Why not just use GSZ over Pod in Junk colors? Most of the cards you want to find are green anyways. The point of Pod in BUG is that most of the creatures you want are blue, but in Junk you just want to play as many Siege Rhino's as possible.
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I've a question for the scapewish players out there. Not having piloted this particular version of the deck, I'm very curious how you liked Huntmaster of the Fells as a card, in what match-ups it was good and how easy it was to control the flips.
Well, if I'm going to use GSZ instead of Pod, then I'd want an entirely different creature suite, and at that point shouldn't I just be playing Junk Fit instead of Junk Pod? Certainly there's a discussion to be had about the merits of the two decks, but one reason to play a Pod list is the real card advantage that can be generated by Pod, which I'm not sure GSZ can match.
It's an interesting idea but I like being able to cast anything in the deck incase it ends up in my hand rather than through a Pod. Elesh Norn and Griselbrand are pretty tough to hardcast (Elesh Norn not even being in color). There's also the issue that Angler and Tasigur generate no value to pod into or out of. Tasigur especially suffers because he doesn't get to Delve away cards to make his activated ability stronger.
It's mainly an issue of speed. Pod is slow, BUG only plays 2 usually. Playing what is essentially a Modern deck (minus therapy/explorer) just feels to me like it's bringing a knife to a gun fight. A lot of the extra power in Legacy comes in the form of non creatures but a list where you're going at high as 4 pods needs a very creature dense list.
That and I think you're undervaluing Siege Rhino. It got Pod banned in Modern for a reason. Pretty much everything you can do at the 4 slot eventually devolves into wanting to Rhino again, and again, and again though Academy Rector to find Recurring Nightmare (or Deed if you need it) can probably challenge the Rhino. Nightmare and Pod work very well together.
I play bug versions and I play neither pod nor GSZ. I understand liking the tutor effect of those cards but I think you will get more utility out of running 4-8 cantrips. I am now on 4 probes as probe therapy vet/strix is an easy way to steal games. That line of play followed by a Liliana or Jace is usually enough to take the game. If you wanna play a more creature heavy version I think white splash is where you want to be. White contains actual hate bears that can be tutored up which aside from smth like notion thief or glen elendra (both 4 mana) you do not have in blue. Rhino is also a good reason to be in white as it really does fit the game plan of clog the board.
I think you need to look at the core idea of what you want to play. Do you want to play a BGx creature deck? Do you want to play a BUG control deck? Do you want to play a birthing pod deck? Once you know the most important piece you can design a deck to optimize that. That may mean changing the color or philosophy slightly to the deck you already have.
I want to play a fun brewy deck without investing the type of money that playing blue requires. I think junk pod definitely falls into that category, but it is slower than some other versions of Nic fit and less consistent. So maybe a version of junk fit would also met those requirements.
What about a Bant version of Nic Fit? Rhox Wak Monk, Kitchen Finks, Perilous Research, etc...
If you dont mind me asking, what in blue are you not able to afford? Most BUG decks, even nicfit versions, will still run 4 force (in the 75) and 3-4 blue duals minimum.
The problem that you will face with pod is that its a value card essentially but its one that requires you to have creatures in play. This is usually worse than something like Jace or dig through time which do not need other cards to be effective or just playing another threat in that slot so in junk just having more gsz and rhinos.
If Jace and DTT are going to be the reasons for playing Nic Fit you might as well stop and play Miracles. Blue is strong for intuition, force of will and brainstorm, but mostly intuition.
Exactly those cards. I used to own a playset of Forces and several blue duals, but I traded off of those to get some expensive Legends cards, including a Tabernacle. None of the viable blue decks really interested me, so I didn't bother keeping the blue staples. So now that I'm trying to get proficient at a second deck, I decided on Nic Fit because it has always seemed awesome and fun to me. I've got the duals and fetches for Junk colors, so that's what I'll play. And while I had a blast playing Pod at the local tournament I went to, maybe I'll switch over to just Junk Fit, since I'm sure that'll be a blast as well and will probably perform better.
Intuition is not the reason to play blue. In fact, you should not be playing intuition in your blue list at all. I have no idea why you would say that, what list are you looking at? Brainstorm and force are for sure huge adds to the deck. On that I agree. That does not mean Jace and dig through time are not cards the deck loves to have. They are draw engines that go into multiple decks so I do not really understand that comment......
Also, this was in response to the idea of a Birthing pod deck. My comment was aimed at if birthing pod was in a bug deck it was a value engine which both jace and dig are better at. If in junk I would rather have more threats than a slow and expensive way to create incremental value chains.
Intuition is the strongest card you can play in Nic Fit. For instance, Intuition for 3 Kederekt Leviathan and Omnitell can scoop. Draw one naturally and Omnitell can scoop. There are a million plays I can tell you that break the format in half with Intuition in Nic Fit, but the people in this thread have been going a different, more fair route. Jace is a waste of space.
Two other notable plays include
EOT Intuition for 3 Cabal Therapy
Intuition for Gigapede + Unburial Rites + bomb such as Griselbrand or Iona or Palinchron
Intuition for 3 Force of Will
And Intuition for things like Eternal Witness to finish up a missing piece of the combo to draw entire deck + play all cards + bounce your opponents board + discard all his threats
Etc etc etc
Your definition of strong is certainly different from mine. Of the cards you listed I do not want 90% of them anywhere near my deck. I am not going to refute any of those piles because we both know that intuition is not breaking the format or nicfit any time soon. I would sooner run gifts than intuition.
Jace IS easily one of the main draws to blue in the this deck. The ability to play an early jace backed not only with discard to ensure resolution but with decay and deed to protect is for sure better than intuition and its not close. Dig through time is also better than intuition.
To be perfectly honest I am not sure I even believe your post as the fact that you mentioned that leviathan and omni scooping in the same sentence is questionable.
I've played a ton of Jace in Nic Fit. Multiple copies used to be in my list too. The problem is, it really doesn't do anything the deck wants to do nor does it truly shore up weaknesses. Yeah, it's a great planeswalker, but its also a solution to a non-existant problem in a deck that should have a game plan rather than dropping Jace and hoping to win.
Kederekt Leviathan is an amazing bomb that show and tell decks have ZERO ways of interacting with. The fact that you can Unearth the other 2 intuitioned Kederekt Leviathans to bounce the one in play means that one intuition blanks 3 show and tells. Between that and Cabal Therapies, it's nigh impossible for Omnitell to put up a show.
The reason why you don't believe me is that somewhere in this thread there was a discussion about the origins of this deck. The OP promised to put it in the primer but never did. In doing so, the thread missed an entirely different stream of Nic Fit that was an incredibly aggressive and versatile control deck with a combo finish. We've recently decided to call this deck Krik Fit, because Krik is the name of the original deck builder, even though his work started well before this thread first opened (evidence of this was posted in this thread).
I sold out the majority of my cards and my playgroup died out. This list is I think? 2 years old now. This was my list. The optimal list according to Krik did not run the unburial rites package. I was personally very fond of the UR package but my list misses a phantasmal image which really should be in there as it is super strong. Kederekt Leviathan was a sideboard card. The strongest list we found, which I don't have access to so I can't reproduce it, contained 4 Brainstorm and 4 Force of Will in addition to 4 Intuition. This is not that list.
Any list I post now is going to be hugely outdated, but here goes
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Intuition
3 Diabolic Intent
1 Gigapede
1 Unburial Rites
1 Palinchron
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Griselbrand
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Unearth
1 Dryad Arbor
23 Land / 11 fetch / 6 or 7 basics (1 plains) / rest duals (1 white dual).
Between 3 Intent, 4 Intuition and 4 GSZ you have insane selection. Another really good play is turn 1 explorer into turn 2 cabal therapy, flashback therapy, intent + hymn to tourach. The gitaxian probes were also super strong.