No worries, bob is just my personal preference, I built my version to beat control while being decent against aggro. Extra shamans instead of bob is a very fair swap. I'd recommend 1 though. I've tutored for bob a lot when I have fauna out. I hate being blown out by a top deck removal spell after I activate fauna for squee/combo component. I usually tutor for bob first when playing vs control.
@ Emrakul + Anger. IMO its too many slots. Emrakul is not useful enough to be MD. SB seems like a fine place for it alongside faerie macabre.
@ Fleshbag- Agreed on it being pretty useless. It's only useful against progenitus and bant almost always has a spare dude.
Lack of discard is probably the most innovative thing for the above list, at least compared to what we have discussed in this thread. For many people discard spells are the sole reason to splash black. Lack of discard allows to up the creature count, which is always nice, but I wonder if you could go more into detail, why you decided to try this route?
Personally I would also run Fleshbag over Shredder, but since this has been covered I will move on. I understand vialing targeted removal can be big.
What are your main uses of SoLaS? Protecting creatures from sword effects? Recurring creatures from GY? I would rather expect to see Jitte in that slot so it would be nice to hear your comment about this as well.
And finally something I am most interested in - how well do Plagues perform for you? I have not seen a list including those for quite some time. Most of the time when I get to cast it against Goblins or Merfolk I feel that the result has been already settled regardless of plague. And even if the game is not yet over quite often a Path to Exile would actually help me more. Finally - you claim that Goblins and Merfolk are easy for you. Is plague a big factor in this?
To round everything off with my list... I'll start to go over the discard approach for my deck... I've been swapping in and out some of the removal I have in the maindeck for Cabal Therapys, Thoughtseizes and what not, even Duress. But it has always been meh considering I'm running Aether Vial and Survival effects. This is the theme of the deck, Survival + Vial results in great control of the board for almost no mana investments. I practically only use my mana to search for creatures and dump them into play with vials.Originally Posted by crow_mw
Of course, there are games where I don't get the Vial, and they tend to be a little slower, but still manageable.
Regarding Thoughtseize, I wouldn't like to lose 2 life to the discard, lose a bunch of life to fetches etc. Of course, we have the ability to gain life, but in the end, the life loss is just too massive. We just negate the whole purpose of gaining life with our deck when inserting life loss like that. We need the life to battle the faster decks out there.
I'd rather run 4 Swords to Plowshares than 4 Discard since it's still a creature heavy meta. And to be honest, since when has survival been any good in a combo oriented meta? Choose another deck if you're playing in a 50-60% combo meta.
The only time I've felt that I was lacking in the discard department are against decks without creatures (really?) but since most decks do have creatures, they're still maindeck material. And black do offer us something that no other color does if we're not looking at discard, and that's creatures with ETB effects that remove creatures. So... That's the main reason I run black in Survival. Not for the discard.
Tidehollow Scullers fill the role of removing cards in the hand, and they do it really efficiently (instant discard with vial), and considering they're artifacts aswell, you could dump one in the bin in the creature based matchups to pump your goyf for 2.
But I don't use my Scullers to remove cards that I already can handle with my hand or that my deck can handle. The main problem for my Survival list is handling Planeswalkers mostly. That's my number one threat to take, and after that I go for the most troublesome card in that situation. If, and only if I would add more discard, I would prefer Mesmeric Fiend over the other sorcery discard spells, to go with the theme and synergy of Aether Vial and Survival.
When we're discussing Stoneforge Mystic and the equipment package, and why I run Jitte in the board, are very simple actually. I want my equipment to ALWAYS be efficient, with every creature I might have on my side. Jitte doesn't do much when equipped to a Bird, which the others do. And I must say, a eqipped Birds of Paradise against goblins, even if it's SoLS, will most likely win you the game, where you wouldn't get through with a Jitte. I do include the Jitte in the Zoo matchups in game 2 and 3 of course... It's a no brainer. But in other matchups outside of Zoo and heavy aggro lists, it only comes up short.
Stoneforge Mystic also fills the roll of CA in the deck not packing blue. We need to find the most efficient and best CA cards at our disposal when playing green, white or black. We have BoB from black, but can we manage the massive health loss from him? Since I'm running a list with an average cmc of 2.XX, He will most likely hit me for 2 each time since I cannot warrent any slots for a Sensei. In White we have the mystic, which also works with the theme of the deck. We play survival, survival is about creatures. Stoneforge gets us equipment which makes our creatures better. My general idea with a deck is to stick to a theme and be damn good at it. I would never swap out Stoneforge in a survival deck...
The equipments of choice has already been discussed and elaborated. I do want to add that SoLS gives the must needed Protection against powerhouses like Knight of the Reliquary aswell as sword effects. It's invaluable in my opinion when facing decks like New Horizons, Zoo or any GW, GWR deck... The added life gain when breaking through and recurrsion is a massive plus in these match ups aswell, since you're required to deal with their creatures on a turn to turn basis and your life total is always important!
Dealing with Tribal decks haven't been any easier when running Engineered Plague. Against goblins, you only have to be able to handle the T1 Lackey, and after that it's a walk in the park. Plague totally wrecks these decks and since my version packs 6-7 creature removal maindeck (we could count Scullers here aswell), I have a pretty good chance of removing threats along the way until I land my Plague. The Plague also works well in other matchups... Consider Dredge and Thopter combo here. It's a versetile piece of SB tech that actually has more uses than you would ever know.
Last edited by Hawdes; 10-05-2010 at 10:25 AM.
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@ Hawdes
I like your list, and the lack of discard doesn't affect me as much as others. I too agree that the discard effects does help combo but are mostly dead during late game. However if you decide to play discard,in a more combo or control oriented metagame it is up to you. And at times I love cabal therapy, and at times I hated them.
I also agree that black offers much more removal and control than red or blue when it comes to creature removal. I have tried different splashes, and tutorable removal is at its best with black.
As for tidehollow scullers, I am trying it out now, and since my metagame is mostly aggro -aggro control with only 10-20 percent combo, I normally do not need these. Instead I am now trying wall of blossom in its place to help me more with zoo decks. Wall of blossom is better than confidant in someway vs zoo as it instantly gets you a card and can block which would have to eat some sort of removal.
Fauna shamans were good, but they really do suck against zoo as I find them often too slow. I will however still try them for the moment since wall of blossoms seems to buy me enough time vs zoo decks.
I am torn when it comes to Equipment, although I like the idea of having them, I often found them to be really slow, and never seemed to change my position in the game. Jitte used to win games, however its not much of an issue anymore since zoo can almost wipe out all the creatures you plan on equipping Jitte still helps vs aggro decks however in some way or another. Since this is mostly a control deck and not a beat down deck like GW survival, I would like to see another win condition aside from having survival and equipment may be the key. Natural order used to fancy me, however everyone seems to run perish at their sideboard. Is there any other way we can win aside from having NO, equipment or survival?
I will try this set up for now, and will run a list like yours hawdes, however I will run wall of blossom for the sculler. I will try out both equipment as soLS acts as genesis and Sofi acts as removal protection and another draw. I will ponder on fauna shamans effectiveness..
@ sideboard,
I am actually surprised to see that you do not have much graveyard hate on your list, specially that vengvine survival decks seems to be popping out of nowhere.
I would suggest you to try ghostly prisons in the sideboard maybe in E. plagues place. It helps vs any tribal decks that attacks. It helps vs zoo a lot, It stops vengvine on its tracks and it stops dredge. Although Plague would kill goblins as prisons would only slow them down.
The thing with VV Survival lists are that since I run a list with 4 Swords to Plowshares aided by 3 tutroable spotremoval aswell as 3 Scullers, It's enough to run 2 Macabres and Jitte in the board. If at some point the VV's hit the board, they'll more than likely eat a removal or an active jitte, or they won't even hit play due to Macabre removal.
We must think of Sculler as a removal card that attacks the hand instead of the game state on the play area. It's a cmc 2 card that can remove creatures aswell. Only difference is that it attacks the hand and can deal damage by it's own.
Would you play Thoughtseize if it said "Remove target nonland card from opponents hand and deal 2 damage" for a price of 1B or WB? I sure would. It's better than a Castigate.
And when we open up the possibility for it to be at instant speed with vial, you could put it into play in their draw step, which can be pretty nasty.
The Sculler isn't simply a "I battle combo decks", It can surely enough battle the various aggro/aggro-control decks aswell if you know what to rip from their hand. You just need to use your head, do the math and see if you can slow them down enough to get ahead. It's better that they hit your Sculler with a bolt/plow or whatever than hitting your goyf or your head.
The purpose of running Sculler would be a way for the deck to get ahead slightly, cripple their plays and hopefully force them to blow up the Sculler if they need the card that badly. You would probably get a creature from their hand or a key spell/removal. All in all, that's a great trade, he will always be a great creature.
If I were to go the route with more discard, I would drop the survival shell entirely for a Rock shell with Bob. Survival just doesn't like non-creature spells. As I said before, if your local meta is filled with Combo, choose a different deck... Against control survival already has the recurring cards coming. They cannot counter forever.
I'd rather have 3-4 Plagues in the board against some of the popular Tribal matchups, as I explained before, Plagues are pretty versitile as a Sideboard card against many decks.
I'm not that fond of random Enchantments in my sideboard that I have no way of finding except for simple draw step. So Ghostly prison is a no go for me. I hardly ever feel that the creature matchups come down to how many creatures that are able to attack. It's more likely a matter of power level ratio between my creatures and theirs. Since we're running Survival we opt for more utility than power, which leaves us with weaker creatures but with great utility abilities. Not exactly like VV is a great utility creature, it's just a dumb beater.
But since I run Survival with Vial aid, I want the ETB effects aswell as I want the utility it offers. The only raw power in my list are the Goyfs which has the flesh to battle some of the creatures in the game, but not all. Therefore I run a pretty heavy removal package which tend to work pretty well if they're aimed right.
IMO, there are infinite ways to approach/build survival. Try em all out and stick with what you like for your meta. However I see that you are making most of your card choices based on your testing against zoo. I advise testing against other decks too, like countertop and you'll slowly realize that walls don't cut it unfortunately. Bob, fauna, thoughtseize are all around good cards that are lacklustre against zoo but extremely needed against other MUs where you have no chance without them. Cheers, Ivan.
@ivanpei
Yes I do test against zoo as a priority. If the deck has a decent match up, I move on to merfolk, then others after. Metagame is filled with zoo, hence it becoming my priority. I do not see much control decks in our meta hence I shrug it off. Ill be testing scullers in the side, instead of main deck.. or maybe even replace them with real discard. Equipment will be tested however I am not a fan of it as it is often too slow.
@Hawdes
Thank you for in depth explanation. I actually feel convinced to try testing a list without discard spells - I don't think I built a survival deck without them ever since I added black to my RGSA. By the way - when I was comparing my built to yours I realized you run 61 cards. Is that intentional?
As for the VV comment - I don't think you can hit Vengies with Sculler, even if you vial it in. If you remove them with spot removal creatures and/or Jitte counters, they will just come back next turn. Only swords and Macabres can stop them. Those are however efficient at that. I actually run single macabre MD (for reference if I made a list similar to your it would be -1 solas +1 jitte, -1 bone shredder +1 fleshbag marauder, -1 BGH +1 macabre, -1 Sculler (down to 60 cards) . Only 2 scullers suck but no room for them, unless I want to go down to 3 shamans. I would also have at least 4 thoughtseizes in SB).
I am still waiting for on color RWM or other good lifegain creature. I actually sort of like Perimeter Captain, but it sucks too much against non-aggro decks and isn't good enough as a sideboard option. But if someone, like f|i[p], is only concerned about zoo and merfolk, think for a moment about this card.
The 61 card mark is in fact intentional. I've always felt that 61 cards lets me play enough land/non-land cards which result in a good ratio. Call me superstitious but all Rock/Survival decks I've played seem to run better with 61 cards than with 60...
It's only a matter of taste actually. I would love to run all three Equipment maindeck, but there are simply no room, and running three Scullers seems to be the right number.
A early version of my list also ran red, with a removal suit of Shredders, Stingscourgers, Shriekmaw, BGH/Kavu and Marauder, but in the end the red splash was cut for a more stable mana base (although I never had mana problems except for running into 2 or more wastelands). This resulted in me going down to only Shredder, Shriekmaw and BGH, Fleshbag Marauder ain't enough power sauce to make the cut to be honest.
When I battle Progenitus and NO type decks, I rely on Teegs in board, my Scullers and removal to hold their green creature count down.
Dealing with VV's isn't actually that hard. Swords to Plowshares removes them from the game, the rest of the spells stall them from ever hitting the dome. I've also been using Squee as a chump blocker against VV's that I for the moment can't remove. Remember. VV's without Wonder can be blocked easily by whatever creature you have, and since Squee returns from your GY every upkeep, he serves great as a blocker if you already have some business on your hand and can sacrifice some of your tutor power.
He can efficiently give you a couple of turns to seal the deal.
The best creature that fills almost the same role of RWM today is Vampire Nighthawk, but his body isn't that great.
@crow_mw
Perimeter captain is interesting, however in my initial testing,my list seems to be doing well against zoo and merfolk already. I will have to test some more against other various decks.( I reduced fauna shamans to 2, added wall of blossoms, removed the equipment package and added 3 cabal therapys). I'm still not sure about tide hollow sculler, I still have to test him some more. He was good so far.I am still tweaking the list for my own taste and will post it when I find that it is workable enough. Tao had a list a few pages back that does well vs aggro decks.And Im trying to mix and match lists till I find a workable mash up.
Wall of blossoms were good against aggro decks, and aggro control. However it kinda sucked against slower decks as it couldn't really put pressure. However the wall always replaces itself as soon as it comes to play.I like its draw effect however . Have to test this some more.
at the 61 card list, I too run 61 cards and I never looked back to 60. Its a matter of preference I guess.
I always found fauna shamans slow and I don't plan of putting them down early on as they are too vulnerable. Hence I lowered them to 2.
I prefer to have Fauna Shaman as a 4 of since the more you have in play, the more effective they are (without survival). The thing about Shaman is that they have a decent body and can generate you the threat/answer you're looking for in a short period of time. Of course Zoo can be a very troubling matchup, however, I feel that Big Zoo is a little easier to deal since it's geared towards early/mid game wins rather than just early beats. T1 Nactl T2 Pridemage is a handful for any deck but now Zoo opens up a lot with T1 Heirarch often times.
I'm still torn between having Emrakul+Anger combo. When it comes out, it just downright rapes people, ignores what they have on Battlefield, and turns the tide immediately. Emrakul helps you shuffle things like Bone Shredder and Pridemage back into your deck as long as you have a discard outlet. If you play anger and then sacrifice it to cabal, you all get haste. Did I mention that blue hates haste?
@ Hawdes - Do you feel like you have enough green sources? Survival is very G dependent and I'm curious to whether you feel like you would want to have more green producing lands. I would include Tidehollow, but his off color casting is too difficult imo.
I would like to test out stoneforge and see how good she is. I think it's interesting to have her as a 1 of.
Survival of the Fittest - 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.
I have never experience problems with mana in my list. I only have 4 non-green producing lands in my deck. That's why I don't run Wasteland since I opt to have as much G producing lands that I can have. I did in fact try Wastelands out and I instantly felt that I lost too many green scources, in the end they crippled me more than my opponent.
You can access W and B pretty easily with the fetches you have, I only go for Scrubland in rare cases where I have a hand consisting of heavy duty black removal and Tidehollows, to ensure that I can cast everything on T2 and T3. I used to run 5 Basic forests aswell to make my game better against Moon effects and opposing wastelands (Survival hates to get their lands removed). This is why I only have Horizon Canopy in testing now. It might go back to basic forests as it was before. Resulting in me having 7 Basic lands to play with in the battle against Wasteland locks or what not.
6 Fetches and 6 Duals (2 of each) works perfect, along side with 4 BoP. The lands that don't produce G are 1 Plains, 1 Swamp and 2 Scrubs. The rest hands me Green, and together with Vials in play, you have enough mana to tutor and play everything you would want to. It works without Vials aswell, but then you have to set your mind on a different game and often leads to head-aching decisions. I've played games where I've only got three green sources at my service, and it's not that much a problem.
You just need to prioritize and figure out what plays are the best in that given situation. Do you have to destroy that Counterbalance this turn? Do you have to remove his attacker or could you take 5 damage without it losing you the game? It's not easy to pilot Survival, you're always required to have your head straight and know when to do what. End it quickly if you can and don't Shinnanigan too much when you have a survival online it can cost you games (I know).
If you still consider Tidehollow too hard to cast, then I would play Mesmeric Fiend instead of Tidehollow Sculler, it's 1 P/T less but easier to cast. But he doesn't fuel your Gouf as good or battle opposing creatures as well, equipped with any sword, he simply trades with Nacatl's instead of killing them and live. He's worse than Sculler but easier on the mana base.
My recommendation is to play Tidehollow Sculler since he's better in every way and synergieses more with the deck considering him being artifact aswell for Goyf.
Regarding the Emrakul/Anger shinnanigas you should run that or Iona/Retainers. Not both. Since it will only delute your draws and make your deck mulligan even more. Retainers also works good with Gaddock post board since he's legendary.
We must take into account that the Emrakul/Anger route takes more mana to get going and that it's harder to set up since you need all the triggers to resolve in a manner so that you can have Anger in the yard after Emrakul's shuffle effect resolves.
But of course, if you get it through, it's devastating. I've never felt that I needed it. I run my Survival deck more like a control deck and therefore like the Iona/Retainers route more.
Keep in mind you need Retainers regardless of whether you're doing Iona or Emrakul/Anger. There are plently of times where I've just sided out Anger but kept Emrakul around because her shuffle effect is just so useful. You can't lose to Painter's Servant, you can infinitely recur Spore Frog against aggro decks for 4 green mana, and every other silver bullet can come back again as well.
I also prefer Mesmeric Fiend to Tidehollow Sculler. I don't play Goyf, and every land I play is either green or Wasteland, so the ease-of-cast is important.
My current list is as such...similar to Chapins, but with some tweaks.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
2 Taiga
2 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
4 AEther Vial
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Squee
1 Iona
1 Emrakul
1 Anger
1 Loyal Retainers
2 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Bone Shredder
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Wall of Roots
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spore Frog
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Harmonic Sliver
SB:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Krosan Grip
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Wickerbough Elder (may be underperforming)
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Goblin Pyromancer
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Kitchen Finks (may be underperforming)
1 Peacekeeper
1 Vexing Shusher
Last edited by Sintheros; 10-08-2010 at 07:21 AM.
@ mana base
I'm not sure how Hawdes does well with having only 6 fetch lands 6 duals with scrublands.Maybe he's a decent shuffler. I run 8 fetches and still feel I could get screwed running BW creature.
@tidehollow sculler
I too agree with Sintheros that tidehollow sculler is off color, and I would like to run as much green land as possible. I wouldn't like to drop a 2nd turn scrubland, as it might open me up to mana screw later on (if I don't draw a land or don't have birds). I am not even sure if being a 2/2 body is worth being off color, as a 2/2 body might only help in a few situations where as having scrublands or an off color land might get you screwed or cost you the game. So I will think about mesmeric fiend.
@ emrakul
I have tested emrakul and iona at a tournament and all I can say is that casting emrakul is really slow. Specially if you are quite defensive.Having an extra creature in hand just to be able to get emrakul into play is quite hard to achieve, and giving him haste would require another creature. I find that there are only a few situations that emrakul would be better than Iona. I also hated the fact that I opened with more dead cards. There was a game in the tournament where I had both emrakul and Iona in my opening. Maybe you could leave either one or the other in the sb, so you can switch as needed against certain decks.
@ magus of the moon,How is it performing and what deck does it do good against? it seems like it would scew you as well. Ofcourse I am sure you'll drop him as soon as you have your basics ready. But I am wondering on what decks does it screw.
@ Flip. Magus screws Landstill and 43 Lands big time. It's also good randomly when people aren't expecting it but I rarely search for it unless it's those to matchups or if my opponent just so happens to have only nonbasic lands out.
I'm going to be testing the list without anger. I took anger out a while ago and I'm going to try to take it out again. What's everyone's thought on wall of roots? From testing, it's been an amazing card.
Survival of the Fittest - 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.
The thing about Anger is that its so much less important than Emrakul. There have been plenty of times where I needed Emrakul to win, but I never got her into play. Her shuffle effect is that good. You can just use her to recur everything, and then plop Iona in at some point.
I don't really know why I feel that 6/6 is enough, but it is. I can't say that I have a grandmaster title in shuffling. It just works out great when I'm playing. You either get a BoP or get a Vial, which both helps you play your cards. But I'm not here to convince or persuade you into running cards you don't feel comfortable with. It's ones decision to make whether or not a card warrents slots in ones deck.
I might even go back to running 7 basics as I don't want to flip coins anymore against decks running wasteland. But I still love my mana base and I wouldn't add or retract any fetches/duals. It feels stable enough.
One important note are that all fetches I play can search all lands in my deck, atleast my duals. The only trouble that could occur is when I have a Windswept Heath and I really need the basic Swamp, but other than that, it works like a charm.
with SoM in, I'm sure affinity is about to blow up. Anyone have any suggestions to SideBoard for SotF GBW build against affinity??
Peacekeeper, Kataki, War's Wage. That's about it I think. Unless you want to go to spells. Then there's a lot of nice stuff.
Unless you want to go and hurt yourself by using Serenity or something bad as Seeds of Innocence. You could just as well use Ghostly Prison. If you feel that you need a more versetile card.
I would play Kataki if I were facing a lot of Affinity.
This guy?
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
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