SGCYRUS got 17th place in the MOCS with a Gifts List. Seems pretty standard, although I wonder why he wanted an Erase or something like Ray of Revelation for Enchantment hate.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
MTGO has a lot of Burn and Twin, and the package sucks against Burn and arguably against Twin as well. I know a few Gifts players I've talked to have been putting the package in the side anyways, so it is possible that for the most part it just isn't good enough for the meta. I personally would still at least keep it in the board, but maybe I'm wrong.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
With 8 discard spells in the main deck, isis loam/crime needed at all?
I vote no, I think the main point is to clear a path to a fattie/win con with 8 discard spells and serves ultimately the same purpose, however 8 main is a concession to the faster meta where loam crime can cost you games by creating dead draws.
The deck seems to be shaping up as straight UB control, with green only for Decay and Thragtusk, and white only for Souls/Rites/Norn
Personally I love the evolution. I'm opting out of Gifts for my PPTQ coming up only because I refuse to shell out $60 for Serum Visions. Going to play some form of B/x control for sure though
You might try Anticipate. I've been very happy with it, though I can see in other versions where you might want to be able to cast two one mana spells like discard and visions. In a deck like this, the filter ability of CHOOSING which of the 3 you get has been great. Also, because we have so many kill cards, it's nice to be able to hold up kill mana and, if the coast is "clear," filter EOT.
Yeah that's not a bad plan. Maybe I'll start trying 3x anticipate or so. I've always liked telling time better since it let's you keep two. But that is also it's drawback.
If we're talking 2-mana EOT filter spells, is Peer Through Depths an option? It digs deeper and still hits half the deck
Hayseed made it to 16th place in the Modern Festival with this Esper Gifts / Delve list. It seems a little light on action, but I could be wrong. I mean he did make 16th. Elesh Norn in the side is odd, I think I would want that main since Affinity, CoCo / Elves, and Infect are all decently popular.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
My, uh, Magic related activity over the past few months has been largely devoted to playing Amulet Bloom (please don’t kill me), brewing Grixis Gifts (no splashes, most piles are Snapcaster Mage // Kolaghan's Command // X // X – I’d write more about it but it’s nowhere near ready to share with the class yet), and lurking (as I tend to do, although being specifically called out feels nice).
There are some developments with 4CGifts that I’ve liked. Serum Visions is one such improvement, and I wish I wasn’t stubborn enough to reject it off-hand when I first read the suggestions. Similarly, I’m still not sure where I stand on cutting Loam // Crime yet, but I might just be too stubborn. I guess I like it in theory though.
On the other hand, Iona has reared her head again. I thought the purpose of cutting Loam // Crime was to minimize chaff, and what is Iona but chaff? I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again: What does she beat that can’t be beaten by Elesh Norn, Thragtusk, or Sigarda – you know, actually castable cards?
Or the Wrath package, I don’t think I have the words to describe how impossibly bad it is. I’m fine with Damnation main-deck. Hell, I run a Damnation main. I can tolerate a second Wrath effect in the sideboard. But the full three (or – god forbid – four) just doesn’t work like you’d want it to. Ever.
Sure, combo decks are a pain (again, I’m sorry I’m part of “the problem”). They’re always going to be. Bad match-ups are bad match-ups [/lame excuses]. And to be honest, I’m probably not the person to help deal with that (CF: my posting habits, topics of interest, and, once again, current deck of choice). Maybe, in the combo-centric metagame that everyone claims exists, the deck is just bad.
I promise though, as long as Gifts is legal in Modern, I’m never going to stop trying.
-r
PS: So I'm looking this over before posting, and to me it reads like some self-aggrandizing poseur decided to write a lot of paragraphs about a deck they don't play very often anymore without contributing much to the discussion at large. Apologies for that, but I wanted to say something and didn't know what else to say.
*Gurmag Angler is my current “untested card to think about” for the deck. I won’t ask for thoughts because I myself barely have any yet, but I’m going to be considering it for a bit.
A turner of phrases quite pleasin'
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
I think basically green isn't so hot right now. Abrupt decay is sweet, but if that isn't a catchall all star (which I've found it not to be lately), and loam/crime isn't that well positioned. and Junk in general is basically dead right now...Esper seems like the way to go with maybe a tiny splash for something else.
I also think we're as a thread undervaluing thoughtscour into angler/tasigur as a proactive mainboard option to win games outside of gifts. Chapin build what I consider a perfect 'control' deck for the current meta, but we're trading crytpics for 'locks' and some great options at the expense of not being able to snap-bolt and ending up higher up the curve.
Hayseed basically has it right plus or minus a few tweaks I'd make myself.
I also think its important Radio, to play different decks. Have you thought about taking the bloom/amulet engine and applying it to gifts? turn 1/2 gifts seems pretty sick and I'm missing the cards to brew it up myself. Trust that you'd pull off something cool.
Have you thought about taking the bloom/amulet engine and applying it to gifts? turn 1/2 gifts seems pretty sick and I'm missing the cards to brew it up myself. Trust that you'd pull off something cool.
You're not the first to think of it, and I'm not going to be the first to dismiss it. I think the problem is once you've decided that Tolaria West into Pact is one of the best and most resilient plays you can make, the question becomes "why is <such and such cool thing> better than Hive Mind. The answer, as far as I can tell, is that while Gifts packages can make the deck able to beat nightmare matchups (Infect and Living End are the woooooorst things possible), it also A) opens up a new avenue of hate cards and B) Slows the deck down enough to make 50/50 and other marginally good matchups worse.
Though I did see a Bloom deck at day two of SCG Columbus playing much heavier blue (Dimir Aqueduct(!) and Academy Ruins(!!) levels of heavy) base, so I can only assume it also had some Gifts Ungivens (plural check?) somewhere.
I also think we're as a thread undervaluing thoughtscour into angler/tasigur as a proactive mainboard option to win games outside of gifts. Chapin build what I consider a perfect 'control' deck for the current meta, but we're trading crytpics for 'locks' and some great options at the expense of not being able to snap-bolt and ending up higher up the curve.
That's been the problem with all my Grixis Gifts brews, is that Gifts cuts into the "blue four mana instant" slot, and every time I look at whatever iteration I come up with, I keep asking "How does Gifts come from behind and win me games that Cryptic Command doesn't? I haven't even gotten to full-on testing because I'm still trying to answer that question. Maybe the answer is splashing white for Rites // Norn. Maybe some Lingering Souls. Just have to keep working at it.
A turner of phrases quite pleasin'
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Almost full caught up to the 100+ pages of this thread. I built several versions of gifts to test. So far, what version do you guys think is the best version? There's the Green White Black heavy version with Tarmogoyfs, KotR, Lilys, and mana dorks, and paths, then there's the more Black blue version posted on page one decklist with more hand disruption, serum visions, life of loam and raven's crime, etc.
I play tested the black and blue version of the deck against tron, twin, zoo, random enchantment deck, zombie deck, amulet bloom. I only lost to someone comboing off super fast or when I got below average draws, against zoo. They busted out too many creatures for me to deal with and burned me with snap caster bolts to finish me off.
I feel like raven's crime and life of the loam makes games that go beyond turn 5 very winnable for this deck. Combined with Alchemist Refuge of being able to cast it on their draw step after they draw, I've locked people out. Against, tron, unless they open with the perfect hand, you rip key cards that help them search for their land and gifts life of loam and ghost quarter or tec edge. Wouldn't have been winnable without life of the loam/raven's crime/ghost quarter. I didn't run tec edge. \
When I played amulet bloom, I didn't know what I was. I let the amulet stay and ripped other land ramping cards from his hand.
I believe this deck is consistent, so if going 100 mph is the best that a deck can perform, we'll consistently go like 80 to 85, while other decks tops out around 90-95 but can have variances of 60-70 mph. So far, I kept many many less than optimal hands and still fought through. Needs more play testing but that's what I got out of it. The newer lists seems to me like the plan is more fixed versus flexible. Though it may be faster.
I chose to invest into gifts after basically a 10 year hiatus because it's interesting to play, and doesn't get boring to the point where you can auto pilot this vs a burn deck or a combo deck.
If you're playing heavy enough blue, then go for Cryptic Command. Gifts Ungiven shines in a deck like heavy B/x control. I really think much can be learned from these recent lists -
6-8 discard spells main deck
4 Lingering Souls
4 Liliana of the Veil
Snapcaster, Thought Scour, Tasigur, Angler - belong in any UB/x control to some degree
Main deck discards should help with combo. A Sub Titan / Fulminator Mage combo could come out of the Sideboard against grindy control match ups. A lot could be done with this I think. The consistency of the mana base going only three colors is superb. I've been on 4C Gifts for so long...I had forgotten.
i think this is what I'm trying to promote discussion on, I don't want to be trying to soft lock an opponent out with my gifts deck, I really want to be putting a creature onto the battle fields that either wins me the game in quick order and protect it, or do enough damage that the second one will finish them. This is why I dropped the green as everything that green provides moves away from my game plan and into a grindy game which I'm not always going to be winning.
Sorry if I'm rambling, but trying to fit about 3-4 months worth of play test and ideas into a couple of posts is tough.
What I'm really trying to promote is there are two lists here, BUG and Esper, each one is better in a different way and the sum of both isn't necessarily stronger.
I've been playing the BUGw version and about to play the more GWBu version with more creatures for play testing.
So with the BUGw version, there were games where having the thought seizes or inquisitions helped me disrupt the opponent's game plan enough to go past turn 4-5 where I can play my gifts and do loam/crime or loam/ghost quarter lock. What this deck has trouble with is aggro decks with lots of repetition. The 1 for 1s in that deck are great for getting rid of key pieces but the opponent will outpace us.
Lets talk about how my games were won. I won several games with just loam/raven's crime, won several games on attrition. Liliana reaching 6 loyalty counters won a few games. Grave Titan won a few games by generating enough threats. The hand disruption stalled out games enough for me to win, and made some games winnable. Gifts into Burial Rites always feel like I'm a turn behind or if I go for the creature, it may not be enough to win the game, only put the board to parity.
It's late so will probably repost. But what I lose to is fast beats and burn. That's why I want to try the more creature heavy build with Green and White, with the KotR, and Tarmogoyfs, and the mana dorks and lingering souls with lilys.
Basically I think anything with polymorph is a different deck, also a peeve of mine to see incomplete lists for review. I don't want to be rude but, you gotta finish it. 24 mountains won't support a 3c demanding mana base.
The Polymorph list looks like it's trying for a big combo finish. It's problem is that it doesn't have any interaction at all. We're all in fattie with no removal or disruption outside of a few remands. It's gonna have a hard time against some of the more aggressive decks in the format which is roughly 50% of the field, and a hard time vs dedicated combo which is 20% of the field. Feel free to try it out, but I think it's gonna suffer similar to why the other polymorph tokens deck didn't take off. This just has more four drops.
I feel like the polymorph deck could be a sort of parallel to Junk Gifts. Where we take Junk midrange and insert the gifts package, polymorph could take a bw tokens shell, though modified to have no real creatures, and include a polymorph package as a finisher. I'd probably say Norn mainboard for sure and MAYBE Emrakul, and relegate Iona to the board, since Norn makes you alpha strike and Emmy is Emmy. It really doesn't fit into this thread though.
If I wanted to polymorph and gifts in the same shell, I'd check out the UW tron thread, someone there has probably build the best version of gifts/polymorph possible there (or rejected the idea after trying).
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1 Grave Titan
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thragtusk
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Damnation
2 Duress
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Go for the Throat
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Lingering Souls
4 Serum Visions
2 Thoughtseize
1 Unburial Rites
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Dispel
1 Erase
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Nature's Claim
1 Negate
1 Stony Silence
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Térastodon
3 Timely Reinforcements
I've also found Go for the Throat to be really good in this meta. Mostly because it kills Primeval Titan on turn 2.. I hate losing to Bloom.
Draft My Cube!
Draft My Cube!
I vote no, I think the main point is to clear a path to a fattie/win con with 8 discard spells and serves ultimately the same purpose, however 8 main is a concession to the faster meta where loam crime can cost you games by creating dead draws.
Personally I love the evolution. I'm opting out of Gifts for my PPTQ coming up only because I refuse to shell out $60 for Serum Visions. Going to play some form of B/x control for sure though
Draft My Cube!
If we're talking 2-mana EOT filter spells, is Peer Through Depths an option? It digs deeper and still hits half the deck
Draft My Cube!
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Esper Charm
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Lingering Souls
1 Murderous Cut
3 Path to Exile
4 Thought Scour
2 Thoughtseize
1 Unburial Rites
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Marsh Flats
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 River of Tears
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Watery Grave
1 Dragonlord Ojutai
1 Path to Exile
2 Thoughtseize
1 Celestial Purge
1 Damnation
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Stony Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Utter End
My, uh, Magic related activity over the past few months has been largely devoted to playing Amulet Bloom (please don’t kill me), brewing Grixis Gifts (no splashes, most piles are Snapcaster Mage // Kolaghan's Command // X // X – I’d write more about it but it’s nowhere near ready to share with the class yet), and lurking (as I tend to do, although being specifically called out feels nice).
There are some developments with 4CGifts that I’ve liked. Serum Visions is one such improvement, and I wish I wasn’t stubborn enough to reject it off-hand when I first read the suggestions. Similarly, I’m still not sure where I stand on cutting Loam // Crime yet, but I might just be too stubborn. I guess I like it in theory though.
On the other hand, Iona has reared her head again. I thought the purpose of cutting Loam // Crime was to minimize chaff, and what is Iona but chaff? I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again: What does she beat that can’t be beaten by Elesh Norn, Thragtusk, or Sigarda – you know, actually castable cards?
Or the Wrath package, I don’t think I have the words to describe how impossibly bad it is. I’m fine with Damnation main-deck. Hell, I run a Damnation main. I can tolerate a second Wrath effect in the sideboard. But the full three (or – god forbid – four) just doesn’t work like you’d want it to. Ever.
The lessons to be learned here have been mentioned already, and I’m sure they’ll be mentioned again: Threats in Modern necessitate generic answers. “Destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost three or less” is still a good catch-all, even in a world of six-drops and seven-drops*. Lingering Souls still blocks forever, especially now that we’re seeing a decline in cards with Trample. Celestial Purge is incredibly good right now. And so on.
Sure, combo decks are a pain (again, I’m sorry I’m part of “the problem”). They’re always going to be. Bad match-ups are bad match-ups [/lame excuses]. And to be honest, I’m probably not the person to help deal with that (CF: my posting habits, topics of interest, and, once again, current deck of choice). Maybe, in the combo-centric metagame that everyone claims exists, the deck is just bad.
I promise though, as long as Gifts is legal in Modern, I’m never going to stop trying.
-r
PS: So I'm looking this over before posting, and to me it reads like some self-aggrandizing poseur decided to write a lot of paragraphs about a deck they don't play very often anymore without contributing much to the discussion at large. Apologies for that, but I wanted to say something and didn't know what else to say.
*Gurmag Angler is my current “untested card to think about” for the deck. I won’t ask for thoughts because I myself barely have any yet, but I’m going to be considering it for a bit.
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
I also think we're as a thread undervaluing thoughtscour into angler/tasigur as a proactive mainboard option to win games outside of gifts. Chapin build what I consider a perfect 'control' deck for the current meta, but we're trading crytpics for 'locks' and some great options at the expense of not being able to snap-bolt and ending up higher up the curve.
Hayseed basically has it right plus or minus a few tweaks I'd make myself.
I also think its important Radio, to play different decks. Have you thought about taking the bloom/amulet engine and applying it to gifts? turn 1/2 gifts seems pretty sick and I'm missing the cards to brew it up myself. Trust that you'd pull off something cool.
Though I did see a Bloom deck at day two of SCG Columbus playing much heavier blue (Dimir Aqueduct(!) and Academy Ruins(!!) levels of heavy) base, so I can only assume it also had some Gifts Ungivens (plural check?) somewhere.
That's been the problem with all my Grixis Gifts brews, is that Gifts cuts into the "blue four mana instant" slot, and every time I look at whatever iteration I come up with, I keep asking "How does Gifts come from behind and win me games that Cryptic Command doesn't? I haven't even gotten to full-on testing because I'm still trying to answer that question. Maybe the answer is splashing white for Rites // Norn. Maybe some Lingering Souls. Just have to keep working at it.
-r
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
I play tested the black and blue version of the deck against tron, twin, zoo, random enchantment deck, zombie deck, amulet bloom. I only lost to someone comboing off super fast or when I got below average draws, against zoo. They busted out too many creatures for me to deal with and burned me with snap caster bolts to finish me off.
I feel like raven's crime and life of the loam makes games that go beyond turn 5 very winnable for this deck. Combined with Alchemist Refuge of being able to cast it on their draw step after they draw, I've locked people out. Against, tron, unless they open with the perfect hand, you rip key cards that help them search for their land and gifts life of loam and ghost quarter or tec edge. Wouldn't have been winnable without life of the loam/raven's crime/ghost quarter. I didn't run tec edge. \
When I played amulet bloom, I didn't know what I was. I let the amulet stay and ripped other land ramping cards from his hand.
I believe this deck is consistent, so if going 100 mph is the best that a deck can perform, we'll consistently go like 80 to 85, while other decks tops out around 90-95 but can have variances of 60-70 mph. So far, I kept many many less than optimal hands and still fought through. Needs more play testing but that's what I got out of it. The newer lists seems to me like the plan is more fixed versus flexible. Though it may be faster.
I chose to invest into gifts after basically a 10 year hiatus because it's interesting to play, and doesn't get boring to the point where you can auto pilot this vs a burn deck or a combo deck.
Thoughts?
6-8 discard spells main deck
4 Lingering Souls
4 Liliana of the Veil
Snapcaster, Thought Scour, Tasigur, Angler - belong in any UB/x control to some degree
Here's a brew for example:
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Gurmag Angler
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Grave Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Spells (28):
4 Thought Scour
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Lingering Souls
3 Go for the Throat
1 Murderous Cut
1 Path to Exile
1 Compulsive Research
1 Unburial Rites
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
3 Creeping Tar Pit
3 island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
Main deck discards should help with combo. A Sub Titan / Fulminator Mage combo could come out of the Sideboard against grindy control match ups. A lot could be done with this I think. The consistency of the mana base going only three colors is superb. I've been on 4C Gifts for so long...I had forgotten.
Draft My Cube!
I've been playing the BUGw version and about to play the more GWBu version with more creatures for play testing.
So with the BUGw version, there were games where having the thought seizes or inquisitions helped me disrupt the opponent's game plan enough to go past turn 4-5 where I can play my gifts and do loam/crime or loam/ghost quarter lock. What this deck has trouble with is aggro decks with lots of repetition. The 1 for 1s in that deck are great for getting rid of key pieces but the opponent will outpace us.
Lets talk about how my games were won. I won several games with just loam/raven's crime, won several games on attrition. Liliana reaching 6 loyalty counters won a few games. Grave Titan won a few games by generating enough threats. The hand disruption stalled out games enough for me to win, and made some games winnable. Gifts into Burial Rites always feel like I'm a turn behind or if I go for the creature, it may not be enough to win the game, only put the board to parity.
It's late so will probably repost. But what I lose to is fast beats and burn. That's why I want to try the more creature heavy build with Green and White, with the KotR, and Tarmogoyfs, and the mana dorks and lingering souls with lilys.
Edit: Correction, there are some thoughtseizes