how was the equipment package? Seems to me those could be some additional fatties.
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how was the equipment package? Seems to me those could be some additional fatties.
The equipment package was good, the only reason basilisk collar was there is because, on the tournament before this I faced 3 zoo decks which basilik collar was more helpful than jitte. As collar usually gains you more life from Kotr, goyf or iona... However on the last tourney I didn't face much zoo decks so maybe I can go back to 2x jitte.
However, as I said, I would only replace those equipment with Lifelink creatures or something that would gain me quite an amount of life, and Kitchen finks does not do the job as I want it to. If it were a rhox warmonk, it might be a good replacement for the equipment.
However splashing blue would mean that I would remove the black splash which actually won me the game against bant survival. Havng extirpated his survival and tarmogoyfs. Using sudden spoiling after he tried to bait out my mother of runes with mass block. Getting to fetch a Bone shredder to kill a creature I needed to deal with. The reason I like a hint of blue however is because I don't have to use birds of paradise since noble heirarchs do the job with U mana as well. I will have to weigh the differences...
Vampire nighthawk? I don't think the double black will do you a lot of good if you cut the BoP's though...Quote:
Originally Posted by f|i[p]
Night hawk is within bolt range... I wanted a 4 toughness creature which would have made warmonk perfect... But I think for now jitte will do good...for the meantime at least...
I just won a 52 player trial on magic-league with this, just playing the build Tao posted a couple pages back since I'm lazy. I've been playing the deck a lot and really like it, since it can hold its own without Survival but is almost unbeatable with Survival. I'm pretty sold on Vengevine with Survival, it's just insanely sick.
I beat BW Rack, a couple UW controls, Aluren, and Merfolk. I think the only game I dropped the whole time was to one of the UW control decks.
I've taken another look at this deck since I consider FoW just a bit less necessary in the new metagame. I've made the switch from Iona/Retainers (although, I'm considering them for the sideboard for some matches) to Vengevines. A few thoughts:
I started with Tao's list, but I found Squee's removal difficult to swallow. Squee isn't great when you were going balls to the wall aggro, but he's great when you don't have strong hands or find yourself in the control role. I understand that Vengevine sometimes creates faster card advantage (when you have enough mana) than Squee. There are, however, a plethora of situations where Squee is substantially stronger and outright necessary.
I don't think it is worth running more than 2 Vengevines. The 3rd and 4th usually either cost too much mana to get into play in a single combo turn or are simply winmore. Redundancy is nice against StP, but frankly, Squee is worth the slot of a Vengevine for such cases (and more). I realize Vengevine isn't useless outside of Survival, but I really don't like hardcasting Vengevine. I prefer to spend mana on Wasteland LD, Horizon Canopy, bigger bombs (KoTR), QPM activations, etc.
I decided to try out 3x Aether Vial; I've been very pleased. It works miracles in a deck which is so mana hungry.
While we are very interested in playing a Survival deck that is viable without Survival in play, I'm still interested in increasing the odds of seeing a Survival in play. I'm still testing Enlightened tutor and (as odd as it sounds) Fauna Shaman.
peace,
4eak
@Cynical: Good job. What do you think about Squee? Would you suggest changes to the list?
@4eak: Vial is certainly good. I cant decide if it is worth to be played. However I clearly think that 3 Vengevines are the absolute minimum. I personally wont play less than 4, but I can see the reason behind splitting VeVi/ Squee 3-1. Fauna Shaman might be wirth a test. It sounds really bad at first but I think if his ability might be useful quite often.
I didn't miss Squee at all, since if I had Survival I was focusing on speeding out Vengevines rather than setting myself up for repeated activations for a bunch of turns. I also really like how the deck handles without Survival which Squee would obviously take away from.
I was pretty happy with the list and probably wouldn't change anything right now. I think the Stoneforge + equipment toolbox plan might be worth giving a shot though.
Congrats on the finish....Great job.
Im not sure the stone forge toolbox would fit in, since you are quite mana hungry with survival and casting other stuff.l... But it might work since vengvines usually comes in for free. I just think its mana intensive, and usually not really needed. When I played the Iona version with vials I rarely wanted to fetch an equipment. I only fetched basilisk collar against zoo,when I was low on life had Iona on play to be able to get that 7 life back(My meta was zoo infested). I also fetched a jitte against goblins, other than that I rarely did use them. But all in all ,I went back to 2x jittes. It was enough. I don't think this deck really needs stoneforge mystic , or if it wants to, maybe as a 1 of since it was usually sad to see a 1/2 creature often which could have been a bigger beatstick. Against aggro control meta however, stoneforge might shine.
The SFM package would work best in a deck with Vials. Maybe in a pure GW with Vials, maybe in a Maverick-Survival style of deck. But I don't think that casting SFMs is quite worth it. It is just that all these choices are very close. It is hard to determine what is better if you choose between, for example, 2 Finks, 1 Elspeth, 1 Teeg or 1 SFM plus 3 equips. SFM is certainly a viable option, but atm i don't choose it.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?18388-[DECK]-GWb-Vengevival
A thread to look at! That seems more important than discussions about single choices with marginal impact (btw. I already felt outnumbered with my opinion on Squee, but with 2 players who had tournament success with the Non-Squee version I feel more confident about that choice again).
I have tried the deck and I didn't really expect it but I just didn't like the discard package. I do think black could offer some nice cards like shriekmaw/boneshredder.
And the 3 eternal witness where pretty strong aswell. Tho it does make it more control then aggro.
I havent tried the deck so far, but my tries with Splashes all failed, I always had consistency problems, either the mana base failed or I had too little pressure. He seemed to have had success with it over 4 tournament so I expected that at least the consistency problem wouldn't happen.
Without a strong draw engine you sometimes end up with topdecking into discard and just not doing anything. I'd rather play more bombs.
Even with a strong draw engine you end up drawing into dead cards too often.
I've played a quite similar deck with 3-4 Confidants, R.Nightmare and SotF ~1 year ago and I've won ~75% of the games due to SotF and ~10% due to Nightmare, the other 15% were quite random, the deck relies to much on Survival.
GWS has Mothers, mana denial, Knights, Vines and even Pridemage beatdown to win games.
Hi,
After seeing Caleb going Top8 in Columbus i was thinking about adding Blue to the list and combining both decks, cause when i testet the Ug- madness survival i found out for me that winning without survival or vengevine in hand was very difficult.
Today i played in a tournament with 24 players with this list. it was 4-1; 2.place for me only losing to my very crappy draw and the opponent drawing what ever he needed to win.
List:
// Lands
4 [REW] Wasteland
3 [B] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [US] Forest (3)
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [U] Plains (2)
3 [U] Savannah
1 [8E] Island (1)
// Creatures
4 [OD] Wild Mongrel
4 [TO] Basking Rootwalla
4 [ROE] Vengevine
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
1 [JU] Wonder
3 [REB] Qasali Pridemage
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
3 [DD2] Daze
4 [SC] Stifle
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [TO] Llawan, Cephalid Empress
SB: 2 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 3 [NE] Submerge
SB: 1 [BOK] Kira, Great Glass-spinner
Matchups:
2-1 Merfolk
2-1 Uw-Fish
2-0 Gwr - Survival
0-2 Ugr Faeries
2-0 Ur Dreadstill
Well i don't even know if it's fits in here cause it's not only Gw-anymore but at least maybe you find it interessting and can discuss about this list ;)
You could put that into the bant survival thread.
I feel like it'd be overall beneficial to up the blue count so that the deck can support fow if you're adding blue anyway.
Played vegnevines retainers and fauna shamans yesterday with wayfarers and Mom at gencon. It was pretty sick beating 4color cb, 3 merfolk, zoo, lands. And losing to charbelcher. Round eight I split two games with Ryan messnic playing goblins and did not like my chances so I took the draw. Ended up in ninth. Oh well
Can you give us your list? Was the Retainer / Iona combo in adition to the Vengevines good enough? How often do you realy want it instead of just getting the Vengevine combokill?Quote:
Originally Posted by saspook
4 survival of the fittest
3 fauna shaman
3 mother of ruins
2 weathered wayfarer
4 vengevine
1 scryb ranger
1 loyal retainers
1 Iona
1 emerakul
1 squee
3 knight of the reliquary
4 noble hierarch
1 basking rootwalla
3 qasali pridemage
1 jotun grunt
4 swords to plowshares
4 savannah
4 Heath
4 waste land
1 karakas
1 geas cradle
3 horizon canopy
3 forest
1 plains
2 misty rainforest
Sideboard
4 tarmagoyf
2 faerie macabre
1 gilded drake
2 path to exile
1 Linvala keep of silence
1 ethersworn cannonist
1 gaddock teeg
3 krosan grip
The side board is rough. Everything was thrown together that morning.
I liked going for Iona over the vvine plan in some of the matches. Others where won on vengevine attrition advantage. Like the merfolk game where I broke standstill three turns in a row and still won
How where Fauna Shamans for you? Did they feel like Survival 5-7? For some reason I keep thinking they'd be too slow. Especially for the Vengevine plan. Obviously, it's probably better with Retainers combo .