Yeah it does sound better. What is wrong with having combo become a strong pillar of the meta?Originally Posted by Deadweight
And you aren't against the unfairness of TES killing you on turn 1-3? I really don't see how Survival Madness is considered broken when it is so much slower than other combo decks. All you have to do is adapt your hate and wait for the rest of the meta to also do so.
Exactly. As someone who does sometimes get annoyed by super fast non-interactive decks, I can see that Survival Madness is the least of our problems.
Regardless of Threshold variant though, CB =,
, and
.
You guys seriously need to give it a rest. I swear every time a card shows up more than two playsets deep in a top 8 everyone wants to ban it. Can we learn from history here and just wait it out a month or two for the format to adjust. Jace TMS and Emrakul looked like they were going to define the format coming out of the GP now they are both MIA. Oh what a difference 2 months makes.
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
Agreed with Walker
Like any semi combo-deck, it has serious issues vs blue. The UG lists are a joke IMO and if I play countertop/jacestill, I absolutely bust UG's ass. Even with aggro decks, I have so much superior creatures+ removal (see zoo) that I can bust that deck 6 out of 10times because they don't draw survival in time and the deck is just incredibly inconsistent.
WG, GBW, UGW survival is much stronger IMO because they run good cards (especialy tarmogoyf and swords) and they can put up a fight when survival is answered (I mean come on, its similar to counterbalance, you just have to answer it or die, with counterbalance giving you a slightly longer window to find an answer). Even then, these decks are extremely fragile to fast storm combo due to their low disruption count. Of this 3, WG is the most stable and popular at the moment but though that list busts the aggro mirror and has good game vs control, it folds to storm combo, I don't see how this is degenerate. WG busts counterbalance.deck, that I admit, however the "classic" no pro lists can just go oops I win against survival due to brainstorms and tops finding NO faster due to the opponent's lack of draw as well as having disruption for the opponent's survival. Landstill has 1 bazillion outs to survival, (4 deed, 2 EE, 2 Spell Pierce, 3 Spell Snare, 4 Counterspell, 4 force of will). And It can just pick off survival's dudes. I play the UWBG version with plows + paths so vengevine recursion is not really a problem. I find it very difficult to lose this MU, even against mana denial, (I play 20 coloured lands + 4 factories). I really don't see how survival is broken. Its just strong and FUN.
I would like to emphasise "fun" remember that magic is a game, and survival is popular because it is "fun". I picked up survival back in the day of full english breakfast because it was "fun" and not because it was busted nuts. People forget that we usually build decks we like and survival has huge appeal with the masses due to its unique multi-dimension approach to the game. It can go aggro, it can go for the combo finish, it can play control with the toolbox answers. If I were a new player looking to build a new deck thats always fresh to play, I would build survival.
TES is a straight combo deck. As long as you don't let 'em proceed with their only plan, they can't win.
But Vengevine Survival is not a combo deck, especially its GWu version. It has diversified gameplans depending on the game state: stompy mode, one-shot combo kill or a long wastelock+protection war of attrition. A lot of cards (Mother, KotR, Pridemage, Survival itself) have absolutely different uses allowing them to adapt for both proactive or reactive modes at any point of time. How on earth are you going to stop all this madness via simply siding some cards in as you usually do against real combo?
All the above-mentioned 'answers' do nothing besides, probably, some stalling. Peacekeeper? StP. Dueling Grounds? Pridemage or just a huge KotR. Suppression Field? Simply ignore it or pay 3 for Pridemage's ability if you gonna combo off. Extirpate? Play fatties and attack, use Survival to cycle small creatures into bigger ones. Even against game one Humility you have Wasteland and StP to deal with Fatories, Vengevine to get more 1/1's, and equipment and Wonder to make your 1/1's a way better than the opponent's.
I think that the deck is VERY strong, and I've compared it to coke and caffeine multiple times. The problem is, the deck puts out a lot of big things that attack quickly. For survival to do this previously, they had to play Red for Anger, and go into Survival loops to do so. This takes all the "I have to cast 4 Tarmogoyfs and have them hasty," which takes a ton of mana, to "I do what Survival is supposed to do, and bring bring creatures back! Win?".
I've been playing Survival based decks for about 10 years, and I can say that this is a very strong build. I remember back in the days of ATS, that deck was the bomb as well. Is Vengevine busting up people's houses? Of course it is, it's amazing. But, as a community, I'm pretty sure we can adapt to it and not have a ban occur, I'm hoping.
We need to collectively dust off that box of grave-hate we all took out of our boards 3 months ago, and put them back in. Yes, grave-hate by itself doesn't always cut the mustard, but we'll live. I'm not saying I like the fact there's a deck out there that makes my less than optimal decks not as good to play, or even my tuned decks do lose to it, but adapt.
Has anyone tested the Enchantress, Stax, or Aggro Loam matchups? I've done very limited testing, but these decks are better than normal in terms of combating the deck. Maybe we'll see a bit of a resurgence in these archetypes, and maybe we won't.
However, as I've said previously, if the meta cannot sufficiently adapt, and the deck gets to the point of say, Affinity, then the DCI needs to correct the issue. I'm no saying it will, but say if in a year, things are worse than they are now. People stop wanting to play Legacy, etc. At that point, I can support a banning of Vengevine, and not of Survival, as Survival gives birth to tens of different archetypes, whereas the Vengevine banning only kills one.
Like I said, I'd rather that as a community we adapt our deck choices or sideboard slots to combat the issue to fight the "problem," rather than have Wizards get involved. But, if we can't solve the problem in a decent amount of time on our own, then I support intervention. Reanimator was being dealt with, but the DCI got involved too early I think.
My seven cents apparently, I wrote a hell of a lot. Sorry.
-Matt
There just needs to be a sick storm combo deck to deal with decks screwing around with vengevines and survials. Unban time spiral maybe? Doubt it will happen since it is arguably a greater of two evils, but I would much rather play against storm combo all day than survival.
No, there doesn't need to be a sick combo deck.
You don't get the point, the point is to understand this is a relevant force in the meta, just as the Lackey days, the CBTop days, the Dredge days, the Natural Order days, the Iona days, the Emrakul days, the day Mystical Tutor became more relevant with Reanimator days, the day Survival became more relevant with Vengevine days.
Even with today's tools, this deck isn't close to being broken, not even close to being overpowered compared against Flash Hulk, where the meta could do nothing but play Flash Hulk or risk playing a 75-card list that hated Flash Hulk and still risked losing to it. In all honesty, I still root with Bant Survival being the strongest Survival deck but that's my opinion on a 75-list that is resilient, solid and not combined with a pile of cards that depend on one (or two) engines to work effectively.
GW Vengevival is probably stronger than other variants, due to better creatures outside of the engine: Pridemage, Knight.
The ONLY fear I have is: If the meta evolves to combat this strong archetype, it evolves back, and let's say, it evolves to a point where it ultimately emerges victorious, and becomes the stronger deck in the format, then there has to be some concern addressed. Banning Survival will hurt the format since Survival has been safe and undergone so many diversity that are competitive (Elf, Bant, Welder, Iona, ATS, RGBSA, Recsur, Jank versions). It seems weird to ban Vengevines if the deck evolves to a point where it emerges the victor, but banning survival will hurt the entire diversity that is the green-tutor-based deck engine that has existed and been healthy in the format played as a tier 2 - tier 1.5 deck.
Meta-evolving to combat Survival:
- Leonin Arbiter, Peacekeeper, Pithing Needle, Extirpate/Crypt/Relic. All these cards existed but were underplayed since Dredge fell out of favor, but currently these are worthy considerations.
Even non-obvious ones: Ethersworn Canonist, Hiberation (Merfolk tech in SCG), Wash Out are viable choices as well. Some people say race with Emrakul/NOgenitus but these are less direct answers to Vengevivals because I think Vengevival has one of the fastest clock when it gets going so the real deal is to stop the engine that gets it going aka discard outlet and GY (sounds like Dredge matchup??? except they have better castable creature as a Plan B). I don't know a ton of cards, but I'm sure people will be innovative to find SB slots that not only best Vengevival, but perform as secondary cards against other matchups e.g. Hibernation in Merfolks is great against Vengevival without entirely sacrificing the weak Zoo matchup.
In fact today, just under half the meta was packing Survival. And you know what we did when Lands was all the rage? We played that heavily too. And when CounterTop was popular? Yep, we played that too. Survival is flavor of the month. In a few large tournaments some other deck will take up half the top 8 and the drifters will switch to that.
Right now I'm rocking Elf Survival. Is someone going to show up with TES or ANT and rain on my parade? Will the meta swing back to make my deck bad? I think it is inevitable. The sky didn't fall when Lackey, Counterbalance, Life From the Loam, or Entomb didn't get banned.
DCI Lvl II Judge
"Goblins is too powerful, they just took 3-4 spots in a T8. There is no way to beat the deck. Ban Goblin Lackey."
"Thershx5 is too powerful, they just took 3-4 spots in a T8. There is no way to beat the deck. Ban Tarmogoyf."
"Countertop is too powerful, they just took 3-4 spots in a T8. There is no way to beat the deck. Ban CB/Top."
"Storm is getting to powerful, they just took 3-4 spots in a T8. There is no way to beat the deck. Ban Ritual/LED/Mystical"
El-Oh-El. Madness is only another good deck in the metagame, not format warping. It's fad-status will wane eventually. No need to remove ANOTHER perfectly fair(but very powerful) archetype from the format. In my 8 years of Legacy(back when it was called T1.5), only one deck has truly warped the format beyond recognition: Flash. The power level between that deck and anything in Legacy ever is obvious.
Play Pithing Needle. Or Crypt/Relic. Or Peacekeeper. Even better: Play all three if you can. They're versatile cards in the board and they all are effective against a number of decks, including Survival. If that doesn't work, play Merfolk. Or Landstill. Or Tempo X. Or Zoo. All of these decks make up the Tier 1 or close metagame and just happen to beat Survival or can be easily tuned to do so. Just stop complaining until people start to cry for your deck's engine to be banned this week for being "TOO POWERFUL".
"Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk."
"You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?"
"If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from A to B."
Stop Moaning about banning Survival or Vengevine plz!!
The deck is strong, but can be hated in many ways as already reported above.
Adapt your decks, don't complain.
Survival of the Fittest is one of Legacy's staples and can be used to build many fun and strong decks other than the Vengevine one.
Evolve plz!!!!!!!
Team Stimato
He told you a foil from Time Spiral was Summer?
This man must be a Jedi.
Motivation behind banning cards
I believe that the DCI should err on the side of caution when banning cards from Legacy, because a large part of the appeal and the defining essence of Legacy is that you should be able to play with all the cards in the history of Magic. However, at times, it is necessary to ban a card that becomes format-warping and reduces the diversity of the format.
In my opinion, just because the card is nearly ubiquitous in Legacy (Wasteland, Force of Will, Brainstorm, Swords to Plowshares, Tarmogoyf) doesn't mean that it's format warping. In fact, because those cards in played in so many different archetypes, I believe they improve the diversity of the format, even though they technically discourage a Legacy player from playing weaker cards like Tectonic Edge, Foil, Serum Visions, Unmake, and Grizzly Bears.
I'm not entirely advocating for the removal of Survival of the Fittest from the Legacy format, because I believe the banhammer should be used very conservatively and judiciously, and I haven't definitively made up my mind yet on the case of Survival of the Fittest; but on the other hand, I believe it is by far the most ban-worthy card in the format and that it deserves to be on the list even more so than many of the cards on the current banned list.
Here are some data from recent SCG tournaments:
Data from SCG tournaments
Richmond (2/28/10)
Reanimator
- 12 decks (5.08% of field)
- 42-29-1 (59.03%) against the field (no mirror, no IDs)
- 2 out of top 16 (4th and 5th)
ANT
- 9 decks (3.81%)
- 20-23-1 (46.59%) against the field
- 0 out of top 16
Indianapolis (3/14/10)
Reanimator
- 21 decks (7.34%)
- 47-52-4 (47.57%) against the field
- 2 out of top 16 (7th and 13th)
ANT
- 16 decks (5.59%)
- 32-47-0 (40.51%) against the field
- 0 out of top 16
Orlando (3/28/10)
Reanimator
- 5 decks (4.10%)
- 14-15-3 (48.44%) against the field
- 1 out of top 16 (7th)
ANT
- 6 decks (4.92%)
- 20-14-0 (58.82%) against the field
- 0 out of top 16
Atlanta (5/2/10)
Reanimator
- 23 decks (11.50%)
- 58-53-4 (52.17%) against the field
- 4 out of top 16 (2nd, 6th, 8th, 12th)
ANT
- 11 decks (5.50%)
- 22-27-1 (45.00%) against the field
- 1 out of top 16 (1st)
Philadelphia (6/6/10)
Reanimator
- 22 decks (9.32%)
- 58-55-4 (51.28%) against the field
- 0 out of top 16
ANT
- 18 decks (7.63%)
- 45-41-3 (52.25%) against the field
- 1 out of top 16 (6th)
Seattle (6/13/10)
Reanimator
- 25 decks (13.23%)
- 56-59-2 (48.72%) against the field
- 2 out of top 16 (5th, 12th)
ANT
- 15 decks (7.94%)
- 38-36-0 (51.35%) against the field
- 1 out of top 16 (15th)
St. Louis (6/27/10)
Reanimator
- 22 decks (11.40%)
- 54-59-1 (47.81%) against the field
- 0 out of top 16
ANT
- 6 decks (3.11%)
- 22-18-0 (55.00%) against the field
- 0 out of top 16
So in these 7 tournaments, Reanimator posted a cumulative record of 329-322-19 (50.52%). It made up 8.89% of the overall field and 9.82% of the top 16, so its penetration into the top 16 was slightly better than that of an average deck (by about 10%), which is to be expected for a Tier 1 deck.
ANT posted a 199-206-5 record (49.15%), so pilots had pretty dismal results. Granted, some have contended (including the DCI) that ANT is a difficult deck to pilot, but that in the hands of a pro, it was absolutely degenerate. So if this were true, we would expect significant top 16 penetration where the best pilots start to separate themselves from everyone else, but ANT decks--which made up 5.54% of the field--made up only 2.68% of top 16; in other words, it was less than half as likely as an average deck to place in the top 16!
Contrast that with the performance of Survival decks
Denver (8/22/10)
- 10 Survival decks (8.00%)
- 34-24-4 against the field (58.06%); U/G Madness, 28-16-3 (62.77%)
- 1 out of top 16 (8th place)
Minneapolis (8/29/10)
- 16 Survival decks (9.47%)
- 67-32-5 against the field (66.83%); U/G Madness, 58-28-0 (67.44%)
- 5 out of top 16 (3rd, 8th, 12th, 13th, 15th place)
Baltimore (9/19/10)
- 25 Survival decks (10.73%)
- 102-60-8 against the field (62.35%); U/G Madness, 65-38-5 (62.50%)
- 5 out of top 16 (2nd, 4th, 5th, 12th, 15th place)
Nashvile (10/17/10)
- Complete data currently unavailable
- 5 out of top 16 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 12th place)
I don't think people fully realize how dominating Survival decks--and in particular, Madness--have been in the metagame. Ever since the deck debuted at Columbus, the deck has posted stellar results, boasting over 62.50% wins in each of the three SCG tournaments for which data are available, with excellent top 16 penetration. For the three tournaments available, 51 Survival decks (comprising 9.68% of the format) made up almost one quarter of the top 16 spots in those three tournaments!
Moreover, some have suggested that the metagame would adapt to Madness as it had to Reanimator. But what they may not realize is that it only took one tournament for Reanimator to fall from a top performer (59.03%) to a sub-50% deck (47.57% in Indianapolis, 48.44% in Orlando). The notion that the format also needed to "adjust" to ANT is ridiculous, as it put up only 3 top 16 slots in 7 tournaments, compared to the 5 that Survival decks now routinely put up every tournament. But in any case, whereas the format was fast to adjust to Madness and never allowed ANT to be a serious contender in significant quantities (which isn't to say that it isn't a threat to win in the hands of a great pilot), it's allowed Survival to put up unprecedented performances for four straight tournaments, despite being the deck that everyone is gunning for.
More discouragingly (for the diversity of the format, but not for a Survival pilot), the deck apparently has a positive matchup against every single major archetype in the format. The following includes all the data I found from Jared Sylva's articles:
- 27-22-5 (54.63%) against Merfolk
- 36-14-3 (70.75%) against Countertop
- 16-8-0 (66.67%) against Goblins
- 14-12-1 (53.70%) against Zoo
- 3-3-0 (50.00%) against Ad Nauseam
- 7-3-1 (68.18%) against Dredge
- 4-0-0 (100.00%) against Enchantress
- 9-1-0 (90.00%) against Charbelcher
I'm not sure why Sylva chose to include the likes of Enchantress and Charbelcher in his data as significant archetypes, but hopefully, that dispels the notion that a fringe deck like Enchantress is capable of "hating out" Survival decks.
Some counterpoints
I saw a lot of counterpoints being raised throughout the thread, and I can't remember exactly who posed each issue, but here's the argument against Survival
Is it necessary to ban a key card everytime a deck becomes successful? After all, Merfolk posted 5 out of the top 16 spots at SCG Baltimore, but no one is asking for the banning of Lord of Atlantis.
It should be noted that even though the tournament was considered a vindication of the Merfolk deck, it was rather Survival decks that performed much better. Consider that Survival decks made up only 25 of the 233 decks in the format, compared to Merfolk's 34, but still achieved 5 of the top 16 slots. Moreover, Merfolk only won 55.53% of its non-mirror matchups, compared to 62.35% for Survival decks. And Merfolk, despite being lauded as a foil to Madness, still only went 50% against Survival decks (15-15-2), at its best performance ever! In other words, even in a remarkable weekend for the fish that had everyone flipping out, Merfolk still did worse than Survival on an average weekend.
The deck isn't that broken/fast. Storm combo can kill on turn 1-2 with a good hand, whereas most non-LED Madness builds cannot kill before turn 3 (with Wild Mongrel) or even turn 4 (with Survival).
This is true, but storm combo is also more susceptible to hate. Furthermore, if you prevent the Survival engine, you may only have to deal with one Vengevine; if you prevent all discard outlets or supplement with graveyard hate, you may not have to deal with any, and U/G Madness decks (but not G/W) become bad aggro decks. But a bad aggro deck is still more threatening than a goldfish, which is what the likes of Storm combo and Reanimator are if you can prevent them from comboing out.
You can just hate the deck with cards anti-Survival measures or anti-Graveyard hate.
To some extent, this is true, but a threat is always better than an answer because you may not draw into your hate card (or the right type of hate) when you need it, and in the meantime, you are diluting the potency of your own deck by playing so much hate, often to the point that you can get beaten down by bad creatures backed by an Umezawa's Jitte. Mono-green madness decks or G/W can just go straight beatdown with much more powerful creatures, and the Survival player can also opt for a Natural Order plan out of the sideboard to bypass your hate entirely.
The metagame can adapt to this presence.
I believe that Legacy is a large enough format that metagame forces are capable of policing itself to some extent, and I have little doubt that one can construct a deck that has a positive matchup against Survival builds. However, that deck must also be strong enough to compete with the rest of the format, and so far, there is no presence that prevents Survival from rampaging over the format to the tune of a 63% win percentage. The format may not necessarily degenerate into something ridiculous like 1/3 Survival, 1/3 Storm, and 1/3 bad prison decks as a result of Survival, but if prison strategies and storm combos are some of the strategies necessary to keep Survival in check (as has been postulated in this thread), then Survival is clearly a format-warping presence that makes the format less fun. At that point, whatever benefits there are to keeping Survival legal are outweighed by its disadvantages, and I would have no qualms about banning it. I hope this doesn't become the case.
Other "shells" like Force of Will/Brainstorm/Duals/Fetches are even more commonly played too, but no one is calling for their banning.
The fundamental difference is that those shells enable a variety of decks, all of which might hope to win 50-55% of its games. Survival of the Fittest/Vengevine enables only a relatively small number of decks, but all of which are looking at 60-65 or 70%.
Other cards can be deemed format-warping too.
In my opinion, the only card in recent memory that I would deem format warping is Counterbalance in combination with Sensei's Divining Top, and even then, those decks didn't post the results as stunning as Survival. Moreover, Counterbalance is a combo only with Sensei's Divining Top; Survival combos with any of 20+ creatures in the deck. Counterbalance is also relatively slow, getting dropped on turn 2 at the earliest, and possibly locking you out on turn 3 only with a good Top. Even then, you have many turns to answer the lock with something like Krosan Grip. On the other hand, Survival takes far less investment and means you will likely take lethal damage within two turns, and even if answered before then, you are probably looking at serious card disadvantage under the gun of several hasty, recurring 4/3s and various Rootwallas.
I do not believe other combo decks are format warping. Certainly, if you are not playing blue, you are severely undermanned in that matchup, but at least you can rely on blue decks, prison strategies, and black disruption keeping conventional combo in check. Nothing exists right now to keep Survival in check.
Vengevine should be banned instead.
Perhaps, but other Survival of the Fittest strategies that don't use Vengevine are also performing exceedingly well (and possibly Necrotic Ooze-based decks). But more fundamentally, a cheap, recurrable tutor like Survival is much more repugnant to the DCI than a normal creature (although it is true that Vengevine breaks all sorts of normal rules too).
Conclusion
As with any card, the DCI should think carefully before banning Survival of the Fittest, because there is an inherent benefit to keeping as many cards as possible legal in the Legacy format, and it is possible that metagame forces will eventually counteract Survival so that it isn't so broken anymore. But this is a much more potent deck than the likes of Reanimator and ANT, both in terms of overall performance and penetration by top players, and it's one that is much more difficult to hate and is much more resilient, so parallels to the format adjusting to those decks are limited in utility.
Let me just quote and discuss one part of your very nicely written post lordofthepit,
From this list I see that only 4 deck types have played against V-Survival in enough quantities (even if its still smaller than usual 100 matches sample) to draw some conclusions. Those are - Merfolk, Countertop, Goblins, Zoo. Out of those 4, 2 seem to have bad matchup against V-Survival (Countertop and Goblins), and Merfolk + Zoo is somewhere around the 50% range. This doesn't seem too terrible and owerpowered to me.
First of all, combo results are lacking. Secondly, of the big 4 with enough data I can safely assume that most of them weren't prepared for V-Survival, while on the other hand they themselves were known and established decks and V-Survival certainly had a plan against them (be it Llanawan Empress or Krosan Grips...) all figured out in those tournaments.
Will be certainly interesting to see what happens in future. It seems to me there's a huge opening for an eva-green/rock style deck to jump onto V-Survival crazy-train and take use of the situation. Removal + big guys + disruption (extirpate/grips/targeted discard) seem like good enough.
Major point is that Legacy is an ever evolving format. It changes with every new set. What happened when Iona was printed? People started playing decks in more colors to have an out against her (removal in 2 colors, goblins being best example with red and black). My opinion is that the same should be tried here - give the metagame and people a chance to respond and adapt, instead of crying for emergency ban. I mean, isn't this what we all want? A format where nothing is really stellar and we get a chance to be innovative a bit more than something like "I just made a huge change to my list, I added 1 more basic to it!"?
If constant changes due to new cards are not desirable, why not make a format that spans from Alpha to Ravnica block or something? Nothing new would ever come to that which would shake things up.
Don't kill my baby...
As funny as it is that these threads keep coming up, it's even funnier how a good deck is always "uninteractive" and that is somehow a valid reason for banning a card from said deck. Like, it's worse than the "new cards and Stax" joke.
Last edited by Jak; 10-19-2010 at 11:43 AM.
I think the real question that we should be asking is why play any other deck? This deck has even or positive matchups against every top deck in the format. It is obviously the best deck to play in big tournaments. If people catch on to this, the deck is going to continue to rise in popularity, and this is when it becomes overpowered. Until then (and this may not even happen), I dont think that Wizards should ban Survival (and definitely not Vengevine).
54,63% against merfolk??? I wonder who played merfolk then.
About banning survival or vengevine;leave the deck alone, it's fine. It just happens that the decks against which it has a bad match-up aren't widely played at the moment, like stacks for example or dead guy ale. It also strikes me that the deck shows no such results in Europe, is it because the meta is different or because it's not as popular ,I don't now.
Achtung: Panzer!
God forbid there is a good new deck. I agree, rather than metagaming and making the appropriate deck and sideboard choices based on what we expect to face, let's just try to get it banned. It worked with Mystical Tutor after all!
That's what happens when you mix two absolutely different decks (GWx and Madness) under one name.
As a long time stax player i'm sure GWx mathup isn't that good. Stax never liked Pridemage+Teeg+Wasteland decks, especially traditional builds without Humlity-Moat-Elspeth package.
If I were the DCI I wouldn't ban survival I would ban vengevine. It has been reiterated many times throughout this thread that survival of the fittest as a card produces several archetypes from bant survival to ATS to RGBSA to welder survival but the card vengevine is only used in 1 deck that being the UG survival madness deck. On to the deck. The meta will adapt to survival vine's I can guarantee that and then it will be just another deck like UGx countertop, zoo, goblins, and dredge.
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All flavors of storm combo
Survival has been around for several YEARS, not always on top, but always as a playable card @ Legacy. There is no reason to Ban Survival in order to bring the balance back; if something should be banned (not saying it should, just saying IF something should), Vengevine would be it.
Now, I don't think SotF or Vengevine should be banned either. SotF + Vengevine combo is not as imbalanced as Mystical Tutor let Storm combos and Reanimator to be, because SotF is a second turn card that will only be properly used @ 3rd turn, and can be hated by more than only counters: Discard, enchantment hate, grave hate, and also removals and mass removals.
There are several ways to fight it, and it's got bad matches as well: BG and BGW decks seems to be pretty good against them.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
I have to agree with some posters from above, GW and Survimadness are two different types of decks. I for one play GW and think it's extreamly powerful, but not broken. In my opinion GW is more stable and I'm more than willing to trade a better combo matchup (Madness) for a better Merfolk (GW) matchup.
It would be a sad day if Wizards decides to ban Survival of the Fittest, especially after shelling out all the cash for the Vengevines. The biggest loss though would be loosing one of the most flavorful cards of all times - just look at the name.
One last note Iona > mono color Staxx
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