Nic Fit

Today I’m going to talk about a deck whose name I can’t explain. There seem to be several different stories behind it, that don’t really seem to match. Where one person claims it’s the result of a misspelled word, another says it stems from a portion of a key card. Heck, I even read somewhere that it’s just a joke about game lengths and cigarette addiction. Figure it out yet? If you somehow missed the deck title above this paragraph, then you’re not very observant. Anyway, today I’m going to be talking about Nic Fit.

Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy. This interaction is probably the defining factor of the deck. Your ideal Turn 1 is to play a Veteran Explorer, followed by a Cabal Therapy on T2. A lot of decks do not play the number of basic lands that Nic Fit does, and thus it will almost always give you an edge in both tempo and card advantage. This is especially true when one considers the effect of land drops, as well as the use of Cabal Therapy x 2.

Sacrifice outlets and your creatures. The deck has several different ways of sacrificing your Explorers and getting out threats. Recurring Nightmare and Phyrexian Tower are both good secondary options if you do not have a Therapy in your hand. Nightmare costs more to cast, but can be re-used not only to sacrifice creatures but also to recur them. For example, sacrificing an Explorer with Nightmare to bring back a Wall of Blossoms can be very frustrating for your opponent.

Finding your cards. Nic Fit has a few options of looking through your library for the cards that you want.  I added a singleton Mirri’s Guile as a pseudo Explorer because it can be cast on T1 and help find them if they are not in your hand. There are 2 Sylvan Library however because once you get a Explorer, you want Library over Guile. This is because it can survive the 1 mana Pernicious Deeds you use on your Explorer/their creatures. Another option the deck has is Survival of the Fittest, which works quite nicely with Basking Rootwalla and Squee, Goblin Nabob.

Threats. You know how I’m always talking about the days before creature power creep? I would ALMOST consider Spiritmonger to be an exception. He’s just that good. The main thing that keeps him fair-ish is that he can be chump blocked. The addition of Rancor in the deck helps mitigate the drawback however, as it allows him to trample over blockers and deal damage. Because of this, I had considered adding in more Rancors, but since the deck has good card drawing and deck filtration engines I decided against it.

Other cards I had considered for the deck were Unearth, Disturbed Burial and Innocent Blood. You might also want to add more variety in your win conditions (including more Rancors). There are tons of options available in Ancient and how you want to win is up to you. Happy Brewing!

Nic Fit

Land

3 Bayou

2 Savannah

4 Forest

2 Swamp

2 Plains

7 Fetchlands

1 Phyrexian Tower

Total: 21

Creatures

4 Veteran Explorer

4 Basking Rootwalla

2 Deranged Hermit

3 Spiritmonger

2 Wall of Blossoms

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

1 Monk Idealist

Total: 17

4 Cabal Therapy

4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Pernicious Deed

1 Mirri’s Guile

2 Sylvan Library

2 Recurring Nightmare

4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Vindicate

1 Rancor

Total: 23

Sideboard

4 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Withered Wretch

4 Duress

1 Engineered Plague

3 Vindicate

2 Defense Grid