@ firepaw3 - You are totally right that what this deck that I played lacked was some late game win cons. I like that list you posted. I think TS is better than IOK but I wonder if 7 total discard is better than cutting a few of those for probes. I think probe is super strong and would rather have that in my opener with therapy than an additional discard spell. It replaces itself late game as well.
- Part of my goal with this build was to see if a nic fit with MD force was viable but maintaining enough blue is kind of tough in this shell.
- I still think Bug is where I want to be moving this deck to. Part of what I have been finding with Nic-fit decks is that we are spending cards ramping into cards that while powerful are not always worth spending resources doing. Thragtusk and thrun are good creatures but I am spending slots in my deck and cards from my hand to play those as opposed to just jamming goyf, sfm or shardless agent.
- also, as much fun as SDT is brainstorm and jace are more fun.
Of note:Originally Posted by Tom4ik
From playing on the "other side" from Force of Will a lot, it's worth remembering that Force of Will synergizes nicely with Veteran. It's good early defense, and after a Veteran (let alone two), the card is very hardcastable and isn't -CA anymore. My thoughts on Force in BUG is that, pending room etc obviously, I'd like to have a 2-2 split between main and side. I don't think that we either can squeeze in all 4 nor do we really want to, but some number of them main is good.
I won't be touching G.Probe with a ten foot pole. I hate the idea of taking up deck space for no reason other than making Therapy better. I'd rather run a removal spell or a monster. Nic Fit isn't a combo deck that wants to make its deck smaller.
I'll also still probably be running at least a 1-of Top, maybe 2 pending deck construction with Future Sight, even if I am running Brainstorm. Top's just too good in any kind of grindy game.
IOK is to keep life high and stop early threats like delver t1, TS might be better now, but i havent played the list recently enough to judge.
The discard is better then probe because it gives you more game vs. combo, 7 discard is better than mulling to it vs SnT and Belcher decks, also works well with extirpate/surgical out of the board
the problem with FOW is that it is hard to play enough blue in the deck, and alot of times you will be wanting to cast your blue spells anyway, not to mention it hurting your fair MU's if you play it main
@arianrhod
-Now that you mention it about probe I actually might like cutting some or all of those as it would open up a couple more slots for finishers which was part of what I was missing. I might have just been converted from a probe list lol. I do see the mcdarby walker list did run the full 4 for what its worth.
- If you go the future sight plan I like top in there. I think a trinket name package would also be good in that situation (either mai9n or board depending on how much of a toolbox fan you are) as the TM can always be a top for value if you dont need a spellbomb, pithing needle, etc
- I might add a few more smaller creaures with utility and add a diabilical intent, that card is so strong when it works...
Also, that new bug legend doesnt seem very good to be honest, its expensive and i think unless you optimize a list to abuse a raveyard (delve, loam, stronghold, witness) it will be too slow.
Due to arianrhod's comment on junk, I'll look into a build with 2 or 3 selvala--it will help to either outgrind the opponent or overload their removal. I might also try courser of kruphix.
Life in a nutshell. Thank you.
But first I need more practice with this deck. So it'll be a while.
Ari- In regards to junk, do you think a stoneforge package (or even a KoTR depths package) is better suited then rector right now?
Current Build: Punishing Rhinos http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post927726
Yeah, there likely is an answer. It probably involves playing things like Deathrite or Scav Ooze to shut down their Snapcasters, probably add in Thrun because it's another thing that they HAVE to Judgment (along with Sigarda). Maybe some Stoneforges and Batterskulls because that's a pain in the ass for them too. More planeswalkers, too.
Realistically, shutting down Snapcaster and overloading Judgment are The Way Forward for junk builds. That involves doing things that I'm not on board with, so I'll sit here and offer commentary and opinions from the sidelines...but I'm discontinuing playing junk builds for the moment until the metagame shifts and my favored playstyle is relevant again.
The issue with the Abzan (mise well get used to it) builds in their current incarnation is their lack of card advantage. They can't realistically out-card the blue decks. Veteran Explorers simply aren't enough when the blue decks can take as much advantage as we can. When I'm experimenting and not playing Punishing Fires, I've been running Pods and Stoneforge in an Abzan build to some moderate success. Between those two cards, it gives the color combination the ability to go toe to toe card advantage wise with the blue decks.
Realistically, the only playable forms of Nic Fit currently are Punishing Fires, Pod, and Sultai (again mise well get used to it) lists. They're the only versions with enough raw card advantage to compete at this point in time. Sad, but true.
No. You know what BRG is called? Motherfucking Jund. We got Jund, Bant, Naya. Easy to say, easy to spell, easy to remember, great sounding, and each shard's name embraced the flavor of the shard itself. What's the name of that UBR hell hole? Grixis. My god they were satisfying from the first moment they were spoiled. These are qualities I can get behind. But Sultai? Azkaban? What the hell are these and what does Jeska have to do with URW?
Not to derail too far, but I actually don't mind Sultai. The rest of them (what the hell is the RWB one again?) can go die in a fire.
I haven't played Nic Fit in a tournament in over a year now. I have turned to the dark side of casting Tezzerets, Stoneforges or Counterbalances, but I still skim through this thread from time to time and I have kept updated Nic Fit lists which I test occasionally. I have been thinking about Nic Fit more lately cause its a really fun deck and it seems like it is decently positioned right now, with elves being the combo deck of choice, a resurgence of mid-range GBx decks, and D&T and miracles also being not-terrible matchups. This post is basically just a collection of my (hopefully constructive) criticisms of the deck, and ways I think you guys can improve it. I'll be honest though, I probably won't be playing nic fit again too soon and I probably won't continue trying to develop these ideas too much past this post.
I agree with BWG (Askaban?) being pretty bad. Rector is not what it used to be, and no offense Kevin, but even your list where you trimmed Scuttles, there are still too many cute things. Your assessment about why fighting blues late game are spot on though.
As someone who has been on the opposite end of the table for a while, I can tell you, I always feel great when a veteran explore dies and I get to even closer to doing silly things like Snapcastering a FoW. The main issue is against the blue deck, basically all of their cards do something relevant late game. Land, STPS on an empty board, or countermagic on a losing board might be THE ONLY draws that suck. They also have ways to improve the card quality. Nic Fit has a lot more situationally terrible cards and less deck manipulation. The late game cards are not that much better than UWx decks lategame cards. Like is Thragtusk even better than a SFM? A lot of the time no. Batterskull, will in the end, overcome thrag and be more impactful. If you want to beat blue decks, you need to 1. go way over their head with value or power, (pod, pfire, PW, or scapeshift) and 2. not have so many situationally bad cards that the blue player only has to actually care about 1/3rd of the cards you draw.
1. You guys know how to do this. Pod, Pfire, Jaces/garruk/karn or scapeshift are the engines.
2. Is what I think a lot of people need to improve the most.
Its little things that add up. Here are just a few examples of specific card choices:
Play 4 tops in non-brainstorm versions that want top. I was crazy to think 3 was ok, back in the day. Top is never a bad draw, even in drawing 2-3 of them is fine. They cantrip next time you shuffle.
Maximize, your fetchlands in scapeshift. 10 mountains is fine. Yes, you'll lose 1 in 100 games because you NEEDED 11 mountains but when you draw a fetch instead of a stomping ground every 1 in 3 games, you will be much happier.
If you are playing blue play 4 brainstorms, 4 probes, 2-4 Jace, is non-negotiable. These cards are too good. About probe: Probe is secretly the best card in legacy right now. It's not about making a 56 card deck, counting as a blue card, or making therapies better (although the later is very nice). It's good because it lets you operate under prefect information. Imagine all the times you primitively blew a deed gambling their hand was just dead cards, the times you take the more aggressive play and force them to have it (which they do), all those moments where you said, "I did the right play that anyone would have done, it just wasn't the best play", cause who would have guessed his hand was his 1-of Supreme Verdict and you zenithed for Sigarda instead of thrag/thrun? I'll tell you who could have guessed: the guy with gitaxian probes in his deck.
Please, stop playing slaughter games in the MD. Just play thoughtseize or something that actually is guaranteed to effect the game. Yes, games can actually just beat S&T, and it can kinda hurt miracles, but then its bad like 95% of the rest of the time you see it. Goodstuff like thoughtseize, or abrupt decay are probably only bad closer to 30% of the time you see them.
TL;DR: In general, play more of the stuff that decent regularly, and less of the stuff that's rarely awesome and frequently lame.
------------
The below list is not perfect, but I think it a step closer to the right direction. I still think Scapewish is one of the most fun decks I have ever played in magic (thanks Kevin), and I think it is actually decently positioned right now. If I were to play it tomorrow I would run this:
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Thoughtseize
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Burning Wish
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Scapeshift
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
#60
1 Innocent Blood
1 Reanimate
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Toxic Deluge
1 From the Ashes
1 Scapeshift
1 Slaughter Games
I have not tested as much with BUG, so take this more of a grain of salt, but again I think something like this good starting place for the "BUG goodstuff" approach which Kevin mentioned. I also think BUG Pod is a great approach (possibly the best approach), I just have not had time to test it really.
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Forest
2 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Baleful Strix
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Force of Will
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
#60
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Negate
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Force of Will
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Another option which is possibly better for goodstuff, the above MD, but dropping titan, 1 tarpit, 1 GSZ for a 2nd Thrag and bringing the 2 Garruks MD. Titan, isn't great, but I dont think there is a better option yet. It is also possible Nissa is better than Primal Hunter. I have not tried her yet.
EDIT: A few things I forgot: BUG SB probably should have Swan Songs, and Notion Thief. Maybe wolf run in scapeshift. Maybe Stronghold in BUG. Maybe reclaimation sage in the 75 of both.
Agree.
@Arian: After reading your report, here are a couple of notes:
- I disagree with you as I think Junk Fit has some unrevealed potential, but not based on Rector (even if I know that you have a strong love affair with Rector). From my testing, one of the best Junk build atm is Qweerios's list packing 3 pod. No cute things, pretty straight forward.
- I wouldn't leave home without some pieces of gravehate nowadays. You were lacking some, you got kicked in the ballz...In a list with 4 GSZ, it is criminal not to play a 1-of Ooze. That little guy is a f. beater.
@ NicFit Posters
I'm glad this thread is pretty alive and I enjoy very much the whole diversity of Nic Fit.decks
For sanctioned events:
I am currently playing Punishing Fit (since marsh-14).
I have been playing Walker Fit (Jan to Mar -14) for 3 months and Scapeshift for 8 months (Apr. to Dec-13) .
1) Walker Fit
I started to tune a BUG walker list before McDarby's list was printed. I had some strong results with it but I was unable to really "fix" the whole 75 against its bad MU.
If you want to fight back "Combo" and play force of will, blue card count is unfortunately the key thing and to reach the perfect numbers, you'll have to go deep in blue and the whole veteran+therapy+GSZ+beater magical package can no longer be sustained.
2) Scapeshift
I played Scape @ 1 GP and 2 big events (800 ppls).
I lost one win & in (Omnishow) and other times I dropped @ 5-3 (thanks to S&T and MUD).
Scape is definitely fun & powerful (topdeck scape & win is nothing to scorn at) but it is also the kind of deck that can shxxxt on you twice in a row. For testing purpose, I also play miracles and sometimes you also brainstorm/ponder/top/fetch into oblivion but never twice in 3 games...
3) Side notes
Legacy is unforgiving. Nic Fit should not be the deck of cute/cool things.
Since playing the archetype (more than 1-year & an half now), I tried a lot of roads, including cute things (a lot) and I have come to rationalize every builds or attempts to build a Nic Fit version in a format wherein everything could be fated on T2/T3/T4.
The balance between lands/business & beaters spells is very very tenuous. And this is even more true in a deck without brainstorm.
So to speak, the mana curve & mana base were drastically rationalized (to decrease from one to two the land count & to add more business spell), very high CMC cards were cut as the non magical christmas magic games will only allow you to sacrifice a veteran once in a game so that your deck should be optimally functional with 4-5 lands etc...
Final word &/or feeling
I know we are by design a veteran+cabal therapy deck, but I have the intense feeling that if I NEED a dying veteran to play my deck, then we are doing it wrong. When veteran is dying, we should win the game and not just starting playing it...
Be bold but not cold.
Last edited by Ralf; 09-03-2014 at 06:04 AM.
I also agree. And another reason why this deck archetype suffers as a whole is some players believe that starting out with nic fit might be cheaper than buy the wastelands and duals for a more streamlined deck. I'm starting to lean towards wanting to interrupt the next guys mana base while playing my own minimal costing spells For the value rather than casting pod with an all creature deck and less interactive spells, or dropping explorer and giving the guy who actually carry a few basics the upper hand with his cheaper creatures and deck fixing cantrips. Once you give a brainstorming deck 2 extra land, even though you cabal therapy him twice, will more than likely hurt you more than help. Just my thoughts on the archetype.
Primary deck: Mud
Secondary deck: Burn
Building: Nic Fit
I also agree that the best way to position this deck is that of vet as a mana accel tool but not a required card. I will be playing punishing fire for the next couple of weeks I think but eventually I want to move to a Bug list. I think being in those colors gives the deck enough tools to fight most of its problems, combo decks, consistency, and the efficiency of cards.
- The ability to open up stack interaction to go along with hand disruption gives us a lot more game, a slow clock is still a problem but that can be figured out.
- Top and Gsz are both great tools at fighting variance but both of them bleed into the issue of efficiency. Without a vet going off both of those cards can be hard to use in the early stages of the game.
- I also think a lot of what (at least in my punishing fire list) we are ramping into is not always worth the cost of doing so. What I would like to get to is the point where I am playing a deck that is fine even just making its land drop but if a vet goes off then the deck is super charged. Similar to how jund or shardless bug can play fine without DRS but when they get one the entire game is accelerated for them.
For people on the BUG version, have any of you tested a gifts ungiven version? a 4 mana instant speed draw the 3rd and 4th best card in your deck is powerful. Especially if you create a pile where you get the card eventually.
jace, witness, stronghold, liliana.
decay, deed, deluge, witness
jace, lily, garruk, witness
All of those piles can be game ending on the right board. this also would allow a tool box sideboard of powerful options. I think the blue version would love an instant speed draw spell as it allows you to keep up hardcast force, blowing a deed, decay but still maximize mana and not just passing a turn and giving the other player time to draw out of it.
There's an issue with this talk of "Veteran is just an accelerator." We need to build the deck around Veteran because Veteran takes a lot more to activate than Deathrite does in jund/shardless. Deathrite says "are you running fetches and/or possibly wastelands?" Veteran says "are you running Therapies, 7+ basics, and Zeniths?"
Be careful about going too far down this road, or you may find yourself losing your identity and better off playing junk/jund instead of nic fit.
I do not feel a deck that needs a vet to go off in order to have a game is going to be consistent enough over the course of multiple matches. I understand that vet requires more in order to make him good. He also allows more busted plays. A certain amount of extra variance will always be inherent because both pieces of the package are inconsistent cards. Vet can be one of the best cards in the match or one of the worst. Cabal therapy can be an amazing play or a 1 mana to look at their hand.
What I think people differ on is do you want to accept this variance but how much do you hedge against it by playing brainstorm, jace, SDT, gsz vs how much do you want to maximize the effect once a vet goes off. It is tough to figure out how much you want to depend on vet. Though in my view the effect from vet is not enough to consistently always win you the game that I dont want to make a deck that dependent on him. That said, I do think its effect is powerful and in the right shell can be an amazing engine that lets you play busted cards.
I had to face 3 major issues with Walker BUG Fit.
- Punishing Fire is a real deal and we have no way to interact with it G1 (save the miser Ooze and a few DRS which are easy to play around)
- Manlands are another real deal.
- Which beater do I play ?
If you want a glimpse of my former list go page 317 of this very thread !
But the more I worked on this list, the less Nic Fittish it looked...
TheArchitect has it pretty much spot-on. The tricky thing with Nic-Fit is having the right cards at the right times - you need big spells to make use of your extra lands but not too many or they'll just clunk up your hand. You need basic lands but it makes sense to try and get by with the minimum number possible since they are basically half-colorless lands early in the game. This is why I ended up cutting phyrexian tower from the pod deck - the sacrifice effect just wasn't worth it tapping for colorless when there's already 6 basics in the list.
The other issue of the big green cards not even being better than the blue cards (or stoneforge) is another one I've run into. The pod deck in particular is very low on high-end bombs (just grave titan and kinda thragtusk) and I've occasionally been in situations where I can pod without interruption and I still couldn't manage to beat a TNN + batterskull (pod targets had been killed by swords earlier). It doesn't happen often but it does happen. It's the price paid for having a lot more early game oriented cards and I think it is worth it.
I have had to come to grips with the fact that ramping certain decks with veteran explorer is better for them than it is for me. It took a while to figure out SB plans where I could effectively board them out, but it had to be done.
For gifts in BUG, it seems like you'd really have to be doing something to abuse gifts (loaming is the first that comes to mind, punishing fire the second) to make it worthwhile.
I don't think anything short of reanimating something enormous is good enough with Gifts. I'm talking fast Primeval -> Depths/Stage, Tidespout, or Griselbrand levels of broken. The advantage is that Gifts can always double Tutor for something when you're not reanimating, and you can actually cast your monsters reliably -- but there's nothing else that's powerful enough to justify running it. This is speaking as someone for whom Gifts is one of my two favorite cards -EVER-. Most of the time, it just isn't going to be good enough.
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