[Primer] Nic Fit

[Arianrhod]

Math guys / SE guys:

Can anyone provide a quick number crunch on how many creatures or pseudocreatures (lingering souls, combat walkers, fetchlands with dryad arbor) you would want to run in order to justify 2 Diabolic Intents, such that they are live ~90% of the time before turn 5 or so?

I think it's going to end up somewhere around 24ish, but I'd like some actual number crunching to back up my assumption.

If it's too complex of a question, by all means ignore me! Just figured I'd ask.

[Ivan-784]

Congrats!
I like to see Nic Fit do well so I like any list that places

Did you miss Top?

Thank you! :)
The same is for me, I really love this deck!
I did not really miss top. In fact, Top resulted to be necessary in long, grindy matches. But when the game is against burn, delver or a combo decks, you just want to play hatebears/lifegain/discard/removals and so on as soon as possible.

The deck has a nice topdeck by itself, many ways to generate card advantage and nasty fatties, hard to deal with. I'd say that the deck can live pretty well without SDT. The ScapeWish version will feel the loss more than any other Nic Fit variant, I think.

[Bobmans]

Hi, this is my deck :)
The deck performed very well, even against nasty matchups like S&T and ANT.
I am thinking about replacing the SB Deed with a 2nd K-Grip, which is good against Batterskull, Sneak Attack and Inkmoth nexus.
What do you think about it?

How do you feel about the card choices maindeck? Which cards standed out, positive or negative?

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[Brael]

Math guys / SE guys:

Can anyone provide a quick number crunch on how many creatures or pseudocreatures (lingering souls, combat walkers, fetchlands with dryad arbor) you would want to run in order to justify 2 Diabolic Intents, such that they are live ~90% of the time before turn 5 or so?

I think it's going to end up somewhere around 24ish, but I'd like some actual number crunching to back up my assumption.

If it's too complex of a question, by all means ignore me! Just figured I'd ask.

It gets a little complicated, because of how often creatures die off, and some cards provide more than one creature. For example, in order to have a creature to hit with on Intent Lingering Souls is only good as a single card but for the purposes of having targets is as good as having 4 others in the deck.

The way I would approach the question is how many creatures do you want total at that point? The way we figured creature numbers for SE is what you would need to have in order to have something after the opponent was run out of removal (and without Miracles around anymore this number is probably going to go down).

If you're thinking about it that way, it likely means you need one more creature than the opponent has removal. That's not something that can be easily answered right now, since the meta is in too much flux. I would say 8 fetches, an Arbor, and 7+ sac creatures is what you want.

Edit: The problem I've always found with Intent (and Therapy runs into this too, to an extent) is sacrificing a creature in a deck that wants good board presence can be really problematic. You can only afford a few slots to fodder cards. I think Lingering Souls is a good way around that issue, and other token cards are too, but those end up making GSZ a lot worse. I guess where I'm going with this is, what are you usually getting with Intent? Depending on the answer, there may be some better tutors.

[Brael]

Thank you! :)
The same is for me, I really love this deck!
I did not really miss top. In fact, Top resulted to be necessary in long, grindy matches. But when the game is against burn, delver or a combo decks, you just want to play hatebears/lifegain/discard/removals and so on as soon as possible.

The deck has a nice topdeck by itself, many ways to generate card advantage and nasty fatties, hard to deal with. I'd say that the deck can live pretty well without SDT. The ScapeWish version will feel the loss more than any other Nic Fit variant, I think.

I came to the same realization with Top which is why I had started to cut them. Early Tops just use too many resources, which slows you down significantly. They worked better as a mid-late game card.

Edit: Forgot to ask about the Wood Elves, was that just a card availability issue? Nissa should be better in any circumstance (especially since you don't have Vastwood Seers).

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Edit 2: Horizon Canopy is out of my SFM list again. Was goldfishing a few games, I never wanted to blow it up and it was costing me much more life than Bob ever does. That slot is becoming the 8th fetch again.

[Ivan-784]

How do you feel about the card choices maindeck? Which cards standed out, positive or negative?

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I did not feel bad about any of the cards. I just did not see Wood Elves and Grave Titan and could not evaluate them. Grave Titan has proved many times to be more than worthy in the past, btw.

Top cards?
Gaddock maindeck: gave a total boost against S&T. A must: he can win alone G1 vs ANT and can slow down other combos. If you don’t need it, you don’t simply play it and side it out in g2.
Dragonlord Dromoka: If deployed, wins alone vs delver decks.
Sigarda: she is the true queen of the deck. Nothing to say here.
Primeval Titan: almost never sided him out (maybe once vs burn). He rules even in a non-scapewish environment. A total blast vs S&T. Even if he dies as he enters, you can play it again with the 2 towers.
Recurring Nightmare: really strong, especially vs unfair decks which don’t side in grave hate. I made a nice trick with Primeval Titan, Recurring Nightmare and Ashen Rider vs S&T ;)

I came to the same realization with Top which is why I had started to cut them. Early Tops just use too many resources, which slows you down significantly. They worked better as a mid-late game card.

Edit: Forgot to ask about the Wood Elves, was that just a card availability issue? Nissa should be better in any circumstance (especially since you don't have Vastwood Seers).

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Edit 2: Horizon Canopy is out of my SFM list again. Was goldfishing a few games, I never wanted to blow it up and it was costing me much more life than Bob ever does. That slot is becoming the 8th fetch again.

I chose the Wood Elves because of my mana curve and the good sinergy with cabal/phyrexian tower/diabolic intent: with 3 six mana fatties I wanted to ramp fast.

I did not consider Nissa. Not because she’s not powerful, but because I did not think about her. :)
She could be a nice add to the deck, even if she forces you to play in a bit different way. Let’s talk a bit about pros and cons:

Wood elves:
+ Better when you want to ramp.
+ May get bayou or savannah, and fix your mana
- Smaller body
- Little or no influence in lategame

Nissa:
+ Really powerful lategame: can give great card advantage and may win the game alone.
+ Bigger body
+ Potential threat: with vets in the deck she may flip fast. Opponent could choose to use a removal on her, opening the road for our fatties
+ Better sinergy with Tracker than the elf
- Less useful if you want to ramp fast
- she forces you to leave at least 1 basic forest in the deck if you want to use her ability, so you have to be more careful with fetches and veterans
- only basic forests, so no mana fix.

I think I’ll give her a chance, since as I said before, I played the whole day without Wood Elves and never GSZ'd for them.

[Bobmans]

I did not feel bad about any of the cards. I just did not see Wood Elves and Grave Titan and could not evaluate them. Grave Titan has proved many times to be more than worthy in the past, btw.

Top cards?
Gaddock maindeck: gave a total boost against S&T. A must: he can win alone G1 vs ANT and can slow down other combos. If you don’t need it, you don’t simply play it and side it out in g2.
Dragonlord Dromoka: If deployed, wins alone vs delver decks.
Sigarda: she is the true queen of the deck. Nothing to say here.
Primeval Titan: almost never sided him out (maybe once vs burn). He rules even in a non-scapewish environment. A total blast vs S&T. Even if he dies as he enters, you can play it again with the 2 towers.
Recurring Nightmare: really strong, especially vs unfair decks which don’t side in grave hate. I made a nice trick with Primeval Titan, Recurring Nightmare and Ashen Rider vs S&T ;)

I chose the Wood Elves because of my mana curve and the good sinergy with cabal/phyrexian tower/diabolic intent: with 3 six mana fatties I wanted to ramp fast.

I did not consider Nissa. Not because she’s not powerful, but because I did not think about her. :)
She could be a nice add to the deck, even if she forces you to play in a bit different way. Let’s talk a bit about pros and cons:

Wood elves:
+ Better when you want to ramp.
+ May get bayou or savannah, and fix your mana
- Smaller body
- Little or no influence in lategame

Nissa:
+ Really powerful lategame: can give great card advantage and may win the game alone.
+ Bigger body
+ Potential threat: with vets in the deck she may flip fast. Opponent could choose to use a removal on her, opening the road for our fatties
+ Better sinergy with Tracker than the elf
- Less useful if you want to ramp fast
- she forces you to leave at least 1 basic forest in the deck if you want to use her ability, so you have to be more careful with fetches and veterans
- only basic forests, so no mana fix.

I think I’ll give her a chance, since as I said before, I played the whole day without Wood Elves and never GSZ'd for them.

Currently i am toying around with Renegade Rallier in this slot. I have always like Nissa, Vastwood Seer. When played at correct it generates so much value. It is only that i find it a bit awkward with Nissa, Vital Force which has become an auto include in every build i play.
Rallier can also fix mana, although it is slightly more conditional. You need to crack a fetch, sac a creature or something must die in combat, etc. But it can potentially generate some other value like returning QPM or Sylvan Library. Next to Recurring Nightmare or the Two Towers it can also get pretty nasty real quickly. I have always seen it as a lesser version of Eternal Witness, but it has a different and interesting angle on itself. It is a pity that there aren't more targets for it in NicFit in general. Perhaps that a SFM version has most ways to exploit the card.

[Brael]

Currently i am toying around with Renegade Rallier in this slot. I have always like Nissa, Vastwood Seer. When played at correct it generates so much value. It is only that i find it a bit awkward with Nissa, Vital Force which has become an auto include in every build i play.
Rallier can also fix mana, although it is slightly more conditional. You need to crack a fetch, sac a creature or something must die in combat, etc. But it can potentially generate some other value like returning QPM or Sylvan Library. Next to Recurring Nightmare or the Two Towers it can also get pretty nasty real quickly. I have always seen it as a lesser version of Eternal Witness, but it has a different and interesting angle on itself. It is a pity that there aren't more targets for it in NicFit in general. Perhaps that a SFM version has most ways to exploit the card.

I was going to play it over Eternal Witness in my recent SFM build, but instead I cut the slot entirely.

[Ivan-784]

Currently i am toying around with Renegade Rallier in this slot. I have always like Nissa, Vastwood Seer. When played at correct it generates so much value. It is only that i find it a bit awkward with Nissa, Vital Force which has become an auto include in every build i play.
Rallier can also fix mana, although it is slightly more conditional. You need to crack a fetch, sac a creature or something must die in combat, etc. But it can potentially generate some other value like returning QPM or Sylvan Library. Next to Recurring Nightmare or the Two Towers it can also get pretty nasty real quickly. I have always seen it as a lesser version of Eternal Witness, but it has a different and interesting angle on itself. It is a pity that there aren't more targets for it in NicFit in general. Perhaps that a SFM version has most ways to exploit the card.

I had been thinking about Nissa Vital Force for a while. She seems really powerful against control decks, but a bit weak against aggro. She puts a fast clock against combo decks too, but it's the same for any of our fat guys. I'm not 100% on it.

On renegade rallier: he is quite powerful, but i see it fitting better in "lighter" decks, with strong 2 mana drops. Also, he is totally on graveyard stuff. I tend to balance things to avoid being screw'd off by grave hate. That's why I like to play Steve and Wood Elves in addition to Veteran Explorers.

[LVA]

I had been thinking about Nissa Vital Force for a while. She seems really powerful against control decks, but a bit weak against aggro. She puts a fast clock against combo decks too, but it's the same for any of our fat guys. I'm not 100% on it.

The way control decks usually beat us is with jace, and since nissa is great against jace I think it is worth it.

[Uyan]

Hello, I'd been collecting fetches for Modern when I thought I'd pop over to Legacy and build a deck for this format, which is where I came to Nic Fit. Below is my current decklist. Of note is I don't have all the necessary dual lands, and I think I might have too much sideboard for Sneak and Show style decks (with 3 Path + Kaya main, 1 Edict, 1 To the Slaughter and 1 Ashen Rider sideboard)

Creatures (15)
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Deathrite Shaman
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
2x Tireless Tracker
1x Eternal Witness
2x Siege Rhino
1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1x Thragtusk
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons

Planeswalkers (4)
2x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Liliana, Death's Majesty
1x Kaya, Ghost Assassin

Enchantments (3)
3x Pernicious Deed

Sorceries (10)
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Vindicate

Instants (5)
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Path to Exile

Lands (23)
4x Windswept Heath
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Savannah
1x Godless Shrine
4x Forest
3x Swamp
2x Plains
1x Volrath's Stronghold
2x Phyrexian Tower

Sideboard (14)
4 Lost Legacy
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Golgari Charm
1x Ashen Rider
1x Diabolic Edict
1x To the Slaughter
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Painful Truths
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Scavening Ooze
1x Thrun, the Last Troll

One question that has been on my mind as I've read through the whole of this forum: where is Liliana, the Last Hope? I say this because her +1 beats lots of early game threats (most notably unflipped Delvers and Young Pyromancer) and it triggers Veteran Explorer at not too late a stage in the game; Pernicious Deed will kill Vet on turn 4, and Liliana of the Veil's -2 is not what you want to be doing to trigger Explorer! She can also flat out win the game by herself with her ult, but if she has been unthreatened for 4+ turns you've probably won anyway.
Any thoughts on Liliana, Death's Majesty would also be appreciated; this list is theory at the moment, slanted towards beating "unfair" decks (e.g. Sneak and Show), and so I haven't yet acquired all the pieces of the deck.

[Brael]

One question that has been on my mind as I've read through the whole of this forum: where is Liliana, the Last Hope? I say this because her +1 beats lots of early game threats (most notably unflipped Delvers and Young Pyromancer) and it triggers Veteran Explorer at not too late a stage in the game; Pernicious Deed will kill Vet on turn 4, and Liliana of the Veil's -2 is not what you want to be doing to trigger Explorer! She can also flat out win the game by herself with her ult, but if she has been unthreatened for 4+ turns you've probably won anyway.
Any thoughts on Liliana, Death's Majesty would also be appreciated; this list is theory at the moment, slanted towards beating "unfair" decks (e.g. Sneak and Show), and so I haven't yet acquired all the pieces of the deck.

Liliana the Last Hope isn't good enough, I gave her a pretty solid try. There's not enough targets for her +1 to kill, I never wanted to use the minus, and the ultimate wasn't good enough. Garruk Relentless is a stronger PW for what Nic Fit is doing. You don't want to run Liliana of the Veil either, because the +1 is really bad for you.

Death's Majesty isn't that great either. For the minus to be any good, you need a threat that was already dealt with, and the plus is way too slow. Compare to Nissa. Nissa gets in for 10 damage in the time Liliana gets in for 2.

The best way to beat unfair decks, is to lower your curve and win faster.

[Arianrhod]

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Thragtusk
1 Inferno Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Toxic Deluge
3 Night's Whisper
2 Diabolic Intent

2 Lightning Bolt

2 Pernicious Deed
4 Sneak Attack

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
2 Badlands
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

sb::
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Lost Legacy
1 To the Slaughter
2 Blood Moon
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Engineered Plague
2 Fatal Push
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Chalice of the Void

Running this at my local tomorrow. Sam Higgins is also running a very, very similar list (just a couple of slight sideboard differences) at his local tomorrow night and again Tuesday night, so hopefully that'll give us some actual data.

[Warden]

Math guys / SE guys:

Can anyone provide a quick number crunch on how many creatures or pseudocreatures (lingering souls, combat walkers, fetchlands with dryad arbor) you would want to run in order to justify 2 Diabolic Intents, such that they are live ~90% of the time before turn 5 or so?

I think it's going to end up somewhere around 24ish, but I'd like some actual number crunching to back up my assumption.

If it's too complex of a question, by all means ignore me! Just figured I'd ask.

@Brael has most of this. I'll raise some ideas that possibly justify running that many intents.

Lingering Souls is more than 1 "creature". If you can either flash it back or keep the tokens alive somehow, the odds of intent being a dud decrease. I cannot do the math because it's conditional at best.
Anything with persist also works in your favor. Redcap, Finks, the green Geist dude = additional "creatures" to sac towards intent. The math is difficult to compute again because of persist. I'm not even sure how you'd track that.
I think Brael or someone did the math on Arbor a while back. You'd have to count the number of fetches, green sun's, forest-diggers (wood elves & co.) to generate loose odds. If you go with Arbor as a sac outlet, you might want to copy elves.dec in running a pair. That will likely strain the manabase. I'm sure you're intent-ing into something very important though.

Overall I am not particularly sold on Intent. I think it's really bad in a speedy counter-heavy meta. There's too much room to be X-for-1'ed. Or to have the intent target never enter play (discard or countered).

[Ganfar]

Liliana the Last Hope isn't good enough, I gave her a pretty solid try. There's not enough targets for her +1 to kill, I never wanted to use the minus, and the ultimate wasn't good enough. Garruk Relentless is a stronger PW for what Nic Fit is doing. You don't want to run Liliana of the Veil either, because the +1 is really bad for you.

In Jund P.Fire is The Veil soild. Discard P.Fire and then return it. It's a bit worse now after the Top banning.

[Echelon]

If you go with Arbor as a sac outlet, you might want to copy elves.dec in running a pair. That will likely strain the manabase. I'm sure you're intent-ing into something very important though.

Overall I am not particularly sold on Intent. I think it's really bad in a speedy counter-heavy meta. There's too much room to be X-for-1'ed. Or to have the intent target never enter play (discard or countered).

I beg to differ. Both as an Elves! pilot and long time Intent enthousiast. Just the 1 Arbor is fine. The thing with Intent is that you have to be very careful with it (i.e. only cast it when you know the road is clear). Just keep that in mind and you'll be fine. The card can turn games around completely when timed correctly.

[Bobmans]

Lingering Souls is more than 1 "creature". If you can either flash it back or keep the tokens alive somehow, the odds of intent being a dud decrease. I cannot do the math because it's conditional at best.
Anything with persist also works in your favor. Redcap, Finks, the green Geist dude = additional "creatures" to sac towards intent. The math is difficult to compute again because of persist. I'm not even sure how you'd track that.

I think you still have to count cards like Lingering Souls as one card. This is because you'd have to make the innitial draw of those cards. Actually drawing the cards should be the only factor slash variable and not how many bodies or recasts they leave behind.

Running this at my local tomorrow. Sam Higgins is also running a very, very similar list (just a couple of slight sideboard differences) at his local tomorrow night and again Tuesday night, so hopefully that'll give us some actual data.

Good luck. Not sure if i would bring 2 Intents and Stronghold without Primeval Titan. The Wurmcoil Engine should be awesome, I hope.

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[Echelon]

Not a fan of Crop Rotations? I've really been liking the two of. What's great about them is Ooze is a natural swap for one since you can slide in Bojuka Bog, which means you effectively only have to find one cut, like DRS #3 since Rotation opens up the Tower starts for equal/better acceleration.

That in turn gives you a lot of fun things you can do with the manabase. Oboro with 2 Crop Rotation to find it, plus 4 Trackers, plus 4 GSZ to get them is pretty crazy.

I love the idea of Crop Rotations, but apart from Bojuka Bog I don't own any worthy CR targets. And then there's the ever present question of in what available space to put them.

[Bobmans]

In Jund P.Fire is The Veil soild. Discard P.Fire and then return it. It's a bit worse now after the Top banning.

:-( true, i have been pondering on the PFire list, but it feels that the grind has been taken out of the grind. Currently i have been looking at a slightly different approach that is a bit more lands heavy.
Not all really new elements, rather just a mash-up from what was already there. Mostly i was looking for that synergy between Meren/Arbor/Tracker/Courser/Titania coupled with some ways to finish that game.
All in all i believe PFire lists NEED Liliana of the Veil to add some missing reach. Heres the list for reference (no board, since that's always fluid).
Also in here i was looking for Crop Rotation, but i couldn't find any more room...


1x Dryad Arbor
4x Veteran Explorer
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Eternal Witness
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Courser of Kruphix
1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1x Huntmaster of the Fells
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Thragtusk
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
1x Primeval Titan
4x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Sylvan Library
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Pernicious Deed
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Punishing Fire
3x Liliana of the Veil
1x Nissa, Vital Force
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Forest
2x Swamp
1x Mountain
2x Bayou
1x Taiga
1x Badlands
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Kessig Wolf Run

[tescrin]

Math guys / SE guys:

Can anyone provide a quick number crunch on how many creatures or pseudocreatures (lingering souls, combat walkers, fetchlands with dryad arbor) you would want to run in order to justify 2 Diabolic Intents, such that they are live ~90% of the time before turn 5 or so?

So I'd treat it like force of will. Obviously the more the better, but generally I think as low as 14 is "doable", while 17+ starts becoming reliable, and 21+ starts seeing significant diminishing returns, but who cares because you'll basically always have a target.

It's not quite the same since Force says "in my hand right now T1" but that's more restrictive than "on the battlefield at any point in the game while I have this in my hand and the mana to cast it."

It's not a bad way to sac him, though I believe Crop Rotation/PTower is the best sac'er (5 mana T2.) While Therapy is reasonable, it is a full turn slower. Intent is even more in that direction giving you a mere 2 mana open from Explorer. While you can enjoy T3's mana like anyone else, a T2 Sneakattack, or Sigarda, or GSZ x=4, etc will probably feel better


EDIT: Has anyone tried Infernal Plunge? That fills all the requirements for the sac card, while getting you to 6 mana T2. That happens to be the magic number for Titans and other goodies. The SneakAttack version could hit for lethal T2 with that mana as well.