[Deck] Survival

[Philipp2293]

Average so far. I'm not sure it's actually helping me with anything. It increases my dependency on graveyard hate and is pretty weak if I don't get a Survival. That said, when I -have- a Survival, he's pretty good.

I think I'd go a different direction if I were going to keep him and go back to something BG with Survival and Zombie Infestation.

Something I noticed today:
Bloodghast + Pernicious Deed = amazing
Bloodghast + Survival of the Fittest = very good
Only Bloodghast: Here it really hurts that he can't block. If he could block he would be insane.

[Kesta]

Vampire Hexmage bb
Creature - Vampire Shaman Uncommon
First strike
Sacrifice Vampire Hexmage: Remove all counters from target permanent.
2/1

2black mana but really usefull tool against planeswalker and can be a win condition with a Dark Depths. Turbo Marit Lage 20/20 flying indestructible. Playable in a Survival build? for the capacity of killing planeswalker i think yes.

[hungryboi]

Vampire Hexmage bb
Creature - Vampire Shaman Uncommon
First strike
Sacrifice Vampire Hexmage: Remove all counters from target permanent.
2/1

2black mana but really usefull tool against planeswalker and can be a win condition with a Dark Depths. Turbo Marit Lage 20/20 flying indestructible. Playable in a Survival build? for the capacity of killing planeswalker i think yes.

This is "dangerously cool." BB is very hard to attain for survival (especially since Bayou is wasteland's first target). Marit Lage is a land that does not produce any mana. You can't afford to have that in such a land intensive deck.

[Kesta]

Ok, but 2 mana for a 2/1 first strike is not that bad. Remove counter on planeswalker, Golgari Grave Troll, Arcbound Ravanger, Aether Vial, Chalice of the Void,... Can be sacrifice to remove Bridge.

I'll try to add it in my BGW rec-sur.

[crow_mw]

It also forces opponent to blow EE, maybe use Jitte counters, shrink Countryside Crusher, kill Vanishing guys (err... Keldon Marauders?) and occasionally do some other pointless tricks, like dealing with mirror trying to win goyf war with Spike Feeder, delaying Jotun Grunt on clearing your GY, disarming an unsuspecting Wickerbough Elder, blowing up Gemstone Mine or recurring your Kitchen Finks.

All of those things are better handled by other cards (most cases - Shriekmaw), and aren't very likely to turn the tide of battle. However sooner or later a powerful counter-based play will appear in Legacy and that guy will find his sideboard or maybe even MD slots.

[Tacosnape]

While I'm not sure I like Hexmage enough to maindeck or even play at all, I will say this about him: The dude is deceptively good against Stax. Especially against builds playing Tangle Wire. He disarms Chalice of the Void, he resets Smokestack, and he nullifies Tangle Wire's usefulness. Additionally, as Stax builds seem to like Planeswalkers recently, he tears a Planeswalker to shreds, as already noted.

[hungryboi]

I've done some recent testing and found that 4 Cabal Therapy are EXTREMELY good. Once I limited the number of Thoughtseizes down to create more space for Cabal Therapies, I felt my deck was so much stronger. I can't stress how easy it is to abuse Cabal when we run BoP and Witness. Next, I tested out Aether Vial. Although Aether Vial was subpar in my testing 2 years ago, it has shown amazing results recently. With the printing of Tarmogoyf, high number of Eternal Witnesses in our deck, and Kitchen finks, everything in our deck runs on either 2 or 3 cc. This means Aether vial becomes dangerous extremely fast. Vial is extremely devastating in the Stax matchup. Any deck running Land D, Vial gives a big F U. Any deck running blue, Vial will get your creatures online. Any decks running Price of Progress, you now don't have to over commit on your lands to abuse Survival.

[Tao]

In the current meta straight RG/SA could be good again. There is not much Combo around so you can go and ignore that matchup (what many decks should do anyway because they won't both win game 2 and game 03 even if they board 7 cards).

Before going on I have to say that I was never convinced of the Rofellos/ Quirion engine. Imo it just takes up slots and it too often "win more". I think you lose more games too having drawn Rofellos or Ranger than winning games in Combo mode that Survival alone wouldn't have won.

So I tried to concentrate on what the RG/SA version does best: winning attrition wars against Aggro Control and pure Control and beating Aggro with card quality. And having a rock solid mana base plus

I've tested with Heartwood Storyteller a bit and I am quite happy with him. Nearly every deck hates to see this guy on turn 2. WIth Survival and Jitte being the only spells in the deck he is quite one sided and usually drains the Force of Will. The only decks with just a few spells are tribal decks and in being 2/3 he has his value even in these matchups.

Bloodbraid Elf, Kavu and Moon are obvious in what they do and I am happy with them so far.


As I said the SB ignores Combo and improves the other matches instead. Sharpshooter was in the main once but I've cut it because I never tutored for it. Comes in vs. Goblins, Elves and Merfolk obviously alongside Firespout (which I play over Clasm because of the Lord flood).

// Lands
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
8 [M10] Forest (1)
4 [A] Taiga
2 [UNH] Mountain
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures

4 [U] Birds of Paradise
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

3 [FD] Eternal Witness
4 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
4 [FUT] Heartwood Storyteller

3 [ARB] Bloodbraid Elf
3 [DD2] Flametongue Kavu

1 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
1 [EVE] Wickerbough Elder
1 [10E] Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 [JU] Genesis


// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DD2] Flametongue Kavu
SB: 2 [SHM] Vexing Shusher
SB: 1 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 3 [SHM] Firespout

[beastman]

We've had this discussion before. The deck is not viable without the discard suite. You think you will win games against Threshold or landstill? How do you plan on forcing any of your cards to resolve? Threshold has swords to answer shusher, and they can just tempo you out completely if you don'thave a god hand. People keep trying to run this deck without black, and I can't understand why.

[Tao]

We've had this discussion before. The deck is not viable without the discard suite. You think you will win games against Threshold or landstill? How do you plan on forcing any of your cards to resolve? Threshold has swords to answer shusher, and they can just tempo you out completely if you don'thave a god hand. People keep trying to run this deck without black, and I can't understand why.

Actually it was me who (a few years ago) spent a whole year of getting flamed to get people into playing black for discard in Survival. So I know how it works.

But in the current Meta I see a lot of reasons to go for the most consistent variant. And yes, my posted list is solid against Threshold and Landstill. The strategy is not to force one threat through, it is to overload them with different threats, in this case Magus, Witness, Survival, Storyteller, BB Elf, Jitte and Goyf.

[beastman]

A resolved counterbalance beats your deck though.

I really want to know what your metagame looks like that you don't think discard is necesary(sp.)

[Tacosnape]

Well, I think the deck -can- run without Black. It just can't run without either Black or Aether Vial. There's a RGW build with Vial floating around here that's pretty annoying.

I agree though. The discard suite is strong. It's not just that you need it to stop Countermagic and the like. It's that you can only run so many silver bullets to tutor for. You have Genesis and Witness, but recursion and replay takes time. Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy can keep your opponent from having more of something than you can stop.

This number can also be 0, too. For example, non Burning Wish variants have no good out to Humility except discard.

[Tao]

Taco, u like Survival and so do I. You were on Red Chalice aggro from the start and so was I. We are both quite good players, too. So why can't we ever agree on one point.
The choice is not as clear as you say. Bird/ Hierarch and Vial offer similar quality of acceleration and it is really close between them.
One major advantage of Birds is that it makes the turn 2 Survival so much better. Most importantly it makes it safe against Daze and a turn faster. And if they have Vindicate or Needle or you suspect Grip you can already use it to get Witness or W. Elder.
In the end I decided against Vial because Vial and Bloodbraid Elf don't work together.

The reason why I bring this version up is that I feel that in the current Meta going for Tempo and consistency gets a lot of rewards.
Against Aggro you obviously gain a lot because you are faster and more consisten than with discard but still usually outclass their creatures. Against Threshold the matchup doesn't change that much. Chances are quite good that you get a Magus or Survival to stick while your opponent tries to set up for CB/Top and after boarding you have Grip anyway. Against the Tribal decks I feel you also gain a lot. Kavuing their guys is better than evoking Maw and being invulnerable to Wasteland also helps. Against Control I honestly don't think you lose that much though the Discard version is a bit better of course. But you often can still overwhelm them and sometimes the Tempo helps you with it too.

I wanted to put this to discussion. I feel that the meta has evolved and maybe it is time to try new ways with Survival and I think that the black version is losing more and more of its advantages.
I am not sure if my version is the best. It would be possible to replace Storyteller with Troll Acetic and adding some more Equipment or to play GWr with Pridemage and solid Combo hate in the SB (Gaddock +Canonist).

[crow_mw]

While being a quite interesting t1 play against wasteland, as a one of this guy is in many listings mostly for Survival Tutoring. I wonder - when do you usualy get him, against which matchups? Do you get him as soon as possible (before Squee or Anger?) when you expect some land destruction? Do you get him right after Rofellos, to do the mana trick? I always find it very hard to find a time to put him in play. Or perhaps you only get him later in game, once the board settles?

With my limited experience, I can never find enough time to get him. More often I feel tempted to get a Goyf or a response to enemy threat.

[leander?]

With a Survival in play, the more mana you can produce, the more your boardposition will improve. Becouse of this, its mostly worth it to fetch up Ranger after Rofellos, which doubles your mana every turn.

[hungryboi]

Quiriom Ranger is terrible. First of all, you have to have a tapped creature to abuse its ability (sorry but your not always going to have birds). By the time you fetch for Quiriom ranger with survival against a deck like goblins, wasteland would have done its job already. When I had Quirian Ranger in MD, I rarely fetched for it because it's simply a "win more card." Rofellos nets you around 4 mana a turn already, thats enough to abuse genesis and use survival in one turn. Against other land D decks, aether vial is more useful as it can instantly get your stuff out. No more COUNTERBALANCE on your tarmogoyf.

[AngryTroll]

Quiriom Ranger is terrible. First of all, you have to have a tapped creature to abuse its ability (sorry but your not always going to have birds). By the time you fetch for Quiriom ranger with survival against a deck like goblins, wasteland would have done its job already. When I had Quirian Ranger in MD, I rarely fetched for it because it's simply a "win more card." Rofellos nets you around 4 mana a turn already, thats enough to abuse genesis and use survival in one turn. Against other land D decks, aether vial is more useful as it can instantly get your stuff out. No more COUNTERBALANCE on your tarmogoyf.

Quirion Ranger is fine. I run two. I don't often fetch him once I have a Survival going, for the reasons you stated, but he's a very strong play on the first few turns without Survival.

Ranger does three things very well. First, he saves lands from Wasteland. Second, he lets you swing AND block with Tarmogoyf. Finally, he lets you hit four mana with three land, which happens relatively often if you keep a two land hand. In addition to this, he's very solid with Birds, and amazing with Rofellos.

...in the current Meta going for Tempo and consistency gets a lot of rewards.

I kind of want to build this deck with four Rofellos. A long time ago there was a lot of discussion about running four Rofellos, because he's a stronger turn two play than Survival if you have anything else in your hand. Sure, he'll die most of the time, but then you have an extra mana when you drop Survival anyways.

[Di]

Quiriom Ranger is terrible. First of all, you have to have a tapped creature to abuse its ability (sorry but your not always going to have birds). By the time you fetch for Quiriom ranger with survival against a deck like goblins, wasteland would have done its job already. When I had Quirian Ranger in MD, I rarely fetched for it because it's simply a "win more card." Rofellos nets you around 4 mana a turn already, thats enough to abuse genesis and use survival in one turn. Against other land D decks, aether vial is more useful as it can instantly get your stuff out. No more COUNTERBALANCE on your tarmogoyf.

Quirion Ranger's ability can be used on untapped creatures, there isn't any clause stating that it needs to be so. It's actually often used to target itself to continuously hit land drops.

Figured I'd clear that up, because from the sound of it you weren't using the card correctly.

[Kesta]

Di is right, you can use your ranger even without tapped creature since:
10/4/2004: It can target an untapped creature. ref:http://magiccards.info/vi/en/67.html

Then i found quirion ranger very usefull to add some mana, especially in the first 2-3 turns when you don't have 3 or 4 lands. But against thresh it's always the first target of a Fire and Ice or a Bolt. So depending the metagame it can be very very good.

[Tacosnape]

Quirion Ranger's probably one of the two the weakest slot in my sixty, but it does perform several functions quite well.

1. It guards you against Wasteland. This is obviously quite important. You have to be wary of activating the Ranger when an opponent has an untapped Wasteland, of course, but this typically isn't a huge deal.

2. It lets you hit land drops when you don't have one from your hand to drop.

3. It, in the process, untaps Birds of Paradise and/or Rofellos for additional mana boosting.

That said, I rarely end up fetching it given how low my mana curve is. And I've always been a fan of the multiple Rofellos thing.