I had a lot of people who wanted to see the deck I played in Lantern's most recent IQ. This was a super fun deck to play that has the tools to compete with the top decks in the format. Also, it's probably one of the best Gifts Ungiven decks in the format, and can actually use gifts as a pure control powerhouse. In fact, you really don't want to be playing the Unburial rites "combo" in here, since you will too frequently draw either Rites or Iona, which you have zero way to discard or hardcast.
The Premise Of Bant Gifts / How This Works & Wins
The main premise of this deck is to make Gifts into the most potent draw engine in the format. Other gifts decks use it to set up small synergies such as Loam / Ravens Crime, Academy Ruins / Mindslaver, or the infamous Unburial Rites route. This deck on the other hand takes a very simple premise: make the idea of having to choose 4 separate cards as irrelevant as possible, and turn gifts into a powerful instant speed card advantage engine (similar to Fact or Fiction). There are two ways that this is accomplished in this deck.
Snapcaster & Eternal Witness: In the bant color scheme, you gain access to both Snapcaster Mage as well as Eternal Witness. Through these two creatures, you can cast gifts for any 2 separate instants or sorcery spells, and you'll be guaranteed access to them, and may also get a 2/1 body attached to said spells.
For example - you want some extra removal, so you EOT gifts for these four cards: Snapcaster Mage, Eternal Witness, Path to Exile, Oust. As an opponent, there simply isn't any good way to deal with this. You can give them the 2 removal spells, which essentially makes it so your opponent instant speed tutored for the 2 best removal spells in his deck, or you can allow them to have those removal spells with 2/1 bodies attached to them for slightly more mana. Either way they're going to be falling behind if they're playing even slightly fair.
Via Similar Effects & Spell Diversity: The other way to utilize gifts as a card advantage engine in here is to pack your deck full of cards that are functionally similar, yet differently named. There is a reason why you play Path to Exile, Condemn, Oust, and Bant charm in here. They all share similar removal effects that can be gifted for, and dont' send creatures to the graveyard. Similar to removal, your counter suite consists of Spell Snare, Mana Leak, Remand, Cryptic Command, Deprive, and Bant Charm.
Lets make a comparison here. Many players use Mystical Teachings as an instant speed tutor spell that can also provide card advantage. For 4 mana in a teachings deck, it can grab one single targeted instant spell. In Eternal Gifts, you may not get quite the precision that teachings provides, but you can get pretty close, and you get two cards instead of one. Casting Gifts Ungiven for Path to Exile, Condemn, Oust, and Snapcaster Mage is almost strictly superior to playing Mystical Teachings for Path to Exile.
More than the advantage of just grabbing 2 targeted spells, with each spell you cast, each creature that dies, you start to accrue graveyard resources that you use to finish your opponent off late game via Sun Titan and Reveillark loops.
Gaining Late-Game Inevitability
A lot of this deck involves dumping creatures like Eternal Witness into the graveyard, so it only makes sense to use that to your advantage when trying to establish late-game inevitability. Once you've reached the point of stabilization and you're at 6-7 mana, you then use Gifts to establish late-game inevitability. This is typically the package you want to gift for if you don't naturally draw a titan or reveillark: Sun Titan, Reveillark, Eternal Witness, Phantasmal Image.
Through these 4 cards, you establish a recursion loop (most often using Sun Titan to recur Eternal Witness or Phantasmal Image) that not only buys back relevant creatures, but buys back whatever spell you need in your graveyard.
Other Random notes
-Restoration Angel fits in quite well in here since you use lots of creatures that are really powerful when being "blinked".
-It's not uncommon to re-use a removal spell path to exile 3-4 times in a game.
-Gifts ungiven brings the strategy together, but you still act as an effective control deck when you don't draw gifts. Your creature suite is very good at chump blocking and buying you time until you can draw the relevant cards you need, and help to provide card advantage on their own.
-This deck does make heavy use of the graveyard, which won't cripple it, but can be pesky at times.
-The combination of Deprive and Remand work well in making it so your counters aren't dead late-game.
-It's pretty easy to soft-lock some opponents out of the game via Cryptic Command & Eternal Witness. The soft lock requires 7 mana, Eternal Witness, and Cryptic Command. When you cast cryptic to counter an opponent's spell with a witness in play, you use the second mode to bounce your own witness. When you re-cast witness, you can buy back cryptic, rinse, and repeat.
-Eternal Witness can buy back other copies of witness in your graveyard to form a long lasting string of chump blockers.
This deck originated over a year ago from a deck that I originally built that attempted to win via an infinite turn lock off Time Warp, Venser, & Eternal Witness. That deck can be seen Here. I ended up going more and more control heavy, after realizing the soft lock of Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command was generally powerful enough to deal with anything I played vs, and the Time Warp Lock just wasn't necessary.
Matchups (Rough Estimate)
Tempo: Matchups vs. Tempo are probably slightly favorable. Delver matchups come down to whether or not they can resolve and flip a turn 1 delver. If they can do that & protect it with countermagic, you may be in trouble, but if they cant get flying creatures going, they're going to slowly lose as they try to swing through witnesses as you gradually accrue card advantage over them. Most of their creatures will eat paths, and if they're playing UWR, Geists aren't a big problem due to your 2/1 blockers & singleton phantasmal image.
Midrange: Matchups vs. midrange decks are mostly cake with a few small exceptions (such as *some* ravens crime heavy loam decks). Jund has a very difficult time getting damage through, and your mid to late-game outclasses them by miles, making it a fairly easy matchup if you can stabilize and reach that point. The biggest issue here will be discard effects, and namely planeswalkers such as Liliana of the Veil.
Birthind Pod: Another favorable MU. Their curve is very high, and you only have to counter a few relevant spells for them to be a super durdly deck full of useless mana dorks and utility creatures (Counter birthing pod, Kiki Jiki, Restoration Angel, Chord of Calling). Even if they can get a board presence of any of those creatures, you have more than enough removal, and Bant Charm even can destroy Pod when you need it which is a huge advantage. Naya pod is significantly worse when trying to play through Mana Leaks than Melira Pod is due to how high their curve is in order to combo, but both are fairly easy to beat. Their aggro game got better, but one benefit of playing a removal suite of path, condemn, oust, and bant charm is that persist effects really don't matter that much.
Storm / Twin: These are two somewhat different decks, but i'm just labeling them here since they're both relatively "standard" positive matchups as you would expect for most control decks vs. combo decks. You're playing tons of removal, 11+ counterspells, instant speed Gifts for more answers, and a lot of easy ways to deal with their combos. I would put these both at 55/45, but they can go higher or lower depending on your sideboard.
Affinity: Affinity is probably about even, although I've played against it quite a few times and won most games. The versions with Etched Champion can cause problems, although you still have Vedalken Shackles for that problem, and Gifts for Creeping Corrosion can be a huge blowout game 2 & 3.
Burn: Game 1 you're going to lose, game 2 & 3, you hope to draw your hate and win. I would put this at 45/55 out of your favor, but if you draw 1 hate card in the board, or can stabilize until you can gifts for the hate, you'll generally win game 2 & 3. The biggest disadvantage is that it's very difficult to win game 1, which puts you at a bit of an impasse.
Tron: Tron is slightly unfavorable, but definitely winnable. Your primary goal here is to hold them off long enough to be able to get a Sun Titan + Ghost Quarter lock on them. Even w/o titan, you can recur ghost quarters or Tectonic Edge multiple times via Eternal Witness, which grants you some leeway. Just make sure to counter the early Karn, and know that Gifts for lands is often the best strategy.
UW Restoration: This is about 50/50. UW restoration is a good deck that plays good cards & disruption. They'll play the role of tempo here, and the versions playing Geist are more problematic. One of the main difficulties in dealing with UW restoration control is that all their removal spells exile your Witnesses & Snapcasters, making late-game recursion of them largely irrelevant. These games largely come down to who can resolve key end of turn plays through the opponent's permission.
Sample Gifts Piles
Gifts piles in this deck aren't straightforward, and will largely depend on game state, matchup, and what's already in your graveyard. Instead of just "hurr durr" unburial rites Iona, you're playing for the piles that give sheer value, card advantage, and disruption. It takes more thinking, but the benefit of not playing rites is that you gain tons of consistency, and don't have awful hands that draw Unburial Rites or Iona without any way to get rid of them from your hand (this combo isn't worth playing unless you're playing it with something to discard said combo, or a means to shuffle cards back into your lib, which this deck can't do). That being said, this deck is largely built around Gifts, and you always will have tons of options in terms of what you want to grab against almost any archetype. I'll show a few sample gifts lists below and how I would pull them against various archetypes.
Gifts Piles Vs. Combo Decks - Turn 4
Lets assume you're playing vs a combo of some sort (not pod). It's turn 4, and you want more counters end of turn to make sure your opponent can't win through your counters, or can't go off the turn after you counter one of his key spells. Here are a few piles you could throw together depending on what fits best.
Simply Want More Counters Scenario
Countermagic + A Clock Scenario
Gifts For Specific Hate Cards
Gifts Piles Vs. Midrange Decks
Typically these decks will want to ride a few creatures to victory. Against decks like these, it becomes very fluid, and it really depends on what point in the game. Lets say we're against a deck like Jund or Bant. I think vs. midrange style decks, it's more important to play Gifts piles differently depending on what point the game is at.
Turn 4 Gifts: Used to Stabilize under more removal / disruption: This is a very generic pile, that's probably better if they already have a board presence.
Turn 4 Gifts: Used to Stabilize under more removal / disruption: This is another rather generic pile, but it's much better if they don't have a board presence or threats.
Late Game Gifts 6+ Mana, need to lock the game away: It's important to note here that at this point in the game, you probably already have a lot of removal, counters, and likely already have a witness or snapcaster in your graveyard. It's also important to note that in situations like this, Restoration Angel is a highly relevant card since you'll often have a witness or snapcaster in hand, or perhaps even in play. The gifts pile below however really gives your opponent no option in terms of what happens. Regardless of what they pitch to the graveyard, it's going to be coming back to play or into your hand, and subsequently bring back a few cryptics, paths, bant charms, or anything else along with it.
Seems cool Im just skeptical of a control deck without some inherent life gain and it doesn't seem like there is quite enough targets for restoration angel. What about some Auger of Bolas or wall of Omens? 24 Lands looks a tad shy with so many 4+s Ill give it a try though, really enjoyed your UWR artifacts deck.
Seems cool Im just skeptical of a control deck without some inherent life gain and it doesn't seem like there is quite enough targets for restoration angel. What about some Auger of Bolas or wall of Omens? 24 Lands looks a tad shy with so many 4+s Ill give it a try though, really enjoyed your UWR artifacts deck.
Wall of omens is pretty useless in the current meta, and you really don't want to be tapping out on turn 2 to play a wall that doesn't really do a whole lot. As for Angel, you'll almost always have a target for Restoration Angel, and even when you don't it's still a good creature regardless of whether you can utilize it's blink ability. Blinking Eternal Witness is pretty insane w/ angel.
As for lands, 24 lands normally would be a bit low, but you play 4x Serum Visions to hit land drops, and you can play Eternal Witness to grab back fetches to hit your land drops when you need to.
Life gain comes in out of the sideboard (lone missionary, finks, timely reinforcements) and you can always get them via Gifts.
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This looks spicy and delicious. I may take it for a spin eventually, I have most of the business cards, will just need to get some of the lands and creatures.
No Oblivion Ring? It's interaction with Sun Titan would sure be useful.
You really don't want to fall into the trap of "it's good with sun titan, therefore I should play it". You need to focus on high quality spells & disruption first, then worry about Sun Titan / Lark interactions later on after you've stabilized. Oblivion ring hurts your ability to get to the point of playing Sun Titan / Lark in the first place since it's sorcery speed, and not all that difficult to remove. Besides, the chain of Sun Titan ---> Eternal Witness ----> Path To Exile is far superior to Sun Titan -----> Oblivion Ring .
Oblivion ring is just too slow in the format. If you could play it at instant speed, sure it would be awesome, but you can't. As it stands, Bant Charm is far superior, and even Bant Charm is a bit slow overall, and only made good by it's overall power and huge versatility in here.
Can you give some examples of the best gifts piles? Do you think you might want more yard hate in the board? Maybe squeeze in a Mulldrifter for more draw power?
Can you give some examples of the best gifts piles? Do you think you might want more yard hate in the board? Maybe squeeze in a Mulldrifter for more draw power?
You don't need more draw power. If anything, you have too much of it already. Card advantage is not something this deck has an issue with. If anything, focusing on more efficient removal would be more important.
As for gifts piles, I'm going to write a small section in the OP about that in a bit, but they're largely fluid, and dependent on your current graveyard, the current board state, and a lot of other factors.
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Once again, you're at the point of getting too cute and you're now playing a high curve and a bunch of cards that do nothing until turn 5-6-7. You don't really even want Reveillark or Sun Titan in your opening hand, let alone a random Mirror Entity or Body Double.
Just because you can play something that has synergy with the deck doesn't mean you should. I'm not saying there aren't other good cards or synergies that could be worked in here, but the curve should really be kept extremely low outside Titan / Lark. As I mentioned in the first post, this deck is the result of making an infinite turn combo deck less cute, but more competitive against a broad range of opponents. Synergies are fun, but unless you're going for a dedicated combo deck, it's generally better to play powerful and efficient individual cards. If those cards happen to synergize with the rest of the deck (IE, Witness, Snapcaster) then that's an added bonus.
Hahah had a blast playing this already! Shackles is sooooo broken though I think it needs another... Im stil worried about the hyper agro Rx decks though, pretty hard to preserve life total against burn esp G1. I may try to add MD finks as well.
Hahah had a blast playing this already! Shackles is sooooo broken though I think it needs another... Im stil worried about the hyper agro Rx decks though, pretty hard to preserve life total against burn esp G1. I may try to add MD finks as well.
Yeah, that's entirely a meta decision. The IQ tournaments haven't had much burn in them since Budget isn't an issue, and Burn is generally a budget deck more popular in local shops or on MTGO.
If you're expecting lots of RDW, I would consider Lone Missionary or Aven Riftwatcher as well, since they work better with Reveillark than Finks does. If you really want to hate RDW out, play Timely reinforcements. If you resolve 1, they basically won't win, since you'll definitely resolve it again via Eternal Witness or Snapcaster Mage.
2 Shackles isn't a bad idea, and you can easily support it. One funny aspect however of playing 1x shackles, is if you get it game 1, lots of decks will sideboard into heavy artifact hate, which is kind of funny considering shackles is only a single card in the deck. It's virtual card advantage at it's best.
Have you considered Noble Hierarch over Serum Visions?
Not really what you care to be doing in a control deck. Visions is also important in that it's a worthwhile card to bring back if you want to drop a turn 3 Witness. Without visions, you often won't have anything in your graveyard to bring back turn 3.
Understood. Ramp is a unique feature green adds to a control deck, so I like to consider it sometimes. Hierarch would play a similar role as Chrome Mox in extended for control decks.
Understood. Ramp is a unique feature green adds to a control deck, so I like to consider it sometimes. Hierarch would play a similar role as Chrome Mox in extended for control decks.
Yeah, to be fair, it might not be that bad, but as you can see the version posted plays green for Eternal Witness & Bant Charm more than anything else. Who knows, test it, it could be good in here, although I'd be tempted to play more aggro control if I was playing Hierarch.
My primary problem with playing ramp in control decks is that it becomes too much of a dead draw after turn 1.
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Did you work on this deck any more? I kinda liked it but... idk just felt a tad to clunky and not particularly good against anything. Was very easy to fall behind and softish to agro. I am basically convinced the artifact package is the best angle for a control decks in this format. Thirst for Knowledge is just exactly what you need for card advantage and filtering for the specific answers. Shackles and looping Ed Explosives just locks out creature decks and is hard to stop, while being able to tutor yard hate and permission stops most combo.
Did you work on this deck any more? I kinda liked it but... idk just felt a tad to clunky and not particularly good against anything. Was very easy to fall behind and softish to agro. I am basically convinced the artifact package is the best angle for a control decks in this format. Thirst for Knowledge is just exactly what you need for card advantage and filtering for the specific answers. Shackles and looping Ed Explosives just locks out creature decks and is hard to stop, while being able to tutor yard hate and permission stops most combo.
I've played it a ton, I would say it's not really all that in development, and more of a finished product than anything else. This deck is slow, and it's very grindy, and also difficult to play right (it's a gifts ungiven deck afterall). It's a control deck, and it's often not the best play to start resolving Witnesses until you have 5 lands in play and can hold up permission. I wouldn't disagree w/ thirst, as I've played thirst control a lot too (see other decks in this forum).
Generally speaking, against creature aggro decks, you're playing 4x Path, 1x Condemn, 1x repeal, 2x Bant Charm, 1x Shackles, and a ton of chump blockers that recur said removal spells. You should have more than enough removal to deal with creatures efficiently. Post sideboard, you gain more removal, and also can board into life gain options like Lone Missionary, Kitchen Finks, and Timely Reinforcements. If you need MORE removal, you should be able to just gifts into 3+ removal spells at instant speed. Unless your opponent can burn you off at that point, they're going to have a difficult time getting damage through.
Which aggro decks were you having problems with? I lost with this recently to Bant, but that was only after game 3 killing 2 Geists only for them to topdeck a third. Geist kind of kills control decks, it's just how it is. I've considered upping the count of phantasmal images maindeck simply due to the presence of Geist in the format.
The only "new" developments I've made is cutting Restoration Angel and one of my snapcasters, adding a singleton maindeck Runed Halo (card is really underrated, and can shut down a single attacker, and all subsequent creatures with the same name, OR slow combo decks down until they can answer it).
If you're looking for better aggro matchups, I would move 1-3 Kitchen Finks to the maindeck, or consider a card like Porphyry Nodes maindeck which can kill as many as 2-3 of your opponent's creatures for a single mana investment (and can be recurred by Sun Titan).
Wow thanx so much for the info, you are always so insightful. I cant believe I forgot Runed Halo! What else did you add, said u cut angel and 2nd snapy? I think the problem is on Modo I too often face bad match ups. The format just seems like all Giests, Burn and TRon... Is this deck what you are still currently playing / prefer over UWR Thirst?
Wow thanx so much for the info, you are always so insightful. I cant believe I forgot Runed Halo! What else did you add, said u cut angel and 2nd snapy? I think the problem is on Modo I too often face bad match ups. The format just seems like all Giests, Burn and TRon... Is this deck what you are still currently playing / prefer over UWR Thirst?
I cut the angel, since it was good, but I felt I felt a bit cramped at the 4 mana slot with gifts and cryptic, and I typically didn't need it that much. I'm probably going to go back to 2x Snapcaster mage, but I found I really don't need the redundancy it provides, since I already get that with Witness.
I play both control decks to be fair. Like anything, you need to adjust for the meta. If you're playing largely geists (UWR delver, Burn, and Tron) I would probably maindeck finks, and put more answers perhaps maindeck for Tron and decks with lots of burn spells.
The MTGO meta is a bit strange, since decks that cost a lot less are a lot more popular than decks that would see play at the top tables in a tournament. Hence why you'll see a lot more RG tron, and Burn online than you would in a bigtime paper tournament.
Burn shouldn't be difficult to beat with the sideboard, and tron is going to be somewhat tough for any control deck, but still can be handled if played right.
I would play a SB like this to beat those matchups - This occupies 13 slots total, some of which are good in other matchups anyway. I will say, I'm not sure if the wraths are worth it in the sideboard anymore. You can recur so much of your spot removal once you get going, that using 2-3 slots in your sideboard for wrath effects seems like a wasted slot a lot of times.
I will say, I'm not a huge fan of the board that was included in the OP, especially the spell pierces, but that's what I was playing at the time.
Ok nice one! Just a few Ideas. What about squezing in 1 Trink mage explosives and relic? I feel like this gives a broader range of answers main. -1 leak, Repeal, Snapy Explosives is probably beter than repeal no? I wouldn't mind shaving a visions for another land as well, Tolaria perhaps. Also trying my own giest over V click.
Ok nice one! Just few Ideas. What about squezing in 1 Trink mage explosives and relic? I feel like this gives broader range of answers main. -1 leak, Repeal, Snapy Explosives is probably beter than repeal no? I wouldn't mind shaving a visions for another land as well, Tolaria maybe. Also trying my own giest over V click.
Doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. Test it out!
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The main premise of this deck is to make Gifts into the most potent draw engine in the format. Other gifts decks use it to set up small synergies such as Loam / Ravens Crime, Academy Ruins / Mindslaver, or the infamous Unburial Rites route. This deck on the other hand takes a very simple premise: make the idea of having to choose 4 separate cards as irrelevant as possible, and turn gifts into a powerful instant speed card advantage engine (similar to Fact or Fiction). There are two ways that this is accomplished in this deck.
Snapcaster & Eternal Witness: In the bant color scheme, you gain access to both Snapcaster Mage as well as Eternal Witness. Through these two creatures, you can cast gifts for any 2 separate instants or sorcery spells, and you'll be guaranteed access to them, and may also get a 2/1 body attached to said spells.
For example - you want some extra removal, so you EOT gifts for these four cards: Snapcaster Mage, Eternal Witness, Path to Exile, Oust. As an opponent, there simply isn't any good way to deal with this. You can give them the 2 removal spells, which essentially makes it so your opponent instant speed tutored for the 2 best removal spells in his deck, or you can allow them to have those removal spells with 2/1 bodies attached to them for slightly more mana. Either way they're going to be falling behind if they're playing even slightly fair.
Via Similar Effects & Spell Diversity: The other way to utilize gifts as a card advantage engine in here is to pack your deck full of cards that are functionally similar, yet differently named. There is a reason why you play Path to Exile, Condemn, Oust, and Bant charm in here. They all share similar removal effects that can be gifted for, and dont' send creatures to the graveyard. Similar to removal, your counter suite consists of Spell Snare, Mana Leak, Remand, Cryptic Command, Deprive, and Bant Charm.
Lets make a comparison here. Many players use Mystical Teachings as an instant speed tutor spell that can also provide card advantage. For 4 mana in a teachings deck, it can grab one single targeted instant spell. In Eternal Gifts, you may not get quite the precision that teachings provides, but you can get pretty close, and you get two cards instead of one. Casting Gifts Ungiven for Path to Exile, Condemn, Oust, and Snapcaster Mage is almost strictly superior to playing Mystical Teachings for Path to Exile.
More than the advantage of just grabbing 2 targeted spells, with each spell you cast, each creature that dies, you start to accrue graveyard resources that you use to finish your opponent off late game via Sun Titan and Reveillark loops.
Gaining Late-Game Inevitability
A lot of this deck involves dumping creatures like Eternal Witness into the graveyard, so it only makes sense to use that to your advantage when trying to establish late-game inevitability. Once you've reached the point of stabilization and you're at 6-7 mana, you then use Gifts to establish late-game inevitability. This is typically the package you want to gift for if you don't naturally draw a titan or reveillark: Sun Titan, Reveillark, Eternal Witness, Phantasmal Image.
Through these 4 cards, you establish a recursion loop (most often using Sun Titan to recur Eternal Witness or Phantasmal Image) that not only buys back relevant creatures, but buys back whatever spell you need in your graveyard.
Other Random notes
-Restoration Angel fits in quite well in here since you use lots of creatures that are really powerful when being "blinked".
-It's not uncommon to re-use a removal spell path to exile 3-4 times in a game.
-Gifts ungiven brings the strategy together, but you still act as an effective control deck when you don't draw gifts. Your creature suite is very good at chump blocking and buying you time until you can draw the relevant cards you need, and help to provide card advantage on their own.
-This deck does make heavy use of the graveyard, which won't cripple it, but can be pesky at times.
-The combination of Deprive and Remand work well in making it so your counters aren't dead late-game.
-It's pretty easy to soft-lock some opponents out of the game via Cryptic Command & Eternal Witness. The soft lock requires 7 mana, Eternal Witness, and Cryptic Command. When you cast cryptic to counter an opponent's spell with a witness in play, you use the second mode to bounce your own witness. When you re-cast witness, you can buy back cryptic, rinse, and repeat.
-Eternal Witness can buy back other copies of witness in your graveyard to form a long lasting string of chump blockers.
Sample List 1
3 Spell Snare
3 Remand
1 Mana Leak
2 Supreme Verdict
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Cryptic Command
1 Bant Charm
1 Oust
3 Path to Exile
1 Condemn
2 Deprive
creatures
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Sun Titan
1 Restoration Angel
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Reveillark
3 Coiling Oracle
3 Eternal Witness
3 Flooded Grove
2 Celestial Colonnade
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Seachrome Coast
Sample List 2
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Eternal Witness
1x Sun Titan
1x Reveillark
1x Phantasmal Image
2x Vendilion Clique
Instants / Sorceries
2x Bant Charm
4x Path to Exile
1x Condemn
3x Spell Snare
4x Mana Leak
3x Cryptic Command
3x Gifts Ungiven
1x Repeal
4x Serum Visions
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Breeding Pool
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Island
2x Seachrome Coast
1x Forest
1x Temple Garden
1x Stirring Wildwood
1x Plains
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Arid Mesa
3x Flooded Grove
1x Celestial Colonnade
1x Runed Halo
1x Wheel of Sun And Moon
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Angel's Grace
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Stony Silence
1x Threads of Disloyalty
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Phantasmal Image
1x Obstinate Baloth
1x Timely Reinforcements
1x remand
2x Porphyry Nodes
This deck originated over a year ago from a deck that I originally built that attempted to win via an infinite turn lock off Time Warp, Venser, & Eternal Witness. That deck can be seen Here. I ended up going more and more control heavy, after realizing the soft lock of Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command was generally powerful enough to deal with anything I played vs, and the Time Warp Lock just wasn't necessary.
Matchups (Rough Estimate)
Tempo: Matchups vs. Tempo are probably slightly favorable. Delver matchups come down to whether or not they can resolve and flip a turn 1 delver. If they can do that & protect it with countermagic, you may be in trouble, but if they cant get flying creatures going, they're going to slowly lose as they try to swing through witnesses as you gradually accrue card advantage over them. Most of their creatures will eat paths, and if they're playing UWR, Geists aren't a big problem due to your 2/1 blockers & singleton phantasmal image.
Midrange: Matchups vs. midrange decks are mostly cake with a few small exceptions (such as *some* ravens crime heavy loam decks). Jund has a very difficult time getting damage through, and your mid to late-game outclasses them by miles, making it a fairly easy matchup if you can stabilize and reach that point. The biggest issue here will be discard effects, and namely planeswalkers such as Liliana of the Veil.
Birthind Pod: Another favorable MU. Their curve is very high, and you only have to counter a few relevant spells for them to be a super durdly deck full of useless mana dorks and utility creatures (Counter birthing pod, Kiki Jiki, Restoration Angel, Chord of Calling). Even if they can get a board presence of any of those creatures, you have more than enough removal, and Bant Charm even can destroy Pod when you need it which is a huge advantage. Naya pod is significantly worse when trying to play through Mana Leaks than Melira Pod is due to how high their curve is in order to combo, but both are fairly easy to beat. Their aggro game got better, but one benefit of playing a removal suite of path, condemn, oust, and bant charm is that persist effects really don't matter that much.
Storm / Twin: These are two somewhat different decks, but i'm just labeling them here since they're both relatively "standard" positive matchups as you would expect for most control decks vs. combo decks. You're playing tons of removal, 11+ counterspells, instant speed Gifts for more answers, and a lot of easy ways to deal with their combos. I would put these both at 55/45, but they can go higher or lower depending on your sideboard.
Affinity: Affinity is probably about even, although I've played against it quite a few times and won most games. The versions with Etched Champion can cause problems, although you still have Vedalken Shackles for that problem, and Gifts for Creeping Corrosion can be a huge blowout game 2 & 3.
Burn: Game 1 you're going to lose, game 2 & 3, you hope to draw your hate and win. I would put this at 45/55 out of your favor, but if you draw 1 hate card in the board, or can stabilize until you can gifts for the hate, you'll generally win game 2 & 3. The biggest disadvantage is that it's very difficult to win game 1, which puts you at a bit of an impasse.
Tron: Tron is slightly unfavorable, but definitely winnable. Your primary goal here is to hold them off long enough to be able to get a Sun Titan + Ghost Quarter lock on them. Even w/o titan, you can recur ghost quarters or Tectonic Edge multiple times via Eternal Witness, which grants you some leeway. Just make sure to counter the early Karn, and know that Gifts for lands is often the best strategy.
UW Restoration: This is about 50/50. UW restoration is a good deck that plays good cards & disruption. They'll play the role of tempo here, and the versions playing Geist are more problematic. One of the main difficulties in dealing with UW restoration control is that all their removal spells exile your Witnesses & Snapcasters, making late-game recursion of them largely irrelevant. These games largely come down to who can resolve key end of turn plays through the opponent's permission.
Sample Gifts Piles
Gifts piles in this deck aren't straightforward, and will largely depend on game state, matchup, and what's already in your graveyard. Instead of just "hurr durr" unburial rites Iona, you're playing for the piles that give sheer value, card advantage, and disruption. It takes more thinking, but the benefit of not playing rites is that you gain tons of consistency, and don't have awful hands that draw Unburial Rites or Iona without any way to get rid of them from your hand (this combo isn't worth playing unless you're playing it with something to discard said combo, or a means to shuffle cards back into your lib, which this deck can't do). That being said, this deck is largely built around Gifts, and you always will have tons of options in terms of what you want to grab against almost any archetype. I'll show a few sample gifts lists below and how I would pull them against various archetypes.
Gifts Piles Vs. Combo Decks - Turn 4
Lets assume you're playing vs a combo of some sort (not pod). It's turn 4, and you want more counters end of turn to make sure your opponent can't win through your counters, or can't go off the turn after you counter one of his key spells. Here are a few piles you could throw together depending on what fits best.
Simply Want More Counters Scenario
Countermagic + A Clock Scenario
Gifts For Specific Hate Cards
Gifts Piles Vs. Midrange Decks
Typically these decks will want to ride a few creatures to victory. Against decks like these, it becomes very fluid, and it really depends on what point in the game. Lets say we're against a deck like Jund or Bant. I think vs. midrange style decks, it's more important to play Gifts piles differently depending on what point the game is at.
Turn 4 Gifts: Used to Stabilize under more removal / disruption: This is a very generic pile, that's probably better if they already have a board presence.
Turn 4 Gifts: Used to Stabilize under more removal / disruption: This is another rather generic pile, but it's much better if they don't have a board presence or threats.
Late Game Gifts 6+ Mana, need to lock the game away: It's important to note here that at this point in the game, you probably already have a lot of removal, counters, and likely already have a witness or snapcaster in your graveyard. It's also important to note that in situations like this, Restoration Angel is a highly relevant card since you'll often have a witness or snapcaster in hand, or perhaps even in play. The gifts pile below however really gives your opponent no option in terms of what happens. Regardless of what they pitch to the graveyard, it's going to be coming back to play or into your hand, and subsequently bring back a few cryptics, paths, bant charms, or anything else along with it.
Wall of omens is pretty useless in the current meta, and you really don't want to be tapping out on turn 2 to play a wall that doesn't really do a whole lot. As for Angel, you'll almost always have a target for Restoration Angel, and even when you don't it's still a good creature regardless of whether you can utilize it's blink ability. Blinking Eternal Witness is pretty insane w/ angel.
As for lands, 24 lands normally would be a bit low, but you play 4x Serum Visions to hit land drops, and you can play Eternal Witness to grab back fetches to hit your land drops when you need to.
Life gain comes in out of the sideboard (lone missionary, finks, timely reinforcements) and you can always get them via Gifts.
Ux Whirza
Rb Goblins
Legacy
U Urza Stompy
Duel Commander
Sai, Master Thopterist
You really don't want to fall into the trap of "it's good with sun titan, therefore I should play it". You need to focus on high quality spells & disruption first, then worry about Sun Titan / Lark interactions later on after you've stabilized. Oblivion ring hurts your ability to get to the point of playing Sun Titan / Lark in the first place since it's sorcery speed, and not all that difficult to remove. Besides, the chain of Sun Titan ---> Eternal Witness ----> Path To Exile is far superior to Sun Titan -----> Oblivion Ring .
Oblivion ring is just too slow in the format. If you could play it at instant speed, sure it would be awesome, but you can't. As it stands, Bant Charm is far superior, and even Bant Charm is a bit slow overall, and only made good by it's overall power and huge versatility in here.
You don't need more draw power. If anything, you have too much of it already. Card advantage is not something this deck has an issue with. If anything, focusing on more efficient removal would be more important.
As for gifts piles, I'm going to write a small section in the OP about that in a bit, but they're largely fluid, and dependent on your current graveyard, the current board state, and a lot of other factors.
Once again, you're at the point of getting too cute and you're now playing a high curve and a bunch of cards that do nothing until turn 5-6-7. You don't really even want Reveillark or Sun Titan in your opening hand, let alone a random Mirror Entity or Body Double.
Just because you can play something that has synergy with the deck doesn't mean you should. I'm not saying there aren't other good cards or synergies that could be worked in here, but the curve should really be kept extremely low outside Titan / Lark. As I mentioned in the first post, this deck is the result of making an infinite turn combo deck less cute, but more competitive against a broad range of opponents. Synergies are fun, but unless you're going for a dedicated combo deck, it's generally better to play powerful and efficient individual cards. If those cards happen to synergize with the rest of the deck (IE, Witness, Snapcaster) then that's an added bonus.
Ux Whirza
Rb Goblins
Legacy
U Urza Stompy
Duel Commander
Sai, Master Thopterist
Yeah, that's entirely a meta decision. The IQ tournaments haven't had much burn in them since Budget isn't an issue, and Burn is generally a budget deck more popular in local shops or on MTGO.
If you're expecting lots of RDW, I would consider Lone Missionary or Aven Riftwatcher as well, since they work better with Reveillark than Finks does. If you really want to hate RDW out, play Timely reinforcements. If you resolve 1, they basically won't win, since you'll definitely resolve it again via Eternal Witness or Snapcaster Mage.
2 Shackles isn't a bad idea, and you can easily support it. One funny aspect however of playing 1x shackles, is if you get it game 1, lots of decks will sideboard into heavy artifact hate, which is kind of funny considering shackles is only a single card in the deck. It's virtual card advantage at it's best.
Not really what you care to be doing in a control deck. Visions is also important in that it's a worthwhile card to bring back if you want to drop a turn 3 Witness. Without visions, you often won't have anything in your graveyard to bring back turn 3.
Ux Whirza
Rb Goblins
Legacy
U Urza Stompy
Duel Commander
Sai, Master Thopterist
Yeah, to be fair, it might not be that bad, but as you can see the version posted plays green for Eternal Witness & Bant Charm more than anything else. Who knows, test it, it could be good in here, although I'd be tempted to play more aggro control if I was playing Hierarch.
My primary problem with playing ramp in control decks is that it becomes too much of a dead draw after turn 1.
I've played it a ton, I would say it's not really all that in development, and more of a finished product than anything else. This deck is slow, and it's very grindy, and also difficult to play right (it's a gifts ungiven deck afterall). It's a control deck, and it's often not the best play to start resolving Witnesses until you have 5 lands in play and can hold up permission. I wouldn't disagree w/ thirst, as I've played thirst control a lot too (see other decks in this forum).
Generally speaking, against creature aggro decks, you're playing 4x Path, 1x Condemn, 1x repeal, 2x Bant Charm, 1x Shackles, and a ton of chump blockers that recur said removal spells. You should have more than enough removal to deal with creatures efficiently. Post sideboard, you gain more removal, and also can board into life gain options like Lone Missionary, Kitchen Finks, and Timely Reinforcements. If you need MORE removal, you should be able to just gifts into 3+ removal spells at instant speed. Unless your opponent can burn you off at that point, they're going to have a difficult time getting damage through.
Which aggro decks were you having problems with? I lost with this recently to Bant, but that was only after game 3 killing 2 Geists only for them to topdeck a third. Geist kind of kills control decks, it's just how it is. I've considered upping the count of phantasmal images maindeck simply due to the presence of Geist in the format.
The only "new" developments I've made is cutting Restoration Angel and one of my snapcasters, adding a singleton maindeck Runed Halo (card is really underrated, and can shut down a single attacker, and all subsequent creatures with the same name, OR slow combo decks down until they can answer it).
If you're looking for better aggro matchups, I would move 1-3 Kitchen Finks to the maindeck, or consider a card like Porphyry Nodes maindeck which can kill as many as 2-3 of your opponent's creatures for a single mana investment (and can be recurred by Sun Titan).
I cut the angel, since it was good, but I felt I felt a bit cramped at the 4 mana slot with gifts and cryptic, and I typically didn't need it that much. I'm probably going to go back to 2x Snapcaster mage, but I found I really don't need the redundancy it provides, since I already get that with Witness.
I play both control decks to be fair. Like anything, you need to adjust for the meta. If you're playing largely geists (UWR delver, Burn, and Tron) I would probably maindeck finks, and put more answers perhaps maindeck for Tron and decks with lots of burn spells.
The MTGO meta is a bit strange, since decks that cost a lot less are a lot more popular than decks that would see play at the top tables in a tournament. Hence why you'll see a lot more RG tron, and Burn online than you would in a bigtime paper tournament.
Burn shouldn't be difficult to beat with the sideboard, and tron is going to be somewhat tough for any control deck, but still can be handled if played right.
I would play a SB like this to beat those matchups - This occupies 13 slots total, some of which are good in other matchups anyway. I will say, I'm not sure if the wraths are worth it in the sideboard anymore. You can recur so much of your spot removal once you get going, that using 2-3 slots in your sideboard for wrath effects seems like a wasted slot a lot of times.
I will say, I'm not a huge fan of the board that was included in the OP, especially the spell pierces, but that's what I was playing at the time.
Anti-Aggro SB package
1x Lone missionary
1x Timely Reinforcements
1x Rhox War Monk
1x Phantasmal Image
Anti-Tron SB
1x Negate
2x Pithing Needle (Karn, Eye of Ugin, Mindslaver, Etc)
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Surgical Extraction
Doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. Test it out!