Printable View
How about Exemplar of Strength? It can be Zenithed for, it kills Vet, and it's a 4/4 beater. I just put it in my deck, so I'll have to test him a bunch. Makes sense to me because having a hand of Vet+GSZ with no sac outlet happens often enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
Problem is though that as a 1-off you'll often have to Zenith for it, possibly through Daze. That means your Vet disposer just got a whole lot more expensive (4 mana, effectively). By the time you get there you don't need that Explorer trigger that badly anymore. I've tried Starved Rusalka specifically for this purpose, but even that was disappointing.Quote:
Originally Posted by battousai555
I apologize if it came off that way, but realistically, complaining about 'getting dicked by your deck' when you have 61 cards isn't a good way to go about things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
You likely have an extremely good D+T matchup though.
4 Veteran ExplorerQuote:
Originally Posted by Dalton!
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Fierce Empath
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Grave Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Diabolic Intent
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Sneak Attack
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Phyrexian Tower
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
sb::
2 Lost Legacy
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Blood Moon
2 Fatal Push
1 To the Slaughter
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Hymn to Tourach
2 Carpet of Flowers
Cards in bold are the slots that I'm most uncertain about at this point / are most replaceable.
I'm also debating going -1 Bayou -1 Taiga +2 Foothills. That leaves us with only 4 duals, which I'm uneasy about, but might help thin out a little more and might also help make the color situation a little better, as it's been...not bad, but slightly awkward at times -- more than I would like it to be, anyway. It also rewards us for playing more Trackers, which I think is realistically the eventual endpoint of all of this experimenting -- 2 copies, anyway, if not more.
I doubt I'll mess around with Youtube. I would like to figure out how to do the whole "watch person's last broadcast" on twitch thing, though. Shouldn't be hard to do, I just need to do research.
I mean, at the point at which I fail to draw a color twice in the same match, when that's the only time across 10 matches where that happened that day, I'm sorry, but I'm going to attribute that to variance. Which certainly happens and is part of the game -- I just dislike it when such a small sample size leads to coloring peoples' opinions poorly. Nic Fit has had to struggle to be considered a valid deck for basically its entire existence, despite the fact that it's always been pretty solidly in the tier 1.5-tier 2 soup that a very large number of well-opined and prestigious decks occupy as well. I hadn't realized that so many people were still so scornful of it...perhaps it was naive of me, but I'd thought that had died out, or at least down, as time had passed.Quote:
Originally Posted by jarvisyu
It's possible the deck might run better in a modern context with 60 cards. I'll tell you this, though: the deck always used to run better at 61. I'll grant that we haven't tested at 60 since the Top ban, but beforehand, I tested extensively with both 60 and 61, and no matter which card ended up being considered the 61st, it was always important to have, and came at an extremely negligible hit to consistency...frankly not even noticeable. It's possible that without Top this has changed, though, and it might well be worth taking one of the floater spots that we haven't quite figured out yet and just removing it. I'm having to revise a lot of opinions in a post-Top world -- Kommand was tested and found to never be good enough beforehand, but now it's insane. I've hated Scavenging Ooze in Nic Fit for something like five or six years, but now it's actually been performing well for me, finally. There's a lot of changes happening, and I'm willing to consider that 60 vs 61 might be one of them.
DnT and a very good matchup for sure -- also Delver of basically any variety and Esperblade. Combo decks are very winnable (I beat Belcher and TurboDepths in a league a couple days ago, pretty positive record lifetime vs Storm of various types, beat Doomsday 2-0 in round 1 of the league I faced you in). RG Lands is fine to good, Sneak/Show depends purely on how their hand lines up vs ours -- we have draws they can't beat, and the opposite is also true. We crush Painter. Elves is a crapshoot 50/50 for the deck, but I can personally never beat it.
I'll just say this: if I didn't consider Nic Fit to be not only viable, but competitive, and if I didn't still top 8 tournaments regularly with it, I wouldn't play it. I'm here to win. I'll do it my way, but I will win. I recognize that the card distribution and card selections might look random to a lot of people, but trust as an outsider that more thought goes into every single slot in a well-designed and well-piloted Nic Fit decklist than most other archetypes can ever dream of. There are a lot of shitty Nic Fit players who toss whatever into their deck and call it good, but there is a world of difference between somebody who is playing Nic Fit casually and somebody who actually considers it their craft.
This is where you change that setting on twitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
https://www.twitch.tv/settings/channel
This is what it looks like on the page (link if the image fails to load)
http://imgur.com/a/ZfXZT
http://imgur.com/a/ZfXZT
Awesome, got it. Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by MDHackbert
Hi Arianrhod,
I watched half of your stream last night and finally got the chance to see the deck in action by an experienced player, the inventor even. It was a very good watch, thank you! I will watch the second league this evening.
I'm not sure if I am behind the change of cutting Inferno Titan. That card has won me so many games and while fragile to StP, it is still good against Grixis and D&T. You also say your life against Elves is hard. For this reason alone I think it is wrong to cut it. Last weekend I faced Elves and I chose to search for Titan with Intend (over Engineered Plague) when the match came close to time. My opponent was holding a Rec Sace (I didn't know of so this decision was a good call) and eventualy Titan closed down the match for me in the 5th round of extra time, attacking for 10 + 3 trigger. I don't want to miss him..
What do you feel about Massacre Wurm instead of Grave Titan?
Against Elves, I always board in my 2 Lost Legacy, naming Craterhoof. This will make their Glimpses weaker. Anything that helps destroying their combo is good in my book.
Also, what do you think about cutting the targeted removal and up the mass destruction? I see you are back at 3 Deeds now already. I posted my list a page back and I didn't run the Decays nor the Fatal Pushes. Against combo, both are useless and against the control decks, we really need the 2-for1 or 3-for-1 CA. For this reason I played 2 Deluges main. I cut the 1 Eternal Witness but I am inclined to think this may be very wrong (now that I saw you ran 2). I decided to run Nissa instead to create card advantage over multiple turns and I saw you did the same already. I only really missed E Witness once when I ran out of fetch-targets for Bellower against Deathblade.
Kolaghan's Command is a good call and I wil try it out, thank you this brilliant idea. Eternal Witness becomes a lot better with this card in the graveyard, I now realise. I will also put back the 2 Carpets in my board to fight the control decks. Maybe I will run 3 as they are very important to ramp without the Explorers. And maybe, yess maybe, this will cause me to hardcast Emrakul for once in my life! Its a pipe dream, but a man can dream, right?
Close match against Jarvis considering the uphill battle with Nic Fit. Pretty cool to be on his stream though. Good luck in the future with the deck!
Mass Removal seems like the way to go.
3 Deed
1 Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
That as a package for the Sneak lists should be able to handle the most.
I would not cut the Inferno Titan, too. He is too strong to go without him. Broodmate Dragon ist good...somehow. But a sneaked-in creature should hit harder than him.
When i play Sneak Fit i always encounter always the same situatuations. A Jace i can not kill or me sitting there with no cards in hand and nothing on the field with an opponents hands full of cards. It is like i am runing out of gas or i draw the wrong half of the Deck.
Edit:
I`ve done some more or less intense testing and stongly believe that 2 Sylvan Libraries are what we want. It is the card that comes Top most close in controlling your draws.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jarvisyu
Well Jarvis & Kevin, we should not get pissed at each other as after all we all love Legacy as a format and definitely want the format to grow despite WOTC not supporting the format (bloody declining numbers of Legacy GPs). I also feel it is not cool of Jarvis to slam Nic Fit's penchant for going above 60 cards md, but we should all kiss up and make up :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
@Arianrhod
- Removing Titan is fine, but like someone (cannot remember who) said in the earlier pages, Massacre Wurm is a great contender to take Inferno's place. I also like how it crushes Elf midcombo and other creature decks during their combat step via mid combat sneaking. There were times where I had Massacre Wurm on board and P.Deed the opposing board and won via Wurm's -2 life death triggers.
- I also love Vital Force, she never leaves her spot in my maindeck like eversince Kaladesh.
- I do not like Broodmate Dragon, I actually consider the tempo/board presence swing a resolved fatty (>4 mana) in Sneaky Fit
- I also play Blood Moons main for it randomly shuts down so many BUG bs in my meta
- I love the K.Command idea, will definitely try it!
Going to stream a league this morning here in a couple minutes, but I'm not going to have mic/cam on, so it'll just be video. Since Hackbert showed showed me the setting for it to save videos, you guys should be able to watch it back later if you can't make it this morning.
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Fierce Empath
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Inferno Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Diabolic Intent
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Sneak Attack
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
sb::
2 Lost Legacy
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Blood Moon
2 Fatal Push
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Carpet of Flowers
Testing this list. I might regret only having 4 duals, but we'll see how it plays. I do have cutting to 60 on my radar, but I currently want to try this build before making that change.
Got pretty thoroughly savaged in general in what should've been an easy league -- partially due to mental state issues (roommate + kitten being loud, my computer froze twice [although one of those was when I was done anyway]).
On that subject: I'm getting really frustrated that MTGO keeps freezing my damn computer. Doesn't seem to matter what I try -- whenever I play it for more than like one or two matches, it invariably freezes. My pc's like three years old, but it was a cutting edge rig that I built myself and it should NOT be having this issue, and no other game or program causes my pc to literally crash to the point where I need to power cycle it to turn it back on. Very angry about that.
As far as the list, I don't have enough data from one league where I got screwed and flooded a lot to come to a conclusion on the extra fetches. It didn't feel good, didn't feel bad. I drew poorly and played poorly -- not sure what data that translates to.
I do think that the Rec Sage can come out of the board. With the introduction of the Kommands, we have 7 maindeck artifact kill spells, and they rarely get sideboarded out. Sage's main purpose was a Zenithable Needle-killer, but I haven't found myself wanting or needing that effect. We lose some % vs Sneak Attack, I suppose, but we can run a better/more versatile sideboard card there, I think.
Jace is as much of a problem as ever. Sneak had successfully solved Jace out of Miracles, but with Stoneblade resurging, the card isn't as good vs Jace as it was previously, due to junk gunking up the board and blocking for the fuhrer.
I'm actually increasingly wondering about the positioning of Sneak Attack as a card. The combo has actually felt like the worst part of my deck for a couple leagues now. I keep flooding on Sneak Attacks, which don't do anything in multiples, and Esperblade as least can usually tank a hit from Emrakul and survive -- they have too many permanents. I do like what having Sneak Attack does for our combo matchup, since it actually lets us be proactive and capable of racing opponents instead of having to play the jund "discard you and hope your topdecks suck" game.
Huntmaster hit play once on the day and was alright. Not great, but not bad. I think that's just his lot in life.
I dunno. When I wasn't being screwed or flooded, it felt like I drew a lot of air. Like, I'd get games to the point where they were stable, but then just draw garbage while opponents draw gas, and just get out-muscled. I don't like that amount of variance, but I don't know what to do about it other than be more redundant -- which, in this case, may mean moving away from Sneak Attack as a card for a while.
I'll probably do another one later on today, but I need to take a break and cool off after that.
Won a couple duals today with a list that was almost identical to Arianrhod's most recently posted one, just a couple tweaks on duals vs fetches and only 1 Tracker to be at 60 cards. 3rd Thoughtseize over 2nd Lost Legacy in the board. Relatively small event in Rhode Island, apparently another legacy event being run nearby-ish so it was definitely smaller than the prize pool might otherwise indicate. Works for me!
Matches:
Round 1, Philip, UB Reanimator
Game 1 he has a few discard effects and never finds a monster, I have a pretty quick sneak->bellow->em. Game 2 he keeps a one-lander and Thoughtseizes me, then entombs and reanimates an Iona on red over the next couple turns. I get in a few points with a pair of vets and eventually find Empath for Grave Titan which lets me go wide on his board. His life total is low enough that he couldn't really attack with Iona for a couple turns and I am able to clinch it even through a Tidespout Tyrant. Points for Grave Titan!
1-0, 2-0
Round 2, Jeff, UR Pyromancer
Might have been Delver but I never saw one. Game 1 I get a little low taking some hits but my hand of 2x Deed demolishes his pressure and I chip him down eventually after that. Game 2, I get nickel and dimed out and die to Swiftspear and a few tokens. Game 3 I take a ton of damage from a Pyrostatic Pillar and an Eidolon, but so does he and I get in a good Deed and kill him with hardcast Grave Titan while he floods.
2-0, 2-1
Round 3, Billy, LED Dredge
Game 1 I have some stuff but he ends up killing me with Flayer of the Hatebound and Prized Amalgams after some token resistance. Game 2 is much better, I have turn 1 Vet into turn 2 Tower, Ooze with 2 green up and that ends up being enough. Game 3 I have turn 1 Vet, he plays Breakthrough for 1 putting 3 Narcomoebas and 2 Bridges into the yard with no dredgers to go with his Cephalid Coliseum, pretty horrific luck on his part. I Push my Vet to nuke his Bridges, Surgical his Ichorid, and Lost Legacy his Dread Returns on my turn 2 and he is never really able to get anything going after that, though he did almost kill me because I took forever to find action as well.
3-0, 2-1
Round 4 we are able to double draw into top 8 but the cut is clean enough that my opponent wants to play for seeding.
He's on Omni-Sneak. I win game 1 as he fails to find any follow up to his Show+Omni. Game 2 I die extremely quickly, game 3 I blind Therapy on Brainstorm and see Tomb, Show, Gris and lands. He rips Spell Pierce for my follow up Zenith, and I die. Oh well
3-1, 2-1
Draw round 5 into top 8
Quarterfinals, Josh with monogreen Cloudpost
Game 1 I hit a clutch blind Therapy on Crop Rotation and then Sneak->Emrakul him out.
Game 2 I'm not able to get much going as he sticks Needle on my Sneak, Ensnaring Bridge and Primeval Titan, and then starts Karakasing his Ulamog.
Game 3 I nail 2x Expedition Map with my turn 1 Therapy and that slows him down massively. I find Sneak, he finds Bridge, I set up Tracker and draw a couple cards and then go sneak in Rec Sage, kill your Bridge, sneak in Inferno Titan, 19 you.
Semis, Caleb with Lands
Game 1 is very academic, i have turn 2 Ooze which he uses a little time to answer and then I kill him with Emrakul.
Game 2 he has turn 1 land pass, I have turn 1 Vet. His turn 2 is Mox Diamond, Stage, go. I play Tower, sac my Vet, Decay his Diamond and slam Blood Moon. He Crop Rotates for Depths in response and I die, because sometimes turn 2 Blood Moon + Stone Rain just isn't good enough.
Game 3 I board in Thoughtseizes on the play and nab a Crop Rotation and Surgical it. We go back and forth for a bit, I use Sneak+Titan to clear up his Tireless Tracker and put him low but he has K Grip to answer the enchantment, I get in some beats and Witness back Surgical for his Loam, but he finds Gamble for Depths and keeps it in hand, so I end up being a couple points short.
Finish 4th and get a Plateau and a Taiga, so can't complain.
Thoughts:
-K Command didn't come up except against the Pyro deck where it was good. I'm happy with this inclusion. Second Witness is a natural fit with it and while having 2 never mattered, the card is just all around very good and versatile.
-I felt like I had the right amount of removal and although I didn't have the matchups for the sweepers, 3 Deed main seems fine to me
-With K Command, Meren is likely redundant. She never came up and I never wanted her. Boarded her out a lot.
-Huntmaster never came up today but I've been reasonably happy with 1 to fill some small roles as a Zenith target. Similar to Meren in that it's often medium-impact, but the clock it presents while bringing a Therapy body is fine in unfair matchups where Meren is just a brick.
-I did not miss Thragtusk at all.
-Ooze maindeck was good but I had good matchups for that obviously.
-Deathrite Shaman. I Zenithed@0 a lot today but a couple times that was actually better than if I could have gone for DRS. I don't know that cutting it is right because it does perform some small utility stuff.
Going to try something else over Meren, possibly the second Tracker or possibly Nissa in the maindeck, open to suggestions on other stuff of course. Deck still feels unfinished but strong. Inferno Titan was very good today as was Grave Titan so I like that mix of fatties. Not sure I'd want to cut the Rec Sage since it's tutorable but it's not unreasonable to lean on Decays and K Commands to deal with Needles etc.
As always I welcome your questions and thoughts.
I was playing Arianrhods list yesterday in a 87 LEgacy Tournament and i was devastated, too.
My list had some minor changes in it, but that were only 2-3 cards.
It feld very inconsistent and i found myself exact in the same positions as him. Jace feld unkillable, and i was running out of gas. Sylvan Library and Punishing Fire are definitiv coming back as is Primeval Titan. I believe Sneak Attack is still the way to goo, but maybe we have tinkered too much with the Deck ans should only replace Top with the Libraries and stay with the Deck that had succses.
The K-Command and the E-Ws are perhaps watering down the gameplan the previous versions had.
It's nice (kind of) to know that I'm not the only one that has been having problems with JTMS. Lately I have been trying a red splash (along with the white splash for canonist) in my GB Fit sideboard for 3 pyroblasts.
It sounds ridiculous, and it probably is, but a 1 mana vindicate for jace is kinda nice. Against combo decks 3 pyros are something decent to board in instead of the dead cards we have in G1. Currently my sideboard is the most hateful I have ever seen played in this deck.
The only card I'm afraid of in this new miracles decks is literally JTMS. If we manage to find the best way to consistently deal with him we can definitely solve that match up. 3 pyroblast is the most intuitive way I have found and that I have been trying. Time will tell if this is the Nth abomination I try in order to have a chance against cancer.dec.
Well, I was lucky enough to avoid Jace decks entirely but, if nothing else my experience has been that the current build has a strong grind plan and the tools to beat up on Delver and similar styles of deck a good percentage of the time (particularly with 3 Deeds main). If the Reclamation Sage moves out of the board we're at the point where the sideboard is some catch-alls like Needle, a pile of combo hate, and a few extra slots... why not make those to fight Jace? Needle is good there. REB would be great there, load em up! What else could be used to help beat Jace the card?
Best Nissa, Sigarda (if you are in white), lost legacy, REB, (duress?).Quote:
Originally Posted by MrIggins
I'm currently planning on having the best possible configuration in the main deck to fight everything beside combo, and dedicating everything in the side to beat combo.
Currently I'm feeling hateful
3REB
3Canonists
3Lost legacy
2Duress (4CT, 2lilianas and 2TS in the main)
1Teeg
3Extirpate (1-2 should be surgicals, but I'm not spending 35 tix a piece)
This is the best configuration that's humanly possible to have to fight against combo I think.
Sneak and show (a very common deck online) becomes a lot easier with this configuration: bears, discard, legacies, extirpates and REB??
You mentioned GB, but you're splashing two colors to try and deal with combo. I don't think that's necessary. I've had a pretty good combo matchup in straight GB without having to do that. Storm is still a bad matchup, but I beat it often enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
Haven't tried the new Miracles yet, but nothing in it seems really dangerous. Losing Counterbalance makes it a lot easier to resolve cards.
I play zero utility lands beside arbor, no towers in my deck. I have 10 fetch lands, 7 basics 2 bayou 1 Badlands 1 Scrublands.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
Every land in my deck is gb beside those two lands, I don't run hymn anymore so I don't need to pay BB until turn 3 or later.
It's 100% a gb deck with 2 non green swamp duals. I only need 1 SINGLE green in T1-2 for veteran and that's it.
Those 2 colors (white and/or red Swamps) are needed ONLY against non wasteland decks.
They are even arguably better in the early game than lands like the 2 towers against wastelands decks
Trust me, "you are splashing two colors" sounds more ridiculous than it really is.
You'd think that, but it can be actually harder. A lot of our stuff didn't care much for Counterbalance, but they've basically replaced Counterbalance and Top with more card draw, finished the set of Snapcasters, and more copies of actual Counterspell. Less virtual card advantage so more actual card advantage, which we usually give them the time to leverage. It's pretty tough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
This is exactly the problem. CA is now more than ever the way to beat miracles.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrIggins
We didn't care about balance in the first place, terminus was always the problem.
Most of my stuff did care about Counterbalance because I go wide with a low curve.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrIggins
CA is an axis I'm happy to fight on.
Sounds like a job for Bob and haste creatures.Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
Yeah I knew how you felt [emoji4] you would like my current list as well, I'll post it somedayQuote:
Originally Posted by Brael
You're on a different build than I was thinking then, and that could be the way we need to battle them in that case!Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Fierce Empath
2 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Grave Titan
1 Inferno Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Diabolic Intent
3 Punishing Fire
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sneak Attack
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
sb::
2 Blood Moon
2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Lost Legacy
1 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Pyroblast
2 Painful Truths
2 Carpet of Flowers
Here's where I'm at.
Rationale time (this is going to be long and theory-laden):
Facts:
-) Sneak Attack (card + strategy as a whole) is effective against combo decks, which we traditionally struggle against. It's also good vs the BUG decks, but those have dried up.
-) Sneak Attack (card + strategy as a whole) is bad against Delver (they can break it up too easily/are too fast, esp Grixis with Therapy) -and- vs Stoneblade of either variety (too many permanents in play, too resilient).
-) Sneak Attack (strategy as a whole, but not necessarily card) is effective against a wide range of random nonsense that legacy is known capable to produce. It's also effective against neo-Miracles once resolved.
-) Lack of incremental advantage is a huge problem in a Topless world for Nic Fit. We need to aggressively be looking for x-for-1s. One of the best sources of these advantages is planeswalkers. Kommand has been huge for this, but we need more.
-) Jace is still a problem. Always.
-) Multiple Sneaks is a big problem -- you need to see enough of them to resolve one, but also you rarely want to draw multiples and never a backup once one has resolved. It's a literal brick.
-) Multiple Intents causes a similar problem to that which we discovered when we went heavy down the Rhino train a year or two ago -- it forces us to run too many creatures, and 85% of creatures in MtG are bad. I kept junking up lists with garbage like Huntmaster or cards which, while good, are not really relevant for Sneak, like Thragtusk or multiple Trackers.
-) Punishing Fire doesn't kill everything. It's awful against Gurmag, and it's uncastable against True-Name, but it allows us to focus our other removal spells on keeping those cards under control.
Let's go down the list.
Core:
Sneak has a 21-card core, consisting of:
4 Vet
1 Empath
1 Bellower
1 Emrakul
4 Therapy
4 Zenith
3 Sneak
3 Deed
Beyond this, there are several cards which I personally consider core -- Eternal Witness, Steve, and so on, but which are not intrinsically required for Sneak to function as a deck. I believe they represent some of the best options we have for those slots, but, season to taste.
Ooze has performed extremely well for me -- he helps blank opposing Deathrites or Snapcasters in the midgame, holding down opponents' card advantage (hitting their 2-for-1s is essentially the same as us achieving a 2-for-1 ourselves). He's a second, bulky target for Bellower, he's an effective maindeck hate card in some scenarios, though certainly not as many as you'd wish him to be, and he's the second-best green 2-drop for us, I believe (I firmly endorse Steve for #1, ESPECIALLY with Blood Moons in the sideboard).
2nd Witness (we'll lump the Kommands in here as well) helps form a recursive core that generates us a lot of card advantage, especially when recurring other x-for-1s. Kommand has been absolutely asininely good for me -- it's one of the best cards you could ever dream of against Esper/Bant Blade decks, still good vs Delver, and works internally for advantage within our own deck if the matchup for it is poor. Plus, it has advantages like being insane against fringe decks like MUD. I can't honestly brag about them enough.
Tracker -- one is fine, more than that is bad. Good Zenith target, good Bellower target, honestly best when naturally drawn and not tutored for. I've tried numbers at this point anywhere from 0 to a full set, and 1 just feels the best. I think that the 2nd Tracker is realistically somewhere around the 63rd or 64th card. It's good, it's something we'd want given the choice, but it's not good enough to be pushed into the deck.
Grave and Inferno Titans: I'm on board with Grave, I'm still a little questionable on Inferno but he's undeniably powerful in certain scenarios. If we ever get another hyper-pushed 6-drop that's worth considering in Jund, ideally something that generates a lot of advantage as an enters trigger, Inferno will be the first to get dropped. Regardless, I do think that he's next in line behind Bellower and Grave.
Deluge is here because of the maindeck Intent, basically. If I was off Intent, I would be off Deluge as well (or, possibly, I would be on 2 Intents). Deluge has, however, been quite good. There's a lot of dorks and True-Names floating around, and having a faster way of killing them than Deed, especially with Stifle running around, is very important.
As for Intent, as I said, I don't think that we can really get away with more than one copy, as least for now. It's possible that if we get more pushed creatures in the future, especially lower cmc ones, that a second copy might be good. Right now, though, there just aren't enough high-quality creatures in jund nic fit to justify the second copy. The first is, however, undeniably good and pushes us to 6 sac outlets for Vets, which is a little lower than I'd like but is the best I can realistically accomplish at the moment. I will freely admit that when we were on 8 sac outlets (4 Therapy, 2 Tower, 2 Intent), the deck's mana generation felt AMAZINGLY smooth, and that is a concept that I will definitely be keeping in mind for other builds....mostly junk or BUG, which have the extra bodies to accomodate extra Intents.
Punishing Fire makes its triumphant return. Dalton's posts made me think about Punishing Fire again, so, props to him for that. PFire is still good vs Jace and other planeswalkers. It's still good at picking off Deathrites, Delvers, Pyromancers, Stoneforges, Containment Priests, Snapcasters, and Cliques. It does fail a couple of huge checks in the meta -- it's awful vs Leovold, it's awful vs Gurmag, it's unplayable (literally) vs True-Name, and obviously Goyf just laughs at it. But, as I said above, freeing up our other removal spells to be able to handle those threats is honestly worth it. I'd rather have a Deed or a Deluge for a TNN than be forced to use it on a board of Delver / DRS that PFire can clean up for me. It is, also, a source of card advantage -- a single Punishing Fire + Grove can frequently clean up 2-3 cards, at least, although it can be answered somewhat easily since we are not a dedicated PFire/Grove deck (only 3 copies of each, and no Loam/Knight of the Reliquary/etc).
Miser's Decay helps pick off errant early threats, but flexes to be able to handle equipment, Chalices, Leovolds, etc. I had two copies originally and had stayed at 2 for a long time, but in the end I needed one space and I felt the 2nd Decay was the weakest card in the deck, so it got the axe. I wouldn't fault anyone for running the pair.
Chandra is our Jace. I'm dead serious. Sam can attest that I was extremely uneasy about this card, because I'm seeing nightmare scenarios of flipping Emrakul to exile and breaking up Sneak chains. I tested a PFire list without Sneaks a couple days ago, and while that deck was questionable, Chandra overperformed to a ridiculous degree. She beats Jace TMS 1-on-1. Her plus generates a card while dealing 2 damage to Jace (redirect), which forces Jaces into the unenviable position of being forced to +2 to stay alive -- and +2 is bad vs us in that scenario because we're drawing two a turn. She's amazing against Liliana, as well, for much of the same reasons. Her -3 isn't enough to kill Gurmag, which is very unfortunate, but she can protect herself reasonably well, and the amount of removal we currently run, especially with PFire, is enough to generally run interference for her. Plus, her ultimate is game-ending, and comes online much quicker than Jace's (again, while keeping him unable to progress). I've also added 2 mana with her more times than I can really recall conveniently, usually to pump up a Zenith or Deed activation, but sometimes to be able to hardcast a Titan, break clues, or have mana floating against Pierce/Daze. Really, really good card for us and I would be tempted to run a 3rd if I thought we had room. I haven't flipped Emrakul yet, but if we're in a position to where we can safely +1 Chandra and keep her safe, we can easily just ride her to victory instead of Emrakul -- which is better against half the decks anyway.
The manabase is essentially what I was running before, except for one fewer Phyrexian Tower to help make way for the Groves. 23 lands including Dryad Arbor feels right -- every once in a while we'll flood out, which is unfortunate, but there's nothing we can really do to prevent it. I was on 22 including Arbor for a while and I ended up getting mana screwed and having to mulligan a lot -- it's amazing the difference that one extra land makes, really. I am still on 61 cards. I did test at 60 for quite a while, and I do think there is merit to 22 lands (again, including Arbor) with 60 cards. The 3rd Bayou is my "61st," and while I do think it is possibly fine at 22/60, I still felt like I was mulliganning more than I liked. I'll probably conduct more extensive tests of 22/60 or 23/61 in the future, but for now, I was much more worried about getting the rest of the deck hammered out.
The sideboard is arguably the most important part of the deck.
I don't think it's perfect yet, but, what I've been doing is thus:
vs Delver / Blade, I go AT LEAST:
-3 Sneak
-1 Emrakul
+2 Pyroblast
+1 Nissa
+ ???
There's other boarding considerations for each, of course, but the moral of the story is that I am boarding out Sneaks and Emrkaul in these matchups, and "turning into" straight PFire Jund. This has been very effective for me at managing the Delver and Blade decks that had been hounding me. I kept being like, these are good matchups, why am I losing? I think the answer to that was that Sneak Attack is, flatly, bad in those matchups, and having the ability to transform out of it for them out of the sideboard is excellent.
Also, Moon is amazing. Feels reeeeeal good to board in in some matchups.
I'm not convinced that the card selections are correct across the board...especially the 2 Painful Truths and the combo hate suite, but that's where I'm starting at and we'll work from there.
Anyway, this has been feeling pretty good and I'm confidant that even if it's not 100% perfect, it's damn close. I do feel like we could be the benefit of some good printings, but I don't feel hideously underpowered now, at least, like I had been for a while.
Like I said, I haven't played against the new Miracles yet, I'm a paper player only, and just the local scene at that. It won't be until September that I can play a bunch of Legacy again when college is back in session.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrIggins
However, when SDT was around, I did have a very positive matchup against Miracles going 6-2-2 against them over the past year. That could have been due to the pilots or it could be due to my builds but they never scared me. The only games I would ever lose were to a CB lock. The trick to beating them in the past was always card advantage. If you can draw two cards to every one they draw then it doesn't matter if they get the occasional 2 for 1 with Terminus, or stop a card with CB. Something would get through. I assume it's the same here. With a high card velocity they can't counter everything or gain as much tempo for each creature they deal with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
How about card quality rather than advantage..? Seriously, Mirri's Guile is a pretty damn good replacement for Top that still allows us to have pretty much the best library manipulation/card selection of the format, with all the shuffle effects that we run.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
Dude, Mirri's Guile. Select & shuffle. You don't need to have more cards than your opponent, you just have to consistently find the right ones. Your gameplan is that powerful. Having multiple Intents actually makes this card better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
As for multiple Intents (and hence a way to improve consistency of your combo) - you just might have to reconfigure your base skeleton. And opt for an easy backup/stalling plan that gives you plenty of time to both find your combo pieces and create that hole in your opponents' defenses. If you want to function as a combo deck, you'll have to play as one.
Chandra only deals damage with her +1 if you don't cast the card.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Sure, but you're still functionally drawing it because you are offered the choice of whay to do with it. Having the decision at all is good enough, there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Navsi
2-3 in league
1-2 grixis control
felt not close
2-1 RUG delver
EZ mode
2-0 4c deathblade
EZ mode
1-2 Elves
felt not close
1-2 Burn
bad variance :(
gonna make changes and go from there.
Grixis and Burn should be doable w/ Junk Fit.
What was your 75?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
It still constrains you to 1 card/turn so if you want that card to be bigger, it runs into the usual ramp problems where it's not always a high quality card. That's another reason decks like Delver keep their curve low. With low mana generation quality needs to be cheap, they can't play 4 cards in a turn usually.
Neither can we, but we get away with playing only 1/2 cards a turn every turn b/c our spells are simply stronger than our opponents'. Even if we need to take some beats in the early game to get there. That's why we run Rhinos. Other decks' relative card quality diminishes as the games drag on, ours keeps increasing. Wasteland, Stifle and Daze are wonderful during turns 1 through 3 (roughly), but become much worse once your past turn 5 and up. Especially once we hit our stride. Same goes for, say, Lightning Bolt. It's capable of dealing with DRS or whatever, but useless vs. Rhinos and other stuff (unless they want to start 2-for-1'ing themselves, which is still very good for us).Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
With 1 mana library manipulation back to smoothen out our draws it should work out just fine. Heck, one can argue that Guile is better in some cases b/c it doesn't need any mana investments after you drop it on the field.
spoiler from Hours of Devestation:
Ramunap Excavator
2G
Creature - Naga Cleric
You may play land cards from your graveyard.
"This world was once so much more than the confines of Naktamun."
illus. # 129/184
C&D
2/3
Another utility 3-drop, but has some serious usefulness. Makes Crop/KotR/Loam of whatever shenanigans more interesting.
so basically a Zenithable Crucible of Worlds.
I play a bunch of cards every turn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
Maybe, but my counter argument is that I'm not sure it's even needed. Remember, before the SDT ban I was already cutting Tops, I was running only two and about to drop to just a singleton copy.Quote:
With 1 mana library manipulation back to smoothen out our draws it should work out just fine. Heck, one can argue that Guile is better in some cases b/c it doesn't need any mana investments after you drop it on the field.
I like this one. I'll slot it over Courser of Kruphix most likely. It might be enough to make me rethink the Horizon Canopy plan, but I also really like what this does with Crop Rotation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
Glad I've put Maverick together too, this makes their Wasteland strategy super dangerous.
PS: Dryad Arbor tricks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
Holy crap. It's a GSZ'able Crucible. My 4 Tracker 4 Smokestack deck just got quite a bit better. If only it were human so that I could run Caverns + Braids...
Makes the Gitrog Monster a lot better.Quote:
Originally Posted by square_two
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Other decks can probably use it better. Stuff that runs Mox Diamond, Exploration, Life from the Loam and Wastelands and Ghost Quarters. I mean, holy fucking shit. Only reason why it probably won't work though is b/c it's a creature that dies to everything. On the other hand, Volrath's Stronghold is also a land so who knows.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
On a fun note, especially combined w/ Exploration, it can ramp you quite a ways using Crystal Vein. And sets up a fun little engine when combined w/ Tireless Tracker.
Also, combine w/ Courser of Kruphix and a fetchland for some library manipulation. Or combine with Mirri's Guile and a fetchland to let yourself look @3 fresh cards every single turn. That's a lot of card selection. Top would have been even better with this.
Depends on the type of card. Interaction, sure. Creatures, probably just 1/turn, as big as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
I get your point on the necessity of it. I think it is.
Overload their removal and dying to removal ceases to matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
I'll definitely be playing with this card a bit. I love the interaction between it and Tracker. As TTX pointed out, I might even try Gitrog.
In Junk, if you forego some Trackers I could see Horizon Canopy playing well.