[Primer] Nic Fit

[Ganfar]

What is stopping you from just playing goyfs?
Goyfs has become a good target for Fatal Push and Gofy is only big dumb creture. Nic-fit want vaule and utilty creture in the deck.

[CptHaddock]

Goyfs has become a good target for Fatal Push and Gofy is only big dumb creture. Nic-fit want vaule and utilty creture in the deck.

Isn't that exactly what he wanted though? A big dumb creature that he could reasonably cast if he didn't get explorer online that was also fetchable with GSZ?

[Purple Blood]

Isn't that exactly what he wanted though? A big dumb creature that he could reasonably cast if he didn't get explorer online that was also fetchable with GSZ?

If you keep going down that route you may as well just play Rock though. At what point is VE/CT still worth it if all your creatures are low cost?

[Brael]

What is stopping you from just playing goyfs?

I considered it. I'm just looking for one slot. If you go back a few pages you'll find the discussion on it. Strangleroot Geist was suggested as an alternative though, and I gave it a shot. So far I'm liking it since being able to tutor up a hasted threat is pretty valuable in the face of things like Jace or even just as surprise combat damage. Goyf isn't out of consideration yet, but for now I've been liking Geist, especially with a setup that gets Tower more often. It rounds things out nicely.


If you keep going down that route you may as well just play Rock though. At what point is VE/CT still worth it if all your creatures are low cost?

It's all about having mana sinks. High cost creatures are one form of a mana sink, but they only work when you have large amounts of mana. Instead I have lots of incremental mana sinks. SDT, Bob, DRS, Crop Rotation, Maze of Ith, Tireless Tracker, Stronghold, etc... these all add up as ways to use mana. I have no problems using my mana effectively.

[amppyou]

Is anyone still running Dragonlord Dromoka in their lists? I like him in theory, but I've yet to find him in game, so it's hard to tell.

Right now i'm on a 4 planeswalker WBG list with 6Sorin, Nisssa VF x2, & Kaya.

[Echelon]

Is anyone still running Dragonlord Dromoka in their lists? I like him in theory, but I've yet to find him in game, so it's hard to tell.

Haven't run Dromoka in a long time. Yes, it's stronger than, say, Sigarda, but Sigarda usually still is enough to close out the game so why bother with something even bigger?

I think that Titania falls in the same category. It takes roughly the same kind of build as Tireless Tracker to be able to take over a game, but Tireless Tracker does it for 2 mana less. And again, Titania's effect is obviously more powerful than Trackers', but Tracker usually still is enough to close out the game if unanswered, so why bother?

[Navsi]

I think that Titania falls in the same category. It takes roughly the same kind of build as Tireless Tracker to be able to take over a game, but Tireless Tracker does it for 2 mana less. And again, Titania's effect is obviously more powerful than Trackers', but Tracker usually still is enough to close out the game if unanswered, so why bother?

If BUG is popular in a metagame I can see more argument for Titania. Tracker dies to Push and Decay and Titania doesn't care about either of them. Titania is also a 1-2 turn clock where Tracker usually takes 3-5 turns to actually reach lethal, which is a nonzero difference. Titania just needs to be in a build which can reliably expect to be able to keep the enemy board clear of Deathrite Shamans.

[Echelon]

If BUG is popular in a metagame I can see more argument for Titania. Tracker dies to Push and Decay and Titania doesn't care about either of them. Titania is also a 1-2 turn clock where Tracker usually takes 3-5 turns to actually reach lethal, which is a nonzero difference. Titania just needs to be in a build which can reliably expect to be able to keep the enemy board clear of Deathrite Shamans.

Or, you know, ignore DRS and deploy more threats than they can answer. There's more than one road you can take.

BUG isn't something you particularly need to build for.

[Lobo]

This weekend I'm traveling a few hours to play in a win-a-Mox tournament in Missouri. I've never been to the shop that's hosting, so I'm unsure what sort of meta to expect. On the one hand, with a Mox Pearl on the line, I can expect every devoted Legacy player to sleeve up his or her best deck (except perhaps for me; I'll be leaving Elves and D&T at home, along with my better judgment). On the other hand, with a Mox Pearl on the line, casual and non-Legacy players may be tempted to enter their jankiest brew just to have a shot.

My Nyx Fit list is based heavily on the one Navsi provided for the revamped primer:

Lands: 22

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

Creatures: 13

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Academy Rector
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

Non-creatures: 26 (main deck is 61 cards)

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sterling Grove
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library
1 Living Plane
1 Nether Void
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Parallax Wave
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Aid from the Cowl

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 City of Solitude
1 Humility
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Lost Legacy

Considerations:


I've found it helpful to have three basic Forests. Occasionally when running only two, I've sacrificed an Explorer and wished I could find two green sources in order to cast some of the GGX cards in the list (Eidolon, Witness, Courser, Aid from the Cowl). I'm a lot more likely to find them with the extra Forest available.
In recent testing, I've gone down to just two Pernicious Deed in order to make room for a Toxic Deluge. While Deluge has no synergy with Starfield or Aid from the Cowl, it can affect the board much earlier than Deed, is more useful under mana constraint, isn't vulnerable to Stifle, and is a better answer to high-CMC threats like Gurmag Angler and Reality Smasher. It also doesn't threaten to destroy our own enchantments as Deed sometimes can. We still have plentiful tutor effects to find a Deed when the situation calls for it. So far the Deluge has tested well.
I'm considering adding more graveyard hate to the board, both to account for the prevalence of BR Reanimator and to diversify the kinds of hate I can bring to bear. Lots of Reanimator players are running Reverent Silence, which is just about the last card any Nyx Fit player wants to see. I wonder whether it's worth adding Faerie Macabre, perhaps in place of the City of Solitude. Or should I simply resign myself to losing if they find their Reverent Silence, and devote my sideboard to other match-ups?
I'm intrigued by the siren song of a sideboard Chromanticore. It shrugs off Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push, flies over and outraces True-Name Nemesis, and can be recurred through Starfield. Sigarda's hexproof is worth more than all of Chromanticore's keyword soup combined, but she isn't an enchantment, and in many match-ups a second tutorable threat has strong appeal.
Nether Void is the newest addition to my list, so I don't have much experience with it. It's obviously great against Storm, Elves, Burn, and so on, but I'd be tempted to leave it in against Miracles and Delver, too. If anyone has any thoughts about how to make the most of Nether Void, I'm all ears.

[Megadeus]

Is there a reason that Painful Truths isn't super popular in many builds? It seems like it is perfect for this deck. Card advantage, plus this deck can overcome a 3 mana sorcery because it can sometimes still cast things afterwards. Life loss offset by multiple dudes that gain life. Why is this not a more popular card?

[square_two]

Is there a reason that Painful Truths isn't super popular in many builds? It seems like it is perfect for this deck. Card advantage, plus this deck can overcome a 3 mana sorcery because it can sometimes still cast things afterwards. Life loss offset by multiple dudes that gain life. Why is this not a more popular card?

I've always thought it should be more popular in the Rhino Junk builds than it currently is. That version has no problem losing 3 life. 3 Tops goes a long way to helping card quality/filtering, but often the boost in raw cards can be game-deciding.

Other builds of nic fit that rely solely on Thragtusk for life, it can be a tad hazy. Most other nic fit lists will usually tend to sacrifice life in order to prolong the game or setup a powerful Deed wipe. Especially so against Delver decks. That's probably the reason for more hesitation to running Truths.

[Navsi]

22 lands / 3 tower

Standard creatures + Sigarda

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Toxic Deluge

3 Sterling Grove
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Sylvan Library
1 Living Plane
1 Nether Void
1 Parallax Wave
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Aid from the Cowl


Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 City of Solitude
1 Humility
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Lost Legacy

Considerations:


I've found it helpful to have three basic Forests. Occasionally when running only two, I've sacrificed an Explorer and wished I could find two green sources in order to cast some of the GGX cards in the list (Eidolon, Witness, Courser, Aid from the Cowl). I'm a lot more likely to find them with the extra Forest available.
In recent testing, I've gone down to just two Pernicious Deed in order to make room for a Toxic Deluge. While Deluge has no synergy with Starfield or Aid from the Cowl, it can affect the board much earlier than Deed, is more useful under mana constraint, isn't vulnerable to Stifle, and is a better answer to high-CMC threats like Gurmag Angler and Reality Smasher. It also doesn't threaten to destroy our own enchantments as Deed sometimes can. We still have plentiful tutor effects to find a Deed when the situation calls for it. So far the Deluge has tested well.
I'm considering adding more graveyard hate to the board, both to account for the prevalence of BR Reanimator and to diversify the kinds of hate I can bring to bear. Lots of Reanimator players are running Reverent Silence, which is just about the last card any Nyx Fit player wants to see. I wonder whether it's worth adding Faerie Macabre, perhaps in place of the City of Solitude. Or should I simply resign myself to losing if they find their Reverent Silence, and devote my sideboard to other match-ups?
I'm intrigued by the siren song of a sideboard Chromanticore. It shrugs off Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push, flies over and outraces True-Name Nemesis, and can be recurred through Starfield. Sigarda's hexproof is worth more than all of Chromanticore's keyword soup combined, but she isn't an enchantment, and in many match-ups a second tutorable threat has strong appeal.
Nether Void is the newest addition to my list, so I don't have much experience with it. It's obviously great against Storm, Elves, Burn, and so on, but I'd be tempted to leave it in against Miracles and Delver, too. If anyone has any thoughts about how to make the most of Nether Void, I'm all ears.



I like 2/2/2 basics, personally, but either is fine. I can see the merits, but at the same time I don't like the inconsistency the 7th basic brings. Personally I'd drop the second Swamp and try to stay away from double-black cards if I was going for it.
I'm not fond of Deluge, mainly because it's a card we would usually need early-game and we can't tutor for it, so it's unlikely to really be useful when we want it. We already have Parallax Wave for a 'sweeper' effect which doesn't cost extra mana after a Rector trigger.
Reverent Silence is pretty awful for us, yes. I'd say if you expect a reasonable amount of enchantment hate, you want the second Starfield more than Aid from the Cowl. As far as not losing to wishboard Silence, I don't think it's something we can really plan to play around. Just eat it, recur your stuff and try not to die. More Nissas might help.
Chromanticore is sweet. I'm trying to fit him into the Sigarda slot myself, with Collective Brutality for utility and as a discard outlet if he gets stuck in our hand. Having played with Atraxa recently, a 4/4 with Vigilance, Flying and Lifelink is disgustingly unbeatable for basically anyone being aggressive. The deck doesn't really need Sigarda specifically (remember Chromanticore has shroud with Sterling Grove), it just needs a fat monster it can Zenith for when we want to apply pressure.
Nether Void is primarily good against people who cast lots of spells, or against people we can get ahead of on board. I can see it being good against Miracles, just because slamming Void when we have a creature and they don't probably makes them very unhappy, especially if they don't have a Top.

[rubblekill]

Hello Nic Fit Veterans (see what I did there?)

I am happy to report that I got a 5-0 tonight with a straight BG version of this deck, that I built using some inspiration from this thread and little bit of theorycrafting. Yesterday I had a 4-1 league in the morning and a 1-3 drop in the afternoon/evening. I usually play relatively unfair decks so this was me branching out a bit. You guys all seem like fun-loving people so I'm just going to share my decklist and some thoughts on the deck:

Decklist:

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
3 Swamp
4 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Treetop Village (I like this because it can kill Jace, the Mind Sculptor from Crop Rotation)
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tireless Tracker (weakest slot in the maindeck IMO)
1 Master of the Wild Hunt (destroys BUG decks and Delver decks, good complement to Thrun)
1 Thrun, the Last Troll (good for trolling people :D )
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Nissa, Vital Force (Quite honestly, this is the best reason to ramp both players. I am astounded by how powerful this card has been)
3 Sensei's Divining Top (would not play less than 3, I could see playing a 4th)
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Crop Rotation
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Pernicious Deed

SB:
2 Surgical Extraction (necessary)
4 Sphere of Resistance (necessary)
2 Carpet of Flowers (necessary)
2 Duress (necessary)
2 Choke (seems ok?)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Garruk Relentless (is this necessary? Would I rather have another card for Miracles / combo?)
1 Thragtusk (burn? considering Obstinate Baloth)

There are some slots that I am less sure of, such as Tireless Tracker and some of the sideboard. However, I have been impressed with the Crop Rotation package - it usually finds Phyrexian Tower to super-ramp with Veteran Explorer into Nissa or Green Sun for one of my stupid 4 CMC guys. Nissa has blown me away every time I cast it - tomorrow morning I will record a Youtube video of the best Nissa usage I have ever dreamed of. I would play 3, but legend rule... :(

Thrun is very hard to answer, particularly with Karakas. Master of the Wild Hunt cleans up board states and makes up for having fewer creatures in the deck in general.

I'm pretty sure Surgical Extraction is necessary in the sideboard, which makes me want to play more discard in the sideboard also, even spreading to 2 Thoughtseize maindeck.

Obviously most of this information is obvious for you guys because you've played it more than I have. I would love to hear some input into my choices, particularly with my reducing the curve considerably to top off at 4 CMC creatures and 2 Nissas for the most part. I cut Sylvan Library after the 1st league because it doesn't interact well with Deed.

Congrats [emoji4]
What decks did you play against in that league?
I love every gb list, yours included, but I have a sincere question: isn't the deck lacking some beef? To me the deck seems to be lacking very powerful finishers/tools to stabilise the board immediately, have you not noticed anything like it while playing the deck?
It also seems CA light, but I might be wrong.
Good job with the league!

[Lobo]

I like 2/2/2 basics, personally, but either is fine. I can see the merits, but at the same time I don't like the inconsistency the 7th basic brings. Personally I'd drop the second Swamp and try to stay away from double-black cards if I was going for it.
I'm not fond of Deluge, mainly because it's a card we would usually need early-game and we can't tutor for it, so it's unlikely to really be useful when we want it. We already have Parallax Wave for a 'sweeper' effect which doesn't cost extra mana after a Rector trigger.
Reverent Silence is pretty awful for us, yes. I'd say if you expect a reasonable amount of enchantment hate, you want the second Starfield more than Aid from the Cowl. As far as not losing to wishboard Silence, I don't think it's something we can really plan to play around. Just eat it, recur your stuff and try not to die. More Nissas might help.
Chromanticore is sweet. I'm trying to fit him into the Sigarda slot myself, with Collective Brutality for utility and as a discard outlet if he gets stuck in our hand. Having played with Atraxa recently, a 4/4 with Vigilance, Flying and Lifelink is disgustingly unbeatable for basically anyone being aggressive. The deck doesn't really need Sigarda specifically (remember Chromanticore has shroud with Sterling Grove), it just needs a fat monster it can Zenith for when we want to apply pressure.
Nether Void is primarily good against people who cast lots of spells, or against people we can get ahead of on board. I can see it being good against Miracles, just because slamming Void when we have a creature and they don't probably makes them very unhappy, especially if they don't have a Top.

Excellent thoughts—thank you for sharing them. I may run a Cavern of Souls in place of that third Forest, as you suggested in the primer. I just realized how it breaks the symmetry of Nether Void (my newest card, recall) and lets us cast Rector. Then when Starfield hits, we can deliberately cast any enchantments we draw into Nether Void, let them get countered, and proceed to do broken things.

I really like the thought of Collective Brutality in this deck, because with an active Starfield, the escalation cost can really work to our advantage. If things are going our way, we'd rather have enchantments in the yard than in hand anyway. It's tough to say how we could make room for it, though. Of all Nic Fit shells, I swear Nyx has the least wiggle room.

How often do you find you board in Humility+Curse? When I first picked up the deck, I just figured, "Oh, Humility is for Sneak and Show, 12-Post, Elves, Reanimator—the unfair creature decks." I've since found it performs well against any deck that wants to win through creature attacks. When it lands against Delver, Shardless, or Death and Taxes, it can often buy us the extra turns we need to assemble the Starfield/Deed engine or the Humility/Curse creature lock. It really hoses Miracles's end-game, too, barring a Jace ultimate. Granted, Parallax Wave is great against these fairer decks, too, but in games two and three, why not run both?

Oh, something I forgot to note in my last post: I really like City of Solitude in the board because, in addition to stopping counterspells, it also protects Academy Rector from being sniped by Deathrites when she goes to the graveyard. (So far in my experience, few legacy players are aware of this vulnerability of Rector, but it's nice to close that hole all the same.)

[DNSolver]

Congrats [emoji4]
What decks did you play against in that league?
I love every gb list, yours included, but I have a sincere question: isn't the deck lacking some beef? To me the deck seems to be lacking very powerful finishers/tools to stabilise the board immediately, have you not noticed anything like it while playing the deck?
It also seems CA light, but I might be wrong.
Good job with the league!

I beat:

Elves (Julian Knab)
Grixis Delver x2 (LewisCBR, Bob Huang)
Burn
Enchantress with blue for Ponder, Energy Field (???)

So two of those decks/players were suspect.

Winning cards were typically Master of the Wild Hunt or Nissa. Master kills most things and blocks almost everything else. Nissa is the source of raw card advantage. What cards would you want me to run to stabilize the board that turn? Thragtusk? It's in my sideboard.

Crop Rotation gives you inevitability with your creatures by fetching Volrath's Stronghold.

[Arianrhod]

I've always thought it should be more popular in the Rhino Junk builds than it currently is. That version has no problem losing 3 life. 3 Tops goes a long way to helping card quality/filtering, but often the boost in raw cards can be game-deciding.

Other builds of nic fit that rely solely on Thragtusk for life, it can be a tad hazy. Most other nic fit lists will usually tend to sacrifice life in order to prolong the game or setup a powerful Deed wipe. Especially so against Delver decks. That's probably the reason for more hesitation to running Truths.

Basically this. It is likely underplayed, but most nic fit versions use their life total for things other than drawing cards, and at the point at which you do use it to draw cards, you start to run into problems staying alive.

[Echelon]

The main problem w/ Painful Truths is that it's 3 mana. That puts it in the same territory as other, GSZ'able CA engines.

I've run 2 Painful Truths for quite some time and although they were never bad, they also never were great or very gamechanging.

[fireiced]

Painful Truths should see an uptick in play with all the BUG fair decks running amok. Then again our engines can mostly outgrind their BUG CA. :wink:

However I still play 1 Painful Truths in the side to bring in vs Miracles and non delver BUG decks. Never too happy or too sad to see them just like what Echelon said. Just a okish CA card that needs stack interaction to interact instead of removal as compared to CA creatures we run. You know different angles of pressure on Miracles' answers = more % points in our favour. :cool:

[Brael]

My experience with Painful Truths was that paying 3 at sorcery speed to not effect the board state just wasn't good enough. Tireless Tracker basically replaced Truths. It hits the opponent, costs less life, and still draws cards. The ceiling on the card is just much higher, though it does require some setup.

[emuhell]

I beat:

Elves (Julian Knab)
Grixis Delver x2 (LewisCBR, Bob Huang)
Burn
Enchantress with blue for Ponder, Energy Field (???)

So two of those decks/players were suspect.

Winning cards were typically Master of the Wild Hunt or Nissa. Master kills most things and blocks almost everything else. Nissa is the source of raw card advantage. What cards would you want me to run to stabilize the board that turn? Thragtusk? It's in my sideboard.

Crop Rotation gives you inevitability with your creatures by fetching Volrath's Stronghold.

I like you list. Decided to give it a try soon. Since I don't have those Sphere of Resistance lying around I will replace them with Thorn of Amethyst. I don't expect many elves, so I guess this is OK?

Maybe this deck would like to play Titania, Protector of Argoth as an additional win condition since it returns important lands, likes Karakas and has a quasi-synergy with Crop Rotation?

[Navsi]

Maybe this deck would like to play Titania, Protector of Argoth as an additional win condition since it returns important lands, likes Karakas and has a quasi-synergy with Crop Rotation?

Arianrhod, this should probably go in the primer since it's coming up so frequently.

Titania is a fast threat but she gets answered by basically every removal spell in the format. If you are coming up against a ton of BUG decks and uninteractive combo, she's fine, but otherwise she is too vulnerable to be a reliable finisher. If you do want to play her, I'd recommend running a Sylvan Safekeeper, both to keep her alive and to give you the potential to one-round people.

[DNSolver]

I like you list. Decided to give it a try soon. Since I don't have those Sphere of Resistance lying around I will replace them with Thorn of Amethyst. I don't expect many elves, so I guess this is OK?

Maybe this deck would like to play Titania, Protector of Argoth as an additional win condition since it returns important lands, likes Karakas and has a quasi-synergy with Crop Rotation?

You want Sphere so you can beat Aluren. Against Elves I don't think Sphere is worthwhile in this deck.

Titania sounds interesting.

[Brael]

You want Sphere so you can beat Aluren. Against Elves I don't think Sphere is worthwhile in this deck.

Titania sounds interesting.

Rather than Sphere, why not just use Lost Legacy? LL is good in a lot of matchups.

[emuhell]

Titania is a fast threat but she gets answered by basically every removal spell in the format.

Abrupt Decay (44% of all decks) - no
Swords to Plowshares (33%) - yes
Lightning Bolt (14%) - yes
Fatal Push (TBD) - no
(numbers due to mtggoldfish)

Although "dies to removal" is not the best argument, a 5cc Threat that dies to Bolt is annoying. My point is, that in this specific list - with the Crop Rotation toolbox - the card could be viable.

Very fast Titanias could easily happen with GSZ off a Towered Exporer to get back a Fetchland and produce a fast clock.

[Echelon]

Very fast Titanias could easily happen with GSZ off a Towered Exporer to get back a Fetchland and produce a fast clock.

This means that your opening hand was land, land, Tower, Explorer, GSZ and you basically start playing Magic @turn 3 while assuming your opponent does not have a single card that can mess with your plan.

I understand what you're trying to say, but that's just wishful thinking. On turn 3 you're either dead or sure your opponent has some form of disruption.

[rubblekill]

I'm trying a bg hymn configuration based of dns' list and it feels very strong. It has a more controlling approach, but the problem is if we can reliably survive a fast delver hand. I have only played a couple games but I have to say that the crop rotation package is very underrated.
I always felt that the 2t were kinda awkward without a way to tutor them (prime time is a mediocre 6 drop against anything non miracles), but rotation changes that and offers a lot of possibilities and ways to play the game.
Nice job for having that idea, Brael.
In gb hymn is necessary I feel, it is such a strong card both against fair and unfair decks, we also have less creatures here so hymn strips away their stack/permanent interaction and opens the way for our (small number of) bombs.

What are all the viable options for the land package? I have found bog clunky in the main, I think I'm moving it in the side.
Treetop village is the only tap land in willing to play in the main; it has been so powerful (especially with rotation) in the few games I have played.

[emuhell]

This means that your opening hand was land, land, Tower, Explorer, GSZ and you basically start playing Magic @turn 3 while assuming your opponent does not have a single card that can mess with your plan.

I understand what you're trying to say, but that's just wishful thinking. On turn 3 you're either dead or sure your opponent has some form of disruption.

Yeah ;) thanks for pointing to reality. Of course this is just one thing that could happen - and with the addition of Crop Rotation, @DNSolver pointed out that getting to sac your Explorer to the Tower gets much more likely. Despite the nice toolbox it provides, I think this is the major upside of using Crop Rotation.

Besides, this list does most of the things other Nic Fit lists do, which unfortunately reads sometimes like:

you basically start playing Magic @turn 3

[Echelon]

and with the addition of Crop Rotation, @DNSolver pointed out that getting to sac your Explorer to the Tower gets much more likely.

It's another card you need in your opener and another element your opponent can interact with to mess up your plan. Playing any card into a counter sucks, playing Crop Rotation into a counter is shooting yourself in the foot.

Crop Rotation is card disadvantage and opens you up to pretty big blowouts. Besides, when wanting to go for a lands package why not go for something that can downright beat your opponent in 1 big swing (i.e. DD combo) instead of dicking around w/ Rotation into Tower.

[rubblekill]

Maybe pulse of murasa could be a consideration for the gb list: gains a ton of life against the fastest decks (no rhino and no path can lead to tricky situations against fast delver hands) and can buy back a wastelanded maze/manland/random land.

Too cute? Probably, but Stryfo showed us that you can 5-0 a league with 3 pulses in the sideboard.

@Echelon: I was skeptic myself about rotation, but I think you should give it a try (only in GB of course). You have to cast it wisely against counters but it smooths the consistency of the deck a lot and makes possible very nice tricks such as pseudo haste dude vs walkers, ramps, finds 2t asap, is a recall in the late game with TT in play.
You were the one that liked intent a lot, and that card leads to more disastrous blowouts after all. Give it a try!

[Navsi]

About the whole 'start playing turn 3' thing:

This is one of the problems with the Phyrexian Tower plan, IMO. If you're sacrificing Veteran to tower, you aren't pitching him to Cabal Therapy which IMO is preferable 90%+ of the time. Obviously sometimes we don't have Cabal Therapy, but planning primarily around Tower feels worse than planning primarily around Therapy, in any metagame which isn't hugely slow. The disruption from Therapy looks a lot more relevant than slamming a threat a turn earlier, especially considering that while we play high-mana game ending threats, the deck still is reasonably likely to be able to do something to affect the board state with the 2-3 mana left over after a Therapy flashback on turn two. At the end of the day, Crop Rotation is card disadvantage and you need to be getting some serious power out of it to be worth it. That means if you're Rotating for a Phyrexian Tower to sacrifice a Veteran, you need to be running a lot of powerful threats around the 4-5 mana mark which threaten to end the game in the near future, so you can actually leverage the mana advantage Tower gives you. You spent three cards (rotation, veteran, threat) on getting that threat into play a couple of turns earlier, so it needs to be good because if it gets removed you're in a pretty bad way.

[rubblekill]

No one said you HAVE to find tower to sac VE. it's the possibility to do it in the right situation that represent the power of the card.

[Navsi]

No one said you HAVE to find tower to sac VE. it's the possibility to do it in the right situation that represent the power of the card.

Sure. What I'm saying is that you need to run enough payoff cards for that 'right situation' to actually come up a reasonable percentage of the time.

[rubblekill]

Sure. What I'm saying is that you need to run enough payoff cards for that 'right situation' to actually come up a reasonable percentage of the time.

The payoff is the land package, the improved consistency through recursion, the eot hasty manland and the possible magical Christmas land of recalling yourself with TT in play.

But ultimately the most impressive thing to me is the OPTION to do all those things according to the situations you are facing.

It's a T1 play that helps against those dumb decks that poop out a T1 griselbrand (bog or karakas or both).

Note that I also play 3 hymns (AND 2 TS in the side) in this deck, so it's not like I'm lacking hand disruption even if I want to burn a land to ramp with tower. Conversely the rotated tower allows me to have BB more consistently to cast hymn.

I'm not saying crop is a must in this archetype, only that it's underrated. I know I underrated it.

[Navsi]

Fetching Karakas / Bog is nice. Being able to cheaply fetch combo hate is a nice thing to have, and Hymn improves combo matchups further. You are sacrificing some of your percentage points against fair decks in exchange, but we already have good matchups there and depending on the meta it might be worth it anyway.

[Echelon]

@Echelon: I was skeptic myself about rotation, but I think you should give it a try (only in GB of course). You have to cast it wisely against counters but it smooths the consistency of the deck a lot and makes possible very nice tricks such as pseudo haste dude vs walkers, ramps, finds 2t asap, is a recall in the late game with TT in play.
You were the one that liked intent a lot, and that card leads to more disastrous blowouts after all. Give it a try!

Losing a land can be a lot more devastating than losing a creature. Creatures you expect to lose, lands you don't. But I get your point :smile:, and I've always been interested in landfall. I still run a singleton Diabolic Intent, by the way :laugh:.

[rubblekill]

Fetching Karakas / Bog is nice. Being able to cheaply fetch combo hate is a nice thing to have, and Hymn improves combo matchups further. You are sacrificing some of your percentage points against fair decks in exchange, but we already have good matchups there and depending on the meta it might be worth it anyway.

Too much BS (bullshit, brainstorm: its all the same thing) online, in the form of show and chimp and BR Griseldumb. After the "fall" of the eldrazi storm is more common too, and miracles is still the most prevalent deck. Your analysis is perfect and corresponds to this meta I'm playing in.
Let's see if I like this list more than 8🦏

[emuhell]

It's a T1 play that helps against those dumb decks that poop out a T1 griselbrand (bog or karakas or both).

This. A way to interact with this stuff - early. I really see potential, but I have to test it.

Do you mind sharing your latest list? I guess you dropped a few Abrupt Decay in favor of Hymn?

[Echelon]

Yes, b/c it's not like those decks play 8 free counters or anything...

Again, I understand what people are trying to convey, but please do consider the entire context of what you're trying to answer w/ a given package. I mean, by that same logic a set of PtE would suffice to deal w/ Reanimator (where we all know it isn't).

[rubblekill]

Yes, b/c it's not like those decks play 8 free counters or anything...

Again, I understand what people are trying to convey, but please do consider the entire context of what you're trying to answer w/ a given package. I mean, by that same logic a set of PtE would suffice to deal w/ Reanimator (where we all know it isn't).

As a path player, path doesn't stop past in flames or loam..
And in junk karakas is just one singleton that cannot be tutored until primeval Titan (we wish we would live until 7mana is possible)
I play the full 4 AD and 3 hymns, I'm on mobile now.

I will even try chameleon colossus and go the Brael route, f it

[emuhell]

Yes, b/c it's not like those decks play 8 free counters or anything...

Again, I understand what people are trying to convey, but please do consider the entire context of what you're trying to answer w/ a given package. I mean, by that same logic a set of PtE would suffice to deal w/ Reanimator (where we all know it isn't).

Talking about the rampaging BR reanimator - they are pretty light on countermagic (although they do have some disruption). The opportunity costs to suddenly be able to deal with such decks is still very low in my opinion. We do not trade a lot of power and I think we even gain some consistency. But I could be wrong - testing will show.

[gth842s]

About the whole 'start playing turn 3' thing:

This is one of the problems with the Phyrexian Tower plan, IMO. If you're sacrificing Veteran to tower, you aren't pitching him to Cabal Therapy which IMO is preferable 90%+ of the time. Obviously sometimes we don't have Cabal Therapy, but planning primarily around Tower feels worse than planning primarily around Therapy, in any metagame which isn't hugely slow. The disruption from Therapy looks a lot more relevant than slamming a threat a turn earlier, especially considering that while we play high-mana game ending threats, the deck still is reasonably likely to be able to do something to affect the board state with the 2-3 mana left over after a Therapy flashback on turn two. At the end of the day, Crop Rotation is card disadvantage and you need to be getting some serious power out of it to be worth it. That means if you're Rotating for a Phyrexian Tower to sacrifice a Veteran, you need to be running a lot of powerful threats around the 4-5 mana mark which threaten to end the game in the near future, so you can actually leverage the mana advantage Tower gives you. You spent three cards (rotation, veteran, threat) on getting that threat into play a couple of turns earlier, so it needs to be good because if it gets removed you're in a pretty bad way.

As always, I agree with most of what you said here. Even then, I'm still going to fiddle around with a crop rotation. It's been kicking around this forum for weeks and the people playtesting it haven't seen fit (get it?) to remove the card yet, so I want to give it a try. I think the key is to think of it as either an 'out' (fetch a bullet that prevents your opponent from winning, i.e. Karakas or Bog) or as extra consistency, but not as plan A. Devoid of context, I'll always just use Therapy to eat an Explorer and disrupt my opponent, but if I don't have a Therapy then Crop Rotation is a decent fifth Therapy in that it does allow me to execute my gameplan.

I also agree you absolutely need serious power out of the card to make it worth it - that's why I'm going to try a singleton in Sneaky Fit. Anything that increases the odds of T2 Sneak Attack should greatly improve matchups vs. Storm, Reanimator, Tin Fins, etc. It also seems like an elegant way to add consistency to the Punishing Fire package when you need it, which certainly isn't every time, but is game-winning when you want some P-Fires. It also allows me to remove StE and Meren for Crop Rotation and Tireless Tracker, as my meta has shifted noticeably away from Eldrazi and towards Combo recently.

Lastly, I played in a weekly last Thursday. It did not go well. I'll spare you all the grisly details, but I lost to Tin Fins, BR Reanimator, and Storm on some bad mulligans and embarrassing misplays (particularly against Storm, where I didn't fetch lands correctly to preserve my out of drawing Lost Legacy - naturally, I drew lost legacy and couldn't play it because I'm bad). I still think Sneak is one of the best variants out there, but it's no fun when you hit a streak of bad draws and matchups. Sticking around, wanting to win a match for personal pride, I ended up getting a bye R4 and called it a night.

[Navsi]

I'm going to try a singleton in Sneaky Fit. Anything that increases the odds of T2 Sneak Attack should greatly improve matchups vs. Storm, Reanimator, Tin Fins, etc. It also seems like an elegant way to add consistency to the Punishing Fire package when you need it, which certainly isn't every time, but is game-winning when you want some P-Fires. It also allows me to remove StE and Meren for Crop Rotation and Tireless Tracker, as my meta has shifted noticeably away from Eldrazi and towards Combo recently.

I've already cut Meren and STE from my build, so I don't have those slots for Rotation, but I can see them being reasonable. Personally I'm not running Tracker, because IMO the migrange-value pressure he brings, while nice, isn't really necessary when the deck is slamming Titans and Eldrazi.

[Brael]

Yes, b/c it's not like those decks play 8 free counters or anything...

Again, I understand what people are trying to convey, but please do consider the entire context of what you're trying to answer w/ a given package. I mean, by that same logic a set of PtE would suffice to deal w/ Reanimator (where we all know it isn't).

One of the big advantages to Crop Rotation is that it can be reactive, where you get your Karakas/Maze in response to a reanimation, but if you get an opening to cast it earlier, like you know the path is clear against S&T, or before Reanimator can make you discard it, you can fire it off proactively.

I'll say this, as someone who has a local meta right now that's basically all combo, Crop Rotation has helped my combo matchups immensely, to the point that my deck is still viable when it otherwise wouldn't be. Additionally, Crop Rotation is space neutral in your deck, because it can find things like removal, and card draw, and threats, you don't dilute your deck by adding it. It's like adding GSZ in that regard.

[gth842s]

I've already cut Meren and STE from my build, so I don't have those slots for Rotation, but I can see them being reasonable. Personally I'm not running Tracker, because IMO the migrange-value pressure he brings, while nice, isn't really necessary when the deck is slamming Titans and Eldrazi.

What are you running in place of Meren / Tracker?

[Navsi]

What are you running in place of Meren / Tracker?

Not sure what the exact replacement was, I've moved a few cards around. I think those slots would probably be a second Fierce Empath and a Reclamation Sage. Sage might be getting cut again though.

[Brael]

Hello Nic Fit Veterans (see what I did there?)

I am happy to report that I got a 5-0 tonight with a straight BG version of this deck, that I built using some inspiration from this thread and little bit of theorycrafting. Yesterday I had a 4-1 league in the morning and a 1-3 drop in the afternoon/evening. I usually play relatively unfair decks so this was me branching out a bit. You guys all seem like fun-loving people so I'm just going to share my decklist and some thoughts on the deck:

Decklist:

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
3 Swamp
4 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Treetop Village (I like this because it can kill Jace, the Mind Sculptor from Crop Rotation)
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tireless Tracker (weakest slot in the maindeck IMO)
1 Master of the Wild Hunt (destroys BUG decks and Delver decks, good complement to Thrun)
1 Thrun, the Last Troll (good for trolling people :D )
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Nissa, Vital Force (Quite honestly, this is the best reason to ramp both players. I am astounded by how powerful this card has been)
3 Sensei's Divining Top (would not play less than 3, I could see playing a 4th)
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Crop Rotation
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Pernicious Deed

SB:
2 Surgical Extraction (necessary)
4 Sphere of Resistance (necessary)
2 Carpet of Flowers (necessary)
2 Duress (necessary)
2 Choke (seems ok?)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Garruk Relentless (is this necessary? Would I rather have another card for Miracles / combo?)
1 Thragtusk (burn? considering Obstinate Baloth)

There are some slots that I am less sure of, such as Tireless Tracker and some of the sideboard. However, I have been impressed with the Crop Rotation package - it usually finds Phyrexian Tower to super-ramp with Veteran Explorer into Nissa or Green Sun for one of my stupid 4 CMC guys. Nissa has blown me away every time I cast it - tomorrow morning I will record a Youtube video of the best Nissa usage I have ever dreamed of. I would play 3, but legend rule... :(

Thrun is very hard to answer, particularly with Karakas. Master of the Wild Hunt cleans up board states and makes up for having fewer creatures in the deck in general.

I'm pretty sure Surgical Extraction is necessary in the sideboard, which makes me want to play more discard in the sideboard also, even spreading to 2 Thoughtseize maindeck.

Obviously most of this information is obvious for you guys because you've played it more than I have. I would love to hear some input into my choices, particularly with my reducing the curve considerably to top off at 4 CMC creatures and 2 Nissas for the most part. I cut Sylvan Library after the 1st league because it doesn't interact well with Deed.

I've been thinking about your list for a couple days now since we're both playing relatively similar BG lists. My thoughts after a few days:
Master of the Wild Hunt seems like a good call for a 4 drop. I'm less thrilled about Thrun though since GSZ removes uncounterability so I think I would rather hit harder. Still, Master could easily replace Garruk in my list.

I've come to a completely opposite conclusion to you with Tireless Tracker, it's possible you just haven't yet had a game where it's good. I noticed you're only running 11 creatures, and 4 of those are Vets, plus you have very little CA. That means removal is going to be pretty good against you. Tracker works a lot like Dark Confidant in that you need other cards to first clear the way, after that's done you can play it as a CA engine and ride it to victory. We've had a lot of reported success with the card, but I don't think your list is really set up to take advantage right now.

I think you could free up a lot of sideboard and even mainboard space if you put Lost Legacy in your list, it's such a great catchall answer to unfair decks.

I think I've already responded to your final point which was about lowering the curve, but just incase I haven't I'll respond again. It's a great plan, the thing is though, with ramp you need some productive way to spend your excess mana. To me, that means a focus on card advantage.

On your use of Treetop Village, I'm actually not a fan. A couple months back I was experimenting with a creature land slot. Treetop is the one I tried the hardest to use, but I found coming in tapped and only producing 1 color combined into too many drawbacks. Other things I tried were Hissing Quagmire and Mutavault. I would say that Mutavault was the smoothest of the bunch because you could Crop Rotation for it, and then it could block that turn, or it could tap for mana. Unfortunately for Mutavault, a 2/2 just didn't have enough of a body to be relevant... it was close but I would say it needed some sort of extra synergy to push it over the top. I think Master of the Wild Hunt hit my radar at that time, but I never tested it.

With Karakas, I find myself leaning towards using it as a SB card. I'm finding the land situation to be fairly tight due to the use of basics. Instead, I'm preferring just Maze of Ith for my MB land removal since it works on everything, and even has a lot of tricks with your own attackers, such as untapping them after the declare damage step for pseudo vigilance and making blocks tricky for your opponent since you can chump attack. That's in addition to the obvious mode which is using it as removal. With Karakas there's the argument that it provides mana, but I think all of those other factors outweigh some colorless mana.

Come to think of it, it's probably a choice between Maze of Ith and no creatureland (except Arbor) vs Treetop Village with Karakas for G1.

Speaking of Arbor, any reason for not including it? Arbor drastically opens up your range of good starting hands due to the synergies with Tower and GSZ.

When it comes to creatures, I feel like Scavenging Ooze isn't where you want to be. I'm not sure what's the optimal card to replace it, but Bojuka Bog covers a lot of the same territory more efficiently.

I definitely agree on Nissa, except I would raise the argument that a third in the SB for use against fair decks wouldn't be the worst thing in the world as long as you're not on my Bob plan.

What are you using Reclamation Sage for in G1?

This is what I think my next BG revision will look like
23 Land
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
5 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor

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

21 Other
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force

I'll have to think about the SB a bit. I still like the DD plan, but it's a little more niche than I thought it would be initially, which makes it a hard sell for 6 SB slots.

[Chatto]

@ Brael: funny, our list look quiet similair, even more so than compared with DNSolver. I'm a bit more into TT, playing three (she is one hell of a lady), and having P-Titans as the top dog to take full advantage of TT's (see what I did here?). I know you're no fan of Titan, but he's awesome. The incorporation of CR: it's synergy with TT is undeniable, and getting your utility-lands is of course good, yet losing a land in the progress stops me of playing the card for now. I understand CR is good, being primairly a RGCL-player myself, but in that deck I at least play Life from the Loam.

Now for the list:

Creatures (16)
1 Eternal Witness
1 Wall of Blossom
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Primeval Titan
3 Tireless Tracker
4 Veteran Explorer

Planeswalker (2)
2 Nissa, Vital Force

Spells (21)
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Fatal Push
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy

Lands (21)
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Windswept Heath
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Bayou
3 Swamp
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest

Sideboard (15)
1 Thragtusk
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Duress

As you can see: 60 vs 61 cards. I could easily up the # of creatures with a Master of the Wild Hunt. He seems to be the preferred 4-drop of choice for me as well. Wickerbough Elder is another option for me. To be honest, the creature-package is still in flux, but I like it for now.
Also, Fatal Push: awesome card. It's an all-star, and I would encorage you to test the card.

The sb is a mess, and will see some more change. Lost Legacy is a card on my short list, as is CR with some utility-lands.

I wanted to take the list for a spin, but still missed some cards, so no field testresults for now.

[Echelon]

It's like adding GSZ in that regard.

Except GSZ isn't card disadvantage and doesn't potentially screw over your ability to cast stuff. If GSZ required you to sacrifice a green creature (or a land) as part of the casting cost we'd be a lot less inclined to run it. GSZ for X = 3 is a perfectly fine play, right? Yet we consider Natural Order a big no-no, even though it can give a much bigger payoff.

Sure, the lands package can do very powerful stuff, but it's far from comparable to GSZ.

[rubblekill]

I've been thinking about your list for a couple days now since we're both playing relatively similar BG lists. My thoughts after a few days:
Master of the Wild Hunt seems like a good call for a 4 drop. I'm less thrilled about Thrun though since GSZ removes uncounterability so I think I would rather hit harder. Still, Master could easily replace Garruk in my list.

I've come to a completely opposite conclusion to you with Tireless Tracker, it's possible you just haven't yet had a game where it's good. I noticed you're only running 11 creatures, and 4 of those are Vets, plus you have very little CA. That means removal is going to be pretty good against you. Tracker works a lot like Dark Confidant in that you need other cards to first clear the way, after that's done you can play it as a CA engine and ride it to victory. We've had a lot of reported success with the card, but I don't think your list is really set up to take advantage right now.

I think you could free up a lot of sideboard and even mainboard space if you put Lost Legacy in your list, it's such a great catchall answer to unfair decks.

I think I've already responded to your final point which was about lowering the curve, but just incase I haven't I'll respond again. It's a great plan, the thing is though, with ramp you need some productive way to spend your excess mana. To me, that means a focus on card advantage.

On your use of Treetop Village, I'm actually not a fan. A couple months back I was experimenting with a creature land slot. Treetop is the one I tried the hardest to use, but I found coming in tapped and only producing 1 color combined into too many drawbacks. Other things I tried were Hissing Quagmire and Mutavault. I would say that Mutavault was the smoothest of the bunch because you could Crop Rotation for it, and then it could block that turn, or it could tap for mana. Unfortunately for Mutavault, a 2/2 just didn't have enough of a body to be relevant... it was close but I would say it needed some sort of extra synergy to push it over the top. I think Master of the Wild Hunt hit my radar at that time, but I never tested it.

With Karakas, I find myself leaning towards using it as a SB card. I'm finding the land situation to be fairly tight due to the use of basics. Instead, I'm preferring just Maze of Ith for my MB land removal since it works on everything, and even has a lot of tricks with your own attackers, such as untapping them after the declare damage step for pseudo vigilance and making blocks tricky for your opponent since you can chump attack. That's in addition to the obvious mode which is using it as removal. With Karakas there's the argument that it provides mana, but I think all of those other factors outweigh some colorless mana.

Come to think of it, it's probably a choice between Maze of Ith and no creatureland (except Arbor) vs Treetop Village with Karakas for G1.

Speaking of Arbor, any reason for not including it? Arbor drastically opens up your range of good starting hands due to the synergies with Tower and GSZ.

When it comes to creatures, I feel like Scavenging Ooze isn't where you want to be. I'm not sure what's the optimal card to replace it, but Bojuka Bog covers a lot of the same territory more efficiently.

I definitely agree on Nissa, except I would raise the argument that a third in the SB for use against fair decks wouldn't be the worst thing in the world as long as you're not on my Bob plan.

What are you using Reclamation Sage for in G1?

This is what I think my next BG revision will look like
23 Land
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
5 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor

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

21 Other
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force

I'll have to think about the SB a bit. I still like the DD plan, but it's a little more niche than I thought it would be initially, which makes it a hard sell for 6 SB slots.

I agree, especially on the ooze part. I agree on thrun if we are talking about his place in junk, but here with the ability to tutor for 2t very consistently thrun seems like an even more unremovable guy due to his uncounterability. How can miracles kill him when 2t is assembled ?

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

In this crop rotation gb deck I think prime time is suboptimal. You can laugh at me but for the same cmc and stats I'd rather play rampaging baloth (which would satiate the fetish that you guys have towards Titania)

[Ralf]

@ Brael @ Rubblekill:

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

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

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

I wouldn't dismiss Ooze in a BG build.

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

[rubblekill]

@ Brael @ Rubblekill:

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

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

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

I wouldn't dismiss Ooze in a BG build.

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

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

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

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

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

[Chatto]

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

[Ralf]

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


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

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

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

[Echelon]

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

[Ralf]

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


***Off Topic***

I've been away from this archetype too long.

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

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

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

***End***

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

[gth842s]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[rubblekill]

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

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

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

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

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

[DNSolver]

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


Karakas as a tutor target works better with Thrun here.

[rubblekill]

Karakas as a tutor target works better with Thrun here.

Nice point!

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

[Brael]

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


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



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

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


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

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

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

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

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



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

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

[rubblekill]

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

[Brael]

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

[rubblekill]

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

[Brael]

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

[gth842s]

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

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

[Brael]

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

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

Running Hymn means substatnially changing the rest of your deck.

[gth842s]

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

Running Hymn means substatnially changing the rest of your deck.

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

[Purple Blood]

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

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

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

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



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

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

---

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

[lavafrogg]

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

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

[Chatto]

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

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

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

[Bobmans]

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

Yeah!, now we are talking!

[Lueseto]

That's true but it works pretty damn well with top. Spin top. If you see junk flip and dredge. I've still been testing it with a Gitrog build that I posted a month or two ago. Just one Loam Dredge into three lands with a Gitrog on the board has net me up to 7 cards (i.e. Dredge three lands draw three, cast loam, cycle two lands for four more cards). That alone is enough to win the game on the spot 99% of the time.

I've been playing Gitrog too and although I find him amazing, I'm pretty sure that you only draw one card if more than one land hit the yard at the same time, look carefully at the wording.

[Purple Blood]

I've been playing Gitrog too and although I find him amazing, I'm pretty sure that you only draw one card if more than one land hit the yard at the same time, look carefully at the wording.

Wow. Good to know. I assumed since they were happening one after the other they didn't technically occur at the same times. I've dredged a few times during small tournaments with Gitrog on the board and no one "stopped" me from doing that. Either way, a draw 5 is still back breaking.

[square_two]

You guys thinking about crop rotation, dark depths, andor Loam really should give the Dragon Fit list a try. Playset of Intuition holds everything together so well. If you replaced Dromoka and Ojutai with non-white dragons then I could see a list stretching to include Depths and Stage. Or perhaps eschew Haven and dragons for a Marit Lage entirely. Right now I'm not convinced that's an improvement however. They allow for a good game on our side even if the opp has grave hate.

[Navsi]

Took Nyx Fit to a tournament today, lost in top 8 but did pretty well overall. Deck was sweet.

- Lost to DnT, never got going
- Beat Storm (won both sideboarded games), Spirit of the Labyrinth is awesome)
- Beat 4c Loam (Doomwake kills all his lands both games, if they don't lock us out with Chalice/Waste they just fold)
- Beat DnT (making land drops is good, Doomwake / Curse is so good against them)
- Beat DnT - same guy as round one - lots of grinding but Starfield and Doomwake overpowered him
- Lost to BUG - Games 2 and 3 he made an unanswered JTMS and FoWed every relevant spell I cast - deck might want another answer to Jace or two. Might just want to board in Leyline of Sanctity though.

Aid from the Cowl was underwhelming - I never wanted to Rector or Grove it and it wasn't impressive when it got cast. Should probably be another Nissa.
Chromanticore was okay - won some games on his own, sat in hand and probably lost me a game against BUG, when Sigarda would have been great.
Collective Brutality was excellent all day, totally should stay in even if Chromanticore gets dropped. Killed Thalias, duressed Storm cards and Forces, and killed Veteran and Rector in an emergency.
Nyx Weaver was fine, but nothing impressive. Didn't play against anyone where the Reach was any good though.
Deck could do with more answers to JTMS. Might try swapping Aid for a second Nissa VF, since hasty pressure is so good.

[gth842s]

Took Nyx Fit to a tournament today, lost in top 8 but did pretty well overall. Deck was sweet.

- Lost to DnT, never got going
- Beat Storm (won both sideboarded games), Spirit of the Labyrinth is awesome)
- Beat 4c Loam (Doomwake kills all his lands both games, if they don't lock us out with Chalice/Waste they just fold)
- Beat DnT (making land drops is good, Doomwake / Curse is so good against them)
- Beat DnT - same guy as round one - lots of grinding but Starfield and Doomwake overpowered him
- Lost to BUG - Games 2 and 3 he made an unanswered JTMS and FoWed every relevant spell I cast - deck might want another answer to Jace or two. Might just want to board in Leyline of Sanctity though.

Aid from the Cowl was underwhelming - I never wanted to Rector or Grove it and it wasn't impressive when it got cast. Should probably be another Nissa.
Chromanticore was okay - won some games on his own, sat in hand and probably lost me a game against BUG, when Sigarda would have been great.
Collective Brutality was excellent all day, totally should stay in even if Chromanticore gets dropped. Killed Thalias, duressed Storm cards and Forces, and killed Veteran and Rector in an emergency.
Nyx Weaver was fine, but nothing impressive. Didn't play against anyone where the Reach was any good though.
Deck could do with more answers to JTMS. Might try swapping Aid for a second Nissa VF, since hasty pressure is so good.

Congrats on the great run! Could you describe your games against Storm and how you stabilized vs. Loam if you get a chance?

Whenever I give something other than Sneak a try, I'm going to have a hard time deciding between Loam / Dragons and Nyx, they both sound like a ton of fun.

[Navsi]

Congrats on the great run! Could you describe your games against Storm and how you stabilized vs. Loam if you get a chance?

Whenever I give something other than Sneak a try, I'm going to have a hard time deciding between Loam / Dragons and Nyx, they both sound like a ton of fun.

Storm - game 1 I had zero discard spells in hand and did nothing to him till he killed me on turn four. Game 2 I therapied LED (miss, saw a ritual, a couple cantrips and infernal tutor), then made Spirit of the Labyrinth on turn two. He did nothing for a few turns, I made Rector and flashbacked Therapy for Infernal finding Leyline of Sanctity. Beat him to death with SotL. Game 3 I had turn one Leyline of the Void into turn two Spirit of the Labyrinth and beat him to death while he didn't do anything.

Loam I made sure to cast Explorer first (before he made chalicd) since I could still cast Therapy into chalice if I really needed to sacrifice stuff. Game 1 Rector into Doomwake killed a pair of bobs, Deed swept up his KotR and eventually I found a Living Plane. Game two was basically the same, only I got Starfield which made his Liliana pretty bad looking. I assembled Starfield + Deed to keep him locked out for a while, found a Living Plane to Armageddon with Deed, then then beat him to death with a Chromanticore.

[emuhell]

Hey. I played DNSolver's list in yesterdays fnm. Went 2-2 with

R1: D&T 0-2
Abysmal starting hands followed by abysmal mulligan hands (wrong/no lands). Went down to 4 twice without stuff to do.
G1 I somehow recovered, but far too late. G2 I faced a turn 3 Mirran Crusader and couldn't assemble a fast deed.

R2: Enchantress 2-1
G1 I have early decays followed by 2 deeds. Master does the beatdown.
G2 I Lost Legacy his Angel producing enchantment (1), and see 2 Elspeth and an Emrakul in his library as the remaining Win cons. I find no deed and he assembles a strong defense to win with Elspeth.
G3 Like G1.

R3: Grixis Delver with TNN 0-2
G1 back and forth. I play a Nissa into a Spell Pierce and later he overpowers me with Pyromancer Tokens and TNN. I missed Thragtusk.
G2 I had 2 Explorers on board and never got rid of them. 2 Wastelands screw me and TNN beats me to death.

R4: BR Reanimator 2-0
G1 he gets an early Iona. I got an early Karakas and discard his reanimation spells (Therapy-Explorer) and Zenith for an Ooze to victory.
G1 he gets a T2 Griselbrand with Reanimate (=only 1 Grisel activation left). I play something like 2 Explorers, 2 Therapies followed by Maelstrom Pulse -> He Grisels, is on 5. I Ooze to win again.


slightly changed SB (no Spheres):
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Lost Legacy
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Duress
2 Choke
2 Pithing Needle
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Thragtusk

Now that I have a bit of a feeling for the list, I will do some minor alterations. Btw: I hate losing to TNN, but I guess I'm not the only one ^^.

My proposition:
-1 Maze of Ith
-1 Swamp
+1 Plains
+1 Savannah

Switch the threats to Sigarda and Rhino instead of Thrun and Master?
Not sure yet, but I would try to add white since I already play a Karakas :)

[Memories of the Time]

Hello to everybody: i've missed Magic in the last six years and now i find this new topic, great work (the only thing that confused me is the lack of Zimmerman Brug pod list in the OP, i think it's the biggest results of Nic Fit since 2014....).

Anyway, i remember in the former topic the first lists of Nyx Fit, but now i'm going to test it seriously: a question, have Heliod and Primal order been considered?

[Navsi]

Hello to everybody: i've missed Magic in the last six years and now i find this new topic, great work (the only thing that confused me is the lack of Zimmerman Brug pod list in the OP, i think it's the biggest results of Nic Fit since 2014....).

Anyway, i remember in the former topic the first lists of Nyx Fit, but now i'm going to test it seriously: a question, have Heliod and Primal order been considered?

Heliod is okay, but has a few issues. He's a card advantage / value engine, but making a 2/1 or two each turn is just less impressive than Starfield in the slot. Against the kind of deck where a few 2/1s is relevant, we probably just want Doomwake Giant or Starfield. Doomwake gives us better board presence and Starfield gives us better grinding power.

Primal Order is something I should probably give a try. In particular, it's an enchantment which can be searched up and kills Planeswalkers, which is actually pretty important. It might be too risky as a clock on ourselves though - Nyx doesn't have much lifegain in the deck normally. I'm thinking about trying a red splash out, there's a lot of good R cards available - top of the list being Assemble the Legion, which is my next try at a starfield-style advantage engine which isn't graveyard dependent. Blood Moon could also be good, access to red makes Chromanticore closer to castable, and there are a few other enchantments around which are probably worth testing too.

[Memories of the Time]

Heliod is okay, but has a few issues. He's a card advantage / value engine, but making a 2/1 or two each turn is just less impressive than Starfield in the slot. Against the kind of deck where a few 2/1s is relevant, we probably just want Doomwake Giant or Starfield. Doomwake gives us better board presence and Starfield gives us better grinding power.

Primal Order is something I should probably give a try. In particular, it's an enchantment which can be searched up and kills Planeswalkers, which is actually pretty important. It might be too risky as a clock on ourselves though - Nyx doesn't have much lifegain in the deck normally. I'm thinking about trying a red splash out, there's a lot of good R cards available - top of the list being Assemble the Legion, which is my next try at a starfield-style advantage engine which isn't graveyard dependent. Blood Moon could also be good, access to red makes Chromanticore closer to castable, and there are a few other enchantments around which are probably worth testing too.

I don'w want to play less than 2 Starfield anyway, Heliod should be in the place of Sigarda/Chromanticore (can't understand why the latter, incastable without gsz and often worse than Sigarda).

I've played Primal Order in other Nic Fit shells and i've liked it. Vs Miracle and other decks is often enough to close the game in 2/3 turns and kills pw, obviously.

About classic lists: i can't really understand Eidolon and Giant.
I mean, they both have many props, clear. But they are high cc creatures without protection and with very little impact on the board/no impact (blossom).
What makes them playable in this deck (i mean, over similar cards like CoDH for the giant) is sterling grove, that i've found fuc*ing amazing: why not 4? it's the perfect setup, tutor, the first one is often decayed... In this way i would find the ench-creatures very reasonable, probably trying to develop constellation with Weights and so on.
Otherwise, are you satisfied with these cards? I mean, for example, that Living Plane+Curse is a gg, living+giant leaves the possibility for stp (e.g Miracle) if we can't find an ench.

Splash: I'm in love with Zur's Weirding if we can consider blue: a total gg against most of Combo e Miracle/slower decks.

[Navsi]

I don'w want to play less than 2 Starfield anyway, Heliod should be in the place of Sigarda/Chromanticore (can't understand why the latter, incastable without gsz and often worse than Sigarda).

I've played Primal Order in other Nic Fit shells and i've liked it. Vs Miracle and other decks is often enough to close the game in 2/3 turns and kills pw, obviously.

About classic lists: i can't really understand Eidolon and Giant.
I mean, they both have many props, clear. But they are high cc creatures without protection and with very little impact on the board/no impact (blossom).
What makes them playable in this deck (i mean, over similar cards like CoDH for the giant) is sterling grove, that i've found fuc*ing amazing: why not 4? it's the perfect setup, tutor, the first one is often decayed... In this way i would find the ench-creatures very reasonable, probably trying to develop constellation with Weights and so on.
Otherwise, are you satisfied with these cards? I mean, for example, that Living Plane+Curse is a gg, living+giant leaves the possibility for stp (e.g Miracle) if we can't find an ench.

Splash: I'm in love with Zur's Weirding if we can consider blue: a total gg against most of Combo e Miracle/slower decks.

Chromanticore is better than Sigarda if your life total is under pressure much of the time, and he also gives us a card we can fetch with Rector that gets work done on its own rather than requiring more combo pieces (in hand / graveyard). He's got Shroud with a Sterling Grove, so a lot of the time he's just as survivable as Sigarda is. He's also a flying blocker we can recur with Starfield which is relevant against Marit Lage.

I haven't tested Primal Order, so I can't argue that one. I'll give it a try sometime.

Doomwake has protection in that he's a 4/6 for 5, which is basically immune to everything except STP (Decay/Push/Bolt/Dismember/etc), and also gets Shroud from Sterling Grove again. I'm also not sure how you can describe him as 'low impact on the board' when he kills a lot of the creatures in Legacy at the moment, and blocks those he doesn't. Being a creature also makes him significantly more castable against Thalia. Living Plane + Doomwake is also more reliable than you think, because if you sweep Miracles' lands, they can't drop a Plains and Swords Doomwake because their land has summoning sickness, so you get a turn to play an enchantment and kill their land before they can cast anything.
Eidolon is pretty vulnerable and to be honest I don't tutor for it very often, it might well get dropped for a different card advantage engine if I can find one that's good enough. I am very satisfied with Doomwake and definitely wouldn't drop it - I play Doomwake main and Curse of Death's Hold in the sideboard, because there are some matchups where Curse is completely useless but Doomwake is always at least a 4/6 beater who can apply pressure at worst.

Might give Zur's Weirding a shot. It's only good if you're ahead on the board, though, which means you'd need to have something to attack Miracles with in addition to Weirding (or a CA engine).

Sterling Grove is great against interactive decks and when you have time to durdle, but it's an awful mana sink against agressive / combo decks. A lot of the time most of your enchantments are already resilient by virtue of being noncreature permanents with >3 CMC, so you don't lose them to much anyway.

[square_two]

I can't see Nyx Fit working without at least one Eidolon of Blossoms. Agree with above on everything else. But landing the blossoms is similar to tracker albeit safe from abrupt decay, has to be answered or else you drawback many cards. Parallax Wave plus her is also another angle. She turns gsz here into card advantage.

[Memories of the Time]

Clearer now =)
What i feel after the first bounch of games is, really, the lack of Brainstorm. And i've played pod versions often without them, but here... i really miss them: high density of high cc cards, often redundant ( 4 copies of rector, 3 of grove + Sigarda/trug/chromant/eidolon/giant). Anyway, with towers we can't add another colour beside for a splash, i fear. The only possibility could be the total cut of Tower, in favour of 21 colored lands, 3 drs and 4 explorer as other 4c nic fits.

Anyway, a card that could lower the curve and give flesibility could be Eladamri's Call/Diabolic Intent: i'm trying a 2/2 split with Rector, but obviously you need other targets for it that you can't grab with gsz.

[Navsi]

Clearer now =)
What i feel after the first bounch of games is, really, the lack of Brainstorm. And i've played pod versions often without them, but here... i really miss them: high density of high cc cards, often redundant ( 4 copies of rector, 3 of grove + Sigarda/trug/chromant/eidolon/giant). Anyway, with towers we can't add another colour beside for a splash, i fear. The only possibility could be the total cut of Tower, in favour of 21 colored lands, 3 drs and 4 explorer as other 4c nic fits.

Anyway, a card that could lower the curve and give flesibility could be Eladamri's Call/Diabolic Intent: i'm trying a 2/2 split with Rector, but obviously you need other targets for it that you can't grab with gsz.

I've run 4c nic fit with 2 drs/4 vet/1 tower/20 colored lands before. It's not that bad, though both the non-GB colours were only represented on 6-8 cards, with no double colours.

I don't think Brainstorm being missing is that much of a problem really. One of the major smoothers is Collective Brutality - it's a good way of pitching excess stuff we don't want immediately, especially since we have recursion.

Multiple Rectors are basically never a problem and I'm usually happy to have them. Tower naturally makes it better, though. IMO there is very little reason to go below 4 rectors in this deck, he's just so powerful. I'd consider adding a Diabolic Intent in addition to the Rectors, but only if there's some specific combo you wanted to find reliably.

[Memories of the Time]

When we are already running 4 rector 4 cabal and 3 towers + veteran, couldn't Omniscence/emrakul find two slots with Diabolic Intent?
I mean, it's very nice turtling with Nyx and grove, but omniscence... you can't even discard it with Collective and then use Nyx. Same for Emrakul, if it's in your hand, discard/shuffle and go. Anyway i find difficult to think about losing when you have omniscence in play with this deck

[square_two]

When we are already running 4 rector 4 cabal and 3 towers + veteran, couldn't Omniscence/emrakul find two slots with Diabolic Intent?
I mean, it's very nice turtling with Nyx and grove, but omniscence... you can't even discard it with Collective and then use Nyx. Same for Emrakul, if it's in your hand, discard/shuffle and go. Anyway i find difficult to think about losing when you have omniscence in play with this deck

Feel free to experiment with the deck. By all means, we could use more people playing around with it. If you feel that Omni + Emrakul could perform better then go for it and let us know how it goes. My love for Sneak Fit comes from the fact that it can win games quickly out of nowhere - if you can find similar speedy combos in other shells then heck yea.

From my experience working with the deck, the first Rector tutor is usually for something to control the board. If you haven't found a Deed in the early game then this means potentially landing Doomwake, Curse, Humility, Deed depending on what I have in hand, boardstate, etc. Typically the first tutor HAS to be something that immediately impacts the board since the builds I've played have reduced amount of removal. Doomwake, for instance, has the potential to wipe an opponent's board, keep you safe as a blocker (granted you have a Grove out), and requires a single followup card (Living Plane which is fetchable from an excess Grove) to shut out the game. Extremely versatile. Curse, Humility, P Wave can do similar effects against various opponents. Sometimes all you need to do is Deed wipe the opponents board and then present a loop with it and Starfield to win against any fair-ish matchups. Combo matchups typically have some easily sideboardable card to basically end the game on the spot. (Between Leyline Void/Sanctity and Humility). In those situations, one Rector tutor is usually enough and buys you plenty of time to land other hate.

Personally I like having a few "immediately change the game and win" cards in the deck that put you significantly ahead if they land, and definitively in a winning position with the help of another card. Deed + Starfield, Doom/Curse + Humility/LP, etc.

I have been reluctant to try out Diabolic Intent since it requires 6 mana on field to keep Rector safe from StP or a soon-to-be untapped Deathrite. Therapy is typically free (tap all 4 of your lands, cast Rector, then sac it for free), and Tower means you need 5 mana to immediately tutor something. Against any deck with white, I would not want to count on rector surviving a turn. The deck also plays less creatures than other Nic Fit variants, so Intent could get stuck in hand.

[moseby]

For Nyx fit decks has Daxos's Torment ever been contemplated?
A 5/5 hasty dude for 4 seems pretty reasonible.

[square_two]

For Nyx fit decks has Daxos's Torment ever been contemplated?
A 5/5 hasty dude for 4 seems pretty reasonible.

We are already running 1-2 Nissa for the hasty effect, but it's a neat idea. I -think- it works well under Humility as well, at least if you play it after Humility. Lay down Humility, then play this guy and he becomes a 5/5 hasty flyer on that same turn since he entered last and his ability would overrule Humility's. Humility buys you a lot of time and this guy could close out a game very quickly under that effect. Glad to see it is safe from Karakas, Decay, stays safe from targeting in general with a Grove out.

[Navsi]

We are already running 1-2 Nissa for the hasty effect, but it's a neat idea. I -think- it works well under Humility as well, at least if you play it after Humility. Lay down Humility, then play this guy and he becomes a 5/5 hasty flyer on that same turn since he entered last and his ability would overrule Humility's. Humility buys you a lot of time and this guy could close out a game very quickly under that effect. Glad to see it is safe from Karakas, Decay, stays safe from targeting in general with a Grove out.

It's one I've been thinking about. Mainly because it kills planeswalkers and interacts positively with Humility. The problem is, though, it's only a persistent threat if you have other enchantments in hand or ways of searching for them - but in that scenario you're probably better off getting one half of one of the combos in the deck and ending the game that way, since very few of the enchantments you could have in your hand aren't also part of one of the combos in the deck, or a way of searching for them.

Trying to find a way to make Solitary Confinement work, but I think Contamination and Energy Field are closer to the mark. There's just no way of recurring Confinement that's actually good enough. It's a pity they were so careful to make Skybind balanced, and there aren't enough good cyclers to enable Astral Slide.

[rubblekill]

Square are you currently playing nyx fit online? I want to play test against it [emoji4]

[square_two]

Square are you currently playing nyx fit online? I want to play test against it [emoji4]

I have taken it through a few leagues online but haven't done much in the past month. I'm usually free most evenings if you'd like to see how it goes - just pm me and we can find a good time. Out of the small number of games I've done online, 2 or 3 could have possibly been won based on better decision making or by taking a different line. It's different than Sneak that I'm used to. Whatever you first tutor with Rector is pretty decisive.

With an upcoming Win a Lotus tournament in April, I'd like to check out the Dragon Fit list a bit more and run it through some leagues even if it is a bit of an investment to do so. Stryfo mentioned adding a Nephalia's Drownyard in his side for Miracles. And that sounds a bit delicious. Intuition -> Loam/Drownyard/Raven's Crime?

[Navsi]

Nyx - I think I'm going to try cutting Eidolon of Blossoms. It's a card advantage engine, but it has anti-synergy with Spirit of the Labyrinth, is vulnerable to most removal, and I'm pretty much never interested in Zenithing or Rectoring for it. It also opens me up to play Spirit of the Labyrinth maindeck, which is something I've been thinking about trying for a while with Leovold everywhere. SotL also gives me more relevant plays against Miracles and Storm, along with providing an actual clock.

However this does have a minor problem, which is that I end up with nothing I can Rector for which actually provides card advantage / grinding power. Starfield is great, but there's a couple issues there - primarily that it needs good targets, or it's just going to do very little. It's not a particularly powerful early play. I hoped Aid from the Cowl would fill the slot, but it's not consistent enough. I think I'm going to give Deadbridge Chant a try, since it enables itself (and Starfield) without outside help, and importantly it doesn't get turned off by Spirit of the Labyrinth.

With Deadbridge and Nyx Weaver in the deck, there's potential to run more effects that come back from the graveyard. Not sure if there's any good enough targets that do what the deck wants to do, though. I'd really like to get the second SotL into the maindeck, but I don't think there's anything I'm happy to drop other than potentially the fourth Zenith, but I don't think that is worth it.

Current list:
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Nyx Weaver
4 Academy Rector
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Chromanticore

3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Collective Brutality
1 Nissa, Vital Force

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sterling Grove
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Deadbridge Chant
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Living Plane
1 Parallax Wave

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

Sideboard:
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Humility
1 Seal of Primordium
1 City of Solitude
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Courser of Kruphix (something for aggressive decks)
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Leyline of the Void

[square_two]

Nyx - I think I'm going to try cutting Eidolon of Blossoms. It's a card advantage engine, but it has anti-synergy with Spirit of the Labyrinth, is vulnerable to most removal, and I'm pretty much never interested in Zenithing or Rectoring for it. It also opens me up to play Spirit of the Labyrinth maindeck, which is something I've been thinking about trying for a while with Leovold everywhere. SotL also gives me more relevant plays against Miracles and Storm, along with providing an actual clock.

Just go ahead and throw in maindeck Carpets along with those Spirit of the Labyrinths..."The Gods Hate Blue" Nyx Fit.

I have to admit, some of those ideas sound a bit too gimmicky. Why not just a 4th Sterling Grove instead of that 6 drop enchantment. Protects stuff, and starts the engine going if you have Starfield out. Not sure I want a 6-drop that basically only mills 10...I don't think rector activations can be wasted on anything that doesn't impact the board or setup a lock (Starfield usually being a secondary target when I play). But I think you are becoming the main guy with experience on the deck, so I'll try to think about what you are suggesting.

Small part of me wants to jam 4 Rhinos, 1 Deranged Hermit, and a single Skybind. But I think that ship sailed in a different format sometime during Khans era. Heliod God is pretty neat there though...

[Navsi]

Just go ahead and throw in maindeck Carpets along with those Spirit of the Labyrinths..."The Gods Hate Blue" Nyx Fit.

I have to admit, some of those ideas sound a bit too gimmicky. Why not just a 4th Sterling Grove instead of that 6 drop enchantment. Protects stuff, and starts the engine going if you have Starfield out. Not sure I want a 6-drop that basically only mills 10...I don't think rector activations can be wasted on anything that doesn't impact the board or setup a lock (Starfield usually being a secondary target when I play). But I think you are becoming the main guy with experience on the deck, so I'll try to think about what you are suggesting.

Small part of me wants to jam 4 Rhinos, 1 Deranged Hermit, and a single Skybind. But I think that ship sailed in a different format sometime during Khans era. Heliod God is pretty neat there though...

To be honest, Skybind + Eternal Witness + anything that sacrifices itself would be awesome. Might make a reasonable secondary Deed combo, although it's probably just worse than Starfield since it's vulnerable to removal, needs more cards, and means you have to Deed in your own turn. As far as graveyard synergy goes, Crop Sigil might be okay too - it's nice and cheap, good with SDT, and a pretty nice engine with Starfield. It's a bit awkward in available targets, not being able to return enchantments or planeswalkers, but still potentially quite effective if we warp the deck enough to reliably get Delirium, which is the tough bit. We can get creature/land/enchantment, but then we're down to just a couple instants and sorceries, and a few tops and planeswalkers. Not many numbers.

If you have any suggestions for Deadbridge style stuff, I'm all ears. I'm looking for something I can fetch up when I'm not under immediate pressure, which doesn't die to standard removal, and generates advantage even if I don't have any immediate followup / synergy to go with it, like Starfield needs.

[mgrinshpon]

I don't know if this is the right thread but, looking at today's metagame/DtB section, a Birthing Pod deck looks like a great choice. Specifically, with the proliferation of Monastery Mentor and True-Name Nemesis, Minister of Pain and Orzhov Pontiff are fantastic and no deck can play them better than Birthing Pod or Collected Company. Additionally, 4 Baleful Strixes, infinite bodies, and infinite removal gives great game against the remaining aggro and aggro-control decks of the format. I was talking to a friend yesterday and these are some cards we considered (numbers are not final):

1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Birthing Pod
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Grave Titan
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Minister of Pain
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thragtusk
1 Trinket Mage
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Walking Ballista

Sideboard:

1 Abrupt Decay
1 Darkblast
4 Force of Will
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Riptide Pilferer
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vendilion Clique


I couldn't find room for a Liliana, Heretical Healer, a second Thragtusk, a Yasova Dragonclaw, or any copies of Fatal Push. Leovold looked better than any of the remaining 3-drop options.

[Echelon]

So... What's your rationale for "Pod lists are good vs. the current DtB section"? Or rather, "BUG Pod lists are better vs. the current DtB section than regular BUG Fit".

Please, do explain.

[mgrinshpon]

So... What's your rationale for "Pod lists are good vs. the current DtB section"? Or rather, "BUG Pod lists are better vs. the current DtB section than regular BUG Fit".

Please, do explain.

The chain of thought was

a -1/-1 effect would be huge (Minister of Pain/Orzhov Pontiff) against the myriad of Baleful Strixes, True-Names, Noble Hierarchs, and monk tokens in existence these days.
repeatable small creature removal is good (Trinket Mage -> Walking Ballista; Murderous Redcap; Stoneforge Mystic -> Jitte)
Uncounterable creatures are great (birthing pod)
Grave Titan looks great right now, going over top of True-Name, Shardless, and Eldrazi lists, with none of those decks having a way of dealing with him
The metagame has seemingly become very, very, very fair.


Given this, slower, fairer decks like NicFit, Birthing Pod, and MUD appear to be good metagame choices by just going over the top of the other decks in the metagame. I chose BUG Pod because it seems like the least likely deck to just lose to itself relative to the others listed, but Junk seems like a perfectly serviceable color combo, too.

[Echelon]

Alrighty. So that's the Team America/Shardless portion of the DtB section. But those are MUs we're already happy to see with pretty much any Nic Fit build.

This leaves Sneak & Show unanswered. A T2 Emrakul doesn't really have to care about Strix, now does she? And Podding to Shriekmaw isn't going to cut it. Furthermore, G1 you don't have access to FoW (which regular BUG Fit does) so you've lost some ground there compared to regular BUG Fit.

As for Miracles - you still need to win through creature combat, and still have no way to interact with Jace. So here you're on equal footing, at best.

Looking at your SB, you seem to focus on spotremoval and stack interaction. Regular BUG Fit runs these both in the MD, leaving room in the SB for stuff like Lost Legacy, which can actually deal with Jace and strike pretty big blows to Sneak & Show.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to achieve what you're aiming for, to be honest.

The thing is, Pod lists tend to border on being The Danger Of Cool Things. You can do a lot of cool stuff with it, but it takes forever to get there. Unfortunately a lot of the more straightforward lists do a similar or even better job several turns faster.

[Whitefaces]

What is junk doing that's better than BUG?

[Echelon]

What is junk doing that's better than BUG?

Deal with opposing creatures. Path to Exile is the shit.

Also, Siege Rhino and Sigarda. And white SB cards.

And it's fun.

[mgrinshpon]

This leaves Sneak & Show unanswered. A T2 Emrakul doesn't really have to care about Strix, now does she? And Podding to Shriekmaw isn't going to cut it. Furthermore, G1 you don't have access to FoW (which regular BUG Fit does) so you've lost some ground there compared to regular BUG Fit.
It's been a while since I've seen a BUG Fit list at all, and even longer since I've seen one that runs a playset of forces in the main. There's an equally unpolished list on page 5 of the thread that has 2 in the maindeck which, let's be honest here, probably isn't going to cut it against S&S either.


As for Miracles - you still need to win through creature combat, and still have no way to interact with Jace. So here you're on equal footing, at best. Looking at your SB, you seem to focus on spotremoval and stack interaction. Regular BUG Fit runs these both in the MD, leaving room in the SB for stuff like Lost Legacy, which can actually deal with Jace and strike pretty big blows to Sneak & Show.
I mean, if this is your biggest concern, it seems eminently solvable. Three to four cards can be cut from the maindeck to make room for FoW, making room for Lost Legacy, Brain Maggot, etc in the sideboard. Okay, no biggie. Not sure what those cards are yet, but I'll take some ideas.


What is junk doing that's better than BUG?
For Junk Pod, the cards thrown out were Gaddock Teeg, Thalia(s), Stoneforge Mystic, Orzhov Pontiff, and Tidehollow Sculler, though I think that Maverick/Deadguy/Aggro Loam might leverage all of those cards much better than a Junk Pod list ever could.

[square_two]

If you want to kill small creatures, Sneak Fit does a pretty great job of reliably landing Inferno Titan (and Massacre Wurm if you really want to wipe your opponent's board). You can opt to include the Punishing Fire package if you are even more inclined to kill off small dudes over and over. A further advantage of Sneak is that sometimes you are both faster than your opponent's fair deck, and also able to play the longer game better. Win-win.

Not really understanding the hype on Force of Will. It's really only good for us if 1) you have a high density of blue cards (and no, 12 blue cards + 4 FoW probably isn't cutting it), and 2) you are playing against combo (at which point, why not just Flusterstorm or other counters?). We have precious few cantrips and drawing effects, and we typically want to cast the goodstuff we have in hand. The card disadvantage of FoW shouldn't be taken lightly.

[Navsi]

If you want to kill small creatures, Sneak Fit does a pretty great job of reliably landing Inferno Titan (and Massacre Wurm if you really want to wipe your opponent's board). You can opt to include the Punishing Fire package if you are even more inclined to kill off small dudes over and over. A further advantage of Sneak is that sometimes you are both faster than your opponent's fair deck, and also able to play the longer game better. Win-win.

Not really understanding the hype on Force of Will. It's really only good for us if 1) you have a high density of blue cards (and no, 12 blue cards + 4 FoW probably isn't cutting it), and 2) you are playing against combo (at which point, why not just Flusterstorm or other counters?). We have precious few cantrips and drawing effects, and we typically want to cast the goodstuff we have in hand. The card disadvantage of FoW shouldn't be taken lightly.

Punishing Fire also helps against Jace. It is, however, absolute garbage against Leovold. Pick your poison.

Sneak also gets to play REB which is pretty nice against Jace and Leovold.

Doomwake Giant is pretty deadly against all the dumb X/1s, too, and Monastery Mentor is pretty unhappy to see Curse of Death's Hold. BUG has difficulty answering a Chromanticore, incidentally. Just saying.

[Brael]

Looking at your SB, you seem to focus on spotremoval and stack interaction. Regular BUG Fit runs these both in the MD, leaving room in the SB for stuff like Lost Legacy, which can actually deal with Jace and strike pretty big blows to Sneak & Show.

You know, I've been contemplating lately if it wouldn't be better to just put Lost Legacy in the MB. Maybe this is an over reaction to just how degenerate my local meta has gotten but the idea seems to hold merit.

In fact, I just signed up for another 12 round paper league (though this time it won't take 12 weeks). I need to finalize my decklist soon and I'm leaning towards 2 copies of LL MB at the expense of some of the slower CA like Courser.


Deal with opposing creatures. Path to Exile is the shit.

Also, Siege Rhino and Sigarda. And white SB cards.

And it's fun.

Try out my Junk SE list. It actually just got another big boost now that Ranger of Eos can get Walking Ballista. Ranger can now fetch big things, protection, GY hate, and removal.

[Brael]

I don't know if this is the right thread but, looking at today's metagame/DtB section, a Birthing Pod deck looks like a great choice. Specifically, with the proliferation of Monastery Mentor and True-Name Nemesis, Minister of Pain and Orzhov Pontiff are fantastic and no deck can play them better than Birthing Pod or Collected Company. Additionally, 4 Baleful Strixes, infinite bodies, and infinite removal gives great game against the remaining aggro and aggro-control decks of the format. I was talking to a friend yesterday and these are some cards we considered (numbers are not final):

1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Birthing Pod
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Grave Titan
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Minister of Pain
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thragtusk
1 Trinket Mage
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Walking Ballista

Sideboard:

1 Abrupt Decay
1 Darkblast
4 Force of Will
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Riptide Pilferer
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vendilion Clique


I couldn't find room for a Liliana, Heretical Healer, a second Thragtusk, a Yasova Dragonclaw, or any copies of Fatal Push. Leovold looked better than any of the remaining 3-drop options.

You're about 3 lands and 8 removal spells short of having a consistent deck that can interact with the opponent.

That's the problem with Pod, and BUG Pod specifically. The advantage blue has is FoW but that forces you to run more Blue than Green, so you also lose GSZ which kills your mana consistency. In the end BUG Pod just does a bunch of things poorly, and it's a bit too durdly.

I think Junk Pod is much stronger.

[Navsi]

You know, I've been contemplating lately if it wouldn't be better to just put Lost Legacy in the MB. Maybe this is an over reaction to just how degenerate my local meta has gotten but the idea seems to hold merit.

In fact, I just signed up for another 12 round paper league (though this time it won't take 12 weeks). I need to finalize my decklist soon and I'm leaning towards 2 copies of LL MB at the expense of some of the slower CA like Courser.

I'd rather run Thoughtseize. It's not quite as good as LL against combo (though it comes down earlier) but it's at least still useful against fair decks even if it isn't perfectly optimal.

[Kobra_D]

I started playing Nic Fit because birthing pod is an awesome card, but I do think I need to agree with the rest of the above in the assessment that Junk/Bug pod does not provide the same consistency as other lists.

At which point I've been moving into Vet. Walkers.

Same cool factor imo with better match ups against any non-fast combo (Reanimator and SnS) where pod has been struggling (with me as the pilot) in even fair match ups like D&T, Bug, Eldrazi....

[Memories of the Time]

You're about 3 lands and 8 removal spells short of having a consistent deck that can interact with the opponent.

That's the problem with Pod, and BUG Pod specifically. The advantage blue has is FoW but that forces you to run more Blue than Green, so you also lose GSZ which kills your mana consistency. In the end BUG Pod just does a bunch of things poorly, and it's a bit too durdly.

I think Junk Pod is much stronger.

I've been playing nic fit pod for the last two years, all the versions and many options: no, i don't think that Junk Pod is stronger.
The basic point: Brainstorm.

Now, Nic Fit has a weird history with the n° of Brainstorms, i know well. But, for me, there is absolutaly no reason to play less than 5 (one in the sleeve).
Not only the 4x is necessary, i've found that it's one of the major points about the blue in pod, even if Zimmerman has reached the biggest results of a nic fit deck (i think) with a Brug list without Brainstorms but with a 4x of gsz. An isolated case, though.

Other points: i strongly believe that Pod Nic Fit is, if not the strongest, one of the best versions. It has problems that raise the difficulty level (for example finishing the game...), but i'm looking at other versions just to try new and cool stuff.

Edit: Obviously, you lose consistency. But you gain a flexibility and an engine that no other version could reach.

[koten]

I know there was talk of non-punishing fire SneakyFit at some point in the discussion. I can't seem to locate it so I would appreciate if someone could post their list if they are still on this plan. Thanks!

[tilzinger]

Its been over a year I think since I posted here b/c I've been playing Modern mostly, but a couple weeks ago decided to brush the dust off my Nic Fit deck and start playing it again. Yesterday I went to Lodestone Games for a Win a Moat Legacy event which 54 people turned out to. I had only played a handful of games on Cockatrice to warm up the last few days, so I wasn't expecting much, but turned out I placed 13th. This is the deck I took:

1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Plains
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Diabolic Intent
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Kaya, Ghost Assassin
2 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Painful Truths
2 Path to Exile
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Veteran Explorer

Sideboard:
1 Ashen Rider
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize


Match #1 - Miracles - Gregory Orange - 0-2

So the day started off with me getting paired against a pro tour player. Fun. I was a bit nervous, but don't think I made any obvious misplays.

G1 - Near the end he had a Mentor in which he created 2 8/8s by chaining Tops, which is what brought me to 3 life. I drew a deed and wiped his board to keep me alive, then he played another Mentor passed the turn. I swung in with Segarda putting him at 1. I was at 3 when I swung with him having a Mentor and no cards in hand. He drew a top, which triggered prowess and he swung back to win. Not sure if it was right of me to swing in b/c I didn't remember he put a the Top on top of his deck. So was that the optimal play? I dunno. I feel like the longer that game goes the more it is not in my favor, so I went for it.

G2 - He Jace locked meturn 5 or 6 and got Jace to 11 or 12 loyalty, I just scooped. I had only 3 or 4 lands, can't remember, but I couldn't play what I had in hand which made the Fate Seals more crushing.


Match #2 - Goblins - Johnathan - 2-1

G1 - I have never played against Goblins. He got off to a quick start and had 3 Vials out. I landed Rhino and a Kaya, which I exiled the goblin that gets +2 for every other goblin when it attacks, so it kept him at bay a couple turns, then I wiped his entire board with Deed. Then I landed a Nissa and went to town and won.

G2 - He overran me with goblins pretty quick. 1-1.

G3 - He kapt a 5 land, 1 Ringleader hand, which I Therapied, and then can't remember details but my notes say I Therapied 2 other cards so he was low on gas. I chained Rhinos with GSZ and they went all the way. 2-1


Match #3 - Burn - David - 2-0

I thought for sure I was toast b/c the couple of matches I played on Cockatrice against burn I got steam rolled, which is why I decided to add 2 Leylines to the board, and I figured they would help if I ran into Storm.

Both games he got me to 5 or 6 life, so I was close to death, but G1 I was able to chain a couple of Rhinos and pull back while he ran out of gas. I did manage to Therapy a Price of Progress and something else.

G2 - I brought in the Leylines, nothing else. Had one in opening hand with a 1 lander and kept it. It bought me 2 additional turns until he cast Destructive Revelry. But that bought me enough time to hit land drops and again cast a couple of Rhinos to win.


Match #4 - BUG Control - Johnathan - 1-2

Notes were hazy on this, but G3 he landed a TNN and rode it to victory with a Jitte. I had him at 1 life but couldn't kill him.


Match #5 - No Show - 2-0

My opponent didn't show, so I got a free win. Though I did get to play someone else on BUG Control who was sitting next to me for funzies. We went 1-1. G2 of that I was on 1 land with 2 Tops for 4 or so turns after he Wasted a Bayou. That was rough. Time was running out in the round so we just scooped.


Match #6 - Nic Fit - James Hammes 2-0

I was talking to James about Nic Fit before the pairings, then we got paired up. Irony. G1 saw us both with a Sigarda and Rhino on the board. We were basically mirroring each other. I forget the exatct series of events, but I ended up playing 2 Vet to go wider not expecting them to do much. I had a DRS on board and chipped away 6 life or so with it. I think I pathed his Rhino and hand enough for legthal with the additional vets on the board.

G2 - I think I was on the winning side of variance. I saw more GSZ which let me get more Rhinos than him, and I sac'd the Strangleroot for an Intent to fetch up Nissa, which did a lot of work. I think I cast all 3 Rhinos during that game, the last one was a GSZ when he was at 3 life I think. It is worth noting that the players next to us had a good chuckle when they saw me play Strangleroot. Its a good sac target, what can I say.

Final thoughts: The Karakas was a last minute borrow from a friend b/c my Stronghold is still in the mail. Never got to use it, so not sure which of the two I want to use going forward. I might try out Finks in place of Strangleroot b/c its a good sac target with life gain, though its slower to hit the board. Kaya was good when I cast her, but I might take her out and just play 60 cards, or go to 22 lands with a Karakas, Stronghold, and Tower. Not sure what else I would change to be honest right now. I was talking to James about Nissa and he said he usually ultimates her if given the chance, but in my experience I kept wanting the 5/5 beater, b/c by that point in the game land drops are slowing down. I'll experiment with ultimating her and see how it goes.

[Hmmm_Really?]

I know there was talk of non-punishing fire SneakyFit at some point in the discussion. I can't seem to locate it so I would appreciate if someone could post their list if they are still on this plan. Thanks!

square_two and rubblekill will have an opinion on this. Check out the discussions before and after page 426 on the old thread here.... http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28548-Primer-Deck-Nic-Fit

[Navsi]

Took this list to a tournament today:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Nyx Weaver
1 Eternal Witness
1 Aegis of the Gods
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
4 Academy Rector
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Chromanticore

3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Collective Brutality
1 Nissa, Vital Force

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Sterling Grove
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Skybind
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Living Plane
1 Parallax Wave

3 Phyrexian Tower
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats

Sideboard:
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Humility
1 Seal of Primordium
1 City of Solitude
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Courser of Kruphix
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Leyline of the Void

Won all my Swiss games, lost in quarterfinals to UR Standstill (!). Deck felt super favored against anything fair. Didn't play against any bad matchups though so not much relevant data. Recruiter of the Guard was awesome all day (finding Rector is great, finding SotL / Aegis / Explorer is nice additional utility). Skybind felt fine in the 'grindy incremental value if you don't have enchantments in the grave' slot, but that slot might not be necessary. Maybe should be a second Nissa VF instead. Chromanticore was good most of the time, I did have one game where he was stuck in hand but that was lost already - got fatesealed by Jace a ton of times and he didn't even need to bottom anything, just got no gas anyway. Tempted to run a second City of Solitude in place of the Courser - card is an absolute must-counter against all the blue control decks. Didn't miss maindeck Courser - did need to Zenith@3 for an enchantment once (to trigger doomwake giant and finish a creature off) but Nyx Weaver did the job fine while getting value elsewhere and being an extra recursion option.

[square_two]

I know there was talk of non-punishing fire SneakyFit at some point in the discussion. I can't seem to locate it so I would appreciate if someone could post their list if they are still on this plan. Thanks!

Here is my current list:

3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
1 Badlands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Phyrexian Tower

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Fierce Empath
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Inferno Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Sneak Attack
1 Nissa, Vital Force
4 Green Sun's Zenith

side:
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 To the Slaughter
1 Faerie Macabre (probably will be another Surgical soon)
2 Lost Legacy
1 Pyroclasm
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Golgari Charm

Mainly just replace the PFires with 1 Decay, 2 Bolts and adjust the manabase. I haven't played too much lately, not enough to really tell on 0 Stronghold, the Wurm, and having a 2nd Empath. If your meta does not have many BUG decks then I doubt the Wurm is really worth it. Ditto about having 2 Golgari Charms in the side - that is more for when I saw a lot of TNN in the online leagues.

[Echelon]

Try out my Junk SE list. It actually just got another big boost now that Ranger of Eos can get Walking Ballista. Ranger can now fetch big things, protection, GY hate, and removal.

I'll see if I can proxy it the next time I get the chance to play.

Got to play some yesterday. My buddy switched back over to Grixis Delver, w/ 2 Fatal Push and a full set of Stifles. Man o man, it was such an uphill battle, it wasn't even funny. Between the massive mana denial and him finally being able to answer my creatures properly it just felt pretty damn hopeless. Sure, I won some games, but those were the games where I started out on the play and had a great opening.

I switched out Diabolic Intent (yes, I know, I'm still shocked myself) and Atraxa for Siege Rhino no.4 and Verdurous Gearhulk (and yes, I still run a Sigarda). As long as you manage to dodge StP it's a godsend vs. D&T. It breaks the board wide open. I like it.

[Navsi]

I'll see if I can proxy it the next time I get the chance to play.

Got to play some yesterday. My buddy switched back over to Grixis Delver, w/ 2 Fatal Push and a full set of Stifles. Man o man, it was such an uphill battle, it wasn't even funny. Between the massive mana denial and him finally being able to answer my creatures properly it just felt pretty damn hopeless. Sure, I won some games, but those were the games where I started out on the play and had a great opening.

I switched out Diabolic Intent (yes, I know, I'm still shocked myself) and Atraxa for Siege Rhino no.4 and Verdurous Gearhulk (and yes, I still run a Sigarda). As long as you manage to dodge StP it's a godsend vs. D&T. It breaks the board wide open. I like it.

Are you playing any copies of Kaya? She seems pretty good against piles of fair decks.

[Echelon]

Are you playing any copies of Kaya? She seems pretty good against piles of fair decks.

No, I'm not. I just don't see the appeal. Except for the discard/draw she doesn't really do anything I particularly care about.

[Whitefaces]

Stifle is one of the best cards against Nic Fit, I'm not surprised you found it tough.

[Echelon]

Stifle is one of the best cards against Nic Fit, I'm not surprised you found it tough.

Back when they weren't able to answer my creatures, the MU still was 50/50 or better. I'd just power out Courser of Kruphix and stabilize from there. Now, when I finally manage to power out Courser it just gets answered by a 1 mana spell (I mean, they had plenty of time to find it so they will have it) and the oppression continues. It's pretty horrific.

[Navsi]

No, I'm not. I just don't see the appeal. Except for the discard/draw she doesn't really do anything I particularly care about.

Well, yeah. Except for the CA engine possibilities, she doesn't do much. That's why you're playing her, though, so I don't really see your point here. Also if you want to burn people out with Rhinos she does that too, either by draining or just by flickering rhinos. Also doesn't get wrecked by Swords and Fatal Push like you seem to be having trouble with.

Also she's pretty good against Delver in general since she can unflip their delvers and generally make it a lot harder to clock you out before you stabilize.

[Echelon]

Also she's pretty good against Delver in general since she can unflip their delvers and generally make it a lot harder to clock you out before you stabilize.

You do realise the problem was that I couldn't resolve stuff b/c I had no mana, right..? So a 4 CMC card isn't going to help there.

The games where I had mana, I won.

I guess I can always run Carpet of Flowers in the SB.

[Navsi]

You do realise the problem was that I couldn't resolve stuff b/c I had no mana, right..? So a 4 CMC card isn't going to help there.

The games where I had mana, I won.

I guess I can always run Carpet of Flowers in the SB.

So why are you adding more rhinos and 5-drops? I was under the impression you were resolving your Rhinos/Atraxas but then getting them removed by Push/Swords/etc and that was your issue.

You should be running Carpet already. I guess it's not as good if you're curving out at 4-5 and don't have mana sinks like equipment, but it's still essential imo just for Miracles. Sideboarding it in elsewhere is just a bonus.

[Echelon]

So why are you adding more rhinos and 5-drops? I was under the impression you were resolving your Rhinos/Atraxas but then getting them removed by Push/Swords/etc and that was your issue.

You should be running Carpet already. I guess it's not as good if you're curving out at 4-5 and don't have mana sinks like equipment, but it's still essential imo just for Miracles. Sideboarding it in elsewhere is just a bonus.

Nah, I made those changes to my list and then ran into trouble, not the other way around.

[Navsi]

Maybe some copies of Collective Brutality? I've found it pretty awesome, and it would be pretty useful against both Grixis and DnT. Taking a Swords/Stifle/Force while killing a Delver/Thalia or cracking your own Explorer in an emergency is really powerful. Even if you never Escalate, it's still just fine.

Sorcery - 1B
Choose one:
Duress
Disfigure

That's a card I would seriously consider playing, and Brutality is pretty much strictly better, except you can't take JTMS with the Duress. Would be especially good in Punishing Rhinos since it has more discard fodder in PFire, but your unfair and Leovold matchups are so awful it's probably not worth it. It's a real pity there's no other good recursive targets beyond Therapies, Lingering Souls just doesn't cut it.

[square_two]

You do realise the problem was that I couldn't resolve stuff b/c I had no mana, right..? So a 4 CMC card isn't going to help there.

The games where I had mana, I won.

I guess I can always run Carpet of Flowers in the SB.

Mainboard? :rolleyes:

I think my next league online will have a couple of them mainboard in place of the typical "other" mana acceleration like Deathrites/STE. It's a gamble with a lower floor / higher ceiling payoff, and I've been thinking about doing it for a while.

[DNSolver]

I've been happy with 2 Carpet of Flowers in the sideboard. I bring them in against Delver and Miracles.

Against Delver, they are obviously great because they get you through Daze / Pierce or let you play multiple things to catch up, since your good cards are on average more expensive than theirs. Alternately, lets you activate top and still be able to play things on time. Pretty sure everyone knows this, but if you're not running them in the board, I don't really understand that.

Against Miracles, our Explorers are pretty bad IMO. At least mine are, some of you guys on other versions might have a better matchup. For my BG version, I've been cutting 4 Explorer 4 Therapy and bringing in a ton of cards. Bringing in Carpet allows me to ramp to Zenith for Thrun or play stuff while activating Top.

Edit: Be aware that Carpet of Flowers targets. So, Leovold is really bad for you with Carpet out.

[Navsi]

Edit: Be aware that Carpet of Flowers targets. So, Leovold is really bad for you with Carpet out.

Yeah, this is bad. Fortunately most of the BUG Leovold decks a) play very few basics and b) are already pretty good matchups for us, so IMO we can happily make Veterans all day and just leave Carpet in the sideboard without worrying too much about it.

[Echelon]

Maybe some copies of Collective Brutality? I've found it pretty awesome, and it would be pretty useful against both Grixis and DnT. Taking a Swords/Stifle/Force while killing a Delver/Thalia or cracking your own Explorer in an emergency is really powerful. Even if you never Escalate, it's still just fine.

Sorcery - 1B
Choose one:
Duress
Disfigure

That's a card I would seriously consider playing, and Brutality is pretty much strictly better, except you can't take JTMS with the Duress. Would be especially good in Punishing Rhinos since it has more discard fodder in PFire, but your unfair and Leovold matchups are so awful it's probably not worth it. It's a real pity there's no other good recursive targets beyond Therapies, Lingering Souls just doesn't cut it.

You, my good sir, you managed to make me smile! That's actually a pretty damn good idea. Golgari Charm is probably pretty lackluster at the moment, so I can replace those with 2 Collective Brutality.

[Navsi]

You, my good sir, you managed to make me smile! That's actually a pretty damn good idea. Golgari Charm is probably pretty lackluster at the moment, so I can replace those with 2 Collective Brutality.

I'm actually playing it maindeck. I'm playing Nyx mainly, though, which can afford to cut Decay because it already has an excellent Miracles matchup. Rhinos might need to keep the Decays for that matchup, though. It is really nice having six maindeck discard spells for combo though - it's like the old builds with 2 Thoughtseize in addition to Therapy, only you don't give up as much in fair matchups and Burn.

Anyone got any ideas for a recurring Gravecrawler/PFire choice that would work well with Brutality / Liliana / etc? I'm tempted to try Squee to be honest, but he seems pretty awful if you ever want your card to actually do anything.

[emuhell]

I'm actually playing it maindeck. I'm playing Nyx mainly, though, which can afford to cut Decay because it already has an excellent Miracles matchup. Rhinos might need to keep the Decays for that matchup, though. It is really nice having six maindeck discard spells for combo though - it's like the old builds with 2 Thoughtseize in addition to Therapy, only you don't give up as much in fair matchups and Burn.

Anyone got any ideas for a recurring Gravecrawler/PFire choice that would work well with Brutality / Liliana / etc? I'm tempted to try Squee to be honest, but he seems pretty awful if you ever want your card to actually do anything.

Bloodghast maybe. Vengeful Pharaoh is another option (Delvers hate attacking him).

Edit: Well I thought about it. Bloodghast is useless and Pharaoh is just cute. :) sorry for not being helpful.

[removedfromgame]

So I've got a current main board rhino list that looks like this:

3 forest
3 swamp
2 plains
2 bayou
1 scrub land
1 savannah
1 tower
1 stronghold
4 verdant
3 windswept
1 marsh flats

4 Explorer
1 tireless trAcker
1 e witness
1 rec sage
4 siege rhino
1 thragtusk
1 sigarda

4 therapy
4 green sun
3 top
2 path
1 Inquisition of K
3 decay
3 deed
1 truths
1 pulse
1 deluge

2 Kaya, ghost assassin
1 Nissa, VF

Board is a mess.

3 surgical
3 thoughtsieze
2 pithing needle
1 to the slaughter
1 krosan grip
1 garruk relentless
1 tsunami
2 scavenging ooze
1 ob nixilis reignited

My miracles match up is pretty good but I struggle immensely against the combo side of things. My surgicals put in a lot of work. I'm happy with two kayas so far because she almost acts as an alternative win con with rhinos. I do rely heavily on my sigarda and Nissa to close out game 1s though. Sideboard suggestions would be nice (my lgs has no copies of carpet of flowers currently). Sneak and show is a nightmare and have been considering an oblivion ring to compliment the to the slaughter. Also my lgs has a very varied meta game. Sometimes I face all combo and sometimes I face all delver.

Like I said I feel good about a number of my match ups but I've be3n considering a 4th top to help with the consistency.

[Navsi]

Bloodghast maybe. Vengeful Pharaoh is another option (Delvers hate attacking him).

Not being able to block makes Bloodghast so much worse. Seriously tempted to go super creature heavy with Tortured Existence and Krovikan Horror.

[gth842s]

Hello Nic Fit Thread, I am a long time Nic Fit player that likes to try out some weird stuff. I was playing a lot of BUG Walker lists, and this is a fusion of some of those lists and some of my other projects.

Land (22)
2x Bayou
2x Forest
1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Polluted Delta
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath

Creature (13)
4x Baleful Strix
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Dragonlord Dromoka
1x Dragonlord Ojutai
3x Veteran Explorer

Planeswalker (6)
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Sorcery (6)
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Life from the Loam
1x Raven's Crime

Enchantment (3)
3x Pernicious Deed

Artifact (3)
3x Sensei's Divining Top


Instant (7)
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Intuition

Sideboard (15)
1x Flusterstorm
1x Garruk Relentless
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Golgari Charm
1x Negate
1x Pernicious Deed
3x Pulse of Murasa
3x Surgical Extraction
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (This is likely wrong, I'm cutting it, but leaving it here because it was in the list I played)
1x Thoughtseize
1x To the Slaughter

After playing three leagues, with quite reasonable success, (5-0, 4-1, 3-2), I think this is something some of you may be interested in. The inevitability afforded by the intuition package is awesome, and being able to start picking apart hands with loam/crime has been amazing against combo decks.

When I put this deck together I thought it would play a bit clunky, but it has performed extremely well so far, which is why I wanted to share it with you all!

Has anyone else put any more thought or development into this list recently? It looked pretty fun.

[Echelon]

Anyone got any ideas for a recurring Gravecrawler/PFire choice that would work well with Brutality / Liliana / etc? I'm tempted to try Squee to be honest, but he seems pretty awful if you ever want your card to actually do anything.

Yes. Just play Dredge. Manaless or regular, both are good in the current meta.


Bloodghast maybe. Vengeful Pharaoh is another option (Delvers hate attacking him).

Edit: Well I thought about it. Bloodghast is useless and Pharaoh is just cute. :) sorry for not being helpful.

As a Manaless pilot I can tell you Pharaoh is hilarious. It's also a nice lightning rod for Surgical Extraction and things like that. anyDelver.dec usually already is a pretty good MU though, so why spend valuable SB slots on that?


So I've got a current main board rhino list that looks like this:

List

Board is a mess.

3 surgical
3 thoughtsieze
2 pithing needle
1 to the slaughter
1 krosan grip
1 garruk relentless
1 tsunami
2 scavenging ooze
1 ob nixilis reignited

My miracles match up is pretty good but I struggle immensely against the combo side of things. My surgicals put in a lot of work. I'm happy with two kayas so far because she almost acts as an alternative win con with rhinos. I do rely heavily on my sigarda and Nissa to close out game 1s though. Sideboard suggestions would be nice (my lgs has no copies of carpet of flowers currently). Sneak and show is a nightmare and have been considering an oblivion ring to compliment the to the slaughter. Also my lgs has a very varied meta game. Sometimes I face all combo and sometimes I face all delver.

Like I said I feel good about a number of my match ups but I've be3n considering a 4th top to help with the consistency.

For consistency you can add Sylvan Library. It's ridiculously good. Don't like your MB as a whole though. It seems to be all over the place, with far too many cards @CMC >= 3 and too little acceleration to power them out.

As for SBs, mine is currently set up like this:
3 Lost Legacy
3 Duress
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Golgari Charm (which might change to something else. They do a lot of work vs. D&T though)
2 Pithing Needle

Vs. Sneak & Show, you board in the Lost Legacies, Duresses, Extractions and Pithing Needles (and possibly Teeg. You still lose when they have the nuts, but have a good fighting chance otherwise. W/ blind Therapy you name Show & Tell first, fatties second. Lost Legacy first takes Emrakul, then Griselbrand. Needle you put on either Sneak Attack or Griselbrand, depending on what you know of your opponents' hand.

[square_two]

Has anyone else put any more thought or development into this list recently? It looked pretty fun.

I believe Stryfo is currently trying to test Dragonlord Silumgar instead of Ojutai, and -1 Intuition for +1 Liliana of the Veil. A single Bayou switched for another Underground Sea. Side includes a Deluge instead of the 4th Deed (I believe) - updated sideboard in general but I think I posted it earlier (2-3 Lost Legacy in it). I'm trying to test whenever I get the chance, but I only have the list in paper so far and my local group is very finicky.

Online, I'm going through a league with Sneak Fit having 2 Carpets and 1 C Brutality main. Playing Carpet on turn 1 on the draw against Miracles feels so good, it feels so right. Especially when you have another 1 cmc play to cast in 2nd main.

Think the 2nd Empath feels right. Nice to just load up the hand with another fatty, and get either a chump blocker or Tower sac / Therapy hit in.

[Ralf]

@ Dragon Fit:

Here are a few comments:

- I believe Dromoka and Drifting Death are better than Silumgar Dragonlord.
- The intuition package is too "low" to justify 3 intuition. 1 intuition + 1 Entomb is enough to my taste.
- Jace + Liliana is how you win 80 to 90 % of your games. I suggest the following PW split: 2 Lilia, 2 Jace, 1 NF & 1 Ugin.

[gth842s]

@ Dragon Fit:

Here are a few comments:

- I believe Dromoka and Drifting Death are better than Silumgar Dragonlord.
- The intuition package is too "low" to justify 3 intuition. 1 intuition + 1 Entomb is enough to my taste.
- Jace + Liliana is how you win 80 to 90 % of your games. I suggest the following PW split: 2 Lilia, 2 Jace, 1 NF & 1 Ugin.

I have no experience with the deck (still on the Sneak Train for now / not enough blue duals in paper), but I put together a draft of it for eventual testing that ran 3 dragons instead of two - Dragonlord Dromoka; Silumgar, the Drifting Death; and Dragonlord Ojutai. If you're going to run Haven, you may as well have a few different options depending on the matchup.

Ugin just seems super, super greedy and there isn't a ton of synergy with the rest of the deck. I agree that 2-3 Intuition feels more correct than 4.

Finding room for Liliana does seem to be problematic - Nissa and Jace are just really, really good cards.

Has Raven's Crime been any good for folks? I feel like there's just so much going on in this list - Dragons, Intuition, Loam, Raven's Crime, Planeswalkers. It feels like this list has a ton of potential and is already good / playable, but also like it maybe needs to gain some consistency.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I ran Sneak Fit last night at a weekly. Lost Round 1 to BUG Delver (T2 Hymns both games stripped 3 Deeds between them, his game two threats were all in the air - Clique, Delver, Delver). I won round 2 in the most disappointing fashion possible - a Bye. After hanging around, I beat Burn and Bant Deathblade. The deathblade match is up on my LGS's twitch channel (CardKingdom), Round 4 (around last 40 minutes of the stream). Don't judge me for the godawful misplays - I was really tired and fell into the trap of planning several turns ahead instead of thinking about what I was doing NOW :). Thankfully, flinging Emrakul at your opponent makes up for a couple of misplays, as does hard-casting Massacre Wurm.

[Lobo]

A couple of weekends ago I brought Nyx Fit to the win-a-mox tournament at Valhalla Games in Columbus, MO. My buddy and I drove four hours Friday to stay with our mutual friend in St. Louis, then dragged ourselves, hungover and grumpy, another two hours Saturday morning for the tournament. I wasn't in my best state of mind, but I rarely am when I play Legacy. I went a respectable 3-3 on the day before my buddy and I dropped to make the two-hour trek back to St. Louis to drown our woes.

Now a week and a half later I struggle to remember some details, but I'll do what I can. I settled on this list (61 cards main):

Lands: 22

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

Creatures: 13

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Academy Rector
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

Non-creatures: 26

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sterling Grove
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library
1 Living Plane
1 Nether Void
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Parallax Wave
1 Faith's Fetters
2 Starfield of Nyx


Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Humility
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Chromanticore

Round one: loss to Maverick in three games. Teeg and Reclamation Sage did good work in game one. In game two, Pernicious Deed paved the way to a pretty quick Sigarda win. In game three, I got impatient and tried to assemble Starfield through Sterling Grove after my opponent tried to hit the Grove with a Rec Sage. As a follow-up, he then Zenithed for Teeg to prevent my casting the Starfield atop my library. I should have gone for a Deed instead. Know your role, folks! This should have been a victory. I believe my opponent went on to top eight, so at least I died for a Noble cause.

Round two: win over Domain Zoo in three games. My opponent's list hadn't been updated since the printing of TNN, but that didn't make the match feel any more comfortable. Successive Tribal Flames won him a quick game one, but Chromanticore was tremendous in games two and three. He had no choice but to burn it to death, then watched helplessly as I recurred it with Starfield. At one point I Therapied and he revealed a hand clogged with Abrupt Decay. So many people board that in against Nyx Fit only to find it's of no use.

Round three: loss to Elves in three games. Game one, he endured a three-for-one turn-two Toxic Deluge but still proceeded to go off quickly. I won game two through recurring Deeds, and in game three I cast an early Humility, but was unable to find a sweeper (or even a tutor for one) before he managed to get there via 1/1 beats.

Round four: win over Grixis Delver (piloted by my road-trip buddy) in three games. We'd practiced this matchup a lot and knew each other's lists intimately. Game three went to turns and I won on my last turn when I cracked a Rector and put Living Plane in play, which triggered Doomwake Giant to wipe his board of permanents and gave me six or seven 1/1 land attackers.

Round five: a very quick 0-2 loss to Belcher. In game two I had Leyline of Humility in my opening hand, so I kept it. However, he spilled out twelve goblins turn one, and I was unable to topdeck a sweeper.

Round six: win over BR Reanimator in three games. Game one, he played a Sire turn one, and that was that. He didn't get a good sense of what my deck was up to, so he had to sideboard in the blind. Game two, I slapped down a Leyline of the Void as the game began, and he conceded immediately. Game three, I began again with a Leyline, but by his lack of concession I figured he had now boarded correctly into Reverent Silences. We spun our wheels for a few turns before I drew a Therapy, named Reverent Silence—and hit! He had been unable to find a green source in time to cast it. Eventually I wiped his board of lands, a fine play on which to end the day.

Overall, the deck behaved well all day and presented me with the opportunity for a winning record (even if I didn't live up to its promise). In retrospect, the meta felt very fair, and I likely should have run more copies of Pernicious Deed, perhaps in place of the Abrupt Decays, or else the Eidolon of Rhetoric and Courser of Kruphix, both of which did little work. Sadly I never had cause (or in case of cause, never had opportunity) to tutor up my favorite precious bauble Nether Void, but I feel sure it's correct to play it if you own it.

[square_two]

@ Dragon Fit:

Here are a few comments:

- I believe Dromoka and Drifting Death are better than Silumgar Dragonlord.
- The intuition package is too "low" to justify 3 intuition. 1 intuition + 1 Entomb is enough to my taste.
- Jace + Liliana is how you win 80 to 90 % of your games. I suggest the following PW split: 2 Lilia, 2 Jace, 1 NF & 1 Ugin.

Let me know if you are able to get any runs in with those changes. I don't want to speak for Stryfo, but simply assume he doesn't check on here that often - he did mention Silumgar and indicated possible issues with D&T. I'm thinking that a 6 mana investment isn't quite what you are looking for if you need to wipe x/1's off the board. Too slow against Elves, and too expensive for D&T and Young Pyromancer decks.

I'd advise against losing the 3rd Jace. You both 1) really want to draw into them naturally and 2) want the option to Intuition for them.

I haven't had the chance to test Raven's Crime that much but I've already seen it rip hands apart. Once on me when I was on Sneak and against Stryfo online, and the one time I ran it at my local it ate up 3 cards from the Infect player's hand (but I'd already flooded too much to recover).

Possible swaps for Raven's Crime could be Darkblast(!), or some sort of Unburial Rites mini-package? Although Unburial on a dragon might be enough to get there.

With Loam, I think that getting to 8 mana is very possible in any grindy matchup, and Ugin is extremely hard for any deck to answer. Plus we do not have GSZ in order to get Dragons from the bottom of our deck after a Terminus.

[Ralf]

This is where I was 3 weeks ago but I didn't go further:

1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1 Savannah
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
3 Bayou
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
3 Veteran Explorer
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Entomb
1 Intuition
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Cabal Therapy

SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
SB: 2 Negate

[Brael]

I'll see if I can proxy it the next time I get the chance to play.

Got to play some yesterday. My buddy switched back over to Grixis Delver, w/ 2 Fatal Push and a full set of Stifles. Man o man, it was such an uphill battle, it wasn't even funny. Between the massive mana denial and him finally being able to answer my creatures properly it just felt pretty damn hopeless. Sure, I won some games, but those were the games where I started out on the play and had a great opening.

I switched out Diabolic Intent (yes, I know, I'm still shocked myself) and Atraxa for Siege Rhino no.4 and Verdurous Gearhulk (and yes, I still run a Sigarda). As long as you manage to dodge StP it's a godsend vs. D&T. It breaks the board wide open. I like it.

Treat it similarly to D&T. Your #1 goal in the matchup is to not get manascrewed. If my opponent is on a heavy mana denial plan, using my current SB I bring in additional lands and additional manadorks.

It might feel bad cutting your action to bring in mana, but it feels even worse to have a hand of cards you can't play.

[Echelon]

Treat it similarly to D&T.

D&T is quite a bit easier in that regard. They don't mess with fetchlands and Explorer triggers.

[Navsi]

D&T is quite a bit easier in that regard. They don't mess with fetchlands and Explorer triggers.

Aven Mindcensor disagrees. That card is such a blowout.

[genuine fugazi]

Anyone got any ideas for a recurring Gravecrawler/PFire choice that would work well with Brutality / Liliana / etc? I'm tempted to try Squee to be honest, but he seems pretty awful if you ever want your card to actually do anything.
Meren can turn any creature into Squee.

[Navsi]

Meren can turn any creature into Squee.

I've been thinking about this - I think the card I'm looking for is Life from the Loam. There's got to be something we can do in a shell like this:

4 Veteran
1 Witness
1 Tracker

4 Zenith
4 Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
2 Life from the Loam

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nissa, Vital Force

8 Fetchlands

Lots of synergy. Loam feeds Liliana and Brutality. Fetchlands feed Loam and Tracker. Nissa rebuys important dredged cards. Lili / Brutality / Deed gives us a good removal spread (sweep/spot/sac covers basically everything, Deed kills noncreature permanents - +1 Maelstrom Pulse variant for planeswalkers). Loam is 'yard dependent but the rest of the list is synergistic without getting completely blown out by RIP. Still in two colour shell so splash whatever. 7 discard spells + 3 Liliana for combo matchups. ~12 slots left for more toolbox options and wincons.

[Echelon]

Aven Mindcensor disagrees. That card is such a blowout.

It's also 3 mana instead of 1. W/ Vial it comes down T4 at best. And you can interact with it before your fetch/Explorer trigger resolves.

[Ralf]

I've been thinking about this - I think the card I'm looking for is Life from the Loam. There's got to be something we can do in a shell like this:

Lots of synergy. Loam feeds Liliana and Brutality. Fetchlands feed Loam and Tracker. Nissa rebuys important dredged cards. Lili / Brutality / Deed gives us a good removal spread (sweep/spot/sac covers basically everything, Deed kills noncreature permanents - +1 Maelstrom Pulse variant for planeswalkers). Loam is 'yard dependent but the rest of the list is synergistic without getting completely blown out by RIP. Still in two colour shell so splash whatever. 7 discard spells + 3 Liliana for combo matchups. ~12 slots left for more toolbox options and wincons.

This is where I'm heading right now. Pure GB style with a not so bad combo MU.

1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Grave Titan
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer

1 Nissa, Vital Force
3 Liliana of the Veil

3 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Pernicious Deed

1 Entomb
2 Crop Rotation
4 Abrupt Decay

1 Life from the Loam
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith


Sideboard **under pressure** (unfinished)

SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Raven's Crime
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Thoughtseize

Few comments after a good test phase:

- Tracker is not needed. Courser is way beyond better
- The deck is slow.
- GQ or Wasteland has still be assessed.
- I'm not afraid of any deck with that setup right now.

[Navsi]

Few comments after a good test phase:

- Tracker is not needed. Courser is way beyond better
- The deck is slow.
- GQ or Wasteland has still be assessed.
- I'm not afraid of any deck with that setup right now.

Tracker is dependent on what speed you want to go at. He is way more agressive but Courser obviously grinds really well.

Collective Brutality is just better than Hymn I think. Particularly since it kills DRS which is a big issue for your deck.

To me the list you're running here looks good against combo but would have trouble with some fair matchups. You're kind of low on actual threats and you don't really have much in the way of CA engines other than Loam, which you only have one way of tutoring. I'd be worried about playing so many 0-for-1s in the deck like Rotation and Entomb.

[Ralf]

Tracker is dependent on what speed you want to go at. He is way more agressive but Courser obviously grinds really well.

Collective Brutality is just better than Hymn I think. Particularly since it kills DRS which is a big issue for your deck.

To me the list you're running here looks good against combo but would have trouble with some fair matchups. You're kind of low on actual threats and you don't really have much in the way of CA engines other than Loam, which you only have one way of tutoring. I'd be worried about playing so many 0-for-1s in the deck like Rotation and Entomb.


Rotation & Entomb

Well that might be true but has yet to be witnessed from testing.
Rotation is usually not a 0 for 1. It either provides a countermeasure against wasteland or some accel (tower) or CA (stronghold) in a long run.
I acknowledge Entomb might be cute as you would only fetch CT or Loam.


DRS

DRS is not the issue you claim it is; even if it has to be killed fast (but this is likely the case for every Nic Fit deck) as it messes up with some of our cards (a bit more here, but not to the extend where it shuts you up).
Truth is you don't always need to kill him on sight:
- DRS pinging you for 2 is usually not a big deal
- You can delay any of your "engines" against DRS deck
- DRS usually means that you should expect "overextension" from your oppo (definitely what you are looking for when you play Deed). It is even more true since I'm playing Lili + HTT which encourage your oppo to play his spells instead of keeping them in his hands.


Low on threats

Yes. But this is a control deck by essence. I'm not seeking multiple threats. This is rather an attrition war machine:
1) You focus on ramping and messing up with oppo's game (veteran, CT, hymn)
2) Then, you seek topdeck mode for both of you and start digging out of your hole faster than your oppo.
3) You stabilize
4) You win

2 & 3 are mixed altogether.


Collective Brutality

Thanks for the idea. I'll assess it but as a 1-of to begin with. I do play the card in my Suicide deck but HTT is really strong.

[Navsi]

Rotation is usually not a 0 for 1. It either provides a countermeasure against wasteland or some accel (tower) or CA (stronghold) in a long run.
I acknowledge Entomb might be cute as you would only fetch CT or Loam.

Stronghold isn't CA. It's card selection, but doesn't actually draw you cards unless you're recurring a creature which provides CA (in which case it's the creature that's the CA, not Stronghold).

DRS - it looks to me like your only real source of advantage against an opponent that doesn't overextend into Deed is either Loam, Nissa, or a fatty. Thrag isn't super impactful (though he gets the job done), Grave Titan and Nissa you can't tutor for, and Loam is vulnerable to Deathrite - feels like you need some great topdecks or a standard boardstate like TNN+DRS or just JTMS is going to run you over in card advantage pretty quickly.

Hymn is strong early but is a pretty bad topdeck - I'd rather have more consistency, but if you like it do go ahead.

[Ralf]

Stronghold isn't CA. It's card selection, but doesn't actually draw you cards unless you're recurring a creature which provides CA (in which case it's the creature that's the CA, not Stronghold).

DRS - it looks to me like your only real source of advantage against an opponent that doesn't overextend into Deed is either Loam, Nissa, or a fatty. Thrag isn't super impactful (though he gets the job done), Grave Titan and Nissa you can't tutor for, and Loam is vulnerable to Deathrite - feels like you need some great topdecks or a standard boardstate like TNN+DRS or just JTMS is going to run you over in card advantage pretty quickly.

Hymn is strong early but is a pretty bad topdeck - I'd rather have more consistency, but if you like it do go ahead.


I think you don't get the general idea.
It is more some kind of a GB Fit "POX" attrition deck than a deck seeking for CA.

You want an empty "creature" board state, an empty hand state and a topdeck war.

Anything related to "CA" doesn't really mean anything.

Eventually, the sideboard will cover any difficult MU that testing would emphasis.

[Navsi]

I think you don't get the general idea.
It is more some kind of a GB Fit "POX" attrition deck than a deck seeking for CA.

You want an empty "creature" board state, an empty hand state and a topdeck war.

Anything related to "CA" doesn't really mean anything.

Eventually, the sideboard will cover any difficult MU that testing would emphasis.

Okay then. If you're going for a pox style topdeck war I don't think you have enough interaction to get there reliably.

You have ~10 answers to a permanent on the board (Decay, Lili, Deed) and ~10 discard effects (Therapy, Hymn, Lili). I don;t think that's enough to reasonably expect to lock down an opponent in a topdeck war and then be able to answer whatever they play. Maybe I'm wrong and it's enough to keep the ball rolling, but it looks to me like you have too many slots that don't disrupt your opponent (creatures, zeniths, rotation, loam, filtering) to actually answer everything they do.

I don't think getting into a topdeck war is really what we want to do in a deck running Veteran Explorer, Cabal Therapy and other dud topdeck draws in as many copies as we do.

[gth842s]

Ralf:

I don't think you can call a Nic Fit list 'pox-style' if you are going to dismiss card advantage. At its core, Pox is built to bury an opponent under card advantage - recursive threats, planeswalkers, hymns, and virtual CA (i.e. you don't have lands and can't play what you draw, I can play all of my topdecks). I do think your deck has an adequate amount of CA, but I wouldn't dismiss it the need for it. Also, Pox is at its heart a land destruction / control deck, so maybe you're really more going for 'The Rock' than 'Pox'.

Liliana also does take some of the pressure off of your topdecks in that you can safely discard a lot of draws to her.

Why run The Two Towers engine in Nic Fit and not put in a singleton Primeval Titan? It fits your grindy strategy and gives you a legitimate threat to zenith for in the late game.

Loam with just a single entomb to go find it seems like a lot of variance to be introducing to your deck, at a not insignificant deckbuilding cost. Why not just focus on the planeswalkers and grind plan? I could also see embracing more of a Dark Depths / Loam / Ghost Quarter strategy, but mixing the two seems unfocused.

[Ralf]

Ralf:

I don't think you can call a Nic Fit list 'pox-style' if you are going to dismiss card advantage. At its core, Pox is built to bury an opponent under card advantage - recursive threats, planeswalkers, hymns, and virtual CA (i.e. you don't have lands and can't play what you draw, I can play all of my topdecks). I do think your deck has an adequate amount of CA, but I wouldn't dismiss it the need for it. Also, Pox is at its heart a land destruction / control deck, so maybe you're really more going for 'The Rock' than 'Pox'.

Liliana also does take some of the pressure off of your topdecks in that you can safely discard a lot of draws to her.

Why run The Two Towers engine in Nic Fit and not put in a singleton Primeval Titan? It fits your grindy strategy and gives you a legitimate threat to zenith for in the late game.

Loam with just a single entomb to go find it seems like a lot of variance to be introducing to your deck, at a not insignificant deckbuilding cost. Why not just focus on the planeswalkers and grind plan? I could also see embracing more of a Dark Depths / Loam / Ghost Quarter strategy, but mixing the two seems unfocused.

Primeval is a very good 6 drop but we can only afford one 6 cmc drop. I chose Grave Titan on purpose.

I can understand the doubts that crop rotations & entomb raise. So far, it works until I'm no longer satisfied with them. Entombing a CT or loam is pretty neat + it fixes the number of 1 cmc drop this deck needs. Not to mention the utility you get with sideboarding options.

[gth842s]

Primeval is a very good 6 drop but we can only afford one 6 cmc drop. I chose Grave Titan on purpose.

I can understand the doubts that crop rotations & entomb raise. So far, it works until I'm no longer satisfied with them. Entombing a CT or loam is pretty neat + it fixes the number of 1 cmc drop this deck needs. Not to mention the utility you get with sideboarding options.

You absolutely should build in a way that suits your preferences and play style, but in my own experience Nic Fit can handle more than 1 six-drop with very little in the way of problems. The second six drop is especially valuable if it's green (Primeval) because you're turning your Zenith's into virtual copies against Miracles that are immune to counterbalance. For what it's worth, Sneak Fit runs 3 6 drops (Primeval Titan, Massacre Wurm / Inferno Titan, and Bellower) and has no problem hard casting them without a Loam package to provide the extra land redundancy. Just food for thought.

Can't argue with the best-case outcomes that Entomb gives you WRT sideboarding - I hope it works well for you!

[Brael]

Played my current list for awhile today against both Leovold and Miracles. Got utterly wrecked in both. I think my deck drifts too far towards dealing with unfair decks and it lost the ability to handle the fair matches.

Fatal Push doesn't really bother me though, I've got another big league coming up soon. I really wanted to give BG a shot, but now I'm drifting back towards BGw.

[Purple Blood]

I've been thinking about this - I think the card I'm looking for is Life from the Loam. There's got to be something we can do in a shell like this:

4 Veteran
1 Witness
1 Tracker

4 Zenith
4 Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
2 Life from the Loam

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nissa, Vital Force

8 Fetchlands

Lots of synergy. Loam feeds Liliana and Brutality. Fetchlands feed Loam and Tracker. Nissa rebuys important dredged cards. Lili / Brutality / Deed gives us a good removal spread (sweep/spot/sac covers basically everything, Deed kills noncreature permanents - +1 Maelstrom Pulse variant for planeswalkers). Loam is 'yard dependent but the rest of the list is synergistic without getting completely blown out by RIP. Still in two colour shell so splash whatever. 7 discard spells + 3 Liliana for combo matchups. ~12 slots left for more toolbox options and wincons.

I've been running a similar list with Gitrog and cycle lands; was using Hymns instead of CB because I don't have access to those right now. Also been testing Titania in the list. It works pretty well and lets you grind out almost every fair opponent. Even without the Frog out Loaming up cycle lands is sweet card advantage.

I still have the problem of folding to combo and decks that go over the top like 12-post. After adding Meren to the list I have a much better time against decks like Aluren and Elves. Couple of those guys run those every week and if I can assemble Meren/EW/Deed in decent enough time it's a scoop.

[Navsi]

I've been running a similar list with Gitrog and cycle lands; was using Hymns instead of CB because I don't have access to those right now. Also been testing Titania in the list. It works pretty well and lets you grind out almost every fair opponent. Even without the Frog out Loaming up cycle lands is sweet card advantage.

I still have the problem of folding to combo and decks that go over the top like 12-post. After adding Meren to the list I have a much better time against decks like Aluren and Elves. Couple of those guys run those every week and if I can assemble Meren/EW/Deed in decent enough time it's a scoop.

I'm not sure if Gitrog/Titania is the way to finish the list up. It's reasonable against midrange but doesn't feel resilient enough to deal with control or fast enough to deal with combo. Loam is a nice card advantage engine but I don't think we can lean on it to actually just end games. I'm thinking of doing some testing with the rest of the slots using the Dragon build's Intuition - Haven - DLD/Silumgar/Ugin package and some copies of Baleful Strix and Deathrite.

Trying to work out if there's a reasonable combo we can Gifts for that doesn't use up too many decklist slots and that ends the game on the spot. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears (assuming we have ~6 mana available, no cards in hand or GY beyond Gifts). A Gifts Ungiven or Intuition kill would be pretty nice in the deck, considering we can already get some good utility out of it with Loam.

Edit: Unassisted Gifts kills:
- Recurring Nightmare + Palinchron + Eternal Witness + Nostalgic Dreams - 8 mana, 7 of which must be in lands. None of the cards are 100% garbage on their own.
- Aluren + Nostalgic Dreams + Recruiter of the Guard + Noxious Revival - 6 mana. Need a load of chaff in the deck.
- Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond + Walking Ballista + Unburial Rites - 7 mana (if they give you rites + ballista), no additional chaff, but Salvagers and LED are pretty bad outside of combo. Might work okay in an artifact build?
- Academy Rector + Unburial Rites + Cabal Therapy + whatever - 6 mana, get a Rector trigger. Doesn't actually win unless you have payoff - No cards I can find for the 4th slot that win off Omniscience if opponent gives you rites + therapy as your cards in hand.

[tilzinger]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

[rubblekill]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

In my last GB Fit configuration, I'm currently playing:
2 carpets
3 lost legacy
3 choke
2 to the slaughter (JTMS)
1 giant solifuge (yes)
2 thoughtseize
1 surgical (I'm not playing 2 because I play 3 rotations and 1 Bojuka Bog)
1 additional Nissa (2 in the 75)

It's ridiculous that mtggoldfish says that miracles is at 19% meta presence: everyone online plays that deck, I should not HAVE TO play 15 cards in the side just for that deck.

I literally board in 15 cards in that match up, and that doesn't even guarantee a very substantial win percentage in g2-3 (as it should, since I'm literally dedicating all of my sideboard to miracles, with some needed splash damage against combo/gy decks).

This configuration does help a lot, though.

[square_two]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

That really depends on what version of nic fit you are running. Are you siding Vets + Therapy out? What are you bringing in?

I've found that Carpet of Flowers is quite amazing, allowing you to play out must-counter threats much earlier than they have the time to find enough answers. Deed ensures that you don't die from Angels/Mentor, but you need to have some form of answer for Jace (Nissa VF is great but you need more).

I have lately just been bringing in as much meat and card advantage as I can against them, plus Lost Legacy. Haven't bothered bringing in Surgicals for quite some time. Then again I'm on Sneak Fit which struggles with Terminus quite a bit less. Once I get Sneak Attack out then the matchup swings heavily in my favor.

[Navsi]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

Assuming you're running Rhinos:

- Volrath's Stronghold + Phyrexian Tower lets you recycle game ending threats until they run out of answers. Best with Cavern of Souls or Thrun too.
- Sylvan Safekeeper, Gaddock Teeg, City of Solitude, Carpet of Flowers are all good sideboard options.
- If you're casting noncreature threats, their only answers are FOW (card disadvantage, therapy it first) or Counterbalance (which Decay works against, and 4+cmc stuff isn't reliably hit). Kaya and Nissa are both excellent. Any of the Sorins or Garruk R is pretty good too. Elspeth is great.

If your plan is to resolve creatures they can 1-for-1 and hope to beat them to death, you're going to have a bad time.

[tilzinger]

I'm running the Rhino junk build (seem my list at the top of page 19 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31293-Primer-Nic-Fit/page19))

I side out the Therapy and Vets, bring in Carpets. I've added a Stronghold to the list lately. I'm thinking of adding Sorin, Grim Nemesis to the side to help deal with Jace, and make it harder for them to counter. My opponents seem to always find that damn Councils Judgement to handle my walkers, so they don't stick around long.

I like the idea of adding To the Slaughter. I have 3 Lost Legacy I could try in place of Slaughter Games, but of course Lost Legacy can be countered so there is that. I've won exactly 2 games against Miracles. One was b/c I was able to resolve a Lost Legacy naming Terminus, and the other I was able to Surgical Terminus after the first one was cast.

Edit: I'm adding Dragonlord Dramoka to the main for uncounterability, and already run Thrun main.

[Hmmm_Really?]

To anyone running Master of the Wild Hunt, in the Junk Atraxa version with Leovold, are you having trouble keeping it on the field to snipe Delvers and dudes? I can't tell you how many times it gets forked, bolted, pushed, etc. before I can get to my next turn. (That's the only time I would GSZ for it, if Atraxa is unavailable.... do you use for anything else?)

I already have Garruk Relentless so do I just suck it up, take the 1 for 1, and have one less removal to worry about?

Has anyone come to the same conclusion that Kaya, Ghost Assassin might be better suited? It would be an additional Kaya in my case and, of course, not GSZ-able. Or an additional, but legendary, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice?

TL;DR: I need a green Delver-killer, with shroud ;-)

[Purple Blood]

I'm not sure if Gitrog/Titania is the way to finish the list up. It's reasonable against midrange but doesn't feel resilient enough to deal with control or fast enough to deal with combo. Loam is a nice card advantage engine but I don't think we can lean on it to actually just end games. I'm thinking of doing some testing with the rest of the slots using the Dragon build's Intuition - Haven - DLD/Silumgar/Ugin package and some copies of Baleful Strix and Deathrite.

Trying to work out if there's a reasonable combo we can Gifts for that doesn't use up too many decklist slots and that ends the game on the spot. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears (assuming we have ~6 mana available, no cards in hand or GY beyond Gifts). A Gifts Ungiven or Intuition kill would be pretty nice in the deck, considering we can already get some good utility out of it with Loam.

Edit: Unassisted Gifts kills:
- Recurring Nightmare + Palinchron + Eternal Witness + Nostalgic Dreams - 8 mana, 7 of which must be in lands. None of the cards are 100% garbage on their own.
- Aluren + Nostalgic Dreams + Recruiter of the Guard + Noxious Revival - 6 mana. Need a load of chaff in the deck.
- Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond + Walking Ballista + Unburial Rites - 7 mana (if they give you rites + ballista), no additional chaff, but Salvagers and LED are pretty bad outside of combo. Might work okay in an artifact build?
- Academy Rector + Unburial Rites + Cabal Therapy + whatever - 6 mana, get a Rector trigger. Doesn't actually win unless you have payoff - No cards I can find for the 4th slot that win off Omniscience if opponent gives you rites + therapy as your cards in hand.

Yea I don't know well my list would do in a more competitive environment but is it's fun to play and I win matches. On the bright side with this ridiculous MM spoiler we just got I'm going to be able to test some new cards I haven't bothered buying yet.

If you want to go combo kill why not Scapeshift and Burning Wish? Fits pretty well with Loam. And gives you the toolbox SB and MB having so many tutors. I suppose you have to decide if you'd rather be running BUG or Jund though. The other option is a Primeval Titan and DD strategy but from the people who've tested that in this thread it didn't work as well as it seemed on paper.

[Brael]

Here's what I'm locked in at for my upcoming Legacy league. The league rules allow for proxies (with a bonus for owning a legit deck), so with card availability not being an issue people are on everything and anything that strikes their fancy. At this point I don't know what anyone is playing, but I suspect 1 Miracles, 1 Storm, 1 Dredge, 1 Infect, and 1 Leovold Delver. Originally we were going to do a 12 person round robin, but some didn't have interest so it's down to 8. Fortunately, this one won't be a weekly deal and instead we just have X weeks to complete all of our matches so it should happen a bit faster.

Anyways, I got to thinking about some of the suggestions when we were discussing BG a couple pages back, as well as thinking over what worked from my Junk list the last time I tried this. I ended up biasing the deck a bit back towards fair matchups because I felt the previous version gave up too much in that regard.

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

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

Other 21
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force

Sideboard 15
3 Dark Depths
2 Thespian’s Stage
1 Karakas
1 Crop Rotation
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura Tribe Elder
2 Lost Legacy
1 Treetop Village
1 Sensei’s Divining Top

Long story short, I went higher on Nissa, Land, and Deed, brought back Cavern, and am keeping the Dark Depths option open. The STE slot in the SB could have just as easily been an Elves of Deep Shadow, which may even be better but I didn't feel like ordering one.

[tescrin]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

Thrun is pretty good since GSZ can get him meaning you have 5 copies and they have no good way of keeping him off. I uses man-lands in my build because it made Primeval kinda like a Grave Titan and because it improved Miracles MUs. Deed is pretty good since it can munch anything they do, and often multiple things unless they play sub-optimally; making them have trouble grinding you.

It's not a great MU; but it's doable. PFire versions have a natural advantage as you can imagine; but between Decay and Deed you should be able to keep CB off of you, and between Thrun, GSZ, and Manlands should be able to keep punching reliably.

Maverick used that guy who gives people shroud for saccing lands (forget his name) and Teeg; which basically is a lock out.


Miracles is weak in the knees to actual CA; but it's hard to get CA against them if your CA is creature based. So you want to find ways of getting cards outside of that. Aggressive Mining is an option since you can get lands via Explorer or Titan. Leovald is reasonable, even without U in the deck.

EDIT: There's no silver bullet to miracles really. You just need to have a lot of cards that happen to work against them. A couple manlands, a Thrun +GSZs, maybe a Sigarda or Aggressive Mining, some Pfires and/or Leovald, Decays and Deeds. It's an obnoxious puzzle for them to solve if you keep deed up because they can't win without losing multiple cards unless they jace; but if you have manlands or thrun they can't jace well either.

Also, Thrag is a good target for GSZ as well, because the Beasts he leaves around if they Jace, Plow, or terminus him.

[Navsi]

If you want to go combo kill why not Scapeshift and Burning Wish? Fits pretty well with Loam. And gives you the toolbox SB and MB having so many tutors. I suppose you have to decide if you'd rather be running BUG or Jund though. The other option is a Primeval Titan and DD strategy but from the people who've tested that in this thread it didn't work as well as it seemed on paper.

Might give Scapeshift another try. It puts a ton of strain on the manabase, but I might just try running 25 lands. Currently looking at a list like this:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya (might want to just be Huntmaster)
2 Thragtusk

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Burning Wish
3 Collective Brutality
2 Scapeshift
1 Life from the Loam

3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Liliana of the Veil

2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Taiga
4 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Scapeshift
1 Life from the Loam
1 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Innocent Blood
1 Lost Legacy or Slaughter Games
2 City of Solitude
3 Thoughtseize
3 Pithing Needle

[Tokugawa]

How do we beat Miracles? I've seen comments about not over extending so multiple creatures are not Terminus'd at the same time, but lately the match feels impossible. Literally everything I do gets countered or resolved then an immediate Plow or Terminus follows. I'm considering putting 2 Surgical Extractions main deck in hopes to hit Terminus. Or splash red and add a couple of Slaughter Games to the side. Its such a miserable matchup to play.

The primer has given some very useful suggestions. Attack JTMS(wherever it is, hand/board/library) asap. And don't trigger Explorer aggresively, their lategame play(JTMS/Entreat the angels/Venser-Karakas lock) are stronger than yours.

[emuhell]

Might give Scapeshift another try. It puts a ton of strain on the manabase, but I might just try running 25 lands. Currently looking at a list like this:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya (might want to just be Huntmaster)
2 Thragtusk
...
3 Collective Brutality
1 Life from the Loam
2 Liliana of the Veil
...

Sideboard:
1 Life from the Loam
2 City of Solitude

Finally someone returning to Scapeshift :). The problems are mostly the same as a few months ago I think. But it is a viable deck.

About some of your card choices:

I miss some kind of creature-based ramp that really justifies 4 GSZ in this list (Sakura Tribe Elder, Wood Elves).
I agree with running 2 Mountains - sometimes this gets the show going with explorers.
I totally agree with not running the PFire engine. It is just so greedy and makes the manabase even more wanky.
Collective Brutality on 3? Interesting choice! I guess to handle counters and drshamans - maybe even to survive that 1 pre-combo/thragtusk turn against burn.
Lili + LftL is a slow "engine". Lili is not really good supported in the list and I guess in theory you want to discard a lot of lands to her. Not sure if that really is the way to go. You don't want to miss a single landdrop and you dont want to discard any other card (except sometimes Therapy).
:D City of Solitude is spicy ^^ had to smile on that one - definitely valid and nice. Maybe just Overmaster as an additional tutor target?

[Navsi]

Finally someone returning to Scapeshift :). The problems are mostly the same as a few months ago I think. But it is a viable deck.

About some of your card choices:

I miss some kind of creature-based ramp that really justifies 4 GSZ in this list (Sakura Tribe Elder, Wood Elves).
I agree with running 2 Mountains - sometimes this gets the show going with explorers.
I totally agree with not running the PFire engine. It is just so greedy and makes the manabase even more wanky.
Collective Brutality on 3? Interesting choice! I guess to handle counters and drshamans - maybe even to survive that 1 pre-combo/thragtusk turn against burn.
Lili + LftL is a slow "engine". Lili is not really good supported in the list and I guess in theory you want to discard a lot of lands to her. Not sure if that really is the way to go. You don't want to miss a single landdrop and you dont want to discard any other card (except sometimes Therapy).
:D City of Solitude is spicy ^^ had to smile on that one - definitely valid and nice. Maybe just Overmaster as an additional tutor target?


IMO there's little reason to Zenith elder/elves, when we could just make more explorers. The deck has a ton of ways of killing Veterans.

IMO Brutality is really good. Killing our Explorers and enemy Deathrites, takes counterspells and combo pieces. Brutality fills the punishing fire role of killing small creatures while providing other, better utility.

Liliana - the deck needs some form of removal for larger stuff we can't just Deed/Brutality away. I'd rather play Liliana than any of the other edicts, since she has other utility with the discard effect even if we don't use it all that much without Loam. Burning Wish for LftL also means we have plenty of opportunities to get an engine going.

The other option in Liliana's slot would be To The Slaughter, which is pretty nice but I'd rather have the discard synergy. We already don't care about Jace all that much since we have a fast clock and really like it when miracles taps out.

[AtticusBlaqk]

Is anyone currently running a Stoneforge build?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Navsi]

Is anyone currently running a Stoneforge build?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I've played the 4C Atraxa Stoneblade list in the primer a while ago, and it would be my current build if I was running a 'fair' Nic Fit build at the moment. A lot of people in this thread don't like Stoneblade, but IMO it's pretty good for the current metagame.

[AtticusBlaqk]

I've played the 4C Atraxa Stoneblade list in the primer a while ago, and it would be my current build if I was running a 'fair' Nic Fit build at the moment. A lot of people in this thread don't like Stoneblade, but IMO it's pretty good for the current metagame.

Thanks Navsi. I had been playing a Abzan Stoneblade build a few months back but that was before Atraxa was spoiled.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Navsi]

Thanks Navsi. I had been playing a Abzan Stoneblade build a few months back but that was before Atraxa was spoiled.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like Abzan Stoneblade but it has the same problems as Rhinos - being entirely fair and having relatively few ways of interacting with combo decks isn't a great place to be. Stoneblade is even slower than Rhinos is, too. It makes up for it with a better Miracles/grindy match up, but it's still got a lot of bad ones (particularly 12post). Adding blue hate / sideboard options / Atraxa / Strix helps the deck for pretty much no cost imo.

[Echelon]

@Navsi: Atraxa falls just short of being a fit Rhino replacement. I've done a bunch of testing with her, but decided to go back to the full set of Rhinos. She misses the mark by just a little bit.

Splashing blue is fine, but Atraxa shouldn't be the reason why you do it.

[Navsi]

@Navsi: Atraxa falls just short of being a fit Rhino replacement. I've done a bunch of testing with her, but decided to go back to the full set of Rhinos. She misses the mark by just a little bit.

Splashing blue is fine, but Atraxa shouldn't be the reason why you do it.

Baleful Strix, Brainstorm and Leovold are the reason why you do it. Atraxa is just a bonus.

[Echelon]

Baleful Strix, Brainstorm and Leovold are the reason why you do it. Atraxa is just a bonus.

Agreed. Except for Atraxa being a bonus - she's an almost-bonus.

[Navsi]

Agreed. Except for Atraxa being a bonus - she's an almost-bonus.

Depends what matchups you face a lot I guess. Zenithable Baneslayer is a real game changer against Delver/Burn/aggro decks. Elsewhere she's only mediocre, though.

[Echelon]

Depends what matchups you face a lot I guess. Zenithable Baneslayer is a real game changer against Delver/Burn/aggro decks. Elsewhere she's only mediocre, though.

Indeed. And Delver/aggro aren't things we typically struggle with without Atraxa, so we don't really need her to improve those MUs. Burn isn't too bad, either.

[Navsi]

Indeed. And Delver/aggro aren't things we typically struggle with without Atraxa, so we don't really need her to improve those MUs. Burn isn't too bad, either.

Let's be fair here, the same argument could be made about Rhinos. Atraxa blocks Marit Lage / Griselbrand and does better against Eldrazi, Rhinos are a faster clock against uninteractive decks. IMO you don't want more than 1-2 of either of them.

[Echelon]

Rhinos have an impact as soon as they hit the field, Atraxa doesn't. That's what matters for me.

[Arianrhod]

It also depends on if you're using Atraxa's "flavor" text or not -- for example, Jitte.

[BennBeckmann]

Hey guys,

I've been following this thread for a while now and reading here helped me understand the deck a lot better, so thanks for that. I used to play a 4c rhino list and my last version was close to mitchell stephensens list. Although that list felt very strong I chose to play sneak fit instead because I believe that in legacy you just have to be able to do unfair things. Now I wonder if it's still popular at all because nobody seems to care about it.

Here's my current list:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Fierce Empath
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Inferno Titan
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Collective Brutality
1 Toxic Deluge
3 Pernicious Deed

4 Sneak Attack
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Nissa, Vital Force

3 Forest
2 swamp
2 Mountain
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Volrath's Stromghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Kessig Wolfrun

SB
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Carpet of Flowers

The List feels super strong especially against Miracles which I always felt was our worst matchup after elves and other combo. Having acces to Pyroclasm increases the elbes matchup, too.

I don't play Punishing Fire because for me it feels kinda clunky and there are rarely situations that couldn't handle otherwise. Plus, the manabase gets weakened considerably.

I'm curious to hear you guys opinions and thanks in advance for any advice!

[Ulysse95]

It also depends on if you're using Atraxa's "flavor" text or not -- for example, Jitte.

With Atraxa I killed 2/0 turbo depth by increasing his own calice to 2 ^^

[square_two]

I don't play Punishing Fire because for me it feels kinda clunky and there are rarely situations that couldn't handle otherwise. Plus, the manabase gets weakened considerably.

Bit surprised you aren't running any Lightning Bolts. I have come to really appreciate Collective Brutality, but I still think the deck could use some fast speedy interaction and even a couple Bolts feel noticeable to me.

As for popularity, I'm a bit clueless. Flavor of the month tends to wax and wane on this sub. The deck also feels "solved" or at least very close to it.

[fireiced]

I also agree that Sneaky Fit does not get the attention it deserves because it is mostly "solved" with core pieces locked into the 60/61 mb. We are a brewing bunch I guess :cool:

square two is correct when he pointed out that we need bolts in place of punishing fire. The easiest way for sneaky fit to die to tempo is to die to an unmolested cheap threat such as drs or delver and we get tempo'ed out via stifle and dazes. Bolt secures the tempo out from them and let us trash tempo the way nic fit is supposed to.

[Navsi]

Sneaky Fit is still great, it's just mostly "solved" except for the removal suite. I personally still don't think Bolt is necessary for dealing with tempo and would rather play some combination of Brutality / Kommand / Decay, but my meta is relatively light on Delver decks. I'd also rather play Push than Bolt - reach and hitting Walkers is imo less relevant than being able to kill Goyfs.

I've been brewing a 4-colour Sneak Fit list actually, which gets to play Swords/Path as its removal spell - the primary reason for going into white is the addition of Nahiri as a secondary wincon and utility piece.

[MD.Ghost]

I've been brewing a 4-colour Sneak Fit list actually, which gets to play Swords/Path as its removal spell - the primary reason for going into white is the addition of Nahiri as a secondary wincon and utility piece.

Nice the +:w: idea finally get more input - i really enjoyed my testgames with Sneak Fit feat. Nahiri (i didn't include Sword/Path but yes white one mana spot removal is an option to - but now with fatal push it maybe isn't needed anymore in most cases).

[Navsi]

Nice the +:w: idea finally get more input - i really enjoyed my testgames with Sneak Fit feat. Nahiri (i didn't include Sword/Path but yes white one mana spot removal is an option to - but now with fatal push it maybe isn't needed anymore in most cases).

Being able to deal with Marit Lage, Griselbrand and Gurmag Angler is a handy upside to have available. I think the Atraxa lists have proven that a 4-colour list can still have a reasonably stable mana base.

[BennBeckmann]

Bit surprised you aren't running any Lightning Bolts. I have come to really appreciate Collective Brutality, but I still think the deck could use some fast speedy interaction and even a couple Bolts feel noticeable to me.

I used to run Bolts over Deluge and Brutality, but for now I like the versatility Brutality offers as either removal or discard no 5. As for Deluge, I've made very good experiences with it md on top of the 3 pernicious deed, it just gives you another edge against a wide variety of decks (delver, dnt, stoneblade, bug, elves and even miracles).
I'm not sure yet if it's really necessary to play it in sneak fit, though, because we don't have to care about the boardstate with our combo as much as the other lists do. I kinda like the idea of having the white splash for nahiri and swords so if I get my hands on a Nahiri I'll probably test it out. Being able to answer marit lage or sire of insanity md might be pretty relevant right now..

[Navsi]

Current build of Nahiri Sneak:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Fierce Empath
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Inferno Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Sneak Attack
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Collective Brutality
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 To The Slaughter

2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Nissa, Vital Force

2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Phyrexian Tower

Sideboard:
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Thoughtseize
2 Pithing Needle
2 Blood Moon
2 City of Solitude
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Manabase gives 15G/14B/13R/12W. With nine fetchlands, it's tempting to include Tireless Tracker, but he's just so fair this build probably doesn't care much. Nissa VF's ultimate is pretty strong here though.
Plenty of sideboard options. Might want more combo hate, but we already have six maindeck discard spells and two in the board, plus a fast clock and Surgicals. Thoughtseize could probably just be Duress to be honest, might be better for us - there are very few creatures we really care about. Nahiri helps shore up our removal suite, and also deals with a couple permanents that could otherwise be problems for the deck, like Sulfuric Vortex and Keranos. Rebuying Nahiri with Nissa is pretty powerful.

This list would love some graveyard recursion, since it has multiple discard outlets in Collective Brutality and Nahiri. I'm honestly tempted to jam in some Lingering Souls. Punishing Fire overlaps with Collective Brutality in utility and probably isn't worth it, though, and I don't think Loam is particularly relevant either (although we do have a lot of fetchlands). We also don't have any way of tutoring for it, and frankly grindy value engines become pretty irrelevant when you're swinging with Emrakul.

[zyren]

Current build of Nahiri Sneak:

This list would love some graveyard recursion, since it has multiple discard outlets in Collective Brutality and Nahiri. I'm honestly tempted to jam in some Lingering Souls. Punishing Fire overlaps with Collective Brutality in utility and probably isn't worth it, though, and I don't think Loam is particularly relevant either (although we do have a lot of fetchlands). We also don't have any way of tutoring for it, and frankly grindy value engines become pretty irrelevant when you're swinging with Emrakul.

Sun Titan could work in this deck. Not sure if the 2 white would be hard to get. Torrent of souls is also an interesting card. Probably not worth the mana cost, and its a nonbo with emrakul. Would be great with sun titan or grave titan where we can almost guarantee at least 1 more creature to attack after you revive to take advantage of the creature boost.

[Navsi]

Sun Titan could work in this deck. Not sure if the 2 white would be hard to get. Torrent of souls is also an interesting card. Probably not worth the mana cost, and its a nonbo with emrakul. Would be great with sun titan or grave titan where we can almost guarantee at least 1 more creature to attack after you revive to take advantage of the creature boost.

I don't think Sun Titan is worth it - it's hard to cast and it isn't reliable enough to take any of the slots the other six drops use, so it'd have to be a fourth fatty. IMO Wurmcoil Engine is closer to getting included than Sun Titan is.

[Echelon]

Besides, in that same slot you can have another Bellower. Bellower -> Empath -> Emrakul to the face > Sun Titan.

[Navsi]

Besides, in that same slot you can have another Bellower. Bellower -> Empath -> Emrakul to the face > Sun Titan.

I'd rather have a second Fierce Empath than a second Bellower, personally. IMO it's a major benefit to be able to Zenith empath for value early on, without greatly reducing your sources of emrakul in the late game.

[Echelon]

I'd rather have a second Fierce Empath than a second Bellower, personally. IMO it's a major benefit to be able to Zenith empath for value early on, without greatly reducing your sources of emrakul in the late game.

The logic is pretty much the same :wink:

[lavafrogg]

Do you guys have any thoughts to Nic Fit variations resembling the old Survival of the Fittest lists that were all toolbox? The problem with the old Survival lists is that they were garbage without Survival of the Fittest and had horrible topdecks, due to the high amount of one of's and utility creatures.

If I remember correctly the "original" ie CalebD list, ran what was mostly a GB Rock list with Explorer for land advantage and Therapy synergy. What advantages or disadvantages do you feel running the more toolbox approach has over a list with mostly 3-4 of's and maybe 2-3 bullets?

[Navsi]

Thinking of trying a slightly more proactive build. In particular, Nissa VF is a great card to slam early and let's us be way more active in pressuring our opponent's life total. Maybe try the sideboard tech people were trying last year of Price of Progress, feels very strong in the current meta game.

Has anyone tried playing 3-4 Nissa, VF in a list?

[Kozilek]

I recently took a list to proxy fnm, I went 1-3 due to a series of bad decisions but the deck itself felt strong. I'm running an Abzan Superfriends because A) I love being able to play six mana walkers in legacy and have it not be blatantly terrible, B) there's a decent bit of Miracles in my meta and I like dodging their removal, C) There's a decent bit of Sneak and Show and fair decks, too, so MB Ensnaring Bridge is great.

Here's my list, I'm very new to the deck and I'm wondering if there are any really obvious holes that someone who knows more about the deck could help fix. I'd like to stay very walker centric even if y'all say it's terrible, but other than that I'm pretty open to suggestions. Thanks!


3x Bayou
2x Forest
1x Tropical Island
1x Karakas
1x Marsh Flats
1x Phyrexian Tower
2x Plains
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
2x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath

3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Sensei's Divining Top

2x Swords to Plowshares

1x Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
3x Deathrite Shaman
1x Eternal Witness
1x Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Veteran Explorer

2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Toxic Deluge

3x Pernicious Deed

Sideboard

1x City of Solitude
2x Enlightened Tutor
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Oblivion Ring
1x Pithing Needle
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon


I'm especially unsure about the O-Rings. I'm considering something like Lost Legacy or Choke, maybe even Chains or Nether Void.

[Ulysse95]

3x Bayou
2x Forest
1x Tropical Island
1x Karakas
1x Marsh Flats
1x Phyrexian Tower
2x Plains
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
2x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath

3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Sensei's Divining Top

2x Swords to Plowshares

1x Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
3x Deathrite Shaman
1x Eternal Witness
1x Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Veteran Explorer

2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Toxic Deluge

3x Pernicious Deed

Sideboard

1x City of Solitude
2x Enlightened Tutor
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Oblivion Ring
1x Pithing Needle
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon


I'm especially unsure about the O-Rings. I'm considering something like Lost Legacy or Choke, maybe even Chains or Nether Void.

Hi!

I think you're too greedy on big friends. I think 1 Elspeth SC and 1 Sorin GN is the max.
Instead, I suggest to run at least 2 collective brutality:
-it helps a lot again combo and burn
-it can be used to sac your explorers
-it helps bridge to be effective (if you're stucked with a few big drops, bridge will not do the job against any fair deck)
-it hit little creature and pinger DRS

[Echelon]

You should probably also go up to 22 land. 21 lands for such a mana hungry build is just asking for trouble.

[maharis]

First place out of 35....

http://blog.gameplace.ch/legacy-12-03-17/

Creatures (12)
3 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Monastery Mentor
4 Academy Rector
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Instants (4)
4 Abrupt Decay

Sorcery (13)
3 Lingering Souls
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Diabolic Intent

Artifacts (4)
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Enchantments (4)
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Omniscience

Planeswalkers (2)
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Garruk Relentless

Lands (21)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard (15)
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Contamination
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Path to Exile
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize

[square_two]

I really like the token sub-theme going on there - enabling the greedy 3 Intents, full Therapy value, also the Contamination in the side (both walkers fuel it). Possible wins from Mentor. I assume that Rector is primarily for Omniscience which turns every Intent into possible Emrakul.

Could see 1-2 Swords being added. List is pretty low to the ground so I assume 21 lands + 2 DRS is fine. Therapy doing lot of work with the tokens.

Edit: Also, Recruiter of the Guard tutors for any of your creatures - DRS, Vet, Witness, Rector, Mentor. Might be worth a copy or two if the space could be found.

[Navsi]

Looks like it's being pulled in way too many directions IMO.
Contamination feels super clunky when your token makers can't be cast with only black mana - pretty reliant on Deathrite. Singleton Mentor seems optimistic. We play Therapy and Tops though, so there's probably something there, but I'd rather have 2+ than just one.

Emrakul/Omniscience is sweet, but seems like a lot of commitment. I'm surprised there's no Fierce Empath to make Zenith more relevant.

4 Decay / 2 Deed as only removal worries me. Lands would be pretty bad.

3 Diabolic Intent feels like a lot. There's a lot of cards in the list that are completely dead topdecks if you don't have a guy.

[Hmmm_Really?]

First place out of 35....

http://blog.gameplace.ch/legacy-12-03-17/



...and another from Illinois a week ago, top 8 from 95 players: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=14911&d=289997&f=LE


4 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills

2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
2 Grave Titan
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
4 Veteran Explorer

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Snuff Out

2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Sylvan Library

//SIDEBOARD
1 Golgari Charm
1 Kitchen Finks
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Nature's Claim
1 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
1 Thragtusk
1 Umezawa's Jitte

[Echelon]

@Navsi: That list should run a Dryad Arbor if it's to support that many Diabolic Intent, that's all.

[Navsi]

@Navsi: That list should run a Dryad Arbor if it's to support that many Diabolic Intent, that's all.

True. If you're running Arbor and Contamination, Meren starts to look pretty great too.

[FZA]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to build a BUG control list with Pernicious Deeds (I feel like the card is sweet in the current meta) and decided that a Nic Fit shell might be good. This isn't your typical Nic Fit list with crazy bombs, basically the curve ends with Leovold and Jace, but I was wondering if I could get some feedback on it.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593704#online

I added the probes because the blue count for Force was a little low, but they have been decent in combination with Therapy.

The list is certainly a bit threat-light, but that's kind of what I was going for with a more controlling build. The 2 copies of Nissa in the board really put in a lot of work in matchups like vs Miracles when big threats are more necessary.

If I were to add a big bomb maindeck, I would want something that pitches to FoW. Consecrated Sphinx maybe? Are there any good UG creature bombs? This would be great, as it could both be tutored by GSZ and pitched to FoW.

[Lueseto]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to build a BUG control list with Pernicious Deeds (I feel like the card is sweet in the current meta) and decided that a Nic Fit shell might be good. This isn't your typical Nic Fit list with crazy bombs, basically the curve ends with Leovold and Jace, but I was wondering if I could get some feedback on it.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593704#online

I added the probes because the blue count for Force was a little low, but they have been decent in combination with Therapy.

The list is certainly a bit threat-light, but that's kind of what I was going for with a more controlling build. The 2 copies of Nissa in the board really put in a lot of work in matchups like vs Miracles when big threats are more necessary.

If I were to add a big bomb maindeck, I would want something that pitches to FoW. Consecrated Sphinx maybe? Are there any good UG creature bombs? This would be great, as it could both be tutored by GSZ and pitched to FoW.

A straightforward threat that's resilient and UG is Sagu Mauler, but it's weak to sweepers and edicts. Haven't tried it, don't remember reading about anyone trying it neither, but I would look for a bomb if I were you. Running 4 Zeniths just for Veterans, grave hate and a couple 3 drops feels a litttle bit lackluster. I'd run Thragtusk which is an awesome stabilizer if you can relax the blue requirement.

[Ralf]

If I were to add a big bomb maindeck, I would want something that pitches to FoW. Consecrated Sphinx maybe? Are there any good UG creature bombs? This would be great, as it could both be tutored by GSZ and pitched to FoW.

Hi and welcome.

If you had to include a big blue bomb you've got a few choices:
- Frost Titan (my favorite if you expect a lot of unfair huge demons in your meta)
- Dead Eye requires a very specific build IMHO
- Sagu Mauler, dumb beater but zenithable
- Consecrated Sphynx (that card is broken)

[gth842s]

Ran Sneak Fit in a weekly last night to a record of 1-2-1 but felt that both of my losses were due to misplays that (in hindsight) were pretty obviously bad on my part.

Round 1 I beat Miracles and the Punishing Fire package was key, as it allowed me to bring my opponent's life total low enough to where random beaters could finish the job. P-Fire also convinced my opponent to bring in surgical extractions, which I feel hurt his consistency and allowed me to resolve more spells game two. Slaughter Games for Entreat the Angels against a non-mentor opponent feels great as well.

Round 2 I lost to Storm. Game 1 I was unable to pressure him sufficiently and he went off; pretty standard stuff. Game two I was able to resolve something like 4 therapies thanks to eternal witness and small creatures whittled his life total away. Game 3 my opponent was able to go off T2, and I still could have won - I resolved surgical extraction for the 2 LED in his yard but misplayed on a second extraction targeting Past in Flames instead of the tutor in his yard.

Round 3 I drew against Food Chain. I'd love some sideboarding advice for this matchup, as I wasn't sure whether to board for combo or for a grindfest. Deed felt like it was hugely important here, and I'm not sure whether it was correct to take out Punishing Fire. I won game one off of a relatively fast Emrakul, lost game 2 to a flurry of counterspells and some aerial pressure, and game 3 we went to time (my opponent was new to his deck and took some time with his decisions).

Round 4 I played against Aluren, which is up on CardKingdom's stream on twitch. Since it's up there I won't go into too much detail but suffice to say I won game 1 off of Sneak Attack, lost game two to pressure in the air, and lost game three by not seeing a line where I could have used Deathrite Shaman to drain my opponent's last two life.

So if it weren't for my bad play, I feel like I could have easily gone 3-0-1 last night - Sneak is still really good. I'm leaning towards putting StE back into the list; Crop Rotation has more explosive potential but there's enough blue in my local meta that it just feels too high risk every time I draw it. I have yet to resolve it in a situation where it was highly beneficial / impactful. Since I'm putting StE back in, I'm also leaning towards bringing Meren back. She'd be great for the various BUG decks running around. I want to try a list without punishing fire, but it's so good when you get it going against miracles and I haven't run into any situations where bolts / pushes would have been better.

Does anyone have sideboarding advice for Food Chain with Sneak?

[Ulysse95]

A straightforward threat that's resilient and UG is Sagu Mauler, but it's weak to sweepers and edicts. Haven't tried it, don't remember reading about anyone trying it neither, but I would look for a bomb if I were you. Running 4 Zeniths just for Veterans, grave hate and a couple 3 drops feels a litttle bit lackluster. I'd run Thragtusk which is an awesome stabilizer if you can relax the blue requirement.

Ricardio is using Sagu Mauler a lot lately

[Lueseto]

Ricardio is using Sagu Mauler a lot lately

I don't know Ricardio, who is him? I haven't found anything in the thread nor in google

[mstephenson]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to build a BUG control list with Pernicious Deeds (I feel like the card is sweet in the current meta) and decided that a Nic Fit shell might be good. This isn't your typical Nic Fit list with crazy bombs, basically the curve ends with Leovold and Jace, but I was wondering if I could get some feedback on it.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593704#online

I added the probes because the blue count for Force was a little low, but they have been decent in combination with Therapy.

The list is certainly a bit threat-light, but that's kind of what I was going for with a more controlling build. The 2 copies of Nissa in the board really put in a lot of work in matchups like vs Miracles when big threats are more necessary.

If I were to add a big bomb maindeck, I would want something that pitches to FoW. Consecrated Sphinx maybe? Are there any good UG creature bombs? This would be great, as it could both be tutored by GSZ and pitched to FoW.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/539038#paper

Here is my take on BUG nic fit if you are interested.

I think your land count/fetch count is low for casting Jace/Brainstorm and probes would not be something I would be interested in casting in a build without lifegain. I also would want to run fatal push instead of innocent blood as you do have a number of creatures you dont want to sacrifice.

I also wouldnt run the 4th zenith with a green creature count as low as it is. They get a lot worse later in the game.

Idk what your meta was like but I was never impressed with force main deck given the cost. Brainstorm alone to find therapy is already a huge upgrade over the non blue list and leovold on top of that already makes the combo matchup better. Also what do you need 4 leylines for? B/R Reanimater? Is there anything else for them? It feels really narrow.

[Echelon]

I don't know Ricardio, who is him?

A man, a myth, a legend.

As for the BUG Fit list - it needs at least 2 more lands, preferably fetch.

[Bobmans]

I don't know Ricardio, who is him? I haven't found anything in the thread nor in google
If one can't be found on Google, one does not exist.

[aspsnake]

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/539038#paper

Here is my take on BUG nic fit if you are interested.

I think your land count/fetch count is low for casting Jace/Brainstorm and probes would not be something I would be interested in casting in a build without lifegain. I also would want to run fatal push instead of innocent blood as you do have a number of creatures you dont want to sacrifice.

I also wouldnt run the 4th zenith with a green creature count as low as it is. They get a lot worse later in the game.

Idk what your meta was like but I was never impressed with force main deck given the cost. Brainstorm alone to find therapy is already a huge upgrade over the non blue list and leovold on top of that already makes the combo matchup better. Also what do you need 4 leylines for? B/R Reanimater? Is there anything else for them? It feels really narrow.

I love your list and am curious to test it out, but isn't Marit Lage a big problem to your deck? Maybe, 2x Lilianas could help?

[Echelon]

I love your list and am curious to test it out, but isn't Marit Lage a big problem to your deck? Maybe, 2x Lilianas could help?

Liliana does very little vs. an EoT Marit Lage (and is possibly a turn too slow).

[Lueseto]

I've found that most lists tend to have trouble with Marit Lage, I'm playing 2 Wasteland to help against it but it's not great. In my build it's kind of justified because I'm running Intuition and Life from the Loam so they give me a mana denial plan if the game calls for it, but that doesn't come up very often either.

[aspsnake]

Liliana does very little vs. an EoT Marit Lage (and is possibly a turn too slow).

You run 4x Baleful, so often you'll be able to block him for a turn.
But next turn, you have nothing (unless you run Lilianas), it gives you an extra chance.
But I now see that Lilianas probably don't exactly work with your strategy, you often don't wanna discard yourself.

[Echelon]

And Life From The Loam cares very little about Baleful Strix. Or discard.

[Navsi]

To The Slaughter is the solution to Marit Lage I'm currently leaning towards. Deals with Jace, TNN, Marit Lage and Inkmoth Nexus, at instant speed, which isn't something we can really get anywhere else.

[mstephenson]

I love your list and am curious to test it out, but isn't Marit Lage a big problem to your deck? Maybe, 2x Lilianas could help?

Jace does the same thing against Marit Lage.

The non-land non-turbo depths decks are usually pretty easy because Marit Lage is the only thing they have going for them. Haven't played against lands with this build but from the 4c one I played I am down 3 path and 1 surgical in the board, so I imagine its worse than before. That said running 4 extraction effects + brainstorm is a good way of dealing with their deck. It also usually isnt a problem of answering the first token but the stream of them with loam and sometimes PFire can be a problem but you can eventually just extract it.


You run 4x Baleful, so often you'll be able to block him for a turn.

The last time I played against 4c Loam my board state was
1 Nissa Vital Force Emblem
1 Nissa Vital Force
1 Jace
1 Leovold
1 Meren
2 Strix
1 Thragtusk
Multiple 3/3 beast

I could of blocked that thing for days. And im confident that I can kill him/find an extraction effect before he finds enough fire/groves/removal to break through the strixes.


To The Slaughter is the solution to Marit Lage I'm currently leaning towards. Deals with Jace, TNN, Marit Lage and Inkmoth Nexus, at instant speed, which isn't something we can really get anywhere else.

To the Slaughter is gas. Deals with obnoxious things like Marit Lage and TNN. But also good against any grindy deck with planeswalkers because delirium is almost always on and is great at dealing with either Gideon/Garruk or getting some other creature as well.

[Brael]

Didn't see this posted, but I may have missed some posts in the past few days.

Over on the Nic Fit subreddit, a CFB streamer Andrea Mengucci asked for some deck tips and decided to give the deck a run. He eventually settled on a Rhino list and posted a 5 round league with the deck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSP03INSPZo&list=PL04lbfeNAaS-t-bZ_SOTPt_EcPhtMqDQs

I don't think it was played optimally, but it's another example that can be thrown on the front page for an example of someone playing the deck.

Also, off to a good start with my new paper league. I'll post about that once I have all or most of my rounds in. The decklist is a few pages back.

And a random question: Has anyone ever had results with Yavimaya Elder? Or Living Wish? Both seem a bit intriguing right now.

[Echelon]

And a random question: Has anyone ever had results with Yavimaya Elder? Or Living Wish? Both seem a bit intriguing right now.

In what space, and to what end? If you want lands you have Veteran Explorer (which does a better job than Elder), if you want cards you have Eternal Witness/Courser of Kruphix/Tireless Tracker.

As for Living Wish - maybe, if you're running Depths combo. Otherwise it's probably a waste of precious SB space.

[Navsi]

Living Wish needs an end-the-game combo card to be good. Spending that much of a mana premium means the payoff needs to end the game to be worth it. Depths/Stage is the closest but IMO it doesn't turn the corner fast enough - after Wishing you have to pass the turn before you can score the kill and that's a real problem.

[Brael]

In what space, and to what end? If you want lands you have Veteran Explorer (which does a better job than Elder), if you want cards you have Eternal Witness/Courser of Kruphix/Tireless Tracker.

As for Living Wish - maybe, if you're running Depths combo. Otherwise it's probably a waste of precious SB space.

In place of Sakura Tribe Elder mainly.

I've been thinking about ways to increase my curve lately. Tireless Tracker is still at the top of the list, but I'm still considering otehrs too.

I'm still using Depths combo, so that's one point in favor of Living Wish. That's not the only reason I was considering it though. It widens the range of decks you can beat in G1 by a lot since it allows the Depths combo to be in G1.

[Echelon]

It widens the range of decks you can beat in G1 by a lot since it allows the Depths combo to be in G1.

It won't help you vs. Miracles (b/c creatures), it won't help you vs. ANT/TES (b/c speed). What ground do you aim to gain?

[Ulysse95]

I don't know Ricardio, who is him? I haven't found anything in the thread nor in google

Up there is a menu with Community > members list > go to "R" names and look for Ricardio. Then on his profile, you can see his last messages or ask him in PM ;)
Or check the last few pages of this thread, he posts quite regularly and you can even find MTGO photos of his deck list ^^

[battousai555]

I just saw maharis' list (http://blog.gameplace.ch/legacy-12-03-17/) and it looks both fun and powerful. However, I've seen some people question some of the card choices. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for trying to further optimize his list, if possible. For example, Navsi mentioned Fierce Empath as a strong GSZ target, which makes sense. What would come out, though? I also agree that there should be more removal, but what else can come out without hurting the combo synergy?

[Echelon]

The 2 planeswalkers are probably the only flex slots.

[Navsi]

I just saw maharis' list (http://blog.gameplace.ch/legacy-12-03-17/) and it looks both fun and powerful. However, I've seen some people question some of the card choices. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for trying to further optimize his list, if possible. For example, Navsi mentioned Fierce Empath as a strong GSZ target, which makes sense. What would come out, though? I also agree that there should be more removal, but what else can come out without hurting the combo synergy?

Mentor, Souls and the planeswalkers are all varying flavors of "don't die before you draw your combo" and Intent fodder, with various extra upside for each.

The deck is pretty removal light, and leaning 100% on Decay and Deed gives you some problems sometimes - switching some Decays for Swords or Innocent Blood or Collective Brutality helps matchups like Sneak and Show and Reanimator. Not sure how good this deck's Miracles match up is though, which might be a reason to stick to Decay.

The ~12 combo cards (Rectors, Intents, Omni, Emrakul, Bounty, Mentor, extra Top) can be swapped out for a similar set of combo stuff if you want to. Nyx Fit has a similar number of primary combo cards, and uses a few enchantment creatures for support where this deck uses token makers. Sneak runs 4 Sneak, ~4 fatties, and 1-2 Empaths and doesn't really need anything else beyond that.

[Brael]

Might give Scapeshift another try. It puts a ton of strain on the manabase, but I might just try running 25 lands. Currently looking at a list like this:


Random thought. Has any attempt ever been made to play Scapeshift for Marit Lage? It's not as strong as Valakut, but it also doesn't tie you to red, since white is a much stronger third color.

[Ulysse95]

Random thought. Has any attempt ever been made to play Scapeshift for Marit Lage? It's not as strong as Valakut, but it also doesn't tie you to red, since white is a much stronger third color.

I like the idea to try it with Ob Nyxilis the Fallen one day, even if it sounds clunky ^^

[Navsi]

The problem with Scapeshift isn't being in red - red isn't that much worse than white tbh. The problem is your mana base is pretty terrible because of the number of lands that are bad to draw / losing to Wasteland. Depths has the same problems, with lots of colorless lands and having to pass turn after Scapeshift, then make a 20/20 and pass turn again, means you're two turns slower and have more trouble with getting disrupted.

Red also includes Burning Wish which is exactly what Scapeshift wants. Losing Wish makes you way less consistent.

[cavalrywolfpack]

After a year of silence, I have returned, ready to make Echelon more amazing signatures!

Legacy finally started catching on at my LGS, and I'm ready to come back to Nic Fit as a deck that is easily accessible to me, although it would be built slowly. The scene is, as far as I know, mostly Burn, with some D&T, Infect, and Reanimator. I've caught up on the primer, but still feel out of the loop a little bit. I also can't decide between Jund and Abzan. I own a single Badlands that I desperately want to play with, but I own 4 Windswept Heaths and 3 Godless Shrine (Eventually they'll be Scrublands, but it's a start!). Which version should I run, and does anybody have a list of the recommended version?

[Brael]

The problem with Scapeshift isn't being in red - red isn't that much worse than white tbh. The problem is your mana base is pretty terrible because of the number of lands that are bad to draw / losing to Wasteland. Depths has the same problems, with lots of colorless lands and having to pass turn after Scapeshift, then make a 20/20 and pass turn again, means you're two turns slower and have more trouble with getting disrupted.

Red also includes Burning Wish which is exactly what Scapeshift wants. Losing Wish makes you way less consistent.

If you get 4 lands with Scapeshift you can get Depths, Stage, and 2 mana to activate Stage. So you only have to pass turn once after Scapeshift, at that point you can make Marit Lage on your turn or your opponents turn at any point. So it's 1 turn slower, but it also requires fewer lands to get started which speeds you up.

[emuhell]

If you get 4 lands with Scapeshift you can get Depths, Stage, and 2 mana to activate Stage. So you only have to pass turn once after Scapeshift, at that point you can make Marit Lage on your turn or your opponents turn at any point. So it's 1 turn slower, but it also requires fewer lands to get started which speeds you up.

At that point you are playing an overcosted Crop Rotation. Building the Crop Rotation Version of the deck and slipping in a DD combo would be more feasible in my opinion.

[Bobmans]

After a year of silence, I have returned, ready to make Echelon more amazing signatures!

Legacy finally started catching on at my LGS, and I'm ready to come back to Nic Fit as a deck that is easily accessible to me, although it would be built slowly. The scene is, as far as I know, mostly Burn, with some D&T, Infect, and Reanimator. I've caught up on the primer, but still feel out of the loop a little bit. I also can't decide between Jund and Abzan. I own a single Badlands that I desperately want to play with, but I own 4 Windswept Heaths and 3 Godless Shrine (Eventually they'll be Scrublands, but it's a start!). Which version should I run, and does anybody have a list of the recommended version?

I would probably go for a junk list, since it has access to swords/pte and Karakas aside of the usual graveyard hate to combat Reanimator. Also DRS will be of lot of help vs both Burn as Reanimator. Having Tusk/Rhino/Courser/Scooze will also help vs Burn. Punishing Fire would be better vs DnT and Infect, but junk has a more even spread in this field. Also, if the Reanimator dude is know for it in your meta, then people would have prepared against graveyard interaction making PFire a less valid choice.
Both have their merits. a lot will argue junk is better, but i suppose it is just what you'd prefer.

[Brael]

At that point you are playing an overcosted Crop Rotation. Building the Crop Rotation Version of the deck and slipping in a DD combo would be more feasible in my opinion.
Yes and no. Crop Rotation is a good card, but it requires having 1 piece of the combo already (rarely can you Rotation for both) which prices you in to 3 Rotations, 3 Depths, and 2 Stages at a minimum. Since Depths doesn't provide mana, you need to consider it a spell slot. So that's 6 spells 2 colorless lands you need to include at minimum. The Scapeshift route however lets you run 1 Depths, 1 Stage, 4 Scapeshift which is 6 spells and 1 colorless land. In addition to the Depths combo it also assembles the Two Towers. This is a big improvement. Where it's worse, is that Crop Rotation opens up some more explosive T1's though Vet/Therapy/Scapeshift does allow for a T2 Marit Lage (and T3 attack) so that's explosive in it's own way.

[Lueseto]

If you get 4 lands with Scapeshift you can get Depths, Stage, and 2 mana to activate Stage. So you only have to pass turn once after Scapeshift, at that point you can make Marit Lage on your turn or your opponents turn at any point. So it's 1 turn slower, but it also requires fewer lands to get started which speeds you up.

But then you have to wait another turn to attack, so it's 2 turns until your opponent is dead, whereas Scapeshift kills instantly... Moreover, you give one full turn for your opponent to play 1 Wasteland and ruin your combo, aside from being slower it dies to StP, can be blocked by fliers, so it's a lot less reliable... I've been playing the combo with Intuition and Life from the Loam and have cut it from my deck surprised by how poorly reliable it is, and playing Scapeshift for it seems more investment for a tool with less versatility.

[Plm]

Hi everyone,

After trying to make stone fit works, I tested snic fit but found that I was sometime light on gas, I then tested bob fit and the cards were flowing but I died too many times with my hand full.

Now my peregrinations have bring me to nyx fit.

The sheer joy of winning with standard cards :smile: (well this is nic fit so you must be used to those comments :tongue: ) , because rhino was a serious contender but nyx weaver made for some fun comments (and even funnier after I won).

For those who have not tried it, the miracle match up is unbelievable. I've been testing this one specially, and it feels like toying with a mouse :laugh:.
There is so much value miracle can't keep up. The plan is deplete their hand, then slam starfield and enjoy !

Highlight of last week session was living plane + starfield + deed VS miracle for recurring armagedon, then nothing until I could discard to hand size and watch my poor opponent scoop.

Anyway recursive deed handle so much that the rest of the deck feels overkill.

I must say that faster matchups / matchups that attacks our mana are harder, but it's so much fun to beat miracle with such an ease.


Also congrats on the new primer !

[Brael]

Developing the B/G Scapeshift idea further, here's where I'm at right now. It's basically like what I've been running, but trying to up the curve a little. I'm looking towards dropping Bob entirely, but that brings back the age old 2 drop problem and I'm a little concerned I don't have enough mana here to support the curve of 3 5 drops.

Land 23
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
4 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Bojuka Bog

Creatures 16
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Dark Confidant
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 The Gitrog Monster

Planeswalker 2
2 Nissa, Vital Force

Spells 20
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Fatal Push
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Scapeshift
1 Crop Rotation

On paper I really like the Tracker, Courser, and Gitrog interactions with Scapeshift but I'm wondering if it might just be win more, you don't really need cards if you're winning the game on the following turn with Depths. On the other hand, if you just go for value with Two Towers, a whole bunch of cards is exactly what you want.

I'm a little sad I haven't found room for SDT's yet.

[Megadeus]

I feel like the list wants like a wasteland or ghost quarter. That way if they have one on board you can beat it by Scapeshitting into the combo plus the waste by forcing theirs with yours and then you get to combo in response.

[Hmmm_Really?]

Now my peregrinations have bring me to nyx fit.....


Are you running Nether Void and/or other anti-combo pieces? (same question to Navsi, via PM)

[Lueseto]

Remember that you are not winning the game the turn after scapeshift, you need another turn to be able to attack with Marit Lage. The interaction with Tracker is sweet though; having a bunch of cards is an excellent side effect in the very probable case that DD combo goes wrong (Wasteland appears in 44.7% of the decks and Swords to Plowshares in 29.2% by mtgtop8.com statistics). Personally, I feel that unless you are playing the combo redundantly, either by playing Life from the Loam or a bunch of DD and Thespian Stages, it isn't worth it most of the time because of how large the number of decks that can interact with it is.

On running Wasteland as a way to protect it, they can just blow your DD/Thespian while you are tapped out from Scapeshift and your combo is gone unless you run LftL or can Zenith an Eternal Witness.

[Megadeus]

Not gonna lie, I just actually read Scapeshift because I've never played it and I don't play modern. I didn't realize the lands come in tapped. What a piece of shit.

[CutthroatCasual]

Not gonna lie, I just actually read Scapeshift because I've never played it and I don't play modern. I didn't realize the lands come in tapped. What a piece of shit.

Usually that's how it works.

[Brael]

Not gonna lie, I just actually read Scapeshift because I've never played it and I don't play modern. I didn't realize the lands come in tapped. What a piece of shit.

I thought they came in untapped too. I'm going to have to think about this more now. I think it's still ok but that one turn does matter.