[DTW] Bant Survival

[hungryboi]

The one thing I noticed is that most decklists don't run anything to disrupt graveyard recursion. I'm now testing a pretty generic Bant Survival deck and was wondering how it does against recurring wasteland and ichorid?

[johanessen]

5) I think Gilded Drake is solid in the removal slot. If you have Survival up, you have Wonder, so trading your 3/3 flyer for a flying Goyf is usually as good as removal. Eternal Witness to recur Swords is about your only other option.

If you like Glided Drake you should try to make space for Waterfront Bouncer, they like each other.

[Jak]

The one thing I noticed is that most decklists don't run anything to disrupt graveyard recursion. I'm now testing a pretty generic Bant Survival deck and was wondering how it does against recurring wasteland and ichorid?

If you are seeing a lot of decks that use the GY, go ahead and play Crypt. I would but I don't feel the need for it.

I run between 4 and 5 basics plus Hierarchs so I do fine against Wasteland.

[majikal]

The one thing I noticed is that most decklists don't run anything to disrupt graveyard recursion. I'm now testing a pretty generic Bant Survival deck and was wondering how it does against recurring wasteland and ichorid?

Side in Faerie Macabre?

[Waikiki]

I dont have grave hate simply because my meta plays too few grave dependant decks to include.

@creature removal. Yeah ive been hoping zendikar would give us something

@gilded drake is good removal when u have survival and wonder out.... Hmm seems to me with flying goyfs you should allready be winning.

@path to exile sb. yeah this could be good vs all these aggro decks going around.

The faeries are still hard for me to remove cause they do so well in the tournaments I play. Most things they stopped so far: Nimble mongoose, cantrips, top!, dreadnought, stifle, zoo and sometimes even goyf.

[spider900]

In the morning, I continued my testing. This time, I was facing MUC (with black+white splash for EE and StoP I guess). He also played Back to Basics and Stifle and so on, so he was running a lot of cards which I didn't wat to see. It was only the question how many he would draw of them and how many I could handle. I lost 1-2. How would you board in the MU?

Second testing was against a RG Bloodthirst Aggro, but which aggro deck likes 4 5/6 flying Goyfs?

[Windux]

Lotus Cobra isn't good in this deck. It's like Quirion Ranger in bad.
Most time, you won't search him, because it's an hierarch which CAN make 2 mana instead of 1 (if you play and pop a fetchland), but it don't gives you exalted.
Due to the untap ability of Quirion Ranger and his awesome wasteland-security, he is just nuts and nobody plays the Ranger (except for me ;P ).
With Hierarch the Ranger makes the same as the Cobra even if you can't drop another land, which happens quite often.

[majikal]

Lotus Cobra isn't good in this deck. It's like Quirion Ranger in bad.
Most time, you won't search him, because it's an hierarch which CAN make 2 mana instead of 1 (if you play and pop a fetchland), but it don't gives you exalted.
Due to the untap ability of Quirion Ranger and his awesome wasteland-security, he is just nuts and nobody plays the Ranger (except for me ;P ).
With Hierarch the Ranger makes the same as the Cobra even if you can't drop another land, which happens quite often.

Where the hell did this come from? Nobody was discussing Lotus Cobra.

[Jak]

Probably talking about this post from a page back...

@Waikiki
Have you thought about trying Lotus Cobra in the 3 open MD slots? I'm not a huge fan of the hype surrounding the card, but its relatively slow speed might be offset by Bant's early-game acceleration and survival might really appreciate the raw power of an early cobra. Bant plays a strong enough lategame that it might be worth a try.

Still, Cobra is meh and competes with all the other two drops.

[Waikiki]

Look again, someone suggested lotus cobra to me ;)

[Windux]

My newest list looks like this:
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
4 [R] Tropical Island
2 [R] Savannah
1 [R] Tundra
1 [ALA] Forest (1)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [P2] Plains (1)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 [CNF] Noble Hierarch
1 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
1 [ALA] Rafiq of the Many
2 [ALA] Rhox War Monk
2 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [LRW] Sower of Temptation
3 [LRW] Spellstutter Sprite

// Creatures who sucks without SotF
1 [CNF] Progenitus
1 [10E] Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 [JU] Wonder

// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
3 [VI] Natural Order
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Rhox War Monk
SB: 3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [JU] Genesis
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 4 [CNF] Path to Exile


I'm thinking about cutting 1 Survival, because 3 SotF and 3 Order are enough bomb-cards.

Drayd Arbor haven't been an issue. The basic Plains sucks way more :/

[Jak]

Played some games today and the deck did great. I am pretty set on this base.

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains

4 Survival of the FIttest
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Rhox War Monk
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Eternal Witness
1 Rafiq of the Many
1 Wonder
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

I have three workable slots. I currently have 2 Mongoose and a Trygon Predator in them, but it could go to a combination of those, Ponder, or Spell Snare.

The MD has been working out great. I was able to play three games against Bardo's CounterTop and won them all by just playing a stream of threats. It has been holding up against aggro, Stax, The Rock, and some heavier control decks.

My sideboard has a set base of this.

4 Path to Exile
3 Krosan Grip
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Genesis
1 Rhox War Monk

The five remaining slots go to a combintation of Spell Snare, Meddling Mage, Tormod's Crypt, or Trygon Predator. 8 Swords, 4 War Monks, 4 Tarmogoyf, Counters, Survival, and other goods has been amazing against aggro. I am really trying to beat control with the board as well. I plan to play 2 Mages alongside the Teegs and Genesis.

[Waikiki]

My newest list looks like this:
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
4 [R] Tropical Island
2 [R] Savannah
1 [R] Tundra
1 [ALA] Forest (1)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [P2] Plains (1)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 [CNF] Noble Hierarch
1 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
1 [ALA] Rafiq of the Many
2 [ALA] Rhox War Monk
2 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [LRW] Sower of Temptation
3 [LRW] Spellstutter Sprite

// Creatures who sucks without SotF
1 [CNF] Progenitus
1 [10E] Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 [JU] Wonder

// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
3 [VI] Natural Order
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Rhox War Monk
SB: 3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [JU] Genesis
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 4 [CNF] Path to Exile


I'm thinking about cutting 1 Survival, because 3 SotF and 3 Order are enough bomb-cards.

Drayd Arbor haven't been an issue. The basic Plains sucks way more :/

Why did you choose you felt the need to add in the NO package?
Also with misty rainforest out. your not running an island, unneeded?

[Black Mass]

I sucked yesterday. Wen 2-3-0 in Ghent.
Lost twice to Goblins due to sloppy draws and once to a enormously irritating dreadstill player.
I'll try and write a report in a little while.

[Windux]

No island because: The Plains sucks very much if you draw it.
I feel the same for the Island, except that a Basic Island doesn't give solutions to me.

Plains+Forest = Pridemage, Swords, Path, Hierarch

Island give me = Sprite, RWM (if I have the 3 Basics or an hierarch, but then the island in unnecessary).

The 2nd Non-Green source along with Survival and NO just seems bad to me.

I think packing NO isn't that surprising in such a deck.
4 Creatures you drop can't be NO'ed and 14 + Arbor (which has 9 outs to draw) give you virtually 23 outs for NO. With 4 Hierarchs and 1 Quirion Ranger the 4 mana shouldn't be that hard.

of course it's mostly a "Oh I ein a game, which I may win in 5-6 rounds", but it's a "Oh i win a game"-card. That doesn't seem too bad.
Survival is also such a card....just much slower.
AND it's a counter to opposing Progenitus ;)

[Waikiki]

Just seems to me you can't reliably resolve NO. which results into a death hierarch. :(

[XiaN]

Which basicly is not true.

If you run NO as your main wincondition its true, but we have

Hierarch for the early game
Survival for the mid game
And eventually NO as the late game / topdeck win

So we have Force and Sprites / Clique for the early and midgame protection for survival and our animals. Seems fine and the only thing that can stop NO as our late game out is a counter. And because the enemy has troubles with our threads anyway, its ... highly unlikely that he will have another counter when you topdeck NO.

And we have 5-6 open maindeck slots. So far you can choose between 3 ways : More control with cantrips/counter, More aggro with toolbox creatures or ... NO as "combo". Cool deck

Btw : What do you think about Battlegrace Angel? Its really really expensive, but lifegain seems to be such a strong play against many decks. Damn why doesn't she cost UWG1

[Jak]

It seems if you are playing NO, you are just hurting Survival and you might as well play NO Bant. It can better protect NO. More threats does not necessarily mean the deck is better.

Edit- Battlegrace Angel is terrible

[Windux]

[QUOTE=Jak.;389026]It seems if you are playing NO, you are just hurting Survival and you might as well play NO Bant. It can better protect NO. More threats does not necessarily mean the deck is better.
/QUOTE]

Just look, what you would play instad of NO:
Spell Snare - Protects Survival and can counter threads (as Pridemage as Utility, other critter ands CB which can't counter NO in most cases).
-> NO just races the critter the opponent drops + you have to keep mana open for Spell Snare every time.
More Critter - Here it depends on what critter. Trygon is good against Moat, thats true, but it's just 1 out more against Moat.
Mongoose: Definetly better in Goblin metas, no question!
Mother of Runes: 2 completly different classes, I don't want to compare those. Mother is an early drop which can help in metas with many removal spells.

I just see here 2 ways:
Protection = Reactive
NO = Active

It's your decision if you want to answer your opponents questions or just try to ignore your opponent most of the time with Progenitus (or Empyrial Archangel in SB).

My decision is cleary to be active. You just have 4 Hardcounter anyways. Sprites are more softcounter, since it can be destroyed and just can counter things with cc=>Sprites.

[Jak]

Just look, what you would play instad of NO:
Spell Snare - Protects Survival and can counter threads (as Pridemage as Utility, other critter ands CB which can't counter NO in most cases).
-> NO just races the critter the opponent drops + you have to keep mana open for Spell Snare every time.
More Critter - Here it depends on what critter. Trygon is good against Moat, thats true, but it's just 1 out more against Moat.
Mongoose: Definetly better in Goblin metas, no question!
Mother of Runes: 2 completly different classes, I don't want to compare those. Mother is an early drop which can help in metas with many removal spells.

I just see here 2 ways:
Protection = Reactive
NO = Active

It's your decision if you want to answer your opponents questions or just try to ignore your opponent most of the time with Progenitus (or Empyrial Archangel in SB).

My decision is cleary to be active. You just have 4 Hardcounter anyways. Sprites are more softcounter, since it can be destroyed and just can counter things with cc=>Sprites.

Okay, I really have no idea what you are talking about. Protection is not always reactive. Stuff like Vendilion Clique is not reactive, Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage are not reactive, and Mother of Runes (if played) is more proactive than reactive. I just fail to see how watering down the main goal of the deck to have a combo that wins in three turns is good. Zoo can race and burn your green dudes, Goblins can race and hold you from hitting 4 mana, Merfolk can hold your mana back and counter it, etc etc. Decks have outs or ways to stop you from going for your instant win which basically means you lose.

What does NO improve? We are playing Survival which means you don't automatically lose to anything. We are playing blue so we don't automatically lose to anything. The deck has been performing great.