[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

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Originally Posted by conboy31

I just looked through every green / green + x color creature on magiccards.info looking specifically to see if a 5 or 6 drop creature has been overlooked. It doesn't seem like it. I also looked at off color gold creatures to zenith into and splash a single dual land. Found nothing. I was briefly excited when I saw Vulturous Zombie, it is a 5 drop and from the new commander set which I did not pay much attention to. I then read his abilities and power for the first time. It is trash... oh well.
I am looking forward to the printing of a 3BG creature to zenith for in this deck with a nice CIPT.

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In 5CC creatures, if you're looking for:
- a domination of the board: Lord of Extinction or Spiritmonger
- a utility creature: Acidic Slime
- a creature that cannot be dealt with: Grave-Shell Scarab or Gigapede
- a high number of blockers: Deranged Hermit or Ant Queen

Also the 5-split-mana gods are all worth considering attention, in particular Deus of Calamity.

But once again, I'm not sure you need this. GSZ on Witness is already generally the best move you can get when having loads of mana.

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Originally Posted by Maveric78f

In 5CC creatures, if you're looking for:
- a domination of the board: Lord of Extinction or Spiritmonger
- a utility creature: Acidic Slime
- a creature that cannot be dealt with: Grave-Shell Scarab or Gigapede
- a high number of blockers: Deranged Hermit or Ant Queen

Also the 5-split-mana gods are all worth considering attention, in particular Deus of Calamity.

But once again, I'm not sure you need this. GSZ on Witness is already generally the best move you can get when having loads of mana.

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The deck has a lot of mana so having some expensive cards is just natural. Grave Titan for example is worth his Mana and I would recommend not cutting it. Maybe even a second Titan could be played but there are so few slots. With 4 GSZ it is good to have something like a finisher. Deranged Hermit is imo the best choice green has for this slot all things considered. It puts a lot of pressure on on a control deck, often stabilizes the board against aggro, has synergy with Recurring Nightmare, is good against spot removal and is not affected by yard hate. No other green creature for under seven Mana can do so many that this deck wants.
Spiritmonger is a vanilla 6/6 (all 3 abilities are basically irrelevant). Acidic Slime is competition for Wickerbough Elder but not a game winner. Deus ability in a deck that tries to suicide Veteran Explorer is bad. Scarab and Gigapede just win long drawn out games but GSZ on Witness usually does that too.

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Originally Posted by Tao

The deck has a lot of mana so having some expensive cards is just natural. Grave Titan for example is worth his Mana and I would recommend not cutting it. Maybe even a second Titan could be played but there are so few slots. With 4 GSZ it is good to have something like a finisher. Deranged Hermit is imo the best choice green has for this slot all things considered. It puts a lot of pressure on on a control deck, often stabilizes the board against aggro, has synergy with Recurring Nightmare, is good against spot removal and is not affected by yard hate. No other green creature for under seven Mana can do so many that this deck wants.
Spiritmonger is a vanilla 6/6 (all 3 abilities are basically irrelevant). Acidic Slime is competition for Wickerbough Elder but not a game winner. Deus ability in a deck that tries to suicide Veteran Explorer is bad. Scarab and Gigapede just win long drawn out games but GSZ on Witness usually does that too.

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If your looking for a finisher go to CMC 6 and drop in a Vigor. ...it's lights out with your loved hermit squirrels.

Edit: Also on Rampaging Baloths:

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Originally Posted by Tao

@Maveric:
Rampaging Baloths out of GSZ don't give anything when Sworded unless you have 7 Mana in play plus a land in hand.

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This looks like a pessimistic outlook. It also doesn't do anything when your GSZ is countered. :) I say play to win, and let your opponent worry about stopping you. Don't let a possible outcome stop you from adding a good card.

You don't need a land in hand necessarily. A grave bound Veteran can trigger 2 4/4's. Or a Scryb Ranger can net you a land fall out of nowhere, and should be considered regardless for all the other tricks it provides. (see this thread again for a different take) toMAYto / toMAHto {shrug} Just my two cents.

How about combining Veteran Explorer with Aven Mindcensor?

Scryb Ranger is horrendous in this. This deck is not even remotely comparable to the Mono Green Zenith deck. This is a control deck while the other list is some kind of Ramp/Aggro hybrid. And of course you should consider possible outcomes when you build a deck. In a deck with no other good targets for Swords to Plowshares (Explorer can be sacced immediately to Therapy / Tower) it is bad to give them a juicy target if you don't have to.

Aven Mindcensor was suggested before. If the deck would care about the opponent getting free lands it wouldn't play Explorer in the first place.

got top8 at a local tournament with a 3-2 record with the following list:

4 Windswept heath
4 Verdant catacombs
2 Marsh flats
3 Bayou
3 Swamp
4 Forest
1 Plains
1 Dryad arbor

4 Green sun's zenith
2 Recurring Nightmare
1 Birthing pod
3 Pernicious deed
2 Maelstrom pulse
3 Hymn to tourach
3 Cabal therapy
2 Garruk, primal hunter

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Bird of paradise
3 Skinshifter
1 Wall of blossoms
4 Eternal witness
1 Kitchen finks
1 Aven mindcensor
1 Harmonic sliver
1 Thrun, the last troll
1 Deranged Hermit

SB:
1 Scavenging ooze
1 Loaming shaman
1 Pernicious deed
3 Diabolic edict
3 Krosan grip
1 Cold-eyed selkie
1 Aven Mindcensor
2 Thoughtseize
2 Angel's grace

I could write a small report if anyone is interested.

I think a small white splash (1 plains, maybe 1 savannah) is well worth it, but only for 3 cards: aven mindcensor, harmonic sliver (way better than the alternatives), angel's grace (hivemind). Mindcensor is there against decks that play intuition, natural order, infernal tutor, stoneforge mystic, and zenith. Decks not playing these cards, i most likely board out mindcensor.

Just some notes from playing the deck:
Hymn is the right card here, the deck needs a turn 2 bomb.
Birthing pod only resolved in 2 games, but it won those 2 games for me.
Skinshifter is good but not great, however the alternatives (goyf, qsali, wall of blossoms) are even more underwhelming.
Pulse is amazing, and i want to find room for a 3rd. Spot removal, can 2 for 1, and hits planeswalkers.
I wanted a zenith target that could destroy a creature, but I don't know of one that exists (i.e. shriekmaw, necrotic sliver, or fleshbag marauder, but green). There's also a hole at 4cc, which i plugged with thrun (which isnt a bad choice), but i feel like there's something better out there in this slot.

I regret not playing orzhov pontiff somewhere in the 75.
This deck folds to most show and tell decks (hivemind specifically).
recurring nightmare is underrated.

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Congratulations? Too bad it wasnt enough for a 4-1 or 5-0. Would be very interested in a report.

- I agree with the 3rd Pulse. Probably in the side though because the maindeck is overly full.

- Birthing Pod. Great suggestion. Upgrading Explorer into Wall into Finks into Wickerbough Elder into Deranged Hermit sounds like fun. What I especially like is that it could tutor removal (Bone Shredder, Shriekmaw). And upgrading Shriekmaw into Grave Titan, yeah, that is fair. I think it was mentioned before but I never really considered it. Its onboard CMC of 4 even survives most Deeds. With your good experiences and some more thoughts I guess I have to try it now :)

- Skinshifter is not good. That I don't have to test. Tarmogoyf is usually bigger than a 4/4 Skinshifter anyway and that without being forced to pay G every turn, especially after a Deed.

- The SB was made in order to combat Hive Mind so don't change it and then complain that you lose. 4 Edicts are usually enough to keep Emrakul away and with 4 addional Thoughtseizes there is enough Discard to slow them down significantly. Extirpate is an awesome counter to their Intuitions and it gives information for Therapy. It sometimes randomly wins games by getting a discarded Hive Mind but that is of course not the main reason to play it.
Leyline of Sanctity is a hard problem though. Once you know they play it you have to bring the Nature's Claims too (which is one of the reasons why imo Nature's Claim is better than Krosan Grip).

round1: mono white life gain
game 1: He attacks into my explorer, allowing me to set up hermit druid + nightmare. He has 3 soul wardens, and gains alot of life because of the token army im amassing, and his serra ascendants get me down to 4 before i find skinshifter to chump. At one point its 153 life to 4, but i wipe his board with deed, and attack with ten 6/6 wurms, and it doesn't really matter how much life he has.
game 2: goes to time because deed and pulse were in my bottom 20 in game 1 so it took forever. Ill take the win anyhow
(1-0)

round2: ledless dredge with bloodghast
game 1: I dont see deed or pulse before getting overrun
game 2: seize takes away his brokenness, and i swing with skinshifter. A zenith for loaming shaman seals the deal.
game 2: two explorers and two therapies plus deed. Zenith for ooze takes the game
(2-0)

round3: UW stoneforge + standstill
game1: A hymn hits mystic, so i slowplay my topdecked mindcensor, which works like a charm, and his 2nd mystic faceplants into it. Zenith grabs thrun, and i start swinging. Unfortunately he topdecks sword of feast and famine, which combined with jace overpowers me.
game2: 2 therapies and explorer in opener just destroys his hand and clears the way for birthing pod. Pod ramps my 2nd explorer into a thrun and i take the game easily.
game3: i keep a discard heavy hand, and we go into permission / discard war. I sneak my selkie through, and he gives me enough card advantage to steal the win.
(3-0)

round3: UBW faeries (spellshutter sprite, mystic, bitterblossom)
game1: Keep 1 lander with 2 zenith. First zenith gets missteps, 2nd one gets arbor but then eats an innocent blood. By the time i see a 2nd land, bitterblossom + jitte is swinging for 10 a turn.
game2: He didnt play anything white, or white lands in game 1, so i boarded wrong. His turn 2 stoneforge mystic for feast/famine just wrecks me before i can answer it.
(3-1)

round 4: Dream halls combo w/ show and tell
game1: mull to 5, with explorer + witness. I swing with explorer and draw lands for a couple turns, and he combos out turn 4 or 5.
game2: hand of therapy explorer, hymn, witness, and i think i have it in the bag. Therapy naming show and tell misses, but he rips one off the top of his deck, and goes turn 1: tomb + lotus petal + show and tell + dream halls + conflux.
(3-2)

Birthing pod is nice against slow decks, but i would board it out against anything faster. Its amazing under standstill, as it turns 1 fetchland into every creature in your deck.

Skinshifter seemed really good on paper, and i do think its a decent card against stompy decks, but i wouldn't play 3 in the future. For the record i don't like wall of blossoms either. 1 will become shriekmaw for sure.

Against hivemind, Leyline ignores you discard, and they have more counters than you have edicts and enchantment hate. Just in testing against this deck with various sideboards, i almost never won, which is why my sideboard wasn't aimed at beating it.

Good report.

Birthing Pod gets absurd if you change the deck a little bit. Totally missed the potential of the card, the people who mentioned it were right. This is a Birthing Pod deck.

What I like about it: Compare it to Recurring Nightmare. Nightmare only gets creatures back so it will usually downgrade them because you play your small creatures first. This is still good because of the "comes into play" and/or "leaves play" effects but Birthing Pod actually upgrades the creatures and still gets these effects. And it tutors. It also doesn't care for the colors of the creatures like Green Sun's Zenith. You can finally tutor Removal like Bone Shredder.
It gives so much value and makes you use your Mana every turn while at the same time being absolutely realiable. I went back up to 4 Explorer, 4 Therapy and had to cut Hymn because of the Mana.

I play a slight W splash for Academy Rector (was also mentioned already but I didn't listen), Stoneforge Mystic and Reveillark. Turning a Veteran Explorer into a Stoneforge fits perfectly. Academy Rector is pretty sick with Birthing Pod. It puts Nightmare/Deed and Reveillark/Hermit into play. And turning a Reveillark into a Grave Titan, yeah.
I also came up with a nice little Combo but atm it is not included because I don't want to waste the slots. If you sacrifice Academy Rector into Pod you could get a Corpse Connoisseur plus Nightmare and reanimate a creature of your choice (Iona, Elesh Norn).

I played another small Magic League tourney and easily went 3-0, beating Merfolk, Zoo and the Stoneforge/Standstill deck, only losing a single game to Mana screw after I kept a 6 card one lander on the draw against Merfolk. 8-0 atm, and though it is only Magic League the deck feels very impressive. . The deck has serious DTB potential now! Play it, it crushes 3/4 of the Meta and is not bad against the rest.


// Lands
2 [B] Swamp
4 [B] Forest
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [B] Bayou
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
2 [US] Phyrexian Tower
1 [B] Plains
1 [B] Savannah
1 [U] Scrubland
4 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [WL] Veteran Explorer
4 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
4 [FD] Eternal Witness
2 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
2 [UD] Academy Rector
1 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
1 [UL] Bone Shredder
1 [TSP] Harmonic Sliver
1 [MOR] Reveillark
1 [JGC] Deranged Hermit
1 [M11] Grave Titan

// Spells
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
3 [NPH] Birthing Pod
2 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
1 [EX] Recurring Nightmare
1 [NPH] Batterskull
1 [LG] Moat

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 1 [COM] Scavenging Ooze
SB: 3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 2 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 2 [R] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 [M11] Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 [TE] Choke
SB: 1 [TO] Mesmeric Fiend

Did you ever miss the Maelstrom Pulses or Garruk, Primal Hunter? Also, I don't like the fact that titan's tokens die to deed. Have you thought of running Sun Titan or even Baneslayer Angel in his place? I'm tempted to even try Rampaging Baloths because of its synergy with explorer and though those tokens die to deed as well, they are bigger. You probably spoke about the benefits of Grave Titan earlier in the thread and just forgotten.

The list is not final yet. There is A LOT of undiscovered terrain. I am not sure about anything, really. I just know that Pod does amazing things and that I dont really lose anymore^^

I cut Pulse because you can tutor the Bone Shredder now. I cut Garruk because I rather have a 5 drop that I can search for with Pod.
Sun Titan is also good but I think with Witness and Lark there are enough cards that get back stuff. Baloths are conditional and I don't like that about a 6-drop. Grave Titan is usually enough so a potential upgrade is not very important.

If you are running academy rector, you should play one enchantment that just wins when it lands. In this case, i think that enchantment is Dovescape. With birthing pod + dovescape on the board, i can't see you ever losing. Your opponent cant cast spells, and through witness/rector/sun titan/reveillark, you gain huge card advantage. Your 2nd/3rd rector becomes deed if you need to sweep, or recurring nightmare if something important is in your grave. Sun titan recurs deed or recurring nightmare indefinitely, and dovescape protects your board.

Also dovescape with garruk on the board, would win most games as well. Even with nothing else on the board, you play enough utility creatures to dominate any control/combo deck.

With that said, i am not convinced birthing pod is all that good. It has been very slow in my experience, and puts poor results against combo, zoo, merfolk, and goblins. It also suffers against heavy control decks, which counter/destroy it, or destroy your creatures before they get to the higher cc tier. But this is just my limited experience.

If i were to run birthing pod heavy deck, i would try to fit these in: dovescape, garruk, fleshbag marauder, sun titan, recurring nightmare, 2 academy rector, aven mindcensor (in SB), and some discard for tempo (mesmeric fiend, thoughtseize, tidehollow sculler). Orzhov pontiff combos nicely with dovescape (as does goblin sharpshooter, alot of other cards) but deed is probably all you need, if that. Necrotic sliver is a really good card too, not to be overlooked.

I went to FNM tonight with 0 Birthing Pods and was able to trade 1 M12 pack to 3 different people for 1 birthing pod each. I am surprised at how liquid M12 packs are. I ended up with about 70 of them from Gen Con.

Anyways, I feel like 2 birthing pods and either a Garuuk or Liliana Vess might be more correct than 3 pods. As I was playing games and slowly acquiring the pods I morphed the decklist to Tao's current list. Along the way, cutting the placeholder planeswalkers.

The other placeholder was 1 volraths stronghold instead of the 2nd phrexian tower. I made mental note of which would have been better and found they came out to be about equal. Having the sac ability was often relevant, however it came up that i needed 2 colorless mana and the legend rule would have been a problem. Also, putting a witness on top during the midgame feels good. It was also able to help out vs. Jace fatesealing me during a game vs. bant stoneforge.

Yeah, it is either 2 or 3 Pods. The current setup is extremely weak to Tombstalker, though. I have atm cut the Moat for a different approach to stop creature beats via Pod when Rector/Deed does not work or is too slow. One Phyrexian Metamorph for the one big guy plan (Prog, Emrakul, Tombstalker) and one Silent Arbiter for the swarm Plan. The long game plan is still Rector for Recurring Nightmare.

So my Birthing Pod plan atm looks like:

0>1: Fetchland > Dryad Arbor > Explorer
1>2: Explorer > Wall /SFM
2>3: Wall > Witness/Finks/Bone Shredder/ Kitchen Finks
3>4: 3-drop > Academy Rector / Silent Arbiter / Phyrexian Metamorph
4>5: Academy Rector > Deed/Nightmare+Reveillark / Nightmare+Hermit
5>6: Lark > Grave Titan

This of course can change pretty fast. The Academy Rector into Iona / Elesh Norn is still possible too.
This deck is challenging to build. Also there are probably tons of cards or combos that can be still found.

I think 4 Deeds and 4 Witness are too much.
We could get some slots from there.
2 Zenith and 3 Pots +3 Witness = 8 Possible Ways to get them (we want to have some good recursion anyway)
3 Pots on Rector + 2 Rector + 3 Deeds = 8 Possible Ways to get them (even if its slow)
Witness with Deed combined (and maybe Nightmare) = Tons of chances to get a Deed #2.

Metamorph is a great add to the deck. I think it's a must-play as you can copy Equipments as well.

Protean Hulk, Ranger of Eos could also seem play in such a deck. Ranger would give us more Veterans to sacrifice to Pot or to block.
Hulk is just a mean-mashine, but there aren't many moments where you want to sac a Grave Titan or Hermit for it (only with Nightmare available!).
Hermit Shanigans seems nice as well.

Sac Rector, get Pandemonium and then search hermit/Grave Titan also seems very nice. But I don't see a way to deal lethal with it (Lord of Extinction, huh? Needs 20 cards in all graves...we should test the average when we go for the plan)

Yeah, three Deeds and Witnesses are probably enough, that gives some slots and should still be enough to dominate Maverick, Zoo and Merfolk. Maybe with the 4th Deed in the Side?

I think I go for the Corpse Connoisseur with an Elesh Norn in the main. I know from my time with Survival that drawing conditional one-offs is the safest way to lose games so I disliked it. That's why I don't like the idea of Pandemonium and Lord as well.
But I didn't think about that you can use Connoisseurs ability to grab a Genesis which sounds pretty sweet. Especially against the plague that is Jace TMS in BUGstill I actually want to draw Connoisseur and because of Unearth they can't even do anything. So I will try that.

With Genesis, you will up your count of (by themselve) useless cards.
Derangend Hermit, Reveilark, Grave Titan and even Witness are cards that (multiplied in your opening hand) are really annoying. Now 2 more slots?

I think I cut Grave Titan and/or Deranged Hermit.

At the point, where you can upgrade your critters to one of those, you will have won anyway.
Recurring Revailark is enough with Witness. I think 2-3 Swords to Plowshares should be in the main 60.
I missed it so many times....

I play this deck once in a while for fun,

I really do think it has potential, and playing against someone in mws with birthing pods was a pain.. However, I don't think we should build around birthing pods too much... as it is quite slow...

I agree that swords should be somewhere in here... having no targeted removal is quite a pain...

Good points. No fancy combos, only 2 Pods. And way less 1-offs. Danger of cute things, I fell for it. If we start to run Swords then Witness will become multiple times better, too, and you don't have to name it in the list of annoying cards anymore :p

How do your current lists look like?