Sweet deck man! I love this approach to traditional midrange. I'm not crazy about Nissa, I experimented with that card for a bit but I think it's a bit underwhelming. I'm excited to see what new things Simic gets in the new Ravnica. Did you find the lack of cantrips to be a problem? I find that gives us a real edge in the late game.
To be honest I drew Nissa only once so far, played it for bunch of mana and immediately -6ed Needless to say I won that game, but I'm still not sure if she has spot in the deck. If I were to replace her right now it would be either 4th Tracker or 2nd Traverse or another land.
Right now I don't find lack of cantrips a problem. Grim flayer (when connects) and traverse are ok replacements for cantrips I think. There's also tracker and tasigur. I don't think cantrips are necessary and this also lets me focus on BG side of the deck.
I've omitted JTMS for now so I don't put too much strain on mana, but I might try it one day instead of Nissa maybe. I had been worried about UU cost, but then I realized that I need two blue sources to attack with tar pit anyway, so that might not be as big problem as I thought.
I played another mini tournament last Tuesday and went 3-1. Lost to Gu Tron (won g1, g2 kept greedy onelander with Surgical, Trophy, Unmoored Ego, Goyf and some discard, drew 2nd land on t4, went for trophy + surgical on tron land, he cast Pulse of Murasa in response to surgical then he played 3 Karns one after the other, g3 7 and 6 were crappy one landers, kept 5 with 2 lands, tasigur, unmoored ego and Thoughtseize, went t3 unmoored on tron land, unfortunately tasigur wasn't enough of clock, never saw 4th land while he played land every turn and drew straight gas, in the end I got killed rather quickly by 2 Wurmcoil Engines). Then I got bye and after that played and won against UW control twice (2-1, 2-1). Traverse for Tracker when I had 2 uncracked fetches on the table and one in the hand felt great
Countermagic from side won me at least 3 of those games.
Results:
2-0 vs UB Fairies
1-0-1 vs Mono White Martyr (we went to time but I had game two locked with both lilis, nissa and tracker on table)
2-0 vs serum powder eldrazi
2-1 vs UR wizards
At first I planned to play 3-1 split of trophy/decay, but ended trying 4-0. I have one trophy foil so I paid attention to moments when I wished it was decay. Answer to that question is twice. First time because opp had chalice on two (and on one as well), second time because I didn't want to give opp a land and I had no other removal for his threat.
EE main was great, so was one copy of Maelstrom Pulse (killing 2 delvers, 2 chalices). Five basics shined vs mono white deck (every path/GQ/FoR gave me basic), I wouldn't play less.
I was debating whether to play this one or more blue heavy with Snap/JTMS main alongside some cantrips, but it felt all over the place with no cohesive game plan.
Overall I'm happy with how the deck played
To be honest I drew Nissa only once so far, played it for bunch of mana and immediately -6ed
Right now I don't find lack of cantrips a problem. Grim flayer (when connects) and traverse are ok replacements for cantrips I think. There's also tracker and tasigur. I don't think cantrips are necessary and this also lets me focus on BG side of the deck.
I've omitted JTMS for now so I don't put too much strain on mana, but I might try it one day instead of Nissa maybe. I had been worried about UU cost, but then I realized that I need two blue sources to attack with tar pit anyway, so that might not be as big problem as I thought.
I played another mini tournament last Tuesday and went 3-1. Lost to Gu Tron (won g1, g2 kept greedy onelander with Surgical, Trophy, Unmoored Ego, Goyf and some discard, drew 2nd land on t4, went for trophy + surgical on tron land, he cast Pulse of Murasa in response to surgical
Countermagic from side won me at least 3 of those games.
long time lurker, I went 4-0 on Today's FNM with BGu midrange, here's the list:
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Breeding Pool
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Forest
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
Artifacts (1)
1 Engineered Explosives
Instants (8)
4 Assassin's Trophy
4 Fatal Push
1 Collective Brutality
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
Planeswalkers (5)
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
Creatures (14)
2 Grim Flayer
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Collective Brutality
2 Countersquall
1 Damnation
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Gaze of Granite
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Unmoored Ego
1 Vendilion Clique
Results:
2-0 vs UB Fairies
1-0-1 vs Mono White Martyr (we went to time but I had game two locked with both lilis, nissa and tracker on table)
2-0 vs serum powder eldrazi
2-1 vs UR wizards
At first I planned to play 3-1 split of trophy/decay, but ended trying 4-0. I have one trophy foil so I paid attention to moments when I wished it was decay. Answer to that question is twice. First time because opp had chalice on two (and on one as well), second time because I didn't want to give opp a land and I had no other removal for his threat.
EE main was great, so was one copy of Maelstrom Pulse (killing 2 delvers, 2 chalices). Five basics shined vs mono white deck (every path/GQ/FoR gave me basic), I wouldn't play less.
I was debating whether to play this one or more blue heavy with Snap/JTMS main alongside some cantrips, but it felt all over the place with no cohesive game plan.
Overall I'm happy with how the deck played