G/R Survival

[Anonymous]

Hello!  This is my first post on TMD so I might as well give the best deck I have come up with.

G/R Survival

Land
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Gaea's Cradle
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby

Engine
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger

Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Elvish Lyrist
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Goblin Vandal
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tempting Wurm
2 Dwarven Miner
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Flametongue Kavu

Utility
4 Rancor
3 Naturalize
1 Wheel of Fortune

Sideboard
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Elvish Lyrist
1 Naturalize
2 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Genesis
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Obstinate Familiar
2 Dwarven Miner
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

The deck is basically an aggro deck that gives up some initial speed for a mid-game overwhelming finish.  Some people can say it lacks focus due to the number of 1 and 2 ofs but I think there is something to be said about versatility.  The deck can win through a single creature, a horde of creatures, or via mana denial.

Why don't I play TnT?  TnT is very vulnerable to non-basic hate.  Cards like B2B and to a lesser extent Blood Moon can cripple TnT.  However, because of the fetchlands in my deck, I can get a versatile dual land or a basic land to avoid hate.

I know that a lot of people don't like Tempting Wurm because of its serious drawback.  However, I think that this is a card that must be played situationally.  It can either bust open the game for me or it takes me down screaming.  It is something to combat morphling and TnT's monstosities.  

Some of my concerns include graveyard destruction and the lack of wastelands.  By using the cradles, I can get enough mana to overrun the opponent before they can recover with something like Wrath of God or Nevinyrral's Disk.  But sometimes I get screwed by the opponent's LoA.

Some cards I have considered to put in the deck include:

wasteland
masticore
quirion ranger
squee (extra)

Any suggestions?

[j_orlove]

Quote I know that a lot of people don't like Tempting Wurm because of its serious drawback.  However, I think that this is a card that must be played situationally.  It can either bust open the game for me or it takes me down screaming.  It is something to combat morphling and TnT's monstosities.  

Yes, but it's still bad. If you want a fat creature, Arrogant Wurm combines well with survival, or you could just run more Flametongue Kavus (it's especially good vs TnT).

Even if you keep the Wurm, it just seems that you won't have enough beatdown. Relying on 1-power creatures probably won't work, so you're left with 4 wurms, 1 uktabi, 1 FTK, and 4x rootwalla. The deck just looks like it won't be able to win quickly, and it doesn't look like it's too threatening in the late game either.

Some of the utility creatures (like the vandal) seem pretty weak. You already run Uktabi Orangutan, so why do you need worse artifact destruction? Also, why run naturalize if you can just get the creatures you need?

[Matt The Great]

I was fiddling around with a similar deck.

//  Creatures
        4 Flametongue Kavu
        4 Basking Rootwalla
        4 Arrogant Wurm
        4 Wild Mongrel
//  Silver Bullets
        1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
        1 Dwarven Miner
        1 Spike Feeder
        1 Elvish Lyrist
        1 Keldon Vandals
        1 Anger
        1 Genesis
//  Enablers
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Regrowth
        4 Survival of the Fittest
//  Burn
        4 Lightning Bolt
        4 Violent Eruption
//  Mana
        1 Karplusan Forest
        4 Taiga
        4 Woodded Foothills
        4 Mountain
        4 Land Grant
        6 Forest

The deck isn't horrible, but all those FTKs are overly dependent on having something to kill. Of course, Survival provides an outlet for any extra creatures, but still.

The Violent Eruptions were just a little fun card, they're almost certainly suboptimal, and if those slots stay burn they should probably be Incinerates.

The Vandals could be an Uktabi, but I think having Anger in the graveyard makes a 4/1 better than 2/2, even with echo.

Also, you'll note that the above decklist is unpowered and has no Shaman. Were I building this for real, I would include two Moxen, Lotus, and Sol Ring in place of the Land Grants, and try to squeeze some Wastelands in. A Shaman would also be in, probably over the Feeder or Miner (depending on what I expected to face).

It should be noted that I do not like Basking Rootwallas against anything but Sligh, and only then because they run so many x/1s. They require a significant amount of mana to pump, mana you invariably have better uses for (they don't even pump out of Bolt range :/).

[Anonymous]

@j_orlove: The reason why i have few big creatures is that the deck originally started as a G/R zoo/weenie deck.  I then plunked in survival and started fiddling with the creatures.  It was only until recently that I added the FTK.  Arrogant wurm has too high a cc.  If you use survival to dump it then it costs 2GG.  But I don't think the deck should necessarily depend on having survival in play as that is the first thing that will be countered.  The deck is not quite aggro in that it will not win on turn 3 or 4.  But against stuff like Keeper and rOSE it is supposed to destroy land and moxen before overwhelming with weenies.  FTK is definitely an additional sideboard card that I will put in, but it has a 4cc so I can't use too many.  Vandal is meant to get by tapped out artifact creatures.  Uktabi can only take out one and can't be played if there are no artifacts in play.  Same reason I only have one FTK in the main deck, though I could hit tempting wurm and BoP with it.  But then again, if I have the wurm in play against control, I likely won't give the opponent mana drain fodder to play The Abyss.  Naturalize is against matchups like mask, TnT, parfait, enchantress, dragon, academy, etc.
  
@Matt The Great: When you play your deck, do you sometimes come up short on mana for playing arrogant wurm and FTK?  I tried regrowth before but I wasn't quite comfortable with it.  Is Living Wish any better?  Basking rootwalla is good against control because it sneaks through on turn 1 and can be used as an instantaneous blocker if survival is out.

[Matt The Great]

Like I said, that deck is pretty rough. Rootwallas, though cheap enough to come out turn one, aren't much of a threat. A 1/1 obviously isn't anything to worry about, and a 3/3 that requires tapping two land per turn is something I'd be glad to face. They're just not effective enough as a creature.

However, they also work as a 'spell,' much the way Squee or Krovikan Horror provide use outside of actually being cast. But as you said, you don't want to depend on having Survival in play.

Thus, the Wild Mongrels. It's a fast creature, semi-difficult to deal with, and a madness outlet that doesn't require mana (which is exactly what Madness creatures want). You're right that 2GG for a Wurm isn't good, but 2G certainly is.

And as I said, four FTK is just overkill. I'd go with maybe two maindeck. Remember, the list I posted was just a fun little thing I was messing with.

[Puschkin]

I also think that the original deck lacks some serious threats, but generally this is something I am toying with, too.

Some more general notes:
Don´t put in too much madness and other cards that are next to useless without Survival to avoid making this a kind of combo deck that can´t win without SotF. Otoh, you could as well try to include Stormbind to increase synergy with the discard- and graveyard related cards. Maybe include Masticore in the side aggainst aggro. Sylvan Library is good without SotF and insane with.