[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

I've since moved away from Qweerios' list as I found that it has an abysmal stoneblade matchup. Of the 30 or so games I played with it, I only ended up winning 4-5 of them. This was reinforced through tournament play as well with the list.

Essentially, jace would land and then I would be drowned in card advantage--if your opponent is fatesealing you, they're doing it wrong. Nic Fit can't present a fast enough clock for them to even be remotely threatened of losing Jace that early--brainstorm refills their hand for the relevant next turn counter on Maelstrom Pulse. Sometimes it doesn't, and those games go better, until they drop another one.

Thrun is the only thing that gets there in this matchup with that list--between swords and snapcaster mage, we don't play enough relevant threats for them to waste removal on that they can't just sandbag those things or keep them hidden with brainstorms.

So I've went to a list that leans far more heavily on black (so much so GSZ rarely feels relevant anymore but I still keep it to grab my singletons):

//Creatures: 11
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Abyssal Persecutor
1x Grave Titan
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Scavenging Ooze

//Spells: 19
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Pernicious Deed
3x Duress
2x Hymn to Tourach

//Planeswalkers: 5
3x Liliana of the Veil
2x Garruk, Primal Hunter

//Artifacts:
3x Sensei's Divining Top

//Lands: 22
2x Bayou
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Polluted Delta
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Phyrexian Tower
6x Forest
5x Swamp

Things have never felt so good with this deck as they do right here.

Plays like turn 1 duress, turn 2 therapy / explorer / therapy, feel so, so, so good. Or the occasional, turn 1 duress, turn 2 therapy / explorer / therapy / hymn.

I tried percy beforehand, didn't like him. But now with duress and hymn to back him up, he actually provides an extremely brutal scenario. They need to top deck an answer to him. Furthermore, the fact that he only costs 4, flies, and I run three of him, makes him one of the best win cons I've experienced so far.

Previously I ran 2, he got sworded, that was that. But with this list he rarely has to go in unguarded. Grave Titan is also just plainly better than Primeval. He's not Sun Titan, which is unfortunate, but he's at least better than primeval. Running so many lands that just didn't really operate in the first few turns of the game was too difficult against wastelands and just in general for the speed of the deck.

I'm in a position to get the lands to incorporate white into the deck. So I'll likely be doing that soon. I may end up pretty much stealing Arianhod's list, minus moat because fuck that price tag but, I'll work something out. Sigarda is going to be huge.

Here's what I've been working on -- the red list that I've mentioned a few times. I've been testing it for a while now, and I feel that, while rough, it's at least ready to present.


4x Veteran Explorer
3x Eternal Witness
3x Huntmaster of the Fells
1x Broodmate Dragon
1x Primeval Titan

3x Sensei's Divining Top

3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

4x Cabal Therapy
4x Burning Wish
2x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Harmonize
3x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Scapeshift

4x Badlands
2x Bayou
3x Forest
3x Mountain
1x Phyrexian Tower
2x Swamp
4x Taiga
2x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills

//SB:
1x Chainer's Edict
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Creeping Corrosion
1x Damnation
1x Deathmark
1x Firespout
1x Flashfires
1x Haunting Echoes
1x Hull Breach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Mind Shatter
1x Scapeshift
1x Tsunami
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Wandering Stream


As I said, a lot of this is rough, but promising. I won't say much about the deck here, but if there are questions and/or advice, I'll happily pursue a dialog.

Also, I had a thought as far as the name issue goes. Explorer is definitely the marquee card of the archetype, but his name isn't exactly inspiring. Now, there is a card from Odyssey that does the same thing Explorer does: New Frontiers. This sounds a lot more like a deck to me, especially since it is technically accurate as far as the deck goes: the deck is in fact a New Frontier for the format, since a lot of the cards we play have never or infrequently see play elsewhere in the format. The only issue that I have with that as a deck name is that it COULD get confused with New Horizons, but that also hasn't been a deck for over a year, so I'm not too worried about it. What do you guys think? Better than Nic Fit, at least?

@ Arianrhod. I think a singleton Boseiju might be useful. You can grab it with primeval titan and go off without worrying about countermagic. Another thing is whether the singleton nightmare is worth running. You only have 3 ways to try and dig for it without the rectors. It might be better off as a third gsz?

@Kich:
Your list seems to be moving in the direction mine is. Duress+percy is very strong. I cut Hymns because they almost always just make spellsnare not a competely dead card. That said, they are still really strong card and I can understand wanting to play them.

The only thing I dont like is that you cut Ewit and dryad arbor but still have 4 GSZ. I went down to 3 GSZ and I would still never cut Ewit. Also I still cant justify running grave titan over prime in a manabase that can easily support treetops and volraths strongholds.

Here is the list I have been running for reference:
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Eternal Witness
3x Abyssal Persecutor
1x Primeval Titan
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Scavenging Ooze

3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Pernicious Deed
3x Duress
2x Darkblast

3x Liliana of the Veil
2x Garruk, Primal Hunter

3x Sensei's Divining Top

3x Bayou
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills
2x Windswept Heath
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
3x Swamp
2x Treetop Village

@Arianrhod:
I like the name New Frontiers and I really like that list. Burning wish > scapeshift combo finish seems really good. And the wishboard in general seems like a good idea.

How has harmonized been working? Would you recommend that for other nic fit lists? And why play it over phyrexian arena?

Are 2 maindeck scapeshifts necessary when they can be wished for when you should have 6+ mana available anyways?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kich867

I've since moved away from Qweerios' list as I found that it has an abysmal stoneblade matchup. Of the 30 or so games I played with it, I only ended up winning 4-5 of them. This was reinforced through tournament play as well with the list.

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That's quite interesting, especially because Stoneblade is the matchup I have tested the deck against the most. I am curious as how you sideboard against Stoneblade and what makes you lose to them so consistently. I have found that resolving a single Garruk, Liliana, Kodama, or Primeval usually seals the game. The only major qualm I ever had with Stoneblade was a T3-4 Jace on an empty board and versions of the deck packing 3-4 copies of Counterspell alongside 3-4 copies of Snapcaster Mage.

@Arian: That list looks pretty nice. Such an "I win" button is interesting. Since you said that the list is still rough here is what I would think without testing:

- play full amount of GSZ before Harmonize: Not sure why you did this but imo it looks very wrong. With this type of win plan I would think you want Explorer in every game if possible and don't mind two.

- do you need 3 Mountain or could you replace two of them with Stomping Ground? Fetching Mountain with Explorer is nice with an active Valakut but I am not sure how often that happens. On the other hand going from 13 to 15 Green sources this should lead to consirably less Mulligans.

- I think this looks like a list that wants 4 Deed and 4 Tops. Just my feeling.

For the Wishboard: I think you need more room for actual SB cards like Yard hate or Discard. 9 Wish targets should be the maximum.

- One Pulse should be enough as emergency artifact/enchanment(Planeswalker hate, no need for Hull Breach and Creeping Corrosion (Seeds of Innocence).
- No real need for Flashfires. Plains decks are beaten with wishing for Removal or Scapeshift.
- Damnation and Virtues Ruin already cover the Mass Removal. No need for Firespout.
- Chainer's Edict and Deathmark could be one Innocent Blood.

Thanks for the feedback. To start:

Harmonize was literally because I had two spots that I wasn't sure what to do with, and drawing cards is never a bad thing. Also, since this list runs substantially more land than the usual Explorer deck (25), I wanted something that could refill me around turn 3-4, since I've burned out most of my hand by then. Tao's point about the increased importance of GSZ is definitely relevant, though, and although I feel like I want a few more green creatures for the increased Zenith count, 4 GSZ is probably correct for this version. At least 3, for sure.

The mountains are unnecessary -- good call there. I feel dirty whenever shocklands in legacy are even considered, but it's probably not a bad idea.

As far as the board goes, I usually start with a full 15-slot wishboard, and then narrow it down from there depending on what proves itself and what fails. Good call on Seeds of Innocence -- I always forget that card exists. The main reason I want that in my board honestly is because I'm really tired of losing to Metalworker, and I feel like if they have anything remotely resembling a slow hand, it's going to blow them out. It'll probably still end up getting cut eventually, but it's a good starting spot to test. Chainer's Edict has actually been pretty good for me, since the flashback cost isn't really that bad for this deck. Flashfires is currently in testing just because of how amazing Tsunami has been for me. Odds are very high that it's not going to be staying, at this point.

The maindeck Scapeshifts have been fine. Sometimes I can't find or can't resolve a Burning Wish, and having additional copies to draw into in the maindeck is pretty good. Considering that 7 lands = death, I like finding them regularly.

Boseiju is something I've thought about, but rejected. It comes into play tapped, and doesn't help THAT much of the deck. Also, by the point at which I want to be Scapeshifting, they should have had to blow their Force already, or else they'll be tapped out, or else I've have naturally hit a Scapeshift and BW for Mind Shatter before going off in their face. I'm not too worried about it. And even if they counter Scapeshift, I'm just going to do something else stupid to them.

Nightmare in this deck was never a consideration. Even when I knew I wasn't putting Kokusho in (Valakut does the same thing, essentially, and I didn't want to waste a slot on Empath with my other 6's being GSZable), I knew Nightmare would be run. It's dumb with Broodmate, and since the red list is running 3 Witnesses currently, it's easier to set up that engine. It's a little annoying to find sometimes, since I'm used to having Rectors, but Tops + lots of shuffles do in fact get there.

Also, just a quick note -- Haunting Echoes is a hilarious effective win condition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

That's quite interesting, especially because Stoneblade is the matchup I have tested the deck against the most. I am curious as how you sideboard against Stoneblade and what makes you lose to them so consistently. I have found that resolving a single Garruk, Liliana, Kodama, or Primeval usually seals the game. The only major qualm I ever had with Stoneblade was a T3-4 Jace on an empty board and versions of the deck packing 3-4 copies of Counterspell alongside 3-4 copies of Snapcaster Mage.

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The list I played against ran something like this counter package:

4x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce
2x Spell Snare
1x Mana Leak

and

4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Swords

A resolved jace almost always resulted in a loss unless I could kill it the next turn. Primeval Titan rarely provided any actual benefit and strictly ended games I had already won. It was always just a means to get them to scoop. I would play him, I would get 1-2 treetops and/or whatever else I hadn't gotten yet, and EOT they would do some combination of Brainstorm > Sword / Sword / Snapcaster Sword or after they brainstorm and fetched, brainstorm again on their turn, then sword him.

Treetops almost never did anything, they would trade with Mishra's Factories or get sworded, or they just simply can't attack into a batterskull after primeval titan is down. Once you give them enough mana, you can't kill Batterskull, and Jace drowns you in card advantage.

The only actual thing your opponent needs to do is drop Jace and brainstorm every turn with him and you should lose, they're not just drawing 2 cards a turn they're perfecting their hand at will. The only relevant creature I had previously in this matchup was Thrun, I tried Kodama for quite awhile but never really got why he was good--batterskull kills him and they still gain 2 life.

Furthermore, Liliana certainly doesn't auto-win the matchup. Jace beats her, cleanly, if Jace and Liliana are both on the field pumping her hurts you a lot more than it hurts him unless you're top decking, in which case you're basically fucked anyways because he's drawing 2 cards a turn. Liliana's sac effect is useful, but only if you can actually keep them on one dude for a long enough period of time.

Garruk can be ok, but again, when Geist of Saint Traft is around protecting him is difficult, but I agree--between the two I'd rather have a Garruk down vs Jace than Liliana.

Here's how most of the games went:
I would ramp up, or he would keep me off my ramp / tops (he burnt forces on turn 1 tops like a boss) which hurt.. Then he'd drop a turn 2-3 Jace, and then I basically lose. Without any card filtering or draw, you simply can't keep up against someone with an eternally perfect hand. Batterskull nullifies Thrun and once you give them enough mana you fundamentally can't kill batterskull without something like a Pulse with Deed already on the table, which is 8 mana.

I don't know how your opponents were using Jace, but if they weren't brainstorming every turn they were doing it wrong. They will find Batterskull, and then Kodama is pretty useless.

Even worse, is when Elspeth hits the table. Then shit pretty much hits the fan because there are virtually no fliers there. Planeswalkers become useless and you can't remove batterskull. Batterskull and Jace win them that matchup. You can rarely even get batterskull with therapy after they fetch it, they brainstorm it away and that's that.

I guess to put it succinctly, if you ramp--they're hitting a turn 2-3 jace against an empty board. You have no other real alternatives because our ramp involves the first 2 turns of our deck, they can let it happen because they run enough basics to benefit from it, and now jace is against an empty board, he just replaced himself with a brainstorm, and the likelihood that your opponent doesn't have a counter in their hand for Maelstrom Pulse is frighteningly low.

This is why I added discard to the deck, almost exclusively for this reason. Because I now have multiple lines of play--I can either completely destroy their hand, utterly and completely, or I can just ramp and then follow it up with a discard + pulse clean up crew. The match up still doesn't even feel in my favor yet though. Snapcaster Mage, Elspeth, Jace, Batterskull, and Brainstorm are quite the brick wall. The games always go long unless I just blow his hand out, one point reaching moments where he was snapping back force of wills to hard counter my late-game tops. Oh, Geist is pretty brutal too. He's uniquely effective at killing planeswalkers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tao

Thoughtseize/Inquisition are going to take something relevant anyway, like removal, a Liliana, a Deed or a Zenith but their Swords to Plowshares has no good targets except for Explorer. So you don't want to give them a good target which is why "Explorer go" is wrong in the scenario described on the last page.

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If their discard is not going for an explorer anyway but something relevant then in a roundabout way you confirm their arguments against not playing Explorer turn one. Basically it was that Explorer is the 'nitro' of the deck but not an essential necessity (like certain cards in combo decks for instance). So if it's sworded or countered it's not the end of the world.

Literal translation from dutch: "If the Explorer trades with STP, fine, no harm done. You just adjust your gameplan a bit. And should explorer trade with Fow then you have value and is every discard spell you play thereafter even more crippling."

And an additional argument was that an opponent would save the removal for a 'real' threat anyway.

@Kich867- you should really try the red splash versions. Punishing Fire is the best card against Stoneblade by a long shot. It kills Brainstorming Jaces, Germs, tokens trying to grab equips, tokens defending planeswalkers, Snapcasters jumping out of nowhere..
I feel your beef with Kodama and Prime as i feel they are subpar compared to Grave Titan and Broodmate Dragon (haven't tried Percy so idk about that).
Stoneblade WILL have Swords, but if they want to use two just to kill two dragons, that's fine by me. Also- SDT has to resolve, its kinda pseudo Jace for us. Use discard to fish for counters. After SB the card to watch for is Surgical.

Valakut is also a way to deal with Jace, kind of. I really feel that the increased stability of the pure GB version's land base, while nice, isn't worth failing to splash. Each splash color grants a backup toolbox, giving increased flexibility and strength. Besides that, the splash creatures turned on by those colors are often dramatically more powerful than what straight GB offers. I'm sure Qweerios is going to come out of the woodwork and yell at me, but IMO, there's no reason not to splash. Any splash you do will give you an increased ease of dealing with Jace, at the very least. Straight GB really only has Pulse, Thrun, and Kodama to deal with it. Thrun is really small by legacy standards, and Kodama can push a bit of damage through but will usually die in the attempt. Pulse really just isn't good enough by itself.

Disclaimer: I haven't gotten a blue list to actually work yet. That's next on my to-do list after I finish my red version. It's irritating because a lot of the things that BUG wants to do seem in direct opposition to what Explorer wants to do. There's obviously going to be Jaces of our own, which seems pretty good. Fact or Fiction in some quantity is probably a good idea too. Beyond that, though, I haven't really figured it out yet.

Grave Titan works wonders vs. Jace, too. Pulse, Thrun, Grave Titan and Kodoma give you plenty of answers to Jace

Thank you for the detailed matchup analysis Kich. It seems like you practiced against a lot of classic Stoneblade lists. However, I can't help but notice that you made no mention to how you sideboard. To answer your question on Jace, yes, my opponents do brainstorm extensively.

Here is how I consistently beat Stoneblade and Esperblade. My list:


Creatures (11)
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Kodama of the North Tree
1 Primeval Titan

Instant/Sorcery (15)
1 Darkblast
3 Innocent Blood
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Maelstrom Pulse

Artifact/Enchantment (6)
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed

Planeswalkers (6)
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Lands (22)
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Treetop Village
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
4 Forest
3 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
2 Damnation
3 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Extirpate
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Obstinate Baloth


G1 against Stone and Esper can be difficult if Jace and Bob go unanswered for too long, it degenerates very fast. There isn't that many tools mainboard to deal with Jace preemptively (Pulsing a Jace is a losing deal to begin with). G2 is nearly impossible to lose. I usually side in 3 TS, 3 Duress for 3 Bloods, 3 Deeds.

-Don't rush the Veteramp without landing a bomb the same turn and another one the turn after. This is how you bait counterspells when you have no spot discard.
-Don't be afraid to play an Explorer without a sac outlet if you can manage your first 4 land drops without him. Let him beat, and carefully plan your mana for the next turns, don't worry if he gets sent plowing.
-Don't GSZ for an Explorer unless you have something like double Therapy + a win-con in hand. By using GSZ to get an explorer out you are losing card quality, advantage, and board position. Not a good trade for this matchup.
-Therapy for Stoneforge blindly when your opponent has 1-2 lands and Jace when your opponent has 2-3. If you do land an early double therapy via Explorer, name brainstorm first and get rid of 1) Jace, and 2) SFM.
-Snapcasters in this matchup are nearly worthless for your opponent unless he packs Counterspell somewhere in his 75.
-Don't activate Treetops when your opponent has 4+ cards in his hand or isn't tapped out. A Treetop on the board usually delays Jace by a few turns.
-Keep them off SFM and Jace and they have no win-cons. If you manage to destroy the Batterskull, you have half of the deck already beat.
-Landing a single Titan will completely deplete their options and leave you way ahead. If they deal with it so easely, then you forgot to mention that they had a Jace on the field for 5+ turns and they are just playing with their food at this point.

With your list, I boarded in duresses and tsunami's. Tsunami's never really resolved, duresses helped immensely though.

With my current list, I feel the matchup has moved from unfavorable to even.

I would disagree with a few assessments: your opponent has no reason to plow Veteran Explorer, it just gives them more mana to play with counters and batterskull shenanigans. The only card they actually have to plow is Primeval Titan, and maybe Wickerbough Elder. Kodama can be chumped by batterskull or some combination of a factory and a snapcaster mage.

My experience is they just sit back and hang out. They keep brainstorms to avoid therapies, then they can just drop him next turn. Killing batterskull is notoriously difficult.

I mean, you kind of stated why I feel my revisions provide a better stoneblade matchup overall. Your response to their deck is to remove poor creature kill options and unnecessary sweepers for more discard. Innocent Blood never really did much for me to begin with, I may drop Hymn's to put 2 back in as another way to kill percy, but I still haven't run into that issue yet.

I have been toying with this for a bit now and I was wanting to get some feedback on a possible 1 or 2 slotting haunting echoes in the main. With hymm Lilly and all of are removal this would be the nut high and gaurntee are victory.

Hey, an update to my previous list:

Creatures (16):
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Eternal Witness
1x Sun Titan
1x Grave Titan
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Abyssal Persecutor
1x Protean Hulk
1x Spike Weaver
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze

Spells(17):
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Diabolic Intent
2x Duress

Artifacts and Enchantments (4):
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

Planeswalkers (2):
1x Karn Liberated
1x Liliana of the Veil

Lands (21):
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Windswept Heath
2x Swamp
3x Forest
2x Plains
2x Bayou
2x Phyrexian Tower
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Bojuka Bog

// Sideboard
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Peacekeeper
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Gaddock Teeg
3x Extirpate
4x Pithing Needle

Out of interest, why the Grave Titan over a second Sun Titan? I was always under the impression that recurring Deed while swinging was a stronger finisher than making a couple zombies.

@Eggo:
The reason why I like this deck so much, is because it can get the best possible card at any time versus your opponent. A different titan for a different situation. Although Sun Titan is really powerful in recurring a deed/witness, sometimes (at least in my opinion) you really need those extra blockers/attackers to put some pressure. Even if Grave Titan gets removed, you still keep the tokens. A second reason is that it's a bit harder to cast Sun Titan than Grave Titan, since it costs WW (BB is easier to get, especially with Phyrexian Tower and such), so I didn't feel like playing 2 Sun Titans.

Got a box of AVR for 10$ (go store credit!), found a sigarda in there ^_^!! So now I just need to grab a scrublands and a savannah and a few other things for the white splash and I'm set.

Nice! I actually bought a Sigarda in advance, just to be sure :D