So, it came as a question as to how broken is Gifts Ungiven. I am not interested in if this card should or not be banned here. I want to instead discuss how hard it can be broken when pushed to an extreme.
I was having a discussion with a buddy of mine and honestly I couldnt name a specific combo that is like.... the ideal combo for Gifts Ungiven. How much mana and how many colors / cards go into said combo.
So I figured I would ask how broken can it be? What cards are involved? How much mana will it cost in all and how many colors is it? Obviously its more ideal to be less colors but I figured I would open it up and see what people have to say on the card.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Using what cards, how much mana? Adding more colors while not the end of the world if we are talking like 3 specific colors to do this reasonably is a lot more limiting.
Again, I am not trying to defend it either way banned list wise. I am just legitimately looking for how bad the worst case scenario is.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
The ones that spring to mind on the recursion end are Regrowth and Noxious Revival, given that you're casting it on their endstep. Cheapest infinite combo that comes to mind is Basalt Monolith+Power Artifact, which could easily be turned into a win with the right general (Thrasios, Triton Hero perhaps?).
The ones that spring to mind on the recursion end are Regrowth and Noxious Revival, given that you're casting it on their endstep. Cheapest infinite combo that comes to mind is Basalt Monolith+Power Artifact, which could easily be turned into a win with the right general (Thrasios, Triton Hero perhaps?).
That seems like a good starting place.
Noxious Revival can be cast for health or at the same endstep as Gifts Ungiven so it really comes down to the 3GUU as you can pay the 1 colorless for Regrowth on your turn to recover Power Artifact off of the mana the monolith provides.
That is 2 colors and 6 mana which is quite reasonable (stating from the standpoint of breaking the card not being a good thing in meta).
They can split it in different ways, it's not THAT easy.
You CAN do better than Unburial Rites/Iona, though.
Gifts Ungiven for:
Regrowth
Intuition
Eternal Witness
Crystal Shard
Groups:
Regrowth / Intuition in yard, Crystal Witness in hand... keep on Gifting.
Regrowth/Witness in yard, Intuition/Shard in hand... Intuition for Reclaim, Recollect, and Den Protector, commence Crystal Witnessing.
Further permutations all fundamentally similar.
Get Time Warp.
A valid ban. Incidental regrowths all pretty darn good, all good cards.
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"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
With this, you can:
- mystical tutor, get dramatic reversal. Go get your Isochron Scepter with Fabricate. Now you can have infinite mana.
- Isochron Scepter on Mystical Tutor, get Beacon of Tomorrows for infinite turns.
If you add other colours, the options are truly endless.
And also with Gifts, you can put together 3-carders like Lark-Guide-Blasting Station with a single recursion like E-wit.
The Power Artifact combos seem like the best to me right now available to Mono-U, with other colors offering more resilience to removal with something along the lines of Boonweaver or Protean Hulk .
With quick enough early mana, you can get Unburial Rites and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur into graveyard and reanimate it on your turn. Four mana on turn 1~3 is not unheard of.
Thats Simic(Sultai) colors for 2GU mana and 14 life it ends the game on the spot. The downside is if any of the combo pieces are drawn to hand it throws things off.
Thats Simic colors for 2GU mana and 14 life it ends the game on the spot. The downside is if any of the combo pieces are drawn to hand it throws things off.
Nah, that's sultai colors but still one of the cheaper options.
now in food chain tazri you could use it like an intuition: Regrowth + Noxious Revival + food chain
that would be a way to find a 5 mana food chain but even intuition isnt played in that deck and would in that case be the cheaper tutor for only 1 part of the combo.
of course if you need just one part of the combo you can add pact of negation to the mix.
now the upside of using gifts ungiven to set up a combo is much comparable to an ad nauseam. AN wont always find you all you need but sometimes also brings free mana to make the combo even cheaper and counters to protect it. gifts can find a complete combo or if just one part is missing you can find 1 card additional protection.
in this way it could be a one card engine/multicard-tutor that is more manaefficient than say survival of the fittest(in a deck that runs enough creatures to always have that pitchfodder) or tooth and nail.
played sorcery speed though it doesnt work unless you can cantrip and this might often be equal to TnN cmc plus you need a draw.
it is bad if you have a skip your drawstep in play unless you have a cantrip.
another use is if someone attempts to win the game you can find a counterspell and 3 combopieces+regrowth/whatever you need to advance your plan. if no other player can stop that you get to counter that spell and get a card you need in return.
so imo its true power is its flexibility. instant speed to split mana/ one card combo (because multicard tutor)/ protection / simulate other unique combo-cards to be a "second copy".
TLDR
flash hulk is the most mana-efficient combo pile but gifts got more uses than just being strict and only another one card engine to find a combo.
Good call, I missed that you can skip the Delver iteration by using Hangarback, which works because you've got a sac outlet. Note you're a mana shy on being able to grab Sylvan Safekeeper here because Body Double is 5 and Carrion Feeder is 1, but if you use Volrath's Shapeshifter instead, you're fine. Alternately, you can use Body Snatcher - just sac in response to the trigger.
I'm trying to come up with a good solely Green/Blue pile here (as that would allow you to fit it into an arbitrary three color pair excluding black), but I'm having a little bit of difficulty.
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2)UG pile for what card? gifts or hulk? hulk needs black or atleast needs white.
there is Starved Rusalka + Ugraveclone but how to kill?
white and black do the graveloops.
1. Oh whoops, you're absolutely correct there! Teach me not to pore over every detail.
2, UG Pile for Hulk, since that means that any deck running Flash Hulk can win off of it regardless of the other colors, and therefore any UG Deck could also run Gifts into Regrowth/Noxious/Flash/Hulk for an autowin as well.
I think I've got something completely self-contained (i.e. you need no outside mana, so no Starved Rusalka/Drowned Rusalka unless there's a way to pay for it), but it depends on how Volrath's Shapeshifter interacts with Renegade Doppelganger. If it doesn't work the way I think it does, you need at least one external blue mana to go off. Here's the loop (I freely admit that this is super janky compared to loops with black, but I don't care):
Flash in Protean Hulk and sacrifice it.
Fetch Volrath's Shapeshifter, Renegade Doppelganger, and Sidisi's Faithful. Shapeshifter is a copy of Hulk, Doppelganger triggers on the creatures entering and becomes a copy of Shapeshifter-Hulk. Sidisi's Faithful triggers its exploit, sacking the Doppelganger-Shapeshifter-Hulk and bouncing itself.
Search for Eternal Witness, Cloud of Faeries, and Birchlore Ranger. Shapeshifter is a copy of Doppelganger and triggers off of Birchlore, becoming a Birchlore. Tap both Birchlores for U. Cloud of Faeries untaps two islands, tap for UU. Eternal Witness returns Doppelganger from your graveyard to your hand (Shapeshifter becomes a Hulk). Recast Doppelganger, recast Sidisi's Faithful. Faithful triggers, sacking Shapeshifter-hulk, bouncing itself.
Search for Body Double and Quirion Ranger. Doppelganger triggers and becomes a copy of Body Double. Both Body Doubles become Protean Hulk. Activate Quirion Ranger, bouncing a forest and untapping Birchlore Ranger. Tap both rangers for U. Recast Faithful, sac one of the Hulks, bounce Faithful.
Search for Peregrine Drake (and Sylvan Safekeeper for safety), untap 5 lands. Recast Faithful, sac the other hulk, bounce itself.
Search for Deadeye Navigator. Soulbond with Peregrine Drake. Make infinite mana. Soulbond with Eternal Witness, return gifts infinite times. Put entire library into your hand. Win with whatever (Blue Sun's Zenith, perhaps?)
Edit: It occurs to me that the loop above may not work at all because Flash will go into your graveyard above Protean Hulk, so Volrath's Shapeshifter can never be Hulk. This works if you have an external sac outlet and hard cast the Hulk, but that's always been easier and doesn't fit what I'm trying to do =(
While i dod post earlier. A biddy of mine had about 50 gift packages with cards found on the top 50 cards thread. From mono blue and all combos up to 3 color.
Thats Simic(Sultai) colors for 2GU mana and 14 life it ends the game on the spot. The downside is if any of the combo pieces are drawn to hand it throws things off.
You can also have Body Double substitute for Delver (redundancy in the deck, and no life loss). Carrion Feeder can be redundancy for Seer. You also don't need three Hulk triggers; you can grab Walking Ballista along with Mikaeus. Ballista doesn't die when it runs out of counters, but that's what the sac outlet is for.
Of course, everybody knows what the correct Hulk pile is:
You can also have Body Double substitute for Delver (redundancy in the deck, and no life loss). Carrion Feeder can be redundancy for Seer. You also don't need three Hulk triggers; you can grab Walking Ballista along with Mikaeus. Ballista doesn't die when it runs out of counters, but that's what the sac outlet is for.
Of course, everybody knows what the correct Hulk pile is:
With this, you can:
- mystical tutor, get dramatic reversal. Go get your Isochron Scepter with Fabricate. Now you can have infinite mana.
- Isochron Scepter on Mystical Tutor, get Beacon of Tomorrows for infinite turns.
If you add other colours, the options are truly endless.
This isn't self contained in the slightest and relies on a bunch of stuff.
This is a variant of what wildfire tried to do, and I am not sure if it works.
Flash in Protean Hulk and sacrifice it.
Fetch Body double (copy hulk) and Sidisi's Faithful. Sac the body double and return sidisi (wont use it again though).
Fetch Volrath's Shapeshifter (copying body double and pick hulk to copy - I think this works), Renegade Doppelganger, and Phyrexian Dreadnought. Put dreadnought's abillity below the doppelgangers. Make doppleganger a copy of shapeshifter (and thus in essences a copy of hulk, because copy effects are copiable).
Sac the two hulks to dreadnought (I am unsure if this can be done - do one stop being a hulk fast enough to prevent this?).
Fetch Peregrine Drake with one trigger (5 mana). Fetch eternal witness (return hulk) and Snapcaster Mage (flashback flash). Play flash + hulk again (3 mana left). Fetch Deadeye Navigator and you have access to infinite mana and cards like in wildfires version.
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With this, you can:
- mystical tutor, get dramatic reversal. Go get your Isochron Scepter with Fabricate. Now you can have infinite mana.
- Isochron Scepter on Mystical Tutor, get Beacon of Tomorrows for infinite turns.
If you add other colours, the options are truly endless.
This isn't self contained in the slightest and relies on a bunch of stuff.
What an impressive answer! You have opened my eyes.
"Relies on stuff", like resolving spells and mana rocks.
Obviously, I was unaware of these requirements!
Maybe next time point out a better monoblue combo, instead of just pointing out the obvious.
What an impressive answer! You have opened my eyes.
"Relies on stuff", like resolving spells and mana rocks.
Obviously, I was unaware of these requirements!
Maybe next time point out a better monoblue combo, instead of just pointing out the obvious.
It would be nice to get the combo laid out as opposed to the nebulous good stuff answer. This is especially true because we are looking for broken combos (combos with easy mana investments that win the turn they are played). What the other poster is saying is they believes the combo you have laid out requires too many other cards in hand besides gifts to be viable the turn it is played, with exception of a late game combo (but late game combos are usually considered not "broken" in the sense it's already been defined in). I'm inclined to agree with him, but I'm open to seeing the math if you'd oblige us.
"Relies on stuff", like resolving spells and mana rocks.
Not self-contained. Unreliable.
You need to be able to produce at minimum2 from nonland mana sources to maintain the iteration, more if you want net benefit.
Also, how exactly are you putting Dramatic ReversalandMystical Tutor on Isochron Scepter?
This also requires an absurdly high mana cost, making it largely impractical even if you have the other cards necessary for it to work.
Recently, an opponent was playing Bruna, Light of Alabaster, and cast Three Dreams.
I mentioned the debate around Gifts Ungiven. He read the card, and adamantly stated it needed to stay banned. This is the kind of damage it would cause to casual environments, regardless of combo potential. When used 'fairly', Gifts Ungiven is an absurdly powerful card in Commander, is easy to use for combo (and is likely to cause an increase in combo, even in groups that otherwise would not do so), and gets worse if the deck happens to not care where the chosen cards actually end up like the aforementioned Bruna.
With quick enough early mana, you can get Unburial Rites and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur into graveyard and reanimate it on your turn. Four mana on turn 1~3 is not unheard of.
I think pretty much this, but, a note for people who are not experienced with Gifts Ungiven: This combo only searches two cards, and not 4. You don't have to find 4, but your opponent does have to pick two cards from the ones you choose to put in the graveyard.
You can also have Body Double substitute for Delver (redundancy in the deck, and no life loss). Carrion Feeder can be redundancy for Seer. You also don't need three Hulk triggers; you can grab Walking Ballista along with Mikaeus. Ballista doesn't die when it runs out of counters, but that's what the sac outlet is for.
Of course, everybody knows what the correct Hulk pile is:
I was having a discussion with a buddy of mine and honestly I couldnt name a specific combo that is like.... the ideal combo for Gifts Ungiven. How much mana and how many colors / cards go into said combo.
So I figured I would ask how broken can it be? What cards are involved? How much mana will it cost in all and how many colors is it? Obviously its more ideal to be less colors but I figured I would open it up and see what people have to say on the card.
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Using what cards, how much mana? Adding more colors while not the end of the world if we are talking like 3 specific colors to do this reasonably is a lot more limiting.
Again, I am not trying to defend it either way banned list wise. I am just legitimately looking for how bad the worst case scenario is.
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That seems like a good starting place.
Noxious Revival can be cast for health or at the same endstep as Gifts Ungiven so it really comes down to the 3GUU as you can pay the 1 colorless for Regrowth on your turn to recover Power Artifact off of the mana the monolith provides.
That is 2 colors and 6 mana which is quite reasonable (stating from the standpoint of breaking the card not being a good thing in meta).
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You CAN do better than Unburial Rites/Iona, though.
Gifts Ungiven for:
Regrowth
Intuition
Eternal Witness
Crystal Shard
Groups:
Regrowth / Intuition in yard, Crystal Witness in hand... keep on Gifting.
Regrowth/Witness in yard, Intuition/Shard in hand... Intuition for Reclaim, Recollect, and Den Protector, commence Crystal Witnessing.
Further permutations all fundamentally similar.
Get Time Warp.
A valid ban. Incidental regrowths all pretty darn good, all good cards.
Tutor: Archeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Fabricate, Mystical Tutor
No matter what, you end up with Fabricate and Mystical Tutor.
With this, you can:
- mystical tutor, get dramatic reversal. Go get your Isochron Scepter with Fabricate. Now you can have infinite mana.
- Isochron Scepter on Mystical Tutor, get Beacon of Tomorrows for infinite turns.
If you add other colours, the options are truly endless.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
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That’s pretty much the crux of it. Going from 3 cards on Intuition to 4 cards on Gifts Ungiven guarantees any two card combo, where Intuition relies on some kind of flashback (Mystic Retrieval, Unburial Rites etc) and/or multiple castings of Intuition.
And also with Gifts, you can put together 3-carders like Lark-Guide-Blasting Station with a single recursion like E-wit.
The Power Artifact combos seem like the best to me right now available to Mono-U, with other colors offering more resilience to removal with something along the lines of Boonweaver or Protean Hulk .
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
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O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
Regrowth, Noxious Revival, Flash, Protean Hulk
Flash kills it the first time. With the Protean Hulk death get Phyrexian Delver + Viscera Seer.
Phyrexian Delver rezes Protean Hulk whom you sac and get Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Sacrifice Phyrexian Delver who Undies and rezes Protean Hulk a second time. Sac the Hulk and get Triskelion at which point you have infinite dmg.
Thats
Simic(Sultai) colors for 2GU mana and 14 life it ends the game on the spot. The downside is if any of the combo pieces are drawn to hand it throws things off.Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
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Nah, that's sultai colors but still one of the cheaper options.
Sorry thats what I meant >_<
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StaffGood call, I missed that you can skip the Delver iteration by using Hangarback, which works because you've got a sac outlet. Note you're a mana shy on being able to grab Sylvan Safekeeper here because Body Double is 5 and Carrion Feeder is 1, but if you use Volrath's Shapeshifter instead, you're fine. Alternately, you can use Body Snatcher - just sac in response to the trigger.
I'm trying to come up with a good solely Green/Blue pile here (as that would allow you to fit it into an arbitrary three color pair excluding black), but I'm having a little bit of difficulty.
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Staff1. Oh whoops, you're absolutely correct there! Teach me not to pore over every detail.
2, UG Pile for Hulk, since that means that any deck running Flash Hulk can win off of it regardless of the other colors, and therefore any UG Deck could also run Gifts into Regrowth/Noxious/Flash/Hulk for an autowin as well.
I think I've got something completely self-contained (i.e. you need no outside mana, so no Starved Rusalka/Drowned Rusalka unless there's a way to pay for it), but it depends on how Volrath's Shapeshifter interacts with Renegade Doppelganger. If it doesn't work the way I think it does, you need at least one external blue mana to go off. Here's the loop (I freely admit that this is super janky compared to loops with black, but I don't care):
Flash in Protean Hulk and sacrifice it.
Fetch Volrath's Shapeshifter, Renegade Doppelganger, and Sidisi's Faithful. Shapeshifter is a copy of Hulk, Doppelganger triggers on the creatures entering and becomes a copy of Shapeshifter-Hulk. Sidisi's Faithful triggers its exploit, sacking the Doppelganger-Shapeshifter-Hulk and bouncing itself.
Search for Eternal Witness, Cloud of Faeries, and Birchlore Ranger. Shapeshifter is a copy of Doppelganger and triggers off of Birchlore, becoming a Birchlore. Tap both Birchlores for U. Cloud of Faeries untaps two islands, tap for UU. Eternal Witness returns Doppelganger from your graveyard to your hand (Shapeshifter becomes a Hulk). Recast Doppelganger, recast Sidisi's Faithful. Faithful triggers, sacking Shapeshifter-hulk, bouncing itself.
Search for Body Double and Quirion Ranger. Doppelganger triggers and becomes a copy of Body Double. Both Body Doubles become Protean Hulk. Activate Quirion Ranger, bouncing a forest and untapping Birchlore Ranger. Tap both rangers for U. Recast Faithful, sac one of the Hulks, bounce Faithful.
Search for Peregrine Drake (and Sylvan Safekeeper for safety), untap 5 lands. Recast Faithful, sac the other hulk, bounce itself.
Search for Deadeye Navigator. Soulbond with Peregrine Drake. Make infinite mana. Soulbond with Eternal Witness, return gifts infinite times. Put entire library into your hand. Win with whatever (Blue Sun's Zenith, perhaps?)
Edit: It occurs to me that the loop above may not work at all because Flash will go into your graveyard above Protean Hulk, so Volrath's Shapeshifter can never be Hulk. This works if you have an external sac outlet and hard cast the Hulk, but that's always been easier and doesn't fit what I'm trying to do =(
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Of course, everybody knows what the correct Hulk pile is:
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StaffHow do you get haste in this oh-so-glorious pile?
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This isn't self contained in the slightest and relies on a bunch of stuff.
Flash in Protean Hulk and sacrifice it.
Fetch Body double (copy hulk) and Sidisi's Faithful. Sac the body double and return sidisi (wont use it again though).
Fetch Volrath's Shapeshifter (copying body double and pick hulk to copy - I think this works), Renegade Doppelganger, and Phyrexian Dreadnought. Put dreadnought's abillity below the doppelgangers. Make doppleganger a copy of shapeshifter (and thus in essences a copy of hulk, because copy effects are copiable).
Sac the two hulks to dreadnought (I am unsure if this can be done - do one stop being a hulk fast enough to prevent this?).
Fetch Peregrine Drake with one trigger (5 mana). Fetch eternal witness (return hulk) and Snapcaster Mage (flashback flash). Play flash + hulk again (3 mana left). Fetch Deadeye Navigator and you have access to infinite mana and cards like in wildfires version.
What an impressive answer! You have opened my eyes.
"Relies on stuff", like resolving spells and mana rocks.
Obviously, I was unaware of these requirements!
Maybe next time point out a better monoblue combo, instead of just pointing out the obvious.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
It would be nice to get the combo laid out as opposed to the nebulous good stuff answer. This is especially true because we are looking for broken combos (combos with easy mana investments that win the turn they are played). What the other poster is saying is they believes the combo you have laid out requires too many other cards in hand besides gifts to be viable the turn it is played, with exception of a late game combo (but late game combos are usually considered not "broken" in the sense it's already been defined in). I'm inclined to agree with him, but I'm open to seeing the math if you'd oblige us.
What I have is:
Must open with: Gifts Ungiven and either Sol Ring, Mana Vault, or Mana Crypt (with three options I'll give it a chance but two cards in the opener in not ideal)
Turn 1: Land, Sol ring, pass
Turn 2: Land, pass (Gifts Ungiven at Opponent 3's end step for Fabricate, Mystical Tutor, Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall) Assume your target gives you the wall and wizard
Turn 3: Land, Archaeomancer (returning Fabricate) pass
Turn 4: Land Fabricate (for Isochron Scepter), pass
Turn 5: (no fifth land drop) Mnemonic wall (for Mystical tutor), pass
Turn 6: Isochron Scepter (imprinting mystical tutor) [combo time]
Not self-contained. Unreliable.
You need to be able to produce at minimum 2 from nonland mana sources to maintain the iteration, more if you want net benefit.
Also, how exactly are you putting Dramatic Reversal and Mystical Tutor on Isochron Scepter?
This also requires an absurdly high mana cost, making it largely impractical even if you have the other cards necessary for it to work.
Recently, an opponent was playing Bruna, Light of Alabaster, and cast Three Dreams.
I mentioned the debate around Gifts Ungiven. He read the card, and adamantly stated it needed to stay banned.
This is the kind of damage it would cause to casual environments, regardless of combo potential. When used 'fairly', Gifts Ungiven is an absurdly powerful card in Commander, is easy to use for combo (and is likely to cause an increase in combo, even in groups that otherwise would not do so), and gets worse if the deck happens to not care where the chosen cards actually end up like the aforementioned Bruna.
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I think pretty much this, but, a note for people who are not experienced with Gifts Ungiven: This combo only searches two cards, and not 4. You don't have to find 4, but your opponent does have to pick two cards from the ones you choose to put in the graveyard.
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