Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Is Stryx really superior to Oracle? If I were to play either, I would only play one.
I also disagree that the second Gift is ass. I think the blue lists have much more synergy with Recurring Nightmare than any other because of Gift and the inclusion of a secondary CA dork, such as Stryx and Oracle, as a 4-of. It is possible to set up a wide array of singletons that can enable 2-3 different Gift piles. Here are a few examples:
Recurring Nightmare
Eternal Witness
Regrowth
Primeval Titan / Fatty
Life From the Loam
Wasteland
Volrath's Stronghold
Cycle land / Shriekmaw
Eternal Witness
Regrowth
Damnation
Pernicious Deed
Pernicious Deed
Liliana of the Veil
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Chainer's Edict
Darkbast
Raven's Crime
Life from the Loam
I think that with a full playset of Brainstorm and Oracles it would be possible to make a sort of "highlander" type version as long as the singletons are all individually good and synergistic with the other parts of the deck.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Yesterday i saw a couple of players playing Lists similiar to NicFit with Sakura Tribe Elder. Only for the reason it is to cruel to give the land advantage to the opponent... U/W is a terrible matchup with enough Basics, the same is true for Reanimator, Show & Sneak, Hivemind etc... What i want to say is, if they are right is Viridian Emissary not a better choice?
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I only made one change to the list I last posted, but I'm going to post it here again since discussion seems to be leaning in that direction at the moment.
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Coiling Oracle
2 Baleful Strix
3 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
1 Thragtusk
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Grave Titan
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm
1 Smother
1 Ghastly Demise
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Smother
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 2 Gilded Drake
SB: 2 Force of Will
SB: 2 Mana Leak
SB: 2 Duress
Qweerios: by all means, test it both ways. It's entirely possible that I just didn't have the right configuration of 1ofs for Gifts. Perhaps you can succeed where I failed. Ideally I think I would like to have something like 2 Gifts 1 Fact, because Fact is just stupidly good at refilling your hand, and as mentioned, people are bad at it. Maybe try a slight sideboard white splash? Something like 1 Unburial 1 fatty (Grisel?) 1 Savannah. Might be decent .... or vastly too cute. Not sure which.
I've been without power all weekend due to a really bad storm on Saturday, so I'll try to catch up and post something more meaningful later. If anyone's confused about anything just let me know.
Oh, quickly: Strix and Oracle serve different purposes. Strix is one of the best blockers in the game currently. People are terrified to attack into that thing, let alone once they know you can bring it back. It blocks Griselbrand without giving a fuck, and late game it can even tangle with Emrakul. Strix also laughs at anything Canadian Thresh is trying to do. They have to waste a burn spell on it, and it's probably just going to come back later. Oracle serves as the backup ramp engine, which IMO an Explorer deck needs to have in its 75 somewhere to be successful. White has Carpet of Flowers, and I'm experimenting with Wood Elves in the red version. I originally had 3 Strixes, but I trimmed that to 2 in order to add a Thragtusk, which has been every bit as dumb as probably everyone in the thread realized it would be when spoiled. I'm considering bumping E.Wit down to 2 instead, however, to +1 the Strix back to 3. The 3/3 split worked really well. Ideally you can get one of each with Nightmare active, so that you can keep Strix's defense shield online while still generating Oracle's (IMO) superior card advantage. While I dislike the information that Oracle gives your opponent, putting any lands he reveals directly into play is awfully good. Also, setting up Oracle with Brainstorm feels like sex.
Edit: I haven't changed them yet physically, but mentally/theoretically, the Smothers are going away....probably in favor of Go for the Throat.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Fierce Empath
1 Trygon Predator
2 Baleful Strix
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Grave Titan
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Gifts Ungiven
3 Brainstorm
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Smother
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Karn Liberated
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
1 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
SB: 4 Daze
SB: 4 Extirpate
SB: 2 Kitchen Finks
SB: 3 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
Going on the blue for gifts version, this was just a preliminary list that I brewed up last night. It seems to be working out so far, since gifting for planeswalkers and recursions is just simply nuts and can easily lock the board up. My main issue with this deck is that it is super grindy and I have had issues with running out of cards in maindeck. Usually, I can finish the game with 15-20 cards left. I was able to work with 2 gifts and 1 Fact or Fiction, a combination that I feel is right.
My main concern with going in a direction like this is when does this deck become a gifts deck rather than a nic fit deck, ie at what point does this deck diverge from a "traditional" nic fit list and style of play.
Inputs and thoughts on this list would be appreciated.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@Qweerios -- any luck with Gifts? Food for thought for you -- I've recently been lamenting not having more artifacts than just Tops, because I've been itching to try out a Glissa the Traitor in my floating 2/3-drop slot. A Gifts-oriented version, though, could abuse her synergies with Executioner's Capsule/Engineered Explosives as backup removal engines beyond Deed and Eternal Witness + spot removal. IMO I'd try to make stacks of 3 + Regrowth effect rather than 2 + 2. ie Damnation + Deed + Black Sun's Zenith + Regrowth. Jace + Liliana + Garruk Relentless + Regrowth. Or whatever -- a 3+1 setup guarantees that you're getting one of what you want immediately and one later, rather than two later. I dunno. We could probably spend literally a few pages just discussing Gifts theory.
@Psydonome -- Viridian Emissary is actually terrible unless you're running a Birthing Pod version (although even then it's worse than Strangleroot Geist). You just have to be careful how you use your Explorers. If you just hurp and durp through the motions, you're going to get bit in the ass. That said, you can get away with it sometimes even vs decks like Stoneblade depending on your hand and theirs. It's just not as "fun" as when you're vs something like RUG with 0 basics. Then again, it isn't "fun" to play Belcher vs a Force of Will deck -- but they can still do it. Just because Explorer isn't the best in every matchup doesn't mean it isn't the best option available (forever -- I don't see them ever, ever printing anything better than Explorer. They're staying away from those kinds of effects now....let alone ones that bring them out untapped. See Ranger's Path for reference).
@Amazingxkcd -- Ooze and Snapcaster are going to disappoint you. Trygon is questionable as well -- feels more like a solid sideboard option. That would give you spots for Coiling Oracle, which really should be in the deck. If you forced me to choose to only run Strix or Oracle, I'd choose Oracle every time (though I'd be pretty angry with you).
3 Brainstorms sears my eyeballs.
The Thoughtseizes and the Tops are probably unnecessary. The Blue has Brainstorm and Jace -- you don't need or particularly want Top. That gives you four spots for "tech" with Gifts. One thing I actually tried out at one point was a pile of Loam/Academy Ruins/Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek, just to be an asshole. There's a lot of fun things you can do with Gifts, and with 4 slots available, you can put in any pile you want.
Also, that's the way the blue version works RE # of cards left in deck. In my testing, I usually have somewhere around 10-15 cards left in deck by the time they finally die. It has THAT much card advantage...it literally buries your opponent. If you're REALLY worried about it, you could always put in a Volrath's Stronghold, but that's kind of sheisty and not necessary. Green Sun's Zenith will stop you from completely milling out -- just keep casting it every turn and hope that they don't draw a counterspell.
Finally, I don't know why the issue of archetypal paradigms is coming up so much lately. If it's using the Veteran Explorer + Cabal Therapy interaction, it's still Nic Fit. That's the core interaction around which the rest of the shells are built -- sure, decks have backup engines and such, but they still run that. At least the trend of a few months ago where people were running like 2x Explorer is gone. That was terrible.
Again I'll say think of Survival. Eventually, once they were all well established, Survival split into Bant Survival, Ooze combo Survival, and Vengevine Survival: 3 specific and completely different decks that were all built around the same engine. At some point that will happen to us as well, once each splash is established more and has its own followers, but 1: that's a ways off yet and 2: they're all still going to be Nic Fit, by definition. If it has Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy in it, it's welcome here. Bottom line.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@arianrhod
I can see where you are coming from concerning the coiling coils. I only had 3 brainstorms since i included top in the list. Now that I have taken out the top, I upped the brainstorm count to 4. Here's an updated list
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
2 Baleful Strix
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Grave Titan
3 Coiling Oracle
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Gifts Ungiven
4 Brainstorm
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Smother
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Karn Liberated
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Regrowth
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
SB: 4 Daze
SB: 4 Extirpate
SB: 2 Kitchen Finks
SB: 3 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
Now that I am looking at this, I would love to have access to red for punishing fire and burning wish, while still retaining the gifts package. It would be a very ambitious 4cc nic fit deck, but I think that it can be done. Going gifts for burning wish would add a higher level of power to this deck.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Barf.
As is, decklist looks better. I feel like 1 Regrowth is probably enough and you can add in something else per preference, but I have no real problems with it.
Red, however, is a terrible idea -- esp. for P.Fire. If you want to try 4cc, add white. Nightmare/Sun Titan/Eternal Witness/[card] is one of the single most broken Gifts piles you can possibly make, since you get ALL OF THEM, while also establishing both the Sun Titan and Recurring Nightmare engines (I consider them separate). It also allows you to steal Modern technology and run Unburial Rites + target as an alternate plan. Swords is better removal than PFire any day of the week, as well.
Why do you want PFire? As an additional lategame win, or as a recurring removal engine? Because IMO white offers more for a Gifts deck in either category.
Disclaimer: I'm not actually advocating a 4cc build. It's probably possible, but I question its stability, especially as defined by the 60(1) card deck limit. Space is a consideration, and unless you make the deck basically highlander excepting the core pieces (Vet, Therapy, Brainstorm, Gifts), I have no idea how you would find room for everything that you'd want to do. BUT...if you're going to try it just to see how it goes, add white, not red.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I prefer using punishing fire as a late game play, where you have enough to just simply pfire them out. Adding white for sun titan is a fantastic idea, except I don't know how the mana base would work there.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I would -start- with something like this:
1x Murmuring Bosk
3x Forest
1x Plains
2x Swamp
2x Island
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
2x Reflecting Pool
1x Phyrexian Tower
I would probably consider running a 1-of Wood Elves as a GSZ target if you could find the room -- it'd make your mana a bit better by being able to find the Bosk. Your fetches can find it, but it's going to come in tapped...just bear that in mind. Off of Elves that wouldn't hurt as much, and Elves is surprisingly good at ramping/bridging questionable mana requirements. I've been having a lot of success with him in my red version.
And if you need MORE lategame in a deck with (at least) Nightmare, Sun Titan, Kokusho, Consecrated Sphinx, 3 Jaces, and potentially an Unburial Rites plan, you're doing something wrong. You're already so far over the top that PFire is laughably insignificant.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I've got a poor performance this week going:
2-1 Bant Food Chain
1-2 Maverick (with mainboard Sigarda)
0-2 High Tide (I lost G2 after 6 Therapies, and a Tsunami on 5 lands... over the first 3 turns...)
2-1 GU Infect Stompy
Lots of mulligans to 6, 5, and even 4. I advised my friend to play Sigarda mainboard as a meta choice and she destroyed me.
I recently put my hands on the cards I needed to play a blue splash but I honestly fail to see what it brings to the deck. It doesn't solve troublesome matchups (in fact it makes them worst), it weakens GSZ in favor of Gifts, it increases our vulnerability to GY hate, it slows us down... I just don't see the advantage.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
In stark contrast, I took 1st at my Tuesday night local with like one mulligan on the whole night. I guess our luck flip-flopped. My locals graciously allowed me to test out Thragtusk in actual tournament play, and he performed fantastically. I feel that with his addition, I've hit the correct number of threats, and the deck feels smoother overall. He's such a beating for any ground-pounder assault, too -- gaining five, trading with something, then trading with something again buys so much time. My last maindeck floater spot was an attempt at Ohran Viper....which was pretty much atrocious. Not going to give that one another shot. I'm also working on changing my board a bit. This is what I ran last night:
3x Carpet of Flowers
3x Extirpate
1x Humility
1x Curse of Death's Hold
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Memoricide
1x Angel of Despair
The ETs and Jitte are experimental. I had ETs a long time ago, but I eventually cut them in favor of more cards that actually do things. Now, however, I'm thinking that I have a sufficient number of obnoxious bullets that I want the increased consistency of being able to find them. So far I have liked them -- they make it easier to assemble the Humility + Curse combo vs maverick, find Humility to put into my hand vs Show and Tell, and they ease finding the big one: Chains. Chains needs to be early to really have its effect, so that's pretty important. With the addition of Thragtusk, Leyline of Sanctity is outdated unless there's a meta shift that necessitates it once again.
Jitte I'm not sure about. It aids the Maverick and Tribal matchups, while also coming in vs burn for lulz and vs combo to speed up our clock. I'm not sure that's good enough, though, at the end of the day. It requires my maindeck open slot to be a creature, which is kind of awkward (esp. when there aren't any creatures out atm that I actually want to run in that slot). It also might not be a "powerful" enough effect for the deck. I'm just not sure. If anyone has suggestions for the last open maindeck and last open sideboard slots, I'd love to hear them. I'm very happy with 73/75, at least.
@Qweerios -- how the heck did you lose to High Tide after 6 Therapies and a Tsunami@5? Just didn't draw something to actually deal damage before he dug out, I'm guessing?
What matchups do you think the blue splash makes worse, out of curiosity? The blue version is the combo-killer, primarily, but it maintains strong matchups vs RUG and Maverick at the cost of tribal and (somewhat) burn. A friend actually borrowed the blue version last night and ran it to X-2....r1 he got paired up vs me (awkward....) and then he made a critical mistake which actually lost him g3 vs burn...I had them play it out as if he hadn't made the mistake after reporting the match, and he would have won if not for that. Tight games for sure, but winnable. IMO Green Sun is actually stronger in the blue version than it is in the white version. The white version has Baneslayers and Rectors that you can't search for, while the Blue picks up extra GSZ-able go-to targets in Coiling Oracles, and its only non-GSZ creature is Baleful Strix. Also, it has less explosiveness due to running 1 Tower instead of 2, but otherwise it's generally both faster and more stable due to Oracle, Strix, and Brainstorm. I will grant you that it increases our vulnerability to graveyard hate, but having Jace TMS helps out in that regard. He gives exactly none of the fucks about your Tormod's Crypt.
As for Maverick with Sigarda - did she have Karakas out, too? Otherwise Deed solves that problem too. Not saying it isn't scary, though -- pretty much have to legend rule her (awkward), Deed her, or discard her at some point. She's pretty much just good in general. I know she won me a game by herself last night.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
@Arianrhod
I drew into Duress and Thoughtseize and my only clock was a Treetop. Also, despite destroying 5 lands and leaving my opponent with no spells in hand, he still had 2 islands in hand to rebuild, which he did wonderfuly.
I've been trying to make a Gift list work but I have to cut into my GSZ targets, my GSZ numbers, my early removal, my targeted discard... everything is going down to Gift piles. Also, how is the blue splash better against combo? If anything, its slower and grindier than the other versions. I don't understand how it's the "combo-killer" with no counterspells and less discard.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Awkward RE High Tide game =(
As for the blue version -- think of it as a pseudo transformational. You can run counters in the board, as well as additional discard, Gilded Drakes, the usual Surgical/Extirpates, and so forth -- splashing blue gives you tons of sb options. I'm running 2 Mana Leak, 2 Force, and 2 Flusterstorm, and have been perfectly happy with that. I rarely board all of them in, although having a few counters vs like Burn for example is a good idea. But when you play vs combo, you can make their life really miserable. You can even steal some game ones by bluffing counters when you don't have them (rare, I'll grant...usually them being overly cautious while you find a therapy or two).
If you're having to pare your deck down so much to make Gifts work, Gifts -might- not be the way to go.... ;-)
Post your list sometime and I'll poke it with sticks. I know it's still developmental etc etc.
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Hey guys, I've just started playing the deck and I think it is pretty goddamn fun! I'm starting off with GBW and I like the creatures, removal etc that the white splash gives me. What did you guys think of this list:
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sun Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Lilliana of the Veil
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrublands
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Phyrexian Tower
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
Some of teh main deck choices may seem strange (Kitchen Finks is pretty bad...) but my meta contains a lot of Burn and a reasonable amount of Pox and Finks is pretty good against both!
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I still prefer Fact or Fiction over Gifts because the deck gets too cute with gifts in my opinion. Those gift bullets like crime,loam,regrowth etc. eat up many slots & could cause crazy (bad) opening hands I think...
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
This might get long.
@Zand -- welcome to the jungle! Here's my thoughts:
-) If Finks is serving a purpose for local meta, that's fine.
-) Ooze is pretty unexciting, but I haven't found anything better yet.
-) You don't need 2 Towers if you aren't running Rector. They allow for more explosive starts, but Rector builds are the only ones that actually need the extra sac outlet. You can safely cut the 2nd Tower and make your mana base better.
-) I'm assuming you just forgot to put GSZ, since your main deck is 34 cards (and there's 0 Zeniths, which is clearly wrong).
-) Dryad Arbor is almost always wrong. We're a Pernicious Deed deck. for every 25% value you get out of Arbor, there's 75% where you'll either miss a useable land drop because of it, or it'll just get Deeded away without doing anything. I'd recommend cutting Arbor, and adding either another basic and a Savannah, or a Savannah and a Scrubland. I like the 8th basic a lot, but your mileage will vary.
-) 2 Hymn feels like a horrible number. In my experience you either want Hymn early or not at all. It doesn't help that it forces you into double black. Consider the following: Swamp, Therapy, go. Bayou, Veteran Explorer, flashback, fetch Swamp and X, Hymn. This isn't a bad sequence at all. But there's a problem with it: your mana. No matter what basic you get with X, you're in a precarious position. If you get a plains, they might Waste your Bayou and lock you off of green. If you get a forest, you don't have access to white, but have double green for Witness. Having to fetch a 2nd swamp with Explorer early is really not preferable unless you're straight g/b. I'd just drop the Hymns completely.
-) 2 Tops isn't enough. Top is a critical card selection engine for a deck that can't play Brainstorm. Bump this up one, to 3 total. If you draw extra, we play enough shuffles that you can cantrip it away. Also don't forget that you can activate a draw off Top, hold priority, and in response crack Deed for whatever, drawing you a card off of Top and letting it go to the graveyard.
-) I'd add a Vindicate. Pulse is better 85% of the time, but that other 15%, you're going to want a source of land destruction. Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, Academy Ruins, Volrath's Stronghold, and Gaea's Cradle are all problematic, and Vindicate will sometimes randomly win you a game by knocking your opponent off of a color and then coming back with Witness to make it worse. It also gives you another out to problem permanents, which you're missing due to not running Rector -> Fetters/O-Ring.
-) I don't like Liliana in this deck, but since you're running a full 3 copies, I'm guessing that you do, so you can keep her =)
To summarize:
-2 Hymn
-1 Tower
-1 Arbor
+1 Top
+1 Vindicate
+1 Savannah
+1 Scrubland
This actually gives you an extra dual compared to most versions of the deck, including mine, but I feel that the 2nd Scrubland is important if you want to run Liliana alongside the white splash. Your deck needs GG for Witness, BB for Liliana, and WW for Sigarda/Baneslayer/Titan, in that order of importance (IMO). Green shouldn't be a problem, but having an extra bridge between Liliana and your 5s-6s is important. I'd also look into investing a slot into a Recurring Nightmare -- probably the Qasali, because he's less than exciting right now. You don't have means of tutoring it up, but in a decently long game, you should be able to find it with moderate Top/shuffling. And it will definitely win you games -- just looping two Eternal Witnesses is sufficient incentive IMO, let alone with Thragtusk. Additionally, Nightmare will give you a small number of games where you just play Solar Flare -- discarding something fat to Lily, then bringing it back with Nightmare. That doesn't seem like a bad line of play.
-) What's your board look like? I'm guessing some number of Leyline of Sanctity, since that demolishes both Pox and Burn, which you said you had present in your meta.
@Qweerios --
I'm glad you posted both your original and the one after testing, since that gives me some insight into where you want to take it.
Thoughts from the original:
-) No idea why you'd run Jwar Jwar Sphinx instead of Consecrated Sphinx. The shroudy beatstick is good and all, but ConSphinx goes broken so quickly in legacy, and by the time he drops, your opp shouldn't have removal left (either from Therapy or just general attrition).
-) Perplex is hilarious technology, but feels slowwwwwww. Especially since you can't transmute at instant speed :|
-) At 2x Gifts, are you actually seeing them enough to justify running 1-of everything?
-) Big fan of Raven's Crime and Liliana in this deck. You actually can break Lily's symmetry with Loam.
-) Are the Thoughtseizes more relevant in the sb than extra counters? Maybe like 1-2 Thoughtseize + 2-3 Mana Leak would be better. As counterintuitive as Mana Leak can be in an Explorer deck, it's actually been testing really well in my experience. You don't want Counterspell because that forces you into double blue too early, very similarly to my logic against Hymn in GBW.
-) No Baleful Strix is going to eat into your reanimator and sneak/show matchups a bit, as well as costing you some value.
Okay, then in transition to reviewing the updated list, I have the following thoughts:
-) The new list looks a bit more streamlined, as though you found that you liked some things more than others (natural).
-) Garruk performed better than Lily in a deck with Loam? This surprises me. I'm assuming it's because of his +1, but at that point more creature threats would be better IMO, because it makes GSZ better. And putting a GSZ in a Gifts pile is always sweet, because they don't know what you're going to get with it.
-) Arbor -.- It makes even less sense here since you have only 2 GSZ. Why not run like a Mishra's Factory instead? That still would allow you to have a recursive blocker with Loam, but you could actually use it for mana and have it not die to Deed.
-) Is Kokusho good without Nightmare, as compared to something like ConSphinx or (probably more likely) Grave Titan?
The synergistic nature of Nic Fit explains some cuts pretty easily -- Empath is awful with only one target, Nightmare gets much worse in this deck because you don't have many creatures to feed it, and because you cut Strix, which is one of the main loop targets with Nightmare.
Some questions:
-) Is Raven's Crime good in the board? Seems like you can bring in better combo hate than that, because it's going to be slow to come online. Or is that serving the same purpose as Cranial/Mem do in mine -- you disrupt them early and then that's the "finisher?"
-) Gaddock Teeg with 8 spells maindeck he shuts off? Really? Pretty sure you don't board any of them out when he would come in, either.
-) Maze of Ith feels like a wasted slot, but I dunno what you're been having trouble with. Karakas gets a pass because you can tutor for it with Gifts/Loam, and it's actually legitimately good in the matchup it's for, unlike Maze.
-) Earlier question about Thoughtseizes stands.
Now, a big one:
Why did you never put Nightmare as part of your Gifts pile? Fear of losing it, it just not doing enough, etc.
Your "common" piles all get better with Nightmare. As so:
Kokusho
Nightmare
Eternal Witness
GSZ (or Regrowth)
Nightmare
Shriekmaw
GSZ
Volrath's Stronghold
Okay, the Jace/Deed pile doesn't.
You can also do something like this:
Nightmare
Witness
GSZ
Regrowth.
I think that why Nightmare is underperforming for you is because you prefer the Stronghold engine instead, and they accomplish most of the same goals. The issue that I take with this is that they serve the same purpose in different ways. Nightmare is a much faster way of generating the same advantage that Tower/Stronghold does. Tower/Stronghold also can't actually generate card advantage -- instead, it costs you your draw step. Nightmare looping Witnesses, Oracles, Thragtusk, Kokusho, Strixes, even just Veteran Explorers generates as much value as the lands, but it does it potentially several times a turn, and not at the cost of your draw step. I'd just switch how you think of it in your mind, because that's why Nightmare isn't working for you. Rather than prioritizing Tower/Stronghold, try a few games prioritizing Nightmare. If you happen to assemble Tower/Stronghold late game and they shut down Nightmare somehow, then whatever -- you've got a backup plan, and they'll still do things in the meantime. But if you relegate Nightmare to a backup plan instead of plan A (or at least B), of course it's going to suck! You're setting it up to fail.
Also, how has it been playing out so far in general. You said you put 8 hours into it -- what matchups did you play against, roughly, and how did they go? What did you skunk, what did you have trouble with, and how (if at all) has your opinion of the blue splash change after 8 hours?
Re: [Deck] Nic Fit (GBW Explorer Zenith Control)
I cast Gifts in every game I play at least once with only 2 Gifts. Oracle is a good cantrip and Brainstorm + Jace allows me to dig for them.
I dropped Crime from the maindeck because it has to be part of a Gift pile or you must have a LftL at hand for it to be effective. Because LftL is a 1-of, It didn't see much play alongside Lily. I originaly had Lily because I thought she complemented Jace nicely (bounce + discard, edict + brainstorm). I dropped her from the deck because the other planeswalkers are better, I never want to use her +1 because my hand is always stacked, and I can't really put a lock on my opponent's creatures with her because I lack removal in general to make the edicts worthwhile against aggro.
Dryad Arbor is indeed much less attractive in the tricolored, I will probably change him for a Creeping Tar Pit or a Tranquil Thicket, perhaps even a Cabal Pit.
I like TS in the SB because it is proactive, doesn't tax my mana, and has synergy with Therapy.
Maze in the board is a form of removal against Maverick or other heavy aggro decks. It forces my opponent to extend into Deeds and gives me a break against flyers.
I like Kokusho because he flies and doesn't need to swing to poke at your opponent. He also doesn't mind Bridge.
When I first started testing, I always Gifted for Nightmare piles, but I quickly realized that the Volrath Tower was much more of a headach for my opponent.
-Lands are uncounterable, and impossible to get rid of with LftL without GY hate;
-Tower prevents targeted removal to have any effect on the loop;
-I don't mind forfeiting my draw because I am actively winning the game;
-Every card involved in the Volrath Tower engine is useful on its own and more versatile
In my testing I won against Reanimator. I played something like 8 games against merfolk, which were tough as hell. I also had a bunch of clutch games with miracle control that I lost by a thread. I played a bunch of games against rogue decks, one of which was a midgame RUG deck (very cool). Keep in mind that I missplayed a lot and was experimenting with different cards and Gifts piles. The games are really long and there is a lot of thinking involved, but overall it flows nicely. Early game against tempo decks is harsh (I think I had trouble mainly because of Islandwalk), lategame against control is smoother, and combo is about the same (sideboard dependant). Instead of passively ramping while disrupting your opponent like my GB list, this one actively ramps in the early turns and doesn't rely as much on disruption to make the engines smooth but rather on the inevitability of the engines.
