This thread is a clean up from the old R/G Survival thread. Here it is now but it may move

*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.