Users @Cringe and @Memories of the Time may have tested their versions, but I'm gonna try to get some rounds in with this sometime over the next weekend. Hopefully the pre-release events might draw a couple people that I can test legacy with.Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
I'm curious about 1) Evo Leap in general and associated correct numbers, 2) ability to get Vet out early / mana issues, and 3) enchantment package. Glad to have way more early interaction.
Going to test out Dovescape in place of Living Plane since it has the ability to shut out some decks on its own, and it combos with both Curse and Sandwurm, meaning that I can focus first on getting one of those in play. Living Plane really felt like it only worked great with Curse, and depending on what matchup you are in, Curse may not be optimal to tutor for first.
Living Plane + Cruel Reality may be better. Feel like the distinction is only going to be noticeable after 50+ matches, and I don't even think I've had that many runs with Nyx Fit in the first place.
9
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
4 Academy Rector
14
3 Sterling Grove
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Evolutionary Leap
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Nether Void
1 Cast Out
1 Dovescape
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Sandwurm Convergence
16
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Lingering Souls
22
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Cavern of Souls
side:
1 Humility
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 City of Solitude
1 Thoughtseize
2 Lost Legacy
SE most definitely doesn't want Collective Brutality. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Brutality as a card and play it a bunch in Modern (where I'm convinced it's the best card in the format). But, I don't think it's anywhere near as good in Legacy, and especially not in Nic Fit. The main issue is that it trades really poorly with FoW, which means you can only safely use it for additional modes once you've successfully cleared a path. The other issue though is that we don't make good use of the discard. Nic Fit follows the general ramp plan which says we're ramping into cards that blank most of the opponents cards. Therefore, our quality is much higher. This holds true in SE Fit too, which focuses hard on card advantage in order to maintain a high velocity. You don't want to trade your cards off for minor effects. Most cards in SE are either 2 for 1's or removal. As a removal spell, Brutality is weaker than what we already have, so pitching removal for removal doesn't make sense, and the 2 for 1's will string enough other cards together that it doesn't matter.
Basically, Brutality just doesn't make sense in a deck with high velocity. It makes more sense for a deck with low card velocity that would love to get more things done with fewer cards cast, but that's not really how SE works. And the extra weakness to FoW probably forces it out of being a real Legacy contender anyways.
What exactly do you mean by "card velocity"?
I look at Brutality is a tempo card. And no surprise that its good in Modern which is a tempo format. And no surprise its not as great in Legacy because it's more of a card advantage format. That being said, it can feel pretty nice taking a card in hand and killing a DRS for the cost of two mana and an extra a land/explorer. In that way I sort of look at Brutality as pseudo-card filtering in addition to tempo because it can discard dead cards and make them better cards.
Velocity is basically the main goal of tempo. You try to do things more efficiently than your opponent, so that you can ultimately do more things than your opponent, and win the game. When you have a mana acceleration engine though, you don't actually have to do things more efficiently, you just need to do things. The problem a lot of tempo decks have, is that they don't actually have card advantage. This leads to them stagnating if the turns go on too long and they run out of things to do. The base rate is starting with 7 cards and then +1 card/turn. If you play 3 cards/turn (1 land, 2 cards) you run out of stuff on turn 4. Card advantage nicely gets around this, because you can maintain that 3 card/turn pace forever.
Also, Legacy isn't really a card advantage format. CA is powerful, just like it is anywhere else, but few cards in Legacy actually provide advantage. One of the most played cards is disadvantage (and simultaneously the most popular way to get advantage for the opponent), and cards that outright give extra cards like Leopold are still relatively sparse. Legacy is all about quality using Ponder and Brainstorm to shape draws and filter hands. Brutality actually has a lot in common with Brainstorm when you think about it, except it's way worse with and against FoW.
Anyways, Brutality doesn't really work in Legacy. It's great in Reanimator which is using it as an uncounterable way to discard, but unless you're using the graveyard on that level I don't think it's strong enough.
If you're more interested in it, and want to read about similar ideas from pro's rather than just my own theories on the game check out Aj Sacher's piece on mana sum theory, Zvi Moshowitz (sp?) pieces on ramp, and Kiblers pieces on resource conversion. Parts from all of that are borrowed for how SE's engine works. You could read our own theories on it too, I linked a couple posts ago to the relevant section of the old thread.
And that's why I run PtE over AD. That, and it doesn't cost green mana, making it more likely that I'll be able to both play a creature and cast a removal spell in the same turn. Eternal Witness -> PtE (1GGW) is easier to pull off than Eternal Witness -> AD (1GGGB).
Speaking of which - I posted a list a couple of pages back, but it pretty much got lost in the whirlwind that is this thread. Here it is:
Maindeck (60):
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Siege Rhino
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Vizier of the Menagerie
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sylvan Library
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Path to Exile
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
Sideboard
3 Duress
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pithing Needle
3 Lost Legacy
Relatively low curve, great chunk of 4s though. General plan boils down to "Annoy your opponent with cheap stuff, get up to 4/5 mana, stabilize and overwhelm your opponent". Relies even more heavily on GSZ than most lists. Manabase is also slightly smaller than most lists and requires you to fetch smartly.
And yes, I got rid of the Diabolic Intent. I know.
Also, Tower #2 might become a Volrath's Stronghold (damn you guys).
Sorry, but I think you're completely looking at this the wrong way.
About FoW: I think you're overestimating the amount we want to Escalate this card. Most of the time Brutality is 'Choose one - Duress / Disfigure'. Against nonblue decks, or if you have completely irrelevant cards in hand, you can escalate, but you don't really need to for it to be a good card. Against Force decks, it's like a Therapy - it guarantees your game changing spells get through onto the battlefield, with the added benefit of being able to kill a Deathrite if necessary also.
About velocity: I don't understand you here at all. You have a lot of sources of card advantage in the deck, and you're playing a lot of cards you don't necessarily want in every matchup, and you're trying to stabilize and grind in a lot of games. Brutality lets you use the worst card in your hand as a free duress/disfigure when you cast the other, or drain 2 against Burn, but most importantly escalating doesn't cost mana. Being able to turn excess cards into effects without paying for them is very relevant when you're trying to turn the corner before your opponent's clock kills you - most of the time you are constrained on mana rather than cards when trying to stabilize (especially in SE) so being able to turn cards into effects without costing any mana is a pretty important effect to have available.
Brutality also greatly improves the Burn matchup, which is very relevant for a slow grindy deck that doesn't play white.
It also improves most combo matchups, which is pretty major, given that you're again dedicating a lot of slots to cards which present neither a fast clock nor disruption, having additional discard to slow down Show & Tell / Storm / etc seems like exactly the sort of thing you want to be doing. You can't reasonably expect to stop them with just Therapy.
I've done like 60 games on cocka right now with the deck, losing only 5 times.
@Square_two: mana issue is my first (and likely the only big one) concern. For that reason, sometimes if there is no sac outlet i play a gsz for dryad a t1, for example. I really don't like stp, we don't really need that type of speed i think. I like the second C.Brutality, quoting Navsi about it. Can't understand Nether Void, since you're playing Dovescape (which is better). Glad to see that you're using the Lingering tech, how are you finding it? =)
You always need all the speed. And PtE over StP, without question. Always. Regardless of your build, you'll be popping Veteran Explorers anyways, capitalize on that.
I totally agree with Navsi here.
Nyx is close to being a prison deck, and often ends games by locking the opponent out hard - the deck is basically never the beatdown and has a ton of inevitability. STP has pretty much zero downside in the deck. PtE is often amazing when the opponent has no lands, but if they do have something to fetch it's a lot worse. I'd rather take the less swingy option in most cases, especially when there's sometimes additional upside when Swordsing your own creature in an emergency.
That's not *the* speed, it's *a* speed. And you don't always need all the speed, otherwise we would play only cc1 spells =)
I don't see the use of Stp/pte in Nyx Fit above decay or C.Brutality, that's the point ^^
Simple. Top speed is the only speed. We need to survive the first 5+ turns, after which we can start taking over the game. So yes, the interactive spells we do play should have a CMC of 1 so that we can afford to play the higher CMC cards that allow us to take over the game.
@Navsi: Fair enough. Well thought out and well formulated. Hard to disagree with that. For regular Junk Fit, it's PtE and nothing else.
Exactly for this reason, i can't see why you want a 2x of a spell that "only" removes a creature where the major point is to have enough mana to hardlock your opponent. What do you want, in the first turns, remove that delver or tarmogoyf or ramping with lands that's basically -for this deck- a timewalk, due to the low interactivity of Nyx Fit?
Decay is a way more flexible weapon that could hit many other things, and it's incounterable (way better in dealing with delver, for example).
Brutality is also flexible in a different way, and i approve the second one.
But stp, in Nyx Fit? I see reasons for it only considering Burn and Elves
It's not a bad card to have access to. The most common way we lose is by getting our gameplan disrupted, combined with early pressure. Swords reduces our odds of getting locked out of removal, meaning we generally get more time before we lose to engineer a Rector trigger. Being able to deal with Deathrite/Thalia/Delver/Goyf/Angler while restricted on mana is a handy benefit even if it isn't 100% essential. I've been thinking of running a few copies in my newest build, just because Cruel Reality and Sandwurm Convergence let us cut down on the number of big stupid haymakers we run which gives us more slots for interaction.
SE does pretty well against combo. What would you suggest dropping for Brutality though? It would basically be coming in for another removal spell and I can't think of any that I would be willing to cut for even one.
Here's a question for the Sneak Fit people!
First off lets assume our deck runs 1 fierce empath. So once you GSZ/cast him and resolved his tutor ability is more or less spent (yes there are ways to recur him but that's not what I am getting at).
Lets also assume that if I have Sneak Attack then yes I will probably be tutoring for Emrakul with Empath.
So when do you use Fierce Empath to grab a big finisher that's not Emrakul (Titans etc,,) or when do you hold back because I also view it as 1/2 of the Emrakul/Sneak combo.
Another scenario is to just wait to 7 mana so we can just GSZ for Woodland Bellower/Prime Titan and cut the middle man out. Depending on game state maybe this is more ideal/optimal.
I feel like I have many times where we are starting to get to the more mid-range part of the game. Usually we have between 4-6 lands. I draw GSZ but have no Sneak Attack (in hand or play). Part of me at this stage wants to hold the GSZ back because if I draw Sneak Attack it can be a part of a quick combo kill. However holding something back, and being less proactive also seems bad.
I struggle because if I pop Empath and grab a titan that's not necessarily bad. But it means if I draw Sneak Attack, drawing into GSZ/Woodland Bellower won't give me the combo kill.
So am I focusing too much on the Emrakul combo?
Any help is much appreciated :)
Not sure what your current removal suite is - I went digging through the thread but the only SE list I could find was Abzan and I'm pretty sure you're on GB right now? Not sure.
Anyway, this is what I'd probably run in straight GB:
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrupt Decay
1 To The Slaughter
1 Toxic Deluge
3 Pernicious Deed
And I'd currently run this in Abzan colours:
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile // Swords to Plowshares
1 To the Slaughter
3 Pernicious Deed
Running two Empaths helps a lot. Also, if you can kill your Empath (not hard), Zenith/Bellower for Eternal Witness lets you recur Empath to get Emrakul anyway.
My current removal is
4 Therapy
1 Maze of Ith/Karakas
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
Plus 2 Crop Rotations and 4 GSZ which are all capable of tutoring removal (either Maze/Karakas or Master)
The obvious cut would be to shave Abrupt Decay, but that's not something I agree with because Miracles is too common and it's important to be able to blow up Counterbalance. With a lower curve in general, the counter/top lock becomes more of a threat so it's good to have ways through it.
The full list is
Land 23
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Swamp
5 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Cavern of Souls
Creatures 17
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Strangleroot Geist
4 Dark Confidant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Others 21
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force
Sideboard 15
3 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
1 Karakas
1 Crop Rotation
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Lost Legacy
1 Treetop Village
1 Sensei's Divining Top
I'm not convinced Dovescape is as powerful as Nether Void in Nyx Fit. The combination of Dovescape with Curse of Death's Hold is great, to be sure, but Dovescape is not as impressive on its own as Nether Void. Against Delver or other decks with lots of non-creature spells, it's totally possible for us to die to a bunch of Scryb Sprites while we spend turns hoping to draw into a tutor or the second lock piece. It also does nothing to stop opponents from casting their creatures in acceleration of that beatdown. In addition, there is little hope of hardcasting Dovescape, whereas Nether Void can realistically be cast on turn 2, which is early enough to be relevant against decks like ANT or Burn. Finally, if the expectation is that Dovescape will come down only after Curse of Death's Hold, aren't Living Plane or Humility generally better complements? And each of them can be hardcast as needed. Dovescape overlaps in many ways with those two cards when considered as a complement to Curse of Death's Hold, whereas Nether Void opens up a new axis.
I'm open to counterargument, but my feeling is that while Dovescape is great when things are already going our way, Nether Void does a better job on its own of making things go our way, especially in the problematic matchups for which its use is intended.
EDIT: I edited the above to remove an argument about Storm—I forgot how Dovescape and Storm interact. Dovescape doesn't counter the copies of a spell with Storm. I think the rest of my arguments are sound, though. ;-)
Do tell. What exciting times for Nyx Fit! We're entering an era in which, in very many scenarios, Pernicious Deed won't be the first enchantment for which we Rector.
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