I'm fairly new to the Jund version of Nic-Fit, but I think you might be right. Phyrexian Tower was an absolute necessity in Junk colored versions where you ran Sun Titan (with Eternal Witness, etc) and Academy Rector, but it has a lot less synergy here. Granted you can use it to ramp off of your Wood Elves/Huntermaster tokens in addition to Veteran Explorer, but it might not be enough. I do like that is functions like flashback from Cabal Therapy, giving you a 5th sac outlet.Originally Posted by hymntotourcock
Maybe the manabase could be revised to something like:
LANDS [25]
4 Taiga
4 Badlands
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Forest
2 Bayou
2 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
That gives you 12 mountains, and 6 fetchlands that can bring out basic mountain. You lose a basic, moving to 5, which may be wrong. Too tight? Too greedy?
Why play Veteran Explorer with only 5 basics?
5 basics is on the low end, but realistically you can only plan on getting one explorer off at reasonable speed anyway.
I've had many upon many corner plays where I won off of vet pop #3. Reanimate targeting Vet has come up for me more than once--and Phy Tower is always my sac outlet in those cases.
It's a little ironic you're considering cutting it, and I actually added a second one in. The on-demand instant speed sac outlet is good stuff, and the turn 2-3 plays are over the top. Turn 2 Swagtusk or Huntmaster ftw.
Retired Berserk Stompy player
Current Decks: Scapewish NicFit, Grixis Affinity, Green Zombardment
/barn. I wouldn't add the 2nd Tower, but I wouldn't cut the 1 that's there either. It's randomly very useful. The Sun Titan/Rector lists definitely wanted it as a 2-of, because they had more things to abuse the sac outlet. Scape doesn't really, but what it does have is enough for 1.
@Adding Foothills to the list. This isn't a terrible idea, but the question is where they come from. I could see putting in a 1-of in place of 1 Forest, which puts you down to 3 Forest 3 Mountain 2 Swamp = 8 basics. I wouldn't go below 8 basics in a Nic Fit deck. I used to run 7 in Rector for quite a while, but I found myself getting randomly screwed out of value.
Stomping Grounds, as I've said for a while now, are just too critical. Having 6 Taigas is crucial. Basically, the mana base breaks down as such:
4 Taiga
2 Stomping Ground
3 Badlands
3 Mountain
-----------------12 mountain-type cards for Valakut [red sources]
4 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Swamp
-----------------9 basics for Explorer/Tribe-Elder.
4 Forest
3 Bayou
4 Taiga
2 Stomping Ground
-----------------13 Forests for Wood Elves [green sources]
2 Swamp
3 Badlands
3 Bayou
-----------------8 Swamps [black sources]
Black is a little low, and has always been historically, which HAS cost me games.
Now, going below 12 mountains is poor, because Valakut. 12 mountains is the lowest number of mountains that is feasible if you expect your Taigas to get Surgicaled (leaves you with 8, which means you can have 2 in play to use and still be able to shift 6 into play to kill).
The cuttable lands are 1 Forest (keeps 13 green, bumps to 13 red and 9 black; but lowers basics to 8); possibly one Bayou (which only really gives you a shuffle and +1 red source in exchange for -1 prime target for Wood Elves); and possibly the Phyrexian Tower (which gives +1 to all sources, but reduces your nut-draw potential, weakens you to StP, and removes your instant-speed Veteran sac-outlet [which means Valakut is less likely to be used at instant speed]).
There's benefits and drawbacks to all of these. The Forest is the least damaging, and is an easy cut for 1 Foothills. Having the 3rd Bayou is probably worth it, because you want to keep your Bayou numbers high for Wood Elves, since Bayou is the most common fetch therein. Bayou is also the land that we most want to see in our opening hand, because it is the colors of Therapy and Explorer. Removing Phyrexian Tower is the most damaging and the least "good" option. Most turn 3 kills involve Tower somewhere, and being able to kill manlands with Valakut at instant speed by saccing Explorers to Tower is a trick that I've used more than once. Additionally, there are few things that break the Jund matchup as wide open in our favor as opening with Explorer into Tower into Thrag/Hunts/Colossus (they really hate Colossus, lol).
Any of the longer term shift players in here know the benefit of the Tower. You refered to Forest #4, which is what I cut in place of Tower #2. I believe I still have a verdant in place of Bayou #3, because I need the colors and I actually still don't have one x.X; Something I've considered to combat the surgical play is actually cutting a Taiga in place of a 3rd Stomping Ground... #Tuning.
Retired Berserk Stompy player
Current Decks: Scapewish NicFit, Grixis Affinity, Green Zombardment
mini1337s: Can I ask why, if you want to use fetches, you are using RG fetches and not BG fetches? Why do you want to fetch basic mountains?
If you are playing around wasteland, turns 1 and 2 you want to fetch forest and swamp UNLESS you need to t2 wish into t3 pyroclasm. Consider the perfect scenario: T1 catacombs, swamp, therapy. T2 catacombs, forest, explorer. Sac explorer and get forest, mountain--perfect basic manabase. With foothills, you'll need to fetch a basic turn 1.
I feel like you only really need mountains once you have 4 lands out. By then you're not as vulnerable to wasteland.
Also, you want to have as few mountains as possible on the battlefield while setting up for Scapeshift.
What about playing 2x Phyrexian Tower with new legend rule in Scapewish?
To avoid confusion about what we are talking, would it be a good idea to call GBR lists with Valakut Scapewish and GBR lists without it Jund Fit?
I only suggested 1 Tropical Island. If you can't get that, I would not go with 4 Probes I think. 3 seems like the right number then. But I am fairly new to Probe as well. Out of curiosity I have made a few Cockatrice games with a cobbled together Jund Fit list with Probes and they were still amazing. I wished I had one in every opening hand, and especially in those with Therapy. But running 4 without ever being able to pay for them might be too much. Maybe Qweerios can tell you more, he played Jund Fit before and is currently on BUG Fit with Probe.Yeah I need to pick those up! Meanwhile I just remembered I have a couple of Memoricides from when I played straight GB Nic Fit so those will do for now. I agree with your last statement about Slaughter Games being the absolute weapon against Miracles. Most of the games I played against Miracles I always manage to get the 2 Slaughter Games off (RiP and Jace) only to be later destroyed by a well protected Entreat. More Slaughter Games then for sure!
I will definitely try Probe, but probably not run the Trops! I don't have them! Kessig Wolf-Run was pretty decent for me as due to the lack of finishers (I cut Broodmate) it helps turn my 3/3 Garruk children and most especially the late game Veteran Explorer top decks pretty good clocks on their own. DRS can probably go, and I'm pretty excited to try out Gitaxian Probe!
I don't run Thoughtseizes in the board simply because most of the Sneak Show players in my meta do the "mull to Leyline" durdling and I end up with a ton of dead cards. Honestly I've pretty much given up on the combo matchup, deciding instead to focus on making sure my fair deck matchups are sure wins. With your suggestions I'd probably go:
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Virtue's Ruin
4 REB/Pyro
3 Slaughter Games
2 Extirpate
1 Batterskull - haven't tested this, but I do remember someone saying this is THE SB card against fair decks.
1 Golgari Charm (for the Elves! and just a flex card) or Damnation probably.
Also I do agree with the -1 Kitchen Finks and -1 Punishing Fire. The last tourney before the one posted above I had seen a lot of Burn so I decided to add the Finks in place of the 2nd Witness. Punishing Fire is a bad top deck if you already have one in your yard/hand.
3 Fires seems enough, it makes me confident that we agree on that. The games go long, you have Top and Probes cycle, too.
The SB looks good. I thought about Plague for the Elves and Maverick/D&T matchups but Charm is good, too. A turn faster against Elves and they don't see it coming.
Bear in mind, I'm new to this version. I've added Wooded Foothills over Verdant Catacombs so I can fetch out basic Mountain in circumstances where I have Valakut on board. I haven't found situations where I want basic swamp over Bayou, but that could be my limited experience.
Really, the added benefit of resetting tops is why I've added 3-4 fetchlands. Nothing is worse that needing to dig, activating top, and seeing 3 random non-fetch lands.
I do like where you're heading with that!
If you have valakut out and it hasn't been wasted, then you should have no problem fetching a nonbasic mountain with catacombs.
Also there are so many mountains in the deck, that being cutoff from red really shouldn't happen that often. I believe that the order of color importance is GBR, especially in the first few turns. Ideally the only time you'd ever need a red source is to cast a burning wish to find your scapeshift. Of course Huntmaster and Slaughter games require it, but not till you have 4 lands (usually.)
Just to let you guys know, at the very least both myself, Kevin, and Architect have played with / tested / considered fetch lands. I never thought of dropping non-mountains to stuff them in.
Catacombs / Foothills are redundant. Catacombs is probably slightly better, more important than the waste comment is the likely hood you still have a basic mountain left in your deck when you smash the foothills late game with valakut active. I can only remember a single instance when I've been able to... say... double lighting bolt people with a veteran explorer.
I think the center of discussion should be explore/exploration. Because I want that. But I'm to lazy to just test it =P
And Prismatic Omen, I want that too.
To jump back a step, Phy tower with the new rule is *shrug*, it doesn't really enable anything we couldn't already do. Unlike Opal, we can't play 2 phy towers on turn 2 to double smash vets for crazy mana excel.
Retired Berserk Stompy player
Current Decks: Scapewish NicFit, Grixis Affinity, Green Zombardment
Does anyone have a BUG Nic Fit list? I only found some weird looking lists with Gifts Ungiven and the one Arianrhod has linked in his sig. I would love to test a blue version, but except Jace and Brainstorm and Probe aparently, what does a blue list look like?
Qweerios has posted a good list here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post732005
If you didn't follow the discussion it can be summarized quickly: I would play a few Carpets in the SB, ~2 things that can kill a Tombstalker (Damnation, Pulse) instead of the 4-4 Decay/Damnation split and maybe a fourth Jace. Qweerios says these changes would not be good.
I posted about this a while back. But I think not running 2 fetches is wrong.
The mana base I have played about 100+ Test games with and 50+ tournament games with is below:
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Forest
4 Mountain (one or 2 of these can be stomping grounds probably)
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Swamp
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
I haven't been playing scapewish much lately, but I think DRS decks and RIP being so popular Stronghold is probably cuttable for a 3rd catacombs.
With this manabase you have 11 Mountains. In those 150+ games, I've lost 1 game because I didn't have enough mountains in my deck to kill a MUD player who was at 56 life, and I could ONLY deal him 54 damage. And yet having those 2 fetches have probably won me 20+ games where not having a shuffle effect, or having the wrong land colors/basic status would have made me lose.
There have been maybe 3 times where I wanted to a get a bayou off wood elves that wasnt there, but I never lost a game because of that.
The 4 basic mountains is probably wrong. 9 Basics is excessive. 1-2 of my mountains can probably be stomping grounds.
I think the arguments for not running 2-3 Verdent catacombs are based off of cute sanarios that come up 1 in 100 games. While fetch lands give you great value the vast majority of the time you see them. Also, catacombs is better than wooded foothills. The deck needs un-wastelandable GB sources in the first few turns of the game. Red isnt usually needed till later so it matters slightly less if those sources are wastelandable.
I can get behind this. What about:
-1 Forest
-1 Mountain
+1 Stomping Ground
+1 Verdant Catacombs
I can get behind this. What about:
-1 Forest
-1 Mountain
+1 Stomping Ground
+1 Verdant Catacombs
That's probably right. I think these days you might be able to cut the Volrath's stronghold for another fetch too.
Thanks for more advice! I'll try playing the Probes this weekend, we'll see. I've cut down on the Finks and added the 2nd Witness back. Cutting down to 3 Fires will definitely be my next move. It feels like a really bad top deck once you already have one online. Plus, with all the removal I'm running it sometimes just comes down to a choice of whether I wanna Decay the Goyf or kill it with P.Fire. P.Fire almost always wins out, but see the redundancy?
Anyway, what do you think about a singleton Goyf? My issues with combo is that sometimes I can disrupt their first attempt at going off but my clock is still nowhere to be found. Huntmaster/Thrun will sometimes come in a turn or so too late and by then they'll be trying to go off again. Goyf might help with that. I do understand that he gets swept by Deed but it might be something I'm willing to overlook.
Also abot BUG Fit, I might be willing to invest on that but what does it get you that Scapewish doesn't. Scapewish is honestly my least favorite version of the deck, but I do admit that its obviously the "best one" as far as tournament results go.
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