[Deck] Survival

@Tao,
Very interesting list. How much have you tested with this build in our current Meta? I see that you've dropped birds. Isn't Wickerbough difficult to play without acceleration? I understand the Wall of Blossoms and always liked it as it is incredibly strong against aggro based decks. Wall works especially well with cabal therapy, have you tried it instead of duress? Why veteran explorer in SB, what matchups does he help with? I'm assuming MD lone sakura is for a landsearching ability w. survival? What warrants horror over Squee?

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Originally Posted by hungryboi

@Tao,
Very interesting list. How much have you tested with this build in our current Meta? I see that you've dropped birds. Isn't Wickerbough difficult to play without acceleration? I understand the Wall of Blossoms and always liked it as it is incredibly strong against aggro based decks. Wall works especially well with cabal therapy, have you tried it instead of duress? Why veteran explorer in SB, what matchups does he help with? I'm assuming MD lone sakura is for a landsearching ability w. survival? What warrants horror over Squee?

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I had similar thoughts. With 4 Finks, 4 Walls, and 3 Witnesses, I feel Cabal Therapy would be REALLY strong. And why is Explorer sideboard - is this some tech against Stax? The singleton STE doesn't make much sense to me either.

When I used to play Wuascht Survival Veteran Explorer was _the_ important key card to protect yourself from Devastating Dreams. Maybe that's his reasoning. I guess he also joins the team against anything resembling Thresh/Tempo, especially Canadian Threshold.

- Duress over Cabal Therapy: I've always loved Cabal Therapy, but whenever I draw it in the current Meta it feels too slow. Even with Finks and Wall, I don't think it is good enough. Against Zoo sacrificing blockers is usually out of question so it becomes nothing but a 50% chance Thoughtseize on Goyf, against Tribal decks sacrificing a blocker also often does not feel right, against Dredge you might at least on the play get some value out of Duress (Breakthrough, LED), against Countertop Duress on turn 1 is the best chance to get one of their Combo pieces and against Tempo Threshold Therapy is at its worst.
I want to shoot my Discard on turn 1, gain some information and card quality and from then on develop my board. Duress is 9/10 times solid while Therapy in 10 games it is like 1 times awesome, 4 times solid and 5 times bad.

- Wickerbough is a card I don't like too much, but 1 slot for Enchantment / Artifact removal is needed. I've tried to cut that slot, but when you run into things like Moat, Jitte, Relic of Progenitus or Shackles you feel like an idiot if you have an active Survival and can't deal with it. Elder is the best choice for this slot, because a singleton Qasali Pridemage won't turn you into an Aggro deck and if you draw into Elder, you get card advantage and a random solution for Counterbalance.

- The lone Sakura Tribe Elder is for Mana Fixing. It happens reasonably often that you need W for Iona or Swords or that you just need Mana in general and Tribe Elder is also a solid card when drawn. It is also the first search target against Dredge because it can RFG their bridges, buying time to set up Iona.

- Explorer is my tech against Aggro decks. It is a very close call between Explorer and Path to Exile, but Explorer's strength against Canadian made the difference.
Against Zoo it is a great one drop: They have to kill it to deal damage and in the vast majority of games you gain more profit out of it then they do. Explorer is probably the best one drop in the game against Canadian Threshold. Unless they Stifle it, they can't attack you or they will lose because if you have Mana, you will outclass their few little threats in 9 of 10 games. Merfolk also uses Stifle/Wasteland so it comes in in this matchup too. It is also nice against Aggro Loams Devastating Dreams. Against Staxx it is a bit awkward because of Chalice but you have enough Grips to get around that and then it will be awesome against Smokestack and Tabernacle Effects (especially in combination with Geddon).

- Horror is played over Squee because it is better in nearly every way. It is a solid card without Survival. Especially with Finks and Wall it can become a real threat in longer matches. It also comes back to hand at the end of your own turn (and their turn), so fighting Yard hate is much easier with it. And when used with Tribe Elder, Shriekmaw, Fleshbag Marauder, Loyal Retainers, in Combat or in response to destroy removal you don't even lose Tempo. You can also use it 2x a turn, your own end step and your opponent's which is important against control when you might only have a small window before they draw into a solution. The only reason for Squee would be that you can lose Horror from time to time when you don't pay attention.

Inspired by your list I think I will try duress over therapy and Elder over one Pridemage (I am currently running 2 MD). Also maybe I will go down to 6 discard spells as you did.

I still really like therapy and hands including thoughtseize, therapy, birds, land, land finished many games for me before they really started, but the fact is I rarely want to hit creature with it. After first or second turn I want to use discard to ensure my survival lands and having to guess between force, snare or pierce is annoying. Also brainstorm in response to therapy made me miss several times.

Elder, while being a solid card, for some time felt too heavy for me and not good enough without survival in play. Maybe it is time to check him again, though he only seems better than pridemage vs cb-top (and maybe chalice?)

As for Horror - honestly I didn't test much with him, but having to ensure there is a creature on him always felt like too much of a burden for me.

I would love to hear your thoughts on your removal package - Shriekmaw + Fleshbag. While this is what I am currently running as well, Fleshbag is expensive and relevant creatures are often protected by something less important. I still stick to Maw+Fleshbag because I want to have MD answer to Progenitus.

Have you ever felt the need to include Deed? For me 75% of time it is an awesome draw and wins games on its own. 25% of time however it is just plain bad.

And finally - what decks do you side genesis in? I assume that against Loam, and Ichorid to recur the singleton macabre. Anything else?


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Side note - for some time now I have been running 3/1 split between birds and Noble Hierarch, but not being able to get black mana has lost me far many games than I ever wanted to get exalted on attack.

First of all: I don't like mixing lists up, you have to see the list as a whole. If you play with Qasali Pridemage and Birds, don't run Wall of Blossoms. It doesn't work together very well. If you play with Birds you might also want to keep Therapy in. Birds are great on turn 1 but they are card disadvantage in the long run and bad topdecks (as soon as you can pay for everything with lands). Getting some value out of them later on might be needed to not lose the card advantage race.

Deed: As long as Merfolk, Zoo and Canadian are so popular I don't want to play Pernicious Deed. Against Zoo it is one turn too slow and against Merfolk and Canadian you usually can't come back if they Stifle it because too much Tempo was lost.

Removal: Tribal Lords, Grim Lavamancer but especially Iona are situations when I want to Survival for Shriekmaw and of course when drawn into he still gets a Goyf. Very solid removal at the moment. To Marauder: see him as a sixth removal spell, a Sorcery Diabolic Edict for one Mana more with the advantage to synergize with Survival, Finks and Wall of Blossoms. It also helps to get rid of Progenitus, playing him or not playing makes all the difference against Dream Halls and also helps against Countertop/Progenitus.

The Genesis comes in against Countertop and control decks. These games tend to go for a long time and they often bring in Yard hate, so it acts as another threat and backs up Horror.

Edit:
Krovikan Horror: Just stay concentrated and plan ahead. Fetch before you use it. If you get Shriekmaw, Loyal Retainers, Fleshbag Marauder or Tribe Elder jut use him exactly like a Squee, he will come back without having to pay extra. If you want to get Tarmogoyf, Finks or Wickerbough Elder just chain a Wall of Blossoms on top of him. If you don't have time and mana for that you will usually have an extra creature in hand (like against Zoo), so it is very rare that he is worse than Squee if you play right, but much often he will be better.

How important is the retainers-combo for you? I've been unable (although I'm not that disciplined ebayer) to get a hold of Loyal Retainers since I started looking for them when I saw isamaru's I will survive.

It is the one combo that pushes Survival archetype from unplayable (in current meta) to playable. I hate the price tag, but hey, you only need one :wink:

Went 4-0 today in Houston today (Beating out Boros, Dragon Stompy, Burn [apparently cheating by keeping Relics under the table >_>], and ProBant CounterTop with my updated list).

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Land:20

3x Windswept Heath
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bayou
4x Savannah
3x Forest
1x Swamp
1x Plains

Creatures:24

4x Birds of Paradise
3x Wall of Blossoms
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
2x Kitchen Finks
3x Eternal Witness
1x Big Game Hunter
1x Bone Shredder
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
2x Academy Rector
1x Spike Weaver
1x Reveillark
1x Genesis
1x Shriekmaw
1x Yosei, the Morning Star

Artifact:4

4x Aether Vail

Sorcery:4

4x Cabal Therapy

Enchantment:8

4x Survival of the Fittest
2x Perninious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Moat

Sideboard:

2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Faerie Macabre
2x Choke
1x Kitchen Finks
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Krosan Grip
1x Fleshbag Marauder

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Allow me to repost something I found in Reanimator thread, regarding Iona. While not all of this applies to Survival deck (since reanimator is looking at playing her on first turns and we are more likely to resolve her late game) I still find it worth a thought or two. It suggests the most devastating first turns reanimate targets against most popular deck types. I cut the list to the colors the author picks for Iona. The list also includes Faeries, Merfolks, Affinity and Staxx, but for them Iona is not even mentioned as a potential reanimate target.

Goblins ==> Iona on red
CounterBalance ==> Iona (white)
Ichorid ==> Iona on black
Ad Nauseam ==> Iona on black iona (blue after SB)
Agro Loam ==> Iona on red
Enchantress ==> Iona on white
Zoo ==> Iona (white)
Dark Depths ==> Iona on black
Dream Halls ==> Iona on blue
Eva Green ==> Iona on black
Landstill ==> Iona (white) beats every landstill deck hands down, except jace 2.0, which will be too slow anyways
Reanimator ==> Iona on black
Canadian ==> Iona on their removal color is key
The Rock==>Iona (white)
Belcher==> Iona (red)
Mono-red burn==> iona red
43.land==> iona(green) or iona (red)
Dreadstill ==> iona (blue) should be enough
Elfball ==> iona (green)
Bant-Aggro==> this is a complete different match from countertop, iona (white)
Trisomy 21/loam-control ==> 2-color removal, iona (white)

Personally I find some choices surprising, especially Red vs Aggro Loam (I would name green). What are your thoughts? What are the best colors to name for Iona with Survival deck?

The original post is here:

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Originally Posted by practical joke

I'll be answering tonight for the last time. (approx 14 hours from now) Then I'll be off to Madrid with my reanimate deck. (...)

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Personally I find some choices surprising, especially Red vs Aggro Loam (I would name green). What are your thoughts? What are the best colors to name for Iona with Survival deck?

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I name Iona on red unless there's a seismic assault on the board, then she says green. However, it depends on whether you saw their hand, if they play Burning Wish, how many Maelstrom Pulses, if they play Devastating Dreams... therefore, I don't see it as choosing the same colour every game.

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Originally Posted by crow_mw

Allow me to repost something I found in Reanimator thread, regarding Iona. While not all of this applies to Survival deck (since reanimator is looking at playing her on first turns and we are more likely to resolve her late game) I still find it worth a thought or two. It suggests the most devastating first turns reanimate targets against most popular deck types. I cut the list to the colors the author picks for Iona. The list also includes Faeries, Merfolks, Affinity and Staxx, but for them Iona is not even mentioned as a potential reanimate target.

Goblins ==> Iona on red
CounterBalance ==> Iona (white)
Ichorid ==> Iona on black
Ad Nauseam ==> Iona on black iona (blue after SB)
Agro Loam ==> Iona on red
Enchantress ==> Iona on white
Zoo ==> Iona (white)
Dark Depths ==> Iona on black
Dream Halls ==> Iona on blue
Eva Green ==> Iona on black
Landstill ==> Iona (white) beats every landstill deck hands down, except jace 2.0, which will be too slow anyways
Reanimator ==> Iona on black
Canadian ==> Iona on their removal color is key
The Rock==>Iona (white)
Belcher==> Iona (red)
Mono-red burn==> iona red
43.land==> iona(green) or iona (red)
Dreadstill ==> iona (blue) should be enough
Elfball ==> iona (green)
Bant-Aggro==> this is a complete different match from countertop, iona (white)
Trisomy 21/loam-control ==> 2-color removal, iona (white)

Personally I find some choices surprising, especially Red vs Aggro Loam (I would name green). What are your thoughts? What are the best colors to name for Iona with Survival deck?

The original post is here:

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Great list. The two debatable decks that never have a single answer are zoo and Aggro Loam. Zoo depends on your life total and board position. Aggro Loam depends on the colors your opponent plays (If he has heavy black in his deck, I'd name green) since it'll be funny watching someone try to Seismic assault Iona without Life from the Loam. If it's strictly R/G I still might name Green (if they kill Iona, we can essentially get her back in 1 turn with eternal witness). Just keeping them off Life from the Loam, pulse, and worm tokens pretty much hoses their deck.

On another note, I actually split 1st/2nd place last last weekend at the Pro Tour San Diego Legacy Sunday's Power 9 Side Event.

G1 Canadian Thresh (2-0), G2 AD Nauseam (2-0), G3 Goblins (2-0), G4 Merfolk (1-2), G5 Enchantress (2-0), G6 Merfolk (2-0), and TOP 4 against Merfolk (2-1). Finals was against the Merfolk that beat me in Swiss, but we decided to split since everyone wanted to go home. At the end of the tournament, I came to the conclusion that Engineered plague is not good against merfolk, discard destroys them however.

Originally 1st place was suppose to choose two pieces of power 9 and 2nd was suppose to choose 1. Yeah, tournament ended up only having around 60 people so they decided to screw us by giving us 1 mox each.

@hungryboi Gratz for the result, what list did you play with? I'm quite disconcerted right now about playing a 4colours , GWB (dropping anger and magus) or bant :-/

how did you beat bant? (assuming you didn't play U)

I was using my last decklist, this time with 3x Kitchen Finks (they were essential in the merfolk matchup). With the SB, I think I got lucky against storm since G1 I won and G2 I was able to keep him off guard with a mindbreak trap.

My thoughts on Red in Survival is that it's currently not needed in this meta. It makes the mana base more inconsistent, haste has only been good against Landstill and heavy control (which I haven't seen in the tournament scene for a while), and Anger is pretty useless alone.

What is the consensus on Engineered Plague? I have 4 in SB, however I'm thinking about cutting down to 3 to make room for 1 more Storm hate card.

I don't know what the consensus is, but I am running 3 sb and it seems fine. I run 3 md deeds, which I don't side out when I side plague in so I am afraid of having too low creature count if I had 4 plagues.

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Originally Posted by hungryboi

I was using my last decklist, this time with 3x Kitchen Finks (they were essential in the merfolk matchup). With the SB, I think I got lucky against storm since G1 I won and G2 I was able to keep him off guard with a mindbreak trap.

My thoughts on Red in Survival is that it's currently not needed in this meta. It makes the mana base more inconsistent, haste has only been good against Landstill and heavy control (which I haven't seen in the tournament scene for a while), and Anger is pretty useless alone.

What is the consensus on Engineered Plague? I have 4 in SB, however I'm thinking about cutting down to 3 to make room for 1 more Storm hate card.

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Before having 12 lords in the game EP, seemed ok although not awsome I used to play more shriekmaws and goblin sharpshooter (the goblin with anger was really good) over EPs. Therefore, I guess that unless I would play more enchants and enlighted tutor I would hardly get in the EPs.

About fighting AnT, I totally overwhelmed that deck can get through our SB so easily... I can only win if they keep bad hands or get really bad draws.

I still prefer to have some plagues in the side since it's pretty decent against Goblins. It also destroys Faeries and Elves which pop up randomly in my Meta. Having 3 is still decent.

Ok, here is a question I was intending to ask for some time now and I wonder why it has not popped up so far. I would like to run some comparison of Bant list vs Rock list. Rock list would refer to any of the GWB lists while bant obviously refers to GWU lists. Both variants might allow a red splash, but preferably it would be only slight.

In general it is hard to say which deck is better. However, when it comes to those two lists not only they would appeal to similar group of players (I bet majority of sourcers reading those words tried both variants) but also they feel very similar to play. Comparing bant sur to rock sur feels more like debating specific card choices than comparing two different deck types. For a comparison a GW list feels much different to play than both of builds in question - it is much more aggro oriented. It is also worth noting, that while Bant gets a lot more publicity on The Source, both color choices had more or less same impact on archetype score when we entered DTB section at the beginning of this year.

So, at first lets take a quick glimpse at the most common cards which both colors provide.

Black:
Discard (Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, Duress
Removal Creatures (Shriekmaw, Big Game Hunter, Fleshbag Marauder)
Pernicious Deed
Engineered Plague
GY hate (Yixlid Jailer, Withered Wretch, Hardcasting Faerie Macabre)
Recurring Nightmare, Phyrexian Tower, Volrath's Stronghold

Blue:
Countermagic (Force of Will, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Daze
Cantrips (Brainstorm, Ponder)
Rhox War Monk
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Llawan, Cephalid Empress
Noble Hierarch
Trygon Predator
Meddling Mage
Spellstutter Sprite
Vendilion Clique
Sower of temptation
Wonder
Rafiq of the many

While at first glance blue list is longer it just means that people have tried more things in it. Basically, the main differences are that black offers Discards and board control tools, while blue offers countermagic, cantrips, and some cool creature tricks. Out of the smaller differences we have RWM vs Finks, Hierarch vs BoP, Kira maybe vs Mom, Llawan vs Plague, and Predator as an option in addition to Pridemage, Wickerbought and maybe Sliver.

Countermagic vs Discard is a long story to discuss, but all in all they seem equally potent in allowing us to get our Survival into play. Main differences are in interrupting enemy plans. I will not go into detail why countermagic seems to be a better choice overall, but there are also aspects in which discard is superior. One is CA you can get, especially with therapy. The other is information added to discard spells. The second difference has a big tournament appeal for me. If you are to assess certain matchup this fact is not as important as in tournament play, where you are matched against unknown deck. The fact that after your first turn you know what exactly is your opponent playing is crucial. Even against a known deck peek at hist hand t1 goes a long way.

Board Control vs Cantripping is maybe not the best match, but I find those two aspects to be second most important benefits of choosing each color. Between deeds, maws and plagues black has a control over board which blue can only try to mimmic with inferior choices such as Sower or Llawan. On the other hand blue can dig for answers or for survival better. It also has better possibilities to control enemy plays once Survival hits.

RWM vs Finks. In my oppinion it is hard to compare. Each of them, while serving the same function is better in certain circumstances. All in all I would say however, that RWM is superior here in 75% of cases.

Bop vs Hierarch was discussed a few pages ago so I will skip it.

Llawan - it is a nice tool against progenitus and against merfolks. It seems however, that black is better equipped to deal with the former with Fleshbag Marauder (along with better tools to get rid of the cannon fodder) and has a better matchup against folks in first place.

Predator vs other artifact / enchantment tools - Predator is awesome against some decks that are not widely played. If not for that last fact he would be a big advantage in favor of blue.

Kira - While he goes between MD, SB and not being played at all I find him a great tool. From my pov, while fighting removal generally is good, he is best because he protects the hate cards - ranging from Teeg through Meddling Mage till Iona. I would love to see Mother of runes played in black decks to mirror that ability, moms are narrow and hard to fit in the list.

Hardcasting Macabre. Even blue lists occasionally run one MD and probably even more will with the hype the reanimator win in GP rouse up. Being able to cast it when its ability is not needed is maybe not gamebraking, but certainly has its appeal.

Recurring Nightmare, Wonder, Rafig and some other are teh cards, which usually do not see play at all.

Ok, after this long list finally, lets take a look on matchups.
CB-Top - As far as I am concerned both color choices seem to perform equally well in this matchup.
Zoo - Black seems to deal better with aggro strategies overall. Blue still has a good game though.
Goblins - Between deeds, better removal package and plagues this seems to be a way better matchup for black than it is for blue.
Ichorid - I would again say, that black has a stronger game here than blue. While blue is better equipped to stop a fast DR and discard, especially on the draw, does nothing black has much better tools to deal with bridges and zombie tokens. It is also worth noting, that this is one of the matchups in which RWM > Finks by miles.
Aggro Loam - Blue is way better at stopping their engine, especially with MD meddling mages. While black has better tools to deal with their beaters it also suffers much more from mana denial, than blue does.
Merfolks - Merfolks is the matchup that could actually convince me to play rock over bant in a given tournament. For bant it is hard (while still possibly being more or less equal) while for black it is quite positive. Obviously they can still be too fast for you, especially if they run stifle, but it is nowhere near as hard as for bant.
ANT - Quite bad matchup for both archetypes. While discard does not fear silence, bant has obviously much better game here (admittedly I have a limited experience in this matchup)
Thresh - Again, this seems hard for both color choices, but black suffers much more than mana denial strategy and while in theory it has better tools to get rid of their sparse threats in practice blue has more power to actually land them.


TL;DR; Rock seems to have a better game when Magic is played on the battlefield (which is the Magic I enjoy the most, but unfortunately nowadays it is not). Bant is way better against non board-control strategies. Many matchups are very similar for both color choices. Bant however can stop things that are totally out of reach for rock, while majority of matchups which are more positive for Rock, are still quite good for Bant. The only exception in my experience being Merfolks.

So does your experience with the deck match mine? Any matchups which you believe me to be totally wrong? Any obvious card choices I have omitted? Do you agree, that all things considered Bant seems to be superior, but Rock has its niches?

@ crow_mw: nice analyse, like you i prefer "Rock" version as it has better MU vs merfolk. The big issue for Survival is as usual beying a Noway against combo. The main reason i prefer Rock version is for the gameplan too. You have few bad MU but only few good Ones.

I actually think that discard is better in early game while counter is better late. In order to get Survival on the battlefield, you need to know if your opponent has FoW, Spell Pierce, or Spellsnare. Force of Will doesn't let you know anything. The key is that you can see someone's hand through discard which has been a HUGE advantage in many of my games. Discard is awesome against tribal since it knocks out key cards from their hand. Discard is lackluster when you opponent Brainstorms in response, but doesn't happen that often to me. I'm fine cracking a Standstill as long as I can see their hand and potentially knocking something out. I will always say Ringleader first against goblins since that's the one I fear the most.

Keep in mind that discard is a house against Blue. They hate you digging in their hand and eliminating the surprise element. IMO the positives of discard are: strong against aggro, eliminates surprises, potential card advantage, and synergetic (at least Cabal Therapy) far outweighs the positives of counterspells: used instantly, can catch people off guard, causes players to play more cautiously, FoW (not daze or pierce) good for late game.