[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

[EpicLevelCommoner]

I was really in doubt about bringing in the Thoughtseizes. In my mind it would not be worth it because of the life loss. But now, with your comment, i guess that even 1 life saved is worth more then nothing, and can actually mean the game. My restraint with dropping removals is that is really useful to get rid of Burn's creatures, as Punishing list is lighter on chump blockers. But i'll definitely make room for TSs next time. Thank you.

Duress is better against Burn, but I find Thoughtseize more useful overall (particularly against Elves!).

As far as removal goes, keep only cheap instant removal against burn: Decays and P.Fires should be your go-to answers against hasty creatures.

[Megadeus]

I would personally keep in decay for sulfuric vertex. I'm sure they bring it in. Especially if they see a finks tusk or huntmaster

Also thought seize is much better. Not vs burn, but elves like you said, and against SnT as well.

[Nithkar]

The burn i played with didn't even sided on our match. But I would say that, from the version of main deck he played, he probably didn't run vortex. Maybe some skullcracks.

Enviado de meu Nexus 4 usando Tapatalk

[civet five]

1) Volrath is for grindy games where being able to replay a thragtusk or a witness/baleful matters. And yes, those situations happens.

2) Well try this list ! PW are pure Card/Tempo advantage. Between few 2 for 1 blockers (baleful, thrag, witness) and pernicious it is really easy to protect them. Sometimes you will lose some of them but all in all they usually trade 2 for 1. Not to mention that they can protect each other. For example, you -1 Jace while building up Lili and vice versa.

3) You can definitely tweak the deck, but Thragtusk & witness & Ooze are good alternative kills. Futhermore, in some MU you will need the life gain ability (trust me). You are the control deck.
Witness is Pernicious n*4 or whatever.

Baleful is nice against aggro but poor against combo.

Thragtusk is a 4 turn clock after deeding the board.

Ooze will take care of annoyance such as PF or grave based strategy.


At last you can reuse the ETB triggers with Jace. I did it a non 0 amount of times. Having access to infinite deed / or life gain is nothing to scorn at. And remember that Thrag leaves a token behind each time it leaves the battlefield.

We are a bug control but a Nicfit bug control :-)

And yes 1-of, I used to play with a 2nd zenith over the 4th brainstorm but after side brainstorm > zenith...

4) Batterskull is a joke. Between Jace, Liliana, Vraska you will end up eating the skull alive. If not you will discard/negate it.
Bounce, make your opponent sacrifice the token, try to -3 it with Vraska and make your opponent discard it to Liliana.

At the very last, if you are not convinced, I can tell you that you dig really fast with this deck. And when it comes to attrition war, you are just a better deck. Why ? Vraska kills opponent's Jace/PW.

Ok Ralf, hat's off to you for a sweet design. I got to play a bunch today, both goldfishing and testing with a friend. We played a few pre-board matchups with both BUG Pod (the Gleicher list more or less) and your BUG PW Fit, and played it against Goblins, DnT and MUD. My general observations were:

1) This deck feels like it topdecks worse than Pod versions - too many bad topdecks when hellbent (deed, decay, negate all felt bad + the usual VE and CT). Pod lists have the nod here since they run more creatures, so more threats in a hellbent vs. hellbent situation.

2) The PW heavy deck means sometimes my early hands get clogged, and I need to Brainstorm away a PW just to get some early gas (VE+CT, Decay, Deed, etc). But then shuffling them away often led to durdling and topdeck wars, and the PW-heavy deck means that you can often get in bad situations (Jund topdecks a BBE and all of a sudden your Jace is dead and you're way behind). Jace takes a while to actually kill. I also found myself wanting more Ashioks, because sometimes his ability is just stupidly good --> it just gives the middle finger to Brainstorm, Ponder and SDT.

3) When the deck is clicking, it was blast to play. Like you said, the 'walkers protect each other well. I think BUG Pod has a better combo matchup in its current form (Riptide Pilferer is great, and maybe this deck needs it too).

4) I want to play around with the 'walker count and configuration. When you're trying to put the game away, you really want that Vraska, or even Ashiok, because Jace is too slow and Liliana doesn't reliably kill. There's little more satisfying than Ashiok'ing someones TNN, and using that abomination to beat them up. Just in general, most decks are running value creatures that are the most efficient, so you don't even have to suicide Ashiok most of the time to get good impact. Also I get to make custom Assassin's Creed tokens for Vraska.

I'll post back my results after I mess around with the configurations. Changes I'm testing initially:
-1 VE
-1 Negate
-2 Strix
+2 DRS
+1 Ashiok
+1 GSZ

I also want to fit in an Engineered Explosives - might just run it as the 61st card right now. Its a turn faster than Deed but can't kill Jace. So a 3/1 split of Deed and EE seems like a good test.

[Ralf]

Ok Ralf, hat's off to you for a sweet design. I got to play a bunch today, both goldfishing and testing with a friend. We played a few pre-board matchups with both BUG Pod (the Gleicher list more or less) and your BUG PW Fit, and played it against Goblins, DnT and MUD. My general observations were:

1) This deck feels like it topdecks worse than Pod versions - too many bad topdecks when hellbent (deed, decay, negate all felt bad + the usual VE and CT). Pod lists have the nod here since they run more creatures, so more threats in a hellbent vs. hellbent situation.

2) The PW heavy deck means sometimes my early hands get clogged, and I need to Brainstorm away a PW just to get some early gas (VE+CT, Decay, Deed, etc). But then shuffling them away often led to durdling and topdeck wars, and the PW-heavy deck means that you can often get in bad situations (Jund topdecks a BBE and all of a sudden your Jace is dead and you're way behind). Jace takes a while to actually kill. I also found myself wanting more Ashioks, because sometimes his ability is just stupidly good --> it just gives the middle finger to Brainstorm, Ponder and SDT.

3) When the deck is clicking, it was blast to play. Like you said, the 'walkers protect each other well. I think BUG Pod has a better combo matchup in its current form (Riptide Pilferer is great, and maybe this deck needs it too).

4) I want to play around with the 'walker count and configuration. When you're trying to put the game away, you really want that Vraska, or even Ashiok, because Jace is too slow and Liliana doesn't reliably kill. There's little more satisfying than Ashiok'ing someones TNN, and using that abomination to beat them up. Just in general, most decks are running value creatures that are the most efficient, so you don't even have to suicide Ashiok most of the time to get good impact. Also I get to make custom Assassin's Creed tokens for Vraska.

I'll post back my results after I mess around with the configurations. Changes I'm testing initially:
-1 VE
-1 Negate
-2 Strix
+2 DRS
+1 Ashiok
+1 GSZ

I also want to fit in an Engineered Explosives - might just run it as the 61st card right now. Its a turn faster than Deed but can't kill Jace. So a 3/1 split of Deed and EE seems like a good test.

Thanks for your feedbacks.
Actually it is hard to design a deck and the more we test it the better the list will evolve.
I went a different road than you after all, but not by much.

I took out the 4*brainstorm as I often felt what I needed most was to have the right card a the right time.
-4 brainstorm
-2 Baleful strix (I guess we had the same feeling, here I might test coiling oracle one day)
-1 Cabal Therapy (I hate missing on a CT and it happens so many times, it feels like a mulligan...)

+2 DRS (mana fixing, life/death and could be an acceleration for a PW turn 2)
+2 Thoughtseize (I feel like it improves the cabal therapy value so much), 5 discards MD is >50% to have one in your starting hand
+2 Diabolic intent (the true brainstorm replacement)
+1 GSZ (this was in/out, playing with 60 or 61 now it is in with more green target)

I also thought about EE and you might be right as I used to pack 1 maelstrom pulse MD but felt clunky. Another mass sweeper is certainly right.

I'm glad you have a good feeling with ashiok !

I'll keep you posted as I will have in the very near future a lot of training sessions with some friends against the whole DTB/most common established decks.

[Nils Gutiérrez]

What do you think guys about this new planeswalker? As all planeswalkers she can be good in Nic fit.

http://imageshack.us/a/img138/9093/ly04.jpg

[tons of fun]

What do you think guys about this new planeswalker? As all planeswalkers she can be good in Nic fit.

http://imageshack.us/a/img138/9093/ly04.jpg

in love

[Megadeus]

Is that real? I don't think it's very good unfortunately. Dying from a bolt after plus 1 ability is no bueno. Though the explore portion seems sweet.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Is that real? I don't think it's very good unfortunately. Dying from a bolt after plus 1 ability is no bueno. Though the explore portion seems sweet.

Not to mention that if you're already running blue, it's competing with the main man himself: Jace 2.0.

[Megadeus]

I mean in BUG walker fit you are less worried about that since you are running a 5 mana card in vraska, but I just don't think the abilities are amazing. I mean I do like the fact that you can essentially lock a creature down every turn, or ramp up and draw, but it is really bad against TNN and red decks. It will probably be decent in standard, but I don't see it being good in this deck.

[tons of fun]

I mean in BUG walker fit you are less worried about that since you are running a 5 mana card in vraska, but I just don't think the abilities are amazing. I mean I do like the fact that you can essentially lock a creature down every turn, or ramp up and draw, but it is really bad against TNN and red decks. It will probably be decent in standard, but I don't see it being good in this deck.

i have to dis agree there is matches were she is a house like agaisnt bug when they get pit running after u deed everything else a way it a way to shut off man lands as well as valacut triggers lol

[MiracleMan]

Greetings folks,

I hate to move the conversation away from talk over the new planeswalker, but, I was wondering if you folks could answer a couple questions about the deck or at least point me in the right direction.
Recently, I've been re-examining the gifts package in a Nic Fit deck. I'm a big fan of having a proactive strategy that includes piles of silver bullets and a reliance on inevitability.

I've noticed some people say, recently, that the gifts shell isn't a practical plan and doesn't measure up. I'd love it if you could explain that to me.

Also, I'd really like some assistance in addressing the show and tell matchup. Most times I play it, I seem to get obliterated. I've been playing force of wills in an effort to not get killed on t1, but, it doesn't seem to be winnable until I get to the sideboard and I don't want to overboard for the matchups just because my approach is lacking. Any tips?

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Greetings folks,

I hate to move the conversation away from talk over the new planeswalker, but, I was wondering if you folks could answer a couple questions about the deck or at least point me in the right direction.
Recently, I've been re-examining the gifts package in a Nic Fit deck. I'm a big fan of having a proactive strategy that includes piles of silver bullets and a reliance on inevitability.

I've noticed some people say, recently, that the gifts shell isn't a practical plan and doesn't measure up. I'd love it if you could explain that to me.

Also, I'd really like some assistance in addressing the show and tell matchup. Most times I play it, I seem to get obliterated. I've been playing force of wills in an effort to not get killed on t1, but, it doesn't seem to be winnable until I get to the sideboard and I don't want to overboard for the matchups just because my approach is lacking. Any tips?

1. Welcome to the Nic Fit thread ^_^
2. Two things come to mind with the Gifts Ungiven and Intuition piles. First, Green Sun's Zenith is ultimately a better for getting silver bullets, not because the ammo it gets is so good, but because it doesn't dick around and puts that silver bullet right into effect. Second, you have to build around the Gifts Ungiven and Intuition, which, when we're already running Veteran Explorer and Green Sun's Zenith in BUG, can limit deck building strategies. Not to mention some of the best uses for Intuition (not so much experience with Gifts) require some very situational cards.
3. What's your blue count like? If you're not sitting at 15-18 with Forces, don't even bother running Forces. Run Thoughtseize instead and throw in a Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Glen Elendra Archmage package in the side instead.
4. Addenum to 3: For your main, focus only on fair decks, and then dedicate 10-12 slots in the sideboard to combo hate (3 slots reserved for Carpet of Flowers, which practically turns certain matchups into byes).

[MiracleMan]

1. Welcome to the Nic Fit thread ^_^
2. Two things come to mind with the Gifts Ungiven and Intuition piles. First, Green Sun's Zenith is ultimately a better for getting silver bullets, not because the ammo it gets is so good, but because it doesn't dick around and puts that silver bullet right into effect. Second, you have to build around the Gifts Ungiven and Intuition, which, when we're already running Veteran Explorer and Green Sun's Zenith in BUG, can limit deck building strategies. Not to mention some of the best uses for Intuition (not so much experience with Gifts) require some very situational cards.
3. What's your blue count like? If you're not sitting at 15-18 with Forces, don't even bother running Forces. Run Thoughtseize instead and throw in a Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Glen Elendra Archmage package in the side instead.
4. Addenum to 3: For your main, focus only on fair decks, and then dedicate 10-12 slots in the sideboard to combo hate (3 slots reserved for Carpet of Flowers, which practically turns certain matchups into byes).

Thanks for the welcome!
After Forces and singleton Notion Thief, I'm up to 16 Blue sources.
The list I'm running looks like this:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Coiling Oracle
1x Snapcaster Mage
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Mystic Snake
1x Acidic Slime
1x Thragtusk
1x Deadeye Navigator
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Grave Titan

4x Brainstorm
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Gifts Ungiven

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Regrowth
1x Maelstrom Pulse

3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

1x Jace, the Mindsculptor

1x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Forest
3x Swamp
3x Island

I'd be interested in improving the list. I like that the gifts packages gives me a proactive plan and a means of quickly establishing Thragtusk/Nightmare
However, if the veterans here see any issues, I'd love to hear what they have to say.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Hmm ... your creature base is begging to be used with Birthing Pod, but the other spells say straight BUG Fit.

Let me mull it over a bit.

[Megadeus]

I love intuition and gifts, but I just think there are better shells for it. Though you could do some sweet piles. Maybe you could run like a volraths stronghold, loam and single wasteland? I have had some trouble with random utility lands.

[tons of fun]

Thanks for the welcome!
After Forces and singleton Notion Thief, I'm up to 16 Blue sources.
The list I'm running looks like this:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Coiling Oracle
1x Snapcaster Mage
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Mystic Snake
1x Acidic Slime
1x Thragtusk
1x Deadeye Navigator
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Grave Titan

4x Brainstorm
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Gifts Ungiven

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Regrowth
1x Maelstrom Pulse

3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

1x Jace, the Mindsculptor

1x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Forest
3x Swamp
3x Island

I'd be interested in improving the list. I like that the gifts packages gives me a proactive plan and a means of quickly establishing Thragtusk/Nightmare
However, if the veterans here see any issues, I'd love to hear what they have to say.

welcome to the dead eye clan lol but lookin at ur list hows are the fallowing actually running, slime , snap , deamon

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Thanks for the welcome!
After Forces and singleton Notion Thief, I'm up to 16 Blue sources.
The list I'm running looks like this:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Coiling Oracle
1x Snapcaster Mage <-- Drop to 0: Eternal Witness is better for this deck
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
1x Kitchen Finks <-- Drop to 0: Swagtusk is better
1x Mystic Snake
1x Acidic Slime
1x Thragtusk <-- Up to 2: Better than Finks
1x Deadeye Navigator
1x Rune-Scarred Demon <-- Replace with Diabolic Intent: Intent creates some nifty combos with Eternal Witness
1x Grave Titan <-- Replace with Primeval Titan: helps to get utility lands online

4x Brainstorm
1x Abrupt Decay <-- Up to 2
2x Gifts Ungiven <-- Replace with Intuition if you keep them in, but I recommend dropping to 0 because no Recurring Nightmare (see below)

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith <-- Up to 4: Really good toolbox card and, in a pinch, can be cast for x=0 to dig
2x Regrowth <-- Drop to 0: unnecessary with Intuition over Gifts
1x Maelstrom Pulse <-- Up to 2

3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare <-- Drop to 0: with Deadeye and Stronghold+Tower, you have a crapton of recursion as is

1x Jace, the Mindsculptor <-- Up to 2: such a great card

1x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea <-- Replace with Creeping Tar Pit: it's very rare you'll actually need Sea before setting off an explorer and even rarer after. Tar Pit also doubles as a really good Jace 2.0 slayer.
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
3x Verdant Catacombs <-- Up to 4
3x Misty Rainforest <-- Up to 4
4x Forest <-- Drop to 3
3x Swamp <-- Drop to 2
3x Island

Up to 2 from 0: Sensei's Divining Top: With all the shuffle effects and mana ramp, it isn't out of the question that you'll find a silver bullet just cracking fetchlands, casting Green Sun's Zenith for 0, saccing Veteran Explorer, etc. and spinning Top.

I'd be interested in improving the list. I like that the gifts packages gives me a proactive plan and a means of quickly establishing Thragtusk/Nightmare
However, if the veterans here see any issues, I'd love to hear what they have to say.

Overall, your list looks like its trying to do too much at once without an actual focus. Even the Gifts plan is tricky since you only run 2 Gifts Ungiven and an already pretty robust suite of recursion. I suggest focusing on getting Stronghold+Tower online or Deadeye with Swagtusk to really overpower the competition.

[MiracleMan]

welcome to the dead eye clan lol but lookin at ur list hows are the fallowing actually running, slime , snap , deamon

Snap serves as Gifts 2.5 and sometimes the extra in making sure I get exactly what I want out the pile.
Slime is just a do good, take care of cards (like tarpit) card.
Rune Scarred serves as a threat that can also get unique parts of the combo (often mystic snake)

The deck is operating off of a couple of points:
#1 Thragtusk + Nightmare is insane. Setting that up usually wins you the game
#2 Deed takes care of 90% of the deck's problems, as long as you can search for it and recur it, you don't need much removal
#3 If anyone ever messes with your graveyard, you need a backup plan to still do insane things: Deadeye

I think the list looks a lot like a pile, but, one problem I've always been frustrated with, regarding Nic Fit, is that it can often have a lot of dead draws. I've found that the list doesn't have that problem as often as other lists I've played.

EpicLevelCommander,
In terms of your changes, I like the direction you're going with it and the criticism you're providing makes a lot of sense. However, I think dropping recurring nightmare is a mistake. I think the card is insane, especially with the lack of graveyard hate.

I think just because gifts isn't completely optimized in the nic fit shell, doesn't mean that it can't be incredibly successful.

That said, if I ever go in a straight BUG shell without the gifts package, you're list makes a lot of sense. I love playing top and I've been trying to find room for a 2nd Jace, even though he's at an all-time level of uselessness more often than I'd like.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Snap serves as Gifts 2.5 and sometimes the extra in making sure I get exactly what I want out the pile.
Slime is just a do good, take care of cards (like tarpit) card.
Rune Scarred serves as a threat that can also get unique parts of the combo (often mystic snake)

The deck is operating off of a couple of points:
#1 Thragtusk + Nightmare is insane. Setting that up usually wins you the game
#2 Deed takes care of 90% of the deck's problems, as long as you can search for it and recur it, you don't need much removal
#3 If anyone ever messes with your graveyard, you need a backup plan to still do insane things: Deadeye

I think the list looks a lot like a pile, but, one problem I've always been frustrated with, regarding Nic Fit, is that it can often have a lot of dead draws. I've found that the list doesn't have that problem as often as other lists I've played.

EpicLevelCommander,
In terms of your changes, I like the direction you're going with it and the criticism you're providing makes a lot of sense. However, I think dropping recurring nightmare is a mistake. I think the card is insane, especially with the lack of graveyard hate.

I think just because gifts isn't completely optimized in the nic fit shell, doesn't mean that it can't be incredibly successful.

That said, if I ever go in a straight BUG shell without the gifts package, you're list makes a lot of sense. I love playing top and I've been trying to find room for a 2nd Jace, even though he's at an all-time level of uselessness more often than I'd like.

Fair enough, though I definitely suggest using Intuition over Gifts Ungiven: 3 CMC as opposed to 4, three for one as opposed to four for two, and can fetch triples if needed.

EDIT: Also, thank ya very much for reminding me how awesome Stronghold+Tower can be ^_^