Printable View
I agree on Scavenging Ooze. It has more than often been very good to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by GtF
Garruk Relentless, or even Garruk, Primal Hunter are underplayed in my opinion. Would love to see BUG lists running:
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Or better yet a JUND list running:
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Garruk be like: "Mind if i join in?"
http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/...7416571896.jpg
Opposite a griselbrand off of show & tell....Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Well, if anyone is in St. Louis this weekend I will be running stoneforge fit with the living wish package.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Did a bunch of testing vs Miracles today with the following sultai list:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Baleful Strix
1 Trinket Mage
1 Eternal Witness
2 Notion Thief
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 The Mimeoplasm
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thragtusk
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Frost Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Diabolic Intent
3 Brainstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Future Sight
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Phyrexian Tower
sb::
1 Bribery
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Krosan Grip
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm
I went -1 Empath, -1 Coiling Oracle, -2 Kiora for +3 Brainstorm, +1 Trinket Mage.
Here's my thoughts on the matchup:
It took us roughly 4 hours to play a match. I wish I was kidding. Every game ended with both of us having <10 cards left in deck, and in fact game 3 I milled him out via Mikokoro. I wish I was kidding.
-) Notion Thief is a massive dickpunch, as one would expect. ConSphinx is also capable of winning games if it sticks around for more than a turn. That said, it does lose value once they know you have it, as they'll be less likely to tap out into it and will usually try to leave a StP or Pyroblast up.
-) I really need another GSZ target or two somewhere. I had a LOT of dead Zeniths that couldn't get anything.
-) Trinket Mage was my idea for a value creature that was a warm body and on curve. Moving forward, I think I'll try an Edric in this slot.
-) Master of the Wild Hunt did nothing other than eat Keranos bolts. He's still reasonable, but my testing partner had Keranos early-mid in both postboard games, so he didn't really get a chance to do anything.
-) Future Sight buries them, as does Recurring Nightmare. These are hands down the two most important cards in the matchup -- even beyond Notion Thief. That being said, they need to use basically all of their resources to keep us down. Any strong printings for this deck in the future will likely push it over the hump.
-) Mimeoplasm was fine. The bombs stress their removal, and then Mimeo can threaten to break it. He's much, much stronger when being Zenithed into play, though -- I'll note that. This trend of maindeck Pyroblasts is awkward as fuck.
-) Brainstorm was typically mediocre, as I've come to expect. It did do -some- things, but it was far from as good as it usually is in other decks. Undecided on this moving forward.
-) Abrupt Decay was really weird and awkward. It was good at killing Counterbalance, and bad at basically everything else (duh matchup etc). I'm wondering if I actually need the maindeck Decays, or if I should just up the Strixes to a 4-of and use the other Decay slot + some other slot to move the pair of Cliques maindeck.
-) Speaking of Clique, card is insane.
-) Mikokoro is very strong. It actually kept me even with him fairly well, and, as mentioned, actually milled him out g3. It's kind of tricky to figure out when to use it vs when not to, but the card's power level is definitely there. I Divinationed off of it a couple times with a Notion Thief out. Felt good.
-) Haunting Echoes was MORBIDLY TERRIFYING for my opponent. He had to work very hard to keep it from resolving, and the one game where it did, it took his Forces, Swords, Terminuses, Scalding Tarns, Ponders, and something else. It basically left him without removal, counterspells, and hurt his cantripping and filtering. Might actually be worth its slot as a bomb for the grindy matchups.
-) Glen Elendra was great, as one would expect.
With testing, you should be able to tell how the game is going. Not to say that reversals are impossible, but if you want to play this deck, you need to know when to concede g1 vs Miracles. If you can steal game 1, you can probably stall out g2 long enough to win the match, or even just actually win g2. The matchup is much better postboard, because you lose the Therapies, Explorers, and Shriekmaw for relevant cards. By contrast, Miracles only picks up like 2-4 cards. I still wouldn't say that the matchup is great, though, which saddens me. It's really hard to find reasons to not just build Miracles. The deck is just grossly strong, and it's almost impossible to fight it effectively =(
That being said, I'm going to tune a bit and then come back at it for a few more games before giving up for now. I will note that I am confidant in this as a direction for Nic Fit. If something untimely happens to Miracles (metashift or otherwise), or if something shows up down the line for us, this list could be huge. That it forced such games out of Miracles warms my heart. We were literally throwing actual everything at each other for hours, and we were both pretty exhausted by the end of it. All we need is a little push. Just a tiny one. Come on, WotC. Pls?
--------------
PS: good luck tomorrow, jbone!
Maindeck pyroblast/REB........?
...yes please :)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BxBo7MTIUAE1WcN.jpg
So this happened. Or is happening. Jesus H.
-----
Also, BUG update:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Baleful Strix
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Eternal Witness
2 Notion Thief
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 The Mimeoplasm
1 Thragtusk
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Frost Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Diabolic Intent
2 Brainstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Future Sight
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Phyrexian Tower
sb::
1 Bribery
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Batterskull
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm
Well...that's going in the deck.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This might be where I am at for my bug list but this is as rough as Arianrhods list
2 bayou
1 tropical island
1 underground sea
2 creeping tar pit
2 swamp
2 island
2 forest
1 phyrexian tower
1 stronghold
8 fetches
4 veteran explorer
4 baleful strix
2 eternal witness
1 thragtusk
1 primeval titan
4 cabal therapy
4 brainstorm
3 liliana
3 jace
3 deed
4 abrubt decay
1 garruk
2 intuition
2 gsz
So far in testing I have loved strix. removal with stronghold which doesnt give up your draw for the turn. intuition was for 2 witness plus strong hold for grindy games and then intuition becomes tutor for 3 cards. played against u/w blade with it and it basically ended up whoever got the first jace won though with lily i also had a few wins on the back of a protected by witness and strix lily.
Siege Rhino is definitely interesting. It can be GSZ'd, it tramples over TNN and lives, it cannot be Decayed or Bolted, it has an O.K. ability to flicker or recur. In a Junk Fit deck, his power level is underwhelming for the limited creatures slots we can play as he doesn't fill a specific role. In a Junk Pod deck, Redcap and Resto are both better so Rhino becomes the 3rd 4drop to compete with Rector if you insist on playing that many. Unfortunately, I think Rhino doesn't bring anything new to the table.
Is there any reason at all to go straight GB anymore?
Also is Garruk, Apex Predator strong enough for Nic Fit?
Kami, I saw someone running a g/b list with a entomb package.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If this thread is any indication, Scapewish and Punishing Fit have sort of taken the back seat. In their place is Junk and BUG. This is unclear to me for a few reasons:
-I kinda figured Scapeshift was the safest combo available to this deck. Is Archangel/Spike really easier to pull off?
-Obviously blue is strong in legacy, but the BUG route seems to want to play more of a control game than does Jund, resulting in grindier matches. Is that really what this deck needs to do? Isn't the point of our explosiveness to blitzkrieg the opponent?
- If blue is the most common color in legacy, why shouldn't we be fighting it with maindeck REB/Slaughter Games?
Maybe these points are invalid, I just tend to look at my Punishing Fit as the working-man's underdog blue-hating budgety powerhouse.
/pointless post
Dont agree on Punishing Fit. Im still playing it and I find it very strong. However still searching for the perfect 75 cards...!Quote:
Originally Posted by thotcrime
-) Scapeshift is the safest combo available to the deck. Thune/Feeder is definitely doable and does function, but it's not as safe as Scape, no question. The problem with Scape right now is that it's stuck in an awkward in-between: it's not fast / powerful enough in the midgame to effectively close games, but it also is too much of a midgame deck to be able to compete in the lategame.Quote:
Originally Posted by thotcrime
-) Sultai and Punishing are attacking on two completely different angles. Punishing says hey, Ima kill every single thing that you play, and then eventually kill you with whatever I've got laying around. Sultai says hey, Ima wreck your card advantage and filtering while you frantically try to answer [threat]. They're both controlling what the opponent is doing, but they're going about it very differently.
-) I specifically want to highlight this, because it's a philosophical question that I've been struggling with lately:
This is a deep question, because it gets at the core of Nic Fit as a deck. What is the purpose of ramping? What's the purpose of running Veteran Explorer as a card? What does he do that Deathrite Shaman, Cloudpost, and Metalworker don't do better?Quote:
Isn't the point of our explosiveness to blitzkrieg the opponent?
I would rank them as such in terms of power / potential explosiveness / endgame desires (most to least):
Cloudpost
Metalworker
Veteran
Deathrite
Counting Deathrite at all is kind of strange, but it's mostly because I want to use it to make a point. Veteran is the "weakest" member of the ramp family. It doesn't go meganuclear like Cloudpost and it doesn't go plain old nuclear but really quickly ala Metalworker. His symmetry is actually currently mattering for the first time in Nic Fit's history, as well, as many of the top decks of the moment are sporting at least 2 basics, up to Miracles, which runs the same number of basics that we do (6-8 range, depending on list). At the same time, Nic Fit is much more likely to play a 'normal' game of Magic than the other two are. You're not casting Sundering Titan or Ulamog without help. Thragtusk is eminently doable in regular Magic with no ramping assistance required -- people already hardcast quite a few Force of Wills, after all.
Scapewish wants to use Veteran to accelerate into a lethal Scapeshift, while simultaneously using it to both ramp into more ramp creatures and some beefy midrange threats to keep the opponent occupied while digging for Shift.
Sultai wants to use Veteran to deploy hateful blue creatures sooner -- threatening a Notion Thief, ConSphinx, Glen Elendra, or even Clique ahead of schedule is pretty dangerous for most opponents.
Junk wants to use Veteran to accelerate into 'bombs' -- and then just keep slamming bombs until the opponent is out of ways to deal with them.
I won't mention the other variants as I have less experience with them -- but I would welcome you to add on to this list with your own variant and your thoughts on the subject. Nic Fit stands in a zone of liminality -- the archetype as a whole is suffering right now, and I think that we're not going to be able to well and truly solve that until we take a step back, disassemble the deck to its core, and rebuild it from the ground up.
We have the technology. We can rebuild him.
I have been on the punishing version for about a year when I play Nic Fit. The whole veteran explorer part of the deck is smth that seems both its greatest strength and at times the worst aspect of the deck.
In my view the vet package is used in this deck as a way to facilitate 2 busted cards Deed and Therapy. When you have plenty of mana deed wrecks house. It is usually too slow in many cases without the ramp. Not to say its not a good card but its a great card when you are able to deploy turn 2 lily after double therapy because their hand is ripped and they are forced to play threats in lily and deed allows clean up.
The threats you play are all great on an empty board. Hunt, thrun and tusk all shine on empty boards as opposed to those cluttered with goyfs or other random creatures. They do fine work are great when the opponent cannot break out of lily-fire. Vet works by giving you the mana to play these cards and to play them quick enough to matter. The downside vet can be a terrible card in certain games.
The struggle I have had is we are spending cards ramping. That Vet could have been smth else. so why spend a card ramping unless we are really taking advantage of it. This is why I am starting to look into a bug version. Brainstorm allows the reset with cards that are not needed in a much better way than punishing fire. Jace is also a thing...
I still believe punishing fire is a great engine for this deck to use. The synergy with Lily and deed can easily create a situation where you will grind out any deck. The problem I see with that deck is that you are so heavily slanted to creature decks with Lily, Deed, Decay and Fire. Last weekend I lost to elves when I got them to empty board empty hand and proceed to draw 5 lands in a row. Variance is a bitch and so bug is my attempt to resolve some of that.
As to main deck reb or slaughter games. I would NEVER play slaughter games main. The games where you get a game 1 win against ant or miracles will be 1/100 of the times you see a 4 mana spell in your hand that impacts the board not at all. @Arianrhod has played it in scapshift and I think it was randomly amazing and mostly useless but he could give you more personal anecdotes. My advice would be no. Rebs would be ok but I would hesitate even if you went up to 4 Lily. decks that run it main usually also have 4 brainstorm and 3-4 jace to deal with having it in a poor match up. If you are on pfire you dont need reb. I would go up to 4 SDT in that deck. I may make some changes to pfire and play it tmr in a our $15 weekly though as I heard the sunday IQ at that store was filled with grindy decks and pfire still owns those decks...
Slaughter Games is fine maindeck in certain metagames (we're not there atm). Nic Fit as a whole has the ability to run sideboard cards maindeck and kind of cheat on matchups if the metagame tilts a certain way. Slaughter main was innovated because at the time, Sneak and Show was SMASHING the metagame, to an extent to which many people (myself included) thought that either Griselbrand or Show and Tell was going to get banned. Sneak and Show happened to be hilariously well positioned against Nic Fit, and I got to the point where I was so tilted about constantly having my deep tournament runs ruined by Sneak that I said fuck it, maindeck Slaughter.
I beat a lot of very good Sneak and Show players after I did this -- to the point at which I considered Sneak and Show to actually be a positive matchup. Slaughter had the benefit of never really being fully dead -- if nothing else, you are kind of playing a combo deck, sort of, so you could just Slaughter out Esperblade's Force of Wills, for example, and remove their only line of interacting with Scapeshift from the equation.
Anyway, the metagame shifted when people remembered that Death and Taxes is a deck, and coupled with Sneak's core instability, that particular menace fell from the spotlight -- and along with it, the need to run maindeck Slaughter Games.
Now that we're in the Miracles meta, we have the potential to make the same call that was made with Sneak and Show. The problem is that I think Tsunami is the best maindeckable Miracles hate, and I don't think that it's as good in non-Miracles matchups as Slaughter Games was vs non-Sneak. For example, while Tsunami is still a huge kick in the teeth to Shardless BUG, they can still function. Delver decks tend to laugh at it =/
Agryem - Plane
Yes, I'm aware that this is nowhere near legal in competitive Legacy. But in a casual game playing a friend's deck, I managed to abuse the second ability with Sakura-Tribe Elder to basic-ramp each turn.
So far in my attempts to scour the Gatherer database, the most explosive yet legal variant is Verdant Succession, which is a whopping 5-mana for an enchantment. It however, can provide a lot of mana for little effort with 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder, and if ya really want to get cute, adding a Wheel of Sun and Moon on you means infinite Sakura-Tribe Elders in one turn, which has utility as both a ramp ability and a shuffle ability.
Firstly, my NicFit doesn't assume a gender role, it's trans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Secondly, taking a step back for a little objectivity is a good thing and necessary for non-tier 1 decks.
I can't speak whatsoever for BUG or Scapewish. I have never piloted those decks, so I won't address them.
From a Punishing Jund perspective:
I hate blue magic. Jace, FoW, Counterbalance, Show and Tell, Brainstorm, etc etc can all end up in the trash bin. When I sit across from a player and see any variety of blue fetchland t1, I groan inside because I know that this won't be a game of magic, it will be an act of irritation in which everything I try to do is shut down by cheap, cheaty spells. Therapy? Brainstorm lol. Vet? Force, 'cuz fuck you!
I will be the first to admit that the Punishing variance absolutely sucks fuck against anything that doesn't play fair magic. The titular goddamned card might as well be a Grizzly Bear if your opponent isn't playing a creature deck.
That said, our SB allows us to turn into a combo-hating pile of fun. More 1CMC discard, red counterspells, elf-plagues, island-hating goodness, brainstorm-extractions. Game 2 against combo is when I remember that sometimes magic can be fun. The scales start to even out when we don't autolose on turn 2/3. However, we still can't fight combo if we don't draw the hate. I basically automull until I see REB.
The strength of PJund is also its weakness, its adaptability. Because we are part aggro/control/even a little combo, we don't serve any of those roles at 100% efficiency. That means we need to draw what when need when we need it or we lose the game.
Maybe 4 SDT is correct? Maybe you BUG types got it right with Brainstorm/JTMS. I hope not, because blue makes me ill.
We certainly are missing a piece of the puzzle. Maybe the card(s) we need haven't been printed yet. Is it possible that we aren't seeing a glaringly obvious solution?
Before I forget: you mentioned Tsunami, is From the Ashes comparable?
Something else on my mind is the apparent softness of our creatures. Prime Titan/Thrag/Hunts/Ooze are all very easy to kill with StP/Bolt and we are left sitting on an empty board waiting for a finisher. That is probably the biggest weakness of the deck, and something you briefly touched on. Our midrange game is generally dependent on 1 maybe 2 creatures turning sideways, easily-disrupted by removal.
Let's consider creatures that dodge removal/better ensure timely victory.
Sigarda - arguably the best Junk beater, period. She almost can't die, afaik the only creature able to block it is:
Tombstalker - I haven't seen this fuck played whatsoever in NicFit. Our GYs aren't as easily delved as say BUG Delver, but we still do our fair share of card-burning. He can't be Decayed and wins in 4 turns.
Thrun - obv a badass, but often a 5 turn clock.
Terra Stomper - why doesn't this bastard have haste? It lives through a hefty Deed-splosion and dodges Decay.
Gaea's Revenge - rips up an empty board, almost impossible to kill without mass-removal. Very easily blocked however.
Stormbreath Dragon - yeah I might be going out on a limb, but he swings through Baneslayer and can't be StPd or Decayed. If he ever goes monstrous, you're probably looking at a 3 turn clock.
Akroma, Angel of Fury - bit 'spensive, but lol good luck with that removal spell
Mistcutter Hydra - not very impressive, but can swiftly shut down a game against blue-based combo
Petrified Wood-kin - this card looks so fucking juicy, counter all instants wtf? kinda sucks a lot without bloodthirst.
Spellbreaker Behemoth - eh? eh?
IMO we need fast beaters to seal up games. Shroud/uncounterable/haste/etc etc. Man red Akroma looks promising...
edit: my red creatures are useless with GSZ in hand. Is 3 GSZ/4 SDT any more viable?
From the Ashes isn't really comparable when we're talking about Miracles hate, because they play as many basics as we do, including something like 5 basic islands. That being said, From the Ashes would TRASH Shardless BUG, as well as maintaining utility vs Jund etc that runs a lot of duals but aren't necessarily blue.
I firmly believe that Nic Fit's current struggle relates directly to its finishers. At the core, most Nic Fits are some degree of control. Some are a bit more aggro than others, some a bit more combo...but there's an inherent control game that comes from playing with Therapy + easy flashback means + Deeds + spot removal, with Top for card quality and lots of x-for-1s for virtual card advantage (ie Huntmaster, Thrag, etc).
The problem with a control deck's finisher is that the card in question needs to be evasive, protected, and a quick clock to prevent answers. Sigarda is the perfect answer here. She's a 4 turn clock (assuming no lifegain), she flies, and she used to be damn near unkillable. Miracles plays 4 Terminus, 1-2 Verdict, and 2-3 Council's Judgment + on average 2-3 Snapcasters. This isn't taking into account the Clique + Karakas permablock. Shardless is now playing multiple copies of Baleful Strix maindeck, along with at least 2 Toxic Deluge, and they draw approx a million cards to find them all. Deathblade can just race you with TNN(s) + equips, but they also have CliqueRakas, Judgments, Verdicts, and Snapcasters.
Sigarda doesn't cut it against that.
I've been testing Stormbreath as a 2-of in Scape for a while now, and the card has been good. But, it too suffers from the above problem. At least it has haste, so it does 4 damage (maybe kills a Jace?) before going bye-bye.
This directly informed my recent graspings towards a BUG list. My rationale is that Glen Elendra makes it really hard to blow up our threats, Notion Thief makes them scared to dig for more removal, and ConSphinx can just outgas them solo if left unchecked for even 2 turns. It's less about having a couple of dedicated finishers, and more about attacking them from as many angles as possible in the hopes that they'll crumble. By running a handful of finishers only, we're playing directly into the metagame's hands. It just won't work for now.
Thrun + karakas could be decent, though maybe not for nic fit.
Do you think this is correct? I usually sandbag them. GSZ is so powerful lategame, and I'm worried I won't draw one when I need one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod