[DTW] Bant Survival

[Waikiki]

If I dont have iona / loyal I'd just play a wonder and some cool guy or a ponder.

[PWiggan]

Cool to see, thanks.
3 spell pierces main was perhaps the most interesting, but only 3 brainstorms was also. I always like to see brainstorm, and it often makes the difference between a mulligan and solid-looking hand.

The Lotus winning list was played by me, metagamed by myself and a friend. We expected to face a lot of combo and zoo/tribal aggro. The spell pierces main were there mostly for the surprise factor - I had people playing around daze and walking into them all day long.

The Brainstorm statement you make... I disagree with. If you're keeping on the strength of brainstorm, you typically should have mulliganed. I wanted to have them to tuck key cards away from discard, or to shuffle away 1 ofs that I didn't need, not to smooth draws or convince me to keep loose hands.

On the topic of Rafiq - he was amazing for me all day - swinging for 18-22 with Iona, or just 8 with RWM.

[ChrisElrod]

The Lotus winning list was played by me, metagamed by myself and a friend. We expected to face a lot of combo and zoo/tribal aggro. The spell pierces main were there mostly for the surprise factor - I had people playing around daze and walking into them all day long.

Okay, thanks.

The Brainstorm statement you make... I disagree with. If you're keeping on the strength of brainstorm, you typically should have mulliganed. I wanted to have them to tuck key cards away from discard, or to shuffle away 1 ofs that I didn't need, not to smooth draws or convince me to keep loose hands.

Well, short of a godhand, brainstorm always makes me more comfortable keeping a hand. If I don't have brainstorm, I'd almost certainly mulligan a hand with, for example, loyal retainers + iona in it if it lacked survival. If I had brainstorm + fetchland, along with some other decent stuff, like force, goyf, and another land, I think it would be worth keeping, or?
Survival decks are decks that often have a lot of crap; having a little bit of it in your oppening hand could make it a loose keep without brainstorm + fetch, otherwise it seems completely fine, and mulliganing in a case like that seems like it would simply be card disadvantage and a risk towards mulliganing into worse stuff.
These hands seem to come up very regularly-the difference brainstorm makes here is huge.

[Muela]

@PWiggan Congratulations for the result ^^ BTW, any report avaliable?

[PWiggan]

Sorry, I don't have a report - didn't take notes and didn't have time to go back, with the tournament ending @ 11ish, and a GPT the next morning. If anyone has specific questions about the list/deck/tournament I'd be happy to answer.

[majikal]

So with the metagame set to change significantly in a few days, what kind of new sideboard options should we be looking at for an unknown field?

[Rancorous Fool]

I recommend creatures. Seems good with survival.

Maybe some spells too, seems good without survival.

Something like:

1 spell pierce
1 spell snare
1 dispel
1 Faerie macabre
1 tormods crypt
1 loaming shaman
1 krosan grip
1 qasali pridemage
1 monk realist
1 tivador
1 llawan
1 sower
1 path
1 submerge
1 mangara

[ChrisElrod]

Aggro decks in general will get better with the decline in combo.
Lands also dislikes combo, and loves aggro.

Speaking of lands, what is everyone's game plan against it?

[Nidd]

Aggro decks in general will get better with the decline in combo.
Lands also dislikes combo, and loves aggro.

Speaking of lands, what is everyone's game plan against it?

I play 1 Emrakul, 3 Faerie Macabre and 2 Crypts in my SB to battle Lands.

Emrakul is a nice target for Retainers when Lands doesn't play Karakas, as he will annihilate their board and lock them out. He can also shuffle back Faeries so I can tutor them up again and potentially get rid of their whole GY.
Crypts is just there to not to be completely cold to Needle on Faerie and as a... bigger countermeasure against Dredge.

[Waikiki]

ill just play kira

[Nidd]

ill just play kira

That would be too easy.

:(

[majikal]

Might this be worthwhile in any way? Redundancy is always good, but at the very least it helps get around Pithing Needle. I often find myself only using Survival once EOT anyway, so this seems extremely relevant to my interests.

[Black Mass]

@ Fauna Shaman:

I don't like it. You have to tap him, which makes it slow because of summoning sickness and you can use it only once, so chaining Iona->Retainers or Squee->Wonder->Big Beater isn't possible.

Had you be able to search enchantments with it, i'd take it, now it looks a bit like a hype card to me, will be great in EDH though or a elves build perhaps...

[Kuma]

I love that card. I love that they printed something this close to Survival's functionality. That said, I don't think it'll ever be more than a one-of in Bant Survival. If you want to Survival for a Survival, Eternal Witness does that better. Pithing Needle is better answered with Sprite/Pridemage/Trygon/Grip. If this were "Magus of the Survival" I'd be a lot more interested.

[Jak]

If I wanted more Survivals, I would play Enlightened Tutor since it can make the sideboard amazing. I do want more Survivals so I have one every game, but I want it to be good, not on a creature or card disadvantage.

[Waikiki]

stupid tap symbol

[sdematt]

If it didn't have the tap symbol, I'd consider playing it more. But, you can only use it once, so I'm slightly heartbroken.

-Matt

[Sharpened]

Fauna Shaman is pretty, but probably worthless for legacy (hooray for other formats tho). Now that that's out of the way, let's focus on this deck.

The deck has it's core, and I think its fairly obvious what it's core is. The real challenge is tuning it to personal playstyle and for an expected metagame.

So start with Zoo. If you were expecting to run into versions of Zoo over and over, what are the important part of the deck for you?
Obviously, you want the full 4 Rhox War Monks, but what else?
Kira? I'd think Kira is a card you'd want in the deck for a zoo matchup? How about Rafiq? Him I'm less sure about, is he worth a slot in that matchup?
What about your disruption slots? For zoo, specifically, would you rather be running Sprites,Meddling Mages, Spell Snares? Do you think additional Spell Pierces add value (would you side them in, if you had them in your board)?
What specifically doesn't add value in the Zoo matchup? Vendillion Clique? Sower of Temptation? Do you want Wonder? What about the Iona/Retainers combo, are you tempted to side that out?

Obviously, you don't want to cripple your deck against the rest of the meta for just one matchup. Something like Wall of Roots probably is pretty nice against Zoo, but may cost you in your other matchups or you just may not be able to find the space. But I'm curious, sort of a metal excersize if you will, of how best to tune this deck to combat zoo. Do you even stoop to using things like Linvala to shut off Lavamancers and take away the fetching of KoTR? What would you do?

[majikal]

Fauna Shaman is pretty, but probably worthless for legacy (hooray for other formats tho). Now that that's out of the way, let's focus on this deck.

The deck has it's core, and I think its fairly obvious what it's core is. The real challenge is tuning it to personal playstyle and for an expected metagame.

So start with Zoo. If you were expecting to run into versions of Zoo over and over, what are the important part of the deck for you?
Obviously, you want the full 4 Rhox War Monks, but what else?
Kira? I'd think Kira is a card you'd want in the deck for a zoo matchup? How about Rafiq? Him I'm less sure about, is he worth a slot in that matchup?
What about your disruption slots? For zoo, specifically, would you rather be running Sprites,Meddling Mages, Spell Snares? Do you think additional Spell Pierces add value (would you side them in, if you had them in your board)?
What specifically doesn't add value in the Zoo matchup? Vendillion Clique? Sower of Temptation? Do you want Wonder? What about the Iona/Retainers combo, are you tempted to side that out?

Obviously, you don't want to cripple your deck against the rest of the meta for just one matchup. Something like Wall of Roots probably is pretty nice against Zoo, but may cost you in your other matchups or you just may not be able to find the space. But I'm curious, sort of a metal excersize if you will, of how best to tune this deck to combat zoo. Do you even stoop to using things like Linvala to shut off Lavamancers and take away the fetching of KoTR? What would you do?

I have been thinking of shifting my Spell Pierces to the main deck to free up SB space for a couple of Kitchen Finks and maybe another Path to Exile.

[Kuma]

If you were expecting to run into versions of Zoo over and over, what are the important part of the deck for you?
Obviously, you want the full 4 Rhox War Monks, but what else?
Kira? I'd think Kira is a card you'd want in the deck for a zoo matchup? How about Rafiq? Him I'm less sure about, is he worth a slot in that matchup?
What about your disruption slots? For zoo, specifically, would you rather be running Sprites,Meddling Mages, Spell Snares? Do you think additional Spell Pierces add value (would you side them in, if you had them in your board)?
What specifically doesn't add value in the Zoo matchup? Vendillion Clique? Sower of Temptation? Do you want Wonder? What about the Iona/Retainers combo, are you tempted to side that out?

Obviously, you don't want to cripple your deck against the rest of the meta for just one matchup. Something like Wall of Roots probably is pretty nice against Zoo, but may cost you in your other matchups or you just may not be able to find the space. But I'm curious, sort of a metal excersize if you will, of how best to tune this deck to combat zoo. Do you even stoop to using things like Linvala to shut off Lavamancers and take away the fetching of KoTR? What would you do?

Four Rhox War Monks is a good start. The lifegain is huge, and the ass of four means that Zoo will usually have to spend two cards to get rid of it.

Kira is decent in the Zoo matchup, but most of the time you want to either get a fast Iona or chain Rhox War Monks. I still board it in because it helps.

Spellstutter Sprite is better than Spell Snare and much better than Meddling Mage. I board out Meddling Mages. If the Zoo player wants to play the named card bad enough, he'll sling one of his innumerable burn/removal spells at it. The 2/2 body is pretty bad in combat too.

Spell Pierce isn't great against Zoo. I leave them in the board.

I side out some number of Force of Will and Meddling Mage for Paths to Exile and Kira. There aren't enough cards you want to spend two cards to get rid of, making Force of Will subpar. The extra removal is great at slowing Zoo down while you set up active Survival for the win.

Vendilion Clique is mediocre, but better than Meddling Mage and Force of Will. Sower of Temptation is awful. Wonder is great in those mid-game groud stalls, allowing you to swing over his board with flying Rhox War Monks.

I don't side out Loyal Retainers/Iona, because it's not that hard to set up, and will usually win you the game. White is almost always the correct color even if you are low on life since the Zoo player isn't likely to be holding burn by the time you can set up Iona. It's important to realize that sometimes the best play with Iona is not to set it up right away. Somtimes you're better off getting a Rhox War Monk or two to stabilize before throwing an Iona out there.

Overall, the Zoo matchup is difficult to play, but with practice is certainly favorable for us. I've never built a Bant Survival list that wasn't at least slightly favorable against Zoo.