[DTB] Blade Control

[klaus]

However I had a very hard time against GBw Nic Fit with Eternal Witness recurring Deeds and Thrun coming in from the sideboard. Any tips for this matchup? What are our outs against a Thrun? That friggin' blue hating troll.

1 Supreme Verdict main and 2 in the board plus flying equipped Spirits.

[xfxf]

Thrun regenerates. For Supreme and Perish to work you need to catch them with their pants down.

Also Pernicious Deed is very efficient in wiping off all sorts of equipped tokens (both spirit and germ).

[Teluin]

Thrun regenerates.

You kinda answered your own question. What's a popular card that clears the board without destroying creatures?

Terminus.

[Mackan]

I don't want to be "that guy"... But I think I have to anyway. Maybe it's me beeing tired, grumpy or hungry... But I feel i need to rant. Reading through the last couple of pages I see more and more weird cardchoices.
Hopefully it's me missing something, so please enlightened me!
Why do you want to play cards that doesn't fit in the proactive attrition gameplan that is esperblade?
Rest in peace, Humility and maybe even Supreme Verdict?
Discard+cheap counters+cheap removal is what makes the deck so good imo. Snapcaster is like the glue of the deck with these cards. Just grind your opponent down instead of going all-in on a card that hurts you aswell!
Humility for example not only shut down snapcaster mage, but also vendilion clique and meddling mage, the best cards against the SnT deck, for example.
To battle dredge we have the excellent Tormod's crypt and Nihil Spellbomb... Not as powerful as RiP but one-sided costs between nothing and half the mana. Also, surgical extraction + snapcaster mage is excellent in that matchup, why ruin that for no reason with rest in peace? Is rest in peace good against RUG/treshhold? Sure, it's ok, but I rather plow/EE/perish and grind them down with souls... RiP vs Delver doesn't do anything for example...
I have enough problems playing lingering souls vs combo or force of will vs Jund as it is...I don't think we have to "fix" anything by playing loopsided cards and reduce the consistency of the deck.
Supreme verdict is a powerful card. But it's 2-sided. I rather focus on grinding game1 and side powerful one-sided effects for game2. It's not like the one-of Supreme Verdict is a reliable boardsweeper anyway. How many cards can you dig when you really need it? Before you die? You still have to plow that Knight of the Reliquary on sight.
Engineered Explosives/Perish solves most of the troubles and instead we can connect with Jitte/Soff/Batterskull. The only matchups I can think of where I really miss Supreme Verdict is Goblins and merfolk. Not worth it.
One last thing, Please drop Geist. I know it's a cool card and it's powerful too... but nah.
Vs control he dies to snappy/batterskull/souls... I wouldn't play lava axe in the mirror, and you shouldn't either. Trades with half a card, for 3 mana.
Vs Aggro he's just plain wrong...
Vs Combo he's just a clock... and if it comes to a race I rather be on the combo side. He's better than souls here, but those are allways sided out anyway.

[undone]

It's been a while since I've been on the source. I've been looking at rebuilding my legacy decks and decided to take the GP Denver list as a starting point. I love the list but I really want the one intuition since intuition souls, souls, souls, and intuition souls, therapy, therapy is also really good. Sure jace, jace, jace, and force, force, force are good too but those are secondary to the souls fetches. I'm worried about the show and tell matchup and a few other decks (Jund and BUG) what if anything should I change from the board for that.

[xfxf]

You kinda answered your own question. What's a popular card that clears the board without destroying creatures?

Terminus.

Unless you can follow-up a Terminus with a bomb like 4 Angel tokens I think Terminus is pretty useless because you Terminus away, they GSZ them back in. Also Terminus is sooo narrow for this deck that I can't justify having multiples in the deck just to deal with occasional Thrun Nic Fit. I'm still open to suggestions though.

[Mackan]

Unless you can follow-up a Terminus with a bomb like 4 Angel tokens I think Terminus is pretty useless because you Terminus away, they GSZ them back in. Also Terminus is sooo narrow for this deck that I can't justify having multiples in the deck just to deal with occasional Thrun Nic Fit. I'm still open to suggestions though.

elspeth, knight-errant.

[apistat_commander]

I don't want to be "that guy"... But I think I have to anyway. Maybe it's me beeing tired, grumpy or hungry... But I feel i need to rant. Reading through the last couple of pages I see more and more weird cardchoices.
Hopefully it's me missing something, so please enlightened me!
Why do you want to play cards that doesn't fit in the proactive attrition gameplan that is esperblade?
Rest in peace, Humility and maybe even Supreme Verdict?
Discard+cheap counters+cheap removal is what makes the deck so good imo. Snapcaster is like the glue of the deck with these cards. Just grind your opponent down instead of going all-in on a card that hurts you aswell!
Humility for example not only shut down snapcaster mage, but also vendilion clique and meddling mage, the best cards against the SnT deck, for example.
To battle dredge we have the excellent Tormod's crypt and Nihil Spellbomb... Not as powerful as RiP but one-sided costs between nothing and half the mana. Also, surgical extraction + snapcaster mage is excellent in that matchup, why ruin that for no reason with rest in peace? Is rest in peace good against RUG/treshhold? Sure, it's ok, but I rather plow/EE/perish and grind them down with souls... RiP vs Delver doesn't do anything for example...
I have enough problems playing lingering souls vs combo or force of will vs Jund as it is...I don't think we have to "fix" anything by playing loopsided cards and reduce the consistency of the deck.
Supreme verdict is a powerful card. But it's 2-sided. I rather focus on grinding game1 and side powerful one-sided effects for game2. It's not like the one-of Supreme Verdict is a reliable boardsweeper anyway. How many cards can you dig when you really need it? Before you die? You still have to plow that Knight of the Reliquary on sight.
Engineered Explosives/Perish solves most of the troubles and instead we can connect with Jitte/Soff/Batterskull. The only matchups I can think of where I really miss Supreme Verdict is Goblins and merfolk. Not worth it.
One last thing, Please drop Geist. I know it's a cool card and it's powerful too... but nah.
Vs control he dies to snappy/batterskull/souls... I wouldn't play lava axe in the mirror, and you shouldn't either. Trades with half a card, for 3 mana.
Vs Aggro he's just plain wrong...
Vs Combo he's just a clock... and if it comes to a race I rather be on the combo side. He's better than souls here, but those are allways sided out anyway.

- I agree on Rest in Peace. We rely enough on the GY that Relic, Surgical Extraction, and Nihil Spellbomb are all better options.

- Humility is a 1 to 2-of sideboard card that is really good in creature MUs and against Show and Tell. Yes, it shuts off your Snapcasters but that is acceptable because you can generally still make more 1/1s with Lingering Souls. It obviously doesn't come in against every creature based deck, but it is powerful enough to warrant consideration. It can help against some troublesome MUs like 12-post or Nic Fit.

- The 1-of Supreme Verdict in the main is a meta-call but it has been pretty good for me. There are a ton of decks where you want a Wrath effect and giving up the little bit of additional dig that 1 Ponder provides you is generally worth it. Engineered Explosives is great, but it isn't always going to hit everything you need. Sometimes Swords + Snapcaster just isn't enough against creature decks. It can always come out in game two or be shuffled away/pitched to Force in G1.

[Mackan]

- I agree on Rest in Peace. We rely enough on the GY that Relic, Surgical Extraction, and Nihil Spellbomb are all better options.

- Humility is a 1 to 2-of sideboard card that is really good in creature MUs and against Show and Tell. Yes, it shuts off your Snapcasters but that is acceptable because you can generally still make more 1/1s with Lingering Souls. It obviously doesn't come in against every creature based deck, but it is powerful enough to warrant consideration. It can help against some troublesome MUs like 12-post or Nic Fit.

- The 1-of Supreme Verdict in the main is a meta-call but it has been pretty good for me. There are a ton of decks where you want a Wrath effect and giving up the little bit of additional dig that 1 Ponder provides you is generally worth it. Engineered Explosives is great, but it isn't always going to hit everything you need. Sometimes Swords + Snapcaster just isn't enough against creature decks. It can always come out in game two or be shuffled away/pitched to Force in G1.

I allways side souls out vs combo...also why i dislike cabal therapy a bit more than others...

[Malakai]

The only relevant spell NicFit plays is Pernicious Deed. Counter it, and your deck will do the rest.

[xfxf]

Don't take it as an offense but I'm wondering if you've played against Nic Fit? When you counter Pernicious Deed a Nic Fit player can Eternal Witness to get it back, GSZ to get Eternal Witness to get it back, Academy Rector into (using Cabal Therapy or Phyrexian Tower) a Pernicious Deed. So you can't just wave your hand and say no. Also, Thrun is a problem which is very hard to answer so it's not only Deed. Don't be so underestimating. The best suggestion for it mentioned here so far is Elspeth.

[apistat_commander]

Don't take it as an offense but I'm wondering if you've played against Nic Fit? When you counter Pernicious Deed a Nic Fit player can Eternal Witness to get it back, GSZ to get Eternal Witness to get it back, Academy Rector into (using Cabal Therapy or Phyrexian Tower) a Pernicious Deed. So you can't just wave your hand and say no. Also, Thrun is a problem which is very hard to answer so it's not only Deed. Don't be so underestimating. The best suggestion for it mentioned here so far is Elspeth.

Agreed. Nic Fit is frequently piloted by scrubs so I think people have a tendency to underestimate the deck. However it is quite powerful in the hands of a capable pilot. There are also a ton of variants floating around so each one has a different weakness. Some thoughts:

- Perish prevents regeneration, so that is one answer to Thrun.
- Humility shuts down a good portion of their deck, plus they ramp you into the mana for it.
- While not always possible, Plowing their Explorers can really slow them down. Their curve is terrible and if they can't get ramp their deck doesn't do a whole lot.
- Baneslayer seems okay here as well, but I don't know if you have enough other MUs where you want it to justify the slot.

I allways side souls out vs combo...also why i dislike cabal therapy a bit more than others...

I was referencing using Lingering Souls + Humility against creature based decks. Against Sneak/Show and other "big dude decks" creating enough 1/1s to close out the game really isn't a problem even without LS. I am also not a huge fan of Cabal Therapy (I recognize that the card is good) but I think it is more important for me to always hit with my discard spells rather than have the potential for blow-outs. If you are a good Therapy player this is likely not an issue.

[Malakai]

So while they're casting all these expensive spells, you're not hitting them with your Sword of beat-your-deck and drawing cards with your Jace? Seriously, they just gave a control deck two lands so they could play garbage like Thrun and...what else? It's not like they can ever get rid of your Batterskull.

If it's a problem in your meta, play Elspeth. That card is very hard for them to beat, and you can usually cast it on turn two. Or better yet, switch to Miracles. The NicFit/Miracles matchup is a joke. I considered it a bye when I was on Miracles.

[Teluin]

If it's a problem in your meta, play Elspeth. That card is very hard for them to beat, and you can usually cast it on turn two.

What?

Edit: Oh, I now realize you just meant against Nic Fit haha.

[Qweerios]

@bilb_o

As a veteran Nic Fit player I can assure you that there is very little a Stoneblade player can do to stop it. Without a combo finish (Entreat for example), most fair decks will succumb to Nic Fit. I am not saying you probably won't win most of your matches (partly because most Nic Fit players can't play it very well and building a good version requires a lot of experience) but you shouldn't expect a favorable matchup against a competent Nic Fit player. The best advice I can give you is the following:

-Fetch duals only, the basics will be provided to you and there won't be any land destruction at any point (Except maybe Tsunami but that's some dark tech);
-Don't side out FoW, you will reach 5 mana very fast;
-Play as many hard counters as you can like the classic Counterspell because Nic Fit cannot interact with the stack and this should be your first line of defense;
-Save your Snapcasters for hard counters as much as possible;
-Elspeth is a good call, PWs on an emty board is your main pathway to victory;
-Moorland Haunt, Riptide Lab, and Karakas with Clique are all strong combinations for any attrition matches;
-Feast and Famine can be very difficult to deal with;
-Pay very close attention to how you fetch and play Batterskull, it is one of your main bargaining chips throughout the match;
-Don't let Top resolve, the game will go very long and Nic Fit requires a lot of set up (lots of toping) to get going;
-Use Cliques at the end of your opponent's draw step, most Nic Fit decks don't play any instant spells aside from 2-3 Decays. It is a good way to avoid a Titan or a Thragtusk when you are short on counters;
-Use Spell Pierce and other counters on Green Sun's Zenith. Countering GSZ means that it won't reshuffle and Nic Fit will average 4-8 GSZ's in most attrition matches;
-Cards like Nihil Spellbomb are worth siding in because they will provide you with an additional angle of disruption that is relevant to this matchup without incuring any card disadvantage.

Here's some general advice too as to what's in your opponent's deck:

GSZ@1 = Veteran Explorer
GSZ@2 = Ooze, Teeg, Pridemage, or a CA/Ramp bear like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wall of Blossom, Sylvan Ranger (AKA: mana problems)
GSZ@3 = Witness so check out the GY. It can also be Fierce Empath but Witness is much more likely
GSZ@4 = Thrun or Huntmaster of the Fells if on Jund colors (Nic Fit will rarely have a 4 CMC target for GSZ)
GSZ@5 = Sigarda or Thragtusk
GSZ@6 = Primeval Titan for an attrition engine (Phyrexian Tower + Volrath's Stronghold) or manlands

Red splash: Red Elemental Blast post board, maybe some Punishing Fire
Lots of Taigas or Stomping Ground (dead giveaway): Scapeshift + Burning Wish
Blue splash: Jace and Brainstorm
White splash: Sigarda and/or Academy Rector package - Phyrexian Arena/Recycle/Recurring Nightmare are the Rector targets of choice against Stoneblade.

[thra1l]

@bilb_o

As a veteran Nic Fit player I can assure you that there is very little a Stoneblade player can do to stop it. Without a combo finish (Entreat for example), most fair decks will succumb to Nic Fit. I am not saying you probably won't win most of your matches (partly because most Nic Fit players can't play it very well and building a good version requires a lot of experience) but you shouldn't expect a favorable matchup against a competent Nic Fit player. The best advice I can give you is the following:

-Fetch duals only, the basics will be provided to you and there won't be any land destruction at any point (Except maybe Tsunami but that's some dark tech);
-Don't side out FoW, you will reach 5 mana very fast;
-Play as many hard counters as you can like the classic Counterspell because Nic Fit cannot interact with the stack and this should be your first line of defense;
-Save your Snapcasters for hard counters as much as possible;
-Elspeth is a good call, PWs on an emty board is your main pathway to victory;
-Moorland Haunt, Riptide Lab, and Karakas with Clique are all strong combinations for any attrition matches;
-Feast and Famine can be very difficult to deal with;
-Pay very close attention to how you fetch and play Batterskull, it is one of your main bargaining chips throughout the match;
-Don't let Top resolve, the game will go very long and Nic Fit requires a lot of set up (lots of toping) to get going;
-Use Cliques at the end of your opponent's draw step, most Nic Fit decks don't play any instant spells aside from 2-3 Decays. It is a good way to avoid a Titan or a Thragtusk when you are short on counters;
-Use Spell Pierce and other counters on Green Sun's Zenith. Countering GSZ means that it won't reshuffle and Nic Fit will average 4-8 GSZ's in most attrition matches;
-Cards like Nihil Spellbomb are worth siding in because they will provide you with an additional angle of disruption that is relevant to this matchup without incuring any card disadvantage.

Here's some general advice too as to what's in your opponent's deck:

GSZ@1 = Veteran Explorer
GSZ@2 = Ooze, Teeg, Pridemage, or a CA/Ramp bear like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wall of Blossom, Sylvan Ranger (AKA: mana problems)
GSZ@3 = Witness so check out the GY. It can also be Fierce Empath but Witness is much more likely
GSZ@4 = Thrun or Huntmaster of the Fells if on Jund colors (Nic Fit will rarely have a 4 CMC target for GSZ)
GSZ@5 = Sigarda or Thragtusk
GSZ@6 = Primeval Titan for an attrition engine (Phyrexian Tower + Volrath's Stronghold) or manlands

Red splash: Red Elemental Blast post board, maybe some Punishing Fire
Lots of Taigas or Stomping Ground (dead giveaway): Scapeshift + Burning Wish
Blue splash: Jace and Brainstorm
White splash: Sigarda and/or Academy Rector package - Phyrexian Arena/Recycle/Recurring Nightmare are the Rector targets of choice against Stoneblade.

Totally agreed. Malakai makes it seem like the matchup is laughable, but as a NicFit player myslef, I was always fine with seeing Stoneblade/Miracles on the other side of the table (most fair decks, really). NicFit is one of the few decks in Legacy that has (in my opinion) a much stronger late-game than Esper.

What?

When the NicFit player kills their Veteran Explorer.

[xfxf]

apistat_commander and especially Qweerios, thanks very much for the great tips. Should give me plenty to get started on improving my game.

[Teluin]

When the NicFit player kills their Veteran Explorer.

Haha yeah, I mis-read and thought he was talking in general.

[Firepaw3]

Has venser, the sojourner been discussed in this thread? I really like the card and it doesent seem 1/2 bad with riptide and karakas, or is it just too much mana for what it.does?

[Malakai]

I didn't say it was laughable, but it's very clear to me that people are taking a very different approach to the matchup than what I am doing. The suggestions above are all good. Don't counter or Swords the Veteran Explorer. NicFit is going to fix your mana for you, so it's safe to sideboard out a couple lands.

It also helps to be good at the Therapy vs. Brainstorm mind-game.