[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Latest list of mine ^_^ still in testing, but like Arianrhod said, white adds more potency in terms of sideboard options.

4C0R Legendary Nic Fit (Shorthand for Four-Color No-Red)

60 Main/15 Side
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Captain Sisay
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Thassa, God of the Seas
1 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Golgari Charm
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Karakas
///
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
2 Venser, Shaper-Savant
1 Engineered Plague
1 Rest in Peace

Theoretical Notes:
4-3-1 Split with Fetches: Miracles and combo, I think, are the matchups I would need the white mana for, and most of those lists do not run wasteland. Therefore, all eight fetches can safely fetch a Savannah against those decks.

Captain Sisay Main: I did a bit of goldsinning* with this list as a pure Junk version with KotR, Cap'n, and PrimeTime, and found that combo of Cap'n and PrimeTime did pretty well in terms of assembling potent loop enablers such as Stronghold+Tower.

Gaddock Teeg Side: My goal with this is to bring it against Miracles and certain forms of combo to shut their win-cons down. As far a Miracles goes, once it hits the board, the only outs they have are StP, Venser, and Karakas.

Venser-Shaper Savant+Karakas: My hard-lock against Show and Tell: sure they do whatever they want with Griselbrand or Sneak Attack, but whatever touches the board will not stay (Venser-bounces everything that isn't Sneak Attacking; Karakas bounces pretty much everything that's Sneak Attacking).

I'll post a more comprehensive set of notes once I playtest this, but I'm liking how fun yet powerful this little pile works ^_^

*Goldsinning: Goldfishing with a decklist that requires extended interaction with your opponent to be viable.

[Megadeus]

Sissy seems sweet, but your targets are meh. There are already enough ways to fetch up the towers with out playing a slow card.

[Arianrhod]

Some thoughts for ELC:

-) Why no Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale? It's legendary (either main or side).

-) Why Thassa with like, no way to ever activate her?

-) The biggest sin in my estimation: why is there no Sigarda in this deck?

-) Why Golgari Charm over Council's Judgment? It's not like Nic Fit cares that CJ costs 3 mana, and it solves literally anything. If you're maining the Charms because of a flex spot that can handle TNN, CJ seems better for that purpose.

-) I'd split 1-1 Vindicate/Pulse (or maybe even run 2 Vindicate + 2 CJ if you really want that much removal). Sometimes you're going to need to have an answer in your deck to a problem land, like a Glacial Chasm or an Academy Ruins.

-) My biggest problem with this deck is that it feels very low-power to me. Like, you have Sisay so you're looking to set up big engines, but you don't really have anything other than Two Towers. Adding Sigarda would help that, but even then I kind of feel like you're drowning in removal and don't have enough bombs. I'd consider shaving ~2 removal spells for additional bombs of some kind -- either legends or planeswalkers, depending on which way you want to go with it.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Sissy seems sweet, but your targets are meh. There are already enough ways to fetch up the towers with out playing a slow card.

True ... the only things it can fetch that others can't are Thassa in the main and Venser in the side. Might use Wickerbough Elder again, especially since it plays well with both Thassa and our own Tops while also answering Batterskull and other Tops (made a post a while back about how to play around both with Pridemage/WBE, but the jist is to activate the ability in response to them trying to save it).

Some thoughts for ELC:

-) Why no Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale? It's legendary (either main or side).

-) Why Thassa with like, no way to ever activate her?

-) The biggest sin in my estimation: why is there no Sigarda in this deck?

-) Why Golgari Charm over Council's Judgment? It's not like Nic Fit cares that CJ costs 3 mana, and it solves literally anything. If you're maining the Charms because of a flex spot that can handle TNN, CJ seems better for that purpose.

-) I'd split 1-1 Vindicate/Pulse (or maybe even run 2 Vindicate + 2 CJ if you really want that much removal). Sometimes you're going to need to have an answer in your deck to a problem land, like a Glacial Chasm or an Academy Ruins.

-) My biggest problem with this deck is that it feels very low-power to me. Like, you have Sisay so you're looking to set up big engines, but you don't really have anything other than Two Towers. Adding Sigarda would help that, but even then I kind of feel like you're drowning in removal and don't have enough bombs. I'd consider shaving ~2 removal spells for additional bombs of some kind -- either legends or planeswalkers, depending on which way you want to go with it.

1. My experience with Tabernacle has been pretty meh so-far: definitely not that impressed by it. Not saying it isn't powerful, but when I was running it, the only decks it did well against were Tribal swarm decks like Gobbos, Fish, or Elves!: that is, most other decks were content with sticking a few high-powered threats on the board and keeping them alive.

2. Hmm ... well, originally the thought was that non-destructive enchantment removal was rarely played in Legacy, but that might have changed with Council's Judgment, so ... the primary reason I run her is as a recursive card quality engine and a way to enable big beats to swing through blockers. If I wanted a 5/5 for 3, I'd run Goyf or KotR :P.

3. Trust me: I would love to fit a Sigarda in here somewhere. I'm just not convinced I'd be able to hit the double white for her consistently without making my manabase vulnerable.

4. Point taken: though my concern with Judgment is the same with Sigarda - hitting that double white to use it.

5. Again, point taken: to be honest, I'm surprised this slipped my mind.

6. True ... how bout the following changes then?

-2 Golgari Charm
-1 Captain Sisay
-1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Wickerbough Elder
+1 Vindicate
+1 Pernicious Deed (from Side)
+1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
///
-1 Pernicious Deed (to Main)
+1 ??? (not sure tbh)

[Arianrhod]

Those are reasonable changes if you want to stay away from the double white costs, but I'm not actually convinced that you should. Like, I look at your deck, and it looks a lot more like a Rock (gbw control, specifically) variant which is splashing blue for Brainstorm and sideboard, than it does a BUG-splash-white list. Let's break down the original list:

4 Veteran Explorer (G)
4 Deathrite Shaman (g/b)
1 Scavenging Ooze (G)
1 Eternal Witness (GG)
1 Captain Sisay (GW)
1 Thragtusk (G)
1 Primeval Titan (GG)
4 Green Sun's Zenith (G)
3 Brainstorm (U)
2 Sensei's Divining Top (x)
1 Thassa, God of the Seas (U)
1 Diabolic Intent (B)
4 Cabal Therapy (B)
3 Pernicious Deed (GB)
3 Abrupt Decay (GB)
2 Golgari Charm (GB)
2 Maelstrom Pulse (GB)
///
1 Gaddock Teeg (GW)
2 Enlightened Tutor (W)
3 Surgical Extraction (B/2)
2 Engineered Explosives (x)
1 Pernicious Deed (GB)
2 Pithing Needle (x)
2 Venser, Shaper-Savant (UU)
1 Engineered Plague (B)
1 Rest in Peace (W)

You have 6 blue cards in the 75 (of these, the Vensers are the only double-cost).
You have 5 white cards in the 75 (of these, 0 double-cost). *Note if you swap 1 Pulse -> 1 Vindicate you have 6 white.
You have 24 black cards in the 75 (of these, 0 double-cost).
You have 29 green cards in the 75 (of these, Primeval + Witness are double-cost).

Okay, so your deck is actually just GB with U and W splashes.

The Vensers aren't actually intended to be cast, I don't think -- they're more for Show and Tell you said, right? That reduces you to 3 Brainstorm + 1 Thassa for blue cards to consider. You also have the 4 DRS to help with the fixing.

Hmm.

How about something like this:

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Primeval Titan

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Council's Judgment
1 Vindicate

3 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Batterskull

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

//sb
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Engineered Plague
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

That's my first effort at this type of deck, but it's a good place to start discussion, I think.

At its core, your desired version seems to be basically an old-school style Rock deck. You want lots of flexible removal, some recursion, some hard-to-answer threats, and a lot of powerful hate for the things that you otherwise can't handle.

Let's break it down:

4 Veteran
4 DRS
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

The ramp core. DRS is industry-standard when you go over 3 colors and is a generically strong card. 1 Sakura-Tribe helps smooth things out for when you don't have access to a 'going-exploring' Explorer (Explorer + sac outlet), or when you don't want to set off an Explorer (ie Miracles).

2 Eternal Witness
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

The recursion engines. I personally like the 2nd Witness in removal-heavy decks, because Witness is the green Snapcaster Mage. We had it first, and we still do it better (because we can re-use our target indefinitely as long as we can keep triggering witness). Two-towers is a standard package for Primeval Titan control decks and is better than Recurring Nightmare here due to the lower creature count.

2 Batterskull
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Primeval Titan

The wincons. I've professed my love of 2x Batterskull for a quite now and am still on that page. Thrag is...well...everyone in this thread knows what Thrag does to legacy decks. Sigarda is the ultimate wincon for the manacost. Primeval Titan is our lord and savior. All hail Primeval Titan.

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top

The card advantage/selection. I've always liked the 3/2 Brainstorm/Top split in blue Nic Fits on principle. Zenith is standard issue. Nothing to see here.

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Council's Judgment
1 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed

The disruption / removals. Council's Judgment is the defacto "best" removal spell in existence. It can't hit lands or multiples, but it can get rid of anything else, and the only real cost is the mana. But, come on. This is Nic Fit, and since when do we care that something costs 3? That's like, the bottom of our curve. Vindicate is for those problem lands -- I think that Judgment is actually better than Pulse, since the pulse effect is a corner-case at best and I'd rather have a wider answer than a more powerful one. Decay is strong vs Delver and Counterbalance, and I could see running the 4th in the board (I would run a 4th Decay before a 4th Deed for sure). Therapies, Deeds, we know these things.

[lands]

Manabase. We need these.

2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Engineered Plague
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Sorin and Kiora are the strongest planeswalkers against Miracles. With the widespread adaptation of Council's Judgment, this might not end up being the long-term best way for Junk builds to fight against Miracles, but I would still like these 2 slots to be specifically for Miracles, Jund, Junk, [blade], etc.

Everything else here is pretty self-explanatory, I think. I don't like Enlightened Tutor as much at the moment -- I'd rather have more copies of powerful multi-deck hate cards in general at the moment, and especially in a deck with Brainstorm, I'd rather just have more hosers rather than waste slots with tutors for fewer hosers.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Those are reasonable changes if you want to stay away from the double white costs, but I'm not actually convinced that you should. Like, I look at your deck, and it looks a lot more like a Rock (gbw control, specifically) variant which is splashing blue for Brainstorm and sideboard, than it does a BUG-splash-white list. Let's break down the original list:

4 Veteran Explorer (G)
4 Deathrite Shaman (g/b)
1 Scavenging Ooze (G)
1 Eternal Witness (GG)
1 Captain Sisay (GW)
1 Thragtusk (G)
1 Primeval Titan (GG)
4 Green Sun's Zenith (G)
3 Brainstorm (U)
2 Sensei's Divining Top (x)
1 Thassa, God of the Seas (U)
1 Diabolic Intent (B)
4 Cabal Therapy (B)
3 Pernicious Deed (GB)
3 Abrupt Decay (GB)
2 Golgari Charm (GB)
2 Maelstrom Pulse (GB)
///
1 Gaddock Teeg (GW)
2 Enlightened Tutor (W)
3 Surgical Extraction (B/2)
2 Engineered Explosives (x)
1 Pernicious Deed (GB)
2 Pithing Needle (x)
2 Venser, Shaper-Savant (UU)
1 Engineered Plague (B)
1 Rest in Peace (W)

You have 6 blue cards in the 75 (of these, the Vensers are the only double-cost).
You have 5 white cards in the 75 (of these, 0 double-cost). *Note if you swap 1 Pulse -> 1 Vindicate you have 6 white.
You have 24 black cards in the 75 (of these, 0 double-cost).
You have 29 green cards in the 75 (of these, Primeval + Witness are double-cost).

Okay, so your deck is actually just GB with U and W splashes.

The Vensers aren't actually intended to be cast, I don't think -- they're more for Show and Tell you said, right? That reduces you to 3 Brainstorm + 1 Thassa for blue cards to consider. You also have the 4 DRS to help with the fixing.

Hmm.

How about something like this:

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Primeval Titan

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Council's Judgment
1 Vindicate

3 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

3 Pernicious Deed

2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Batterskull

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

//sb
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Engineered Plague
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

That's my first effort at this type of deck, but it's a good place to start discussion, I think.

At its core, your desired version seems to be basically an old-school style Rock deck. You want lots of flexible removal, some recursion, some hard-to-answer threats, and a lot of powerful hate for the things that you otherwise can't handle.

Let's break it down:

4 Veteran
4 DRS
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

The ramp core. DRS is industry-standard when you go over 3 colors and is a generically strong card. 1 Sakura-Tribe helps smooth things out for when you don't have access to a 'going-exploring' Explorer (Explorer + sac outlet), or when you don't want to set off an Explorer (ie Miracles).

2 Eternal Witness
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

The recursion engines. I personally like the 2nd Witness in removal-heavy decks, because Witness is the green Snapcaster Mage. We had it first, and we still do it better (because we can re-use our target indefinitely as long as we can keep triggering witness). Two-towers is a standard package for Primeval Titan control decks and is better than Recurring Nightmare here due to the lower creature count.

2 Batterskull
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Primeval Titan

The wincons. I've professed my love of 2x Batterskull for a quite now and am still on that page. Thrag is...well...everyone in this thread knows what Thrag does to legacy decks. Sigarda is the ultimate wincon for the manacost. Primeval Titan is our lord and savior. All hail Primeval Titan.

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top

The card advantage/selection. I've always liked the 3/2 Brainstorm/Top split in blue Nic Fits on principle. Zenith is standard issue. Nothing to see here.

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Council's Judgment
1 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed

The disruption / removals. Council's Judgment is the defacto "best" removal spell in existence. It can't hit lands or multiples, but it can get rid of anything else, and the only real cost is the mana. But, come on. This is Nic Fit, and since when do we care that something costs 3? That's like, the bottom of our curve. Vindicate is for those problem lands -- I think that Judgment is actually better than Pulse, since the pulse effect is a corner-case at best and I'd rather have a wider answer than a more powerful one. Decay is strong vs Delver and Counterbalance, and I could see running the 4th in the board (I would run a 4th Decay before a 4th Deed for sure). Therapies, Deeds, we know these things.

[lands]

Manabase. We need these.

2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Engineered Plague
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Sorin and Kiora are the strongest planeswalkers against Miracles. With the widespread adaptation of Council's Judgment, this might not end up being the long-term best way for Junk builds to fight against Miracles, but I would still like these 2 slots to be specifically for Miracles, Jund, Junk, [blade], etc.

Everything else here is pretty self-explanatory, I think. I don't like Enlightened Tutor as much at the moment -- I'd rather have more copies of powerful multi-deck hate cards in general at the moment, and especially in a deck with Brainstorm, I'd rather just have more hosers rather than waste slots with tutors for fewer hosers.

Alright ... taking a look at Council's Judgment again, I'm starting to like it a lot more than I initially did. Not because of TNN or Marit Lage, but because of it's potential to force a Batterskull or Top to save themselves without fizzling. (the jist is that since Judgment doesn't target and the voting happens upon resolution, they have to save the artifact in response to you casting the Judgment. However, if they do, you can literally nab any other nonland card of theirs).

Anyhow, I like your list: might tweak the sideboard a bit, and the main could be trimmed up as well, but overall it looks a lot better than my original list ^_^

[Megadeus]

Has anyone just said fuck it and played Rainbow Nic Fit?

[HoneyT]

Has anyone just said fuck it and played Rainbow Nic Fit?

Once or twice

[Arianrhod]

Has anyone just said fuck it and played Rainbow Nic Fit?

4 Veteran Explorer
2 Birds of Paradise

4 Baleful Strix
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Scavenging Ooze

2 Kitchen Finks
1 Deceiver Exarch
1 Athreos, God of the Passage
1 Eternal Witness

2 Restoration Angel
1 Academy Rector
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Obstinate Baloth

1 Acidic Slime
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Thragtusk
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Sun Titan
1 Progenitor Mimic

4 Birthing Pod
2 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Recurring Nightmare

4 Cabal Therapy

4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Reflecting Pool
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
3 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain

//SB
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Notion Thief
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Nether Void
2 Flusterstorm
3 Slaughter Games

------------

I played something akin to (worse than) this at a 40 duals event late last year or early this one....somewhere there's footage of me smashing Sneak and Show on camera with it. I still think it has potential, but I haven't had time to work on it lately.

[Megadeus]

Maybe it's because I've been drinking, but 5 color Nic fit sounds fucking sweet. Green Sun for Broodmate Dragon after casting Brainstorm. Or having the option of Green Sunning for Sigarda or Broodmate Dragon.

[Qweerios]

I compiled my results for the last weekly tournaments I attended in which I took two 1st place using Junk Pod:

2-0 vs. Aggro Loam
1-2 vs. BUG Pod
2-1 vs. Oops all Spells
2-1 vs. Punishing Jund

2-0 vs. Nic Fit
2-1 vs. Deathblade
2-0 vs. Team America

I used the same list I posted a few pages back with the same SB. I played 4 DRS, 3 Explorers, and no BoP. Sigarda (with and without Jitte) won almost every single game... Entomber Exarch saw some play but is still quite weak. I think I will replace him with either a 22nd land or the 4th explorer as I don't really need three 4-drops to gloom over my starting hand and both my 5-drops are accessible through GSZ.

[MeisterMitschl]

I know that he does not provide any immediate value when he enters or leaves the battlefield, but have you considered Thrun as the third 4-drop? Of course he overlaps with Sigarda in function and I believe her to be the best hexproof finisher GSZ can fetch, but Thrun fills a gap as a GSZ-able 4-drop. And he might be the second best equipment-carrier.

Also, I have been wondering if Sylvan Library might be a good card to consider in order to increase consistency. With your E-Tutor-board one copy might be sufficient?

[Arianrhod]

Reply@Konjester:

Sure thing. Let's see here...

Okay, so it's a Junk Pod build.

I'm going to go line-by-line and give thoughts as I go. Usually my deck critiques tend to be pretty stream-of-consciousness.

4 Vet - obv

3 DRS - I prefer 2 DRS in junk pod builds. 6 1-spots is usually sufficient since your 2-drops tend to be uninspiring and they're easy to Zenith up.

1 Ooze - yeah, he's a solid bullet to have.

1 Wall of Roots - I haven't actually thought about trying this guy, since I usually opt for things that put lands into play as opposed to just make mana. Sakura-Tribe Elder is my favorite of these options, but he doesn't synergize well with Pod. I'd say to give him a try, but keep an eye on him and be prepared to swap him out in the future if he underperforms.

1 Gaddock Teeg - staple hatebear. Probably maindeckable now with Miracles so huge, and you're west coast, which is usually somewhat combo-heavier. Just keep in mind that you can't deploy any Pods or additional GSZ once you have him in play, so he's kind of a double-edged sword.

1 Voice - I tried Voice and was profoundly unhappy with it. It just doesn't do anything in a format ruled by Swords to Plowshares. Like, in Modern, Bolt and Helix are still more common than Path is, but in Legacy, Swords is the end-all be-all for removal. Your whole deck is going to dump on RUG / BUG Delver anyway, so you don't even need Voice for against them (the only matchups where this guy might do anything). Cut this.

1 Kitchen Finks - yup. Pod staple in any format.

1 Eternal Witness - yup. Nic Fit staple.

1 Orzhov Pontiff - this is a meta call. I would 100% run him in the 76, but I'm not sure that the meta is correct for him to be maindeck right now. Basically you have to evaluate how many Elves and Death and Taxes you expect. You're favored enough vs Blade that you can wait to board him in for vs TNNs, and he's not going to do anything to Sneak, Storm (g1), Miracles, RUG/BUG/UWR Delver, etc. I would personally sideboard this guy.

1 Harmonic Sliver - meh. I would personally sideboard the Sliver and run another naturalize guy instead. Unfortunately the new Elf isn't out for another month. I'm always skeptical of Sliver in Pod decks because the potential exists to blow up your own Pod if they do some kind of trickery. Sliver is still a reasonable slot, but I'd just board it when you need it.

1 Murderous Redcap - this is the weakest of your 4-drops. The persist is obviously good, and it can always shoot a Deathrite or a Delver. That being said, I think that I would rather upgrade this slot to Wickerbough Elder, to replace the Sliver. More on that in a few.

1 Academy Rector - junk pod staple.

1 Restoration Angel - does all the things.

1 Thragtusk - ...yup.

1 Shriekmaw - pod staple.

1 Sigarda, Host of Herons - nic fit staple.

1 Grave Titan - I don't like this guy. Grave Titan just never really does anything. I like him in Reanimator, where I think he's tech. Here, though, you can do more powerful things with either of the other Titans, the Kamigawa dragons, or a few other options.

3 Pod, 3 Zenith - that's fine. I usually ran 4-2, but some of that is pilot discretion. An extra Zenith is a lot more useful than an extra Pod once the first Pod is in play. Either way, you want 6 total of this effect.

4 Decay - the full monte, eh. I can dig it. Delver of Secrets is the freest win in the format these days, so having the full grip of Decays to counter their full grip of Delvers is reasonable. Also good at picking off nuisance Counterbalances. I think that -ideally- I would opt for 3 Decay 1 Council's Judgment just to hedge a little bit, but I tend to prefer more diverse removal suites. Pilot discretion.

4 Therapy - duh

1 Diabolic Intent - I don't like this here. It's kind of counter-intuitive, but I haven't really liked Intent in Pod decks. You think, but why -- you have all of these creatures to sacrifice to it? The problem is that you would 9/10 rather sacrifice that same creature to Pod in almost any situation. You can Intent for a Pod, but then you lose out on things to actually do with that Pod once you've found it.

1 Pernicious Deed - Rector target.

1 Recurring Nightmare - Rector target.

I'll get to the manabase once the maindeck is shored up, since that'll affect the costs.

--------------------------

Here's what I would cut:

-1 DRS
-1 Voice
-1 Pontiff (to the board)
-1 Sliver (maybeboard)
-1 Redcap
-1 Grave Titan
-1 Intent

Here's what I would add:

+1 Stoneforge Mystic (Voice slot)
+1 Batterskull (Intent slot)

This is super free power. Being able to turn a Green Sun's Zenith / Veteran Explorer / DRS into a Batterskull via Pod is absolutely bonkers, and if you've been reading my posts, you know my thoughts on Batterskull in Nic Fit in general. The only reason not to run the 1-of SFM + Batterskull package would be availability. I'm going to write this message under the impression that availability is not an issue, though, and then we can adjust later if it is.

+1 Blade Splicer (DRS slot)

2 bodies for the price of one. Plays well with Nightmare and Restoration Angel, and applies a lot of pressure for its slot. Leaving behind a 3/3 while Podding is pretty potent.

+1 Knight of the Reliquary (Pontiff slot)

Helps tie together your manabase while providing a huge threat. Solid 3-drop. Kind of a non-bo-ish with Deathrite (yours and opposing), but the toolbox it adds is worth it -- especially the easy access to Karakas, which is critically important against Show and Tell and Reanimator.

+1 Kitchen Finks (Sliver slot)

Since we're not going to add the Thune combo, I'd like to see a 2nd Finks. It's strong with Pod and Therapy, provides good attrition against things like Liliana of the Veil, trades profitably with Monguise, and shores up Burn a bit (because there is always Burn).

+1 Wickerbough Elder (Redcap slot)

This gives you a GSZ-able 4-drop, which you were previously lacking. This guy's a bit better than Harmonic Sliver in a Pod deck, I think.

+1 Primeval Titan (Titan slot)

Primeval Titan is just over all much stronger than Grave Titan. This is primarily a nod to Swords to Plowshares, Terminus, and friends. Consider if your Grave Titan gets StP'd by Miracles. You're left with a pair of 2/2s. If your Primeval Titan gets StP'd, though, you've assembled an engine which Miracles cannot interrupt since they play no wastelands -- all they have to screw with lands is a Blood Moon somewhere between main and side, and bringing in Blood Moon against Nic Fit is laughable.

------------------------------

That gives us this:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Deathrite Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Wall of Roots
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Eternal Witness
1x Blade Splicer
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Restoration Angel
1x Academy Rector
1x Thragtusk
1x Shriekmaw
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Primeval Titan

3x Birthing Pod
3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Batterskull
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

+22 land

Let's set the manabase up like this:

3x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Plains
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Scrubland
1x Karakas
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath

Industry-standard 7 basics. Smattering of duals to fetch for, 6 fetch is my usual for non 4x DRS.dec. Canopy acts as a 2nd Savannah while enabling KotR or PrimeTime to cantrip lategame. Volrath's is your backup recursion engine to Nightmare. All pretty standard stuff.

Normally I'm not a fan of Dryad Arbor in Nic Fit, but I have something specific in mind for this deck. Obviously turning a land into Nightmare fodder is value, and it has good synergy with Knight of the Reliquary, as well as enabling a t2 Pod via Zenith, but it does something else for us, too. Let's talk sideboard.

--------------------

The last time I played a Pod deck, the Pods were the focus of substantial hate. Like, people would bring in cards that they otherwise wouldn't bring in, just to shut Pod down. I decided that the next time I played Pod, I would sideboard Natural Order. So, let's start there:

3 Natural Order
1 Worldspine Wurm / Craterhoof Behemoth

This is another reason to run the Dryad Arbor.

I'm not sure which monster I want for the NOs. I'm skeptical about running Progenitus in a deck with no way to react to drawing it. I mean, I guess you can always NO for Primeval Titan, but I'd rather have a bigger monster to go with the package. There's advantages and disadvantages to each -- just go with what you think is correct, I'd say.

1 Orzhov Pontiff

As we said, this needs to be in the deck somewhere.

1 Nether Void

The best Rector target for against combo decks, bar none.

1 Umezawa's Jitte

Alternative Stoneforge target for some matchups; can let you play more aggressively with 1 creature threat in some matchups where this matters (see also: miracles).

1 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide

I never leave home without 1 copy of this effect in my sideboard, and usually more. Solves Punishing Fire forever, strips Miracles of their win conditions, strips Show and Tell of their monsters, etc etc etc.

2 Thoughtseize

Extra spot discard is strong against basically any combo deck barring dredge.

1 Bojuka Bog
1 Agent of Erebos

A little extra graveyard hate. You should be okay with 2 DRS + 1 Scavenging Ooze and like a million ways to tutor them up, but a little more never hurt.

2 Ethersworn Canonist

Default storm/elves hate.

--------------------

Final list:

4x Veteran Explorer
2x Deathrite Shaman
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Wall of Roots
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Eternal Witness
1x Blade Splicer
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Restoration Angel
1x Academy Rector
1x Thragtusk
1x Shriekmaw
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Primeval Titan

3x Birthing Pod
3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Batterskull
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare

3x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Plains
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Scrubland
1x Karakas
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath

//sb
3 Natural Order
1 Worldspine Wurm / Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Nether Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Memoricide
2 Thoughtseize
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Agent of Erebos
2 Ethersworn Canonist

Hope that helps. If you have more questions (which I'm guessing you will), feel free to fire away =)

[Slag]

mind-boggling deconstruction and reconstruction

While you are dispensing wisdom, I've got a BUG non-pod nic fit list that I'm trying to shore up a little:



3 Pernicious Deed
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Kiora, The Crashing Wave
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Acidic Slime
1 Eternal Witness
1 Starved Rusalka
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran explorer

And a bunch of lands including 2 creeping tar pit. The deck plays reasonably well, but I'm struggling with the brainstorm slot. It's nice and all, but I find myself wishing for a more permanent source of card-quality, namely Top. Furthermore, hands without cabal therapy tend to be a little slow. My inclination is to cut brainstorm for two top and two thoughtseize, but I need to keep my blue count fairly high for Force of Will out of the board, as there is a fair amount of combo that runs around my store. Any thoughts? I sometimes toy with the idea of squeezing in some Dimir Charms at the expense of Abrupt decay, before common sense prevails.

[Konjester]

Thank you so much, and, that actually sounds a lot more stable than my cureent setup. I forgot to put what I had fof a sideboard up, but again, you covered that part really great.

I do have a couple questions about the sb though... In the side I have now, I have:

tsunami & choke for control/combo

aegis of the gods, spirit of the labyrinth, & thrun the last troll for combo/control as well.

The sideboard you posted seems really good, I like the natural orders a lot, never would have thought to try those in this list. I guess my only question are, Do think one of these other creatures would be better in that 2nd canonist spot?
And, do you think Ill be okay without the island hate from the sideboard?

[Arianrhod]

While you are dispensing wisdom, I've got a BUG non-pod nic fit list that I'm trying to shore up a little:



3 Pernicious Deed
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Kiora, The Crashing Wave
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Acidic Slime
1 Eternal Witness
1 Starved Rusalka
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran explorer

And a bunch of lands including 2 creeping tar pit. The deck plays reasonably well, but I'm struggling with the brainstorm slot. It's nice and all, but I find myself wishing for a more permanent source of card-quality, namely Top. Furthermore, hands without cabal therapy tend to be a little slow. My inclination is to cut brainstorm for two top and two thoughtseize, but I need to keep my blue count fairly high for Force of Will out of the board, as there is a fair amount of combo that runs around my store. Any thoughts? I sometimes toy with the idea of squeezing in some Dimir Charms at the expense of Abrupt decay, before common sense prevails.

Sure =)

So, your creature suite is this:

4 Vet
3 DRS
1 Rusalka
1 E.Wit
1 Acidic Slime
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan

That looks really anemic. Like, you have Thrag and PrimeTime as your power-hitters, but that's it. You aren't running any countermagic, so you have no way to protect them -- they're just going to eat removal (or Thrag'll get blocked by a moderately sized Goyf) and die.

-) Why Deathrite Shaman? What does that card do for you in this deck, aside from being generically good? Remember: Nic Fit is not "Junk." It's a synergy-based archetype which isn't centered around cramming as much goodstuff into one deck as humanly possible. Deathrite Shaman does two things for Nic Fit: it's good in Pod lists because it's the next-best 1-drop besides our signature guy + extra acceleration into t2 Pod, and it's good in 4- or 5-color versions which need the rainbow source to smooth out colors, as a sort of Birds++. I don't see what Deathrite Shaman does for you here, and I would cut it accordingly.

-) Rusalka does nothing for you. If you want a Zenithable sac outlet (which, only heavy Rector / Melira / spirit-based versions do), run Varolz instead. It costs 1 more mana, but is a 2/2 with regen which can make itself / other things into serious threats if you aren't running recursion.

-) Slime is actually fine, and will feed into my plans (more later).

4 Decay, 3 Deed, 4 Therapy, all fine. 4 Zenith is a little high for your current creature count, but we're going to do something about that. Brainstorm is rarely spectacular but is always reasonable. I'll talk some about Brainstorm in depth in a bit.

The first thing I want to get out of the way, though, is the Gitaxian Probes. Get rid of them.

Gitaxian Probe is a powerful card in decks which want to have fewer cards in them, because it's cantripping, "free," and gives information while 'thinning.' A deck with 4 Gitaxian Probes is a 56 card deck. This is insane in Storm, for example, because it gives them more ability to get to the cards that matter in their deck. In Nic Fit, though, the only thing it does is make your Therapies godly. This is a 2-card combo, though, and I know from my testing with Probe that Probe/Therapy rarely actually comes up in your opening hand. It feels kind of dirty when it does, but it's not worth dedicating 4 slots to. Besides, Probe is essentially a crutch for Therapy. With time and experience, you won't need Probe to have good Therapy snipes. We all must be interns before we can be surgeons.

Consider what those 4 slots will do. Would you rather have 4 semi-do-nothings, or 2 Jace TMS and 2 Glen Elendra Archmage?

Moving on.

Even for as high as I am on Kiora, I'd back her off to a 2-of. 3 is a little extreme.

Brainstorm in Nic Fit is an odd bird. It's usually good to have -some number- of Brainstorms, but we're not an auto-4-of deck. Since we're going to be adding a pair of Jace TMS, we don't need the full 4 Brainstorms, I'd shave to probably 2 copies, and add a Top as the "third Brainstorm." The Jaces will do most of the heavy lifting, as will something else...

----------

So what should we add:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Acidic Slime

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Brainstorm

2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

3 Pernicious Deed

Here's what I'm maintaining of your original list. That's 26 cards.

My immediate gut reaction when I saw your list was: "wait, this is a BUG control list with 3 Kioras which is running 0 Baleful Strix???"

We can straight replace the Deathrites and Rusalka with 4 of those. That also ups your blue count, incidentally.

+4 Strix puts us to 30 cards. +2 Jace, TMS is 32, and the +1 Top is 33. Let's add a pair of Sakura-Tribe Elders to help accelerate to 4-mana, for 35. Next up, let's add a Future Sight. Future Sight is basically the ultimate blue card advantage bomb. An unchecked Future Sight basically wins you the game as soon as you untap with it. It's just a mise, but it's meant as a hedge in control mirrors more than anything, and you'll have time to draw into it there.

Progenitor Mimic makes 36. I like Mimic a whole lot more than I like Primeval Titan in this deck. You're not going to have the density to take advantage of the Two Towers, and while running a pair of Tar Pits is fine and all, they -do- hurt your manabase a bit. Zenith -> Primeval -> 2x Tar Pits is adorable, but you can do better things in BUG. Obviously Mimicking Strix, Witness, Slime, or Thrag is fine -- but don't forget that you can also Mimic your opponents' creatures. Spewing out a Goyf every upkeep is still perfectly reasonable.

That being said, we should have a couple of other abusive things for Mimic. I'd be comfortable with 22 land with this deck, so that means we have 2 slots left.

Let's use one of them as a Shriekmaw, since that's a flexible removal spell -and- an evasive creature which happens to be insane with Mimic. How about a 2nd Eternal Witness for the second slot?

That gives us this as a list:

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Baleful Strix
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thragtusk
1 Acidic Slime
1 Progenitor Mimic

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Brainstorm

1 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Pernicious Deed
1 Future Sight

Let's add lands:

3 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest

If you're dead-set on the Tar Pits, that's fine -- just shave one of each fetch for a pair. I'd rather have the fetches here, though, with the Brainstorms, Jacestorms, Top, and Future Sight. You'll want to have the topdeck control.

I'll leave the sideboard up to you since I have no idea of the metagame you're preparing for. You have a 12-card blue count in the above list. Now, something like Future Sight will likely get boarded out vs decks you board FoW in for, so I'd advocate having a robust number of blue cards in your board. Something like 4 Force of Will, 2 Glen Elendra Archmage, 2 Venser, Shaper-Savant, 2 Flusterstorm would give more than adequate blue-card coverage while still covering a wide range of combos.

Hope that helps.

-----------Bonus list:

I'll re-iterate here my Cryptic BUG list, which was the conclusion that I came to when I attempted to build something similar a few weeks ago. I still haven't had time to test it yet, but if this direction tickles your fancy more than the one above, feel free to copy it down:

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Baleful Strix
3 Eternal Witness
1 Shriekmaw
1 Aetherling

4 Cabal Therapy

4 Force of Will
4 Cryptic Command
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm

2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

3 Pernicious Deed
1 Future Sight

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

::sb::
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Pithing Needle
2 Flusterstorm
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Thragtusk
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Cranial Extraction

[Arianrhod]

Thank you so much, and, that actually sounds a lot more stable than my cureent setup. I forgot to put what I had fof a sideboard up, but again, you covered that part really great.

I do have a couple questions about the sb though... In the side I have now, I have:

tsunami & choke for control/combo

aegis of the gods, spirit of the labyrinth, & thrun the last troll for combo/control as well.

The sideboard you posted seems really good, I like the natural orders a lot, never would have thought to try those in this list. I guess my only question are, Do think one of these other creatures would be better in that 2nd canonist spot?
And, do you think Ill be okay without the island hate from the sideboard?

If you'd rather relegate Canonist to a tutor target, I'd say Spirit of the Lab is probably your best bet for a second bullet.

That being said, keep in mind that all combo decks are aware of Canonist's power and run ways to kill it -- TES boards in Decays, as does Elves (+ a Viridian Shaman / Harmonic Sliver), etc. For myself, I would rather have a 2nd copy of Canonist because it both increases the chance that you'll draw it naturally (always better than having to jump through hoops tutoring it) and because then you'll have a backup copy for if/when they get rid of the first one.

Aegis of the Gods is awful because there are two scenarios where you would want it:

Either A: you're playing against Burn
or B: you're playing against Storm

A: they're just going to kill the Aegis and then you. You've spent 1W (or a creature + mana + life? via Pod) to counter 1 burn spell. Congratulations.
B: they're just going to bounce or kill the Aegis and then you. Alternatively, they could make 24 goblin tokens and just ignore the Aegis.

Thrun is a bad card for your deck. You have Sigarda, and Sigarda is better than everything. On her wings you will win games. Thrun just gets chumped by a $150 bill from now until someone mills out.

I used to run Tsunami and Choke, and I've thought on and off about trying to run them again -- but honestly, there's just better cards. Like, Tsunami and Choke are at their best when they are punishing slower blue decks (Miracles and Stoneblade in particular, can be relevant vs Delver sometimes, especially UWR). You have favorable matchups vs those decks already anyway. Well, Miracles is more of a toss-up, but they're very beatable. If you want to sideboard extra cards for vs Miracles, I would recommend a second Batterskull (probably in lieu of the Jitte) and maybe a couple of planeswalkers (Sorin and Elspeth [Knight-Errant -or- Sun's Champion] are legit). With your recursion, land engines, Sigarda, and creature density in general, though, you should be okay. Just don't overcommit into their sweepers, and remember that Gaddock Teeg is absolutely backbreaking for them. They -have- to have Swords or Council's Judgment (or their 1-of Karakas), otherwise they just lose to him.

[Konjester]

That makes sense.... I dont have a lot of experience in legacy, so, I was unaware.
Like, Natural Order from the sideboard... When should/would I bring that package in?
Really.... Sideboarding in legacy is pretty daunting in and of itself...

[Megadeus]

That makes sense.... I dont have a lot of experience in legacy, so, I was unaware.
Like, Natural Order from the sideboard... When should/would I bring that package in?
Really.... Sideboarding in legacy is pretty daunting in and of itself...

NO is good to bring in basically against decks that, if you resolve NO, they have no way to answer the Prog.

[Arianrhod]

NO is good to bring in basically against decks that, if you resolve NO, they have no way to answer the Prog.

It's a little different here since we aren't running Prog in his version. It's more intended as a backup-plan for if the opponent brings in a ton of Pod hate, OR for if you're against combo and you need a faster threat density (IFF you run Craterhoof over Worldspine), OR if you just want more threat density in general (ie, Punishing Jund or Deathblade).

I'll draw up a rough sideboard plan for common matchups for you sometime tomorrow when I have time.