[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

The only reason I play Modern is because of better player support in the area. Most of the people that comprised the Legacy scene eventually sold out of their collections and just dumped it into Modern as the Eternal format of choice. No stores in the area or surrounding areas supported Legacy anyway. But, a few have started to slowly buy back in.

That wasn't the point of my post though, lol. I ran the Punishing Nic Fit a couple weekends ago to a 2-2 finish. Technically 1-2 since a had a bye, but I misplayed against Burn in the 3rd game and that cost me. I then played against some variant of Storm and lost in a quick 0-2 fashion. I then beat my friend on Merfolk to finish 9th. I found the deck enjoyable and I plan to stick with it for the time being and improve my play with it. Currently picking up some Savannah's and Scrubland's so I can convert to Junk if need be.

I tried to find a "I win" combo similar to Scapeshift for the Junk build for a while. I'm still not sure but I would like to hear your opinion on this.

Theoretically Leyline of the Void would do some interesting things at the moment - from destroying Dredge/Reanimator to hindering Storm to mess with Dig through Time.

Do you think the time/meta is right for trying a Leyline-Helm combo approach? Based on a Junk shell with Rhinos and including 1-2 Enlightened Tutor for Deed/Helm/Leyline.

All in all it is about 5-7 slots that would instantly improve certain combo MU but gnaw on the consistency of the overall NicFit approach.

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Originally Posted by Tom4ik

@tilzinger -Legacy has 2 decks that destroy everything else? Which? miracles that had 0 Top 8 and 5 Top 32? Omni-tell? grixis/4C delver that just recently became a big thing? Btw, I see you are in Mpls, what stores do you play in for legacy?

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Maybe I was a bit over zealous with that statement, but I was just thinking about miracles.

I haven't played legacy at a store yet, but when I do it'll be Meadhall. We just got a new puppy so she is taking up nearly all my free time right now. I play modern at Tower b/c its a mile away and they only do 3 matches instead of 4, so I'm home by 9pm.

Has anyone who plays junk tried adding 4 Gitaxian Probes as the only blue splash? I don't own a Tropical Forest, so a Breeding Pool will have to do for now, but with 3 Rhino's and a Swagtusk the life loss should be easily offset for better Therapies and a bit more gas. I'm going to play around with this with some friends and see how it does.

I honestly think the Nicfit shell is (at least right now, if we go back to Maverick vs Rug decks its all good again) is at a disadvantage in the format due to how it plays out. It is a board control deck in a format where most of the powerful/fast combo decks are stack based. This already leads to a hard match up. The main form of interaction most of the decks in this thread have for game 1 is of course the discard, which does not really help unless you can win or set up a lock. Junk builds have the hate bear tactic. So discard into canonis, teeg, etc might be enough. Having a real way to win early or even as Bruizar was mentioning with reanimating a fatty like Iona or Grisel is where I think I want to be. I think if you want to play control in legacy CB/Top is something you need.

I am not sure of all the possible compact combos but the leyline/helm plan is interesting. It does give you a way to win on turn 3 with double therapy. Even without opening on leyline you can still race some of the omni hands if you have vet. If you still play tower you can also just turn 2 someone which would be hilarious out of nicfit. There would both be a junk version (where you get access to Etutor and better backup plan of rhino) or Bug (Force would make it more palatable to tap out for 4 mana sorcery speed stuff, plus the cantrips). This is very interesting.

The other card that came to mind for me was panoptic mirror. Obviously that would be a win with a timewalk effect ala time vault. I do feel this could easily become a rabbit hole of suboptimal cards but its an interesting thought experiment for me if nothing else.

I do not actually own any helms so I will be unable to test any of that tonight.

Edit-@Tilzinger - Mead hall has a great legacy group of regulars that usually show up. The field is pretty diverse. Last week was the first week they moved back to cash and it was short notice but we got 13 ppl for it. (cash was up to $80 back). 2-1-1 is money back so a lot of ppl who are 2-1 by round 4 do draw to just get their cash back and head home at 9. I have been playing there for 2 years and the meta is very good. Last week we had 1 miracles, 2 cloudpost, 1 mud, 1 storm, 1 omni, 1 grixis, 1 burn, 1 belcher, Me (bug nicfit) and a few others.
Edit2- If you come out there and need a trop I do have a 1 that is not in my deck right now. Would just need it back by the end of the night.

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Originally Posted by Tom4ik

I honestly think the Nicfit shell is (at least right now, if we go back to Maverick vs Rug decks its all good again) is at a disadvantage in the format due to how it plays out. It is a board control deck in a format where most of the powerful/fast combo decks are stack based. This already leads to a hard match up. The main form of interaction most of the decks in this thread have for game 1 is of course the discard, which does not really help unless you can win or set up a lock. Junk builds have the hate bear tactic. So discard into canonis, teeg, etc might be enough. Having a real way to win early or even as Bruizar was mentioning with reanimating a fatty like Iona or Grisel is where I think I want to be. I think if you want to play control in legacy CB/Top is something you need.

I am not sure of all the possible compact combos but the leyline/helm plan is interesting. It does give you a way to win on turn 3 with double therapy. Even without opening on leyline you can still race some of the omni hands if you have vet. If you still play tower you can also just turn 2 someone which would be hilarious out of nicfit. There would both be a junk version (where you get access to Etutor and better backup plan of rhino) or Bug (Force would make it more palatable to tap out for 4 mana sorcery speed stuff, plus the cantrips). This is very interesting.

The other card that came to mind for me was panoptic mirror. Obviously that would be a win with a timewalk effect ala time vault. I do feel this could easily become a rabbit hole of suboptimal cards but its an interesting thought experiment for me if nothing else.

I do not actually own any helms so I will be unable to test any of that tonight.

Edit-@Tilzinger - Mead hall has a great legacy group of regulars that usually show up. The field is pretty diverse. Last week was the first week they moved back to cash and it was short notice but we got 13 ppl for it. (cash was up to $80 back). 2-1-1 is money back so a lot of ppl who are 2-1 by round 4 do draw to just get their cash back and head home at 9. I have been playing there for 2 years and the meta is very good. Last week we had 1 miracles, 2 cloudpost, 1 mud, 1 storm, 1 omni, 1 grixis, 1 burn, 1 belcher, Me (bug nicfit) and a few others.
Edit2- If you come out there and need a trop I do have a 1 that is not in my deck right now. Would just need it back by the end of the night.

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I'll warn you off Panoptic Mirror. I actually tried that a couple years ago, it was god awful.

Helm/Line has been something I've been tinkering with on and off because it has two strengths:

-) Combo finish, which we've seen from Scape is very strong
-) Leyline is just naturally good atm, because it shuts off Dig Through Time and friends

Here's the problem with Helm/line: Extra leylines are AWFUL. Junk has nothing to do with extra Leylines at all, you just have to eat them when you draw them. BUG can Brainstorm them away, and can also consider running Perilous Research to ditch extras that were in opening hand -- but at that point, you're putting enough more cards into the already unstable BUG shell that the whole thing just collapses. Well, unstable might be the wrong word -- there problem I've always had with BUG is that there's too many cards I want to run, and trying to squeeze in Helm/line on top of that is just really hard.

@Tom: here's an interesting idea for you. What about actual Veteran Reanimator? I'm imagining a sequence as such:

t1 Vet or Therapy, go.
t2 Vet or Therapy, flashback, entomb, reanimate with 1 mana untapped for like Flusterestorm or some shit

Depending on what you're reanimating, Veteran opens up the possibility for strong backup plans like just casting your fatties (Griselbrand for sure, Iona isn't going to happen, but even casting a couple of them is pretty good). Reanimator's been dabbling with Titan territory lately (Grave to beat Liliana and Primeval to fetch up dark depths), which was our territory first anyway. We can also run our bestie Thrag to gain life for more reanimates.

I have no idea what the list would look like, you just put the idea into my head and I'm spitballing. The idea doesn't actually sound awful on the face of it.

Arianrhod, yea I kind of figured panoptic would be just not good enough. Something about it just feels powerful though. I am certainly realistic with this deck though so ill throw that to the back burner for now.

Leyline helm I feel is viable. We have to figure a few things out before I would run it though. One is what do we do with extra copies, bug has brainstorm and probably jace. I would also guess liliana might be there as well which would provide an outlet as well. Junk is kind of SOL so I would guess you either go on the turbo plan of 4 leyline or I might even think RIP is better. Yes you lose value on vets but I think the idea would be sac vet into RIP next turn helm win. If I was junk I think I would actually skip leyline UNLESS we are brewing for maindeck where we would not probably want a Rip helm version.

Bug reanimator is a bit trickier as the cards aside from the targets (and those too probably) are lot more varied in terms of options. One thing I do want to bring up is that 2 card combos are slightly more risky in a deck like nicfit that already wants certain cards in hand. For example, If we have 2 land, vet, explorer, entomb, reanimate, fluster it is a very specific hand with no room for error. What I am getting at is we already want to have vet therapy and a few lands. I would prefer an engine that is more self contained. Smth like where if you have gifts in hand its only 1 card but it accomplishes the same thing. I am not sure gifts is actually good enough but the intuition idea has me thinking about that.

I do like what you said about the fact that some of the fatty options are hard castable.

Maybe they will unban Bargain? Lol, I mean they let us have 1 that already comes with a 7/7 body.

If you go back a few pages in this thread, I have shared some ideas about a GB Rea Fit list.

I have pondered a lot and unfortunately, there is no space for funky huge monsters unless you have a strong way to discard them or to put back them in the library and even then, I think it would be better to play a standard Reanimator list.

I tried to make a BUG version of a Rea Fit list but eventually failed to it.

Anyway, here are some food for thoughts (that has been tested):

- Prime Titan + DD combo is gross, but it works. Titan remains castable and the synergy with DD+Stage was pretty obvious. Not to mention that reanimating Prime Titan in a deck such as Nic Fit is Xmas in June.

- Uncastable stuff (with CMC > 7) "off color" does not work properly:
1) Dropped Iona
2) Dropped Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3) Griselbrand was castable 1 game out of 20
4) Massacre wurm was castable 10/20
5) Elderscale wurm was castable 10/20
6) Grave Titan is also a very strong option

- Reanimating Prime Titan as your first target is what makes the deck work. Period.

- Two towers + crop rotation are needed to go really "unfair" with super speed and super reliability

- Entomb + loam has a lot of power as well.


The Rea idea is certainly a good one but when I looked into it I hadn't much time to make it works.

Keep us posted anyway !

Here is the latest list we have come up with (6 / 12 months ago):

Rea Fit

1 Dark Depths
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
3 Swamp
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
5 Forest

1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Genesis
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Wickerbough Elder
2 Primeval Titan
4 Veteran Explorer

1 Engineered Explosives

1 Recurring Nightmare

2 Pernicious Deed

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Life from the Loam
3 Reanimate
4 Green Sun's Zenith

SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 3 Natural Order
SB: 4 Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 Thoughtseize

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

In case anyone was curious, I did not play legacy at Eternal Weekend and just jammed a bunch of vintage instead. Firepaw was present and on the same plan; I don't know who all else was in attendance, but I'm sure a couple of you made and I didn't know.

Got crushed personally, but the 2nd place finisher in the vintage main event is a friend of mine who was using my exact 76. Randy Buehler gushing on stream about Mikokoro for 10 minutes straight entirely my fault -- you can bless me or curse me for that; both options are probably valid in roughly equal measures.

Not sure how Firepaw did in the main, although I do know he was running pretty hot on the weekend whenever I talked to him. We also jammed vintage for like 3 hours Saturday morning and he had Library on the draw at least 60% of his games, so I'm guessing he did fine.

He was on Prodigy Gifts and I was on my Thieves, ofc.

Hopefully I'll see more of you at Eternal Weekend playing vintage next year -- and, of course, hopefully I'll / we'll actually be playing legacy regularly again by then. I don't even care what changes happen in this format at the moment as long as -something- changes.

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Ended 5-2 in the qualifier (17th on breakers :/) and 6-4 in the main, started 6-2 and then it fell apart
Super happy with the deck, just need to find a better answer to shops decks

Did my weekly at Mead Hall. I do not believe they were streaming last night, tech problems I believe. Anyway, went 3-0 and then drew with my buddy round 4 so we could go as it was already late and he was on a UWr landstill brew that we knew would probably take forever.

Beat reanimator in 2. Stole game 1 off probe therapy vet into turbo jace fateseal. I bring in surgical, negate, ooze and a TS

Beat enchantress in 2. Turn 2 Lily, Turn 3 Jace game 1. Game 2 I had no right to win but then I draw notion thief and my mull to 5 with a bunch of lands is ok. I actually deed for 2 here to leave him with an enchant presence to keep my "draw engine" going.

Beat Dnt in 2. Deed did things to him both games.

I was already brewing a different Bug variant (non-explorer) but work got in the way of getting a solid list so I jammed this and didnt drop a game. List does not feel optimal though.

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Originally Posted by Tom4ik

Game 2 I had no right to win but then I draw notion thief and my mull to 5 with a bunch of lands is ok. I actually deed for 2 here to leave him with an enchant presence to keep my "draw engine" going.

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That's hilarious!

Nice result, too!

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Originally Posted by Ralf

If you go back a few pages in this thread, I have shared some ideas about a GB Rea Fit list.

- Prime Titan + DD combo is gross, but it works. Titan remains castable and the synergy with DD+Stage was pretty obvious. Not to mention that reanimating Prime Titan in a deck such as Nic Fit is Xmas in June.

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I really like this play. All of a sudden you put your opponent in the awkward position of having to answer a 20/20 as well as a primieval titan. Neither can be ignored for more than one turn.

Just ended playing with friends my punishingfit at kitchen table.
First of all junk is more funfriendly than punishing fit... especially when you can't side veterans for carpets... no blue deck's :(
Rhino, showrds/path, elspeth, knight errant rocks in funplay.


I'm totally thinking about changing kessig wolf run for DD+stage (with main primetime) especially when playing with friends.

So I'm pretty much decided to play this reanimator version brew at Mythic on Saturday -- if it's not viable, I'll just fall flat on my face and go 0-3 and hang with friends the rest of the day, so I'm not exactly too worried about it, and then we'll know.

Here's what I'm at for the moment:

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan
1 Primeval Titan
1
1 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Bullshit

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Show and Tell

4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

1 Recurring Nightmare

1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island

Sideboard will include an Elesh Norn, a Life from the Loam, and 13 other cards.

There's one open fatty slot maindeck for something that I haven't figured out yet. Shaving a Show and Tell is also possible, but I'm not sure what else I'm missing. This is also 60 cards because of the much more combo oriented nature of the deck and the degree to which it wants certain things in its opening hand.

Thoughts and suggestions, please! We have a day to get this thing into first draft status so it can be jammed on Saturday.

Anyone tried the new Nissa yet? Seems very good...

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Thoughts and suggestions, please! We have a day to get this thing into first draft status so it can be jammed on Saturday.

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I'd stick Elesh Norn in the last reanimation/S&T target slot. It just crushes anyDelver.dec/D&T/Elves/Dredge/Maverick/anything-playing-creatures and lets you turn games around instantly, even if your opponent manages to get rid of it quickly.

Blazing Archon might also be worth running in that slot (or in the SB), since you can expect to be behind on board state by the time you pull off your trick (or just want the ability to turn games 180 degrees vs. opponents that can't get rid of it). Upside of Archon is that it isn't a legend, so you get to ignore Karakas. I've found that to be quite important on a number of occasions.

You might also want to try and run a singleton Diabolic Intent. It can get either part of the trick. If you do, also put a Dryad Arbor in your manabase though, probably instead of a Bayou. Diabolically lets you fetch the body you need to feed the Intent.

It's too bad you don't have room for GSZ, Fierce Empath lets you tutor the fatty you need for S&T and after that is free to be fed to Intent, which either fetches a Cabal Therapy so you can discard said fatty for the reanimation spell you already had in hand, or the S&T you need to plop down the freshly tutored fatty.

I can see the reanimator version to play out very different compared to basic nicfit approaches.
Especially the things to name with therapy are really depending on which one of your 3 plans to get out a fatty you follow.

That said... S&T is in an awkward spot and I think that 2 would be a better number. Instead increase the amount of library manipulation. Without tops you depent heavily on Brainstorms and/or topdecks. 2+ Ponder should be right.

Also you are not very interactive. Aaand LilianaOTV wants to come to the party - don't you think?

But tbh this list is so far away from any NicFit thing I ever played that I can not say how it will do :).

Good Luck!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

So I'm pretty much decided to play this reanimator version brew at Mythic on Saturday -- if it's not viable, I'll just fall flat on my face and go 0-3 and hang with friends the rest of the day, so I'm not exactly too worried about it, and then we'll know.

Here's what I'm at for the moment:

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan
1 Primeval Titan
1
1 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Bullshit

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Show and Tell

4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

1 Recurring Nightmare

1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island

Sideboard will include an Elesh Norn, a Life from the Loam, and 13 other cards.

There's one open fatty slot maindeck for something that I haven't figured out yet. Shaving a Show and Tell is also possible, but I'm not sure what else I'm missing. This is also 60 cards because of the much more combo oriented nature of the deck and the degree to which it wants certain things in its opening hand.

Thoughts and suggestions, please! We have a day to get this thing into first draft status so it can be jammed on Saturday.

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This might sound a lot like MTG christmass land, however I would try to find room for 2-3 Tasigurs and 2 Birthing Pods in this list.

Poding Veteran into Jace seems worth a try, also T3 Tasigur into Iona is not that bad :D

Edit: Nevermind, Iona costs 9.. always thought it had CMC 7, but you can tutor up Rune-Scarred Demon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crush

2-3 Tasigurs and 2 Birthing Pods in this list.

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Hmm, delve creatures and Birthing Pods. Now where did I hear this plan before..? Lol

@emuhell: I've been running with an even more outlandish plan for the longest time. What happens is that you try to play out like a combo deck, more or less. During the game, you try and assemble a hand that beats your opponents'. Basically it boils down to you waiting for your opponent to tap out or for you to strip their hand entirely of countermagic/StP and then take over the game. It requires a great deal of patience and restraint, only blindly casting combo pieces/the important stuff when having multiples, to draw out/spend your opponents' interaction so you can outplay them (hopefully).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Hmm, delve creatures and Birthing Pods. Where did I hear this plan before..? Lol

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Probably from me.. I know.. I'd better shut up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crush

Probably from me.. I know.. I'd better shut up.

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Meh, I was on the same train. I even suggested Podding into Fierce Empath to fetch Tasigur :wink:.