Revival of Survival

[Guli]

I highly suggest Elesh Norn as a target with Retainers. Elesh is an ideal way to deal with Monastery Mentor.

[Twiedel]

Thanks to your new thread, we unburied my article. It is posted here:

http://www.eternalcentral.com/in-the-lab-building-survival-decks-in-modern-vintage/

It is not so much a deck proposal but a theoretical excercise on Survival of the Fittest, but maybe you like it!

[InkfathomBiomage]

I highly suggest Elesh Norn as a target with Retainers. Elesh is an ideal way to deal with Monastery Mentor.

I agree. Since I cut the ravenous traps from my board (4 drs + scooze + jailer + macabre is enough), I think adding other retainers targets in their place is a good idea. I'll put it an iona and an elesh norn.

[xouman]

Thanks to your new thread, we unburied my article. It is posted here:

http://www.eternalcentral.com/in-the-lab-building-survival-decks-in-modern-vintage/

It is not so much a deck proposal but a theoretical excercise on Survival of the Fittest, but maybe you like it!

I'm a bit surprised most builds feature vengevines as finishers. Great read, give survival a chance and tell us the outcome :p

[Aaron Patten]

I know someone who has made some spicy brews with this card for vintage.  Mostly he played Auriok Salvagers and Trinket Mage to get Lotus and the other trinket.  
My favorite survival list that I've ever built was angry titan welder.  I played one shield sphere as a welder target to bring the titan back with anger in the yard off survival.  There's lots of other routes to take too but I didn't play blue in that deck and instead used tops and Enlightened tutor to find survival.  I think there are better versions but I abandoned the deck before finding them.  Witness is also a great include if you plan on getting your survival blown up.  
I agree with what you're saying about comparing it to oath.  Oath generally means you have one fixed plan whereas with survival your post quintessential turn is much more versatile and that could hypothetically lead to higher win % potential post side.  Plus, you get to play creatures!  There are some good ones these days
Quirion Ranger is quite good too but could be sort of a win more card.

[Shax]

Survival doesn't do much in Vintage when you can just play Oath, but Survival doesn't carry the Forbidden Orchard baggage that Oath carries.

I'd run some sort of Welder monstrosity with Sundering Titan and Nullstone Gargoyle.

[TheWhiteDragon]

The trouble with survival is that its plan B also involves getting critters into play from the grave - i.e. vengevine, welder, etc.  So whereas it, in theory, gets around hate that hits the enchantment (cage, decay, enchant destruction, priest), the same spells that nerf oath nerf this decks plan A AND B.  I suppose you could tutor up some critter that removes the hate card, but that's pretty weak.  I ran a fun version with gilded drakes and such at one point, but it's just not good enough and the strategy is flat out worse than oath.

[InkfathomBiomage]

The trouble with survival is that its plan B also involves getting critters into play from the grave - i.e. vengevine, welder, etc.  So whereas it, in theory, gets around hate that hits the enchantment (cage, decay, enchant destruction, priest), the same spells that nerf oath nerf this decks plan A AND B.  I suppose you could tutor up some critter that removes the hate card, but that's pretty weak.  I ran a fun version with gilded drakes and such at one point, but it's just not good enough and the strategy is flat out worse than oath.

You can activate survival a bunch of times in response to enchantment removal and decay, and why is tutoring up an answer to the hate card weak?

[TheWhiteDragon]

The trouble with survival is that its plan B also involves getting critters into play from the grave - i.e. vengevine, welder, etc.  So whereas it, in theory, gets around hate that hits the enchantment (cage, decay, enchant destruction, priest), the same spells that nerf oath nerf this decks plan A AND B.  I suppose you could tutor up some critter that removes the hate card, but that's pretty weak.  I ran a fun version with gilded drakes and such at one point, but it's just not good enough and the strategy is flat out worse than oath.

You can activate survival a bunch of times in response to enchantment removal and decay, and why is tutoring up an answer to the hate card weak?

You have to pay 2 to cast survival, and most likely won't have mana to do anything around decay, same as oath.  If you have turns to use it and dump mana into it, you usually have to chain a lot more stuff to make it worth your while.  With oath, you pay 2, set it and forget it.  No other investment needed (its condition is almost a certainty to satisfy).

Digging up anti-hate is bad because you have to pay mana to tutor it up, and then pay mana to cast it - which could very easily be countered (you can't tutor up a decay).  Survival decks typically don't want to be spending more than 1 mana on casting something, and want to recur stuff from the grave.  This means it's open to the same hate that hits oath PLUS grave hate.

It's not that survival is altogether terrible...it's just a poor substitute for oath.  Oath is the standard for 2 mana win cons.  Survival really can't stack up to it.

If you disagree, please tell me in what way survival is better than oath.  If you can't answer that, then why would you not be playing oath instead?

[InkfathomBiomage]

The trouble with survival is that its plan B also involves getting critters into play from the grave - i.e. vengevine, welder, etc.  So whereas it, in theory, gets around hate that hits the enchantment (cage, decay, enchant destruction, priest), the same spells that nerf oath nerf this decks plan A AND B.  I suppose you could tutor up some critter that removes the hate card, but that's pretty weak.  I ran a fun version with gilded drakes and such at one point, but it's just not good enough and the strategy is flat out worse than oath.

You can activate survival a bunch of times in response to enchantment removal and decay, and why is tutoring up an answer to the hate card weak?

You have to pay 2 to cast survival, and most likely won't have mana to do anything around decay, same as oath.  If you have turns to use it and dump mana into it, you usually have to chain a lot more stuff to make it worth your while.  With oath, you pay 2, set it and forget it.  No other investment needed (its condition is almost a certainty to satisfy).

Digging up anti-hate is bad because you have to pay mana to tutor it up, and then pay mana to cast it - which could very easily be countered (you can't tutor up a decay).  Survival decks typically don't want to be spending more than 1 mana on casting something, and want to recur stuff from the grave.  This means it's open to the same hate that hits oath PLUS grave hate.

It may be weak to that hate, but at least its plan isn't hosed by hate it doesn't have an answer for. It is true that you have to pay a bunch of mana and the anti-hate could get countered. However, the option is welcome, especially since if it works you win the game.

If you disagree, please tell me in what way survival is better than oath.  If you can't answer that, then why would you not be playing oath instead?

Despite the sheer power of oath, survival has a lot more versatility. It can still combo-kill, but can also tutor up something like vendilion clique or scavenging ooze to prevent yourself from dying that turn or reclamation sage to blow up grafdigger's cage. In addition, survival can get a couple activations off in response to a nature's claim or abrupt decay. It also has the advantage that your opponents may overboard to try and shut down vengevine/griselbrand only to get beat down by bobs, deathrites, and rootwallas.

Oath is better.

Ok maybe, but oath is not strictly better, and people are prepared for oath.

That is my argument. If you disagree, fine, you don't have to play survival.

[Leoj]

In the last week or so I've run into someone playing the RG version of Survival with Magus of the Moon. It seemed particularly nasty. Forgive me for necro'ing this thread but has anyone given Survival decks a try recently?

[nedleeds]

We've had U/g/b survival with Vines at our local sanctioned. He was U/g aggro with sotf for a toolbox of fairly obvious good creatures. He also had sotf to enable a combo kill with Flash (via Worldspine Wurm).