I have hardcast Elesh Norn on multiple occasions. But that's me, I'm silly like that. It mostly takes a lot of patience. And 2 basic Plains. So that's a no-go for BUG Fit, lol.
I do agree with it being in the main 60 though. The chance of whiffing with that Sphinx is just too big. In most games, the opportunity to bring back a fattie succesfully presents itself only once, or twice at best. So when you do pull it off, you want to make sure it counts. Even if your opponent draws an answer to Elesh Norn the next turn, the damage will have been done. Same goes for the Aetherling, I'd switch that for Iona. You already have a better "look, here's a target - shoot it" in Grave Titan, Iona in the MB gives you an extra angle to attack any random deck.
Admittedly though I come from the Summoner's Egg school of doing things, so I'm spoiled by having GSZ to Fierce Empath and 4 MB Diabolic Intent to fetch the opportune fattie at any given moment (I even run an Emrakul for the hell of it). Surprisingly, Elesh Norn is often a better pick then Emrakul, lol.
On another note - Karador, Ghost Chieftain might be a nice fit for the standard Nic Fit build over Recurring Nightmare (given that the decks also runs a number of GSZ and at least 1 Fierce Empath). Seems like a nice value engine. Might just be too cute for it to be worth it though.
Last edited by Echelon; 09-02-2015 at 06:13 AM.
@Reanimation-Fit -I would still recommend probe in this deck. I would cut a land, the pulse, the loam and one of your fatty targets. I think the information is worth the loss of some flexible cards.
I am going to just run back the same list I played last week considering I went 3-0 in pretty convincing fashion I kind of feel obligated to give it another run. If I do poorly with it this week I will jump into the combo-Fit party.
Finally proxied up, did some goldfishing, and took the Leap build out for a test drive. This was my initial build (don't judge me too harshly, this is my first legacy deck):
Deck Core
4x Veteran Explorer
4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Evolutionary Leap
4x Living Wish
Support
4x Mox Diamond
2x Cabal Therapy
1x Elephant Grass
1x Pithing Needle
2x Sylvan Library
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Oblivion Ring
2x Pernicious Deed
1x Smokestack
3x Lingering Souls
2x Garruk Wildspeaker
1x Batterskull
Lands
1x Dryad Arbor
4x Windswept Heath
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Savannah
1x Bayou
9x Forest
2x Plains
1x Swamp
Wishboard:
3x Thoughtseize
2x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1x Sundering Titan
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
2x Eternal Witness
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Maze of Ith
1x Bojuka Bog
Here's what I found:
-The "Explorer-Leap" combo is both easy to assemble and incredibly powerful. Getting a creature of some sort in play is effortless in a deck with this many token producers, Explorers, and fetches; Leap is essentially a one-card combo. Suffice to say I regularly found myself with 11 lands in play on turn 3.
-This build didn't have nearly enough interaction or powerful plays outside of Wish targets; opponents could afford to let the combo go off, counter Wish, and tempo me out from there. More action is necessary; a good X spell wouldn't go amiss. Any suggestions?
-The mana is pretty awful, but a consequence of wanting so many forests to go off. Mox Diamond was a godsend, letting me spew out lands a turn early and providing a convenient White or Black source later on.
-Getting cute with Enlightened Tutor targets in the maindeck was generally a bad idea. Elephant Grass was a bust, and Pithing Needle was unspectacular. Smokestack, however, was fantastic in the games it resolved.
@CountryCaravan: What I'm missing is a decent and robust clock. That's where and why you need more creatures. You also need a lot more removal, hence tempo decks still beating you down post-"combo" (if it doesn't win you the game/draw your entire deck, I don't count it as a combo) and you should never, ever cut Cabal Therapies from the MB. They're so incredibly important in disrupting your opponents' plan, which is ever so important if you're taking a combo-style approach to your win. You need to make absolutely sure your opponent cannot stop what you're trying to do post-combo.
Heck, if you were to give it another go I'd advice you to go up to 4 Cabal Therapy and add in 4 Thoughtseize or Duress to strip your opponents' hand clean before wishing for a win con. Also, add another basic swamp so you can get at least 2 discard spells off in 1 turn from Vet-Ex land.
If you'd like to explore trying to break leap id be looking at a scapeshift kill and burning wish.
4 leap
4 explorer
4 therapy
4 wish
3 scape
4 gsz
3 deed
3 top
1 intent
3 decay
4 ? Bolt/blast/probe/meta dependant
4 tiaga
3 badlands
2 bayou
2 mountain
2 valakult
1 swamp
6 forest
3 verdant catacombs
I'm looking at a Token/PW Build with Leap and Explorer/Rector.
Something like:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Academy Rector
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Evolutionary Leap
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Token-Producing Rector Target (Heliod?)
1 CA-Rector Target (Sylvan Library, Phyrexian Arena, Erebos?)
1 Mass Pump Rector Target (There's an enchantment which gives I think +3/+3, or maybe the Lifelink/Doublestrike Enchantment, since I want some Lifegain in here)
3/4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Lingering Souls
5/6 additional slots for finishers (I do like the Living Wish Idea here, since it allows to get around the Leap restriction, but not sure if I really want a big Toolbox in the SB, since I feel I have to devote quite some SB space to combo for games 2&3), maybe 2 Wishes as additional punches to get some game ending bombs and 3-4 Planeswalkers (2 Elspeth, 1 Sorin, 1 new Gideon, since instant Anthem sounds tempting)
23 Lands
No clue about SB yet, depending on if I want to run Living Wish or not.
Only played 3 rounds last night. Ended up just drawing round 4 with lands to head home early as it was pretty late.
2-0 Ponder Miracles. G1 Early Liliana did work, the ultimate bought me enough time to get in with a tarpit as well. G2 aggressively reb'd a BS bait and then I untapped into Jace and drew too many cards for him.
0-2 Esper mentor. Lost a grind fest G1 after a mull to 5. G2-I kept a 1 land, 2 strix, decay, liliana, dig, BS. Would you keep? I did and didnt draw a 2nd land so I died....
2-0 DnT. The absurdity of Deed against them when you have Liliana and Jace...
Thanks for the advice, everyone.
@Echelon Thanks, I'm definitely seeing the value in more Therapies as I keep playing with this deck. 4 Therapies and 4 Lingering Souls (hard to answer clock, resilient to countermagic) seems like a better start; I'm not sure about so many Thoughtsiezes though; as you mentioned, the deck needs a bit more action, so I'll go for one in the main and the remainder in the sideboard.
@uncletiggy I'm not sure a Scapeshift plan is particularly more robust; it's still similarly weak to the same thing this deck is (let you go off, counter Living Wish) without as much on-board interaction, and you don't get to search as easily as you'd like. I'd like the deck to be able to play a normal Nic Fit gameplan.
@Phillip2293 Rector is something I thought about as well, but I haven't found anything truly worthy of cheating into play just yet. I'm a bigger fan of Enlightened Tutor for that purpose, especially since it finds you your combo and gets stuff like Batterskull when you need action and O-Ring when you need removal. Top is also an interesting consideration, though I'm not really sure what it's trying to accomplish in your list. I'd also like to point out that the Gods interfere with your Leap chain; I'd avoid them in this build.
Updated list:
Deck Core
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Enlightened Tutor
4x Evolutionary Leap
4x Living Wish
Support
2x Mox Diamond
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Thoughtseize
2x Sylvan Library
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Pernicious Deed
1x Smokestack
4x Lingering Souls
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
1x Batterskull
1x Decree of Justice
Lands
1x Dryad Arbor
4x Windswept Heath
3x Verdant Catacombs
2x Savannah
2x Bayou
8x Forest
2x Plains
2x Swamp
Wishboard:
3x Thoughtseize
2x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Rest in Peace
1x Engineered Plague
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1x Sundering Titan
1x Eternal Witness
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Maze of Ith
1x Bojuka Bog
Tested this list with elesh over sphinx in the maindeck against stoneblade and miracles, it may just be the matchups/limited testing, but loam felt very useless everytime i had access to it. The deep analysis was amazing and i found myself wanting more then just one thing to entomb with no jace/reanimate in hand. i was thinking of -1 loam +1 worm harvest just for value late game, or -1 waste +1 ravens crime to make sure late game spells stick when in topdeck modeOriginally Posted by Arianrhod
Why are we playing Lingering souls in the living wish version? This deck no long can or will play a grindy game. There is very little that you will find those are helpful against. I would drop the garruks, equipment, souls, smokestack(why is this here?) and decree. Gsz is better tho I doubt we need 4. Top is better than sylvan as you can use it multiple times between leaps/shuffles to find the wish. I would think we also need some way to recur wish against discard/counter.
I do not mind some MD alt win con besides wish but I think it needs to be more immediate than a Bskull or PW.
@Reanimation-Fit - If you have enough lands to make wurm harvest a thing you should be playing Dig through time to use the graveyard.
Not sure why you don't think the deck can't play a long or grindy game; it's what Nic Fit is generally designed to do, anyway. Usually going off with Leap will get you around 11 lands into play; this is enough to cast a whole slew of finishers from Decree to Batterskull to Living Wish for a big monstrosity. I'm not a fan of GSZ at all; it's a dead card once you go off, and fetching for Dryad Arbor/saccing a token is a much more reliable way to get the Explorer chain going. Souls has been an all-star at holding off attackers, providing a clock, and giving you bodies to sac to Leap and Therapy.
Good points in favor of Top (During playtesting I realized that you can sac tokens to Leap for the shuffle even with no creatures in library), but you really don't have a ton of extra mana to spare during the chain. I also prefer the card advantage aspect of Library; I've found it to be an essential E-Tutor target.
@ caravan- if you use the four leftover slots for living wish you can add a boseju and a fattie to the board to either push threw the scape kill or go another route. I think you are under estimating the scape kill especially turbo charged with leap. The numbers arent necessarily right but there's merit to the concept. Im a gbw player personally and more interested in making rector/doubling season work with leap and walkers but im convinced scape is where the card belongs if anywhere in legacy. Id also like to add you can drop to six forests 12 basics is entirely too many. The last explorer trigger should be grabing your other colors.
I do not believe this deck can play a long game against most decks is because your deck is filled with pieces that are redundant once you go off. Etutor and leaps take up a fair amount of the deck. I would not find this deck advantaged after "going off" against miracles, omni, storm, any deck packing mentor, jace, etc. I am not saying that you dont have powerful draws in the deck but that you spent multiple cards in your hand (2 at least) and interacted with the opponent not at all. That is very dangerous. We have CA disadvantage in Moxs, etutor, deed (along with anything we play from the maindeck because they are all tokens).
My advice, for what its worth to you, is that the only way this deck is viable is if you go so over the top you are going to run over whatever your opponent does. This is done by maximizing the living wish. I still think all this work for a living wish creature may not be a better shell than just running the post mana base.
If you are concerned with CA why is sylvan library where you are going to? It takes multiple turns. If your goal is to try to have 8 mana out on turn 4 I am sure we have better options.
Btw, you said you proxied it up and played it? what was the match ups? I think that would be a help too. some decks just dont look good on paper but play out much stronger.
The playtesting was only a few run-throughs against my friend's combo elf deck and a modern version of RUG Delver. Not ideal, but enough to get a sense for how the deck plays out. Elves is frustrating and requires sideboard help; giving your opponent 8 free Rampant Growths is not generally a winning proposition. Delver was a fair matchup; Deed was enough to sweep up the ground while I dug for win conditions and Lingering Souls was great at clogging stuff up, but countermagic was troublesome when I was on the draw and I was led to realize that I was threat-light.
I agree that going over the top with powerful enough plays is important, but I feel it's equally important to make sure that those plays resolve, and that even when you don't go off. Decree of Justice was specifically chosen because it can't be countered; Smokestack because it's a tutorable way to leverage your mana advantage. Perhaps another mana sink like Mastery of the Unseen is just better, but I can't say for sure yet. For what it's worth, after going off, you will have eliminated a substantial chunk of lands and all the Veteran Explorers from your deck; much of what remains will be gas or ways to find it.
And I might be underestimating the Scapeshift kill simply due to my lack of experience with it. I'm just not sure that adding red and going all-in combo is the best way to win; I also feel like Zenith is a particularly poor way to go about starting the chain.
Here is a very rough idea on a more conventional evolutionary fit list. Will try to test some, which should show which parts, if any, that are good in this list. Blue should probably be skipped.
The idea here is to use discard and removal to survive the first couple turns, then lock down combo by "leaping" for Glen Elendra or fight the fair game with Batterskulls and Mentors. Mentor tokens provide additional card advantage when sacrificing for new threats. And the SDT + Mentor combo that I've been waiting try out in Nic Fit since it was spoiled. With the ramping we can quickly make mentor hurt.
Control elements:
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Reclamation Sage
Threats:
2 Monastery Mentor
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Batterskull
1 Sigarda
0 Lingering Souls
Ramp, creature selection etc:
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Evolutionary Leap
3 Green Suns Zenith
2 Deathrite Shaman
Card selection, recycling etc:
1 Academy Rector
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Eternal Witness
1 Recurring Nightmare
Lands:
1 Dryad Arbor
3 forest
2 swamp
1 island
2 plains
2 bayou
1 tropical island
1 savannah
4 verdant catacombs
4 windswept heath
SB:
Gaddock Teeg + hatebears
Discard
Glen Elendra #3-4
Stuff vs lands and 12post
...
Btw, really cool Reanimator Fit list. I'll have to try that soon.
@ caravan my advice to you is download cockatrice and get some games agaisnt real legacy decks before trying something off the wall. Elves plays exactly two forest so there wont be 8 rampant growths and modern delver is not playing brainstorm force wasteland ponder or daze these factors are all skewing your decks developement. When designing a new deck you first have to look at the meta and decide what decks you need to beat and then decide on a way to interact favorably versus them. Right now you're durdling in magic christmas land.
More or less. Still baby steps at this point, and my local meta isn't particularly competitive (most can't afford dual lands, so I'm running up against monocolored budget brews with a lot of basics a lot). Still working out the kinks with cockatrice, but I'm still in the brewing stage, so hopefully I'll be able to get some real playtesting hours in soon enough and find more meaningful competition.
@Pettdan: As stupid as it sounds, but between Top, Rector and Leap I want to see a Recycle in the list, could make Mentor even more brutal ;)
@CountryCaravan: You do know Dryad Arbor gets fetched by Evolutionary Leap, right? Might accidentally end your combo turn when Leaping into that after having played a land.
Also, you mentioned you struggled with counter magic. That's because, as I said, you try to close out the game like a combo deck. And, like a combo deck, you need that extra discard to get rid of whatever is able to stop your game winning hand. Try to add another Pernicious Deed to the list, and 3/4 Path to Exile. You need to be able to take care of threats while manoeuvring to that point where you outplay your opponent and quickly close the game.
On a side note, I think you would want to find a Wish-target that cannot be Submerged etc. Opponents do topdeck spotremoval or do hide it from your discard with Brainstorm. Another option is to forfeit the Wish package and go on a planeswalker demolition route. Rather than durdle with Wishes and getting your fatties countered, play 6+ planeswalkers to take over the game post-Pernicious Deed. Token producing planeswalkers also play incredibly well with Cabal Therapy and, to extent, Diabolic Intent.
Or to mix the 2 approaches up - run Glittering Wish instead of Living Wish. It can fetch all kinds of fun cards, according to the situation you find yourself in. Planeswalkers, utility creatures (think Gaddock Teeg), finisher like Sigarda, enchantments like Teferi's Moat, whatever floats your boat.
If your meta is mostly mono colored budget brews explorer is not the best place to be id pack lots of deeds and decays and the trifecta of thrun sigarda and dromoka. Play the hard board control route foucus more on spot removal and sweepers and less on combo hate. Expect a lot of burn merfolk and watered down deaath and taxes.
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