I played BUG/BUGw gifts for a while, and once I realised how good was Sun Titan and how you can go with a EE+Ruins plan without green for LftL, I came back, brewed and tested. Here's what I came up with:
Sun Titan as your reanimate target makes pile such as Titan/Rites/EE/Ruins possible. You will rarely do such piles though, as you should have a EE out already. Once Titan/Rites/EE/Ruins are out, if you don't need a TecEdge, Tiago is MVP post-gift. Fantastic blocker (revive with Titan to allow more flashback), turns Gifts into 4x Demonic Tutor. The main quality of this take on the deck is that it doesn't NEED gifts to do anything. Titan can win games on his own, and is not a pain when drawn compared with other reanimate target. I'm considering going up to 2 Titans.
The rest of the deck is typical American Control shell. Heavy burn because Helix is better than Path in my meta. The most contestable choice might be 4x EE. I just love the card, and I am never disappointed with it. Its not because you can search for it and/or recur it that you should play only 1. Its the best all around removal in the format IMO. Titan bring it back for 0 against Affinity and like when needed too (ice on topping).
Considering adding Finks mainboard like some list do, but I love the draw-go mode. The first card I might kick off is Batterskull, its been win-more in all but one game. Finks would probably have done the job in most of the game.
Some interesting things to note: Snapcaster Mage has been eschewed, and in its place is Birds of Paradise. Also, no Mana Leaks were present, and four targeted discard spells were played instead.
I haven't had a chance to put this deck together, and I am sure that the mana base is already REALLY type, but what about a singleton (or two) Dakmor Salvage? By the way, has anyone tested cards from DGM that might be a good fit for this deck?
I haven't had a chance to put this deck together, and I am sure that the mana base is already REALLY type, but what about a singleton (or two) Dakmor Salvage? By the way, has anyone tested cards from DGM that might be a good fit for this deck?
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of playing that card.
Seems a bit narrow for a land that comes into play tapped. This deck is quite mana hungry, and I'm afraid that too many CIPT lands may hinder its tempo.
That is the glory of the card. You can dump it if need be, fetch it with the Gift's package, and you can even get rid of it with DRS if you want. You don't even necessarily have to play the card, but I understand where you are coming from. I was just trying to revive the thread and throw out some ideas.
Seems a bit narrow for a land that comes into play tapped. This deck is quite mana hungry, and I'm afraid that too many CIPT lands may hinder its tempo.
I don't think he meant in terms of actually playing it unless you really needed the extra land. I'd personally rather have loam, however.
It's interesting and logical to see that T8 deck dropping Mana Leaks for B discard spells. I've been thinking about that question a lot, lately. I feel like Mana Leak is super powerful but really only benefits you if you have something else to do with that mana in the opponent's endstep if they don't draw the counter. Gifts has, well, Gifts and that's it really. If it can't use that mana, it's wasted. More and more, Gifts plays like a tap-out control deck. You hurl bombs at the opponent and see what sticks. So while I feel like the discard spells are objectively less good, they're much cheaper and let you cast things on your schedule.
There's an analog for this in Vintage where the question is whether you want to be casting Duress or Spell Pierce on the first turn. Based on the deck and the metagame, the answer changes.
My lingering question is whether you should just go with all 4 Thoughtseizes. Scapeshift is getting more popular, for example, and ripping Cryptic Command from UWR decks is a good thing, too. I wonder whether the 2/2 split is merely to save life points (in which case - play Kitchen Finks).
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Gifts Rock decks ran a full set of Cabal Therapy as the staple disruption tool. It doesn't surprise me that more recent Gifts decks would do the same with this format's targetted discard, given that it's functionally still a midrange deck on many levels.
Has anyone attempted Forbidden Alchemy in this deck? I don't know if jamming 2U for a card is what I want to be doing, but it still shows a lot of cards - and it can help avoid the G1 problem of seeing lots of creature-kill against creature-light decks. I'm ignoring the Flashback since I don't think it will really happen that often. Is this too cute? I've got four slots in a Gifts deck that are currently filled with Serum Visions, and I'm thinking about Alchemy instead. I might give Compulsive Research a try, especially since I'm moving away from Mana Leak.
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Has anyone attempted Forbidden Alchemy in this deck? I don't know if jamming 2U for a card is what I want to be doing, but it still shows a lot of cards - and it can help avoid the G1 problem of seeing lots of creature-kill against creature-light decks. I'm ignoring the Flashback since I don't think it will really happen that often. Is this too cute? I've got four slots in a Gifts deck that are currently filled with Serum Visions, and I'm thinking about Alchemy instead. I might give Compulsive Research a try, especially since I'm moving away from Mana Leak.
A couple of things come to mind, here:
1. Alchemy has a tendency to take over a deck as its own engine. This isn't a bad thing or a good thing, but that's what it does. If you play something like Mystical Teachings alongside gifts, Teachings can find Gifts and Gifts can find teachings--so they have synergy. Alchemy does something different.
2. Getting to 6B mana is really easy when your deck has 4 Impulses, especially if your deck plays a Loam and/or Sun Titan(s) and/or ways to tutor the Loam (i.e. Gifts)
3. Alchemy will put your Gifts targets into the yard by accident, which is both good and bad because it messes with some piles, but it also lets you just hard-tutor stuff with recursion spells.
I'm testing this deck since months on Cockatrice, I really like the idea behind it.
But I really have problems winning with the deck.
Do you rush into Gifts, or do you try to play it control?
Also, I think it is difficult to side against some matchups.
Lets take Tron, or Affinity. Any ideas?
I have been liking this deck. The way I play it is kind of more tempo/control based and if they tap out, I play gifts. R/G Tron, side in terastadon, spreading seas, sowing salt. U Tron, similar, except no spreading seas. Affinity, something like shatterstorm or engineered explosivescan be effective.
I'm testing this deck since months on Cockatrice, I really like the idea behind it.
But I really have problems winning with the deck.
Do you rush into Gifts, or do you try to play it control?
Also, I think it is difficult to side against some matchups.
Lets take Tron, or Affinity. Any ideas?
Generally speaking, Gifts decks are built to fight match-ups with one or two specific Gifts piles. The goal is to live long enough to cast a Gifts, find a way to resolve it (if there's disruption), then the 4 cards you get are planned from the beginning to solve the match-up.
So, if you're fighting Tron, a common plan is to get Life from the Loam, Ghost Quarter (or Tectonic Edge), Pithing Needle, and Academy Ruins. What this does is it gives you a way to disrupt their Tron manabase in the first place (Ghost Quarter), a way to keep recurring that (Life from the Loam), a way to shut down a resolved threat/a generally good answer to Tron (Pithing Needle), and then Academy Ruins can be used to get back the Needle (or other disruptive artifacts) and Loam gets back Ruins, so the whole pile can be recurred by Loam and eventually you can get all the lock pieces. This isn't the be-all-end-all pile for the match-up; you would situationally want a Tormod's Crypt instead of Needle for Crucible of Worlds or the Tron deck's own loam; or you could even put something like an Ancient Grudge in that pile--it depends mostly on what you want to remove/disrupt in the current moment, and it also depends upon whether or not you've naturally drawn anything else you would want to tutor up.
Another Loam pile vs Tron is Loam/Ghost Quarter/Raven's Crime/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but I'm less a fan of that one because Tron decks are designed to do well in topdeck mode because they have so many bombs and so much digging power; I think if you can just blow up the mana you don't need to care about the stuff in their hands.
Another way to mess with Tron is to get a bunch of LD spells instead of a Loam pile. A good one is Reveillark, Body Double, Fulminator Mage, Avalanche Riders. This obviously assumes your deck has ways to remove your own Reveillark (a sac outlet or something similar), but the point is that you'll either get 2 LD creatures, or you'll get an LD creature and Lark/LD creature and Body Double, or you'll get Lark/Body Double. If you get 2 LD guys, you just blow up 2 lands and put Tron behind. If you get Lark/Double and an LD guy, you start with the LD and blow up a Tron piece, then use the Lark/Double (Double copies Lark) and the loop starts. If you get Lark and Double, you Double an LD guy and blow up a Tron piece. Then you Evoke Lark and get Double and an LD guy back; Double clones Lark, you blow up a land, find a way to sac your Double; it triggers to target itself in the yard and an LD guy and comes back to clone Lark; rinse and repeat. Some builds want to use a Lark engine anyways; so those builds would probably run this kind of package.
See the pattern here? A lot of Gifts piles are designed to set up soft locks. Another thing you can do is, if your deck has a 2-piece "I win combo", you can throw those 2 pieces into a pile and then 2 other things you want, and you're probably getting one piece of the combo and one other thing you want.
Against Affinity, a solid pile would be an Ancient Grudge and 3 board sweepers. If you get 3 of any particular type of card, you can assume you get one of them because your opponent can only bin two of the four cards. So then you wipe the table, and you have an Ancient Grudge around to kill a Cranial Plating if need be. The board sweepers don't necessarily have to be Wrath of God variants or specific anti-artifact ones like Shatterstorm/Creeping Corrosion either; often Firespout and Engineeered Explosives work just fine. The whole point is that they overlap for that specific job (cleaning up the board) in that specific match-up (Affinity), and that's how a Gifts deck is built and a Gifts sideboard is built to house post-board configurations.
Generally speaking, Gifts decks are built to fight match-ups with one or two specific Gifts piles. The goal is to live long enough to cast a Gifts, find a way to resolve it (if there's disruption), then the 4 cards you get are planned from the beginning to solve the match-up.
So, if you're fighting Tron, a common plan is to get Life from the Loam, Ghost Quarter (or Tectonic Edge), Pithing Needle, and Academy Ruins. What this does is it gives you a way to disrupt their Tron manabase in the first place (Ghost Quarter), a way to keep recurring that (Life from the Loam), a way to shut down a resolved threat/a generally good answer to Tron (Pithing Needle), and then Academy Ruins can be used to get back the Needle (or other disruptive artifacts) and Loam gets back Ruins, so the whole pile can be recurred by Loam and eventually you can get all the lock pieces. This isn't the be-all-end-all pile for the match-up; you would situationally want a Tormod's Crypt instead of Needle for Crucible of Worlds or the Tron deck's own loam; or you could even put something like an Ancient Grudge in that pile--it depends mostly on what you want to remove/disrupt in the current moment, and it also depends upon whether or not you've naturally drawn anything else you would want to tutor up.
Another Loam pile vs Tron is Loam/Ghost Quarter/Raven's Crime/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but I'm less a fan of that one because Tron decks are designed to do well in topdeck mode because they have so many bombs and so much digging power; I think if you can just blow up the mana you don't need to care about the stuff in their hands.
Another way to mess with Tron is to get a bunch of LD spells instead of a Loam pile. A good one is Reveillark, Body Double, Fulminator Mage, Avalanche Riders. This obviously assumes your deck has ways to remove your own Reveillark (a sac outlet or something similar), but the point is that you'll either get 2 LD creatures, or you'll get an LD creature and Lark/LD creature and Body Double, or you'll get Lark/Body Double. If you get 2 LD guys, you just blow up 2 lands and put Tron behind. If you get Lark/Double and an LD guy, you start with the LD and blow up a Tron piece, then use the Lark/Double (Double copies Lark) and the loop starts. If you get Lark and Double, you Double an LD guy and blow up a Tron piece. Then you Evoke Lark and get Double and an LD guy back; Double clones Lark, you blow up a land, find a way to sac your Double; it triggers to target itself in the yard and an LD guy and comes back to clone Lark; rinse and repeat. Some builds want to use a Lark engine anyways; so those builds would probably run this kind of package.
See the pattern here? A lot of Gifts piles are designed to set up soft locks. Another thing you can do is, if your deck has a 2-piece "I win combo", you can throw those 2 pieces into a pile and then 2 other things you want, and you're probably getting one piece of the combo and one other thing you want.
Against Affinity, a solid pile would be an Ancient Grudge and 3 board sweepers. If you get 3 of any particular type of card, you can assume you get one of them because your opponent can only bin two of the four cards. So then you wipe the table, and you have an Ancient Grudge around to kill a Cranial Plating if need be. The board sweepers don't necessarily have to be Wrath of God variants or specific anti-artifact ones like Shatterstorm/Creeping Corrosion either; often Firespout and Engineeered Explosives work just fine. The whole point is that they overlap for that specific job (cleaning up the board) in that specific match-up (Affinity), and that's how a Gifts deck is built and a Gifts sideboard is built to house post-board configurations.
Hi I-N-S, I've noticed your posts for a while now on the old teachings thread from old extended, the modern ritual gifts thread, etc... and you seem to have a knack for the control decks of these formats. I was wondering if you have a 4c Gifts list that you've been playing as I value your opinion as a deck builder and would love to see what you've come up with for this archetype. Thanks!
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Hi I-N-S, I've noticed your posts for a while now on the old teachings thread from old extended, the modern ritual gifts thread, etc... and you seem to have a knack for the control decks of these formats. I was wondering if you have a 4c Gifts list that you've been playing as I value your opinion as a deck builder and would love to see what you've come up with for this archetype. Thanks!
Thanks! I'll happily share my thoughts about the format. It'll be good for me too--I could use a moment to write my thoughts down...just so I can figure things out more for myself.
Well, I've been working a lot more on Standard because I was expecting to be in San Diego at a PTQ today, but that fell through. (My Standard deck is fully-tuned anyways, so I have to look for other creative deckbuilding outlets now ). Instead, I have a Modern tournament in 2 weeks, so right now I'm switching gears to that format and I'm in the research process--going through Gatherer a bunch of times, writing lists of the answers/draw spells/engines/lands I want to play, and figuring out what I want to do. Generally speaking, I know this format best because I enjoyed Extended the most, and Modern is basically just Extended with a new name. So I know the card pool like the back of my hand, and I've played a variety of different decks so it's not very difficult to put together something controllish; I just have to decide what I want to do and run with it.
I have narrowed it down pretty significantly, though; I know that if I go with Gifts Ungiven, it will be primarily to fuel a Loam engine and a couple other endgames. This is what I want to do with Gifts, should I go down that road:
That's 57-66 cards; I've narrowed down the counters and the engine type, but I haven't been able to tune/refine a build that I like. As for other details, I think Unburial Rites+Aetherling or Worm Harvest are both very good finishers for the Gifts/Loam engine. Teferi-->Dralnu or Teferi-->Aetherling are both really good endgames for a Teachings engine, which would be a Loam-less (and probably Gifts-less) build. I would play an Academy Ruins, as many Stirring Wildwoods as possible, and then a GQ and/or Tectonic Edge in the manabase. I don't think Academy Ruins/GQ/Tech Edge require any explanation. Stirring Wildwood is a fantastic defender, though, so that is worth mentioning. It's best if you play Path/Dismember, though, so you can animate on just 4 lands, block (or try to), then tap it to remove something (else).
The problem I've had with Gifts is that I just want the card as a tutor to set up Loam packages or URites+Aetherling; I want the answers to be a bunch of 4-ofs so that I can play consistently. Since I'm not using Gifts for answers very often, I feel like I'm moving in the wrong direction for a Gifts-based deck, and therefore I'm probably either going to go with Teachings or even Forbidden Alchemy as the primary engine, and just eschew Gifts completely.
The other direction (for control) in which I've been working is to play a Threshold-style list with Death's Shadows and Dismembers, cantrips, Esper Charms, Snapcasters, etc. Right now, I want to play with 7-8 Mana Tithes and Spell Snares and I want to play four+ 1-mana removal spells, since the metagame revolves around speedy openings (either aggression with BTE/robots/Burn or openings involving mana dorks, including Deathrite). I think the Thresh list is the strongest of the control variants I've built thus far, but obviously that kind of deck has nothing to do with Gifts (aside from expressing what I've been testing in this post), so I'll just leave that list out. However, I do want to point out that Death's Shadow is basically a better Goyf that's in a much more useful color than green, so in a format with Shocklands you can play 4 of those main if you just want good roadblocks/pressure as part of the gameplan. It basically wrecks on aggro and you can always play it with counter back-up, so it's pretty insane.
I think, whatever a control player chooses as their draw engine, they should play a lot of 4-ofs and 3-ofs and keep their deck consistent and mana-efficient. I also believe it's time to acknowledge Voice of Resurgence, since that card just made 1st place at a GP and it's only going to show up in more places. These are my favorite answers to it, aside from just wiping the board:
And, of course, playing 7-8 one-mana counterspells.
There's one last thing I want to bring up: play 4 Shadow of Doubt in your maindeck, because it's insane against the vast majority of the field. Birthing Pod, Fetchlands, Gifts Ungiven, Mystical Teachings, Expedition map, Scapeshift, Ramp spells, Transmute cards, upgrading your own Path to Exile/Ghost Quarter...it's well-positioned right now, and it only gets better if you have Snapcasters and/or Stifle effects to make it more redundant. Almost every deck plays fetchlands and other shuffle effects, and for those which don't, you can just cycle it in G1 and board it out in G2. Consider that it is also possible to run Voidslime, Squelch, or Trickbind because Stifle effects also shaft a Birthing Pod activation and they can counter opposing Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter activations, as well.
So that's my train of thought. I hope you guys find it useful.
Could we discuss a possible wish sideboard to use with this deck. I would really love to play test this deck with some more outlandish ideas such as a wish board to improve consistency.
Okay, so what kinds of cards do you want to tutor for? Aside from lands, what would you Demonic Tutor for in this deck? You're in Bant colors with maybe a 4th and/or all 5th color splash. Start thinking
A good starting point is to have about 7 targets and to leave the other 8 slots for actual sideboard cards. Don't overdo it initially; just play a spot removal, a sweeper, a counter, a draw spell, some kind of disruption, some kind of recursion, and a bomb-ish threat. Don't try to put 15 gold cards into your board initially; just focus on necessities with half your board and let the other half be an actual sideboard. Over time, you can add to it--and you can also just use a lot of multicolor legitimate sideboard cards for that other half of your board--and they'll be wish-able.
A lot of Glittering Wish builds tend to board out their wishes in game 2 and 3 because the targets you want are coming in. Something to keep in mind, if you haven't played much with GWish.
I'm currently still on a more traditional gifts list, but I really like the engine that you have created. I'd prefer IoK over Spell Snare in that list I think, but then again it's only a rough sketch. I might get me some of the cards that I am missing and throw it together. I think you'd want some snapcasters in there, and maybe even some Lingering Souls. I think that you are most likely to kill with man-lands? (like the Wafa-Tapo UWR deck?) I really like the idea though!
Spell Snare is the best counterspell in the format. It is one of the best tempo plays in the format. Nothing is as maindeckable in a broad metagame while also helping you to strongly stay in a game when you're on the draw. I've had great times with IoKs (See 2010 California States for an example), but cutting Spell Snares is a giant mistake. Discard =/= countermagic. Now, I could see playing Snares and IoKs, but not just IoKs.
I would use either something like Aetherling+Unburial Rites or a Worm Harvest as the win condition. You can dredge out Aetherling and then Rites it, letting Loam find your win condition faster. You can Gifts for ALing and URites and also put 2 other cards in that pile, meaning you can get something like Loam or a retrace card or some land you want, or even just an EE or something. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you're not just throwing a Gifts away to tutor for URites and something uncastable like Iona, where you have to just tutor for 2 cards instead of giving Gifts its full potential as a draw spell.
I'm neutral on Lingering Souls. It's a reasonable card, and you could play it. It depends on how heavily you lean into white and black. If I'm playing Gifts, I'm playing Loam and Stirring Wildwoods. I'm going to play Bant colors and then black might be a light splash for a Teachings or two/Alchemy or Two and for a Urites and EE=4...but if I'm playing Lingering Souls in that kind of shell I suddenly need to emphasize getting 1B much earlier for LSouls. That's a lot of strain on a manabase...I don't particularly find that worthwhile, when you consider that Lingering Souls takes a slot in the removal suite and you could be playing something way better, like more Engineered Explosives or more Path or Bant Charm or Repeal. And if you're able to make more than 3-4 black sources work without losing to Blood Moon or paining yourself to Hell and beyond, is it better than Abrupt Decay or Devour Flesh or Consume the Meek? No, probably not.
The thing is: Lingering Souls goes with Liliana and the midrange gameplan, but I think that gameplan is too slow and not powerful enough to beat a cohesive combo deck with a good pilot, or on similar terms against a strong and consistent aggro deck. If I'm going to play a Rock deck, I'm not going to waste time with Liliana and Lingering Souls; I'm going to play something cataclysmic and immediate like Death Cloud or Plow Unders. I don't want to waste my time screwing around with 1/1 fliers and discard when I could be wrecking manabases and really grinding my opponent's game-plant to a halt.
Today while I was walking home from work I was thinking "what about Knight of the Reliquary? Would she have a spot on this deck?". Then I proceed to check the Daily events results and came across this:
Although I don't particularly like some cards on this list, it make me wonder once again: how about Knight of the Reliquary? Is she something that may worth including on this deck?
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Random ideas I've been testing in my own version of the deck.
- 1 of Noxious Revival and Eternal Witness. That's enough redundancy to make gifts a tutor of anything. Great for silverbullet-based Gifts decks.
- Lotus Cobra. I'm running 4 in my version. Along with 4 deathrites access to all five colors isn't a problem at all, and it does accelerate quite a lot. And... well, I'm running Bringer of the Black Dawn, so yeah...
- 1-of Zealous Persecution. Does a lot against elves, affinity and */1s in general. Also, combining it with Lingering Souls (cobras, witnesses, deathrites,...) provides a surprising final push, that won me more games than Elesh Norn so far
- (Sideboard) 1-of Persecute. Particularly good with mana aceleration and/or boseiju. Gets better for being unexpected, can steal some games out of nowhere.
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Sun Titan
2x Spell Snare
2x Path to Exile
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightnig Helix
2x Mana Leak
2x Remand
1x Doom Blade
1x Electrolyse
3x Cryptic Command
4x Gifts Ungiven
1x Unburial Rites
4x Engineered Explosives
1x Batterskull
3x Celestial Collonade
2x Steam Vents
2x Hallowed Fountain
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Sacred Foundry
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Arid Mesa
2x Island
1x Mountain
1x Plain
1x Academy Ruins
1x Tectonic Edge
2x Combust
2x Slaughter Games
2x Fulminator Mage
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Stony Silence
2x Ghostly Prison
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Sun Titan as your reanimate target makes pile such as Titan/Rites/EE/Ruins possible. You will rarely do such piles though, as you should have a EE out already. Once Titan/Rites/EE/Ruins are out, if you don't need a TecEdge, Tiago is MVP post-gift. Fantastic blocker (revive with Titan to allow more flashback), turns Gifts into 4x Demonic Tutor. The main quality of this take on the deck is that it doesn't NEED gifts to do anything. Titan can win games on his own, and is not a pain when drawn compared with other reanimate target. I'm considering going up to 2 Titans.
The rest of the deck is typical American Control shell. Heavy burn because Helix is better than Path in my meta. The most contestable choice might be 4x EE. I just love the card, and I am never disappointed with it. Its not because you can search for it and/or recur it that you should play only 1. Its the best all around removal in the format IMO. Titan bring it back for 0 against Affinity and like when needed too (ice on topping).
Considering adding Finks mainboard like some list do, but I love the draw-go mode. The first card I might kick off is Batterskull, its been win-more in all but one game. Finks would probably have done the job in most of the game.
Thoughts?
1 Breeding Pool
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Sun Titan
Other spells (22)
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Go for the Throat
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
4 Lingering Souls
2 Path to Exile
1 Raven's Crime
2 Thoughtseize
1 Unburial Rites
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Batterskull
1 Darkblast
1 Dismember
1 Go for the Throat
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Spellskite
3 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Thoughtseize
1 Thragtusk
Some interesting things to note:
Snapcaster Mage has been eschewed, and in its place is Birds of Paradise. Also, no Mana Leaks were present, and four targeted discard spells were played instead.
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of playing that card.
You can Dredge stuff into the Graveyard and you can also use it with Raven's Crime.
I don't think he meant in terms of actually playing it unless you really needed the extra land. I'd personally rather have loam, however.
There's an analog for this in Vintage where the question is whether you want to be casting Duress or Spell Pierce on the first turn. Based on the deck and the metagame, the answer changes.
My lingering question is whether you should just go with all 4 Thoughtseizes. Scapeshift is getting more popular, for example, and ripping Cryptic Command from UWR decks is a good thing, too. I wonder whether the 2/2 split is merely to save life points (in which case - play Kitchen Finks).
A couple of things come to mind, here:
1. Alchemy has a tendency to take over a deck as its own engine. This isn't a bad thing or a good thing, but that's what it does. If you play something like Mystical Teachings alongside gifts, Teachings can find Gifts and Gifts can find teachings--so they have synergy. Alchemy does something different.
2. Getting to 6B mana is really easy when your deck has 4 Impulses, especially if your deck plays a Loam and/or Sun Titan(s) and/or ways to tutor the Loam (i.e. Gifts)
3. Alchemy will put your Gifts targets into the yard by accident, which is both good and bad because it messes with some piles, but it also lets you just hard-tutor stuff with recursion spells.
I have been liking this deck. The way I play it is kind of more tempo/control based and if they tap out, I play gifts. R/G Tron, side in terastadon, spreading seas, sowing salt. U Tron, similar, except no spreading seas. Affinity, something like shatterstorm or engineered explosivescan be effective.
Generally speaking, Gifts decks are built to fight match-ups with one or two specific Gifts piles. The goal is to live long enough to cast a Gifts, find a way to resolve it (if there's disruption), then the 4 cards you get are planned from the beginning to solve the match-up.
So, if you're fighting Tron, a common plan is to get Life from the Loam, Ghost Quarter (or Tectonic Edge), Pithing Needle, and Academy Ruins. What this does is it gives you a way to disrupt their Tron manabase in the first place (Ghost Quarter), a way to keep recurring that (Life from the Loam), a way to shut down a resolved threat/a generally good answer to Tron (Pithing Needle), and then Academy Ruins can be used to get back the Needle (or other disruptive artifacts) and Loam gets back Ruins, so the whole pile can be recurred by Loam and eventually you can get all the lock pieces. This isn't the be-all-end-all pile for the match-up; you would situationally want a Tormod's Crypt instead of Needle for Crucible of Worlds or the Tron deck's own loam; or you could even put something like an Ancient Grudge in that pile--it depends mostly on what you want to remove/disrupt in the current moment, and it also depends upon whether or not you've naturally drawn anything else you would want to tutor up.
Another Loam pile vs Tron is Loam/Ghost Quarter/Raven's Crime/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but I'm less a fan of that one because Tron decks are designed to do well in topdeck mode because they have so many bombs and so much digging power; I think if you can just blow up the mana you don't need to care about the stuff in their hands.
Another way to mess with Tron is to get a bunch of LD spells instead of a Loam pile. A good one is Reveillark, Body Double, Fulminator Mage, Avalanche Riders. This obviously assumes your deck has ways to remove your own Reveillark (a sac outlet or something similar), but the point is that you'll either get 2 LD creatures, or you'll get an LD creature and Lark/LD creature and Body Double, or you'll get Lark/Body Double. If you get 2 LD guys, you just blow up 2 lands and put Tron behind. If you get Lark/Double and an LD guy, you start with the LD and blow up a Tron piece, then use the Lark/Double (Double copies Lark) and the loop starts. If you get Lark and Double, you Double an LD guy and blow up a Tron piece. Then you Evoke Lark and get Double and an LD guy back; Double clones Lark, you blow up a land, find a way to sac your Double; it triggers to target itself in the yard and an LD guy and comes back to clone Lark; rinse and repeat. Some builds want to use a Lark engine anyways; so those builds would probably run this kind of package.
See the pattern here? A lot of Gifts piles are designed to set up soft locks. Another thing you can do is, if your deck has a 2-piece "I win combo", you can throw those 2 pieces into a pile and then 2 other things you want, and you're probably getting one piece of the combo and one other thing you want.
Against Affinity, a solid pile would be an Ancient Grudge and 3 board sweepers. If you get 3 of any particular type of card, you can assume you get one of them because your opponent can only bin two of the four cards. So then you wipe the table, and you have an Ancient Grudge around to kill a Cranial Plating if need be. The board sweepers don't necessarily have to be Wrath of God variants or specific anti-artifact ones like Shatterstorm/Creeping Corrosion either; often Firespout and Engineeered Explosives work just fine. The whole point is that they overlap for that specific job (cleaning up the board) in that specific match-up (Affinity), and that's how a Gifts deck is built and a Gifts sideboard is built to house post-board configurations.
Hi I-N-S, I've noticed your posts for a while now on the old teachings thread from old extended, the modern ritual gifts thread, etc... and you seem to have a knack for the control decks of these formats. I was wondering if you have a 4c Gifts list that you've been playing as I value your opinion as a deck builder and would love to see what you've come up with for this archetype. Thanks!
Thanks! I'll happily share my thoughts about the format. It'll be good for me too--I could use a moment to write my thoughts down...just so I can figure things out more for myself.
Well, I've been working a lot more on Standard because I was expecting to be in San Diego at a PTQ today, but that fell through. (My Standard deck is fully-tuned anyways, so I have to look for other creative deckbuilding outlets now ). Instead, I have a Modern tournament in 2 weeks, so right now I'm switching gears to that format and I'm in the research process--going through Gatherer a bunch of times, writing lists of the answers/draw spells/engines/lands I want to play, and figuring out what I want to do. Generally speaking, I know this format best because I enjoyed Extended the most, and Modern is basically just Extended with a new name. So I know the card pool like the back of my hand, and I've played a variety of different decks so it's not very difficult to put together something controllish; I just have to decide what I want to do and run with it.
I have narrowed it down pretty significantly, though; I know that if I go with Gifts Ungiven, it will be primarily to fuel a Loam engine and a couple other endgames. This is what I want to do with Gifts, should I go down that road:
1 Oona's Grace
4 Spell Snare
4 Rune Snag
4 Shadow of Doubt
That's 57-66 cards; I've narrowed down the counters and the engine type, but I haven't been able to tune/refine a build that I like. As for other details, I think Unburial Rites+Aetherling or Worm Harvest are both very good finishers for the Gifts/Loam engine. Teferi-->Dralnu or Teferi-->Aetherling are both really good endgames for a Teachings engine, which would be a Loam-less (and probably Gifts-less) build. I would play an Academy Ruins, as many Stirring Wildwoods as possible, and then a GQ and/or Tectonic Edge in the manabase. I don't think Academy Ruins/GQ/Tech Edge require any explanation. Stirring Wildwood is a fantastic defender, though, so that is worth mentioning. It's best if you play Path/Dismember, though, so you can animate on just 4 lands, block (or try to), then tap it to remove something (else).
The problem I've had with Gifts is that I just want the card as a tutor to set up Loam packages or URites+Aetherling; I want the answers to be a bunch of 4-ofs so that I can play consistently. Since I'm not using Gifts for answers very often, I feel like I'm moving in the wrong direction for a Gifts-based deck, and therefore I'm probably either going to go with Teachings or even Forbidden Alchemy as the primary engine, and just eschew Gifts completely.
The other direction (for control) in which I've been working is to play a Threshold-style list with Death's Shadows and Dismembers, cantrips, Esper Charms, Snapcasters, etc. Right now, I want to play with 7-8 Mana Tithes and Spell Snares and I want to play four+ 1-mana removal spells, since the metagame revolves around speedy openings (either aggression with BTE/robots/Burn or openings involving mana dorks, including Deathrite). I think the Thresh list is the strongest of the control variants I've built thus far, but obviously that kind of deck has nothing to do with Gifts (aside from expressing what I've been testing in this post), so I'll just leave that list out. However, I do want to point out that Death's Shadow is basically a better Goyf that's in a much more useful color than green, so in a format with Shocklands you can play 4 of those main if you just want good roadblocks/pressure as part of the gameplan. It basically wrecks on aggro and you can always play it with counter back-up, so it's pretty insane.
I think, whatever a control player chooses as their draw engine, they should play a lot of 4-ofs and 3-ofs and keep their deck consistent and mana-efficient. I also believe it's time to acknowledge Voice of Resurgence, since that card just made 1st place at a GP and it's only going to show up in more places. These are my favorite answers to it, aside from just wiping the board:
And, of course, playing 7-8 one-mana counterspells.
There's one last thing I want to bring up: play 4 Shadow of Doubt in your maindeck, because it's insane against the vast majority of the field. Birthing Pod, Fetchlands, Gifts Ungiven, Mystical Teachings, Expedition map, Scapeshift, Ramp spells, Transmute cards, upgrading your own Path to Exile/Ghost Quarter...it's well-positioned right now, and it only gets better if you have Snapcasters and/or Stifle effects to make it more redundant. Almost every deck plays fetchlands and other shuffle effects, and for those which don't, you can just cycle it in G1 and board it out in G2. Consider that it is also possible to run Voidslime, Squelch, or Trickbind because Stifle effects also shaft a Birthing Pod activation and they can counter opposing Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter activations, as well.
So that's my train of thought. I hope you guys find it useful.
A good starting point is to have about 7 targets and to leave the other 8 slots for actual sideboard cards. Don't overdo it initially; just play a spot removal, a sweeper, a counter, a draw spell, some kind of disruption, some kind of recursion, and a bomb-ish threat. Don't try to put 15 gold cards into your board initially; just focus on necessities with half your board and let the other half be an actual sideboard. Over time, you can add to it--and you can also just use a lot of multicolor legitimate sideboard cards for that other half of your board--and they'll be wish-able.
A lot of Glittering Wish builds tend to board out their wishes in game 2 and 3 because the targets you want are coming in. Something to keep in mind, if you haven't played much with GWish.
Spell Snare is the best counterspell in the format. It is one of the best tempo plays in the format. Nothing is as maindeckable in a broad metagame while also helping you to strongly stay in a game when you're on the draw. I've had great times with IoKs (See 2010 California States for an example), but cutting Spell Snares is a giant mistake. Discard =/= countermagic. Now, I could see playing Snares and IoKs, but not just IoKs.
I would use either something like Aetherling+Unburial Rites or a Worm Harvest as the win condition. You can dredge out Aetherling and then Rites it, letting Loam find your win condition faster. You can Gifts for ALing and URites and also put 2 other cards in that pile, meaning you can get something like Loam or a retrace card or some land you want, or even just an EE or something. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you're not just throwing a Gifts away to tutor for URites and something uncastable like Iona, where you have to just tutor for 2 cards instead of giving Gifts its full potential as a draw spell.
I'm neutral on Lingering Souls. It's a reasonable card, and you could play it. It depends on how heavily you lean into white and black. If I'm playing Gifts, I'm playing Loam and Stirring Wildwoods. I'm going to play Bant colors and then black might be a light splash for a Teachings or two/Alchemy or Two and for a Urites and EE=4...but if I'm playing Lingering Souls in that kind of shell I suddenly need to emphasize getting 1B much earlier for LSouls. That's a lot of strain on a manabase...I don't particularly find that worthwhile, when you consider that Lingering Souls takes a slot in the removal suite and you could be playing something way better, like more Engineered Explosives or more Path or Bant Charm or Repeal. And if you're able to make more than 3-4 black sources work without losing to Blood Moon or paining yourself to Hell and beyond, is it better than Abrupt Decay or Devour Flesh or Consume the Meek? No, probably not.
The thing is: Lingering Souls goes with Liliana and the midrange gameplan, but I think that gameplan is too slow and not powerful enough to beat a cohesive combo deck with a good pilot, or on similar terms against a strong and consistent aggro deck. If I'm going to play a Rock deck, I'm not going to waste time with Liliana and Lingering Souls; I'm going to play something cataclysmic and immediate like Death Cloud or Plow Unders. I don't want to waste my time screwing around with 1/1 fliers and discard when I could be wrecking manabases and really grinding my opponent's game-plant to a halt.
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
1 Doom Blade
2 Duress
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
3 Lingering Souls
2 Path to Exile
1 Raven's Crime
1 Unburial Rites
Creatures:
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Eternal Witness
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Sun Titan
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Darkblast
1 Dismember
1 Doom Blade
2 Duress
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Stony Silence
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Although I don't particularly like some cards on this list, it make me wonder once again: how about Knight of the Reliquary? Is she something that may worth including on this deck?
- 1 of Noxious Revival and Eternal Witness. That's enough redundancy to make gifts a tutor of anything. Great for silverbullet-based Gifts decks.
- Lotus Cobra. I'm running 4 in my version. Along with 4 deathrites access to all five colors isn't a problem at all, and it does accelerate quite a lot. And... well, I'm running Bringer of the Black Dawn, so yeah...
- 1-of Zealous Persecution. Does a lot against elves, affinity and */1s in general. Also, combining it with Lingering Souls (cobras, witnesses, deathrites,...) provides a surprising final push, that won me more games than Elesh Norn so far
- 1-of Thragtusk. Better than wurmcoil imo.
- (Sideboard) Rest for the Weary
- (Sideboard) 1-of Persecute. Particularly good with mana aceleration and/or boseiju. Gets better for being unexpected, can steal some games out of nowhere.