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Thread: [Deck] RG Survival Advantage - Former DTB

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    [Deck] RG Survival Advantage - Former DTB

    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.

  2. #2
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    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?
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    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.

  4. #4

    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?

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    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

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    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.

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    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.
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    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.
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    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

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    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.
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  12. #12
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    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.
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  13. #13

    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.

  14. #14
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    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
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  15. #15
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    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.
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  16. #16
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    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.
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  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by BoTS
    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.
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  18. #18
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    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.
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  19. #19

    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.

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  20. #20
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    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

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