Shopless Survival

[Team-Judgement]

I think that TnT was discussed along time ago(could'nt find the topic, i think it was to old) and as far as i remember the conclusion was that its ruined your mana base, and that survival was good enough as draw

When i was testing today(not this deck, but other decks)the guy i tested with had made this deck, but added skullclamp. It worked very good for him, skullclamp fits perfectly into this deck because he could clamp his stuff before welding them out, and clamp birds, squee and useless welders(it happens yes) to get more fuel. Also i dont think that the utility creatures are needed, rather add some more treats as f.x. volrath's shapeshifter.

[xthexpunisherx]

Xantids might actually be pretty decent in the maindeck, if you could find room. They draw out removal that would hit welders, counters that would hit survival, etc.

Well I think they might be a good maindeck solution but I think we are all missing somthing.  What type of Metagame should we be using this deck in?  Do you play in a high control metagame (where you would want Xantid) or high combo metagame (where Trinisphere is MVP).  I think the extra "space" the maindeck encounters could be a advantage to being able to make quick meta-specific choices when going to a tournament.   Does anyone else see this possiblity?  Or does this deck need a solid sideboard and not worry about Metagame specific maindeck choices?

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Thirst for Knowledge seems solid here. The people raving about Intuition are just players that are afraid to try anything new. Intuition is awful in this deck and AKs would be worse...

Yes, clearly I am afraid of change. One day I woke up and saw a woman outside of the kitchen, and wearing pants as well! Mine humors were upset and I fell choleric by such open vulgarity! I am so conformative that I never make suggestions based on my opinions; I am part of a secret society dedicated to maintaining the current price list trends and stifling the innovation of other people to maintain a stranglehold on type 1. We even have a secret handshake.

End Sarcasm

You say TFK, I say Intuition. Let's call the whole thing off.

The symmetry of draw sevens worries me, especially when you only need one specific card to win. In this case, vamp and demonic seem alot better and become quite possible with birds and the queer ranger.

[Negator13]

I'm really happy to see all the attention this deck is getting... thanks for keeping an open mind and helping with card choices.

What's really great is that just about all the cards I have been considering adding were suggested by you guys:

Eternal Witness
Regrowth
Xantid Swarm (Already in the sideboard)
Genesis (After more testing, I'm pretty sure this is nessecary)
Skullclamp (Not enough 1 toughness, disposable creatures, IMO)

I'm very interested in what Hi-val said about running only 1 Welder and some number (3? 4?) of Eternal Witnesses. This seems beneficial because it lowers the requirement of red mana, gives the deck basically another draw engine, and breaks through counter walls to resolve the winning SotF. The only problem I can see as of now is that an STP on my solitary Welder could really put the hurt on, any thoughts on this?

Cutting the FOW's is most likely the thing to do. They were really the last, filler slot for the deck, a sort of quick-fix for problematic cards. There really aren't enough blue cards to validate them and they also don't really fit in with the, what I feel to be, aggro-combo nature of the deck. Somebody mentioned how they felt this deck is combo-control, though, and I think this disagreement on play style can put i real hamper on the tweaking/improvement process. I think we need to evaluate what the deck is doing, how it plans to do this and what it does about other decks trying to stop it.

Setting that idea aside for now, here are the changes I'm making as of now:

-4 FoW
-2 Goblin Welder (I'm afraid to cut all 3 because of STP and the chance of not drawing SotF early enough)
-1 Uktabi Orangutan
-1 Druid Lyrist
-1 Taiga
-1 Tropical Island

+4 Eternal Witness
+1 Viridian Zealot
+1 Regrowth
+1 Quirion Ranger
+1 Genesis
+1 Windswept Heath
+1 Forest

Explanation:

I'm going to try the 1 Welder, 4 Witness plan, so I added a green source and stabilized the mana a little bit with the addition of a basic Forest and another Fetch in place of vulnerable duals. Genesis I now think is an auto-include after testing against Monoblue, and Ranger helps under B2B and provides good acceleration with BoP. Zealot consolidates slots and works well with Genesis.

This makes the list, as of now:

5 Forest
3 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Eternal Witness
2 Goblin Welder
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Genesis
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Regrowth
4 Survival of the Fittest

Rough Sideboard:

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Artifact Mutation
2 Fire/Ice
3 Tsabo's Web
2 Tormod's Crypt
(X Red Elemental Blast)
(X Gorilla Shaman)

As for metagame, I live in Connecticut so the major meta is that of Waterbury.

Again, I appreciate all the help and I encourage you to try this out and see how it runs.

EDIT: I also just want it known that I've been playing a somewhat modified (UR) version of Meandeck Titan for a couple months now, so I know what's going on there (regarding TFK).

[serialjester]

I'm very interested in what Hi-val said about running only 1 Welder and some number (3? 4?) of Eternal Witnesses. This seems beneficial because it lowers the requirement of red mana, gives the deck basically another draw engine, and breaks through counter walls to resolve the winning SotF. The only problem I can see as of now is that an STP on my solitary Welder could really put the hurt on, any thoughts on this?

Sylvan Safekeeper can act as protection for any of your creatures, and it's in colour and can be fetched via Survival. The drawback is painful in a format of Wastelands, which made Me think of Crucible to augment it/act as mana accel in a pinch. You've decided to use Witness so that might be better than Crucible in this deck because of the flexible utility, but it's an option. Safekeeper certainly is rough to play around for spot based removal wielding decks, and isn't broken enough that it will be countered regularly.

[glenchuy]

<snip>This makes the list, as of now: <snip>
2 Goblin Welder
1 Regrowth
4 Survival of the Fittest

i like the deck a lot, and have begun testing/playing with it.  and during testing, my concerns are-

1.) what to do when SoTF gets countered-
the plan was,
- 1.1) to go the goblin welder route
- 1.2) to recur SoTF via witness and try again

2.) the problem i'm encountering however, with the reduced number of goblin welders is-
- 2.1) fewer welders means that you can't rely on them on them as often and have to rely on SoTF to get them out.
- 2.2) if you have to rely on SoTF to get the welders out, and SoTF gets countered, then you're back to square 1.

so how about upping the welder count back to 3?

3.) is regrowth really that useful? the more i play it, the more i dislike it.  i'd rather have another utility creature- like gilded drake, but i must admit, it does act like SoTF #5- (but you already have 4 witnesses)

4.) this might be slightly unrelated, but my meta is goblin welders.decks all the way, so currently my SB is

4x mutation
4x xantid swarm
2x viashino heretic

i have no idea how to board against combo... i just flat out lose against belcher and tendrils.

[Sammy]

Why not board Root Maze/Null Rod then. If your losing so bad to combo then Im sure losing a few moxes to Null Rod (they are still weldible!), to greatly increase your chances of winning is worth it. Root Maze may slow you down a little too much on the other hand, but they are really your only answers.

[glenchuy]

thoughts about adding/replacing a color with black?  

black gives duress, restricted goodies and withered wretch, which gives me additional hate against welder/dragon game 1.  anyway, just tinkering with it, as i've always like the old rec-sur decks of old.  (i thought of recurring nightmare too, but it couldn't be fetched by SoTF... maybe if i drop to 1 welder and MD 1-2 recurring nightmares, add CoB to the mana base and tinker with it even more... duress is certainly a boost against combo if you go first.  at least now it just doesn't roll over and die to combo game 1.

this deck is fun, i'm playing it in our tourney tomorrow and put up the final list tomorrow when i get back home.  hopefully i don't get trashed so much by playing a rogue deck

[policehq]

Another note about adding black instead of blue is the incredible synnergy between Chains of Mephistopheles and Survival of the Fittest. I bet that it's worth looking into.

Barry

[Misemaster]

If you are having a trouble with fast combo decks one viable sideboard option could be pyrostatic pillar. It does not really help if they are going first but you may be able to steal a game one with a platinum angel.

[Negator13]

Adding black instead of blue is certainly an idea with merit, but I'm going to stick with blue, at least for now. Tell me how you do with black versions if thats how you choose to run it.

I decided to take Jacob's idea more seriously and tried maindecking a set of Xantid Swarms. The results were quite impressive and running the Swarms MD is definitely the way to go from what I've seen. They make Control matchups such a breeze its laughable. I'm having very favorable results against MonoBlue, Meandeck Titan and Control Slaver.

I cut the Regrowth, which is very situational, the Memory Jar, which was too clunky and not a worthwhile Tinker target, and The Quirion Ranger. Ranger is admittedly very nice to have out but he really isn't worth the space.

Viridian Zealot saves room but is just so horribly pathetic at doing its job that it needs to be axed for Shaman and Lyrist. 1GGG plus G to fetch it is WAY too mana intensive.

I got rid of Genesis because with the addition of 4 Swarms alongside the 4 Witnesses, countermagic isn't much of a problem anymore and I dont need mana intensive recursion like that.

For now, I'm cutting the Triskelion because Duplicant usually does its job just as well and I need room for other cards that have dissimilar purposes. It's the first card I'm looking to find room for though.

I changed the lands back to 4/4/4/4 because I wasn't happy with only 3 Taiga and 3 Trops after playing with that configuration for a while.

4 Forest
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Eternal Witness
2 Goblin Welder
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Druid Lyrist
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Duplicant
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
4 Survival of the Fittest

Sideboard:

1 Triskelion
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Root Maze
4 Artifact Mutation
2 Fire/Ice



Combo is looking to be a nightmare matchup for me so I'm devoting most of my sideboard to improving it. Options include Null Rod, Pyrostatic Pillar, Rootmaze, Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, and Tormod's Crypt. I chose Pillar and Maze for now because those seem to be the most effective and the least self-harming of those anti-combo cards.

[Sammy]

I've actually found that having multiple Rangers, is very good. The deck seems to bend over to strip effects and running Rangers help so much. They also produce a large amount of mana with birds, and with multiple artifacts out you get to weld twice a turn, or even 3 times if you include during their turn.

[Team-Judgement]

If you choose to run 4 xantid, 4 witness, 4 birds, X welders and maybee even multiple ranger - skullclamp would be so good, since you now(with eventual utility creatures)have like 20 clamp targets, it would give you a better draw engine than allmost everything else

[WildWillieWonderboy]

clamp is pretty good against orchard as well, and as long as you have a witness in hand and one in the 'yard, it is in fact an engine.

I also think this is a deck for hearth kame, because his versatility can save space.

[policehq]

Has anyone else had a problem, in testing, with an active Goblin Welder but no artifact in play to recur a Platinum Angel, Duplicant, or Triskelion? Would it be worthwhile to include a cheap artifact creature like Shield Sphere, Arcbound Worker, etc. to fetch and weld?

Why isn't anyone running Darksteel Colossus? It is a one-time Squee, Goblin Nabob if you happen to draw him, since you can use him to fetch, and it makes the best use of your Tinker. Otherwise I don't really see a point in playing Tinker; all of your artifact creatures don't have any problems getting into play, and Memory Jar is probably the least broken in this deck than any other.

Barry

[glenchuy]

sorry, i chickened out a few hours after i posted that i'm playing it and played u/g survival instead since i just didn't have sufficient testing to justify playing the deck, and mostly because i just lost randomly at testing.  

but i'm currently testing the version with black now.  will see how it goes.

clamp is pretty good against orchard as well, and as long as you have a witness in hand and one in the 'yard, it is in fact an engine.

I also think this is a deck for hearth kame, because his versatility can save space.

if you're using hearth kame, why not just use viashino heretic instead? dealing 8 damage and nuking their titans is cute.  hearth kami can't really take out huge artiFAT, and the summoning sickness is easily negated by anger.  (cheaper activation too!) and immunte to F/I

[Sammy]

Would it be worthwhile to include a cheap artifact creature like Shield Sphere, Arcbound Worker, etc. to fetch and weld?

Yeah I had that problem big time in 1.5, and to solve it I added 4 ornithopter. They worked amazing. It was so much easier to get the 7/10 out, because they are survivable and cost 0. I think it may even be worth it to run 1 in T1.

[giddygorgon]

I have turned this into a budget deck, adding null rod and other disruption, and i've found that running an ornithopter is quite nice when i don't have moxen to weld.

[Jacob Orlove]

Isn't Shield Sphere pretty much strictly better than 'thopter if you're not running clamp?

If you want a creature that can attack, your best option might just be Brass Man.

[Matt]

Or Myr Servitor. Which would also benefit from Clamp.

[Sammy]

But, those all cost one, sometimes you can find yourself in a predicament where you have 1 green mana, a creature in hand, and everything you need out (Welder, Anger, Titan, etc.) but no artifact out, so all you need to do is get a 0 casting cost artifact creature (in my case Thopter) and from there on win. And I think Thopter is better because it can block pesky little flying fish, as well as chump angels and stuff.

That's why my first suggestion was Shield Sphere, which costs 0, but can actually block relevant threats.
-Jacob

[Outlaw]

One, I'd say that Birds are much better than ESG.  You're bound to have turn 1 Survival anyway since you run a full compliment of Moxen.  More traditional Green Survival decks or G/u Survival decks don't run more than 1 or 2 Moxen, so ESG powers their Survival turn 1 as Moxen will do for you.  Birds also seem very strong in a deck with many lands vulnerable to non-basic hate.

As far as the mana base is concerned, I think City of Brass would be good here.  Mainly because it is immune to Sundering Titan, but also because it gives you any of your colors.  I wouldn't run 4 I don't think, maybe just 1 or 2, but I think it's worthy of thought.  I also believe that you could benifit from a Basic Mountain.  Anger is amazing in this deck and he's easy to shut down with opposing Wastelands since you're only running 4 Mountains that are all nonbasic.  I can imagine situations where you could just go broken and win if you only had a Mountain in play.  I'd like to avoid this scenario since it seems that it'd be quite common.

I completely agree with Windfall here.  I fear the decks vulnerability to wasteland, but more in the fact of Titan-ability.  It seems the deck wants to drop a titan as soon as possible, and wreck your opponents game.  But its running Taigas + Tropical seas, thats a huge way to be vulnerable to titan.  As random as it is, you could use Yavimaya coast as 7/10 and 5/3 do with Shivan Reef?  I would also support the use of some cities as Windfall did, not an over amount but to be able to save yourself from yours and your opponents titans.

What about the mainboard Triskelion or Razormane Masticore?  Their both completely amazing cards, and in the random occurance of Razormane + squee you negate the disadvantage.  Both are solid ways to eat apposing welders before sb, and they also help in alot of matchups (aggro wont make dick jokes easy).

[Negator13]

First of all, I'm really impressed and sort of relieved that the many ideas i've had in brainstorming for this deck are being reciprocated by you guys in the forums. You'll find alot of your suggestions put to good use if you look at my latest list (which may be surprising, given how drastically different it is than my previous ones).

Here it is:

Shopless Survival a.k.a. Zoo II

Mana (30)
6 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Birds of Paradise

Win (6)
2 Goblin Welder
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan

Engine (8)
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Skullclamp

Resiliency (8)
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Eternal Witness

Toolbox (8)
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Druid Lyrist
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Genesis
1 Myr Retriever

Sideboard
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Blood Moon
4 Artifact Mutation
4 SIMOON

 :shock:

What's going on here?

Well, basically, blue wasn't worth the mana troubles. Using three colors made me extremely vulnerable to Wastelands, B2B, and Blood Moon, as many of you have pointed out. It also made me unable to run Elvish Spirit Guide, and therefore also very vulnerable to Trinisphere.

So what do we lose by cutting blue? We lose the borken trifecta of Time Walk, Ancestral Recall and Tinker. Those are pretty much irreplacable, but such is always the case when you decide not to run the best color in magic. Other than that, we lose Brainstorm and Thirst for Knowledge, which are easily and more efficiently replaced by Skullclamp.

Skullclamp is amazing here. There are 18 creatures here with one toughness that cost less than 3 mana. Clamp gives an amazing draw engine that is incredibly synergetic with many of the cards already in here. Extra Xantid Swarms clamp up for cards, BoP's turn into self-paying Inspirations, Witnesses become Ancestral Recalls, and best of all, Clamp can be Welded out for Titan and friends.

The deck's new draw engine makes it incredibly consistent and resilient- there's no more blue cards clogging up your hand for lack of a Tropical Island, and the cards keep streaming in constantly. Control decks of almost any sort are a virtual bye, too. Slaver, Titan, Smemmen Blue, and Germbus all have a ridiculously hard time fighting through Survival, Skullclamp, Swarm, Witness, and Welder, all of which win the game if resolved.

In short, the new deck is resistant to nonbasic hate, faster, more consistent, more resilient to countermagic, and more explosive, thanks to the added acceleration of Elvish Spirit Guide.

Also note the absence of Mana Crypt, which basically mana-burned and Bolted me too many times for comfort.

Now let's take a look at the in-deck toolbox we've got going here. We have our staples of Lyrist, Shaman, Squee, and Anger. Then we have Quirion Ranger, which accelerates through BoP, makes up for missed land drops and lets you Weld multiple times a turn. Gorilla Shaman is a silver bullet to wreck manabases and nail problematic artifacts. Genesis makes control matches even more of a slaughter and combos well with many of the creatures. Finally, Myr Retriever serves as the Searchable artifact creature that ensures your ability to Weld in a fatty. I too was having repeated occurences of a lack of a Welder target and Myr Retriever serves as a Clampable, card advantageous solution to this that is decent on its own (as opposed to something like Shield Sphere).

Now, the sideboard-

Pyrostatic Pillar greatly helps in the Storm-combo matchup, and Blood Moon can singlehandedly win games against Dragon, Landstill, Fish, and Germbus. Artifact Mutation is a R/G staple that greatly improves Stax and Workshop Aggro matches post board. The last card is my "secret tech", which I am very proud of. Simoon, for two mana, at instant speed, destroys all Goblin Welders on the other side of the table, regardless of how many there are or when they were played, with the added bonus of acting as a 2 mana Plague Wind against Fish.

This post is gigantic and I've covered all the important changes to the build, so I'm going to leave off here and ask you to continue what you've been doing and help this deck's evolution even more. Thanks again for all your help, and as you can see, many of the suggestions of this thread have been put to amazing use in my build.

P.S. There is one thing I'd like to concentrate on right now: Should I go back up to 24 lands (at the expense of Gorilla Shaman and Queer Ranger), cut 3 Forests and run a manabase of 1 Mountain, 3 Forest, 4 Taiga, 4 Wooded Foothills, 1 Strip Mine and 4 Wasteland? This seems very beneficial but I wonder if it will hurt my capabilities of Survivaling multiple times a turn too much.

P.P.S. The deck, with 18 (Yes, 18) one-mana casting cost permanents, seems very vulnerable to a Chalice for 1. This could be crippling in the Mono Blue and post-sideboarded Slaver matchups. Should I run multiple, varied casting cost answers like Hearth Kami?

[garlick]

First of all, I like very much your deck, expecially his resistence to control. I tested a few games against various decks, and I appreciate the cutting of blue. Yes, tinker is Broken, but too often welding in a Titan was more a problem for me that for my opponent. It really hurts welding in a Titan when you have in play 2 taiga and a tropical, you are stalled more than your opponent. I'm testing a budget version of this deck, and I think that it can do very well; I wonder how many artifact lands should I play in order to have a target for the welder, and if I can replace some acceleration with the use of Wild Grown, which often has given me a good quantity of green mana for the survival.


Bye

[JesseRiver]

Hmm,  I like the R/G version of this deck alot.  I would suggest playing 1-2 Goblin Sharpshooters as an answer to welders and fish.  Imo this is a better option then Simoon,  and it frees up slots in the sideboard.  I would cut a Lyrist for one sharpshooter md.

  Viashino heritic sems like a very good idea in a artifact infested metagame.  

Keep up the good work.

[glenchuy]

Viashino heritic sems like a very good idea in a artifact infested metagame.

yes, like what i've already mentioned above, the anger makes the summoning sickness of heretic negligible.  also, for nuking welders, have you tried ticking gnomes?  you can fetch and shoot, and doesn't need anger, or consider fireslingers it's 2CC, only needs to tap, and with wonder, it doesn't have summoning sickness.

[Covetous]

I was brainstorming about this deck and I came up with the idea that GR/clamp would be more consistent than UGR/thirst.  Obviously you came up with the same idea.  If you fear chalice for 1, I would replace mox monkey with heretic.  However, you already run viridian shaman so you shouldn't worry too much.  I would consider cutting mox monkey for another welder, and maybe even cut genesis for the fourth welder.  I like the myr retriever, but I recall running it in TnT and finding it neat but not quite good enough.  I will of course admit that it's really nasty with clamp, possibly making it a justifiable inclusion.  I'm still not sure about the need for queer ranger, but of course he is good w/ welder and birds and can turn into 2 cards if necessary.  On a different note, have you re-considered draw-7's now that you have cut blue and dropped your mana curve?  I think wheel and jar would be good additions to this deck.  Aggro generally likes draw-7's and so does combo.  Thus, so does most aggro-combo that can find room.  I think you could find room pretty easily.  If you fear opposing welders, you have many options of which ticking gnomes is not the best.  Mogg fanatic is probably better and still not very good.  I like the razormane masticore (or plain ol' original) as an answer to aggro, but with trike, plats, dupes and titan i'm not sure it's necessary.  Maybe in the SB if you fear aggro.  And, speaking of SB, what is simoon in there for?  Who do you fear enough to run that as opposed to lava dart, fire(/ice) or anything else that's better?  I think your original idea of root maze might be more useful despite anti-synergy with fetchies.

[JesseRiver]

Is Squee necessary to the deck he seems like a win more card.  Every time I survival I simply go for the anger, titan, welder chain, squee just doesn't seem to fit in.  I replaced lyrist with sharpshooter and he is working very well, plus he has synergy with clamp.

later

[Negator13]

In games where you get an early Survival and don't have too many green sources, you dont always have time to get Anger > Titan > Welder with R still up. In those cases (which are quite frequent) Squee lets you get the most of your turn by searching for as much of the chain as possible without letting you run out of gas for the next.

He's also a pretty funny draw engine with Skullclamp   but that's completely irrelevant.

BTW, check the first post for updates on the deck from now on. I'm just going to edit that to keep you guys informed instead of clogging up the thread with more lists.

[Serin]

Hi, I played a similar version of this deck some months ago. Though it was before sundering titan was released.

I had 4 mongrel, 4 rootwalla, they were quite nice as additional threats and could steal some games without dropping survival. Turn 2 mongrel, discard anger, drop rootwalla is a very aggresive startup (I ran 2 MD anger, wasn't so focused on survival).
They also draw counters/removal leaving the way free for welder/fat beats/swarms.

I also didn't run eternal witness, so maybe you don't have the problem of getting your welders nuked and only be able to use them once.

Have you tried during the testing including the madness creatures? even fiery temper to remove opposing welders could work... (haven't tested them).