[Deck] RG Survival Advantage - Former DTB [Archive] - Page 2

juventus

12-26-2005, 07:00 AM

I played this in a GPT in Germany losing 2-1 n the First Game of Top8 to Goblins. First the Decklist, I'll explain the Choices later.

*decklist*

The Deck plays more like Rock/Aggro Control the like a traditional RG/SA.
I've been testing your build a lot, and I have really grown to like it. Against control, you can overwhelm them with card advantage and good threats. Against aggro you can generally defend yourself well enoughg to stabalize as most survival decks do. Combo is a bit of a problem but therapies and burning wishes make things much better. Aggro control is a joke to play against. Your card advantage ruins them.

I made a few changes to your list though:

First off I made the deck 60 cards because it helps you get survival in hand more often. Next I put in a Rofellos because there is no way you can say no to an extra 3-5 mana a turn while survival is out. Without a survival, he is still superb mana accelleration. The fact that he only takes up one slot is even more reason to not cut him. I also threw in a boneshredder because you need a way to get rid of big stuff easily. The last change to the maindeck I made was adding a single mesmeric fiend because I felt I needed a card to survival for against combo. In the sideboard I added chainer's edict, living death, and meltdown as wish targets because they are so good.

So here is the list I have come up with:

//Lands
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
9 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain

//Acceleration
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

//Spells
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy

//Creatures
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Wall of Blossoms
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Eternal Witness
2 Flametongue Kavu

//1 ofs
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Boneshredder
1 Mesmeric Fiend
2 Goblin Sharpshooter

// Board
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 2 Boil
SB: 3 Duress
SB: 1 Duplicant
// Wishboard
SB: 1 Haunting Echoes
SB: 1 Hull Breach
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Living Death
SB: 1 Chainer's Edict
SB: 1 Meltdown

I'm interested in what you think, Tao.

Also, to all of you who are opposed to Zealot:

There is only one argument that I will accept, and that is that he is horrible against humility, but what would you suggest? Monk Idealist? The fact is that Zealot gets rid of artifacts AND enchantments. No other creature for less than 5 mana does this. The fact that you can waste only one slot worrying about artifacts and enchantments in a survival deck is huge. For every extra card you play with that is designed to be searched for with survival, your game is that much worse without survival. For example I could make a survival deck full of one-of's for every situation imaginable, but the deck would suck because I would have a bunch of situational and weak cards when I don't draw a survival. You can always play sex monkey/lyrist like ATS used to, but a zealot is much more efficient. Finally, the zealot is NOT too expensive, and is a 2/1 for 2 mana. If you have played survival as much as I have, you would appreciate Zealot.

I still haven't cut the Yavimaya Elders from my decklist but I did have to relegate Goblin Sharpshooter to the board to fit wishes in. :\

>_<

Goblin Sharpshooter is a must in the maindeck of any survival deck that has red. It's just too good of a silver bullet to sideboard.

MattH

12-26-2005, 05:28 PM

Rules note: Monk Idealist will not kill a Humility, because there is no point in which the Idealist will be in play and have the "When ~this~ comes into play..." text.

Slay

12-26-2005, 05:47 PM

Zealot is balls-expensive, and there's seriously not many enchantments you'd really wnt to kill with it anyhow. I can think of Worship, but that's about it.
-Slay

juventus

12-26-2005, 06:56 PM

Zealot is balls-expensive, and there's seriously not many enchantments you'd really wnt to kill with it anyhow. I can think of Worship, but that's about it.
-Slay
If by balls-expensive you mean costs one more mana, then yes. Hmm, not many enchantments...Survival anyone?...Deed? There are tons of enchantments that you would want to hit with zealot. You can't expect every deck in the tournament to be Tier 1. Also, zealot is not so "balls-expensive" when you need to take two turns to use him. Say you have only 2 mana. You can drop a zealot, but can you drop a Sex Monkey?

btw, that livejournal link is the funniest shit I've read in a long time, whether it's real or not. (I'm guessing not.)

Slay

12-26-2005, 07:38 PM

My experience was that getting 4 mana in the midgame was a lot harder than 3 mana, when you factor in things like Witness, FTK, and Survival activations. Not all the time do you have Rofellos + 4 lands pumping out mana like no one's business.

A 4-mana disenchant simply does not cut the mustard, unless you have a rather above average draw.
-Slay

juventus

12-26-2005, 07:46 PM

A 4-mana disenchant simply does not cut the mustard, unless you have a rather above average draw.
-Slay
are you saying you'd rather have a 3 mana oxidize? Why is Flametongue in the deck then? It's a four mana burn spell that does 4 damage. Witness is a three mana regrowth. A four mana disenchant DOES cut the mustard when you can survival for it. And keep in mind that this is one extra mana only. "when you factor in things like Witness, FTK, and Survival activations" it's hard to get 3 mana left as well.

Slay

12-26-2005, 08:57 PM

As I said, in my experience three mana is a lot easier to get and still cast important spells. A lot of times I've had three mana open with a Zealot in hand, wishing it was a Sex Monkey. This is purely based on my playtesting with the deck. A lot of times I'd have to search for a Wall instead of killing the artifact just because I'd run out of mana.
-Slay

Bargoth

12-26-2005, 11:58 PM

Not to mention that Uktabi is a 3 mana Oxidize AND a 2/2 body, Witness a 3 mana Regrowth AND a 2/1 body, and FTK a 4 pt burn spell AND a 4/2. Zealot is a 2/1 body OR a 4 mana Disenchant.

That being said, outside Survival and Worship I can't think of any other enchantments that tier 1 decks play. I don't think Zealot serves as much of an answer to Deed as they can usually blow it for 2 by the time you can cast and active Zealot in which case they can take out Survival which is probably all they were shooting to do anyway. I don't think that Zealot really answers Survival that well either as they will definitely be able to pull up a Witness by the time Zealot is online and in that case they can grab the Survival back. The only enchantment I see in tier 1 decks that Zealot answers remotely efficently is Worship. Burning Wish for Earthquake or Hull Breach can solve that problem, without devoting a main deck slot to a card that not that many decks play.

juventus

12-27-2005, 08:02 AM

Slay

12-27-2005, 11:29 AM

While it's golden in the Survival mirror, our point is that you're rarely going to come up against the Survival mirror in most tournaments, so what's the point of havnig tech in there for that matchup?
-Slay

Bargoth

12-27-2005, 05:04 PM

I don't think that Zealot really answers Survival that well either as they will definitely be able to pull up a Witness by the time Zealot is online and in that case they can grab the Survival back.
This is completely false. If you have ever seen a Survival mirror, Zealot holds an important role similar to Rofellos and Sharpshooter. "But I can just witness it back!" Yes, but you will be wasting the next turn using all your mana to get your survival back into play. Additionally, if they have no green mana open, then they can't search for a witness and are stumped.
Ok so they waste all there mana getting it back into play and you wasted all yours the turn before removing it... I agree that Zealot will destroy Survival. It costs 4 mana to do so. The Survival player can pay a green that turn to get Witness and then replay the Survival the following turn, admittedly most likely using all of there mana. So you are both spending a full turn worth of mana to put you in essentially the same board position. If you have a Zealot and are against a Survival deck and have the mana to use it, it is probably the right play, but I don't think that there are enough Survival players in the current meta to make Zealot a worth while main deck card.

It will come up from time to time that they don’t have the green mana and you can nuke the Survival and they are screwed, in these cases a Burning Wish for Hull Breach would net the same result for 4 mana as well. But that’s all sort of beside the point because I don't feel that Survival decks make up enough of the metagame to worry about it.

Vardaman

12-28-2005, 02:38 PM

What do people think about having one Gigapede in the sideboard to bring in vs Landstill, wombat, etc. It is a powerful, recurrable threat that control decks have to answer.

@the Orcish Settlers comment: I also agree that Survival might want to have a way to deal with lands. Volrath's Stronghold and Rishadan Port are major annoyances. Some options are Orcish Settler, that Lavarider, destroy a land guy, or Kamahl + Goblin Sharpshooter shenanigans. None of these are really optimal but might be nice to have.

Bargoth

12-28-2005, 02:50 PM

Gigapede seems like overkill really. I’m assuming you mean as a one of. If so that means you would probably need Survival in play to get it. When Survival is in play it probably just makes more sense to get Genesis + Baloth. They will do essentially the same thing, as Baloth can't be removed by Swords and can be recurred if the control player wants to cast Wrath. Gigapede is a bit bigger and a bit cheaper to put into play from the 'yard, but can also be chumped (and killed) by DoJ tokens and man-lands, so I think it would probably end up costing as much mana really, not to mention you have to discard a card to get it back.

AngryTroll

12-28-2005, 06:05 PM

I believe that the rise of Gro opens a window for RGSA to make a comeback as one of the top decks in the format.

The massive uprising of Gro is forcing Combo to the background right now, because Gro is one of the worst possible matchups for Combo. Combo is RGSA's absoute worst matchup, and is almost unwinnable game one, and game two and three are not pretty. However, the sudden rise in Gro should swing the metagame away from combo.

The matchup of Gro versus RGSA is not an easy one. Misplays are likely to lose the game for either player. NOTE: the version I have been testing against runs Mongeese main instead of Needles. We are likely to see 2-3 needles mainboard in a good number of the decks, especially if RGSA begins to swing back.

However, I would much rather be sitting on the side of the table piloting Survival then Gro. Now, I will admit that I am playing Trolls mainboard; although controversial, they are very good in the Gro matchup. This topic has had much said about it, but I still believe that they are better against Gro, and as good against Goblins.

RGSA has more threats then Gro, its average threat is bigger then Gros, and it has several "I win" cards that must be countered, Maged, or Needled or we win the game. A minor retooling of the deck may be neccassary, but even the current version is solid enough to make Gro a very winnable matchup. The games against gro seem to end with a stalemate on the ground, and then a Mystic Enforcer smashing overhead for the win when Gro wins, or a stalemate on the ground broken open by a higher threat density in RGSA or the brokenness of Survival of the Fittest.

Currently, Goblins and Gro are very winnable matchups, with both being close but in our favor, I believe. My list is the basic RGSA core, without much of the fancy stuff played by some. I know it has been posted before, but the lists recently are very different and there has not been a classic RGSA list in quite a while. There are a few changes from any of the other lists, but it may be removed or summarized by a mod if it is deemed cluttersome.

4 Birds
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Eternal Witness
4 FTK
3 Baloth

1 Deranged Hermit
1 Rofellos
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Squee
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 (Duplicant/Zealot/Icheman Druid, pick two)

4 Survival
4 Burning Wish

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
2 Mountain
11 Forest

The sideboard is the normal wishboard, REBs, and 3 Tormod's Crypt.

Icheman Druid may be neccassary if there is a combo presence in your metagame; Duplicant is our best answer for Mysitic Enforcer; and Zealot can be Zealot or another Shaman (Jitte is really, really bad if is sticks around); or you can run the fourth Baloth in Goblin heavy metagames.

My testing is not as extensive as it should be, so I am curious to see the results other people are generating. Does anyone else see the rising popularity of Gro as an opening for RGSA?

juventus

12-29-2005, 06:21 AM

Besides your one Ichneuman Druid, which really only works against storm combo, you will get badly beaten by combo. This is why I feel the deck can really benefit from a black splash.

Icheman Druid may be neccassary if there is a combo presence in your metagame; Duplicant is our best answer for Mysitic Enforcer; and Zealot can be Zealot or another Shaman (Jitte is really, really bad if is sticks around); or you can run the fourth Baloth in Goblin heavy metagames.

My testing is not as extensive as it should be, so I am curious to see the results other people are generating. Does anyone else see the rising popularity of Gro as an opening for RGSA?

Duplicant is a good answer to Mystic Enforcer, but recurring a birds every turn isn't too bad either. If you get a survival out, Gro really shouldn't worry you. In a goblin heavy metagame I would rather add a second sharpshooter than a fourth baloth. By the time baloth comes out it is very likely that it is too late. Shard phoenix is also something interesting that I noticed in some random decklist.

I agree with you: the rise in Gro definitely helps RGSA. What would help it even more would be the rise of Landstill since the deck was originally created to beat it. I find that RGSA does very well against any forms of control, so a rise in control in general would be nice.

AngryTroll

12-29-2005, 05:10 PM

I agree that a second Sharpshooter is a very nice addition to the deck- I missed that one somehow. I know that, I just forgot.

Yes, the game one against combo is a very bad matchup. In theory, a turn one birds followed by a turn two survival and a turn three Druid can pressure Solidarity into trying to go off on two or three land, but the odds of that are not very good. With Burning Wish also in the deck, a turn one birds can lead to a turn three Tsunami, again trying to force Solidarity to counter or go off on three land. It is certainly not a good thing to be paired against combo, but at least you have some hope of a game game one, and then game two you can side in either REBs or Pyroclastic Pillars to supplement Druid and Burning Wishes.

The sideboard has many interesting choices for the Combo matchup, including REB, Pyroclastic Pillar, and Chalice of the Void. Incidently, Chalice is not horrible against Gro either. It depends on what you see regularly. Where I play, there is typically only one or two combo decks at most out of 20 - 25 players, and aggro and control make up the rest of the field. Half the time I am one of the combo players, so it is all good.

juventus

12-29-2005, 06:34 PM

In a perfect RGSA world, high tide would be the only combo deck. The deck can beat tide easily post board (mainly because in my opinion, high tide sucks). The problem is that there is other combo that doesn't lose to tsunami and REB, and some don't lose to pyrostatic pillar or ichneumon. Flamevault, Iggy pop, Nausea, and Salvagers game will all beat you.

calosso

12-29-2005, 07:29 PM

First of all last time I checked High Tide didn't suck.

Second Mulletus lost to Deep6er when he casted 3 tsunami's and this was at day 2 of GP Philly.

blacklotus3636

12-29-2005, 07:58 PM

Vardaman

12-29-2005, 10:20 PM

Why is everyone concerned with combo? There are about 4 or 5 different combo decks that we know of and each of them requires specific cards to beat it and if we use those cards we sacrifice strength in other more relevant matchups. I think combo is mostly irrelevant, if it was relevant in terms of numbers I wouldn't play this deck. If you play this deck expect to have a bad matchup with combo and have an even or better matchup with pretty much everything else is that such a bad tradeoff?
Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's much that this deck can do to improve it's game vs. non-blue combo outside of adding black. Tsunami and REBs help vs. solidarity and control but what do you do vs. Tendrils storm besides try to race?

Bargoth

12-29-2005, 10:36 PM

Pyrostatic Pillar is pretty solid card vs Tendrils as well as Solidarity. I would try to cram 3-4 into the board if you are worried about storm combo. It's the Salvager one that I cant think of anything good to board against, guess maybe 'yard hate, could be handy vs Gro as well.

If you are facing alot of combo you can go the black route too as mentioned above.

I dont think combo is that big of an issue right now, its more important too keep game strong against Goblins and Gro right now, and I think this deck has both of those under control in its current form.

tpnp

12-29-2005, 11:56 PM

Pyrostatic Pillar is pretty solid card vs Tendrils as well as Solidarity. I would try to cram 3-4 into the board if you are worried about storm combo. It's the Salvager one that I cant think of anything good to board against, guess maybe 'yard hate, could be handy vs Gro as well.

Pillar also hurts Salvager since they are recurring Lion's Eye Diamond numerous times to get infinite mana...just wanted to point that out.

Sideboard against Thresh, the only thing I can think of is Chalice for 1. It hits almost all of their cantrips, the geese, and StP/Lightning Bolt.

It's late for me so I am most definitely missing something, so on that note I am going to bed.

Slay

12-30-2005, 12:19 AM

Pillar is insanely solid against Gro as well.
-Slay

Bargoth

12-30-2005, 12:36 AM

just wanted to point that out.
haha... Yeah for some reason I was thinking the Salvagers brought the artifact into play... I guess cause with LED costing zero and generating infinite mana they can put anything into play; I should have read over Salvager a bit more closely. So Pillar is even better than I was initially thinking as its good against all three combo decks and like Slay said its solid versus Gro too.

AngryTroll

12-30-2005, 01:28 AM

Well, I went and tested the Gro matchup a bunch this evening, and it is horrible for Gro, pre and post board. As a side note, Anarchy destroys Mystic Enforcers, Gro's main way of winning when the ground stalls up. My sideboard happened to be packing one because of Angel Stompy, and it wrecked me a few times when I was playing Gro. As a disclaimer, I was running Suppression Field in the side over Pithing Needle due to my lack of Pithing Needles. However, even with Needle, RGSA seems like it walks all over Gro.

As a side note, will people stop forgetting to put TJS on that list? Come on, it posts numbers just as good as Nausea...sigh...a rant for another day and place, I suppose. Take it up in the TJS or Nausea forum if you disagree.

Even without Survival, our threat density is much higher then the answers Gro has available. Out of several hours of playing Gro vs RGSA tonight, with me playing Gro and a buddy playing RGSA, Gro only won a few of the games all night, pre or post board. Gro is simply a great matchup for RGSA.

I can see where the debate about Wall of Blossoms vs Troll Ascetic is relevent against Goblins. However, the sheer awesomeness of Troll against Gro makes me sure that it is the right card for the slot.

About combo, Pyroclastic Pillar is great against most combo, but the black splash is probably the way to go if you have a combo heavy format. Or play Gro. With the Druid mainboard, you do have a decent shot against Solidarity and Salvagers, because you have 4 Survival, 4 Burning Wish, and 1 Druid to draw. That is nine cards game one that are game breaking against those decks. In most cases, they will either have to try to combo in responce, hace countermagic ready, or wait and find a way to bounce the Druid.

usul

01-03-2006, 12:23 PM

My thoughts:

I haven't tested burning wish yet but that's my version of SA and it goes sooooooo well. The main changes:

That deck wins with survival, FTK's and Baloth's, not stalling with trolls imho.
So Iplayed with white for enlightned from the beginning and has proven to be useful.

Don't you have matches where you are drawing only elves and birds and walls all the time?
The swords solved this problem for me making my little creatures a more important threat.

In a deck with squees I MUST use Masticore, in a deck with white I MUST use Loxodon Hierarch
because is far better than Baloths.

And finally, have you tested those chalice? They are insane in this format put a chalice for one
on turn two and look the face of the player running: red burn, Gro, Solidarity, Enchantress, Nausea, Zoo.
Those come to my mind now but sounds good eh? The last tournament I played 2 chalices:
on 1 and 2 counters versus a burn deck. When he saw the 2nd coming, he scooped. So easy.

Genesis seems too slow for my taste. I have replaced the hermit for the sakura for the same reason.
And 2 squees are necessary due to the inclusion of Masticore and because everybody is maindecking
graveyard removal.

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Wall of Roots
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Eternal Witness
4 FTK
4 Loxodon Hierarch

1 Sakura-Tribe elder
1 Rofellos
1 Anger
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Squee
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Masticore

4 Survival
2 Enlightned tutor
2 Sword of Fire Ice
2 Chalice of the Void

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
2 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
4 Forest

The side I know is weak but I am improving it... My meta is diferent every week so... It's difficult not to
make the side 5 minutes before the tourney!

SB:
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Rule of Law
2 Sphere of Law
3 Naturalize
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Genesis
1 Pithing Needle
1 Arashi
1 Kataki

Please excuse my poor english and throw your thoughts on this!

calosso

01-03-2006, 12:58 PM

The deck isn't as explosive as the R/G build of SA. Also your match-up with goblins isn't good but I like the hierarach because of the like gain and he regeneration your team. But you mana base is much weaker which will affect you game against goblins.

juventus

01-04-2006, 06:51 PM

@ursul:

Your deck is interesting and it seems to have more firepower than the average RGSA deck, there are some problems though...

1) Your deck is much worse against wasteland. While this might seem like a problem, it can be easily fixed. I would play a mana base like this:

3 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
3 Taiga
2 Savannah
1 Mountain
1 Plains
10 Forest

You might have a little more trouble getting white on the first turn for E Tutor, but I would fear wasteland ruining your day more.

2) Your matchup versus control is much worse. Though this is the deck's best matchup, I think you are ruining it. Your deck plays only 1 witness, the deck's strongest card against control. Additionally, you have 4 FTK's which will sit around in your hand doing nothing. You have really only 11 threats: 4 survival, 4 hierarch, 2 sword, 1 masticore. On top of this, E Tutor is horrible against control and is card disadvantage. (BTW, I HATE E tutor in any survival deck, but that is just my opinion.)

3) You don't play Burning Wish >_<. This is kinda a problem. It does so much, most importantly gets hull breach, pyroclasm, and ruination. This will hurt your game against combo, control, and aggro. On the other hand, it opens up some space for SB cards games 2 and 3. I don't feel this is a good decision though.

4) Chalice of the Void? For what? MAYBE if you cut E tutor you could play it for one. I don't find it very strong in the deck.

IMO your deck does very well with a Survival out. So what? So does every single other survival deck. The problem I see with your deck is similar to ATS's...not enough solid threats. You don't seem to have too good of a game without Survival.

Oh yea.

About cutting a Genesis for a Squee...I think this is a very interesting idea considering Genesis gets very rarely used while Squee generally is used every turn. I just might have to try this out. I would keep a Genesis in the SB though, since it is very good against control. On the other hand, Genesis is good for recurring one of's that get killed, like Zealot or Rofellos (but then again you can just witness them (but then again you could be out of witnesses)). In any case, it's an interesting decision. I have always contemplated cutting Genesis.

Obfuscate Freely

01-04-2006, 07:11 PM

Bargoth

01-04-2006, 07:24 PM

A couple things...

I think Genesis is pretty incredible in Survival. I usually grab him shortly after Anger and Squee. He makes sure that if your opponent clears your Survival off the board that you can still keep a constant flow of threats. As far as Squee having two seems overkill, I rarely find myself with extra mana, between cards your drawing off of a single and Eternal Witness bringing back threats. Not to mention that one is already drawing their regular card each turn. Having the ability to bring back your tool box creatures is crucial, Viridian Zealot, Sharpshooter, Rofellos... These cards are what give you so many options to choose from and running Genesis allows you to ensure you will not be reliant of Eternal Witness recursion to get them.

The other thing is that I really don't like Enlightened Tutor as a means to getting Survival *given the current metagame*. With the abundance of Gro and Predict, Enlightened Tutor gives them a free set up spell and removes one of your Survivals. Usually I'm not a huge fan of this card due to it's inherent card disadvantage, and it's requirement of a splash of white into a deck that doesn't gain much else from white. While on the white splash topic, it's worth mentioning that no matter how you construct the mana base the 3-color version is more susceptible to Goblin's land disruption than the 2-color version.

juventus

01-04-2006, 08:04 PM

But... Genesis is the reason control players (often Gro players, as well) fear a resolved Survival so much. Without it, they can let Survival resolve and kill it at their leisure, their only risk being a few extra cards generated by Squee recursion (and that at quite a high manacost).
So you're saying that if I didn't play Genesis, you would let me resolve Survivals? Interesting. Keep in mind you can't quite kill it as easily as you think. In response to you killing survival, I find Witness. I agree that the witness plan isn't as good as the Genesis plan, but hey, at least it works.

Don't worry, I still play Genesis and one Squee, I just think it is an interesting idea. Genesis' main job is to help recover from board wipes/survival dead and get back one of's that died. Witness can already do this job fairly well.

And btw, keep in mind that those "few extra cards generated by squee" are guaranteed threats and exactly the creature you want.

Obfuscate Freely

01-04-2006, 09:48 PM

I guess I should have worded my point a little differently.

Basically, with Genesis in the deck, you should hardly ever lose a game in which you resolve a Survival of the Fittest against a slower deck. It usually gives you utter inevitability. I don't think there is a good reason to give that up. It isn't like Genesis is often a dead draw or anything.

usul

01-05-2006, 10:06 AM

Obfuscate Freely:
I must disagree in that point. I think Genesis is a big stone in your hand and a mana-hungry monster in you graveyard. The creatures that you would get with genesis back will be in your deck anyway, so you will draw o get them with survival anyway. It's good when you are out of gas but this only happens when you play against control. Then you board it in the 2nd game.

Juventus:
Thanks for your thoughts, I'll try the wishes. But consider the chalices. Think about a chalice set on one counter. Think about the cards that your opponent is losing in every possible matchup. Make a count and know that the chalice is a counter-must and disenchant-must for any opponent (perhaps except goblins).

My two cents.

calosso

01-05-2006, 04:38 PM

Slay

01-05-2006, 04:54 PM

Spore Frog < Sharpshooter, Fanatic, Gempalm, Gang-Bang, Lightning Bolt

It's pretty tough to keep the lock going strong, especially when you don't have amazing inevitability like ATS does.
-Slay

juventus

01-05-2006, 05:02 PM

(perhaps except goblins).
That is the biggest exception in the format. Can you really have dead cards against goblins? Chalice can could be genesis and a spore frog (which is amazing). I think spore frog lock game one against goblin would be pretty amazing.
Genesis/Spore Frog is fairly mana intensive and does nothing to your long term board control. Additionally, sharpshooter/siege-gang/incinerator can deal with the frog easily. I would personally rather play Shard Phoenix for one more mana. A second Sharpshooter is another option for dealing with goblins, but I like saving a slot in the deck.

moersi

01-05-2006, 07:01 PM

hey guys!

first of all i am sorry for my bad english, but i hope u can understand my suggestion ???

i play a RGsurvival-deck (without burning wish) aswell and i was wondering if blastoderm is a good choice for the deck?!

instead of playing 4 trolls, play only 3or2 and add 1or2 Blastoderms

blasto is simply stronger than the troll and additionally HE CAN BE! sacrificed through ravenous baloth

i know he has fading and you cant equip him. but if you have him outside you kill your opponent before he has to be sacrificed (or u just simply sacrifice him with baloth ;) ) and most RGSA-decks dont play any equipment. and if u play equipment like SoFaI or Jitte, u rather play with 4trolls and leave the bastoderms away.

what do u think about my idea?

greets moersi

AngryTroll

01-05-2006, 08:39 PM

Welcome to the Source!

Anyway, on a relevent note, I am not sure about Blastoderm. He is untargetable, a beast for Baloth, and a big dude. Troll can come down turn two against Goblins, though, which is huge, because on the play you can block Lackey with it. I would love to see Blastoderm in the deck, and have tried before, but I am not sure about him replacing the Trolls.

Bargoth

01-06-2006, 12:15 AM

Blastoderm is unnecessary in this deck. The four casting cost slot is already full of cards that kill creatures and gain you life in addition to beat for a healthy 4pts. The fact of the matter is that outside of doing damage Blastoderm adds nothing to the decks game plan of gaining [card] advantage. The same thing can be said for Troll Ascetic, I personally would use Wall of Blossoms or Yavimaya Elder in the slot. I think that the Troll is a much more playable card though as it at least fits the decks mana curve.

MattH

01-06-2006, 03:51 PM

Speaking of a clogged 4cc slot, has anyone tried Vial in this deck and NOT loved it?

Slay

01-06-2006, 04:07 PM

Me. Vial is a card that gets active on turn 5 at the best, and then does comparatively very little to the game state. It's just far too swingy, and is absolutely awful against Goblins.
-Slay

Vardaman

01-06-2006, 05:35 PM

Vial is not the way to go. It takes forever to get going and is a topdeck you can't pitch to Survival.

Blastoderm is also pretty bad in this deck compared to Baloth + Troll.

My current list is close to Angry Troll's except, -1 elf, +1 Baloth, -1 Zealot, -1 Wish +1 something I forgot but I am down to 60 cards.

I like that he added another mountain. I've had games where it's tough to find a mountain for Anger. Getting double red for Anarchy is also tricky with the 1 Mtn, 4 Taiga 4 BoP plan.

And I'm still hating on Goblin Sharpshooter. It just doesn't shine enough in this deck for me to want it maindeck. And for people who say 2 of them wins vs. Goblins: how often can you really expect the sharpshooter to stick? Mogg Fanatics and Incinerators will prevent you from ever getting two down.

Has anyone else had trouble with Angel Stompy? Exalted Angel is tough to kill even with Anarchy and Duplicant. I'm tempted to run an extra two Uktabi's in my board to bring in vs. random equipment aggro. That's a really bad idea though.

The Gro matchup doesn't seem terrible since you can bring in a few Pyroblasts and Furnace/Crypt while wishing for Tsunami. :cool:

Bargoth

01-10-2006, 09:10 PM

And I'm still hating on Goblin Sharpshooter. It just doesn't shine enough in this deck for me to want it maindeck. And for people who say 2 of them wins vs. Goblins: how often can you really expect the sharpshooter to stick? Mogg Fanatics and Incinerators will prevent you from ever getting two down.

I have mixed feelings about him. I run two in the main at the moment, the idea of two, for me anyway, being that I have a better chance of getting a random one in an opening draw against Goblins. The issue I see with Sharpshooter is that alot of the time I can't get him out before Goblins does, and then even if hasted he only trades with theirs.

Sharpshooter is incredible versus RGSA nuking all my mana guys, and Rofellos, Witness, Elder, Hermit, and my own Sharpshooters... thats almost half the deck. So I use them mostly for the ability to trade with opposing Sharpshooters in the Goblins/Mirror match.

Knowing that, I sort of question whether he is that key, as Flametongue Kavu can kill Sharpshooter and live and only costs one extra mana. The one thing is that if you go up against the Goblins and they only play one Sharpshooter it is fairly realistic that you could get yours to trade and then play the second one to keep their board under control until you Witness back the second one. But like others have said Sharpshooter still dies to Fanatics and Incinerators. So I'm not sure what the best plan is, but versus random decks I like having the additional sources of removal in the main so for now I will continue playing them.

parallax

01-17-2006, 01:09 PM

I run Gempalm Incinerator over the second Sharpshooter. It kills goblins at instant speed, which prevents Warcheif + Piledriver or Goblin King shenanigans from killing you after you stabilize. Witness or Genesis an Incinerator once and watch the Goblin player scoop. Also, it cycles against control, where Sharpshooter is quite a dead card.

I also run Basking Rootwalla in the Troll/Wall slot. They're great chump blockers against aggro, and mid-range threats against control. They help you stabilize when you draw Survival late. They're also the most efficient threat by far against Humility.

Tao

01-18-2006, 12:23 PM

First of all, thx for some feedback i got from my list posted a month ago.

Juventus, your list was sure an improvement of the list I posted before, but I made some changes to that list and general tactic, as Gro is getting more and more quick. Yavimaya Elder is out because he is too slow vs. Gobbos and Grow. I cutted the Burning Wishes as they are too slow vs. Gro and take away really lots of SB-Slots which can be used better. Still I know that Black is the way Survival has to go if it wants to stay competetive. The strenght of Cabal Therapy is just insane in a Deck with ~30 Creatures and it really fixes lots of Problems RG/SA has.

Good Choices:

Cabal Therapy: Just Nuts with tutorable Witnesses, great with Wall of Blossoms, fixing your Combo-Matchup. If you cannot see how good this card is in this deck you have no plan at all.

Umezawa's Jitte vs. Sword of Fire and Ice: Jitte is far superior in the Gro, Burn and Goblin Matchup, so I play 2 of them and only one Sword. Though Sword has its advantages in the Rift, Control and Combo MU.

Troll Ascetic vs. Wall of Blossoms: Why only one, play both.

Viridian Zealot vs. Shaman/Utan: Zealot is better, as Gro starts Playing Worship MD and I play Equipment

Duplicant/Bone Shredder: I play both, both are 2 for 1; one is cheap and weak, one takes out Enforcer; important vs. Meddling Mages naming Kavu

Bad Choices:

Goblin Sharpshooter: Forget everything about play 2 of them what I mentioned before, they suck in the current Meta, they suck without Survival, they suck really nearly always. Play Gempalm Incinerator as they stop Goblin King Kills and Cantrip vs. everything else and play 2 of them. Without him. your statement, that the Gobbomatchup would be good is just stupid and wrong or you play only vs. Gobboplayers who have no idea how to play their Deck and how to kill you with Warchief/King/Pily.

Llanowar Elves: Draw too much of your 1 Mana critter and lose. So they are cutted. Wall of Roots (blocks Werebear) and Tribe Elder (fixes Basic Mana, accelerates) are better creatures. Note that Llanowar Elves will never, never, never ever block Lackey (except from GP 1/4-finals if you play a random List), as Gobboman runs 4 Fanatics, 4 Incinerators, and 3 Swords.

Deranged Hermit: Slow as Hell, only good with Survival and an angry Graveyard. You do not need an oversized Wincondition. With active Survival in play, you will win by Card Advantage anyway.

The Sideboard:

Pernicious Deed: Deed is good as hell. It is the most boarded, most effective, best SB Card a Survival Based Deck can wish for. You have Witnesses, they don't, thats good.

Shard Phoenix: Great vs. Gobbos, I got the Idea about the time it was posted here playing Type2, but anyways, play them.

Withered Wretch: BB is no Problem vs. Solidarity, Gro, IGGy or Salvagercombo

So the List: It is tested to hell and good, anyways, I am open to suggestions:

// Mana (With all the cantripping Walls, Incinerators and Birds 20 Lands are really enough)
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bayou
3Taiga
7 Forest

1 Sakura Tribe Elder
1 Wall of Roots
4 Birds of Paradise

// Creatures
3 Wall of Blossoms
3 Troll Ascetic
3 Ravenous Baloth
2 Flametongue Kavu (2 are enough, Duplicant and Shredder do similar things)
3 Eternal Witness

// Toolbox
1 Genesis
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Anger
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Duplicant
1 Bone Shredder

// Other Stuff
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Boil
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Withered Wretch
SB: 1 Shard Phoenix

Other SB-Stuff that can be considered in Metas: Dosan (A bazillion³ times better vs. Solidarity and everything else than Ichneumon Junk); Elvish Skysweeper vs. Gro, Angels, Golgari Brownscale vs. Burn

Lego

01-18-2006, 03:38 PM

I would hesitate to say 4 FTKs is enough, because I don't just use them to kill creatures, I use them to beat for the win. 8 creatures with 4 power is one of the reasons this deck wins so much for me.

lyle h

01-19-2006, 06:51 AM

It doesn't look like you have nearly enough early game acceleration either. How are your first few turns? Don't you struggle to build enough mana to play an early FTK when you really need it?

juventus

01-19-2006, 07:51 PM

First of all, thx for some feedback i got from my list posted a month ago.

Juventus, your list was sure an improvement of the list I posted before, but I made some changes to that list and general tactic, as Gro is getting more and more quick. Yavimaya Elder is out because he is too slow vs. Gobbos and Grow. I cutted the Burning Wishes as they are too slow vs. Gro and take away really lots of SB-Slots which can be used better. Still I know that Black is the way Survival has to go if it wants to stay competetive. The strenght of Cabal Therapy is just insane in a Deck with ~30 Creatures and it really fixes lots of Problems RG/SA has.

I have been testing it extensively as well. I just went 5-0 with it at the local tourny beating Solidarity, Gro, Burn, Stompy, and Angel Stompy. Luckily there were no goblin decks, because I think it is the deck's worst matchup.

I agree with taking out the elders, and I have already done so. I disagree with taking out burning wish though. It is still good agaihnst every deck. Burning wish for tsunami or ruination is NOT too slow against gro.

My decklist is similar to your except:

-1 Bayou
-1 Wall of Roots
-3 Troll Ascetic
-2 Gempalm Incinerator
-1 Duplicant
-1 Boneshredder
-3 Equipment

+2 Forest
+1 Wooded Foothills (Why would you play a heath over a foothills?)
+1 Wall of Blossoms
+1 Eternal Witness
+1 Ravenous Baloth
+1 Goblin Sharpshooter
+1 Sakura Tribe Elder
+4 Burning Wish

I feel the deck needs 22 lands, I happened to find 21 too few.

I would play wish over equipment any day. Wish can be useful in any situation and I have never regretted drawing one. It also makes your game against combo much better. Finally, Equipment needs a creature to do things, Burning Wish is better in terms of card advantage in this way.

I don't really like Troll in this deck. I usually win off of stabilizing, and troll doesn't help much to do this. I think he is a more aggroish card, and it doesn't fit into my plan. He also gets worse without equipment. Instead of Troll, I make my deck more redundant with the 4th baloth, witness and wall of blossoms. Witness is incredible in this deck, and I couldn't see myself playing less than 4. Baloth is a solid 4/4 which helps against Gro and any aggro deck except goblins. Wall of blossoms is a dude that cycles and sacs to cabal therapy at worst, what isn't there to like? The only card O'm not really sure about at this point is the Sakura TE's. I might take them out for incinerators or maybe even quirion ranger. I have yet to test incinerator, so I don't know much about it yet.

And about the duplicant and boneshredder....I found them to not be good enough to warrant a spot. If you have a survival out and enough mana to play a duplicant, you can win the game anyways. Boneshredder is very bad considering there aren't many creatures it can kill that FTK can't. I do run a duplicant in my SB though, because Akroma and random stuff like that is nasty. Mystic enforcer really doesn't worry me. I can double ftk it, or block it with birds all day long.

Tao

01-20-2006, 04:33 AM

@Juventus: Again, I really like your Version, some things to say.

- The small things
- Gempalm Incinerator cycles vs. everything, so is not dead. But it is really great vs. Gobbos, which is a problematic Matchup. It has diabolic Synergy with Genesis vs. Goblins in the late game, and playing Witness on Gempalm trades 3-1 (Blocking Gobbo, Killing Gobbo, Drawing Card).

- Bone Shredder and Duplicant: Bone Shredder is great vs. meddling Mages naming Kavu. You should at least have one other Creature that kills Creatures, be it Duplicant or Shredder, so you don't have to waste a Burning Wish on the Meddling Mage. Shredder I found always useful, it has Synergy with Genesis and has low Mana Cost, which can be important vs. Goblins or fast Exalted Angels. Unfortunately it doesn't kill the Enforcer, so I added Duplicant to the MD, which is a solid creature even without Survival though it costs 6 Mana and it can also take care of Gamekeeper/Rector and random reanimator Stuff.

- Wall of Roots: I found it useful to survival this first vs, Gro, so you have a fast Blocker vs. Werbears and still Mana to use Survival, if they should have the Needle. The other times it is a Blocker that accelerates, nothing special, cut if you want
- Fetchlands: Some needle stuff, unimportant, 4foothills is okay or better.

Landcount: I really think with Walls, Birds, Tribe Elder 21 should be enough, without Burning Wishes I went down to 20

- The important things:

Burning Wish/ Troll/ Equip
If you don't play Troll, Equipment is not needed and vice versa. So if you don't run Troll/Equip there is room for Burning Wish.

The Pros of Burning Wish are obvious: You have MD Solutions for Humility, easier access to Discard and additional random Winconditions vs. several Decks. You also have early access to Pyroclasm, which can be needed vs. Goblins. But I am really not sure about playing it. It takes away so many SB-Slots, while I am really proud of the SB as it is now, it improves every single Matchup, no matter what they board. Furthermore Troll is very strong vs. Gro right now, especially equipped with a Jitte. And Jitte is great vs. Goblins, Riftcontrol and all Aggro again.

I really don't know which version is stronger right now. With Survival both Decks play very similar, without it one is more aggroish and has a better SB, while the other has more Staying Power and is more flexible. I guess the choice which version to play depends on the Meta and what you prefer playing. Note that winning on stabilizing is still possible with this Build vs. nearly everything in the current Meta.

@ Lyle: The Version can do lots of things in the first Turns, it has 4 Therapy, 4 Walls, 2 Incinerators and 4 Birds, 1 Elder, 1 Rofellos. Ah, and 4 Survival of the Fittest. If you play a Turn2 Wall of Blossoms, you are not in such a hurry to play a fast Kavu. Vs. Gobbos yoyu would be unable to cast the Kavu with Manaelfs anyway, as they would have been killed.

@L-A-M: Flametongue Kavu is nice, sure, but the 4 power is not that important, if you are able gain control over the Game. If there are no Combo or Control Decks in your Meta, play 4 of them.

Lego

01-20-2006, 12:02 PM

juventus

01-20-2006, 01:34 PM

I agree that with the Troll/Equipment plan, FTK isn't as necessary. I actually swear by Sword of Fire and Ice, and I think it has improved my Goblins matchup 10-fold. Putting a Sword on a Troll has basically been game for me, every single time I've done it. If you've got enough mana to put it on a Troll, swing, and then put it on something else, you're even better off.

Maybe the goblin deck I playtest against is piloted by a serious lucksac...*shrug*. Troll and a sword seems horribly slow to me when goblins can kill me turn 4-5 easy. Let's compare Troll/equip vs. burning wish for pyroclasm:

-troll/equip costs 8 mana total. If a jitte instead of a sword it's 7 mana.
-burning wish for pyroclasm costs 4 mana.
-troll/equip kills a creature a turn.
-burning wish for pyroclasm wipes their board.
-troll/equip requires lucksacking the two cards.
-burning wish is just one card.

Obviously the troll can attempt to race better than wish, but do you really want to race goblins? I'll pass.

The thing is, goblins will kill you turn 4-5. Blockers do very little because they will only swing when they have a couple drivers and will kill you. FTK is too slow against goblins; sword is too slow; troll is too slow. Jitte may be fast enough; I have not tested it. You basically need gempalm/survival/burning wish/therapy to do stuff to them. I don't think sword would make your game that much better against goblins.

I really don't know which version is stronger right now. With Survival both Decks play very similar, without it one is more aggroish and has a better SB, while the other has more Staying Power and is more flexible. I guess the choice which version to play depends on the Meta and what you prefer playing. Note that winning on stabilizing is still possible with this Build vs. nearly everything in the current Meta.

Quoted for truth.

parallax

01-20-2006, 01:41 PM

Lego

01-20-2006, 02:45 PM

The Troll/Swords deck I played wasn't actually RGSA, so that might change some things. I played it in Aggro Rock, with Duress, Cabal Therapy, Wild Mongrel, and Mesmeric Fiend, so I would usually be able to pick their hand apart enough to drop the Troll/Sword and just win.

You also have to remember that Troll/Sword nets you a card a turn, which can be big.

juventus

01-24-2006, 09:26 AM

Does anyone think that Fire Imp could be used as a cheaper FTK? It could help the Goblin match-up as well as kill Meddling Mages naming Kavu. I've always wished I could play 5 or 6 FTKs; maybe this is the answer.

I've never wished I could play 5-6 FTK's simply because there are so many decks out there that just don't play creatures. Most combo decks and landstill are some I can think of off the top of my head. At this point, I like playing 2 FTK's so I don't have too many dead cards in certain matchups. The imp is also clearly worse than FTK except maybe against goblins because coming out a whole turn earlier is a huge difference. But if I needed a card against goblins, I would just play Gempalm Incinerator. And if you ever get your opponent to name FTK on their meddling mage, they better already have two other mages out naming Survival and Burning Wish.

Lego

01-24-2006, 06:18 PM

I know this has probably been discussed the heck out of, and I just missed it, but how will this deck change with the release of Guildpact. Rumbling Slum, Giant Solifuge, Tin Street Hooligan, Burning-Tree Shaman, Killer Instinct, Stomping Ground, Skarrg, the Rage Pits, Gruul War Plow (okay, joking about some of those), some of these have got to be playable, right? Which of them, if any, are, and if so, what would you remove for them?

Revert_To_Saved

01-24-2006, 06:38 PM

I'd say Tin Street Hooligan is definitely playable. Whether or not he'd make it into the maindeck, I'm not sure (that's probably more meta dependent). The rest of them just don't seem all that great. Shaman doesn't seem too hot in a deck playing Survival, seems like there's already better fat than Slum/Solifuge, Skargg's decent, but not very synergistic with Rofellos. Stomping Ground's a possibility, but I don't know if the deck really needs more duals.

Is there any way someone could update the front page with the current list? The one there right now isn't even playing Wishes.

Zilla

01-24-2006, 08:33 PM

I'd say Tin Street Hooligan is definitely playable. Whether or not he'd make it into the maindeck, I'm not sure (that's probably more meta dependent). The rest of them just don't seem all that great. Shaman doesn't seem too hot in a deck playing Survival, seems like there's already better fat than Slum/Solifuge, Skargg's decent, but not very synergistic with Rofellos.
Hooligan is definitely playable. I agree BST is terrible in a deck with this many activated abilities. Solifuge sucks with 1 toughness. As for Slum, it's literally the most efficiently costed fat beater in the game (ignoring creatures with massive drawbacks like Negator and Dreadnaught). That said, he probably doesn't belong in RGSA, because the deck's more concerned with CA and virtual CA than efficiently costed beaters.

dsg123456789

01-24-2006, 10:49 PM

I have been testing with Hooligan and Burning Tree Shaman in RGSA maindeck, and I concluded Hooligan is awesome simply because his efficient cost allows you to destroy artifacts that would cause you to lose the game if you had to wait a turn to deal with them (Orangutan/Zealot). The Shaman is pretty lackluster, I've noticed, because the few pings he generates don't add up to the hoser quality I was looking for. He really doesn't do much at all.

Lego

01-24-2006, 11:20 PM

I knew Tin Street would have a place somewhere. He kills that Vial before it does much damage, and is a house against some other decks (Stax, Equipment Weenie). I didn't expect the Shaman to be good here, but I think both he and the Slum have a place somewhere. I agree that this isn't the deck though.

One playable card per deck is good enough for a set for me :)

MattH

01-25-2006, 02:41 PM

calosso

01-25-2006, 06:45 PM

Happy Gilmore

01-25-2006, 07:23 PM

As for Slum, it's literally the most efficiently costed fat beater in the game (ignoring creatures with massive drawbacks like Negator and Dreadnaught). That said, he probably doesn't belong in RGSA, because the deck's more concerned with CA and virtual CA than efficiently costed beaters.
I'm pretty sure Blastoderm is better. Untargetability can be pretty important!

Any deck can wait out blastoderm. Rumbling sluming slum will stay until dealt with. Also while both creatures are being chumped blocked rumbling slum will always be doing a damage a turn.
Also as for burning tree shaman he seems to have bad synergy with survival of the fittest, fetchlands,troll,equipment, that is a shit ton of damage.

What deck do you know of that can deal with an attacking 5/5 untargetable creature for 4 turns straight? This is not to say that RGSA should run blastoderm. There isn't all that much coming out of Guildpact that will make it into RGSA IMO. The guildmage is kind of interesting though, with all mana the deck produces I can see it becoming another win condition that gives the deck reach, either by pumping up BoPs or sacking a bunch of lands. The Bloodlusting, uncounterable creature with pro instants also seems cool (- huge casting cost), but rumbling slum doesn't really do anything usefull, Baloth and FTK are more versitile and hermit is a much faster clock.

calosso

01-25-2006, 07:27 PM

Zilla

01-25-2006, 07:27 PM

Happy Gilmore

01-25-2006, 07:35 PM

I simply meant that Slum is a 5/5 for 4 with no drawbacks. In fact, its "drawback" could quite easily be considered an advantage to an aggressive deck. I consider Fading a part of Blastoderm's cost, so from a purely objective standpoint, I consider Slum "cheaper" for a 5/5. I'll readily admit that Blastoderm can be a better threat in certain strategies, though.

On a totally off-topic note, there's something exceedingly tasty about slapping a Rancor and/or a Jitte on a 5/5 beater, so untargetability can actually be a disadvantage in some strategies, particularly when StP is at an all-time low in the format.

The point still stands that neither belong in a deck based around accelerating mana and creating infinite card advantage. I don't see rancor making a splash in RGSA so I'm confused as to why this topic is being discussed. The weakness in RGSA's game plan is dealing with early threats, both creatures (ie. lacky) and troublesome permanents (Vial, Needle). Hooligan has a much better arguement going for it since it fills one of the too gaps.

dsg123456789

01-25-2006, 08:52 PM

I've been doing more testing with Hooligan, and it is fucking amazing (tm). So many times my opponents have played powerful artifacts like Crucible, Smokestack, Horn of Green, or Goblin Charbelcher while I have a Survival in play, so that when it is my turn I can spend RGG to destroy their shit and get a 2/1. The tempo it provides is amazing. However, he does not replace the Zealot, because Zealot is better in the long game where it is easier to destroy one artifact/enchantment per turn, as well as the fact that having a maindecked enchantment-killing creature is very useful.

Zilla

01-25-2006, 09:03 PM

I don't see rancor making a splash in RGSA so I'm confused as to why this topic is being discussed.
Your confusion is unwarranted. You quoted a paragraph that specifically stated it was off topic. The conversation was originally generated by someone's question of whether or not it had a place in RGSA, where I agreed with Revert-To-Saved that it does not. What's confusing?

Lego

01-25-2006, 10:17 PM

I definitely agree that Hooligan has a place in this deck. He's a 2/1 for RG, which isn't bad, plus he kills an artifact when he hits play. There are enough artifacts in this environment that I could even see running him as more than just a 1-of to be Survivaled up. I wouldn't mind seeing 2 or 3 of him over the course of most games. He deals with problems like Pithing Needle, Vial, and Jitte, and the lower casting cost helps a lot against decks like Stax. Plus he's an early beater that can be equipped up for good times later on. I like him :)

juventus

01-26-2006, 02:02 AM

To make things painfully simple:

If you would have played Sex Monkey/Viridian Shaman, you can now play hooligan in its place. If you did not play Sex Monkey/Viridian Shaman, you have no need for hooligan. No other cards in the set have a place in the deck IMO.

Ok, after a good amount of testing I have come up with my most recent list. I took the insane card advantage of the deck, and turned it into an almost purely control deck.

//Lands (22)
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Bayou
3 Taiga
9 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain

//Core Creatures (16)
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth

//Core Spells (12)
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy

//Survival Targets (8)
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
2 Flametongue Kavu

//Deeds (2)
2 Pernicious Deed

// Board
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Gempalm Incinerator
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Duplicant
SB: 1 Spike Feeder
// Wishboard
SB: 1 Haunting Echoes
SB: 1 Hull Breach
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 1 Chainer's Edict
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Tsunami

First off, I'll explain why I felt it was necessary to add black to the deck. Black does many things for the deck. It gives you cabal therapy which helps almost every matchup. It also gives you a good amount of wish targets for various matchups. Though the manabase is a little more susceptible to nonbasic hate, it can still fight through nonbasic hate fairly easily. The minimal instability added to the manabase is definitely worth having cabal therapy just by itself. Therapy is very good in a deck that almost always has a creature to sac to it. You can also get a witness/therapy lock going with a survival out. Edict, Duress, and Cranial Extraction in the board aren't crucial, but are slightly better than green or red alternatives. Haunting echoes is a great card to wish for which is especially good against Gro. Finally, deed just adds to the deck's ability to play control. It deals with annoying pro red or untargetable guys you can't stop with creatures. Though at first you might find it awful in tandem with survival and lots of cratures, genesis and witness can quickly help you rebuild to where you were. And if you're already in a favorable position, you can just win and don't have to play it.

The core creatures:

Birds is hopefully obvious. Wall of Blossoms acts as an early blocker for lackeys or mongeese, and has graet synnergy with cabal therapy. At worst it cycles, and in its worst matchups against combo and control, it helps you find the cards you need faster. Eternal witness is the best card in the deck after Survival it brings back anything imaginable and is a 2/1 body to boot that can be used to flashback cabal therapy. Baloth is played as a four-of because it is great against burn and can deal with larger creatures like werebears and piledrivers. Against control he is most likely a threat that they have to deal with quickly.

The core spells:

Survival is probably the most powerful card in the format given a decent amount of mana and a squee and an anger. Burning wish solves almost any problem you are faced with. Against combo grab duress, extraction, or a flashback'D therapy. Against aggro grab an edict or pyroclasm. Against control or gro grab a Tsunami. Its only drawback is that you lose 8 cards in your sideboard; I think the pros outweigh the cons. Therapy I already explained above.

The Survival targets are pretty standard to any Survival Advantage deck.
(Except maybe zealot, and I play zealot because I want to have a way to deal with enchantments using Survival)

The cards I don't play:

Troll: He doesn't do anything spectacualr for me. I wnt creatures that will help me survive till I can stabilize. The 16 core creatures I play are all better at this than troll, so I don't need him. The fact that I don't play equipment also makes troll a little worse.

Jitte: I don't have as many targets as you would think. Half of my core creatures have zero power, and that leaves me with 13 creatures to equip jitte on. Six of these cost 4 mana, so this would be very mana intensive and slow. And in the case that I don't have any creatures out, the jitte is completely goggles.

Sword of Fire and Ice: I don't play sword for similar reasons as Jitte. The sword does, though, turn my birds into threats. I am still unsure as to whether I would play this over deeds.

Incinerator/Duplicant/Boneshredder/Sex Monkey in the main:
I don't play any of these cards maindeck for the simple reason that they are all too narrow. Unless your meta demands it, these cards should only be in the SB or not in the deck at all.

Deranged Hermit: This card has always had "Win More" written all over it and I can't see why people still play it. If you have a survival and enough mana to play a deranged hermit: be a good magic player and find a way to win without a crutch.

Llanowar Elves: The elves do little for me since I am more concerned with card advantage than acceleration. This may be just because my deck is more controllish than the average Survival Advantage deck.

Yavimaya Elder: Both me and Tao came to the conclusion that the elders are too mana intensive for what they do. Even though they fetch a couple lands, three mana for a 2/1 is just far too slow against stuff like goblins and gro. For the same cost witness can do much better.

If I wrote anything stupid or obvious forgive me, it's kinda late and I suck at thinking in general anyways. I really think this deck has some potential though, and it has a great game against gro and isn't horrible against goblins at the same time. Against control....well...you tell me why this dec was created (it just might have something to do with beating landstill, a control deck). It can fight through nonbasic hate, and doesn't really scoop to anything. It doesn't screw itself regularly and mulligains rarely. All things considered, a good deck to play in big tournaments (in my opinion).

Thoughts?

Voice

01-26-2006, 06:04 AM

I have also been tinkering with a black splash in RGSA. The deck still plays as RGSA so no other name is needed, unless black becomes more dominant in the deck.

I'll list my current deck first and give you an explanation of my choices and then I will comment on Juventus' decklist.

Survival Voice

4 Birds of Paradise
3 Wall of Roots
3 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Withered Wretch
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Boneshredder
1 Squue, Goblin Nabob
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Anger
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Genesis
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Duplicant

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Taiga
3 Bayou
7 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain

SB:

3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
1 Tranquility
1 Flashfires
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination
1 Hull Breach
1 Life from the Loam
1 Shattering Spree

Main deck card choices (without the really obvious ones)

3 Wall of roots. 21 lands can be tricky sometimes and when you are pressed for mana the walls are great. 0/5 can come in handy too.

3 Witness. I want to play four but then you always get two in your opening hand with nothing in the 'yard. 3 works fine for me.

Even though space is at a premium Baloth is a 4-of.

At one time I cut Rofellos but that was a mistake.

Viridian Zealot is slow but I love the main deck disenchant.

Withered Wretch is SB material and very tough to cast (BB) but its ability is very good against a large number of decks. (mirror, gro, loam x, recurring wasteland)

Viridian Shaman could become a Tin Street Hooligan. I am going to test it but I expect the virtual RG casting cost of the hooligan to be harder to pull off early then the 2G of the Shaman.

Boneshredder is cheaper as a FTK and flies to boot. Pro-red is more prevalant than pro-black.

Solemn is expensive and slow, but it will get you your Mountain now. Its Artifact status can be handy against pro-creatures and other colour hosing stategies.

Faceless butcher loves tokens and removes wacky wizards (Meddling Mage on FTK or Wish) all day long.

Deranges hermit is a fine kill card. This deck has fewer kill creatures than other builds and the virtual 9 power ends the game fast.

Duplicant is an expensive but satisfactory answer to Exalted Angels and other big nasty pro creatures.

4 Cabal Therapy are unfortunately not creatures but they are very powerful. You gain knowledge about your opponent's hand and you get to remove problem cards in multiples.

My manabase is geared towards early black and double black without losing the chance on an early wish or anger. The 4 Bloodstained Mire allow me to find green but they are better at finding basic Swamps and Mountain(s) I would like to play 22 lands but I haven't got the room.

The sideboard is far from ideal and it reflects my current meta. Swords answers goblins. Tranquility answers enchantress with Solitary Confinement. LftL is too slow but I fear Wasteland. I got a Shattering Spree at the pre-release and I wanted to try it. (are the replicates not countered when SS is countered? + can you target the same artifact?)
I haven't even considered black, but Cranial Extraction is a nice addition I guess. I think the rest is evident.

What do you think?

@ Juventus

Is Deed really necessary? You loose 2 creature slots and kill your own stuff as well.

Tao

01-26-2006, 11:26 AM

@ Voice: Wretch and especially Faceless Butcher are problematic because of the BB in their Casting Cost. Wretch is doing amazing things vs. Gro and Graveyardcombo, and MAY deserve a MD slot therefore. But Duplicant is almost strictly superior to Butcher. It is much easier to pay 6 than 2BB. Wall of Roots does not deserve more than 1 Slot. You rarely want to draw into them, as they are nothing more than lands in the lategame.
Deed is absolutely insane good in this deck. So it kills your own stuff too, yes. But you have Witness and Genesis and they don't. For Example, in the Lategame: With Genesis, Witness, Deed and much Mana you can actually attack with Witness and blast the whole table table every turn, if you want. That does not happen often, but it shows the lategame power of the deck. Most times you just survival out a Witness, deed the Board and Witness for Survival. Or just deed to stay alive vs.Gobbos, deed away the Humility and Rift for the Win. Deed Gros Board etc.

@Juventus: Your list looks solid, really. That list is so close to my Burning Wish Version, that it won't make any sence to post it. The main difference is, that in the current Gro/Gobbo Meta I would always play Incinerator and Duplicant Maindeck to have answers to their main threats (Gobbo King sees play again, Mystic Enforcer).

___________________

But it is important to note that this deck really does not play like a classical RG/SA, as it is a complete different strategy then winning by Oversized Creatures in the Combat Phase. It can outcontrol nearly every deck in the format. In long games it is capable of beating Landstill, Wombat, Rift, Gro, Burn and Goblins.

Vs. any kind of Counterbased Control (Landstill) Haunting Echoes will resolve now or later due to the Lack of Countermagic, your Therapies, Witnesses and Survivals. Vs Rift you have devastating Deeds, Wishes for Hull Breach and Wish for Game with Haunting Echoes.
Vs. Burn you can gain 4 life or more each turn.
Vs. Gobbos you simply recur your Incinerator, Block with Walls, Witnesses, Kavus, Therapy their Ringleader, Gain Life with Baloths and wish for Clasms until they are out of Cards.

But I am really not sure if this Deck still belongs in the RG/SA Primer, so I could write a primer/article for this as I have done in a German Forum, too.

juventus

01-26-2006, 01:56 PM

What do you think?

@ Juventus

Is Deed really necessary? You loose 2 creature slots and kill your own stuff as well.

Your deck seems interesting, but I have a few problems with it. The first thing that really sticks out is that you are playing 13 survival targets. I would say 90% of them are suboptimal without Survival. This will make your deck kinda like ATS: suck without Survival. My advice would be to keep playing the deck and cut the one-of's you find yourself using the least. Since you play so much black, your mana base will end up being more unstable, and, in my opinion, you are only really gaining Withered Wretch. Otherwise, your deck looks very similar to mine and probably plays similarly.

And yes, I do think deeds are necessary. Deed is fairly good against goblins, angel stompy, and gro. It is an easy way to deal with pesky pro red or untargetable creatures. You have to remember that, as Tao has also stated, my list is almost strictly a control deck. Wiping the board is good for control decks. It is especially good if I can just Genesis my stuff back, or have a witness in hand to bring back a good threat. A few times I have even wiped the board and then dropped a Survival. Oh, and he gets rid of equipment.....and manlands. Deed is a randomly good card for control, and if you have a survival out, you are probably winning anyways.

@Tao: I also wanted the deck to get its own thread since it is so different from the traditional RGSA in my opinion. Here is what Godzilla said in response to:

I know that this deck is somewhat similar to RGSA, but it plays more
like a control deck than RGSA. It is more like The Rock with survivals.
Should I make a seperate topic for it? Or should I keep it to the RGSA
topic in the DTB forum? If I shoul make another topic for it, which
forum should I put it in?

Zilla:

It's not like the Rock with Survivals... it's like RGSA with Therapy
and Duress. Dave Price has discussed the black splash for Therapy and
Duress in that thread before, so I don't see that it deserves its own
thread.

I guess it will get the deck more attention though, being in the DTB forum.

Also, I have found that sometimes I want to get rid of annoying cards in my opponent's yard but don't quite have the mana to play echoes. What do you think of decompose as a wish target?

Voice

01-28-2006, 06:53 AM

I'm going to comment on the two previous post (by Tao and Juventus) here:

So the deed is very useful, okay. But you only have two and no way to get it via a tutor of some sort. Isn't it a bit random?

RGSA (without black) is vulnerable to Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle and even more so if they have counter back-up. To "counter" this I play Therapies and 3 different FTK's. I know Butcher is bad, but it can save your butt. By the time you need to play it you should have BB. And if they counterspell then I get it back with Genesis or Witness and try it again.

There was also a comment that my list would play suboptimal without Survival. yes, of course! I wish there was a Leyline of the Fittest. You know it sometimes takes a while for a Survival to show up. Then the wallS shine and there are plenty of other spells to play. Opening hands with Squee, Anger, Wretch and Butcher go to Paris anyway. This sounds harsh but I'm only trying to defend my deck. There are always one-ofs you don't seem to need, but that depends greatly on the match up. Dupliant sucks against goblins but is golden against Angels.

I like the fact that there are three different people working on a similar deck. We must be on to something!

Game on.

Lego

01-28-2006, 01:22 PM

I think you're taking the deck in the wrong direction. The reason to play RGSA over ATS, Welder Survival, or any of the other Survival varients is that RGSA can play like a R/G Beats deck without ever resolving Survival. I think if you lose that consistency and begin to rely too much on Survival, you should probably pick a more explosive build and get rid of RGSA.

Citrus-God

01-28-2006, 10:55 PM

Just to add on to LMA's post...

What makes RGSA so good because it's very stable. It has a strong manabase, and the ability to topdeck like a champ. And that's something ATS and Welder Survival can't do. Besides, the SB is not narrow, but very strong if SotF resolves.

juventus

01-29-2006, 03:01 AM

So the deed is very useful, okay. But you only have two and no way to get it via a tutor of some sort. Isn't it a bit random?

RGSA (without black) is vulnerable to Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle and even more so if they have counter back-up. To "counter" this I play Therapies and 3 different FTK's. I know Butcher is bad, but it can save your butt. By the time you need to play it you should have BB. And if they counterspell then I get it back with Genesis or Witness and try it again.

There were 2 slots left in the deck, so I threw in 2 deeds. Sure it's random, but who cares?

Personally, I really think you should forget about the gro matchup, because it is cake-walk. You have way too many threats for them to handle and they can't kill you fast enough. Pithing needle and Mage really don't bother me at all. Not to mention that Deed owns gro so hard, and it takes care of meddling mage and pithing needle. The thing is that you have 8 cards against gro that they absolutely cannot let resolve: 4 survival and 4 burning wish for something good (tsunami/haunting echoes/edict/hull breach/etc.), and you have 12 cards that really hurt them: 4 wall of roots, 4 baloth, 4 cabal therapy, then you have witness and deed to give them even more problems. It's just too overwhelming for gro. Meddling mage and pithing needle just deal with one card each, and can be dealt with easily via burning wish.

And about the butcher thing, if you are in the position to witness and genesis a butcher back, you should be winning anyways, the butcher isn't helping much.

Ghetto_Santa

02-12-2006, 10:41 AM

How do we stop Armageddon with R/G/b Survival?

Tao

02-12-2006, 11:56 AM

How do we stop Armageddon with R/G/b Survival?

0. It is rather Gbr-Survival
----
Options vs. Geddon:
1. Cabal Therapy, which is by a great coincidence exactly why you are playing Black.
2. Get more pressure on the Board than your opponent, like Troll plus Jitte or Balothen. That should work as you don't play the Armageddon, but he does, so you have an advantage of 1 Card and 4 Mana to get a favorable Board Position.
3. Get Birds into Play. They are not affected by Armageddon.
4. Keep back lands.

So Geddon is not the worst problem.
If your problem are Devastating Dreams, well that's a real problem. They fuck you bad. Best thing here is to get out an Equipment that makes your creatures stronger than his Dreams (Jitte 4 Counter / SoFaI) or a regenerable Troll. But still the Matchup is good for them. Additional SoFaI will be needed soon for the SB if the Dreams Deck gets the deserved popularity.

Ghetto_Santa

02-12-2006, 12:56 PM

Tao, Thanks for your help. Too bad in my build I do not use trolls. I just cant fit them in.

juventus

02-12-2006, 10:20 PM

If your problem are Devastating Dreams, well that's a real problem. They fuck you bad. Best thing here is to get out an Equipment that makes your creatures stronger than his Dreams (Jitte 4 Counter / SoFaI) or a regenerable Troll. But still the Matchup is good for them. Additional SoFaI will be needed soon for the SB if the Dreams Deck gets the deserved popularity.

Burning wish for Cranial Extraction can help you here too. (If you play wishes instead of trolls).

Ghetto_Santa

02-13-2006, 01:15 AM

I went with survivaling Birds hehe.

dontbiteitholmes

02-13-2006, 01:15 AM

Burning wish for Cranial Extraction can help you here too. (If you play wishes instead of trolls).
I personally don't think you should concern yourself too much with Devestating Dreams. As of right now only one person plays that deck and it's not really the kind of deck you can just pick up and run with. (What I'm saying is if someone just picks up the deck card-for-card they will play it so poorly you will smash their face anyways.) Not to mention there was supposed to be a Dreams in his wishboard anyways so Cranial for Dreams is hardly the end all answer. Also you are going to be Wishing turn 3 at earliest, usually giving him a turn between Wish and Cranial, in which time if he casts Dreams and clears the board you are twice as fucked.
Also I thought the mainly contested slots were between Burning Wish and Sword of Fire/Ice. Your deck is the first I have heard of a Survival deck not running at least one Troll.

juventus

02-13-2006, 03:55 PM

I personally don't think you should concern yourself too much with Devestating Dreams. As of right now only one person plays that deck and it's not really the kind of deck you can just pick up and run with. (What I'm saying is if someone just picks up the deck card-for-card they will play it so poorly you will smash their face anyways.) Not to mention there was supposed to be a Dreams in his wishboard anyways so Cranial for Dreams is hardly the end all answer. Also you are going to be Wishing turn 3 at earliest, usually giving him a turn between Wish and Cranial, in which time if he casts Dreams and clears the board you are twice as fucked.
Also I thought the mainly contested slots were between Burning Wish and Sword of Fire/Ice. Your deck is the first I have heard of a Survival deck not running at least one Troll.

Yea, I'm not too worried about the Dreams, just stating cranial extraction can help. And in the case that they can wish for it back, you can always witness your extraction and play it again naming burning wish. It is not uncommon for me to do infinite extractions when I have the mana to do so. I'm not saying this is often, but it does happen.

About troll, I play a very control-oriented list. I also play things like wall of blossoms and pernicious deed that you wouldn't normally expect. And no. my deck is not the first Survival deck you have heard of not running troll. I am fairly certain you have heard of ATS. =P

AngryTroll

02-13-2006, 05:56 PM

Lately there has been much talk about Troll Ascetic in the deck. There has also been talk about different "accessories" to the deck: the non creature, non Survival of the Fittest cards. For those of us still working on the Troll version (Note, I am referring to the RG version running Trolls over Wall of Blossoms), I think adding two Jittes is an excellent idea. Jitte has proven itself many times over in different decks in all formats, and a Troll, Baloth, or Kavu wearing a Jitte adds even more versitility and punch to the deck. Adding two Jittes leaves the deck at 21 land, 10 non land non creatures (4 SotF, 4 Burning Wish, 2 Jitte), and 29 Creatures. Cutting two of the metagame utility creatures for the Jittes is the way to fit them into the deck.

The idea is that there are 10 cards that will swing the game greatly in your favor (the ten non land, non creature cards), in addition to the great creature base. Any of those ten spells should greatly enhance your board position and make your opponents job much, much more difficult.

My creature base, for reference, is 4 Birds, 4 Elves, 4 Troll, 3 EWitness, 4 FTK, 3 Baloth, and 1 each of the following: Anger, Genesis, Squee, Rofellos, Sharpshooter, Viridian Shaman, Viridian Zealot, Hermit, Duplicant. The Viridian Shaman is for Jitte removal, in addition to Zealot, because I was having trouble dealing with Jittes on occasion. Duplicant is for Mystic Enforcers. Cut creatures to metagame. The fourth Baloth is also a metagame slot, and the fourth EWitness is a great call if you feel you do not need something else.

juventus

02-13-2006, 06:14 PM

I'm not sure I agree with your choice of Survival targets. It seems to me like you are just throwing away deck slots. Viridian Shaman AND Zealot? I thought the whole point of Zealot was to save a slot. Hermit? What game can Hermit possibly win for you that couldn't be won without it? It is a win-more. Duplicant for Mystic Enforcer? I would never want to waste a whole turn's mana to kill an enforcer when in the process I am turning my opponent's daze into a time walk. I would much rather drop a bird or an ftk/baloth. By the time you get 7 mana, a survival, and no counters in your opponents' hand, you should beat threshold anyways. Finally, how have your 4 FTK's been when playing against a deck with no creatures? I would recommend cutting a few and adding something like a 4th witness or a lone quirion ranger. I have realized how much I missed the ranger, and have brought him back.

AngryTroll

02-13-2006, 07:22 PM

To justify my 4 FTKs, I need look no further then the forum "What does your metagame look like?" I play at the Batcave, with LinkXWing....long story short, out of 20-25 people in attendence, there may be...3 without creatures? 4 if I am one of them? Against every other deck, the FTKs are amazing.

Viridian Zealot and Viridian Shaman: I played just Zealot for a long time, and more then once a Jitte was able to wreak havoc on my board. More then once an early Jitte would make finding, casting, and sacrificing a Zealot a tough task, and the casting and saccing has to be done in one turn. I switched back to Shaman and Lyrist, but realized that I liked Zealot better then Lyrist as the second slot.

The inclusion of Duplicant: Again, this is a metagame call. First, Batcave is sufficiently random that occasioanly an Akroma will return from the graveyard far before she should. Second, in the Threshold match, the Threshold's player best hope, by far, is to stall the ground and smash through with an Enforcer. Survivaling up Birds as blockers is all well and good, but any kind of removal will deal with that. Burning Wish for Anarchy takes care of it too, but there are better wish targets against Gro. The Duplicant is the weakest of the slots, and he just recently made it back into the deck. He would be the first card removed for the Jittes (note, Jitte also adds removal). More times then a few a Gro player would resolve an Enforcer before I had the mana available to double FTK (at least 8 vs at least 6. When Rofellos has been Swordsed, it is a huge difference), so I went back to testing Duplicant.

I have never been dissapointed in the Hermit. He is rarely a bad topdeck without Survival, and I often fetch him in the late game. I think that he is more of a "Win this turn and deny the opponent another turn" then a "Win More". Fetching a Baloth or Kavu is an extra 4 damage (and one fewer blocker), but fetching the Hermit is an extra 9 damage for one more mana.

On the other hand, that is three slots in a deck of 60. I agree that Duplicant is the weakest slot in the deck, and dedicating two slots to artifacts and enchantments is annoying, but I stand by the Viridian choices for now. The inclusion of Trolls tends to be the biggest complaint people have, but they have proved time and time again to be some of the most solid slots in the deck.

The Jittes are what I am more intersted in at the moment. Are the two Jittes worth the lower creature density for Survival? I would hazard to say the answer is a resounding yes. The Jittes allow FTKs to remove allmost any creature in the format, so Duplicant can be easily cut. The Jittes also allow the Viridian Shaman to be cut, because they remove Jittes just as well as the Shaman. The net result is more removal for both creatures and relevent artifacts and the added versitility the Jitte provides in life gain and creature pump.

juventus

02-13-2006, 10:12 PM

The Jittes are what I am more intersted in at the moment. Are the two Jittes worth the lower creature density for Survival? I would hazard to say the answer is a resounding yes. The Jittes allow FTKs to remove allmost any creature in the format, so Duplicant can be easily cut. The Jittes also allow the Viridian Shaman to be cut, because they remove Jittes just as well as the Shaman. The net result is more removal for both creatures and relevent artifacts and the added versitility the Jitte provides in life gain and creature pump.

The deck can definitely benefit from either jitte or sword of fire and ice especially if you play troll and elves. I think if Akromas and Mystic enforcers are bothering you (I'm stealing Tao's tech here) just play elvish skysweeper.

Hermit is still win more. Even if you win the game a turn earlier, you would have won it anyways.

Mulletus

02-13-2006, 11:28 PM

I am not sure who to direct my response to anymore. But I used to splash Black into Survival. I think that Recurring Nightmare is too good to leave out. There are too many come into play, and graveyard efects to not try it. And always remember that the originally sacced creature, can be returned to hand if a Whitness is the one coming to play from the yard. The nifty trix are a plenty....

Vardaman

02-14-2006, 07:26 PM

It makes me sad to see some people still playing Goblin Sharpshooter in the maindeck. This deck just cannot sufficiently break him and he's a terrible topdeck.

@4FTK: I'm always happy to see that guy and he can always be borded out for game two. He beats for four, even if you have to let an elf die to get him.

@Uktabi/Shaman vs. Viridian Zealot- I've been perfectly happy only playing one Uktabi and no Zealot. I tossed the Zealot in the board and have been perfectly happy. He requires far too much mana and you can always Burning Wish for Hull Breach instead. (Uktabi is about to be replaced by Tin Street Hooligan anyway. I hate his one toughness but love his two mana CC)

It is interesting to talk about playing Jittes. There is a case for removing Duplicant and Hermit and playing two Jitte. I like having Duplicant to remove random fatties or pro red critters but Jitte could fill that role in some capacity while speeding up your clock/crushing the board. However, I am wary of increasing the non-creatures in the deck.

Has anyone else tried putting Masticore back in the deck?

@Juventus - How exactly do you plan on getting infinite extractions?

juventus

02-14-2006, 07:40 PM

It makes me sad to see some people still playing Goblin Sharpshooter in the maindeck. This deck just cannot sufficiently break him and he's a terrible topdeck.

Has anyone else tried putting Masticore back in the deck?

@Juventus - How exactly do you plan on getting infinite extractions?

Goblin sharpshooter is far too efficient to cut. If you have a perfectly defined meta, and you can do without him in almost evey matchup, then sure, go ahead and cut him. He's a fine topdeck against goblins. I would rather topdeck him than deranged-Iamoverkill-hermit.

Masticore is actually an interesting suggestion. It all depends on whether you have enough card advantage to keep him around. In my build I certainly do. He has nice synergy with deed and wall of blossoms.

I can get 5 extractions using all my witnesses, and they will usually scoop at this point. If they don't, I can kill my witnesses and genesis them back if you want to go infinite, or just kill them with baloths and stuff.

AngryTroll

02-14-2006, 08:25 PM

Sharpshooter is a metagame call, but he is the best at what he does. Again, in the list I posted above, remember the metagame. My metagame cards include the Zealot, Sharpshooter, Duplicant, playing the full 4 FTKs, and only one Squee (Squee refers to a discussion ages and ages ago where a player ran two, because he faced 4-6 graveyard removal spells every match). In a very random, creature filled metagame (like the Batcave), Sharpshooter is often a great card to fetch. The mirror match often comes down to who plays more Sharpshooters (or who resolves the first one if both players have one).

I am also wary about lowering the creature count in the deck, but I think Jitte is a great addition. Troll wearing Jitte is amazing on the offensive, or on the defensive against Goblins. I think that the slightly lower density will be more then handled by the Jitte.

The straight RG version of the deck has an extremely hard time with combo, and throwing a hermit at the face for 9 is often the fastest way to end the game. Not a great plan, but better then Baloth. And I would almost always topdeck Hermit over Sharpshooter. However, the Jitte could help fill the roll the Hermit fills now as another great tool to win.

juventus

02-14-2006, 11:24 PM

Hermit is horrible against combo, if that is your only reason to keep him, then I am sure you can find something else.

Vardaman

02-14-2006, 11:54 PM

Goblin sharpshooter is far too efficient to cut. If you have a perfectly defined meta, and you can do without him in almost evey matchup, then sure, go ahead and cut him. He's a fine topdeck against goblins. I would rather topdeck him than deranged-Iamoverkill-hermit.

Masticore is actually an interesting suggestion. It all depends on whether you have enough card advantage to keep him around. In my build I certainly do. He has nice synergy with deed and wall of blossoms.

Well, what deck is Goblin Sharpshooter good against? He lives for approximately one second vs. goblins. Threshold, he can maybe hit an unthreshed werebear. Against Solidarity and other combo he does less than nothing. Versus randomscrub.dec he can be amazing. Now this is important: you should win those matchups anyway. He may be just fine in the mirror since boning mana elves is huge. I'm not totally ripping on Sharpshooter but I hate it in the maindeck.

I'd say that he is more of a win-more card than Deranged Hermit. At the same time I think the Hermit is a weaker card. It can be semi-strong vs combo because 9 power for five is huge.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-15-2006, 03:43 AM

Behold, I have created SSTW: (Survival Sans The Whimsy)

// Lands
2 [CHK] Mountain (1)
4 [A] Taiga
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
6 [ST] Forest (4)
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
3 [PS] Flametongue Kavu
4 [GP] Rumbling Slum
4 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 [MR] Troll Ascetic
4 [GP] Burning-Tree Shaman
4 [4E] Birds of Paradise
3 [9E] Llanowar Elves
2 [BOK] Iwamori of the Open Fist

// Spells
3 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [JU] Burning Wish

The goal;

A mid game aggro deck that beats jank, Goblins, and Threshold. The method; eliminate cards that require huge mana and tempo investments, inherently create situations that suck if you don't draw them, and don't do anything that powerful anyway.

-4 Survival
- Toolbox crap
+ Good cards

Sad Alien

02-15-2006, 04:06 AM

Sans The Whimsy.

Ha.

That is all.

parallax

02-15-2006, 10:42 AM

I have found Sharpshooter to be amazing against Threshold. Remember, it can kill things with more than one toughness. He can kill a Meddling Mage whenever you chump block a Werebear or Goose. Also, he can kill bears that attack into Witnesses. Often, he acts like a Moat against them. It's the ******** match-up which keeps him in the main for me.

BTW, Survival is some good in this deck. Just don't feel obligated to run fifteen bad toolbox creatures. The only creature in my deck I dislike topdecking without Survival is Squee.

Tao

02-15-2006, 11:37 AM

@ IBA: Your list will maybe beat Gro, not beat Goblins and surely it will not beat Control or Combo. You play 34 Mana sources and have no card advantage in the deck except of 3 SoFaI, 3 Witnesses and 3 Burning Wishes. I don't understand what should be better than survival in that deck.

@Sharpshooter: I don't like him. Vs. Gobbos I play 1-2 Gempalm Incinerator MD, which really kills them and is a cantrip vs. other decks. If Survival gets more popular Sharpshooter gets better because it is very strong in the mirror.

@ Deck:
I think it is important to get an agreement for a common decklist, so I want to argue one last time for the B-Splash. My goal is to make the B-splash accepted as the standard-build.
AngryTroll, I like your version, it seems to me like the optimal version of a pure RG-Deck. But: I strongly believe that builds with B are strictly superior to those without it in every Metagame. Cabal Therapy should be included in every RG/SA. For me it has proven to be as a key card in the deck just like Eternal Witness.

Advantages from splashing B:
Cabal Therapy:
-It helps resolving the Survival. If you have therapy control decks nearly always will not be able to counter your survival.
- It is FAST, it takes away Standstills, Warchiefs, Rifts, Humilities and Enforcer/Werebears before they hit play. It makes the Combo matchup winable.
- It creates nearly always card advantage
- It has immense synergy with the rest of the Deck, especially Witnesses, Wall of Blossoms.
- It improves all bad matchups, it compensates the weaknesses of RG/SA
- You are no more doomed to kill fast. With a therapy in your grave and a resolved survival you could recast therapy 4 times with your Witnesses. After the 3rd Therapy no combo deck and no control will have relavant hand cards anymore. It is pure rape vs. them so you have 2-3 more turns to kill, which gives you the option to cut thing like the Hermit and reduce the number of Elves.

Pernicious Deed in the SB or even MD gives the deck so much:
- It destroys Gro, Deadguy/YinYang, Wombat, Rift, AngelStompy, Affinity, R/G-Beatz...
- It blows up Needles, Crypts, Furnaces, Meddling and Scrabbling Claws before they get dangerous. I board it in every game, except Combo. It is even good vs. Landstill.
- Blowing up your stuff? Who cares. Troll regenerates, Wall and Witness did their job, Baloth/Kavu are CC4 so they survive. Blowing up Survival? Yes, get a Witness with survival, clear the Board, get survival with Witness, get a Witness with Genesis, get Deed with Witness...etc...

As I said, it is important to get to an agreed deck list, if we want to push the deck. And I am convinced that adding B can get standard in the deck.

So the following non Survival, non creature cards can be played:

- 2 Jitte
- 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
- 4 Cabal Therapy
or
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 4 Burning Wish
- 2 Pernicious Deed

I was trying but not not capable of building a version which runs both Equipment and Burning Wish in one deck with Cabal Therapy, it would weaken the creature Base too much. Any suggestions on that would be helpful. So you should either run a slower, control oriented build with great late game power or an Aggro Build. The Aggro Build is very similar to classical RG/SA except it splashes B for Therapy instead of Burning Wish and has SB-Options Duress and Deed, and that Therapy is stronger than Wish. The Burning Wish Build is rather a Rock with Survival, only a bazillion times better.

Vardaman

02-15-2006, 12:10 PM

Behold, I have created SSTW: (Survival Sans The Whimsy)

4 Rumbling Slum

LOL

@parallax: You bring up some good points. Sharpshooter is just fine vs. Threshold, especially if they name FTK with their second Meddling Mage.

I still think it belongs in the sideboard but meta concerns can justify it MD. :\

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-15-2006, 02:28 PM

Lego

02-15-2006, 03:05 PM

- 2 Jitte
- 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
- 4 Cabal Therapy

Sword of Fire and Ice is pretty much strictly superior to Jitte. I hate that because Jitte has been so good in standard, people assume it will be the same in Legacy. I would never run one over the Sword. Where is the Jitte more useful?

dontbiteitholmes

02-15-2006, 03:16 PM

Sword of Fire and Ice is pretty much strictly superior to Jitte. I hate that because Jitte has been so good in standard, people assume it will be the same in Legacy. I would never run one over the Sword. Where is the Jitte more useful?
Yeah I'ma have to agree for the most part. I mean there are times the Jitte is better but as a whole Sword is more powerful.

Tao

02-15-2006, 05:47 PM

Sword of Fire and Ice is pretty much strictly superior to Jitte. I hate that because Jitte has been so good in standard, people assume it will be the same in Legacy. I would never run one over the Sword. Where is the Jitte more useful?

To your statement: In how far is Sword strictly superior to Jitte? Giving reasons would be nice.

To your question: Jitte is much better vs Gobbos and Deadguy/Yin Yang because of the speed. It comes down much faster (4 mana 2/2 is much cheaper than 5 mana 3/2), especially in these matchups, where your mana is getting killed. And of course it is a bazillion times better vs. Burn because of the Lifegain, so that you have 6 cards, that beat Burn MD (Survival+ Jitte)

It is better vs. Angel Stompy, Affinity and Gro because it is faster and helps you controlling their creatures as well as winning the damage race. It is more flexible in general, as it can only be chumped effectively by Fanatic and Tribe Elder and can also get 4 counter each turn if you equip it to a blocker.

Sword is only better vs. Landstill, Rift and Wombat which are very favorable matchups anyway. But Jitte is still good in these MUs.

Slay

02-15-2006, 06:11 PM

Tao

02-15-2006, 07:11 PM

Sword is better vs. midrange aggro decks like Zoo because of the "Jitte Altar" effect. It's easy to off a critter with a Jitte on it, but no counters. And because it can be done during combat, they've got one more turn to kill you. On the other hand, if you equip Sword to a creature, they can't be burned out, meaning the burn has to be cast in response, otherwise they're dead in the water. And if they kill it, qand you have an extra 2 mana out, you can re-equip it to another random and swing in.

It's also way better with Birds.
-Slay

Better with Birds it is, true. But if Zoo can kill a creature with Jitte, but no counters while attacking, they could have killed this creature in response to equipping the Sword, so you lost the mana, too. And if it is on a Troll, I'd rather like to equip him with Jitte to get Lifegain by turn 3/4 than to smash for irrelevant damage and irrelevant cards on Turn 4/5 with a Sword, when you get killed the next turn. Maybe Sword is better vs. Zoo, but only slightly, and Zoo is no important factor in the Metagame. Jitte is still far better vs. both Gro Versions, vs. Gobbos and many Tier2-Decks from AngelStompy to YinYang / Deadguy Ale.

Lego

02-15-2006, 07:26 PM

I've always prefered the Sword, in every matchup. I find that with the mana ramping of Elves and Birds, a creature can be swinging equipped at about the same time either way. Swords can be equipped to Birds, and gives a power and toughness bonus, and draws a card, and either replicates Jitte's pumping ability or -1/-1 effect.

No, it doesn't gain life, but I'd say the P/T, Protection, and extra Damage replicate that just fine. I prefer it a lot in the Goblins matchup. Usually it will mean that I can beat for 3-5, Draw a card, and kill two Gobs a turn (one attacking, one blocking). That seems better than anything a Jitte can do.

calosso

02-15-2006, 07:41 PM

I can goblins block when a creature has protection from red? Also the -1/-1 ability is quite relevant since it can take down half the goblins in Vial goblins. Also what do you mean life gain isn't relevant if you run in to a burn player jitte is your new best friend.

Lego

02-15-2006, 08:01 PM

You can swing with a creature equipped with Jitte, taking out one Goblin and drawing a card, then equip it to another creature and block, taking out another Goblin. That's just as good as the -1/-1 IMO because it also nets you a card, and stops more damage. In the burn matchup, Sword makes your biggest creature immune to Burn, speeds up your clock, and nets you more threats that have to be dealt with (or draws you into your Baloth/Genesis, at which point you simply win).

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-15-2006, 10:39 PM

Note that Jitte also has the most savage of notsynergy with Burning Tree shaman. It also means that the creature you equip it to won't die in combat as easily; I've lost games myself with Jitte active when I couldn't keep a creature around to equip it to. Jitte is still very strong, and in a deck with less mana, certainly the right call, but when you can afford the extra mana, SoFI seems much better. It's also a salient point that a Troll with double Swords is GG against pretty much anything in the format, whereas the second Jitte you draw is dead.

Additional points are that Pithing Needle is much stronger against Jitte than SoFI, and that, yes, Jtite is worse against Gobbos as their real targets all have 2 toughness, and they have 5-7 Sac effect creatures and can generate quite a load of chump blockers.

dontbiteitholmes

02-15-2006, 11:40 PM

Vardaman

02-15-2006, 11:47 PM

Note that Jitte also has the most savage of notsynergy with Burning Tree shaman.

Seriously, any regular Survival deck would not play Burning Tree Shaman. Please take any further comments about your "Survival Without the Whimsey" to the Red/Green Beatz thread.
EDIT: Sarnath'd, and by seven minutes too. :)
I thought IBA was trolling when he posted that list. Rumbling Slum gets a huge WTF.

Your points about SoFI compared to Jitte are excellent and I agree for the most part. It does make me wonder why Jitte is so prevalent while SoFI lingers about the edges of seeing play. Is that one extra mana that it costs to get it into play that prohibitive?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-16-2006, 01:02 AM

Why? It's literally the same fucking deck minus the inconsistent, janky draw engine. This isn't like a Zoo build or something. If you have to fall back onto the defense of "we can't cut Survival because then we can't call it Survival Advantage", you've pretty much already lost the argument.

Why does Rumbling Slum earn a wtf? 6/5's for 4 mana are pretty solid last time I checked. More so when they're carrying elementally dualistic swords. I think Iwamori, STE, and Burning Tree Shaman are much more questionable, although I wouldn't cut them.

Tao

02-16-2006, 04:49 AM

Why? It's literally the same fucking deck minus the inconsistent, janky draw engine.

IBA:
SotF is the exact opposite of janky and inconsistent. See, if you don't draw a card, or it gets countered, it is not dead. But if you get the Survival active, it is an extremely consistent and good card quality and card advantage machine. See: Survival > Bone Shredder > Your Deck. Survival > Incinerator > Goblins. Survival > Genesis/Anger > Control Decks.
I said that your deck "may" beat Gro, so I didn't say Gro would beat your deck. But it is no 70% matchup, too. You have very much mana sources and therefore only few threats, and you are very fast in Top Deck mode. So if they Force 2 of them and StoP another two, they are in a great position. Note that they can bring in a good number of BEBs to have effective answers to Shaman, Slum, Burning Wish and FtK.

Back to topic:
Jitte is for sure much stronger vs. Gobbos than SoFaI if you want to get into control. If you try racing them, Sword is better, good luck trying, but without me. Jitte is one Mana cheaper, which is really a lot. SoFaI only helps in a situation, where you already have stabilized the Board and builded up a manabase. But this is the real problem. Goblins will fuck your Manabase, they Waste and Port your ass and kill your Birds, when they hit play. So the extra-card drawn with SoFaI is in many games absolutely useless, as your real problem is to play out your strong spells. (In IBA's deck Sword is stronger, but I won't discuss this here).
One major advantage of Jitte in the Gobbo-MU: It stops the Goblin King kill. After stabilizing the Board and beeing in an aggressive position with let's say 18 life, many Blockers and your opponent having only a Ringleader and a vial on three on the Board with 3 handcards: You have lost the Game. EoT vial Warchief, Draw, vial Matron-King > play King, play Piledriver and attack for ~20 dmg. Jitte will stop that nosense.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-16-2006, 05:00 AM

IBA:
SotF is the exact opposite of janky and inconsistent. See, if you don't draw a card, or it gets countered, it is not dead. But if you get the Survival active, it is an extremely consistent and good card quality and card advantage machine. See: Survival > Bone Shredder > Your Deck. Survival > Incinerator > Goblins. Survival > Genesis/Anger > Control Decks.
I said that your deck "may" beat Gro, so I didn't say Gro would beat your deck. But it is no 70% matchup, too. You have very much mana sources and therefore only few threats, and you are very fast in Top Deck mode. So if they Force 2 of them and StoP another two, they are in a great position. Note that they can bring in a good number of BEBs to have effective answers to Shaman, Slum, Burning Wish and FtK.

Back to topic:
Jitte is for sure much stronger vs. Gobbos than SoFaI if you want to get into control. If you try racing them, Sword is better, good luck trying, but without me. Jitte is one Mana cheaper, which is really a lot. SoFaI only helps in a situation, where you already have stabilized the Board and builded up a manabase. But this is the real problem. Goblins will fuck your Manabase, they Waste and Port your ass and kill your Birds, when they hit play. So the extra-card drawn with SoFaI is in many games absolutely useless, as your real problem is to play out your strong spells. (In IBA's deck Sword is stronger, but I won't discuss this here).
One major advantage of Jitte in the Gobbo-MU: It stops the Goblin King kill. After stabilizing the Board and beeing in an aggressive position with let's say 18 life, many Blockers and your opponent having only a Ringleader and a vial on three on the Board with 3 handcards: You have lost the Game. EoT vial Warchief, Draw, vial Matron-King > play King, play Piledriver and attack for ~20 dmg. Jitte will stop that nosense.

If this be an elaborate ruse to test my willingness to quote myself at length, I warn you that you have chosen a poor battleground on which to fight.

I wonder what testing you've done.

To get us started. My testing with Threshold has been monumentally one-sided; the deck simply cannot deal with creatures bigger than it's when they come out at reasonable speeds. Pithing Needle has to come out naming SoFI before it goes onto a creature or the game ends.

If you'd actually played the Goblins matchup, you'd know that sitting back and playing control for more than a couple turns is signing your death pact. There's no point to it. It's much stronger to leave a creature or two on defense and start killing right away, which SoFI accomplishes much better than Jitte, on top of closing the deal faster and drawing into more blockers/attackers to make sure you don't lose the ground war. The matchup is doubly favored with you can go Burning Wish- Pyroclasm for a one sided Wrath of God.

You also seem fundamentally unfamiliar with what the words "janky" and "inconsistent" mean. Arguing that it's not dead when you draw it really doesn't touch on the Survival being janky issue. Rather, compare it to Sneak Attack; what happens when you play a Sneak Attack deck and you don't draw it? Why, you tend to lose. Survival is only a more moderate example of this scenario, hence why it is evolving out of the metagame. The turn it requires investing mana to set the card up, with no immediate dividends, on top of the turn it costs to drop it, and then dealing with the one-ofs you must run when you don't draw it (and if the only card you're running otherwise is Squee, why bother with Survival? Surely it's not because you love paying GGGGG over your second and third turns for nothing, and hate the idea of running non-forest cards?), are the factors comprosing it's jankiness and inconsistency.

Zilla

02-16-2006, 05:02 AM

Goddamnit IBA. Stop discussing your inferior copy of my deck in the Survival Advantage thread. Start a new thread for it in N & D if you want, but it doesn't belong here. P.S. I hate you.

parallax

02-16-2006, 11:50 AM

if the only card you're running otherwise is Squee, why bother with Survival? Surely it's not because you love paying GGGGG over your second and third turns for nothing, and hate the idea of running non-forest cards?

Survival only costs 1GGG to set up. Survival (1G) -> Squee (G) -> Relevant creature (G). I rarely spend my second and third turns setting it up. I usually play Survival turn 4-6, after dropping all my creatures (except one).

Survival is not primarily a tutor in this deck. Survival is an incredible card advantage engine that draws you an extra card each turn. The fact that it gets you whichever card you need is a bonus. Survival -> Genesis (Genesis = really good card even without Survival) gives you inevitability against every deck in the format.

Survival is not the back-bone of this deck; Survival is your trump card.

Artowis

02-16-2006, 05:20 PM

Survival only costs 1GGG to set up. Survival (1G) -> Squee (G) -> Relevant creature (G). I rarely spend my second and third turns setting it up. I usually play Survival turn 4-6, after dropping all my creatures (except one).

Survival is not primarily a tutor in this deck. Survival is an incredible card advantage engine that draws you an extra card each turn. The fact that it gets you whichever card you need is a bonus. Survival -> Genesis (Genesis = really good card even without Survival) gives you inevitability against every deck in the format.

Survival is not the back-bone of this deck; Survival is your trump card.

Yeah paying 4 mana and wasting a turn worth of tempo is TOTALLY worth it. Oh wait... you mean the best decks in the current enviroment either work tempo like a classy ho (Thresh) or don't give a fuck (Goblins and Rifter)? Damn.

Seriously, the problem with Survival is your running this god-awful slow engine, backed by jack for disruption and your main gameplan is dropping large beats on turns 3-5 in the first place.

Here, tell me what Survival 'trumps' out of the top tier that isn't likely to
A. Kill it
B. Be happy for the massive tempo sink
C. Not care

I can think of Deadguy and that's about it.

AngryTroll

02-16-2006, 07:02 PM

Well, what RGSA trumps in the current metagame....
Threshold
Even game with Goblins
and all the bad randomness.

Hmm....It smashes Threshold, the most popular deck, and is about/at least even with Goblins, the next best deck. It also smashes randomness pretty well.

The deck's "Main Gameplan" is not to drop large beats turn 3-5. The game plan is to drop large beats every turn from turn three to infinity, including massive amounts of removal and utility (FTK, Baloth, etc), or drop large beats and smash your opponent back to square one with Burning Wish, or a combination of the two. Dropping large beats is only one of the deck's gameplans.

The deck has three gameplans. First: Survival card advantage engine until you win. Second: Burning Wish for a game breaking sorcery. Third: Aggro it up (i.e. can't find Survival or Burning Wish). Depending on the matchup, option three is often the way to go, either dropping Survival after the initial beats, or not drawing or resolving a Survival at all.

Against Threshold, if the Survival resolves, you have plenty of time to set up. If it does not resolve, power through a Troll, FTKs, and some Baloths or a Sword and win with your superior creatures. Basically, your creatures are all bigger then theirs or will trade (exception: Mystic Enforcer), and you run far more critters. Against UGw, they will flat out not be able to compete with all of your critters. Against UGr, your Kavus will be burned, but Baloths and Trolls are still big enough to win it.

Against Goblins, your "setup" turn will be drastically different then against Threshold or anything else (duh.). Don't spend GGGG for Rofellos and Anger (I know you did not suggest it, just as an example)-either drop critters or Burning Wish for Pyroclasm. If your best play is to Survival, find yourself some Incinerators, or whatever you need to do to stay in the game. Once you get some mana available (use it in responce to being tapped, keep building up) you get the FTKs and Baloths going, or a SoFI to smash. Sharpshooter, while not completely wiping the board, is sure going to put a dent in their plans (for a turn until he dies). Burning Wish is the best plan, and game two, you have 4 BWish and 2-3 Pyroclasms to help out.

Add to those two matchups Deadguy and the randomness likely to show up at a tournament, and the very solid game against Control (if any tries to show up...ok, well, perhaps not mono-white control(understatement)), and I think the deck is still very relevent. Obviously mono white control and combo are not pleasent, but if you are facing large numbers of those two decks, run the black splash with Cabal Therapy and Cranial Extraction in the sideboard.

Tao

02-16-2006, 07:18 PM

Yeah paying 4 mana and wasting a turn worth of tempo is TOTALLY worth it. Oh wait... you mean the best decks in the current enviroment either work tempo like a classy ho (Thresh) or don't give a fuck (Goblins and Rifter)? Damn.

Seriously, the problem with Survival is your running this god-awful slow engine, backed by jack for disruption and your main gameplan is dropping large beats on turns 3-5 in the first place.

Here, tell me what Survival 'trumps' out of the top tier that isn't likely to
A. Kill it
B. Be happy for the massive tempo sink
C. Not care

I can think of Deadguy and that's about it.

Man, that's unbelievable.
- Survival together with Life from the Loam is the best One-Card-Draw-Engine in the Format.
- I promise you: GOBLIN WILL GIVE A FUCK, if the Survival player tutors out 2 Gempalm Incinerator for 3-1 trade with their best creature and then Witness on Incinerator for a 4-1 trade.
- Rift, oh yes Rift, I waited for that. G1 may be hard, if they have Humility, but it is still winable with 3 hasty 1/1s each Turn and an Equipment in play. G2 and G3 are about 85% for Gbr Survival because you get deed and Naturalize.
- Gro's fine Tempo Work can be beaten by raw power of Spells. If you get Wall of Blossoms, their Mongoose will be useless and if you get out a Troll Ascetic, their Werebears will do nothing. Then they have to rely on Mystic Enforcer, while you have several turns to find an Equipment, Witness or Survival. Or overrun them on the ground with FtKs and Balothen. Sure, Gro can win, but it is a 50/50 matchup, if you use my great splash Therapy list.

To your questions:
A: Look at this trick, it is very new!: HAHADISENCHANTYOURSURVIVALMOFO - Response Discard Squee, Discard Bird, get Witness, Witness, Witness on Survival. The only options to destroy Survival are: Needle, Counterspell and Discard. Needle is only played by Gro, and it is good vs. Survival. Discard is nice, but only Ale plays it and Survival has a good matchup vs. Ale. Countermagic is really hard, as you play Witness and Therapy.

B+C: Some decks that don't like resolved Survival and lose to it most games:
Landstill / Deadguy / Goblins / Gro / Angel Stompy / Zoo / Rift / Sligh / Affinity / Fish / Madness / Burn

Zilla

02-16-2006, 08:00 PM

Well, what RGSA trumps in the current metagame....
Threshold
Even game with Goblins
and all the bad randomness.

The deck that IBA posted is based roughly on one I've been working on for the past few weeks. His list is slower in general and less refined than my own. That said, my Survival-less midgame RG list compares to RGSA as follows:

Smashes Thresh.
Smashes Goblins even harder. (16/4 in testing against various, competent opponents)
Also beats Randomness.

And that's the biggest issue with RGSA right there. The best part of the deck is the fat. That's why it beats Thresh and why it can at least go toe to toe with Goblins; it has bigger threats. The reason it doesn't utterly trounce Goblins is because it's wasting slots on an ass-slow engine that bends over to Pithing Needle. Which was Jack's original (albeit mostly off-topic) point.

I'll be starting a new thread on my build once I've gotten in some testing against a few final decks.

Artowis

02-16-2006, 08:06 PM

- Survival together with Life from the Loam is the best One-Card-Draw-Engine in the Format.

Huh? First off, how is Survival plus LFTL, equal a one card 'draw' engine? Secondly, LFTL + Cycling lands is a draw engine. Survival combined with LFTL doesn't actually do anything useful, except both fight for mana every turn, as best I can tell.

- I promise you: GOBLIN WILL GIVE A FUCK, if the Survival player tutors out 2 Gempalm Incinerator for 3-1 trade with their best creature and then Witness on Incinerator for a 4-1 trade.

That's terrible. Honestly. Grab Baloth or Hierarch, I promise I may actually give a fuck then. 1RG to kill one of my guys is a terrible trade for you. At least play the guy that trades and gives you life. And Goblins doesn't run Pithing Needle? Um... no. Seriously it really does, no lies. Especially if this deck was actually good there would be even more reason too.

- Rift, oh yes Rift, I waited for that. G1 may be hard, if they have Humility, but it is still winable with 3 hasty 1/1s each Turn and an Equipment in play. G2 and G3 are about 85% for Gbr Survival because you get deed and Naturalize.

Are you actually serious here? You do realize how huge a turnaround 'terrible' to 85% is? Because I can't see a way in hell that'd actually happen as long as your deck is still using creatures.

Um, Gro doesn't really fall under C, because it has a ton of counters and Needle post-board. Sort of falls under A. Same with Landstill, Angel Stompy, Rifter, etc. or done none of these decks run enchantment removal or Needle suddenly?

C would be more like decks that really DON'T CARE, like Iggy Pop, High Tide, etc.

Oh and my favorite.

A: Look at this trick, it is very new!: HAHADISENCHANTYOURSURVIVALMOFO - Response Discard Squee, Discard Bird, get Witness, Witness, Witness on Survival.

So your plan is to spend 6-7 mana to get Survival back into play and then use more getting Survival to work... nice. Is this Disenchant on Survival on like turn 15 or something? Or do you just have 2 or 3 turns to waste on doing nothing relevant to the board position?

@Angry

Wow. Your post doesn't suck. The only thing I really disagree with is your Goblins match being 50/50 post-board or anything like that. In my experince it gets pretty terrible for the RGSA player, at least against the R/W builds. Otherwise spot on basically. I still don't think Survival belongs at all, because it's still a slow and clunky engine that the GP's and Duel for Duals has basically shown not to work.

However the core of the deck (accelerated g/r stuff) seems to work really well. And that is the part I think people should be working on, instead of trying to keep Survival in the deck when in reality it's a big mana-sink that only helps the few times you'll reach the late game. Meanwhile it's bad in the early game and just not an efficent use of the deck's resources.

MattH

02-16-2006, 08:52 PM

Behold, I guess I have made a convert (http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=524102#524102):

[Those RG Survival decks] just don't abuse Survival well enough, and I think they should just drop the engine entirely in favor of ... some other huge bomb-y card.

I've also been hyping Iwamori but I won't try to take credit for that. :P

Vardaman

02-16-2006, 10:05 PM

Huh? First off, how is Survival plus LFTL, equal a one card 'draw' engine? Secondly, LFTL + Cycling lands is a draw engine. Survival combined with LFTL doesn't actually do anything useful, except both fight for mana every turn, as best I can tell.

Stop being intentionally dense. He's trying to say that he thinks Survival and Life from the Loam are the best draw engines in the format. He's not saying that they should be in the same deck. (They're not exactly one card engines but their support cards are minimal.)

@the G/R midgame deck: It does have a ton of fat. How does it win vs. control? Can you keep ripping fat threats off the top?

dontbiteitholmes

02-16-2006, 10:26 PM

I think the best reason to run Survival is that it opens up your maindeck and sideboard to those one slot "I WIN" cards. Best example being Shard Pheonix vs. Goblins. You basically run 5 cards that are just like fuck you I win if I can make 5 mana. Then if you also run Burning Wishes go ahead and make that another 3-4 cards. I don't really see how the goblin matchup is 50-50, i consider my build to have the advantage seeing as how it's packed with answers (and I'm not going to a tourney with a deck that goes less then 55-45 with Goblins seeing as how everyone plays that shit and it top 8's everytime).

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-16-2006, 11:21 PM

Survival only costs 1GGG to set up. Survival (1G) -> Squee (G) -> Relevant creature (G). I rarely spend my second and third turns setting it up. I usually play Survival turn 4-6, after dropping all my creatures (except one).

Survival is not primarily a tutor in this deck. Survival is an incredible card advantage engine that draws you an extra card each turn. The fact that it gets you whichever card you need is a bonus. Survival -> Genesis (Genesis = really good card even without Survival) gives you inevitability against every deck in the format.

Survival is not the back-bone of this deck; Survival is your trump card.

Sword of Fire Ice does everything you're arguing about Survival for. It costs one more to set up, doesn't put you as heavily into Green, quickens your clock, lets you draw into more Burning Wishes, isn't dead in multiples, and kills a creature a turn for no additional mana investment past the first turn. It also never causes you to draw Squee when the card is dead.

Burning Wish, and to a lesser extent, Sword of Fire and Ice, beat Rifter and Wombat, and those are really the only control decks anyone plays that you should care about.

frogboy

02-17-2006, 11:53 AM

Er, Sword of Fire and Ice actually doesn't beat Rifter unless attached to Troll Ascetic when the Rifter player is out of mass removal.

parallax

02-17-2006, 12:54 PM

Doesn't SoFaI also have all the same disadvantages as SotF? It takes 5 mana and a turn to set up. It is just as vulnerable to Naturalize and Needle. Survival is much more resilient against removal, however, because you can search out a Zealot or Witness in response. Likewise, Survival beats Rifter/Wombat as easily as Sword, because Genesis recovers from Wrath/Vengeance. For five mana, Sword will kill a Goblin and draw a card. Survival -> Incinerator costs 2GGR, kills a Goblin and draws a card. Survival also doubles as Artifact and Enchantment removal, can kill creatures with a toughness of four, gain you life, and is useful even if you have no creatures in play.

dsg123456789

02-17-2006, 02:05 PM

@Parallax--Interestingly enough, every example you gave requires a much, much, much greater commitment to colored mana sources as well as the same upkeep each turn. It is true that Survival and Sword cost 5 mana to set up, but Survival requires an additional 3-5 mana each turn to do anything, while the Sword just keeps on pounding away for free. Also, Survival is hurt by Needle more than the Sword, because a needle after the Sword is equipped is not particularly crippling, whereas a needle on Survival when you do not expect it and do not have G open with a creature in hand is, in fact, quite crippling.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-17-2006, 03:18 PM

Er, Sword of Fire and Ice actually doesn't beat Rifter unless attached to Troll Ascetic when the Rifter player is out of mass removal.

The Rifter player's mass removal doesn't even work unless they have Humility in play, because Legacy players are terrible. That aside, your statement is still clearly hypothetical and not based on actual testing where you keep slow playing threats that have to be dealt with in response to equipping a large amount of the time.

bigredmeanie

02-17-2006, 03:48 PM

@ dsg

Survival when you do not expect it and do not have G open with a creature in hand is, in fact, quite crippling

Excuse my frustration, but are you retarted? Have you ever played RGSA in a tournament? Needle is barely a speed bump for this deck. It can play perfectly fine w/o Survival especially if you run a few coppies of Sylvan Library like I do, which I highly recomend.
In fact it plays a lot like this mid range aggro deck you guys keep talking about, accept in the games where you draw Survival. In those games it's much much better.
Another thing, haven't we proven over the past 2 years or so that aggro decks don't have what it takes w/o some form of card advantage engine? I think we have. I can think of a half a dozen Zoo varients, Angel Stompy, WWW, Zilla Stompy, pretty much just about any mid-range aggro-control deck that all saw play but were too easily dispatched by Survival of The Fittest, and Goblins, and now no longer even exist in the metagame.

You guys keep talking about how mana hungry Survival is, and keep comparing it so SOFI, ACCEPT YOUR DOING IT WRONG!

Survival has an initial investement of 1 less than SOFI then is just a card advantage creature tutor in future turns.
SOFI is good, but does nothing more than make 1 threat just a little bigger, but it's ability can be easily negated unlike Survival. All they have to do is block or KILL the creature to force you to waste 2 mana trying to equip. Every mana you pump into Survival actually does something useful.

A mana into Survival is never wasted, mana into ANY equipement can be.

Also Survival is a much bigger threat than any card in the sans survival deck.

Thanks to 2 GP and a Dual for Duals RGSA is now the deck to be playing. It has an amazingly good matchup against Gro, probably %80, somewhere around %70 in the Picula match, 50/50 in goblins, but not if you run Jitte and Troll over Sofi like you should, then it's better.

Another thing, you are not required to spend your first turn after Survival just setting up your hand and graveyard. In some situations that's an ok play, but really it should be done over a few turns so that you can play a threat every turn for the rest of the game. Genesis isn't really all that good until at least turn 6 or so, so why would you rush to put it in your yard on turn 3? It's just going to sit there until turn 6 anyway, so spend that mana getting a Troll instead.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-17-2006, 04:35 PM

Excuse my frustration, but are you retarted?

I have no idea what that is, but it sounds painful.

It can play perfectly fine w/o Survival

I believe that was rather my entire point.

Another thing, haven't we proven over the past 2 years or so that aggro decks don't have what it takes w/o some form of card advantage engine?

Well, Threshold has no card advantage. Solidarity is restricted to Meditate. I think we've proven time and again that tempo is more important than card advantage, but that the best decks have both. As SoFI and Burning Wish are both card advantage engines, I don't see where this is going.

I think we have. I can think of a half a dozen Zoo varients, Angel Stompy, WWW, Zilla Stompy, pretty much just about any mid-range aggro-control deck that all saw play but were too easily dispatched by Survival of The Fittest, and Goblins, and now no longer even exist in the metagame.

I think you're confusing Zoo, Angel Stompy, and White Weenie with Survival. Which no longer exists in the metagame, you see.

You guys keep talking about how mana hungry Survival is, and keep comparing it so SOFI, ACCEPT YOUR DOING IT WRONG!

I just can't accept that.

Survival has an initial investement of 1 less than SOFI then is just a card advantage creature tutor in future turns.

Well, when you consider that you actually have to play a creature first to make up for the board difference SoFI makes, no, it costs a good bit less the first time and on all future occurences.

SOFI is good, but does nothing more than make 1 threat just a little bigger

If your strategy is to hope that no one on the other side actually knows what the card they're arguing for actually does, I must admit I consider it flawed.

but it's ability can be easily negated unlike Survival. All they have to do is block or KILL the creature to force you to waste 2 mana trying to equip. Every mana you pump into Survival actually does something useful.

It gets creatures that can also be killed. A lot easier, of course, because they're not 5/4s, 5/6s, and 7/7's with Pro Red.

Also Survival is a much bigger threat than any card in the sans survival deck.

In the long term? Yes. Assuming the game drags out over many turns. Assuming you didn't mull to 4 and for the immediate future? No.

Thanks to 2 GP and a Dual for Duals RGSA is now the deck to be playing. It has an amazingly good matchup against Gro, probably %80, somewhere around %70 in the Picula match, 50/50 in goblins, but not if you run Jitte and Troll over Sofi like you should, then it's better.

Ask a Goblins player sometime if they're more afraid of, a) Sword of Fire and Ice, or b) Jitte. Then, as a follow up, a) Burning Wish, b) Sylvan Library.

I have no doubt that running Worldly Tutor turn after turn is a better strategy for Survival than the Toolbox. My question is, why bother? Sans hands where you mulligan, just running extremely self-sufficent threats is a safe, more mana effective, better long term strategy. A hand with second turn Troll, third turn Rumbling Slum, and fourth turn Sword of Fire Ice doesn't need Survival. It's got all the threats opposing decks can handle in the grip. Why slow your game down a turn for a card that doesn't do any immediate good?

Zilla

02-17-2006, 04:56 PM

Thanks to 2 GP and a Dual for Duals RGSA is now the deck to be playing. It has an amazingly good matchup against Gro, probably %80, somewhere around %70 in the Picula match, 50/50 in goblins, but not if you run Jitte and Troll over Sofi like you should, then it's better.
Midgame RG Beats has an amazingly good matchup against Thresh, Pikula and Goblins. If these 3 decks are your only reason to be playing RGSA, you're playing the wrong deck.

bigredmeanie

02-17-2006, 05:18 PM

yay I get to quote myself

Originally Posted by bigredmeanie
It can play perfectly fine w/o Survival

Originally posted by IBA
I believe that was rather my entire point.

originally posted by bigredmeanie
accept in the games where you draw Survival. In those games it's much much better.

Originally posted by IBA
we've proven time and again that tempo is more important than card advantage

Sans Survival doesn't do anything to create tempo, and Burning Wish is not card advangage.

Originally posted by IBA
I think you're confusing Zoo, Angel Stompy, and White Weenie with Survival. Which no longer exists in the metagame, you see

That stetement is a wash, as Survival and Angel Stompy have both t8'ed recently.

originally posted by IBA
Well, when you consider that you actually have to play a creature first to make up for the board difference SoFI makes, no, it costs a good bit less the first time and on all future occurences.

What?

originally posted by IBA
It gets creatures that can also be killed. A lot easier, of course, because they're not 5/4s, 5/6s, and 7/7's with Pro Red.

sure, but at that point your paying 5, 5, and 6, which is a lot. Especially against goblins and Picula. Survival on the other hand can play a hasted Rofellos and kill whatever threat you played before you untap in order to equip, in which case your Sofi is still sitting on the boarding clogging up your 3 drop slot.

Originally posted by IBA
In the long term? Yes. Assuming the game drags out over many turns. Assuming you didn't mull to 4 and for the immediate future? No.

The game most likely will drag out because Sans survival is not a fast deck.

Why would I mull to 4? Both decks seem like they would mulligan very little. I know RGSA mulls very little.

IBA
Ask a Goblins player sometime if they're more afraid of, a) Sword of Fire and Ice, or b) Jitte. Then, as a follow up, a) Burning Wish, b) Sylvan Library.

They will say Jitte and Burning Wish. My RGSA deck runs the latter 3 of your choices though.

IBA
Sans hands where you mulligan, just running extremely self-sufficent threats is a safe, more mana effective, better long term strategy. A hand with second turn Troll, third turn Rumbling Slum, and fourth turn Sword of Fire Ice doesn't need Survival. It's got all the threats opposing decks can handle in the grip. Why slow your game down a turn for a card that doesn't do any immediate good?

Sentence by sentence. sans surival doesn't have a long term strategy, it has a mid game strategy.
That ideal hand could certainly use survival if you cought a Daze and a Force of Will, which you are likely to do. then the hand NEEDS survival to win, because you're in topdeck mode on turn 3.
and for the comment on a card that doesn't do any immediate good, neither does SoFi.
Playing RGSA and drawing a survival late game as the first one, can do a lot of immediate good, like turning the game around in 1 turn. nothing in sans Survival can do that for you.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

02-17-2006, 05:30 PM

They will say Jitte and Burning Wish. My RGSA deck runs the latter 3 of your choices though.

...........

You're running, Jitte, Burning Wish, Sylvan Library, and Survival.

....

And Squee, Anger, Genesis and Rofellos.

Yeah, I'm not seeing the consistency. Just go ahead and post this list so we can do some actual math.

Yeah, also... SStW doesn't lose to Daze or Force of Will. I'm not even seeing where to begin to adress that problem.

The mulligan to 4 thing was merely to illustrate that except in the rare instance that you have to do so, there's really no point in running Survival as your hand should contain quite enough gas on it's own.

Burning Wish is an exemplary example of ridiculous card advantage.

Tao

02-17-2006, 06:03 PM

Midgame RG Beats has an amazingly good matchup against Thresh, Pikula and Goblins. If these 3 decks are your only reason to be playing RGSA, you're playing the wrong deck.

That sounds good, but in fact it is a problem. It is a Metagame Deck that beats fixed decklists. But in a tourney (BOTH GPs were exceptions because Rdm 1.x Noobs came there with no idea of the format) you will play 2-3 games out of 7 vs. the Decks to Beat and 4-5 vs. Random stuff. And the fact that it beats YinYang/Deadguy and has a positive Goblin matchup is outweighed by the fact that it has a terrible matchup vs. Combo and Landstill.
(or other hardcore control that does not lose to Burning Wish - yepp these deck exist and they are good, feel free to flame me for this statement, but if you do please ignore the rest of my post, "haha a control deck that does not lose to Burning Wish, you must be RETARDED", anyway).

But only little adaptions have to be made by many decks to beat Midgame RG/Beats, which is definetely not true for Survival based decks. Running Wing Shards in the SB of Gro f.e. will be a big headache for Midgame Beats (M.B.) together with Blue Blast. Just imagine you play against ATS and starts his Sporefrog Lock (Or Caller o... no, I am quiet). Vs. Survival decks that don't play slowshit like Sylvan Library, but Bone Shredder and Duplicant MD and deeds in the Board you will get problems, too.

So I don't doubt that this is a good deck, and it deserves an own thread. But it surely cannot replace Survival Builds.

Edit:

Burning Wish is a tutor that gives you access to cards outside your deck, and of limited use, though powerful. It's not card advantage, it's a tutor.

Burning Wish CAN be card advantage, pretty insane card advantage. Flashfires vs. Wombat, Seeds vs. Affinity, Anarchy vs. AS, Clsm vs. Gobbos. Though it is not really a source that always brings you CA, because it depends on what you find in your wishboard.

In my opinion RGSA only drawback is it's bad matchup against Combo. Little combo see's play in my meta, so that's why I play it. If I were at an event like the GP I don't think RGSA in its current form has what it takes. I would play a different deck.

So, for the bazillionth and 2nd time: Splash B, MD Therapy, SB Duress + additional hate. And you have a solid chance vs. Combo.

bigredmeanie

02-17-2006, 06:09 PM

4 Llanaowar Elves
3 Birds of paradise
3 Troll Ascetic
3 Eternal Witness
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Flame Tongue Kavu
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 Squee
1 Rofellos
1 Duplicant
1 Sex Monkey
1 Duranged Hermit

4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sylvan Library
3 Burning Wish
3 Jitte

3 Taiga
4 wooded foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
9 forests
2 mountain

SB:
2 Pyroclasm
1 Tsunami
1 Hull breach
1 Flash Fires
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Cranial Extraction
3 Naturalize
1 FTK
2 Gempalm Incenerator
1 Spore Frog
1 Something else

The last tournamet I went to, though small, was filled with pretty much all the DTBs on this forum, and I went undefeated.
I'll admit there were only 9 players, but the decks were as follows
2 Gro
1 Pikula
1 Rifter
1 Goblins
1 Solidarity
1 RGSA
1 UGW aggro-thresh with bears, mongrels, and other cards not in gro
1 RW Slaver control.

I lost 2 games the whole day, and not to the same person either. All but the Solidarity player were top notch, so I considered the day a pretty effective day of testing, accept I won $100.

IBA
Burning Wish is an exemplary example of ridiculous card advantage

Burning Wish is a tutor that gives you access to cards outside your deck, and of limited use, though powerful. It's not card advantage, it's a tutor.

In my opinion RGSA only drawback is it's bad matchup against Combo. Little combo see's play in my meta, so that's why I play it. If I were at an event like the GP I don't think RGSA in its current form has what it takes. I would play a different deck.

Vardaman

02-17-2006, 07:26 PM

No offense bigredmeanie, but Sylvan Library is pretty awful. I wouldn't dilute my number of creatures for that. I want every non creature, non-land in the deck to be a huge threat to the opponent. 4x SotF, 4x Wish and 2x Jitte is what I'm currently running.

22 land seems to work well for me as well. I'm running -1 elf +1 BoP as compared to your list. Your low number of red sources is alarming but I'm noting you're not playing Anarchy in the board. (and Spore Frog can be removed from your board)

Zilla

02-17-2006, 08:09 PM

That sounds good, but in fact it is a problem. It is a Metagame Deck that beats fixed decklists. But in a tourney (BOTH GPs were exceptions because Rdm 1.x Noobs came there with no idea of the format) you will play 2-3 games out of 7 vs. the Decks to Beat and 4-5 vs. Random stuff. And the fact that it beats YinYang/Deadguy and has a positive Goblin matchup is outweighed by the fact that it has a terrible matchup vs. Combo and Landstill.
Welcome to 2006, where no one plays Landstill anymore. As for combo, RGSA isn't favored against it either, even with maindecked Therapy.

Here's the bottom line: given the choice between having a fantastic matchup against Goblins (the most popular deck in the format) and a slightly diminished game against combo, or having a slightly improved matchup against combo and have a drastically worse matchup against Goblins, I'll take the former. As for beating randomness, RG Beats does that just as well as RGSA does.

Tao

02-18-2006, 11:51 AM

Welcome to 2006, where no one plays Landstill anymore. As for combo, RGSA isn't favored against it either, even with maindecked Therapy.

Here's the bottom line: given the choice between having a fantastic matchup against Goblins (the most popular deck in the format) and a slightly diminished game against combo, or having a slightly improved matchup against combo and have a drastically worse matchup against Goblins, I'll take the former. As for beating randomness, RG Beats does that just as well as RGSA does.

And still, your deck is not Survival. So why are you advertising your deck in this thread? Reading your thread the deck it is not even near to anything that Survival does. Advertising for a deck with Bolts, Rancor and Kird Ape in a Survival thread would be like advertising for Angel Stompy in a Wombat thread. Also, last time I checked Survival decks didn't go immediately to game2 when my opponent dares to play down a Silver Knight or RoP:Red.

About Landstill: Top8ed in Lille, Top 10ed in Phily. Solid, well-balanced Goblin and Gro matchups, great matchup vs. Zilla2k6, AngelStompy. Why is everybody here hating this deck so much?

Lukas Preuss

02-18-2006, 12:46 PM

About Landstill: Top8ed in Lille, Top 10ed in Phily. Solid, well-balanced Goblin and Gro matchups, great matchup vs. Zilla2k6, AngelStompy. Why is everybody here hating this deck so much?

It sucks vs. Solidarity, and it doesn't do anything amazing in other matchups. Seriously, if you want to play control, play Rifter or Wombat... they are both better against Goblins, Gro, etc. and against combo, they suck just as well as Landstill...

Zilla

02-18-2006, 06:07 PM

And still, your deck is not Survival. So why are you advertising your deck in this thread?
I'm not. I'm simply using it as a comparison to illustrate why Survival is a bad card in the modern metagame. RGSA is basically RG Beats with the Survival engine. The problem is that the Survival engine isn't offering your deck anything of value. It's terrible against combo, it's too slow to be any good against Goblins (which is why you barely have an even game against them), and it does nothing to support your Landstill matchup. All the things you claim are better about RGSA are due to Burning Wish, not Survival. Thus far, you have presented no evidence whatsover to support the claim that Survival offers anything relevant to the archetype. In the modern metagame, Survival is either easily answered or is win more. The deck wastes valuable slots on Survival, Squee and other various aspects of the Survival engine which slow you down in what should already be positive matchups, while doing nothing at all to improve your bad ones.

As an aside, Angel Stompy smashes the fuck out of RGSA as well. Decks running maindecked RoP:Red are also running Humility, which also smashes RGSA. So again, I'll point out that every example you've given to illustrate why RGSA is supposedly better is in fact of little relevance.

Dr.ugs

02-21-2006, 08:13 AM

@Godzilla

In the modern Metagame there is still something called lategame and thats the main Advantage of RGSA over various Weenie decks.RGSA can also answer Humility it does not have burn like Zompy but on the other hand the decks which are running humility are also running CoP:R.

The latest survival advantage decks are using black for Cabal Therapy which is also a tool that makes dead cards like Squee more usefull.

As for the RGSA vs Angel Stompy machtup , I am not an expert , but I don´t think that the one deck smash the other.But have the tools to beat the other one.

parallax

02-21-2006, 01:14 PM

Survival -> Genesis is a very important strategy against any control deck. It is an excellent answer to mass removal. Survival itself is like topdecking a threat every turn.

Survival -> Eternal Witness has great synergy with Burning Wish. Being able to recur Sorcery bombs like Tsunami or Pyroclasm keeps you in control of the game against control or aggro decks. This is also the most viable strategy against Solidarity.

SotF is not as immediately useful as SoFaI against Goblins. However, the flexibility of SotF is useful here. Especially, using Gempalm Incinerator to kill Goblins at Instant speed. Sword does nothing to stop Goblins from dropping Warchief and Piledriver, or King and killing you in one turn. Sword also requires attacking with a creature which might be a vital blocker. Survival actually provides you with more blockers. Assuming that Burning Wish and your creatures (Baloths and FTKs in particular) can carry you into the late game, Survival will allow you to out-power Ringleader as a draw engine.

@Dr.ugs

Angel Stompy is an almost completely unwinnable match-up. Their entire deck completely hoses us. Every. Single. Card. (Except maybe Tithe.)

bigredmeanie

02-22-2006, 12:13 PM

Angel Stompy is an almost completely unwinnable match-up. Their entire deck completely hoses us. Every. Single. Card. (Except maybe Tithe.)

I've heard this a few times on this thread and in other places, so I decided to test myself, so that I could at least be prepared for the deck if I see it at a tournament.

The Angel Stompy list I tested against did not run any Shadow guys, instead it ran White Knights because having 4 creatures unable to block against Gobling, and Gro did not seem good.

The matchup was close but didn't seem to be overly in Angel Stompy's favor. Between being able to Genesis back a Baloth every turn to block, and being able to tutor up Sex Monkey for the equipment nothing was a huge problem. In fact usually by the time I found a Burning Wish it was all over, and I don't even run Anarchy in my board.

In 1 game we got into a ground stale mate, with him having an angel on the board, but he couldnt get through with very many guys, and I was recurring Baloth every turn in order to regain some life his 'early' rush knocked out of me. I just killed Derranged Hermit every turn genesised him back and recast him until I had 12 tokens, then just swung in with everything accept Hermit himself, Sharpshooter, and Rofellos. It was easy.

Tao

02-22-2006, 12:23 PM

Angel Stompy is an almost completely unwinnable match-up. Their entire deck completely hoses us. Every. Single. Card. (Except maybe Tithe.)

Bazillionth and 3rd time: Play MD Duplicant; Splash B, get access to Pernicious Deed > favorable Matchup vs. Angel Stompy.

Anyway, for the current Meta that goes away from 50% Gro I would prefer the Burning Wish Version with maindecked Deeds, look at Juventus' list. I would suggest this list with a few modifications for your Meta.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2006, 01:40 PM

I've heard this a few times on this thread and in other places, so I decided to test myself, so that I could at least be prepared for the deck if I see it at a tournament.

The Angel Stompy list I tested against did not run any Shadow guys, instead it ran White Knights because having 4 creatures unable to block against Gobling, and Gro did not seem good.

The matchup was close but didn't seem to be overly in Angel Stompy's favor. Between being able to Genesis back a Baloth every turn to block, and being able to tutor up Sex Monkey for the equipment nothing was a huge problem. In fact usually by the time I found a Burning Wish it was all over, and I don't even run Anarchy in my board.

In 1 game we got into a ground stale mate, with him having an angel on the board, but he couldnt get through with very many guys, and I was recurring Baloth every turn in order to regain some life his 'early' rush knocked out of me. I just killed Derranged Hermit every turn genesised him back and recast him until I had 12 tokens, then just swung in with everything accept Hermit himself, Sharpshooter, and Rofellos. It was easy.

I am pretty sure that weakening the Angel Stompy decklist will have an impact on its matchups. Priest >>> White Knight, especially considering the amount of equipment run in Angel Stompy that requires damage to be done to a player and RGSA's only removal being Red.
Except for the occasionally Duplicant which is in there primarly to kill all those annoying Angel Stompy creatures (Silver Knight, Priest, Angel, etc)

bigredmeanie

02-22-2006, 01:50 PM

What is angel Stompy's goblin matchup like?

I'm not sure that Solitary Priest is strictly better than White Knight, though I can see how it makes the RGSA match worse. Priest does nothing for you in either the Gro or the Goblins matchup. While White knight is better simply because First Strike is the best static creature ability ever.

Ewokslayer

02-22-2006, 01:53 PM

Priest is an unblockable, and in Goblins and UGr Gro unkillable, holder of equipment.
Its inability to block will rarely come up in the Goblins mirror because a single Silver Knight can hold back the green men for a while, let alone MOM and company.

Edit: On Topic Section.
I agree that the metagame has passed RGSA by. It no longer has the tools or the time to find what tools it has to compete in the current field. I feel that its limited success in various tournaments is more a sign of the quality of its pilot than the deck.

Artowis

02-22-2006, 03:14 PM

I've heard this a few times on this thread and in other places, so I decided to test myself, so that I could at least be prepared for the deck if I see it at a tournament.

The Angel Stompy list I tested against did not run any Shadow guys, instead it ran White Knights because having 4 creatures unable to block against Gobling, and Gro did not seem good.

The matchup was close but didn't seem to be overly in Angel Stompy's favor. Between being able to Genesis back a Baloth every turn to block, and being able to tutor up Sex Monkey for the equipment nothing was a huge problem. In fact usually by the time I found a Burning Wish it was all over, and I don't even run Anarchy in my board.

In 1 game we got into a ground stale mate, with him having an angel on the board, but he couldnt get through with very many guys, and I was recurring Baloth every turn in order to regain some life his 'early' rush knocked out of me. I just killed Derranged Hermit every turn genesised him back and recast him until I had 12 tokens, then just swung in with everything accept Hermit himself, Sharpshooter, and Rofellos. It was easy.

So you took out the unblockable and unkillable guys from the match for 4 more first-strikers that die? Savage. That's really testing under proper conditions.

In all seriousness, why the hell are you worried about blocking? Angel Stompy is an aggro deck at heart, trying to make the deck better at defense sounds like whoever was playing it already had the wrong style of play in mind.

Zilla

02-22-2006, 04:28 PM

Enough about Angel Stompy in this thread. It was only one example of a problematic matchup for RGSA, of which there are a great many. The current Angel Stompy list is in the first post of the Angel Stompy thread. If you want to discuss particular card choices in that deck, or its strength in particular matchups, please do so in that that thread.

juventus

02-23-2006, 07:20 PM

I have played angel stompy many times, and have not had much of a problem. Angel stompy is essentially slow goblins with pro red dudes. Survival is far more effective against them because you have more time to set things up. You can easily put a single wish target like anarchy to hose them, but I don't. Only angels and equipment really worry you, and deed is very good against them.

I think people don't realise the deck for what it truly does. I feel that it is a control deck at heart. This is where it is very different from R/G beats. Burning wish, wall of blossoms, cabal therapy, deed, and baloth are all very good at keeping you alive. Witness and Survival help with card advantage along with those. The rest of the deck is just mana and survival targets. My strategy is always to stabilize, then win with Survival's amazing card advantage. People might not want to agree, but it is the most powerful card in the format late game.

On a more random note, I have been fooling around with Rector lately. It acts as survivals 5-8 depending on how many you play, and could possibly be used for finding one of enchantments. Its drawbacks are all in its mana cost: 4 mana is a bit slow, and W means you have to add a new color to the deck. Here are some of its advantages though:

-Extra survivals in the deck without being bad card advantage like E tutor.
-A decent amount of cards in the deck to kill it: FTK, Cabal therapy, Deed.
-Can find deed to wipe the board
-Can find moat or engineered plague to hose goblins
-Against control can get Debtor's Knell =P

All in all, the list without Rector has proven to be a very solid deck, that doesn't auto-lose to anything. Survival will punish any slow deck if it is resolved. Deed and burning wish can help you deal with aggro, while cabal therapy can help against combo. To boot the deck has a fairly stable manabase against wasteland. Finally it has a VERY favorable matchup against gro. I will admit that I lost to gro in my last tournament, but I still feel the matchup is 80/20 in Survivals favor. The only way gro can win is by out tempoing, because the card advantage of Survival is just too much for gro. It is not easy for gro to out tempo either, because wall of blossoms and cabal therapies do a good job in stopping this.

Vardaman

03-01-2006, 12:04 PM

It's been quiet in this thread so I thought I'd bump it.

Here's my list that has been doing well in an aggro meta.

Lands - 22
2 - Mountain
4 - Taiga
4 - Wooded Foothills
1 - Windswept Heath
2 - Bayou
9 - Forests

Non-creature, non-land - 10
4 - Survival
4 - Burning Wish
2 - Umezawa's Jitte

Mana dudes - 9
4 - Birds of Paradise
3 - Llanowar Elves
1 - Rofellos
1 - Sakura Tribe Elder

Beatdown - 12
4 - Baloth
4 - FTK
3 - Troll
1 - Masticore

Utility/Engines - 7
1 - Squee
1 - Anger
1 - Genesis
1 - Tin Street Hooligan
3 - Eternal Witness

Sideboard
1 - Hull Breach
1 - Tsunami
1 - Pyroclasm
1 - Earthquake/Rolling Earthquake
1 - Ruination/Flashfires
1 - Seeds of Innocence (lol, affinity or can kill multiple pithing needles with one spell)
1 - Cranial Extraction (my awful tech I haven't used once XD)
1 - Shard Pheonix (I side this guy in all the time)
1 - Viridian Zealot (too slow for the maindeck)
1 - Duplicant (ditto)
2 - REB/Naturalize
3 - Tormod's Crypt (mise well make Threshold an even easier match-up)

I pruned away most of the "cute" stuff the deck can do. I moved Duplicant to the side and Hermit out to make room for Jitte. It helps out in the mirror, random aggro and goblins if you can stay alive for the first few turns.

My goblins matchup is only 50/50. I'm light on answers to turn 1 Lackey and I often need to go burning wish -> Pyroclasm with two red sources available turn three to play around port.

Games against random aggro are very favorable with exception to Angel Stompy. All you have to do is stabalize and you'll eventually win. (AS has a worse game against combo and control than this deck and I don't see many people playing it.) Masticore + Jitte help out vs. pro-red guys.

The control match up is rather good. Playing against Rifter is neither fun nor an autoloss. Jitte and Burning wish help out immensely. These are the times I'm happy I'm playing Troll over Wall of Blossoms.

Combo is tough as always but you can mise wins off of bad Solidarity players with burning wish->Tsunami. Random combo with slow hands can be taken apart with Cranial Extraction. Obv, if combo is prevalent in your area splash for more black and Therapy. I like the Black splash builds posted but haven't tested them.

bigredmeanie

03-01-2006, 11:46 PM

Vardaman, I like your list mostly, I also play Jitte over SoFi, and it's pretty amazing whenever I cast it.

Couple of questions.

Is Tin Street Hooligan better than Shaman/sex monkey? I understand the cc difference, but is the red requirement in hooligan to much? Als the fact that he's only a 2/1 instead of a 2/2 can randomly matter against goblins and soldier tokens.

Sakura Tribe Elder. Is Elder really necessary with 22 lands? I play the deck too, and I don't run him or Wood elves.

3 troll? I'd rather run 4 trolls than 4 FTK/baloth. Mostly because he's only 3, and is just as big a threat as the other too.

Zealot in the board seems unnecessary. It doesn't do anything in any matchup. the only enchantement you care about is Humility, and well it's Humility.

Duplicant in the board is a good idea, though it makes g1 against angel stompy worse, though maybe not since you run Core.

Masticore main seems like a justified slot.

I would cut the Elder and run a 3rd Jitte, and a FTK and run a 4th Troll. I don't need to tell you of the synergy those 2 cards have.

How come you don't run any Gempalm Incenerators? Have they proven generally innefective, or was it their narrow usability?

Tao

03-02-2006, 05:02 AM

@Vardaman: I like the list, too. It contains black lands, that is good start. What about playing black spells, so you can take full advantage from your black mana?

Only one extraction to wish for seems not worth splashing a 3rd colour.

bigredmeanie

03-02-2006, 01:34 PM

It's probably not, but there aren't any black spells worth main deck slots. Cabal therapy only has a marginal effect against combo, and still doesn't solve the problem. Deed is completely unnecessary and in a lot of cases worse for us than them. There are no matchups that his list suffers against where Deed would make it better. As far as cards like Bone Shredder, it's cute, and flies, which is randomly good for Jitte, but it can't kill black creatures and Mystic Enforcer has pro black, so it's usefullness is marginal at best.

What other black spells were you considering?

I'm still dissapointed that this deck was removed from the DTB forum, it has a possitive matchup against everything currently on the list with the exception of Solidarity, and 3 of the decks on the DTB list have a positive matchup against Solidarity so go figure.

Vardaman

03-02-2006, 11:11 PM

Thanks for the feedback and comments guys.

@bigredmeanie:
I'm torn on Tin Street Hooligan vs. Uktabi/shaman. The one mana difference is huge. I haven't had trouble getting red mana for it yet but I could see it being an issue. Right now I think the drop in mana cost is worth the risk of not being able to cast it once every game you're going to lose anyway. ;)

Zealot in the board comes in vs. random jank. He's a crutch. :\

I'm only playing Sakura Tribe Elder as a Survivable way to get basic mountains. He's debatable but it helps to get the heavy red required for Anarchy or Shard Pheonix.

I haven't tested Goblin Incinerator because there's not a lot of people who play Goblins here. Does it do that much? I think you'll lose games you waste time Genesis'ing back Incinerator. At the same time, I should do something to make my Goblins match-up better.

A 4th Troll is a good idea but I'm never overjoyed to top-deck one. He is solid but not game-breaking. However, he gets much better with each Jitte you maindeck. I'll test 3x Jitte, 4x Troll this weekend.

@masticore: I'm really loving this guy. I can't belive he's not talked about more. Maybe I'll peruse the old discussion threads to see if it was debated. Duplicant is awesome but I figured Masticore fills the same gaps but is often much better.

@Tao: I'd add more black if combo became more prevalent. I hesitate to otherwise because you'll significantly worsen your game vs aggro and have to play things like Wall of Blossoms over things that can attack. The black version isn't bad, it just has a different focus.

@removal of this deck from DTB status: It gets a WTF from me as well but this has never been that popular of a deck to begin with. The rise of Gro and Pikula helps neuter combo and let RGSA thrive.

Lego

03-03-2006, 02:08 AM

I'm still dissapointed that this deck was removed from the DTB forum, it has a possitive matchup against everything currently on the list with the exception of Solidarity, and 3 of the decks on the DTB list have a positive matchup against Solidarity so go figure.

The DTB list is based as much on how much the deck is played as it is on how good the deck is. Angel Stax has a positive matchup against a majority of played decks, but it's not being talked about because no one plays it. Here, the deck has some good matchups, but no one is playing it because it basically autoloses to combo.

As to that last comment, Thresh and Pikula have good matchups against Solidarity. Are you actually assuming that Goblins has a good matchup?

As for the combo matchups, why does everyone seem to have such a problem with going the black route? The only Survivals decks I've seen doing anything impressive lately are the Recurring Nightmare ones, and I'd be willing to bet that's based mostly on the strength of their disruption.

EDIT: As for the DTB questions, let's keep them to PM so we don't clog up this thread.

bigredmeanie

03-03-2006, 10:25 AM

calosso

03-03-2006, 12:45 PM

@ Lego_army_man Goblins is 50/50 against solidarity. I know the paramaters of what makes a deck a DTB, so I'll ask you a different question, why exactly is Solidarity still on the list? All of 1 person has done anything with the deck in the past 3 months. I guess it doesn't matter much, but I'm just saying.

This is a bit off topic, but solidarity kicks the crap out of every deck in the format with the exceptions of Gro varients, Sui, and pikula. Also goblins does no go 50/50 with solidarity. Also the reason the deck is in DTB forum is because is doing well. When is the last time RGSA made a top 8 in a major tournament.

Bryant Cook

03-03-2006, 02:52 PM

This is a bit off topic, but solidarity kicks the crap out of every deck in the format with the exceptions of Gro varients, Sui, and pikula. Also goblins does no go 50/50 with solidarity. Also the reason the deck is in DTB forum is because is doing well. When is the last time RGSA made a top 8 in a major tournament.
If more people played the deck maybe there would be more top 8's with the deck. As of right now I only know of two people who play RGSA. Quicksilver and Mulletus and they seem to win alot with the deck. Is it because they are extremely godly at playing magic? No, it's because they have been playing it forever and know it inside and out. The deck takes skill to play and those 2 have it, it's much more to say than alot of RGSA players. Yes, the combo match-up blows but you can always burning wish for tsunami or boiling seas and say GG.

Zilla

03-03-2006, 05:48 PM

Discussions about DTB status belong elsewhere. Namely, here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3202). Further discussion on that topic in this thread will be deleted outright.

juventus

03-04-2006, 10:10 PM

If more people played the deck maybe there would be more top 8's with the deck. As of right now I only know of two people who play RGSA. Quicksilver and Mulletus and they seem to win alot with the deck. Is it because they are extremely godly at playing magic? No, it's because they have been playing it forever and know it inside and out. The deck takes skill to play and those 2 have it, it's much more to say than alot of RGSA players. Yes, the combo match-up blows but you can always burning wish for tsunami or boiling seas and say GG.

Quicksilver hasn't played magic in a year....

And I could swear I saw a list with bayous and no therapies.

If you are playing bayous, you play therapies. Nuff said.

Also someone said something about using elder to get RR for anarchy and stuff. This disappoints me because birds is far more efficient at getting you red mana. Quirion ranger can also get you up to 2 more red by returning a taiga and untapping a birds. I think quirion ranger is a very good card for the deck for a few reasons:

-Sharpshooter
-Rofellos
-Opposing wastelands
-Birds to a certian degree

it basically duplicated rofellos for 1 mana, and could be included solely for this.

Bargoth

03-05-2006, 06:54 PM

I pruned away most of the "cute" stuff the deck can do. I moved Duplicant to the side and Hermit out to make room for Jitte. It helps out in the mirror, random aggro and goblins if you can stay alive for the first few turns.

Jitte seems far from exciting in this deck. The agro decks that seem to be seeing play are the R/G beats varients and Goblins. I dont hear much talk of any one playing RGSA so the mirror seems next to non-existant, and AS doesnt make up enough of most metagames to warrent significant change to the main deck.

I agree that Hermit and Duplicant are slots that can be changed depending on ones metagame, but given this decks huge amount of mid game power vs opposing agro decks, Jitte doesnt seem like the right use of the slots. With 4 FTK and Baloth one really is pressured to stay alive long enough for them to start coming into play, from there you should be in great shape Jitte or no. I would strongly suggest that if its added power to your agro game that you seek going with Wall Of Blossems. It comes down fast, provides one of the best road blocks for both Goblins and Mongeese and replaces itself so its not horrible vs control.

If you are going to make the step into a third color, I agree Black is the right choice, but one SB Cranal Extraction that you admit to never using doesnt warrent a third color's spash. The things that Black could provide that seem worth while are Cabal Therapy, Bone Shredder, and maybe Sickening Dreams (as a wish target). Cabal Therapy would help this decks combo matches and probably wouldnt hurt in its game vs. Gro either. Bone Shedder and Sickening Dreams could help vs Pro Red. If you go the splash Black route I would add 2 Bloodstained Mire and 3 Bayou probably. Also I would definitely shoot for 3 Wall of Blossems to find there way in to help providing a good sac target for Therapy. Something like...

Lands 21
7 Forests
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain

Spells 11
4 Survival
4 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy

Creatures 28
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Baloth
4 FTK
3 Wall Of Blossems
3 Eternal Witness
1 Rofellos
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Squee
1 Bone Shredder
1 Anger
1 Genesis

Sideboard 15
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 (meta slot)
1 Regrowth
1 Pyroclasm
1 Hull Breach
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Rerverent Silence
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Meltdown

Vardaman

03-06-2006, 02:19 PM

Quicksilver hasn't played magic in a year....

And I could swear I saw a list with bayous and no therapies.

If you are playing bayous, you play therapies. Nuff said.

Also someone said something about using elder to get RR for anarchy and stuff. This disappoints me because birds is far more efficient at getting you red mana. Quirion ranger can also get you up to 2 more red by returning a taiga and untapping a birds. I think quirion ranger is a very good card for the deck for a few reasons:

-Sharpshooter
-Rofellos
-Opposing wastelands
-Birds to a certian degree

it basically duplicated rofellos for 1 mana, and could be included solely for this.

The 2 Bayous are there for Cranial Extraction. It's random but so is some of the awful combo I've seen. I've been thinking about adding a larger black splash but I haven't playtested it at all. :\

Sakura Tribe Elder is a Survivor-able way to get a basic mountain for Anger. This is worth noting. I took out the Elder for a third Jitte this weekend and I did have one game with a Survival out and no Mountain. It doesn't happen often but it's downright embarrassing. It's a weak slot but it has its uses.

Quirion Ranger is cute but I'm not into it. ;)

@Bargoth: Try out Jitte's. They're just fine. I would play WoB if I was playing Cabal Therapy, however.

bigredmeanie

03-07-2006, 08:53 PM

@ Bargoth

Your list doesn't look like it's seen any play at all. You don't need 4 FTK and 1 Bone shredder. In fact Bone Shredder doesn't do much in the current metagame. It cant kill black creatures, or mystic enforcer, so there really isn't much use for it. Especially with a deck like Deadguy being prevelant. It's completely dead in that matchup.

I understant the synergy between Wall of Blossoms and Therapy, but the fact that you have to cut the cheapest threat in the deck for Wall makes your combo matchup worse, not better. Therapy doesn't do a whole lot against resilent combo. Perhaps against Belcher it's good, but not against any storm based deck.

Viridian Zealot is completely unnecessary main in most metagames because it can't kill Humility. Tin Street Hooligan on the other hand is my new favorite card for this deck, and belongs in that slot.

I played with black for a while, and it was fine. I did in a few matchups wish for the Extraction and once for the Haunting Echoes that I ran, but I've since cut black completely and haven't missed it. The splash simply wasn't pulling it's weight.

For those of you who complain about Jitte obviously don't run Troll, or simply havent tested it. A Troll Ascetic with a Jitte on it win's games. There is not a single deck in the format that won't have some kind of problem with the equiped Troll. Jitte is good on anything though. In fact in a game at a tournamet I played in this weekend, I had an elf with a Jitte on it, it was working wonderfully because it's relatively fast, and once it gets a few counters on it even an elf is hard to deal with.

Vardaman

03-07-2006, 11:20 PM

@bigredmeanie: Good to see you're coming around to Tin Street Hooligan. It was an obvious option but it did need testing.

And I agree that Zealot still sucks maindeck. People who think they're condensing two slots into one by playing Zealot are just weakening their overall game. At the very least, you can side Tin Street out for Zealot if you're unsure of what your opponent might bring in for game two.

Bargoth

03-08-2006, 02:14 AM

I dont usually play the deck with Black, I was just stating if one was going to bother running black they should work in the Wall of Blossons/Cabal Therapy/Eternal Witness synergy into the build. Otherwise I dont think that the splash is worthwhile.

I mentioned the inclusion of Bone Shredder because I feel with Genesis it is a better call than Masticore, which had been suggested in the post I was responding too, as a means to combat Angel Stompy. I haven't seen much AS, but the poster mentioning mainboarding Masticore apparently had, and I would be inclined to test Bone Shredder if including Black and being in a position where I was worried about Angel Stompy.

I wasn't initially pleased with Troll Ascetic in my testing, and havent been running him in my RG list, thus Jitte is less appealing, but given the rave reviews the pair have been getting, I will revise my build and try one of yours out.

I am still spilt on the Zealot over the Tin Sheet Hooligan issue, mainly because of Worship. If your meta doesnt see much Thresh with Worship, then I could see the arguement for TSH.

bigredmeanie

03-08-2006, 10:19 AM

There is lot's of thresh in my meta, but noone playes Worship. With Burning Wish you should be able to wish for answers to Worship, and if you can't just set up a recurring Baloth and just make sure they can't attack you and let them deck. Jitte is also really good in helping with that situation.

@ tin street Hooligan Yea I played it this weekend w/o testing, and it was amazing. The 1 mana cheaper was a much bigger deal than I would have imagined, and getting the red was never an issue.

@ Zealot, I ran 1 in my board, to fight decks like Cal. Cal can actually give this deck a hard time w/o zealot. Obviously with a zealot it's not so bad, but they can stall long enough with a Confinement to Assult you out if you don't have access to one after board.

Vardaman

03-08-2006, 11:00 PM

Ok, I'm even more convinced splashing a little black for Cranial Extraction is great so you don't lose to random slower combo like Life/Aluren/Enduring Renewal, etc. It's also not that painful to splash. One card in the board and maybe 2-4 more non-basics.

What have been other people's results against B/W Confidant/Pikula's deck? I used to think it was a 50/50 matchup but it's damn hard to beat a turn 1 hyppie/Turn 2 Hymn when you're on the draw. What has been other people's experience? Obviously, that's a better than average draw on their behalf but it's not altogether uncommon.

How about sideboarding one (1) Dodecapod to Survival for in response to a Hymn taking out your last two cards? :p

bigredmeanie

03-08-2006, 11:41 PM

I haven't lost many games to Deadguy. It never seemed very difficult for me to gain control. I guess in the scenario you listed it would be difficult, but playes like that don't happen very often, and there aren't many decks in the format that could beat a Deadguy hand like that anyway. If you see a rediculous amount of deadguy in your meta a card like Dodecapod might be of some use, but really is only going to be effective once you are already winning.

Goblin sharpshooter is really good against deadguy, it's easy for them to play into a sharpshooter plus if you can keep a Confidant off the board, you should do fine against the deck anyway.

As far as splashing black, the biggest reason not too is that it makes you more vulnerable to nonbasic hate, namely wasteland. If you see a lot of slow combo then splashing black would probably do ok, or just find room for the MD Zealot, and play it at instant speed under their Aluren :)

juventus

03-08-2006, 11:53 PM

Yea, deadguy is not a problem matchup because they have worse card advantage than you and can't kill you very quickly. The only way you could lose is if you get out tempo'd which is not very likely.

also, I have a random question, is there any good transmute card that could find survival?

calosso

03-09-2006, 07:00 AM

Tao

03-09-2006, 07:15 AM

A bit more in colour would be shred memory, but that is not a good card. And transmuting for Survival is the slowest thing you can do.

blacklotus3636

03-09-2006, 01:18 PM

Black has no place in this deck. The only matchup I feel black cards solve problems better than red and green cards is the combo matchup. Furthermore adding black in this deck to try and stop combo is fundamentally flawed on the basis that you still have to draw those sideboarded cards and play them before they kill you which is the main problem with the matchup in the first place(i.e not getting enough mana and creatures together to kill them). In short the only way this deck's matchup with combo could get better is if you changed it's entire strategy into more of a rockish build with more control elements which I beleive does more harm than good by sacrificing much of the deck's traditional strength's to do better in the combo matchup. I've said it once and I'll say it again this deck's matchup has and always will be bad because of survival's inherent strategy of pure aggression. If your worried about more than one matchup of combo in a given tournament don't play this deck. Simple as that.

bigredmeanie

03-09-2006, 01:50 PM

Finally someone speaking sense!! Thank you Black Lotus.

The only thing I could refute about your statement is that survival decks can't beat combo. Welder Survival has a pretty decent matchup against non-Belcher combo.

blacklotus3636

03-09-2006, 03:47 PM

parallax

03-09-2006, 08:41 PM

I've said it once and I'll say it again this deck's matchup has and always will be bad because of survival's inherent strategy of pure aggression.

Pure aggression? I don't think I've ever played this deck that way. I find, in many match-ups, that this deck is the control deck.

Against Goblins, Zoo and Thresh, you play control. You play bigger creatures and have better card advantage. Survive to the late game and then overwhelm them.

Against pure control decks like Rifter, Wombat or Landstill, you play an aggro-control strategy. Play out one beatstick at a time and use Burning Wish, Genesis and Survival to counteract their control elements.

Combo decks are the only decks you race. Even then, I prefer to set up Wish -> Tsunami rather than race Solidarity.

These strategies seem more in line with an aggro-control game plan similar to the Rock, and Black (Cabal Therapy in particular) would seem to help immensely. If you plan to play pure aggression, then you should follow GodZilla's advice: remove the Survivals and play Zilla Stompy.

Which match-ups, in particular, are hurt by the Black splash. Cabal Therapy seems useful against any archtype. Also, does the combo match-up actually improve much? How viable is the third turn Cranial Extraction plan against most combo decks disruption?

Slay

03-09-2006, 08:56 PM

Which match-ups, in particular, are hurt by the Black splash. Cabal Therapy seems useful against any archtype. Also, does the combo match-up actually improve much? How viable is the third turn Cranial Extraction plan against most combo decks disruption?

Goblins. Having 2 more Wastelandable lands hurts the matchup, and having crappy cards in Therapy hurts the matchup.
-Slay

Bargoth

03-09-2006, 11:58 PM

Like I said survival decks CAN beat combo reliably if they change the fundamental nature of the deck from pure R/G aggro to a B/G/R rockish aggro-control deck with more control elements like therapy/duress etc. but I think that change makes the deck weaker against the field overall.

I would classify RGSA as an agro-control deck; it chooses to play creatures that help control the game mostly by means of card advantage and two for ones. It is an aggressive deck in the sense that it plays big creatures and smashes opponents with them, I would agree there. But it most certainly plays to control the game through those creatures.

I'm not positive that adding disruption makes the deck weaker against the field, but I do think it tends to dilute the Survival base the deck has. Given a meta made up mostly of Gro, Goblins, and assorted agro and combo... something along the lines of Rock splashing Red for Burning Wish and Flametongue Kavu, actually might be quite good. I think the issue is that when the RGSA starts to stray from the Survival based strategy, removing creatures in favor of disruption that it in turn weakens Survivals power.

Either way for now I feel that RGSA is best left as a two color deck, the Jitte plan seems like it is working for many and helps to make the game versus Goblins better. As long as RGSA can hold descent game with Gro and Goblins I feel like it is in pretty good shape. If powerful combo decks begin to flourish in the environment, I could see the argument for exploring a different route.

Boogy_Boy

04-07-2006, 07:00 AM

I've been playing around RG Survival Lately, and I have a few change proposals.

1) -4 Birds/Elf +3 Chrome Mox.

Reason: There have been many games where a resolved turn 2 Survival/Troll that wins game. I've seen people argue that yes removals target at your mana critters means less removal at your threats, but IMO that's not quite true. The best play RG Survival want is a turn 2 Survival with an extra mana to survival for witness or anger, and a removal on the first turn mana critter always sets you back very far.
What's more Chrome Mox can sometimes set you up a first turn Survival -> second turn setup -> third turn rofellos with Squee/Anger in the yard.

2) -Deranged Hermit -Shivan Wurm.

Reason: This has already been discussed before. They are overkills.

3) -2 Eternal Withness (only 1 MD)

Reason: Eternal Witness is SLOOOOOOOW. Second turn, when Survival is blown up, tutoring for Witness -> Survival is !sometimes! the right play. However more often than not, I'd rather just straight play my threats in hand. Heck, sometimes I just tutor up a Flametongue Kavu, blow up a creature, and lay down the beats from there.

4) +4 Blastoderm +1 Brawn.

Reason: I always wondered why there wern't played in RGSA. With Anger in the yard, one 'derm can kill. They will be promtly force a board sweep, and with brawn in the yard they are down right disgusting.
They improve AS matchup tremendously. There were many games where games are won with just an Anger and a Brawn in the yard, then a quick beatdown from 2 'derm. It's also incredibly easy to setup. Simply put, there is NOTHING Angel Stompy can do against trampling 'derms (Anger's not even needed here). Yes yes.. I am aware of tripple Silver Knights block....

There are also some other obscure changes that I've been tinkering around that I just thought is interesting to bring up. (but may not be of much feasibility)

Gigapede- Well, a second way to ditch Anger/Brawn. I find it incredibly useful for a second turn survival.
eg:
First turn - Land, Elf
Second turn - Survival. Eot Disenchant survival. Respond, ditch Gigapede, grab anger.
Third turn - Upkeep, ditch anger to gigapede. Play land, play 'derm/Baloth for beat.

Most importantly!!!!!!! it will win games without having to recover your board position. It's a ball lightning on crack that doesn't die EOT if u set it up when u have the free time. It's a big insurance against wrath or any board sweeper, and it will hit every turn and dodge wrath/StP and any sort of spot removals all day long.

Magma Jet- Well, finds survival faster, etc etc etc, 'nuf said.

Tin Stree Hooligan vs Viridian Shaman- I like Tin Street Hooligan better. Not much reason to back it up, I just do.

And now, with the press of "Submit Reply" button, I'm going to cast reanimate on this thread... =p

parallax

04-07-2006, 10:33 AM

Boogy_Boy

04-07-2006, 06:46 PM

Wow, so much for Survival Advantage. You removed a lot of the card advantage from the deck. It seems you want to play a lot more aggresively with this deck. I would suggest looking over the Zilla Stompy thread. That deck is a much better R/G Aggro deck than Survival is.

Well,the "Advantage" part of RGSA mainly comes from Survival. Thus -Suvival Advantage- >=p. (Silly willy habbit of playing with words).

Actually my deck did start as a RG Stompy. But it basically boils down to this.

RG Stompy powers out turn 2 Troll and turn 3 fats.
But so can RGSA. RGSA runs 4 trolls, 4 baloth, and along with 8 mana critters.

However, RGSA can also setup a second turn Suvival for a third turn hasted troll, and if you are lucky and have anger in hand, it's 3rd turn baloth/'derm on the beat.

So, what's the point with RG Stompy?

Eternal Witness is just slow. Now if I have 3 mana, I'd rather play a Troll. Eternal Witness is also a situational dead card. In your starting hand, your possibility of drawing your Survival Toolbox is already bad. If you add 3 more (or 4 witness) to that toolbox, it's really bad. If you need land drop, why not just play the Elder?

True, you get an extra creature. However, a 2/1 creature isn't of much use if you don't have a Recurring Nightmare or something to make that body useful. In combat, it's usually useless. Also, the turn you play Witness is the turn you don't do anything useful.

There isn't anything too significant to recur in this deck other than FTK and Survival. If you sac a 3rd turn Baloth and pick it up again 4th turn, and drop it 5th turn, you are very likely going to lose.

Chrome Mox: is both card disadvantage and not a creature. Besides, the goal of this deck is not necessarily to resolve and use Survival as soon as possible. The only time getting Survival set up quickly is important is in the mirror. Against aggro, you want to play blockers, not enchantments. Against control, you usually slow-roll Survival after playing other threats. I understand your dismissal of burnable elves. I'm actually testing Tinder Wall in this slot. Also, remove elves before birds. Birds serve as your only flying chump-blockers in the deck.

However Chrome Mox is a serious tempo boost. Personally I absolutely HATE the card disadvantage as well. If you find any un-burnable replacement of elves, then I'd be happy to switch to that too.

However, I have to disagree with play blockers and slow roll your enemy. Rifters/Wombat pack Phyrexian Furnace, if not, they SB Crypt. Slow playing usually means you first run into a board sweep, then followed promptly by a graveyard removal or a humility.
Against aggro decks, you can't block much of AS critters. Goblin's just going to build a whole pile of junk and get a Pyromancer online. Zoos and RG Stompy are just positive matchups that I hardly care about. In mirror, well, whoever resolves Survival first wins, not much to say there.
In those matchups, playing blockers will most likely lose, and resolving and using Survival will win.

Blastoderm: This guy is good only when attacking with trample and haste. i.e. When you already have Survival in play. This guy does nothing that Baloth can't do. The fact that this guy can be chump-blocked to death is bad. Also, the beef in this deck prefers to block against many decks, such as Goblins.

This guy is not FTK-able, not StP-able, not Parallax Wave-able, not Duplicate-able. It will block a Baloth and survive, and it will eat Werebears over thresh. It's a huge headache for many decks. All it requires is three acitivation from Survival to make a BoP into a hasty trmpling 'Derm.

When I sometimes DO go the play blocker route, Baloth just dies. Even on block, 'Derm is a nice 4 turn insurance.

EDIT- if anyone feels these changes are too drastic, and wants to start a new thread, I don't mind... I had the impressions that these deviates too far from the original archetype.

quicksilver

04-07-2006, 10:34 PM

Well,the "Advantage" part of RGSA mainly comes from Survival. Thus -Suvival Advantage- >=p. (Silly willy habbit of playing with words).

Actually the Advantage part does not come maily from Survival. Yes, Survival does help you set up card advantage but the main reason that I put Advantage in the title is because most of your other cards give you card advantage, such as FTK or witness.

Also I have to strongly agree with what Parallax has said. This deck is usually the control deck in a great majority of the match ups, which is why card advantage is so important.

And eternal witness is insane in the deck, it was the whole reason the deck was created and taking it out of the deck is like taking survival or burning wish out, those are the three most powerful cards in the deck. You seem to be taking the deck into a more beat down mode when the deck usually plays a control mode. If it is more beatdown you are looking for try http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3132 or SD zoo.

AngryTroll

04-08-2006, 04:20 AM

I agree on the elves vs Moxen. It is also important to note that you are already running 10 non-creature spells in the deck, and it is important to limit the number of non-survivable cards you draw if you find yourself in topdeck mode.

Blastoderm does seem neat, and there is definetely much to be said about imporving the angel stompy matchup, but I do not know that they are neccasaraly mainboardable. Increasing the number of Baloths from 3 to 4 seems like one thing that could help that matchup, if it is that big of a concern.

One big change I have been playing with is reintroducing Masticore to the deck. Ah, the deck is swinging full circle. Masticore is excellent in the Angel Stompy matchup, if it is not removed by Parallax Wave or StP. But if it is removed, you have now removed one StP from their hand, or gotten Wave that much closer to leaving play. Its not going to singlehandedly fix the matchup, but it won't hurt it at all. Mom, Savannah Lions (if still even played), and Soltari Priest are all easy prey, and Silver Knight dies pretty well to a Core as well. If Survival hits play, Core and FTK do a pretty good job against Angels.

Vardaman

04-08-2006, 11:16 AM

One big change I have been playing with is reintroducing Masticore to the deck. Ah, the deck is swinging full circle. Masticore is excellent in the Angel Stompy matchup, if it is not removed by Parallax Wave or StP. But if it is removed, you have now removed one StP from their hand, or gotten Wave that much closer to leaving play. Its not going to singlehandedly fix the matchup, but it won't hurt it at all. Mom, Savannah Lions (if still even played), and Soltari Priest are all easy prey, and Silver Knight dies pretty well to a Core as well. If Survival hits play, Core and FTK do a pretty good job against Angels.

Agreed, Masticore is awesome. How did he ever get dropped from the main?

Check out my list on the previous page. The changes I've made since posting that are:
-1 FTK, +1 Troll, +1 Jitte -1 Sakura Tribe Elder

I'm down to 3 FTK's but it hasn't been an issue. Masticore and 3 Jitte pick up some of the slack in creature control. I do miss the lone Sakura Tribe Elder but it's not a huge problem.

What are you guys boarding in/out for the Threshold matchup? I've stopped bringing in Tormod's Crypts. I don't really need them. Sometimes I'll bring in the Zealot if I suspect Worship or Winter Orbs but that's about it. (oh, and Duplicant for Mystic Enforcers)

parallax

04-09-2006, 12:53 AM

@Vardaman: Thresh is such an easy match-up that I don't worry about it too much. I've been running Crypts, but they're not terribly necessary. I'm running Chalices in the side against combo and I bring those in.

@Boogy Boy: Against Wombat/Rifter, my only goal is to resolve Burning Wish into Flashfires as early and often as possible. Then, drop Survival and chain Witnesses to keep them down. I usually don't fetch Anger until after Humility comes down, then at least I have hasty 1/1s. Against Goblins, Witness returns Pyroclasm, Gempalm Incinerator and Sharpshooter. Also, a 2/1 body trades with Warchief or Piledriver.

Boogy_Boy

04-10-2006, 07:13 AM

@Boogy Boy: Against Wombat/Rifter, my only goal is to resolve Burning Wish into Flashfires as early and often as possible. Then, drop Survival and chain Witnesses to keep them down. I usually don't fetch Anger until after Humility comes down, then at least I have hasty 1/1s. Against Goblins, Witness returns Pyroclasm, Gempalm Incinerator and Sharpshooter. Also, a 2/1 body trades with Warchief or Piledriver.

I have been MDing Naturalize tbh. My game plan against Wombat/Rifter is quite different. I usually setup a hasty trampling Gigapede and a squee. Then naturalise the Humility.

The naturalise does alot more than just killing humility. Stuff like Needle, Isochron scepter(Orim's Chant) are all a pain when cast before SotF comes down.

Not disregarding your suggestion tho, I've yet to try Burning Wish.
==================================================
There's a new creature in Disenssion:

4G, 4/4, beast (can sac to Baloth)
Destroy an enchantment or artifact when it comes into play.

Is it worthy of inclusion? Probably not...

==================================================

Am I the only person who feels the matchup against burn a little too random?

I'm having a difficult time against burn when I lose the dice roll. I run Chrome mox, so I can sometimes get a 3rd turn Baloth. Looking at you guys list, don't you have trouble getting baloth out early enough? Without birds or such, Baloth comes down 4th turn fastest, and they can usually burn you out in response to you saccing Baloth.

It's even worse when you miss a land drop (which is often quite likely).

============================================

Has anyone found a solution with the "un-burnable mana critter" yet? ESG? Mox?

bigredmeanie

04-10-2006, 10:10 AM

Unburnable mana critter? Chrome Mox doesn't seem all that great in this deck because the only thing you would ever mind imprinting are mana critters, and extra survivals. Though on the plus side just about everything in the deck is green. Are you running 8 mana critters already? If so you should almost always have one in your opening 7, and if burn is killing your mana critters before you can use them you should be fine anyway. Also against burn try using Jitte to gain some life and Chalice in the board makes it easy.

Mulletus

04-10-2006, 10:12 AM

Am I the only person who feels the matchup against burn a little too random?

I'm having a difficult time against burn when I lose the dice roll. I run Chrome mox, so I can sometimes get a 3rd turn Baloth. Looking at you guys list, don't you have trouble getting baloth out early enough? Without birds or such, Baloth comes down 4th turn fastest, and they can usually burn you out in response to you saccing Baloth.

It's even worse when you miss a land drop (which is often quite likely).

If you are haveing trouble getting third turn life gain, try a Spike Feeder. It's not as big of a beater than the Baloth, but a little more versatile with the same amount of gainable life.
And if you aren't getting 4 mana on turn three, you are either not playing enough acceleration, or not mulliganing very aggressively. I currently run 4 Birds, 2 Llanowar, 3 Vial, and 1 Roffelos; not to mention 3 Wall or Blossums. That may seem heavy, but my curve is a lil high, and I run 6 fetches of 20 land. Also, if I'm playing against burn, I drop vial over bird, and vial out creatures @ eot. But that's just me.

Boogy_Boy

04-10-2006, 05:58 PM

Well, I used to run 4 Llanowar Elves, and 4 BoP, and 1 Rofellos. That's pretty standard isn't it? It's not that I can't get 4 mana 3rd turn. It's that mana critters don't stay on the board.

Also, Burn runs Lava Dart and Flamebreak. Flamebreak can kill off elves with no tempo loss, and Lava Dart does a decent job too.

But really. Do any of you have problem with Burn? No? Maybe it's just the way I play.

Vardaman

04-11-2006, 10:55 AM

I haven't had trouble with the burn matchup but I think I've only played against awful versions of it. I don't think they were even running Flamebreak.

Random thoughts:
@threshold match-up: I'm actually boarding out Anger. It seems like the weakest card there and I'd rather take out a rarely relevant card for a Crypt. You win this match-up by playing threat after threat. Not having haste isn't that big of a deal.
OTOH, I can't think of any other matches where I would want to board out Anger.

@Deadguy/B/W Confidant m-u: I'm having difficulty beating this deck consistantly. It usually goes to three games and it really sucks if they bring in Perish. What are the rest of you doing to make this an easier match-up? There's a ton of black discard decks in my area and it's annoying.

Mulletus

04-11-2006, 11:13 AM

@Deadguy/B/W Confidant m-u: I'm having difficulty beating this deck consistantly. It usually goes to three games and it really sucks if they bring in Perish. What are the rest of you doing to make this an easier match-up? There's a ton of black discard decks in my area and it's annoying.

When I play against black I try to get Genisis and Squee very quickly, and never Survival untill the end of their turn. I still run Yavimaya Elder, which is a house against them. I even Genisis-Birds back to my hand to slow-play a Hyppie. Pyroclasm is nice, but dont overextend.... you have a better chance making them deal with a couple threats out, then just scooping to a Perish. I really like the Wall of Blossums too, any card advantage will nullify their discard. Anger is a nice hard cast blocker with no Survival, and a better card to discard to a Hyppie that got thru. My experience is that you both end up on top-deck-mode fairly quickly, and your chances are better for bombs. Just live thru their early threats... lol.

parallax

04-11-2006, 12:09 PM

I really like Sakura-Tribe Elder in this deck. I'm trying to fit at least three back in. In a deck where four mana is clutch, having it guaranteed on turn three is nice. STE is so good against Goblins, Burn or other aggro that are going to burn your Elves and Birds. They chump-block like a champ and put you right in the game. My biggest complaint with this deck is that some hands just don't do anything until turn four, and you're already dead by the time you get going. STE provides a life buffer and mana accelleration.

Boogy_Boy

04-11-2006, 11:08 PM

Isn't STE on the slow side though? RGSA already have little enough one drop as it is. I'm assuming you remove Elf for STE?

parallax

04-12-2006, 11:39 AM

What's slow about a Ravenous Baloth on turn three? I run Sakura-Tribe Elder in the old Yavimaya Elder slot, which has become Troll Ascetic in most builds. This deck is very mana hungry and I don't think 11 mana-critters is too much. I think you can get away with it because late-game elves and birds become Baloths and Kavus through the magic of Survival (I usually play out late STEs to chump-block and accelerate further).

It should be noted that I play this deck much differently than you. I play this deck as if it is a control deck. I am not concerned with attacking in the early game. I am not trying to force damage through. My early game is about stabilizing against aggro, or setting up against control. In other words, I'm playing for a turn three Baloth or Kavu as opposed to a turn two Troll.

I also don't try to drop Survival on turn two generally. I'll admit, t1 bird into t2 Survival into t3 hasty Troll is a strong play, but I usually prefer to play all my threats in hand, then lay Survival on turn five or six when both players are out of gas, then overpower the opponent.

Tao

04-12-2006, 01:30 PM

It should be noted that I play this deck much differently than you. I play this deck as if it is a control deck. I am not concerned with attacking in the early game. I am not trying to force damage through. My early game is about stabilizing against aggro, or setting up against control. In other words, I'm playing for a turn three Baloth or Kavu as opposed to a turn two Troll.

- qft. That's the point. Troll Ascetics are nice creatures for Aggro Decks, but they do not fit into the deck concept of Survival. The deck is trying to win with fatties and generating card advantage. Troll Ascetic is a relative small creture that brings no advantage. Furthermore he is not so good in the current Meta due to the lack of control decks (that are not Humility based). If it goes against Goblins you never have the Mana to regenerate it. Against Gro a Troll is nice, but Baloth and Kavu are better options.

Some other points:

- RG/SA is not an Aggro deck. If you want to play Aggro, play Zilla Stompy. Survival and the Survival Engine will destroy any try to rush your opponent, because Survival is a Midgame/Lategame card that gives you a fattie each turn. These fatties must be in the deck to justify playing Survival. RG/SA is about controlling the Board, gaining Card Advantage, annihilating things like Zilla Stompy as well as other Non-Goblin-Aggro and Control Decks and losing against Combo.

- Sakura Tribe Elder and Wall of Blossoms should both be 4-offs. Tribe Elder accelerates to the turn 3 Baloth/Kavu, gets you unwastetable, unburnable Mana and is the best chump blocker ever (and he shuffles the library). Wall of Blossoms is just great in every possible way.

- Play 3-4 Sensei's Divining Top and 2 additional Fetchlands. Divining Top is a great Engine. With all the Shuffle Effects from Elder and Fetchlands you will be really quick in finding your Survival and Burning Wishes. With a Survival in play you will find a Burning Wish in no time, even under Humility. Using Sensei's Diving Tops and Tribe Elder will also fundamentaly improve the deck's Deadguy matchup.

-Play one Gempalm Incinerator maindeck or you will lose to Goblin King. Any competent Goblin player with MD'ed Goblin King will be able to set up a kill out of nowhere with Vial, Warchief, Piledriver, King and 2 CrapGobbos. And cycling him never hurts too much in other matchups, because you are not forced to be too fast vs. most decks.

- Play Wing Snare in the Wishboard to get rid of Angels and Enforcers and Calming Verse against Humility/Rift.

AngryTroll

04-12-2006, 04:23 PM

I personally dislike Sakura Tribe Elder. A turn one elf or bird will also net a turn three Baloth of Kavu, unless it is burned out. If burned, you have traded one for one: one card from each player, and one mana from each player. You want to make it to the mid to late game, so this is a good thing. Turn one bird also leaves you free to spend your second turn dropping Troll (I'll come to him in a minute), Burning Wish, or Survival.

Troll Ascetic. Hmm. This argument seems familiar. RGSA is a control deck in most matchups. However, there are a few matchups where you are the aggro: namely, Rifter, any random blue based control, or games where you do not draw Survival.

If you do not find a Survival, you want to topdeck threats, because your backup plans involve Burning Wish, Burning Wish coupled with aggro threats, or just aggro threats. Troll is a much, much better threat then STE. Wall of Blossoms is not a threat. If you run STE and WoB as 4-ofs, you are down to 3 Baloth, 4 FTK, and a few singletons as your threats. Deranged Hermit is a great topdeck without Survival, and with Survival he finds something more useful, or can be used in combo to try and race. That is another story entirely.

The point is that if you cut back your threat density, you severely weaken your backup plans. Troll is very good in Deadguy, strong in Gro, strong in Rifter, not bad against Goblins, and great against randomness with blue, or most randomness in general.

On a different note, if you cut trolls and all that stuff, you cut Sword of Fire and Ice to run Divining Top. Note that this further pushes the deck to straight control. Now, Diving Top does help the deck when it does not have Survival, and the extra shuffling of STE would certainly help you find the Survival. However, I feel that this really helps push the deck further and further away from its guiding ideal: Survival, where each card is still competative without Survival of the Fittest. Running 8 mana elves, 4 land snakes, 3-4 Divinging Tops, 4 Walls, and a toolbox makes the deck a Survival deck that aims to stall the game until it finds Survival if one is destroyed, instead of being able to switch plans.

I believe that if the deck is heading into a more controlling form, the black splash is the way to go. Remove Trolls and SoFI from the current list, and add Walls, Cabal Therapy, and goodies in the sideboard. Notice I do think that moving away from the aggro route here is outweighed by the bonus you get against Combo, and Therapy is strong against control as well. The bonus you get from Therapy is strong enough to make up for the loss of Troll. I do not feel that Diving Top and another mana snake is worth that trade.

Tao

04-12-2006, 05:51 PM

Just a quick note. I mean to play Tribe Elder instead of Llanowar Elves and not as an additional Mana Source. 8 Mana Critter are enough, so the threat density will not be weakened.

Vardaman

04-13-2006, 01:11 PM

My early game is about stabilizing against aggro, or setting up against control. In other words, I'm playing for a turn three Baloth or Kavu as opposed to a turn two Troll.

I like to have BOTH turn 2 Troll AND turn 3 Baloth/Kavu. ;)

... I usually prefer to play all my threats in hand, then lay Survival on turn five or six when both players are out of gas, then overpower the opponent.

This doesn't work well vs. Deadguy/other discard. Obv, you play accordingly then but I'm just mentioning it. And do you ever have issues with going to time in the round?

Troll Ascetic is a relative small creture that brings no advantage. Furthermore he is not so good in the current Meta due to the lack of control decks (that are not Humility based). If it goes against Goblins you never have the Mana to regenerate it.

Troll is fine vs goblins since he's a blocker that can't be Incinerator'd away. You won't often have regeneration mana open but stalling piledriver is worth it. Sometimes you just have to trade the Troll with whatever and keep playing.

Against Gro a Troll is nice, but Baloth and Kavu are better options.

Why not have all three of them? Baloth and Kavu are just begging to be Swords'd. The thresh match-up is favorable anyway so it's not a big difference.

I do like the idea of playing STE and Sensei's Divining Top. Do you ever feel that you're threat light or does the search + shuffle make up for it? I know another member has been playing Sylvan Library to favorable results.

parallax

04-13-2006, 02:29 PM

My point is, when your turn one elf is Bolted, Fanaticked, Incinerated, Forced, Swords'd or Dazed, would you rather have Troll or Elder in hand? Sakura-Tribe Elder gives you a turn three fatty even against a removal spell.

Obv, I'll play a turn two Survival against swamp.dec. Unless it's Duressed first turn. But that's to protect a card that is vulnerable in my hand. Not so I can activate it immediately to search out threats. I don't want to use Survival to find my first threat. That is way too slow, and vulnerable to countermagic and enchantment removal.

Against Goblins, Troll is an expensive Humble Budoka. It is difficult for Goblins to drop a Piledriver and other Goblins and remove STE before Baloth, Kavu or Burning Wish -> Pyroclasm comes down. Those insane draws also would allow them to kill Bird/Elf, thus turn 3 Troll = same turn as Baloth, Kavu or Pyro assuming you have STE instead.

Trading a mana critter for a removal spell would normally be parity, except that you have no turn two plays that affect the board. Survival or Burning Wish on turn two is a Time Walk for your opponent. STE is usually a Time Walk for you.

I haven't tested the Rifter match-up, but Troll is unnecessary against Blue-based control. You actually have inevitability in this match-up through Survival, Genesis, Witness, and Burning Wish -> Tsunami. Combined with Baloth, you have enough must counters to overwhelm them.

You can also play control against many decks without Survival. Many of your creatures are still two-for-ones. They will run out of cards before you do. The pressure is on the other deck to beat you before you draw into Survival.

Vardaman

04-13-2006, 04:56 PM

Ok, so Sakura Tribe Elder is great acceleration since this deck is all about 4-drops. Where do we make room for them? Do they take the Llanowar elf slot or do you run some mix of STE, BoP and Elves?

Bryant Cook

04-13-2006, 05:06 PM

Elder fuck's up the deck's mana curve too much. Because if you go turn 1 elf/bird go. 2nd turn elder, way to waste mana. Which this deck doesn't like doing. Not to mention Turn 1 elf, is alot better than turn 2 elder becuase turn 1 elf activates that card this deck plays... Surviv- can't think of the other half. Elder simply is too slow for the deck.

Tao

04-13-2006, 06:03 PM

Elder is not to slow for the deck, it depends on what you plan to accelerate to. It is perfect acceleration for 4 Mana on turn 3, which is imo the best thing you can do.

On a different note, if you cut trolls and all that stuff, you cut Sword of Fire and Ice to run Divining Top. Note that this further pushes the deck to straight control. Now, Diving Top does help the deck when it does not have Survival, and the extra shuffling of STE would certainly help you find the Survival. However, I feel that this really helps push the deck further and further away from its guiding ideal: Survival, where each card is still competative without Survival of the Fittest.

The opposite is what Divining Top does. It is not only there for helping to find Survival, but is a engine on it's own. Just as an example, if you have a fetchland in play, opponent has a Needle on Survival and use Top EoT to see "Survival, Forest, Flametongue Kavu" you have just virtually drawn 2 cards by Shuffling the 2 dead cards back in. The deck cannot work without ripping fatties from the library, I agree, and Top helps doing this. This is far different from other Legacy decks, as Gro and Soli already have Card Quality, Goblins just go crazy with Lackey, Matron and Ringleader, Deadguy needs to win in the first 2-3 turns and Rifter cycles every card they don't need. So all these Tier 1 Decks (except Deadguy) have massive ways of manipulating their draws. Divining Top just adds a lot of consistense to the deck.

So, this is the list I would currently be running, if I wouldn't play GB-Survival. I don't want to spam with lists, I just hope it gets easier to discuss some points with the list. I never had problems with the threat density, because Tops and Wall of Blossoms really outweigh the lack of Trolls as they draw more FTKs and Baloths.

// Lands
8 [RAV] Forest (1)
2 [4E] Mountain (1)
4 [U] Taiga
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Birds of Paradise
4 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
4 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 [ON] Ravenous Baloth
3 [PS] Flametongue Kavu
1 [PT] Fire Imp
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [MR] Tin Street Hooligan (right, Vardaman, this is Combo ;)
1 [PS] Shivan Wurm
1 [JU] Genesis
1 [MM] Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 [JU] Anger
1 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
1 [UD] Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
4 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [IA] Pyroclasm
SB: 3 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [U] Tsunami
SB: 1 [SH] Ruination
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [8E] Wing Snare
SB: 1 [MI] Seeds of Innocence
SB: 1 [PY] Calming Verse
SB: 1 [IA] Anarchy
SB: 1 [R] Regrowth
SB: 1 [R] Flashfires

Caleb

04-13-2006, 07:31 PM

Vardaman

04-14-2006, 10:13 AM

I've got an idea, a seemingly bad one, but an idea nonetheless.

How about a shuffle effect in the sb for top? It doesn't have to be a land fetch.. it could be a creature fetch too, or something. I dunno, I think there'd be something that would be a decent wish target and shuffle your library.

Like what? The ones I think of first would be Rampant Growth, Land Grant, Gaea's Blessing or Gamble. I don't know if any of those would be great. Is it worth a slot for a mediocre effect + shuffle? It might be ok if you have a ton of open space in your board. Otherwise you could grab Regroth to return a Fetchland/STE to shuffle.

@Tao: Tin Street Hooligan >>>>> V. Shaman. And it'll make your Goblin Incinerator randomly cycle for 1 damage. ;)

How is the Fire Imp? There have been games I really wanted one to kill a first turn Hyppie. FTK takes forever to come online.

parallax

04-14-2006, 10:48 AM

Bryant Cook

04-14-2006, 12:49 PM

Fire Imp is awesome. I've been playing it since the last Duel for Duals. Imp = FTK for three. It's also good to Survival for when you're one mana short for FTK or you want to fetch an additional creature (Squee, Anger or Genesis).

@wastedlife: I'm going to keep saying this until everyone believes me. Survival is not an optimal turn two play. Also, one-toughness creatures die in this format. Something about a lackey. Apparently, people hate him.

I have occasionally been tempted to run Land Grant in the side, so Burning Wish can play a bad Rampant Growth. I don't think it's worth the slot. This deck already has 14 shuffle effects. And three (or four) Witnesses if you're desperate. And land fetch is extremely unnecessary when you're playing four Elders. Which are the only reason to run Top. So, no. No shuffle effect in the side. Burning Wish is for fetching bombs.

I like cycling Incinerator after blocking Meddling Mage with a hardcast Squee. He never saw that one coming.

Give me a Good reason to not play it on turn 2. Why wait? There's not a good enough answer, against gro if your on the play and they only have one land are you going to wait for them to have counterspell mana? I think not, unless you sir, ride the short bus. As for one toughness creatures dieing, isn't it better if an elf dies than your Refellos, or something else important? Elder kills itself, woohoo, if they're killing your elf that mean's they have more removal being saved for a bigger threat. As for Fire Imp it gets a meh, not that solid of a creature why not spend one more mana and get a better version of it? Wait, wait, wait isn't that a one toughness creature? Doesn't that go against your golden rule of one toughness creatures sucking or somehting like that? If you have 3 mana for a witness wouldn't you be better off witnessing for a fetchland than a shitty blocker that gets you a land? Some of your theories don't make since. Like hardcasting squee against gro (meddling mages) more than likely they're going to swords the little bastard. Then you'll continue to be fucked because who hardcasts a squee in a good position? Not to mention who want's to waste 5 Mana 3RR on killing a meddling mage? Good deal sir, on the gro player's part.

parallax

04-14-2006, 01:37 PM

Give me a Good reason to not play it on turn 2. There's not a good enough answer, against gro if your on the play and they only have one land are you going to wait for them to have counterspell mana?
Yes, because I can play it on turn three after they tap out for Werebear and play around Daze. If they leave Counterspell mana open every turn then I win because I will have time to play Baloths and FTKs. In other words, I am the control player in this match. Threshold must play threats before I get my superior creatures and draw engine online.

As for one toughness creatures dieing, isn't it better if an elf dies than your Refellos, or something else important? If they're killing your elf that mean's they have more removal being saved for a bigger threat.
I don't care what dies, because I have more creatures than my opponent has removal. All I'm saying is, if I want to play a Baloth on turn three, Elder will do that more reliably than Elf. Also, you can't reliably expect to have three mana on turn two.

As for Fire Imp it gets a meh, not that solid of a creature why not spend one more mana and get a better version of it? Wait, wait, wait isn't that a one toughness creature? Doesn't that go against your golden rule of one toughness creatures sucking or somehting like that?
Because you don't always have one more mana. And Fire Imp kills Piledriver whether they have a Lackey or Incinerator or not.

If you have 3 mana for a witness wouldn't you be better off witnessing for a fetchland than a shitty blocker that gets you a land?
When did I ever mention Witnessing for an Elder? I only do that if I need an emergency blocker. Regardless, that play won me a game against a Loam deck once. The opponent played a Vinelasher Kudzu, then Exploration-Fetched it to 5/5. I had no way to kill it, so I recurred Elders with Witnesses and blocked it with a Sakura-Tribe Elder every turn until he decked himself. If I wasn't getting an extra land and blocker every turn, I would not have been able to keep up with his Loam-powered Forbid-lock.

Like hardcasting squee against gro (meddling mages) more than likely they're going to swords the little bastard. Then you'll continue to be fucked because who hardcasts a squee in a good position? Not to mention who want's to waste 5 Mana 3RR on killing a meddling mage? Good deal sir, on the gro player's part.
I'm facing down a Meddling Mage (Survival) + Werebear after trading some Baloths/Kavus for Werebear + Swords. I have two Survival, Squee and Incinerator in hand. So, I was not in a good position. There is only one play that wins you the game from this position. Besides, that was just an example of a quirky use of Incinerator. I'm not advocating it as a general strategy. But on a related note, I am never afraid to hardcast Squee, Genesis or Anger if that is the best play. Usually, they just block and die, and fulfill their destiny of going to the graveyard. Genesis does a great impression of Moat against even far superior Gro board positions (e.g Werebear x2 or x3). Worrying about Swords is called having The Fear. I win against Gro if I resolve Survival, Squee or no Squee. Who cares if they Swords him? Then, they aren't Swordsing the chain of Baloths and Flametongues that I can throw Birds, Elves and Elders away for.

Bryant Cook

04-14-2006, 01:53 PM

Yes, because I can play it on turn three after they tap out for Werebear and play around Daze. If they leave Counterspell mana open every turn then I win because I will have time to play Baloths and FTKs. In other words, I am the control player in this match. Threshold must play threats before I get my superior creatures and draw engine online.

Who the fuck plays turn 3 werebear and taps out against survival? Do you sir, play against crack fiends? Not to mention if they do have threshold on turn 3 they more than likely don't have the mana to cast werebear. It's not exactly the best Idea tapping out and casting werebear against a deck with FTK anyways.

I don't care what dies, because I have more creatures than my opponent has removal. All I'm saying is, if I want to play a Baloth on turn three, Elder will do that more reliably than Elf. Also, you can't reliably expect to have three mana on turn two.

The thing is believe it or not, you're the aggro deck 80% of the time. When you play your first real threat on turn 4 without a survival, you're not exactly doing your job. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!?! You have 8 ways to have 3 mana on turn two. If you're not running elf and birds, your list is prolly slow as balls. Think about what you just said, your elf won't live. Wouldn't you rather have your opponent waste mana and removal on an elf than a baloth or FTK?

[Because you don't always have one more mana. And Fire Imp kills Piledriver whether they have a Lackey or Incinerator or not.
Your deck has a bajillion ways to get a fuckton of mana, I dont want to hear this horid arguement.

[When did I ever mention Witnessing for an Elder? I only do that if I need an emergency blocker. Regardless, that play won me a game against a Loam deck once. The opponent played a Vinelasher Kudzu, then Exploration-Fetched it to 5/5. I had no way to kill it, so I recurred Elders with Witnesses and blocked it with a Sakura-Tribe Elder every turn until he decked himself. If I wasn't getting an extra land and blocker every turn, I would not have been able to keep up with his Loam-powered Forbid-lock.

I'm facing down a Meddling Mage (Survival) + Werebear after trading some Baloths/Kavus for Werebear + Swords. I have two Survival, Squee and Incinerator in hand. So, I was not in a good position. There is only one play that wins you the game from this position. Besides, that was just an example of a quirky use of Incinerator. I'm not advocating it as a general strategy. But on a related note, I am never afraid to hardcast Squee, Genesis or Anger if that is the best play. Usually, they just block and die, and fulfill their destiny of going to the graveyard. Genesis does a great impression of Moat against even far superior Gro board positions (e.g Werebear x2 or x3). Worrying about Swords is called having The Fear. I win against Gro if I resolve Survival, Squee or no Squee. Who cares if they Swords him? Then, they aren't Swordsing the chain of Baloths and Flametongues that I can throw Birds, Elves and Elders away for.
I noticed somewhere that someone mentioned witnessing for an elder thought it was you, my mistake. Still makes it a gawd-awful idea. I have a question, why would anyone ever swords a baloth? It's fairly rediculous, when you could block with enforcer or bear and not waste one of 4 removal spells.

parallax

04-14-2006, 02:51 PM

The thing is believe it or not, you're the aggro deck 80% of the time.
I think this is the basis of our disagreement. I firmly believe that Survival is the control deck in a vast majority of match-ups, and especially against Threshold. You have so many forms of card advantage in Witness, FTK, Genesis and Survival itself. Gro has no card advantage outside of maybe Predict or Mage. That means, if you trade 'Bears for Baloths, or even mise an FTK for a two for one, you will win a war of attrition. Their only out is Enforcer, which you can answer with Burning Wish or Survival -> Genesis -> Birds.

When you play your first real threat on turn 4 without a survival, you're not exactly doing your job. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!?! You have 8 ways to have 3 mana on turn two. If you're not running elf and birds, your list is prolly slow as balls.
My first threat comes out turn three because I played an Elder on turn two. I never cut Elf and Birds. I just make the rest of my deck-building decisions based on the assumption that Elves/Birds are not likely to survive the turn. I just don't expect to get the Birds/Troll/Baloth nuts draw when so many people are gunning for x/1's. I prefer to have a back-up plan in case the elf is killed.

Your deck has a bajillion ways to get a fuckton of mana, I dont want to hear this horid arguement.
Example:
Turn one: Elf. Lackey.
Turn two: Survival. Fanatic, kill Elf. In response, fetch Fire Imp. Swing, drop Warchief. Play Piledriver.
Turn three: Imp, kill 'Driver.

Besides, I like having 5 FTKs against Goblins.

Bryant Cook

04-14-2006, 03:07 PM

I think this is the basis of our disagreement. I firmly believe that Survival is the control deck in a vast majority of match-ups, and especially against Threshold. You have so many forms of card advantage in Witness, FTK, Genesis and Survival itself. Gro has no card advantage outside of maybe Predict or Mage. That means, if you trade 'Bears for Baloths, or even mise an FTK for a two for one, you will win a war of attrition. Their only out is Enforcer, which you can answer with Burning Wish or Survival -> Genesis -> Birds.

My first threat comes out turn three because I played an Elder on turn two. I never cut Elf and Birds. I just make the rest of my deck-building decisions based on the assumption that Elves/Birds are not likely to survive the turn. I just don't expect to get the Birds/Troll/Baloth nuts draw when so many people are gunning for x/1's. I prefer to have a back-up plan in case the elf is killed.

Example:
Turn one: Elf. Lackey.
Turn two: Survival. Fanatic, kill Elf. In response, fetch Fire Imp. Swing, drop Warchief. Play Piledriver.
Turn three: Imp, kill 'Driver.

Besides, I like having 5 FTKs against Goblins.
You didn't answer half my questions but, whatever. I question your playskill alot if you'd kill a piledriver before you kill warchief. Warchief is alot more dangerous than any piledriver. Warchief is the main reason the deck is good. You're also always assuming the best for you, none of your plans even include a simple daze / counterspell. Things can mess this deck up. Not to mention you're list for the deck is extremely survival based by the sounds of it. Turn 1 needle sounds like it makes you bend over backwards. Could you also please tell me what you burning wish for to take care of enforcer? I honestly don't know.

Tao

04-14-2006, 03:08 PM

Tin Street Hooligan: is better than Shaman, I agree with that, list improved.

Elder kills itself, woohoo, if they're killing your elf that mean's they have more removal being saved for a bigger threat. As for Fire Imp it gets a meh, not that solid of a creature why not spend one more mana and get a better version of it? Wait, wait, wait isn't that a one toughness creature? Doesn't that go against your golden rule of one toughness creatures sucking or somehting like that?

Tribe Elder: Your statement is not logical. If you have Elf and they have Removal, it is their decision if they want to kill your Elf or save the Removal. If you have an Elder and they have Removal, it is up to you, if you need Mana the next Turn or attack for 1 / chump later. So considering opponents removal, Elder is strictly better. The advantage of Elves is Speed.

I play Elder over Llanowar Elves for some reasons:
- It fetches basics
- It blocks and still gets you Mana
- Without Troll there is no reason other than Survival to accelerate to 3 on Turn 2, so I don't feel it is nessecary
- If you play both Birds and Elves your Mana Base get extremely vulnerable to Fire/Ice, Rift or Slice and Dice
- Elder is a shuffling effect for Divining Top (play Top, awesome card)

Fire Imp: Is really nice, especially vs. Gobbos, Affinity and Deadguy, because in these games every single Mana is important.

I have a question, why would anyone ever swords a baloth? It's fairly rediculous, when you could block with enforcer or bear and not waste one of 4 removal spells.

I have the answer: Because (unless they have Enforcer) they don't want to trade a Werbear with a Baloth and have a StoP in hand to use it on Santa Claus (or whatever they expect to come bigger than a Baloth).

Example:
Turn one: Elf. Lackey.
Turn two: Survival. Fanatic, kill Elf. In response, fetch Fire Imp. Swing, drop Warchief. Play Piledriver.
Turn three: Imp, kill 'Driver.

For God's sake, kill the Warchief (or the Lackey).

My first threat comes out turn three because I played an Elder on turn two. I never cut Elf and Birds. I just make the rest of my deck-building decisions based on the assumption that Elves/Birds are not likely to survive the turn.

I strongly think that 11 Mana critter will weaken the threat density too much.

Bryant Cook

04-14-2006, 03:20 PM

Tin Street Hooligan: is better than Shaman, I agree with that, list improved.
Tribe Elder: Your statement is not logical. If you have Elf and they have Removal, it is their decision if they want to kill your Elf or save the Removal. If you have an Elder and they have Removal, it is up to you, if you need Mana the next Turn or attack for 1 / chump later. So considering opponents removal, Elder is strictly better. The advantage of Elves is Speed.
I play Elder over Llanowar Elves for some reasons:
- It fetches basics
- It blocks and still gets you Mana
- Without Troll there is no reason other than Survival to accelerate to 3 on Turn 2, so I don't feel it is nessecary
- If you play both Birds and Elves your Mana Base get extremely vulnerable to Fire/Ice, Rift or Slice and Dice
- Elder is a shuffling effect for Divining Top (play Top, awesome card)
Fire Imp: Is really nice, especially vs. Gobbos, Affinity and Deadguy, because in these games every single Mana is important.
I have the answer: Because (unless they have Enforcer) they don't want to trade a Werbear with a Baloth and have a StoP in hand to use it on Santa Claus (or whatever they expect to come bigger than a Baloth).
For God's sake, kill the Warchief (or the Lackey).
I strongly think that 11 Mana critter will weaken the threat density too much.

I had a typo I guess, because that first sentence was supposed to say. If they're wasting removal on an elf they won't have it for a fattie in the next few turns, basically. To be honest fetching basics doesn't really matter that much, and if that's what your looking for yavimaya elder is much better because it also draws a card. RGSA is not a control deck sorry, top and elder simply make the deck too slow. Maybe this is one of the reasons the deck fell out of DTB status. As for trading a werebear, I'll trade a werebear before I waste a swords. Gro only needs one creature to win, why would a player waste removal to get in there for 0? Not to mention Gro's conditions can easily be replaced since it runs 10-14. As fire Imp, I think you'res and parallax's list are too trouble with already positive match-ups. This deck beats aggro already, why play fire imp and gempalm. When you could be playing relevant cards.

Vardaman

04-14-2006, 03:35 PM

I noticed somewhere that someone mentioned witnessing for an elder thought it was you, my mistake. Still makes it a gawd-awful idea. I have a question, why would anyone ever swords a baloth? It's fairly rediculous, when you could block with enforcer or bear and not waste one of 4 removal spells.

I've had ugw thresh players Sword's my Baloth when he's my only blocker so they could swing with their threshed goose and Werebear. :shrug:

@your-what-to-burning-wish-for-to-kill-Enforcer: He's probably talking about Anarchy or some people play Wing Snare.

@Fire Imping the Piledriver: I agree that the Warchief should die first most of the time, especially in the early few turns.

parallax

04-14-2006, 03:40 PM

For God's sake, kill the Warchief (or the Lackey).
You're right. The point is, without Fire Imp, you're not killing anything, because you can't cast Flametongue Kavu. Even with a bajillion tons of mana acceleration.

Could you also please tell me what you burning wish for to take care of enforcer? I honestly don't know.
Anarchy.

I strongly think that 11 Mana critter will weaken the threat density too much.
I'm still tweaking the mana critter count. I may end up cutting Elves. The point is, Elder is no slower than Elf for obtaining Baloths on turn three, but it is more consistent.

You're also always assuming the best for you, none of your plans even include a simple daze / counterspell. Not to mention you're list for the deck is extremely survival based by the sounds of it.
I have Survival, Burning Wish, Baloth, Kavu, and Eternal Witness. That's twenty cards. Gro has Daze, Counterspell, Force, Mongoose, Werebear and Enforcer. That's around twenty as well. Daze can be played around. Force is still a two-for-one. Mongoose can't play with Baloth. Enforcer requires them to tap out. At least one of my threats will resolve. It will most likely result in a two-for-one or better. Also, Genesis is good whether they counter it or not. And Sharpshooter is awesome. If I don't draw Survival, I still have plenty of cards that own Gro.

Turn 1 needle sounds like it makes you bend over backwards.
Burning Wish -> Hull Breach or the random Hooligan. And that's only necessary when I actually draw Survival. Or simply win with my Baloths and Kavus.

Bryant Cook

04-14-2006, 03:47 PM

You're right. The point is, without Fire Imp, you're not killing anything, because you can't cast Flametongue Kavu. Even with a bajillion tons of mana acceleration.

Anarchy.

I'm still tweaking the mana critter count. I may end up cutting Elves. The point is, Elder is no slower than Elf for obtaining Baloths on turn three, but it is more consistent.

I have Survival, Burning Wish, Baloth, Kavu, and Eternal Witness. That's twenty cards. Gro has Daze, Counterspell, Force, Mongoose, Werebear and Enforcer. That's around twenty as well. Daze can be played around. Force is still a two-for-one. Mongoose can't play with Baloth. Enforcer requires them to tap out. At least one of my threats will resolve. It will most likely result in a two-for-one or better. Also, Genesis is good whether they counter it or not. And Sharpshooter is awesome. If I don't draw Survival, I still have plenty of cards that own Gro.

Burning Wish -> Hull Breach or the random Hooligan. And that's only necessary when I actually draw Survival. Or simply win with my Baloths and Kavus.
You forgot swords, swords does deal with threats as does mage. Yes, thats an out, are you considering how much gro manipulates it's library and hand? The match-up isn't as one sided as you may think it seems. It's a touch match-up for bath decks, it really comes down to who has the better hand. Without fire Imp there would be a card that deserves a slot. Not to mention that one situation you mentioned, instead of survivaling for Imp you should of survivaled for incinerator. It's still a 2-1 card advantage, but you would have a card in hand and another mana for survival.

EDIT: Forgot some list of gro play MD needle.

bigredmeanie

04-14-2006, 04:36 PM

The match-up isn't as one sided as you may think it seems

Please tell my your joking. Gro is almost a bye for this deck. Everytime I sit down across the table from a gro player I automatically chalk it up as a win. Of course I run Troll and Jitte. If you don't I could see that it would give you some problems, but otherwise absolutely not. With Troll+Jitte/Sofi the Gro matchup is probably 75% in Survivals favor, even after board, and I've tested the matchup extensively, both playing Gro, and playing Survival.

Now, as for the more controlling versions of the deck. What matches does a version with Wall and Elder improve? I'm thinking none. You weaken any chance you had at beating combo g1 and apparently weaken the Gro and Deadguy matchup as well. All those decks are easy for RGSA with Troll + Jitte, and with 4 Clasm and 4 Chalice in the board the Goblins and combo matchup drastically improve games 2 & 3.

Tao

04-15-2006, 07:19 PM

Gro is almost a bye for this deck. Everytime I sit down across the table from a gro player I automatically chalk it up as a win. Of course I run Troll and Jitte. If you don't I could see that it would give you some problems, but otherwise absolutely not. With Troll+Jitte/Sofi the Gro matchup is probably 75% in Survivals favor, even after board, and I've tested the matchup extensively, both playing Gro, and playing Survival.

75% is too much. Gro is too good to have a 75% matchup against it. I would call the matchup 55-60% in favor of RG/SA, but not more.

Now, as for the more controlling versions of the deck. What matches does a version with Wall and Elder improve? I'm thinking none. You weaken any chance you had at beating combo g1 and apparently weaken the Gro and Deadguy matchup as well. All those decks are easy for RGSA with Troll + Jitte, and with 4 Clasm and 4 Chalice in the board the Goblins and combo matchup drastically improve games 2 & 3.

I can speak only for my version from last page. I don't see why playing Wall of Blossoms would weaken the Gro matchup. Gro hates Wall of Blossoms, because it nullifies Nimble Mongooses. Wall of Blossoms isn't bad in the deadguy MU, too. If you play both Elfs and Birds you will have big trouble against NQG/r if they are able to Fire 2 creatures. The same is true for Deadguy in G2 if they bring in Darkblast, they can do stronger assaults on your Manabase than against an Elder. Divining Top: The good thing in the deadguy matchups is, that if you resolve a Survival, you have basically won the game. The same is true for Divining Top. Their hand and land destruction gets pretty worthless, because you can replace whatever you lost in most cases. Top is great vs. Gro, too, because it helps to keep up with their card quality.
___

I remember that when I brought up the idea of playing Jitte about 7 pages before (yepp, I was the first one who played (posted) it) I was getting flamed because people said that Sword is better / strictly superior / Jitte sucks etc.. So I have some experience with the Troll / Jitte thing. And I still like Jitte very much in the deck as a 2-off, feel free to cut some stuff for it. But the thing I found out about Survival while playtesting and during tourneys was, that the longer the matches went, the better my chances of winning got (unless paired against Combo/Scepter Chant or similar). It was fairly easy to outcontrol nearly every noncombo-deck in the Metagame, especially with Black as an additional color (Burning Wish for Haunting Echoes, Gifts for Extraction or stuff). Trolls were often only good blockers and Troll with Jitte was nice but often more than I needed to win, because I had control.

The threat density doesn't suffer from adding Tops and Wall of Blossoms. At first sight it may seem, that playing 7 cards which are no threats will make you draw less threats. But you must remember that these cards actually help you finding your more massive threats (4-Mana-Beauties, Wishes, Survivals, 1-offs).

worsel

04-15-2006, 07:29 PM

I sure wish Quicksilver, Mulletus, and Diablos would post their most current RGSA lists, and talk a bit about their current ideas and thoughts about this deck.

Vardaman

04-16-2006, 11:16 AM

75% is too much. Gro is too good to have a 75% matchup against it. I would call the matchup 55-60% in favor of RG/SA, but not more.

___

I remember that when I brought up the idea of playing Jitte about 7 pages before (yepp, I was the first one who played (posted) it) I was getting flamed because people said that Sword is better / strictly superior / Jitte sucks etc.. So I have some experience with the Troll / Jitte thing. And I still like Jitte very much in the deck as a 2-off, feel free to cut some stuff for it. But the thing I found out about Survival while playtesting and during tourneys was, that the longer the matches went, the better my chances of winning got (unless paired against Combo/Scepter Chant or similar). It was fairly easy to outcontrol nearly every noncombo-deck in the Metagame, especially with Black as an additional color (Burning Wish for Haunting Echoes, Gifts for Extraction or stuff). Trolls were often only good blockers and Troll with Jitte was nice but often more than I needed to win, because I had control.

Honestly, the Gro matchup is close to 75% if you're playing Trolls and Jitte. I think I'm around 7-1 against that deck in tournaments. (and most of those are wins against good Gro pilots) You just have way too many must-counter cards for them to deal with.

@SOFI vs Jitte: I agree that Sword is too slow, sorry I didn't back you up but I hadn't tested it yet. I think it was you and bigredmeanie touting Jitte first.

@worsel: Agreed, I'd like to see what these guys are cutting to make room for Sakura Tribe Elders, Tops, etc.

worsel

04-16-2006, 05:27 PM

Please let me know what you think of this list:

-----------------------------
// 20 land //
8 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath

// 26 Creatures //
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Flametongue Kavu
3 Troll Ascetic
1 Coretapper
1 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Genesis

// 14 Other //
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sensei's Divining Top
-----------------------------

I really would have liked to fit in Brawn, and maybe Masticore too.

Also, is Rofellos necessary? I know he's good (okay amazing), but is he necessary?

How important is a 4th Eternal Witness?

I know people are probably going to say 2 Jittes are enough, but I was thinking that Jitte is so good that you would want to draw one sooner than later, as it can equip to a Tribe Elder, Hooligan, Coretapper, or even a Bird, if the Coretapper is in play. Also, if your opponent has Artifact removal, or Jittes of his own, the extra one might not be a bad idea. But mostly I thought 3 was okay, because you would want to draw one very early in the game. In my experience with Standard (T2), 4 Jittes are even good, because getting one equipped to an Elder, or such, in the first few turns, can make a huge difference to the game. Maybe the Coretapper and Jittes are good enough together that more Coretappers are warranted.

Another idea I had was a single Hunting Moa. That way, if a Baloth is in play, you can gain 4 life without having to sac the Baloth, and you get +1/+1 counters to put on Birds, or the Baloth, or Rofellos, or whatever. With Brawn, the +1/+1 counters would be even more powerful.

We could gain serious life with either the Jitte/Coretapper combo, or the Baloth/Hunting Moa combo. Are either of these good ideas?

I'm not completely sure about the sideboard, but here is a list of all the cards I thought should be considered. They are all cards we are all very aware of... I just thought it might be useful to list them all together in one list:

=======================
Regrowth
Living Wish (just one, to fetch a sideboard creature, in a pinch)
-----------------------------
Spore Frog
Pyroclasm
Anarchy
Wing Snare
Earthquake, or Rolling Earthquake, if you don't mind your Birds dying too.
Shard Phoenix
Masticore
Brawn
Hunting Moa
-----------------------------
Tsunami
Flashfires
Ruination
-----------------------------
Hull Breach
Naturalize
Viridian Zealot
-----------------------------
Tranquil Grove
Calming Verse
Elvish Lyrist
-----------------------------
Seeds of Innocence
Splinter
Shattering Spree
-----------------------------
Pyroblast, and/or Red Elemental Blast
Ichneumon Druid
-----------------------------
Feldon's Cane
Gaea's Blessing
-----------------------------
Tormod's Crypt
Pithing Needle
=======================

I hope this post is useful, and not considered a waste of time.

parallax

04-17-2006, 10:28 AM

Also, is Rofellos necessary? I know he's good (okay amazing), but is he necessary?

No. He is not. I cut him a long time ago. Rarely miss him. At least not with STE in the deck.

How important is a 4th Eternal Witness?

I personally love the Eternal Witness. It's usually one of the first things I Survival for. I'll fetch Witness repeatedly against Goblins, returning Incinerator/Sharpshooter. Sometimes I fetch all four and wish I had another. But really, when do you ever not want a Witness. I love seeing multiples in my opening hand.

Coretapper

It will hard to convince me that this guy deserves even one slot in the main, let alone more. If you have a Jitte out (for more than a turn), shouldn't you already be winning? In any situation where Jitte is not winning the game on its own, is one extra counter a turn going to help?

I wouldn't be concerned too much about gaining life. Baloth is usually enough to stabilize.

My sideboard usually contains some of the following:

Pyroclasm, Tsunami, Flashfires, Anarchy, Hull Breach, Seeds of Innocence, Reverent Silence.
4 x Chalice of the Void.
I used to run Shard Phoenix. It's not really necessary.
I wouldn't use Living Wish to fetch a sideboard creature. I don't even side any creatures currently. There are plenty in the main deck. A four mana tutor for a creature (you can't afford a toolbox with all your Burning Wish targets) is a little slow. I could see a use for Living Wish to return Genesis or other important creatures that have been Crypted or Furnaced. But that seems like a narrow waste of a sideboard spot.
I've never boarded Regrowth, but I have wanted it on occasion.
I think Land Grant should be on the list for consideration, although it never makes the cut.
I only want to Burning Wish for cards that are going to be bombs. Or answers to bombs.

Vardaman

04-17-2006, 12:11 PM

@worsel: I feel like 4 Witnesses is one too many. They're slow and clunky as hell and you're running three Sensei's Divining Tops.

You could even go down to two Jitte since you have tops. I run three but have no real search cards. A friend suggested running Godo but I don't know if that's worth it.

@Coretapper: Wow, you have some serious explaining to do. His benefit seem really marginal.

Many of your potential wish targets are too narrow to play, IMHO. Living Wish seems :\

EDIT: Cutting Rofellos is interesting. There are many times when he only generates one more mana than he costs and is annoying to get online. He does get insane if he lives for a turn or two.

Boogy_Boy

04-17-2006, 07:55 PM

Question @ Wastedlife

Don't you find elf/bird being burned annoy? If a goblin can have 4 turns till your baloths/FTK, wouldn't the game be incredibly in ihis favor?

Also, I'm confused.

Is RGSA -beatdown- or -control-???
In most of the matches I play, It's beatdown. I mean, you have 4 Baloths, 4 FTK, and 4 Troll, they don't see too controllish to me. If it goes along the control root, I can see splash for black and wall of blossom being more suitable. But, as it is, it's being more aggroish then parallax has put it. I can't see how a turn 2 elder, and turn 3 Baloth/ FTK can be controllish.

AngryTroll

04-17-2006, 08:29 PM

RGSA is an aggro control deck. How aggro or control-ish it is in each match depends on the specifics of the match. Against Goblins, it is clearly control. Against Solidarity, it is oviously Aggro. However, in many matchups, the actual role of the deck depends on board position and draws.

Against Gro, for example, you may be playing aggro control, summoning FtKs to burn Werebears and block Mongeese and then swinging, or straight aggro if their draw is high on cantrips and counters and low on creatures.

Against Zoo type decks, Zilla Stompy, or other aggresive creature decks, you often spend your turns fetching Baloths and Kavus to block and kill opposing critters, because while you are setting up your middle and late game strategy, your opponents are setting up their early game and entering the red zone.

If you want to play RGSA as a straight aggro deck, you are probably playing the wrong deck. It is at least aggro control in almost every matchup-use Survival to find answers to your opponent's threats, and then swing with the answers you find or use them as blockers (ie further answers). The transition from control to aggro seems to have people confused.

Obfuscate Freely

04-17-2006, 08:44 PM

I can't see how a turn 2 elder, and turn 3 Baloth/ FTK can be controllish.
You need to brush up on both the Legacy format and general Magic theory. Baloth and FTK are aggressively costed for their size, yes, but they cannot make up an aggressive strategy on their own, especially in a format as fast as Legacy. Almost every other deck is capable of seizing the beatdown role before the turn 3 Baloth or FTK hits the board.

Thus, this deck has to be the control deck in most matchups. The reason cards like Baloth, FTK, and Troll can be considered "controllish" is because the format is filled with smaller creatures that don't create card advantage. It is certainly important that RGSA's creatures double as efficient win conditions, but that is not their primary purpose. This deck occupies a place on the metagame clock very close to where most builds of The Rock reside, and the two decks share some key tactics. Would you call The Rock (ignoring Macey Rock) an aggro deck?

The other reason RGSA can assume the controlling role in most matchups (perhaps in some matchups in which The Rock cannot) is that Survival and Genesis grant the deck inevitability over nearly anything. Thus, the longer the game drags on, the more likely it is for RGSA to win. With that in mind, Why would you ever want to play the deck as a beatdown deck?

Most of the matchups in which RGSA actually is forced to play the beatdown, it is unfavored. Against, say, Solidarity, RGSA's control elements are irrelevant and it has no inevitability at all. Yes, it falls back on a makeshift beatdown plan, but since that plan is so abysmal, Solidarity is heavily favored. Parallax even said that Wishing for Tsunami, as slow as it is, is better than simply trying to race Solidarity with the creatures.

bigredmeanie

04-18-2006, 03:23 PM

A true aggro deck would run more creatures that go to the red zone as well as burn; However, the card Survival of the Fittest all but requires you to run a set of prereqs in order to get the most use out of the card. Essentially, like those before me have said, making it an aggro/control deck at heart.

It's a great deack it's won me quite a bit of money and big tournamets in the past 6 months.

hungryboi

05-02-2006, 06:59 PM

It's strange that RGSA is not being play much anymore, especially with the popularity of DeadGuys, Thresh, and the decrease in goblins. When I playtest RGSA, i rarely lose to the other DTB (except goblins splashed with white and that game is about 50/50) Even with graveyard hate, not many decks can handle RGSA.

AngryTroll

05-02-2006, 08:22 PM

I still play the deck whenever I am in a tournament, but there is not a ton of 1.5 where I play. The deck does smash most of the LMF, losing to Solidarity and being a close but favorable game with Goblins.

I run Viridian Zealot main as well as a single Shaman/Hooligan because of Jittes. If they stay around, then make your job much harder.

Did anyone see anything interesting out of Dissention? I did not, but I have not gotten to play with everything so far, so I could have missed something. Spell Snare, while annoying in theory, probably will not see enough play to worry us.

quicksilver

05-03-2006, 12:24 PM

The 4/4 beast for 5 mana that destorys an artifact or enchantment seems worthy of testing out. I mean it sacs to baloth, and is a fatty that destroys an artifact or enchantment so you get card advantage out of it too.

parallax

05-03-2006, 12:56 PM

Honestly, my testing against Goblins has been overwhelmingly positive. Goblins has only won games where I get an exceptionally poor hand or they get the nuts and I have a slow hand. Then again, my testing against everything has been overwhelmingly positive, so my methods are probably flawed. The only match-ups that worry me are combo, which is abysmal, and Angel Stompy, which is slightly unfavorable.

What do people have in the side to combat combo? I can't decide on the proper sideboarding strategy. Some options:
Ignore combo. Assume you won't play it more than once per tournament and bolster our other match-ups.
Splash black.
Run four Chalice of the Void and pray.
Run eight dedicated combo-hate artifacts and assume our other match-ups are good enough with the main deck. I'm thinking Chalice and Sphere of Resistance here.
Run four combo-hate artifacts and four blasts to protect them from bounce.
Leverage our higher land count and mana critters and run a land-destruction complement. Raze, Crack the Earth, and Ice Storm are all possibilities. How much LD does it take to set Solidarity back? And does it work against other combo?

I've noticed other decks have similar problems. AS and Rifter both have horrible combo match-ups. Usually I see them run four each of Glowrider and Rule of Law. It doesn't seem to do enough.

I don't think combo is prevalent enough to worry too much about, but I don't like auto-losing and I would feel better if we at least had a plan. Even if that plan consists only of winning round one.

Lego

05-03-2006, 08:53 PM

I've noticed other decks have similar problems. AS and Rifter both have horrible combo match-ups. Usually I see them run four each of Glowrider and Rule of Law. It doesn't seem to do enough.

Both Glowrider and Rule of Law do next to nothing on their own in the AS matchup. The winner in this matchup is Armageddon, and you shouldn't pack either of the others if you're not going to pack the 'Geddon. If it resolves with a threat on the board, you've probably won. Angel Stompy can play it on turn 3, which is where its strength lies, because Solidarity can't usually combo off in response. Thoughts of Ruin is an option here, as it can also be played on turn 3, and you will still have mana afterwards (Elves, Birds, etc.) I'm not sure how effective it would be, but I suppose it would warrant some testing. Maybe Turn 2 Trinisphere, turn 3 Thoughts will be enough to seal the deal.

AngryTroll

05-04-2006, 02:29 AM

Trinisphere is an interesting idea. It can be played turn two, and 4 REBs are already usually in the sideboard to help try to keep it in play. I like the idea. I run 4 REB and 4 Pyroclastic Pillar in the side now against combo, along with a wishboard. At the PTQ we had, wayyy back when, there were 4 or 5 Solidarity builds, but very few good players of it. Combo is not a huge concern here. If it is, Gro might be the way to go. In a metagame that has a lot of aggro and control, though, RGSA is very solid.

Actually, as far as testing positive matchups against everything....the deck does test favorably against almost everything. IggyPop, Solidarity, Salvagers, Nausea, and TJS all ream it, and Angel Stompy is unfavorable, but Goblins, Gro, Pikula, most kinds of control, and most things with creatures are all solid matchups. Honestly, I do not have enough practice against Rifter (read: no one on the West Coast plays it) to say one way or another on that. I am amused that my list here is 5 horrible matchups and 2 unfavorables vs. three good matchups, but Goblins and Gro make up most of the metagame now, with decks like Rifter and Angel Stompy making up the minority. Combo is very underplayed right now, and this deck likes to see that.

As a side note, if anyone is up for Apprentice testing against the deck, PM me.

parallax

05-04-2006, 10:01 AM

@AngryTroll: For the record, Genesis pwns Rifter. Does Rifter run graveyard removal in the side?

@Lego_Army_Man: Thoughts of Ruin sounds decent, actually. But, would it help much against non-Solidarity combo? Other combo decks don't rely as much on lands, but can they recover from losing 2-3 permanent mana sources? How good are Trinisphere and Thoughts against Solidarity if you only get one of them? Also, we have a hard time laying a threat before casting Thoughts. Does that hurt it? Even with elves/birds, it will be a few turns before we can lay a creature, and a few more before we can win. Eternal Witness helps here, I guess, but, how likely is it for them to recover before we kill them after Thoughts?

Anyway, I'll test ToR + 3Sphere this weekend and let you know how it goes.

bigredmeanie

05-04-2006, 10:32 AM

Thoughts of Ruin is trash. If your running Burning Wish, run Tsunami. It's on color and can easily be wished for turn 2 and played turn 3. The problem with that though is that it's slow. I board 4 Chalice of the Void and it's good enough. It's a safe bet you will lose g1 so on the play board in 4 chalice and Mulligan until you have 2 lands and a Chalice. In testing I mulligan to 5 holding 2 lands a Chalice, bird, and Survival. I decided it probably doesn't get much better than that. T1 bird, turn 2 chalice for 1, turn 3 Survival, win. If they don't have the Force chalice IS good enough to win. The reason being is because you turn off all their search, and make them go into topdeck mode looking for a Wish on turn 2.

Chalice is also really good against Burn, Gro, Belcher, Salvagers, and TJS. You just have to mulligan agressively. Not sure about Iggy, I'd have to look at their curve.

Vardaman

05-04-2006, 11:10 AM

Tsunami > Thoughts of Ruin in every situation I can think of. It's also sometimes useful against Thresh, etc. Seriously guys, I thought it was an auto-include in wishboards.

I haven't really tried Chalice but it seems like it could help against combo.

parallax

05-04-2006, 11:20 AM

Problem is, Tsunami doesn't kill fetchlands. Often, I'll Tsunami a board of two Islands, two fetchlands and they'll recover too quickly. ToR hits the fetchlands which is important, but at the cost of your own manabase. I can also see Thoughts coming in against Rifter and maybe other control decks. Chalice is really solid against combo, but I haven't found it to be enough against Solidarity. They don't have much trouble finding Cunning Wish, and usually they'll board in a bounce spell as well. I'd like some redundancy, at least, if only because of Force. I might also try Sphere of Resistance or Trinisphere + Chalice. I just don't see boarding four cards against a deck with eight counterspells (Remand buys them enough time to find Wish) as a solid plan.

Also, I'm talking about cards to sideboard in.

bigredmeanie

05-04-2006, 01:09 PM

Remand is not an issue when you're on the play and lay chalice @ 1 turn 2.

ToR is double Red. I that can be an issue unless you happen to draw a bird, otherwise your dependent on your lands doing it for you, and I can't see that happening by turn 4 every game.

I've tested Chalice vs Solidarity a lot. All it takes is some aggressive mulliganing to the point where you're throwing away pretty saucy 7 or 6 card hands because they don't have chalice in them only to get a slow 5 card hand, but the chalice usually buys you AT LEAST 4 turns against solidarity. The only draw spew they can cast with a Chalice on the board is Impulse and Flash, and w/o the cantrips they may miss a land drop on their way to 4 lands, buying you yet another turn.

parallax

05-04-2006, 02:09 PM

I've never managed to be on the play for both sideboarded games. We do need to win both.

I've never had a problem with red mana. Mostly due to Sakura-Tribe Elder. Also, I don't have the unnatural aversion to Mountains most RGSA players seem to have. I'm playing thirteen lands that produce or fetch red mana. I'll admit that ToR might not be worth it anyway.

I know that Chalice is svg tech against the combo matchups. I agree with you. It buys a lot of time. But, assuming we always lose g1, we need a 70-30 postSB matchup (on the play and on the draw) just to go 50-50 in matches. Four Chalices alone don't bring the matchup up to 70% our favor. Do we need a few more cards to bring in?

Mulletus

05-04-2006, 02:43 PM

Obstinate Familiar
R
Creature — Lizard
1/1
If you would draw a card, you may skip that draw instead.

Ichneumon Druid
1GG
Creature — Druid
1/1
Whenever an opponent plays an instant spell other than the first instant spell that player plays each turn, Ichneumon Druid deals 4 damage to him or her.

I play Aether Vial, so I theoretically (sp?) can drop this in response to them going off. And since they are creatures, they can be searched for. It's not the best but it is an option. I still prefer Tsunami, but no one plays combo in the cuse anymore.

bigredmeanie

05-04-2006, 02:57 PM

Obstinate Familiar is a new card to me. Does that mean that if I don't want, I don't have to draw cards?

if so that can can easily buy you aditional turns, though the draw back is he costs 1. Funny, I never thought that something that costs 1 would be considered a draw back.

Also, when it boils right down to it if there is going to be more than 1 combo deck at a tournament I usually play something else. Scout as much as you can.

worsel

05-04-2006, 03:04 PM

How about Ichneumon Druid? That'd wreck Solidarity's house. Would it also work against combo decks?

Also, I put an Avalanche Riders in my deck. It's amazingly good.

I have also included Brawn, so attacking into chump blockers actually nets some damage. I'm still testing this to see if it's worth it... so far, pretty good.

Anyways, here's my current list. It's working very well:

// Land:
8 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath

// Creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth
3 Flametongue Kavu
3 Troll Ascetic
1 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Brawn

// Spells:
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish
3 Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard:
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Pyroblast
1 Hull Breach
1 Anarchy
1 Tsunami
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Pyroclasm
1 Regrowth
1 Spore Frog

Here are my thoughts on the card choices:

Maindeck:

Rofellos isn't completely necessary, but he sometimes really makes a big impact.

Tribe Elders are the ultimate chump blocker.

Never mind drawing an Eternal Witness.

You can never have too many Baloths.

I think more than 3 Kavus is too much, since they can only be played if there is a creature in play that you want, or at least don't mind, destroying.

Trolls don't hit as hard as Baloths and Kavus... 3 is enough.

Tin Street Hooligan is very good. Destroys Jittes, and Swords. Not always necessary, but when he is, he's very efficient.

Avalanche Riders is very good against pretty much every other deck.

The 3 Jittes are amazing, especially on a Troll. You always want to draw a Jitte early in the game. Arguments could be made for having 4 (removal for opponents Jittes, backup against their removal). I don't think there should be less than 3 in the deck. Smashes Goblins, and ups our win clock, especially with Brawn in the graveyard. Awesome, awesome card!

Sideboard:

Not sure if Pyrostatic Pillar is the ultimate choice. Could be Ichneumon Druid, or Chalice of the Void.

Pyroblast (or Red Elemental Blast) is necessary to make sure your Pillar/Druid/Chalice goes through.

My wish targets are pretty standard.

Spore Frog is golden against Thresh and Madness, or any deck that lacks recurring direct damage/removal.

Any comments or thoughts are very welcome. Thanks. :smile:

Vardaman

05-04-2006, 11:18 PM

Hey worsel, I like the list for the most part. I totally agree with you on the 4 Baloth, 3 FTK plan. I'm not sold on Brawn or the 4th Eternal Witness. There have been times I wanted land destruction so congrats on trying Avalanche Riders. :) Wishing for Ruination is slow and almost hurts you as much.

I actually like 4 Troll since they're the best dude to carry Jitte but it's not a big deal to play 3.

Does Spore Frog do much vs Thresh? I can see the off chance you have the ground clogged up and they play Enforcer. They still can swords Spore Frog or counter it to force damage through the next turn. I prefer Duplicant to take out Enforcer.

I can see Frog being good vs. Madness. I seem to lose to Madness for some reason. Pro-tip: Duplicant can't deal with Wurm tokens. :\

AngryTroll

05-05-2006, 12:24 AM

I would always run a fourth FTK over a fourth Baloth. Someone early on in the thread said that they would run more then 4 in a heartbeat if they were allowed to, and I agree with that sentiment. FTK is one of the most amazing cards in the deck.

I am still not sold on Sakura Tribe Elder over Fyndhorn Elves. I would rather play Survival, Troll, or occasionally Burning Wish on turn two over a chump blocker, even if he does help out with your land. While it is true that STE can not be burned out, he does clog the valuable second turn. How does STE play out in the goblins matchup? I know mana development is vital in that matchup, and smart players roast birds and elves, but does that make up for the increased vulnerability to Lackey (4 fewer 1 drops on the draw) and clogging the second turn?

I do not seem to need Brawn in the deck. Honestly, off the top of my head, I would be tempted to run Hermit. Hermit punches through massive amounts of damage from out of nowhere.

The Dissention guy that smashes enchantments or artifacts on the way into play could replace Viridian Zealot in many builds. Zealot costs 1GGG to cast and activate anyway, and you do not end up with a critter in play at the end. This guy is a beast, which means he can sack to the Baloth, too. The extra mana of the new guy could be significant, but he does hit Humility, which is nice. I still run a single Sex Monkey in the deck, because an oppositing Jitte can be a pain.