[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

[Bed Decks Palyer]

As a former RUG Delver player you should picture yourself with a starting hand of 2x Thrugtusk, Deed, C. Therapy and 3 lands against a RUG or UR delver opponent. Without anything meaningful to cast before turn 3 you are as good as dead. This is why, even thought this deck ramps like crazy, you have to have a critical mass of spells to interact with your opponents before you can lay your bomb.

Yes, you're right. I was surprised how the "many removal" is in fact light, as non-Decay things are vulnerable to counters and slow.

I guess it is a fine place to start with.
I would advice to shave down on the bogs and add 1/2 Scavenging Ooze as your anti graveyard cards. Also Volrath's Stronghold might be really nice here. Plus add a couple of forest/swamp/bayou (unless budget).
Also 2 sylvan primes and 3 primetime and 3 Thragtusk is to much. You would want to control the board and then ramp into the big dudes as your main strategy.
Also consider:
Courser of Kruphix
Wolfir Silverheart
Rampaging Baloth
Obstinate Baloth
Dungrove elder (cus of all the forests and courser)
And your a RUG player... Tarmogoyf is always solid and quick pressure.
If you have them, deathrite shamans are putting up some serious pressure in my current Punishing Fire list. Also keep on mind that, this deck ramps mana, but keeping your curve tight and well thought out makes it run more smooth.

Makes me wanna jam together a Straight GB list, lol.

Thanks for advices.
I use the many Bogs because of TC all over the place. It's a bad swamp, right, but it has the upside of being a maindeck grave hate and threshold/TC suppresion. But maybe it's bad idea, idk.
Curve needs to be reworked. Innocent Blood is a must, I don't get why I missed it.
I dont own DRS and he dies to deed, so I won't test him right now.
Without access to Lili and not wanting to discard my stuff, I'll stay true to Hymn.

Gonna rework the curve.

Also, Woodland Cemetery is a good Bayou no.2, right? At least one Bayou is necessary for the fetch, but other than that, this €2 land might work. I don't think I'll have too many troubles to satisfy the condition.

[tomatojim]

Yes, you're right. I was surprised how the "many removal" is in fact light, as non-Decay things are vulnerable to counters and slow.

Thanks for advices.
I use the many Bogs because of TC all over the place. It's a bad swamp, right, but it has the upside of being a maindeck grave hate and threshold/TC suppresion. But maybe it's bad idea, idk.
Curve needs to be reworked. Innocent Blood is a must, I don't get why I missed it.
I dont own DRS and he dies to deed, so I won't test him right now.
Without access to Lili and not wanting to discard my stuff, I'll stay true to Hymn.

Gonna rework the curve.

Also, Woodland Cemetery is a good Bayou no.2, right? At least one Bayou is necessary for the fetch, but other than that, this €2 land might work. I don't think I'll have too many troubles to satisfy the condition.

DRS is not a must, I just have access to it and like the option to tutor for it. Being able to ramp when you don't want to ramp your opponent as well with Explorer (Miracles) and its overall flexibility are just very tempting features.

Woodland Cemetery is definately an option here.

Bojuka Bog is OK, but 4 feels like overkill to me. It slows you down quite a bit and eats up a lot of slots which could be used for other utility lands or more basics. 1 for the titan is OK, though it's slow. You can always tutor for Ooze (and maybe DRS). TC is a problem (especially against UR Delver, because it finds counterspells and burn), but by turn 3 or 4 (where it becomes relevant) we're usually already in postion to play lifegaining fatties (Baloth, Tusk) or play and activate Deed which helps us keeping up with multiple threats. I feel like "enters the battlefield tapped" hurts a lot in those matchups.
However sometimes you will just be blown out by sick "delver draws" no matter how good your hand is (but that's true for pretty much every other deck). UR Delver seems like the worst Delver-matchup, because it's so fast when going "all-in" and it plays basics itself. Overall it's still an "OK"-matchup. Ah well, this is how you drift from Bojuka Bog to the Delver matchup... nevermind.

Greetings

[dwatring]

Hey everyone!

Great to be here, I'm just getting into legacy and I was rather interested in playing the BUG nic-fit list closely resembling Caleb Durward's list a few months back. I love all the creatures and the deck seems fantastically fun and has all of the cards I would love to play magic with. I'm also looking at playing Esper Deathblade or Reanimator. Getting into modern, I chose to play Faeries, and spent a lot of money on the deck, and ultimately regret it. I'm looking for a strong and competitive deck to learn and eventually compete with, and (barring all player skill) I want to eventually be successful with the deck overall in a competitive format. Is nic fit the deck for me at all? The deck has put up some recent tournament results, but I wanted to hear a real player's perspective, like I would have wanted to know with Faeries before jumping into modern. I love the style of the BUG nic fit deck entirely, but I also want to win. Do I stray away and just choose reanimator/esper deathblade?

Thanks a ton, and sorry for interrupting any meaningful contributions to the thread.

[Bobmans]

I've done a quick workout on a straight GB list that i am gonna sleeve up and test with my regular MTG friends group. The idea of a straight GB list is really cool. Also i added Tarmogoyf since there was a discussion a while ago that this deck needed some early pressure, but a single Tarmogoyf proved underwhelimg during testing. Also we do not run Wasteland, but sometimes i wish we do. So i took some of the room to throw in 3. Also i like the idea of Treetop Village and will include one to see how it goes. Also i run 2 Bayou simple because i own 2. Eternal Witness is excluded because i find the card kind of underwhelming lately.

The Rampaging Baloth is really awesome and during testing it proved stronger then Primeval Titan. Also Wolfir Silverheart gets a spot in the main board because it is often 12/12 p/t added to the board for 5/6 mana.

4 Veteran Explorer
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Wolfir Silverheart
1 Rampaging Baloths

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Hymn to Tourach

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

2 Garruk, Primal Hunter

1 Treetop Village
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Bayou
6 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland

SB: 3 Thoughtseize (or Duress)
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Choke
SB: 1 flex (Vraska or Garruk AP?)

Maybe it is just complete shit, but at least i got some fun brewing it.

Edit: 5 lands producing colorless mana might to much....

Edit 2: I prefer Diabolic Edict over Innocent Blood because it is Instant and it is one-sided. Innocent blood might be "dead" or killing your own creature in some situations. And we already have Pernicious Deed doing that sometimes.

[tomatojim]

Edit 2: I prefer Diabolic Edict over Innocent Blood because it is Instant and it is one-sided. Innocent blood might be "dead" or killing your own creature in some situations. And we already have Pernicious Deed doing that sometimes.

Yeah, Innocent Blood is just dead sometimes (at least you can filter it away sometimes with top + shuffle), but I think it's just better in the early game, because it costs 1 (helps a ton against delver/daze/pierce decks) and I feel like we need some extra removal spells, that help us keep pace with fast decks like UR Delver. Decay and Edict (or PFire in those lists) are sometimes too slow against starts with multiple cmc1 threats, especially with daze in mind. Also I like that it's an additional outlet for Explorer.
I guess it's a question of personal preference, Edict is a fine choice in this deck, no doubt. I'm not completely sold on IB myself, but I just want a cmc 1 removal spell.

[Arianrhod]

Hey everyone!

Great to be here, I'm just getting into legacy and I was rather interested in playing the BUG nic-fit list closely resembling Caleb Durward's list a few months back. I love all the creatures and the deck seems fantastically fun and has all of the cards I would love to play magic with. I'm also looking at playing Esper Deathblade or Reanimator. Getting into modern, I chose to play Faeries, and spent a lot of money on the deck, and ultimately regret it. I'm looking for a strong and competitive deck to learn and eventually compete with, and (barring all player skill) I want to eventually be successful with the deck overall in a competitive format. Is nic fit the deck for me at all? The deck has put up some recent tournament results, but I wanted to hear a real player's perspective, like I would have wanted to know with Faeries before jumping into modern. I love the style of the BUG nic fit deck entirely, but I also want to win. Do I stray away and just choose reanimator/esper deathblade?

Thanks a ton, and sorry for interrupting any meaningful contributions to the thread.

Short answer: play reanimator.

Long answer:

Nic Fit takes a long fucking time to learn how to play well. You're looking at roughly a year before you can plan to start winning with the deck consistently, which can be awkward when WotC prints things like Treasure Cruise that completely inverts the format. If you run Gitaxian Probes you can probably cut that down to around 6 months, but I remain of the opinion that Probe is incorrect and is a crutch more than anything.

Esperblade is probably not where you want to be, because you'll have to learn what you need to interact with. Deathblade can be a lot of fun if you value interaction, but if you're interacting with the wrong thing, it's a death sentence. Since you said you regretted getting into Faeries, you should probably avoid Deathblade since it's the same style of deck.

Reanimator is at a slightly higher paygrade than something like Sneak and Show where any mouthbreathing, mongoloid 2-yr-old can pick the deck up and win with it. It has its intricacies, but it'll take you a short amount of time to learn the tricks and how to tune you list, and the deck's raw power scale is still off the charts. You can win a lot of games by just making a turn 1/2 Griselbrand and Forcing/Dazing everything they do. If you want to win and win now, this is the deck I recommend.

If you want to win and have fun while doing it, and you're not opposed to playing the long game to get there (by which I mean long as in months, not long as in turns), then by all means, hop aboard. From the tone of your post, though, I think you'll be happier with Reanimator coming off of a failed modern deck...it doesn't sound like you really want a couple more months of drubbings before you learn wtf you're doing.

Of course, the decks do share cards to an extent...nothing says you can't start with Reanimator and then move into BUG Fit from there once you're more settled in the format.

[sdematt]

My tournament report:

4 Siege Rhino
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Scavenging Ooze

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
1 Golgari Charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Recurring Nightmare

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


3 Thoughtseize
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Cranial Extraction (no Massacre since I knew there was no DnT in the room)

Round 1: Steve with Infect

I know Steve is on Infect, so I keep a hand with Deed, Decay, and other goodies. He lays out Noble, Glistener, and Blighted Agent, so I deed after a Veteran Explorer activation. Cool beans! End of turn, however, he Crop Rotations for Inkmoth, then double Berserks for the last 4 poison he needed. Nice Decay, deck.

I board in all the goodies to muck him.

It's a slow grind where I knock out most of his guys, but then he builds up two Inkmoths, and I don't draw Deed. I draw Sigarda to at least block, but I need a Deed to clear out his board. Nope. He builds up a bunch of infect dudes and swings and I die. Piss.

0-1

Round 2: The bye

I get Starbucks to drown my sorrows.

1-1

Round 3: Chris with Miracles

I know Chris is a newer Legacy player, and this works to my advantage. I pull off a Cabal Therapy + Veteran Explorer, and he doesn't search for basic lands. Cool. I get ahead and run out a Deed for Angels protection. He gets a Jace online, but I have a Pulse and he has no Force. He misses on Counterbalance blindly a few times, and forgets to reveal a few critical times. I decide to keep Deed online since he's not remembering all the time anyway. I find triple Siege Rhino and get him.

I bring in Carpet, Extraction, Teeg, Grip, and Thoughtseize, bringing out Path, Veteran Explorer, and random GSZ targets I know I won't need.

Game 2 I keep a VERY live hand with Bayou, Top, Carpet, Cranial, DRS, GSZ, and blank. Keep! Carpet goes all the way and allows me to Top when I can and find all those lands. Cranial is countered, but I keep dropping threats. He has all the STP and all the Terminus, but eventually, i find Karakas and Teeg, and eventually, Thrun. Thrun gets Terminus'd with some good timing on his part with STP on Teeg, I bounce, then he Terminus'd. I Top and find GSZ and Thrun comes all the way back. Thrun too good.

2-1

Round 4: Kiel with UR Sneak Attack

I get fucking destroyed Game 1. Doesn't feel good.

I bring in Extraction, Thoughtseize, Surgical, Grip, etc. I keep in Path for Griselbee's and it's relevant.

Game 2 I thoughtseize and take Show and Tell. I'm able to land Teeg to keep his Sneak Attack off the table, but he gets Pyroclasm'd. I GSZ for another Teeg, and get another Pyroclasm. Skill reigns supreme as Cabal Therapy takes down his gas, and Siege Rhino comes in to clean up. He draws dead and I get to steal a victory. Cool story.

Game 3 he has Cage for my perfect GSZ hand. Greeeeeat. We both stall a bit, but he's stuck on two mana and I took his Show and Tell away, leaving him with Sneak. I try to keep the pressure on and attack with Teeg. I'm mana light but draw into Rhino. He draws Sneak Attack, and puts Griselbrand into play with 7 life. I Path. He dies a little. I cranial extract Emrakul. Rhino wins.

This isn't a good matchup.

3-1

Top 4: Markus with Mono Red Control

Game 1 I get him close to death, but he has a third Bridge I cannot remove, and Koth ultimates me. I miss a line where I'm locked under the blood moon and Chalice at 1 with sauce in hand, but no way to get Vet into the yard. I try to mise stuff through Chalice and he misses once, but he doesn't miss again. I should have build cards up in hand, discarded Therapy, then flashed it back to get on colour and kill him. Oh well.

I bring in the sauce.

Game 2 I absolutely crush him with Deed, Decay, Charm, etc. Siege Rhino recursion gets around his Ensnaring Bridge lock. Recurring nightmare too good.

Game 3 is more like Game 1. I get good mana this time, but cannot draw into a single Deed, Decay, Grip, or Pulse. I had 3 Deed, 1 Grip, 1 Pulse, and 3 Decay to draw into over 6 turns, but did not. I had Siege Rhino and Thragtusk on board with him at 7 under a Blood Moon, but alas, I lost.

I got $30 for my troubles.

Things I would change? The list felt good. It's bad luck I didn't draw artifact removal that game, but Rec Sage would have saved me against Mono Red Control, but generally, I don't think I need it. Siege Rhino is really great, and so is Recurring nightmare.

-Matt

[Brael]

Trying to slowly assemble the pieces for the BUG Pod version of Nic Fit however FoW's are out of my budget for the time being, obviously force is one of the benefits of being blue but is there anything I could run as a substitution?

[sdematt]

There is truly no substitute for Force of Will. If it is a bit out of your budget, perhaps run either additional discard, Glen Elendra, etc.

[Brael]

There is truly no substitute for Force of Will. If it is a bit out of your budget, perhaps run either additional discard, Glen Elendra, etc.

I realize there's not a true replacement, it's somewhat unique in being a free counter. What I meant was other cards that can give me that turn 1 interaction, there's Thoughtseize obviously and the deck already runs Cabal Therapy, but is there anything else?

[sdematt]

I realize there's not a true replacement, it's somewhat unique in being a free counter. What I meant was other cards that can give me that turn 1 interaction, there's Thoughtseize obviously and the deck already runs Cabal Therapy, but is there anything else?

Maybe Mesmeric Fiend or something?

-Matt

[Bobmans]

I realize there's not a true replacement, it's somewhat unique in being a free counter. What I meant was other cards that can give me that turn 1 interaction, there's Thoughtseize obviously and the deck already runs Cabal Therapy, but is there anything else?

T1 on the play outside of FoW? Mindbreak Trap, Misdirection. (Leyline's)
T1 on the draw? Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce, Swan Song, Envelop, Spell Snare.
T1+? Negate, Dimir Charm.

But the question really is, what do you need T1 interaction with? Loosing to a specific deck or adjusting to a specific meta? Do you have experience playing the BUG Pod version? If the latter is not to much, then maybe don't bother with trying to force yourself to create a budget copy of a deck, instead just get what you have and adjust to experience. In some answers to the first two questions you might wan to wonder if BUG Pod is the deck to be playing?

[Bobmans]

Hello folks. I’m mainly a Modern player, but I’ve just recently gotten back into Legacy, running a G/B Nic Fit deck for a little while. So far I’ve had success against many of the top decks in the format, and I eventually plan to delve into more competitive events, so I thought I’d hop on these forums to get some input. While the deck is fun, it is very hard to play correctly with all of the interactions/sequencing and such, so I do hope to pick up some tips and tricks because I have a long way to go. Anyways, I have a decent sized event coming up on Saturday (meta is pretty varied with a big splash of Delver), and I’d like some thoughts on my current list:

Lands [21]
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Treetop Village

Spells [24]
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Innocent Blood
1 Golgari Charm
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Recurring Nightmare

Creatures [15]
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Primeval Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Golgari Charm
2 Duress
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Plague
2 Ashen Rider
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Fleshbag Marauder

Food for thought, if you cut a Maelstrom Pulse and a Recurring Nightmare to include 2x Diabolic Intent you would have a way to get off color creatures like Grave Titan or Fleshbag or get more specific answers like Recurring Nightmare, Engineered Plague or Pernicious Deed.

[tomatojim]

Hello folks. I’m mainly a Modern player, but I’ve just recently gotten back into Legacy, running a G/B Nic Fit deck for a little while. So far I’ve had success against many of the top decks in the format, and I eventually plan to delve into more competitive events, so I thought I’d hop on these forums to get some input. While the deck is fun, it is very hard to play correctly with all of the interactions/sequencing and such, so I do hope to pick up some tips and tricks because I have a long way to go. Anyways, I have a decent sized event coming up on Saturday (meta is pretty varied with a big splash of Delver), and I’d like some thoughts on my current list:

Lands [21]
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Treetop Village

Spells [24]
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Innocent Blood
1 Golgari Charm
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Recurring Nightmare

Creatures [15]
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Primeval Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Golgari Charm
2 Duress
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Plague
2 Ashen Rider
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Fleshbag Marauder

In general it looks pretty decent, but I would definately play at least 3 Sensei's Divining Tops. In a control shell with that amount of mana and shuffle effects, the card is insane. You could cut a Recurring Nightmare and a Pulse/Hymn/Shaman/Ooze/Elder (whatever you like) for it. As Bobmans already mentioned, Diabolic Intent is also good, I play one copy in my GB version as well.
Regarding the manabase I probably would squeeze in another Treetop to be able to Prime Time for 12 power. And maybe a 3/1 or 2/2 split between Foothills and another black fetchland.

Greetings

[Arianrhod]

I find triple Siege Rhino and get him.

I love that this is a thing. It makes me feel like I've done something worthwhile with my life.

[sdematt]

I love that this is a thing. It makes me feel like I've done something worthwhile with my life.

The better part is having 9 mana and looping two Siege Rhinos with Recurring Nightmare 3 times. That there is the sex.

-Matt

[jbone2016]

Dromoka the Eternal 3GW

Legendary Creature - Dragon [Rare]
Flying
Whenever a Dragon you control attacks, Bolster 2.
5/5

I would still rather have Sigarda.

CREATURE NAME? 4UB
Legendary Creature - Dragon [Rare]
Flying, Hexproof
Whenever a Dragon you control attacks, creatures defending player controls get -1/-1 until end of turn.
3/7

This one is pretty good though

[jbone2016]

The better part is having 9 mana and looping two Siege Rhinos with Recurring Nightmare 3 times. That there is the sex.

-Matt

I did this twice a turn vs a delver opponent. He wasn't pleased.
I went 3-1 with a list similar to CalebD with 4 rhinos, 2 tusk, courser and a satyr wayfinder with nightmare.

[RPGbudgie]

I went 3-1 at our local Monday night legacy with a Junk Fit list. I took Matt's list from his recent post and went -1 top -1 golgari charm -2 path + 2 thoughtseize +1 teeg +1 decay to account for the combo in our meta. I also changed the sideboard up a bit to make room for reclamation sage and null rod.

R1 Dredge 2-1

He got me quick game 1. Games 2 I got there with a scooze and plenty of green mana. Game 3 I had two surgical extractions and a scooze in my opening hand. I don't think it was possible to lose that game.

R2 Deathrites N Taxes 2-0

Game 1 was crazy long. I had an early deed that killed stoneforge, deathrite and mom. He played a sword of body and mind after that and eventually milled me down to less than 4 in my deck cards before I could find an answer. We ended up with a stalled board where he had a bunch of wolf tokens, a thalia, and a bob and I had a siege rhino, thrun, and thrag tusk. I started swinging with thrun and taking down 1 wolf at a time while he took damage from bob looking for an answer. he was at about 4 life when he plowed his own bob to go up to 6. Meanwhile, I'd gone down to 0 cards left in my deck, but I'd had a GSZ floating in there with top. Once I drew it as my last card I started casting it every turn to put it back in my deck. At this point, he was looking for more ports to keep me off green mana. He had 2 ports and I had 3 forests. I managed to get his creature count down low enough that I could swing with my thrag token, thrun, and siege rhino and force him to sac his board. I swung next turn and won.

Game 2 was less exciting, I looped siege rhinos to win. He put his revoker on top, I think it should have been on recurring nightmare =).

R3 Elves 1-2

I play elves a lot so I knew once I lost the die roll I was probably fucked.

Game 1 I kept a hand with cabal and deed. I named natural order and whiffed. He killed me on his turn 4 with natural order while me deed was in play.

Game 2 I wiped the board twice with deluge, once with massacre, and once with deed and still spent the whole game 1 turn away from losing. Symbiote + visionary is so strong.

Game 3 Died his turn 3. There goes my chance to win a misty =(

R4 Pod 2-1

This guy turned his modern pod into a legacy deck with the 10 proxy limit for dual lands. Holy shit I almost lost.

G1: Some land gives all his guys +1/+1 counters. He wins with a beefy resto angel that eats my sigarda.

G2: Therapy gets there early game. I play a teeg to stop pod and win with Rhinos.

G3: Board ends up stalled out, he uses chord of calling to get e-witness and rebuys chord of calling. He has the mana and creatures to get something huge next turn. I use 4 shuffle effects and finally find a discard spell to take it. The board remains stalled until I find recurring nightmare. I have 9 mana and 2 siege rhinos, WHOOOOOOOOOOO. Lucky for me he boarded out his scooze or I would likely have been dead.

[Bobmans]

That 4 Siege Rhino route looks juice. Currently i have my on the mail, but i am trying to figure out if why i should be playing 4 Rhino over Punishing Fires. What do you guys think?