[SCD: Exodus] Survival of the Fittest

[Demagoguery]

I know it's kind of strange to bring this card up all of a sudden, and as far as I know there hasn't been a thread about it based on my search, but could this be the time when the card returns to Vintage after its long absence?

The reason I ask about it now are as follows:

1.) Deathrite Shaman: This card has been huge, it's showing up in so many decks and really does what you want it to do, it ramps, it provides you reach, it stabilizes you, and it's a creature so it works well with Survival. This creature has been described as a one mana planeswalker, and for good reason, it's easy to cast and can go in anything from control to aggro, it does everything and it seems like it would work really well with Survival, not so much because you'd go out of your way to fetch it, but because it generates the mana for activations and can be pitched, while being awesome all around.

2.) Creatures are in and so is Green: With Merfolk winning Champs, and BUG Fish winning BoM, it's clear that creatures are big right now, despite decks like Oath running around. Not only that but as a result of creatures being fantastic, so is the colour green, which was one major limiting factor that Survival had in the past, being that it wanted a lot of green mana to activate. However, we're now seeing the power of things like Deathrite, and even Scavenging Ooze isn't uncommon to see showing up. Elvish Spirit Guide is another great card that acts as additional Moxen while pitching to Survival later on.

Abrupt Decay is another reason Green has become better, it answers a lot of powerful cards, while being uncounterable, and it's only getting better with how strong RUG Delver and Merfolk are seem to be.

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However, the main issue with Survival is that a lot of the creature decks currently want to play multiple copies of each creature as in the case of Deathrite, and as such using Survival to fetch them isn't amazing. These decks do run several situational one ofs, but they depend on their black tutors to fetch those cards (Trygon, Ooze, Edric, etc.) as needed. This means that any deck that would want to use Survival, wouldn't be an existing deck, as much as a new deck designed to utilize the ability Survival has to tutor easily. Some cards like Ooze and Trygon, would probably remain, but things like Teeg and Ingot Chewer would be good for the deck as they can either be pitch or fetched as needed, along with the possibility of cards like Trinket Mage to create tutor chains. Also, seeing as the deck would be high in creatures, Thalia could be good for it, and the benefit of being able to pitch additional Thalia's is a benefit that Survival does provide, along with finding that one of Sting Scourger or Kataki, while also getting rid of them in match ups where they're not needed.

As a whole, I'm not sure if Survival is ready to come back into the format, but it's definitely getting better and better with each set. What do you guys think on the subject matter?

[zeus-online]

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[xouman]

I also think that survival is a pretty solid card and could achieve some success (although it's probably slow). The problem is that for 1G, you have oath. Yes, cage exists, but outside that, you usually would prefer oath to sotf.

If I had to design a sotf deck, I'll probably start with 4 deathrite shaman and probably birds of paradise over noble hierarch. Then kataki, tarmogoyf, magus of the moon, thalia, viridian shaman, revoker, ooze... there are lots of options, and it should established if the deck is intended to control proactively or reactively. Or even combish!

[Demagoguery]

Hm, interesting points, but let's consider the following*:

1.) The tempo game in Vintage isn't as massive as that of Legacy, hence why Vintage tends to be more cautious about plays and have greedier mana bases than Legacy. At least, this is what I've noticed as a Vintage player trying to get into Legacy.

2.) I think this is something we need to reconsider, because while those cards are good in other formats, they aren't good in Vintage. Trying to port Legacy Survival into Vintage is probably the worst way of doing things, as the two formats are vastly different. Just look at the Goblins deck, whereas Goblin Ringleader is good in Legacy, it's pretty bad in Vintage and Earwig Squad is fantastic.

That being said, what if we ditched all the permutation of the Legacy format and considered them in terms of Vintage. In Legacy it's fine bringing Vengevines into Rootwallas, but in Vintage wouldn't it be better getting Anger -> Battle Sphere -> Welder, seeing as not only do you have access to Tinker but also Moxen which make that plan far superior to the Legacy plan? Not only that but Welder -> Earwig Squad is brutal in Vintage against some decks, while not being that great in Legacy. Also, something like Big Game Hunter does kill a Lodestone pretty well, while replacing itself with an Ingot Chewer, or it kills a goyf/3rd Merfolk Lord.

As a whole, I don't think Vintage Survival would look like that of Legacy Survival, but rather it would be its own weird entity, less worried about the card advantage Survival can generate and more worried about the permutation it offers.

3 and 4.) Yes, but it also does things in Vintage it can't do in Legacy. The Welder plan doesn't really work in Legacy because you'd have to run artifacts that take you off the plan, while the Moxen help you accelerate into Survival and enable Welder. More so, Anger+Welder does stop things such as Blightsteel, which aren't really a factor in Legacy. Not only that but Legacy does tend to have a much more horizontal deck construction as the power level is lower, whereas Vintage has a much higher power level and as such requires more targeted answers, as seen in Earwig Squad being so much better.  

Another interesting aspect is the popularity of Restoration Angel in Vintage, whereas it doesn't see much play in Legacy. The card is good with Survival but more importantly it shows the benefit of rebuying creatures, and as I mentioned before things like Abrupt Decay are becoming more popular. Now imagine being able to respond to something like a Lightning Bolt on your attacking creature by using Survival to get a Ninja of the Deep Hour, to rebuy your guy, draw a card, and either dodge removal or put more damage across. Sure it's a one time thing, but it's a lot of value for 1UG in Vintage.  Especially if you rebuy something like Big Game Hunter against a Shop deck, assuring they can't depend on a Lodestone Golem in the near future without providing you with card advantage. Even just rebuying the one of Trinket Mage after drawing a Time Vault might be good enough in its own little way.


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I mean I love Survival as a card, way back when I played Legacy I ran Welder Survival, and honestly I think it might be nearing the time where Survival does have a place in Vintage, but it won't be in the Rootwalla or Retainers tricks we saw in Legacy, but rather in a new form that is unique to Vintage... After all, we've seen quite a lot of decks spring up this year that we didn't consider in the past from Affinity Shops to Blue Angels, and everything in between. Even if Survival isn't ready for Vintage just yet, I think it's vital for us to constantly keep on eye on it, as there's a chance that it might explode at any given time, with both the commander products and new sets coming out.  

I also think that survival is a pretty solid card and could achieve some success (although it's probably slow). The problem is that for 1G, you have oath. Yes, cage exists, but outside that, you usually would prefer oath to sotf.

If I had to design a sotf deck, I'll probably start with 4 deathrite shaman and probably birds of paradise over noble hierarch. Then kataki, tarmogoyf, magus of the moon, thalia, viridian shaman, revoker, ooze... there are lots of options, and it should established if the deck is intended to control proactively or reactively. Or even combish!

Oath is a cool card, but I don't think it's comparable. Oath wants to win off running less creatures and results in combo or combo-control, while Survival wants more creatures and is more tool boxy. Also, being able to fetch an Earwig Squad off Survival against Oath would be devastating as it would take away all of their guys. Survival is the hybrid of Oath and BUG Fish, that doesn't really function as either deck alone. Earwig Squad also functions very well with Welder which is pretty good with Survival in Vintage, and not only that but Tin-Street Hooligan isn't terrible either when you consider the deck, since a lot of the time he can Stone Rain or stop certain combos, while enabling the Squad... I wonder how many people you could catch off guard by getting a Hooligan, killing their artifact and then playing out a Squad the next turn... Possibly even Ninjutsu-ing the Hooligan back into hand to do more stuff later.

See, this is why I love Survival so much, it's such a complicated card that can be built in many ways, and honestly I can't really figure out a perfect combination of cards to make it function the way I'd think, but I truly feel like there's something we're missing about it, because we're looking at similar but non-comparable cards like Oath.  

Edit: Also the one of Yixilid Jailer becomes a lot better.

[zeus-online]

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[Demagoguery]

You should do a search for a deck called Tools 'n Tubbies (aka TnT) It's a pretty old workshop deck (I think 2002ish?), featuring goblin welders and survival. Another deck to look into is a green madness deck called Oshawa stompy.
My knowledge of these two decks where my basis for forming an opinion, not my knowledge of legacy survival decks.

Oath of druids has nothing to do with this - i think mana drain is a much better card than lord of atlantis, this does not mean that merfolk should cut Lord of atlantis for mana drain, despite their similar mana costs.

Also, vintage players are greedier with their mana bases? Really? I think it's the exact opposite.

Actually, part of what reminded me of Survival was that I was reading the 2002 chapter of Stephen Menendian's book about the history of Vintage and he discussed the TnT deck. The Legacy versions that got Survival banned in the format did use a lot of same concepts as the TnT deck, even though they were more modern.

I agree, but the parallels between Oath and Survival are great than those you've listed, I believe that the cards are not comparable. They really aim to do very different thing.

As for the mana base, well I'm basing this on my experience after trying out Legacy. I started playing some decks, primarily UB Tezz, as Transmute made me think of Tinker, and the first question I asked as why didn't it include red for things like Welder and even Bolt, seeing how powerful creatures were and how many important singleton artifacts it ran. The majority of Legacy players I knew, who had played the format for a while, were very focused about mana bases and how important it was to avoid Wasteland blow outs, whereas in Vintage we're more likely to go for Keeper style mana bases (2-2-2 with Fetches and Cities) and base our decks around a Workshop or Bazaar. More so, as I looked more at the format, it became clear just how much more prevalent Wasteland was in Legacy than Vintage, and on top of that people did run Stifle to catch those who had Fetches. As a whole I think it's a result of Vintage being more diverse and having more things to keep track of, but we do take far greater risks with our mana than the Legacy folks, and maybe that's why Merfolk did so well at Champs.

[zeus-online]

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[Protoaddict]

I feel like survival and even tortured existence are in a strange spot. Both are in playable colors, both create great combo engines, and both are cheap, but both roll over to graveyard hate.

Survival at its recent peak was amazing because of Vengevine and mana acceleration You could very early on in the game have 4 vengevines in play and even some rootwallas and just walk home with that win. That combo rolls over to virtually any grave hate in the format which is very prominent, yet I do not see this deck having any real advantage over dredge so why bother taking on the added risk for no reward.

Likewise if it is a reanimator tool it still suffers the same issue, and honestly entomb is probabaly better. Or the previously mentioned Oath.

If you want to run it as toolbox that's fine too, but you have other options for that. Green suns zenith is still good if your not against a cage player, and will get you your piece AND functions as acceleration with Dryad Arbor without the inherent card disadvantage of having to cast the survival.

I like survival a lot but in my eyes, unless gravehate takes a back seat, which I don't see happening considering a great many decks main grave hate right now just for yawgs will, it will never really be worth it as a main engine because you cant get vengevines for free anymore.