I've used Strangleroot a bit. It's not bad, but it's not really great either.Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
And you don't think Croc makes it better? I never said great, I said synergistic.
Strangleroot is a great Diabolical Intent target. If you're not running Intent then root might not be the best card slot.
Yup, the kind of build with multiple Strangleroot Geists, and some assortment of Phyrexian Tower, Diabolic Intent, Bone Splinters, Innocent Blood & Garruk Relentless, plus the usual suspects.
Knocked out 3 rounds of my Legacy League tonight (after going 4-0 in Modern with my new brew). Beat Miracles, ANT, and Goblins.
Goblins is pretty standard, not much to say about that.
ANT was my highlight of the night. I got a T2 win against them. I'm on the draw, my T1 was Veteran Explorer, they go off on their T2 and Ad Naseam from 20 life all the way down to 5 where they stop because of Dark Petition. They don't hit what they need, and Gitaxian Probe me for 2 life (bringing them to 3) trying to dig further. They fail, and also didn't look at my hand too closely. I untap, play a land, Strangleroot Geist, and hit for 3.
T2 win.
Miracles was a grind but I pulled it out. Apparently the rules of this league are that we don't have a match timer. So my usual go to of winning game 1 against Miracles and then timing out won't work. I take G1 in a 1 hour 15 minute game. Then I take G2 in a 90 minute game. My deck grinds like no other.
This is using my most recent GB build.
Sorry but this will be a long post. I've been building this up for a while. I will make some observations that are "obvious" but I guess I'm hoping for some feedback on everything, even the obvious stuff.
Hello all. I've been lurking the NicFit thread(s) for a couple years. This is my first post on The Source. Special thanks to Arianrhod, Echelon, and sdematt as your respective insights have really resonated with me. I have played casual magic since the mid nineties but never competitive legacy. My playgroup plays very little blue or combo, but I "hate" blue so I have playtested extensively against delver and miracles. I had been brewing with Green Sun's Zenith and Veteran Explorer when I found out about NicFit. Green is my favorite (Magic) color and I usually play (Weird Harvest) Elves. So where Elves is an aggro/combo deck I view NicFit as more of a control deck.
I played junk NicFit for a while, it was ok but kinda- boring? SneakFit looks cool. NicFit storm looks fun but I think I'd rather just play TinFins. Leovold Fit with baleful strix and brainstorm looks good and fun but I'm trying to really hate blue.
So here is a decklist I played for a while. It was fun, unique, and personal. But I wanted to get to straight GB. Sideboard to taste:
Mana
4 Forest
3 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
3Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Wasteland
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Carpet of Flowers
Creatures
1 Sylvan Primordial
1 Primeval Titan
1 Dungrove Elder
1 Gamekeeper
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Eternal Witness
the rest
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Summoner's Pact
1 Culling the Weak
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Living Wish
3 Innocent Blood
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Life from the Loam
2 Past in Flames
1 Vraska the Unseen
SB: 2 Shriekmaw
SB: 1 Vampire Hexmage
SB: 1 Phyrexian Tower
SB: 1 Gaea's Revenge
SB: 1 Wasteland
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
I guess I'll make a new post for my notes on card choices.
Here are notes on my decklist and also on cards of interest.
Past in Flames is the "payoff" card. Again I wanted to get to straight GB.
Living wish has been great. It takes up space in the SB but this can be mitigated a bit by running wish targets that you might want to board in. like grave hate and even just lands.
With just a small(ish) wishboard (shriekmaw, wasteland, vampire hexmage, and maybe reclamation sage, and a fatty) it plays like a GBB1 vindicate that can win the game. BTW Gaea's Revenge has been so good here. Stoneforge mystic may be one of the best cards to wish for if you're in white.
Summoner's Pact might be very good. I hope more people will try it and give some feedback. It works well with Past in Flames here.
The mana package here is quite unique and works in part because of Past in flames.
Gamekeeper into Past in Flames dumping living wish and a ritual in the graveyard = awesome.
I really want a two mana value creature (like Stoneforge Mystic or Baleful Strix) in G or GB. I'm leaning toward Strangleroot Geist but I think the deck has to accommodate it.
Miracles was hard with this build as I could ignore Rest in Peace for a while but not completely. Then I finally kill it and get some value with Pernicious Deed only to die to Entreat the Angels; even with four deeds.
Pernicious deed has really been great for me and I can see why it should be considered "core" for this deck.
Crop rotation has been decent.
Entomb- I haven't been able to make it work.
Dungrove elder is so close to what I want in that slot but not quite there. It has been inconsistent.
Sensei's divining top is really great in this deck. It is probably a "core" card. Even without Counterbalance I think our Top's are better than Miracles' (at least vs them) because we have so many shuffle effects. Sometimes vs quick decks though it is quite durdly and even bad. It's so good but I'm on the lookout for something that can replace it. Maybe something with a completely different effect like just "is a fatty," I dunno. Haven't solved this one yet but I'm working on it.
Dark Depth's combo hasn't worked out for me. In general it wasn't "Oops, I win!" But instead "Ooops! Did I win?"
-"No. You lose."
Lately I started thinking more about the control aspect of this deck and wondering if maybe we don't need a "payoff" card at all but maybe just to play it straight control. After lurking some smallpox forums I came up with this (I don't really know what the sideboard looks like):
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Innocent Blood
1 Vraska the Unseen
3 Living Wish
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Fatal Push
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
5 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Cabal Pit
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Bloodghast
1 Crop Rotation
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Wasteland
1 Entomb
1 Life from the Loam
1 Tranquil Thicket
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Bloodghast
SB: 1 Bane of the Living
SB: 1 Mishra's Factory
SB: 1 Wasteland
It's not really tuned but it seems pretty good. And I think this is the direction I'd like to go, although it would be nice to squeeze at least -one- Green Sun fetchable fatty in there- I'm not sure it's necessary.
I'd be curious to see how it goes trying to go a more control route in a G/B shell.
I believe you mentioned how JUNK colors might have felt a little boring?
I started my Nic Fit build with JUNK colors and coming from mainly playing Maverick I didn't have quite as much fun. I have recently built Sneak Fit and I have to say if you're trying out different Nic Fit variants and don't want to play blue then you should totally check it out. Has a lot of very controlling elements but can pop off out of no where.
Winning with JUNk Nic Fit usually was always a long grind. Grindy games are fun but sometimes the deck just felt not quite fast enough at closing games. Sneak Fit can still grind just as well and if not better(hello punishing fire) but is able to use Sneak Attack + Emrakul to seal the deal. Lots of very fun interactions.
If you can sneak Emrakul out, yes that is very good. But even hardcasting an Imferno Titan against some decks just does it and you win in a more traditional way.
Can you post your list? I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that GB is my favourite version of the deck, and it is very strong and probably the most balanced.
I've messed around with different variants and numbers of cards but since I'm still learning where I want to be at with Sneak Fit I ultimately landed on using Arianhood's list he posted a few pages ago. Very solid.
This is what I'm using for the league, due to the nature of it I can only iterate the list every couple months. This league technically started before Fatal Push was a thing (I've just been slow at playing my matches), so it never made my list for consideration. But in practice I'm still not sure if I want it.
Land 23
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Swamp
5 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Cavern of Souls
Creatures 17
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Strangleroot Geist
4 Dark Confidant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Others 21
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Crop Rotation
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nissa, Vital Force
Sideboard 15
3 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
1 Karakas
1 Crop Rotation
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Lost Legacy
1 Treetop Village
1 Sensei's Divining Top
The biggest question I have right now is with the Cavern of Souls. I've found that the match I most want it is against Miracles, but that's also the match where I least want Crop Rotation to get it.
Sell me on the Maze of Ith.
Also, discuss Diabolic Edict vs To the Slaughter.
No Fatal Pushes, even in the board, is interesting. Meta call because less Delver around you?
Courser better than Tracker #3?
Geist seems like it could be a higher impact card, but I've always been biased against that guy. Maybe a Thragtusk. I get not wanting too many high drops because of Bob, but Tusk seems like a good way to generate overwhelming advantage with Two Towers / Meren in a grindy game, plus he gives you a lot of life for Bob.
I love cavern of souls in elves because it is just back breaking. I have had less success with cavern of souls in this deck. As with many green decks I have learned to play through counterspells rather than around them. Threat after Deed after Deed after Threat- BAM! Note it is more difficult to play through counterspells against tempo decks.
As far as Crop Rotation is concerned of course having it countered is a blowout. It can be used effectively vs counters but you need to craft your scenarios. I like using Crop Rotation in the same deck as Living Wish as the targets can have synergy (Two Towers and DarkDepths combo for example) and you can move things between the main andsideboard and still have access to them. Also I see your keyd into Treetop Village and that's a great Jace Killer, though it does nothing vs Entreat the Angels. Just Get a Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and your set! Easy! I actually like Crop Rotation vs Miracles but I typically can only find space for one in my lists.
Yeah this is just how I felt about JunkFit. It seemed like it had big power with Swords and equipment and Sun Titan and Rhino but most of these cards never felt that high impact in practice. Like I always had to work up to that Bombshell moment, and when it came, they had an answer, and we just grind some more.
SneakFit looks good, but why not just play SneakShow? Maybe SneakFit can grind out games better? Play a better fair game?
That is exactly why! You don't need to use Emrakul to win. It's just very easy to include with fierce empath and have a quick win. I have won many games without emrakul and games without sneak attack. Since you don't go all in on the combo we don't have to have it to win. But it's potent enough that other decks have to fear/respect it.
To explain every one of my choices, one core point has to be made first: Dark Confidant warps the deck. Every decision is made with that in mind.
Maze of Ith has a few roles, most notably it's a spell slot not a land slot, despite being a land. But, what this means is that I can Crop Rotation for it. I use Maze of Ith as a removal spell, something it's good at doing is making the opponent extend into a Deed. It's also a great way to deal with problem cards out of a lot of decks, for example it can buy you a couple turns against D&T until they find a Wasteland when their equipment is locking out your removal. It's also a good way to deal with creatures out of Reanimator, S&T, etc... it's a little weak vs Emrakul but it's better than nothing as a G1 plan. My primary larger meta reason is to deal with Marit Lage. But, Maze of Ith does some other stuff too, it's actually a very good card to improve combat on your side of the board. When you don't need removal you can use it to influence blocks by using Maze on your own guys to save them, and it can function as a pseudo vigilance if used at the end of combat step. Last, Crop Rotation turns it into a pretty good combat trick. I really like using it to blank Baleful Strix when attacking into a board or to stop Tarmogoyf on the back swing.
Diabolic Edict vs To The Slaughter is mainly because I haven't tried Slaughter yet. But, another reason is Bob. I've found that the limit of what you want in the deck is 75 mana pips and I'm currently at 74 with my build. I could afford one Slaughter but I'm not sure what Planeswalkers I really want to kill. Jace actually doesn't provide me many problems and neither does Liliana. Outside of those two, not many PW's see MB play. On the other hand, being able to kill an Emrakul, Marit Lage, etc... a turn earlier is very relevant.
The lack of Fatal Push is because I'm not sure where I need it. I would rather have Decay as a removal spell because it can hit non creatures and it's uncounterable. If I brought Push in, it would be to lower my curve in order raise it somewhere else. But I like my current count of 2 drops, I'm not sure going higher on both 1's and 3's would be better. I could see more Push over Edict, but I'm a big fan of the Edicts, they've helped me out many times since I don't have white to Path/StP bigger creatures. This is all theory though, the actual answer is that Aether Revolt became legal about a week after our League started, I've just been really bad about doing my matches (busy semester) so it wasn't actually in the format at the time. The rest of my answer holds though, the theory says I'm not interested in Push unless Miracles suffers a decline.
On the Courser vs Tracker debate, I actually agree with you that Tracker is a better card than Courser. The thing about my CA setup though, is that every card provides a 2 for 1 and they can all combine together for even greater effects. There's synergies between all of the various CA I have, and because they can work together for effects that are greater than the sum of their parts, a split proves to be more powerful than just the stronger card. It's a rare case of where I prefer synergy to raw power. I'm actually very interested in a 3 or even 4 Tracker build, but Courser does enough here that I'm willing to just run 2.
I agree on Geist, but the question is... what should that high impact card be? I know I want a 2 drop, and I'm about 75% certain I want something with haste that I can GSZ (this doesn't necessarily have to be a 2). I also like having the 5th enabler for Cabal Therapy in the deck, and I want a 2 for 1 or atleast a conditional 2 for 1. Geist looks really unimpressive but he's checking all my boxes.
I would consider a Thragtusk, but only in place of a current 4 or 5. The only option is Tusk over Meren, because Nissa is amazing and Master is required for removal. I'm not sure if I actually like Tusk over Meren. I'll think about it a bit, but my list is still locked in for another couple weeks before I can make between league changes.
If you look through my lists, you'll notice I play a lot of humans. It's not intentional, they just do what I'm looking for because the builds I focus on are lower curve and higher velocity. Between a core of Vet, Bob, Tracker, Eternal Witness, and Meren I'm playing around 13 humans. Cavern is great against Miracles but the real reason it's there is to deal with Chalice of the Void. Chalice lockouts absolutely fall apart to Cavern, and Crop Rotation is usually good enough to get in before Chalice happens (at least if you're going first). This is part of how I deal with decks like Eldrazi.
4 Veteran Explorers
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Fierce Empath
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Inferno Titan
1 Primeval Titan
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Sneak Attack
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
1 Badlands
2 Taiga
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
SB
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Slaughter Games
1 Scavenging Ooze
Played this 75 at SCG Worcester yesterday, finishing 6-3 just below the cut after losing my elimination round for day 2.
Round 1: 4-color control, stuck an early Sneak Attack in both games, not much to say here. Opponent didn't put up much resistance. 2-0 win, 1-0 record
Round 2: Miracles, I won game 1 in about 8 minutes after sticking a quick Sneak Attack and then Zenithing up Empath for Emrakul. Game 2 took about half an hour, Primeval Titan finding Tower/Stronghold absolutely won this game, and Tireless Tracker was also thoroughly impressive. Grinding out an opponent who has had Jace in play for several turns by casting the same Eternal Witness 5 times felt awesome. He conceded when I played 2 Deeds as insurance against Entreat/Mentor. 2-0, 2-0 record
Round 3: BUG Delver, game 1 I didn't really assemble much of anything and die to a Delver, game 2 he has 2 Deathrites and 2 Delvers backed up by Wasteland on my only black land, along with Daze and 3 Spell Pierces. Died with Taiga, Forest in play and a hand of Deluge, Deed, 2x Decay. Feels bad man. 0-2, 2-1 record
Round 4: Lands, I quickly assemble a Sneak Attack kill in game 1, and lead game 2 with Deathrite into Ooze. He Gambles for Stage to try and get a quick kill but discards the Stage (it was one of two cards) and quickly dies. 2-0, 3-1
Round 5: UW Stoneblade with a lot of basics. Lose a pretty quick game 1 to key counterspells on a couple development pieces and a quick Batterskull+TNN. Game 2 I am able to grind out with a relatively quick Sneak Attack kill. Game 3 was an incredible grindy game, Tireless Tracker drew me about 7 extra cards, Tower/Stronghold let me cast Bellower more than once, I found the clutch Deluges and Deeds to beat up his TNNs, really insane game in which the plan of becoming really threat-dense and cutting discard and Explorers really showed its value. 2-1, 4-1
Round 6: 4-color Deathblade with Daze, Stifle, Leovold. Interesting build. Game 1 we trade resources a bit, I take a hit from TNN with a Jitte but am able to reduce him to very few permanents with an Emrakul hit, and have the follow up Zenith to do it again. Game 2 I run Deluge, Deluge, Deed into three consecutive counterspells and die to a TNN. Game 3 I have Deluge on t3 for his turn 1 Heirarch, turn 2 Geist of St Traft opening. He sticks a Jace that I'm not able to clear up for a while but eventually grind through it by sticking a Top and a Sneak Attack, find Emrakul to deal lethal damage. Another awesome grindy game. 2-1, 5-2
Round 7: Sneak/Show. Game 1 I hit a couple of strong Therapies but am not able to assemble enough pressure to kill him before he finds action. Game 2 I die very swiftly with not much to be done about turn 2 Griselbrand. 0-2, 5-2
Round 8: Miracles. Take game 1 quickly, die to a fast Mentor in game 2 after I waste my Abrupt Decay (oops), grind out Game 3 with 2 towers + multiple Bellower casts. Terminus is comically bad against that card if you have the Towers online- it got Empath for Titan the first time, traded off for an Entreat token, Titan got the lands, Terminus let me just Bellow for Empath for Titan again, he conceded. Crazy game carried by Carpet of Flowers. 2-1, 6-2
Round 9: UR prowess. I lose game 1 on the verge of stabilizing to a Bedlam Reveler, which it turns out is really really hard to kill with a Pernicious Deed. I die on turn 3 in the following game without enough time to really put up much resistance. 0-2, 6-3.
64th place is 6-2-1, so the x-3s miss the cut. End up 99th out of ~700 people at the start of the event.
Thoughts:
-Bolt in the maindeck was pretty good, definitely prefer it to Push in my experience, but not necessarily required
-Thragtusk felt really bad. I boarded it out against the TNN decks because it doesn't really do anything relevant there. Probably going to move it out of the maindeck.
-Nissa was amazing, not that that's news
-Tireless Tracker surpassed every single one of my expectations, that card is fantastic
-STE still great
-Carpet of Flowers was unbelievable.
-Toxic Deluge is 100% the right card for the metagame right now. I even brought in 1 against Mentor Miracles. It's hard not to get use out of this card, and killing TNN cheaply is just too important right now.
-Primeval Titan as a single card engine is a really, really big deal against grindy decks
-Overall the strategy still feels good, I enjoyed being able to have an unfair plan that people had to use a lot of resources to fight, allowing for an advantage in a longer game
-Still struggles against unfair strategies.
Going forward, I'm looking to move Thragtusk out of the 75 for a maindeck Nissa, remove Ooze from the board and use the free spot from Nissa to go up to four Thoughtseize, or possibly try out 2x Blood Moon. Bolt in the maindeck is still in flux. I felt happy with the other slots.
The loss in round 9 stung but really, not much to be done there. Very happy with my finish and I think the deck, while still a little rough around the edges, has a lot of raw power in both its unfair and fair plans, which support each other very nicely. Still lots of tweaking to do, of course.
Happy to talk about sideboarding and individual card choices as people want.
Enjoy!
Ever tried keeping Explorer home as a blocker? Works quite well if you want it dead or you just want to buy time. Trust me, a 2 CMC Zenith target that can kill Explorer is not worth the space.
Thank you. Reading that just made my day! I'll read into the rest (and try to come up with something useful to say) tomorrow, I've got some catching up to do.
Awesome. Wow I'm really glad I got IN on the conversation because I am picking up more personalized insight. I'm actually a fan of Crop Rotation in general. That sounds like a good way through Chalice. I have been wanting to try Bob in NicFit. Have you considered Life from the Loam? It's good vs miracles, and can pick up some slack for crop rotation.
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