[Deck] Survival

After my decent success with Welder Ooze Survival, I went ahead and tweaked a Survival list with KotR that I've always scrapped. It's pretty decent. This list is more aggro/disruption oriented as opposed to midrange lists posted above:

Lands: 22
1 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Scrubland
3 Savannah
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Wasteland

Creatures:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Squee
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Triskelion
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Shriekmaw

4 Thoughtseize
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Swords to Plowshares

SB:
3 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Peacekeeper
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Extirpate
Or you can go NOgenitus package but depends on your meta.

It's basically a deck with good cards (thoughtseize, Survival, StP, best 2-drops in Legacy, 3 Knights), but there's more to that when you get Survival out. Without Survival, the deck plays like an aggro-rock deck. Disrupting with Thoughtseize/Scullers to resolve knights and threats. I was playing birds but realizing that having fetches to constantly fetch GB lands while using mana-creatures for GW made birds very subpar. With 8 exalted creatures, the deck's threat density is increased.

When you draw Survival, you can opt for:
- Setting up Knight->Wastelock, Knight->Volrath's Stronghold + Shriekmaw
- Setting up Ooze combo
- Grab goyfs/beats, or 1-2 Bobs to bury your opponents in card advantage
- Scullers to secure defense for future turns and win with Survival.
- Quirion Ranger is a beast with KotR

Sculler is a terribly underrated card in GBW builds. I've been amazed by how he enables Survival by taking counterspells and protect Survival while its online.

I think honestly the worst cards in the deck are the Ooze combo. The deck can win without it, since all its cards are incredibly powerful e.g. Thoughtseizing to keep Bob on the board for 1-2 turns is enough to get a huge tempo advantage especially with the deck's threat density. If you draw Ooze combo without Survival, it kinda blows to have 2 dead cards, but this seldom arises. Bob flips are good despite the Ooze combo (there's only 3 cards with cmc5+: Shriekmaw, Devourer, Triskelion)

@MetalWarker

Your list seems fine, I have a similar one, since I've been constantly changing mother and kotr's. However its still under repair. I want to maximize necrotic ooz's ability to copy a creature ability in the graveyard..

I think 2 fauna can replace 2 bobs. Although I like bob, consistently losing life becomes a problem. 4 bobs + thoughtseize + two 6 cc, one 5cc and another 4 cc is kind of a pain. Other than that, Ive never really liked casting in bgw lists unless I use vengevine. But with confidants and more things to counter in your list, it might be worth a shot. However I will stick with vials for my taste. As for quiron ranger, just incase being 2cc would not be a hindrance, I think scryb ranger can replace them. They work very well against merfolk and can block predators, rhox war monk and vendillions all day.

I liked your list with the welders, and I am currently mixing up your list with another list that took top 8 with welder survival. I like the deck having more of a toolbox approach. I also love how sphinx and wurmcoil engine or sundering titan rapes other decks.

I'll PM you a revised list after my experience at my local tourney if you're interested. But in general, Welder Survival really needs a Shield Sphere. I thought it's a terrible slot but it costed me 3 games. I didn't play Titan MD because I wasn't expecting a ton of Zoo/control, but yes, Titan is quite unfair. Here's hoping Survival doesn't get axed, because I personally think Merfolks with Coralhelm Commander is still the most broken shit in Legacy.

For the new list, Bob has never killed me (although those were 15 games goldfishing), especially if you have a Survival out, you can immediately start dumping the 6cmc dudes into the yard. To be perfectly honest, I think the Ooze combo is fairly weak despite taking it to a tournament. It is very mana-intensive: 1G (Survival) + GGG (Search) + 2BB (Ooze). The main problem is that it's GY-based so games 2/3 it becomes weaker. In my welder list, I find it much easier to just win with Welders: 1G (Survival) + GG (Search) + R (Welder) +another G for anger.

The main reason I don't play Shaman in the above list is that it's fundamentally a beatdown deck like Bant Survival just beating with Bant creatures. Shaman is stronger in lists focused on toolbox/combo approach. Bob will bait removals, and with all the best creatures in GWB being played, either Goyf, KotR, Bob will stick to win games. Ranger is amazing, 1cmc matters and the fact she makes you close to waste-immune and reusable with KotR is quite solid. I thought about just taking out the Ooze package and focus more on the beatdown/toolbox, adding Mother of Runes and the 3rd Sculler + something else.

Why not run Iona/Retainer combo if Ooze feels weak? I've never felt that Iona was a wasted slot since a lot of times with Shaman, I can just instantly dump iona to fetch for retainers.

What about some maindeck that looks like:

4 Tarmogoyf
1 KoTR
1 Bone Shredder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Squee
3 Birds of Paradise
2 Veteran Explorer
2 Wall of Blossoms
1 Monk Realist
2 Shriekmaw
1 Withered Wretch
1 Loaming Shaman

Has a little bit of everything, with a 1-of KotR for searching out Volrath's stronghold, and 2 Wall of Blossoms for early blocks/draw. What do you think, conceptually?

-Matt

I've never played RGBSA style Survival but I've played extensions of RGBSA i.e. less focus on a supreme tutor-box approach and either packaging RGBSA with combo wins e.g. Painterstone or with big beefy beaters aka Bant Survival style.

My avoidance to play a pure tutorbox Survival deck is inherently due to the philosophy that in games 2,3, you'll be fighting against much hate, even more so now with Vengevival being all the hot. I want to rely on a deck that uses Survival to get an advantage but can function without it.

The above list is good from a tutor approach although I'm not sure if that's the best approach as of now. If it is, it definitely needs to add more disruption, to push Survival safely through to secure wins since it's so dependent of it. My only worries are card slots like Withered Wretch, Loaming Shaman, Monk Realist, Veteran Explorers, 4-5 Shriekmaw/Boneshredder effects. Does the deck really need THAT many tutor targets?

Like I said I don't play RGBSA tutorbox too much but I think the general idea from that attack strategy is to gain so much advantage with Survival that your opponents can't recover, but I think if that's the philosophy, protecting the enchantment via additional disruption slots e.g. Scullers/Thoughtseize would be more invaluable to making the strategy succeed.

Also, from playing Survival, I hate drawing 'weak' cards i.e. cards that are great to tutor for but do nothing if you don't want them aka, Survival targets aka tutor-targets should be more redundant and compact. Just curious is Veteran Explorer any good? I have not tested him but it seems that the symmetrical ramping effect is quite bad in certain scenarios. Why not just play 2 Hierarchs which enable UNCONDITIONALLY fast mana for the strong turn 2 Survival + Thoughtseize play?

And Goyfs should be enough Wall of Blossoms in most situations :P 0/4 Walls don't block much in this format :/ Might stop Merfolks but they outgrow fast, and postsideboard still doesn't solve the hibernation/perish problem. Against Gobs, 2cmc 0/4 Wall is quite bad against Lackey, rather have a 1/3 or 2/3 Wall that kills stuff aka Goyfs, or even 2/1 Bobs that trade with Lackeys/Piledrivers.

BUMP:

http://wizards.com/magic/magazine/ar...s10/1209legacy

GBW survival WITHOUT Vengevines won the World's Legacy Sideevent. Anyone else feel that this list is "correct" The only thing odd about it is the MD 3 aven mindcensors but that's quite understandable as it is such a house in a survival infested meta. I love this fellow, 4 tarmogoyfs, no vengevines. This guy knows what he's doing. I tested the "pure combo" lists with 4 enlightened tutors etc etc and man was that deck bad. Sure its faster in the mirror, but its a glass cannon. A list somewhat similar to this list that won worlds is IMO the right way to go. I believe we should work on this list a little though survival's days are most probably numbered. This list is very anti-survival. I'd like to non-metarise this list into something more generic (ie a vanilla GBW in an evenly distributed meta with loose slots identified). Here's my try:

The core:

4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords
4 Survival

4 Birds
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Noble
2 Fauna

That's 24 cards that should be in any GBW survival deck. I still think venges are slow and a waste of slots, so I'm choosing the ooze combo with squee spitting out goyfs as back up. The remaining 14 cards I would play are:

The engine/combo (4 cards)
1 Ooze
1 devourer
1 trisk
1 Squee

The toolbox (4 cards):
1 Pridemage
1 Shriekmaw
1 boneshredder
1 Harmonic (or teeq, depending on combo presence)

The non-survival dependant bombs (6 cards):
3 Dark confidant
3 Kitchen finks

22 lands

I believe people pass over the power of bob too often. He's an all in one engine that wins games by himself, similar to survival and fauna. Fauna is obviously limited, bob actually powers fauna by drawing plenty of cards to feed to fauna, making fauna much more effective. Finks is just there to be a roadbump against aggro, he's pretty flex. If you don't see as much quick aggro, he can be the aven mindscensors against survival/combo, or tidehollow scullers against control.

IMHO Yasuda's is a great survival solution for the current metagame: 3 MD Mindcensor, 0 (as in zero) VV which was everyone is looking for, 1 MD Mr. Teeg, 6 BoP/NH, 7 spot removal (2 creatures + 5 spells) and the 4 thoughtseizes.

My main doubts are:

1.- the singleton of Volrath's with no way to look for it (no KoR), is it really better than a genesis? (+1CC for the hability, but it is "on colour" and you keep on drawing a card, plus another creature to tutor when in top deck need)
2.- the sideboarding. Does anyone know about a report of the tournament? I really like those pernicious, but they seem slow in the current metagame. With that sideboard I feel like he sometimes sided out the whole survival package and got in a rock.
3.- the deck seems to lack a way to get back some life in the 75 cards (besides StP'ing your creatures and the baneslayer). And with the thoughtseizes and fetches, you can easily get into fire range for zoos.

@Ivanpei Regarding your proposal, dark confidant + those CC (ooze combo and many 3CC) seem really risky to me. In addition, finks seem better with cabals than with thoughtseizes. I love bob in survival decks, but they usually end in a kind of FEB survivals or rockish ones with a low CC curve and maybe some tops.

Well, I like to live dangerously (J/k) But they're necessary. I think it's worth the risk. It's somewhat similar to flipping forces or jaces in vintage. Since you are going for the combo kill anyway, you just need that initial boost. I can see them as bad vs aggro though, hence the addition of finks. Genesis is a bad topdeck, and is too slow when with survival where squee does the same job for free. Volrath is a great topdeck. Most games it will be too slow to do anything and will just sit around making mana. But in like 10% of your games, when it comes to attrition, it will win you the game. It's somewhat like the random karakas you see in any deck running white. It makes mana, and sometimes wins you the game.

Another option is to go more combo (after testing, I almost always win with the combo). What If I went - 2 bobs- 1 Finks, + 2 Fauna and + 1 quirion/scryb ranger. Is going more "combo" worth it. Currently with fauna, you need 3 untaps (assuming no component in hand) to get ooze active. With a singleton scryb I can EOT find scryp, untap my fauna, tap fauna again for trisk. Next turn, untap, activate fauna for devourer, untap fauna, activate fauna for ooze, win. However this needs 6 mana on that final turn, which might not be easy to get to. Thoughts?

Playing both Finks and Bob seems weird. In the matchups you want Finks you really don't want excessive Bob damage, and in the matchups you want Bobs the Finks don't matter. In this setup I'd put one of them in the SB. This gives you some room to play Top MD, or perhaps something like Wall of Blossoms or Mother of Runes. I'd also consider cutting Anger.

I'd consider it balance. Finks evens out the life-loss from bob when against control. Also finks doesn't disappear completely when you're board gets swept by a spout/ deed. He still beats, IMO finks is a pretty underrated card. Against aggro, an early bob on T2/3 will always eat removal as it will win you the game if dropped early enough. Unfortunately he's not a very good topdeck against aggro later in the game but he's servicable. Wall of blossoms is a good suggestion, so is mom. I'll give them a test. Both seem very good vs aggro. MoM seems good against both aggro and control. That will be on my to watch list. Cheers.

Survival of the fittest was my first serious deck in Legacy and pet deck since than. I did play tribals or Zoo few times, but none of those gave me as much pleasure as playing Survival. Over those years I have been lurking this forums. I have seen Survival heroes come and go. I have learned to respect those of you who made successful predictions a number of times. It was great discussing with you all. Farewell and perhaps see you in other topics one day...

Survival was the only reason I ever truly enjoyed playing a creature-based deck. It involved more than just turning creatures sideways. It involved strategy, resource management, playing mostly the control role but being on the aggression when the coast is clear. Vengevine made Survival into a dumb aggro deck, it turned Survival into a slave-machine to power out creatures that even a termite could play the game.

Anyway, enjoyed every moment while it lasted. No regrets, since I fully enjoyed the card, the decks, the archetypes (and yes I never touched Vengevival, never tainted the essence of what we called Survival of the Fittest). Ironically, the evolution of Survival to its "fittest" was the cause of its death/unsurvival.

Just wondering if we were going to let this thread fade into the ether, or if you wanted to do evolution of the deck for fun?

I enjoyed my time with the card, but I'm curious if we wanted to also work on it just for fun?

-Matt

I wasn't a Survival player and I am happy about not going to see that flurry of Vengevines winning dumbly and easily, but guys I feel really displeased for all of you who used the card in a "clever" way.
I know how it feels to see your pet deck destroyed, I had the same experience with Mystical Tutor. At least you saw it coming.

P

I think survival isn't 100% dead. IMO, it is never going to be tier one again but fauna Iona retainers still works effectively. For those who still want to work on the deck, the focus has to shift to a different engine. I would start with 4 fauna, 4 dark confidant. Squee is officially too slow now so only Iona and retainers left in. Mother of runes should also be included to protect the creature based engines. Kotr should come in to fill the power level hole left by survival. Dear survival, how I will miss you so. The list I'd start to work with:

4 Thoughtseize
4 swords
4 vial

4 bob
4 fauna
4 kotr
4 goyf
2 qasali
1 boneshredder
1 Iona
1 retainers
4 mother

4 wasteland
1 volrath
2 canopy
4 verdant
4 windswept
1 marsh
1 forest
3 bayou
3 savanna

Great to see that Ivan is still trying to keep the tread alive. I don't know how viable Survival will be now without the sexi enchantment that Brian Seldon made famous. I feel that the Rock + Dark Horizons does a better job of controlling than any other BGW deck. Squee was crucial in gaining C/A but it's very hard to abuse without the Survival Engine. Without C/A or a combo kill (Iona takes 2-3 turns and is considered a soft lock) I don't think this deck will be viable. Plus, people run karakas now as well.

I'll still be rocking Survival at local tournaments long after the ban goes into effect, just casually. I don't think Fauna Shaman is good enough due to only having one activation per turn, and it can't be used the turn you play it. I'm not saying stop your innovation, ivanpei, but I'm just going to go on my merry way and still run Survival. :D

-Matt

True, I may be overly optimistic. I just can't get over the fact that my loyal retainers and foil Japanese faunas will be relegated to the sad folder. :( will try it out. It's at least an attempt.

I'll definitely be reading The Source from time to time but I think my competitive days are over. Part of the reason is just the hatred I have now for Wizards and the fact that they let one new card screw one of the oldest Archetypes in the format over. I'm going to sell my duals and Legacy staples...I don't want to hold onto any investments made by a company I despise. I sure as hell am not ever going to support them and buy another booster pack. There's a thin line between love and hate :P