Simply put, ritual Gifts is the best dedicated Gifts Ungiven strategy in Modern. It uses the incredible tutor power of Gifts Ungiven to both fill up your graveyard and hand with rituals to power up Past in Flames and find the Past in Flames from your deck, essentially turning a massive storm finish into a 1-card combo. Because it runs a tutor engine rather than just filter cards to find the necessary pieces, this frees up a lot of space in the deck for powerful answer cards such as countermagic and mass removal.
What's the history of Ritual Gifts?
The story of Ritual Gifts actually starts in vintage, several years ago. When Gifts Ungiven was first printed, the top performing control deck in vintage was Control Slaver, a strategy which used the broken mana acceleration of the format combined with Mana Drain to power out Mindslaver, and recur it with Goblin Welder, and a draw engine in the form of Thirst for Knowledge. When Gifts was printed, the first decks anyone tried it in were modified Control Slaver lists. However, it proved not to be that strong.
Then, Vintage pro Stephen Menendian tried his hand at building a Gifts list. His list, named Meandeck Gifts after his team (team Meandeck), worked by realizing the inherent brokenness of Gifts Ungiven in a format full of broken cards you can only play 1 of. His deck used Merchant Scroll to search out for Ancestral Recall, Gifts, Mana Drain or pitch countermagic, and so on, to make a very strong draw engine, then used a combination of Yawgmoth's Will and Recoup to make unbeatable Gifts Piles. It would finish with a giant Will into either Tinker for Darksteel Colossus combined with Time Walk or a lethal Tendrils of Agony. There were other innovations, but they aren't really relevant.
Over the next few years, Meandeck Gifts slowly gathered momentum, until during late 2006 and early 2007 the format was basically defined by Meandeck Gifts and Storm Combo. The deck was neutered by the restriction of Gifts Ungiven, but the tech from it, including Merchant Scroll, superior usage of Brainstorm, and winning by being the best Yawgmoth's Will strategy, lived on, and later would cause the restriction of Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm, Gush, and indirectly also Thirst for Knowledge. It's mark is only now finally fading from the vintage scene. The strategy, at its peak, has proven to be one of the best decks in Vintage History, and by extension, all of Magic.
Now, remember the key combination of the deck: Yawgmoth's Will and Recoup to use gifts as a tutor for a 7-mana Yawgmoth's Will. We have basically the same thing, but more effective, in the form of Past in Flames, which has Flashback. As soon as I saw Past in Flames, I started work on this list, and the rest is history.
How does it work?
This section is basically for beginners who want to understand the deck, and explains the basic synergy.
Basically, the deck uses Gifts Ungiven to tutor out a bunch of spells. Gifts Ungiven searches your library for 4 cards. 2 go to your graveyard, and 2 go to your hand, but your opponent chooses which one. What this deck wants to do is to use a Gifts Ungiven (or more than one) to search your library for some mana generating cards, such as Seething Song, and a Past in Flames. Past in Flames lets you cast all the instants and sorceries in your graveyard again, and can be cast from your graveyard for a slightly higher price. So, once you get that Gifts, you want to play a few spells to generate extra mana, cast Past in Flames, and cast those mana generation cards from your graveyard. What do you do with all that mana? Remember, you still have that Gifts Ungiven in your graveyard! You can use Gifts Ungiven to search out more rituals, and repeat the process, or go for a kill. The kill usually involves casting Grapeshot. Grapeshot costs 2 mana to deal 1 damage to something. That sounds bad, but it also gets copied for each spell cast before it this turn. That means that every time you played a spell to generate mana, it deals one more damage. Remember, you also cast a bunch of spells twice, once normally, and once from your Graveyard. That damage really adds up. However, often it's not enough to kill them. So, you use the other key spell of the deck, Remand. Remand is an excellent counterspell, buying you time and drawing you into more permanent answers. However,in this deck it has another use: Basically, you counter the Grapeshot you just cast with Remand. It'll go back to your hand, but all the copies will still deal damage. Not only that, you'll also have the Grapeshot still in your hand, to cast it again. This can double the damage AGAIN, and will almost certainly kill them. So, you just went from one card (Gifts Ungiven) being cast on your opponent's end step after their opportunity to stop you effectively, to killing them. You can do that out of nowhere. Not only that, but you can use Gifts Ungiven just as a draw spell, getting counterspells and mass removal so that your opponent has to give you answers to their threats, getting more Gifts Ungivens to draw more cards, and so on. You can slowly build up your board, play more and more lands and get more and more cards, until finally you can get the combo and kill them.
Why play Ritual Gifts?
Ritual Gifts is incredibly explosive: I've played many games where my opponent seemed to be winning, then I resolved a Gifts on their endstep, untapped, and brought them from 20 to 0 in one turn, and they could do nothing to stop it. The deck is basically a control deck, but one that doesn't give the opponent time to interact with the win condition, and can bring that win condition online very early in the game. Its topdecking power and tutor effects make it very resilient to hate. And, even if you aren't winning the game very quickly, Ritual Gifts is a perfectly respectable control deck. Basically, this deck is a control deck that, once it gets the advantage, doesn't just stabilize or drop a threat. It kills you. Immediately.
However, a word of caution: if you're a fairly new player, or just getting into eternal formats, that's wonderful, but play Boros. Or Affinity. Or Jund. Or Tron. But not this. This is perhaps one of the most difficult decks to play I've ever seen, and is vulnerable to a lot of sideboard hate if you can't play the deck almost perfectly. It's fundamentally a tutor-based deck, which means that it will give you a lot of decisions to make each turn, and making even one wrong decision can easily lose you the game. I don't say this to discourage prospective players from playing it. It's a very strong deck, and when played well, it feels like matching legacy dredge against that sweet brew you drafted last weekend with triple-Innistrad. This deck can seem absolutely unbeatable if you're really on your game. But you can expect to lose a lot at first.
How do you play Ritual Gifts?
The key concept with Ritual Gifts is too play to your strengths. The deck is very versatile, and every game you play, you will be better than your opponent at something. Figure out what you can do better, and make the game about that. To put this into real terms, figure out your role: beatdown or control. You can do both, so it won't always be one or the other. For example, you really can't race affinity, but you do have the ability to find the perfect card in your deck to answer any situation that might come up, and have a lot of card advantage. So, you want to grind the game out and make it about the late game. You'll be drawing more cards than they are, and better ones, so you'll win. Now take a deck like U/W caw. They have a reasonable amount of late game power and excellent countermagic, but you have trump to countermagic in the form of Past in Flames, which they A. can't allow to resolve, and B. eats up at least 2 of their counterspells. So, you want to try to throw giant bombs onto the stack fairly early, knowing that you can still stay alive and that they're still worth something even if they get countered.
While perhaps the best combo gifts pile is Past in Flames, Seething Song, Increasing Vengeance and Desperate Ritual, there is no default pile. Instead, you have to figure out what works best in the current situation, and optimize your Gifts on a case-by-case basis. This can take a lot of practice, but it will really help you, both with this deck and in the future, because Gifts is a very strong card and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. This also makes the deck inherently customizable, as your gifts targets will vary based on your own playstyle, your metagame and your other card choices.
Card Choices:
The Engine:
Usually, this is 3-4 Gifts Ungiven, 2 Past in Flames, and some number of cards to find Gifts. Gifts Ungiven: This is the central card of the strategy, and is critical to the entire deck. Past in Flames: This is your finisher. It's very strong both in the early game as a powerful combo engine and in the late game, where it can represent dominating card advantage. Resolving one usually means that the game is over. Merchant Scroll: This card is a very strong tutor in this deck, capable of searching out a Gifts Ungiven, cheap countermagic to protect a bomb, or various answers to other decks or hate cards such as Repeal, Trickbind, and Hurkyl's Recall. Running it as your extra engine piece makes it way easier to resolve an early Gifts and makes sideboarding a lot easier, but can weaken your countermagic. Peer Through Depths: The main strengths here are the ability to splice a Desperate Ritual onto it to generate mana and to cast it on the endstep, making your rituals that much stronger. However, it doesn't have the same reliability as Merchant Scroll. Mind Spring/Blue Sun's Zenith/Invoke the Firemind: I think the synergy between draw-X spells and a deck full of rituals and filter lands should be obvious. I was underwhelmed, but they're worth examining, for certain. Mystical Teachings: This card has natural synergy with the deck, both searching for Gifts and providing a way to optimise Gifts piles. While you run the risk of being top heavy, it's definitely a good supplement. Additionally, it allows for a painless transformative sideboard plan, involving Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and whatever fatty you like most. Muddle the Mixture: This card is an incredibly versatile tool, both protecting your combo in the late game and tutoring for the critical Grapeshot. It also dramatically expands your bullet suite, since you can use Merchant Scroll to tutor for it and then transmute it for a ritual, additional bullets, almost anything.
The Mana:
this should be fairly standard across all gifts Lists. Seething Song: this is BANNED. Desperate Ritual/Pyretic Ritual: These are important to being able to power out early Gifts, combo turns, and having mana to get through soft counters like Spell Pierce. Desperate Ritual's splice effect can be more relevant than you think. Manamorphose: Blue mana for the kill and for Gifts is at a premium on combo turns and throughout the game. The fact that it cantrips and is card advantage with Past in Flames is a major bonus. Mana Seism: This is an untested possibility. It would be very strong in the late game, but has basically no synergy with Past in Flames and is very all-in on comboing them out when you play it. Increasing Vengeance: I almost never go without this card. It doesn't seem strong on the face of it, but when you realize that it costs 2 to copy something twice when flashbacked off Past in Flames, it becomes crucial to comboing out in a timely fashion. Imagine copying Seething Song twice with it. Or Gifts Ungiven. It's just incredibly strong in this deck. Channel the Suns: Now that Song has been banned, most ritual gifts decks are splashing green for Channel the Suns and a couple of other cards. It does a decent Seething Song impression, though it's harder to go off with.
The Kill:
Grapeshot: This is the best kill card when combined with Remand. Storm makes it almost uncounterable, while Remand makes it much easier to reach the necessary storm to kill them. Because of the tutor power of the deck, you only need to run 1. Empty the Warrens: This was critical to earlier versions, but in this age post-Dark Ascension, it's just unecessary. Martial Coup: This one's greatest strength is in cases where a combo is unreliable, for instance, when the opponent has Trickbind or is exerting pressure. With Martial Coup, you can create hybrid Gifts Piles where you can get defensive cards to keep you alive, and the requisite spells to Martial Coup for a giant threat and board wipe. It's definitely worth considering if you're going to try to build the deck. Unburial Rites/Iona, Shield of Emeria/Inkwell Leviathan/Griselbrand: What would a gifts deck be without this package? You have a fair choice of fatties to get. I know I've used Elesh Norn, Myr Battlesphere, Inkwell Leviathan and even Sundering Titan before, but now I believe that the best option is Griselbrand. You may prefer Iona, your mileage may vary, but I believe Griselbrand is the best option.
The Counters:
There's a lot of variety in choices available, but you want to have a fair number of them. Also, they have to be cheap. No Cryptic Commands here. Remand: You have to have at least one, possibly more. It's critical to the Grapeshot Kill, and is a very strong spell in and of itself. Spell Pierce: Most of the threats your opponent might have that you can't just ignore are noncreature spells. Liliana of the Veil, other counterspells, Rule of Law, and so on. Spell Pierce is very strong in all of these situations. Spell Snare: This is just a very strong counterspell. You don't want all that many of them, though, as they get worse in multiples very quickly. Dispel: A lot of what applies to Spell Pierce applies here, but the prevalence of cards like Liliana make Spell Pierce a lot stronger, in my opinion. Pact of Negation: this can make comboing out much easier, and is easy to include as a singleton and fetch with Gifts or Merchant Scroll.
The Gifts Targets:
These are the cards that really make the deck yours. They will vary depending on your meta and your own personal play style, but they are largely defensive spells that allow you to use Gifts to stabilize as well as combo the opponent out. Increasing Vengeance: Run 1-2 as a Gifts Target. No, really. There is no better card for your combo turn. Flashing it back for RR after a Past in flames and targeting Seething Song is just so strong. It's what makes the deck consistent enough to get a Grapeshot kill on turn 4. There are builds that run 2. I run 1, personally, but it all depends on how many times you expect to use it in a combo turn. Volcanic Fallout: This is a fairly new discovery, and a very strong one. The current modern metagame seems to be flooded with a lot of Delver decks, aggro decks like Affinity and Boros, and basically decks relying on a lot of small creatures that either become huge threats, are very disruptive, or provide card advantage. Volcanic Fallout not only can wipe the board, but also can kill Planeswalkers at low loyalty, make it easier to combo out if they have lifegain (every stray shock can matter), can be cast at instant speed to kill Inkmoth Nexus or other manlands, and can't be countered.
Slagstorm: See above mostly, though it's not quite as strong. Earthquake: I didn't like this at first, but now I'm warming up to it. One of the most dangerous cards against you is Liliana of the Veil, and much of the Jund matchup is about keeping her off the table. Earthquake can do that, and wipe the board of larger creatures, and synergises with rituals, and can make it easier to combo out. Engineered Explosives: This is just a very strong, efficient answer card, well worth the inclusion. Snapcaster Mage/Noxious Revival: These 2 basically can fill the same slot of making Gifts piles stronger. I've never felt the need for them, but they're worth considering. Repeal: You'll rarely Gifts for this, but it's worth noting that this can be tutored for with Merchant Scroll, cantrips, and can beat a lot of hate. Timely Reinforcements: This can completely nullify an opponent's board pressure, while gaining you a bunch of life. Usually it will buy you 2 turns, which most opponents simply can't beat. Gigadrowse: Excellent versus control decks, and can be tutored for with Merchant Scroll. Life from the Loam: A few other friends of mine are working on similar lists. One splashes green for Life from the Loam and some sweet sideboard tech (Tarmogoyf, Ancient Grudge, you get the idea). I wouldn't go that route, but it is something to factor into your decision making process. Cyclonic Rift: This card does a LOT for you, acting as both a way to bounce a problematichatespell and as a late-game bomb that can potentially end the game on its own. Chances are, if you don't have one of these in your main or sideboard, you're doing something wrong. Mizzium Mortars: Similar to Cyclonic Rift, this card serves multiple purposes, acting as both removal early and as a board wipe in several matchups. It's also tutorable with Muddle the Mixture.
Lands:
You want to play more lands than other storm decks, but less than other control decks. Somewhere between 19 and 22.
Fetchlands/Shocklands: If you have them, run them. It's just the most stable mana base, and since you don't tap out on your turn too often, they can be quite strong. You pretty much have to tune them yourself to your deck's mana needs, though Scalding Tarn and Steam Vents are a good start. Cascade Bluffs: This card can be crucial to getting the necessary blue mana for the deck to go off. I'd run 4. Calciform Pools/other storage lands: I only just found out about them again, and they're very strong in the deck. The ability to continuously build up mana and to convert red mana into blue are both very important. You have to be very careful how you tap them, though, and how many counters you remove. Remember that you basically can't go off if you don't have blue mana afterwards. Halimar Depths: I've just started testing this, and it's turned out to be deceptively strong. You have a LOT of shuffle effects, which makes this a lot stronger. I'm not currently running any, but it's definitely an option. Desolate Lighthouse: This deck is fairly prone to flooding, and wants to draw one of a fairly small number of absolutely massive game-ending bomb spells. This card digs into your deck for them, provides a good mana sink, and fills your graveyard all at once. You definitely want to pack at least on as a Gifts target.
Basics: You really don't need any mountains, as the only nonbasic land hate you have to worry about in this deck is Blood Moon, which turns all nonbasics into... mountains. I'd run as many basic islands as possible, though. It can be very important.
It's impossible to create a comprehensive list of all the matchups in Modern and how to play them, at least for the moment. The format is just too diverse. However, this should be enough to get you through a ptq.
Vs Twin:
Remember the key to this deck? Play to your strengths? Think of the matchup that way, and you should win. You'll be tempted to throw huge bombs onto the stack and try to overwhelm your twin opponent. After all, your deck is built to be fast and explosive. DON'T DO IT. Twin is a very strong deck. It has a 2-card infinite combo with plenty of redundancy. It is built to win counterwars, usually with maindeck Dispels. It's just as fast as you are, maybe a bit faster. So, how do you beat it? Play do your strengths. Figure out what you have that Twin doesn't, and make the game about that. In this case, it's Card Advantage. Twin usually has no Card Advantage mechanism, preferring to rely on dig and end the game before card advantage becomes necessary. You, however, are designed to generate fast early card advantage with Gifts Ungiven, and have a very strong draw engine available. Try to grind the game out with defensive Gifts piles, and you'll be able to answer their threats and just run them out of cards while you continue to develop your hand and board, until you finally strike the death blow with Past in Flames. Sideboard: -1 Earthquake, -1 Engineered Explosives, -2 Volcanic Fallout, -2 Spell Snare, -1 Repeal, -1 Martial Coup, +3 Combust, +1 Flashfreeze, +1 Wipe Away, +1 Rites, +1 Iona.
Vs. Jund:
The critical card here is Liliana of the Veil. Keep it off the table, and chances are you’re going to win. Fail to do so, and it can be very difficult to get back in the game. Don’t be afraid to scroll for a counterspell. That’s an important play to be able to make here. Sideboarding: -1 Pyretic Ritual, -1 Remand, -1 Martial Coup, -1 Volcanic Fallout, -2 Spell Pierce, +2 Flashfreeze, +1 Unburial Rites, +1 Iona. A bit of explanation: You only rarely want to get an early Gifts out in this matchup, so Pyretic ritual is much less important than having a critical mass of good countermagic.
Vs. Affinity:
This matchup is pretty easy. They have no way of reloading, and Volcanic Fallout makes it easy to catch out their Nexi as well. Usually, all they have to side in is Ethersworn Canonist, which is absolutely useless against cards like Repeal, Hurkyl’s Recall, and your mass removal spells. They might side in Blood Moon, but you can play around it and it’s not too hard to keep it off the table if you’re worried. Sideboarding: -3 Spell Pierce, -1 Repeal, +2 Hurkyl’s Recall, +2 Geistflame.
Vs. Melira Pod:
I haven't played this matchup very much, so I don't know much about it. I haven't done well, but that may be because I don't know which cards to counter. I don't have a solid sideboard plan, too. Any help with this would be appreciated.
Vs. Mono-white Martyr:
this matchup is a beating for them, plain and simple. They have no stack interaction and mainly rely on controlling the board, a strategy which doesn't work against a deck full of counterspells that can win off the stack alone. They have so many dead cards, it's hilarious. Their only hope in game 1 is to get a very strong early martyr and padding their life total so you just fizzle, and even that doesn't work too well. Then they overload on Rule of Law effects, and you side in Rites/Iona and lock them out. Cake. Sideboarding: -1 Earthquake, -2 Volcanic Fallout, +1 Unburial Rites, +1 Iona, +1 Wipe Away.
Boros:
This is a very good matchup. While they have quite a bit of reach, you can easily force them to overextend, then crush them with mass removal. Don't be afraid to race. They have no way to stop you, so if you have a fast draw, you can kill them, and they often take a lot of damage off fetches and duals. Sideboarding: -3 Spell Pierce, +2 Geistflame, +1 Flashfreeze
U/W Tron:
This is like the opposite of twin. Tron is a very strong deck. It has late game trump over every other deck in modern, in the form of Emrakul. It has its own draw engine, one just as strong as yours (Gifts/Thirst). It has a superior mana engine in the late game. So, what do you have that Tron doesn't? You're much better at exploding early. You have 7 Gifts to their 2-4. You have more and better early countermagic, while they generally have to tap out. Play aggressively, dropping huge bombs onto the stack every turn, and you will win. Knowing when to cast your tutors can be critical, and slowrolling is definitely helpful. Try to bait out any countermagic they might have, or use the first Merchant Scroll to get a counterspell, so you can resolve your Gifts unimpeded. Sideboarding; -1 Earthquake, -2 Volcanic Fallout, -1 Martial Coup, +1 Rites, +1 Iona, +1 Wipe Away, +1 Dispel.
Delver:
This is a quite strong matchup. Volcanic Fallout is very, very strong against them, and you can pretty effectively grind them out. You do want to win fairly quickly, however, so don't just try to stall out the game. Try to stop their clock, then win as fast as possible. Constructing good Gifts piles is key in this matchup, and can be very hard. Basically, don't be afraid to get an ugly one. I fairly often grab something like this: Past in Flames, Martial Coup, Seething Song, Volcanic Fallout. You want to sculpt your gifts piles so that, rather than presenting an auto-win (usually impossible in this matchup, up to a fairly late game), you instead present a pile where every possible permutation gives you an effective line of play, while setting up for the late game win. Sideboarding: -3 Spell Pierce, +2 Geistflame, +1 Dispel.
Vs. U/R storm:
This is a really easy matchup. They can only rarely interact on the stack, so you largely have free rein to build up your board position, and your clock isn't much worse than theirs is. Most decks have a bad game 1 against U/R storm, but I think you're actually favored game 1, and you crush them after sideboarding. Sideboarding: -1 Earthquake, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Repeal, -2 Volcanic Fallout, -1 Martial Coup, +1 Rites, +1 Iona, +2 Flashfreeze, +1 Spell Snare, +1 Trickbind.
Vs. U/W Caw:
This is a very easy matchup. Basically, you're the same strategy, but where you plan on comboing your opponent out in a single turn, they plan on killing you with 1/1 fliers. Yeah. You can outdraw them, are much more broken than they are, and have a trump card for most situations that could come up, Volcanic Fallout. I'm not going to give a sideboard strategy for my list, because the list is outdated and the sideboard has changed. I will update all of this when I update the list.
Theme with Variations:
Much of this thread has been dedicated to a control-oriented deck, which plans on playing reactively until the time is right, then suddenly forces through a huge bomb and wins almost immediately. While this strategy has it's own strengths and weaknesses, and while I certainly advocate using it based off my record with it and the records of others who have tried it, it is absolutely worth noting that, on the highest level of competition available to the format this season (Grand Prix in Modern), the main successes of the deck have been on a more all-in basis. While this thread itself is dedicated to control, I consider this all-in gifts storm combo strategy to be a Ritual Gifts deck, and while I won't discuss the card choices or matchups in detail here, I will be happy to discuss the deck in the thread, add a section submitted by someone with more experience playing that variant, and answer any questions anyone might have on the deck, to the best of my ability.
Original Post:
I'd been working with a different list on another board, with the same concept (Gifts Ungiven fueling a giant Past in Flames, but it turned out that the list didn't work within the rules, combined with a now-patched bug in MTGO where cards put into a graveyard by Gifts Ungiven AFTER Past in Flames resolved would still get flashback. I know, it was weird.
After they patched the glitch, I started working on other decks, until I came up with this:
The basic idea is fairly simple: use the rituals to ramp into various swingy midgame tempo plays, Gifts Ungiven to generate card advantage and fill up your graveyard, and eventually resolve a giant Past in Flames, usually winning the game on the spot. I've been running the list through the gauntlet with a few teammates (we do a lot of tournaments in the Norcal/Oregon area, we're all reasonably good), and it's been doing pretty well. The only thing it's had trouble with so far is Twin actually.
What do you think?
Go to my blog, Musings of the False God, for in-depth guides playing the game, from the building blocks of deck design to deceiving your opponent through clever game play!
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
Interesting looking list, I'd have to sit down with it for a bit to figure it out, but it looks alright. I had been working on a ritual gifts deck myself, but it was far more combo oriented with tooth and nail, rare turn 1 kills, and huge consistency issues...
and you play white, so as horrible as I feel for saying it... -2 cards, +1 unburial rites +1 iona?
I dunno. I've definitely thought about it, but I'm not sure I like the idea of having 2 dead draws in the deck. You can't hardcast Unburial Rites or get it into your graveyard without Gifts, and Iona is just a bit too big and mana-intensive to cast, even with a really strong Past in Flames. It's definitely something worth considering, though. Maybe a sideboard plan? Like
-3 Delver
+1 Unburial Rites
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
+1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I especially like Elesh Norn there, because it's entirely plausible you could just cast it. It's basically the same cost as Martial Coup for the same effect, just with different synergies.
Private Mod Note
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Go to my blog, Musings of the False God, for in-depth guides playing the game, from the building blocks of deck design to deceiving your opponent through clever game play!
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
I've now logged a lot of games with this list. Some initial observations:
1. This deck is not just resilient to hate. It is nigh-immune. There is basically no card in the format this deck can't work around. It's possibly the only deck I've ever played to finish with a giant Emtpty the Warrens that can completely ignore a resolved Trinisphere, and one of the only decks with 2 basic lands that can ignore Blood Moon.
2. The deck is basically a Modern implementation of Andy Probasco's Empty Gifts deck for the Vintage format in early 2007. You can try a sample hand here: http://http://www.wizards.com/magic/samplehand.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/435&decknum=1. The difference is that that deck feels very polished and streamlined, while this feels clunky and awkward. You always have dead cards in your hand, though what specific cards those are changes every game. Your mana is very awkward. And it's difficult to construct optimal gifts piles.
3. That said, the deck is definitely quite strong, even in this unpolished state. It has excellent topdecks, since a single Past in Flames or Gifts Ungiven of the top in the late game will generally either win you the game or put you so far ahead on the board that your opponent can never actually recover. The power of the internal synergies the deck has is enough to give it a lot of game, while its extraordinary resilience to hate makes it VERY difficult for your opponents to deal with. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of room for improvement, it just means the basic concept of Gifts setting up Past in Flames is strong enough to be viable in the format.
Matchups so far:
Gifts Mirror: I love playing the gifts mirror. It feels like putting Caw-Blade up against your Masques draft deck. You generally have more countermagic, so you can get total control of the stack fairly easily, and they can't tap out for the Unburial Rites or you'll counter it, win the counter war, and punish them with a hugely destructive Past in Flames. They can't effectively interact with you, while you can interact with them with ease. I've won almost all of my matches with other Gifts decks.
Jund: At first, I thought this was a bad matchup, but as I've played it more and my understanding of the interactions changes, I actually think this is slightly in your favor. You will learn to hate Maelstrom Pulse with a fiery passion, but since they have no countermagic, they will have a lot of trouble dropping a sufficient clock. Basically, everything they have is tough, but manageable.
Pure Aggro: Think of it this way: It's like the Gifts mirror, but they have no way to punish you for tapping out, no way to stop your Past in Flames, and are vulnerable to every single answer card in the main. Easy wins, generally. This applies for Affinity, Burn, Boros, some zoo variants, etc.
Twin: too hard to say. The matchup is literally so complex that I still don't think I can find the right line of play and any given point. In my last game, I counted 36 distinct lines of play I could have made, and I think that only 2 of them would have won. In short, it's gonna take a long time to learn who has the advantage. At the moment, Twin does, but that's probably more because I don't know how to play against it with this deck.
Tron: I've just played several games against our U/W Tron list (pretty standard issue, except that it runs 2 Prophetic Prisms and a Martial Coup). The matchup was bad for us at first, but I've changed my play style somewhat, and now I'm consistently winning. Basically, this is the only deck in the format that can match your late game, and they have inevitability thanks to Academy Ruins. Here, you want to aggressively pursue your plan, since your countermagic is much more effective than theirs in the early game, and try to land a giant Empty the Warrens at around turn 4-5. Your greatest advantage is that you can abuse Gifts Ungiven far more effectively in the early and midgame, and you're explosive enough to win before they can get their stage-3 threats going. Summary: control route, 30% win roughly, beatdown, 65+% win.
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Some interesting observations. I was wondering how the combo/control matchup would go, given you only run the 9 soft-counters. Aggro does seem to be completely in your favor what with the combo finish and excellent board control + tokens to buy some turns and maybe swing on an open board after a previous turn firespout -> eot timely.
Well, Combo looks bad at the moment, but I think that you can probably devote a LOT of sideboard space to the combo decks, since it can tear apart aggro with essentially no sideboarding. Also, I've modified the list slightly:
I made a couple minor changes to the main, adding in an Echoing Truth, and gave the sideboard an overhaul, switching out the Delvers for the Reanimator combo, adding more control/combo cards, and cutting some unnecessary aggro measures.
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i hate to say it, but i think you need some draw, or else you might get stuck with a bunch of rituals and nothing to do for 2-3 turns a little too often. Could take out 2-3 rituals and a spell snare and path for a 2/3 split on visions/sleight or visions/gitaxian since it'll add storm easy and maybe run you into more business during PiF. Just spitballin, the times I tested it, it ran out of steam pretty early on (though it was dealing well up to that point) and then it'd either win because i had drawn gifts, or lose because i didn't in time to stop my opponent from rebuilding from my slagstorm i casted 4 turns ago (i drew ritual, ritual, land, land, with nothing else in hand but 2 rituals, a PiF, and a land). Since the deck runs white, maybe a single wrath can find it's way in to gifts for 4 sweepers, and get 2 back to use. Sitting on them is fine, since seeing that will make him think twice about overcommitting, in which case you just bought yourself enough time to find another gifts or PiF for Gifts and EtW, and the PiF would give you access to a 3rd sweeper if you don't have the mana to just run the EtW gambit out to 8+ storm. I know snappy is in there to act as the 4th sweeper by proxy, but doing that has a higher mana threshold.
edit - didn't see that you removed one of the two paths already in the new list, whoops.
After testing more, I'm inclined to agree, but I'm hesitant about cutting counters. They're really important in my testing, basically allowing you to drop your huge bombs with abandon. I definitely only ever want the 1 Pyretic Ritual, so that's one card, and the Path to Exile has been a little underwhelming, but I really don't think that the Visions/Sleight/Gitaxian package is right for the deck. One of its greatest strengths is that it tutors while other decks are filtering, giving it some much needed flexibility.
Way I see it, these are the best options for supplemental draw: Merchant Scroll. I loved this in Vintage, and I've used it in earlier iterations to tutor out an early Gifts Ungiven, but without having Ancestral Recall as a viable target, its usefulness has decreased somewhat. That said, it can tutor out a Gifts Ungiven to go for the win, a bounce spell like Echoing Truth, Remand as either a counterspell or storm engine (bounce Empty the Warrens back, recast to double the storm count off it), etc. It could work. Thirst for Knowledge. There's obviously no artifacts to discard, but it could work quite well all the same, as you often do get mana flooded and want to discard lands or rituals. Rituals, especially, as that can make your Past in Flames that much stronger. Forbidden Alchemy. Probably strictly better than Thirst for Knowledge here, as you have no artifacts and Alchemy digs 4 cards deep compared to Thirst's 3.
I don't know. I'm going to look through gatherer, see if there's anything I've forgotten.
EDIT: I found a couple of possibilities that I'd simply forgotten existed. Magus of the Bazaar. This has obvious disadvantages, but is probably worth thinking about as sideboard tech against U/R storm, which is still a very tough matchup and usually has no removal post-board past Grapeshot, which is worth trading a Magus for if they have to use it that way. Definitely not the best choice, but something to remember. Mind Spring/Blue Sun's Zenith/Invoke the Firemind. This could be a hit. You often find yourself with a pile of rituals and nothing else in hand, so using one of these to sort-of cycle rituals can be huge, especially if you can splice a Desperate Ritual, or just use Seething Song. This also naturally lends itself towards a Gifts pile, as there are multiple singletons that can produce the same result.
EDIT: Just made a few changes:
After playing a few games with the above list, I've noticed that it's a lot more aggressive. For example, I've often found that on turn 3-4, you now really want to tap out for something, either a mass removal spell or a ritual into Mind Spring for 4 or 5. I probably want to up the number of Cascade Bluffs to 4, because they're a lot more important now. And the set of Gifts targets needs to be modified slightly, but I'm not sure how.
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that looks pretty good actually, but the deck is getting stretched thin. It's going to be difficult to sideboard with.
I like mindspring, seems pretty solid for refilling the hand. Granted, after DKA comes out, we'll have looting, so that might be worth more than a couple slots.
also, i would trade one of the steam vents or prairies for a cascade. You don't want to have too many filter lands, after all.
I'm inclined to agree. I think it can afford to lose a land or two, maybe to be replaced by the 4th Seething Song, and the Gifts targets need to be redone, but on the whole it's quite good.
There are a few weak links: First, Invoke the Firemind. It's just a subpar card here, and I always find myself wishing it's a Mind Spring. Since I never want to Gifts for them, it should probably be switched out. Second, it needs another ritual to Gifts for, and it can't be another copy of one already in there. It would make going off SO much easier. The only one I can think of, however, is Infernal Plunge, which obviously is not going to happen. Also, I'm not really happy with Earthquake. Maybe Comet Storm to replace it?
And I don't know what should be cut for Faithless Looting, but it definitely has a spot here.
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I haven't seen it discussed, but if you're looking for spot removal to hit hate bears with that also filters, magma jet may work. Pros: works under blood moon.
Now THAT'S a thought! Magma Jet should work really well here.
I tried Peer through Depths in the first couple iterations of the deck, but found it to be subpar here. That said, the first couple iterations of the deck were in a very different format, and the tactics the deck employed were very different. It's worth considering.
Also, here's my newest list. I haven't tried this out, but I just made a couple changes to fine-tune it more.
I haven't implemented any changes I discuss in this post just yet. I've got a physical list here, and I can't find my Magma Jets.
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Earthquake is fine, and does exactly what it needs to do. If you have trouble with bombs, I'd have to ask what match-up and if path/bounce/permission wouldn't be better.
If there is one thing this deck doesn't have trouble with, it's bombs. with the Mind Springs, this deck now probably has the best late game in the entire format. Reanimator Gifts is a lot less resilient, Tron is vulnerable to a well-placed Tectonic Edge, but this can basically win through anything come turn 5 or so. What needs to be redone is the mix of Gifts Targets in the main and sideboard. It wants maybe one more Counterspell and one more Removal piece in the main, and the sideboard needs a serious overhaul.
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I think I've finally cracked the twin matchup. I've won the last 3 matches in a row with the above list. You just have to play control. You have tutors where they have filters, and you've got more straight-up CA. You're going to win if the game goes long.
Go to my blog, Musings of the False God, for in-depth guides playing the game, from the building blocks of deck design to deceiving your opponent through clever game play!
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Won the tournament. Lost one game (not one match, one GAME) the entire day. Not writing a tournament report this late at night. I'll get to it when I have the time.
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NOTE: I wrote this in Word, so there are no Autocards. Sorry.
Tournament report: The structure was simple: 5 rounds Modern, 3 elimination rounds. I’m not sure how many players there were, but I’d hazard a guess at 50.
My List:
Round 1 vs. Affinity: Game 1 I was on the play, and went Scalding Tarn go. He got a very lucky draw. turn 1 Mountain, Memnite, Memnite, Mox Opal, Signal Pest, Frogmite, Vault Skirge. I broke the Scalding tarn at end of turn for a tapped steam vents, untapped, played a Rugged Prairie, and went Desperate Ritual into Slagstorm. He never recovered, and I got a turn 5 Gifts Ungiven for the win off of an empty the warrens for 16 storm. Game 2, I don’t remember much of, but I know he made a few critical play mistakes with a Cranial Plating and I managed to Martial Coup his board away at a critical moment. Note: I had 7 poison from an Inkmoth Nexus. It would be nice to have some instant-speed removal in the deck again.
Round 2 vs. Boros: Game 1 I was on the play again, and wound up going for a turn-4 Past in Flames in the face of a very fast clock from him, finishing with a Martial Coup. He couldn’t deal with the tokens (though he did a fairly good job trying), and I won. Game 2, He had to mulligan to 5, and I managed to Gifts for Firespout, Slagstorm, Earthquake, and Past in Flames. He gave me the Past in Flames and Firespout, I wiped what board position he had, and I won two turns later off the Past in Flames.
Round 3 vs. Tron: Game 1 I had possibly the biggest combo turn I’ve ever seen with this deck (on turn 5, after he’d stuck a Batterskull, I had 4 lands)
Tap 4, Seething Song (storm count 1, URRRRR in pool)
Seething Song (storm count 2, URRRRRRR in pool)
Manamorphose (storm count 3, UUURRRRR in pool) drawing Desperate Ritual
Desperate Ritual, splicing one other Desperate Ritual (storm count 4, UUURRRRRRR in pool)
Desperate Ritual (storm count 5, UUURRRRRRRR in pool)
use UURRRR to cast Mind Spring for 4, drawing Past in Flames, land, land, Spell Pierce (storm count 6, URRRR in pool)
Play land, tap it for R (storm count 6, URRRRR in pool)
Cast Past in Flames (storm count 7, UR in pool)
flashback Desperate Ritual (storm count 8, RRR in pool)
flashback Desperate Ritual (storm count 9, RRRR in pool)
flashback Seething Song (storm count 10, RRRRRR in pool)
flashback Seething Song (storm count 11, RRRRRRRR in pool)
flashback Manamorphose for UU, drawing Pyretic Ritual (storm count 13, UURRRRRR in pool).
cast Pyretic Ritual (storm count 14, UURRRRRRR in pool)
flashback Mind Spring for 4, drawing Empty the Warrens, Seething Song, Gifts Ungiven, Rest for the Weary (storm count 15, RRR in pool)
cast Seething Song (storm count 16, RRRRR in pool)
cast Empty the Warrens for 34 goblin tokens. GO.
He conceded. Game 2, there was a lot more back-and-forth, but I eventually managed to get Unburial Rites to resolve, putting an Iona onto the battlefield. Apparently, he’d sided in a bunch of Echoing Truths to deal with Empty the Warrens, but didn’t have anything to deal with Iona.
Round 4 vs. U/R storm: I was on the draw again. I held back for a while, always leaving countermagic up. Eventually I cast Gifts for a pile of rituals and Past in Flames. He looked at me and asked, “I’m dead, aren’t I?” I said, “yes you are,” untapped, and played a giant Past in Flames, putting 18 goblin tokens onto the battlefield and gaining 8 life off a Rest for the Weary for good measure. He tried to go off and race me, but fizzled, leaving me at 6 life after a big Grapeshot. I untapped and killed him. Game 2 was much the same, except that I finished with a reanimated Iona, and I had a Trickbind.
Round 5 vs. U/W Caw. Game 1 I was on the draw again. I managed to force through a turn 4 Gifts Ungiven, and won a few turns later. He had an aggressive Sword Draw, but tapped out multiple times, so I chalk that up to play error on his part. Game 2 was the only game I lost all day. It was also one of the toughest. We started out playing draw-go for a while, until he resolved a Squadron Hawk, winning a counter war. At that point, though, neither of us had any counters left, so we just started trading giant haymakers. I almost won off of Empty the Warrens, but he had a Trickbind, and that was the game. It went on for a few more turns, but I’d basically lost. It is worth noting, when taking my record into account, that this was the first time any hate had really been relevant to me. Game 2 against Tron he’d gotten a Thorn of Amethyst down, but I’d managed to play around it. That boros player had a Mindbreak Trap, but I had no trouble making my bombs resolve. That’s fairly important. The kind of hate people are playing against storm decks isn’t very relevant to this variant, so I had an advantage here. My guess is I won’t be so lucky next time I take this to a local Modern tournament.
Well, off my tiebreaks, I was top seed, so my Quarters opponent was... The U/W caw player from round 5. He joked about a third round between us after the tournament as a tiebreaker if he won this one.
Game 1: I got lucky. It was that simple. I ripped a Gigadrowse off the top and managed to combo out with Gigadrowse protection.
Game 2: This wound up being a race. I had a hand with a few rituals and empty the warrens, so I managed to empty for 8 tokens, but he had Squadron Hawk and Sword of Feast and Famine. It was very close, and I kept drawing mass removal and he got a Timely Reinforcements (right on time, too...), but I managed to win the race in the end.
Game 3: This guy was absolutely unbelievable. I managed to stick a Gifts Ungiven and went off with an Empty for 16. I passed, and he endstepped his OWN Gifts Ungiven! He, of course, just went for Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn, and he managed to wipe my Board. 2 swings later, I topdecked my Elesh Norn (I’d sided it in game 3, but hadn’t gone for it for fear of counters), cast it (I’d gotten a land-heavy hand, so I actually could do that) and they obliterated each other. Eventually, I managed to play a Martial Coup for 4, and I won off of the tokens.
Semis: I was playing against a different Affinity player, also mono-red.
Game 1: My countermagic really worked wonders this game, as I managed to stop all his major threats, then Gifts for a bunch of mass removal and a Mind Spring. He gave me Earthquake and Mind Spring, a play which I thought was dumb at the time but actually really like now I think more about it. That said, I still won, wiping his board, Mind Springing for 6 off a Seething Song, and winning the game.
Game 2: He got me down to 5 life by turn 4 with a Cranial Plating, and I endstepped Gifts Ungiven. I don’t have notes for what happened, but lets just say I spent 20 minutes putting together this line of play: The rough outline was: get a few rituals+Past in Flames. He did a bad split, giving me Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual. I untapped, used a manamorphose to dig, drew a Desperate Ritual, and went off. Eventually, I flashbacked Gifts Ungiven with 4 mana in the pool, (URRR). I grabbed Seething Song, Empty the Warrens, Snapcaster Mage, and Shattering Spree. He gave me Snapcaster and Shattering Spree, and I wiped his board. A couple turns later, I managed to go off with a smaller empty the warrens (flashbacked), and won. If I’d had Grapeshot, I could have won then and there.
Game 3: I decided between games 2 and 3 to try the Rites Package here. It worked quite well, and won me a game I couldn’t have won otherwise. He managed to get down an Ethersworn Canonist, then a Thorn of Amethyst. However, he had so little pressure early I could Gifts out an Elesh Norn and win through it.
Finals: This was against Twin.
Game 1: He mulled to 4. It just wasn’t fair. I don’t count this as a game win, and instead say this match was best 2 out of 3, not 3 out of 5.
Game 2: He went for the twin combo, but only left R open to protect it. I cast a Combust targeting his exarch. “Wait a sec,” he said, tapping the R. He dropped Guttural Response onto the table. Wow. That was quite the play. Irrelevant, though, since I had the Remand. I untapped and killed him with a Martial Coup
Game 3: Before I describe what happened here, I should say something: I’m a fairly good poker player. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’m a very good poker player. And this guy was clearly good at magic, but had no poker face. I could read him like a book by this point. As in, I knew exactly what was in his hand on turn 3. So, I decided to play a few mind games with him. I don’t remember what I said, exactly, but I think it was
“You know what I think you have?”
“What?”
“You’ve got a Splinter Twin, because you played that sleight of hand and would have endstepped a creature, because you have the Spellskite there. You’ve got the dispel. You have a mindbreak trap, either a Cascade Bluffs or a Mountain, and a Remand.”
There was a collective gasp from him and the onlookers behind him, followed by a wave of whispers. He called Judge, and asked if my grabbing a look off his cards was cheating. The judge said there was no evidence that I had done so, and that I may have just gotten a good read on him, but that it was his own responsibility to keep his cards facing away from me. My opponent nodded, but was visibly shaken. He was on tilt for the rest of the game, and I won pretty easily, though the Mindbreak Trap and Dispel caused me a lot of trouble. Later I checked back with him, and he confirmed that I’d gotten everything right except the land, which was a Breeding Pool.
And that’s that! It was a reasonably difficult tournament, though my opponents made a lot of play errors, I had a few lucky draws, and my deck completely blindsided everyone there. First prize was a foil Ravnica Dual of your choice (I chose Steam Vents, because I only have 3 of them, and I could really use it). Quite the debut for Ritual Gifts.
If I were to do it again, this is what I would run:
Grapeshot makes a lot of unwinnable situations winnable, with a cheaper, more immediate storm kill, and will make it a lot easier to find the winning Gifts Piles in games where a solution exists, but it'll take maybe an hour to find it. I switched out some underperforming sideboard and maindeck choices for better options, added another land as a 61st card (given the tutor power the deck has, I think it's actually worth it, because you really need lands), and added a Forbidden Alchemy for some very strong dig.
All in all, a very good record for such an untuned list. Gifts Ungiven and Past in Flames, welcome to Modern. I expect great things from the two of you together.
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Game 2: He went for the twin combo, but only left R open to protect it. I cast a Combust targeting his exarch. “Wait a sec,” he said, tapping the R. He dropped Guttural Response onto the table. Wow. That was quite the play. Irrelevant, though, since I had the Remand. I untapped and killed him with a Martial Coup
Your tournament report definitely gives me insight on how to play this deck. Great work!
I have one question, though--Combust can't be countered by spells or abilities, so what was he doing trying to Guttural Response it?
...Good point. Now I think on it, I don't think i had 4 mana there for it and the Remand, either. It may have been a Flame Slash.
I'm afraid my notes are only really extensive where there's a complex series of plays going, so my only note there is "WTF GUTTURAL RESPONSE?"
EDIT: I just asked a friend who was watching the game, and who has a very good memory. He's fairly sure it was an Echoing Truth. Curiouser and Curiouser.
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I'm really interested in this deck. However, it struck me that a resolved sweeper (firespout, wrath, or especially EE) would be a nightmare after you've cast one of your finishers. Is this build more of a meta call?
It is definitely a concern, which is why I'm favoring a Grapeshot in the list. In the tournament, the only player packing mass removal was the Tron player, and the Twin player post-board probably had some, but I didn't see it, and in both cases my countermagic was good enough to stay alive. It is true, though. Most versions I've built can be almost comically vulnerable to Wrath or even Maelstrom Pulse and Echoing Truth. This deck definitely needs more work before I'd be comfortable bringing it to, say, a PTQ.
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I do have 1 issue with mindspring: it's not an instant, so you can't really use it to EoT over-draw into an untap step (like, drawing 6 off it with 4 in hand eot and then going off with extra gas), where as Blue sun zenith can Eot, and can be gifted for multiple times with only 1 copy in the deck. How has mindspring been in testing vs USZ?
Fairly strong. There are two problems with it:
1. This deck is VERY mana hungry, and sometimes you just don't want to waste rituals to draw more cards. On a similar vein, it can be tough getting the necessary UU.
2. Remand.
That said, I think it's better than BSU, because BSU is less CA, needs an extra U to cast (which can be very important), and it gets countered by Dispel. That can be very important, as it means Mind Spring can be protected much more easily. I am looking for a possible replacement for it, however, as it really does just take too much mana to make a good profit off it.
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neat idea that really needs to be refined. I'm going to mess with this a bit and see what I make of it.
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Ritual Gifts
What is Ritual Gifts?
Then, Vintage pro Stephen Menendian tried his hand at building a Gifts list. His list, named Meandeck Gifts after his team (team Meandeck), worked by realizing the inherent brokenness of Gifts Ungiven in a format full of broken cards you can only play 1 of. His deck used Merchant Scroll to search out for Ancestral Recall, Gifts, Mana Drain or pitch countermagic, and so on, to make a very strong draw engine, then used a combination of Yawgmoth's Will and Recoup to make unbeatable Gifts Piles. It would finish with a giant Will into either Tinker for Darksteel Colossus combined with Time Walk or a lethal Tendrils of Agony. There were other innovations, but they aren't really relevant.
Over the next few years, Meandeck Gifts slowly gathered momentum, until during late 2006 and early 2007 the format was basically defined by Meandeck Gifts and Storm Combo. The deck was neutered by the restriction of Gifts Ungiven, but the tech from it, including Merchant Scroll, superior usage of Brainstorm, and winning by being the best Yawgmoth's Will strategy, lived on, and later would cause the restriction of Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm, Gush, and indirectly also Thirst for Knowledge. It's mark is only now finally fading from the vintage scene. The strategy, at its peak, has proven to be one of the best decks in Vintage History, and by extension, all of Magic.
Now, remember the key combination of the deck: Yawgmoth's Will and Recoup to use gifts as a tutor for a 7-mana Yawgmoth's Will. We have basically the same thing, but more effective, in the form of Past in Flames, which has Flashback. As soon as I saw Past in Flames, I started work on this list, and the rest is history.
Basically, the deck uses Gifts Ungiven to tutor out a bunch of spells. Gifts Ungiven searches your library for 4 cards. 2 go to your graveyard, and 2 go to your hand, but your opponent chooses which one. What this deck wants to do is to use a Gifts Ungiven (or more than one) to search your library for some mana generating cards, such as Seething Song, and a Past in Flames. Past in Flames lets you cast all the instants and sorceries in your graveyard again, and can be cast from your graveyard for a slightly higher price. So, once you get that Gifts, you want to play a few spells to generate extra mana, cast Past in Flames, and cast those mana generation cards from your graveyard. What do you do with all that mana? Remember, you still have that Gifts Ungiven in your graveyard! You can use Gifts Ungiven to search out more rituals, and repeat the process, or go for a kill. The kill usually involves casting Grapeshot. Grapeshot costs 2 mana to deal 1 damage to something. That sounds bad, but it also gets copied for each spell cast before it this turn. That means that every time you played a spell to generate mana, it deals one more damage. Remember, you also cast a bunch of spells twice, once normally, and once from your Graveyard. That damage really adds up. However, often it's not enough to kill them. So, you use the other key spell of the deck, Remand. Remand is an excellent counterspell, buying you time and drawing you into more permanent answers. However,in this deck it has another use: Basically, you counter the Grapeshot you just cast with Remand. It'll go back to your hand, but all the copies will still deal damage. Not only that, you'll also have the Grapeshot still in your hand, to cast it again. This can double the damage AGAIN, and will almost certainly kill them. So, you just went from one card (Gifts Ungiven) being cast on your opponent's end step after their opportunity to stop you effectively, to killing them. You can do that out of nowhere. Not only that, but you can use Gifts Ungiven just as a draw spell, getting counterspells and mass removal so that your opponent has to give you answers to their threats, getting more Gifts Ungivens to draw more cards, and so on. You can slowly build up your board, play more and more lands and get more and more cards, until finally you can get the combo and kill them.
However, a word of caution: if you're a fairly new player, or just getting into eternal formats, that's wonderful, but play Boros. Or Affinity. Or Jund. Or Tron. But not this. This is perhaps one of the most difficult decks to play I've ever seen, and is vulnerable to a lot of sideboard hate if you can't play the deck almost perfectly. It's fundamentally a tutor-based deck, which means that it will give you a lot of decisions to make each turn, and making even one wrong decision can easily lose you the game. I don't say this to discourage prospective players from playing it. It's a very strong deck, and when played well, it feels like matching legacy dredge against that sweet brew you drafted last weekend with triple-Innistrad. This deck can seem absolutely unbeatable if you're really on your game. But you can expect to lose a lot at first.
While perhaps the best combo gifts pile is Past in Flames, Seething Song, Increasing Vengeance and Desperate Ritual, there is no default pile. Instead, you have to figure out what works best in the current situation, and optimize your Gifts on a case-by-case basis. This can take a lot of practice, but it will really help you, both with this deck and in the future, because Gifts is a very strong card and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. This also makes the deck inherently customizable, as your gifts targets will vary based on your own playstyle, your metagame and your other card choices.
Gifts Ungiven: This is the central card of the strategy, and is critical to the entire deck.
Past in Flames: This is your finisher. It's very strong both in the early game as a powerful combo engine and in the late game, where it can represent dominating card advantage. Resolving one usually means that the game is over.
Merchant Scroll: This card is a very strong tutor in this deck, capable of searching out a Gifts Ungiven, cheap countermagic to protect a bomb, or various answers to other decks or hate cards such as Repeal, Trickbind, and Hurkyl's Recall. Running it as your extra engine piece makes it way easier to resolve an early Gifts and makes sideboarding a lot easier, but can weaken your countermagic.
Peer Through Depths: The main strengths here are the ability to splice a Desperate Ritual onto it to generate mana and to cast it on the endstep, making your rituals that much stronger. However, it doesn't have the same reliability as Merchant Scroll.
Mind Spring/Blue Sun's Zenith/Invoke the Firemind: I think the synergy between draw-X spells and a deck full of rituals and filter lands should be obvious. I was underwhelmed, but they're worth examining, for certain.
Mystical Teachings: This card has natural synergy with the deck, both searching for Gifts and providing a way to optimise Gifts piles. While you run the risk of being top heavy, it's definitely a good supplement. Additionally, it allows for a painless transformative sideboard plan, involving Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and whatever fatty you like most.
Muddle the Mixture: This card is an incredibly versatile tool, both protecting your combo in the late game and tutoring for the critical Grapeshot. It also dramatically expands your bullet suite, since you can use Merchant Scroll to tutor for it and then transmute it for a ritual, additional bullets, almost anything.
Seething Song: this is BANNED.
Desperate Ritual/Pyretic Ritual: These are important to being able to power out early Gifts, combo turns, and having mana to get through soft counters like Spell Pierce. Desperate Ritual's splice effect can be more relevant than you think.
Manamorphose: Blue mana for the kill and for Gifts is at a premium on combo turns and throughout the game. The fact that it cantrips and is card advantage with Past in Flames is a major bonus.
Mana Seism: This is an untested possibility. It would be very strong in the late game, but has basically no synergy with Past in Flames and is very all-in on comboing them out when you play it.
Increasing Vengeance: I almost never go without this card. It doesn't seem strong on the face of it, but when you realize that it costs 2 to copy something twice when flashbacked off Past in Flames, it becomes crucial to comboing out in a timely fashion. Imagine copying Seething Song twice with it. Or Gifts Ungiven. It's just incredibly strong in this deck.
Channel the Suns: Now that Song has been banned, most ritual gifts decks are splashing green for Channel the Suns and a couple of other cards. It does a decent Seething Song impression, though it's harder to go off with.
Empty the Warrens: This was critical to earlier versions, but in this age post-Dark Ascension, it's just unecessary.
Martial Coup: This one's greatest strength is in cases where a combo is unreliable, for instance, when the opponent has Trickbind or is exerting pressure. With Martial Coup, you can create hybrid Gifts Piles where you can get defensive cards to keep you alive, and the requisite spells to Martial Coup for a giant threat and board wipe. It's definitely worth considering if you're going to try to build the deck.
Unburial Rites/Iona, Shield of Emeria/Inkwell Leviathan/Griselbrand: What would a gifts deck be without this package? You have a fair choice of fatties to get. I know I've used Elesh Norn, Myr Battlesphere, Inkwell Leviathan and even Sundering Titan before, but now I believe that the best option is Griselbrand. You may prefer Iona, your mileage may vary, but I believe Griselbrand is the best option.
Remand: You have to have at least one, possibly more. It's critical to the Grapeshot Kill, and is a very strong spell in and of itself.
Spell Pierce: Most of the threats your opponent might have that you can't just ignore are noncreature spells. Liliana of the Veil, other counterspells, Rule of Law, and so on. Spell Pierce is very strong in all of these situations.
Spell Snare: This is just a very strong counterspell. You don't want all that many of them, though, as they get worse in multiples very quickly.
Dispel: A lot of what applies to Spell Pierce applies here, but the prevalence of cards like Liliana make Spell Pierce a lot stronger, in my opinion.
Pact of Negation: this can make comboing out much easier, and is easy to include as a singleton and fetch with Gifts or Merchant Scroll.
Increasing Vengeance: Run 1-2 as a Gifts Target. No, really. There is no better card for your combo turn. Flashing it back for RR after a Past in flames and targeting Seething Song is just so strong. It's what makes the deck consistent enough to get a Grapeshot kill on turn 4. There are builds that run 2. I run 1, personally, but it all depends on how many times you expect to use it in a combo turn.
Volcanic Fallout: This is a fairly new discovery, and a very strong one. The current modern metagame seems to be flooded with a lot of Delver decks, aggro decks like Affinity and Boros, and basically decks relying on a lot of small creatures that either become huge threats, are very disruptive, or provide card advantage. Volcanic Fallout not only can wipe the board, but also can kill Planeswalkers at low loyalty, make it easier to combo out if they have lifegain (every stray shock can matter), can be cast at instant speed to kill Inkmoth Nexus or other manlands, and can't be countered.
Slagstorm: See above mostly, though it's not quite as strong.
Earthquake: I didn't like this at first, but now I'm warming up to it. One of the most dangerous cards against you is Liliana of the Veil, and much of the Jund matchup is about keeping her off the table. Earthquake can do that, and wipe the board of larger creatures, and synergises with rituals, and can make it easier to combo out.
Engineered Explosives: This is just a very strong, efficient answer card, well worth the inclusion.
Snapcaster Mage/Noxious Revival: These 2 basically can fill the same slot of making Gifts piles stronger. I've never felt the need for them, but they're worth considering.
Repeal: You'll rarely Gifts for this, but it's worth noting that this can be tutored for with Merchant Scroll, cantrips, and can beat a lot of hate.
Timely Reinforcements: This can completely nullify an opponent's board pressure, while gaining you a bunch of life. Usually it will buy you 2 turns, which most opponents simply can't beat.
Gigadrowse: Excellent versus control decks, and can be tutored for with Merchant Scroll.
Life from the Loam: A few other friends of mine are working on similar lists. One splashes green for Life from the Loam and some sweet sideboard tech (Tarmogoyf, Ancient Grudge, you get the idea). I wouldn't go that route, but it is something to factor into your decision making process.
Cyclonic Rift: This card does a LOT for you, acting as both a way to bounce a problematic hate spell and as a late-game bomb that can potentially end the game on its own. Chances are, if you don't have one of these in your main or sideboard, you're doing something wrong.
Mizzium Mortars: Similar to Cyclonic Rift, this card serves multiple purposes, acting as both removal early and as a board wipe in several matchups. It's also tutorable with Muddle the Mixture.
Fetchlands/Shocklands: If you have them, run them. It's just the most stable mana base, and since you don't tap out on your turn too often, they can be quite strong. You pretty much have to tune them yourself to your deck's mana needs, though Scalding Tarn and Steam Vents are a good start.
Cascade Bluffs: This card can be crucial to getting the necessary blue mana for the deck to go off. I'd run 4.
Calciform Pools/other storage lands: I only just found out about them again, and they're very strong in the deck. The ability to continuously build up mana and to convert red mana into blue are both very important. You have to be very careful how you tap them, though, and how many counters you remove. Remember that you basically can't go off if you don't have blue mana afterwards.
Halimar Depths: I've just started testing this, and it's turned out to be deceptively strong. You have a LOT of shuffle effects, which makes this a lot stronger. I'm not currently running any, but it's definitely an option.
Desolate Lighthouse: This deck is fairly prone to flooding, and wants to draw one of a fairly small number of absolutely massive game-ending bomb spells. This card digs into your deck for them, provides a good mana sink, and fills your graveyard all at once. You definitely want to pack at least on as a Gifts target.
Basics: You really don't need any mountains, as the only nonbasic land hate you have to worry about in this deck is Blood Moon, which turns all nonbasics into... mountains. I'd run as many basic islands as possible, though. It can be very important.
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Seachrome Coast
2 Cascade Bluffs
2 Calciform Pools
1 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Halimar Depths
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
3 Seething Song
3 Manamorphose
1 Increasing Vengeance
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Past in Flames
2 Goblin Electromancer
3 Remand
3 Spell Snare
1 Pongify
1 Repeal
1 Martial Coup
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Grapeshot
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Disrupting Shoal
2 Electrickery
1 Gigadrowse
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Shattering Spree
3 Sowing Salt
3 Spell Pierce
1 Trickbind
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain
2 Cascade Bluffs
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Reflecting Pool
2 Molten Slagheap
1 Dreadship Reef
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
1 Mana Seism
1 Desperate Ritual
1 Pyretic Ritual
2 Increasing Vengeance
4 Remand
1 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Cryptic Command
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Consume the Meek
1 Grapeshot
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Mystical Teachings
2 Peer Through Depths
2 Past in Flames
1 Noxious Revival
3 Ignorant Bliss
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Ignite Memories
1 Extirpate
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Shatterstorm
1 Damnation
1 Persecute
1 Spellskite
1 Combust
1 Volcanic Awakening
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
1 Noxious Revival
2 Past in Flames
3 Pyretic Ritual
4 Remand
4 Seething Song
4 Serum Visions
4 Deceiver Exarch
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Mana Leak
3 Pestermite
4 Splinter Twin
2 Halimar Depths
4 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Shivan Reef
2 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Past in Flames
1 Noxious Revival
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
4 Deceiver Exarch
3 Dispel
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Pestermite
4 Splinter Twin
Vs Twin:
Original Post:
After they patched the glitch, I started working on other decks, until I came up with this:
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
3 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
3 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
13 cards
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
7 cards
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
2 Path to Exile
8 cards
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
9 cards
1 Martial Coup
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Delver of Secrets
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Path to Exile
1 Repeal
1 Shattering Spree
2 Spell Pierce
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trickbind
The basic idea is fairly simple: use the rituals to ramp into various swingy midgame tempo plays, Gifts Ungiven to generate card advantage and fill up your graveyard, and eventually resolve a giant Past in Flames, usually winning the game on the spot. I've been running the list through the gauntlet with a few teammates (we do a lot of tournaments in the Norcal/Oregon area, we're all reasonably good), and it's been doing pretty well. The only thing it's had trouble with so far is Twin actually.
What do you think?
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
and you play white, so as horrible as I feel for saying it... -2 cards, +1 unburial rites +1 iona?
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-3 Delver
+1 Unburial Rites
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
+1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I especially like Elesh Norn there, because it's entirely plausible you could just cast it. It's basically the same cost as Martial Coup for the same effect, just with different synergies.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
1. This deck is not just resilient to hate. It is nigh-immune. There is basically no card in the format this deck can't work around. It's possibly the only deck I've ever played to finish with a giant Emtpty the Warrens that can completely ignore a resolved Trinisphere, and one of the only decks with 2 basic lands that can ignore Blood Moon.
2. The deck is basically a Modern implementation of Andy Probasco's Empty Gifts deck for the Vintage format in early 2007. You can try a sample hand here: http://http://www.wizards.com/magic/samplehand.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/435&decknum=1. The difference is that that deck feels very polished and streamlined, while this feels clunky and awkward. You always have dead cards in your hand, though what specific cards those are changes every game. Your mana is very awkward. And it's difficult to construct optimal gifts piles.
3. That said, the deck is definitely quite strong, even in this unpolished state. It has excellent topdecks, since a single Past in Flames or Gifts Ungiven of the top in the late game will generally either win you the game or put you so far ahead on the board that your opponent can never actually recover. The power of the internal synergies the deck has is enough to give it a lot of game, while its extraordinary resilience to hate makes it VERY difficult for your opponents to deal with. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of room for improvement, it just means the basic concept of Gifts setting up Past in Flames is strong enough to be viable in the format.
Matchups so far:
Jund: At first, I thought this was a bad matchup, but as I've played it more and my understanding of the interactions changes, I actually think this is slightly in your favor. You will learn to hate Maelstrom Pulse with a fiery passion, but since they have no countermagic, they will have a lot of trouble dropping a sufficient clock. Basically, everything they have is tough, but manageable.
Pure Aggro: Think of it this way: It's like the Gifts mirror, but they have no way to punish you for tapping out, no way to stop your Past in Flames, and are vulnerable to every single answer card in the main. Easy wins, generally. This applies for Affinity, Burn, Boros, some zoo variants, etc.
Twin: too hard to say. The matchup is literally so complex that I still don't think I can find the right line of play and any given point. In my last game, I counted 36 distinct lines of play I could have made, and I think that only 2 of them would have won. In short, it's gonna take a long time to learn who has the advantage. At the moment, Twin does, but that's probably more because I don't know how to play against it with this deck.
Tron: I've just played several games against our U/W Tron list (pretty standard issue, except that it runs 2 Prophetic Prisms and a Martial Coup). The matchup was bad for us at first, but I've changed my play style somewhat, and now I'm consistently winning. Basically, this is the only deck in the format that can match your late game, and they have inevitability thanks to Academy Ruins. Here, you want to aggressively pursue your plan, since your countermagic is much more effective than theirs in the early game, and try to land a giant Empty the Warrens at around turn 4-5. Your greatest advantage is that you can abuse Gifts Ungiven far more effectively in the early and midgame, and you're explosive enough to win before they can get their stage-3 threats going. Summary: control route, 30% win roughly, beatdown, 65+% win.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
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1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
3 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
3 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
13 cards
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
7 cards
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
1 Path to Exile
1 Echoing Truth
8 cards
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
9 cards
1 Martial Coup
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unburial Rites
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Gigadrowse
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Negate
1 Shattering Spree
2 Spell Pierce
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trickbind
I made a couple minor changes to the main, adding in an Echoing Truth, and gave the sideboard an overhaul, switching out the Delvers for the Reanimator combo, adding more control/combo cards, and cutting some unnecessary aggro measures.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
edit - didn't see that you removed one of the two paths already in the new list, whoops.
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Way I see it, these are the best options for supplemental draw:
Merchant Scroll. I loved this in Vintage, and I've used it in earlier iterations to tutor out an early Gifts Ungiven, but without having Ancestral Recall as a viable target, its usefulness has decreased somewhat. That said, it can tutor out a Gifts Ungiven to go for the win, a bounce spell like Echoing Truth, Remand as either a counterspell or storm engine (bounce Empty the Warrens back, recast to double the storm count off it), etc. It could work.
Thirst for Knowledge. There's obviously no artifacts to discard, but it could work quite well all the same, as you often do get mana flooded and want to discard lands or rituals. Rituals, especially, as that can make your Past in Flames that much stronger.
Forbidden Alchemy. Probably strictly better than Thirst for Knowledge here, as you have no artifacts and Alchemy digs 4 cards deep compared to Thirst's 3.
I don't know. I'm going to look through gatherer, see if there's anything I've forgotten.
EDIT: I found a couple of possibilities that I'd simply forgotten existed.
Magus of the Bazaar. This has obvious disadvantages, but is probably worth thinking about as sideboard tech against U/R storm, which is still a very tough matchup and usually has no removal post-board past Grapeshot, which is worth trading a Magus for if they have to use it that way. Definitely not the best choice, but something to remember.
Mind Spring/Blue Sun's Zenith/Invoke the Firemind. This could be a hit. You often find yourself with a pile of rituals and nothing else in hand, so using one of these to sort-of cycle rituals can be huge, especially if you can splice a Desperate Ritual, or just use Seething Song. This also naturally lends itself towards a Gifts pile, as there are multiple singletons that can produce the same result.
EDIT: Just made a few changes:
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
3 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Pyretic Ritual
3 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Invoke the Firemind
1 Mind Spring
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
1 Martial Coup
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unburial Rites
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Gigadrowse
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Negate
1 Shattering Spree
2 Spell Pierce
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trickbind
After playing a few games with the above list, I've noticed that it's a lot more aggressive. For example, I've often found that on turn 3-4, you now really want to tap out for something, either a mass removal spell or a ritual into Mind Spring for 4 or 5. I probably want to up the number of Cascade Bluffs to 4, because they're a lot more important now. And the set of Gifts targets needs to be modified slightly, but I'm not sure how.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
I like mindspring, seems pretty solid for refilling the hand. Granted, after DKA comes out, we'll have looting, so that might be worth more than a couple slots.
also, i would trade one of the steam vents or prairies for a cascade. You don't want to have too many filter lands, after all.
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There are a few weak links: First, Invoke the Firemind. It's just a subpar card here, and I always find myself wishing it's a Mind Spring. Since I never want to Gifts for them, it should probably be switched out. Second, it needs another ritual to Gifts for, and it can't be another copy of one already in there. It would make going off SO much easier. The only one I can think of, however, is Infernal Plunge, which obviously is not going to happen. Also, I'm not really happy with Earthquake. Maybe Comet Storm to replace it?
And I don't know what should be cut for Faithless Looting, but it definitely has a spot here.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
Impulse? check. Digs 5 cards? check. You must mean peer through depths.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
I tried Peer through Depths in the first couple iterations of the deck, but found it to be subpar here. That said, the first couple iterations of the deck were in a very different format, and the tactics the deck employed were very different. It's worth considering.
Also, here's my newest list. I haven't tried this out, but I just made a couple changes to fine-tune it more.
1 Island
2 Arid Mesa
4 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
3 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Mind Spring
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
1 Martial Coup
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unburial Rites
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Gigadrowse
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Negate
1 Shattering Spree
2 Spell Pierce
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trickbind
I haven't implemented any changes I discuss in this post just yet. I've got a physical list here, and I can't find my Magma Jets.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/ <---- kills spam, fyi.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
1 Island
2 Arid Mesa
4 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Mind Spring
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
1 Gigadrowse
1 Martial Coup
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unburial Rites
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Combust
2 Flame Slash
1 Gigadrowse
3 Negate
1 Shattering Spree
2 Spell Pierce
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trickbind
I think I've finally cracked the twin matchup. I've won the last 3 matches in a row with the above list. You just have to play control. You have tutors where they have filters, and you've got more straight-up CA. You're going to win if the game goes long.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/ <---- kills spam, fyi.
Tournament report: The structure was simple: 5 rounds Modern, 3 elimination rounds. I’m not sure how many players there were, but I’d hazard a guess at 50.
My List:
1 Island
2 Arid Mesa
4 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Mind Spring
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
1 Gigadrowse
1 Martial Coup
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unburial Rites
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Combust
2 Flame Slash
1 Gigadrowse
3 Negate
1 Shattering Spree
2 Spell Pierce
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trickbind
Round 1 vs. Affinity: Game 1 I was on the play, and went Scalding Tarn go. He got a very lucky draw. turn 1 Mountain, Memnite, Memnite, Mox Opal, Signal Pest, Frogmite, Vault Skirge. I broke the Scalding tarn at end of turn for a tapped steam vents, untapped, played a Rugged Prairie, and went Desperate Ritual into Slagstorm. He never recovered, and I got a turn 5 Gifts Ungiven for the win off of an empty the warrens for 16 storm. Game 2, I don’t remember much of, but I know he made a few critical play mistakes with a Cranial Plating and I managed to Martial Coup his board away at a critical moment. Note: I had 7 poison from an Inkmoth Nexus. It would be nice to have some instant-speed removal in the deck again.
Round 2 vs. Boros: Game 1 I was on the play again, and wound up going for a turn-4 Past in Flames in the face of a very fast clock from him, finishing with a Martial Coup. He couldn’t deal with the tokens (though he did a fairly good job trying), and I won. Game 2, He had to mulligan to 5, and I managed to Gifts for Firespout, Slagstorm, Earthquake, and Past in Flames. He gave me the Past in Flames and Firespout, I wiped what board position he had, and I won two turns later off the Past in Flames.
Round 3 vs. Tron: Game 1 I had possibly the biggest combo turn I’ve ever seen with this deck (on turn 5, after he’d stuck a Batterskull, I had 4 lands)
Tap 4, Seething Song (storm count 1, URRRRR in pool)
Seething Song (storm count 2, URRRRRRR in pool)
Manamorphose (storm count 3, UUURRRRR in pool) drawing Desperate Ritual
Desperate Ritual, splicing one other Desperate Ritual (storm count 4, UUURRRRRRR in pool)
Desperate Ritual (storm count 5, UUURRRRRRRR in pool)
use UURRRR to cast Mind Spring for 4, drawing Past in Flames, land, land, Spell Pierce (storm count 6, URRRR in pool)
Play land, tap it for R (storm count 6, URRRRR in pool)
Cast Past in Flames (storm count 7, UR in pool)
flashback Desperate Ritual (storm count 8, RRR in pool)
flashback Desperate Ritual (storm count 9, RRRR in pool)
flashback Seething Song (storm count 10, RRRRRR in pool)
flashback Seething Song (storm count 11, RRRRRRRR in pool)
flashback Manamorphose for UU, drawing Pyretic Ritual (storm count 13, UURRRRRR in pool).
cast Pyretic Ritual (storm count 14, UURRRRRRR in pool)
flashback Mind Spring for 4, drawing Empty the Warrens, Seething Song, Gifts Ungiven, Rest for the Weary (storm count 15, RRR in pool)
cast Seething Song (storm count 16, RRRRR in pool)
cast Empty the Warrens for 34 goblin tokens. GO.
He conceded. Game 2, there was a lot more back-and-forth, but I eventually managed to get Unburial Rites to resolve, putting an Iona onto the battlefield. Apparently, he’d sided in a bunch of Echoing Truths to deal with Empty the Warrens, but didn’t have anything to deal with Iona.
Round 4 vs. U/R storm: I was on the draw again. I held back for a while, always leaving countermagic up. Eventually I cast Gifts for a pile of rituals and Past in Flames. He looked at me and asked, “I’m dead, aren’t I?” I said, “yes you are,” untapped, and played a giant Past in Flames, putting 18 goblin tokens onto the battlefield and gaining 8 life off a Rest for the Weary for good measure. He tried to go off and race me, but fizzled, leaving me at 6 life after a big Grapeshot. I untapped and killed him. Game 2 was much the same, except that I finished with a reanimated Iona, and I had a Trickbind.
Round 5 vs. U/W Caw. Game 1 I was on the draw again. I managed to force through a turn 4 Gifts Ungiven, and won a few turns later. He had an aggressive Sword Draw, but tapped out multiple times, so I chalk that up to play error on his part. Game 2 was the only game I lost all day. It was also one of the toughest. We started out playing draw-go for a while, until he resolved a Squadron Hawk, winning a counter war. At that point, though, neither of us had any counters left, so we just started trading giant haymakers. I almost won off of Empty the Warrens, but he had a Trickbind, and that was the game. It went on for a few more turns, but I’d basically lost. It is worth noting, when taking my record into account, that this was the first time any hate had really been relevant to me. Game 2 against Tron he’d gotten a Thorn of Amethyst down, but I’d managed to play around it. That boros player had a Mindbreak Trap, but I had no trouble making my bombs resolve. That’s fairly important. The kind of hate people are playing against storm decks isn’t very relevant to this variant, so I had an advantage here. My guess is I won’t be so lucky next time I take this to a local Modern tournament.
Well, off my tiebreaks, I was top seed, so my Quarters opponent was... The U/W caw player from round 5. He joked about a third round between us after the tournament as a tiebreaker if he won this one.
Game 1: I got lucky. It was that simple. I ripped a Gigadrowse off the top and managed to combo out with Gigadrowse protection.
Game 2: This wound up being a race. I had a hand with a few rituals and empty the warrens, so I managed to empty for 8 tokens, but he had Squadron Hawk and Sword of Feast and Famine. It was very close, and I kept drawing mass removal and he got a Timely Reinforcements (right on time, too...), but I managed to win the race in the end.
Game 3: This guy was absolutely unbelievable. I managed to stick a Gifts Ungiven and went off with an Empty for 16. I passed, and he endstepped his OWN Gifts Ungiven! He, of course, just went for Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn, and he managed to wipe my Board. 2 swings later, I topdecked my Elesh Norn (I’d sided it in game 3, but hadn’t gone for it for fear of counters), cast it (I’d gotten a land-heavy hand, so I actually could do that) and they obliterated each other. Eventually, I managed to play a Martial Coup for 4, and I won off of the tokens.
Semis: I was playing against a different Affinity player, also mono-red.
Game 1: My countermagic really worked wonders this game, as I managed to stop all his major threats, then Gifts for a bunch of mass removal and a Mind Spring. He gave me Earthquake and Mind Spring, a play which I thought was dumb at the time but actually really like now I think more about it. That said, I still won, wiping his board, Mind Springing for 6 off a Seething Song, and winning the game.
Game 2: He got me down to 5 life by turn 4 with a Cranial Plating, and I endstepped Gifts Ungiven. I don’t have notes for what happened, but lets just say I spent 20 minutes putting together this line of play: The rough outline was: get a few rituals+Past in Flames. He did a bad split, giving me Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual. I untapped, used a manamorphose to dig, drew a Desperate Ritual, and went off. Eventually, I flashbacked Gifts Ungiven with 4 mana in the pool, (URRR). I grabbed Seething Song, Empty the Warrens, Snapcaster Mage, and Shattering Spree. He gave me Snapcaster and Shattering Spree, and I wiped his board. A couple turns later, I managed to go off with a smaller empty the warrens (flashbacked), and won. If I’d had Grapeshot, I could have won then and there.
Game 3: I decided between games 2 and 3 to try the Rites Package here. It worked quite well, and won me a game I couldn’t have won otherwise. He managed to get down an Ethersworn Canonist, then a Thorn of Amethyst. However, he had so little pressure early I could Gifts out an Elesh Norn and win through it.
Finals: This was against Twin.
Game 1: He mulled to 4. It just wasn’t fair. I don’t count this as a game win, and instead say this match was best 2 out of 3, not 3 out of 5.
Game 2: He went for the twin combo, but only left R open to protect it. I cast a Combust targeting his exarch. “Wait a sec,” he said, tapping the R. He dropped Guttural Response onto the table. Wow. That was quite the play. Irrelevant, though, since I had the Remand. I untapped and killed him with a Martial Coup
Game 3: Before I describe what happened here, I should say something: I’m a fairly good poker player. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’m a very good poker player. And this guy was clearly good at magic, but had no poker face. I could read him like a book by this point. As in, I knew exactly what was in his hand on turn 3. So, I decided to play a few mind games with him. I don’t remember what I said, exactly, but I think it was
“You know what I think you have?”
“What?”
“You’ve got a Splinter Twin, because you played that sleight of hand and would have endstepped a creature, because you have the Spellskite there. You’ve got the dispel. You have a mindbreak trap, either a Cascade Bluffs or a Mountain, and a Remand.”
There was a collective gasp from him and the onlookers behind him, followed by a wave of whispers. He called Judge, and asked if my grabbing a look off his cards was cheating. The judge said there was no evidence that I had done so, and that I may have just gotten a good read on him, but that it was his own responsibility to keep his cards facing away from me. My opponent nodded, but was visibly shaken. He was on tilt for the rest of the game, and I won pretty easily, though the Mindbreak Trap and Dispel caused me a lot of trouble. Later I checked back with him, and he confirmed that I’d gotten everything right except the land, which was a Breeding Pool.
And that’s that! It was a reasonably difficult tournament, though my opponents made a lot of play errors, I had a few lucky draws, and my deck completely blindsided everyone there. First prize was a foil Ravnica Dual of your choice (I chose Steam Vents, because I only have 3 of them, and I could really use it). Quite the debut for Ritual Gifts.
If I were to do it again, this is what I would run:
1 Island
2 Arid Mesa
4 Cascade Bluffs
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Past in Flames
1 Earthquake
1 Firespout
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Slagstorm
1 Magma Jet
1 Mind Spring
1 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
1 Pact of Negation
1 Martial Coup
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unburial Rites
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Combust
2 Flame Slash
2 Gigadrowse
2 Negate
2 Shattering Spree
1 Trickbind
Grapeshot makes a lot of unwinnable situations winnable, with a cheaper, more immediate storm kill, and will make it a lot easier to find the winning Gifts Piles in games where a solution exists, but it'll take maybe an hour to find it. I switched out some underperforming sideboard and maindeck choices for better options, added another land as a 61st card (given the tutor power the deck has, I think it's actually worth it, because you really need lands), and added a Forbidden Alchemy for some very strong dig.
All in all, a very good record for such an untuned list. Gifts Ungiven and Past in Flames, welcome to Modern. I expect great things from the two of you together.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
Your tournament report definitely gives me insight on how to play this deck. Great work!
I have one question, though--Combust can't be countered by spells or abilities, so what was he doing trying to Guttural Response it?
I'm afraid my notes are only really extensive where there's a complex series of plays going, so my only note there is "WTF GUTTURAL RESPONSE?"
EDIT: I just asked a friend who was watching the game, and who has a very good memory. He's fairly sure it was an Echoing Truth. Curiouser and Curiouser.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/ <---- kills spam, fyi.
1. This deck is VERY mana hungry, and sometimes you just don't want to waste rituals to draw more cards. On a similar vein, it can be tough getting the necessary UU.
2. Remand.
That said, I think it's better than BSU, because BSU is less CA, needs an extra U to cast (which can be very important), and it gets countered by Dispel. That can be very important, as it means Mind Spring can be protected much more easily. I am looking for a possible replacement for it, however, as it really does just take too much mana to make a good profit off it.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
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