[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

Withe the 16 interaction slots - at the moment we are on something like this in most builds:

4 Therapy
4 Path
3 Deed
2 Decay
1 Vindicate variant
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14

What do you guys think the last slots should be? Could add more Decay / Deed which seems fine, are there any other options people are inclined towards? We could add a second Vindicate variant (whether it be Unmaking, Vindicate, Pulse or Council's Judgment) or something entirely different like Go for the Throat, Dismember, Shriekmaw (doubles as a finisher? Good with batterskull).

Jitte might count for the category too. I can't think of any zenithable options which aren't narrow (i.e. teeg, qpm). KOTR might fit if we're playing Karakas, but it's still a bit of a stretch. Some number of maindeck Thoughtseize could work too - I've played Slaughter and Surgical maindeck in the past and been happy with it.

If we have 16 vanilla removal effects which don't have category overlap, we want 14 of our remaining 24 slots to threaten to end the game.
If we look at the list Bobmans put up, he's on:

4 Rhino
3 SFM
1 Sigarda
4 GSZ
1 Batterskull
3 DRS (if they count, I don't know if they do, but they do threaten to cause problems in a lot of matchups and they get better if we end up running more removal instants and sorceries).

That's 13/16 if we include DRS. Of those, 10 are also consistency tools (GSZ, SFM, DRS) meaning that we'd be on 18 fixing cards + 10 fetchlands + 2 utility lands = the 30 which was brought up previously.

So we're on something like this:

16 pure interaction
6 pure finisher (sigarda, rhino, etc)
3 finisher + ramp (drs)
3 finisher + consistency (sfm)
4 finisher + ramp + consistency (gsz)
5 consistency (top, truths, witness)
3 ramp (vet / ste)

10 fetchland
6 basic
3 dual
2 utility lands
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61 (probably drop an interaction spell if going to 60?)

interaction: 16
finisher: 16
ramp: 10
consistency: 12
lands: 21 (10 fetch) - with 1 of each dual, can get to 14/14/14(FFSSPP) or 15/14/13(FFFSSP). If Karakas or Arbor is one of the utility lands, could get to 15/14/14.

Are there any interaction cards we could use the last couple slots there with to up our other numbers somewhat? The option which jumps to mind personally is a singleton Primal Command as a GSZ which doesn't really ramp but interacts instead, which would be interaction + consistency + finisher and could be kind of interesting. Might just be too expensive though.

Hymn to Tourach and Toxic Deluge come to mind in the interaction/CA department.

Hymn is hard to cast but leaves you @+1 card, Toxic Deluge can be costly but also a life saving X for 1.

As for CA + finisher, I'm strongly considering Tireless Tracker. Dies easily but can turn a couple of fetchlands into some quick and easy CA.

To throw something else out there: No Mercy. Removal/CA that doesn't die to our own sweepers.

I also pilot Manaless Dredge, which has access to Vengeful Pharaoh. I noticed it can cause a lot of problems for decks that rely on combat to kill you. I think this is even more true in a shell like ours that has heaps of life to use as a resource.

I was treating CA more as ways of getting what you want from your own deck when you need it in terms on consistency. If you want to count Deluge and Hymn as CA tools, then Deed presumably could be counted in there as well.

Abzan Charm could be an option for those slots, since that definitely fits both slots of consistency tool and interaction. Maybe go to a 1/1 or 2/1 split between Abzan Charm and Painful Truths?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

I was treating CA more as ways of getting what you want from your own deck when you need it in terms on consistency.

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There are several angles to explore :wink:. I invite you all to go and see what you can find outside of the box.

Everything goes, as long as it fits within the requirements we want to fulfill.

That means Vengeful Pharaoh is out, since it has BBB in its manacost (which violates the requirement that no card can have triple mana of any 1 colour in its manacost).

it is very interesting following this discussion even though I started playing the deck only a few weeks ago.
when I started I loved the synergies of the deck. vex, therapy and even kitchen finks (I love life gain).
I also played one qasali main to have excess to artifact/enchantment hate.
but thinking abt the deck more detailed it turned out that cards like finks and qasali are not really needed and I just wanted to play them because I like them.

the discussion abt sfm, bsk and jitte is very interesting and I think they give some more utility to the deck and u can use sfm for cabal or blocker as well.

I think I will try something like the flwing.

21 lands:
7-8 fetch
3-4 forest
1-2 plains
2 swamp
2 bayou
1-2 savannah
1 scrubland
1 p tower (or stronghold)
1 karakas

16 creatures:
3 vex
2 drs
3 sfm
1 ooze
1 eternal w
4 rhinos
1 sigarda
(1 bsk)

16 removal spellls:
4 cabal t
3 pte
4 decay
(1 jitte)
3 p deed
1 vindicate or m pulse

8 draw/shuffle spells:
4 gsz
3 top
1 ptruths ( I would like to add another one)

cmc1: 19 (incl gsz which are variable)
cmc2: 9
cmc3: 6
cmc4: 4
cmc5: 2
(unfortunately 61 cards :/ )

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Originally Posted by cherson

I think I will try something like the flwing.

21 lands:
7-8 fetch
3-4 forest
1-2 plains
2 swamp
2 bayou
1-2 savannah
1 scrubland
1 p tower (or stronghold)
1 karakas

16 creatures:
3 vex
2 drs
3 sfm
1 ooze
1 eternal w
4 rhinos
1 sigarda
(1 bsk)

16 removal spellls:
4 cabal t
3 pte
4 decay
(1 jitte)
3 p deed
1 vindicate or m pulse

8 draw/shuffle spells:
4 gsz
3 top
1 ptruths ( I would like to add another one)

cmc1: 19 (incl gsz which are variable)
cmc2: 9
cmc3: 6
cmc4: 4
cmc5: 2
(unfortunately 61 cards :/ )

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I think you're missing some points on the theoretical side of things in regard of the current discussion. SFM & Eternal Witness should sooner be viewed as CA pieces and GSZ aren't cards you want to view as 1 CMC spells. By doing so you imply you regard them as Dryad Arbors you don't play. It'd be more logical to distribute them across other, higher CMCs. Popular choices are 2 for X = 1 into Veteran Explorer, 4 for X = 3 into Eternal Witness or 5 for X = 4 into Siege Rhino.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Echelon

I think you're missing some points on the theoretical side of things in regard of the current discussion. SFM & Eternal Witness should sooner be viewed as CA pieces and GSZ aren't cards you want to view as 1 CMC spells. By doing so you imply you regard them as Dryad Arbors you don't play. It'd be more logical to distribute them across other, higher CMCs. Popular choices are 2 for X = 1 into Veteran Explorer, 4 for X = 3 into Eternal Witness or 5 for X = 4 into Siege Rhino.

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fully agree that gsz is variable but for the overall CMC summary I just put them at 1. if u make such statistics gsz is considered as card with cmc1, isn't it?
indeed I will never use it for 1 because I don't play dryad arbor.
of course I can add +1 for every cmc and cut 4 at 1 but the card is very variable and I was actually not sure were to put it.

It could read as follows:
cmc1: 15 (excl. 4 gsz / variable)
cmc2: 9
cmc3: 6
cmc4: 4
cmc5: 2

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cherson

if u make such statistics gsz is considered as card with cmc1, isn't it?

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Almost. Standard statistics consider GSZ as a 1 CMC card simply b/c that's its converted mana cost and the tool used to do the statistics aren't smart enough to be able to consider it otherwise. Hence that's our job :smile:.

I enjoy were this discussion is going, I've tried having it by myself a lot (so many screwed up scribbled on pieces of paper in the bin) but it's a lot easier with everyone getting involved.

Navsi, I like the numbers you've got from the other decks, they really illustrate why miracles is tough for us. The last two interaction spells you are looking for are TS because they interact with combo ;)

Brael, I have to respond to something you said about my princess, "SFM saves mana more than spends it."
All of my SFMs are 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12 and 15 CMC spells. If that's not a mana sink I don't know what is :P

Echelon, I'm not sure what you are looking for now to further the discussion? We have numbers for the different kind of aspects we expect our deck to have. Are you looking for card suggestions to fill those slots?
I wouldn't be too worried about the curve until we have a core of cards, except to keep in mind that lower CMC is generally better and that we are all agreed on Sigarda at 5.

I'm not sure if Thoughtseize is correct for the last interaction slots. I guess it depends how worried we are about aggressive lists like Delver variants and Burn. Access to Rhinos and Batterskull probably means we can afford to lose some life from Seize and Truths, but at the same time, I'd also like to, if we are playing Seize in the main, have access to some form of sideboard option which can replace Thoughtseize if we need to cut it against the decks it's bad against. It also doesn't fulfil multiple roles in the same way as Abzan Charm does.

With regards to the mana curve discussion - I don't think we need to worry so much about it as other decks. If we have 4 Therapy, 3 Vet, 3 DRS, 4 GSZ and 2 phyrexian tower in the deck, then:

We have 3+ mana on turn 2:
off DRS 25% (DRS in opener 31%, fetchland in top 8 80%)
off therapy + vet 15% (vet in top 8 35%, therapy in top 8 44%)
totals ~ 38% odds of 3 mana turn 2

We have 4+ mana on turn 2:
off vet + tower 9% (vet in top 8 35%, tower in top 8 25%)

We have 4+ mana on turn 3:
off DRS 29% (drs in top 8 35%, fetch in top 9 83%)
off vet + sac 25% (vet in top 9 39%, therapy or tower in top 9 64%)
off GSZ + sac/fetch 42% (gsz in top 8 44%, therapy or tower or fetch in top 9 95%)
totals ~ 69% odds of 4 mana on turn 3

We have 5+ mana on turn 3:
off therapy/tower + vet 38% (vet or gsz in top 8 65%, therapy or tower in top 8 59%)
off 2+ drs/gsz 11% (double drs/gsz in top 8 23%, double fetch in top 9 49%)

From this, we have open mana to make a 2-drop (but not a 3-drop) on turn two approximately 60% of the time. The other 40% we make a 3-drop or bigger. On turn three, we are on 3 mana only 31% of the time, and can make a 4-drop or bigger the other 69%.

- Going 1 -> 2 -> 4 in mana is significantly more likely than going 1 -> 3 -> 4/5.
- As standard we play 3 tops, 4 gsz, 2+ decays, some number of sfm/jitte potentially, and sometimes ooze/qpm/teeg which can all be uses of that mana. Because of the way top works it's more of a 2-drop than a 1-drop in a lot of circumstances. We should take this into account when working out our mana ratios. I think Top is particularly important here since it gives us a very effective mana sink if we need to make up our curve - if we have 4-5 mana on turn 3, we can play one of those 3-drops we have so many of and happily leave the remaining 1 open to spin the top / represent Path / play around Daze and so on.

@Navsi: Stuff like "Going 1 -> 2 -> 4 in mana is significantly more likely than going 1 -> 3 -> 4/5" is good to know. I have questions about a different configuration and would appreciate your help.

Q1: What are the odds of the below configs reaching 5 mana (preferably broken out across the first 5 turns)?
Q2: Are these configs more likely to go 1-2-4 or 1-3-4/5?

A = 4 Vet, 2 DRS, 1 Sakura, 4 GSZ, 4 therapy, 1 tower, 22 lands (10 fetch)
B = 3 Vet, 2 DRS, 1 Sakura, 4 GSZ, 4 therapy, 1 tower, 22 lands (10 fetch)
C = 3 Vet, 3 DRS, 1 Sakura, 4 GSZ, 4 therapy, 1 tower, 22 lands (10 fetch)

In particular, I'm curious to see Sakura's impact and if it's feasible to shave a Veteran for one.

@Jain_Mor, I like your PM. But in this thread you just lost me about the SFM and CMC. IMO, SFM is a 2 drop with a delayed kicker for either 0 (no equips/failed search, none in hand), 2 (Jitte/her activation), 3(sword of XY) or 5 (Batterskull).

@Interaction: Why not run some Planeswalkers? I still think highly of Liliana of the Veil, based on last month's experience and notes. I'm also open to running poppa Sorin (despite 6 mana).

I'm not as good at the raw math as you guys are, so I'm going to work backwards. I rebuilt Thune last night to be closer to / more accommodating to these standards. Here's what I came up with:

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
2 Spike Feeder
1 Spike Weaver
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
2 Siege Rhino
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Dragonlord Dromoka

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Painful Truths

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Sensei's Divining Top

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

Let's break it down:

Interaction:

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Spike Weaver
4 Green Sun's Zenith

16

Deck manipulation:

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Courser of Kruphix
3 Painful Truths
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth *
1 Eternal Witness *
4 Veteran Explorer (at 1/2 rate)**

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*I believe that since both of these cards "draw cards" from our graveyard, that they should be counted.
**Veterans each count as .5 card for this, in my opinion. They do interact with our deck, but they need something else to do so.

Finishers:

2 Deathrite*
2 Spike Feeder
2 Rhino
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
4 Green Sun's Zenith

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*Deathrite definitely counts in this category. I (and I'm sure many of your as well) have been burned out by Deathrite plenty of times.

Lands:

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

22

16G/14B/14W

I don't like the 10 fetch setup only because that makes us even weaker to Stifle, and also weakens us to Wasteland where we shouldn't be otherwise. IE if you fetch Bayou, it gets Wasted t1, and then you have more fetches but can't get another G/B dual off of them (or insert Savannah/Scrub/Trop/Taiga/whatever here). Considering that we're a three color deck wit only 2/4 Deathrites, and we're only a 2x Top deck (not 4x like Miracles), I think that 8 fetches is fine. We need actual lands in our deck, not just shuffles.

I do agree that 6 is probably too low, though.

Some generic thoughts on the list:

Counting Spike Weaver as interaction is a little cheaty, but he DOES technically count. I do believe that one of the biggest upgrades we can get for this deck at this point is a GB Shriekmaw -- a Zenithable removal spell. Weaver isn't really that, but he ranges from really annoying to absolutely backbreaking vs most matchups, and he's still a 3/3 for 4 vs combo, which isn't completely embarrassing if we happen to draw him.

A Zenithable interaction creature is the best way to achieve optimal numbers of each type of card, I believe. Weaver is obviously unique to this type of deck -- I don't think he's worth running without Feeder and Thune. I think we probably need to take another spin through Gatherer and see if there's anything at all in that category that we've missed.

Meren is back in. I can't justify Nightmare in this deck, since I know from experience that it doesn't play very well with the Spikes. That being said, Meren plays FANTASTICALLY with the Spikes. I'm looking forward to some fun interactions there. I still think she's bad in the room, but I should be able to navigate around that, especially with spot removal in the maindeck.

I still want 1 maindeck Deluge, but I'm unwilling to cut a Painful Truths for it, and I think with 8 fetches, we can only afford to run more 3 cards total that hurt ourselves.

Side topic: watching the Pro Tour today, Tireless Tracker is realllllllllly impressing me. We might want to look into that guy sooner rather than later. I don't think I have room for him in my Thune build, but maybe he'd be better than the 3rd Painful Truths, which could potentially open a slot for Deluge. Not sure, needs thought.

@warden

The only two ways of going to 3+ mana on turn two are naturally drawing Vet + sac outlet or DRS + Fetch. The highest odds we can get of either of those are:

4 vets, 4 Therapy, 2 Phyrexian Tower : 24% odds
4 DRS, 10 fetches : 32% odds
Total: about 49% odds of 3 mana turn one.
The problem is that if we're trying for 3 mana T2, our copies of Zenith don't help. If we include GSZ into Dryad Arbor in our calculations, the odds go up to 69%.

1-2-4 is very easy to get to - we basically just need any one ramp effect, including GSZ. It's a little more complicated than that since you also need a sac outlet for Vets or a fetch for DRS but the odds are still significantly higher.

I don't think there is any way to get the odds of T2 3 mana high enough to bank on. It's not difficult to use up that 2 mana on turn two (Zenith up Explorer if we Therapied turn one, make Top, whatever) if we don't go off, but I do think we have to consider that we probably shouldn't plan around skipping the two drop because we'll still need it a reasonable percentage of the time.

Edit: Arianrhod, I think you're right about Tireless Tracker. Reminds me of KotR in a lot of ways - easy to kill initially, but if you ignore him the game gets taken over very fast. Also doesn't warp deck construction as much as Knight in terms of wanting utility lands and stuff.

@Warden I was talking with respect to curve and mana sinks. Obviously SFM is a 2 CMC spell, but it's flexible up the curve, it is a mana sink that varies when you draw it in the game ie mana efficiency, similar to gsun

2 mana: cast her
4 mana: cast her and cast Jitte
5 mana: cast her and SoFaI
6 mana: cast her, Jitte and equip Jitte
7 mana: cast her, SoFaI and equip SoFaI
7 mana: cast her and cast BSK
These plays are real. You're sitting in top deck mode with 6 or more mana and SFM immediately impacts the game in a huge way.

The other CMCs were jokes, but if you have the mana, you have the mana
10 mana: cast her, cast BSK, leave up mana to return BSK
12 mana: cast her, cast BSK, equip bsk to something and swing
15 mana: cast her, cast BSK, equip BSK, hold up mana to return BSK :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Echelon

There are several angles to explore :wink:. I invite you all to go and see what you can find outside of the box.

Everything goes, as long as it fits within the requirements we want to fulfill.

That means Vengeful Pharaoh is out, since it has BBB in its manacost (which violates the requirement that no card can have triple mana of any 1 colour in its manacost).

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I disagree with the no triple CCC in a manacost, provided it's your primary color it's not a problem. Pharoah and Hymn go well together since it's not that much of a stretch to go from being able to cast Hymn to Pharoah (Hymn is in many ways tougher actually). But if you go that route you can't also be trying to cast an Eternal Witness or a Council's Judgment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Side topic: watching the Pro Tour today, Tireless Tracker is realllllllllly impressing me. We might want to look into that guy sooner rather than later. I don't think I have room for him in my Thune build, but maybe he'd be better than the 3rd Painful Truths, which could potentially open a slot for Deluge. Not sure, needs thought.

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I jammed 2 Tireless Tracker in an Abzan Stoneblade/Stompy list last night (SFM,Rhinos,GSZ,Chalice) and it overperformed against Miracles. Solid threat that allowed me to draw around 4 cards in a game since I saw both copies. I started to feel that he was very similar to Dark Confidant, except that you are guaranteed to get Clues aka delayed card draw if you have a land in hand when he comes down. And an extra if that land is a fetchland. I'm going to run him again tonight alongside Courser - replacing KotR since I never feel great casting the knight.

My sole concern with Tracker is that its clues die to Deed, but I'm not sure how often that will realistically come up. He makes Courser better, which is a nice synergy.

I THINK I'm on board with picking up a Tracker at my local tonight and replacing Painful Truths #3 with it for Mythic tomorrow. I really want to find room for a maindeck Deluge if I do that, but I'm not sure that's possible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Or to the conclusion that we really want to skip on the 2 drops, as 1 Veteran Explorer allows us to jump from 1 to 3 or from 2 to 4 naturally. That'd be perfectly reasonable too, as long as we can explain why.

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That's the approach I take, GSZ and Vet both make a jump of 1 to 3 (I GSZ Arbor a lot) and so does DRS, but it still feels like I don't run enough 2's.

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Originally Posted by Jain_Mor

Brael, I have to respond to something you said about my princess, "SFM saves mana more than spends it."
All of my SFMs are 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12 and 15 CMC spells. If that's not a mana sink I don't know what is :P

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Fair point, I was only considering saving mana on putting something like a Batterskull into play. There are many ways to sink mana by casting the equipment or using equip costs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by square_two

I jammed 2 Tireless Tracker in an Abzan Stoneblade/Stompy list last night (SFM,Rhinos,GSZ,Chalice) and it overperformed against Miracles. Solid threat that allowed me to draw around 4 cards in a game since I saw both copies. I started to feel that he was very similar to Dark Confidant, except that you are guaranteed to get Clues aka delayed card draw if you have a land in hand when he comes down. And an extra if that land is a fetchland. I'm going to run him again tonight alongside Courser - replacing KotR since I never feel great casting the knight.

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What did you cut for the Trackers? I was leaning towards cutting my Painful Truths for one. Sadly, I won't get much actual Legacy playtime for a while to test outside of xmage games. In theory I really like Tracker, the only question left in my mind isn't if it should be run but rather how many should be run.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

I THINK I'm on board with picking up a Tracker at my local tonight and replacing Painful Truths #3 with it for Mythic tomorrow. I really want to find room for a maindeck Deluge if I do that, but I'm not sure that's possible.

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Replace a Deed with a Deluge, like you said the tokens make Deed worse.

@arianrhod- spore frog is a cheaper fog effect for less investment it can recur with meren but the timing is poor. Aside from fighting creatures and death touchers green is lacking in a zenithable kill creature for anything that doeant fly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by uncletiggy

@arianrhod- spore frog is a cheaper fog effect for less investment it can recur with meren but the timing is poor. Aside from fighting creatures and death touchers green is lacking in a zenithable kill creature for anything that doeant fly.

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Yeah, Weaver is much better (at least in this specific deck). Being able to lock people out of combat with Thune and by moving counters around from Feeder is way too good.