[Deck] Survival

[Tacosnape]

The basic reason you don't want 2 Squee is because they are the worst card in the deck without Survival.

Unless you run Taiga and Cabal Therapy. Then they're the worst card in the deck, but useful and very amusing.

[Wobbles The Goose]

Ok, I don't do this very often (post that is), but I do have to ask about utilizing three of the slots in any number of the survival builds listed at the beginning of this thread to be filled with Caller of the Claw, Saffi Eriksdotter, and Crypt champion. Now, builds have been running caller for a while, and Crypt/Saffi is decent on her own against things like deed (Saffi saving Witness is the bee's knees). With Champion you can survival both into the yard, play champion then grab caller eventually and attack with infinate angry bears. This typically can happen on turn 4 with a Rofellos. Naturally it's probably a metagame call for removal heavy enviroments just so that those three aren't useless on your own. Something to think about.

[outsideangel]

Ok, I don't do this very often (post that is), but I do have to ask about utilizing three of the slots in any number of the survival builds listed at the beginning of this thread to be filled with Caller of the Claw, Saffi Eriksdotter, and Crypt champion. Now, builds have been running caller for a while, and Crypt/Saffi is decent on her own against things like deed (Saffi saving Witness is the bee's knees). With Champion you can survival both into the yard, play champion then grab caller eventually and attack with infinate angry bears. This typically can happen on turn 4 with a Rofellos. Naturally it's probably a metagame call for removal heavy enviroments just so that those three aren't useless on your own. Something to think about.

I think that's a really cool idea and a nice little mini-combo for the deck. Infinite hasted guys seems strong, though some timely instant speed removal can disrupt it. I think the best part is that, as you mentioned, the pieces are useful on their own, both being played and even just being creatures to be pitched to Survival.

[Zach Tartell]

@Tacosnape - after reading your member description, I must give some applause. I've been reading you name as "Tarnoscape" for like the last month. Freaking sweet.

Bad news, brothers. I tried to update Hetfield's list, and came up with this:

8 Fetches
4 Taiga
3 Savannah
1 Plains
1 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Glowrider
4 Fanatic
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Loxodon Heiararch
4 FTK (I have no idea why he was only running one)
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Squee
4 SOTF
4 BOP
4 Tinder Wall
1 Roefellos
1 Deranged hermit
2 Basking Rootwalla
1 Veridian Zelot
3 Eternal Whitness

My Conclusions:
-Whitness is only hot when therapy is around. Like, seriously
-Hermit is changing into the sex monkeys, so don't worry. I mean, he's pretty sweet, but I just don't think he fits very well in this list. Or maybe he does. I tested agianst UGr thresh and UWr scepter chant. Not too much relevnat legacy around here if Matt doesn't show up.
-Survival sucks without survival. Like, hard. Is there any way I could run five and like... bribe eli to not give me a deck check?
-Sharpshooter is amazing. Like, hard. In goldfishing they turned out to be MVP's, and have some pretty savage synergy with fanatics.
-Tinder wall or rootwallas. Not both. I'm gonna go with tinderwalls myself.
-We may need more combo hate than just glowriders. Black has the best options, but I really don't want to have to cut the deck up to fit it in.

My board looked like:
3 Rule of Law
3 Pithing needle
1 Goblin Pyromancer
1 Caller of the claw
3 Naturalize - I found that I'd only want to nuke stuff against decks without counterspells. Or against, thresh, which I have a good matchup against anyways.
4 more something. Help?

[Mulletus]

Well I hope this weekend's Dual4duals shows how strong this deck is. Out of the top 8, there was 1/4 gro-ish, 1/4 combo (reanimate, aluren), 1/4 agro (gob, boro), and 1/4 Survival.

There was 4 Survival decks there, one got bumped out of top 8 on tiebreakers, and the other was kindof a new player who still rode the deck to 3-3. The new player was playing a Madness varient with heavy black for discard. I watched several play mistakes that prolly could have gotten him to a 4-2 record. I think he was inexperienced on what to take from a Solidarity players hand with duress. He had 3 Duresses, and took combo pieces instead of the heavy card draw it needed to actually go off, the he took a Force over Wish or Draw. He prolly didnt realize how important hand size was, cuz when he doesn't Force it prolly means he needs the other blue cards more than the counterspell.

[morgan_coke]

I haven't seen the madness list myself, but I'm guessing it was based on the g/b list played by McKeown last year to a 5-1 record. For reference, that list:

(also referenced because I didn't see the list/variant in the first post)

Artifact Creatures
1 Masticore

Creatures
3 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds Of Paradise
1 Eternal Witness
1 Genesis
1 Krovikan Horror
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Wall Of Roots
4 Wild Mongrel

Enchantments
4 Survival Of The Fittest

Legendary Creatures
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress

Basic Lands
7 Forest

Lands
4 Bayou
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills

Legendary Lands
4 Gaea's Cradle

Sideboard
1 Bone Shredder
2 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Spike Feeder
2 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Hail Storm
2 Hideous Laughter

It's a strong and viable alternative to controllish survival builds and a very good deck that I think deserves more attention than it is currently getting.

The list above is pretty old (november '05) so some updating to it is definitely in order, but overall, its got a lot of potential.

[MattH]

Why would a madness list not run at least one Zombie Infestation?

[Zach Tartell]

Why do people run spike feeder over Baloth or Heiararch? It seems to me that a 4/4 body with +4 life > a 2/2 body that can give +2/+2 for .

[Tacosnape]

Ok, I don't do this very often (post that is), but I do have to ask about utilizing three of the slots in any number of the survival builds listed at the beginning of this thread to be filled with Caller of the Claw, Saffi Eriksdotter, and Crypt champion. Now, builds have been running caller for a while, and Crypt/Saffi is decent on her own against things like deed (Saffi saving Witness is the bee's knees). With Champion you can survival both into the yard, play champion then grab caller eventually and attack with infinate angry bears. This typically can happen on turn 4 with a Rofellos. Naturally it's probably a metagame call for removal heavy enviroments just so that those three aren't useless on your own. Something to think about.

I actually ran this exact little combo when I ran 4 colors (Black-Red-White-Green.) And I highly recommend it. All three of the cards are solid on their own. Crypt Champion can reload a Witness or like, Bone Shredder. Saffi can do amazing things with Flametongue Kavu. And Caller of the Claw's synergy with Cabal Therapy is solid. So even if you don't get the combo going ever, all of the cards aren't dead, which makes it pretty playable.

It's also worth noting that if you get the Crypt Champion in hand, you could always do something ridiculous like Burning Wish for Buried Alive, then Buried Alive for Saffi/Caller/Anger to set up the combo.

EDIT: @Lonelybaritone: Tarnoscape? Lmao. That made my day. Sigged for making me laugh.

[MattH]

Why do people run spike feeder over Baloth or Heiararch? It seems to me that a 4/4 body with +4 life > a 2/2 body that can give +2/+2 for .

People who have mana trouble, say against goblins, and find 4 mana hard to get to. I was one of them, for a long time.

[Mulletus]

Why do people run spike feeder over Baloth or Heiararch? It seems to me that a 4/4 body with +4 life > a 2/2 body that can give +2/+2 for .

Never fight a land war in Asia.

[iOWN]

So. How are people beating Hulk Flash? Hand disruption and Chalice were the general hate cards for Tendrils and Solidarity, but neither can do anything against Flash. Meddling Mage is usually too slow, and most likely will eat Force of Will when it tries to come down. Meddling Mage in a list backed up by Brainstorm and Force of Will might be successful, but most likely have a weak match against aggro (and then what would be the point of playing Survival over Threshold?). Is Leyline of the Void the only answer, and is it enough? Any Survival build other than RGbSA doesn't seem fast and/or disruptive enough to support it. Perhaps it will be worth improving the combo match if aggro isn't a prevalent force at the GP?

:/

[outsideangel]

So. How are people beating Hulk Flash? Hand disruption and Chalice were the general hate cards for Tendrils and Solidarity, but neither can do anything against Flash. Meddling Mage is usually too slow, and most likely will eat Force of Will when it tries to come down. Meddling Mage in a list backed up by Brainstorm and Force of Will might be successful, but most likely have a weak match against aggro (and then what would be the point of playing Survival over Threshold?). Is Leyline of the Void the only answer, and is it enough? Any Survival build other than RGbSA doesn't seem fast and/or disruptive enough to support it. Perhaps it will be worth improving the combo match if aggro isn't a prevalent force at the GP?

:/

I don't think people are beating Hulk Flash with Survival.

[juventus]

4 leyline of the void
4 tormod's crypt
3 cranial extraction

that is my plan to beat hulk flash. I find duress and cabal therapy to be meh because they can hide stuff on top of their library pretty well. Leyline and crypt are turn 0-1 answers that buy you time to play a bomb like cranial extraction.

I guess I might as well post the list of survival I have been working on to give some sort of context to those cards. This list is basically stolen from Tao.

//Lands
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
3 Savannah
6 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp

//Creatures
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Eternal Witness
3 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Genesis
1 Krovikan Horror
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Withered Wretch

//Spells
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Recurring Nightmare

//Sideboard

4 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Aven Mindcensor

Important Matchups:

Combo

I originally had duress in the main-deck but I took those out because I put them in mainly for Hulk Flash and I found that game one against that deck is a hopeless cause anyways. This does hurt your matchups against other combo like belcher. Post SB the deck has a decent chance of beating kiki-jiki hulk flash with 8 quick answers and then cranial extraction.

Aggro

Goblins game one is about 40-60 in their favor. But there are 4 engineered plagues in the SB to help. I haven't tested against goblins with SB yet.

Other random aggro usually doesn't worry me because they are not explosive enough to deal with swords/deed/wall of blossoms.

Aggro-Control

This deck beats Gro unless it gets mana screwed and almost any other form of aggro-control just through its sheer card advantage.

Control

My opinion on control mirrors is that the games usually drag out for a long time so whichever deck has a better engine for card advantage will win. Genesis + Witness is a fairly strong engine, but I'm sure there are other control decks out there with better ones.


This is a control deck at heart and I wouldn't recommend playing it until Flash is banned when you can just play something like Landstill.

EDIT: I just thought about Aven Mindcensor

[Rabbi Dan]

I call it Survival Rock. You may also call it Rabbi Rock if it becomes popular! This deck 100% assumes that Flash is going to be banned.

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [AP] Llanowar Wastes
8 [IA] Forest (2)
11 [MM] Swamp (4)

// Creatures
1 [MM] Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 [FD] Eternal Witness
4 [4E] Birds of Paradise
1 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
1 [MR] Duplicant
1 [6E] Uktabi Orangutan
1 [7E] Elvish Lyrist

// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
4 [A] Sinkhole
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (2)
4 [TE] Diabolic Edict
4 [7E] Duress
4 [EX] Recurring Nightmare

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ON] Infest
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 1 [LG] Ichneumon Druid
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds

It runs the disruption core 4xDuress, 4xHymn to Tourach, 4xDiabolic Edict, and 4xSinkhole. It uses recurring nightmare mostly for card advantage with Eternal Witness, Wall of Blossoms, and Duplicant, although it can be used to do a semi-combo kill with Kokusho, the Evening Star.

Card Choices:
Uktabi Orangutan + Elvish Lyrist vs. Viridian Zealot: The biggest hoser for this deck is Chalice for 2. I need to run the sex monkeys to combat it.

Genesis: You never really have enough mana to use this without Rofellos.

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary: Thinking about running this in place of Squee, but haven't tested it yet.

Cabal Therapy: I just prefer duress, and there's not room for both of them.


Deck Matchups
IggyPop: This deck runs enough disruption to beat IggyPop, and post sideboard the game is even better. Ichneumon basically spells game over for the IggyPop player if you can get it into play.
Goblins: Game 1 is pretty much a scoop unless they get a bad draw and you get a great draw. Games 2 and 3 are much better with boarded Engineered Plague and boarded Infest.
HanniFish: Haven't actually played against a HanniFish build yet.
43Land.dec: Recurring Kokusho is your only hope, otherwise Maze of Ith locks you out. Side in Crucible for their land removing lands.
Random Others: I can beat most random decks through card advantage.

Thoughts/questions/comments?

[MattH]

With only 14 creatures, you're going to get way too many hands without any.

[Rabbi Dan]

With only 14 creatures, you're going to get way too many hands without any.

In playtesting ~50 random games on MWS, I maybe ran into the problem that I had SotF/Rec in play without the creatures to use them maybe twice. I only need to hit one creature for SotF to work, and I'm generally playing disruption on the first 1-3 turns before I even think about starting with the SotF engine.

A bigger problem I have is the mana base. The lack of duals is because I can't afford them right now, but by all means include them in your decklist.

[Brushwagg]

@Rabbi Dan:I see a few problems with the deck.

1.A lack of creatures. Survival decks depend on their creatures. You could probaly cut Recurring Nightmare, since I really don't see it being that useful, other then recurring Kokusho. But your missing a second one, so it also can probably go.

2.More creature problems. You have no creatures with good off/def on them. Which will make it really hard to go aggro when you need to. IE when you don't see/have Survival. Right now your deck is worse then old ATS when it didn't see Survival, worse beat down deck ever. A few suggestions, Ravenous Baloth, Blastoderm, hell even Plague Sliver. Just some stuff that lets you beat face. I really see this deck getting crushed by other Survival decks or stuff that has bigger creatures.

3.Lastly you have no removal that can be found with Survival. Since your playing black Bone Shredder comes to mind. It's also pretty good with Genesis too.

With those in mind here we go.

Very rough list

4x Windswept Heath
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Bloodstained Mire
4x Bayou
2x Taiga
8x Forest
1x Swamp

Spells
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Survival

Creatures
1x Squee
1x Genesis
1x Anger
1x Rofelloes
4x Birds
2x Werebear
3x Dark Confidant
2x Eternal Witness
1x Bone Shredder
2x Flametongue Kavu
3x Ravenous Baloth
3x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Sex Monkey

Edit:You might also want to look at Rootwalla. Good one drop and awesome with Survival.

Needs to be refined, but a good start I think. I added red for Anger since Haste is really good and FTK is also pretty good too. But I didn't make it a dominant color so you could easily cut it for some other stuff. If you do end up cutting Red I would replace one FTK with another Bone Shredder or Biggame Hunter.

@Dark Confidant:He gives you another way to gain card advantage without Survival.

[tylerwylie]

@Rabbi Dan:I see a few problems with the deck.

1.A lack of creatures. Survival decks depend on their creatures. You could probaly cut Recurring Nightmare, since I really don't see it being that useful, other then recurring Kokusho. But your missing a second one, so it also can probably go.

2.More creature problems. You have no creatures with good off/def on them. Which will make it really hard to go aggro when you need to. IE when you don't see/have Survival. Right now your deck is worse then old ATS when it didn't see Survival, worse beat down deck ever. A few suggestions, Ravenous Baloth, Blastoderm, hell even Plague Sliver. Just some stuff that lets you beat face. I really see this deck getting crushed by other Survival decks or stuff that has bigger creatures.

3.Lastly you have no removal that can be found with Survival. Since your playing black Bone Shredder comes to mind. It's also pretty good with Genesis too.

With those in mind here we go.

Very rough list

4x Windswept Heath
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Bloodstained Mire
4x Bayou
2x Taiga
8x Forest
1x Swamp

Spells
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Survival

Creatures
1x Squee
1x Genesis
1x Anger
1x Rofelloes
4x Birds
2x Werebear
3x Dark Confidant
2x Eternal Witness
1x Bone Shredder
2x Flametongue Kavu
3x Ravenous Baloth
3x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Sex Monkey

Edit:You might also want to look at Rootwalla. Good one drop and awesome with Survival.

Needs to be refined, but a good start I think. I added red for Anger since Haste is really good and FTK is also pretty good too. But I didn't make it a dominant color so you could easily cut it for some other stuff. If you do end up cutting Red I would replace one FTK with another Bone Shredder or Biggame Hunter.

@Dark Confidant:He gives you another way to gain card advantage without Survival.

You run Anger yet no Deranged Hermit? I love attacking for 9 I don't know about you. Any reasons for not including the Deranged Hermit?

[Zach Tartell]

You run Anger yet no Deranged Hermit? I love attacking for 9 I don't know about you. Any reasons for not including the Deranged Hermit?

Hermit's a fun finisher, but I think something like a Mystical Enforcer in a version with white, or just good old efficient 4/4's should do the trick. Price and somer other folks have been running were bear for a while, using him early as a blocker/mana source and late game as a body. With a couple baloths, a stomphowler, two or three FTK's, and a pack of werebears, you shouldn't fret about not having an "oops, I win" play. Hermit also sucks to drop then not pay the echo for, on account of he just leaves you shitty blockers.