[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

[jbone2016]

Of note there is a nic fit deck currently 6-1 at Baltimore (hint it isn't me)

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[Arianrhod]

Of note there is a nic fit deck currently 6-1 at Baltimore (hint it isn't me)

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What version is he on, do you know?

[Echelon]

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).

Yup, DRS can be quite the trooper. As for the Libraries - yeah, well, the PS4 Pro is coming out. I have more time (and opportunity) to play The Witcher 3 GOTY edition than time to play paper MtG (which is the only MtG for me) so that's where my money's going for now. I have quite some gaming to catch up to.

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.

Don't be too hung up on Teeg. Any decent Storm pilot can answer it G2/3. It's a nice speedbump, but by no means a free win.

@Echelon, did you see this recent article (Nov 4th) about 60 versus 61 cards?

http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=593

I did now. Thank you very much!

[sdematt]

We have been saying that on the podcast for three years, and myself personally since 2009. 60 isnt gospel.

[jbone2016]

What version is he on, do you know?

There was 2 actually. Probably both on junk and one of them ended up 20th?

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[Hodgkins]

Found the list!


Nic Fit - David Malafarina, 20th Place
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=109243


Creatures (15)

1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Grave Titan
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Siege Rhino
1 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Nissa, Vital Force

Lands (22)

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

Spells (22)

2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Painful Truths
1 Vindicate

Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Golgari Charm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Kaya, Ghost Assassin
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

Interesting list here, and he runs 60.

[LTJZamboni]

I figured I'd check in here since I was the 20th place list with Nic Fit at the recent SCG Baltimore Legacy Open. The deck was straight gas all day and I don't think I would have changed a single card in my 75. I've never really written a tournament report and I didn't take many notes over the course of the day but I'll try and recollect as much as I can for the benefit of the rest of my Nic Fit-playing bretheren and sistren.

Round 1 - Colorless Eldrazi - Win

My opponent saw turn one Veteran Explorer and his shoulders sank. Game one was a lot of chumping with Explorers to get me up to enough mana that I could drop and pop Pernicious Deed to clear his whole board. The highlight of game two was his turn 2 TKS seeing my hand of GSZ, Sigarda, and Therapy. He took Sigarda, which clued me in immediately that he had All is Dust in his hand. I snagged that and then GSZ for Explorer to get the Dismember out of his hand as well, then took a few hits from TKS before drawing a Siege Rhino and taking back the game rather quickly.

Round 2 - Shardless BUG - Win (against eventual winner Jonathan Orr!)

Game 1 he was stuck on one land and I beat him down with Veteran Explorers for a few turns while building my mana base, very pointedly not saccing them to Cabal Therapy so he couldn't get the mana he needed. Game 2 Meren of Clan Nel Toth recurred one Siege Rhino and that was enough to take the game.

Round 3 - Grixis Delver - Win

This matchup is a complete joke. Between Siege Rhino and Pernicious Deed, it is impossible for them to mount a defense against us.

Round 4 - Cloudpost - Loss

My opponent receives a game 1 loss for marked sleeves, but proceeds to win the whole match. The most memorable thing was Nissa, Vital Force single-handedly taking down an Ugin over the course of three turns, and then later my opponent using Thespian's Stage to copy my Karakas, which allowed him to go infinite with Emrakul.

Round 5 - Aggro Loam - Win

Pernicious Deed was the all-star of this match, eating up Mox Diamonds like a fat kid eats cake. The highlight of this match for me was blind hitting two Lilianas, then seeing two Knight of the Reliquaries in his hand with a GSZ in mine. Game two I was able to snag the Toxic Deluge out of his hand, but his resolved Liliana with a Scavenging Ooze was really pressuring me as I tried to land Sigarda. Eventually I landed Sigarda and killed him in a few short swings.

Round 6 - Lands - Win

I would have easily lost this match were it not for my opponent Gambling for the wrong card, followed by me hitting his Dark Depths with a timely Surgical Extraction. Siege Rhino cleaned up very quickly after that.

Round 7 - BR Reanimator - Win

Highlight: I managed to win through a resolved Sire of Insanity via some very lucky draws of Rhinos, Veteran Explorers, and Green Sun's Zeniths while my opponent kept drawing Exhumes with an empty graveyard.

Round 8 - Grixis Painter - Win

This is the most fun match of Magic I have ever played in my life. If you want to see this list, it's Daniel Sacco's 19th place list and it is the sweetest deck I have ever seen. This match really highlighted the power of Meren of Clan Nel Toth, as I was able to repeatedly loop Qasali Pridemage over and over again to systematically destroy each permanent he had on the field while using Meren to take out his Planeswalkers.

Round 9 - Miracles - Loss

I made a misplay here that may have cost me a few percentage points down the line by trying to Abrupt Decay a Top in response to a fetch while knowing my opponent had Snapcaster + Brainstorm in hand, putting me down a removal spell for later when he was attacking me with three Mentor tokens. Game two I mulled into oblivion and was quickly run over by Mentor.


I felt pretty good about my chances going into day 2!


Round 10 - Junk - Win

Apparently my opponent was someone who was well-known for playing Nic Fit. I'm sorry if you're reading this but I'm really bad at remembering names; you were great! Game one was Pernicious Deed into threats, game two was when I finally got to use Kaya for the first time all weekend and she was great. She started by flickering a big Scavenging Ooze to make it small, giving me time to draw removal. I used her as a Phyrexian Arena, though it was later pointed out to me that I probably could have won quicker if I had just -1'd her repeatedly but the call of value was too strong for me to resist.

Round 11 - Miracles - Loss

Game one I had my hand torn apart by Vendilion Clique and made the stupid mistake of popping my Deed while my Top was still on the field, which most likely cost me the game, then the second game I mulliganed to 5 and never saw a land.

Round 12 - Lands - Loss

Game one showed off the power of Siege Rhino curving. I hit all three Siege Rhinos in addition to Nissa, which kept my opponent from ever being able to combo off and kill me. Path to Exile makes this matchup so much better, as not letting our opponent gain life off Marit Lage lets us actually pressure them with Kaya and Rhinos. Games two and three were lost to a series of misplays by me that I would rather not relive; suffice to say, this was the time I started focusing to rally and get that money!

Round 13, 14, & 15 - Grixis Delver - Wins!

Turns out all you have to do to cash at a Legacy event is proceed to play your best matchup three rounds in a row right at the end. The hardest matchup involved my opponent resolving three Painful Truths in one game (thanks a lot, Snapcaster Mage) and Thoughtseizing my Toxic Deluge before drawing into some Bolts to finish me off, but other than that these matches were about as lopsided as you could expect.


My overall thoughts about the day are very positive (obviously). The deck was a great choice for the metagame that decided to show up, with very few hard combo decks at the top tables and a large percentage of Grixis Delver, which I believe is Nic Fit's best matchup. Not only that, but the Delver lists have been cutting Pyromancer for TNN and Snapcaster Mage, making them slower and easier to blow out with Pernicious Deed. Here are my thoughts on some specific cards from my list:

Nissa, Vital Force - this card is my MVP for the weekend. When one card can take down an Ugin, rebuy a Pernicious Deed, or straight up kill your opponent, that is the mark of a good card. I would look to include this card in any Nic Fit list, regardless of your third color.

Kaya, Ghost Assassin - while not as inspiringly good at Nissa, Kaya did her job and she did it well. She lets us win through things that prevent attacking (screw you, Glacial Chasm) and puts serious pressure on Miracles and combo decks. I like her more than Garruk and would play her again in a heartbeat.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth - I was flip-flopping back and forth on this card the entire tournament. In some matchups, it's the stone nuts, while it's basically a glorified 3/4 in others. If I were to make any changes to my 75 for the next tournament, I would probably swap Meren and Kaya between the main and board.

Glissa, the Traitor - this card feels so filthy against Eldrazi, it's not even funny. It makes me want to try a BUG version with Baleful Strixes to actually get value off her trigger.

The rest of the cards are pretty self-explanatory. I apologize if it sounds like I had a string of dumb luck and easy matchups and that's the only reason I cashed (it kind of feels that way, to be honest!) but I am in love with this list and I hope someone is able to get something out of my sloppy excuse for a tournament report. :)

[jbone2016]

Grats on the finish!
I tried a food for fit list (food chain)at the 4pm legacy challenge. Beating burn, sneak and show, lands and then losing to miracles.

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[Echelon]

@sdematt: I tend to skip on the podcasts, they're not my thing. I'll still have to redo the math on my manabase, see how that works out. Probably still not much of an impact, but I want to go through the numbers nonetheless. Still trying to stick to 60, but I wouldn't have such a problem going to 61 anymore (especially if it's a land).

@LTJZamboni: Congrats on the result!

[Hodgkins]

Congrats @LTJZamboni, list looks pretty clean.
Just wondering if you ever missed having Dragonlord Dromoka because Grave Titan can't be tutored with GSZ.
Also I'm curious if Glissa was specifically just for Eldrazi what other matchup would you possibly side it in, it doesn't have any other utility besides recurring Top and Needle right?
On painful truths, would you ever consider running 2?

[Neo900]

Glissa is great with engineered explosives.
I also think about Painful Truth. I play it as a 1-off maybe 2 are worth it. The problem is if you just have 3 colors, you have to get all of them very quick at the beginning.
I also playing scapeshift in jund colors. So many times I just want to dig with the top for it and win the game. Since the sacrificing of the lands isn't part of the costs I can run into a counter with no drawback.
Also saw in jund sideboards from the ashes. I can imagine how it destroys whole decks.

[Echelon]

Glissa is great with engineered explosives.
I also think about Painful Truth. I play it as a 1-off maybe 2 are worth it. The problem is if you just have 3 colors, you have to get all of them very quick at the beginning.

Glissa + Engineered Explosives is wishful thinking, unless you specifically build for it (which is probably a bad plan in its own rights).

Painful Truths isn't a card you try to play early, colour requirements aren't an issue (I've played them for about a year or so). If it is, well, fetchlands & DRS are your friends.

[Navsi]

So I have managed to actually find a tournament on the 20th, so I'm messing with Sneak-Fit again.

Currently I'm looking at this:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Fierce Empath
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Thragtusk
1 Dragonlord Atarka
2 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
----
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Sneak Attack
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Punishing Fire
3 Flex Slots
----
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
----
Sideboard:
2 Thoughtseize
1 Slaughter Games
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Golgari Charm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Gaze of Granite
1 Distended Mindbender
3 Flex Slots

I have 3 unassigned slots main and 3 in the side, and I'm happy with everything else. Atarka could become Inferno Titan if the CMC is more important than being green.
The standard for the maindeck would be Sidisi, Sakura-Tribe Elder and either Deed, Primeval Titan or Abrupt Decay.
Sideboard would default to 1 To The Slaughter, +1 Carpet of Flowers, +1 Slaughter Games.

Is there anything you people think is worth testing / giving a run out in one of these slots? I have a Nissa, Vital Force I'm thinking about trying out again.

[LTJZamboni]

Congrats @LTJZamboni, list looks pretty clean.
Just wondering if you ever missed having Dragonlord Dromoka because Grave Titan can't be tutored with GSZ.
Also I'm curious if Glissa was specifically just for Eldrazi what other matchup would you possibly side it in, it doesn't have any other utility besides recurring Top and Needle right?
On painful truths, would you ever consider running 2?

Correct about Glissa - she's only there for Eldrazi. With Painful Truths, I could see shaving something from the sideboard for a second copy as it was great in the matchups that went long.

Is there anything you people think is worth testing / giving a run out in one of these slots? I have a Nissa, Vital Force I'm thinking about trying out again.

Nissa is great if you're having trouble pressuring planeswalkers and want quick inevitability in the form of her ultimate.

[square_two]

I have 3 unassigned slots main and 3 in the side, and I'm happy with everything else. Atarka could become Inferno Titan if the CMC is more important than being green.

My hunch is that the lower cmc of Inferno Titan is more important. I've seen several occasions where I can barely cast the Titan and it seems to do enough work in those cases to kill Delver/Mentor/DRS/etc that is needing to die. I can't recall any games in my own testing where I had both the extra mana for Atarka + the need for extra damage. Would be interested to see how it could pan out though.

Edit: Also - last night was the first time I've really been impressed with PFire and seen it over-perform. Came across Grixis Delver online and a single PFire took out a Delver, 2 Pyromancers, and a DRS in a single game. I had plenty of time to land Sneak Attack as well as hardcast 6-drops.

[Brael]

@Echelon, did you see this recent article (Nov 4th) about 60 versus 61 cards?

http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=593

I responded to that article on Reddit. He's right about the 61, the real question is how far above 61 can we go? A few months or maybe a year ago, this was a question I tried answering based purely on theory and the result I came up with was that your manabase (in particular fetches) determines how high you can go before you start downgrading too much.

Something else worth keeping in mind is how you build your sideboard. If you have a land in your sideboard, and too many cards for a specific match, you can add a land and go up to 63 MB and sideboard in more cards than you have to take out. Assuming you have other things like mana dorks (such as DRS) coming in, this works without slowing your mana too much. The main issue I ran into though was that 61 is fine, 63 can be ok post board, but then it jumps to needing 70ish in order to get the room for that next card (all the cards between those two points are just maintaining consistency)

[Ganfar]

My hunch is that the lower cmc of Inferno Titan is more important. I've seen several occasions where I can barely cast the Titan and it seems to do enough work in those cases to kill Delver/Mentor/DRS/etc that is needing to die. I can't recall any games in my own testing where I had both the extra mana for Atarka + the need for extra damage. Would be interested to see how it could pan out though.

Titan can also do atleast 12 to a player(With two triggers and firebearth). Can also deal 6 dmg on cretures.


Atarka does 8 to a player. Can deal 5 dmg to creture or planewalkers.

[truthfulcake]

My overall thoughts about the day are very positive (obviously). The deck was a great choice for the metagame that decided to show up, with very few hard combo decks at the top tables and a large percentage of Grixis Delver, which I believe is Nic Fit's best matchup. Not only that, but the Delver lists have been cutting Pyromancer for TNN and Snapcaster Mage, making them slower and easier to blow out with Pernicious Deed. Here are my thoughts on some specific cards from my list:

Nissa, Vital Force - this card is my MVP for the weekend. When one card can take down an Ugin, rebuy a Pernicious Deed, or straight up kill your opponent, that is the mark of a good card. I would look to include this card in any Nic Fit list, regardless of your third color.

Kaya, Ghost Assassin - while not as inspiringly good at Nissa, Kaya did her job and she did it well. She lets us win through things that prevent attacking (screw you, Glacial Chasm) and puts serious pressure on Miracles and combo decks. I like her more than Garruk and would play her again in a heartbeat.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth - I was flip-flopping back and forth on this card the entire tournament. In some matchups, it's the stone nuts, while it's basically a glorified 3/4 in others. If I were to make any changes to my 75 for the next tournament, I would probably swap Meren and Kaya between the main and board.

Glissa, the Traitor - this card feels so filthy against Eldrazi, it's not even funny. It makes me want to try a BUG version with Baleful Strixes to actually get value off her trigger.

The rest of the cards are pretty self-explanatory. I apologize if it sounds like I had a string of dumb luck and easy matchups and that's the only reason I cashed (it kind of feels that way, to be honest!) but I am in love with this list and I hope someone is able to get something out of my sloppy excuse for a tournament report. :)

Congrats on the tournament placing man, easy matchups or not, Nic Fit isn't an easy to deck to pilot. I'm on a similar Junk build, I'll adjust mine closer to yours and see how it holds up (Lot of delver decks at the weekly legacy tournament I go to...). Main difference being putting in a Painful Truths.

New Nissa seems really good in this list, but Kaya? I'm not sold on her yet, but I'll give her a shot. How does she help against combo though? There's a Show and Tell player and a Reanimator player in my testing group. I can see Kaya being sweet against Show and Tell if you can land her Turn 2-3, not so sure about Reanimator. Better than Meren at least in those matchups.

On Grave Titan though- did you consider Sun Titan in its place? I've currently got Sun Titan in, and he's so very good with most of this deck. Doesn't beat 2 2/2 zombies for value on its own, but getting back a Deed or an Eternal Witness is also very good.

[Kobra_D]

Is Glissa good in the eldrazi match up just because of first strike death touch?

[Brael]

Is Glissa good in the eldrazi match up just because of first strike death touch?

Yes. If you're using Glissa you're just interested in the first strike/death touch combo. Pretend the artifact text doesn't exist.