The Survival Problem
Before Vengevine was printed in Rise of the Eldrazi in April 2010, combo decks featuring Survival of the Fittest did not perform well, having only made 1 top-8 in
In the past 4 events since Madness/Vengevine Survival came into the scene, Survival decks have placed more top-8's than Goblins did since start of the whole SCG Legacy Open Series. Goblins! Once the poster child of Legacy! Decks featuring Survival now lag behind Merfolk and Zoo for the having the most number of top-8 slots in the SCG Open.
Survival has also done consistently well in the local Singaporean meta, with a copy making top-8 every tournament since the deck's debut.
In other words, you need to be prepared for the Survival problem.
There are 2 ways to handle a problem:
1)Ignore it
2)Beat it
Ignoring Survival
If you're a combo deck that wins turns 2 to 3, you can just ignore the problem. Madness/Vengevine Survival works by comboing out multiple hasty 4/3 plants and attacking for the win. With a good hand (note: hand with Survival of the Fittest), the deck plays roughly like this:T1 land, Noble Hierarch
T2 land, Survival, dump Vengevine for Vengevine
T3 land, dump Vengevine for Vengevine, dump Vengevine for Vengevine, dump Vengevine for Basking Rootwalla, Madness out Basking Rootwalla for Shield Sphere, reanimate 4 Vengevines and attack for 16.
T4 attack for the win, dump Wonder if you need evasion.
Given that most Survival decks with Vengevines pack little to no counterspells/discard, a combo deck like Belcher/TPS should relatively little problem winning by turn 4.
Beating Survival
Even a consistently fast deck like Zoo or Merfolk can win with some luck. This was exactly what happened when I raced Eugene's active Survival with lords last tourney.There's also the chance of your opponent not drawing the enchantment, making it mostly a mono-green aggro deck unless they're playing the white version with Knight of the Reliquary and other large threats.
One idea I've been toying around with is discard. Discard can preemptly deal with the enchantment though a lucky top deck or Intuition can bring you down from 19 to 0 in a single turn. Discard matters more if you can keep his hand size consistently small enough to prevent reanimation of the shrubberies. Even in that event, you still have to handle the 1 or 2 Vengevines that sneaked onto the field.
That is where cards like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile comes in. However, cards like Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade are just temporary solutions as they can start it all over again with an active Survival. That is, if you've not already discarded their creature cards. Such a deck might look something like this:
Deadguy Ale – 8th Seattle SCG 13th June 2010 – Stephen Ashcraft
1 Plains
6 Swamp
4 Marsh Flats
4 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
4 Dark Ritual
Threats (14)
4 Dark Confidant
3 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Disruption (20)
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate
Others (2)
2 Grim Discovery
Sideboard (15)
3 Pithing Needle
4 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Karakas
As with most of my ideas, they tend to fail more than they succeed. You might even help your opponent by discarding their Vengevines with Hymn! So please test out the deck before you bring it to a tourney.
Lastly, mana denial doesn't really affect the deck as Survival can survive (XD) on 2 mana or less. Don't think about Rishadan Port/Blood Moon as instant speed activations and lotsa basic lands trump these.
Sideboard Plans
If you don't have high chances of winning game 1, or if you are hellbent on defeating Survival, then you'll pack cards specifically for the matchup in your sideboard.This excellent article over at Star City Games has given several options for you to consider, and partially inspired this article (I was thinking of the exact same topic when I saw this article!). Hence, I shall only give a summary list of candidates sorted by function here for your ease of reference.
Graveyard Hate
ExtirpateRavenous Trap
Leyline of the Void
Planar Void
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Tormod's Crypt
Relic of Progenitus
Nihil Spellbomb
Faerie Macabre
Withered Wretch
Jötun Grunt
Yixlid Jailer
Bojuka Bog
If you're gonna stock up on graveyard hate, please please please use something like Extirpate as Survival of the Fittest can be activated at instant speed, triggering Vengevine instantly by madnessing out 2 Basking Rootwallas instantly. Get the instant speed idea?
Search Hate
Aven MindcensorLeonin Arbiter
Suppression Field
If you're fast enough to cast them and are not affected by them much, why not? Plus, they deal with other nonsense like the horrible Intuition.
Horde Hate
PropagandaGhostly Prison
Peacekeeper
Dueling Grounds
Peacekeeper is good against Merfolk with no removals, so it'll be good against Madness Survival with no removals. There's also the fantasy story of Dueling Grounds with a Rhox War Monk exalted by Rafiq of the Many. Or just Natural Order out a Progenitus.
Stopping Survival Itself
Force of WillSpell Snare
Thoughtseize
Hymn to Tourach
Qasali Pridemage
Kami of Ancient Law
Krosan Grip
Pithing Needle
Counterspells work well considering Survival decks can't really win a counter war and I've already touched on discard in the above section.
To be honest, I wouldn't bother to side in cards like Krosan Grip as it just might be too slow to matter. There's also the unlikely corner case where the opponent has sufficient mana and cards to activate Survival multiple times right after resolving it without passing priority. This matters more if you're playing slow decks like Supreme Blue.
In my opinion, Pithing Needle is a good sideboard candidate right now. Apart from Survival of the Fittest, it also hits Wild Mongrel, and less importantly, Aquamoeba and Basking Rootwalla.
More amazing is the fact that it hits other cards that see play commonly such as Wasteland, Aether Vial, Umezawa's Jitte, Sensei's Divining Top, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. It also stops some cards you might find in your meta such as Maze of Ith, Pernicious Deed, Goblin Charbelcher, Thopter Foundry, Mutavault, Mishra's Factory, and to a lesser extent, Knight of the Reliquary.
Summary
In summary, you can either ignore the problem or deal with it. In my opinion, Survival's weakness still lies in its dependency on the enchantment, even though Intuition brings with it another way to reanimate the 4/3 plants. This effectively shifts the focus of the deck on Vengevine itself, increasing the value of cards like Extirpate and Propaganda.In addition, you must always keep in mind that you need to beat the deck's strategy, not individual cards. Also, while you're thinking of beating a deck, people are evolving it to greater heights, so keep yourself abreast by reading stuff like the ones below. An example: do you know people are discussing Man-o'-War in Madness Survival as an out against Peacekeeper?
Do you have better ideas on how to beat Survival? Do you even think Survival is a problem? Let me know what you think by commenting below!
Further Reading
MTG The Source UG Madness thread starts discussing Vengevine from this page
In my opinion, GW Survival is better than Madness Survival. Vengevine is first seriously discussed at this page. Tweet this!
No comments:
Post a Comment