Survival of the Fittest

[Rune]

+11

I actually think I would prefer that WotC make their decision based on Tom LaPille's testing in the MODO practice room rather than the SCG 5K results.

[Tacosnape]

I absolutely love how half of you people are basically the reincarnations of the "Flash isn't overpowered" people.

Look, if you don't get it by now, Vengevine Survival fights through any normal amount of hate. Yes, you can beat the deck, if you metagame like 12-20 hate cards between maindeck and sideboard. But it took a lot less to beat Reanimator.

Vengevine is sweeping the format. Constantly. You can keep screaming your "People refuse to adapt" line forever, but you're ridiculous. The results continue to back me up. The deck just wins.

Take the following card.

Turn Two Win

Artifact
You can't play Turn Two Win on your first turn.
Sacrifice Turn Two Win: You win the game.

I mean, clearly this card's not all that good. It's antisynergistic with mana acceleration, for crying out loud. If anyone wins a game with it, it's the metagame's fault for not adapting. Goblins should have been packing maindeck Pithing Needle and Artifact Blast, or splashing Blue for Stifle, Annul, Spell Snare, and Commandeer like all the other blue decks. It's completely vulnerable to Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress, AND Cabal Therapy. Green has Rust, if you can afford to shell out $45 apiece for them since they're the answer to this card in Standard as well (They HAD to reprint it, after all.) And for all the people complaining that people cast this with Daze backup when you only have one land draw? You should have been packing Spirit Guides, Moxes, Petals, and more importantly, you should have been winning the die roll. Learn to roll better, you burden on society you.

OR, we can realize that after a point, things can actually be broken. We can realize that when something continues to dominate tournament after tournament and flies in the face of the unsubstantiated playtesting data of a few individuals with skewed opinions to begin with, that Vengevine >> Legacy. This is coming from the guy who originally posted that A: Vengevine was utter crap and unplayable in Legacy, and B: That it wasn't "That" scary and wasn't going to overpower the format. Learn to admit you're wrong like me.

PS: Good performance from Jacestill at Starcity, guys.

[JamieW89]

I absolutely love how half of you people are basically the reincarnations of the "Flash isn't overpowered" people.

Look, if you don't get it by now, Vengevine Survival fights through any normal amount of hate. Yes, you can beat the deck, if you metagame like 12-20 hate cards between maindeck and sideboard. But it took a lot less to beat Reanimator.

Vengevine is sweeping the format. Constantly. You can keep screaming your "People refuse to adapt" line forever, but you're ridiculous. The results continue to back me up. The deck just wins.

Take the following card.

Turn Two Win

Artifact
You can't play Turn Two Win on your first turn.
Sacrifice Turn Two Win: You win the game.

I mean, clearly this card's not all that good. It's antisynergistic with mana acceleration, for crying out loud. If anyone wins a game with it, it's the metagame's fault for not adapting. Goblins should have been packing maindeck Pithing Needle and Artifact Blast, or splashing Blue for Stifle, Annul, Spell Snare, and Commandeer like all the other blue decks. It's completely vulnerable to Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress, AND Cabal Therapy. Green has Rust, if you can afford to shell out $45 apiece for them since they're the answer to this card in Standard as well (They HAD to reprint it, after all.) And for all the people complaining that people cast this with Daze backup when you only have one land draw? You should have been packing Spirit Guides, Moxes, Petals, and more importantly, you should have been winning the die roll. Learn to roll better, you burden on society you.

OR, we can realize that after a point, things can actually be broken. We can realize that when something continues to dominate tournament after tournament and flies in the face of the unsubstantiated playtesting data of a few individuals with skewed opinions to begin with, that Vengevine >> Legacy. This is coming from the guy who originally posted that A: Vengevine was utter crap and unplayable in Legacy, and B: That it wasn't "That" scary and wasn't going to overpower the format. Learn to admit you're wrong like me.

PS: Good performance from Jacestill at Starcity, guys.

+1

[Tinefol]

Yeah, I've totally seen a bunch of Jacestill decks preying on Survival. Too bad they made nowhere near the top16.

[DragoFireheart]

I absolutely love how half of you people are basically the reincarnations of the "Flash isn't overpowered" people.

Look, if you don't get it by now, Vengevine Survival fights through any normal amount of hate. Yes, you can beat the deck, if you metagame like 12-20 hate cards between maindeck and sideboard. But it took a lot less to beat Reanimator.

Or play combo, which is faster than Veggies. Or the new Jacestills, which prey on Veggies.

All you have is anedoctal evidence. It's a self-fulling prophecy in which Survival decks are going to be "dominating" the format since a lot of people are playing it. It was the same way with CounterTop, Zoo and Merfolk. I also love how you make even the most sublte comparison between this deck and Flash Hulk. Just because Veggies are good against the current meta doesn't mean that Legacy is entering Flash Hulk 2.0.

I hear Enchantress decks are good against Veggies. Maybe try new decks instead of concluding that a ban is needed?

[KindGrind]

What doesn't help the deck right now is the sheer number of players using it, which is in part why it shows so many great results. I'd be sad if Survival were axed, as it's very fun to play with and against.

Q: When is the next date for the DCI bans? Dec 2010 or March 2011?

[(nameless one)]

The next DCI updates would be on Dec 2010.

I think you make a good point when it comes to the popularity of Survival Decks.

Players by the boatload are playing Survival Decks, then you have players playing their petdecks that just got outdated with the current meta shift.

I think Tempo decks had their time, so are CounterTop.

[Sims]

December is the next scheduled update.

Look, I was crying for Flash to be banned the moment the lists were hitting the internet. I know vengevine is a busted card, free things normally are, and I hope that if they do ban anything that it's the Vine and not Survival. Though as i said before I have little faith in the DCI making that desicion competently.

However, in my, albeit personal and anecdotal, experience.... The deck is beatable. Combo generally beats it, i've not had much trouble with it with dragon stompy in testing, i've beaten it with LED-less dredge (i know i already mentioned combo)... The deck isn't God. It's very strong, but it's not infallable, and I think if the meta shifts enough the deck will start to fall.

If it doesn't, which is entirely possible for a variety of reasons: Playskill, metagaming, peoples refusal to adapt, people sayign "fuck it, if you can't beat it join it," etc.... Then I think they should ban Vengevine and leave survival. I'd rather be playing GW Survival with retainer/iona and Ooze combo than Vines, but as I said, i doubt that's going to happen.

[Xero]

I think there was more than a reasonable amount of hate for Survival decks in the last Starcity tournament:

4x Aven Mindcesor, 3x Extirpate and tons of discard; 4x Spell Snare MD with 3x Spell Pierce, 2x Pithing Needle, and 3x Hibernation SB; MB Pithing Needle with Peacekeeper and Spell Pierce in the SB; etc.

Survival still took the top two spots and dominated the top 16. People are adapting to the deck, and its still performing better than a reasonable deck should.

[frenchy-man]

Re: Survival of the Fittest

Originally Posted by Master Shake
The Star City series is such a poor example of the Legacy metagame, it's frustrating to think that it may be the only source of tournament data that Wizard's pays attention to.

+10.

+100

[DragoFireheart]

The Star City series is such a poor example of the Legacy metagame, it's frustrating to think that it may be the only source of tournament data that Wizard's pays attention to.

Is there another source they should be paying attention to? Which ones?

[TossUsToLions]

Survival of the Fittest was such a cool, fun card back in the day. It's Wizards own fault that it is so broken now, though. When you had to discard a creature to search for another creature, the card was fair. It wasn't until Wizards began printing cards that made it beneficial to discard creatures into the GY (see Vengevine, Necrotic Ooze). Even if Vengevine is banned, people will find other ways to abuse Survival (possibly using the Loyal Retainers/Iona/Emrakul or Necrotic Ooze combos) or Wizards will screw up again and just continue to print more creatures that allow Survival to go bonkers. I love the card, but I think that Survival itself is the card that needs to be banned.

[PanderAlexander]

I absolutely love how half of you people are basically the reincarnations of the "Flash isn't overpowered" people.

Look, if you don't get it by now, Vengevine Survival fights through any normal amount of hate. Yes, you can beat the deck, if you metagame like 12-20 hate cards between maindeck and sideboard. But it took a lot less to beat Reanimator.

Vengevine is sweeping the format. Constantly. You can keep screaming your "People refuse to adapt" line forever, but you're ridiculous. The results continue to back me up. The deck just wins.

Survival of the Fittest was such a cool, fun card back in the day. It's Wizards own fault that it is so broken now, though......... Wizards will screw up again and just continue to print more creatures that allow Survival to go bonkers. I love the card, but I think that Survival itself is the card that needs to be banned.

Yup, survival was one of my favorite decks back in 1998 and I've always liked the card, but I completely agree with what Tacosnape has been saying over and over, that after people have prepared and SB for vengevine survival that it still crushes tournaments. Wizards has stated numerous times that they'd ban the enabler than anything else so there isn't any limitations of future prints.

[piZZero]

Is there another source they should be paying attention to? Which ones?

On the other side of the ocean, the last couple of LCL tournaments (100+ players) were clearly dominated by Survival too. The metagame here in Barcelona is quite similar to what's been seen in Boston/Charlotte SCG $5K's.

[Barook]

Wizards has stated numerous times that they'd ban the enabler than anything else so there isn't any limitations of future prints.

They have also already printed a shitty replacement in form of Fauna Shaman that gets them money.

[Rood]

I absolutely love how half of you people are basically the reincarnations of the "Flash isn't overpowered" people.

Look, if you don't get it by now, Vengevine Survival fights through any normal amount of hate. Yes, you can beat the deck, if you metagame like 12-20 hate cards between maindeck and sideboard. But it took a lot less to beat Reanimator.

Vengevine is sweeping the format. Constantly. You can keep screaming your "People refuse to adapt" line forever, but you're ridiculous. The results continue to back me up. The deck just wins.

I completely support this statement. Results speak for themselves.

[Gui]

Wizards has stated numerous times that they'd ban the enabler than anything else so there isn't any limitations of future prints.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Survival will get banned. Both cards are needed for the combo to work, and survival has been OK in legacy for a long time, so we can assume that banning Vengevine will make Survival safe again. Vengevine is a "free spell", with the help of Survival it gets boosted, but we have no data to prove that without Survival it will be safe either (although I reckon it will be way less strong).
Not only tutors get banned. Afaik, the most powerful spell I know is a accelerator.

[PanderAlexander]

This doesn't necessarily mean that Survival will get banned. Both cards are needed for the combo to work, and survival has been OK in legacy for a long time, so we can assume that banning Vengevine will make Survival safe again. Vengevine is a "free spell", with the help of Survival it gets boosted, but we have no data to prove that without Survival it will be safe either (although I reckon it will be way less strong).
Not only tutors get banned. Afaik, the most powerful spell I know is a accelerator.

That's not the point, read what I said, or better yet you dont' have to and just look at what they have banned before. Just like when they banned mystical tutor for their own reason of future instants and sorcery prints, "if" they were to ban a card it would be Survival because that card "would put restrictions" on what creature cards they print in the future, they may make a mistake and print a too powerful creature that has synergery with Survival. Once again who knows if they will ban a card this coming December, it maybe 50/50, but if they were to ban one the obvious one is Survival.

[Equinozio]

I'm ok with you point PanderAlexander but they been making horredouns creatures like, eldrazis and progenitus and at the same time they designed very carefullly to not be cheated into play with reanimator spells or come into play abilities.

I think that magic involve creatures and survival involve beating the oponent with creatures. Is what they like.

[godryk]

On the other side of the ocean, the last couple of LCL tournaments (100+ players) were clearly dominated by Survival too. The metagame here in Barcelona is quite similar to what's been seen in Boston/Charlotte SCG $5K's.

Though I might be wrong (I wasn't there), I've never heard that. Considering top 8 data:

LCL September (105 players)
Top8
1. TES
2. GWu Madness Survival
3. Merfolk
4. Big Zoo
5. Pox
6. Welder Survival - no veggies
7. Ichorid
8. TES
Metagame breakdown

LCL October (100 players)
Top 8
1. Bant Countertop
2. ProBant Countertop
3. Welder Survival - no veggies
4. Merfolks
5. Rebels (lol)
6. R/G Goblins
7. Gw Survival
8. Ooze Survival
No betagame breakdown available at the moment.

And look at those Countertop Bant with MD Pithing Needle and SB Aven Mindcensor... All sarcasm aside, I wasn't there and, again, I might be wrong, but as far as Top 8 data goes and considering what other catalan players say, I don't have the impression that Survival is clearly dominating that metagame.

And maybe we europeans are dumb (not denying it) but I see plenty of top 8 results that differ from what we see in the SCG Open series. For example:

Landfall 2 (Italy) - 10/03/10 - 121 players - 2 Vengevine decks out of 8
Eternal Weekend (Spain) - 10/10/10 - 293 players - 2 out of 8 - Metagame breakdown available - Spring Tide sucks.
Open Last Chance CDF Legacy (France) - 16/10/10 - 178 players - 0 out of 8 (1 out of 16) - Anyways, not decklists as far as I know and Berserk Stompy sucks too.

The SCG results have always been different, less diverse than every other tournament, I don't know why, maybe the people playing in the SCG Opens are the best Legacy players in the world, probably, but I haven't feel that dominance in other metagames.

This post doesn't try to uphold the idea that VV is not that powerful, I can't tell, I just say that I don't feel that dominace we currently see in the SCG Open series happens everywhere. If we had had SCG Opens back in 2009, everybody in the top 16 would have played Nassif Countertop and maindecked Grips so that Top should have been banned or something.