[Deck] GW Survival

[Philipp2293]

If your opponent does not pass priority after sneak attack resolves, he gets to activate it before you are able to cast grip.

[Tao]

Sneak Attack is complicated to play against in general because there is no good point to bounce Emrakul with Karakas if they have Mana. Either you bounce it before Declare Attackers and they just re-put it and attack anyway or you bounce it in the Declare Attacker step when the trigger is on the Stack. Needless to say that both are not winning plays.
Playing around SA safely requires an active Pridemage plus an active KotR / Karakas. But the most realistic way to stop SA is probably an active KotR and enough Wasteland action to prevent them from getting the nessecary multiple Red Manas for that.

[Maëlig]

Have you guys tried a one-of RWM MD to tutor up (most likely through GSZ) against aggro? You can also play it with hierarch or discard it on shaman in case you accidently draw it.

[Tao]

There are a lot of cards that might be worth playing as a 1-off. It is important to figure out which 1-off gives you an edge and which one just make your deck inconsistent. I recommend only playing the one-offs you really need. As an example you can play 1 RWM, 1 Teeg, 1 Scryb Ranger and 1 Loaming Shaman so that you have answers for all kinds of things but then you will have to cut a full playset of another card and lose a lot of consistency in your aggression. I doubt that RWM has enough impact to be worth it.

ATM I still like the Vengevines. They were worth playing in testing and grind a lot. I currently switch between 3 Vengevine / Phyrexian Revoker / 4th Goyf and 3 Vengevines / Iona / Retainers.

For the Retainers version the newest Legendary creature should be an option. It will end the game against Elves and Dredge, very likely also win against Merfolk and Goblins and take out most of Affinity's ways to win (Etched Champion, Nexus, Discple, Pest, Thopter, also Frogmites and Memnites). Against everything else it should still be good, though it unfortunately does nothing against Combo decks.

[Hopo]

Yo.
Just popped to say that GW is doing fine and has been looking like the deck to beat at least here in Finland this year. I got 2nd during the weekend in a 24-man tournament. Lost the finals to Team America, which was my only loss for the whole day.

This is a really sweet list, especially if you are looking for ways to put all the good stuff in one deck:

//MAIN
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Mother of Runes
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Vengevine
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Wasteland
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
4 Horizon Canopy
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
2 Plains

//SIDEBOARD
3 Path to Exile
3 Choke
2 Null Rod
2 Tormod's Crpyt
2 Summoning Trap
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Emrakul, the Aeon's Tor


With the exception of my final match, this deck easily handles anything blue. This is a modern GW version of my late Bant Survival list with extra hate against blue decks. Also, Mental Misstep makes Summoning Trap great. Unless they have two counters, them misstepping your first turn hierarch/mother could mean you already won the game if you have a trap ready.

I won the majority of the matches by attacking with hasty Vengevines. They are incredibly good.
Next I need to figure out what to do to include 2 Mirran Crusaders in.

[Hopo]

Since I find it retarded to call anything with GWX in it a "Maverick" deck regardless of what the deck has in it, I keep posting to this thread as my build is rather different to DTB-sections GW decks. This deck is after all basically GW survival without survival.

Top 4 in a 34-man tournament. Swiss record 4-2, won UB-merfolk in quarterfinals while losing in the semifinals to NO Bant.
Top8 lists: http://poromagia.com/index.php?page=viewarticle&articleid=59

No Batterskull, but I can see it's merits, especially against merfolk. Iona is the only flier, but that was hardly a problem. Phyrexian Metamorph had it's moments, but I never tutored it and only cast it twice, if I remember right. Cloning a Sower of Temptation is as gamebreaking as the sower itself.

As strong as the deck is against anything blue, I anyway only lost to blue decks (UWB landstill, merfolk, NO Bant.) The landstill and bant players were two of the better players here. The lost merfolk game was a fluke so I won the same deck in quarters just by playing tighter (and by resolving my Dueling Grounds.)

Round 1: UW Landstill 2-0
Round 2: MUC 2-0
Round 3: Mono-B 2-0
Round 4: UBW landstill 0-2
Round 5: UB merfolk 1-2
Round 6: UBW landstill 2-1
Quarterfinals: UB merfolk 2-1
Semifinals: NO bant 1-2

So basically only good matchups.

I find Summoning Trap to be really effective in this meta. After getting hit by one, my opponents basically stopped countering my creatures, which is obviously good when you're playing a deck with 30 creatures.

[Hopo]

Another tournament, this time a bit disappointing 9th place out of 28 players. The deciding match against UW-landstill was supposed to be in my favor but eventually I lost anyway, I guess I sideboard wrong in these games as I'm still not sure whether to keep Swords to Plowshares in or not. This time I played without Iona-Retainers and Karakas, and was missing both tricks during the tournament.

Round 1: GW, win 1-0-1. Tower of the Magistrate won this one.
Rounds 2: Aeon Bridge, win 2-1 even without Karakas
Round 3: GW, loss 0-2. He ended up winning the tournament fighting through 3 different combo decks in top8.
Round 4: Mono-U merfolk, win 2-0. Merfolk just can’t win through Dueling Grounds.
Round 5: UW landstill, loss 1-2. I guess I should have won this, but didn’t.

[Hopo]

Waking up this sleeping monster, I am.

When I actively attended to tournaments with this baby, merfolk was a major player and UW stoneblade was starting to gain ground. Now merfolk is pretty absent and all the top decks are packed with spot removal. They also happen to be mostly blue so it's time to sleeve some Mothers of Runes and try to make most of it.

GW has been performing in Europe for a long time so that changes basically nothing in my deck. Nevertheless, it could be a good time to switch Iona to Elesh Norn to get some extra edge for the GW mirror, as well as any creature deck out there.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
3 Vengevine
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Gaddock Teeg

3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Savannah
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
2 Plains
2 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor

Discussion regarding the strategy is welcome, as well as any experiences or tournament data regarding Fauna Shaman decks.

[Deckerator]

Is this last posted deck again playable?
If it is i would maybe add quirion ranger and scryb ranger for a faster
Fauna shaman combo.
If i would change this deck to play it nowadays i would
change the following:

Cut:
-2 Stoneforge Mystic
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice
-2 Horizon Canopy

Add:
+2 Knight of the Reliquary
+2 Cavern of Souls
+1 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Scryb Ranger and maybe +1 Quirion Ranger

[Hopo]

Is this last posted deck again playable?

A lot has happened since these list were relevant. Now there are Thalia and Scavenging Ooze available, for example.

I have a new list to develop. It was built when Show and Tell was bigger, but I like it as a starting point at least. Retainers combo is in sideboard with Elesh Norn and Iona.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
3 Vengevine
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Mangara of Corondor
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Scavenging Ooze

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sylvan Library

4 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
3 Savannah
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
2 Forest
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor

Mangara started as an extra out to Show and Tell, but since there's Karakas already in the deck, it makes a great late game engine as well. Rise of the tribal decks is a good reason to have some extra removal as well.

Otherwise it's just GW with Vengevines as an extra offensive tool.

[Deckerator]

Is Vengevine optimal useable?
Have you already tested your list?

[Hopo]

Is Vengevine optimal useable?

Try and see. It depends on what you are usually playing against.

Have you already tested your list?

Nope.