More on RGSA

RThomas · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 384

I'm taking a short break from Type 1 to learn the combat phase, since I cannot navigate it at all. Consequently, I drew a match which lost me a top 8 spot in an IRL legacy tournament today because I mismanaged attacking and blocking. Here's what I played:

// Lands
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
12 [B] Forest
1 [A] Mountain
4 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
1 [UD] Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 [DS] Viridian Zealot
3 [MR] Troll Ascetic
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [MM] Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 [ON] Ravenous Baloth
1 [JU] Anger
1 [UL] Deranged Hermit
1 [JU] Genesis
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
1 [PY] Spore Frog
3 [PS] Flametongue Kavu
3 [B] Birds of Paradise
4 [A] Llanowar Elves
1 [MR] Duplicant
1 [GP] Tin Street Hooligan
1 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
1 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 [CHK] Dosan the Falling Leaf

// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

The sideboard is largely irrelevant for the time being because I only used it in one match.

Some glaring problems:

-Loss to combo. You can't win the matchup against Solidarity unless you play a million REBs and get something like Icheneumon Druid to stick. You can't beat fast combo either.

-Failure to win when you don't find a Survival. The deck just poops out and doesn't do much. As much as I don't like Jitte, it tested out pretty good today, without me trying it before.

I'm not sure what direction to go with the deck next; whether it be Burning Wish, Sword of Fire and Ice, or a black splash. Any thoughts?

RE: My sideboard

3 REB
3 Artifact Mutation
3 Naturalize
1 Life from the Loam
1 Viashino Heretic
2 Choke (MVP)
1 Matsu-Tribe Sniper
1 Phyrexian Furnace

GRAH · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 599

Duplicant, Spore Frog, and Dosan MD? Wow.

To be honest, I'd just optimize every other matchup and accept the scoop to combo.

RThomas · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 384

I had Spore Frog as an answer to aggro decks with minimal removal (see: goblins, angel stompy) and it actually won me a game in the Angel Stompy match. However, against a lot of other stuff, it was a liability and I'm not sure if I'd play it again.

Duplicant was for dudes that are too big for FTK to hit, or Meddling Mage. He was also sub-optimal, partly because I didn't see him.

Dosan the Falling Leaf was just something I threw in to combat Solidarity in game 1. It turned out to protect Spore Frog in the same game that the Frog won, but outside of that, it wasn't anything spectacular.

In any case, I feel that played correctly, it should beat other aggro pretty handily. The only problem I have with the matchup is when I don't draw Survival, which was a good half of the matchups.

20piass · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 16

i would probably splash blue for draw.
I have a Survival deck IRL too, and with blue, i got in 4 top 8's, 3 of which i got 1st. 4 top 8's of 5

Although my style seems quite different, I won VS. 90% of control decks, 85% of combo decks (Only one i lost to was IGGy pop, too fast Sad

)
Blue also opens up FoW, and Misd (Saved me vs a stroke of genius trying to kill me against solidarity)

4 Brainstorm
4 Fow
2 Misd
and 5-6 Blue Creatures (Tradewind Rider + gilded drake = Very Powerful)

2 Witness is good,
Where is Wall of Roots???
3 baloth is too much, 1-2 is fine.
1 dont get the deranged hermit, dosan, Tin street hooligan Edit 1:(Why risk not having mountains, Uktabi Orangutan)
Many better choices. Also Gempalm Incinerator...with 1 in play gob...? Pointless.
Edit 2:Also, 1 SB Gaea's can save you BIG TIME (Solidarity
anyone?)
Edit 3: Jitte in survival... there are better options.
Tormod's Crypt is also a very good SB card (Threshold?-Ichorid seems to be breaking into the t1.5/t1 formats, and Random decks (reanimator 4 example)

BHenderson · Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 59

I agree w/ 20 piass about splashing blue for draw and counter (improving your odds against combo). What about Mystic Snake and the walking draw engine, Arcanis, the Omnipotent? They would be a nice addition. If you chose black and the more pro-active disruption package, duress/cranial would be nice as well as the other side of survival of the fittest : Recurring Nightmare.

SunKrusher.

GRAH · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 599

Blue is really unnecessary. This deck is totally different from ATS. You want pure creature beats. Brainstorm dilutes it too much. FoW would be impossible to use. To use FoW, you need at LEAST 12 other blue cards.

Wall of Roots is not aggro. It is slow.

Baloth is definitely NOT a 1-2of. Actually, a team member of mine has been working on RGSA, where he totally dropped them for Rumbling Slum. However, for Baloth, it's all or nothing.

Jitte is the most incredible card ever. I would even say RT should go up to 4.

You people really don't get how this deck works. It is a PURE AGGRO DECK.

Hanni · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 17

What about Blastoderm? 5/5 untargetable at 4cc can be pretty devastating.

Since your not running a large amount of creature removal, adding in 1 Wonder could get around chump blockers.

Just some things to consider... they are nothing major.

quicksilver2 · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 1

Haro · Joined: 01 Sep 2004 Posts: 240

I remember 1 decklist that was BGu instead. It ran dimir influtrator to transmute for survival. It also ran dark confidant for draw and let's you play cabal therapy and duress with almost no loss at all. If you cut the duplicant, then you can run bone shredder or something and wretch. Any thoughts?