[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

@qweerios

I actually put the singleton deed in the sb and 1x primeval bounty in the main. It helps against graveyard hate when you don't want to grab recurring nightmare. The card advantage it provides is just amazing! For instance against BUG I had some trouble using nightmare effectively as they can either decay it if it stays in play, discard it from your hand or counter it as you re-play it. Primeval Bounty just autowins against them. Any creature gives u a 3/3, any noncreature makes your stuff huge (4/5 deathrite shaman?) and fetchlands give you 5 life.

I took my nic fit and made some changes...

Im having real problemas to deal with PWs, especially jace... so I took out my abrupt decays and put vindicate main deck (since I play BGw version)

Creautres [21]
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Wall of Blossoms
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Wickerbough Elder
2 Restoration Angel
1 Thragtusk
1 Acidic Slime
1 Shriekmaw
1 Grave Titan

Spells [19]
3 Birthing Pod
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Cabal Therapy

Lands [21]
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyraxian Tower

Im having the feeling to go just BG but restoration angel is just so powerful in this deck....

@Potdindy,

EPlague is better than Golgari Charm vs. tribal in general but Charm has so many more applications. It replaces cabal therapy in aggro matchups and still acts as a sac outlet for Explorer. It will take care of RiP as well as the board against goblins and DnT. Also, you cannot really swap out a creature for a non-creature spell when you board and trading 2 Therapies for 2 Charms doesnt disrupt the deck's functioning.

What about a necroplasm for the pod lists?

Has anyone tried a 1-of life from the loam in the P-fire list? Seems like there might be a lot of synergy with P-fire/Grove combo, liliana (more cards to discard), Top (get rid of that pesky chaff), E-witness, deathrite, ooze, volrath's, cabal therapy...sort of the whole deck. Or is it just too cute/win-more?

I thought about Loam, but oftentimes dredging is risky. Usually Loam powers a Wasteland lock, or at least is used heavily when the board state is already in our favor. We don't really have such a game state. More often than not, my field is empty except 1 or 2 creatures, sometimes a Lili. I wouldn't even dredge if I had a Liliana lock in play for fear of dumping a Titan or something more useful. I guess 1 couldn't hurt in a wishboard or something for the off chance you face 43 lands or something.

Also, i played my first NicFit tournament this past sunday. I have a shit memory and didn't take many notes, but here's a summary:

Round 1 vs. Death and Taxes
My roommate was piloting this deck, and I often feel overwhelmed when Flickerwisps and Mother of Runes are blinking all over the place to protect Batterskull, screw my walkers, etc. Somehow I 2-0d him though, just happening to draw everything I needed when I needed it. Off to a good start.

Round 2 vs. Omnitell
Game 1 he ponders a lot, Cunning Wish pulls in Intuition, then Omniscience etc etc you can guess what happens. I think I had a Vet and some Fires but fuckall else. Game 2 I bring in almost my entire board. I think I keep a 6 card hand with a REB. I still suck at mulling with this deck. Anyway, he lands the Show and Tell and brings in Omniscience. I try to REB his Enter the Infinite and it gets FoWd. Lights out.

Round 3 vs. Storm
Game 1 I blind Therapy calling LED and hit 1. Then he shits out 14 Goblins and I see no Deeds. Game 2 I see 2 Slaughter Games in my opening hand and keep them there. I REB'd a Brainstorm which I believe helped me to miraculously survive til turn 4 when I Slaughter his Tendrils out of the game. Turn 5 I get his Warrens and he scoops. Game 3 he masturbates himself while playing Solitaire.

Round 4 vs. Rock
This guy was pretty fuckin cranky and I didn't even want to finish the game. Long story short, he wins game 1, I get game 2, game 3 goes to time.

Round 5 vs. Dragon Stompy
Game 1 he gets a shitty Blood Moon lock on me (didn't even see it coming, never played against this deck before). I get killed by Koth mountains. Game 2 he mulls to like 4 and I have every answer I need. Game 3 I Punish his Revokers, Koth, and Pulse 2 Magus of the Moon. Shit felt good. I go to beats with a Ravager of the Fells and win.
The guy was cool, and because with a record of 2-2-1 I had no chance of winning anything, I conceded the match to him which allowed him to enter top 8.

My roommate (DnT player) buys me 2 Torpedo tallboys as consolation prizes and I get buzzed while he gets knocked out of the top 8.



I didn't really feel unprepared for many of these matchups so much as I felt inexperienced especially with SB options and mulligans. Sometimes I really, really miss Wasteland and Bojuka Bog.

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Originally Posted by Blastoderm

What about a necroplasm for the pod lists?

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Not exactly related to Nic Fit, but I've been playing a BG Stax-style list recently, ran it through a couple online daily events (managed to 3-1 the first one) and I'm running one Necroplasm main and one more in the side, I have to say I really love the card, you can play it reactively to deal with tokens (Entreat, Lingering, flipped Delver, etc) to kill them on the same turn you cast the Necro and while it can be a little clunky, if you have alternate sac outlets to get it back into the graveyard before its run its natural cycle, it can be pretty abusive in certain matchups. Even if you do just get the one token-sweep out of it and then have to beat down with it for the next few turns it actually puts out reasonable damage and can complicate plays for your opponent, I mean if you drop it to kill some Lingering Souls tokens, and pass, and they have a DRS or Delver or something in hand they can't even play it without just losing it next turn and then the same goes for their 2-drops and 3-drops on following turns. Like I said he certainly can feel clunky at times but other times he's an MVP - whether or not he's good in your list depends on how synergistic he is with your own creature base/curve, and if you have reliable methods of killing him early, which you OFTEN want to, but that shouldn't be a problem in a typical Nic Fits list.

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Originally Posted by Mortox

Not exactly related to Nic Fit, but I've been playing a BG Stax-style list recently, ran it through a couple online daily events (managed to 3-1 the first one) and I'm running one Necroplasm main and one more in the side, I have to say I really love the card, you can play it reactively to deal with tokens (Entreat, Lingering, flipped Delver, etc) to kill them on the same turn you cast the Necro and while it can be a little clunky, if you have alternate sac outlets to get it back into the graveyard before its run its natural cycle, it can be pretty abusive in certain matchups. Even if you do just get the one token-sweep out of it and then have to beat down with it for the next few turns it actually puts out reasonable damage and can complicate plays for your opponent, I mean if you drop it to kill some Lingering Souls tokens, and pass, and they have a DRS or Delver or something in hand they can't even play it without just losing it next turn and then the same goes for their 2-drops and 3-drops on following turns. Like I said he certainly can feel clunky at times but other times he's an MVP - whether or not he's good in your list depends on how synergistic he is with your own creature base/curve, and if you have reliable methods of killing him early, which you OFTEN want to, but that shouldn't be a problem in a typical Nic Fits list.

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Yea I saw that list too. Pretty awesome!

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Originally Posted by hymntotourcock

Round 1 vs. Death and Taxes
My roommate was piloting this deck, and I often feel overwhelmed when Flickerwisps and Mother of Runes are blinking all over the place to protect Batterskull, screw my walkers, etc. Somehow I 2-0d him though, just happening to draw everything I needed when I needed it. Off to a good start.

Round 2 vs. Omnitell
Game 1 he ponders a lot, Cunning Wish pulls in Intuition, then Omniscience etc etc you can guess what happens. I think I had a Vet and some Fires but fuckall else. Game 2 I bring in almost my entire board. I think I keep a 6 card hand with a REB. I still suck at mulling with this deck. Anyway, he lands the Show and Tell and brings in Omniscience. I try to REB his Enter the Infinite and it gets FoWd. Lights out.

I didn't really feel unprepared for many of these matchups so much as I felt inexperienced especially with SB options and mulligans. Sometimes I really, really miss Wasteland and Bojuka Bog.

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The Death & Taxes one was no fluke. The matchup is good. You can kill all their stuff more often than not. Against Omnitell you should Red Blast the Show and Tell because that is their most important card. A Dream Halls win is tough for them if you attack their hand cards with Therapy, Thoughtseize and Lili.
Overall not a bad tournament. Beating everything except the Combo decks. The Rock matchup should be fairly good as well. They have a hard time killing you and your late game is better than theirs.

I played another tournament recently with Scapeshift. I believe that about 20 people showed up. The list that I played was most similar to Arianrhods list.

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

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Burning Wish
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Scapeshift
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Abrupt Decay

4 Taiga
2 Stomping Ground
3 Badlands
3 Mountain
2 Bayou
2 Verdant Catacombs

3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Sideboard:
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Slaughter Games
1 Thoughtseize
1 Scapeshift
1 Reanimate
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Pyroclasm
1 Innocent Blood
1 Damnation
1 Collective Voyage
1 Bramblecrush

Round 1 was against Shardless BUG. I somehow managed to lose 0-2. I saw 1 explorer, which got forced, and no deeds or gsz. Hymn took away my Thragtusks and I simply got killed by Goyf. I had the scapeshift kill in game 2 by drawing and playing lands, but my opponent drew Liliana the turn before I could kill him, discarding my lone scapeshift. My impression is that this match up is fairly hard to lose in general.

0-1

In round 2 I was gifted with merfolk, a quite pleasent match up. I believe that I may have lost a game, but the others were very comfortable.

1-1

Round 3 was against miracles, I believe. I was able to slaughter games the threats or play around the disruption for lethal scapeshifts for a 2-0 without going to time.. In sideboarding versus miracles I board out 3 explorers and 4 cabal therapy for 3 slaughter games, 3 REB and the thoughtseize. I find this to be highliy effective. 1 explorer is acceptable so that I can gsz and sac it to tower to potentially speed up a scapshift kill. It's not that good, but I don't know what other last card I could keep in.

2-1

I can't quite recall my round 4 opponent, it may have been Jund. Mountains are lethal.

3-1

I had very much hoped to be able to ID round 5. Sadly I got paired against a 3-0-1 miracles player who wanted to play. I was able to wish for slaughter games and remove his jaces, including 1 in hand, I think. The high point of this game was when he ha dentention sphered my deed and went for a lethal eot 5 angels, and I had my singelton abrupt decay to get deed back, killing all of the angels as well as breaking the counter top soft lock. In game 2 I kept a greedy hand without a green source. I would have been excellent with a green source, but I never drew one. After discarding for a while with 3 lands in play, I eventually succumbed to snapcaster beats. In game 3 I slaughter games his jaces and angels and was on my way to winning, but time was called. He had boarded in a blood moon that stopped me from scapeshifting him out in time, so the match ended in a draw after all. Good enough for the top 8 at least.

3-1-1

In the top 8 I played against Jund and then Goblins. I think Jund came close to killing me a couple of times, but deed saved the day in time. There was hardly anything that the goblin player could do. Explorer into deed and prime time seems hard to handle for them. Since I could not draw round 5, as I had hoped, and I spent all the available time each round, I had not been able to eat for nine hours. Beeing very dizzy I had no choice but to accept my RUG opponents offer to split the finals. I believe this to be very favorable, but I did not trust myself to make all the correct decisions needed to beat RUG in my state.

5-1-1 in played matches

There were some combo decks in the tournament. Around 5, I think. Luckily i was able to dodge them early. I think that the best players in my meta play decks like RUG and BUG. They do an excellent job of keeping combo down for me. If I can get rolling and out of their brackets it becomes somewhat difficult to lose.

Fitters,

Why don't we play Bloodbraid Elf? Even as a 1-of it could be a house in some cases. Especially after stacking with SDT. Free Lili or Deed sounds good no?

I love BBE, but cascading into GSZ is real bad. Also A lot of our cards are somewhat situational and timing is important on them. We arent like Jund where we just look at how much mana we have and cast a card. Im not saying BBE is bad, but Green SUnning it into play is just bad (though having a green sun way to kill a PW is interesting), and cascading into GSZ is so terrible as well.

Love BBE too, but Megadeus is right. The double-nonbo between Zenith and Bloodbraid is unfortunately too bad - BBE into GSZ is fail and GSZ into BBE is bad. Hitting an Explorer isn't hot either. Otherwise I would love him.
In Punishing Fire lists and Scapewish GSZ is too important to take out and BBE also doesn't work well with Pod or Recurring Nightmare.

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Originally Posted by Tao

Love BBE too, but Megadeus is right. The double-nonbo between Zenith and Bloodbraid is unfortunately too bad - BBE into GSZ is fail and GSZ into BBE is bad. Hitting an Explorer isn't hot either. Otherwise I would love him.
In Punishing Fire lists and Scapewish GSZ is too important to take out and BBE also doesn't work well with Pod or Recurring Nightmare.

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The way I see it, even if the Elf cascades a GSZ, you can use that to get a Dryad Arbor. Something to consider. I don't think I would cast the Elf without knowing what's on top though. I might have to test this out, even if it feels a bit like Magic Christmas land fantasy.

How many of you guys are still even playing Dryad Arbor in your lists? I know some people said they were bad and cut them.

The only time I ever liked Dryad Arbor was when I was playing Innocent Blood or I needed to flashback Therapy, but didn't have any creature I wanted to sacrifice. I would cry if I cascaded into Dryad Arbor. BBE just doesn't impact the board much for us. There's nothing I want it to cascade into that I wouldn't rather just have in my hand.

Just rolled into Indy. Representing at the Invitational tomorrow. Be on the look out! Kevin, I don't know if you'll read this or not but were you able to make it? If so, hit me up!

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Originally Posted by HoneyT

Just rolled into Indy. Representing at the Invitational tomorrow. Be on the look out! Kevin, I don't know if you'll read this or not but were you able to make it? If so, hit me up!

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Sadly, the guys I was going to go with ended up having to move this weekend, so I couldn't go. Good luck to everybody this is going, however.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

How many of you guys are still even playing Dryad Arbor in your lists? I know some people said they were bad and cut them.

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I only play dryad arbor in Nic Fit if I'm playing 4 pod or 4 natural order.

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Originally Posted by HoneyT

Just rolled into Indy. Representing at the Invitational tomorrow. Be on the look out! Kevin, I don't know if you'll read this or not but were you able to make it? If so, hit me up!

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I was not, sadly -- with Champs and DC both coming up in my neck of the woods, people are saving their pennies for those and are not interested in another big trip so close. I checked with SCG, though, and my invitation is good through next year, so I'll be at Charlotte, Columbus, or Somerset for sure. One of them WILL happen, lol.

Do you have standard figured out? I have a list I can ship if you need it last-second....I haven't dropped a game with it personally yet, and the guy I loaned it to for Gameday went X-1 and took first place through the top 8....and the only one he lost was on double mull to 5.