A minor suggestion if you don't run Rofellos is to choose Scryb Ranger over Quirion Ranger.
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A minor suggestion if you don't run Rofellos is to choose Scryb Ranger over Quirion Ranger.
If they have a blast in hand and mana available to cast it, they can also just blast whatever you'd use to deal with Painter (or Survival itself). However, if they can't blast anything (tapped out or don't have it), Iona/Retainers wins you the game, whereas Pridemage or whatever else just stalls.Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH
@Tacosnape I have to disagree about having rofellos AND anger or none. I have won so many games by getting 2 angry goyfs with 1 squee (1 in his turn and 1 in mine), filtering GG to a diferent coloured mana source (via fetching BoP, cast and tapping them), getting an angry sharpshooter to deal with confidants, goblin tokens (EtW), elves... in my 4c deck I run red only because of magus and anger (squee doesn't count :P) and I'm more than happy with them.
However, I agree with you that rofellos without anger is much, much worse. I'm usede to play rofellos within the pack rofellos+quirion+masticore but I have never tried it without them...
About Wonder, I guess that should fall in the SurvivalBant thread :) but I agree with you it is Wonder +1 or Iona+retainers
This is my current GBWr list
Right now I'm waiting for the retainers I have ordered (probably -1 fleshbag -1 kitchen, +1 Iona +1 retainers) and I have to get 3 orim's chant/silence to get in SB (yep, false prophet is 1 of the chant's slots :P)Quote:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
2 Taiga
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
(21)
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Mirri's Guile
(17)
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Genesis
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Eternal Witness
1 Shriekmaw
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Faerie Macabre
(22)
Sideboard:
3 Krosan Grip
2 Path to Exile
2 Shriekmaw
1 False Prophet
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Vexing Shusher
Insights and thoughts are welcomed.
@chris_acheson +1
@Nonex: Flash with Survival is awesome, but whenever I wanted to use Quirion Ranger as land protection I found that the one mana CMC difference to be extremely important.
@Muela: On one hand it is that Rofellos is not that good without anger more than other way around. On the other - sure, in all cases you mentioned anger was good even without Rofellos. The point is, however, that if you already run Anger adding Rofellos to your list has a high impact/cost ratio.
While I would love to hear more in the topic of dead draws, I am also interested about your SB red cards. In what matchups do you board in Sharpshooter and Magus? I haven't seen ETW in quite some while, tribal decks run too many lords and other relevant swarms do not have the back of /1. Magus has always been good to me, but against anything different than lands he seems to hurt you as much as your opponent in 4c build...
@SDT and Mirri's guile: Why not playing Bob instead? I explain my thought:
-Bob is a creature, better synergy with SotF.
-Bob provides CA and if not answered quickly he wins you games.
Do you prefer to draw a Bob or a SDT/Guile? in which situation? in first hand, mid-game,...
I've pretty much tried everything everyone has posted already (besides the Iona plan...it looks attractive nonetheless). Bob is very solid, however, from at least what I've seen, it doesn't help you win tough matchups. The matchups I look view as tough are the following in no particular order:
Goblins
Storm (Including belcher)
Dream Halls Combo
Burn
Enchantress (If you don't run Deeds)
CB (this is always a 50/50 imo as they can get lucky and still counter stuff with CB without sensei's divining top)
Zoo
Some matchups that Survival can edge out against (nowhere near easy matchups however):
Stax (any form)
Aggro Loam (Other loam as well)
tempo Thresh
Dragon Stompy
Landstill
I can see BoB working well vs Landstill, Tempo Thresh, Stax. It is a awesome draw and a pretty good topdeck, but it takes time to get it going, and can potentially hurt you (I've never died or even come close to dying from BoB though). I like Top a lot more because it net's you mana easily, often times doesn't warrant opponent to counterspell it, and is very difficult to remove. Top/Bob combination is deadly, but like I said, it often times doesn't help you win the problematic matchups.
Iona + Retainer seems legitimate since it rapes goblins, burn, and enchantress. It really hurts storm and dream halls. It also pretty much ruins the other decks I listed such as Stax, Landstill, Tempo, Loam, and DS.
Thoughts???
@crow_mw I see, I thought the point was about having both or none. About Rofellos himself, he is really awsome; actually he was my last cut for the 2nd SDT effect which I found more determinate than rofellos. Until a few weeks I used to pack the quirion-rofellos-masticore team but swap them with fleshbag-2 SDT-like.
Regarding the sharpshooter, he is actually a creature I side in quite often. In the worst case, you may have some silver bullets which are not useful in a given MU, but a sharpshooter can always crack a goyf-war. However he really shines when you have on the other side: bobs, ichorids, bloodghasts, lynx, geopedes (some really quick boros decks are spreading here), lavamacers, BoP, noble hierarch, spellstuters, EtW... and of course you may get some tribal creatures, but as you said that is less frequent due to the high number of lords.
About the magus, yes he can screw your lands but that's where your skill comes in. You know you have him, they don't. You know when to cast him and probably lock him. Besides, you have BoP. My recomendation is no to play only basics because a medium-good player would notice and fetch basics as well and lock him in the proper time. About what MU, I guess that almost everyone abusing duals but without red: UGw thresh, landstill, 43, bantsurv, enchantress... just keep on tracking their mana base on the first game. I recently swap him for the macabre because she seems to me more useful in 1st game vs more MUs.
@Kesta SDTvs Bob: I have been asked the same recently and I have to test them to make sure. Besides your points about Bob, keep in mind that you'll have cabal therapy/fleshbag to kill him if needed. However it seems to me a better play a t1 Mirri's Guile without a survival in hand, than a second turn Bob... remember the 8 fetchs.
In mid to late game, I guess it really doesn't matter if you are there you are going to be fine. If you are with Mirri/SDT you will be able to get a creature per turn in your draw which combined with squee and genesis it is almost unfair...
I would like to test having some Bobs with the 2 SDT effects, but it seems hard to squeeze them... and now that Iona/retainers are a must have it's even more difficult :-/ any thoughts about changes are wellcomed.
@hungryboi I agree with you 90% :) I think that Bob helps more than it seems, keep in mind that he is seen as a "I have to kill this guy NOW", which means less removal/counter to your other threats. The downside of that is that is another 2 CC...
About the MU, I would swap burn with loam decks. If you lose to burn, you have not the proper quantity of lifegain or you don't have them recursively enough (I'm about to make -1 Finks +1 Darkheart sliver). However, your SB should fix your lifegain (loxodon is just too much for burn to deal with). In my experience, +6-8 lives is a really high wall for them to climb (moreover with angry creatures eating him).
However, loam is really a pain in the ass. IF you are vs a decent oponent, you need lands and enough skill to notice when to stop playing them and start to keep them in hand waiting for a DD. Their 1st turn chalice @1 is a tough play (when I expect too much loam I get some ingot chewer in SB to get their chalices and moxes), MVP here is the maindeck macabre...
Iona/retainers is a must have nowadays. Just as you said, shuts burn (they can't respond to a Iona in play since the hability is static), any mono colored deck (goblins, melforks, elves), you can destroy painters-decks, enchantress, dream halls (jut keep G open for their show&tell to fetch her), CB and really messes with AnT (they can bounce her). All in all, she really turns in our favor difficult MU by not letting them play plus clocking them with a 7/7 flier which may easily come out in a t3.
The most difficult time about Iona is choose a color against Zoo, I think W is the one, so if they want to kill her they would have to use at least 3 cards. However, they can pass from Iona and fire your head, so then I rethink about naming R with Iona, but they can PtE her, so... what would you name and why? would you even fetch for her?
Against zoo, it depends, if you're still high on life I would name white, if you're lower red, and pray that they don't have/draw path.
Against Zoo G2 I would side Iona/Retainer out. By the time you get to use the combo, it's already too late imo. Plus, as previously stated, it's too difficult to choose the right color. If you have creature D, then side it in. I actually side in Grips game 2/3 which may seem unorthodox. This is because I know they are packing Sylvan Libraries, probably relics, and probably needles.
Why does no one play Engineered Plagues? I understand that it doesn't work against Zoo, but destroys so many other decks. If you draw 1, it usually can stall you to the win, drawing 2 means you instant win against most decks you side it in. 3 Mana is alot, however, it's not like Merfolk, Goblins, or Elves have gotten significantly faster that they can race Plague. Even against Landstill, you name soldiers and Elspeth becomes significantly more vulnerable while they won't be able to cycle that angel card which gives soldiers.
Top + Confidant is awesome when you get it. I've had it in my deck for a month of testing. The only problem I have with confidant is that there's no room in the deck to squeeze em in! Not even 1. I'm not saying Confidant is bad by any means, I just don't see as being very effective against Survival's difficult matchups. BoB fixes problems in decks that lack resiliency, consistency, and endurance. Survival currently has none of these problems. Survival only has a couple problemimistic matchups, which is why I'd prefer to have a few of the open spots dedicated to something that can improve my matchups against those decks rather than smooth out my draw quality.
I like EP too, but I feel I must point out that both tribal decks' Plan A against survival is mana denial. It's still probably a good choice though.Quote:
Originally Posted by hungryboi
I am very tempted to make some kind of Survival deck that can run maindeck or sideboarded Firespouts, since they're incredible in your bad matchups. It makes Noble Hierarch not an option, but if you can spend 2R without spending green, BoP will survive it...and Vial of course, but Vial doesn't help cast Firespout. Are there enough worthwhile X/4s? Goyf, RWM...maybe Wall of Roots? I wouldn't auto-exclude Dark Confidant, sometimes it's nice to be able to kill him.
Thoctar, Doran, KotR?
@Hungryboi I'm not so sure about getting out Iona, she can be a 7/7 flier out of nowhere which has to be dealt with before playing red cards (naming R)... as far as I'm doing right now I try to see their hand (pref. cabal to check for paths) or keep the path count; however if I have a StP in hand I'll keep on naming red in order to stop fire and to response to their PtE by gainning 7 lives... I still have to test it more.
About EP, I used to have them in the SB, but have changed them for 2 shriekmaws and sharpshooter because you can tutor them, recur them. Besides, 4 StP, 2 PtE, 3 shriekmaws and eventually sharpshooter are more than they can deal with (keep in mind genesis and eternals). The main problem in those MU I find is just what MattH said manadenial (Mirri's Guile is MVP here)
@MattH I used to play a GBR version with Burning Wishes including firespout and you can easily save your birds. In spite of BW being awesome and turn to your side lost games, it was "too slow" due to mana denial (once again). If you get to a stable build with Firespout let us know ;)
We already met on MWS and I PMed you but you did not reply. Like I said in that PM your Gbw list looks incredibly similar to what I have come up with and thus your success does not surprise me. The similarity between our lists is really huge!
- Iona: I already said it in a post a while ago that every Survival deck should play Iona/Retainer's Combo without any exception. I was right.
- Mindbreak Trap: Obvously it is awesome against Belcher but you shouldn't expect that matchup too often. You might get the ANT opponent with it in G2, but for G3 they can easily play around it with Chant again so I think further Discard in the form of Duress is better. Furthermore Discard is much better against decks like Dream Halls or Burn which are not heavily played but more than Belcher so I guess Duress instead of Trap is better. Your hand for G2 was certainly no Mulligan. You had 2 Discard spells, one on T1, one on T3, Mana of all colors and a Power 2 beater. It won't get much better than that and taking a Mulligan into a 3-of is not very likely to begin with.
- Your sideboard needs two more Kitchen Finks. They are the best against a buttload of decks.
There aren't any Vials in your decklist, so I'm kinda confused here. Did you mean another card or did you post the wrong list?Quote:
Originally Posted by hungryboi
2x Deed should be 2x Vial. Apologize for the mistake
@ hungryboi
yo! this is Eric. we met yesterday at the tournament watching your friend play dragon stompy ftw. thoughts on your deck:
-maybe too many discard. i understand they can be awesome for both early and midgame to stabilize, but i think cutting it to 4 cabal would be fine since you can FB it. the cut to 4 would also increase quality draws and consistency in opening hands.
-too much land. you have 4 BoP. in my CT Bant deck i run only 17 with 4 NH. my draws are pretty consistent and i usually dont get mana flooded anymore since i cut from 20 to 17. you also have the SDT's to help you dig for gold.
-SDT...right now i'm trying sylvan library in my survival build and it seems pretty good. i guess it's all preference though. the only reason i like it is because i can draw the extra cards w/o having to draw SDT next turn.
and Tao is right about the finks...they're pretty good against most decks.
Yeah I haven't logged in for a while (busy and that's why I never did that tournament report for SCG LA). My decklist is open for everyone to see now. Duress is obviously awesome and works against so many decks. The only problem is that it doesn't prevent them from going turn 1 win. By having Mindbreak Trap it means that they have to waste precious room in the MD to fit in Chants. I agree about Duress being good, but it doesn't stop Storm outright since they can combo through it the turn after even after discarding. Survival has MD discard, then in the side we have teeg, and Mindbreak Trap, then that's a lot of different threats they have to deal with.
There is a HIGH AMOUNT of Combo in the LA area, hence the high number of discard. Discard is there also to make an opening to play Survival by discarding FoW and other Counterspells. I may cut 1 land down, however, I got mana screwed a couple times and had to mull. It really ticked me off. If I didn't run into that problem this tournament, I would definitely be thinking of something to replace the land with. Maybe a THIRD Finks, Path to Exile, or Gaddock Teeg?
Hi, thanks for your report, it's always good to hear some Survival results.
Questions: why 2 Vial? how good was it? for me PDeed is better than Vial, but let me know your thoughts
how was the Tri-pack (shriekmaw, BGH and fleshbag)? which one was more usefull? do you think it's important to play 3 creature-creature sweeper main?
Deed and Vial are definitely interchangeable. It's how you want to play things. I might switch back to deed later so who knows? I haven't got a chance to test it out too much before the tournament. At the tournament, it wasn't relevant, got destroyed, or never drew it.
I played a somewhat similar list to a 4-2 finish as well (10th of 39) this past weekend with the following differences:Quote:
Originally Posted by hungryboi
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
3 Taiga
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Forest
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Genesis
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Anger
1 Shriekmaw
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Sensei's Divining Top
Sideboard:
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Path to Exile
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Krosan Grip
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Shriekmaw
Winning against: Mono-Red Goblins (Finks+Goyf), Mono-Blue Merfolk (Double Therapy G1, 4x Finks G2), UGwr Progenitus CounterTop (Magus FTW both games), BG Aggro-Rock (Magus hard lock G1, G2 Genesis + Witness was SO unfair)
Losing to: Belcher (Blown out), Mono-Blue Merfolk (G1 3x Reej = 3 Sovereigns in one turn, Tap my goyfs, swing 21; G3 Double-waste sticks me on Forest)
Thoughts: I played decently. I didn't have access to Retainers. I should have mulliganed to Teeg or heavy discard more aggresively against Belcher G2 (kept Thoughtseize + pressure). Magus was a STUD. The Merfolk loss was pretty unavoidable - G1 he 'comboed off' and G3 I kept a 3 lander with Path, Goyf, and Finks but never drew a 4th land to beat double Waste. Teeg was mostly irrelevant. BGH didn't see much action. Wickerbough was very solid. I didn't see Deed. Didn't need Macabre. Path was an all-star. 4x Finks out of the board was definitely the right call in a meta PACKED with merfolk and goblins.
Changes Main: -1 Taiga +1 Fetch, -1 Deed +1 Therapy, -BGH/Teeg +Retainers/Iona (should I ever have access to them)
Changes Side: -1 Magus, -1 Shriekmaw, -1 Teeg, -2 Deed??? +????
I'm thinking of moving to 4 Path. Mindbreak Trap is very intruiging although it's weaker against NLS/TES because of their Chant effects. I was afraid of Ichorid all day but I don't know how many sideboard slots are worth dedicating to that matchup beyond 2 Macabre. I'm torn on Deed, I feel like 4 Finks + 8 Swords + Grips for their hate should be more than enough to get there without having to reset the board. I was also considering EE. Many times I really just wanted to take out multiple Needles, Vials (or Controlled Instincts(!!!) against Merfolk), Lackeys or SGC tokens and couldn't hit the 1BG required for Deed. Being in 4C, I don't think I would lose much by moving to EE instead. I almost think it's stronger than Deed against Zoo, because you can 1-for-x all of their one-drops on Turn 2 or 3 instead of 3 or 4. That turn difference can be HUGE against Zoo. It also can often dodge Counterbalance better than Deed. I think I'd temporarily try something like:
4 Path to Exile
4 Mindbreak Trap
2 Krosan Grip
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Faerie Macabre
Keeping singleton Teeg and Magus maindeck. Teeg could swap places with Macabre depending on the anticipated meta. The above board provides the following strategies:
Aggro - +4 Path, +2 Finks, +2 EE (I'd keep these out against Goblins most likely), +2 Grip (if Needle/Relic/Shackles are anticipated)
Combo - +4 Mindbreak Trap, +2 EE
Ichorid - +4 Path, +2 EE, +1 Macabre (This should give me a fighting chance without too many dedicated hate slots)
CounterTop - +2 EE, +2 Grip
What are other traditionally difficult matchups for Survival? I'm obviously jaded towards the archetypes to which I just lost. Am I on the right track here?
Because the structure of my build and hungryboi's build are similar, I'd like to address a couple of the above suggestions:Quote:
Originally Posted by phamtastic
-I've found discard to be very important for pushing Survival through against blue decks, many of which have no G1 answer to Survival once resolved. It's easy to cut the discard package for reactive answers post-side (Path, Finks, EE) if you want to play as control versus aggro as well.
-My build is probably a little more land hungry with Rofellos, Genesis and the gang. I usually want to see 6-7 mana sources per game and 21 has been good to me, if anything it's occasionally light. Between Survival, Top, Genesis and Witness, the deck uses all of the mana available on almost every turn.
-I'd like to try Mirri's Guile in the Top slots if anything. The tap-to-draw ability has been ok but not amazing. Although Top+Survival+mana lets you see a stupid amount of cards on your opponents end step. It's an early versus mid/late game tradeoff in my eyes, where Guile is better early but Top is one of the best topdecks you can rip in a stalled game.