[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

[Echelon]

@Bobmans: Wouldn't you rather run Qasali Pridemage over Reclamation Sage? It has some application vs. Infect where Rec doesn't. Also plays incredibly well with Meren.

You're a brave man by the way, running AD over Deathrite. I imagine you have a good timing keeping your opponents' board clear.

How has the Nissa been for you?

[Bobmans]

@Bobmans: Wouldn't you rather run Qasali Pridemage over Reclamation Sage? It has some application vs. Infect where Rec doesn't. Also plays incredibly well with Meren.

You're a brave man by the way, running AD over Deathrite. I imagine you have a good timing keeping your opponents' board clear.

How has the Nissa been for you?

Qasali vs RecSage. For what they do, Qasali deserves it's place. So i change that.

Not sure what your saying about AD/DRS.

Nissa has been awesome. Sometimes it is just a 2/2 body that fetches a Forest (fixing mana for say Rhino), Sometimes you don't have a Forest left in your library and then it shuffles for SDT. BUT most of the times you get it when your able to flip it the same turn. Nissa lands, flips and from there on you can make a 4/4 or when you have board presence you can start +1 to basicly draw a card each turn. On an empty board you suddenly are back in the game with this one. Between Courser and Nissa i'd say: Courser boosts Early/Midgame and Nissa boosts Mid/Lategame. Both of them just smooth out your development in the game. All in all, Nissa is a really good card and might even be better then Courser if you want to compare the two. Flipped Nissa also dodges your own Deed.

[Ricardio]

Qasali vs RecSage. For what they do, Qasali deserves it's place. So i change that.

Not sure what your saying about AD/DRS.

Nissa has been awesome. Sometimes it is just a 2/2 body that fetches a Forest (fixing mana for say Rhino), Sometimes you don't have a Forest left in your library and then it shuffles for SDT. BUT most of the times you get it when your able to flip it the same turn. Nissa lands, flips and from there on you can make a 4/4 or when you have board presence you can start +1 to basicly draw a card each turn. On an empty board you suddenly are back in the game with this one. Between Courser and Nissa i'd say: Courser boosts Early/Midgame and Nissa boosts Mid/Lategame. Both of them just smooth out your development in the game. All in all, Nissa is a really good card and might even be better then Courser if you want to compare the two. Flipped Nissa also dodges your own Deed.

I haven't played nissa online because 9 tix for her seems unreasonable but my limits dealings irl standard with her have been positive. Maybe if I can justify her.

As for DRS and AD, I play 2/4 because they are so good in the bloo online meta.

Are they ever coming out with legacy leagues on mtgo? that would help a lot.

[Arianrhod]

Actually, I played against land twice during a GP a few years ago, with scapeshift and I was not prepared to face such a deck.

I won both 2/0.

I think you don't need to devote space for this MU (aside the usual Surgical/Ooze).
Imho, what really matters is speed.

Land & Scape are both a combo deck in a sense.
Both matches, I was able to take a hit from Marit Lage since Thragtusk and Huntmaster gain you life and we don't have much fetchlands.
So getting over 20 should be your priority.

And I just scapeshift'd him back the very next turn.

Was I lucky ? Maybe or not.

I think you should rather focus on your own velocity.
Will you be able to scape on T4 or T5 ?

Furthermore, the "velocity" thing happened quite a few other times against another deck: dredge.

My two cents.

FWIW, this is how I used to beat Lands on Scapewish as well. This is not an isolated thing -- it's our best gameplan. Sometimes it's quick enough, sometimes it's not.

[Bobmans]

FWIW, this is how I used to beat Lands on Scapewish as well. This is not an isolated thing -- it's our best gameplan. Sometimes it's quick enough, sometimes it's not.

I am wondering on which Lands version we are all talking about; Lands has several versions. Which version you play againsr says a lot of how difficult your matchup will be. RG lands, RUG Lands, Jund Depths, Turbo Depths and to some level Aggro Loam and Dark Maverick. All Marit Lage, but very different in playstyle.

[Ricardio]

I am wondering on which Lands version we are all talking about; Lands has several versions. Which version you play againsr says a lot of how difficult your matchup will be. RG lands, RUG Lands, Jund Depths, Turbo Depths and to some level Aggro Loam and Dark Maverick. All Marit Lage, but very different in playstyle.

I don't think the strategy changes all that much. Shift as fast as humanly possible so they can't 20 you.

[Bobmans]

I don't think the strategy changes all that much. Shift as fast as humanly possible so they can't 20 you.

Actually they do differ. One of my friends is a very dedicated lands player. In the past he played Jund Depths, running Lili, AD and Smallpox. The deck is pretty slow and fairly decent to beat. Then he played Turbo Depths for a while, which is based on blue and runs Hexmage/Crop rotation. It was incredibly fast, it was kind of easy to fight against an actual creature (Hexmage). Then he switched to RG Lands right after that list got some attention... because RG focusses a lot more on the combo it is so much faster and more resilient then the other versio.
Last a friend of mine plated PFire Maverick with DD combo. Mother of Runes + KotR made it a difficult match-up but not undoable. The problem was that, while fighting on ground combat, it could snipe in a Marit Lage nearly out of nowhere (eot offcourse).
I play with those guys on weekly basis and every game feels like an uphill battle, but still there is a clear difference in which version is harder to not lose from. RG Lands is the winner in thus regard. I'd rather play Slaughter Games against ANT or SnT...

[Ricardio]

Actually they do differ. One of my friends is a very dedicated lands player. In the past he played Jund Depths, running Lili, AD and Smallpox. The deck is pretty slow and fairly decent to beat. Then he played Turbo Depths for a while, which is based on blue and runs Hexmage/Crop rotation. It was incredibly fast, it was kind of easy to fight against an actual creature (Hexmage). Then he switched to RG Lands right after that list got some attention... because RG focusses a lot more on the combo it is so much faster and more resilient then the other versio.
Last a friend of mine plated PFire Maverick with DD combo. Mother of Runes + KotR made it a difficult match-up but not undoable. The problem was that, while fighting on ground combat, it could snipe in a Marit Lage nearly out of nowhere (eot offcourse).
I play with those guys on weekly basis and every game feels like an uphill battle, but still there is a clear difference in which version is harder to not lose from. RG Lands is the winner in thus regard. I'd rather play Slaughter Games against ANT or SnT...

The angles you fight and the threats are slightly different but the looming 20/20 is the same. Fight through the hate, don't die, and shoot them from atop you volcano.
Games can't name lands sadly but you can surgical depths.

[Arianrhod]

I still don't understand why we've spent literal pages talking about this. It's a bad matchup, move on. If you want to consistently beat Lands, play a different deck.

[Bobmans]

play a different deck.

Just don't. ;-p

[Ricardio]

Just don't. ;-p

BUG control. Its fun, trust me.

So in keeping with the nic fit theme, I played a bit against the BGwaste fit list and it seemed underpowered for not actually playing a third color. Wail seemed like a sb card at best. I am personally of the mind that currently, Junk is the best followed by Jund because BUG just wants to out value until your opponent concedes but that's not a real win condition. Skillerhino is still very good. Jund seems like a huge grind and the shift version has to fight through counter spells with none of their own which feels bad. For now, I think I will bring my laptop to fnm and play a daily while I wait for my friends to fight through the new eldrazi meta. I am not confident in my sfm junk build so I will probably run back 3 truths/deeds in the 4 Skillerhino build. Also is anyone still working on the 4color version? it looked entertaining but beyond greedy.

[pettdan]

I'm generally more interested in discussing bad matchups than good matchups, at least relative to others. Suppose you can do changes to your deck that keeps it good in the good matchups, but improves your bad matchups. I think that's the most interesting discussions to be had. Well, finding new synergies to base a deck upon is also interesting... But there is need and room for both.

Or to put it differently. Suppose you have several versions of Nic Fit that have similar sucess in the good matchups. If one of those versions has a significantly better matchup in one of the deck's worst matchups, then that is a pretty good upside of that version, isn't it? For comparison, there is a lot of discussion about which the best 6 CMC creature is, I enjoy reading those discussions too but they seem less strategically important.

[Tom4ik]

The problem with lands decks is that the match-up is very much slanted game 1. To make it winnable post board requires too many specific SB slots. If you have red you can use something like Blood moon to try to steal a game. Needles also can help. Rhino fit decks probably have the best lands deck because they have path which doesnt give life and with rhino probably the fastest clock in the abstract.

Edit: I will also admit to having joined the darkside of Bug midrange/control

[Ricardio]

The problem with lands decks is that the match-up is very much slanted game 1. To make it winnable post board requires too many specific SB slots. If you have red you can use something like Blood moon to try to steal a game. Needles also can help. Rhino fit decks probably have the best lands deck because they have path which doesnt give life and with rhino probably the fastest clock in the abstract.

Edit: I will also admit to having joined the darkside of Bug midrange/control

White gives the tools to deal with it like karakas, path, vindicate and skillerhino. quick clock and outs to an eot 20/20

YAY BUG control

[Dadadot]

So, thoughts on meren after getting to play her for a few month?
f.e. synergys, strength, weaknesses, slots to put her in, cards which rival her, funny or sad anecdotes, general feelings recarding the card etc.

[rubblekill]

So, thoughts on meren after getting to play her for a few month?
f.e. synergys, strength, weaknesses, slots to put her in, cards which rival her, funny or sad anecdotes, general feelings recarding the card etc.

Brutal against non white decks, occasionally decent otherwise. A must of a one of, in my opinion.

@all, laugh at me now: in my testing I'm having decent success with abzan charm as a 2 of (non sfm list). Being an instant, and a flexible one, helps us (and deals with lage, since it seems that this is the new main topic of the thread).

[Bobmans]

I found Dryad Arbor very awesome next to Meren.
Edit: if you land Meren, this will put Arbor into play creating a pseudo fog effect in a lot of cases.
Edit2; Arbor / Veteran recycling is the shortrange effect. In the long run you start to recycle Eternal Witness or Siege Rhino for maximum value. The fact that you can always have a card back regardless of counters is huge. It will generate card advantage and quality.

[Arianrhod]

Brutal against non white decks, occasionally decent otherwise. A must of a one of, in my opinion.

@all, laugh at me now: in my testing I'm having decent success with abzan charm as a 2 of (non sfm list). Being an instant, and a flexible one, helps us (and deals with lage, since it seems that this is the new main topic of the thread).

I've always liked Abzan Charm, actually. I can't always find room for it, especially with Truths existing now, but the card is definitely strong enough to be on the list of considerations.

[Echelon]

So, thoughts on meren after getting to play her for a few month?
f.e. synergys, strength, weaknesses, slots to put her in, cards which rival her, funny or sad anecdotes, general feelings recarding the card etc.

I believe I've said enough when it comes to Meren. She's downright nuts. As for funny anecdotes: Think Meren + Qasali Pridemage vs. MUD and all other sorts of recurring shenanigans.

Vs. combo & white it loses some, vs. everything else she's great.

When your opponent boards in graveyard hate to deal with Meren, just fall back to smashing face with Rhino. Works like a charm!

[rubblekill]

I've always liked Abzan Charm, actually. I can't always find room for it, especially with Truths existing now, but the card is definitely strong enough to be on the list of considerations.

I hate pt because it's a sorcery. I like the charm more because it's an instant. It's a bold claim I know.