Shopless Survival (5-Proxy)

[Ifflejink]

Earlier this year, there was a thread about a TnT-esque deck that opperated off the philosophy that eliminating Mishra's Workshop would smooth out the deck's mana base and improve it in general. Towards the end of the discussion, some builds with Bazaar of Baghdad, which is an amazing inclusion to the deck, were showing up. Without further ado, my decklist:

Shopless Survival: Slightly Revised
Mana Sources:
2 Mountain
4 Forest
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Darksteel Citadel
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Birds of Paradise
Cards that win/allow you to win:
4 Goblin Welder
1 Shield Sphere
1 Platinum Angel
2 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
Disruption:
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Genesis
The engine:
1 Anger
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Survival of the Fittest

First, for some card choices:
Bazaar of Baghdad/Survival of the Fittest/Goblin Welder: These cards are integral to the deck. Without these, this deck would be impossible.

Squee: Fairly straightforward. He provides card advantage with both Bazaar and Survival, and is an auto-include as such.

Sphere of Resistance: This card helps your combo matchup, while simply slowing your opponent down and upping the artifact count.

Xantid Swarm: This, obviously, is for the control matchup. As a small bonus, it's also pitchable to Survival.

Viridian Zealot: This destroys both artifacts and enchantments, is usable the turn it comes into play, and is recurrable with Genesis. At this point, I find it to be a very useful answer.

Genesis: This card recurs many of your utility creatures, most importantly Goblin Welder, as the deck relies on it. Genesis also recurs Xantids when they get countered, and can act as an expensive Squee in dire situations.

Anger: It makes your Welders come on line a turn earlier, essentially makes Birds of Paradise free, and just speeds the deck up in general.

Duplicant: This card is mainly for destroying random creatures, especially Oath's. However, I may just end up replacing this with another Triskelion and putting it on the sideboard.

Triskelion: This card is simply useful, destroying oppsing Welders and other numerous threats.

Sundering Titan: This card is very powerful, as a 7/10 that annhilates mana bases is nothing to scough at. However, it will end up destroying some of your lands and isn't as powerful today as it once was.

Platinum Angel: This is here mainly to shore up your combo matchup, which is very lacking.

Shield Sphere: Obviously, this is simply in the deck as tutorable Welder-fodder. With Genesis recursion, this card can allow you to make better use of Welder than would have been made otherwise.

Birds of Paradise: They provide fast mana, and can be pitched to Survival. However, although they are useful, I often find them to be lacking.

Elvish Spirit Guide: Once again, a card that provides fast mana and is pitchable to Survival. However, this has the advantage of not having summoning sickness, not being a spell, and not requiring a mana investment.

Darksteel Citadel: Obviously, this is nothing but Welder fodder. I chose this over other artifact lands due to it's indestructibility, which comes in useful in many situations.

Here's my sideboard. Currently, it's quite variable, but one thing that has to be concentrated on is combo.
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Null Rod/ Pyrostatic Pillar (I don't know which yet)
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus/ Sylvan Safekeeper (Once again, I don't know which)

Anyway, critism is welcome, as long as it has grounding. Thank you, in advance, for your help.

[THEBIGLOU]

It looks like a cool deck, but I see some problems if you want to run this in tourneys.

A deck is good or bad based on the meta that is around.  Here are some of my opinions regarding the meta post Trinisphere restriction.

1.  Spot removal like Swords to Plowshares & Seal of Removal are back because of Oath.  IMHO Oath is the best deck out there now.

2. Most consider the TNT framework not viable w/o 4 Trinispheres.

3.  People will want to try their new combo decks once again.  A Sphere of Resistance is much easier to handle than a Trini....

4. Most decks will have abundant Graveyard hate in the SB.

Now let's take a look at you deck in the Meta.  

1. You are very vulnerable to spot removal like StP.

2. You have little to no disruptions to stop Counters, Spot removal or Graveyard hate.

3. Oath will make you pay for putting the Welder out there and can outrace the Titan.

Please don't take this the wrong way, it looks like a fun deck and there are some cool concepts.

Another potentially bad match up will be 4 color control.  The will remove you Sqeees from the graveyard, Swords your welders thus stopping your engine.  Then selectively counter your threats...

There is a deck in the Vintage forum that does a lot of what you want, but I think does them a little better.  Take a look at the Cerebral Assassin deck for some ideas.

THEBIGLOU

[Ifflejink]

Actually, you are incorrect in saying that I have no protection against counters. The deck runs four Xantid Swarms maindeck, as well as Genesis to recur countered Welders. There are even four Defense Grids sideboard.

However, you are right about the vulnerability to graveyard hate and spot removal. Getting Welder removed from the game hurts; that's why I'm considering Sylvan Safekeeper sideboard. As for the graveyard hate, you really can't do much against it. However, since you run both Bazaar and Survival as engines, you aren't completely wrecked if one of either is destroyed.

As for the combo matchup, I realize that this deck can't do much. Sphere of RResistance is mainly there to stall until you can do something more substantial, but combo can often get rid of it. Hence the sideboard slots for Pyrostatic Pillar or Null Rod. However, a solution that may work could be Root Maze, considering that 8 of my mana sources are completely unaffected by it and the deck only runs four fetches.

Also, much of my ideas for this deck came from Cerebral Assassin, and I have looked thoroughly through the thread.

[crazynlazy]

I would definitely run pillar MD. Just because game one against combo will be terrible for you (unless you play a turn one root maze.) other than that it looks like a pretty good deck.

[THEBIGLOU]

Have you play tested this deck vs Oath ?

They will make you pay something fierce for those welders and X-Swarm.  I am curious how that match up goes.

I haven't played X-Swarm in a while, are they still worthwhile cards when most decks that play counter spelling are combo-esqe ? Traditional control like 4cc have spot removal to handle the X-Swarms.

I have found Genesis to be much too slow in against today’s decks.  

Are 4 Survivals overkill with the rest of the engine?  Do you have any match up analysis from actual games?  I am curious to see how it matches up in a real game.

THEBIGLOU

[Ifflejink]

Unfortunately, I have little playtesting experience with this deck. However, I have done some testing against Oath, and your main plan is to race them. Xantid Swarms do wonders in the matchup, even if they do help the Oath itself. Your main cards in this matchup are Duplicant, Xantid, Sundering Titan and, at times, Platinum Angel. As long as you can get an engine going, which is difficult with their counters and Stip/Wastes, you have a good chance of winning.

Genesis may be slow, but the matchups it's best in are against control, which can last quite a while. Plus, I'd rather be able to recur countered creatures than just loose to them.