Survival of the Fittest

[Meekrab]

Banning a card to cripple this deck would be stupid.

Off topic but related, I'd love to see a card printed with the rules text "Players can't discard cards."

[Deadweight]

My point is every single color has an answer or multiple answers. Second the deck doesn't win on the play turn one like storm can. Survival doesn't win on the spot, it requires discard and it (eventually) wins with green creatures (or fringe slow stuff like Retainers / Iona or Ooze). It won't be banned.

The odds that a Storm player winning on the play turn one and the opponent not having any disruption spell is so small, more so games 2-3. Survival decks can't be easily hated out and they are more resilient to hate than Storm especially with the absence of MT.

Needing a creature to discard is a not a drawback since the decks basically plays 20+ creatures. The drawback, if you can call it that is having to pay for its activation cost and 4 copies of -producing Elves help in this department.

Turn 1: Forest, Hierarch
Turn 2: Forest, Cast Survival, discard Vengevine for Vengevine.
Turn 3: Forest, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Rootwalla, discard Rootwalla for Rootwalla (Vengevine triggers). Attack for 16+.

If think that's degenerate enough to warrant banning of either card.

[conboy31]

In that scenario, killing noble sets them back a turn. If they don't have a V V to start the initial chain, it sets them back half a turn. If survival doesn't resolve, they are hardcasting V V on turn 3. Not to mention you happen to hit all three land drops, plus they are basics so you can't be wasted? Live the dream I guess.

WTH is the opponent doing during those 3 turns?

[Mark Sun]

I think it's pretty pathetic how quickly people are having these knee-jerk reactions (actually, that is the definition of a knee-jerk reaction, but still). It's on the same level of freakout as people felt when Reanimator was really popular. But in the waning months before Mystical Tutor was banned, the format was adapting quite well to it, demonstrated by the most recent 5K leading up to the banning.

Is Vengevine Survival incredibly powerful? Obviously. But the hands are sometimes inconsistent, and this deck can be stopped. It just takes tweaking a deck to fight against this matchup, which can mean a number of things, a lot of which have already been discussed in this thread. Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, MD Artifact/Enchantment destruction, and even lesser used cards like Suppresion Field and Ghostly Prison effects. Ghostly Prison effects are actually somewhat effective pre-board, as I played that matchup yesterday at a small tournament. The deck itself (minus the versions with Squee) has no actual source of pure card advantage, so it takes careful play and understanding of how the deck functions to successfully beat it. Also, even having an active Relic/Crypt or Macabre in your hand is a speed bump, it may not seem effective on paper but it helps every little bit. In my opinion, it will not take a long time for the format to adjust.

And to the Enchantress vs. Vengevine Survival matchup, I would say Enchantress is pretty favored to win. I don't know how the mainstream lists are doing, but our team build has 4 Elephant Grass, 2-3 Runed Halo, 2 Moat, and of course 3 Solitary Confinement. I'd be pretty surprised to see a situation where a mana light Vengevine Survival build (I've been comboing out as early as t3 with a 1 Hierarch, and that's only 3-4 mana available) could fight through even one Elephant Grass with a Runed Halo on Vengevine. Not to mention the Enchantress player can protect his enchantments with Sterling Grove and Karmic Justice, both of which nullifies the Tryogon Predator / Krosan Grip plan. Add in the Replenishes and I just don't see it.

[Rune]

Couldn't they just play, like, any blue counterspell ever? SotF turns on all of blue's counterspells by being the only must-counter target in the deck. No hate necessary, just counter Survival and you're facing down a janky pile of GW creatures with all on-board combat tricks.

This is not correct. The deck plays a ton of must-counter spells that can't just be ignored. The deck basically plays 8 Survival engines in addition to some of the best creatures. If Mom is on the table and your opponent tries to resolve Fauna Shaman, will you still save your Spell Snare for the SotF he might very well have in hand? The deck is designed to keep throwing threat after threat at the opponent until he runs out of answers, at which point you take over the game. A good example of how GW Survival can easily grind down control can be seen in the round8 feature match (I think) of the 5k.

I think you need to re-read Vengevine's oracle text. I don't personally like gravehate against Vengevival, but Relic and Crypt are 100% effective unless you've got Stifle, or more Vengevines in your deck, I suppose. The ones already in the 'yard are gone.

My bad. Someone did this against me and, without looking up the ruling, I just automatically assumed it would work. I still don't think they are very good hate cards, though, since you can just answer it by tutoring for Pridemage or you can just ignore it and turn every creature into Goyf/KotR.

And... Dredge, Lands, Reanimator, any combo deck with SnT or FoW that doesn't just drop Emrakul, or any deck with Pithing Needle. Archetype hosers like Peacekeeper (under CB@1) or Extirpate (backed by a player who doesn't magically expect a scoop) are pretty brutal too. Without Survival, it's a strictly worse Zoo deck. Still, somehow attacking a Vengevival deck's grave seems like attacking a Storm deck's Tendrils. How about stopping the Survival just like you would an Infernal Tutor or B. Wish instead? Correct play is tech.

Dredge isn't very hard. You lose g1 and then you get to bring in a ton of cards, often including an Enlightened Tutor package they can't deal with. Lands.dec scoops to maindeck Iona and there are also too many basics in the deck for it to deal with. After sb they also have to deal with hate that can be tutored for in a lot of ways (Macabre, Crypt etc.). What would Reanimator do? Iona gets Karakas'd and Sphinx gets plowed (you have 7-8 StP effects after sb). The only viable option is Inkwell, but it's not fast enough in a race.

Not to pick on you guy, but let's be serious... a GW deck won't/ can't dominate an eternal format. +1 for the "this deck will be irrelevant when the format adjusts" crowd.

I know, it's also shocking to me that a non-blue deck would ever be the best deck of the format, but I still think it is (alongside UGx Sur). You might think your FoWs can keep it in check, but in reality, they can't. The GW build basically has good game against the whole format, if you exclude storm. The most competitive version of the deck plays some very expensive cards, though, and I suspect that might keep it from really catching on. That, and the fact that people continue to underrate it and mistake it for GW jank.

[nedleeds]

The odds that a Storm player winning on the play turn one and the opponent not having any disruption spell is so small, more so games 2-3. Survival decks can't be easily hated out and they are more resilient to hate than Storm especially with the absence of MT.

Needing a creature to discard is a not a drawback since the decks basically plays 20+ creatures. The drawback, if you can call it that is having to pay for its activation cost and 4 copies of -producing Elves help in this department.

Turn 1: Forest, Hierarch
Turn 2: Forest, Cast Survival, discard Vengevine for Vengevine.
Turn 3: Forest, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Rootwalla, discard Rootwalla for Rootwalla (Vengevine triggers). Attack for 16+.

If think that's degenerate enough to warrant banning of either card.

Choose one.

1) counter the survival

2) kill an 0/1 green creature

3) destroy an enchantment

4) combo off yourself (belcher, storm, reanimate)

if game 2 or 3

5) play arbiter, canonist, trinisphere, pithing needle, suppression field, ghostly prison, propaganda, extirpate

I agree it's a strong play but there are tons of strong plays.

[Julian23]

Turn 1: Forest, Hierarch
Turn 2: Forest, Cast Survival, discard Vengevine for Vengevine.
Turn 3: Forest, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Rootwalla, discard Rootwalla for Rootwalla (Vengevine triggers). Attack for 16+.

If think that's degenerate enough to warrant banning of either card.

Turn 1: Land, Nomads-en-Kor
Turn 2: Land, Cephalid Illusionist, kill you

Like those little stupid playing-in-wonderland combos might actually warrant a baning. WAY to fragile. Plus, if your opponent doesn't have any way of interaction with you until turn 3, chances are he deserves being Vengevine-rapped.

[Deadweight]

WTH is the opponent doing during those 3 turns?

Regardless, Survival can find answers and still win a few turns later. It's not like the deck has no answers/counters on its own. There's just too much to deal with on top of Survival, unanswered NO+Progenitus will smash you in the face, if not discard/madness critters+Vengevine or Jitte will get there.

Banning Survival is only fair and more healthy for the format.

[conboy31]

Regardless, Survival can find answers and still win a few turns later.

I agree, but now the deck is not making these majestic turn 3 kills. Instead, interactions are occuring and the games are lasting until turn 5 and later.

Banning survival is a stupid idea. Axing V V would pacify the people who are crying while still allowing the survival strategy to live.

However, at the moment, neither should be banned.

[Sharpened]

Turn 1: Forest, Hierarch
Turn 2: Forest, Cast Survival, discard Vengevine for Vengevine.
Turn 3: Forest, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Vengevine, discard Vengevine for Rootwalla, discard Rootwalla for Rootwalla (Vengevine triggers). Attack for 16+.

So your complaining about an ideal draw that doesn't even kill by the third turn? And you think that's reasonable? You do realize that this is Legacy, right? In the finals of a legacy tournament this weekend, I lost before taking my first turn.

Survival probably needs close monitoring, but arguments with examples like that make the card seem more then fair. Your not exactly helping your point with them.

[Deadweight]

Necrotic Ooze + Phyrexian Devourer and Triskelion in the GY = insta-win

edit:

Necrotic Ooze + Gigantomancer = attack you for 21-28 dmg

[4eak]

For serious, Vengevine Survival is the best.

I think Vengevine Survival variants are stronger than a lot of people suspect (I don't mean to hype it), but I'm not on the ban-train. I don't think we've seen the metagame even attempt to answer it in full force.



peace,
4eak

[Kuma]

I am so sick and tired of people complaining about how stagnant and boring the format is, while calling for bannings when a new great deck appears so the format can go back to what it was. This is why we can't have nice things.

Vengevine Survival can easily be handled with the cards we have available. The deck sucks without Survival. Wild Mongrels, Basking Rootwallas, and Vengevines aren't going to get it done on their own very often. Fauna Shaman? Don't make me laugh. It's incredibly slow and vulnerable to creature removal, graveyard removal, and Pithing Needle. Natural Order out of the board? Since when has that been impossible to deal with?

Why are people having such a hard time dealing with this deck? There are numerous ways to attack Survival, and the deck is pathetically bad without it. Banning Survival would be a horrible mistake. We don't need Wizards regulating the format every time it shifts.

Run more Spell Snare and graveyard hate already.

[Dark Ritual]

Regardless, Survival can find answers and still win a few turns later. It's not like the deck has no answers/counters on its own. There's just too much to deal with on top of Survival, unanswered NO+Progenitus will smash you in the face, if not discard/madness critters+Vengevine or Jitte will get there.

Banning Survival is only fair and more healthy for the format.

The format is not overly dominated by VV survival. People still continue to play zoo, TES, and control decks in a field that isn't even overly dominated by survival decks. The card isn't warping the format in any way. And how does the VV deck find answers? It relies heavily on having a survival in its hand at the start of the game because the survival decks abusing the VV combo LACK BRAINSTORM or any sort of card draw/manipulation. That's why one survival getting countered can mean GG's. As for them hardcasting vengevine? This is legacy. You know where a lone 4/3 haste gets you? Almost nowhere even with one exalted trigger the creature can still get blocked by terravore, KotR, tarmogoyf, or hell even a blocking kird ape plus a bolt kills a vengevine.

Another excellent hate card against VV survival is dueling grounds. 1GW, enchantment, only one creature can attack per turn and only one creature can block per turn. Seems like a gamewinning card if it resolves against VV survival and last I heard the colors green and white are played in a lot of decks so yeah. And the enchantress MU against the survival deck is probably absurdly in enchantress's favor because elephant grass makes the VV player cry and once the engine gets rolling there is no way for the survival deck to stop it. Seriously, the VV survival deck is beatable.

[troopatroop]

I think the power level of the deck is being understated. It's clearly very good, winning much more than any other at the moment. Sure there is still diversity in Legacy, but I don't think other decks really compare to Vengevine Survival. I also agree that it isn't being properly hated. Play Pithing Needle! I don't mind new decks, but this one is too good imo.

[Rune]

Vengevine Survival can easily be handled with the cards we have available. The deck sucks without Survival. Wild Mongrels, Basking Rootwallas, and Vengevines aren't going to get it done on their own very often. Fauna Shaman? Don't make me laugh. It's incredibly slow and vulnerable

I wasn't trying to argue that the Shaman is broken. It was a response to the "just play Spell Snares and you beat Survival" argument. Any player with half a brain will not run his Survival into Spell Snare, Counterspell or Daze when he can just play less powerful cards that also need an immediate answer, like Fauna Shaman.

[ykpon]

Wild Mongrels, Basking Rootwallas, and Vengevines aren't going to get it done on their own very often

How about KotR, Tarmo and two sets of exalted creatures then?
UG madness isn't a deck which makes people think about banning Survival as it's really quite easy to beat. GWx versions are. That's not a straight combo deck you can knock off using some gravehate or countermagic, it's more like GW Maverick (which is already strong enough with all its fatties and mana denial) which is able to kill you in one shot if you suddenly don't get an answer.

[SlopeeJ]

yea everyone should run dueling grounds to beat survival...... Some of you are living on fantasy island and drinking the koolaid. Yea we know there are answers, that still doesn't mean the card/combo isn't broken. We have Force of will, so there is an answer to everything in legacy

[TheBirdMan]

The only degenerate card in Vengevine is if they ran LED which ive seen LED LED discard double arrogant wurm and vengevine. Obviously this is nuts but happened in a test game. The only reason this deck could go nuts is if you have no disruption which storm already does that faster.
I highly doubt this warrents a banning and doubt it will be they since they actually debated banning flash which was the most format warping absurdness since necropotence.

[GGoober]

If Survival gets banned within the next month, I probably will have lost hope in the DCI. Mystical Tutor was probably bannable but the decision was still very IMMATURE. The reasons to ban MTutor at the time was due to the proliferation of decks that ran MTutors that were Top8'ing in big events (ANT, Reanimator). Regardless, the time-span to call a ban was not long enough to warrant it IMO. None of these new ban-worthy cards e.g. Survival, MTutor needs an immediately banning like Flash.

So if Survival gets banned within a month or within a similar time-frame, all I can say is that the DCI does not know how to ban cards, nor watch the adaption of the meta towards a problematic deck. In standard people once thought Jund was king, then the format adpated against it, making Spreading Seas, Goblin Ruinblaster viable, but due to the evolution of the meta, Jund evolved as well, and this is what keeps format healthy: giving the format time for it to evolve naturally.

Survival has been legal in the format for as long as we thing, it got the new tools of Retainer/Iona combo, the format evolved by either answering the combo or diversifying removals against Iona. That was a sign of healthy evolution. Recent successes (quite a big one) with Vengevival has shown that the deck is capable of slitting throats fast and punish decks that were not prepared. Ban-worthy? Vengevine or survival? I'd say none. For the longest time, people were bitching that Iona must be banned in the format, but even despite games still lost to Iona, the format itself is healthy.

ANT/Reanimator were popular when MTutor was around, but MTutor had always been around, ANT could always potentially put out results, but the DCI banned MTutor based on a few recent big tournaments, probably persuasion from more influential Legacy people instead of letting the format evolve to adapt. The fall of CBTop and Landstill and other viable decks in the Top8 is exactly shaped by the nature of the meta. Just because there are a ton of Vengevival players doesn't mean that the deck is good (compare it against Flash Hulk and you can tell me which is undisputedly good).

As far as I'm concerned, I think UG Vengevival's a good deck, but only if opponents do not sufficiently prepare against it. I see it as the new age Dredge. If you don't prepare well, you get a high chance of getting blown away. Packing 3 GY hate against Dredge wasn't enough when the deck was a dominating force in the meta, but once Dredge caught on, people were running up to 5-8 slots against it, and it died. Vengevival's the same deal. If your deck has only 4 answers and SB only 4 answers to it, don't expect to beat it.

The deck can be hated out easily, but one of the toughest things to do in the format is to anticipate a meta, and create a strong MD/SB plan without having too many redundant cards. Vengevival makes it a little tough on this decision because you have to hate out both Enchantment and GY. However this doesn't mean that the deck is good, a careful re-examination of MD/SB choices would need to be made if you're anticipating this to be a relevant deck in the meta.

And god is the deck awful when it doesn't draw Survivals. Proponent proclaiming: "You still get Vengevine + Mongrel +Basking turn 2 win" but yeah, draw that hand without Survival all the time? I doubt it. Also, my Jank Welder Survival beats Vengevival, as far as I'm concerned with the matchup. It's scary when they chain Vengevines but if you know the deck, and you have just about the same fundamental turn or a way to delay their fundamental turn, Vengevival becomes very fragile, because it is a aggro Survival deck, not a toolbox so if you can stall them off with a successful method, you'll win because they don't have a toolbox to dig themselves out of it.

My $0.02