The Crows must defeat John Longmire's Sydney at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night to remain a finals chance.
"This would be the biggest," said Nicks, whose initial three seasons returned three, seven and eight wins, of the Swans clash.
"This is an elimination final for us so we're preparing that way.
"We have probably prepared that way for a number of weeks now, performed reasonably well the last month but didn't quite get it done last week (in the six-point loss to the Brisbane Lions).
"And this one becomes even more important.
"Up against a team in really strong form, five wins on the trot - they're back to their best which we saw last year, so no bigger challenge."
When appointed Adelaide's coach, Nicks unashamedly copied much from Sydney, where he played 175 games between 1996 and 2005.
"It's Sydney who we modelled ourselves on," he said.
"That's where the respect level comes from.
"I know the place reasonably well. And I know lots of places change but they have a culture that they should be really proud of.
"When you watch a team perform as consistently as they have over the years, they're doing a lot right.
"We're working at the moment. We're building something really special.
"We model a fair bit off of what Sydney do and we model a fair bit of some of the other teams that are performing really well."
Nicks has summoned Izak Rankine after a Juy 23 hamstring strain to replace first-year defender Luke Nankervis.
"(Rankine) has broken the record for high speed in a training session on Wednesday and he may have done that again today," Nicks said.
"He's eager. There was a chance last week and we didn't take that risk and I'm glad we didn't because he's ready to go."
The 12th-placed Crows (40 points) are four premiership points shy of eighth spot while the Swans (46 points) hold seventh place.
Sydney's influential Dane Rampe returns with Braeden Campbell and Jack Buller, replacing Aaron Francis, Joel Amartey and Matt Roberts.
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