First, here's my latest list:
I finally made room for the Empty the Warrens kill, which as you can see changed the deck quite a bit. More on my choices another time. Now let's talk about winning.
First off, here are the conditions you'll need to win. There are a few possibilities:
3 lands in play, 2 rituals, a manamorphose, a land, and a Gifts Ungiven in hand.
4 lands in play, a ritual, a manamorphose, and a Gifts Ungiven in hand.
5 lands in play, a Gifts Ungiven, and some extra boost, a ritual, a land, a Manamorphose, a Past in Flames, any of the above, in hand.
6 lands in play and a Gifts Ungiven, though it'll help to have a Manamorphose.
That's it. It may sound like a lot, but it's really not. It may also sound like Manamorphose is incredibly important, but if you've been able to charge a storage land, that will help too. Keep in mind that all these have to be true on the end step of the turn BEFORE you go off.
How does that work? Simple. Let's take the first one. At the end of your turn, play a ritual, and use that mana and your third land to cast Gifts Ungiven. Assume it resolves. Search for:
Say they give you the two rituals. from there, you untap, play a land, play your first ritual, the two ones you got with gifts, and your manamorphose. you now have drawn a card, have all your rituals in your graveyard, alongside a Past in Flames, and 8 mana. Flashback Past in Flames (3 mana left in mana pool), and recast all your rituals, saving Seething Song, Increasing Vengeance, and Manamorphose for last. Then do this:
Flashback Seething Song.
In response, flashback Increasing Vengeance for RR targeting Seething Song.
What will happen is this: Increasing Vengeance will copy Seething Song twice, adding RRRRRRRRRR to your mana pool, after which Seething Song will resolve, adding an additional RRRRR. You now have 15 red mana. Flashback Manamorphose to add UU. Flashback Gifts for RRRU, and you have 10 red mana and U in your mana pool. You can then search out a second Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, and some combination of rituals or Manamorphoses. It doesn't really even matter. Regardless of where they put Empty the Warrens or Past in Flames, you'll have enough mana to flashback or cast Past in Flames and play an Empty the Warrens at a lethal storm count. Now, obviously they won't always give you those two cards, but if you go through that as a goldfish, you'll notice that you frequently have mana to spare there. That's because the bare minimum they can give you is sufficient. Say they give you Increasing Vengeance and Past in Flames (While that may seem counterintuitive, that's actually the best play they can make, since if you don't have a ritual to copy with Vengeance, you fizzle.) Then you just:
Play the land, 4 mana left. Cast the ritual. Cast increasing vengeance copying it. Add RRRRRR to your mana pool. Cast your Manamorphose. With 6 mana, cast your Past in Flames, leaving RR left. You can then flashback all your rituals, and you'll have just enough to cast Seething Song and Increasing Vengeance simultaneously, at which point closing out the game should be easy. Of course, you won't have blue mana, but that's what the Manamorphose is for!
Now, you may have noticed something about that route: It takes a LOT of red mana to get going. And it does. Going off early with this deck isn't easy. So, here are some Gifts piles that work later in the game:
Both of those are very useful at different times, such as when you don't have a ritual to copy, or when you want to go VERY big, since Goblin Electromancer will usually let you kill immediately with Aurelia's Fury, which is helpful if you think they have Echoing Truth or Maelstrom Pulse.
This is a lot of information to throw at you, so here I'm going to give you a few ground rules to work with, to try to figure out when to combo out.
1. Plan ahead. In other storm decks you've probably played, it's enough to tap out, slam your bomb, and hope for the best if it resolves, because you'll see enough cards and play enough mana. Not here. In this deck, you'll be working with relatively scarce resources when it comes to mana spells and draw pieces, so you have to plan ahead and KNOW that you can win with what you already have, rather than trusting that you can draw into whatever cards you need.
2. Make sure you have enough U. Usually, you won't fizzle from not having enough mana to cast your spells. You can manage that ok with a bit of forethought. The biggest factor that will make you fizzle is not having the blue mana to cast Gifts Ungiven. This makes cards like Manamorphose and Calciform Pools much stronger here than normal, and you should always think twice before blowing a Manamorphose or neglecting to play the Pools. This will lead to tough decisions, such as between playing pools and leaving Izzet Charm up on their turn, but you just have to figure out what the optimal play there is. You also have to keep in mind how much red mana it will take to get the Increasing Vengeance mana engine going, since that can pose a major speedbump as well. This is another factor that makes the deck so hard to play: choosing to get an island or Hallowed Fountain off that Scalding Tarn on turn 1 can kill you 4 turns later, when you need that land to be a Steam Vents.
3. Know what cards beat you, and how to circumvent them. If you think they have Echoing Truth, make sure you can beat it by getting the necessary countermagic. Make sure you can deal with their Deathrite Shaman. I'll probably write another piece about playing around or through hate soon, but in the meantime, try to figure out what they have, and how you can beat it.
4. Know your limits. If you can't figure out how to go off that turn, sometimes you can't. Sometimes it's better to Gifts for card advantage and countermagic, turtle for a couple turns, and sculpt your board for a bit, or even to hold off on Gifts for a turn. You have to be able to recognize those times and roll with the punches.
5. PRACTICE! Even after reading a primer, Gifts Ungiven is still an incredibly difficult card to play. It's gonna take a while before you've mastered all the ins and outs of it, and you have to accept that and keep trying.
And that's how to play Gifts Ungiven offensively and go off with Ritual Gifts. Keep those rules in mind in the future, as we turn to the other side of the coin: playing Gifts Ungiven defensively and preparing for the kill!
Thanks for reading,
LegitKarona
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Posted Jan 21, 2013I know that play, and it often is ok to cycle Manamorphose, I'm just cautioning you against being too liberal with what you hold in hand. This deck is in many ways an exercise in card economy: how few cards can I use to stay alive and retain control, and how few cards can I afford to combo with? Also, you will often want extra U to cast countermagic to stop potential counterwars at bad times.
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Posted Jan 21, 2013If you combo off on the standard "past in flame + 6 mana" timetable, you aren't going to be able to keep a blue floating when you hit the graveyard rituals anyway (and if you get to the six mana while leaving only blue sources untapped, manamorphose becomes irrelevant), and you should ultimately need only two more blue to flashback gifts and maybe remand your storm spell.
Maybe you need more if you want to use Noxious Revival and you're really worried about your life total or something, but that seems rare enough that you don't need to plan around it.