Printable View
The wording is really clunky on that card. It doesn't seem to explicitly tell you what to do in the event that you get 3 creature cards with the same name. The "Shuffle the rest into your library" sentence implies that something happened to one or more of them. Weird wording.
To be frank, I think this card is more often misread than Book Burning lol.
Anyhow, holy crap! Korean stuff is expensive! No wonder why it's so pimp to have Korean Vets. (referring to Smokestack on SCG: 10 for english, 100 for korean)
EDIT: Also, sorry for off-topic posting so much :rolleyes:
I want to talk about the 2-drop creatures. Most people play Sakura-Tribe Elder but I think that is wrong. I think Sylvan Ranger is a better basic land searcher for Nic Fit. Elder is great against Dredge because it kills their bridges but Dredge is basically unplayable in the Deathrite Shaman meta so that is no big concern.
The acceleration of Tribe Elder is not very relevant either. Think of it: if you GSZ for a land searcher it is unlikely that you make your regular land drop and it is very likely that you sacrifice Elder at the opponent's EoT because you need the land. In that most common case Sylvan Ranger actually gives you one additional Mana (because the land drop is untapped) that you can use for a Cabal Therapy or a Top activation and it also keeps a 1/1 in play.
And this 1/1 is not irrelevant at all. Sylvan Ranger has the big advantage that you can sacrifice it to Cabal Therapy (or Phyrexian Tower / Recurring Nightmare / opponent's Liliana) and still get the land which Tribe Elder can't. I think a 1/1 split between Sylvan Ranger and Wall of Blossoms is the right way to make sure that a GSZ for 3 will be good.
I can imagine a split between Ranger and Tribe Elder, but I don't think you replace Tribe Elder completely. At least not in Rector. Elder does a few things: 1) as you say, Dredge. 2) Great for blocking Batterskull and Jitte. 3) Ensures you have a Recurring Nightmare target. All of these have been important to me in matches.
In a new list I've been working up I've got Elders and Walls. It's not running Nightmare though, so I can definitely see swapping the Elder for Ranger.
Actually, because people are relying on their MD shamans and skimping on GY hate, dredge is pretty well positioned right now. As a dredge player I can tell you that both regular dredge and manaless dredge aren't scared by deathrite at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tao
/barn. Dredge just placed very highly at GP Denver, right smack in the middle of Deathrite Shaman territory. Dredge doesn't give two shits about the Deathrite Shaman decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Countertoplol
I dunno. I've often thought that I would like a third 2-mana guy, either a Wall of Blossoms or a Viridian Emissary. I see no reason for Sylvan Ranger over Emissary, I must confess. If you want something that is a body that can be sacced while still getting a land, IMO Emissary > Ranger. That being said, Sakura-Tribe has just been astonishingly good for me. There has only ever been one or two circumstances where I wished I could both sac to Therapy -and- get the land, and those have been very few and far between. It's entirely possible that I'm just biased in favor of it, but I'm almost never sad to draw one. They're an on-demand shuffle for Top, ensure a guy in the 'yard for Nightmare (which was a huge problem for me until I put Tribe-Elders in), fog+rampant growth, stop Jitte from gaining counters, BSkull from gaining life, pops Bridges, beats for 1 sometimes, is convenient to bring back with Sun Titan, and arguably most importantly: it ramps you game one, no matter what they do.
If I'm up against Miracles, say, the LAST thing I want to do is set off a Veteran. If I'm up against RIP Miracles, specifically, Viridian Emissary won't work, and neither will Veteran Explorer (though, we still don't want to set it off). Sakura-Tribe gives 0 fucks about either of those situations. He ramps us with no questions asked. It doesn't matter what they've done to us or how they've affected the board state. Explorer is....I wouldn't say unreliable, per se, but there are situations where we either don't want it (we don't want our opponents to have it), or we can't use it. Tribe-Elder is invaluable in combating those situations. Because, at the end of the day, if Nic Fit doesn't hit ANY ramp at all, it's gonna be a slowwwwwwwwww game. We can still pull them out sometimes, but the difference between Nic Fit with ramp and Nic Fit without ramp is like night and day. I'd rather err on the side of a little much than too little.
Has anyone tried Ground Seal in the Rector build? I'm having issues vs BUG control with Deathrite. BUG Delver is pretty easy, just like RUG but with discard instead of burn.
I guess it would be okay as a one-of in the SB. I'd rather Rector into Rip, you're already in white, right? Seems like it would help better verses the stuff you'd be wanting Ground Seal for, wouldn't it?
Edit - Wouldn't you be better off with more discard verses BUG control? Seems like I'd rather strip their hand of control to pave the way for the end game stuff which they can't really hang with.
Well sticking my kindle in my pocket has decided to post on my behalf, so here's my two cents.Quote:
Originally Posted by TerribleTim68
BUG is a non threat as long as we don't let DRS stick or let a Tombstalker live. I'd actually use RiP or Leyline over both Seal and discard as both cripple Tombstalker.
I feel like the only reason I would run Ground Seal is in a reanimator heavy meta and then RIP is just better.
After watching Arianrhod develop his deck for the last few months from double dragon to Nic Fit I have been interested in this deck and brought myself to read about the last 80 pages or so I have a suggestion. More so just a question actually. What kind of a matchup does this deck (rector build) have against Shops? I know we have Moat and thats extremely helpful but against Steel Hellkite and metamorph making multiples of it or even them just locking us down with Tangle Wire and/or Smokestack has anyone considered Caustic Wasps as a GSZ target from the board to help control the early game. It's defiantely even usable as a 1-of since its searchable so it won't take up alot of space but can definately wreak havoc if brought in early enough. Thoughts?
@Ground Seal: If your problem is DR Shaman and you get a Rector activation you can just Deed or Fetters or Recycle.
@Rest in Piece: That card wrecks US. It shuts down Witness, Therapy and Explorer (and depending on your version Rec. Nightmare, Rector, Punishing Fire, Volrath's Stronghold).
I don't think it is worth it to play any Yard hate in Enchantment form. They are all bad.
@Metalworker matchup: In general decks that play Eldrazis, Griselbrand or Sundering Titan are a bad matchup for Nic Fit because they go bigger. Metalworker is a bad matchup too, but at least the deck is extremely bad and unreliable compared to Sneak and Tell and you have an actual chance of wrecking them with Therapy on their fatties and Deed on their board before they get their win condition out. Steel Hellkite is also a joke compared to other giant monsters and taking 2 or 3 hits of him isn't game ending and it gives you time to find your solutions. Caustic Wasps is just a very bad card, don't play it.
Sylvan Ranger: The Jitte/Batterskull case is not important. You can either handle them or not. Two counters or four life most likely won't affect the outcome of the game. I stand by my point that Sylvan Ranger is much better than Tribe Elder atm.
I agree that Rest in Peace wrecks us, but Ground Seal doesn't do much better. I personally don't run either since my GY hate comes in the form of extirpate anyways, and if needed leyline of the void(a meh solution).
As for Metalworker the matchup is difficult, but unlike our ramp there ramp dies to deed. Monolith, Metalworkers, Keys, Mox, and Dynamos are all easily exploded if need be.
Architect and I split the top eight at mythic today. Both with scapewish.
Played a gauntlet yesterday with 5 players using the Scapewish. I tried using the build of Arianrhod but I replaced 2 basic lands with Verdant Catacombs. I had times I wanted a T1 Therapy but the lands were just not black... below are my match-ups
2-0 vs Berserk Stompy
1-2 vs Dredge
2-1 vs Punishing Maverick
2-0 vs Junk
0-2 vs TES (but gave me the win so I can have the packs)
G1, my life is already at 31 and he just played 16 spells to kill me.
With this, I am having problems with Combo. Any suggestions on how to fight Dredge, TES and the like? Am I missing something? Thanks for the help :D
Mini report time from Mythic Games monthly Legacy Tourney
List - Almost the same as Arianrhod, just extirpates in the board, 2 fetches, and no hellion or 25th land for 2 decays.
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Burning Wish
3 Sensei’s Diving Top
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Eternal Witness
2 Scapeshift
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
4 Taiga
3 Badlands
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
2 Bayou
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Sideboard:
3 Pyroblast
1 Reanimate
2 Slaughter Games
1 Scapewish
1 Pyroclasm
1 Virtue’s Ruin
1 Damnation
1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Thoughtseize
2 Extirpate
R1: Joe with GB Beserk Nit Fit -Win
Joe is usually "that goblins guy" who just always beats everyone with goblins and I had no idea he was on veteran exploreres
G1: We both had 6 lands on turn 2. He played creatures with his lands, I blew them up and played scapeshift with mine.
G2: He was cut off of black, but had the nuts if he hit it. I kept an explore alive on my side till the turn I could crack it and win.
1-0
R2: Phillup with MUD stompy (not forgemaster) - Loss
I knew he was playing MUD, I just did my best. Its a match I cant reallly win and I can live with that.
G1: I know hes on mud and hes on the play, but I mull to 6 and keep a hand with 2 lands, explorer, therapy, top and business, praying he doesnt turn 1 chalice. He doesnt t1 chalice, he t1's a trinosphere (which he later tells me he just moved to the MD). I dont see a single land till he kills me a lodestone golem and wurmcoil.
G2: No early chalices or trispheres. tribe elder DOES WORK against his wurmcoil. I keep him at <18 life sacking 2 elders, and the woodelves+phyrexian tower, to prevent the lifelinking wurm form healing his ancient tomb damage. I hit 7 lands and scapeshift.
G3: He gets an early chalice at 1, but also drops worker, i have to decay the worker, only to see him drop another another one. His next 5 or so turns go Lodestone x2, wurmcoil x2, batterskull x2. OUCH. I manage somehow to get up to like 13 lands and not lose because I see all 3 huntmasters and a thrag. Hes at 53 by the time it is down to my last turn alive. I draw the burning wish, but can only do 48 damage too him since I have 3 of my 11 mountains in play.
1-1
R3: Nick with TES - WIN
G1: I get the litteral nuts. Vet, Bayou, fetch, Phyrexian Tower, huntmaster, wish, GSZ. He duress and takes the wish I think. I draw into scapeshift and win turn 3 while he assembles his hand with ponders and brainstorms.
G2: I keep a hand that is something like therapy, GSZ, wish, scapeshift, top, land, land. He discards my top. I therapy and hit a LED and see hand full of cantrips and discard. He duresses my GSZ, and then i topdeck 2 in a row to get myself 2 explorers. He drops a bob and I wish>IB it cause I know he has just land+petal in his hand at that point. I pass, he drops petal and passes but EOT I decay his petal (he had no white producing lands) so he cant orim's chant me. I win on my turn with scapeshift.
2-1 and PUMPED that I out combo'd TES.
R4: Gabe with Mono black The Gate
Gabe usually plays BUG Nic Fit, but I know he was slinging bitterblossems and bobs today. He knew my deck well and said he had zero hope of winning.
G1: I think I overwhelmed him with huntmasters but I dont really remember.
G2: He gets like double bob, double blossom online, after we both strip eachothers hands and kill eachothers dudes. He wins that top deck war. I also didnt hit green mana that game and was banking on my top to find it (which he discarded). My mistake.
G4: I think I win like turn 4-5 with angry mountains
R5: Evan with Reanimator
G1: He has to mull to like 5 and keeps a hand full of cantrips and discard. I think he makes me discard a wish and then a turn 3 Huntmaster gets me there with a wish for thoughtseize as backup.
G2: He has to mull to 4 :/ and I keep 6 with therapy but zero other hate. After we stip eachothers hands with discard I win with angry mountains again. I wish I had drawn a burning wish instead of the scapeshift though, cause I REALLY wanted to reanimate the griselbrand that he binned.
R6: Timur with Jund
Me and Timur both know that my angry mountains usually beat Jund, we both want to be in the top 8, and both want the other to be in the top 8 so we ID.
I ended with swiss in 5th place and the top 8 was 2 Scapewish (me and Arianrhod), 2 Jund, TES (not the guy I played), Reanimtor, Mav, Team Italia
If we had played it out Im pretty sure the TES play would have taken it, while Arianrhod, me or the reanimator guy would fill out the top 4, but most of us wanted to leave and eat so we split the prizes for 145$ in credit each.
I was really happy with the whole deck. I dont think I would change anything. I liked the mana base, the abrupt decays and the board. I might tweak it slightly depending on the meta but overall it was awesome. Im not totally sold on blitz hellion, but I dont face lily/jace decks either so I really dont have an opinion yet.
The next casual LGS tourny I go to I think Im going to play GB control heavy list with NO-Pro, just for kicks. Also, I still want to play a really threat heavy, jund list with Godo+Batterskull as the "big finisher" and no wishes or p-fires. Ill let you guys no if they are anything more than cute.
Hey there. I was testing and I came up with some nice tech for ScapeWish: Bonfire of the Dammed. This lovely card is crazy in a ramp deck. Casting it for x=8 in the late game (especially against control) is quite possible. I actually burned out a miracle player with Bonfire for x=8 and then the next turn for the win. It combines the utility of a sweeper with the power of another buisness spell, plus can be used in a pinch to kill Explorer if need be. I've been playing the following list
Creatures:14
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Wood Elves
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Blitz Hellion
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
Spells:22
3 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Burning Wish
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Scapeshift
Lands:24
2 Badlands
3 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Volrath's Stronghold
Sideboard:15
3 Extirpate
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Thoughtseize
1 Innocent Blood
1 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Scapeshift
1 Tsunami
I have been slowly drifting away from a tutor board. I started off with tutor targets and 4 REB. Then I added Thoughtseize and Extirpate...
You should look back like 10ish pages, we had alot of discussion about bonfire. It used to be an auto-include, but with meta shift from decks like mav which play a bunch of little creatures, to everyone playing GBx with goyfs alot of people have cut it for other cards. Its still not bad in the right meta. If theres a lot of tribal, dead guy, mav, etc it could be really good. But its not too good against goyf based decks (doesnt kill them soon enough) or miracles cause jace is the only thing in their deck that you can really hit with hit, and if they have jace out, they probably brainstormed into counterspells, so you usually need a few threats to get through to him, not one big costing spell. I personally cut it for abrupt decay, cause I often just need to kill a turn 2/3 goyf/kotr so I can buy enough time to drop threats. Decay also kills counterbalance, equipment, etc. Decay has been amazing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raggedjoe
Thought it was time for me to add some to this thread.
I played a tourney today with ScapeWish. I was lazy and played Arianrhod -Volraths stronghold +2 abrupt decay.
So back to 61 cards ;)
30 players attended so 5 rounds with top 8.
R1 vs tendrils combo
G1 he kills me before i get anything going.
G2 i slaughter games his burning wishes since i know the list relies heavily on them. His remaining wincon is 1 empty the warrens. He manages to product 5milion of those little buggers. I flip the top card: pernicious deed. Game 3
G3 i get a good hand with veteran and therapy and the possibility of turn 4 scapeshift with a little luck. He plays land, ponder. I play therapy on brainstorm and hit seeing chrome mox, ritual, land, infernal tutor and something i cant remember. I plan on taking the tutor on my turn 2 but my opponent rips LED and kills me in his 2nd turn :/
R2 GB pile
Some casual player with a casual deck i murder 2x with scapeshift.
R3 grixis aggrocontrol
G1 i loose to delver + jitte
G2 my list plays pyroclasm over firespout. I have exactly enough mana after being wastelanded to burning wish for pyroclasm. I kill 2 delvers and a dark confidant. Lateron i get my mana goning and kill with scapeshift
G3 i ramp like crazy and kill with scapeshift.
R4 teammate with UW miracles
G1 i wish for slaughter games and take his jace. He plays only 2 next to a singleton elspeth (due to card availability) next turn i zenith for eternal witness ans return the slaughter games. I take his entreats next turn. I start drawig lots of lands and need to kill the elspeth with 2 valakut triggers not to die. Over the course of next turn i rip enough lands to remove his threats. I run into scapeshift and do almost infi damage.
G2 he gets jace, elspeth and clique. I need to drop the blitz helion i have in hand but it gets countered by counterbalance (reveals force of will). Im pressed for mana and cant rape my opponents hand with the 3 therapies i find
Eventually i loose to elspeth +3 on clique in extra turns.
R5 BR pile.
I get lucky and am paired against another pile. I ge to school him by scapeshifting for 36 and 42.
I get into top 8 at 8th seed with my 3-1-1 record.
I get paired against another teammate and the brother of my r4 opponent. He plays tempo as usualy and is not happy being paired against nicfit (his fear for the deck is unbelievable lol)
The deck descides to give in and i get manaflooed like crazy in game 1.
Game 2 i can stall a bit but eventually loose to 2 5/6 goyfs.
I get 5 boosters with jank in them.
The deck played great all day and eventhough i didnt get to play an abrupt decay they seem descent for now. The blitz helion is fun for now and would have been great in taking out a planeswalker against miracles but i do miss the 2nd eternal witness.
anyone tried running kessig wolf run + inkmoth nexus as targets for primeval titan in punishing fire decks?
I'm going to do a quickie report just from my memory, as I don't have my notes in front of me.
R1 vs burn.
I recognize my opponent, who, like me, has multiple top 8's at Mythic. Although I had never played against him before, I knew he was a religious burn player.
Game one I shred his hand with Therapies and then enter the Angry Mountains Phase. He dies quickly thereafter.
Game two he has double Goblin Guide into Grim Lavamancer. I -almost- stabilize, but I couldn't quite get there, as I was both dead to an untapped Grim Lavamancer and one land short being able to Scapeshift him.
Game three is derpy. I set off an early Explorer, getting Forest/Mountain (as I had like a Bayou and a Badlands or two Bayous....I had two black sources, moral of the story). He slams down Blood Moon. I resolve a pair of Huntmasters, while he then drops a Sulfuric Vortex. I'm at like 21 and he's at 17ish. He ends up having to Fireblast both of my Huntmasters to stay alive and keep them from flipping. I assemble more dudes while he bleeds out. I drew into a Swamp and had a Deed on board in case I had to get rid of his enchantments, but the board state never necessitated it.
R2 vs Asher with White Stax.
Because we have to play every single ****ing event.
I know three things going into this match: Asher is actually really good with that deck, he has at least 3 and possibly 4 Armageddons, and I don't have Pulverize in my sideboard. Awkward.
Game one takes something like 35 minutes. I try to control his Crucibles as best as I can so as to work out from Wastelock, and only partially succeed because he's added Trading Post to his deck, which allows him to get back his Crucibles basically on demand. After a pair of Deeds I've finally got him in a decent position -- then he drops the rest of his hand. Another Crucible, a Smokestack, and an Elspeth. I manage to Top into my 3rd and final Deed, and opt to play it and pass the turn so that I can his manlands if he tries to attack me for the turn. He makes a HUGE misplay here, and tries to O-Ring my Deed. I crack it in response to the cast, which means that when O-Ring comes into play, the only eligible permanent for its trigger to hit is his Elspeth. I end up taking it down from there, since he was completely out of gas. He hadn't hit a Geddon, but I was ready for it -- I chose to fail to find off of my Primeval Titan and was stockpiling lands in my hand. I've lost enough games to that card.
Game two we don't even get to finish, and I win 1-0-1. By far the coolest thing in this matchup was Scapeshifting my 5 dual lands into 5 basics so that he couldn't Wastelock me. I feel that too often, Scapewish players forget that Scapeshift can be used for other things besides killing people. It's perfectly fine to thin your deck out or just make your manabase wasteland-proof.
R3 vs Neo-Survival Maverick
I don't really have much to say about this. Virtue's Ruin did work, Deed did work, Damnation did work in game two when I was mana screwed with double Explorer in play and he Retainers'd in Emrakul, which then let me Burning Wish for Damnation. Pretty sure he got Scapeshifted both games.
R4 vs Jund
Game one I got mana flooded to hell and back while he just kept drawing Bloodbraids. It was one of those awkward games where I had approximately a million live draws and just didn't hit any. It didn't help that he was on the play, which meant he got to Thoughtseize my Top away.
Game two was the exact opposite: I had like triple Explorer, but no sac outlet and barely any lands. He had double Wasteland + a Hymn that hit lands, so I was kind of on my back foot. I remember I did Burning Wish for a Pyroclasm that would have killed his Deathrite and his Bob, as well as two Explorers on my side, but he ripped a Thoughtseize for it, as I didn't have the mana to do it all in one shot. Really unfortunate. I'm fairly certain that this is actually a really good matchup and I just got unlucky, but as that was the first match I've played vs the new Jund deck, I can't say for sure.
R5 vs Ning with TES
He gets revenge for my slaying him in the top 8 of the last Jupiter =(
Game one I mull aggressively looking for a Therapy. I eventually hit a sexy-as-fuck double Therapy+Explorer+Huntmaster(or Deed, can't remember) hand, which is everything that I'm looking for in the matchup. The problem: no black mana. I decide that going to 4? 5? isn't going to be better, so I sit on it. He sculpts his hand for a turn or two while I fail to draw black mana. I die shortly thereafter.
Game one he discards a REB, then tries to go off via Time Spiral. I naturally draw into another REB off of his Spiral, and counter his Brainstorm....only to have him play another one. He ends up whiffing, though, and passes the turn with the storm count at like 15. I drop a Thragtusk and ship it back. He does a few cantrips, finds what he needs, and storms off via Past in Flames for an arbitrarily large number.
R6 vs Patnode with TES, again.
I think he was running card-for-card the same list as Ning, but he might have stuck with D. Returns instead of Ning's trademark Time Spiral...not sure, as it didn't come up. I always hate playing against Patnode, because while he's a great guy outside of playing him, it never matters how friendly I am during the match. It doesn't help that he has two false assumptions: that his combo deck can't lose to Nic Fit (a "durdle midrange deck"), and that Nic Fit also isn't even a "real" deck -- completely ignoring the number of times I've moneyed with Nic Fit now, it's still pretty infuriating.
Anyway.
I mull to 5 game one, and draw the nuts to shred his hand and curve Huntmaster into Thragtusk. He makes some goblins to chump block, but I sweep them away and kill him.
Game two I have him really far on his back foot, but I think I misplayed and it cost me the game. He had double Burning Wish + Infernal Tutor in hand. I have a Slaughter Games coming, and am currently flashing back a Therapy on him. I name the Wish, with the plan to Slaughter his Tutor next turn. This all happens, except that later in the game he Burning Wishes for a Tendrils and kills me while I had Deed on board. I didn't want him to use one of the Wishes just for value, which is why I took the Wishes, but as I think about it, hitting the Wishes with Slaughter Games seems much better, since it forces them on the Empty the Warrens plan (they can't Wish for Tendrils to just kill you). Live and learn -- something to think about for the future.
Game three I tear his hand apart while he rages about my blind Therapies, and I just apply too much pressure for him to keep up. He makes a bunch of goblins to block my Thragtusk again, and I resolve a Green Sun. Now, I could have made him REALLY tilt by getting Blitz Hellion and forcing him to lose 8 of his 12 goblins, but I decide to make the "correct" play: getting a Huntmaster. With Hunts, I could just pass the turn and the flip would kill him -- which is exactly what ended up happening.
I snuck into 7th place at 4-2, and the top 8 decided to chop and go eat, which was good for almost 150. I would have been paired vs Jund-guy again if we had played it out, so I think that my odds of top 4ing were quite high. Then, beyond that, it's anyone's guess because who knows what I would have gotten paired with. it was definitely the type of top 8 setup where Scapewish could have easily gone the whole way, depending on the pairings. But, all good.
At the rate we're going this month, we MIGHT be able to get back into DTB this month, or at least get close. Nic Fit's picking up a lot of finishes so far. We just need to make sure that we upload all of them to Council.es, and point out anything that gets mislabeled on there. I have every intention of picking up my 4th money finish in a row this upcoming Saturday at Jupiter, so we'll see what happens =)
@Arianrhod
Have you missed the 2nd Eternal Witness since you cut it?
Last weekend I missed it on at least 2 occations where even the Stronghold wouldnt have helped. The deck is really tight right now so I'm unsure what to cut to add the 2nd Witness again. It feels like its either Blitz Helion of Witness as I don't want to cut the Decays I've been playing in my current meta.
Seems most NicFitters have switched to ScapeWish now that Deathrite Shaman is everywhere (although that might not even be the biggest reason) Good to see most of us performing well eventhough most ppl laugh at the deck (I've spoken to at least 3 ppl last weekend who didnt consider NicFit to be a real deck... but they didnt make top8 where I did... ;) )
After a long hitaus I am back playing Scapewish and I had every opponent and onlooker go 'wth is this a real deck?' or 'dude you sure you playing legacy?':eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by XdeckX
Haha, I get these comments all the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by fireiced
Arch/Arianrhod: You guys going to be up at Jupiter? I'm assuming Kevin will since he mentioned aiming for his 4th money finish.
I'm planning to go so that would be three nicshifts up there haha, has anyone tested in the mirror?
Yeah, I actually haven't missed the 2nd E.Wit at all. There have been exactly 0 situations where I've wanted the 2nd copy =/Quote:
Originally Posted by XdeckX
Note that I'm still unsure about the Stronghold. Like, I can rationally understand how Stronghold is good, and I do like it as a kind of "security blanket" to where once it gets online, in a late-enough game, you just win -- but that situation STILL hasn't come up for me, so I'm not sure that it's worth it. It might just be a playstyle thing, like Liliana. Hellion's been fine so far, but it's actually ending up kind of like the Stronghold. I haven't actually killed a Jace or a Liliana with it yet. Some of that is matchups (I've played against like one Liliana deck since I put it in). It gives a nice feeling of security that I have that tool available to me should I need it, but it hasn't actually come up yet. So, I dunno. I'll keep testing both of them for now and see what happens.
And yeah, we have been perpetually maligned since becoming a deck about a year and a half ago now. Nobody gives the deck it's full credit, which leads to a lot of comments that I find very derogatory. Like, I just try to ignore and brush off the people who are like "hey look a standard deck." I WANT to just flip my shit and be like, "look retards, see these Huntmasters and these Thragtusks? THOSE ARE THE ONLY STANDARD LEGAL CARDS IN THE DECK. NOW KINDLY SHUT THE FUCK UP."
....But I keep my mouth shut. It's just frustrating that we run fewer standard legal cards than basically any Delver deck, but WE'RE the standard deck. Clearly. I think that this will go away with time, once Huntmaster and Tusk rotate out of standard and we're still playing them, but it's going to be a long 9 months until that happens. But hey, whatever. Like you said, we're getting top eights and they aren't, so if they want to keep bashing it, I guess that's their prerogative. We'll just keep winning.
I will be -- I believe Evan said that he's not sure at the moment, but he might be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Siiig
The mirror is really strange for the deck. I haven't done -much- testing of it, but a lot of it comes down to Explorer control. Like, each deck wants to be setting off their Explorers and winning on that turn. The aggro plan is basically completely meaningless, because both decks have access to almost infinite removal between Deeds and Wishes. It just comes down to who combos off first, really. Prime Time is big money. I would IMAGINE that Blitz Hellion would actually give you more mileage in the mirror than Thragtusk would, since most of Scapewish's removal is Sorcery speed by definition, and gaining 5 life is completely meaningless in the face of angry mountains. 35-50 damage is -easily- possible....a Thragtusk and a Huntmaster or two isn't going to help that. Not when 8 lands does 36 damage, and then each land thereafter adds 6.
Pretty much what I figured. The closest thing I've played up against was BUG-Fit. That was fun, maelstrom pulse naming explorer (hits mine and his)... shift for lethal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
I don't mind the standard comments as much as it is the fun comments when I lose. Like it seems like fun is slang for unplayable in the tournament community, and that cheeses me off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
On the card tech, I've actually switched my build around quite a bit from yours. My primary opponent in my meta is Esperblade, and I wanted to try a different flavor for my deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Blitz Hellion GSZ feels really darn good. Especially when they're either low (scapeshift for 18 when they're above 18), or when Jace get's windmilled.
For stronghold, I don't run one. I tried it for a single tournament, and just didn't understand the need in shift. The only thing I can think of would be to return a card in place of witness, or return witness to witness something else. I prefer wish->reanimate for that.
Someone mentioned Bonfire in the last few comments. Running a singleton. Miracle flip for 9 is pretty hot.
While stronghold can be good in rare other occasions, the most common use is getting it and phyrexian tower when you hit a prime titan. It lets you recast prime titan, thrag, ewit whatever you need turn after turn even in the face of removal (even terminus/stps, thanks to the phyrexian tower). I use it alot and like it, if you don't that's ok I guess.
I'm not sure if I will be at jupiter yet. But in the Nic fit Mirror, scapeshift beats all the other variants with ease (except maybe BUG?). And in the scapeshift mirror, you are basically playing a combo deck. The aggro plan is meaningless and you cant be setting off explorers until the turn you are ready to win or your opponent will use the land to win.
There's a weird poker game that happens where each player can "check" and just pass the turn keeping their GSZ/explorers in their hand till they get the sac outlet and scapeshift all in hand as well, at the risk of losing pieces to discard. Or they can "raise" and cast their explorers betting on their opponent not having a way to blow up your explorers on their turn and use them to fuel their scapeshift. And it goes the other way too, where you can keep a hand with sweeper, discard and scapewish, forcing your opponent to dump their explorers so you can use them for your own scapeshift. Mirror matches are weird, but this one doesnt even feel like MTG.
I think that the core difference is that when I drop Prime Time, I tend to just get two durdle lands out of my deck, because I'm building for Scapeshift and I don't want to sac Volrath's/Phyrexian to the Scapeshift. Like Prime Time -> fetching a Bayou and a Forest is a pretty common thing, albeit six kinds of boring. Alternatively, I'm on the slow-roll Valakut plan, in which case I'm fetching either Valakut and/or mountains to start dealing damage. Considering that we both have a good track record with Scapewish, I don't believe that either option is notably better or worse than the other -- in fact, probably the best way about it is to try to learn to recognize the situations when each of our respective styles is correct, and then employ them from there. As I said, I do like what Stronghold brings to the deck from a theoretical point of view, I just haven't achieved it in practice yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
As for the different versions, I think that eventually, long-term, what I would LIKE to see would be a rock/paper/scissors amongst Nic Fit, wherein Rector beats Blue, Blue beats Scapewish, and Scapewish beats Rector.
Of course, it's rather hard to know considering that after almost a year now, we STILL don't have a legit blue version ironed out. That's also ignoring the presence of the other varieties like Punishing and straight G/B. As of right now, all we can definitively say is that Scapewish crushes Rector mercilessly; and that I would agree with Evan's assessment of the Scapewish mirror -- it's a bizarre combination of draw-dependency and poker to the point that it doesn't even resemble a game of Magic anymore. By contrast, I would say that the Rector mirror is basically just about who pulls the trigger last. Every time I've played a Rector mirror, I've won because I've had the 2nd Sigarda, or the 2nd Recycle, or whatever. Whoever runs their power cards out first loses, generally speaking.
Sorry for breaking your interesting debate about Scapewish, it's an extremely fun deck I want to try in the near future, but yesterday I had my first real tournament with GB version, and second experience of Nic Fit (the other one was months ago with GBW).
I played a 125 people tournament with a diverse metagame and experienced players. My result was not as good as I thought, 4-3 but maybe was the tournament I enjoyed most, and with more practice, your little help and more luck with pairings (4 combo decks!) I can improve my results.
My list was the same as Qwerios (or HoneyT, sorry I don't remember) with little changes:
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswepth Heath
4 Bayou
2 Treetop Village
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun
1 Acidic Slime
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
4 Cabal therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Hymn to tourach
3 Sensei's divining top
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Innocent Blood
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Sideboard:
3 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Extirpate
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
2 Engineered Plague
1 Infest (should have been the 3d plague but I didn't find it)
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Carpet of Flowers (only own 1)
Quick report:
R1: UWR Miracles 1-0
G1:A long game I manage to win with Thrun killing Jace and Pulse killing 4 angel tokens.
G2: Go to time after I Extirpate Jace.
R2: Reanimator 1-2
G1: Second turn Griselbrand
G2: Discard+extirapte+Nihil+thrun do the job.
G3: I thoughtseize and see 2 reanimate an exhume and Angel of Despair. Discard exhume hoping for a therapy, I have and extirpate in hand, but I don't draw lands nor explorer and stay with 3 lands for some turns. He tries to reanimate a Griselbrand which I extirpate, then show and tells the angel which I can kill with pulse, but then he can reanimate the angel and kills one land.
R3: BUG (no Jace) 2-0
Both games are close but I can rip his hand and sacrifice explorer, then kill him with some dudes.
R4:UWB stoneblade 0-2
R1: a very long game, 40 minutes or so, but I thought I could win the war to a Jace, but fail to find any answer and then batterskull joins the party.
R2: Jace again, but this time joins snapcaster+ Sword of feast and famine, quite devastating.
R5: Omnitell 2-0
R1:Best thing ever. T4 Show and tell into Emrakul, I put Primeval Titan, and play Garruk make a 3/3 (I have no more creatures in my attempt to find Innocent blood), then sacrifice 5 lands and an explorer to emrakul, and in my turn I draw 6 and Innocent blood appears. Epic victory.
R2: I rip his hand with discard and extirpate/extract some key cards.
R6: GU Infect 1-2
R1: turn 3 kill, double Invigorate an Inkmoth.
R2: I can discard some pump and counters, kill dudes with pernicious deed, and kill him with thrun.
R3: Try to discard T1 but he dazes, try to discard T2 with hymn to tourach but he spell pierces. The game goes long but I can kill all his dudes...except for Inmoth. Finally I GSZ for 5 just to realize I side out my Acidic Slime, so I find Eternal witness and return a Pernicious deed to control his ground, but some turns later he draws invigorate when I am at 6 counters, and Inkmoth kills me.
R7: Belcher 2-1
R1: He is on the play and wins me T1 with lethal belcher. He doesn't know what I'm playing.
R2: I have a hand with duress, therapy and explorer, so I can discard chrome mox and then double burning wish. He can't recover for the later discard.
R3: I have thoughtseize, Hymn and pernicious deed, but if he comboes T1 I can do nothing. He keeps his seven and passes the turn. I discard and accelerator seeing no win condition but a Manamorphose. In his turn he decides to go off and finds an empty the warrens that puts 10 goblins. In my T2 I destroy his chrome mox then takes 10 damage, but pernicious deed restarts the board. At this point, I can hymn his 2 cards, then cranial extract Belcher, Extirpate Burning wish, and Extract Empty the warrens, so no win condition for him and concedes.
To sum up it was very fun to play, and considering I had very bad luck with pairings I am not disappointed. Jace in the battlefield is imposible to beat, and sometimes I wished my second Thragtusk would have been e a flying beater or sweeper, Silklash Spider beeing my preference. I could have won R6 infect but stoneblade was imposible and Reanimator is a bad matchup also, so overall I'm happy with my first performance. Maybe a white splash again but this time for vindicate (could have killed Jace, Inkmoth and Angel of despair, in my loses) Sigarda and Gaddock sideboard.
Hope you can help me and give me some advice.
@soiber2000: You should consider a splash. Academy Rector beats Jace by going over the Top with Recycle or by Faith's Fettering him. Blue lists can play their own Jace. Punishing Fire lists can burn Jace dead and Scapewish lists can just brute force a Scapeshift to resolve with Therapies and kill the opponent. Red lists also have access to Slaughter Games post board which is great against UW Jace decks.
@Played another Trial. I changed -1 Recurring Nightmare +1 Punishing Fire to my signature list because of everyone playing DR Shaman and I replaced the Krosan Grip in my SB with a Decay.
R1: some kind of Veteran Explorer / Rector deck with Verdant Succession, Ashnod's Altar but no Cabal Therapies.
G1 he assembles a Semi-Combo with Rector and nukes too many of my lands.
+ 3 Slaughter Games
+ 4 Thoughtseize
- 2 Damnation
- 2 Veteran Explorer
- 2 Punishing Fire
- 1 Abrupt Decay
Not entirely sure how I sideboarded.
G2 and G3 I destroy his janky deck and he complains like a 5 year old. Not sure if he was trolling or just stupid.
2-1
1-0
R2: Belcher
G1 he just kills me T1
SB
+ 4 Thoughtseize
+ 3 Slaughter Games
+ 1 Abrupt Decay
- 4 Punishing Fire
- 1 Broodmate Dragon
- 1 Primecal Titan
- 2 Thragtusk
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
G2 I Thoughtseize him T1 and take his only win condition. Then Therapy on a double and a single and Slaughter Games. Huntmaster finishes things quickly.
G3 I keep Thoughtseize, Top, Explorer and 4 Land. At least it has the potential to lucksack into Deed/Damnation/Plague if he has Warrens. He Probes me, makes 18 Goblins and passes the turn. I block with Explorer, go to three, brick in draw step, play Top, activate blind and find the Deed. Skill! He took it like a man and cracked some jokes about it. Much nicer than R1 opponent.
2-1
2-0
R3: UGB Delver
I lose G1 to a Tombstalker that I find no solution for.
+ 1 Go for the Throat
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
- 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Wall of Blossoms
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
G2 I win and then G3 goes I win on life total. He tried to stall like a madman but doesn't quite get there because he doens't know how the Magic League rules work.
2-1
3-0
R4 RUG
He has really good draws in both games and I miss the third land drop for several turns in both games while he Stifles my Explorer triggers, beats me down with Mongoose and then has double Force of Will for my sweepers and / or Thragtusks. A Carpet also does not show up in G2. These games felt about as representative of the matchup as the games against Belcher. My opponent played perfectly though and deserves the win.
SB
+ 2 Abrupt Decay
+ 3 Carpet of Flowers
+ 1 Go for the Throat
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Punishing Fire
- 1 Recurring Nightmare
- 3 Cabal Therapy
0-2
3-1
Overall I am pretty happy with the list. 11-3 total in ML Trials is a good result.
Just a suggestion for straight Nic fit, but what about the green ball lightning from planar chaos as a sub for blitz hellion? It doesn't shuffle back in, but it also costs 4 to GSZ instead of 6.
@Commoner; @Arian:
I think Blitz Hellion is not the right choice (and neither is Groundbreaker). I would suggest to just cut the Hellion and the Stronghold if you use them so rarely. That extra insurance of Stronghold is nice and if you play 20 more games there might be a point in which you miss Hellion but having 2 additional cards that always do something will certainly be better in the long run.
@Tao: thanks. Maybe the splash is the way to go. Punishing Fire is really tempting, as is Scapewish. Your results with Punishing Fire are great and it is something to consider.
@Haste beater: I also think it is not the solution to Planeswalker, but there is nothing to fetch with zenith that can kill a Jace. Absolutely nothing, which is quite disappointing.
If you GSZ for Primeval Titan and search out two Grove of the Burnwillows you can handle Jace relatively quickly and sustainably.
Nifty play there, kind of like PrimeTime -> Stronghold/Tower to go nuts with recursion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tao
I don't see why your running Primeval in straight G/B? I feel like Grave is 100% better in that deck.
Nice results Tao! I'm considering purchasing the little bit I need to convert shift into punishing, just because they all use cards I enjoy!
Back on the card tech, I have faith in Blitz Hellion. Last night I actually wished him up over Thragtusk v.s. maverick when I needed more punching power rather than life (this was after there were angry mountains, and a prime time ready to rumble).
It just makes prime time and agro plans a nice shot quicker. Gives your opponent less time to find the answers they need, and you also windmill slam it on the table and have to read it because no one's seen it before.
On a different note: What the hell does /barn mean?
Uh, it means I've developed a bad habit. I'm taken to playing a lot of a forum game called Mafia lately, because my job is boring as all hell and it keeps my mind occupied throughout the day. /Barn basically means "I want to say exactly what this guy just said, but I don't want to waste space repeating him." It's short for barnacle, the idea being that you're "clinging" to the original poster's point. I try to keep mafia terminology out of my posts in other places, but apparently I'm failing, lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Siiig
The big issue right now with the Hellion and Stronghold slots is that both have been good in theory, but have been proven to be situational. This is hardly surprising given that they're both tutor targets -- they're tools whose situations just haven't been coming up for me. I honestly believe at this point that this is largely because of the matchups I've been hitting. In the past two events (SCG and Mythic), I haven't played against the decks that Hellion and Stronghold would be good against. I believe that at this point, I am going to leave them in my deck for Jupiter this Saturday, and then re-evaluate the slots. The last Jupiter (in December), was when I would have -literally- killed to have Blitz Hellion and Stronghold both in my deck. So, we'll see if artificially forcing the meta leads to those slots being happier. If I'm still disappointed by them post-Jupiter, they'll be coming out for god only knows what. At this point, I'm inclined to say that one needs to be a threat and one needs to be an answer. I know Erick and I briefly discussed putting a Recycle in Scapewish just as a random bomb to be drawn into lategame when you have a million mana, so you can just "storm off" into a Scapeshift kill. That might be something worth exploring. I don't like not having a way to tutor for it, but I can agree that having an insane draw engine to go alongside the deck's insane ramp would be a pretty stellar thing. Hell, there have been times in Rector already where I've half wished I had a Tendrils available somewhere, somehow, because I chained together enough spells to make it such that it would have been lethal. Green Sun Zenith + Recycle is a hell of a drug, since it says G: Draw a card.
If you ask this for my list, PrimeTime in straight G/B is basically for Stronghold/Tower recursion and 2xTreetop beatdown. But afther 7 rounds I found it a mere 6/6 beater with trample because either plays were irrelevant. Volrath's Stronghold gave me one win though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Siiig
Probably Grave Titan is better, but I don't have a way to find it.
On the topic, I don't see what Blitz Hellion offers, rather than a 7 damage shot to the face. You lose your Zenith for it.