Hi and welcome to Will It Fit? In this series, I’ll use my extensive amount of time I have at school to build janky variants under Legacy’s Nic Fit archetype. Nic Fit is an archetype that uses the synergy between Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy to cut your opponent’s gameplan while ramping to 4 or 5 lands as early as turn 2. Nic Fit’s ramping capabilities allow the deck to play cards that wouldn’t normally make the cut in other decks, such as Questing Beast and Elder Gargaroth. Going deeper, you’ll find some strange variants of Nic Fit, such as Scapewish and, at one point, Yawg Fit. In this series, I’ll attempt to take wacky ideas and make them work in Legacy through the Nic Fit shell.
Today I’ll be trying Niv Fit. Besides having a very well-fitting name, Niv-Mizzet, Reborn can provide crazy card advantage in the right deck. Nic Fit can ramp him out on turn 3 with a good hand, and Veteran Explorer can help get the colors we need to safely play Niv while still allowing us to withstand a Blood Moon.
You’ll want a hand with Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy and the lands to play them. If you also have Niv-Mizzet or Bring to Light, great. If not, don’t fret. You’ll be able to make do with two or three other spells.
Here’s a good hand example:
Veteran Explorer
Cabal Therapy
Swamp
Forest
Territorial Kavu
Pernicious Deed
Anguished Unmaking
You have your Nic Fit package, plus the lands to put it out, some removal, and Territorial Kavu to hurt Reanimator strategies and loot into Niv.
The deck is built to utilize all of the guild color combinations and have the flexibility to deal with most decks.
Part of this flexibility can be attributed to Glittering Wish. The only Selesnya card in the maindeck, it can grab any of our multicolor sideboard cards to deal with specific situations. I’ll go through them here.
Dryad Militant
Great against decks that use instants and sorceries in your graveyard. If only there were a Legacy deck that consistently uses the instants and sorceries in the graveyard. *cough* delver *cough*
Soulherder
Can blink Niv every turn for grindier games. It's much harder to win when your opponent draws into 3 counterspells or spot removal every turn.
Niv-Mizzet, Reborn
Can be tutored by Glittering Wish. I figured this would be a good alternative to running Eladamri's Call in the mainboard.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
Extremely annoying. So much so that he’s banned in Commander. Shuts down cantrips, Thoughtcast, and a whole lot of other things.
Kunoros, Hound of Athreos
Legacy has a lot of reanimator. This doggo is a decent 3/3 with a whole lotta keywords and shuts down reanimator as a bonus. There’s probably some more flashback spells that I’m forgetting about.
Anafenza, the Foremost
Again, fries reanimator. Anafenza also has a strong body, and can make Niv bigger.
Klothys, God of Destiny
Oh, look, more graveyard hate. Klothys doesn’t look like much until you play her. Ramps and pings as a bonus.
Dreadbore
Kills JtMS and other Jeskai Control planeswalkers. Also can kill creatures like Murktide in a pinch.
Unmoored Ego
Like Lost Legacy, but can hit lands like Depths. Works great against any combo deck like Cloudpost, Depths, Painter or Witherbloom.
Congregation at Dawn
Lets you throw whatever creatures you need on the top of your library for a Niv trigger.
Fracturing Gust
A bit mana intensive, but will destroy artifact-based strategies like MUD or 8-cast, and gain you life for your trouble. It’ll be hard for your opponent to recover afterwards.
Ashiok, Dream Render
Not being able to search your library, even for a fetchland, can really put a damper on a lot of gameplans. Maverick is crying.
Teferi, Time Raveler
Proven to be very strong since its printing. Destroys most blue strategies and also gives bonus flash for Cabal Therapy and removal.
Destructive Flow
Multicolor Blood Moon. I’ll remove it once I find a way to put Blood Moon on the mainboard, as we’re running so many basics.
With that, I’ll just have to playtest and see how the deck goes. See you in the next one.