His new breast friends!Originally Posted by rubblekill
Sorry, couldn't resist.
For now I haven't been particularly impressed by Sidisi and Meren. Sidisi for the reason I have written above, and meren because I don't like her that much in a field full of DRS (nice format: counterbalance vs DRS + AD).
I'm gonna play with them more to gain some more experience with the deck and to understand your deck building decisions, before deciding that I'm so smarter than you guys that I'm gonna modify the list you have brewed and I have been playing for only a couple of days.
In case it was needed (it wasn't): /s
I have found that Meren is really strong against Shardless Sultai. She is difficult for them to remove and can be managed to combat an active Liliana.
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Oh, I know that very well, when she is good she is the best card ever. I played her a lot.
The problem is the inconsistency of a 4 mana legend that relies on the absence from the board of a 1 mana card. A 1 mana dork that is prevalent in the format and makes me not want to play meren.
I know that we have plenty of tools to remove drs, but if I have to rely on another card to gain value from meren, at that point I'd rather play a more impactful card.
Against shardless, for example, we can play cards that say "I win immediately if I resolve" like Sigarda or the underplayed Elspeth sun's champion.
In jund I like her even less because there's no recurring of rhinos potential.
Anyways this is merely my opinion, there are people more experienced than me that will say otherwise
And it's the only deck she is REALLY good aginst. That she is a legendary creture sucks...
She is fine against eldrazi and non-grixis delver. She "can" be awesome against bug decks, but in an inconsistent fashion that really detracts a decent amount of value from a 4 cmc legend
My 2c
I agree on Meren, she's not as good as I had hoped she would be. Shardless is seeing less and less play at the moment, which is where she shines.
Eldrazi just goes over her or Dismemebrs her. Miracles plays StP or Terminus on all your guys so she has very little to get back, if anything. Delver decks, you don't need the value, you just need to survive by killing everything and start landing bombs whatever they are. Combo obviously doesn't give a shit. Lands doesn't give a shit. DnT just Karakas her.
I kind of agree...find myself siding Meren out a LOT. She is fabulous imo against Eldrazi but seems lackluster in many decks that either have Swords or DRS, and that is most decks. I might do my next league run with the 2 Thoughtseize in the main instead of Sidisi and Meren. Or maybe 2 Destructive Flow just for some spice. Thoughtseize definitely a better pick for combatting combo as well as the random stuff I'm seeing online (lot of Depths decks lately), but I really do relish the idea of turn 2 Flow against some decks.
/shrug. I've said before, and I'll re-state: Meren and Sidisi have both been very good for me. Sidisi is probably more cuttable than Meren, but I'm not in any hurry to remove either of them from the deck. I acknowledge and accept that they may not be optimal card selections for everyone. It could very well be that I'm playing the deck in such a way that I leverage more value out of these cards than the average pilot (with regards to these specific cards, not saying that I am an above average pilot in general). As I've previously said, I'm the type of player who plays to Yawg Will in vintage. I set up ten turns in advance for lines of play that will eventually win the game, which is what you basically have to do if you want Meren to be good. You can't just toss her out into play and expect her to take the game over. She needs setup and careful planning, but she rewards you by being an entire plan unto herself. There are few other cards in all of NicFitdom that reward you on the raw power level that Meren is capable of wielding -- you just need to shape your game around her existence.
Again, that does not mean that running Meren is optimal for all pilots. Individual playstyle matters a lot here -- if you feel that you can get more value out of using the Meren (or Sidisi) slot for different card choices, then by all means, don't let me stop you. But, equally, don't be surprised when I continue to play and post results with these cards.
E: something I'd like to tack on and add about Meren vs DRS: if the DRS deck is using time and resources combatting Meren, that's time and resources they aren't using on just flat killing you. I'd sooner they gain 6 than we lose 6. This is ESPECIALLY true in the Sneak versions of Nic Fit, because all we really need is time. If they spend time worrying about Meren instead of actively trying to kill us, that gives us multiple more draw steps to find something obscene to do to dig out of whatever hole we're in (or to just close the game).
Whoops, wrote that late at night. I meant to have punishing fire in there. Not sure how I missed that. The main idea I was looking for was Punishing Fire to fuel Pyromancer, and the Nic Fit engine to provide the mana for it.
Something more like
Land 23
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
3 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
Creatures 17
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Dark Confidant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
Spells 21
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Punishing Fire
4 Gitaxian Probe
I agree it seems light though, there's too many different engines competing for space. CA, Delirium, Punishing Fire, Mana, I'm not sure there's room for all. I've found mixing 3 different packages seems to be the maximum and this is using 4.
thank god. I bought meren a couple of weeks ago and expected a lot but I am somehow disappointed.
I consider to replace her by Nissa, vastwood seer.
I tried to find a discussion abt her but without success, did u try her? is she worth to consider?
I am not on sneak fit but playing the flwing:
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth OR Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Thragtusk
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Painful Truths
1 Vindicate
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sorin, Lord of Inistrad
1 Garruk Relentless
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
thanks a lot.
Exactly.
Your curve is low enough that you can probably drop the STE or one of the Veteran Explorers. I'd keep STE if you're playing Meren, though.
Nissa is a good lategame CA engine, but she does have the downside of being vulnerable to Abrupt Decay. She's much better against Miracles than Meren and much worse again Shardless. It depends on what you're seeing a lot of in your metagame to be honest.
It may also be worth trying out Nissa, Vital Force in that slot.
Meren has good matchups and bad matchups.
In the one game I won from the disaster my tournament was last night, it was against Shardless BUG on a mulligan to 3, through my opponent resolving 3 or 4 Ancestral Visions (so I basically started the game down 16 cards). I won because Meren is a hell of a card. It's great at getting your opponent to expend resources. Meren alone forced 3 Toxic Deluges for 4 (got her back afterwards with Volraths), and gave me infinite DRS's, which are important in the BUG matchup. DRS superiority is one of the ways you win, and she killed Jace's and Lilianas (I feel I should plug Cavern here again, that's how Meren always resolved).
The weakness of Meren is against Exile based removal, I think it's reasonable to sideboard her out in those matchups (D&T, Miracles, etc) but against the non StP decks she's an all star.
Forgot this part. I'm not a fan of 4 color decks, especially here where there's not enough slots to go around as is. Between Pyromancer and Probe there's just a higher ceiling on Cabal Therapy than Perilous Research. I do like the idea of the loop, but there's a more efficient one:
Traverse, Snapcaster/Eternal Witness
Traverse, Huntmaster of the Fells
Note you can also get tricky with Traverse/Eternal Witness/Traverse/Volrath's Stronghold
I'm not sure the slots exist for your idea, atleast not in this build.
Traverse into 2 towers for an Abbot of Keral Keep seems like a nice source of CA/beats, but I'm not really sure how to make it happen.
Lol, that must have pissed off your opponent. Makes me want to get a Stronghold though. And I still have to get my Library. Dammit! You might just force me to go back up to 22 land (but what to cut. I mean, w/ Stronghold even Diabolic Intent gains more value. I guess the most likely candidate would be Phyrexian Tower #2). And I'm not doing 61 cards.
Probably not. When it comes to Meren, I tend to look through my list and see what kind of silly loops I can come up with (and in what situations they might come in handy). I don't specifically build for it, but do like to know what's there. Remembering you can loop a Pernicious Deed for X = 3 can be quite a gamebreaker, vs. D&T for instance.
Last edited by Echelon; 11-05-2016 at 04:05 AM.
I'm becoming less and less of a tower fan by the day, it's just not all that good in the builds I play. And yes, my opponent was pissed, he dropped as soon as the round was over, it probably didn't help matters that he had an active DRS with me at 2 at the point I turned the corner, but he couldn't kill me because my own DRS kept it in check.
Stronghold is an all star.
I've got 2 Libraries, I'm going to get 2 more at some point. I expect SDT to see a ban some day, and if that happens, Library becomes really important to the deck (and also probably a lot more expensive).
Legacy newbie here, does anyone still run the Junk version?
I only recently built it and brought it to a tourney and it was a blast to play. I have a complete list sans duals which I can get to borrow for tournaments. Buying into them is a big investment though so I has to ask: Are the junk builds now inferior to the sneak builds? I notice that I have trouble closing out games with junk even after controlling the board, but what bugs me is the free wins that junk gets versus decks like AnT that gets shut down by gaddock which sneak can't (doesn't?) run.
Junk is still the most played version. Sneak is getting a lot of discussion here but there's still only 5-6 people discussing it, I bet most aren't even aware Sneak Fit is a thing yet. I don't think Junk is inferior to Sneak at all, Sneak is just something different.
@Echelon, did you see this recent article (Nov 4th) about 60 versus 61 cards?
http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=593
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