[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

[Razorwynd]

I think if you are looking to combo out with pod you are better off podding a 4cc persist dude (Glen Elandra Archmage or Redcap) into kiki-jiki and zealous conscripts (i.e., something like RUG pod)

I think most of the BUG pod decks are mostly value as opposed to combo

[Razorwynd]

Yes, I got 10th. Hurrah! Thank you all. I played 12-2-1 without any byes, and missed top 8 on tie breakers.

I will try to compose a list of all of the match-ups shortly. I have been borderline sick all weekend, so a tournament report may take a few days.

Congrats! I hope you are feeling better. Can we still expect a tournament report from you or are we just going to have to be content with the random musing in the last few pages of this thread? I am really becoming interested in this deck and would love to read your thoughts.

[Brael]

I think if you are looking to combo out with pod you are better off podding a 4cc persist dude (Glen Elandra Archmage or Redcap) into kiki-jiki and zealous conscripts (i.e., something like RUG pod)

I think most of the BUG pod decks are mostly value as opposed to combo

It's not so much that I'm looking to combo as it seems like an option worth considering when all of the other cards are individually good, having a way to just win through board stalls seems useful, kind of like Melira Pod which in the hands of a competent pilot really only combos in 15-20% of it's games these days... it wins the rest through just spamming value creatures, the main advantage of combo in Melira is it's something you can threaten to force the opponent to make bad plays, like wasting a Lightning Bolt on a Melira which allows a Reveillark to actually win the game. Taking a route like that, a single Finks ends up being a huge threat that the opponent has to interact with, which then opens the path to just win through creatures on the board, otherwise you start to threaten all kinds of crazy things that are bad for the opponent. My biggest worry here is that Finks seems to be 1 power too small to profitably deal with something like a Batterskull, infact my entire decklist is other than the Thragtusk and Frost Titan (though the Strix can also block). I've seen that other lists only run the 1 Finks, and infact only run 2-3 3 drops total. I can't say that it's wrong because of my inexperience but I don't really understand the reasoning.

I can certainly accept that I'm just wrong here as my only experience with Legacy has been crushing fair decks for the past few years with Burn, and in return getting crushed by the unfair decks which are all over the local meta. But I need to see why I'm wrong... why something won't work.

Your suggested combo is certainly faster, but I'm pretty sure pod doesn't stand a chance at being competitive outside of the Nic Fit shell anyways, which means such a thing is going to be 4 colors, or more likely back to Jund, in which case it just seems worse than the scapeshift plan.

[Razorwynd]

It's not so much that I'm looking to combo as it seems like an option worth considering when all of the other cards are individually good

I too any new to this archetype and for a while I had dreams of including a combo in the deck, but I think the combo enablers just do enough work outside of the combo. I couldn't wouldn't call simic biomancer or dimir house guard good cards when compared to other 4 drops like Sower, Glen elandra, or Venser.
I would be interested in what svknoe has to say about this topic.

[MD.Ghost]

@BUG-Pod

Vendilion Clique at Maindeck works good so far enough, you can pod into Clique for disruption (and if needed), pod again next turn into Archmage. I added a 2nd Island and 1 Flooded Grove for a more stable manabase with all the blue stuff.

Other Changes:
I also removed Shriekmaw as a 5mana Target and added 1 The Mimeoplasm (hey blue+green!), which is only dead against RIP – you can do some really absurd tricks with this creature and it also abuses the Pod-Chain into it.

Removed Acidic Slime (was way to slow most of the time) and added Viridian Shaman (mostly you want to answer Blade-Equipment or disrupt a fast Vial).

Sideboard is still a lot of testing. I also switched from 2nd Archmage to 1 Jace! With this I can play double Planeswalker against Control or switch Jace with Garruk if some “blue” Power is needed – for example Jace can work in Matchups( like Show&Tell) if Garruk is useless. I like to have some other high threat spells besides Pod to compensate some draws with our 1/1 creatures.

I like the playstyle with more “proactive” Disruption, so I also test a 2nd Vendilion Clique as a sideboard slot. As I mentioned, I like Clique over Riptide-Boy. Thanks to Deathrite you can slam a disruptive 3 power clock turn 2. Without Deathrite it will be as fast as Riptide – means “Disrupt starting from Turn 3”. If the game goes on you can Pod into a 4-drop (Archmage/Venser) if needed which can led to a Mimeoplasm to gain a “Game-Ending-Clique-Monster” or something else.

Next weeks I will also test the GBW-Pod Build to compare both in playstyle and results.

[Svknoe]

Regarding Combo Pod: I think that playing a combo kill in BUG Pod is a bad idea. It adds little and makes the deck inconsistent. If we have some creatures and a Pod in play, we are going to win the game almost every time. Introducing a combo kill into a game that is already won is pointless. What then, if we don't have a Pod? After all, the deck only plays 3. Pod also frequently gets forced. If we don't have a Pod, and we draw a bad card, such as Melira, we are probably going to lose. This is a value deck that frequently wins without Birthing Pod. If we start adding bad creatures to the deck, that won't be the case any more. I think that the deck is favoured versus almost of the fair decks, but the margins are slim. If we are to have a combo, all of the creatures have to be good on their own (not to say already the best choice for the slot). I don't that those creatures exist.

While this is a Pod deck, it is very important to win without Pod. If the deck is bad without a Pod in play, the deck is bad. The overall strategy is very powerful, but it is inherently situational. Pod is bad without creatures, and the creatures and the creatures are marginally sub par without Pod. This is a potentially great weakness that has to be minimised. If possible, all of our cards should be good on their own. We have to pick the most singlehandedly powerful creatures for each slot. Otherwise we are going to lose. All the synergy our creatures need is a powerful ETB effect. If your opponents is beating you down with a Delver, and you draw a Master Biomancer while you have nothing else, you are going to lose. This is not acceptable. We don't need cute synergistic creatures.

@Razorwynd

Thank you! You can still expect a tournament report. I will probably write something within a day. I may also write some general thoughts about the deck. I agree with you that biomancer and dimir house guard are bad as argued above. I think that the list that GtF and I use is a good starting point for BUG Pod. It has proven to be very successful on multiple occasions for the both of us.

@MD.Ghost

Mimeoplasm seems powerful, but a bit situational. In my experience, people already board in graveyard hate against me. I would like to not be overly reliant on the graveyard. Shriekmaw is my main way of dealing with Tarmogoyf, and its evoke mode is very relevant. At first I did not like Acidic Slime either. It is possible that you could go without it. Viridian Shaman would simultaneously solve the decks problem of having only 2 good 3 drops. I still like Acidic Slime, though. Since we plan for games to go long, it is nice to have an easily tutorable card that deals with almost any troublesome permanent. Examples include RIP, Mutavault, Batterskull, Jitte, Omniscience, Sylvan Library and Creeping Tar Pit. If it is not needed, I often side the slime out.

Jace is a powerful card. He has another function than Glen Elendra Archmage though. Archmage should be better against combo and Miracles. I would like to hear how your plan against combo works out. For reference I think that Reanimator and Sneak and Show are pretty favourable. Omnitell is very easy. I would guess that Elves and Storm are about 60-40 in their favour. The main strength of BUG Pod, compared to other Nic Fit variants, is that it beats combo.

[tons of fun]

My preference in such a situation is to add in the extra card I want to tutor for, and then cut multiples of something for more tutors. As an example in my list if I wanted to add another 4 drop as the 61st card, I would probably also cut two 4 drops I'm running multiples of and add a Dimir House Guard (or some other relevant tutor) to serve as an additional copy of every other 4 drop increasing my toolbox and effective copies of each card while not pushing the list over 60.

In some super tutor heavy lists I could see going over 60, but if you're just running 4 dig spells, and 3-5 tutors I don't think that qualifies as heavy enough to go over 60.



Like I said I come from Modern pod where we originally ran 7 drops like Sheoldred, then realized they didn't work so well and topped out at 6 drops. Today it tops out at 5 in the interest of streamlining things. I don't like running a 6 here but I'm high on 4's and don't see many good Show and Tell cards at 5, so 6 seems like a necessary evil (it also helps that the 6 is blue and Veteran Explorer is very reliable ramp which makes a hard cast easier). Like I said though, I'm pretty new to Legacy so it's entirely possible that my conclusions are way off. I don't like Deadeye Navigator because it seems to require too much blue mana. In the videos I've seen it's not that unlikely to get to 8 or 10 mana to cast it and hold up the exile, but requiring 4 blue in such a situation strikes me as being difficult on the mana. Deranged Hermit is ok at 9 power for 5 mana, but it's a pretty big blowout for the Hermit to die after paying the echo, it seems to me like that's too big of a weakness in a 5 drop.

Maybe I'll go higher on Dimir House Guard. I like the idea of being able to transmute it into a Pod, pod a Finks into a Biomancer, pod the Finks into a redcap, pod the Redcap into a Lich, and then have an infinite damage combo. It works in Modern to combo out of 3 activations atleast... I don't know if it works in Legacy though.

i have never had any prob with the deadeye in my deck but the hermit just to pop out 4 3/3 with a biomancer in play ur are running nic fit a decks average mana count in play is 6-10 i have never had any problems being at 6 or high mana laying

[GtF]

It's not so much that I'm looking to combo as it seems like an option worth considering when all of the other cards are individually good, having a way to just win through board stalls seems useful, kind of like Melira Pod which in the hands of a competent pilot really only combos in 15-20% of it's games these days... it wins the rest through just spamming value creatures, the main advantage of combo in Melira is it's something you can threaten to force the opponent to make bad plays, like wasting a Lightning Bolt on a Melira which allows a Reveillark to actually win the game. Taking a route like that, a single Finks ends up being a huge threat that the opponent has to interact with, which then opens the path to just win through creatures on the board, otherwise you start to threaten all kinds of crazy things that are bad for the opponent. My biggest worry here is that Finks seems to be 1 power too small to profitably deal with something like a Batterskull, infact my entire decklist is other than the Thragtusk and Frost Titan (though the Strix can also block). I've seen that other lists only run the 1 Finks, and infact only run 2-3 3 drops total. I can't say that it's wrong because of my inexperience but I don't really understand the reasoning.

I can certainly accept that I'm just wrong here as my only experience with Legacy has been crushing fair decks for the past few years with Burn, and in return getting crushed by the unfair decks which are all over the local meta. But I need to see why I'm wrong... why something won't work.

Your suggested combo is certainly faster, but I'm pretty sure pod doesn't stand a chance at being competitive outside of the Nic Fit shell anyways, which means such a thing is going to be 4 colors, or more likely back to Jund, in which case it just seems worse than the scapeshift plan.

The best way to deal with batterskull is to make them discard it with cabal therapy. I wouldn't call blocking and trading with the germ token a profitable interaction, even if kitchen finks could do this. Acidic slime is good because you can slime the skull and when they return it, make them discard it with a flashbacked therapy (along with many other reasons).
Finks is pretty good and I've definitely thought about bumping the number up to 2, but I just haven't found the room since I want so many SB cards for different matchups and Kitchen finks would just be an all-purpose good card. In terms of the way Svknoe and I play the deck it's not really necessary - there's no combo and Baleful Strix does enough work as far as defense and value, for less mana than finks.
So why isn't there a combo? There's two reasons. Svknoe pretty much covered it but the short answer is that the relative power of a card like kitchen finks is a lot less in legacy than it is in modern. Same with Melira, Dimir House Guard, Master Biomancer, etc. Cards really need to be good on their own unless you are a dedicated combo deck. This is related to the second reason: there is so much disruption in legacy and it's all extremely efficient. The baseline deck is RUG delver. It's a good matchup, but only because every card in our deck is devoted to making it good. If you are playing Melira and they daze your kitchen finks or something, all you are left with is a 2/2 for 2, which really is unaccaptable in a format of this power level (I've tried it). Because you see so much of your deck and the games grind out, having even one bad card will really be felt a lot of the time.
I think if you were to try and make a combo deck out of it, you'd have to play a lot more copies of cards like melira, kitchen finks, and sacrifice outlets. That way, at least part of the time you will kill them with the combo. However, I still worry about what will happen the other part of the time.
Modern Pod uses the combo to gain inevitability because it has to, but we have better cards that are more applicable in a wider range of situations. The main ones I'm thinking of are Recurring Nightmare, Pernicious Deed and Grave Titan (and of course Birthing Pod itself). Depending on the matchup, these will win you the game eventually, and are also fine cards to draw on their own (Recurring Nightmare has some requirements but they are almost always fulfilled without extra effort). There have been a few games where I had an active pod going for a long time and still couldn't win. These are pretty frustrating and make me want a combo in there. But, in these games the opponent had total control and any combo piece would have been removed to prevent it, so it wouldn't have helped anyway. If the individual combo cards were stronger on their own, I'd be on board, but in the context of legacy they just aren't.

[Svknoe]

I agree entirely about the disruption. I have not tried playing combo Pod myself. I think that you build does a very good job of playing individually powerful cards, but I still notice how painful it is if one piece of our synergy is taken away.

The line with the Batterskull is very important and I use it often. It feels like our UWR Delver match-up almost hinges on that one trick.

[Qweerios]

Is there any reason why Trinket Mage doesn't see play in BUG Pod? I would see no harm in having a single Sensei's Divining Top and Engineered Explosives in the main along with a few more bullets in the SB such as Pithing Needle, Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt, and even Meekstone.

[Svknoe]

I hadn't considered that. If the artifacts are good enough to see play in the main deck, I would welcome Trinket Mage as the third 3 drop. The deck is very tight on space, though. I don't know what I would cut for them.

[GtF]

I hadn't considered that. If the artifacts are good enough to see play in the main deck, I would welcome Trinket Mage as the third 3 drop. The deck is very tight on space, though. I don't know what I would cut for them.

I've thought about top as well, and it seems ok, but is it better than any card you would cut it for? That's the question. Same with Engineered Explosives, which has the benefit over Pernicious Deed of being tutorable with 2 drop + pod + trinket mage, but has the downside of being just generally less powerful, especially in this deck. I don't know if you'd be improving the deck by putting in the trinket package even if it gives you more options.

It could be worth trying out, in which case the cuts would probably be the last abrupt decay, the fleshbag marauder and either an explorer or baleful strix for the trinket mage, EE, and divining top. I'd play Nihil Spellbomb in the board over the spot I was considering playing Surgical extraction in. A pithing needle would also be good. I Probably wouldn't play meekstone even though it's cool because you're relying on Pernicious Deed anyway in the matchups where you'd want it.

[Svknoe]

Cutting Strix and Abrupt Decay seems painful, especially if we are to make room for the fourth Deathrite Shaman. Top seems good, but definitely worse than Brainstorm. Engineered Explosives might be a bit to weak, but I haven't tried it.

I wrote a tournament report for GP Paris today. It is in the Tournament Reports forum: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...place-with-Pod

[Cire_dk]

Cutting Strix and Abrupt Decay seems painful, especially if we are to make room for the fourth Deathrite Shaman. Top seems good, but definitely worse than Brainstorm. Engineered Explosives might be a bit to weak, but I haven't tried it.

I wrote a tournament report for GP Paris today. It is in the Tournament Reports forum: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...place-with-Pod

Great report!! Obviously you are very skillfull at playing this deck. After playing other Nic Fit decks I will start testing your list and see if I have enough skills to be succesfull

[KntrellCL]

Im trying to port that Knight Pod deck which did top 16 in modern PT to legacy.

so far, I have this

Creatures [21]
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Spike Feeder
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Shriekmaw
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Sun Titan

Spells [16]
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Birthing Pod
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands [23]
4 Windswept Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Karakas
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Wasteland


I like nic fit shell for pod decks, and reliquary is a good cmc3 which enables depths combos...

[somethingdotdotdot]

I've been tinkering with the depths/stage combo in a bug control shell for a while. Its been decent at closing out games in bug control--but the deck itself is fundamentally weak to certain matchups as well as the clock. Intuition seemed to make the deck too top heavy to smoothly transition into the midgame with certain draws. Then I stumbled onto the nicfit thread again (seems like I come here every 1-2 months to cuz I like the engine so much) and thought that a bug nic-fit shell might be good to incorporate stage/depths into. The pod lists are too jam packed to really change, but the acceleration of explorers seems to be beneficial to the depths strategy (which uses up your land drops as well as putting you back land drops when you try to go off). This a rough draft but just something to toss out there with all of the other nic-fit variants.

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Baleful Strix
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

4 Green Sun's Zenith

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Swamp
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Bayou

1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Intuition is extremely strong because it finds both pieces of the combo+loam to recur it. Primeval titan also finds both parts with its etb trigger. Unsure about jace, but since this is a control deck I figured i might as well toss in 2 to see how he does.

EDIT: I'm also curious how the bug versions of this deck board versus the various combo decks. Mainly sneak, elves, and storm. I'm mostly curious if people board out the explorer package vs sneak since it accelerates them and if you guys ever board the big dudes out.

[Qweerios]

Got 2nd place at a weekly tournament with Junk Pod. Here are the results and list:

2-0 vs. Ur Standstill
2-0 vs. MUD
2-1 vs. Death and Taxes
0-2 vs. Team America

I got lucky vs. MUD (bad plays and bad draws from my opponent). I got unlucky vs. Team America (bad keeps, bad draws, opponent had phenomenal draws)


Creatures (21)
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Veteran Explorer

3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Scavenging Ooze

1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Orzhov Pontiff

1 Murderous Redcap
1 Academy Rector
1 Restoration Angel

1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

Others (18)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Abrupt Decay

3 Birthing Pod
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Pernicious Deed

Lands (21)
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard (15)
4 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Choke
1 Engineered Plague


So basically I moved Teeg to the SB, added a 3rd Bayou, cut Bone Shredder and re-included the Rector package, and replaced the 4th Explorer with the 4th DRS. I am trying out an Enlightened Tutor board with targets that already work with Pod and Rector.

I was hesitant to move Teeg to the SB but this deck has almost no game vs. Combo decks G1 that I didn't find him worth it. Then again, this might be a mistake.

Adding the 3rd Bayou was welcomed as I often have issues making my land drops after T2-3. Making regular land drops and powering through Wasteland is extremely important.

The 4th DRS is definitely better than the 4th Explorer and I won't be looking back. Getting quick mana and reducing the amount of dead cards is crucial in a deck with such a disparate curve. Also, unlike traditional Nic Fit, Pod requires less mana to function and a single dork coupled with steady land drops is often better and more consistent than blowing up an Explorer. Getting more than 1 Explorer trigger is usually unnecessary.

I won most of my games without a Pod or an Explorer trigger. The enormous GSZ package combined with SFM makes this deck very powerful in the absence of its engines. Drawing an Explorer without a Therapy can be devastating and sometimes, even with a Therapy, the effect is unwanted.

Going forward I would like to re-include a terror creature in the form of Bone Shredder, Nekrataal, or Shriekmaw if possible. I would also like to include a single Birds of Paradise, perhaps instead of the 3rd Explorer. With only 2 Explorers left in the deck, Phyrexian Tower loses some of its appeal.

Any thoughts or comments?

[UseLess]

I've also switched to a Pod version that I gave a spin in a weekly legacy tournament. I agree with Queerios that 4 Veteran might not be necessary and DRS is really good. Interesting to see that others feel the same. What I struggle with at the moment is sideboarding, especially cards that are considered the 'core' of the deck. What match ups do you guys board out (any number of) Cabal Therapy, Veteran Explorer, Pernicious Deed etc. I have the feeling I am not siding out Cabal Therapy enough, as in some matches it is an awful card to draw late game and I might better replace it, even though it has great potential early on. Anyway about the list, I enjoy playing control versions, so no huge amount of creatures for me. The idea is that Nemesis, Thrun and Archmage give access to big targets such as Sigarda without letting the opponent interfere with your creatures (Hexproof/other protection). Overall the deck plays much nicer than just BUGfit with GSZ, so I'm definitely happy I made the switch.

Mainboard:
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Deathrite Shaman
3x Baleful Strix
1x Eternal Witness
1x True-Name Nemesis
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Thragtusk
1x Consecrated Sphinx

3x Birthing Pod
3x Pernicious Deed

4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Green Sun's Zenith

2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor

4x Misty Rainforest
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Island
2x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Bayou
2x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard:
4x Force of Will
2x Negate
2x Swan Song
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Golgari Charm
1x Engineered Plague
1x Glen Elendra Archmage

So far I'm quite happy with this first try. My main concerns are the Maelstrom pulse and Thrun maindeck. Pulse is only really good to kill opposing Jaces and then even if I would draw it, it most likely gets countered... So far it is just a slow and expensive removal spell. Thrun is a nice creature, but provides me with zero value when podding and I would like maybe either a second glen elendra or some other good 4-drop that either does something nice when entering or leaving the battlefield. While Murderous Redcap is often played I cannot yet see its (full) appeal. Isn't there anything better than a shock effect upon entering the battlefied? Jace is sometimes awkward as well, as it costs 4 mana and when counters set me behind pretty far. It is an absolute bomb under the right circumstances, but when I'm behind he hardly helps. Four mana brainstorm isn't that good.
In my matches I missed a bit of control/disruption of my opponents hand, either via discard or counters. I'm now thinking of exchanging Pulse for a Liliana of the Veil but optimally I would want a second Liliana. The only two cards I can think of to remove are an Abrupt Decay or a Veteran Explorer. Switching a Lily for a Jace seems a bit weird, as having only one Jace seems not very consistent. The same can be said about having too much 3-offs in the deck. I'm afraid that cutting a veteran or decay might hurt the consistency of the deck too much. Any suggestions here?

About the SB, I'm going to try envelop instead of Negate as it is one mana cheaper and I want to test Swan Song more as well. I had the unfortunate pleasure to have my storm opponent cabal me, and flashbacked cabal after I had used Swan Song to counter a Ad Nauseam. My deck is rather weak vs discard so giving storm decks more use of their cabals is not very appealing. However it is much better against Sneak attack, so I'd like to test it more.

[Ecstatic_Conch]

I went 3-1 Monday night with Punishing Nic Fit in my local game store's monthly legacy event. I thought I would offer a mini-report. My list is the same as Tao's in the op except -1 wooded foothills +1 Verdant Catacombs, -1 Sensei's Divining Top +1 Forest, -1 Eternal Witness +1 Garruk, Primal Hunter. My sideboard is a bit different, it looks like this.

3 Pyroblast
2 Slaughter Games
1 Golgari Charm
1 Rakdos Charm
2 Extirpate
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize

Round one I played against Miracles, and game one went long. I ultimated liliana, but he still had tons of lands in play. He played jace twice but I killed it both times with punishing fire. He eventually went for a large entreat the angels but I had a pernicious deed in play to take care of them. He was hellbent because of liliana, but we both had tops in play. I found a creature (I think primetime) and eventually killed him with it plus punishing fires after he looked at the top three cards of his deck and saw mostly nothing for a couple consecutive turns. We didn't have much time for game 2, but I brought in 3 pyroblast, 2 sakura, 1 garruk, 2 thoughtseize (probably should have brought in the decay for counterbalance but I didn't see one game one). He kept a one lander with top (I've done this a couple times and have regretted it every time when I top and see no lands). He saw no lands for 2-3 turns and by then I was just way ahead. It went to time but I was in a commanding position.

Round two was another miracles player. This guy is notorious for playing really slowly and taking a long time making decisions (and of course he always plays a control deck in every format). Again, game one was really long but later on nothing was really going right for me. I had a punishing fire for his v-clique and jace, a decay for his counterbalance, but could not find a single creature. I had a top in play and kept spinning it and seeing three lands. I put explorer on top of my deck with stronghold, recurred punishing fire and shot it to shuffle my deck (two turns in a row!) and still saw nothing relevant before I died to a large entreat. When I popped explorer the first time he didn't even fetch any lands because he played three basics and had already fetched them out. We had like 5-8 minutes for game two because of how slowly he played but I had him to 4 life from a thrun before an entreat the angels came and killed me in turns.

Round three was against pox, and I won 2-0. Veteran explorer was the all-star here, and he even cast innocent blood to trigger it. He had stuff like wasteland, smallpox, and sinkhole but it was not relevant when I had 6-7 lands in play already. He played an engineered plague on humans (which kills explorers, shrinks huntmaster, kills e-witness). He had 4 (!) mishra's factory in play and my huntmaster could not really get through, but I killed the one he activated with punishing fire in response to a pump from the only other one he had untapped. The night of soul's betrayal sank my team of garruk primal hunter tokens but eventually I pushed through enough damage to kill him. Game two he played a pithing needle turn 1 naming Garruk, Caller of beasts. I was just like, you mean primal hunter? And he's like, uhhh yeah. I mean I could have just said OK but I had one of him in my deck so I didn't really care and had a laugh about it. Another needle came down naming top but by then I had already triggered explorer and so was just looking for something to kill him. A huntmaster showed up, flipped, and I finished him off with it.

Round four I played against BUG delver. Game one he played a delver on one, and forced my punishing fire on two. I found a grove, and tried to return it, but he stifled. He stifled for a second time, but on the third try I finally got it back to my hand to shoot the delver. by then I was at 8. My favorite part of this matchup was explorer triggering and him getting 0 basics. I played a primeveal titan and fetched two more groves. Killed him with the titan +fires. Game two I got hymned to tourached on 2 and discarded prime time and an e-witness. I had punishing fire for his delver and deathrite and a decay for his goyf. He brainstormed and pondered a bit but found nothing and I finished him off with a huntmaster.

Overall the deck is good, but I feel like I miss maelstrom pulse at times. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can improve the sideboard for a better match-up against stoneblade and miracles that would be nice because that's most of my meta. After playing the deck again on Wednesday I wish I could squeeze in more graveyard hate because I got smashed by dredge.

[Svknoe]

Good to know that you liked the 4th Deathrite over Explorer. I will try it out as well in a couple of tournaments this weekend.

I seldom side out Cabal Therapy. I like it in most match ups. The notable exception is Miracles. Deed pretty much only comes out against combo. Veteran Explorer leaves versus Miracles, and I sometimes shave 1 against combo, if I need the space.