Survival / Vengevine Poll

Okay, let me first say that I don't agree with banning anything this go round (IE when the ban/unban announcement is scheduled to come out), that's not what this is about. It seems there is a pretty wide spread of what people here want as far as banning/not banning Survival or Vengevine and some people have gone so far as to email WoTC implying that most of the community is in favor of some kind of banning at this point. So this is the poll to determine where people stand on this issue.

I'd like to add that this is not the place to complain about ban/don't ban Survival since there is already more or less a thread where that is going on. If you feel like leaving a short comment on why you feel one way or another go ahead, but debating the same thing in 2 threads is counterproductive unless a mod wants to close the other thread and direct discussion here.

That said I just want to say one thing before anyone votes. Since Legacy began there have been several times where a single card or a single deck type appeared to be warping the format too much be it Survival the first couple years, or Lackey after that, or Tarmogoyf after that, or more recently Merfolk decks. Here we are around 2 months into the domination of Survival + Vengevine. We've been here before as a format, it took some time but eventually we overcame (except for Flash which was a glitch and doesn't count). Cards that once were called too strong by many were toppled. With that in mind...
1: If WoTC bans a card it will be many years at least before it will be considered for unbanning.
2: Survival existed as a deck before Vine and no one was calling for a banning, see this poll from several months ago for example http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/p...lts&pollid=325
3: The format in general is slow to adapt and there is no Legacy GP until May.

With all this is mind my recommendation to WoTC would be to wait 4-6 months and see where the format is before considering a ban. If Vengevine + Survival still is a problem at that time WoTC still has time to ban it before the GP (since having a healthy GP format seems to be an important priority for them and I can't argue that strategy) and if not we all learn to adapt and move on. Enough about that though, please vote. I would also be in favor of banning Vine over Survival if the time came since Survival existed as a fair deck prior to Vine and Survival hadn't been a tier 1 deck since the printing of Pithing Needle until recently.

Survival was a great engine and archtype that filed a niche no other card could fill in a fair, but good/consistent deck. This was before Vengevine.

Now Survival is "If I untap with this in play, I will probably win the game unless you Tendrils me for 20 on your next turn."

I don't want to see Survival banned, as it's such a unique and powerful card that is not overpowered without Vengevine. But I don't really enjoy the staleness of the metagame right now, and I believe that to be an effect of VV Survival. And I REALLY don't like people posting threads and polls every-other day on the subject of Survival. VV Survival is not impossible to stop if you put it into consideration of MD space and sideboard slots, but it is annoying to have certain decks "pushed" out of the format due to one decks presence. Up until about 3-4 months ago, I thought the format was in great health, and a diverse array of playable strategies. Now it's kinda like "VV Sur vs. Merfolk vs. Tendrils vs. Hate-deck for the aforementioned".

So I voted "Ban Vengevine".

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Originally Posted by Mana Drain

Survival was a great engine and archtype that filed a niche no other card could fill in a fair, but good/consistent deck. This was before Vengevine.

Now Survival is "If I untap with this in play, I will probably win the game unless you Tendrils me for 20 on your next turn."

I don't want to see Survival banned, as it's such a unique and powerful card that is not overpowered without Vengevine. But I don't really enjoy the staleness of the metagame right now, and I believe that to be an effect of VV Survival. And I REALLY don't like people posting threads and polls every-other day on the subject of Survival. VV Survival is not impossible to stop if you put it into consideration of MD space and sideboard slots, but it is annoying to have certain decks "pushed" out of the format due to one decks presence. Up until about 3-4 months ago, I thought the format was in great health, and a diverse array of playable strategies. Now it's kinda like "VV Sur vs. Merfolk vs. Tendrils vs. Hate-deck for the aforementioned".

So I voted "Ban Vengevine".

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For the record I don't see any other poll on this on the site, I just wanted to see where everyone stood and a poll does that better than trying to get a feel by reading everyones posts in the other thread since many people have a valid opinion but would rather work on decks to conquer the metagame than be vocal about something that really is irrelevant to their game. In the end debating ban/unban doesn't do much for any individual player so the only opinions you get out of discussion are the people passionate about having it one way or the other.

I voted for waiting 4 to 6 months before any action is taken. Everyone should have time to adjust by then and if im wrong well Im not above admitting that its Vengevine that makes the redundancy/consistency of the deck over the top.

Unban stuff. Give me back my Mystical Tutors and I'll show those Survival players what's what.

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Originally Posted by Jeff Kruchkow

Unban stuff. Give me back my Mystical Tutors and I'll show those Survival players what's what.

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serious i wish i could play my set of tutors again, they just shouldn't have unbanned entomb since it's just a vampiric tutor masked by putting it into the graveyard. All these bans and unbans are making things wack for reals

I agree with the OP that the best thing to do now is wait. I hope no action will be taken in December, leaving some time for the format to adjust (which legacy is very slow to). If the deck keeps storming the metagame in March, then I definitely hope they would ban Vengevine... or Rootwalla. I'll be ok with Rootwalla.

No option for wait until December 20?

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

No option for wait until December 20?

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Well, the format isn't in such a bad shape to require emergency bannings before the usual christmas announcment, so I guess that "Ban XxX NOW" means in fact ban it in December.

People still believe that they'll ban the cash creature from their cash Boosters?

Just adapt to the format: ignore Vengevine. Smash them in a face with Tendrils or 2/2 Zombies. Format is based on playing 200 creatures in a row? Combo them out.

Looks like most people are decent players with a sane mind.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

No option for wait until December 20?

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Now = next banned list announcement obviously. The thought behind that was they would be more or less making that decision now since there aren't many events between now and when they would need to decide by.

Also "If format's still broken" Implies that I think the format is broken now which I don't really but everyone knows what I meant.

I'm not in favor of banning either card, but if one had to be banned, it should be Vengevine, not Surival. As was pointed out, Survival has existed for a long time in Legacy and was never considered broken until Vengevival decks came out. Also, if they do ban Vengevine, I hope that they do it while it still has some time left as a standard-legal card. It would be nice to get some value out of my set, because I'd be looking to trade them immediately.

Survival is not the problem the insane numbers of G the deck is able to produce! I'd say ban forest and noble hierarch !!!

and squee aswell fuck this CA.

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Originally Posted by Waikiki

Survival is not the problem the insane numbers of G the deck is able to produce! I'd say ban forest and noble hierarch !!!

and squee aswell fuck this CA.

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Wait, I thought newer incarnations ditched Squee in favor to be fas...

Oh darn, you were ironic, weren't you?

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Originally Posted by dontbiteitholmes

Now = next banned list announcement obviously. The thought behind that was they would be more or less making that decision now since there aren't many events between now and when they would need to decide by.

Also "If format's still broken" Implies that I think the format is broken now which I don't really but everyone knows what I meant.

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Aren't there 2-3 SCG 5k's between now and then?

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Originally Posted by Cabal_chan

Aren't there 2-3 SCG 5k's between now and then?

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Yeah, well a month in Legacy is like 1 week in Standard. 2-3 events is not a very large amount of data and there are bound to be Survival Vine decks in the top 8 no matter what because of the number of people playing the deck right now.

At this point Survival Vine posting good results over the next month is almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. It's hyped up to be the best deck type in the format, there are several different builds of the deck, and so a large number of people will play it, and when a large number of people play a deck unless it is god awful it will top 8 anyways. For example there were 7 Survival Vine decks in top 16 at Charlotte and 2 Goblins decks and 3 WGB Aggro Disruption decks, but it's entirely possible that there were 3-4 times as many Survival Vine decks as Goblins and I have no doubt there were at least 3-4 times as many Survival decks as WGB disruption meaning that over all those decks may have performed better on average, but since so many people played Survival it appears to dominate the format. Starcity does release data on who played what from time to time, but it usually takes 2 weeks to a month for this information to be compiled. This means any banning decision made in the next month should only reasonably be based on tournaments where data for the entire field is available and that cutoff is some point in the next couple weeks most likely.

Edit- or it has already passed, the last metagame breakdown I could find for Legacy SCG events was Baltimore.

Every time a deck dominated a SCG 5k, people adapted to it within 1-2 5k's. Five-ish SCG 5k's later, Vengevine Survival is only getting stronger. If the format hasn't adapted by now it isn't going to.

Ban Vengevine December 20th.

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Originally Posted by Kuma

Every time a deck dominated a SCG 5k, people adapted to it within 1-2 5k's. Five-ish SCG 5k's later, Vengevine Survival is only getting stronger. If the format hasn't adapted by now it isn't going to.

Ban Vengevine December 20th.

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I have a question to other non-US players: is Survine of the Vengest (or is it Vengevival of the Fitvine?) dominating the scene as it does in the 5k series? I just checked the last 6 32+ people tournament reports in Italy, and the archetype put an average of 1.5 decks in top 8. This looks rather reasonable. How is the situation going in the rest of Europe?

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Originally Posted by Cthuloo

I have a question to other non-US players: is Survine of the Vengest (or is it Vengevival of the Fitvine?) dominating the scene as it does in the 5k series? I just checked the last 6 32+ people tournament reports in Italy, and the archetype put an average of 1.5 decks in top 8. This looks rather reasonable. How is the situation going in the rest of Europe?

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Last tournament I went to in Sweden, there were only a hand full of Survival + Vine decks, and only one made it to top 8...
I think it was a 30+ ish people tournament. But a lot of players here in my meta tend to like Combo and/or Control decks.

For the sake of argument:

SCG 5K Tournament performance since June 27th.

Vengevine showing:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...vent_type=SCLO

Survival showing for same time period:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...vent_type=SCLO

22 Decks featuring Vengevine
23 Decks featuring Survival of the Fittest

I voted wait and maybe kill the vine.

But in my undevelloped meta in geneva, the survival which went top 4 last time is a wuacht survival ( i.e. sans vine).
This said we 're a small comunity and our meta doesn't follow fashion .

Nope, Vengevine survival doesn't dominate anything over here in Germany, neither in Spain or Italy. It sure is viable over here, but not half as dominant as at you guys.

Banning Vengevine or Basking Rootwalla would be an absolutely horrendous mistake. Remember what happened with Necropotence back in the old Extended? Wizards banned cards that synergized with Necro but didn't actually ban Necro itself. Every time a new round of cards was banned, Necro just kept finding finding new friends to continue to cause problems. It wasn't until Necro actually got the axe itself that all the problems it caused all of a sudden just disappeared.

The same thing would happen with Survival decks if a card like Vengevine would be banned instead of Survival. Survival will just find new cards to continue to abuse and wreak havoc with. Considering a lot of you (including me!) want to see more cards *unbanned*, I don't think you want to see a handful of cards get banned simply because of their synergy with Survival.

Seriously, we've already been down this road before and I really don't want to see history repeat itself. If you want to stop a problematic deck via bannings, you ban the heart of deck, not the cards that piggyback off of it.

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Originally Posted by Surging Chaos

Banning Vengevine or Basking Rootwalla would be an absolutely horrendous mistake. Remember what happened with Necropotence back in the old Extended? Wizards banned cards that synergized with Necro but didn't actually ban Necro itself. Every time a new round of cards was banned, Necro just kept finding finding new friends to continue to cause problems. It wasn't until Necro actually got the axe itself that all the problems it caused all of a sudden just disappeared.

The same thing would happen with Survival decks if a card like Vengevine would be banned instead of Survival. Survival will just find new cards to continue to abuse and wreak havoc with. Considering a lot of you (including me!) want to see more cards *unbanned*, I don't think you want to see a handful of cards get banned simply because of their synergy with Survival.

Seriously, we've already been down this road before and I really don't want to see history repeat itself. If you want to stop a problematic deck via bannings, you ban the heart of deck, not the cards that piggyback off of it.

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+1

Just wait some time and see what happens. Then, IF a ban is needed ban Survival (despite me really liking the card, but that's not the point) and not VeVi, for the reasons you stated. It would be like having a broken Storm Combo deck and banning Tendrils or Brain Freeze. I am quite sad to see the illogical option having a majority here.

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Originally Posted by Tao

+1

Just wait some time and see what happens. Then, IF a ban is needed ban Survival (despite me really liking the card, but that's not the point) and not VeVi, for the reasons you stated. It would be like having a broken Storm Combo deck and banning Tendrils or Brain Freeze. I am quite sad to see the illogical option having a majority here.

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Illogical?

Survival has been fine for years. It never caused any problems nor did it look warped enough. Just like Mystical Tutor pushed Combo over the top (in the eyes of the DCI), Vengevine pushed Survival over the top.
Why ban what is fine when you can ban what caused the problems?

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Originally Posted by Nidd

Illogical?

Survival has been fine for years. It never caused any problems nor did it look warped enough. Just like Mystical Tutor pushed Combo over the top (in the eyes of the DCI), Vengevine pushed Survival over the top.
Why ban what is fine when you can ban what caused the problems?

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This. The necro example doesnt make sense because Necro was never in the format and NOT broken where as Survival has been around for quite a while and only since VV has it started to make an impact

I personnaly own a playset of both vv and survival, I do think survival has to be banned rather than vv.
Vengevine would still be playable with intuition, while way less powerfull I admit. But the fact than vengevine would still see play as a tier 1.5 deck
means less power for control/counterbalance.deck. I think the format would be more open. Others deck would still have their chance without the "I draw survival I win". Furthermore I find the survival mirror quite boring, too much determined by who draws the more survival/fow.

I think Surging Chaos has a good point. Banning an enabler like Survival makes much more sense than banning something like Vengevine. Survival is much more likely to become degenerate again unlike Vengevine which won't really do too much without it.

If you ban the heart of the deck the whole archetype dies overnight. I hope to god that survival stays off the banned list; and if you had to ban the heart of a deck why did the DCI ban mystical tutor? The card by itself does nothing; the cards around it do. If they banned mystical tutor a support piece of ad nauseam decks why didn't they just straight up ban ad nauseam itself or tendrils of agony for that matter? The case is the same with vengevine and survival. Vengevine by itself is a 4/3 haste for 2GG that when pitched to survival becomes CA because of rootwalla's recurring them. And what degenerate deck will survival be used in if vengevine is banned? Nothing. Don't tell me that necrotic ooze combo will take the throne because that isn't possible with good GY hate or pithing needle on survival. Crypt wrecks the combo. leyline of the void wrecks it. extirpate wrecks the combo. There's so many ways to hate the combo it isn't even funny whereas how to hate vengevine well extirpate and pithing needle are about the best ways of doing it while leyline of the void is decent against it.

I voted wait 4-6 months and if the deck is still causing problems ban vengevine.

the idea behind banning Mystical Tutor was plain and simply that they wanted to ban a cheap and very effective (in their words "Tier 1") Tutor. The fact that doing so weakened two decks to the point of near obsoleteness is secondary to the fact that the tutor was itself a busted factor in those decks. (another reason they banned Mystical Tutor and not Ad Nauseam or Tendrils of Agony was because they wanted to neuter more than just the storm decks, they also wanted to weaken the Reanimator decks).

On the same point of view, it can now be said that in many ways Survival of the Fittest is in fact a Tier 1 Tutor. It is a cheap, repeatable tutor that can search out efficient and effective threats, often in the same turn. It doesn't suffer the drawback of Mystical or Enlightened Tutor in that both of those can only be used once and then they are done. Survival can be used repeatedly over the course of the game without having to devote more copies of the spell to the field. Thus you are protected by the redundant copies from enchantment removal.

What makes this worse, is even if they did ban Vengevine, you still have other creatures that are just as versatile and deadly in Survival decks. Emrakul and Iona when combined with Loyal Retainers for example. Or how about the Necrotic Ooze combo? And who is to say further combinations to abuse with Survival of the Fittest won't come out in the future?

Rest assured, Survival decks will not go away completely even if they do ban Survival of the Fittest. Because they will not ban Fauna Shaman. I doubt they will ban any given Creature unless it is an obvious broken creature on the scale of Worldgorger Dragon and even that one is debatable as to whether it belongs on the banlist still or not. However at the moment the most banworthy card is definitely Survival of the Fittest and not Vengevine or Basking Rootwalla, or even Fauna Shaman.

Unban stuff.

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Originally Posted by Nidd

Illogical?

Survival has been fine for years. It never caused any problems nor did it look warped enough. Just like Mystical Tutor pushed Combo over the top (in the eyes of the DCI), Vengevine pushed Survival over the top.
Why ban what is fine when you can ban what caused the problems?

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You're looking at this the wrong way. Even though Survival hasn't been a broken card for years, that doesn't automatically exempt the card from being banned. Survival has always been on the precipice of being broken because of the fundamental nature of how the card works. Survival is like having half a dozen tutor cards all rolled up into one. Historically, tutors are one of the most powerful types of cards in all of Magic. Every time a new set comes out, Survival just gets better and better, and that has been proven off of big creatures like Iona and Emrakul piggybacking off of Loyal Retainers, and Vengevine piggybacking off of Survival's "drawback". It was only a matter of time before a card came out that took Survival to the next level.

You can almost equate Survival to a volcano that has been simmering for a long time. Eventually the magma starts to rise (more and more good creatures that synergize with Survival are printed) and build up pressure until you reach a breaking point that causes the whole thing to erupt (Vengevine comes out).

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

If you ban the heart of the deck the whole archetype dies overnight. I hope to god that survival stays off the banned list; and if you had to ban the heart of a deck why did the DCI ban mystical tutor? The card by itself does nothing; the cards around it do. If they banned mystical tutor a support piece of ad nauseam decks why didn't they just straight up ban ad nauseam itself or tendrils of agony for that matter? The case is the same with vengevine and survival. Vengevine by itself is a 4/3 haste for 2GG that when pitched to survival becomes CA because of rootwalla's recurring them. And what degenerate deck will survival be used in if vengevine is banned? Nothing. Don't tell me that necrotic ooze combo will take the throne because that isn't possible with good GY hate or pithing needle on survival. Crypt wrecks the combo. leyline of the void wrecks it. extirpate wrecks the combo. There's so many ways to hate the combo it isn't even funny whereas how to hate vengevine well extirpate and pithing needle are about the best ways of doing it while leyline of the void is decent against it.

I voted wait 4-6 months and if the deck is still causing problems ban vengevine.

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Combo decks live and die off of tutors more than any other archetype. That's why kill cards like Tendrils or Ad Nauseam didn't get banned. Instead, they banned the enabler that facilitates everything (sound familiar?). Mystical Tutor lets you cheat on your Ad Nauseams so you only have to run 2 of them to make sure you don't commit suicide when going off, as well as play silver bullets in the process or find your protection much easier. Also, Mystical Tutor was not just run by ANT. Reanimator made extensively heavy use of Mystical Tutor as well, by giving that deck the ability to not only double up on its Entombs/reanimation spells, but also the ability to use silver bullets as well as Tendrils deck were able to.

It is fruitless banning kill cards like Vengevine and Ad Nauseam. As long as the engine of a ridiculous deck remains, that deck will just find new cards to abuse and continue to cause the same problems.

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Originally Posted by Hawdes

Last tournament I went to in Sweden, there were only a hand full of Survival + Vine decks, and only one made it to top 8...
I think it was a 30+ ish people tournament. But a lot of players here in my meta tend to like Combo and/or Control decks.

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I went to two tournaments this weekend (one 45 people and one 32), and I only saw one Vengevine Madness deck over both tournaments. It seems like the deck hasnät caught on here in Sweden yet, and boy do I feel dumb for packing Hibernation both days. :/

We have one of those extremely developed metas where every single deck you will play against is a top notch version in the hands of someone with a few pro points no less. Even in a 20 person tournament you're going to have a rough time. Survival never makes it past the lower rounds. It's never been in the top except once in our local tournaments when I played it to a win and even then I didn't feel like it was that strong. It's good, but not overwhelmingly. I only got lucky and hit a bunch of aggro decks like Merfolk. I don't get the hype over this.

The control decks eat this thing alive. No one seems to have remembered that Pithing Needle is a good card except around here. Humility works wonders on them. I am playing a deck with that and I must say it's a nice feeling knowing you can't really lose if you drop it. It's not like they have a way out of these global strategies. It's just a good creature deck and people need to realize that their much loved pet deck of Goblins, Zoo, and Merfolk don't beat the crap out of Survival. Play something different already. Storm and Control have almost no problem with Survival.

If anything, Spell Snare is pretty cool i hear.

What I'm most annoyed about is the constant complaining about vengevine deck. I think if they banned either there would be more complaining about the 250$ people just lost, so I'm on the fence. Either way I want less complaining.

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Originally Posted by Amon Amarth

I think Surging Chaos has a good point. Banning an enabler like Survival makes much more sense than banning something like Vengevine. Survival is much more likely to become degenerate again unlike Vengevine which won't really do too much without it.

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You do know that card has been fine since 1997?.
it took them over 13 years to make a card that put it in the tier 1 catagorie...

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Originally Posted by Volrath

You do know that card has been fine since 1997?.
it took them over 13 years to make a card that put it in the tier 1 catagorie...

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This. Times infinity. Dump the Vengevine, if anything.
Or, as someone said on the last page, unban shit like crazy. Frantic Search, Earthcraft, Land Tax, Goblin Recruiter, Hermit Druid. It would at least give people something else to complain about. Or allow Tarmogoyf to be played as an 8-of.

(Sarcasm)

Everyone is going to shit their pants when I win the next big SCG 5k with RGW Firespout Fog. Just you watch.
Maybe UGR. Really it's a matter of Angel's Grace and Silence vs. running enough blue/Islands to support Force/Daze.

Don't ban anything really. In Belgium and the Netherlands the deck isn't as dominating as in the 5K series. Maybe it's because there's alot of very good stormcombo players in the Netherlands which the decks don't seem to like. Here in Belgium the last tournament had a final Goblins-Death 'n taxes with leonin arbiter in the main I think (boehoe survival).