GB(u?) GU(b?) Survival/Madness

[martyr]

So, given Caleb Durwald's recent success with UG Survival/Madness at GP Columbus with the following list...


3 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
2 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

4 Aquamoeba
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Trygon Predator
4 Vengevine
4 Wild Mongrel
1 Wonder
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Umezawa's Jitte

SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 3 Submerge
SB: 3 Wheel of Sun and Moon

...and some speculation on the official UG Survival/Madness thread about possibly adding a black splash or dropping the blue entirely for black, I figured I'd start this thread with the goal of discussing when it might be worth doing this, and why.

Possible "easy" black inclusions would be...

Duress
Cabal Therapy
Thoughtseize
Big Game Hunter
Faerie Macabre (maindeck)
Oona's Prowler
Deathmark
Extirpate

Looking at his top 8 match coverage (here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpcol10/welcome#1), removing blue entirely from Caleb's build could be a pretty drastic change. He leaned pretty heavily on low-cost/free counters and Stifle to push through the early game.

However, black is the one color that could possibly shore up the loss (or reduced importance) of blue (and with it, the loss of Force of Will) with targeted discard and creature removal, with Big Game Hunter offering you a ton of depth in creature battles that blue had a hard time with, possibly offering you a decent trade with Trygon Predator in enchantment-light, creature heavy metagames...whether those exist or not is up in the air.

So anyway, any ideas?

[Vacrix]

See the thread in Established Decks bro:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?2571-%5BDeck%5D-UG-Madness-Aggro-Control

[Waikiki]

I wonder why you want to include these black cards.

[martyr]

I wonder why you want to include these black cards.

For a few reasons. First, I think Big Game Hunter is too elegant to pass up, even as a 1-of. Second, you're basically held hostage to the blue by Force of Will, as tinkering with any numbers has this extra requirement of not messing with the blue count. Third, Cabal Therapy seems like a much more proactive and crippling card than Daze against combo.


See the thread in Established Decks bro:

I did; I've been all the way through it. A black splash/blue replacement was mentioned for a while but people lost interest, and because Calebd's list kind of reinvigorated the discussion about UG, I figured I wouldn't clutter up their thread with a different chain of thought. That thread is worth reading though, if only to understand why blue might be worth shying away from.

Here's a starting point that I've been bouncing around in my head:

4x Oona's Prowler
2x Fauna Shaman
4x Wild Mongrel
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Elves of Deep Shadow
4x Vengevine
2x Big Game Hunter
1x Faerie Macabre
1x Wonder

4x Survival of the Fittest
2x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy

4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bayou
4x Wasteland
1x Forest
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Swamp
1x Island

I am entirely unsure about Fauna Shaman, as it seems like some good redundancy, but it is honestly slow as fuck. Keeping the blue splash in solely for Wonder is dumb, but...probably necessary, since not everyone runs Swamps to make Filth equivalent.

[Meekrab]

Why do you want to change a deck that performed so well so much? Drop Gaea's Cradle, rejigger the manabase, swap Force and Daze for discard (keep Stifle if you're keeping Wasteland), plug in a Big Game Hunter and a Faerie Macabre if you really have to, and call it a day.

[HedleyKow]

I've been experimenting with a UGb survival madness list myself. Mine is closer to Caleb's list than yours though. Right now I'm debating whether or not to keep the waste/stifle package or not. Also, still not sure if it's better than the UG list.

List with stifle/waste:

4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Birds of Paradise (had to cut something, couldn't come up with anything better)
3 Putrid Imp (Allows for turn 1 veng, which is why it gets the nod over Oona's Prowler)
4 Vengevine
4 Aquamoeba (Cut wild mongrel for moebas because it gives me just enough blue to run force)
1 Wonder
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Shriekmaw
1 Fleshbag Marauder/Faerie Macabre

3 Brainstorm
3 Daze
3 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Survival of the Fittest

3 Wasteland
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta

Without stifle/wastes is +2 Trygon Predator, +1 Brainstorm, +1 Daze, +2 Jitte, -3 Wasteland, -3 Stifle. I know everyone seems to have a hard-on for wasteland, but thus far I've preferred the deck without them to be honest.

EDIT: Also, you could drop the stifles but keep the wastelands by doing -3 Stifle, +1 Daze, +1 Brainstorm +1 Putrid Imp/Tutorable Utility Creature.