[Primer] Nic Fit

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

The point is that with jest few different cards you can answer a far wider range of decks. As said before i'm in love with Humility, a single card that's usefull against 80% of the field and win by theirself MU otherwise difficult (Elves and S&T). Elves doesnt' give damn vs Sandwurm or Cruel, and even Curse is often not enough, neither anything else you play beside Humility. And Elves is a MU that you have to consider, at least in my meta.
Other not so good Mu with your list: Eldrazi. You can't deed them (realistically), if you put Sandwurm or Cruel they probably beats you anyway too fast. The only card that can save you here is Moat (for example), or again Humility.

@Miracle: Yes, you will take Curse+Cruel, just to let them exile one of them with Council and than snap-council the other one? Or just play Entreat and gg?
The reality is that only Dovescape+Curse can safe you against Miracle, obviously since we are talking about the strongest deck around. Both Cruel and Sandwurm are not so good there alone, sadly, and they can easily control and win with Jace if there's only one of the three ench in play.

@Midrange: Yes, but they are the only decks that can have Maelstrom Pulse, + Snap and decay for Grove ecc. And cruel is pretty bad when they can just sac a drs or a strix and beat us with Goyf/nemesi and so on.

@Burn: As above, the mu isn't good, and stp is good here for sure, but the only way to be sure to win is Cop: Red. With no lifegain they can just play 2 pop/fireblast/vortex and win at any time.

@Delver: Here the point is not what ench you play, but the structure: glad to see that you too play 3 Carpet, i'm totally sold about it.

@D&T: As above, is about the structure. Another MU where spot removal can really help us, for sure.

@Combo: as said before, "Nether void" can't be enough in any case. Elves has Craddle and a board before we cast it, S&T can just wait to have 6 lands (another reason: Nether+Veteran is not that good).

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Most of the Miracles lists around me aren't playing CJ, and those that do are only playing one. Even in that scenario, Sandwurm Convergence still ends the game. If you're on an Entreat plan rather than Mentor, just swap Curse for Sandwurm Convergence. They can beat you if they have double CJ into Terminus the Wurm tokens or something along those lines, but they need literally everything (Judgment, Terminus, Snapcaster, and a threat) to not lose and I'm ok with that in game 1. We still have Living Plane for game 2. Also Dovescape + Curse doesn't deal with Keranos, and the other problem is that Dovescape is very risky to cast because they might just kill us out of nowhere with a ton of birds.

Midrange - If they have a board presence, Sandwurm Convergence makes their day pretty bad, and also kills them eventually. If they don't have a board presence, they lose to Cruel Reality. Humility is all well and good but I'd rather not turn off my own Rectors, thanks very much - if I land Humility without immediate followup I'm risking them just making Jace and enging the game immediately.

Elves we can fetch Curse rather than NVoid if they have a board. S&T folds to Sandwurm, Nether Void beats Omnitell.

I think you're trying to hit 100% lockout too much. Humility, Living Plane and Dovescape all have very real downsides and risk you being unable to prevent the opponent from using it against you, and have matchups where they are awkward or actively bad for you. I'd rather play the effects I have at the moment because they are a lot less likely to cause problems for me, and they don't get wrecked if you draw them in the wrong order / at the wrong time / your opponent sneaks something onto the battlefield before you can put the other half of your combo down. Humility in particular is even worse because it removes your best source of answers (Rector).

On Nyx Fit - have you guys thought of combining Moat + Sandwurm Convergence? When combined it says no creature can attack you. All you need now is a (quick) kill condition.

Moat, on its own, gives you enough time to deal w/ Elves! and shuts down Eldrazi/D&T nicely. It also doesn't mess with your own plans under any circumstance.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

On Nyx Fit - have you guys thought of combining Moat + Sandwurm Convergence? When combined it says no creature can attack you. All you need now is a kill condition.

Moat, on its own, gives you enough time to deal w/ Elves! and shuts down Eldrazi nicely. It also doesn't mess with your own plans under any circumstance.

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Too many matchups where it does nothing / not enough. Elves, Eldrazi and BUG midrange are the only decks which it really shuts out much, and we already have reasonable matchups against two of those. Curse of Death's Hold or Pernicious Deed probably deals with Elves more effectively while having more relevance elsewhere.

Deed is a nice get-out-of-jail-free card, but it's likely you can't activate it the turn you tutor it via Rector. Curse does shut down the Elves! tap/untap machinegun DRS, so you do have a very valid point there.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

Deed is a nice get-out-of-jail-free card, but it's likely you can't activate it the turn you tutor it via Rector.

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You can if you sacrificed Rector to Phyrexian Tower, but yeah it can be difficult if you're using Therapy instead.

Moreover, Curse is far from being a gg against Elves. They have Nissa and Natural order for Behemot to close the game with just 3 between Nettle and drs, for example. And they can easily destroy Curse with a Reclamation, for example.

@Navsi: i don't play living plane, anyway. Entreat is now widely played as 2x often, as you can see from the most successful builds on Tcdecks, while Mentor is decreasing. I don't see Keranos being played at all, otherwise, in the last... two years?

Nether Void don't beats Omnitell, at all: it slows him for X turns, where X could even be 1-2 by just grabbing some answer with Cunning Wish.
I understand your thoughts about less risky-no hardlock cards, but i simply don't think that's the best way to follow for a deck like our, especially in a list with Leap that can easily chain 2 rectors. Moreover, i'm playing Sandwurm =)

Edit: anyway i don't see the reason of playing Curse maindeck without any lock linked to it, since its' bad/dead in many MU.

Feels like people are forgetting that we still play Deed in Nyx Fit. That still covers a lot of bases.

Anyhow all this comparing between 1-of's is incredibly tiring for me, honestly it's putting me off the deck before I've even had a chance to test the new cards. Will try to just come back next week with thoughts from testing.

Please keep in mind that this deck in particular is more meta-dependent than most nic fit variants and people will end up shaping both their sideboard AND mainboard to appropriately deal with what they face locally and what they expect at large. This will shape people's decisions, even if we try to generally keep our theorizing at a "general meta" type of level.

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

Moreover, Curse is far from being a gg against Elves. They have Nissa and Natural order for Behemot to close the game with just 3 between Nettle and drs, for example. And they can easily destroy Curse with a Reclamation, for example.

@Navsi: i don't play living plane, anyway. Entreat is now widely played as 2x often, as you can see from the most successful builds on Tcdecks, while Mentor is decreasing. I don't see Keranos being played at all, otherwise, in the last... two years?

Nether Void don't beats Omnitell, at all: it slows him for X turns, where X could even be 1-2 by just grabbing some answer with Cunning Wish.
I understand your thoughts about less risky-no hardlock cards, but i simply don't think that's the best way to follow for a deck like our, especially in a list with Leap that can easily chain 2 rectors. Moreover, i'm playing Sandwurm =)

Edit: anyway i don't see the reason of playing Curse maindeck without any lock linked to it, since its' bad/dead in many MU.

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I'd play Living Plane before messing around with Humility and Dovescape.

Miracles' non-Jace options can all be answered by Deed at the very least. If you don't see many Mentors around you can probably also cut Curse.

Void means after Showing Omniscience, their fastest option is to Wish (next turn) and then cast (the turn after) a card that either answers Void or finds Emrakul. That's a lot of time when you consider we have a lot of outs to this plan and two turns to cast them in - 6+ discard spells and 4 Rectors all stop them - Rector either getting Sandwurm Convergence / Cruel Reality if they make Emrakul, or Sterling Grove if they try to kill Nether Void.

Dropping the Curse maindeck is probably fine. I see a lot of D&T in my meta.

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Originally Posted by Navsi

Too many matchups where it does nothing / not enough. Elves, Eldrazi and BUG midrange are the only decks which it really shuts out much, and we already have reasonable matchups against two of those. Curse of Death's Hold or Pernicious Deed probably deals with Elves more effectively while having more relevance elsewhere.

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Elves is able to avoid moat and can come back from death's hold thanks to reclamation sage. Unless you add a sterling grove on the board (does not work enought to save moat since they can recure it with symbiot)

Does Nyx Fit not run doomwake just because it isn't a static ability? Because that dude is a fucking fisting in Enchantress

@ doomwake giant : previous list played him but it is clunky with evo-leap, hence curse of death's hold. Also we don't play as much enchantement as they do, so he isn't reliable.

@ lock : do we need an hard lock ? I mean an heavy lock could work as well, or some trash lock, even punk lock :tongue:. More seriously the dream of dovescape + curse + humility + living plane is nice but a bit overkill. In game I've never ever gone for the living plane + curse lock. Either I have other things to do (like you know stayin' alive (ah ah ah stayin' alive)) or I'm already winning (thank you nicol bolas for this cruel reality). But I could see playing void to win some time, but the nombo with explorer worries me.

@ sterling grove : I'm questioning myself (and by the way you kind sirs) about sterling grove. most of the time G1 they don't have enchantment hate (only decay :laugh: try to remove sandwurm with that, suckers ! ) so I play them as a 3 mana enlightened tutor (and that sucks) vs ultra grindy match up grove combo nicely with starfield but otherwise I wonder about its utility, might decrease the numbers.

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Originally Posted by Plm

@ doomwake giant : previous list played him but it is clunky with evo-leap, hence curse of death's hold. Also we don't play as much enchantement as they do, so he isn't reliable.

@ lock : do we need an hard lock ? I mean an heavy lock could work as well, or some trash lock, even punk lock :tongue:. More seriously the dream of dovescape + curse + humility + living plane is nice but a bit overkill. In game I've never ever gone for the living plane + curse lock. Either I have other things to do (like you know stayin' alive (ah ah ah stayin' alive)) or I'm already winning (thank you nicol bolas for this cruel reality). But I could see playing void to win some time, but the nombo with explorer worries me.

@ sterling grove : I'm questioning myself (and by the way you kind sirs) about sterling grove. most of the time G1 they don't have enchantment hate (only decay :laugh: try to remove sandwurm with that, suckers ! ) so I play them as a 3 mana enlightened tutor (and that sucks) vs ultra grindy match up grove combo nicely with starfield but otherwise I wonder about its utility, might decrease the numbers.

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It could be a very good sideboard card against decks that board in removal? (wear and tear, for example)

@Doomwake: Never liked that guy as said from the beginning, in Ench it's another thing because you can activate costellation 2-3 times in a single turn, here no. Plus my list (and as far i see now even other lists with Leap) is almost removal-proof.

@Lock and 1x: As said by square_two, personal tastes and testing: i've made an 1-1 preboard, 2-2 post board match against one of the best italian player with Miracle, and Dovescape is our only way to establish something he can't deal with. You have to assume that, since the long of that match, he would have council and snap-council ready, so Cruel/wurm do very little before dying.

@Plm&Sterling grove: true, but i'm not disliking them too much. You can probably go down to 2, but then it's worse post-side... dunno.

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Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

@Lock and 1x: As said by square_two, personal tastes and testing: i've made an 1-1 preboard, 2-2 post board match against one of the best italian player with Miracle, and Dovescape is our only way to establish something he can't deal with. You have to assume that, since the long of that match, he would have council and snap-council ready, so Cruel/wurm do very little before dying.

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I just realized that with Dovescape in the deck, there are some cool opportunities for an immediate shut-out:
1) 2 Rectors in hand? Grab Dovescape if you can tutor with the first one. Now your second is counter/swords proof and you can use it to grab Sandwurm/Curse for a nice lock

2) Rector + Evo Leap available? Leap the Rector and grab Dovescape. You get a replacement creature to play out and leap - voila - in 1-2 turns you can get Sandwurm/Curse. It's not like you are going to die in one turn from a sudden swarm of birds

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Originally Posted by Plm

@ doomwake giant : previous list played him but it is clunky with evo-leap, hence curse of death's hold. Also we don't play as much enchantement as they do, so he isn't reliable.

@ lock : do we need an hard lock ? I mean an heavy lock could work as well, or some trash lock, even punk lock :tongue:. More seriously the dream of dovescape + curse + humility + living plane is nice but a bit overkill. In game I've never ever gone for the living plane + curse lock. Either I have other things to do (like you know stayin' alive (ah ah ah stayin' alive)) or I'm already winning (thank you nicol bolas for this cruel reality). But I could see playing void to win some time, but the nombo with explorer worries me.

@ sterling grove : I'm questioning myself (and by the way you kind sirs) about sterling grove. most of the time G1 they don't have enchantment hate (only decay :laugh: try to remove sandwurm with that, suckers ! ) so I play them as a 3 mana enlightened tutor (and that sucks) vs ultra grindy match up grove combo nicely with starfield but otherwise I wonder about its utility, might decrease the numbers.

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@ lock : as new heavy enchants are soft locks + big clock, there's less utility in hard lock combo, indeed.

@sterling grove : it was wonderful with enchant-creatures. But as leap build decrease them, it's less usefull than it was. Still a must with starfield.
So yes, we probably go less or put in enlightened tutor (leyline of the void/helm in side? 0:) )

So I've been thinking a bit more about the Collective Brutality discussion from the other day, and I think I'm coming around on it a little. Not as a MB card, but as a SB card. Being so versatile it's an easy card to slip in whenever you want a little more of anything.

Speaking of a little bit of everything - what are your thoughts on Vizier of the Menagerie + Worldly Tutor?

That'd effectively allow you to "GSZ" for Ranger of Eos/Confidant. Slip a Shriekmaw into the list and you can GSZ for Terror.

Hmm the problem is you have to play Worldy Tutor in your fair deck, which is inherent card disadvantage (with Vizier's "synergy" it comes out just even). I feel GSZ is too superior for us even to consider Worldly, surely they are a bunch of tech non-green creatures but 2x1ing yourself is not where you want to be IMO..

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Originally Posted by Brael

If you're more interested in it, and want to read about similar ideas from pro's rather than just my own theories on the game check out Aj Sacher's piece on mana sum theory, Zvi Moshowitz (sp?) pieces on ramp, and Kiblers pieces on resource conversion. Parts from all of that are borrowed for how SE's engine works. You could read our own theories on it too, I linked a couple posts ago to the relevant section of the old thread.

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Re: This entire post: The alt modes of discard vs removal seems really tantalizing and I also see the "card filtering" of Brutality but you make some convincing arguments and thank you for suggesting some good reading material.

The more I think about it, the more I like channeler initiate. Also with him and Croc, maybe a return to wickerbough elder? He can really do some damage with an initiate.