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Thread: Combo Survival

  1. #1
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    Combo Survival

    I'll just dump this list here for discussion, I think everyone should get how this deck works... A detailed justification for the cardchoices will follow.

    Basically, I was developing some sort of transitional SB for my Bant Survival by including Trinket Mage, Painter's Servant and Grindstone in my SB to board in when I expected GY Hate and when I wasn't confident with Retainers+Iona in certain MUs.
    However, I went crazy from there and tried to include the interaction between Vengevine + Basking Rootwalla, from then on the deck developed itself.

    // Lands
    4 Windswept Heath
    4 Misty Rainforest
    4 Tropical Island
    3 Savannah
    3 Forest
    1 Island

    // Creatures
    4 Noble Hierarch
    4 Tarmogoyf
    3 Meddling Mage
    3 Fauna Shaman
    2 Vendilion Clique
    1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
    1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
    3 Basking Rootwalla
    1 Memnite
    1 Trinket Mage
    1 Loyal Retainers
    4 Vengevine
    1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
    1 Painter's Servant
    1 Wonder

    // Spells
    1 Grindstone
    4 Survival of the Fittest
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Ponder


    This Survival deck features 3 different combos - Vengevines, Iona+Retainers, and, hold your breath... Painter + Grindstone.
    I've been goldfishing the list a lot and it's quite consistent. Only drawback is not being able to support FoW, but it has PainterStone to pull out random unexpected wins.
    It also has no removal, but hey, that deck is about as combo-esque as a non Storm Combo deck can get without relying on the combo win alone. You can also win by beating down with flying Goyfs or good ol' Clique beats.

    Thanks to most MWS players being a bunch of incompetent ******, I wasn't able to test against developed decks too much but I figure it shouldn't do too bad.

    Criticism?
    Last edited by Nidd; 10-27-2010 at 08:08 PM.
    This looks like a job for me.

    Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.

  2. #2
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    Re: Combo Survival

    I've worked on Survival Grindstone decks for about 1-2 years, and the very old lists with GUr featuring 2 tutorable to grab Grindstone was explored. It was a little too slow. Granted that Fauna Shaman is now printed, this is a much stronger option. All in all, the more I worked with GUr Survival Grindstone, the more I felt blue was not worth it. Blue seems to be the weakest color in your deck, but it supports the cantrips and MM (which are weak in the MD to be honest).

    I've never been pleased with the slowness of setting up Grindstone with Survival->Trinket Mage->Grindstone + Survival->Painter.

    Assuming you had just Survival out, you need a total of GG5U to get the combo out, that's a total of 8 mana to possibly win the game assuming neither Painter nor Grindstone is countered. If you draw either or have either countered, then it became 2 dead slots in the deck. The ending result of Survival Grindstone that I worked with was to just go with 3 Grindstone maindeck, and maybe 2-3 Painter depending on how important the combo is in your deck. That way drawing that random Grindstone/Painter doesn't dilute the original intent of the deck when the strategy fails. In my list, I'm playing mainly a Welder Survival deck (I call it Welderstone Survival) so it has much more synergy.

    All in all, GUr Survival with Painter Grindstone doesn't seem worth it to run weaker cards that are not synergistic with your strategy. As mentioned above, it takes a ton of mana, and compare that against the other combos in your deck:

    Iona/Retainer -> GG2W
    Vengevines -> GGG...

    Trinket Mage does have the added bonus on not being totally dead since it helps the Vengevine plan, but IMO that option is not needed. It's too expensive to use Trinket Mage to power out Vengies in Legacy.

    I'm always a fan of Survival Painterstone, which I had been focusing as a casual deck, but have improved it on paper and sometimes in practice over the months/almost a year now. Survival Painterstone has a very different strategy from the way I see it: you want to play spells that cause your opponents to not be able to deal with it i.e. you want to win from many angles that add up to the same strategy. Your list already has 2 strong strategy: Iona/Retainer, Vengevines and beatdown. Adding 2 slots undedicated to Painterstone might be the danger of weakening your other 58 cards as a whole. I rather have 2 more cards that strengthen the 58 other cards, than weaken it if you know what I mean. And furthermore none of your 58 cards strengthen the 2 card combo you're suggesting. Survival/Fauna Shaman searches it out, but you can just as likely win with those cards if they're in play anyway.

    Note that as much as you would want to see Painterstone as a similar 2-card combo to Iona/Retainers, not that this is quite different. Aside from the heavy cost to grab the painterstone combo as mentioned earlier, Painterstone combo is much easily disrupted than Iona who locks out a color. Being both an artifact and creature doesn't help Painter against Pridemage/removal. My opinion, if you want to add Grindstone package, you need to dedicate a few more slots to it, from testing, at least 3 Grindstone, 2-3 Painter. You have Brainstorm that helps so that's a plus.

  3. #3
    Amen, brotha.
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    Re: Combo Survival

    I've worked on Survival Grindstone decks for about 1-2 years, and the very old lists with GUr featuring 2 tutorable to grab Grindstone was explored. It was a little too slow. Granted that Fauna Shaman is now printed, this is a much stronger option. All in all, the more I worked with GUr Survival Grindstone, the more I felt blue was not worth it. Blue seems to be the weakest color in your deck, but it supports the cantrips and MM (which are weak in the MD to be honest).
    The cantrips really improve the deck. They do make the difference between being a pile of random cards and Survival and being a deck that can filter it's draws and set up the engine.

    I've never been pleased with the slowness of setting up Grindstone with Survival->Trinket Mage->Grindstone + Survival->Painter.
    That's why it isn't the main plan. The main plan will pretty much always be to flood the opponent with Vengevines (when you get Survival) or to get out a quick Iona (when you get Fauna Shaman). Painter Grindstone is there to win games where Iona or Vengevines won't cut and therefore doesn't really need to be that fast.

    Assuming you had just Survival out, you need a total of GG5U to get the combo out, that's a total of 8 mana to possibly win the game assuming neither Painter nor Grindstone is countered. If you draw either or have either countered, then it became 2 dead slots in the deck. The ending result of Survival Grindstone that I worked with was to just go with 3 Grindstone maindeck, and maybe 2-3 Painter depending on how important the combo is in your deck. That way drawing that random Grindstone/Painter doesn't dilute the original intent of the deck when the strategy fails. In my list, I'm playing mainly a Welder Survival deck (I call it Welderstone Survival) so it has much more synergy.
    I understand the mana requirements for comboing in 1 turn are pretty damn high, but when you spread it over 2 turns, it becomes 4 mana each turn which is totally doable. When they counter your Grindstone, well, you can dump Painter for Iona to go for Retainers or get Vengevines going. Flying Vengevines can also win games out of nowhere. A lone Grindstone sucks though. But I guess we have to take that risk.
    I can't run more Grindstones nor more Painters, the deck simply doesn't have the slots to do so. Also, this isn't the main kill we aim for. Vengevines + Iona still have higher priority and ideally our opponent won't see PainterStone coming until G2, where we can surprise him as we look like regular Bant Survival and he doesn't expect such shenanigans to happen.
    I think Welderstone Survival is a pretty different deck, I've seen your lists and they looked a lot different.

    All in all, GUr Survival with Painter Grindstone doesn't seem worth it to run weaker cards that are not synergistic with your strategy. As mentioned above, it takes a ton of mana, and compare that against the other combos in your deck:

    Iona/Retainer -> GG2W
    Vengevines -> GGG...

    Trinket Mage does have the added bonus on not being totally dead since it helps the Vengevine plan, but IMO that option is not needed. It's too expensive to use Trinket Mage to power out Vengies in Legacy.
    The deck is manaintensive and PainterStone is the most expensive kill available, however, it's only some sort of "fallback" kill G1.
    Trinket Mage isn't only there to grab the Memnite to help the Vengevine plan, he's more than that. He enables one to run such cards like Pithing Needle or such stuff in the SB and grab it reliably. Him being able to grab Memnite to fire off the Vengevines once more is nice, but that isn't his main use.
    Also, he represents the tutorable Trindstone.

    I'm always a fan of Survival Painterstone, which I had been focusing as a casual deck, but have improved it on paper and sometimes in practice over the months/almost a year now. Survival Painterstone has a very different strategy from the way I see it: you want to play spells that cause your opponents to not be able to deal with it i.e. you want to win from many angles that add up to the same strategy. Your list already has 2 strong strategy: Iona/Retainer, Vengevines and beatdown. Adding 2 slots undedicated to Painterstone might be the danger of weakening your other 58 cards as a whole. I rather have 2 more cards that strengthen the 58 other cards, than weaken it if you know what I mean. And furthermore none of your 58 cards strengthen the 2 card combo you're suggesting. Survival/Fauna Shaman searches it out, but you can just as likely win with those cards if they're in play anyway.
    PainterStone enables me to dodge the most common hate Survival faces: GY Hate. PainterStone doesn't care about these Crypts, Spellbombs or Relics there, nor does it care about that Leyline of the Void or Planar Void. When your opponent waters up his deck with hate against our main winconditions, we can bust out PainterStone and win. These 2 slots don't improve the main plan in any way, I understand that, but they provide an alternative way to win. Also, we play 4 Brainstorm, so dead pieces can be shuffled away.

    Note that as much as you would want to see Painterstone as a similar 2-card combo to Iona/Retainers, not that this is quite different. Aside from the heavy cost to grab the painterstone combo as mentioned earlier, Painterstone combo is much easily disrupted than Iona who locks out a color. Being both an artifact and creature doesn't help Painter against Pridemage/removal. My opinion, if you want to add Grindstone package, you need to dedicate a few more slots to it, from testing, at least 3 Grindstone, 2-3 Painter. You have Brainstorm that helps so that's a plus.
    I know that PainterStone is quite different from IonaRetainers and that it's quite easy to disrupt. But as you can see, we also have ways to protect our stuff even without FoW. We have Kira, Clique and Meddling Mage to shut down specific cards and win when we sense the way is free.
    This looks like a job for me.

    Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.

  4. #4
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    Re: Combo Survival

    The inherent problem with this deck is that your deck is going to be weaker than other Survival versions when you don't draw or cannot resolve Survival, which is an issue since Survival generally will win, no matter what version, once you can untap with the enchanment in play. Fauna Shaman helps, but is really slow. The only reason I can see adding the PainterStone combo is to beat sideboard grave hate against slow mathchups, which is kind of a fringe case. I am just thinking about how frustrated you will be when you naturally draw Grindstone with no Survival or when you follow your opponent's Goyf with an irrelevant Painter's Servant.

  5. #5
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    Re: Combo Survival

    If you want to beat graveyard hate you can play Knights or Natural Order which are both One-Card solutions 4 that problem

  6. #6
    Amen, brotha.
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    Re: Combo Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Scatterbrain View Post
    The inherent problem with this deck is that your deck is going to be weaker than other Survival versions when you don't draw or cannot resolve Survival, which is an issue since Survival generally will win, no matter what version, once you can untap with the enchanment in play. Fauna Shaman helps, but is really slow. The only reason I can see adding the PainterStone combo is to beat sideboard grave hate against slow mathchups, which is kind of a fringe case. I am just thinking about how frustrated you will be when you naturally draw Grindstone with no Survival or when you follow your opponent's Goyf with an irrelevant Painter's Servant.
    Fauna Shaman is fast enough to assemble Iona+Retainers or PainterStone, never had any problems in testing yet.

    If I draw the lone Grindstone, chances are I'm going to be able to get rid of it with Brainstorm or I'll just find a Survival and win.
    You have to take some risk to get rewarded.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lemnear View Post
    If you want to beat graveyard hate you can play Knights or Natural Order which are both One-Card solutions 4 that problem
    Knight doesn't win against GY Hate. it sure as hell doesn't.
    I thought about NO, but it takes up too many slots and drawing Progenitus is as bad as drawing the Grindstone or the Painter.
    This looks like a job for me.

    Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.

  7. #7
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    Re: Combo Survival

    I immediately compared this to Chapin's approach from Columbus and liked the latter better. Survival + Painter/Stone came across my mind about half a year ago, but turned out too slow for my taste. Chapin's deck is different beast, though, but it's difficult as hell to play correctly.
    Conan, what is best in life? - To crush your enemies, see them driven before you... and to hear the lamentation of their women!

  8. #8
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    Re: Combo Survival

    Knight is only not too Hot against crypt but most decks board fairy maccabre or extirpate so knight IS a solution if they board that effective vengevine-hate.

    So Natural Order eats up more slots than painter, grinstone, trinket mage and the whole bunch of questionable slots like 3 wallas (who could ever need more than 2?), kira, cliques, ponder and more? Sure progenitus is a dead but that's Not an argument against it, especially with all the stuff you Play instead; no one dismiss tinker-bot in vintage because of the fact the bot's a Dead draw and they have no near As much options to get rid of it like Survival has. Painter-grindstone and blue without Force gives you nothing in Addition to your Main plan.

  9. #9

    Re: Combo Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Nidd View Post
    Fauna Shaman is fast enough to assemble Iona+Retainers or PainterStone, never had any problems in testing yet.

    If I draw the lone Grindstone, chances are I'm going to be able to get rid of it with Brainstorm or I'll just find a Survival and win.
    You have to take some risk to get rewarded.

    Knight doesn't win against GY Hate. it sure as hell doesn't.
    I thought about NO, but it takes up too many slots and drawing Progenitus is as bad as drawing the Grindstone or the Painter.
    Drawing Progenitus is fine you can use survival to shuffle it back.

  10. #10

    Re: Combo Survival

    Also ill test with you just give me a holla

  11. #11
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    Re: Combo Survival

    Painter also seals the deal after an iona....it makes sure that they can do nothing at all...

  12. #12
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    Re: Combo Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemnear View Post
    Knight is only not too Hot against crypt but most decks board fairy maccabre or extirpate so knight IS a solution if they board that effective vengevine-hate.

    So Natural Order eats up more slots than painter, grinstone, trinket mage and the whole bunch of questionable slots like 3 wallas (who could ever need more than 2?), kira, cliques, ponder and more? Sure progenitus is a dead but that's Not an argument against it, especially with all the stuff you Play instead; no one dismiss tinker-bot in vintage because of the fact the bot's a Dead draw and they have no near As much options to get rid of it like Survival has. Painter-grindstone and blue without Force gives you nothing in Addition to your Main plan.
    Not every deck runs Faeries/Extirpate and not every deck should do so. When asking people about the GY Hate they pack, I mostly encounter Crypts and Relics, Faerie comes in last, Extirpate is somewhere in between. So saying KotR plays around GY Hate is a fringe case.

    You need more than 2 Rootwallas when your opponent can actually handle your Vengevines. Cards like Perish say Hi.
    Blue gives me protection not in the form of counters but in the form of proactive elements like Kira, Clique and Meddling Mage. From the SB I could bring in Spell Pierces. Also, Combo decks like them some card selection, I heard. Blue is quite good at that.

    Blue definitely pulls it's weight.
    Quote Originally Posted by otherside View Post
    Drawing Progenitus is fine you can use survival to shuffle it back.
    Point taken.
    Quote Originally Posted by otherside View Post
    Also ill test with you just give me a holla
    If I weren't going to GP Bochum in a few hours, that would be a great idea.
    Quote Originally Posted by f|i[p] View Post
    Painter also seals the deal after an iona....it makes sure that they can do nothing at all...
    Yeah, he turns the softlock into a hardlock, but I don't think that's that important.
    This looks like a job for me.

    Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.

  13. #13
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    Re: Combo Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Nidd View Post
    Yeah, he turns the softlock into a hardlock, but I don't think that's that important.
    The truth is that, I think it does matter. THere were a couple of times where I lost even If I had an iona in play just because my opponent got to collect tons of creatures and attack. There were also times were I got burned out with iona naming white against zoo. I have always wanted to run a single copy of painter maindeck, but found him quite useless on his own. As for your deck he gets more uses.

  14. #14

    Re: Combo Survival

    Why not just go all the way and play Recurring Nightmare?

  15. #15
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    Re: Combo Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by nedleeds View Post
    Why not just go all the way and play Recurring Nightmare?
    Because playing 4 colors makes the manabase incredibly vulnerable.
    This looks like a job for me.

    Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.

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