[Budget] R/G Welder-Survival

[Serin]

Hi, I have built a deck similar to the one in the Shopless Survival thread but its a budget version.

I have taken it to some "small" (20-30 players) tournaments here in Spain (woot, 3 monthly tournaments at just one shop), and really enjoy it, its effective, and damn fun to play, but I need some help to solve my worse match-ups: Stax & Combo.

Here's the decklist:

Lands/mana:
4 Mountain
9 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

Draw/Search:
4 Skullclamp
4 Survival of the Fittest

Creature Toolbox:
1 Ornithopter
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Platinum Angel
1 Anger
1 Triskelion
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Goblin Welder

More threats/Alternate win condition:
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel



I run only one taiga because the environment is full of Wastelands, and I only need red mana to cast welders and to give haste with Anger. I havent found problems with the mana configuration, I always have the colors of mana I need thanks to Birds of Paradise and fetchlands.

Skullclamp is great as it is gives a draw engine to a R/G deck, is weldable, and with a 'thopter you can clamp, weld the 'thopter and draw cards while you bring a fattie or utility artifact creature (maybe this is just a win.more situation, as once you can weld freely, you have taken control of the game, but its great once you can do it ).

The creature toolbox is pretty standard, save for the ornithopter, but its there just in case I dont have an artifact in play and need to weld the big artifact creatures.

I have 4 MD Xantids because the metagame was heavy control in the past, but lately its turning into more combo, so I might consider cutting them. I find myself SBing them too much, even vs non-combo decks.

The Mongrels and their unseparable friends the Rootwallas (also good friends with Survival) are there as an alternative way to win, another discard outlet, and to soak up counters/creature removal before I drop the survival and start to weld things.

This is my current SB, and I would really appreciate any help you can give me, taking into account that the metagame is control/combo heavy with very few Workshop decks, although they really wreck me every time I have to play vs them as I cant develop my gameplan fast enough.

4 Artifact Mutation
4 Fire Ice
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Red Elemental Blast

I dont have much problems vs control, but I am thinking on changing the Chalices for Pyrostatic Pillar to fight combo.

The biggest problems I have found are:

-Chalice for 1: no welders, no skullclamp, no rootwallas, no shaman. My only answer is the random Uktabi oranguntan, and often is too slow.
-Chalice for 1, 2 (usually off Workshops): it utterly destroys me. And it happens more often than I would like.
-Combo: cant disrupt them much, aside from SB chalices, as it takes a lot of time to mount the SoTF engine.


Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance and excuse my bad english

[Fominian]

A few more base artifacts and some more welders would easily solve your problem for stax, as well as allow you to bounce some of your current artifacts around thus increasing their potential.  Also concider the addition of spells such as Fire/Ice and its ilk.  

Combo you already run swarm, though it only hurts combo to a minute end.  My suggestion would be to attack their mana base, which is far easier in a deck like this, then say attacking either their hands, or library itself.

Final suggestion: Standradize your critters some, you are doing to much I think with all those creatures.

[absolute]

You could run tree of tales or citadels to up your artifact count, and using some maindeck burn would solve your matchup vs. stacks. Combo can be caught by using pyrostatic pillar and null rods (as well as helping in the stacks matchup), and you could run a few rack and ruin sided to do the stacks player some damage. You also neglect to use silent arbiter against the stacks matchup, while it would give you a great deal of time to stall out the opponent until you could put out a platinum angel, or flat out win the game.

[Serin]

I thought on adding the artifact lands, but I think it would make my otherwise good mana base into a very unstable one. Maybe I will add 2 Trees of tales, just to try them out.

Xantids dont do anything versus combo, and I found myself switching them for the Fire/Ice in the SB really often. Im considering making it a permanent change, and leave the Xantids on the SB.
I cant add Null rod because of Skullclamp and Triskelion, and if I add the artifact lands it gets much worse.
I'll definetly change the chalices for pillars in the SB, much more effective vs combo.

My problem versus stacks is that they usually get a Workshop on turn 2-3, and start dropping Wires and Smokestacks that really hinder my gameplan, as I need a lot of green mana on the first turns to develop the board position, and when Im able to do anything they have already tinkered a colossus or are doing nasty welder tricks.
Im used to play with Blue,  so maybe its that Im just missing the FoWs heh

Thanks for your help, keep the ideas coming!

[sierra_gandalf]

i've played with you in the last spanish tournament (Navalmoral). I'm the man of the madness at first round. Your deck seems me some weak against control, and with xantid swarm you will have some chance to win. I won't change it. And about fire/ice, keep it in the SB, and remove chalice of the void, and put some pirostatic pillars against combo. You may run Blood Moon in the MD cause here we play a lot of nonbasic lands.

[absolute]

The artifact lands may not even be your route to victory, maybe you should up your welder count so you can weld away their stacks, and ruin their gameplan. With anger you will have active welders before them, and will normally have a better game. Survivaling for rofello's will let you out tempo them in the midgame, and you should be able to play a better game. Blood moon is also a very nice answer to drop on turn two considering they will only be able to activate workshops once, and you could have a welder by then. Try to fit a sharpshooter boarded, as it will help you win matchups vs. random aggro.

[Serin]

@ sierra_gandalf: I only played this deck at Katan, so I dont know about the version of the Navalmoral player. This last sunday I talked with Raul (Stax/Mask) at the Katan tourney about Navalmoral, and he didnt tell me there was a similar deck running around, I have to do some research to compare decklists with that unknown player
Don't know about his deck but my version has a very good game versus control, I have played vs Fish, 4cc and Mono-U and I can quite ofter outmatch their answers/counters with somenthing of the like of: first turn walla/welder/xantid, second turn mongrel/SoTF, and a third turn threat.
I will consider MDing some bloodmoons, but without Brainstorm/tutoring, I will have to add at least 3 to see them soon enough. Dont know what to remove.

@ absolute: My problem versus Stax decks is that I cant start the SoTF engine as they cripple my mana with trinisphere/wire/smokestack, and cant get the SoTF going. If I add the artifact lands, with 4 welders I think I will be able to weld more often with just a mongrel to discard. Will test it out and tell you how did it go
I currently don't have many problems versus crappy aggro/T2 affinity, as I can block/soak up damage the first turns and once I get the SoTF or an active welder going, I take control of the game almost completly.


Too many things to add, and I dont know what to remove! it always happens. I will try the artifact lands/4 welder version, and one more controlish with MD fire/Ices and bloodmoon. Thanks for the input!