So I went 3-1 last night with this. The only change I made was -1 Tamiyo, +1 Dig Through Time.
R1 vs BUG Delver 2-0
Both games were pretty similar as I had Explorers in hand. I played around daze, got them to resolve and die and then proceeded to play big threats after stripping the FoWs from his band with therapy. Simple gameplan and simple games.
R2 vs Reanimator 2-1
A tougher matchup for sure. He was also playing MD pithing needles. G1 he had a fairly poor draw and couldn't find a reanimation spell for the griselbrand in his yard for the first 3 which gave me enough time to brainstorm away dead cards and find therapies. I had a tiny army of explorers and strix attacking him lower than one griselbrand activation and had a notion thief and karakas in hand so the game seemed fairly locked. He SnTs, I put in Karakas and he has Iona. Bounce it etc and finally kill him. I didn't want to show him the Karakas though which was a shame.
G2 was a much faster affair. My hand had Explorer, Duress, Jace, Notion Thief and three lands. He led with delta, go. I led with Explorer as I didn't want the Duress dazed as it was my only interaction. I'm not sure if the punt was keeping that hand or not duressing that turn but he eots Entomb and then reanimates the griz. He lets me resolve a brainstorm which seemed bad as he knew I had Karakas in the deck, but I didn't find it.
G3 I keep a hand of Karakas, Bojuka Bog, 2 fetches, Bayou, Duress and Jace. T1 Duress sees 2x Careful Study, Exhume, Griz and lands. Take the Exhume. I drew lands the first few turns so just made my land drops. He finds a reanimate on the second Careful Study ad gets grizz. On my turn I play Karakas and bounce, he draws 7. Doesn't find a needle and can't drop anything without it getting bounced. I land a jace which surprisingly resolves. Bog away his GY, therapy away SnTs incase he draws ashen rider and lock the game up with explorer beats.
R3 vs URb Delver. 1-2
G1 is a nice display of what Explorer decks do. Explorer into explorer into therapy into deed. Deed away his board then play jace and grave titan.
G2 was a pretty nice display of how busted Treasure Cruise is. I didn't have an explorer, but a tabernacle and abrupt decay keep things in check for a bit. Unfortunately two cruises later and I'm way behind facing a swiftspear, delver and a sulfuric vortex. A deed would have been nice, but I was dead before I could even look for one.
G3 was pretty similar, though only one cruise. It got to a stalemate and we were both topdecking, but I had a top. My first draw was Notion Thief, not bad! His first drew is Young Pyro, ouch. Proceed to not find anything on the top three and have to use the last card in my hand which is a deluge. A vortex locks it up.
R4 vs TES. 2-0
I went into this thinking it's an auto loss. Apparently not.
G1 he mulls to six. I keep a one lander (trop) with BS, explorer, garruk, witness, decay, deed. Not great, but I think it's good enough. He probes and therapies away the explorer off a gemstone mine so I know he's on storm. I draw a second BS. Eot burn one looking for land, find a crop rotation and a top but no land. He draws and passes without making a second land drop. I draw then BS seeing one of the dead cards and two new ones which are therapy and phyrexian tower. I have to awkwardly crop rotate away the tower to get a bayou and therapy naming Burning Wish. I hit. His hand has a lot of mana but no win con. He was one storm off killing me last turn. With the shuffle effect from rotation I manage to find more lands and get a jace ticking up and a notion thief in play. Such an awkward game, but got there!
G2 I fire off two therapies, one gets flashed back with an explorer. Then get a duress off a BS and strip his hand down to almost nothing. Get a jace going. He empties for 10 tokens, I crop rotate into Tabernacle then play a Grave Titan and it's over in two turns. I had Swan Song and FoW in the end too.
So, the deck started off as a bit of a silly joke, but it's actually playing quite nicely. I'm going to keep tweaking it, I think Dig Through Time has a place here. The mana is actually working out better than I thought too which is nice.
I've been altering my method of deckbuilding for Nic Fit, starting with whether Nic Fit is a meta or anti-meta deck. Now, I believe at its core, Nic Fit is anti-meta: the interaction between Cabal Therapy and Veteran Explorer is what enables the deck to do so well in certain metas. However, that implies a few things about the meta: that the decks in the meta don't run lots of basics (like Miracles and some D&T do), that the decks in the meta can't reliably play around Veteran Explorer (i.e. Delver, Swords to Plowshares, etc.), and, to a much lesser extent, that we actually know what the key cards are for the meta decks (important, but should be second nature to anyone running Cabal Therapy).
Given that Delver has been the flavor of tempo for quite some time, Swords is the go-to removal for a variety of decks, and the current trend points to less greedy manabases (in particular Miracles and D&T), I believe that Veteran Explorer at this point is a liability, at least without a previously played Cabal Therapy backing it up. Powerful still, yet can easily blow up in our collective face.
Such a card would be fine at 2 to 3, but not a full 4-of. Of course, without the full playset, Cabal Therapy loses a lot of its appeal as an engine enabler.
This also means our secondary (or rather our now more reliable, yet less explosive) ramp source demands more attention. Since I prefer Deathrite Shaman due to its utility and cost-effectiveness, I'll be running more fetchlands than usual. As such, we have a greater access to cheap shuffle effects to abuse Top with, though this balances out with less Vets.
I'll probably continue the review of my thought process later, but right not I kinda want to get some sleep. Here's the final result thought.
3 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Eternal Witness
2 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Primeval Titan
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Living Wish
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Council's Judgment
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Karakas
[----]
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Thoughtseize
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Ethersworn Canonist
You're probably correct. I hate that this is what we've come to, but there it is.Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner
I played a bug version at my weekly last night and went 3-1 against, reanimator, black and taxes, burn and omni. lost to reanimator in a close game 3 where he had 1 turn to draw force and he did. My list:
2 bayou
1 underground sea
1 tropical island
2 creeping tar pit
2 island
2 swamp
2 forest
3 verdant catacombs
2 misty rainforest
3 polluted delta
1 phyrexian tower
4 veteran explorer
1 vendillion clique
1 grave titan
3 jace, the mind sculpter
3 liliana of the veil
1 garruk, primal hunter
4 cabal therapy
4 gitaxian probe
4 abrupt decay
3 pernicious deed
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
3 treasure cruise
Force maindeck was worrisome but with 3 cruise i figured the card disadvantage was fine. i boarded force out only 1 time but obviously my matchups where skewed that way.
Garruk will probably be replaced, but grave titan was fine in his role but the garruk was too slow.
treasure cruise was great. this deck also gets enough mana that you dont need to delve fully so in grindy matchups I played concentrate multiple times and that was fine.
this list is FAR from tuned but I like what it was able to do. I am not sure if therapy vet is the right package and may just switch to a deathrite control version but wanted to try vet a few times and see how it ran. I just think as the metagame becomes more midrange vet might not be a strong enough engine to justify the space but the effect is certainly powerful enough.
the SB was surgicals, negates, notion thiefs, scooze, a tusk and some other random 1 ofs.
Dont worry: we still have a niche as a G/x ramp control deck. Its just what we use as our primary ramp source has to change to suit the meta, as does our removal and threat suite.
To be honest, I came to this conclusion not by playing against a top legacy deck, but my friend's casual white weenie aggro. The double edge of cabal therapy hurts when it hits, regardless of what they can do with the mana.
I have no doubt that in time, manabases will become greedy again and we can exploit Vet once more :)
I guess my post got a bit buried under all the doom and gloom, so I'll instead seek some input on my SB.
As of now this is how it stands (I'm on Punishing Jund)
4 REB
2 Surgical
2 Choke
2 Slaughter Games
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
I feel pretty good with this SB, but I feel like I could use more GY hate. Dredge or Reanimator will ream me for sure. Fuck, real estate is so tight with this deck!
Do you have a very precise idea of your local meta ?
If not you could use the primer to get some ideas.
From my perspective, I would lower the SB mana curve a bit. For example, Golgari charm should join the party, at least as a 1-of.
Something of note. I have yet to actually test vs the new breed of BUG Delver that's arising with Cruise, but I went looking to see what they were cutting for the Cruises, and it looks like they're cutting Sylvan Library and the 2x Tombstalker/TNN slot for the 3x Cruises.
I'm not sure, but on paper, that actually looks GOOD for us. Their creature suite is now -just- 4/4/4 Delver/DRS/Goyf, with no big trump in either terms of protection or cmc (stalker is hella hard to Deed away). Additionally, while Cruise is obnoxious, I'd rather they Cruise than have an active Sylvan any day of the week.
Just food for thought.
After some brainstorming, you should try the following:
-1 Garruk PH
-1 Clique
+2 TNN
I don't like Creeping Tarpit in a NicFit shell, but well if it suits your playstyle.
This is what I would try:
2 bayou
2 underground sea
2 tropical island
2 island
2 swamp
1 forest
3 verdant catacombs
3 misty rainforest
3 polluted delta
1 phyrexian tower
3 veteran explorer
4 deathrite shaman
3 True name nemesis
3 jace, the mind sculpter
3 liliana of the veil
1 Garruk, Apex Predator
4 cabal therapy
4 abrupt decay
3 pernicious deed
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
3 dig through time
I'll add that in a NicFit BUG shell, DTT is very appealing.
Let's crush some TC decks with a midrange shell packing DTT.
Actually I'm really walking into the meta blind, it's been almost a year since I've played. Do you think Golgari Charm is better than Toxic Deluge?
I'm a bit worried about Tombstalker, my only real defense is Liliana and 1 Pulse (not counting going over the top with P Titan). Is 2 Pulse too much?
Also, can we briefly cover the correct calls for Slaughter Games? S&T, TES/ANT, Elves etc. Realllly don't want to botch one of those ;D
#rusty
edit: What are your thoughts on Leyline of the Void? It's allllmost out of Deed range and does a significant amount of work against much of the field, including most Delver variants (nullifies Threshold, Delve, and Tarmogoyf a teeny bit)
I don't think you'll ever see a tombstalker as long as Treasure Cruise is legal.
What's the reasoning behind the Scapeshift version playing a split of Wood Elves and Sakura-Tribe Elder, instead of a set of STE?
I don't play Scape but I'll take a shot.
1. Diversifies Zenith targets by CMC
2. STE works faster, but Elves stick around to A. chump block, B. leave his buddy behind after a Lili edict, C. attack
3. Elves can grab Bayou or Taiga
Indeed: the less things that can swing through or over a 'needs to die' ramp source, the better for Vet-based lists. And Library is definitely worse than TC, especially considering that TC hinders their Goyf and DRS, albeit momentarily.
Granted, I'm still of the opinion that DRS and Delver make Vet difficult to use, but this overall looks good simply because of how much more effective our main removal (Deed/Decay) will be against these decks.
1) Calls for SLG
S&T -> Go for their fatties. Emrakul first, then Grisel. Reason behind is you lose much quicker against Emrakul than against Grisel.
TES -> Burning Wish
ANT -> TOA (Tendril of Agony) -> very few lists have another wincon, but if you feel TOA is not their only kill, go for IT.
Elves -> NO (Natural order), then Glimpse -> they might have too many BIG NO targets (progenitus, wurm 15/15, behemot...) so going after their fatties is useless.
2) Golgari charm vs Toxic deluge
Speed vs consistency.
For example, I lost multiple games against Elves because TD was not a golgari charm.
TD is only better in some corner cases, whereas golgari has a broader application.
Do not underestimate the "destroy target enchantment" ability.
I would replace the 4th AD by a golgari charm.
3) Leyline of the Void
I know for sure that BUG Shardless is/was playing a 1-of of LotV in the side.
Hey, why not. 3 gravehate cards in Legacy is a bare minimum.
I'll replace your 2nd pulse with this. You should expect a surge in "blue" because everyone seem to be hot about the new blue cantrip cards.
Christ, tonight made me remember why I stopped playing legacy: if it ain't blue, you probably ain't winning.
Round 1: Burn
Game 1 went long, but I got there with Thragtusk/Lili backup.
Game 2 I was down to 1 life, Deed and Tusk in hand, opp had Vortex in play and nothing in hand. Because I didn't RTFC, I played Tusk thinking I'd gain enough life to stabilize. I should have played Deed to take out the Vortex and survive another turn.
Game 3 opp had 2 Vortex in play, I swing with PTitan for 12 damage, at his upkeep he stacks 2 PoP on the Vortex triggers (which would have killed him) and I eat 16 damage. ;_;
Round 2: High Tide with Snapmage GY tricks
Game 1 I Thoughtseize and see a fuck ton of cantrips. He combos off while I feebly attempt to land a Huntmaster.
Game 2 I play REB on the wrong fucking card. Following turn I try to GSZ a Witness to Therapy away his Snapcaster (which apparently glues the deck together) and he combos off with the GSZ on stack. I had Abrupt Decay in hand which I should have held to respond to Snapmage trigger. In retrospect, I should have simply mulled into a Leyline of the Void. He couldn't function without his Snap backs.
I dropped at 0-2 because honestly I was just disappointed at my shit playing. It's also really demoralizing to sit across from your opponent while they vomit out a dozen blue cards and you have no interactions whatsoever. Solitaire, not magic.
I'd play BUG NicFit if I could afford all those blue lands. wahhhh
Your name is fucking brilliant
Still PFire Nic Fit is an awesome deck to play. Never give up. ;-)
I just completed collecting the cards and build a wishless BANZA list and was looking for advice to further tune it.
Running Gaddock Teeg, as suggested by Bob Huang, should be punishing the Dig Through Treasure Cruise hype so time for my foil japanese Teeg to kick some.
My meta will be full with combo and blue-based decks of all sorts and sounds.
I really like that Siege Rhino is a bit more aggresive then Thragtusk and that it costs 4 instead of 5.
As far as my equipment goes, is this the right configuration? Also Sword of Light and Shadow seems appealing as it is good against opposing Stoneforge decks. Getting a Gaddock Teeg equipped with this one versus Miracles is GG aswell.
I have done some testing with 4 DRS/ 3 VetEx and really like it. I will be running that main in PFire aswell.
Will i be missing Kitchen Finks vs Burn and UR Delver match-up?
Is a Living Wish package with Ethersworn Canonist, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Orzhof Pontif and/or Bojuka Bog better?
List:
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Veteran Explorer
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Eternal Witness
1 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sun Titan
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacomb
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
Sideboard:
1 Grave Titan
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Council's Judgment
1 Krosan Grip
2 Golgari Charm
Thanks for the encouragement (and the shoutout) ;D
I have to say I'm pretty intrigued by Deathrite Shaman (never played it). The discussion lately has been about reducing the focus on Vet, is this the solution?
1. Does it have a place in Punishing lists?
2. Is it too slow vs. fast combo?
3. Does DRS being in play ever prevent you from wanting to blow a Deed? I could see that being tricky.
Also about non-Red lists, do you find the lack of REB detrimental? I love that GW can pull Thune/Feeder out of nowhere, something that PFire doesn't really have access to.
I think before Jund Fit can ever be taken seriously as a competitive deck it needs to contain a similar combo, afaik there isn't one. That's probably why Scape and Thune have a leg up competitively speaking.
If you can't tell, I'm still sore from that fucking high tide matchup...
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