Survival of the Fittest

Enchantment

, Discard a creature card: Search your library for a creature card, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

Discussion (51)

tacolover25 on It's a Mad World (U/G Madness)

2 days ago

mlequesne, that is a great suggestion. I have indeed tried Vengevine already. In a deck with under 20 creatures, (many with higher than 2cmc) I found that the return from the graveyard was very hit and miss.

Turn 2 I could sometimes get lucky by playing either Wild Mongrel or Noose Constrictor and discarding vengevine and Basking Rootwalla, but overall it felt lackluster. Survival of the Fittest used to enable survivalvine decks back in the day but that card is banned unfortunately.

Thanks for the upvote! Cheers.

LeaPlath on Felidae Cult

2 days ago

I think you are misunderstanding some of the fundamentals of good deck design.

So basically you do not want random hate cards or situational cards main board. You want a strong game plan and every card should contribute to your game plan. Flexibility is good but cards have to serve multiple purposes in a wide range of common situations. For example a card like Abrade is good because it is both removal for creatures and artifacts, where as Sundering Growth is not good as the populate only happens if your opponent plays artifacts or enchantments.

You also want to never be presenting a 2 for 1. So those auras are pretty lackluster. You say they are for a flyers deck but a deck that is purely fliers isnt a realistic thing to be attacking? Generally the decks are doing something else with their flyers and it is better to attack that angle.

This is not a toolbox. A toolbox needs a solid engine card that lets them see the cards they want at little cost and repeatably. Birthing Pod, Fauna Shaman and Survival of the Fittest are example of toolbox enablers because they let you find the cards you need and if you draw a card that doesnt help you such as your artifact hate creature against a deck with no artifacts, you can turn it into a card that does help you.

The creatures you are playing suggest a more aggressive deck, not toolbox. I would advise cutting Crypt, Fissure, Growth and Fountain and reconsidering your ratios. Cut the top end. Cap at 4 mana. 23-24 lands. Maximize the things your cats do well which is be a bit above curve and rewarding you for playing cats.

ahhhgro on Glissa, Undying Engines

2 days ago

Big Game Hunter pulls triple duty in this deck. 1. He's a body, an admittedly small one, but still a body which is invaluable in a Stax style deck. He can be tossed into the Smokestack grinder and other sacrifice outlets or be a low impact tap for Tangle Wire. He helps to fill out my creature curve for Birthing Pod and also acts as fodder for Survival of the Fittest while providing additional utility when he's used like this. 2. Once he's pitched to my graveyard he adds flexibility to my reanimation effects, allowing me to turn them into removal. 3. He is a form of targeted creature removal, something this deck is light on simply because the best targeted removal tends to be instants or sorceries and those run somewhat opposite to the general gameplan for a Stax style deck. It makes BGH and Noxious Gearhulk very valuable.

While Oblivion Stone admittedly works better for Glissa, the Traitor it is not better for the deck. This deck is designed to run smoothly while under the (mostly) lateral effects of cards such as Winter Orb, Static Orb, Tangle Wire, ect and runs a very low mana curve. In what is largely a Timmy format I opt for only 5 cards with cmc >5 (and the plan is almost always to cheat these in with reanimation). Leaving 5 mana up every turn to keep the firing mechanism primed on O-Stone is expensive. If you don't leave the mana open someone will just Naturalize when it can't be used. With Pernicious Deed I don't have to leave up as much mana to threaten with it but I can also pop it for 0 to clean out a token swarm. Pernicious and Engineered Explosives are in this deck primary to serve as silver bullets to a token strategy which can create enough fodder to effectively ignore my Stax effects if they get up and running.

For more info on Stax style decks and understanding how and why they work I recommend reading the Stax Primer by Phil found here. It's very comprehensive and very thorough in explaining a deck archetype that mostly antithetical to the way most decks work.

Mortlocke on Slivers... Because someone has to be that guy

4 days ago

"...but what do I cut? Seriously, I havent got a clue. Need the communities help right now, because I can't seem to see the wood for the trees"

I would suggest you take another look at Eternal Witness. Putting my bias against non-slivers aside, I really don't see an elf contributing much to a Sliver tribal deck. Besides, you could just run Dregscape Sliver and have more of an impact on the board along with your new Survival of the Fittest. Regardless, i'd cut the elf to make room for Teferi's Protection - in EDH what I find more useful above all else is interaction, not creatures with keywords or useful abilities.

Mortlocke on The Queen's Egg

3 weeks ago

That brings me back. My 2nd deck ever was Tim, Curiosity, and Mind Over Matter. But I digress, I moved to Germany but I have friends in Scotland so it's likely i'll end up in the UK to visit once all this mess has died down. I hope you do get some use out of Survival of the Fittest - it'd be the first time i've ever seen it used in a Sliver tribal deck - I think you would get away with some epic plays that would break the mold of what players would expect from a Sliver deck.

Stay safe as well!

ZerglingRushWins on Xenagos, God of Revels and obscene power

3 weeks ago

I am not a fan of either Kenrith's or Song TBH. Chaos Warp and Beast Within being instants are far superior as I am trying to prevent people from comboing off. Kenrith's is basically there because it is a cantript, but I might replace it with Survival of the Fittest to improve my tutoring package.

I rely on my tutor effects to search only for the beater I need at a time. I can easily find about 3 game ending beaters within the first 5-6 turns of a game (Ibex is what I look for the most). I often include Woodland Bellower, and Wilderness Elemental, If I know I'll face a table that is slower and heavier on removal.

Mortlocke on The Queen's Egg

3 weeks ago

Doombeard1984, sorry for taking a little bit to get back to you. My life situation has changed dramatically in the past few months - my family and I moved to a different country - so I haven't been able to play as much Magic or be on Tappedout as much as I've used to in the past. I'm definitely doing my best to keep safe. Thanks for the kind words, I hope you and yours are doing well.

As for Survival of the Fittest, I must admit that i've never had the pleasure or displeasure of playing a deck that used it. But I think I see some synergy between it and Dregscape Sliver. Ideally, you could pitch some Slivers that you can recur onto the battlefield to form a combo - (i.e. Heart Sliver, Gemhide Sliver, Basal Sliver, and Sliver Queen) - you could avoid having to pay each creature's CMC due to the replacement cost of Unearth. As an added bonus, Unearth and SotF being activated abilites, counter magic would be at a loss most of the time, unless you're dealing with a meta running spells like Voidslime or Disallow.

Oh, and in case you're wondering "You may activate the unearth ability of a card in your graveyard no matter how it wound up in your graveyard." I'll admit that I needed to look up some rulings on Unearth, as I didn't fully understand the conditions for it to trigger.

Doombeard1984 on The Queen's Egg

3 weeks ago

good day to you Mortlocke. Hope you are keeping safe in these mad Phyrexian times.

So I am after some opinion. I have managed to purchase a Survival of the Fittest. Awesome card. Do you feel this is something worth going into a Sliver deck? If I could maybe pick your Hive brain, would be super appreciative

Cheers