[SCD] Survival of the fittest decklist challenge

[Gheizen64]

Yes i know this was sort of a topic already before. However, that was a challenge about all kind of cards that are currently banned, and the topic was pretty old, much so that in the meanwhile some cards got unbanned (tax and vise come to mind). This time i'd like to have a decklist challenge about what i believe is the most interesting card for the meta currently on the banned list: Survival of the Fittest.

I believe Survival is possibly the best single unban for the format right now because of two reasons mostly:

- first, survival promote a kind of deck that is currently underrepresented in the current meta, one heavy on creatures (midrangey), as most lists are either control or heavy cantrip-based tempo lists. Eldrazi apparently didn't manage to be an actual relevant threat for long.
- second, i believe that survival power level is just right, being good but not oppressive and would spawn or improve some T 1.5 lists. In other words, this unban would have an impact, compared to say vise, tax or others that had none.

The one, and considerable risk for survival imho, is not that it would dominate the format, but that it would push out a lot of T 2+ midrangey lists from the metagame by simply existing, just like Miracle is basically pushing out everything that is not-miracle control. I'm not totally sure this a reasonable complain, but there are people that would prefer having multiple lower tier decklists viable rather than a better similar deck in an higher tier (think about the demise of goblin and how lots of people lamented for it for a long time).

That said, i've been trying on and off to make survival lists for a long time. From the old TnT lists, to more recent BUG and WG variants.

Contrary to what i believed for the longest time, BUG was not the (at least not obviously so) best shell. Despite having some amazing cards for survival/vengevine, like Shardless agent or baleful strix, a lot of strong U core cards aren't as much in survival lists. The cantrip cartel, for example, isn't as viable in a deck that want to have creatures to discard and the survival shell, and only brainstorm and sometimes ponder are usable. You have to decide if you either run cantrips + force or brainstorm + removal spells basically.

WG lists that run proactive disruption in the form of thalia and singleton teeg + iona off retainers felt much more sinergistic with the high creature count required by the survival engine. I even mused a bit the thought of running chanchellors of the annex/tangle as a form of creature-based disruption that would be hardcastable eventually or simply discarded to survival. It was a fun experiment but the consistency was ASS, so much that i considered adding fauna shamans.

BUG Survival


4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
2 True-name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Baleful Strix
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Survival of the fittest
3 Vengevines
2 Basking Rootwalla
2 Gaea's Cradle
20 lands

WG List

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Noble Hierarch
3 Vengevines
2 Basking Rootwalla
2 Knight of the reliquary
3 Mother of Runes
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Eternal Witness
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sylvan Library

2 Gaea's cradle
3 Wasteland
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
other colored lands

Not included the thespian + dark depth combo in the WG list because it's already pretty short on colored mana sources and because in case chain vengevines aren't enough, retainers should be good enough as an alternative win condition. The BUG list is essentially noble BUG with less removal (survival take a LOT of space in the list sadly) and the survival package. Strix in this case is really good as it double as a blue card, as a creature, and as a removal spell. Shardless as well double as card advantage (and often trigger vengevines by itself), creature and blue card. That said, neither of those decks felt substantially better than the midrangey decks that already exist in the format. Not being able to run as much removal or permission make you a lot more vulnerable to assorted stupid things like counterbalanced locks, aether vial chaining recruiters, aluren killing you etc...

How much can we improve those list? And how would those improved list fare in the format? What decks would they push out? Have fun bros i go back to work

EDIT: newer slightly different and imho improved GW list:

Creatures
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Fauna Shaman
3 Scryb Ranger
3 Vengevine
2 Basking Rootwalla
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest

Lands
4 Wasteland
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Karakas
2 Gaea's Cradle
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
1 Bayou
2 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
2 Misty Rainforest


EDIT2: honestly, the more i play with it, the more i get convinced it's not worth at all to play survival. When you play it, you get sorta shoehorned in running several pieces that are clunky by themselves, and since you play several duds, you need either additional cycling (fauna shaman) or draw to go with them else you get stuck. On top of that you need 20+ creatures, while not being really an effective aggro deck or prison deck because you run lot of subpar creatures. AD and DRS being everywhere make so that even against fair decks, survival isn't as gamebreaking as it used to be. Maybe a very leaned up survival package could be effective (only 3 VV + 2 Walla as a combo), combined with a more classic lineup of WG creatures (SFM and maybe big Thalia), but at that point, why even play SotF?
In short, you need redundancy and consistency, but survival combos tend to make that very hard to achieve. And survival without combos is not worth running over something like GSZ in the majority of cases.

EDIT3 (04/02/2017): this is the list i'm playing now and which i think is best based on the GW shell. Maybe there's a better BUG version of the deck, but for now, BUG has underperformed for me.


// 25 Creature
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Vengevine
2 Basking Rootwalla
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Wonder
2 Renegade Rallier
4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Shardless Agent

// 4 Enchantment
4 Survival of the Fittest

// 8 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm

// 23 Land
4 Wasteland
3 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Karakas


I still have no idea what to run in the sb. Some extractions and a karakas are probably in, and i was thinking about running E.Tutor and a toolbox of cards for it. E. Tutor is also incidentally good in fair matchups as it's essentially additional copies of survival.

On deck choices: going bant allow you to cut the iona/elesh + retainer package. Wonder does the same work of solving stalled boards and use just 1 slot. The other two are renegade ralliers, which are essentially 3 mana 3/2 that either destroy land, rampanth growth you or replay a thalia/survival from the graveyard. 4 Ancestral are just broken in any decks despite anti-sinergy with thalia, because you can send back any piece of the chain you don't want to see and shuffle them away (walla or additional vengevines) while drawing infinite cards in the process for just U. The singleton Shardless is a way to cast 2 creatures if you have none in hand if your survival get AD after you discard 2-3 vengevines, it's working nicely for now.

[Megadeus]

These lists look far too powerful for the format. Show and tell in Griselbrand on turn 1 is way less good than this

[Gheizen64]

These lists look far too powerful for the format. Show and tell in Griselbrand on turn 1 is way less good than this

While i agree with the general sentiment, there are two points:

- this list don't directly compete with fast combo which is a natural predator, but with other "slow" decks aka control and anything else.
- don't underestimate goodcards.dec. Noble BUG don't look unfair, but it won a 1600 ppl GP. Well, that and it was Duke playing it but whatever :D

[Morte]

I agree with your points in favor of the unbanning of Survival, especially about the added value of introducing a reasonable aggro-midrange, something we're missing right now. I'd love to have it back to the format.

Some brainstorming:

Aether Vial: the room for non creatures spell is tight, but Vial could be worth as a way to balance Survivaldecks' drawback to be quite mana intensive and often doing "nothing" in the first two turn. With a T1 Vial, T2 you can cast SotF and put in play a 1CC creature, T3 you can activate SotF, put in play a 1CC creature and have 2 free mana. You also add ease to cast colored creatures, uncounterability, resilience to land destruction, and you can have more pressure when you don't find SotF in the first turns, as a sort of B-plan.

Squadron Hawk: reasonable card advantage, you play the first one and convert the others into business with SotF. If you can find room for equipment and SFM, it's even not terrible by itself.

Dryad Arbor: increases both land and creature count; with Vial, it's a CC0 target.

A Zombardament hybrid could be fun, SotF and creatures coming back from the GY, like Bloodghast, Gravecrawler and so on.

Please go on with the testing, even if they're not unbanning SotF in a while it's a very interesting work.

[Dice_Box]

Is it ok to just fuck around with this challenge? I ask because while I would never take that Zombardment idea to a GP, I think that sounds fun to fuck around with.

[Gheizen64]

Is it ok to just fuck around with this challenge? I ask because while I would never take that Zombardment idea to a GP, I think that sounds fun to fuck around with.

Shame on you for having fun with this game!

To be honest i didn't actually post a TnT list because i felt like i couldn't optimize it at all. If the list was playing any decently i would've posted it.

[Stevestamopz]

I'm also interested to find out the results.

I played this decklist about 2-3 months ago at a weekly legacy event. No one minded and was pretty intruiged to see how broken Survival would be.


1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Basking Rootwalla
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Shriekmaw
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Vengevine
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Karakas
1 Plains
3 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 1 Sanctum Prelate
SB: 3 Tarmogoyf

The matchups:

BUG Delver: 2-0
Jund: 1-2
Elves: 0-2
4c Loam: 2-0

Everyone was pretty impressed by how broken it was /S.

My Jund opponent actually laughed at the end of the game because he expected for it to be like Show and Tell +10 in power. The game I did actually win against Jund (game 1) was won purely because I hardcast multiple Vengevines (no survival folks) and by being lucky enough to draw 4 1 cmc creatures in a row to be able to bring them back.

I've also tested this against combo and it's like a bad Death and Taxes. I would love to see a better build though.

[JBlaze]

Ooze Survival
Gerry Thompson
2nd Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 11/7/2010
Legacy

Creatures (29)

1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Shield Sphere
1 Triskelion
2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Necrotic Ooze
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Shriekmaw
4 Vengevine
1 Wispmare

Lands (18)

1 Tree of Tales
1 Forest
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

Spells (13)

1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Extirpate
2 Nature's Claim
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Cabal Therapy

What is the LED for? Need's Deathrite Shaman Abrupt Decay and Surgical in the board. Also I forgot Fauna Shaman was even a card.

[Harduvel]

What is the LED for? Need's Deathrite Shaman Abrupt Decay and Surgical in the board. Also I forgot Fauna Shaman was even a card.

LED is for going off with Survival. Activate Survival and in response sac LED either for green to chain Vengevines or for black to cast Necrotic Ooze and win. I figure since he's already running 4 Enlightened Tutor he figured he might as well run an LED.

[Rome]

I would be very happy with Survival in the format, because first, it is my favorite Card and I started with it Legacy.
Second: As it got banned, there where nearly no Maindeck Hate against it.
Now we have Abrupt Decay in a lot of Decks.

And maybe the Deck can be balance the Miracle Deck.

[Gheizen64]

Jerry's list seems a good base for a mostly pure-combo survival. Maybe add 1 RiP or 1 chalice main too to go with 4 tutors as a anti-combo silver bullet for G1? Not sure how actually viable that is. Also you probably can fit only a pair of AD given how thight those lists are.


1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Shield Sphere
1 Triskelion
2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Necrotic Ooze
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Quirion Ranger
1 Big Game Hunter
3 Vengevine


1 Tree of Tales
1 Forest
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

1 Chalice of the Void
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Thoughtseize


This list looks like it play horribly. 19 lands? No draw fixing outside of E Tutor? Ugh.

[civet five]

I'm all for the unbanning of Survival and seeing what happens in the face of Show and Tell, Abrupt Decay, Rest in Peace, Krosan Grip and Terminus. I also think it makes some decks like Elves, Nic Fit and Maverick better than they currently are. On the flipside, I think its naive to think that Survival-Vengevine lists won't become more streamlined than they were, people will quickly figure out giving it 4 Lion's Eye Black Lotuses is broken as hell, and you're going to reliably face a turn 3 board state more depressing than the double Eldrazi Mimic & Reality Smasher on turn 3 draw. I just hope people remember Volrath's Shapeshifter let's you dickpunch your opponent with Phage the Untouchable.

[JBlaze]

I like the four lion's eye diamond idea also the last time Survival was legal the legend rule was different and running 4 Gaea's Cradle was not a thing.

[hymnyou]

If this deck doesnt run blue draw spells (or targeted discard in main) I dont see how it would even top32 a 15 round event according to the last GP results, this is not as fast as depths or BR reanimator. So far this deck would suck in a large competitive event from what I am seeing.

[JBlaze]

There are four Thoughtseize in the main. Obviously this is a brainstorming thread nobody said anything about being optimized for a large event. If you've got something constructive to add feel free.

[hymnyou]

Yes, your list does out of numerous lists- and 1 or 2 have brainstorm. My actual point was that anyone who thinks this card is actually a threat to legacy in todays meta is nuts. Its not a matter of who is brewing, its just the fact that Legacy has much more powerful cards now that this card will get blown out nowadays as a 'all in' strategy. Just much better things to do in Legacy competitively for anyone to consider this to stay banned.

[bruizar]

Posting this for reference

[Gheizen64]

I'm all for the unbanning of Survival and seeing what happens in the face of Show and Tell, Abrupt Decay, Rest in Peace, Krosan Grip and Terminus. I also think it makes some decks like Elves, Nic Fit and Maverick better than they currently are. On the flipside, I think its naive to think that Survival-Vengevine lists won't become more streamlined than they were, people will quickly figure out giving it 4 Lion's Eye Black Lotuses is broken as hell, and you're going to reliably face a turn 3 board state more depressing than the double Eldrazi Mimic & Reality Smasher on turn 3 draw. I just hope people remember Volrath's Shapeshifter let's you dickpunch your opponent with Phage the Untouchable.

4 LEDs aren't as good as you may think in the deck. You start to become an all-innish deck whose combo is playing 2 4/3 with haste on T2 and then go on topdeck mode. I don't see what's so good with that, hell, a single flipped delver/goyf+ a fatal push mean this all-in strat dies against fair decks 2-3 mana and 2 cards combo.

Chapin list was sweet damn. 4 color seems way too greedy though when you want multiple G mana each turn though.

[Stevestamopz]

On the flipside, I think its naive to think that Survival-Vengevine lists won't become more streamlined than they were, people will quickly figure out giving it 4 Lion's Eye Black Lotuses is broken as hell, and you're going to reliably face a turn 3 board state more depressing than the double Eldrazi Mimic & Reality Smasher on turn 3 draw. .

Turn 1 Show and Tell, you lose!

If people can beat T1 Griselbrand and not play 3x Karakas, I'm sure people can beat t3 Vengevines.

[Lemnear]

@Gheizen64

I don't think you want to run Shardless Agent in that deck if you can hit so many low-value outs like Basking Rootwalla or Noble. Would not run blue or countermagic at all but classic discard. Would favor BG here with Survival + Zenith + Dryad Arbor + DRS. Maybe even go the NicFit route:

2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
4 Decay
4 Survival
4 Zenith
4 DRS
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Forest
2 Swamp

From there you can just go and cast your Vengevines drawn, zenith'd, tutored with Survival or returned from the graveyard and see how long the opponent can fight back. 13 ways to access permanent removal and Meren as lategame engine. From there you can add further shenanigans and enablers like Rootwalla, more threats and of course the manabase

1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Basking Rootwalla
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Shriekmaw
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Vengevine
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Karakas
1 Plains
3 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 1 Sanctum Prelate
SB: 3 Tarmogoyf

The matchups:

BUG Delver: 2-0
Jund: 1-2
Elves: 0-2
4c Loam: 2-0

Everyone was pretty impressed by how broken it was /S.

~snip~

I've also tested this against combo and it's like a bad Death and Taxes. I would love to see a better build though.

"Look, I played EDH with only 5 pieces of cardselection total and the deck was somehow suffering from variance"