[Article] Unlocking Legacy: Fit To Survive [Archive]

scrumdogg

02-22-2007, 06:50 AM

Nicely written. And Orcish Settlers is the t3ch.

Many of the basics were well covered, but so many flaws..... You still have a horrendous combo matchup and Choke does nothing to amend that. Choke helps vs Thresh (which is already a pretty positive matchup) and decks you won't see if you are having a successful day. Combo should most definitely be a concern as both the quality & number of combo decks increases in Legacy. That is the best reason that most SotF decks go to 3 colors (G/r/x) - they have to do so to compete effectively. That is an article by itself, though.

I will address the points about your goblin matchup later (your deck is very susceptible to the early Goblin kill & not so likely to last until Turn 8-9 in a condition to stabilize). I will also sneer at your example of a Thresh matchup in which you drop good spells for exactly the amount of mana you have on the table & never see Daze/Force/Counter at all. Yeah, you might win those games....but they are atypical. Your comment about playing around Daze later in the article was much coser to the reality & necessity of how to play the matchup....and you have no 1 drops other than Rootwallas.... As for now, mandatory 2 day road trip followed by 40 hours of work in a 64 hour span..... but we will continue this.

PS Orcish Settlers is indeed amazing tech...and it's been in use in Survival for years.

ForceofWill

02-22-2007, 07:21 AM

I skimmed through it and it was pretty good. But Scrumdogg has been playing Settlers for years I remember the first tourny he ran that thing and combined with rofellos turn 4 Your opponent never had more than one land. I will do some testing with it and post later.

Bongo

02-22-2007, 07:26 AM

Your article and the "Unlocking Legacy" series in general are really good, keep it up!

While I agree with the principles of Survival you laid out, I disagree with the construction of your deck.

Going for more colors means you will lose to your manabase and you'll lose to Wasteland and you'll lose to trying to do cool things with a bunch of colors instead of doing smart things with two colors.

This assumption is wrong. Going 3-colors allows you to gain essential options you cannot have with only 2-colors. STE and proper use of Fetches provide you with a manabase that is not suscepticle to Wasteland.

Furthermore, I think you chose the wrong color to splash. The best splash-colors to reach the midgame are Black&White, not Red.
This is because you gain access to Pernicious Deed, Swords to Plowshares, Loxodon Hierarch and Cabal Therapy, which are far better in assisting you to get to the midgame than something like Anger, FTK, Pyromancer or Orcish Settlers. The powerlevel is also significantly higher, which allows you to fight an even better game without Survival.

Vardaman

02-22-2007, 08:47 AM

I'm glad other people are liking STE.

Bryant Cook

02-22-2007, 10:18 AM

Less survival more on combo(AKA TES).

troopatroop

02-22-2007, 11:20 AM

Honestly... I didn't like it. Alot of it was misinformation. ATS didn't leave the metagame because of Dragon and Foodchain. ATS was around DURING those decks, and was tier 1.5. That whole sequence he drew out was completely wrong. Also that stuff about Aether vial? Why no Spore Frog? Infinite recursion of insta-cast critter fog locks out so so so many games against goblins. He never mentioned Seedborn muses inclusion with Tradewind. He never mentioned Rofellos' interaction with Quirion Ranger.

"ATS would be dominant in Legacy until it was outpaced by Dragon and Food Chain Goblins. It lost its hold on the metagame because Legacy used to be composed of mostly combo and prison decks modeled on Vintage decks."

Bull. That's such a freaking guess. It was 50/50 with Dragon because of Stifle and countermagic, and 40/60 against Foodchain first of all. Losing it's hold to combo and prison decks modeled after Vintage? Are you joking? All of the acceleration pieces that vintage had were banned before the BR lists came out. Are you talking about other vintage combo decks? Mask/Naught? Didn't think so. Mask was about the least of ATS' worries. And prison? ATS was one of the only decks that wMUD actually feared because of it's inate ability to generate mana around lock pieces.

What about landstill and the general ATS player population being unable to beat it? What about the difficulty of playing the deck to it's full potential? Why were there, at one time, only 2 respectable ATS players?

What does his list do against combo except shit the bed? He plays no disruption at ALL for anything other than creature based aggro, other than maindeck Chalice... WTF? You play chalice so you can play chalice for one and lose all of your good acceleration in an effort to playing a good game against combo. You can't play Birds (Which are vulnerable, but it's BOP. It dies sometimes) or Quirion Ranger which IMO is even more important that Birds for it's interaction with Rofellos and just going freaking nuts in one turn.
So his optimal play is.

1st turn. Vial

2nd turn. Chalice for 1?

With second turn chalice for 1, is it better than Survival? When given the choice, would you play Chalice turn 2 over Survival? Doesn't make much sense to me. You lose ANOTHER turn of development against a deck that may or may not be affected by a Chalice at 1. Granted, you could lay Survival turn 3, and with an Anger in hand, Survival out anger for Rofellos and Vial him in, which is very strong, but without Quirrion ranger you only give him one activation per turn, and your strongest grab on that turn is probably STE or Double Rootwalla on the opponents attack phase (Maybe holding mana for Witness against Survival removal). By that time, neither of those plays will have had a strong affect against Goblins or any form of Combo.

Pendlehaven? Let's make Rofellos weaker. Just for kicks.

Basically, I don't like the deck at all. On paper, it's more consistent, but you only worsened matchups, hardly improved any. I would much rather play eATS against Thresh than this, and most definitely play it against ANY form of combo, which is undeniably becoming more and more common.

Thumbs up for the concept. Thumbs down for the content.

02-22-2007, 11:30 AM

Very well written article. You touched on a lot of good points that are often misunderstood by some of the less experienced Survival players, and I think the article will in turn help a lot of newer Survival players out. Also, I gotta give you props for Orcish Settlers. I actually tried this guy wayyyyy back in the day, but for some reason felt he was too mana intensive. I honestly don't know what I was thinking. In a deck that incorporates Rofellos (and more importantly, Quirion Ranger as well), Orcish Settlers is fucking Armageddon. That's nuts.

However, there are some flaws to your list and other things that kind of bug me:

- Lack of removal maindeck. You have a singleton Mogg Fanatic and Flametongue Kavu. Now, I know you mentioned that a player can feel free to go up to more in the article, but I think it would've been proper if you did in your list to not get a person confused into thinking they could get by with only that. Because truth be told, FTK is one of the strongest cards in the deck, and certainly one of the best draws you can get without Survival on the table. I would'nt be running anything less than 2 of them, and considering your base was R/G, I'd probably be running 3 (Or at least more Fanatics).

- Maindeck Goblin Pyromancer. Yea I know you have this entire gripe about the Goblins matchup, but generally Survival decks want to have 0 dead cards pre-board in as many matchups as possible. Basically, this guy is ass in every non-Goblins matchup. While it's the nuthigh against Goblins, I really don't think it warrants a maindeck slot. Sideboard though, go nuts. Go nuts.

- Only 1 Eternal Witness. This is something that really bothers me a lot. Witness is one of the best cards in the deck because of their ability to fight against control decks, yet you only run a single one. It's there for more than just getting back a fallen Survival. I'd really try more.

- Choke is a bad card in the sideboard. Your Threshold matchup is so insane already that it isn't even necessary, and it does virtually nothing against a Solidarity player. This should be a good anti-combo slot because of your miserable combo matchup, whether it be Pyrostatic Pillar or REB or something, but Choke is just awful.

- Game without Survival. Your deck really only has 2 cards that are what I consider "big draws" without Survival: Ravenous Baloth and Sylvan Library. Library can go a long way in a handful of matchups (just read my ancient ATS primer for details), and Baloth is certainly an efficient beater, but that's it. By midgame Basking Rootwalla's value dips a bit, and you can't rely to draw your 1of removal spell of FTK, so it's basically down to Baloths winning you the game or praying Sylvan Library resolves and can find a Survival. This is based off speculation because I haven't had the opportunity to test the deck, but that's my thoughts based purely on the decklist at hand.

Also, this isn't an issue or anything, but you've got some history mixed up regarding ATS. You state the deck fell from tier 1 when Dragon and FCG were in the ranks. Also for the record, it didn't have an awful matchup against either of those decks. They both weren't favorable, but ATS at that time ran Stifle and Force of Will, as well as a heluva lot of sideboard cards geared at those decks. But that was 1.5, not Legacy. Nowhere in there did you mention how the deck was single-handedly nominated the top deck in the format for about a year after Legacy for formed, you just sort of stopped before the B/r split.

Overall though, good work with this.

Finn

02-22-2007, 12:02 PM

Doug, your article is very entertaining. Survival is an entertaining card to read/think about, so it was an excellent topic to cover. But you really dropped the ball by not even considering Welder Survival. I wrote about it to deafening silence last year here (http://mtgsalvation.com/247-what-next-for-legacy-past-present-and-future-of-survival.html) for reference.

Survival cannot be tuned to beat something specific while still retaining a hopeful matchup versus random and/or prevalent decks. It still dies to really fast aggro or burn. It will most likely drop one or two games to combo in a match.

It WILL drop a few games to IGGy combo, but Welder Survival done properly (no blue) makes Goblins and any aggro deck including Burn a virtual bye. And it owns a random field like nobody's business. That is its biggest strength. Your aversion to this deck makes the entire premise maybe not invalid, but weak. Yada, yada, yada graveyard hate, Welder is a 1/1, yada yada. All completely irrelevant. I have played literally dozens of tournaments with every Survival variant you mentioned and others. Against a non-Threshold opponent, none of them are as consistent or fast. I'm not saying the deck is the way to go (I don't play it competitively these days), but it if your research had involved this you would certainly have to consider it in the top contenders for pursuit.

Still a really fun read. But you have a gaping hole in your ability to persuade when you leave out really pertinent survival options like this.

hi-val

02-22-2007, 12:48 PM

2. ATS was at one time a dominant force in 1.5, but it was well before the B/R changes, at a time when the format was far less developed. It lost prevalence over a year before the B/R split. At the time of the B/R split, the format was dominated by a triad, just as it is now. In fact, it's a strikingly similar one: Food Chain Goblins, U/W/R Landstill (with Nev's Disk and Mana Drain), and fully powered Dragon. The parallels are striking. Welder MUD was also popular, and was arguably tier 1 as well.

By this time, ATS was essentially nowhere to be seen. If you think ATS has problems dealing with Vial Goblins, consider the problems it faces against FCG and its turn 2 wins. Wasteland attacked the manabase, Fanatics and Sharpshooters killed mana critters, and Piledriver's Pro:Blue laughed in ol' Tradewind's face. Landstill had a slightly positive matchup against it as well, and Dragon's first turn wins gave it a favored matchup too. In short, it would be wrong to say that ATS was the dominant force in the format anywhere near the time of the B/R changes.

That's from GodzillA when he proofed my article. If you have a problem with my history, I impore you to take it up with him instead of me. I deferred to him because he knows what he's talking about from the period.

Regarding combo: of course it has a bad matchup versus combo. Of course, combo is nowhere in the metagame, despite what certain internet personalities might claim.

PT: Kobe: zero combo in T8
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-10-22&end_date=2006-10-22&city=Kobe&country=JP

TML Open: zero combo in T8
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-09-01&end_date=2006-09-20

D4D Day 2: 1 combo in T8 (and IGGy isn't a terrifying matchup, and I test with Bomholt so I feel like I know what I'm talking about here)
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-10-15&end_date=2006-10-15&city=Roanoke&state=VA&country=US&start_num=25&start_num=0&limit=25

D4D Day 1: 1 combo in T8
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-10-15&end_date=2006-10-15&city=Roanoke&state=VA&country=US&start_num=25&start_num=0&limit=25

It's like saying Goblins needs to have a plan against Life.dec.

I'll answer some more stuff later, I'm happy that the general response is good. If you hated it, I hope at least you got some use out of the appendix of creatures.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 01:07 PM

I think it is dangerous to assume that just because combo didn't top 8 a tournament or that it only took one slot that it is as absent as Life.dec
If you look further down in the standings (not even that far, 9-16 even) you will see alot of combo. Certaintly enough to give you the two losses that will put you in the 9-16 group as well.

Breakouts for the entire field
TML Open (the top 77 decks (Does anyone know when Anusein is planning on posting the other 20 or so decklists? And where are 53rd-55th place? werid.)) 7 Solidarity 3 Iggy Pop 1 Salvagers (14.3% Combo)
D4D 5 10-7-06 8 Solidarity 2 Iggy Pop 1 Belcher 2 Aluren 1 Enchantress (19.4% Combo)
D4D 6 10-8-06 6 Solidarity 2 Iggy Pop (14.5% Combo)
I didn't see any Life.dec though.

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-22-2007, 01:14 PM

@hi-val - That's a rather inaccurate statement that will turn people off when and if they take your deck to a tournament and go 0-2 drop because they figured they didn't need a plan vs combo.

I'm not sure why you're referencing the list of events on SCG; it misses half the major events and then chooses to highlight Kobe, with less than 40 players. If we're going to include that we should include the first Meandeck Open, where I believe IGGy Pop won, and the GAGG where Enchantress got 2nd. Anwar's thread on the Metagame forum is more complete, though I think there's still a couple missing reports.

Obviously a bad combo match-up isn't enough to keep a deck down, but I don't think trying to artificially mitigate combo's presence in the format is the correct approach, especially since Survival has many available tools to combat most combo strategies.

It was interesting article, but I'd like to hear more on why you seem to dismiss more than 2 colors in Survival so automatically, as I agree with Bongo.

Also, everyone knows that ATS left the format because of Enchantress. Duh.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 01:16 PM

Also, everyone knows that ATS left the format because of Enchantress. Duh.

I thought it was because it lost to Landstill, Solidarity and Goblins.
And then Landstill left because it lost to Solidarity, Goblins, Wombat, and its pilots being bored to death,
which then allowed Gro to come into the format since it can beat Solidarity, is about even with Goblins but loses to Landstill in perhaps one of the most boring matchups ever (though that can be said for just about any matchup that starts Landstill vs. )

As for the actual article.
I liked it but then again
Survival makes me happy in the pants.

Too bad Survival decks almost without exception lose to Goblins despite what their creators say.
And the Threshold matchup is never as good as they claim either, though with MD Chalice this might be the exception.

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-22-2007, 01:18 PM

I thought it was because it lost to Landstill, Solidarity and Goblins.

In 1.5, or in Legacy? I was talking about 1.5, because of the references to Dragon, Mud, and Mana Drain.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 01:46 PM

In 1.5, or in Legacy? I was talking about 1.5, because of the references to Dragon, Mud, and Mana Drain.

Legacy, I was referring to when no one would touch ATS with a ten foot pole wrapped in a case of condoms.

In 1.5 didn't Enchantress lose to a Goblin Welder swinging for 20 damage?

Finn

02-22-2007, 01:52 PM

Too bad Survival decks almost without exception lose to Goblins despite what their creators say.

Ouch!
That was a poignant speculation. I gave up getting into serious discussion about Welder/Survival around here a very long time ago, so I will leave it at that.

And I went just about 50/50 with RGSA as well versus Goblins back in the day. Not great, but hardly an autoloss.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 01:59 PM

Ouch!
That was a poignant speculation. I gave up getting into serious discussion about Welder/Survival around here a very long time ago, so I will leave it at that.
Actually Welder Survival tended to be one of the better Survival decks against Goblins, though the mana base tended to make it more of a crap shoot than most Welder players admitted.

And I went just about 50/50 with RGSA as well versus Goblins back in the day. Not great, but hardly an autoloss.
Was back in the day before or after Goblin King became a Goblin? After that the matchup kinda went down hill. Granted now most Goblin builds don't run Goblin King, but since combo exists and RG tends to suck against combo it has to run a third color which allows Goblins to LD it out. Generally.
For the most part even without Goblin King Goblins is still favored preboard 40/60 ish.
Of course if they ever stop playing Port, RGSA can do a little happy dance because it can actually win again.

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-22-2007, 02:03 PM

In Legacy, Goblins mainly drove it out. Landstill wasn't hot either. Then people started playing Humility and Pithing Needle. And fast combo. It was an ugly time for Survival.

In 1.5, it was a lot of things. I think Crucible hurt, since the ability to keep hitting your Taiga, which you know, stops your deck from sucking, was big.

Also, the Welder only hit for 8, thank you very much. There were some fetches and two Juggernaut swings in there.

Re: Goblins, that's really more true of RGSA than the controlish builds. I've found that the walls of ATS and the ability to counter some threats goes a lot farther than 4 mana beaters that still get Incinerated.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 02:15 PM

Re: Goblins, that's really more true of RGSA than the controlish builds. I've found that the walls of ATS and the ability to counter some threats goes a lot farther than 4 mana beaters that still get Incinerated.

The walls were nice but they tended to cost two (EATS Tinder Wall addition and the occassional use of Tinder Wall by Mulletus in RGSA notwithstanding) which do a crappy job of blocking Lackey. Not to mention the fact that ATS had so few land. A fanatic and a wasteland could manascrew them for just about ever (or a unexpected Stifle for a Solidarity opponent. God damn that tournament was awesome (Bob's Dual Land Draft) until of course I lost to Bob the Belcher in the top 8 :frown: )

AnwarA101

02-22-2007, 02:37 PM

God damn that tournament was awesome (Bob's Dual Land Draft) until of course I lost to Bob the Belcher in the top 8 :frown: )

Didn't Mad Zur beat the ever-loving crap out of you and teach you why that silly little blue deck loses to aggro-control?

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 02:43 PM

Didn't Mad Zur beat the ever-loving crap out of you and teach you why that silly little blue deck loses to aggro-control?

He might have done that in the Swiss. :cry: I believe he had red Gro standard bag of tricks maindeck and boarded in 4 REB and 3 Stifle. Not to mention Fire/Ice is damn annoying when combined with Daze.

Of course he lost to Zoo in the top 4. :rolleyes:

hi-val

02-22-2007, 05:44 PM

Actually if you maindeck a Pyromancer or Gloomdrifter, the Goblins matchup gets a lot better. You can usually stall until you can get one of them out and then stabilize. Often I found I would stabilize around 5 life, but you end up with enough mana to either use Survival to play Baloths every turn or you can Genesis back Baloths off of Vial and crank the life total back up.

About the combo match: play Survival in a metagame where you feel you have an accurate grasp of what will or will not show up. If you predict a lot of combo, then it's probably not the best thing to be playing. Have we talked about the combo match enough? Can we move onto other things? It's basically Chalice or No, because that card breaks open the combo match if you have it in hand.

And I stand by my claim that if you are running Survival, you have to have Anger in there somewhere. If there was any card that bought back all the tempo and resources spent in setting up Survival, it's Anger.

And STE is nuts, I'm really digging it.

And Pendelhaven making Rofellos weaker? ngaplz? The deck has 16 forests in it along with recurring ways to find more forests. Oh noez, a little bit of lack-of-synergy, I guess we should drop the basic mountain because it also has bad Rofellos synergy?

I want to emphasize that this list is highly customizable.

Choke is more on the board for stuff like UWB Fish and Landstill. At times, they can just out-tempo you. Sometimes they are rough matchups postboard, so I think boarding in something like Choke is a fine idea. Remember that it neutralizes a significant portion of the metagame too. Think of it as Chalices that you board in when you take the Chalices out of the main. The deck needs some sort of disruption to slow the opponent down and Choke is a fine card like that.

Scrumdogg, the lack of 1-drops is fine versus Thresh because this deck is the control and not the beatdown for most of the match. You control the midgame and dominate the lategame, so there's time to play around things like Daze and make sure that your threats resolve, because Thresh isn't going to kill you in the first few turns.

Of course this deck drops games to nuts hands from Goblins, find me a deck that doesn't.

Something else that I forgot in the article is that Hail Storm is a really, really good sideboard card too. Better than Clasm because the color requirements are easier and the instant speed is brutal versus Goblins and their Ringleaders/Warchiefs.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2007, 05:53 PM

TeenieBopper

02-22-2007, 06:06 PM

Why You Should Play Survival

Survival is, in my opinion, the closest analog to Weissman-style Keeper that the format has.

So... why should I play survival again?

kirdape3

02-22-2007, 06:08 PM

I keep trying to tell him the same thing, and I actually disagree (Goblins is the closest analogue because it has the best card-drawing, the best selection, and the best mana accelerants available) with his premise.

Bongo

02-22-2007, 06:17 PM

hi-val, you still haven't answered my question about the proper splash-colors and why you dismissed 3-color builds so quickly.
Spatula has voiced similar concerns.

With cards like Deed, Therapy, Duress, Swords, Hierarch and a bajillion sideboard options, Black&White are clearly better complimentary colors than Red.

I hope no one has said that Anger shouldn't be in Survival. That seems like a poor idea.

I do.

The most effective Survival builds right now are GBW. Anger has no place there. Contrary to popular belief, Anger is not a must in Survival.

Firebrothers

02-22-2007, 06:27 PM

Great articles for the first month everyone keep it up. Hope this series doesnt get dropped after GP: Colombus.

P.S. Doug is the least geeky looking of the four of ya'll.

hi-val

02-22-2007, 06:53 PM

Bongo: my problem with splashes, and trust me, I ran Black for the longest time, is that they mostly 1-for-1. Therapy is nuts versus Goblins but you end up spending a card or two to essentially get lucky once and hone in on something else afterwards. Swords is the same case-- I don't think Survival can afford to 1-for-1. There aren't creatures that are dangerous enough that you have to answer them immediately in most cases. Same for Duress. I could see boarding in Duress and Therapy but seriously, if you're that scared of combo, then don't play Survival in the metagame : ) Deed I think takes the deck closer to Rock, where I don't think it needs to be. I like Baloth more than Hierarch because it is completely Swords-proof and a little easier on the mana. All told though, Hierarch is a pretty good dude, so I think he's fine.

So in short, the problem with splashes is that they don't do enough damage to justify the splash (perhaps apart from Black, which gives the AMAZING Gloomdrifter).

Ewokslayer, actually, you don't really need Vial out in that situation at all. The deck has many options that converge on getting something huge out on turns 4 or 5. For example, if you landed Survival on turn 3, you can go get Pyromancer and cast him on the fourth turn. Vials in that case make things nuts, but you can usually stabilize by just pulling out a Pyromancer first and then recharging on life with Feeder and Baloths until you have enough lands to get Genesis rolling.

TeenieBopper, because it doesn't up and lose to ALL of the random Legacy stuff that you encounter. That's why I like the deck so much-- it has strategy superiority against a lot. Rian will disagree with me until the end of time about how valuable strategy superiority is and whether Survival is good because of that, but I would say that if you don't want to play combo or aggro, then Survival is the control deck to roll with.

On Eternal Witness: If you look at my list, you'll see a dearth of stuff actually needing to be Witnessed back. No Instants, no Burning Wish bullets, no search. I have one Witness in because it's awful in my list but kind of needed. I would never go up to 2 witnesses maindeck because I don't have anything that needs to be recurred. In a deck with lots of Swords and Duress and Therapy and stuff, I could see Witness, but that deck is probably a lot better if you don't put Survival in it.

Firebrothers: LOL. That pic is actually a cropped version of this: http://photos-198.ak.facebook.com/ip001/v12/93/60/7701472/n7701472_30115198_4741.jpg

URABAHN

02-22-2007, 07:09 PM

Firebrothers: LOL. That pic is actually a cropped version of this: http://photos-198.ak.facebook.com/ip001/v12/93/60/7701472/n7701472_30115198_4741.jpg

After seeing that picture, I figgered I'd jump in here. Who's that girl, how old is she, are you still dating her?

Ta Jugs

02-22-2007, 07:13 PM

Your freakin MARRIED!!!!

troopatroop

02-22-2007, 07:45 PM

And Pendelhaven making Rofellos weaker? ngaplz? The deck has 16 forests in it along with recurring ways to find more forests. Oh noez, a little bit of lack-of-synergy, I guess we should drop the basic mountain because it also has bad Rofellos synergy?

Um... Yea. Any bit of avoidable antisynergy is worth changing. It's like a 61st card. It's risk reward. Is the +1/+2 buff to your precious 1/1's going to win you the game? Sometimes that 1 extra mana is huge. Sometimes Getting wastelanded is pretty bad, regardless of the majority of the time.

The basic mountain is in fact cuttable. ATS never ran it because it was bad with Rofellos, which is a main engine of Survival. It WAS in fact an unwastable mountain for Anger which was worth it in RGSA but not so in ATS. It's also only on that side of the fence if you have a strong portion of castable red cards that need to be Wastland proof. This deck qualifies for both of those points, thus making it worth it.

Pendlehaven is awful. Seriously. No Ngaplz about it.

hi-val

02-22-2007, 09:19 PM

It appears that we differ only on whether the utility of Pendelhaven is undermined by the loss of utility with Rofellos. I will say that I have never had the problem come up where Pendelhaven is the only land in my hand or where it interfered with Rofellos. I've been testing with it for two months, btw. Admittedly it was better with mana elves because it represented a bluff for other aggro decks, but I see little reason not to run it as a 1-of.

Gifts decks in block ran a singleton Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers, even though the opponent could conceivably Gifts up their own or Top into it and strip you out. Even though Okina only pumped 4 creatures in the deck, it was worth it to run even though there were risks to it, because the benefits outweighed them.

Anyway, the whole thing is a simple remedy-- if you don't like Pendelhaven in the deck, cut it! I happen to like it a lot. I could see putting in another Cradle (maybe if they weren't $30).

Lego

02-22-2007, 10:45 PM

Did anyone else notice that he mentioned the errata on Great Whale, but then he didn't mention that they removed said errata? Sadness.

Also, pretty much all of his matchups were listed as bad or difficult. Remind me again why I'd play that deck?

It appears that we differ only on whether the utility of Pendelhaven is undermined by the loss of utility with Rofellos. I will say that I have never had the problem come up where Pendelhaven is the only land in my hand or where it interfered with Rofellos.

Plus PoP, for what it's worth.

bigbear102

02-22-2007, 10:57 PM

The most effective Survival builds right now are GBW. Anger has no place there. Contrary to popular belief, Anger is not a must in Survival.

Umm, I believe GAGG kind of ruins this statement, as WRGU Survival made top 4, RGBSA took 9th, RGWB took 10th, and Di took EATS to 4-2. All of these decks ran red, because anger is the shit, along with FTK.

This also kind of shows that HiVal's statements that 3/4 color survival aren't viable. Running 3-4 colors is also very viable in this format. Birds of Paradise along with Vial make it very easy, and resilient.

Pendelhaven has no place in this deck. Considering that STE almost never attacks, Fanatic already essentially pumps himself, and Rootwalla does pump himself. Rofellos is almost always found very early, so pumping with Pendelhaven takes two mana- the land you tapped, and the mana you lost by not having it be a forest.

Also, an anti-combo survival build does not have to bastardize every other match possible to win. You want a lot more creature removal to deal with, ya know, the rest of the format.

02-22-2007, 10:59 PM

About the combo match: play Survival in a metagame where you feel you have an accurate grasp of what will or will not show up. If you predict a lot of combo, then it's probably not the best thing to be playing. Have we talked about the combo match enough? Can we move onto other things? It's basically Chalice or No, because that card breaks open the combo match if you have it in hand.

So basically your saying just don't play the deck if there's combo in the metagame? Or pray you avoid it? If that is your way of thinking (maybe it's not), but if it is, I will ask you this: Why the fuck are you even wasting everyone's time? It's as if you make it sound like this deck is aimed at being played at a local 10-man tournament instead of a competitive metagame. Realize combo decks as a whole make up a greater percentage of the field than Goblins, so what the hell are you trying to accomplish by giving it a hit or miss strategy? Honestly if that's your way of seeing things then all this effort is a complete waste of time. We (or at least I am) playing a Survival deck because I believe it can compete in the metagame and have a decklist that is designed to play against the entire metagame. I didn't design a deck with only a small portion of the field in mind and hope to dodge the rest. That's just retarded.

And Pendelhaven making Rofellos weaker? ngaplz? The deck has 16 forests in it along with recurring ways to find more forests. Oh noez, a little bit of lack-of-synergy, I guess we should drop the basic mountain because it also has bad Rofellos synergy?

The basic Mountain is acceptable because you run STE. That's fine. But Pendlehaven should be a forest. If you believe that a little bit of anti-synergy with the deck is ok, then I seriously question your credibility regarding Survival in general. Now, I realize this deck isn't nearly as reliant on Rofellos as other decks are because of Aether Vial, but there are situations where it actually can make a difference. I've played Rofellos in Survival probably longer than anyone else on here, and I'm tellin you that shitty Pendlehaven isn't worth it.

Also while I'm on the subject, Gaea's Cradle is awful too. Wayy too many games in testing it bite me in the ass because I opened a potentially fine one-land hand and couldn't keep because Cradle won't add mana without a man in play. With your lack of 1-drops I'd cut this just on the basis that opening it could be an issue.

Choke is more on the board for stuff like UWB Fish and Landstill. At times, they can just out-tempo you. Sometimes they are rough matchups postboard, so I think boarding in something like Choke is a fine idea. Remember that it neutralizes a significant portion of the metagame too. Think of it as Chalices that you board in when you take the Chalices out of the main. The deck needs some sort of disruption to slow the opponent down and Choke is a fine card like that.

Landstill maybe, but UWB Fish should be a breeze. I tested that matchup to death with Mr. Nightmare, and it is incredibly in favor of Survival, and he can attest to it. I'll say it again, those should really be anti-combo slots.

Scrumdogg, the lack of 1-drops is fine versus Thresh because this deck is the control and not the beatdown for most of the match. You control the midgame and dominate the lategame, so there's time to play around things like Daze and make sure that your threats resolve, because Thresh isn't going to kill you in the first few turns.

What about the lack of 1-drops against Goblins? Your deck practically scoops the game without a Survival in play, because Sylvan isn't the best thing to find answers if it'll cost 4 life to dig. The only out you have to blocking a turn 1 Lackey on the draw is the single Mogg Fanatic or Basking Rootwalla, of which they have 8 removal spells to possibly deal with it. You don't have a very good early protection game at all without a Survival, which leads me to believe you can barely beat the deck without it.

The most effective Survival builds right now are GBW. Anger has no place there. Contrary to popular belief, Anger is not a must in Survival.

Most effective? How? You are over a full turn slower than Anger builds. In a heads up Survival matchup, I see them walking all over you just because their men gain haste and will be attacking faster than yours. Unless you can justify a slower deck in a format that demands speed, then your statement is nothing but falacy.

Bongo: my problem with splashes, and trust me, I ran Black for the longest time, is that they mostly 1-for-1. Therapy is nuts versus Goblins but you end up spending a card or two to essentially get lucky once and hone in on something else afterwards. Swords is the same case-- I don't think Survival can afford to 1-for-1. There aren't creatures that are dangerous enough that you have to answer them immediately in most cases. Same for Duress. I could see boarding in Duress and Therapy but seriously, if you're that scared of combo, then don't play Survival in the metagame : ) Deed I think takes the deck closer to Rock, where I don't think it needs to be. I like Baloth more than Hierarch because it is completely Swords-proof and a little easier on the mana. All told though, Hierarch is a pretty good dude, so I think he's fine.

Again as I pointed out earlier, you need to build the deck so it can fight all decks expected to be played. The point of building and refining decks in this format is so they can compete at a high level. Adding a 3rd color to improve your worst matchups well outweighs the potential hazards from Wasteland, a card that is generally only seen in one deck, as opposed to, you know, the 3 good combo decks in the format that you auto-lose to.

hi-val

02-22-2007, 11:34 PM

I see your point on Pendelhaven. I'll graciously concede that you're probably right about it. Cradle was a holdover from when the deck had a bunch of mana elves; if you run Birds or Elves over STE, I certainly can see keeping Cradle in. However, again, I fully accept that it is less good with less mana elves.

Can we seriously stop kvetching about it now?

And the combo matches are not autolosses. Please understand that I've been testing and refining this list for a long time now. I know, I know, appeal to authority, but it's not like a deck with a mediocre first-game combo match is unplayable (Goblins, anyone?).

And on the topic of the Goblins/combo matchup, they run typically 8 anti-combo cards on the board-- 4 Chalice and 4 Pillar. The same cards are still able to be run by Survival, and hell, four of them are maindeck and if you see them in your grip, you're in really good shape. I mentioned in the article that you can mulligan into them too, stunning concept there. Now I know that Survival doesn't have the same speed that Goblins does, even if Goblins dilutes itself with 8 sideboard cards. My point here is that with anti-combo stuff, you can have a decent shot at winning because the deck has a fast clock when it is able to buy 2 turns with anti-combo equipment.

If Chokes on the board really bother you, replace with Boil. I've smoked High Tide with those more times than I can remember. I don't see Tide anywhere anymore, so I don't sideboard against it. Choke, by the way, has a non-negligible effect on Solidarity, but that's neither here nor there.

On the topic of splashing: I haven't really found anything that excites me in splashing outside of Red. Everything outside of Gloomdrifter, Ghost-lit Stalker and Cao Cao, Lord of Wei just end up being 1-for-1s or very close trades. If someone has a good, compelling card to splash for, I'm all ears! Of course I would want to make this deck better! I've been playing Survival decks for two years now and I think this is the culmination of finally getting the Danger of Cool Things out of my system. Running blue for Ovinomancer is really, really good, but it just isn't necessary, I feel. It goes back to Survival needing to recoup card advantage instead of purely needing to play really good dudes. Keep in mind that 3color builds are certainly fine, but one of those colors must really be red for Anger; if you're just splashing for Anger, then it's pretty close to a 2-color build. Running Duress, while it seems strong on the surface, doesn't jive with me. It's a 1-for-1 trade, it's dead a lot of the time, and if I'm boarding something in, I can probably board in something better.

What do you think of that concept? Does the idea of building Survival as a card-advantage engine have merit? I think I explained it well in the history and analysis section. Did I mis-execute the concept? I welcome constructive criticism!

02-23-2007, 12:38 AM

And the combo matches are not autolosses. Please understand that I've been testing and refining this list for a long time now. I know, I know, appeal to authority, but it's not like a deck with a mediocre first-game combo match is unplayable (Goblins, anyone?).

No, they're not autolosses, but they aren't by any means near good. Fighting to get them towards 40-60% is the best we can do really, and by all means it's important to at least try. I realize Chalice of the Void is the nuthigh against combo decks, but without it the deck crumbles. Also, Solidarity does run Force of Will and Remand (if you give them time), and TES can fight through a Chalice in many situations or just Burning Wish -> Shattering Spree. It's hella good against Iggy Pop though, who only have a single out against it.

And also, game 1 Goblins against combo is still around 45-50%. The deck is still Goblins, which means it can just go stupid. Solidarity generally combos turn 4 at the earliest, but has the potential to fizzle if forced to go off too early and Goblins applies a LOT of pressure. All they need is a Lackey and then a Rishadan Port to follow up and their pretty much golden.

If Chokes on the board really bother you, replace with Boil. I've smoked High Tide with those more times than I can remember. I don't see Tide anywhere anymore, so I don't sideboard against it. Choke, by the way, has a non-negligible effect on Solidarity, but that's neither here nor there.

It's not that it bothers me, I just think it's unnecessary (and technically suboptimal, but that's already be beaten to death). Generally the matchups you would board it in against already feature a strong matchup anyway (Thresh, Fish) and although it's decent against Landstill PoP is also the nuthigh in the matchup which should be strong enough. However, replacing Choke with Boil as you mentioned makes perfect sense, and is worthy of the slot. I played Boil in my own sideboard for a long time until I figured Arcane Lab would just be better for the combo matchup(and still feel that way), but Boil is still an excellent option.

On the topic of splashing: I haven't really found anything that excites me in splashing outside of Red. Everything outside of Gloomdrifter, Ghost-lit Stalker and Cao Cao, Lord of Wei just end up being 1-for-1s or very close trades. If someone has a good, compelling card to splash for, I'm all ears! Of course I would want to make this deck better! I've been playing Survival decks for two years now and I think this is the culmination of finally getting the Danger of Cool Things out of my system. Running blue for Ovinomancer is really, really good, but it just isn't necessary, I feel. It goes back to Survival needing to recoup card advantage instead of purely needing to play really good dudes. Keep in mind that 3color builds are certainly fine, but one of those colors must really be red for Anger; if you're just splashing for Anger, then it's pretty close to a 2-color build.

The idea of adding colors isn't there for the "ability to do cool things" so much anymore (but GOD how it used to be there...) but moreso the ability to expand your resources to make the deck versatile. For instance, when you add black, you gain the option to disrupt a contol deck to force through your important spells, and also get a Goblins hoser with Engineered Plague. It isn't like people are running black so they can play some overcosted cool black creature or something of the like. People add colors to increase the overall efficiency of their nonland slots at the expense of "weakening" their manabase, and I put that in quotes because I personally question the popularity of Wasteland in the metagame. Out of all the tier 1/tier 1.5 decks in the format, how many run it? What.. Goblins, and...black decks? Against Goblins it's understandable, but if the land was a basic against a black deck, they would Sinkhole it anyway, and then Hymn out the card you wanted to play (and on a side note, despite a black deck being able to disrupt your manabase, they have a very hard time with Survival). Basically in this argument I suppose my own deck could be taken into question because of the fact that it runs 4 colors (though technically, it's actually GB with a splash of blue and red) because of the playstyle and unorthodox manabase. However, I do not run all those colors because I think I am playing "cool cards" (and please, Tradewind naysayers, don't give me additional lip and make my piss and moan why I think it's good.) I run all those colors because I feel together they can create a decklist that has the necessary tools to win each matchup. Sure there's risk involved, but sometimes that's what it takes to win.

Running Duress, while it seems strong on the surface, doesn't jive with me. It's a 1-for-1 trade, it's dead a lot of the time, and if I'm boarding something in, I can probably board in something better.

Maindecking Duress is awful, simply on the notion that it's bad against Goblins. Cabal Therapy is insane though. Sometimes you can't just look at it as a 1-for-1. Not because it can potentially multiple cards out of the hand, but because it can hit devastating cards out of the opponent's hand. Would you consider a Cabal Therapy hitting Goblin Ringleader a 1-for-1? I sure as hell wouldn't. I understand what your saying about the whole theory of 1-for-1'ing being poor, but in some circumstances you need to look beyond that.

hi-val

02-23-2007, 01:13 AM

Diablos, thanks for a really good post. I see what you mean about running more colors (and I'm glad we're both grooving on Black). The thing for me is that there really isn't a lot that impresses me in other colors that cannot be achieved with red and green. The big thing is hand disruption, but that seems to only matter against combo. Against control, the stream of threats is, IMO, significant enough to get wins without needing to force anything out. The other thing to consider is this: Chalice is the best anti-combo card, period. Chalice also conveniently cuts off Duress or Therapy if you run one of them. The closest compromise I could see would be maindecking Pillars too, but I don't know how well that would work. If I have to choose between Chalice and Therapy though, I have to go with Chalice. If there's strong hate that goes with Chalice that I can maindeck, I'm all for it. I'm also in complete agreement with you about squeaking out that 60% if you can. The POPs on the board go a ways towards speeding the postboard kill up as well. If I had blue in the deck, I would run Meth Lab in a heartbeat.

Oh, and trust me, I've got plenty of love for Therapy too. I ran 4 before I grabbed Chalices over them. It's really an either-or thing with Chalice and Therapy and I think the former ends up being a lot stronger. Therapy seems to shine best against Goblins, and nothing is better than making them discard 3 Warchiefs and then flash for the Ringleader. However, that most of the time requires a nonbasic against a deck that will punish you for it. And most of the time, you don't get ridiculous plays like that. I ran Therapy also when I had mana elves/walls in the deck; with STE instead, Therapy is a lot harder to flash.

I feel like with any person who has played Survival for a long enough time, there are some wild tech cards to be shared. Got anything that I missed? I remember back when you could get away with doing Cool Things and still win, I had Living Deaths in my deck and would just ramp up mana to Kokushos and win with one or the other. Oh, the days...

Bongo

02-23-2007, 05:30 AM

Most effective? How? You are over a full turn slower than Anger builds. In a heads up Survival matchup, I see them walking all over you just because their men gain haste and will be attacking faster than yours. Unless you can justify a slower deck in a format that demands speed, then your statement is nothing but falacy.

It doesn't matter that you are a turn slower because GBW Survival is not the aggro deck here. The format demands a way to DEAL with the speed if you're going the control route. You only have to be speedy if you're aggro or combo.
You are more effective than Anger builds because you have the stronger midgame and the stronger means to get there.

1) Survival needs some way to get into the midgame faster than normal. It can do this with walls, counters, disruption, or a combination of these.

-> Therapy, Swords, STE, Walls

2) Survival works best when it is used to create inevitability through recursion or Genesis.

-> Genesis, Recurring Nightmare

3) Survival needs a plan to win without Survival on the board.

-> Control the board with Therapy, Swords, Deed, Witness, Hierarch, dig through your deck with Top & E-Tutors

4) Survival is a card used for board control.

-> check. Survival fetches the answers to stay in control.

I think I justified my statement, GBW is better in all of those points. Additionally, Therapy (actively) & Pernicious Deed (reactively) gives you an additional way to remove Pithing Needles.

As for the matchup with Anger builds, I feel pretty confident with GBW. Hierarch, Swords and Deed deal with hasted creatures and allow me to play the control role far better. Once in the midgame, Genesis & Nightmare give me the better lategame.

troopatroop

02-23-2007, 02:56 PM

Anger builds are BETTER at controlling the board because they do it a whole shit ton faster. Give ATS 2 turns with an Active survival and 3 lands and they WILL have you locked out of the game. Thats better than anything outside of blue can offer. Anger is really there for Rofellos, and without it I wouldn't want to play survival, period.

02-23-2007, 03:05 PM

1) Survival needs some way to get into the midgame faster than normal. It can do this with walls, counters, disruption, or a combination of these.

-> Therapy, Swords, STE, Walls

Wow, cards that a whole lot of other Survival decks run. Original thinking there chief. The Survival build that placed 10th at the GAGG was RGwb, and had a combination of those Therapy, StP, and Walls. But it had Anger, so it provided those outlets yet was still faster than your proposed deck.

2) Survival works best when it is used to create inevitability through recursion or Genesis.

-> Genesis, Recurring Nightmare

Again, something a handful of other decks do. Recurring Nightmare not as often seen, but it's a variety of Survival decks.

3) Survival needs a plan to win without Survival on the board.

-> Control the board with Therapy, Swords, Deed, Witness, Hierarch, dig through your deck with Top & E-Tutors

The only card in that entire stack that isn't seen in another Survival build is Deed. You get Pernicious Deed. You also potentially blow up your own board with it as well. I'm not going to say it's the wrong play or a bad choice, but hindering your own board position can be risky.

Also, Heirarch is not board control. He is a single 4/4 creature. Every single deck in the format can deal with it. Unless there's multiples of him or something else to hold the fort, that won't pull it on it's own.

4) Survival is a card used for board control.

-> check. Survival fetches the answers to stay in control.

Check. What every Survival deck in the history of the world (sans FEB) has used the card for.

So basically...you provide arguments for a deck that has features from nearly every other Survival deck. You win the prize, seriously. The ONLY card that gives you a different game is Pernicious Deed. It's hot against Goblins and aggro, I'll give you that. But you sacrifice an incredible amount of speed for a board sweeper that can't be active until turn 4. By then, it can be Needled, Krosan Grip'd, etc. Not to mention it's awful to draw after Survival.

Then again, I'm aware you and the rest of the foreign crew have been pitching the anti-red Survival builds for a long time now, so I don't believe anything I or anyone else says will knock sense into to.

hi-val

02-23-2007, 03:13 PM

It also should be noted that Pernicious Deed has Channel/Stream of Life synergy with Aether Vial, which is a ridic card.

MattH

02-24-2007, 01:41 AM

Your arguments seem to be entirely based on the premise that Baloth etc. can "2 for 1" other decks. I am not seeing this borne out in reality. Consider that against goblins you really need to 3-for-1 or better to beat them.

Your deck looks well positioned to take on threshold but almost nothing else. I do not know why you think Chalice is so devastating unless you also are able to back it up with Survival most of the time. If you toss it for 0 then Tendrils can use a Ritual plan. If you toss it for 1 it can use LEDs, although X=1 hurts their setup. If for X=2 you hurt their IT-based combo and sort of affect Cabal Ritual but that is both slow and not that great really.

And it's not like they don't run tutors needed to get their "one hate card," not to mention their own backup plans - for example, a quick 5 storm ETW on turn 1 or 2. In my experience, you really need a "Chalice and ___" play to win, but you have precious little to fill in that blank with. Settlers? Another Chalice?

This is what black is for. Therapy is so insane.

Bongo

02-24-2007, 08:46 AM

02-24-2007, 03:02 PM

Diablos, stop your condescending tone or this discussion is over.
I'm giving reasonable arguments why I think GBW is better, no need to start a flame war here. Discussions are here to gain new insights, but if you're not even willing to listen, this makes no sense.

I am in no way starting a flame war here. I am, however, disbelieving in your logic and think your arguments don't really justify anything that provides reasonable proof why your build is better. And I'm not the only one against you, but I'm pretty sure everyone else in this thread is in agreement with the Anger philosophy.

Diablos, stop your condescending tone or this discussion is over.
I'm giving reasonable arguments why I think GBW is better, no need to start a flame war here. Discussions are here to gain new insights, but if you're not even willing to listen, this makes no sense.

I playtested the ATS, RGBSA, and a lot of other builds. I haven't heard a lot of rational arguments for Anger builds. "OMG Anger makes everything faster" is inaccurate, since you don't need that speed as a control deck (as I explained before). You need a way to deal with the speed.
You don't have to knock sense into me, solid playtesting results and good arguments are enough to convince me. So far, I've seen neither.

Have you ever thought of fighting fire with fire? Answering speed with your own speed will allow you to equally matchup with them at the same level, but with your speed you can easily send multiple 2-for-1s in a turn. Seeing a deck like ATS or RGBSA play multiple FTKs in one turn, as early as turn 4 or 5 isn't all that uncommon. Your philosophy is skewed, however. You attempt to slow the game down and bring their game to your level. That gameplan is fine if it works, but it's also incredibly risky against a deck that is almost twice as fast as you. By the time you play Pernicious Deed (turn 3), they can kill you turn 4. Let's not forget Goblins also runs Wasteland and Rishadan Port, so they can just stall you from casting Pernicious Deed until possibly turn 4, and just gain an advantage on you tapping out. With faster builds featuring more acceleration, you have a better chance of fighting their disruption package and staying in the game, and with Anger their Survival becomes incredibly more potent because they have immediate answers and the ability to drop more threats over the course of the next few turns. Without Pernicious Deed, what you going to do against a Goblins player that just cast a Ringleader and is sending multiple Piledrivers and a horde? You can block them with your Wall of Blossoms, and play a single Loxodon Heirarch next turn, but they should still be able to run over you. You can add StP in the mix, but half the format runs StP and Goblins still runs over them. It helps, but basically I see your deck folding without Pernicious Deed. Post-board I don't know, because I don't know your sideboard. If you have Engineered Plagues it's different, but still, I feel your gameplan is just too slow to deal with their fast-paced attack.

Or, we could just get an experienced Goblins player in here and ask them what would fear more. A deck who's sole acceleration is in STE and primary means to killing Goblins is Pernicious Deed all the while being hit with disruption, or the other deck who can fight the disruption better and trade quicker against them.

And just because Deed can be answered by Needle and Krosan Grip doesn't mean it's not good. Are Goblins bad because there is Pyroclasm?

That isn't what I meant. I'm saying you place a heavy amount of reliance on Pernicious Deed as a defensive weapon, and should that be dealt with I only see you struggled against a deck like Goblins. Goblins can easily fight through something like Pyroclasm because they play Matron, Ringleader, and SGC, and just laugh through it.

Affinity, Angel Stompy, Zoo, basically all aggro matchups improve significantly with Deed. Threshold also has major problems with Deed. 3-colors also give you better manabase stability than a GRBW version against Goblins, which is crucial to consistently power out Plagues and get your engine going.

I will give you Affinity in this regard. Affinity can be a problematic matchup because of their quickness and ability to win outside of the attack step. However, Zoo, Angel Stompy, and Threshold aren't bad matchups at all. Pernicious Deed is certainly insane in these matchups, but you can't dismiss speed in these matchups. For instance take the Angel Stompy matchup. An Anger build would tutor up Rofellos and start going nuts with men and overpower AS with more threats.

I'll be gladly reverting back to the Anger builds if you can show me better playtesting & matchup results. Did you even test GBW? Your dismissal was rather quick.

I will admit that I did not test this deck, and I did dismiss it rather quickly. For this I will apologize to you because I am basing a lot of my theory on speculation, but I personally can't imagine running a Survival deck without red. I think this is perhaps because we have a greatly different view of Survival. Now that I think, pretty much both of our arguments are entirely void at this point, because we are basically discussing two entirely different decks. You look at ATS and RGBSA, they are aggro-control decks. Emphasis on aggro. Anger is an aggro card. Your GBW build is purely control. Without the aggro aspect of the deck, I suppose I can understand why Anger is unnecessary (although I don't like that logic, I see your point). Regardless, it's showing innovation for Survival from all sides, which is a good thing.

Bane of the Living

02-24-2007, 03:05 PM

Im curious why you didnt list Welder Survival at all or even mention him in the playable red cards. You list crap like Kiki Jiki combo over it... Welder Survival is imho the only survival deck really worth playing because of its combo nature and "opps i win" hands. I have no idea why it fell out of favor.

Lego

02-24-2007, 03:28 PM

Diablos, stop your condescending tone or this discussion is over.

I like how people read tone of voice into online posts.

xsockmonkeyx

02-24-2007, 04:32 PM

Welder Survival is imho the only survival deck really worth playing because of its combo nature and "opps i win" hands. I have no idea why it fell out of favor.

Wait, what?

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-24-2007, 07:37 PM

I like how people read tone of voice into online posts.

You mean excersise reading comprehension?

Or are you legitimately claiming thst "Wow, cards that a whole lot of other Survival decks run. Original thinking there chief" isn't condescension?

Lego

02-24-2007, 09:42 PM

You mean excersise reading comprehension?

Or are you legitimately claiming thst "Wow, cards that a whole lot of other Survival decks run. Original thinking there chief" isn't condescension?

Touché.

Bongo

02-25-2007, 05:11 PM

Nice to see that the tone of the discussion calmed down.

Also, thanks Spatula.

On to the interesting stuff:

Have you ever thought of fighting fire with fire? Answering speed with your own speed will allow you to equally matchup with them at the same level, but with your speed you can easily send multiple 2-for-1s in a turn.
Your philosophy is skewed, however. You attempt to slow the game down and bring their game to your level. It helps, but basically I see your deck folding without Pernicious Deed. Post-board I don't know, because I don't know your sideboard. If you have Engineered Plagues it's different, but still, I feel your gameplan is just too slow to deal with their fast-paced attack.

Actually, this thought led me to GBW. Answering fire with fire is not the way to go because Survival itself is not an aggro or speed card, like hi-val wrote in his article. You will always be inherently "behind" if you choose the speed route because of this.
Like Flores said: misassignement of role = game loss, and the proper role here is control, especially against Goblins.

Those multiple 2-for-1s mentioned above only happen if you draw Survival and if you get an active Rofellos. Those conditions aren't always easily met, and Pithing Needle is a big obstacle to this plan (which GBW has a much easier time handling due to Deed).
GBW also doesn't fold without Deed, as playtesting has shown. Just slam down Survival and go from there.

Also, Engineered Plague in the sideboard combined with a stable manabase, STE, Wall of Roots and Sensei's Top to search for multiples turn the Goblin matchup after boarding in your favor.

A deck who's sole acceleration is in STE and primary means to killing Goblins is Pernicious Deed all the while being hit with disruption, or the other deck who can fight the disruption better and trade quicker against them. .

I'm running 4 Wall of Roots in conjunction with 4 STE, so that gives me a pretty good chance to land a Deed on turn 3, even when facing a Port or a Wasteland. Turn 3 Hierarch is also nice.

I will give you Affinity in this regard. Affinity can be a problematic matchup because of their quickness and ability to win outside of the attack step. However, Zoo, Angel Stompy, and Threshold aren't bad matchups at all. Pernicious Deed is certainly insane in these matchups, but you can't dismiss speed in these matchups. For instance take the Angel Stompy matchup. An Anger build would tutor up Rofellos and start going nuts with men and overpower AS with more threats.

I'm really surprised that Affinity isn't played in numbers yet, because it constantly puts up good numbers across the field in my testing. Null Rod, Kataki, Ancient Grudge and Serenity are rare sights, and if things stay that way, Affinity will do very well at GP Columbus. Deed comes in very handy here.

Let's look a little closer at the Angel Stompy matchup. Your strategy of "going nuts with men" has a fundamental problem, and I'm not referring to the gayness-factor here.
Parallax Wave or Cataclysm offset all your multiple 2-for-1s you managed before. Sideboarded games are even worse, because Pithing Needle and/or Armageddon shut off Survival & Mana, which is the basis of your multiple 2-for-1s. Once Jitte gets counters or they start digging with Mask of Memory, things get even more difficult.
In my testing with old Survival variants, Angel Stompy was more problematic than it appeared to be on paper. RGBSA for instance had a lot of problems if it didn't run Masticore maindeck because of the Pro-Red dudes.

The GBW version with Deed has a higher win percentage, because you can take out the threats themselves instead of overpowering them and simultaneously remove the equipment, all at instant speed. Exalted Angels make nice targets for Swords.
Also, Deed dramatically increased the win percentage against Thresh and all forms of Zoo.

You look at ATS and RGBSA, they are aggro-control decks. Emphasis on aggro. Anger is an aggro card.

Maybe EATS, but the old ATS and RGBSA certainly didn't emphasize the aggro aspect. They were control-aggro, in that you switched into beatdown mode when you had control of the game. The TradewindSurvival builds where ATS evolved from were strongly control-oriented.
Rofellos+Anger just made the "switching" a lot more quicker. To start the beatdown, you need at least 1GGGGG (1G Survival, G to fetch Anger, G to fetch Rofellos, GG to play), which already indicates that Survival is not an early game card (which it needs to be if you say that it's aggro).

Again, going the aggro route is wrong here, because Survival is inherently a control card, not an aggro card, which hi-val nicely illustrated in his article.

Zilla

02-25-2007, 05:58 PM

And it's not like they don't run tutors needed to get their "one hate card," not to mention their own backup plans - for example, a quick 5 storm ETW on turn 1 or 2. In my experience, you really need a "Chalice and ___" play to win, but you have precious little to fill in that blank with. Settlers? Another Chalice?

This is what black is for. Therapy is so insane.
Chalice + Therapy = not such good synergy, being that you're going to want to set Chalice to one the majority of the time, I would think.

Mirrislegend

02-25-2007, 07:13 PM

Mulletus

02-25-2007, 07:20 PM

I wish I had the patience to read all of the replies... but I might as well post one. I play survival.... so I guess I have to defend it. I change it up all the time, mainly meta stuff. I lose to combo a lot and goblins half the time. I beat everything else. So I am currently changing my main deck to handle goblins a little more often, and I am wasting as many sideboard slots for anti-combo as dead cards there are in the main. So yes I have 8... chalice and pillar. For some reason it works. I think I need to play more though. I have the ability to mulligan very agressivly... mainly cuz my top deck is so good. Almost everything in the deck is two for one in one way or another.
I've ridden this deck to 30th at GP Philly, and a pretty high rating ... 1866 -good for #2 in the cuse, and #11 in New York. I know I'll get bashed for this part, but I didnt want new folks to think I was a random talkin jive.

02-25-2007, 10:12 PM

Again, going the aggro route is wrong here, because Survival is inherently a control card, not an aggro card, which hi-val nicely illustrated in his article.

Answering fire with fire is not the way to go because Survival itself is not an aggro or speed card, like hi-val wrote in his article.

I'm not calling anyone out here or anything, but I just find it odd that the list he posted was a more aggro-oriented deck after comments like that.

Like Flores said: misassignement of role = game loss, and the proper role here is control, especially against Goblins.

There is no missassignment of role in my or RGBSA's game plan. This depends on how you design the deck. You state that Survival is a control card, and in theory it is, but that does not mean it can't take a different route if you design the deck a completely different way. Against Goblins, you are always the control deck. Always. Just because I assume my deck to be aggro focused does not mean I have an aggro gameplan against every deck.

Those multiple 2-for-1s mentioned above only happen if you draw Survival and if you get an active Rofellos. Those conditions aren't always easily met, and Pithing Needle is a big obstacle to this plan (which GBW has a much easier time handling due to Deed).
GBW also doesn't fold without Deed, as playtesting has shown. Just slam down Survival and go from there.

That isn't true. Outside of Survival you do have Dark Confidant and Brainstorm to find your 2-for-1s, and if you stick Tradewind Rider it's a permanent answer. Obviously it's tougher without Survival, but the way you state is you believe the deck is too weak without Survival, which is far from the truth.

Also note, I honestly doubt I'll be seeing a Pithing Needle coming out of Goblins sideboard anytime soon. They have a lot more things to worry about over a Survival of the Fittest, so they shouldn't even have room in their sideboard for it.

I'm running 4 Wall of Roots in conjunction with 4 STE, so that gives me a pretty good chance to land a Deed on turn 3, even when facing a Port or a Wasteland. Turn 3 Hierarch is also nice.

I was not aware of this. You need to at least post the decklist, so everyone else can get a better idea of your argument.

Let's look a little closer at the Angel Stompy matchup. Your strategy of "going nuts with men" has a fundamental problem, and I'm not referring to the gayness-factor here.
Parallax Wave or Cataclysm offset all your multiple 2-for-1s you managed before. Sideboarded games are even worse, because Pithing Needle and/or Armageddon shut off Survival & Mana, which is the basis of your multiple 2-for-1s. Once Jitte gets counters or they start digging with Mask of Memory, things get even more difficult.

They offset the 2-for-1s managed before, as you've stated. Not after. When Parallax Wave comes down, I'm assuming there are more removal spells left in my deck. I run 6 of them, afterall.

And on Cataclysm, I will gladly take on an opponent casting it in the face of a Survival. If they believe a Cataclysm will win them the game when I still tutor up mana accelerants and 4/4 Werebears for the rest of the game, let them. The only time, only time I would honestly fear the Cataclysm would if I was without Survival facing a creature with Umezawa's Jitte on it. That can certainly happen, but the odds of it happening are worse than me drawing a Survival.

Also, Deed dramatically increased the win percentage against Thresh and all forms of Zoo.

This statement is irrelevant because Threshold is nearly a 70% win percentage for basically every Survival variant, and Zoo is an incredibly weak (not to mention underplayed) archtype. They play small men, like 2/2s or 2/3s or maybe some 3/2. I'm unsure where the idea came that a Survival deck wasn't able to deal with a weenie deck like Zoo, because it's basically designed to deal with aggro, and that is one that is 10x worse than Goblins.

To start the beatdown, you need at least 1GGGGG (1G Survival, G to fetch Anger, G to fetch Rofellos, GG to play), which already indicates that Survival is not an early game card (which it needs to be if you say that it's aggro).

The aggro archtype is not defined by the time it starts attacking. It is defined by the nature of the deck. The nature of the deck is to act very aggressively, hence the aggro. Are you saying Suicide Black wouldn't be aggro if it cut Dark Ritual and just waited until turn 3 to play all it's creatures and then attack until turn 4? Just because I'm not attacking until turn 4 or so doesn't mean the deck isn't aggro. It will take a small amount of time to set up, and then by turn 4-5 when you send 10+ damage at their face I'm pretty sure I could define that as aggro.

Actually, I think I'm just not going to respond to this thread anymore. It's fucking pointless. Just absorb those thoughts above and just let it fucking be, because I can't even comprehend how retarded this argument is. I, along with the rest of the website, will keep those Anger sentiments out, because your perspective is so, I don't want to say wrong because it'll only offend you, but "different", so different that I can't even justify a reason to keep talking. If anyone else here wants to take a stab at it, please go ahead. But you'll be wasting your time.

MattH

02-25-2007, 11:57 PM

Chalice + Therapy = not such good synergy, being that you're going to want to set Chalice to one the majority of the time, I would think.

Give me a little credit, I was advocating dropping chalices and adding Therapies in their place, with more juice (Duress, Persecute?) in the sideboard.

Finn

02-26-2007, 07:25 AM

Zilla

02-26-2007, 07:44 AM

Give me a little credit, I was advocating dropping chalices and adding Therapies in their place, with more juice (Duress, Persecute?) in the sideboard.
Credit given, of course. It's just that you got done saying you need Chalcie and something else, and then proceeded to mention Therapies, which obviously doesn't solve the problem. And honestly, I don't think Therapy is the correct choice here, even backed by Duress. Even with 4 of each in the deck, they're quick uneffective against combo unless they're backed by a fast clock, which most Survival decks are lacking.

Personally, I'd rather have Chalice in the main because it answers both combo and Thresh and Burn and all sorts of randomness. I'd back it with Pyrostatic Pillar from the board, thus giving you 8 outs to combo. Then I'd back it with something more, because even 8 permanent-based combo hate cards probably aren't going to be enough to consistently win you that matchup.

I asked this as well.
I have been wondering if he would let us know why.
My guess is that it wasn't mentioned mainly due to space constraints. SCG is a bit strict about article length. And frankly, while Welder Survival is a nice explosive deck, it barely registers as a blip on the historical radar for Legacy. It's been played and developed some, but there was never any real consensus on an optimal decklist, or even what colors it should be. Nor did it ever place at any really meaningful tournaments. It was likely not mentioned simply because it's one of the the least relevant Survival variants, from a historical standpoint.

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-26-2007, 12:18 PM

OMG I g3t teh l4st w0rd dis argument is st00pid immnot gonna argu n0 mo0re!11!!

Real mature.

If you don't want to argue a point, you let it drop. You don't sneak in your own diatribe and THEN declare the fight over.

I agree with Bongo in that automatically making any assumptions about any deck is indicitave that you don't know what you're doing, and you're just repeating what you've seen/done before. Anger is obviously very synergistic with the deck, but if you've never even thought about dropping it from the deck, you're probably doing something wrong.

Also, it's asinine to say that a control deck that uses Survival as a mid-to-late-game engine *needs* Anger. It doesn't *need* all the dead slots that most people assume are essential to any deck running Survival. That includes Squee, Anger, possibly Genesis, and probably 4 copies of Survival. This is both a matter of tempo and card advantage; if I'm running a lot of cards that are weak without Survival, when I don't drop Survival turn 2, my gameplan is considerably set back. Either way I have to invest two turns to dropping and setting up Survival, and I have to run a fair chunk of the deck soley dedicated to the engine. And if I don't draw/keep a mountain, my gameplan is setback further. I doubt any of the critics have actually tested a more controlish build without red, that doesn't rely on Survival as their first and only gameplan other than bad beats.

02-26-2007, 12:47 PM

If you don't want to argue a point, you let it drop. You don't sneak in your own diatribe and THEN declare the fight over.

I am letting it drop. Yes, in a rather childish manner, but that's how I see this argument. The fight isn't over, because other people can chime in if they like, but I'm just not discussing it.

I agree with Bongo in that automatically making any assumptions about any deck is indicitave that you don't know what you're doing, and you're just repeating what you've seen/done before. Anger is obviously very synergistic with the deck, but if you've never even thought about dropping it from the deck, you're probably doing something wrong.

Did you read this? From me a couple posts above:

I will admit that I did not test this deck, and I did dismiss it rather quickly. For this I will apologize to you because I am basing a lot of my theory on speculation, but I personally can't imagine running a Survival deck without red. I think this is perhaps because we have a greatly different view of Survival. Now that I think, pretty much both of our arguments are entirely void at this point, because we are basically discussing two entirely different decks. You look at ATS and RGBSA, they are aggro-control decks. Emphasis on aggro. Anger is an aggro card. Your GBW build is purely control. Without the aggro aspect of the deck, I suppose I can understand why Anger is unnecessary (although I don't like that logic, I see your point). Regardless, it's showing innovation for Survival from all sides, which is a good thing

I'm not sure if that entirely answers what you're saying, but I figured I'd stick it back out there.

Tacosnape

02-26-2007, 01:19 PM

I agree with Bongo in that automatically making any assumptions about any deck is indicitave that you don't know what you're doing, and you're just repeating what you've seen/done before. Anger is obviously very synergistic with the deck, but if you've never even thought about dropping it from the deck, you're probably doing something wrong.

QFT. On both counts. No two Survival decks run the same, and a lot of Survival is running what you're comfortable with.

Anger, like Valor in white builds, is awesome when he's working, but he's a weak card without Survival and just one more reason for graveyard hate to actually be effective.

The only two creatures I consistently run in any Survival build are Squee and Genesis, and I don't always run Genesis in my more aggro builds (Zenigata and Twilight, the latter of which I have yet to post.)

I thoroughly like the black splash in most Survival decks as black addresses Survival's two biggest weaknesses. How not to get wrecked by combo decks, and how not to get completely overrun by Goblins. The combo slots for Survival in black should obviously be Duress and Therapy, and for slots 9-12 I prefer Mesmeric Fiend, as this gives you 12 heat-seeking missiles, the latter four of which can be dug up with Survival.

Also, I don't agree with the assessment that 2-color Survival is automatically better than 3+ color Survival. I've won many a tournament with 4C builds, which are admittedly risky, but feasible due to the options they present. I've also seen many 3-color builds work (I myself had an excellent GWB version.)

hi-val

02-26-2007, 03:22 PM

I thought the article was well written, and would have been persuasive if it didnt fold to one idiom that I thought has become very common in reference to Survival: Dont have half of your deck made of techy one-ofs. If you do, and for any reason are denied the full use of SotF, then you will lose.

Is the fault with the idiom? Because it seems more than reasonable to me...

I don't mean to sound like a douche but did you actually read my article? I spent a thousand words talking about this very point.

The only really survival-dependent cards are Squee and Anger.

I specifically talk about how bad it is when you try to tech the deck too much.

On the topic of Anger, are we talking about a card that:

-when you don't have Survival out, it's mediocre
-When you do have Survival out, your deck goes INSANE, more than any other card you could possibly run in the deck

and we're playing a deck that's made to get Survival out?

That's like saying you shouldn't run STP in UW Landstill because it's bad if you don't have a Plains on the board. That's a really, really weak argument.

On the topic of Genesis, it's the reason why you beat so many decks; the inevitability it and only it grants is too much to sacrifice in a deck where you depend on dominating the long game.

On the topic of aggro Survival, I think it's terrible. Take out the Survivals and replace them with Skyshroud War Beasts or River Boas.

I still don't really see what 3 or 4-color Survival builds really give you. They don't give you any disruption that's better than Chalice. Blue gives you bouncing and creaturekill (Red and Green kill permanents and creatures), Black gives creature-based discard (which is why I would run a splash of it) and white gives you Hierarch and Glowrider (both don't impress me enough to run white). Like you CAN run 3 or 4 or 5-color builds but I've yet to see a persuasive, synergistic reason to run more colors when you don't have to. It think that's getting in danger of Cool Things.

Black doesn't win you the first game against Goblins unless you're running Gloomdrifter main and Pyromancer is just fine in that slot anyway. Black doesn't really win you the first game against combo either because combo decks don't fold to 1-for-1 discard.

For the GWB Survival players, what do you think your deck's advantages are over GWB Control (Truffle Shuffle)? I'm honestly curious here.

iOWN

02-26-2007, 04:05 PM

I don't mean to sound like a douche but did you actually read my article? I spent a thousand words talking about this very point.

The only really survival-dependent cards are Squee and Anger.

I specifically talk about how bad it is when you try to tech the deck too much.

I hope I'm not just misreading what you are saying and reposting what's been said, but I think that what Mirrislegend was trying to say you're build looks like it's large toolbox of creatures may sometimes be a burden. Sylvan Library looks great as an alternate consistency engine to Survival that can't be Needled, however you still have 10 one-of creatures as opposed to 12 total grouped in playsets. I'll admit I haven't tested your list yet, but it would seem like it would suboptimal when Survival is not active to end up drawing somewhat useless one-ofs (well, " somewhat useless" most of the time) when you could increase consistency with more multiples of cards you want to get when lacking SotF.

They don't give you any disruption that's better than Chalice.

While that is true, 3+C builds offer additional disruption that is better than Pillar, thus improving the combo match more. (As in disruption in the form of Creatures.)

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-26-2007, 05:51 PM

On the topic of Anger, are we talking about a card that:

-when you don't have Survival out, it's shitty

Fixed.

-When you do have Survival + Taiga + Rofellos/lots of lands out, your deck goes INSANE, more than any other card you could possibly run in the deck

Fixed.

That's like saying you shouldn't run STP in UW Landstill because it's bad if you don't have a Plains on the board. That's a really, really weak argument.

Hyperbole is pretty awesome, I agree.

StP is a card that stands alone. It's not a card that needs a certain land to stick around in your tertiary color that otherwise adds very little to the deck.

I mean, really, what in that "analogy" makes you think that it's even remotely similiar?

A)2 colors vs 3 colors - I don't think anyone suggested that in a G/R Survival build, you shouldn't run Anger. We're talking about versions that don't run red, quite obviously, so comparing these two things as mana-base issues is just ridiculous.

B)StP requires only a single white mana for one turn to work. Anger requires Survival + Taiga + Rofellos to abuse Anger. It's a two turn set-up that requires a couple things sticking around to get busted. This is perfectly feasible, but not ideal or necessary in every Survival build.

I still don't really see what 3 or 4-color Survival builds really give you.

I don't think anyone else gets what it takes away.

They don't give you any disruption that's better than Chalice. Blue gives you bouncing and creaturekill (Red and Green kill permanents and creatures), Black gives creature-based discard (which is why I would run a splash of it) and white gives you Hierarch and Glowrider (both don't impress me enough to run white). Like you CAN run 3 or 4 or 5-color builds but I've yet to see a persuasive, synergistic reason to run more colors when you don't have to. It think that's getting in danger of Cool Things.

In a format defined by fetch-lands and dual-lands, running more than 2 colors is hardly "cool things". It's an accepted and incredibly easily obtained norm.

Black doesn't win you the first game against Goblins unless you're running Gloomdrifter main and Pyromancer is just fine in that slot anyway. Black doesn't really win you the first game against combo either because combo decks don't fold to 1-for-1 discard.

It can give you some time to set up your card advantage engine, and it gives you cheap redundancy in creature kill. We're not looking for cards that single-handedly win the game vs combo turn 1, because no card does that.

Bongo

02-26-2007, 07:53 PM

Whoa, a lot of points to discuss here!
Although there are some disagreements about how Survival should be built, that's not a reason to get angry. Let's keep it civil, because I think there are some really important things to learn here.

Just because I'm not attacking until turn 4 or so doesn't mean the deck isn't aggro. It will take a small amount of time to set up, and then by turn 4-5 when you send 10+ damage at their face I'm pretty sure I could define that as aggro.

By that rationale, Vintage Gifts would be aggro. It also sets itself up for a turn where it sends in 10+ damage with Colossus/Timewalk, but that doesn't make the deck aggro. It's not the win condition that defines if a deck is aggro or not, it's the way a deck functions.

This statement is irrelevant because Threshold is nearly a 70% win percentage for basically every Survival variant, and Zoo is an incredibly weak (not to mention underplayed) archtype. They play small men, like 2/2s or 2/3s or maybe some 3/2. I'm unsure where the idea came that a Survival deck wasn't able to deal with a weenie deck like Zoo, because it's basically designed to deal with aggro, and that is one that is 10x worse than Goblins.

I don't want to nitpick here, but against competent Threshold players, I wasn't getting anywhere near 70% with the old Survival builds.
You're also underestimating Zoo. If I recall correctly, the 1st Source Tourney and the Finnish Legacy Championship were won by a Zoo build. They put a lot of early pressure on you, and Dark Confidant is not effective defense against Zoo and Goblins. You're really dependant on Survival here.
Pernicious Deed improved both matchups significantly. Why not make favorable matchups even more in your favor?

If they believe a Cataclysm will win them the game when I still tutor up mana accelerants and 4/4 Werebears for the rest of the game, let them. The only time, only time I would honestly fear the Cataclysm would if I was without Survival facing a creature with Umezawa's Jitte on it. That can certainly happen, but the odds of it happening are worse than me drawing a Survival.

Cataclysm is even worse than Parallax Wave for the Survival player. Tutoring up mana accelerants and playing them costs you a few turns, which are effectively Timewalks for the Angel Stompy player until you have blockers. Even in the optimal scenario where you have Squee & Anger in the grave and a Taiga in play, you need 1GGG to cast a meaningful blocker (G for tutoring Birds, G to play them, tap them to search for Werebear, 1G to play Werebear).
If one of the components are missing you need even more time. SoFI or Jitte make recovering even more difficult. If the remaining creature is Priest or Angel, you can't even block effectively. There are so many "if"s for the Survival player.
Angel Stompy was by no means an easy matchup with the old Survival builds (the new version with Cataclysm even more so).

And honestly, I don't think Therapy is the correct choice here, even backed by Duress. Even with 4 of each in the deck, they're quick uneffective against combo unless they're backed by a fast clock, which most Survival decks are lacking.

After trying various solutions, Therapy and Duress gave me the best results. The are two big advantages that the discard spells have over Chalice:

1. They take the best spell out of the hand.
This effectively slows down the combo player by a turn. Chalice can be bounced, and the Solidarity player can proceed to go off. There are also decks like Aluren that aren't hosed by Chalice.
Once the spells are in the graveyard, only a topdecked IGG can get them back. Furthermore, Eternal Witness+Duress/Therapy allows you to constantly attack their hand, which gives you the time you need to finish the game.

2. The cost.
Duress and Therapy can be played beginning at turn 1. While Chalice can also be played for 0, this is only effective against IGGY (and they still have the Ritual route). Most of the time, you set Chalice for 1, which is a turn 2 play in Survival. This is a huge difference, as now Chalice can be countered via Remand/Force from Solidarity or discarded by Therapy/Duress from Salvagers.
Recurring Chalice with Witness also costs 3GG. Solidarity can go off in response to Chalice by then.

For the GWB Survival players, what do you think your deck's advantages are over GWB Control (Truffle Shuffle)? I'm honestly curious here.

A card advantage engine in the form of Survival, faster clock, tutor power&versatility, decreased vulnerability to Wasteland, fewer dead cards maindeck, better sideboard options, better matchup against aggro like Goblins, Deadguy, Zoo, Burn.

Of all the GWB decks like TruffleShuffle & Rock/white, GBW Survival puts up the best results. When I tried the aforementioned decks and tried to improve some matchups, the end resuls was always something similar to GBW Survival.

hi-val

02-26-2007, 11:16 PM

Spatula, I was responding to this post:

Anger, like Valor in white builds, is awesome when he's working, but he's a weak card without Survival and just one more reason for graveyard hate to actually be effective.

My point is that if you're going to run one shitty Survival-dependent creature, then Anger is the one, and that having it be shitty when you don't have Survival out is overwhelmingly overruled by how good it is when you have it out.

Kind of like how STP is shitty when you don't have white mana but amazing when you do have it out. See how that works?

And Anger hardly needs Rofellos and lots of land to be insane. Do you play your Baloths and FTKs and then not attack out of kindness for the opponent? Anger is quite strong when you have to race stuff like combo or combo-like objects.

To put it another way, I'd rather run Anger than Squee if it was an either/or decision.

SpatulaOfTheAges

02-27-2007, 12:41 AM

Spatula, I was responding to this post:

My point is that if you're going to run one shitty Survival-dependent creature, then Anger is the one, and that having it be shitty when you don't have Survival out is overwhelmingly overruled by how good it is when you have it out.

Kind of like how STP is shitty when you don't have white mana but amazing when you do have it out. See how that works?

And Anger hardly needs Rofellos and lots of land to be insane. Do you play your Baloths and FTKs and then not attack out of kindness for the opponent? Anger is quite strong when you have to race stuff like combo or combo-like objects.

To put it another way, I'd rather run Anger than Squee if it was an either/or decision.

Not at all the same thing, and I think that if you stopped and thought for about 10 seconds you'd see that.

Anger isn't just a dead slot without Survival, and it's not just a requirement to have a mountain in play. It's a color investment that's pretty situational.

When you're developing a Survival list, most people start with threats/answers they want to run. The problem is, that sometimes that list doesn't include any red cards. In that case splashing red ONLY for Anger is probably bad.

And spending 2 mana then 3 mana then 4 mana for a hasty 4/4 isn't the hot sauce. Anger *needs* Rofellos to be worthwhile. Any other Anger-related play before the late-game is mediocre.