[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

Jupiter Games NELC -- 6/22/2013

No frills start to the day, headed out to grab Josh before hopping on 84 for the miracles level grind that is going to Jupiter. Once we arrived up there, met up with the rest of my crew. Actually had to put most of the deck back together that morning, realized Thragtusk is what was missing from my main board count. Agonized a bunch over keeping Extirpate in my side board, and upon seeing a local that once upon a time played TinFins 3, I decided it was a good call. Once this was done I spent the rest of the time wondering if Kevin was going to make it.

He did, and in went Virtues Ruin into my board.

I've mentioned my current list prior in this thread. -1 Tusk +1 Ooze, -1 Forest +1 Phy Tower, Avenger over Colossus, 60 cards so no 3rd Shift, +3 Fetch -2 Stomping Grounds -1 Bayou

Round 1 -- Chris on Maverick: I've met Chris in prior Jupiters, he's pretty chill with out group. We both know what we're on and the match was very relaxed to start off.

Game 1: According to my notes (looking at the life totals) I landed a Thragtusk and a Huntmaster, but the key to this match was I may have botched my Scapeshift. I had intended to 36 him, but went looking for mountains and ran out. The details, now that I go back over it, are very fuzzy. But I remember looking at the second Valakut and saying "I can't grab that, it's not a mountain!". Regardless, I took the game after MUCH durdling.

Game 2: Another very long game, same creatures came out as prior, but I never got to the scapeshift.

Game 3: This was a feature match, because we went to time so hard. He slammed all his dudes (plus teeg) while I had shift in hand. Final health was 1 to 20 after a misplay on his part (could have pushed through two 4/4s, but tried to do fancy dodge tech and wound up hitting me for 9 instead of 10). On the pass to me I dug with all my might for a burning wish, but to no avail. Starting the day off on a solid draw isn't the worst thing.

Round 2 0-0-1: Fox with Goblins. When someone goes turn 1 unglued Mountain, they're either on Goblins or Burn.

Game 1: Described above, durdle a bit into angry mountains.

Game 2: I just couldn't get enough footing to shift out. My last notes have him at 20, so I never actually touched him.

Game 3: Super durdle mode. Avenger came out to rep. According to Kich, afterwards, I believe I messed up here. At one point I swung with avengers saporings at 1/2. I could have played a valakut to ramp them up, and at the same time, he blocked 3 of them. I killed them all assuming they were dead, but 2 of what was blocked were 1/1's. This could have resulted in a proper alpha strike, but instead Kranko + Seige Gang flung me out for 20. Too bad we give mono color decks lands.

Round 3 0-1-1: Morgan on HiveMind Show and Tell.

Game 1: I believe I won the dice roll, and we get going. Turn 1 therapy on "brainstorm" reveals the nice slow play of 3 land emmy hive mind. I get my first chance to actually read hive mind, not that it mattered. We go back and forth, I think I set off a vet with tower and play like woodelves and pass. He sets off the SnT, and I put down another elves. I manage to hit my land drop and 18 him off his fetches staring down a flying spaghetti monster.

Game 2: Turn 3 Show and Tell emmy.

Game 3: Turn 3 Show and Tell emmy.

I brought in REB and Slaughter Games for this, I actually managed to REB an SnT, but got shown a force. I dug as hard as I could on Game 3 for Wish -> Innocent blood after popping 2 vets off his emmy, but no luck. The wishes don't like me today.

Round 4 0-2-1: Devin on Death and Taxes

Game 1: Ahahah you're names Devin too, ahaha, rah rah rah. No really I've never met someone else with my name before =P. Death and Taxes. I have virtues ruin in my board.

Game 2: Did you read the line above? Pernicious deed is good.

Round 5 1-2-1: Tim on RUG Delver, Tim is a nice enough guy to start. I found out he's a pretty normal RUG player once we actually started playing.

Game 1: He goes Delver, I go vet, he flips off brain storm, I do some things. He gets goyf, I get deed and play it, he kills me. My note here is actually "Deed a turn late", and he commented that was pretty accurate.

I pick up my deck and begin to board things. This is when I remembered something. RuG is shitty versus us. Legit, I kid you not, that thought went through my brain and we went to game two after I brought in REB and 1 games.

Game 2: Kind of like game 1. He plays small dudes, I play ramp spells, he plays small dudes, I play bigger dudes. I shift for 18, he makes me show him mountains. "I did that once today, it's not happening again".

Game 3: Did you know Thragtusk and Huntmaster are bigger than Delver of Secrets? True fact.

Round 6 2-2-1: I'm out of the money, I know it, and I'm relieved to sit down across from C.J. I know he's on elves, and I really don't care if I win or lose.

That being said he played super well through multiple therapy's and deeds both games. No win con in time to stop his elf ball both times.


Wound up 2-3-1 on the day. After six rounds that STARTED with a rough game, I'm decently happy with everything that went on--except losing to Goblins. That really didn't sit well. That should be a buy, but the lose is nothing short of my own fault.

I got to see Kevin play against my friend Rich (on stoneblade) in a for-fun match. Made me feel good in that I don't think I actually do anything wrong. I'm sure there were stacks of misplays and miskeeps on my part. That's a pretty big downfall of not getting to play very much.

Take Aways:
+2 Stomping Grounds
+1 Scapeshift
Just be better versus Goblins.

New possible Sideboard tech: Life from the Loam.

I didn't comment on board options a lot, because there are quite a few matches where I actually don't board anything. Because of that fact I may drop extirpate for something more useful. Just hard when dredge actually exists in my meta at home x.X!

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Originally Posted by Tao

- I had the same reservations as you about Gitaxian Probe which is why I had never tried it but after Qweerios posted about it I finally did. I should have tried it sooner. It is amazing. Especially opening hands with Therapy + probe are on a completely different level. These are often complete blowouts. It is so nice to not have to wait which land he plays or blindly call Brainstorm. It regularly gives you a free card for 0 Mana and not just "a" card but the best card from your opponent's hand.

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Shorttime lurker here. Do non-blue players also run Probe? How often does the 2 life matter? I'm brewing a BG Nic Fit list and I would love to include this card.

I've been having great results with a slightly modified version of Arianrhod's Jund-colored Nic-Fit list:

Veteran Explorer
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Wood Elves
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze

3 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Pernicious Deed

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Burning Wish
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Scapeshift

4 Taiga
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Mountain
3 Badlands
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Forest
2 Bayou
2 Stomping Ground
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Swamp

SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Slaughter Games
SB: 1 Innocent Blood
SB: 1 Reanimate
SB: 1 Collective Voyage
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Scapeshift
SB: 1 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Overmaster

The difference is:
Main:
-1 Chameleon Colossus (wasn't doing enough)
-2 Forest
-1 Swamp
-1 Bayou

+1 Scavenging Ooze (MVP! The one thing this deck lacks is decent ways to interact with the graveyard)
+3 Wooded Foothills (for fixing mana, resetting top)

SB:
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Overmaster (to cast a game-winning Scapeshift or GSZ)

My thoughts over the 30 or so games I've played is that I want a 4th Wooded Foothills and maybe another Scavenging Ooze, either in the main for the side. I could see myself cutting 1 Scapeshift from the main for the 2nd Ooze, as it's just been a house.
Everything else feels super tight. Semi-shitty games versus combo, but you absolutely shit on decks like RUG and Maverick. Feel favored versus control too.
Everytime I have a Huntmaster that doesn't immediately get removed, I cheer! Holy shit people don't want to play versus that little guy!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hymntotourcock

Shorttime lurker here. Do non-blue players also run Probe? How often does the 2 life matter? I'm brewing a BG Nic Fit list and I would love to include this card.

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In straight BG I would splash it without any doubt. I would play a Tropical Island then to make it hard-castable later on.

The 2 life are worth it without a doubt. The only decks with Burn atm are Jund and Canadian. Against Canadian even the info on what the hell you are supposed to play around between Spell Pierce, Stifle, Wasteland, Daze and Force is worth it. In combination with Therapy it gets even better of course. Against Jund the combination with Therapy allows you to get beaten by one of their broken 2 drops (Confidant, Hymn, Sylvan Library) less often.
All they have for burn are 4 Bolts, they still try to beat you to death with Tarmogoyfs. The 2 life are not much in comparison.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vearian

In my local meta show and tell almost never appears. But i think if you're having such trouble with it that you up your slaughter games to 4 and remove the 2 obstinate baloths. It's your best chance against them to remove all their Emrakuls after that i think we can win it. Ofcourse in combination with your pyroblasts and red elemental blasts to keep show and tell at bay until you can slaughter game him.
and it is also the number one weapon against miracles to remove their rest in peace.

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Yeah I need to pick those up! Meanwhile I just remembered I have a couple of Memoricides from when I played straight GB Nic Fit so those will do for now. I agree with your last statement about Slaughter Games being the absolute weapon against Miracles. Most of the games I played against Miracles I always manage to get the 2 Slaughter Games off (RiP and Jace) only to be later destroyed by a well protected Entreat. More Slaughter Games then for sure!:smile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tao

for the MD: Try 4 Gitaxian Probe supported by 1 Tropical Island. It is not a big strain on the mana because usually you will cast it for free so you won't have to fetch the Tropical. I haven't tried it yet, but I played a lot of Punishing Nic Fit and BUG Fit. Even though it might sound like an odd choice I am convinced that Probe will be a big improvement.

- 1 Kitchen Finks
- 1 Maelstrom Pulse
- 1 Kessig Wolf Run?
- 1 DR Shaman?
- 1 Punishing Fire?
+ 4 Gitaxian Probe
+ 1 Tropical Island

Usually I like Finks but in your Meta they don't do much. They are bad against Maverick, bad against all these Combo decks, bad against UW (Blade/Miracle), bad against Elves. They are only really good against the one Goblin deck and the Pox decks.
About the other cards I am not sure (you could also cut other cards and keep Fire/Shaman) but please do yourself a favor and try out Gitaxian Probe.


for the SB: so much Maverick! Maybe a singleton Virtue's Ruin to replace the Ooze with in G2? Other than that your MD looks good against them. What I miss in the SB are a few Thoughtseizes. Something more to actively disrupt Combo decks before they kill you.

My SB would look something like this:

2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Virtue's Ruin
4 Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast
3 Thoughtseize
3 Extirpate/Surgical
2 Slaughter Games

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I will definitely try Probe, but probably not run the Trops! I don't have them! Kessig Wolf-Run was pretty decent for me as due to the lack of finishers (I cut Broodmate) it helps turn my 3/3 Garruk children and most especially the late game Veteran Explorer top decks pretty good clocks on their own. DRS can probably go, and I'm pretty excited to try out Gitaxian Probe!

I don't run Thoughtseizes in the board simply because most of the Sneak Show players in my meta do the "mull to Leyline" durdling and I end up with a ton of dead cards. Honestly I've pretty much given up on the combo matchup, deciding instead to focus on making sure my fair deck matchups are sure wins. With your suggestions I'd probably go:

3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Virtue's Ruin
4 REB/Pyro
3 Slaughter Games
2 Extirpate
1 Batterskull - haven't tested this, but I do remember someone saying this is THE SB card against fair decks.
1 Golgari Charm (for the Elves! and just a flex card) or Damnation probably.

Also I do agree with the -1 Kitchen Finks and -1 Punishing Fire. The last tourney before the one posted above I had seen a lot of Burn so I decided to add the Finks in place of the 2nd Witness. Punishing Fire is a bad top deck if you already have one in your yard/hand.:laugh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mini1337s

I've been having great results with a slightly modified version of Arianrhod's Jund-colored Nic-Fit list:

The difference is:
Main:
-1 Chameleon Colossus (wasn't doing enough)
-2 Forest
-1 Swamp
-1 Bayou

+1 Scavenging Ooze (MVP! The one thing this deck lacks is decent ways to interact with the graveyard)
+3 Wooded Foothills (for fixing mana, resetting top)

SB:
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Overmaster (to cast a game-winning Scapeshift or GSZ)

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I never considered running the fetches in place of the non-red basics. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I may try it out. I also run ooze, and I wonder what you wind up playing against on the regular. He's sweet to have ready to go, but he never champions particularly hard. I personally swapped my second tusk for him. The overmaster looks pretty solid, if they let the wish resolve because they don't know what you're going to cast, they need to have double counter in hand to deal with you, at only 1 r more from you. That seems pretty sweet, especially since 3 MB shift is the new normal.

The only thing I don't love about your list is the lack of a big d00d. Have you given Avenger a shot? I find him very powerful, and it seems like we might have similar metas.

@sherko7
That is exactly what happend to me during a game against miracles. I removed their RIP's then his jaces but lost to a well protected entreat his only entreat in his entire mainboard :P. Thankfully we have abrupt decay now so counterbalance is't such a big threat anymore. Your memoricide should do nicely against CB just have to watch out they don't have that counterspell on hand. And if they have CB on the field they don't have a helm or a jace floating on top so they can counter it.

Don't have the time or the interest to do a full report this time around.

Jupiter was irritating. Paired r1 vs a Reanimator player that rode with me / was my college roommate. Proceeded to lose even after he mulls to 4 g1. He makes a Griselbrand. I double Scapeshift, he double Forces. Real life. I proceed the beat the everliving shit out of Deathblade in r2 then Jund in r3. Beat [something] in r4. Played vs OmniTell in a win-and-in scenario. Game 1 I'd kept a fair-game hand, and lost. G2 I tore him a new asshole with disruption and Chameleon for a quick clock. G3 I know I'm in for it when he looks at his opening hand and announces "this deck is stupid." I kept Explorer, Therapy, REB, Top, Wish, and two lands -- like, that's about as good as it gets on our end. I take a slower line that plays out Top + leaves REB online, then I can Wish for Silence, Silence, Therapy, fb Therapy next turn. He Shows, I REB. He then casually hardcasts Dream Halls and wins. I don't remember the exact sequence of plays, but there was literally nothing I could even do. Last round, as previously noted, I punted to Kich, putting me to X-3 and out of the money.

SCG Philly was even worse.

I start off the day with some delicious tilt, as I get paired vs the only combo player LITERALLY IN SIGHT. He's on Omni. Game 1 I die. G2 I disrupt him early, and then proceed to draw SEVEN LANDS IN A ROW while he's sitting there unable to do anything. He finally hits what he needs and I die. Magic is fun.

R2 I'm paired vs Shardless, which is a bye. I make a slight error where I miscalculate how soon I should be going on the Titan+valakut plan, but I adjust after a turn or two. I have a Titan swinging with a Top active for 2-3 turns, each of which I see between 4-6 fresh cards per turn thanks to shuffles. Do you think I can hit anything that isn't a ramp creature, a (by then) useless Zenith, or a land? I had every non-mountain land out of my deck this game, with an active Valakut. Deed, Wish, Scapeshift, or a few other options basically win me the game on the slot, and my deck was <20 cards by that point. Just couldn't fucking find anything. G2 his curve is t1 Deathrite + Force my Explorer; t2 Liliana, t3 Jace, t4 Goyf + Shardless cascading into Goyf. Real life. I love the part where he keeps in Force of Will.

R3 I played vs Elves, and won. That felt good.

R4 is easily summed up by one sentence: I got Liliana ulted FIVE TIMES IN ONE GAME and was still almost able to dig my way out of it. Played vs Jund. He kept ulting me to keep my mana low; I kept drawing more lands. He eventually rips his final Bloodbraid Elf to kill me the turn before I was going to drop Huntmaster and completely take over the game with it.

R5 I got to demolish Deathblade. Goddamn that matchup is easy for us.

R6 is vs Sneak. This is all I need to say (from my FB status):

"So, I'm playing vs sneak. He has gb, sneak, tarn in hand, three lands in play. Naturally he rips city of traitors. Plays sneak. Sneaks grisel. Draws 14, petal, emrakul, kill you. I had a slaughter in hand to unload and a witness to get it back. Literally no other card wins him that game. Fuck this game."

R7 is some poor guy playing GBW Junk Nic Fit. He wasn't one of ours. I ventilated him in about 10 minutes for the match, then tried to offer help on his list, which he kind of turned up his nose at. I know a thing or two more than you do about Veteran Explorers, kid. Honestly that kind of tilted me more than anything else that happened on the day, which is IMPRESSIVE.

R8 more Elves. My deck shits on me, and I die quickly.

The depths of my tilt are astonishing. Like, logically, I know that it was just a bad day, and it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, and yada yada. But you can only get kicked in the nuts so many times before you start to feel it. Pretty sure that I'm going to be hanging up Scapewish for at least a month as far as major events are concerned. Gonna put in some mileage with some kind of Force of Will deck until I cool off a bit. I'm fucking SICK of Show and Tell and Elves.

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I will note a few things, though, on the way out. Reanimate legitimately won me a match by itself, where my opponent was at 19 with a Stoneforge in play. I have Scape and a Wish in hand with a Wood Elves in play; he has like a Batterskull in hand and nothing else. I swing with my Wood Elves. If he chumps, I reanimate the Elves and win. If he doesn't, I just win. Felt good. I've been down on Primeval lately, because it feels like I always board him out. But, he did win a few games on the weekend by himself, so meh. Ironically, the two combined vs that Shardless opponent. I slammed Primeval; he pulsed it. Then I reanimated my Titan, and he wasn't able to deal with it until his Goyf grew big enough finally later in the game to eat it. That felt pretty good.

I'm not quitting the archetype or anything of the sort -- I'm still working on a few things, and obv Scape. But I need a break from Scape for a little while, at least with regards to tournament Magic. I'm sure that the moment I sleeve up Force of Will, I'll never play against Show or Elves again and I'll just be angry, but at this point I don't even care. Either I play vs them and win and am happy, or I don't play vs them and lose, but I don't even care that I lose because I'm not playing against Show and Elves.

@arianrhod

Ouch, haha I was actually expecting a report like this because usually you're quicker with the reports when you do well.

Combo decks sucks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by litenkatt

@arianrhod

Ouch, haha I was actually expecting a report like this because usually you're quicker with the reports when you do well.

Combo decks sucks.

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It was actually going to be coming today regardless of my finish; I was pretty busy yesterday, and wasn't at a computer all day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by litenkatt

@arianrhod

Ouch, haha I was actually expecting a report like this because usually you're quicker with the reports when you do well.

Combo decks sucks.

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If you can't beat em, join em

I've been teaching myself ANT and TES just to see how the other side lives.

I love reading Nic Fit decklists, but when I tried playing Punishing Fit, I just, dunno. It felt like I had to play four turns with a single card in hand that did anything. It felt like this deck was precisely what LSV said sucks about Rock decks, and I constantly kept drawing the wrong half of the deck (admittedly, my regular opponents being Esperblade/UR Delver and me consistently misplaying Carpet kinda helped a ton).

Atm I'm playing Elves which basically occupies the same metagame slot as Nic Fit (as the best "fair" deck that just wins fair matchups but loses to fast combo) but happens to play Elvish Visionary and Ancestral Recall so I get to draw cards. I'm telling you, drawing cards feels GOOD. GSZ being a cantrip feels good. It's the one thing I missed when playing Nic Fit, and it often made me feel like the deck was shitting on me. Though the lockups had nothing on the ones Arianrhod posted, good lord. I would've slammed my deck at a wall if it treated me like that.

That drawing card thing is one of the reasons why I prefer the blue build. Brainstorm is imba and Jace is very good. Especially now with Probe you rarely have the "nothing" draws. In nonblue versions you should play a lot of Sensei's Tops in order to proxy Brainstorm as good as possible, never go below 3 Tops and don't be afraid to run 4. Rector and Scapewish make up for the lack of draw with raw power.

When I was still playing a few ML tournaments for fun I always liked to play a lot of big value creatures in Punishing Nic Fit to make up for the lack of draw and power, like multiple Thragtusks and two or three 6-drops. I also liked Recurring Nightmare but with DR Shaman everywhere that is a bit too much now (though switching Thragtusks with Nightmare was one of the sweeter things in Magic). The meta has changed a bit since then and Abrupt Decay became a thing but in general that is my way of thinking about the strengths of Punishing Nic Fit. For reference:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...8&iddeck=72025
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...2&iddeck=72549

Could you imagine how broken this deck would be if Skullclamp were legal?
In the old Extended days of Rock that was the card that made the deck go from good to busted.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ZimAshe

Could you imagine how broken this deck would be if Skullclamp were legal?
In the old Extended days of Rock that was the card that made the deck go from good to busted.

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I think if Skullclamp were legal, Nic Fit would be pretty low on the list of broken decks.

My pointy-eared little gits would like to have a word with you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ayotte

I think if Skullclamp were legal, Nic Fit would be pretty low on the list of broken decks.

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/barn. Nic Fit would be VERY happy, but it would also be the least of the format's problems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Siiig

I never considered running the fetches in place of the non-red basics. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I may try it out. I also run ooze, and I wonder what you wind up playing against on the regular. He's sweet to have ready to go, but he never champions particularly hard. I personally swapped my second tusk for him. The overmaster looks pretty solid, if they let the wish resolve because they don't know what you're going to cast, they need to have double counter in hand to deal with you, at only 1 r more from you. That seems pretty sweet, especially since 3 MB shift is the new normal.

The only thing I don't love about your list is the lack of a big d00d. Have you given Avenger a shot? I find him very powerful, and it seems like we might have similar metas.

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The Foothills have been fantastic for 2 reasons:
1) They give you more ways to reset Top, particularly ways that don't involve casting a spell/creature.
2) In situations where you have a Valakut or 2 on board, drawing them off the top means you can pull out a Badlands/Taiga/Stomping Ground/Mountain rather than being the victim of your draw.
Honestly, I want to run 4, I'm just having trouble finding out if there is another land I can cut. The only land I can think about cutting is Phyrexian Tower, but it has such useful synergy with Veteran Explorer. I feel like my manabase is really at the limit of where you can be (aside from Tower) to still remain effective with Scapeshift.

As for a big d00D (lol), while occasionally it was sweet (ran a 1 of Avenger of Zendikar), I found that it was generally win-more. I found Chameleon Collosus to be the same thing, which is why I cut him for a utility creature (Scavenging Ooze). In all honesty, I want to find a reasonably costed creature that effectively deals with Enchantments/Artifacts/Lands (Glacial Chasm!) moreso than a card like Avenger. Acidic Slime fits the bill, but 5 mana for a 2/2 tends to not fly so much. 2 cards I've considered are Woodfall Primus and Sylvan Primordial (that's right!), but both are really mana heavy. The one thing I miss from playing Rector fit is Necrotic + Harmonic Sliver and Sun Titan. While not the easiest thing to setup, it was just sooooo backbreaking when you got there.

As for my meta, I play IRL in an area that allows proxies, so you see a lot of flavor of the month decks (SCG T16s really), but they tend to lean towards Tarmogoyf based aggro control decks (Canadian, Jund, Team America). I test on Cockatrice too, and see a lot of the same thing.

I've been hating Scapewish lately, which is sad, because I had a very good run with it a couple months ago going 3-1 in like 5 local tournaments in a row (usually losing to the same ANT player) and then top 8'ing a 1k. After that, I switched decks and recently rebuilt it and am not liking it. Now, I've gone 0-3 in three in a row, with most of the matches lost because of the deck's inconsistency. You have to draw green and black mana in a deck with no/few fetchlands along with ramp and disruption in order to even compete, which is a pretty tall order. When it works, it's freaking awesome, but it feels so inconsistent playing against decks with brainstorm, etc..

During that winning streak, I removed a couple catacombs for stomping grounds because I had a couple games where I didn't have enough mountains left to kill someone.

I hate the amount of opening hands I draw that have all the wrong colors of mana. There are now too many mountains for the deck to be consistent.

My current manabase is:

3 Bayou
4 Taiga
3 Badlands
2 Stomping Grounds
2 Valakut
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Kessig Wolf Run (25th land, doesn't really count)

I think if I could find some room for more fetchlands, it would be better, but it's hard to find what to cut. I'm apprehensive about cutting non-mountain basics as above. I want to get rid of the stomping grounds again, but I'm afraid that I'll end up in the same spot as before.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ayotte

My current manabase is:

3 Bayou
4 Taiga
3 Badlands
2 Stomping Grounds
2 Valakut
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Kessig Wolf Run (25th land, doesn't really count)

I think if I could find some room for more fetchlands, it would be better, but it's hard to find what to cut. I'm apprehensive about cutting non-mountain basics as above. I want to get rid of the stomping grounds again, but I'm afraid that I'll end up in the same spot as before.

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I'm new to this archetype so forgive my ignorance, but is Phyrexian Tower really essential? Is it still good even if you don't see a Veteran Explorer? 4 mana seems pretty reasonable turn 2, but what about turns 3, 4, etc? How often do you sit on a Tower with no Vets in play? You could also consider going up to 26 lands.