[Deck] Survival

I was wondering if someone would give me a few suggestions on a Survival build I have been working on recently. For starters, the deck;

Land - 18
2x Forest
1x Island
4x Flooded Strand
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
4x Tropical Island

Other Mana Stuff - 8
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Aether Vial

Noncreature Utility and Protection - 18
4x Survival of the Fittest
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
2x Portent

Good Stuff - 16
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Meddling Mage
3x Oriss, Samite Guardian
1x Eternal Witness
1x Genesis
1x Glory
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Harmonic Sliver

No current sideboard

The deck operates as a standard survival deck with the capacity to totally lock out another deck via Oriss. Oriss protects itself with its own ability, and is able to come totally out of the blue against a nonprepared deck with almost no setup involved (End of turn Survival up two of them, play on, enter lock).

Problems I've identified with the deck;
1) The mana base is slightly shaky, especially against Moon-Thresh and Dragonstompy. The three basics, Birds, and Vial help, but it still is iffy.

2) While Force and Mage help combo matchups a lot, it's not positive. I would put most at 50/50, although any prepared combo deck is much harder.

3) Not enough blue cards for Force and not enough Creatures. The cantrips help alot with both problems, but I'm not sure how to fix these issues.

Any helpful comments would be great. Thanks in advance.

So, I played in a 19 player sanctioned Legacy tournament yesterday. It was my first Legacy tournament ever so I'm very pleased with the fact that I ended up 5th with a 3-1-1 record. I was running a somewhat out of date RG Survival build:

4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
12 Forest
1 Mountain

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Burning Wish

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Flametongue Kavu
3 Eternal Witness
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emmissary
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Shivan Wurm
1 Deranged Hermit

Wishboard:
1 Hull Breach
1 Meltdown
1 Tranquility
1 Tsunami
1 Flashfires
1 Ruination
1 Pyroclasm
1 Firespout
1 Demonfire
1 Desert Twister
1 Obliterate
1 Harmonize
1 Natural Order
1 Overrun
1 Regrowth

Foreseeing some obvious questions:
Q: Where's the goyfs?
A: Don't have any and not getting any until T2 players let go of theirs.
Q: Why no black splash?
A: Don't have Thoughtseize and couldn't really find enough room for it anyway.

Match-ups:
Game #1: vs. Dragon Stompy 0-2 Loss
Game #2: vs. Aluren 2-1 Win
Game #3: vs. Landstill 1-1-1 Draw
Game #4: vs. Mossnought 1-0-1 Win
Game #5: vs. 42lands.deck 2-1 Win

Few pointers:
Magus of the Moon - Amazing. I cannot stress enough how important this card is. It makes playing near impossible for so many decks and was an instant win against Landstill and 42lands when it hit the table.
Viridian Zealot - I would gladly take a better alternative if there was any. The ability to destroy both artifacts and enchantments was vital however.
Burning Wish - Disappointment. Not useless but more than once I found myself holding extra Wishes with no chance to play them. Casting a Wish and the spell it fetches is very mana consuming.
Finishers - Two is too much. Games tend to get resolved before the finisher hits the table anyway.

I feel if you're running straight RG, you should definitely run 4 Magus of the Moon. Your manabase can support it and that guy just reams other decks.

There are over 9000 cards in that Wishboard that are either redundant or that you'll want to grab once every century. You could cut down to something like:

- 1 Rough/Tumble (one side gets rid of weenies while saving Birds, the other kills Tombstalker and Mystic Enforcer)
- Either 1 Gleeful Sabotage or 1 Shattering Spree + 1 Reverent Silence
- 1 Regrowth

and then 2-3 other metagame slots that you are realistically going to want (Tsunami and an X spell perhaps?).

Of course, that's assuming you want to keep the Burning Wishes in the first place.

What is the current GRbw 4c list? I want to throw it together to test around. How is Burniing Wish? It seems strong, but I only see it being run in the GRb version. I really want to put one of them together and Swords is appealing since Tombstalkers are on the rise. Here is what I have together right now. Is it optimal?

4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
2 Savannah
5 Forest

4 Survival
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Birds of Paradise
1 Rofellos
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Anger
1 Squee
1 Genesis
1 Harmonic Sliver
2 Darkheart Sliver
3 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Shriekmaw
1 Masticore
1 Big Game Hunter
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Gigapede / Troll Ascetic

I don't think there's any "the" list. I mean, personally, I'd cut the Darkhearts for a Kitchen Finks and the last Therapy, Gigapede for the last Witness, move BGH to the sideboard and add a Faerie Macabre main, and lastly cut Masticore, Rofellos, and/or Ranger for "good cards" in absence of Survival like Doran or Confidant or more Magi or even Wishes or Deeds, (Tops, Sylvans, Jittes...). But then that's just what I'd personally do, and I personally prefer to cut down on the silver bullet package as far as reasonable, which doesn't mean that's necessarily "correct" even if I think it is.

If Tombstalker is the problem, you could also just add, um, Wallop, to your sideboard. Ahem.

Quote:

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I don't think there's any "the" list. I mean, personally, I'd cut the Darkhearts for a Kitchen Finks and the last Therapy, Gigapede for the last Witness, move BGH to the sideboard and add a Faerie Macabre main, and lastly cut Masticore, Rofellos, and/or Ranger for "good cards" in absence of Survival like Doran or Confidant or more Magi or even Wishes or Deeds, (Tops, Sylvans, Jittes...). But then that's just what I'd personally do, and I personally prefer to cut down on the silver bullet package as far as reasonable, which doesn't mean that's necessarily "correct" even if I think it is.

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I wouldn't swap Darkheart for Kitchen Finks with Harmonic in the deck, but I'd get rid of the 2nd one. Alone, Kitchen Finks is much better and does have synergy with Cabal Therapy, but the synergy between Darkheart and Harmonic outweigh that imo. If you switch Darkheart for Kitchen Finks, you end up losing life gain (potential 6 life from 2 slivers to 4 life with Finks + Therapy), and the most important aspect in being able to have 2 artifact/enchantment killers.

I've also been running BGH in the maindeck. Tombstalker is a problem, but it is actually rarely a dead card. 75% of the format runs Goyf, so that problem's solved. Goblins you can at least send in a surprise blocker and potential Piledriver killer, and it'll at least kill a GGT against Ichorid should they stop it. It's worth maindecking if you're going to board it most of the time.

If you run Anger, why would you cut the Rofellos package? That makes no sense. If no red, then there's no need for it because Rofellos is purely a speed card, but if you have the explosiveness, take advantage of it. I realize many players are leaning against the silver bullet package, but in the case of Ranger, Rofellos, and Masticore, all of those are solid on their own.


Anyway, here's the list I've been running for the last couple weeks:

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Anger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Genesis

3 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
2 Eternal Witness
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Shriekmaw
1 Masticore
1 Darkheart Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver

4 Birds of Paradise
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bayou
3 Savannah
2 Taiga
4 Forest

Sideboard:
3 Thoughtseize
3 Engineered Plague
2 Krosan Grip
2 Extirpate
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Orim's Chant
1 Gaea's Blessing

I run a rather high bullet count compared to most builds, and I do agree that builds should stray away from that, but it's rather meta-dependant. Plus, I do run Dark Confidant. Finding them isn't as difficult.

I've looked at some of your decklists and I have to say that the mana curve in all of them are similar to mine. The point I'm getting to is that CB/top is really annoying when running a bunch of 2cc and 1cc. What do you guys think of running 2 aether vials in MD to neutralize this issue? Are there any better ways to stop this problem while running RGB survival?

You could also run maindeck Grips, which is unorthodox but not unheard of. Or just more Harmonics.

Running harmonics requires white which brings up the question of how stable RGBw Survival is. Could anyone tell me about how they feel with the mana base? I am quite skeptical but I would like to hear the input from people who have toyed with a 4 color build.

Every list I've seen that's GBWr, including my own, has been strong enough to run four colors and run Magus of the Moon. I've never complained about it, and I don't believe I've ever heard anyone else complain about it. It weakens your manabase against your own Magus a little bit if you don't prepare for it, but you gain a much, much better enchantment/artifact killer, additional removal, and the best anti-combo cards.

Well, with the GRBw Build, how do you guys feel running up against a deck with CB/top? I feel that for my RGB build, I'm about 60% win chance overall against a deck that has cb/top. If they pull out cb/top without me having a survival, the game becomes a 25% chance. With Survival out, I feel that I put up a 70% win chance. GRBw definitely has an upperhand vs stompy and storm combo, yet it misses Burning Wish which is a house against various decks.

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Originally Posted by hungryboi

Well, with the GRBw Build, how do you guys feel running up against a deck with CB/top? I feel that for my RGB build, I'm about 60% win chance overall against a deck that has cb/top. If they pull out cb/top without me having a survival, the game becomes a 25% chance. With Survival out, I feel that I put up a 70% win chance. GRBw definitely has an upperhand vs stompy and storm combo, yet it misses Burning Wish which is a house against various decks.

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CounterTop is going to be difficult for every variation of the deck except the strict BGW versions. This is because they have a higher curve and feature a lot more 3cc cards, including Pernicious Deed. Otherwise, I'm comfortable playing against it, although it's certainly annoying. If you land Survival beforehand, Countertop isn't much of a concern as you can search up Harmonic Sliver and take it down the following turn, but RGB has to wait until they can cast Indrik Stomphowler. If they manage to untap with CounterTop in play before Survival is in play, it's an uphill battle. Not impossible, but difficult.

I will give the GBRw Version a try once I finish with classes.

another question I have for all Survival players out there is would you say that with the current position the legacy format is in, would you prefer to play Survival over various other decks? It would be interesting to know what colors people are playing and what's preferred in their decks. With combo becoming more prominent, are many of the survival players making a move towards thresh or stompy or do Survival players believe they have a strong chance vs all types of decks?

I currently believe that Survival based decks have a strong MU against at least 65% of the decks out there. I am biased though since it is my pet deck.

I was wondering if anyone has tested this GBW list

Creatures
1 Academy Rector
4 Birds Of Paradise
3 Eternal Witness
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Genesis
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Loxodon Hierarch
2 Shriekmaw
1 Spore Frog
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Doran
1 Squee

Broken
1 Recurring Nightmare
4 Survival Of The Fittest

Control
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Pernicious Deed

Lands
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Bayou
3 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Loxodon Hierarch
2 Vexing Shusher
1 Withered Wretch
3 Yixlid Jailer
3 Armageddon
4 Duress

It looks awesome. I would probably cut some stuff like Spore Frog to add another Doran and some more Recurring Nightmare. But it looks interesting and played real nice in the video on youtube beating UGR Thresh in the finals.

I would like to see that game! Do you think you could send it or let me know the title?

NOOO don't cut Spore Frog you are my hero for running him in the first place.

Games 1 and 2

Game 2 is split into two parts.

Well, i have been testing out my staight RGBSA list and the list that splashes white for harmonic and gaddock, and the results so far have been completely overwhelming. why did nobody inform me that harmonic sliver is THE SHIT against legacy? i haven't even gone so far as to cut the wishes for swords, but in almost every situation i've had them, they would have been amazing. also, the manabase is still rock solid. (Go, Go, Gadget Fetchlands!!!)

What I've realized with a GBWr version of survival is that red is required to be kept to a minimal. No wishes or singleton Flame tongue as you don't want to be too dependent on the 4th color. For the moments when you get survival out, getting that mountain is usually a good thing for the purpose of Anger/rofellos. I was thinking about keeping the GBR deck with a minor change until I saw how strong the SB with GBWr version was. 4 Orim's and two gattok teags are retarded against combo. I'm also running 3 pernicious deeds and 1 recurring nightmare as those are good against counterbalance while deeds can be devastating against A lot of combo and chalice.