[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

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Originally Posted by Ayotte

I loved it. I've played your BUG list in the past couple of local tournaments and I've had FoW win me a match vs. Aluren and one vs. TES. I did lose a match to ANT because of the situation you describe. I have two more local tournaments before Milwaukee where I will continue to test it out. If I don't play FoW, it's very tempting to just play Scapeshift.

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One or two pages ago someone asked why the deck doesn't play 4 Deeds and for BUG I had no answer. So I added a fourth Deed and also a 4th Decay and removed the 2 Inquisitions.

With this I think that replacing Liliana with Vendilion Clique could be good. With 4 Decay/ 4 Deed maindeck you still have a lot of Removal. The deck gets weaker against high CC creatures but there aren't many Tombstalkers at the moment. This would give more blue cards for the FoW count. The difference between 17 and 19 is quite noticeable.

I am also still undecided between Engineered Plague and Damnation. Damnation is good against Merfolk, RUG and decks with Tombstalker, Plague is good against Goblins, Elves and Dredge. Both are good against Mother of Runes + Phyrexian Revoker.

Overall I think the deck is almost perfect, just a few little adjustments are needed.

Body (Left) 3BG

Sorcery Rare

Exile target creature from a graveyard, put X +1/+1 counters on target creature. X equal to the power of target card you exiled this way.

Blood(Right) RG

Sorcery Rare

Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature or target player.

Fuse (You may cast one or both halves of this card from your hand.)


Possible wish target? It doesn't do anything that reanimate or maelstrom pulse can't already do, but they are on the same card. Seems doubtful to me.

Seems incredibly dubious, and I'm more than a tad disappointed that that's our fuse card -- at rare, nonetheless!

I mean, really? One activation of Scavenge for 3BG? =/

Making a really big dude doesn't do anything for me -- I'd rather run Reanimate and get the come-into-play triggers (and the ability to steal from your opponents' graveyard). Soul's Fire doesn't really do anything for me either. Best case you spend 2 cards and 4 mana to do 5-6 damage to something, which doesn't seem worth it.

Vralz would combo really well with Death's Shadow if there was a way to incorporate that into an aggro nic fit.

Does anyone have a recent list of the 4c rector version?

My list hasn't really changed, should be able to find it still :)

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Mainboard (60)

22 Lands
2 Bayou
1 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs

15 Creatures
3 Academy Rector
3 Baleful Strix
2 Eternal Witness
2 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Thorn


21 Other spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Diabolic Intent
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Moat
1 Omniscience
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Vindicate
1 Abrupt Decay


2 Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard (15)

1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Memoricide
1 Nether Void
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Damnation
1 Something - probably anti-Deathrite

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Finally sleeved up HoneyT's Punishing Fit (the 60 cards because I forgot the Stronghold D:). Based on a few games, this thing feels odd. My first instinct is that I want more discard and/or card draw. Probably discard, so I can get more information.

Also, I've never played an Explorer deck before - my Highlander is highly similar to Rector Fit but Explorer is just not viable in that format. I'm especially puzzled as to how you're supposed to utilize Explorers G1 vs. things like UW Miracles/Landstill or UR Delver.

@Tao,

I probably wouldn't touch Liliana in a BUG list with Jace because double black is too prohibitive, especialy if you are trying to make FoW work. Clique is a good idea for a replacement, I did play a couple of Cliques in my first attempts to BUG and it works fine.

What do you think of a split between Decay and Far // Away? I think the new card has potential in BUG Fit because it comes down fast enough, offers instant sac ability which can be lacking when Liliana is removed, and fusing the card is a small feat for Nic Fit. It can also act as a double removal spell when you are able to flash a Therapy. I also love how smooth it is to get rid of 2 attackers at the end of an opponent's turn just to slam a Jace during your own. Not only is it good to cripple your opponent, it is also great to generate value and/or save creatures when the Far portion of the spell is applied to Clique/Thragtusk/Witness/Snapcaster and the Away part on your opponent. I am looking forward to see how Far // Away will affect Nic Fit, perhaps it will enable FoW more consistently

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

What do you think of a split between Decay and Far // Away? I think the new card has potential in BUG Fit because it comes down fast enough, offers instant sac ability which can be lacking when Liliana is removed, and fusing the card is a small feat for Nic Fit. It can also act as a double removal spell when you are able to flash a Therapy. I also love how smooth it is to get rid of 2 attackers at the end of an opponent's turn just to slam a Jace during your own. Not only is it good to cripple your opponent, it is also great to generate value and/or save creatures when the Far portion of the spell is applied to Clique/Thragtusk/Witness/Snapcaster and the Away part on your opponent. I am looking forward to see how Far // Away will affect Nic Fit, perhaps it will enable FoW more consistently

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That card looks pretty sweat. Best thing I think I've seen spoiled. Each half is good, we can afford to pay the combined cost, and each half has synergistic applications for us with death triggers and ETB triggers which means it's not even completely dead vs decks that don't win via combat. Seems like a good addition to push BUG versions forward.

Tao: I spent 8 hours today jamming games vs Stoneblade and ANT with your BUG list (-3 Extraction, +2 Extirpate, +1 Thoughtseize in board) trying to see how good those matchups were compared to Scapewish. People at my LGS don't really play those decks much so I wasn't that experienced.

ANT was obviously a better matchup than with other Nic Fit lists, but the problem was, even with all of the counterspells, he was able to go off almost every game because I lack an early clock. He was boarding in Dark Confidant, which I'm not sure is normal, and it was REALLY good post-board. My clock was basically Ooze, Thrun, or Jace, and if I couldn't stick one early, that was it. I often couldn't stick one early because I needed to keep hands with counterspells and/or discard, which he was still able to fight through with his own discard and good play. Boarding for this, I was taking out the fat creatures, Deeds, and 3 Veteran Explorers for the blue cards, leaving in Abrupt Decay for the Carpet of Flowers/Bobs that he was bringing in. I don't like Explorer in this matchup because it basically just gives him a free ritual for the rest of the game, and since I was boarding out the big creatures, there wasn't really anything to ramp to.

Stoneblade seemed close to 50-50, with them favored post board. He brought in geists, and since I didn't really have much to bring in, his deck was the much better Jace deck with geist, lingering souls, and mystic. How would you board for this matchup? I always brought in 2 Extirpate and 1 Thoughtseize for 3 Abrupt Decays. I also tried boarding out Liliana or Explorers for negates. Even though it sucks to give him mana to batterskull/snapcaster/jace early, I think we need to keep in explorers because the games I won were those with Therapy/Explorer/Thrun or Thragtusk hands.

I have a feeling that my sideboard plans might have been pretty far from optimal. If they weren't, I think I'll just play Scapeshift at Milwaukee tomorrow.

Edit: Anyone at Milwaukee, I'll be in the crowd of people with the Mox Mania shirts. Come say hi.

Here is my latest attempt at BUG Nic Fit with Far // Away:


Creatures (8)
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

Spells (30)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
2 Far // Away
3 Force of Will
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Pernicious Deed

Lands (22)
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
3 Thoughtseize
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Negate
1 Force of Will
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

So I ran the following Rector list in a local 32 man today and went 2-3 so attached is a short report and the list. Any advice would be much appreciated!

The Deck

[U]Creatures[U]

4x Veteran Explorer
3x Academy Rector
2x Baneslayer Angel
2x Eternal Witness
1x Sigarda
1x Thragtusk
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Sun Titan
1x Fierce Empath
1x Starved Rusalka
1x Yosei, the Morning Star

Spells

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Pernicious Deed
2x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Garruk Relentless
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Recycle
1x Faith's Fetters
1x Moat

[U]Lands[U]
3x Forest
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
2x Plains
2x Swamp
2x Windswept Heath
2x Phyrexian Tower
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland

Sideboard

3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Extripate
1x Humility
1x Nethervoid
1x Curse of Death's Hold
1x Ifh-Biff Efreet
1x Angel of Despair
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Memoricide
1xCranial Extraction
1x Divine Intervention (this is an attempt at a super troll for some people and could be a potential emergy eject button)

Round 1 Rug Delver (0-2)

G1: On the draw I don't know what I'm up against blind therapy a brainstorm off of a bayou. Promptly draw phyrexian tower and dryad arbor and have the bayou wasted. I'm presented with a tough situation to either flashback therapy hitting his double daze and taking me to 2 lands with a pulse and rector and deed in hand to his flipped delver and mongoose. I pass up the chance and proceed to get crushed.

G2: On the play I keep a decent 7 and proceed to set of an explorer with no top end. I quickly die to triple lighting bolt and double mongeese.

Round 2: Combo Elves (Craterhoof/Natural Order variant) (2-0)

G1: The rust falls off as he opens with fetch to basic to drs. I slam top when I have both therapy and explorer in hand. His second turn he fetchs another forest and right as it dawns on me that hes playing elves, he drops glimpse. He only draws like 2 cards and I imeadietly follow with a therapy naming glimpse (hit) and see craterhoof. I then flashback on the explorer taking it. Rector shenaningans happen shortley after resulting in a moat staring down a single deathrite shaman. About 6 shuffle effects later I finally find the Garruk to grab a flyer and cause him to scoop.

G2: I keep a therpy 7 and wiff naming glimpse and see his 2 symbiotes a crop rotation and a quiron ranger. I proceed to memoricide his glimpes (hitting all 4 in his deck) and then drop moat. I find a sigarda much more quickly this game and he scoops.

Round 3 Goblins (2-0) (aka the reason why rusalka isn't getting the axe upon dragon's maze)

G1: I win the die roll and proceed to see a piledriver dropped on my face. Fortunately my hand contains all three pernicious deed. The first couple of deeds buy me enough time to finally dig for the moat staving him off with me at 6. He then matrons for siege-gang commander to my sigarda. I spin a top at the end of his turn find a fetch and not much else, however he only has 2 mountains in play so I have a turn to not die, however he is at 9 at this point and I can't push the damage through as the eternal witness is in play is grounded. So I cracked the fetch and re-spun the top finding Green Sun's Zenith. This in turn leaves me with enough mana to search for rusalka and leave 2 green up. I get it swing with sigarda, and take him to 4. He draws a card and passes. On my next attack step he attempts to kill me with me at 5 and him able to do 6 damage. Ruslaka then eats eternal witness and itself leaving me at 1 and him at -1 with the sigarda swing.

G2: I keep a solid hand of explorer, lands, deed maelstrom pulse, and empath. He doesnt have lacky so I drop explorer, which promptley gets path to exiled. Next turn I drop empath finding Sun Titan. He drops more goblins (including double piledriver) some attack happen and i drop to 12. Pernicious Deed drops and explodes. There is little backlash to the deed, which is quickly followed by Sun Titan recursion.

Round 4: Elves (0-2) (Emrakul Classic Style)

G1: He starts with an agressive hand and I immeadietly pick up on the elves plan. This time I therapy on glimpse and wiff seeing summoners pact. I then proceed to miss a couple land drops until eventually I drop a rector and sac it finding moat. This then stalls him out for a while, but eventually he finds the glimpse and I'm dead to a giant tentacle monster

G2: I use the appropriate therapy names and wiff. He ended up keeping a slow hand to which i eventually cast a nethervoid. His board state is fairly large at this time so I deploy a deed to attempt to not die, this in turn dies to his one of two abrupt decays while I'm tapped out. Eventually a Green Sun's Zenith with a total cost of 12 is dropped which leaves me a craterlike position.

Round 5: Jund (0-2)

G1: I mull to 5 as the first hand was a 1 lander and the second a no lander. I quickly die to some combination of goyf, deathrite, and bloodbraid elf.

G2: I keep a decent hand containing both moat and sigarda. Sigarda got discarded by a hymn and moat then happens. Eventually I find a deed and drop it to his double deathrite shamans and bloodbraid elf. I then drop Sun Titan with the intention of reccuring deed only to have my dreams promptly crushed by a Liliana. To put some salt in the wound, the next turn I drew Memoricide. Eventually I die to a combination of punishing fires and deathrite.

All in all it was a fine tournament and the deck handled pretty well. The main deck I've noticed I'm having trouble with is jund. The meta were several Delver decks, several Elves decks, 4 Dredge decks, and primarily Stoneblade. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Spoiler from Dragon's Maze Varolz, the Scar-Striped in combination with Phyrexian Dreadnought


I am seeing this in some kind of BUG fit list with Stifles and other stuff. Owh man how i love to see Full English Breakfast back on its feet in Legacy.

http://i.imgur.com/uikC1jL.png

@Ayotte:

- Against Stoneforge always side out Wurmcoils first. They will just get Sworded for a giant Tempo loss. Bring in Negates, too.
- When I made the SB Stoneblade was not a thing. This has changed a lot recently. So I would play with 3 Carpet of Flowers in the SB now. They are great against RUG and BUG, too. SB slots are an issue.

This would be what I would play today:

3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Creeping Tar Pit

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Damnation
4 Brainstorm
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 4 Force of Will
SB: 3 Negate
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap



Esper Stoneblade:
- 3 Veteran Explorer
- 2 Damnation
- 2 Abrupt Decay
- 2 Wurmcoil Engine
+ 3 Surgical Extraction
+ 3 Negate
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers

TES / ANT / Sneak and Tell / High Tide:
- 4 Abrupt Decay
- 4 Pernicious Deed
- 2 Damnation
- 2 Wurmcoil Engine
- 1 Thragtusk
- 1 Thrun
- 1 Swamp
+ 4 Force of Will
+ 2 Negate
+ 2 Mindbreak Trap
+ 2 Surgical Extraction
+ 0-3 Carpet of Flowers (Depending on deck. Also you might want to keep Deeds in the deck for Empty the Warrens or like you said Decay for Confidants.)

RUG:
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 2 Jace TMS
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers


BUG Delver:
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 2 Vendilion Clique
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers

BUG Control / Shardless BUG:
- it really depends on how Aggro they are; maybe side out Explorers, maybe keep them
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
+ maybe Negate

So far, 1-1 in milwaukee. Beat punishing jund and lost to sneak/show. Somebody is play eggs here. I hate them.

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Originally Posted by jbone2016

So far, 1-1 in milwaukee. Beat punishing jund and lost to sneak/show. Somebody is play eggs here. I hate them.

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1-2. Lost to trinsphere/tezz/smokestack. Very ew.

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Originally Posted by jbone2016

1-2. Lost to trinsphere/tezz/smokestack. Very ew.

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2-2 with scapewish. beat ant and stoneblade. lost to a uw standstill/counterbalance/mystic brew and combo elves. also, yeah, the eggs player doesnt only hate himself, he hates everyone in the room.

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Originally Posted by Ayotte

2-2 with scapewish. beat ant and stoneblade. lost to a uw standstill/counterbalance/mystic brew and combo elves. also, yeah, the eggs player doesnt only hate himself, he hates everyone in the room.

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Heh. 3-2 now. Beast esperblade twice

BUG Nic Fit on camera right now at SCG Milwaukee!

Anybody know if he's one of ours?

I disagree with most of his technical plays. Make him have the 2nd snapcaster g1 and if not he gets to eat the ponder and another card. Failing to get 2 lands off the 2nd titan activation. G2 his clique play, can let him use up both fetches and clique in response to activation instead of in front of the first fetch. Glad hes done well enough to get the feature match though.

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Originally Posted by jbone2016

Heh. 3-2 now. Beast esperblade twice

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4-2. beat miracles then sat next to jbone and beat ant again. i havent beaten ant more than twice with this deck in my entire life before today

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Originally Posted by Ayotte

4-2. beat miracles then sat next to jbone and beat ant again. i havent beaten ant more than twice with this deck in my entire life before today

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Good job! Keep it up guys!

lost to dredge :( slaughter games got him game 2 but leyline of the void got me game 3.

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Originally Posted by Ayotte

lost to dredge :( slaughter games got him game 2 but leyline of the void got me game 3.

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threw match 8 as hard as i could by killing my top with deed. feels real bad.

=( Shitty.

Hopefully things go well in the rest of the day for you guys -- either way, I look forward to hearing your reports / thoughts over the next few days. I'll put up my report from my top 8 at Mythic tomorrow morning, as usual.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

=( Shitty.

Hopefully things go well in the rest of the day for you guys -- either way, I look forward to hearing your reports / thoughts over the next few days. I'll put up my report from my top 8 at Mythic tomorrow morning, as usual.

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lost round 9 to a dude with a UW control deck where literally every card was miscut and every one that could be was foil. i was starstruck. Edit: found pictures

in 9 rounds i never once saw my random 1 of wurmcoil engine.

edit: i didnt have ruination and neither did the dealers or my group so i played tsunami instead. multiple games, my opponent had wastelands up and i had scapewish and burning wish but couldnt get ruination.

@Ayotte -- Ruination probably wouldn't have helped anyway, unless all of your lands in play were basics.

Okay, so Mythic report time.

I decided Friday night that I was going to YOLO and run Scapewish into Mythic's traditionally combo/PFire-heavy meta. I wasn't particularly happy about it, but I was basically loaning out the rest of my collection to various people for various decks, and my only other option was Rector -- which has a few issues, I've realized, and needs some fixing before I can play it again.

I did make a few changes.

I ended up cutting the Garruk, Primal Hunter from the main, because as a 1-of it's basically just useless, and I don't have a 2nd slot to dedicate to another copy (which would arguably be the perfect solution). I batted around a ton of different ideas of things to try, but I eventually settled on evaluating the Kessig plan, and went:

-1 Garruk
-1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
+1 Kessig Wolf Run

I then also made the sideboard change of:

-1 Collective Voyage
-1 Ruination
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Pulverize

Pulverize was LITERALLY because I just wasn't in the mood to lose to MUD/Staxxxx on Saturday. Ended up that there were 0 copies of either archetype in the room. Whoops. But hey, if I had run into it, I would have been prepared, dammit!

Thoughts at the end.

R1: Timur with Watchkeeping (the werewolf-based Dragon Stompy that's been running around lately).

This match ended up being some of the most retarded magic I've played in recent times. Game one we literally settle in with a bunch of werewolves on either side and just dance back and forth, flipping like crazy. He has a Moon on me, so I can't Scapeshift, but he also can't attack into me profitably. Eventually Deed happens, and we're off to game two.

I board in the 3rd Huntmaster...not sure what I took out.

Game two he gets me under a Chalice on 1, and then drops a Revoker naming Deed. Somewhere along the way a Moon joins the party. He can't find any pressure, though, and I had time to Wish for a Pulse to take out the Chalice, which lets me go Exploring, getting me further out from under the Moon. Somewhere along the way I reanimate my Eternal Witness to get back my Pulse to kill his Revoker, to blow Deed. I'm dead to Bonfire for several turns, but Timur floods out and I just kill him. I did have one derp moment where I forgot that he had a moon in play and thought that I had him actually just dead because of Wolf Run.....and then remembered as I swung that Wolf Run was a mountain =(

R2: Gary with RIP Miracles.

I remember this guy as playing Esperblade the last time I saw him at Mythic, so I'm content. Game one he leads with Top. I lead with Explorer to bait out a Swords, and he obliges. I ramp a bit with Tribe-Elders and Wood Elves while he Stoneforges for Batterskull. He forces something irrelevant, and I drop Deed. I manage to deed away his Batterskull at some point, but he drops RIP and Helm + activation all in the same turn. Well then.

I bring in the REBs, Slaughter Games, and the Huntmaster (in what continues a long tradition of boarding in that Huntmaster). Couple Explorers came out, as did 1x Therapy. I also boarded out the Phyrexian Tower here, because I didn't care as much with the Explorers out of the deck.

G2 He goes SFM -> Batterskull. I Burning Wish for Therapy, naming Batterskull. I Slaughter away his Helms, and then his Jaces. He can't win the game before I kill him by dropping Avenger of Zendikar, and then saccing one of the plants to Therapy away his Terminus. Classic game vs Miracles.

G3 he gets me under a quick Blood Moon. He has 1 Island and 1 Plains, so he can still do stuff, too. I had a basic Swamp after a Tribe-Elder, but no basic Forest. I end up going Burning Wish -> Reanimate -> Sakura-Tribe -> Forest. We go back and forth a bit. I Slaughter out his Helms and Jaces again, leaving him with just his Entreats (again). He has a seemingly endless stream of removal, but I eventually run him out and kill him. I purposefully never got rid of his Blood Moon, because ironically his Blood Moon probably won me the game, as he was locked off of double white. This marks the second time RIP Miracles has Mooned me and specifically lost because of it.

R3: Eli Kassis with RIP Miracles.

Moar miracles. Game one he wins the dire roll, and proceeds to go Top->RIP->pass->Helm with Force backup. Nice draw >_>

Same boarding scheme.

Game 2 I mulled to 5. I got a bit of ramp, but had no business. He had CounterTop, with a Jace in play. Eventually he started fatesealing me. I had a Scapeshift and a Therapy in hand from my opening hand, and was at 6 lands. He was within range of a 7-land shift. I played a Deed, and it managed to resolve through Counterbalance. Eventually, Eli let me keep a card on top. I deduced that it was a land, so EoT I blew Deed to get rid of Counterbalance and put a brick on top of his deck. I then untapped, drew and played my 7th land, and Therapied him, naming Counterspell since he had already Force/pitch Force earlier. I whiffed, but saw no countermagic....just a Brainstorm. I dropped the Scapeshift. He Brainstormed and didn't find a counter. Off to game three!

Game 3 he has a t1 Top t2 Counterbalance, which was a problem because I had one of those awkward "support card" hands. My Zenith@1 got blind counterbalanced, and then I was pretty much behind the 8-ball for the rest of the game. I eventually get a pair of Hunts out and am applying pressure, but he has a Helm in play and just needs to find RIP. I get him to something like 10 or 12 by the time his Top hits RIP. Rough beats =(

R4: Nick Patnode with Shardless BUG.

Nick pulls to 5 game one, and I have a nutty double Explorer -> Pyroclasm -> Scapeshift (Forced) -> Scapeshift draw.

Game two Nick sort of gets to play magic, but this matchup is so atrociously in my favor that it's never really close. I just hold the fort with ramp guys until Nick overcommits -- then Deed happens, then bad things happen.

R5: Doug McKay with U/R Delver.

I'm pretty concerned about this match going in. It's either a really good matchup, or a really bad one -- just depends on what hands I get and what hands he gets.

I have to mull away a GORGEOUS hand because it doesn't have green mana. It was something like Explorer, Tower, Thragtusk, Huntmaster, Zenith, Therapy, Mountain. I actually contemplated just raw-dogging it and hoping to get there, but I ended up being a good magic player and mulling it per the "no green mana" rule. He ends up having a ton of burn and my hand doesn't do enough to stop it.

Game two I have to mull to 5, and get a hand with a ton of ramp but nothing to ramp into. I ramp it up regardless, and am rewarded by drawing a Zenith to get Thragtusk after Deeding away 2 Delvers and a Grim Lavamancer. I'm still pretty low on life, and Doug's at 9. I topdeck a Scapeshift. Doug has one card in hand. I decide that the odds of me being just dead if he draws a Snapcaster next turn are greater than the odds of his 1 card being Price of Progress. His one card is Price of Progress, AND the top card was Snapcaster. Sometimes you literally just can't win.

R6: Nich with sort-of-Italia.

I went over the breaker math a bit, and a few people confirmed that if I won r6, I could probably make top 8 at 7th or 8th seed (38 people in the event, but people weren't IDing much, so the math was weird).

I've played Nich several times now, and it never ends well for him -- he always gets me close to death, and then I derp-win. Same thing happened game 1. We shredded each others' hands, and we both had a Top in play. He starts to aggro out while my Top shows me my other 2 Tops. The literal turn before death, my Top shows me Scapeshift as the 3rd-card down. I pop it and kill him.

Only board here was the Huntmaster that should have been main in the first place.

Game two pretty much follows game one's model, except this time Nich's Top is the one betraying him -- showing him useless Cabal Therapies. He's got me almost dead again from Grim Lavamancers and burn, but I keep stabilizing with Huntmasters, and threatening lethal because of Wolf Run. He runs out of removal, and dies.

I squeak in top 8 at 8th place.

Top 8: Junk

I don't remember the guy's name, sadly -- I know it was the first time I'd seen him at Mythic. His specific junk build had Mox Diamonds but no Hymns; the usual Deathrites, swords, KotRs, Goyfs, Bobs, and so on. He also had a singleton Elspeth, a couple Lingering Souls, and a few other interesting choices.

I mull to 5 because I can't hit lands in my opening hand. He leads off with a Marsh Flats and ships back. I do some ramp stuff, he makes a Bob and a KotR and proceeds to double-waste me. Knight gets big, and I proceed to draw literal nothing other than lands and ramp creatures. He's busy overcomitting like a motherfucker, but my deck opts not to punish him by drawing a Deed or a Wish. Or anything else, for that matter.

I mull to 5 because I can't hit lands in my opening hand, again. I do ramp things via Explorer/Therapy. He has his singleton Elspeth in hand. Pretty soon there's a pair of KotRs, and I'm, again, drawing nothing but lands. He deals me exactly lethal the turn before I was going to draw Scapeshift and kill him.

Very frustrating to lose such a good matchup just because I couldn't keep a hand or draw cards that did anything. But, meh. It happens. Considering that I wasn't expecting to top 8 on the day, I'll take it.

Now, as for the changes.

Thrun was useless. Again.
Wolf Run was useless.
Why the fuck was the 3rd Huntmaster not maindeck.
I missed Collective Voyage, as there were a few situations where I wanted a ramp wish target.
I also actually wanted an artifact/enchantment kill GSZ-guy for the first time ever; same with a Reverent Silence in the board, although I'm less sure about that one.

So, Thrun isn't staying, and nor is Wolf Run. Huntmaster #3 goes back maindeck, which means I have 1 maindeck open slot, and 2 sideboard open slots.

At this point I'm thinking either Collective Voyage + Damnation or Collective Voyage + Reverent Silence for the board, and some kind of naturalize-guy for the maindeck. I'm still undecided on whether or not I ACTUALLY want it, or whether that was just a product of my matchups. I really, really wish there was some kind of green creature that drew cards =(

Savageborn Hydra
XRG
Creature - Hydra Mythic Rare
Double Strike
Savageborn Hydra enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it.
1 (r/g): Put a +1/+1 counter on Savageborn Hydra. Activate this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.

Well...

Since it's 0/0 you can't GSZ for it. Realistically it'll be a 6/6 or less when it etb from your hand. It can grow by 4 a turn, which is good, I suppose. But isn't a GSZ into a primetime into a wolf run just better?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

@Ayotte -- Ruination probably wouldn't have helped anyway, unless all of your lands in play were basics.

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Once at least, I remember thinking of that and realizing that I had 6 basics in play and could hold the nonbasics in hand until post-Ruination.

I also went to mythic but played punishing fire instead of the usual scapeshift. I just lost a lot so I'm not going to bother with a report. Besides my round 4 Match where I played terrible, I actually played pretty well I think and there was just nothing I could do.

R1 TES 0-2
R2 UB Tezz 2-0
R3 Reanimator 0-2
R4 BUG tempo 0-2
R5 TES 0-2
R6 Drop

The deck is great, I just shouldn't play it at mythic where 1 in 3 people is playing tendrils of agony or griselbrand.

I dropped, played in a grinder and qualified for the Invitational though so that's all that really mattered.

Went 3-0-2 locally with Scapewish

Goblins 2-0
Big zoo 2-0 (he had a game loss for deck reg game 1)
Miracles 1-1 (Game 3 started as time was called)
Rug 2-0
ID round 5

Lost 0-2 to the same Rug player in top 8.

Same list as Arianhrod before his changes. At one point I actually wished that I did have Thrun. Something to repeatedly chump mongeese and goyfs that couldn't be bolted would have been nice.

Alrighty, report from Legacy (combo) challenge first.

Round 1: Sneak/show. with maindeck stifles
Game 1: Early beats got him down to 11 but sneaky grisel does me in. In: thoughtseize, humility, extirpate, surgical, cranial extraction, o-ring, gaddock teeg?
Game 2: I mulligan once. He shows in a FSM but I have a rector and tower in play. So I rector in humility before the attack and proceed to beat him down with 1/1's
Game 3: Breached FSM does me in quickly.

Round 2: ANT
Game 1: He sculpts his hand until he wishes for diminishing returns and tendrils me out. In: 2x Leyline of sanctity, thoughtseize, 2x traps, both extractions, teeg, extripate, curse of exhaustion
Game 2: I strip his hand a bit and drop the curse. He can't get out of it.
Game 3: Mulligan for him.....and pretty much the same as game 2.

Round 3: Reanimator
Game 1: Grisel does me in pretty early. In: Humility, extractions, thoughtseize, extripate, o-ring, batterskull
Game 2: I think I extracted his Grisel after a discard and proceed to win from there.
game 3: He had the nuts: entomb grisel, reanimate.....yeah....fair magic....

Round 4: Dredge
Game 1: Some early dredges for him but I get sun titan/deed lock going. In: Extirpate, surgical, thoughtseize, batterskull?
Game 2: Ramped up into an early Baneslayer and she cleaned house from there.

3 crappy matchup and 1 decent one. 2-2.
The list is still pretty close to Ari's rector list (-1 elder, +1 deathrite, -1 baneslayer, +1 thrun, -1 moat, +1 lily, -1 vindicate, +1 abrupt decay, -1 recycle, +1 thoughtseize)
SB is: elspeth x1, sorin x1, teeg x1, batterskull x1, surgical x1, extirpate x1, o-ring x1, thoughtseize x1, cranial extraction x1, 1 humility, 1 curse of exhaustion, 2 mindbreak trap, 2 leyline of sanctity

I'm on an "improve Rector" binge at the moment. At the moment, I literally can't find a reason to run Rector over Scapewish, and that's bugging me. The primary issue is that Rector is incapable of killing your opponent effectively. It can sit there and durdle for days, but it usually can't actually close the deal. Additionally, Scapewish has a legitimate beatdown option as provided by Huntmaster and Thragtusk, which Rector can't really emulate. Consider the 4-drops, which I hold as the "core" of most Nic Fit decks:

Huntmaster
-) Buys time (2/2 token, gains 2 life)
-) Threatens to flip, applying pyschological pressure
-) If it flips, kills an x/2 and beats for 6 total (including token)
-) Can then be caused to flip back, generating even more value
-) Is weak to Punishing Fire and basically nothing else

Rector
-) Laughable combat ability
-) Can be used to assemble potent enchantment-based engines
-) If the opponent can't exile it, it can scare people off of attacking into it
-) Is weak to graveyard hate, Deathrite Shaman, and Swords to Plowshares

Now, something I realized last night: most of the best things that Rector can get, are banned. Bargain, Necro, Survival, etc -- there's only a few enchantments of that power level that are usable. And if you're not using Rector to establish an engine of some kind, you're automatically losing.

Options:

-) Recurring Nightmare

Arguably -the- most powerful graveyard recursion engine in the game. When used properly, it's immune to enchantment destruction and Abrupt Decay. Can be countered or discarded -- but also costs 3, and thus can be brought back with Sun Titan.

-) Recycle

We're not abusing this card to the full extent to which it should be abused. Glimpse of Nature for everything is an insanely strong effect. If we aren't comboing with it, however, I think that I've found a better draw engine.

-) Greater Good

This is one that I missed. Greater Gifts was a deck for a long time, and we're already running Yosei. I'm thinking that if Rector has a shot at maintaining viability, it's through Greater Good. [More later]

-) Debtors' Knell

Still exists. If you can get to it, it can overload a lot of decks very quickly. Seems kind of meh to me though -- it's also actually just dead against a lot of decks.

-) Abundance

Guaranteed nonland draws is decent, I suppose -- and constantly putting all of the lands on the bottom of your deck is good for Top. I feel that this doesn't do enough compared to either Recycle or Greater Good, though.

-) Doubling Season

Insanely strong effect, especially with planeswalkers. Garruk Primal, Elspeth, Sorin, Liliana of the Veil -- all are beyond fantastic with Doubling Season out.

-) Mirari's Wake

Another potent enchantment. Probably would encourage some kind of Living Wish combokill with Maga. I think that while the effect is powerful, though, there isn't a good shell for it. Rector has a lot of powerful sideboard options, and I wouldn't want a Wishboard in it.

-) Greed

The closest thing to Bargain that exists and is still legal. Paying 2 life for a card would be doable. But 2 life + B is probably too steep. It would also require significant building around.

These are all of the on-color enchantment-based "engine cards" that Rector can fetch and that are at all playable. Blue has Future Sight, Omniscience, and a few other options, but I don't like the idea of running them without blue mana, or splashing cards with a triple blue requirement.

Of all of these options, I believe that Greater Good is the most interesting, followed by Doubling Season. I made the following changes last night and did some goldfishing to see how the "combo" flowed:

-1 Recycle
-2 Baneslayer

+1 Greater Good
+1 Kokusho
+1 Mycoid Shepherd

Big Mike was primarily so that you can pay 5 mana to draw 5 cards and gain 5 life off of a Green Sun. There's probably something better for the slot, but I figured he was worth trying.

A few things I noticed --

Greater Good sucks bawls with Rector and Explorer unless you have a lot of dead cards in hand or are set up such that Rectoring for Nightmare just wins. Eternal Witness with Greater Good was acceptable -- Bazaar can be kind of rough sometimes, but it's workable. Anything beyond those, however, it nuts. I also noticed that once I started the Yosei bullshit with Greater Good, I was almost 100% to keep it going until they were just dead. Saccing Yosei to time walk + draw 5 and then pitch 3 blanks was usually good enough -- I'd draw into a Witness, or a Rector (for Nightmare), or Nightmare, or a Green Sun for Witness to get back Yosei, and so on. Just those couple of changes DID give the deck much more of a combo feeling. You basically just Time Walk lock them until you hit Kokusho and Nightmare, and then you kill them. I'm unsure of how fragile the engine is -- I will say that GG costing 4 mana is a wonderful thing. I'll be doing some testing tonight at my local in between rounds to see how it plays in an actual game scenario where I'm not just goldfishing to victory.

If anyone else has ideas, I'd love to hear them. I'm very close to running out of fucks to give with Rector, which has me pretty depressed considering the amount of work that I've put into her.

Eventhough I do acknowledge the work you put in Rector I've personally never got it to work as it was supposed to. I've run it in a couple of tournaments (and a GP) but while it was strong in not losing (especially against combo compared to other NicFit build when the BUG fit lists werent really around yet) I always felt it lacked the required punch to finish the game in time or before getting run over (even with the Sun Titan and the 2 BSA)

Yes, you can get some awesome enchantments into play that noone else plays in Legacy but that cant be the reason to run Rector. Rector has to bring something to the table that no other build can and kill as reliable as the other versions we currently have.

Dont get me wrong but right now Rector sounds like it's getting to the 'danger of cool things'. Trying to get improve it is never wrong but perhaps the current meta is just not suited for a Rector build and trying to tweak the build by trying other enchantments

To be honest I haven't looked at or even considered playing RectorFit for a long time. But that might be linked to my playstyle and succes I've had with ScapeWish. I just do better with that build :)

come to think of it... I haven't been active in here (although I'm never a really active person on public forums) nor have I been playing allot of magic due to personal situation and health issues (I've been ill for about a month now with a flu that I cant seem to shake....) Last time I played a tourney was a GTP for Strasbourgh where I didnt even play Nicfit (I top8 with Jund...) and next sunday I'm running TurboEldrazi so still no Nicfit... :P

I recently found a list that played Omniscience as a Rector target. I like the idea. Maybe that would be a good approach. I mean Emrakul can also be fetched out by Empath.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by venice

I recently found a list that played Omniscience as a Rector target. I like the idea. Maybe that would be a good approach. I mean Emrakul can also be fetched out by Empath.

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"I don't like the idea of running them without blue mana, or splashing cards with a triple blue requirement."

Omni takes too much. If you run it w/o the blue sources you need a Scroll Rack and we don't have room and there are gonna be times you draw that Omni and have a Rector and never hit the Scroll Rack and it is going to suck.

Sorta agree on Rector. I switched off it a few weeks ago. I really hoped for a decent Orzhov tool for it out of GTC and got nothing. Saw the new spoiled enchantment on the mothership this morning and was all stoked, "A six mana enchantment that is on color!?" And then I read the card, shed a little tear and thought about changes to make to my Esper deck before this weekend. It sucks because the deck has been a large investment and it's really fun to play, but at a certain point.... Ugh. It's a toolbox w/ too much box and not enough tools. Maybe YMTC gets us something sweet, but that is a long way off.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...3492&type=card

Quote:

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Originally Posted by venice

I recently found a list that played Omniscience as a Rector target. I like the idea. Maybe that would be a good approach. I mean Emrakul can also be fetched out by Empath.

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That might be Viridia's 4c omnifit list which basically wanted to go rector->diabolic intent and fetch omniscience and emrakul in 1 go. I dont know if its being worken on still but iirc it was just a really cool list if you wanted to play a cool wacky deck but not something to take to a high end tourney and expect to do well. Correct me if im wrong.

The inherent problem with rector is that it has too many cards that are only situationally good.

Look at scapeshift. It has only 2 cards that dont do anything most of the time you draw them: scapeshift. But those 2 cards also instantly win you the game if you get them at the right time. Prime titan, thrag, HM and therapy also can often not do anything initially if you dont have enough lands at that point in the game or your opponent is in topdeck mode.

But wait? How can you say drawing a huntmaster is often bad? Well compared to scapeshift its not as bad, but there are going to be times where you have hand like this:

Huntmaster, thragtusk, Huntmaster, Cabal therapy, Burning wish, forest, badlands.

90% of the other cards in my deck Id rather have than have those HMs or thrags with that hand. So yes huntmaster is good card, just like rector but there are going to be times I just wish that huntmaster was a abrupt decay (or something else universally useful).

Rector has ALOT of cards that dont do anything, or anything particularly useful, if you draw them at the wrong time. And the pay off of having them at the right time is good, but not super impressive. Unlike how scapeshift instantly wins, but is useless without 7+ lands, Sun titan is useless for most the game but then can drastically improve your board presence over the course of a few turns but loses power to most removal/GY hate. Rectors get nullified often by STPS, deathrite, cards EVERY deck is running. Sigarda gets outraced by a goyf. And then it has cards like empath, ruskalka, recycle/greater good, etc, that can do really powerful things, but often you'll wish you drawn something else when you see them.

I want rector to be good, because its awesome. But what it really needs is to have as little situationally good cards as possible, and make sure the situationally good cards in there are not just good, but game winning. I think something like this might not be that bad:

-2 BSA
-2 Spirit dragons
-1 Empath
-1 rusulka
-1 recycle/greater good
-1 Sun Titan

+0-1 Armada Wurm (not sure this is even needed)
+2-3 Leyline of the void (very relevant against most decks)
+2 Helm of Obedience (at its worst, steal a goyf, but it has the MASSIVE payoff of the insta win)
+1 Etutor (bad card, but again the payoff I think will be worth it again, it can also get tops or deeds)
+X Efficient always-good cards so you can get to the point in the game where you can rectors and stuff (thoughtseize, decay, stps, etc).

SB for control/midrange matchup:
+1 Phyrexian arena (easier to cast, isnt dependant on other cards like recycle/good)



Not many decks have any way to interact with leyline+helm. Most decks are leaning on decay, and cutting other artifact/enchantment removal.


Also, unban survival already.