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At was actually. You where playing against dredge. Sun Titan > recur Deed > GG. The game was already going on when i was watching. Later i saw you stomping someone with Sigarda. I couldn't figure if it was a POD list or an older version (rector). I did like the older versions, so many cool interactions and lines of play. Just awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by jobdevries
It's a kind of my own brew. Actually play with an SFM and living wish package. List if you are interested:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
Creatures (13):
3x Veteran Explorer
2x Deathright Shaman
3x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Eternal Witness
1x Thrun, the last Troll
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Wolfir Silverheart
Spells (26):
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Lingering Souls
3x Pernicious Deed
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Swords to Plowshares
3x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Living Wish
Lands (21):
2x Bayou
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
2x Phyrexian Tower
1x Volrath's Stronghold
3x Forest
2x Plains
2x Swamp
Sideboard:
1x Sun Titan
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Peacekeeper
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Maze of Ith/Karakas
4x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Extirpate
2x Zealous Persecution
I would never -not- run Explorer/Therapy in a Pod list, as 4-ofs. Therapy -> Explorer/Therapy/Pod on turn 2 is fundamentally broken. Unfortunately it's a few degrees of broken less than something like Show and Tell or Dark Ritual's existence, but it's substantially less fair than Tarmogoyf, so that's good.
Deathrite is the secondary, backup 1-drop. It is not and will never be the primary in my estimation. It's just too unreliable.
As for what makes Nic Fit "Nic Fit" -- my definition would be thus:
A Gx midrange control/combo hybrid ramp deck which utilizes Veteran Explorer to develop a mana advantage over its opponent, allowing it to deploy a formidable endgame while controlling the board and hand.
Cool list! I like it a lot! I may have to try out something like this since I'm only Therapies, Wishes and a few other things off from being able to put this together!Quote:
Originally Posted by jobdevries
There's no Thragtusk in this list.Quote:
Originally Posted by jobdevries
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...z3zgStaONur4bz
Correct. I do not like Thragtusk as much. No interesting abilities, just some lifegain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Pretty decent vs miracles as well. Card is real, and is you drop it against burn, you are in a good position. Trust the Tusk
Tusk is love. Tusk is life.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
I don't really get the love for Thragtusk either in a regular Nic Fit deck. It is a simple 5/3 vanilla beater that is easy to remove. Yes it leaves a 3/3 beast token, but I find that hardly impresses the opponent as well. The only reason I play it because it has a good EtB and LtB ability when podding to and from it. I hardly ever attack with it since that would just ruin the chain as it will get blocked. So instead of making strange comments about your love for cardboard I think it would be more appropriate to give examples of where the card is actually good. "Decent against miracles" is not really something I find convincing to play a card. I've tested it in regular BUGfit and never liked it. Sigarda>>>>>>Thragtusk.
It helps stabilize a board after ramping a bit too. Not only gaining you life but trading with possibly two of their dudes. I'm not sure what I really need to say other than its a two for one that also gains you life.
Hello again all. It has been a moment or two since I posted, and while I have nothing interesting to report, I do have a question. I've been running Bug Pod for a little bit now, and the deck is super, super fun and also reasonably viable in the metagame. My question, however, is this: what other versions of Nic Fit are viable in the current meta? I'm interested in putting together other versions as well, but I'd like some input from the Nic Fit veterans. For example, I haven't seen a straight Green/Black version list mentioned, so I'm assuming there are better options, such as ScapeFit and PunishingFit, to be tested. Anyway, I await everyone's thoughts.
While I agree with that statement, my problem with the card is that it doesn't make me win the game. When I start playing 5-drops I want them to close the game ASAP. The whole deck is already packed with x-for-ones, so I don't feel that is so necessary in the late game. For life you can also play finks and DRS if you really want that. I'm not saying the card is bad, but I don't think it is required in a Nic Fit deck either, especially if you're not playing Pod. Therefore the comments "no Thragtusk" are quite meaningless for me without more clarification. This deck is so different from others and so many things are tried, that it is strange to find such closed-mindness around a single card instead of asking why somebody does not run it or going into the rest of the deck.
I think the reason straight up BG isn't common is that going into other colors gives you so much at a very low cost. White gives you a bomb like Sigarda and Red Gives you scapeshift/Pfire and blue gives you counterspells and such whereas straight GB is simply meh. I always liked PFire as I always felt one huge issue is Walkers with this deck, and PFire helps immensely.Quote:
Originally Posted by gigapatrick
As for Tusk, I think that whoever posted was half joking. The card is certainly really good though, and I think as long as burn is as popular as it is now, I want a haymaker like that to gain life because 2 points here and there from finks isn't usually enough.
After seeing HoneyT's Dungrove Elder list I was inspired to make my own version. I even picked up the sweet full art foil ones to test out my brew. Instead of going red for wolf-run I went junk colors and ended up with this list:
4 Verdant Catacombs
5 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Bayou
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Windswept Heath
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Glittering Wish
2 Council's Judgment
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
2 Dungrove Elder
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Thragtusk
1 Sun Titan
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 4 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Loxodon Hierarch
SB: 1 Vindicate
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Deathrite Shaman
SB: 1 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
In the tournament I played in on Monday I went 2-0-2. The second draw was an intentional draw into top 4. The reason I went junk is I always wanted an excuse to try out Glittering Wish and it was quite good. It's such a versatile card, you can get a threat, a hatebear in Gaddock Teeg, or specific removal for whatever the situation. This is the deck I played -1 Council's Judgement +1 Garruk Relentless. I'd recommend going -1 Thoughtseize +1 Castigate (Or Tidehollow Sculler if you prefer, I personally like castigate better) just to have some form of discard to get with glittering wish. I'd also go -1 Gaddock Teeg, +1 Armada Wurm. It's debatable if that could be a second Sigarda, but I think with all the hexproof guys you're running they might side out swords to plowshares in which case have fun attacking for ten with Armada Wurm. Having a threat to get with Glittering Wish is a great tool. A couple more notes, Loxodon Hierarch is for the burn matchup, which is quite common in my meta. If you don't have a lot of burn or U/R delver in your meta I could see cutting it. However, it's a bit on the cheaper side and is a totally acceptable threat to wish for in some matchups that aren't burn. The two basic plains and scrubland are bad with Dungrove, but feel like a necessary evil to cast Council's Judgement.
I'll give a quick report with the deck.
Round one: Shardless Bug.
Game one he plays a couple of deathrites and two goyfs. Veteran explorer acted as a moat for the goyfs and eventually I glittering wished for a maelstrom pulse and hit both his goyfs. I start the beatdown with Dungrove Elder, and Garruk Relentless shows up to make a ton of wolf tokens that eventually overrun him. Game two a turn one thoughtseize into turn two hymn, into shardless agent cascading into ancestral was more than enough to put me away. Game three I build a board of dungrove and thrun and he toxic deluges, which also ends up taking his own goyf and shaman and clearing the board. I glittering wish for a loxodon Hierarch just to have a threat and start beating him down. I add a thragtusk to my board and he deluges again, going to 4. He decays my beast token, but I play a sigarda. This was on turn four of turns. He won't concede and we end up drawing.
Round two: U/W geddon Stax
Game one was long and grindy, with him armageddoning twice. He had wasteland crucible the entire game, keeping me on three basic lands. Eventually explorer and tribe elder could fetch nothing and I conceded with a bunch of uncastable five drops in my hand. Game two he plays a chalice on one, chalice on two, and a crucible. I deed away the chalices and play a gaddock teeg. I cabal therapy away an armageddon and jace. His ancient tomb did him a ton of damage and I eventually kill him with teeg. In his hand at the end of the game: 2 smokestacks and a humility. Game three he keeps a hand with mox diamond and one land and it wasn't much of a game. I killed him with sigarda before he could cast much of anything.
Round three: Resto U/W/R stoneblade
Game one He grabs a batterskull with mystic, and puts it into play. I deed away his SFM and batterskull token. He plays a Jace and I council's judgement it. He bolts me three!! times and then kills me with batterskull on his mishra's factory, the latter play I did not even think about. I wished for a vindicate for the skull in-between attacks but he forced it and that was game. Game two I thoughtseize him turn one and see SFM, Bolt, Swords. I take the mystic. I start the beatdown with dungrove and abrupt decay a clique he flashes in. A second dungrove shows up and finishes him, removal stranded in hand. Game three gaddock teeg prevented him from casting supreme verdict and jace. He swords the teeg and I GSZ for another. I play a sun titan, return my Dungrove Elder that had been blocked earlier when it was a 3/3 by mishra's factory (Again with this factory... it's not like I don't play modern where everyone plays manlands). My second teeg is taken care of and he verdicts away my board. I start making wolfs with garruk relentless and he plays SFM fetching Jitte. I use Garruk's fight ability and continue to attack with wolves, which eventually kill him.
Round four: Intentional draw against Deathblade. My opponent did not make it in, even though he was the one that proposed the ID. He called my matchup against him "unwinnable" which was utterly absurd considering the two games we played I was mana screwed. Too many people do not respect Nic Fit or just creative "brews" in general.
Thragtusk is really good - also in Pod! It can trade with most stuff (and get also the common 4/5 gofy), charge +5 Life (which can matter!) and leaves a token (big vs Miracle, good vs other stuff because you can block twice, counterattack, start pod again etc.)
In a pod-shell you will also use Recurring Nightmare to abuse Tusk. Nic Fit can include many 1off creatures and you can build different archetypes, but Thragtusk is a "must have" like "Veteran Explorer + Cabal Therapy" for most Nic Fit Decks.
------
Last Weekend i played a little tournament (29 players, 5 rounds) and grab my Punishing Fit stuff:
R1 vs Miracle 1:1 (G2 + 3 i "Slaughtered" away Jace + Entreat, but can't finish him the last timeout round)
R2 vs Miracle 0:2 (bad draws and unable to deal with early Entreat both Games...)
R3 vs Goblins 2:0 (get more "Big Stuff" and Punishing Fire online, after he "ports" me for a couple of turns)
R4 vs Lands.. 0:2 (G1 unable to create a board..G2 Thrun was good vs Maze, but Marit Large won the race, sadly he did'nt naturally dredge into the Combo...hold Extraction in my hand...)
R 5 vs Zombies 2:0 (G2 he drops Tombstalker, i drop Titan, he drops 2nd Tombstalker i Punish one away with triple Fire and Overrun him with Kessig+Titan)
11th place... unhappy with round 2 and 4, but afterall deck showed it can win some games in a very brutal way.
Sideboard:
3 Slaughter Games
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pithing Needle
2 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Rakdos Charm
Thragtusk is not good at finishing the game, but that's not what it's supposed to do. If aggro/midrange decks were doing their job they'll have some stray creatures on the field, and that's where thragtusk is perfect. It trades with 1-2 creatures AND gains you back the life you've lost in the meantime. Against miracles it puts pressure on the opponent and their planeswalkers, and the pressure doesn't go away after a single removal spell. In the early game it gives you a buffer and gives you the necessary board control. I disagree that there is such a thing as "enough" card advantage or board control when some decks are getting 3- and 4-for-1's and others are means to fight through lifegain (burn).
Is it a possibility that cutting thragtusk would help? Yes, but that is very unlikely.
I was definitely being tongue-in-cheek regarding the lack of Thragtusk in that list -- hence the Vader meme picture.
That being said, it seems to have spawned something of a more serious debate on the ole Thrag, so I'll address that now.
Let's look at his peers:
Sigarda is better than Thragtusk. Sigarda is arguably the single most powerful finisher that Nic Fit has access to in any color combination. That being said, she's only available to one of them.
Batterskull is better than Thragtusk. However, Batterskull cannot be Zenithed into play like Thrag can, nor can it be Podded up except by way of SFM or Godo.
Archangel of Thune is worse than Thragtusk. The only reason Archangel sees play is because its ability is batshit crazy, either when enabling a combo (Spike Feeder) or just having strong synergy with lifegain cards + board state, which is a combination that Nic Fit is uniquely adopted to take advantage of.
Baneslayer Angel is even with Thragtusk, in my opinion. It gets points for being a huge finisher -- ostensibly more powerful than Sigarda, even though she doesn't have the same level of protection that Sigarda does (and is therefore more unreliable despite the increased power). However, she gets docked for not being Zenithable and not doing anything when she gets removed.
Deranged Hermit is far worse than Thragtusk. He only sees play in dedicated token variants, and shouldn't even be on the list, but I need 5-drops to compare to.
Shriekmaw is a 5-drop that sees a lot of play, but can't really be compared to Thrag.
I'm not sure what else to compare him to.
Something that I've noticed lately is that 6-drops seem to be winning the game more often. I'm not sure why this is, but it's what I've seen and experienced. Usually Nic Fit tends to revolve around its 5-drops -- the lone 6-drop (or two) were haymakers meant to make the opponent expend all of their resources, and then the 5-drops came in and cleaned up. Ie: make opponent blow Verdict on Grave Titan, then Sigarda comes down and wins.
In this paradigm, Thragtusk was basically always the "bridge" 5-drop. Thrag kept you alive when you dropped your 6s, which led to your other 5s winning the game. This is because what Thragtusk does better than literally any other creature is keep you alive. He gains 5 life, which, using my metric of 3hp=1 turn translates to 1.5 turns off his trigger alone. Then, he blocks twice. If you assume a 5/6 Goyf (not uncommon), that's 10 more life saved, for a total of 15 life from Thragtusk alone. This converts to FIVE turns of Time. This is why Thragtusk is almost always the first 5-drop I get, every single game. He buys you the time to get to your actual game plan. He's never the plan itself (barring vs burn) -- in a way, he's the deck's perpetually under-appreciated middleman. He never gets the glory, but he does the heavy lifting behind the scenes to get you the win.
I would argue that this is even -more- the case for Pod lists, because Pod tends to eat your life total if you're using Pod aggressively (which I do most of the time). It helps that Thrag does something on both ends of Pod -- both coming and going.
So, no -- Thragtusk isn't MANDATORY for Nic Fit. If you want, you're certainly welcome to experiment with cutting it. I'll note that every single time I've tried cutting Thragtusk because I wanted some other 5-drop, I've been disappointed in not having it, and have immediately put it back in after the event.
I'll close by referencing my definition for Nic Fit once again:
"A Gx midrange control/combo hybrid ramp deck which utilizes Veteran Explorer to develop a mana advantage over its opponent, allowing it to deploy a formidable endgame while controlling the board and hand."
Per that definition, literally the only thing that's required for a deck to be Nic Fit in my book is that it runs Veteran Explorer. It doesn't need Therapy (as proven by Crack the Earth), and it doesn't need Deed (as proven by umpteen million Pod lists that would rather run DRS and Stoneforge than Deed). It certainly doesn't need Thragtusk. But I remain of the opinion that Thragtusk is optimal for most varieties, and you need a compelling reason -not- to run it, as opposed to the other way around.
Update to I wish I rectored her junk (yes, childish name)
Spells
4 Vets
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun
3 Academy Rector
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarada
1 Baneslayer
1 Batterskull (changed from Sun Titan)
4 Therapy
3 GSZ
1 Diabolic Intent
3 Living Wish
3 Deed
1 Moat (changed from Recurring Nightmate
1 StP
2 Decay
Land
3 Windswept Heath
3 Verdnant Catacombs
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
SB
2 Thoughtseize
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Humility
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Wasteland (another wish target) over Ashen Rider
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Nether Void
1 Engineered Plague (aka I hate elves) instead of carpet #1
1 Toxic deluge (p.s. I hate elves) instead of carpet #2
Results from last 4 events
SCG Mil (6-2-1, lost to bug, elves)
Side event at GP Mpls (4-1-1, Lost to bug, ID in last 3)
SCG IQ (3-2-1, lost in top 8 to elves, other loss to elves)
Small legacy (4-1-1, split in finals, lost to miracles in 3 close games)
Pretty happy with the deck, currently. Hope to do well at SCG KC.
See you there! Still not in love with the random Spirit of the Labyrinth in the main, but generally speaking looks solid still.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbone2016
There are some really nice GBW brews out there. I really like this color combination in Nic Fit. So i have been brewing a list for myself and let me been inspired by the latest lists that came across in the last week. Especially with that list running lingering souls. So i thought academy rector with a bunch of tokens. Feels like Collective Blessing might be at the right place here. Along with some planeswalkers it might actually be cool against Miracle.dec. So including a rector package. Also i really like a SFM package along with the usual suspects, but that might just be a little tooo much. So sticking with a basic GBW list with rector and some token generators. In the sideboard i have included some stuff to fight combo or really fast decks such as Burn.
Any thoughts on improvement?
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Academy Rector
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Lingering Souls
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Collective Blessing
1 Humility
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
SB: 1 Nether Void
SB: 1 The Abyss
SB: 1 Ivory Mask
SB: 1 Agent of Erebos
SB: 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
SB: 1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Golgari Charm