[Primer] Nic Fit

So I've got a current main board rhino list that looks like this:

3 forest
3 swamp
2 plains
2 bayou
1 scrub land
1 savannah
1 tower
1 stronghold
4 verdant
3 windswept
1 marsh flats

4 Explorer
1 tireless trAcker
1 e witness
1 rec sage
4 siege rhino
1 thragtusk
1 sigarda

4 therapy
4 green sun
3 top
2 path
1 Inquisition of K
3 decay
3 deed
1 truths
1 pulse
1 deluge

2 Kaya, ghost assassin
1 Nissa, VF

Board is a mess.

3 surgical
3 thoughtsieze
2 pithing needle
1 to the slaughter
1 krosan grip
1 garruk relentless
1 tsunami
2 scavenging ooze
1 ob nixilis reignited

My miracles match up is pretty good but I struggle immensely against the combo side of things. My surgicals put in a lot of work. I'm happy with two kayas so far because she almost acts as an alternative win con with rhinos. I do rely heavily on my sigarda and Nissa to close out game 1s though. Sideboard suggestions would be nice (my lgs has no copies of carpet of flowers currently). Sneak and show is a nightmare and have been considering an oblivion ring to compliment the to the slaughter. Also my lgs has a very varied meta game. Sometimes I face all combo and sometimes I face all delver.

Like I said I feel good about a number of my match ups but I've be3n considering a 4th top to help with the consistency.

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Originally Posted by emuhell

Bloodghast maybe. Vengeful Pharaoh is another option (Delvers hate attacking him).

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Not being able to block makes Bloodghast so much worse. Seriously tempted to go super creature heavy with Tortured Existence and Krovikan Horror.

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Originally Posted by Stryfo

Hello Nic Fit Thread, I am a long time Nic Fit player that likes to try out some weird stuff. I was playing a lot of BUG Walker lists, and this is a fusion of some of those lists and some of my other projects.

Land (22)
2x Bayou
2x Forest
1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Polluted Delta
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath

Creature (13)
4x Baleful Strix
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Dragonlord Dromoka
1x Dragonlord Ojutai
3x Veteran Explorer

Planeswalker (6)
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Sorcery (6)
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Life from the Loam
1x Raven's Crime

Enchantment (3)
3x Pernicious Deed

Artifact (3)
3x Sensei's Divining Top


Instant (7)
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Intuition

Sideboard (15)
1x Flusterstorm
1x Garruk Relentless
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Golgari Charm
1x Negate
1x Pernicious Deed
3x Pulse of Murasa
3x Surgical Extraction
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (This is likely wrong, I'm cutting it, but leaving it here because it was in the list I played)
1x Thoughtseize
1x To the Slaughter

After playing three leagues, with quite reasonable success, (5-0, 4-1, 3-2), I think this is something some of you may be interested in. The inevitability afforded by the intuition package is awesome, and being able to start picking apart hands with loam/crime has been amazing against combo decks.

When I put this deck together I thought it would play a bit clunky, but it has performed extremely well so far, which is why I wanted to share it with you all!

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Has anyone else put any more thought or development into this list recently? It looked pretty fun.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Anyone got any ideas for a recurring Gravecrawler/PFire choice that would work well with Brutality / Liliana / etc? I'm tempted to try Squee to be honest, but he seems pretty awful if you ever want your card to actually do anything.

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Yes. Just play Dredge. Manaless or regular, both are good in the current meta.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emuhell

Bloodghast maybe. Vengeful Pharaoh is another option (Delvers hate attacking him).

Edit: Well I thought about it. Bloodghast is useless and Pharaoh is just cute. :) sorry for not being helpful.

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As a Manaless pilot I can tell you Pharaoh is hilarious. It's also a nice lightning rod for Surgical Extraction and things like that. anyDelver.dec usually already is a pretty good MU though, so why spend valuable SB slots on that?

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Originally Posted by removedfromgame

So I've got a current main board rhino list that looks like this:

List

Board is a mess.

3 surgical
3 thoughtsieze
2 pithing needle
1 to the slaughter
1 krosan grip
1 garruk relentless
1 tsunami
2 scavenging ooze
1 ob nixilis reignited

My miracles match up is pretty good but I struggle immensely against the combo side of things. My surgicals put in a lot of work. I'm happy with two kayas so far because she almost acts as an alternative win con with rhinos. I do rely heavily on my sigarda and Nissa to close out game 1s though. Sideboard suggestions would be nice (my lgs has no copies of carpet of flowers currently). Sneak and show is a nightmare and have been considering an oblivion ring to compliment the to the slaughter. Also my lgs has a very varied meta game. Sometimes I face all combo and sometimes I face all delver.

Like I said I feel good about a number of my match ups but I've be3n considering a 4th top to help with the consistency.

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For consistency you can add Sylvan Library. It's ridiculously good. Don't like your MB as a whole though. It seems to be all over the place, with far too many cards @CMC >= 3 and too little acceleration to power them out.

As for SBs, mine is currently set up like this:
3 Lost Legacy
3 Duress
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Golgari Charm (which might change to something else. They do a lot of work vs. D&T though)
2 Pithing Needle

Vs. Sneak & Show, you board in the Lost Legacies, Duresses, Extractions and Pithing Needles (and possibly Teeg. You still lose when they have the nuts, but have a good fighting chance otherwise. W/ blind Therapy you name Show & Tell first, fatties second. Lost Legacy first takes Emrakul, then Griselbrand. Needle you put on either Sneak Attack or Griselbrand, depending on what you know of your opponents' hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gth842s

Has anyone else put any more thought or development into this list recently? It looked pretty fun.

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I believe Stryfo is currently trying to test Dragonlord Silumgar instead of Ojutai, and -1 Intuition for +1 Liliana of the Veil. A single Bayou switched for another Underground Sea. Side includes a Deluge instead of the 4th Deed (I believe) - updated sideboard in general but I think I posted it earlier (2-3 Lost Legacy in it). I'm trying to test whenever I get the chance, but I only have the list in paper so far and my local group is very finicky.

Online, I'm going through a league with Sneak Fit having 2 Carpets and 1 C Brutality main. Playing Carpet on turn 1 on the draw against Miracles feels so good, it feels so right. Especially when you have another 1 cmc play to cast in 2nd main.

Think the 2nd Empath feels right. Nice to just load up the hand with another fatty, and get either a chump blocker or Tower sac / Therapy hit in.

@ Dragon Fit:

Here are a few comments:

- I believe Dromoka and Drifting Death are better than Silumgar Dragonlord.
- The intuition package is too "low" to justify 3 intuition. 1 intuition + 1 Entomb is enough to my taste.
- Jace + Liliana is how you win 80 to 90 % of your games. I suggest the following PW split: 2 Lilia, 2 Jace, 1 NF & 1 Ugin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ralf

@ Dragon Fit:

Here are a few comments:

- I believe Dromoka and Drifting Death are better than Silumgar Dragonlord.
- The intuition package is too "low" to justify 3 intuition. 1 intuition + 1 Entomb is enough to my taste.
- Jace + Liliana is how you win 80 to 90 % of your games. I suggest the following PW split: 2 Lilia, 2 Jace, 1 NF & 1 Ugin.

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I have no experience with the deck (still on the Sneak Train for now / not enough blue duals in paper), but I put together a draft of it for eventual testing that ran 3 dragons instead of two - Dragonlord Dromoka; Silumgar, the Drifting Death; and Dragonlord Ojutai. If you're going to run Haven, you may as well have a few different options depending on the matchup.

Ugin just seems super, super greedy and there isn't a ton of synergy with the rest of the deck. I agree that 2-3 Intuition feels more correct than 4.

Finding room for Liliana does seem to be problematic - Nissa and Jace are just really, really good cards.

Has Raven's Crime been any good for folks? I feel like there's just so much going on in this list - Dragons, Intuition, Loam, Raven's Crime, Planeswalkers. It feels like this list has a ton of potential and is already good / playable, but also like it maybe needs to gain some consistency.

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I ran Sneak Fit last night at a weekly. Lost Round 1 to BUG Delver (T2 Hymns both games stripped 3 Deeds between them, his game two threats were all in the air - Clique, Delver, Delver). I won round 2 in the most disappointing fashion possible - a Bye. After hanging around, I beat Burn and Bant Deathblade. The deathblade match is up on my LGS's twitch channel (CardKingdom), Round 4 (around last 40 minutes of the stream). Don't judge me for the godawful misplays - I was really tired and fell into the trap of planning several turns ahead instead of thinking about what I was doing NOW :). Thankfully, flinging Emrakul at your opponent makes up for a couple of misplays, as does hard-casting Massacre Wurm.

A couple of weekends ago I brought Nyx Fit to the win-a-mox tournament at Valhalla Games in Columbus, MO. My buddy and I drove four hours Friday to stay with our mutual friend in St. Louis, then dragged ourselves, hungover and grumpy, another two hours Saturday morning for the tournament. I wasn't in my best state of mind, but I rarely am when I play Legacy. I went a respectable 3-3 on the day before my buddy and I dropped to make the two-hour trek back to St. Louis to drown our woes.

Now a week and a half later I struggle to remember some details, but I'll do what I can. I settled on this list (61 cards main):

Lands: 22

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

Creatures: 13

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Academy Rector
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

Non-creatures: 26

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sterling Grove
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library
1 Living Plane
1 Nether Void
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Parallax Wave
1 Faith's Fetters
2 Starfield of Nyx


Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Humility
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Chromanticore

Round one: loss to Maverick in three games. Teeg and Reclamation Sage did good work in game one. In game two, Pernicious Deed paved the way to a pretty quick Sigarda win. In game three, I got impatient and tried to assemble Starfield through Sterling Grove after my opponent tried to hit the Grove with a Rec Sage. As a follow-up, he then Zenithed for Teeg to prevent my casting the Starfield atop my library. I should have gone for a Deed instead. Know your role, folks! This should have been a victory. I believe my opponent went on to top eight, so at least I died for a Noble cause.

Round two: win over Domain Zoo in three games. My opponent's list hadn't been updated since the printing of TNN, but that didn't make the match feel any more comfortable. Successive Tribal Flames won him a quick game one, but Chromanticore was tremendous in games two and three. He had no choice but to burn it to death, then watched helplessly as I recurred it with Starfield. At one point I Therapied and he revealed a hand clogged with Abrupt Decay. So many people board that in against Nyx Fit only to find it's of no use.

Round three: loss to Elves in three games. Game one, he endured a three-for-one turn-two Toxic Deluge but still proceeded to go off quickly. I won game two through recurring Deeds, and in game three I cast an early Humility, but was unable to find a sweeper (or even a tutor for one) before he managed to get there via 1/1 beats.

Round four: win over Grixis Delver (piloted by my road-trip buddy) in three games. We'd practiced this matchup a lot and knew each other's lists intimately. Game three went to turns and I won on my last turn when I cracked a Rector and put Living Plane in play, which triggered Doomwake Giant to wipe his board of permanents and gave me six or seven 1/1 land attackers.

Round five: a very quick 0-2 loss to Belcher. In game two I had Leyline of Humility in my opening hand, so I kept it. However, he spilled out twelve goblins turn one, and I was unable to topdeck a sweeper.

Round six: win over BR Reanimator in three games. Game one, he played a Sire turn one, and that was that. He didn't get a good sense of what my deck was up to, so he had to sideboard in the blind. Game two, I slapped down a Leyline of the Void as the game began, and he conceded immediately. Game three, I began again with a Leyline, but by his lack of concession I figured he had now boarded correctly into Reverent Silences. We spun our wheels for a few turns before I drew a Therapy, named Reverent Silence—and hit! He had been unable to find a green source in time to cast it. Eventually I wiped his board of lands, a fine play on which to end the day.

Overall, the deck behaved well all day and presented me with the opportunity for a winning record (even if I didn't live up to its promise). In retrospect, the meta felt very fair, and I likely should have run more copies of Pernicious Deed, perhaps in place of the Abrupt Decays, or else the Eidolon of Rhetoric and Courser of Kruphix, both of which did little work. Sadly I never had cause (or in case of cause, never had opportunity) to tutor up my favorite precious bauble Nether Void, but I feel sure it's correct to play it if you own it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ralf

@ Dragon Fit:

Here are a few comments:

- I believe Dromoka and Drifting Death are better than Silumgar Dragonlord.
- The intuition package is too "low" to justify 3 intuition. 1 intuition + 1 Entomb is enough to my taste.
- Jace + Liliana is how you win 80 to 90 % of your games. I suggest the following PW split: 2 Lilia, 2 Jace, 1 NF & 1 Ugin.

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Let me know if you are able to get any runs in with those changes. I don't want to speak for Stryfo, but simply assume he doesn't check on here that often - he did mention Silumgar and indicated possible issues with D&T. I'm thinking that a 6 mana investment isn't quite what you are looking for if you need to wipe x/1's off the board. Too slow against Elves, and too expensive for D&T and Young Pyromancer decks.

I'd advise against losing the 3rd Jace. You both 1) really want to draw into them naturally and 2) want the option to Intuition for them.

I haven't had the chance to test Raven's Crime that much but I've already seen it rip hands apart. Once on me when I was on Sneak and against Stryfo online, and the one time I ran it at my local it ate up 3 cards from the Infect player's hand (but I'd already flooded too much to recover).

Possible swaps for Raven's Crime could be Darkblast(!), or some sort of Unburial Rites mini-package? Although Unburial on a dragon might be enough to get there.

With Loam, I think that getting to 8 mana is very possible in any grindy matchup, and Ugin is extremely hard for any deck to answer. Plus we do not have GSZ in order to get Dragons from the bottom of our deck after a Terminus.

This is where I was 3 weeks ago but I didn't go further:

1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1 Savannah
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
3 Bayou
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
3 Veteran Explorer
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Entomb
1 Intuition
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Cabal Therapy

SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
SB: 2 Negate

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Originally Posted by Echelon

I'll see if I can proxy it the next time I get the chance to play.

Got to play some yesterday. My buddy switched back over to Grixis Delver, w/ 2 Fatal Push and a full set of Stifles. Man o man, it was such an uphill battle, it wasn't even funny. Between the massive mana denial and him finally being able to answer my creatures properly it just felt pretty damn hopeless. Sure, I won some games, but those were the games where I started out on the play and had a great opening.

I switched out Diabolic Intent (yes, I know, I'm still shocked myself) and Atraxa for Siege Rhino no.4 and Verdurous Gearhulk (and yes, I still run a Sigarda). As long as you manage to dodge StP it's a godsend vs. D&T. It breaks the board wide open. I like it.

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Treat it similarly to D&T. Your #1 goal in the matchup is to not get manascrewed. If my opponent is on a heavy mana denial plan, using my current SB I bring in additional lands and additional manadorks.

It might feel bad cutting your action to bring in mana, but it feels even worse to have a hand of cards you can't play.

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Originally Posted by Brael

Treat it similarly to D&T.

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D&T is quite a bit easier in that regard. They don't mess with fetchlands and Explorer triggers.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

D&T is quite a bit easier in that regard. They don't mess with fetchlands and Explorer triggers.

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Aven Mindcensor disagrees. That card is such a blowout.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Anyone got any ideas for a recurring Gravecrawler/PFire choice that would work well with Brutality / Liliana / etc? I'm tempted to try Squee to be honest, but he seems pretty awful if you ever want your card to actually do anything.

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Meren can turn any creature into Squee.

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Originally Posted by genuine fugazi

Meren can turn any creature into Squee.

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I've been thinking about this - I think the card I'm looking for is Life from the Loam. There's got to be something we can do in a shell like this:

4 Veteran
1 Witness
1 Tracker

4 Zenith
4 Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
2 Life from the Loam

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nissa, Vital Force

8 Fetchlands

Lots of synergy. Loam feeds Liliana and Brutality. Fetchlands feed Loam and Tracker. Nissa rebuys important dredged cards. Lili / Brutality / Deed gives us a good removal spread (sweep/spot/sac covers basically everything, Deed kills noncreature permanents - +1 Maelstrom Pulse variant for planeswalkers). Loam is 'yard dependent but the rest of the list is synergistic without getting completely blown out by RIP. Still in two colour shell so splash whatever. 7 discard spells + 3 Liliana for combo matchups. ~12 slots left for more toolbox options and wincons.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Aven Mindcensor disagrees. That card is such a blowout.

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It's also 3 mana instead of 1. W/ Vial it comes down T4 at best. And you can interact with it before your fetch/Explorer trigger resolves.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

I've been thinking about this - I think the card I'm looking for is Life from the Loam. There's got to be something we can do in a shell like this:

Lots of synergy. Loam feeds Liliana and Brutality. Fetchlands feed Loam and Tracker. Nissa rebuys important dredged cards. Lili / Brutality / Deed gives us a good removal spread (sweep/spot/sac covers basically everything, Deed kills noncreature permanents - +1 Maelstrom Pulse variant for planeswalkers). Loam is 'yard dependent but the rest of the list is synergistic without getting completely blown out by RIP. Still in two colour shell so splash whatever. 7 discard spells + 3 Liliana for combo matchups. ~12 slots left for more toolbox options and wincons.

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This is where I'm heading right now. Pure GB style with a not so bad combo MU.

1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Grave Titan
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer

1 Nissa, Vital Force
3 Liliana of the Veil

3 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Pernicious Deed

1 Entomb
2 Crop Rotation
4 Abrupt Decay

1 Life from the Loam
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith


Sideboard **under pressure** (unfinished)

SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Raven's Crime
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Thoughtseize

Few comments after a good test phase:

- Tracker is not needed. Courser is way beyond better
- The deck is slow.
- GQ or Wasteland has still be assessed.
- I'm not afraid of any deck with that setup right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ralf

Few comments after a good test phase:

- Tracker is not needed. Courser is way beyond better
- The deck is slow.
- GQ or Wasteland has still be assessed.
- I'm not afraid of any deck with that setup right now.

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Tracker is dependent on what speed you want to go at. He is way more agressive but Courser obviously grinds really well.

Collective Brutality is just better than Hymn I think. Particularly since it kills DRS which is a big issue for your deck.

To me the list you're running here looks good against combo but would have trouble with some fair matchups. You're kind of low on actual threats and you don't really have much in the way of CA engines other than Loam, which you only have one way of tutoring. I'd be worried about playing so many 0-for-1s in the deck like Rotation and Entomb.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Tracker is dependent on what speed you want to go at. He is way more agressive but Courser obviously grinds really well.

Collective Brutality is just better than Hymn I think. Particularly since it kills DRS which is a big issue for your deck.

To me the list you're running here looks good against combo but would have trouble with some fair matchups. You're kind of low on actual threats and you don't really have much in the way of CA engines other than Loam, which you only have one way of tutoring. I'd be worried about playing so many 0-for-1s in the deck like Rotation and Entomb.

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Rotation & Entomb

Well that might be true but has yet to be witnessed from testing.
Rotation is usually not a 0 for 1. It either provides a countermeasure against wasteland or some accel (tower) or CA (stronghold) in a long run.
I acknowledge Entomb might be cute as you would only fetch CT or Loam.


DRS

DRS is not the issue you claim it is; even if it has to be killed fast (but this is likely the case for every Nic Fit deck) as it messes up with some of our cards (a bit more here, but not to the extend where it shuts you up).
Truth is you don't always need to kill him on sight:
- DRS pinging you for 2 is usually not a big deal
- You can delay any of your "engines" against DRS deck
- DRS usually means that you should expect "overextension" from your oppo (definitely what you are looking for when you play Deed). It is even more true since I'm playing Lili + HTT which encourage your oppo to play his spells instead of keeping them in his hands.


Low on threats

Yes. But this is a control deck by essence. I'm not seeking multiple threats. This is rather an attrition war machine:
1) You focus on ramping and messing up with oppo's game (veteran, CT, hymn)
2) Then, you seek topdeck mode for both of you and start digging out of your hole faster than your oppo.
3) You stabilize
4) You win

2 & 3 are mixed altogether.


Collective Brutality

Thanks for the idea. I'll assess it but as a 1-of to begin with. I do play the card in my Suicide deck but HTT is really strong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ralf

Rotation is usually not a 0 for 1. It either provides a countermeasure against wasteland or some accel (tower) or CA (stronghold) in a long run.
I acknowledge Entomb might be cute as you would only fetch CT or Loam.

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Stronghold isn't CA. It's card selection, but doesn't actually draw you cards unless you're recurring a creature which provides CA (in which case it's the creature that's the CA, not Stronghold).

DRS - it looks to me like your only real source of advantage against an opponent that doesn't overextend into Deed is either Loam, Nissa, or a fatty. Thrag isn't super impactful (though he gets the job done), Grave Titan and Nissa you can't tutor for, and Loam is vulnerable to Deathrite - feels like you need some great topdecks or a standard boardstate like TNN+DRS or just JTMS is going to run you over in card advantage pretty quickly.

Hymn is strong early but is a pretty bad topdeck - I'd rather have more consistency, but if you like it do go ahead.