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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
The biggest plus for a NO plan is that it will give you game against combo. With some early discard NO then turns into the fastest clock most nic fit decks can put together. It also allows for blowouts against other midrange decks where certain giant monsters are just too good.
The negative is that it increases variance in the deck, can create situations where the cards are dead or psuedo-dead. NO is not reliable against control decks due to counters/terminus so I am certain it gets boarded out.
If I was to play a NO version it would use blue. Access to brainstorm/ponder is a big get when adding these types of packages. I think NO is probably a worse version of entomb - reanimation at this point though. It only requires a single card in hand but the limitations on what it can do is larger. The available creatures options in green are just worse.
In junk color I think this isnt needed. Blue could use another haymaker.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom4ik
The biggest plus for a NO plan is that it will give you game against combo. With some early discard NO then turns into the fastest clock most nic fit decks can put together. It also allows for blowouts against other midrange decks where certain giant monsters are just too good.
The negative is that it increases variance in the deck, can create situations where the cards are dead or psuedo-dead. NO is not reliable against control decks due to counters/terminus so I am certain it gets boarded out.
If I was to play a NO version it would use blue. Access to brainstorm/ponder is a big get when adding these types of packages. I think NO is probably a worse version of entomb - reanimation at this point though. It only requires a single card in hand but the limitations on what it can do is larger. The available creatures options in green are just worse.
In junk color I think this isnt needed. Blue could use another haymaker.
but No, sac vet. getting progenitor mimic, entering as rhino. /dreams
I just wanna play consecrated sphinx lol but junk is better than bug fit
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
@ Navsi
Have you ever tried Titania, Protector of Argoth in any of your Scape lists ?
1) I have won some games vs a resolved Emrakul (with life > 15)
2) I have also played Scape with only 5 lands in play just to make a bunch of 5/3.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ralf
@ Navsi
Have you ever tried
Titania, Protector of Argoth in any of your Scape lists ?
1) I have won some games vs a resolved Emrakul (with life > 15)
2) I have also played Scape with only 5 lands in play just to make a bunch of 5/3.
sylvan safekeeper is a thing.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I played a couple games with her but never went to a tournament. The problem with Titania is that she skews the decks quite a lot.
- You can't reasonably expect to cast Titania before turn three, which means you probably won't be casting Scape or otherwise taking over the board until turn four. Since the tokens don't have Haste, that means that (assuming your opponent doesn't have interaction) you're lethal on turn five, which is the live turn for Scapeshift anyway. You don't actually speed up very much with Titania.
- Titania makes you want to play more support cards for her. Sylvan Safekeeper is the obvious one, but there's also Dryad Arbor and potentially Crop Rotation. These are all well and good, but Scape already has a lot of cards which are dedicated to the combo / needs most of its slots for protection and stalling capability.
IMO Titania is at her best in a shell which can afford the card slots to build around her. I'm thinking a Junk or 4c build to be honest, because Knight of The Reliquary is obviously amazing with her. I could see her as an alternate wincon in a Depths build, or as support in a GR heavy ramp build like the one using Omnath, Locus of Rage from a few pages back. She wants more interesting utility lands compared to Scape's already wonky manabase. Maybe something with Wasteland in it.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Navsi
I played a couple games with her but never went to a tournament. The problem with Titania is that she skews the decks quite a lot.
- You can't reasonably expect to cast Titania before turn three, which means you probably won't be casting Scape or otherwise taking over the board until turn four. Since the tokens don't have Haste, that means that (assuming your opponent doesn't have interaction) you're lethal on turn five, which is the live turn for Scapeshift anyway. You don't actually speed up very much with Titania.
- Titania makes you want to play more support cards for her. Sylvan Safekeeper is the obvious one, but there's also Dryad Arbor and potentially Crop Rotation. These are all well and good, but Scape already has a lot of cards which are dedicated to the combo / needs most of its slots for protection and stalling capability.
IMO Titania is at her best in a shell which can afford the card slots to build around her. I'm thinking a Junk or 4c build to be honest, because Knight of The Reliquary is obviously amazing with her. I could see her as an alternate wincon in a Depths build, or as support in a GR heavy ramp build like the one using Omnath, Locus of Rage from a few pages back. She wants more interesting utility lands compared to Scape's already wonky manabase. Maybe something with Wasteland in it.
This is my opinion of Titania as well. I have one in a box somewhere just in case she becomes relevant, but I don't really think that she's a Nic Fit card -- not without a really specific version being built around her, anyway. We typically play around 6 fetches, which is poor for her; we don't play Wasteland, which is poor for her; and we run few utility lands, which is poor for her. The combo with Safekeeper is a thing, but if you're doing that, there are other, better combos that don't involve armageddoning yourself to hopefully win. And, beyond that, we all know that sometimes combos don't come together very well. Safekeeper can be okay when used fairly, but, in a traditional Nic Fit list, Titania is frankly pretty bad when used "fairly."
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I agree with everything you said.
But I was rather mentioning Navsi's creature build.
She is a not so bad S&T hate and she does go a long way in some grindy MU.
I usually have a few lands in my yard (wasteland, fetch) and if there is no DRS, she brings 10 power onto the table.
As far as Sylvan protector goes, I tried it long time ago. It was really really bad.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
@ Tom
Did you look @ my signature for your BUG Control Fit ?
I know you like playing Probe, but well, I guess you were looking for some Trinket shenanigans !
Grave Titan is a must to close many games unfortunately...
I didn't adjust the list to deal with Eldrazi, though. Glissa might be needed somewhere.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Shit, I guess I asked a good question. Kudos to everyone giving me a lot of ideas to consider.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom4ik
The biggest plus for a NO plan is that it will give you game against combo. With some early discard NO then turns into the fastest clock most nic fit decks can put together. It also allows for blowouts against other midrange decks where certain giant monsters are just too good.
The negative is that it increases variance in the deck, can create situations where the cards are dead or psuedo-dead. NO is not reliable against control decks due to counters/terminus so I am certain it gets boarded out...
Given the expected meta for the weekend (see: lack of control decks and limited/no miracles), I am looking at NO-Fit to sure up the plethora of combo pairings. What @Tom4ik writes is essentially what my gut feeling is telling me to do: run some discard, drop NO, profit against combo (where the standard lists struggle). For the more fair fights, I plan to kick their asses regardless. But then again, NO -> something stupid usually is enough to force concessions as well. I think NO only helps me in fair matchups.
I am still favoring the idea of making NO an "option" rather than the sole gameplan. This is why I am sparked the discussion of having NO as a SB package or in the maindeck. I may very well be wrong...maybe you NEED to build around the card. I think it would be more of a "tweak the shell of Nic Fit to accomodate this variant" more than "you need to build around NO".
Ideally, the finished deck would sequence something like:
T1/2 discard, dork, early removal -> turn 3+ option to proceed with traditional Nic Fit plays OR
T1/2 discard, dork, early removal -> turn 3+ option to to Natural Order
@Arianrhod: You raise some excellent points. Solid tone as well, no offenses taken. I appreciate you picking my brain and explaining your thought process. You are so helpful :)
I am a bit unclear of why you ultimately made the selections you did. I fall into the camp of "the NO targets should be minimal (2-3 homerun creatures max)". That's right in line with Elves.dec. I also agree with what @Echelon and @Tokugawa said.
Quote:
The allure of Natural Order is that it's a single, 4 mana card that says "I win" (hyperboling a little bit here) without the need of any further setup
Quote:
To become the core card of a deck, NO must ensure a "I win", or at least a 90% "I win" first.
Again, if the meta holds similar to what was run in Feb, I won't have to deal with Terminus. Liliana will be a factor. GrisselDaddy may show up here and there, but likely in a Sneak/Show shell.
I have a shortlist of NO targets: Sigarda ----> who is already in the deck. DL.Dromoka (Delver/BUG), Ruric Thar (Combo, Burn), Elderscale Wurm (Burn), Progenitus (2 turn clock), and maybe Worldspine Wurm (ultra-fast clock).
This is rolling around in my head right now
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 NO Target #1: Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 NO Target #2: DL Dromoka/Ruric Thar
5 Flex (Rhinos, Finks, additional Witness, Teeg, Thoughtseize, Paths)
/18
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order
3 Sensei's Divining Top
/10
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
/10
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
If doing that, definitely run Dryad Arbor so you can sac her to NO.
An aside; IMO Sigarda is a *terrible* NO target. By all means, run it in the deck, but seriously paying 4 and sacing a dude to play a 5-drop is missing the point. I could be wrong here as you get 1-2 more swings with a 5/5 flyer; it just seems that a deck that can present 5-6 mana T2 it seems like you should be playing the big stuff.
IMO, run Worldspine and Liliana (so you can discard it, which causes it to go back into your deck) and don't overthink it. It swings for lethal in basically a single turn and if you have a therapy you can also split him into 3 dudes against Plow decks.
If you're insane, you could run Painter combo in the deck, turning everything green, and then NO as a second way to combo off into just straight up Emrakul. Also, honestly, natural painter combo could happen T2 with Veteran.
Why isn't this a thing!?
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tescrin
If doing that, definitely run Dryad Arbor so you can sac her to NO.
An aside; IMO Sigarda is a *terrible* NO target. By all means, run it in the deck, but seriously paying 4 and sacing a dude to play a 5-drop is missing the point. I could be wrong here as you get 1-2 more swings with a 5/5 flyer; it just seems that a deck that can present 5-6 mana T2 it seems like you should be playing the big stuff.
IMO, run Worldspine and Liliana (so you can discard it, which causes it to go back into your deck) and don't overthink it. It swings for lethal in basically a single turn and if you have a therapy you can also split him into 3 dudes against Plow decks.
If you're insane, you could run Painter combo in the deck, turning everything green, and then NO as a second way to combo off into just straight up Emrakul. Also, honestly, natural painter combo could happen T2 with Veteran.
Why isn't this a thing!?
its too niche. I believe if you want to run NO, then switch decks or integrate a small packet(lol) into your list
lik 2 NO, 1 arbor and a target for it that's castable eventually. Sigarda can be the right thing to get but I wouldn't consider it a target, nor would I consider DLD a good target. worldspine, elderscale, hellkite overlord? something that is not progenitals. you want to net mana when you 2 for one.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Actually in a red list the hellkite overlord isnt a bad target. NO when you have a few red as well and you can 10-spot someone. Its not the most castable but as a NO target it is the most immediate impact.
I actually wouldnt mind a list that ran NO in the SB to bring in for the combo match ups. The issue is that at that point is it worth SB space over more hate cards. Against control it would be left/board out and against more of the midrange decks I think it would be fine as a haymaker but more actual creature beef at that spot might be better.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom4ik
Actually in a red list the hellkite overlord isnt a bad target.
Swords to Plowshares... noty. Haste is very relevant. And so is flying. But as long as it cant dodge plow it is crap. Rather have Proggy then along with board control.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bobmans
Swords to Plowshares... noty. Haste is very relevant. And so is flying. But as long as it cant dodge plow it is crap. Rather have Proggy then along with board control.
Hmm... well NO gets wrecked by force of will so why bother playing that?
A couple things, all the target presented also get hit by STP aside from Prog. Also, if we are NOing I would imagine we have therapied already. Nic fit has always had an issue with STP so that card will be good regardless of a NO build. I would not discount 8 damage to the face considering it is most likely 1 turn faster than Prog. Not to say that the card is an obvious best choice but it is certainly powerful enough to be a target. Whether its pros outway the pros of other options is a different question.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ricardio
its too niche. I believe if you want to run NO, then switch decks or integrate a small packet(lol) into your list
lik 2 NO, 1 arbor and a target for it that's castable eventually. Sigarda can be the right thing to get but I wouldn't consider it a target, nor would I consider DLD a good target. worldspine, elderscale, hellkite overlord? something that is not progenitals. you want to net mana when you 2 for one.
Hmm maybe a small NO package of 2 NO + 2 targets in the SB makes sense. Personally, I have poor luck with Nic Fit finding business. I'll be improving the number of filter/manipulation being run, but fairly often I'm hitting 4 mana and have nothing substantial to do with it. If the Rhino ain't there, I'm kinda sitting around holding removal or using smaller utility guys.
@tescrin. I wouldn't say NO into Sigarda is terrible. There are several matchups I expect to see (mainly BUG) where just landing her means GG. Not every game lends itself to GSZ for 5 or "she's magically in my hand". At least for me, I have trouble finding the business a percentage of the time. There's also something to be said about Jace or Liliana stealing momentum from me (Nic Fit) around turns 3/4/5. Even if the end result is accelerating me by 1 turn, that could play out to be a substantial advantage.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
A couple random questions I had:
1. How do people feel about a second Meren? I haven't had a chance to play much Legacy lately but in the back of my mind I've kept a comment Ralf (think that's the right user) made several months ago about lowering the curve of the deck. It was something I agreed with in general, this deck levels out around 4-5 mana usually, which means the largest thing you can GSZ super consistently is a 4 drop. This may be heresy but how do people feel about excluding the 6 drops, and even the 5 drops changing what is usually the Sigarda slot for a 2nd Meren? Sigarda could still have a place in the sideboard but I think I might like the G1 Meren plan more and then in G2 where GY hate might come in, take it out entirely for something big and strong on it's own like Sigarda. Part of me really likes the idea of putting down a Meren, building some counters, making the opponent go through the trouble of removing it, and then being able to get another Meren that already has some counters to work with.
2. I've had something of a hobby lately in trying to write a computer script that can goldfish (or eventually play against an opponent with some interaction) games, in order to generate a huge dataset and compare through Magic's variance rather than rely on a very small and volatile sample size. I've applied the principal to two decks so far, Legacy Burn and Modern Knightfall. This approach doesn't work for Nic Fit because the deck isn't linear enough (all of the decisions in tutoring makes cards like Diabolic Intent and GSZ a nightmare to try and calculate fast enough to maintain a decent runtime on the script) , but my approach with other decks has shown me something interesting that I think crosses over which is that the optimal number of lands is much higher than typically believed. In my Knightfall deck for example the optimal mana count ended up being 28 lands 0 manadorks (the typical accepted number for that deck is 23/4). Obviously with 28 lands this means several lands need to also function as spells so that you have some insurance against flood. Now, it's just a guess on my part and I'm not advocating that many lands here because Veteran Explorer and Top are both additional factors to consider but I'm confident enough that I would put money on the optimal land count for Nic Fit being 24-25 rather than 22-23. What do people think about adding a few lands like Tabernacle (slows opponent, asymmetrical since we have excess mana, sac outlet) and Volrath's Stronghold to the deck alongside say 1 Crop Rotation to effectively double up on the tool box?
3. Related to #2, in my Knightfall deck results I saw something extremely interesting, 61-63 card decks were performing equally well to 60 card decks. In some cases the fastest configuration was above 60 cards and in other cases it was close. In all cases there were 61+ card decks that performed within the margin of error (we're talking within 0.01 average win turn, over 250,000+ games per configuration). My explanation for this is that having the chance of drawing a needed card is worth the added inconsistency of going over 60, and tutors/top make this happen even more often. I bring this up here because it's quite popular for Nic Fit to run 61 cards already but I'm wondering if we're actually not going high enough with 61. At 62 cards, your extra card is probably a land, which would mean 63 cards would be the next spot to try. Has this ever been seriously considered?
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I like Meren a lot, and also don't mind the idea of exceeding 60 cards (though most people cringe at the idea).
Is Karador, Ghost Chieftain still of interest?
Could we put together a flow chart (similar to the Chains of Mephistopheles flow chart http://imgur.com/gallery/UBs6lD9) for Meren, because on Cockatrice, almost nobody understands the freaking card, and it gets irritating explaining it over and over again, not only online, but I expect in person it is similarly annoying.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brael
A couple random questions I had:
3. Related to #2, in my Knightfall deck results I saw something extremely interesting, 61-63 card decks were performing equally well to 60 card decks. In some cases the fastest configuration was above 60 cards and in other cases it was close. In all cases there were 61+ card decks that performed within the margin of error (we're talking within 0.01 average win turn, over 250,000+ games per configuration). My explanation for this is that having the chance of drawing a needed card is worth the added inconsistency of going over 60, and tutors/top make this happen even more often. I bring this up here because it's quite popular for Nic Fit to run 61 cards already but I'm wondering if we're actually not going high enough with 61. At 62 cards, your extra card is probably a land, which would mean 63 cards would be the next spot to try. Has this ever been seriously considered?
It's a good point, honestly. Going up more cards doesn't hurt our percentages much, but it still does. It's worth trying.
I was supposed to go to a larger tournament Saturday, but stuff came up, so I won't be testing my life. Boo.
-Matt
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
RUG/BUG/Grixis delver decks seem to be increasing exponentially at my LGS. I'm currently only at 50/50 success rate (25 matches or so) with the deck listed below, so I assume I'm doing something wrong. In G2 I take out 1xPruths, 1xMeren, 1xSylvan and 1xEternal Witness (they all go anti-gy in g2) and I bring in 2xCarpets, 1xChoke and another Toxic Deluge. What would you do?
//21 Lands
1 Bayou
3 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Plains
1 Savannah
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Taiga
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
//25 Spells
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Diabolic Intent
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Painful Truths
4 Path to Exile
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vindicate
//15 Creatures
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
4 Veteran Explorer
//Sideboard
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Choke
//^^ always lots of islands in the room
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
// ^^ Elves and Storm
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
// ^^ blue combos galore
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
// ^^ Lands and combo galore
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage
// ^^ Tezz, MUD and Vial
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
// ^^ anyCreatures.dec
SB: 2 Slaughter Games
// ^^ Lands, combos, miracles
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hmmm_Really?
RUG/BUG/Grixis delver decks seem to be increasing exponentially at my LGS. I'm currently only at 50/50 success rate (25 matches or so) with the deck listed below, so I assume I'm doing something wrong. In G2 I take out 1xPruths, 1xMeren, 1xSylvan and 1xEternal Witness (they all go anti-gy in g2) and I bring in 2xCarpets, 1xChoke and another Toxic Deluge. What would you do?
I disagree with some of this logic. Sylvan is one of the best cards against Delver in general. It's a FoW bait card...and if they let you have it, you crush them in CA.
You need Pulse, Scooze #2, and Thalia (not Canonist) in the SB.
RUG -- you stop delver and goyf, that's most of their offense. By default I'd bring in 3 Surgicals. They wasteland you once they lose it for the game. Any business in the yard? Cantrips? RFG. I took out a dude's ponders AND trops (vind -> trop -> surgical on G sources). Shave 1 deed (you got more than enough removal), 1 truths, 1 Diabolic Intent (as you don't want to give up any creatures clogging up the board. My personal philosophy here. If you run Thalia over Canonist, she's a must-have.
BUG -- pain in the ass. Ride Sigarda into the sunset. If you know this is in the meta in significant numbers, you could also pack smiters/baloths/WLL or other "free into play off your opponent's discard effect" creatures. Trim lackluster spells (truths, diabolic, possibly Meren) for the team of Scooze, Thalia, Surgical. Choke is randomly good too.
Against Shardless, I trade some Veterans for Carpets to match their velocity. If they hit 3 mana, expect to see all the toys: cantrips, agent -> visions or liliana. Choke and surgical are your call here. More techy lists near me make it hard to decide on surgical because the removal and bounce packages often include miser 1x delve-instants. I don't bring in Choke against shardless because they get too much mana.
Grixis --- depends on the build. Toxic and Surgicals fo sho.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Warden
I disagree with some of this logic. Sylvan is one of the best cards against Delver in general. It's a FoW bait card...and if they let you have it, you crush them in CA.
You need Pulse, Scooze #2, and Thalia (not Canonist) in the SB.
RUG -- you stop delver and goyf, that's most of their offense. By default I'd bring in 3 Surgicals. They wasteland you once they lose it for the game. Any business in the yard? Cantrips? RFG. I took out a dude's ponders AND trops (vind -> trop -> surgical on G sources). Shave 1 deed (you got more than enough removal), 1 truths, 1 Diabolic Intent (as you don't want to give up any creatures clogging up the board. My personal philosophy here. If you run Thalia over Canonist, she's a must-have.
BUG -- pain in the ass. Ride Sigarda into the sunset. If you know this is in the meta in significant numbers, you could also pack smiters/baloths/WLL or other "free into play off your opponent's discard effect" creatures. Trim lackluster spells (truths, diabolic, possibly Meren) for the team of Scooze, Thalia, Surgical. Choke is randomly good too.
Against Shardless, I trade some Veterans for Carpets to match their velocity. If they hit 3 mana, expect to see all the toys: cantrips, agent -> visions or liliana. Choke and surgical are your call here. More techy lists near me make it hard to decide on surgical because the removal and bounce packages often include miser 1x delve-instants. I don't bring in Choke against shardless because they get too much mana.
Grixis --- depends on the build. Toxic and Surgicals fo sho.
Shardless is all about controlling Jace and Liliana. You can beat their boards since you have sweepers against light countermagic, but Liliana and Jace are more difficult. Ideally, you wipe the board and drop Sigarda. Sigarda and walkers are something that Shardless falls behind with, and tries to make up by derdling around with 2/2's that draw more cards. Rhinotime them, and save Veterans for Liliana bait, if you can. Truths helps you keep up with Visions.
Grixis is all about Rhinos. They can't remove or beat Rhino except for Gurmang Cock Gobbler. Therefore, bait Stifles and Forces with Therapies, and blow Deeds on their upkeep if possible to at least use their mana up if they have Stifle. They realistically cannot beat sweepers into Rhinos. Their only hope is Stifle and Force.
RUG is okay, but again, Stifles and quick Tarmogoyfs can kill you. If you can activate Explorer, you can get through all their conditional countermagic and goon them with Rhinos. Again, they can't beat him, except to try to outclass him with Goyf, but you have 6-8 pieces of fuck you, coupled with sweepers. Play tight and don't underestimate mana denial against your ramp deck. Watch out for Submerge.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Matt I agree with most of what you're saying but he was asking about SB and game 2/3 plans based off his list
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hmmm_Really?
RUG/BUG/Grixis delver decks seem to be increasing exponentially at my LGS. I'm currently only at 50/50 success rate (25 matches or so) with the deck listed below, so I assume I'm doing something wrong. In G2 I take out 1xPruths, 1xMeren, 1xSylvan and 1xEternal Witness (they all go anti-gy in g2) and I bring in 2xCarpets, 1xChoke and another Toxic Deluge. What would you do?
First off I'd run PtEs, they shine in those MUs (especially when you run into the zombie fish). Second, I'd switch some of my duals for more fetch and basics. Fuck Wasteland. It should be ignored, not dealt with. That's part of what makes this deck so good. Just hit yourself on the fingers everytime you fetch a dualland until you stop doing it, more often than not (and yes, I'm the crazy person with the 10 fetchlands) you really don't need a dual. All it takes is a little bit of planning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brael
1. How do people feel about a second Meren? I haven't had a chance to play much Legacy lately but in the back of my mind I've kept a comment Ralf (think that's the right user) made several months ago about lowering the curve of the deck. It was something I agreed with in general, this deck levels out around 4-5 mana usually, which means the largest thing you can GSZ super consistently is a 4 drop. This may be heresy but how do people feel about excluding the 6 drops, and even the 5 drops changing what is usually the Sigarda slot for a 2nd Meren? Sigarda could still have a place in the sideboard but I think I might like the G1 Meren plan more and then in G2 where GY hate might come in, take it out entirely for something big and strong on it's own like Sigarda. Part of me really likes the idea of putting down a Meren, building some counters, making the opponent go through the trouble of removing it, and then being able to get another Meren that already has some counters to work with.
@Meren no. 2: If you want to do that, do yourself a favor and run Fierce Empath + Karador, Ghost Chieftain. It doesn't come up often but when it does, it's the shit. Under no circumstance drop Sigarda from your list. It's the baddest bitch in the deck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brael
2. I've had something of a hobby lately in trying to write a computer script that can goldfish (or eventually play against an opponent with some interaction) games, in order to generate a huge dataset and compare through Magic's variance rather than rely on a very small and volatile sample size. I've applied the principal to two decks so far, Legacy Burn and Modern Knightfall. This approach doesn't work for Nic Fit because the deck isn't linear enough (all of the decisions in tutoring makes cards like Diabolic Intent and GSZ a nightmare to try and calculate fast enough to maintain a decent runtime on the script) , but my approach with other decks has shown me something interesting that I think crosses over which is that the optimal number of lands is much higher than typically believed. In my Knightfall deck for example the optimal mana count ended up being 28 lands 0 manadorks (the typical accepted number for that deck is 23/4). Obviously with 28 lands this means several lands need to also function as spells so that you have some insurance against flood. Now, it's just a guess on my part and I'm not advocating that many lands here because Veteran Explorer and Top are both additional factors to consider but I'm confident enough that I would put money on the optimal land count for Nic Fit being 24-25 rather than 22-23. What do people think about adding a few lands like Tabernacle (slows opponent, asymmetrical since we have excess mana, sac outlet) and Volrath's Stronghold to the deck alongside say 1 Crop Rotation to effectively double up on the tool box?
I've had a similar pet project a couple of years back. Do you take into account different colours of mana and fetch/duallands (and determining what lands to fetch based on the card you'll most likely want to play next)..? And what sample size did you use?
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Just popping in quick to say that shaving Vets vs Shardless is definitely incorrect. The easiest way to beat Shardless that I've found is to play/zenith like 3 Explorers into play and then just ram your mana advantage down their throat.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arianrhod
Just popping in quick to say that shaving Vets vs Shardless is definitely incorrect. The easiest way to beat Shardless that I've found is to play/zenith like 3 Explorers into play and then just ram your mana advantage down their throat.
Agreed, I never shave them.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
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Originally Posted by
sdematt
Agreed, I never shave them.
That's the manly way of going about things.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
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Originally Posted by
sdematt
Agreed, I never shave them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
That's the manly way of going about things.
Dr Pol would also agree.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
I've had a similar pet project a couple of years back. Do you take into account different colours of mana and fetch/duallands (and determining what lands to fetch based on the card you'll most likely want to play next)..? And what sample size did you use?
No. In order to maximize runtime I was simplifying where possible. Part of that means assuming rainbow lands. I'm in the process of implementing fetchlands now. They can't really be added until most of a decks skeleton is known however because adding additional card choices to a pool dramatically increases the permutations of decks you have to compute. For example lets say I take a pool of 40 rainbow lands, 40 grizzly bears, and 40 lightning bolts, there are 64,000 possible options there (though a large number of those will be below 60 cards and thus not get tested). On the other hand lets say I cut the lands in half and test 20 fetch, 20 rainbow land, 40 bears, 40 bolts. That's 640,000 possible options which results in a 10 fold increase of the runtime.
This meant fetches have been pretty low on my priority list. I suspect that adding fetches may increase the number of suggested lands by 1, but that has yet to be proven.
Colored mana I have no interest in trying to compute. My goal with the project is to find optimal deck structures, more traditional deck building methods still need to be in place when you're looking at things like your color mana curve along side colored mana requirements. As such, I'm of the opinion that rainbow lands are the best option. They don't involve any logic in tapping for colors, and properly thought out deck construction and foresight in game in fetching the appropriate colors as needed can deliver the same result without any computational overhead.
I've used many different sample sizes depending on what I was testing for any given run, anything from 5000 to 250,000 games per deck permutation. My largest run before I shut it down to rework everything and try to add some interaction from an opponent (a task that has now been sidelined for weeks as homework I've been neglecting has piled up) was 50,000 games per deck across just under 5000 deck permutations using a 13? card pool. The long, long term goal (summer project) is that I can let the simulator eventually run on a spare computer that acts as my webserver, and that after a few weeks I'll have a database of billions of games played out step by step to run various queries on, alongside a front end form for anyone to access the DB. Those games won't quite be at the quality of say LSV vs Finkel, but certain trends can definitely be seen from that many matches.
If you want to know anything more about it just ask, I like talking about the project a lot, but a PM would probably be best as it has little to do with Nic Fit beyond some general deck composition observations I've found from it (that I've since been trying out in every deck I play).
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Yeah, we'll continue this in PM.
Also... Here's a little something I'm considering having made:
http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...e469347968.jpg
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
wow that's hilarious.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Glissa, the Traitor
3 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sun Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Painful Truths
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vindicate
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Sylvan Library
1 Recurring Nightmare
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Taiga
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
//sb
2 Slaughter Games
2 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Krosan Grip
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Engineered Plague
On this for Mythic tomorrow. I think the Post version needs more time to come together -- there's just too many questions right now and not enough time to properly test and answer them.
EE over Deluge #2 maindeck is a concession to the Glissa. I wanted to have something other than Top to get back with her, and the loop she forms with EE is actually faintly degenerate. Courtesy of the Taiga for Slaughters, we can actually get to 4 colors, as well, which is nice. In the abstract I would rather have the second Deluge, but at the point at which I want Glissa main, I think the EE is worth having. I could be talked into siding Glissa and EE in exchange for Deluge #2 and either Sorin or Wurmcoil going maindeck.
The only other thing on my mind with this list at the moment is if I want to try to open two slots main for a pair of Decays, which would put me to 8 maindeck removal spells. I kind of want to, but it'd cost me Qasali and probably Sylvan, which is a steep price. Alternatively -Glissa -EE -Qasali +Deluge +2 Decay is another option, and then open a sideboard slot for the Glissa/EE package.
Regardless, I'm somewhere within a couple cards of this. I'm comfortable going to 2 Slaughters with the addition of the Surgicals.
Side topic on the Slaughters: what are everyone's thoughts on boarding in Slaughters vs Eldrazi, to name Reality Smasher and possibly Endbringer? Very not sure if worth, just an idea that I wanted to toss out.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Is anyone else other than Warden siding in surgical extractions against delver decks??
Have I been missing out on some well known tech?
It doesn't seem so great. Don't tell me it's because you want to vindicate their land, is it because they run so few threats that preventing them from drawing the remaining three delvers/goyfs in their deck is legitimate play?
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jain_Mor
Is anyone else other than Warden siding in surgical extractions against delver decks??
Have I been missing out on some well known tech?
It doesn't seem so great. Don't tell me it's because you went to vindicate their land, is it because they run so few threats that preventing them from drawing the remaining three delvers/goyfs in their deck is legitimate play?
Surgical can hit something important for them specifically in that game. It does change per game, but i have won a lot of times cus i either remove their Bolt's while on low life and when the board was going in my favor. Also if they Brainstorm or Ponder and don't shuffle you can screw up their day. Untap and then Cabal Therapy. Surgical not only removes cards, it also gives a forced shuffle and information on their hand. Disrupt their tempo, as you will.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Right, but is that any good? Is it worth a slot? I guess if you have lots of cards to side out it can come in..
But what are typically taking out of your deck to make room for extraction?
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I have never and would never side in Surgicals against anything other than Combo, and loam based decks. The card is for sure not worth it against delver decks or shardless. Just play a normal game against those types of decks and dont bring in cards that are mediocre at best and a total blank at worst. I cannot imagine most nic fit decks have enough dead cards against aggro/midrange decks that you are bring them in.
Vet should never come out against shardless. Vet is the best way to turn the game. The longer the game drags out before Nic fit can land a bomb the more likely it is that Shardless will build up a board that can either win through a deed/sweeper and a single threat. Shaving a therapy or 2 is usually fine because even landing a vet will sometimes give you the time but removing them all together is not a good idea. Insurance against lily is also nice late game as aside from Sigarda losing your bombs to lily can happen.
@Ralf- I just took a look at your sigged bug lists. Both intrigued me. I'll pick one to work on and post a list. Thanks! I am a fan of probe but it does run up the card space issue.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I just put the Surgicals in the deck for the first time since like, RTR was in standard. I haven't decided if I'm going to try to board them in vs Delver or not -- they are effective at hitting their reach, dicking their "Brainstorm in response to your Therapy HURRRR" lines, and punishing their low number of wincons (Therapying away a Young Pyro and then surgicaling it is pretty backbreaking, I think).
That does not mean I have any idea what I'm taking out.
In the list I just posted, I'd probably want to go:
+2 Seize
+1 Deluge
+1 Sorin
-1 Sun Titan
-1 Nightmare
-1 Meren
-1 Qasali
I guess I could -2 Painful Truths -1 Nissa for +3 Surgicals. Not sure if that's actually better, but it might be.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom4ik
I have never and would never side in Surgicals against anything other than Combo, and loam based decks. The card is for sure not worth it against delver decks or shardless. Just play a normal game against those types of decks and dont bring in cards that are mediocre at best and a total blank at worst. I cannot imagine most nic fit decks have enough dead cards against aggro/midrange decks that you are bring them in.
Vet should never come out against shardless. Vet is the best way to turn the game. The longer the game drags out before Nic fit can land a bomb the more likely it is that Shardless will build up a board that can either win through a deed/sweeper and a single threat. Shaving a therapy or 2 is usually fine because even landing a vet will sometimes give you the time but removing them all together is not a good idea. Insurance against lily is also nice late game as aside from Sigarda losing your bombs to lily can happen.
@Ralf- I just took a look at your sigged bug lists. Both intrigued me. I'll pick one to work on and post a list. Thanks! I am a fan of probe but it does run up the card space issue.
Tom, I have a question for you, inspired by Brael's posts of late. Maybe the answer to BUG's card space issue is to just go to 64/65 cards (pending 60 vs 61), and just ADD the 4 Probes on top of whatever other list. They replace themselves, so you're not ACTUALLY adding to the number of cards in your deck. You would be hurting yourself a bit more under this paradigm since you would essentially be operating under the assumption that you're always paying life for them, so you'd probably have to add more lifegain -- but it's worth thinking about.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arianrhod
List
The other day you mentioned that the more removal you run, the more trouble you had winning. Would you want to elaborate? Also doesn't the low removal count scare ya, make you soft to stuff?
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bobmans
The other day you mentioned that the more removal you run, the more trouble you had winning. Would you want to elaborate? Also doesn't the low removal count scare ya, make you soft to stuff?
I like sweepers quite a bit, actually. There's 6 sweepers in that list, with another in the board. I favor sweep over spot, because of the inherent card advantage. Admittedly I'm a bit less harsh on spot removal than I once was, with the advent of Painful Truths giving us actual CA to make up for spending our time 1-for-1ing, but it's still not a game that I want to play. It favors the blue decks too much.
With a deck like Nic Fit, I tremendously prefer having modal spells: things that generate advantage and are rarely useless. Path to Exile is basically hot garbage against Miracles, but Engineered Explosives, for example, is still great. Deluge is the worst card in the deck vs Miracles (aside from Therapy/Explorer), and even then, it can clean up Mentor where spot removal cannot.
Decay tends to get a bit of a pass on that in my estimation, because of being uncounterable and because it's also a naturalize/can kill planeswalkers. This is also why I like Vindicate and Pulse, but wouldn't run a Terror/Doom Blade/Dismember/etc. My problem with Decay at the moment is that it's often very mana inefficient for what it's trying to kill, and the artifacts and enchantments that you care about, you can clean up with K.Grip out of the board. Like, vs Delver, let's say they open on Delver, on the play (not uncommon). We have to make two lands drops to kill it. Even assuming we have other plays on 1, they're massively ahead by the time we kill it -- and then they use their turn 3 to play one or two more threats to replace the Delver, while we still have an empty board and a threatened life total. I'd rather use my life total as a resource a bit, sweep away multiple threats, and then regain life with Rhino and Baneslayer into a win.
Again: that's not to say that the spot removal + card draw plan can't work -- it's been great for blue decks for as long as magic has existed, after all -- but it's not somewhere that I typically want to be.
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Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arianrhod
I like sweepers quite a bit, actually. There's 6 sweepers in that list, with another in the board. I favor sweep over spot, because of the inherent card advantage. Admittedly I'm a bit less harsh on spot removal than I once was, with the advent of Painful Truths giving us actual CA to make up for spending our time 1-for-1ing, but it's still not a game that I want to play. It favors the blue decks too much.
With a deck like Nic Fit, I tremendously prefer having modal spells: things that generate advantage and are rarely useless. Path to Exile is basically hot garbage against Miracles, but Engineered Explosives, for example, is still great. Deluge is the worst card in the deck vs Miracles (aside from Therapy/Explorer), and even then, it can clean up Mentor where spot removal cannot.
Decay tends to get a bit of a pass on that in my estimation, because of being uncounterable and because it's also a naturalize/can kill planeswalkers. This is also why I like Vindicate and Pulse, but wouldn't run a Terror/Doom Blade/Dismember/etc. My problem with Decay at the moment is that it's often very mana inefficient for what it's trying to kill, and the artifacts and enchantments that you care about, you can clean up with K.Grip out of the board. Like, vs Delver, let's say they open on Delver, on the play (not uncommon). We have to make two lands drops to kill it. Even assuming we have other plays on 1, they're massively ahead by the time we kill it -- and then they use their turn 3 to play one or two more threats to replace the Delver, while we still have an empty board and a threatened life total. I'd rather use my life total as a resource a bit, sweep away multiple threats, and then regain life with Rhino and Baneslayer into a win.
Again: that's not to say that the spot removal + card draw plan can't work -- it's been great for blue decks for as long as magic has existed, after all -- but it's not somewhere that I typically want to be.
Thanks for the answer. I am very curious how things will work out for you tomorrow. Good luck to you.
