[B&R] Vengevival vs GP NJ

[Echelon]

I lol'd at the "sideboarding works both ways equally"-bit. You really expect people to take you seriously when spouting such nonsense? Have you ever played a deck that relies solely on its graveyard..?

Here is what's wrong with your methods:
You're ignoring an integral part of the game (sideboarding)
You're ignoring a part of the meta (occasional SCG-winners with a rather small attendance)
You have no way to determine what part of the field would play SotF (with a small enough attendance, no single card/deck would pose a problem)

Good luck getting reliable/feasable results, enjoy your little experiment. This is just silly.

[bruizar]

I lol'd at the "sideboarding works both ways equally"-bit.

Nice way to quote things I never said.

Here's what I said

Sideboarding works both ways.

I won't justify the rest of your bashing with a dignified response. Azijnpisser.

[Echelon]

Azijnpisser.

I lol'd, hard.

Won't or can't? If you find letting over 50% of all games have different outcomes, that's fine with me. Fortunately sideboarding has never made games 2 and 3 onesided. In a format where you just play G1 2 or 3 times, I'd be more then happy to run LED Dredge. Without the hate from the SBss T8s'll be seeing a lot more copies of that deck then they do now.

Meh, I don't care anymore. Enjoy.

[Gheizen64]

Can we keep the discussion civil and personal rage and attack off the forums? All i've been trying to do is test some lists to bring some more weight to the idea that Survival should be unbanned and half this topic is about bitching.

[bruizar]

I'm removing the responses I made in this thread as it is clear that it is not appreciated, at least by the vocal minority who would rather bash a modeling approach.

Don't believe in science, keep praying to the sun gods Echelon & Lemnear. Good luck.

[Gheizen64]

I'm removing the responses I made in this thread as it is clear that it is not appreciated, at least by the vocal minority who would rather bash a modeling approach.

Don't believe in science, keep praying to the sun gods Echelon & Lemnear. Good luck.

Thx, if you ever want to tests some survival list just pm me and hit me on cockatrice. Trying to get players from the chat room is a mess. Of the ones i've tried (CalebD GWb, old UG, modernized UG lists etc...) this one feel like the best yet:


4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Vengevine
1 Basking Rootwalla
1 Memnite
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Sylvan Library
1 Banishing Light
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Commune with the Gods
4 Wasteland
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog

[Gheizen64]

Trying black instead of white and it feel better. The Cabal therapies combined with your vengevine combo basically mean vengevine combo is extremely hard to deal with.

List:


3 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs

1 Basking Rootwalla
3 Fauna Shaman
3 Necrotic Ooze
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Triskelion
3 Vengevine
1 Wonder
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Memnite
4 Deathrite Shaman


This is where the deck start to win more often against current top lists, and where i'd really like to have something that's not Pyroblast mains in so many of those top lists lol.

[nedleeds]

Seems soft to needle and revoker, and jitte ... maybe a reclamation sage? I like therapy though ...

[Gheizen64]

Tested the above lists a bit vs UR, Patriot and Miracle.

UR was slightly favorite over it. The fast clock and dazes+fows to stop crucial spells were often too much for all the non-amazing survival hands. Cruise was really good in those games where sotf didn't resolve, but the UR deck had slow hands and/or traded all the board. Survival not playing TC is probably a mistake, but there isn't a lot of slots and i feel FoWs and Dazes are too important to assure your SotF resolves, BS is still a strictly better ancestral recall, and the rest is the SotF shell basically. Maybe could remove a wonder and a therapy.

Patriot was about even. The biggest duds for patriots were the 2 pyroblast and spell pierce that weren't really good against a deck with a lot of threats. Many times Ooze closed games because it could work as a Fauna shaman or DRS that got/removed countered and it really surprised me as a good card. TNN and SFM were good at slowing the vengevines, but unless Patriot had a counterspell for the Ooze, the survival deck could just win a couple of turns later, and Patriot couldn't close games consistently before that could happen, unlike UR delver. Those games came down to how fast could Survival get to the 4th-5th mana and how fast Patriot could kill him before that with a TNN. The hands where SotF had therapies +T2 SotF were usually just scoop for Patriots, facing multiple VV and getting all the answer cards discarded.

Miracle was slightly unfavourable to even. The ability to mass exile vengevines with Swords and Snapcasters, plus the bigger amounts of counters/control, meant that if Survival wasn't resolving T2 or T3 SotF, the game was going to miracle. Sadly, Miracle tendency to be a bit slow the first turns, and the hands where Survival had T2 Survivals or multiple survivals, meant that Miracle got closed out of the game early and often. SotF resolving was often game unless Miracle had a countertop assembled, and Terminus putting Vengevines on bottom was often a big problem for Miracle because Survival could just fetch them again together with the walla +memnite combination, whereas this wouldn't have been true for a normal sweeper.

Those results didn't surprise me at all, because the decks that did worse against survival were the control /midrangey decks designed to counter a UR delver meta. If survival were to be actually unbanned, you could easily tune those decks to have favourable matchups vs Survival pre and post board. For example, Spell pierce and blasts main make sense against a 40% UR meta, but are generally not great cards against survival. Spell snares or even Wear//Tear and Swan song main would all be better against survival. If UR saw less play, a Needle or two maindeck could also make sense vs Countertops, Survivals, and Stoneforges, plus occasional mud decks, and random planeswalkers.

I'll probably test the list some more vs other decks like Maverick and D&T to see how it fare against the current non-blue "fair" decks of the meta.

EDIT: just for fun, i tried testing it vs infect. I think i've never played something closer to a bye than this matchup lol. Having no creature removal and low level of permission, mean this build of survival has literally 0 chance against Infect who always close the game faster. The GW variant with swords is probably better than the UGb variant with dazes, fow and therapies, but it's clearly an extremely unfavourable matchup.

[Gheizen64]

Tested some vs D&T, list was the T8 NJ one, BUG list was the same as two post above:

D&T is slightly favored pre-board, heavy post board i think (i'm not testing PB games). Running 3revokers main, StP, Mirran Crusader + the usual disruptions tricks and mana denial for D&T basically meant that unless Survival could land a T2 survival and D&T didn't have good answers, Survival usually lost. Swords on Vengevines, plus EoT Flickerwisp was often a timewalk when used on SotF (and survival was tapped out), meaning D&T could gain a lot of time. After removing Vengevines with StP and protected flickerwisps or avengers (because of wonder), Wastes+Rishadan keeping off the survival player from the second black mana was often enough time to kill him before he could recover even with a SotF out. You have to keep in mind that the SotF can't combo Vengevines more than once usually since it run only 2 enablers (Walla and memnite), or either you need 2 natural creatures in hand and that's usually hard. The forces and Dazes weren't good in this MU, while therapies, even blind for revokers, were much better.
Revokers aside, D&T had a lot of really good cards this MU, from first striking creatures + equip, to Flickerwisp that could cycle out black mana or SotF on EoT to avoid the survival chain on their turn (so no attack), or block flying Vengevines with help from mom, and Serra avenger that again could trade vengevines all day long with moms, and all the mana denial strat that should be focused on black sources in this MU. Mirran crusader isn't as good as it appear at first because of the fact he couldn't block flying VV, and being only slightly better as a clock than the Avengers and Flickerwisps, without all the utility. SFM similarly is a bit slow usually, but a bit better than in patriot because you can keep them lower on mana with your disruption, gaining enough time for SFM to matter more.
Post board D&T has +1 cage, +2 containment priest, +1 RiP, +1 tutors (catacylsm probably is too slow but if it resolve it's absurd here) and Survival get blown out. You side out i think 1 SoFaI, 1 Thalia, 1 Avenger, 1 SotL, 1 stoneforge? Feel right, maybe 1 more crusader for 1 more tutor.

So after this i thought the list above should be changed for

-4 FoW: against more controllish matchups, fows were good to try and force thru the SotF. However, the pitch card was often a problem, and against other decks with little permission but permanent-based hate like D&T or maverick, those feel underwhelming. As such, i feel targeted discard, paired with Therapies, may be the better choice since you usually know what you need to discard (FoW/pierce vs control, Revoker vs D&T, TC vs UR)

-3 Intuition: the old take 3 Vengevines, plus draw a creature, then play both for 5 mana for 3 vengevines is incredibly clunky now. With so many more answers to Vengevines swarm than before, plus the increased speed of even creature-based decks, this just don't cut it anymore. Ponders and DTT or commune with the gods may go in its place.

Ooze and Fauna shaman: Fauna is really, really slow, but the discard outlet is still crucial so they stay. If Frantic search were legal, i'd probably play that, but it ain't so whatever. Ooze has surprised me as a better card than i thought, but as a 3-of, plus 3 vengevines that's too many cards that cost a lot, so i'd cut back 1 ooze.

So this is the new list:

Creatures:
1 Basking Rootwalla
3 Fauna Shaman
2 Necrotic Ooze
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Triskelion
3 Vengevine
1 Wonder
1 Memnite
4 Deathrite Shaman

Survival and Search/Protection:
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Daze
3 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize
2 Dig Through Time

Lands:
3 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs


As an alternative to Dig which i'm just trying now, i'd consider Commune with the Gods. It's sorcery but it can grab a Survival, a creature, and put vengevines in the graveyard all at once. GSZ wasn't even considered because searching for T1 dryad is nowhere as important as casting a ponder/discard spell to protect your SotF or fauna or whatever else. Later GSZ into fatties isn't possible because of how the Oozes are black, and Vengevines are the only fatties you'd want anyway, at 4 mana. You don't have creatures silver bullets either. Abrupt Decay is certainly a card i'd put in if permanent-based answers were to become too widespread, in place of some discard/search cards, but space is tight.

In general, BUG survival variants have the advantage of added disruptions both as Daze and Discard, but no swords nor E. Tutor, nor KotR as a secondary engine like GW has. ***SEE EDIT*** GW as such has a better game against "fairer" decks like UR delver and Patriots, but suffer more against combo decks. Control depends a lot on the build. More creature-heavy GW lists are probably better than BUG survivals because of how easy it is to recurr Vengevines, while E.Tutor + Sylvan builds are probably better against random decks and fair decks. This is the GW survival list i'm running now:


Creatures:
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Noble Hierarch
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Vengevine
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Basking Rootwalla
1 Memnite
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Qasali Pridemage

SotF/search/removal:
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Sylvan Library
1 Banishing Light

Lands:
4 Wasteland
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog


Thalia has been going in and out of the deck. As the only out to stopping combo, alongside tutoring for SotL in the maindeck, or KotR Bojuka Bog, it feels a bit useless. No equips are there to make her shine either. As such, i'm really tempted to just play Commune with the Gods in those spots and move her to the side with more anti-combo cards, like Stingerfling Spider for SnT, Faerie Macabre for reanimator/PifT/Dredge, Gaddock Teeg etc...

EDIT: actually, after trying it a bit, GW don't have a better Patriot matchup, because of the low ability to pierce disruption with no discard/countermagic of its own, and the slowness of KotR/Rest of the deck clock whenever SotF don't come online. The same is true against UR delver, basically your creatures get bolted, your SotF get dazed/forced, and then delver/Monastery/Pyro kill you way faster than you can lay down KotRs and Vengevines. So yeah, BUG shell is probably best bet. BS too good boys.
As of now i couldn't find a list that got a good MU vs UR delver. Old lists don't cut it obviously. CalebD newer lists don't cut it either, nor do the new list i've tried, both BUG, nor GW. BUG is even against Patriot and Miracle, but GW is unfavoured. Changing a bit the list (BUG) didn't seems to improve MU significantly. I rest my case that SotF combo is too slow or suffer from too much splash hate to be relevant today. It could spawn good decks, but not dominate the format, unless some new absurdly busted interaction is printed, like a madness 0 Griselbrand or Emrakul.

If someone want to test more lists with me, i'll gladly do so. As far as i'm concerned i've tested more than enough to get the feeling of what the card can or can't do nowadays, what are the deck's problems, and what are its strenght. SotF T2 remain absurdly strong, but it's not as autowin as it was (especially vs D&T or UR with extremely fast draws), and if you don't get it, the deck suffer a lot. Basically, it's inconsistent, play some clunky draws, and all your deck is based on a single spell, but you can't play as much blue as Show and Tell to assure it resolve for example, neither you can play something that's similar in power level and function like Sneak Attack (Fauna is nowhere close, as it is much more slow and easily removable). If your first Vengevine chain don't kill (and that happen with mass swords and bolt around), you can't get a second because you need to have 2 creatures in hand AFTER a SotF chain, and that's hard, plus, Ooze or Retainer combo can be countered unlike Vengevines from the grave. TNN, Delver and Pyromancer all allow your opponent deck to keep a lot of pressure up while casting removals and counters, and your fatties come too late to compensate. D&T is a new, real, deck, that has a good matchup vs it even pre-board, and Infect is absurd like 75% win ratio for the infect player.
As a simple tutor, excluding Vengevines the card quickly felt subpar, requiring 1GG and a discard to tutor your first creature, and then tutoring but always at card parity. If you skip vengevines, it's still 7-8 slots, 3 of which are subpar cards (3 combo creatures), and SotF is more of a lategame card in that case because you are surely not casting it T2 to and using all your third turn to get , and then finally cast on T4, Retainer/Ooze, unless you're totally sure you're playing against a deck that can't do anything about it during those 3 turns, which i feel isn't something you can expect in legacy. Elves can kill you in those three turns, miracle can find counters for your hardcasted creature combo that you spent 1GGGG+ 2BB or 2W to cast (and here it strike me that maybe you could try it in GW human with cavern...), UR Delver can kill you, and Patriot variants are probably your best bet.

After my extensive Black Vise testing that i did couple of year ago, i can safely add SotF and feel it wouldn't become dominant, my unban list is:

Safe, do nothing:
Black Vise
Earthcraft
Mind Twist
Dragon

Safe, possibly even a new T1 deck:
Survival

[Echelon]

So... there is a home for SotF you're overlooking...

Elves! I've tested it.

Take for example the following build:
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
2 Bayou
3 Natural Order
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Survival of the Fittest

This way the deck can easily assemble 2/3 Nettle Sentinels as soon as it starts Glimpsing and you're sure to draw the full 4 Elvish Visionaries and 4 Wirewood Symbiotes every single time to ensure the engine doesn't shut down too early.

Seriously, how could you overlook this..? By bringing back SotF, Elves! doesn't suddenly cease to exist as a deck.

[Gheizen64]

So... there is a home for SotF you're overlooking...

Elves! I've tested it.

Take for example the following build:
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
2 Bayou
3 Natural Order
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Survival of the Fittest

This way the deck can easily assemble 2/3 Nettle Sentinels as soon as it starts Glimpsing and you're sure to draw the full 4 Elvish Visionaries and 4 Wirewood Symbiotes every single time to ensure the engine doesn't shut down too early.

Seriously, how could you overlook this..? By bringing back SotF, Elves! doesn't suddenly cease to exist as a deck.

I didn't overlook it but i didn't test it for three reasons:

- i think elves! is already consistent enough, and Using 1GG to fetch a Nettle seems you'd just slow the deck down a lot compared to normal elves!
- i never played elves! before so testing it from my part would be pretty inconsequential
- old survival elves lists i could use for comparison had elves as an aggro more than a combo deck.

If you're an elves! player we could try and see if it's more consistent/faster than straight elves! because with the amount of redundancy elves! has i'm seeing SotF as just creating clunky openings.

EDIT: Also that list need 4 cradles

EDIT2: it's funny because searching for survival elves you finish on the source obviously, and there are some posts i've found quickly skimming the thread:

In my experience, SotF felt slow. I previously piloted different types of SotF decks and I've always felt that it was 1 or 2 turns to slow to seal the deal, and ofc it's pretty mana hungry. It would ofc be a little faster in a deck packed with elves, but then again, there aren't many elves that in my opinion justifies the inclusion of SotF.
Playing SotF implies that you will run a bunch of silver bullets that will get you out of certain situations or go for the win. Most of the time, it's the first. There are no really good silver bullet elves that can compete in Legacy atm, more than maybe a hand full.

Personally I feel more explosive running the non SotF build even though it has it's pros and cons.
I favor the fast and aggressive playstyle more than to be the reactive one, and the fact that 50% of the decks I'm going up against in my meta involves some sort of thresh/counter/crapness which tends to put the SotF build back hard.
It doesn't hurt the aggressive elf build as much since you drop threat after threat. If they waste their counters on the little pointy-eared men, then they will feel the beat from a NO into Progenitus. If they're holding back counters for NO, then the elves and lords slip through.

That's just my personal opinion. It all comes down to play style and personal references and of course what meta you're in.
Tribal decks tend to have low win percentage against combo decks so packing hate against those decks seem to be a waste of slots.
I've been play testing a series of games against ANT and the only thing you actually can do is to hope that the don't have the nuts draw, hit with a blind therapy on their mana sources/tutors or have a nuts draw yourself and net some of their life before they go bananas.

Either way, I'm feeling more comfortable playing blue decks now that survival's out of the picture in my decklist. It more than often didn't go online and resultet in them timewalking me when they counter it. (Read FoW and Spell Snare). Playing around Daze is easy, but the rest... It's hard to even get it through imo.

This was a post discussing survival actually before the ban, and i tend to agree with this poster here... if not for not the cards he's citing, but in general, elves! is so consistent and fast survival seems just slow for it. I think GSZ is miles better in the deck, and i feel the deck start to have clunky draws if run both GSZ, NO and survival.

The post immediately next:

Well, the way I see it, SotF allows you to play an aggro deck with the possibility to go for a combo finish.

Elves allows you to tutor up Anger on T2, then on T3 tutor a Priest of Titania, Sylvan Messengers and then just start chaining Priests, grab Symbiotes to bounce Messengers and untap your manadorks and finally overwhelm your enemy with a bunch of hasted Elves.

Against Blue decks, you can board this strategy out and pack in some more meat.

I can't really tell whether Survival is win-more or if it really makes me win games I would normally lose.
I mean, it even enables you to recharge by tutoring Messengers after a sweeper - if one lands.

Also, it's extremely annoying to only have Natural Order, draw that Progenitus and then have no way to get him back into my library again.

You see how SotF wasn't considered optimal against blue because it make counterspells a lot better against you and you aren't swarming them of creatures too fast for them to respond. SotF was considered also a combo outlet because it allowed you to tutor anger and go off with mana elves + sylvan messenger. Note that this was before nettle sentinels and heritage druids were used, so elves! didn't have a way to go off all in a single turn like it does now.
Also the Progenitus comment is funny now that Craterhoof behemot exist, truly a huge upgrade.

Obviously there are also pro-surv arguments, and we have to keep in mind that those survival elves lists looked like this back then:

16 land
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Forest
2x Taiga
2x Savannah

33 Creatures
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Imperious Perfect
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Priest of Titania
3x Elvish Champion
3x Quirion Ranger
3x Sylvan Messenger
1x Viridian Zealot

Engine
4x Survival of the Fittest
1x Squee
1x Anger

Alternate Win
4x Natural Order
1x Progenitus

Where again, survival was used as a slow-toolbox card engine, and gave elves the ability to go off in a single turn with Anger, mana elves and Sylvan Messenger.
Elves combo was a different deck (similar to the current one) and it did not run survival http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ck-Elves-Combo

From the primer:

2.b TUTORING
The main tutor used in most combo elves decks is summoner’s pact, and for good reason. The idea is that you cast it on the same turn you combo off in order to avoid the drawback (upkeep cost). If it’s used this way, it’s essentially a 0 mana tutor. Once the combo is under way, pacts are usually used to fetch creatures which help fuel card draw (visionary, symbiote, regal force). Also note that casting pact adds to storm count and untaps all sentinels.

Usually 4 tutors is not enough for the deck to run smoothly, so there is a small list of acceptable tutors to accompany them. The most common ones are chord of calling, natural order, survival of the fittest and weird harvest, although there might be other options available such as a wishboard. Each of these tutors offer different advantages and disadvantages, which are often reflected in some of the card choices in the decks. For example, natural order can play giant green creatures for cheap (progenitus, regal force), chord of calling can play non-green creatures with birchlore (mirror entity), survival can combo (anger, masked admirers, iona/retainer, etc.) and weird harvest can go crazy if a lot of mana is available.

Summoner's Pact is now GSZ, and the second paragraph would still apply today. The lists in the primer all use NO as the second tutor engine. This was said about Survival!:

survival of the fittest: the engine card already stands on its own merits, and synergizes with elves in a variety of ways. It gives more value to your toolbox creatures, as they can more reliably come to your hand when you need them, its probably the best card to help you recover from sweepers, and it can often support you as you're combo, by fetching creatures you need for additional fuel. And finally, if your board set up is strong enough, you can combo off with survival itself.

Also some funny posts in retrospect (removed the name because hindsight and all that):

I don't like Fauna Shaman because you have to wait a turn to use it and it can only be used once per turn. Elves is a deck that is about speed, and the Shaman is too slow. I would rather play Elvish Visionary (which doesn't make the cut, either) because it nets me an extra card right away. Also, if you want to play the Shaman, what do you take out? I suppose it is better than Wren's Run Vanquisher, but you should not be playing those anyway.

I'm gonna read the Elves combo topic next to see what the reactions were after the survival ban since i have to go now.

[Zombie]

I don't think slotting Survival into an existing Elves shell will do much good. The current deck is already strong, resilient and redundant.
Put survival in while leaving all current spells in and you nerf Glimpse and NO.

The real potential of the card lies in changing the nature of the deck: Ability to incorporate nongreen bullets, to do away with NO and thus make Teeg a realistic option, the ability to shuffle away Progenitus, go back to Mirror Entity shenanigans. An Elf-Vengevival type build or transformative sideboard just as another way to build the deck so you have more options to adjust to the meta (the current skeleton is quite rigid). These types of things would be the stuff I'd look at first. Four spell-based engines in the deck is too much, the change in engine makeup is where the candy is.

[Gheizen64]

I don't think slotting Survival into an existing Elves shell will do much good. The current deck is already strong, resilient and redundant.
Put survival in while leaving all current spells in and you nerf Glimpse and NO.

The real potential of the card lies in changing the nature of the deck: Ability to incorporate nongreen bullets, to do away with NO and thus make Teeg a realistic option, the ability to shuffle away Progenitus, go back to Mirror Entity shenanigans. An Elf-Vengevival type build or transformative sideboard just as another way to build the deck so you have more options to adjust to the meta (the current skeleton is quite rigid). These types of things would be the stuff I'd look at first. Four spell-based engines in the deck is too much, the change in engine makeup is where the candy is.

Yeah, this seems much more reasonable.

Also what's with old decklists links? They're all down and i can't check any of them. Meanwhile TCDecks go only back to 2012 after survival was already banned anyway.
Example:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...0&iddeck=40878

[Echelon]

I don't think slotting Survival into an existing Elves shell will do much good. The current deck is already strong, resilient and redundant.
Put survival in while leaving all current spells in and you nerf Glimpse and NO.

I've tried, just for giggles. And b/c you absolutely can't lower the creature count, I tossed out the Cradles to create extra slots. Trust me, the full blown combo list works just fine without Cradles. I did find 3 SotF to be optimal, freeing up a slot. The only thing that would nerf Glimpse is to lower the creature count, not swapping spells (Cradle is a spell rather than a land).

Besides, when going the full SotF/Glimpse-route you could opt for a storm-kill in the form of ToA (especially when running 4 Birchlores) rather then Natural Order, freeing up more slots for cheap elves or we can start playing Summoners Pact again.

The shell is more flexible then you give it credit for! You can use it as a nice platform to build upon.

Anywho... I still wouldn't plead to unban SotF.

[say no to scurvy]

Yeah, this seems much more reasonable.

Also what's with old decklists links? They're all down and i can't check any of them. Meanwhile TCDecks go only back to 2012 after survival was already banned anyway.
Example:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...0&iddeck=40878

http://www.tcdecks.net/formato.php?f...gacy%20Archive

[Gheizen64]

http://www.tcdecks.net/formato.php?f...gacy%20Archive

Oh that's nice thanks. Too bad links don't work and i have to manually search though :P