[Deck] RG Survival Advantage - Former DTB

[Zirilian]

Quicksilver:Why don't you use Quirion ranger and/or wirewood symbiote?
They allow for nice combat tricks,symbiote can save rofellos,and quirion can save your lands from being wasted.
Also,with rofellos,you have much better mana-producing.

Here's my list,implementing them:

1CC
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Llanowar Elves
1 Quirion Ranger
1 wirewood symbiote
1 spore frog

2CC
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Survival of the Fittest

3CC
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Eternal Witness
2 Yavimaya elder
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

4CC
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Ravenous Baloth
1 Anger

5CC
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Shivan wurm
1 Genesis

Land
12 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Mountain


// sideboard
4 Phyrexian Furnace-->madness,reanimator,...
4 Naturalize-->any survival deck,...
1 Troll Ascetic-->Control, Zoo
2 gaea’s blessing-->Brainfreeze based combo
1 Masticore-->Angel Stompy, aggro
1 Goblin sharpshooter-->Weenie decks
1 Dosan the Falling leaf-->Solidarity
1 Duplicant-->Angel Stompy,reanimator

I'd really recommend you try them :)

[worsel]

I have another question:

How do we beat Ankh-Sligh... it's such fast burn!

[Zirilian]

Ankh-sligh ???
When did that become playable?

Anyway,I think baloths are the key here,as they'll run out of gas pretty fast when you gain life :)

[Slay]

Llanowar elves > Ankh of Mishra. You're really only looking at 6-ish damage before you completely take control with Ravenous Baloth recursion, so they have to have 14 damage by turn 4. That isn't too good odds, even though it's quite doable.

But some games, SA just loses to ultra-dedicated decks.
-Slay

[midnightAce]

That Ankh-sligh was very playable. I had to board in 8 cards against it. I was playing UR Landstill, SBed in 2 Chills, 3 BEB, and 3 Annul. Yes, I have reasons to side in Annul.

That Ankh was particular in build. Runs 4 Ankh, 4 Scepters, and uses a combination of Shrapnel Blasts and Fireblasts for finishers. The most frightening part was the Forks, As a result, I watched worsel's game, the turn that he is about to cast the Baloth was often the turn he died. With the combination of Fork on Scepter, even Baloth recursion didn't help.

EDIT: If anybody's interested in that Ankh decklist, tell me which thread to post it in.

[CynicalSquirrel]

There's a new SoK card coming out that might have potential in this deck:


Arashi, the Sky Asunder 3GG

Legendary Creature - Spirit

XGT: Arashi, the Sky Asunder deals X damage to target creature with flying.

Channel: XGG, discard Arashi: Arashi deals X damage to each creature with flying.

5/5

5 mana for a 5/5, and you can kill irritating fliers with it. Or, you can just Survival it up and use the Channel to kill off every flier on the board if necessary. Seems at least semi-viable against Madness or Angel Stompy, and maybe other random decks you could run into. Thoughts?

[quicksilver]

Yeah I thought about him, but the main problem is that he just costs so much darn mana. He'll take 7 mana to kill an exalted angel, that's a lot especially if they take out your rofellos. And if you have 7 mana, why not just do an FTK and sharpshooter, putting you in a better board position too.

Against decks like madness, it will take a lot of mana to kill wurms. By the time you get enough mana you may be dead. It is also hard to resolve a survival in that matchup.

The card is about on the level of tornado elemental or silklash spider.

Personally I like the burning wish option. Against Angel stompy just go for anarchy, and against other flying decks you can go for whirlwind. You can easily pull either of those off by turn 3 if you wanted, much faster than Arashi.

Another option if you don't want to go with the wish path, you can run Matsu-Tribe Sniper. It can stop two flier and costs much less than any other option.



Edited By quicksilver on 1116193785

[Zilla]

He'll take 7 mana to kill an exalted angel, that's a lot especially if they take out your rofellos. And if you have 7 mana, why not just do an FTK and sharpshooter, putting you in a better board position too.

Mostly true... the exception being that in my testing (and I've tested this from both sides of the board), SoFI on Angel puts it completely out of reach for your removal due both to the +2 toughness, and the pro:red. Arashi is an advantage, at least in that regard. However, like you said, 7 mana is spendy, and with the pump it's even worse. In my experience, your strongest removal tool by far against Angel Stompy is Duplicant from the board.

[midnightAce]

The original idea was brought up in IBA's Big Machine thread, thought was kind of techy, see if it applies here.

For the Burning Wish version, is it possible to fit in a single Living Wish in the SB, and thereby having the ability of wishing for socery bullets as well as creature bullets, ie. Spore Frog lock first game against aggro to seal the game, or recovering StPed Roffelo, or Duplicant for fattie removal, etc.

[Zirilian]

I like it :)
I think we should use it,that way we have acces to great stuff pre-board.
Only thing is:What to cut for the 4 wishes?

RGSA

Utility
4 Eternal Witness
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Spore Frog
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Anger
1 Genesis

Mana
12 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Mountain
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Engine
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Beaters
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Troll Ascetic
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Shivan wurm


//Sideboard
4 Null rod
4 pyrexian furnace
3 naturalize
2 Gaea's blessing
1 duplicant
1 Masticore

Nothing is cuttable,really :(

[midnightAce]

Sorry, I wasn't being very clear, the 1 Living Wish suggestion was to quicksilver's Burning Wish version of the RGSur, which can be found on page 4.

[Solomox]

Burning Wish -> Living Wish -> creature seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to grab a creature. Also, you start running out of room in the SB. 4 mana (tempo- wise) and the lost flexibility that the Burning Wish could have provided seem to override what the Living Wish offerred.

[Zirilian]

A new card from SoK:

Pithing Needle
When ~ comes into play,name a card.
Activated abilities of the named card can't be played.


I think this card should be included,it wrecks belcher good (way better than 0-rod) because of its low cost.
Also,this is pretty damn strong against us,so I think this is yet another reason to play B. wish ,since I don't feel like having a useless SoTF out with no way to fetch artifact removal.

[bigbear102]

I have been playing this for a few weeks now and have been getting crushed by 2 decks consistently, Solidarity and Landstill.

I have tried the Blessings for Solidarity, and they just don't work (Stifle, or another BF in response). I have tried boil, that doesn't help much either (By the time I cast it he goes off in response or counters it, not very often does it stop him, even on turn 3). I have had some success with Defense Grid + Dosan, Dosan didn't work on his own because of bounce, but together they work well.
Any suggestions that I haven't tried for solidarity would be much appreciated.

The Landstill match is a different story. For those of you who know him my opponent is Geoff Smelski. My own play errors have beaten me several times, but even when I play correctly I seem to lose every game. I went 3-1 at Altered losing to Geoff in round 4 and the finals. Any decent SB tech would be appreciated.

BTW: I strongly endorse trying the Wirewood symbiote + Quirion ranger, the 2 together create immense amounts of mana, I dealt 19 damage on turn 4 with Deranged hermit, rofellos, and those 2.

Gaea's Cradle is also an amazing card in this deck. I play 2 and have loved them. Wasteland usually doesn't hurt you because you get 3-4 mana minimum the turn it comes in, which makes it worth it right there. You can also get them back with witness, and normally the 2nd one drawn gets played immediately because the first was wasted. Overall they are an amazing card, most importantly in the mirror where Rofellos dies easily.

[Zilla]

Any suggestions that I haven't tried for solidarity would be much appreciated.

Try Pyrostatic Pillar as a 4-of. It's Vial Goblins' answer to Solidarity, and it works fairly well there. If you find that's not enough, you could try 4x REB in conjunction with Pillar. This protects your Pillars from FoW, can kill their Wish when they try to remove it, or can be aimed directly at High Tide, which in itself can be enough to stall them long enough for you to push through the win. REB is also decent in the Landstill matchup as a way to force through key threats or to keep Standstill off the table.

[Carney2k4]

I have tried the Blessings for Solidarity, and they just don't work (Stifle, or another BF in response). I have tried boil, that doesn't help much either (By the time I cast it he goes off in response or counters it, not very often does it stop him, even on turn 3). I have had some success with Defense Grid + Dosan, Dosan didn't work on his own because of bounce, but together they work well.
Any suggestions that I haven't tried for solidarity would be much appreciated.

Boil should be used during their turn, making them have to use Turnabouts as their only untap effect to go off, or should be cast during their combo. Remember, Boil is an instant, and should be used as such.

REB, Pillar, and the 1GG Druid guy that makes them take 4 for each instant that they cast past the first each turn are all good choices for Anti Solidarity tech.

[baptist]

I have doubts about the matchup against landstill. My testing so far showed that RGSA has big troubles in beating landstill. Even if I board choke in, they can easily remove it with a disenchant (after board they have 4 of them).

So my question is: what do you board against landstill?

Do you only board 4 choke or also naturalize or dosan?

[Zirilian]

Well, landstill shouldn't be an overly difficult match...
You have too many must-counters or cards they have to remove, they can't counter/remove everything, you know :)

[The Professional N00b]

Well, if you have problems with Landstill, or anyother other control deck for that matter, you could always go with one maindeck Gigapeade. It's a large recurable threat that comes back after Wrath/ Counter effects. Gigapeade is a MUST counter for any control player considering he is untargetable. In other matchups you could use Gigapeade as a constant blocker/beater. This should better your matchup with Landstill or anyother control deck you are having problems with. :D

[l_neiman]

Has anyone thought of Biorhythm as a potential Burning Wish target? It seems like 8 mana won't be hard to come by a lot of times, with Rofellos and our other accelerators. It seems like having an "I win" Wish target might be good. I'm not sure what specific decks it would be good against, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Quicksilver: have you made any other changes to the deck since Saviors became legal, or are you still happy with the maindeck you listed a few pages back?

Luis