Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I really want to play Nic Fit again and pick up Echelon list. I like to have many 3-4 value cretures then 5-7. Dearthrite is too good only as a one off.
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
4 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Nissa, Vital Force
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Path to Exile
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Mealstrom Pulse
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
Sideborad:
3 Surgical Extraction (Strom and B/R Reimantor in the meta)
3 Duress
3 Lost Legacy
1 Pithing Needle
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Golgari Chram
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Chocke
1 Garruk Relentless
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
@Ganfar: Awesome! Glad to see you like the list!
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
@Ganfar: Awesome! Glad to see you like the list!
The list is not cute like other. More stright up Rhino can win the day.
One thing I don't like is there are only 3 2-drop. I don't like that curve. That's why I added a Sylvian Library.
I would like to have one more Tirelesd Tracker but I want try out courser as well
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rubblekill
What do you think about a bug fit control build featuring pw as main win condition (1 garruk relentless 1 nissa 3 jtms), 4 strix as ca/protection, the new 1cmc murder (aka the boost to bug and GB) and a smaller utility gsz package (which still consists in 4 veterans of course)?
This build seems now very viable and strong against aggro and (potentially) miracles, with a pseudo path that solves the previous lack of a good 1 mana removal spell.
What do you all think?
Might well be good. It will have the same problem BUG always has - difficulty closing games - although Nissa VF helps a lot there. I'd be tempted to run a second Nissa for that reason.
Strix helps a lot against the Swords targets that Fatal Push doesn't hit, like Angler, Marit Lage and Griselbrand.
You can still get a reasonable Zenith package in blue. The difficult bit, primarily, is accessing a reasonable finisher - Sagu Mauler is okay and Thragtusk can get the job done in a pinch, but there's nothing as reliable as Sigarda is. You have Strixes, though, so Verdurous Gearhulk might be pretty viable.
I could see something like this:
4 Vet
1 DRS
1 Ooze
4 Strix
1 Witness
1 Tireless
1 Meren
1 Thragtusk
1 Verdurous
1 Garruk
2 JTMS
2 Nissa VF
4 Zenith
4 Therapy
3 Deed
2 Fatal Push
2 Decay
2 Brainstorm
2 SDT
1 Beast Within
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
2 Bayou
2 Trop
2 USea
8 Fetchland
1 Phyrexian Tower
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rubblekill
The thing is: jace is how we (I) want to win primarily with this deck. Blue decks do this, we can try to mimic that.
Entirely different, although legit, topic is: can we ride jace to victory as well as blue decks do without cantrips and counter spells like force of will (ability to tap out for jace with force protection)?
E. I don't know if I want brainstorm in the deck, as a 2 of in particular. I think I want to have 2-3 trackers as source of (even more) ca and possible incidental win condition. My reasoning is that in this kind of deck I don't want to regard gsz as a mean to win (as 8 rhino does, and does better) but as a utility card: ramp, gy hate, ca in the form of tracker, life gain in tusk.
Maybe this is the deck where meren can shine: recycling dead strixes gives even more ca and pw protection. So meren becomes a more viable stabilisation tool that's still tutorable.
E2. White can be a sb splash like shardless sometimes does. Tundra/scrubland in the side for canonist and/or meddling mage.
In my white builds the white is for path (of course) and Sigarda/Dromoka.
With jace and his friends, lots of protection in the form of strix AND pseudo path (remember what Arian said a couple days ago: the strix vs path argument. Now we can have both), we win with pws already, no space for Dromoka or Sigarda.
This is what we need to gain % vs miracles imho.
The nice part will be the deck building part: create a compromise between being good against midrange and good in stabilising fast vs delver and Drazi.
E3. With strix we open up possibilities for delirium. Surgery in the side. Probably traverse isn't needed since we are a gsz deck.
Yes, I'm excited about all this.
I don't think it's possible to splash for Sigarda since she's double white. Dromoka and Atraxa should probably be looked at though.
I don't think we can rely on Jace victory to any reasonable extent when we don't have any real way to protect him from spells like Maelstrom Pulse, Council's Judgment and burn spells.
Brainstorm could probably go out - maybe Painful Truths instead? Trackers are great but they do die to anything your opponent does. Maybe a Chameleon Colossus, and some kind of evasion source for him?
The deck probably wants a copy of Leovold.
Titania + Sylvan Safekeeper might be a reasonable game ending wincon for the deck.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rubblekill
The point of the deck is that we are not forced to splash for path anymore due to the new removal spell.
I want to make this work with a clean stable bug mana base. You are probably right regarding jace, but this is exactly what we need to solve. Main deck additional discard possibly? I don't know. Maybe more pws? Maybe colossus as you say. This is what we need to solve to make this build work.
It's not like we don't have creatures as win condition: we lack he big stupid finisher like Dromoka or Sigarda, but we still have thragtusk prime time thrun colossus. Of course they are slightly inferior to 8 rhino, but this is balanced by a bigger amount of ca and the access to the best planeswalker ever printed. Garruk and nissa are very strong win conditions as well.
I think we can build the deck, we only have to find the right balance.
I don't think we can rely on Jace as a wincon in general. He's great as a backup and utility piece but I don't think he can be our primary plan. If we're brainstorming every turn we are probably going to win the game soon anyway. He can also bounce and recur etb triggers on a lot of our stuff which is pretty nice - namely Thragtusk, Gearhulk and Eternal Witness.
A Liliana LH could be good. Less restrictive on deckbuilding than LOTV and provides removal for little guys + recursion for all our ETBs.
If you want a more powerful kill condition than turning 5/5s and 8/8s sideways, you could always run a Gifts Ungiven package for a combo like Recurring Nightmare, Palinchron, Eternal Witness and Reanimate.
I think you'll want to go with the standard Nic Fit plan of overloading your opponent's answers with additional threats - just slamming haymakers seems to be more reliable than protecting our wincon from removal, unless it's the Primeval Titan + Two Towers loop, but even that can't deal with Titan just eating a Swords immediately.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rubblekill
You might be right regarding jace. Shardless protects it with a mere 4 forces and discard and ca.
We have both discard and ca. And bigger dudes and deed as protection.
Do 4 forces make that big of a difference in shardless in protecting jace? I don't think so. And we still have other pws and creature to win.
Jace is not the only way to win. It's just the best one imho.
I'll build the deck and report back. Maybe you are right. Maybe I am right. Either way the testing is still going to be useful for everyone
Shardless in my experience usually wins by drowning the opponent in Goyfs and miscellaneous creatures off their CA engines rather than with Jace 90% of the time.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
You were talking about spell based protection of Jace. We have better dude than goyf anyways.
It's not like I said I am going to rely on a singleton jace as a win condition. I'm going to start at 3 jace, in addition to all the other stuff we talked about.
As you said, New Liliana seems like it can be good here. Leovold too.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I'm just saying that Shardless isn't a good example of a deck that protects Jace as a primary wincon. The only deck that really does that is IMO Miracles which naturally has lots of ways of preventing their JTMS from getting popped. I think if you were going to give a 3+Jace playstyle a try, you should try running Counterbalances.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I played Bug Nic fit for a long time. Usually with 2-3 jaces and winning with Jace (as in the + power) is not really worth trying. It is better to run some other win cons and use Jace as a CA engine. Without something like CB or multiple counter spells you are just too reliant on them not drawing answers. Getting Jace to 10+ loyalty and then losing it to a top deck is terrible.
Just play a stronghold and 1/2 other win cons. I played 2 Thragtusk at the time. I think I had Strix and some snap as well. Thragtusk was good because when you had a jace you could also just go into the tusk bounce mode and that made up for a lot. Not sure that is the best plan now. I also didnt play gsz because the targets were not good enough to play that over BS. I would highly recommend you play 4 brainstorm. That card is worth playing over other options and even at the cost of other slots. Its the best consistency card and this deck has quite a few variable cards.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom4ik
I played Bug Nic fit for a long time. Usually with 2-3 jaces and winning with Jace (as in the + power) is not really worth trying. It is better to run some other win cons and use Jace as a CA engine. Without something like CB or multiple counter spells you are just too reliant on them not drawing answers. Getting Jace to 10+ loyalty and then losing it to a top deck is terrible.
Just play a stronghold and 1/2 other win cons. I played 2 Thragtusk at the time. I think I had Strix and some snap as well. Thragtusk was good because when you had a jace you could also just go into the tusk bounce mode and that made up for a lot. Not sure that is the best plan now. I also didnt play gsz because the targets were not good enough to play that over BS. I would highly recommend you play 4 brainstorm. That card is worth playing over other options and even at the cost of other slots. Its the best consistency card and this deck has quite a few variable cards.
I'll take this in consideration. I am well aware of the power of brainstorm, but we have a consistency engine in GSZ, and a bunch of good tutorable creatures like leovold tracker tusk gearhulk. If you add planeswalkers you have a good balance of consistency, power, ca, removal. At least it seems like it to me: with strix deed and the new removal spell we have a decent amount of ground control, and we have good options for the creatures to gsz for as well. I like the idea of gearhulk to power up the random strixes or tracker/leo. Meren provides good ca and protection as well here.
Maybe I'm to excited by the new spoiled card, but I think now BUG can contend the spot for overall most balanced nic fit variant.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Yeah, not playing a full set of Brainstorm is madness. Cut the GSZ package, BS and Jace provide enough card selection to not need it, that gives you a lot more flexibility on what creatures you play.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
I've played PW Fit a lot.
Here is a brief sum-up of my experience:
- Vraska: useful for her -3. Rarely kill anyone.
- Jace: useful for +0 and -1. Bouncing your own snapcaster/thragtusk is really fun. Also make late cabal therapy very live. Good killer but unfortunately very slow.
- Liliana: useful for her -2. Her +1 is difficult if you play reactive spells (any sort of counterpsells). Cannot kill but is a true pain in the ass for any control deck.
- Ashiok: Miracle's nightmare but doesn't impact the board at all.
- Ob Nixilis (reignited): Faster kill than Jace. Outstanding when paired with Jace.
The best configuration, so far, has been Liliana + Jace + Ob nixilis.
The most difficult equation to solve is the mana base.
You cannot be fine playing spells requiring GG, BB, UU. You have to make a choice. Mine was to prohibit GG completely (no EW for example).
I also cut down GSZ to only 1 copy. Brainstorm + Ponder are generally speaking better for fixing your color/land needs or to assemble veteran + CT.
Ps: I forgot to say that playing so many different 1 drop and 2 drops is also a nightmare
Veteran -> G
Brainstorm -> U
CT-> B
Strix -> UB
Decay -> GB
So, my favorite configuration was swamp + tropical island to be able to cast everything.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Zenith isn't about consistency or toolboxing. Zenith is in the deck, primarily, so that we can play 8 Veteran Explorers early game while ensuring we don't draw too many dead cards in the lategame.
Zenith is significantly better at finding an Explorer than Brainstorm is.
Cutting Zeniths greatly reduces our odds of successfully getting Explorer triggers, meaning we spend more time durdling in the early game.
Other than Strix (which we play even if we have Zenith) there isn't much to be gained from widening our card selection to nongreen options. There are plenty of CA engine creatures, but we have Tireless Tracker who's one of the best options for that slot anyway. Glen Elendra is the only really useful one, but she's a lot of mana for a combo hate piece.
Edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ralf
I've played PW Fit a lot.
Here is a brief sum-up of my experience:
- Vraska: useful for her -3. Rarely kill anyone.
- Jace: useful for +0 and -1. Bouncing your own snapcaster/thragtusk is really fun. Also make late cabal therapy very live. Good killer but unfortunately very slow.
- Liliana: useful for her -2. Her +1 is difficult if you play reactive spells (any sort of counterpsells). Cannot kill but is a true pain in the ass for any control deck.
- Ashiok: Miracle's nightmare but doesn't impact the board at all.
- Ob Nixilis (reignited): Faster kill than Jace. Outstanding when paired with Jace.
The best configuration, so far, has been Liliana + Jace + Ob nixilis.
The most difficult equation to solve is the mana base.
You cannot be fine playing spells requiring GG, BB, UU. You have to make a choice. Mine was to prohibit GG completely (no EW for example).
I also cut down GSZ to only 1 copy. Brainstorm + Ponder are generally speaking better for fixing your color/land needs or to assemble veteran + CT.
Did you give any tries to Nissa, Vital Force or Liliana, the Last Hope?
Also Garruk Relentless.
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Navsi
Did you give any tries to Nissa, Vital Force or Liliana, the Last Hope?
Also Garruk Relentless.
No for Nissa.
Garruk was dismissed as his ulty was not very useful in a pure PW shell (not enough creature to profit).
Re: [Primer/Deck] Nic Fit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Navsi
I'm just saying that Shardless isn't a good example of a deck that protects Jace as a primary wincon. The only deck that really does that is IMO Miracles which naturally has lots of ways of preventing their JTMS from getting popped. I think if you were going to give a 3+Jace playstyle a try, you should try running Counterbalances.
JTMS is not primary wincon in Miracles as well. They use Angels or Mentor as wincon.
JTMS becomes a wincon after gaing the advantages that the oppment has no cards in the hand.
