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quicksilver
11-22-2004, 10:15 PM
This thread is a clean up from the old R/G Survival thread. Here it is now but it may move (http://mtgthesource.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=27;t=116)

*Note this is my current build for my meta and small changes can and probably should be made to this deck depending on the meta.

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Yavimaya Elder
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Eternal Witness
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Flametounge Kavu
4 Ravenous Baloth
1 Anger
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Shivan Wurm
1 Genesis
12 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Mountain

SB:
4 Naturalize
4 Null Rod
4 Choke
1 Spore Frog
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Duplicant

Card Discussion:

First I would like to say that there is no key card to the deck. It is almost all utility, so therefore cards can be replaced and ratios can be changed without major impacts to the deck. However this does not mean you can take out good cards for bad cards, or cards that do not fit the theme (more on that later) and it will still be good.

The non-creature spells:

Survival of the Fittest: This card should be the most obvious. It is of course the most powerful card in the deck (and possibly the format). The purpose of this card is to accelerate (with Rofellos and Anger), get card advantage (with Squee), and to get creature selection (like the card was originally intended to do).

Sword of Fire and Ice: This card was originally skullclamp until skullclamp was banned. The point of this slot was mainly against control I currently am not running it anymore in my deck. I have found to be too slow. Instead I have replaced it with trolls. I find the trolls to be just as effective against control as the sword but the trolls seem much better against Agro decks. They simply are better on the defense and can be used earlier.

The utility creatures (which of course can double as beaters and blockers):

Anger: One of the most important creatures for this deck. It allows the deck massive tempo and the ability to keep up with many aggressive decks as well as making creatures more dangerous against control decks. The two cards that this card has the most synergy with are Rofellos and Goblin Sharpshooter.

Squee, Goblin Nabob: He has obvious great interactions with Survival of the Fittest, allowing for much card advantage. He is also not terrible to cast in a pinch as a descent blocker.

Genesis: Although not one of the superstars of the deck it is a good solid card I would not want to be without. Allowing me to get back a creature a turn, he is like a second Squee if my first one got removed. He often gets back Rofellos and Zealots because there is only one copy. He also has great interaction with the Spore Frog in the SB to lock down deck without removal, such as madness.

Eternal Witness: One of the main superstar cards of this deck. Its printing made Survival decks very good. The ability to get back any card with a 2/1 body attached for only 3 mana is extremely good. Plus its interactions with survival make it so good it could be ban-able in a format with Survival. For example: Your opponent destroys survival, in response you get eternal witness. Next turn get survival back; you just made survival indestructible and got a 2/1 body to boot!

Goblin Sharpshooter: This is one of the cards in the deck that can be very meta-game specific. He is very good against many agro decks as well as most decks that are based around survival (such as the mirror). He is often the card that gives you enough tempo and card advantage to win many games. He is however rather bad against control. His inclusion and the number run are very meta-specific.

Viridian Zealot: Having him or a version of him in the deck is indispensable. He can allow you to win games that otherwise could be almost unwinable when you opponent drops some bomb. He could be replaced with the two cards Druid Lyrist (I like him over the elf because he can get rid of a random engineered plague) and Uktabi Orangutan.

Yavimaya Elder: He is just a great card. He very often comes down on second turn, blocks and kills something and makes sure you have the third land for that third turn Flametounge or Baloth. He also thins you deck of land and ensures you never having mana problems again. And late game, not only does he do more thinning, but he also allows you to draw a card off of him after he probably trades with another card. He makes the deck run more consistently both early and late game. An over all solid card. I did however reduce his numbers to 3 because he was never great in duplicates and I always seem to draw a land off of the draw abity.

The beaters and blockers (which of course can double as utility):

Flametounge Kavu: He is one of the stars of this deck, tutor-able removal plus a 4/2 body attached. By himself he almost always 2 for 1’s your opponent while slowing them down. Although in a control heavy environment he may not be quite as good and you may want to move some of them to the side board. I just wish I could run more of these in the deck.

Ravenous Baloth: A 4/4 for four mana (I just realized that if you said it out load you said 4, four times in a row, look that’s twice right there!). Plus he can be sacrificed for 4 life, which is extremely useful against agro decks. Against control he can attack for 4, often making the opponent use a board sweeper for just one card. He is never a bad card and against most match-ups he often puts a giant damper on the opponent’s plans.

Troll Ascetic: He’s back in my current list. Like many other cards he is meta-game specific. If someone where to play in a very control heavy environment I would recommended putting these guys in, they are just a house against control; possibly taking out Baloths or Flametounges for it. This guy is currently replacing the swords because he is better on blocking. Also he makes duress even weaker against the deck.

Deranged Hermit: By far the best card if you just want to kill your opponent. He is a nine power for 5 mana; with haste he normally kills that turn. He is great against control by putting out 5 creatures to deal with, and great against agro by putting out 5 blockers.

Shivan Wurm: He is a card that is good but is probably one of the weaker cards in the deck. He is a 7/7 trampler for 5 mana with a positive ability. Bouncing a Flametounge Kavu or an Eternal Witness can be quite good.

The mana base:

Birds of Paradise: Simply these guys make the deck a turn faster. They allow for turn two elder, as well as an efficient turn two survival. Giving any color is also important, especially when a turn two choke is needed.

Llanowar Elves: These guys are just like the birds. They however can beat by themselves if not needed for mana, as well as being a descent blocker against a first turn lackey.

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary: Doubling the amount of mana you can produce is a good thing, especially when the card that does it gets tutored for and comes out on third turn with haste, paying for itself. It takes little time to do and makes your midgame insanely good under a survival, allowing things like hermit, wurm, hermit, win. He just makes the deck really good and making it impossible for other decks to keep up. He is a star of the deck.

Forests: Basic lands are really good and this deck loves having its green.

Mountain: Don’t let a wasteland ruin you plans. Basic lands make this deck really good. But the number of these needs to be severely limited, because although this deck needs to have a red, it really hates it when not every source can produce green.

Wooded Foothills: Good against non-basic hate and fixes your colors. Just good lands.

Taiga: These are of course good giving you deck red for anger while still allowing every land to produce green.

Side Board:

Spore Frog: He is really good with Genesis often locking down your opponent and allowing you to win games that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Goblin Sharpshooter: See the description above. His numbers are meta-specific.

Naturalize: Gives you your strongest out against combo as well as other random cards. This card is very useful but less can be run if your meta doesn’t need it. More can be run by using Wear Away, but I think naturalize is a little better.

Null Rod: This is a new addition to the deck with the new banned restricted list. This card is very useful against combo as well as other random stuff. He is amazing against Affinity and can be good against control running disks and/or shackles.

Choke: He is currently in but Blood Moon is good depending on the meta.

Duplicant: He is sometimes useful. He is like FTK only he costs more and takes out more stuff. I’ve been thinking about one Gaea’s Blessing if brain freeze gets popular.





Match ups:

In short this deck is amazing against control, good against ago, and weaker against combo and agro-control. I’ll talk about why it wins and loses in the next section.

Landstill: A very good match up. This deck wins most games, mostly from the fact that it gets massive card advantage. A resolved survival or choke is usually game. The fact is that landstill only runs 8 counters and post SB I have 4 chokes, 4 survival of the fittest, 3 eternal witnesses, and 4 trolls that all have to be countered. They can simply not keep up and the deck will over whelm them. Not to mention all the other cards that put serious threats on their life total. If I resolve survival of the fittest, a disk won't stop me from filling my hand up with eternal witnesses and throwing genesis in the graveyard. And the disk may not even stop a choke when I SB in naturalizes as well.

Tog: In my testing it is a good match up. I’ve won most of the games; all losses were to having bad hands with bad draws. Flametounge Kavu’s are amazing against tog, because it effectively sets them winning back several turns, and if I keep doing this then they will soon run out of cards in their graveyard. And trolls are amazing because if he blocks them then he is never going to get enough cards to win.

Other control deck: Generally favorable match ups, very similar to landstill. Naturalizes can probably help solve most problems.

ATS: Seems fairly even. Pre-side board probably a little in favor of ATS but post SB probably in favor of Advantage. Under a survival they operate a little better but out side of a survival I operate much better. The Force of Wills can be a little annoying though as well as masticore. But I have a good number of creatures that he doesn't want to bounce. And goblin sharpshooters can be really good in that match up.

Sligh: I haven’t done too much testing here, but that match up proves exactly why ravenous baloths are in the deck. The games I have played I won.

Madness: This match up is a little tougher. It basically goes down to: if I resolve survival I win, if I don’t then I win unless they get wonder. Wonder is by far the most powerful card against you.

Pox: A generally very favorable match up. Elder is so good. And Baloth and FTK are really hard for them to handle. There best hope for them is early mana disruption which is very hard when 29 out of 60 cards produce mana and cost 1 or less.

Combo: I haven’t had much testing here but without blue my options are limited. Basically null rods and naturalizes are the best defense I have against combo in general. This is probably the worst match up for the deck. Although most combo’s can be stopped with the right card, but there is no card to stop all combo.


Basis of the deck and why it wins:

When it comes down to it this deck has two things: tempo and card advantage.

Tempo: Anger, Rofellos, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves
Card Advantage: Goblin Sharpshooter, Eternal Witness, Genesis, Flametounge Kavu, Shivan Wurm, Squee, Ravenous Baloth, Deranged Hermit, Yavimaya Elder, Survival of the Fittest

So why does the deck win? Because of card advantage. It has tempo to keep up with agro decks and then beats them with card advantage. And against control it just gains more card advantage than they can handle.


I have been playing with this deck for about a half a year now and have had amazing results with it, going undefeated almost every tournament and have used it to bring my vintage rating up to 2046, 3rd in the world. Now that is what I call results.


Changes from the previous list:
I took out the sword for trolls. Trolls are very good against control but better against agro because they can block earlier.



Behold my glory. I am The Clitoris.

*Note: This deck can be really meta specific. As said earlier ratios can be changed to fit local meta games. And of course side board options are always flexible. Here is a list of possible SB cards:

Tormod’s Crypt: Good against anything that uses the graveyard. Stops wonder. Slows down tog so you should have no problem beating it. Good against other survival decks mainly comboed with disenchant to stop a witness recursion of survival, also good for hitting squee against ATS, and sharpshooter and anger in the mirror. Good against any sort of reanimater. Also if you see a doomsday combo which people are still working on.

Phyrexian furnace: Pretty much the same as the crypt. I personally like it better because it is repetitive and gives you card advantage. I’ve run this over the crypt in the past.

Gaea’s Blessing: Having problems with brain freeze? These should hopefully solve the problem. They are also good against madness for shuffling the wonder back in and drawing a card as well.

Krosan Reclamation: Very similar to Gaea's Blessing. Can be ok against brain freeze. Can be used against madness even if they have a counter for it. Useful against random decks that use the graveyard like reanimator.

Pyrostatic pillar: Can stop most combos like brain freeze, and also prevents them from killing you with a fireball or something like that. It seems like it would also be good against enchantress but I’ve never tested the card.

Nantuko Tracer: Good against cards like wonder.

Blood Moon: If you feel it would be better than choke in your meta.

Silklash Spider: Good against flying stuff like madness, exalted angel, and angel decree tokens (sharpshooter gets the soldiers)

Wear Away: If you simply need more removal for your meta.

Red Elemental Blast: This one can be used against blue combo, like hitting a high tide. Or can be used to stop a pesky acid rain. But probably won’t be needed.

Also color splashes have been discussed. Every color does have something to offer: black being the most then white then blue. However I feel the weakening of the mana base as well as taking out creatures for these cards is not worth doing it. However if combo becomes too prevalent (which probably won’t happen soon) black may have to be added for cabal therapies and probably duresses.

Kryand
11-22-2004, 10:45 PM
Matchups:
More on the Sligh matchup: The games I played against Sligh, I don't even need to sacrifice Baloth for life gain. I usually overwhelm them with massive beats before they can force me to sacrifice Baloth. This means even if they lay Sulfuric Vortex or something to stop Baloth, I don't care. If they try to say, "where's your life gain, now?" I can respond with, "smashing your face in." I'd say this matchup goes strongly in favor of Advantage.

I STRONGLY agree with the Madness evaluation. Every single game I have played against Madness (and it's a deck I playtest against A LOT), it has been the way you described. If I resolve a Survival, they have nothing on me. If I don't resolve a Survival, I can usually play out some good stuff and stop them from finishing me off until I draw into a second Survival (or just outrace them normally). However, if they get Wonder, I'm fucked.
I'd strongly recommend having some solid anti-Madness tech in the SB.

Not sure I agree with the Pox match-up evaluation. I've playtest against Pox several times, and only won 2 out of 8 games. Given, as a player, black decks always give me the most problems, so it could just be that I need to get better acquainted with black's capabilities. But in all the games I lost, a first turn Sinkhole rocked my early game mana, and Edicts quickly took care of any threats I layed. Early Greater Harvesters are pretty much GG if they have already slowed me down to where I can't get chumps out (then again, early Harvesters will rape anything barring StP and Edict).

Choices:
I've been doing just fine with 2 Mountains and 11 Forests, never had any problem getting green mana in any game I have played. In one game I did have trouble getting a mountain for Anger though - didn't cause any severe slowdown or anything, but it did annoy me when I got a warning because I didn't notice my lack of a mountain at first, and tapped Rofellos when he came into play to survival out a Hermit. I'm lucky that's all I did or it might have been a game loss.
Anyway, any particular reason you changed the numbers? Did it start causing trouble having more than one non-green-producing land in the deck?

quicksilver
11-22-2004, 11:26 PM
I've been doing just fine with 2 Mountains and 11 Forests, never had any problem getting green mana in any game I have played. In one game I did have trouble getting a mountain for Anger though - didn't cause any severe slowdown or anything, but it did annoy me when I got a warning because I didn't notice my lack of a mountain at first, and tapped Rofellos when he came into play to survival out a Hermit. I'm lucky that's all I did or it might have been a game loss.
Anyway, any particular reason you changed the numbers? Did it start causing trouble having more than one non-green-producing land in the deck?

I went down to one mountain with the change from bloodmoon to choke, since second turn red isn't nearly as important anymore. Sometimes I don't get red for anger but I can still work fine descently without it. However sometimes you draw just one land and it is an automatic mulligan if it is a mountain. Going down to one mountain has greatly reduced the one land mulligan, since forest, bird, elf, is infinatly better than mountain, bird, elf.


Not sure I agree with the Pox match-up evaluation. I've playtest against Pox several times, and only won 2 out of 8 games. Given, as a player, black decks always give me the most problems, so it could just be that I need to get better acquainted with black's capabilities. But in all the games I lost, a first turn Sinkhole rocked my early game mana, and Edicts quickly took care of any threats I layed. Early Greater Harvesters are pretty much GG if they have already slowed me down to where I can't get chumps out (then again, early Harvesters will rape anything barring StP and Edict).

In my playtesting aginst pox the only games I lost was when they went first and did something like a first turn hymn taking out two lands, second turn sinkhole, and third turn hyppie. As soon as I was able to get a elder out it was probably game over because now it will be almost impossible to keep me down on mana. Post sideboard dystopia was a little annoying but I normally won still.

DavidHernandez
11-23-2004, 09:56 AM
This list looks really good. Thanks Dave.

From my metagame point of view, I'm asking for suggestions: I will see B/g Void, Regrowth Enchantress, and San Diego Zoo. I'm most concerned about Void and SD Zoo. Zoo has a lot of recurring removal along with untargetable creatures.

How would you modify your build to combat decks like that?

Also, without Sword of Fire and Ice, you now have 30 mana sources (land + birds + llanowars + rofellos). Rofellos can attack for 2, but birds are toughness-weak. Could you see dropping some combination of mana critters in favor of something that can help against decks that run a lot of removal?

Dave

Braves54321
11-23-2004, 12:40 PM
Troll Ascetic: He’s back in my current list. Like many other cards he is meta-game specific. If someone where to play in a very control heavy environment I would recommended putting these guys in, they are just a house against control; possibly taking out Baloths or Flametounges for it. This guy is currently replacing the swords because he is better on blocking. Also he makes duress even weaker against the deck.

Vs.

Sword of Fire and Ice: This card was originally skullclamp until skullclamp was banned. The point of this slot was mainly against control I currently am not running it anymore in my deck. I have found to be too slow. Instead I have replaced it with trolls. I find the trolls to be just as effective against control as the sword but the trolls seem much better against Agro decks. They simply are better on the defense and can be used earlier.


One point I'm having a bit of a problem with is the troll vs sword of fire/ice slot. Troll is a very strong creature, and yes he is devastating vs control. However the sword fills a few spots. You have mentioned how the sword isn't that bad vs control. It also makes your fat much stronger, as they have to block or take 2 damage or lose a small critter anyways. The swords also draws cards(I know this has been mentioned). Troll is better vs most removal usually, but most removal is either red(which sword of fire/ice negates-for at least the equipped creature) and black(black sucks :p ). Stp is the one exception to this rule, which troll obv. is immune to. I'm also not a fan of troll without rancor. Without it, troll just gets chumped all day long. The sword has psuedo evasion as they can't really chump the creaure thats been made much larger and has the benefit of dealing damge if they don't block it. I could see troll as being better vs landstill. That is really the only matchup where I really see troll needed as disk is no fun for the deck. Couldn't you just find an answer mb or sb to disk and run the sword?


Also note that sword costs the same to play and equip to a blocker as troll cost to play and have regeneration mana.

-Steve

quicksilver
11-23-2004, 12:56 PM
Also note that sword costs the same to play and equip to a blocker as troll cost to play and have regeneration mana.

This is true however becuase of your untargatableness you almost never need to leave regeneration mana open.

Beleive it or not is was mainly matches like goblin sligh that I took the sword out. The fact was that I was simply siding it out against them because it was just too damn slow. I could never keep a creature out to equip it and often died with it in my hand. Against control it was also so slow that they had enough time to deal with it. In an average tourney I would say that I hit with the sword maybe three of four times max. At amrods in cuse I hit my opponent with the sword two times (not two games, anequiped creature actually attacked sucessfully only twice), that's from 7 matches. And the sword was almost never used for defensive perposes. Sometimes it was simply to hard to keep a creature out before I died.

And yes the troll does get blocked by fat but if they have fat then the troll is usually on the defense. Troll does regenerate making it the best blocker in the deck. Troll was chosen more for defensive puroses rather than offensive purposes. It simply doubles as a beater against decks like landstill when it doesn't need to be defensive.



From my metagame point of view, I'm asking for suggestions: I will see B/g Void, Regrowth Enchantress, and San Diego Zoo. I'm most concerned about Void and SD Zoo. Zoo has a lot of recurring removal along with untargetable creatures.

How would you modify your build to combat decks like that?

Well I did some testing with both lists of SDZoo you gave me and I really wouldn't change anything. The matchups seemed quite easy, out of like 15 games I just barely lost one of them. This is a match up where trolls shine! (If you haven't tested with the trolls try it) Here they are much better than sword because like most matchups you are the control deck. Troll beats almost every card they have. It blocks everything all day long, especially blastoderm, just let it fade away. Once you get a survival out an alpha strike of rofellos, wurm, rofellos, hermit finishes the job.


Also, without Sword of Fire and Ice, you now have 30 mana sources (land + birds + llanowars + rofellos). Rofellos can attack for 2, but birds are toughness-weak. Could you see dropping some combination of mana critters in favor of something that can help against decks that run a lot of removal?

Dropping mana critters against decks with a lot of removal? Not likely, believe it or not I have found that mana critters are the best answer to removal such as lightning bolts. Often they are forced to use the removal first turn on your mana guy thus having the mana guy act as a duress for the removal while at the same time making them use the mana to cast the removal instead of a threat. If they don't use the removal to get rid of the early mana critters then you can just power out baloths, trolls, and FTKs before they can handle, and a bolt is not very good against trolls and baloths, and you still 2 for 1 them with FTK.

Peter_Rotten
11-24-2004, 04:47 PM
Read the former thread before posting here (http://mtgthesource.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=27;t=116;st=120).

CavernNinja
12-07-2004, 03:52 PM
I was wondering how much you liked having 4 FTK main. Against any sort of controlish deck or SD Zoo I would think that FTK is quite dead, especially without Survival. I was contemplating replacing 1 or 2 FTK with the fourth Witness and possibly the second Zealot or splitting the Zealots into Lyrist/Monkey. That would give you a better game against creature-lite decks first game, and the extra FTK's can always be put into the sideboard for Survival, Madness and Goblins.

Kryand
12-08-2004, 12:11 AM
I really wouldn't drop the Kavus for anything. Against non-creature decks it's a perfect card to ditch to Survival in an emergency 1st game and to side out 2nd game, but most non-creature decks don't give Advantage a problem in the first place... so it's best to maindeck it for the many creature decks that will give Advantage a problem. Besides, I've still played it as a beatstick in those other games, killing off an Elder or something.

If you don't think you need them, I still wouldn't drop more than 1-2 like you said. I don't really think you'll need a second Witness, I rarely use the 3 that are there. If you're going to add a second Zealot I would definetly change it into Lyrist/Sex Monkey instead of double Zealot. They are both better at destroying their thing (Artifact/Enchantment) than Zealot is.

quicksilver
12-08-2004, 12:26 AM
I have found the FTK amazing. I would go with 4 any day. It is not just a survival target but you also want to be regularly top decking them without a survival. I even ran four at Amrod's even though I was expecting a lot of control and I wasn't disappointed. The FTK can always hit a late game mana guy to be a beater or even hit a troll, or target an elder. Against control decks that run creatures like tog it is amazing, and the threat of it makes manlands not want to block. I think 4 maindeck is great and unless the meta goes crazy, I don't think that any will come out. Unless over 75% of your matches are creatureless control I would leave it in the main.

Just my two cents

Kryand
12-15-2004, 10:03 PM
EDIT: Err... post above this was deleted. It was a tourny report and concluded by saying that Masticore was a necessity due to it's rapage of Angel Stompy and similar decks. </foreword>

While that is true, I still think Spore Frog should take the place of the second Sharpshooter rather than Masticore. Masticore is a lot slower, and takes a much longer time to get his job done. Spore Frog can lock them up much quicker and keep you alive long enough to do something. There are more things that stop Masticore, and anything they can use to stop the Frog can usually also be used to stop Masticore. For that reason I usually keep Masticore in sideboard and only bring him in as a way to clear the board against decks like Angel Stompy, WW and Madness (though Silklash Spider is better than Masticore in the Madness matchup, which is why I have it in SB, too) once I have them locked up.

PS. If you're wondering where I got all the SB room, I dropped the Null Rods because there is no combo in my meta at all, and Scepter is a rare sight. For the record, here is my SB:
4 Naturalize
3 Blood Moon
2 Choke
2 Silklash Spider (I hate Madness enough to run two of these)
1 Sharpshooter
1 Masticore
1 Duplicant
1 Dosan (probably replaceable, since I rarely see control decks)

-- EDIT: This second part was a different post, but since the post in between them was deleted, I guess they got merged... Anyway, the post in between basically just mentioned that under a Spore Frog lock, you need Masticore in order to clear their threats, therefore saying it should be run main. --

Well, with the excepton of Angel, your creatures are bigger than theirs. With the lock down, you can spend a turn or two just gathering threats and possibly overwhelm them first game (I've done it before). Second game, in comes the Masticore and the clearing of their board.

But even so, that's beside the point. My point was: if you have to maindeck one of them, Spore Frog is the better choice. If you are saying you maindeck both of them, that's a different story. I assume you would be running them over the Sharpshooters, which could be good for your meta, but in mine, there's a lot of scrubby aggro that scoops to Sharpshooter. Masticore takes too long to ping off all of their crap.

CavernNinja
12-15-2004, 10:46 PM
Actually you can play Duplicant to get rid of Angel or you can drop Sharpshooter, which should be a priority anyway, and then FTK the Angel. Under Frog lock you have a lot of time to mess aroudn with so you should be able to set up the FTK Sharpshooter dealio. You could also Genesis back and/or seach up and Elder and the other Shooter and shoot the Angel, sac Frog, shoot the Angel, sac Elder, shoot the Angel and the player. There are lots of way to get rid of Angel and Masitcore is not the best necesarily.

Elvenwish
12-16-2004, 07:49 AM
The only problem with Sharpshooter+Flametongue against an Angel is MoR and SoFI. A good Angel Stompy player isn't going to just throw an Angel out there unprotected against Survival Advantage because the Sharpshooter/Flametongue situation is too easy to set up. Yes, it is possible with the Spore Frog lock to work your way around it but not easy by any means. Masticore is about the best way to get rid of the Angel in this match-up as it gets around all of the protection of the deck. The only concern there is Disenchant, which Genesis helps to control, and StP, which Survival Advantage can do nothing about short of blowing up your own artifact in response with a Shaman, Sex Monkey, etc.

An alternate way, as was stated earlier, is using Duplicant. I have had the Spore Frog lock against Angel Stompy and using Genesis, and Rofellos was able to Duplicant an Angel, blow my Duplicant up, bring the Duplicant back, and repeat. It isn't the cleanest method and it takes forever, but it works.

The problem with Angel Stompy is that you have so much to work around wether it being Paralax Wave, StP, protection from X, massive card advantage etc. that even using a colorless method such as Duplicant and Masticore are not sure things. When playing survival, Angel Stompy is one of my least favorite match-ups.

ForceofWill
12-16-2004, 07:53 AM
Duplicant is great maindeck card. It's what I've been testing and loving. You can easily cast it and it's great against so many decks. Mirror match especially not only do you remove a guy but they can't witness it back. Gets around protection guys also.

Anyway the sideboard I"ve been working on consists of this.
3 Blood Moon (Landstill, random control, Lots of decks with not many basics now)
3 Naturalize (Mostly humility and like the 5000 enchantments in the format)
2 Tormod's Crypt against Ats and other survival decks.
2 Null Rod (affinity belcher)
1 Spike Feeder (I see a lot of sligh)
1 Spider (madness)
1 Dosan (control)
2 X metagame slots.

I play a lot online. I see a lot of control and sligh. So I put this sideboard together. I see tons of sligh but this deck tears through it because of baloths and it's overall speed. Tormod's crypt is god. In testing against ATS It helps so much even just removing anger + genesis it helps and if it sits in play they are reluctant to use squee. Spider is great against madness because once out if they have a wonder in grave they are screwed he will just kill guys and kill guys. Blood Moon is great because playing against multicolor control decks resolved on turn two screws Their mana base and also they can't fetch out there basic.s

Kryand
12-16-2004, 12:57 PM
Well, I'd like to reevaluate my Sligh breakdown. A good Sligh build in the hands of a good Sligh player could give you a run for your money. Most Sligh decks/players I play I deal with fairly easily, but last weekend I played nuggetacegangstafolizzife (no joke, that's his Source name), who had a good build and knew how to play it right, and he beat me 2-1. The first game was really close, I beat him down to 1 life before he pulled off a 17 damage turn to kill me before I could finish the job, sacing both Baloths I had at that point brought me right to 17 :(. Second game he scooped after I layed Survival and double Baloth, he kept a bad hand and hadn't done anything to me before then. Third game I only got two lands, and he - unlike the many idiots I'm used to playing - burned off all 5 of the BoP/Elves I managed to put out with his first turn Lavamancer. There isn't much you can do against a good Sligh with 2 lands except pray you topdeck another one. He happily burned me down to 0 before I could draw the third land (this lasted several turns - I hate topdeck mode).

So anyway, generally the Sligh matchup is strongly in favor of Survival Advantage, but if you play against a good enough build and a smart enough player (and get mana screwed), it might not be so easy.

BoTS
12-16-2004, 09:45 PM
The one-of Dosan strategy is flawed on multiple reasonings. First of all, the key card you want to resolve (Survival) is going to coming down ideally on turn 2 or 3, meaning the card you want Dosan in play for actually comes down before Dosan is in play. After you have resolved Survival the Dosan isn't needed because you don't really care if they counter a threat as you will continue to drop them from that point until they lose or deal with Survival. Also, hoping to draw the random one-of is a bad strategy as well due to the fact that you are relying and drawing, playing, and then resolving a one-of to make sure that you four-of resolves. I really think it is a waste of a valuable sideboard slot, and if you want more hate against control you can simply add another Choke, Boil, or Blood Moon.

Obfuscate Freely
12-17-2004, 09:32 AM
The one-of Dosan strategy is flawed on multiple reasonings. First of all, the key card you want to resolve (Survival) is going to coming down ideally on turn 2 or 3, meaning the card you want Dosan in play for actually comes down before Dosan is in play. After you have resolved Survival the Dosan isn't needed because you don't really care if they counter a threat as you will continue to drop them from that point until they lose or deal with Survival. Also, hoping to draw the random one-of is a bad strategy as well due to the fact that you are relying and drawing, playing, and then resolving a one-of to make sure that you four-of resolves. I really think it is a waste of a valuable sideboard slot, and if you want more hate against control you can simply add another Choke, Boil, or Blood Moon.
Replacing Dosan with a Choke, Blood Moon, or Boil is just replacing one must-counter threat with another. Thus you can't say Dosan is a waste of sideboard space, since he acts just like another copy of Choke most of the time.

Of course you could argue that Dosan is subpar because it is a lesser threat (Boil will never get Fired), but from the control player's perspective siding in a Dosan is very similar to siding in another Choke. He doesn't want either to ever resolve.

Dosan does offer a few advantages over the other cards. Mainly, he is a creature, and thus you can bring him into the deck without lowering your creature count (and thus making Survival less abusable). Of course his ability also augments the Survival toolbox somewhat. He is also a must-counter that is directly recurrable via Genesis.

So while I agree with your reasoning that Dosan is not a practical way of protecting Survival, there are still arguable reasons to have him in the board in place of the other cards you suggested.

Kryand
12-17-2004, 01:16 PM
I have Dosan in the board, but I have yet to play a real control player, so I really don't know how valuable it is. Control has a bad matchup against you to begin with, so I wouldn't worry about him for that matchup too much anyway.
What he would help the most with, however, is shit like U/W Scepter (not highly played, but still), Solidarity (by stopping Reset, that will slow them down a little bit), and any matchup that Spore Frog is GG to, by stopping their end of turn removal spells (unless they are Madness and run non-spell removal, like Bouncer).
Those aren't very heavy reasons, but until I come to a point where I desperately need another SB slot, I'll let Dosan hang around. Even then, I'll probably drop the second Spider instead.

CrzHrs
01-05-2005, 10:32 AM
These issues have been discussed before.
Sakura Tribe Elder beats poorly, provides 1 instead of 3 cards, and is not really much faster.
Duplicant is the most widely agreed upon solution to large asses.

Please read the rules for the LMF forum before posting again. (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=625)

Peter_Rotten

quicksilver
01-12-2005, 06:50 PM
At the tournament at Amrod's on the 8th I played Survival Advantage splashing black. I chose to add black for this tournament because I was expecting a good amount of combo there, such as solidarity, and it is also good against other survival decks.

Before I show the list remember that I strongly suggest tweaking lists for predicted metagames and not running exactly what I have. The adding of the black was a metagame choice, as well as the creature ratios and the sideboard.

4 Duress
2 Llanowar elves
2 Fyndhorn elves
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Yavimaya Elder
2 Goblin Sharpshooters
3 Troll Ascetic
3 Eternal Witness
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Ravenous Baloth
4 Flametounge Kavu
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Deranged Hermit
8 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Bayou
3 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire

SideBoard:
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Crypt Creeper
1 Spore Frog
4 Naturalize
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Bone Shredder

Spore frog and bone shredder were for white weenie and madness, which I expected in descent amounts.
Crypt keeper was for madness and for other survival matchups. Hitting my opponent’s anger can be really good.
Pyrostatic pillar was for solidarity and enchantress.
Duress and cabal therapy were for combo and survival match ups (removing my opponents survival before he can play it is really good).

I ended up 4/2 with it losing to belcher and welder survival (He outdrew me).



Edited By quicksilver on 1106495042

Geet
01-22-2005, 04:56 PM
I have found 4 Dwarven Miners in the Sb to be golden against blue based control. Landstill cannot win.

ForgottenFrank
01-22-2005, 06:06 PM
I have found 4 Dwarven Miners in the Sb to be golden against blue based control. Landstill cannot win.
I had also one in the Sideboard and an additional Orcish Settlers, but you don't need them against Landstill. Landstill just can't handle all of your aggro-creatures, SotF, Blood Moon/Choke, Sharpshooter (against DoJ) and has only very weak winconditions against you.

For the last tournament I had Mogg Fanatic and Ghitu Slinger in the Sideboard to improve my matchup against ATS.

Another thought is, that you should always run Spore Frog main, because it's the "win-option" against aggro and could also negate ExAngel-Disadvatage.

Just my 2 Euros...

kirdape3
01-22-2005, 06:53 PM
The "win-option" against aggro of most forms is ramping up to a Deranged Hermit with Anger, and putting the aggro deck on the defensive. What is this 'stalling' of which you speak.

Spore Frog is only useful against decks with little or no creature removal and also little or no reach. That means probably White decks. As such, this card should be left in the board.

ForgottenFrank
01-23-2005, 06:52 AM
If your opponent starts with Lackey and 2nd turn Siege-Gang you'll have to hope for multiple Baloths or, if you have SotF out you go for Genesis/Spore Frog, because if they have removal it's better than the Hermit as 4 mana is cheaper than 8 (Genesis + Hermit).

Without the Spider you need FTK+Sharpshooter for the Angel, which needs a few turns. I think most times you couldn't race a 2nd (with Mox in ScepterControl) or 3rd turn Angel. So your only chance is Genesis/Frog. And then of course you should go for a fast kill or play Zealot/GShaman before they play ScepterChant.

Thats just my experience in those special matchups.

Zirilian
01-31-2005, 02:35 PM
I'm going to a legacy tourney soon,and I'm gonna play R-G SA.
But,I don't really like the shivan wurm.
What card could replace it ?
My list is almost the same as the one posted on the first page.
As for my metagame,this is my 1st time so I have no idea.

ForgottenFrank
01-31-2005, 04:49 PM
The Shivan Wurm is often your "Win NOW"-option. The plan is to play Shivan Wurm, bounce Rofellos, play Rofellos, play Deranged Hermit, and attack with those 6 creatures for 16.

btw: You should read the "LMF Heavy Moderation Policy"

CavernNinja
01-31-2005, 05:51 PM
Duplicant.

Shivan Wurm is a good beat down creature, however Duplicant is a good utility creature. Take your pick between the two. The deck has notoriously had problems with 5 toughness creatures and so Duplicant taes the cake.

ForgottenFrank
01-31-2005, 07:35 PM
The only 5 or more toughness creature among the DTB which is problematic for you is Exalted Angel and so Duplicante is just a sideboard card. R/G Survival is mainly a beatdown deck an therefore the Wurm brings the beats and not Duplicant.

troopatroop
01-31-2005, 07:49 PM
I highly disagree with you forgotten frank.

Duplicant is so much less random than shivan wurm and a better card overall. Exalted angel is a big problem. Verdant forces are a problem. Any super big fatty is a problem and duplicant is the answer for all of that. It's like the only guilded drake this deck has, and quite frankly needs. And plus, this deck is NOT beatdown. It doesnt need to win like aggro, and it's definetly wrong to put them into the same category. You're not supposed to play this deck to overextend and go to the throat, you're supposed to be reactive and out resource your opponent. I'd chose duplicant over wurm anyday.

Mulletus
02-01-2005, 03:43 PM
I have played a more advantage form of this deck. The idea is very anti agro, but response orientated. I realize it's very different from Advantage and needs further work. But it has done well.

The deck:
10 Forest
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Mountan
1 Swamp
1 Gaea's Cradle

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fyndhorn elves
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Living Wish
3 Eternal Witness
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Spore Frog
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Bone Shredder
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Shivan Wurm
1 Roofellos, Llanowar Emisary
1 Genesis
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Wood Elves
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Anger
1 Squee, Goblin Nobob
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Duplicant
1 Troll Ascetic

SB
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Nantuko Trancer
1 Spike Feeder
1 Roofellos, Llanowar Emisary
1 Genesis
1 Eternal whitness
1 Anger
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Cartographer
1 Orcish Settlers
1 Ouphe Vandals
3 Caller of the claw
2 Gaea's blessing


Caller of the Claw This deck needs creatures to win. Decks need to kill creatures to beat it. Why not fead off of that. The deck has answered to every other archtype. Caller can win games alone, or give an extra turn to live. This card has great synergy with Recurring Nightmare. If you get Caller back once, the creature is replaced. (provided it wasn't a token) I try to sac and an Elder. That gives me two 2/2 creatures, and two basic lands. Or turn a 0/1 or a 1/1 into two 2/2's. I have even used Sharphooter to kill off my team of mana men and other single toughness guys, for a game-winning-hasty-bear-army.

ForgottenFrank
02-01-2005, 04:14 PM
I highly disagree with you forgotten frank.
It's no question that RGS is a controlish Deck for perhaps 70% of the time.
About 30% of the games are just beatdown. If I get a hand with Forest, WFHills, Elf, Elder, FTK, x, x, I'll always keep it. As you have no chance to search for SotF you'll start with beatdown unless you have SotF in your hand.
With SotF I would most of the times go for Anger, Rofellos, Squee, (Genesis), Wurm, Hermit, maybe with some FTK or Zealot/Ape between.
I think the interaction with the Rofellos/Hermit-trick is the central point.

On the other side I agree with you that Duplicante is a very good option within the toolbox which often has an amazing trigger.

Perhaps we should play them both and cut a Troll or an Elder.

So I recommend the Wurm for the Aggro-Players and Duplicante for the Aggro-Controllers. Of course your metagame is important for your decision.


DTB
R/G S - Wurm (is cheaper to cast than D)
Landstill - Wurm (without Angel no targets)
ATS - Wurm (you won't get the TRider - so kill him first)
Goblins - Duplicant (as 5th FTK)
U/G M - Duplicant (as 5th FTK ?)

Tier 2
Scepter - Duplicant (for the Angel)
Reanimator - Duplicant (...)

Tier 3
Random Combo - Wurm (for a fast kill)
Random Beatdown - Wurm (FTK should be enough)

Tier N
Battle of Wits - Duplicant (for Rector)

[I]Edited for better understanding why I left space between the groups ???

quicksilver
02-07-2005, 01:01 PM
Matsu-Tribe Sniper

Cost: 1G
Card Type: Creature — Snake Warrior Archer
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text (Oracle): TAP: Matsu-Tribe Sniper deals 1 damage to target creature with flying.
Whenever Matsu-Tribe Sniper deals damage to a creature, tap that creature and it doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.


I could see this as a potential in the sideboard. This deck can sometimes have problems with large flying creatures. It could be very useful against madness, reanimator, and exalted angel.

Just to note that this guy can be used to handle two flier, if you use it during your opponents turn before they attack then it stops it for that turn AND next turn. So you could alternate tapping two different guys, making it strong against madness.

However I am not sure if this deserves an inclusion. I want to hear what others think. I know in my meta right now it would not be needed. Also if you have a survival down against madness you probably will win anyway. I'm just throwing this out as an option.

DaveOath
02-08-2005, 02:25 AM
Iwamori of the Open Fist could be a quite nice addition to this deck. The problem will be to find some space.

They could take the place of Flametounge Kavu but I'm quite reluctant. The Kavu same give me some game, it's a fetchable removal under the Survival. On the other hand, in a heavy control Meta, the Iwamori is better. Turn 3 5/5 “trempler”, sign me up.

Other than that, they could replace the Troll. While being a larger beater (5/5 vs. 3/2) i.e. faster clock on your opponent, Iwamori can be targeted...

Will need some play testing I guest ???

damos2001
02-09-2005, 05:45 PM
I do not really like the idea of iwamori in this deck. I mean the abality to let your opponent put a legend in to play may not be that big of a deal right now but after the hole kamigawa block has been relesed I think it will be like it was when the mirridon block came out you now see artifacts more after then you did.

Also putting it in over the troll would be my last choice. I mean it is not only that it can not be targeted be the iwamori does not regenarate either. And in some games that can make you lose the game. I have played lots of games where using a regenarater as a blocker has help to buy me enough time to win the game. So if I had to pick I would replace a Baloth instead. I mean that cost the same. And in a game where you really need the life 12 life should be enough (3 baloths at 4 life each = 12) for you to be abal to win.

Though I still do not like the idea of the Iwamori. I like the idea of having a 4cc 5/5 so I would pick Blastborm. He can not be targeted and even though he only deals 15 damage (if not blocked) he will do 20 if you have an anger in the graveyard. No make that 21 to 22 if you have a sharpshooter or two out (tap the shooter in response to the borm dieing). And even if you do not have an anger in the yard an oponent at 5 life in this deck is really not any thing if you have a sharpshooter or two out.

Please review the LMF heavy moderation policy found at the top of this fourm.

3. Rules about grammar. We expect you to capitalize proper nouns and the personal pronoun "I." We expect you to use punctuation correctly and to avoid run-on sentences. A basic spelling ability is required. Our attitude is only slightly more forgiving towards members who speak English as a second language.

Peter_Rotten

ForgottenFrank
02-14-2005, 09:51 AM
Matsu-Tribe Sniper

Cost: 1G
Card Type: Creature — Snake Warrior Archer
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text (Oracle): TAP: Matsu-Tribe Sniper deals 1 damage to target creature with flying.
Whenever Matsu-Tribe Sniper deals damage to a creature, tap that creature and it doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.
The Sniper also kills Faerie Conclaves. And it will buy you some turns versus Exalted Angel and U/G w/Wonder to stabilize and win.

As mentioned before I go for Genesis/Spore Frog or Duplicant against large flyers, but perhaps we could exchange a third Sharpshooter in the sideboard for the Sniper. I think it's obviously only a sideboard option.

Kundalini
02-16-2005, 09:18 PM
In my testing I have been very pleased by Wirewood Symbiote. I run just one, it makes a very good job, much similar to Quirion Ranger effect, but I run both. Apart from bouncing and/or untapping Rofellos (which can sometimes speed up everything a full turn) it can perform a number of minor and very useful tricks. Examples: use quirion ranger to untap rofellos, then bounce ranger to untap rofellos (by symbiote), then play quirion ranger again, so you can use its ability again and untap rofellos (total: you untap rofellos 4 times). The usual plan after a Survival becomes: Anger, Rofellos, Quirion, Wirewood Symbiote, then draw tons of mana and go on. One more use? Bounce Deranged to untap rofellos and play it again for 8 squirrels... Also, it protects all of your elves... returning an elf to hand is played as a cost, so it cannot be prevented. I also play Viridian Shaman as an additional elf to bounce and play again untapping rofellos or sharpshooter. I have found my games noticeably improved by that little insect.

Another testing (but it is not yet competed) is about Umezawa's Jitte. I am tryng 1x instead of a single Sword of Fire and Ice. It performs almost the same, maybe less powerful but more versatile... the big cons versus Sword is that it cannot be efficiently equipped on a bop.

BoTS
02-16-2005, 09:44 PM
I saw and played against a guy running a Symbiote at the Portsmouth tournament. It seemed questionable at first but I saw him pull off some pretty ridiculous plays with Ranger and Rofellos as you mentioned. I second the suggestion of its inclusion, at least as a one of, as it allows for the deck to be even more explosive once it comes online.



Edited By BoTS on 1108608291

ForgottenFrank
02-22-2005, 09:21 AM
I highly recommend 2 Wear Aways and 2 Naturalizes instead of 4 Naturalizes. It's better against ScepterChant with Meddling Mages and the second green mana should't be a problem.

I'll also test Aether Vials for Zealot/Ape versus ScepterChant as it's one of the worst matchups.

quicksilver
02-22-2005, 10:03 AM
I have actually seen ScepterChant as a positive match up for this deck. I have never lost to it. There is a scepterChant deck in my meta that I often play against and I have rarely had too much of a problem. Meddling mage does not hurt the deck much at all. But if you want to run the 2/2 ratio that should be fine, double green is no problem. I would not run Aether vial because I am not a fan of the card especially in this deck. I would simply run more than 4 naturalize effects instead.


On a different note I would like to mention that I played this deck at Amrods and did very well. I only lost one match the whole day, and that was to the first place person in the top 8. I had beaten him in the second round but then lost in the top 8 due to a legendary bad draw. Unfortunatly i was the only one playing the deck otherwise I belive it would have placed more.

My matchups were:
Hulk (2-0) 1-0
UW LandStill (2-1) 2-0
UW LandStill (2-0) 3-0
Solidarity (2-1) 4-0
Drew into top 8 4-0-1



Edited By quicksilver on 1109085805

Zirilian
03-04-2005, 04:38 PM
Would Kiki-jiki have a place in RGSA?
I've been playing him in my build,and he really works well as a 1-of,to recur a baloth,attack for 4,and gain4,or to recur a kavu to kill some critter that's in your way.
What do you thiink of Kiki-Jiki?

l_neiman
03-04-2005, 05:14 PM
I think the triple-red in Kiki-Jiki's casting cost makes it pretty hard to get into play sometimes, and that alone makes me hesitant to run it.

The question is: is it just an "I win more" card, or does it genuinely help any of the deck's bad matchups?

Kundalini
03-07-2005, 07:46 PM
Yes, kiki-jiki would be absolutely perfect if it costed up to 5r !!!!
but its cost is 2rrr and this means a big NO to its inclusion (provided you want to keep the deck competitive and green over red)...

Anyway, in my testing, apart from its obvious and powerful use with hermit, baloth and sharpshooter, i found its best use in combo with rofellos and wirewood symbiote (don't you have included this little insect yet?).
Kiki+Rofellos+Symbiote+(at least 2 forests) = win!
[tap Rofellos for gg, tap kiki and clone the symbiote, then use symbiote's ability to bouce rofellos and untap kiki, then play Rofellos again ad repeat - next time use another symbiote-clone's ability, and so on... then attack with 100000 symbiotes]

Too bad 3 red mana :(

CynicalSquirrel
03-07-2005, 10:07 PM
Yes, kiki-jiki would be absolutely perfect if it costed up to 5r !!!!
but its cost is 2rrr and this means a big NO to its inclusion (provided you want to keep the deck competitive and green over red)...

Anyway, in my testing, apart from its obvious and powerful use with hermit, baloth and sharpshooter, i found its best use in combo with rofellos and wirewood symbiote (don't you have included this little insect yet?).
Kiki+Rofellos+Symbiote+(at least 2 forests) = win!
[tap Rofellos for gg, tap kiki and clone the symbiote, then use symbiote's ability to bouce rofellos and untap kiki, then play Rofellos again ad repeat - next time use another symbiote-clone's ability, and so on... then attack with 100000 symbiotes]

Too bad 3 red mana :(
I've been using Kiki-Jiki with some slight modifications, and I think it's a great card, and one that should definitely have a place in the deck. It looks like a win more card when you first see it in the list, but once you play with it, it really breaks games open. WIth 4 Taigas and adding a mountain or two, along with 4 Birds of Paradise (which can be Survivaled for), casting Kiki isn't really that big of a chore, and Rofellos is still pretty effective in my build. I haven't had any problems with it yet.

AngryTroll
03-10-2005, 01:15 AM
I have been playing a proxied up list of ATS for over a month, and I have several proposed modifications to RGSA. These will not work if Wasteland sees a ton of play in your metagame; however, they shore up some of the decks weaknesses, accelerate the deck, and make the sideboard more flexible.

First of all, running only one Rofellos has proven to be...slow. Before anyone flips out, try running four Rofellos. The best play this deck has is not turn two Survival, it is turn two Rofellos. Turn two Rofellos leads to casting Survival and having four mana floating on Turn Three. That is enough to find Anger, Squee, Genesis; find and cast Zealot; find and cast Troll; or cast a Ravenous Baloth or FlameTongue Kavu from hand. That is butt-kicking power. Also, the argument that drawing a second Rofellos is a dead draw is never true, because Survival turns Rofellos into Deranged Hermit, FTK, Baloth, or whatever is needed. The previous Rofellos ensures that you have the mana to do this.

Rofellos does much the same job as Llanowar Elf, except that it is much more efficient. Turn two Rofellos makes turn one elf seem much less impressive, and leaves you with one mana wasted turn two (Birds, at best?). There is a better one drop that improves your chances of turn two Rofellos and turn three Survival: Brainstorm. Now hold on, wait for a minute. Splashing blue also strengthens the sideboard with options such as Annul for Belcher and Scepter-Chant, Stifle for Storm Based Combo, Wonder for....well, coolness, or more fun options if you feel like goofing off (I'll get to those.)

Adding Blue means we need Tropical Islands and more fetch lands. Fetch lands also make our Brainstorms better, so that works for us. Brainstorm does as good a job at finding land as Yavimaya Elder, so he can go.

I do not know about anyone else, but I will often find myself in a situation where I need to get rid of an Exalted Angel, or a Scepter, or a key artifact. Doing this game one greatly improves our odds of winning. Blue also supports this: Trade Wind Rider. Wow. He is amazing at what he does, often proving better then Duplicant or FTK. Running at least one mainboard is a golden idea.

Now, it would appear that these changes make the deck more controlling. However, the deck already plays the control game until it randomly wins, and we are just improving out early game with Brainstorm. TWR for Duplicant is simple.

Here is a decklist incorporating these changes:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Rofellos, mana dude
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Flame Tongue Kavu
3 Eternal Witness
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Shivan Wurm
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Trade Wind Rider
1 Squee
1 Anger
1 Genesis
(No Spore Frog- when is he needed? Get the Rider to bounce it, Blast is away with FTK or the Core....etc.)
1 Masticore
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 (split Zealot to Lyrist/Monkey, 4th Baloth, Wonder, 2nd TWR, land 22, Wood Elg, Kiki-Jiki, Avalanch Riders, etc. Fill with Metagame tech!)

4 Brainstorm
4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
3-4 Windswept Heath, to preference
5-6 Forest
(21 total lands)

SideBoard:
3 Naturalize
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Annul
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Flametongue Kavu
3 more slots-obviously all these slots are depending on metagame

Other SB Options:
Wonder, Stifle, Artifact Mutation, REB, BEB, Duplicant, Caller of the Claw, FEB Transformational Sideboard
No, Seriously. Boarding in 4 Shapeshifter, 1 Phage, 1 Hypnox, 1 Akroma for FTKs, Sharpshooter, Masticore, and Baloths or Trolls or whatever you feel like gives you a much better chance against a deck like Storm Based Combo. Turn One Birds; Turn two Brainstorm, Rofellos; Turn Three Survival, find Hypnox, cast Shapeshifter for their hand kills Storm. Doing that turn for without the Birds is also devastating to their plan. This also works against unprepared opponents that do not expect FEB. Really, though, this plan is just if you face faster aggro or combo. Combo will win long before you deal lethal damage, but turn three or four will catch them by surprise, especially after they smash you game one. FEB is too slow and inconsistant to be the focus of the deck, but against combo, especially decks that laugh at Annull or Naturalize (Competant players will probably see the blue splash sb coming and keep in Xantid Swarm), eating their hand on turn 3 is the best plan. However, I realize that this is more of a fun suggestion. Do not let it detract from the seriousness of the rest of the post.

The Forth Baloth is key against very aggresive decks and burn. Wonder can be used to smash an Exalted Angel, punch through WW's Silver Knights, or fly over randomness.



I feel that the changes to the deck offer it much that it was missing. Opponents will not expect blue spells from RGSA, so Stifle and Annull will have the surprise benefit. Trade Wind Rider really helps mainboard. Brainstorm improves consistancy, speeding up the early turns by helping ensure land drops, Rofellos, and Survival drops.

Playing the full four Rofellos is the best change, however. Whatever the land base of your metagame looks like, I STRONGLY suggest running a full set of them. The acceleration they provide makes them a much better play turn two then Survival. They are also cards that control must counter, upping the count of must counters significantly. Resolving a turn two Rofellos means really hard times for Control, so they have to counter it. But is the Rofellos just bait for the real threat? Can we rist it not being bait? No, control opponents know they must counter Rofellos.

Try these changes. Wasteland is the biggest threat at this point, because the land base is much less resilient then it was. The deck also feels land light; I advocate running the 22nd land in the mainboard slot and only running 3 Heaths for an extra forest. Without the Elders, we lose some of the tutoring ability for land; however, Brainstorm does a similar job without the beating body, but for a third the cost. It does not survival, but it draws creatures that do.

Test these changes before commenting. Four Rofellos will probably draw the most flak, but it is the strongest change I advocate. All of these suggestions have been tested extensively in ATS, and have carried their weight for the other strongest survival deck in the format. Tradewind Rider and Brainstorm make blue a solid addition, and they make the sideboard much stronger against the deck's weakest matchup, combo. The sideboard options alone make the blue splash a very strong choice in a Wasteland-light metagame.

Zirilian
03-10-2005, 01:27 PM
I think adding the blue would make this deck lose some of its strenghts:
A great mana base,good against blood moon and wastland.
Also,making the deck more control wouldn't do it good,since this deck is Aggro,making it hybrid Control-Aggro would make it directly inferior to ATS.
I do like the 4 Rofellos-idea,since I always feel like I wasted a turn by playing survival and not being able to do anything else.

bigbear102
03-10-2005, 03:13 PM
I agree with Zirilian. RGSA is strong because it is not easily disruptable, adding another color makes it just that.

Also, I was wondering if there was a way to add a sacrifice mechanism into the deck, or the SB. Being able to sacrifice Duplicant/FTK/witness, and then using genesis and getting their CiP ability again seems good. Playing the deck I usually want to be able to sac my duplicant to something, especially against Angel Stompy .

Zirilian
03-10-2005, 03:36 PM
Maybe running kiki could help with cip effects.
My list does too,and it works great.
Kiki is real handy when you and your opponent both have a full board,by recurring Duplicant/FTK/witness.

CynicalSquirrel
03-10-2005, 03:56 PM
I disagree with the entire "adding blue" nonsense. This deck is running great at two colors, I don't see why you would need to fumble around adding a third one. The deck is so strong as it is, it needs no changing as far as adding/removing colors.

I dislike the 4 Rofellos idea. I know Rofellos is great for the deck, but you would have to cut valuable utility cards to make room for cards that are basically dead draws late game. One Rofellos works fine for me, he isn't even as integral to the deck as you may think.

bigredmeanie
03-10-2005, 04:15 PM
I'm not to keen on adding blue, but I do like having multiple Rofellos. Rofellos is almost always a better play turn 2 than a survival is and it enables the deck to do what it needs to do. 3 might be the right number.

As for Brainstorm, If thats the only thing thats going to change md than just run a few Sylvan Library. The Library is great in this deck. Me and a friend have been running 2 for a while, It works great, speeds up the deck, and makes it that much better w/o Survival. Try that instead of Brainstorm.

Zirilian
03-11-2005, 01:46 AM
I dislike the 4 Rofellos idea. I know Rofellos is great for the deck, but you would have to cut valuable utility cards to make room for cards that are basically dead draws late game. One Rofellos works fine for me, he isn't even as integral to the deck as you may think.

I think running 3 rofellos would help the deck out a lot.
4,however,is too much imo.

Bargoth
03-11-2005, 01:10 PM
Rofellos is definitly a huge help to the deck. He is an incredible early game play and getting his added mana boost after a board sweeping effect is really your best chance at getting a smooth recovery. That being said, the idea of playing four seems way too over the top. If Rofellos is killed, which most good players with the means to neutralize the little guy will, then you still have three Eternal Witness to get him back as well as Genisis. Granted getting him swords'd early is rough, so I could see adding a second, back up one to the deck. So to conclude, I feel that the Rofellos count should not exceed two, I personally feel comfortable with one, but would support someone's choice to replace a single copy of one of the other four ofs in the deck with an additional Rofellos. If someone is to add Rofellos what card would be cut? I would lean towards cutting a single Llanowar Elf or Troll Ascetic.

-Bargoth

quicksilver
03-11-2005, 01:36 PM
I would like to start by saying that I am very pleased with people posting their ideas. For example I had not previously thought about going infinite with Kiki-Jiki. I like to hear new ideas. Here are my opinions on the recent suggestions.




Also,making the deck more control wouldn't do it good,since this deck is Aggro,making it hybrid Control-Aggro would make it directly inferior to ATS.


I don't really know where people get this from. The deck is not an aggro deck. I repeat the deck is NOT an aggro deck. It is defiantly aggro-control. Almost every match it plays, it plays the control deck. Against aggro decks like sligh/goblins it is the control. Against aggro control decks like madness and some white weenie decks, it is the control deck. Against other survival decks (even ATS) it is the control (actually both decks are control in that match up, it is just whoever controls faster. If either tried to go aggro they would lose). Against combo decks it plays more aggro control, trying to delay the combo while applying some beats. Against control decks it is probably the most aggro but it often makes the control deck go aggro-control, with aggressive factory and fairy beat downs before I can resolve a game breaking spell. I have even occasionally played the control deck against control, trying to get some Baloths out to handle their factories.

Even though this deck is aggro control does not make it "directly inferior" to ATS. This deck is designed to operate much better without a survival and thus runs many more redundant answers to keep aggro decks down than does ATS. And because the creatures that are used to control many decks also have large power, it can apply better beats than ATS normally can if it wanted to.




Kiki+Rofellos+Symbiote+(at least 2 forests) = win!
[tap Rofellos for gg, tap kiki and clone the symbiote, then use symbiote's ability to bouce rofellos and untap kiki, then play Rofellos again ad repeat - next time use another symbiote-clone's ability, and so on... then attack with 100000 symbiotes]


Kiki-Jiki:
He is a 5 casting cost guy that can be handled by just about any sort of removal (even lava dart can kill him). He is slow, being at the very top of the mana curve. He doesn't do anything by himself. He seems too slow to be useful against aggro and too vulnerable to be useful against control. The control player could easily counter him or just kill him, or keep other creatures off the table. Against control Kiki-Jiki also makes you play other creatures and over extending into a board sweeper. He also costs three red, which could defiantly be a problem for this deck unless the mana base is made more red heavy, which it really does not want. It seems more like a "win more" in general. In order to go infinite you basically need a survival out for a couple of turns, and then you probably will win anyways.

Just on a side note, you don't need Rofellos to be the elf in that combo, Llanowar elves work just as well. Also the combo could be done with sharpshooter, Kiki-Jiki and Seeker of Skybreak. The seeker seems a little bit better than the insect in general.




4 Brainstorm
1 Trade Wind Rider
Wonder
Stifle
BEB
FEB Transformational Sideboard


Blue splash:
I am not really a fan of the blue splash. The biggest advocating for this seems to be brainstorm. I agree with bigredmeanie that Sylvan Library would be a better option than brainstorm, especially since you don't need the color splash for it. Tradewind Rider is not normally needed; you generally have better answers than that, such as FTK or Zealot. One of the main reasons Tradewind and brainstorm are used in ATS is for blue cards to pitch to force. Counters would probably be the strongest thing from blue to add but I do not feel that they add nearly enough to the deck to make it worth while. And wonder is only really useful against decks with heavy fliers, but most of these decks, if you resolve a survival you can probably handle the flier anyways with FTK’s, or spore frog or even recurring bird blocking. And the FEB SB, the Kiki-Jiki one would be better because it is more in the colors, 2 blue is just too much.



First of all, running only one Rofellos has proven to be...slow. Before anyone flips out, try running four Rofellos. The best play this deck has is not turn two Survival, it is turn two Rofellos. Turn two Rofellos leads to casting Survival and having four mana floating on Turn Three. That is enough to find Anger, Squee, Genesis; find and cast Zealot; find and cast Troll; or cast a Ravenous Baloth or FlameTongue Kavu from hand. That is butt-kicking power. Also, the argument that drawing a second Rofellos is a dead draw is never true, because Survival turns Rofellos into Deranged Hermit, FTK, Baloth, or whatever is needed. The previous Rofellos ensures that you have the mana to do this.

Rofellos does much the same job as Llanowar Elf, except that it is much more efficient. Turn two Rofellos makes turn one elf seem much less impressive


4x Rofellos:
Sure Rofellos is amazing at what he does. But that is the catch; he is amazing at what he does, and not at what he doesn't do. It may seem nice to have consistent second turn Rofellos, but if you analyze it you can see how this is actually inferior. Rofellos does produce a lot of mana, but that is essentially all he does. Now survival of the Fittest is a very mana intensive card, so Rofellos works great with it. But without a survival, Rofellos does not really add much. You can't use him till turn three at the earliest. A turn one Llanowar elf can usually have you able to cast almost any card in your deck by turn three too! Making Rofellos not very much better there. Also a turn one Llanowar elf gives you three mana on turn two to cast a troll or elder for blockers or turn two survival (before counter mana or hymn mana comes online).

Now the scenario you gave with a turn two Rofellos followed by a turn three survival would make Rofellos look much more powerful there, and that it would make the Llanowar elf "seem much less impressive" but I submit to you that a turn one elf would make the turn two Rofellos seem much less impressive. In your scenario you say that you can go turn two Rofellos then turn three survival with enough mana left over to cast FTK/Baloth/setup/find and cast zealot. But with the first turn Llanowar elf you can do more! You can cast survival on the second turn. Then you can SEARCH AND CAST FTK or Baloth, you don't even need them in your hand. You can search and cast AND ACTIVATE the zealot, something you couldn't so with a Rofellos. Probably the most common thing I do is end of second turn get anger. Third turn pitch anger get Rofellos, cast Rofellos, tap Rofellos for three then either play a hasted 4cc guy or search for a 3 casting cost guy and play him hasted. With your second turn Rofellos you would have 1 less mana to work with for the third turn which makes a huge difference. Also you would have less mana for future turns. So by looking at the scenarios you see that you actually get more mana use out of the turn one elf than the turn two Rofellos because it costs less and you have more turns to use it. It will often mean the difference between life and death, being able to tutor and play that third turn FTK or tutor and play and activate the 3rd turn zealot; something that the Rofellos on turn two simply cannot do.

It is also much easier to keep a one land hand if you have a Llanowar elf instead of a Rofellos. So in summary of Rofellos, he is inferior to a Llanowar elf until you get the survival out, and then you can tutor for him, making more than one copy fairly useless.



Edited By quicksilver on 1110686632

Zirilian
03-23-2005, 02:32 PM
I'm having trouble with our matchup against solidarity.
I can't seem to win this matchup,does anyone have some ideas about how to defeat it?

bigguyinblack
03-23-2005, 03:07 PM
2 Geas Blessing's in the side. If that's not enough Pyrostatc Piller kicks them in the junk.

quicksilver
03-24-2005, 11:52 AM
You could also try the black splash against solidarity. The duresses and cabal therapies slow them down enough for you to kill them. Choke is also fairly strong against them, becuase it doesn't allow them to set up their hand, makeing them take longer to go off.

anonymos
03-26-2005, 04:00 PM
So what's up with Tormod's Crypt in the sideboard. Have any of you tried Night Soil from Fallen Empires? It is great in the mirror match, and against reanimator. It lasts longer than Crypt and it gives you little green men. It's what you're all about. :blues:

Drake33535
03-28-2005, 02:15 PM
Against Solidarity you shoul really run one SB Dosan. He really makes that match easier. Resolving that bad boy takes out their resets and gives you the opportunity to stabilize.

I like the idea of night soil over crypt. I will definitly try that one. The only reason crypt was there was because it is free casting and is a headache first turn play against teh reanimator.

Has anybody considered putting Sakura in the main in place of the elders? IMO Sakura is a much better play because he is faster, requires no mana to activate, and helps fetch those basics against the wasteland. Plus he has mad synergy with Genesis.
Just a thought.

Kryand
03-28-2005, 05:43 PM
I always thought Night Soil was better than Crypt against ATS/other Survival.
And yes, Dosan is good against Solidarity. Lack of Reset does hurt them a lot, cutting them to only 4 untap effects. Along with that, Solidarity likes to go off right before they die, and often against R/G there's no telling when that will happen. I've gone from no attackers to Baloth+Hermit+Wurm many times in a single turn for a lethal attack. With Dosan, Solidarity won't have the safety of waiting until the last second to go off.
Choke is decent, and Pyrostatic Pillar is a complete bitch for them, though Solidarity is pretty much the only deck Pillar would go in for, so if you aren't comfortable with dedicating 3-4 SB slots to a single deck, then meh.

worsel
04-08-2005, 02:21 PM
I have a few cards that I'd like to bring up and have you guys comment on. Here they are:

Crater Hellion - wipes out weenies, goblins, and (almost) angels, then sticks around to lay down a beating. I've used it a fair bit. The double red is not usually a big problem.

Avalanche Riders - wouldn't a recurring rider (using genesis of course) be devestating, or is it too slow?

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - this guy is pretty good, especially with Goblin Sharpshooter to destroy opponents lands. He also pumps all your little guys for a devastating attack.

Seedborn Muse - untaps Sharpshooters, and means you can attack with all your guys and have them untapped to block during your opponents turn (duh).

Goblin Bombardment - a great defense against Swords to Plowshares; just sac your guy in response. Too bad it's an enchantment and not a creature.

Bloodshot Cyclops - could also protect a valuable guy from Swords to Plowshares. Is it a bit expensive for just that, or is his 4/4 body worth it?

Living Wish - this would help against Swords to Plowshares, and let us leave our utility in our sideboards. Is there room for this? Is it too slow, even though we have mana acceleration?

I was splashing black in this deck, and found that Carrion Feeder was very useful. It protects your creatures from Swords to Plowshares, and gives you a sac outlet for untapping Sharpshooter. This was a very useful trick for Angel Stompy and such. I would like to know what people think about the idea of black for Carrion Feeder, as I found it to be quite useful.

Thanks everyone.

Kryand
04-09-2005, 03:01 PM
I'll come back to Crater Hellion.

Avalanche Riders is a bit slow and it is win-more. There's no reason why you need to destroy your opponents land with this deck.

Kamahl is really slow and win-more. There's no reason you need him, and I'm sure whatever you take out to add him in is a lot more useful.

Muse could be a good choice, but I don't think R/G needs her. ATS only uses her to double the amount of permanents bounced with Tradewind.

Bombardment isn't a creature. You said it. Saving creatures from StP isn't that big of a deal, because you can still destroy any deck I know of that runs StP when you don't have Rofellos.

Bloodshot Cyclops seems a little random to me. If you can play him, you don't need to save any more creatures from StP because you should already be in position to win the game.

Living Wish I'm sure has already been mentioned in this thread, and it is a waste of a card in the maindeck. Just replace any slots in the main where you are planning on running Living Wish with the best creatures you would ever use it to wish for, and you'll be a lot more happy.

Carrion Feeder doesn't sound bad. If you're splashing black, I guess he could be a good choice, but make sure you include some other things that were mentioned by quicksilver when he was splashing black. Destabilizing your mana base just to add one more creature is not a good idea.

As for Crater Hellion, this brings me to another creature I was thinking about. Crater Hellion would destroy every creature you control when he comes into play, and this is not a good thing in the slightest. My choice would be Tornado Elemental and to run him in the sideboard. The only creatures of yours he would hit are Birds, which you probably don't need at that point. He wipes out Angel instantly, and wipes out all of Madness's creatures instantly. Many, many games I have played against a Madness that gets double/triple Wurm on me along with some other creatures before I have the mana to kill them with Silklash Spider and they use their counters and Submerge to keep my board position very poor. Almost every game I have lost to Madness would have been a win if I had been running Tornado Elemental (excluding the games they won on like 5th-6th turn without me seeing Survival).

quicksilver
04-19-2005, 12:26 PM
On Saturday at the dual land draft I tried out a Burning Wish SB for the deck. Overall I think that it worked out well, however I most defiantly still need some refinement in the wish targets.

Here is the list I ran:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Troll Ascetic
2 Yavimaya Elder
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Eternal Witness
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Flametounge Kavu
2 Ravenous Baloth
1 Anger
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Genesis
4 Burning Wish
9 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Boodstained Mire
4 Taiga
2 Mountain

SB:
1 Hull Breach
1 Reverent Silence
1 Disintegrate
1 Pyroclasm
1 Slice and Dice
1 Whirlwind
1 Regrowth
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination
1 Spore Frog
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Naturalize


Good wish targets:

Hull Breach - This is the most efficient artifact/enchantment destruction I could find. It worked out ok destroying two ravagers.

Reverent Silence - Although I did not use this because I went up against few enchantments. I still feel this is strong. It is excellent against enchantress especially when you witness it back. It is also useful for destroying an enchantment on the second turn, like an opponents survival.

Whirlwind - Destroyed some exalted angels when he had mother of runes out. Although I would have liked to see anarchy in the board. Would have been great if I went up against madness.

Tsunami - It was very good, won me two games against trix, and 1 against solidarity.

Ruination - Although I never used it on Saturday, in play testing against decks like landstill, it proved quite useful.



Not as good wish targets -

Disintegrate - uses a lot of mana and was put in there as a way to handle things like eternal dragon and masticore, neither of which I played against. Could also be a late game finisher.

Pyroclasm - just not nearly enough agro there for it to be good against.

Slice and Dice - See pyroclasm

Regrowth - Normally had better things to get than this, but I am still a fan of it being in there.

Gaea's Blessing - Was there for graveyard removal as well as being sided in against solidarity. Just wasn't all that great.



I do like the versatility that the wishes gave me but I think some wish targets could be cut and hopefully some I haven't thought of could be added. I do think I would like to see anarchy in there.



Edited By quicksilver on 1113928074

Shabbaman
04-20-2005, 04:34 AM
Hull Breach - This is the most efficient artifact/enchantment destruction I could find. It worked out ok destroying two ravagers.
How do you destroy two ravagers with a hull breach? Either pulverize or meltdown might be good wish targets for artifact destruction.

cartman34
04-20-2005, 07:24 AM
I think that Living Wish would be a lot better in this Deck because it does the same thing + beatdown.I would rather have a Virdian Shaman instead of Hull Breach or Witness instead of Regrowth or maybe even Sharpshooter instead of Pyroclasm.

quicksilver
04-20-2005, 08:45 AM
How do you destroy two ravagers with a hull breach
It was two seperate games. I was describing my total uses at the tournement.

Meltdown could be useful, I'll have to give it a shot, and pulverize will be fairly hard to get two mountains into play and then to lose them would be really bad. I think that is just way to much of a drawback.

Living wish doesn't really do anything useful. It doesn't give me access to anything I don't already have access to. And almost everything I get would be more mana to do the same thing. Burning wish gives me access to the awesome power of cards like tsunami and ruination, something living wish could never rival. However I have thought about putting one living wish in the board to wish for, so I could get back something removed from the game, but this just sounds like way to much mana and rarely useful.

One of the points of burning wish over living wish is that it is a lot faster. wishing for a pyroclasmand playing it can be done a turn earlier than wishing for the sharpshooter, plus it works that turn instead of waiting a turn, making it two turns quicker. Plus it hits more cretures, like piledriver, warchief and is much more useful against an opponents sharpshooter. One of the main reasons for it was against decks like vial goblins.

But I would really like to hear more people's feedback on the wishes and maybe come up with some more wish targets like meltdown. I would really like to get some targets that can generate card advantage but are only useful in specific situations (Teffri's response like cards) cards like ruination and tsunami are good examples of this. They would be often useless but since I only get them when I need them, they can be very powerful and give me much card advantage.

cartman34
04-20-2005, 01:25 PM
One of the points of burning wish over living wish is that it is a lot faster. wishing for a pyroclasmand playing it can be done a turn earlier than wishing for the sharpshooter, plus it works that turn instead of waiting a turn, making it two turns quicker. Plus it hits more cretures, like piledriver, warchief and is much more useful against an opponents sharpshooter. One of the main reasons for it was against decks like vial goblins.
Maybe Pyroclasm is faster but Sharpshooter doesn´t kill most of your creatures and when playing against a Vial Goblins they can overhelm you with small goblins after you cleaned the board when they just cast a Ringleader.

Ruination and Tsunami may be powerfull cards but I can´t you will hardly resolve them against any control Deck in the format, not even against Solidarity.

I don´t really like Burning Wish in a Beatdown Deck it seems that it isn´t usefull enough.What do you get against Aggro Decks when you already have board advantage(which happens often).

Living Wish on the other hand gets:
Duplicant (Exalted Angel)
Viridian Shaman (Artifacts)
Deranged Hermit(Beatdown)
Ravenous Baloth(Burn)
FTK(Taking down something like TWR or Meddling Mage)
Troll Ascetic(against Control)
Elvish Lyrics(Survival)
Spore Frog(Aggro)
Sharpshooter(Survival,Aggro)
etc..

scrumdogg
04-20-2005, 02:12 PM
The point of the exercise seems to be to generate gameswinging effects versus combo (the deck's traditional worst matchups) and aggro-control that can recover from SotF's traditional options (like Vial Goblins, which has the potential to generate even more card advantage than SotF...). If I am mistaken, please let me know, but that seems to be the theme of the exercise. That you can access options which also help you against traditional aggro & aggro control is a bonus.

I'm not sure why people seem to be down on the singular nature of cards like Pyroclasm - it is one of the best weenie-sweepers ever. Dave doesn't have to clutter his maindeck with multiple copies, he Wishes for it when appropriate. Then he Witnesses it back as often as he needs thereafter.... The ability to harness sideboard gold (or silver, if we are discussing bullets...) with maindeck Genesis + Survival + Witness nonsense seems extremely powerful to me.

quicksilver
04-20-2005, 02:41 PM
Maybe pyroclasm is faster but Sharpshooter doesn’t kill most of your creatures and when playing against a Vial Goblins they can overwhelm you with small goblins after you cleaned the board when they just cast a Ringleader.
1.) If I have to wish for a sharpshooter then that means I don't have survival which means I don't have haste which means that if they have a sharpshooter, then mine does absolutely nothing. I know almost all goblin decks in my meta run 4 main deck sharpshooters. Plus sharpshooter doesn't handle my biggest problems, like warchief. And a siege-gang can just kill it as well as a gempalm incinerator before it even comes on line.
2.) I don't play the pyroclasm just to clear like one creature. I wait till they play all those creatures off the ringleader and then I pyroclasm. I have found that vial goblins usually needs to overextend to beat this deck, which makes pyroclasm good. And at that point who cares if I lose a bird that was probably already killed by them.


Ruination and Tsunami may be powerful cards but I can’t you will hardly resolve them against any control Deck in the format, not even against Solidarity.
Well this deck runs more must counters than control normally runs counters. If you bait some counters with some creatures then you can play your land hoser, and if they still counter it then get it back with a witness, and if they counter that too well then you have at least pulled out a lot of counters against them. I know when I played against solidarity I was tsunaming every turn with my witnesses.




I don’t really like Burning Wish in a Beatdown Deck
I fail to see the relevance. Now maybe if this deck was a beat down deck that might make some sense, but since it isn't I don't see how it really matters here.


What do you get against Aggro Decks when you already have board advantage(which happens often).
Umm, I guess I would just win since I already successfully controlled them.


Duplicant (Exalted Angel)
Duplicant is very slow. You'll probably be dead from the angel by the time you get it going. Whirlwind or Anarchy(if you got the red) work much faster.

Viridian Shaman (Artifacts)
He is slower than hull breach and you do get a 2/2 body but that's really not all that useful.

Deranged Hermit(Beatdown)
I generally don't need beat down often. I am almost always playing the control and the few decks I do play the agro, normally tsunami or ruination would be better.

Ravenous Baloth(Burn)
If I wanted life gain something like rejuvenate would be better but I'm not about to run that.

FTK(Taking down something like TWR or Meddling Mage)
I am not about to take in FTK out of the main, no way, no how.

Troll Ascetic(against Control)
Ruination or Tsunami is almost always strictly better. Unless they have a crucible, then hull breach would be better cause troll could just be chumped forever until they get a wrath, then you did nothing.

Elvish Lyrics(Survival)
Reverent silence is way faster, the lyrist just gives them time to get a witness

Spore Frog(Aggro)
Ok this one might be mildly useful, however only about one out of 100 games do I ever really want spore frog game one. I am even thinking about cutting him from the SB altogether now cause I think the burning wish can make up for it (madness was one of the biggest reasons to include it, now burning wish gets whirlwind)

Sharpshooter(Survival,Aggro)
Might be nice sometimes, but usually pyroclasm or slice and dice or something of that nature will be better cause it is tempo that rule matches that I need sharpshooter for, and sharpshooter can be slow if I have to tutor for it and still not give it haste.



On a different topic I have found my gem I have been looking for and I wish (pardon the pun) that I had remembered it for last Saturday with my two affinity match ups. Screw Meltdown, Seeds of Innocence is where it’s at!

Seeds of Innocence
Cost: 1GG

Card Type: Sorcery
P/T:
Rules Text (Oracle): Destroy all artifacts. They can’t be regenerated. The controller of each artifact destroyed this way gains life equal to its converted mana cost.

Not only is it pretty cheap, but it is within the main color so you don’t need to worry about double red in one turn or waiting a turn.



Edited By quicksilver on 1114029165

Peter_Rotten
04-20-2005, 04:25 PM
Let me just pipe in with two comments:

1. Resolving Tsunami against control is not that hard. Why? Simply because of the 4 Witnesses. You could possibly attempt to cast it up to 5 times! The first Tsunami that I saw was a complete surprise and caught me without a counter - gg. The last game that I played against the current list, I decided to save a counter for it. I countered it but Dave had three Witnesses in hand. gg again. (He also had plenty of other goodies in the yard.)

2. Meltdown is the (insert annoying pseudo-hacker nonsense proving that the card is good) against artifact decks. It was one of the few reasons that Burning Tog could pull games out of its ass. Meltdown for 2 - leaving Ravager with... umm a Myr Enforcer? Does this deck play anything that can handle a single Enforcer? Sure does. But since you have access to green, you may want to go with the card that you cited (the name didn't appear in your cut and paste - can you fix that?)

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-20-2005, 04:37 PM
Seeds of Innocence.


Why run a single Gaea's Blessing? The only reason to ever run Blessing over Regrowth is when it's in the main. As a Wish target it loses any real advantage. Instead, a much stronger call would be Call of the Herd, which gives you card-advantage beats against Control.

Why run Slice and Dice next to Pyroclasm? It's incredibly redundant. Pick one and make room for Fireball- you want a large, quick finisher with Burning Wish a lot of the time.

kirdape3
04-20-2005, 04:41 PM
Do you need such a finisher? The matchup against control and aggro is really favorable with this deck as it is. The problematic matchup is combo - if you can figure out how to beat that, you're set.

I'd actually consider Cranial Extraction in the board.

quicksilver
04-20-2005, 04:50 PM
I will admit that the SB was suboptimal and you are probably right.

I don't need caller of the claw cause the land destruction will almost always be better against control.

Here is my reasoning behind why I chose the cards (I do admit that they are suboptimal though):

Blessing was there as a way to remove my opponents cards from their graveyard, not for shuffling my stuff back. But I can't really think when this would be all that great. Against reanimator they are too fast and against madness I got whilwind. One of the main inclusions was for solidarity.

Pyroclasm and slice and dice. I just wanted more versitile options. Slice and dice could also handle 3 and 4 toughness guys late game. Or draw a card if they only got 1 toughness guys. I also needed to side out 5 cards against landstill and that was the fifth one to side in. Sometimes late game I have a real problem with conclaves and it handles them. The naturalizes handle the factories.

And disintegrate is better than fireball cause it handles masticore and eternal dragon. However that wasn't working out all that great.

Cranial Extraction is an idea but I'm not sure how many deck I will run up against that it will be useful that I don't have anything better for. It could help against belcher if they don't have a fast win. Against solidarity tsunami is just better. It could just be randomly useful sometimes. I could run 1 bayou to support it. (With fetches and birds it wouldn't be that big a problem)



Edited By quicksilver on 1114030846

CynicalSquirrel
04-20-2005, 05:50 PM
What about something like Decimate? I've always been somewhat fond of the card and it seems like it could few a couple slots at once with its versatility.

I'm just throwing out ideas though. I really like the Wish idea and think if we get the right cards it could be just the thing this deck needs to go over the top.

cheeseman
04-20-2005, 08:04 PM
What versatility does Decimate have?

Slay
04-20-2005, 08:22 PM
Why are you giving up redundancy for such an overextended toolbox? That's one of the deck's greatest strengths, that it can get answers without using tutors/wishes. To that extent, I think that a 5 or 6 card toolbox would be good for this deck, as that would allow almost 2 full sets of whatever cards you want. It also might be worth it to squeeze a Sharpshooter or a Frog into the maindeck to make room for some more sexy stuff.
-Slay

Zirilian
04-26-2005, 10:48 AM
I agree on slay on the wish issue,and I need some sideboard tech against 'Tog,since the deck is pretty popular here in Belgium,and I got beat a few times,so I feel I need some sideboard answers.

quicksilver
04-26-2005, 11:05 AM
This deck usually has a very good game against tog and is the easiest control match up out there. But if you still feel you need more may I suggest Burning wish. Tsunamiing or Ruinationing for a one sided amegedon seems pretty good. Cards like phyrexian furnace are also good cause it slows them down in time for you FTKs to be even more of a beating against them.

Zirilian
04-27-2005, 03:17 PM
Quicksilver:Post-sb,my matchup is indeed a lot better,furnaces really help,I had 2 on the board,and his 'tog couldn't get bigger than 2/3 :D.

I have one slot open in the sb now that anti-tog tech has been proved obsolete,but I have no idea what to play :(

4 Phyrexian Furnace
4 Naturalize
1 Dwarven Blastminer
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Spore Frog
1 Goblin sharpshooter
1 Dosan the Falling leaf
1 Duplicant

Suggestions would be nice,my meta is kind of random,most of the decks considered DTB are there.

Zirilian
05-04-2005, 01:56 PM
Sorry about the doublepost,but I'm afraid noone will notice it if I just edited it in my previous post.

Has using basking rootwalla's been considered for this deck?
I'm testing them,and they're really nice so far :).
One thing I always hated,was my second turn,since I never have chump-blockers exept for a Birds of Paradise or Llanowar elf,which I didn't want to waste (it would destroy your tempo).
I believe rootwalla's help,as a turn 2 chumper.
Also,you can play them at instant speed for some blocking your opponent doesn't see coming.

quicksilver
05-05-2005, 10:15 AM
You SB options seem decent. With the troll I'd run it main or not at all. It doesn't really improve any specific match up. As for the rootwallas they are a cute little trick. But against sligh they can just burn it out of the way, and with a survival out, you have plenty of other optios that are normally better. The deck likes to use a lot of it's mana during your turn, and leaving two mana for the rootwalla is kinda like destroying two of your own lands. It is just a small subpar creature with nearly enough discard outlets to make it good.

worsel
05-06-2005, 01:43 PM
quicksilver,

How did you find your new land base? Are 2 mountains necessary, or is 1 ok? Would more forests be better? Do you need all 6 search lands?

Have you decided on a new sideboard list yet?

Are there any maindeck changes that you'd make?

Zirilian
05-06-2005, 02:35 PM
Quicksilver:Why don't you use Quirion ranger and/or wirewood symbiote?
They allow for nice combat tricks,symbiote can save rofellos,and quirion can save your lands from being wasted.
Also,with rofellos,you have much better mana-producing.

Here's my list,implementing them:

1CC
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Llanowar Elves
1 Quirion Ranger
1 wirewood symbiote
1 spore frog

2CC
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Survival of the Fittest

3CC
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Eternal Witness
2 Yavimaya elder
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

4CC
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Ravenous Baloth
1 Anger

5CC
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Shivan wurm
1 Genesis

Land
12 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Mountain


// sideboard
4 Phyrexian Furnace-->madness,reanimator,...
4 Naturalize-->any survival deck,...
1 Troll Ascetic-->Control, Zoo
2 gaea’s blessing-->Brainfreeze based combo
1 Masticore-->Angel Stompy, aggro
1 Goblin sharpshooter-->Weenie decks
1 Dosan the Falling leaf-->Solidarity
1 Duplicant-->Angel Stompy,reanimator

I'd really recommend you try them :)

worsel
05-06-2005, 02:56 PM
I have another question:

How do we beat Ankh-Sligh... it's such fast burn!

Zirilian
05-06-2005, 03:16 PM
Ankh-sligh ???
When did that become playable?

Anyway,I think baloths are the key here,as they'll run out of gas pretty fast when you gain life :)

Slay
05-08-2005, 05:26 PM
Llanowar elves > Ankh of Mishra. You're really only looking at 6-ish damage before you completely take control with Ravenous Baloth recursion, so they have to have 14 damage by turn 4. That isn't too good odds, even though it's quite doable.

But some games, SA just loses to ultra-dedicated decks.
-Slay

midnightAce
05-08-2005, 05:47 PM
That Ankh-sligh was very playable. I had to board in 8 cards against it. I was playing UR Landstill, SBed in 2 Chills, 3 BEB, and 3 Annul. Yes, I have reasons to side in Annul.

That Ankh was particular in build. Runs 4 Ankh, 4 Scepters, and uses a combination of Shrapnel Blasts and Fireblasts for finishers. The most frightening part was the Forks, As a result, I watched worsel's game, the turn that he is about to cast the Baloth was often the turn he died. With the combination of Fork on Scepter, even Baloth recursion didn't help.

EDIT: If anybody's interested in that Ankh decklist, tell me which thread to post it in.

CynicalSquirrel
05-15-2005, 12:12 AM
There's a new SoK card coming out that might have potential in this deck:


Arashi, the Sky Asunder 3GG

Legendary Creature - Spirit

XGT: Arashi, the Sky Asunder deals X damage to target creature with flying.

Channel: XGG, discard Arashi: Arashi deals X damage to each creature with flying.

5/5

5 mana for a 5/5, and you can kill irritating fliers with it. Or, you can just Survival it up and use the Channel to kill off every flier on the board if necessary. Seems at least semi-viable against Madness or Angel Stompy, and maybe other random decks you could run into. Thoughts?

quicksilver
05-15-2005, 10:36 AM
Yeah I thought about him, but the main problem is that he just costs so much darn mana. He'll take 7 mana to kill an exalted angel, that's a lot especially if they take out your rofellos. And if you have 7 mana, why not just do an FTK and sharpshooter, putting you in a better board position too.

Against decks like madness, it will take a lot of mana to kill wurms. By the time you get enough mana you may be dead. It is also hard to resolve a survival in that matchup.

The card is about on the level of tornado elemental or silklash spider.

Personally I like the burning wish option. Against Angel stompy just go for anarchy, and against other flying decks you can go for whirlwind. You can easily pull either of those off by turn 3 if you wanted, much faster than Arashi.

Another option if you don't want to go with the wish path, you can run Matsu-Tribe Sniper. It can stop two flier and costs much less than any other option.



Edited By quicksilver on 1116193785

Zilla
05-15-2005, 06:30 PM
He'll take 7 mana to kill an exalted angel, that's a lot especially if they take out your rofellos. And if you have 7 mana, why not just do an FTK and sharpshooter, putting you in a better board position too.
Mostly true... the exception being that in my testing (and I've tested this from both sides of the board), SoFI on Angel puts it completely out of reach for your removal due both to the +2 toughness, and the pro:red. Arashi is an advantage, at least in that regard. However, like you said, 7 mana is spendy, and with the pump it's even worse. In my experience, your strongest removal tool by far against Angel Stompy is Duplicant from the board.

midnightAce
05-15-2005, 07:18 PM
The original idea was brought up in IBA's Big Machine thread, thought was kind of techy, see if it applies here.

For the Burning Wish version, is it possible to fit in a single Living Wish in the SB, and thereby having the ability of wishing for socery bullets as well as creature bullets, ie. Spore Frog lock first game against aggro to seal the game, or recovering StPed Roffelo, or Duplicant for fattie removal, etc.

Zirilian
05-16-2005, 03:22 AM
I like it :)
I think we should use it,that way we have acces to great stuff pre-board.
Only thing is:What to cut for the 4 wishes?

RGSA

Utility
4 Eternal Witness
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Spore Frog
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Anger
1 Genesis

Mana
12 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Mountain
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Engine
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Beaters
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Troll Ascetic
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Shivan wurm


//Sideboard
4 Null rod
4 pyrexian furnace
3 naturalize
2 Gaea's blessing
1 duplicant
1 Masticore

Nothing is cuttable,really :(

midnightAce
05-16-2005, 04:01 AM
Sorry, I wasn't being very clear, the 1 Living Wish suggestion was to quicksilver's Burning Wish version of the RGSur, which can be found on page 4.

Solomox
05-16-2005, 01:51 PM
Burning Wish -> Living Wish -> creature seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to grab a creature. Also, you start running out of room in the SB. 4 mana (tempo- wise) and the lost flexibility that the Burning Wish could have provided seem to override what the Living Wish offerred.

Zirilian
05-17-2005, 02:28 PM
A new card from SoK:

Pithing Needle
When ~ comes into play,name a card.
Activated abilities of the named card can't be played.


I think this card should be included,it wrecks belcher good (way better than 0-rod) because of its low cost.
Also,this is pretty damn strong against us,so I think this is yet another reason to play B. wish ,since I don't feel like having a useless SoTF out with no way to fetch artifact removal.

bigbear102
06-28-2005, 01:54 PM
I have been playing this for a few weeks now and have been getting crushed by 2 decks consistently, Solidarity and Landstill.

I have tried the Blessings for Solidarity, and they just don't work (Stifle, or another BF in response). I have tried boil, that doesn't help much either (By the time I cast it he goes off in response or counters it, not very often does it stop him, even on turn 3). I have had some success with Defense Grid + Dosan, Dosan didn't work on his own because of bounce, but together they work well.
Any suggestions that I haven't tried for solidarity would be much appreciated.

The Landstill match is a different story. For those of you who know him my opponent is Geoff Smelski. My own play errors have beaten me several times, but even when I play correctly I seem to lose every game. I went 3-1 at Altered losing to Geoff in round 4 and the finals. Any decent SB tech would be appreciated.

BTW: I strongly endorse trying the Wirewood symbiote + Quirion ranger, the 2 together create immense amounts of mana, I dealt 19 damage on turn 4 with Deranged hermit, rofellos, and those 2.

Gaea's Cradle is also an amazing card in this deck. I play 2 and have loved them. Wasteland usually doesn't hurt you because you get 3-4 mana minimum the turn it comes in, which makes it worth it right there. You can also get them back with witness, and normally the 2nd one drawn gets played immediately because the first was wasted. Overall they are an amazing card, most importantly in the mirror where Rofellos dies easily.

Zilla
06-28-2005, 03:14 PM
Any suggestions that I haven't tried for solidarity would be much appreciated.
Try Pyrostatic Pillar as a 4-of. It's Vial Goblins' answer to Solidarity, and it works fairly well there. If you find that's not enough, you could try 4x REB in conjunction with Pillar. This protects your Pillars from FoW, can kill their Wish when they try to remove it, or can be aimed directly at High Tide, which in itself can be enough to stall them long enough for you to push through the win. REB is also decent in the Landstill matchup as a way to force through key threats or to keep Standstill off the table.

Carney2k4
06-28-2005, 06:30 PM
I have tried the Blessings for Solidarity, and they just don't work (Stifle, or another BF in response). I have tried boil, that doesn't help much either (By the time I cast it he goes off in response or counters it, not very often does it stop him, even on turn 3). I have had some success with Defense Grid + Dosan, Dosan didn't work on his own because of bounce, but together they work well.
Any suggestions that I haven't tried for solidarity would be much appreciated.
Boil should be used during their turn, making them have to use Turnabouts as their only untap effect to go off, or should be cast during their combo. Remember, Boil is an instant, and should be used as such.

REB, Pillar, and the 1GG Druid guy that makes them take 4 for each instant that they cast past the first each turn are all good choices for Anti Solidarity tech.

baptist
07-05-2005, 02:42 PM
I have doubts about the matchup against landstill. My testing so far showed that RGSA has big troubles in beating landstill. Even if I board choke in, they can easily remove it with a disenchant (after board they have 4 of them).

So my question is: what do you board against landstill?

Do you only board 4 choke or also naturalize or dosan?

Zirilian
07-05-2005, 02:56 PM
Well, landstill shouldn't be an overly difficult match...
You have too many must-counters or cards they have to remove, they can't counter/remove everything, you know :)

The Professional N00b
07-05-2005, 09:29 PM
Well, if you have problems with Landstill, or anyother other control deck for that matter, you could always go with one maindeck Gigapeade. It's a large recurable threat that comes back after Wrath/ Counter effects. Gigapeade is a MUST counter for any control player considering he is untargetable. In other matchups you could use Gigapeade as a constant blocker/beater. This should better your matchup with Landstill or anyother control deck you are having problems with. :D

l_neiman
07-05-2005, 10:18 PM
Has anyone thought of Biorhythm as a potential Burning Wish target? It seems like 8 mana won't be hard to come by a lot of times, with Rofellos and our other accelerators. It seems like having an "I win" Wish target might be good. I'm not sure what specific decks it would be good against, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Quicksilver: have you made any other changes to the deck since Saviors became legal, or are you still happy with the maindeck you listed a few pages back?

Luis

Zilla
07-06-2005, 02:58 AM
Has anyone thought of Biorhythm as a potential Burning Wish target? It seems like 8 mana won't be hard to come by a lot of times, with Rofellos and our other accelerators. It seems like having an "I win" Wish target might be good. I'm not sure what specific decks it would be good against, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
The deck doesn't have any Burning Wishes in it. That might be a hindrance to the whole Biorhythm plan. Are you proposing running Burning Wish in the main? Because it seems like that's going to harm the deck's overall consistency, being that they're not creatures and all.

quicksilver
07-06-2005, 03:38 AM
The deck doesn't have any Burning Wishes in it. That might be a hindrance to the whole Biorhythm plan. Are you proposing running Burning Wish in the main? Because it seems like that's going to harm the deck's overall consistency, being that they're not creatures and all.

The deck does run burning wish in it. An no it does not harm the overall consitancy, it improves it. Where have you been this was announced like 3 months ago.

Zilla
07-06-2005, 05:31 AM
The deck does run burning wish in it.
News to me. I see plenty of people playing RGSA and I've never ever once come across a build with Wish in it aside from yours, which I didn't notice because it was in a decklist two pages back as opposed to edited into the opening post where it should be. No offense.

l_neiman
07-06-2005, 08:44 AM
Putting aside this confusion over whether or not Burning Wishes are in the deck, any thoughts on Biorhythm? Is it too expensive for its effect, or could it come in handy?

Luis

noobslayer
07-06-2005, 10:17 AM
I could I only see it having some use against combo. But 8 mana!?!? Please, they should be ashamed if they hadn't gone off yet or don't have a counter for it.

Somewhere in there I know I said something stupid.

baptist
07-07-2005, 02:25 AM
It's still unproven that the burning wish version is superior to the version that doesn't use them.

Against vialgobbos you can wish for pyroclasm what is a bomb against them. But does it improve the landstill matchup? I don't think so.

midnightAce
07-07-2005, 02:32 AM
It actually does. With mainboard E.Witness, after Wishing for a Ruination, or Tsunami or even Decree of Annilation, these are must counters for Landstill, even with a Crucible on the table, they can't afford to let these things resolve. By the time they build up mana to Wrath/Disk/Vengence time, your Baloth/Troll has already dished out 12 to 16 points of damage, where is pretty much game for Landstill, since you can E.Witness them back over and over and force another Ruination/Tsuami/Decree through.

quicksilver
07-07-2005, 02:37 AM
Yes burning wish is very good against landstill. It was the main match up that it was put in there for. Not only does it allow for lethal land destruction, but also handles humility if that hits.

Zirilian
07-07-2005, 08:10 AM
Quicksilver-could you post your current builds, both the non-wish and the one with wishes included?

hanks :)

baptist
07-11-2005, 10:04 AM
What changes would you make to the MD if you know a lot of the meta will be landstill?

Would you drop to 2 kavu and change them by river boa?

Would you drop 1 elder and replace them by a river boa?

With this changes I would have 4 troll ascetic and 3 river boa MD.

Just some thoughts I had in mind. But would it drasticly increase this matchup?

Mulletus
07-12-2005, 04:27 PM
I run Biorythm in my sideboard, if I see there is a large number of combo and control decks. My wish targets are: Tsunami, Flashfires, Ruination, hull Breach, Regrowth, Pyroclasm, Biorythm, Reverent Silence. I have Gaea's Blessing too, but it's never a target.

AngryTroll
07-12-2005, 05:22 PM
I am also concerned about Landstill and other Control decks.

RGSA should be able to beat control, with the high number of "must-counters", but more often then not, Lanstill stabalizes, then Wraths away all of our threats and manages to win from there. I was also thinking along the lines of River Boa, and possibly Isao, Enlightened Bushi. 3 or 4 Boas and 1 Isao might help.....but I don't know that it actually will. Running 1 Caller of the Claw can also be useful against Wrath, but again, a single counter wrecks that.

With the sideboard, I have been tossing around the idea of 3 Choke and 4 Boil (this is obviously the non Burning Wish version of the deck) to try and hamper the control player. Resolving a Boil is not an auto-win, but it certainly buys you turns to try and win.

RGSA has an extremely solid matchup against Aggro and Aggro-Control (UG Madness), but against Control it often comes up lacking, and against combo the best you can do is hope for a fizzle. What can be done to improve the control matchup without losing what the deck has against aggro?

lyle h
07-14-2005, 11:07 PM
I don't think things like Isao and River Boa to "combat" Landstill are the tool we need to combat Landstill. The long game usually draws out a little bit for me against Landstill in a Wrath-Genesis war. Usually the mana to be able to pay a single mana more for Troll Ascetic and having a creature that can't be STP' is most advantageous. I don't think we should be including cards with islandwalk to solve the problem. 4 of the cards in their deck that are used to combat creatures be useless is a very good thing while trying to keep an advantage over your opponent.


The problem with this deck's game against combo is the decks main weakness. This question has been asked more times than I could begin to count yet I never see a good answer to it.

quicksilver
07-15-2005, 01:54 AM
@baptist:
For landstill I would never put in river boa against it. That's just terrible since every single card in there deck can answer it with ease. Elder is way better than river boa.
I would never cut kavu's from the main unless there were no creatures in the format.

@Mulletus:
And the only match I would ever want biorythm for is against life. You have better wish targets against every other combo deck out there.

@ lyle h:
To beat combo you can do one of two things:

1. Put cards in the SB that are useful against a specific combo match. Example: null rod against belcher.

2. Add the black splash for duress and cabal therapy. With the black splash you of course gain better matchups against combo, like solidarity, but worse match ups against agro, like vial goblins.

So in conclusion, there is no cure-all for combo decks, you have to sacrifice something to gain something. It is just what you expect the meta to be like.

SpatulaOfTheAges
07-18-2005, 08:19 PM
With the sideboard, I have been tossing around the idea of 3 Choke and 4 Boil (this is obviously the non Burning Wish version of the deck) to try and hamper the control player. Resolving a Boil is not an auto-win, but it certainly buys you turns to try and win.

In my testing with Vial Goblins vs Landstill, I found that Flashfires was far more effective than Boil, since you only care about their white cards; Wrath of God, and in some versions, Vengeance, plus SB cards like Humility. The same seems like it would apply to RGSA.

l_neiman
07-18-2005, 08:21 PM
Flashfires also has obvious synergy with the Burning Wish build that quicksilver has been advocating...

Luis

quicksilver
07-18-2005, 09:29 PM
Actaully the white cards are the cards I care the least about generally. Which is why I found the blasts to be not only very good against solidarity but also against landstill. Allowing you to force spells through there counters, and allowing you to shut off there card advantage by countering standstill.

Unlike vial goblins which really likes to beat down fast, this deck is much more controling and tries to resolve something rediculous, like survival or burning wish. And generally a burning wish for ruination or tsunami will be better than one for flashfires, since they run so few basic plains. And there really isn't much room in the SB for flashfires.

midnightAce
07-19-2005, 06:16 PM
I'm just wondering if the Channel ability guys from SoK have been considered for a spot in mainboard as 1ofs, especially the green one.

Arashi, the Sky Asunder
3GG
XG, Tap: Arashi, the Sky Asunder deals X damage to target creature with flying.
Channel - XGG, discard Arashi: Arashi deals X damage to each creature with flying.
5/5

Jiwari, the Earth Aflame
3RR
XR, Tap Jiwari, the Earth Aflame deals X damage to target creature without flying.
Channel - XRRR, Discard Jiwari: Jiwari deals X damage to each creature without flying.
3/3

With the popularity on the rise for Gro varients as well as Fish varients, these two can really wreck house against the two archtype. While Burning Wish for Pyroclasm does the job, the Channel ability is uncouterable short of Stifle and it's instant speed. Especially the green one, 5cc for 5/5 with no drawbacks, double serves as a beat stick. Based on the BAII results, the field composed contains quite a bit of aggro/aggro control decks. RGSur suppose to have a good matchup against these decks... I'm looking forward to see the deck compete in GenCon.

Mulletus
07-20-2005, 10:32 AM
I have put thought towards the green guy Arashi. Both have two great abilities, but he has a great abilities and is a 5/5 for 5cc. I doubt he will ever be a main deck dude, and I wonder what you would take out of the sideboard to play him at all.

The red guy, Jiwari, is just a 3/3, and his channel ability costs RRR to start. So with him, 4 mana would make a 1 point creature only earthquake, and 3 of the mana has to be red. A Burning Wish for a Pyroclasm, costs 4 mana also, but does 2 dmg to all creatures and only needs 2 red mana to work. That coupled with his tap ability not besting FTK's come into play ability and Sharpahooters untappy-ness, I think this guy doesn't belong.

VElmdor
08-03-2005, 12:13 PM
Has anyone considered Ichneumon Druid for the Soliditary matchup? This would be much better then running Pyrostatic Pillar because it is fetchable with Survival. The Burning Wish version runs Boil/Tsunami but my suggestion is mainly for the non Burning Wish version. I think it could help the Burning Wish version if you can't find the Wish in time. I find it to be a good card unless they have Cunning Wish in hand as you cast it. This card has improved my Soliditary matchup rather than just running Burning Wish and Tsunami. That's just my 2 cents worth.

Ewokslayer
08-04-2005, 12:21 PM
Well, I took this deck to the Mox tournament in VA, so I figured I should talk about my thoughts on the deck and some of the changes I made to for the tournament.

For reference the changes I made are as follows.

-4 Burning Wish
+3 Jitte
+1 Goblin Sharpshooter

-4 Birds of Paridise
+4 Fyndhorn Elves

-1 FTK
+1 Baloth

I removed the Burning Wishes because while the versatilty was nice, it was both slow and not always as powerful as I would like. Plus I felt the Jittes would offer about the same versatilty but on a greater power level. I was not at all disappointed with the Jittes as they controlled the game whenever they saw play.
As a result of the switch to Jittes and the high presence of Vial Goblins in the meta I switch out the Birds for more elves. The elves can activate the Jittes and trade with a first turn lackey. This was another change that I think went well as I never ran into color issues. However, the lack of birds did require that I give up any possible black splash for combo, but seeing as I have never seen the black splash truly work I don't feel that it was a significant loss.

The presence of Vial Goblins also is the reason behind the 2nd Sharpshooter as I wanted to have a greater chance to draw one naturally as well as have two in play to kill their board.

The switch out of one FTK for one Baloth was to improve the burn matchup. The 3 Baloths and 3 Jittes made the burn matchup quiet a bit easier than otherwise.

The Sideboard that I brought to the tournament was as follows:
4 Pyrostatic Pillars
4 Pyroclasms
1 Spore Frog
1 Orcish Settlers
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Duplicant
3 Naturalize

Overall, I think the sideboard was ok, I never saw the settlers which was unfortunate as I think that might have helped me against Mono Black.

Which brings me to a question.

Does the deck need some sort of reach?
In both games I was able to get the MBC deck down to 1 life before he stabilized for a few turns and then burned me out.
I know that the Sharpshooters provide some reach but not usually a significant amount. I also know that the Burning Wish version can stick a fireball in the side to take care of this problem, however I think Jitte is too good to be removed and the presence of both in the main is probably too many non-creature spells.
I have been attempt to find a creature that could fit in the main or side that could give the deck a survivable way to burn the opponent out.
At first I was thinking of Cinder Elemental but then I looked up its casting cost. Then I thought of Pain Kami but then actually read the card so it is a no go as well. Finally, I thought of Ghitu Slinger.
Could Ghitu Slinger have a place in the deck?
It provides removal a turn before FTK so it has a place in the curve.
It can combo with Genesis to provide a recurring source of damage. (Granted, every other turn, but still recurring)
However, it would be clearly weaker than any card it replaces in terms of pure power level.
Maybe I am just going down the wrong path?
Perhaps the deck can support some amount of Burning Wishes and Jittes.

djfu2002
08-04-2005, 02:12 PM
@ewokslayer
I was wondering, did you play against any landstill decks at the NoVA tourny, and if so what were the results.

On another note I was wonder if Burning Wish sufficiently helps the landstill match up. And who is favored in the RGSA with Burning Wish vs. Landstill matchup?

Ewokslayer
08-04-2005, 05:19 PM
I played against Bob the Belcher in one round and didn't really have a problem. I won 1-0 in the match. The Jittes were very good in that matchup especially paired with troll. It effectively negated his manlands.
Other decks I played against were
Sligh twice (same player Rd1 and top 8)
U/G/W Gro
Vial Goblins
MBC twice (different builds)

Obfuscate Freely
08-04-2005, 06:02 PM
Mogg Fanatic is by far the best direct-damage creature, followed by Grim Lavamancer. Both cards are leagues better than Ghitu Slinger.

Fanatic is also amazing to have against Vial Goblins, while Lavamancer can be pretty strong against control (though RG is slow at filling the yard without Survival). Fanatic forms a decent combo with Genesis, while a late-game Lavamancer doesn't need Genesis at all. I'm not sure which would be better.

Of course, neither of them is as big as Baloth, Troll, or Flametongue. Trying to fit in such wimpy creatures will affect your threat density.

I know that old Secret Force decks used to use Squallmonger as a form of reach. As long as you have a higher life total, you can "hurricane" your opponent to death while beating with a 3/3. Squallmonger is also a decent utility creature to have available, since she murders Fish and can even conceivably take down large flyers with the help of Rofellos. Perhaps she's closer to what you're looking for.

Although I personally love Fanatic in Survival decks.

Mulletus
08-16-2005, 05:24 AM
OK, I know you are all going to rip me apart fpr this post. That's ok, I'm drunk. I have added a card that dates back to old school 'LaCasse Beats'. It still works in my meta-game, and it's techy late game.

Orcish Lumberjack

I went down to 3 elves and replaced it with a Lumberjack.

GOOD:
first turn play: can mean 5 mana turn 2
counter target
removal target
blocker (lackey)
Yavimaya Elder, and Eternal Witness make up for the loss
1/1 red creature (hate, wasteland limits)
Must Counter: control really should get rid of him unless they are going to win either way.
Late game - he is a creature and he isn't green


BAD:
Rofellos - lets face it if Rofellos was gunna work you'd survival the lumberjack for the win
LD decks- LD is rare, change strategy

Overall, a '1-of' adds more than it deprives. This still won't need a survival to win. Plus if you have a lumberjack, 1 land, and a 4cc card fom this deck on turn two.... you have advantage enough to wait for their reaponse.

Jesus
08-16-2005, 01:52 PM
I'm not sure i understand what your saying, you think playing the lumberjack is better then rofello's? and that sacing your entire field for the win and having it Countered is better?

blacklotus3636
08-16-2005, 03:50 PM
I've played survival advantage alot and I can safely say rofellos is much better in RGSA because it takes so many survival activations to win however lumberjack is light years better than rofellos in welder survival because your already running few forests(welder survival runs some moxes and some artifact lands for survival food)and you only need two or three activations to win so if you use the lumberjack just once with a survival out in that version you'll usually win but in RGSA the short mana boost won't do too much

Mulletus
08-16-2005, 03:51 PM
No, I mean 3 llanowar elves, and 1 lumberjack. The lumberjack is bad with Rofellos, Rofellos is great all the other times. I was listing bad points for using a lumberjack. I, in no way, meant to take Rofellos out for a lumberjack.

cpt_ginu
08-21-2005, 06:31 PM
OK just wanted to jump in with my experiences w/ the burning wish version of this deck. I ran a completely sub par wish board but i can honestly say that the wishes performed better than expected and helped me win 2 matches putting me in 22nd place overall and if Noah Scwartz hadnt topdecked the incenirator that he needed and then cycled into o ne of the 3 gobbs that would win him the game (4 copies total) i woud have been top 8. The burning wish version rolls almost anything and makes keeping nonsurvival hands much easier. Try it out. Trust me.

Ewokslayer
08-22-2005, 12:00 PM
I am curious if anyone has tested the Vial Goblins matchup post Goblin King errata? I would imagine that mountainwalk is going to be a big kick in the junk for this deck, especially considering all the ways that goblins has to get around frog lock.

Pravettoni
08-22-2005, 04:16 PM
Hi guys
I'm new to the legacy format and lately I've been testing this deck, especially vs vial goblin, which I think is going to be one of the strongest and more popular deck in the format, especially in my meta.
I havent tested with side yet, but with main the gob seems to have a slightly favourable match-up (and that's worrying, cuz usually they have a better side than you)
It can just go off very fast before you can take board control, or even if you get it, it can just steal games with one big attack with the warchief, a fat driver and the damn goblin-faqed-king (just like madness does with wonder)
So I was thinking to some adjustments
I'm going to test wall of blossoms over elves.
I know it is going to slow down the deck a bit, but in exchange it is a solid 0/5 blocker, doesn't need to tap for mana, so can prevent a lot of early damage.
So I think I'm going to drop 4 elves for 3 walls and the 22th land (found too many times with less lands than wanted...)
I wanna know your thoughts about that.

Plus I think I'm dropping one of the sharpshooters for a goblin pyromancer :p
It is a meta choice, and vs gobs it is a one-sided wrath of god.

Fos SB (whish-less version) I dont have great ideas... maybe pyroclasm... it hurst me a little too, but again is great vs goblin and other random aggros

My Name Is Scott
08-22-2005, 06:10 PM
Pyromancer is too easy for goblins to deal with and too dead against lots of stuff to run in the main. The second sharpshooter is much better(Just in case they happen to run removal!:p ).

Odd Mutation
08-22-2005, 07:11 PM
Hi All,

Vial Goblins is truly a very good deck and you get to see it more and more. In a recent tournement I played in (35 contestants) there were 4 good lists of Goblins (Vial Goblins) and a few random lists.

When I was testing Survival Advantage versus Goblins I noticed that I won when I resolved a Pyroclasm. That's why I put 4 Pyroclasms and two Earthquakes in the sideboard just to deal with that particular matchup. I'm under the impression that, without drawing one of those two, you don't win against Vial Goblins. Baloth is really good and Flametongue shines but those Goblins are REALLY fast! I got so nervous about my draw that I upped the number of Earthquakes to three. If you can wipe the board turn two or three you have a very good chance of winning, if you can't it gets really hard.

I also play the deck with 4 Eternal Witness as they are just incredibly good! As well against Control as against Goblins as against anything else I came across. Sometimes they get me back a Pyroclasm, sometimes a Survival, sometimes even a land...

In the end I went with Landstill though... and only lost to Vial Goblins!!! Two of my opponents brought Vial Goblins and were actually the best players I faced all day and that for my worst matchup.

Greetings,

Odd Mute.

Mulletus
08-28-2005, 02:19 AM
I do like the idea of making more room for earthquakes and pyroclasms. But Goblins is getting so out of hand with the goblin king unblackability with RGSA's need for anger.... Leads me to go back to silent arbiter for this deck. I seems that everyone tossed it aside after the recruiter got banned. Green has bigger creatures! Even if the goblin has mountainwalk, it's just one. I still have shivan wurm in my build.... One goblin blocking that.... we'll see this sunday at altered prices.

Zilla
08-28-2005, 06:03 AM
Is it really going to be that difficult for them to find a Gempalm and use it to whack your Arbiter? The Arbiter itself slows your own clock to the point where this is a reliable strategy for them, does it not?

Zirilian
08-28-2005, 07:20 AM
Zilla has a point there, and it also seems pretty slow,and it only prevents them from using their horde kill, they can also go for Shooter+Siege gang commander and kill you that way, which shouldn't be hard considering they probably did a fair amount of damage those first few turns.

I think the solution is to play more pyroclasm, like mute suggested.

baptist
08-30-2005, 08:57 AM
Pyroclasm is certainly one of the best cards against goblins but there is one problem: goblin king.

Why not play with burning wish so that you can reach pyroclasm in game one?

Genesis
08-30-2005, 11:23 AM
Lately I've seen builds that splash white and run 4 x Glowrider. Do you think that the effect it has on other decks, Solidarity for example, is worth splashing a 3rd colour?

MattH
08-30-2005, 12:48 PM
Pyroclasm is certainly one of the best cards against goblins but there is one problem: goblin king.

Why not play with burning wish so that you can reach pyroclasm in game one?
This is not avctually a problem unless they have multiple Kings in play, because they do not pump themselves. If I Clasm, it will kill your King, and oh look all your 3/3 Ringleaders are now 2/2s with 2 damage. They die too.

Mulletus
08-31-2005, 04:03 PM
Silent arbitor fits in the 4 mana curve. With gempalm, the oppponent needs 5 goblins. Correct that is not very difficult, but I will have several ftk's, my own sharpshooter, and burning wish to keep their goblin count down. Not to mention they can only block my shivan wurm with one goblin. That's a race I like, 3 unblocked attacks is lethal. And if they do block, that's usually 4 attacks to be lethal, not to mention the goblin will die and lower gempalm's effectiveness. Their single goblin attacking will die, unless they have Elvis, at which point I have spore frog, or life gain to make the differece. Silent arbitor puts me on the offensive again right away, they need to gempalm or die.

Elvis is a goblin now, so they do pump themselves. That's why I added the arbitor. Unless they were errata'd to say each other goblin, it's a 3/3 for 1RR with mountainwalk.

Rivs
08-31-2005, 05:07 PM
Of course, you do know they now read:
"Other goblins gain +1/+1 and have mountainwalk"

But i like your reasoning on arbiter, it at least convinced me to try it out.

Destavi
09-05-2005, 11:49 PM
If anyone is still playing this deck, I've got a question for you. With the popularity of Pithing Needle, how has R/G changed to combat the new 1 mana answer to your deck? Is it still viable? If so what are considered its strong matchups? I know it has a bad matchup against combo. Against control (Landstill) It seems like all they have to do is counter/disenchant Survival and they win. And then all the other decks are playing Needle. Do you just side in 4 Naturalize and pray?

Slay
09-05-2005, 11:56 PM
RGSA is one of the best topdecking decks in Legacy right now. Basically all you do with RGSA is keep trading card for card because you have enought 2-for-1s to come out ahead. Needle is much less a threat to RGSA than other Survival decks. Besides that, you stomp on Goblins in a harsh way, so that's a major plus to playing the deck.
-Slay

Mulletus
09-16-2005, 03:42 PM
My answer to Pithing Needle is laughter. I so rarely have Survival out, that it barely works against me. This deck doesn't need Survival to win. Not to mention Burning Wish can get rid of multiple artifacts with Meltdown, or Seeds of Innocence. I am running hull Breach at the moment. All could change with the new set and portal cards coming out.

lyle h
09-18-2005, 12:10 PM
I must agree with mulettus. Pithing Needles are a horrible strategy against this deck, if youi are playing that, you are not solving your problem and I will topdeck answers and beat you down. I can't think of any game where needle has screwed me. Usually I don't even find myself wasting a wish on destroying it, it's that bad of a strategy against us.

cpt_ginu
09-18-2005, 12:15 PM
OK well Ive been working on a version of survival advantage to try to make it more of a contender in the current meta. This may seem a strange list but I have put time into testing this against the matchups where i believe it to be important.

//NAME: GR/b survival
1 Genesis
2 Yavimaya Elder
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Burning Wish
2 Eternal Witness
4 Flametongue Kavu
1 Anger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Wall of Roots
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
8 Forest
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
2 Bayou
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Whirlwind
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Seeds of Innocence
SB: 1 Anarchy
SB: 1 Orcish Settlers
SB: 1 Tsunami
SB: 3 Duress
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast

Ok well as for wierd cards lets go over some of them...

4 burning wishes: To increase consistancy I've removed the majority of the 1-ofs from the deck and added 4 burning wishes. Basicaly I got tired topdecked a sex monkey with the only artifact being your SoFI, not cool basicaly drwing dead there. But a burning wish should never be a dead card.

Sivan wurm, Hermit: Essentially I found that i could reasonably hit 4 mana early every game but needing to hit 5 made these guys a dead card some times...removed for consistancy and room.

Rofellos: Due to adding a black splash he lost his effectiveness. Plus he mostly got swords'd anyways.

On the issue of the splash in general... Against most decks it may not even ever make a difference but where this actually will greatly improve your matches is Combo (big surprise).

With this in mind i've tried to make the deck able to find it's one needed black source by turn 3 and as long a combo doesnt run wastelands you'll find it no prob. Against other decks Ive found that it really hasn't impacted the matchup appreciably.

The Sideboard:
Mostly metagamed to have an "out" versus most concieveable situations you find yourself in. The 4 brurning wishes allow me to reliably find my outs when i need them. The nonwish-able cards are pretty obvious what they are for with the settlers being pure gold vs. landstill and the rebs being good in a lot of situations.

Testing results:

Goblins about 60/40 in my favor. Games 2/3 are tougher for us since they can find their boarded in king (if it wasn't maindeck). But they will get one swing out of him. Im usually able to stabalize. Survival is usually not played in this match up until turn 4/5. if you get it going with 5 mana then you should win that game barring something stupid wicked by your opp.

Landstill: With the burning wishes and black splash this one usually comes down to like 55/45 in our favor but can be increased with enough practice and is heavily dependant on getting survival out and getting genesis into the yard along with the orcish settler. Play survival as early as possiable hopefully turn 1.

Solidarity: If you see a burning wish in your opening grip game 1 you have lots of options:cabal therapy, tsunami, and extraction. Each one actually eaither gives you the needed time or wins you the game. Games 2/3 you basically hold even boarding in 3 duress and 4reb+ the settlers while they bring in 8 blasts. If they dont you come out ahead.

Angel Stompy: Burning wish -->anarchy, nuff said. Thats of course the best case scenario, but you should be able to hold out for it, i havent tested this matchup enough.

Other agro: You out aggro.

Burn/sligh: Baloths and surviaval/genesis will doom them. 8 life points and a baloth every turn is fine.

Well I'd like to hear what all you guys think about my version.

Ewokslayer
09-19-2005, 08:14 AM
Solidarity: If you see a burning wish in your opening grip game 1 you have lots of options:cabal therapy, tsunami, and extraction. Each one actually eaither gives you the needed time or wins you the game. Games 2/3 you basically hold even boarding in 3 duress and 4reb+ the settlers while they bring in 8 blasts. If they dont you come out ahead.
Why would they board in 8 blasts to stop very few red cards?
Solidarity is always going to be favored significantly in this matchup because RG can't kill fast enough and by bringing in the disruption it just slows the kill down even more.

cpt_ginu
09-19-2005, 11:24 AM
@eok: RGSA was never fast enough to beat them anyways so slowing it down as you say is not a concern. This deck seeks to cripple them by burning wish-ing for a tsunami, then a cranial extration. I've tested the match pre and post board and they need to be reliably able to stop the first 1-2 burning wishes. As it is unlikely i will find another before they can go off. Perhaps the player was not the best but he has been plaing vintage combo for a while and we used a current list from the LMF section for solidarity.

bleonhar
09-19-2005, 02:37 PM
I have been having difficulty with the Vial Goblins match-up. What exactly makes this deck good vs. them? I run Burning Wish -> Pyroclasm but they can recover quickly from that with Aether Vial and Goblin Warchief. I'm trying Shard Phoenix in the main to Pyroclasm during the Declare Attackers step. Spore Frog doesn't seem good with all the removal in their deck. Would Naturalize for their Vials slow them down enough to stablilize? What is the general strategy for this match-up?

cpt_ginu
09-19-2005, 03:20 PM
It is a wierd matchup. You need to hit a wall of roots or another early blocker soon. Then start 2 for 1 ing them with Flametoungs and swords. You win by casting survival like turn 5-6 and survivaling a FTK every turn.

Burning wish is a sort of last out. It really isnt all that hot versus goblins. You should be able to get to the point where you can get 2 sharpshooters out and wreck face and recurr them as needed.

I guess what you need to focus on is the fact that goblins will have a faster offense and we will have a better late game. Survive the early game and win in the late.

Zirilian
09-25-2005, 09:19 AM
While I was checking the ABS boards, I noticed a topic on RGSA with some interesting ideas.
One of the ideas whas to replace BoP with fyndhorn elves, and add 1 Priest of Titania as an additional huge mana producer to Rofellos.
What do you guys think of this idea?

KillerWhiteRabbit
09-25-2005, 12:03 PM
Not a really big fan. If you're getting a large mana producer through survival, chances are it's going to be refellos, as he'll almost always produce more mana. I guess it could work if you wanted to play essentially 2 refellos late game, but I think that's about the only time it would be helpful.

quicksilver
09-25-2005, 02:44 PM
The only thing about priest of titania, is she is a win more card, you already have to have some mana producers out to use her effeciently. And you'd have to replace the birds with fyndhorn to get a noticiable benefit from her, and I am not a fan of that. Birds not only fixes your colors, but also chumps fliers. I know I would not want to have no fliers in the deck, because i have often used birds to stall out fliers like exalted angel till I could get sharpshooter ftk going.

lyle h
09-25-2005, 03:53 PM
I am not even a fan of that anymore, and if it was me who started testing it. One thing I did like about it is that it allowed me to start fetching out basic lands instead of having to fetch out taigas and make me open to wastes. I don't like it anymore anyhow. As of late I play it as a split between Fyndhorn, Birds, and Llanowar mainly because I HATE random cards like Echoing Truth or the VERY rare case where someone might Meddling Mage Llanowar elves when I am down on mana. if you play all Llanowar Elves and Birds, I strongly suggest you cosider using a split between both kinds of elves. It hardly ever comes down to it, but you never know.

I think that in RG(no splash) I really like using elves instead of birds for most of the 1 drop slots because they chump and kill off Lackey, but I can't bring myself to cut the birds entirely because they can chump block flyers as was mentioned by quicksilver. What are the rest of the Survival Advantage players thinking about this issue.

Also, how is your testing with Jitte Vs Wish? For a while I played a cut between Jittes AND wishes just for testing purposes. After a while I noticed I found myself hoping for a topdeck wish more often than a Jitte. THere are times where I LOVE seeing that Jitte, but more often, a wish has more often signifigantly changed the game in my favor and I have changed my decklist to just using wishes.

Kundalini
09-26-2005, 04:20 PM
My current testings:

Wood elf: I'm satisfied with a single copy of it; builds lands in early game, is pitched to survival later, and/or can be abused by symbiote returning to fetch multiple forests (usually taigas).

Spike feeder: I have substituted a single baloth with one of these; it serves the same purpose in life gain, is a weaker creature, costs 1 mana less (very important) and provides some protection for weaker creatures.

Spike Weaver: not a good substitute to spore frog, but I am testing both in my build; it is very useful whenever your opponent has dealt with frog lock and has sinergy with spike feeder, but I'm not too happy with this.

Sword of Fire and Ice / Umezawa's Jitte: SofI is good against control, Jitte is better against aggro... but my idea is that these are only 1x as most of your deck should consist of creatures, and that's why i run NO burning wish...

Fyndhhorn elves: It's always useful to split elves between these and llanowar (for meddling mages, and the like); what do you think is the best total number? I use 5... am trying to run just 9 forest and more mana accelerants (elves, elder...)

Elvish Skysweeper: in the sideboard, from Ravnica. I think he to be the best choice in the spot of "anti-fly" usually occupied by silklash spider, Arashi, etc.

Golgari Brownscale: one more idea from Ravnica... under a survival engine it can perform a role similar to squee, with the difference: no card advantage, but life gain. In some matchups it can be useful.

lynxcat
09-30-2005, 04:47 AM
I've been looking into this deck with greater and greater interest since it put both its players into the T8 at SCG Richmond. It's looking like a great choice, since you've got a solid Goblins matchup, SB hate for Solidarity (how come no one runs Ichneumon Druid?) and recurring Baloths to give Sligh/Burn nightmares. Hate for Survival decks is at an all-time low. Landstill with 4 Wraths also seems to be waning in popularity and effectiveness, which can only help RGSA.

The biggest question in my mind is whether or not to play Burning Wish. One list from the SCG event ran them, while the other used a more traditional list with SoFI. The added flexibility seems like a great boon. It also gives you the option to Wish for Cranial Extraction (provided you play BoPs and 1 Bayou), which should help the combo matchups a lot. This will probably become more important if the Flame Vault deck is legit. However, some players have spoken out against this, saying its unneeded and mucks up your SB.

I'm also wondering what the optimal creature base should look like. The only constants I've seen are 4x FTK, Witness and Baloth, some combination of 8 Elves, BoPs or Sakuras, and the obvious utility guys. Creatures I've seen in the other slots include Troll, Basking Rootwalla, Kamahl, Sharpshooter, Zealot, Hermits and even Shard Phoenix.

Does anyone have any strong opinions on the Wish question or what an optimal creature base should look like? Is there anything from Ravnica that we're missing?

l_neiman
09-30-2005, 01:18 PM
There doesn't seem to be much in Ravnica that could help this deck, just because the R/G Guild wasn't in the set, so unless we want to splash White or Black then there ain't much for us.

Having said that, Gleancrawler has some potential, since it lets us easily recur our Baloths without having to pay 2G for Genesis, as well as Yavimaya Elders (if we're using them). Not sure he's worth a 3GGG investment. He does trample, though, which ain't half bad, especially if we're running SoFI.

If we do want to splash White or Black, here are some options: Grave-Shell Scarab and Shambling Shell if we go with Black, and Loxodon Hierarch if we go with White.

In case anyone hasn't seen the StarCity Legacy tourney lists, here they are:

3rd - Brad Wayne

Artifacts
3 Sword Of Fire And Ice

Creatures
1 Anger
4 Birds Of Paradise
3 Eternal Witness
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Genesis
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Troll Ascetic
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Viridian Zealot

Enchantments
4 Survival Of The Fittest

Legendary Creatures
1 Kamahl, Fist Of Krosa
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Basic Lands
12 Forest
2 Mountain

Lands
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
4 Chalice Of The Void
4 Naturalize
3 Price Of Progress
4 Pyroclasm

5th - Brandon Leonhardt

Creatures
1 Anger
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds Of Paradise
1 Deranged Hermit
4 Eternal Witness
4 Flametongue Kavu
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Genesis
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Sakura-tribe Elder
1 Shard Phoenix

Enchantments
4 Survival Of The Fittest

Legendary Creatures
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Sorceries
4 Burning Wish

Basic Lands
9 Forest
4 Mountain

Lands
2 Taiga
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Pyroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Dosan The Falling Leaf
1 Pyroclasm
1 Reverent Silence
1 Ruination
1 Seeds Of Innocence
1 Tsunami

In the Burning Wish version I'm really not sold on the 4 Basking Rootwallas or the Sakura-Tribe Elders. Yes, they're useful, but I think I prefer Troll Ascetics over Rootwallas, and Llanowar/Fyndhorn Elves over the Elders. I could be wrong, however. Shard Phoenix is nice vs. Goblins, but the only guys of ours that survive that are our Baloths and Birds (and pumped Rootwallas), so unless we have one in play our board will be swept, too. Having said that it still might be good tech.

I like the SoFIs in the non-Burning Wish version, since it makes the deck more aggressive, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the loss of versatility that comes with running no Wishes.

The hury still seems to be out on Burning Wish vs. no Burning Wish. Quicksilver: any insights into this, as the pioneer of this deck?

Luis

lyle h
09-30-2005, 04:04 PM
I have been playing back and forth between Wish and Jitte versions for some time now, and I have found wish to be an annoying draw more often than not without a color splash. Wish opens up amazing flexibility with a splash. It does make the manabase more unstable, as I have grown to LOVE the RG almost unhateable manabase, but so many times, I find dead cards without a splash. Personally I prefer black, but I would really like to see some other peoples opinions on that issue as my meta isn't as well developed as I would like so sometimes I don't trust my testing.

Mulletus
10-02-2005, 07:33 PM
I have some great new sideboard ideas for what I consider to be top decks: Solodarity, and Goblins. Landstill is about a 50/50 for me so I won't include it. I should tell you that I play the burning wish version.

Solidarity:
Ichnumon Druid : the 2nd intstant cast in a turn costs you 4life, and so do the rest of intants that turn. 1GG for a 1/1 is the major drawback. If you get this guy turn two, you should get a long enough clock to win.

Goblins:
Lets face it.... if people are playing agro, they should choose goblins. Gempalm Incinerator kills their goblins, cantrips, searchable with Survival, and worse come to worse it's a 2/1 for 2R.

juventus
10-02-2005, 09:12 PM
Why not maindeck a single goblin pyromancer?

Mulletus
10-02-2005, 09:28 PM
juventus Oct. 02 2005,9:12

-Why not maindeck a single goblin pyromancer?




No cantrip, 4cc 4/1, doesn't beat Wish for Pyroclasm. I have to cast it on my turn. I can cycle out their Warchief pre attack, or even the solo Lackey. Or cast it to block, or just cycle to draw.

juventus
10-02-2005, 09:40 PM
Fair enough, but wouldn't the pyromancer be better in other situations. Situations like when you have enough mana to cast it. It gets rid of their whole board. I admit that in all of those situations you mentioned incinerator will be better, but killing one of their goblins may not be enough because they can keep a constant stream of threats. I think it would be good for the deck to consider both. Especially the incinerator because as you said it is fine against non-goblin decks.

l_neiman
10-06-2005, 02:06 PM
Could Aether Vial be something that helps this deck? Against Goblins, a lot of the time, they'll beat you by opening with Lackey/Vial and then burning your early mana producers. Then they get their Wastelands/Ports going and too often if just spirals out of control. Vial would help with that, I think. It would also let us lock them with Spore Frog and a Vial with one counter, since we can play it during their turn (they can still Sharpshooter/Siege-Gang us out, but I'm sure we could deal with them). Thoughts on Vials?

Luis

Slay
10-06-2005, 10:16 PM
Vial is pretty good, but you need a much better manacurve in order to abuse it. All the 4cc and 3cc in the decks means that Vial is slow as balls. If you want a deck that Vial is good with check out Crappy Survival Jank by Watcher487.
-Slay

lyle h
10-06-2005, 11:21 PM
I am sold on Vial being in RG survival. I do agree that the list needs to look signifigantly different, but I have been playing Vial in mine for a while and i CANT go back. Abusing that ability to put things into play as an instant proved insane The ability to Vial in Dosan in responce to a big spell from High Tide won me far more games than it would have without vials.
I never tested the 'crappy survival junk' list from Big Arse, but I really didn't like that one, all the one ofs made the topdeck war incredibly horrible as far as I could tell. IMO it was probably the sheer power of Vial in Survival that got him to the top 8, not the list itslef. If I am wrong say so, but I think that it is clear.

The only problem I ever ran into was waiting for the vials to get warm. But once they do, damn it is golden. I found wish to be insane in the versions running Vials as you were really able to use your mana to use the wishes, instead of seeing them sit in your hand without being able to wish for the silver bullet because you have to play your creatures out or die.

Mulletus
10-07-2005, 12:34 AM
What do you cut for vial, I already have trouble fitting all my junk in.

Watcher487
10-07-2005, 12:42 PM
Vial is pretty good, but you need a much better manacurve in order to abuse it. All the 4cc and 3cc in the decks means that Vial is slow as balls. If you want a deck that Vial is good with check out Crappy Survival Jank by Watcher487.
-Slay

Thanks Slay. The problem that I've been having with my deck is that Aether Vial can literally sit there and do nothing for a while. But against control, I just drop threats through the Vial while I cast my bigger threats like Jitte and Survival. Since Philly is on it's way, I might just move the Vials to the Sideboard and add a couple of bigger threats to the deck.


Here's an interesting thought.
Why isn't anyone playing Kird Ape? or even Granger Guildmage?

Now I understand that Granger Guildmage is better if you are playing all 3 colors, but Birds of Paradise can net you the white anyway.

Kird Ape would probably be best in a Jitte version of the deck. It blocks and kills all of the goblins in Vial Goblins and usually trades with Piledriver. Since Goblins is shying away from playing Direct Damage, it would probably be all for the better.

l_neiman
10-07-2005, 01:35 PM
Watcher487's deck is very interesting, :).

I'm trying to work Vials into the straight up R/G version, though, so there are some cards that wouldn't make the cut for me. Here's a very rough sketch of a R/G Survival with Vials:

R/G Sur-Vial (hehe, lame name, I know)

4 Aether Vial
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Birds of Paradise
1 Spore Frog
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Uktabi Orangutan
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Genesis

4 Kird Ape
2 Mogg Fanatic
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Flametongue Kavu
1 Anger

4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Mountain
9 Forest

I don't like playing with 19 lands like Watcher487's build, just because from my testing I've seen that Goblins can really mess with our manabase a lot, with Wastelands and Ports. Especially since this version would probably want to get a Vial on 3 and start recurring Yavimaya Elder, Spike Feeder and Eternal Witness with Genesis, we're gonna need our mana.

I'd like to fit in one fatty or something that can win the game in a few turns, for when we've stabilized against Goblins. Their Sharpshooters can really wreck our side of the board, most of the time, so I wanted something big to survive that. Ravenous Baloth is nice, but I don't think we want to get a Vial past 3 counters, making him less suited for the deck than Spike Feeder (speaking of Feeder, I guess we can just use him to pump some of our dudes while we recur him).

Any thoughts on this build, or suggestions of cards I may have left out? is the 4th Jitte necessary?

Luis

FallenOmnipotent
10-09-2005, 11:16 PM
Well, to what I hear, Vial is broken in "Survi-vial".

But how will this affect the SB selection? also, with Vial in the deck, what do you guys think of adding another color for utility? And lastly, what other possible utillity creatures are there out there that may be a good adition.

Slay
10-10-2005, 03:42 PM
Straight up, that Vial Survival deck is awful. It has absolutely no lategame, functions poorly in the midgame, has a barely decent early game, and gains nothign from any matchups. Your game against Goblins is already kickass.
-Slay

AngryTroll
10-10-2005, 03:59 PM
Moving the Vial issue to the back burner for a little while, what are the best options for Survival against Combo?

I am personally leaning towards a combination of Chalice, Sirroco, and Boil, because Boil is better then FTK in the Landstill matchup, and Chalice is good against all forms of combo, be they Solidarity, TJS (still sees some play), or dumb things like kobolds. Sirroco is pretty limited, but against combo decks with a heavy blue component (read: almost all of them), it is better then, say, Duplicant or FTK.

This still leaves 3-4 slots open, and they can be Anarchy, Spike Feeder (Baloths 5-7 or 8 vs. Goblins: still trades, and gain 4, just doesn't beat so well), Pyroclasm, etc. I am obviously not running the Burning Wishes, and am testing the Swords of Fire and Ice over them.

l_neiman
10-10-2005, 05:26 PM
Your game against Goblins is already kickass.
From my testing that is not the case at all, with R/G being about 40/60 in Game 1. All Goblins has to do to beat us is burn our mana critter and start messing with our mana/lands, things that Goblin decks are pretty good at doing, I've been told, with their 4 Fanatics, 4 Gempalm Incinerators, 1-2 Sharpshooters, 4 Goblin Matrons, 4 Wastelands and 4 Rishadan Ports.

I've lost games with traditional R/G Survival where I've had Ravenous Baloth/Troll Ascetic/FTK equipped with SoFI and on the offensive, just because our deck has absolutely no answer to a Warchief and a couple of hasted Piledrivers. God forbid our Goblin opponent has an active Jitte to mow down our blockers or is running a maindeck Goblin King to give all his guys +1/+1 and Mountain/Taiga-walk...

If nothing else the list I gave has better game against Goblins, due to more one-drops to block/kill Lackey, a way to lock them out of ever attacking us again (Spore Frog), a good way to destroy their Jittes if they're running them (since Jitte is very good against us) that also happens to be awesome against them if they're not running them or haven't found one, a cheaper way for recurrable life-gain (Spike Feeder), etc. I'm willing to concede that it might not be the best version of R/G Survival for beating other decks, but it should certainly boast a higher win % vs. Goblins...

Luis

Slay
10-10-2005, 06:38 PM
They have 4 first-turn burn spells, we have 8 mana critters(technically 9). If a mana critter survives, an Elder comes down and negates any kind of mana disruption they would do. They've gotta have multiple disruption spells to prevent you from getting to 3 mana in a quick amount of time, and even then they've gotta have a Lackey or a Vial churning out creatures for the disruption to mean anything. You can simply overwhelm them after a while.

Also, if you're still having trouble with Goblins, why aren't you playing the Burning Wish version? It smashes Goblins even more than the regular one.
-Slay

l_neiman
10-10-2005, 07:18 PM
So are you advocating a build like quicksilver's original Burning Wish build? I figured people weren't discussing it anymore because it had fallen out of favor...

Luis

quicksilver
10-10-2005, 07:56 PM
I haven't been arguing for the burning wish version lately cause anyone that does not see that burning wish is insane in the deck probably has some sort of mental deficiency, and thus is not worth me wasteing my time arguing with them.

lynxcat
10-10-2005, 10:13 PM
What does a typical wishboard look like for this deck?

l_neiman
10-10-2005, 10:50 PM
I haven't been arguing for the burning wish version lately cause anyone that does not see that burning wish is insane in the deck probably has some sort of mental deficiency, and thus is not worth me wasteing my time arguing with them.
I totally understand that, but did anyone actually ever call the Wish build a pile or something? I know people wanted to try other things in lieu of the Wishes, like Jitte or SoFI, but I didn't realize that people were critizing the build...

At any rate, has there been any evolution from the original Wish list you posted a few months ago? I'm just curious to see if you got any ideas from the R/G builds that have been popping up in various top-8s, or if you've been sticking to your guns...

lynxcat: the original SB quicksilver listed with his Burning Wish version (top of page 4) was:

1 Hull Breach
1 Reverent Silence
1 Disintegrate
1 Pyroclasm
1 Slice and Dice
1 Whirlwind
1 Regrowth
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination
1 Spore Frog
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Naturalize

He did say, however, that Disintegrate, Pyroclasm, Gaea's Blessing, Regrowth and Slice & Dice weren't that hot in the tournament he played in. Pyroclasm is 100% necessary these days, with all the Goblins that are around, but you could probably find some other targets to throw in there...

Luis

madness151
10-10-2005, 10:53 PM
I like the wish version. It definitely improves the matchup vs Angel Stompy. There's not much combo around here, but I would think that Tsunami backed up with Eternal Witness is good against Solidarity. In general, some of my favorite wish targets are anarchy, hull breach and pyroclasm.

quicksilver
10-11-2005, 03:06 AM
At the moment I am currently running 7 wish targets. I would love to run more, but I do need some SB space too.
These are the targets I found to be the most useful for me now. Some of these choices can change depending on the meta:

Hull Breach
pyroclasm
tsunami
ruination
Regrowth
seeds of inocense
anarchy

Sorry if I have sounded harsh before, but I have run into a descent amount of critisism on other sites of the burning wish version. And I win about 25%-50% of my matches just off the power of that one card, it is almost as good as survival. I can't possibly imagine giving it up for anything, it really fills the gap where the deck can have significant weakneses. The idea of not running it, sounds like the idea of taking the whole survival engine out of the deck.

l_neiman
10-11-2005, 10:24 AM
Those look like pretty decent Wish targets, :). In the other 8 slots I assume you're running things like Naturalize and maybe something like Pyrostatic Pillar/REB/Chalice of the Void, for combo decks?

Has the double Red on Anarchy ever bothered you? I guess if you're still running Yavimaya Elders, like your original version, then it really isn't ever a problem, right?

The Troll Ascetics definitely weren't cutting it for me in testing, and I think I'd want to remove at least one, adding something like another Baloth, a Spike Feeder, maybe a Spore Frog, etc. Thoughts on Ascetics?

By the way, I totally understand what you mean about dissenting views/criticism. C'est la vie.

Luis

madness151
10-11-2005, 04:16 PM
When referring to the trolls, they seem to work well in the Wish version of the deck. However, it seems that maybe you are referring to the Vial version?

quicksilver
10-11-2005, 08:11 PM
I've never been a big fan a trolls in the deck. At the moment I am running wall of blossoms in that spot.

l_neiman
10-11-2005, 10:39 PM
That sounds soooooo much better than the Trolls, honestly. I could even see running the new Carven Caryatid in those slots, since it still blocks and kills any Goblin, even if it costs 1 more.

Did you make any other notable changes to the deck? Would you be willing to post your latest build for discussion?

Luis

quicksilver
10-12-2005, 12:43 AM
Here is my latest build:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish
3 Wall Of Blossoms
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Eternal Witness
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Flametounge Kavu
3 Ravenous Baloth
1 Anger
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Genesis
2 Naturalize
10 Forest
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Mountain

SB:
1 Naturalize
1 Goblin Sharpshooter (may become naturalize number four, or blast number 7, but I want something against agro here)
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 PyroBlast
1 Hull Breach
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination
1 Regrowth
1 Seeds of Inocense
1 Anarchy

Points of interest:
Burning Wish: absolutely insane, gets you out of many sticky situations, and can just annihilate your opponent in one hit.
1 Hull Breach - standard artifact/enchantment removal
1 Pyroclasm - I heard goblins are big, plus useful sometimes against many other match ups. If you think you are gonna use it, just hold some of your vulnerable creatures back till after you played it.
1 Tsunami - good against blue heavy decks such as control or solidarity. This can often be pulled off 3rd turn against solidarity, sometimes with counter back up.
1 Ruination - good against non-basic lands, duh. Can just win on the spot.
1 Regrowth - what's that, a second burning wish? need that hate card again? Also makes burning wish never a dead card.
1 Seeds of Innocence - affinity always has the chance of popping up, and still a fine choice even against two artifacts.
1 Anarchy - greatly pulls angel stompy in your favor as well as any other deck running white

Wall of blossoms: never really got anything i overly liked in this spot. Troll was just too weak of a card for the mana it soaks up. This not only costs less mana but digs for more if you need it. Never a dead card and useful against agro.

Naturalize in the Main Deck: This may seem odd but the reason I did this was cause I had no room in my SB. And with only two, you are seldom gonna get flooded with these, and they are useful in many matches. I have been greatly pleased with the 2 in the Main Deck. They randomly just win you games sometimes, and I am almost never upset that I got one. I however don't want to up the count, cause then I feel that I could get flooded much more often, cause the chance of drawing two greatly increased.

Blasts: I need something against solidarity. I have found that pre-board it is about 30-70 in solidarity’s favor. But with 6 blasts, it goes about 60-40 in your favor. This is not great and the match is still against you, but it gives you a descent chance. The reason I chose blasts over another hate card is cause they are also useful in other match ups. Against control you have 5 bad cards (FTK + sharpshooter) that you need to side something in for, and the blasts fill this position. Although it may seem like the white cards in landstill you fear (wrath, pulse, swords, humility) but it is the blue cards that can really screw you. You go survival they go counter, you cry. But if you can beat them in the counter war and resolve a survival, you are probably gonna win. The same is true for Burning Wish, forcing a ruination/tsunami through late game, can mean game over for the control deck. So the blasts allow you to resolve a game ending spell.

Helgaborg
10-12-2005, 09:23 AM
What are you thinking of a Living Wish in the SB?

l_neiman
10-12-2005, 10:25 AM
quicksilver: nice list. I'll test it out.

Helgaborg: quicksilver said he was really tight on SB space, which is why he moved 2 Naturalizes to the maindeck. Adding a Living Wish would involve cutting something currently in the SB, and possibly putting another creature in there to Living Wish for. Additionally, it's sort of a long chain to go Burning Wish --> Living Wish --> Creature, and it's doubtful that you'd be able to do that in one turn, unless it's very lategame.

I dunno, Survival is just a super Living Wish, so why bother? If the only guy we'd Living Wish for is a Sharpshooter, for example, we can just Survival one up, or if he's dead use a Witness to get him back...

Luis

Zirilian
10-12-2005, 10:29 AM
I think Carven is a good idea, although there still is the problem of goblins fiddling with our mana by killing turn 1 elf/bop, is this tradeoff worth the +2/+1 ????

Icemyn
10-12-2005, 10:49 AM
well carven costs the same as troll in this deck better than troll and if the deck played troll before I think it can manage carven now oh that and goblins really doesnt mess with your mana critters unless of course your blocking lackey and if they are gempalming your mana critter turn 2 thats really not advantage or tempo gain for them. oh sorry off topic yeah carven better than wall cuz it blocks to kill and gives you a viable turn 2 three drop.

big_al
10-12-2005, 12:05 PM
What do you guys think of running wall of roots over blossoms?

worsel
10-12-2005, 12:18 PM
Quicksilver,

What about Quirion Ranger? Don't you need the extra mana she provides? Or the protection for your Taigas?

What about Spore Frog? Not necessary anymore? Even if an opposing deck can find an answer for him, he still slows them down by a turn or two.

Do you not think Duplicant has a place in the sideboard?

I have had Cranial Extraction in my sideboard, and find it very useful, even with only birds available to get black mana. What do you think?

The Professional N00b
10-12-2005, 02:04 PM
What do you guys think of running wall of roots over blossoms?
Nope, you've got enough mana producers. And as quiksilver said before, I provides the extra dig that the deck needs.

noobslayer
10-12-2005, 03:34 PM
At worsel, I do agree with the single Quirion Ranger plan. I'd personally cut a mana elf for it.

Icemyn
10-12-2005, 07:25 PM
I do not think one ranger is worth the effort, seriously in the matchups where you are worried about your taigas the ranger will probably just die.
If you are looking for the mana accel you are not wanting a one of, you will probably not have it when you need it.

If you are survivaling for a ranger then you probably dont need the accel or it will prolly not protect your land.

This is not to say she is bad but just not as a one of.

worsel
10-12-2005, 08:08 PM
But the ranger has always been a one-of, hasn't it?

It works really well after you resolve a SOTF. Then you do a few ranger tricks (with rofellos usually) to get mega mana, then play and recur a hermit for the win. The extra loads of mana speed you up. I personally have always found it beneficial.

What do you think Quicksilver?

Obfuscate Freely
10-12-2005, 08:43 PM
Ranger has never been in the deck.

RGSA has a stable, basic-heavy manabase, and enough lands to make early land drops consistently. Few of its utility creatures have tap effects. Ranger is honestly not very good at all, and the only time you might want her is when you are going off with Survival.

That makes her utterly win-more.

quicksilver
10-12-2005, 10:02 PM
I have never run ranger. The deck does not usually miss land drops so it would just sit there most of the time. And unlike llanowar/birds, it does not accelerate your speed without a rofellos.

Di
10-13-2005, 12:57 AM
What do you guys think of running wall of roots over blossoms?

Wall of Blossoms is the tits. Roots, although solid, isn't necessary as the deck already runs a complement of 8 one-drop sources. Wall allows more solid defense for the early Goblin rush, and it cantrips too.

As for the Ranger debate, I strongly encourage people to run it as a singleton. I'm well aware the deck doesn't have many problems missing early landdrops, but when you have the opportunity to get ridiculous with Rofellos, I'd use it. Despite people believing it to be win-more, it really isn't because it allows you to act turns quicker with the extra boost from Rofellos. Is that win-more, or is that simply the opportunity to win faster? I'd say the latter. The fact that it is a weak slot without an accelerant or Sharpshooter is greatly outweighed with the use of Burning Wish and Wall of Blossoms. Wall digs farther to hit past it, and Wish has such a solid utility box the slight delay may somtimes not be a bit deal. Remember it is a singleton, and in a consistant deck like this, it shouldn't hurt it enough to be noticed.

EDIT: Oh yeah. It blocks Goblin Lackey turn 1. That might be worth something.

scrumdogg
10-13-2005, 09:07 AM
Indeed, the ability to work your manabase & do silly things with angry Rofellos are very powerful. Every other angry Survival deck has run Ranger to good effect, including ATS & MacGuyver among Source creations. The ability to block Turn 1 lackey is quite relevant in the modern metagame, as is it's ability to work very well with existing mana critters other than Rofellos and to suck removal out of my opponents. After playing against MacGuyver a couple of times, they seem to STP Ranger on sight...which bodes well for the rest of my more threatening critters, even if they will be cpoming online more slowly.

Obfuscate Freely
10-13-2005, 09:23 AM
Remember it is a singleton, and in a consistant deck like this, it shouldn't hurt it enough to be noticed.
This is a dangerous philosophy to endorse, and it seems to go against the basic premise of RGSA. What you really need to say is that Ranger's utility will win you more games than her shittiness will lose. And in this deck, a creature that is only good once you've resolved Survival probably won't do that.

Also, the fact that she could theoretically block Lackey means next to nothing, since she might very well have to replace another 1-drop, and since Goblins has 8+ ways of killing x/1s anyway.

Di
10-13-2005, 03:01 PM
What you really need to say is that Ranger's utility will win you more games than her shittiness will lose. And in this deck, a creature that is only good once you've resolved Survival probably won't do that.

That was the basic idea of my sentiments. Plus, remember Ranger's abilities beyond Rofellos. Although it isn't as significant of a boost, it can add mana with an accelerant, and it protects from Wastelands. I know the deck can blow off Wasteland without being hurt much, but I'd rather save the land than let it be hit. Also could toss a Taiga back to your hand after and early Ruination.

worsel
10-13-2005, 04:04 PM
This is a dangerous philosophy to endorse, and it seems to go against the basic premise of RGSA.

How is it a dangerous philosophy? Having a single creature that helps you out more than not, seems reasonable.

How does it go against the basic premise of RGSA? What is the basic premise of RGSA? There are other one-of creatures that can usually only be found in your hand by tutoring for them with Survival of the Fittest, such as Viridian Zealot, or Goblin Sharpshooter. None of the one-of creatures are going to be top-decked very often.

Since Ranger would be a one-of, it's not going to lose you games, because you will rarely top-deck it. Besides, if you do top-deck it, you will almost always be happy to see it, because it gives you more mana. The only time it does not, is when you have no mana-creatures on the board. How often do you think you will top-deck the Ranger while also having no mana-creatures on the board? There is much more chance of top-decking a Zealot, or, Sharpshooter when you don't want them. A top-decked Ranger is useful many times more often than a Zealot, or Sharpshooter. Even an FTK can be a dead card (when there are no creatures in play), and there are 4 of them in the deck.



What you really need to say is that Ranger's utility will win you more games than her shittiness will lose. And in this deck, a creature that is only good once you've resolved Survival probably won't do that.


A creature that is good (by 'good' I assume you mean 'can only reliably be found to be in your hand once you've resolved a Survival') IS exactly the type of creature that will win you games, because you are only going to Survival for it when you think you require it to help you win a game.

Besides the mana acceleration, and ability to protect your Lands from being destroyed, Quirion Ranger also works well to untap a Sharpshooter, so you can kill 2 toughness creatures.

The Ranger is a multi-purpose card. It is very useful, and very powerful. I do not remember ever being disappointed when top-decking one.

Anyways, that's my opinion on Quirion Ranger.

l_neiman
10-13-2005, 05:36 PM
quicksilver: what's your opinion on Uktabi Orangutan? I see you're only running one Viridian Zealot, and I think in a lot of games you might like having a 2nd artifact-kill spell. I guess you do have Burning Wishes for that, but how do you feel about running 1 Zealot and 1 Sex Monkey?

Luis

Obfuscate Freely
10-13-2005, 06:54 PM
I guess I should clarify what I meant by calling Diablos' statement dangerous. The idea that adding a 1-of won't hurt the deck all that much because you'll almost never draw it can be used to justify the inclusion of pretty much any situational card, because you have Survival to fetch it when you do want it. However, embracing that sort of thinking will weaken the deck, because RGSA's premise, as I understand it, is to function as well as possible without a Survival. Even in its most basic form, the Survival engine (Survival, Squee, Genesis, and Anger) is powerful enough to win games on its own, so maximizing the deck's non-Survival game is logical and a major reason to play RGSA in the first place.

Basically, I'm finding it extremely hard to believe that Ranger is going to win you a significant number of games because you need Rofellos to produce more mana once Survival is online. However, I do not find it difficult to imagine you losing a comparably significant number of games because you don't have a Survival out and you topdeck a Ranger instead of a good card.

Again, you can't expect to get the Survival engine online every game, and focusing on winning those games that you don't seems more worthwhile than just improving your ideal scenario.

As for Zealot and Sharpshooter, they are both more powerful, and more versatile. Zealot is a 2-power beater (2 is much better than 1), and Sharpshooter on its own is an incredible topdeck against Goblins and other creature decks. However, their presence in the deck undoubtedly does impact its consistency; the utility effects of each, with or without Survival online, have been proven to outweigh this drawback. Of course, Ranger is far more situational than either of them, because it relies on interactions with other cards to be useful.



Edited By Obfuscate Freely on 1129244203

Di
10-13-2005, 07:37 PM
I guess I should clarify what I meant by calling Diablos' statement dangerous. The idea that adding a 1-of won't hurt the deck all that much because you'll almost never draw it can be used to justify the inclusion of pretty much any situational card, because you have Survival to fetch it when you do want it. However, embracing that sort of thinking will weaken the deck, because RGSA's premise, as I understand it, is to function as well as possible without a Survival. Even in its most basic form, the Survival engine (Survival, Squee, Genesis, and Anger) is powerful enough to win games on its own, so maximizing the deck's non-Survival game is logical and a major reason to play RGSA in the first place.

It wasn't a statement that I'm trying to embrace. I'm just saying, as mentioned earlier, Ranger will end up doing you much more good than harm. There's a small, small chance drawing Ranger will have a significant impact on the outcome of your game if drawn at the wrong time, when there's a great chance you can win the game quicker thanks to her.


Basically, I'm finding it extremely hard to believe that Ranger is going to win you a significant number of games because you need Rofellos to produce more mana once Survival is online.

So, you're saying the ability to cast an extra Baloth or FTK a turn earlier isn't going to make much of an impact? If I'm able to cast two Baloth's on turn four instead of one then I'd damn well like to do that.

It's like you aren't grasping the idea of a survival deck or something. Since when has getting 'more mana' been a bad thing when running a Survival engine? Never. The more mana you have, the faster you play, the more creatures you play, and the faster you win. It really can't be broken down further than that. You can access nearly double the mana as the turns progress, and you rush out of the floodgates like crazy.


Again, you can't expect to get the Survival engine online every game, and focusing on winning those games that you don't seems more worthwhile than just improving your ideal scenario

True, but you also can't assume that every game you're going to draw a singleton compared to a powered-up playset of something like Survival, Witness, Baloth, FTK, etc. At worst it's a chump blocker. It's flexibility is too great to ignore though.

worsel
10-13-2005, 07:52 PM
I guess I should clarify what I meant by calling Diablos' statement dangerous. The idea that adding a 1-of won't hurt the deck all that much because you'll almost never draw it...

Well I guess I either disagree with Diablos' statement, or your interpretation of his statement, because I don't believe having a Ranger in the deck will hurt the deck at all. If the deck had no Survival in it, then you'd want to run more than one Ranger. The reason one is enough is because you DO have Survival in the deck. Top-decking a Ranger is not a liability. If you top-deck a Ranger, the chances that you cannot take advantage of it are very slim, since you simply need to have at least one mana-creature in play (you have 9 of them in the deck), or a Sharpshooter in play, or be playing against a deck full of Wastelands (or other Land Destruction). At least one of those situations will almost always be present.



The idea that adding a 1-of won't hurt the deck all that much because you'll almost never draw it can be used to justify the inclusion of pretty much any situational card

It's really not that much of a situational card. Or more correct would be to say that the "situations" that it helps in are VERY often present. There is rarely a time that it doesn't help you. Almost every game I play, I WANT the Ranger on the board. If Survival is not in play, I hope to top-deck it. If Survival is in play, the Ranger is one of the first creatures I tutor for.



Of course, Ranger is far more situational than either of them, because it relies on interactions with other cards to be useful.

Although this statement is technically true, it's place in your argument is, I believe, flawed because the other cards that it needs to have around to interact with, are almost always present.

lynxcat
10-14-2005, 12:55 AM
New question: What are people's current thoughts on running equipment? (i.e. Jitte or SoFI) Can equipment be fit into a version running Burning Wish? I want to add 3 Jittes to my version very badly since Sligh and Gobbos are running rampant, but I can't find the space while still running Burning Wish. The weakest slots in my deck are probably the 4 Trolls I run, but if they get cut then the Jittes also become weaker. Is it worth running equipment? Furthermore, are Trolls even worth running with Landstill on the decline?

In addition, is Rabid Wombat enough of a threat to merit Flashfires as a Wish target?

I realize these are all questions that only thorough testing can answer, but I don't think I'm alone when I say that my time and resources are solely limited.

cpt_ginu
10-14-2005, 11:40 AM
The problems I see with RGSA for now are the issue of its good match on the decline. Landstill is easy to beat with a version running burning wishes, but goblins still is not an easy match-up. Their best hands simply trump whatever we can do. As it stands i would not take RGSA to a tournament due to its combo matchup and goblins being less than 50%. If your ot running the wishes you should really question why. What do you lose by running them?

lyle h
10-14-2005, 02:07 PM
In light of what we all know but don't want to admit, RGSA no longer has the matchups to warrant being on top. We all know this. What I am asking myself is why has the black splash not been more closely considered. Myself and a few other Ohio players have fiddled around with using the Therapies main and it has done WONDERS to our matchups. It resolves wishes more often, it knocks Piledrivers/ Ringleaders out of Goblin decks hands, it knocks out Wrath of God. It does so much to help this decks problems. The only thing we have run into is the manabase problems. If this can be resolved to a good amount, the decks maindeck and sideboard become MUCH stronger against the entire field

Birds of Paradise never kills that first turn lackey. Sakura Tribe Elder does not sack to therapy. Wood Elves doesn't come down on turn 2 unless a mana elf lives for a turn which happens less and less for us. I don't have a decklist handy as I have the deck torn apart at the moment but I just wanted to catch some of the other survival players opinions on this issue.

kirdape3
10-14-2005, 06:26 PM
What matchups are you afraid of? You have inevitability over Landstill so long as you're not an idiot - plus you have additional threats in Burning Wish for Ruination or Tsunami. Wall of Blossoms maindeck means that Goblins isn't punching through without a huge army... which incidentally gets rolled up by the Wish for Pyroclasm.

To be blunt, Burning Wish is the only reason I would play this deck anymore... and it isn't even in the best colors to abuse that really freaking retarded tutor.

cpt_ginu
10-15-2005, 09:59 AM
Are you saying that in all your playing that goblins is a good matchup for you. This is insane. They are flat out faster can gain more card advantage early and can disrupt us easier than we disrupt them. Trust me its not a bad match up but by no means good.

@Lyle H: Mana base issue forced me to abandon black splashes. It takes away from this decks strength, reliability and resieliency. And by the way I did admit it.

midnightAce
10-16-2005, 05:37 PM
One of the strongest points of disruption from Goblins come from Ports and Wastelands. Adding a 3rd colour is quite suicidal in that regard.

Burning Wish version here obviously have the advantage of Wishing for Pyroclasm and such, possible SB suggestions would be additional Sharpshooters. I honestly believe that 2 active Sharpshooter will almost definately means a win for that match. Other considtions includes Spike Feeder, (Coming down on turn 2, can trade with Warchief and Piledriver and gain life.), or even as extreme as Mogg Fanatic, giving the deck more 1 drops to nullify the Lackey nut draw.

AngryTroll
10-17-2005, 03:01 AM
I watched Survival Advantage vs. Goblins this week at our PTQ, and Sword of Fire and Ice was the nutz! The RGSA player was already having a field day with Flame Tongue Kavus and Baloths, and then the Sword started punching Baloths through for 6 and killing the important goblins. Between FTKs and the Sword, the goblins player could not keep relevent cards like Piledriver, Warchief, and Goblin King on the board. Even without Survival he was able to smash the goblins player. Cards like Troll, Baloth, and FTK are amazing in the matchup, and topdecking cards like Elder, Zealot, and Sex Monkey are all still good in the matchup. I disagree that it is a bad matchup.

If the Goblins player leads with Lackey, it can get dicey. However, if we get the survival engine on line, we should win. Turn 1 mana critter, if its a birds, let lackey through, if elf, I would still be tempted to let it through if Survival or Troll is in hand. Turn two drop either Elder, Survival, or Troll, Survival being the best. Then every turn, drop an FTK or Baloth, then grab Sharpshooter and stuff...and you just win. Your life total will drop close to that all important last point, but the first 18 don't matter (19 except for topdecking fanatic for the win...), or 16 if they play bolt and have not yet used one.

I also disagree with the removal of the Troll. He is a very solid blocker in the Goblins matchup, killing any goblin in the deck with 1G. He is very solid against control and any deck packing StP. If you are running SoFI, he gets even better!

Now, I understand Burning Wish is a great card in the deck, and that some argue that it is as good as Survival itself, but I disagree about removing Troll. I am also curious to see what people think about SoFI, because it is not dead in any matchup, and it is very good in several. Is there anyone that continues to run the SoFI?

cpt_ginu
10-17-2005, 09:40 AM
@Angry: What you saw was the best case scenerio for the goblin matchup. Usually if you can get to 5 mana with survival on the table then you should win, thing is it doesnt happen every time. Good goblin players will murder your mana men and can gain sugnificant card advantage through ringleaders. This can happen before the survival engine and mana come together. If they get a less than stellar hand or are bad players congrats you should win that one. Don't expect it every matchup.

@SoFI: Too slow, too mana intensive and the worst topdeck w/o a creature on the board already. I've removed it to run my wishes.

AngryTroll
10-17-2005, 01:48 PM
Use Quicksilver's list one page back.

The thing is, to murder the mana men, they have Mogg Fanatic and Incinerator (on the play), and Lackey. I can choose not to block lackey depending on my hand. Once I hit three mana, there are Trolls, Elders (in some builds), or Survival to cast. Elder and Troll trade with everything they have. Survival with mana left over lets me win. Even if they do kill my mana dude that turn, I fetch another elder or troll for the next turn with Surival, or have regeneration mana for Troll, or can drop another threat from my hand for 3. The whole game plan is to drop a blocker a turn until you can stabalize with FTKs and Baloths. Elder trades, and Troll will trade or better. Even if troll just trades, we get to dictate what it kills....if they want to trade a piledriver or a warchief, go for it! If they just swing with stupid goblins because they don't want to lose the important ones, kill a 1/1 and take a few points of damage.

If Survival can survive to turn 5, it should be able to win. Turn three and four are the most important, becuase if we drop Baloth and FTKs on turn 3 and 4, we should win. If we drop them turn 4 and 5, we should win. Baloth dies to Incinerator and Piledriver, and it takes both of them with it while boosting your life. FTK eats Warchief, Piledriver, or King, then trades with anything in the deck that swings. Without Survival, the matchup is still very winnable. If we do get Survival, if we survive to turn 4, we should win. Getting to turn four is easier if our mana dude survives, becuase we go turn two Survival, turn three Elder/Troll, turn four FTK, turn five find squee and Baloth/FTK, etc.

Mulletus
10-17-2005, 02:48 PM
I had trouble with Solidarity at the GPT. I lost to it twice. Both times it was close, but they all seemed to have the answer. I might have to run Ichnemon Druid, in Philly. I would drop that on turn 2, before I survival. I think Survival is kinda slow in this matchup. I think you need to win before turn 4, if you draw a hoser. (wish for tsunami main deck) I would only survival on basis of speen (power) if i didn't have early hate.

lyle h
10-17-2005, 03:27 PM
When I was still playing RG versions of the deck(as I mentioned I have been playing around with GBR even though it has a bad manabase) I found that the deck was really able to abuse the Vial builds. Sure it is slow, but if you buid the deck right it really startes to abuse recurring Baloth every turn and has the distinct advantage of being able to Vial a Dosan/Druid into play on combo decks.

madness151
10-22-2005, 03:55 AM
I'm playing the wish build and I played 2 vial goblin decks today. Both matches ended in a draw after time was called. I think that more sideboard hate is warranted. I'm thinking about running 2 gempalms and 1 pyromancer in the sideboard. I suppose that the vial build could use this too.

Kryand
10-22-2005, 03:08 PM
I don't like the Pyromancer strategy. With a toughness of 2, it's very easy for them to kill it by the end of the turn, in which case it will not trigger and will not destroy all goblins. Incinerator on the other hand, rocks.

I haven't had time to test the Vial version of the deck, but I've determined that the Burning Wish build is far better than every build I've ever played. SoFI is broken when it hits play and stays there, but when I played this deck at a recent GPT, SoFI really didn't do that. It either got destroyed, didn't have a creature to equip or was totally win-more.

The build I'm testing now runs 1 Ininerator maindeck for Goblins and 1 Druid maindeck for Tide. I haven't decided yet if I want to keep it that way for good.

For a long time I was a proponent of Quirion Ranger in the deck, but he just doesn't do much for me. There is only one situation where I have ever needed a Quirion Ranger recently, and that was in the early game to help my mana issues if I kept a 1-2 land hand without drawing another: hands that were questionable to begin with. When I'm all set up he's a card I do not want to see. He produces lots of mana with Rofellos, but the only time I ever found that useful was back when I was still running Masticore and Silklash Spider SB. However, I was very often in a position where I needed a semi-decent creature topdeck and drew Ranger instead, flat out losing me the game. The statistic probability of that isn't high, but it happened way more than the number of times I found Quirion to be useful.

As for Goblins, I found the matchup to be about 55-45 in their favor. It's very difficult, and if they lucksack there really isn't anything you can hope to do. Goblin King hurts a lot (what the fuck was WotC thinking...). However, if you both draw your average hands, RGSA is usually able to slow the match down a lot with Kavu/Baloth/Incinerator/Wall (whichever 1/2 you draw) and eventually Sharpshooter. Wish->Clasm is a tremendous help as well. After that it just comes down to keeping King off of the table and you should be ok. Just as long as they don't print Crystalline Goblin, which at this point wouldn't surprise me.

Ghetto_Santa
11-04-2005, 01:08 PM
I was just wondering what is the best version of R/G SoTF.

This is what I run.

Mountain x1
Wooded Foothills x4
Taiga x4
Forest x12

Genesis x1
Anger x1
Squee x1
Rofellos x1

Deranged Hermit x1
Kamahl x1
Spore Frog x1
Wood Elves x1
Viridian Zealot x1

Llanowar Elves x4
Bop x4

Ravenous Baloth x3
FtK x4
Sharpshooter x2
Burning Wish x3
Wall Of Blossoms x3
SoTF x4
Eternal Witness x3

SB:
Pyroclasm x1
Hull Breach x1
Ruination x1
Tsunami x1
Regrowth x1
Duplicant x1
Dwarven Miner x1
Caller Of the Claw x1
Pyroblast x3
REB x4

Is this a good decklist?

lyle h
11-04-2005, 03:59 PM
Wood Elves was only needed in ATS because it was using 3 or 4 colors and if it needed a land of a color it didn't have(taiga for Anger, it would tutor up the Wood Elves so it could get the haste it needed.

Spore Frog was good in ATS not RGSA, and I use the term "good' very loosely as it was nothing more than cute.

AngryTroll
11-04-2005, 06:04 PM
I still argue for Troll Ascetic mainboard. Some builds replace him with Wall of Blossoms, but I don't know that this is neccasary. Wall of Blossoms is solid in the Goblins matchup, blocking everything but Piledriver and Goblin King-assisted beats. The card drawing off the Wall is also nice, and as a final added perk, the art is cool and old school.

However, Troll beats down harder then any wall. In tbe Goblins matchup, Troll is slower. With 8 one drop mana sources, troll should be able to come down on turn two. However, it is likely that the opponent will apply pressure with a Fanatic or a Bolt to keep us off three mana. In that case, Wall does come down turn two.

Wall:
Turn two, always
4 Toughness makes it tough to burn
Will block multiple times
+1 Card

Troll
Turn Two, with exceptions
Very, very tough to burn (pyroclasm and sloppy play?)
Better against everything but Goblins (And Solidarity, when it doesn't matter)
Trades turn 2 (3), kills and regenerates 3 (4) +
Ongoing investment of mana vs. One time mana sink

Wall of Blossoms biggest advantage is the one time investment of mana. It does net cards, because of the draw. However, Troll is going to net cards every time it blocks-either it will be a 1 for 1, or it will start killing things every time they swing over.

Matchups: Deck names are in order of how much better Troll/Wall is then the Wall/Troll

Landstill, Mirror, Wombat, Solidarity
Troll > Wall

Wall > Troll
Goblins, Wombat (Wall does dig for Burning Wish, however, Troll swings to race the lockage once we do get the wish)

Aggro Stuff
Troll can't be swords here, can't be bounced, etc. However, your opponents aren't going to want to bounch Wall either, but it is never, ever going to be swinging across for damage.

In conclusion, Wall is good at what it does, but what it does is only better then troll in maybe one matchup. I think it is debatable in the Goblins matchup which is better. Wall is an easy early blocker, which is useful. However, Troll is going to at least trade with something. Because right now Goblins is (one of, if not the) the best deck in the format, so there is an argument to be made for the Wall. But I will almost always prefer to play a Troll over a Wall of Blossoms.

Mulletus
11-07-2005, 02:27 PM
I have found a great addition to the sideboard. Land grant. It has saved me and lead to won games several timews in the last two tournaments I have played with it. It thins the deck and can be cast for free. It kinda makes the burning wish even more versatile.

Zirilian
11-11-2005, 12:17 PM
Mulletus:I'm having trouble fitting stuff into my wishboard, and you're adding Land Grant ????
Anyway, I don't like the idea, considering you either:
*Spend 1R and reveal your hand for a land.
*Spend 2RG for a land.
Neither of which sound like a good deal, as one is too slow and the other is kind of stupid as you're giving your opponent the chance to anticipate your plays in return for a counterable fetchland.

Anyway, I'm thinking of adding Life from the Loam as a 1-of, considering:
*Dredging is hardly a disadvantage, considering you have Genesis to return most stuff, and Witness becomes bettter.
Also, Anger and Squee don't mind being in the 'yard.
*It'd also help versus manascrew.
*It helps thin the deck further and avoid missing landdrops vie fetch.

herbig
11-11-2005, 01:24 PM
Playing Solidarity at the last Altered States tournament, I played against Survival Advantage with land grant in the wishboard, maybe it was you, but his wish for Land Grant is what probably lost him the game. Showing me his hand second game told me two things: he had Blessings (one was in his hand) and he had no Blasts, or any disruption for that matter, which allowed me to pass up Forces for more hand refinement to better combo. I guess it's main use is for getting land in a pinch, but showing your hand is a serious disadvantage.

AngryTroll
11-11-2005, 01:38 PM
I saw the Life from the Loam possibility also...But I was thinking of the Sideboard instead of mainboard. It is Burning Wishable, and it will help recover from mana issues. However, the sideboard is really crowded right now. With Dredge A Tog suddenly becoming crazy popular, I think the sideboard needs reworking. FTK is not going to do squat to a Tog. It seems that Duplicant and Spore Frog have been removed from the deck entirely, and that leaves us with no good ways to answer a flying lethal Tog, except Balothing up some life....not so good.

Sideboard Possibilities (these are only the best options, and even then it is too many cards)

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 REB
4 Pillar/Sirroco
Naturalize effects
Sharpshooters
1 Tsunami
1 Flashfire
1 Ruination
1 Anarchy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Hull Breach
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Regrowth
Others (LftL, Land Grant)

This makes the sideboard far too large. One potential solution is to move a single Icheman Druid mainboard and working on freeing up some slots against Solidarity. Yes, I realize that Solidarity is a horrible matchup, but that gives us 4 Survival, 1 Druid, and 4 Burning Wish main. We can then side in 4 REB or 4 Pillar. Pillar is better in this matchup, but REB is better overall, and we have the druid mainboard in place of pillar.

All the cards listed as possibilities represent very solid sideboard cards for Philly. We can expect to see decks like Affinity is good numbers, making cards like Seeds of Innocence game breaking. Goblins neccesatates Pyroclasm, and decks like Angel Stompy (Even if not Angel Stompy, any deck packing pro red dudes and Angels could get ugly) make Anarchy and Flashfires useful enough for slots. Ruination, Tsunami, and Flashfires are all good against control, both the Landstill variety and Wombat. If you were going to Philly tomorrow (ha...it is tomorrow!), what would you do? We are basically talking about a very competative, very unknown environment. I know it is known, but we don't know what kind of quantities to expect, and there are guarenteed to be some surprises.

Zirilian
11-11-2005, 05:35 PM
I was talking about the Wb too, btw.

Anyway, how about Pithing Needles versus 'tog?
We can easily recur them via Witness if destroyed/countered.

AngryTroll
11-11-2005, 06:32 PM
The problem is that if they are destroyed, you will not get an opportunity to recur them. They won't blow it up until they want to win. However, it does bye you some time, and makes tog a 1/2 blocker, helping you swing damage in. I do not know if it is enough stalling for you to win the game.

Tormod's Crypt should be more effective, but it can be played around also. You have to remove their graveyard in responce to Deep Analysis or at the end of their turn, but you need to hope to nail some Grave Trolls, LftLs, and large amouts of cards. How does the stack work out if you do it in responce to them cycling a land (presumable to activate the Dredge 6 of a Grave Troll)? It seems good either way. Either you get the grave troll and their graveyard and they draw a card, or they dredge 6, and you get that whole graveyard, but they have the troll in hand. Then, beginning of their turn, they discard it, then dredge for draw, discard it again, remove a bunch....+5.5/+5.5? That is not good for us, but it is not a lethal tog either. Knowing when to pop Crypt will be important.

(I think this is how the stack will work)
I think that they would pay (U/B/G, whatever), discard the land, and put the draw on the stack, and then you pop the crypt and put its effect on the stack. Crypt resolves first, eats graveyard, including LftLs and Trolls and the cycle land, then they get to draw a card. same number of cards in hand, zero graveyard. If they respond with another cycle land, they discard it, draw the card and dredge, then crypt goes off, then they draw again (no graveyard=no dredge). However, they can then do the +5.5/+5.5 thing if they really want to.

(back to matter at hand)
Pithing Needle is much, much better against the rest of the field, but Crypt will randomly hose some reanimater decks that are sure to make a presence. Duplicant is pretty good there, too....but he is not in the deck. You know, could an argument be made to put Duplicant back into the deck? He kills Dr. Teeth every time, no questions (Well, FoW and Daze), and although he leaves their graveyard intact, he nails a tog. In a metagame that will include lots of Tog, some Reanimater, and decks like Angel Stompy, should Duplicant be moved back to one slot? RGSA is going to have trouble dealing with an Akroma, an Exalted (Sharpshooter + FTK, or FTK x 2), or other giant reanimated undead critters.

blacklotus3636
11-12-2005, 03:15 AM
Maybe it's already been discussed but I have three different questions:
In regards to the sideboard: I think without a doubt you need 4 tormod's crypt and 4 pyroclasm and everything else should be for the wishboard which of course should have a little something for everyone but am unsure of exactly how it should look here's what I was thinking:
1 tsunami I thought that since tsunami was useful against all control outside of wombat, excellent against aggro-control and solidarity it would be a better choice than something along the lines of flashfires
1 hull breach This is definately light years better than naturalize in this deck and you need a wishable way to remove artifact and enchantments
1 ruination This might seem like piling on against control but with the rising use of ancient tomb, city of traitors and it's ability to hit dual lands I think it's a solid Wish target
1 fireball/disentegrate This is probably one of the few cards that won't get used except as a bomb late game for those last few points you just can't seem to push through
Thats all I can think of right now that I think should be an auto include into any wish board for survival.
In regards to multiple rofellos: I think having consistant early rofellos would make this deck much better however it's been hard to find space for them and so I think 3 is the right number because they are legendary so you don't really want to see more than 1 unless something happened to it like swords to plowshares which happens fairly often.
In regards to yavimaya elder: yavimaya elder usually only has two uses 1 is he is used for card advantage as a chump blocker and the other is to find the mountain in the deck for haste while I have a survival out so I think sakura tribe elder would do his job only better so I'll probably cut the 2 yavimaya elders in favor of 1 sakura tribe elder main and at the same time freeing up a slot for an extra rofellos.
Tell me what you guys think feedback is greatly appreciated.

Zirilian
11-12-2005, 03:30 AM
I'm not so sure about the fireball slot, when I have trouble getting the last damage through, I just get Sharpshooter and FtK and start the killing.

Also, about rofellos, I disagree.
Adding more will only slow the deck down, as they are of lesser importance sans Survival (when you aren't tutoring up more cards, you probably wouldn't need the extra mana much), and you also don't have the room.
Furthermore, the 2-slot is quite crowded as it is.

Regarding Elder:I've cut elder alltogether in favor of the wishes, so I can't really comment on that.

Btw, here's m list:
Burning Survival

Utility
4 Burning wish
3 Eternal Witness
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Viridian Zealot

Mana
12 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Mountain
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Engine
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Genesis

Beaters
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Ravenous Baloth
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Duplicant

Sideboard:
4 Pyroblast
3 Pithing Needle
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Anarchy
1 Ruination
1 Tsunami
1 Regrowth
1 Pyroclasm
1 Hull Breach

Any comments/tips?

AngryTroll
11-12-2005, 03:50 AM
Within a card or two of mine mainboard, and I have wanted to put Duplicant back main for a while.

Agreed that Rofellos is probably good as a 1-of. I did argue for a while that he should be a 4 of, because turn 2 Fellos, turn 3 Survival is really good. However, for space restrictions, I would leave it that way.

I have also removed Yavimaya Elder entirely. He is great, but he got cut for Burning Wishes.

The sideboard looks pretty standard. Any particular reason for Pyroblast over REB? If you are running that at Philly, Seeds of Innocence should probably be in the Board. Affinity will certainly be present. I would really like to see Flashfires in the side, because Wombat is a horrible matchup. Anarchy is good, but Anarchy and Flashfires is much better. In fact, I think I would lead with Flashfires if it is the mid to late game, to wipe 5-6 or more land off their side of the table. Then you can wait for another Burning Wish to blow up Humility or whatever else is causing problems on the ground. While looking for Wish, you can recur the Flashfires to keep them down on mana.

Also, if your meta has Solidarity, and for Philly, where Solidarity, Tendrils, and maybe other combos like Salvagers will be present, I would suggest a Ichneumon Druid main. It takes up one slot, but turn one birds/elf, turn two survival and search, turn three druid is good. And considering that we have no other options game one, it seems like the best we can do game one. Follow that up with a Burning Wish into Tsunami. Not neccasary a great plan (needs survival , 2 land, and bird/elf, and another critter; or it can have the druid and 2 land + bird/elf, or three land), but it worlds better then no druid main.

Zirilian
11-12-2005, 04:03 AM
I won't be going to Philly, 4000+ miles is way too far.
I don't see any Wombat here, so that'zs the reasoning for no FF.
No real reason for Pyroblast over ReB, just can't seem to find Beta ReBs.
Ichy mai seems nice, but what to cut ???.

CynicalSquirrel
11-16-2005, 04:03 PM
With Philly in the rearview mirror now, and Gro looking like a top deck along with Landstill and other control/counter based decks, has anyone tried Aether Vial? It's such a ridiculous card against control decks, and I think it would be a good fit in RGSA. I've done a little goldfishing with it and it's awesome, but I'm afraid 12 non-creatures might be too much with Survival. Even then though, I think it might be worth it. Vial helps the deck dodge countermagic, it can help accelerate out threats, and it has some ridiculously svg synergy with Survival. This deck has a nice mana curve which also fits the Vial nicely.

Has anyone actually tested this? It seems like a fairly good idea to me, although I haven't worked on the deck in awhile.

lyle h
11-16-2005, 05:30 PM
Personally I think Vial is absolutely nutty in this deck I made the mistake of not running it in Philly and it was just that, a grave mistake. Instant speed FTK against gobbos? Instant speed Dosan against Control or Solidarity? It might take a turn or two to warm up, but once it gets going it is nothing short of amazing in my testing. It really shines in the random Burn matchups where it helps to recur a Ravenous Baloth every turn off of Genesis. The main problem with it is how HORRIBLE of a late game topdeck it is and while that is quite a drawback, the elves that would be replacing it are pretty horrible as well even though you can discard them to survival.

And to answer your question a RG survival deck using Vial has been done before. It made top 8 at Big Arse 2 this past summer.

I am still a big advocate of Black in this deck. The manabase doesn't look too much worse as black is a very light splash but it adds a few noteable things.
1)Cranial Extraction as a wish target
2)Cabal Freaking therapy MD
3)Bone Shredder
4)Engineered Plague if you are so inclined

Like I said, the manabase is slightly weaker as it becomes a bit more wasteable than the incredibly solid RG manabase, but it has been worth it for me.

blacklotus3636
11-16-2005, 10:44 PM
@ the addition of vial: I have rejected the notion of vial in survival for a while without testing which I think is a mistake on my part. I have tested it a little in my madness based survival deck but those results are skewed because I'm obviously somewhat biased and madness based survival is very different from regular survival. I have not tested it in the builds you guys have here but I would think it would be a lot better in there because it doesn't matter too much in those builds whether you actually play the creatures or not but it does in a madness based version because you need to discard the cards to activate the madness and other graveyard abilities plus most of the advantages vial provides are already avialable via madness(lower costs and instant speed creatures). Only time and testing will tell if vial should be included in the more standard builds of survival.

@ the black spalsh: from what you tell me it doesn't add too much to the deck that it doesn't already have via burning wish and post sideboard.

cranial extraction: I feel cranial extraction is more or less unneeded. The only time I would want to it is against decks that have narrow win conditions like solidarity and other combo but those decks should have you dead before extraction is even an issue. On top of that burning wish into tsunami is far better than what cranial extraction would do in the same situation for the same mana cost.

cabal therapy: again the only matchup where I would really want this card bad enough in the deck to cut stuff for it is combo and if your worried about combo this isn't really the deck you should be playing anyway. In general the card is very good but it doesn't really improve any matchups that aren't already in your favor. On a side note I feel ANY splash in this deck is extremely dangerous because it weakens the weakest part of the deck which has always been it's mana. I splashed white for e tutor and swords at my first big tourney with this deck and I got fucked all day with non-basic hate ranging from wasteland to back to basics. I am almost certain that a splash of any kind now or in the future is a bad thing unless some horribly broken card is printed in another color or something

bone shredder: I already run crypt which buys me enough time against decks like reanimator to kill them which to me is strictly superior to bone shredder

engineered plague: you already have pyroclasm in your two main colors postboard in addition to sharpshooter and masticore main with an extremely aggressive deck what more do you need? frankly goblins has never been much of a problem for me seeing as how with just one pyroclasm I destroy all thier tempo and put them on the defensive long enough to kill them.
Thoughts?

lyle h
11-16-2005, 10:53 PM
How exactly is a Tormods Crypt going to take down a Exalted Angel?

I have wished for Cranial against goblins. Seems bad, but a topdecked wish at a bad time against goblins and youll wish you had a cranial to take out their ringleaders.

Cabal Therapy has been nothing short of amazing for me. Maybe your right, but there have just been so many times where Therapy has absolutely devestated my opponent. It has so many uses against decks that are not combo while in the highly relevant combo match it has allowed me the set up time I need to resolve a Cranial. Seems like a bad plan, but it works for me and if the cranial doesnt resolve, they have blown such a load protecting the combo, I have time to aggro out on them for the win. Therapy defanetly pays off for you if you have a knack for reading your opponent, which apparently I do. I time and time again devestated last weekend naming the proper cards with a therapy.

If resolving a pyroclasm is enough to destroy Gobbos for you then I am unlucky. If goblins were not 25% of the field, I wouldn't SB the Plagues. But why would you not run a hoser if you have room for it.

Therapy is one of the most played cards in extended for a reason. Therapy is a 5 dollar uncommon for a reason.

blacklotus3636
11-17-2005, 01:47 AM
@lyle h on pretty much everything: where to begin...

tormod's crypt taking out exalted: I must admit when I first started playing the deck exalted was a big concern to me because it was and still is a very difficult threat to deal with but no deck outside of angel stompy and some versions of control even run the card so it's not really much of an issue.
Besides even if it was widely played I fail to see how black would answer the problem better than say white for swords to plowshares. If your really concerned with it the best solution is probably duplicant it doesn't require a splash and it can take down any creature that can be targeted.

about cranial extraction: trading a card AND six mana that does nothing to the board against an aggro deck that can easily kill you by turn four is a bad idea. That mana would be better spent playing creatures and blowing up goblins via pyroclasm. Let them draw what they may they still have to beat you on the board and if you have control of the board when you play burning wish you should be wishing for a more proactive spell than extraction that makes you win the game quickly.

cabal therapy:I will not deny therapy is a great card but it isn't really any better at handling problems difficult matchups present than cards already in your colors in difficult matchups and just because it's a good card doesn't mean it gets played. It has to be good and fit the strategy of what your trying to do or solves a certain problem(see. naturalize).For example crucible of worlds is a great card but it doesn't contribute to this deck's core strategy of beating face so we don't include it.

@pyroclam/engineered plague statements: Like I said clasm has been enough for me because I play defense until I can stabilize and take control of the board via pyroclasm or sharpshooter+masticore


Therapy is one of the most played cards in extended for a reason. Therapy is a 5 dollar uncommon for a reason
This is probably one of the most egregiously incorrect(great vocabulary from zilla) statement of all just because a lot of people like something or play with something doesn't automatically make it good you have to support why the card is good with logic.Furthermore it's a logical fallacy to say something is correct just because a person or group think it's correct.
On a side note I'd like to point out that I think it's strangely ironic how conformist with ideas we are in america(as far as magic goes) and the west when we have been such big advocates of things like democracy and lead the enlightenment while the japanese have to be one of the most conformist nations on earth and they almost always have radically different designs on the same thing.

lyle h
11-17-2005, 07:15 AM
OK, I do not wish for Cranial against Goblins before I get clasm. I am not an idiot and you do not need to tell me about board position. I was merely stating a situation in which I have drawn 2 wishes and used my second wish to keep Goblins from doing what the do, which is bounce back from Clasm.

Look the black splash has been nothing but good to me and if you want to bash it without actually testing it (which seems to be what you are doing) then that is fine by me. But please do not put down an idea until you have played with it yourself.

bigbear102
11-19-2005, 09:07 PM
I have to strongly endorse the inclusion of Aether Vial into this deck, it makes it completely crazy. Vialing out Ichneumon Druid is amazing against Solidarity, they have to take a lot or else not combo. You also can drop Rofellos eot so that he doesn't have as long to get killed if you don't have haste. Instant removal and life gain is cool too, and the look on somebody's face when you vial out a Deranged Hermit is worth it right there.

I also have been screwing around with adding in a couple of Savannahs and Glow Riders, it seems to be doing very well, and with the Vials you don't even need to search for the Savannahs, so it doesn't hurt your mana base very much, and shores up the Solidarity game 1, along with a lot of other random decks, like gro and the new BwD deck.

The problem is making room for these cards. If there isn't enough room for both then Vial should definately get included, it is too crazy not to play.

lyle h
11-20-2005, 09:37 AM
I tried Glowrider many moons ago but was none impressed with it. It is only good if you can get it out in multiples(so you need survival) and they can wish for the answer in responce a lot of times. I was just completely unimpressed with it outside of combo matchups at that, it just is not felxible enough to warrant a white splash.

Tao
11-20-2005, 10:56 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.

Mana
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
9 Forest
// Acceleration
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Birds of Paradise
// Spells
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Burning Wish
// Creatures
3 Ravenous Baloth
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Eternal Witness
3 Flametongue Kavu
// 1 offs
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Shivan Wurm
1 Viridian Zealot
2 Goblin Sharpshooter (2 of them vs Gobbos=gg)

// Board
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 2 Boil
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Nezumi Shortfang
SB: 1 Duplicant
// Wishboard
SB: 1 Haunting Echoes
SB: 1 Hull Breach
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy


There are two Main Problem of RG/Surviva. The First is the fact, that you have no way to disrupt your opponent, so Solidarity, FlameVault and other Combo Decks are Autolosses as you are always at least two turns to slow.
The Second is the great number of cards that are really bad without a Survival in play.

- Splashing Black for Cabal Therapy gives you a way to gain some Serious Hand-Destruction in form of Cabal Therapy and Burning Wish for Cabal Therapy. When I started testing this Build i always felt that the Deranged Hermit - Kill is not needed so I cutted Rofellos, Deranged Hermit and the Quirion Ranger giving the Deck more free Slots. The Hermit-Kill I always considered slow, win-more and "heya in 2 turns I'm gonna kill ya unless you mill me, kill me with gobbos, flame fusilade, counter my hermit and kill me with enforcers or "insert random".

- I replaced the Trolls for Wall of Blossoms, I did that before in straight RG-Builds and with the Synergy between Therapy and Walls I have no doubt that this is the right Decision. Wall is just so great in drawing into Survival/Wish/3rd Land or Therapy.

- I think Sakura-Tribe Elder is superior to LLanowar Elves, especially when you splash a 3rd Colour. The Deck now has no out vs. 1st turn lackey, but with Gobbos running 4 Fanatics, 3-4 Gempalm Incinerators and 0-4 Lightning Bolts /Swords MD the Llanowar Elf is dead in 90% of the Games when he is supposed to block a Lackey.
Adv. Elder: Manafix, can't be burned, superior chump-blocker, searches Basic Lands (which is so important, especially in the Gobbo-Matchup; here Elf just gets shoot, and Elder chumps+ Basic Land)
Adv. Elf: Turn 1 Drop + Acceleration

With Hull Breach, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Pyroclasm and Haunting Echoes here are only 5 Targets in the Wishboard, but I never felt I needed more or wanted to wish anything else. You probably should add Hand of Death to get rid off Angels, but I just couldn't get one anymore. Nezumi Shorfang in the SB is just great vs. Combo and Duplicant kills random Reanimator stuff and Angels. I don't think Tsunami or Flashfires are needed as a resolved Haunting Echoes nearly always wins the game, is more flexible and can be used versus all Decks.

The Deck plays more like Rock/Aggro Control the like a traditional RG/SA.

Zirilian
12-18-2005, 02:54 PM
Moreau played this in Lille:

9 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
1 Windswept Heath
4 Taiga
20 land

4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Eternal Witness
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Ravenous Baloth
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Dosan the Falling Leave
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker
1 Blastoderm
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
30 creatures

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Aether Vial
3 Burning Wish
11 other spells

Sideboard:
3 Pyroclasm
3 Blood Moon
1 Meltdown
1 Hull Breach
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Ruination
1 Tsunami
1 Chain Lightning
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Cave-In
1 Silent Arbiter


While his list is a bit odd, the fact that he made day 2 with 1000 players at Lille indicates that Vial is indeed the way to go for the deck.

Any comments on his build?

blacklotus3636
12-18-2005, 05:48 PM
Moreau played this in Lille:

9 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
1 Windswept Heath
4 Taiga
20 land

4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Eternal Witness
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Ravenous Baloth
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Dosan the Falling Leave
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker
1 Blastoderm
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
30 creatures

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Aether Vial
3 Burning Wish
11 other spells

Sideboard:
3 Pyroclasm
3 Blood Moon
1 Meltdown
1 Hull Breach
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Ruination
1 Tsunami
1 Chain Lightning
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Cave-In
1 Silent Arbiter


While his list is a bit odd, the fact that he made day 2 with 1000 players at Lille indicates that Vial is indeed the way to go for the deck.

Any comments on his build?

Here's what I think:
1.I think that the elves should be replaced with birds
2.How well does this deck function without survival? I think the measure of a good survival deck is how well it does without a survival on the table because realistically you should win any game in which survival resolves unless your playing against combo or something really stupid happens.
3.After much testing for many months viridian zealot should turn into elvish scrapper+lyrist because the mana required to use zealot usually is too expensive
4.In a non-madness based survival deck I can see how vial could be good but I haven't done enough testing with traditional R/G survival decks to know anything conclusive
5.why is shaman in this deck when you have zealot? Shaman is even more a waste of space than zealot is at least zealot can hit artifacts or enchantments.
6.Dosan the falling leaf makes no sense to me in this deck. There are only three decks that dosan even matters against and they are: blue based control,blue based aggro-control and solidarity. Blue based control is almost non-existent at this point and even if it was prevalent survival owns it anyway. Survival usually smashs aggro-control like gro because it's an aggro deck with a couple cards that say I win on them if they resolve so it's use here is also rather minimal especially as a one of. As for solidarity time has shown that a one of like dosan does very little to stop solidarity from comboing off I have grown to accept the fact that all you can really do is go as fast as you can and pray. Burning wish into tsunami is probably the most reliable silver bullet against solidarity I've come across yet.
7.While I'm not quite sure what the right amount of land is I usually don't have many problems with 18 and I don't run vial.
8.I cut ranger a while ago for space and I rarely ever need him but I always needed a rofellos so I now run an extra rofellos in his spot
9.The wish targets are fine as long as it contains hull breach,tsunami and ruination anything else is up for debate
I think I covered everything let me know what you guys think too.

blacklotus3636
12-20-2005, 12:23 AM
4 survival of the fittest
4 birds of paradise
4 Llanowar elves
2 rofellos
4 wild mongrel
4 basking rootwalla
3 arrogant wurm
2 flametongue kavu
3 firestorm
2 lightning bolt
1 squee
1 genesis
1 anger
1 eternal witness
1 scavenger folk
1 elvish lyrist
1 masticore
1 goblin sharpshooter
1 spore frog
1 sakura tribe elder
9 forest
1 mountain
4 taiga
4 wooded foothills

Sideboard
4 pyroclasm
4 tormods crypt
3 naturalize
3 pithing needle
...1 rack and ruin...
That was my madness based survival list I played in the PGI mox jet tourney in texas and even though I would say the list is very close to ideal I would still like to fit wishes in the deck. The wishes allow you to have answers to stuff like humility and solidarity while allowing you to get cards that can literally win you the game.

Bargoth
12-20-2005, 07:13 PM
I have also removed Yavimaya Elder entirely. He is great, but he got cut for Burning Wishes.
On the topic of Survival Advantage, rather than R/G Madness Survival.

Im sort of confused. The idea of what should be in the 4x Troll Ascetic (Wall of Blossems) slot was being discussed a page or so back and I was wondering why Yavimaya Elder wasn't brought back up for concideration.

Seems most lists cut him in favor of running a full set of Burning Wishes and Troll Ascetics, but now if the Troll slot is being brought into question, Elder is the first replacement that comes to mind.

He sort of serves as a comprimise between Troll and Wall. He can serve up some beats, not quite as well as Troll, but when you need to go offensive he can swing anyway. He plays the role of a blocker turned card advantage in a different way than Wall of Blossems does, but is still effective at turning 3 for 1's and if you have two extra mana 4 for 1's.

My current list is pretty standard I guess, but I went with Elders over Trolls or Walls.

4 Birds
4 Elves
4 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 FTK
2 Yavimaya Elder
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Rofellos
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Squee
1 Anger
1 Genisis
1 Hermit

4 Suvival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish

10 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain


Sideboard
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Pyroclasm
1 Goblin Pyromancer
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Reverent Silence
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination
1 Hull Breach
1 Regrowth
1 Earthquake

Zilla
12-20-2005, 08:16 PM
Walls of Blossoms cantrips and blocks Goblins and Mongooseses all day long. I'm pretty sure that's the way to go in the modern metagame.

CynicalSquirrel
12-20-2005, 08:49 PM
Yeah. When I had Elder in my deck, he was always a dead draw or bad draw. I think the Wall fits the deck and the metagame a lot better. This deck really doesn't need the land search or the 2 power that much, and outside of those the Wall is better in every way, especially late game when it can at least recycle itself for something else, instead of Elder which makes you eat up 5 mana to do it.

AngryTroll
12-22-2005, 08:40 PM
I still argue that Troll deserves the slot, honestly. Troll will block Mongeese, Werebears, and Goblins all day long in the mid to late game without Survival, and trade with almost everything in the early game. Against Gro, his untargetability is very valuable, as he will die to no removal in UGw and only Pyroclasm in UGr, and only if you are sloppy. If you have Survival on the table, usually Troll is more useful then Wall, because of the untargetability and the potential for regeneration and swinging, but you will probaby not summon either.

Without Survival, Troll serves as a threat against more controlling decks and a blocker, trader, and swinger against aggro decks. In the early game, sometimes the mana cost will be prohibative, but in the mid and late game, he is much more useful.

Troll is one of the cards decks like Gro and Landstill try very hard to counter. The fact that Troll is a card that needs to be countered is a clue as to its value in the matchup. Last tournament, for example, I played against UGw Gro, played by a competent player, and the deciding factor in both games I won were Trolls. Even in the game I lost, the Trolls were what kept me alive for as long as I did.

Trolls make the opponent more fearful of other cards in your deck on the offensive. In multiple games, Troll swung past Mystic Enforcer, with Threshold, because my opponent feared FTK. Even if they do have the counter, they are left vulnerable to Burning Wish and Survival after countering FTK.

Survival, Burning Wish (or the target), FTK, Rofellos, and Eternal Witness (or the target) are all must counters in the matchup. Survival and FTK are the first cards named with Meddling Mage (sometimes Burning Wish over FTK). Survival is the first target of needle.

Troll, Baloth, and the random threats like Deranged Hermit are all cards the grow deck really want to counter but may be unable to counter. The more threats we have here, the better. Wall of Blossoms may be a solid blocker, but it is not a great counterspell target in the mid game.

Troll trades or defeates Mongoose, FTK and Baloth beat Werebear and Mongeese (in combat), leaving really only Mystic Enforcer as an unanswered threat. I am not saying that the other creatures are not a concern, just that our creatures tend to be better, and having Survival and Burning Wish are huge advantages in the matchup. It is by no means a bye or an easy matchup, and it can easily be decided by playskill, but I believe that at least UGw Gro is a very even matchup. Having relevent graveyard hate (and a variety of it to dodge Needle) is a very important aspect of the matchup.

Vardaman
12-22-2005, 11:10 PM
I'm still of the opinion that Viridian Zealot is pretty trashy. Another poster pointed out that the only important enchantment in Legacy is Humility. (Worship might see more play in Gro with Mongoose but that would have to be solved by wishing for Hull Breach. I'm tempted to put an Earthquake in the board for the same purpose. It would also fill in for Fireball/Disintegrate if you were playing that.) I'd rather play Uktabi/V Shaman to take out artifacts a little more quickly. It's nice to respond to a Pithing Needle being played by searching up an Uktabi.

I'm happy most everyone has realized that Spore Frog is awful in R/G survival.

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. :\

Bargoth
12-23-2005, 12:41 AM
I agree with Varadaman on Veridian Zealot. I had included him in my list originally, but as many have said there really aren't too many enchantments that are threats and the biggest issue Humility is still untouchable.
I decided to cut Zealot freeing up some space, and sideboard a Tranquility to add extra enchantment hate along side Hull Breach and an Uktabi to deal with artifacts.

Ghetto_Santa
12-23-2005, 06:12 AM
Why isnt Orcish Settlers test in Survival Advantage?