All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So I'll also concede that a Survival meta is all conjecture and no amount of whatifs will solve it. But the point is that it's powerful. I mean we all remember the huge parade down Main Street when Land Tax was unbanned, right? Or the three day blackout after Worldgorger Dragon came off the list and the whole meta exploded?

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The unfortunate thing is that WotC doesn't run mtgo ladder seasons where full data is published and any given ladder season will offer up different banlist ideas for testing. Without testing it's a bit harder to abstractly come to the conclusion that artifact mana -> Land Tax -> draw 3 cards (albeit basic lands) won't translate to winning games in an oppressive fashion. Without any testing though I think everyone can agree that we're generally better off without blatant, un-impactful time wasters (Worldgorger, Earthcraft, Recruiter, Shahrazad). Survival is, even in theory, a bit different in that so many slots would already be solved that diversity of creature decks would be appreciably diminished [starting point: ~20 lands, 4 DRS, 4 Decay, 4 Rootwalla, 4 Survival...and after the same silver bullets and Thoughtseize, every deck like this is doing the same thing unless they went down the Cavern/Vial path rather than Survival].

I talked a lot with people at the GP about their thoughts on where the format is, and the thing that everyone fundamentally agrees on is this idea that they want more competitive outlets in the format. Survival isn't ever going to increase the amount of ways one can play legacy, it will simply make playing creature-based strategies stronger~more consistent. Survival is like DRS in the sense that the card itself limits the diversity of strategies which can follow...cards like these don't challenge a player to ask themselves "what do I want to do in legacy," but rather "it's solved, so what am I on."

Edit: In terms of long-term stewardship of the format, suggestions are generally improved if they make sense now and within the context of reprint duals, ban fetchlands. That's an old discussion, but Survival certainly doesn't fit in that picture.

If u really think 4 walla would get played in a SotF deck i have bad news for u. You play 1 , max 2, and 1 memnite for mana efficiency. The card by itself is beyond terrible for you to actually play 4.

Survival wouldn't also really homogeneize creature decks because there really aren't many that would play it. GW valuetown/maverick is not a T1 deck, let's be honest here. UG vengevine aggro is neither. Nic fit and TnT ? Seriously. Actual T1 decks like elves wouldn't run it. No tempo list would either as u want the tempo package , not 6+ uncastable creatures maindeck.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

So?

Under your ideal conditions you're tapped out with 12~15 sick power on the board. Your opponent says "neat" and untaps and kills you with a Pif loop or an EOT Marit Lage or S&T into whatever they want or Entomb Reanimate into whatever they want or flip over Terminus. I mean, if we're saying 15 power on turn 3 is unsafe for Legacy, then boy we need to talk about some cards.

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Love this post.

Doesn't Dredge do this game 1 pretty often? I mean, if we're talking 'busted graveyard interactions', isn't LED Dredge just the nuts for unfair agro starts?

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Originally Posted by Gheizen64

Survival wouldn't also really homogeneize creature decks because there really aren't many that would play it. GW valuetown/maverick is not a T1 deck, let's be honest here. UG vengevine aggro is neither. Nic fit and TnT ? Seriously. Actual T1 decks like elves wouldn't run it. No tempo list would either as u want the tempo package , not 6+ uncastable creatures maindeck.

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Is "uncastable creatures" refering to 4/4 hasters for 4 mana in a deck with DRS at a time BUGx midrange decks cast Jace off DRS all day?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

Doesn't Dredge do this game 1 pretty often? I mean, if we're talking 'busted graveyard interactions', isn't LED Dredge just the nuts for unfair agro starts?

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Dredge is a one-trick-pony. It's like comparing ANT with the Spanish Inquisition

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Dredge is a one-trick-pony. It's like comparing ANT with the Spanish Inquisition

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Fair enough; Dredge doesn't have a 'hard cast my dudes' option, not really.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

Fair enough; Dredge doesn't have a 'hard cast my dudes' option, not really.

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I think this option is a major thing to consider in the discussion. The often quoted yardhate isn't "really" a way to hate out Survival. I fear the deck is fine tutoring DRS/Vines/Nemesis/whatever to burry opponents with it's threats

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I think this option is a major thing to consider in the discussion. The often quoted yardhate isn't "really" a way to hate out Survival. I fear the deck is fine tutoring DRS/Vines/Nemesis/whatever to burry opponents with it's threats

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I agree 100%. Sorry if I was dragging the discussion in the wrong direction, you make great points.

Land DRS
Land Survival, eot discard x into Vengevine
Land discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Hollow One, discard x into a second Hollow One, cast both hollow ones and get triple vengevine on top

Is good enought to be considered a combo you must have an answer to, no fair deck can recover from it unless:

- You have a lock piece such as bridge, and you are likely to get smashed the turn after by a survival activation into RecSage/Qasali
- You play terminus, and you are likely to lose to value activations of survival, is quite easy to setup gaddock/safekeeper instead of going off or to just go off a second time, this "combo" just needed 2 random creatures to discard, and miracle has to have an instant terminus on turn 3, which is quite unlikely, or 12 damage are being dealt, so its quite easy to setup a 2 vengevine strike and finish the game
- You are playing combo, so you either go off on turn 2 or you are likely to lose to the survival activation into lock piece on turn 3 followed by nasty stuff each turn, also, if you are playing reanimator you have to overcome a tutored faerie macabre, and if you are playing show you have to overcome at least a tutored RecSage if you go for Show

So a possible combo package would be
4 Vengevine
2/3/4 Hollow One

Which leaves plenty of space for a bug/maverik build, and survival can easily allow backup plans, a few slot "wasted" for silver bullets would make life hell for pretty much every deck having to face the combination of combo/good stuff/ specific bullets

You can also cast force of will on the survival. Or cast revoker naming it.

Survival actually would've been pretty good to have against Miracles with Terminus. Bottoming all your creatures doesn't really do too much when you can just tutor them back up compared to a Wrath, and helps bypass Jace fateseals.

Granted, still need to draw creatures, but in a deck with 20+ creatures that's not too bad. Plus there's the tech of Squee to bring in as well.

I would love Survival back in Legacy. It opens the door to new decks and creativity. I mean, at this point, what harm can it do? Is it really that much more degenerate than Show and Tell? I know it's an age-old argument, but it's true. Just because the effect is symmetrical doesn't mean a whole lot; you're building a SnT deck with the most degenerate cards to drop into play on purpose.

Who would be happy seeing something like this:

Deathrite Shaman is banned
Survival of the Fittest is unbanned

I'd rather see True Name banned with that scenario, but otherwise agree.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

You can also cast force of will on the survival. Or cast revoker naming it.

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You can also cast force of will on the ________. Or cast revoker naming it.

Holds true for:

Black Lotus
Earthcraft
Hermit Druid
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Survival of the Fittest
Time Vault
Yawgmoth's Bargain

SoloMoxen has no drawback, so its not quite the same, but following this logic Necro is fine for example.

Also, as soon as your revoker dies you are likely to get 4x vengevine + 2/3x hollow one on board, so the only good answer to it is to counter it, which means that you are playing a must counter in a pseudo fair deck, how does that help?

Is not like unbanning survival would stop goodstuff decks from just playing a goodstuff survival deck, there would probably be a maverik version which would play at a maverik level if survival is not online and just smash the opponent into oblivion if it resolves and a bug version which would be a goodstuff deck with cantrips and combo package followed by strix/leo/nemesis.

Its quite likely for non survival, noncombo deck to be outclassed by survival pretty easily, so the meta could turn into survival vs combo and cantrip decks would just be part of the survival package.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

I would love Survival back in Legacy. It opens the door to new decks and creativity. I mean, at this point, what harm can it do? Is it really that much more degenerate than Show and Tell? I know it's an age-old argument, but it's true. Just because the effect is symmetrical doesn't mean a whole lot; you're building a SnT deck with the most degenerate cards to drop into play on purpose.

Who would be happy seeing something like this:

Deathrite Shaman is banned
Survival of the Fittest is unbanned

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Well, the main difference is that a show deck has no play if it does not get to resolve a show/sneak, while a survival deck is close to a "bad" maverik which also appens to instakill you if they resolve survival or to just play the entire game with fixed draws.

In legacy at the moment the closest thing to a survival deck is maybe food chain/aluren, "fair" decks able to go off if they get the core piece on board, and food chain is pretty close to be a tier1 deck, its surely quite decent.
And consider that resolving a food chain means that you can go infinite if you have the other pieces of the combo, if not, the card just does nothing, while resolving a survival means that you can go off, but you can also turn half your deck into a demonic tutor and get endless value out of it even if you cant actually go off, survival is also able to find you the answers to most lock pieces that could stop you from going off, and possibly even an engine for card advantage.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

You can also cast force of will on the survival. Or cast revoker naming it.

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I can't tell if you're being facetious, so I'll respond as though you aren't.

Force was around when Survival was legal and it was still banned. Force also seems pretty medium against Survival. Obviously if Survival resolves you just die, but if you counter it the deck still plays a normal game. If you Force a turn 2 Eidolon of the Great Revel against Burn that isn't game over for the Burn player is it?

The decks that play Revoker currently are: Death & Taxes, Imperial Painter, MUD, Eldrazi (I think they moved to Spyglass?), and Affinity. Being on D&T for years, I'm going to assume the deck is awful against Survival for reasons it's bad against Maverick, but Survival also has the ability to aggro you out. Eldrazi naturally goes bigger than Survival until Survival adapts and plays Loyal Retainers + Elesh Norn. The other decks are just bad and Survival would adapt to them.

There have been plenty of cards printed to combat the overall power of Survival in any given match-up - most of which have already been brought up. I would hypothesize that Survival-based strategies would start out post-unbanning using the card in a shell similar to where it left off in 2010 (i.e. with Vengevine and Ooze), and from there, they would adapt into different platforms such as Elves and other decks that can abuse the card, but still be incredibly efficient without it.

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Originally Posted by Noctalor

Land DRS
Land Survival, eot discard x into Vengevine
Land discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Vengevine, discard Vengevine into Hollow One, discard x into a second Hollow One, cast both hollow ones and get triple vengevine on top

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I mean, yeah, if your opponent is an eggplant.

What about when your Land DRS Pass meets their Land DRS Pass?
Or Land Thoughtseize/Duress/Inquisition of Kozilek/Gitaxian Probe into Cabal Therapy?
Or Surgical Extraction?
Or just a clean Abrupt Decay?

Survival was banned Jaurary 1, 2011. The ban predates the printing of Phyrexian Revoker, so it's conjecture to compare how decks would play out against each other.

Not to mention Grafdigger's Cage, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, Surgical Extraction, Griselbrand, Terminus, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Wear//Tear, Thought-Knot Seer & Sorcerous Spyglass.

Even as poorly a cultivated list of relevant printings as this, we must agree that metagames are worlds apart when Survival was last legal.

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

I mean, yeah, if your opponent is an eggplant.

What about when your Land DRS Pass meets their Land DRS Pass?
Or Land Thoughtseize/Duress/Inquisition of Kozilek/Gitaxian Probe into Cabal Therapy?
Or Surgical Extraction?
Or just a clean Abrupt Decay?

Survival was banned Jaurary 1, 2011. The ban predates the printing of Phyrexian Revoker, so it's conjecture to compare how decks would play out against each other.

Not to mention Grafdigger's Cage, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, Surgical Extraction, Griselbrand, Terminus, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Wear//Tear, Thought-Knot Seer & Sorcerous Spyglass.

Even as poorly a cultivated list of relevant printings as this, we must agree that metagames are worlds apart when Survival was last legal.

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Your opponent can interact with a play, so said play is not broken.

Is this the topic in which people go apeshit on ponder being too good?

I can safely say that Survival is safer now than it was when it was first banned. But is it safe enough?

It's interesting how many cards are judged on their worst-case scenarios without consideration to how things work in practice.

Like if Food Chain was banned people would be in here saying it shouldn't be unbanned because "they can tutor for 3 creatures and draw a card with Manipulate Fate and even if you kill/counter the Food Chain they can just grind you out while threatening to win on the spot!!!!"

This is a consequence of a lack of clear vision for the format on the part of the DCI/Wizards. The format means many different things to many different people and is perpetually out of balance thanks to certain sacred cows. This leads to competing views of what's acceptable that really have no clear right or wrong answer. The banning of Top for time considerations perpetuates the issue because you had an earthquake on the format that wasn't about game play. If anything, I hope what we get on Monday is some clear philosophical statement about the format so we at least have a framework to discuss it.

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Originally Posted by Noctalor

Your opponent can interact with a play, so said play is not broken.

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I mean, without an absolutist point of view, kinda?

Otherwise we'll just say I'll start the game with 5 Leylines out, T1 Serra's Sanctum into Opalescence, attack for 20?

There are plenty of other dumb ways you can dream out games where your opponent does nothing that result in a win, but if you need to go all the way down to turn 3 before you've done anything game ending, sure, okay.