[Deck] Survival

@Kesta It seems not to be any problem at all with burns and RDW, just by keeping on recurring kitchen finks is enough, sometimes even with just 1 played you have the time you need to overrun your oponent. In addition to that post-SB you get the jittes...

@Brushwagg I did see your list and seems fine, although I haven't test it yet, I'm testing with this one, the Tacosnape's and another with BW. I'll give it a try as soon as I'm done with any of those =)

About not being able to survival the blood moons, it's true, but the can hit the board with bloodraids because despite of having only 2 you can get to play them several times by recurring them, and bouncing them and it's really great cascading them. From my point of view, it is harder to deal with the enchantment than dealing with the magus.
One of the threats of the deck are the moon effects, if you depend on survival to get them you end in depending even more on survival.

About the FtK, I've experienced myself not being able to reach some "big" creatures (unsually huge countryside crushers or reliquarys) but it is not the most frequent thing, at least in my meta...

Why was this moved to developing competitive? This was in DTB...

I'm assuming that Survival isn't putting up the tournament results hence not being a DTB.

@Kesta, the deck looks good. Why harmonic over pridemage or wickerbough? I've been struggling with the choice of pridemage, wickerbough, or sliver in the enchantment removal slot.

The Developing Competitive is the New and Development forum, this one is for decks already tuned up, but that aren't the ones that are making the most Top 8's this month. Because most of the large tournaments this month have been played in Spain, the DtB took briefly the form of the Spanish meta.

Also, it was never Deck to Beat as far as I remember. It has always been "Deck to Watch", which is pretty close.

Been trying out Necroplasm as a 1-of in place of Blitz Hellion in my sideboard. Yes, that Necroplasm. For three reasons.

1. It blows up tokens. There's been far too many Garruks and Elspeths running around for me not to have an answer as of late, and it's also helped a tad against Goblins when I can't get a Plague down. These won't solve the problem immediately quite like Hellion, which tramples through the tokens, eats the Planeswalker, and goes back into your deck for another round of fun, but it will destroy the tokens and free up your other guys to go Planeswalker-munching.

2. It's randomly good against weird boards.

3. When your opponent is yard-hating you, Necroplasm acts like a backup Squee where you just don't get the extra card each turn. Admit it. You've had games where you've had Survival out, but your opponent has cut you off from Squee and/or Genesis and you need threats to get your plan b Witness chain going, or just to grab some serious Tarmogoyfs. Necroplasm can be pitched to Survival and recurred in place of your draw each turn, fetching bullets, Goyfs, or Witnesses.

@ Tacosnape

I'm glad to see that some people are still thinking outside the box! That said, couldn't plague spitter be a good/better stand-in for necroplasm? It's a tad slower at getting rid of tokens, but faster at dealing with 1 toughness goblins, and can be used as direct damage to hit a planeswalker hiding behind a non-token creature wall. It's also randomly good against other decks/boards (hits confidant, gets around moat, can help break goyf stalemates (although many other creatures do this too), and prevents tokens from ever taking hold if you drop this preemptively).

It does kill birds and quirion ranger (and witness, but this actually facilitates recursion on occasion), but maybe there's enough good there to overlook that.

Possibly, but Necroplasm's won me several games after having Squee/Genesis Relic'd, Extirpated, Macabred, etc. Plus, I've started running actual Plague in sideboard, so this helps cover this role.

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Originally Posted by hungryboi

@Kesta, the deck looks good. Why harmonic over pridemage or wickerbough? I've been struggling with the choice of pridemage, wickerbough, or sliver in the enchantment removal slot.

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Harmonic 'coz it costs 3 and stay on table after destoying, better for Recurring Nightmare. Wickerbough elder cost too much and quasali get sac'ed.
I'm not sure if Wickerbough wouldnt be better, I have Deed for early Enchantement and Artifact. I'll test but harmonic is just good for what i need.

Just topped 3 today at another sanctioned legacy event this time in orange county (23 man tournament). Check out the tournament report in the tournament report section.

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Originally Posted by hungryboi

Just topped 3 today at another sanctioned legacy event this time in orange county (23 man tournament). Check out the tournament report in the tournament report section.

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Hi, I just read your report. Congratz for the result.
I love your list but:
-how were the SDT during those maches? it helped? because i tried to use them and found it was not that good. If you can explain... ;-)
-then FTK? did you use it a lot? and was it usefull?

Hope you enjoyed playing this deck. It's sure against combo it's usually lost, but how can we improve that? 4 duress in SB, ethersworn canonist, orim's chant...?

The only times I personally have ever found Kavu to be very useful are against Dark confidant, and zoo. Other than that, I prefer a second shriekmaw.

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Originally Posted by Kesta

Hi, I just read your report. Congratz for the result.
I love your list but:
-how were the SDT during those maches? it helped? because i tried to use them and found it was not that good. If you can explain... ;-)
-then FTK? did you use it a lot? and was it usefull?

Hope you enjoyed playing this deck. It's sure against combo it's usually lost, but how can we improve that? 4 duress in SB, ethersworn canonist, orim's chant...?

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SDT is really good. They make my deck run very smoothly without Survival.

Flametongue has been decent. It is good vs Merfolk and Dragon Stompy. I wouldn't cut him though since he gotten me out of sticky situations.

Storm is really really difficult. Chant would be good if they don't duress you. Teeg and Canonist are both really strong. I prefer Teeg because it's stronger in other match-ups (Planeswalkers and Stax to name a couple). Graveyard hate is also decent so they don't do any ill Gotten Gains.

Hi,

I wonder if any of the experienced Survival players would kindly share their thoughts on current state of RG survival builds. Is it viable to any extent or is it strictly inferior to any black or white builds?

At the moment I am running a very old RGSA build with Wishes, Goyfs, FTKs and Baloths. I loved the playstyle of RGSA but with the development of meta and printing of new cards (the last amazing card printed for RGSA seems to be goyf and with ever increasing card power level other decks have gained a lot of goodies since than) made it bad. That was fixed by adding the black splash and the RGB builds in this thread are amazing but for a very prosaic reason of not having access to duals other than Taiga I would like to avoid adding any splash.

Few posts above there is a list of pure RG build by Muela, but Blood Moons or Chameleon colossus make this deck feel very awkward to me. Is it possible to build a more 'classic' RGSA survival build at the time being or there is no choice but to add at least one color splash or at least go the Elf Survival route?

Thanks in advance for replies.

I don't know if anyone will agree with me, but I don't think Tarmogoyf is the last amazing creature printed for Survival at all. Magus of the Moon, Chameleon Colossus, Spitebellows, Kitchen Finks, Wickerbough Elder, Vithian Renegades, they all are examples of really interesting R/G creatures that can easily find a place in Survival. Even Progenitus has a home in some builds.

Also, I can't understand why all aggro-oriented builds run 4 Tarmogoyf. Survival has access to more mana than most decks thanks to Birds of Paradise, Rofellos and Quirion Ranger, so we can afford some bigger and nastier creatures than them. Why limit ourselves to the standard big guy everyone plays (considering that two of them block each other forever)?

I guess I need you to post an example of a "classic build" because I don't exactly know what you mean.

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Originally Posted by crow_mw

Hi,

I wonder if any of the experienced Survival players would kindly share their thoughts on current state of RG survival builds. Is it viable to any extent or is it strictly inferior to any black or white builds?

At the moment I am running a very old RGSA build with Wishes, Goyfs, FTKs and Baloths. I loved the playstyle of RGSA but with the development of meta and printing of new cards (the last amazing card printed for RGSA seems to be goyf and with ever increasing card power level other decks have gained a lot of goodies since than) made it bad. That was fixed by adding the black splash and the RGB builds in this thread are amazing but for a very prosaic reason of not having access to duals other than Taiga I would like to avoid adding any splash.

Few posts above there is a list of pure RG build by Muela, but Blood Moons or Chameleon colossus make this deck feel very awkward to me. Is it possible to build a more 'classic' RGSA survival build at the time being or there is no choice but to add at least one color splash or at least go the Elf Survival route?

Thanks in advance for replies.

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Hi crow_mw, even though I'm not one of the impresive players you can find here (I practically started with survival decks, and legacy, this 2009) I can share the experience I've gained here. Please, keep in mind that I'm in Madrid, Spain, and my meta could be quite different.

I started with a RBG SA with wishes and it's quite amazing, furthermore with the new spells such as Firespout, Maelstrom Pulse and Banefire (Banefire+rofellos is nuts, and with quirion it's simply absurd). I really like this build, it can turn completely a game with a BW a make a win out of nowhere.
The main problem I've found is that the format is really fast and there are tons of mana denial in the form of wastelands, stifles and fire for birds (those fire/ice are a pain) and a survival deck without mana is really hard to play.

Therefore, by taking out the BW, getting in W and trading some creatures you can get a really, really good deck with an awsome mana curve including StP and great utility creatures (such as qasali pridemange, gaddock teeg, canonist, burrenton forge tender...). Tacosnape's is a really good example of this.

I've also seen some Gwbr lists with Recurring nigthmare and/or pernicious deed. I haven't tested any of them, so I can be of little help in that matter (I would also appreciate some input in those decks :D). I'll have to test them sometime, as well as introducing a couple of SdT as it has been said here.

However, in my meta (and I think Spanish in general terms) tribal decks (gobbs and merfolk mainly) are growing and are really fast. In addition to that, there's quite a lot of non-basic lands hate in the form of wastelands locks (loam and crucible), back to basics...

In that meta, the RG list I posted above really shines. It's really sinergic with so many combos... I didn't realize of all of them until I started to play it... The list gives up almost completely against combo and also loses a lot of the wide-range solutions that you can control with W and B.

So here is the list as I am actually testing in order to play a quite big tournament here in Madrid in a couple of weeks:

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--- GR Survi Moon ---
Creatures [30]
3x Birds of paradise
2x Llanowar elves.
3x Eternal witness
4x Tarmogoyf

1x Genesis
1x Anger
1x Squee, goblin nabob

1x Quirion ranger
1x Rofellos, llanowar emissary
1x Masticore

2x Flametongue Kavu
1x Spitebellows
1x Caldera Hellion

2x Bloodbraid Elf
1x Stingcourger
1x kitchen finks
1x Shivan wurm
1x Spore frog
1x Ingot Chewer
1x Magus of the moon

Enchantments [7]
4x Survival of the fittest
3x Blood Moon

Artifacts [4]
4x Aether vial

Lands [19]
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Windswepth heath
4x Taiga
1x mountain
6x Forest

Sideboard
2x red elemental blast
3x Umezawa’s jitte
2x krosan grip
1x Goblin sharpshooter
1x Wickerbough Elder
4x thorn of amethyst
2x ????

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I'm testing with the caldera hellion wich seems to behave pretty good against swarm decks, multiple confidants, enchantress and can leave behind a huge body. I've also changed the viridian zealot and I got in the chewer because of all the vials and chalices, and as it has been said in this thread the great recursion with genesis.

I still don't know what to do with those two slots in the SB and even if I should take in SB the thorn of amethyst... I'm also thinking about swapping the finks (deals with 2 blockers, maybe 1 moongose) with spike feeder (easier to recurse and possible counters to goyfs)

Every suggestion is welcomed!

About your doubts:
1.- Chamaleon Colossus is, from my point of view, just a mana-eating-counterbalance-free creature. After some thoughts I decided to replace it with Masticore which can turn around things pretty fast.
2.- Blood moons, and moon effects in general, are sooo good (at least in this meta) that I may even keep them in g2 or g3 vs goblins (and deny them the G or B sources). They really are a big threat to a lot of decks, they may not be ready to deal with so many echantments and they also can be cascaded with bloodraid.

Hope it helped a bit :)

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Originally Posted by Nonex

Also, I can't understand why all aggro-oriented builds run 4 Tarmogoyf. Survival has access to more mana than most decks thanks to Birds of Paradise, Rofellos and Quirion Ranger, so we can afford some bigger and nastier creatures than them. Why limit ourselves to the standard big guy everyone plays (considering that two of them block each other forever)?

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Because if you have your mana engine, including Rofellos, online, you have Survival online, and it's just win-more at that point. Goyfs are better when you don't have Survival going (and in many ways better even when you do, such as playing 2-3 of them in one turn).

Put simply:
When you haven't got Survival, you don't want big guys.
When you do have Survival, you don't need them.

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Originally Posted by MattH

Because if you have your mana engine, including Rofellos, online, you have Survival online, and it's just win-more at that point. Goyfs are better when you don't have Survival going (and in many ways better even when you do, such as playing 2-3 of them in one turn).

Put simply:
When you haven't got Survival, you don't want big guys.
When you do have Survival, you don't need them.

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There aren't really any larger guys you can go to in order to beat Tarmogoyf (there are a few like Spiritmonger, but not many). So it's easier and more mana efficient to just dig up Tarmogoyfs and then start Bone Shredding or Sowering.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

There aren't really any larger guys you can go to in order to beat Tarmogoyf (there are a few like Spiritmonger, but not many). So it's easier and more mana efficient to just dig up Tarmogoyfs and then start Bone Shredding or Sowering.

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That too. The question presupposed the existence of appropriately-sized dudes.

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Originally Posted by Nonex

I don't know if anyone will agree with me, but I don't think Tarmogoyf is the last amazing creature printed for Survival at all. Magus of the Moon, Chameleon Colossus, Spitebellows, Kitchen Finks, Wickerbough Elder, Vithian Renegades, they all are examples of really interesting R/G creatures that can easily find a place in Survival. Even Progenitus has a home in some builds.

Also, I can't understand why all aggro-oriented builds run 4 Tarmogoyf. Survival has access to more mana than most decks thanks to Birds of Paradise, Rofellos and Quirion Ranger, so we can afford some bigger and nastier creatures than them. Why limit ourselves to the standard big guy everyone plays (considering that two of them block each other forever)?

I guess I need you to post an example of a "classic build" because I don't exactly know what you mean.

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I can agree with this somewhat. I am now playing Tarmogoyf as a 3 of since I do think they are slightly overrated. There hasn't been a time where I needed all 4 Goyfs in my deck to win. However, there has been times when I had a early Goyf in hand and nothing in graveyards (it's frustrating) only to wish it were something else. I had to cut 1 to put in more utility. I feel that survival can run heavily on utility as long as it a good amount of non-utility cards as well (swords, deeds, tops, witnesses). In general, these are the cards you want to see when your trying to stall to draw into survival. These cards will also help you win games without survival.

The thing I am noticing more and more here, is that people are talking about how good a card is based on the card survival. The point of most creatures in this deck, is to work with survival and create advantage. The problem I have with everyone's logic is that, when you have an active survival, any moron can win. What separates the men from the boys with this deck, is how well you function, and handle difficult situations without your namesake card.
I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but I pride myself on my ability to play the deck without survival out. First off, you must play 4 tarmagoyfs. So the fuck what if every other deck plays them? Without survival, it's the best card you can draw, and he is integral to being able to win.