Surviving Madness

[Skeggi]

Hello all,

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=103988&d=1270699331

just spoiled and everyone got the idea to make a Survival of the Fittest build exploiting the new guy. I've made a little set-up which contains a tempo package. So far, it seems pretty underwhelming, perhaps you guys have some suggestions that can improve the list.


4 Vengevine
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Squee
1 Wonder

4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Force of Will
4 Circular Logic
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle

4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarns
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Forest
4 Wasteland


The main idea is to ditch the Vengevines through the SotF and finally drop 2 Rootwalla's, and Alpha Strike while you may or may not have a Wonder in your graveyard. Still, it seems very SotF-dependable and also a bit mana-intensive.

[Barook]

No Waterfront Bouncer?

[Skeggi]

Costs 2 mana, has summoning sickness, costs mana to activate. The ability is good, yes, but is it good enough? Doesn't seem very tempo-y to me.

[Tao]

- You don't want circular Logic. The only reasonable way to play it is via Mongrel and that is too inconsistent. It also makes you even more vulnerable to Yard hate. Atrocious card choice.
- You don't want the Stifle/Wasteland package. You need all the Mana and creatures you can get to get the engine going and should not use disruption, only protection and search. This gives you some free slots to play with.
- Noble Hierarch is certainly a 4-of in this type of deck, awesome overall, good synergy with Survival, good synergy with Vengevine

[Skeggi]

So what do you think? No more tempo, go for a bit more control? With Hierarchs, may as well go for a white splash? Something like this? The problem with the deck now is that the blue count is way too low to support Force of Will.


4 Vengevine
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Wild Mongrel
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Squee
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains


Edit: the more I think about it, the more I think the deck is likely to fail.

[rufus]

No dredge? Life from the Loam/Stinkweed Imp+Terramorphic Expanse/Haakon, Stromgald Scourgeand Bloodghast is probably too cute, even with Intuition and/or Buried Alive. Standstill is probably not entirely terrible either.

[Skeggi]

Dredge was the original idea to get them into the yard, but playing 'normal' dredge would be much more effective than this strategy, besides, using Survival and Madness should be alot easier and consistent.

[Volrath]

How about shrieking Drake?.

It can Bounce itself, so you don't need 2 rootwallas.

[Vacrix]

Vengevine is too aggro-esque to throw it into a control build. I'd build it completely differently. Btw Waterfront Bouncer is an auto-include. If I'm correct, you can discard Rootwalla as an additional cost, then play it for 0, then bounce it, then play it for G. That would trigger Vengevine.

[klaus]

Tao is right about the Stifle/Waste package being out of place. The absence of that package makes Daze obsolete, which I don't like here for the same reason, I advise against the former.
The white version (=STP) could support Spell Pierce in its place: charging 2 extra for 1 mana is much better than charging 1 extra plus having to return a land (even if it's free).
That being said, I do like your list a lot.

Here's a potential SB:

2 Gaddock
1 Canonist
3 Grip
1 Trygon Predator
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Path to Exile
1 Warmonk
1 Genesis
1 Spore Frog
-
Oh and I'd definitely go -1 Vengevine +1 Pridemage - you do want to have at least one MD out to Jitte/Moat and the likes.

[rufus]

How about shrieking Drake?.

It can Bounce itself, so you don't need 2 rootwallas.

Basking Rootwalla->Ornithopter/Phyrexian Walker/Kobold... is more mana efficient. Having some 0-cc critter in the deck means you can pull an extra Vengevine which seems like a good thing. Note that you only have to play the critters...

It seems really want to ramp up your :g: production to go off since leaving SotF on the table is a bad idea. Idealy you'd get to :1::g::g::g::g::g: (6 mana) so you can pop out two Vengevines and a Basking Rootwalla before giving up priority and swing immediately, but that's a pretty tall order. Provided you can find other ways to make it work Lion's Eye Diamond might fit there. (Can LED mana be used to pay for the madness cost of things you discarded to activate it?)

If you can get it on the table Greater Good can be a sickeningly fast way to populate the graveyard, but I'm not sure how good Inner-Flame Acolyte, Briarhorn, and such are without it.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Can LED mana be used to pay for the madness cost of things you discarded to activate it?

Yes but it is never worth it. Trust me I've tried to break this one so much it hurts, but Goyf is always going to beat madness.

Rootwallas with Survival, on the other hand, are very good. I am interested in Vengevine now. Fun mechanic.

[thorin_the_king]

how about a red splash for anger and orcish slumberjack? it can be a perfect thing to accelerate this decks alongside of hierarch...

[Volrath]

Basking Rootwalla->Ornithopter/Phyrexian Walker/Kobold... is more mana efficient. Having some 0-cc critter in the deck means you can pull an extra Vengevine which seems like a good thing. Note that you only have to play the critters...

It seems really want to ramp up your :g: production to go off since leaving SotF on the table is a bad idea. Idealy you'd get to :1::g::g::g::g::g: (6 mana) so you can pop out two Vengevines and a Basking Rootwalla before giving up priority and swing immediately, but that's a pretty tall order. Provided you can find other ways to make it work Lion's Eye Diamond might fit there. (Can LED mana be used to pay for the madness cost of things you discarded to activate it?)

If you can get it on the table Greater Good can be a sickeningly fast way to populate the graveyard, but I'm not sure how good Inner-Flame Acolyte, Briarhorn, and such are without it.

Yeah, but if you play the Drake you don't need to play multiple rootwallas or crappy 0cmc critters, only one drake.

[DrJones]

how about a red splash for anger and orcish slumberjack? it can be a perfect thing to accelerate this decks alongside of hierarch...I started doing that, then I took the Survival out, then took the blue out. Heh. Here's a rough list of a RG Madness deck with Vengevine.

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)
// NAME: RG Madness
// COMMENT: Legacy RG deck
// AUTHOR: Carlos Hoyos (DrJones)


4 Taiga
1 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
2 Pendelhaven
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Kird Ape
3 Orcish Lumberjack
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Vengevine

4 Reckless Charge
4 Fiery Temper
4 Lightning Axe
3 Life from the Loam
3 Firestorm


Seems good but still lacking. Survival and Lumberjack allows for the combo with Demigod of Revenge which looks better than Rootwalla + Vengevine, but I prefer not having to depend on drawing lumberjack. Lightning Axe is a tech card that people should definitely play more because it obliterates opposing Goyf, and Firestorm is also pretty good too. Pity I had to take out the Rancor and Hidden Stag to make room for other cards. I also like the interaction betwee Dryad Arbor and Reckless Charge. Too bad they don't activate Vengevine.

I'll give later another try at a U/G list with Survival of the Fittest, it's a bit bad that the madness creatures are so weak in this meta. :-/

EDIT: How I could forget to include Anger in that list? Any idea of what to take out?

[Pastorofmuppets]

My good sir, you seem to be forgetting one of the sickest combos you can use in a Survival deck: Spore Frog and Genesis. Not only that, Frog costs 1 which helps with Vine, and Genesis can bring back other crap to your hand, which is also potentially good with Vengevine.

[chokin]

Maybe not for this deck, but I'd like to toss an idea into the thread. How about some cantrip dudes like Elvish Visionary or Wall of Blossoms? They help you find Survival and can buy time vs aggro.

[Gungi]

Several years back I used to run this deck, strictly for casual-only games though:

7 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga

4 Orcish Lumberjack
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Phantom Centaur
4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Violent Eruption
4 Fireblast
3 Cursed Scroll
1 Umezawa's Jitte

The deck was slow, so most of the time you had to sandbag a lot of resources in preparation for when the other side equalized. Although the deck did have some pretty epic moments - if you found an opening and with the right madness cards, you could deal 10-15 damage in a turn. That was possible because of the high density of madness cards, which conveniently cost enough to match the Orc. Vengevine could replace the Centaurs I think, and maybe Tarmo can sub for the artifacts.

I still cling to the hope that one day this will become tournament-worthy... sigh T_T

[MMogg]

Another option not considered is the black option with cards like Smallpox. Black gives access to creature control Madness effects like Big Game Hunter and Dark Withering. Of course, that could also be run with a discard package.

[Gungi]

Just found this thread:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?3211-[Deck]-ber-Madness

It's about previous attempts to work with Madness, could be useful.

[SpikeyMikey]

The problem with this deck is that it relies on SotF. There have been several successful archetypes in Legacy that have done this successfully throughout history. None of them are currently viable and some of them had significantly better win cons than vengevine and stronger engines than madness. The only sotf deck that is viable is bant and that's because it has game beyond just resolving sotf. By that logic, RGSA might be able to come back but it has no game against non-linear decks making it basically inferior to bant.

[Gungi]

Yup, that about sums it up. Legacy's deep and varied card pool gets trumped by technological advancements in the most recent block. :cry:

[GoldenCid]

I think that if your run survival is a survival deck and no madness. JUst an addaptation of 2 different decks...

[BietoleFritte]

Hi

this is a list placed 2nd in an Italian tournament:

4x Tarmogoyf
4x Survival of the fittest
4x spellstutter Sprite
4x Force of Will
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Aether Vial
3x Talara's Batalion
3x Daze
3x Vengevine
3x Standstill
1x Basking Rootwalla
1x wonder
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Sower of Temptation
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Caller of the Claw
1x Kira, Great Glasspinner
4x Tropical Island
4x Misty rainforest
4x Mutavault
2x windswept Heath
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Savannah
1x Island
1x Forest

It has some very nice tricky plays and it's very ductile . I'm not sure about the full set of mutavault just to support sprite....i'd like to give a try at mishra...and i'd like to increase at 2 the number of walla...

[4eak]

Necro =) -- Just wanted to point out the similarities between Skeggi's decklist from back in April and the Columbus decklist (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37327). This is one of the earliest posts I've found on the topic, and it obviously merited more attention than we gave it. I'm going to start paying closer attention to N&D. Maybe its just me, but I think Skeggi did a great job building a U/G Survival Madness Tempo deck months before it came out of "nowhere" during Columbus. Props.



peace,
4eak

[sillysam71]

Agreed. He was pretty damn close. I wonder if Caleb saw this before Columbus...

[JonBarber]

I like how a deck that was tossed out for not being good enough is now ruining the SCG 5k's lol

[Happy Gilmore]

I don't know what you're talking about, Tacosnape designed the deck first. Some say in the week between pre-release and being legall. What a genius.

[Atwa]

I don't know what you're talking about, Tacosnape designed the deck first. Some say in the week between pre-release and being legall. What a genius.

Who cares?

[4eak]

I don't know what you're talking about, Tacosnape designed the deck first. Some say in the week between pre-release and being legall. What a genius.

I didn't see Taco's post on it. I am not at all surprised that Tacosnape would be capable of it though (I certainly don't take his opinion on Legacy lightly). Kudos to him as well. The point of my previous post was to demonstrate that I failed to pay attention where I should have, even in the N&D forum. This wasn't about e-peens, it was simply a note of encouragement to those developing and a normative statement about how the rest of us should pay more attention.



peace,
4eak

[memnarch]

I love this deck i have found it to be very powerful fast and able to adapt to different circumstances and deck types. Here is a list I have been working on. I tried to focus on keeping the blue count up so I go with Aquamoeba over Mongrel here. And still try to let in some room for Goyf of course since that guy is still bigger then vengevine most of the time, I certainly think he deserves 4 slots.

22 Lands
4 Tropical Island
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Vengevine
3 Aquamoeba
1 Trygon Predator
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Nobel Hierarch
3 Intuition
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Spell Pierce
4 Force of will
4 Brainstorm

4 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Seeds of Innocence
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Trygon Predator
2 Echoing Truth
4 Chill

[DragoFireheart]

Who would have thought? Crazy deck, I love playing it though lady luck is screwing me over recently.