Okay, it’s a proven fact that creature + ability = good. That much is a given. I mean, some of the best cards in the game are creatures with effects. Some effects are so good, you just wished all your creatures had them. If only such creatures existed. Oh, wait a second! They do!

The new Survivor creatures from Duel Masters fifth set each share abilities with others in the battle zone. For those of you not in the know, that means your Gigaling Q not only has Slayer, but will also have Blocker while your Gallia Zohl, Iron Guardian Q is on the field as well. These abilities can also stack, meaning multiple creature will cause multiple effects. While having Slayer 3 times isn’t going to get you anywhere, having a set of Split head Hydroturtle Q out will definitely make you the least popular guy on the block, as your turtles will draw you one extra card for each one in play!

So Survivor decks are looking more and more fun to build. Problem! There’s only ten out right now. That’s also only 2 for each color. So you’re probably going to be running a few civilizations in your deck, but which set offers the best survivors? Well, that’s what this article is for. So keep reading, will ya?

Since the Survivor Deck is going to rely mainly on Combo, since you want 2+ survivors on the field at a time, it’s really important to check for a good curve.

The earliest Survivor drop is the Fire Civilization’s Blazosaur Q. Two mana for 1000 and it gives all you survivors Power Attacker +1000. Nature takes over at the three slot, giving us Smash Horn Q, which gives each creature a base pump of 1000. These consecutive players are already netting you a good advantage of creatures. Blazsaur will already be fundamentally stronger at 2000 Power attacker +1000 over other red cards similar to it at 2 cost, like Brawler Zyler or Mini Titan Gett.

The Four Drop splits your concentration with 2 options. Balloonshroom Q at 4 is 2000 and turns all your survivors into mana when they are destroyed. This might be better for a more control style deck or if you don’t plan on running Darkness which is the other option. Skullsweeper at 4 has the same 2000 power but turns all your creatures into Horrid Worms (or for you magic buffs Hypnotic Specter) and is arguably the strongest of the current Survivors.

5 Drop gives us a few more options. The second of Darkness Survivors, Gigaling Q has 2000 power and turns all your creatures into Slayers. Turns 5 is usually a time when your creatures are starting to get trumped by bigger guys and you need to find a way to counteract your opponents attacks. This makes Giggling a valuable resource as your one-for-one creature trades will continue while your triggered abilities (such as Skullsweepers) will still activate, which can begin to net you an advantage.

Split Head Hydroturtle Q is the first of the Water Survivors, which turns all your creatures into Hypersquid Walters (or Ophidian for the MTG players reading) which draw a card upon attack. This is another fairly important engine for a survivor deck, especially in a deck where a continual flow of creatures is so important.

The remaining 5 drops, Gallia Zohl and Ballus Dogfight Enforcer give your creatures Blocker and the Whisking Whirlwind ability of untapping at the end of the turn. While Gallia isn’t all the impressive, the Dogfight Enforcer is the same as a Toel in a survivor deck, protecting your key creatures from attacks.

The two most expensive survivors are the waterborne Spikestrike Ichthys which at 6 mana makes all you survivors unblockable and Bladerush Wyvern Q which gives all your survivors Double Breaker for seven mana. These creatures are nice finishers if you need some late game gas to punch through.

Well, now that you’ve seen them all, what’s the best combination of cards? The best early game gambits seem to lie in Fire and Nature, since it gives you access to turn 2 or 3 drops. Black seems to be a nice mid-range color, giving you access to two very strong survivors, Gigaling and Skullsweeper, who alone are fairly difficult to deal with. Blue is the most expensive of the colors, but offers two very powerful guys which could connect the pieces and give your early game guys the ability to stay useful..

On the whole, Lights creatures seem fairly unimpressive as they counteract what the creature currently out want to do. You don’t want to save your guys up for blocking, and if you do, you opponent could just destroy Gallia Zohl to negate the entire status. Ballus is nice when times right, but it has to compete against two currently superior card at the five slot.

Since survivors seem very fragile to mass removal or pinpoint removal on key cards, playing as aggressive as possible seems like the correct gambit as your opponent will have to deal with pressure in addition to a growing combo deck. Fire and Nature have the most aggressive cards and Darkness and Water both offer up some nice finishers. Lets see how the creature curve would pan out.

Fire-Nature-Darkness/Fire-Nature-Water

2 Drops (4/4)

3 Drops (4/4)

4 Drops (8/4)

5 Drops (4/8)

6 Drops (0/4)

7 Drops (2/2)

Fire-Nature-Darkness seems to offer up a much more solid base of aggressively cost men. If the deck runs approximately 42 cards, you have room for 14 cards of each color is evenly distributed. It’s important for combo decks above all decks to be kept as close to 40 cards as possible.

As an aggressive deck, you want lots of early pinpoint removal. Since you only have 6 Fire cards, over 8 of each other, Volcanic Arrows is a nice option. Terror Pit and Death Smoke are also decent options for Darkness. Nature could use Natural Snare, and also Brutal Charge or Dimension Gate to tutor up your key creatures. Other options could include early game Blockers like Bloody Squito. In addition you want to make sure you have a play starting turn2 and not allowing hiccups in your game plan.

Here’s the final build. Test it, try it out, change it to your liking.

4 Blazosaur Q

4 Bloody Squito

4 Smash Horn Q

4 Bronze Arm Tribe

4 Skullsweeper Q

2 Balloonshroom Q

2 Gigaling Q

2 Bladerush Wyvern Q

4 Volcanic Arrows

3 Dimension Gate

3 Searing Wave

4 Terror Pit

Nature(13)/Fire(13)/Darkness(14)

Creatures(26)/Spells(14)

Curve 2D(12)/3D(11)/4D(6)/5D(5)/6D(4)/7D(2)

Questions and comments on the deck? Email me. Aside from that, next week I’ll be taking a rewind look at the first year of Duel Masters. I’ll also take the time to defend some of the cards I use or used in my decks that people negatively commented on. Including the heavily debated Swamp Worm. So if you have any questions about anything in my articles, ask me, and I’ll try to include them in my article.

I hope I’ll survive…

Ronald (hydromorph) Waclawski