Survival / Vengevine Poll

[dontbiteitholmes]

Okay, let me first say that I don't agree with banning anything this go round (IE when the ban/unban announcement is scheduled to come out), that's not what this is about. It seems there is a pretty wide spread of what people here want as far as banning/not banning Survival or Vengevine and some people have gone so far as to email WoTC implying that most of the community is in favor of some kind of banning at this point. So this is the poll to determine where people stand on this issue.

I'd like to add that this is not the place to complain about ban/don't ban Survival since there is already more or less a thread where that is going on. If you feel like leaving a short comment on why you feel one way or another go ahead, but debating the same thing in 2 threads is counterproductive unless a mod wants to close the other thread and direct discussion here.

That said I just want to say one thing before anyone votes. Since Legacy began there have been several times where a single card or a single deck type appeared to be warping the format too much be it Survival the first couple years, or Lackey after that, or Tarmogoyf after that, or more recently Merfolk decks. Here we are around 2 months into the domination of Survival + Vengevine. We've been here before as a format, it took some time but eventually we overcame (except for Flash which was a glitch and doesn't count). Cards that once were called too strong by many were toppled. With that in mind...
1: If WoTC bans a card it will be many years at least before it will be considered for unbanning.
2: Survival existed as a deck before Vine and no one was calling for a banning, see this poll from several months ago for example http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/p...lts&pollid=325
3: The format in general is slow to adapt and there is no Legacy GP until May.

With all this is mind my recommendation to WoTC would be to wait 4-6 months and see where the format is before considering a ban. If Vengevine + Survival still is a problem at that time WoTC still has time to ban it before the GP (since having a healthy GP format seems to be an important priority for them and I can't argue that strategy) and if not we all learn to adapt and move on. Enough about that though, please vote. I would also be in favor of banning Vine over Survival if the time came since Survival existed as a fair deck prior to Vine and Survival hadn't been a tier 1 deck since the printing of Pithing Needle until recently.

[Mana Drain]

Survival was a great engine and archtype that filed a niche no other card could fill in a fair, but good/consistent deck. This was before Vengevine.

Now Survival is "If I untap with this in play, I will probably win the game unless you Tendrils me for 20 on your next turn."

I don't want to see Survival banned, as it's such a unique and powerful card that is not overpowered without Vengevine. But I don't really enjoy the staleness of the metagame right now, and I believe that to be an effect of VV Survival. And I REALLY don't like people posting threads and polls every-other day on the subject of Survival. VV Survival is not impossible to stop if you put it into consideration of MD space and sideboard slots, but it is annoying to have certain decks "pushed" out of the format due to one decks presence. Up until about 3-4 months ago, I thought the format was in great health, and a diverse array of playable strategies. Now it's kinda like "VV Sur vs. Merfolk vs. Tendrils vs. Hate-deck for the aforementioned".

So I voted "Ban Vengevine".

[dontbiteitholmes]

Survival was a great engine and archtype that filed a niche no other card could fill in a fair, but good/consistent deck. This was before Vengevine.

Now Survival is "If I untap with this in play, I will probably win the game unless you Tendrils me for 20 on your next turn."

I don't want to see Survival banned, as it's such a unique and powerful card that is not overpowered without Vengevine. But I don't really enjoy the staleness of the metagame right now, and I believe that to be an effect of VV Survival. And I REALLY don't like people posting threads and polls every-other day on the subject of Survival. VV Survival is not impossible to stop if you put it into consideration of MD space and sideboard slots, but it is annoying to have certain decks "pushed" out of the format due to one decks presence. Up until about 3-4 months ago, I thought the format was in great health, and a diverse array of playable strategies. Now it's kinda like "VV Sur vs. Merfolk vs. Tendrils vs. Hate-deck for the aforementioned".

So I voted "Ban Vengevine".

For the record I don't see any other poll on this on the site, I just wanted to see where everyone stood and a poll does that better than trying to get a feel by reading everyones posts in the other thread since many people have a valid opinion but would rather work on decks to conquer the metagame than be vocal about something that really is irrelevant to their game. In the end debating ban/unban doesn't do much for any individual player so the only opinions you get out of discussion are the people passionate about having it one way or the other.

[Jodahae]

I voted for waiting 4 to 6 months before any action is taken. Everyone should have time to adjust by then and if im wrong well Im not above admitting that its Vengevine that makes the redundancy/consistency of the deck over the top.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Unban stuff. Give me back my Mystical Tutors and I'll show those Survival players what's what.

[whiteshepherdman]

Unban stuff. Give me back my Mystical Tutors and I'll show those Survival players what's what.

serious i wish i could play my set of tutors again, they just shouldn't have unbanned entomb since it's just a vampiric tutor masked by putting it into the graveyard. All these bans and unbans are making things wack for reals

[Cthuloo]

I agree with the OP that the best thing to do now is wait. I hope no action will be taken in December, leaving some time for the format to adjust (which legacy is very slow to). If the deck keeps storming the metagame in March, then I definitely hope they would ban Vengevine... or Rootwalla. I'll be ok with Rootwalla.

[lordofthepit]

No option for wait until December 20?

[Cthuloo]

No option for wait until December 20?

Well, the format isn't in such a bad shape to require emergency bannings before the usual christmas announcment, so I guess that "Ban XxX NOW" means in fact ban it in December.

[Piceli89]

People still believe that they'll ban the cash creature from their cash Boosters?

Just adapt to the format: ignore Vengevine. Smash them in a face with Tendrils or 2/2 Zombies. Format is based on playing 200 creatures in a row? Combo them out.

[Nidd]

Looks like most people are decent players with a sane mind.

[dontbiteitholmes]

No option for wait until December 20?

Now = next banned list announcement obviously. The thought behind that was they would be more or less making that decision now since there aren't many events between now and when they would need to decide by.

Also "If format's still broken" Implies that I think the format is broken now which I don't really but everyone knows what I meant.

[Justin]

I'm not in favor of banning either card, but if one had to be banned, it should be Vengevine, not Surival. As was pointed out, Survival has existed for a long time in Legacy and was never considered broken until Vengevival decks came out. Also, if they do ban Vengevine, I hope that they do it while it still has some time left as a standard-legal card. It would be nice to get some value out of my set, because I'd be looking to trade them immediately.

[Waikiki]

Survival is not the problem the insane numbers of G the deck is able to produce! I'd say ban forest and noble hierarch !!!

and squee aswell fuck this CA.

[Nidd]

Survival is not the problem the insane numbers of G the deck is able to produce! I'd say ban forest and noble hierarch !!!

and squee aswell fuck this CA.

Wait, I thought newer incarnations ditched Squee in favor to be fas...

Oh darn, you were ironic, weren't you?

[Cabal_chan]

Now = next banned list announcement obviously. The thought behind that was they would be more or less making that decision now since there aren't many events between now and when they would need to decide by.

Also "If format's still broken" Implies that I think the format is broken now which I don't really but everyone knows what I meant.

Aren't there 2-3 SCG 5k's between now and then?

[dontbiteitholmes]

Aren't there 2-3 SCG 5k's between now and then?

Yeah, well a month in Legacy is like 1 week in Standard. 2-3 events is not a very large amount of data and there are bound to be Survival Vine decks in the top 8 no matter what because of the number of people playing the deck right now.

At this point Survival Vine posting good results over the next month is almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. It's hyped up to be the best deck type in the format, there are several different builds of the deck, and so a large number of people will play it, and when a large number of people play a deck unless it is god awful it will top 8 anyways. For example there were 7 Survival Vine decks in top 16 at Charlotte and 2 Goblins decks and 3 WGB Aggro Disruption decks, but it's entirely possible that there were 3-4 times as many Survival Vine decks as Goblins and I have no doubt there were at least 3-4 times as many Survival decks as WGB disruption meaning that over all those decks may have performed better on average, but since so many people played Survival it appears to dominate the format. Starcity does release data on who played what from time to time, but it usually takes 2 weeks to a month for this information to be compiled. This means any banning decision made in the next month should only reasonably be based on tournaments where data for the entire field is available and that cutoff is some point in the next couple weeks most likely.

Edit- or it has already passed, the last metagame breakdown I could find for Legacy SCG events was Baltimore.

[Kuma]

Every time a deck dominated a SCG 5k, people adapted to it within 1-2 5k's. Five-ish SCG 5k's later, Vengevine Survival is only getting stronger. If the format hasn't adapted by now it isn't going to.

Ban Vengevine December 20th.

[Cthuloo]

Every time a deck dominated a SCG 5k, people adapted to it within 1-2 5k's. Five-ish SCG 5k's later, Vengevine Survival is only getting stronger. If the format hasn't adapted by now it isn't going to.

Ban Vengevine December 20th.

I have a question to other non-US players: is Survine of the Vengest (or is it Vengevival of the Fitvine?) dominating the scene as it does in the 5k series? I just checked the last 6 32+ people tournament reports in Italy, and the archetype put an average of 1.5 decks in top 8. This looks rather reasonable. How is the situation going in the rest of Europe?

[Hawdes]

I have a question to other non-US players: is Survine of the Vengest (or is it Vengevival of the Fitvine?) dominating the scene as it does in the 5k series? I just checked the last 6 32+ people tournament reports in Italy, and the archetype put an average of 1.5 decks in top 8. This looks rather reasonable. How is the situation going in the rest of Europe?

Last tournament I went to in Sweden, there were only a hand full of Survival + Vine decks, and only one made it to top 8...
I think it was a 30+ ish people tournament. But a lot of players here in my meta tend to like Combo and/or Control decks.