In Legacy there is a very short list of cards that people sort of agree are strong. Goblin Welder and Survival of the Fittest are two of the consensus cards on that list. Welder Survival is designed to abuse both cards to the fullest. The fatal flaw of many previous attempts to build a similar deck was that Goblin Welder was very weak without Survival to back him. One of the goals of this deck was to make sure that Welder could win games on his own. Most decks you see used White to find Survival more, I prefer to use Blue because of the strength and options it gives you. Thirst for Knowledge and Intuition can make Welder a very big threat all by his little 1/1 self.

The deck uses Survival as a method of aggressiveness primarily and uses it for utility as a secondary procedure. Against all but the combo decks you are the aggressor, you should fight to get Survival to stick, and fight to get your fat into play from there you win the game quickly with giant artifact beaters. Some people have talked about how the deck has a weakness to graveyard hate such as Tormod's Crypt - I feel that as with any Survival deck, graveyard hate can be played around. Rofellos' main purpose in the deck is to be able to function around graveyard hate by simply casting the huge artifacts, but he can also set up a very explosive turn at the hands of Pentavus and multiple Welders/Ranger.

Welder Survival
//Engines
4 Goblin Welder
4 Survival of the Fittest

//Mana
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Pentad Prism
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Quirion Ranger

//Draw and Search
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Intuition

//Fat
1 Triskelion
1 Phyrexian Colossus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel

//Weld Bait
1 Pentavus
1 Shield Sphere

//The Tools
2 Eternal Witness
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Spore Frog
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

//Slaver
1 Mindslaver

//Trees, Hills, and Rocks
5 Forest
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Tree of Tales

Card Choices:
Engines:
Yeah, I did base my deck around Survival and Welder. The strength of Welder is amazing. He can drop huge things into play the turn he comes into play with Anger and wreck your opponent very quickly.

Mana:
The mana was something that I have had issues with compared to other decks. The lack of Rofellos and Ranger is huge. Rofellos can make ridiculous plays like casting and activating Slaver in one turn... turn 4. Ranger can make another Weld, more mana, or just save your Taiga from certain destruction. Pentad Prism is blatantly stolen tech from a fellow named Jander. He was using it in SlaveBringer and I really liked the boost it gave the deck, so here it is. It allows for highly explosive turn 2 and 3 Survivals either by simply being an artifact and/or by providing a boost in mana. The Prism also creates a color fixer in case I am in dire need of colored mana for some reason.

Draw and Search:
This is where the deck gets good. Thirst and Intuition support Welder in a way that I have yet to see out of a Welder Survival deck. Thirst can dump Incarnations and create hell for control, it can find Survival, and it can dump Slaver and other artifact fat. It's definitely the third strongest card in the deck. Intuition is used to either find Slavers or Survivals. If I've got a Welder I'll pull up some combination that ends in slave lock, such as Slaver, Slaver, and Pentavus. If I don't have the Welder I'll probably grab Survivals.

Fat:
There are actually a very limited number of creatures that I really want here; they are often dead in hand. The three featured are the best three creatures I could come up with. Colossus comes out if my opponent is playing mono-color aggro, Titan if my opponent is playing anything that will be disrupted by him, and Triskelion will come out if he can do some serious damage. Platinum Angel is included in this category but is rarely used as a beater, where Platinum really shines is against burn intensive decks. She can easily draw enough damage away from my head to give me enough extra time to win win.

Weld Bait:
Pentavus can double as fat if necessary but he is used much more often as an artifact producer. He can easily create a slave lock situation and can also create situations where Shield Sphere turns into Pentavus turns into Titan, Colossus, and Triskelion.

The Tools:
This is a very large toolbox for a deck that revolves around Welder. I think that it is the strength of this deck compared to others. Witness gives me protection from Enchantment removal. If my opponent goes to blow it up then I'll grab one and bring back the Survival the next turn. Viridian Zealot and Orangutan could easily be the traditional Lyrist/Monkey or you can drop the Orangutan to drop the deck to 60 cards. Genesis is very important to the deck, allowing retarded ways to get to Slave lock with Shield Sphere and it also brings back Witness or Welders. Anger is quite essential to the deck's game plan - rather than protect my Welders, I give them haste so that they will definitely get at least one use. Squee is also quite important, allowing me to continue to Survival, the deck runs fairly light on creatures so Squee is quite necessary. Spore Frog is a recent change, and has been worth so much to the deck. Frog Lock is quite good against Madness, WWW and Gro. Goblin Sharpshooter is my answer to opposing Sharpshooters while also being amazing against Survival and Ravager.

Lands:
The Tree of Tales let me have free Welding targets. I tested with three for a little while and it made Rofellos too weak. I think that two is the correct number but by all means play around with that number. The rest is fairly self-explanatory... six fetchlands can become five if you like, but I do enjoy having more ways to find a Mountain when needed.

Sideboarding Options:
My current sideboard is as follows but it fluctuates based on what I expect to see.

//Sideboard
1 Duplicant
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Flametongue Kavu
2 Jester's Cap
2 Naturalize
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Gigapede
2 Bottle Gnomes

The options I see it that you have for your board are:
1 Gigapede
2-3 Naturalize
3-4 Pyrostatic Pillar
2-3 Boil
1 Silklash Spider
1-2 Goblin Sharpshooter
1-3 Bottle Gnomes/Spike Feeder
2-3 Jester's Cap
3-4 Flametongue Kavu
2-3 Tormod's Crypt/Phyrexian Furnace
1 Tradewind Rider
2-3 Dwarven Miner
1 Gilded Drake
1 Duplicant
2-3 Compost

Pick and choose from above to create a 15 card sideboard.

Gigapede
Gigapede is a very odd decision on my part; I like to board them in against slower decks so that I can make Welder stronger. I can Intuition for any two cards I want in the yard and Gigapede. Then on my upkeep I can pitch the card I wanted in the yard and have a 6/1 in it's place. Against control Gigapede can easily win the game all on his own because of his ability to come back over and over. Combined with Squee, Gigapede can basically come back in Squee's place so then if you find yourself wanting to play the Gigapede instead you have that option. I have been very happy with my results with Gigapede, he has done his job quite nicely against slower decks, even more so than Jester's Cap.

Naturalize
I really don't feel the need to run four Naturalize ever in a sideboard for this deck. You want to be the aggressor in most matches and Naturalize is a highly reactive card. As a rule of thumb I never board more than three and I only board three if I see large amounts of Scepters running around. I'm fairly confident in my match against ATS and Survival Advantage and believe that if I get Survival on the board. I should be able to disrupt them long enough that I don't have to worry about their Survival. I could be wrong on that but I don't tend to want to board more than 5-7 cards out against them and I have FTK, Duplicant, Sharpshooter, and occasionally Tormod's Crypt or Phyrexian Furnace coming in. Boarding Naturalize with all the others I want to see come in can often mean that I board out a large number of critters that I don't want to have to like Colossus, Pentavus and Platinum Angel.

Pyrostatic Pillar
Pyrostatic Pillar is a very narrow card but it does its job quite effectively. The only two decks that I would even think about boarding Pillar against are Solidarity and Belcher. Since I don't see Belcher played, I really can't comment on how good it is, but I could assume it is fairly decent. Against Solidarity the card can come down on turn 2 and create a very bad situation for them - they either Force it, leaving them with fewer cards in hand, or are forced to take a more aggressive stance against you. They cannot under any circumstance go off with Pyrostatic Pillar on the board; they have to start to go off and Wish for bounce then finish going off. If they don't have a Wish in hand or on top of their library, Pillar forces them to dig a little in order to find one, which means the card is doing its job. If you don't see Solidarity, don't both boarding Pillar. If you're not sure about it, then I would say go with Boil over Pillar because it can come it against a much larger variety of decks.

Boil
Against slower decks you really want to play more as a land denial type deck with an awesome finisher, overcommitting to the board as a bad aggro deck will probably get you hit by a big removal spell when it hurts the most. With Boil you can board more heavily into the mana denial aspect and keep the control player down on mana, this shuts them off of Blue for counters, and keeps the amount of mana they have available low so that their mass removal spells can't be cast. I find Boil to be quite useful against control, but don't see it often enough to keep it in the board.

Silklash Spider
When I first started testing against Madness I was having a terrible time. Recently, however, the games have been incredibly one-sided in my favor. Silklash Spider can be used if you're having trouble with Madness but often Frog Lock does a good job of keeping them down. I like to board in FTK and Duplicant more than Silklash. If you still see large amounts of flyers, you may want to think about Silklash or Squallmonger as an answer.

Goblin Sharpshooter
I'm confident in my match against other Survival, but a lot of that comes down to this guy right here. I would never play without the second Sharpshooter in the board, so that I have a better chance of randomly drawing in to it. Sharpshooter is very solid against Survival, but also against a large number of randomly bad decks that have a large number of one-toughness creatures.

Bottle Gnomes/Spike Feeder
I like to have some life gain in the board so that I can combat decks like Sligh and Goblin Sligh. Fireblast gives them the ability to take you down from a fairly large amount of life to zero in one turn. Bottle Gnomes has less of an impact on the Philosophy of Fire, but can be Welded in to perhaps give you more use out of him. Turning a Pentavus into fifteen life is fairly cool against Sligh, and Genesis/Shield Sphere can generate a Bottle Gnomes a turn for three mana and a tapped Welder. Spike Feeder gains you more life, but costs you six mana a turn to continue to bring back and play, he does trade better with two-toughness creatures but can't live through two-power creatures like Bottle Gnomes can.

Jester's Cap
Jester's Cap is again there for control, the ability to Weld it a couple times can easily spell "GG" for them. Depending on what's in their hand, you can hit win conditions, counterspells or draw power. Overall I have been happy with Cap but only in the control match, this is a very limited card unless you see large amounts of control on a weekly basis.

Flametongue Kavu
The list of decks these are good against is quite long, I have in fact thought about running them in the main, but that would severely diminish the artifact count and the explosiveness of the deck. FTK comes in against Madness, Survival Advantage, ATS, Stompy, and any other deck that is based around targetable creatures with four toughness or less. It's worth every slot if you see any sort of creature-based decks on a regular basis.

Tormod's Crypt/Phyrexian Furnace
Graveyard hate was the norm back when Dragon was around but nowadays it isn't as useful. If you're going to board some hate then you should make sure you board enough to find it easily. Crypt is better against Reanimator because it comes down and does stuff turn 1, whereas Furnace is better against Survival-based decks due to its repetitiveness. Crypt however can be Welded back into play and used again if you feel the need. It's a toss up between the two - I run Crypt because I couldn't easily get my hands on Furnaces.

Tradewind Rider
Tradewind is a must counter against control in many cases when they aren't expecting it. Tradewind's ability to steal games sometimes is useful, especially if your opponent has some kind of graveyard hate out like Crypt, Furnace, or Ground Seal. Tradewind can generally deal with all kinds of problem permanents including anything attacking you with three-power or less.

Dwarven Miner
To continue the mana denial theme, you can board Dwarven Miner, he really isn't useful to Survival for since I would rather Survival for Titan in almost every case, so you really need to board in enough to draw into them. Miner is especially good against Landstill because of the excessive number of non-basics they run. Often you can bait with a Miner to get a Survival or Welder through unharmed.

Gilded Drake
Against decks like Reanimator, Gilded Drake can be hugely successful taking their fat, however you have Duplicant for much the same purpose so I really wouldn't worry about Drake much unless you opponent has some sort of Pro: Red, Pro: Art creature that you need to deal with.

Duplicant
Duplicant is similar to being the artifact Gilded Drake, except it doesn't come down as early. Duplicant can be reused and played for free because of Welder and so I play him over Drake when I need to remove large creatures. Because you usually will Survival for either of the two, I feel like Duplicant is the catch-all creature answer of choice.

Compost
If you see large amounts of mono-Black you can run Compost, it makes Duress a fairly bad card, and makes it so that every creature of theirs you kill nets you a card. Compost is a nice card indeed if you have the metagame to support it.

Tangle Wire has been mentioned, but I would never run it in a board for this deck. It is only useful coming out of the board and comes in against the same decks that Boil/Miner does. The only benefit that I see to it is that it helps against Solidarity but just isn't strong enough of an option to warrant seeing play in my opinion. I did play some nasty tricks with Tangle Wire against an opponent with his own Wires once but that was a very odd Situation.

Matchup Analysis:
Wayfarer White Weenie:
Ha ha suckers, you only have four answers for Welder. This game goes very much in my favor as they don't have any answer for any of the fat that comes down if they can't deal with Welder quickly. I tend to be able to just sit back for a few turns and set up then run them over. WWW's clock is too slow to effectively race me and an activated Mindslaver wins the game.

San Diego Zoo:
Ha ha suckers, you play three colors. This game is very much in my favor because if Sundering Titan comes into play once it is generally game over. If they get a really good start with Scepter-Swords then they can cause some problems, but they don't have any protection for Scepter and I have two answers in the main to deal with it. They also have to worry about the amount of life they give me because the longer the game goes, the better my chances of taking control of it.

UGr Gro:
This is a very close match. If they have a good hand with two counters, beats, and a way to get to threshold fast, it's GG for me. If I have a resolved Survival I tend to win because I can rip up their mana base and then win the game with a fatty they have absolutely no answer to. This list is very similar to Super Gro but uses Fledgling Dragon and Fire / Ice in place of Mystic Enforcer and Swords to Plowshares.

Solidarity:
At first I thought this would be very highly in Solidarity's favor, but I have been able to consistently race them with fast hands. My favorite hand against Deep6er so far has been second turn TFK into Colossus and Anger, turn 3 beat for eight, turn 4 beat again, turn 5 watch him falter a bit on going off then beat for the win. Recurring Sundering Titan early will win the game quickly. Throwing out must-counters to force them to Force is good, the fewer cards in their hand the slower they go. Out of the board the best card that I have available to me is Pyrostatic Pillar, but if they have a Cunning Wish in hand it can create problems for me.

Survival Advantage:
This is one of my best matchups; I have lost very few games in testing. My clock is faster, my answers are better against their threats, my deck is more explosive. I never lose land to Titan against them, but can shut them off from Anger fairly easily. I regularly steal card advantage with Triskelion against their 4/2s and 1/1s.

ATS:
Game one goes in my favor basically every match, especially if they aren't running Shooter. I can create huge guys that disrupt their game plan like Titan and Triskelion. Game one Sharpshooter is GG for them. Game two I bring in FTK, Duplicant and a second Shooter. This tends to go in my favor but I have been losing the second and third game about 45% of the time.

LandStill:
Against the three-color decks I generally have time to fight through their removal to get something happening, like Titan, Colossus or Triskelion. Without Teferi's Response, Triskelion can single-handedly win the game. I unfortunately have yet to play this game post board, so do not know how it goes. With tools like Boil and Dwarven Miner available to me, I feel like the match should stay relatively even

Burn:
I laugh at you burn, I play out an early Survival and win the game. Game two I bring in Gnomes or Spike Feeder and can start recurring them if needed to keep myself above that dangerous number of (Cards in opponent's hand x 3) +1.

U/G Madness:
This is one match where Spore Frog shines. This match goes heavily in my favor if Survival hits the board. They have only two options to deal with Spore Frog and Sharpshooter or Triskelion deals with them nicely. Game one is slightly favorable to me because they can do that thing where they get lots of fairly quick creatures backed by Wonder and win the game. Game two and three I bring in FTK, Duplicant and swing the game quite solidly in my favor. FTK can take out all of their creatures and Duplicant can be recurred with Welder to seal the deal.

Ravager:
Depending upon the build of Ravager the games will either be completely in your favor or about 50/50. A Ravager built around a Type Two build is going to do poorly because of Sharpshooter, Spore Frog, Triskelion and Platinum Angel in the main and FTK and the second Sharpshooter out of the board. A Ravager built around the latest Extended decks with Meddling Mages can create a hassle, but Mage can still be dealt with and Sharpshooter is still quite strong against the deck.

I have been very pleased with the deck overall - it is very strong and quite quick out of the gates, but still has the Survival backing to get rid of some problem permanents. The deck is ridiculously hard to play due to the complexities of Survival and Welder, but with enough practice your options become second nature to you and the deck starts to show its true strength. The weakness that I see in the deck is fast combo such as Solidarity and Belcher, however neither deck seen large amounts of play and as such, I feel like Welder is a good choice for most tournaments.

Ian MacInnes
CavernNinja on The Source (mtgthesource.com)
preytaker at softhome dot net