Jedi_gofs GB Vengevival

*************** Under construction :-) ***************

Hi all,


I have for some time had a thread for BGw Vengevival, but since my testing and results has led me to a change in the direction of cutting the white splash entirely i thought it needed its own thread.

Contents
1: Introduction+Deck Idea
2: Decklist
3: Tournament History
4: Card explanation
5: MU Analysis


1 : Short introduction of the deck and the idea behind it.

Survival of the Fittest+ Vengevine is just sick!
UG Madness popped up about the same time as my BGw deck, and the madness deck has been posting great results.
With dredge and loam decks currently in my meta being pretty underplayed and also in general it semms, GY hate has been reduced quite alot, compared to how it looked in a not too distant past, when these decks along with Reanimator where making their precence known. This fact does in no way decrease this decks odds of going nuts.

However, compared to alot of other survivalbuilds, this deck can battle most decks without survival, by just going straight up aggro. The many threats that dont suck like aquamoeba etc is a reason why this is more resilient to GY hate than UG Madness.
After playing my GBw deck for some time i decided to go GB
Compared to GW survival, this deck battles alot of decks such as combo and control due to the disruption package.

The disruption spells also eases playing your SotF turn 2. With no GY hate g1, landing survival is almost a certain win which is why the black splash was added - plus i just gives you better SB options.

Finally going GB gave room for another wincon, natural order. With 4cabal ts, 4 imps, 4 sotf and a rootwalla you never get stock with prog. in hand as many other nat. order decks, which is awesome!

5 Reasons to play this deck over UG Madness Survival:

1: The disruption. 7 Discardspells over counters. In a deck like this, knowing your opponents gameplan and threats are essential. Often you can pick their only counter, sole threat or hate card. By making them discard, not counter you take away the options of responding to your deck. Also blues disruption in form of counters costs you sources, either a card for FOW or a land for Daze. This either costs tempo or gives negative CA.
2: Added explosiveness. This deck is way faster than the UG. Purtrid Imp is way better than the aquamoeba. Enables way more turn 1 and 2 Vvines (T2 imp, discard Xxvines, drop manadork)
3: Better SB options in black than in blue in my eyes
4: Removal. And creature based removal at that, which triggers Vvines.
5: You can play the goyf and natural order.

5 Reasons to play this deck over GW Survival:

1: Disruption. 7 Discard main help you win otherwise hopeless MUs.
2: Added explosiveness. This deck is way faster than the GW, although maybe not as stable
3: Better SB options in black
4: Creature based Removal
5: Fells less timmy:)

2:Decklist: Jedi_gof's GB Vengevival


//Creatures (26):
4x Vengevine
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Birds of Paradise
4x Basking Rootwalla
1x Big Game Hunter
1x Shriekmaw
1x Progenitus
1x Wild Mongrel
4x Putrid imp

//Enchantments (4):
4x Survival of the Fittest

//Sorceries (10):
3x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Natural Order

//Instants (0):

//Lands (21):
2x Horizon Canopy
4x Bayou
1x Overgrown Tomb
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Windswept Heath
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Swamp
5x Forest

//SB+SB considerations:
//Current SB
2x Krosan Grip
1x Natures Claim
3x Extirpate
2x Choke
3x Faery Macabre
1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1x Shriekmaw
2x Flex Slots

//Considerations:


3: Tournament History
So far i have piloted this deck to 13 tournaments, all with around to 20-30ish players. Last 4 tourneys haas been with the BG version.

Records have been as follows
GBw
06-07-10: 3-1-1, 5th
13-07-10: 4-1-1, Top4 forced split
20-07-10: 4-1-1, Top4 forced split
27-07-10: 6-0-0 first in 6 rounds standings. Dropping only 1 game, rest was won 2-0.
31-07-10: 4-0-2(1 IL), lost in semi, 3-4th with one intentional loss to get a buddy in top 4 so not counting that one in combined:)
07-08-10: 5-0-2, 2nd - lost in final
17-08-10: 3-2-0, 5th and missed out on top 4 on tiebreakers
24-08-10: 4-1(ID)-0 Top4split
07-09-10: 3-1-2, 6th
BG:
21-09-10: 4-0-1, top 4 split
28-09-10: 6-0, top2 split
05-10-10: 4-1-1, top4 split
19-10-10: 5-0, top4 split

My combined record with this deck(both GBw and GB):
55W-8D-11

This GB versions record is 19W-1D-2L.

4: Card explanation
Will come this weekend
5: MU Analysis
Will come this weekend

I like the idea, and have tried GB VVSuvival before, but there is a reason people stick to UG and WG: Discard+ Big Game Hunter/Shriekmaw are just not enough. UG Madness has 4 Force, 3-4 Daze, 3-4 Spell Pierce, 4 Aquameoba, Wonder (Straight Game-Winner), and possibly Intuition. GW Survival has StP effects (Which will always outclass any black removal, Iona + Retainers, KotR, Gaddock Teeg, and Qasali Pridemage. All black brings to the table is Thoughtsieze/Cabal Therapy + Big Game Hunter/Shriekmaw. Discard all requires mana during your turn, which means you either have less to spend on Survival, or less to spend casting a discard outlet. Putrid Imp is a terrible beater, unlike Wild Mongrel and you're not running Jittes to compensate for VVSur's subpar creature stats. Being able to run Extirpate is very nice for the mirror, but very few other black cards can be effectively used in the SB.

You have no Wonder to bypass creature stalemates. No Iona/Retainers combo to randomly win games. You're removal is all sorcery based (barring BGH). How do you stop Firespout? Perish/Nature's Ruin? Pithing Needle? Sure, you're deck is more explosive than GW, but what happens when Survival gets countered/removed/needled? Pray to draw a NO? You don't run Fauna Shaman to recover. KotR to have more fat. No Pridemage to handle an early CB/Explosives/Deed. You just pray to discard it with your 3 Thoughtseize or blind call a Therapy. You don't have Sword effects to stop T1 Lackey or opposing Noble Hierarchs. GB's answer to a huge number of problems is simply race them or pray to discard it.

My suggestions for improvement of the current list would be: Swap 2-3 of the PImps for Mongrels. Mongrel is still a great card, and is a decent beater on his own. Run the full set of Thoughtseizes. 6 discard means you'll usually see atleast 1 in your opener, but CT is ALWAYS suboptimal when used by itself, even with the flashback. There is too much hate running around for Survival not to run 7+ disruption spells OR a very solid plan B i.e. Fauna Shaman, KotR, Iona/Retainers. Try 2 Engineered Explosives in the board for the flex spots. Nailing Vial, almost everything in Zoo/Merfolk, Needles on Survival, etc. is very beneficial. You may even try to cut a land in the main for a Tropical Island so you can cast Llawan and EE for 3 without a mana-dork.

Good luck!

Black gets Entomb though. You gotta streamline and think whats gonna work with the combo. I agree with Mana Drain. Personaly I run UG and I love it. Wonder is great evasion is a big plus and getting intuition is just sick. Often times I will fetch survival with it. U just gotta focus on really getting off the Vengevines quick.

Hi,
I'm quite happy to see someone else is getting interest for GB Madness. I've been playtesting for some weeks now
Even if I feel UG Madness is intrinsically slightly superior, GB is a very good metagame call.

I totally agree with you about the reasons you gave for GB. I would just add :

1) You no longer worry about the blue count and stop running suboptimal cards (Aquamoeba)

2) Entomb
I used to play 4 but I went down to 2. Entomb acts like Vengevine #5 and 6 in the early game as it works wonder with cheap creatures : you don't have to have an Imp/Mongrel to go for T2 Vengevine. Is allows to be less Survival dependent.
Other uses :
- Tutor for Cabal therapy
- Acts as 1.5 survival of the fittest activation, putting directly the VV in the graveyard

3) Better merfolk match up : you can't be islandwalked

However my version is slightly different to yours. I want to stick with a UG-like version with added explosiveness :

1) Out
- Tarmogoyf
- The NO package goes to the SB
- The creature based removals go to the SB

2) In
- Extra mongrels
- Buried Alive
- Entomb

Moreover, I wanted to have Wonder for the reasons Mana Drain stated. I turned my manabase (10+ fetchlands) to support a 1 Tropical Island splah.

To conclude here are some numbers on which relied my build :

1) GB Madness
- 20 Lands (11 G-Fetch, 4 Bayou, 1 Tropical Island, 4 Forest)
- 0 Wasteland
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 3 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Rootwalla
- 1 Shield Sphere
- 3 Mongrel
- 4 Putrid Imp
- 1 Wonder
- 2 Entomb
- 3 Buried Alive
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 3 Thoughtseize
- 4 Vengevine
- 4 Survival of the fittest

Opening hand with T2 Survival or T2 Vengevine (No mulligan) :62%
Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine after 1 mulligan (cumulative) : 79%
Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine after 2 mulligans (cumulative) 85%

2) I made the same calculation for your list (if anyone is interested I can launch the calculations for his list)

Opening hand with T2 Survival or T2 Vengevine (No mulligan) :42%
Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine after 1 mulligan (cumulative) : 60%
Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine after 2 mulligans (cumulative) 68%

3) As a comparison, Caleb UG Madness :

Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine (No mulligan) :36%
Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine after 1 mulligan (cumulative) : 53%
Opening hand with T2 Survival or Vengevine after 2 mulligans (cumulative) : 61%

Put a Dryad Arbor, you can get it with fetchs and can also use it on survival.

I just played a 50+ person event at GP Toronto with a GB Madness list and i made top 8. I've been playing this for a few months now.

I didn't go with a slight U splash as i hadn't found i needed it. I've waffled between goyfs main and natural order. I've also tried buried alive but didn't like them all that much.

4x Vengevine
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Basking Rootwalla
1x Big Game Hunter
1x Shriekmaw
1x Viridian Zealot
1x Wall of Roots
4x Wild Mongrel
4x Putrid imp

4x Survival of the Fittest
3x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy

21 Lands

4x Bayou
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Swamp
5x Forest
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Gaea's Cradle

SB That i ran for the GP i think i would make some changes.
2x Krosan Grip
3x Faery Macabre
1x Shriekmaw
1x Big game Hunter
1x Vexing Shusher
3x Jitte
3x Natural Order
1x Progenitus


I played against

R1: Reanimator / painter double combo 2-0
R2: Dredge, he got me game 1 despite some awful dredges, and game 2 i mulled to 4 and he beat me with hardcasted flyers 0-2
R3: Zoo, goyfs and vvines with tutorable removal for his knights were too hard for him to handle, then he flooded in game 2. 2-0
R4: UR Sneak and Tell, game 1 i get there when i have an active survival and he goes for an emerakul and i tutor and madness up a BGHunter. Game 2 he gets me with a progenitus and all i have is a shriekmaw. Game 3 i manage to take with a Kgrip and a BGH
R5: UG Madness, we split the first 2 and in the 3rd Faerie macabre's took it down 2-1
R6: 4c Landstill, we couldn't draw as we had the lowest breakers and it wasn't a clean split, he had some mulligan issues so i took the match. 2-0

Top 8, i was paired up with Canadian thresh, I kept reasonable hands but he had all the answers and disruption and took me down in two quick ones. 0-2

I didn't manage to get any turn 2 or 3 kills this tournament, even though it's possible with putrid imp. I actually had a turn 3 kill in my hand against UG Madness but his stifle wasteland combo kept me off it.