I didn't mean to build a deck to hate them out. Just to be aware of what Survival hate they may have. Gerry's list was built for a meta with few ways to disrupt his combo, so he built the deck with redundancy to just force the combo through. If there are a lot of Deathrite Shamans and other graveyard hate, then going all-in on Survival is risky. You could have Devourer, Triskelion or Vengevine exiled while you're trying to do shenanigans. I see 3 decks with 4 Deathrite in that list already.
I would cut out stuff like Fauna Shaman, Quirion Ranger, Lion's Eye Diamond, maybe drop down to 3 Enlightened Tutor. Instead of finding 20 different ways to enable your Necrotic Ooze combo, I'd use those slots to have a plan B that isn't dependent on the graveyard so you don't get screwed if you can't stop the opponent from sniping your graveyard. Or run more removal (Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, Swords to Plowshares).
I wouldn't bother with Stoneforge Mystic and equipment in your deck. Thalia might slow you down too much too. There are nasty artifacts and enchantments in a lot of those decks, so you might want more than 1 Qasali Pridemage or Reclamation Sage in your maindeck.
Good point, I think using more Removal will add a good protection for this deck, it will also open room for Collective Brutality , I really want to test it, I think it's an aggressive card for this deck because I will be throwing the combo creatures on the graveyard while escalating the effects of the card and this could be game changing, fetch creatures with survival, throw collective brutality and those creatures on the grave, seems a good interaction and don`t request many cards (well, just one-two or three collective). Thank you very much for your help, I think I have a better picture of what to do with this deck now.
I'm not sure I would cut fauna shaman or quirion ranger, but I also agree that stoneforge would not be good for this deck. This is tuned for consistency currently. If you'd rather look at aggro or midrange, we can but it will be significantly different. I'd cut Basking Rootwalla, and bring in a Burning-Tree Emissary and maybe a Recurring Nightmare.
Recurring Nightmare? why? I mean, keep returning creatures is not the purpose of the deck since both combos work on the graveyard and the Vengevine turns back to the battlefield alone.
There are all sorts of arquetypes, uw blade, shardless bug, bug control, eldrazi, mud, miracles, elf, ... etc But I think if I focus solely on disrupting my friends deck it will be very unfair for them and unfun aswell as I'm already playing with a banned deck and on top of it focusing on screwing with their strategies, meh...better not haha I just want a more generic jack of all trades version, but I guess the deathrites and abrupts will provide that, 4 Fauna Shaman looks just too much, especially with tutor for survival, I guess I will drop them too.
Gerry Thompson? He was reacting to a meta that lacked proper Survival hate. In Europe, people played Pithing Needle. In North America, people tried to beat Survival by running more Survival (which was dumb, and led to bannings). It was Bant Vengevine Survival vs Bant Loyal Retainers Survival vs BGx Ooze combo. There was little graveyard hate (no Deathrite Shaman or Rest in Peace) or maindeck survival hate (no Abrupt Decay or Phyrexian Revoker). Players just tried to get Survival online first. With that in mind, Gerry chose to play linear combo with as many redundant pieces as possible. But that doesn't always work in every meta. I would not use his build today.
Which kind of build would you try with todays meta and cardpool?
Deathrite is an upgrade to Birds of Paradise. DRS is functionally a 1/2 Birds with 2 other abilities! Not only that, but those 2 abilities are useful in a stalled lategame at the very time when a mana dork is usually terrible. It's good early, it's good midgame, and it's good late. You can't accomplish much more on turn 1 with Forest. Check out the 2017 Legacy meta and see how often Birds of Paradise sees play. In almost all cases, Deathrite Shaman has replaced it. It's that good. Remember that you can get mana from enemy fetchlands too. And you can run more fetchlands. 10 is a good number.
Oh, you are absolutely right. I was thinking about Deathrite shaman X Noble Hierarch and not taking birds of paradise out to make room for him (duh!)
Cut Wispmare and move it to SB. That's probably Survival hate for a Survival vs Survival meta.
I'd cut Lion's Eye Diamond. That's an extremely "all-in" card designed for a meta with little hate and a lot of pressure to outrace.
Collective Brutality is kind of cool, but after Swords and Abrupt Decay and Survival and Enlightened Tutor, you can't afford to run any more spells. Survival decks need creatures to discard.
Yeah, I think white is a good support color for this deck, especially with Enlightened Tutor ,Swords is indeed way better. Also, with this deck my thoughts are always with "I want to play a survival as soon as possible and use the combo as fast and efficient as possible be it with vengevines or ooze" so cards like Stoneforge Mystic and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben are kind left out since they use a different approach, but I don't know if this is the right way to think about when building a deck around survival, sure I need to first knows what I want to build around it, in my case ooze combo + vengevine as plan B so I have to focus everything around those two right? It's not an easy deck to build haha Thank you for your support
4x E.Tutor, 4x Survival and 4x Fauna Shaman is excessively excessive. You do realize that the effect is essentially worthless in multiples right?
Quirion Ranger is completely nonsensical and for some mysterious reason you have the full 4. I don't know what you plan on doing with them but if you're thinking "I can untap and activate Fauna Shaman a bunch of times each turn" then you're being way too ambitious. That's just not how games play out when you have Survival in your deck.
Tree of Tales why? It can't be fetched to play around Wasteland/Price of Progress/etc. which seems heinous to me. If you're adding it so that you can E.Tutor for a land then you're doing it wrong lol. If you're 0-for-1ing yourself so that you can play a bad Forest then you've already lost.
You should really have a card like Qasali Pridemage to deal with noncreature permanents.
This list is not mine! It is a combo oriented list from a player named Gerry that was wrecking havoc back in 2011 , I'm just using it as a starting point for modifying, I agree that 4 fauna shaman + 4 survival are excessive but I think he used that much to start the ooze combo asap, and the tree of tales I guess it's just an emergency green mana to fetch with one of the enlightened tutors. I liked your suggestions, especially the Gilded Drake card.
4 Birds + 4 Noble Hierarch + 4 Quirion Ranger seems excessive. 6-8 mana dorks are probably enough. You can also play your own Deathrite Shaman (and should, if you're running any fetchlands). Quirion Ranger is quite bad. Wall of Roots is flexible as a secondary mana dork and aggro blocker. And often-missed interaction is that you can use Roots on both your turn and the opponent's turn (2 survival activations per turn cycle).
A BGx build also wants some number of Abrupt Decay. That card is almost always good. Be careful casting it against Blue decks when you already have Survival on the field, as someone might Misdirection it at your Survival. But otherwise Decay is fantastic.
Also, how to respond to Show and Tell decks besides oblivion rings?
This beats Gilded Drake, since Show and Tell might put out a noncreature like Omniscience or even Sneak Attack (he gets to pick a permanent on resolution, so he can choose something after you activate survival for Gilded Drake, awkwardly dodging Drake).
It depends what the deck is. If it's OmniTell, you'll need removal for Omniscience/Dream Halls. If it's SneakShow, opponent will try to lean on Sneak Attack instead of Show and Tell, so you'll want enchantment removal like Reclamation Sage or something that nullifies hasty cheated out creatures like Containment Priest. If it's Reanimator using Show and Tell as a back-up plan, then you'll want graveyard hate (Deathrite Shaman, Scavenging Ooze) and something else to deal with cheated out fatties.
The great thing about Survival is that you get the opportunity to run a toolbox with diverse tools, so you can adapt to what decks your friends are playing. There are niche hate creatures that answer any scenario. But you have finite slots maindeck and sideboard. You just need to figure out what decks your friends are playing and dedicate the appropriate slots to them.
It's indeed a very fun deck to play! I'm trying to modify the Gerry build so the deck's color should be BGW, W is also good since I can use 4 tutors to fetch survival. One question regarding Deathrite, is he mandatory ? I mean, apart from eating my opponent's graveyard he will be used to fuel survival when some fetches are nearby but I already have 4x Noble and 4x Birds, what are his advantages? (And I would love to be convinced since I have a playset begging to be used!). I agree with fatal push too, it is an awesome card, the thing is, which cards should I take from the build I posted to get some room for fatal push + abrupt + deathrite ? -4 quirion ranger is mandatory but the other ones are kinda hard to just take off.
Also, one new card that I think would be awesome in this deck because the whole sinergy with survival is Collective Brutality , what do you think?
Like I said: our legacy group is very friendly and they don't mind if I have a "legacy" survival deck, it's a group of friends too, not a group of players at a LGS
I have a survival playset and always loved the card, our legacy group is very friendly and they don't mind if I have a "legacy" survival deck (basically its a UG madness build like the 2011 build) the thing is, I was reading about the (in)famous Gerry combo build and I really liked the deck but I would like to evolve the deck as if it was played with the current's legacy card pool, I would like some suggestions and tips as to which cards I could replace , I marked the cards I think shouldbe replaced with bold letters:
I don't know which cards from the current legacy scene would be added in this build, deathrite shaman definitely kills this deck, maybe fatal push to deal with it? Also, how to respond to Show and Tell decks besides oblivion rings? I also have to decrease the number of some playsets in favor of newer cards but I'm having some trouble tinkering the "2017" version of this deck.
just because he is a bad guy? he commited various genocide and other horrible things? it's just a character. a well-written, important for mtg, fictional character.
You kinda answered that question, he's a well-written being and I think wizards really did a great job impersonating black mana.
There are people with Dracula tattoos, Cthulhu tattoos, it's not about their allignment or what they did to human kind that some people like to tattoo those kind of things, it's because they come from a history - poem - movie - game they very much like and those characters are the face of that franchise, and for me, Yawgmoth / Urza were the face of magic, damn, look what he made Urza did to stop him, the epic battle that wiped 95% of Dominaria, but like I said, I like abstract concepts and Yawgmoth is basically that too.
I'm curious why you've picked Yawgmoth to get a tattoo of? It seems you don't really know much about the character.
Read 'The Thran' novel first. You'll get a feel of the character and his appearance from there.
I read a couple of articles of him on phyrexia.com a couple years ago, I would like to read the whole brother's wars actually.
I started playing magic on Urza's saga but I was 10 years old so I wasn't able to have a full dive on it, but for me the whole invasion story is the best we had so far (Eldrazi on second place) and the whole flavor of Dominaria and Urza's struggle against the phyrexians, it's awesome
And ofc, Yawgmoth (for me at least) is the most terrifying and powerful being on magic history, he started as a normal human and died as an entity that was pure black mana, that's just awesome. I also like abstract concepts and trying to materialize his appearance after his ascending is something I like to do from time to time.
I don't think there's anything wrong with getting a Yawgmoth tattoo. I'm pretty sure the image I posted above and the Invasion website confirming it is the only canon illustration of post-Thran era Yawgmoth we have other than the odd Planeshift novel sketch. Yawgmoth is a very iconic part of Magic, even if you don't know much about him. When I started playing, just from the flavor text alone I knew Yawgmoth was badass and like THE representation of Black.
Though, I will admit that if I were to get a Phyrexian tattoo at this point it'd have to be of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.
Right? I think he is the most badass black could have and will have.
Elesh Norn is awesome, I really like how the phyrexians are represented on white mana, they have this whole red flesh mixed with this "white metal", and most of them don't have eyes (which is one of the top disturbing things imo), the way white is sorted around a cult is also disturbing.
That video is awesome, that thing in the beginning right? also that red image is those fellas on phyrexian arena right? that manifestation from Yawgmoth, the hard part to picture him is that he became the plane itself and was manifesting into different forms.
Thks!
the Yawgmoth Demon is pretty awesome, the earlier images too. I'm thinking of using just some "non-flesh" parts to evoke more of a scary humanoid entity, maybe plug some wires on him. The Yawgmoth priest is nice, 100% metal but his clothes could help designing Yawgmoth's.
The artist is pretty damn good, here is a painting from him as a reference:
Thank you again! I could mix your descriptions with my idea, basically a pale black eyed human, with black mana oozing from his eyes and his body + the whole black aura / source, parts of his skins are mechanized and with sharp teeths, I think the hair could be normal, long black hairs, the metal coil would look like he had a hair like bob marley hahaha.
What do you think? also, if you want send me an email address so I can send you the sketch + the tattoo when I get it done!
Thanks!! Yes you helped me, I knew about the black cloud of death but he was like that all the time when he invaded Dominaria? I thought he was this cloud only when he entered the plane!
And this "just mere hints of flesh" you meant is bones underneath with rotten flesh or something mechanical like Phyrexian Plaguelord ?
Other question, this is from the history actually, how he became that powerful? all I know is that he became like that when he entered the phyrexian plane and spend years there, but what made him be a god there?
Good point, I think using more Removal will add a good protection for this deck, it will also open room for Collective Brutality , I really want to test it, I think it's an aggressive card for this deck because I will be throwing the combo creatures on the graveyard while escalating the effects of the card and this could be game changing, fetch creatures with survival, throw collective brutality and those creatures on the grave, seems a good interaction and don`t request many cards (well, just one-two or three collective). Thank you very much for your help, I think I have a better picture of what to do with this deck now.
I will try this build:
Recurring Nightmare? why? I mean, keep returning creatures is not the purpose of the deck since both combos work on the graveyard and the Vengevine turns back to the battlefield alone.
Which kind of build would you try with todays meta and cardpool?
Oh, you are absolutely right. I was thinking about Deathrite shaman X Noble Hierarch and not taking birds of paradise out to make room for him (duh!)
Yeah, I think white is a good support color for this deck, especially with Enlightened Tutor ,Swords is indeed way better. Also, with this deck my thoughts are always with "I want to play a survival as soon as possible and use the combo as fast and efficient as possible be it with vengevines or ooze" so cards like Stoneforge Mystic and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben are kind left out since they use a different approach, but I don't know if this is the right way to think about when building a deck around survival, sure I need to first knows what I want to build around it, in my case ooze combo + vengevine as plan B so I have to focus everything around those two right? It's not an easy deck to build haha Thank you for your support
This list is not mine! It is a combo oriented list from a player named Gerry that was wrecking havoc back in 2011 , I'm just using it as a starting point for modifying, I agree that 4 fauna shaman + 4 survival are excessive but I think he used that much to start the ooze combo asap, and the tree of tales I guess it's just an emergency green mana to fetch with one of the enlightened tutors. I liked your suggestions, especially the Gilded Drake card.
It's indeed a very fun deck to play! I'm trying to modify the Gerry build so the deck's color should be BGW, W is also good since I can use 4 tutors to fetch survival. One question regarding Deathrite, is he mandatory ? I mean, apart from eating my opponent's graveyard he will be used to fuel survival when some fetches are nearby but I already have 4x Noble and 4x Birds, what are his advantages? (And I would love to be convinced since I have a playset begging to be used!). I agree with fatal push too, it is an awesome card, the thing is, which cards should I take from the build I posted to get some room for fatal push + abrupt + deathrite ? -4 quirion ranger is mandatory but the other ones are kinda hard to just take off.
Also, one new card that I think would be awesome in this deck because the whole sinergy with survival is Collective Brutality , what do you think?
Like I said: our legacy group is very friendly and they don't mind if I have a "legacy" survival deck, it's a group of friends too, not a group of players at a LGS
Creatures
Artifacts
Spells
Enchantments
Lands
I don't know which cards from the current legacy scene would be added in this build, deathrite shaman definitely kills this deck, maybe fatal push to deal with it? Also, how to respond to Show and Tell decks besides oblivion rings? I also have to decrease the number of some playsets in favor of newer cards but I'm having some trouble tinkering the "2017" version of this deck.
Thanks in advance!
You kinda answered that question, he's a well-written being and I think wizards really did a great job impersonating black mana.
There are people with Dracula tattoos, Cthulhu tattoos, it's not about their allignment or what they did to human kind that some people like to tattoo those kind of things, it's because they come from a history - poem - movie - game they very much like and those characters are the face of that franchise, and for me, Yawgmoth / Urza were the face of magic, damn, look what he made Urza did to stop him, the epic battle that wiped 95% of Dominaria, but like I said, I like abstract concepts and Yawgmoth is basically that too.
The image is not him, it's just the style the guy I will do the tattoo have.
Why are you against it the idea?
I read a couple of articles of him on phyrexia.com a couple years ago, I would like to read the whole brother's wars actually.
I started playing magic on Urza's saga but I was 10 years old so I wasn't able to have a full dive on it, but for me the whole invasion story is the best we had so far (Eldrazi on second place) and the whole flavor of Dominaria and Urza's struggle against the phyrexians, it's awesome
And ofc, Yawgmoth (for me at least) is the most terrifying and powerful being on magic history, he started as a normal human and died as an entity that was pure black mana, that's just awesome. I also like abstract concepts and trying to materialize his appearance after his ascending is something I like to do from time to time.
Right? I think he is the most badass black could have and will have.
Elesh Norn is awesome, I really like how the phyrexians are represented on white mana, they have this whole red flesh mixed with this "white metal", and most of them don't have eyes (which is one of the top disturbing things imo), the way white is sorted around a cult is also disturbing.
the Yawgmoth Demon is pretty awesome, the earlier images too. I'm thinking of using just some "non-flesh" parts to evoke more of a scary humanoid entity, maybe plug some wires on him. The Yawgmoth priest is nice, 100% metal but his clothes could help designing Yawgmoth's.
The artist is pretty damn good, here is a painting from him as a reference:
https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1558466_649953288409911_1805448974526978440_n.jpg?efg=eyJvbGF0IjoxMjB9&oh=0696ec1771689cc367721105502c276c&oe=55063E85
What do you think? also, if you want send me an email address so I can send you the sketch + the tattoo when I get it done!
And this "just mere hints of flesh" you meant is bones underneath with rotten flesh or something mechanical like Phyrexian Plaguelord ?
Other question, this is from the history actually, how he became that powerful? all I know is that he became like that when he entered the phyrexian plane and spend years there, but what made him be a god there?