OMG!!! i'm testing Caldera Hellion right now and it's freakin awesome!!!! It is definately staying in my deck.
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OMG!!! i'm testing Caldera Hellion right now and it's freakin awesome!!!! It is definately staying in my deck.
Running Primal Command as an offensive Wish Target in the board seems...better? It doesn't eat an extra slot main, and if you can spend four and a creature in play, you can probably spend five for Primal Command. Now, true, Protogenesis is a two turn clock, but Primal Command can win the game and save you from losing situations as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by georgjorge
Protogenesis is probably stronger than Command against a neutral board, but Primal Command might be better against an unfavorable board and still pulls its weight against a neutral one.
personally i don't think wishes are what we need right now. they are too slow imho.
@eclipsemonger
Caldera Hellion as 1-of? What's its best scenario? a recurring 3 point damage?
could you explain yourself please?
I see wishes as save-game shots which can break totally... rofellos + wish + banefire, wish + seeds of innocence, tsunami, etc, etc... I like the toolbox stuff.
However, this is just my first survival deck and, of course, I will test more builds :)
@ muela
i like the hellion right now as a way to clear out goblins, as well as other critters that could be a little bit difficult to deal with like multiple nimble mongeese or slivers when crystalline is in play. ive also had games where there were multiple meddling mages and/or dark confidants out and then i just clear them all away. i think it deserves a spot as mass removal.
as for burning wish, i ran that just like most others did a few years back, and it was amazing then, but the format has changed since that time and i personally find it too slow right now to warrant the slots. dont get me wrong i love the card. just not right now, not in this deck. the spells ive been running to great effect lately has been the following...
4 survival of the fittest
3 firestorm
3 cabal therapy
4 thoughtseize
pretty much i run firestorm in the wish slot, and its a one mana instant speed creature killer that i like alot right now, especially since i run 4 witnesses and wouldnt mind pitching squee/genesis/anger/big game hunter to dominate my opponents creatures.
Why not run Terminate, Smother, or Swords to Plowshares? Firestorm will rarely take out a Tarmogoyf or Tombstalker, and will never take out a Dreadnought. Those three creatures are very commonly played and pose the greatest threat to Survival; running removal that fails to take out those three targets seems bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by eclipsemonger
The manabase can easily splash white to go 4 color, and it offers the best options for the deck (Swords to Plowshares, Slivers, and sideboard options in Orim's Chant, Ethersworn Canonist, and Gaddock Teeg). I don't think any list can justify NOT running white right now.
Just to elaborate slightly: cutting Wish greatly decreases your dependency on red. The only thing you need red for now is Anger, which makes it extremely easy to add white since you're effectively just a 3 color list with a tiny red splash. Considering everything that white offers, yeah, there's really no reason not to run it.
Hold on...."Everything white offers" includes:Quote:
Originally Posted by b4r0n
Swords to Plowshares
Orim's Chant
Gaddock Teeg
Aethersworn Cannonist
Harmonic Sliver
Everything red offers:
Anger
Magus of the Moon
Burning Wish
Flametongue Kavu/Fire Imp
Disadvantages to going four colors:
Stress to the manabase
Now, of the white cards, Swords is fine, and Chant in the Board is great. Swords is a little redundant with Shriekmaw, Big Game Hunter, and Fire Imp, but it's still easy to include. Chant or Canonist in the board is also great.
I think that Anger, Magus, and even Burning Wish are all stronger than the Swords in the main. The only reason I see to run white over red is Chant in the board to supplement Thoughtseize and Therapy in the main. Magus, in particular, is amazing-I would not run GB(r/w/rw) Survival without him.
Wish is more debatable, but the ability to draw a Chainer's Edict, Hull Breach, Pyroclasm, Haunting Echoes, or Primal Command game one steals games you have no business winning, can break open close games, and can seal a game where you are ahead. I'd argue Wish is stronger than Swords in the main; I go back and forth between running 4 Wish 0 Swords and a list running 3 and 3, but I wouldn't cut them entirely.
I would not run this deck without Magi and an Anger in the main. Light splashes are easy, because of Birds and the loads of basic Forests, but cutting red is wrong.
There's also Doran, the second best beatdown creature for this deck if you want to go for a more aggressive route. There's also Grunt.
Team America and Dreadstill variants will be very prevalent at the GP. Shriekmaw isn't going to get there against Tombstalkers and Noughts. Fire Imp has, like, 3 targets right now. When he lands on turn 3 (if you get the nuts opening with Birds, Survival, and land drops), Dark Confidant will already have replaced itself, Goblin Warchief will already have turned sideways, Hypnotic Specter will already have gotten in at least once, and Tarmogoyf will be at least a 3/4.Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryTroll
Magus is a great card, but he seems like weak maindeck material. Against most decks, he's an overcosted 2/2. As a card for the board though, he's much better.Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryTroll
Burning Wish is absolutely stronger than Swords in a vacuum, but in the current metagame, Burning Wish is much too slow. It gets Spell Snare'd and Daze'd all day long and can't keep up with Dreadstill and Team America. I see Dark Confidant as a much stronger effect in a better color for the same cost.Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryTroll
Absolutely. Red is a complete necessity for the deck to run and Anger is nuts. Giving all your dudes Haste for a minimal investment is so one-sided and unfair. This article was an interesting read on the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryTroll
Decks that Magus is a beating against:
Dreadstill (Even the UR build has 9 nonbasics and fetches, with no removal short of Dreadnought to the face)
Thresh, Tempo Thresh, etc
Team America
43 Land (and friends)
Decks that Magus is occasionally a beating against, sometimes rather weak:
Landstill (and variants)
Aggro Loam
TES, etc (if you can start with disruption, he's relatively relevant)
Survival Mirrors
Decks that Magus is bad against:
Elves, Survival Elves, etc
Goblins
Merfolk (even then, though, they lack removal and it stops Mutavaults, so it's not irrelevant)
That's most of the DtBs that he is a house against, and he's only irrelevant against a few decks; those three happen to be very, very sad to see Burning Wish into Pyroclasm.
I will grant that it is rather slow, and gets Spell Snared. But Spell Snare can target 4 Goyfs, 4 Survivals, and 3 Wishes-that's a lot of things that cost two.
That sounds incredibly poor when you could rearrange it like so:Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryTroll
Decks that Swords to Plowshares is a beating against:
Dreadstill
Thresh, Tempo Thresh, etc
Team America
Aggro Loam
Survival Mirrors
Elves, Survival Elves
Merfolk
Goblins
Ichorid
43 Land (They have like what, 10 win conditions? Swords is awesome here, no Loam recursion with them)
Decks that Swords to Plowshares is occasionally a beating against, sometimes rather weak:
Landstill (If they run Tarmogoyf it's solid, otherwise it still hits Factory but still weak)
Decks that Swords to Plowshares is bad against:
TES
I think we have a winner here. If you want you deck to have the best possible game all-around against the metagame, Swords to Plowshares damn sure better be in there somewhere. Magus of the Moon is a cute win-more trick. If you're able to tutor him up against a deck that will have a decent impact on the game, odds are you're in a winning position already and they don't have a mass of threats in play while you meanwhile have Survival in play.
Meanwhile, it will not help you against a resolved Tombstalker, Dreadnought, Lackey, Tarmogoyf, etc. Trying to claim that Shriekmaw and Big Game Hunter handle this is ridiculous given they are only singletons in the deck, or maybe 2 Shriekmaw. Even so, that isn't consistent enough to kill threats reliably given half of those matchups are blue and will counter the Survival.
Now, I know that argument for Swords was technically vs. Burning Wish, but the above point should be taken into account. I've gotten into the Burning Wish vs. Dark Confidant argument more than enough times to bother anymore, people know my stance. Wish won't get you very far in this metagame when it's the slowest card in your deck, especially in a format full of Stifle/Waste. And spare the running of Life from the Loam as a Wish target. If you're trying to justify that, it's at the stage where the deck is seriously not a contender in the metagame when it needs to warp slots like that. At least Confidant will get you to land drops if it survives and still provide an efficient source of card advantage the rest of the time, and doesn't distort your sideboard so you can't efficiently board for bad matchups.
I may be drunk, but I would nominate this post for some kind of Survival-pulitzer. - Bardo
Quote:
Originally Posted by Di
That's actually not what I was arguing; Swords versus Burning Wish is a different argument than Swords versus Magus of the Moon. What you say is true; but running Magus alongside Swords is hardly a poor decision.
When I run a four color version to splash three swords, I cut a Burning Wish, a Cabal Therapy, and a Shriekmaw (and a Kavu if I want four Swords); I don't cut the remaining Burning Wishes.
Burning Wish is a medium- to late- game utility piece/bomb against the entire format. Swords is an early game utility piece against the entire format. Magus is a mid game Bomb against most of the Decks to Beat, and an inefficient bear against some of them.
Magus main is great in most metagames. Survival and Goyf are game winning threats; Shriekmaw, BGH, and Swords are all very strong (reactive) elements of the deck; Rofellos and Genesis are strong; and the Birds and Rangers set up the deck. Other game-winning bombs can include Burning Wish (for Primal Command; otherwise lump Wish in with the reactive spells, even huge ones like Pyroclasm) and Magus. The actual threats in the deck are Survival, Goyf, Wish, and Magus in most matchups. Everything else is support- you don't win games by drawing lots of Swords, Big Game Hunters, Birds, and Rofellos. Shriekmaw is both, but even then, you need help from a proactive threat to win.
Again, Swords, Burning Wish, and Magus are all being argued as exclusive options. Why argue for one when two fit?
4C List:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Quirion Ranger
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Eternal Witness
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Shriekmaw
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Flame Tongue Kavu (Shriekmaw or BGH #2)
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 Rofellos
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival
3 Burning Wish
21 Land
My three color list is the above, minus 2 Savannah and plus two on color lands; -3 Swords, +1 Wish, +1 Shriekmaw/BGH, +1 Divining Top (if Top, -1 Land, +the second Top)/1 Gigapede/2nd Wickerbough Elder/3rd Witness/etc
Right:Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryTroll
Quote:
Originally Posted by Di
You're going to have to elaborate a bit better, because I don't see it as anything but random utility. At 2cc in the late game, it's unlikely to resolve against Counterbalance, or resolve at all. You can maybe destroy something, or get Primal Command, but the later needs to resolve as well. However, given how fast this format is, I'd rather address issues the deck has earlier in the game, but I gotta run to work so this discussion can take place later.Quote:
Burning Wish is a medium- to late- game utility piece/bomb against the entire format. Swords is an early game utility piece against the entire format. Magus is a mid game Bomb against most of the Decks to Beat, and an inefficient bear against some of them.
Swords is my favorite card is survival and needs to be run imo.
I recently changed from RGB Survival to GBWr Survival. The thing I noticed which makes burning wish subpar to swords is that it is way too slow at sorcery speed. As Di has confirmed, CB usually dominated Wishes. Although swords isn't any better at avoiding CB, its effectiveness is unmatched because it is an instant with such a low mana cost. Burning Wish also took up way too much space in my sideboard (8-10 slots) while with white, that never happens. I have more flexibility in my Side and can adapt during my 2nd and 3rd game a lot easier.
I currently need help with a Sideboard plan:
3 Orims Chants
4 Leylines
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Engineered Plagues
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
I would ideally like to fit in 3 Krosan Grips but I dont know what to take out. This sideboard OWNS TES. TES has never beat me after I SB in which is why I have such a hard time parting ways with its current status. Deed is useful in so many random matchups and it is a house against many combo decks (blows up globlin tokens or LEDs). Leyline is good against alot of combo (Icho, gamekeeper, IGG, other decks such as aggro loam or survival mirror). On the otherhand, Eskimo is tough since I have no way of combating scepter chant lock and have a harder time with grindstone combo without grips.
I've never liked Leyline in Survival. It's a clunky card that can hamper mulligan decisions (by making an otherwise bad hand seem good or by causing you to send back an otherwise good hand to find it) and is easily bounced or destroyed. Because of this, Extirpate or Tormod's Crypt both seem like better options for a variety of reasons. Extirpate can't be bounced or destroyed, and Tormod's Crypt can always be used in response to removal (or preemptively if you suspect Krosan Grip). Also, with Eternal Witness, you can easily recur Crypt or Extirpate. I've never run Leyline just because I've never wanted to devote that many sideboard slots to graveyard hate (I'll usually do 3 Extirpate or 2 Extirpate and 1 Yixlid Jailer).Quote:
Originally Posted by hungryboi
The last time I played quicksilver, he was running both Burning Wish and Leyline, so I wonder what his thoughts on both topics are.
The sideboard also depends on the maindeck quite a bit, depending on what toolbox critters you run and whether SDT is there or not.
The thing with leyline is they have to get rid of it to win. Crypt and especially extirpate, they simply can just ignore sometimes and keep going off. I think leyline is the best graveyard hate you can have in survival.
What about wheel of sun and moon thats more has survival friendly colors. I don't think its good vs. thresh. but will help with Ichord and storm combo like ill gotten gains.
@ memnarch,
i dont think that wheel of sun and moon is as good as the other options we could run like leyline, extirpate, and crypt. personally between those three, i like extirpate the best because it can be good against a wider variety of decks.
im probably gonna get heat for this, but i am running an old school favorite, and loving him right now. that card is...
TROLL ASCETIC!!!
he just seems to be working out really well for me lately. :smile: