[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

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Originally Posted by Barook

I don't have Lilianas nor can I afford them right now, so I'm sticking with Edicts for now. What's the reasoning for Carpet of Flowers over Choke in the board? And against what is Extraction normally used?

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Carpet of flowers comes in whenever veteran explorer ramping is dangerous. Miracles and High-Tide are the matchups I've used it most often for but I will also bring in 1-2 against delver decks because it makes it even harder for them to mess with your mana development. I've also successfully used it for quick slaughter games in the omnishow matchup which was otherwise miserable.

I think you could get away with choke if you prefer that though. CoF is always great when it's in play but it does take up a large chunk of the board for an effect that doesn't directly interact with what the opponent is doing.

Beware if you are talking about playing punishing nic-fit online too. Grove of the burnwillows is currently NOT triggering punishing fire on magic online and it's been that way for about a week.

Extraction comes in against just about all combo/graveyard decks. Versus combo you are looking to rip apart their hand with therapy and then take an important piece. Nothing tricky going on there.

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Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE

Grove of the burnwillows is currently NOT triggering punishing fire on magic online and it's been that way for about a week.

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Thanks for reminding me. But I can't play it right now anyway since I'll have to wait for Bahra to come back online and give me the cards back that I've borrowed him, so there's no hurry.

The bug is supposed to be fixed on Wednesday, hopefully.

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Originally Posted by Elfkid

@HoneyT: I will finish to buy your decklist and I will play it in a few weeks on a 30+ Player tournament, if u have time, can u explain how to sideboard vs diferent matchups? there are thing that are logic, but others... haha

Regards!!:laugh:

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I'd be happy to help with the sideboarding if you tell me specifically which matchups you're referring to.

Also, Barook, that list looks very outdated/not-optimal (even taking budget into consideration). My current list is about two pages ago. I recommend taking a look at it. I can tell you right off the bat your manabase is going to give you nightmares. 3 colorless lands + Dryad Arbor is really pushing your luck. Any veteran Nic Fit player will tell you Dryad Arbor is garbage in non-pod lists (lists with Deed). It simply doesn't fit the basic strategy of the deck.

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Originally Posted by HoneyT

I'd be happy to help with the sideboarding if you tell me specifically which matchups you're referring to.

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Probably matchs like: Miracles, Delver,decks, storm, and midrange like jund, maverick, show and tell D:

Thanks for all^^

Home from eternal extravaganza finally after a ridiculously long weekend. Went 3-3-1-drop, for which I place the blame squarely on myself and the playing conditions (the heat was absolutely stupid, and I'm a literal stick of a guy, so I feel heat exhaustion very easily). The Rector list I played was actually insane, and I would have run it back without any qualms. As it stands, with some time to make tweaks, I will likely make a couple of minor changes...but the concept is very, very strong.

I'll post a full report tomorrow, but for now, here's a pair of highlights:

1: My Apex Predator has bagged his first Mindsculptor.
2: Scuttling Doom Engine was directly responsible for three game wins.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

I'll post a full report tomorrow, but for now, here's a pair of highlights:

1: My Apex Predator has bagged his first Mindsculptor.
2: Scuttling Doom Engine was directly responsible for three game wins.

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Looking forward to read about it.

Alright, let me preface this report by noting that the event was great. It was well run, I didn't encounter any salty opponents, much fun was had, etc. Also, Caffrey (the TO) is now aware of the heat problem and is shifting future major events to cooler times of the year to compensate, so that's excellent. That being, said, I place a lot of the blame for my performance on the conditions of the room. Put it this way, in two anecdotes from friends of mine who will remain unnamed:

One of them died to a pair of Vendilion Cliques, in turns, with a judge watching. Neither my friend (a veteran legacy player for many years), his opponent, nor the judge caught this.

The other managed to spin his Top for 8 turns before realizing that he didn't have a Top in play -- again, with multiple people spectating, judges, etc.

It was a rough day.

That said, the list:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Starved Rusalka
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Selvala, Explorer Returned
1 Fierce Empath
2 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Thragtusk
1 Scuttling Doom Engine
1 Sun Titan

3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Erebos, God of the Dead

3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Council's Judgment
1 Vindicate

1 Abrupt Decay
1 Swords to Plowshares

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

sb: 1 Garruk, Apex Predator
sb: 1 Reclamation Sage

sb: 2 Thoughtseize
sb: 1 Cranial Extraction
sb: 2 Aven Mindcensor

sb: 1 Toxic Deluge
sb: 1 Abrupt Decay
sb: 1 Swords to Plowshares

sb: 1 Nether Void
sb: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
sb: 1 Rule of Law
sb: 1 Moat

The only change that I made was to move 1 Rector -> 1 Fierce Empath, because I realized that I didn't have a way to grab Sun Titan / Scuttles when I needed to.

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Rd1: Dan with Elves

I blind therapy on the play, naming Brainstorm, and miss. I see 2x Quirion Ranger, RecSage, Visionary, Zenith, Arbor, Verdant. He goes land -> Ranger and ships back. I play an Explorer, fire it off, and take his Zenith with the therapy, noting that he drew a Fyndhorn Elves for turn. He makes some Elves, I don't die, and I untap to Deed him. He rebuilds a bit, and I Zenith up Teeg, who stalls my opponent for enough turns that I can get Sun Titan online with the prior Deed, which closes the game out.

I swap out 11 cards, and am prepared to get my shit pushed in (or, maybe, for once, do the shit-pushing-in-ness myself).

He mulls to 6, and goes land, elf, pass. I Therapy (Natural Order) and brick, seeing 2x Decay, Heritage Druid, and Glimpse. He value-Glimpses but it doesn't go anywhere. I kill everything and deploy some hate pieces into his Abrupt Decays, paving the way for Moat (with Zenith in hand for Sigarda). He Zeniths Sage and kills it, and continues anemically beating me with 1/1s. I get Sigarda and win. Very weird, anticlimactic game.

MVP: Gaddock fucking Teeg. Literally saved my existence game 1, and ate a Decay g2 to clear the way for Rule of Law. It's also very hard for Elves to win two postboard games, especially with the types and quantity of hate that this list brings to the table -- it's not all meant for Elves, but it's nice that Elves falls in the crossfire, because seriously, I've had more than enough of losing to that deck.

Rd2: Mike with Deathblade

My opponent scares the fuck out of me by leading with Delta -> Gitaxian Probe. He passes the turn. I Therapy and see StP, Jitte, DRS, Wasteland, Strand?, breathing a huge sigh of relief in the process. Okay, so from barely winnable to unloseable. Got it. We durdle for a bit. He Thoughtseizes me a bunch and lets me keep Selvala after reading her. She only gets to activate a couple of times before he realizes the card advantage that she's giving me (and life, and mana) is actually a huge problem. He eventually dies with me at 14.

G2 he curves out wicked fast with TNN + TarPit. I put up a token resistance but I can't handle the unblockables backed up by a ton of discard + Liliana, and I die in fairly short order.

G3 he slams a Jace and immediately starts +2ing as both I didn't have much board presence and we were very short on time at this point. I play around his Sword of Feast and Famine'd Stoneforge to keep Apex in hand, and slam it at 7 lands. His Jace is at like 9 I think. His face was pretty priceless. Apex goes +1, Jace goes bye bye. Apex unfortunately can only make a 3/3 before dying to the Stoneforge, but he did his work -- he saved me two turns of Feast/Famine procs + took out the Jace that was almost nuclear. Deed clears out the board, and on Sigarda's wings we are victorious.

MVP: uhhh....the deck. No one card stood out overmuch -- although both Apex and Council's Judgment put in good work against Deathblade's hard-to-answer threats. Also, Mike was an awesome guy and we definitely checked in on each other throughout the day. He was also a friend of the Elves player I beat in round 1.

Rd3: Kurt Speiss with RG Lands

My heart sank a bit when I saw the pairing because Kurt's name stuck in my head as being a lands player. Sure enough, I was right.

Our game one was absolutely nuts. I -almost- milled him out game 1 -- he had 8 cards left in his deck at the end of the game. I needed to answer Merit Lage two more times, I think, and I would've been fine. Also, I had a window of like 3-4 turns at which point if Scuttles had shown up (or hell, even Empath/Zenith to get it), I would've been able to kill him. For a while he was manabonding out Glacial Chasm because why not, but when I killed his Bond, he stopped bothering with the Chasm -- why should he when he had 2 Maze of Iths and a Merit Lage? At that point, for a few turns, I could've Scuttled him...but it just didn't show up.

Anyway, I stalled for a long ass time with Baneslayer + Recurring Nightmare until he finally answered it with Bojuka Bog, and I had Erebos out so my Swords to Plowshares was very live while not giving him a million life. Erebos's card draw was also fantastic, allowing me to do things on upkeep when he tried to Port me. I just couldn't close the game when I needed to, and eventually he got up to 6 or 7 Rishadan Ports via Stages, and I just couldn't function anymore.

Game two was very, very sad. I played Swamp pass, hoping to make him think I had Extirpate or some such. He went Diamond -> Exploration -> land, port, go. Port your swamp. I played a land and passed. He plays his lands and passes, doesn't port me on upkeep. I'm suspicious but play like a Tribe Elder or something. He goes EoT Crop Rotation, combo, untap, kill you.

Well, that's a thing.

MVP: Oddly enough, I think I give it to Erebos. Erebos's card draw kept me digging for outs in the face of his Ports with mana I couldn't have used for anything else anyway, and the anti-lifegain clause meant that he was still within Scuttle range after Swordsing a Merit Lage. I also think that I may have misplayed slightly by not killing the Manabond a couple of turns earlier. I think I had the chance at one point to Deed for 1 it away and opted to do something else instead. I think that if I had killed the Bond sooner, it might've slowed his development enough that I could've forced him to make some awkward choices about what lands to play, which might've bought me the time to either mill him out or assemble Scuttles.

R4: Chris with UWR Delver

My opponent scares me with Gitaxian Probe again. He plays a Volcanic Island and passes. I figure he's either on RUG or Sneak Show, because I don't remember any UWR Delver lists running Probe. In any event, my hand is pretty sweet (double Therapy, Top, Explorer, Karakas, Savannah, [bomb]) but has no black mana, so I decide to play my Top like a fucking dumbass. Naturally it gets Dazed, which means I don't draw a black source on time for his Stoneforge Mystics, which means I can't stop him from suiting up and just making me dead. I should've played Explorer instead, then untapped into Top + mana to spin, which would have found me my black source 3 cards down, which would've made the Therapies live to tear his hand apart.

Game two isn't even a game. I mull to 5 and he curves Delver -> (flip) + SFM -> double TNN with Force backup.

MVP: my own stupidity.

R5: Dan with Deadguy Ale

I have a nutty opening hand including Explorer + Tower + Zenith + stuff. He leads with Swamp pass. I drop Explorer and pass back, intending to fire off the Tower next turn. He snap Swords my Explorer and ships back. Okay. I play Tower, Zenith up Explorer, pass. Swords. Fuck. It's okay, I drew another one for next turn. He plays a Tidehollow Sculler and takes the third Explorer. -_________________-

We grind for a bit. I eventually come out on top because you don't simply outgrind Nic Fit.

Game two he makes a lot of fast pressure, including an all-in Lingering Souls to try to kill me before I can stabilize. Unfortunately, Deadguy is not the best deck at pretending to be all-in red, and after Thragtusk -> Sigarda, I stabilize anyway. He's at 16 to my 5 (after Thragging). With Sigarda holding defense, the Tusk goes aggro, and he decides to Swords it after taking a turn or two of beats. I Top into Scuttles, and look at his board of creatures with power <2. Funny how that works. I proceed to TOOT all over his life total.

MVP: Sigarda being a boss as usual, Scuttles for being really good against weeny decks.

R6: Ryan with Miracles

Forty. Minute. Game. One.

This game was absolutely ridiculous. I don't even think I can adequately express everything that happened this game. I killed two of his Tops with Deeds in response to him drawing a card. I had an active Erebos for basically the entire game, which drew me I think 10 cards? I Empathed for Scuttles early in the game just so I had it ready to go, and because as they say in Chess -- sometimes the fear of something is more damning than the thing itself. He was forced to respect the threat of the Doom Engine basically all game -- especially since I used anemic Explorer/Tribe-Elder/Witness beatdown to get him to 6: the magic number for one Toot. I had the Therapy in yard for the Engine, too -- I just had to get him to resolve and my opponent would die. However, Ryan had a Jace TMS chugging through his deck for many, many turns, keeping him at roughly card parity with my Erebos.

I eventually maneuvered him into the proper position by Vindicating his Karakas, which stopped his Venser bullshit, and playing Teeg to lock out the Force of Will I knew he had. I then attempted to play Scuttle, knowing that he still had the Venser in hand, because I had Therapied him a few turns before and I was willing to bet that he'd forgotten that I had a second Therapy in my yard, ready and waiting. Sure enough, he tanked and finally allowed the bug to resolve, doubtlessly planning on Terminusing it next turn or some such. I simply immediately sacced it to Therapy and killed him.

Game two I played horribly and deserved to lose. I kept a fairly strong hand, and Cranialed him on turn 3 after firing off a Tribe Elder. There were like 4 minutes left on the clock. For some godforsaken reason I named Jace instead of Entreat. You can guess what happens. The match ends in a draw, and I'm now in a very bad position when I was in a fairly good position just 5 minutes earlier.

I need to remember that, oddly enough, this neo-Rector list has a lot more outs to Jace than the older variants. We have Council's Judgment now, which is big game. We have Scuttles, who can shoot walkers. We have Apex Predator (which you bet your bottom dollar I sided in). We still have Vindicate and Thrag and Sigarda. Etc. Even not considering the time remaining issue (Jace being a much, much slower wincon), Entreat was still the correct name. Combine that with the fact that the only way he wins the game and thereby draws the match is with Entreat and I have no idea what I was thinking. Temporary insanity, I guess. My friend Frank also pointed out correctly that I was playing very quickly when I really shouldn't have been. I don't really like the idea of gaming the clock, but he has a point. Usually whenever I'm in that situation, I try to play as quickly as I can in game 2 / 3, whichever it is, out of respect for my opponent and a desire to finish the match. That is not, however, a winning strategy. If I'd played at a normal pace, I would have likely been able to draw the match and win the round.

tl;dr I twice-over gave my opponent an out, and he took it on both levels.

MVP: Erebos and Scuttles. Erebos drew me a zillion cards while even just the threat of the Scuttles looming in my hand forced him to play around it. Then, I was able to actually maneuver him into a position where Scuttles was able to close the game (note: where Kokusho couldn't have).

R7: ??? on 2-drop Aether Vial Junk

I'm tilted, sweaty, and miserable by this point. I didn't actually get my opponent's name as a result.

I win the die roll for the first time since round 1, and lead with a blind Therapy. My opponent treats it like a Thoughtseize and starts laying his hand out. I try to look away, but still see a few cards. Instead of doing my usual honorable thing and naming Brainstorm like I would have anyway, I'm instead a douche and name Dark Confidant because that was one of the cards that I saw despite my best efforts.

Side note: this, I feel, is one of the things that stops me from prizing more events than I do. I mean, I still prize fairly regularly. But not as much as I probably could if I didn't feel like an ass about these sorts of advantages. There's nothing 'wrong' with taking advantage of my opponents' stupidity. There's nothing 'wrong' about playing at a normal pace to try to draw the clock (instead of speeding through). But I always feel like a goddamn tool whenever I do something like that, intentionally or not. It's really miserable, and if I intend on ever doing well at an event I probably just need to get over it and take what advantages people give me. /side note.

Anyway, the match is rather chilly in mood after this, despite my opponent casually double wasting me and just running me over with Jitte, Batterskull, Thalia, double StP, Decay, etc.

Game two I end the game at 22 life and kill him with Scuttles. I have ramp and powerful cards, and he can't do much to stop me. Selvala also does a lot of work here.

Game three I have mana problems which are exacerbated by my opponent. I see my first-ever Pernicious Deed of the round, but I can't cast it because Thalia is a filthy slut. I also saw none of my spot removal.

MVP: my opponent's Wastelands. I don't think I'll ever get used to the feeling (since I haven't yet after 3 years) of losing to Wasteland in a deck with 8 basics and 6 fetches.

At 3-3-1, I'm now dead even for top 64, so I drop.

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Overall thoughts:

Teeg was oddly useless outside of Elves and a fringe situation against Miracles. That being said, I wasn't really unhappy to have him in the list because he was / is a very good insurance policy against most combo decks, and like I mentioned earlier, if you can steal game 1 from a combo deck, it gets VERY hard for them to win both postboard games.

2 Eternal Witnesses is too many, even for this deck. I never nightmare-looped them, and I had multiple opponents board in serious graveyard hate against me (Rest in Peace). 1 of these slots is free.

Selvala was amazing. She's a very, very skill-testing card and if you adopt her usage (which I would urge you to do if you're in junk (azban?) colors), please be very careful! Usually I used her as an endstep howling mine + lifegain + top engine. Sometimes I decided to go beatdown with her instead of activating her ability. I only used her mainphase when I really needed business or when I knew there was something on top of my deck that I wanted. That being said, there are times when using her mainphase is correct. You just have to evaluate the board state + your opponent each and every turn to determine the optimal usage of her. That being said, she was absolutely fantastic.

Empath is empath. I don't particularly like the card, but it's a necessary evil when you're running nongreen 6s. I might be persuaded to run some other variety of tutor in this slot instead -- maybe Diabolic Intent. That said, I'm always uneasy about Intent because I've had it get stuck in my hand a few times in POD VERSIONS WITH 30 CREATURES, so running it in one with ~20 seems very dangerous.

2 Rectors felt correct. I didn't see them that often, but my enchantment package is limited enough that I wouldn't want the 3rd. I also played against a -lot- of StP decks, and Rector has historically never been as good vs them as the RUGs, BUGs, etc of the world.

Sigarda is still the best win condition in Nic Fit (well, at least tied with Scapeshift).

The Baneslayers didn't really feel like coming out and playing for some reason. I barely saw them at all on the weekend. Chalk that one up to variance.

Scuttles. Where do I begin. The card straight up won me three games. Of those, only one (the game vs Miracles), do I feel that no other 6-drop could have won me that game. Someone mentioned Grave Titan a few days ago, and, my well-established hatred for Grave Titan notwithstanding, realistically it would have done what Scuttles did EXCEPT for the Miracles game. I never assembled Scuttling Nightmare, but I did feel a bit better knowing that it was in my deck. It would have given me an out vs Lands that otherwise nothing (not even Grave Titan) could have handled. I'm currently undecided on this slot. I like the Doombot a lot, but I'm not sure if it's optimal vs, say, cutting the 2nd 6 + the Empath for 1 net slot (making the Empath some other tutor that could also get Sun Titan if need be).

Erebos was great. The anti-lifegain clause was relevant a couple of times, and the card draw was powerful. He will be my choice for the mystical ever-fluctuating "card advantage default enchantment slot" that's been a pain in the ass to figure out since Abrupt Decay was printed (invalidating Phyrexian Arena).

Council's Judgment. How many ways do I love you. I'm seriously contemplating cutting the Vindicate for a second copy of this card and just saying fuck utility lands. I strongly recommend the adoption of this card as a 1-3 of in every junk-colored Nic Fit variant. It gets rid of basically anything, and you can tempo your opponent out some games because they need to respond to it on the stack, meaning bouncing Batterskull, using Top, etc -- even if you're going to name something different anyway! Fantastic card.

Vindicate -- like I said, I might cut this for a 2nd Judgment. Hitting utility lands is still relevant -- it did break up the Venser bullshit vs Miracles, which is good...but otherwise it was basically just a slightly worse Council's Judgment averaged on the day.

The 1-1 split of Decay and Swords felt fine. Swordsing something with Erebos out is an amazing feeling. It was rather nice actually having spot removal and being able to say "No, Deathrite Shaman, you are not going to slowly devour my graveyard for value this game." Fucking squires.

I missed having the 2nd Phyrexian Tower for more explosive starts. Whether or not it would be correct to add it in or not, I'm undecided. I did periodically have mana issues on the day, so adding a 23rd land might be correct. Whether it would be the 2nd Tower or not, I dunno. Turn 2 Baneslayer is a hell of a drug, and once you do it once you always just want to do it again.

As for the sideboard...

Apex does exactly what I want it to do. It kills anything that's a problem, stabilizes the board, and eventually wins the game -- all while -gaining- loyalty. The loyalty gain while removing something is why I prefer Apex to Karn -- Karn can exile anything...but it comes at the cost of putting himself in Bolt/Delver/TNN range. Sure if you have a turn to ramp Karn to 10 loyalty, then he's god -- but usually when you play a 7-drop you don't have the board that level of under control that it's safe to nom someone's hand. Apex goes to 6 loyalty to destroy a planeswalker or make a 3/3 deathtouch; or if need be he goes to 2 to destroy a flying creature. All of this seems better than going to 3 loyalty to exile something. Apex is fine for control mirrors, which is what I want the slot to do.

RecSage was largely irrelevant. I brought it in vs the various stoneforge decks, obviously, but I never really got it or saw it. The equipment tended to be handled by removal, Deeds, or Therapies, and I don't think I ever once Zenithed up RecSage. This slot is probably actually cuttable. I think that blue nic fits and possibly red ones will care significantly more about RecSage than white will with the adoption of Council's Judgment.

Moat was fucking useless garbage, again. I brought it in vs Elves, where it ate a RecSage, but that could've just as easily been another card that would've mattered somewhere else. I'm not pissed at the card enough to the point where I would consider getting rid of my copy, but it's definitely off the roster for the foreseeable future.

Deluge and the extra removal spells were nice to have in the board to bring in against the creature decks, but I'm not sure if they're optimal. Some of their future will likely be determined by the maindeck configuration. Ideally I would like to have the following removal suite somewhere between main and side:

3 Deed
1 Deluge

3 Judgment
1 Vindicate

3 StP
2 Decay

This is obviously ambitious to find the room for, and I don't think that we'll get quite there, but that's about where I would feel comfortable with my answers. I'll be doing some thinking and tuning over the next couple of days, and will hopefully have an updated list before long.

That being said.

If you have a major event coming up and you want to play a junk-colored list, I would strongly recommend this one. It's not in its final form yet, but even without the next round of tweaks, this list is ridiculously powerful. My performance does not do this 76 justice, and that's something I will hopefully be able to fix before the SCG Invitational at Somerset (which I will be attending).

Sounds like a very fun deck, it's a bummer the conditions weren't that great. I'm particularly interested in Selvala, I love that card and had almost forgotten about it. I also can't wait to baneslayer the 2 new burn players at my weekly.

What would you replace the moat and nethervoid with if you were broke? I feel like choke is a good choice but I'm coming up blank for the next slot so maybe it should just be another piece of removal.

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Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE

Sounds like a very fun deck, it's a bummer the conditions weren't that great. I'm particularly interested in Selvala, I love that card and had almost forgotten about it. I also can't wait to baneslayer the 2 new burn players at my weekly.

What would you replace the moat and nethervoid with if you were broke? I feel like choke is a good choice but I'm coming up blank for the next slot so maybe it should just be another piece of removal.

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Moat's getting cut anyway, so I wouldn't worry about that. If you need to play before I figure out what I want to replace it with, you could do worse than putting in another CJ in that slot. Or, if you have two burn players at your local, you can just troll them with CoP:Red, Sanctimony, Warmth, or some such.

Nether Void's budget replacement is easy: you run Curse of Exhaustion. Nether Void (aka Never Void) is still way better and definitely something you should work towards as you get trade-in / money, but Curse will function in that slot until you take the plunge.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Nether Void's budget replacement is easy: you run Curse of Exhaustion. Nether Void (aka Never Void) is still way better and definitely something you should work towards as you get trade-in / money, but Curse will function in that slot until you take the plunge.

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Curse is interesting but it seems pretty redundant when also running rule of law. The only real advantages are the protection from abrupt decay and one-sidedness right?

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Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE

Curse is interesting but it seems pretty redundant when also running rule of law. The only real advantages are the protection from abrupt decay and one-sidedness right?

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Being immune to Decay is fairly relevant vs ANT, Elves, and others.

Rule of Law is experimental, but basically serves as a bridge between Canonist and Nether Void. Void and Canonist don't necessarily come in vs all of the same decks. For example, Nether Void isn't good enough against Elves. Canonist is, but Canonist dies to many things (including combat). Rule of Law is an extra Elves card which also has applications (obviously) against Storm.

Redundancy is the single best way to beat combo decks. Layering different cards which attack on slightly different angles at different mana costs is a good plan. Ideally, yes, you'd have Void and Rule both, and then you'd be able to flexibly adapt to the specific strategy / counterhate that you're trying to beat....but in the absence of Void, it's still wise to diversify by manacost if nothing else.

Played BUG Explorer Pod in Eternal Extravaganza in Coopersburg, PA last weekend and finished 7-2, good for 14th. Beat 2x BUG Delver, 2x DnT, Food Chain, Reanimator, Scapewish (Sam castrucci); lost to UW Stoneblade, and win-and-in against Shardless BUG (James Rynkiewicz). Here's the list:
MAIN
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thragtusk
1 Grave Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
3 Birthing Pod
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp

SIDEBOARD
4 Force of Will
2 Envelop
2 Riptide Pilferer
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Golgari Charm
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Pernicious Deed

Highlights/Notes:
-Blew a deed for 9 to clear an Iona (naming blue) off the field. He then exhumed it back (naming green), but I got a Strix back to play defense. I then drew into Shriekmaw to finish off that Iona for good.
-Played Sam Castrucci, on Scapewish. The Vet Explorer mirrors are strange, but Cabal Therapy and Glen Elendra Archmage were enough to protect against randomly dying from Scapeshift, and Redcap/Shriekmaw went to work on his Huntmasters.
-The Trinket Mage package was pretty good on the day. Having access to a maindeck needle can be a lifesaver.
-Still not sure about the sideboard. The extra Deed, decay, charm, and Carpet of flowers were all excellent. The rest are up for consideration.
-I consistently boarded out the Sower, not sure if its worth the maindeck slot, or what I'd want to replace it with.
-The RecSage was vital and its a welcome addition to this list.

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Originally Posted by arianrhod

the other managed to spin his top for 8 turns before realizing that he didn't have a top in play -- again, with multiple people spectating, judges, etc.

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rofl

Quote:

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Originally Posted by litenkatt

rofl

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#Miracles

At least he snap conceded when he realized what he'd done, lol

@Schulz:

Why not just swap the sideboard Venser --> maindeck Sower? Venser is more generically useful vs Sower's specificity, and they're the same CMC.

Very surprised that there's no Top to tutor up with Trinket Mage.

RecSage is definitely a huge upgrade for BUG Pod. Glad it performed.

I definitely don't understand your sideboard in general. Obviously Forces, extra deed, etc makes sense -- but why the split on Garruks? Why 1 Carpet of Flowers? Are Envelop and Pilferer actually good enough? etc

I'm trying to get into this deck but I'm wondering which is a better version BWG or BRG? and can I play Sigarda and Gravetitan in the same deck with Huntmaster and Pod? I have so many cards I want to try out but I know I don't want to do a blue splash.

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Originally Posted by Zombiesquisher

I'm trying to get into this deck but I'm wondering which is a better version BWG or BRG? and can I play Sigarda and Gravetitan in the same deck with Huntmaster and Pod? I have so many cards I want to try out but I know I don't want to do a blue splash.

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Honestly, each variant has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and within that, each individual list of that particular variant is tuned to the particular pilot. It really just comes down to what you want to do, what you want to beat, and where you want to start.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

#Miracles

At least he snap conceded when he realized what he'd done, lol

@Schulz:

Why not just swap the sideboard Venser --> maindeck Sower? Venser is more generically useful vs Sower's specificity, and they're the same CMC.

Very surprised that there's no Top to tutor up with Trinket Mage.

RecSage is definitely a huge upgrade for BUG Pod. Glad it performed.

I definitely don't understand your sideboard in general. Obviously Forces, extra deed, etc makes sense -- but why the split on Garruks? Why 1 Carpet of Flowers? Are Envelop and Pilferer actually good enough? etc

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-Venser/Sower swap seems reasonable, I will try this out

-I didn't fit Top in because I figured i would just rely on brainstorm, and I couldn't decide which card to cut for it before the event. I guess I could always run 61...

-The sideboard was testing a lot of ideas basically. I wanted to try out both Garruks; I thought Primal Hunter might be more powerful against midrange/miracles type decks and Relentless could maybe be better against small creature decks. Haven't found out if that's the case or not. I definitely want something that can effectively fight miracles/Jaces so any reccomendations are welcome. I never knew how powerful Carpet was, but seeing how amazing it was I will probably go up on those. Pilferers are just awkward and I can see those being something else. Envelops have been solid, but I wonder if I shouldn't have some number of Flusterstorm/Swan song. The reason I didn't use Swan Song was because I don't want to have Swans preventing me from attacking a Jace. Anyway I'm certainly open to suggestions here.

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Originally Posted by Schulzchop

I definitely want something that can effectively fight miracles/Jaces so any reccomendations are welcome.

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Maybe biggest Garruk? I've never played BUG Pod variant, though, so i don't know how real 7 mana is, it might be too difficult to assemble. But then, you might get to cast it with a counter spell backup. Arianrhod can give you a much better insight on the card than me, but it think it kinda fulfill that role in theory.

@Arianrhod: Nice Report and interesting list.
I wonder if Vraska should get played instead of the new Garruk if the main purpose is to kill planeswalkers. Im always a bit sceptical on cards with cc7, even in a Nic Fit Shell.

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Originally Posted by Nithkar

Maybe biggest Garruk? I've never played BUG Pod variant, though, so i don't know how real 7 mana is, it might be too difficult to assemble. But then, you might get to cast it with a counter spell backup. Arianrhod can give you a much better insight on the card than me, but it think it kinda fulfill that role in theory.

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Yeah, Apex is definitely the best Garruk for that purpose, no question. That same "goal" is what I had in mind when I put Apex in my board, and he performed it well.

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Originally Posted by strom

@Arianrhod: Nice Report and interesting list.
I wonder if Vraska should get played instead of the new Garruk if the main purpose is to kill planeswalkers. Im always a bit sceptical on cards with cc7, even in a Nic Fit Shell.

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No, because Vraska leaves behind a useless walker with 2 loyalty. Vraska is a bad walker because her +1 does literally nothing to impact the gamestate. I would much rather spend 2 extra mana to get a 6-loyalty walker -after- killing the target who can then proceed to protect himself from most threats from that point.