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This and it's not even close. Zoo needs to die a terrible ugly gross death. 'Play dude, swing' shouldn't be a viable strategy in any Eternal format. I would absolutely not be upset if the format evolved to tendrils beats survival beats control beats stax beats tendrils. Wait, that format is called Vintage, except they play Fish instead of Survival.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
That's really the only issue with Legacy: people always want to play their pet-decks, myself included. As long as you're able to metagame, this is not even necessarily bad, but let's not talk about how to adjust single decks, I think it's way more interesting to look at the meta in general.
In a nutshell magic still is some kind of rock-paper-scissors, but with more choices. I don't know about the U.S. but in Germany it's quite common to play rock-paper-scissors-well.
Well beats rock and scissors but looses to paper.
Paper looses to scissors but wins against rock, and more importantly, well.
Therefore it's kind of safe to assume that a lot of people will choose paper, since it has the best chances of winning.
Considering that most people will choose paper, are you rather going to choose well, paper or scissors? You wouldn't want to choose rock here, 'cause rock might win against scissors, like well, but looses against well and paper, which is strictly worse than drawing against well and loosing against paper.
Due to the existence of well the metagame is imbalanced.
I think is it what people feel about Vengevine-Survival. Vengevine-Survival is obviously well. Rock is Counterbalance or Landstill, paper is Merfolk and scissors is Zoo.
If you put it like that, there really is no reason to play Counterbalance or Landstill right now. This might even be true, but the problem is that in Magic, there are way more available and viable choices. Storm-combo and tempo for example are missing here, and there's a lot more that could be worked into this system.
Long story short: just pick up a deck that wins against the most important decks and do some long-term thinking. This is called metagaming and it's definitely not a new aspect of magic.
I don't think anything needs to be banned. If too much gets banned you really end up playing rock-paper-scissors. If you want to do so, then go play rock-paper-scissors, but I'd rather continue playing Legacy.
Are those percentage results for Surv all from SCG 5ks- the VV 60% against field-. 16 top 16 showings out of approx 75+ players with the deck in 4 events out of around 600 players seems like a lot of people playing the deck. Any other decks boasting that many registers- Zoo/Gobs/Merf maybe?-. Certainly impressive results, either way.
I have been getting good results in testing against UG,WG with Sneak/Show and TES- actually feel like if the draws are even slightly parallel, it cant beat those 2, SBing is barely even done-.
Also, do not think it has to be banned at all. I am going to call only 1 VV list in the upcoming GPs will top 8.
The Rock-Paper-Scissors system is intact with combo-aggro-control in Legacy with counterbalance or landstill in Control, Zoo and Friends in Aggro and tendrils in Combo. UG Vengevine is clearly a Combo Deck and so it's no surprise that it performs well vs Aggro style Decks and hybrids like Zoo or meerfolk. Control colors are U and B and guess what? There are answers!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jona
The real advantage of gw vengevival against ug madness is that the gw version can play aggro as well as his combo part and that's the Point Most people think it's unfair. It's a Combo-Aggro Deck, something we've rarely seen in magic. To switch between control and combo is something basic in vintage for example
Survival should not be banned.
Three Reasons: 1. Survival has are different variants, allow variety, in other words, the format is more than 1 deck. i.e Mono green, U/G, G/W, Bant.
2. Survival isn't the problem, its mainly vengivine, but it's staright up dumb to banned him.
3. Plenty of hate.
If, they ban anything ban Basking Rootwalla, it may sound dumb at first, but this cuts off the card-advantage of the madness player forcing them to have 2 creatures to pitch, instead of 1. And it makes turn two vengivines off monger and mobea, much harder.
Of course you're right, but this was just a comparison between rock-paper-scissors and specific decks. If you put it like you did, Vengevine-Survival is still well, since it's the updatet version of pure aggro. If you then take any tempo-deck or Merfolk (Aggro-Control) and something like Painter-Stone (Combo-Control) and work them into the system you get this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Aggro beats Control and Aggro-Control
Aggro-Control beats Control and Combo
Control beats Combo and Combo-Control
Combo-Control beats Aggro and Combo
Combo beats Aggro and Aggro-Combo
Aggro-Combo beats Aggro and Control
Aggro-Control has always been the most common of these hybrids. Interesting fact: Goblin Recruiter, which enables an Aggro-Combo deck (Food Chain Goblins) is banned. Worldgorger Dragon, which enables a Combo-Control deck is also banned. I don't know what the reasonings for these bannings were, but it might have something to do with the fact that both of these decks are able to beat regular aggro consistently. I think it would be pretty safe to unban both of these cards. Worldgorger Dragon can easily be hated and isn't that much better than regular Reanimate anyway. I'm not entirely sure about Goblin Recruiter though, it's been a long time since I played the deck and this would require a lot of testing to see if it really is safe to unban Recruiter. Goblins is still a heavily played archetype and giving the deck a combo-finish might be dangerous, I'm fully aware of that. Aggro-Combo is a really potent archetype, especially Food Chain Goblins. The deck is really good at switching roles since it basically always has the resources to go aggro and it doesn't need to combo off. It can combo off on turn three easily to beat any aggro decks and sometimes even race combo. If the attempt to combo off gets neutered, they will just continue to beat face, and they're pretty good at this. But considering that people are complaining about Vengevine-Survival which is worse in both roles I can understand if they don't want to see FCG in the format.
Wizards has already proven they would rather ban the enablers then the cards themselves. In this case I have to agree with them. Survival can only get better with the printing of more creatures, banning Vengevine would only put a bandade on the situation.
Banning Rootwalla solves nothing, you can still trigegr VV with ease by fetching up Trinket Mage, casting him and getting Memnite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lejitte
Sure, it gets harder, but... banning Rootwalla? Seriously?
Yeah, i admit I didn't see recruiter as an enabler and I agree it should be unbanned since it don't accelerate goblins into a turn 2 kill deck. Moreover it needs Food chain to become a turn 3 killing threat which is clunky enough in Legacy to Be fair. Gorger is another tier; it's straight combo and Even has serious problems in vintage with protecting the combo. It's more like a bad reanimator since the game is not over by entombing and reanimating the Gorger; you still need a kill.
Therefore ... I think If Gorger is legal again I would still rather Play belcher
I would never play Dragon as a straight combo deck. You have lots of options with the deck, since it basically only needs to cast two spells per game: the card to put Dragon and Kumano/Ambassador/Caller Of The Claw/whatever into your graveyard and a single Animate Dead/Necromancy. The deck can win as fast as turn one, but you need a few accelerators to do so. But then there's still stuff like Swords To Plowshares, Path To Exile, Faerie Macabre and lots more. It's far from overpowered, but it's still a nice deck to play. And just in case, Dragon should ever get unbanned, I still have all the stuff to play the deck. But as far as I remember it's not banned because of powerlevel but because of some weird rules interactions. I'm going to look that up in a few minutes, maybe I'll find it.
By the way, the problem with Goblin Recruiter is not that FCG is a fast combo deck but that it still has an awesome aggro plan. Plus shitloads of utility to win against basically everything. You just can't pack everything into the deck, but there's no deck that can be tuned as nicely as Goblins, seriously.
Edit: Nope, I couldn't find it so far, maybe someone else knows more about that. But I'm sure there was a statement from wizards where they said that Worldgorger Dragon was banned because of rules complications or something. Not as if Humility was way more complicated.
The rules complication is that the Dragon player can endlessly draw games until time runs out, effectively only needing to win once. Losing this game? Shit, better make it a draw. Damn, got me again - Draw! Looks like I'm dead next turn - Draw! You get the idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jona
I remember the draw-loop ... Maybe that's the reason ... It's to similar to sheherazard in stalling Games to Death
Never before have people been calling for a ban of Survival of the Fittest, even when Loyal Retainers was used. The issue is
gonna be the addition of Vengevine, and I don't really see Survival as broken without that card, since it was strictly tier 1.5.
Give me a break though, how often have we called for bannings just because a deck is doing well? There are many things that
you can do to fight all of the new vengvival decks, and most of them do not require that you change your deck enough to give
up other matchup percentages. Running cards maindeck that fight graveyards is a decent start. Just a few years ago I could
never beat Aggro Loam with my Merfolk deck. Solution? Maindeck Relic of Progenitus. The solutions aren't pretty, but they're
gonna help you against more than one deck.
Let me emphasize this point more, just because you're switching a few slots in your deck does not mean that a card is broken.
You always have to metagame against specific decks -- it's just what magic is all about. Your win percentages might even go
down in other matchups a bit, but that's always the price you pay in competitive magic. Legacy players have pet decks and
never want to change them, but you can still play your pet deck against the best decks if you change some things around. I am
gonna make some other suggestions you can do in your deck that will help you win games that aren't just because of a good
run of luck. Cards like extirpate are the obvious solution, but maindeck relic of progenitus or withered wretch aren't bad main.
Around turn 3 though, after they get out the Vengevines, you can always use cards like Propaganda, ghostly prison, Tabernacle
and other control effects that go well maindeck against many decks. The Vengevival deck is very mana hungry, so you can
desert them with Vengevines in their graveyard if you deny them mana for 2 creatures.
You have to realize how stupid trying to ban every good card is though. I'm sick of it.
EDIT: Neva gonna give! Neva gonna give!
EXTIRPATE !!!
PITHING NEEDLE !!!
I played in a tourney yesterday and faced UG Survival/Vengevine twice with my B/R Goblins. Here's that segment from my tournament report that I posted under the Goblins board----
Round 2 - UG Survival/Vengevine
Game 1
He never drew a Survival, and I just played out a horde and ran him over. I don't recall if he hit a Jitte, but I took this one fairly easy. That's what happens when you play a more consistent aggro deck.
I sided in 3 Needles, 3 Extirpates, Tinkerer and Sharpshooter for 4 Vials (too slow this MU) 3 Piledrivers (just gonna get chumped) and a Stingscourger (because the deck is based around discarding creatures, duh).
Game 2
He had a fast start and a Survival. I soon ate a facefull of Vengevine. Dead me.
Game 3
I played a Needle on Survival, and another Needle on Survival after he played Trygon Predator. He started attacking with the Trygon and killed my Needles. I Gempalmed his Trygon. He went to activate his Survivals and I Extirpated his Vengevines. I then had to play through a Jitte and took a close game.
Round 4 - UG Survival/Vengevine
Game 1
This one was cool. I was on the draw. He played a Forest. I played a Mountain, Vial. He played Forest, Wild Mongrel. I played Badlands, Weirding. He played Tropical Island, Trygon Predator. I Wasted the Tropical and Vialed in a Stingscourger, bouncing the Trygon. He didn't hit another land, and I Vialed in a Warchief, cast a Chieftain, and soon thereafter Vialed in a Seige-Gang Commander. Win.
Sided same as before.
Game 2
I had the Extirpate in my opening hand, but I got greedy and cast a Warren Instigator which locked out my Badland. He didn't have a Survival in play at the time, so I thought it was safe. Mistake. He took advantage of the situation and blew up on me with a couple Vengevines off an Aquamoeba. Punted.
Game 3
I fetched and kept a Swamp open as I developed my board. He resolved Survival and filled his GY with Vengevines over the end of my turn and the main of his. He knew full well that he was walking into an Extirpate, but there was nothing he could do about it. Survival can't NOT try to go off every time someone keeps one black open against them. Anyway, in response to the 2nd Rootwalla I Extirpated his Vines, cleaned the last one out of his deck, and beat him down.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY-
Extirpate eats Vengevines. The end. Those saying GY hate is wrong for battling Survival cannot deny the potency of Extirpate. Until Survival starts siding in Ground Seals on the regular, Extirpate will tear the heart out of their deck. It's a beautiful thing. Survival needs to commit 2 turns to going off (Usually throwing a few Vines in the GY at their opponent's end step, then getting the remainder and some Rootwallas in their 1st Main phase), so the Extirpate messes up their tempo and prevents them from playing relevant spells for that turn. And once the Vines are outta there it's just a lousy beatdown deck.
Needle is still good for stalling them, and sometimes all you need is the stall to draw into Extirpate or overwhelm them with board position.
Needle gets 3 out of 5 stars, because it's effective and versatile but easily destroyed or countered. Extirpate gets 4 out of 5 because it's extremely effective and damn near impossible for this MU to stop, but outside of this MU it is not especially versatile .
Play Needle to stall them. Play Extirpate to ruin their day.
Thank you. Extirpate is just awesome against Vengevine Survival when backed up with a relevant clock. You slow them down like two or three turns. Games in Legacy sometimes don't even last that long. Plus thank you for proving that U/G Survival is even quite bad with an active Survival without Vengevines. It doesn't have access to all the tricks typical Survival builds have and without Vengevines it's just a mediocre (if not bad) aggro deck with a few counters. I really don't see why people are so afraid of the deck, it often just looses to itself 'cause it's trying to do many things at the same time: it wants to be an aggro-control deck with a combo finish. But in fact it's a slow combo deck with an aggro finish and a few counters. G/W Survival on the other hand is way more intimidating, since it's a pretty consistent aggro deck with Survivals and Vengevines in it. But as long as it's trying to win via Survival + Vengevine, you can slow it down considerably with Extirpate. If the deck doesn't go for Survival + Vengevine, it's slower than real aggro decks but has a few tricks like G/W Maverick. Still, it's nothing you can't race. Plus it looses to combo.
By the way, jrw1985 I read your report over at the Goblins-thread, congrats on your finish! And again, thank you for sharing actual torunament results. I didn't get to play against the deck in a tournament myself, but in testing it never felt that overpowered.
Play Needles, dudes.
I'm wondering why no one plays them. We have Deed, SDT and Planeswalkers running around. There's no reason to not to play such a versatile card.
Needles, Extirpates and Canonists are all decent sideboard cards in the current meta and hit vengevival (not sure how good Canonist is, depends on the build I guess). Spell Snare is also great in the meta and against survival. I play all of these and some cards that aren't bad against survival such as vindicate and 5 plows.
Depending on your colors there is hate available, and Peedle is available for everyone. And as stated above it is very versatile.
jrw1985, pithing needle and extirpate are indeed great cards. However, it sounds like your opponents need more experience with the deck. The "never draws survival" phenomenon is almost always a sign of a newer player, as you can't keep a hand without Survival or other brokenness with this deck. It mulligans more than any other deck in the format, but it also wins off those mulligans. I win with five card hands just as often as I win with seven, as Survival makes up for any number of mulls. In legacy, it isn't having more cards that counts, it's having the right cards.
Oh, and I've had three mull to fours within the past week, and won all of them. One against Enchantress, one Gobbos, and one Belcher.
Survival is a very very good card, but it seems that people refuse to adjust to it. It was never a tier 1 deck with Iona retainers and people never called for a ban. With vengvine on the loose people are starting to call for it to be banned. A lot of people don't understand the deck or don't even want to try to understand it at all.
Gw is a lot slower than madness but tries to force through with larger creatures. Madness is nuts as survival is not its only engine. Intuition is such a pain as well. Madness is quite fast because it can simply drop a mongrel and start witha vengevine or 2. However, regarding both decks, if you prepare accordingly , madness survival is much easier to hate. Ofcourse people don't want to side in black just for extirpates, so you can look at other colors for answers. If people would just prepare then it wouldn't be such a problem. If you prepare for combo as much as you prepare for survival I think you'll be doing fairly well against this deck.
Mandatory weigh in:
1. Survival was a containable and very fun archetype before Vengevine.
2. Vengevine took survival to a whole new level.
3. MDing hate for Vengevival is like what people were doing for storm decks and reanimator before the banning of MT.
I would find it very amusing if wizards continues to allow Vengevival to savagelly rape the format while we take time to figure out answers when just a few months ago they play a few test games with a combo deck in the casual room on MWS and decided to ban MT even while Reanimator was already on the decline.
I will admit that I am strongly biased, I played last night with Ubr Dreadstill vs. a guy who drafts and borrowed a Vengevival deck. I had 4 Spellsnare + 3 relic of progenitus MD plus a ton of other hate in the board. He raped me 0-2. Do I suck, maybe? Was I unlucky, maybe? I never got blown out so bad since I played vs. a storm combo deck and his had creatures.
I hope wizards unbans more cards. Maybe even Oath of Druids. I mean hey there are answers right? There are a million counterspells (Including Spellsnare and Spell Pierce) you can play to stop it and it only kills with a creature. You got Grip right? You only win after the attack step right? ... It dies to a sadistic sacrament...