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Congrats Kevin! I think the 3rd scapeshift is a good move. Also, I think I see now why you have such good success with your more bomb heavy list (Compared to mine running MD abrupt decays and more REBs/thoughtseizes in the SB). You play more risky, and are rewarded for it! I always take the safer path. Like your esper game, Idk the exact board state, but I probably would have kept top at all costs if I still had a life/jace counters I could let esper burn through.
In Scapewish (in particular, although I did this to an extent with Rector as well), I view Top as a "tutor." I use it to look for things that I want, then when I find something, I generally want to keep that thing. Like vs Esper, Burning Wish is very important (or Scapeshift, if you find one of those). Scapeshifting is usually the best way to defeat Esper, because they are uniquely situated to stave off our ground aggression, but have so few counterspells that they are ill-equipped to fight the combo. So if I'm in a situation like there where I find a Wish, but the other 2 cards on top are junk, I'll employ Top Tricks to keep the Wish and then set up my next three -- if I can't find a 2nd bomb to bait counters in 3 fresh cards in this deck, that's just unfortunate.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
Note@All:
I'll be attending GP Providence this weekend (actually leaving today to give ourselves a bit of relaxation time). As always if you see me feel free to stop and talk shop. I don't actually know if I'll be Scapeshifting much in the win-a-boxes or not -- Scapewish was a fine meta call in Pittsburgh, but New England has an awful lot of 12post players because of Jeremiah Rudolph living there and having great success. Not sure I feel like putting myself through that, lol.
Curious to know what the community thinks about Vrolz in Nic Fit. I was considering putting him in my Junk list. Not sure what to cut for him though. Was thinking I might cut one of my two Eternal Witness or the Vindicate. Thoughts?
I've been pondering about a land oriented GBW list. Taken in count the coming rules changes i've added Deths/Stage combo and KotR, Loam and PrimeTime as Enablers. This also enables the use of Karakas and Bojuka Bog as extra control elements. This is what i came up with.
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Vindicate
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Life from the Loam
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Primeval Titan
1 Sun Titan
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Karakas
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
SB
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Thoughtseize
2 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Krosan Grip
Cards that i also would like to include are:
2 Crop Rotation
1 Recurring Nightmare
Thoughts?
Im sure there are things that could be improved about that exact list, but a GBW nic fit with the dark depths combo seems like it might be really good. It will give that deck the "oops i win" ability that it has been desperately needing.
I'd like to somehow squeeze another knight or 2 in there and at least 1 wasteland. Probably can cut the loam, StpS. And thrag>finks.
I did not include wasteland cus i feel its slow and mught be to cute. Also with wasteland i think you need Crop Rotation and Loam to have it work as an engine for better effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
I agree on the Knights.
The finks have synergy with sun titan. Although tusk is better.
If i cut loam and 1 stps i have room for 2 extra knights.
The waste would not be to actively deny mana or to waste people out of the game. It would just be a way to deal with problem lands like karakas, academy ruins, glacial chasm, valakut, etc. Also, I think bog is good enough to maindeck.
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Garruk Primal Hunter
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Sun Titan
24 Lands:
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Wasteland
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Karakas
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
SB:
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Thoughtseize
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Engineered Plague
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Swords to Plowshares
I was thinking something like this perhaps.
Looks solid. Although 4 lands produce colorless, and one doens't produce anything. Perhaps the one-off utility lands might make opening hands kinda clunky. Volrath's Stronghold seems the weakest link here.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
Also the thought of Crop Rotation as a two-off might be worth considering. I see a line of play where you EOT opponent's turn activate KotR for Depths or Stage then respond to Crop another land to the other one. Then activate Stage to drop Marit lage EoT opponent's turn to have it attack in yours.
I would suggest -1 Stronghold and -1 Sakura, Tribe Elder for +2 Crop Rotation.
I like thoughtseize in the 60 to fight combo a bit more/better.
@TheArchitect
I would drop Garruk PH for another Sun Titan since you have no way to tutor for either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
I'm not sure I like crop rotation. The deck is solid without it. All of the cards besides dark depths are good in themselves, where crop rotation can be totally dead sometimes. Its great when it fizzles wastelands, but it feels really bad if it gets countered. I'd rather have a 4th knight than a crop rotation I think. Knight is good in himself and doesnt 2-1 you if he gets countered. A instant speed 20/20 with flying for 2 mana and losing 2 lands isnt SO nuts in legacy, that its worth playing generally bad cards to force the combo through faster. Rotation might be better in a blue shell, where you have some countermagic backup so going "all in" a 20/20 can be protected from StpS or whatever.
I think the depths stage combo should just be in the deck for the "oops I win" factor, not a central strategy.
I agree that stronghold is the weakest link. It got a lot worse with DRS and RIP too, the grindy matchups it was once good in. Cutting it for another fetch is not a bad idea. Dont think of depths and waste as lands though. Depths doesnt make mana and waste usually wont be making mana. Thats why theres 22 real lands +those 2.
That seems reasonable. The PH is really there to beat grindy DRS or UW decks sporting RIP often, which often sun titan can get boned from. But I could see an argument for either though.Quote:
Originally Posted by guelahpapyrus
Nah Im a huge fan of Primal Hunter. That dude is SWEET
Garruk, PH bests Jace, TMS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
Went 1-3 drop at a local 70 something man tourney today with below list:
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Thragtusk
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Punishing Fire
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Kessig Wolf Run
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Slaughter Games
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Obstinate Baloth
SB: 2 Liliana of the Veil
It was a bit disappointing really.
Round 1: Esper Stoneblade
R1: A 35-40 minute game. I kept a slow hand with 2 Groves, 1 Punishing Fire, 1 Bayou, 1 GSZ and some other stuff. He played T2 SFM into Batterskull. Fast forward a few turns later he had A Batterskull equipped with a Jitte. I had a Thrun that was stalling like a champ. He was up at about 38 life when I tapped out after combat and he Supreme Verdict'd. SDT revealed 2 Pulses which destroyed Jitte and Batterskull. Garruk PH + Kessig Wolf-run swung for 10 a turn to finally end the game. G2 I stalled with Huntmasters against his Lingering Souls tokens with 1 equipped with SOFAF and an active Batterskull. Top deck'd Deed blew him away then time was called. He recovered with SFM into Jitte, and I top deck'd a Cabal Therapy to get it out of his hand. He drew an Academy ruins returning SOFAF but he was short 1 damage and the game ended in a draw, me winning the match 1-0-1.
R2: Sneak Show
I had a 13 card board for this game but I still blew it. G1 was quick, Griselbrand on T3 ended the game fast. G2 I mull'd to 5 to find Cabal Therapy, 2 LotV, Grove of the Burnwillows and SDT. He opened turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. Needless to say, I lost 0-2.
R3: RiP Helm Miracles
G1 I blew an Explorer through Cabal Therapy which met FoW on T2 and helped him play a T2 JTMS which was immediately answered by Grove + Punishing Fire. I had answers to everything except the last Entreat for 4, I never drew Deed and lost. G2 a misplay caused me the game. I had kept a rather slowhand with Punishing Fire and Slaughter Games. A few turns into the game I drew another Slaughter Games and I had managed to remove his Jaces (on T4) and RiPs. Just when I was about to setup for a big GSZ, he Cliqued and nabbed it. Now here's the misplay. The following turn I decided to Punishing Fire his Clique and didn't notice the Karakas. This enabled him to nab the Deed I was saving up for next turn. He played a CB on the next turn and a 7-angel Entreat. I managed to find a 2nd Deed but it met a Clique upon CB activation and it was GG.
R4: Omnitell
Another terrible, terrible game. I flooded both games and missed all my Therapies due to BS in G2.
Overall, I am quite happy with the tweaks I made to the MD. Removing Broodmate Dragon which was almost always underwhelming and adding in the 3rd Abrupt Decay meant I had more answers at my disposal G1. What I lost though, was a clock. I am perfectly comfortable with this as against fair decks we're usually control early on anyway and I'd much rather play a Thrun or Huntmaster after a Deed. They're both enough of a clock already for me.
I think my SB needs some tweaking though. I'm planning to give up on pure combo hate SB and focus on improving 50-50 matchups (Miracles, Punishing Jund). SnT is the deck's worst matchup IMHO. I've beaten Storm as they don't play Leyline of Sanctity. Any suggestions?
On a side note, kabards is X-0-1 when I left. Wish him the best of luck and hope he gives Punishing Nic Fit another top 8! (First prize in the tourney is a set of JTMS. Not bad for a 500 PHP or about 12-14 USD entrance fee tourney).
Thats rough beats. Sucks to hear about the SNT games. It really just is an impossibly difficult MU. I want to say that more targeted discard would be good in the SB, but Leyline seeing so much play makes it rough.
Also this. I dont think I lost a game where I resolved Primal hunter. +1 to make a 3/3 is AWESOME.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
To anwser the varloz question he is awful I actually lost a game because I was screwed out of black and couldnt cast the varloz with 3 explorers in play. He was always too over costed to effectively used as compared to rusalka as usually the need to use rusalka the same time you find it isn't usually present.
got 16th place out of 81 players using punishing nic-fit again. with 4-2-1 record to losses comes from a bad draws in the last 2 end games. abrupt + pernicious deed + maelstrom pulse doesn't show up.
Only got to do one Legacy win-a-box (out of the 5 that fired the whole fucking weekend) on Sunday -- 4 of them fired on Saturday when I was busy with trades. Pretty miserable. I played Tezz for that one; crushed Deathblade g1, then he nut-drew me g2 and I failed to find any colored source in g3 after Chalicing him out of the game for many turns. Like 8+ turns of no colored land or any of the 6 mana rocks. Pretty lame. I was going to play Scape in the next one since I saw like, 1 Reanimator deck as the only combo in the field....but there never was a next one, with circumstances surrounding the lack of the next one that I find suspicious. I really don't enjoy PES-run GPs.
Sidenote: I'm writing articles for http://www.mythicgameselmira.com/Forum/news.php now. They're just being put up on the main page for the moment -- I'm hoping that eventually I can get the store owner to add in a section just for the articles so that they are possible to link directly to and so forth, but yeah. The first one was about Punishing Maverick, which is probably not of interest to anyone here. What can I say....I like brewing -.-
Only got two really nice pickups for Scapewish on the weekend -- one I was hoping/half expecting to find (a NM German FBB Taiga, which is 1/4 for me), and then something I never ever expected to find: a German foil Thragtusk, which I snap-bought for $25. Still doing a little tuning for Columbus this weekend, but I'm a bit for more worried about tuning my standard deck for that half at the moment, since I'm still pretty happy with where Scape's at for the moment.
so I lent one of my friends my Junk Nic Fit deck to play in a Legacy event. He doesn't play legacy at all (in fact he's pretty new to the game in general and really just plays standard.) So after the event he fell in love with the deck and in the process of putting together Punishing Nic Fit so he can play in more Legacy events. Converted another player. Achievement Unlocked.
Sup People, Haven't posted in a while.
Played yesterday at Tuesday Night Magic, and went 4-0. From Kich:
Kich867: did you write a report for your ballin 4-0?
Devin: Nah, think I should?
Kich867: fuck yeah
So a report on my epic 4-0, which felt pretty good.
//My Deck\\
Go read Kevin's list. I run Avenger over Chameleon (because I don't have one), 3x Fetches over Stomping Grounds / Bayou, and +1 Phyrexian tower over... I believe the 4th forest.
My SB Has 4 REBs 3 Extirpates and 2 Slaughtergames (now shiny!)
//The Report\\
We actually had a really good turnout considering it's TNM. I wound up being the last person to arrive, and was trying to put together a rushed version of Affinity for my GF. 9 people in attendance, including some of the best people in our area. After passing my girl a copy of GRIXIS affinity, which had Ancient Dens, Carion Feeders, and a Blood Artist, I sat down across from a familiar match...
Round 1 - Rameus on LED Dredge
Rameus is a good dredge player, and I play him almost every week at TNM. We've bounced back and forth, and I've consistently reanimated SOMETHING from him every week.
G1: I keep (I believe) 7, and he goes to 5. I win the roll, open forest -> vet, pass. He goes LED -> crack pass. I kept in not wanting to go to 4, and just hit nothing all game.
G2: This was much more tight. I get a sac elder down to taunt his bridges, pop it to smash one out of his library. Ichorid punches me once I think. The final board place (and "big" play) was an extirpate on his dread returns when he had everything he needed to flayer me in the face. Hunts are good, GG 2-0. No reanimates on grizzlebear =(
Round 2 - Max on The Rock Dead Guy Pox
Max has been building Deadguy for a while, and Rich (our local stoneblade god) decided to loan him cards to make the deck better. Goyf, Waste, Fetches... I was unprepared for this.
G1: These games are harder to remember. I believe we both kept 7, I held onto a deed. Turn 4 or so he's got Goyf + Vampire Night Hawk + Sword of Feast and Famine. Deed does what deed does, wipes the board. I empty my hand to make his discard worthless (and because that's the deck we play) and eventually I find shift.
G2: More of the same. He did a very good job keeping me at 6 or less lands, but eventually "land for turn" beats that plan. To many targeted kills + discard against Nic Fit on his side to really take me down. Goyf never Goyfs me. 2-0
Round 3 - Blayne on Omniclash
When the pairings are announced for me to play Blayne I let my heart drop a little. It's omni-clash, it's not the fastest combo, but it's good and it's faster than shift. I sit down and expect the worst. My only advantage (and for us Cabal Therapy Players, it's a big one) is that I know what he's playing, and I know how it works.
G1: He combos, I lose, Uneventful.
G2: I board in REB, Extripate, and 2x Slaughter Games, He mulls to 6(?), and I keep fetch -> REB/REB/Exripate. Since I'm on the play, I do one of the most bizarre things I've ever done with fetch lands in NicShift, and fetch a Badlands. If Blayne had thought about it a little more, it's dead obvious what I'm holding. He does the cantrip thing for a bit, I REB a show and tell--then extirpate it, and slaughter games his Dream Halls. I believe he scooped at that point.
G3: Game goes similarly, except longer. Eventually he intuitions for dream halls, and I do the thing in reverse. One turn--an enabler and a win-con go buhbye. Turns out he was holding 3x Show and Tell looking for business to slam. 3-0
Blayne is a combo player, and it's actually nerve wracking how well I generally wind up doing against him. It tends to give me hope that Shift has a reasonable match vs the combo decks. Also he reads this forum is a good friend. <3ubro
Round 4: Janene on Maverick
It's a local tournament, everyone here is my friend! Janene is also the best Maverick player I know, and took second place up a Jupiter not to long ago. That being said, I also tend to lose to her despite what's said about the matchup.
G1: Fairly normal game goes back and forth. Therpy some stuff, pernicious deed some dudes, burning wish for damnation to get rid of Aven Mindcensor (iirc), and shift for the game.
G2: ARMAGEDDON, WHY U HATE ME!? Another normal back and forth, deed deals with her entire board short of Thrun, she Armageddons, and rides to victory on the back of the troll of trolls. This loss was actually very frustrating. If at any point I had pulled something to produce G, I had a Vet in hand ready to bring it back with wish for innocent blood. But alas, Scapewish is a brutal mistress.
G3: The nice thing about assuming your going to lose, is you don't get tilted. On the play I had Vet/Therapy and some other nonsense, and I used my brilliant mind to remember what I read in Kevin's primer. So I slammed down my swamp and screamed to the heavens "NOBLE HIERARCH"!!. Not quite the 1 lander and nobles I was hoping for, but I did rip 2 out of her hand. Without the acceleration I just play dudes and run through her. I believe the final board state looked something like... Eternal Witness, Ravager of the Fells, 3x Wolf, Avenger of Zendikar, and 8 plant tokens.
//Closing Thoughts\\
I believe I'm coming up on my 6 months (or maybe have passed?) of playing Scapewish. That was the time period Kevin advised I would need to burn through in order to start playing the deck well. The deck is amazing, and making live plays always feels incredible. This was the first time Slaughtergames has proven its worth to me heavily, and I like it even more for showing me what it can do. I currently run the second one in the board so I can bring both in when I want them, instead of relying on wishing for them. No one in meta attacks me with surgical, so I'm comfortable on Fetch lands. Avenger of Zendikar has done more for me than any other short term addition ever has. He slams SO hard when you need blockers or just to beat someone up. I haven't gotten to try out Chameleon yet, but I have every intention to.
Cheers!
-Quick Edit-
Stage/DarkDepths combo is going in my deck. I see people mentioning it above and just wanted to say I'm 100% trying it in scapeshift.