Been messing around a lot with "Pyromancer Ascension" / "Cloud Key" / "Locket of Yesterdays" -as well as- Main decking Pieces of the Puzzle, & even Splashing Black for 8 Discard Spells, +Infernal Tutor
Pyromancer Ascension is absolutely ridiculous once it gets going! And it's not vulnerable to the creature removal that's everywhere.
Ascension at 2 counters with Pieces of the Puzzle in the deck pretty much means drawing the entire deck, it's absolutely stupid!
Yes i strongly advocate 2x mainboard Ascension + 2 mainboard Empty the warrens
The list definitely looks spicy, I am always inclined to point out the lack of turn 1 interaction and counters though. Sounds rough if you start on the draw against an opponent on Dredge, Hollow One or Phoenix without being able to disrupt their plan until turn 3, Path to Exile excluded of course, but that's not quite the most powerful thing to do early on. Do you have some experience to share against those archetypes? Also, what's up with Worm Harvest? This doesn't sound overwhelming without Loam, especially when you need to cast it for 2BBB due to the lack of G.
Your statement about the Ponza matchup makes me curious, how does Dragonlord Silumgar matter at all? I was not able to reach 4 lands until turn 6 eventually, but at this time I was facing either Stormbreath Dragon, Inferno Titan or just both, maybe paired with Scavenging Ooze. There is not much one can do at this point, even Damnation is a stretch at 2BB with only one basic Swamp. Same story with Liliana of the Veil and Vendilion Clique in your list, basically uncastable under a Moon. When the Ponza player goes after you Plains, Nahiri is also out of the equation. I don't know how many LD spells current lists play, but the one I tested against runs 8 of them + 4 Blood Moon + recursion in the form of Eternal Witness, that's just miserable.
I need to rely mostly on Nahiri to carry that matchup. The matchup isn't good. The DragonLord Silumgar gives you a somewhat feasible path to victory -> As long as your topdeck is stronger than your opponent and they are using their resources to slow down your land drop but not applying relevant pressure, you're not in a bad position.
90% of the time I clique myself. Clique is relevant as a card draw and to apply pressure on their walkers.
The Worm Harvest is a tutor target where you go Gifts into 3 Fetches + Worm Harvest. Then you use Worm Harvest every turn to retrace 5-10 worms every turn. This is my package against control decks. Its also a second gifts "bullet" in case for some reason your first bullet was removed by some odd way.
The problem was against Control decks like UW, Abzan etc. You cannot name them off a color and they got too many sweepers and removal to make reanimating something like Grave Titan a reasonable plan.
You can also go something like Liliana/ Jace Discard - Hold Priority -> Gifts for Worm, Unburial, Iona. Then discard what they give you.
The deck replaces the Inquisitions with 4 Brutalities.
Did you playtest the sideboard plan with Madcap/Emperion yet? At least on paper and since you are in Red anyway, this sounds viable.
Needless to say, I tested around 10 matches against Ponza and was able to win a single one where they stumbled on their mana and/or draws, respectively. Not a single game was won by casting Gifts Ungiven, almost everything that mattered was done on the back of an early LotV paired with even earlier discard and enough outs for Blood Moon. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet was the single best creature one can imagine, as soon as the opponents needs to chump this guy, things get pretty ugly. Occasionally Trophy snipes a Stormbreath Dragon, but it overall feels pretty much like Abrupt Decay in the matchup. Ensnaring Bridge was mediocre, I managed to stabilize for several turns without finding anything that matters while having enough basics under a resolved Blood Moon (WUB basically, so enough for Gifts/Rites). Initially, keeping the number of cards low worked pretty fine until Stone Rains, Acid-Moss and Beast Within started hitting my basics, which led to my hand piling up, rendering Bridge utterly useless. Do you have any experience in running against Ponza? I think I have never had a matchup this bad so far (I'd estimate 10:90, obviously), although Tron sometimes felt pretty similar without Terastodon in the pile, maybe Trophy helps a bit.
I actually liked Madcap Experiment. I think I would like 2 Mapcap and 2 Emperium but not I'm not 100% sure what to cut for it. The issue is we don't have any real ways to really protect the Emperium. But I'm a bigger fan of Nahiri - Emarkul. (I mainboard 2, I could see myself playing a 3rd in the board + 1 Emarkul). Its great against sideboard Blood Moon and the slower grindy threats of Thing In the Ice, Phoneix, Goyf, Reality Smasher etc etc. Sure she exiles Rest in Peace and Leyline but I don't care too much about those if I'm going the Nahiri Route
I run the Dark Jeskai version and I have access to Nahiri which is backbreaking in the Ponza Matchup.
I also mainboard 2 Dragonlord Silumgars so my testings results are alot different from your results.
Moving away from the GY in a Gifts deck is a tough task. As said, R has the opportunity of Nahiri/Emrakul or simply Madcap/Emperion but I don't see how the BGUw lists should operate fully 'above ground' as you say, the GY is intrinsically woven into the strategy. You can't ask Dredge to play without their GY post board, although that admittedly is a little more drastic than with Gifts. And sure, Gifts into Souls/Radical Idea/Rites/X does not win the game on the spot but is a (deterministic!) possibility for discarding a reanimation target in hand without leaning too heavily on B.
I think I have to agree with you; This idea of moving gifts away from the combo post sideboard is not a great approach.
I mean people freaked out about the Vancouver Mulligan rule. To be honest, it wasn't that bad, it significantly helped to improve the game and mulligans.
This ruling could significantly help the "Mulligan into Leyline or Mulligan into hate".
I think I would be slightly in favor of this rule to help decks like Ad Nauseam Mulligan into a Leyline of Sanctity or Burn in Legacy to Mulligan into a Leyline.
I might join you in this regard and run a couple of Peer Through Depths to see how they work out. The Burn matchup is incredibly bad in my experience, unless you can mostly search basics or at least do it as painlessly as possible to T4 Gifts into Iona. A nicely placed T2 Brutality helps a lot, but generally we are on the loosing side. Dredge I can't really comment on as I haven't played the matchup a ton, Elesh seems to do quite a good job though and pseudo sweepers like Flaying Tendrils or Cry of the Carnarium do help. And Kalitas, of course.
Yes, my go-to Gifts list plays 11 discard outlets, 5 of the are reusable. Vendillion Clique did not quite make the cut due to mana requirements up to now, UU and BB on turn 3 together with G for Decay/Trophy/Loam seem to be quite a stretch. I tried Grave Titan a while ago, but the lack of evasion and immediate impact (apart from a 2/2 zombie) wasn't enough to keep him in the board so far. Gifts as mainly a land tutor sounds a little odd to be honest, there are sure situations where it is the correct play, but generally I wouldn't want to run a playset of Realms Uncharted.
Regarding tournament results, it (that is, Esper Gifts) put up some 5-0s in competitive leagues on MtGO last summer. Here are some of the lists: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1220849#paper
The Dredge matchup is a bit hard but your deck generally can out race with an early Elesh and you can Sweep their board and then you keep him with the Elesh
Dredge is really picking up speed right now. I wouldn't leave without a minimum of 3 pieces of grave hate now.
I considered going 2 Peer Through depths (still testing it) in the board to try to find Wear // Tear to protect combo, or find high impact cards like K command, Surgical, Unmoored Ego, Radiant Flames, DreadBore or Brutality etc (high impact sideboard cards) or gifts itself to belcher win. I find I'm losing too many games against burn or Dredge because I'm not finding gifts fast enough.
I'm a proponent of Gifts decks playing more discard outlets or Vendilion clique (which gifts list need anyways to get Iona into the bin or into the deck) and playing a higher curve in the main/ sideboard. i don't think Gifts decks should try to use their graveyard as the value engine but more or less use the fact that we can get away with able to mainboard or sideboard 2 Grave Titans/ Dragonlord Silumgar/ Elspeth or other 6 drops at a much lower cost compared to other decks. I like using gifts as a way to tutor up lands to try to hit your 6 drops.
The different style of the deck was more or less on purpose, as I think we can't hold up to the mostly B 4C mana base while running Growth Spiral and T1 discard effects. You can't ask the deck to produce T1: B, T2: UG, T3: 1BB and T4: 3W for Rites without getting messed with I think. But yes, it will play a little Miracle-ish for sure, which might be a viable option in the current meta where LotV has a little fallen out of favour I feel. And if 4C Gifts Rock isn't something, then that is streamlined. I always experienced it as incredibly durdly, setting aside purposefully streamlined lists with e.g. more Delve threats and Thought Scour instead if the heavy attrition package. Just think of grinding with Loam/Crime/Tec Edge, sure it feels like a well-oiled machinery at times, but the solutions it provides are sometimes really slow, although I will admit the deck has solutions for almost anything.
Regarding your question with the fatties in hand: First and foremost we have JtMS, he cares about things we not want in our hand, be it Terminus or one of the bigger dudes. Apart from this you might notice the 1-of Radical Idea, which can be easily included in a pile with Rites and things like Lingering Souls and Snapcaster/Pulse of Murasa to discard the creature wer can't currently cast and generate incidental value along the way.
As said, I haven't playtested the list so far, it is really just 'theory crafting' if you like. In any case I will let you know how it went.
I personally think gifts decks need to move away from the idea of 1 offs tutor for gifts piles:
1) Gifts decks, especially the Green version without any card draw cannot consistently draw their gifts ungivens. Even with with cards like Jace VP, you're at best 60% to draw your gifts in the matchup by turn 4.
2) You need to assume your graveyard is under attack post board. Especially post board, I think gifts deck needs to move away from their graveyard and move above ground with grindy cards or ways to protect their combo.
3) This Gifts into Radical Idea, Lingering Souls etc isn't really a "winning" line of play.
I'm a strong proponent of gifts decks maxing out on discard outlets such as Brualities, Cliques, Liliana, Nahiri etc and essentially allowing you to play a much higher curve than other archetypes given your combo and your discard outlets and winning that way. I'm also a proponent that 4c gifts lists need a sideboard option of something like Peer through depths or Merchant scroll to help belcher out the combo against non-interactive matchups.
He talked about how in Cube #3, you would be drafting 18 cards per pack but you have to play with the lands you draft and you cannot add additional basic lands. I really like this idea of drafting lands as part of your draft.
Does anyone have any inputs or thoughts into this?
Then Player A proceeds to cast a 1/1. Does the 1/1 die because the opponent's -2/-2 is applied first, the 1/1 dies and then the player A's +2/+2 is applied? Or do the Elesh Norn -2/-2 and +2/+2 just cancel out each other?
Is there any real reason that Fastbond is still restricted? Are there any back breaking strategies with it that warrant it still being on the list?
And yes, I am aware of what it does with Crucible of Worlds and Zuran Orb, but is that it? In the current state of Vintage, is this truly worrisome? I'd like to here what Vintage players think(if any actually read these forums).
As someone who doesn't play vintage, that doesn't sound like a pleasant thing I would like in the format...
As you know, it has made some (apparent) impact on UWx Miracles recently. In the Gifts shell I have some concerns however, the nice thing with Deathrite (or Birds, which I used as a replacement) was a potential turn 2 Liliana of the Veil, which was (and probably is) devastating for many decks. This is of course not possible with Growth Spiral, which additionally puts another constraint on the mana, since we want B on turn 1 and UG on turn 2 into BB turn 3 again, whereas turn 4 there is also a need for W for the flashback costs of Unburial Rites.
Nevertheless it is worth a try, one can potentially streamline the list a little bit to give it a little tempo boost. I am not sure whether you have seen the list I was running recently, based on this I would make the following suggestion:
I used to run 25 lands without dorks and removed a Temple Garden and a Marsh Flats to reduce to 23 lands in this list, which should be fine based on the experiences I have heard of from the Bant Draw-Go Control thread. I also used to run an Ensnaring Bridge in the main artifact package, having another natural synergy with Raven's Crime and Lingering Souls. This makes it possible to stall the board state for a couple of turns such that Gifts can take over. Maybe this isn't necessary anymore due to the gain in tempo. In no circumstance I would cut one of the LotV or the Jace, they have shown to be crucial, especially in grindy matchups. As always, feel free to comment on both main- and sideboard.
- I find it interesting you have Loam mainboard but no Raven mainboard?
- I feel like your list is lacking sweepers/ removal in your 75 to fight decks like humans
Yes i strongly advocate 2x mainboard Ascension + 2 mainboard Empty the warrens
If you control a creature damage. lol
I need to rely mostly on Nahiri to carry that matchup. The matchup isn't good. The DragonLord Silumgar gives you a somewhat feasible path to victory -> As long as your topdeck is stronger than your opponent and they are using their resources to slow down your land drop but not applying relevant pressure, you're not in a bad position.
90% of the time I clique myself. Clique is relevant as a card draw and to apply pressure on their walkers.
The Worm Harvest is a tutor target where you go Gifts into 3 Fetches + Worm Harvest. Then you use Worm Harvest every turn to retrace 5-10 worms every turn. This is my package against control decks. Its also a second gifts "bullet" in case for some reason your first bullet was removed by some odd way.
The problem was against Control decks like UW, Abzan etc. You cannot name them off a color and they got too many sweepers and removal to make reanimating something like Grave Titan a reasonable plan.
You can also go something like Liliana/ Jace Discard - Hold Priority -> Gifts for Worm, Unburial, Iona. Then discard what they give you.
The deck replaces the Inquisitions with 4 Brutalities.
I actually liked Madcap Experiment. I think I would like 2 Mapcap and 2 Emperium but not I'm not 100% sure what to cut for it. The issue is we don't have any real ways to really protect the Emperium. But I'm a bigger fan of Nahiri - Emarkul. (I mainboard 2, I could see myself playing a 3rd in the board + 1 Emarkul). Its great against sideboard Blood Moon and the slower grindy threats of Thing In the Ice, Phoneix, Goyf, Reality Smasher etc etc. Sure she exiles Rest in Peace and Leyline but I don't care too much about those if I'm going the Nahiri Route
I run the Dark Jeskai version and I have access to Nahiri which is backbreaking in the Ponza Matchup.
I also mainboard 2 Dragonlord Silumgars so my testings results are alot different from your results.
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
1 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Marsh Flats
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Island
Creature
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Vendilion Clique
2 Notion Thief
2 Dragonlord Silumgar
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
4 Collective Brutality
2 Kolaghan's command
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Worm Harvest
1 Unburial Rites
Planeswalker
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nahiri, the harbinger
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Kolaghan's command
2 Duress
2 Radiant Flames
2 Wear // Tear
2 Hero's Downfall
1 Nahiri, the harbinger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
This is what my deck would look like with Nahiri, Emarkul Sideboard.
I think I have to agree with you; This idea of moving gifts away from the combo post sideboard is not a great approach.
- Unfair decks will be able to mulligan to better hands.
- Fair decks will be able to mulligan into Leylines and hate pieces.
This ruling could significantly help the "Mulligan into Leyline or Mulligan into hate".
I think I would be slightly in favor of this rule to help decks like Ad Nauseam Mulligan into a Leyline of Sanctity or Burn in Legacy to Mulligan into a Leyline.
The Dredge matchup is a bit hard but your deck generally can out race with an early Elesh and you can Sweep their board and then you keep him with the Elesh
Dredge is really picking up speed right now. I wouldn't leave without a minimum of 3 pieces of grave hate now.
I'm a proponent of Gifts decks playing more discard outlets or Vendilion clique (which gifts list need anyways to get Iona into the bin or into the deck) and playing a higher curve in the main/ sideboard. i don't think Gifts decks should try to use their graveyard as the value engine but more or less use the fact that we can get away with able to mainboard or sideboard 2 Grave Titans/ Dragonlord Silumgar/ Elspeth or other 6 drops at a much lower cost compared to other decks. I like using gifts as a way to tutor up lands to try to hit your 6 drops.
I personally think gifts decks need to move away from the idea of 1 offs tutor for gifts piles:
1) Gifts decks, especially the Green version without any card draw cannot consistently draw their gifts ungivens. Even with with cards like Jace VP, you're at best 60% to draw your gifts in the matchup by turn 4.
2) You need to assume your graveyard is under attack post board. Especially post board, I think gifts deck needs to move away from their graveyard and move above ground with grindy cards or ways to protect their combo.
3) This Gifts into Radical Idea, Lingering Souls etc isn't really a "winning" line of play.
I'm a strong proponent of gifts decks maxing out on discard outlets such as Brualities, Cliques, Liliana, Nahiri etc and essentially allowing you to play a much higher curve than other archetypes given your combo and your discard outlets and winning that way. I'm also a proponent that 4c gifts lists need a sideboard option of something like Peer through depths or Merchant scroll to help belcher out the combo against non-interactive matchups.
https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/abesargent-08102018-my-top-ten-cubes
He talked about how in Cube #3, you would be drafting 18 cards per pack but you have to play with the lands you draft and you cannot add additional basic lands. I really like this idea of drafting lands as part of your draft.
Does anyone have any inputs or thoughts into this?
Then Player B plays his own Elesh Norn.
Then Player A proceeds to cast a 1/1. Does the 1/1 die because the opponent's -2/-2 is applied first, the 1/1 dies and then the player A's +2/+2 is applied? Or do the Elesh Norn -2/-2 and +2/+2 just cancel out each other?
As someone who doesn't play vintage, that doesn't sound like a pleasant thing I would like in the format...
- I find it interesting you have Loam mainboard but no Raven mainboard?
- I feel like your list is lacking sweepers/ removal in your 75 to fight decks like humans