[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

[CalebD]

Interesting, thanks for the list Tao. While I don't agree with a lot of those numbers, you've given me a lot to think about. Perhaps I'll take Arianrod's advice and try a miser's GSZ.

My main hesitation is that Dryad Arbor is useful for enabling Pod on turn two. We already have two other ways of doing that, but it's still a factor. It also turns a fetchland into a Recurring Nightmare chain.

Why do you prefer Golgari Charm to Engineered Plague?

Sylvan Library is another card to compete in the Bstorm/Top debate, and I like that it can actually draw cards.

What do you guys think about Skinrender vs Redcap? Recap hits players and planeswalkers, and the persist is relevant for Pod and Shadowborn, but Skinrender comes with a bigger body (relevant with all the 2/xs running around) and can make a Goyf manageable. I guess Redcap can always chump for that turn you need Shadowborn to come online anyway.

I like Mindbreak because I face Belcher every other Open, and when you factor in Storm my odds of needing Trap rise to almost every event. If I took an auto loss vs Belcher I'd start every event with roughly half a match loss. If the tournaments were smaller or had a more defined metagame I'd like Trap less.

Since the deck can fire off a Arcane Lab as early as turn two, it's another card that can shore up the Storm matchup.

[Tao]

- I am honestly unsure about GSZ. I can't help you with that in either direction. The pros/cons are both convincing.

- For Golgari Charm most importantly it is good against Show and Tell decks. It kills the White Leyline (which both versions will board in) as well as idle Sneak Attacks, Dream Halls and Omnisciences which happen quite frequently after Discard wars. Against Death and Taxes Golgari Charm it also kills Rest in Peace.

- Skinrender vs. Redcap is pretty close. One thing more to consider is that Redcap leaves you with a 1/1 body afterwards which you can use for Pod, Therapy or Demon.

- Just from the numbers in general (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?5460-DTBF-Philosophy-amp-Deck-Selection&p=743846&viewfull=1#post743846) Elves is very popular (Envelop is amazing against them) and on top of it there is more Omnitell+Sneak+Reanimator than Storm+Belcher. If you have a read on the Meta that this won't be the case in the SCG Lab/Trap makes sense. You are much closer to SCG so you will know better.

[Arianrhod]

Some points --

-) My biggest reason for not being a fan of Grave Titan is that he doesn't -do- anything. He just beats. Yes, he's a hell of an effective beater -- but usually, if you're winning with Grave Titan, you could be winning with a ham sandwich. I don't consider Nic Fit to be an aggro deck. I would rather adopt the combo-control archetype -- value-grind your opponent down, control the game, combo for the kill or kill with whatever random dorks you have lying around once they run out of resources. This is probably one reason why I value Thragtusk significantly more than Caleb. Yes, Thrag is "just" a 5/3. But it does stuff on both ends of its existence, and it buys a ton of time while assembling a combo. Additionally, Thrag is definitely much more appreciable when Deed is around. If they don't have Goyf, Thrag is gigantic.

-) Primeval -> 2 towers, Deadeye, Zegana, and/or Progenitor Mimic all seem better than Grave Titan to me. Again, I think that I'm wanting the deck to be more value-oriented and less punch-you-in-the-face-big.

-) Sea Gate Oracle is bananas.

-) Sylvan dying to Deed is a thing. If you are 100% opposed to running Deed, then Sylvan is probably the way to go. If you're on the Deed plan, Top/Brainstorm is your decision -- Sylvan is not a card.

-) IMO, Redcap vs Skinrender is meta dependent and list dependent. Render is better if you're expecting a heavy Goyf room AND if you aren't running Deed (Render is not an optional trigger, and you don't want it to need to shoot itself). Otherwise, I'd go for Redcap.

-) Tao's spot-on with his assessment of Golgari Charm -- but I'd also add that the card does some other relevant things beyond just wrathing Elves and killing Leylines/Sneaks/etc. It's also real against Miracles, and is probably boardable vs UW decks in general because of the regeneration mode, which can blank Supreme Verdict. Since a Pod list is necessarily going to be over-committing a lot of the time, having a source of regeneration is probably reasonably important.

-) If you cut GSZ / run a miser's, Dryad Arbor is bad. If you're running Deed, Arbor is bad. Otherwise, it's fantastic.

-) More effective sideboard hate: Venser, Shaper Savant, Cranial Extraction, Nether Void/Trinisphere. I would take a couple slots of this type of hate, and then season with some "early defense" hate -- a mix of Flusterstorm, Negate, Envelop, maybe a few Force of Wills, potentially a couple Mindbreak Traps.

The Belcher complaint is relevant, and fast combo tends to be one of the absolute worst things for Nic Fit in general. Flusterstorm is probably the correct call for the "early defense," with maybe a few Envelops mixed in. I like that Flusterstorm essentially can't be countered -- you can hit their Show and Tell and they can't just Force back. Fluster not hitting Dream Halls or Belcher is a thing, but you can hit Belcher's rituals prior to the artifact to screw them up, and if Omni is playing Dream Halls, you should be able to deal with that another way (ideally Glen Elendra).

I like Venser SS here, especially if you end up going down the Deadeye path. However, I acknowledge that Glen Elendra is probably the better 4-spot anti-combo. I could still see running a 1-of Venser SS in the board to bring in vs Show and Tell -- worst case you can Pod for it, bounce itself, and turn off their Show and Tells if you don't have a U open post-pod activation for Glen Elendra.

Cranial Extraction is arguably the most effective/powerful combo hate that Nic Fit has access to. The issue is that A: it can be countered, and B: it loses to Leyline of Sanctity. I would still consider running 1-2 copies in the board, though, because it's lights-out if it resolves.

Trinisphere is a consideration if you're on the 3x Carpet of Flowers plan. If you aren't, then I probably wouldn't bother as it isn't going to do anything to Omni otherwise, as you'll be providing them with islands. Nether Void may be a stronger call here, as OmniTell likely isn't going to get up to the requisite 6 mana to do basically anything without you helping via Explorer, and you can still "play spells" via Pod chains / or just having a Carpet.

-) I dislike the Deathrite Shamans, but I appreciate that there's only so many reasonable 1-drops that can be played. I would probably consider shaving 1 Deathrite and run it as a 2-of. 6 1-drops+a questionable number of Zeniths should be sufficient to get Pod chains started.

-) The creature base needs refining. Varolz nonbos hard with Shadowborn Demon, but is decent with Thrun. The problem that Varolz has in this deck is that there isn't any really outstanding option to scavenge on to. Yes, you have Thrun -- but Thrun doesn't have any kind of evasion. He's not Sigarda. I mean, you can just Abyss them every turn with a huge Thrun, and maybe that's good enough.

-) There are two different versions here, I think. There's an aggro version, and a more value-control oriented version with a "combo" finish via Deadeye. It's up to you which way you want to go with the deck, obviously, but I think that trying to straddle the line in the middle is only going to end in disappointment.

---------> if you want to go aggro, consider Strangleroot Geist, Kitchen Finks, Varolz, Clique, Desecration Demon and/or Abyssal Persecutor.
---------> if you want to go value, consider Viridian Emissary, Sea Gate Oracle, Venser SS, Solemn Simulacrum, Deadeye/Zegana/Mimic as possible 6s
---------> either way, I would definitely run Glen Elendra Archmage as probably a 2-of. She seems very good right now.
---------> weird observations, most of which are probably too cute. With a sac outlet (Varolz?) Perilous Myr + Havengul Lich may be possible. Expensive, but possible. Myr Enforcer and Allosaurous Rider both Pod into Griselbrand, and are fairly cheatable. I seem to remember that we had some Pod chain with Corpse Connoisseur figured out, but I can't remember what the other half was. You could enable the Melira combo without wasting a slot on Melira, if you wanted to run Master Biomancer. Biomancer still isn't a GREAT card, but it's less dead than Melira and still turns on the combo. Is Heartless a possible consideration? Heartless + Explorer gives a very consistent ramp package, and could enable ludicrously fast Wurmcoils.

[TakeYourTime]

What are people's strategy with BGU/BGW/BG Nic Fit against UWx Miracles/blue control in general?

Zach and I ran BUG at SCG Baltimore and didn't have Carpet of Flowers in our sideboard. We both lost miserably to Miracles. Zach had an active Birthing Pod out against his UW opponent and it still didn't do much because UW had a critical mass of lands out--Thrun, the Last Troll and Grave Titan all ate a Terminus. If you're doing land go against UW Miracles and they have one of their four Sensei's Divining Top out you lose.

Envelop and Vendilion Clique fight the miracle cards and stall the game out. Scapeshift is decent but that involves an entirely different strategy.

Landstill also has the same strategy as UWx Miracles. I often pilot Landstill and tested a lot against Nic Fit. Every time my opponent's Veteran Explorer trigger resolved I won. If I hit a critical mass of lands I won.

[Arianrhod]

What are people's strategy with BGU/BGW/BG Nic Fit against UWx Miracles/blue control in general?

Zach and I ran BUG at SCG Baltimore and didn't have Carpet of Flowers in our sideboard. We both lost miserably to Miracles. Zach had an active Birthing Pod out against his UW opponent and it still didn't do much because UW had a critical mass of lands out--Thrun, the Last Troll and Grave Titan all ate a Terminus. If you're doing land go against UW Miracles and they have one of their four Sensei's Divining Top out you lose.

Envelop and Vendilion Clique fight the miracle cards and stall the game out. Scapeshift is decent but that involves an entirely different strategy.

Landstill also has the same strategy as UWx Miracles. I often pilot Landstill and tested a lot against Nic Fit. Every time my opponent's Veteran Explorer trigger resolved I won. If I hit a critical mass of lands I won.

Well you've already identified one key problem (not running Carpet of Flowers). There's literal 0 reason to over-commit Thrun AND Grave Titan vs Miracles -- you're asking to get swept. Play one, maybe two threats at a time -- but if you run out 2 threats, make sure they aren't both top-drawers. They sweep, you play another one. They sweep, you play another one. Etc. Thragtusk is brilliant at this, because he leaves behind a friend even if they sweep. Getting an onboard Deed is critical. Don't blow it to deal with Counterbalance or such bs -- just hold it for Entreat, or to stop their combo if they run it. Cranially Extracting Jace is important; if you aren't running Cranial Extraction / Slaughter Games / etc, that's a problem. Combat planeswalkers (Garruk, Sorin, Elspeth) are all quite good, too.

[Tao]

@Arian:

- My suggested list is a bit light on win conditions but I don't think you need a combo card that is terrible on its own to win.

- Schulzchop was very satisfied with Grave Titan in his tournament report. The matchups in which I would prefer Primeval Titan are UW Control decks. My plan is that with all the card advantage that Pod generates you should be able to win G1 against UW Control decks and for G2 you have the choice of Notion Thief, Clique, Wickerbough Elder, Spellbombs and a few counters for the lategame.
It is still not really tested yet so maybe it does need a real recursion engine like Twin Towers . So yeah, Primeval Titan with Twin Towers could be what the deck needs, that sounds convincing to me (especially considering TakeYourTime's input).

- The Pod chain is "sac Rector into Pod and get Connoisseur and Nightmare" which allows you to put any creature in your deck into play, but with the printing of Shaman and Decay (on Nightmare with Connoisseur trigger on stack) that is not really viable anymore.


What are people's strategy with BGU/BGW/BG Nic Fit against UWx Miracles/blue control in general?

Zach and I ran BUG at SCG Baltimore and didn't have Carpet of Flowers in our sideboard. We both lost miserably to Miracles. Zach had an active Birthing Pod out against his UW opponent and it still didn't do much because UW had a critical mass of lands out--Thrun, the Last Troll and Grave Titan all ate a Terminus. If you're doing land go against UW Miracles and they have one of their four Sensei's Divining Top out you lose.

Envelop and Vendilion Clique fight the miracle cards and stall the game out. Scapeshift is decent but that involves an entirely different strategy.

Landstill also has the same strategy as UWx Miracles. I often pilot Landstill and tested a lot against Nic Fit. Every time my opponent's Veteran Explorer trigger resolved I won. If I hit a critical mass of lands I won.

The first thing you need against Jace ... is a plan against Jace.
My signature BUG list has its own 4 Jaces to match theirs, 4 Decays to stop Counterbalance and a Thrun and Titan+Twin Towers for the late game. You deal with all their threats, they can't deal with yours, that's the plan.
The Punishing list has 4 Tops to match their Top, 4 Fire-4 Grove to control their Jace and Thrun-Run for killing them (it only plays 2 Decays MD so you might get CB locked in G1 but that is a conscious risk I take). From the SB you get 2 more Decays to stop CB and RiP, 4 Red Blasts to fight Jace on the stack and 2 Slaughter Games to get rid of Jace or Entreat.
Both lists have 3 Deeds to stop big Entreats in the late game. They also have 3 extra Discard spells and very importantly 3 Liliana to punish them for playing DrawGo. An early Liliana is a nightmare for them because they can't let her ultimate happen but they also have a very hard time pressuring her or dealing with her otherwise.

For GB and GBw decks, like I said in the OP, straight GB and GBw control simply can't beat a Jace TMS and therefore these color combinations are not viable (at least until some new list comes up that deals with this weakness). Sigarda alone is not enough.

In Pod lists, the plan to match Jace's card advantage with Pod is mentioned above, but as I said this is simple theorycrafting and maybe not enough. Twin Towers could be what it needs, because using Terminus on Primeval Titan is far less good for them than using it on Grave Titan.

[Ayotte]

Landstill also has the same strategy as UWx Miracles. I often pilot Landstill and tested a lot against Nic Fit. Every time my opponent's Veteran Explorer trigger resolved I won. If I hit a critical mass of lands I won.

This is why you have carpet of flowers to bring in instead of Explorer: so you stop ramping blue control decks up to Jaces.

[Qweerios]

I have a lot of experience with Nic Fit against Miracle and there is one simple thing you must do in order to bring the matchup to parity:

Side out all your explorers and therapies.

If you have Carpets, Deathrites, and/or targeted discard, they will all do a better job than Explorer and Therapy. Therapies usually whiff against Miracles because they have access to Brainstorm and Jace really early in terms of control mirrors. Top also makes it useless as they will be playing from the top of their deck rather than their hand. Triggering Explorer is also terrible because they get to use the lands first and it brings them closer to a protected Jace or a lethal Entreat, which is usually enough to win. My most successful lists against Miracle were by far BUG and GBr Wish. BUG has its own Jace and more hard counters in the side than Miracle has across the board (4 Negate, 4 FoW). Unlike other versions of Nic Fit, BUG is actually the control deck and Miracle becomes the aggressor. With GBr Wish, you have access to Slaughter Games and Tsunami mainboard which will significantly turn the game in your favor. Slaughtering Jaces means that they will never get that comfortable grasp over the game where they can counter every relevant spell you play, and Tsunami usually means that they cannot rebuild their manabase because they don't have enough lands left. Having REB postboard is a good way to prevent CB and Jace from hitting the board while it also give you some say against counterspells. Thrun is my main GSZ target and resolving a Prime Titan for 2 Treetops is as devastating for them as them Entreating for 3 is for us.

[TheArchitect]

What are people's strategy with BGU/BGW/BG Nic Fit against UWx Miracles/blue control in general?

Zach and I ran BUG at SCG Baltimore and didn't have Carpet of Flowers in our sideboard. We both lost miserably to Miracles. Zach had an active Birthing Pod out against his UW opponent and it still didn't do much because UW had a critical mass of lands out--Thrun, the Last Troll and Grave Titan all ate a Terminus. If you're doing land go against UW Miracles and they have one of their four Sensei's Divining Top out you lose.

Envelop and Vendilion Clique fight the miracle cards and stall the game out. Scapeshift is decent but that involves an entirely different strategy.

Landstill also has the same strategy as UWx Miracles. I often pilot Landstill and tested a lot against Nic Fit. Every time my opponent's Veteran Explorer trigger resolved I won. If I hit a critical mass of lands I won.

Against those decks 98% of the time offing an explorer is a mistake. Side out 3, and ideally bring in carpets.

The best weapon against draw go decks is planewalkers. 1-of detention sphere and countermagic are their only real answers to walkers. Jace and lily are not bad either. Garruk Primal Hunter is the best. My BUG list runs 1-2 garruk, 3 lily, 3 jace and it gives control a much harder time.

Also, prime titan into 2 treetops, 2 towers, or 2 tarpits is way better than grave titan and he is GSZ-able. Dont over commit and animate both lands and swing with titan when they have a top out and they will have really hard time clearing the board out.

[Tao]

I don't like siding out all Explorers and all Therapies for all versions. Obviously Scapeshift wants to keep them, but I do like to keep 2-3 Explorers and 2-3 Therapies in against Miracles with BUG and Punishing, too, unless I play against the RiP/Helm version. If my plan was to outcontrol them in G1, then I don't see a reason to not do the same thing in G2 and G3, too.
Without any Explorers I find my draws to become inconsistent because early GSZs get terrible and the deck is not designed to rely on land drops exclusively. That's just my experience with my Fire and BUG lists, this is not necessarily true for every version of these decks.

[kingtk3]

...

Also, prime titan into 2 treetops, 2 towers, or 2 tarpits is way better than grave titan and he is GSZ-able. Dont over commit and animate both lands and swing with titan when they have a top out and they will have really hard time clearing the board out.

Sorry for the question, but what are the 2 towers you're referring to?

[TheArchitect]

Sorry for the question, but what are the 2 towers you're referring to?

Volrath's Stronghold and Phyrexian Tower. Stronghold has gotten worse since the printing of DRS, however.

[Tao]

Two Towers (not Twin Towers, my bad; Lord of the Rings reference) are Phyrexian Tower and Volrath's Stronghold.
Phyrexian Tower gives you a sacrifice outlet for your creatures to re-use their Enter/Leaves Battlefield trigger every turn by putting it on top of your library with Volrath's Stronghold. Phyrexian Tower also gives your creatures protection from being exiled with Swords to Plowshares and it conveniently produces the exact mana to use Volrath's Stronghold.

This is especially nice with Thragtusk (gain 5 life and get a 3/3 whenever you use it) and Eternal Witness (Regrowth whenever you use it). You can tutor easily for them with a GSZ for 6 on Primeval Titan.

Edit: Architect was a whopping 7 minutes faster.

[kingtk3]

Thank you, I was missing what they were because I was thinking of animated lands

[jbone2016]

Thoughts on new Elspeth?
Loyalty: 4

Casting Cost: 4WW

Card Text: +1: Put three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield.
-3: Destroy all creatures with power 4 or greater.
-7: You get an emblem with "Creatures you control get +2/+2 and have flying."

Seems expensive but some nice abilities. Again, ridiculous with doubling season.

[Nithkar]

Hey guys. As i said, i liked Qweerios Wish approach to the deck very much, but at the same time, i'm having a great time with the PF build, with a list that's very similar to HoneyT's. Then, i tried to mix both list, and i would very much appreciate thoughts on the following list.

Lands (23):

4 Grove of the Burnwillows (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Grove%20of%20the%20Burnwillows)
2 Bayou (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Bayou)
1 Taiga (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Taiga)
1 Badlands (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Badlands)
1 Phyrexian Tower (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Phyrexian%20Tower)
1 Volrath's Stronghold (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Volrath's%20Stronghold)
1 Kessig Wolf Run (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Kessig%20Wolf%20Run)
4 Verdant Catacombs (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Verdant%20Catacombs)
1 Wooded Foothills (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Wooded%20Foothills)
1 Bloodstained Mire (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Bloodstained%20Mire)
3 Forest (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Forest)
2 Swamp (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Swamp)
1 Mountain (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Mountain)

Creatures (14):

4 Veteran Explorer (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Veteran%20Explorer)
1 Deathrite Shaman (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Deathrite%20Shaman)
1 Scavenging Ooze (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Scavenging%20Ooze)
2 Eternal Witness (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Eternal%20Witness)
2 Huntmaster of the Fells (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Huntmaster%20of%20the%20Fells)
1 Thrun, the Last Troll (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Thrun,%20the%20Last%20Troll)
2 Thragtusk (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Thragtusk)
1 Primeval Titan (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Primeval%20Titan)

Spells (23):

4 Cabal Therapy (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Cabal%20Therapy)
4 Green Suns's Zenith (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Green%20Sun's%20Zenith)
3 Sensei's Divining Top (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Sensei's%20Divining%20Top)
3 Punishing Fire (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Punishing%20Fire)
4 Burning Wish (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Burning%20Wish)
2 Abrupt Decay (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Abrupt%20Decay)
3 Pernicious Deed (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Pernicious%20Deed)

Planeswalker (1):

1 Garruk, Primal Hunter (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Garruk,%20Primal%20Hunter)

Sideboard:

3 Red Elemental Blast (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Red%20Elemental%20Blast)
2 Carpet of Flowers (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Carpet%20of%20Flowers)
2 Surgical Extration (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Surgical%20Extraction)
1 Innocent Blood (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Innocent%20Blood)
1 Thoughtseize (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Thoughtseize)
1 Pyroclasm (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Pyroclasm)
1 Maelstrom Pulse (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Maelstrom%20Pulse)
1 Slaughter Games (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Slaughter%20Games)
1 Reverent Silence (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Reverent%20Silence)
1 Massacre (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Massacre)
1 Ruination (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Ruination) / Tsunami (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Tsunami)

My principal concern is that this list may not have enough disruption MB to compensate lack of sideboard imposed by BW, especially against combo, meaning that BW in this list might be a little too slow to justify its inclusion. What do you think? For example, i could easily see 1 tusk and one huntmaster coming of to make space for a couple of thoughtseizes or Lilianas, as in Tao's list. Btw, thanks for answering, Tao. I like list with more creatures, but Lilys sure are awesome. Very tempting....

[CalebD]

List I'm registering tomorrow:

// Lands
1 [ME2] Underground Sea
2 [U] Tropical Island
4 [6E] Forest
1 [5E] Island
2 [M14] Swamp
2 [R] Bayou
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [US] Phyrexian Tower

// Creatures
1 [FNM] Eternal Witness
1 [EVE] Glen Elendra Archmage
4 [PC2] Baleful Strix
4 [WL] Veteran Explorer
3 [RTR] Deathrite Shaman
1 [FNM] Kitchen Finks
1 [M11] Grave Titan
1 [CMD] Scavenging Ooze
1 [M12] Acidic Slime
1 [FNM] Murderous Redcap
1 [M13] Thragtusk
1 [NPH] Deceiver Exarch
1 [M12] Phantasmal Image
1 [LRW] Shriekmaw

// Spells
2 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
1 [EX] Recurring Nightmare
4 [NPH] Birthing Pod
2 [JGC] Pernicious Deed
4 [5E] Brainstorm

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 [M10] Negate
SB: 3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 [7E] Arcane Laboratory
SB: 1 [DGM] Notion Thief
SB: 1 [JGC] Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 [RTR] Golgari Charm

Tested Stronghold and it was worse than a Dryad Arbor, second Tower, or fetch and it eventually became a fetch to help support the Brainstorms (which have been a nice, efficient spell for smoothing out the early game. top and sylvan are much clunkier). Once this deck has gas it continues to have gas forever so there's no real need for more continual advantage effects.

Speaking of which, Recurring Nightmare is absolutely bonkers and I almost want a second one over the fourth Birthing Pod. Even against dedicated Deathrite decks the game eventually reaches a point that Recurring busts wide open.

Thanks everyone for the help on the list.

[kabards]

does anyone tried a nic-fit list without a pernicious deed? :tongue:

[Tao]

The list looks good I'd say. It has a high emphasis on lower drops and might be a bit thin on 4-drops, but with their Persist and careful play this should be doable. Nightmare seems good, it will still own games and I like the SB.

But there is one last small thing that I think should be improved: You have 4 Forest, 1 Island, 4 Balefuxl Strix, 4 Brainstorm. I think 3 Forest, 2 Island would do better. The only deep green card you have is Ooze.

Good luck at SCG!


does anyone tried a nic-fit list without a pernicious deed? :tongue:

I guess everyone did at some point and came back to play 2-4 after running into Goblins, Merfolk, Maverick, Death and Taxes, Enchantress, Staxx, Elves, Dragon Stompy, Imperial Painter or Dredge or after realizing he had no outs against Entreat the Angels and Empty the Warrens.

[MD.Ghost]

does anyone tried a nic-fit list without a pernicious deed? :tongue:

I play with punishing fire, so i only need 2 deeds. I also added 2 Jund Charm (http://magiccards.info/ala/en/175.html)'s, which fills a very similar role against swarm decks and have some other benefits (graveyard hate, combat tricks) be an instant also helps. Sometimes, deed+activation isn´t fast enough.

[Tao]

Umm just a random idea, and not sure if this is time for the tournament or if it is a real thing, but Meloku out of Pod sounds like it is super good.

[kabards]

we can also try young pyromancer on nic-fit without pernicious deed? since we have plenty of instant/sorcery spells :)

[Tao]

Caleb is at 4-2 now at SCG, fighting back from a 1-2 start.

[jbone2016]

Caleb is at 4-2 now at SCG, fighting back from a 1-2 start.

And....he got a deck tech. 5-2 also.
http://t.co/67ctOD8NHa

[TheArchitect]

That list he ran looks MUCH better. His creature choices seem really solid. I like the Brainstorms, deed and decays being there. The SB looks much better. I'm not sold on arcane lab, but I'll be honest I haven't tested it. My gut tells me 4 FoW in the SB is ok since there is actually a pretty high blue count post board. I hope he gets some money at least.

Also, like he said, among other combo decks that list looks great against reanimator (which other nic fit lists always have a lot of trouble with).

[guelahpapyrus]

Hey Tao (and anyone else on the Lilliana boat)-

I've never liked playing with Lilliana except with P-Fire or Recurring Nightmare, it just always felt bad to +1 her unless I didn't have a hand. Most of the time she ended up being a 3CMC Edict. It seems like a lot of the better players really like her, so I assume I'm doing something wrong when I play with Lilliana. Can you sell me on her?

Also, I noticed Tao took out the Probes in favor of Inquisition. This is exactly what I did in my BUG build, except with Thoughtseize. Why not Thoughtseize?

Aside: I'm interested to hear a report from Caleb. Noticed he lost R8 (R9 hasn't been posted yet); I think that loss knocked him out of the money brackets. Too bad, seems like the T8 would have some good Nic Fit matchups.

[kabards]

congrats to caleb for finishing a good standing, em i right 6-3 is his final standing?

[Ayotte]

Was Caleb ever on camera? What round? Probably not since he wasn't at the top i guess..

[jbone2016]

congrats to caleb for finishing a good standing, em i right 6-3 is his final standing?

Correct.

Ayotte:
I don't think he was.

[guelahpapyrus]

Think so. And one of the losses was a bad luck misplay against Maverick.

[Tao]

Hey Tao (and anyone else on the Lilliana boat)-

I've never liked playing with Lilliana except with P-Fire or Recurring Nightmare, it just always felt bad to +1 her unless I didn't have a hand. Most of the time she ended up being a 3CMC Edict. It seems like a lot of the better players really like her, so I assume I'm doing something wrong when I play with Lilliana. Can you sell me on her?

Also, I noticed Tao took out the Probes in favor of Inquisition. This is exactly what I did in my BUG build, except with Thoughtseize. Why not Thoughtseize?


Liliana fits very well in both my builds. The Punishing list is designed to use her as best as possible. You have 4 Fire, 4 Grove and 4 Top to find the Combo fast. And with those 4 Top and the 3 Thoughtseize you can reach that "unless I don't have a card in hand" state quickly.
In BUG she forms a great tag team with Jace. The two combined usually make the game end very quickly in your favor.

What I like about her in general is her flexibility:
- keeps Combo decks down so they have a much harder time coming back from your initial Discard. Thoughtseize/Therapy followed up by Liliana is much more devastating for them than Thoughtseize/Therapy followed up by creature pressure.
- a random Edict against Aggro, not very good but it helps
- backing up Deed/Decay/Fire by clearing what they can't hit (most notably Tombstalker from TA and Progenitus from Elves)
- she forces Miracle decks into a role that they are not designed to play, being active. Because if they can't deal with her quickly they lose to her ultimate.

I find Inquisition/Thoughtseize in general very close. I think Punishing lists can deal with the lifeloss a bit better than BUG so I chose IoK in BUG. It doesn't really matter I think, Thoughtseize is great, too.

[CalebD]

Quick report:

vs Punishing Jund: Game one I kept a Deathrite, double therapy two fetch hand on the draw. The deathrite gets punishing fired and my first two draws are more therapys. He eventually double wastes me and I die without seeing an explorer or another land. Game two I screw up by playing turn one explorer off of a basic instead of fetching bayou. On my next turn I play tower and need to fetch double forest to cast decay on his bob and run out kitchen finks. He hymns me, wastes the tower, and I sit there drawing black cards (which he hymns) before drawing another explorer. And another. And another. Finally, I've fetched all my basics and have a 35 card deck with five lands left, and manage to draw three fetches in a row. At the end of the game, I punt again by ignoring my graveyard when Brainstorm finds a E Witness, figuring his Deathrite can just eat whatever I target, forgetting I had a deed from earlier.

So, not playing well. 0-1

R2 vs reanimator. Game one I play an explorer and he turn one careful studies. I turn two Therapy (hit) and flash back before casting Pod, my only action. He untaps, cantrips, and Exumes Grizzel into play and I get back Explorer. He draws seven and gets an Iona on green. I pod Explorer into P Image, copying Grizzel, and have some fun of my own. Shriekmaw answers Iona, and Recurring Nightmare starts doing silly things. G2 he forces my t1 seize and I die t2, G3 he has to fight through Deathrite but then I have more fun times Imaging Grizzel.

1-1

R3 vs Maverick G1 I keep a double therapy, Bstorm, explorer hand with plenty of gas but no green source. I give myself very good odds to win if I hit, and the therapys should slow the opponent down long enough. Of course, I die with Deed in my hand and no green source at the end of the game. G2 I have a clunky start but finally draw deed. Unfortunately, I miscalculate the board and die.

Still not playing well. 1-2

R4 vs Punishing Jund G1 I land a turn three grave titan. G2 he has active PFires, Liliana, and a Goyf going. I draw grave titan but he fires the zombies and edicts me. I draw veteran explorer, which he lets live. Next turn I draw Recurring Nightmare. He reads it before letting it resolve, and suddenly I have Grave Titan back. I end the loop with Eternal Witness getting back Brainstorm so that he can't liliana uptick to get rid of Nightmare. He kills Grave Titan again but dies to the reload + Phantasmal Image.

2-2

R5 vs Reanimator

G1 we strip each other's hands and he reanimates a turn three Grizzel. I Redcap him to seven, ship turn, and deceiver tap Grizzel on his upkeep. On my turn I land titan, and his only out is exhuming an Elesh Norn, which he doesn't find off of his seven. (not even always a md card) G2 He kills me turn two. G3 we strip each other's hand before glen elendra comes online naturally. He eventually sticks a Grizzel, but I have deceiver to tap it for lethal.

Never played a Pod, Deathrite, or Ooze this match, just killed him with discard and random garbage.

3-2

R6 vs Jeff Rasmussen with RUG

Matchup is a bye. Like it's good for normal 'Fit, but even better with four strix and more gas.

4-2

R7 vs Paul Morelli with Shardless BUG

Game one he Hymns me into Lili into Jace, but I stick a Pod and he dies. G2 I therapy his Jace and kill him with Pod again.

This matchup is actually close, and very losable if they open with an early shardless into visions to destroy whatever you're trying to do. Paul boarded in Submerge, which I think is a mistake, though it did fog my pod chain a couple times.

R8 vs Elves

G1 he kills me turn three while I need one more turn to deed, g2 I strip his hand and kill him with Pod, g3 I get hung up on a clique line and this tunnel vision makes me miss an obviously better line, and I completely punt the game and match.

Still playing like garbage. Deck is complex, fun, and very hard at times.

5-3

R9 vs Storm

Game one I open with Explorer and he makes 12 1/1s. I sack explorer to tower and make a strix, ooze, and second explorer. I block, taking nine, and the second explorer trigger lets ooze eat on his turn. On my turn three I brainstorm and have redcap, image, and glen elendra to put the game away. G2 I mull to four and he opens with goblins again, and I don't find a golgari charm. G3 I keep therapy, explorer, mindbreak, lands and open with therapy on probe. My reasoning was that I'd seen probe both previous games but only one duress and silence in game two, so I actually didn't know how many duress he had since it could be split with silence. I was trying to protect the mindbreak, but this was a bad line as his hand could go off turn one with a duress for my trap. He doesn't have mana floating and ad nauses down to one before passing the turn. I draw negate, pass. He tries comboing and negate bricks him. I untap, flash back therapy (thanks ad naus) and play a strix. He dies.

6-3

Overall list felt great and I had a lot of fun. Wish I'd mulled more aggressively in the opening rounds and hadn't punted so much, but some of that is inexperience with some of the (very) complex lines that come up.

Also, Recurring Nightmare is incredibly orgasmabonkers in this deck. Never lost a game after sticking it or Grave Titan.

Shriekmaw was the only five drop I was consistently happy to pod up, but it's also dead vs a giant chunk of the field. Hmm. Has to be a good five drop vs spells out there. Like I really like the redcap/glen elendra split on the four drops.

[guelahpapyrus]

The reason I cut Recurring Nightmare from a lot of my lists was theorycrafting with Deathrite everywhere. You didn't run into that issue it seems? (Pod seems so well positioned to use Recurring Nightmare. Hell, that's one of my favorite cards from the old lists, definitely one of the cards that made me love this deck.)

[guelahpapyrus]

Liliana fits very well in both my builds. The Punishing list is designed to use her as best as possible. You have 4 Fire, 4 Grove and 4 Top to find the Combo fast. And with those 4 Top and the 3 Thoughtseize you can reach that "unless I don't have a card in hand" state quickly.
In BUG she forms a great tag team with Jace. The two combined usually make the game end very quickly in your favor.

What I like about her in general is her flexibility:
- keeps Combo decks down so they have a much harder time coming back from your initial Discard. Thoughtseize/Therapy followed up by Liliana is much more devastating for them than Thoughtseize/Therapy followed up by creature pressure.
- a random Edict against Aggro, not very good but it helps
- backing up Deed/Decay/Fire by clearing what they can't hit (most notably Tombstalker from TA and Progenitus from Elves)
- she forces Miracle decks into a role that they are not designed to play, being active. Because if they can't deal with her quickly they lose to her ultimate.

I find Inquisition/Thoughtseize in general very close. I think Punishing lists can deal with the lifeloss a bit better than BUG so I chose IoK in BUG. It doesn't really matter I think, Thoughtseize is great, too.

I never thought of the Jace/Lilliana interaction! Makes a lot of sense. (I just need three more. How many more boxes of bulk commons can I trade? That's the game I'm playing now.)

[TheArchitect]

...

Shriekmaw was the only five drop I was consistently happy to pod up, but it's also dead vs a giant chunk of the field. Hmm. Has to be a good five drop vs spells out there. Like I really like the redcap/glen elendra split on the four drops.

Congrats on the decent finish Caleb. I still think thragtusk is a good 5 drop to have access to. But maybe having access to 3 different 5 drops isn't a bad idea. For the anti-spell/combo creature Sadistic Hypnotist might be the best option. It is dependent on having creatures, but at the very least can sac itself. And if you have a finks,archmage or just a couple mana guys out, making your opponent immediately discard 4-8 cards seems pretty good. Other probably less good options are Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir+counterspells or Spiketail Drake.

[Tao]

@Recurring Nightmare: I didn't think of it but Caleb is right when he says that Nightmare gets better in Pod lists because these lists are full of tutorable value creatures. Caleb has Strix, Finks, Redcap, Archmage, Slime, Shriekmaw on top of the usual Witness, Explorer, Tusk and Titan. So it gets more powerful as well as eliminating the risk that the Nightmare is not good without interaction from the opponent because you don't have drawn useful creatures for it.
In general running a Nightmare is still a good option if you are confident to handle Shaman and have the creature base to support it.

Gratz @Caleb.

5-drop slot: I am fairly certain there is nothing useful in these colors. Reveillark is great but would require a splash and that is difficult.
I had 2 Archmages in my list to compensate for the lack of 5-drop spell control options and to have a third 4-drop. My problem with Hypnotist was that it was too inconsistent. I often didn't have enough random dorks around and never wanted to sac it to itself because then I'd have to start the Pod Chain all over again.
Meloku might be an option in the 5-Mana-slot. Doesn't solve any problems so that might be an issue but he should be good in general when he comes out of a Pod and you have a lot of mana and need quick big impact.

Mana Base: Shouldn't it be 3 Forest, 2 Island instead of 4/1?

[jbone2016]

5-drops
Blue
Body Double-Seems cute
Peregrine Drake-More ramp?
River Kelpie-This seems interesting....
Black
Morkrut Banshee-one time removal?
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen-Also mentioned before..another win con?
Puppeteer Clique-This one seems really nice.
Shadowborn Demon-Doesn't seem bad, bigger body then shriekmaw.
Green
Deranged Hermit-Of Course
Kodama of the North Tree-Nice Beatstick, 3g is a little harsh

Thoughts?

[Ecstatic_Conch]

Caleb's article has sparked my interest in pod, but I have to admit I'm more interested in playing white instead of blue. White has voice, reveilark, and sun titan. I cut green sun zenith in favor of just playing more creatures, it's awkward to try to green sun for something and then pod on the same turn. This is a first draft of a list I came up with, it seems OK in the abstract, but if you guys have any suggestions let me know. It would be nice to have a way to discard elesh norn beyond therapy to rec-nightmare it in. I've thought about academy rector too but I'd rather just play more recurring nightmare. The deck looks super weak to combo game one.

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Voice of Resurgence (maybe strangleroot geist)
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Bone Shredder
1 Eternal Witness
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Acidic Slime
1 Reveillark
1 Sun Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

4 Birthing Pod
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Recurring Nightmare
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate

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

SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb

I also have to agree with caleb about thragtusk. I find the card incredibly underwhelming. He's flat out embarrassing against batterskull. I run into a lot of stoneblade decks in my meta, and when you ramp your opponent game one they have more than enough mana to equip batterskull to something or return it to their hand, so trading with a thragtusk is great for them not you. The life gain is relevant against burn and U/W delver but both of those decks really have no problem killing you before you get to 5 mana. U/W delver's daze and force in particular make thrag pretty bad. I don't know, I'm sure he's great against something but honestly I'm not in love with the card.

[Tao]

I experimented with White Pod but couldn't come up with a satisfying list. What I learned:

- Rector should be played at least as a 1-off. The option to tutor for Deed is too good to not use. Maybe also a Collective Blessing or a Primeval Bounty on top of Recurring Nightmare.
- In the SB you should play Orzhov Pontiff (Death and Taxes, Elves, Maverick, Goblins), Qasali Pridemage (Sneak Attack, Omnitell, Miracles, Blade) and Sin Collector (every Combo matchup).
- I don't think you need Elesh Norn. When would you ever want to sacrifice a Titan?
- also, why Vindicate and SB Pulses over Abrupt Decay?

[igri_is_a_bk]

Did you try to incorporate a combo kill in the Pod version? My inclination is that would be one of the major reasons to add Pod. GSZ does a perfectly fine job of fetching silver bullets as answers, but Pod does a better job of comboing creatures together. My other suspicion was the lack of Dryad Arbor (even without GSZ) since you're on green fetches and it can be used to Pod up DRS or Explorer. Were these ideas already tested?

[Arianrhod]

I've actually been tinkering with the Pod shell for Thune for a little while now after being unhappy with Living Wish, and I've finally come to a testable list. Here's what I'm going to start testing with:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Strangleroot Geist
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Spike Feeder
1 Academy Rector
1 Murderous Redcap
1 [can't remember]
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Sun Titan

3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare

3 Birthing Pod
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Diabolic Intent

mana base (same as I've used forever now)
3/3/2
3/2/1
3/3
2

//SB

3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
1 Mindslicer
1 Sin Collector
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Batterskull
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Nether Void
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Nevermore

I wish I could remember what the third 4-drop was that I had laid out ._.

The things that GBW loses from BUG are Baleful Strix, Phantasmal Image (turn an Explorer into the best thing in play), Exarch (cheat on Pod chains), and perhaps most importantly Glen Elendra Archmage.

The early defense of Strix can be offset by additional lifegain (which happens to feed into the combo), as well as by a pair of Voice of Resurgence / Geist slots. I'm starting with them each at 1 because I don't know which will prove to be better.

Unfortunately, the other three don't really have good replacements. From white, though, we pick up the Archangel combo, Rector for easy Nightmare access, Sigarda, and a (IMO) better Titan. Both versions have respectable sideboard options, but I believe white narrowly wins thanks to Orzhov Pontiff + Nevermore, along with access to the combat planeswalkers to really brutalize fair decks.

I'll note that if I end up feeling adventurous, I may try 4 colors. It wouldn't be hard to add on like 1-2 blue duals and 1 island, and in exchange we could pick up Strix over Voice/Geist/1 STE, Exarch over 1 Spike Feeder or Kitchen Finks, and 1 Glen Elendra over whatever 4 drop I'm forgetting. Then, the sideboard could be composed of the best of both worlds -- the permanent hate of white, along with the stack disruption of blue. This approach may be better with Deathrite Shaman in the deck, which would likely include trade-offs elsewhere.

[KntrellCL]

Ive been working on this BGw list

Pod Rock

Creatures [17]
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Heons
1 Primeval Titan


Engine [10]
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Birthing Pod
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Diabolic Intent

Removals [9]
4 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed

Discard [4]
4 Cabal Therapy

Lands [21]
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacomb
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
3 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

I think geist is better than voice because it persist... you dont want to sacrifice voice for a 3cmc creature

[Gheizen64]

Theros has some cards that i think need consideration right now, in particular:

Xenagos: The 0 is pretty good and get stupid really fast (2, 6, 12, 20 damage, divided between several creatures). The Pro-white dragon has haste (good against JTMS and walkers in general), and pro-white mean they can't sword it (and he don't care about angel woo). Haste also mean sweepers would still take 4 damage before they can do anything about it. The monstrous ability is also something that you can sometimes activate in this kind of deck, and while extremely costly, it make him a 7/7 flier that can ping or bolt your opponent.
Destructive reverly is a possible sideboard card, but i don't think we really care about the 2 damage in this deck.

Maybe something like this?

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 StormBreath Dragon

3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Xenagos

4 Punishing Fire
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Innocent Blood
2 Living Wish
2 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Treetop Village
3 Grove of the Burnwillows


SB: 1 Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Maze of Ith
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Wickerbough Elder
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Shriekmaw
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 2 Pyroblast


Punishing fires build are pretty good against Grixis and blood moon if you expect some of those after their recent success. Xenagos is an infinite stream of 2/2, and lifegain is not as important right now i feel so he get a nod over huntmaster. Xenagos also murder JTMS and most of Miracle decks if you manage to cast him. With 3 innocent bloods, Deed, DRS and punishing fires, RUG should be pretty easy too. You got the full 8 discard package for combo, hope that's enough pre-board, get 6 blast after board. The Wishboard is a relic and i've got no idea if i'd ever keep wish in the deck (it's cute for sure Grove and Maze i guess). StormDragon is basically unkillable by most of the top decks, barring double bolts, and sorcery speed removal still take 4 to the face. Monstrous is super costly but it's a nice perk in some games and you often have mana to spare lategame, giving you a sink.
Pernicious is amazing against elves, and most of the format really. Grixis basically fold to it, Elves fold to it, RUG fold to it, Blood Moon decks fold to it if they can't Blood Moon before you play it, Miracle can't play angels as long as it's down, and D&T also hate this shit. Only thing it isn't good against is Omniscience/S&T decks. You have the 8 discard package for it, plus blasts in the SB.

EDIT: wow forgot that AD was printed since i last played this deck. Maybe remove the wishboard entirely? Not having tutors may make the deck a bit too unconsistent...

[Tao]

I think Xenagos is worse than Garruk Relentless. While it is nice that his tokens have Haste at fighting other Planeswalkers, I think that shooting DR Shamans, Stoneforge Mystics, Delvers that would kill you or your own Explorers is better.
The new Dragon is interesting because it does not get hit by any spot removal except Dismember. But I still don't think he is what the deck wants. He is too small (unless you activate his overcosted, otherwise useless, Monstrosity ability) and if he gets Edicted by Liliana or Terminus'ed you gained nothing.

[Arianrhod]

I think Xenagos is worse than Garruk Relentless. While it is nice that his tokens have Haste at fighting other Planeswalkers, I think that shooting DR Shamans, Stoneforge Mystics, Delvers that would kill you or your own Explorers is better.
The new Dragon is interesting because it does not get hit by any spot removal except Dismember. But I still don't think he is what the deck wants. He is too small (unless you activate his overcosted, otherwise useless, Monstrosity ability) and if he gets Edicted by Liliana or Terminus'ed you gained nothing.

/barn

The one exception is that if one was to brew some kind of X-spell based Jund list with like Rosheen Meanderer, Rakdos's Return, Bonfire, Profane Command, GSZ, etc. In such a build, I could see Xenagos alongside ramp critters being decent, because Xenagos could help power out the huge X-spells that such a build would be based around. His ultimate is useless for us, sadly -- his merits are solely his +1 and his -0, and on those merits alone, he's worse than Relentless.

We don't even run Thundermaw. I don't think that Stormbreath is any better, at all. Pro-white is kind of cool, but he's too small to do anything meaningful with that protection. Flyers needs to be 5-power to matter, IMO (for us, obviously, not in general).

----------

Got in some between-rounds testing last night with Thune. Deck seemed pretty gross overall, although the creature selection needs refining. The missing 4-drop that I was forgetting was Trostani, because I felt like testing her out (and her synergy with Archangel is solid). Playable green 4-drops are pretty few and far between, sadly. I'm going to try to run Thune at my other local tomorrow night (yes, I have two locals. I'm spoiled), probably with a few changes to the creature base.

In other news, I really want some artifact hate in my board for Scape. I wish there was a Reverent Silence for artifacts ._. I'm not sure that I care enough to run Pulverize, but I'm getting tired of not having a Wishable artifact sweeper.

[rednose]

/barn

The one exception is that if one was to brew some kind of X-spell based Jund list with like Rosheen Meanderer, Rakdos's Return, Bonfire, Profane Command, GSZ, etc. In such a build, I could see Xenagos alongside ramp critters being decent, because Xenagos could help power out the huge X-spells that such a build would be based around. His ultimate is useless for us, sadly -- his merits are solely his +1 and his -0, and on those merits alone, he's worse than Relentless.

We don't even run Thundermaw. I don't think that Stormbreath is any better, at all. Pro-white is kind of cool, but he's too small to do anything meaningful with that protection. Flyers needs to be 5-power to matter, IMO (for us, obviously, not in general).

----------

Got in some between-rounds testing last night with Thune. Deck seemed pretty gross overall, although the creature selection needs refining. The missing 4-drop that I was forgetting was Trostani, because I felt like testing her out (and her synergy with Archangel is solid). Playable green 4-drops are pretty few and far between, sadly. I'm going to try to run Thune at my other local tomorrow night (yes, I have two locals. I'm spoiled), probably with a few changes to the creature base.

In other news, I really want some artifact hate in my board for Scape. I wish there was a Reverent Silence for artifacts ._. I'm not sure that I care enough to run Pulverize, but I'm getting tired of not having a Wishable artifact sweeper.

Vandalblast, Shatterstom and Shatter spree are the only red artifact sweepers I can think of. You also have creeping corrosion if you want to cast it on the same turn you tutor for it and you're worried about red mana availability.

[Arianrhod]

Vandalblast, Shatterstom and Shatter spree are the only red artifact sweepers I can think of. You also have creeping corrosion if you want to cast it on the same turn you tutor for it and you're worried about red mana availability.

Pulverize and Seeds of Innocence are the two that top my list. Pulverize is serious scorched earth tactics, and I don't think that the 'free' nature of the spell is worth the cost. Vandalblast could be a consideration, but the fact that two of the decks that I would want the card against (MUD and UBTezz) are both Chalice of the Void decks makes V-blast a little awkward.

[guelahpapyrus]

You know, at the risk of sounding naive, I think I'm gonna test that new RG walker in Nic Fit. Backup ramp (sorta, if only we played more creatures), and a good stream of tokens, and if we ever get to ultimate him it could be... okay. Bah, I guess that's why he's not too good for us. Too many spells that aren't creatures in most lists (at least mine).

[kabards]

any thoughts on new spoiled reaper of the wild?

[eq.firemind]

any thoughts on new spoiled reaper of the wild?
She competes with Thrun and Huntmaster of the Fells.
I guess both are better since they do something uefull if and opponent have StP and :w: open.
Gorgon has Hexproof, but you better just drop Titan or Zenith=>Thragtusk for 6 mana.

[Nithkar]

could Erebos take the improve draw enchantment place on Rector builds? may even better with the ones that run pod?

[KntrellCL]

I really like the idea of Erebos on birthing pod list. Could be the new draw engine

[Arianrhod]

Played Thune's new shell last night, to a 2nd place finish at the local. Beat Shardless, lost to Reanimator (which took 1st), beat BUG Delver, beat Scapewish. Some thoughts...

The creatures definitely need tuned up. Pod was always disgusting when it was online, even when I only had 1 or 2 choices left in deck at any given point on the chains. Redcap was surprisingly solid -- he shot a couple Delvers, a couple Deathrites, and knocked a t2 Liliana off of ultimate so I could deal with it. Against Scape, my hand got tore apart via Therapy into Rakdos's Return, but I had landed a Pod, and I was able to combo before him just via Podding.

Rector -> Nightmare is as good as ever. Game 1 vs Shardless he had a solid hand, but he didn't have Deathrite, and Nightmare tore him a new one by itself.

Voice terrified the BUG Delver player, but was otherwise was fairly mediocre. It was nice that he was a solid roadblock early in the game, but I think there are probably better options. Sigarda, Thrag, and the Archangels were fine all night. Sun Titan never happened, but I liked having the security blanket of knowing that if my Nightmare and my Witness were both gone, the Titan could get them back. Might be just better as a 2nd Witness, but blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

A whole lot of things never came up, actually. I hardly saw Spike Feeder, I never drew Diabolic Intent, I never drew the Strangleroot, etc. The deck overall was playing significantly more aggroish than I really liked. I mean, the white version has always had more of an aggro plan than the other colors, but I dunno. Some of that may be my creature choices. That said, I was overall much more pleased with the Birthing Pod shell than the Living Wish shell -- having full access to my sideboard was excellent. I'm going to take some time and refine the creature choices a bit, and then I'll present an updated Thune list.

----------

Erebos is strictly worse than Greed. We don't play Greed. Ergo, we shouldn't play Erebos. Keep in mind that we will never, EVER have Devotion to Black online for him. We're the only deck in legacy that actually has significant lifegain built in. Yes, he can be Podded into. But whether that's better than Podding into basically any other 4-drop that does basically anything, I'm not sure. As for Rectoring, I'm confidant that both Sylvan Bounty and Recycle are still better than Erebos. Erebos + Null Profusion might be kind of a thing, just because Erebos acts as a failsafe so you can't get draw-step-locked, plus it gives you 3/5 Devotion (between Erebos and Profusion), but ehhhhhhhhhhh. I really don't see it, guys.

[Bobmans]

https://sphotos-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/182333_472186042888964_812533769_n.jpg

Too cute or brute in a BUG list?

[Absolutflipz]

Decided to run this at a local weeknight legacy event to change things up, and since the deck plays two of my favorite cards of all time, Recurring Nightmare and Birthing Pod, it was a blast.

I couldn't find a Shadowborn Demon before the tourney, so I ran a Venser, Shaper Savant instead.

In a taking a quick look, I didn't notice any lists with him in it...any particular reason? He was pretty sweet as a catch-all answer.

I also like the idea of a Meloku over the Thragtusk...or at least searching for a more impactful 5-drop over Tusk.

Deck was sweet, I ran the 3 Pod/2 Recur split. Went 2-1-1, losing to RUG on a really bad punt from just being raw to the deck and a draw to a miracles player who played way too slow and I'm pretty sure I would've won the match given more time(being a weekly event, it's a rough situation to get pushy).

[Ayotte]

https://sphotos-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/182333_472186042888964_812533769_n.jpg

Too cute or brute in a BUG list?

Maybe if we weren't so reliant on GSZ to drop fatties after we ramp.

[Tao]

So I made a lot of test games with Punishing Nic Fit for the past days, optimized the version and wrote a little primer including matchups and SB plans for the decks in the DTB section. I feel very confident about the card choices and the strength of the deck in the current Meta.

Decklist:

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

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Punishing Fire
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Abrupt Decay

SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Slaughter Games
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Sylvan Ranger
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless


About the deck:

Punishing Nic Fit is a pure Control deck. It plays a lot of board and hand control elements and strives for conistency, card advantage and a powerful late game.

The first reason to play with Punishing Fire is of course the Punishing Fire - Grove of the Burnwillows Combo. In general getting value out of lands is an effect that Nic Fit desires because it helps you to do stuff with your mana and acts as flood protection. It kills the plethora of great 1-drops and 2-drops, keeps Tribal decks under control and gains value over the course of the game. Very importantly it also answers Planeswalkers, especially Jace TMS, who can be very problematic for Nic Fit.
The second reason to play this version are the Red Elemental Blasts and Slaughter Games from the Sideboard. They are exactly the cards you want to optimize your Sideboard plans and no other version of Nic Fit has SB cards as good as these. The biggest problems Nic Fit has are Combo decks and Jace the Mind Sculptor and the red SB cards help to fight these.

In the early game this version maximizes the chance of finding and triggering a Veteran Explorer with 4 Top and 4 Punishing Fire. It is not ideal to trigger Explorer with Punishing Fire but it will do if you need it. It also allows you to play no other mana creatures in the main that would either be inferior (Sakura Tribe Elder, Sylvan Ranger) or get killed 3/4 of the time (DR Shaman). Just don't blindly ramp against decks with Jace without anything to follow up, especially against Miracles.

In the midgame you have the full amount of Sensei's Tops to make sure you draw the right ratio of mana and spells as well as the right type of spells. As a nonblue ramp deck this is very important because draws with 3 Explorers are as bad as draws with too little mana. You have a lot of removal to make sure you can keep the board under control. You have Fire and Decay to get rid of early Confidants, Deathrite Shamans and Delvers, Deed as a reset button and Liliana can act as additional removal or kill things like Tombstalker or Progenitus that you otherwise can't kill. Liliana of the Veil is very good in this list in general. Her Discard ability is great against Miracle decks and Combo decks and less harmful for this than it is for other Nic Fit lists because you can Discard Punishing Fire to her. The 4 Tops and the high chance of getting Explorer to trigger allows you to empty your hand quickly in case you don't have the Combo. Forcing both players into topdeck mode is not a bad thing, especially if you have a Top, tick up a Liliana and strong cards in your deck.

As GSZ targets for the midgame you have either Huntmaster as a simple solid value guy, Thrun to pressure Planeswalkers or Witnesses to recycle Removal or Discard spells.

In the late game this version is designed to win with Primeval Titan. Your main way of sealing the deal against fair decks is to get a Titan into play. He will get a combination of Kessig Wolf Run, Two Towers and Groves for your Punishing Fires. Unless you are too far behind already a resolved Titan should be better than anything other fair decks do. Groves and Two Towers are good at grinding out the game while Kessig Wolf Run will turn Thrun into an evil machine and kill the opponent very quickly.


Matchups:


Miracles

- the game plays out different than other fair matchups because with Jace TMS and Entreat they have big threats, too. So don't use your Explorers carelessly or they will backfire. In G1 you usually want to trigger an Explorer with Therapy at least once but do it a bit later, more carefully and when you know you have a strong follow-up.
- Top is awesome, keep it around, don't lose it to Counterbalance. Don't risk flipping it for no good reason.
- Spend your early turns building up towards your game plans. Decay and Deed are important to keep Counterbalance off the table, try to get a Liliana into play.
- Liliana is amazing. They have a hard time dealing with her. If you have Fire-Grove going that's ideal but even if you don't, build up to her ultimate.
- Use Fire/Grove and Thrun to pressure/kill Jace.
- If you are able to take control of the game try to have a Deed in play to not lose to Entreat the Angels.

Postboard you have a bit of a transformational SB plan. You take out all your Explorers and Therapies because ramping both sides is not that good. There is a Sylvan Ranger in the SB so you have a way to get Mana from early GSZ's. You get Red Blasts which are awesome in this matchup because they can kill Jace on the stack as well as Slaughter Games to take care of their win conditions (Jace and Entreat).

- 4 Explorer
- 4 Therapy
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Punishing Fire
- 1 Phyrexian Tower
+ 4 Red Blast
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 2 Slaughter Games
+ 1 Sylvan Ranger
+ 1 Decay
+ 1 Garruk Relentless


RUG
This matchup is almost exclusively about overcoming their Mana Denial. Stifle is the by far their best card against us because it hits Explorer triggers, Deeds and Fetchlands. Cabal Therapy should usually either go for Brainstorm or for Stifle, depending on the situation.
The matchup is very positive overall. Explorers are great against their denial plan and the deck approximately has one removal for each threat they play.
Post board not much changes, but it gets even a little better. You don't get any insane cards but little upgrades. This is the only matchup in which you side out Huntmaster because he doesn't size up well against their deck. Red Blast can slow down their cantripping, kill a Delver or protect a trigger from Stifle.
Normal RUG lists don't have much to bring in, they might bring Submerge instead of Bolt so if you use a fetchland with an Explorer in play they might shuffle it away, so play around that if you have the chance to but don't worry too much.

- 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 3 Punishing Fire
- 2 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
+ 1 Sylvan Ranger
+ 4 Red Elemental Blast


Shardless
They are stronger early on but you have the better late game. It is often about recovering from Hymn and Liliana and building up your Mana. You can overcome some card disadvantage with card quality. Your goal is to resolve a Titan so you can go over the top of what they do. Fire-Grove can kill eveything except Goyfs so that is good.
This is one of the few matchups in which you side out your Lilianas. Her discard doesn't match up well against Ancestral Visions, her Edict ability is bad against Shardless Agents and she dies to Decay. Red Blast is great because it can hit Vision, Jace and Brainstorm.

- 1 Eternal Witness
- 2 Thoughtseize
- 3 Liliana of the Veil
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
+ 1 Garruk Relentless
+ 4 Red Elemental Blast


SnT
Preboard is your worst matchup besides 12-Post or Stage/Depths Combo decks, though with 2 Thoughtseizes and 3 Lilianas in addition to Therapies you have the Tools to steal G1 wins from them.
Postboard it gets much better, the matchup gets at least even. Red Blast and Slaughter Games are amazing. They bring in the White Leyline so side in the Golgari Charms for that. Charm can also hit idle Sneak Attacks which are not uncommon and a great danger if you manage to keep them on 0 cards with Liliana. The White Leyline is obviously very strong against us but that is not the biggest concern. It is their matchup to lose. If they Mulligan for it, have Multiples or keep bad hands because of it you might be able to win with Red Blasts, Surgicals and Liliana.

- 2 Abrupt Decay
- 4 Punishing Fire
- 3 Pernicious Deed
- 1 Thragtusk
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Veteran Explorer
- 1 Stronghold
+ 4 Red Blast
+ 2 Slaughter Games
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 2 Surgical
+ 2 Golgari Charm
+ 1 Sylvan Ranger


Elves!
You play Fire and Deed so the matchup isn't the worst but it is certainly not easy either. They can kill you with Glimpse and Order quickly and Symbiote can also get out of control quickly. But if you survive the early turns and you get Fire/Grove going you are in a good position. Liliana is an important tool here because her "+1" ability prevents them from storing Elves and then going off with a topdecked Glimpse. Her Edict can also be useful as simple extra removal but more importantly to get rid off a big thing they GSZ'ed for. Sideboarding doesn't change much but it you get a couple of nice cards.

- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 1 Thragtusk
- 2 Explorer
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Kessig Wolf Run
+ 2 Golgari Charm
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Garruk Relentless
+ 1 Abrupt Decay


Jund
The matchup plays very similar to the Shardless matchup. Jund might overrun you with DR Shaman, Hymn, Confidant and Liliana but you have tools to fight back. If the game goes long and nothing went wrong you should have an edge because thanks to Titan you have more Fire/Grove and because with Two Towers + Thragtusk you won't die.
Post board not much changes because both decks have not much useful to bring in. You should side out the Lilianas, they are awful against Jund.

- 3 Liliana of the Veil
+ 1 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Garruk Relentless
+ 1 Abrupt Decay


AnT
Similarly to SnT decks you can steal wins in G1 but it is not easy. The key cards are your Discard spells, Liliana and Scavenging Ooze.
G2 gets much, much better. More Discard and more disruption instead of the many clunky cards from G1. The Red Blasts slow down their cantripping, especially the Brainstorm in response to Discard. For Empty the Warrens you keep the Deeds in. They are better than Golgari Charm because they can't be discarded anymore once they are on the battlefield and they can blow up idle LED's and Petals (which are not a rare sight due to Liliana).

- 2 Abrupt Decay
- 4 Punishing Fire
- 1 Volrath's Stronghold
- 1 Explorer
- 1 Thrun, the Lats Troll
- 1 Thragtusk
- 1 Primeval Titan
+ 4 Red Elemental Blast
+ 2 Slaughter Games
+ 2 Surgical Extraction
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Sylvan Ranger


Death and Taxes
This is not a bye like it looks on paper but you do have a clear edge and should be able to kill all their creatures with Fire, Decay, Liliana and Deed.
Post board the matchup gets a bit worse. They bring Rest in peace which is very good but most importantly they have Cataclysm which is the real threat. Be aware of that and - if you have the chance to do so - keep lands in hand, Basic Lands in the deck and an Explorer on the battlefield. On the other hand you get Golgari Charm which is also a blowout (it kills Mother or Runes, Thalia, Revoker, Mindcensor, Flickerwisp and Mangara).

- 1 Thoughtseize
- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Thragtusk
+ 2 Golgari Charm
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
+ 1 Sylvan Ranger


Deathblade
They want to play a fair game but you are better at that than they are. Punishing Fire kills everything they have, Therapy is great against Stoneforge Mystic and Deeds are also great. If the game goes long you have the better late game thanks to your Titan.
Post board not much changes. Red Blasts are okay, they get Jace and Brainstorm, but I don't think you want all 4 because they do nothing early on against Shaman, Mystic and Confidant. They won't have anything that is significantly better than any of their maindeck cards, either. Side out all Lilianas at the first sight of Lingering Souls.

+ 2 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Garruk Relentless
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
- 2 Thoughtseize
- 1 - 1 Scavenging Ooze

[Star|Scream]

Very good primer, Tao!

[uncletiggy]

New to the deck putting together a gbw pod version very similar to arianrhod my questions are is thrun and sigarda too redundant and if so should thrun be a wickerbourgh elder? If not what would my third four drop be.

Second question might be noobish(well definetly is) but I am correct in thinking I can sac shriek maw in response to the evoke trigger to pod into a titan if so would it be better to just play a fourth five drop and play two shriekmaw?

Third question I have a deathrite shaman and glissa where sakura tribe elder is how important is the two drop slot currently I only have ooze and 2 strangleroot giests with the ooze in place of diabolic intent.

Fourth and final question my only rector targets are deed is this right or should I be dropping her keeping thrun and adding elder or baloth to keep just ticking up the life total? thanks in advance

[Qweerios]

@Ayotte,

I saw potential in Phophet of Kruphix as well. I think she might have a home in a BUG Fit list with mainboard FoW and Far // Away. This way, you could go on about casting your usual business while untapping to hardcast FoW or some straight up Counterspells. It also opens up a lot of mana during your opponent's turn for Far // Away and Cryptic Command tricks with Eternal Witness. All your creatures get Vigilance and giving Eternal Witness Flash with some counterspells in the yard turns her into a snapcaster.

[Arianrhod]

Currently 2-0 at philly. Beat uwr delver and burn. Steve is 1-1 with thune. I've also seen a bug pod version as well, who said he's from the source.

[HPB_Eggo]

@ Prophet of Kuphrix: I actually think it has a lot of potential usefulness in a BUG list, and here's why...

1) Obviously more mana is always great. While it can't be used on casting GSZ for creatures, that's not really a huge issue, at least IMO.

2) Flashing into Baleful Strix or Coiling Oracle EOT seems really good, particularly since it's just going to generate more and more CA. Can also do some really cute things with flashing Strix in in response to attackers, or using it with Academy Ruins and a second Strix to chain through several before/after combat.

3) You can tap out and still retain control of the game even without FoW. IMO if you run Prophet you are actually less likely to be in favor of running FoW MD, simply because you can retain control later on with non-free counters so long as Prophet is out there. You obviously still want it in the SB, but I think the better option would be to relegate it entirely to there.


If only it let you cast everything as thought it had Flash, but at that point it would probably be way too good with GSZ...

[Arianrhod]

3-1. Beat uwr delver again, then lost to mud.

[jbone2016]

Ugh. Looks like philly is overrun with show and tells. Card is getting a little annoying.

[Tao]

Go Arian. Avoid those SnT decks.


New to the deck putting together a gbw pod version very similar to arianrhod my questions are is thrun and sigarda too redundant and if so should thrun be a wickerbourgh elder? If not what would my third four drop be.

Second question might be noobish(well definetly is) but I am correct in thinking I can sac shriek maw in response to the evoke trigger to pod into a titan if so would it be better to just play a fourth five drop and play two shriekmaw?

Third question I have a deathrite shaman and glissa where sakura tribe elder is how important is the two drop slot currently I only have ooze and 2 strangleroot giests with the ooze in place of diabolic intent.

Fourth and final question my only rector targets are deed is this right or should I be dropping her keeping thrun and adding elder or baloth to keep just ticking up the life total? thanks in advance

- I don't think you want Thrun in a Pod list because he doesn't give you value when you sac him for a 5-drop. Murderous Redcap and Academy Rector are 4-drop cards I'd want to play in any white Pod version.
- You can't use Birthing Pod "in response" at all. You can only use in when the stack is empty. So that trick doesn't work.
- I don't think you need Tribe Elder in a Pod deck.
- At least one enchantment that does something to advance the board would be a good idea. Depending on the version Recurring Nightmare, Primeval Bounty and Collective Blessing are options.

[Arianrhod]

Wheels fell off. 3-3 now....deck has proceeded to start doing the no-land/all-land dance. Disappointed that with such a strong finish, I'm playing for 50 bucks. Pretty fucking lame.

[Arianrhod]

Dead by storm. Details tomorrow.

Haven't actually seen any show and tell around me....even when I was at th top tables earlier. Must be the scg pros who are getting feature matches I guess.

First scg I haven't cashed in a good while now...pretty bummed.

[jbone2016]

http://topdecker.gr/mtg-news/3108-theros-exclusive-card-preview-ashen-rider.html

So...seems like an upgrade to Angel of Despair in the board.

[jbone2016]

Well...that's gross.
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/ths/obasdfkjw8324lz/wzV6zscsvwB_EN_LR.jpg

[Star|Scream]

Arian, were you playing scape or thune?

[Blastoderm]

I've been testing a pod list for about a year or 2 (in addition to my standard GB) and have loved to pod my rector into recurring nightmare+thragtusk. It's usually my main wincon (unless i need to recur bone shredder to kill a bunch of annoying stuff, oh how I love you bone shredder!).

Now that deathrite exists, I was curious about everyone's opinion on adding Primeval Bounty as a secondary rector target. At the moment I have 1 Primeval Bounty, 1 Recurring Nightmare, 1 Pernicious Deed as targets. Bounty has been performing extremely well for me and is actually quite similar to thragtusk in the sense that it easily makes tokens and gains absurd amounts of life (especially with fetches). It also boosts explorers/deathrites to 4/4s. Graveyard hate as always been extremely effective vs me (strangleroot geist, reveillark, eternal witness, recurring nightmare, volrath's stronghold). I wanted to tone down on the graveyard strategy a bit, although I love how strangleroot geist puts pressure on planeswalkers whereas something like wall of blossoms doesn't. I also try to keep the "do nothing" creatures to a minimum which is why I like shriekmaw and boneshredder as they double as removal spells.

[jbone2016]

I've been testing a pod list for about a year or 2 (in addition to my standard GB) and have loved to pod my rector into recurring nightmare+thragtusk. It's usually my main wincon (unless i need to recur bone shredder to kill a bunch of annoying stuff, oh how I love you bone shredder!).

Now that deathrite exists, I was curious about everyone's opinion on adding Primeval Bounty as a secondary rector target. At the moment I have 1 Primeval Bounty, 1 Recurring Nightmare, 1 Pernicious Deed as targets. Bounty has been performing extremely well for me and is actually quite similar to thragtusk in the sense that it easily makes tokens and gains absurd amounts of life (especially with fetches). It also boosts explorers/deathrites to 4/4s. Graveyard hate as always been extremely effective vs me (strangleroot geist, reveillark, eternal witness, recurring nightmare, volrath's stronghold). I wanted to tone down on the graveyard strategy a bit, although I love how strangleroot geist puts pressure on planeswalkers whereas something like wall of blossoms doesn't. I also try to keep the "do nothing" creatures to a minimum which is why I like shriekmaw and boneshredder as they double as removal spells.

When I was running rector, I had faith's fetters in the main (as suggested per here) and then one O-ring in the board for various match ups.

[Arianrhod]

I don't have my notes with me, so I'm gonna make this pretty quick. I actually took better notes for this event, and am trying to improve my ability to retain details like what I take with Therapy and such, so I can evaluate if I'm making the correct calls there.

Anyway, I'm going to update the list in my sig to the latest edition of Scape, but basically my list was exactly as I've had it lately, with the changes I suggested after Baltimore. I moved the 2 Rakdos's Returns to the maindeck, and opted for a 3 Thoughtseize / 3 Slaughter Games / 2 Golgari Charm sideboard (along with the usual wishboard).

I also made one other change. I finally bit the bullet and put two fetchlands in the deck (1 Verdant 1 Foothills), cutting 1 Bayou 1 Forest for them.

Round 1: UWR Delver

Let me start by noting that this deck is really, really scary. I'd never actually played against it before, although I was, of course, aware of its existence.

Well, I had a 40 minute game one against this guy. I don't remember all of the details....suffice that I needed a separate sheet of paper when we eventually did move on to game two. He got me realllllllllllly low early on with a Batterskull + SFM beatdown. I finally stabilized at 3 life after Deeding away his Germ. I then Wish->Pulse, Pulse his Skull, forcing him to bounce it, and then Therapy it away. Nice 1-for-3, but I NEEDED to get rid of it. We both proceeded to flood out for a while, until he drew a Delver and played it. Now, I'm at 3. I have 7 lands in play, and he's at 38, with a few wastelands having hit mountains. I've had a Top running for most of the game, and my only card in hand is Scapeshift (the top of my deck is useless). I make the decision to Scapeshift rather than try to sandbag and pray that his Delver doesn't flip. Valakut kills the Delver, and puts him back down to a reasonable amount of life. After a couple turns, I finally land a Huntmaster (note that by this point 2 of my Green Suns had been countered), and go back to out-of-one-bolt-range. He hits it with a Swords, which gets me a bit more life. I then begin a parade of Thragtusks which slowly reverse the life totals until he finally succumbs. I had to use my remaining mountains as removal spells for his Grim Lavamancers, which was slightly awkward.....I had I think 1 mountain left in my deck by the end of this monster of a game.

Game 2 we played pretty expediently. He had a slower hand with a lot of power, if I recall correctly. I sandbagged a Therapy for his Stoneforge, and nabbed his Jitte, then hit his Geist of St Traft on flashback (again, I think). I had a lot of ramp, a Deed, and some dudes. I stabilize and then Shift him out on t5 of turns to go 2-0.

Round 2: Burn

I drew the half of my deck that included numerous Huntmasters and Thragtusks, and I had a t1 Veteran both games to block his Goblin Guide. He also opted not to get lands from Explorer for some reason, although I sincerely doubt it would have mattered in the slightest with how my deck was drawing. This whole round took ~10 minutes.

Round 3: UWR Delver (again)

My opponent led off with Volc+Delver, and proceeded to have a mix of cards that made me think RUG Delver. Eventually he ended up fetching a Tundra, and the mystery was revealed. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I'm pretty sure that I lost this game.

I also don't remember much of game two, but I think that was the game that I won. I have a dim recollection of ripping his hand apart with Therapy and then Shifting at some point. Game 3 he mulled to 5, and....yeah. It wasn't good for him.

He'd made a comment between games while boarding about the new Spike Feeder/Thune lists with Recurring Nightmare, which he really liked. This told me that he was a Sourcer, because nobody else would even be aware of that -- sure enough, he's on this site (River Boa). I opted not to introduce myself until after the match, though -- I'm pretty open about posting my decklists on here, and I didn't want him having perfect information on my full decklist, lol.

Round 4: MUD (...)

Annnnnnnnnd now the wheels fall off. I was playing Joe Marucci, who is a friend of mine, and I knew going into it that he was going to be on MUD. He didn't think that it was that bad of a matchup, and felt it was more like a coin flip. As it turns out, I should have won the match, but I threw it away.

I win the die roll, and lead off with an Explorer. He drops a t1 Chalice for 1, which shuts down a Top, and nothing else. I Zenith up a 2nd Explorer, and ship it back. He tanks, counts, and drops a Metalworker. I swing with my Explorers, and he makes the unexpected play of blocking one of them with his Metalworker (there is a reason for this). Now, here I throw the game. I had a Huntmaster and a Burning Wish in hand (and some other junk). If I fetched intelligently with my Explorer, I could have gotten a 2nd Mountain, which would have allowed me to Burning Wish for Pyroclasm, killing my 2nd Explorer and his Metalworker, which he was still on one land (he used Grim Monolith to play Metalworker). Instead, like a complete idiot, I default to my traditional Forest/Swamp fetch, and play Huntmaster, thinking that I can flip him next turn to kill the Metalworker.

Next turn he makes 8 with Metalworker, showing me a Sundering Titan in the process, which gets played and nukes 3 of my lands (this would be why he blocked with the Metalworker earlier). Soon Lightning Greaves and Welder join the party, which flickers Sundering Titan and I get bombed into the stone age.

Game two he mulls to 6, and I tear his hand apart with discard, as Thoughtseize + Therapy do some serious work. He never does anything of significance this game.

Game three, I keep a hand that, in retrospect, I've decided was bad. At the time it seemed like it was okay -- it had two lands, Thoughtseize, Deed, Scapeshift, and some other junk. It was a slow hand, to be sure, but it had disruption + artifact destruction + the win, so it seeeeeeeeeeeeeemed okay. Pretty sure it was actually a trap, though, and I needed to mull to look for something more explosive. He leads off Great Furnace + Goblin Welder, and passes it back. I Thoughtseize him, and get BLOWN OUT. His hand is 3 lands, Wurmcoil Engine, and Forgemaster. Tallying things up, I decide that the Forgemaster is less likely to be damaging (he doesn't have the necessary artifacts to use it, and he does have the mana to cast Forgemaster but not Wurmcoil), so I opt for that as the lesser of two evils. I never draw a land, and he comes online about 2-3 turns later, and I die.

Round 5: Goblins

He does some fairly typical Goblins stuff. I'm on 5 lands, and he's dead to the Shift in-hand if I get the lands. His board is Warchief + Piledriver (I already Pryoclasmed earlier in the game, taking out a huge chunk). I'm at like 12. I decide to Wish->Reanimate my Veteran, so I can kill him next turn, which is, you know, a fine / correct line on my end. He blows me out with a MAINDECK Surgical Extraction in resp to the Reanimate. He then proceeds to play another Piledriver and another goblin of some variety, and I die.

Game two I'm under basically no pressure, and I Shift pretty easily, while blocking him with ramp creatures on the way. At one point he stops me as I pass priority into mainphase 1. My only card in graveyard is a Tribe-Elder, and I have a Vet in play. I'm curious, and wonder what he's up to while he tanks. He lets me continue, though, and I just kind of /shrug and figure it's probably a Surgical. I found out later that it was in fact a Surgical, and he was thinking about using it to nuke my Tribe-Elders, but mostly to get information on my hand. Awkwardly, I had the other Tribe-Elder in my hand at the time, so if he had done it, it would have hurt. He agreed afterwards that had he known there were only two Tribe-Elders in my deck he wouldn't have considered it, and noted that he probably should've looked at that more closely when he surigcal'd my Explorers game one.

Game three he mulls to 4, I mull to 5. As I joked with one of my friends / my opponent after a few turns, you really wouldn't have known it. I had a strong five featuring a t2 Explorer into more ramp, and he had a strong four with a Vial, t2 Lackey, and a few lands. My Explorer and his Lackey just kind of stared at each other for a while, as we each built up board state. I'm ramping and ramping, but I'm not drawing anything useful. he draws 5 off of a pair of topdecked Ringleaders, and starts making a scary board. My own board isn't a pushover, though, as I've got a Huntmaster (which flipped to kill a Piledriver), a Thrag, some errant ramp dudes, and a couple wolves. Eventually he hits some spice, and uses a Goblin Diplomats to force my board to attack. He then drops two more Piledrivers and a Legion Loyalist, and one-shots me from the mid-30s. I never saw a Burning Wish, a Deed, a Golgari Charm, a Scapeshift, or a Top, which totals 14 cards of my deck. Considering how many lands I had out and everything else, I think I had about a 1/3 chance to draw business at any point that game....just never happened. Really disappointing.

Round 6: Merfolks

I'd been warned ahead of time by a friend that she was playing Fish. My friend did not tell me, though, that she was playing Stifle in it, as she had TRIPLE Stifle game 1. She Stifled a Tribe-Elder, Forced a Wood Elves, and Stifled a Pernicious Deed (I therapied the 3rd out of her hand when she derped and tried to Stifle something she couldn't). She had a very low clock, with just a Mutavault and a Lord of Atlantis. Luckily, though, I drew 1 non-land card the entire game, over about 7 turns. Seems real.

Game two she made a bunch of fish while I drew nothing but discard. Unfortunately, I didn't really have anything to board in. I'd usually leave in ~2 Therapies for the matchup, for counters at important junctures / free hits via Silvergill / hitting Lords or Vial if t1 on the play, but I also used to have Red Blasts in my sideboard to then bring in. Ultimately, this was another case of my deck just not drawing well.

Round 7: TES

At this point I'm pretty depressed after going 3-0 ---> 0-3, but I'm determined to not drop on the sour note of losing to back-to-back tribal decks because my deck has its head up its ass. My opponent leads off with a Probe into a Therapy. I'd kept a Veteran/Wish/Huntmaster/lands hand, and I got Tendrils'd for a sufficiently large amount on turn 2.

I actually felt pretty confidant going into game 2, since my list is much better equipped to fight TES than it used to be.

My hand in g2 was maybe a bit of a trap. I'm actually still undecided on it. It was as follows:

Therapy, Therapy, Zenith, Rakdos Return, Deed, Scapeshift, Wooded Foothills.

Obviously, this hand is the stone nuts with one more land. With one more land, you can triple Therapy into Return for whatever's left, you can Deed away Goblins or errant moxen/LEDs, and you have the kill already in hand. I ended up keeping it.

I wish I had my notes now, because this was actually a really interesting sequence. I Therapied blind, hitting an LED. He had....Dark Rit, Ad Naus, Brainstorm, Chrome Mox, Infernal Tutor, and Burning Wish, I think. Without the LED, his hand is basically unkeepable. He draws a Gemstone Mine, and plays it, then ships back. I brick my draw, and Therapy him. He Brainstorms in response. He's obviously going to hide the Ad Nauseum, so that isn't even a concern. I decide that he's choked on mana, and guess that he probably hid either Chrome Mox or Dark Ritual. I want to name whichever one he didn't hide. I decide to call Dark Ritual, and that was the second card he hid. He gained a Silence, another Brainstorm, and....a City of Brass. He plays the City and ships back, Silencing me on upkeep. I drew the land, and played it, but was forced to sit there. He couldn't go off yet either, so he was forced to send it back to me. I Zenithed up Explorer and fired off a Therapy, which he allowed to resolve.

I now realize that I missed something in my recollection, because his hand on this Therapy was impenetrable. My sequencing is off, even if all the parts are there. Anyway, what happened here is that he allowed Therapy to resolve (must've been on the flashback I guess), and his hand was thus:

Brainstorm
Probe
Infernal Tutor
Burning Wish
Chrome Mox
[card]?

I know from his Brainstorm that he hid Dark Ritual and Ad Naus on top of his deck, which is why I know that my sequencing in the above paragraph is wrong. His line here is to use Probe to draw Ad Nauseum, Chrome imprinting X, tap Chrome to dark Ritual, land, land, Ad Naus, win. I realize that he has a backup plan whereby he can just EoT Brainstorm to assemble the pieces, as well. Alternatively, I could take the Chrome Mox and try to brick him on mana, but he's going to get 3 cards deeper, which means he could hit another land / another Ritual to go off. Neither the Tutor nor the Wish is an option here, IMO. I ended up opting for the Gitaxian Probe. My reasoning was that I wanted him to not have perfect information -- I was still sandbagging Deed, and I wanted him to think that going Goblins was safe if he didn't draw into enough for Tendrils. I also wanted him running scared of Mindbreak Trap (even though I wasn't running it).

He EoT Brainstormed and proceeded to casually go off on his next turn, as he hit a 2nd Dark Ritual the 3rd card down.

The more I turn this sequence over in my head, the more I think that taking the Chrome Mox was correct. It's a total gamble -- he can Probe + Brainstorm to get 3 cards deeper, which means he's more likely to find the mana he needs -- but he might also brick. Taking Probe screwed up his stack and forced him to EoT Brainstorm to be able to go off, and it kept him from having information, but Storm players tend to just go balls deep vs Nic Fit anyway -- if they draw it, they jam it, basically. Taking the Brainstorm, of course, does nothing for me -- he still has his Probe stack -and- he still has the mana to Ad Naus. But yeah. Even if I'd gambled and hit the Chrome Mox and he HADN'T gotten there with his +3 draws, it wouldn't have mattered. My Rakdos Return would have only been for 3 (4 if I'd drawn a land), and he could've just kept Dark Ritual + Ad Nauseum as his two cards left in hand and proceeded to storm off from there. Bricking my second land drop (and his subsequent Silence) were what killed me. But, that was the risk I accepted when I decided to keep that hand. In an alternate universe I got there, tore his hand to shreds and then Shifted. And then probably died game three anyway.

Still, it was a sufficiently interesting game that, while still somewhat depressed, I was able to drop with a clean conscience.

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

Summary of changes:

I never resolved a Rakdos's Return that was useful on the day. I used it just as an X spell against UWR in the 4-minute slugfest round 1, but we were both so far on topdeck mode at that point that it was literally just an X spell (which is still reasonable at that point in the game). I have an uncomfortable feeling that the problem therein is that Rakdos's Return was innovated too late in the metagame, which has now shifted hardcore (more later on this).

I obviously missed Red Elemental Blast, mostly because of the 2x Delver decks (which I beat without it, but it would have been much, much easier with it) and because of the Merfolk deck.

The fetchlands were fantastic, both as fixers and as extra shuffles. That being said, I don't think I can realistically squeeze any more in. I'm still unwilling to go below 12 mountains, as there were a few times on the day where the game was late enough / enough of my mountains had been Wasted that I was cutting my mountain count pretty close. Also, with the resurgence of Stifle, adding more than 2 fetchlands into the deck is not really where I want to be.

I'm pretty happy with the list overall, although I'm going to make a few changes (as usual). These changes are based on metagame.

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

The metagame is shifting back towards tempo and combo, pretty hard. UWR Delver was EVERYWHERE, and while I suspect some of that to be a regional thing (Erik Smith popularized the deck and is from New Jersey, which is, of course, close to Philly), I also saw a lot of RUG and even a few BUGs -- and I expect more people to adopt UWR Delver, because that deck is very, very real. That room was crawling with Stifles. There was also a lot of combo, but no one form of combo was really pulling ahead of the others. There was dredge, reanimator, some Show and Tell, storm, Painter, Elves, and a few other more obscure things.

So, if we're moving back towards a tempo/combo dichotomy, that strongly suggests that trimming Rakdos's Return and re-introducing Red Elemental Blasts is a good idea. Rakdos's Return, I think, is going to suffer the unfortunate problem of being innovated at the wrong time. They should have been maindeck for Baltimore -- they would've been fine there. Baltimore was, I think, the tail end of the Shardless/Blade dominated control meta, which is where Return is at its strongest.

Since I'm never happy with those last two slots in my maindeck, I'm going to resign myself to henceforth considering them to be just flex spots depending on the meta. If a heavy control meta, Rakdos's Return. If a heavy aggro meta, -probably- Bonfires. If a heavy tempo meta, Abrupt Decays. If a heavy combo meta, Thoughtseizes.

Moving forward, this will be my list:

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

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Burning Wish
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Scapeshift

3 Pernicious Deed

3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Abrupt Decay [/Thoughtseize/Bonfire/Rakdos's -- but going to go with decays for now]

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

//SB
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Thoughtseize
2 Slaughter Games
2 Golgari Charm
1 Scapeshift
1 Reanimate
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Pyroclasm
1 Reverent Silence
1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse

The wishboard is actually still really solid. I rarely "wish" (hah) that I had something else present in my wishboard. Reverent Silence and Virtue's Ruin are both super narrow -- Ruin is only really for Teeg decks, Death and Taxes, and Progenituses; while Reverent Silence is your out to Leyline of Sanctity. The other 5 slots all get used quite regularly, though, and those two answers, narrow though they may be, are the best at what they do -- I consider them necessary evils.

If in the anti-combo configuration with the 2 Thoughtseizes maindeck, I'm not sure whether or not I would keep the 2 Thoughtseizes in the sideboard (enabling a full set post-board), or whether there might be something better.

I will note that every time I look at Golgari Charm lately, I'm just really annoyed that it's "destroy target enchantment," not "destroy target artifact." Unfortunately, Rakdos Charm's "sweep" effect isn't actually good enough against the swarm decks -- even if Elves / Gobs has like 10-odd creatures in play, Rakdos Charm isn't going to do enough damage to make it worthwhile, even if Rakdos Charm's other two modes are better (destroy artifact, exile a graveyard). Elves may be a bit better with the changes, to where Golgari Charm is no longer needed as a back-up sweeper -- or, perhaps the enchantment kill is sufficiently irrelevant now that those two slots might be better served as some other sweeper that is more effective against a wider range of decks. Not sure.

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

I'll close by noting that this was my last event with Scapewish for a little while. I'm going to take a break from it for a bit, and really buckle down on Thune, Wizardblade, and UB Tezz. My article for Mythic this week will be on the process of iterating and upgrading Thune, and where I'm at with it at the moment -- so look forward to that.

[TheArchitect]

It sucks for you didn't finish great, but on the bright side losing almost always provides more learning opportunity for yourself, and for us readers, so thanks for sharing!


I probably would have called the judge on that goblins deck with MD surgicals. That sounds like he didnt deside them to me, but I obviously didnt get the see the guys reaction/explanation.




My hand in g2 was maybe a bit of a trap. I'm actually still undecided on it. It was as follows:

Therapy, Therapy, Zenith, Rakdos Return, Deed, Scapeshift, Wooded Foothills.
I would have kept that hand in a heartbeat against TES. Double therapy and black source is going to be better than the vast majority of hands you will see mulling. Your odds of drawing a land or explorer are actually almost 50% per card you draw (22lands + 4explorers left in deck of 53 cards).



I never resolved a Rakdos's Return that was useful on the day. I used it just as an X spell against UWR in the 4-minute slugfest round 1, but we were both so far on topdeck mode at that point that it was literally just an X spell (which is still reasonable at that point in the game). I have an uncomfortable feeling that the problem therein is that Rakdos's Return was innovated too late in the metagame, which has now shifted hardcore (more later on this).

I've always liked abrupt decay in that slot. 90% of the games I draw it, I get to cast it, and does something relevant The problem with things like Rakdos return, avenger of zendikar, 3rd HM, etc, is that the vast majority of the time, they are just going to sit your hand forever, get discarded, or get countered. Abrupt decay almost always can do something. I even won a G1 game against TES because of it. TES (correctly) plays out there mana artifacts to avoid our discard making them decay targets.


The fetchlands were fantastic, both as fixers and as extra shuffles. That being said, I don't think I can realistically squeeze any more in. I'm still unwilling to go below 12 mountains, as there were a few times on the day where the game was late enough / enough of my mountains had been Wasted that I was cutting my mountain count pretty close. Also, with the resurgence of Stifle, adding more than 2 fetchlands into the deck is not really where I want to be.

Glad you gave the fetches a chance. I think you can cut a mountain though. Think about it. Whats going to be better most the time? A stomping ground or verdant catacomb. I'd say probably 95% of the time catacomb is better (stifle providing a generous 5%). How often do you lose the whole game because you needed that extra mountain somewhere in your deck? I can tell you I have lost 1 in probably 300+ games (If I count both tournements and testing). That's .3%.

Even if from some reason you have 8 mountains out, you can still scapeshift for 3 mountains 2 valakuts, only sacing 5 lands and deal 18 damage, which is almost always enough.

Even if you play 5 mountains and get 4 of them wastlanded, you can still scapeshift for 18 with 7 lands, or 36 with 8 lands.

99.5% of your games you will not notice not having a 12th mountain in your deck, but almost every single time you see that 1 fetch it will be significantly better than a stomping ground.


I've been testing this board lately and really liking it:
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Golgari Charm/Surgical extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Slaughter Games
1 Scapeshift
1 Reanimate
1 Perish
1 Pyroclasm
1 Reverent Silence
1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse


The 3 thoughtseizes have been really nice, you can board in 2-3 against all forms of combo, and its always useful.

REB I only really find myself bringing in against show and tell decks.

Surgical vs golgari charm is a meta call. Ive been seeing more reanimator/dredge decks lately, and less tribal so Ive been leaning towards surgical.

Perish over Virtue's ruin. Ive never lost to D&T with scapewish. I have lost to maverick many a times though. I have never found myself wanting vertues ruin really. Perish has been great for me against elves and goyf decks too. Against elves, you board in pyroclasm so you can have turn 2 interaction if needed and can turn 2 wish for the turn 3 perish if thats the best you can do.



I haven't played scapewish in a tournament in a little while, but I think I will play it at Mythics legacy event this week. I'm still undecided between that, deathblade, and actually kevin, your wizardblade list. But I am leaning towards scape, and I think I'll play my usual maindeck with that SB.

[guelahpapyrus]

I think I'm going to run Pulse instead of Decay in P-Fire because Batterskull. It's almost to the point where I have to make them discard Batterskull because it just eats up so many resources and - more importantly - time in the round to get rid of him. Any other P-Fire players have similar issues?

(It feels wrong to go back to Pulse when Decay is so good, but there's no Counterbalance left in my meta, it's almost all fair decks. Next Friday, I think I'm going to run 2 Pulse and 1 Abrupt Decay - the opposite of what I've been running, 2 Decay and 1 Pulse.)

An aside: I got a chance to run Golgari Charm for the first time this week. Total all-star. If only it hit artifacts too!

[HoneyT]

I think I'm going to run Pulse instead of Decay in P-Fire because Batterskull. It's almost to the point where I have to make them discard Batterskull because it just eats up so many resources and - more importantly - time in the round to get rid of him. Any other P-Fire players have similar issues?

(It feels wrong to go back to Pulse when Decay is so good, but there's no Counterbalance left in my meta, it's almost all fair decks. Next Friday, I think I'm going to run 2 Pulse and 1 Abrupt Decay - the opposite of what I've been running, 2 Decay and 1 Pulse.)

An aside: I got a chance to run Golgari Charm for the first time this week. Total all-star. If only it hit artifacts too!

The list in my signature is a little out of date (I'll post my updated list soon) but I'm still rocking Pulse. However it's certainly not necessary to beat a Batterskull. There's rarely a time when I can't take care of it with P-Fires (lifelink triggers P-Fire too). Then they have to spend all their resources bouncing and recasting (Stoneforge should be dead already). And at that point they can't keep up with our threats.

[Tao]

Yeah, Batterskull should not be a problem. First of all you have Therapy, and then you have Punishing Fire for the Stoneforge Mystic. But even if they can avoid both (which isn't likely unless they are willing to spend a FoW on half a card) Batterskull is not a big threat. Even if you can't actually kill it you have enough stuff to make it not do much or cost them to much mana. Then eventually Titan will go over the top.



I've been testing a pod list for about a year or 2 (in addition to my standard GB) and have loved to pod my rector into recurring nightmare+thragtusk. It's usually my main wincon (unless i need to recur bone shredder to kill a bunch of annoying stuff, oh how I love you bone shredder!).

Now that deathrite exists, I was curious about everyone's opinion on adding Primeval Bounty as a secondary rector target. At the moment I have 1 Primeval Bounty, 1 Recurring Nightmare, 1 Pernicious Deed as targets. Bounty has been performing extremely well for me and is actually quite similar to thragtusk in the sense that it easily makes tokens and gains absurd amounts of life (especially with fetches). It also boosts explorers/deathrites to 4/4s. Graveyard hate as always been extremely effective vs me (strangleroot geist, reveillark, eternal witness, recurring nightmare, volrath's stronghold). I wanted to tone down on the graveyard strategy a bit, although I love how strangleroot geist puts pressure on planeswalkers whereas something like wall of blossoms doesn't. I also try to keep the "do nothing" creatures to a minimum which is why I like shriekmaw and boneshredder as they double as removal spells.

Post a list, that makes things easier.

Primeval Bounty is extremely powerful. If you want another big Rector effect for your deck, Bounty is the right card.

[Blastoderm]

Yeah, Batterskull should not be a problem. First of all you have Therapy, and then you have Punishing Fire for the Stoneforge Mystic. But even if they can avoid both (which isn't likely unless they are willing to spend a FoW on half a card) Batterskull is not a big threat. Even if you can't actually kill it you have enough stuff to make it not do much or cost them to much mana. Then eventually Titan will go over the top.




Post a list, that makes things easier.

Primeval Bounty is extremely powerful. If you want another big Rector effect for your deck, Bounty is the right card.

Sure here's my list.

Creatures (20)
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Strangleroot geist
2 Eternal witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Bone Shredder
1 Academy Rector
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Thragtusk
1 Shriekmaw

Spells (19)
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Birthing Pod
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Pernicious Deed

Lands (21)

4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh flats
4 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower

Would wall of blossoms be good here? Do I have enough creatures?

[jbone2016]

Sure here's my list.

Creatures (20)
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Strangleroot geist
2 Eternal witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Bone Shredder
1 Academy Rector
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Thragtusk
1 Shriekmaw

Spells (19)
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Birthing Pod
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Pernicious Deed

Lands (21)

4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh flats
4 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower

Would wall of blossoms be good here? Do I have enough creatures?

I think you want more 2 drops and less deathrites. Wall of Blossoms is a good fit. Voice is meh is this type of pod list. Maybe a one of stoneforge?
Also, I think the land base could be better. 9 fetches is a lot. I ran 6 when I was playing rector (3 heath, 3 catacombs)

[Arianrhod]

/barn@Stoneforge. I put a 1-of Stoneforge into Thune (and moved the forever-sideboarded Batterskull main for her) and she's been incredibly solid in testing.

[Tao]

- SFM in Pod lists is that it did't work that well for me either. She is 2 more 1-offs in a deck that tends to play too many 1-offs, one of them a 5-drop that can't be Podded in a deck that tends to have a too high curve. I won't fault anyone for playing her, but I understand the choice of Strangleroot Geist.

- I think that your deck needs a Primeval Titan, to go over the top of Jund and BUG. It can't be right to play 12 ramp cards (DRS, Explorer, GSZ), and an X-spell (GSZ) and then not do something broken with that X-Spell.

These would be the changes from the top of my head.

- 1 Fetch
- 1 DRS
- 1 Wickerbough Elder
- 1 Deranged Hermit
- 1 Shriekmaw
+ 1 Murderous Redcap
+ 1 Acidic Slime
+ 1 Primeval Titan
+ 1 Volrath's Stronghold
+ 1 Vault of the Archangel

[KntrellCL]

Im playing a BGw Pod list too. Still on testing, but I really like how it has been working.

Pod Rock

Creatures [20]
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Strangleroot Geist
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Restoration Angel
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Heons
1 Grave Titan


Engine [8]
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Birthing Pod
1 Recurring Nightmare

Removals [7]
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay

Discard [4]
4 Cabal Therapy

Lands [22]
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
4 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

SB [15]
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Thoughtseize
3 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg

I think I could take Thrun away for another 4 drop which I would like to trade for a 5 CMC, probably a Morderous Redcap?

In pod list you usually have a lot of board presence, so I took deeds to the board.

[Star|Scream]

Let me just preface this by saying I think this card is bad in Legacy

Swan Song.
Cc - U
Type - Instant
Text - Counter target enchantment, instant, or sorcery spell. Its controller puts a Bird Token 2/2 with flying onto the battlefield under his control.

EXCEPT maybe in BUG Nic Fit in place of negate. It counters both show and tell AND sneak attack, and we really don't care if they get a 2/2 flier because most of our threats are bigger.

It also counters anything reanimator could play.

[Arianrhod]

Let me just preface this by saying I think this card is bad in Legacy

Swan Song.
Cc - U
Type - Instant
Text - Counter target enchantment, instant, or sorcery spell. Its controller puts a Bird Token 2/2 with flying onto the battlefield under his control.

EXCEPT maybe in BUG Nic Fit in place of negate. It counters both show and tell AND sneak attack, and we really don't care if they get a 2/2 flier because most of our threats are bigger.

It also counters anything reanimator could play.

I noticed this card as a potential candidate for Nic Fit as well. It's even effective vs Elves, because it hits Glimpse, Zenith, and Natural order -- all of which are significant. The 2/2 body / extra Cradle mana is largely irrelevant there, too, because our plan vs Elves is to sweep early and often, and all of our sweep will kill it.

[HoneyT]

Let me just preface this by saying I think this card is bad in Legacy

Swan Song.
Cc - U
Type - Instant
Text - Counter target enchantment, instant, or sorcery spell. Its controller puts a Bird Token 2/2 with flying onto the battlefield under his control.

EXCEPT maybe in BUG Nic Fit in place of negate. It counters both show and tell AND sneak attack, and we really don't care if they get a 2/2 flier because most of our threats are bigger.

It also counters anything reanimator could play.

However, it still doesn't counter Jace (or any PW obv) nor does it counter potential pesky artifacts. The PW is the big one and for that reason alone, I still like Negate better. BUG versions are typically the least aggressive and can't answer resolved PWs nearly as well as other versions.

[Arianrhod]

However, it still doesn't counter Jace (or any PW obv) nor does it counter potential pesky artifacts. The PW is the big one and for that reason alone, I still like Negate better. BUG versions are typically the least aggressive and can't answer resolved PWs nearly as well as other versions.

Granted, but a spread of something like this:

2 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Negate
3 Swan Song

between maindeck and sideboard should be more than enough for almost all applications.

[Star|Scream]

However, it still doesn't counter Jace (or any PW obv) nor does it counter potential pesky artifacts. The PW is the big one and for that reason alone, I still like Negate better. BUG versions are typically the least aggressive and can't answer resolved PWs nearly as well as other versions.

I was going back to the conversation from a few pages ago debating envelop and negate. I think for those specific matchups where you need the speed, this is a better choice than both those options.

If you also want to bring in negates against durdly decks, then by all means.

[Blastoderm]

Thanks guys for the advice, I'll be doing some testing and give updates later!

[Star|Scream]

Actually, the more that I think about it, this card is pretty good against us. As long as they don't Swan song a cabal therapy :)

[jbone2016]

Actually, the more that I think about it, this card is pretty good against us. As long as they don't Swan song a cabal therapy :)

Agreed. This seems like a pretty good anti-discard counter for sneak/show or possibly ANT?

[Arianrhod]

Article sent in to Mythic -- should be going up tonight. I'll post a linky when it's good to go.

[guelahpapyrus]

I've been disappointed with Thragtusk lately as well - didn't realize it until other people said something and then I cast him the other night - well, without a way to recur him, he's just underwhelming. (I don't run Volrath's or Recurring Nightmare in my P-Fire list.) I was thinking of replacing Thragtusk with Batterskull, but not being able to GSZ for him makes me a bit nervous. So I'm considering going to 61 with two Batterskulls and this also makes me nervous. I haven't gotten around to testing yet, the soonest I can play is Friday, but does anyone have any thoughts?

[Arianrhod]

http://mythicgameselmira.com/article/article.html

Article isn't linked directly yet, so it might be kind of a pain to read. Sorry bout that =|

[Blastoderm]

http://mythicgameselmira.com/article/article.html

Article isn't linked directly yet, so it might be kind of a pain to read. Sorry bout that =|

Great article. Pod is certainly fun to play, I'm glad you're considering it.

- One thing I'm not fond of in pod lists is putting too many tops and deeds. I've actually cut deed entirely and put 4 abrupt decay. But that's my decision...I do run 4 Deathrite, 3 wall of blossoms and 2 strangleroot. I usually have too much stuff in play to want to deed. My walls, explorers, undying/persist guys are enough to hold off stuff until I get to late game. At first I was like bleehhh wall of blossoms. Turns out, late game it's just a cantrip instead of a random 2 drop which I don't want to see. Deathrite speeds up pod so much! I also wanted more dudes to pressure planeswalkers like jace and liliana (was sick of these sticking too long).

- I still think primeval bounty should be considered. It makes sense to have two targets for rector. Nightmare dies to discard and decay sometimes which is annoying. Bounty has been outperforming it recently making every fetchland 5 life, every creature comes in with a 3/3 and drawing a therapy late game gives something +6+6. It's like a green jace lol. If you play top I would put it to 2 as birthing pod is kind of the same role: finding good stuff.

[litenkatt]

Can anyone confirm this:

If I activate spikefeeders -1 counter +2 life ability while having Archangel of Thune in play and my opponent stp Thune, I cant activate the spike ability in response because hes going to the gy before im gaining life and adding a counter from thune? (well I can but I can't combo off)

[Tammit67]

Can anyone confirm this:

If I activate spikefeeders -1 counter +2 life ability while having Archangel of Thune in play and my opponent stp Thune, I cant activate the spike ability in response because hes going to the gy before im gaining life and adding a counter from thune? (well I can but I can't combo off)

Spike feeder will be put into the graveyard upon activation of the second instance of that ability before any player receives priority, correct

[Monkey_Island]

http://mythicgameselmira.com/article/article.html

Article isn't linked directly yet, so it might be kind of a pain to read. Sorry bout that =|

Thanks for a very nice article. I love when the deckbuilder explains his choice card by card as you did.

Definitely have to get my hand on Archangel of Thune and get the party started!

[Tao]

The list looks good. Glad that Living Wish is gone. It is much better and more focused than what it was previously. I like pretty much everything about it.

One thing you could consider is switching Carpet of Flowers for Abrupt Decay in the Sideboard. Decay is great in all matchups in which Carpet would come in. Has been good for me because Deed + Carpet is horrendous against Shardless and Blade and can even cause problems against RUG. I don't mind though if you keep it this way. Nothing big.

But - and excuse the rant - this really bothers me:

I can't understand how everyone ignores Sylvan Ranger. It is a great card that does exactly what you want to do when you tutor for a land searcher 2-drop (unless you play Scapewish in which case of course Tribe Elder is better or if your meta is for some reason infested with Dredge). The point is that if you tutor for Tribe Elder you likely won't have many land drops anyway so he won't accelerate you. So you might as well just get Sylvan Ranger and have a creature AND a land instead of only one which is especially important in a Birthing Pod deck.

But Tribe Elder is fine, people don't get it with Tribe Elder, and I gave up on that and I can live with it. It is certainly wrong but Tribe Elder was a big thing in Standard once and Sylvan Ranger not and people play what they are used to and don't think too much about it. But Virdian Emissary... are you kidding me? This is so far worse than Sylvan Ranger, it is as bad as people playing Path to Exile over Swords to Plowshares in this deck. Viridian Emissary is better than Ranger exactly when all of this combined happens: a) you have a sac outlet, b) you have a land drop for the turn you sac it, c) you have a land drop for the next turn and d) you can use your mana exactly next turn.
What if you don't have the land drop this turn? Then you GSZ for Emissary, flash back Therapy and get a tapped land. And if you have Ranger in that place you get an UNTAPPED land and can use it for Top or another Therapy. Same thing with Tribe Elder btw.
Land drop this turn but no land drop next turn? Same card.
Can't use your mana completely next turn? Same card.
And, most importantly, what if you don't have a sac outlet or if you plan to chump but it gets Sworded? Then you just die a painful mana death.

[Gheizen64]

I've liked the article good job (formatting was terrible though...). I've always liked to have some more things to do T1, considering Therapy isn't a T1 play. For that reason i'd go 3 GSZ, 2 Pod, or i'd play some more discard maindeck. 15-16 possible T1 plays at least is imho where u want to be. If you go lower than that, it can be a little awkward when you play legacy and don't do anything T1 :D

[Arianrhod]

The list looks good. Glad that Living Wish is gone. It is much better and more focused than what it was previously. I like pretty much everything about it.

One thing you could consider is switching Carpet of Flowers for Abrupt Decay in the Sideboard. Decay is great in all matchups in which Carpet would come in. Has been good for me because Deed + Carpet is horrendous against Shardless and Blade and can even cause problems against RUG. I don't mind though if you keep it this way. Nothing big.

But - and excuse the rant - this really bothers me:

I can't understand how everyone ignores Sylvan Ranger. It is a great card that does exactly what you want to do when you tutor for a land searcher 2-drop (unless you play Scapewish in which case of course Tribe Elder is better or if your meta is for some reason infested with Dredge). The point is that if you tutor for Tribe Elder you likely won't have many land drops anyway so he won't accelerate you. So you might as well just get Sylvan Ranger and have a creature AND a land instead of only one which is especially important in a Birthing Pod deck.

But Tribe Elder is fine, people don't get it with Tribe Elder, and I gave up on that and I can live with it. It is certainly wrong but Tribe Elder was a big thing in Standard once and Sylvan Ranger not and people play what they are used to and don't think too much about it. But Virdian Emissary... are you kidding me? This is so far worse than Sylvan Ranger, it is as bad as people playing Path to Exile over Swords to Plowshares in this deck. Viridian Emissary is better than Ranger exactly when all of this combined happens: a) you have a sac outlet, b) you have a land drop for the turn you sac it, c) you have a land drop for the next turn and d) you can use your mana exactly next turn.
What if you don't have the land drop this turn? Then you GSZ for Emissary, flash back Therapy and get a tapped land. And if you have Ranger in that place you get an UNTAPPED land and can use it for Top or another Therapy. Same thing with Tribe Elder btw.
Land drop this turn but no land drop next turn? Same card.
Can't use your mana completely next turn? Same card.
And, most importantly, what if you don't have a sac outlet or if you plan to chump but it gets Sworded? Then you just die a painful mana death.

As noted in the article, I've been waffling on Emissary vs Ranger a lot. But these are pretty good points.

Sold.

As for Carpet of Flowers, yeah, it's a nonbo with Deed, which tends to be good against decks that you want Carpet vs (exceptions being High Tide, Omni/Sneak/etc -- incidentally, Decay is useless vs these decks). However, the real reason to play Carpet of Flowers in my opinion is to fundamentally change the axis of the game against planeswalkers. Yes, it's helpful vs tempo decks because it invalidates their conditional counters. Yes, it's good ramp vs Ux combo decks.

But consider your standard planeswalker deck. Shardless or Esper -- either one works. Both have some chunky planeswalking flesh backing them up, and dealing with board control + planeswalker is one of the harder things for Nic Fit to do historically. You can crack an Explorer, and Esper will drop a planeswalker. Depending on if the particular Shardless list runs basics, they very well might, too. Or you might not have an Explorer and they just curve out into a t3 Jace via DRS. One of the best ways to answer this problem is to have a threat already in play, so that if they deploy their Jace, it represents a 4-mana Brainstorm and then dies. Carpet is a very good way to do this. Consider:

t1 Carpet
---------
t1 DRS

t2 (3 mana) -> Kitchen Finks; Spike; Pod; Zenith for more ramp; Vet + Therapy + any of the mentioned
---------
t2 (3 mana) -> Liliana (sac a dude? she dies to persist; discard keeps her alive, barely)
t2 (3 mana) -> Goyf + Brainstorm
t2 (3 mana) -> blind Shardless -> Visions

t3 (5+ mana) -> Pod + stuff; Archangel; Tusk; multiple 2-3's; Zenith for something; etc
---------
t3 (4 mana) -> Jace

By the time they get to a turn 3 Jace, assuming 2 turns of an active Deathrite, we're tremendously far ahead on board position, and Jace is guaranteed to die, along with Liliana along the way. The Triad (DRS -> Lily -> Jace) is the scariest curve that Shardless has, and Carpet singlehandedly dismantles it. Yes, it dies to Deed -- but by the time you're Deeding against one of these decks, you have enough lands in play anyway, nine times out of ten. Carpet is to gain tempo and get board development ahead of your opponent.

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

By the by, regarding the whole, Spike Feeder, in response kill [something], chain. You can actually play around this and set up to beat a spot removal if you expect it -- Scavenge something onto Spike Feeder, which puts additional +1/+1 counters on it. That way you can safely go infinite through spot removal.

[litenkatt]

Nevermind!

[Blastoderm]

As noted in the article, I've been waffling on Emissary vs Ranger a lot. But these are pretty good points.

Sold.

As for Carpet of Flowers, yeah, it's a nonbo with Deed, which tends to be good against decks that you want Carpet vs (exceptions being High Tide, Omni/Sneak/etc -- incidentally, Decay is useless vs these decks). However, the real reason to play Carpet of Flowers in my opinion is to fundamentally change the axis of the game against planeswalkers. Yes, it's helpful vs tempo decks because it invalidates their conditional counters. Yes, it's good ramp vs Ux combo decks.

But consider your standard planeswalker deck. Shardless or Esper -- either one works. Both have some chunky planeswalking flesh backing them up, and dealing with board control + planeswalker is one of the harder things for Nic Fit to do historically. You can crack an Explorer, and Esper will drop a planeswalker. Depending on if the particular Shardless list runs basics, they very well might, too. Or you might not have an Explorer and they just curve out into a t3 Jace via DRS. One of the best ways to answer this problem is to have a threat already in play, so that if they deploy their Jace, it represents a 4-mana Brainstorm and then dies. Carpet is a very good way to do this. Consider:

t1 Carpet
---------
t1 DRS

t2 (3 mana) -> Kitchen Finks; Spike; Pod; Zenith for more ramp; Vet + Therapy + any of the mentioned
---------
t2 (3 mana) -> Liliana (sac a dude? she dies to persist; discard keeps her alive, barely)
t2 (3 mana) -> Goyf + Brainstorm
t2 (3 mana) -> blind Shardless -> Visions

t3 (5+ mana) -> Pod + stuff; Archangel; Tusk; multiple 2-3's; Zenith for something; etc
---------
t3 (4 mana) -> Jace

By the time they get to a turn 3 Jace, assuming 2 turns of an active Deathrite, we're tremendously far ahead on board position, and Jace is guaranteed to die, along with Liliana along the way. The Triad (DRS -> Lily -> Jace) is the scariest curve that Shardless has, and Carpet singlehandedly dismantles it. Yes, it dies to Deed -- but by the time you're Deeding against one of these decks, you have enough lands in play anyway, nine times out of ten. Carpet is to gain tempo and get board development ahead of your opponent.

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

By the by, regarding the whole, Spike Feeder, in response kill [something], chain. You can actually play around this and set up to beat a spot removal if you expect it -- Scavenge something onto Spike Feeder, which puts additional +1/+1 counters on it. That way you can safely go infinite through spot removal.

I agree about the carpet. However for the miracles matchup Choke is strictly better imo.

[CRich3]

Hello, I am back. I just moved and got internet hooked up today. I am still playing Rector, I have been trying to read back on posts that I missed but there is just too many. I am going to get a trial version of camtasia and record a few games in the near future.

On birthing pod, I started out with that version and everyone was telling me the rector version was superior. Maybe at that time they were right, but pod has always been strong. Recovers a lot faster from board wipes and when I play tested vs burn it was down to who played first most of the time. But I have always found 4 pods way to much. If I can find my old deck list I will post it.

[guelahpapyrus]

After a few days of testing - finally got all four Jaces - here are some thoughts on BUG (without Birthing Pod):

- I sorely missed having recurring removal like P-Fire.
- It's not as fast as GBW and it doesn't have the board control of GBR
- Doesn't control the stack as well as other blue decks.

BUG honestly feels like it's stuck somewhere in the middle - can't control the stack well enough (G2,G3), can't control the board well enough. I don't feel like my combo matchup improved that much compared to P-Fire except for the random Force of Wills that saved me once over five rounds. BUG doesn't feel like it does anything special that the other builds can't accomplish. Casting Jace is great, having Brainstorm is great too, but I honestly don't see the reason to run this version over P-Fire. Is Birthing Pod the trick? It could just be the way I built the deck, so here's a list for reference.

60 Cards Total:

2 Sensei's Divining Top

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

3 Pernicious Deed

3 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil

2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy

2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Volrath's Stronghold


SB: 4 Negate
SB: 3 Force of Will - Tried Envelop but there are two storm players in my meta and I can't win G3 without turn zero disruption.
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction

[Tombstalker]

Greetings nic fitters! I am helping a friend break into the format and it Nic Fit is one of the decks he has his eye on, however I am not overly familiar with the deck. He is interested in the punishing fires engine and likes to drop haymakers but were not sure exactly what is a nonbo here and we want to be sure before he springs for the cards hes missing.

Can PF engine be included along with birthing pods or another engine or is the deck pretty much limited to 1 engine (pod/PF/rector/wish etc)?

Also is natural order viable in nic fit? VE + GSZ seems ideal for consistantly dropping T3 order.

Lastly is there a place for wurmcoil engine or similarly high powered artie creatures here? It seems to fit the decks plan and would work well with academy ruins but there must be a reason only certain cc5+ bombs make the cut. I would appreciate any insight here and thanks in advance.

Edit- forgot to add, is there any reason rector builds dont run eldrazi conscription? Seems like dropping one of these onto an archangel of thune would be pretty decent.

[TheArchitect]

Greetings nic fitters! I am helping a friend break into the format and it Nic Fit is one of the decks he has his eye on, however I am not overly familiar with the deck. He is interested in the punishing fires engine and likes to drop haymakers but were not sure exactly what is a nonbo here and we want to be sure before he springs for the cards hes missing.

Can PF engine be included along with birthing pods or another engine or is the deck pretty much limited to 1 engine (pod/PF/rector/wish etc)?

Also is natural order viable in nic fit? VE + GSZ seems ideal for consistantly dropping T3 order.

Lastly is there a place for wurmcoil engine or similarly high powered artie creatures here? It seems to fit the decks plan and would work well with academy ruins but there must be a reason only certain cc5+ bombs make the cut. I would appreciate any insight here and thanks in advance.

Edit- forgot to add, is there any reason rector builds dont run eldrazi conscription? Seems like dropping one of these onto an archangel of thune would be pretty decent.


PF engine is great. I have had little sucess with it. The scapewish list, however, has been awesome for me: List (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WZPGMGBwpYubHyabry-w5EtIrPMr0tEi4AbfRdzqvtg/edit)

People have tried PF engine with pods, wishes, scapeshift, etc. They have all been terrible. Its good on its own. GSZ provides enough utility.

Natural order has been pretty bad for everyone thats tried it. I would highly recommend staying away from it.

Wurmcoil isnt terrible, but grave titan is usually the better option. In a Jund PF list, the only 6 drops really worth considering is Primeval titan, and optionally Broodmate Dragon. Bombs need to be immune to removal, provide an awesome ETB ability so its ok if they remove it and then the most important consideration be green so you can have 5 of the bombs in your deck, but have a low chance of drawing a 6 drop when you dont want it.

Eldrazi conscription just opens you up for getting 2 for 1ed and also, rector has been really really really bad since printing DRS and rest in peace. I would not recommend playing rectors if you want to play a competitive deck.

[Tombstalker]

Hey thanks for the reply brother, kinda what I figured on the wurmcoil and rector too I suppose. The engines being mutually exclusive I still dont get but then I havent played the deck.

[pfiremc13]

@Arianrhod Is there any reason your current GBW deck runs no spot removal?

[CRich3]

@Arianrhod Is there any reason your current GBW deck runs no spot removal?

I think its because he wants to have creatures you have to answer rather than you have creatures he has to answer.

I just went 3-1 on MTGO daily event with Rector. I'll post more information tomorrow. I am dead tired and I have to get up in 4 hours.

[pfiremc13]

I think its because he wants to have creatures you have to answer rather than you have creatures he has to answer.


But nic fit isn't meant to be aggro...

[kingtk3]

I've attended a 15 man event last thursday night playing Thune Pod with disastrous results. First of all the list:

4 veteran explorer
2 wall of blossoms
1 scavenging ooze
1 strangleroot geist
2 kitchen finks
1 eternal witness
1 varolz, the scar stripped
2 spike feeder
1 academy rector
1 murderous redcap
1 linvala, keeper of silence
1 sigarda, host of herons
2 archangel of thune
1 thragtusk
1 sun titan
3 pernicious deed
1 recurring nightmare
4 birthing pod
3 sensei's divining top
2 green sun's zenith
4 cabal therapy
3 bayou
2 savannah
1 scrubland
3 forest
3 plains
2 swamp
3 verdant catacombs
3 windswept heath
2 phyrexian tower

SIDE
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Nether Void
1 Nevermore
1 stony silence
2 maelstrom pulse
1 surgical extraction


Round 1 vs ANT
G1 I cabal therapy after seeing a basic island and he brainstorms in response. Knowing the player I put on sneak show and I name Emrakul since the brainstorm is likely to hide the combo enablers and if he discards emrakul he would shuffle the deck. Turns out he's playing ANT and goes off on turn 3 fairly easy.
I bring in 12 cards: surgical, void, stony, silence, nevermore, canonist, seize, memoricide, cranial, carpet
G2 I therapy turn 1 for LED and find nothing but see that he had keep a slow hand with some cantrips and stable mana. Unfortunately for him on turn 3 I play an explorer, sac to the therapy grabbing some tutors and play nether void. Some turns later he concedes.
G3 I lay 2 carpets, grab a card from his hand with therapy then he makes 10 goblin. I'm able to hold the field with tusk and a fink, but then draw nothing but lands while he finishes me with tendrils without storm...
I have to say that I messed a little with the combat maths, but ultimately didn't mattered because of me not drawing anything and him naturally drawing his lone tendrils for the kill.
0-1

Round 2 vs shardless BUG
G1 he plays multiple shamans, blind cascades into multiple visions, plays multiple jace and lily but I'm able to stabilize thanks to titan recurring wall of blossoms and deed. However at some point he bounces the titan, hymn my recurring nightmare away and forces the titan; next turn he draws 3 from AV and I can't keep up against the card advantage. I remember that this game I had 3 lands left in the deck and never drawn something useful like Pod, top or a real creature...
I don't think I've misplayed in this game but I'm not sure: maybe I should have killed jace before lily.
I side in the carpets and the maelstroms
G2 I have top, explorer, feeder and some other goodies: if I find a Thune or a pod fast enough I may combo off and maybe go to G3. However I don't find anything and time finishes...
0-2

Round 3 vs Sneak and Show
G1 he plays island->go, i therapy and he brainstorms in response. I know that he's on S&S so I reason as before and name emrakul: his hand is only mana, 2 petals and a probe. He draws, plays the petals and a land and passes. I therapy again naming probe and see an intuition; on my EOT he intuition for sneak and play it on his turn. On my turn for the first (and last) time in the tourney I draw and play Pod!!!! Now I'm gonna combo!!!!.... back to real life, I know I was walking on thin ice but pod was the only thing I could cast. In his turn he rips brainstorm that gives him both emrakul and griselbrand....
I side in 12 or 13 cards...
G2 I therapy taking away his S&T and seeing that he has spell pierce and double sneak. I have a second therapy in hand but I fail to draw a 2 or 1 CMC creature or the third land that I needed to play around the pierce and die orribly to hasted emrakul
0-3

At this time I would have liked to play another much just for testing purpouses, but I get the bye...

I admit that this was the first time I was playing Nic Fit (although back in the days I was a Rock (and his minion) player and the decks function likewise) and I probably haven't played optimally, and I'm also aware that this deck is weak against combo.
However I think that the deck has some serious problems because it works only if birthing pod is in play, otherwise is choke full of suboptimal creatures.
Maybe I'll try the blue version, but if I'd have to play again the white one I would focus more on rector.

Impression or suggestion are appreciated.

[Arianrhod]

I think its because he wants to have creatures you have to answer rather than you have creatures he has to answer.

I just went 3-1 on MTGO daily event with Rector. I'll post more information tomorrow. I am dead tired and I have to get up in 4 hours.

Partially this. My old Rector list barely ran spot removal in the first place -- it ran a 1-of each Pulse and Vindicate, and relied on passing those through Eternal Witnesses and Recurring Nightmare/Sun Titan shenanigans to keep blowing stuff up. Also, obviously, Deed. The list also Rector'd up Moat, which acted as a sweeper in a lot of scenarios. I tested both Swords and Decay in Rector and was disappointed by both.

Thune is a little different -- subtly so, but the difference is there regardless. In Thune, you have a couple of additional deckbuilding constraints. You need a very heavy creature count in order to make Birthing Pod actually function. You can't run one 4-drop, because then you'll have a percentage of games where you either draw that 4 drop, or you need to Pod a 3->5, and you already used it. One of the very first things to get cut for space for additional creatures is the spot removal. For one, we still have Pernicious Deed as a catch-all. But, additionally, we're putting in two classes of creatures:

-) Persist-(ant) value creatures that block for multiple turns.
-) Lots of creatures who either gain life or have lifelink.

Remember, via Theory of Life (opposite of Theory of Fire): 3 life = 1 turn. Thragtusk is so strong because just off of the lifegain alone, he gains you a turn and a half -- not counting his two bodies. Kitchen Finks and Spike Feeder are each worth just over 1 turn, again, not including the free blocks.

There's another reason we don't need spot removal for Thune, too: we have a combo.

One of the reasons that Rector ran Pulse/Vindicate was because it was a value+recursion-based control deck. If your opponent had an Academy Ruins online, it needed to be dealt with, because it was another engine that rivaled your own. Now, if your opponent is durdling around with Ruins or some other attritiony engine, you can opt to ignore it and just go infinite instead.

Not having traditional spot removal does admittedly open you up to a weakness to the t2 naturally-flipping Delver openers from tempo decks. However, it is very rare for Delver decks to be able to sufficiently tempo GBW Nic Fit, especially when post-board we gain Carpet of Flowers to operate alongside Veterans and ramp creatures. Sometimes they don't have Delver. Sometimes we have a turn 2 Archangel and they don't have a counter. It's all numbers. More often than not, the general course of game is that they have Delver, we have ramp, we drop some Finks and Spikes and time walk a few times while getting smacked for 3 every turn, and eventually something broken happens. We stick a Deed, or a Pod, or an Archangel or a Sigarda or a Zenith for Sigarda, or a Tusk, or whatever. Delver decks cannot beat any of those things.

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

I don't have anything for you guys this morning. I've been sick with a bad head-cold for about four days now, and as such, I didn't make it to Mythic this weekend, which incidentally really depressed me. Well, that, and the 7-game losing streak on League that knocked me back down to Silver 5....I love having more farm as jungle than our ADC ._.

Anyway. Evan, did you play Scape at Mythic? If so, how did it go?

[MrIggins]

I started playing Scape at a local legacy league- a fairly atypical metagame as there's almost no tempo and very little combo. Last week's 3 rounds featured a draw to Death and Taxes (slow opponent that prevented me from winning in turns by casting Cataclysm), loss to TES in 3 games, loss to Death and Taxes in 3 games with reasonably close losses and a not-very-close Scapeshift game. Revoker naming Deed with Mom backup is a real pain, as is Mirran Crusader. Will likely be adding a Massacre to the board over a Red Blast because I haven't seen many decks that I want REB against. The 1-2 Stoneblade decks don't count as I feel pretty comfortable in that matchup to begin with.

May be trying out Thune in the league at some point, though I'd be playing Sylvan Ranger over Viridian Emissary. I definitely want to test the deck because it seems very powerful and let's face it, it's really sweet. It looks WAY better without the Living Wish package, though I think it's still a little unfinished. Completely without testing, the Mindslicer in the board seems like a bit of a weak slot to me, but I understand the reason it's there and I can't think of a better solution as a "screw you combo" card at the moment. Hopefully I can get some testing in this week and give some real input.

[Arianrhod]

I started playing Scape at a local legacy league- a fairly atypical metagame as there's almost no tempo and very little combo. Last week's 3 rounds featured a draw to Death and Taxes (slow opponent that prevented me from winning in turns by casting Cataclysm), loss to TES in 3 games, loss to Death and Taxes in 3 games with reasonably close losses and a not-very-close Scapeshift game. Revoker naming Deed with Mom backup is a real pain, as is Mirran Crusader. Will likely be adding a Massacre to the board over a Red Blast because I haven't seen many decks that I want REB against. The 1-2 Stoneblade decks don't count as I feel pretty comfortable in that matchup to begin with.

May be trying out Thune in the league at some point, though I'd be playing Sylvan Ranger over Viridian Emissary. I definitely want to test the deck because it seems very powerful and let's face it, it's really sweet. It looks WAY better without the Living Wish package, though I think it's still a little unfinished. Completely without testing, the Mindslicer in the board seems like a bit of a weak slot to me, but I understand the reason it's there and I can't think of a better solution as a "screw you combo" card at the moment. Hopefully I can get some testing in this week and give some real input.

Yeah, I might be biased regarding 'Slicer from my playing Melira Pod in modern -- Slicer has been an absolute house for me there vs both combo and UW(x). It seems like a reasonable thing to test for Thune, although I'm keeping an eye on it as one of my pet cards which may not be good enough.

DnT can randomly be challenging, which is one reason I favor Virtue's Ruin in the sideboard over Perish. If there aren't any Teegs in your meta, feel free to replace Virtue's Ruin with Massacre -- just realize that you're basically stone-cold out against Teeg + Revoker, then. Cabal Therapy always names Revoker vs DnT, as if they don't have a Revoker on Deed, the matchup is largely a joke. If you know that they're on Cataclysm, it may be correct to bring in Slaughter Games to remove that out -- DnT's best weapons against us are Revoker, Cataclysm, and Mangina+Karakas lock. Revoker is an easy blind-Therapy -- the other two you can evaluate and nab on flashback. Sometimes Pyroclasm and Golgari Charm can be massive blow-outs (if you're still on Charm).

Your general plan vs DnT is to ramp up, disrupt, sweep one or two times, and then scapeshift for the kill. You're almost certainly not going to be winning via beat-down against DnT -- their board presence is too massive and Scape's is too insignificant. Thrag doesn't do so hot vs a Mirran Crusader with a Sword on him.

[pfiremc13]

Partially this. My old Rector list barely ran spot removal in the first place -- it ran a 1-of each Pulse and Vindicate, and relied on passing those through Eternal Witnesses and Recurring Nightmare/Sun Titan shenanigans to keep blowing stuff up. Also, obviously, Deed. The list also Rector'd up Moat, which acted as a sweeper in a lot of scenarios. I tested both Swords and Decay in Rector and was disappointed by both.

Thune is a little different -- subtly so, but the difference is there regardless. In Thune, you have a couple of additional deckbuilding constraints. You need a very heavy creature count in order to make Birthing Pod actually function. You can't run one 4-drop, because then you'll have a percentage of games where you either draw that 4 drop, or you need to Pod a 3->5, and you already used it. One of the very first things to get cut for space for additional creatures is the spot removal. For one, we still have Pernicious Deed as a catch-all. But, additionally, we're putting in two classes of creatures:

-) Persist-(ant) value creatures that block for multiple turns.
-) Lots of creatures who either gain life or have lifelink.

Remember, via Theory of Life (opposite of Theory of Fire): 3 life = 1 turn. Thragtusk is so strong because just off of the lifegain alone, he gains you a turn and a half -- not counting his two bodies. Kitchen Finks and Spike Feeder are each worth just over 1 turn, again, not including the free blocks.

There's another reason we don't need spot removal for Thune, too: we have a combo.

One of the reasons that Rector ran Pulse/Vindicate was because it was a value+recursion-based control deck. If your opponent had an Academy Ruins online, it needed to be dealt with, because it was another engine that rivaled your own. Now, if your opponent is durdling around with Ruins or some other attritiony engine, you can opt to ignore it and just go infinite instead.

Not having traditional spot removal does admittedly open you up to a weakness to the t2 naturally-flipping Delver openers from tempo decks. However, it is very rare for Delver decks to be able to sufficiently tempo GBW Nic Fit, especially when post-board we gain Carpet of Flowers to operate alongside Veterans and ramp creatures. Sometimes they don't have Delver. Sometimes we have a turn 2 Archangel and they don't have a counter. It's all numbers. More often than not, the general course of game is that they have Delver, we have ramp, we drop some Finks and Spikes and time walk a few times while getting smacked for 3 every turn, and eventually something broken happens. We stick a Deed, or a Pod, or an Archangel or a Sigarda or a Zenith for Sigarda, or a Tusk, or whatever. Delver decks cannot beat any of those things.


Hmm...interesting. I always thought of nic fit as a control deck. I guess you don't really need spot removal, though, if you're outclassing your opponent's creatures with a turn 3 thragtusk.

What do you think about running 1 deathrite shaman over 2-drop ramp creatures?

[Arianrhod]

Hmm...interesting. I always thought of nic fit as a control deck. I guess you don't really need spot removal, though, if you're outclassing your opponent's creatures with a turn 3 thragtusk.

What do you think about running 1 deathrite shaman over 2-drop ramp creatures?

It is a control deck, but it's a board control deck. It controls your opponent's board presence and controls via your own board presence. This is, incidentally, why stack-based combo is about the worst thing you can face.

You could try a 1-of Deathrite, although it's beyond me what you'd cut for him. The Tribe-Elder and the Sylvan Ranger both serve pretty important functions, and being a 2-drop is important. I definitely wouldn't suggest cutting a Veteran. I guess the closest would be cutting Scavenging Ooze, but I like having a bomby 2-drop to get lategame, and the incremental lifegain from Ooze is insanely strong with Archangel onboard.

[jbone2016]

So, I currently run one IoK and one thoughtseize along with the four therapy in my deck. (Still Thune/Feeder)

Thoughts on replacing those 2 discards with 2 probes?
Or 3 probes for Iok, thought and one land? (currently run 22-3 heath, 3 cata, 2 bayou, 2 savannah, 1 scrubland, 1 karakas, 2 tower, 3 forest, 3 swamp, 2 plains)

[Arianrhod]

So, I currently run one IoK and one thoughtseize along with the four therapy in my deck. (Still Thune/Feeder)

Thoughts on replacing those 2 discards with 2 probes?
Or 3 probes for Iok, thought and one land? (currently run 22-3 heath, 3 cata, 2 bayou, 2 savannah, 1 scrubland, 1 karakas, 2 tower, 3 forest, 3 swamp, 2 plains)

I don't like it. If you're up against combo, knowing how they're going to beat you + drawing a random card seems strictly worse than probably taking some combo piece of an indeterminate variety. You're likely sideboarding these two slots out against fair decks anyway, so the change is meaningless there.

-----

Sidenote for Pod lists of all color combinations:

Thoughts on Necroplasm?

Comes in off Pod (or cast), destroys all Delvers on the turn it comes in, all Monguise, Grims, Deathrites, and other annoying 1s on the turn after, then all Goyfs, Oozes, Bobs, Stoneforges, and such on the turn after, and then finally takes out Geist of St ******, Clique, and itself on the final turn -- then it can dredge back and do it all over again.

May be too cute, but might also be worth testing.

[guelahpapyrus]

I've been working on a modern list with Necroplasm. He's a bit slow, but good for taking out flipped delvers and other tokens. He's not that reliable for much else, but can occasionally get there. I suspect in Legacy this will be emphasized more. Test it and let us know what you find.

[CRich3]

Well here is what I played Sunday night for MTGO daily. I didn't keep exact notes because I was tired and I was watching football at the same time. Most of my notes are from writing down what I see with therapy.

Lands: 21
3x Forest
3x Plains
2x Swamps
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
2x Phyrexian Tower

Creatures: 20
1x Starved Rusalka
4x Veteran Explorer
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Fierce Empath
2x Eternal Witness
3x Academy Rector
1x Baneslayer Angel
1x Thragtusk
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Sun Titan
1x Grave Titan

Spells: 19
3x Sensei's Divining TOp
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Recycle
4x Green Su's Zenith

Sideboard: 15
3x Extirpate
3x Carpet of Flowers
1x Gaddock Teeg
2x Oblivion Ring
2x Faith's Fetters
2x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Primeval Bounty

Roud 1: Dredge
Game 1: I play first starting off with turn 1 top. He passes and discards golgari grave troll. I already had scavenging ooze in hand which I played turn 2 instead of using top on my upkeep. But he kills it with contagion. He dredges and discards a couple of Ichorids and Nether shadows. I turn 3 green sun's for gaddock teeg. From here on we are a race back and forth. I use Starved Rusalka to keep his bridges out of his graveyard and to save some damage from Ichorid. I eventually get Grave Titan and I win the race.

SB: -1 Sun Titan, -1 Grave Titan, -1 Fierce Empath, -1 Recycle, +3 Extirpate, +1 Primeval Bounty.

Game 2: He reveals the white chancellor so I turn 1 cabal therapy which gets countered, turn 2 gaddock teeg. Then proceed to top deck 2 green sun's. I draw plenty of removal but not enough creatures to keep up with the race. I extirpated his Dread Return and Golgari Grave Troll early on to slow him down but still couldn't keep up.

Game 3: This game was very close, I mull down to 4. Veteran Explorer, Extirpate, Bayou, Phyrexian Tower. I play turn 1 explorer off bayou and he pass and discards grave troll. I draw top attack for 1, sac veteran explorer to play top and extirpate on grave troll. He applies a lot of pressure with nacromoebas and nether shadows. I top deck E. Wit to Exitrpate dread return, and continue to lay out chump blocks. He had me down to 6 and he was at 18 before I get a threat which is Baneslayer. Then proceed to top deck for the win. Next was E. wit getting extirpate to exile ichorid. Then Thragtusk to gain life to block all of the tokens he was getting from the 2 bridges in his graveyard.

Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-1

Round 2: Enchantress
Game 1: This was a blowout, I play first and start off fetch bayou for top. He plays wild growth on a forest and pass. I don't use top I turn 2 veteran explore to sacrifice with phyrexian tower to decay his wild growth then use top. He plays enchantress turn 2 and pass. I play deed and sac for 2. He draws plays enchantress then enchantress precense and I use top to find Sun Titan. After he noticed the recurring deed he concedes.

Sideboard: -1 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Recycle, +1 Gaddock Teeg, +1 Primeval Bounty

Game 2: This was very close. I start off fast with turn 1x explorer, turn 2 gaddock teeg. Turn 3 nothing. Then turn 4 double therapy revealing his hand of humility, assemble the legion, and replenish. I called Replenish the first one and took assemble the legion with the flashback. I figured he had some high cc spells since he played a turn 1 wild growth, turn 2 enchantress and nothing else. I don't draw any big threats, just 2 e wit and ooze. He eventually draws an oblivion ring and starts to lock me out the game. He drops humility and assemble the legion. I have to use Primeval bounty to fight off his tokens. He had 0 cards in deck 7 cards in hand assemble the legion with 3 or 4 counters, 2 suppression fields. I have 4 creatures, 2 which are 4/4 from primeval bounty which got o ringed a couple of turns back. I also have deed in hand with 6 lands. I had to pay 4 to sac my fetch land. one turn, then 4 to use top to find my 7th land. I then blow deed for 3 him having 2 Karmic Justice out wipes my whole side of the board. But I clear out his tokens and his Solitary Confinment to make him deck himself.

Matches: 2-0
Games: 4-1

Round 3: Deathblade
Game 1: I had a great hand, Veteran Explorer, Cabal Therapy, Top, Abrupt decay 2 fetches bayou, forest. He played first and played Marsh Flats and passed. I turned 1 forest top. He plays SFM and gets batterskull, I cabal therapy his batterskull seeing Dark Confidant, JTMS, Vindicate, Engineered Explosives and fetch. I play veteran explorer flash it back and take his Jace. He plays Bob which gets decayed. He play turn 3 grave titan which gets vindicated and tokens get blown up. But he has very few cards. I eventually top into green sun which gets me Sigarda and I ride her to victory.

Sideboard: -1 Sun Titan, -1 Grave Titan, -1 Fierce Empath, +1 Primeval Bounty, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Faith's Fetters.

Game 2: He plays a lot similar to game but he gets Sword of Feast and Famine and I have no way to remove it. I started to race him with Sigarda and Thragtusk until he plays supreme verdict then lingering souls.

Game 3: I thought he was just playing Esper until he turn 1 Deathrite. Then turn 2 Bob which I chose to kill Deathrite instead with Decay. I drop veteran explorer which I sac to phyrexian tower turn 2 to play sakura tribe elder (hand is 2 Academy Rector and land). He taps out to play brainstorm into JTMS. I draw another veteran explorer and play rector and pray he doesn't have a counter, which he doesn't I sac to get primeval bounty and proceed to win with veteran explorers, e witness and beast tokens.

Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-2

Round 4: RUG Tempo
Game 1: He plays turn 1 Delver which flips turn 2. He never gets a second land but counters ever spell I play until its to late for me to catch up.

Sideboard: -3 Veteran Explorer, - 1 Fierce Empath, -1 Sun Titan, -1 Grave Titan, +1 Thrun, +3 Carpet of Flowers, +1 Primeval Bounty, +1 Extirpate.

Game 2: I play turn 1 Carpet, the plays turn 1 goose. I then use the carpet to green sun for explorer play fetch and hold tower. I turn 3 sigarda and he scoops.

Game 3: This game I couldn't draw a threat to keep up. I cabal therapy 2 Stifles away, and draw deed for nimble mongoose, and decay for goyf. But I couldn't keep up with the second goyf with counter back up.

Matches: 3-1
Games: 7-4

My conclusion:
-Primeval Bounty is better main than Recycle at this time. I still use recycle a lot but veteran explorer making a 3/3 beast is hard for a lot of decks to deal with. Its probably wrong but I mainly use recycle for combo decks to draw into discard faster.
-I really don't like extirpate, the mana I have to keep up waiting for a spell to get rid of I could of been more proactive and applying more pressure.
-Oblivion Ring is a house with all the show and tell decks. I can't tell you how many times I play Gaddock Teeg and they show into my O-Ring.
-Gaddock Teeg was just a filler card because I didn't know what else to play, but with all the combo decks I'm glad to play 1 MD.
-Scavening Ooze didn't get to shine as much in the tournament but during play testing he is a huge threat.
-The second Faith's Fetters was supposed to be humility but I didn't have enough to buy one. But with Teeg and O-Ring I have never needed it.

Random thoughts:
-I didn't play recurring nightmare all weekend. I don't think this is as strong in this version since I get the same effects attacking with my titans as I do when they enter the battlefield.
-I miss playing Kitchen Finks. He is a house vs tempo and burn decks.

[pfiremc13]

It is a control deck, but it's a board control deck. It controls your opponent's board presence and controls via your own board presence. This is, incidentally, why stack-based combo is about the worst thing you can face.

Board control/ramp combo, whichever way you want to look at it


being a 2-drop is important.

Why exactly?

I was thinking of cutting STE.

[guelahpapyrus]

Board control/ramp combo, whichever way you want to look at it



Why exactly?

I was thinking of cutting STE.

Because birthing pod chain.

[pfiremc13]

Because birthing pod chain.

You can't pod from STE >_>

Or, it would be a bad idea.

[pfiremc13]

I'll post my full list soon when I have it finished. It's basically arianrhod's thune fit with a few changes.

[pfiremc13]

Thoughts on Necroplasm?

Comes in off Pod (or cast), destroys all Delvers on the turn it comes in, all Monguise, Grims, Deathrites, and other annoying 1s on the turn after, then all Goyfs, Oozes, Bobs, Stoneforges, and such on the turn after, and then finally takes out Geist of St ******, Clique, and itself on the final turn -- then it can dredge back and do it all over again.

May be too cute, but might also be worth testing.

I really like this idea. Especially for its synergy with thune or feeder in thune fit specifically.

What are people's thoughts on inquisition of kozilek vs. thoughtseize?

Sorry for the triple post

[Arianrhod]

I really like this idea. Especially for its synergy with thune or feeder in thune fit specifically.

What are people's thoughts on inquisition of kozilek vs. thoughtseize?

Sorry for the triple post

I didn't even think of the synergy with Thune and Feeder. That's highly amusing. Theoretically, you could use one of these options to "jump" the 3-spot, ensuring that the 'Plasm keeps growing indefinitely.

New achievement unlocked: combine Necroplasm + Spike Feeder + Archangel of Thune to destroy an Emrakul.

I don't have a Necroplasm, so I can't test it tonight at my local -- likewise, I actually don't know what I would cut for it yet. But it's probably worth trying. I'll have to order one in =)

As for Inq vs Seize, Seize is almost unanimously better. Premier reason why is Sneak/Show, where sometimes they'll have a hand full of dudes, or a Sneak Attack, or whatever, and Inq does nothing. You generally want the extra discard vs combo decks, and vs combo decks the 2 life is generally meaningless outside of corner cases.


You can't pod from STE >_>

Or, it would be a bad idea.

I've shamelessly flashbacked Therapy via STE already. Shit happens.

[Blastoderm]

I really like Necroplasm. My friend's favorite card when he used to play magic back in the day. I usually go get bone shredder in pod at 3 mana but this could be really good.

[guelahpapyrus]

I didn't even think of the synergy with Thune and Feeder. That's highly amusing. Theoretically, you could use one of these options to "jump" the 3-spot, ensuring that the 'Plasm keeps growing indefinitely.

New achievement unlocked: combine Necroplasm + Spike Feeder + Archangel of Thune to destroy an Emrakul.

I don't have a Necroplasm, so I can't test it tonight at my local -- likewise, I actually don't know what I would cut for it yet. But it's probably worth trying. I'll have to order one in =)

As for Inq vs Seize, Seize is almost unanimously better. Premier reason why is Sneak/Show, where sometimes they'll have a hand full of dudes, or a Sneak Attack, or whatever, and Inq does nothing. You generally want the extra discard vs combo decks, and vs combo decks the 2 life is generally meaningless outside of corner cases.



I've shamelessly flashbacked Therapy via STE already. Shit happens.

This is why I'm with Tao on the Sylvan Ranger boat.

[Arianrhod]

This is why I'm with Tao on the Sylvan Ranger boat.

Yeah, I'm ideally going to have a 1-1 split between Sylvan Ranger and Sakura-Tribe. I can't bring myself to cut Sakura-Tribe completely, at the very least, not yet. Note that my Sylvan Ranger isn't here yet, so tonight I'm going to be running the Viridian Emissary still. This is purely due to availability.

#Has40duals, #doesn'thavecommons.

[benofzongo]

So I ran a punishing fire nic fit list at a legacy tournament this past weekend, to a 2-3 record...but my game W-L was 7-6...and but for one (well, I guess 2) noob mistakes, I would have made top 8, and I had a blast with the deck, so it was successful in my book.
I ran Tao's primer list (thanks for that, btw), except my board was:

4 Red elemental blast
4 Leyline of the void
3 Chalice of the void
2 Golgari charm
2 Slaughter games



Match 1: DnT
I convinced my friend Chris to come to his first ever legacy tourney, and of course we get paired up. I basically machine-gunned his board with punishing fire for 2 games, and it was over. Sad face for him :(. 2-0.

Match 2: Mono Red Painter.
Game 1 he draws a billion lands and plays only a blood moon before I kill him. So I don't know whether he's playing MUD or painter. I should have guessed painter based on his lands, but my noob-rustiness means I waffle and don't board for game 2. Game 2 he blood moons again, and by a twist of fate my deck gives me all nonbasics. I'm still in it if I can find a forest off the top, but he gets me. Game 3 we battle back and forth a bit, until he flips the grindstone blindly off the top. GG. 1-2. overall 3-2.

Match 3: SnT
Game 1 is -literally- the most epic game of magic I have ever played. We battle back and forth a bit, with me stripping out his hand, but he rebuilds. Then he slams the show and tell: my board is top, perncious deed, and 6 lands. He drops emrakul and passes. I GSZ for an eternal witness to grab liliana back out of my yard and pass. He swings, and I sack 3 lands, the witness, and the top, but I stack in a look at my top 3 before the trigger, leaving me with 3 lands. There is a second liliana in the top three and I think "what are the chances I will need that?" but stack her on top anyways. He passes back. I draw the seocnd liliana and play the first, making him sac emrakul. I pass. He slams show and tell and a second emrakul and passes. I slam a second liliana. A few turns later he scoops up his cards.
Game 2 he puts me away after a protracted fight. Game 3 we are dueling, and he has a full hand, and I slaughter games. I have to choose SnT or Sneak attack (or emrakul). I pick SnT. He has the other 2 and I lose. In hindsight, this was a very poor choice, but I guess that's how you learn. 1-2, overall 4-4.

Match 4: Shardless BUG
This is supposed to be a toss-up for Nic Fit, but in my experience it is a blowout (probably due to variance secondary to limited experience): Nic Fit just doesn't care about any of the cards this deck plays, so they can get all the CA they want. Game 2 was good I guess: he eventually landed a bitterblossom and gilded draked my thragtusk. I perncious deed his token and kill him with the drake. 2-0, overall 6-4

Match 5: Lands
I still really am shaky in this matchup, psychologically: I just don't know what my lines of play should be, when I should be on defense vs. offense. Game one he does the annoying lands thing. Game 2 I slaughter games out his P-fires and loams and kill him with Thrun. game three I mull to 5, but start with a leyline in play. I get a thrun down and have an abrupt decay in hand. His only permanent is exploration while he looks for a loam. Now, my noob error here costs me the game, the match, and a top 8 berth (my opponent top 8'ed instead): I'm thinking...this decay isn't doing anything for me, so I point it at his exploration. Well, next turn off the top he gets ensnaring bridge. He then Krosan grips my leyline and does the land shimy with ghost quarter. 1-2, overall 7-6.

I actually never fetched the badlands or the taiga, and was wondering if those could be replaced with basics (which I was often hoping for more of). My gut sense is probably not, but just thought I'd mention it. I think I will take my SB back more towards the generally accepted version, since surgicals have broader applicability.
My question to the group is regarding plans against Lands and Painter. I feel like I know what I did wrong against SnT, but not for those two.

Thanks,
Ben

[Arianrhod]

So I ran a punishing fire nic fit list at a legacy tournament this past weekend, to a 2-3 record...but my game W-L was 7-6...and but for one (well, I guess 2) noob mistakes, I would have made top 8, and I had a blast with the deck, so it was successful in my book.
I ran Tao's primer list (thanks for that, btw), except my board was:

4 Red elemental blast
4 Leyline of the void
3 Chalice of the void
2 Golgari charm
2 Slaughter games



Match 1: DnT
I convinced my friend Chris to come to his first ever legacy tourney, and of course we get paired up. I basically machine-gunned his board with punishing fire for 2 games, and it was over. Sad face for him :(. 2-0.

Match 2: Mono Red Painter.
Game 1 he draws a billion lands and plays only a blood moon before I kill him. So I don't know whether he's playing MUD or painter. I should have guessed painter based on his lands, but my noob-rustiness means I waffle and don't board for game 2. Game 2 he blood moons again, and by a twist of fate my deck gives me all nonbasics. I'm still in it if I can find a forest off the top, but he gets me. Game 3 we battle back and forth a bit, until he flips the grindstone blindly off the top. GG. 1-2. overall 3-2.

Match 3: SnT
Game 1 is -literally- the most epic game of magic I have ever played. We battle back and forth a bit, with me stripping out his hand, but he rebuilds. Then he slams the show and tell: my board is top, perncious deed, and 6 lands. He drops emrakul and passes. I GSZ for an eternal witness to grab liliana back out of my yard and pass. He swings, and I sack 3 lands, the witness, and the top, but I stack in a look at my top 3 before the trigger, leaving me with 3 lands. There is a second liliana in the top three and I think "what are the chances I will need that?" but stack her on top anyways. He passes back. I draw the seocnd liliana and play the first, making him sac emrakul. I pass. He slams show and tell and a second emrakul and passes. I slam a second liliana. A few turns later he scoops up his cards.
Game 2 he puts me away after a protracted fight. Game 3 we are dueling, and he has a full hand, and I slaughter games. I have to choose SnT or Sneak attack (or emrakul). I pick SnT. He has the other 2 and I lose. In hindsight, this was a very poor choice, but I guess that's how you learn. 1-2, overall 4-4.

Match 4: Shardless BUG
This is supposed to be a toss-up for Nic Fit, but in my experience it is a blowout (probably due to variance secondary to limited experience): Nic Fit just doesn't care about any of the cards this deck plays, so they can get all the CA they want. Game 2 was good I guess: he eventually landed a bitterblossom and gilded draked my thragtusk. I perncious deed his token and kill him with the drake. 2-0, overall 6-4

Match 5: Lands
I still really am shaky in this matchup, psychologically: I just don't know what my lines of play should be, when I should be on defense vs. offense. Game one he does the annoying lands thing. Game 2 I slaughter games out his P-fires and loams and kill him with Thrun. game three I mull to 5, but start with a leyline in play. I get a thrun down and have an abrupt decay in hand. His only permanent is exploration while he looks for a loam. Now, my noob error here costs me the game, the match, and a top 8 berth (my opponent top 8'ed instead): I'm thinking...this decay isn't doing anything for me, so I point it at his exploration. Well, next turn off the top he gets ensnaring bridge. He then Krosan grips my leyline and does the land shimy with ghost quarter. 1-2, overall 7-6.

I actually never fetched the badlands or the taiga, and was wondering if those could be replaced with basics (which I was often hoping for more of). My gut sense is probably not, but just thought I'd mention it. I think I will take my SB back more towards the generally accepted version, since surgicals have broader applicability.
My question to the group is regarding plans against Lands and Painter. I feel like I know what I did wrong against SnT, but not for those two.

Thanks,
Ben

Emrkaul is always the correct blind Slaughter. Slaughter Games (or comparable card) goes after the monsters. Spot-discard goes after the enablers (Show and Sneak).

Imperial Painter is a coin toss. Pernicious Deed is insanely good against them, and the fact that we play 7+ basics and routinely get multiples out via Explorer/Tribe-Elder/etc is really solid. Sometimes we don't draw Deed, and sometimes we get all dual-land hands. It happens. It's mostly draw-dependent, to be honest. Slaughtering away their Painter's Servants is big game.

I don't think anyone in the thread has said that Shardless is a coin toss. Shardless is a bye as far as Nic Fit of any color combination is concerned. I mean, they can obviously nut-draw and then that's that, but the same can be true for any deck -- such is Magic.

As for Lands....I think I would Slaughter away their Loams first and foremost, then go for the Punishing Fires from there. It's worth noting that if they're Dark Lands, that can be a huge problem -- Nic Fit in general doesn't have a lot of ways to get rid of Merit Lage, although Liliana is huge. Generally speaking against Lands you want to ramp as aggressively as you can to dodge their mana denial plan, drop a fatty or two, and try to kill them as quickly as possible. Quick Lilianas turn into half-armageddons vs them, which is sweet -- Deed wraths away their Explorations and such, Decay and other spot takes out Ensnaring Bridge in lieu of a Deed....Slaughter away Loam and PFire to hit their engines as much as possible.

Hope that helps.

[MrIggins]

Played Thune Pod tonight, the deck felt really really underpowered to me. I never really felt like I had a plan to work towards. Instead the deck was just trying to value-play people out of the game, which definitely doesn't feel good enough. The deck's power plays just never felt impactful enough, unless I was already ahead, and Archangel herself was never good and frequently just got Swordsed for no value. I was DEFINITELY playing poorly, so that didn't help. Perhaps it can be written up to variance and bad play over 3 rounds but the deck left a bad taste in my mouth, I'm sorry to say, because it looked really sweet on paper. I know Kevin's had success with it, but I'm personally gonna write that up to him being a master, and stick with Scapewish.

Trying to be constructive about the deck, the main addressable issue I found was not being able to interact with my opponent at all, and particularly being unable to interact with Batterskull, which I was basically never able to deal with. While Pod may be a fine engine card, I don't think the versatility (or power, or both) of answers is there yet to make it really work as well as some other variants' engines. I don't know if that means more Zeniths to complement it, more redundancy in effects, a maindeck guy like Wickerbough Elder, or what. The potential is probably there, and I hope it gets found. I will say that playing Sigarda was awesome, and Recurring Nightmare + Persist dudes, while a little fragile, is definitely good.

[Arianrhod]

Played Thune Pod tonight, the deck felt really really underpowered to me. I never really felt like I had a plan to work towards. Instead the deck was just trying to value-play people out of the game, which definitely doesn't feel good enough. The deck's power plays just never felt impactful enough, unless I was already ahead, and Archangel herself was never good and frequently just got Swordsed for no value. I was DEFINITELY playing poorly, so that didn't help. Perhaps it can be written up to variance and bad play over 3 rounds but the deck left a bad taste in my mouth, I'm sorry to say, because it looked really sweet on paper. I know Kevin's had success with it, but I'm personally gonna write that up to him being a master, and stick with Scapewish.

Trying to be constructive about the deck, the main addressable issue I found was not being able to interact with my opponent at all, and particularly being unable to interact with Batterskull, which I was basically never able to deal with. While Pod may be a fine engine card, I don't think the versatility (or power, or both) of answers is there yet to make it really work as well as some other variants' engines. I don't know if that means more Zeniths to complement it, more redundancy in effects, a maindeck guy like Wickerbough Elder, or what. The potential is probably there, and I hope it gets found. I will say that playing Sigarda was awesome, and Recurring Nightmare + Persist dudes, while a little fragile, is definitely good.

What were your matchups, out of curiosity? I'm guessing there was a Blade deck of some kind, since you mention Swords and Batterskull specifically.

-----

Went 3-1 at my local with Thune last night -- beating Reanimator, Burn, and RUG; losing to Goblins. Reanimator was a format neophyte who was borrowing a deck -- I never, ever in a million years should have won game 1, but he didn't know what Birthing Pod does in legacy, so he allowed it to resolve (he had an onboard [turn 2] Griselbrand and could have drawn a million cards). I combo'd off shortly thereafter. Game two I won legitimately without him ever getting a fatty in play, between Nevermore, Cranial, and Ooze. Burn was closer than I would like -- game one I didn't draw anything that gained life and he had Price + Fireblast for exact the turn before I was going to stabilize. Game three I was mana screwed hard, but he had a slow draw with double Sulfuric Vortex. I Deeded away the first one, then hit the second with Harmonic Sliver. There were two turns where I was actually just dead on board to basically anything (he drew a land and then a Grim Lavamancer), but I skated by through the skin of my teeth and made Thrag->Resto/Thrag happen. RUG was, as always, a joke. Game two I had a turn two Sigarda which actually resolved. You can guess how that went. Goblins was a simple case of my deck just failing to play Magic -- game one he vomited out double Warchief + Chieftain + MWM + Piledriver in rapid succession, and I died with Pernicious Deed the top card of my deck after getting smacked for 16 in one turn. Game two I mulled and he had a slower, Port-based hand. I wrathed him once, but he rebuilt into Warchief/Warchief/Mad Auntie and nugged me for exactsies through a Sigarda.

The increased prevalence of Goblins in the metagame is making my Moat instincts itch. I always feel like Goblins is a harder matchup than it really should be -- it's often wildly in our favor, but it seems like ~1/3 of the time they just nut out and kick us right in the nuts before we can say anything about it.

Things I noticed:

Only used Emissary once, would've been a push as to whether it was better as Ranger or not.
Voice was still terrible. I think I've found my Necroplasm slot.
The 3-drop core of Varolz/Spike/Finks was still one of the biggest reasons to play the deck.
Never used Batterskull (or SFM), or Recurring Nightmare. Sun Titan was hideously overkill the one time he saw play. This is a function of my matchups.
I still actively hate Ooze as a card. Can't deny that it was nice having the Reanimator hate, though.

All I've got for now.

[MrIggins]

What were your matchups, out of curiosity? I'm guessing there was a Blade deck of some kind, since you mention Swords and Batterskull specifically.


Junk with Stoneforge, Mom, Knight, Bob, Deathrite, Lingering Souls, then BW with Bob, Stoneforge, Mom, Deathrite, and discard, and then Jund.
Bricked on hitting a Deed or any sort of action to go with my Archangel for a long time against Junk game 1 while I died to Deathrite and Batterskull, did the thing with Recurring Nightmare and Redcap game 2, got Hymned out of the game in game 3.
Drew against BW because he was playing very slowly and it took me forever to kill him game 2. Game 1 I turn 3 a Sigarda off of Tower+Explorer and he gets his 4th and 5th basics (which I was definitely not expecting) and plays Sword of Feast and Famine, equip it to his Bob, attack, trigger, cast Batterskull. The deed in my hand was too slow. Game 2 I eventually grind him out with Finks and Pod into Resto into Sigarda. Game 3 we end up in turns while I have an Archangel in play and he has a Batterskull, he doesn't have the removal for the Angel so I'm drawing live to go off but it doesn't get there.
Jund was good when they didn't have discard and bad when they did, I will note that Deathrite and Ooze were very problematic in these games, but Batterskull was very good in the matchup.

I know some of these are bad beats (that BW game when turn 3 Sigarda didn't do anything) and the bricking on draw steps (with a Top in play, no less) will happen with any build. I'm probably writing off the deck too early.

I'm feeling much more awake and able to put things into words than last night so here are some other notes I have about the deck:
-Voice, as you said, was quite bad.
-Varolz never really did anything but that's probably a function of every opponent having Deathrite Shaman and/or Ooze.
-I wanted more 2-drops to pod into the business 3s, but this is from a small sample size and I don't know if that would be a consistent problem. If you're cutting Voice for a 3-drop that you can't Zenith for (Necroplasm), that may make this more of an issue.
-I distinctly remember wanting to Zenith up a 4-drop to Pod into an Archangel and being unable to.
-Sigarda continues to be awesome.
-The deck felt pretty weak to discard because your cards seem less powerful on an individual level. Nightmare doesn't do anything without creatures, Archangel is only okay without its support, Pod similarly needs guys, etc. Granted when the synergy gets going you are hard to stop, but if they disrupt it, you can end up not doing much.
-The deck really didn't feel proactive enough, which is my biggest issue. In these games I never really felt like I had clear things to play towards, and I certainly didn't feel like I was putting opponents under pressure. I don't know what can be done about this or if it was just the draws I had or what.

[fireiced]

@Arianrhod

I tried Angel-Fit and loved it, sadly my meta has plenty of combo decks such as belcher and what not. Seems like the sb plans against such combo is too slow unless I actively mulligan for a hand with therapy (it also does not mean I will definitely hit the crucial pieces). Any plans against such decks for Angel-Fit? I am very used to having burning wish to find answers against them if they go for the empty the warrens route or leave in play a belcher to be activated the next turn.

[jbone2016]

@Arianrhod

I tried Angel-Fit and loved it, sadly my meta has plenty of combo decks such as belcher and what not. Seems like the sb plans against such combo is too slow unless I actively mulligan for a hand with therapy (it also does not mean I will definitely hit the crucial pieces). Any plans against such decks for Angel-Fit? I am very used to having burning wish to find answers against them if they go for the empty the warrens route or leave in play a belcher to be activated the next turn.

Sometimes luck. Sometimes mull to your hate. I played and beat Belcher twice at SCG Mpls (round 3 and 8) with Angel/Feeder Fit.

My report: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20983-Deck-Nic-Fit-(GBx-Explorer-Zenith-Control)&p=742084&viewfull=1#post742084 (if you hadn't see it)

[jbone2016]

-I distinctly remember wanting to Zenith up a 4-drop to Pod into an Archangel and being unable to.


I remember one of our local nic fitters used spike weaver in his list. Doesn't seem bad.
Wickerbough Elder is also a decent option at times.

[Arianrhod]

Sometimes luck. Sometimes mull to your hate. I played and beat Belcher twice at SCG Mpls (round 3 and 8) with Angel/Feeder Fit.

My report: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20983-Deck-Nic-Fit-(GBx-Explorer-Zenith-Control)&p=742084&viewfull=1#post742084 (if you hadn't see it)

Pretty much this. You can't be afraid to mull for business against combo decks, even though you sometimes need to throw away perfectly reasonable hands -- they aren't reasonable in the world of what your opponent is doing. And sometimes you do just need to get lucky. We're bringing a knife to a gun fight in the combo matchup.

Pod and Zenith function in much the same way for Thune as Wish does in Scape.

vs Empty you have:

Pod -> Necroplasm (assuming that he does check out and ends up in the list)
Pod -> Orzhov Pontiff
Pod -> Rector -> Deed (assuming sac outlet, or if you can soak 1 hit to then sac to pod)
[Deed]

vs in-play Belcher:

Pod / Zenith -> Harmonic Sliver

-----------

Noted@Sam -- I'll provide some thoughts on this stuff either later tonight or Friday morning sometime.....I'm super busy right now ._.

[Tombstalker]

Ive taken some time to absorb the deck and started testing pretty heavily since im helping a friend build a version of this deck. I would like some thoughts on where the list is currently at:

Lands 22
3 grove of the burnwillows
3 verdant catacombs
3 wooded foothills
3 swamp
2 forest
2 bayou
1 badlands
1 mountain
1 phyrexian tower
1 kessig wolf run
1 thespian stage
1 dark depths

Creatures 14
4 veteran explorer
2 abyssal persecutor
1 scavenging ooze
1 eternal witness
1 huntmaster of the fells
1 thrun, the last troll
1 grave titan
1 primeval titan
1 wurmcoil engine
1 broodmate dragon

PW 3
2 liliana of the veil
1 garruk primal hunter

Artifacts/enchants 6
3 SDT
3 pernicious deed

Sorceries 8
4 GSZ
4 cabal therapy

Instants 7
3 punishing fire
2 abrupt decay
2 crop rotation

Currently 60 cards with more focus on 'titans' and lands. The thespian depths combo really hasnt come up that often tbh but its in for now until I get a bead on it. The persecutors have been insane especially with crop rotation tutoring for tower or finding kessig wolf run (outraced a progenitus today with it). The main things im not sure about atm are thrun, eternal witness, and the dark depths combo. The first two because they always feel underwhelming and the latter because its not often necessary although I dont see why having the option is really a bad thing. The deck can easily start dropping bombs as early as turn 2 onward and I would like to fit something a little nastier in at the 3-5cc slots, just not sure what. Hymns have also come to mind. Any ideas or input?

[jbone2016]

Currently 60 cards with more focus on 'titans' and lands. The thespian depths combo really hasnt come up that often tbh but its in for now until I get a bead on it. The persecutors have been insane especially with crop rotation tutoring for tower or finding kessig wolf run (outraced a progenitus today with it). The main things im not sure about atm are thrun, eternal witness, and the dark depths combo. The first two because they always feel underwhelming and the latter because its not often necessary although I dont see why having the option is really a bad thing. The deck can easily start dropping bombs as early as turn 2 onward and I would like to fit something a little nastier in at the 3-5cc slots, just not sure what. Hymns have also come to mind. Any ideas or input?

I had a one of Vraska in my list at times. Isn't horrible.

[Zinch]

Ive taken some time to absorb the deck and started testing pretty heavily since im helping a friend build a version of this deck. I would like some thoughts on where the list is currently at:

Lands 22
3 grove of the burnwillows
3 verdant catacombs
3 wooded foothills
3 swamp
2 forest
2 bayou
1 badlands
1 mountain
1 phyrexian tower
1 kessig wolf run
1 thespian stage
1 dark depths

Creatures 14
4 veteran explorer
2 abyssal persecutor
1 scavenging ooze
1 eternal witness
1 huntmaster of the fells
1 thrun, the last troll
1 grave titan
1 primeval titan
1 wurmcoil engine
1 broodmate dragon

PW 3
2 liliana of the veil
1 garruk primal hunter

Artifacts/enchants 6
3 SDT
3 pernicious deed

Sorceries 8
4 GSZ
4 cabal therapy

Instants 7
3 punishing fire
2 abrupt decay
2 crop rotation

Currently 60 cards with more focus on 'titans' and lands. The thespian depths combo really hasnt come up that often tbh but its in for now until I get a bead on it. The persecutors have been insane especially with crop rotation tutoring for tower or finding kessig wolf run (outraced a progenitus today with it). The main things im not sure about atm are thrun, eternal witness, and the dark depths combo. The first two because they always feel underwhelming and the latter because its not often necessary although I dont see why having the option is really a bad thing. The deck can easily start dropping bombs as early as turn 2 onward and I would like to fit something a little nastier in at the 3-5cc slots, just not sure what. Hymns have also come to mind. Any ideas or input?

I'm still testing 1 Kalonian Hydra... it kills in 2 turns, few thing are nastier than that for 5 mana...

[pfiremc13]

Voice was still terrible

Yay I get to trade my voice :)



Here's my current list:

//Creatures
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Academy Rector
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Deathrite Shaman - Maindeckable graveyard hate and alternate ramp source
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sun Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Restoration Angel
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Spike Feeder
1 Necroplasm

//Instants and Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith - In place of a top because I like to search for specific things

//Lands
1 Bayou
5 Forest
2 Marsh Flats
2 Phyrexian Tower
3 Plains
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Windswept Heath

//Artifacts & Enchantments
1 Faith's Fetters - Great at stalling/locking down annoying permanents
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
3 Birthing Pod
2 Sensei's Divining Top

//Sideboard:
SB: 1 Nether Void
SB: 1 Choke
SB: 1 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor - This gives me lots of options including humility vs sneak & show and choke vs. blue
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers



In arianrhod's article, he mentioned that we couldn't go infinite with melira + redcap/finks + viscera seer. That made me think...what if we could?

We already have the finks, redcap, and pods, and viscera seer could be a sac outlet for explorer too. Thoughts?

[KntrellCL]

I like pod in nic fit, but that combo barely makes it in modern... it shouldnt have any chance on legacy. Also, putting too many 1-of you will find yourself with plenty of marginal use creatures in many matches.

Yesterday I play this list with some friends... i won 4-1 against deathblade, I lost 3-0 against goblins, 2-2 against Patriot... all this games without SB.

Pod Rock

Creatures [19]
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Restoration Angel
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Heons
1 Wurmcoil Engine/ Grave Titan


Engine [8]
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Birthing Pod
1 Recurring Nightmare

Equipments [1]
1 Batterskull

Removals [7]
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay

Discard [4]
4 Cabal Therapy

Lands [22]
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
4 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold

SB [15]
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

I finally cut off Dryad arbor... think about this... any hand 1 lander with gsz should be an instant mull, so you should keep any hand with gsz and two lands, in this case i rather fetch for veteran explorer than dryad arbor. MVPs metamorph and resto angel are very useful to get plenty of value from your cards. Having kitchen finks in play with pod means to draw free resto angels.

Another card i took out was strangleroot geist.Yes, it's could to pod twice but you only get a 3/2 haste which his cost isnt too easy to play on T2, so I replace it with SFM and it has been great. You can put BSkull on play and then pod the sfm away...you can copy bskull with metamorph and get it back anytime you want to copy something else.

Thrun was a dificult cut, but it has the same function as sigarda and i would never trade thrun with pod for thragtusk or sigarda, so I replace it with Murderous Redcap which has been nice to keep some board control, especially against DRS

[CalebD]

Ugh, that BUG Pod list I was working on is way worse than I thought. Tested it a lot over the last week and was super disappointed in everything from the draws to the manabase.

3/10 would not play again.

The white is still intriguing due to Academy Rector, but Pod still has some inherent weaknesses to worry about.

[Star|Scream]

Caleb, have you tried the Scapeshift version yet?

[Blastoderm]

Ugh, that BUG Pod list I was working on is way worse than I thought. Tested it a lot over the last week and was super disappointed in everything from the draws to the manabase.

3/10 would not play again.

The white is still intriguing due to Academy Rector, but Pod still has some inherent weaknesses to worry about.

Rector gets recurring nightmare or primeval bounty which puts you waaaay ahead. Except vs show and tell :P

[CalebD]

I played the Scape version in an Open. Didn't like it at all.

Would rather just Grave Titan people.

[Blastoderm]

I played the Scape version in an Open. Didn't like it at all.

Would rather just Grave Titan people.

Why not just play Natural Order?

[KntrellCL]

Why not just play Natural Order?

I use Natural Order in SB and it has been good. First game i need graveyard recursion and artifacts (pod bskull) to win the game. Game 2 i took some of this things expecting people will put sb against it and play NO combo on g2/3

[hymntotourcock]

Can someone post the core of Rector? I want to upgrade my NicFit list and that seems like a good place to go.
Thanks!

[Tao]

I played the Scape version in an Open. Didn't like it at all.

Would rather just Grave Titan people.

If you feel like valueing people you might want to consider Punishing Fire lists. I really think it is the best Nic Fit version. A great SB, realistic ways to beat Jace, a strong Primeval Titan.

[HoneyT]

If you feel like valueing people you might want to consider Punishing Fire lists. I really think it is the best Nic Fit version. A great SB, realistic ways to beat Jace, a strong Primeval Titan.

Obviously I agree with Tao here as we've been the two primary developers of the archetype. Fair deck matchups are an absolute joke and with the red cards in the board the combo matchups become quite favorable as well.

[Star|Scream]

Obviously I agree with Tao here as we've been the two primary developers of the archetype. Fair deck matchups are an absolute joke and with the red cards in the board the combo matchups become quite favorable as well.

Then what problem matchups does the deck have?

[Barbed Blightning]

Then what problem matchups does the deck have?

Show and Tell?

[pfiremc13]

I like pod in nic fit, but that combo barely makes it in modern... it shouldnt have any chance on legacy.


Well you didn't see sigarda in any standard decks, why have her in legacy?


Nic fit is very different from other decks in that it's a hardcore ramp deck. The combo is a lot easier to get to if you have 5 lands on turn 3.


Also, putting too many 1-of you will find yourself with plenty of marginal use creatures in many matches.

Name one marginal creature in my build.


I finally cut off Dryad arbor... think about this... any hand 1 lander with gsz should be an instant mull, so you should keep any hand with gsz and two lands, in this case i rather fetch for veteran explorer than dryad arbor.


...Yes, except for the fact that for vet ex you need a sac outlet and it costs 2 mana to gsz for.


Another card i took out was strangleroot geist.Yes, it's could to pod twice but you only get a 3/2 haste which his cost isnt too easy to play on T2, so I replace it with SFM and it has been great. You can put BSkull on play and then pod the sfm away...you can copy bskull with metamorph and get it back anytime you want to copy something else.

Thrun was a dificult cut, but it has the same function as sigarda and i would never trade thrun with pod for thragtusk or sigarda, so I replace it with Murderous Redcap which has been nice to keep some board control, especially against DRS

I completely agree, except I'm not sure I'd like to run a wincon that I can't pod or gsz for (you're not usually going to be podding 1-drops, which you need to do to pod into stoneforge)

[KntrellCL]

Well you didn't see sigarda in any standard decks, why have her in legacy?


Nic fit is very different from other decks in that it's a hardcore ramp deck. The combo is a lot easier to get to if you have 5 lands on turn 3.



Name one marginal creature in my build.




...Yes, except for the fact that for vet ex you need a sac outlet and it costs 2 mana to gsz for.



I completely agree, except I'm not sure I'd like to run a wincon that I can't pod or gsz for (you're not usually going to be podding 1-drops, which you need to do to pod into stoneforge)



1. Nic fit never was standar, so sigarda fits into the deck list... that's why Ive never seen her in Type 2.


2. //Creatures
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Academy Rector He's damn good, but with DRS he seems underpowered
2 Archangel of Thune trades 1x1 with swords, dismember, not gsz-able... you can combo from it, but is a combo very disruptable
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Deathrite Shaman - Maindeckable graveyard hate and alternate ramp source It doesnt fit into the gameplan. This craetures trades 1x1 and any deck with more copies will outplay your single shaman, Ooze does the same work and it can trade 1x1 after he remove some cards.
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks----Just 1? you are playing Pod with Resto angel, you should max out every card with persist and undying.
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sun Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Restoration Angel
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Spike Feeder Only works with Archangel... on its own is a pretty lame cmc3 since your oponents can cast better spells for that cost (KOTR, Lialiana, Crusher, even loxodon smitter)
1 Necroplasm Totally underpower card

3... I dont see any problema to gsz for veteran if you turn 1 cabal therapy... is a pretty standar play T1 therapy, T2 explorer, flashback and then play a drop 3... in your case a kitchen finks only (witness is not worth it in this turn) or a Pod which you cant activate... leaving it open for removal. Drop 2... is more likely to abrupt decay or stoneforge, etc. Keeping a 1 lander hand with gsz is just awful in this deck full of bombs... dryad dies with deed... also, I think deed with Pod is a nombo... this deck list is not like other nic fits which dont have much more board presence and deed everything away... in pod list you will take a lot of your own cards down with deeds...

4... as I said in point 2... you play a lot of situational 1-of... you should play powerful creatures on their own. That's why you play scavening ooze... it trades 1x1 but he's too good... that's why you dont play KOTR, DRS, Goyfs, all of these cards dont fit into your plan... grind your oponent out of removals. Resto angel gives you a lot of value, has combat tricks, she can take down PWs... save one of your creatures etc... then why play just 1? doing a Bpod into resto angel is just half of its power. SFM is just an idea I got... she is pretty strong at her own... if I draw her or Pod her... I would be more than paid at that moment... pod veteran into sfm, search for 2 lands and a equipment, next turn... if sfm stays in play you have a 2 mana Bskull and a 3cmc creature (sac sfm into finks or witness) or just play Bskull from the hand. Bskull makes every dead draw on late game good (such as Veteran explorer, etc).

Dont take anything of these personal, Im just telling you my experience with the deck and giving you arguments of why those cards seems underwhelming for me. If you dont like my ideas, just dont play the cards Im telling you... but just give it a thought a moment and think everytime how can you make your build better! Im also open to see new cards for BGw Pod lists...

[Tao]

Then what problem matchups does the deck have?


Show and Tell?

Show and Tell decks are still not great but compared to other Nic Fit versions I'd rather have 4 Therapy, 3 Lilianas and two Thoughtseizes main with 4 REBs, 2 Surgical, 2 Golgari Charm and 2 Slaughter Games in the Side than just 4 Therapy MD and a few mediocre SB cards which is what most other versions can muster up.

Where Fire is worse than other versions is the Nic Fit mirror and decks that use the Stage-Depths Combo. I honestly can't think of any other matchups in which I would prefer a different version.

[hymntotourcock]

Is Necroplasm doable in non-Pod builds?


Also, how does this Rector core look to you pros?

3 Academy Rector
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Faith's Fetters
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Liliana of the Veil

[TheArchitect]

Can someone post the core of Rector? I want to upgrade my NicFit list and that seems like a good place to go.
Thanks!

Rector got really bad with the printing of DRS and RIP, since like 75% of the otherwise excellent matchup fair decks you run into will be running of them. Rector would probably be a DOWNgrade from whatever version of nic fit you are playing now.



Show and Tell decks are still not great but compared to other Nic Fit versions I'd rather have 4 Therapy, 3 Lilianas and two Thoughtseizes main with 4 REBs, 2 Surgical, 2 Golgari Charm and 2 Slaughter Games in the Side than just 4 Therapy MD and a few mediocre SB cards which is what most other versions can muster up.

Where Fire is worse than other versions is the Nic Fit mirror and decks that use the Stage-Depths Combo. I honestly can't think of any other matchups in which I would prefer a different version.

I cant speak as much for Pfire, but for Scapewish, in my testing and in tournament experience, Sneak and Show is actually a positive matchup. You have therapy, REB for early interaction, and if the game drags on you can wish for Slaughter games (usually on sneak attack), or just have 7 lands and kill them. Also, unlike other verions of nic fit, you don't always lose to a resolved Show and tell. If you have prime titan in hand, you untap and win. If they drop emmy, you can untap and wish for innocent blood. Their only "combo" that usually gets you is showing griselbrand, or a sneaking multiple fatties.

Omnitell is still pretty terrible, as is storm and reanimator.

[plogan]

In terms of a core rector component that's pretty much it except for personal preference and meta choices. For example I run 0 lilis and recycle instead of bounty as well as main deck moat. In terms of a small scale moat is insane in my meta and I tried bounty out once and was unimpressed then again I have an affection for drawing cards so who knows. In terms of a larger meta moat is probably a sideboard card.

[hymntotourcock]

In terms of a core rector component that's pretty much it except for personal preference and meta choices. For example I run 0 lilis and recycle instead of bounty as well as main deck moat. In terms of a small scale moat is insane in my meta and I tried bounty out once and was unimpressed then again I have an affection for drawing cards so who knows. In terms of a larger meta moat is probably a sideboard card.

Have you found that your matchups are worse now that RIP/DRS are so common? What does your typical matchup against, say, Deathblade look like?

I ask because I have zero Rectors (and little else of the core), and that's a relatively big chunk of resources needed to get these cards. If I invest more into NicFit (currently GWB), I want to make sure I'm spending wisely.

I considered JundFit with Huntmaster, PFire etc., but that looks even more expensive to build. For the price of 1 Badlands I can get 3 Rector and Nightmare/Bounty and essentially plug them into the list I already have. But is it even worth doing?

Thanks guys, i appreciate the advisement.

[plogan]

The matchups with RIP mainboard are nowhere near fun, but if you can keep the pressure on eventually a deed or a maelstrom pulse will show up, and the issue is also due to RIP also shutting down veteran explorer. Admittedly you just have to go the agro route against miracles with rector (and try and force through thragtusk and sigarda). In term of most deathrite decks people don't actually know how rector works, at least in my experience, which leads to it not being gimped. The main problem I've been running into against deathblade is simply not generating enough card advantage against them. I find the utility of rector to be too much to ignore and if your opponent knows the trick then oh well, but you just go for it, and if they miss the trick then it puts you miles ahead. I've tried punishing fit too and it certainly has a better traditional combo match up, but it felt very straightforward comparatively and after trading for a moat I simply can't get over playing it. In fact I recently jammed it into a miracles deck simply because I had it.

All in all I would say its a play style preference. If you like making sure your opponent never has creature or walkers I would suggest punishing fires, if you want to run some of the most ridiculously unfair cards in the game while also knowing when and how to react to various threats thrown at you then I would suggest rector. At least in my meta I would not play rector without owning a moat, but that's again because I typically play against tribal and BUG cascade 2 or 3 times in a 5 round tournament and it simply shuts down a good 70% of their decks.

Also note that rector is probably the slowest version of the deck and killing people in a timely fashion can sometimes be fairly difficult, the deck tends to do a lot of work to make sure that you won't simply die (instead of working towards winning the game).

[Tao]

I considered JundFit with Huntmaster, PFire etc., but that looks even more expensive to build. For the price of 1 Badlands I can get 3 Rector and Nightmare/Bounty and essentially plug them into the list I already have. But is it even worth doing?


Imo Punishing Fire is enough better than Rector that I would say it is worth it, yes.

[hymntotourcock]

Imo Punishing Fire is enough better than Rector that I would say it is worth it, yes.

What are the Punishing variant's strong points (aside from burning everything every turn)? Is the reusable PFire better than reusing Deed (with Sun Titan)?

How does Punishing Fit come out ahead in the attrition wars? (thinking Pox, BUG, Maverick)

Would you consider 3 Marsh Flats a good replacement for Wooded Foothills? Flats allows you to get Badlands and Bayou, and Verdant allows you to get Taiga.

[HoneyT]

What are the Punishing variant's strong points (aside from burning everything every turn)? Is the reusable PFire better than reusing Deed (with Sun Titan)?

How does Punishing Fit come out ahead in the attrition wars? (thinking Pox, BUG, Maverick)

Would you consider 3 Marsh Flats a good replacement for Wooded Foothills? Flats allows you to get Badlands and Bayou, and Verdant allows you to get Taiga.

1. Those things are not even comparable. Obviously Sun Titan + Deed is infinitely more powerful. However you can't start doing that on turn 2. Sun Titan + Deed will lock up a game you've already won. Punishing Fires can dig you out of holes as it provides much earlier, more consistent interaction. (Also deals with planeswalkers)

2. Ahead. Well ahead. It's super easy to grind those decks out with P-Fire and clean up with any given fatty they can't deal with at your leisure.

3. No. Sometimes you want to fetch basics too. Though my current split is 4 Catacombs/1 Foothills/1 Mire

[hymntotourcock]

Well, I'm pretty sold. Got some Grove of the Burnwillows on the way!

Also, if you guys don't know about it, check out Pucatrade.com. I don't usually like marketing other people's shit, but that site has allowed me to build pretty decent legacy decks.

[Tao]

I wouldn't call grinding out the Shardless matchup "easy". With early Hymns, Lilianas or Jaces they have a good chance of overwhelming you. But still, I'd much rather play them with Fire than with Rector, so trading is worth it in that matchup, too.

[hymntotourcock]

Tao, what's with the 1 Sylvan Ranger in your SB? I'm basically copying your list (with a few budget choices).

[Tao]

I use Qweerios' idea to side out all Explorers and all Therapies against Miracles (you can read the exact SB plans for the matchups in OP or in my signature link). So without any Explorers the deck needs another way to search lands with GSZ.

[hymntotourcock]

I also notice you don't play Maelstrom Pulse. Is that a meta call? How do you deal with Batterskull, make them discard it?

[Tao]

It is likely that you can prevent an early Batterskull with either Fire/Decay on SFM or a Therapy. If they get a T3 Batterskull it isn't the end of the world though. You can usually take a bit of damage and fight through it without much problem. Only if they get T3 Batterskull, T4 Jace things get problematic but that is not likely going to happen.

If it goes to the lategame Batterskull isn't that relevant if you have your stuff going. Mystic is always dead then because of Punishing Fire so if you kill the token once or twice with Deed/Decay/double Fire and force them to spend 8 mana (or prevent it from attacking with Thrun) you should be able to take over the game.
One way to get rid of it for good is to Deed for 5 at the end of their turn, force them to return it to their hand and then Therapy it away. But usually that is not necessary.

[pfiremc13]

1. Nic fit never was standar, so sigarda fits into the deck list... that's why Ive never seen her in Type 2.


2. //Creatures
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Academy Rector He's damn good, but with DRS he seems underpowered
2 Archangel of Thune trades 1x1 with swords, dismember, not gsz-able... you can combo from it, but is a combo very disruptable
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Deathrite Shaman - Maindeckable graveyard hate and alternate ramp source It doesnt fit into the gameplan. This craetures trades 1x1 and any deck with more copies will outplay your single shaman, Ooze does the same work and it can trade 1x1 after he remove some cards.
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks----Just 1? you are playing Pod with Resto angel, you should max out every card with persist and undying.
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sun Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Restoration Angel
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Spike Feeder Only works with Archangel... on its own is a pretty lame cmc3 since your oponents can cast better spells for that cost (KOTR, Lialiana, Crusher, even loxodon smitter)
1 Necroplasm Totally underpower card

3... I dont see any problema to gsz for veteran if you turn 1 cabal therapy... is a pretty standar play T1 therapy, T2 explorer, flashback and then play a drop 3... in your case a kitchen finks only (witness is not worth it in this turn) or a Pod which you cant activate... leaving it open for removal. Drop 2... is more likely to abrupt decay or stoneforge, etc. Keeping a 1 lander hand with gsz is just awful in this deck full of bombs... dryad dies with deed... also, I think deed with Pod is a nombo... this deck list is not like other nic fits which dont have much more board presence and deed everything away... in pod list you will take a lot of your own cards down with deeds...

4... as I said in point 2... you play a lot of situational 1-of... you should play powerful creatures on their own. That's why you play scavening ooze... it trades 1x1 but he's too good... that's why you dont play KOTR, DRS, Goyfs, all of these cards dont fit into your plan... grind your oponent out of removals. Resto angel gives you a lot of value, has combat tricks, she can take down PWs... save one of your creatures etc... then why play just 1? doing a Bpod into resto angel is just half of its power. SFM is just an idea I got... she is pretty strong at her own... if I draw her or Pod her... I would be more than paid at that moment... pod veteran into sfm, search for 2 lands and a equipment, next turn... if sfm stays in play you have a 2 mana Bskull and a 3cmc creature (sac sfm into finks or witness) or just play Bskull from the hand. Bskull makes every dead draw on late game good (such as Veteran explorer, etc).


Rector: as a 1-of doesn't hurt, if either your opponent doesn't play drs, or you kill it, or they tap out.
Thune: Obviously I'm not going to pod into the combo if my opponent has mana open and is playing a removal-heavy deck.
DRS: I want it to eat removal, and if it doesn't then it's a great alternative ramp source with other relevant abilities.
Finks: I only really want it as a 1-of, it's not good vs everything and I can pod/gsz into it.
Feeder: It's useful life gain, chump blocking, and counter transfer without angel.
Necroplasm: Good board wipe, synergizes with feeder and thune and dredges for value.

3. GSZ for explorer is not bad, just sometimes you want to find arbor more and play necro, finks, or feeder on t2, resto/redcap/rector on t3, etc.

4. I have many powerful creatures in this deck, and they are all 1-ofs to maximize the options you have when playing gsz or pod. I run 3 of each, remember. In some circumstances rector or redcap will be better than angel and I want to be able to have that option.

[hymntotourcock]

As someone who hasn't played Punishing Fire before, it's taking some time for me to realize the power of it. It should read more like this:
Opponent gains 1 life, PFire deals 4 damage to a creature. That's just outrageous.
As I work more toward a complete list, I'm wondering if 4 SDT is necessary. I think 3 top 3 Abrupt Decay would be a better suit to my meta full of Shardless, DnT, Delver.
Also what creatures are you primarily recycling with Volrath's Stronghold? Is this a kind of replacement for the Sun Titan/Eternal Witness effect?

[Tao]

I think 4 Tops is the right number. I just want a Top in play in every game in every matchup. It maximizes your odds of triggering an Explorer. Filtering away Titans and Thruns early on and Therapies, Lands and Explorers in the lategame is great in general. Same for finding SB cards in G2/G3.
In this version Top works well with Liliana. It puts hand cards on the board which helps you to empty your hand so you can use Liliana's +1 ability if you can't get Fire/Grove to work. Top is also amazing against decks that play Discard. I don't mind playing with an empty hand and a Top in play, especially if Liliana ticks up.

If your meta is full of these decks you might want to cut a different card for the 3rd Decay. Maybe Kessig Wolf Run or a Liliana.

Volrath's Stronghold is at its best when combined with Phyrexian Tower (Two Towers). You can Primeval Titan for those two lands. Tower protects your creatures from Swords to Plowshares and you can conveniently use the two black mana to activate Stronghold. This works especially well with Eternal Witness and Thragtusk. Thragtusk + Tower + Stronghold is pretty great in general. If the game goes super late then Witness + Tower + Stronghold (+ Deed/Decay/Discard/Ooze) gives you inevitability against almost anything in the format. Doesn't happen all that often but I played Witness on Stronghold quite a few times in testing to make sure I can keep recurring forever.

[TheArchitect]

Congrats to CRich3 for making a mothership article!

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1329

[Megadeus]

Congrats to CRich3 for making a mothership article!

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1329


"Lastly, I must mention the trio of Sensei's Divining Tops. It's nice to see the card outside Counterbalance decks, and with all the shuffling, this deck is a nice fit for it. "

Can't tell if joke or not

[jbone2016]

"Lastly, I must mention the trio of Sensei's Divining Tops. It's nice to see the card outside Counterbalance decks, and with all the shuffling, this deck is a nice fit for it. "

Can't tell if joke or not

With LSV? He's just recycling old material.

[hymntotourcock]

With LSV? He's just recycling old material.

I sense a Recurring theme here

[Arianrhod]

With LSV? He's just recycling old material.


I sense a Recurring theme here

Some of these puns are downright pernicious. You should undergo some therapy =)

[Star|Scream]

Some of these puns are downright pernicious. You should undergo some therapy =)

I'd listen to Arianrhod. He's a Veteran with this deck.

[nudon]

Hi all! I've been meaning to proxy this deck. Any major changes since HoneyT top8'ed with this deck?

[hymntotourcock]

These jokes are punishingly bad.


So, as I've stated earlier I'm working within a budget and therefore trying to make some saving edits where possible (namely duals). I'm working off Tao's list, and I wanted some suggestions within my edited version. Obviously shock duals are inferior, but they're available if I need them in dire situations. I feel like there should be 2 Mountain in the deck to protect against Port shenanigans but I'll get there after testing. I've also cut SDT to 3 (all i have) and added a 3rd Abrupt Decay. I really want to stick Sigarda in here solely for GSZ but realize getting her from your hand into your library takes a lot of work and is not really worth it. Shame, I love that card.
Does Primal Hunter not belong in here? At least in SB for control games? I haven't played this yet, but it feels really light on creatures. Then again, it is a control deck isn't it.
EDIT: How does Tajuru Preserver sound in the SB? Pox is still a deck I run into.

2 Bayou
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Volrath's Stronghold

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Punishing Fire
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay

SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Slaughter Games
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Sylvan Ranger
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless

[kavaki]

So I recently picked up this deck (im in between wish fit and punishing, I have both able to be built) and im wondering about something: Huntmaster of the Fells.

I've had people question why the hell im running it and all I can say is that its a good value creature and basically gives us a free body and is a good midgame target. Am I really missing anything with him, as I feel like I am?

[MrIggins]

In Scapewish, you operate under the assumption that given time, you will win the game because you just need to assemble a lethal land count and a Scapeshift. Huntmaster buys you a ton of time against fair opponents by being at worst two blockers and a little lifegain, while usually eating a removal spell plus doing some other stuff, and it sometimes just randomly takes over the game if you can flip it a couple times. It's also one of the better threats against combo since it gives you a token to sacrifice to Therapy and then applies additional pressure with the threat of flipping. My ideal gameplan against combo is to Therapy once or twice, then stick a Huntmaster to clock them or resolve a Slaughter Games to disrupt them further; the other big bombs in the deck are way too slow against combo.

I can't really speak for why the Punishing Fire deck wants it but I imagine it's for similar reasons, that it's a really good value dude that threatens to flip and take over.

[Arianrhod]

In Scapewish, you operate under the assumption that given time, you will win the game because you just need to assemble a lethal land count and a Scapeshift. Huntmaster buys you a ton of time against fair opponents by being at worst two blockers and a little lifegain, while usually eating a removal spell plus doing some other stuff, and it sometimes just randomly takes over the game if you can flip it a couple times. It's also one of the better threats against combo since it gives you a token to sacrifice to Therapy and then applies additional pressure with the threat of flipping. My ideal gameplan against combo is to Therapy once or twice, then stick a Huntmaster to clock them or resolve a Slaughter Games to disrupt them further; the other big bombs in the deck are way too slow against combo.

I can't really speak for why the Punishing Fire deck wants it but I imagine it's for similar reasons, that it's a really good value dude that threatens to flip and take over.

/barn regarding the jagermeister in Scape.

For P-Fire, Hunts is actually arguably a little better, even. Hunts doesn't flip very often in Scape; without complete control of a game and/or at least one Sensei's Divining Top, it's too challenging to reliably keep him bouncing back and forth to break games open with him. In P-Fire builds, though, you have the Punishing Fire engine, which synergizes very, very well with Huntmaster, and ensures that he's flipping on-demand.

[kavaki]

I thought similar to what you both have said, I was doubting it as the people I talked with are some of the better players and they gave me a :eyebrow: :really: look when I mentioned Huntmaster.

I knew that Huntmaster played well with therapy. Im going to assume that since they dont follow this deck (its not even a blip in the mid-atlantic where I play), they dont know that he is a playable card in this deck.


How is the Shardless BUG match-up. It seems like it would be a battle of who got the most value out of their stuff.

[Arianrhod]

I thought similar to what you both have said, I was doubting it as the people I talked with are some of the better players and they gave me a :eyebrow: :really: look when I mentioned Huntmaster.

I knew that Huntmaster played well with therapy. Im going to assume that since they dont follow this deck (its not even a blip in the mid-atlantic where I play), they dont know that he is a playable card in this deck.


How is the Shardless BUG match-up. It seems like it would be a battle of who got the most value out of their stuff.

For Scapewish, it's a literal bye. I think I've lost 1 match vs Shardless when I was on Scape, ever -- he curved out DRS->Lily->Jace with double Force while I mulled to 5. Otherwise, it's a joke.

For P-Fire, I dunno, since I haven't actually played that variant. I would imagine that it would be fairly easy as well, since you can kill all of their things, Titan is better than their deck, and you have a solid plan vs planeswalkers. But, I know Tao and Tim have both said that it's a bit closer than that, and I'd trust their opinion significantly more on P-Fire than mine, since mine is just based in theorycraft while theirs are from actual testing.

[MrIggins]

For Scapewish, it's a literal bye. I think I've lost 1 match vs Shardless when I was on Scape, ever -- he curved out DRS->Lily->Jace with double Force while I mulled to 5. Otherwise, it's a joke.

I always find it funny when you say this because the first time I played against it I lost horribly. I've since beaten it basically every time but that first time against Kevin Jones at an NELC he hit Agent into Visions 4-5 times during the match, it was really bad. But I agree that barring them having the nuts or you bricking out completely it's a very good matchup. When they're casting Agents into low-impact stuff and you're casting Thragtusks and Huntmasters, they can't do a lot. It's awesome.

And Kavaki, get used to those looks. You'll get one the first time you cast a Thragtusk and most times you cast Huntmaster, but you can generally ignore them and just kill them with your cards that "aren't Legacy playable." :wink:

[kavaki]

For Scapewish, it's a literal bye. I think I've lost 1 match vs Shardless when I was on Scape, ever -- he curved out DRS->Lily->Jace with double Force while I mulled to 5. Otherwise, it's a joke.

For P-Fire, I dunno, since I haven't actually played that variant. I would imagine that it would be fairly easy as well, since you can kill all of their things, Titan is better than their deck, and you have a solid plan vs planeswalkers. But, I know Tao and Tim have both said that it's a bit closer than that, and I'd trust their opinion significantly more on P-Fire than mine, since mine is just based in theorycraft while theirs are from actual testing.

Scapewish..... I know it uses Scapeshift, and I assume by the 2nd part that you win a wishboard out of the side. I also assume that someone broke down the pros and cons of both.

My question is which one would do best in a more open meta with a slight lack of combo? (I see more aggro and control variants than combo, but not enough to say there is little combo.)


I always find it funny when you say this because the first time I played against it I lost horribly. I've since beaten it basically every time but that first time against Kevin Jones at an NELC he hit Agent into Visions 4-5 times during the match, it was really bad. But I agree that barring them having the nuts or you bricking out completely it's a very good matchup. When they're casting Agents into low-impact stuff and you're casting Thragtusks and Huntmasters, they can't do a lot. It's awesome.

And Kavaki, get used to those looks. You'll get one the first time you cast a Thragtusk and most times you cast Huntmaster, but you can generally ignore them and just kill them with your cards that "aren't Legacy playable." :wink:

I hate Thragtusk because I heard so many people wine about him and it started to annoy me. I dont play standard as a rule (people call legacy names, but when you can go control+c, c+v a list and get 2nd out of 90 people with it, with no experience..... yeeeeeaaaaaa.) Anyways, while I may hate him because of whiney people, I know how good he can be. At worst, he makes aggro spend a couple extra turns erasing his legacy. At best, he wins you games easily. 5 mana gets me a 5/3, 5 life and a 3/3...... yea, that sounds good.

[MrIggins]

My question is which one would do best in a more open meta with a slight lack of combo? (I see more aggro and control variants than combo, but not enough to say there is little combo.)

Personally I think Scapewish is more powerful because it always has the possibility of going "oops I win" while still being able to grind out games. Punishing Fire is a bit more consistent because it gets to play more fetches, so its opening hands are better and it's less prone to having the wheels fall off, but you're less likely to be able to just win and you'll have to grind out opponents pretty frequently. It depends which you feel more comfortable with. Personally I love the raw power of Scapewish and the difficulty many opponents will have with effectively interacting with your plan, and I feel a bit less comfortable as a player playing decks that will usually have to grind out opponents game after game, but it comes down to preference and playstyle IMO. I think the decks are probably at about the same level overall. If you care about such things, I believe Punishing Fit is the only one to top 8 a StarCity open, but I know Arianrhod and I (and others) have had success with Scapewish at smaller events with fewer rounds.

[guelahpapyrus]

@Kavaki

In a combo-light meta, both P-Fire and Scapewish will be favored. They both have great matchups against the fair decks. I would argue that Scapewish has a better Miracles matchup than P-Fire does, but neither is that bad if you play it right.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to playstyle. I don't like Scapewish; it doesn't feel like Nic Fit to me. Scapewish feels like a very different deck than P-Fire. You're on more of a stalling game plan with Scapewish - until you win on the spot. With P-Fire, you're trying to go one-for-one with your opponent's threats, and eventually land your own to ride out the game. Before you land a threat, P-Fire feels like you're washing their board with a pressure cleaner. It plays more like a tempo deck once you land your threat.

[Star|Scream]

@Kavaki

In a combo-light meta, both P-Fire and Scapewish will be favored. They both have great matchups against the fair decks. I would argue that Scapewish has a better Miracles matchup than P-Fire does, but neither is that bad if you play it right.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to playstyle. I don't like Scapewish; it doesn't feel like Nic Fit to me. Scapewish feels like a very different deck than P-Fire. You're on more of a stalling game plan with Scapewish - until you win on the spot. With P-Fire, you're trying to go one-for-one with your opponent's threats, and eventually land your own to ride out the game. Before you land a threat, P-Fire feels like you're washing their board with a pressure cleaner. It plays more like a tempo deck once you land your threat.

I would not disagree with this comparison.

[kavaki]

Its been a couple weeks since I last showed for legacy, but miracles has a small showing there. However the people who play it, play at level very close to Joe Losset, so I feel like it is something I should consider.

After reading both y'alls posts, im still stuck. On one hand, I am a natural combo player as I enjoy the "Oops, I win" appeal, so Scapewish seems like my cup of tea. However I also played Pox (I liked how it played at the time), so I do enjoy the grindy game.

My biggest flaw as a player is SB and evaluating what feels bad in a match-up outside of the obvious "Duress sucks vs. Goblin" type of situations. So im there.

[Arianrhod]

Personally I think Scapewish is more powerful because it always has the possibility of going "oops I win" while still being able to grind out games. Punishing Fire is a bit more consistent because it gets to play more fetches, so its opening hands are better and it's less prone to having the wheels fall off, but you're less likely to be able to just win and you'll have to grind out opponents pretty frequently. It depends which you feel more comfortable with. Personally I love the raw power of Scapewish and the difficulty many opponents will have with effectively interacting with your plan, and I feel a bit less comfortable as a player playing decks that will usually have to grind out opponents game after game, but it comes down to preference and playstyle IMO. I think the decks are probably at about the same level overall. If you care about such things, I believe Punishing Fit is the only one to top 8 a StarCity open, but I know Arianrhod and I (and others) have had success with Scapewish at smaller events with fewer rounds.

Just a clerical note, but actually there was a GBW Pod version (piloted by Paul Ewenstein) that took 2nd place, I believe, a few years ago -- SCG Providence, I think?

But yeah, in more "modern times," P-Fire is the only top 8 -- Scapewish has picked up 3-4 top 16s, though.

[HoneyT]

Just a clerical note, but actually there was a GBW Pod version (piloted by Paul Ewenstein) that took 2nd place, I believe, a few years ago -- SCG Providence, I think?

But yeah, in more "modern times," P-Fire is the only top 8 -- Scapewish has picked up 3-4 top 16s, though.

Yeah unfortunately I can't travel as much as I'd like for tournaments :wink:

But rest assured, I will be slinging more fires at the Invitational next month.

[JeffHoogland]

Poked through some of this thread (it is long, so didn't read all of it).

I'm looking to implement a combination of Punishing Nic Fit+Burning Wish for utility. I really do not like the Scapeshift finish, but love the flexibility Burning Wish offers.

Would love some input on my current deck list which can be found here (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jund-fits/)

Regards,
~Jeff

[Star|Scream]

Wow. Burning wish AND punishing fire? I don't know what to think.

The only thing I have to suggest is taking out the ravine and putting in the 4th Grove & maybe more slaughter games.

[JeffHoogland]

Ravine has actually been over performing in all the games I've tested. Fetching it with Primeval Titan is big game - makes them deal with two threats instead of just one.

Generally my first titan trigger grabs ravine and strong hold.

I could get behind more Slaughter Games in the board (to have one or two to board in as opposed to just Burning Wishing for it). Not sure what I want to cut though. Think it is better than a REB?

~Jeff

[Arianrhod]

Dryad Arbor has been universally terrible across all versions of Nic Fit that have been tested here -- obviously trust your own instincts over the talking heads on the internet, but just keep a close eye on it while testing.

I like the Raging Ravine, actually. Part of me wonders if you're going too deep on the utility lands because of your Loam background, but at the same time, I can't deny that it makes your version extremely potent for Primeval Titan. Titan has a variety of powerful targets that can be switched around depending on the board state/matchup, and that's obviously a pretty strong thing.

Not a fan of the 2/3/1 Forest/Swamp/Mountain distribution. Singleton Mountain is strong, and triple Swamp is for when you have a Swamp in hand / tapped-in-play and you want to Explorer into a Liliana, I'm guessing. That's like the only thing that you could really want the third Swamp for, though -- the third Forest seems much more important to me, even though you have the Groves as additional green sources.

Creature base is basically the same as P-Fires, which is generally agreed upon. I'd still like to see some Huntmasters because they've done a ton of work for me in Scape, and, as recently noted, they're arguably better in Punishing lists because you can control the flips much easier. Space is a consideration, though, and aside from that pesky Dryad Arbor I'm not seeing a lot I would cut for Huntmasters.

How has having a Zenith in the board been for you? I tried that for a while in Scape, and while I would sometimes board one out to increase Zenith density in certain matchups, I was almost always happier to have the full set main in game one.

I like the Pyromaster tech. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, for both Scape and other red lists, but I haven't worked up the balls to actually try her. How's she been?

Dreadbore is real bad IMO. It works in Loam because you're a much more mana-light deck there -- you're putting a lot of resources into mana denial and your green is often tied up with Loaming, so you can't afford 2RBG for Pulse -- 1RRB is much easier. In Nic Fit, though, you have much more mana, and while Dreadbore is a redundant Pulse, honestly, I'd rather just see another Pulse if you feel you need a second copy of that effect.

Not running a Pyroclasm to Wish for is kind of a sin. BW-Pyro is a super common line in Scape, both offensively (to set off your Explorers if you don't have a black source) and defensively (kills Geist, elves, empty tokens, and a host of other problems).

The extra Slaughter Games you're wanting are busy being Trinispheres. It's an open question really which one is actually better -- they're both good vs different things. I'd say maybe consider a 2/2 split between Games and 3ball....most of the time vs like, say, Sneak Attack, you're going to be boarding in the Slaughter Games anyway (your prime Wish will be Reverent Silence because of Leyline of Sanctity; if they don't have Leyline, Thoughtseize is usually fine).

[JeffHoogland]

Good feedback. I think a 3rd forest over third swamp seems sane, I was simply trying to balance out the black in my mana base since Groves lead to SO much green mana.

Chandra has been very good. Doubly so when I have a top on the field.

Speaking of, my one "flex slot" that I've been moving around is the second eternal witness. It might become the third top. That card is so good.

There are two things I like the Dryad Arbor for:

1.) It lets me use a fetch land to flash back a therapy. Very good VS combo decks.
2.) It lets me play a Primeval Titan into an opposing Liliana and not have it get edicted away.

Huntmaster always felt like a giant do nothing for me. Sure, I can flip him all around with Punishing Fire, but if I have Fire online - why do I need the extra few points of damage from Huntmaster? Feels win more. Most times I'd rather wait till one more mana and get fetch tragglesworth.

That is a really good point on the Dreadbore, I do like having two of that effect, two pulse could be the right answer.

Re: Pyroclasm - do you think the board needs Damnation and Pyroclasm in the Wish package? The main thing Damnation hits that Clasm misses is Goyf/Goose - but deed mops those up.

Finally - 2/2 on Games/Trinisphere seems good. I just like Trinisphere to have *some* form of disruption when my opponent has a leyline out. What match ups do you want three REBs in though? Is it just again Mono-U and high tide?

Thanks for the input!

~Jeff

[Nithkar]

I like the Pyromaster tech. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, for both Scape and other red lists, but I haven't worked up the balls to actually try her. How's she been?

Wouldn't Garruk, PH be better? Or maybe the third Liliana?

[HoneyT]

@Jeff:

I know Qweerios was working on a similar idea about a month ago with Burning Wish just as a utility spell. I don't know if he has since abandonded the idea or not but I believe he started talking about it around page 260 or so if you want to check that out.

[TheArchitect]

Chandra has been very good. Doubly so when I have a top on the field.

Have you tried Garruk, Primal Hunter? I still swear he is the best threat to be running in any non-scapewish versions of this deck. He provides so much advantage and beats a Jace or Lily.



Speaking of, my one "flex slot" that I've been moving around is the second eternal witness. It might become the third top. That card is so good.
You definitely want a 3rd top. The only time I have ever seen anyone have success with Nic fit with less than 3 tops is when they are also running blue and brainstorms. Top completes this deck, and you want to see one every game.



There are two things I like the Dryad Arbor for:

1.) It lets me use a fetch land to flash back a therapy. Very good VS combo decks.
2.) It lets me play a Primeval Titan into an opposing Liliana and not have it get edicted away.
I've never found arbor with while, but as you mentioned when its good, its good. Try arbor out, but dont assume it should be an auto-include because you have GSZ.



Huntmaster always felt like a giant do nothing for me. Sure, I can flip him all around with Punishing Fire, but if I have Fire online - why do I need the extra few points of damage from Huntmaster? Feels win more. Most times I'd rather wait till one more mana and get fetch tragglesworth.
I have also been, only unimpressed with Huntmaster in Pfire lists. In scape, hes ok because he stales for a while, but Thrun has always been a boss in Pfire lists because that version excels at keeping the board clear.



That is a really good point on the Dreadbore, I do like having two of that effect, two pulse could be the right answer.
I dont think you need 2 pulses. You just dont need dreadbore.



Re: Pyroclasm - do you think the board needs Damnation and Pyroclasm in the Wish package? The main thing Damnation hits that Clasm misses is Goyf/Goose - but deed mops those up.
I think both are good. In scapewish at least, pyroclasm is the card I wish for the most, followed by Thoughtseize and Scapeshift. The only carrds pyro doesnt kill are goyf, batterskull, goose and KotR. It litterally kills every other relevant legacy creature. RUG is also an amazing matchup, so dont worry too much about goose or goyf.



Finally - 2/2 on Games/Trinisphere seems good. I just like Trinisphere to have *some* form of disruption when my opponent has a leyline out. What match ups do you want three REBs in though? Is it just again Mono-U and high tide?

I have never tried trinisphere, but I have tried Games. I dont like games at all. Its ok as a 1 of. But most of the time, against combo, you want to be able to interact on turns 1-3 and it would be better if it was just another REB or thoughtseize.

I would run this as the Wishboard:

1 Damnation
1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Pyroclasm
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Reverent Silence
1 Slaughter Games
1 Haunting Echoes
2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction

Green Sun's Zenith I think is better maindecked. I tried it in the SB and it was bad. If you want a "creature" in the wishboard, try reanimate. Every time I dont run it, I wish it was there.

Haunting Echoes is not necessary, but it is the best "Oops I win" card besides scapeshift.

[kavaki]

@Jeff:

I know Qweerios was working on a similar idea about a month ago with Burning Wish just as a utility spell. I don't know if he has since abandonded the idea or not but I believe he started talking about it around page 260 or so if you want to check that out.

Im currently on a Wish Fit brew. In limited testing, I really like it and after reading about it on here (somewhere) and testing it, Tsunami is a very fun card. Maybe a little cute, but I did make a High Tide player walk into it by not going off when he should of and losing counterspells going after 'sieze/cabal.

However, as I said a couple pages back, im being more than open to adjust builds. At leas that means I can play the deck, but run a different cversion every so often to throw people in my meta off.

[Arianrhod]

Couple of problems with peoples' opinions here.

-) Pyromaster is relevant control in that it can, you know, kill things. Like Bobs. Nic Fit doesn't like Bobs. Granted that P-Fire versions can handle that a bit better than other versions, but the ping/noblocks is probably fairly relevant. More importantly, note that Jeff isn't running Sakura-Tribe Elder or Sylvan Ranger as a backup ramp-guy. He's on mono-Explorer. That being the case, the difference between 4 and 5 is very real, and the difference between RR and GGG even more so.

-) Tsunami and Haunting Echoes are still unplayable. It's like Bryant Cook finally finding his jap foil Temporal Fissure. He's gonna troll the everliving fuck out of people with it at his local, but that's where it'll stay. I've tried Tsunami and HE until I was blue in the face. You just don't need it.

-) Reanimate is reasonable, and I share Evan's sentiments that every time I run without it, I wish I had it. However, that's in Scapewish. In Scape, you have an extra Fagtusk, Huntmasters are reasonable targets, extra ramp-guys, etc. In P-Fire, you have so many fewer creatures that your reasonable targets are like, E-Wit, Thrag, and Thrun. Otherwise, you're totally relying on their deck. I mean, 2 life for a 5/6 is always fine, don't get me wrong. But the way I see this list shaping up, you don't really want Burning Wish to be a "bomb," per se -- P-Fire and its iterations have always been heavy control decks, generally relying on either Thrun + Wolf Run or Primeval Titan to kill people. Everything else is to get you to that point. If you feel compelled to put a wishable wincon in the board, I'd honestly say something like Rakdos's Return would be reasonable....something that can turn a lategame Wish into a boomheadshot. I'm really not convinced that anything more than that is necessary or desired.

-) @Jeff: don't overestimate the mana production of this deck, especially since you're only running the Explorers and not the ancillary ramp guys. If you're playing against something swarmy like Elves or Affinity, 2RR is significantly cheaper than 3RBB, and often means the difference between a win and a loss. Barring ludicrous Tower/Explorer openers, you're not going to have that much mana that quickly. Much more common of a start is something like, Therapy -> Zenith.Explorer + flashback + Wish.Pyroclasm; or, Therapy -> Explorer + Deed -> t3 blow up the things. Either way, you're blowing up things on turn 3, which is why Elves is often a chancy matchup for Nic Fit -- Elves is commonly a turn 3 deck, and can sometimes turn 2. Damnation is nowhere near fast enough. Personally, while I understand that Punishing Fire kind of serves the Pryoclasm function of keeping the small guys down, I prefer to let my Deeds handle the big guys and shore up the early game a bit more.

-) Also, 2 E-Wits is generally unnecessary. 3rd Top is much better for sure.

-) In defense of Slaughter Games, Jeff's list has 2 maindeck Thoughtseizes in addition to the Therapies, as well as a pair of Lilianas. Post-board, he picks up extra Seizes and REBs. While relying solo on the Slaughter Games is bad deckbuilding, Jeff's got more than enough early defense to justify a pair of Slaughter Games with the express intention of boarding them BOTH in. You tear apart their head, then while they're down, you knee them in the nuts and take away whatever they need most.

-) RE: REB -- mostly High Tide and Omni, but also Sneak/Show (still deals with half of their enablers), and situationally ANT/TES. It's really not wonderful in those matchups, but you frequently have enough dead cards that one or two tend to come in, and with luck you can potentially nab a Brainstorm in resp to a Therapy or some such. Note that I personally don't board in REB vs blue-based control decks -- you generally don't need the help in those matchups. Miracles might be an exception if that deck makes a resurgence, as I predict it will. Hitting their Brainstorms to stop them from putting Miracles back on top is big game.

-) You may miss not having Carpet of Flowers as a backup ramp source for vs tempo, and a replacement ramp source against basic-heavy blue decks that have a tendency to take your Explorer mana and untap into massive threats (especially planeswalkers).

[JeffHoogland]

Thanks for the input guys. I've added a Pyroclasm to my wishboard, moved the second e-wit to a third top, and cut my 3rd trinisphere for a 2nd Slaughter Games.

I don't want to cut all the Trinispheres because I want SOME way to interact with generic combo when they have a leyline on the table.

Will keep testing this week and likely do a write up of sorts after SCG Cleveland where I plan to play this :)

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jund-fits/

~Jeff

[kavaki]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

[Star|Scream]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

First time I played against it I had a hand. And then my hand was gone!

[TheArchitect]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

I was in the market for a new deck, GB was/is my favorite color combination, and loved control decks and decks that don't play by "normal rules" of mtg. I think ultimately it was Caleb D's article on Channelfireball that introduced me to nic fit.

[sarapfish]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.


Coming from the world of Counterbalance (and still am), Nic Fit is like freedom from maintaining counts of 1-3 CCs, and can use cards that cost more. It's a lot more fun, too! :cool:

[MrIggins]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

My friend said "Come play legacy with us" and I told him, "I've never played the format but pick me a deck, I'll proxy it up." He found BUG Fit with Jace, Strix, Coiling Oracle, Recurring Nightmare and Consecrated Sphinx, and it was awesome. And then I was a Nic Fit player.

[Arianrhod]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

I'm gonna show my age here (so to speak), but I didn't know Veteran Explorer was a card until he was reprinted in the one Commander precon whenever that was. I immediately thought of Cabal Therapy and wondered if anyone else had thought of it yet, so I came to Source to check it out -- and Tao had just started this thread like a week or two prior IIRC.

Incidentally, almost all of my nigh-1000 posts on Source have been in this thread, lol.

[Megadeus]

I believe I read about a legacy deck playing grave titan. Then I heard the GP ATL was legacy and after I realized pox sucked I read allot and saw videos of this deck. Then I bought bayous and stuff to play. Such an awesome deck

[Nithkar]

I was a casual magic player until a friend of mine started building up a Stoneblade and humiliating every other player in my table. Then we were all convinced to go into the legacy format. But when went to see the legacy decks all seemed soooo boring. But then i see a deck that can play titans and gives land for everybody. Nothing can be funnier to play.

[Qweerios]

I picked up Nic Fit during the RUG/Maverick era when it was an excellent meta predator. I shelved Nic Fit when I realized Miracles and SnT decks weren't going away.

[jbone2016]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

I think I had played legacy for a few months with just Goblins. One of our local players, Blake, was playing Nic Fit and it looked pretty interesting, not a normal legacy deck. I started picking up duals and starting playing with. And then of course, I found this thread.

[JeffHoogland]

I shelved Nic Fit when I realized Miracles and SnT decks weren't going away.

Miracles has gone away though. Abrupt Decay did that.

SnT isn't going anywhere until Wizards cares enough about this format to adjust the ban list.

~Jeff

[TheArchitect]

Miracles has gone away though. Abrupt Decay did that.

SnT isn't going anywhere until Wizards cares enough about this format to adjust the ban list.

~Jeff

Miracles is still floating around #3-5 on TC decks. Its still very much a tier 1 deck.

Not that they care about legacy much, but the idea of linear, brainless, 2 card creature based combos gives the people at WoTC crazy hard-ons. Just look at all the love they give Kiki-jiki in modern. So yeah, wizards I think actually likes S&T. It was just made a judge foil too.

[Arianrhod]

Miracles is still floating around #3-5 on TC decks. Its still very much a tier 1 deck.

Not that they care about legacy much, but the idea of linear, brainless, 2 card creature based combos gives the people at WoTC crazy hard-ons. Just look at all the love they give Kiki-jiki in modern. So yeah, wizards I think actually likes S&T. It was just made a judge foil too.

/barn.

Miracles isn't actually that bad of a matchup for Nic Fit as long as you aren't horrible and set off Explorers and/or you make some slight tweaks (Carpets come to mind, Slaughter Games is another good one). Sneak isn't even really a "bad" matchup -- it's basically a coin toss. Gets much worse if they have Leyline, obviously. Reanimator, TES, 12post, and MUD are the 4 worst matchups, by far. Luckily two of them don't really exist in common diction, Reanimator is usually weeded out later in the day by Deathrite.format, and TES is only an issue really if you're in Bryant/Ning/Royce/Patnode's stomping grounds.

[HoneyT]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

Spike Weaver. Hahaha.

I've been playing Nic Fit since well before I joined the Source. I happened to see a fledgling decklist with Explorers and Therapies once upon
a time on TC decks and fell in love with the idea and immediately started brewing. What can I say? I'm a sucker for value. And playing things people say I shouldn't.

[guelahpapyrus]

So, a little off-topic, but what made you decide to pick up Nic Fit to everyone?

Personally, someone played it one night and it just oddly struck me that, "Hey, those cards you dont see in Legacy, but because you drop so many lands, you can afford to play Prime Time." I also wanted to play a fair deck at the moment and not Hive Mind.

I was playing Enchantress when BUG Landstill was a thing. He used Pernicious Deed on me. I quit Enchantress a few months later and picked up a deck with Pernicious Deed. Haven't looked back since.

I have the staples to play most any non-blue deck, but I would rather play Nic Fit than any of them because Deed. It helps that my local meta is all fair decks with only one Miracles player. If SnT was a thing around here, that would make me switch decks.

[guelahpapyrus]

/barn.

Miracles isn't actually that bad of a matchup for Nic Fit as long as you aren't horrible and set off Explorers and/or you make some slight tweaks (Carpets come to mind, Slaughter Games is another good one). Sneak isn't even really a "bad" matchup -- it's basically a coin toss. Gets much worse if they have Leyline, obviously. Reanimator, TES, 12post, and MUD are the 4 worst matchups, by far. Luckily two of them don't really exist in common diction, Reanimator is usually weeded out later in the day by Deathrite.format, and TES is only an issue really if you're in Bryant/Ning/Royce/Patnode's stomping grounds.

Public Enemy Number One: Storm
Two: 12 Post
Three: SnT

I never found the reanimator matchup to be that bad. I have so much grave hate between Slaughtergames, Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite, and Surgical - GY based combo is such a joke. I would rather play against Reanimator than Miracles - at least if I lose against Reanimator, it happens quickly. In the two years I've been playing Nic Fit, I don't think I've ever played against a MUD deck.

[Arianrhod]

Public Enemy Number One: Storm
Two: 12 Post
Three: SnT

I never found the reanimator matchup to be that bad. I have so much grave hate between Slaughtergames, Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite, and Surgical - GY based combo is such a joke. I would rather play against Reanimator than Miracles - at least if I lose against Reanimator, it happens quickly. In the two years I've been playing Nic Fit, I don't think I've ever played against a MUD deck.

Consider yourself lucky RE@MUD. I've played it......five or six times now, I think, with various versions....only beat it once, and that was only because his deck completely imploded (which, to be fair, is a hazard of the archetype).

I tend to run very graveyard-hate-light. Sometimes there's some Surgicals or Extirpates, but against good Reanimator players that isn't enough because 8/10 they will discard for you first to make sure you don't have any bullshit. Slaughter Games is strong but you need to live that long. My problem is when they go turn one, EoT, Entomb; untap, Reanimate/Animate Dead/Exhume. If they have a little slower of a hand I can usually compete to some degree, but it seems like (vs exactly me) they always have the turn 2 monster -- and even if I mull to Therapy, it either gets forced, or they have multiple reanimation spells in hand. Like, I've had reanimator opponents mull to 4 on the play and still beat me. It's a wonderful experience, let me tell you.

I recognize that some of that is me being unwilling to run the necessary hate to actually beat it, but I'd rather have cards in my board that come in against more things than narrow graveyard answers. The only other deck that we really want gy hate for is dredge, and we have a oddly favorable matchup there, in my experience.

[MrIggins]

The Dredge matchup I've found to be actually pretty solid, not great but I wouldn't call it bad. Obviously we can just die to their explosive starts quite easily, but if you Zenith up a Sakura-Tribe Elder as soon as possible and just sit on it, it becomes a lot harder for them to get you, since you can kill their Bridges on demand.

I'm actually 2-0 with Scapewish against MUD, again sometimes they just have kill-you hands but then again, so do you, and unless you die quickly you have a shot of getting there with Valakut. Played it at the Somerset Open, killed him game 1 from a board of his Battlesphere+Tokens, Welder and Platinum Emperion, that was awesome.

Agreed at Storm being public enemy number 1. TES<ANT here since ANT is usually a turn slower giving us more of a shot to hit our discard and Slaughter Games. It's not unwinnable, and recently I've been able to take matches to 3 games, but it is definitely not good. Sneak/Show isn't bad with our disruption, I've found. Mono-blue OmniTell seems unwinnable though, it's just so consistent and it's very fast. I mean if you Extract/Games/Surgical their Omnisciences they do have a hard time killing you, they're forced to rely on a Showed in Emrakul, but that's still pretty good as it turns out.

I've never played against 12-Post. Reanimator is in fact awful for us.

[Megadeus]

MUD I always thought felt favorable if our deck wasn't slow out of the gate. Dredge Always felt like a positive match up. 12post is probably unwinnable. At least for non scape fit versions. You actually have zero way to interact in any way that really matters

[JeffHoogland]

Obviously it all can vary - but in general what card is often best to Slaughter Games first against Sneak and Show and MonoU?

Also - looking at the top 16 for the last four SCG events, there is exactly 1 UW deck in the 64 deck lists. Most grinders I know who played that deck for a very long time have all dropped it.

It isn't well positioned any more.

~Jeff

[Arianrhod]

Obviously it all can vary - but in general what card is often best to Slaughter Games first against Sneak and Show and MonoU?

Also - looking at the top 16 for the last four SCG events, there is exactly 1 UW deck in the 64 deck lists. Most grinders I know who played that deck for a very long time have all dropped it.

It isn't well positioned any more.

~Jeff

In a vaccum:

vs Sneak:

Therapy calls Show and Tell.
Slaughter Games calls Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

Reasoning: Therapy is your fastest answer, and SnT is their fastest threat. Sneak Attack is arguably better against us, but it costs 5 mana to play and activate, whereas SnT costs a substantially easier 3, and can be achieved off of Sol Land + Petal, ensuring that you never get a turn.

If you're attacking their enablers with Therapy, you want to go for their monsters with Games, to maximize its damage. Emrakul is far and away the scarier monster -- he enables allows Sneak to recycle their spent threats, he removes our ability to interact by annihilating our lands, and he has protection from Maelstrom Pulse. Additionally, I HAVE Deeded away Griselbrands in the past. It can happen. Emrakul cannot happen. Second Slaughter Games takes Griselbrand, and then you win. Just that simple.

vs Omni:

Therapy calls Show and Tell.
Slaughter Games calls Omniscience.

Same reasoning behind Therapy.

If you look at Omniscience lists, it becomes incredibly hard for them to win without Omniscience in their deck. They can still play things with Dream Halls, sure, but you can't pitch a colorless card to cast Emrakul. They also can't Ant you, ever. Their sole line of play is to Show an Emrakul, which is admittedly still a fine plan -- but it doesn't kill you immediately. Note that LabMan versions can still chain through and win, but LabMan is much rarer than Ants, for whatever reason.

Side note: you could make a legitimate argument in favor of calling Enter the Infinite, since if they Enter via Halls and Show Emrakul with approximately a million counters in hand, it can be a little awkward. However, if you shut down Enter the Infinite, they're much more likely to get an Omniscience into play, and then it becomes a crapshoot as to whether they hit business before you hit another piece of disruption.

IMO, the ideal sequence is to try to snipe their speed kill stuff with your spot discard, then use your Slaughters to target whichever piece they have in hand, thereby buying you more time. If you Thoughtseize and see Show, Omni, [cards], take the Show, then Slaughter the Omni. If you Seize and see Halls, Enter, [cards], take the Halls and then Slaughter the Enter.

Most of the time vs combo, you're trying to play more like a prison deck than a midrange deck. You'll win with whatever random dorks you have going beatdown, but you'll REALLY win by making it so that they can't win through a combination of lock pieces and Slaughter Games on key combo pieces.

[SirTylerGalt]

Drew Levin wrote a premium article about a Planeswalker Control deck that looks like a BUGr version of Nic Fit, with Veteran Explorer, Cabal Therapy, Innocent Blood, Pernicious Deed, and the Punishing Grove combo.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27035_Planeswalker-Control-In-Legacy.html

I think it will be available for free one month from now.

For those who have a SCG Premium access, what are your thoughts on the deck?

[Arianrhod]

Drew Levin wrote a premium article about a Planeswalker Control deck that looks like a BUGr version of Nic Fit, with Veteran Explorer, Cabal Therapy, Innocent Blood, Pernicious Deed, and the Punishing Grove combo.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27035_Planeswalker-Control-In-Legacy.html

I think it will be available for free one month from now.

For those who have a SCG Premium access, what are your thoughts on the deck?

It looks like a pile. He cut all of the creature presence, which is fine, except he didn't go that far on planeswalkers, which is his intended shift. Losing Zenith as extra Explorers, as well as alternative ramp sources, seems really damaging.

Here's the list for those who don't have premium:


Creatures (4)

4 Veteran Explorer

Planeswalkers (8)

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Karn Liberated
3 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (24)

1 Forest
2 Island
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

Spells (24)

1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm
3 Punishing Fire
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Innocent Blood

Sideboard
2 Arcane Laboratory
1 Engineered Plague
3 Golgari Charm
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Swan Song
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Perish
1 Slaughter Games

[HoneyT]

/barning Kevin's thoughts on combo.

Quick thing to add vs mono blue though: Pay attention to their kill condition G1. That affects Slaughter Games calls. Vs Omniclash name Omniscience. Vs Omnimaniac name Enter the Infinite.

You guys that think Storm is public enemy number 1 are insane. I'm something like 9-2 against all flavors of Storm in sanctioned matches alone against respected Storm pilots. Not even including test games. I'm really not sure how you guys are losing games 2 and 3. I'm perfectly willing to share insight for those of you having problems

Show and Tell variants are by far the worst matchups as far as combo goes.

12post is unwinnable except with Scapewish and that's still not favorable.

MUD is very swingy. It's probably about 50/50 in my experience.

I've never lost to Dredge but Reanimator is certainly not easy.

Also, Drew Levin posted an interesting (read: probably not good) Nic Fit-esque list on SCG this morning that's at least worth taking a look at. It doesn't look as good as Nic Fit but is kinda cute.

Edit: looks like you guys ninja'd me regarding Drew's article.

[JeffHoogland]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the storm match up with Nic Fit. I won't have time to test more than a couple games against it before this weekend.

~Jeff

[Star|Scream]

Yes, HoneyT, please share insight.

[Tao]

Absolutely what HoneyT said. Storm is a much better matchup than anything that plays Griselbrand and/or Emrakul. With my Punishing Fire list I am not afraid of Storm Combo. The first game is not positive but you can steal it. G2 and G3 are positive with the additional discard and Red Blasts and Extraction effects. Can't speak for other versions, though.

Besides Cabal Therapy // Thoughtseize your key cards are Scavenging Ooze and Liliana of the Veil - if you play her (which I would advice you to do). Liliana is a great follow up to your initial Discard and stops them from just topdecking and cantripping into a win again which they can do pretty quickly with all the Ponders, Brainstorms and Preordains they play. You might know that I am not a fan of Ooze in general but the Storm matchup convinced me to play him maindeck. If you have enough time Ooze stops Past in Flames which is a common win plan for them against Discard while putting a clock on them which makes Ad Nauseam worse (he also makes Cabal Rituals worse but that is not terribly important).

[TheArchitect]

EDIT: I think when evaluating the combo matchup for Jeffs deck, scapewish is a better comparison than Pfire. Honey Ts style of Pfire lists can have 8+ dedicated combo hate cards, and no BW board. While scape (and jeffs deck) will have less problem with a game 1 show'd emrakul thanks to BW, but against storm, wont have 8-12 real cards to bring in against it.

I disagree with the Slaughter Games names for S&T and mono U.

Against S&T you want to name sneak attack. Heres why; generally speaking, these are the most scary resolved things, to the least scary resolved things:
1. Show in Griselbrand
2. Sneak in emrakul
3. Sneak in Griselbrand
4. Show in Emrakul

However post board, since we have REB and more discard the scariest "combo" they can assemble is, in order:
1. Sneak in emrakul
2. Sneak in Griselbrand
3. Show in Griselbrand
4. Show in Emrakul

Lets break it down.
1. A griselbrand with at least 1 draw 7 is near impossible to get off the board. But we have REB game 2, so show is less likely to resolve.
2. ~95% if the time we lose if this happens. There is no way to interact with this, and unlike show and tell, it is less sucestible to discard since they can just play sneak and pass while they look for fatty (if they have to). This is the scariest "combo" they can game 2.
3. Basically the same as option 2 but we can sometimes get super lucky, and hope they brick on their draws, or we happen to have them at low life and have a threat.
4. This isnt even that scary. It requires 2 cards so they cant top deck the win like they can with sneak, we also have REB AND wish for innocent blood.


Sneak attack is their best way to beat us game 2 and 3. Name Show and tell with therapy (so you dont lose on turn 1/2). Name sneak attack with the first Slaughter Games because that's gives them their best chance of actually winning, not the Emrakul.




Against U Omnitell, you want to name Enter the infinite. If that resolves (off dream halls, or omniscience) you lose. Taking out omniscience just means they will draw they just draw their deck then show in an emrakul, and protect it with a deck and SB full of countermagic, with the support of dreamhalls.

Without Enter, the only way they can win is to find their 1 of emrakul (if they even run it, which half them don't) and then resolve a show and tell and then pass the turn to you without you resolving BW>IB.




ANT is much easier to beat than TES. ANT you resolve a games naming Tendrils and they lose. You basically have them on a 3-4 turn clock if you get a BW. TES can fight through any of your hate. The only times I've beat TES have been with scapeshift, and they were when I drew the nuts. Its waaay worse in testing, but in practice I think I'm actually like 3-3 in rounds against TES with scapewish, and 1-1 of those were against Cook himself. But seriously, it was mostly luck and opponent error. I did have one humorous game 1 against TES were by turn 3 I destroyed all his mana rocks, made him discard his entire hand and did lethal in angry mountain damage.

Also, worth noting. Alot of game 1s TES will just go for empty on turn 1-2 if they can. Unlike most decks, nic fit actually has like 7+ game 1 answers to that plan (deed and BW>pyroclasm). Be careful though, if they do empty, and for some reason you still have a therapy, cast it naming silence the turn before you wipe the board.




My approach to beating combo with nic fit is different than it is with a deck like RUG or stoneblade. With nic fit, you have no fast clock. You can SB out basically anything that wont interact with combo for cards that will (even if its only slight interaction). Surgical extraction is a good example of this. In RUG you would never take out a goose to bring in surgical against sneak attack. You need the clock. In nic fit, you will win if the game drags on. You dont need the clock. You arent going to win by winning faster than they do. You are going to win by making them not be able to win, and then slowly beating down with Ewits and vets or something.

[JeffHoogland]

You know, the more I think about it - the worse the two Trinisphers in my side board seem.

Playing Surgical/Extirpate with my discard spells seems more powerful (that is what I see many others doing), my only worry is a lack of interaction when my opponent has a Leyline on the table.

Thoughts?

~Jeff

[Qweerios]

As a Miracles player myself, Nic Fit is definitely a matchup I feel comfortable against. I have all the tools to answer their threats, I have more manipulation than them, I have a combo that they have to prepare for regardless of if I have it available, and I feel safe Jacing them out. I have played on both ends of this matchup countless times (15x+ in competitive events at least) and I can safely say that:

1) Most Miracle players I faced in competitive events didn't play that well (it doesn't mean I don't face competent Miracle players outside those events)
2) Those players could still win games against prepared Nic Fit lists
3) I have never lost to a Nic Fit deck playing Miracles, and those include both good and bad Nic Fit players of all sorts (GB, Scape, BUG, GBw, Pod, Rector, NO)
4) Playing 4 copies of AD in your deck doesn't mean you can't lose to CB. It can still put you sufficiently far behind to put a game out of your grasp.
5) To any Nic Fit player that think they can get away popping Explorer vs. Miracle without falling behind, you probably haven't been on the Miracle end often...
It is almost always a mistake

Most Miracle players aren't good, it's a fact. The deck is difficult to master and requires in-depth knowledge of the Legacy metagame, fast decision-making, and a penchant for domination. Miracle won't die because of Abrupt Decay. The fact that the deck still plays CB is a testament to how strong it is in spite of a card like AD. The reason why it is still in there is because it is still the best card advantage engine of a 4Top deck. In summation, Miracles has as many tools against us as we do against them, they get the last word on what hits the board via counterspells, and they have the most manipulation. When you win against Miracles with Nic Fit it's because they bricked on answers.

I agree with Architect that EtI is the go-to card to Slaughter Game vs. Omniclash. Forcing them to find an Emrakul and a SnT is the right decision in almost every cases. As for SnT, it all depends on your hand, life total, and total amount of cards in your opponent's hand. Naming Emrakul and Sneak are both good options there.

As for Storm, It isn't a bad matchup by any means. Yes it is unpredictable and has a lot of potential against us, but the matchup is inversely proportional with time. We have the most disruption potential and the more it adds up, the more difficult it is for them to recover. Unlike SnT decks where they can dig themselves out of proactive disruption by finding the right 2 card combination, ANT and TES need to build up a significant storm count to win. They need cards to combo us out and time to deploy their cantrips (not always, but usually), and we need redundant disruption and enough time to deploy our disruption as well. That feeling you get in the early turns against a storm player is the same they get in the later turns with their depleted hands against a Nic Fit player.

Nic Fit vs. Storm is a bit like Miracles vs. RUG. Miracles has the most staying power and lock-out potential if it gets to a certain point in the game, and it has certain tools to accomplish that goal - It gets the last word. RUG has the most crippling power and disruption to win within a specific time frame or given a specific board state, but it gets significantly weaker as the game progresses - It gets the first word.
Given perfect hands on both sides, the first word tends to beat the last word.
Given statistical variance, the last word generally takes over the first word.
Overall, whoever has the best hand and makes the tightest plays without running into a wall generally wins.

@JeffHoogland,

Surgical is an essential compotent of Nic Fit's disruption suite. I won't re-explain in depth why but it has a lot to do with speed, versatility, and inherent synergy with TS/Therapy.

Leyline of Sanctity is a dent in our armor that has to be polished as much as possible. You can either try to go for a different angle of disruption in the form of counterspells or permanent hate, or you can find ways to deal with Leyline in time.

I deal with all combo decks using 4 GSZ, 4 BW, 4 Therapies, 4 Thoughtseize (3 main 1 side for BW), 4 REB, and 2 Surgical.

Green Sun's Zenith -> Gaddock Teeg to shut down most win conditions
-> Scavenging Ooze for a lock vs. GY decks
-> Deathrite Shaman for quick GY hate or as accelerant for BW and its targets
-> Eternal Witness for repeated disruption

Burning Wish -> Reverent Silence for Leyline
-> Tsunami for Miracles
-> Pyroclasm for EtW and creature-based combos (mainly Elves)
-> Innocent Blood for SnT Emrakul

12-Post is definitely manageable but it requires a stretch in our disruption suite in the form of Blood Moon, Wasteland, Ruination, etc... It represents such a small portion of any given meta that it is generally not a matchup worthy of consideration. Therefore, conceding to 12-post is rational.

[kavaki]

So it was your list that I tested before, huh qweerios.
Ii know this because you are the only person ever I have seen put Tsunami in a list.

And Ii see why you did. I decided to test your list a little bit before joining the discussion and I caught a semi-compitant (read: remembered CB triggers immeadiatly instead of forgetting) by surprise with the card.

[Tao]

I find it quite ironic that Liliana of the Veil is flat out amazing against all the problem decks mentioned on the last pages (ANT, TES, Omnitell, Sneak and Show, Miracles) and yet people refuse to play her. She is an integral part of my game plan against the combo decks and one of the best threats available against Miracles.

[kavaki]

So, a weird question: How is the "Mighty Quinn" match-up?
Someone in my meta has played it for god knows how long and im thinking about the match-up and I know RiP is an issue and that its run.

[Megadeus]

I find it quite ironic that Liliana of the Veil is flat out amazing against all the problem decks mentioned on the last pages (ANT, TES, Omnitell, Sneak and Show, Miracles) and yet people refuse to play her. She is an integral part of my game plan against the combo decks and one of the best threats available against Miracles.

I never stopped playing her when I played this deck. I loved her in basically every MU. People always said she wasn't that good but she was always MVP for me. Especially in PFire lists

[Tao]

So, a weird question: How is the "Mighty Quinn" match-up?
Someone in my meta has played it for god knows how long and im thinking about the match-up and I know RiP is an issue and that its run.

I haven't tested it but based on my experiences with both decks I think it should be very positive, with any of the versions, except for Thune Combo.
Scapewish should have the best matchup. A win condition that works under Humility and access to Slaughter Games in G1 should make this almost a bye. Slaughter Games seems insanely good.
Punishing Fire should do well, too, though not as good. This is a matchup where I would be hesitant to trigger an Explorer. But I think they have a hard time ever winning the game because of Liliana, Deed and Decay supported by Therapies and Witnesses and G2/G3 you also have Slaughter Games.

- O-Ring is very bad against Deed and all their removal is bad against your EtB triggers.
- You can interact with them via Therapy/Thoughtseize but they can't interact with you except for Abeyance which is useful but not nearly as good as your Discard
- Humility is a concern but you have Deeds for that (and G2/G3 hopefully Golgari Charms). The trick is to use Deed during their EoT (always use Deed during their EoT in matchups like this), then main phase Witness it back so that a second copy of Humility doesn't screw you.


I never stopped playing her when I played this deck. I loved her in basically every MU. People always said she wasn't that good but she was always MVP for me. Especially in PFire lists

Good to know I am not alone with this!

[HoneyT]

Alrighty here goes the Storm coaching:

Without being given specific scenarios and questions it's hard to give more than just general advice but I'll do my best. (Bear in mind this is for the Lily-less lists and she makes these matches even easier)
1. MULLIGAN HANDS WITHOUT INTERACTION. Period.
2. Learn what makes hands keepable/good in whichever Storm variant you're playing against. You're playing a Cabal Therapy deck. You need to learn what's important. On the play your best Therapy call is LED regardless. On the draw is where it gets trickier; assuming you get a turn. If all they've done is cantrip on turn one your best Therapy call is Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish. If they just pass and Brainstorm in response, they're most likely hiding business (AN,BW,IT), in which case Dark Ritual becomes the best name. There's a lot more mana in these decks than business spells so they need to protect those.
3. Play extraction effects. It's pretty easy to win when they can't. Also, don't be afraid to fire them off on a cantrip if they're Brainstorming in response to a discard spell. Messing up the top of their deck can really set them back.
4. Play Scavenging Ooze and Eternal Witness are the win conditions post board. Don't be afraid to trim the fat. You need to clock these decks.

Hope this helps. Any more questions or specific scenarios just ask.

Also, Tao; I've actually been on the Liliana plan for awhile now (more combo, less on-board decks in my meta now). I'm just having problems with Google and haven't been able to update my lists in my signature.

[Megadeus]

E witness is the green mages snapcaster in those match ups basically right? Get back more discard and extraction?

[TimHarding]

The Levin version was better tn at my weekly than any of this lists I've seen on this thread..

[XdeckX]

I would be interested to see a list TimHarding.
Somtime I hate not having Premium...

[Tao]

Arian posted his list on the last page. I like the idea of combining Jace and Fire in general and I like the fact that he is on the value plan, but I have two big concerns with the list:

- the mana base: Playing 3 Lilianas, 4 Jaces with 4 Groves, 2 Mountains and a Forest sounds adventurous for a deck with only 4 Explorers.

- the list is very thin on win conditions. For example how does he beat a deck that runs Punishing Fire, too (like Jund or Maverick). He just doesn't it seems to me. Neither G1 nor G2. They can Wasteland his Groves and use their Fire/Grove to shoot down his Planeswalkers and then?

[Arianrhod]

/barn RE@Levin's list.

Tim Harding, I think that a large reason for why Levin's list is superior in your local meta is because it has Karn, and Karn seems really good against 12post, which IIRC your meta is inundated with. That's just my gut read without any actual further thoughts from you on what you liked.

/barn Tim's (HoneyT's) thoughts on vs storm, especially on Cabal Therapy names.

@Evan -- my experiences vs Sneak are just different, I guess. There have been multiple games where I take my opponent's Emrakuls, and then he's incapable of killing me with Griselbrand -- half the time they need to Intuition to actually find a Griselbrand, which means that they have a grand total of 2 Griselbrands for 14 points of life that they can actually do. From what I've seen, the Feldon's Cane effect of Emrakul is actually surprisingly important to Sneak. I agree that as long as you're bringing in 3+ REBs, Show and Tell isn't as big of a threat, but I'd rather attack on all angles rather than just focus on one (you focus on the enablers, I split my attention more between enablers and monsters). It's probably just a personal style thing, since we both have results with Scape vs Sneak.

RE@Liliana, I still say that I won't touch her outside of specific versions because I'd rather that me and my opponent both have cards in hand than neither of us do, since my cards are better than his cards. That being said, Punishing is one of those versions.

On a related topic, I think I'm going to actually give PFire a spin at my local tomorrow night. I've never actually tried Punishing Fit, and I think it's past time.

[HoneyT]

On a related topic, I think I'm going to actually give PFire a spin at my local tomorrow night. I've never actually tried Punishing Fit, and I think it's past time.

So proud of you. Kevin's all growed up. :laugh:

(Got a sick list for you too) :wink:

[Arianrhod]

So proud of you. Kevin's all growed up. :laugh:

(Got a sick list for you too) :wink:

Yeah, what is your latest, while we're on the subject?

Unrelatedly, I'm not sure I'm going to make it to Indy now. Apparently, what SCG doesn't tell you is that if you drop from an event, you don't get the 1 SCG point. So, when I thought I qualified at Philly, I actually didn't, and still have 14 points.

I do still have a potential out in the form of Jupiter on the 12th, which is an SCG elite IQ now -- but I NEED to at least top 16, or I don't get any SCG points. So.....pressure's on, I guess. I've still got Champs and DC, obviously, but I really would like to make the invitational. Ending the year with 14 points is gonna really suck, since they don't carry over from year to year.

[kavaki]

If you plan to do Grand Prix D.C. it isnt in D.C. this time. Its a good 30 minute drive to the West in Dulles.
Place is kinda in the middle of nowhere-ish (right near a major airport though)

Just something to note since that topic was brought up.