Veteran Explorer has always been a very interesting card in Legacy. Whenever greedy Delver variants get too popular, people start looking to take advantage of the fact that their opponents are playing few to no basics to break the symmetry of Explorer and pull way ahead on mana. There are few other styles of deck that can reasonably play cards that cost six or more, so the exciting thing about Nic-Fit builds is finding out exactly how they try to leverage their mana advantage. This Abzan build from Legacy Champs is particularly exciting for me:

Abzan Nic-Fit - Legacy | Phillip Bergeman, Eternal Weekend

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Palace Jailer
• 1 Qasali Pridemage
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Siege Rhino
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Thragtusk
• 2 Eternal Witness
• 2 Walking Ballista
• 4 Veteran Explorer

• Instants (8)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Fatal Push
• 2 Grapple with the Past
• 2 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Toxic Deluge
• 3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 4 Cabal Therapy
• 4 Green Sun's Zenith

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Recurring Nightmare
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 3 Pernicious Deed

• Lands (20)
• 2 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 3 Forest
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Savannah
• 1 Scrubland
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold
• 2 Bayou
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

• Sideboard (14)
• 2 Ethersworn Canonist
• 1 Gaddock Teeg
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 2 Pulse of Murasa
• 2 Sanctum Prelate
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Zealous Persecution

Buy This Deck

The most exciting thing for me about this deck is the inclusion of Sun Titan. Sun Titan is a fantastic curve-topper in this deck because you can rebuy everything from Eternal Witness to Sylvan Library. Pernicious Deed is particularly powerful because you’ll basically always been activating Deed for less than six, meaning that you can keep your opponent’s board clear while you smash in for huge chunks of damage.

In addition to Sun Titan, I love the addition of cards like Palace Jailer and Nissa, Vastwood Seer. These are two efficient ways of ensuring that you can both take over the board and generate card advantage over opposing midrange and control decks. Nissa is particularly powerful in conjunction with Sun Titan.

If you want a midrange deck that can absolutely dominate creature-based decks, this seems like a great choice. You’re somewhat light on disruption in the maindeck, so I expect the combo matchups to be a little less stellar, but you have all manner of removal and value engines to swing your matchups against fair decks. This build is especially exciting because Traverse and Green Sun's Zenith give you the potential to play all manner of silver bullets like Cavern of Souls, Bojuka Bog, Deathrite Shaman, and much more.