Hey guys! This is my first post in this forums,anyone tried deathcloud? Sorry for my english btw...
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Hey guys! This is my first post in this forums,anyone tried deathcloud? Sorry for my english btw...
Welcome to The Source, Wincheee. No one has tried Deathcloud in Nic Fit, but it seems counter-intuitive to the game plan, since Vet Explorer gives both players lands, and Cloud takes them away from both players. There was a Deathcloud deck that was played in Legacy a few years ago here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/a...p/t-18567.html
Yes,but not in all games opponents can have much basics like us with explorer,so,we can afford deathcloud better then they,and allows to play life from the loam+wastelands for theirs nonbasics,and blow their basics with cloud,dunno,was a thought....im playing Rectorfit anyways,with Worship Main(Worship+Sigarda = GG )Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenpoe
I was messing around with the idea of a junk walkers type list and I came up with this:
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Academy Rector
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Doubling Season
1 Collective Blessing
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Damnation
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Liliana of the Veil
3 Lingering Souls
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Elspeth Tirel
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Karn Liberated
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Gavony Township
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Recycle
3 Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Nether Void
SB: 4 Natural Order
SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
The few games I've played around with it have been awesome. Doubling season makes all your walkers sooooo good. Elspeth Tirel definitely deserves her spot in the list. She comes down, ultimates, and basically just wins the game for you. I would like to up the Liliana count but I'm at a loss as to what to cut. I was also running Starved Rusalka to sac the rectors but I figured it wasn't very necessary in a list that wasn't dedicated to rectoring out enchantments. I decided to cut the deeds down to a one of because of all the tokens I'm making. I added the two damnations to replace them and they have been doing pretty well. I'm not sure if I can run more deeds or not. The township has been really good when I'm grinding out a game and I topdeck a lingering souls or even just a witness. Overall I think this deck has some really amazing potential.
I agree with Tao's assessment of Terastodon, when I was playing his BUG list it was really good as a HUGE guy that could take care of pesky things and present a two turn clock. It's really good when you're playing blue because of all the manipulation but I think it could also see some play in a traditional GB list.
Back from NELC at Jupiter games, went a disappointing 3-4 for 40th place but had a blast and lost a couple times to opponents topdecking like champs. Shit happens, it's Magic. Tournament report to follow when I'm coherent enough to write one.
Just wanted to say a couple quick things:
-it was awesome to finally meet Arianrhod and TheArchitect, and jamming games against the Academy Rector deck was actually hilarious.
-Sakura-Tribe Elder is amazing and I don't know why I wasn't playing it before
-this deck treats you so much better when you are comfortable with it, more than any other deck I've ever played. Compared to my last NELC, which I admittedly performed better in, I felt way more in control of what was happening because I've practiced this deck a ton since then, and I was never even close to going to time, where I drew two games in the last one because I kept tanking over decisions.
-seriously, if you want to play this deck and get good, and I don't consider myself good at it yet, play test games against everything you possibly can, and learn it inside and out. it makes a huge difference.
-also deathrite shaman is not that great for this deck, although i think it might be necessary in straight GB like I've been playing.
Yeah, rounds and stuff to come tomorrow. I love this deck.
I've been wanting to test Deathrite shamans in GB Nic Fit. I've been having some problems using Veteran Explorer since - IMO - Deathrite is a much stronger 1 mana drop (that can be played with both green AND black, in case you are manascrewed). There are good things with veteran explorer: 1) When playing against opponents without basic lands 2) It plays well with Perniscious Deed. However, Deathrite Shaman is incredibly strong. Here is the build I'm considering:Quote:
Originally Posted by MrIggins
"G/B Shaman-Explorer"
4 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Treetop Village
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Perniscious Deed
2 Maelstrom Puls
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Sideboard
2 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Perniscious Deed
2 Choke
I still keep 1 Veteran Explorer in as a target for Green Sun's Zenith. Otherwise the deck is pretty vanilla G/B. I cut Primeval Titan for another Thragtusk. Prime Time has been strong, but Thragtusk is completely insane and also gives the deck a bit staying power vs. very aggressive decks. Also, Thragtusk is really good against control decks (you still have a 3/3 body on the battlefield after a Terminus, StP, etc). Honestly, I suspect Deathrite Shaman's lack of synergy with Pernicious Deed is more than compensated by the raw power of the shaman.
As promised, a report on yesterday's NELC. It's been a while since I've posted but I've been following the thread and playing the deck as much as I can, though I haven't been able to get to any tournaments due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances.
First, the deck list:
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan
1 Primeval Titan
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Green Sun's Zenith
Sideboard:
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Memoricide
3 Extirpate
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Damnation
1 Acidic Slime
1 Golgari Charm
Matches:
Get paired round 1 with Janene, someone I do not recognize. She starts with a fetchland and Swords my turn 1 Deathrite Shaman, I correctly put her on Maverick. I stick a top and spin it, then cast Zenith for 2, she is really confused when I put Tribe-Elder into play. It's pretty great. I follow it up with a Thrun and a Deed and beat down for a few turns, then a Thragtusk elicits another strange look. I hit another Deed and she dies pretty fast.
I board out my Maelstrom Pulses for Golgari Charm and Damnation
Game 2 was a very long grind that I thought was going to go to time, she once again Plows my Deathrite Shaman and I stick an Ooze, gaining some life. She has more green mana than I do when her own Ooze come down and we have the entertaining battle between two Oozes. She wins that battle and has a huge guy. I find a Deed to clear it after getting in for some damage, and she Mindcensors me when I try to get a Thragtusk. So we sit around for a bit while I dig for a threat or a shuffle effect with Top. I end up casting a Zenith for zero just to reset my top 3, find a Grave Titan and kill her.
1-0
Round 2 is with Blayne, who kills me on turn 4 through disruption (Misdirection on my Therapy, to which I name Sarpadian Empires Volume VII, Force my Hymn, Shardless Agent->Hypergenesis->Griselbrand->Draw->Cascade->Emrakul). A little frustrating since i kept a disruption-heavy hand and took a lot of important cards even with all the resistance he put up, and he topdecked the Agent to put in the last threat he had. But such is life.
I bring out Pulse, Deed and Decays and some other card for Memoricide, all the targeted discard, Extirpates and Damnation.
I once again disrupt him heavily, blind Therapy double Simian Spirit Guide and see double Shardless Agent, Maelstrom Wanderer, lands. Flash back Therapy with an Explorer for the Agents, Extirpate the Agents. He rips Violent Outburst like a goddamn champion and puts in Griselbrand and Progenitus to my PrimeTime. I take 17 on attacks and he doesn't get greedy with Griselbrand by drawing more cards, so I dig with Top, find a shuffle, shuffle, top, attack with Prime Time, top, fail to find Damnation and die.
1-1
I don't feel too bad at this point although dying to topdecks when he had only Hypergenesis targets in his hand both games sucked.
Round 3 is Brandon with Affinity. Pernicious Deed does what it usually does and wrecks his deck easily.
2-1
Round 4 is Jesse Adams with Maverick, Jesse is a friend of mine from back home who I've done a lot of testing with. He's an incredibly competent pilot and I'm nervous about this matchup even though normally Maverick isn't too scary. I also know for a fact that he has 2-3 maindeck Mirran Crusader.
Game 1 lasts 3 minutes as he turn 2's said Mirran Crusader and follows it up with Pridemage. I have no way to stay alive long enough to get to Deed and scoop it up.
Sideboard the same as round 1.
Game 2 is a grind in which he Armageddons, and I Golgari Charm in response killing my Explorer and his Mom and Hierarch. I was ahead on board at the time so I didn't want to give him the mana, but he finds a Maze of Ith, a Teeg and a Mom and I can't get through it as I keep drawing Zeniths and Primal Hunters with 2 lands in play. Mom lets him ping me to death with Teeg before I find another threat to get through Maze.
2-2
At this point I need to win out in order to money.
I jam about 5 games against another person whose name I do not remember (sorry if he's on this thread, please make yourself known!) with Arianrhod's Rector list, which is some of the most entertaining Magic I've played in a long time. I won most of them, which I was actually pretty surprised about.
Round 5 is Jund. I take a lot of damage from a Deathrite Shaman but find both my Titans and kill him very quickly.
I don't think I sideboarded.
Game 2 we both keep slow hands and trade disruption, but I have a Top on turn 1 and it wins me the game, since I find a Thragtusk that he just can't beat.
3-2
Round 6 is a nice guy, Henry, who is a regular at Jupiter but I don't know him or his deck. It turns out it's a Sneak Attack build. I die turn 3 to Griselbrand into Emrakul.
I board similarly to the Hypergenesis games, except I bring in Golgari Charm to hit naked enchantments.
Game 2 I disrupt him into oblivion, taking his Chrome Mox and leaving him floundering until I kill him with Thragtusk. Golgari Charm killed the Sneak Attack he played out. He told me he thought I would only have Abrupt Decays, so his line was fine.
Game 3 I similarly disrupt him hard and am about to kill him with Thrun and Ooze but he topdecks Inferno Titan when I'm at 3 life. This doesn't end well for me.
3-3
Discouraging since I keep dying to combo decks even though I'm hitting my disruptive plays, including hitting some sick blind Therapies.
Arianrhod and TheArchitect both agreed that this is a worse matchup than typical Sneak Attack for us, so I can't feel TOO bad.
At this point it doesn't matter any more, but I get paired with TheArchitect on Scapewish. Needless to say, this matchup is completely unwinnable for me, and I end 3-4 for 40th place out of 74.
I was pretty happy for the deck, although I don't think I want my second Scavenging Ooze anymore. Initially it was there for more lifegain against aggro but 2x Thragtusk is way better for this purpose. I'm not sure what I want in this slot. TheArchitect suggested Karn, which would lead me to reintroduce Diabolic Intent, but then I'm a card over. Not sure, I'll play around with it.
I was REALLY happy with Tribe-Elder which was a last minute addition. Deathrite Shamans didn't do a lot other than eat Swords, which was actually fine since it let me run out Explorers. I still think they're worth the 2 slots but they are nowhere near as good here as in other decks.
Hey guys first time posting long time reader.
Anyway I attempted the following list of ChronoFit at a local and didn't do so well. So heres the list and a few notes along with a small report.
- Consistency is a bit of an issue throughout the entire three matches that I played I never once assembled a combo.
- The split of damnation and deed seems to be a little off. I found myself wanting a deed when I had a damnation more often than not.
Creatures:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Eternal Witness
2 Sakura Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
Artifacts:
2 Pantropic Mirror
Spells:
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Time Warp
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Damnation
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Reccuring Nightmare
Lands:
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Phryexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Negates
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pantropic Mirror
2 Helm of Obedience
Round 1 Vs Jund (0-2 Loss)
G1: Never find the combo and die to a plethora of threats including double goyf and bob.
G2: Kept and opener of Eternal Witness, Jace, Reccuring Nightmare, Cabal Therapy, and lands. Draw into an early Sakura Tribe Elder against my opponents Deathrite. Ramp to 4 only to have a thoughtsieze on the Witness followed by Pithing Needle on Jace and Reccurring Nightmare. Draw into primetime and find the towers. I then proceeded to draw into Damnation. Despite looping damnation with Witness I lose to a singleton Treetop Village.
SB:
-3 Time magic
-2 Pantropic Mirror
-1 Veteran Explorer
+4 Leyline of the Void
+2 Helm of Obedience
Round 2 Vs. Team Italia (1-1 Draw)
G1: Die to multiple stoneforges into jitte and sword of feast and famine to my eternal wittness and ramp.
G2: Manage to slam Jace into Primetime into eternal wittness and damnation shenanigans. At one point I lost jace to a Batterskull suited up with a Sword of Feast and Famine, however I had brainstormed for a deed the previous turn and blew him out with it. Time is called as soon as my opponent conceeds.
SB:
- 3 Time magic
- 2 Pantropic Mirror
- 1 Veteran Explorer
+ 4 Leyline of the Void
+ 2 Helm of Obedience
Round 3 High Tide (1-2 Loss)
G1: I forget that meditate is instant speed when I flashback therapy on my veteran explorer to my opponents mull to 5. I quickly die for this mistake.
G2: T1 I therapy for timespiral and wiff. The next turn consists of slamming 2 carpet of flowers out of which one is countered. I then land Jace and fateseal shipping a timesprial and candle. My opponent eventually tries to combo off, but I have the negate.
G3: I open Leyline on the field and keep a hand of 2 lands, sakura tribe elder, Jace, carpet of flowers, and cabal therapy. I cast therapy naming high tide to my opponents 7 and wiff. Next turn I drew a second carpet and slam them both with one eating a counterspell. I then cast the elder then jace which is countered and i proceed to draw 0 lands and no business. Eventually I find a negate but because of my lack of lands I'm unable to stop him from comboing.
SB:
-3 Veteran Explorer
-3 Time Magic
-2 Pantropic Mirror
-2 Damnation
-2 Pernicious Deed
-1 Maelstrom Pulse
+4 Leyline of the Void
+2 Helm of Obedience
+3 Carpet of Flowers
+4 Negate
Some final Notes:
Oracle of Mul Daya was awsome the one game I cast it as it helped with Jace to thin the deck though I still didn't find the combo pieces.
The Two Towers allowed for all sorts of shenanigans and was a decent synergistic combo when I couldn't find the pieces to win. It quickly turned the game around against Jund.
The Leyline sideboard was meant to be used as an element of surprise against decks where leyline was a fair choice of a card and it can be a slightly faster combo.
Some user error may have effected the results as this was my first time playing either Jace or Brainstorm in Legacy.
I played Scapewish for the first time IRL yesterday. I used Arianrhod's list with -1 Stronghold, -1 Deed and +2 Abrupt Decay, which was based on the fact that I saw 3 Miracles players before the tournament started.
I went 1-3. I should have went 3-1, but I had 2 huge misplays that cost me the match. The deck was a ton of fun though and so far my favorite version of the deck.
The two misplays were:
My goblins opponent was super mana flooded so I got cute and cast prime time instead of scapeshifting and winning because I didn't see how I could lose and I wanted him to think I was still on PFire. He then went ringleader into warchief, chieftan, krenko, and mogg war marshall and killed me in one turn. I won game 2 off thragtusks and huntmasters but then I lost on turn 3 in game 3 to a nuts draw.
The other one was that I was playing game 3 vs stiflenought and I had a REB on top of my deck with a top in play. He submerged my thragtusk, stifled the beast, then attacked to kill me. I could have drew off top in response to Submerge, REB'd his delver, and then cast thragtusk again and won off that. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention at all and forgot about REB.
This deck is sweet though, I'm having a lot of fun. I love toolboxes, and now I have GSZ and Burning Wish
Ended up at 3rd against 93 players last night in the Philippines. I used Scapewish (almost a mirror of Arianrhod's list). I am happy with the results and how the deck ran with a little luck with the match-ups. I'll post my report when I have time this week.
I went 4-3 at Juptier this weekend with scapeshift. One game I was getting all casual and stupid and did a complete punt though.
2-? - Esperblade
2-? - 4c Cascade aggro
0-2 - ANT
0-2 - UW stoneblade
1-2 - Esperblade (the punt)
2-1 - Semi-janky Elves
2-0 - MrIggins with GB nic fit
I was overall happy with the deck, but there are a few things I want to improve:
- I dont want to lose to batterskull any more
- I want a way to turn a GSZ into an anti-countermagic card to push a scapeshift through
- I need more ways to interact on turn 1-2 with combo decks
I might just have to suck it up and lose to batterskull since the best solution to it that isnt super narrow that I can think of is Krsoan Grip and Pithing needle (both of which would have to be 2-4 of's). Are their any GSZ or wishable targets that effectively deal with batterskull reactively? The best strategy I can come up with involve 2 for 1ing myself, and only work if SFM is tapped out or dead (force them to bounce BS and then make them discard it). However, I might be able to ignore this problem if I can find a way to not give a shit about their countermagic and let them beat me to 4 life with their BS just to scapeshift them for 36+.
I've been thinking I want a way to turn GSZ into a "you cant counter my scapeshift" card. What I have been doing is GSZ for ewit if there is a thoughtseize or therapy in my yard, but that doesnt always happen, and I then usually dont have enough mana to also scapeshift that turn. Dosan the Falling Leaf seems like the best green creature for the job. The other options that I can think of are Vexing Shusher or Xantid Swarm which dont seem as back breaking. Ill try out Dosan for a bit but anyone have any other thoughts? They cant do anything if you resolve a GSZ for 3 and get dosan. He gets put into play and they dont even get to brainstorm or stps or anything. Counterbalance is still a thing though.
I am not liking 2-3 slaughter games in my SB. I want stuff that interacts on turn 1/2 to slow or stop a combo deck. Miracles is where slaughter games shined, and with that losing popularity, I think 1 slaughter games in the SB will suffice. With elves and storm regaining some popularity, we need a better plan against them. Im thinking something like this for SB might be good in a meta where combo is expected:
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroblast
2 *Anti combo cards*
1 *anti batterskull/countermagic card*
1 Innocent Blood
1 Reanimate
1 Slaughter Games
1 Pyroclasm (might be able to swap this for another combo hate card if not expecting much tribal)
1 Perish (this was the nuts btw, it doesnt matter that hits your guys. 1 less mana for a damantion has been huge against GBx decks and elves for me)
1 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Scapeshift
For the anti combo cards, Id like more than 2, but I cant seem to find room. As for the exact cards, Im thinking just more thoughtseizes. But I was also thinking Chains of Mephistopheles might be good as a 1 or 2 of. It would help against jace.dec as well. While it doest stop storm if they have the nuts and just dump their hand and cast AN or PiF, it stops them from hand scuplting effectively with all their cantrips like they usually need to do. Any suggestions here?
If I do quotes, I'm going to break the forums, so I'll just do some good old-fashioned @@@@@ction.
@Architect
I don't usually have that much of a problem with Batterskull. Maybe I play my Therapies differently, but I almost always have access to either a Therapy or BW->Thoughtseize when they go to get their Skull. Sometimes they sneak it through and then it kind of sucks, because you need to try to make them bounce it and then discard it, but it still usually isn't the end of the world. It can just be a little hard to keep chumping every turn.
The way you turn your GSZ into a way to brute force Scapeshift through is by GSZing for Witness to get back the Scapeshift that they countered. Dosan could work, I suppose, except that he's going to be completely dead in a significant number of matchups, and I don't like him for (one of) the same reasons I don't like Teeg -- control decks have removal. I suppose you could Zenith=3 and then Scapeshift on the same turn, which would work, but then that requires you to have the Zenith (or the Dosan) in hand alongside the Scapeshift, which slows down your combo because you can't just drop it, but you need to meet a 2nd condition. Against Esperblade, in particular, you probably won't have time to actually do that. The games are long and grindy, sure, but they do run discard and snapcasters, and if you're sitting back with a nice stocked grip, they're going to check in on you. It's PROBABLY worth experimenting with in testing, but I dunno if it's good enough.
I'm actually agreeing with you regarding Slaughter Games, with a caveat. Slaughter Games will win you matches against Show and Tell and High Tide that no other card can. If you take out 2x Slaughter Games, even for 2 other combo-hate cards, you're going to injure your Show/High Tide matchup possibly beyond repair.
Note that the problem with running "legit" hate cards like Chains or....uh....Phyrexian Revoker? I guess? is that we have no way to tutor them, and considering that we're talking about combo hate specifically, you can't really afford to take the time to durdle with Top to try to find them. When it comes to fast combo, Scapewish's matchup revolves completely around mulling to Therapy, being good with Therapy, and drawing into Huntmasters, more Therapies, and Burning Wishes. Sometimes they just go off, and you just die. It's the price we pay for not running Force of Will. But sometimes you land that super sexy Therapy and hit two Brainstorms blind on the play, then you flash it back and take out their LED, then you drop a Huntmaster, then you Burning for Games and remove their Burning Wishes or their Tendrils or whatever.
I guess that what I'm saying is that at the end of the day, it would take too much for Scapewish to -effectively and reliably- beat combo. You would lose too much elsewhere -- it's better to focus on beating the fair decks and then go from there -- trust the blue decks to beat combo, and if you happen to run into it, then you give it your best go and either you get there, or you don't.
To that end, I think that the correct call (for you and me) is to run Scapewish at Mythic, but Rector at Jupiter. Jupiter's meta used to be mono-control, years back -- now, however, it seems like it's mono-combo with a few control decks trying to seep their way back in and failing. No matter what we do to Scapewish's sideboard, Rector will always be better disposed to beating combo.
While we're on the subject, I'll also note that I lost to two out of two Esperblade decks that I played at Jupiter. Both matches were insanely close and came down to me just drawing poorly - vs Bryant I had literally 6-8 turns where he had no counterspell and was literally just dead if I drew a Burning Wish or a Scapeshift, and even with a Top going I just couldn't find it while he beat me down with Lingering Souls; vs Kevin Jones (the guy you beat r1) I had about the same window to draw a 7th land to be able to keep pinging and stealing his Germ token with Olivia while she would be free to sail away to victory....and I just couldn't draw a land. I believe this means that we DO need to make a subtle tweak somewhere to make the Esper matchup a little tiny bit better. It's not something that I ever regarded as a bad matchup, and as I said, I do believe that I drew poorly -- but I also believe that their playing of Spell Snare once again fed into my losses. I forgot that people are actually playing that card again, and Snare makes our Plan A in the matchup worse (stalling until Scapeshifting), because their Snares cut down our number of Scapeshifts from 6 to 2, which is huge.
I'm not sure at this point if I'm going to tweak the board slightly, or try to sneak in another Green Sun target for the matchup (Acidic Slime, perhaps?), or if I just need to work out a different board plan (such as boarding out a Burning Wish to board in the third copy of Scapeshift).
@Plogan
You brave soul, you! I certainly hadn't intended on anyone running ChronoFit in an actual event yet -- it's barely more than a prototype fresh out of my imaginative womb!
Still, your findings are in alignment with what I suspected would be the case. I'm interested to hear how Alexeezay's testing went as well, to see if that corroborates your results, but let's just say I'm not surprised.
I'm not sure that boarding out the time magic is correct, though. ChronoFit is kind of almost a turboland-style deck -- you want to be building your board and your hand via taking extra turns. Check towards the end of this post for an updated ChronoFit list. I think I had an idea this weekend that might serve to make it better.
Also, I'm just going to highlight this bit for everyone real quick. And I mean EVERYONE, across all versions:
Manlands are REALLY GOOD right now. Make sure you have answers to them. This is one reason (the rise of 12post being another) that I've adopted the Sowing Salt in my wishboard for Scapewish -alongside- Tsunami.Quote:
Originally Posted by Plogan
@Iggins
Pleasure to meet you as well!
It didn't surprise me that you did as well as you did against the Rector build, for two reasons: G/B gets to run a ton of removal compared to other Nic Fit builds, because it doesn't take up that space with more engines and more power; and because, at least in part, Steve was durdling. As we noted, playing out both Baneslayers in the same turn was a horrible idea as far as playing seriously goes, but at the same time, I can certainly understand why he did it, because really, how often do you get to cast two Baneslayers in the same turn (on like turn 3) in legacy? Steve kept overextending into your removal, and you just kept blowing him out with it.
Also, Treetop Villages. I say again: Manlands are REALLY good right now.
As per earlier in this post, I'll say again that Jupiter has a really heavy combo presence. I'm not sure what G/B can do more than it's already doing about that. The best I can think would be to like splash an Island and a Trop for a set of Flusterstorms, or some such. Not really changing to a different version, just picking up a very slight splash to better combat combo. I dunno. It's just a thought.
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So, quick minute report from my end:
R1 vs U/R Delver.
He has double Goblin Guide, double Force of Will game one while I have no Veteran Explorer or black source for the Therapy and Deed in my hand. I'm making land drops every turn, though, and I try to drop Huntmaster (he Forces). Then he rips a Bolt off the top and goes swing, Bolt, Bolt. I had a Thragtusk next turn, although, as I said, he shows me the second Force after I scoop, so it wouldn't have mattered.
G2 he has more Goblin Guides while I have still no Veterans or black sources. I did have like two Green Suns, which both got countered, and he blind flips a Delver with a Chain Lightning to swing for 7 and then drop like Chain, Chain, Bolt to kill me on like turn 4.
Happens :|
R2 vs Bryant Cook (Esperblade this time)
I knew Bryant would be on a fair deck this month, since he played TES at the last event. Game one I spanked him hard. I don't remember the details, but I know it was not close.
G2, as noted earlier, I had him dead on board for like 6-8 turns but couldn't find a Scapeshift or Burning Wish even with a Top going, and I eventually, slowly die to spirit tokens.
G3 my keep is a little soft, whereas his is the stone nuts. He has one of those beautiful hands that is the reason to play Esperblade, where it goes discard into Stoneforge into vial in equipment (I made him discard his Batterskull, but he vialed in the Sword of Feast/Famine that was in his hand already), into Jace, into wall of counters and removal. I don't think there was a way for me to win g3....I guess I probably should have mulled, but I would have had to mull into something pretty special to keep up with that. Should have won it in game two and been 2-0 on the match, but, again, shit happens.
R3 vs TES
I sat near to this guy r1, so after a little memory-searching, I remembered what he was on. I mull to Therapy accordingly, land my blind Therapy, and proceed to tear the rest of his hand apart while Olivia sails away.
G2 he Probes me, seeing my double Red-Blast keep, and tries to go off turn 1. Unfortunately, he miscounted his mana and was one short, so he ended up Wishing for Diminishing Returns and tilting hard. We jockey around back and forth for a few turns, with him eventually hitting a Therapy to strip my Red Blasts...but then I witness one back. And so on. He eventually dies.
I felt bad about this round because I never like it when my opponent just punts the game away...but my opponent was tilting so hard that I think that my attempts at being nice just came off as salt in the wound to him. Oh well, I guess =(
R4 vs Bye
I mean Death and Taxes.
G1 he Revokes my Top, then Flickerwisps his Revoker to stop my Deed instead when I run that out there. I proceed to Top into a Burning Wish to Virtue's Ruin his board. He tries to go beatdown with his Revoker, but I introduce him to angry mountains, and he dies in the face of their fury.
G2 he has an annoying double Mindcensor + Mirran Crusader. I take away one of his Mindcensors with a Therapy, soak a hit from the other one and a Mirran Crusader, then Burning for Virtue's Ruin again (he had a Mom so I couldn't get Pyroclasm). At some point I also Witness it back, and Ruin his day for the second time. He dies shortly thereafter.
R5 vs Esperblade (again)
Game one, again, I just destroy him. Not close.
Game two he builds a really nasty board state and has a wall of counters backing it up, so I die.
G3 I sneak Olivia through early, and she does some work. He has his Stoneforge into Batterskull start, and my attempts at making him discard it are countered. I do get to do one really neat play where I took his Stoneforge equipped-with-jitte in response to declare attacks, which forced him to use two Jitte counters to off his own Stoneforge. As mentioned earlier, I was stranded on 6 lands for the longest time, which led me to be unable to either pressure him by attempting to resolve Scapeshifts or to abuse Olivia to her full potential. Also, I kept drawing Green Suns and Burning Wishes instead of creatures. This was relevant because he could Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Snare those, whereas he wouldn't have been able to do the same to my dudes. In the end, he got there because the Jitte was just too much. I think that I may have misplayed the game because I didn't realize that Olivia is literally her own line of play. I -think- that if I'd just pinged the Germ three times a turn and kept growing Olivia, rather than trying to cast spells, I would have beaten him fairly easily. At the same time, I was scared of him drawing a Swords or a Jace and negating all that work....I would have been putting all of my eggs in one basket, quite literally. But, I dunno. Hard to say what my line should have been.
Also, this is the game where I really realized how good Olivia is vs Esperblade. Aside from shutting down batterskull once you hit 7 mana (grumble grumble complain complain), she MACHINEGUNS Lingering Souls. Like, he had to Brainstorm/shuffle his Souls away because he simply -couldn't- cast that card into her. Good stuff. Not why I chose to try her, but good stuff regardless.
R6 vs Metalworker (Staff combo version, with Posts)
I'd seen this guy playing vs Steve last round, so I knew what I was in for. I was also marginally tilted going into this game, because Steve had beaten the guy last round and then decided that he didn't want to play anymore, so he scooped the guy -- putting him right smack in my bracket :|
Luckily, he wasn't that great with his deck, and I was able to outplay him. G1 I tore his hand apart through a 3Ball, and Scapeshifted him for exactsies.
G2 he Staff combo'd me on like turn 3. I think he could have done it on turn two, but he missed it.
G3 I jedi'd him with a Deed, which led to him time-walking himself; then I untapped into a very lethal Scapeshift.
R7 vs Bye aka some guy who had to leave so he scooped me.
I jammed a few games with my friend JC during this round because I wanted to see how Olivia fared against Junk (which was one of the reasons I put her in the deck). Unfortunately, even as a two-of, she only came up once during our set. Amusingly, I had a lethal Scapeshift in hand with a Liliana +1 on the stack. I pointed out that I had it, and then said that I wanted to try Olivia, so I was going to try Olivia, dammit, so I discarded the Scapeshift and kept the Olivia (only two cards in my hand, sadly).
She did some modicum of work....and he used a KotR to get a Karakas, and I was sad.
So, thoughts on the day (some of this will be a repeat of earlier things said):
-) Spell Snare is back in a big way. Brute-forcing Scapeshift vs blue decks is less realistic as a result.
-) Olivia needs more testing. She was conditionally amazing, but I'm not sure she's as good against Junk as I want her to be. It might be that she needs to follow up a Deed or other sweeper.
-) Blitz Hellion is getting cut, even through it did kill two of my friends in for-fun games, and it FINALLY achieved the reason it was put in the deck in the first place: it killed a Liliana of the Veil! /golfclap.
-) Sowing Salt AND Tsunami both in at the same time is actually a lot of fun, and gives you a ton of ways to attack a number of various land-based annoyances. It can also make the 4-color Deathrite.bullshit.dec's life a living hell.
-) Rector is the correct call for Jupiter's meta at this moment in space/time. Not that Scapewish can't do well, but you need to get lucky with your matchups aside from also playing flawlessly with the correct tunings in place for that specific day. AKA, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with Scapewish at Jupiter.
-) I feel really, really bad for poor Siig, who had his Thragtusk stolen not once, but twice. I'll leave the stories behind those for him to tell, but suffice to say that the first of the two, in particular, will just make you cringe. It's actually physically painful.
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As for ChronoFit, this is where I'm at currently:
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
2 Eternal Witness
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Thragtusk
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Explore
2 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Time Warp
1 Harmonize
1 Cryptic Command
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Panoptic Mirror
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 2 Panoptic Mirror
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Negate
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Trygon Predator
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
A few notes on the rationales --
Top is still better than Brainstorm for Nic Fit. Brainstorm has the added disadvantage of being pretty terrible under a Mirror. Cryptic is fine on Mirror, however, and also fine with Witness -- as it can provide a nice, albeit expensive loop: you can Counter a spell and Bounce a Witness, then play the Witness returning Cryptic. This can also provide an "immortal" blocker that takes no damage (and negates Batterskull) -- declare block, Cryptic to bounce Witness and draw a card, , then replay Witness returning Cryptic. Or tapping down your opponents' creatures every combat. Or if you're really desperate you can spend 7 mana to draw a card, lol. Bottom line, the sheer flexibility of Cryptic has me interested.
I also cut out all of the Gatecrash stuff since people want to test it now, apparently.
Also, Explore. The deck is built around manipulating time, and Explore is basically a green Time Walk (except terrible by comparison). It's worth testing, IMO, and at worst case it makes Mirror into a 1-sided Howling Mine + Exploration.
The 3rd Deed is back, because that's just usually necessary. Harmonize is my selected option for the "draw spell" du jour -- obviously the sickness on Mirror, just generally good besides. This version needs some legit draw, since it's going to be burning through its hand pretty quick I suspect.
Tower + Tar Pit over Coffers/Urborg.
I also made a legit sideboard, although it's largely theoretical. Cranial/Memoricide + 2 Mirrors should be staples of the board that never leave, though, IMO.
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Anywho, I've typed for a long ass time now, so I'm going to stop now. As always, thoughts/comments/questions are welcome. As noted, I'm very much looking forward to hearing how anyone elses' testing with ChronoFit went.
Also, as a closing note, I continue to be thankful and proud of the community that we, as an archetype, have attracted. Myself, Maverick, Architect, Siig, and Iggins all specifically sought each other out and hung out a lot between rounds, which is something that you don't see players of other archetypes doing at all. That's explicitly a "Nic Fit thing," and I love it.
Necroplasm helps beat up on lingering souls and germs and angel tokens.
Married to Phyrexian Tower it's extremely hard to deal with.
Nice wall of text there Kevin ;)
I like the looks of the Chrono list you posted there aswell, i might see if i can tweak it abit to my own likings and run it at a small tourney soon :P
ALso, finally a good excuse to playing Cryptic Command in Nic-Fit :D
Meh. I thought about breaking it into its three parts (responses to people, tourny repo, ChronoFit), then just shrugged and said fuck it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viridia
I feel that if we want any counter maindeck, it's Cryptic. It goes straight broken once we have 7 mana and a Witness, and the sheer flexibility of it coupled with our tending to not care about mana costs is appealing. All of its modes are sweet. The only iffy thing is the UUU in the mana cost. But ChronoFit leans heavily enough blue that I think that its mana base should be able to support it.
Yeah i just ordered 4 Jap foil Explores, 4 Jap foil Mirrors and 3 Jap foil Time Walks, because the list looks awesome.
Now lets hope it is as awesome as it looks, else i just spent 100+ dollars for shit and giggles only :P
....Yeah that might have been a little preemptive lol. Explores I have no idea about long-term. Mirrors and Warps will be there regardless, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viridia
Although I guess that if this turns out to be competitive, Time Warp probably would eventually get replaced by Capture of Xinghou or whatever, since that can't be misdirected whereas Warp can. But that's like $600 and many, many months of tuning and tweaking in the future.
Explores were cheap anyway, and yeah the Portal version is technically better, but also really fucking expensive.
Regardless if it'll be super competative, it'll be good enough for 10-16 persons locals ;) (Remember i've been playing with 4color Omniscience-Fit aswell, this will probably atleast have a better manabase xD)
But i do honestly think it might get somewhere good, considering it barely gets hit by any hate people are playing nowadays, with everyone using Abrupt Decay as their removal for everything, which this deck just doesnt care about. At all.
I'll start testing today :P
Teeg is a serious problem as the list stands now, but I'm worried more about getting the deck functional first, and then solving that little twat. Decay is only relevant in that it stops Witness shenanigans for a few turns. Like if you go to bounce Witness with Jace (to take another turn, or something), then they can hit the Witness with Decay in response, which is obnoxious.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viridia
I do think that the list would like the 3rd Witness, but I'm not sure what to cut for it at this point. Too much needs tested.
I think i'll be cutting the Recurring Nightmare and Oracle for +1 Zenith and +1 something (Witness possibly) because you don't really need the Nightmare loop (which isnt THAT amazing in this form) and with 2-4 Explores and Elders and Explorers i don't think you'll need the Oracle either :P