That is correct. Great find then. I actually never thought of this.Originally Posted by Star|Scream
Sometimes you miss things right in front of your nose.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Because it says with different names it means you can fail to find anything with other names.
I know, it sounds stupid, but it's true :P
So, from what I can tell, the only main benefit of Intuition is the ability to grab deed and play it next turn with only 3 (tower exclusded) lands in play. I can certainly see situations where you need to blow a deed by turn 3 or 4, have a gifts in your hand, and you were wishing it was an intuition. However, this deck commonly ramps to 4 or 5 mana by turn 2, and (I feel) gifts not only offers card advantage for that 1 extra mana, it also offers more utility.
3 therapies is usually the first intuition.
The only downside of Gifts is that the cards must be different, but since you need 7 mana for the Palinchron combo, just use Gifts instead of Intuition.
How about this for a combo pile:
Unburial Rites
Recurring Nightmare
Eternal Witness
Palinchron
You can always start recasting Gifts for an instant win-con, an Oracle to draw your entire deck and put every lands in play, a Flusterstorm for w/e protection, anything! With unlimited mana and recursion, the possibilities are endless... (Kokusho and Exsanguinate wins on the spot). You don't even need Brainstorm, Probe, or Oracle to draw your entire deck.
Other than that, you can always go for Unburial + Iona/Griselbrand for a more conventional approach.
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...
What's wrong with
Thoughtseize
Eternal Witness
Therapy
Hymn
nice gift pile XD.
where i can see a competitive list of bug fit?!
I am experimenting with a GBUw list. This is my first attempt:
Creatures (16)
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Coiling Oracle
2 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Gigapede
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Palinchron
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Spells (22)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Diabolic Intent
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Unburial Rites
2 Gifts Ungiven
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
Lands (22)
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Island
Sideboard (15)
4 Thoughtseize
3 Innocent Blood
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Life from the Loam
1 Karakas
1 Thragtusk
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I have played a few games with it, and I have yet to pull off a Recurring Palinchron (I beat BUG Control and Pox 2-0 so far).
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...
There was a BUG lit that got a deck tech at an SCG event. Otherwise a few members here may have one
Qweerios: I think 3x Gifts might help you (at least in testing) "combo" out more regularly. Maybe in place of an intent?
At least to see it more regularly while you test, I mean.
I will test out gifts as as well a bit to see if that card can replace intuition. Once I do, I will comment on the differences. Pretty neat that you can fail to find.
@Qweerios:
I fail to see why you would run Gifts over Intuition in that particular list which you posted. Intuition costs less, and grabs more packages. You don't run thoughtseize+hymn to emulate intuition for 3 cabal therapy, you don't have the ability to get 3 eternal witness to create a recastable chump-block wall every turn (Witness into Witness; into Witness), so what is it you are actually gaining by running Gifts Ungiven in that list? 3U instead of 2U is not a reason to run Gifts Ungiven. I don't see a Volrath's Stronghold / Loam / Witness / 4th card package either. I think you should focus on the strength of Gifts Ungiven instead of making it a worst version of Intuition. Maybe I'm missing interactions in your list, if that's true I take it back, but I'm not seeing why you would run Gifts over Intuition except for card availability in your collection.
Also, consider this scenaro, when you therapy, you want to do it as soon as possible, before those threats land on the table. Gifts Ungiven, in the best scenario is a turn slower, so that means at least 1 of those threats have already resolved. Now your fix is Pernicious Deed, not Therapy anymore. Gifts Ungiven into Thoughtseize / Hymn to Tourach / Eternal Witness / Cabal therapy requires. What will you opponent give you? I think this is a hard choice for your opponent, and it depends on whether or not he has counterspells/brainstorm. It's very strong but the difference is a turn. The question is, isn't the disruption going to be too late? God forbid Jace resolves right before you Hymn his hand empty.
Last edited by bruizar; 08-28-2012 at 02:25 AM.
Yea or nay to dueling grounds? Sometimes you don't want deed away the board, just a slow grind?
@Star Scream,
At the very begining I used my Gifts Fit list as a template and added a 3rd Gift for this version. I quickly took the 3rd Gift out and replaced 2 IB with the 2 Intents, the reason being that I really don't want two copies of Gifts in my hand, and I need more than 4 sac outlets for Explorer. Intent usualy grabs Gifts anyway.
@Bruizar,
-The reasoning behind Gifts is quite simple, I don't know how to assemble the Palinchron loop with Intuition. Furthermore, the Palinchron loop requires 7 lands so I don't really care about the speed of Intuition vs. Gifts. Also, Gifts nets you an extra card.
-Witness walls cost way too much for what they do. If this is something you really want, pack 4 Witness for starters and throw in an Unearth.
-I don't have a discard pile because I don't want one... I will start packing maindeck Thoughtseize when I'll start needing it again.
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...
For me this deck is a utility deck. If you want combo, play ANT or Hightide or Elves because they are much better in comboing. Same with solid agro builds, like goblins..
The deck for me is so versatile that it has outs and awnsers in every situation. And that goes for the witness/unearth package as well. There are tons of different packages that are better on paper though games can turn unexpected at any time.
This versatility is the power of the deck, capable of massive hand distruction, board control, warping to mid/late game state, recurring, comboing.
Each package is different depending on the situation. Configuring the right package is sometimes a trickshot though and with that, up to date meta knowlage is almost a must to play competative at all, unlike ANT for instance who is playing one game plan.
For instance I ran one mountain and one taiga in the case of encountering Show and tell hivemind, so I could pay for the pact of the titan which worked well. It does however affect the decks consistancy a tiny bit, chances of winning were increased greatly and due to the fact of the populairity it was an auto include for me at that time.
Versus show and tell/reanimate I usually configure a package of unearth/witness/phantasmal image. Or in case of reanimate phantasmal image/unearth/ooze but then again all those packages are not pre-defined, it all depends on the game state
The witness/unearth synergy can make up to 5 eternal witnesses. Good versus creature heavy decks, or when the pernicious deed plan isn't at hand or fails. On the offensive side it can swing for 10 devided in 5, on paper giving the oponent a hard time to block all of them leaving a planeswalker open to hit.
I did also not know about the gifts ungiven's ability to find a number of card for your likings, which makes the card instantly much better then I thought it would be, though I also fail to see why it is better then intuition, other then it is often better to have cards with the same effect with different names versus extirpate for instance.
The more I read and the more analysis I see I get more and more convinced that indeed people have a whole different take and ideas about the deck.
I enjoyed reading your constructive post.
Since I am very new to NicFit, the more I read , the more confused I get. The options seem to be endless. I am trying to play a rector build at the moment. I have lots to learn. To me this is what makes the deck interesting.
I am looking forward to reading more on this great thread to learn more, play better, and most of the time get confused even more than I am already
The discussion of Gifts vs. Intuition is interesting, they both have their merits. Gifts actually gives you card advantage, although it's somewhat slower. The flexibility Intuition offers is that it functions as a Demonic Tutor. Many of the more important cards are played as a 4-of. Creating a wall of chumping Witnesses isn't the best thing you can do, but the option of doing it is nice. Forcing your opponent to give you a Deed when you're dying on board is also pretty sweet.
If you want to use Intuition to get the Palinchron loop going, you need a Witness, Zenith or Nightmare in your hand if you want to win the next turn. Otherwise it takes another turn to get there. That said, once you're at the seven mana threshold and Intuition resolves, you'll get so much action it's hard to lose.
If you want to use Intuition to get the Palinchron loop going without any other action, you'll need eight land instead of seven. Otherwise seven is good. Here's how you do it:
The first Intuition needs to be endstepped. Ok, so Intuition for Witness, Witness and Unburial Rites. If they give you Rites, you can hardcast it to reanimate a Witness and then get your Intuition back (this is why you need eight lands, to cast Rites and Intuition in one turn). If they give you Witness you just cast it to get your Intuition back. Once you have the Intuition again, cast it to find Palinchron, Recurring Nightmare and Gigapede. They'll probably give you Palinchron, but you will use Gigapede's ability to get him in the yard. Now you can cast Unburial Rites (flashback) to reanimate the other Witness, use that to get back your Nightmare and you're ready to go nuts. You'll sac a Witness to reanimate Palinchron to untap your lands. Recast the Nightmare to reanimate the Witness again etc. etc. etc. Intuition is in the yard so you can tutor up your entire deck and win from there.
It's spread over two turns but this is the way you can win when you have just an Intuition and enough lands in play. Also, if you have a Therapy in the yard you can sacrifice the first Witness to get rid of something your opponent has because you will reanimate another Witness next turn, which you will use to get the Recurring Nightmare, and then feed it.
Unburial Rites is awesome, and not only here for the Iona/Griselbrand package!
I would suggest that we make a separate thread for the other builds so that we don't get mixed up. So far the trend of the discussion now is the combo nature of nic fit which is BUG. The thread is supposed to be BWG rector(please correct me of I am wrong). Next thing you know people would he talking about (insert build) and the thread derails again.
I would love to see you guys pitch ideas left and right but refreshing the page with another bunch of replies talking of another build is really confusing. My 2 cents
Alright...apparently you guys went kind of nuts while I was at Boston, so I'll do my best to respond to what I can and offer thoughts on what I'm able. If I miss something, please don't take it personally, and just poke me about it -- I have to catch up on like 4 pages of content, lol.
First, my report from Boston:
Gangnam Style is amazing, and pretty much unofficially sponsored our trip home. If you've never seen a minivan with the windows rolling down blaring Gangnam Style with the bass turned all the way up, it's actually one of the funniest things in this world. Also, I hate my friends for introducing me to Ponponpon. If you don't know what it is, do yourself a favor and don't look it up. It falls into the wtf-japan category, but it's also crack.
On the way up I did some heavy theory lifting, and decided to take the floater spot, and the singleton Swords to Plowshares, in favor of two Sakura-Tribe Elders. My logic for SKE is that it allows GSZ to function as unconditional ramp, and it also makes Recurring Nightmare better. I've had any number of games where I naturally drew Nightmare early, but couldn't do anything with it because I couldn't get a creature into my graveyard (no sac outlet, StP my dudes, etc). SKE fixes that problem, at least. I also switched Kokusho out and put Yosei in, because Yosei is the stronger effect (and looping him can lock maverick out of the game completely, whereas Kokusho can't). He's less of a win con, but I did forget something I once knew about him: his "skip untap step" clause stacks in multiple instances. If you sac Yosei three times, they skip their next THREE untaps, without you having invest any additional loops into it. At that point you can beat down for two turns, then loop a few times to keep the lock going, and keep beating. So in an awkward way it IS a win-condition in-itself. People in metas like Claymore's should keep Kokusho though, because of Glacial Chasm and Solitary Confinement. While those are definitely corner cases, it's also a local meta concern, which is fine. If I was planning on taking Rector Fit to an SCG or a GP, though, I would run Yosei over Kokusho.
Aside from that, I configured my sideboard for primary anti-combo, with a few cards for Maverick/Gobs/RUG/Fish, as I expected to see those decks in the side events....a prediction which was almost entirely right (win-a-boxes were almost entirely combo and merfolk).
I participated in the TCG 1K legacy event on Sunday, largely because I got snookered into it by a shady staff member. A friend and I were lurking near the public events stage, thinking about doing some win a boxes...and this staff member tells us that they only have 30 people registered for the 1K. Well, okay, if you say so. So of course we signed up despite not really wanting to waste the time....and when the pairings go up, they apparently had somewhere around 115 people, not 30. So I was fairly tilted even going into the event.
Round 1 was against RUG. I was playing the Rector version, with the full 3 Carpets in the board. My deck did what my deck does, and I pushed his face in with Sun Titan g1 and Sigarda g2.
R2 I played against someone who plays Nic Fit often, but was on Ceph Breakfast for the 1k. Game one I punted ferociously, as I had Sun Titan + Deed online, but tapped down to 1 mana available like a moron, so he was able to lead with the 2-drop Cephalid, then drop the 1-drop redirect guy and go off. Derp. Game two I brought in a metric fuckton of hate, because Breakfast happens to get hit by literally everything. He boarded into Stoneforge + Batterskull. We ripped each other's hands apart with Therapies, then he dropped Stoneforge. He was short mana yet, so I Rectored into Humility. Then I drew a Cranial Extraction. Instead of being smart and naming Batterskull (he was at 4 mana), I decided that I was worried about disenchant for some reason and proceeded to name Narcomoeba, because he had everything he needed to go off if he ripped disenchant (not even paying attention to the fact that he had 3 creatures in play already without needing the Narcos). Naturally he rips a land and drops Batterskull. He punches me for a bit, I draw a Deed the turn before I die and blow up everything. He bounces the Skull, I drop Nether Void while he has 5 lands still. We draw-go for the next like 10 minutes while he draws into his remaining 3 mana producing lands in his deck and I fail to find anything that is actually capable of winning the game. I eventually Therapy away the Batterskull somehow, time is called, and he kills me in turns. I don't remember how...I just know I was frustrated, because if I hadn't A: derped game 1 (he was a really slow, methodical player. how he doesn't draw every game with Nic Fit I'm not sure), or B: sequenced my hate properly instead of playing like a chump game 2, I would have won the match, or at least drawn it.
R3 I'm rewarded with BUG Control. I land an early Arena and go to town while he punches me with Factories. I horrifically out card-advantage him, and grind him out pretty easily. Game two is pretty much the same thing, except he doesn't have green mana for the first 5 or 6 turns. My opponent was pretty tilted, and I felt a little bad....but BUG is a really easy matchup for Rector Fit, so....blah.
R4 I played against Miracles for the first time in my life. I keep a shaky hand g1 that has a ton of potential if I draw well. I don't draw well, while he assembles a fast CB/Top + Jace, which brainstorms a few turns into an EoT Entreat for an arbitrarily high number. Game two I get one of the busted openers Rector is capable of: Bayou, Explorer, Tower, Therapy, Rector, fb Therapy getting Arena. Arena does its thing, and I bury my opponent in cards while molesting him with Thragtusk. To his credit, he realized my edge and scooped well before he was dead so as to not waste time. Game three was my single worst derp moment I've had in a long time. I was in really good shape...game was going just the way I like it to go. I had like 7 lands in play, things are going well....just trucking along. I had Raking Canopy and Sun Titan in hand. I think to myself, the only thing that beats me here is an EoT Entreat. Therefore I should play the Raking Canopy. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I play Sun Titan instead, getting back E.Wit to get back something. He draws off Top EoT for 4 angels and kills me (I was at 13 from a fast arena and fetches). I drop because I'm tired of punting.
So as I walk over to check on a friend, I decide that I should do a win-a-box, because I really hadn't played much magic so far. Seriously, I did two rounds of the sealed (2-0 drop yeah! fuck sealed. I wanted to play legacy.), four rounds of the 1k that I didn't even want to play in, and that was it. So I signed up for a win-a-box. I get paired up against Merfolk, because, as mentioned previously, win-a-boxes were mono- fish + combo. I get one of the absolute most busted openers the deck is capable of, going Land-Explorer into Tower, sac, Therapy, Explorer, sac, Empath getting Sun Titan -> t3 Sun Titan. He drops a bunch of fish. I never see any of my Rectors, my Vindicate, my Pulse, my Moat, or any of my Deeds, and proceed to die to lords despite getting the turn 3 Titan hand. Game two I see a Rector, but can't fire it off because he has Cage out, nullifying my Therapy. He topdecks a critical Wasteland to knock me off 5 mana, which proves relevant as I rip Deed and can't play it and crack it for his fish in the same turn. I didn't see any of my Carpets, Explorers, or Sakuras.
I decide that the powers that be are telling me I just shouldn't play magic this weekend, so I do more trading. I found a signed Karakas (the only one I've ever seen in my life), got my last two German FBBs so my deck is purdy, and picked up a Jap Foil Sigarda. Also a found a Jap Foil Grave Titan for 10, which seemed really low to me, and a few german foils for EDH. The last significant find of the weekend was a German foil Zendikar Forest, which starts off the desired pimpage for my ScapeWish, because German is angry, and ScapeWish is my red version (therefore angry).
I ran into Paul Ewenstein (the guy that took Pod Fit to the finals of SCG Providence) up there. He's switched to a BUG list based off of the one that I sent Caffrey for SCG Atlanta, but he's made some very interesting changes. We talked shop a bit and kept track of each other throughtout the weekend.
One of Paul's most interesting developments was a singleton Noble Hierarch. I wasn't sure of the reason at first, but as I watched him play he got paired up against Fish. The Hierarch allowed him to not fetch any blue sources or basic Islands, but still have blue mana. This proved absolutely integral in his Fish matchup, and seemed to singlehandedly fix it. I put a Hierarch in my 4-color Gifts version that my friend is using. He ran it in some side events Sunday and was very impressed, as was I when I watched. It's a good opening hand card, it smooths the mana in the 4-color lists, it helps the Fish matchup (which blue versions have trouble with), and the one point of Exalted was surprisingly relevant in the most random of ways throughout the day. Very good idea there.
So yeah....it was a good weekend, I just successfully punted all the magic I actually played away. I was very satisfied with my changes. Yosei didn't come up at all, because I didn't play matchups where he actually mattered. He did win me g1 vs BUG control, because he flew for 5 over my Moat every turn. Sakura-Tribes did good work vs RUG, blocking Goyf then ramping. I'm fairly certain that one SKE is correct. I'm not sure about the second. The problem is that I like the idea of drawing them naturally. I very much like having one as a GSZ target at absolute minimum, though, because it actually extends the ramp amount by a deceptive amount and enables early-game Nightmares.
-------------
Now, for you guys.
@the copyright fiasco. I'm really trying to keep everyone's feathers as smooth as I can on this, because I think that Bruizar really is thinking the same way everyone else is with regards to the deck. He just has something of an unfortunate way of wording things sometimes, lol.
I'll break it down as simply as I can:
-) It doesn't matter who created the deck in its original form. Other archetypes don't worry about who created them originally (in fact, it's equally as impossible to find out for most of them as it is for us). We're all contributing and growing the archetype in our own ways. I will claim creation rights for the Rector version, and while I don't think I thought of ScapeWish first, for some reason mine seems to be the only one that works. I will also claim that I have done a lot of work popularizing the deck in the Northeast US. I will not claim that I CARE about any of these rights. I have very much of a community ethic in mind with regards to this thread. We're all here, we're all working with the end goal of making the archetype better. Arguing about he-thought she-thought isn't going to help ANYONE.
-) Bruizar is correct in one thing, without any question: we need to be clearer about the specific versions. I don't think that we need to split off into multiple threads necessarily, but I do think that I need to work on actually finishing the primer. Tao seems to have completely disappeared, sadly, so I'm not sure if I'll have to make a new thread for us, or what'll happen with that exactly. Maybe Koby can help us out, since he's shown that he still reads the thread at least. Regardless, I need to finish the primer before we worry about it, and I will prioritize that as heavily as I can without losing my mind.
-) At the current moment, here are my thoughts on specific versions / the people responsible for maintaining them (not necessarily creators, but the people to go-to when you need a question answered about a version).
Rector - me
ScapeWish - me
BUG Gifts - Qweerios
BG - Qweerios
4-color Gifts control - me
BUG Intuition - Bruizar
BGW Pod - Claymore? Not sure of anyone in here that's worked with Pod recently.
BGW Rock - ?
Jund - probably Megadeus?
I'm excluding the various experimental versions like Qweerios's 4-color combo Gifts, my RestoAngel, Tezz, or Fauna Shaman versions, and so on.
Ideally my mental concept for the community is thus:
A "village" of closely related decks under the archetypal umbrella, with one or two specific, active community members who are responsible for their specific versions. I think that's the only way we're going to actually achieve focused progress. So if anyone wants to step up, I'm going to try to add a section in the primer for these people. That way, whenever someone comes into the thread and has questions about a specific version, they can direct their question to someone that actually knows the answer. I can try to talk about the Intuition list that Bruizar came up with it, but I haven't tested it at all, so I would be talking out of my ass. Same if he tried to talk about Rector. We used to be able to roughly cover all of the versions, but as the thread and the archetype have grown and grown, I can't keep track of everything anymore (and I'm sure everyone else feels the same). We need more organization, and Bruizar's adding a whole new version to the thread has just exemplified why. New people like Cire_dk are probably completely lost because of the sheer range of options available.
@Jbone - Dueling Grounds seems pretty bad. Most of the time, with the way legacy is set up currently, one creature is all that's needed to ruin your day. Space monsters, Griselbrand, Knight of the Reliquary, Goyf, etc. It's good vs Fish and Gobs, but Moat's better in those circumstances.
@Bruizar / Qweerios -- If I'm not mistaken, it doesn't matter if you're using Gifts or Intuition when you're infinite. You have infinite mana and infinite Nightmare activations, so it doesn't matter what you Gifts for or where it goes. You don't need to use Intuition as a Demonic Tutor in that instance. You guys have also covered a lot of ground while hashing this out...it's entirely possible I'm just hopelessly lost.
Looking at Gifts vs Intuition in a combo mentality, I see the following:
-) Palinchron looping takes 7 mana, so it isn't the fastest win (on par with Scapeshift)
-) Sometimes you can't combo out. In these instances the extra card from Gifts is relevant.
-) Sometimes you really, really need to grab something, so getting 3 copies of a thing is relevant.
-) Once you've combo'd, it's completely irrelevant whether you're using Gifts or Intuition. Both win the game just as quickly.
-) Intuition can be done EoT t2 after Explorer/Therapy, whereas Gifts usually has to wait a turn longer. However, does the speed difference matter? Why not spend the mana dropping Deed or some such?
-) Is it possible that you're BOTH right, and the deck should be running a split of Gifts and Intuition both? Like 2-2 or some such? Really wild thought there....probably wrong, but I'll throw it out there regardless.
-) Intuition has a very serious drawback that is worth remembering: it takes cards OUT of your deck. If you have to pull the panic button and Intuit for triple Deed to blow up the world, you've only got one left in your deck to use. At that point you're completely reliant on E.Wit recursion, and if it's post-board, they almost certainly have graveyard hate to rain on that parade.
-) This can also be a strength, though. As Bruizar notes, triple Therapy is really strong -- both because it rips their hand apart and makes it so you are less likely to draw a Therapy later, when they're usually dead. Gifts occupies the middle ground, with neither the strength nor the weakness.
@Qweerios -- you can do better than your pile listed in 1965. The following:
Sun Titan
Unburial Rites
Palinchron
Recurring Nightmare
Should win immediately, I believe. Assuming that they won't give you Nightmare or Sun Titan, as those are the repeatable recursion elements, you can Therapy yourself for Palinchron with any random dork, Unbury Sun Titan, which brings back Nightmare to play, saccing Titan for Palinchron, and going infinite from there.
Random thought: is Unburial Rites better than Dread Return in a combo version? Obv. you'd have to tilt it a little harder towards creatures, but it would theoretically make the combo cost just the 4 of Gifts, enabling top-deck main-phase wins.
Liliana of the Veil is probably better in these versions, too, as you actively want to discard certain cards if they end up in your hand. EoT Gifts, get like Sun Titan and Palinchron in hand with Unburial and Nightmare in gy, discard Titan to Lily in your mainphase, then easily go infinite from there.
Everyone's already explained how Gifts works with only two targets, so I'm not going to bother. In my experience, the best target thusfar has been Rune-scarred Demon, because it forms a chain. Gifts for Unburial+Demon, unbury Demon -> Nightmare, loop Nightmare with Demon and whatever for endless tutoring.
Random thought #2: Does Body Double work favorably with Recurring Nightmare? I think it does. Theoretically that would make the Palinchron loop cheaper, because Body Double and Palinchron loop with each other, making the loop cost 2B instead of 4BB+X.
Griselbrand and Iona aren't good Unburial targets, because the meta is incredibly prepared for them as a result of Show and Tell's popularity the past few months. There's way too many Karakases, for one. Better to use a nonlegendary IMO.
@Bruizar -- I agree that Scapeshift has that slight design constraint of needing sufficient lands in play and in deck. However, the ScapeWish list is designed to take advantage of that. It only runs two copies in the maindeck, with another in the sideboard. With Top this means you usually find it exactly when you want to. Also, the deck is focused on hitting the 7 land minimum necessary to kill. The addition of Wood Elves and Primeval Titan, as well as the fact that you aren't thinning with Fetchlands, actually makes it really easy. I fully recognize that ScapeWish looks like it has some very serious problems on paper, but it plays a lot better in-game than it looks, trust me =)
I've thought about throwing in an Omniscience, but the fact that it's blue stops me, because if I draw it, it's literal dead. There may be some kind of a crazy 4-color Rector version that is focused on Omniscience, but I don't think that it needs to be shoe-horned into the current Rector build. As it stands now, Rector IS a path to victory: you get Moat, Arena, or Nightmare usually, depending on your opponent, and then ride that enchantment to victory. It's a "ride chain," if you will, though....it doesn't usually win the game for you by itself. While having such an enchantment would be nice and the Rector version DOES miss that "I Win" button, I feel that the three primary targets are sufficient when used properly with the rest of the deck. Rector isn't focused on a quick kill - it's an attrition deck. It is definitely important than ScapeWish and Gifts/Intuition are both capable of killing as soon as their signature card goes off, but Rector is a bit of a different animal in terms of its philosophy.
@Alexeezay -- Boseiju isn't really needed, because ScapeWish has a sufficiently high threat density that your opponent is going to be run ragged if they're trying to counter everything they think they need to counter. It also adds a colorless land, and a 3rd land that comes in tapped...both of which are things that ScapeWish really doesn't want.
@eq.firemind -- I like your #1946 a lot. I've felt for some time now that the reason ScapeWish is so strong is because it has that oops I win, but it's an oops I win that fits seamlessly into the deck with minimal requirements, that compliments the main philosophy of the deck, and that attacks on a completely different line than the rest of the deck....even as the rest of the deck helps it (Explorers ramp, not just for fatties but because every land that you put into play gets you closer to just winning). That's one reason I like the Nightmare loop with Yosei (or Kokusho). It gives an otherwise rocky attrition/control deck a combo finish, which seems very important to the deck overall. I do agree that the Nightmare dragon loop doesn't seem "strong enough" when compared to Scapeshift or Palinchron. Switching to Yosei may fix this problem. Needs more testing.
Ifh-Biff is hilarious. If anyone's meta has a pile of Miracles, try that shit out and let us know how good it actually is. I'm always a fan of making random old cards actually relevant.
@Asthereal -- I think that my summary of "what Nic Fit is" from the WiP primer is still accurate:
I'm probably going to add in something about having a combo finish, because it seems that most of our lists incorporate that to some extent or another. Otherwise, though, I believe that sums up the archetype pretty well.
@Qweerios -- Ensnaring Bridge isn't a corner case we care about. We can usually just Pulse or Deed that away. Solitary Confinement and Glacial Chasm are more annoying, and Kokusho does get around those. I wouldn't say that Kokusho is unplayable in the deck or "one of those EDH cards" that we all hate. I have come to agree that he's close, however, because Yosei is a more powerful effect. Time Walking is better than Exsanguinating for 5, in most metas. I do think that Claymore should stick with Kokusho due to his local meta, however. If there was an effect as powerful with Nightmare as Yosei's (or to a lesser extent Kokusho), that was cheaper mana-wise, you can bet I'd run it. Nightmare is the Scapeshift for the Rector version. It's just having a bit of trouble finding its Valakut, so to speak.
As far as Hornet Queen goes...you can't honestly think that using Nightmare to make a swarm of 1/1s is more effective than using it to make it so that your opponent never untaps again. Especially when it's a 7-drop =/
RE Claymore again....yeah, putting a Blessing in your board for a major tournament is a waste of time. However, if your local meta has like 3 Painter decks, it suddenly seems better. Kokusho may not be better for an SCG, but for Claymore's LGS, it is.
@Kich -- Grats on your job, first of all! I see no reason why you shouldn't share your more aggressive version of the deck here. If you don't want to, that's up to you...but I'd be glad to grow the family, as it were.
@KMS -- Have you tried Carpet of Flowers in the sideboard? If you're having trouble with Thresh, that's the ticket.
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Okay, I THINK that's everything I've got. Again, if I missed something you want me to reply to, just say something and I'll get to it.
For whatever record is needed, I'm running PFire Jund. So if anyone else is runnin it I'll be glad to share ideas!
I personally think we've come to a point where the thread needs to be split up in multiple threads. It's very confusing if someone wants to propose a card for the deck (a green creature) without mentioning the colors or general plan of the deck (BGW Rock, BUG, BGW rector, Jund etc.). The community can't answer accordingly because the only thing the deck shares is the core. If we would mash all decks together that use Force of Will, Brainstorm and Jace together regardless of colors or strategy we would have a serious problem.
I think Asthereal worded it nicely. One build wants to take over the board, the other tries to fend off the opposition until it's ready to combo out. They share the same core but the general plan of the decks is very different. Because of this, the thread can no longer have all these different strategies under one primer. In the beginning it was mostly narrowed down to Explorer Rock. Explorer has just evolved too much for it to stay in one thread.
The players who are familiar with the intricacies of their build should have their own thread to go to. The same with people who have questions regarding a specific build. This thread has set a record of most posts since it's existence because Explorer is just too wide of an archetype. It will happen too often that someone asks a question regarding to the Punishing Fire/Jund build and then next thing you know Bruizar and I talk two pages about BUG Intuition and the guy who asked a question regarding a completely different build is lost in confusion and hasn't gotten an answer.
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