[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

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Originally Posted by Dalton!

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

List

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

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Switch the 2 Bloodstained Mires for 2 Marsh Flats. At least those allow you to fetch Savannah. I'd also switch the Dustbowl for another Bayou. You aren't hitting 14 initial G/B mana. Switch an Ooze for a 3rd Top, library manipulation is your friend. Also drop the Persecutor for a 2nd DRS, a Tireless Tracker and a Courser of Kruphix. This deck grinds out the opponent with CA, not beat them to 0 and wait to get rid of your beater. Titania, Thragtusk and Grave Titan are enough as top end finishers.

Thank you. That was helpful.

What about Nylea, GOd of he hunt? OK? Not OK? Only ok?

Arianrhod seems to like it. 4 mana for a green sometimes 6/6 indestructible manasink (that helps you protect your own creatures or kill your opponent) sounds like at least worth a try. Trample is pretty cool.

I think Nylea and Gitrog go very, very well together, and both BUG / GB would be interested in Chameleon Colossus, who also goes very, very well with Nylea. At the end of the day, Nic Fit is still a synergy-based deck. Having interlocking card choices like that usually leads to good results.

I keep going back and forth on Courser. It's strong with Tracker and it's strong with Brainstorm -- they get perfect information, but it upgrades Brainstorm to Draw 3, Put 1 Back for U, which is insane. At the same time, when you don't have the manipulation for it, I've only ever been kind of disappointed by it. Without manip, it seems like the card never does anything other than give your opponent information.

@TTX: what did you cut for Courser? If you kept the 2nd Tracker, how did it feel having two of them? Sucks you hit Reanimator, but that's one of the matchups that I accepted throwing away. Note that I am referring to paper with my brews, as I'm not on modo yet, and I'm assuming you were testing on modo, where tier 3 combo decks like Reanimator are still popular. As for why not Food Chain, the answer is that while adorable, Food Chain is fundamentally a bad deck. In order to function to spec, it needs to be insanely greedy with its mana base, and it gets to run very little protection. It masquerades as a combo/control deck, but I don't know that I have ever seen it actually capable of controlling a game. A more apt analogy would be that it's a "hold-on-for-dear-life/combo" deck. I'll stick to my card advantage, Deeds, and synergy-based bomb deployments.

@Sergi: Vigor is an interesting one, but I think that the problem it runs into is that the non-white midrange/control decks aren't the category of deck that we're really trying to improve, and against those decks in particular, Primeval Titan will do just as good of a job while being better against white decks due to its ETB trigger.

@Brael: TPreds is very good, but I don't think the metagame calls for him right now. I could be mistaken in this. The last time Predator was good was when Esperblade was around -- now, it's good vs....Death and Taxes and Painter? Miracles should be boarding out their Counterbalances, and at best you get to annoy them and make them re-cast Top every turn. I'm not sure what else the card does in the metagame atm.

Tracker with Daze is hilarious. I'm not sure that's really an interaction for us, per se, but I can just imagine the look on someone's face when you Daze them out of Nic Fit. It'd be like fucking candid camera.

My big issue with Shardless is Zenith, since cascade and Zenith has never worked well together. That being said, Shardless Agent in the theoretical Traverse builds sounds great. Cascading into an early Traverse isn't ideal, but it's not wasted -- and later on, it's just great. Plus, Shardless is 2 card types for Delirium. Side realization: if we are reliably capable of achieving Delirium, Invasive Surgery might be something that we would want to consider for the sideboard of that deck. It's likely that we will just get Rest in Peaced anyway, but if they just don't draw it and we can actually counter+surgical their Terminuses, that seems amazing. Even without Delirium, it still counters Terminus for U.

Brainstorm is a challenging concept, especially with Tracker. Brainstorm raises the internal consistency of a deck a lot, just by existing and being itself. It mitigates flood and screw a lot. Tracker /also/ mitigates flood, although he doesn't really do much if you're screwed. Obviously, in a vacuum, both of these cards are fine. Tracker is fine without Brainstorm, and v.v.. The situation you describe, Brainstorm with a Tracker in play, sounds a lot like a first world problem to me.

Scenarios:

A: You Brainstorm, put back 1 land and something you don't want, and keep a Fetch in hand. Play it, break it, 2 clues + a shuffle out of the deal. This is the best case scenario, I think. You trade lands for gas, while still getting your shuffle and a pair of clues.

A2: You Brainstorm, have two lands you can put back and a Zenith for a shuffle effect, but then you don't get any clues. You can either accept this and say that there will always be more land drops in the future, or if you really want a clue, you can keep one of the lands, make your drop for the turn, and choose to replace one of the cards in your hand with a random card from the clue draw. Might be better, might be worse.

B: You Brainstorm, have a billion lands in your hand. Put back two, shuffle, still have lands in hand but at least you have clues to mitigate.

B2: You Brainstorm, have a billion lands in your hand, and can't shuffle. Tracker will help dig you out of your Brainstorm lock.

C: You Brainstorm, don't get / have any lands, and you shuffle with a Zenith. Tracker is a French Vanilla 3/2.

C2: You Brainstorm, don't get / have any lands, and can't shuffle. Tracker is a French Vanilla 3/2.

None of this really seems that bad except for C/C2, and that's mostly because we don't like being stuck on 3 lands. Even in a world where we're stuck on 3, we probably have a bunch of gas and interaction if we kept the hand, so Tracker's 3/2 body is still going to be reasonable -- and at the point at which we hit any land, we can play it, play a 2-drop, and crack the clue -- or a fetch becomes a Draw 2, which will help move us forward out of the screw.

I will acquiesce that Brainstorm and Tracker will sometimes lead to challenging situations where it can be very difficult to correctly determine what to put back with Brainstorm. But these situations should be both fairly rare and also are an embarrassment of riches.

Side topic / brewing note: at some point we might want to revisit the old Landfall builds with Lotus Cobra. Cobra and Tireless Tracker seems like a match made in heaven.

@Warden: Sorry to hear. If it makes you feel any better, vintage didn't go well for me personally either (although my car contained both a top 16 and a top 8). Just kept getting outdrawn in hilarious fashion, and Cabal Therapy's curse followed me back a format: I Thoughtseized, saw garbage, his draw for turn is Ancestral.

If you move off of Rhino, where do you want to look from there? There's certainly plenty of ground within Nic Fit that's already explored (hue), or you could try to build your own version specifically for your tastes and interests, or you could pick a different deck (probably 4c aggroloam would be the closest to your home territory?). Keep me posted on your thoughts, I'll help as able.

So, I just brewed up this absolute pile.

BUGw Nic Fit - 250 cards

96 lands
36 fetch (all but Arid Mesa)
20 dual
22 basic
4 Horizon Canopy
13 utility (incl. Karakas, Tower, Volrath's, Academy Ruins, maybe manlands)
1 Dakmor Salvage

49 interaction
16 discard (Therapy, Thoughtseize, Inquisiton, Hymn)
8 sweeper (4 Deed 2 Deluge 2 Damnation)
13 spot removal (4 Path 4 Swords 4 Decay 1 Darkblast)
8 vindicates (4 pulse 2 vindicate 2 unmaking)
4 snapcaster

64 filter/tutor
12 creature (zenith, traverse, summoner's pact)
12 universal (gifts ungiven, intuition, intent)
4 entomb
4 crop rotation
4 enlightened tutor
4 bring to light
4 truths
4 tracker
4 top
4 brainstorm
4 witness
4 enlightened tutor

41 cards that do things
4 vet
4 deathrite
4 battle of wits
4 life from the loam
3 academy rector
3 narcomoeba
2 the gitrog monster
1 wild mongrel
1 dryad arbor
1 gaddock teeg
1 reclamation sage
1 unburial rites
1 thragtusk
1 skirge familiar
1 mind over matter
1 worm harvest
1 dread return
1 recurring nightmare
1 meren of clan nel toth
1 crucible of worlds
1 elixir of immortality
1 Scavenging Ooze

Wishboard:
1 Skirge Familiar
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Buried Ruin
1 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Academy Rector
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Boseiju, who Shelters all
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
1 Cavern of Souls
4 whatever

Intuition -> Rector, Therapy, Unburial Rites into Battle of Wits.
Gitrog combos with most of the deck. Skirge Familiar in particular is absolutely ridiculous. If you can assemble Toad + Discard outlet + Salvage, you go off in some absurd manner that probably ends in an arbitrarily large amount of life drain from Maga. I dunno, you have a load of mana and mill and all sorts of bullshit, I'm sure you can win somehow.

Well, that's one way to fix the problem of never having enough space.

Rhino can, at times, be lackluster in given metagames, so I understand the pain. I think if you're a no-sir on Rhino, then you're more looking towards the Angel build, but I feel like raising the curve a whole ton isn't where you want to be. The whole good thing about Rhino is the power at 4 mana, and the tutoring.

I think if you're saying Rhino is dirt, and you're playing 4, cutting it and adding 2x 5 drops and 2x 3 drops wouldn't be that bad, but slamming another 4x 5 drops seems tricky. Or, I guess you could just run 4x control walkers and dirt the fuck out of the midrange matchups. #Shrekt.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

My big issue with Shardless is Zenith, since cascade and Zenith has never worked well together. That being said, Shardless Agent in the theoretical Traverse builds sounds great. Cascading into an early Traverse isn't ideal, but it's not wasted -- and later on, it's just great. Plus, Shardless is 2 card types for Delirium. Side realization: if we are reliably capable of achieving Delirium, Invasive Surgery might be something that we would want to consider for the sideboard of that deck. It's likely that we will just get Rest in Peaced anyway, but if they just don't draw it and we can actually counter+surgical their Terminuses, that seems amazing. Even without Delirium, it still counters Terminus for U.

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I could see this, I'm not sure how to turn on Delirium quickly though. Our best tool for that in BUG is Baleful Strix but that's still relying on one of our creatures to die rather than eat a Swords to Plowshares, and even when it does die neither GSZ or Therapy are all that great for getting us a sorcery. Delirium seems tough to do, I play Traverse in Modern and my biggest hurdle is always in getting a creature into my GY, that seems even more difficult here. Delirium really requires filling the deck with a lot of air like Probe, Ponder, etc... It's best use is that it's another threat while letting you keep your spell count high, we don't really take advantage of that though.

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Brainstorm is a challenging concept, especially with Tracker. Brainstorm raises the internal consistency of a deck a lot, just by existing and being itself. It mitigates flood and screw a lot. Tracker /also/ mitigates flood, although he doesn't really do much if you're screwed. Obviously, in a vacuum, both of these cards are fine. Tracker is fine without Brainstorm, and v.v.. The situation you describe, Brainstorm with a Tracker in play, sounds a lot like a first world problem to me.

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I think I still lean towards Top over Brainstorm, even with blue. We want a selection effect too often, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain, maybe even Serum Visions would all want to be in here.... why use that many spaces when Top will suffice?

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Originally Posted by Brael

I could see this, I'm not sure how to turn on Delirium quickly though. Our best tool for that in BUG is Baleful Strix but that's still relying on one of our creatures to die rather than eat a Swords to Plowshares, and even when it does die neither GSZ or Therapy are all that great for getting us a sorcery. Delirium seems tough to do, I play Traverse in Modern and my biggest hurdle is always in getting a creature into my GY, that seems even more difficult here. Delirium really requires filling the deck with a lot of air like Probe, Ponder, etc... It's best use is that it's another threat while letting you keep your spell count high, we don't really take advantage of that though.



I think I still lean towards Top over Brainstorm, even with blue. We want a selection effect too often, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain, maybe even Serum Visions would all want to be in here.... why use that many spaces when Top will suffice?

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A single Entomb can get either a Strix or a Courser and lock up 3 card types, plus fetches are super easy for a land. If there's something involving Delirium here, it's almost certainly going to involve Entomb or Careful Study/Faithless Looting. Of course, at that point, you need to justify not running a reanimate package -- what are you doing with Delirium that's worth warping the deck around to that degree?

I don't know the answer to this question.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

A single Entomb can get either a Strix or a Courser and lock up 3 card types, plus fetches are super easy for a land. If there's something involving Delirium here, it's almost certainly going to involve Entomb or Careful Study/Faithless Looting. Of course, at that point, you need to justify not running a reanimate package -- what are you doing with Delirium that's worth warping the deck around to that degree?

I don't know the answer to this question.

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I could see something with Loam and KotR. Traverse lets you tutor for any creature OR land if delirium is active. Something something maverick with both GSZ creature tutor targets as well as land targets...without having to run Crop Rotation? Eh.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

A single Entomb can get either a Strix or a Courser and lock up 3 card types, plus fetches are super easy for a land. If there's something involving Delirium here, it's almost certainly going to involve Entomb or Careful Study/Faithless Looting. Of course, at that point, you need to justify not running a reanimate package -- what are you doing with Delirium that's worth warping the deck around to that degree?

I don't know the answer to this question.

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Entomb keeps the third color open but Gift's Ungiven or Intuition can turn it on as well. Intuition for something like Courser, Strix, Eternal Witness gives you types as well as some guaranteed CA. It's even blue if you wanted FoW in the SB.

I think the problem with this sort of BUG build is that there's not a good 4-5 drop we can GSZ for. I'm still not won over on Gitrog Monster, for 5 I want something that's either unkillable or generates advantage on cast and through remaining on the board. The closest seems to be Thragtusk.

Delirium is really just a tutor, if it's anything like Modern simply tutoring something after going through hoops isn't good enough, you have to be able to chain them. In my Modern deck I go Traverse for Snap, Snap/Traverse for Huntmaster followed by Huntmaster of the Fells on the next turn. You can do something similar using Eternal Witness.
TX - Traverse for Witness, cast Witness, Traverse for Deadeye Navigator (1GGGG spent)
TX+1 - Deadeye Navigator, soulbond to Witness, hold up activation, get Traverse back with Witness (5UUU spent)

It seems powerful but the difference in mana spent between the two turns is pretty large, I'm not sure it could curve properly since it needs 8 mana.

Followup to the above idea, I think the Deadeye Navigator plan is too much mana. What isn't too much mana though is
Entomb to turn on Traverse
Traverse for Witness
Witness back Traverse
Traverse for Restoration Angel
Blink Witness, return Traverse
Traverse for something (Monastery Mentor maybe?)

What I like about this plan is that Traverse lends itself to running a lighter creature deck because you need the other card types, and to go back to the Baneslayer/Mulldrifter creature types, Restoration Angel favors a deck of Mulldrifters which are the better creature type when you're spell heavy. With 4 Tops I could see trying to work in the Monastery Mentor combo as well as another finisher that we can tutor off Traverse. Thoughts? Is it just worse than using GSZ?

Traverse for Witness
Traverse for Meren
loop Traverse every turn for whatever you want, just need a sac outlet

Birthing Pod Witness -> Meren is similar.

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Traverse for Witness
Traverse for Meren
loop Traverse every turn for whatever you want, just need a sac outlet

Birthing Pod Witness -> Meren is similar.

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Maybe, but it needs the opponent to be lacking in GY hate and it needs Meren to stay on the table. What I like about the Witness/Resto loop is that either part can die and the Traverse you grabbed on the previous iteration reestablishes the loop. If they kill Witness the Traverse gets another Witness, which then gets back Traverse for a Resto and brings out more guys. If they kill the Resto the flicker still happened and you get the Traverse. The only thing that actually disrupts it is eating the Traverse, which is still vulnerable to DRS/Ooze, but that's a little less vulnerable than Meren. With enough mana you could in theory loop twice in a turn as well (Resto (4), flicker Witness, cast Traverse (5), get Resto, cast Resto (9), flicker Witness, get Traverse).

And the famed triple post. Looking at Restoration Angel as my 4 drop here, and limited to no GSZ. I really like the idea of Tidehollow Sculler here (which I've been experimenting with anyways) because it's an Artifact+Creature for Delirium, and it has strong interactions with Restoration Angel. That puts my colors pretty solidly into the usual Junk builds. It also means that I'm less interested in creatures without an immediate impact so I don't think this is a Tracker build and I probably want a lower creature count than I usually play.

I'm also thinking that Entomb may not be where I want to be, Entomb is a do nothing card, I would rather turn Traverse on through card choices than investing more cards.

Land 22
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savanah
2 Forest
2 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats

Creatures 18
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Courser of Kruphix
3 Eternal Witness
4 Restoration Angel
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

Spells 16
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
1 Vindicate
1 Anguished Unmaking
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile

Artifact 4
4 Sensei's Divining Top

This doesn't work the Mentors in though. Not quite sure how to do that, but I do like the concept.

Diabolic Intent is one of the coolest sac outlets ever... Even lets you establish the Eternal Witness + Meren + Phyrexian Tower loop out of the blue.

Nothing like cabal therapying yourself to discard a rhino against your reanimator opponent who is at 3.

I find that's very strange how pod is being ignored in this thread, in spite of the fact that the biggest results in the Last 2 years have been collected by pod versions. Someone could explain it to me?

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

I find that's very strange how pod is being ignored in this thread, in spite of the fact that the biggest results in the Last 2 years have been collected by pod versions. Someone could explain it to me?

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It doesn't run Siege Rhino. We really, really like Siege Rhino.

In all seriousness, Pod lists tend to durdle a lot without killing the opponent. Junk Fit is a lot quicker to go for the throat.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

It doesn't run Siege Rhino. We really, really like Siege Rhino.

In all seriousness, Pod lists tend to durdle a lot without killing the opponent. Junk Fit is a lot quicker to go for the throat.

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Junk pod always runs Rhino.
I mean, results have shown pretty clearly that pod (and ramp/valakut after them) are the best version of nic fit in the last 2 years, and the last results have confirmed that.
So I'm wondering why there is so few talk about it

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

Junk pod always runs Rhino.
I mean, results have shown pretty clearly that pod (and ramp/valakut after them) are the best version of nic fit in the last 2 years, and the last results have confirmed that.
So I'm wondering why there is so few talk about it

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Junk Pod Fit isn't really a thing. It's usually BUG Pod Fit.

I guess we don't talk about it b/c we don't care for it. Besides, out of the 5 Nic Fit lists to make SCG T8 this year there were
- 2 regular Junk Fit lists
- 1 BUG Pod Fit list
- 1 Junk Pod Fit list
- 1 Jund Fit list
so I don't know what clear results you are referring to (or where your wonderful Valakut lists are).

Since 2014 no list, except pod - I hate valakut Version btw-, have reached a top at +200 players tournament, or I'm missing something?
And the two biggest results this year are junk pod and brug pod, then valakut fit by two Italian players I know, then 1 junk Fit. And last months of 2015 confirmed that with more pod (I'm searching with tcdecks, I could have missed something).
Despite that the evidence show the contrary, k feel that pod versions are still considered the less competitive, while probably they are the most ones (with valakut, I think, in this meta).

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

Since 2014 no list, except pod - I hate valakut Version btw-, have reached a top at +200 players tournament, or I'm missing something?
And the two biggest results this year are junk pod and brug pod, then valakut fit by two Italian players I know, then 1 junk Fit. And last months of 2015 confirmed that with more pod (I'm searching with tcdecks, I could have missed something).
Despite that the evidence show the contrary, k feel that pod versions are still considered the less competitive, while probably they are the most ones (with valakut, I think, in this meta).

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Luckily the meta hasn't shifted since late 2015 and that Eldrazi thing just blew over without as much as making a dent. Oh, wait...

Can't catch your point. Even with eldrazi the two version with best results are pod and valakut :confused:

Edit:I mean, it's like since 2014 that this deck couldn't reach such big results and none is talking about it, I was wondering why

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

Edit:I mean, it's like since 2014 that this deck couldn't reach such big results and none is talking about it, I was wondering why

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Well, I told you twice now so I guess that's that.

@Memories, Tbh I think there are two reasons:

1) This thread might be one of the only threads in the "established" forum on this site that actually contains multiple complete different archetypes (control, midrange, pod value, creature combo, valakut combo etc) and covers different colour combinations from GB, GBW, GBR, GBRW, BUG, BUGwr... So discussing different archetypes can be quite hard here because they get drowned out by other archetypes sometimes. It might be the case that people that want to discuss pod lists have given up discussing here because the rest of us are talking about other things.

2) I think there is a bias with the players here towards a certain "fair" play style, I know that is true of myself. My favourite play style doesn't usually involve the colour blue or creature heavy builds like collected company in modern or pod in legacy requires (I do enjoy blue, and creature decks, they just aren't my favourite). So that style of play leads to discard, sweepers and haymakers, so that leads me to the vet + therapy + gsun shell. It might be the case that this thread has a lot of people similar to me and as such we aren't really discussing/looking into pod or blue lists as much as we would be if we were about to compete in a Legacy Pro Tour for example :P This probably exacerbates point 1) as well..

So to answer your question, the reason I, personally, am not discussing BUG or Pod lists is because I'm here to play what I enjoy most, as well as budget restricting me from accessing blue cards. EDIT: As well as that I think the Junk decks have legs to stand on, I'm not just pissing around in the Legacy format haha

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Luckily the meta hasn't shifted since late 2015 and that Eldrazi thing just blew over without as much as making a dent. Oh, wait...

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If I understand your point correctly you are saying that rhino lists are better now thanks to their MU agaisnt eldrazi, I find BUG to be in a sweet spot exactly because eldrazi is a thing, Baleful Strix has never been so good against a tier1 deck and you end up with a sweet win ratio, losing pretty much only against the nuts (and im confident that no legacy deck can deal with eldrazi's best openers) and against some fringe 1/2 off such as All is Dust.
Im also 100% positive that BRUG Pod lists have a better miracle MU and a much better combo MU, abzan lists just tend to crush fair deck even more than the others.

Rhino decks are probably better against punishing fire and delver while non rhino ones have a better time against the unfair side of the meta imho.

The main problem is just the amount of nic fit versions available, i can understand abzan player not caring about BUG and vice versa, but dont go further saying that one list is better than the others, both scapeshift and pod have been proved to be at least as good if not better than abzan.

Meh, Siege Rhino > everything b/c Siege Rhino.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Meh, Siege Rhino > everything b/c Siege Rhino.

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That's some seriously flawless logic. This thought process simply cannot be dismantled. I agree with you for once 😀

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Originally Posted by rubblekill

I agree with you for once 😀

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:eek: OMGWTFBBQ. Oh, happy day!

Maybe someone wanted a serious discussion ^^

To provide some serious context on Pod (not just rhino b/c rhino, as funny as that is):

I've basically never put in any work on Pod. I acknowledge that it's good, it just hasn't interested to this point. Note that I was a big Pod player in Standard at the time, and I played Melira in modern basically until it (Pod) got banned. So, I know my way around a Birthing Pod, and I do like the gameplay it endorses.

Why have I never worked on it in legacy, then?

I think the biggest reason is because Pod, more so than other Nic Fit archetypes, is a family unto itself. The Pod versions are very alien, they have a lot of very specific design requirements that other versions don't have, and I'm a brewer. I like having a lot of space in decks to mess around with and figure out cool interactions with. Pod is more regimented and it's always felt like there are many fewer available slots for spice. Maybe not quite to the Delver levels of, "you have 5 flex spots in the entire maindeck, the other 55 are predetermined," but it's still constraining to me.

Another reason is that most of the "big voices" in the Pod world are fairly silent. I know David Gleicher reads the thread, and he just posted that he's considering Columbus not too long ago -- but he doesn't post often. Maybe it's a chicken and egg situation and he'd post more if there was more Pod discussion. I don't know.

I wouldn't say it's impossible that one day I pick up a set of Pods and start messing around with it, in which case I'd invariably post about it here. Likewise, though, my attention is focused elsewhere right now. There's a legacy GP in a month, and I'm not going to audible into Pod at this point. Pod lists, across all formats, require a lot of experience with the deck -- knowing the specific chains, always having every creature in your deck memorized at all times, knowing all of the interactions between various creatures at each cmc, Deceiver Exarch shenanigans to skip on the chain, etc. There's no way I'd feasibly be able to learn all of that to the level that I'm comfortable with other, "fairer" Nic Fits, even if I wanted to move into Pod for the GP (which I don't).

As far as the whole "this version has the best results so best girl rawr" dick-measuring nonsense, I've already shared my opinion of that multiple times. There are so many versions of Nic Fit played in so many different parts of the world that we will never have a conclusive view on that, just going off of statistics (math, not philosophy). There's always extenuating circumstances: the decks that have performed the best at large tournaments are those that were played by those capable players in attendance at said tournament. Nothing says that 8-color Flicker Rhino Battle of Wits (clearly making this up) isn't the best version of the deck: just nobody (or nobody competent) takes it to large events. Matt's been busy with school and hasn't been going to large events (plus SCG pulled out of the northwest). I've been going to 50-person Mythics, but I can't remember the last time I was at a 200+ person event. Probably Eternal Weekend last year. I don't know who in the thread has gone to BoM or MKM in Europe, if anyone. Etc, etc.

Tld;r on that subject: There are a lot of capable players and a lot of capable decks. Stats only reflect those who attend. Philosophically, it doesn't matter at all. There is no such thing as a best deck, except in extreme, ban-worthy scenarios.

So, to sum, more Pod discussion is likely going to have to wait until after the GP, unless the group of Pod players already here (you, Noctalor, Ralf sometimes) start talking about it. We've shown, as a community, that we can hold multiple conversations at once, even with as quickly as this thread moves. Don't be afraid to start talking! Like-minded people will respond -- they always do. Or, if you feel too cluttered, start a PM chain. I'm pretty sure you can PM multiple people on this forum software, although I don't know that I've ever tried?

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Pod lists, across all formats, require a lot of experience with the deck -- knowing the specific chains, always having every creature in your deck memorized at all times, knowing all of the interactions between various creatures at each cmc, Deceiver Exarch shenanigans to skip on the chain, etc. There's no way I'd feasibly be able to learn all of that to the level that I'm comfortable with other, "fairer" Nic Fits, even if I wanted to move into Pod for the GP (which I don't).

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GSZ demands pretty much the same from you. Knowing when to GSZ for what is a crucial part of being succesful with this deck, in any of its forms.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

GSZ demands pretty much the same from you. Knowing when to GSZ for what is a crucial part of being succesful with this deck, in any of its forms.

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Sure, but not being repeatable inhibits a tremendous amount of this effect. It's totally different when Pod is just sitting in play and you can use it multiple consecutive turns (if not multiple times in the same turn). It also bears in mind to remember that you need to be highly conscious of your opponent's deck's damage capacity, which is something that we tend to shrug off and lifegain though. Pod uses its life as a resource much more due to the prevalence of Phyrexian mana. Knowing just how far you can cut yourself against the field is pretty important. Rhino doesn't actually hurt itself other than with Painful Truths, and has a pile of lifegain, so when Shardless has 2 Tar Pits and a Goyf, we're just like, this is gonna suck but k. With Pod, that same board state might kill you if you've been too aggressive with your life total.

@ Memory

I do play Junk POD Fit along with a lot of other Nic Fit builds.

If you are willing to search by yourself in this thread a bit, you'll find some of my posts speaking of Junk POD.

I'm just following the trend of the thread.

So basically, when everyone is speaking of regular Junk build, so do I...

I'll update my signature with my latest Junk POD list.

Cheers,

Ralf

PS: Signature eventually updated...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

Since 2014 no list, except pod - I hate valakut Version btw-, have reached a top at +200 players tournament, or I'm missing something?
And the two biggest results this year are junk pod and brug pod, then valakut fit by two Italian players I know, then 1 junk Fit. And last months of 2015 confirmed that with more pod (I'm searching with tcdecks, I could have missed something).
Despite that the evidence show the contrary, k feel that pod versions are still considered the less competitive, while probably they are the most ones (with valakut, I think, in this meta).

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Not sure how big the classics were, but both the SCG Milwaukee and Baltimore classics had Rhino Fit in the top 8.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dr_D

Not sure how big the classics were, but both the SCG Milwaukee and Baltimore classics had Rhino Fit in the top 8.

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Both were 7 rounds, 100+ players.

It seems like people in the thread generally just aren't that interested in the pod version. Which makes sense because it is pretty different than the other versions. The scapeshift version seems quite different as well.

Personally, I had put the deck (and legacy in general) on the back burner until realizing there was a GP coming up that I would probably go to. It looks like there are still some innovative lists popping up. I am planning to start testing my usual list this week with a couple of additions (Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Ophiomancer) and I'll report back on how those are.

Another reason I haven't posted about it is that I feel like I pretty much understand how good the deck is and can be: a nice tier 2 deck that has the element of surprise but doesn't do anything fundamentally broken in a format full of decks that do. Don't get me wrong, it's still totally playable but I'd be lying if I said "man if we just add this card/make this change, it could be a tier 1 deck." I just don't think it's going to happen in legacy.
They have actually printed some really nice cards for it in the pretty recent past (reclamation sage, minister of pain) but it's tough for me to imagine what kind of card they could print that would solve the fundamental problems of the deck. So debating the merits of playing a particular 3 or 4 drop creature or whether to play it main or in the sideboard is not too useful in my opinion - legacy is just too big for such a thing to matter...except for Glen Elendra Archmage, I can't believe that MKM pod player didn't play 1 of those main :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GtF

It seems like people in the thread generally just aren't that interested in the pod version. Which makes sense because it is pretty different than the other versions. The scapeshift version seems quite different as well.

Personally, I had put the deck (and legacy in general) on the back burner until realizing there was a GP coming up that I would probably go to. It looks like there are still some innovative lists popping up. I am planning to start testing my usual list this week with a couple of additions (Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Ophiomancer) and I'll report back on how those are.

Another reason I haven't posted about it is that I feel like I pretty much understand how good the deck is and can be: a nice tier 2 deck that has the element of surprise but doesn't do anything fundamentally broken in a format full of decks that do. Don't get me wrong, it's still totally playable but I'd be lying if I said "man if we just add this card/make this change, it could be a tier 1 deck." I just don't think it's going to happen in legacy.
They have actually printed some really nice cards for it in the pretty recent past (reclamation sage, minister of pain) but it's tough for me to imagine what kind of card they could print that would solve the fundamental problems of the deck. So debating the merits of playing a particular 3 or 4 drop creature or whether to play it main or in the sideboard is not too useful in my opinion - legacy is just too big for such a thing to matter...except for Glen Elendra Archmage, I can't believe that MKM pod player didn't play 1 of those main :)

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This sentiment is why I do really believe that Thought-Knot Seer is something we probably need to be looking more into. IMO, the top 3 (in no order) things that Nic Fit needs are:

-) A ~3 cmc disruptive creature -- a reasonable body beatstick that thoughtseizes on enter (green better than not, but fine if not).
-) A Zenithable Shriekmaw style creature.
-) An uncounterable way to kill planeswalkers.

Item 1 on this list is very, very close to Thought-Knot Seer, which is why I was pushing so hard on the 8post version for a while before eventually acknowledging that there's just too much work to be done for it to be tuned and ready for Columbus.

If ALL THREE of these things come to pass, I think we'd have a decent shot at making tier 1. Right now, we're a very solid tier 2 deck -- we've been putting up good results, better than a lot of other decks in the format that used to be tier 1, in fact. Without these three items being printed, though, I find it hard to believe we'll ever crack tier 1, and I'm fine with that. I personally actually prefer being a solid tier 2 -- it means that we're still a nebulous, lesser known entity. There is value in being shrouded in mystery...when the opponents never know what random standard card we're going to drop on them, it gives openings for victories.

Just my 2 cents.

I think the Pod version just isnt as popular here. I think it is very powerful, but requires much different deckbuilding and consistency will always be more of an issue with a comboish deck. Im more for building consistency.

I feel like Pod is more popular in the Euro groups, especially Italy. Feel free to post and we will try to help, though.

Also, might be touring Europe in August. Might want to jam some games over coffee?