modern newb: picked 4c gifts..
I just decided to get into modern and decided on a 4c gifts control deck. I know it is a very hard deck to pilot...i normally play control decks with lots of one of's. \
made a few changes, caryatids seem better than birds so i swapped them out.
what about the matchups? i seem to lose everything, but im mainly attributing that to my lack of experience in the format.
How do you guys feel about extirpate as a SB card?
It straight up won me the game when I cast it against scapeshift (targeting valakut) and Jeskai combo (targeting acendancy). It's narrow but back breaking and can be gifted for using it, snaps and rites and it cant be countered in any way. I have only played with it a couple times so my experience is pretty biased.
You really just need to look at your local meta for sb advise, you can do anything you want in gifts--I usually have anti-burn, anti-delver, and some pod hate in my board and it does the trick.
@Specter404, I like extirpate, I also like surgical extraction and am running 2 side for exactly the matchups you're talking about. The best is drawing them game 2 in your opener, t1 seizing, and just paying 2 more like putting yourself to 13 knowing basically you just won the game.
Yes, the SB is still a mess. Figuring that out still. Some notes in no particular order:
The colors don't compete for turns anymore. I want black by turn 1, green by turn 2, blue by turn 3 (snapcaster, or turn 4 for gifts), and a single white by turn 4. I don't really miss white here at all. Decays take over the role of path quite well, wraths requiring WW are too color intensive (in my opinion), and so there's not much I want for white after that.
Goyfs are awesome. In a deck like this (lots of card types, gifts ungiven, heavy control), he often gets very big very quickly. Since I already want to focus on green for decay, goyf makes even more sense to match up the colors. He's the best wall and beater at the same time. In a deck like this that tends to be threat light, he really helps increase that threat density and is a must-answer. Additionally, running goyf makes unburial rites playable when you naturally draw it. I've definitely won games off reanimated goyfs.
The heavy black commitment makes Liliana an easier card to run. She's immensely powerful after using your first two turns for interaction, and is another must answer spell. I love that she helps us discard some of the sometimes awful draws we get in order to support gifts. I also love that she's great against aggro, combo, or control--It's always hard to find cards which are good against basically the whole field. Many lists don't find room for her, but in black I think she's definitely one of the best things to be doing.
I don't have many 1-ofs. I know people go all out to support gifts, but I'm just not sure it's needed. I don't really care for the wrath gifts pile, because when this would be a good pile Unburial for Elesh Norn is generally just better. Almost always I'm going for unburial or a loam pile; using gifts for cute 1-ofs usually isn't factoring into that strategy. I do split a little bit on removal though, because sometimes I do need to gifts for removal so getting abrupt decay + snapcaster + EE + other is needed.
Dimir Charm, how do you guys feel about it? I've been very impressed with the card. It's great against delver by being able to hit their creatures in most circumstances and then also going after treasure cruise. Plus, it's great against combo too. Hits Scapeshift, Deceiver Exarch, etc. It's a very flexible card and has been quite good for me which is why I've been running 1 in the main and extra in the board.
What do you think of merchant scroll? It's something I've been testing out as a way to get extra gifts, or to just be extra removal if needed. It's kind of slow and telegraphs a lot, so I'll probably be ditching it, but I haven't gotten to actually play with it enough to say yet.
Not sold on the Batterskull quite yet. Basically I just want at least one 1-con which is recurrable someway with a loam pile. There's Syphon Life (which is nice vs. burn, but a horrible draw), Batterskull with Ruins (which is a bit slow to get online in a gifts pile, especially if they have any removal, but batterskull is very respectable on its own), or even just Creeping Tar Pit (which frankly is probably enough if you setup a loam pile to lock out the game).
On other lists:
The ramp spells look somewhat weak to me. If you load your deck with enough spells worth ramping to (ramp for gifts + a couple other spells is not worth it IMO), then your deck becomes pretty clunky. I'd rather be using my early mana to cast interaction on every turn.
Is Lingering Souls that good? It seems like a pretty anemic win condition. In that light, it's an okay stall tactic but I just don't see lingering souls closing out as many games as something like Tarmogoyf. Putting it in a gifts pile is cute, but as I mentioned in general most of the time my piles are unburial rites or loam or immediate answer. Picking up a couple 1/1s is not really what I want to be doing. Lingering Souls is far better suited for more aggressive decks, where the flashback and flying is more relevant to keep pressure on the opponent.
A second reanimation target past Elesh Norn, is it needed? (In the main.) I'm just not sure it is. I think loam piles cover quite well the matchups where Elesh Norn is not the best option. Something like Seige Rhino might be worthwhile I suppose, since some instant life gain might be worthwhile. I was actually testing out Syphon Life over Batterskull in the main for awhile, so if I needed lifegain right away I was able to get that. It's hard to build decks to prepare for everything.
I like the approach to a BUG list with a tiny splash for white, but I also think the BUGW lists with Birds/Knight of the Reliquary (and Siege Rhino, apparently) is strong. I'm not sure that I'd bother with a Siege Rhino in the BUG deck since you have just 9 white sources, and if the opponent knows that, you could be cut off from white until you find a Loam or Gifts. Generally, I think 1-2 Rhinos would be a good inclusion for lists with acceleration.
Liliana of the Veil is good, but I think some of the power is lost without the possibility of turn 2 Liliana. Turn 2 Liliana will sometimes simply win the game against Uxx decks, but I've found Liliana to be lacklustre against Pod, Affinity, and Delver, and this is even more true on turn 3.
Disfigure is really efficient against any sort of aggressive matchup, but it's utterly dead against Scapeshift and Storm. Since these are (I think) our two worst matchups, I don't think it's a good idea to run 4 main, unless it's a meta call for you. Maybe 1-2 main, and the rest in the board? What we really want here is Bolt, of course
Without Path to Exile or Lingering Souls, did you have any trouble with Kitchen Finks and random bigger creatures (Siege Rhino)? I'd strongly suggest 1 Souls main, for Gifts value, and possibly more in the board. It's good at stalling and it's our only way to match token elements (Young Pyromancer, opponent's Souls) outside of Engineered Explosives.
I really liked Thragtusk over the Batterskull, but I think both are fine choices.
I would not bother with Mouth of Ronom, I think 2 colourless lands are the max we can support. It also seems to have similar function to Engineered Explosives, which you already have. If you had more white, you could consider Vault of the Archangel over the Academy Ruins plan, to help against Burn.
I don't like Merchant Scroll at all, at least for the list you posted. There should be enough goodstuff to win games without Gifts, and the only removal you can find with it is the narrow Dimir Charm. Post-board you can find counters, but you could also just run more counters. (Don't forget you can only Scroll for blue instants).
Dimir Charm seems okay. Its removal mode is quite bad, and/but your list has PLENTY of removal already. The counter mode is much worse than Negate, not sure if the flexibility makes it worthwhile. I think the filter mode is pretty awful in our deck, and it fuels delve.
How about moving a Sultai Charm to the main, and maybe a Maelstrom Pulse as well for Pod? You could probably remove 1 Snapcaster.
Syphon Life is quite cool, how has it worked out for you? I guess you would only bring it in vs. Burn though, where it would probably be too slow to Gifts pile it out.
Have you thought about/tested 1 or more Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time? Since you're running pretty straight BUG, I would run 1-2 Digs.
Sadly, I haven't been able to play for several weeks, so I have nothing of my own to report. I think I'm theoretically up to date with the meta, but haven't played much against Treasure Cruise.
I like the approach to a BUG list with a tiny splash for white, but I also think the BUGW lists with Birds/Knight of the Reliquary (and Siege Rhino, apparently) is strong. I'm not sure that I'd bother with a Siege Rhino in the BUG deck since you have just 9 white sources, and if the opponent knows that, you could be cut off from white until you find a Loam or Gifts. Generally, I think 1-2 Rhinos would be a good inclusion for lists with acceleration.
I think you want to build a deck which plays around burn spells, because that is a a very sure way to gain advantage in the current modern format (in my opinion). Birds plays right into enemy removal, and I don't think the ramp is good enough--There's just no way to use birds except for mana. With that being the case, I'd rather just run lands instead. I'm not sure you can support gifts + rhinos or other high CC spells. I think the deck really wants to curve out at gifts + maybe a couple other spells. I'm not sure Kotr + Rhinos are what a gifts deck wants, but maybe....
Liliana of the Veil is good, but I think some of the power is lost without the possibility of turn 2 Liliana. Turn 2 Liliana will sometimes simply win the game against Uxx decks, but I've found Liliana to be lacklustre against Pod, Affinity, and Delver, and this is even more true on turn 3.
That could be said of almost any 3cc+ drop--most cards tend to be better if they come down sooner. As I said before, the main reason I like Liliana is that she's good against every type of deck. I love to see her against Scapeshift, against Affinity, against anything really. Some decks can handle her better than others, but at the end of the day every deck must answer her. With a deck like this that loads up on removal I think it's important to have a lot of must-answer cards, and Liliana is one of those (in my opinion). She becomes worse the more color committment you have, but there's a reason that the Junk decks run 4 of her without any ramp.
Disfigure is really efficient against any sort of aggressive matchup, but it's utterly dead against Scapeshift and Storm. Since these are (I think) our two worst matchups, I don't think it's a good idea to run 4 main, unless it's a meta call for you. Maybe 1-2 main, and the rest in the board? What we really want here is Bolt, of course
Your statement here seems to be slightly contradicting. You lament how dead disfigure is against combo, but then wish you had bolt--as if bolt really made that much of a difference in a deck with such a slow clock. Sure, I imagine in a couple games here and there bolt is going to get there against combo, but in general I don't think that's the case when you're running 4 bolts and a couple creatures. Decks like these don't have many ways to deal damage quickly.
With delver being one of the most popular decks, I think disfigure is highly important against them right now. 4 is perhaps a bit heavy, but there aren't a lot of cards which are generally good against creatures and combo. Dimir charm is one though, so perhaps I could look to increasing the number of these. In general though I always like to make sure I have enough efficient answers; unfortunately that means going heavier into white for path. Both are not great vs. combo though.
Without Path to Exile or Lingering Souls, did you have any trouble with Kitchen Finks and random bigger creatures (Siege Rhino)? I'd strongly suggest 1 Souls main, for Gifts value, and possibly more in the board. It's good at stalling and it's our only way to match token elements (Young Pyromancer, opponent's Souls) outside of Engineered Explosives.
Goyf is how I like to handle the ground. He does a great job of matching thinks like finks, or even bigger creatures like rhino (given our spread of card types, goyf is often a 4/5 or 5/6 or bigger for me).
I'm not denying that Lingering Souls can be useful, but is it useful enough? Just because you can run it to get value with gifts doesn't mean you have to. I find the times when I need to go for these piles are not that many. In general I don't want to see a lingering souls in my hand unless I'm discarding it to Liliana. I just have never liked the card in control decks, but again perhaps I am bias.
I really liked Thragtusk over the Batterskull, but I think both are fine choices.
Thragtusk is pretty great. I like that skull can be setup to stabilize vs. burn and recurred in the long game for a gifts pile, but the lifegain certainly comes down way slower. I'll have to see if I want to unburial for Thragtusk very often or not. I've been using Syphon Life main actually for awhile, so that was my go to if I needed immediate lifegain. Without that Thragtusk may become more necessary.
I would not bother with Mouth of Ronom, I think 2 colourless lands are the max we can support. It also seems to have similar function to Engineered Explosives, which you already have. If you had more white, you could consider Vault of the Archangel over the Academy Ruins plan, to help against Burn.
Vault is only worthwhile if you have Knight, and even then...I'm not so sold on it. I haven't played with it though, but we'd have to see. It just seems pretty narrow, but Knight definitely does change the deck construction. I haven't had much issue with coloration in my list--I think the color requirements in general are much less than most gifts lists. Mouth was in my original list, but I've since added more changed like EE + Ruins, so it's become a bit less useful. I will think about what I would replace with it.
I don't like Merchant Scroll at all, at least for the list you posted. There should be enough goodstuff to win games without Gifts, and the only removal you can find with it is the narrow Dimir Charm. Post-board you can find counters, but you could also just run more counters. (Don't forget you can only Scroll for blue instants).
I would be more concerned with slowness and telegraphing rather than the targets being limited. It was an idea, but it hasn't come up that much since I never really draw it anyway. I do like that it gives you more ways to get gifts against Pod, since that's one of the matchups where they have few answers and need to stop it or pretty much lose. If they don't have a pod right away, then they could be in a dire situation. But it can also pickup Sultai Charm, so it gives you more opportunities to handle a resolved Pod as well.
Dimir Charm seems okay. Its removal mode is quite bad, and/but your list has PLENTY of removal already. The counter mode is much worse than Negate, not sure if the flexibility makes it worthwhile. I think the filter mode is pretty awful in our deck, and it fuels delve.
The issue for me is finding cards that bridge the gap of usefulness against combo and against creatures. I think that charm is very respectable here. The removal is not relevant against every deck, but there are plenty of decks which have targets for it. I definitely have a lot of removal though, so just boarding into straight counterspells instead is probably fine.
How about moving a Sultai Charm to the main, and maybe a Maelstrom Pulse as well for Pod? You could probably remove 1 Snapcaster.
That's very reasonable. I haven't played against Pod enough to know if it's a big issue, so I will definitely think about this. I generally hate 3cc removal though if that's all it does.
Syphon Life is quite cool, how has it worked out for you? I guess you would only bring it in vs. Burn though, where it would probably be too slow to Gifts pile it out.
Syphon Life actually gets online a lot faster than you'd expect. After you gifts the next turn you can cast loam + syphon life, and then the next turn you can setup double syphon life. (With the ability to just keep using it as needed.) That's a +4/-4 life swing each turn, and while it absorbs a lot of mana, it's quite powerful. I don't think it's too slow. Originally it was my main recursion way to win with a loam pile, but I've been testing out other ways to close out games with a loam pile (Batterskull and Tar Pit). Not sure what I like the best yet. There are a lot of options against burn though, so this might just not be needed, but the life point swing does give you a lot of stability.
Chalice is such a strange card; I never know how to really evaluate it. What are you wanting to bring Chalice in against? It seems good against delver, burn, storm, but I feel like I might need to focus on other matchups (pod, scapeshift, affinity) instead.
Have you thought about/tested 1 or more Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time? Since you're running pretty straight BUG, I would run 1-2 Digs.
I haven't really. I think the deck already runs a fair number of later game cards, and because of gifts some straight dead draws, so I thought just leaving those be and focusing on improving the early game was more the way to go. I think gifts is enough ways to generate advantage over the long game and you can get into some dangerous situations if you get really awkward hands where you draw into a lot of things you can't play.
As a general note, I think Flashfreeze looks really good right now. It helps out immensely against burn, pod, and scapeshift (as well as plenty of other decks). It's definitely been very good for me.
The plan for me against combo decks is always to use gifts to lock up the game (crime + tec edge), paired with some discard to get there. Then, sideboarding out removal into more counterpsells. Generally I try to aim for creature decks with my maindeck and then board into more combo hate postboard, since I expect to play against creature decks more often.
Hi! I played 4c Gifts long ago, and have slowly been migrating back - right now I'm on a non-Gifts BUG control list, but am thinking about retooling it to be Gifts-based. A few thoughts:
Chalice is also solid against Affinity (especially after you lose game one and end up on the play!). Delver and Burn hate it, like you said, and in general it does an excellent job of slowing down the game, which tends to favor us.
I am a big fan of running Knight and some nice utility lands, but it would require a heavier commitment to white that may be hard to support.
4 Disfigure definitely seems like too many in a world where it can easily be dead. Dimir Charm is an interesting suggestion; personally I like Golgari Charm, as it can both sweep away Pyromancer and his friends against Delver and kill an Ascension against Storm.
Syphon Life is a cool idea and something I would like to try out.
Definitely some things I'll be thinking about here!
in your deck i would prefer Caryatide over Birds, because Birds are good if you can play second turns like "Liliana" or "discard + Tarmo". Knights T2 are not the best and Witness T2 to take a fetch? i don't think that's good enough to risck loosing the Bird on a bolt or something else... One Engineering Explo is enought, maybe a Torpor Orb in the side?
So, I don't know when the last time OP was updated was, but last I checked Deathrite shaman was banned in Modern. I'm looking to get into this deck. Should I just replace it with Birds?
I decided to quit my 4C Gifts deck about a month ago and convert it to The Rock because I already had many of the cards and I feel it's just a much stronger deck to play.
Why am I telling you this? I thought I would do a kind of "last stand" tournament last Sunday before definitely switching because I still like the deck. Turned out, I went 5-0 and first place in a close to 30 people local tournament which is usually pretty competitive, not too bad so here's my (very short) report:
Bogles, 2-1:
* I Keep a decent hand with Lili and Goyf but he has a second creature and a ***** ton of auras and I die horribly while drawing targeted removals.
* Turn 1 discard followed by Iona on white and it was pretty much game over.
* Absolutely don't remember that one.
Splinter Twin, 2-0:
* First game is weird, I keep what I think is a decent hand with Goyf and removal but Goyf gets killed and I proceed to draw lands for 4 or 5 turns straight. On his side, he has the combo but I handle his only creature. He then spend the next 5 turns Thought Scouring and Digging in search of a creature to combo with but can't seem to find it. Turn 7, I have literally nothing else to do than hardcasting Elesh that resolves and I just win the game from here. Pretty lucky win I must admit.
* Turn 2 Torpor Orb + Goyf beatdown + removal = easy win.
Burn, 2-1:
* Game 1 is a walk over, no idea what he's on, start shocking myself and I'm dead a few turns later.
* Iona on red before he has enough damage to kill me.
* Intense game: Goyf does some serious work and at some point, I'm at 1 life and he's 2 turns from death. He doesn't draw the last point of damage and I win that one. Funny thing is, I had a fetch for half the game that I had completely forgotten to crack while I was running on low mana for the whole game. Sometimes, mistakes win you games
Pod, 2-1:
* I die.
* We both mulligan to 5 and my top decks are better. I think a resolved Gifts into Elesh sealed the deal.
* Pretty even and grindy game. He doesn't draw pod but has enough stuff and we trade blows evenly. We're at turn 3 of additional turns and he has adopted a pretty defensive stance to go for the draw when I topdeck Elesh followed by Abrupt Decay to close it at the very last moment. He had no chance of winning but I avoid a draw pretty luckily here.
UR Control, 2-0:
* Don't remember exactly the beginning but I managed to resolve Elesh with Lingering Souls and it's enough. I think he kept a not so good hand also.
* He has a very good hand but I keep one with 4 discards (1 Thoughseize, 2 IoK and 1 duress) and he never comes back while I topdeck decently.
My main issue with the list is that it's too slow and also too reliant on Gifts to perform. It feels unstable I would say. When you draw decently, it performs well but I've had a few too many "Oops, I lost" for my liking... It's still fun to play and quite uncommon so your opponent wondering what the **** you're trying to do is always funny. MVP of the list is definitely Goyf though, he does *so* much work here, it's crazy, if you have it, trust me, it's auto include.
Who knows, maybe I'll pick the deck some time in the future when the environment is not too competitive
I wrote up this tournament report of my experience this Sunday. I like my current build as it is listed there, with the exception of the need for timely reinforcements and such in the side to deal with the aggressive matchups. I also get curious sometimes about running sun droplet in the side.
I second that. To beat burn, I feel like leylines or overcommitting to beating the matchup is a must. I feel favored against infect, BGX, and find pod 50/50, slightly unfavored against hatebears and storm, and a dog to tron--All of them are tough however, and heavily dependent on you not drawing poorly or you'll totally blow them all.
awesome to see you ran my list and did well with it. Although I have to admit, that I would not recommend this list for the current metagame. As you said, it is very clunky and was built for a much slower meta before Cruise/Swiftspear/Siege Rhino.
Yeah, I shamelessly stole your list
Really liked it to be honest. It clearly has a control feel to it, which was what I was looking for at the time, while making good use of the Tarmogoyf.
I mean, the list that was posted after mine (congrats to you by the way!) is extremely close I feel so it's probably one of the best chance this deck has to succeed, which I hope it does, even if I'm probably switching gears for a while
I'm loving the Geists. I picked them up as sideboard tech for Jeskai Ascendancy Combo, and threw them in Gifts until that deck was fully built, but now I can't let Gifts part with them. Geist was super key against Tron, and I got to bring them in 3 other times against storm, and it would have won me a storm game as well if I didn't goof it. It also does work against scapeshift, and can catch random other people by surprise who don't keep in damage board wipes against me if they don't see lingering souls. They are a permanent slot in my board. Also, I find hatebears usually favorable, but I don't know if the drown in sorrows are common sideboard cards for you guys. I also feel 60/40 against pod, but I've only played rhino pod about 3 times, including the IQ.
EDIT for immortalechoes:
I don't ever really feel the need to make people discard cards over cmc 3. It is a nice benefit against control decks I suppose to take scapeshifts, cryptics, and delve spells, but the punishment of losing 2 life against aggressive decks isn't good enough for me. I used to run a 2/1 split, but I always dreaded taking damage from my lands and thoughtseize on turn 1 and it doesn't even feel like you're slowing down your aggro opponent. Also, IoK is never dead against the decks that go bigger. Everyone has an early game setup, cheap removal, or counters that are useful to take.
2 snaps: seems good. I just feel too jammed in and don't know what to cut
Sultai charm: seems good. I haven't tested that at all and it seems interesting.
Siege Rhino: This card is really good in almost every matchup. It is a decent clock, great blocker, lifegain, and hard for people to kill, especially UR decks. I think it is as good for us as for anyone else who could run it, like junk or pod, and we should adapt it as well. I used to have a thragtusk and a flex engineered explosives in those slots.
Darkblast: I just started including it and I haven't gotten to cast it all that often. I haven't had to face all that much delver so I don't need it to be main. Just a meta thing, I know the card is nuts good.
Sideboard: Never tried chalice but I can understand that it could really fix some of the fast matchups. Do you cut hand hate for them? Also idk how I feel about firewalkers since I generally don't care about double white and don't wanna miss other colors for it. I'm hoping timely reinforcements does a good enough job.
I've been running 2-3 rhinos to complement my goyf gifts built--its replaced thragtusk easily after a few weeks of testing. The mana comes nearly every time, I've never not casted it. 100/100.
I recently have been playing a straight junk deck (I realized I owned it incidentally), but with 3 lilianas instead of 4. Its been pretty interesting compared to playing junk gifts and has been pretty eye-opening and educational as far as learning about how best to pilot 4c. I do think the optimal version of gifts right now is junk with a single blue shock and basic, and thats about it, maybe some spell pierces in the board.
I like the approach to a BUG list with a tiny splash for white, but I also think the BUGW lists with Birds/Knight of the Reliquary (and Siege Rhino, apparently) is strong. I'm not sure that I'd bother with a Siege Rhino in the BUG deck since you have just 9 white sources, and if the opponent knows that, you could be cut off from white until you find a Loam or Gifts. Generally, I think 1-2 Rhinos would be a good inclusion for lists with acceleration.
I think you want to build a deck which plays around burn spells, because that is a a very sure way to gain advantage in the current modern format (in my opinion). Birds plays right into enemy removal, and I don't think the ramp is good enough--There's just no way to use birds except for mana. With that being the case, I'd rather just run lands instead. I'm not sure you can support gifts + rhinos or other high CC spells. I think the deck really wants to curve out at gifts + maybe a couple other spells. I'm not sure Kotr + Rhinos are what a gifts deck wants, but maybe....
Liliana of the Veil is good, but I think some of the power is lost without the possibility of turn 2 Liliana. Turn 2 Liliana will sometimes simply win the game against Uxx decks, but I've found Liliana to be lacklustre against Pod, Affinity, and Delver, and this is even more true on turn 3.
That could be said of almost any 3cc+ drop--most cards tend to be better if they come down sooner. As I said before, the main reason I like Liliana is that she's good against every type of deck. I love to see her against Scapeshift, against Affinity, against anything really. Some decks can handle her better than others, but at the end of the day every deck must answer her. With a deck like this that loads up on removal I think it's important to have a lot of must-answer cards, and Liliana is one of those (in my opinion). She becomes worse the more color committment you have, but there's a reason that the Junk decks run 4 of her without any ramp.
Disfigure is really efficient against any sort of aggressive matchup, but it's utterly dead against Scapeshift and Storm. Since these are (I think) our two worst matchups, I don't think it's a good idea to run 4 main, unless it's a meta call for you. Maybe 1-2 main, and the rest in the board? What we really want here is Bolt, of course
Your statement here seems to be slightly contradicting. You lament how dead disfigure is against combo, but then wish you had bolt--as if bolt really made that much of a difference in a deck with such a slow clock. Sure, I imagine in a couple games here and there bolt is going to get there against combo, but in general I don't think that's the case when you're running 4 bolts and a couple creatures. Decks like these don't have many ways to deal damage quickly.
With delver being one of the most popular decks, I think disfigure is highly important against them right now. 4 is perhaps a bit heavy, but there aren't a lot of cards which are generally good against creatures and combo. Dimir charm is one though, so perhaps I could look to increasing the number of these. In general though I always like to make sure I have enough efficient answers; unfortunately that means going heavier into white for path. Both are not great vs. combo though.
Without Path to Exile or Lingering Souls, did you have any trouble with Kitchen Finks and random bigger creatures (Siege Rhino)? I'd strongly suggest 1 Souls main, for Gifts value, and possibly more in the board. It's good at stalling and it's our only way to match token elements (Young Pyromancer, opponent's Souls) outside of Engineered Explosives.
Goyf is how I like to handle the ground. He does a great job of matching thinks like finks, or even bigger creatures like rhino (given our spread of card types, goyf is often a 4/5 or 5/6 or bigger for me).
I'm not denying that Lingering Souls can be useful, but is it useful enough? Just because you can run it to get value with gifts doesn't mean you have to. I find the times when I need to go for these piles are not that many. In general I don't want to see a lingering souls in my hand unless I'm discarding it to Liliana. I just have never liked the card in control decks, but again perhaps I am bias.
I really liked Thragtusk over the Batterskull, but I think both are fine choices.
Thragtusk is pretty great. I like that skull can be setup to stabilize vs. burn and recurred in the long game for a gifts pile, but the lifegain certainly comes down way slower. I'll have to see if I want to unburial for Thragtusk very often or not. I've been using Syphon Life main actually for awhile, so that was my go to if I needed immediate lifegain. Without that Thragtusk may become more necessary.
I would not bother with Mouth of Ronom, I think 2 colourless lands are the max we can support. It also seems to have similar function to Engineered Explosives, which you already have. If you had more white, you could consider Vault of the Archangel over the Academy Ruins plan, to help against Burn.
Vault is only worthwhile if you have Knight, and even then...I'm not so sold on it. I haven't played with it though, but we'd have to see. It just seems pretty narrow, but Knight definitely does change the deck construction. I haven't had much issue with coloration in my list--I think the color requirements in general are much less than most gifts lists. Mouth was in my original list, but I've since added more changed like EE + Ruins, so it's become a bit less useful. I will think about what I would replace with it.
I don't like Merchant Scroll at all, at least for the list you posted. There should be enough goodstuff to win games without Gifts, and the only removal you can find with it is the narrow Dimir Charm. Post-board you can find counters, but you could also just run more counters. (Don't forget you can only Scroll for blue instants).
I would be more concerned with slowness and telegraphing rather than the targets being limited. It was an idea, but it hasn't come up that much since I never really draw it anyway. I do like that it gives you more ways to get gifts against Pod, since that's one of the matchups where they have few answers and need to stop it or pretty much lose. If they don't have a pod right away, then they could be in a dire situation. But it can also pickup Sultai Charm, so it gives you more opportunities to handle a resolved Pod as well.
Dimir Charm seems okay. Its removal mode is quite bad, and/but your list has PLENTY of removal already. The counter mode is much worse than Negate, not sure if the flexibility makes it worthwhile. I think the filter mode is pretty awful in our deck, and it fuels delve.
The issue for me is finding cards that bridge the gap of usefulness against combo and against creatures. I think that charm is very respectable here. The removal is not relevant against every deck, but there are plenty of decks which have targets for it. I definitely have a lot of removal though, so just boarding into straight counterspells instead is probably fine.
How about moving a Sultai Charm to the main, and maybe a Maelstrom Pulse as well for Pod? You could probably remove 1 Snapcaster.
That's very reasonable. I haven't played against Pod enough to know if it's a big issue, so I will definitely think about this. I generally hate 3cc removal though if that's all it does.
Syphon Life is quite cool, how has it worked out for you? I guess you would only bring it in vs. Burn though, where it would probably be too slow to Gifts pile it out.
Syphon Life actually gets online a lot faster than you'd expect. After you gifts the next turn you can cast loam + syphon life, and then the next turn you can setup double syphon life. (With the ability to just keep using it as needed.) That's a +4/-4 life swing each turn, and while it absorbs a lot of mana, it's quite powerful. I don't think it's too slow. Originally it was my main recursion way to win with a loam pile, but I've been testing out other ways to close out games with a loam pile (Batterskull and Tar Pit). Not sure what I like the best yet. There are a lot of options against burn though, so this might just not be needed, but the life point swing does give you a lot of stability.
Chalice is such a strange card; I never know how to really evaluate it. What are you wanting to bring Chalice in against? It seems good against delver, burn, storm, but I feel like I might need to focus on other matchups (pod, scapeshift, affinity) instead.
Have you thought about/tested 1 or more Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time? Since you're running pretty straight BUG, I would run 1-2 Digs.
I haven't really. I think the deck already runs a fair number of later game cards, and because of gifts some straight dead draws, so I thought just leaving those be and focusing on improving the early game was more the way to go. I think gifts is enough ways to generate advantage over the long game and you can get into some dangerous situations if you get really awkward hands where you draw into a lot of things you can't play.
As a general note, I think Flashfreeze looks really good right now. It helps out immensely against burn, pod, and scapeshift (as well as plenty of other decks). It's definitely been very good for me.
The plan for me against combo decks is always to use gifts to lock up the game (crime + tec edge), paired with some discard to get there. Then, sideboarding out removal into more counterpsells. Generally I try to aim for creature decks with my maindeck and then board into more combo hate postboard, since I expect to play against creature decks more often.
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Some great responses to my comments, thank you.
What I meant about the Liliana of the Veil on T2 vs. T3 is that playing her and going -2 is often really poor on T3 but strong on T2 (as that's how edicts usually work). I disagree that she's good against all sorts of decks -- I quite dislike her against Pod and Affinity, largely because the T3 edict is weak against those decks (and the discard doesn't affect them much), especially if we're on the draw.
Bolt vs. Disfigure: Bolt at least can go to the face, and combined with a high Snapcaster Mage count can finish game (UWR control used to do this). A couple of Disfigure seems like a good choice, depending on the meta.
I admire what you're trying to do with Dimir Charm (cards with applications vs. aggro and combo), I think I'll test 1 main.
I've found Lingering Souls to be solid against Pod and Delver, which are apparently 2 of the top decks right now. Maybe we could fit some into the 75 somewhere.
Chalice of the Void most often gets set to 1 and wrecks Burn, Delver, and Storm (and Soul Sisters?). You can also set it to 0 or 2 vs. Affinity, though that deck seems to have fallen out of favour recently. Lots of top-placing decks were running it in the latest GP to combat Treasure Cruise.
I'm still not sure about Merchant Scroll and Syphon Life. Any chance you'll have a tournament report or something? I really like some of the things you're trying to do, keep us updated please.
prawn:
I saw your writeup on reddit, thanks for sharing and congratulations on your finish.
How did you feel about the single Pithing Needle in your board? It seems weaker than Stony Silence vs. Affinity and arguably Tron (shutting down all their trinkets/Maps/Talismans vs. shutting down Karn). It does stop Inkmoth Nexus, but I've never had any trouble vs. Infect at all.
Some people tried maindecking Damnation many months ago, but it seems to have always gotten cut. What are your thoughts on it in the current meta?
BatHickey:
I'll take your word on the Thragtusk --> Siege Rhino, but man am I going to miss the insane value of Tusk/Rites/X/Y piles. I have some concern that the smaller lifegain and no 3/3 from Rhino might be a significant difference, but I'll try it out.
I have to admit, I do not own any Tarmogoyf and do not plan on buying them anytime soon. Would a Goyf-less deck need to take a drastically different direction compared to the rocky builds being posted lately? I'm currently on 2 Scavenging Ooze/3 Knight of the Reliquary, which have been okay, but I'm aware that these cards are not "Goyf replacements".
Like I said, I've been playing Junk Junk lately just to mix things up (everyone knows I'm the gifts guy in my shop--and a lot of my buddies have also switched decks just so they're not pegged at the beginning of every match). I made the smallest jump I think.
I played a match against delver, and got all my souls tokens reliably fork bolted and electrickeried, izzet electromaged, and electrolized. In the pod matchup, they got hardcast pontiffed. As usual gifts suffers some splash damage based on meta considerations. I think souls is really poorly positioned right now, which is ....really sad. I dunno if this deck has another flying chumping elesh-norn synergizing option (would be interested in monastery mentor+free spells.
You can totally run this deck goyf-less (I did for a long long time and had embarrassing finishes a decent amount of the time), thinking about it, i'd be running carytids, finks, rhinos, norn, and a grave titan. When that new sultai guy comes out, I'm going to rebuild and play 4 thoughtscour and 4 him/4 goyf (over goyf/knight), and see what happens. the 4/5 with delve for those who don't spoil with spoilers.
So is the more controlish style gifts deck dead? Has anyone been playing the more draw-go style deck that used to be really popular or is everyone on the junk splash gifts type?
What I meant about the Liliana of the Veil on T2 vs. T3 is that playing her and going -2 is often really poor on T3 but strong on T2 (as that's how edicts usually work). I disagree that she's good against all sorts of decks -- I quite dislike her against Pod and Affinity, largely because the T3 edict is weak against those decks (and the discard doesn't affect them much), especially if we're on the draw.
The sooner you're able to cast anything, generally the stronger it is. I look at Liliana more as a removal spell with an upside in the long game, and utility against non creatures. She sort of fits my "removal" curve so to speak. At 1cmc, Disfigure gives us early action, while being the most narrow. At 2cmc Decay gives us a lot of flexibility, but is still just a 1-for-1 removal. At 3cmc Liliana comes down to hit a creature, and then be something that the opponent needs to continue to deal with. In general I like access to a large amount of removal spells, but I don't think I need to limit myself to things which are so narrow. Liliana is great at giving me the density of creature answers I want, while being a potential threat that needs to be dealt with still. Sometimes this means eating a bolt or absorbing an attack, but I feel like I always get value out of her.
It's true that she's not the strongest against every deck, but I think she is useful against every deck. It's not like when I draw disfigure against Scapeshift for example. In particular, I think Liliana is one of the most flexible cards you can run in the main, and then if you have better cards post-board you can side them out. As always, I'm all about the cards that can serve multiple roles. I also believe it's important to run her to give you ways to ditch bad cards, which happens more because of running certain cards for gifts.
Bolt vs. Disfigure: Bolt at least can go to the face, and combined with a high Snapcaster Mage count can finish game (UWR control used to do this). A couple of Disfigure seems like a good choice, depending on the meta.
Bolt matters a lot more in UWR because they also run helixes, 4 snapcasters, and draw spells. This makes the burn plan a more reliable way to actually win the game. When you don't have card draw, can't afford to run snapcasters, and have a meager number of burn spells the burnout option becomes significantly weaker. Just because some control decks can have a good burn backup plan once the game is sealed up doesn't mean that bolt is in practice much better than just creature removal (like disfigure) in every control deck. Yes, of course it's just stronger, but not having red is a trade off I'm willing to make here.
I've found Lingering Souls to be solid against Pod and Delver, which are apparently 2 of the top decks right now. Maybe we could fit some into the 75 somewhere.
I might have to test our lingering souls more. I shied away from it because I wanted to run almost no white at all. It's definitely a lot better when you want white more though.
Chalice of the Void most often gets set to 1 and wrecks Burn, Delver, and Storm (and Soul Sisters?). You can also set it to 0 or 2 vs. Affinity, though that deck seems to have fallen out of favour recently. Lots of top-placing decks were running it in the latest GP to combat Treasure Cruise.
Chalice is certainly a fine card, and it's useful for the right metas. I'm not sure it's needed (that is, I think I can beat those decks without it), but if one struggle against those decks chalice is a great SB option.
I'm still not sure about Merchant Scroll and Syphon Life. Any chance you'll have a tournament report or something? I really like some of the things you're trying to do, keep us updated please.
I'm not sold on Merchant Scroll either, but I think Syphon Life is a very valid card. For sure in the sideboard, potentially even in the main. Syphon Life gives you more ways to handle burn (great!), but it also gives you a way to actually win the game "quickly" after seeing up back-breaking loam piles against combo/control decks, which is very valuable to me. Batterskull can fill this role kind of, but if your plan is Crime + Loam + Tec Edge, you only have room for one more card to complete the pile.
Unfortunately I won't have any tournament reports for you. I only play this deck on Cockatrice for testing because I'm a lot of cards away from completing the deck and am working on a few other decks too. I try to test with friends when possible. (Unfortunately I can't play in paper because my collection doesn't really have anything to support black.)
Excuse me if this is a legitimately stupid question but why isn't Griselbrand run in any lists? I understand how good Elesh Norn and Iona can be but yeah, why not Griselbrand?
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I just decided to get into modern and decided on a 4c gifts control deck. I know it is a very hard deck to pilot...i normally play control decks with lots of one of's. \
made a few changes, caryatids seem better than birds so i swapped them out.
what about the matchups? i seem to lose everything, but im mainly attributing that to my lack of experience in the format.
It straight up won me the game when I cast it against scapeshift (targeting valakut) and Jeskai combo (targeting acendancy). It's narrow but back breaking and can be gifted for using it, snaps and rites and it cant be countered in any way. I have only played with it a couple times so my experience is pretty biased.
@Specter404, I like extirpate, I also like surgical extraction and am running 2 side for exactly the matchups you're talking about. The best is drawing them game 2 in your opener, t1 seizing, and just paying 2 more like putting yourself to 13 knowing basically you just won the game.
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Godless Shrine
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tectonic Edge
//Just for Gifts
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Unburial Rites
4 Disfigure
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
1 Dimir Charm
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Snapcaster Mage
//Threats
1 Batterskull
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Eternal Witness
1 Damnation
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Sultai Charm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Dimir Charm
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Syphon Life
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Flashfreeze
Yes, the SB is still a mess. Figuring that out still. Some notes in no particular order:
The colors don't compete for turns anymore. I want black by turn 1, green by turn 2, blue by turn 3 (snapcaster, or turn 4 for gifts), and a single white by turn 4. I don't really miss white here at all. Decays take over the role of path quite well, wraths requiring WW are too color intensive (in my opinion), and so there's not much I want for white after that.
Goyfs are awesome. In a deck like this (lots of card types, gifts ungiven, heavy control), he often gets very big very quickly. Since I already want to focus on green for decay, goyf makes even more sense to match up the colors. He's the best wall and beater at the same time. In a deck like this that tends to be threat light, he really helps increase that threat density and is a must-answer. Additionally, running goyf makes unburial rites playable when you naturally draw it. I've definitely won games off reanimated goyfs.
The heavy black commitment makes Liliana an easier card to run. She's immensely powerful after using your first two turns for interaction, and is another must answer spell. I love that she helps us discard some of the sometimes awful draws we get in order to support gifts. I also love that she's great against aggro, combo, or control--It's always hard to find cards which are good against basically the whole field. Many lists don't find room for her, but in black I think she's definitely one of the best things to be doing.
I don't have many 1-ofs. I know people go all out to support gifts, but I'm just not sure it's needed. I don't really care for the wrath gifts pile, because when this would be a good pile Unburial for Elesh Norn is generally just better. Almost always I'm going for unburial or a loam pile; using gifts for cute 1-ofs usually isn't factoring into that strategy. I do split a little bit on removal though, because sometimes I do need to gifts for removal so getting abrupt decay + snapcaster + EE + other is needed.
Dimir Charm, how do you guys feel about it? I've been very impressed with the card. It's great against delver by being able to hit their creatures in most circumstances and then also going after treasure cruise. Plus, it's great against combo too. Hits Scapeshift, Deceiver Exarch, etc. It's a very flexible card and has been quite good for me which is why I've been running 1 in the main and extra in the board.
What do you think of merchant scroll? It's something I've been testing out as a way to get extra gifts, or to just be extra removal if needed. It's kind of slow and telegraphs a lot, so I'll probably be ditching it, but I haven't gotten to actually play with it enough to say yet.
Not sold on the Batterskull quite yet. Basically I just want at least one 1-con which is recurrable someway with a loam pile. There's Syphon Life (which is nice vs. burn, but a horrible draw), Batterskull with Ruins (which is a bit slow to get online in a gifts pile, especially if they have any removal, but batterskull is very respectable on its own), or even just Creeping Tar Pit (which frankly is probably enough if you setup a loam pile to lock out the game).
On other lists:
The ramp spells look somewhat weak to me. If you load your deck with enough spells worth ramping to (ramp for gifts + a couple other spells is not worth it IMO), then your deck becomes pretty clunky. I'd rather be using my early mana to cast interaction on every turn.
Is Lingering Souls that good? It seems like a pretty anemic win condition. In that light, it's an okay stall tactic but I just don't see lingering souls closing out as many games as something like Tarmogoyf. Putting it in a gifts pile is cute, but as I mentioned in general most of the time my piles are unburial rites or loam or immediate answer. Picking up a couple 1/1s is not really what I want to be doing. Lingering Souls is far better suited for more aggressive decks, where the flashback and flying is more relevant to keep pressure on the opponent.
A second reanimation target past Elesh Norn, is it needed? (In the main.) I'm just not sure it is. I think loam piles cover quite well the matchups where Elesh Norn is not the best option. Something like Seige Rhino might be worthwhile I suppose, since some instant life gain might be worthwhile. I was actually testing out Syphon Life over Batterskull in the main for awhile, so if I needed lifegain right away I was able to get that. It's hard to build decks to prepare for everything.
Liliana of the Veil is good, but I think some of the power is lost without the possibility of turn 2 Liliana. Turn 2 Liliana will sometimes simply win the game against Uxx decks, but I've found Liliana to be lacklustre against Pod, Affinity, and Delver, and this is even more true on turn 3.
Disfigure is really efficient against any sort of aggressive matchup, but it's utterly dead against Scapeshift and Storm. Since these are (I think) our two worst matchups, I don't think it's a good idea to run 4 main, unless it's a meta call for you. Maybe 1-2 main, and the rest in the board? What we really want here is Bolt, of course
Without Path to Exile or Lingering Souls, did you have any trouble with Kitchen Finks and random bigger creatures (Siege Rhino)? I'd strongly suggest 1 Souls main, for Gifts value, and possibly more in the board. It's good at stalling and it's our only way to match token elements (Young Pyromancer, opponent's Souls) outside of Engineered Explosives.
I really liked Thragtusk over the Batterskull, but I think both are fine choices.
I would not bother with Mouth of Ronom, I think 2 colourless lands are the max we can support. It also seems to have similar function to Engineered Explosives, which you already have. If you had more white, you could consider Vault of the Archangel over the Academy Ruins plan, to help against Burn.
I don't like Merchant Scroll at all, at least for the list you posted. There should be enough goodstuff to win games without Gifts, and the only removal you can find with it is the narrow Dimir Charm. Post-board you can find counters, but you could also just run more counters. (Don't forget you can only Scroll for blue instants).
Dimir Charm seems okay. Its removal mode is quite bad, and/but your list has PLENTY of removal already. The counter mode is much worse than Negate, not sure if the flexibility makes it worthwhile. I think the filter mode is pretty awful in our deck, and it fuels delve.
How about moving a Sultai Charm to the main, and maybe a Maelstrom Pulse as well for Pod? You could probably remove 1 Snapcaster.
Syphon Life is quite cool, how has it worked out for you? I guess you would only bring it in vs. Burn though, where it would probably be too slow to Gifts pile it out.
Chalice of the Void seems to be really strong in the board now.
Have you thought about/tested 1 or more Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time? Since you're running pretty straight BUG, I would run 1-2 Digs.
Sadly, I haven't been able to play for several weeks, so I have nothing of my own to report. I think I'm theoretically up to date with the meta, but haven't played much against Treasure Cruise.
I think you want to build a deck which plays around burn spells, because that is a a very sure way to gain advantage in the current modern format (in my opinion). Birds plays right into enemy removal, and I don't think the ramp is good enough--There's just no way to use birds except for mana. With that being the case, I'd rather just run lands instead. I'm not sure you can support gifts + rhinos or other high CC spells. I think the deck really wants to curve out at gifts + maybe a couple other spells. I'm not sure Kotr + Rhinos are what a gifts deck wants, but maybe....
That could be said of almost any 3cc+ drop--most cards tend to be better if they come down sooner. As I said before, the main reason I like Liliana is that she's good against every type of deck. I love to see her against Scapeshift, against Affinity, against anything really. Some decks can handle her better than others, but at the end of the day every deck must answer her. With a deck like this that loads up on removal I think it's important to have a lot of must-answer cards, and Liliana is one of those (in my opinion). She becomes worse the more color committment you have, but there's a reason that the Junk decks run 4 of her without any ramp.
Your statement here seems to be slightly contradicting. You lament how dead disfigure is against combo, but then wish you had bolt--as if bolt really made that much of a difference in a deck with such a slow clock. Sure, I imagine in a couple games here and there bolt is going to get there against combo, but in general I don't think that's the case when you're running 4 bolts and a couple creatures. Decks like these don't have many ways to deal damage quickly.
With delver being one of the most popular decks, I think disfigure is highly important against them right now. 4 is perhaps a bit heavy, but there aren't a lot of cards which are generally good against creatures and combo. Dimir charm is one though, so perhaps I could look to increasing the number of these. In general though I always like to make sure I have enough efficient answers; unfortunately that means going heavier into white for path. Both are not great vs. combo though.
Goyf is how I like to handle the ground. He does a great job of matching thinks like finks, or even bigger creatures like rhino (given our spread of card types, goyf is often a 4/5 or 5/6 or bigger for me).
I'm not denying that Lingering Souls can be useful, but is it useful enough? Just because you can run it to get value with gifts doesn't mean you have to. I find the times when I need to go for these piles are not that many. In general I don't want to see a lingering souls in my hand unless I'm discarding it to Liliana. I just have never liked the card in control decks, but again perhaps I am bias.
Thragtusk is pretty great. I like that skull can be setup to stabilize vs. burn and recurred in the long game for a gifts pile, but the lifegain certainly comes down way slower. I'll have to see if I want to unburial for Thragtusk very often or not. I've been using Syphon Life main actually for awhile, so that was my go to if I needed immediate lifegain. Without that Thragtusk may become more necessary.
Vault is only worthwhile if you have Knight, and even then...I'm not so sold on it. I haven't played with it though, but we'd have to see. It just seems pretty narrow, but Knight definitely does change the deck construction. I haven't had much issue with coloration in my list--I think the color requirements in general are much less than most gifts lists. Mouth was in my original list, but I've since added more changed like EE + Ruins, so it's become a bit less useful. I will think about what I would replace with it.
I would be more concerned with slowness and telegraphing rather than the targets being limited. It was an idea, but it hasn't come up that much since I never really draw it anyway. I do like that it gives you more ways to get gifts against Pod, since that's one of the matchups where they have few answers and need to stop it or pretty much lose. If they don't have a pod right away, then they could be in a dire situation. But it can also pickup Sultai Charm, so it gives you more opportunities to handle a resolved Pod as well.
The issue for me is finding cards that bridge the gap of usefulness against combo and against creatures. I think that charm is very respectable here. The removal is not relevant against every deck, but there are plenty of decks which have targets for it. I definitely have a lot of removal though, so just boarding into straight counterspells instead is probably fine.
That's very reasonable. I haven't played against Pod enough to know if it's a big issue, so I will definitely think about this. I generally hate 3cc removal though if that's all it does.
Syphon Life actually gets online a lot faster than you'd expect. After you gifts the next turn you can cast loam + syphon life, and then the next turn you can setup double syphon life. (With the ability to just keep using it as needed.) That's a +4/-4 life swing each turn, and while it absorbs a lot of mana, it's quite powerful. I don't think it's too slow. Originally it was my main recursion way to win with a loam pile, but I've been testing out other ways to close out games with a loam pile (Batterskull and Tar Pit). Not sure what I like the best yet. There are a lot of options against burn though, so this might just not be needed, but the life point swing does give you a lot of stability.
Chalice is such a strange card; I never know how to really evaluate it. What are you wanting to bring Chalice in against? It seems good against delver, burn, storm, but I feel like I might need to focus on other matchups (pod, scapeshift, affinity) instead.
I haven't really. I think the deck already runs a fair number of later game cards, and because of gifts some straight dead draws, so I thought just leaving those be and focusing on improving the early game was more the way to go. I think gifts is enough ways to generate advantage over the long game and you can get into some dangerous situations if you get really awkward hands where you draw into a lot of things you can't play.
As a general note, I think Flashfreeze looks really good right now. It helps out immensely against burn, pod, and scapeshift (as well as plenty of other decks). It's definitely been very good for me.
The plan for me against combo decks is always to use gifts to lock up the game (crime + tec edge), paired with some discard to get there. Then, sideboarding out removal into more counterpsells. Generally I try to aim for creature decks with my maindeck and then board into more combo hate postboard, since I expect to play against creature decks more often.
Chalice is also solid against Affinity (especially after you lose game one and end up on the play!). Delver and Burn hate it, like you said, and in general it does an excellent job of slowing down the game, which tends to favor us.
I am a big fan of running Knight and some nice utility lands, but it would require a heavier commitment to white that may be hard to support.
4 Disfigure definitely seems like too many in a world where it can easily be dead. Dimir Charm is an interesting suggestion; personally I like Golgari Charm, as it can both sweep away Pyromancer and his friends against Delver and kill an Ascension against Storm.
Syphon Life is a cool idea and something I would like to try out.
Definitely some things I'll be thinking about here!
And of course : Good luck!
Why am I telling you this? I thought I would do a kind of "last stand" tournament last Sunday before definitely switching because I still like the deck. Turned out, I went 5-0 and first place in a close to 30 people local tournament which is usually pretty competitive, not too bad so here's my (very short) report:
List:
1 Breeding Pool
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Swamp
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Watery Grave
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Go for the Throat
1 Sultai Charm
2 Path to Exile
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Life from the Loam
1 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Raven's Crime
1 Unburial Rites
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Torpor Orb
1 Stony Silence
1 Spellskite
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Golgari Charm
1 Damnation
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Duress
2 Dispel
Bogles, 2-1:
* I Keep a decent hand with Lili and Goyf but he has a second creature and a ***** ton of auras and I die horribly while drawing targeted removals.
* Turn 1 discard followed by Iona on white and it was pretty much game over.
* Absolutely don't remember that one.
Splinter Twin, 2-0:
* First game is weird, I keep what I think is a decent hand with Goyf and removal but Goyf gets killed and I proceed to draw lands for 4 or 5 turns straight. On his side, he has the combo but I handle his only creature. He then spend the next 5 turns Thought Scouring and Digging in search of a creature to combo with but can't seem to find it. Turn 7, I have literally nothing else to do than hardcasting Elesh that resolves and I just win the game from here. Pretty lucky win I must admit.
* Turn 2 Torpor Orb + Goyf beatdown + removal = easy win.
Burn, 2-1:
* Game 1 is a walk over, no idea what he's on, start shocking myself and I'm dead a few turns later.
* Iona on red before he has enough damage to kill me.
* Intense game: Goyf does some serious work and at some point, I'm at 1 life and he's 2 turns from death. He doesn't draw the last point of damage and I win that one. Funny thing is, I had a fetch for half the game that I had completely forgotten to crack while I was running on low mana for the whole game. Sometimes, mistakes win you games
Pod, 2-1:
* I die.
* We both mulligan to 5 and my top decks are better. I think a resolved Gifts into Elesh sealed the deal.
* Pretty even and grindy game. He doesn't draw pod but has enough stuff and we trade blows evenly. We're at turn 3 of additional turns and he has adopted a pretty defensive stance to go for the draw when I topdeck Elesh followed by Abrupt Decay to close it at the very last moment. He had no chance of winning but I avoid a draw pretty luckily here.
UR Control, 2-0:
* Don't remember exactly the beginning but I managed to resolve Elesh with Lingering Souls and it's enough. I think he kept a not so good hand also.
* He has a very good hand but I keep one with 4 discards (1 Thoughseize, 2 IoK and 1 duress) and he never comes back while I topdeck decently.
My main issue with the list is that it's too slow and also too reliant on Gifts to perform. It feels unstable I would say. When you draw decently, it performs well but I've had a few too many "Oops, I lost" for my liking... It's still fun to play and quite uncommon so your opponent wondering what the **** you're trying to do is always funny. MVP of the list is definitely Goyf though, he does *so* much work here, it's crazy, if you have it, trust me, it's auto include.
Who knows, maybe I'll pick the deck some time in the future when the environment is not too competitive
I wrote up this tournament report of my experience this Sunday. I like my current build as it is listed there, with the exception of the need for timely reinforcements and such in the side to deal with the aggressive matchups. I also get curious sometimes about running sun droplet in the side.
Yeah, I shamelessly stole your list
Really liked it to be honest. It clearly has a control feel to it, which was what I was looking for at the time, while making good use of the Tarmogoyf.
I mean, the list that was posted after mine (congrats to you by the way!) is extremely close I feel so it's probably one of the best chance this deck has to succeed, which I hope it does, even if I'm probably switching gears for a while
EDIT for immortalechoes:
I don't ever really feel the need to make people discard cards over cmc 3. It is a nice benefit against control decks I suppose to take scapeshifts, cryptics, and delve spells, but the punishment of losing 2 life against aggressive decks isn't good enough for me. I used to run a 2/1 split, but I always dreaded taking damage from my lands and thoughtseize on turn 1 and it doesn't even feel like you're slowing down your aggro opponent. Also, IoK is never dead against the decks that go bigger. Everyone has an early game setup, cheap removal, or counters that are useful to take.
2 snaps: seems good. I just feel too jammed in and don't know what to cut
Sultai charm: seems good. I haven't tested that at all and it seems interesting.
Siege Rhino: This card is really good in almost every matchup. It is a decent clock, great blocker, lifegain, and hard for people to kill, especially UR decks. I think it is as good for us as for anyone else who could run it, like junk or pod, and we should adapt it as well. I used to have a thragtusk and a flex engineered explosives in those slots.
Darkblast: I just started including it and I haven't gotten to cast it all that often. I haven't had to face all that much delver so I don't need it to be main. Just a meta thing, I know the card is nuts good.
Sideboard: Never tried chalice but I can understand that it could really fix some of the fast matchups. Do you cut hand hate for them? Also idk how I feel about firewalkers since I generally don't care about double white and don't wanna miss other colors for it. I'm hoping timely reinforcements does a good enough job.
I recently have been playing a straight junk deck (I realized I owned it incidentally), but with 3 lilianas instead of 4. Its been pretty interesting compared to playing junk gifts and has been pretty eye-opening and educational as far as learning about how best to pilot 4c. I do think the optimal version of gifts right now is junk with a single blue shock and basic, and thats about it, maybe some spell pierces in the board.
Some great responses to my comments, thank you.
What I meant about the Liliana of the Veil on T2 vs. T3 is that playing her and going -2 is often really poor on T3 but strong on T2 (as that's how edicts usually work). I disagree that she's good against all sorts of decks -- I quite dislike her against Pod and Affinity, largely because the T3 edict is weak against those decks (and the discard doesn't affect them much), especially if we're on the draw.
Bolt vs. Disfigure: Bolt at least can go to the face, and combined with a high Snapcaster Mage count can finish game (UWR control used to do this). A couple of Disfigure seems like a good choice, depending on the meta.
I admire what you're trying to do with Dimir Charm (cards with applications vs. aggro and combo), I think I'll test 1 main.
I've found Lingering Souls to be solid against Pod and Delver, which are apparently 2 of the top decks right now. Maybe we could fit some into the 75 somewhere.
Chalice of the Void most often gets set to 1 and wrecks Burn, Delver, and Storm (and Soul Sisters?). You can also set it to 0 or 2 vs. Affinity, though that deck seems to have fallen out of favour recently. Lots of top-placing decks were running it in the latest GP to combat Treasure Cruise.
I'm still not sure about Merchant Scroll and Syphon Life. Any chance you'll have a tournament report or something? I really like some of the things you're trying to do, keep us updated please.
prawn:
I saw your writeup on reddit, thanks for sharing and congratulations on your finish.
How did you feel about the single Pithing Needle in your board? It seems weaker than Stony Silence vs. Affinity and arguably Tron (shutting down all their trinkets/Maps/Talismans vs. shutting down Karn). It does stop Inkmoth Nexus, but I've never had any trouble vs. Infect at all.
Some people tried maindecking Damnation many months ago, but it seems to have always gotten cut. What are your thoughts on it in the current meta?
Did you ever miss the 4th Abrupt Decay in the 75?
BatHickey:
I'll take your word on the Thragtusk --> Siege Rhino, but man am I going to miss the insane value of Tusk/Rites/X/Y piles. I have some concern that the smaller lifegain and no 3/3 from Rhino might be a significant difference, but I'll try it out.
I have to admit, I do not own any Tarmogoyf and do not plan on buying them anytime soon. Would a Goyf-less deck need to take a drastically different direction compared to the rocky builds being posted lately? I'm currently on 2 Scavenging Ooze/3 Knight of the Reliquary, which have been okay, but I'm aware that these cards are not "Goyf replacements".
This hasn't been brought up in a while, but does Doran, the Siege Tower have any merit?
I played a match against delver, and got all my souls tokens reliably fork bolted and electrickeried, izzet electromaged, and electrolized. In the pod matchup, they got hardcast pontiffed. As usual gifts suffers some splash damage based on meta considerations. I think souls is really poorly positioned right now, which is ....really sad. I dunno if this deck has another flying chumping elesh-norn synergizing option (would be interested in monastery mentor+free spells.
You can totally run this deck goyf-less (I did for a long long time and had embarrassing finishes a decent amount of the time), thinking about it, i'd be running carytids, finks, rhinos, norn, and a grave titan. When that new sultai guy comes out, I'm going to rebuild and play 4 thoughtscour and 4 him/4 goyf (over goyf/knight), and see what happens. the 4/5 with delve for those who don't spoil with spoilers.
The sooner you're able to cast anything, generally the stronger it is. I look at Liliana more as a removal spell with an upside in the long game, and utility against non creatures. She sort of fits my "removal" curve so to speak. At 1cmc, Disfigure gives us early action, while being the most narrow. At 2cmc Decay gives us a lot of flexibility, but is still just a 1-for-1 removal. At 3cmc Liliana comes down to hit a creature, and then be something that the opponent needs to continue to deal with. In general I like access to a large amount of removal spells, but I don't think I need to limit myself to things which are so narrow. Liliana is great at giving me the density of creature answers I want, while being a potential threat that needs to be dealt with still. Sometimes this means eating a bolt or absorbing an attack, but I feel like I always get value out of her.
It's true that she's not the strongest against every deck, but I think she is useful against every deck. It's not like when I draw disfigure against Scapeshift for example. In particular, I think Liliana is one of the most flexible cards you can run in the main, and then if you have better cards post-board you can side them out. As always, I'm all about the cards that can serve multiple roles. I also believe it's important to run her to give you ways to ditch bad cards, which happens more because of running certain cards for gifts.
Bolt matters a lot more in UWR because they also run helixes, 4 snapcasters, and draw spells. This makes the burn plan a more reliable way to actually win the game. When you don't have card draw, can't afford to run snapcasters, and have a meager number of burn spells the burnout option becomes significantly weaker. Just because some control decks can have a good burn backup plan once the game is sealed up doesn't mean that bolt is in practice much better than just creature removal (like disfigure) in every control deck. Yes, of course it's just stronger, but not having red is a trade off I'm willing to make here.
I might have to test our lingering souls more. I shied away from it because I wanted to run almost no white at all. It's definitely a lot better when you want white more though.
Chalice is certainly a fine card, and it's useful for the right metas. I'm not sure it's needed (that is, I think I can beat those decks without it), but if one struggle against those decks chalice is a great SB option.
I'm not sold on Merchant Scroll either, but I think Syphon Life is a very valid card. For sure in the sideboard, potentially even in the main. Syphon Life gives you more ways to handle burn (great!), but it also gives you a way to actually win the game "quickly" after seeing up back-breaking loam piles against combo/control decks, which is very valuable to me. Batterskull can fill this role kind of, but if your plan is Crime + Loam + Tec Edge, you only have room for one more card to complete the pile.
Unfortunately I won't have any tournament reports for you. I only play this deck on Cockatrice for testing because I'm a lot of cards away from completing the deck and am working on a few other decks too. I try to test with friends when possible. (Unfortunately I can't play in paper because my collection doesn't really have anything to support black.)