It's good to see a straight GB list wreck that hard! Every time I feel like a third color would improve it substantially something like this happens haha.
Some questions, as I would prefer not to splash, I like the consistency of the mana base of GB:
- How did Kodama treat you? Do you find him better than something like Deranged Hermit? I've always been iffy on hermit's echo cost and the token nature of him. A Pyroclasm for instance would blow him out.
- Why 4x Liliana? I've wanted to get a third one myself but 4 seems to be quite a bit.
- How is Garruk? He seems to be a strong way to push through an otherwise stale game-state, which has been relevant in some of my games (particularly against maverick, where we both went draw-go for quite some time).
And suggestions:
- I would probably drop darkblast for either innocent blood or some other targeted removal. I feel like you usually hit your own explorers with that.
- I feel sketchy about 3x top's. I would occasionally get both in my opener and it's an auto-mull. Dropping to two felt ok overall since I often want to drop them around turn 4.
The new 5 drop from AVR looks enticing:
5 mana 4/4, soulbond, give itself and another creature +4/+4. I mean, him + anything could be ridic.
Last edited by Kich867; 04-16-2012 at 12:10 AM.
Anyone else notice that last night Chris Higashi's deck was called Nic Fit on the SCG site, but as of this morning it changed to "Explorer Rock"?
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
"TES" became "Storm."Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
We can blame GerryT for this one. He said a while ago he's trying to give more general names to decks so they are less confusing to new players.
Follow me on Twitter @RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
Congrats on the great finish!!! Now let's second-guess all of your choices :)
I tried this list out online. 4x Lily is interesting, because even though there were times I drew her while another one was already out, I was able to -2 her (to zero), recast, and -2 her again FTW against UGb countertop in the same turn. Also she is very witnessable with our ramp. Also 3x top is really good. We have so many shuffle effects, with GSZ, Veteran, and fetches, AND so much extra mana that we are able dig AND cast on the same turn.
The deck feels much more conducive than any other version I've tried. I like it.
Do you think you could go over some of your sideboarding? Which matches do you bring in thoughtseizes? Combo? I don't have those right now, would duress work better than IOK in that case?
Thats because Nic Fit is a stupid as hell name. Names don't (and shouldn't) matter much but c'mon its alot easier to explain your playing Rock with Explorer rather than saying your playing Nic Fit.
I would have to disagree. I care not about the "coolness" of the names, but I enjoy the many varied unique names in eternal. For the people that PLAY the format, it instantly gives you a very good idea of their list.
IF i want terribly boring names for my decks, I'll go play standard.
Nic Fit is infinitely better.
Follow me on Twitter @RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
@Kich867
-Kodama is similar to Hermit but without echo, and shroud. I need Kodama to punch through Jace and Eslpeth against Stoneblade, the 4 tokens won't make it if my opponent has a single creature. Drawing 6 on Garruk is also pretty neat.
-I play 4 Lilianas because she is one of the best cards you can drop on T2 following an Explorer trigger. She affects two spheres of the game that we want control over:
1) Hand sizes
2) Board position
Drawing multiples is a non-issue.
-Garruk generates tokens that are bigger than nearly every non-Goyf, non-KotR creatures in the format. Drawing anywhere from 3-6 cards from a -3 activation will grant you the win. Better than Grave Titan because he will hit the board faster, not die to sweepers, not die to spot removal, and grant you cards rather than tokens. I rarely ever use his -6 because drawing cards usually amounts to the same result.
-Having multiple tops in an opener can be remedied with any shuffling effect. Drawing one top during a match is a crucial milestone.
-Maindeck Darkblast is mainly a tool against most DtB because it clears a path for sacrifice effects (Blood/Lily), it catches Clique (with or without Karakas), it refreshes the top3 cards in the absence of a shuffler, it can trigger Explorer when need be. Also, I cannot afford to let a Bob go unanswered during any stages of the game.
@StarScream
I side in TS/Duress against Combo and Stoneblade. Being able to hit SFM, Snapcaster, Clique, Geist, Painter, and key elves for instance is more important than giving the ANT player a free storm count. I used to play 4 Duress before Thoughtseize and it worked fine. Don't play IoK at all in this deck because the matchups where you want spot discard are matchups where you mainly need to get rid of Jace, Eslpeth, Tez, Bskull, Nat Order, Time Spiral, and other 4+ CMC cards.
Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
Get it...? Ass, u, me?
... ffs I was trying to be funny...
I actually think that the best name for this deck is Easy Rock (or EZ Rock, i.e. Explorer,Zenith Rock). It's actually a name that makes sense!
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
Rock is a poor name for the deck given that you don't actually need white. Rock decks, afaik, are all GBW mid range decks. I don't see rock playing wickerbough elder, primeval titans, grave titans, broodmate dragons, veteran explorer, rector, recurring nightmare, baneslayer angel, etc. So saying it's Rock + Explorer is horribly misleading.
Many nic fit lists are GBr, or just GB. People have successfully tested GBu as well. It's also hard to actually narrow down or explicitly state the intention of the deck in a simple phrase.
Blue Sligh, explicitly tells you what the deck does. Burn, Mono-blue control, etc. They all explain what the deck does to the point.
Nic Fit on the other hand, is a deck that aims to ramp the entire game state to a later period where current legacy decks can't utilize properly. They have no 6 drop creatures that are overbudget, they use 2-3 drops that are overbudget, but a 6 drop overbudgeted creature is that much harder to deal with. It controls the board, controls the hand, ramps into a huge ass dude, and blows people up.
And quite frankly, GBx Ramp Aggro Control doesn't sound like a very nice list. Furthermore, if "Rock" is a good name, why isn't "Nic Fit"? Rock isn't an accurate description of what that deck does either, people are just familiar with it. How is "Rock" any better than "Nic Fit" when they're both completely made up and are non-descriptive names for a deck with a given plan? What actually makes Nic Fit a bad name other than people often mis-pronounce it or don't like the way it sounds?
Nic Fit, in turn, will eventually just be accepted as a GBx veteran explorer ramping control deck archetype and people will stop complaining.
I mean personally, I love the name Nic Fit. I love that it has absolutely nothing to do with anything, that's what a good name is. Solidarity is a great name, Rock is a great name, Maverick is a great name, Fish is a great name, Grinding Station is a great name, Nic Fit is a great name.
Every time I hear Nic Fit I cannot help but to think of someone having a Nicotine Fit (someone who needs a cigarette) Such an odd name for a deck. I know it was supposed to originally be Nice Fit, but there was a typo and the name stuck. But anyways off topic.
What does everyone think of the list that top 8 the SCG Phoenix tourney?
I only see 21 lands?
RE the SCG top 8 list:
- Two Tops feels like not enough for how important it has ended up being.
- 1 ET in the board and 0 Rectors, but a whole lot of situational enchantments. This feels awful
- Running both off-color 6-drops, but not a Fierce Empath for FOUR Green Suns? Eesh.
- IMO Qasali is better than Wickerbough in decks that run Sun Titan.
- 0 Vindicate. I'd run a singleton Vindicate before I ran the Dismember.
- Not using the Tsunami technology. It's seriously way, way better than Choke, people.
All that said, I was impressed at the amount of work that Master of the Wild Hunt did for Chris in the games I watched. It might be time for him to go back into my deck. Thrun seemed lackluster everytime it was dropped -- very much looking forward to Sigarda instead. Otherwise yeah, it's a deck.
Oh, one more thing. There is a metric asston of graveyard hate in Chris's board. Just didn't want to lose to dredge ever, I guess?
I was wondering how people feel about this guy: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Ca...verseid=143370
I mean, every upkeep they get half-hymned? Produces blockers? Decent body? It's like .89c so I may grab one and see how it performs. I like the prospect of keeping someone in top-deck mode that much faster.
Master of the Wild Hunt actually seems pretty sweet. I'll grab him as well, I'm down with anything that produces a ton of stuff itself haha.
I got my ass handed to me by this deck in three games today, so I'm starting to take more interest in this deck, although I'd need to grab a few Grave Titans to put this together.
Can anyone break down what the strengths and weaknesses of this archetype are, and what the white or red splash add (compared to the straight G/B version)?
Thanks!
The strength of the deck is board control. You are simply able to dismantle any kind of aggro deck followed up by huge threats and card advantage. The deck sets it self up to using the explorer manaramp very well, while normal aggro decks are not capable at using all that mana as well as we do.
The problem for this deck is obviously combo and control. Having a couple of discard spells, a shitton of boardcontrol and a slow clock is not favorable against combo.
Against control, they can use the manaramp just as well as we can, plus they play planeswalkers with counterbackup. Ramping with explorer just to have them cast turn 3 jace with mana open is obviously a catastrophy.
Currently I think GB is the best, my experiences with 3 colors are not that great. The mana is just too unstable. White lets you upgrade wickerbough elder to pridemage/harmonic sliver, plowshares over black removal aaaand Ethersworn Canonist in the board(Avancyn Restored brings a good finisher as well now). Red gives you Punishing Grove, REB, Broodmate Dragon, Huntmater of the Fells.
Just as a note: It is definitely possible to beat combo with this deck. With straight GB I played 4 therapy, 3 hymn, 2 liliana and 4 duress and 1 hymn in board. With Eternal witness on top of that you can definately rip their hand apart.
All of what you said is false. Traditionally, Rock was strictly a GB deck with no white. It's remained that way for most of its history. Some Legacy varients started splashing white in recent years, but GB respresents Rock far more than GBw. Rock is a GB control deck that plays mana accelleration (BOP to Explorer), discard (cabal therapy), sweepers (still playing Deed after all these years), and big beaters (from Ravenous Baloth and Spiritmonger to the improved creatures that this version runs today). Make no mistake, this IS a Rock deck.
I still say that that there is not a more appropriate name for this deck than E(xplorer)Z(enith) Rock.
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
Ideally you've resolved 2 therapies by that point, though.
I will assume you tested your list with Hymns, may I ask what you disliked about them? I tried darkblast in your list and it's cute with top tapping. If you took them out of the mainboard, what might you bring in? Hand disruption?
A couple of notes --
We had a massive discussion for multiple pages about Hymn to Tourach a few pages back. Not having Hymns makes your combo matchup weaker, but it also voids Spell Snare and allows you to be more proactive with your deck. Qweerios was actually one of the staunchest supporters of Hymn for a long time -- I don't remember his reasoning for cutting it finally, but he definitely has tested with Hymn.
RE: the name of the deck. While I appreciate that Nic Fit is a unique name, I don't especially like it, especially since I'm a non-smoker and for some reason that always seems to come up. Awkward. EZ rock is a horrible name, because this is one of the hardest decks to correctly play in the format right now, IMO (obviously doesn't hold a candle to Doomsday, but then what really does?). I loaned it out to a friend of mine locally for a small event and he informed me later that this deck made him think harder than any blue deck he's ever played. While I appreciate the Explorer-Zenith connection, "EZ" has a separate meaning that belies the deck as a whole. Also, not everyone runs 3-4 Zeniths. Honestly, I suspect that regardless of our feelings on the matter, we're stuck with Nic Fit now. The format is full of decks with names that don't make any sense, but they stuck.
Finally, Cavern of Souls. If you haven't seen it yet:
As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
{T}: Add 1 to your mana pool.
{T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells of the chosen creature type. If this mana is spent on a spell, that spell can't be countered by spells or abilities.
My thoughts on this card are wide-ranging, and I suspect that this card will warp the meta in a very, very favorable way for us.
1) It sucks up basic room from peoples' decks. Even Maverick, which traditionally has multiple basics, is going to be shaving them going forward for this card.
2) It is going to encourage a full-on return of aggro. I expect that short term, aggro will dominate the format with Maverick leading the way. Then we'll undergo a short period where combo decks reign supreme, until the aggro decks realize that they can build most of their boards to beat combo, since control is dead. This will conclude in a vastly aggro format with fringe combo and control elements. The fate of tempo is much less certain, since tempo usually has enough wastelands and removal spells (burn) to keep the aggro decks off their feet long enough for a goyf or a goose to go nuts. Assuming no bannings or further format-warping cards, I think that blue will eventually return after this period -- it'll just take people a while to figure out how to build it.
3) This suggests, then, that we need to build our lists to be actively targeting Maverick. Mav is already a ridiculously good deck, and Cavern will only make it better. I'm not sure where we find the room, but my gut tells me that trimming back on the blue hate is probably correct, for the time being anyway.
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