[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

i've been testing this deck (i'm a junk player so transmuting my junk deck to nic fit is quite easy) BGw color is my choice, dont get me wrong but i drop sun and grave titan to my list reason being is plenty of games i used to play in mws i seldom draw a titan and some of my games it sucks when i saw titan(s) in my opening hand w/ 1-2 hands w/ spells capable of playing it in turn 3, so my current creature line up are:
1 dryad arbor
1 sigarda
1 kitchen finks
1 qasali pridemage
1 kodama of the north tree
2 thrun the last troll
2 eternal witness
2 scavenging ooze
4 veteran explorer
Sigarda is totally worth an addition to this deck, a 5/5 hexproof flyer w/ anti-annilhator is really no joke, when i have 6 lands in play w/ a gsz from that point i will gsz'ed a sigarda right away.
i have 1-2 flexible slots in my deck i'm planing to make -1 thrun, +1 diabolic intent or 3 oozes, -1 thrun.

btw here's my list:
1 dryad arbor
1 sigarda
1 kitchen finks
1 qasali pridemage
1 kodama of the north tree
2 thrun the last troll
2 eternal witness
2 scavenging ooze
4 veteran explorer

4 cabal therapy
2 thoughtseize
4 green sun's zenith
3 maelstrom pulse

4 swords to plowshares

3 pernicious deed

2 liliana of the veil

3 sensei's divining top

3 bayou
1 savannah
1 scrubland
3 forest
2 swamp
2 plains
4 verdant catacombs
2 windswept heath
1 phyrexian tower
1 volrath's stronghold

comments are welcome :)

Thanks for the suggestions arianrhod, I don't know why I never thought of Fierce Empath. Also, with Fierce Empath in, Kokusho seems like a fine replacement for Abyssal Persecutor. Can't say goodbye to Grave Titan, so now I'm running:

- spike weaver, protean hulk
+ kokusho, fierce empath

I'm going to experiment with the tops later, got a tourney this saturday, and won't be able to get some tops before then.

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Originally Posted by jobdevries

It did feel slow to me, since you want to keep 1 mana open for the top itself. And I'd rather play a cabal/veteran turn 1.

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Tops have been nothing but awesome for me in testing, and I disagree about it taking away other turn 1 plays. Most times you drop the top as late as possible, as it is only good when you have excess mana available.

I think you're playing the deck wrong if you're always trying to land Explorer or Cabal Therapy on turn 1. Game 1 you will have little to no idea what to name with Therapy until turns 2 or 3, when you can see how their board has developed and evaluated the most threatening card they could have. I also think that Explorer is better saved until turn 2 when you have a way to immediately sacrifice him, avoiding StP. Obviously these things vary by match-up, but in general this is how I see you wanting to curve out.

I will concede that Top does slow you down if you don't have quick mana development, but the card selection provided by aggressively using shuffle effects is definitely worth the mana. If you make it past turn 6 with a Top online, you will always outclass your opponent with card quality. It even helps smooth awkward draws and almost guarantees you hit all your land drops even without Explorer.

This deck is kind of like a CounterTop control varient, where we play specific answers and Top helps us find them when we need them. A great example of this is Cabal Therapy, because while it's exactly what we want early in the game, it's often a terrible topdeck. I'd rather see 6 cards with a shuffle looking for a Maestrom Pulse to answer Jace than the one card I draw per turn. Top especially shines in the Control match, as you need a way to match the card selection they have in Brainstorm. You can't afford to be drawing blanks like turn 15 Veteran Explorers against cards like Jace and Batterskull.

Obviously what you cut for them and how many you run are personal preference numbers, but I play three because I have never lacked a shuffle effect to get rid of the excess copy.

Well even excess copies can be useful. You can discard them to Liliana, recast them after you deed with Explorer on table, or just throw the redundant copy on the table, just in case you want to draw with Top and shuffle on the same turn.

1337erhosen, thanks a lot for your explanation. I'm just not used to top yet, I don't find it an easy card to play (the deck has a lot of options already, top increases them even more).

In regards to the turn 1 cabal: I was referring to game 2/3, although I do play veteran turn 1. I can mostly get a second veteran easily enough, and I don't mind them 'wasting' a StP on a veteran.

Are you going to Jupiter Games this weekend, Job, out of curiosity (if so, I'll be there as well, although my Tops are all in use so I can't loan them to you).

While I don't agree necessarily with everything that 1337erhosen posted, I do wholeheartedly concur that Top is essentially our Brainstorm, and it should be treated with according amounts of respect.

So, what does everyone think of the list that made the finals at SCG Providence?

@ Arianrhod: No, I actually live in the Netherlands, so. :) Might be I can loan them from a friend, but I'd rather play with a deck familiar to me for now.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

So, what does everyone think of the list that made the finals at SCG Providence?

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Several things...

First off, I am surprised there were not more Nic Fit lists up at the top. Then again, I was fairly surprised at just about all the winners for the event. Goblins was the main exception, but I also expected there to be more of those...

Anyways. The list shows that Birthing Pod is not bad. Probably best in a more aggressive list.

No Sigarda surprised me a lot. Not a single list in the top 16 ran Sigarda, a card I expected to more or less stomp slower decks.

The last thing worth considering is Strangleroot Geist. It is definitely a good card. Swings in when you need it to, and chimpanzee better than Finks. I would expect it to be worthwhile to test them in that spot, if you run Finks.

Beyond that, looks like a standard Birthing Pod list.

It's worth noting that, to my knowledge, this is the first Birthing Pod list that has succeeded in the States. No Sigarda surprised me as well, but then upon retrospect, I concluded that the list is entirely focused on its Titans -- you don't want a 5-drop that you won't Pod out of (ignoring the fact that Sigarda is probably as powerful as a Titan...or at the very least probably more likely to win you the game).

I continue to not be surprised at the lack of NF (which I will abbreviate as I will continue pushing New Frontiers as a better name for the deck). It's not a popular deck, even if it's a good one. It takes a lot of weird cards to build, some of which are actually pretty irritating to track down, and it's a hard deck to learn to play. Couple that with its complete disregard for traditional legacy rules of what's playable and what isn't, and it's hardly surprising that more people don't play it. Also, it doesn't run Brainstorm, and the Northeast is a NOTORIOUSLY blue-favored region.

Goblins didn't have a larger presence than usual, unless there were a lot of them at the middling/lower tables. Jim Davis and Nick Patnode are both stone-cold masters with the little red men, and play Goblins almost exclusively. I'm not surprised to see Patnode top 4, and I don't put that on Goblins being good again or not -- that's just Patnode being good with his deck.

I do agree, though, that Birthing Pod seems much, much more aggressive than almost any other variety of this archetype. I'm not sure that being more aggressive is actually worth it or not, but there it is. One of the main things that I don't like about Pod is that it feels like you have to play subpar cards in order to make Pod fire effectively. Reveillark and Bone Shredder both feel awful to me, and while Finks is better in a Pod list, it still feels a little weak. I'm not a fan of Strangleroot, but I think that it's probably fine in a Birthing Pod list. Also, only one Eternal Witness? I dunno. The whole list just feels distinctly -eh- to me. Like, it doesn't even feel like it represents the best list Birthing Pod can muster, let alone the best list for the archetype.

Not to mention 2 Recurring Nightmare, when he has a very reliable method for tutoring into one withe Rector/Pod.

Oh, and his sideboard looks pretty terrible. Maybe it was specific to the tournament, but it doesn't seem like it would work well for a normal meta.

As for Goblins, I expect Cavern to make them playable again. Hopefully it won"t speed up the format too much or we'll be out of business as a good archetype.

I dunno about that. I'm of the opinion that this archetype can literally be built however the meta demands. I think that if the meta speeds up, we can rebuild to match it.

I don't disagree that Goblins should make a resurgence, but what I meant is that Patnode and Davis playing goblins and playing them well doesn't translate to a resurgence. That's just those two guys doing what those two do.

I agree RE his sideboard. Feels like junk to me, but I mean I guess it worked out for him. What's everyone's thoughts on [card]Ichneumon Druid[/card] as opposed to Gaddock Teeg? I like the idea of making GSZ able to get combo hate, but I feel like Teeg hurts us a little too much.

Teeg did shut off the Choke in his opponent's hand one of the games I watched.

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Originally Posted by Snapback

Teeg did shut off the Choke in his opponent's hand one of the games I watched.

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Did you mean a different card than Choke?

Pretty sure he means Submerge. And I'd rather my opponents' Submerges are online than my Tsunamis, walkers, Pods, or whatever the list happens to be running be offline. As effective as Submerge is, our cards are better.

Can someone explain to me why this deck doesnt run brainstorm and Jace?

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instanc...0/20091600.jpg

ok, that one made me laugh :). Seriously though, if we can play Team America with Hymn and Jace in the same deck, why not the deck of infinite mana ramp and no colorless lands. is it tested knowledge? Just seems like him and brainstorm would be insane in the deck.

Not bad, 3rd SCG Top8 in a row and lots of other finishes, too. DtB forum we are coming back. The list looks decent. I am currently back to BG (I won't argue on versions anymore lol) but I can understand why he plays 2 Recurring Nightmare. I also run 2 atm because switching Explorers, Finks and Witnesses back and forth is imba - even though I don't run all those Birthing Pod targets or Strangleroot Geists to go completely nuts. Sun Titan, Bone Shredder, Reveillark, Acidic Slime can all be pretty nasty with Nightmare.

Being able to tutor for it with Pod doesn't make it so he only wants one Nightmare because if he searches Rector with Pod he already has the Pod engine going. So the "get Deed" part (or "get Choke" / "get Wheel" post board) on Rector seems more important than the "get Nightmare" part. Not that isn't a great target when you don't need Deed. I'd say Pod and Nightmare are two seperate engines that happen to have extreme synergy with each other if that makes sense.

It is, actually. The problem that the blue lists encounter is that they tend to be much less threat-dense than other splashes -- they can literally bury opponents in card advantage, but that actually isn't enough to win the game effectively. I'm working on a blue splash list currently, since I want to eventually have a list for each splash. But there's no question that the blue list has given me far and away more trouble from a design standpoint than either of the other two.

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Originally Posted by Star|Scream

Did you mean a different card than Choke?

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Brain fart. Submerge.