[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

@Ralf,
I have played 4Drs / 2 Vet builds a year or more ago... I ended up deciding that deed was the card that was winning me the most games and I loved cabal therapy so I should play into those strengths and that means 4 vet 4 therapy all day every day.

That said, if I continue to struggle with miracles and nothing changes, I may move back to a more junkish build in which case we can start PMing like kids at the back of class and work on lists :P

EDIT: On the previous page I have two lists that I'm considering for the legacy challenge tomorrow, would appreciate thoughts on them, thanks peeps.

Deranged Hermit. Once a staple of Nic Fit style decks, seems to have fallen out of favor recently. He interacts very well with Recurring Nightmare as well as Cabal Therapy, plus he gives us a way to go wide on the opponent for very little investment. Thoughts on his usefulness in today's meta?

For reference, this is my 75 (took the 7th place SCG Milwaukee list and made minor modifications). The Deranged Hermit and Recurring Nightmare slots are flex slots, so they could be anything.

Main

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Deranged Hermit
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Siege Rhino
4 Veteran Explorer

3 Sensei’s Divining Top

1 Recurring Nightmare
3 Pernicious Deed

2 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares

2 Painful Truths
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith

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

Side

2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Krosan Grip
2 Choke
2 Ethersworn Canonist

So much to comment on here, pardon for not using proper quotes and not spending an extra hour to polish all comments below.

@ Jain_mor, Rubblekill:
I tend to board out Ooze vs Miracles too. There are never gonna be enough creatures in the graveyards to grow him into a threat, and the only use you have of him beyond being a grizzly bear is exiling in response to Snapcaster trigger - most times they will be able to Swords Ooze before they play the Snapcaster (or Terminus).

@ Jain_mor:
Regarding Tireless Tracker or Painful Truths in your first list, I would definitely go with Tracker. You need bodies to attach equipments to, but more importantly Tracker is a GSZ-able Painful Truths (3 for 1) if you play it with a fetch land in hand (mention several times, I know) and from there it just gets better - it has the potential of growing large just like Ooze and it's not to be neglected, while drawing you plenty of cards. It's the one card (i.e. creature serving as a clock) I would keep in to have a clock vs combo decks, GSZ for Tracker and then draw into more disruption while beating down.

@ Jain_mor:
Comment on your second list, when I've played similar Rhino lists I've been fine with 3 Veterans and 2 Deathrites, so I agree about the discussion on the previous page about skipping STE (and I would skip one Veteran too, but that's just me). [edit: actually the same goes for my Mystic lists, they are usually lower in CMC:s than the Rhino lists so 3 Veterans probably make even more sense there. And I agree with you about missing Deed when lowering the number on them, that was my biggest problem with a 5 slot equipment package and 2 deeds.]

Arianrhod: "I feel a bit light for storm, Elves/DnT, Infect, and like 1 card off from Shardless."

I have written it previously but let me repeat it. I'm currently favoring the trio of Ethersworn Canonist, Engineered Plague and Enlightened Tutor. Vs Storm you want two Canonists, but don't particularly care if it's two copies or one tutor + one Canonist. The card disadvantage is more or less irrelevant. E.Tutor can even be better than Canonist, if you start and they open with discard you can respond by tutoring for Canonist. If they go for goblins you can actually get Plague instead, using your "second" Canonist (i.e. the E.Tutor) to stop their alternative win condition - pretty good for a fullgood replacement of a second Canonist. And then vs Elves you don't want a second Canonist (you probably don't want the first one either, at least I don't) but instead following up initial discard with a quasi lock peace in Engineered Plague. Note that the card disadvantage of E.Tutor is pretty irrelevant in this matchup too, once the tutored for Plague is played you will have plenty of card advantage. Vs Infect both Canonist and Plague are great. Plague takes out any 33% of their threats, including Nexus. Canonist makes it possible for you to destroy their attacker post pumping, etc. So I think these three sideboard slots are pretty perfect for the three matchups you mention, haven't looked thoroughly at your list though. Plague is also good vs Death and Taxes, Goblins and any Pyromancer deck (basically a hard lock vs UR Delver someone informed me). Once you have an E.Tutor in the board, you may want to add stuff like Choke (should be basically a lockdown vs Storm/Grixis Delver decks if they tap out and you know the coast is clear and without the tutor it's still good vs Miracles) and Ensnaring Bridge (hard for some Eldrazi decks to deal with, tutor for it and top in response to Show and Tell, also stops Marit Lage).

Arianrhod: "The trick is going to be finding cards that flex between Miracles and other decks. Honestly, looking at those 7 decks (and even beyond them, at Infect), Slaughter Games doesn't look great."

I've mentioned that I'm testing REB over Slaughter Games. It's t1-t3 interaction with Storm, and coupled with extra discard it can be good to keep them off cantripping into combo pieces. It stops Jace (much cheaper too), it stops Counterbalance, Clique/Snappy and cantrips. Slaughter Games shine vs Miracles but REB is good too. And vs Infect REB seems much better (than Slaughter Games), stopping the unblockable blue creature which is most relevant but also stopping cantrips, submerge and protecting your removal from FoW. I would suggest changing the third copy of Slaughter Games into a copy of REB to see how you like it. REB also stops Shardless, Visions and Jace from Shardless (without the card disadvantage of S.G.). I'm also thinking that REB can be good vs Painter: they usually need Painter to win so even if you're locked out of mana you can usually wait for a chance to REB their Blood Moon and then you'll have mana for using your spot removal on Painter/Grindstone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jain_Mor

@Ralf,
I have played 4Drs / 2 Vet builds a year or more ago... I ended up deciding that deed was the card that was winning me the most games and I loved cabal therapy so I should play into those strengths and that means 4 vet 4 therapy all day every day.

That said, if I continue to struggle with miracles and nothing changes, I may move back to a more junkish build in which case we can start PMing like kids at the back of class and work on lists :P

EDIT: On the previous page I have two lists that I'm considering for the legacy challenge tomorrow, would appreciate thoughts on them, thanks peeps.

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I gave you other ideas as well. Just don't stare @ the first line:)

To be fair I also have a good experience with SFM builds as you might know.

There is kinda bad synergy with SFM + Deed.

Liliana is really a powerhouse and such a grind machine.

KotR pulls its weight against Drazi among its other abilities.

Ooze is must and should be somewhere in your 75.

Engineered Plague is very very neat. It comes in various MU (Elves, Miracle, Pyromancer decks, D&T, Merfolk, Gobelin, Infect...etc)

Good luck for your tournament tomorrow !

So this just happened and I am ever so close to giving up: http://imgur.com/a/uFhWW

Everything went to plan, I was drawing cards, I was getting damage in, I always had a threat in play and one in hand. I landed a sorin, he revealed a land for me, then opp plays jace and sorin kills it and kills a mentor next turn before dying to a token. I abeyanced his terminus and got the opponent down to one health, he then answers my tusk and its token, and my tracker then FoW'd my gsun for rhino that I drew from the clue... I didnt draw any decays and he counter spelled my deed so I couldnt answer the balances so I couldn't play my needle naming top or jace. And then I eventually ran out of threats in hand and he landed a jace it fatesealed me to death. After the game he told me he had an extra terminus on top the whole time and he just misplayed regarding the abeyance -.-

I guess it is now Slaughter Games or bust. Consensus on Slaughter games is play 3 or go home right? Has no one ever found a conflict between teeg and games, you run them together right? If we are running slaughter games, sorin, teeg and pulse to deal with jace, do we still want needles to name top since we play our own? I like Pettdan's REB idea, I wouldn't try it against delver though, just non wasteland decks.

SB ideas

1 Etutor
1 Needle
1 Canonist
1 RIP
1 E Plague
1 Humility/ensaring bridge? (??)
1 TS
1 Safekeeper
1 Teeg
1 RecSage
2 REB
2 Slaughter
1 Sorin

2 Needle (??)
2 SurgExt
1 TS
1 Safekeeper
1 Teeg
1 RecSage
2 ToxDeluge/??
2 REB
2 Slaughter
1 Sorin

I'm going mad over here.
And thanks Ralf, I'm going to need it haha.

Just try my board:

(1 Safekeeper in main, 2 Sorin in main)

1 Teeg
3 Thoughtseize
2 Canonist
1 Ruination
1 Tsunami
2 Slaughter Games
1 Sigarda/Elspeth/Garruk Relentless
2 Needle
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm

Grip is still always good as well.

-Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Just try my board:

(1 Safekeeper in main, 2 Sorin in main)

1 Teeg
3 Thoughtseize
2 Canonist
1 Ruination
1 Tsunami
2 Slaughter Games
1 Sigarda/Elspeth/Garruk Relentless
2 Needle
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm

Grip is still always good as well.

-Matt

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What's your main to go with that? I assume it's more than 3 sweet cards :P

You know it, babe.

4 Vet
2 DRS
1 Ooze
1 Witness
4 Rhino
1 Sigarda
1 Safekeeper

4 GSZ
4 Therapy
3 Path
3 Deed
3 Decay
3 Top
2 Truths
1 Sylvan Library

2 Sorin

22 Lands

Cheers bbz, I'm calling it a night. I'll will be testing something similar tomorrow morning and lunch before the tourney. I'll report my findings and inevitable victory.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Also, depending on the individual list, I'm getting increasingly closer to thinking that Terminus should be Slaughter #2 vs Miracles (#1 obviously is always Jace). It's attractive to systematically remove their win conditions, but realistically, we should be able to kill them quickly enough to not have to worry about Entreat or Mentor as long as they don't have Terminus to stop us from killing them, plus both Entreat and Mentor play directly into our Deeds, Decays, and Top hate anyway.

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I actually like Terminus as the #1 name off of Slaughter Games. Once they don't have a board wipe Jace is a lot less effective at bouncing things because you can extend into it.

Quote:

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My rough opinion of decks in terms of number of cards I want for them:

Miracles: yes
Shardless: 4 [-4 Therapy, same as for vs traditional Jund/Junk]
Delver: maybe nothing? Two Painful Truths should probably be boarded out.
Lands: 5-6
Eldrazi: 3-4
DnT: 4 (Meren/Dromoka, probably shaving a Path and maybe the Taiga)
Infect: 7
Painter: 7
ANT: 7
Burn: 4

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Mine is
Miracles: 5 (-4 Vet, -1 Path, +3 Ramp, +1 Teeg, +1 Thrun... I don't splash Red)
Shardless: 0 (Bringing in Choke is nice splash damage but it's not any better than what you're taking out)
Delver: 0 (same issue with Choke)
Lands: Not much experience, probably 3-4? (-all Decay/Vindicate/Pulse, +exile removal, +disruption)
Eldrazi: 4 (-2 Decay, -2 Deed, +exile, +discard, +LD)
DnT: 4 (-4 Vet, +2 Ramp, +2 Thoughtseize)
Infect: 3 (-2 DRS, -1 Ooze, +Choke/exile)
Painter: No idea
ANT: No idea
Burn: 4 (-4 Vet, +2 DRS, 1 Ooze, 1 Shriekmaw)

So in those matchups that gives me a board of:
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Gaddok Teeg
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thoughtseize
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fulminator Mage
2 Choke
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shriekmaw
2 Faerie Macabre

Like I've said several times in the past, my general strategy with the deck is to include things that can hit the opponent in the face. I've considered making Thoughtseize into Tidehollow for that reason. It costs the same under Thalia, it hits the opponent, and most decks I'm bringing it in for can't remove it anyways, in the event of something like Storm I would actually rather it be under Tidehollow than happily sitting in the GY. This also applies to something like keeping Lands off of a Life from the Loam.

I notice I SB far fewer cards than you do, perhaps a list of what you take out would be in order? I find that to generally be more helpful than what you bring in since you can't bring in more than you take out, but you can certainly pack your SB with too many cards that you want to bring in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brael

I actually like Terminus as the #1 name off of Slaughter Games. Once they don't have a board wipe Jace is a lot less effective at bouncing things because you can extend into it.



Mine is
Miracles: 5 (-4 Vet, -1 Path, +3 Ramp, +1 Teeg, +1 Thrun... I don't splash Red)
Shardless: 0 (Bringing in Choke is nice splash damage but it's not any better than what you're taking out)
Delver: 0 (same issue with Choke)
Lands: Not much experience, probably 3-4? (-all Decay/Vindicate/Pulse, +exile removal, +disruption)
Eldrazi: 4 (-2 Decay, -2 Deed, +exile, +discard, +LD)
DnT: 4 (-4 Vet, +2 Ramp, +2 Thoughtseize)
Infect: 3 (-2 DRS, -1 Ooze, +Choke/exile)
Painter: No idea
ANT: No idea
Burn: 4 (-4 Vet, +2 DRS, 1 Ooze, 1 Shriekmaw)

So in those matchups that gives me a board of:
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Gaddok Teeg
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thoughtseize
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fulminator Mage
2 Choke
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shriekmaw
2 Faerie Macabre

Like I've said several times in the past, my general strategy with the deck is to include things that can hit the opponent in the face. I've considered making Thoughtseize into Tidehollow for that reason. It costs the same under Thalia, it hits the opponent, and most decks I'm bringing it in for can't remove it anyways, in the event of something like Storm I would actually rather it be under Tidehollow than happily sitting in the GY. This also applies to something like keeping Lands off of a Life from the Loam.

I notice I SB far fewer cards than you do, perhaps a list of what you take out would be in order? I find that to generally be more helpful than what you bring in since you can't bring in more than you take out, but you can certainly pack your SB with too many cards that you want to bring in.

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It's definitely possible that I'm overboarding in an attempt to make popular matchups win-more and in the process and destabilizing too much. Here's my notes from my 14-card sideboard I mentioned earlier:

Miracles:

-4 Vet
-Meren
-Deadly Recluse
-3 Path
-4 Therapy
(13)

+2 Needle
+2 Grip
+Sorin
+Elspeth
+2 Carpet
+3 Slaughter
+P.Truths
+?? [15th slot]
(13)

By far the most conversion-oriented matchup, lots of ins/outs as a result. I don't want Vet or Therapy postboard, Meren will never bring back anything between StP and Terminus, Recluse's body and ability are both irrelevant here, and Path is useless.

Shardless:

-4 Therapy
(4)

+Sorin
+Elspeth
+P.Truths
+?? [15th slot]
(4)

In my experience, Therapy just isn't where you want to be in this matchup. You're going to get Hymned into oblivion (or Ancestralled into oblivion), so you just want to load up on as much power as you can, to punch through their nebulous defenses. They have to attack into your Veterans, so you don't need Therapy as a sac outlet, and most games are going to come down to a topdeck (or Top deck) battle. Furthermore, they're very much a Deathrite deck, and Therapy just gives them more opportunities to nug you.

Delver:

-2 P.Truths
(2)

+2 Carpet
(2)

Pretty self explanatory. As I said, I'm probably going to cut the Carpets since they're only good in two matches, but, this an easy in/out, I think.

Lands:

-Recluse
-Dromoka
-Meren
-2 Decay
(5)

+2 Needle
+2 Surgical
+Sorin
(5)

Recluse can block Merit Lage for a turn, but won't kill it. Same with Dromoka, which has the added problem of being legendary against the Karakas/Loam/Gamble deck. Meren has those problems as well as being hosed by Bojuka Bog. Decays are useful, but still fairly easily boarded out. The new Lands builds don't even run the stax elements anymore -- Ensnaring Bridge and the like -- so you're basically looking at taking out Mox Diamonds and Explorations, which Deed is better at anyway. Sorin comes in as an additional way to kill the opponent through Glacial Chasm lock. Needles and Surgicals are obvious.

Painter:

-Dromoka
-Meren
-2 Baneslayer
-Recluse
-Tracker
-2 P.Truths
(8)

+2 Grip
+2 Needle
+2 Slaughter Games
+2 Surgical
(8)

Postboard they frequently become more staxxy with Ensnaring Bridges and other such nonsense. Dromoka and Baneslayers can't get through very easily, Meren is a useful deterrent to hard-Grindstoning, but otherwise kind of lackluster, Recluse isn't good vs this opponent, Tracker gets burned out very easily and grows too large to get through Bridge if he lives, and Truths costs too much time vs their burn plan. All of the board-ins are fine -- I opted out of the 3rd Slaughter since I couldn't come up with another good cut, but I'd be open to bringing it in. I'd like to leave Meren in, honestly, but I don't know what else I'd leave out for her.

Eldrazi:

-2 P.Truths
-Sigarda
(3)

+Elspeth
+2 Grip
(3)

Elspeth's -3 is massive here, and Grip can handle Revoker and other obnoxious lock pieces (Winter Orb, anyone?). Painful Truths is too slow here, and the lifeloss can be kind of dangerous against Reality Smasher chains. Sigarda flat out isn't necessary here -- the game can be won just as easily by Dromoka or Baneslayers, or Pernicious Deed, and she loses in combat to an awful lot of their creatures.

Death and Taxes:

-Meren
-Dromoka
-1 Path
(3)

+2 Grip
+Elspeth
(3)

Elspeth flooding 1/1s is very hard for them to deal with, especially since the tokens are white and our other creatures are green. Grip is obviously insane vs Revoker, Vial, equipment, etc. Meren and Dromoka are bad vs the 4x Karakas deck, and then I think that shaving 1 Path is probably correct? Could also be the Taiga to lean down on mana a little bit, not really sure what the last cut should be.

Infect:

-Sigarda
-Tireless
-Meren
-Dromoka
-1 Top
(5)

+2 Needle
+2 Grip
+P.Truths
(5)

This match basically comes down to stopping them in their tracks effectively, while beating down with Rhinos. Meren and Dromoka lose to Crop Rotation->Karakas, while the games don't last long enough for Tireless Tracker to accrue value. One Top gets shaved for this same reason - you can't really afford to sit there dicking with Top. Sigarda is a worse wincon than Baneslayers and Rhinos here.

ANT:

-Dromoka
-Meren
-3 Path
-2 Decay
-Sigarda
(8)

+3 Slaughter
+2 Surgical
+P.Truths
+2 Needle
(8)

I wasn't really happy with this, which is why I stopped working on this sideboard plan. Needles were a vague plan to squeeze in cards that are super fringe relevant (naming Polluted Delta to harm their mana base and slow them down, maybe naming LED to jedi mindtrick people into thinking that they can't use them even though they totally can). Slaughters, Surgicals, and Truths are all great, though. You take out the expensive top-end and the spot removal.

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Again, I'm working on trying to come up with a better sideboard and then revising the plan from there, but that might give you some insight. I might be overboarding, but I don't feel like my thought processes are incorrect or irrational, so I'm not sure. I'm tempted to include the Abeyances (I have two on the way now -- one is even German!), since the splash between Miracles and Storm isn't exactly a common area to find, but I am admittedly worried that they won't come in against any other matchups. It's possible that I'm too worried about cards being good vs multiple decks, though, and a card being good vs 2 decks is good enough.

I dunno. I'm tired, so I'm not even sure if I'm fully coherent any more. I'm going to end this here now and I'll respond to/with further thoughts/comments tomorrow.

@Jain: I'd go with Rhino Fit. Just keep it nice and simple. Good luck!

@matt: Well look at that, @2 Sorin now? Wow!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

It's definitely possible that I'm overboarding in an attempt to make popular matchups win-more and in the process and destabilizing too much. Here's my notes from my 14-card sideboard I mentioned earlier:

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I don't really see anything I disagree with, but I think that you might make yourself too threat light. I can definitely get behind taking out 1 power creatures because 1 power is so little that it might as well be 0 power, but I think that in the case of Miracles for example you're overlooking that even as a vanilla 3/4 Meren is still hitting the opponent. Anything that hits them is good, anything that stops Terminus is better.

When it comes to Shardless, I can't argue against what you're bringing in, but I think I can argue against what you're taking out. Therapy isn't bad against them. Their deck is mostly focused around 2 for 1's against you or cheating costs so they never actually pay all that much for their cards, and they all have prohibitive mana costs. Where Therapy comes in here is it's great at hitting Liliana on turn 1-2 because that's their only recurring source of advantage besides what's usually 1-2 JTMS, everything else is 1 shot. Therapy is also a great proactive answer to Goyf which is their only way to actually kill you quickly. If you can therapy their Goyf you can play fast and loose with a lot of your removal. If you're looking for something to take out instead I suggest the vets, but if you remove Vet you need to add in other ways to accelerate your mana.

When it comes to Delver, consider cutting the Carpets to go up to a playset of Deathrite Shaman. DRS swaps for vet pretty well giving us a lesser but 1 sided mana acceleration, it's a threat, and in some matches such as against Shardless it can be nice to be on DRS parity (or better if you've got some recursion like Meren).

What about DRS for Lands? I'm just throwing out suggestions here, I've never actually played against the deck and am completely clueless on recent variants. DRS can eat Loam targets however which reduces them to just Crop Rotation and Gamble to find their parts, it can eat Loam as well, and it fills the criteria of getting in damage through a Chasm lock.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Some people struggle with Shardless BUG, others find Grixis Delver difficult, ANT/TES is my nemesis (partly b/c one of the worlds best Storm pilots just happens to frequent our LGS and also helps other Storm pilots there hone their skills). My record vs. that archetype is truly beyond dreadful. And I run the same amount of discard as anybody else. I've only recently acquired my Canonists though, so that might help the next time I face ANT/TES. Mind you, I've managed to lose after opening with T1 DRS followed up by T2 Surgical his cantrip (to look at his hand), Therapy on Infernal Tutor, flashback Therapy on Chain of Vapor, Gaddock Teeg (yes, that was my T2).

I guess the focus on those 2 particular MUs is b/c those are the ones I want to improve most and b/c there are very few other things I fear to face (ergo don't want to spend specific sideboard slots on. I'm fine with just having splash damage for those MUs). But just trust me on this one - the demanded overlap in the current requirements model is quite likely to fill in the nice-to-haves automatically.

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Let me suggest an alternate build for a sideboard. Rather than worrying about specific cards to begin with, we try to come up with a requirements range on what we want to see. For example, we decided on needing X number of threats (I don't remember what X was anymore). What about identifying how many threats we need post board in the various matchups, and then based on that we know how much needs to come in and out. We can do the same for answers, for mana (DRS really pulls his weight here), and all the rest. And in the end we have a sideboard that can shift from a configuration of say 22 threats, 26 mana, 14 answers, 14 CA in the mainboard to say 30 threats, 24 mana, 10 answers, 10 CA postboard if we need to take an aggressive line but 18 threats, 26 mana, 18 answers, 18 CA if we need to take a controlling line.

@Matt we are playing basically the same main deck, only difference is that I play Meren + ts instead of 2 sorin (pw are in my sb).
It is a very streamlined list isn't it?

@Arianrhod: Here are a few comments on your sb notes.

Lands:
Decay: lately I've met Confidant post sb from Dark Lands (that's what it's called? Need to head over to the lands thread), they also may play Molten Vortex over Punishing Fire (some more targets than other Lands builds), I'd be careful in bringing out all Decays.

Death and Taxes:
Path: One way to lose this matchup is by Mother + Revoker, another is Thalia + Rishadan Port. I'd run Path over Elspeth. Just my opinion.

Infect:
Tireless: This matchup imo is largely about drawing more removal than they draw threats, Tracker is perfect. You mull into a hand with good removal, empty your hand by playing removal and discard and then need one finisher. A finisher that lets you draw removal while beating down is perfect. Tracker > Rhino.

ANT:
Feels bad not having Thoughtseize to bring in, I rarely play Grips. As you wish.

I was just thinking that I don't even know if I want to dedicate 1-2 slots to grip anymore. The card is good but is less impactful than, say, an abeyance. And as a singleton I don't like grip that much because decks that play top (my main reason to play grip) have usually 3-4 of them so they always drop another one afterwards.
The splash damage to other decks is very low in my meta (good for lodestone golem? Probably, but I never see them luckily). So my conclusion would be to play 1 abeyance instead, which gets to be played against more decks and leads to more blowout situations, being a more impactful card overall.
Thoughts/opinions? (I don't play needles, remember that)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rubblekill

I was just thinking that I don't even know if I want to dedicate 1-2 slots to grip anymore. The card is good but is less impactful than, say, an abeyance. And as a singleton I don't like grip that much because decks that play top (my main reason to play grip) have usually 3-4 of them so they always drop another one afterwards.
The splash damage to other decks is very low in my meta (good for lodestone golem? Probably, but I never see them luckily). So my conclusion would be to play 1 abeyance instead, which gets to be played against more decks and leads to more blowout situations, being a more impactful card overall.
Thoughts/opinions? (I don't play needles, remember that)

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As you can see in the pictures I posted above, I abeyanced a terminus, it was beautiful and perfect and still didn't matter. I'm going to be trying REB in its place... but I do still like Abeyance, and I have never liked krosan grip, just too expensive and narrow, when you play decay/deed.sage anyway.

I don't like DRS vs Lands particularly, only because it dies to PFire/Molten Vortex activations. Might be fine if the Decays stay in // if the Grips come in with them, which it sounds like they might need to anyway?

Vet has been how I've been beating Shardless for basically forever. My entire strategy vs Shardless is just to jam as many Vets down their throat as possible, because they really just can't do anything about it at all. I'll test leaving the Therapies in and just running it back with no board. I wouldn't mind finding room for the walkers and the 3rd Truths, but I'll worry about that after seeing how Therapy feels postboard.

For DnT, Path is likely better than Abrupt Decay, actually. Thalia and Port can make it hard to cast Decay sometimes, and having the extra 1cmc for Mom is probably relevant. At that point it might just be better to shave the Taiga and go to 21 lands for the matchup. Kind of weird for the mana denial deck, but Taiga is literally a nonbasic Forest when Slaughters aren't coming in, so.

Tracker is worse than Rhino vs Submerge, and not having Trample could matter since they can afford to block aggressively (they only need one creature swinging). That said, I need little convincing to leave Tracker in. Card is great.

Not having Thoughtseize does indeed hurt vs storm. But, to be fair, I think storm is the only (or one of the only) matchups where passing on Thoughtseize is really hurtful.

On Grip: I've found Grip to be effective against Miracles, while simultaneously being a good security blank for a lot of the more random elements in the format, like Painter and Infect -- both of which are fairly popular at Mythic, and both of which I expect to see at the GP in reasonable numbers. Grip is also great at dealing with Phyrexian Revoker out of Death and Taxes and Eldrazi, which lets Deed wreck the rest of their deck. I could be talking out of Grip in exchange for different sideboard options as we discuss the topic further, but I just want to be clear that Grip /has/ been quite good for me.

Also, good luck today Jain and anyone else playing in the modo thingamajig.

Hi Guys.
Im playing my own version of nic fit and it is with punishing fire. I believe it is not very popular at this time,not where im from.
He it is:
4 verdant catacombs
1 wooded foothills
2 taiga
1 badlands
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
4 grove of the Burnwillows
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1x kessig
2 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Mountain
I think in the mana base should be one more bayou i cannot afford to buy it now.
3 Veteran explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Scavening Ooze
2 deathrite Shaman
2 Thragtusk
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 primeval titan

4 cabal Therapy
4 GsZ
3 Punishing Fire
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Liliana of the veil
2 deed
2 sensei's divining top
1 garruk relentless
1 toxic deluge
1 recurring nightmare
1 diabolic intent

There is in Czech republic GP Prague this year,legacy is the main event and i wonder is my deck good enough to be able to play.Maybe there is something i can change and would be better. I thought about this new creature from shadows over innistrad,the gitrog monster,is it good enough to play? or maybe some draw efects like painfull truths.
Thanks for any help

This is for Jain_Mor, I couldn't fit it all in a single PM. It is also Nic Fit stuff so it should be fine.

Making a good Nic Fit deck is about keeping things to a minimum for you to get an advantage. There is rarely a reason to go above and beyond with cute/huge cards other than to satisfy your inner child. The strengths of this deck include a wide and scaling GSZ package (ramp/threats/silver bullets/utility creatures), varied and efficient removal and the full use of Cabal Therapy for maximum disruption. Never forget who the real mvp of this deck are, the stars of this deck are GSZ and Therapy, not Explorer and Rhino/Sigarda.

GSZ package:

4 Green Sun's Zenith - core
4 Deathrite Shaman - core
1 Dryad Arbor - core with GSZ, Therapy, and Equipments

1 Veteran Explorer - never wanted more than one trigger and easier to side out the whole package when kept to a minimum (yes, Explorer/Therapy isn't always good)

1 Gaddock Teeg - concession to combo decks G1

1 Qasali Pridemage - versatile ability, great with Witness

2 Eternal Witness - core, tried splitting with Courser (great with Library) but this card has the best immediate value and most matchup relevance

2 Siege Rhino - 1-2 copies is as many as you'll ever want. I take a Rhino over Meren any day. In fact I would only ever play Meren in a Pod deck. I rarely need Rhinos to grind out a game because BSkull and Sigarda are usually enough. However, when things don't go according to plan, Rhino is my go-to supplemental win condition.

1 Sigarda, Host of Herons - core win con

SFM package:

One of my favorite Nic Fit card because it fetches a win condition and then sacs to Therapy. Batterskull is on par with Sigarda and Jitte is my sweeper of choice.

3 Stoneforge Mystic - about as many as I can support with only 2 equipments.

1 Umezawa's Jitte - core with SFM
1 Batterskull - core with SFM

Removal Package:

I like to have varied removal available in my deck and graveyard so I keep an even split. I have tried 2/4 and 4/2 splits before and the difference is not that significant. To deal with creatures I think StP is the better spell but Decay is definitely the most versatile. If I were to add a 7th removal spell it would probably be a 4th StP or a Toxic Deluge mainboard. I can usually deal with Mom and Nemesis via Liliana or go over them with threats and equipments but if there is ever a creature that gives me trouble it would be one of those.

3 Swords to Plowshares - never play Path to Exile. Giving life does not affect the board state and giving a land when removing a Deathrite against Shardless, a Mom/SFM/Thalia against DnT, a Lackey against Goblins, or even a mana dork against Elves can be an immense setback.

3 Abrupt Decay - Usually my removal spell of choice but since this deck is no dog to Chalice or Counterbalance, I am willing to shave one off for the sake of variety.

Discard package:

Having enough discard is key for any nonblue deck to thrive in a legacy environment. Thoughtseize is the best complement to Cabal Therapy as it offers both quick disruption and hand information. Unless you have psychic powers, hand information will always make your Therapies potential game changers.

4 Cabal Therapy - core
3 Thoughtseize - I never go under 3 copies and 4 can be heavy on the life loss. I will always have the remainder of the playset in the SB.

Others:

3 Liliana of the Veil - I always play 3-4 copies. This card does it all and can be near impossible for most decks to deal with when cast early or on an empty board. Repetitive removal and discard in a single permanent will make you win the topdeck wars, help you stabilize against combo decks, and give you serious game against Miracles G1.

2 Sylvan Library - I prefer this card to Top or Truths because it does everything in one card. I get to top every turn without an upkeep cost and can easily translate life gain from DRS, Rhino or Equipments into additional cards. One copy is a strict minimum for any deck that can play it but two us better due to the sheer power of that card.

Manabase:

I don't like utility lands without much deck manipulation. I prioritize green fetches for Arbor and try to keep duals and basics to a minimum. I will sometimes substitute a Scrubland for a Taiga or Badlands and rework the fetchlands if I want a couple of Blood Moon in my SB for all Dark Depths combo decks and 12 Post.

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

Sideboard:

I think an Enlightened Tutor package is important as it creates a lot of virtual SB space. I need a strong sideboard for Miracles and most combo decks. I tend to side out Thoughtseize and Teeg against fair decks and all my removal and high end creatures against combo.

1 Scavenging Ooze - good against lands and Pfire decks. Fringe against Burn and can be relevant against Reanimator and Dredge if given the time. Usually replaces Teeg for fair matchups.

1 Duress - Thoughtseize #5
1 Thoughtseize - Core disruption against combo decks

1 Painful Truths - flex slot for fair and grindy matchups

1 Toxic Deluge - postboard panic button against clogged boards. Could easily play a second copy over Painful Truths.

1 Enlightened Tutor - core SB, can fetch all of the cards mentioned below.

1 Tormod's Crypt - Fastest GY hate to be tutored, a concession to Dredge and Reanimator.

1 Pithing Needle - core against Top, Sneak Attack, Jace, Mom, Vial, Thespian Stage, Grindstone, etc... I always pack one in all my SB.

1 Sword of Fire and Ice - gives SFM that grind and makes the SFM package not completely useless against slow combo decks.

1 Ethersworn Canonist - Concession to Elves and Storm

2 Spirit of the Labyrinth - SB mvp against all decks packing cantrips. A great supplemental piece to a strong discard package. Hits hard and fast too. Shines against all combo decks, Delver decks, Miracles, Elves, and even Burn (good clock). I used to play one copy but it quickly became my hatebear of choice.

1 Rest in Peace - Concession to all GY dependant decks. Makes their life difficult

2 Choke - Great against Miracles and Shardless or whenever the Explorer/Therapy package comes out. I also use it against most delver decks and even combo decks.

Here are a few examples of boarding plans:

Miracles
-1 Explorer
-4 Therapy
-3 StP
-1 Jitte
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Painful Truths
+1 ETutor
+1 Needle
+1 SoFaI
+2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
+2 Choke

Storm/SnT
-1 Qasali/+1 Ooze Storm only
-2 Rhino
-1 Sigarda
-3 StP
-3 Decay
-1 Jitte
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Duress
+1 ETutor
+1 RiP (Storm)/+1 Needle (SnT)
+1 SoFaI
+1 Canonist
+2 Spirit of the Lab
+2 Choke

Elves
-1 Explorer
-1 Qasali
-2 Rhino
-1 Sigarda
-2 Library
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Deluge
+1 ETutor
+1 Needle (Symbiote slows Jitte)
+1 Canonist
+2 Spirit of the Lab

Shardless
-1 Explorer
-1 Teeg
-3 Thoughtseize
-4 Therapy
+1 Ooze
+1 Truths
+1 Deluge
+1 SoFaI
+1 RiP
+2 Spirit of the Lab
+2 Choke

DnT
-1 Teeg
-3 Thoughtseize
+1 Painful Truths
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Needle
+1 SoFaI

Delver decks
-1 Teeg
-1 Qasali
-3 Thoughtseize
+1 Ooze
+1 Truths
+1 Toxic Deluge
+2 Choke

Burn

-1 Teeg
-1 Sigarda
-3 Thoughtseize
+1 Ooze
+1 Duress
+1 ETutor (for Jitte)
+2 Spirit of the Lab

I used to run a build similar to that before treasure cruise I think. I like it a lot, it looks great. You posted it about 3 hours too late though D:

Also, I have lotv IRL but can't play LotV online (hopefully she gets a reprint in eternal masters... not getting hopes up though) and I disagree on meren, card is fantastic (I do like double ewit though)

Leg Challenge didnt go so great, lost close game to burn, then got crushed by miracles despite everything again, then lost to 8 post (lol), then faced square_two's GB stax brew and won, then beat RB reanimator, then lost to T1 Show n Tell > griselbrand (my TS got forced -.-) and would have won G2 on a mull to 4 if I weren't so tired.. so yea. Sorry gentleman, tried and failed. Here was the list I ended up running.

I also nearly finished a league before I entered with it, lost to entreat miracles, nahiri miracles then beat eldrazi twice (tusk mvp). TS is great main, and you're silly if you doubt that :P

4 Verd
4 Wind
2 Bay
2 Savan
1 Scrub
1 Taiga
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Phy tower
Land 22

4 Gsun
4 Vet
2 Drs
1 Ewit
1 Tracker
1 Meren
3 Rhino
1 Tusk
1 Sigarda

3 Top
2 Truths
4 Therapy
2 TS
3 Path
3 Decay
1 Pulse
3 Deed

1 Needle
2 Surgical
2 TS
2 REB
1 Teeg
1 Rec Sage
2 Deluge
3 Slaughter Games
1 Sorin

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brael

Let me suggest an alternate build for a sideboard. Rather than worrying about specific cards to begin with, we try to come up with a requirements range on what we want to see. For example, we decided on needing X number of threats (I don't remember what X was anymore). What about identifying how many threats we need post board in the various matchups, and then based on that we know how much needs to come in and out. We can do the same for answers, for mana (DRS really pulls his weight here), and all the rest. And in the end we have a sideboard that can shift from a configuration of say 22 threats, 26 mana, 14 answers, 14 CA in the mainboard to say 30 threats, 24 mana, 10 answers, 10 CA postboard if we need to take an aggressive line but 18 threats, 26 mana, 18 answers, 18 CA if we need to take a controlling line.

---

Sounds like a fun plan.

@Jain: Too bad man! Better luck next time!

@qweerios : I play MTG, everything I do, I do for my inner child (and he is quite happy, having seen civil war this friday :tongue:)

@jain : first step : recover from jet lag, second step : play nic fit , third step : profit

@ miracle match up : I've been asking around (either in the miracle source or IRL) miracles players about the cards they fear the most when facing us.
As of now , well it depends of their builds (legend, traditional, nahiri, mentor), but here are the answers I have :

iliana
Gaddock Teeg
Sylvan Library
Lingering Souls
Abrupt Decay
Pithing Needle
Choke

I want to start taking a deeper look at blue lists. I suspect that the blue lists gain a lot against Miracles, random combo decks, and Eldrazi. The problem, as always, remains giving the blue lists enough power. To fix this, I want to take a close look at what Gitrog Monster does for BUG. Ultimate Fit has been doing very good at Mythic, which I think demonstrably shows that the blue shell is very good when paired with a card that yields enough raw power (rhino) to effectively close games instead of just sitting there valuing people to death. Gitrog is a potential on-color answer, but does have the admitted drawback of being legendary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Plm

@qweerios : I play MTG, everything I do, I do for my inner child (and he is quite happy, having seen civil war this friday :tongue:)

@jain : first step : recover from jet lag, second step : play nic fit , third step : profit

@ miracle match up : I've been asking around (either in the miracle source or IRL) miracles players about the cards they fear the most when facing us.
As of now , well it depends of their builds (legend, traditional, nahiri, mentor), but here are the answers I have :

iliana
Gaddock Teeg
Sylvan Library
Lingering Souls
Abrupt Decay
Pithing Needle
Choke

---

Choke is increasingly a liability in this matchup due to the inclusion of Nahiri, I think, aside from the multiple Wear/Tears that they're boarding in anyway.

Lingering Souls is an interesting hit.

Gaddock Teeg has been the exact opposite for me. I've had several Miracles players tell me that they're /happy/ when I have Teeg out. They lose Jace and Terminus, but we lose Zenith and our planeswalkers. At that point, the entire fight revolves around Mentor vs Deed, which is fight they are well positioned to win -- especially with our Paths sided out.

http://i.imgur.com/rjjceAu.jpg

Hello everyone, so I have been playing quite a bit online with this decklist and it is pretty much the “final” configuration I feel most comfortable with. I say “final” because this deck sometimes can give headaches to pilots like me who ponder every day how to discover the “best” configuration and the one that suits better my playstyle.
Having said that, let’s begin with the explanations; I’m really looking forward to your feedback, and I have been waiting to post my deck for so long just because I wanted to be sure to present my most stable list.

Lands:
-8 fetches are the minimum since I play 3 tops and 6 basics.
-2 towers because I really really want to maximise the chances to have veteran + tower (or therapy) combo in the early game. The difference in this deck with and without veteran triggers in the early game is the difference between white and black, hence my decision to not opt for a singleton copy. Not 3 for obvious reasons.
-Karakas/1 plains: Karakas replaced the 2nd plain, since we really don’t want to have more than 1 white mana only land in our opener.
-Taiga: I hate it but I accept it because I need it. Explanations later.
-3/2 forests/swamps: despite being a 3 color deck I want to be immune to land hate. With 8 fetches to find the basics I very rarely find myself manascrewed.
-only 1 Savannah/bayou/scrubland: in order to play at least 8 fetches and the amount of basics I want to play, these duals are the bare minimum of non basic lands.

1 drops:
-3 tops: no less than 3 because with all the mana we have in the late game, and without the access to the cantrip cartel, top is THE best card to find our bombs. In the early game it helps to hit our land drops.
-1 DRS: he is awesome but nonbos with deed, and it’s not like having 1 instead of 2 is going to make a huge difference against say reanimator or tin fins. As a GSZ deck, 1 is enough.
-4 Veteran: the most underrated card in the deck. Considering how my deck is constructed (4 rhinos, PW in the sb, no SFM, no low cmc creatures) I really want to hit that late game button and he is the shortest way to do that. He is a wall against decks like eldrazi or non delver bug decks, a shuffle effect, combos with therapy and tower, and stalls even more with a meren in play.
-4 Therapies: don’t need to explain this.
-2 Thoughtseize: I am alone in this, only Jain shares my appreciation towards this card. Early game interaction is KEY against all the combo decks, but even against eldrazi or miracles: sniping early a TKS or a smasher is backbreacking for them. Very beneficial synergy with cabal therapy, terrible late game draw, but top mitigates that wonderfully.
-2 paths: only 2 because I live in a meta that has a 25% Miracles presence, roughly. In a normal meta I’d play a 3-3 split between decay and path.

2 drops:
-1 ooze: we are a GSZ deck after all.
-4 decay: a life saving card, and one of the best cards in the deck. Deals with CB, but more importantly helps against VERY problematic cards like (an early) Mentor and Liliana of The Veil. In the online meta I simply cannot play less than 4.

3 drops:
-3 deeds: together with rhino it is the best card in the deck in my opinion. It represents virtual CA, and it is a bomb we can detonate whenever we want, letting us establish board control (the whole goal of this deck). Helps tremendously against creature decks AND miracles (deluge sucks against non creature permanents, obviously..), if you play this card smartly it will literally save the game and open the way for (more) rhinos. With the way I have constructed this deck, the only thing that dies to deed are the singletons DRS and ooze.
-1 pulse/1 unmaking: this duo is necessary because, again, miracles and its JTMS. Jace is a problem so I want to have 2 cards that deal with him. EOT unmaking is SO SO underrated, even with a CB in play we can bait their top 3 setup and snipe their jace at instant speed. This is gonna be a strong statement: I like Unmaking more than vindicate. While vindicate is the best card in a vacuum, the land destruction part of it never really came up that much (maybe a couple time to snipe a cradle, but elves is not that common online….cuz miracles of course). Unmaking even deals with marit lage. It's not that you are wrong if you play vindicate, but I personally like it less than AU.
-1 witness: the green snapcaster in the GSZ deck.
-1 truths / 1 scrying: the sweet spot in my opinion is to play 2 CA cards. I could play 3 but the 3rd CA card is represented by Tracker, a card I have been trying recently. He gives CA on legs (and roids, if he gets to stick on the board until we can crack its clues) that can be GSZ’d for. I like the split with scrying for their variety, and because SS can be (and often is) a better card; it is even an instant.
-1 tracker: as I said, I am experimenting with this guy so I have to decide if he is here to stay or not, but as a 3rd CA card I am liking it. It demands immediate answer or he can became a threat no less dangerous than our good rhino friend. The difference between Tracker and the other "controversial" 3 drops (Nissa and Courser) is that he needs to eat a removal spell on the spot or otherwise he is gonna provide so much CA while being a threat. I need to test him more though.

4 drops:
-4 rhinos: go big or go home.
-1 Meren: she is a situational card, and by situational I mean that she is awesome against some decks, decent (but still a 4 drop, and a legend=drawbacks) in others. The fact that she cannot be bolted is probably the reason she stays in the main deck, as she is still always gonna be at least a 3/4 eternal witness if we happen to draw it. Gets sided out against stp.decks.

5 drops:
-1 sigarda: the queen herself, and the best win condition at our disposal.

X drops:
-4 GSZ: Duh.


Sideboard
-3 games: game changer (got it?) against miracles, I have tried random stuff like Mistcutter Hydra and Giant Solifuge, but against that deck I will often mulligan a 7/10 hand JUST to try to find a s games in the opener. 1st call: JTMS; 2nd call: it depends on what I see in the opponents deck, If they have entreat I name it, otherwise terminus.
-1 teeg: hatebear.
-Garruk/sorin: the PWs I like the most, you all know them already. I will only say that they are here for miracles and for shardless (garruk).
-2 canonists/2 surgicals/1 duress: combo (and gy) hate. Surgical is gonna come in against miracles as well.
-1 deluge: sweeper that cannot be hated on, it’s gonna come in to supplement the removal at our disposal against decks like delver, elves and even eldrazi (even though it can be a particularly situational card in this match up).
-1 grip: SFM decks and Sensei’s diving top decks.
-1 safekeeper: he is nice against stp decks, but I’m gonna board him in even against storm: he is a cheap GSZ target/topdeck that can establish a game winning lock with either a canonist or a teeg in play.
-1 PoP: the spice in the deck. Helps tremendously against BAD mu like lands, 12 POST, MUD and helps against infect and BUG decks as well. As a 1 of I like it a lot and justifies once more the presence of taiga.

I'm not going to write my sb tactics right now because this was a long writing session and I'm tired. I'm looking forward to your constructive criticism.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rubblekill

Wonderful, well thought out post

---

See the above. I wish I had your patience. I should find the time to do the same for my crazy signature lists. Might teach myself a thing or two on why I come up with such madness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Echelon

See the above. I wish I had your patience. I should find the time to do the same for my crazy signature lists. Might teach myself a thing or two on why I come up with such madness.

---

I waited to post it untill I had my most stable configuration! Thanks for the kind words.
The 4 rhino deck is really a whole different deck compared to the sfm, angels, rock-ish, eldrazi versions so I didn't even compare my choices with theirs: if you play 1 veteran and 1 rhino in my opinion you are playing a different deck.
Nothing bad about it, to each their own, but it had no sense to make comparisons between those decks and mine.

The main is very similar to the list I ended up running so here are a few points in order by what I think is most important.

1) you have 4 rhinos, that's a lot. I know it's sexy to run the full 4, but I really must insist on exchanging one of them for a Thragtusk. The amount of times you will be punished because you NEED the 4th rhino and it happens to be a 5 mana 5/3 that gains you 5 life and leaves behind a 3/3 is basically nothing. But the amount of times you get punished because you don't have a Thragtusk at all is a countable number. The card is super relevant against 5 toughness creatures (angler, goyf, eldrazi, etc), terminus, Jace bounce, StP, removal in general etc. it's a rhino with card advantage.

2) I love scooze, but this deck struggles if it can't get out of the early game. DRS performs a very similar hate effect against graveyard decks and yet is so much better in the stage of the game we are most vunerable, where as Scooze is better in the stage of the game we are most comfortable. So I advocate changing the scooze to Drs because doubling your chance of drawing that mana dork is real, and I think scooze is giving the deck less value and points in comparison just because we want our gsuns to be versatile.

3) when I was playing with the deck 2 painful truth affects main felt like too many. Drawing it against burn, eldrazi, delver etc was quite harsh. And it's not like I was behind on cards without it (except against shardless sometimes, but deed and Meren fix that for you). So I'd consider moving it to the side for another interactive piece, path, teeg, sylvan safekeeper (the scooze I cut above?) or something less painful like sylvan library.

No comment about yesterday MKM?

JONAS ZIMMERMANN – NICFIT
MAIN DECK:
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Taiga
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
3 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Pithing Needle
1 Innocent Blood
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Trinket Mage
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Shriekmaw
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Thragtusk
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Birthing Pod
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Baleful Strix
4 Veteran Explorer

SIDEBOARD:
3 Slaughter Games
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Minister of Pain
2 Disfigure
2 Flusterstorm
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Spell Pierce
1 Notion Thief
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

I find it very interesting, expecially in the manabase (1 Drs, 4 zenith for multiple veteran)

That list is basicly my version of the deck with the main difference of switching Brainstorm for Zenith, im not 100% about that change, you definitely get much more raw power but the deck looks way more Veteran dependant.

Still looks solid to me, playing my version i can understand this deck doing good, that list should smash a good chunk of the metagame easily.

The pilot's reason for deck selection was amusing to me.

A good friend of mine / local playtest partner / part of my road crew has been doing very well at Mythic (a top 4 and a top 8 in March/April respectively, couldn't make it up in May due to work) with the following, and I want to bring it up and look closer at it in the public eye:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Fierce Empath
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
3 Siege Rhino
1 Thragtusk
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Deadeye Navigator

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Brainstorm
2 Abrupt Decay

3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Mana Confluence
3 Forest
2 Island
1 Swamp

sb::
2 Disfigure
1 Notion Thief
2 Pithing Needle
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Thoughtseize
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Taiga
3 Slaughter Games

Some of you may remember what I dubbed Ultimate Fit some months ago. This deck was mostly a thought experiment wherein I acknowledged that the best cards red and white give you, by a lot, are Slaughter Games and Siege Rhino, respectively. The goal was to take a blue Nic Fit shell, include Brainstorm, and maindeck the Rhinos in an attempt to solve blue's historic problem: a flaccid lack of raw power. Since Rhino and Slaughter are generally mutually exclusive, the idea is to side out the Savannah and the Rhinos when you bring in Taiga and Slaughters. This eases the the strain on the deck substantially -- we can handle 4 colors surprisingly easy, but 5 is challenging. Note that there is one substantially exception to this: vs Miracles you can board in the Taiga and Slaughters for free, which ups your threat density enormously at very little cost.

Courser is likely going to become a 3rd Strix or a Deadly Recluse, but otherwise, the deck has been performing admirably. It does have a significant achilles heel vs Lands, which I'm not entirely sure is reasonably fixable. It might be worth it to accept Lands as a lost cause for this particular version and re-focus on other things (this would allow us to cut the Pithing Needles in favor of better cards). By contrast, Phil is currently 4-2 vs Eldrazi, largely on the back of Baleful Strix, which they have no real good answer to other than just running into it. Both of the matches he lost were to nut draws, which is just going to happen with that deck sometimes. Some hands they're just going to go Chalice@1 into Thought-Knot Seer on turns 1 & 2 and you're going to die. Shops happens.

Obviously this deck is all well and good and all, but my next examination for brewing is to take another look at BUG now that Gitrog is out. Other than a sad weakness to Karakas, Gitrog is an on-color, very, very powerful card. If we can add enough power to BUG to where we don't need to splash white for Rhinos, I think that deck could be very well positioned. Blue has one of the single best weapons to fight Miracles, in the form of Glen Elendra Archmage. We may not even need to maintain the red splash for Slaughter, although it's possible that it would still be correct.

Now, whether this is the fabled Traverse the Ulvenwald approach or not is an open question. Furthermore, whether there's a combo with Gitrog involved or not is another open question. Obviously discard outlet + Dakmor Salvage goes "infinite" - functionally with an original Eldrazi Titan in the list, virtually without. The question at that point is if there are any on color discard outlets with viable text that are worth including the combo.

The only reasonable ones I see flipping through Gatherer are:
Mind over Matter
Psychatog
Wild Mongrel

Mind over Matter is too expensive and too color intensive. Psychatog is likely the best payoff, but you need to find a way for it to connect or else to Fling it (Rite of Consumption?). Wild Mongrel is a Zenithable discard outlet that gets as large as you can dredge. Smaller than 'Tog, but shares the same problem -- you need to find a way to make it actually kill someone.

Special Note: Trade Routes

This card does charge you a mana, but it will work with Dakmor Salvage. You can pay 1: dredge 2, as many times as you have 1 mana. This turns Gitrog into an actual draw engine, since you activate Routes, discard Dakmor (trigger), draw off Routes (dredge 2), tigger resolves. That is assuming that you don't dredge past a land, which would net you another card. If you did hit a land, you are paying 1 mana for 3 cards (Dakmor + 2 randoms).

Now, this all looks sweet, but there's a big problem. An active Deathrite Shaman is backbreaking, and I hear that guy sees some play in the format. Furthermore, most decks have some amount of graveyard hate that we need to worry about -- Miracles would immediately bring in RIP, for one. The question then becomes, how much can we really focus on this combo? At what point do we just run Gitrog as a value engine, and not as a combo piece. Traitor's Clutch is the only kill spell with flashback that I can see, that would allow a Mongrel / 'Tog to actually kill the opponent. Unfortunately, there's no flashback Fling -- in order to accomplish that, we'd need to use Memory's Journey to put Rite of Consumption on top of our deck after dredging its entirety, then use Top to draw it.

This all feels like vastly too many steps to me. To recap, the /cleanest/ 1-turn kill here is this:

Have a Top in play.
Have 1BG open.
Have Wild Mongrel and Gitrog in play with Dakmor in hand.
Dredge entire deck.
Flashback Memory's Journey, targeting Rite of Consumption.
Tap Top, draw a card.
Cast Rite of Consumption, sacrificing an arbitrarily sized Wild Mongrel.
Win.

This is assuming the opponent is hellbent and has no Deathrite or ScavOoze in play. It is worth noting that this is technically a 7-mana kill, which is the same as Scapewish. You play Gitrog on 5, play a land to 6, stay at 6 after saccing (so you need another land, which is #7), Zenith up Mongrel and go to town with 1BG untapped for Journey and Rite.

At the end of the day, I think that this combo, while realistic, is probably more effort than its worth. It requires you to run a Wild Mongrel and a Memory's Journey, neither of which are really that great. Rite of Consumption isn't quite as wildly unplayable, but it definitely isn't good, either. The only real reason it gets a "meh" pass is because you can use it as an uncounterable outlet for Veteran, and it's not completely useless lategame.

Maybe there's some Madness cards that would help Mongrel be better -- I'm not sure beyond knowing that Mongrel does have a very impressive historical pedigree. I also have done like six gatherer searches at this point and don't really want to do another.

Okay, so moving forward.

If we operate under the assumption that the above combo is too convoluted / requires too many things to go right, which, again, I believe is a reasonable stance, then we need to evaluate Gitrog on a "fair" scale. It has a very strong body, only losing to the mightiest of Goyfs (and even then it technically trades). It enables landfall, for whatever that matters -- I guess Tireless Tracker. It turns cycle lands into 1 mana: Draw 2, Wasteland cantrips, fetches cantrip. Again, Karakas is a problem.

Gitrog is unlikely to be a win condition on its own. Since it lacks Trample, the best it can do against most opponents/board states (assuming it stays in play) is Abyss the opponent while drawing cards. That's certainly strong and fine, but it's not going to actually /end/ the game since it's not pushing damage through. That makes me want a Nylea, God of the Hunt. Trample and Deathtouch interact extremely favorably, and it would allow for Gitrog to actually close out games. The trick at that point, of course, is justifying Nylea. She does have a good mana sink -- for 4 mana you can turn a topdeck Veteran into a 3/3, or a 5/5 for 8, which isn't...the worst...when you're topdecking with a pile of mana. Giving a Thragtusk trample seems fine, same with Tireless Tracker since he can get real big, real quick.

Hmm. What would a sample creature suite look like?

4 Vet
2 Deathrite
3 Strix
1 Sakura
2 Tracker
1 E.Wit
1 Edric
1 Fierce Empath
1 Nylea
1 Meren
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Gitrog
1 Thragtusk
1 Con Sphinx
1 Grave Titan

That's 22 creatures in a pretty nice spread. Colossus in particular is a match made in heaven with Nylea. The deck is going to have a deep enough "lands matter" theme that a 2nd Tracker is justified, I think. Grave vs Prime is debatable, but let's see where we go from here.

22 creatures, if we stick with that number, leaves us with 17 slots remaining for spells, assuming 22 lands and 61 cards. Some of you are cringing right now. I don't care.

4 Therapy
4 Zenith

9 slots left.

3 Deed
3 Top

3 slots left. We could run 21 lands with 4 Brainstorms, at this point, or we could fill in 2 Decay 1 Pulse and call it good. This is where blue always runs into problems: the space.

Let's reverse tracks. What would an ideal spell suite for a blue-based list look like (Zeniths, not Traverses)?

4 Therapy
4 Zenith
1 Pulse
1 P.Truths

4 Brainstorm
3 Decay
1 Silence the Believers? (I want some kind of exile removal, but this is pretty awful....is it the best option? o.O)

3 Deed

2 Top

This is 23 spells, which means if you want the ideal spell loadout (with very little tech present here, too), and 21 lands, you have room for 17 creatures.

Let's pull it together:

4 Vet
2 Deathrite
3 Strix
1 Sakura
2 Tracker
1 E.Wit
1 Edric
1 Fierce Empath
1 Nylea
1 Meren
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Gitrog
1 Thragtusk
1 Con Sphinx
1 Grave Titan

4 Therapy
4 Zenith
1 Pulse
1 P.Truths

4 Brainstorm
3 Decay
1 Silence the Believers?

3 Deed

2 Top

21 lands

66 cards atm, 5 cuts needed.

The Silence slot is an easy cut, and I think the 2 Tops can probably come out. We removed the last Top from ultimate Fit and he's been fine, and this deck has more card advantage, by a lot, than that deck does. That means we need to cut 2 creatures. Let's move Grave into Primeval, so we can cut the Fierce Empath. Primeval is likely better in this deck anyway, and it might let us get a little cheeky with our lands. The last cut is likely either Deathrite 2 or Strix 3, and I think I like Strix 3 more -- it's better vs the meta (delver and eldrazi hate it), and it synergizes with Edric better.

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Thragtusk
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Primeval Titan

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Painful Truths

4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

3 Pernicious Deed

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

sb::
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Painful Truths
1 Notion Thief
2 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Golgari Charm

Here's the final brew, cleaned up and with lands. I didn't end up having enough space to do anything too cute with the manabase. Volrath's is begrudgingly there because you do really want something to grab with Titan, and the Two Towers is probably the best thing to do with the space available. Something that's worth noting here: this is a BUG deck that happens to have a Gitrog as a powerful card. This is not a deck that's centered around Gitrog. There's no Loam, there's no cycle lands, no Trade Routes, etc. I'm sure the card can be leveraged better than this deck is doing, but I'm not sure where the happy medium is for that. It's possible that the answer is just straight G/B, to leave more space for toys. I dunno.

The sideboard is a rough sketch, but is fairly robust. Lands is going to be a major problem, as is Burn. I could potentially see Death and Taxes needing some more attention, too, but it would need tested. My initial impression looking over the completed brew is that it is likely very effective against the tier 1 decks of the format, but will have some issues with the more random decks -- not a great place to be for the first couple rounds of a GP, but a great place to be if you survive them (or have byes).

Now, whether this is more effective than Ultimate Fit is another story, and is a question I don't know that I can answer. It looks more consistent, and it draws a billion cards. It does have a level of raw power. It gets a lot of sweet sideboard options without needing to add another color (Teeg doesn't count). It also doesn't need to run expensive planeswalkers or Slaughter Games or Tsunamis, so I feel comfortable including Teeg here. Safekeeper could possibly want to be maindeck, possibly over the final remaining Deathrite -- Safekeeper is a nice combo with Gitrog, and a Consecrated Sphinx protected by Safekeeper is a special circle of hell for the opponent.

I dunno. My idea vomit is done for now. I still need to figure out what the heck version I want to take to Charlotte with me =/

The plan I had with Gitrog Monster was to use the Wild Mongrel to Dredge two thirds of the deck or so, then grind a win by retracing Worm Harvest every turn till the opponent loses. Maybe with some way of preventing decking ourselves, which could just be Life From The Loam to ensure we have access to a Volrath's Stronghold. Just need a repeatable way of killing Deathrites reliably, preferably from the bin. Note that if we have a way of ditching a land to Mongrel or fetching or whatever, we can Dredge Salvage in response to DRS to stop it from being exiled.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

That makes me want a Nylea, God of the Hunt. Trample and Deathtouch interact extremely favorably, and it would allow for Gitrog to actually close out games. The trick at that point, of course, is justifying Nylea. She does have a good mana sink -- for 4 mana you can turn a topdeck Veteran into a 3/3, or a 5/5 for 8, which isn't...the worst...when you're topdecking with a pile of mana. Giving a Thragtusk trample seems fine, same with Tireless Tracker since he can get real big, real quick.

---

Thanks Arianrhod for considering Nylea, as I suggested. Maybe we can give a chance to Vigor instead of Primeval Titan? Breaks any creature deck without white.

Quote:

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4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Thragtusk
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Primeval Titan

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Painful Truths

4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

3 Pernicious Deed

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

sb::
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Painful Truths
1 Notion Thief
2 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Golgari Charm

---

This looks like a spicy fucking meatball.

I'll have to catch up with this thread over the next few days. Sorry I've been MIA (closing on my house soon + weddings).
I didn't do so hot at Mythic's May event (2-3 drop). SFM was hit-or-miss...but where it hit (see: voltron'ed her up against DnT), I clearly wouldn't have been able to win otherwise.

I was really frustrated with the deck that weekend. Hands and draws not in my favor. SFM was strong for consistency reasons but without a single P.Truth in the list, I ran out of gas often.
I'm circling on the optimal build. I may abandon Rhino altogether, but I'll leave that discussion for another day. Not happy with Rhino tbh.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Sounds like a fun plan.

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I tried this and my logic always lead me back to the same place. I want to hit the opponent with things. I could lower my threat count and hit all the other requirements, but if I'm doing that, why not just add some more threats on top of that because I could?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arianrhod

I dunno. My idea vomit is done for now. I still need to figure out what the heck version I want to take to Charlotte with me =/

---

I've been fascinated with BUG for awhile, I'm trying to decide on my next big Magic purchase if I go with an Underground Sea+Tropical Island to enable BUG (and to get me up to 8/10 ABU's, slowly trying to work my way up to a cube manabase) or if I go with a playset of Liliana of the Veil.

Love the idea of using Edric especially alongside Nylea to always hit and blue also opens up Trygon Predator in the board over Qasali Pridemage. It's evasive with Edric, trades with a Delver, and blows up Moats, Counterbalances, and so on.

Let me make a suggestion with your build that might free up some spaces for you: Tracker doesn't want Brainstorm. Usually with Brainstorm you're putting back excess lands and getting better cards exchanging 1 land for 1 card plus some selection. With Tracker on the other hand you're exchanging 1 land for 1-2 cards depending on if it's a fetch (averaging 1.4 cards with the usual manabase) and Tops already provide selection.

Let me suggest another way to go here too. If we're in blue, what about Shardless Agent with Top to set it up? Tracker could be pretty neat with Daze as well, turning a counterspell into a cantrip later in the game when it's normally dead but obviously you don't want Daze and Agent together.

I just tried Nic Fit: The Consecrated Monster (Arianrhod's list posted above) against Infect. Surprisingly strong. I put in Courser of Kruphix to pair with Tireless Tracker (its bonkers in my opinion), plus Nylea is pretty cool with Edric.
Loss to Reanimator. No interaction possible beyond Therapy and DRS, so pretty bad.
So far pretty cool. Some may ask though, why not just play Food Chain?

After long reading i finally would like to present a Gb Gitrog List on my own.

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
3 Abyssal Persecutor
1 Meren of CLan Nel Toth
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Sensei`s Divining Top

2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Diabolic Intent
4 Green Sun`s Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Abrupt Decay

2 Lilianan of the Veil

2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Dustbowl
2 Phyrexian Tower
3 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Savannah

Sideboard
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Chhoke
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Golgari Charm

I would be realy thankful for any kind of Feedback you could give.