Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I'm going to do a quickie report just from my memory, as I don't have my notes in front of me.
R1 vs burn.
I recognize my opponent, who, like me, has multiple top 8's at Mythic. Although I had never played against him before, I knew he was a religious burn player.
Game one I shred his hand with Therapies and then enter the Angry Mountains Phase. He dies quickly thereafter.
Game two he has double Goblin Guide into Grim Lavamancer. I -almost- stabilize, but I couldn't quite get there, as I was both dead to an untapped Grim Lavamancer and one land short being able to Scapeshift him.
Game three is derpy. I set off an early Explorer, getting Forest/Mountain (as I had like a Bayou and a Badlands or two Bayous....I had two black sources, moral of the story). He slams down Blood Moon. I resolve a pair of Huntmasters, while he then drops a Sulfuric Vortex. I'm at like 21 and he's at 17ish. He ends up having to Fireblast both of my Huntmasters to stay alive and keep them from flipping. I assemble more dudes while he bleeds out. I drew into a Swamp and had a Deed on board in case I had to get rid of his enchantments, but the board state never necessitated it.
R2 vs Asher with White Stax.
Because we have to play every single ****ing event.
I know three things going into this match: Asher is actually really good with that deck, he has at least 3 and possibly 4 Armageddons, and I don't have Pulverize in my sideboard. Awkward.
Game one takes something like 35 minutes. I try to control his Crucibles as best as I can so as to work out from Wastelock, and only partially succeed because he's added Trading Post to his deck, which allows him to get back his Crucibles basically on demand. After a pair of Deeds I've finally got him in a decent position -- then he drops the rest of his hand. Another Crucible, a Smokestack, and an Elspeth. I manage to Top into my 3rd and final Deed, and opt to play it and pass the turn so that I can his manlands if he tries to attack me for the turn. He makes a HUGE misplay here, and tries to O-Ring my Deed. I crack it in response to the cast, which means that when O-Ring comes into play, the only eligible permanent for its trigger to hit is his Elspeth. I end up taking it down from there, since he was completely out of gas. He hadn't hit a Geddon, but I was ready for it -- I chose to fail to find off of my Primeval Titan and was stockpiling lands in my hand. I've lost enough games to that card.
Game two we don't even get to finish, and I win 1-0-1. By far the coolest thing in this matchup was Scapeshifting my 5 dual lands into 5 basics so that he couldn't Wastelock me. I feel that too often, Scapewish players forget that Scapeshift can be used for other things besides killing people. It's perfectly fine to thin your deck out or just make your manabase wasteland-proof.
R3 vs Neo-Survival Maverick
I don't really have much to say about this. Virtue's Ruin did work, Deed did work, Damnation did work in game two when I was mana screwed with double Explorer in play and he Retainers'd in Emrakul, which then let me Burning Wish for Damnation. Pretty sure he got Scapeshifted both games.
R4 vs Jund
Game one I got mana flooded to hell and back while he just kept drawing Bloodbraids. It was one of those awkward games where I had approximately a million live draws and just didn't hit any. It didn't help that he was on the play, which meant he got to Thoughtseize my Top away.
Game two was the exact opposite: I had like triple Explorer, but no sac outlet and barely any lands. He had double Wasteland + a Hymn that hit lands, so I was kind of on my back foot. I remember I did Burning Wish for a Pyroclasm that would have killed his Deathrite and his Bob, as well as two Explorers on my side, but he ripped a Thoughtseize for it, as I didn't have the mana to do it all in one shot. Really unfortunate. I'm fairly certain that this is actually a really good matchup and I just got unlucky, but as that was the first match I've played vs the new Jund deck, I can't say for sure.
R5 vs Ning with TES
He gets revenge for my slaying him in the top 8 of the last Jupiter =(
Game one I mull aggressively looking for a Therapy. I eventually hit a sexy-as-fuck double Therapy+Explorer+Huntmaster(or Deed, can't remember) hand, which is everything that I'm looking for in the matchup. The problem: no black mana. I decide that going to 4? 5? isn't going to be better, so I sit on it. He sculpts his hand for a turn or two while I fail to draw black mana. I die shortly thereafter.
Game one he discards a REB, then tries to go off via Time Spiral. I naturally draw into another REB off of his Spiral, and counter his Brainstorm....only to have him play another one. He ends up whiffing, though, and passes the turn with the storm count at like 15. I drop a Thragtusk and ship it back. He does a few cantrips, finds what he needs, and storms off via Past in Flames for an arbitrarily large number.
R6 vs Patnode with TES, again.
I think he was running card-for-card the same list as Ning, but he might have stuck with D. Returns instead of Ning's trademark Time Spiral...not sure, as it didn't come up. I always hate playing against Patnode, because while he's a great guy outside of playing him, it never matters how friendly I am during the match. It doesn't help that he has two false assumptions: that his combo deck can't lose to Nic Fit (a "durdle midrange deck"), and that Nic Fit also isn't even a "real" deck -- completely ignoring the number of times I've moneyed with Nic Fit now, it's still pretty infuriating.
Anyway.
I mull to 5 game one, and draw the nuts to shred his hand and curve Huntmaster into Thragtusk. He makes some goblins to chump block, but I sweep them away and kill him.
Game two I have him really far on his back foot, but I think I misplayed and it cost me the game. He had double Burning Wish + Infernal Tutor in hand. I have a Slaughter Games coming, and am currently flashing back a Therapy on him. I name the Wish, with the plan to Slaughter his Tutor next turn. This all happens, except that later in the game he Burning Wishes for a Tendrils and kills me while I had Deed on board. I didn't want him to use one of the Wishes just for value, which is why I took the Wishes, but as I think about it, hitting the Wishes with Slaughter Games seems much better, since it forces them on the Empty the Warrens plan (they can't Wish for Tendrils to just kill you). Live and learn -- something to think about for the future.
Game three I tear his hand apart while he rages about my blind Therapies, and I just apply too much pressure for him to keep up. He makes a bunch of goblins to block my Thragtusk again, and I resolve a Green Sun. Now, I could have made him REALLY tilt by getting Blitz Hellion and forcing him to lose 8 of his 12 goblins, but I decide to make the "correct" play: getting a Huntmaster. With Hunts, I could just pass the turn and the flip would kill him -- which is exactly what ended up happening.
I snuck into 7th place at 4-2, and the top 8 decided to chop and go eat, which was good for almost 150. I would have been paired vs Jund-guy again if we had played it out, so I think that my odds of top 4ing were quite high. Then, beyond that, it's anyone's guess because who knows what I would have gotten paired with. it was definitely the type of top 8 setup where Scapewish could have easily gone the whole way, depending on the pairings. But, all good.
At the rate we're going this month, we MIGHT be able to get back into DTB this month, or at least get close. Nic Fit's picking up a lot of finishes so far. We just need to make sure that we upload all of them to Council.es, and point out anything that gets mislabeled on there. I have every intention of picking up my 4th money finish in a row this upcoming Saturday at Jupiter, so we'll see what happens =)
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@Arianrhod
Have you missed the 2nd Eternal Witness since you cut it?
Last weekend I missed it on at least 2 occations where even the Stronghold wouldnt have helped. The deck is really tight right now so I'm unsure what to cut to add the 2nd Witness again. It feels like its either Blitz Helion of Witness as I don't want to cut the Decays I've been playing in my current meta.
Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
XdeckX
Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )
After a long hitaus I am back playing Scapewish and I had every opponent and onlooker go 'wth is this a real deck?' or 'dude you sure you playing legacy?':eek:
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
fireiced
After a long hitaus I am back playing Scapewish and I had every opponent and onlooker go 'wth is this a real deck?' or 'dude you sure you playing legacy?':eek:
Haha, I get these comments all the time.
Arch/Arianrhod: You guys going to be up at Jupiter? I'm assuming Kevin will since he mentioned aiming for his 4th money finish.
I'm planning to go so that would be three nicshifts up there haha, has anyone tested in the mirror?
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
XdeckX
@Arianrhod
Have you missed the 2nd Eternal Witness since you cut it?
Last weekend I missed it on at least 2 occations where even the Stronghold wouldnt have helped. The deck is really tight right now so I'm unsure what to cut to add the 2nd Witness again. It feels like its either Blitz Helion of Witness as I don't want to cut the Decays I've been playing in my current meta.
Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )
Yeah, I actually haven't missed the 2nd E.Wit at all. There have been exactly 0 situations where I've wanted the 2nd copy =/
Note that I'm still unsure about the Stronghold. Like, I can rationally understand how Stronghold is good, and I do like it as a kind of "security blanket" to where once it gets online, in a late-enough game, you just win -- but that situation STILL hasn't come up for me, so I'm not sure that it's worth it. It might just be a playstyle thing, like Liliana. Hellion's been fine so far, but it's actually ending up kind of like the Stronghold. I haven't actually killed a Jace or a Liliana with it yet. Some of that is matchups (I've played against like one Liliana deck since I put it in). It gives a nice feeling of security that I have that tool available to me should I need it, but it hasn't actually come up yet. So, I dunno. I'll keep testing both of them for now and see what happens.
And yeah, we have been perpetually maligned since becoming a deck about a year and a half ago now. Nobody gives the deck it's full credit, which leads to a lot of comments that I find very derogatory. Like, I just try to ignore and brush off the people who are like "hey look a standard deck." I WANT to just flip my shit and be like, "look retards, see these Huntmasters and these Thragtusks? THOSE ARE THE ONLY STANDARD LEGAL CARDS IN THE DECK. NOW KINDLY SHUT THE FUCK UP."
....But I keep my mouth shut. It's just frustrating that we run fewer standard legal cards than basically any Delver deck, but WE'RE the standard deck. Clearly. I think that this will go away with time, once Huntmaster and Tusk rotate out of standard and we're still playing them, but it's going to be a long 9 months until that happens. But hey, whatever. Like you said, we're getting top eights and they aren't, so if they want to keep bashing it, I guess that's their prerogative. We'll just keep winning.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Siiig
Haha, I get these comments all the time.
Arch/Arianrhod: You guys going to be up at Jupiter? I'm assuming Kevin will since he mentioned aiming for his 4th money finish.
I'm planning to go so that would be three nicshifts up there haha, has anyone tested in the mirror?
I will be -- I believe Evan said that he's not sure at the moment, but he might be.
The mirror is really strange for the deck. I haven't done -much- testing of it, but a lot of it comes down to Explorer control. Like, each deck wants to be setting off their Explorers and winning on that turn. The aggro plan is basically completely meaningless, because both decks have access to almost infinite removal between Deeds and Wishes. It just comes down to who combos off first, really. Prime Time is big money. I would IMAGINE that Blitz Hellion would actually give you more mileage in the mirror than Thragtusk would, since most of Scapewish's removal is Sorcery speed by definition, and gaining 5 life is completely meaningless in the face of angry mountains. 35-50 damage is -easily- possible....a Thragtusk and a Huntmaster or two isn't going to help that. Not when 8 lands does 36 damage, and then each land thereafter adds 6.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arianrhod
I will be -- I believe Evan said that he's not sure at the moment, but he might be.
The mirror is really strange for the deck. I haven't done -much- testing of it, but a lot of it comes down to Explorer control. Like, each deck wants to be setting off their Explorers and winning on that turn. The aggro plan is basically completely meaningless, because both decks have access to almost infinite removal between Deeds and Wishes. It just comes down to who combos off first, really. Prime Time is big money. I would IMAGINE that Blitz Hellion would actually give you more mileage in the mirror than Thragtusk would, since most of Scapewish's removal is Sorcery speed by definition, and gaining 5 life is completely meaningless in the face of angry mountains. 35-50 damage is -easily- possible....a Thragtusk and a Huntmaster or two isn't going to help that. Not when 8 lands does 36 damage, and then each land thereafter adds 6.
Pretty much what I figured. The closest thing I've played up against was BUG-Fit. That was fun, maelstrom pulse naming explorer (hits mine and his)... shift for lethal?
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arianrhod
Yeah, I actually haven't missed the 2nd E.Wit at all. There have been exactly 0 situations where I've wanted the 2nd copy =/
Note that I'm still unsure about the Stronghold. Like, I can rationally understand how Stronghold is good, and I do like it as a kind of "security blanket" to where once it gets online, in a late-enough game, you just win -- but that situation STILL hasn't come up for me, so I'm not sure that it's worth it. It might just be a playstyle thing, like Liliana. Hellion's been fine so far, but it's actually ending up kind of like the Stronghold. I haven't actually killed a Jace or a Liliana with it yet. Some of that is matchups (I've played against like one Liliana deck since I put it in). It gives a nice feeling of security that I have that tool available to me should I need it, but it hasn't actually come up yet. So, I dunno. I'll keep testing both of them for now and see what happens.
On the card tech, I've actually switched my build around quite a bit from yours. My primary opponent in my meta is Esperblade, and I wanted to try a different flavor for my deck.
Blitz Hellion GSZ feels really darn good. Especially when they're either low (scapeshift for 18 when they're above 18), or when Jace get's windmilled.
For stronghold, I don't run one. I tried it for a single tournament, and just didn't understand the need in shift. The only thing I can think of would be to return a card in place of witness, or return witness to witness something else. I prefer wish->reanimate for that.
Someone mentioned Bonfire in the last few comments. Running a singleton. Miracle flip for 9 is pretty hot.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
While stronghold can be good in rare other occasions, the most common use is getting it and phyrexian tower when you hit a prime titan. It lets you recast prime titan, thrag, ewit whatever you need turn after turn even in the face of removal (even terminus/stps, thanks to the phyrexian tower). I use it alot and like it, if you don't that's ok I guess.
I'm not sure if I will be at jupiter yet. But in the Nic fit Mirror, scapeshift beats all the other variants with ease (except maybe BUG?). And in the scapeshift mirror, you are basically playing a combo deck. The aggro plan is meaningless and you cant be setting off explorers until the turn you are ready to win or your opponent will use the land to win.
There's a weird poker game that happens where each player can "check" and just pass the turn keeping their GSZ/explorers in their hand till they get the sac outlet and scapeshift all in hand as well, at the risk of losing pieces to discard. Or they can "raise" and cast their explorers betting on their opponent not having a way to blow up your explorers on their turn and use them to fuel their scapeshift. And it goes the other way too, where you can keep a hand with sweeper, discard and scapewish, forcing your opponent to dump their explorers so you can use them for your own scapeshift. Mirror matches are weird, but this one doesnt even feel like MTG.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TheArchitect
While stronghold can be good in rare other occasions, the most common use is getting it and phyrexian tower when you hit a prime titan. It lets you recast prime titan, thrag, ewit whatever you need turn after turn even in the face of removal (even terminus/stps, thanks to the phyrexian tower). I use it alot and like it, if you don't that's ok I guess.
I'm not sure if I will be at jupiter yet. But in the Nic fit Mirror, scapeshift beats all the other variants with ease (except maybe BUG?). And in the scapeshift mirror, you are basically playing a combo deck. The aggro plan is meaningless and you cant be setting off explorers until the turn you are ready to win or your opponent will use the land to win.
There's a weird poker game that happens where each player can "check" and just pass the turn keeping their GSZ/explorers in their hand till they get the sac outlet and scapeshift all in hand as well, at the risk of losing pieces to discard. Or they can "raise" and cast their explorers betting on their opponent not having a way to blow up your explorers on their turn and use them to fuel their scapeshift. And it goes the other way too, where you can keep a hand with sweeper, discard and scapewish, forcing your opponent to dump their explorers so you can use them for your own scapeshift. Mirror matches are weird, but this one doesnt even feel like MTG.
I think that the core difference is that when I drop Prime Time, I tend to just get two durdle lands out of my deck, because I'm building for Scapeshift and I don't want to sac Volrath's/Phyrexian to the Scapeshift. Like Prime Time -> fetching a Bayou and a Forest is a pretty common thing, albeit six kinds of boring. Alternatively, I'm on the slow-roll Valakut plan, in which case I'm fetching either Valakut and/or mountains to start dealing damage. Considering that we both have a good track record with Scapewish, I don't believe that either option is notably better or worse than the other -- in fact, probably the best way about it is to try to learn to recognize the situations when each of our respective styles is correct, and then employ them from there. As I said, I do like what Stronghold brings to the deck from a theoretical point of view, I just haven't achieved it in practice yet.
As for the different versions, I think that eventually, long-term, what I would LIKE to see would be a rock/paper/scissors amongst Nic Fit, wherein Rector beats Blue, Blue beats Scapewish, and Scapewish beats Rector.
Of course, it's rather hard to know considering that after almost a year now, we STILL don't have a legit blue version ironed out. That's also ignoring the presence of the other varieties like Punishing and straight G/B. As of right now, all we can definitively say is that Scapewish crushes Rector mercilessly; and that I would agree with Evan's assessment of the Scapewish mirror -- it's a bizarre combination of draw-dependency and poker to the point that it doesn't even resemble a game of Magic anymore. By contrast, I would say that the Rector mirror is basically just about who pulls the trigger last. Every time I've played a Rector mirror, I've won because I've had the 2nd Sigarda, or the 2nd Recycle, or whatever. Whoever runs their power cards out first loses, generally speaking.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Sorry for breaking your interesting debate about Scapewish, it's an extremely fun deck I want to try in the near future, but yesterday I had my first real tournament with GB version, and second experience of Nic Fit (the other one was months ago with GBW).
I played a 125 people tournament with a diverse metagame and experienced players. My result was not as good as I thought, 4-3 but maybe was the tournament I enjoyed most, and with more practice, your little help and more luck with pairings (4 combo decks!) I can improve my results.
My list was the same as Qwerios (or HoneyT, sorry I don't remember) with little changes:
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswepth Heath
4 Bayou
2 Treetop Village
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun
1 Acidic Slime
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
4 Cabal therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Hymn to tourach
3 Sensei's divining top
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Innocent Blood
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Sideboard:
3 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Extirpate
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
2 Engineered Plague
1 Infest (should have been the 3d plague but I didn't find it)
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Carpet of Flowers (only own 1)
Quick report:
R1: UWR Miracles 1-0
G1:A long game I manage to win with Thrun killing Jace and Pulse killing 4 angel tokens.
G2: Go to time after I Extirpate Jace.
R2: Reanimator 1-2
G1: Second turn Griselbrand
G2: Discard+extirapte+Nihil+thrun do the job.
G3: I thoughtseize and see 2 reanimate an exhume and Angel of Despair. Discard exhume hoping for a therapy, I have and extirpate in hand, but I don't draw lands nor explorer and stay with 3 lands for some turns. He tries to reanimate a Griselbrand which I extirpate, then show and tells the angel which I can kill with pulse, but then he can reanimate the angel and kills one land.
R3: BUG (no Jace) 2-0
Both games are close but I can rip his hand and sacrifice explorer, then kill him with some dudes.
R4:UWB stoneblade 0-2
R1: a very long game, 40 minutes or so, but I thought I could win the war to a Jace, but fail to find any answer and then batterskull joins the party.
R2: Jace again, but this time joins snapcaster+ Sword of feast and famine, quite devastating.
R5: Omnitell 2-0
R1:Best thing ever. T4 Show and tell into Emrakul, I put Primeval Titan, and play Garruk make a 3/3 (I have no more creatures in my attempt to find Innocent blood), then sacrifice 5 lands and an explorer to emrakul, and in my turn I draw 6 and Innocent blood appears. Epic victory.
R2: I rip his hand with discard and extirpate/extract some key cards.
R6: GU Infect 1-2
R1: turn 3 kill, double Invigorate an Inkmoth.
R2: I can discard some pump and counters, kill dudes with pernicious deed, and kill him with thrun.
R3: Try to discard T1 but he dazes, try to discard T2 with hymn to tourach but he spell pierces. The game goes long but I can kill all his dudes...except for Inmoth. Finally I GSZ for 5 just to realize I side out my Acidic Slime, so I find Eternal witness and return a Pernicious deed to control his ground, but some turns later he draws invigorate when I am at 6 counters, and Inkmoth kills me.
R7: Belcher 2-1
R1: He is on the play and wins me T1 with lethal belcher. He doesn't know what I'm playing.
R2: I have a hand with duress, therapy and explorer, so I can discard chrome mox and then double burning wish. He can't recover for the later discard.
R3: I have thoughtseize, Hymn and pernicious deed, but if he comboes T1 I can do nothing. He keeps his seven and passes the turn. I discard and accelerator seeing no win condition but a Manamorphose. In his turn he decides to go off and finds an empty the warrens that puts 10 goblins. In my T2 I destroy his chrome mox then takes 10 damage, but pernicious deed restarts the board. At this point, I can hymn his 2 cards, then cranial extract Belcher, Extirpate Burning wish, and Extract Empty the warrens, so no win condition for him and concedes.
To sum up it was very fun to play, and considering I had very bad luck with pairings I am not disappointed. Jace in the battlefield is imposible to beat, and sometimes I wished my second Thragtusk would have been e a flying beater or sweeper, Silklash Spider beeing my preference. I could have won R6 infect but stoneblade was imposible and Reanimator is a bad matchup also, so overall I'm happy with my first performance. Maybe a white splash again but this time for vindicate (could have killed Jace, Inkmoth and Angel of despair, in my loses) Sigarda and Gaddock sideboard.
Hope you can help me and give me some advice.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@soiber2000: You should consider a splash. Academy Rector beats Jace by going over the Top with Recycle or by Faith's Fettering him. Blue lists can play their own Jace. Punishing Fire lists can burn Jace dead and Scapewish lists can just brute force a Scapeshift to resolve with Therapies and kill the opponent. Red lists also have access to Slaughter Games post board which is great against UW Jace decks.
@Played another Trial. I changed -1 Recurring Nightmare +1 Punishing Fire to my signature list because of everyone playing DR Shaman and I replaced the Krosan Grip in my SB with a Decay.
R1: some kind of Veteran Explorer / Rector deck with Verdant Succession, Ashnod's Altar but no Cabal Therapies.
G1 he assembles a Semi-Combo with Rector and nukes too many of my lands.
+ 3 Slaughter Games
+ 4 Thoughtseize
- 2 Damnation
- 2 Veteran Explorer
- 2 Punishing Fire
- 1 Abrupt Decay
Not entirely sure how I sideboarded.
G2 and G3 I destroy his janky deck and he complains like a 5 year old. Not sure if he was trolling or just stupid.
2-1
1-0
R2: Belcher
G1 he just kills me T1
SB
+ 4 Thoughtseize
+ 3 Slaughter Games
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
- 4 Punishing Fire
- 1 Broodmate Dragon
- 1 Primecal Titan
- 2 Thragtusk
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
G2 I Thoughtseize him T1 and take his only win condition. Then Therapy on a double and a single and Slaughter Games. Huntmaster finishes things quickly.
G3 I keep Thoughtseize, Top, Explorer and 4 Land. At least it has the potential to lucksack into Deed/Damnation/Plague if he has Warrens. He Probes me, makes 18 Goblins and passes the turn. I block with Explorer, go to three, brick in draw step, play Top, activate blind and find the Deed. Skill! He took it like a man and cracked some jokes about it. Much nicer than R1 opponent.
2-1
2-0
R3: UGB Delver
I lose G1 to a Tombstalker that I find no solution for.
+ 1 Go for the Throat
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
- 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Wall of Blossoms
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
G2 I win and then G3 goes I win on life total. He tried to stall like a madman but doesn't quite get there because he doens't know how the Magic League rules work.
2-1
3-0
R4 RUG
He has really good draws in both games and I miss the third land drop for several turns in both games while he Stifles my Explorer triggers, beats me down with Mongoose and then has double Force of Will for my sweepers and / or Thragtusks. A Carpet also does not show up in G2. These games felt about as representative of the matchup as the games against Belcher. My opponent played perfectly though and deserves the win.
SB
+ 2 Abrupt Decay
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
+ 1 Go for the Throat
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Punishing Fire
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
- 3 Cabal Therapy
0-2
3-1
Overall I am pretty happy with the list. 11-3 total in ML Trials is a good result.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@Commoner; @Arian:
I think Blitz Hellion is not the right choice (and neither is Groundbreaker). I would suggest to just cut the Hellion and the Stronghold if you use them so rarely. That extra insurance of Stronghold is nice and if you play 20 more games there might be a point in which you miss Hellion but having 2 additional cards that always do something will certainly be better in the long run.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@Tao: thanks. Maybe the splash is the way to go. Punishing Fire is really tempting, as is Scapewish. Your results with Punishing Fire are great and it is something to consider.
@Haste beater: I also think it is not the solution to Planeswalker, but there is nothing to fetch with zenith that can kill a Jace. Absolutely nothing, which is quite disappointing.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
If you GSZ for Primeval Titan and search out two Grove of the Burnwillows you can handle Jace relatively quickly and sustainably.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tao
If you GSZ for Primeval Titan and search out two Grove of the Burnwillows you can handle Jace relatively quickly and sustainably.
Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.
I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.
Nice results Tao! I'm considering purchasing the little bit I need to convert shift into punishing, just because they all use cards I enjoy!
Back on the card tech, I have faith in Blitz Hellion. Last night I actually wished him up over Thragtusk v.s. maverick when I needed more punching power rather than life (this was after there were angry mountains, and a prime time ready to rumble).
It just makes prime time and agro plans a nice shot quicker. Gives your opponent less time to find the answers they need, and you also windmill slam it on the table and have to read it because no one's seen it before.
On a different note: What the hell does /barn mean?
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Siiig
Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.
I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.
Nice results Tao! I'm considering purchasing the little bit I need to convert shift into punishing, just because they all use cards I enjoy!
Back on the card tech, I have faith in Blitz Hellion. Last night I actually wished him up over Thragtusk v.s. maverick when I needed more punching power rather than life (this was after there were angry mountains, and a prime time ready to rumble).
It just makes prime time and agro plans a nice shot quicker. Gives your opponent less time to find the answers they need, and you also windmill slam it on the table and have to read it because no one's seen it before.
On a different note: What the hell does /barn mean?
Uh, it means I've developed a bad habit. I'm taken to playing a lot of a forum game called Mafia lately, because my job is boring as all hell and it keeps my mind occupied throughout the day. /Barn basically means "I want to say exactly what this guy just said, but I don't want to waste space repeating him." It's short for barnacle, the idea being that you're "clinging" to the original poster's point. I try to keep mafia terminology out of my posts in other places, but apparently I'm failing, lol.
The big issue right now with the Hellion and Stronghold slots is that both have been good in theory, but have been proven to be situational. This is hardly surprising given that they're both tutor targets -- they're tools whose situations just haven't been coming up for me. I honestly believe at this point that this is largely because of the matchups I've been hitting. In the past two events (SCG and Mythic), I haven't played against the decks that Hellion and Stronghold would be good against. I believe that at this point, I am going to leave them in my deck for Jupiter this Saturday, and then re-evaluate the slots. The last Jupiter (in December), was when I would have -literally- killed to have Blitz Hellion and Stronghold both in my deck. So, we'll see if artificially forcing the meta leads to those slots being happier. If I'm still disappointed by them post-Jupiter, they'll be coming out for god only knows what. At this point, I'm inclined to say that one needs to be a threat and one needs to be an answer. I know Erick and I briefly discussed putting a Recycle in Scapewish just as a random bomb to be drawn into lategame when you have a million mana, so you can just "storm off" into a Scapeshift kill. That might be something worth exploring. I don't like not having a way to tutor for it, but I can agree that having an insane draw engine to go alongside the deck's insane ramp would be a pretty stellar thing. Hell, there have been times in Rector already where I've half wished I had a Tendrils available somewhere, somehow, because I chained together enough spells to make it such that it would have been lethal. Green Sun Zenith + Recycle is a hell of a drug, since it says G: Draw a card.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Siiig
Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.
I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.
If you ask this for my list, PrimeTime in straight G/B is basically for Stronghold/Tower recursion and 2xTreetop beatdown. But afther 7 rounds I found it a mere 6/6 beater with trample because either plays were irrelevant. Volrath's Stronghold gave me one win though.
Probably Grave Titan is better, but I don't have a way to find it.
On the topic, I don't see what Blitz Hellion offers, rather than a 7 damage shot to the face. You lose your Zenith for it.
