3 tops?Originally Posted by kavaki
Why is Trinisphere better than the other stax effects? Serious question. My experience has been that Trinisphere has been underwhelming, even in decks like Dragon Stompy and MUD where it is supposed to be king. I assume you are only bringing it in against decks like Storm. Sphere/Thorn have the benefit of coming in against other slow or ramp style decks (Turbo Land and Miracles are the two I think of) and not be dead.
It's it wrong that I want to just jam 4 slaughter games and just take all of the win conditions?
Some flashpoints before bed -- will provide more detailed thoughts tomorrow morning early.
Went 3-1, for 2nd place. Lost r1 to burn after him killing me g1 through a Tusk and a Huntmaster, then g2 I mulled to six, made a questionable keep, and never got off one land even with a Top going (I had like triple discard spell + top). Beat ANT, then Shardless, then Goblins.
Never drew Chandra, so no test data there. Volraths felt unnecessary (never activated it), but there was a game where I WOULD have activated it if I hadn't topdecked Primeval and just went off (my Thrun had died to a Liliana edict and I wanted it back). Not sure what to think of that. I hated the lack of Green Sun targets at 2 and 3. I really, really wanted a backup ramp guy multiple times on the night.
I'll provide more thoughts tomorrow.
After you bringing back the discussion of Fire&Wishes lists, thanks to your new ideas and everyone's advice i rethinked the list i posted a while ago to one very similar to yours here, the only main deck differences been -1 veteran explorer, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Punishing Fire, -1 Dryad Arbor and -1 Raging Ravine for +1 SDT, +1 GSZ, +1 DRS, +1 Grove and +1 Forest. Therefore, I am anxious to hear everyone comments on your final list, since i have poor means for testing myself.
Nevertheless, i would really appreciate you guys' comments on my changes.
The TS and PF gives places for SDT and GSZ. With Liliana mainboard, i would think that 2 TS should be enough. Tao runs only 2 MD and HoneyT runs only 2 at all, so i think i prefer running the fourth GSZ on the main deck to increase the threat count than extra discard. Besides, i cannot think of a time that i would wish for GSZ, as i would tend to save it for an answer for a threat my opponent might play. If you can, i would love to hear your point pro GSZ in the wishboard.
For the PF, following Tao's recent argument for the 4 SDT, i do not remember wanting 2 PFs at the same time (at least not more than 1 PF and a diferent card), so I do believe that it should be cut before the TOP. I've been extremely satisfied with three Tampos in my time playing the deck, agreeing with HoneyT on this. Besides, i think i would prefer the extra manipulation than the fourth PF.
The Dryad Arbor, i tend to agree with everybody else on the anti-synergy with Deed. But i could see it saving the day with your fetchland -> flashback Therapy move, so tell me if it happens a lot and then i might change my mind. As for the Raging Ravine, I really like the idea (played with Creeping Tar Pit in blue Fit), but it will have to be crazy good to replace the 4th Burnwillow, especially when i have cut the 4th PF. Since it's worse then Tar Pit, i opted it out.
At least, the one change i'm most doubtful off. Cutting 1 explorer for a 3-1 split with DRS. The idea is having the alternative ramp source for those games where setting an explorer off is too dangerous and for compensating the absence of a third surgical on the sideboard. What do you think?
As for sideboard i have some divergences and some doubts: 1 Innocent Blood, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Maelstrom Pulse, Slaughter Games and Reverent Silence are sure spots for me. I'm really a fan of Ruination because it gives you an out for the recently noted worst match up (12 post),but i don't know if it's worth it. And for the damnation spot, i am not sure between it and massacre. That would be 8, but there is still the 2nd Slaughter Games. As for the non wishboard, the three REB are a given, as well as 2 Surgical. For the remaining 2 spots I don't know which to choose between Golgari Charms or Carpet of Flowers.
Any thoughts?
Alright, more detailed thoughts on the P-fire archetype:
I don't see how Burn is winnable. I randomly struggle with Burn even on Thune, which has a ton of intrinsic lifegain built-in. Scapewish is questionable -- it depends on if they draw Price, or if I draw multiple Thrags / Hunts. Either way, Scapewish presents a respectable clock while Thune just makes it impossible for them to win. P-fire does neither of these things. 1 Thrag + 1 Hunts is not enough when he goes Price -> Price -> Fireblast, especially with P-fire's higher nonbasic count (the Pops only hit me for 4 apiece, but that was still enough).
ANT felt very winnable. I had some rough luck in game 3, but so did he, so it evened out. Game two I Therapied Infernal, hit 1, then Surgicaled it -- still having Extirpate + REB in hand for additional disruption. That felt pretty awesome. Eventually I Slaughtered his Burning Wishes and he scooped. Game three I mulled to 6 and kept Top + 3 lands + Therapy + Slaughter Games. He Duressed me and took the Therapy, then proceeded discard the rest of my hand over the next few turns. Eventually I Topped into another Games, and played it on turn 4 with no acceleration, hitting Infernal Tutor again (and nabbing 1 in-hand). I eventually E-Wit'd back and Games and he scooped.
Shardless was, as always with Nic Fit, a goddamned joke. Game one I assembled Thrun + Wolf Run for a while, until eventually he ripped a Liliana of the Skank and made me lose Thrun. I was prepared to Volrath's him back, but then I drew Primeval, and that was that. Game two was even more unfortunate for him. I boarded in 1 Carpet and 2 completely unnecessary REBs here -- mostly because I wanted to actually board something in than for any real reason. If I were to play the matchup again, I think I would board out 2 Therapies for 2 Carpets. I liked not having the full compliment of Therapies here, and getting the little extra mana boost is good. I still say the best way to beat Jace and friends is to ensure that they die immediatlely upon hitting play. Explorer is fine as a 1/1 Moat, but if they just there and play planeswalkers before you can ramp up to threats, it can be bad.
Goblins was basically called game 1, Punishing Fire ruined his life; then game 2, Huntmaster ruined his life (flippy flippy kill kill kill).
Overall impressions of strengths and weaknesses --
It's definitely a control deck. I was the last match playing every round, which is actually not something that usually happens when I'm playing Thune or Scape (primarily because once the game reaches a certain point, I just combo FTW). Decay was great, as was the Punishing engine. I never drew Garruk or Chandra, so I can't evaluate those. I can't imagine I would have been sad to see them, though. Liliana was fantastic courtesy of Punishing Fires. Most of the time when I didn't have the Fires engine going, I didn't +1 her, though, because I didn't want to pitch gas. This roughly aligns with my opinion of Liliana in Nic Fit -- if you're doing something to break her symmetry, she's fine. Otherwise, avoid.
As mentioned, I really hated the lack of options for Zenith. There were a couple of games where I had an Explorer out with no sacrifice method, and a Zenith in hand on 3-4 lands with like Thrag / Hunts in hand and no more land drops to make. I would've killed for a ramp guy with hands like these -- I kept thinking well I can Zenith for......wait, fuck. The options that were there were all fine. Ooze was solid and reasonable if continually unimpressive. Primeval Titan was gross, and significantly better in this deck than he is in Scape (where often he just pulls lands out of the deck and is a 6/6; rarely does he actually get to go standard-valakut-trix on people). Thrun felt like the hero we need, but not the hero we deserve.
@arianrhod
So what changes would you make to the deck ? I understand that you havent played it enough just yet but still. Add Sylvan Ranger? Cut lilianas?
Seems like you were mostly just on the wrong side of variance against burn. Between discard and the three life gain dudes. I don't generally have too many problems. Sometimes they have the nuts that can just kill you through anything. That happens. But I don't play against burn often enough to care if I lose that match every once in awhile.
Like you noticed, Storm is not actually a bad matchup contrary to popular belief.
And obviously Shardless and Goblins are quite favorable. I don't generally board in Carpets vs them though. It's easy enough for them to play around them. I just swap a couple Therapies for REBs. That's the extent of my sideboarding in that match.
I used to use DRS as a back up mana accelerator and he was always perfectly fine. I have since decided I don't really need one most of the time. With the Punishing version, even if I can't set off an Explorer, I can usually grind the game out enough to naturally make all my land drops due to the abundance of removal.
And yes, Titan and Thrunununun are super gross in this version
The Explorer triggering is another of many reasons for running 4 Tops. You had 61 cards/3 Tops, I have 60 cards/4 Tops, that might have been the reason why you didn't get it to trigger often enough.
For the Ooze, just like you I also don't get the hype. He is mediocre at best in most matchups. The reason to play him is the Storm matchup (obviously great vs Dredge too but I would be willing to accept that). But without Ooze, you will autolose G1 to Past in Flames and that is not acceptable.
I am glad that everyone seems to agree on Liliana being awesome.
Just as a quick idea, might be bad, what are your thoughts on running 2 Thrun? You split 2 Huntmaster, 1 Thrun, but maybe it should be the other way around. Just drawing him often feels awesome.
I def wouldn't cut Liliana. I could see potentially trimming 1 copy of her (probably put it in the sideboard) for a Sylvan Ranger, and then probably cutting the Chandra for either a Wood Elves or some kind of chunky 3-drop threat, like a Varolz maybe. Since we're largely on "Protect the Troll" as our plan, making the Troll beefier is certainly not a bad idea -- I know from Sigarda how potent that is, and having a Zenithable way to sacrifice Explorers might fix my issue with not ramping enough by itself.
I get your point about stalling with PFire until you make land drops, but I feel like that is super greedy. They could just as easily waste your Grove and then you just sit there and die to a thousand pinpricks. Your argument is also essentially stating that your deck is okay leaning on PFire, but I would counter that your deck could work way better if you didn't HAVE to lean on PFire.
Obviously most of the time we assemble Vet + Therapy, or they just swing into your Vet, or whatever, and it isn't a problem. Some of my testing issues therein might be that I'm playing against a field that is exceptionally used to play against Nic Fit -- they've all been subjected to me for the past 2 years, so they know how to react to a lot of the various board states that I put forth.
I'll note that it's important to remember that even if Storm is favorable (ish) for PFire, it's still not necessarily for other versions.
Eh, I dunno. I had a couple of redundant Tops already at 3. Like, I've run 3 Tops in all of my builds back as far as I can remember and never really had a major problem with that number. I always seem to hit 1 per game, sometimes some extras in the Top spin, but that's what shuffles are for.
Thoughts on the 2nd Thrun are that he dies SO irregularly that it probably isn't necessary. Like, he dies to exactly Liliana and Perish, as long as you leave regen mana up. I don't think that the risk of having a backup copy stranded in your hand is outweighed by the benefit of having an extra / naturally drawing it more often.
If the deck worked better without PFire I wouldn't play them. I'm not sure what you mean by that statement.
Also, this deck arguably has more ways to set off an Explorer than most. If necessary you can always burn them. I've shot my Explorers with Fires a non-zero number of times.
Can anyone go through the major matchups of thune fit, what to name with therapy, and general sideboarding? Thanks in advance, it would really help me out a lot.
Also, I would like to know what to cut from this list for the third top. I do think I want to keep in 3 gsz's and 3 pods, but I also know that 3 tops is kind of a necessity.
I really love this deck. Ive been testing a build with a friend to break him into legacy while he acquires the cards and were finding some of the more common issues ive read here hold true for us as well. The main ones being (me paraphrasing here):
-not enough lower casting cost value targets for zenith
-huntmaster is often (not always) underwhelming
-ooze while good isnt exactly amazing either
-the deck can take a long time to close out games
Weve been rolling with the PF build -witness/-huntmaster/-ooze plus a couple other adjustments to fit in more big finishers, a pair of innocent blood and 2 abyssal persecutors.
The deck feels really good. Persecutor is probably the obvious standout wtf card but its been really good even considering its drawback since the deck wants something truly nasty starting at 4cc I believe.
Persecutor doesnt feel like the best choice out there but I cant really find anything better yet except maybe chandra pyromaster.. im also considering replacing them with a troll ascetic for awhile for further testing (functionally almost the same as thrun with wolf run) and then maybe a single viridian emissary idk.
Gotta say though this is hands down the best deck for innocent blood ive ever used.
-The Treefolk MasterYou just sent him to the place were brain cells go to die. The Las Vegas of The Source, if you will.
Low casting cost value targets for GSZ are Veteran Explorers, you use them until you can start GSZ'ing Thragtusks and Primevals. Huntsman is pretty badass, I wouldn't cut copies of them.
Yes I agree vets are high value, maybe I should have worded that a little differently and said lower CC threats.Low casting cost value targets for GSZ are Veteran Explorers, you use them until you can start GSZ'ing Thragtusks and Primevals. Huntsman is pretty badass, I wouldn't cut copies of them.
Thragtusks and titans are both very good no problems there. Huntmaster though has more often then not been 2 x 2/2 + 2 life, which for 4 mana in legacy is pretty lackluster. Sure ive seen him flip here and there, usually when topdeck mode occurs and they pull lands but otherwise I honestly just havent been impressed.
-The Treefolk MasterYou just sent him to the place were brain cells go to die. The Las Vegas of The Source, if you will.
Last night I proxied up some duals and whatnot and I must say: omfg i love this deck. I played against my friend on DnT and I won 4/5 games. PFire is so huge I can't believe how badly I underestimated it.
Some things to note:
1. I really miss Sigarda as a general wincon. I get that Thrun is supposed to fulfill that role but he pales next to her IMO.
2. Out of those 5 games, I saw Primeval Titan once and Wolf Run zero times. Therefore I have no opinion on the card yet.
3. Liliana with Garruk Primal is incredible. Almost unbeatable.
4. Someone advocated calling Revoker on a blind Therapy against DnT. I disagree, at least on PFire version. I say call Thalia because their mana disruption is enough to make her taxing a real ball breaker.
5. Some of you have been talking about lower cmc creatures being underwhelming as GSZ targets. I am tempted to try the 2G elf that destroys an artifact. Or the Uktabi Orangutan because of its hilarity factor. Most decks have relevant artifacts, no?
6. I don't have a Stronghold, nor did I proxy it, but there were a few instances in testing where I desperately needed to recur Vets to block an unchecked Batterdick. I eventually won that game when I topped a Deed though. So I also cannot attest to Stronghold.
7. Arian mentioned not using Liliana's +1 when you don't really want to dump what's in your hand. This feels so wrong to me coming from Pox, but in this deck it's definitely correct. If the only card in your hand is Garruk you generally don't want to pitch it. I did get to toss a bunch of PFires which felt exceptional.
8. I have also been a fan of Abyssal Persecutor since its debut. Does it really have a home here? Or is it too much aggro for a dedicated control deck?
Really cool that people started ball with the P-fire nic fit. I have too been playing this on and off, and I remember a tournament I played in like half year ago (think I wrote a report here X pages back) where I played against like 3-4 combo decks and won them all got all the way to finals where I scooped because it was a GPT for something that I wasn't going to attend anyways.
Anyways some thoughts:
I never really play more than 4 discard MD. This is because, all combo decks are really hard to beat game1 even if you have some extra discard. Sure, it increases your chances but not by much. That's why I rather put more hate cards against fair decks to make sure I have the highest possible chance of winning against them.
Kessig Wolf Run. When you think about it, giving a Hexproof guy +x+0 and tramle that sounds really sweet, buuut that never happens! (at least not to me) Feels like it always get wasted, or by the time I can actually buff my guys I've already won. But i don't know, think I might need more testing on it. Also, obviously, it can mana screw you.
In my sideboard I have 15 cards all designed to beat combo decks. REBs, discard, extirpates, Slaughter games etc. Turns out Golgari charm is quite good aswell, especially against elves!
The only deck that I have problems with is, Miracles. (suprise!) Because they are better at the long game than us, and have better answers against our threats than opposed. Thrun is nice, obv and walkers.
Walkers: Im running 3x Liliana and 1 Garruk Relentless at the moment, but I feel like I want to go deeper with the walkers just because they are so good in this version. But I don't know, could maybe add 1 Primal Hunter
If there's a lot of burn in your meta i recommend running atleast 1 copy of Kitchen finks. Stronghold+Tower+Finks=mmm
Agreed on Wolf Run. I am not sure if running it is right. I hear so much praise for it that I am not willing to cut it but I never felt that it was that good.
For the extra Discard: You also increase your post board disruption count with extra Maindeck Discard spells.
For the Miracles matchup: What is your decklist and your SB plan against them?
I played 20ish games last night with various decks against my buddies newly sleeved nic fit and wolf run was just obscene no matter what it buffed, even garruk tokens and explorers. Cant believe how nasty that janky land is!
The deck had some problems with storm combo and marit lage but otherwise fair decks dont really stand a chance. Hell I even lost a game where I untapped with progenitus due to getting hit by a 17/6 persecutor.
Also ruric thar is better then he looks, I think he has a place meta dependent I suppose. When he lands you better have something bigger and better or its gg. The reach/vigilance is also pretty relevant from what I saw.
A manland seemed to be missed in a few games for a primetime target.
-The Treefolk MasterYou just sent him to the place were brain cells go to die. The Las Vegas of The Source, if you will.
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