[Primer/Deck] Nic Fit

[Navsi]

I played that one online for a few leagues earlier this year. Keep in mind if you are running Curse of Death's Hold, that last time I checked, modo was bugged and would not allow you to put it into play from Rector. Talked with judges and they saw no reason that you couldn't in paper though.

Going to run Living Plane??

I'm playing in paper - I don't even have a modo account. Living Plane is in, yes. It's my backup plan for if I can't borrow any Blood Moons for my Sneak Fit sideboard.

[Brael]

Played a 4 round Legacy last night. Fell victim to a massive meta shift. My 4 rounds were against Show and Tell x2, Dredge, and Storm. Show and Tell managed to get Omniscience in on T2 three times (out of 4 games) followed by casting Emrakul, Storm T1'ed me twice, and Dredge got me on turns 2 and 3. So all in all, a pretty bad night. In 4 rounds I played a total of 10 turns.

I realize this deck signs up for streaks like that, but it's still frustrating. To cap the night I went 0-2 against Shardless. G1 involved a mulligan to 4 and G2 a mulligan to 6, though I still think Shardless is a pretty good matchup. In both cases it took 3+ Ancestral Visions to even get close to pulling ahead of me.

It wasn't all bad though, I managed to find a Nissa, Vital Force for trade so I was able to put that in Nic Fit and play it a bit today in place of Sigarda. Got in a few games against Delver and it's pretty solid. It wasn't as good against them as Sigarda but Delver is a match where we can afford to give up a couple percentage points. I don't know how I feel yet about a no Sigarda version but it wasn't unplayable. What I did notice with Nissa is that she makes Phyrexian Tower/Deed a little better and Cavern/DRS a little worse. I wasn't running a STE but I could see a world where Nissa makes it a bit stronger.

[Ricardio]

bad beats are inevitable. Just gotta ask for lube next time and hope they oblige.

[Brael]

I know the SFM builds are popular, but I've never really bought into the hype. A new card is coming out in Aether Revolt though: Trophy Mage.

Has anyone thought about this for a possible BUG build that still uses artifacts? The plus side is that blue is a more versatile color than white, and the tutor is a bit different, getting 3 CMC rather than equipment, you can still get Swords, it's a stronger body, and the tribe is more relevant. Cards I've identified that are interesting tutor targets are:
Blasting Station
Bow of Nylea
Crucible of Worlds
Oblivion Stone
Proteus Staff
Shardless Agent
Trinisphere
Vedalken Shackles
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of War and Peace
Sword of Body and Mind

The negatives are that you're not getting the mana discount SFM offers, and you actually have to cast it.

Does any of this jump out to someone as a BUG enabler?

I kind of like the idea of using either Bow of Nylea or a Sword of X and Y combined with Vedalken Shackles to pivot between aggro and control depending on the matchup and stage of the game.

[MDHackbert]

I doubt we run enough islands for Shackles. But my Shackles XP comes from Modern.

[Echelon]

Guess who's finally going to pilot Nic Fit again on a monthly today?

I'll let you guys know how it went. Will post my list then.

[Ralf]

Hello,

With the actual meta (huge demons flying everywhere), I don't see any reason to not include Lotv.

Here is my list (also available in my signature):

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Swords To Plowshares

3 Lingering Souls
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

2 Sylvan Library

1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard

2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Choke


For those who really want to tinker with a small blue splash for Atraxa and Leovold, I would suggest:
- Cut a SFM & SOFI
- Add Atraxa and Leovold + 1 tropical island.

If you feel afterwards that 21 lands + Arbor is too much, you can cut a fetch and play 60 cards.

Anyway, the grind with this abzan list is very real:
- Lotv + lingering is not as busted as PF + lotv but still very powerful.
- Our Miracle MU is much better than usual Abzan list I've seen here. Lingering + arbor + equipment are haymakers...
- Eldrazi is very manageable.
- Combo is combo. Either you have it or you die but here again Lotv is very very handy.

Happy testing !

Ralf

[Brael]

I doubt we run enough islands for Shackles. But my Shackles XP comes from Modern.

We don't run all that many, but we do also run Sakura Tribe Elder and Veteran Explorer to get them. It's not that hard to get every Island in your deck onto the battlefield. The only question becomes one of how many we actually need n the deck. 5 gets Angler, 4 usually gets Goyf, 3 gets Delver, 2 gets the rest.

[Navsi]

Just finished the tournament today. I took Starfield since I wasn't able to get my Blood Moons in time.

This build deserves more attention. It's seriously powerful and does very strong things. The array of Rector targets seriously demolish a lot of decks, and Miracles has an absolutely horrible time.

It is, however, really difficult to play - you have a lot of options with Zenith and Rector, and there are a lot of triggered abilities to remember. I missed way too many over the day but the deck still performed very well. I ended up losing in the finals to Aluren, but would have won if I had side boarded correctly and made the right plays.

The list I ran:

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Academy Rector
1 Sakura Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Doomwake Giant

3 Sterling Grove
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Starfield of Nyx
1 Living Plane
1 Parallax Wave
1 Dead Weight
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Faith's Fetters

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Abzan Charm

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Humility
1 Seal of Primordium

[square_two]

Just finished the tournament today. I took Starfield since I wasn't able to get my Blood Moons in time.

This build deserves more attention. It's seriously powerful and does very strong things. The array of Rector targets seriously demolish a lot of decks, and Miracles has an absolutely horrible time.

It is, however, really difficult to play - you have a lot of options with Zenith and Rector, and there are a lot of triggered abilities to remember. I missed way too many over the day but the deck still performed very well. I ended up losing in the finals to Aluren, but would have won if I had side boarded correctly and made the right plays.

Did you get to Living Plane -> Doomwake Giant anyone??

Agreed that the idea needs some more evaluation and testing, also agreed that optimal lines are tough to pick out. Think my suggestions would be 1 Top -> Library, 1 Abzan Charm -> Dead Weight, but without hearing how they performed for you and without my own testing...it doesn't matter a whole lot

Starfield of Nyx is so powerful.

If I win some more leagues with Sneak then I'll try to regather some of the stuff I once had for Nyx Fit.

[Navsi]

Did you get to Living Plane -> Doomwake Giant anyone??

1 Top -> Library, 1 Abzan Charm -> Dead Weight

I got to Deed all of the lands (with Starfield in play) twice.

Abzan Charm is there to translate infinite flicker from Parallax Wave into infinite damage. Might not be worth it though.

[Sohmxat]

@Navsi what were your lands looking like? If I can get look at that from you I'll probably be able to pilot something close to your list next wednesday at my local. Unless you're playing something like 4 Phyrexian Towers in it.

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

[square_two]

4-1 league with Sneak Fit, with wins against Miracles x2, D&T, and BUG Delver. Loss against ANT (bad keeps on my part for sure). Might not mean much but with practice I feel I'm playing tighter.

Tracker was an experiment, but might end up cutting him...haven't seen him perform in a while, and might be best as just Deathrite #2 or just removed outright to bring total to 60. Most of the time you are more concerned about either getting mana into play early on, or finding pieces for the combo or tutoring up a Titan to cast. I did like that Bellower can get him into play, but so far 95% of the time you want E Wit, Empath, or Rec Sage instead. Nissa is kind of a bigger version of land-based CA, definitely could try a second sometime. Perhaps in place of Sidisi since then we aren't losing a GSZ or 6-drop target.

Those are only changes I might make to mainboard, the rest feels very good.

Painful Truths was great against Miracles - in these last two successful matches, I tried to include less Surgical/Thoughtseize/Slaughter Games than I normally throw in, instead focusing on more raw power and Truths was great for that. I'm also definitely sticking with 3 Carpets, they are so far quite amazing. Pyroclasm isn't pulling much weight, at least #2, so that might become a Deluge. Blood Moon still in consideration instead of Meren, I just haven't wanted to pay for the tix for it. Would love to hear anyone's experience with running it in the side.

[Echelon]

So... My outing was horrendous. Went 0-3, drop to get in some Witcher time.

Round 1 vs. Burning Reanimator (1-2)
G1, he goes for a T2 Sire of Insanity while I whiff on PtE.
G2 I go T1 CT on Entomb, hit 2, Surgical those, T2 DRS + another discard, taking Animate Dead, T3 Lost Legacy his Griselbrand into more discard, Eternal Witness to retrieve Lost Legacy, proceed to kick ass w/ PtE backup in case he does manage to get a creature until I took the game
G3, believe it or not, he manages to Reanimate/Exhume Griselbrand, Elesh Norn AND Chancellor of the Annex ON T1. Well, GG.

Round 2 vs. Miracles (0-2)
G1 I get greedy and go for Atraxa over Rhino. He drops Jace the following turn.
G2 I do quite well actually, Lost Legacy'ing Jace and (I believe) Terminus. At some point I pop a Deed to kill Clique + Counterbalance, after which he Entreats his 1-off Angels for X = 5. Well, shit.

Round 3 vs. Reanimator (1-2)
G1, he goes T1 Griselbrand and I whiff on PtE
G2, I have all the hate. Kinda like G2 vs. Burning Reanimator. I begin stuck on land but cast like 5 discard spells the first few turns, drop a DRS and manage to PtE an Elesh Norn until I stabilize on mana and Lost Legacy him out of the game w/ an active DRS and a Scavenging Ooze.
G3, repeat of G1 except I do have PtE but he also has FoW. He also Reanimated my dead DRS and Exhumed his can't-remember before he kills me.

Next round I was likely to face Miracles again, or some other horrible MU, so I called it a day.

I'm very impressed by Lost Legacy, it did a LOT of work yesterday.

[Navsi]

@Navsi what were your lands looking like? If I can get look at that from you I'll probably be able to pilot something close to your list next wednesday at my local. Unless you're playing something like 4 Phyrexian Towers in it.

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

If you don't have enough Towers the deck does suffer, I'd say you probably want to maintain your sacrifice outlets by putting a Diabolic Intent in for Abzan Charm in the maindeck.

[Brael]

Still playing with the Trophy Mage concept, but I'm not overly familiar with SFM lists. So a question for the SFM players. Besides SFM, what would you say the best support cards for the archetype were aside from the equipment? I know combat walkers were always powerful.

[Navsi]

Still playing with the Trophy Mage concept, but I'm not overly familiar with SFM lists. So a question for the SFM players. Besides SFM, what would you say the best support cards for the archetype were aside from the equipment? I know combat walkers were always powerful.

If you're running equipment and in blue, you should run Baleful Strix.

[Echelon]

Glissa also seems like some cool tech. Doesn't die in combat, which is nice when wielding equipment, and can possibly recur Strixes/Equipment.

[Jain_Mor]

Still playing with the Trophy Mage concept, but I'm not overly familiar with SFM lists. So a question for the SFM players. Besides SFM, what would you say the best support cards for the archetype were aside from the equipment? I know combat walkers were always powerful.

Dryad Abor so you can attack immediately after a terminus, and keep doing so as long as you have a green fetch land.

Thrun / Sigarda so you have a hexproof zenith target (I guess you could ignore this if you are spamming strixes and souls tokens)

That's it really, those are what I always make sure to have in my SFM lists.

I never run glissa, and if you are running strixes you definitely don't need her (especially as your 3-drop slot will be packed because of trophy mage and their trophies)

Finally in your list of 3 cmc artifacts, you didn't mention Ensnaring Bridge. Probably not maindeck, but could be a solid sideboard card when you can tutor it

[Echelon]

Finally in your list of 3 cmc artifacts, you didn't mention Ensarong Bridge. Probably not maindeck, but could be a solid sideboard card when you can tutor it

Same might go for Trinisphere? If you manage to live long enough it might be a nice nail in the coffin vs. Storm.