[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

Hey!

I’d like to pick up the idea of Contamination again. I have the feeling that there could be something there, especially with Creakwood Liege. It’s tutorable by GSZ, doesn’t die to Abrupt Decay, and can be cast when Contamination is already in play. It can be hit by Lighting bolt and Punishing Fire, but you can play around that a bit by playing Contamination first. I was playing around with the following list on Cockatrice a bit. It’s more or less a basic Rhino-shell, minus the Rhinos.


4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh flats
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp

3 Sensei’s divining top

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
3 Creakwood Liege
1 Sigarda, Host of herons
1 Thragtusk

3 Path to Exile / Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Anguished Unmaking

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Contamination

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
1 Vindicate


I don’t have much experience in Deck-building, so I’m not quite sure about some of the numbers.The only thing really set in stone would be the Deathrites, because they can make non-black mana under Contamination and get buffed to ¾ by Creakwood Liege, which is a nice bonus 
I havent tested the list very much, but it seems the list is able to disrupt the opponent long enough until you can either lock the opponent with Contamination or smash face with Sigarda, Host of Herons.
I also don’t know if I should include Academy Rector in there, because I feel that would require more Sac-outlets. Maybe Enlightened Tutor would make the lock more consistent, and one could add things like Bitterblossom or other one-offs to search for, but I’m not sure if that would require too much space.
Basically, I’m looking for some feedback here, or if you guys think that this idea is able to work in the first place.
I also didn’t think about a sideboard yet, but I guess it would contain the usual suspects (Discard, Extraction, Gaddock, etc.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by helvetios

Contamination

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As much as I love the idea of Contamination it feels more like a sideboard card to me. There are a few relatively common matchups where you really don't get anything out of it, and all the support cards you want are awkward too. Elves does mostly okay, any any Aether Vial deck has the potential to not care at all, along with lists running Deathrite or just heavy on black mana. It's great against two of the biggest problems we have (Eldrazi and Miracles) but I don't know if that's enough to run it maindeck.

If it did have a maindeck slot, I'd go for a singleton with tutors and some other targets. Rector seems okay (4 Therapy, 2 Tower is probably enough outlets), and there are a lot of other good targets - the big ones being Humility/Moat (also good vs Eldrazi), Pernicious Deed, and whatever Storm / Combo hate you prefer (Rule of Law or Leylines or whatever). Also makes your sideboard options very powerful.

I totally agree with Navsi.
Plus, contamination needs a very particular setup to be played lasting more than one turn. So with tutors, you can choose when you bring it in the game. With 3 of them main deck, I imagine there would be a lot of game in which you would be stuck with several Contamination in hand..
However, if you really want to pursue in this scheme, you could think about Bloodghast. Because except Elves, it would be protected against DRShaman under Contamination (no G), and allow to bring a creature to sac to Contamination in flash condition with a fetchland.
To have played the "combo" in EDH, Meren do a great job here too.

Or several zombies and Gravecrawler.

So I'm planning to head over to a small tournament this weekend - hoping to pick up some components for the Starfield of Nyx build going around and test that out, but I have nowhere near enough of the list currently so I'm going to be sticking with a Stoneblade build. I'm going to take some of the ideas we've been passing around, though, and go for something like this:

21 Lands:
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
2 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower

13 Creatures:
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Deathrite Shaman

1 Eternal Witness
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

3 Stoneforge Mystic

27 Noncreature Spells:
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Thoughtseize

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Garruk Relentless
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Basically I'm going for less of the steak / haymakers like 6-mana Sorin, Dromoka, Siege Rhino and so on, and instead running the lower to the ground 'walkers and more card advantage. I've been thinking about GSZ targets and options and I don't think it's necessarily required to include that much more than what I'm running here. Sigarda is a perfectly reasonable game-ender in basically every matchup, particularly because I'm running equipment to make her particularly hard to deal with. Tireless provides CA on an empty board and forces Miracles to X-for-1 itself, and Witness stabilises with recurring Path, Deed or Therapy. The only real thing the list misses is a Zenith target which gains life and trades well into the enemy board - but Stoneforge does so very well. If needed the obvious choice would be Thragtusk, since Dromoka is a bit on the expensive side.
I'm tempted to swap Sorin for a Thragtusk, but the lower CMC and better potential to end the game is useful too. I'm thinking of putting a Thrag in the sideboard to replace the Thoughtseize against decks which pressure my life total, since he's a good card to have access to against Miracles also.

Preliminary sideboard:
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Thragtusk
2 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Pithing Needle
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Carpet of Flowers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

As much as I love the idea of Contamination it feels more like a sideboard card to me. There are a few relatively common matchups where you really don't get anything out of it, and all the support cards you want are awkward too. Elves does mostly okay, any any Aether Vial deck has the potential to not care at all, along with lists running Deathrite or just heavy on black mana. It's great against two of the biggest problems we have (Eldrazi and Miracles) but I don't know if that's enough to run it maindeck.

If it did have a maindeck slot, I'd go for a singleton with tutors and some other targets. Rector seems okay (4 Therapy, 2 Tower is probably enough outlets), and there are a lot of other good targets - the big ones being Humility/Moat (also good vs Eldrazi), Pernicious Deed, and whatever Storm / Combo hate you prefer (Rule of Law or Leylines or whatever). Also makes your sideboard options very powerful.

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Thanks for the input!
Opposing Aether Vials and Deathrites shouldn't live long against us anyways, so I'm not very concerned about those. we have so much removal to keep the board clear, and once it is, Contamination will come down to keep them from playing more stuff.
I'd rather have at least two, instead of only a singleton, because the matchup where Contamination shines the most (miracles) has so many counterspells. but maybe I'll cut down to two, and try to fit in some tutors/other targets for the tutors.

As for the topic of getting more of them stuck in your hand: Top helps with that. Also, I don't think it's that horrible to have more of them in your hand, at least you can more or less timewalk your opponent with one :P or bait a counter.

I'll definitely test it more, it seems to be so much fun :)

Edit: cutting down the number and adding tutors/other targets would also help with the fact that contamination itself isn't that good against some decks.

What happened to scapefit? I am a 12post player (mono G) and scapefit is not an autowin like most other builds of nic fit. I actually have to be very cautious and hold up a warping wail in an event that I get violated with mountains.

Slaughter Games is a house. When resolved it just rips up many decks win cons.

Another card that is troublesome for greedy mana bases is From the Ashes and can be simply tutored up with burning wish.

On another note, I love the use of the legendary frog and hope that the horror makes an impact on the nic fit core.

Scape Fit has a few issues that other Nic Fit lists don't have, mainly because of its manabase.

- Lack of White removal: this makes the Lands and Infect matchups much much worse.
- Unstable manabase: Makes the Lands matchup worse again, and generally makes other Wasteland decks much more of a threat (the deck loses to Delver lists more because it just can't get to 7 lands well)
- Bad creature plan: Huntmaster and Thragtusk just aren't good enough to threaten on the ground any more. Tireless Tracker does help here, but I'm not sure it's enough.
- Wish reliance: This mainly means the deck's interaction is on the slow side. Elves can often go off on turn 3 before you can play a Pyroclasm you wished for. Storm isn't quite as bad, but you do still stumble on B sources and fail to cast your discard spells more than the other builds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Scape Fit has a few issues that other Nic Fit lists don't have, mainly because of its manabase.

- Lack of White removal: this makes the Lands and Infect matchups much much worse.
- Unstable manabase: Makes the Lands matchup worse again, and generally makes other Wasteland decks much more of a threat (the deck loses to Delver lists more because it just can't get to 7 lands well)
- Bad creature plan: Huntmaster and Thragtusk just aren't good enough to threaten on the ground any more. Tireless Tracker does help here, but I'm not sure it's enough.
- Wish reliance: This mainly means the deck's interaction is on the slow side. Elves can often go off on turn 3 before you can play a Pyroclasm you wished for. Storm isn't quite as bad, but you do still stumble on B sources and fail to cast your discard spells more than the other builds.

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I agree with Infect and Elves being two poor MU.
S&T is another one.

Lands is not so bad as far as I am concerned, but my experience might be a bit outdated. The last time I played Scape was during a GP and I remember facing at least 1 lands & 1 turbo-depth.
Each game Huntmaster put me up to 21+ lifepoints; Then I took a hit from Marit; won the very next turn.

Edit: my latest build might be worse against Marit strategy and I have yet to test Navsi's idea with Kolaghan Command.

@Navsi, that's almost identical to the list me and plm have been playing with. Highly recommend 7/10 would play again. Currently testing man lands to deal with miracles, top deck wars and flooding. I will be entering it in the legacy challenge next week, and not running rhinos against my better judgment again :P

I'm currently at -1 STE -1 library -2 walkers -1 Tracker, +1 vet +1 TS +1 d abor +1 tusk (for reasons you stated) +1 Meren (she's much better with SFM and wins all my games agains shardless, Jund, pox etc)

Just a change of some threats and card advantage cards and then running the extra interaction instead of the library. I like the walkers, mine are in the side where your tusk is. So after you equate the roles of cards the real only difference between our lists is I play a TS and dryad Abor and you have a library and planes walker in their place. I'm not a fan of library right now, I find the card really slow. I know you don't like d abor so that Makes sense. Maybe I'll try cutting it for a walker now I'm testing man lands ( -1 Drs -1 scrubland +2 stirring wildwood)

Plm runs the same list as me just -1 tusk -1 tracker +2 souls.

Sideboard is similar
2 Surgical
2 Needle
2 TS
2 Spirit of Labyrinth
1 Teeg
1 Rec Sage
1 Engineered plague
2 Deluge
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Soring GN

edit: happy to answer any questions on playing with SFM, my card choices main or side and sideboard plans. I have lots of data in legacy leagues to support them.

Sounds good.

STE -> Vet: Pretty much interchangable, I like STE for the utility, but Vet is obv more explosive.

Tracker -> Meren: Maybe I want a Zenith @4 target. I like Tracker because immediate value helps a lot against STP lists. Meren is clearly stronger against BGx decks, both threaten to take over the game. IMO BGx is a good enough matchup already that we can afford to shave a few points there and gain against Miracles / speed up our clock. Depends on meta though.

Library, Walkers -> Arbor, TSeize, Tusk: Arbor is much better with Meren. Again I'm hedging more towards grindy decks and you're leaning further against fast aggro and combo. Tusk helps against the grind too though. I'm tempted to drop Library for the Tusk or the Seize just to make my Deeds better - they're already pretty awkward with Jitte and DRS.

Sideboard:

Are you playing 2 Deluge side and 1 main? seems like a lot, esp with Engineered Plague and Deed as well. I guess Zealous Persecution is basically the same thing in my side. I like the castability of ZP into Thalia more than the scalability, since most matchups where a big sweeper would be relevant (Fish, Goblins, misc BGx) there aren't that many cards which I really want to side out.

I like running the other two Decays in the side so I can side them in to replace Thoughtseize against decks which pressure my life total.

Is Spirit of the Labyrinth impressive? I've always felt its impact isn't as great as other hatebears.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

So I'm planning to head over to a small tournament this weekend - hoping to pick up some components for the Starfield of Nyx build going around and test that out, but I have nowhere near enough of the list currently so I'm going to be sticking with a Stoneblade build. I'm going to take some of the ideas we've been passing around, though, and go for something like this:

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Been thinking Herald of the Pantheon can be solid with Starfield, maybe Retreat to Emeria too. Both seem to play into the Contamination plan too, still no idea how to build that though.

I was wondering if Siege Rhino is really that good. To me it seems that a Siege Rhino (or 4) are not good enough in todays legacy meta. I made several test games with a normal netdecked gbw list and i often thought that the Rhinos are somehow not threatening/big enough. The inbuildt helix is more nice to have than gamewinning.

I thought i would go full Rhino (with sigarda, Grimm Sorin and Dromoka) but while the others are impressing me every time, the Rhino seem lackluster.maybe ot is just me playing it wrong?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dalton!

I was wondering if Siege Rhino is really that good. To me it seems that a Siege Rhino (or 4) are not good enough in todays legacy meta. I made several test games with a normal netdecked gbw list and i often thought that the Rhinos are somehow not threatening/big enough. The inbuildt helix is more nice to have than gamewinning.

I thought i would go full Rhino (with sigarda, Grimm Sorin and Dromoka) but while the others are impressing me every time, the Rhino seem lackluster.maybe ot is just me playing it wrong?

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The problem with Rhino is that it is bad against everything that Nic Fit has problems with: Combo, Jace and over the top creatures (Griselbrand, big Eldrazis). A card like Birthing Pod in BUG (maybe in GBW too) or something like Liliana in Fires can be more effective against those problems.

@Brael

I don't know if Herald of the Pantheon is worth it. The cost reduction doesn't feel that relevant, since even in Starfield builds there are only maybe 15 enchantments in the deck, and most of those are expensive enough that we'd only cast one a turn. The cost reduction is unlikely to frequently play out better than any of our other ramp effects, and is a lot more vulnerable to removal than, say, STE.

The life gain is a nice bonus, but it'll trigger significantly less than even Courser, probably giving us 5 or so life at most over a long game. IMO the Herald wants a different deck which recurs enchantments more and casts them rather than just bringing them back with Starfield. Maybe something more focused on Recurring Nightmare? Nightmare + Herald looks a lot more scary than a Starfield plan.

Enchantress fit? What is going on? I am super lost.

@Ricardio

The original list that sparked the Enchantment theme discussion is the one posted by Ulysse78 on the third post of page 287.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

@Brael

I don't know if Herald of the Pantheon is worth it. The cost reduction doesn't feel that relevant, since even in Starfield builds there are only maybe 15 enchantments in the deck, and most of those are expensive enough that we'd only cast one a turn. The cost reduction is unlikely to frequently play out better than any of our other ramp effects, and is a lot more vulnerable to removal than, say, STE.

The life gain is a nice bonus, but it'll trigger significantly less than even Courser, probably giving us 5 or so life at most over a long game. IMO the Herald wants a different deck which recurs enchantments more and casts them rather than just bringing them back with Starfield. Maybe something more focused on Recurring Nightmare? Nightmare + Herald looks a lot more scary than a Starfield plan.

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You could very well be right here, I suppose the eventual usefulness of it would depend on the eventual build. Dropping 2's and 3's by 1 mana is more useful than ramp if you're able to generate 2 mana in advantage per turn. Not so if you're just getting 1 mana per turn (or even less) though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ricardio

Enchantress fit? What is going on? I am super lost.

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Some pages back a user posted a build using a heavy number of enchantments. Of and on (maybe once per page?) we've discussed some ideas with it. I don't think anyone has come up with a full list though, rather just brainstorming pieces that work well. Seems to center around the idea of abusing Rector and cards like Starfield of Nyx.

For Enchantments, I know a lot.

- First I know is that this deck needs Recycle (or Null Profusion). If you never had this card in play, try it out, really. I know it might look unusual if you never played it, but please try it. It is completely busted, easily outdraws Jace.
- Another card you can try is Faith's Fetters over Oblivion Ring. Deals better with a lot of nonsense (example Batterskull when Rectored or Eye of Ugin) and is lifegain when desperate.

There is also an interesting Combo in Enchantment decks that run Rector: Humility plus Dovescape plus Curse of Death's Hold. Neither of them is really bad on its own. Dovescape is game against any Combo Deck, also good with Rector because Rector is not a spell, but acts as one so with Dovescape on board the next Rector will resolve. Curse is great against D&T, Elves and Mentor and Grixis, and a lot of other stuff, too. And Humility you already run anyway. All three combined is almost a hardlock but any two already work very well together already and you can do a lot of fun stuff that is actually pretty good:

a: Humility plus Curse shuts down all of their creatures, obviously good.
b: Humility plus Dovescape shuts down the game entirely but you have GSZ and other bigger cards, still handle with caution.
c: Curse plus Dovescape is also comboing nicely.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Sounds good.

STE -> Vet: Pretty much interchangable, I like STE for the utility, but Vet is obv more explosive.

Tracker -> Meren: Maybe I want a Zenith @4 target. I like Tracker because immediate value helps a lot against STP lists. Meren is clearly stronger against BGx decks, both threaten to take over the game. IMO BGx is a good enough matchup already that we can afford to shave a few points there and gain against Miracles / speed up our clock. Depends on meta though.

Library, Walkers -> Arbor, TSeize, Tusk: Arbor is much better with Meren. Again I'm hedging more towards grindy decks and you're leaning further against fast aggro and combo. Tusk helps against the grind too though. I'm tempted to drop Library for the Tusk or the Seize just to make my Deeds better - they're already pretty awkward with Jitte and DRS.

Sideboard:

Are you playing 2 Deluge side and 1 main? seems like a lot, esp with Engineered Plague and Deed as well. I guess Zealous Persecution is basically the same thing in my side. I like the castability of ZP into Thalia more than the scalability, since most matchups where a big sweeper would be relevant (Fish, Goblins, misc BGx) there aren't that many cards which I really want to side out.

I like running the other two Decays in the side so I can side them in to replace Thoughtseize against decks which pressure my life total.

Is Spirit of the Labyrinth impressive? I've always felt its impact isn't as great as other hatebears.

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Yah, the list has given me a ~66% win rate online has meant I haven't had to pay for leagues for a while. I put the list down for a bit to test other cards (rhinos, souls, slaughter games etc) and then took a break, but back with a vengeance etc.

Yea I'm ver much sold on Meren, and if you have two trackers, I feel like the versaility gained by having a split is pretty good. She's great with d abor against eldrazi too. But again, if you don't like dryad abor then don't play her. And to be fair your walkers do a very good meren impression. So let me know how they go.

Tusk is also a card I love (why can't we play 4? and play more ramp... tried it, real hard) it gets you out of spots no other card would etc. Great against aggro, midrange and control.

Sideboard wise, apologies, I don't play a deluge main, I play 3 StP, 3 Decay, 3 Deed. I've really struggled with elves and I like engineered plague against mentor too etc. That said just before coming to check the forum I decided that 3 sweepers in the side is a bit over kill, and I wanted to play two teegs (matt has played two often and I figure it is our best card in some of our worst matches) so I cut the plague for now.

Spirit is currently in testing. I havnt actually cast him yet, the slot originally went to Abeyance. I like my cards to jump across a lot of matchups, so those two slots need to be good against miracles/combo and possibly shardless.

Example sideboarding:
Miracles, +2 needles, +2 TS, +2 Teeg, +2 Spirit/Abeyance +1 Rec Sage +2 Card advantage (Sorin/skeletal)
-4 Therapy, -4 vet, -3 StP.

Shardless, +2 deluge, +2 Spirit/Abeyance +2 Card advantage
-4 therapy, -2 TS (out comes 6 discard replaced with 6 slots that can give me card advantage)

Storm
+2 Surg, +2 TS, +2 Teeg, +2 Spirit/Abeyance +2 Deluge
-1 Tusk, -1 Sigarda, -3 StP, -3 Decay, -1 Meren, -1 BSK/Jitte (can never decide)

Eldrazi
+2 Deluge +1 E plague/Rec Sage +1 Sorin (yeeaaa)
-4 Therapy (they have to attack into vet, and TS can take threats from their hand but you don't want 4 of them)

D&T
+2 Deluge, +1 E plague/Rec Sage
-2 TS, -1 Meren

So in conclusion, in my head my sideboard has slots that do certain things for my plans and cards then fill those slots (if that makes sense?). Spirit is in testing at the moment for slot that needs to be one of the few things that is good against miracles, combo and shardless.. Abeyance, spirit, choke, carpet? Red elemental blast etc so I'm just working through them to find which I think is best.