[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

Well, for instance, if you cut the GSZs for Wishes you would immediately clear up 9 spaces and turn Dryad Arbor into a more resilient land. You could run the next two Tops, the fourth StP, 4 Hymn and have two slots left over; I would recommend the fourth Deed and another Witness.

Alternately you could drop the playset of Tops for Wall of Blossoms, drop Hymn for Black Cat and focus a bit on Recurring Nightmare and other creature tricks.

Do you actually get a lot of use out of Liliana in this deck?

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Well, for instance, if you cut the GSZs for Wishes you would immediately clear up 9 spaces and turn Dryad Arbor into a more resilient land. You could run the next two Tops, the fourth StP, 4 Hymn and have two slots left over; I would recommend the fourth Deed and another Witness.

Alternately you could drop the playset of Tops for Wall of Blossoms, drop Hymn for Black Cat and focus a bit on Recurring Nightmare and other creature tricks.

Do you actually get a lot of use out of Liliana in this deck?

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Liliana is 70% of the reason I play the deck. Sun Titan, Lili, and Deed with the recurring nightmare make for some of the most bonkers plays I've experienced in magic.

I'm always willing to toss something in the bin, or kill something bothering me. She is *rarely* an expensive edict.

Its kind of like cheating. Also, the one reason I enjoy GSZ for now is with Lili out forcing people to discard on a stalled board, ripping the GSZ is never a 'dead' draw. However, this argument does not either make stronger or weaker the argument towards running wishes instead.

However, considering what you had said, I'd LOVE to be able to run the fourth deed, and the fourth sword - But I've found hymn to be kind of 'meh' these days... I know.. I know.. I'm sorry I said it but against the decks it matters against I'd almost always prefer to just hit em with a thoughtseize and take what I want. There's nothing worse than seeing the look of relief in an opponents face when your hymn hits something pointless. But there's also nothing better than seeing the look in their eyes when it hits key card x and y. I guess that's why targeted duresses work for me, backed up with lili its just ridiculous.

I might go up to 3 Lili's and cut something.

If you use Living Wish, you could easily add Dark Depths combo in there. Here's what I'm playing today. I'll post more later.

// Lands
4 [B] Bayou
3 [UNH] Forest
4 [UNH] Swamp
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
3 [CS] Dark Depths
2 [UL] Treetop Village

// Creatures
3 [WL] Veteran Explorer
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
3 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
2 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
2 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach
3 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
4 [JU] Living Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [WL] Veteran Explorer
SB: 1 [CS] Dark Depths
SB: 1 [FD] Eternal Witness
SB: 1 [COM] Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
SB: 1 [DK] Maze of Ith
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

You're right, there are multiple threads in which I am trying to dispel terrible ideas. I'm particularly frustrated by people playing non-blue decks that show potential that then squandor it by building badly and relying on luck.

1) It's a turn faster to race Ooze online with Wish than with GSZ. Turn 2 Wish, turn 3 Finks/Ooze, versus turn 4 Finks or turn 3 Ooze/Turn 4 Activate with GSZ under normal conditions.

2) Living Wish gives you access to Bojuka Bog and Maze of Ith which help run down graveyard/aggressive decks in the early game before those are the optimal Wish targets, in addition to generally giving you more flexibility.

3) Wish doesn't end up with you drawing those cards in situations where they're vanilla beats.

4) I mean also it's not a dead card off of Bloodbraid Elf. I mean this should be a no-brainer.

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Turn 2 Wish, turn 3 Ooze sounds like a gameplan that will never win anything.

One of the things about Wish versus GSZ is you're choosing vulnerability to Spell Snare or vulnerability to Daze.

Has anyone justified not running Stoneforge Mystic in the white versions?


By the way, are there any discard outlets besides Therapy that don't suck? Sadistic Hypnotist is the best I can come up with, and that's not impressive. Recurring Nightmare is slow and you can't really set it up or afford to run bullets for it. Abyssal Gakekeeper would be insane if you had more reliable sacrifice outlets.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Turn 2 Wish, turn 3 Ooze sounds like a gameplan that will never win anything.

One of the things about Wish versus GSZ is you're choosing vulnerability to Spell Snare or vulnerability to Daze.

Has anyone justified not running Stoneforge Mystic in the white versions?


By the way, are there any discard outlets besides Therapy that don't suck? Sadistic Hypnotist is the best I can come up with, and that's not impressive. Recurring Nightmare is slow and you can't really set it up or afford to run bullets for it. Abyssal Gakekeeper would be insane if you had more reliable sacrifice outlets.

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The question I asked myself when I was splashing white was, 'does the deck need a SFM'. I thought - there is nothing in the deck that can be snared yet (assuming you're GSZ'ing for certain things) and blanking all of the hate people have for the card seems nice. I did try and test the deck with SFM and I found that it allowed for my opponent to interact all too well with me slamming giant monsters into their faces.

On that note, I was doing some brainstorming and came up with a list that relies much less on smashing huge monsters into faces, and much more and dominating peoples lives with planeswalkers and hand disruption.

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk Relentless
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Academy Rector
2 Sun Titan
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Swamp
3 Forest
2 Plains

Might be something worth considering - gonna try and run it through the gauntlet tonight.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Turn 2 Wish, turn 3 Ooze sounds like a gameplan that will never win anything.

One of the things about Wish versus GSZ is you're choosing vulnerability to Spell Snare or vulnerability to Daze.

Has anyone justified not running Stoneforge Mystic in the white versions?


By the way, are there any discard outlets besides Therapy that don't suck? Sadistic Hypnotist is the best I can come up with, and that's not impressive. Recurring Nightmare is slow and you can't really set it up or afford to run bullets for it. Abyssal Gakekeeper would be insane if you had more reliable sacrifice outlets.

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I ran SFM in my GBW version. Really strong against Maverick and UW, not great against RUG Tempo. It really gave their Snares and Stifles a ton of value, and just overall was too slow. I don't think it's necessarily a bad option at all, but it depends on what kind of meta you expect.

Oh, one last note on Deranged Hermit; you should probably be running Treetop Village anyway as an answer to Jace (maybe Stirring Wildwood if you're running white), so if anything I'd rather run Primeval Titan in that slot. If they StP it you gain a lot more than 1 life; it won't be taken care of by red spells or Dismember or Smother; and even a board clearer like, you know, another deck with Deed doesn't take care of your double Treetops (or Treetop + Stronghold or whatever, or Wolfrun if you're in red.)

If Stoneforge Mystic + Batterskull is too slow, then Kitchen Finks is way too slow (since they are basically the same speed).

Which cards are actually worth a wishboard slot?
Some sort of Wickerbough Elder type card
Shriekmaw
Grave Titan
Scavenging Ooze/Bokuka Bog
Thrashing Wumpus

Really, I look at all these cards, and then I look at Tarmogoyf + Knight of the Reliquary + Stoneforge Mystic, and I wonder why I'm not playing those cards instead.

What's the current feeling on Punishing Fire/Grove in this deck? I saw a version that won a Magic League with it. Seems pretty interesting.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Oh, one last note on Deranged Hermit; you should probably be running Treetop Village anyway as an answer to Jace (maybe Stirring Wildwood if you're running white), so if anything I'd rather run Primeval Titan in that slot. If they StP it you gain a lot more than 1 life; it won't be taken care of by red spells or Dismember or Smother; and even a board clearer like, you know, another deck with Deed doesn't take care of your double Treetops (or Treetop + Stronghold or whatever, or Wolfrun if you're in red.)

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Now there we go, this actually sounds like a good alternative to deranged hermit. It does every thing hermit druid was trying to do although it takes up a few more slots in your deck (lands), it might be well worth it AND the lands can be useful in their own. I will have to give this a try.

Right now I am just running primal hunters, but I think walker heavy might be the way to go. They give you great card advantage, are hard to deal with for most decks and win the game for you in the grindy match ups. EDIT: I like chikenboks last list he posted as it goes in this direction.

I am still not sold on wishes, but I dont think they are a bad idea by means either.

I mean I almost take it as a premise at this point that any serious control deck has to be planeswalker-based to a very large extent. It's a really retarded card type that just gives way too much value in a gameplan that wants to see multiple turns for you to ignore.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Turn 2 Wish, turn 3 Ooze sounds like a gameplan that will never win anything.

One of the things about Wish versus GSZ is you're choosing vulnerability to Spell Snare or vulnerability to Daze.

Has anyone justified not running Stoneforge Mystic in the white versions?


By the way, are there any discard outlets besides Therapy that don't suck? Sadistic Hypnotist is the best I can come up with, and that's not impressive. Recurring Nightmare is slow and you can't really set it up or afford to run bullets for it. Abyssal Gakekeeper would be insane if you had more reliable sacrifice outlets.

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Darkblast is playable, at least, as a sac-outlet- hitting quite a few important creatures in the format- Clique, Delver, etc.

I tried Stoneforge Mystic for a while and I had the same problem with it that I have with Ooze. It just gets killed. Everyone is ready to kill 2-drops. If you want Batterskull I think you would be better off playing Batterskull without Stoneforge, it saves deck space and there is no way that a Sword of any kind would ever be good in this.

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Originally Posted by CorpT

What's the current feeling on Punishing Fire/Grove in this deck? I saw a version that won a Magic League with it. Seems pretty interesting.

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Do you have list? I think this might be an answer to U/W Stoneforge while as well improving some other creature matchups. However, not sure Combo gets any better.

What about UBG list, that was mentioned around the time MM was banned? Is that a solid choice for the current meta or is it too fragile against Stoneblade and Maverick?
I like Jace TMS with Deed and Brainstorm is quite nice (the amount of chaff we draw sometimes is just brutal). Besides, Progenitus is that big finisher of choice.. the bad thing is that it comes with more dead cards (4x Natural Order, 4x Green Sun's Zenith seems awkward at least).

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Originally Posted by CorpT

What's the current feeling on Punishing Fire/Grove in this deck? I saw a version that won a Magic League with it. Seems pretty interesting.

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I played this version with minor changes to a 4-1 at a local, my loss was to Merfolk, which was pretty weird, since it should be a decent MU. Won vs Mono W Equipment, Mono W Lifegain, Reanimator and another Merfolk player.

Fires was pretty good since it allowed me to easily dominate the board. 3 Pulse MD also felt really good.

Next thing I want to try ist Huntmaster of the Fells as soon as he arrives via mail.
Also, what's the opinion on Primeval Titan in this build? Would allow to grab missing Groves. I would also try to squeeze in a Wolf Run in that case, since it turns any random dude into a clock even if your Titan got sworded.

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Originally Posted by Stoyrm

Do you have list? I think this might be an answer to U/W Stoneforge while as well improving some other creature matchups. However, not sure Combo gets any better.

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This is the one I saw that intrigued me.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...0&iddeck=55208

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Originally Posted by Philipp2293

I played this version with minor changes to a 4-1 at a local, my loss was to Merfolk, which was pretty weird, since it should be a decent MU. Won vs Mono W Equipment, Mono W Lifegain, Reanimator and another Merfolk player.

Fires was pretty good since it allowed me to easily dominate the board. 3 Pulse MD also felt really good.

Next thing I want to try ist Huntmaster of the Fells as soon as he arrives via mail.
Also, what's the opinion on Primeval Titan in this build? Would allow to grab missing Groves. I would also try to squeeze in a Wolf Run in that case, since it turns any random dude into a clock even if your Titan got sworded.

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That's basically what I was thinking. I saw people complaining about Delver tempo and Fires seems to be a very goof answer for that. Huntmaster also seems like a very good option I was considering.

New list after the gauntlet - its really good. The deck needs top but hates multiples, I think 2 is the right number for now.

//Stuff that makes my opponents upset
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Cabal Therapy

//Stuff that wins the games
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk Relentless
2 Sun Titan
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Scavenging Ooze

//Stuff that helps me play the stuff that wins the games
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Academy Rector
2 Eternal Witness
2 Sensei's Divining Top


//Land stuff
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Swamp
3 Forest
2 Plains

The only thing I'm really unhappy with is, now that I cut the GSZ, snare has legal targets.

Sigh.. Back to testing.

Manlands are actually a pretty good suggestion. Paired with Liliana, they can be quite deadly. Having a couple Treetops or Wildwoods also adds another dimension to playing Primeval Titan, it might even be better than Grave Titan.