So here is a proposed list. Very open to ideas.
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Phyrexian Tower
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Garruk Apex Predator
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
SB: 3 Duress
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
I think the right color to splash at the moment is White because of the removal options. Punishing Fire is too slow while Sword/Path are both amazing. The goal of this deck is to have a better Miracles and Combo matchup without sacrificing too much against other matchups when compared to other current versions.
- Sorin, Grim Nemesis is the best 6-drop in the game for Nic Fit, by far, and everyone should try him and he rocks.
- I chose Top over Truths because a) this deck is a bit slower in game 1 so your life total matters a lot and b) because Truths don’t work so well with the SB plan of Confidant and SotL
- I think a more control oriented version of the deck should not play Siege Rhino or Path to Exile. Don’t get me wrong, Rhino and Path are the right choice in the Rhino version but they work better together.
This version can do quite well against Combo. Post board you have 10 Discard spells, 2 SotL to stop their cantrips, 3 Lilianas, GSZ on Teeg or graveyard hate plus 4 Confidants to keep the disruption coming. Spirit of the Labyrinth is really good against most Combo decks because usually they are really good at recovering from discard with their cantrips. Put Lilia and/or yard hate on top and you have the game on lockdown.
Against Miracles the plan is a somewhat transformational sideboard: (- 3 Explorer, - 3 Therapy, -3 Swords, -1 Phyrexian Tower, - 1 Deed, -1 GSZ; + 3 Duress, + 2 SotL, +4 Dark Confidant, + 1 Liliana, +2 Teeg; depending on Mentor count might need to keep more removal). Explorer and Therapy are both extremely bad against them. Explorer just accelerates their Jace. Therapy completely sucks because the first one is blind, and then you don’t want to sacrifice Explorer and also they have Brainstorm and Counterbalance to shut it down. Just Duressing them on turn one is much more effective. With less mana from Explorer you should reduce your curve a bit and SotL and Confidant do that. Even though they will die to Swords, they at least force a reaction, and if you are lucky one might stick.
Last edited by Tao; 04-22-2016 at 10:15 PM.
It's not exactly nic fit, doesn't feel like sylvan plug either. Replace Vet/Therapy/Deed/Top with extra couple lands/Chalice/Deluge/Libraries for the most part, with 3 SFM, 2-3 eqiups, and full Rhino suite + Sigarda. I plan to do more testing/tweaking and perhaps open a thread with it - basically Abzan Stompy since I've also tried Trinispheres in it (to some success). I've had 2 KotR's in it for awhile but they always seem lackluster and using them for land tutoring just feels clunky - they were replaced with Trackers.Originally Posted by Brael
I keep checking the discussion here because it seems really valuable. One day I'm sure I'll try actual Nic Fit (just need Vet Explorers for the most part), but for now I'm taking a lot of this advice and applying it to my stompy lists. If I want to jam Chalice/Trinisphere (which I very much do love jamming), then I have to incorporate ways to make the deck consistent. You simply can't have a "draw the wrong side of your deck" problem and hope to do well at large events. Or league after league online. Consistency starts with GSZ and Sylvan Library but extends to the manabase, creature, and removal selections as well.
Very thankful to glean insight from everyone here.
These 2 are able to stop one big threat or kill small creatures such pyromancer. But they die almost to everything
Thornscape Apprentice
Creature — Human Wizard 1/1, G (1)
{R}, {T}: Target creature gains first strike until end of turn.
{W}, {T}: Tap target creature.
Granger Guildmage
Creature — Human Wizard 1/1, G (1)
{R}, {T}: Granger Guildmage deals 1 damage to target creature or player and 1 damage to you.
{W}, {T}: Target creature gains first strike until end of turn.
@arianrhod- im not liking the lack of scooze in the thune list, dromoka seems extraneous way up at the top of the curve you have three nice bodied flyers already. He also +1 to your interaction category in a lot of key matchups.
Trying out Bob in my list after seeing it here, my basic strategy being to bring it in when I take Explorer out. So far it's ok but not great. The list I'm using right now has a total CMC of 77 so that's an average of 1.28 damage/turn when Top can't manipulate things (yours is 76 for comparison, but you have more lifegain overall). On the other hand, it gives away much less information.
I'll keep trying it though. The interaction between Bob/Top is similar to Courser/Top except you don't get the lifegain and have a weaker body.
Ill try Sorin.
Just finished a small set against Maverick, we were going to do best of 5 but 4 hours later we were just going into game 4 as Xmage was about to time out on us, I took it 2-1 but lost on time, two very grindy games I split and one which was super easy.
It was a small sample size but Tireless Tracker is absolutely nuts and it was readily apparent the first time it hit the board. It's rather trivial to generate 2 clues on your first turn it's down (and sometimes more), especially with a Courser and/or SDT to assist. At one point with a fetchland in hand going into turn 3 in the easy game I even found myself GSZ'ing (helped by a DRS) for a Tracker only to follow it up with a fetchland, make 2 clues, then play an Explorer, flashback Therapy to sac, get 2 more lands, 2 more clues, and then pop one right away for a card. Tracker almost feels like getting an Ancestral Vision attached to a 4-5 power body.
Verdict is still out on Bob but it wasn't terrible. Hitting Meren/Sigarda/Tracker hurts, hitting Rhino/Courser doesn't. I liked that it was another strong Top interaction.
Wow you're making me want to consider Tracker.
Just the lone copy is sufficient? Were you afraid of his P/T (seems underwhelming for a 3 drop).
I don't know if I want the lone copy or if I want more. Fitting in the first was a pretty easy cut for me because I swapped it with Painful Truths, the second copy is a bit tougher. What I like about the card though is that with a bit of setup you can front load getting several clues, and then gain the advantage incrementally. One play I found myself making a lot without a top was using 1-2 clues per turn with a Courser out in order to increase the land drops I could make, which would then feed back into more life and more card draw.
Edit: The P/T was fine. I wasn't playing against a bolt deck, I think it's a bigger liability there. The power side of it though easily grows large enough to trade off with a Goyf after a turn or two which is nice.
Worth noting, I was running 3 Deeds and the situation never came up where I found myself deeding away my clues but I can see where that might be an issue at times.
Edit 2: On further reflection, the cut for another Tracker if it's worth doing is probably Sylvan Library.
Heresy!
Courser + Library is a positive feedback loop, and Courser + Clues is also great. Wht's stopping us from being more lean on the curve to play more Courser/Tracker synergies with Library and Top to help continue filtering?
Nothing!
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
With more draw we need less recursion, I could see an argument to turn Meren into a Tracker.
Edit: Just because I found it sweet, I was able to Volrath's Stronghold a Dryad Arbor to the top of my library, play it from the top with Courser, make a clue, double Therapy to kill the Arbor, and put it on top to play with Courser again for another clue on the following turn. Tracker is what made that line really work.
Last edited by Brael; 04-22-2016 at 10:25 PM.
Hi all, relatively new to the nic fit life and new to this thread. I'm enjoying the discussion around the breakdown of slots/roles for the deck, but had a question regarding discard. I'm interested in Tireless Tracker and supportive of the idea of a robust CA/deck manipulation package (at least 5 SDT/PTruths/courser etc) but am having a hard time letting go of the idea of hymn/TS/IoK. Ripping apart hands in the early game especially feels so good, and my feeling is that in combo matchups (one of our weak points) it represents a compelling hope for a better MU over CA engines that really start paying off usually turn 3+ by which time we may have been Tendrils'd/SnT'd, etc.
My other concern with a lot of ideas for CA (1 of Tracker, etc) is that 1 ofs inherently decrease consistency which has been another concern discussed recently.
Just what I see from where I'm sitting. YMMV always with local meta and things like that of course, but I'm just here to get some thoughts and be part of the conversation.
1 of's don't always decrease consistency. When you have a bunch of similar 1 of's they all do roughly the same thing at the consistency of running 4 of's, but they interact slightly different in multiples or against the opponent. To give a classic example you would much rather have 1 Go for the Throat, 1 Doom Blade, 1 Ultimate Price, 1 Victim of Night than 4 Doom Blade. By using the 1 of's you minimize the chance of an entire section of your deck being dead against the opponent, and you get slightly different effects which makes it harder for the opponent to play around a precise card. To bring this back around to Nic Fit, 4 Courser is too many but 2 Courser/2 Tracker despite filling similar roles works very well because not only do they still fill the CA role, but they stack and they make the opponent worry about different things.
If you go this route, your combo matchups are going to get worse. CA only matters when you live long enough to use those cards. Tracker probably isn't the card you want against combo decks, but it's solid against anything fair.
That's a fair assessment re: redundancy/consistency. I agree that CA matters in the longer game, my original point though was the relationship between discard effects and our MU against combo. Since those games can be over so fast, is it worth erring towards that, MD or even just SB. (IoK, Seize, Hymn, Liliana, etc) and if so, do the cuts come from the CA component of the deck or elsewhere? My feeling is that there is something there, but I wanted to get people's thoughts.
I do use my SB for some anti combo cards, I'm partial to Hymn but it stretches the mana enough that I don't think it's optimal though I sure do love the Hymn+Therapy hands. To be honest though, I just don't worry very much about combo. Playing a fair non blue deck isn't where you want to be in the format if that bothers you. The deck feels to me like it either beats combo or it beats everything else.
Then again, I have the luxury of playing in an area where combo is pretty fringe and people stick to things like Delver, Miracles, Grixis Tempo, and Burn.
OMG people, I love this thread.
To answer Jain: We seem to have a general consensus on the numbers of each category we want to run. The next step'd be to compile lists of cards for each defined category that fit within our framework (I'll repost our list of requirements) and see what crazy cards we can come up with. Let's start with what we know and add to that.
I also agree with Arianrhod as far as counting certain cards as half a CA etc. whenever they need something else to function as such. That probably makes Courser of Kruphix 0,5 CA as well.
Requirements:
- Must be able to go over the top of most opponents
- Must be able to handle/mitigate mana denial strategies
- Must be able to break through lock pieces
- Must be able to handle opposing threats on the board
- Manabase must be able to consistently produce green mana on turn 1
- Manabase must be able to consistently produce black mana on turn 1
- Manabase must be able to consistently produce white mana on turn 2
- No card may cost >5 mana
- No card may have triple mana of any 1 colour in its manacost
- GSZ'able cards must have intrinsic value
- Creatures must either provide mandatory utility effects, be very hard to kill or have a very high power/mana ratio
Format your lists accordingly:
Lands (We might just as well, maybe we find some awesome utility lands we've missed up until now)
Swamp
Forest
Plains
Verdant Catacombs
Windswept Heath
Marsh Flats
Bayou
Scrubland
Savanah
Phyrexian Tower
Volrath's Stronghold
Removal/interaction
Path to Exile
Cabal Therapy
Swords to Plowshares
Thoughtseize
Putrefy
Mortify
Maelstrom Pulse
Vindicate
Go For The Throat
Murderous Cut
Ghastly Demise
Abrupt Decay
Inquisition of Kozilek
Library Manipulation/CA
Veteran Explorer
Sylvan Library
Sensei's Divining Top
Tireless Tracker
Mirri's Guile
Courser of Kruphix
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
Painful Truths
Skeletal Scrying
Hymn to Tourach
Pernicious Deed
Toxic Deluge
Damnation
Wood Elves
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Fierce Empath
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Eternal Witness
Gitrog Monster
Finishers
Green Sun's Zenith
Siege Rhino
Sigarda, Host of Herons
Thragtusk
Thrun, the Last Troll
Deathrite Shaman
Gurmag Angler
Baneslayer Angel
Diabolic Intent
It's fine to put up the same cards as others but if you're sure you've seen one of your cards on anothers' list, try to leave it out. That saves me some work when compiling a complete list. If you see a card you think belongs in another category, please do repost it under the category you believe it should be in.
One last question: Should we or should we not change the not >5 mana requirement to not >6 mana. Let's have a vote on this one. Tempting as it may be, I vote to stick @5.
Meren is part CA part finisher
Eternal Witness is CA
Is Bob worth considering as CA? I tried some out today and they were ok but not great after seeing them in Tao's list up above. Found them to be a pretty good substitute for Veteran Explorers when I didn't want to ramp my opponent though.
Deed and Deluge can be removal just as much as being CA. Golgari Charm can be CA out of the board (or sometimes removal or just interaction).
I think 5 or less mana works better, unless the 6 is extremely powerful. For a 6 to be worthwhile it needs to be better than Sigarda the Unkillable. I know Sorin is pretty popular these days but for as good as he is it still doesn't seem worth 6 mana, particularly for something you can't tutor. Maybe I'm wrong there. In some builds though, Primeval Titan probably makes the cut as a valid 6.
On the CA debate, it's because there's different types of cards. I'm going to sum it up by paraphrasing Chapin in his deck building book. There's Baneslayer Angel type cards that generate value by remaining on the battlefield and there's Mulldrifter type cards that generate value by being cast. Decks of Baneslayers typically get better when you play other Baneslayers because your opponent likely can't answer them all. Decks of Mulldrifters on the other hand typically need less tuning but also have less room to outmaneuver the opponent. The catch is that just playing a few Baneslayers with your Mulldrifters causes all of your Baneslayers to die, but putting a few Mulldrifters with your Baneslayers works fine. Decks of all Mulldrifters are also the most reliant on having a steady stream of cards because they generate little to no residual value, but with higher per card impact they can make for potent bombs.
Putting that in Nic Fit terms, our Baneslayers are things like Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix, Sensei's Divining Top, Meren, Deathrte Shaman, and Sylvan Library. There is little to no instant value in casting any of these, but if they remain on the battlefield you generate a lot of value over time. Our Mulldrifters on the other hand are cards where a large part of the value is realized on cast. That includes cards like Veteran Explorer, Painful Truths, Abrupt Decay, Path to Exile, Cabal Therapy, Stoneforge Mystic, and Siege Rhino.
I don't think counting them as .5 is quite accurate even though that is about the amount they generate per turn. If your only creature is 1 Courser it's almost always going to die before generating any value, but if several of your opponents removal spells have already been discarded to trade with your creatures your Courser is going to stick around and generate value. At 22 lands without Top Courser is worth around .33 cards/turn, with Top it's worth about .8. It's too soon to properly evaluate Tracker but mathematically with 22 lands/9 fetches it's just over .5 cards/turn. Technically SDT isn't worth any cards, but the selection in removing dead draws is worth some amount.
It's probably best, for now at least to just look at cards and consider them as being worth any advantage at all rather than try to evaluate exactly how much. I think of cards like Library, Courser, Tracker, and so on as being a variable amount of advantage, but something like Truths is (almost) always 3 cards. Even when you can evaluate the average number of cards per turn of the variable advantage, it's still contingent on it remaining on the board, which goes back to why if you're going to play a few Baneslayers, it's best to play a lot of them.
I was thining "Hm, maybe Tireless is a cool card in nic-fit" and then I saw this post. Nice to hear the results from a real game. Tireless dies on all removel but it can at least replace itself. We can manaflood sometime so manasinker as clues is nice. I want to try him out.
@echelon-
When we start considering optimizing a list of slots and ratios with the intent on cutting cute card choices things like putrefy, mortify, and ghastly demise don't belong being given the time of day.
Going too deep into the cardpool gets tedious. If we start listing cards like deathmark, tragic slip, and all the edict clones we wont get anywhere quickly. We dont play these cards normally for a reason, we're going to end up back testing tasigurs and sidisis based on the "umbrella-catch all-utility" mentality to no avail. An excercise in finding proper ratios should not bring sub par choices in the mix. Unless a card is pulling triple duty(ie abzan charm) the obscure cards should be left out and even the charms are hardly maindeck material, we should strive to stay realistic.
I also don't believe sweepers should be considered in the card advantage/selection category. By that logic any card conditionally worth a force of will could be counted. These cards should produce value upon cast or through accumulated abuse of basic game mechanics (ie courser/tracker)
I'm also not ok with counting a card like intent as a finisher. Casting zenith applies the threat immediatly upon resolution, intent requires a set up card as well as resolving a follow up card to actually act as a finisher. By this logic top is also a finisher as well as a number of other cards that cant actually end a game.
As far as viable card choices go zenith should be left off all lists for simplicity sake. It should always be capabale of ramp/interaction/selection/ca/finishing if its not the entire deck is built wrong.
I think in general we need to be less liberal on our comprehensive list and more focused on how the subtle difference in card selection adds up ie:
-pulse/vindicate/anguished umaking/councils judgement
-deathrite/ste/courser/nissa
I'm more realistically looking at:
Ramp:
Dryad arbor
Explorer
Deathrite
Sakura tribe elder
Nissa
Courser
E witness
Selection/advantage/shuffle:
Top
Zenith
Explorer
STE
Stoneforge*
Sylvan library
Intent
Painful truths
Skelatal scrying
Abzan charm
Recurring nightmare
E witness
Tireless tracker
Nissa
Courser
Meren
Interaction:
Therapy
Thoughtseize
Hymm
Lilly
Deathrite
Path
Plow
Innocent blood
Abrupt decay
G charm
Shriekmaw
Gaddock teeg
Scooze
Qpm
Jitte
Sofi
Rec sage
E witness
Pulse
Vindicate
Councils judgement
Anguished umaking
Dismember
Abzan charm
Deed
Deluge
Finishers:
Deathrite
Scooze
Nissa
E witness
Rhino
Garruk
Elspeth
Thrun
Abbyssal persecutor*
Baneslayer
Tusk
Sigarda
Thune*
Batterskull
Nahiri*
Swiss army "allstars" on paper:
Explorer
Deathrite
Gsz
Scooze
Stoneforge*
Courser
Nissa
E witness
Abzan charm (this disgusts me being here)
*denotes requiring 5+ slots
Sideboard gets way more shakey but generally I'd consider these playable:
Ts
Hymm
Lilly
Surgical
Extirpate
Memoricide
Cannonist
Teeg
Glissa
Rec sage
Qpm
Needle
E bridge
3sphere
G charm
Deluge
E plague
Choke
Pulse
Grip
Leyline of sanctity
Leyline of the void
Sorin
I'm sure I'm missing some...
Whoa !!
You guys are amazing, I know why this thread is the best there is
Unfortunately, you're too fast for me. I hardly can read everything written here, work on a stonefit list with Jain mor by PM, and contribute to the thread as I would like to. (real life don't help those days)
So quick response to the things I saw during this week :
Uncletiggy streamlining the decklist (removing the fat, the cute) is a great idea and I think one of the way to achieve a "best deck list" if it is ever possible (because of meta, play preference, religious convictions)
Trying to work with categories instead of specific cards : great idea
Trying to adapt the delver model : nice mental exercise but the decks work differently so we cannot copy paste their numbers.
Our kor artificier getting more traction, I like very much (kuddo to Bobmans who crammed rhinos and stoneforge in the same list)
One aspect of the deck we should question is : what is our game plan ? (ok it sounds dumb, but there is no wrong questions )
For me our plan boils down to : ramp with explorer, drop sigarda (OK we can play other threats in the meanwhile but the finality is a quick evasive unkillable 5/5 )
One other question is when do we loose ?
For me I loose :
- Against quick combo.
- Against god's hand (this is SPARTA , herr I mean legacy).
- Our threats get dealt with (looking at you miracle).
- When the opponent goes bigger.
- When the opponent disrupt my explorer plan (stifle, swords, counterspell, discard...) so that I play a slow deck that die to daze.
For the combo problem, Jain mor and I decided that 2 maindeck thoughtseize should help.
As for the god's hand, that happens but I guess the others feel the same VS triple therapy into turn 3 sigarda.
It left us with three problems that need addressing. So we think that the deck should play a plan B, that is effective without the ramp from explorer but should also benefit from the ramping should all things go as planned, helps us to go bigger in conjunction with plan A and makes us more resilient against sweepers (that are the one thing that kill Sigarda) .
and our conclusion is that stoneforge is the plan B we need : it's good we you're curving like a muggle, the equips become better we you got the mana rolling.
It also does two important things :
- try to to go bigger than a sigarda wearing a batterskull, a jitte and a SOFI (well it never happened to me, the max I've got was sigarda plus batterskull plus jitte, but that was enough)
- an equipment on the board transforms any fetch into a 4 turn clock thanks to arbor, drastically upping our threats count in the late game.
Sorry for the unstructured post, like I said too much things to think about, not enough time (and the thread going 2 pages a day doesn't incite me to go digging for the exact terms used, but no offence meant to anyone )
Last edited by Plm; 04-23-2016 at 06:57 AM. Reason: did some digging to get my names right
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