed. Skill! He took it like a man and cracked some jokes about it. Much nicer than R1 opponent.

2-1
2-0

R3: UGB Delver
I lose G1 to a Tombstalker that I find no solution for.
+ 1 Go for the Throat
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
- 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Wall of Blossoms
- 1 Recurring Nightmare

G2 I win and then G3 goes I win on life total. He tried to stall like a madman but doesn't quite get there because he doens't know how the Magic League rules work.

2-1
3-0


R4 RUG
He has really good draws in both games and I miss the third land drop for several turns in both games while he Stifles my Explorer triggers, beats me down with Mongoose and then has double Force of Will for my sweepers and / or Thragtusks. A Carpet also does not show up in G2. These games felt about as representative of the matchup as the games against Belcher. My opponent played perfectly though and deserves the win.

SB
+ 2 Abrupt Decay
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
+ 1 Go for the Throat
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Punishing Fire
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
- 3 Cabal Therapy

0-2
3-1

Overall I am pretty happy with the list. 11-3 total in ML Trials is a good result.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Just a suggestion for straight Nic fit, but what about the green ball lightning from planar chaos as a sub for blitz hellion? It doesn't shuffle back in, but it also costs 4 to GSZ instead of 6.

[Tao]

@Commoner; @Arian:
I think Blitz Hellion is not the right choice (and neither is Groundbreaker). I would suggest to just cut the Hellion and the Stronghold if you use them so rarely. That extra insurance of Stronghold is nice and if you play 20 more games there might be a point in which you miss Hellion but having 2 additional cards that always do something will certainly be better in the long run.

[soiber2000]

@Tao: thanks. Maybe the splash is the way to go. Punishing Fire is really tempting, as is Scapewish. Your results with Punishing Fire are great and it is something to consider.
@Haste beater: I also think it is not the solution to Planeswalker, but there is nothing to fetch with zenith that can kill a Jace. Absolutely nothing, which is quite disappointing.

[Tao]

If you GSZ for Primeval Titan and search out two Grove of the Burnwillows you can handle Jace relatively quickly and sustainably.

[Siiig]

If you GSZ for Primeval Titan and search out two Grove of the Burnwillows you can handle Jace relatively quickly and sustainably.

Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.

I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.

Nice results Tao! I'm considering purchasing the little bit I need to convert shift into punishing, just because they all use cards I enjoy!


Back on the card tech, I have faith in Blitz Hellion. Last night I actually wished him up over Thragtusk v.s. maverick when I needed more punching power rather than life (this was after there were angry mountains, and a prime time ready to rumble).

It just makes prime time and agro plans a nice shot quicker. Gives your opponent less time to find the answers they need, and you also windmill slam it on the table and have to read it because no one's seen it before.


On a different note: What the hell does /barn mean?

[Arianrhod]

Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.

I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.

Nice results Tao! I'm considering purchasing the little bit I need to convert shift into punishing, just because they all use cards I enjoy!


Back on the card tech, I have faith in Blitz Hellion. Last night I actually wished him up over Thragtusk v.s. maverick when I needed more punching power rather than life (this was after there were angry mountains, and a prime time ready to rumble).

It just makes prime time and agro plans a nice shot quicker. Gives your opponent less time to find the answers they need, and you also windmill slam it on the table and have to read it because no one's seen it before.


On a different note: What the hell does /barn mean?

Uh, it means I've developed a bad habit. I'm taken to playing a lot of a forum game called Mafia lately, because my job is boring as all hell and it keeps my mind occupied throughout the day. /Barn basically means "I want to say exactly what this guy just said, but I don't want to waste space repeating him." It's short for barnacle, the idea being that you're "clinging" to the original poster's point. I try to keep mafia terminology out of my posts in other places, but apparently I'm failing, lol.

The big issue right now with the Hellion and Stronghold slots is that both have been good in theory, but have been proven to be situational. This is hardly surprising given that they're both tutor targets -- they're tools whose situations just haven't been coming up for me. I honestly believe at this point that this is largely because of the matchups I've been hitting. In the past two events (SCG and Mythic), I haven't played against the decks that Hellion and Stronghold would be good against. I believe that at this point, I am going to leave them in my deck for Jupiter this Saturday, and then re-evaluate the slots. The last Jupiter (in December), was when I would have -literally- killed to have Blitz Hellion and Stronghold both in my deck. So, we'll see if artificially forcing the meta leads to those slots being happier. If I'm still disappointed by them post-Jupiter, they'll be coming out for god only knows what. At this point, I'm inclined to say that one needs to be a threat and one needs to be an answer. I know Erick and I briefly discussed putting a Recycle in Scapewish just as a random bomb to be drawn into lategame when you have a million mana, so you can just "storm off" into a Scapeshift kill. That might be something worth exploring. I don't like not having a way to tutor for it, but I can agree that having an insane draw engine to go alongside the deck's insane ramp would be a pretty stellar thing. Hell, there have been times in Rector already where I've half wished I had a Tendrils available somewhere, somehow, because I chained together enough spells to make it such that it would have been lethal. Green Sun Zenith + Recycle is a hell of a drug, since it says G: Draw a card.

[soiber2000]

Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.

I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.



If you ask this for my list, PrimeTime in straight G/B is basically for Stronghold/Tower recursion and 2xTreetop beatdown. But afther 7 rounds I found it a mere 6/6 beater with trample because either plays were irrelevant. Volrath's Stronghold gave me one win though.

Probably Grave Titan is better, but I don't have a way to find it.

On the topic, I don't see what Blitz Hellion offers, rather than a 7 damage shot to the face. You lose your Zenith for it.

[Siiig]

If you ask this for my list, PrimeTime in straight G/B is basically for Stronghold/Tower recursion and 2xTreetop beatdown. But afther 7 rounds I found it a mere 6/6 beater with trample because either plays where irrelevant. Volrath's Stronghold gave me one win though.

Probably Grave Titan is better, but I don't have a way to find it.

On the topic, I don't see what Blitz Hellion offers, rather than a 7 damage shot to the face. You lose your Zenith for it.

That's more or less the idea, it can also punch through blockers at planeswalkers. ^^;

Point being when you want the clock to be upwards of a turn or two faster, he's a better grab than Thragtusk (that's where I'm coming from).

[TerribleTim68]

. . .
Probably Grave Titan is better, but I don't have a way to find it.
. . .

Fierce Empath :wink:

[lambert101]

Saw the following list on TC Decks. Very interesting with the 4 Abrupt Decays. Also no tusk!!!!!!! I like this idea but would go -1 Intent and -1 Ooze for +2 Tusk.....also go to more of a wish board. Speaking of a wish board, any thoughts on life from the loam instead of Tsunami/Sowing Salt slot to recur from wasteland assault?



Deck Name: Scapeshift Position: 5
Nic Fit Dario Moreno

Creatures [12]
1 Eternal Witness
1 Primeval Titan
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Wood Elves
4 Veteran Explorer

Instants [4]
4 Abrupt Decay

Sorceries [15]
1 Diabolic Intent
2 Scapeshift
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith


Enchantments [3]
3 Pernicious Deed

Artifacts [3]
3 Sensei's Divining Top

Lands [24]
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Mountain
2 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
3 Bayou
4 Badlands
4 Forest
4 Taiga

Sideboard
1 Scapeshift
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Innocent Blood
1 Pyroclasm
2 Thoughtseize
3 Slaughter Games
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction

[Ayotte]

Saw the following list on TC Decks. Very interesting with the 4 Abrupt Decays. Also no tusk!!!!!!! I like this idea but would go -1 Intent and -1 Ooze for +2 Tusk.....also go to more of a wish board. Speaking of a wish board, any thoughts on life from the loam instead of Tsunami/Sowing Salt slot to recur from wasteland assault?

I'm putting together a Scapewish list now, and I thought about loam instead of virtue's ruin, since there's hardly any maverick at my LGS, but I also want Shattering Spree because there's a couple MUD players that show up from time to time. Loam is probably my favorite magic card after Pernicious Deed, and I have definitely had games where I wish I had access to it when playing GB or GBr. I often feel like I can't even play my Strongholds because a lot of the time my opponent is holding wasteland waiting for it.

[lambert101]

I'm putting together a Scapewish list now, and I thought about loam instead of virtue's ruin, since there's hardly any maverick at my LGS, but I also want Shattering Spree because there's a couple MUD players that show up from time to time. Loam is probably my favorite magic card after Pernicious Deed, and I have definitely had games where I wish I had access to it when playing GB or GBr. I often feel like I can't even play my Strongholds because a lot of the time my opponent is holding wasteland waiting for it.

The other difference is cutting a huntmaster. This cut is hard for me because a couple reasons:
1.) It's my favorite magic creature ever.
2.) It's freaking good (gains life and becomes beatdown)
3.) It's green/red name another good green/red legacy card besides metamorphosis and firespout.

Then having 4 decays seems tempting.......

[Arianrhod]

The other difference is cutting a huntmaster. This cut is hard for me because a couple reasons:
1.) It's my favorite magic creature ever.
2.) It's freaking good (gains life and becomes beatdown)
3.) It's green/red name another good green/red legacy card besides metamorphosis and firespout.

Then having 4 decays seems tempting.......

I wouldn't cut a Huntmaster at the moment under any circumstances. They don't only compose your beatdown plan in fair matchups, but are also your go-to threat vs combo players, since he applies pressure on multiple axes.

Loam....eh. If you're really worried about it, it could be fine -- or you could opt for the Collective Voyage and ramp yourself with that mana instead. You shouldn't be exposing your Valakuts in general if you have any alternative, and otherwise the deck is actually pretty wasteland resistant. You also have Witness to get back a Wasted land, assuming no deathrite shenanigans.

[CRich3]

Does anyone play the Rector version anymore? All I seem to see lately is Scapewish.

[Maverick777]

Does anyone play the Rector version anymore? All I seem to see lately is Scapewish.

I run the rector version. And I will be at scg Edison. The rector version is slightly harder to do well with in this meta. And has been under revision to become better because of decks like junk and bug.
The current list and board is as follows if you have questions feel free to ask Kevin or I.

CREATURES:
4 veteran explorers
2 Sakura tribe elder
1 starved rusalka
1 fierce empath
2 eternal witness
1 sigarda
1 thragtusk
1 yosei
3 academy rector
1 sun Titan
2 baneslayer angel
SPELLS:
3 green suns Zenith
4 cabal therapy
1 maelstrom pulse
1 vindicate
ENCHANTMENT:
1 faiths fetters
4 pernicious deed
1 moat
1 recurring nightmare
1 recycle
OTHER SPELLS:
3 sensei tops
LANDS:
3 windswept Heath
3 verdant catacombs
3 forest
3 plains
2 swamp
3 bayou
2 savannah
1 scrubland
2 phyrexian tower
SIDEBOARD:
3 carpet of flowers
3 extirpate
3 natural order
1 PROGENITUS
1 nether void
1 humility
1 memoricide
1 cranial
Extraction
1 angel of despair.
That's the list I am
Running at the moment if you have questions ask and I or Kevin can hp
You.

[CRich3]

I just feel that this deck can do so much more. I have been playing it on MTGO everyday for about a week. It feels like too many cards are situational. Only issue is I don't know what to change because each have about an equal amount of use. Only card that is always useful is Academy Rector. Are there any I good enchantments that could be considered a win condition? Also would it possible to fit Thrun back in. Early turn Nethervoid followed up by a creature would help a lot vs storm.

[Maverick777]

I just feel that this deck can do so much more. I have been playing it on MTGO everyday for about a week. It feels like too many cards are situational. Only issue is I don't know what to change because each have about an equal amount of use. Only card that is always useful is Academy Rector. Are there any I good enchantments that could be considered a win condition? Also would it possible to fit Thrun back in. Early turn Nethervoid followed up by a creature would help a lot vs storm.

What more do you want? I mean lets start with creatures veterans are obviously amazing and can ramp you into your big creatures. Sakura tribe elder is a tank! I mean he drops can block sac anything and gives you mana eot to do things faster than your opponent and with such a high threat density deck I think he is well suited. Rusalka is just amazing a green sunnable sac outlet??! Doesn't get much better when you want your creatures to die. E witness is just perfect that's enough said. Rector is obviously good considering you get whatever enchantment you want if they don't death rite or stifle. Baneslayer angel. I mean legacy isn't equipped to deal with that card very well it's a huge body a life linker and has first strike. And for 5. Sigarda is just good a huge body way to cast can't be targeted and makes your permanents liliana proof. Yosei ya he is a 6 drop but look what he does and you asked about enchantments that win nightmare with yosei if you get it online it's over. Not to mention the triggers stack. Thragtusk I mean same thing with nightmare you get enough mana eventually you keep cycling him
And gainin life making dudes and what will your opponent do? Sun Titan is just so good there have been so many times where I drop him
Get a deed back and start nuking. Or drop him
Grab e witness for memoricide or vindicate. The creature base is disgustingly
Good and if you have ever ran this list you would understand.

Now lets talk about enchantments. Lets start with moat. If you have ever played moat you would understand that the card is just purely unfair think about the decks in the
Meta mostly creatures that do not fly
And the ones that do can't stand up
To the ones we have. When moat drops people tend to lose.
Pernicious deed. You run 4 board wipes it hits everything on your side it wants to hit and everything on there side. Enough said.
Recurring nightmare gives you the option to cycle creatures like
Yosei and thragtusk and sun Titan which pretty much no one can handle.
Recycle is fairly new for me but you draw even when you play LANd that is card advantage like no other. Ya your max hand size is two but you can always put yosei in the bin or therapy and not care to much.
Faiths fetters I can't tell you how many times this card has saved me it slams on emrakul and is so good
Nether void has won me against storm twice at scg events beat it at providence to take 12th
All in all I don't think the deck can get much better.

[slikwilly]

What more do you want? I mean lets start with creatures veterans are obviously amazing and can ramp you into your big creatures. Sakura tribe elder is a tank! I mean he drops can block sac anything and gives you mana eot to do things faster than your opponent and with such a high threat density deck I think he is well suited. Rusalka is just amazing a green sunnable sac outlet??! Doesn't get much better when you want your creatures to die. E witness is just perfect that's enough said. Rector is obviously good considering you get whatever enchantment you want if they don't death rite or stifle. Baneslayer angel. I mean legacy isn't equipped to deal with that card very well it's a huge body a life linker and has first strike. And for 5. Sigarda is just good a huge body way to cast can't be targeted and makes your permanents liliana proof. Yosei ya he is a 6 drop but look what he does and you asked about enchantments that win nightmare with yosei if you get it online it's over. Not to mention the triggers stack. Thragtusk I mean same thing with nightmare you get enough mana eventually you keep cycling him
And gainin life making dudes and what will your opponent do? Sun Titan is just so good there have been so many times where I drop him
Get a deed back and start nuking. Or drop him
Grab e witness for memoricide or vindicate. The creature base is disgustingly
Good and if you have ever ran this list you would understand.

Now lets talk about enchantments. Lets start with moat. If you have ever played moat you would understand that the card is just purely unfair think about the decks in the
Meta mostly creatures that do not fly
And the ones that do can't stand up
To the ones we have. When moat drops people tend to lose.
Pernicious deed. You run 4 board wipes it hits everything on your side it wants to hit and everything on there side. Enough said.
Recurring nightmare gives you the option to cycle creatures like
Yosei and thragtusk and sun Titan which pretty much no one can handle.
Recycle is fairly new for me but you draw even when you play LANd that is card advantage like no other. Ya your max hand size is two but you can always put yosei in the bin or therapy and not care to much.
Faiths fetters I can't tell you how many times this card has saved me it slams on emrakul and is so good
Nether void has won me against storm twice at scg events beat it at providence to take 12th
All in all I don't think the deck can get much better.

He's not asking for a short primer. No one is questioning the power of Rector. It is probably the most well developed variant (or at least the most discussed over time here), but it has definitely taken a hit from Shaman and peoples interests have shifted a bit to developing the Scapeshift variant. What he does want is an enchantment that will absolutely house some people. I ran a query on Gatherer (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&action=advanced&color=+%40%28|[B]|[G]|[W]%29&type=+[%22Enchantment%22]&subtype=+![aura]) and came up w/ 620 W, B, or G non-aura enchantments.

Here's a couple that caught my eye. I haven't gone over the whole list yet though:
Baneful Omen - goes great w/ Top given our higher than normal CMC. Even more fun if you're on the Progenitus plan and especially nutty if you toss in a couple Worldly Tutors. But the tutor kinda sucks (it ain't no GSZ) and Omen is pretty costly to hardcast if you need to.
Bloodbond March - interesting effect, though not sure it's all that exploitable
Burgeoning - Seems like it should see some play
Cadaverous Bloom - only including because I used to love Prosperous Bloom :) (Would be awesome if this, Stasis, and Squandered Resources could be good again)
Call of the Wild - see my notes about Baneful Omen... (minus the prohibitive casting cost part)
Celestial Convergence - seems like you could do crazy things w/ Vampire Hexmage
Chains of Mephistopheles - see the Junk thread for discussion

In any event, my point is twofold: 1) the tools are out there to look for something backbreaking. 2) No deck is perfect, it's worth revisiting some assumptions sometimes. I kinda think there might be a deck for Omen & Call, especially if you can find a way to generate enough mana to actually cast it and/or the creatures that go well with it. Of course then you should probably just be playing Elves or 12 Post. Happy brewing!

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Regarding rock paper scissors, I feel that may be the case already. Red is best against fair decks because it behaves like a combo-control deck. Blue is best against combo because it has Jace and Brainstorm to sculpt the anti combo nuts asap. Rector is tied between the two, but has the best chance against blue because Jace is their alt win con.

[Tao]

Unless the game goes really super late I would call Recycle the deck's Enchantment win condition.

[fireiced]

I noticed most of my losses are to Esper Stoneblade builds, knowing that they are the DTB atm, could anyone list down a few ways which I should sb against them?

I am still playing Scapewish and I usually do this

-2 Explorer -1 Therapy -1 Blitz Hellion -1 Burning Wish

+2 Slaughter Games +3 REB

[Arianrhod]

Unless the game goes really super late I would call Recycle the deck's Enchantment win condition.

Strongly agree. I know I doubted you initially, but I'm definitely a Recycle convert. Still annoys me that I have a jap foil Arena with no home now though, lol. #1stworldmagicproblems, I guess.

If you can't assemble Yosei/Nightmare within 2-3 turns after resolving Recycle, you're doing something wrong. At the moment, Yosei lock is the single most degenerate thing that Rector is capable of. That it's "combo kill," if you will. I'm not saying that it's anywhere near as strong or as synergistic as Scapewish's combo kill, but it DOES have one.

Note: there are several reasons why I haven't been playing Rector much lately. Until very recently, Steve still had to borrow a lot of stuff off of me to actually be able to play the deck. Additionally, Scapewish is just plain better in the central PA/upstate NY meta right now, and I've been in a mood to want to win tournaments lately. I'll probably be playing Rector again a fair bit next month, once I've had time to put it all back together the way I want it. I've also been doing some shhh shhh R&D on the blue version, which has, again, led to Rector getting left behind. It's surprisingly hard to juggle managing/updating/playing my two completed Nic Fit decks, while also working on finishing development on the third, while also building and playing other decks for fun / with an eye towards learning their weaknesses.


I noticed most of my losses are to Esper Stoneblade builds, knowing that they are the DTB atm, could anyone list down a few ways which I should sb against them?

I am still playing Scapewish and I usually do this

-2 Explorer -1 Therapy -1 Blitz Hellion -1 Burning Wish

+2 Slaughter Games +3 REB

I wouldn't cut the Wish, just because Esperblade often turns into a grind-fest, and you want to have your full bevy of threats available. Taking out the Hellion is fine here, because Snapping Swords. Oftentimes, I board "out" a Green Sun in the matchup, because it gives you an added diversity level to your threatbase in the wishboard. Boarding out a Green Sun actually increases your number of Green Suns from 4 to 7, which is significant. Your other board outs (and your board ins) are fine, though.

[slikwilly]

Strongly agree. I know I doubted you initially, but I'm definitely a Recycle convert. Still annoys me that I have a jap foil Arena with no home now though, lol. #1stworldmagicproblems, I guess.

If you can't assemble Yosei/Nightmare within 2-3 turns after resolving Recycle, you're doing something wrong. At the moment, Yosei lock is the single most degenerate thing that Rector is capable of. That it's "combo kill," if you will. I'm not saying that it's anywhere near as strong or as synergistic as Scapewish's combo kill, but it DOES have one.

Yeah, Recycle is pretty incredible. Still, I think CRich3 is asking for a game ender NOW. Recycle will surely get the job done, but we're still looking at a couple turns. (Awesome turns I might add.)

Anyway, after going over the list of enchantments in Rector colors, I can safely say that much like WotCs opinion that creatures have been underpowered for much of Magics history, the same is also true of enchantments. But in case anyone is curious, these are the ones that caught my eye (besides the few I listed yesterday):
Wound Reflection (like the idea, turns Bump in the Night into 6 pts for 1 mana, seems sweet w/ trample but does nothing by itself)
Words of Waste (probably junk, but it could be exploitable)
Wild Pair (probably constrains your deck construction too much)
Lurking Predators (this seems sweet since you can get stuff you don't want out of the way and if Jund and/or Shardless BUG becomes prevalent this can really punish Cascade effects)

Whether any of the are worth the development time is another matter. Free stuff is good so anything that lets you put things into play has some potential (Lurking Predators, Call of the Wild). But yeah, Recycle. Land, draw. Explorer, draw. Zenith for Prime Time, draw + stick two extra lands. Bludgeon opponent.

Call of the Wild + Liliana Vess seems pretty nifty, though slow. Her -2 gets both Call and a creature and her starting loyalty is high enough that you don't have to plus her to use the second ability twice. That's slow though... (T1 Lili for Call, T2 draw + cast call, T3 -2 for target, activate Call).

[Arianrhod]

Yeah, Recycle is pretty incredible. Still, I think CRich3 is asking for a game ender NOW. Recycle will surely get the job done, but we're still looking at a couple turns. (Awesome turns I might add.)

Anyway, after going over the list of enchantments in Rector colors, I can safely say that much like WotCs opinion that creatures have been underpowered for much of Magics history, the same is also true of enchantments. But in case anyone is curious, these are the ones that caught my eye (besides the few I listed yesterday):
Wound Reflection (like the idea, turns Bump in the Night into 6 pts for 1 mana, seems sweet w/ trample but does nothing by itself)
Words of Waste (probably junk, but it could be exploitable)
Wild Pair (probably constrains your deck construction too much)
Lurking Predators (this seems sweet since you can get stuff you don't want out of the way and if Jund and/or Shardless BUG becomes prevalent this can really punish Cascade effects)

Whether any of the are worth the development time is another matter. Free stuff is good so anything that lets you put things into play has some potential (Lurking Predators, Call of the Wild). But yeah, Recycle. Land, draw. Explorer, draw. Zenith for Prime Time, draw + stick two extra lands. Bludgeon opponent.

Call of the Wild + Liliana Vess seems pretty nifty, though slow. Her -2 gets both Call and a creature and her starting loyalty is high enough that you don't have to plus her to use the second ability twice. That's slow though... (T1 Lili for Call, T2 draw + cast call, T3 -2 for target, activate Call).

Oh, I misunderstood.

The best options for "winning on the spot" are Eldrazi Conscription and Recurring Nightmare. Both are conditional and have their respective weaknesses. If you want to go deep, you can add Omniscience to that list as well.

It's amusing to note, as well, even the single most broken enchantment of all time, Yawgmoth's Bargain, is only an engine: not a win condition. This is why I say that while Rector is very solid, you do have to work a bit more for your wins. You can assemble engines upon engines....but those engines, while they may bury your opponent in card advantage, don't DIRECTLY kill.

I also think that this is one reason why Scapewish has been more popular in the thread of late -- it doesn't durdle with engines and petty things like drawing cards. It just fucking kills people -- and that's an attractive trait for an archetype that tends to be brain-draining on a good day.

[Maverick777]

Oh, I misunderstood.

The best options for "winning on the spot" are Eldrazi Conscription and Recurring Nightmare. Both are conditional and have their respective weaknesses. If you want to go deep, you can add Omniscience to that list as well.

It's amusing to note, as well, even the single most broken enchantment of all time, Yawgmoth's Bargain, is only an engine: not a win condition. This is why I say that while Rector is very solid, you do have to work a bit more for your wins. You can assemble engines upon engines....but those engines, while they may bury your opponent in card advantage, don't DIRECTLY kill.

I also think that this is one reason why Scapewish has been more popular in the thread of late -- it doesn't durdle with engines and petty things like drawing cards. It just fucking kills people -- and that's an attractive trait for an archetype that tends to be brain-draining on a good day.

Kevin I like the build we have now An ultimately I think it's almost perfect. Many people obviously want more but what more can you really give!? I mean like I said before I think the deck is solid we have cards that are situational but overal the deck as a whole looks great. It has creatures people can't deal with and even though decks like MUD AND OMNI have bigger creatures we have ways of dealing with those decks too. I think that people can run bigger stronger cards WOODFALL PRIMUS has been a card that I have been eager yet weird about. It's ability it's absurd and with nightmare it just is boss an it's big. Stuff like that is possible but you hVe to take into Account that it is hard to get out and to reach its full power nightmare is needed. I think that omni in the deck would be fantastic. Obviously the only problem is its blue if you draw it then you have a dead card. If you grab it with rector you should win. The possibilities are fantastic. Drop omni play rector sac her grab recycle and just play everything. I think I may give it a try. I think with the right changes it could do as well as scapewish. I mean rector does durdle. But i think it has answers to everything. Sorry my
Posts are somewhat everywhere. Alot on my mind lately I will post tournament reports in my next few events.

[CRich3]

Well can someone help me with sideboarding. I have been doing good so far but I don't really do much sideboarding. My meta is full of bad match ups but here is what I am up against. I dont have the Natural Order's to practice with on MTGO but I will be using them in real life. I didn't buy any because I'm saving for moat and Nether Void. I am using the older SB list.

MUD
-NO SB

Burn
-3 Deed
-2 Maelstrom Pulse
+3 Inquistion of Kozilek
+2 Extirpate

Miracles
-3 Veteran Explorer
+3 Carpet of Flowers

BUG
-See Miracles

Stoneblade
-See BUG

Pox
ANT
-1 Moat
+1 Nether Void

My other question is Woodfall Primus. I have been thinking about him a lot lately. Only reason I haven't tried him is because it doesn't kill creatures if I have to play against Omni Show. But that seems like a small downside since I can green sun and NO for him. Plus if I get him out with Recurring Nightmare I can wipe someone out of the game. I can't test him because I don't have any, has anyone else used him?

[Tao]

Terastodon >>>> Woodfall Primus, not even close in any way. My BUG list plays Terastodon and it is amazing.

Primus nukes 1 NC permanent and is a 6/6. Terastodon nukes 1 NC permanent and two of your lands and is a 9/9 and a 3/3 and another 3/3. On top of that it is flexible and can nuke 3 of your own lands (which happens quite often) or up to 3 NC permanents of the opponent (never used it on more than 2 so far).

For the SB you have to show exact list and SB for more advice. This is what I can tell you now.

- Baneslayer Angel is terrible against white control decks so side them out.

- Side out Moat against Miracles.

- There are also a lot of aggressive BUG decks around, keep the Explorers in against them when you see Confidants or think they don't run many Planeswalkers.

- Against burn don't side out all your Enchantment removal or you will die to Sulfuric Vortex. Bring in Leyline of Sanctity if you have it because... you know.

- you should bring in Inquisition of Kozilek and Extirpate against ANT. I don't see why you wouldn't.

- Side in Extirpates against Pox, they are awesome against them.

[Karang029]

Another enchantment I've been running in Rector-fit as a win condition and has been doing pretty decently is Collective Blessing. 4/4 Veteran Explorers, 5/4 E Witness makes even our smaller guys a threat.

Though I'm still just in testing phase with it.

[Tao]

Because the question about different versions came up quite often I made a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the three most popular versions atm.


Rector

Advantages:
Triggering Academy Rector can handle many problem cards. If the opponent Show and Tells an Emrakul into play you can put Rector into play and sac it to enchant it with Faith's Fetters. Faith's Fetters is also a nice answer to Jace TMS because unlike with cards like Maelstrom Pulse (or Oblivion Ring) it keeps the Jace in play and because of the Legend rule for Planeswalkers the opponent can't just play the next Jace (same thing with Fetters on Emrakul). Rector also stops many aggro decks cold. It finds Deed against Swarm decks, Fetters against Burn and some decks have no maindeck out against a Moat. For the long game Recycle (Null Profusion) is a sick draw engine and Recurring Nightmare gives inevitability by recurring your Witnesses and other EtB creatures.
Other good cards that only the white Nic Fit versions get to play are big fliers. Sigarda, Host of Herons is a great GSZ target. On top of her impressive stats she deals with Planeswalkers and trades with the problematic Tombstalker. Baneslayer Angel is a solid card in the Moat version of the deck. She is a big problem for many decks in the current Metagame because she is pretty much unbeatable in a race and doesn't die to Abrupt Decay. With Yosei, the Morning Star and Recurring Nightmare you can softlock the opponent out of the game.
Post board Academy Rector can find a couple more specific hate Enchantments like Humility against Reanimator / Show and Tell decks or Nether Void against Combo.

Disadvantages:
The biggest problem with the Rector version is that with GSZ and Rector you have two tutor engines which inevitably dilutes the deck becauce both want a good number of one-offs to be flexible enough.
You cannot resolve the Academy Rector trigger against an acitve Deathrite Shaman (not every player knows how this interaction works but don't count on your opponent not knowing, especially on higher tables). With the current popularity of DR Shaman this weakens the deck quite a bit.
White does not have anything to offer for the early game. Abrupt Decay is a better removal spells than Swords to Plowshares for Nic Fit so the only thing white offers are cards that cost 4 or more Mana and at that point the other colors do powerful stuff, too.


Punishing Fire

Advantages:
The card Punishing Fire is awesome in the current Metagame. Against aggressive creature decks it kills Delver of Secrets, Deathrite Shaman, Goblin Guide, Noble Hierarch and all Tribal creatures (Goblins and Elves; Merfolk unless they have double pump Lords out). It also gives the deck a nice way deal with Planeswalkers like Jace or Liliana that otherwise would be a huge pain and can even act as a win condition in extremely grindy games. This way the card acts as a way to survive against Aggro early on and as a card advantage machine in the later stages of the game.
The Punishing Fire version also offers the best Green Sun's Zenith's of all version. Huntmaster of the Fells is a better GSZ target for x=4 than other colors have and it has nice synergy with Punishing Fire. But where the Fire version really shines is when you GSZ for six Mana: you can get Primeval Titan on 2 Grove of the Burnwillows to win long grindy games and Broodmate Dragon to have an immediate big impact on the board when you are under pressure. Dragon is especially useful for a green creature card when you face flying threats like Tombstalker or Delver of Secrets but also useful in offering two blockers or finishing the game quickly.
Recurring Nightmare is also best in red versions because of the synergy with Huntmaster of the Fells and Broodmate Dragon.
In the Sideboard the red versions have Slaughter games which is a much better card than you would expect at first sight. They are awesome against every form of control deck because Legacy Control decks often run very few win conditions and can't defend themselves against the extraction. Getting rid of Miracle's Entreat the Angels or Jaces will hurt them a lot and if you know their hand from Therapy or Thoughtseize it can act as another Discard spell that gives you a long-term advantage as a bonus.

Disadvantages:
Punishing Fire has the least raw power of the different versions. It doesn't have the same immediate impact like a huge tailor-made Enchantment or a game ending Scapeshift.
Another problem are creatures for the Fire version are creatures with a high toughness. Tarmogoyfs and Knight of the Reliquary can usually be handled by chump blocking and using Deed but Tombstalker is very good against Punishing Nic Fit. This is why this version should always run a couple of Damnations in the maindeck and one or two additional removal spells for Tombstalkers in the SB (Go for the Throat or Terminate because they also kill DR Shaman and Confidant).


Scapeshift

Advantages:
Scapeshift very obviously has one big advantage and that is that it wins games. It gives you the option to brute force victories. Even though it usually tries to play a control game, you can be behind on the board, your opponent can be up 6 cards from Jace, you can die next turn to his beatdown but if you strip away the Force of Will with Cabal Therapy and resolve Scapeshift with enough lands in play you just win which is something other versions simply can't do, they always have to be in control of the game.
And this also gives you strategic advantages. The option to simply win is great even if you don't actually have the Scapeshift because it puts a lot of pressure on your opponent. He might overcommit into your mass removal because he thinks he has to kill you before you hit 7 Mana. Or he lets an important spell resolve that he could counter because he thinks he needs the Counterspell for Scapeshift.

Burning Wish is a double edged sword so I list it under advantages and disadvantages. The great thing about Burning Wish is its flexibility. It is Pyroclasm early on and later a Scapeshift to win the game or a Thoughtseize to nuke the opponent's Force of Will and make the Scapeshift in your hand resolve. Or a Slaughter Games on the opponent's win condition, a Reanimate on Huntmaster or a Damnation against Merfolk.

Disadvantages
The big advantages of the Scapeshift version come with a price. The first disadvantage is that while Burning Wish is a nice card to have in G1 it also reduces your SB slots significantly. You usually want to have at least 8 Wish targets to make the Wish flexible enough. Not being able to run two full playsets of silver bullets is quite painful. The Wish cards act a bit like normal SB cards, but they are much slower and restricted to being Sorceries.
Another big disadvantage is the Mana base. You have to run far more mountains and Valakuts than you would ever need to cast your spells. You also don't get to run Fetchlands which weakens your Tops and your Mana stability.
The third one is the card Scapeshift itself. It is a spell you can only cast with at least 7 lands in play (it is the best spell in the game at that but (except for corner cases) it doesn't do anything before that) and it forces you to run more Mana sources than you need for casting your other spells.

[Cire_dk]

@Tao, Thanks a lot for your explanation. It is great, it clarifies lots of ongoing questions in a clear and simple way.

[fireiced]

@Tao

Haha you forgot that Scapeshift can be casted to avoid wastelocks, sac 4 lands find all basics or find valakuts and slow roll miracles with mountain triggers

[BlackMetalSheep]

Unexpected Results seems great in BUG Fit!!

[fireiced]

Ok inc my report with Scapewish

Round 1 Belcher win 2-1

G1 -> I laid a forest into top go, he proceeded with Belcher in the face for 40

sb -1 Primeval Titan +1 Thoughtseize

G2 -> Laid Explorer go, he vomitted 18 gobos, after which I blocked to fetch 2 basics and Deeded and proceeded to beat face with huntmasters

G3 -> Vomitted 14 gobos, Burning Wish into Pyroclasm sealed the deal

Round 2 Burn win 2-1

G1-> I stripped his hand while I stabalized at 9 life and beat him to death

no sb here

G2 -> I just got burned out LOL

G3 -> Burned down to 9 and had back to back Thragtusks, he paused to read the card, mumbles about this being legacy not modern and beast tokens got there after he double bolted thragtusks

Round 3 Esper Stoneblade lost 0-2

G1 -> He had Batterskull and Jitte beats, miscalculated on mana and got 1 mana short of scapeshifting him out after wishing for scapeshift, he topdecked a clique to remove scapeshift ):

G2 -> I did over 900 misplays and got buried too far into his Jtms CA

Round 4 Burn win 2-0

G1 and G2 were nothing but Thragtusks and Hunt Masters XD

Round 5 Esper Stoneblade loss 2-1

G1 -> He controlled me well with equipments and batterskull beats. I had 10 lands in play proceeded to burning wish for thoughtseize and stripped away FoW and scapeshift FTW! He stood up and clapped for me!

G2 -> Got buried in Jtms CA and lost after being mindsculpted!

G3 -> Tiredness came in after preparing for my L1 judge test earlier and misplayed a lot and I conceded to him.

This is a korean dude and he gave me some korean idol cards and a korean abrupt decay, basically he was totally impressed with scapewish and asked to have my decklist which I gladly gave and taught him how to play this deck

Round 6 Junk win 2-0

G1 -> We durdled around with discards and removal but scapeshift topdecks >>>>> any junk topdeck

G2 -> See G1 just that the game was SO LONG that I was able to angry mountains off his life total of 52 in 1 shot!


4-2 wasn't good enough for top 8 but I think I did well knowling that I didn't touch competitive magic for so long as I was busy judging

[Siiig]

@Tao

Haha you forgot that Scapeshift can be casted to avoid wastelocks, sac 4 lands find all basics or find valakuts and slow roll miracles with mountain triggers

Nah, he didn't. He mentioned that it's useful for certain corner cases.

[fireiced]

Nah, he didn't. He mentioned that it's useful for certain corner cases.

my bad :eek:

[Arianrhod]

@Tao

Haha you forgot that Scapeshift can be casted to avoid wastelocks, sac 4 lands find all basics or find valakuts and slow roll miracles with mountain triggers

I was just gonna say this, actually. There have been plenty of times where I've just Scapeshifted for value. It's also a 4-mana shuffle, if you need to do so. Desperate measure, but sometimes desperate times.

Other than that point, though, I agree with everything Tao noted.

I'm gonna do some brewing. I'll have some interesting stuff to discuss in a few hours.

[Star|Scream]

Unexpected Results seems great in BUG Fit!!

I don't think it does.

First, it's a nonbo with GSZ.

Second, 1/3 of the time it's just a 4 mana ramp with buyback.

Third, most of our cards cost less than 4 (top, brainstorm, explorer, witness, therapy), so it actually costs more to cast this than to cast them.

Fourth, the shuffle clause makes it completely random. Topdecking this into a therapy late game sucks. Perhaps if you could use a top or brainstorm first...

Fifth, you only get the card back when you flip a land. MAYBE if it let you return it to your hand either way, it would be better.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=138895&d=1358399731

[Arianrhod]

No real content in this post yet (but today, I promise). But I just noticed something that I wanted to point out.

Nihil Credo just updated the DTB forum. I noticed something strange, so I did some digging. Sneak Attack had 1 more money finish than Nic Fit did in December (13 for Nic Fit, 14 for Sneak). Yet, Sneak Attack had 107 points to Nic Fit's 61(!!!), with the cutoff at 99. For reference, Rock had 22 finishes, but only 104 points.

Apparently, the way system works is that it takes into account the size of the tournaments. As of July 2011:


Slight change in methodology: Pablo (the guy behind TCDecks) let me know that he has actually programmed a more sophisticated version of his metagame ranking, not yet publicly linked from his homepage, which weighs placements according to the number of rounds won - meaning that placing in bigger tournaments counts for more.

So, I'm now firmly convinced that this means we will never again see the DTB forum, and we should just resign ourselves to that fate.

Fact: pros don't, and won't play Nic Fit. It's not their kind of deck.
Fact: people outside of this forum are very unlikely to do well with the deck.
Fact: people in this forum (aka, people I trust to actually do well) don't go to many -big- events.

Sure, I got top 16 at an SCG. My top 16 offsets (or equals) the top 16 that Scapewish got in December, at Baltimore. That won't be enough. Not nearly. If we were almost 40 points short even with a top 16 at Baltimore, we're pretty much doomed for any kind of recognition outside of what we give each other.

So, now that I'm all depressed and stuff, I guess all that we can say is this:

-) We have the best community on Source, bar none. I am tremendously proud of every person in this thread.
-) When we do go to big events, we have a history of doing very well.
-) Nic Fit has a strong prestige at events like Jupiter and Mythic IQs, which matters a whole lot given the number of ringers who attend them -- even if Council won't recognize them as "major events."
-) At the end of the day, we all struggle with the comments that are directed at us. We've all expressed our various degrees of outrage the past few pages about how Nic Fit isn't regarded as a "real deck," or how we get mocked for playing a "standard deck," or whatever other bullshit that gets hurled at us that you want to insert here. But you know what? The joke's on them: and it will continue to be so for as long as we DON'T make the DTB forum. We'll just keep sitting here, quietly prizing events. And maybe someday we'll get recognized for the amazing deck that we truly have here. or maybe we won't, and we'll continue to get derided. But either way, we'll know the truth -- that we are all, every one of us, badasses.

Because seriously. How many people get to say that they've killed a goblins player with Sun Titan recurring Pernicious Deed? Or that they've locked out 12post with Yosei? Or that they've Scapeshifted someone for 52? In competitive legacy.

So, I hope that each and every one of you carries yourself with the same pride that I do, knowing full well that despite the monkeys throwing feces in our faces, our deck is better, cooler, and requires more skill to play successfully than any of their lame netdecks.

[Star|Scream]

http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/citizen-kane-bravo-clap-applause3.gif


No real content in this post yet (but today, I promise). But I just noticed something that I wanted to point out.

Nihil Credo just updated the DTB forum. I noticed something strange, so I did some digging. Sneak Attack had 1 more money finish than Nic Fit did in December (13 for Nic Fit, 14 for Sneak). Yet, Sneak Attack had 107 points to Nic Fit's 61(!!!), with the cutoff at 99. For reference, Rock had 22 finishes, but only 104 points.

Apparently, the way system works is that it takes into account the size of the tournaments. As of July 2011:



So, I'm now firmly convinced that this means we will never again see the DTB forum, and we should just resign ourselves to that fate.

Fact: pros don't, and won't play Nic Fit. It's not their kind of deck.
Fact: people outside of this forum are very unlikely to do well with the deck.
Fact: people in this forum (aka, people I trust to actually do well) don't go to many -big- events.

Sure, I got top 16 at an SCG. My top 16 offsets (or equals) the top 16 that Scapewish got in December, at Baltimore. That won't be enough. Not nearly. If we were almost 40 points short even with a top 16 at Baltimore, we're pretty much doomed for any kind of recognition outside of what we give each other.

So, now that I'm all depressed and stuff, I guess all that we can say is this:

-) We have the best community on Source, bar none. I am tremendously proud of every person in this thread.
-) When we do go to big events, we have a history of doing very well.
-) Nic Fit has a strong prestige at events like Jupiter and Mythic IQs, which matters a whole lot given the number of ringers who attend them -- even if Council won't recognize them as "major events."
-) At the end of the day, we all struggle with the comments that are directed at us. We've all expressed our various degrees of outrage the past few pages about how Nic Fit isn't regarded as a "real deck," or how we get mocked for playing a "standard deck," or whatever other bullshit that gets hurled at us that you want to insert here. But you know what? The joke's on them: and it will continue to be so for as long as we DON'T make the DTB forum. We'll just keep sitting here, quietly prizing events. And maybe someday we'll get recognized for the amazing deck that we truly have here. or maybe we won't, and we'll continue to get derided. But either way, we'll know the truth -- that we are all, every one of us, badasses.

Because seriously. How many people get to say that they've killed a goblins player with Sun Titan recurring Pernicious Deed? Or that they've locked out 12post with Yosei? Or that they've Scapeshifted someone for 52? In competitive legacy.

So, I hope that each and every one of you carries yourself with the same pride that I do, knowing full well that despite the monkeys throwing feces in our faces, our deck is better, cooler, and requires more skill to play successfully than any of their lame netdecks.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

@ No DTB: Haters gonna hare, and fitters gonna fit

@ Unexpected Results: So far GTC just looks like garbage across the board. They might pull an ARB though and put all the good whit in DGM.

[Arianrhod]

@ No DTB: Haters gonna hare, and fitters gonna fit

@ Unexpected Results: So far GTC just looks like garbage across the board. They might pull an ARB though and put all the good whit in DGM.

GTC looks like shit because Nic Fit players aren't Boros players. Just that simple. GTC is a Boros player's wet dream, and everything else is ass....so far.

I will note that Grumpycat aka Superbob aka Darkmantle whatever does seem quite excellent, but that's not a concern for us. I can recognize it as good in the abstract, but it's not something Nic Fit cares about.

[Karang029]

To be truthful I'm really glad that we aren't a deck to beat. I mean the surprise factor is nice, but getting called a standard deck is pretty tiring especially when I run 7-8 standard cards. The BUG Delver I played against recently had 4 Delver, 4 Snapcaster, 4 Deathrite Shaman, and 4 Abrupt Decay. And WE are the standard deck.....

Also has anyone else tested out Collective Blessing in a Rector version. +3/+3 enchantment has seemed solid in testing, but I still am unsure about it.

[Arianrhod]

Okay, I've got two things for everyone this afternoon.

First up, I've got some Rector updates. This is the latest Rector list:

4x Veteran Explorer
1x Starved Rusalka
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
3x Academy Rector
1x Thragtusk
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
2x Baneslayer Angel
1x Sun Titan
1x Yosei, the Morning Star

3x Pernicious Deed
1x Moat
1x Recycle
1x Faith's Fetters
1x Recurring Nightmare

1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Abrupt Decay

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Vindicate
1x Maelstrom Pulse

3x Sensei's Divining Top

3x Bayou
2x Savannah
1x Scrubland
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
3x Forest
3x Plains
2x Swamp
2x Phyrexian Tower

//SB
3x Carpet of Flowers
2x Extirpate
1x Memoricide
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Nether Void
1x Humility
2x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Natural Order
1x Progenitus

The changes:

SB:
-1 Natural Order
+1 Leyline of Sanctity

Whiteline is -stupid- good right now in the meta. While I want the fourth NO, I believe that there is too much discard present in the meta for the 4th copy to be a good call right now. Aside from them just discarding it if it's in your hand, even them seeing it would be a huge tip-off.

Maindeck:
-1 Deed (back to 3)
-1 Diabolic Intent
+1 Enlightened Tutor
+1 Abrupt Decay

Right now, Rector needs a backup to Rector for when you board OUT the Rectors but still need the Deeds (Junk, notably). The Enlightened Tutor should help with this, while also helping to find Top in grindy attrition mirrors. He who has the Top wins. Rector also wants a little more spot removal than usual in the current meta, ergo, Decay. That actually gives the deck a full playset of cards that deal with Liliana of the Veil (Fetters, Pulse, Vindicate, Decay).

Note that pending testing, those two slots could easily be 2 Tutors, 2 Decays, or completely different. But that's the way my thought process is trending right now. The last time I played Rector was in the Legacy Challenge at Columbus. I played against 4 good matchups, but I couldn't find enough Deeds when I boarded the Rectors out for the NO package. As such, some extra redundancy therein is probably important.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Now, I have decided after these last few pages that it is long past time that the BUG version gets ironed out.

To that end, I have brewed the following. Note that this is very rough, and while it is grounded in the concept that I actually tried for BUG some time ago, it's obviously in need of tuning and experience. This is the my first serious iteration of Future Fit:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Coiling Oracle
2x Eternal Witness
1x Glissa, the Traitor
2x Trinket Mage
1x Thragtusk
1x Magus of the Future
1x Primeval Titan
1x Prime Speaker Zegana

4x Cabal Therapy

2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter

1x Death Wish
1x Grim Tutor
1x Recurring Nightmare

2x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Executioner's Capsule
1x Engineered Explosives

1x Future Sight
2x Pernicious Deed

1x Damnation
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Maelstrom Pulse

1x Academy Ruins
1x Phyrexian Tower
3x Island
3x Forest
2x Swamp
3x Tropical Island
3x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Verdant Catacombs

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 3 Negate
SB: 8 ???


The remaining 8 slots in the board will be filled out as time passes and testing is done. I have three more Nic Fit concepts in mind that I am planning on sketching out before seriously testing: Chronos Fit, Rainbow Fit, and Friendly Fit. Chronos Fit will be setup to focus on taking additional turns, ideally by going infinite with Time Warp + Eternal Witness; Rainbow Fit will be another crack at the Chromatic Lantern concept, and I'm hoping will be a dedicated Gifts list; Friendly Fit will be a BUG-colored Superfriends list.

I don't have the time to brew all of them at the moment, but I'm hoping that they will be in a publishable form by the end of the day tomorrow. Blue-based Nic Fit has been a very great challenge for me because of the tyranny of options inherent within the color combination. Even traditional BUG suffers from this, which is why we have BUG Delver, BUG Control, BUGStill, and Shardless BUG. There is a significant number of options for viable ways in which BUG-colored Nic Fit could go, and I intend on examining each, piece-by-piece, until a consensus is reached on which route works the best (and, if any other routes are viable, like PFire and Scapewish are both viable Red Nic Fit versions). I'm sure that some of these ideas will be absolutely atrocious, but that's how we strike gold.

And if anyone wants to proxy up any of these ideas and test them out a bit, I am all for that. I'll take whatever data I can get.

[TheArchitect]

I like the NO-Pro package to change rector against DRS decks.

I have done zero testing with this, but the BUG deck looks like it is trying to do too much. While I think future sight (and the combo), and ruins/glissa+trinket mage package both have merit and are powerful engines, putting them in the same list just seems like too much. I could be totally wrong, but it seems like it would be the same as putting p-fires in a list with burning wishes and scapeshift. I think if you are going to have the future sight wincon, the rest of deck needs to be "simple" not doing anything to crazy, just playing cards that are getting you value and disrupting your opponent.

I have to say though, the glissa path seems alot better now that people arent using real GY hate cards since they DRS should provide enough hate.

Also, brainstorm is a really good card. All the things that it can do are things this deck wants. I can't think of a good reason not to run 4 of them.

[trivial_matters]

... plays Cabal Therapy from hand.
...: k?
Saptu: absolutely : )
...: coralhelm commander :D
Saptu: ? your cheating, its the only fucking nonland card i have in my hand
gtfo
...: no?
You have been kicked out of the game.

I love that card.

[Zombie]

Play it, you 60-card goons! It is good :O
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/roe/3.jpg

But I guess you've all been told conscription is bad and recycling rocks : /

[Karang029]

Well now that I'm home and off my computer I will post my results from a Wednesday night legacy I went to.

Current list is as follows.

Creatures:15
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Academy Rector
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Eternal Witness
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Thragtusk
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Aramada Wurm
1x Sun Titan

Planeswalkers:3
2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless

Enchantments:6
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Faith's Fetters
1x Null Profusion
1x Recurring Nightmare

Artifacts:3
3x Sensei's Divining Top

Instant/Sorc:12
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Swords to Plowshares
1x Innocent Blood
1x Maelstrom Pulse

Land:21
4x Verdant Catacomb
3x Marsh Flats
1x Windswept Heath
2x Phyrexian Tower
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
1x Bayou
3x Plains
2x Swamp
3x Forest

SB:15
2x Choke
2x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Oblivion Ring
3x Mindbreak Trap
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Memoricide
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Extirpate

Round 1: Hypergenesis 2-0 Win
Game 1: I don't recall exactly how the first 2 turns went here, but he drops a shardless agent into Hypergenesis. I found out that Null Profusion wins against Genesis lol. He casts his hand I just plop about 2/3 of my deck down and win on my next turn.
Dont remember what I take out but side in O-Rings, and Memoricide/Extract

Game2: I start out therapy naming shardless agent and hit a pair of them. I soon after drop Sigarda and ride her to victory.

Round 2: Show and Tell 1-2
Game 1: I lose the die roll and he goes Tomb-Petal S&T into Emrakul. I drop a swamp and attempt to Innocent Blood. It resolves and he never does anything other than force of will an Academy Rector.

-2 Deed +2 Oblivion Ring -1 Garruk +1 Extraction -1 Armada Wurm +1 Memoricide
Game 2: He goes Island Go. I attempt to therapy and he dazes. I attempt to drop an explorer and he FoW. I durdle and he drops a Griselbrand followed by and Emrakul. It hurt.

Game 3: Read game 1 except I didn't have an answer.

Round 3:RUG Delver: 2-0 Win
Game 1: I lose die roll and he goes Tropical into Mongoose. I drop an explorer and pass it back. He drops another land and 2 Delvers and passes. I therapy him and see 2 Goyfs and some other chaff but no brainstorm that I had named. I flash back for the FoW in his hand since he had no other blue spell to pair it with. I then throw down a GSZ for 1 for a second Explorer. He reveals a Stifle and both Delvers flip. He swings out and I trade with the Goose. I topdeck a therapy hitting his stifle. Then drop deed and wipe the field. After that I drop an Armada Wurm and ended the game with himself and 3 Wurms from Nightmare.
-1 Deathrite -1 Teeg +2 Choke

Game 2: I go turn 1 Explorer Turn 2 Explorer. He starts with double Delver and a brainstorm to flip them. My life goes from 20 to 14 to 8 to 2 before I topdeck a tower bomb off one explorer and then deed for 2 hitting his entire field. I drop a Thragtusk followed by a Rector which I tower into a Nightmare to put me up to 12 after I drop him to 15. Then I hit a GSZ onto Sigarda and its over.

Round 4: High Tide 1-2
Game 1: My worst nightmare bleh. Game 1 I speed him up and die promptly by turn 5.

Game 2: Favorite game in FOREVER this game made going 2-2 worth it. Slow roll it and I drop a memoricide naming High Tide, Then next turn I extraction his Time Spiral. The I eternal witness the memoricide and name cunning wish. Then I witness again naming brain freeze I end up doing this once more but he just scoops at this point.

Game 3: No hate after mulling to 5 and just lose.

So ended the night 2-2 but it was just a rough night on the losses. I never once saw gaddock teeg in the matches I needed it and I just lost to show and tell which happens sometimes.

[Claymore]

I found out that Null Profusion wins against Genesis lol. He casts his hand I just plop about 2/3 of my deck down and win on my next turn.

Huh? I don't think that the cards put into play with Hyper Genesis/Eureka would trigger Profusion since they aren't "played".

Even if it did,


Anything that triggers during the resolution of this will wait to be put on the stack until everything is put onto the battlefield and resolution is complete. The player whose turn it is will put all of his or her triggered abilities on the stack in any order, then each other player in turn order will do the same. (The last ability put on the stack will be the first one that resolves.)

you wouldn't draw anything until after Genesis resolved, so max you would get like 7 cards...which could not be put into play again since Genesis had already gone away.

[nottz]

Arianhod I have to say that your post about Nic-Fit as a deck was fantastic. I Just want to say great job on all the work you've done for this deck. I hope I can contribute something now too. In the post you were talking about a dedicated gifts deck and I figured I'd give it a try as I've always had the idea myself.

Rainbow Fit:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Unburial Rites
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Academy Ruins
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Eternal Witness
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Brainstorm
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
2 Savannah
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Chromatic Lantern
1 Thragtusk
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Griselbrand
2 Coiling Oracle
(By the way, how do you add deck tags on here?)

I tested with this deck for about 3 hours today and I want to say that it's been performing pretty well overall. I know for a fact that the manabase is not good and needs to be tuned A LOT more. I had a hard time coming up with some of my choices because once you're playing 4 colours it's very hard to narrow down what card you want for a specific role. As the first reanimation target I started off with an Empyrial Archangel. My train of thought was that she wrecked the current BUG, Jund, and RUG decks that have a hard time dealing 8 points of damage to me in one swing. After some testing it seemed like she didn't really do enough though. Interesting thought but it didn't really work. So I decided to start running Iona and Griselbrand in her place and man have I been pleased. Iona is great against decks that are two colours or less (which should go without saying). Griselbrand is for the BUG matchup. They usually have a lot of ways to deal with a threat and I wanted some value out of my reanimation target if it got killed on the spot. Running two huge bombs doesn't really scare me when I'm also running brainstorm. I added the value package in for gifts, just in case we don't want to go for reanimation. I think Sigarda is a must have in any Nic-Fit deck running green and white. She is an absolute house. I even had a game today where I didn't lose to Emrakul because I had her out. I would like to explore a red splash as well but I don't know what I'd really put in it. I appreciate any feedback and would like to make this deck better.

[Karang029]

Yeah my opponent said it did and I wanst going to argue so I just :played a ton of stuff. I swore that nothing triggered off of hypergenesis until it was done resolving but he was the one with the deck so I just went with it since hey it meant I won.

[Star|Scream]

Tried out Arianrhod's Future fit list real quick on cockatrice. Not much to report yet, other than getting to troll a SNT player who herp-derped a turn 1 GB, by winning game 2 with IOK turn 1, Therapy, Explorer, Therapy FB, IOK, 2nd Therapy on turn 2. Then game 3 stole his Emrakul with a sower off a SNT. UMAD?

I don't have much to say about the deck yet, but I do believe you'll need 4 thoughtseize (or IOK) in the board along with the 4th negate. i know you want to have a robust board for death wish targets, but we need all we can get against unfair decks like that.

[Arianrhod]

Tried out Arianrhod's Future fit list real quick on cockatrice. Not much to report yet, other than getting to troll a SNT player who herp-derped a turn 1 GB, by winning game 2 with IOK turn 1, Therapy, Explorer, Therapy FB, IOK, 2nd Therapy on turn 2. Then game 3 stole his Emrakul with a sower off a SNT. UMAD?

I don't have much to say about the deck yet, but I do believe you'll need 4 thoughtseize (or IOK) in the board along with the 4th negate. i know you want to have a robust board for death wish targets, but we need all we can get against unfair decks like that.

Nah, it's not built with a Wish concept in mind. The idea is more like....you know how Esperblade decks in particular have sideboards with a lot of seemingly random shit that just tunes the deck towards certain matchups? Something like that. The only legit wish target that is never meant to be boarded in is the Tendrils, for the Helm combo. Everything else should be legit sideboard options -- sure, sometimes you'll wish for them too, but that's intended more as corner cases. It's definitely not a "wishboard" in the same way as like Scapewish for example.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

That reminds me: I'm gonna be testing my BUG list at my local Legacy tournament on 2/14/2013 (why that late? to get practice in right before SCG Cincy). But so far in casual play, I've found the following true:

Dig Fit, whether with counterspells or not, has the most contingency plans I've seen in regards to maintaining control. Graveyard, battlefield, library, hand ... even extra deck if you're running a wish or the stack if you're running counterspells. There are so many options available that you have to constantly reevaluate the gamestate and determine what options you have, what priority each of those options have, and how to access those options best.

[Tao]

Arianhod I have to say that your post about Nic-Fit as a deck was fantastic. I Just want to say great job on all the work you've done for this deck. I hope I can contribute something now too. In the post you were talking about a dedicated gifts deck and I figured I'd give it a try as I've always had the idea myself.

Rainbow Fit:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Unburial Rites
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Academy Ruins
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Eternal Witness
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Brainstorm
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
2 Savannah
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Chromatic Lantern
1 Thragtusk
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Griselbrand
2 Coiling Oracle
(By the way, how do you add deck tags on here?)

I tested with this deck for about 3 hours today and I want to say that it's been performing pretty well overall. I know for a fact that the manabase is not good and needs to be tuned A LOT more. I had a hard time coming up with some of my choices because once you're playing 4 colours it's very hard to narrow down what card you want for a specific role. As the first reanimation target I started off with an Empyrial Archangel. My train of thought was that she wrecked the current BUG, Jund, and RUG decks that have a hard time dealing 8 points of damage to me in one swing. After some testing it seemed like she didn't really do enough though. Interesting thought but it didn't really work. So I decided to start running Iona and Griselbrand in her place and man have I been pleased. Iona is great against decks that are two colours or less (which should go without saying). Griselbrand is for the BUG matchup. They usually have a lot of ways to deal with a threat and I wanted some value out of my reanimation target if it got killed on the spot. Running two huge bombs doesn't really scare me when I'm also running brainstorm. I added the value package in for gifts, just in case we don't want to go for reanimation. I think Sigarda is a must have in any Nic-Fit deck running green and white. She is an absolute house. I even had a game today where I didn't lose to Emrakul because I had her out. I would like to explore a red splash as well but I don't know what I'd really put in it. I appreciate any feedback and would like to make this deck better.

My ideas on this approach:

- keep the White splash to an absolute minimum. Flashback Unburial Rites, nothing else, no Sigarda, no Rector, one Plains, 2 white duals. If you use Gifts you already have enough power, you need consistency.
- more Abrupt Decay. Three or four. Or you have big trouble with aggressive decks. Especially sniping Deathrite Shaman is super important if your plan is to Gifts for Unburial Rites.
- 4th Brainstorm over Sensei's Top. Brainstorm is better than Top, especially with cards like Griselbrand and Iona in the deck.
- I think Coiling Oracle is not good enough. The odds of hitting a land blindly are too low and setting it up with Top or Brainstorm is not worth any investment. More Tribe Elders for guaranteed T3 Gifts instead.
- Gifts on Loam, Urborg and Raven's Crime is a great way to destroy your opponent's hand.
- Terastodon is a good option to make late GSZ's as powerful as this deck needs them.

[CRich3]

I am still playing around with Rector Fit and Deathrite Shaman isn't an issue anymore. I think I am use to playing around it now. I just played against 2 Jund decks on MTGO and went 2-0 both games. Almost all games I get below 10. Instead of playing around Deathrite Shaman I focus on stealing their lightning bolts. Most jund players just want to kill you as fast as possible. Have to careful how you play. I keep Rector and sac outlet in hand until I can play and sac same turn. Or I use top to keep it on top of my deck. Has been working pretty good so far. I think the switching to Deathrite Shaman over Scavenging Ooze is a big plus. I may not be able to abuse Rector as much but I slaughter people with Recurring Nightmare and Sun Titan with Deed.

I am really loving Recycle, I only got to abuse it once so far. Had 2 tops in play and filtered through my deck for almost my whole army. I don't believe how powerful this car is with recurring nightmare and Eternal Witness.

[Arianrhod]

Play it, you 60-card goons! It is good :O
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/roe/3.jpg

But I guess you've all been told conscription is bad and recycling rocks : /

Recycling does rock =)

The issue with Conscription in a Rector setup such as mine is that you rarely have multiple dudes in play. Obviously if you get to live the dream and suit up Sigarda, then that's just game. But more often, you set off Rector when she's the only critter in play -- or at best there's like an Explorer or a Tribe-Elder or something durdly which they can just Abrupt Decay and not care.

Note: I do agree that Conscription is a powerful option, as is Angelic Destiny. But they're more suited for a more creature-heavy version, probably with token-producing planeswalkers as extra bodies to suit up. It doesn't really fit into "traditional" Rector that well, if that makes sense.

------

Goin' brewin'. Should have the other experimentals by the end of the day.

[Star|Scream]

Nah, it's not built with a Wish concept in mind. The idea is more like....you know how Esperblade decks in particular have sideboards with a lot of seemingly random shit that just tunes the deck towards certain matchups? Something like that. The only legit wish target that is never meant to be boarded in is the Tendrils, for the Helm combo. Everything else should be legit sideboard options -- sure, sometimes you'll wish for them too, but that's intended more as corner cases. It's definitely not a "wishboard" in the same way as like Scapewish for example.

Well then I definitely suggest at least 4 targeted hand disruption and 4 negate--unless you come up with better tech against combo. Also don't forget that cool extirpate/therapy interaction from a few pages back.

[Arianrhod]

Okay, so in brewing, I've come to a few conclusions.

Chromatic Fit does not work. It ends up being a much, much worse version of OmniTell, because at the point at which you're 5-color, you have Rector->Omniscience.

However, I did note something interesting about Nic Fit as an archetype which may be useful in the future: all of its "power cards" are 4-drops.

Red: Huntmaster
Blue: Gifts
White: Rector

It may be that Chromatic Fit is viable by combining two of the above, but a true 5-color list is not possible IMO. There just isn't deck space for everything, and, as previously said, it just turns into a worse version of OmniTell.

Friendly Fit should not be BUG. It took me about fifteen minutes of brewing to realize that anything BUG-colored Friends could do, GBW-colored Friends could do better. The power players are Elspeth, Garruk Relentless or Primal Hunter, Karn Liberated, and Liliana of the Veil. Jace TMS would be nice, as well, but he's not worth his UU cost, and he's not better than Elspeth. Also, staying in GBW allows you to Rector into Doubling Season -- which most of those walkers make tokens, as well. Additionally, you can run Lingering Souls (because Liliana and Doubling Season synergies), and THEN you can also run Collective Blessing (or Eldrazi Conscription).

So, with two of the three possibilities ruled out, I turned to Chronos Fit (which I'm renaming to ChronoFit, because it sounds better).

Here, I struck gold. I'm not sure which is better between ChronoFit and FutureFit, but I think that both have seeds of awesome present within.

The originary list:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Wood Elves
3x Eternal Witness
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Thragtusk
1x Primeval Titan

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Damnation
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Time Warp

2x Simic Charm
2x Brainstorm
1x Abrupt Decay

2x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

2x Panoptic Mirror

3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Cabal Coffers
3x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
3x Forest
3x Island
2x Swamp
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Verdant Catacombs

A few words about it.

The concept of ChronoFit is to cheat time. Your goal is to eventually take infinite turns, either by abusing Panoptic Mirror or Eternal Witness. Witness is "easier," but also requires more work: you can bounce Witness with Jace (one Jace buys you 3 turns), you can bounce it with Simic Charm, or you can loop it through Recurring Nightmare (which -can- go infinite). Panoptic Mirror is the easy route, since all you have to do is imprint Warp on the Mirror and away you go.

Note: I'm planning on having the other 2 copies of Mirror in the sideboard, so that when/if people bring in graveyard hate (/vs Deathrite decks), you have extra non-graveyard dependent ways of winning.

Also note: a trick with Mirror. You can respond to the Mirror's upkeep trigger by imprinting something on it, which the Mirror will then copy when the trigger resolves. Ergo, you can cast Mirror, pass turn, then untap, upkeep, imprint Time Warp, resolve trigger casting Time Warp, and go infinite.

The creature-base is almost exclusively ramp dudes, with Primeval and Thragtusk being the only real beatsticks in the deck. This is because you need a minimum of 8 mana to Witness+Warp with a Jace out. Mirror is also pricy, and you want to make sure that you get up a lot of mana in this deck. Once you have infinite turns, you can win with any leftover Jaces, Witness beatdown, or whatever. If Coffers/Urborg does end up getting cut, once of those slots will likely go to a Creeping Tar Pit, since I'm not sure that the deck is entirely capable of winning via infinite turns that easily. It PROBABLY can, but I don't want it getting into awkward situations and strange boardstates where it can't win even with all the time in the world.

A few things I'm not happy with ... as noted, the wincon suite probably could use refining. I'm actually furious at Green Sun's Zenith in this deck, because while I acknowledge that it's worth including, I dislike that you basically can't imprint it on Mirror to any effect (X is always 0). I also want more spells overall / diversity in the spells, with an eye towards making Mirror for value better. Mirror + Damnation sounds amazing, though. I suspect that most decks would just crumble before that.

I also think that I would like another Simic Charm or two, even. Simic Charm is your "counterspell" in the deck. If they try to blow up your Mirror, you can respond with Charm. If they try to Pulse your Jace, Charm it. If they are trying to Swords your Witness in response to Jace bouncing, Charm it. I don't expect the Giant Growth to happen often (if ever), but both the bounce and hexproof modes are amazing for this deck.

Originally, I had an Alchemist's Refuge and Seedborn Muse within the deck, with the thought being that you could cheat on mana by using your opponents turn as well. I ruled this as being dramatically too cute, though, and cut it. Coffers/Urborg was intended to feed that engine, however, I left it alone for now because Nightmare looping a Witness to Time Warp is going to need a -lot- of black and colorless mana. Pending testing, that engine may get cut as well, which would probably lead to Prime Time getting cut too.

So yeah, there's the result of my brewing. I have two avenues to look into now, and, again, if anyone wants to help, they are more than welcome to do so.

-------------------

Regarding Future Fit trying to do too many things@Architect --

Yes and no. The Glissa/Trinket Mage package and the Helm combo are highly synergistic on a number of levels. Both want Academy Ruins somewhere in the deck, for example. Time will tell if the packages are a little too involved, perhaps -- but I think that there is merit in having them in the same shell together. It's worth testing, I'd say.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Regarding the three new versions:

1. RainbowFit - I have to say I tried a 5-Color OmniList as well, and ... well ... you're right: it don't work. However, I think you're a little too hooked on the four-drop concept, Arianrhod. While Huntmaster is great, I have to say that Burning Wish would be the real choice for a 4 or 5 color list. Blue I'm not too sure on, but that's because blue hasn't been ironed out completely yet.

2. ChronoFit - I like the idea, but for some reason I feel that you could trim a lot of space simply by going infinite mana with Palinchron and Recurring Nightmare, and then either infinite recursion with Eternal Witness, infinite lifegain and tokens with Thragtusk, or something equally lulzy. It's not infinite turns exactly, but it sure as hell feels like it.

3. FriendlyFit - Don't forget the awesome synergy between Deed, PWs, and Standstill (its a major reason to go blue in SuperFriends) ^_^ also, I'm curious: why Doubling Season?

[TheArchitect]

Regarding Future Fit trying to do too many things@Architect --

Yes and no. The Glissa/Trinket Mage package and the Helm combo are highly synergistic on a number of levels. Both want Academy Ruins somewhere in the deck, for example. Time will tell if the packages are a little too involved, perhaps -- but I think that there is merit in having them in the same shell together. It's worth testing, I'd say.

Ill give it a try when I get a chance. Most BUG nic fit decks seem kind of boring to me but if I can play trinket mages, or future sights I'm in.


I like the idea of a token based BGW superfriends deck. I've brewed up lists for that before, but never really played them. Im might revist that no.


@ChronoFit: Only 2 brainstorms and no tops doesnt seem like it would work too well. TBH I dont know what to cut, but theres got to be 4 BS or 3 tops in there I think. Also, I dont think finding a way to win with infinite turns would be a problem. Jace, could always do it. Also, eventually you will see a damnation/pulse to kill their army of dudes/moat that is preventing you from attacking and then you can just win with ewit and vet beats.


EDIT: Also, Ill be unleashing the fury of the angry mountains tomorrow at Jupiter.

[Arianrhod]

Regarding the three new versions:

2. ChronoFit - I like the idea, but for some reason I feel that you could trim a lot of space simply by going infinite mana with Palinchron and Recurring Nightmare, and then either infinite recursion with Eternal Witness, infinite lifegain and tokens with Thragtusk, or something equally lulzy. It's not infinite turns exactly, but it sure as hell feels like it.

3. FriendlyFit - Don't forget the awesome synergy between Deed, PWs, and Standstill (its a major reason to go blue in SuperFriends) ^_^ also, I'm curious: why Doubling Season?

2. The problem with Palinchron is you have to necessarily be all-in on it. The idea behind working with Time Warp is that it should be like Scapewish -- it's doing something you're already doing anyway, and it just happens to turn it into a combo. Scapewish is ramping because it wants to ramp. Scapeshift just happens to make it a combo. ChronoFit is designed with the same concept in mind -- you're Time Warping because you want to Time Warp, you're playing Jace because you want to play Jace, and so on. It just so happens that when you put all of these elements together, you can set up some truly degenerate stuff. I'm sure ChronoFit will have its turn 3 wins just like Scapewish does -- but there'll probably also be games where you're just sitting there Damnationing every turn while you +2 Jace...or whatever. Just as sometimes, Scapewish just sits there and flips Huntmasters back and forth.

3. I don't think that Standstill is enough of a reason to go blue, though -- not over Elspeth, Lingering Souls, and the attending shenanigans. Also maybe Gideon.

Doubling Season because of two reasons: when a planeswalker comes into play, it enters with twice the counters. This means that Elspeth, Liliana/Veil, and Garruk Primal all enter with their Ultimates enabled. You can play any of them are just crack their ult the turn they come down, which is obviously insanely powerful. This is really derpy with Garruk PH, in particular, because Doubling Season has another effect: it doubles the tokens that they put into play. So, if you have let's say 7 lands in play. You play and ult Garruk PH. You get 14 6/6 tokens. For 2GGG. Elspeth +1 makes 2 dudes. And so on. Note that Season does not double the number of counters added from using their abilities. +1 is still +1.

By contrast, even if you added blue via Lantern, say, Jace would come in with 6 counters, out of 12 needed. Woohoo. The junk-colored walkers just plain better.

[Arianrhod]

Ill give it a try when I get a chance. Most BUG nic fit decks seem kind of boring to me but if I can play trinket mages, or future sights I'm in.


I like the idea of a token based BGW superfriends deck. I've brewed up lists for that before, but never really played them. Im might revist that no.


@ChronoFit: Only 2 brainstorms and no tops doesnt seem like it would work too well. TBH I dont know what to cut, but theres got to be 4 BS or 3 tops in there I think. Also, I dont think finding a way to win with infinite turns would be a problem. Jace, could always do it. Also, eventually you will see a damnation/pulse to kill their army of dudes/moat that is preventing you from attacking and then you can just win with ewit and vet beats.


EDIT: Also, Ill be unleashing the fury of the angry mountains tomorrow at Jupiter.

*Like*

And yeah, I wanted more manipulation/CA in the deck, too. I don't really want Tops, though, because, again, I want to make Mirror for value better. Maybe a few Tops, cut the Brainstorms, and add in some serious draw power -- like the new Urban Evolution thing, or some other Draw 3. Of course, Brainstorms go better with Oracle of Mul Daya, because wombo-combo.

After brewing that and trying to brew like 3 more decks, though, my head was hurting a bit so I just kind of gave up and said fuck it, I'll post it as is. I am absolutely 100% convinced that there is something of merit to be found within that concept. But the shell definitely needs tuning.

[TheArchitect]

Chronofit does seem really good. Like you said, like scapeshift its doing something you already want to do and then sometimes you get to go "oops I win". None of the combo pieces are bad, like how scapeshifts combo pieces (ramp cards lol) are always useful even if you cant combo out.

I know you love gifts, but what about fact or fiction for its raw drawing power? You're pretty safe putting jaces and mirrors in the GY to be witnessed back later youd just have to make sure to get the Time warp pile against DRS decks.

Another Idea (probably a bad one): promise of power, which has the benefit of being the wincon itself.

You can pay additional costs when you use Penoptic Mirror so I was also thinking Skeletal Scrying or Necrologia might be options. Im not sure if necrologia works though...

Just some food for thought when your feeling up for more brewing.

[Arianrhod]

Chronofit does seem really good. Like you said, like scapeshift its doing something you already want to do and then sometimes you get to go "oops I win". None of the combo pieces are bad, like how scapeshifts combo pieces (ramp cards lol) are always useful even if you cant combo out.

I know you love gifts, but what about fact or fiction for its raw drawing power? You're pretty safe putting jaces and mirrors in the GY to be witnessed back later youd just have to make sure to get the Time warp pile against DRS decks.

Another Idea (probably a bad one): promise of power, which has the benefit of being the wincon itself.

You can pay additional costs when you use Penoptic Mirror so I was also thinking Skeletal Scrying or Necrologia might be options. Im not sure if necrologia works though...

Just some food for thought when your feeling up for more brewing.

Uh, Skeletal Scrying wouldn't work because of the X in its mana cost. I also have no idea regarding Necrologia. I'm GUESSING that it wouldn't work, but I dunno for sure.

FoF wouldn't be horrible. I don't think I'd run Gifts in ChronoFit, though. Even with the high Witness count, there's just too many things that could go wrong. Also space concerns -- which Gifts likes having a bunch of attending cards.

Promise of Power is legit, but hard to cast. I used to run Promise in Nic Fit like a year ago, and I mean, when you resolved it, you just felt dirty. It's a solid option. Triple black is so miserable, though, that I basically relegated it mentally to if I ever wanted to derp with a straight G/B list for some reason.

[Alexeezay]

I'm gonna get playgroup testing in tomorrow with the BUG Chrono list & go from there...But I am very sure that Coffers/Urborg can be cut. I like 2 Tarpits or 1 Tower/1 Tarpit instead. The question is if we want to keep Primeval Titan or go for something like Simic Sky Swallower/Eldrazi/Gaea's Revenge to end the game...Simic Sky Swallower should be the best out of them? Revenge's haste is a nice ambush against PW's, but SSS got the trample...
about GSZ: Yes it's probably not a deck for Zenith, it runs 3 Eternal Witness anyway
A card like Urban Evolution seems really good here, right? Not sure if the explore effect is worth the 5 mana though

[Arianrhod]

I'm gonna get playgroup testing in tomorrow with the BUG Chrono list & go from there...But I am very sure that Coffers/Urborg can be cut. I like 2 Tarpits or 1 Tower/1 Tarpit instead. The question is if we want to keep Primeval Titan or go for something like Simic Sky Swallower/Eldrazi/Gaea's Revenge to end the game...Simic Sky Swallower should be the best out of them? Revenge's haste is a nice ambush against PW's, but SSS got the trample...
about GSZ: Yes it's probably not a deck for Zenith, it runs 3 Eternal Witness anyway
A card like Urban Evolution seems really good here, right? Not sure if the explore effect is worth the 5 mana though

Yeah. I mean, Urban Evolution is strictly better than like Jace's Ingenuity or Tidings, which is why I mentioned it.

I'm in agreement regarding Coffers/Urborg/Titan. 1 Tar Pit/1 Tower is probably the way to go. Titan, I dunno. Like, if we cut GSZ, then all of the ramp dudes get a lot worse, and we don't have room in the deck to go up to like 3 Sakuras, 3 Elders, 3 Oracles, etc. I'm not sure where to go at the moment with it.

[slikwilly]

I like the idea of a token based BGW superfriends deck. I've brewed up lists for that before, but never really played them. Im might revist that no.

Not Superfriends but is tokens, I ran the following on Wednesday:


3 Bayou
3 Forest
1 Marsh Flats
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Plains
1 Karakas
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Lingering Souls

2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Abrupt Decay

2 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Starved Rusalka
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thragtusk

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

1 Collective Blessing
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Recycle
1 Humility


That wasn't quite the list I had intended to run but apparently my Garruk Wildspeakers have taken a walk.

Small event, so only 3 rounds. I took minimal notes, but from what I recall:
Round 1 Merfolk W 2-1:
G1 - he vialed in a boatload of dudes, while I got nuthin'.
G2 - Collective Blessing + Lingering Souls beatdown
G3 - see G2

Round 2 Enchantress L 0-2
G1 - he goes off T3. I may have misplayed T1, but not entirely sure. I'm on the draw. He goes Forest, Wild Growth, pass. I put him on Enchantress (duh) while I have Veteran + Therapy in my hand. I thought about going Therapy for Argothian Enchantress but instead go Veteran pass. T2 he plays Argothian. My T2 I Therapy, can't recall what I named but I missed. I see a hand of GSZ, 2x Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth. I flashback on the GSZ. So possibly two misplays. On T1, should I have gone w/ Therapy? On T2, was the right take GSZ, or should I have taken the Sprawls? It's bad either way. If I take the GSZ he plays the two sprawls and gets the triggers off his Enchantress. If I take the Sprawls he zeniths an enchantress, plays Growth and gets two triggers.
G2 - I blow his board up twice w/ Deed but the game just goes on and on until he is able to Living Wish for Emrakul and cast it. Controlling the board w/o having a clock really sucks.

Round 3 The Rock L 0-2
G1 - This was a 35 minute slog. He was able to make me discard my Blessing (damn you Liliana!) and I eventually had to play the Humility to avoid death by KotR. So neither of us had a clock and we both had active SDT. It was as nightmarish as a Nic Fit / Miracles match. After what seemed like a million turns he finally finds a vindicate for the Humility.
G2 - I have no idea what happened in this game. My notes show his life going 20 -> 18 -> 16 which is sorta interesting since I have no 2-power guys. Double souls beats I guess. Meanwhile mine goes 20 -> 19 -> 11 -> dead.

So changes:
1) Get a pair of Wildspeakers in there. Losing the Blessing (or never finding it) really sucks since souls by themselves just don't do enough damage. But souls w/ +3/+3 are really tough to beat. (And going T1 Vet -> T2 Therapy + Souls -> T3 Garruk + Souls fb -> T4 16 points of flying damage seems like a good thing). Should be a PW mix of 2 Garruk, 1 Elspeth I think.
2) Not sure why I don't have a Witness in there, but I should.
3) Not being able to Recycle against The Rock really sucks. The ability Hymn (or Lili + Thoughtseize) basically means you can't play it. (And getting Hymned to take Blessing + Rector and leaving Recycle in your hand is the worst feeling ever). Thinking about adding Oracle of Mul Daya. It's Zenithable, which is good, is a partial solution to the problem, and seems pretty damn awesome w/ Recycle anyway. And of course no Recycle w/o an active Top to get you around the discard problem.

[HoneyT]

Finally got some free time at a computer again! Greetings all!

Several things to discuss here:

Not a whole lot to report from GP Denver. Started off 5-0, needed to win one of three rounds to day 2 and got paired against mono-combo opponents that rip like a boss. Disappointing to say the least, but shit happens. Missed day 2 but was incredibly impressed with the list. Played P-Fire Nic Fit cuz it's an absolute house right now. Here's the list I've been working on for the last few months:

Punishing Fire Nic Fit (60):

Lands (23):
1 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
1 Taiga
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills

Creatures (14):
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Primeval Titan
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Veteran Explorer

Other (23):
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Punishing Fire
1 Recurring Nightmare
3 Sensei's Divining Top

Sideboard (15):
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Damnation
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Slaughter Games
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Thoughtseize

To those of you interested in this version, I encourage you to play Kessig Wolf Run. It's not cute, it kills people. If you've never Wolf Runned a Thrun, you're missing out. Also, I'm pretty convinced that Huntmaster of the Fells is one of the best creatures you can be casting in Legacy at the moment. He's an absolute monster that many decks have a problem dealing with profitably.

[Arianrhod]

3) Not being able to Recycle against The Rock really sucks. The ability Hymn (or Lili + Thoughtseize) basically means you can't play it. (And getting Hymned to take Blessing + Rector and leaving Recycle in your hand is the worst feeling ever). Thinking about adding Oracle of Mul Daya. It's Zenithable, which is good, is a partial solution to the problem, and seems pretty damn awesome w/ Recycle anyway. And of course no Recycle w/o an active Top to get you around the discard problem.

Quick note -- you can definitely Recycle vs Rock. Just be smart about it, and don't try to Recycle without a Top in play and/or a Therapy in your graveyard. There's also nothing wrong with Rectoring it out, drawing a bunch of cards with it, then Pulse/Vindicate/Deeding it away when you're done, if you don't feel safe.

[Amazingxkcd]

For the BUG deck (that interesting chronofit variation), would you want to have the newly spoilered Realmwright in there? (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=9636400#post9636400). I thinkl that he is cute and flashy, but that mana fixing that he provides would be interesting and help support the jace manabase.

[Niche]

Long time lurker sharing his first run at Nic Fit.


4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Innocent Blood
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
3 Thoughtseize

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
6 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

Potential Sideboard:
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Crop Rotation
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Tajuru Preserver
1 Chameleon Colossus
3 Memoricide
1 Necroplasm


I know everyone is on the exciting GBR Scapewish... or Junk colored with Rector for Moat... however I just started getting into legacy and have... limited access... to some of those pieces. With the high volume of unfair decks I love having access to extra disruption so I built GB.

I'd love some thoughts/feedback/criticism. I tried to keep the creatures all GSZ targets excepting Grave Titan which I know is kind of a throwback.

I *could* access some white cards because I have Scrublands... but this deck seems to rather have Savannah so its not wise to push into it I'm sure.

Memoricide is weird I know. I want those 3 slots for combo decks since we can hit 4 mana on 2 fairly consistently. Will try anything within reason.

Thanks!

[Arianrhod]

For the BUG deck (that interesting chronofit variation), would you want to have the newly spoilered Realmwright in there? (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=9636400#post9636400). I thinkl that he is cute and flashy, but that mana fixing that he provides would be interesting and help support the jace manabase.

Pretty sure Realmwright's home will be in Modern RUG-Scapeshift. If we could Zenith him, then I'd be more inclined to throw him in because why not, but as a blue dude that we have no way of finding, I don't think it's worth it. The mana base should be fine --Explorers/Sakuras/Wood Elves/etc should even things out nicely. Just need a basic Forest, and then beyond that the mana base should develop itself pretty well.


Long time lurker sharing his first run at Nic Fit.

Memoricide is weird I know. I want those 3 slots for combo decks since we can hit 4 mana on 2 fairly consistently. Will try anything within reason.

Thanks!

I'm sure the G/B crowd will be along to help you out -- and they can provide you with more help than I could, as straight g/b is not something I'm that good with. But, that said, there is nothing wrong with memoricide whatsoever -- that's an archetype staple, in fact. I would also recommend splitting up Memoricide by getting a Cranial Extraction or two to go along with the Memoricide....people have, can, and will Surgical your Memoricides because that card can be such a problem for them.

Note, while we're on the subject, @Alexeezay and anyone else interested in ChronoFit -- does imprinting Cranial Extraction on a Mirror not sound like the absolute greatest thing ever? Take that, combo decks....

[Maverick777]

Quick note -- you can definitely Recycle vs Rock. Just be smart about it, and don't try to Recycle without a Top in play and/or a Therapy in your graveyard. There's also nothing wrong with Rectoring it out, drawing a bunch of cards with it, then Pulse/Vindicate/Deeding it away when you're done, if you don't feel safe.

Totally agree with arianrhod here recycle is probably the card to play right now. Ya junk can pose a problem but with top or therapy in yard you should be fine I have found that when it gets going you should be able to get yosei online fairly easily. Just be careful against those pesky discard decks. Also quick side note you onl have to play the card it can get countered all day but you always draw. Many people I have talked to didn't know that. Now my opinion is that in a combo heavy environment rector would be better suited than scapewish. I would enjoy opinions on this. I will be playing at Nelc tomorrow and have not decided what version I am running but I wi have the full report.

[Viridia]

@ Arianrhod and everyone else making GBW Superfriends Tokens - check the Rector list in my Sig.
Been testing and playing around with the token list for a while, it feels quite solid so far.

[Ayotte]

@ Arianrhod and everyone else making GBW Superfriends Tokens - check the Rector list in my Sig.
Been testing and playing around with the token list for a while, it feels quite solid so far.

I like the looks of this list. I may start trying Rector now.


4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Innocent Blood
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
3 Thoughtseize

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
6 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

Potential Sideboard:
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Crop Rotation
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Tajuru Preserver
1 Chameleon Colossus
3 Memoricide
1 Necroplasm

I really did not like Diabolic Intent in G/B. It's not really necessary. There's not as much of a toolbox in the deck as there is in other versions, and a lot of the time you don't have a good creature to sacrifice to it.

I would also take out the innocent bloods and maybe add 1 more abrupt decay and some other stuff which I'll mention. I can see wanting more sac outlets than Cabal Therapy, though, so it might be right to leave in some Intents/Bloods.

I've been told a million times that Dryad Arbor is bad, so I haven't even tried it.

I've been playing with 2 DRS lately, and they haven't ever really done anything for me. If I have them early, they die to deed, and if I have them late, I wish they were a creature or walker.

I would suggest you include at least 2 Liliana and 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter. Both have been amazing for me, Garruk especially.

I really like primeval titan and scavenging ooze in G/B. Scavenging Ooze because a lot of the time you want something that you can GSZ for cheap but will still grow to be a big creature. I had a lot of fun with Primeval Titan + 2 Treetops in G/B, because it's gives you 12 power of trampling damage, 6 of which is almost immune to Terminus. Grave Titan takes a whole turn to do anything, so I would switch Titans.

Where the hell are your Sensei's Tops? That's one of the most core cards in the deck, IMO.

I think you should switch the marsh flats for green fetchlands, and replace one or two forests with swamps. Getting wasteland-proof forests are more important than swamps, especially early. With 8 fetchlands, it's very strange to me why you don't have Tops.

Also, your sideboard is weird, but I'm at work and should probably actually work, so I'll leave that up to you.

[Tao]

Long time lurker sharing his first run at Nic Fit.


4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Innocent Blood
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
3 Thoughtseize

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
6 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

Potential Sideboard:
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Crop Rotation
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Tajuru Preserver
1 Chameleon Colossus
3 Memoricide
1 Necroplasm


I know everyone is on the exciting GBR Scapewish... or Junk colored with Rector for Moat... however I just started getting into legacy and have... limited access... to some of those pieces. With the high volume of unfair decks I love having access to extra disruption so I built GB.

I'd love some thoughts/feedback/criticism. I tried to keep the creatures all GSZ targets excepting Grave Titan which I know is kind of a throwback.

I *could* access some white cards because I have Scrublands... but this deck seems to rather have Savannah so its not wise to push into it I'm sure.

Memoricide is weird I know. I want those 3 slots for combo decks since we can hit 4 mana on 2 fairly consistently. Will try anything within reason.

Thanks!

Maindeck
- Sensei's Top: A deck with so much conditional cards that can be dead in certain situations (removal, ramp, discard) can't afford to play without filtering. Top is better than Library because it doesn't die to your own Deeds or your opponent's Abrupt Decays and you usually can't pay life anyway.
- Deathrite Shaman: There is really no point in running them because they will just turn one of the opponent's otherwise dead/bad hand cards (Decay, Bolt, Swords) into a good one. Or die to Deed. It is bad with all these Diabolic Intents, too.
- Terastodon: play one and I promise you will be glad you did. It fits your deck perfectly because you are quite low on win conditions.

this is what I would do:
- 3 DR Shaman
- 1 Diabolic Intent
- 1 Library
+ 3 Top
+ 1 Sylvan Ranger
+ 1 Terastodon


Sideboard:
- Memoricide isn't weird at all. All red versions play Slaughter Games in the SB so you are spot on. But they are not only good vs. Combo, don't forget to side them in against Miracles, too.
- I love the Crop Rotation tech. I really love it. Kills two birds with one stone. Maybe I will steal it.
- get your hands on some Carpet of Flowers, they are amazing against BUG, RUG, Miracles, Merfolk and Stoneblade

[TheArchitect]

@Niche: While I haven't played straight GB nic fit at a tourny In a while, ive kept my list updated incase I want to play it. There is nothing wrong with not spashing a color. There a lot of advantages to just staying GB. I think a lot of people are just drawn to other colors cause it gives them more options that fit their play-style.

If I were to play GB nic fit, this is the list I would run. Ive tested quiet a bit and have been pretty happy.

Maindeck (60):
3 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan


1 Diabolic Intent
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Phyrexian Arena

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed

3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Karn Liberated

Sideboard (15):

3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Extirpate
1 Maelstorm pulse
2 Thoughtseize
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Ichneumon Druid
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
2 Damnation
1 Acidic Slime

You could make some tweaks, but I think it is pretty solid. PW are really needed in GB Ive found. The deck doesnt have any insane creatures like sigarda, or broodmage dragon that are hard to remove and win the game in a few turns. Ive always been disapointed with Grave titan. He always just eats removal and give you 2 2/2s for 6 mana. Thrun, I dont like either, He either gets blocked by 2 drops that are bigger than him (goyf), gets a -2 from lily, or gets hit with terminus. Garruk and karn control the board, and then win the game too. They both beat Jace.dec too which is really important since nic fit tends to have trouble dealing with a jace.

Typically the tougher matches for GB nic fit are combo and UWx control. The SB is really supposed to help out those matches a lot. If you need explanations for any choices I made let me know.


Pretty sure Realmwright's home will be in Modern RUG-Scapeshift. If we could Zenith him, then I'd be more inclined to throw him in because why not, but as a blue dude that we have no way of finding, I don't think it's worth it. The mana base should be fine --Explorers/Sakuras/Wood Elves/etc should even things out nicely. Just need a basic Forest, and then beyond that the mana base should develop itself pretty well.

Oh snap I didnt even think of his interaction with valakut. Although modern sucks a massive amount of dick, if I were going to play a modern deck it would definitely be RUG scapeshift.

[Niche]

Consuming the advice so far:

Group Hates/Cut:
Innocent Blood
Deathrite Shaman
Thrun

Group Wants/Add:
2-5 Planeswalkers (Liliana of the Veil, Garruk Primal Hunter, Karn Liberated)
2-3 Sensei's Divining Top
Better Wincon (Terastadon/P-Tits) - Challenge here will be to find a meaningful big/big that is GSZ targettable. I definitely get it.

Things I'm seeing shaved quantities on:
Diabolic Intent
Thoughtseize

Things that are different but might just be preference based:
Abrupt Decay
Maelstrom Pulse
P-Deed

Thank you all for the assistance. I'll study your responses in depth over the next week or two until the atlanta 5k im going to.

I'll bounce back alter with a tweaked list and if I think I've found a good beater in GB.

EDIT: This is gonna sound really bad I'm certain... but how do we like Kodama of the North Tree?

[Ayotte]

EDIT: This is gonna sound really bad I'm certain... but how do we like Kodama of the North Tree?

I love Kodama of the North Tree in G/B. It's made even sweeter by the looks you get upon casting/GSZing for it.

And for the record, Thrun has been very good for me. Also, I like at least 2 discard spells in G/B. You have room, and I think a main strength of G/B is that you can just play straight up disruption and big dudes, without worrying about all of the cute stuff of other archetypes. This means more discard/removal/dudes.

[Tao]

Consuming the advice so far:

Group Hates/Cut:
Innocent Blood
Deathrite Shaman
Thrun

Group Wants/Add:
2-5 Planeswalkers (Liliana of the Veil, Garruk Primal Hunter, Karn Liberated)
2-3 Sensei's Divining Top
Better Wincon (Terastadon/P-Tits) - Challenge here will be to find a meaningful big/big that is GSZ targettable. I definitely get it.

Things I'm seeing shaved quantities on:
Diabolic Intent
Thoughtseize

Things that are different but might just be preference based:
Abrupt Decay
Maelstrom Pulse
P-Deed

Thank you all for the assistance. I'll study your responses in depth over the next week or two until the atlanta 5k im going to.

I'll bounce back alter with a tweaked list and if I think I've found a good beater in GB.

EDIT: This is gonna sound really bad I'm certain... but how do we like Kodama of the North Tree?

Play

Terastodon

The card is amazing in every list that needs more impact.

Punishing Fire versions don't need it because they can tutor for great Primeval Titans against Control and Broodmate Dragon. Scapeshift versions don't need it because with 8-9 lands in play they just want to Scapeshift. Rector versions already have Sigarda and Rector Enchantments (Nightmare, Recycle) to give you a lof of impact and an infinite amount of good things to do with your Mana.

For GB and GBu Terastodon is perfect.

[Ayotte]

The reason I haven't tried Terastodon yet is that it's 8 mana. We have a lot of early ramp but it is not consistent ramp all game, so I sometimes find it hard to get to 7 mana to GSZ a Prime Time.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Hey Niche: if you are who I think ya are, this deck has your name written on it: while the core of the deck is heavily green, green just can't get there without black ;).

[fireiced]

To those of you interested in this version, I encourage you to play Kessig Wolf Run. It's not cute, it kills people. If you've never Wolf Runned a Thrun, you're missing out. Also, I'm pretty convinced that Huntmaster of the Fells is one of the best creatures you can be casting in Legacy at the moment. He's an absolute monster that many decks have a problem dealing with profitably.

I play a singleton wolf run in my scapewish deck, 7/1 trampling wood elves and explorers clocks like bause and clears plow and terminus for the bigger boys later :laugh:

[litenkatt]

@HoneyT

Couldn't agree more on Kessig Wolf Run. I like it too. I'm also playing a singleton Inkmoth Nexus but I'm not convinced yet

[Tao]

Terastodon is not for most games, but quite regularly the games will just stall. In these games it is great to have something to work to that works like Scapeshift and ends the game. I just had very good experiences with it in BUG. Maybe I am wrong though, you do draw cards with BUG thanks to Jace, so you might just have more Mana in general. So maybe Terastodon is only good in Jace versions and my advice on it is bad. It has been an eternity since I played straight GB the last time. Try it and see if you like it.

[TarmoX]

I'm testing this list:

22 Lands

4 Explorer
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Wooded Elves
2 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
1 Thragtusk
1 Terastodon
1 Primeval Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Progenitus

4 Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order

1 Recurring Nightmare
3 Deed
2 Top
2 Liliana

SB
2 Extirpate
2 Cranial Extraction
3 Duress
2 IOK
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Carpet of Flower
1 Pulse
1 Damnation


In my meta there are: Most Goblins, BUG aggro, Maverick, Canadian, Eva Green, Burn, Aggro Loam and some Miracle, Dredge, ANT.
any advice is welcome :smile:

[lambert101]

@honeyt

any changesnfom the list as a result of the gp?

[Wincheee]

Hey guys! This is my first post in this forums,anyone tried deathcloud? Sorry for my english btw...

[Greenpoe]

Welcome to The Source, Wincheee. No one has tried Deathcloud in Nic Fit, but it seems counter-intuitive to the game plan, since Vet Explorer gives both players lands, and Cloud takes them away from both players. There was a Deathcloud deck that was played in Legacy a few years ago here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-18567.html

[Wincheee]

Welcome to The Source, Wincheee. No one has tried Deathcloud in Nic Fit, but it seems counter-intuitive to the game plan, since Vet Explorer gives both players lands, and Cloud takes them away from both players. There was a Deathcloud deck that was played in Legacy a few years ago here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-18567.html

Yes,but not in all games opponents can have much basics like us with explorer,so,we can afford deathcloud better then they,and allows to play life from the loam+wastelands for theirs nonbasics,and blow their basics with cloud,dunno,was a thought....im playing Rectorfit anyways,with Worship Main(Worship+Sigarda = GG )

[nottz]

I was messing around with the idea of a junk walkers type list and I came up with this:

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Academy Rector
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Doubling Season
1 Collective Blessing
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Damnation
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Liliana of the Veil
3 Lingering Souls
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Elspeth Tirel
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Karn Liberated
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Gavony Township
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Recycle
3 Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Nether Void
SB: 4 Natural Order
SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 3 Thoughtseize

The few games I've played around with it have been awesome. Doubling season makes all your walkers sooooo good. Elspeth Tirel definitely deserves her spot in the list. She comes down, ultimates, and basically just wins the game for you. I would like to up the Liliana count but I'm at a loss as to what to cut. I was also running Starved Rusalka to sac the rectors but I figured it wasn't very necessary in a list that wasn't dedicated to rectoring out enchantments. I decided to cut the deeds down to a one of because of all the tokens I'm making. I added the two damnations to replace them and they have been doing pretty well. I'm not sure if I can run more deeds or not. The township has been really good when I'm grinding out a game and I topdeck a lingering souls or even just a witness. Overall I think this deck has some really amazing potential.

I agree with Tao's assessment of Terastodon, when I was playing his BUG list it was really good as a HUGE guy that could take care of pesky things and present a two turn clock. It's really good when you're playing blue because of all the manipulation but I think it could also see some play in a traditional GB list.

[MrIggins]

Back from NELC at Jupiter games, went a disappointing 3-4 for 40th place but had a blast and lost a couple times to opponents topdecking like champs. Shit happens, it's Magic. Tournament report to follow when I'm coherent enough to write one.

Just wanted to say a couple quick things:
-it was awesome to finally meet Arianrhod and TheArchitect, and jamming games against the Academy Rector deck was actually hilarious.
-Sakura-Tribe Elder is amazing and I don't know why I wasn't playing it before
-this deck treats you so much better when you are comfortable with it, more than any other deck I've ever played. Compared to my last NELC, which I admittedly performed better in, I felt way more in control of what was happening because I've practiced this deck a ton since then, and I was never even close to going to time, where I drew two games in the last one because I kept tanking over decisions.
-seriously, if you want to play this deck and get good, and I don't consider myself good at it yet, play test games against everything you possibly can, and learn it inside and out. it makes a huge difference.
-also deathrite shaman is not that great for this deck, although i think it might be necessary in straight GB like I've been playing.

Yeah, rounds and stuff to come tomorrow. I love this deck.

[Vicar in a tutu]

also deathrite shaman is not that great for this deck, although i think it might be necessary in straight GB like I've been playing.
I've been wanting to test Deathrite shamans in GB Nic Fit. I've been having some problems using Veteran Explorer since - IMO - Deathrite is a much stronger 1 mana drop (that can be played with both green AND black, in case you are manascrewed). There are good things with veteran explorer: 1) When playing against opponents without basic lands 2) It plays well with Perniscious Deed. However, Deathrite Shaman is incredibly strong. Here is the build I'm considering:

"G/B Shaman-Explorer"

4 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Treetop Village
1 Volrath's Stronghold

4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Perniscious Deed
2 Maelstrom Puls
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Sideboard

2 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Perniscious Deed
2 Choke

I still keep 1 Veteran Explorer in as a target for Green Sun's Zenith. Otherwise the deck is pretty vanilla G/B. I cut Primeval Titan for another Thragtusk. Prime Time has been strong, but Thragtusk is completely insane and also gives the deck a bit staying power vs. very aggressive decks. Also, Thragtusk is really good against control decks (you still have a 3/3 body on the battlefield after a Terminus, StP, etc). Honestly, I suspect Deathrite Shaman's lack of synergy with Pernicious Deed is more than compensated by the raw power of the shaman.

[MrIggins]

As promised, a report on yesterday's NELC. It's been a while since I've posted but I've been following the thread and playing the deck as much as I can, though I haven't been able to get to any tournaments due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances.

First, the deck list:

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan
1 Primeval Titan

2 Garruk, Primal Hunter

3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Green Sun's Zenith

Sideboard:
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Memoricide
3 Extirpate
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Damnation
1 Acidic Slime
1 Golgari Charm


Matches:

Get paired round 1 with Janene, someone I do not recognize. She starts with a fetchland and Swords my turn 1 Deathrite Shaman, I correctly put her on Maverick. I stick a top and spin it, then cast Zenith for 2, she is really confused when I put Tribe-Elder into play. It's pretty great. I follow it up with a Thrun and a Deed and beat down for a few turns, then a Thragtusk elicits another strange look. I hit another Deed and she dies pretty fast.
I board out my Maelstrom Pulses for Golgari Charm and Damnation
Game 2 was a very long grind that I thought was going to go to time, she once again Plows my Deathrite Shaman and I stick an Ooze, gaining some life. She has more green mana than I do when her own Ooze come down and we have the entertaining battle between two Oozes. She wins that battle and has a huge guy. I find a Deed to clear it after getting in for some damage, and she Mindcensors me when I try to get a Thragtusk. So we sit around for a bit while I dig for a threat or a shuffle effect with Top. I end up casting a Zenith for zero just to reset my top 3, find a Grave Titan and kill her.
1-0

Round 2 is with Blayne, who kills me on turn 4 through disruption (Misdirection on my Therapy, to which I name Sarpadian Empires Volume VII, Force my Hymn, Shardless Agent->Hypergenesis->Griselbrand->Draw->Cascade->Emrakul). A little frustrating since i kept a disruption-heavy hand and took a lot of important cards even with all the resistance he put up, and he topdecked the Agent to put in the last threat he had. But such is life.
I bring out Pulse, Deed and Decays and some other card for Memoricide, all the targeted discard, Extirpates and Damnation.
I once again disrupt him heavily, blind Therapy double Simian Spirit Guide and see double Shardless Agent, Maelstrom Wanderer, lands. Flash back Therapy with an Explorer for the Agents, Extirpate the Agents. He rips Violent Outburst like a goddamn champion and puts in Griselbrand and Progenitus to my PrimeTime. I take 17 on attacks and he doesn't get greedy with Griselbrand by drawing more cards, so I dig with Top, find a shuffle, shuffle, top, attack with Prime Time, top, fail to find Damnation and die.
1-1

I don't feel too bad at this point although dying to topdecks when he had only Hypergenesis targets in his hand both games sucked.

Round 3 is Brandon with Affinity. Pernicious Deed does what it usually does and wrecks his deck easily.
2-1

Round 4 is Jesse Adams with Maverick, Jesse is a friend of mine from back home who I've done a lot of testing with. He's an incredibly competent pilot and I'm nervous about this matchup even though normally Maverick isn't too scary. I also know for a fact that he has 2-3 maindeck Mirran Crusader.
Game 1 lasts 3 minutes as he turn 2's said Mirran Crusader and follows it up with Pridemage. I have no way to stay alive long enough to get to Deed and scoop it up.
Sideboard the same as round 1.
Game 2 is a grind in which he Armageddons, and I Golgari Charm in response killing my Explorer and his Mom and Hierarch. I was ahead on board at the time so I didn't want to give him the mana, but he finds a Maze of Ith, a Teeg and a Mom and I can't get through it as I keep drawing Zeniths and Primal Hunters with 2 lands in play. Mom lets him ping me to death with Teeg before I find another threat to get through Maze.
2-2

At this point I need to win out in order to money.
I jam about 5 games against another person whose name I do not remember (sorry if he's on this thread, please make yourself known!) with Arianrhod's Rector list, which is some of the most entertaining Magic I've played in a long time. I won most of them, which I was actually pretty surprised about.

Round 5 is Jund. I take a lot of damage from a Deathrite Shaman but find both my Titans and kill him very quickly.
I don't think I sideboarded.
Game 2 we both keep slow hands and trade disruption, but I have a Top on turn 1 and it wins me the game, since I find a Thragtusk that he just can't beat.
3-2

Round 6 is a nice guy, Henry, who is a regular at Jupiter but I don't know him or his deck. It turns out it's a Sneak Attack build. I die turn 3 to Griselbrand into Emrakul.
I board similarly to the Hypergenesis games, except I bring in Golgari Charm to hit naked enchantments.
Game 2 I disrupt him into oblivion, taking his Chrome Mox and leaving him floundering until I kill him with Thragtusk. Golgari Charm killed the Sneak Attack he played out. He told me he thought I would only have Abrupt Decays, so his line was fine.
Game 3 I similarly disrupt him hard and am about to kill him with Thrun and Ooze but he topdecks Inferno Titan when I'm at 3 life. This doesn't end well for me.
3-3
Discouraging since I keep dying to combo decks even though I'm hitting my disruptive plays, including hitting some sick blind Therapies.
Arianrhod and TheArchitect both agreed that this is a worse matchup than typical Sneak Attack for us, so I can't feel TOO bad.

At this point it doesn't matter any more, but I get paired with TheArchitect on Scapewish. Needless to say, this matchup is completely unwinnable for me, and I end 3-4 for 40th place out of 74.

I was pretty happy for the deck, although I don't think I want my second Scavenging Ooze anymore. Initially it was there for more lifegain against aggro but 2x Thragtusk is way better for this purpose. I'm not sure what I want in this slot. TheArchitect suggested Karn, which would lead me to reintroduce Diabolic Intent, but then I'm a card over. Not sure, I'll play around with it.

I was REALLY happy with Tribe-Elder which was a last minute addition. Deathrite Shamans didn't do a lot other than eat Swords, which was actually fine since it let me run out Explorers. I still think they're worth the 2 slots but they are nowhere near as good here as in other decks.

[plogan]

Hey guys first time posting long time reader.

Anyway I attempted the following list of ChronoFit at a local and didn't do so well. So heres the list and a few notes along with a small report.

- Consistency is a bit of an issue throughout the entire three matches that I played I never once assembled a combo.
- The split of damnation and deed seems to be a little off. I found myself wanting a deed when I had a damnation more often than not.

Creatures:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Eternal Witness
2 Sakura Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

Artifacts:
2 Pantropic Mirror

Spells:
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Time Warp
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Damnation
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Reccuring Nightmare

Lands:
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Phryexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Negates
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pantropic Mirror
2 Helm of Obedience

Round 1 Vs Jund (0-2 Loss)
G1: Never find the combo and die to a plethora of threats including double goyf and bob.
G2: Kept and opener of Eternal Witness, Jace, Reccuring Nightmare, Cabal Therapy, and lands. Draw into an early Sakura Tribe Elder against my opponents Deathrite. Ramp to 4 only to have a thoughtsieze on the Witness followed by Pithing Needle on Jace and Reccurring Nightmare. Draw into primetime and find the towers. I then proceeded to draw into Damnation. Despite looping damnation with Witness I lose to a singleton Treetop Village.

SB:
-3 Time magic
-2 Pantropic Mirror
-1 Veteran Explorer

+4 Leyline of the Void
+2 Helm of Obedience

Round 2 Vs. Team Italia (1-1 Draw)
G1: Die to multiple stoneforges into jitte and sword of feast and famine to my eternal wittness and ramp.
G2: Manage to slam Jace into Primetime into eternal wittness and damnation shenanigans. At one point I lost jace to a Batterskull suited up with a Sword of Feast and Famine, however I had brainstormed for a deed the previous turn and blew him out with it. Time is called as soon as my opponent conceeds.

SB:
- 3 Time magic
- 2 Pantropic Mirror
- 1 Veteran Explorer

+ 4 Leyline of the Void
+ 2 Helm of Obedience

Round 3 High Tide (1-2 Loss)
G1: I forget that meditate is instant speed when I flashback therapy on my veteran explorer to my opponents mull to 5. I quickly die for this mistake.
G2: T1 I therapy for timespiral and wiff. The next turn consists of slamming 2 carpet of flowers out of which one is countered. I then land Jace and fateseal shipping a timesprial and candle. My opponent eventually tries to combo off, but I have the negate.
G3: I open Leyline on the field and keep a hand of 2 lands, sakura tribe elder, Jace, carpet of flowers, and cabal therapy. I cast therapy naming high tide to my opponents 7 and wiff. Next turn I drew a second carpet and slam them both with one eating a counterspell. I then cast the elder then jace which is countered and i proceed to draw 0 lands and no business. Eventually I find a negate but because of my lack of lands I'm unable to stop him from comboing.

SB:
-3 Veteran Explorer
-3 Time Magic
-2 Pantropic Mirror
-2 Damnation
-2 Pernicious Deed
-1 Maelstrom Pulse

+4 Leyline of the Void
+2 Helm of Obedience
+3 Carpet of Flowers
+4 Negate

Some final Notes:
Oracle of Mul Daya was awsome the one game I cast it as it helped with Jace to thin the deck though I still didn't find the combo pieces.
The Two Towers allowed for all sorts of shenanigans and was a decent synergistic combo when I couldn't find the pieces to win. It quickly turned the game around against Jund.
The Leyline sideboard was meant to be used as an element of surprise against decks where leyline was a fair choice of a card and it can be a slightly faster combo.
Some user error may have effected the results as this was my first time playing either Jace or Brainstorm in Legacy.

[Ayotte]

I played Scapewish for the first time IRL yesterday. I used Arianrhod's list with -1 Stronghold, -1 Deed and +2 Abrupt Decay, which was based on the fact that I saw 3 Miracles players before the tournament started.

I went 1-3. I should have went 3-1, but I had 2 huge misplays that cost me the match. The deck was a ton of fun though and so far my favorite version of the deck.

The two misplays were:

My goblins opponent was super mana flooded so I got cute and cast prime time instead of scapeshifting and winning because I didn't see how I could lose and I wanted him to think I was still on PFire. He then went ringleader into warchief, chieftan, krenko, and mogg war marshall and killed me in one turn. I won game 2 off thragtusks and huntmasters but then I lost on turn 3 in game 3 to a nuts draw.

The other one was that I was playing game 3 vs stiflenought and I had a REB on top of my deck with a top in play. He submerged my thragtusk, stifled the beast, then attacked to kill me. I could have drew off top in response to Submerge, REB'd his delver, and then cast thragtusk again and won off that. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention at all and forgot about REB.

This deck is sweet though, I'm having a lot of fun. I love toolboxes, and now I have GSZ and Burning Wish

[unemployer]

Ended up at 3rd against 93 players last night in the Philippines. I used Scapewish (almost a mirror of Arianrhod's list). I am happy with the results and how the deck ran with a little luck with the match-ups. I'll post my report when I have time this week.

[TheArchitect]

I went 4-3 at Juptier this weekend with scapeshift. One game I was getting all casual and stupid and did a complete punt though.

2-? - Esperblade
2-? - 4c Cascade aggro
0-2 - ANT
0-2 - UW stoneblade
1-2 - Esperblade (the punt)
2-1 - Semi-janky Elves
2-0 - MrIggins with GB nic fit


I was overall happy with the deck, but there are a few things I want to improve:
- I dont want to lose to batterskull any more
- I want a way to turn a GSZ into an anti-countermagic card to push a scapeshift through
- I need more ways to interact on turn 1-2 with combo decks


I might just have to suck it up and lose to batterskull since the best solution to it that isnt super narrow that I can think of is Krsoan Grip and Pithing needle (both of which would have to be 2-4 of's). Are their any GSZ or wishable targets that effectively deal with batterskull reactively? The best strategy I can come up with involve 2 for 1ing myself, and only work if SFM is tapped out or dead (force them to bounce BS and then make them discard it). However, I might be able to ignore this problem if I can find a way to not give a shit about their countermagic and let them beat me to 4 life with their BS just to scapeshift them for 36+.

I've been thinking I want a way to turn GSZ into a "you cant counter my scapeshift" card. What I have been doing is GSZ for ewit if there is a thoughtseize or therapy in my yard, but that doesnt always happen, and I then usually dont have enough mana to also scapeshift that turn. Dosan the Falling Leaf seems like the best green creature for the job. The other options that I can think of are Vexing Shusher or Xantid Swarm which dont seem as back breaking. Ill try out Dosan for a bit but anyone have any other thoughts? They cant do anything if you resolve a GSZ for 3 and get dosan. He gets put into play and they dont even get to brainstorm or stps or anything. Counterbalance is still a thing though.

I am not liking 2-3 slaughter games in my SB. I want stuff that interacts on turn 1/2 to slow or stop a combo deck. Miracles is where slaughter games shined, and with that losing popularity, I think 1 slaughter games in the SB will suffice. With elves and storm regaining some popularity, we need a better plan against them. Im thinking something like this for SB might be good in a meta where combo is expected:
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroblast
2 *Anti combo cards*
1 *anti batterskull/countermagic card*
1 Innocent Blood
1 Reanimate
1 Slaughter Games
1 Pyroclasm (might be able to swap this for another combo hate card if not expecting much tribal)
1 Perish (this was the nuts btw, it doesnt matter that hits your guys. 1 less mana for a damantion has been huge against GBx decks and elves for me)
1 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Scapeshift

For the anti combo cards, Id like more than 2, but I cant seem to find room. As for the exact cards, Im thinking just more thoughtseizes. But I was also thinking Chains of Mephistopheles might be good as a 1 or 2 of. It would help against jace.dec as well. While it doest stop storm if they have the nuts and just dump their hand and cast AN or PiF, it stops them from hand scuplting effectively with all their cantrips like they usually need to do. Any suggestions here?

[Arianrhod]

If I do quotes, I'm going to break the forums, so I'll just do some good old-fashioned @@@@@ction.

@Architect

I don't usually have that much of a problem with Batterskull. Maybe I play my Therapies differently, but I almost always have access to either a Therapy or BW->Thoughtseize when they go to get their Skull. Sometimes they sneak it through and then it kind of sucks, because you need to try to make them bounce it and then discard it, but it still usually isn't the end of the world. It can just be a little hard to keep chumping every turn.

The way you turn your GSZ into a way to brute force Scapeshift through is by GSZing for Witness to get back the Scapeshift that they countered. Dosan could work, I suppose, except that he's going to be completely dead in a significant number of matchups, and I don't like him for (one of) the same reasons I don't like Teeg -- control decks have removal. I suppose you could Zenith=3 and then Scapeshift on the same turn, which would work, but then that requires you to have the Zenith (or the Dosan) in hand alongside the Scapeshift, which slows down your combo because you can't just drop it, but you need to meet a 2nd condition. Against Esperblade, in particular, you probably won't have time to actually do that. The games are long and grindy, sure, but they do run discard and snapcasters, and if you're sitting back with a nice stocked grip, they're going to check in on you. It's PROBABLY worth experimenting with in testing, but I dunno if it's good enough.

I'm actually agreeing with you regarding Slaughter Games, with a caveat. Slaughter Games will win you matches against Show and Tell and High Tide that no other card can. If you take out 2x Slaughter Games, even for 2 other combo-hate cards, you're going to injure your Show/High Tide matchup possibly beyond repair.

Note that the problem with running "legit" hate cards like Chains or....uh....Phyrexian Revoker? I guess? is that we have no way to tutor them, and considering that we're talking about combo hate specifically, you can't really afford to take the time to durdle with Top to try to find them. When it comes to fast combo, Scapewish's matchup revolves completely around mulling to Therapy, being good with Therapy, and drawing into Huntmasters, more Therapies, and Burning Wishes. Sometimes they just go off, and you just die. It's the price we pay for not running Force of Will. But sometimes you land that super sexy Therapy and hit two Brainstorms blind on the play, then you flash it back and take out their LED, then you drop a Huntmaster, then you Burning for Games and remove their Burning Wishes or their Tendrils or whatever.

I guess that what I'm saying is that at the end of the day, it would take too much for Scapewish to -effectively and reliably- beat combo. You would lose too much elsewhere -- it's better to focus on beating the fair decks and then go from there -- trust the blue decks to beat combo, and if you happen to run into it, then you give it your best go and either you get there, or you don't.

To that end, I think that the correct call (for you and me) is to run Scapewish at Mythic, but Rector at Jupiter. Jupiter's meta used to be mono-control, years back -- now, however, it seems like it's mono-combo with a few control decks trying to seep their way back in and failing. No matter what we do to Scapewish's sideboard, Rector will always be better disposed to beating combo.

While we're on the subject, I'll also note that I lost to two out of two Esperblade decks that I played at Jupiter. Both matches were insanely close and came down to me just drawing poorly - vs Bryant I had literally 6-8 turns where he had no counterspell and was literally just dead if I drew a Burning Wish or a Scapeshift, and even with a Top going I just couldn't find it while he beat me down with Lingering Souls; vs Kevin Jones (the guy you beat r1) I had about the same window to draw a 7th land to be able to keep pinging and stealing his Germ token with Olivia while she would be free to sail away to victory....and I just couldn't draw a land. I believe this means that we DO need to make a subtle tweak somewhere to make the Esper matchup a little tiny bit better. It's not something that I ever regarded as a bad matchup, and as I said, I do believe that I drew poorly -- but I also believe that their playing of Spell Snare once again fed into my losses. I forgot that people are actually playing that card again, and Snare makes our Plan A in the matchup worse (stalling until Scapeshifting), because their Snares cut down our number of Scapeshifts from 6 to 2, which is huge.

I'm not sure at this point if I'm going to tweak the board slightly, or try to sneak in another Green Sun target for the matchup (Acidic Slime, perhaps?), or if I just need to work out a different board plan (such as boarding out a Burning Wish to board in the third copy of Scapeshift).

@Plogan

You brave soul, you! I certainly hadn't intended on anyone running ChronoFit in an actual event yet -- it's barely more than a prototype fresh out of my imaginative womb!

Still, your findings are in alignment with what I suspected would be the case. I'm interested to hear how Alexeezay's testing went as well, to see if that corroborates your results, but let's just say I'm not surprised.

I'm not sure that boarding out the time magic is correct, though. ChronoFit is kind of almost a turboland-style deck -- you want to be building your board and your hand via taking extra turns. Check towards the end of this post for an updated ChronoFit list. I think I had an idea this weekend that might serve to make it better.

Also, I'm just going to highlight this bit for everyone real quick. And I mean EVERYONE, across all versions:


Despite looping damnation with Witness I lose to a singleton Treetop Village.

Manlands are REALLY GOOD right now. Make sure you have answers to them. This is one reason (the rise of 12post being another) that I've adopted the Sowing Salt in my wishboard for Scapewish -alongside- Tsunami.

@Iggins

Pleasure to meet you as well!

It didn't surprise me that you did as well as you did against the Rector build, for two reasons: G/B gets to run a ton of removal compared to other Nic Fit builds, because it doesn't take up that space with more engines and more power; and because, at least in part, Steve was durdling. As we noted, playing out both Baneslayers in the same turn was a horrible idea as far as playing seriously goes, but at the same time, I can certainly understand why he did it, because really, how often do you get to cast two Baneslayers in the same turn (on like turn 3) in legacy? Steve kept overextending into your removal, and you just kept blowing him out with it.

Also, Treetop Villages. I say again: Manlands are REALLY good right now.

As per earlier in this post, I'll say again that Jupiter has a really heavy combo presence. I'm not sure what G/B can do more than it's already doing about that. The best I can think would be to like splash an Island and a Trop for a set of Flusterstorms, or some such. Not really changing to a different version, just picking up a very slight splash to better combat combo. I dunno. It's just a thought.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

So, quick minute report from my end:

R1 vs U/R Delver.

He has double Goblin Guide, double Force of Will game one while I have no Veteran Explorer or black source for the Therapy and Deed in my hand. I'm making land drops every turn, though, and I try to drop Huntmaster (he Forces). Then he rips a Bolt off the top and goes swing, Bolt, Bolt. I had a Thragtusk next turn, although, as I said, he shows me the second Force after I scoop, so it wouldn't have mattered.

G2 he has more Goblin Guides while I have still no Veterans or black sources. I did have like two Green Suns, which both got countered, and he blind flips a Delver with a Chain Lightning to swing for 7 and then drop like Chain, Chain, Bolt to kill me on like turn 4.

Happens :|

R2 vs Bryant Cook (Esperblade this time)

I knew Bryant would be on a fair deck this month, since he played TES at the last event. Game one I spanked him hard. I don't remember the details, but I know it was not close.

G2, as noted earlier, I had him dead on board for like 6-8 turns but couldn't find a Scapeshift or Burning Wish even with a Top going, and I eventually, slowly die to spirit tokens.

G3 my keep is a little soft, whereas his is the stone nuts. He has one of those beautiful hands that is the reason to play Esperblade, where it goes discard into Stoneforge into vial in equipment (I made him discard his Batterskull, but he vialed in the Sword of Feast/Famine that was in his hand already), into Jace, into wall of counters and removal. I don't think there was a way for me to win g3....I guess I probably should have mulled, but I would have had to mull into something pretty special to keep up with that. Should have won it in game two and been 2-0 on the match, but, again, shit happens.

R3 vs TES

I sat near to this guy r1, so after a little memory-searching, I remembered what he was on. I mull to Therapy accordingly, land my blind Therapy, and proceed to tear the rest of his hand apart while Olivia sails away.

G2 he Probes me, seeing my double Red-Blast keep, and tries to go off turn 1. Unfortunately, he miscounted his mana and was one short, so he ended up Wishing for Diminishing Returns and tilting hard. We jockey around back and forth for a few turns, with him eventually hitting a Therapy to strip my Red Blasts...but then I witness one back. And so on. He eventually dies.

I felt bad about this round because I never like it when my opponent just punts the game away...but my opponent was tilting so hard that I think that my attempts at being nice just came off as salt in the wound to him. Oh well, I guess =(

R4 vs Bye

I mean Death and Taxes.

G1 he Revokes my Top, then Flickerwisps his Revoker to stop my Deed instead when I run that out there. I proceed to Top into a Burning Wish to Virtue's Ruin his board. He tries to go beatdown with his Revoker, but I introduce him to angry mountains, and he dies in the face of their fury.

G2 he has an annoying double Mindcensor + Mirran Crusader. I take away one of his Mindcensors with a Therapy, soak a hit from the other one and a Mirran Crusader, then Burning for Virtue's Ruin again (he had a Mom so I couldn't get Pyroclasm). At some point I also Witness it back, and Ruin his day for the second time. He dies shortly thereafter.

R5 vs Esperblade (again)

Game one, again, I just destroy him. Not close.

Game two he builds a really nasty board state and has a wall of counters backing it up, so I die.

G3 I sneak Olivia through early, and she does some work. He has his Stoneforge into Batterskull start, and my attempts at making him discard it are countered. I do get to do one really neat play where I took his Stoneforge equipped-with-jitte in response to declare attacks, which forced him to use two Jitte counters to off his own Stoneforge. As mentioned earlier, I was stranded on 6 lands for the longest time, which led me to be unable to either pressure him by attempting to resolve Scapeshifts or to abuse Olivia to her full potential. Also, I kept drawing Green Suns and Burning Wishes instead of creatures. This was relevant because he could Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Snare those, whereas he wouldn't have been able to do the same to my dudes. In the end, he got there because the Jitte was just too much. I think that I may have misplayed the game because I didn't realize that Olivia is literally her own line of play. I -think- that if I'd just pinged the Germ three times a turn and kept growing Olivia, rather than trying to cast spells, I would have beaten him fairly easily. At the same time, I was scared of him drawing a Swords or a Jace and negating all that work....I would have been putting all of my eggs in one basket, quite literally. But, I dunno. Hard to say what my line should have been.

Also, this is the game where I really realized how good Olivia is vs Esperblade. Aside from shutting down batterskull once you hit 7 mana (grumble grumble complain complain), she MACHINEGUNS Lingering Souls. Like, he had to Brainstorm/shuffle his Souls away because he simply -couldn't- cast that card into her. Good stuff. Not why I chose to try her, but good stuff regardless.

R6 vs Metalworker (Staff combo version, with Posts)

I'd seen this guy playing vs Steve last round, so I knew what I was in for. I was also marginally tilted going into this game, because Steve had beaten the guy last round and then decided that he didn't want to play anymore, so he scooped the guy -- putting him right smack in my bracket :|

Luckily, he wasn't that great with his deck, and I was able to outplay him. G1 I tore his hand apart through a 3Ball, and Scapeshifted him for exactsies.

G2 he Staff combo'd me on like turn 3. I think he could have done it on turn two, but he missed it.

G3 I jedi'd him with a Deed, which led to him time-walking himself; then I untapped into a very lethal Scapeshift.

R7 vs Bye aka some guy who had to leave so he scooped me.

I jammed a few games with my friend JC during this round because I wanted to see how Olivia fared against Junk (which was one of the reasons I put her in the deck). Unfortunately, even as a two-of, she only came up once during our set. Amusingly, I had a lethal Scapeshift in hand with a Liliana +1 on the stack. I pointed out that I had it, and then said that I wanted to try Olivia, so I was going to try Olivia, dammit, so I discarded the Scapeshift and kept the Olivia (only two cards in my hand, sadly).

She did some modicum of work....and he used a KotR to get a Karakas, and I was sad.

So, thoughts on the day (some of this will be a repeat of earlier things said):

-) Spell Snare is back in a big way. Brute-forcing Scapeshift vs blue decks is less realistic as a result.
-) Olivia needs more testing. She was conditionally amazing, but I'm not sure she's as good against Junk as I want her to be. It might be that she needs to follow up a Deed or other sweeper.
-) Blitz Hellion is getting cut, even through it did kill two of my friends in for-fun games, and it FINALLY achieved the reason it was put in the deck in the first place: it killed a Liliana of the Veil! /golfclap.
-) Sowing Salt AND Tsunami both in at the same time is actually a lot of fun, and gives you a ton of ways to attack a number of various land-based annoyances. It can also make the 4-color Deathrite.bullshit.dec's life a living hell.
-) Rector is the correct call for Jupiter's meta at this moment in space/time. Not that Scapewish can't do well, but you need to get lucky with your matchups aside from also playing flawlessly with the correct tunings in place for that specific day. AKA, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with Scapewish at Jupiter.
-) I feel really, really bad for poor Siig, who had his Thragtusk stolen not once, but twice. I'll leave the stories behind those for him to tell, but suffice to say that the first of the two, in particular, will just make you cringe. It's actually physically painful.

----------------------------------------------------------------

As for ChronoFit, this is where I'm at currently:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
2 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Explore
2 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Time Warp

1 Harmonize
1 Cryptic Command

3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare

2 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Panoptic Mirror
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 2 Panoptic Mirror
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Negate
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Trygon Predator
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast

A few notes on the rationales --

Top is still better than Brainstorm for Nic Fit. Brainstorm has the added disadvantage of being pretty terrible under a Mirror. Cryptic is fine on Mirror, however, and also fine with Witness -- as it can provide a nice, albeit expensive loop: you can Counter a spell and Bounce a Witness, then play the Witness returning Cryptic. This can also provide an "immortal" blocker that takes no damage (and negates Batterskull) -- declare block, Cryptic to bounce Witness and draw a card, , then replay Witness returning Cryptic. Or tapping down your opponents' creatures every combat. Or if you're really desperate you can spend 7 mana to draw a card, lol. Bottom line, the sheer flexibility of Cryptic has me interested.

I also cut out all of the Gatecrash stuff since people want to test it now, apparently.

Also, Explore. The deck is built around manipulating time, and Explore is basically a green Time Walk (except terrible by comparison). It's worth testing, IMO, and at worst case it makes Mirror into a 1-sided Howling Mine + Exploration.

The 3rd Deed is back, because that's just usually necessary. Harmonize is my selected option for the "draw spell" du jour -- obviously the sickness on Mirror, just generally good besides. This version needs some legit draw, since it's going to be burning through its hand pretty quick I suspect.

Tower + Tar Pit over Coffers/Urborg.

I also made a legit sideboard, although it's largely theoretical. Cranial/Memoricide + 2 Mirrors should be staples of the board that never leave, though, IMO.

---------

Anywho, I've typed for a long ass time now, so I'm going to stop now. As always, thoughts/comments/questions are welcome. As noted, I'm very much looking forward to hearing how anyone elses' testing with ChronoFit went.

Also, as a closing note, I continue to be thankful and proud of the community that we, as an archetype, have attracted. Myself, Maverick, Architect, Siig, and Iggins all specifically sought each other out and hung out a lot between rounds, which is something that you don't see players of other archetypes doing at all. That's explicitly a "Nic Fit thing," and I love it.

[Niche]

Necroplasm helps beat up on lingering souls and germs and angel tokens.

Married to Phyrexian Tower it's extremely hard to deal with.

[Viridia]

Nice wall of text there Kevin ;)

I like the looks of the Chrono list you posted there aswell, i might see if i can tweak it abit to my own likings and run it at a small tourney soon :P
ALso, finally a good excuse to playing Cryptic Command in Nic-Fit :D

[Arianrhod]

Nice wall of text there Kevin ;)

I like the looks of the Chrono list you posted there aswell, i might see if i can tweak it abit to my own likings and run it at a small tourney soon :P
ALso, finally a good excuse to playing Cryptic Command in Nic-Fit :D

Meh. I thought about breaking it into its three parts (responses to people, tourny repo, ChronoFit), then just shrugged and said fuck it.

I feel that if we want any counter maindeck, it's Cryptic. It goes straight broken once we have 7 mana and a Witness, and the sheer flexibility of it coupled with our tending to not care about mana costs is appealing. All of its modes are sweet. The only iffy thing is the UUU in the mana cost. But ChronoFit leans heavily enough blue that I think that its mana base should be able to support it.

[Viridia]

Yeah i just ordered 4 Jap foil Explores, 4 Jap foil Mirrors and 3 Jap foil Time Walks, because the list looks awesome.
Now lets hope it is as awesome as it looks, else i just spent 100+ dollars for shit and giggles only :P

[Arianrhod]

Yeah i just ordered 4 Jap foil Explores, 4 Jap foil Mirrors and 3 Jap foil Time Walks, because the list looks awesome.
Now lets hope it is as awesome as it looks, else i just spent 100+ dollars for shit and giggles only :P

....Yeah that might have been a little preemptive lol. Explores I have no idea about long-term. Mirrors and Warps will be there regardless, though.

Although I guess that if this turns out to be competitive, Time Warp probably would eventually get replaced by Capture of Xinghou or whatever, since that can't be misdirected whereas Warp can. But that's like $600 and many, many months of tuning and tweaking in the future.

[Viridia]

Explores were cheap anyway, and yeah the Portal version is technically better, but also really fucking expensive.
Regardless if it'll be super competative, it'll be good enough for 10-16 persons locals ;) (Remember i've been playing with 4color Omniscience-Fit aswell, this will probably atleast have a better manabase xD)

But i do honestly think it might get somewhere good, considering it barely gets hit by any hate people are playing nowadays, with everyone using Abrupt Decay as their removal for everything, which this deck just doesnt care about. At all.

I'll start testing today :P

[Arianrhod]

Explores were cheap anyway, and yeah the Portal version is technically better, but also really fucking expensive.
Regardless if it'll be super competative, it'll be good enough for 10-16 persons locals ;) (Remember i've been playing with 4color Omniscience-Fit aswell, this will probably atleast have a better manabase xD)

But i do honestly think it might get somewhere good, considering it barely gets hit by any hate people are playing nowadays, with everyone using Abrupt Decay as their removal for everything, which this deck just doesnt care about. At all.

I'll start testing today :P

Teeg is a serious problem as the list stands now, but I'm worried more about getting the deck functional first, and then solving that little twat. Decay is only relevant in that it stops Witness shenanigans for a few turns. Like if you go to bounce Witness with Jace (to take another turn, or something), then they can hit the Witness with Decay in response, which is obnoxious.

I do think that the list would like the 3rd Witness, but I'm not sure what to cut for it at this point. Too much needs tested.

[Viridia]

I think i'll be cutting the Recurring Nightmare and Oracle for +1 Zenith and +1 something (Witness possibly) because you don't really need the Nightmare loop (which isnt THAT amazing in this form) and with 2-4 Explores and Elders and Explorers i don't think you'll need the Oracle either :P

[sderenatore]

Teeg is a serious problem as the list stands now, but I'm worried more about getting the deck functional first, and then solving that little twat. Decay is only relevant in that it stops Witness shenanigans for a few turns. Like if you go to bounce Witness with Jace (to take another turn, or something), then they can hit the Witness with Decay in response, which is obnoxious.

I do think that the list would like the 3rd Witness, but I'm not sure what to cut for it at this point. Too much needs tested.

Just a couple of questions about the Chronofit list (which looks really sexy to me):

1) why don't you play Ancestral Vision instead of Harmonize? I understand that we dont care too much about mana cost, but imprinting harmonize on panoptic gifts your opponent a Time Walk or even two if you tap 5 for Panoptic, pass, untap and imprint Harmonize.

2) I think i didn't really understand why brainstorm is bad with mirror, actually sounds like a really nice play to me in case we have nothing else to imprint and we use it to dig our library down, so i would like to hear your counterpoints. I think you had the chance to test a little bit both options while i am just assuming that BS could be good, also i would probably play it alongside with Top.

[Arianrhod]

Just a couple of questions about the Chronofit list (which looks really sexy to me):

1) why don't you play Ancestral Vision instead of Harmonize? I understand that we dont care too much about mana cost, but imprinting harmonize on panoptic gifts your opponent a Time Walk or even two if you tap 5 for Panoptic, pass, untap and imprint Harmonize.

2) I think i didn't really understand why brainstorm is bad with mirror, actually sounds like a really nice play to me in case we have nothing else to imprint and we use it to dig our library down, so i would like to hear your counterpoints. I think you had the chance to test a little bit both options while i am just assuming that BS could be good, also i would probably play it alongside with Top.

1) I had NOOOOOOO idea that Visions worked with Mirror. That is fucking broken, and needs to be added to the deck ASAP.

2) Uh. I had reasons. All of which are now meaningless, because see 1). Whatever space Brainstorm would have had, Visions gets instead.

[sderenatore]

1) I had NOOOOOOO idea that Visions worked with Mirror. That is fucking broken, and needs to be added to the deck ASAP.

2) Uh. I had reasons. All of which are now meaningless, because see 1). Whatever space Brainstorm would have had, Visions gets instead.

Ahah, glad I helped with point 1. I am testing right now online the list with it! (due to lack of cards).

[Viridia]

Right, Visions, why hadnt we thought of that before? :P
So that'll definately be in, probably as 2 or 3 off, considering all the deck does is stall, stall and stall more, which makes it good even without the Mirror :P

[Undomian]

....Yeah that might have been a little preemptive lol. Explores I have no idea about long-term. Mirrors and Warps will be there regardless, though.

Although I guess that if this turns out to be competitive, Time Warp probably would eventually get replaced by Capture of Xinghou or whatever, since that can't be misdirected whereas Warp can. But that's like $600 and many, many months of tuning and tweaking in the future.

Or Temporal Manipulation as a 'budget' solution. :tongue:

[Siiig]

Sup everyone! I was actually planning to pretend I wasn't at that Jupiter, but my second half (matches 5-6-7) were enjoyable, so here I am.

It was awesome to get to meet some other Nic Fit players, I don't think I actually met Architect. I felt odd introducing myself as Siiig so anyone curious my real name is Devin. My head was turning all day when people would yell "Kevin!" :laugh:

I don't actually need to do a report, most of my matches were bad.plays, or bad.therapy, but I'll do it because I'm bored. And Kevin left the Thragtusk cliffhanger there.

R1 -- This match brought to you by mortons salt, when it rains it pours -- vs U/W Helm Of Obedience Combo.

Sit down for the first match of the day feeling good. Guy across from me is talking like he knows what's up, but looks very young (I learned that day not to underestimate young looking people).

Game one, I open *insert decent hand here* and play on. Start with a Bayou -> Explorer, which I get a very thoughtful stare and a "hold on a second" gesture. I get to see Force to... something? Game proceeds, I ramp up mana. Sitting on 7 lands (one being a tower) with a hand of Burning Wish, Cabal Therapy, and a Sakura-Tribe Elder. I rip Therapy, and blind name FoW, and see a hand of "Not Counter-Spell, Not Counter-Spell". He has a Helm of Obedience down. I knew I could rip the Elder for an 8 land combo, but something in the back of my head said "Don't be greedy, you might fuck yourself". I rip Wish -> Shift for 18 with him at 17. He response with "Helm for 1"...

Ok...

Yeah...

There's 4 life gainers in my deck (only running 2 huntys)...

What are the chances...

Won't happen...

Go to flip the top card, and Thragtusk literally jumps off the top of my deck, gives me the finger, and all of a sudden my shift is non-lethal.

Durdle back and forth into a RIP combo.

Game two, just sillyness into I think Jace.

R2 -- What could possibly make this day worse? -- vs 12 Post

He played 12 post, I don't know the deck very well and he miss therapy hard. I did manage to Slaughtergames away Emrakul. Dunno if that was the right call or not.

R3 -- Do do do -- U/W Counter-Top? Something like that.

This is the round I met Kevin! Sup d00d. That's all that's really relevant here. I kept a hand of duel, duel, tower, he slammed back to basics, I saw 2 mountains in the next 9 turns that he killed me with clique. This match was the second time my poor Tusk got taken. I land tusk to start up some beat down and give myself some extra time, he lands vedalken shackles and I get a very appreciated "awww" from Kevin.

R4 -- Show and What? -- Jap Sneaky Show

Remember this one decently. He opens Island -> Petal -> Ponder -> Pass. So at this point I know he's on some kind of bullshit. I assume Combo, rip therapy, brainstorm in response and I think I named Infernal Tutor? He shows me Show and tell + Grizzlebrand. I think I got the tell on the flash back, then he goes sneak attack, Grizzle B, Draw 7, emrakul. That's what happened game 2 as well.

Grizzlebrand is good.

R5 -- Turnabout -- Lil Asian Kid w/ Maverick

When your 0/4 for the day, you don't ask how the day is going. You just know.

Anyway, Maverick is Maverick for Scapeshift. It's almost a Bye just not quite. Have a fun game, take G1 easy, G2 he stalls me out with Ethersworn into Teeg, and I just don't see removal. G3 went much the same way, but I found my removal... I actually deeded 4 times (sup eternal witness). After a nice 7 damage bonfire off the top pass, I managed to blow a friend of mine who was watching away. I had Witness down, and he was at 6. Slam GSZ@5, and down goes blitzhellion, WOOOOOO!!! Worth every round I sided him out. Kich867 was blown away.

R6 -- Hey I took a game! /day -- Bye.

This sucked, a friend of mine dropped which put me on a Bye. w/e

R7 -- The best game I played all day -- C. J. on White Elves

I say this is the best game I played all day not because I played well, but because it was truly enjoyable. C.J. is a good guy who was there to play magic. Same as me! .

Game one was a nicely paced back and forth, he went infinite into Emrakul. I scooped and flipped my top card and smiled at the Scapeshift that really wanted to come out.

Game two was awkward. I open Explorer / Forest / Taiga / Burning wish (other cards). This put me in wish territory turn 2 with no way of sacing explorer (all my sac outlets are black!) At this point I noticed Kich sitting down the table from me, so I call out "Kich! If I lose this it's your fault" I had 2 tormod's crypt in my board because Virtue's Ruin is expensive, and because Kich didn't grab me a Pyroclasm and I missed the morning buys. So anyway, not important, I believe I went angry mountain mode and wiped C.J.s elfs out of the way.

Game three ended in Blitz Hellion. Best card in the deck.


So on the day, I've learned I just need more experience with the deck. I've found I go as hard as possible at the Scapeshift combo, and don't look towards hunty enough. After the main day I played a few rounds against Zombardment, and my brand new 3rd hunty wanted to show off his dub step dance (flipping back and forth). Most importantly, two people in my group nailed top 8. Blayne on Hypergenesis ends up top in swiss and 5th on the day, then Rich on Esper Blade goes 2nd in swiss and splits top 4 =)

[Arianrhod]

It was awesome to get to meet some other Nic Fit players, I don't think I actually met Architect. I felt odd introducing myself as Siiig so anyone curious my real name is Devin. My head was turning all day when people would yell "Kevin!" :laugh:

Yeah. I know probably 2/3 of the people at Jupiter, and some of them have a tendency of being rather loud at times. So, you can blame me for that lol.


Game three ended in Blitz Hellion. Best card in the deck.

/Facepalm, lol.

And yeah. I didn't know you didn't have a Pyroclasm. That makes a -huge- difference. It's not just a cheap mini-sweeper for Empty tokens, Elves, Goblins, and various other assorted dorks -- it's also a Wish-able way to "sacrifice" Veteran Explorer when you're screwed on black. Definitely get a hold of one of those!

Also, your opponent from round 1 is known to me -- and he's a bit older than he looks (or sounds). It's actually kind of weird.

Slaughter Gamesing Emrakul is probably correct. The other two are huge annoyances, but they don't end the game in a single swing (which basically has haste, for all intents and purposes) like Emrakul does, and they don't the 12post player take infinite turns like Emrakul does. 12-post falls into the category of decks which are easy to make unable to win -- you take out Emrakul, then you take out Ulamog, then Kozi-wozzy, then Primeval Titan, and suddenly they can't win the game anymore. 4 Slaughter Games is a lot (and needs a Witness) to achieve, but it's doable. Emrakul definitely goes first, though. You made the right call there.

[Siiig]

Slaughter Gamesing Emrakul is probably correct. The other two are huge annoyances, but they don't end the game in a single swing (which basically has haste, for all intents and purposes) like Emrakul does, and they don't the 12post player take infinite turns like Emrakul does. 12-post falls into the category of decks which are easy to make unable to win -- you take out Emrakul, then you take out Ulamog, then Kozi-wozzy, then Primeval Titan, and suddenly they can't win the game anymore. 4 Slaughter Games is a lot (and needs a Witness) to achieve, but it's doable. Emrakul definitely goes first, though. You made the right call there.

I was joking (in a surprisingly doable way) about putting a singleton plains and a sideboard Armageddon. Would be a funny use of a single board slot to take down (I think?) 12 post. If you can nail it before they land primetime at least.

[Arianrhod]

I was joking (in a surprisingly doable way) about putting a singleton plains and a sideboard Armageddon. Would be a funny use of a single board slot to take down (I think?) 12 post. If you can nail it before they land primetime at least.

The problem there is that Armageddon hurts Scapewish (and Nic Fit in general) just as much as those that it's trying to Armagedd (I'm inventing a verb).

If you REALLY want something like that, run Ruination. I've always stayed away from it because I don't want to hit my own mana base -- Tsunami and Sowing Salt have always been enough for me. But Ruination IS a (painful) option.

[Siiig]

The problem there is that Armageddon hurts Scapewish (and Nic Fit in general) just as much as those that it's trying to Armagedd (I'm inventing a verb).

If you REALLY want something like that, run Ruination. I've always stayed away from it because I don't want to hit my own mana base -- Tsunami and Sowing Salt have always been enough for me. But Ruination IS a (painful) option.

Heh, that could be fun. I'm also going to be putting in Reverent Silence as a 2 mana wishable answer to Leyline of Sanctity. This is actually reverting BACK to this rather than a new addition, as my list had originally run silence.

[Star|Scream]

What is the prevalence of grip and disenchant in the current meta vs. panoptic mirror? Decay doesn't hit it, but do other decks pack artifact hate that could cause a 2 for 1 against us?

Also if an opponent grips the mirror in response to the upkeep trigger, can you still play the spell?

[sderenatore]

Ok i gave it a try, and the deck is a beast (at least a beast of fashion and coolness). A lot of its power comes from the whatafuquplayin?-effect, but, after several matches against RUG Tempo, I can adfirm its a great matchup for it: it was really hard to lose against them, even after a pretty gross mistake and some amzing topdecks (I cabal therapy away stifle in order to blow up during his turn my Deed, he topdecks stifle - both I was too superficial and he was lucky) I often found my way to the victory. Also Panoctic Mirror + Visions is supreme, but visions on its own has made a very good job.

By the way, this is the list i am playing:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Capture of Jingzhou
1 Cryptic Command
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Panoptic Mirror
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Oracle of Mul Daya

The list is pretty similar to Arianrhod's, the changes are -3 Explore +3 Ancestral Vision and -1 Recurring nightmare +1 GSZ and they made a huge difference to me.
Just decided to keep on working on this list!
P.s. I don't suggest to cut Mul Daya without pondering about it, she won me 2 games otherwise lost and helped in others. Paired with top/Jace is just too good.
Good night guys! (At least here in Europe!)

[Star|Scream]

Ok i gave it a try, and the deck is a beast (at least a beast of fashion and coolness). A lot of its power comes from the whatafuquplayin?-effect, but, after several matches against RUG Tempo, I can adfirm its a great matchup for it: it was really hard to lose against them, even after a pretty gross mistake and some amzing topdecks (I cabal therapy away stifle in order to blow up during his turn my Deed, he topdecks stifle - both I was too superficial and he was lucky) I often found my way to the victory. Also Panoctic Mirror + Visions is supreme, but visions on its own has made a very good job.

By the way, this is the list i am playing:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Capture of Jingzhou
1 Cryptic Command
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Panoptic Mirror
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Oracle of Mul Daya

The list is pretty similar to Arianrhod's, the changes are -3 Explore +3 Ancestral Vision and -1 Recurring nightmare +1 GSZ and they made a huge difference to me.
Just decided to keep on working on this list!
P.s. I don't suggest to cut Mul Daya without pondering about it, she won me 2 games otherwise lost and helped in others. Paired with top/Jace is just too good.
Good night guys! (At least here in Europe!)

This is such a troll list. Bear in mind this is only on MWS, but so far I've beaten Jund, Junk, Affinity, and Maverick. Panoptic + Visions is just crazy, and once they realize the time warp loop they player lost.

[Greenpoe]

Have you guys tried Force in these Panoptic lists, or at least Counterspell, at least in the SB? Force can be hardcast in Nic Fit easier than in most decks which is nice. Or give Pact of Negation a shot.

[Arianrhod]

Just a quick update --

Did a little testing with Chrono tonight. Tops have been disappointing because of their nonbo with Visions, Wood Elves was garbage, and I found myself wanting another dude to Zenith for a fair bit, so I put in a 2nd Thragtusk. This is where I'm at right now:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Coiling Oracle
3 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
2 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Time Warp
4 Ancestral Visions

1 Cryptic Command

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Panoptic Mirror

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 2 Panoptic Mirror
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Negate
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Trygon Predator
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast


I find myself wanting a mana sink a fair bit, so Nightmare may well come back in. Visions has been nothing short of stellar, both when imprinted and used regularly. Blue source -> Visions, pass turn, Therapy + Explorer + Flashback is an amazing sequence.

I'm also still finding myself hating to draw a Green Sun's Zenith. Oracle is nifty, and has a strong interaction with Jace, but I'm not sure she's worth it at this point.

There is very, very definitely something here, though. The shell is obviously still in dire need of testing and tuning, but after resolving a copied Visions off of a Mirror, I'm not going to let this go until I've made it work, dammit. That shit is WAYYYYYY too busted not to make work.

[nottz]

Just a quick update --

Did a little testing with Chrono tonight. Tops have been disappointing because of their nonbo with Visions, Wood Elves was garbage, and I found myself wanting another dude to Zenith for a fair bit, so I put in a 2nd Thragtusk. This is where I'm at right now:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Coiling Oracle
3 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
2 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Time Warp
4 Ancestral Visions

1 Cryptic Command

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Panoptic Mirror

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 2 Panoptic Mirror
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Negate
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Trygon Predator
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast


I find myself wanting a mana sink a fair bit, so Nightmare may well come back in. Visions has been nothing short of stellar, both when imprinted and used regularly. Blue source -> Visions, pass turn, Therapy + Explorer + Flashback is an amazing sequence.

I'm also still finding myself hating to draw a Green Sun's Zenith. Oracle is nifty, and has a strong interaction with Jace, but I'm not sure she's worth it at this point.

There is very, very definitely something here, though. The shell is obviously still in dire need of testing and tuning, but after resolving a copied Visions off of a Mirror, I'm not going to let this go until I've made it work, dammit. That shit is WAYYYYYY too busted not to make work.

I've got to agree with the fact that this deck needs to be perfected. It's been awesome when I've played with it.

Top doesn't seem very good now that we have visions to run threw a bunch of cards but I'm not sure if we should completely drop it from the list. It helps smooth out the draws and the deck just feels better with it.

I also really like oracle in the list and in my opinion has earned her spot. She ramps so hard and has huge interactions with a ton of cards in the deck.

Anyone think about Shardless Agent at all? Cascading into some of our value things is pretty sweet and into visions is just awesome. We might be too big for running it, but it might be worth a try.

[Star|Scream]

Not sure i agree regarding cutting top. i think we still need some dig for finding the combo pieces. Maybe brainstorm?

I agree, though, that there is something here.

[LazyEyes]

For ChronoFit: Do we even need black? I understand it is needed for sacrificing explorer but removing it altogether would make the deck more stable. Green can use prey upon or crop rotation + phyrexian tower to pop explorer? If we need wipe there is disk and all is dust idk. volrath's stronghold + phyrexian tower + eternal witness + time warp we can also have an alternate win combo.

[Cire_dk]

Sorry to interrupt the discussion about the new Nic Fit list. This is what makes Nic fit great as well, it is so versatile, you never get bored with it.:smile:

Question: against a meta with stone/esper blade would Punishing Fit be better than Scapeshift?

[XdeckX]

For ChronoFit: Do we even need black? I understand it is needed for sacrificing explorer but removing it altogether would make the deck more stable. Green can use prey upon or crop rotation + phyrexian tower to pop explorer? If we need wipe there is disk and all is dust idk. volrath's stronghold + phyrexian tower + eternal witness + time warp we can also have an alternate win combo.

I'd say Yes we need black. If only for Cabal Therapy. Part of what makes NicFit even remotely competative is Cabal Therapy. It's basically discard and ramp when combined with Explorer. You dont really have to dig deep into black to make Therapy playable, especially with the used of fetchlands but I for one would never cut black all together even when there are alterantive sacoutlets available for the Explorer. The discard is just too good to pass up if you ask me.

[Ayotte]

I'd say Yes we need black. If only for Cabal Therapy. Part of what makes NicFit even remotely competative is Cabal Therapy. It's basically discard and ramp when combined with Explorer. You dont really have to dig deep into black to make Therapy playable, especially with the used of fetchlands but I for one would never cut black all together even when there are alterantive sacoutlets available for the Explorer. The discard is just too good to pass up if you ask me.

Especially when it comes to getting rid of FoW and Counterspell so that you can cast the mirror,.

[Arianrhod]

Sorry to interrupt the discussion about the new Nic Fit list. This is what makes Nic fit great as well, it is so versatile, you never get bored with it.:smile:

Question: against a meta with stone/esper blade would Punishing Fit be better than Scapeshift?

Punishing is probably better against Stoneblade than Scapewish is, but I think that you can't really go wrong with either option. If I had to pick one or the other, though, I would go Punishing vs 'Blade.


For ChronoFit: Do we even need black? I understand it is needed for sacrificing explorer but removing it altogether would make the deck more stable. Green can use prey upon or crop rotation + phyrexian tower to pop explorer? If we need wipe there is disk and all is dust idk. volrath's stronghold + phyrexian tower + eternal witness + time warp we can also have an alternate win combo.

Yeah, black is really important. Black gives us Deed, Therapy, Pulse, Damnation, and sideboard answers to combo. It's definitely not removable.

-----------

I thought about removing the Green Suns and 1x of something else to fit in 4 Shardless Agents. But, I dunno. Most of our cascades would be pretty mediocre. It's also possible that removing Green Sun in favor of rounding out the creature base (more Gifts-rocky style) would be better. Either way, Green Sun is on my shit list in this version. It underperforms consistently.

Cryptic, on the other hand, has been nothing short of astonishingly good. I want a second.

I'm going to split things up into categories in hopes of making brewing easier for all parties:

Inviolate:
Veterans, Therapies, Visions, 1 Time Warp, Mirrors, Deed

Really fucking good:
Cryptic, 1 Warp, 2 Jaces, Witnesses

Meh but probably necessary:
Sakuras, Thragtusks, Pulses

Meh, maybe can be cut:
Oracles (Mul Daya and Coiling), 3rd jace, Damnations, 1 Warp

I hate drawing these:
Green Suns

Overall, at the moment, it seems like this version durdles. A lot. I mean, more than Scapewish and more than Rector, even, which is just damned impressive. I blame the mana consumption for this, as well as the inherent card/tempo disadvantage. To establish a Cryptic lock, you need 7 mana. Mirror requires you to time walk yourself once you hit 5 mana and then survive before it goes busted. Time Warp is often a 5-mana cantrip. The curve is pretty miserable right now, too.

The way I see it, there are two different core lines of play present within the deck, and both should be fully explored/viable options depending on your opening hand and your opponent: a ramp/combo similar to Scapewish (note that Witness + Cryptic takes 7 mana, which is the same as most Scapeshifts); or a Visions-fueled control deck. There is no reason why this deck should not also be able to do the classic "Suspend Visions on t1, 1-for-1 everything until Visions comes off an refuels, proceed to bury opponent in card advantage" line. That means that we probably want a bit more spot removal -- perhaps trade out the Damnations for Decays? Although Damnation + Mirror just seems fantastic. Maybe go back down to 2 Deeds in order to keep 1 Damnation in the deck?

I really have no idea about any of this, by the by -- I'm just vomiting ideas, thoughts, and perceptions into the thread in hopes that something comes of it. This is how I brew, sadly -- it's a very messy process, lol.

----------

Also, I want Bribery in the sideboard. Like, REALLLLLLLL bad.

[Star|Scream]

The worst card I've played against so far is dark confidant. We cannot let him live. I'm all for adding abrupt decay.

My question is what does looping cryptic command really do for us? We spend an entire turn and all (most) of our mana to counter a spell, but can't they just wait a turn and cast 2 spells during their turn? It's not exactly a hard lock. I guess if we have a thragtusk down and they have an empty board it's good, but aren't we winning then anyway?

I'll agree that deck is top-heavy. Having a hand of warp, warp, mirror on the first few turns sucks really bad, but that's all the more reason for us to keep top or add brainstorm. Also I'd never hardcast time warp except to alpha strike for the win.




Punishing is probably better against Stoneblade than Scapewish is, but I think that you can't really go wrong with either option. If I had to pick one or the other, though, I would go Punishing vs 'Blade.



Yeah, black is really important. Black gives us Deed, Therapy, Pulse, Damnation, and sideboard answers to combo. It's definitely not removable.

-----------

I thought about removing the Green Suns and 1x of something else to fit in 4 Shardless Agents. But, I dunno. Most of our cascades would be pretty mediocre. It's also possible that removing Green Sun in favor of rounding out the creature base (more Gifts-rocky style) would be better. Either way, Green Sun is on my shit list in this version. It underperforms consistently.

Cryptic, on the other hand, has been nothing short of astonishingly good. I want a second.

I'm going to split things up into categories in hopes of making brewing easier for all parties:

Inviolate:
Veterans, Therapies, Visions, 1 Time Warp, Mirrors, Deed

Really fucking good:
Cryptic, 1 Warp, 2 Jaces, Witnesses

Meh but probably necessary:
Sakuras, Thragtusks, Pulses

Meh, maybe can be cut:
Oracles (Mul Daya and Coiling), 3rd jace, Damnations, 1 Warp

I hate drawing these:
Green Suns

Overall, at the moment, it seems like this version durdles. A lot. I mean, more than Scapewish and more than Rector, even, which is just damned impressive. I blame the mana consumption for this, as well as the inherent card/tempo disadvantage. To establish a Cryptic lock, you need 7 mana. Mirror requires you to time walk yourself once you hit 5 mana and then survive before it goes busted. Time Warp is often a 5-mana cantrip. The curve is pretty miserable right now, too.

The way I see it, there are two different core lines of play present within the deck, and both should be fully explored/viable options depending on your opening hand and your opponent: a ramp/combo similar to Scapewish (note that Witness + Cryptic takes 7 mana, which is the same as most Scapeshifts); or a Visions-fueled control deck. There is no reason why this deck should not also be able to do the classic "Suspend Visions on t1, 1-for-1 everything until Visions comes off an refuels, proceed to bury opponent in card advantage" line. That means that we probably want a bit more spot removal -- perhaps trade out the Damnations for Decays? Although Damnation + Mirror just seems fantastic. Maybe go back down to 2 Deeds in order to keep 1 Damnation in the deck?

I really have no idea about any of this, by the by -- I'm just vomiting ideas, thoughts, and perceptions into the thread in hopes that something comes of it. This is how I brew, sadly -- it's a very messy process, lol.

----------

Also, I want Bribery in the sideboard. Like, REALLLLLLLL bad.

[Niche]

EpicLevelCommoner, yes, it is I.

Checking back in... I was joking about this in magic general on WotC (hexproof 'discussion' and its abuse) but I realized this deck is a good spot to.. for lack of a better term... troll... the format.

Here's where I went:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Thrun, the last troll
1 Kodama of the North Tree
1 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Thoughtseize
3 Diabolic Intent
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Sylvan Library

2 Garruk, Primal Hunter

1 Batterskull

1 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
6 Forest

Sideboard:
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Crop Rotation
3 Memoricide
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Thragtusk
1 Krosan Grip
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Black Sun's Zenith

I went to get 2 SDT's but there are none in the area and I don't want to order them with my 5k in <2 weeks in case they don't show up (still waiting on my 2 towers and 4th explorer to arrive). I will buy them at the SCG Open and remove Sylvan and 1 Diabolic Intent.

Cannot remember my last 2 sideboard cards right now. Might be 2 more Deathrite Shamans to be honest.. and now I'm thinking I removed Melira for something else more techy.

So... since people are having trouble with having their wincons removed in GB I not only stuck with North Tree and Thrun, I added Troll Ascetic. Major lulz are to be had when you give these guys Batterskull... and Batterskull itself is a removal resistant wincon which still dodges things like abrupt decay, d-sphere, o-ring when you've got all the mana we have access to. Plus this deck can keep it coming back in an obnoxious way even stoneblade cannot reproduce. Intent acts like SFM here when you turn 2 eat your veteran explorer and can play your bskull on 3.

So I present; Trollskills. Read as Noskills. Or Play Non-interactive creature, hand it a batterskull, send it into the redzone over and over again until you win or they scoop. Sweep chumps off the table with pulse/deed.

[Ayotte]

So... since people are having trouble with having their wincons removed in GB I not only stuck with North Tree and Thrun, I added Troll Ascetic. Major lulz are to be had when you give these guys Batterskull

You can't target Kodama of the North Tree with Batterskull's equip ability.

[Arianrhod]

The worst card I've played against so far is dark confidant. We cannot let him live. I'm all for adding abrupt decay.

My question is what does looping cryptic command really do for us? We spend an entire turn and all (most) of our mana to counter a spell, but can't they just wait a turn and cast 2 spells during their turn? It's not exactly a hard lock. I guess if we have a thragtusk down and they have an empty board it's good, but aren't we winning then anyway?

I'll agree that deck is top-heavy. Having a hand of warp, warp, mirror on the first few turns sucks really bad, but that's all the more reason for us to keep top or add brainstorm. Also I'd never hardcast time warp except to alpha strike for the win.

Looping Cryptic enables a couple of sweet things:

For one, it can lock an opponent completely out of combat. You tap down their creatures during their upkeep + bounce Eternal Witness. Then you replay Witness on your turn, getting back Cryptic, and so on. At that point, they can never attack you unless you allow it (or they find a way to get rid of the witness).

Also, most legacy decks don't have the kind of mana necessary to cast more than one spell per turn -- or you might not care about the spell that they're casting.

I think that the first option (locking them out of combat) is significantly more valuable than the counterspell every turn option, but both are valuable tools to keep in mind IMO.

[Niche]

You can't target Kodama of the North Tree with Batterskull's equip ability.

I am familiar with the game rules regarding shroud versus hexproof. This works fine with the actual trolls. Kodama is already a pretty big clock with evasion. I just assumed everyone else knew you cannot give equipment to Shroud creatures and that if we all knew there wouldn't be a problem. =)

[Star|Scream]

Looping Cryptic enables a couple of sweet things:

For one, it can lock an opponent completely out of combat. You tap down their creatures during their upkeep + bounce Eternal Witness. Then you replay Witness on your turn, getting back Cryptic, and so on. At that point, they can never attack you unless you allow it (or they find a way to get rid of the witness).

Also, most legacy decks don't have the kind of mana necessary to cast more than one spell per turn -- or you might not care about the spell that they're casting.

I think that the first option (locking them out of combat) is significantly more valuable than the counterspell every turn option, but both are valuable tools to keep in mind IMO.

I get all that, but we're spending 7 mana a turn to do nothing. If you are tapping down their creatures then they still get to play their spells and draw cards. You can't even attack with the witness because you bounce it before it loses summoning sickness. So, again, I guess it's okay if you already have a thragtusk out, but they should eventually deal with that since you're letting them draw and cast spells.

[Arianrhod]

I get all that, but we're spending 7 mana a turn to do nothing. If you are tapping down their creatures then they still get to play their spells and draw cards. You can't even attack with the witness because you bounce it before it loses summoning sickness. So, again, I guess it's okay if you already have a thragtusk out, but they should eventually deal with that since you're letting them draw and cast spells.

Oh I agree that its not a good endpoint. But it can stall for while you draw into a deed or a damnation or something, which is a good synergy to be aware of....thats all. Definitr ly not an end game to strive for. Sorry if you got that impression.

[Star|Scream]

No worries.

Another fun play:

Untap
Upkeep,

Mirror trigger on stack,


Top for one (or brainstorm,)


find time warp, move to top of library

Tap top, put time warp in hand

Tap mirror and 5 mana to imprint Time warp

Trigger resolves, get extra turn

[Arianrhod]

No worries.

Another fun play:

Untap
Upkeep,

Mirror trigger on stack,


Top for one (or brainstorm,)


find time warp, move to top of library

Tap top, put time warp in hand

Tap mirror and 5 mana to imprint Time warp

Trigger resolves, get extra turn

This makes me wish Mystical Tutor was still legal. Because my god, this deck would LOVE Mystical.

[sderenatore]

Chronofit:
Why don't we play a big flyer that possibly does something? For example Consecrated Sphinx (or Sphinx of Magosi: while obviously inferior to the consecrated sphinx, it is insanely funny to play eheh).

@People who want to cut GSZ: mmm.. I dunno, I just play 2 copies of it, and until now it did his job ok I guess. What would you replace it with? Creatures or disruption? In case you chose disruption: how would u re-design the creatures package then?

@Shardless Agent: Could be nice, but not synergistic with the deck right now. Shardless would imply something like -2 TOP -2 Sakura -2/3/4 GSZ (depends on how many u play, if you do) +3 Shardless +1Wood Elves (assuming you have 0 woods) +2 thoughtseize (+1 a creature i would say, as long as we cut GSZ). This is a possibility to explore. Also you probably already thought at Shardless + Hymn.

[Star|Scream]

The deck's late game is fine enough without needing a sphinx. Generating card advantage is not a problem with this version.

If anything, it needs to lower the curve so that you can survive to cast the mirror.




Chronofit:
Why don't we play a big flyer that possibly does something? For example Consecrated Sphinx (or Sphinx of Magosi: while obviously inferior to the consecrated sphinx, it is insanely funny to play eheh).

@People who want to cut GSZ: mmm.. I dunno, I just play 2 copies of it, and until now it did his job ok I guess. What would you replace it with? Creatures or disruption? In case you chose disruption: how would u re-design the creatures package then?

@Shardless Agent: Could be nice, but not synergistic with the deck right now. Shardless would imply something like -2 TOP -2 Sakura -2/3/4 GSZ (depends on how many u play, if you do) +3 Shardless +1Wood Elves (assuming you have 0 woods) +2 thoughtseize (+1 a creature i would say, as long as we cut GSZ). This is a possibility to explore. Also you probably already thought at Shardless + Hymn.

[sderenatore]

The deck's late game is fine enough without needing a sphinx. Generating card advantage is not a problem with this version.

Yeah i agree, what i like of the Sphinx is the fact that it flies. Even Simic Sky Swallower could be in that slot.

[Star|Scream]

Lost with chronofit against u/w countertop and a very bad GBr nic fit deck.

I had bad mulligans for all the games, but that may be because of the high cmc

[nottz]

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Damnation
2 Time Warp
1 Cryptic Command
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Panoptic Mirror
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Shardless Agent
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 2 Panoptic Mirror
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Negate
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Trygon Predator
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast

Maybe something like this would make the deck less top heavy. No time to test it right now, but if someone has time to give it a whirl let us know how to goes. Hymn gives us some more early disruption and decay is something else to cascade into. Top lets us manipulate our cascades consistently. Re-buying agent to simply cascade into even more things seems awesome. I just want this damn deck to run smoothly.

[Qweerios]

Played Nic Fit at a local shop after a long break. The list:


Creatures (17)
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Eternal Witness
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Fierce Empath
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sun Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Angel of Despair

Spells (21)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Vindicate

4 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top

Lands (22)
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains

Sideboard (15)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Memoricide
2 Extirpate
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse


Here is how it went:

2-0 vs. Lands

They cannot answer Sigarda and Ooze is a tough nut to crack

2-0 vs. Goblins

I had the nuts in g1 with a T3 Sigarda, 2 Deeds, and an Angel of Despair. I took G2 with a pulse on 3 lackeys and a Grave Titan + Thragtusk finish.

2-0 vs. BUG Tempo

I godhanded both games with 2 lands, therapy, explorer, gsz, deed, top openers.

2-0 vs. Burn

Wall of Blossom + Ooze + Thragtusk sealed both games

[Greenpoe]

Qweerios, nice job! 2-0 x4 is sweet!

nottz, that list looks really sweet. I'd definitely run a 3rd Jace (cutting Tribe Elder - without GSZ, it's pretty random and it's a poor cascade). But Shardless into Hymn, Therapy, Decay or Top all sounds excellent.

[Star|Scream]

Congrats, Qweerios!

What prompted you to put in 2 walls of blossoms? Also what stopped you from playing any planeswalkers in this build?

[Arianrhod]

Grats@Qweerios =)

This is what I tested last night:

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Coiling Oracle
3 Eternal Witness
2 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ancestral Visions
2 Time Warp
2 Grim Tutor
1 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse

2 Brainstorm
2 Cryptic Command
2 Abrupt Decay

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Panoptic Mirror

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Panoptic Mirror
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Negate
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Bribery
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast


I've been mostly testing against Maverick, because that's what my primary test partner always wants to use. I'm generally okay with that, though, because Maverick has maindeck artifact destruction, maindeck Revokers, maindeck Teeg, and a host of other annoyances -- it's not like a "traditional" maverick build that I would just walk all over. I'm still winning the majority of the games, but it's definitely not as easy as with Scapewish, for example.

I have not missed Green Sun's Zenith whatsoever, although Coiling Oracle has been mediocre even with Brainstorm to set up. I opted for Oracle over Sakura because I wanted more warm bodies for Therapy. I'm probably going to try either Sylvan Ranger or Viridian Emissary tonight, and see if either of those options go better. I need the guaranteed ramp/basic fixing...especially without Green Sun as extra Explorers, and Coiling Oracle just isn't getting there.

The Grim Tutors are stolen from Future Fit. They served me pretty well last night -- the 3 damage is painful, but Tusk offsets it, and you rarely fail to win the turn after (or sometimes even the turn of) casting Grim Tutor. I explored a few other Tutor options...but Chronos doesn't have the critter density to use Diabolic Intent, Rhystic is just bad, Diabolic Tutor is too expensive, and Cruel Tutor is bad without Top (and probably with it, too). One game, my Maverick opponent had a Safekeeper, a Mom, and a pair of Revokers with one on Mirror and one on Deed. I Grim Tutor'd for Damnation ^_^

I dislike not having additional ways of recurring Witness. I still don't like the idea of Nightmare since I don't have a high enough creature density. I'm considering Volrath's Stronghold, but I'm not sure that it's worth it without Primeval Titan as a tutor for it, and Primeval likely isn't worth it without Green Sun. Awkward.

The Abrupt Decays have been amazing. Brainstorm has been kind of meh, but it's basically Visions copies 5 and 6, so I guess whatever. The 3rd Time Warp hasn't been missed at all; the 3rd Jace is harder to evaluate. Once the deck lands a Jace, it can usually protect it (if it isn't abusing Witness to do something dumb), but I'm not sure that I'm seeing Jace often enough.

Cryptic, on the other hand, I'm seeing a sufficient amount of the time as a 2-of. It's enough for it to be awesome, but I'm not clogging on them.

I feel like I'm getting closer, overall, but it's definitely not there yet. Hopefully everyone else is achieving progress, too, so we can speed up the development a bit. It took Rector and Scapewish quite a while to get refined...but hopefully with a bunch of us working on Chronos, we'll get there a bit quicker this go around.

[Star|Scream]

So I'm playing the original chrono list last night on MWS against a white weenies deck with familiars, militants, moms, sfm, avengers, etc. On my panoptic mirror I had imprinted cryptic command, damnation, AND visions. I was bouncing and killing his dudes every turn but he wouldn't concede. I had to spend several turns digging for the time warp until finally he conceded.

I don't know if grim tutor will help alleviate the durdling, but I'm not convinced panoptic mirror is the I WIN button blue has been looking for.

EDIT:

Also may I suggest Brainspoil as a budget alternative to grim tutor. It can fetch either piece of the combo AND can't be countered. Also it can function as removal in a pinch or grab thragtusk. Unfortunately it can't find deed or damnation.

[Niche]

Spent 6 hours testing and made some changes to my GB list:

Creatures: 8
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
2 Thragtusk

Spells: 23
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Innocent Blood
3 Thoughtseize
2 Diabolic Intent
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Sylvan Library

PWs: 5
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Vraska, the Unseen
2 Liliana of the Veil

Flex (1 only):
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Lands: 23
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Wasteland
3 Swamp
6 Forest

Sideboard:
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Crop Rotation
3 Memoricide
1 Thragtusk
1 Krosan Grip
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Thrun, the last troll
3 Surgical Extraction

I learned a lot crashing into the Shardless RUG, Jund, and Maverick variant last night. Instead of boring you all with details I thought I'd share this which is where I ended up as the night went on.

I'm a little torn on my flex slot since Sylvan was very performant for me... in fact with Thragtusk it was so good I could draw extra cards off it. Plus SDTs are kind of hard to find these days... Sylvan much easier and with excess life gain it has more upside. I could also see myself running an Arena since the deck thins so much extra cards is really all you need in this build, everything is generally rock solid to draw into once you VetEx'd a couple times... but then sometimes I wanted a 3rd pulse for planeswalkers... and sometimes a 3rd deed. Intent makes it all come together so I'm leaning Arena.

Shroud dudes were great, but Thrun is the sweet spot in GB. However he's lame in some matchups so the sideboard seems to be his home.

[Arianrhod]

So I'm playing the original chrono list last night on MWS against a white weenies deck with familiars, militants, moms, sfm, avengers, etc. On my panoptic mirror I had imprinted cryptic command, damnation, AND visions. I was bouncing and killing his dudes every turn but he wouldn't concede. I had to spend several turns digging for the time warp until finally he conceded.

I don't know if grim tutor will help alleviate the durdling, but I'm not convinced panoptic mirror is the I WIN button blue has been looking for.

EDIT:

Also may I suggest Brainspoil as a budget alternative to grim tutor. It can fetch either piece of the combo AND can't be countered. Also it can function as removal in a pinch or grab thragtusk. Unfortunately it can't find deed or damnation.

I mean, sometimes games are won before you actually beat them to death. If you have the ability to Damnation every turn again Death and Taxes, I'm pretty sure that "finding the win" is academic. Same with Visioning every turn. Show me a non-combo legacy deck that can keep up with Nic Fit drawing 4 cards every turn.

RE@Brainspoil, I wouldn't recommend anyone picks anything up yet. Cards are being tested on a daily basis for ChronoFit, and very little outside of the core is set in stone at this point. I certainly wouldn't advocate running out and picking up Grim Tutors just 'cause. If Tutor does end up staying in the deck, Brainspoil is an acceptable substitute, although Tutor is always going to be better. But we're a few weeks of solidification and testing away from being able to make that call.

And don't worry, if Grim Tutor does end up staying, I'll be right there with the rest of you, having to drop 300+ on the pair =( I'm not advocating them because I have them, or anything, because I don't -- but rather because I expect them to be a good fit for the deck. Time will tell if I'm right, and I say again: do -not- spend the money on them until the deck proves itself.

[Viridia]

Eh, some card, like Grim Tutor, arent bad to have anyway :P

[Qweerios]

Congrats, Qweerios!

What prompted you to put in 2 walls of blossoms? Also what stopped you from playing any planeswalkers in this build?

I tested with Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Ranger and really didn't like drawing either of them when I didn't want lands. The great thing about Wall of Blossoms is that it is actually a wall and it will buy you precious time against aggressive decks to set up a Deed or a threat. When the 0/4 body isn't needed, it becomes a great fodder for Cabal Therapy since the cantrip ability makes up for potential whiffed therapies, and if it doesn't, well you've successfully create your own card advantage. Drawing a card is good at all stages of the game as well, and it is also welcomed when Sun Titan hits the table.

Why I didn't play any Planeswalkers? Because none of the green, black, or white ones grant anything that cannot be accomplished via green creatures. Planeswalkers tend to be mana heavy, legendary, and un-tutorable. If I want to maximize consistency, I would rather have a larger GSZ toolbox than singleton "good cards". Liliana is probably the exception to all the token-generating PWs. I have come to realize why Liliana's +1 ability is detrimental for Nic Fit while it isn't for Rock or Junk when I read Koby's argument against fetchlands as deck thinning. When Rock hits 3 lands for Lily, they technically don't need any more lands to function and her +1 ability converts the cards that have lost value, according to what stage the game is in, into potential removal. Nic Fit, however, is a different story. You will get value out of your lands until you reach your 7-10th land drop and having your hand size shrink, while it is symetrical, is usualy more detrimental to us than it is to them. Also, Planeswalkers lack the utility that some green creatures offer. While they may represent near-insurmountable card advantage in some matchups, they are nothing else but high-cost, low utility, slow clocks in other matchups.

Planeswalkers in Nic Fit are great for their synergy with Deed, but I wouldn't advocate them over anything GSZ-able unless your shell is specificaly designed to abuse a certain amount of "good cards" (i.e.: Nic Fit with Brainstorm and Jace). Then again, some creatures offer the same benefits as some PWs, but with different weaknesses (AKA: most Titans).

[Niche]

I agree on Sakura Tribe and Ranger. Those cards if not accessed immediately once you can afford them are just wretched. Bad topdecks, miserable chump blockers, not a threatening clock, not really card advantage. Wall seems more than alright.

I will disagree on the planeswalkers.

Garruk PH and this deck had a torrid love affair for hours last night during testing. Not a great deal of green creatures can; Create another creature immediately, draw 3+ cards, provide an ultimate which only 1-2 decks can respond to, act as a bitterblossom for 3/3s with no life cost. He's extremely well costed... and even if all you get is a 5 mana harmonize that's ok because you probably desperately needed 3 cards to not lose. In that kind of a situation no creature drawn can get you out of a problem spot. Except Terastadon, but sometimes if your problems are already creatures even he won't do when you need a pulse or deed. Many decks cannot remove him immediately if he rolls up to 4 and presents a very significantly sized legacy body (3/3). No abrupt decay, no bolt, no swords. I will probably never cut Garruk PH.

Regarding Lili 2.0, I agree with a lot of your comments on her and the application of the +1 activation. I do however feel that NicFit also reaches a point where extra lands drawn are not required, particularly fetches once you've got your basics and bayous out. Then they are completely dead and can be gladly pitched to Liliana. Same for Veteran Explorer. Against Miracles giving them mana is bad so pitching veteran explorers there is of value. There are also certain matchups where cards in hand for your opponent increases their chance of killing you and your cards in hand are practically irrelevant; all you need is a clock. Here I gladly roll both hand sizes down. Finally she provides that intermediate creature removal I was often missing that isn't targetted (a smart guy was testing Mirran Crusader out against the format, yeah). Removing small sacrifical chumps can be easy for the deck but large bodies with CC>3 we can sometimes struggle against, right? I don't think we need to address the ultimate since its amazing. I would make a final point that accessing her discard to bin a cabal therapy when you'd rather just flash it back for free on explorer, saving mana and increasing your reach is a nice line of play to have access to. Particularly when fighting thalia (if you cant just kill her outright with Lili).

The other planeswalker I worked with, Vraska, actually proved herself nicely. She's another one of those intermediate removals, she beats on other planeswalkers, generally yields at least a 2 for 1.. and if you're in control is a 4 turn clock guaranteed since not many decks in Legacy can do much to stop 3 creatures all swinging for lethal at the same time.

Plus as you hinted, planeswalkers aren't vulnerable to things that Titans are, like removal or sweepers. I was having a lot of problem with creatures dying left and right or being irrelevant once GSZ'd out... and this is why I ended up with just Thragtusk and E-Witness... and a Thrun in the board. I'm also considering Gaea's Revenge.

[Arianrhod]

I have come to realize why Liliana's +1 ability is detrimental for Nic Fit while it isn't for Rock or Junk when I read Koby's argument against fetchlands as deck thinning. When Rock hits 3 lands for Lily, they technically don't need any more lands to function and her +1 ability converts the cards that have lost value, according to what stage the game is in, into potential removal. Nic Fit, however, is a different story. You will get value out of your lands until you reach your 7-10th land drop and having your hand size shrink, while it is symetrical, is usualy more detrimental to us than it is to them.

Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies =D

[Darksider]

Hi, i'am also new here and started playing Nic Fit a few weeks ago. I like this deck but i only have access to the GB Version of NIC FIT and also want to stay GB, hope this will be okay for you?

It's really funny to play, but sometimes the deck sucks a little bit. Now, I want to know if this kind of Deck is good enough for competitiv play.

Here's my deck^^. (sorry i can't link the cards or do this correctly, because i don't know how this works)


//lands
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Swamp
5 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats

//creatures
2 Thragtusk
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Wickerbough Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Grave Titan
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Dryad Arbor

//spells
1 Dismember
2 Innocent Blood
3 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith

//enchantment
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
//planeswalker
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

//artifacts
3 Sensei's Divining Top

//Sideboard
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Krosan Grip
1 Damnation
1 Kitchen Finks
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Duress


Any ideas to make this Deck better? I don't know if this is okay, because i play this kind of deck only a few weeks and i also play legacy really short. I'am also loosing to a great variation of decks, but i think this is my bad playstyle.^^

I'am also very sorry for my bad english.

Mfg Darksider

[Greenpoe]

@Niche, very good points. Being able to run Garruk, Primal Hunter (even if only as a 2-of) & Hymn to Tourach (as a 3-of) are the two reasons to run straight GB over the other versions. Hymn is debatable, but Garruk 3.0 is really strong. But with Vraska and Abrupt Decay, GB has been given a lot of tools to do well recently. Maybe even Liliana 3.0 could find herself a spot, except her ultimate is awful.

@Darksider, your list looks solid, but Nic Fit isn't an easy archetype to do well with. It can take a while of playing the deck before you start doing well with it, so just keep playing and stick with it!

[TerribleTim68]

. . . (sorry i can't link the cards or do this correctly, because i don't know how this works)
. . .

That's easy, just put [ cards ] before the card name and [ /cards ] after (without the spaces before and after "cards" of course, basically the same way you put [deck] at the top of your list but use "cards" instead of "deck"). :wink:

So putting (without the spaces) [ cards ]Crusade[ /cards ] gives you Crusade.