There are a few things you need to consider when preparing for a large tournament.

1. Play a deck that you are the most familiar with.
2. Play a deck that is easy to play
3. Don't play something rogue unless you have hundreads of hours of playtesting to back it up

With that in mind, you should consider these decks:

Brassman Gifts, Rich Shay's Control Slaver, or GWS Intuition Tendrils.

You could pretty much flip a coin to determine which of these decks to play, but pick one right now and playtest the shit out of it. Playtest until you know how you plan on winning every single matchup you expect to face, both pre and post SB. After that, you can make slight changes to their decklists to incorporate your playstyle... but don't do this until you understand their deck inside and out because otherwise your changes could compltely fuck up the deck's mechanics.

Good luck.

I hate to be the one to ask... but could you post a decklist for us non-premium members?

Actually, Zombie infestation and Werebear are the primary win conditions of the deck. Wretch's primary function is disruption. Obviously if he was meant as a primary win condition, he'd have to be better than a 2/2 for BB.

Re: re: Withered Wretch

I never ever said this was a bad card, or a bad card for the deck - make sure you keep in mind that I'm arguing making a cut to keep the deck at 60 cards as opposed to 61. I'm not saying that he's useless all the time; he is definitely a game-breaker in a whole bunch of matches in very specific circumstances.

What I am saying is that Withered Wretch's disruption is not always useful, and not useful enough that it justifies pushing the deck over 60 cards. If you guys really want to put yourself at a mathematical disadvantage by running more cards than you have to, go ahead, but I'm happy with only 2 Wretches for the reasons that I have illustrated in my previous two posts.

Hey man,


The only enchantment in T1 that you worry about game 1 is Oath of Druids, and honestly, I really don't think a single Vitae handles that match very well. It does have advantages against Stax, but against every other deck in T1 (including Oath), I would rather see oxidize. A common play I make is EOT Oxidize on a mox; against Gifts, I wouldn't even attempt it since 3 mana is a huge drain target for such a relatively small effect. Oxidize doubles as a wasteland better than your other utility removal and for this reason, I would run both in the MD compared to your other hate. Losing some 3cc artifact removal does nothing to damage an already even Stax match. Oxidize is a better tempo card, even against stax unless they have Chalice @ 1, which isn't a key play against us.



In Vintange, in a 3 colour deck, running a 2/2 for BB is a terrible play unless he's got a really kickass ability. I will admit, his ability is situationally kickass, however, it's also shit against a whole bunch of decks, and it's even shit against the right decks in the wrong circumstances. He's nice against Storm, and if Storm combo is a huge part of your metagame - huge enough that you want this bitch in your hand almost every game - go ahead and run 3 of them. Null Rod does a pretty good job at temporarily slowing down Yawgmoth's Will, so I really don't think this guy in needed as a 3 of, especially in game one. You yourself said that game 1 isn't hugely in your favor against anything; I think you must extend this philosophy and trim the fat of your deck. 60 cards is mathematically better than 61 for consistancy reasons. I wouldn't put myself at an immediate disadvantage before every game starts, no matter how relatively insignificant it is. You have 3 tutors to fetch him if you are desperate, plus an awesome draw engine that will help you dig into it within the first 5 turns fairly consistantly for those matches where he's great. I feel this deck is improving very quickly through the changes you've made; however, optimization of the deck is simply impossible when you are running 61 cards. This change isn't significant, but I feel that it takes the deck a small step towards the goal of "optimization."



Obviously SB should be heavily geared toward your own metagame, and since I was constucting my SB for a theoretical meta of Gifts/Slaver/Uba/Oath, I wanted to give myself as many possible SB bombs as possible against each of those. If you are having no problems G2-3 against Oath with only 3 Rays, that's great. It frees up a slot, which would be turned into a Darkblast, probably.



Gifts is my pet deck - If I am a specialist on any deck in type one, it would definitely be Gifts Ungiven based control. I have not played *that* many post SB games against Gifts with this deck; probably between 10-15ish. I have tested Gifts dozens of times post SB against Choke Oath, which is exactly how I was shown the brutality of Choke. Every game when I got Choke to resolve against Gifts, I won the game. It takes an uncanny nack for reading your opponent to figure out whether or not he's got a mana drain, but if you are sure he doesn't (via either Duress or intuition), Choke is a massive bomb that wins you the game. Chains of Meph can hurt Gifts and Slaver, but it doesn't come close to putting them out of the game. Remember, Gifts' draw engine is based on tutors, not actually drawing spells. Chains does nothing to stop them from Merchant scrolling into Gifts/Mystical and then comboing you out, Tinkering out a Colossus, or pwning you with Flame/Vault. Choke forces them to have an answer immediately or else they will lose. Chains is a soft lock card that occasionally results in a game win when combined with the other powerful disruption in your deck. As a Gifts player, I am so much more terrified of Choke than Chains of Meph. At the very least, I think you should do some serious testing with the card to see my point.

Re: Sacred Ground

The card has a powerful effect, but it doesn't help you combat Chalice @2, which is Stax's best lock card against you. Your deck can handle 1 or 2 watelands, but has serious trouble dealing with a strip-lock. Artifact removal takes out Smokestack, Crucible, Chalice and each other soft-lock cards stax has against you, whereas Sacred Ground is only effective (albeit extremely effective) against a few lock-parts. Since you already have Loam as a semi-answer to Stax/Crucible, I think you are probably better off with dedicated artifact removal that handles any threat you are faced with.

The key to winning against Belcher is Null Rod on the back of Chalice @ 1. This is similar to how you should plan on beating Storm combo. I don't think that Orim's Chant is any better at stopping the tendrils deck than Stifle is. Chalice gives you a proactive way to slow down the rate at which the opposing combo deck develops, compared to Chant, which only helps stop their win condition on the turn they attempt to win.

I'll keep you informed on further testing I do with this deck via PM - I'm interested to hear rebuttle/comments.

After playing a bunch more test games both pre and post SB, I have a few more comments about the deck...

The 61st card is your third Withered Wretch. He's incredibly horrible in multiples, and he's occasionally horrible in singles. He does administer some heavy disruption in certain circumstances, but because of his highly situational disruption, you don't want to be drawing into him that often. You also don't really need him in the first 4-5 turns because you will probably be casting other threats and throwing your strongest assault on your opponent. At this point, you want to draw Wretch because you have the extra mana to sink into him which will put the final spike into your opponent. You don't need to see him early game, so the third isn't needed. 60 cards is just so much better, don't you think?

Here is the Sideboard I have been testing (intended for a "standard" Uba/Gifts/Slaver/Oath" Metagame):

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Ray of Revelation
3 Choke
2 Seeds of Innocence
2 Oxidize

The chalices do a pretty nice job at shoring up your toughest opponent, dedicated combo. I feel that Chalice does a better job at disrupting both Belcher and Grim Long, along with any other Ritual-based combo when compared to Orim's Chant.

Orim's' Chant acts as a timewalk, or a counterspell to Yawgmoth's will against Gifts, however, I think you are better off to use some hardcore heavy disruption for that match... Choke is absolutely insane. Remeber when GWS Oath ran Choke in its sideboard, even though they use MD Islands, just because it is such a house against Gifts/Slaver? Ultimately, I think they cut it for extract, but in your deck, there is absolutely no drawback to Choke. It wrecks Gifts' mana base - when this thing resolves, they are put in a situation where they must win fast, or else they are out of game. It is also ridiculous against Slaver, TT Confidant/Confidant control, T1T variants, ect ect. It's a huge drain target, which is my biggest worry, but hopefully you are clever enough to play around mana drain.

I moved it up to 4 Ray of Revelations because it is so important to the Oath matchup. Oath turns from an impossible match to an easy one becase of Ray, and as such, it is really important to draw, especially in multiples, so 4 in the SB seems effective and neccessary. It is also a beating against dragon.

To shore up the Uba/5c Stax matches, I move the final 2 Oxidizes into the maindeck, alongside 2 Seeds of Innocence. I use 2 MD Oxidizes, so after SB I have four in the deck. I have to admit that I stole most of this SB's strategy from GWS's Oath list, but remember: it works. Oxidize is a 4of in Oath's SB; I think it is equally as useful in this deck's sideboard. Seeds of Innocence has a rediculosly powerful effect. Rack and Ruin - gives you enough breathing room so you can occasionally wiggle out of the lock. Seeds - wipes their board of permanents... and then win because they have no permanents.

I'm really digging this sideboard - I love how these colours give me incredibly effective hate against every deck in the format. I feel happy going up againt anything in game 2.

I'm a huge fan of this deck. I took notice of it when it won a small tournament in ontario and have been so thrilled to see it win all over the place.

I have a small comment for you... I think that instead of Aura Shards and Sundering Vitae I would just play 2x Oxidize.

The purpose of that slot is to #1, destroy chalice at 2; #2, kill other problem artifacts such as pithing needle, stax lock cards, ect. Chalice for 1 isn't a huge problem for your deck... it shuts off your tutors and Stps, not that bad.

Oxidize blows up an artifact for an incredibly low price - at the very worst, you can destroy a mox which is so much better than getting stuck with a 3cc drain target in your hand.

I thought about Pup/Cadet but ultimately decided that the best way to win quickly is with an awesome piece of equptment. The 2/1s might be useful if you still use Null Rod, but since you don't have as much disruption as UW fish (like Meddling Mage, StP, ect) I went with the disrupting red dudes instead of the 2/1s. If you are expecting to face little/no Stax, Vandal could easily be cut for Jackal pup, or some other utility creature.

SoFI and Jitte both provide similar clocks... however, the reason I choose not to run any SOFIs is because it costs 3 mana. You really don't want to tap 3 mana for any single spell in this deck - it is a huge drain target, your mana will often be occupied by Factories and artifact-eating little men, while continuing to drop threats. For that extra 1 mana you do get a lot of fancy little abilities, but the purpose of the equiptment slot in the deck is to speed up the clock. Since Jitte's clock is as fast/faster than SoFI's for a cheeper cost, it gets all 3 slots. You will never need to cast more than 1 Jitte, either, so the Legend thing doesn't make much difference, unless you want to kill an opponent's Jitte.

I've been thinking and brainstorming about this decklist since I made my post here a few days ago and I think I have a list... I know there have been a lot of lists recently, but I think this one seems pretty all-encompassing regarding what a fish deck needs in order to win games against a diverse field. I'll give some decent explanation regarding a few of the more important selections.

UR Jitte Fish:

Clock: 17
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Goblin Vandal
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Disrupt: 7
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Rushing River
1 Echoing Truth

Counters: 8
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
2 Stifle

Broken: 6
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Mana: 22
1 Sapphire
1 Ruby
1 Black Lotus

1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Volcanic Island
2/2 Delta + Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 Mishra's Factory

SB possibility:
4x Reb/Pryoblast
2-3 Gilded Drake
2-3 Pithing Needle
Rack and Ruins/Energy Flux/Annul
Extract

ect ect


The Disruption base:

Key cards here are 4 Chalice of the Void and 3 Gorilla Shaman. I have a deep love for Null Rod, but I decided that UR Fish can not exist without a really good clock, and due to a lack in efficient beaters, Jitte has to be the way to go. Because of this, Null Rod can't be in the MD. I've always liked the combo of Chalice + Shaman because the mox monkey does a really good job at cleaning up the arifact accelerants that Chalice misses. It can also eat annoying Pithing needles, which is nothing to scoff at. Chalice is pretty good at preventing Tinker from having artifacts to sacrifice, in the first 4-5 turns at least, which is really all you should need.

Rushing River and Echoing Truth serve multiple purposes. Firstly, they bounce DSC. Any deck like this needs a way to get rid of DSC - Fire/Ice does not cut it as permanent removal - not even close. Bounce also gives you some nice answers to Stax lock parts. Chalice for 1 is a huge kick in the nuts against this deck - 3 bouncers kinda helps this out a little bit. All of this wrapped up into 1 card - seems pretty efficient. If you are expecting less Oath and more Gifts, 2 Truth/1 River would be fine.

Daze and Stifle make nice little 2 ofs. They both often produce effects that alter the whole state of the game, but at other times they will sit dead in your hand. These 4 spots are very versetile - you could run almost anything in these spots, from Fire/Ice to Lightning Bolt to Misdirection to Pithing Needle to Rack and Ruin to Red Elemental Blast, ect ect. Daze and Stifle help slow my opponents mana fronts at the very least, and can win games if played when the timing is perfect.

The dudes:
Ninja is the way this deck keeps fueled up. This guy replaces Standstill and Curiosity because not only does he act as the draw engine for your deck, he beats down for 2 per turn, is very rarely dead - unlike the other two - and completely avoids mana drain. 4 Goblin Vandal provide a little more insurance against moxen or other scary artifacts, plus, if you can resolve one of these guys against Stax on your first turn, they have to completely re-evaluate how they plan on winning the game. Grim Lavamancer cleans up Welders for you pretty well... clears any blockers, is a Ninjitsu target, and sometimes can bolt your opponent to death - not bad for just R. Jitte is the reason this deck is able to win. It makes all of those measly 1 drops into huge MFing big threats. Jitte is normally about a 4 turn clock combined with all of your beats, and hopefully with some nice mana disruption and well-timed counters, you should be able to stall your opponent enough to push through those last bits of damage.

I agree with almost all of this post... except for the little underlined "worse." You are right in that SoR does make you pay more mana for the more spells you are casting... however, I don't really have a problem in paying only 4 for Intuition and only 3 for AK. Remember, I probably wont be casting these spells in the same turn, and I'm sure you'll agree that it is easier to keep your opponent off 5 mana for a Gifts compared to the 4 or even 3 islands it takes to get my engine started. SoR is really powerful against this deck, but not because of the reasons you mentioned... if you can cast it on your first turn, you are able to keep me off Drain mana until turn 3, which pretty much ruins me unless you have a shitty draw. With SoR in play, I would rather be holding an Intuition than a Gifts.

I've done some extensive testing with UW Fisih fairly recently, and I would like to make a few comments on your deck based on my observations.

1: You need a really good clock. What you have does not cut it. When building your deck, focus less on specific card choices and focus more on the goal of your deck, and then pick cards that achive that goal. Your opponent should not live past turn 6 or 7 at the very very latest. Only Ninja and Factory have 2 power, which means that you are going to be killing on turn 6 and 7 at the very best - you need to do better.

2: Spiketail hatchling is no good at all. I know what you are thinking "but with all the mana denial in this deck, his ability will counter a spell almost every time!!" However, not many opponents are going to walk themselves into a spiketail hatchling, so he will never ever counter anything relevant... and if you really want a force spike-ish counter, go with Daze - your opponent will not see it coming from 9 miles away, at least. You really really want to keep your creatures on the board.

3: Think of Fish like Workshop Aggro. You want to throw some serious disruption at your opponent in the first few turns, and follow it up with a really fast clock. Instead of spending 4 mana on Juggs, you spend 3-4 mana on a different combination of 5-6/x power worth of creatures. This shoul give your opponent a 4-5 turn clock to fight his way past your disruption, which hopefully, he wont be able to. Unlike MWS Aggro, you don't have to rely on a 4-of land to power out each of your threats.

4: DO NOT cut Brainstorm. Why? Well, you know those hands when you have the wrong answers to your opponents threats? Brainstorm cures this. You know when you really really need that FoW? Brainstorm finds it. Ect ect ect. Brainstorm is the last card you want to cut from your list. I am not against the use of another draw engine, however, because brainstorm is not a draw engine. It is just awesomely efficient card manipulation that belongs is pretty much every blue-based deck I can think of.

I can't really think of Red cards that help solve any of these problems - I would personally just run UW fish, but I can understand if you don't want to do that. But that is your job, I guess, as the deckbuilder. Good luck, I'm interested to see a final product - get some good testing in.

You're right, I didn't spend too much time adressing why Intuition/AK can be better than the TfK/Pithing Needle engine, or the 4 Gifts/4 Scroll Engine. I'm one of the people who cringes when I see posts that have breakdowns for every single card in the deck - Brainstorm, ect ect - and because of this, I didn't spend too much time on specific card choices. But in light of your post, here are the adantages of AK/Intuition over the other engines.

AK Gifts:
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Intuition
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Gifts Ungiven

AK Gifts uses the first 3-4 turns not worrying about tutoring for dead cards, such as Time Vault, and it doesn't get stuck on turn 2 or 3 with only a Gifts in hand without the mana to cast it and Mana Drain. Instead, it spends its resources in resolving spells that draw 3 cards or 4 cards. Once you have assembled this "combo" of drawing cards, you are going to be in a great spot to win the game. Not only will you have the spells in hand that require you to combo out your opponent (Gifts or Intuition or simply draw into Yawgmoth's Will), plus your hand will be chalk full of counters and the mana to play everything. You also have a lower mana curve than the other Gifts decks, which allows you to get Intuition with Drain mana way earilier than the other Gifts decks - 3 + 2 > 4 +2.

The biggest weakness AK gifts has is if it gets stuck with AK and not much else in hand, however, you generally mulligan away hands that contain 1 AK and not much else. You can also get screwed if Intuition is countered when you are holding AK because you are stuck with a card in hand that doesn't really do much of anything. However, if you compare this to the slots other Gifts use, such as Pithing Needle or Misdirection - neither of them draw you cards and put you back into the game if your initial assault is stopped.

Shortbus Gifts:
4 Thirst for Knowledge (which requires 3 Pithing Needle)
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vamp Tutor

The biggest weakness of this variant, as you mentioned, is the fact that TfK doesn't really create that much card advantage. What it does provide is a very cheep spell that lets you look at the top 3 cards of your library. SBGifts uses this advantage of speed and combines it with cheep tutors (Imperial Seal + Vampiric Tutor) in hopes of comboing out faster than any other Gifts deck by using the Flame/Vault combo. On average, compared to AK Gifts, SBGifts will be able to assemble its combo and win about a turn earlier. However, because this version of the deck doesn't use many spells that create card advantage, if its opponent is able to stop the initial rush of threats, it is much harder to come back into the game and win.

The only advantage this version of Gifts has over AK Gifts is the "oops I win" factor. I can not tutor up a 2 card combo and mutilate my opponent. However, any time the SBGifts player goes the "Gifts Ungiven" route, I feel that Intution/AK would be much more powerful because of the reasons mentioned above.

Meandeck Gifts:
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gifts Ungiven
(3 Misdirection)

I feel that AK Gifts has 2 important advantages over Meandeck's build of Gifts. Firstly, Gifts Ungiven costs 4 mana to cast, which isn't always easy to get, especially if you want Drain backup. Secondly, as much as I love the additional counters for the control match, Misdirection is not quite as effective againt the rest of the field. I would prefer to run a few additional threats, because they help the control mirror, plus they are useful against the rest of the world. I'm a huge fan of this permutation of Gifts, however, because of Mis-D's lack of versetility, especially against Stax, I prefer AK Gifts.




I fullly understand the strengths of Mana Vault. The only regret I have in cutting it is the fact that it can be cast if Chalice for 0 is in play. However, in the Stax match, I prefer having a basic Island because it makes the rest of the cards in my hand a whole lot better. Vault comes in and out of the deck almost daily, depending on my mood, and the expected metagame. The same is true for LoA - it got the boot because I love basic lands more than anything else in this deck. However, both LoA and Mana Vault can be powerful and if you like them, go for it. I also think it's kind of cute that in your example, you have Tinker and Will in your hand, and both of them resolve. Good luck not winning.

Mana Drain vs. Fish depends mainly on which version of Fish you are playing against. I come from Ontario in Canada and face OFM more than any other build of Fish, so I have a ton on 3cc targets for my Mana Drain, however, against Meandeck Fish, REB is definitely better.

Obviously I only counter Duress if it is going to screw up my gameplan - with multiple significant threats, there is no need to counter it. I don't counter Oath because a 3 turn clock isn't really that fast - I can race that most of the time, if I need to. If I have a slow hand, I will counter the Oath, though. It depends on the gamestate - I was simply stating that it isn't always correct to counter Oath.


The UBA match is very very complicated. If I was playing Meandeck/Shortbus gifts, the cards to counter become very different. Uba Mask is much less of a threat if you are holding a Gifts Ungiven, compared to something like Intuition. Sphere of Resistance is also much less of a threat to AK Gifts because of its engine's lower mana cost. Both Intuition and Gifts Ungiven have different strengths against Uba, and honestly, I'm not sure which is optimal. I do know, however, that AK Gifts is able to continue ramping up its draw engine regardless of many of Uba's lock parts for a pretty fair price. Not needing more than 3 mana in one turn to continue with your gameplan is the reason why AK can win games against UBA that Gifts may not be able to win. The difference between 3 and 4 mana is huge. You are right about Chalice @ 2, as we both already mentioned.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone - keep it coming.

Edit:

Nobody has asked me why I play Merchant Scroll over Vamp/Imperial Seal yet, so let me pre-emptively answer the question. Firstly, I hate fetching out Underground Seas; I like playing Mono Blue until the last few turns. Secondly, while Vamp/Seal do a great job at fetching up an Ancestral on the first turn, or finding a Yawgmoth's Will/Tinker, they don't put anything into your hand. I would say that about 40% of the time, I use Merchant Scroll to find Mana Drain or Force of Will. Card disadvantage tutors don't do that for me.

Deck: AK Gifts

The purpose of this thread is to promote a relatively old, yet unexplored deck in Vintage: AK/Intuition based Gifts Ungiven Control. I am not the inventor of this deck, although I did come to my final decklist independent of other promoters of the deck . This deck has not soared to popularity, unlike other builds of Gifts, however, after testing this list for the past few months, I can say that it is the most versatile and adaptable Gifts deck I have ever played. I will discuss a few of the card choices and explain why I think this is more effective than other builds of Gifts that I have seen. I will guide you through the strategy you should take when faced against a few of the most popular decks in vintage. As a side note, this is my first thread as a TMD full-member, and this thread is required of me in order to gain my full membership. Before I go any further, here is my complete main-deck and sideboard.

AK Gifts

The Engine: 20
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Merchant Scroll
3 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven

Disrupt: 10
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Hurkyl’s Recall/Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild

Kill: 5
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Burning Wish
1 Recoup

Mana: 25

9 SoLoMoxCryptPetal
5 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:

3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pithing Needle
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Rushing River
1 Rolling Earthquake/Pyroclasm
1 Deep Analysis

The maindeck is sporting the combo of Intuition and AK. Other builds of Gifts have settled on TfK, Skeletal Scrying, 4 Scroll/4 Gifts, along with many permutations of those. This version of Gifts works on a the principal that by winning the “spell resolution” war by running more must-counter spells, you are able to overwhelm your opponent with card advantage much more effectively and consistently than other builds of Gifts.

The Intuition/AK engine provides the deck with something that until this point, Gifts lacked: significant card advantage. Older versions of Gifts attempted to gain a slight advantage by either casting TfK, or Merchant Scroll into Ancestral. By gaining this slight advantage, the Gifts player got to sit back and wait for his opponent to walk into a Mana Drain, and by following it up with a winning Gifts Ungiven. However, this plan’s faults are many; if you misjudge the state of the game, even slightly, you will lose. Meandeck Gifts is an incredibly unforgiving deck to play. Not only must you not make any technical errors, you must have an uncanny ability to read your opponent to know when and how to win.

By changing the plan of  “Ancestral, Mana Drain, Gifts, Win” to “Ancestral, AK for 3, AK for 4, Gifts, Win” you are opening yourself up to a whole new array of options. The deck is admittedly slower than Meandeck’s version of Gifts… although by 1 turn at the very most. Considering the fact that Gifts *often* benefits from taking a more controlling role in matches, such as CS and the mirror match, Intuition/AK provides the necessary card advantage required to put itself in advantageous positions against every other Control deck in the format.

Only 1 copy of Gifts is required, because after drawing an insane amount of cards, you will either draw into it, Merchant Scroll for it, or simply not need it. Gifts isn’t good enough in the first 3 turns to warrant more than 1 copy, and it isn’t necessary enough in the late game to warrant more than 1 copy.

Mana Vault was not included because I don’t think the decks wants to run a colorless version of Dark Ritual. I know that boosting up 3 mana in a turn is very nice, however, I already have 4 Drains, 9 artifact accelerants and a helluva lot of basic lands to do that for me.

Rolling Earthquake acts as a bitching way to destroy aggro’s board. My problem with Pyroclasm is the fact that it only deals 2 damage, which isn’t always sufficient. Razormane Masticore acts as my giant kick in the nuts towards anyone who depends on creatures to win. Deep Analysis is my Burning Wish -> card draw that the deck totally needs. It is also useful if you ever board it in because it combos very well with Intuition. Pithing Needle is my super-efficient catch-all answer to pretty much everything, including Welders, Bazaars, Waste/Strip, Mindslaver, and other similar targets. Tormod’s Crypt is the best way I have at shutting down opposing Yawgmoth’s Wills.

Here are some tips and sideboarding strategies for playing against a few prominent archetypes in Vintage at the moment.

Vs. Control Slaver

The only way that Slaver can win is when it Mana Drains an early threat, TfKs into a Slaver, and activates it in the first 3-4 turns. Pentavus and Triskellion are not threats to me at all. Neither are Echoing Truth, Rack and Ruin or  maybe Fire/Ice.

 The role that you should assume when facing Control Slaver is Combo. CS has only two different threats that you should be worried about: Mindslaver and Gorilla Shaman. The Shaman is able to slow you down in the early game, which buys itself some time to get Slaver active.  A key play against Slaver is the 1st mainphase Intuition on his turn. This forces him to use his Mana Drains in a terrible position on a card that could or could not lead to his doom. The good thing about this deck is that if your Intuition is countered, you can often follow it up with a Merchant Scroll for Ancestral or something similar. If CS doesn’t get a Slaver active immediately, the card advantage my deck has produced will be able to keep him from getting it online. The strength of this deck is being able to produce a steady stream of threats against an opponent who doesn’t have many threats against me. By playing aggressively, you are able to overwhelm the CS player, and eventually you will find yourself in a situation where you have 6 or 7 cards in your hand, and they will only have 2 or 3. This is obviously the game-state that are trying to achieve and it is the game-state that this deck is able to put you in extremely quickly and consistently. At this point, you either tutor up Yawgmoth’s Will to win, or cast Gifts Ungiven to set up your win.

SB against Control Slaver:

+3 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Pithing Needle +1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Rebuild, -1 Darksteel Colossus, -1 Tinker, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Island, -1 Burning Wish

Game two plays out very much like game one. Your best SB card against Slaver is Red Elemental Blast. It helps you resolve early bombs such as AK for 3 or AK for 4 for a very cheap price. You might think that Pithing Needle is there to combat Goblin Welder, but I am not overly concerned with him. My Pithing Needles will always name Mindslaver, and if I get a second, it’s going on Gorilla Shaman.

Taking out Tinker/Colossus is my way to ignore Goblin Welder even further. One of the advantages of Intuition/AK is that because you draw so many cards, you will be able to cast enough spells to win with Tendrils very easily. The extra Rebuild and Island are unnecessary, so they move to the side to make room for the more aggressive REB. Mystical Tutor’s lack of card advantage makes it lose its place in the maindeck.

Keep in mind that Slaver running Mana Leak is a pretty bad match for you. Being able to stop your early assault will put them in great position against you. Make sure to play extra cautiously if your opponent is packing Leaks. Try to get a good read on your opponent to figure out if he has counter spells or not. This skill is extremely important in the control mirror.

I would say that Control Slaver is a favorable matchup.

Vs. Uba Stax

Vroman’s newest build of Uba Stax is very terrifying for a Gifts player to sit down across from. Packing a full set of Sphere of Resistances, along with all of the other incredibly potent lock-parts gives me such terrible headaches. However, the good news is that compared to other builds of Gifts, I feel that I am able to play through the hate more effectively, which gains me quite a few more game wins than other builds of Gifts.

As I mentioned before, one of the greatest things about this deck is that you don’t need more than 3 mana at one time in order to start and finish your draw engine. Not relying on a 4 mana spell to win in the early/mid turns lets me power through most of the lock parts that Uba Stax relies on.

To play effectively against Uba Stax, you must correctly define which lock parts are hard locks, and which are soft locks.

Hard Lock Pieces (the ones that make you lose):
Chalice of the Void @ 2, and Smokestack
Soft Lock Pieces (the ones you can play around):
Null Rod, Chalice @ 0 or 1, Sphere of Resistance, Crucible of Worlds, Trinisphere and Uba Mask

Additionally, there are a few combinations of cards that will end your game, such as Uba + Welder, or often Uba + Bazaar. Because of this, I’m tempted to move Uba into the “hard lock” category, however, on it’s own, while incredibly effective at stopping your AK engine, it does nothing to stop one of your best tools in this match: Tinker. Often you can play the “counter Welder, Tinker, you lose” game against them. In fact, Welder is often the card that spells your doom in game one, so you should consider countering any Welder your opponent plays, even if it isn’t an immediate threat.

Knowing what to counter and what to let resolve is the key to winning this match. My rule of thumb is this: if you can still play something relevant after a lock piece resolves, you probably don’t need to counter it. The only must-counter in the deck, game 1, that Uba has is Chalice @ 2. Do your best to maximize your resources while minimizing theirs and you will win games that you may have considered lost causes. The MD Hurkyl’s Recall is a huge bomb against Uba.

SB against Uba Stax

+2 Rack and Ruin, +2 Pithing Needle
-1 Intuition, -1 Merchant Scroll, -1 Fact or Fiction, -1 Gifts Ungiven

The strategy in the second game is to cut down on the amount of spells that they can play that will make you lose. By bringing in Rack and Ruins and Pithing Needle, Chalice @ 2 and Goblin Welder become much less significant threats. By turning their Hard-Locks into Soft-Locks, you are able to play a completely different game, and believe me, the amount of games you win post-board will be much higher than pre-board ones.

Unless your opponent has Ubazaar going, your first Pithing Needle should name Goblin Welder. I really wish Rack and Ruin wasn’t red, or I wish I could run a Mountain in the MD, because Wasteland becomes a little bit more relevant if I have to be cast a red spell. However, Rack and Ruin’s effect completely changes the board and should put you in a very improved situation, even if your land gets Wasted.

Uba has a slight advantage in the first game, but after SB, I think the advantage swings in my direction. However, out of any deck, Uba is probably the deck I fear most when playing Gifts, other than maybe a well-built version of Dragon. If your opponent is still running green, be very afraid of Choke in the sideboard.

Vs. OFM/UW Fish

Once again, you get to put on your Combo face against OFM because that is the best role to take. You need to worry about these cards: 4 Force of Will, 4 Meddling Mage, 3 Null Rod, 4 Chalice of the Void and perhaps 3 Daze and a Misdirection in OFM’s case. Be very afraid of Meddling Mage if you cut Echoing Truth. Looking at it from OFM’s perspective, Tinker is probably the best card to name with the first Mage. However, for me, naming Yawgmoth’s Will is much more disruptive. I can see reasons for naming either of those cards, but I’m pretty sure that anything else is just a waste because I will be able to play around it. If Mage names Tinker, you can just combo them out as normal with Tendrils. If they name Will, you need to completely re-asses how you plan on winning the game. It is definitely not impossible and I have pulled out many wins in this manner, even without being able to cast Yawgmoth’s Will. Generally, you want to turn into Mono Blue control. Draw lots of cards, counter their key spells, and when you are perfectly comfortable, Tinker up a DSC, hopefully with multiple counters to back it up. Don’t be afraid to Scroll into a Mana Drain or FoW in this case because you can’t afford to lose your DSC.

One of the awesome things about this deck is that Null Rod/Chalice doesn’t really slow me down that much. When my card drawing engine is just starting up, I only  have to use 3 mana at most to draw mass amounts of cards. Not relying on Gifts Ungiven in the early game against fish gives it quite a boost and can often put itself in a position to win in the first 5-6 turns, even in the face of a resolved Null Rod or Chalice @ zero. This deck’s non-reliance on moxen is a very nice thing in a field of Null Rods, Chalices and Gorilla Shaman. Of course, you will probably want to bounce Null Rod before you Yawgmoth’s Will, but Merchant for Hurkyl’s or Rebuild will clear the way at a very efficient price. I favor Hurkyl’s over both Echoing Truth and Chain of Vapor. I was using Echoing Truth at first, but I found its effect pretty underwhelming. It didn’t clear my opponent’s board and it didn’t help me combo off. Chain of Vapor is pretty nice and I definitely like it better than Echoing Truth. People say that Truth is good because it dodges Chalice @ one, however, Chalice for 1 is not that big of a threat. It shuts off only 7 cards (4 Brainstorm, 1 Recall, 1 Chain, 1 Mystical). Hurkyl’s in the MD is great against Stax because it clears their whole board for a ridiculously low cost, and it cuts down on a mana if you need it to set up a winning Tendrils.

SB against Fish/OFM:

+2 Razormane Masticore, +1 Rushing River, +1 Rolling Earthquake
-1 Mana Drain, -1 Fact or Fiction, -1 Merchant Scroll, -1 Intuition

I am siding out some of my extra draw spells in favor of some specific hate against their deck. Razormane Masticore is a huge bomb. If OFM doesn’t get a Sword to Plowshares or a Seal of Cleansing really quickly, the game will be over. Rolling Earthquake is an awesome way to wipe out a horde of your opponent’s Meddling Mages and Ninjas. I play earthquake over Pyroclasm because I occasionally face Old Men of the Sea and Serendib Efreet. If you expect a more standard build of fish, Pyroclasm would work just fine. Rushing River is some insurance against Meddling Mage, which can become very annoying, especially in multiples. Being able to hit a Meddling Mage and Null Rod make it a better SB option than Echoing Truth.

OFM and other fish decks have a sneaky way of winning lots of games that they shouldn’t, but I feel that I have the advantage in this matchup.

Vs. Shortbus Gifts

Game one entirely depends on who gets their draw engine going first. Luckily, they run 3 MD Pithing Needle, which are completely dead against me game 1. I have a few more draw spells in the maindeck, which I feel gives me a slight advantage. I also think that Intuition is a lot more powerful than Thirst for Knowledge, even though the significant card advantage comes about 1 turn after it would with Thirst. Because of this, resolving Intuition becomes your first priority; not only does it give you a spell that costs 1U to draw 3 cards, it creates a card in your deck that draws 4 cards for only 1U.

One of the developments in Probasco’s newest list is that it includes Time Vault and Flame Fusillade. Generally, I don’t worry about these cards because on their own, they are pretty much useless. The issue arises when he gets a quicker start than you, and is able to back up both halves of the combo with more than one counter. In this match, Vault/Fusillade is definitely a very good win condition; I almost wish that I had one copy of each as opposed to Tinker/DSC/Burning Wish. However, I think it’s much less versatile against the rest of the field, so that is why I’m sticking to what I have.

Once again, you have to do your best to make him waste his Mana Drains in his first mainphase. Maximizing your own Mana Drains is also a very important skill with this deck. If you read that your opponent has double counters to stop your assault, consider saving your Mana Drain for his FoW instead of his Mana Drain. By FoWing his first spell, you are able to generate a crazy amount of mana with your Drain, or you leave the Drain in your hand for a better opportunity. Just because you have UU open doesn’t mean that Mana Drain is always the first counter to go for when you are making one of your spells resolve.

SB against SB Gifts

+3 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Tormod’s Crypt
-1 Tinker, -1 DSC, -1 Rebuild, -1 Island, -1 Mystical Tutor

Once again, you are bringing REBs into the maindeck. I have to stress how important this card is; resolving your threats in the early game will generate a game win. REB will make this happen. The first land you should be fetching out in this match is always going be a Volcanic after SB. Tormod’s Crypt moves to the maindeck also. In the Gifts mirror, playing Crypt is very similar to casting a Meddling Mage naming Yawgmoth’s Will that only affects them. Unfortunately, SB Gifts packs Flame/Vault, so they can play around Crypt pretty easily, but hopefully the slight advantage you gain with Crypt will give you enough time to finish them off.

If you think they are leaving Pithing Needle in the MD, Tormod’s Crypt loses some of its utility, so I suggest leaving the Crypts in the SB, and instead, take out Burning Wish and add Tendrils and Deep Analysis to the MD. If you are expecting them to bring in Tormod’s Crypt, I would suggest leaving Tinker/DSC in the maindeck instead of the Crypts, just so you have a few outs in case they nuke your graveyard. One of the advantages of AK > Gifts # 2-4 is that AK will put the cards in your hand, where your opponent doesn’t always have a good opportunity to disrupt. Gifts puts a few bombs in your graveyard, which leave then in a great place to be removed from the game.

This is a very tight matchup because your decks are so similar. In game one, I feel that I have a slight edge because of my additional threats. Games 2 and 3 are pretty much dead-even because your decks become almost identical. If you can resolve your AK 3 and 4 you should be in very good position to win this match.

Vs. GWS Choke Oath

GWS has done a spectacular job tuning Oath into a well-oiled wrecking ball that had a fairly decent game against lots of the field. When you sit down across from an Oath player, you have to be aware of a few of his biggest threats: Duress, Force of Will and Chalice of the Void/Mana Leak. I’m pretty sure that Mana Leak is a bigger threat to worry about unless they get one of those “Chalice for zero, chalice for one” hands.

You should look at Oath a lot like you look at Fish. They both have a moderate amount of disruption, and a moderately fast clock. Occasionally, Oath will be able to surprise you with a turn 3 kill, but that happens rarely enough that I would consider the match fairly favorable.

Unless you think your opponent has “the nuts” and is going to kill you very quickly, you should definitely save your counters for your opponent’s Duresses/FoWs/Mana Leaks. Chalice of the Void is pretty easy to play around whether it is set at zero or one. My biggest tool against Oath is the fact that they are simply not consistently fast enough to keep me on my heels. If Oath could win by turn 4-5 every game, I would be much more fearful of it and I would definitely dedicate more SB spots for it. However, you can count on winning about 30% of your games against Oath, simply because it doesn’t produce the nuts.

SB against GWS Oath

+1 Rushing River
-1 Fact or Fiction

After side boarding, you have to expect to face the brutally powerful Choke. This card is a total car crash straight into the nuts for any deck that resembles this one. If it resolves (assuming you don’t lose on the spot), your plan turns into “find Rushing River, ASAP.” If you play a green deck that doesn’t rely on Islands (Wild Zombies, for example), stick 2-3 of these into your sideboard because I guarantee that any Gifts player who catches a glimpse of Choke will not be happy. Comparing Null Rod to Choke - Null Rod does shut off the 8-10 artifacts that make your deck unfair. Choke shuts off the 14 lands that make your deck function. Null Rod can be played around fairly easily. Choke… well, not so much.

Otherwise, your game plan against Oath doesn’t change very much. Try not to let Duress wreck your hand and ideally, you should be able to goldfish them faster than they can goldfish you, just because your combo is so much more redundant than theirs. They are using tutors while trying to find 2 specific cards, which put you on a 2-3 turn clock; you have a 20 card engine that propels you into such a lead that your opponent will have no hope of keeping up, even if he gets Oath/Orchard to resolve.

Hopefully I have illustrated the strengths of AK/Intuition in Gifts better than any other piece of literature on the deck so far. I am very happy with the work that I have done with the deck, and I think more people should test this deck because it is incredibly consistent and powerful. I would appreciate comments and criticism on any of my arguments because I feel that discussion is the best way to make this deck even better.


Thanks so much for your time

-Dan Griffin

I can think of a few things that would happen if you try to combo out Slaver before outdrawing them:

1: They have outdrawn you, so they counter every relevant spell you cast, buying them enough time to activate Mindslaver (this will happen most often)
2: They Weld out your DSC
3: They Rack and Ruin/Bounce your Time Vault in response to the Flame Fusillade

You don't have enough counters to just rely on comboing out your opponent. I think this build would do a really good job at racing other builds of Gifts, but against pretty much any other deck in T1, you seem to be dead in the water. Frantic Search and Gush seem cute and I will agree that after casting Yawgmoth's Will, they are great - you are golden, even. Although the same argument applies to every card in your deck... you know, since the deck is designed to win with Yawgmoth's Will. The goal of your deck should not be to assemble a 2 card combo (either Flame/Vault, Gifts/Will or Time Walk/Tinker). Instead you should focus on getting to the point where winning with your 2 card combo is almost redundant because you are so far ahead in board/hand development. This goal negates the neccessity of a 3rd win condition, which frees up room in your MD for cards that get you to the point where winning is easy.

How about you look at the deck more like a Gifts deck with some Slaver components. Goblin Welder would help Gifts deal with things, such as opposing Colossi, you can totally mess with Stax lock parts, remove Null Rods, ect ect. Goblin Welder also allows Gifts to utilize TfK better, assuming you somewhat alter a few cards in the deck. In my opinion, the best card to splash for is Mindslaver itself. Having a MD Slaver in Gifts makes Tinker an even bigger bomb. Combine this with the synnergy of Goblin Welder, and you definitely have an interesting idea.

However, as everyone seems to be saying, Gifts + Welder has definitely been thought of before, although I'm not sure if it has been optimized, or even thoroughly tested. I think that Slaver's weaknesses are very similar to Gifts' weaknesses, which pretty much means that hybridysing the two decks is a little bit counter-intuative. Welders make Pithing Needle a threat, which I really dislike. It also makes you so much more vulnerable to StP; the fact that Gifts is immune to creature hate is a big forte of the deck. I think that a hybrid of these two decks only results a deck that is much less stable than either of the previous two... but if you can make it work, I would be impressed to see a viable decklist.

Kyle, for the most part I totally agree with you and I would personally never run less than 4 Oaths in a deck that strictly relies on using Oath to win. However, I also wouldn't be playing with 4 Muddle the Mixture. If the goal of the deck is to not play Oath in the first 3 or 4 turns, and considering the fact that this version of the deck runs millions of tutors, yet not very much draw, getting unneeded Oaths stuck in your hand in the first few turns (while you are attempting to out-control your opponent) could be somewhat problematic. I'm not even saying cutting down to 3 oaths is a good idea, I was simply curious if it has ever been attempted in this type of build.

@ Harlequin re: Crop Rotation

I think you really have to consider how powerful it is to sacrifice a land with Crop Rotation in responce to a Wasteland or Strip Mine. Ask Vroman - he will tell you that Crop Rotation is one of the cards he hates to see most when cast in response to a Strip Mine.. It is a very powerful and versetile spell that can easily win you games. This, plus the fact that it puts one half of your combo into play at instant speed for 1 mana makes it an extremely efficient threat against lots of the environment... I really can't see why the "drawbacks" you listed (being too fast...??) as being significant enough to cut it. I don't think this deck can be considered optimal until Crop Rotation is added.

I definitely agree with Lotus Petal in the MD. I would add Mox Emerald, too, at the very least.

Any expert on Oath will tell you that the deck's biggest downfall is the amount of "dead cards" that the deck runs. With this in mind, what do you think about cutting down on the amount of Oaths you use?

Since you are running so many tutors, and since you say that you almost never want to tap out early on in the game, it seems like you would be better off not to have Oath clogging up your hand until the turn you are ready to cast it.

I also think you're crazy for not running a MD Underground Sea... I would definitely cut 2 islands for 1 USea and 1 more Fetchland. Crop Rotation is also incredibly powerful, from my experience.

The real strength in Intuition/AK is not being able to draw 3 cards for 5 mana. That is obviously not a very good deal. However, AK for 3 followed by AK for 4 means you get 7 new cards for UUU4 mana. Not only is this a good price to pay for so many cards, you are also able to spread the mana out over a few different turns. The goal of Tog is to get to the point in the game where your opponent will have used up most/all of his or her resources, and then looks up at the 6 cards you still have in your hand. That is the goal Tog wants to achieve and Intuition/AK helps it get there much faster and more effiiciently than TfK.

Thirst does help you power through the first few turns very well, I'll admit, but unless you can follow it up with a huge card advantage spell like Gifts Ungiven, I think you will find that you are going to run out of gas a lot faster than every other existing control deck in the field.

I've come to the exact same conclusion. The list I'm testing is down to two colours as well, and instead of sitting back and playing so many defensive spells, such as Cunning Wish and StP, it opts towards going straight for the throat and assembling its combo now. The deck doesn't really feel like a control deck at all to me, I can generally ignore them for most of the game while I assemble my combo of... drawing cards, then playing Yawgmoth's Will.

Do you know how to beat stax? Run 5 Fetches, 5 basics and have your mana curve topping off at 3. The same goes for Fish. Having the ability to play through Null Rod because it hardly slows down your mana curve is a beautiful thing in a combo deck like this. It is something that Gifts does not have. Running so many 4 Mana Spells definitely slows down their game plan, and running 3 colours makes Gifts much more vulnerable to wastelands.

Here is the list I've been testing:

Kill: 4
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 DSC
1 Tendrils of Agony

The Combo: 15
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Merchant Scroll
2 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Tutors: 4
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor

Disrupt: 13
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Duress
1 Chain of Vapour
1 Rebuild

Mana: 24
9 SoLoMoxCryptPetal
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
4 Island
1 Swamp
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy

The deck has pretty much one main gameplan, and that is setting up a big Yawgmoth's Will as quickly as possible. It does this by casting a combination of AK for 3 and 4, and Ancestral Recall. After that, you tutor up Yawgmoth's Will, and win. It's a pretty simple concept, and this deck can do that very effectively. I definitley use the Tendrils kill a lot more than DSC, simply because without Burning Wish you are unable to chain Time Walks. However, setting up a Tendrils for 10 is incredibly easy because you are drawing so many cards through AK and Recall. DSC also provides a very effective win condition. He allows you to cheat game wins against Stax and Fish - if you are caught under lock pieces and unable to fire off a good Will, Tinkering up a DSC will generally win you the game.

Anyways, you can just add me to the list of people that are excited about the AK draw engine in a TPS style deck.

I can see arguments for cutting Mana Vault and Lotus Petal... but cutting Sol Ring?

What's up with that?

A few months ago I worked on something very similar. It has a few slight differences, but overall the deck looks pretty similar. There was absolutely no discussion on the deck... most likely because I don't have tournament results to back it up, but I tested pretty throuroughly.

Here is a link: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=25728.msg389093#msg389093

The main difference in our lists is the presence of Deep Analysis. I personally think that searching for 3 DA is better than 3 Ak, especially in the control mirror. Having 4 ways to draw 2 cards seems better than 1 way to draw 3, then one way to draw 4. But that is not much of a difference; both have their advantages. Have you tested DA?

Being a fellow ontarian, I'm going to toss in a few ideas:

I am not really a fan of Timetwister in a control deck because it often leads to card disadvantage and letting a crippled opponent get back into the game. I recognize that it is good if you are behind in the game... but if that is the case, I know of another 3cc sorcery that does a better job: Yawgmoth's Will. Yes yes - it is black... but I am going to put up a decklist at the end of the post, so you can check out the results of my meddlings.

I don't like Annul - the card is too narrow and doesn't do anything if your opponent is able to slip its artifact threat past your counterwall (and yes, I know your deck is based on narrow answers, but bear with me again). Instead of Annul, I am going to suggest going up to 4 Merchant Scrolls. The card has extreme utility; it single-handidly functions as a broken draw engine, and it lets you tutor up Echoing Truth for pesky Null Rod or Chalice (or any other permanent that your opponent resolves). And finally, it lets you say "I don't feel like playing control, so instead I'm going to tutor up tinker and play aggro" (obv. it doesn't fetch Tinker, but Mystical is just as good).

I'm not sure why you aren't using 4 Brainstorms.... Playing a rogue deck doesn't mean that you shouldn't abuse one of the most efficient card drawers ever printed. It has an additional advantage in your deck because it can shuffle away your Blasts if you don't have a Distorting Lense yet.

When you say "fast aggro," I'm not sure what you mean. I'm pretty sure that the fastest aggro deck in T1 kills around turn 4 if they are undisrupted, so I really wouldn't worry about adding white for Balance/StP. Also, I don't think Swords is good against Oath because realistically, you need 2 of them or else you are just slowing the clock down by 2 turns; why not play something on colour that does the same thing (bounce) or better (rushing river bounces both their threats, ideally). Yes, StP is efficient at only 1 mana, but it isn't worth adding an otherwise useless colour. And yes, Balance is a powerful spell, but again, not worth the Splash. There are better cards to SB for aggro in your colours.

(oops, you forgot Time Walk on your list)

Alright... hopefully my critique will be more clear following a proposed decklist:

Drawing/Tutoring: 14
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker

Winning: 3
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Sundering Titan

Narrow Answer Cards: 15
4 Force of Will
4 Hydroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Gorilla Shaman

Never before seen in Vintage: 3
3 Distorting Lens

Mana: 25
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Island

1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen

SB:
2 Wasteland
Pyroclasm
Annul
Rack and Ruin
Tormod's Crypt
ect ect ect

The reason for cutting down on MD Wastes is because lots of decks in T1 have learned to have incredibly stable mana bases. By using 3 wastes MD, you are likely to see 1 in the first few turns, so you can slow your opponent down enough to gain tempo while still keeping a stable mana base - this is just nit-picking, though, and really doesn't matter. One of the Rack and Ruins turns into a Mox Monkey - I'm surprised you didn't have one in the MD because it pwns mana bases.

Black gives you awesome Tutoring power, so you are able to run 1-ofs and be able to find them consistantly.

Anyways, that's it for now

I've done a little bit of work, recently, on an updated Hulk Smash deck for Vintage. I was having some pretty solid results, but an even more exciting prospect lead me in its direction. Since I really think this deck has potential, I’m going to post it/explain it and then hopefully you guys can discuss/make some improvements.

3c Hulk Smash

Draw: 18
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Intuition
3 Deep Analysis
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction

Tutor: 3
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

Disruption: 9
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Echoing Truth

Win: 5
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tinker
1 Recoup
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Burning Wish

Mana: 25
6 Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

10 SoLoMoxCryptVaultPetal

Okay - the first thing to address is this: Psychatog is a bad win condition. To go lethal with Tog, you normally have to use Cunning Wish > Berserk, which uses up valuable slots in the MD and SB. Tog, in the early game, is a much less efficient version of Tinker against aggro decks, and total shit against Control strategies. Because of all these reasons, Mr. Teeth loses his “Hulk� nametag and it’s been pinned on Mr. DSC himeslf. If you’re skeptical about this, just try to forget about it - the rest of the deck is actually the win condition.

The draw engine here is ridiculous. In a format full of Wastelands + Smokestacks + Sphere, I really don’t like having to get all the way up to 4 mana to cast a Gifts Ungiven. Intuition is the true draw machine for this deck. It acts very much like Gifts does in Gifts decks, but I’m going to say that 3 mana is better than 4 mana. In the Gifts match, you should be able to pump out an Intuition by the second turn - let me remind you that 3 Deep Analysis lets you draw 8 cards in total. Considering that their best Gifts against you includes only 2 broken draw spells, and they do all of this much slower than you, I really like the way Intuition looks against Gifts.  The Intuition > Deep Analysis draw engine is pretty much what defines this deck.

Intuition also allows you to run the incredibly powerful sleeper from Odyssey: Recoup. I think Vintage has to admit that it really missed this card for the longest time. The whole debate over win conditions in Gifts is highly irrelevant; Yawgmoth’s Will and Recoup (and Tinker) are the win condition in that deck. The thing that deals 20 damage has almost nothing to do with how it assembled.

You will also notice that I am not running Accumulated Knowledge. The problem with AK is that it is less counter resistant than Deeps, and alone, they are total shit. In to replace them are the freaking unbelievable, Merchant Scroll. Its primary function is to fetch you an Ancestral Recall on the first turn. It also allows you to consistently fetch your MD piece of bounce and it also lets you switch roles into the Aggro Tinker deck by fetching a Mystical Tutor.

If you play in a Stax Heavy metagame, you should probably take out either an Intuition or the Vamp Tutor for a Rebuild. Echoing Truth has proved to be the best utility piece of bounce that can be run in the maindeck. Burning Wish primarily acts as Tendrils of Agony when you are going for a Storm kill, but it can also fetch used Deeps, it helps you chain Time Walks when going off, and it can fetch silver bullet answer cards in the sideboard.

This hulk deck really improves on the old hulk’s bad matchups. Fish has become very easy; you just let the deck goldfish for 4 turns, and then you can generally combo them out, or wait around while they don’t do very much, and then combo them out. Watch out for Rootwater Thiefs - remember to Intuition for Burning Wish and Will so you can combo off at your leisure.

The mana base is very hard to disrupt - 6 basic lands and 4 fetches means that you should normally be able to get up to 3 or 4 mana in the early game without even thinking about Wasteland. This really helps against Fish, Oath and Stax - and I guess any other deck that relies on Wasteland to slow you down in the early game.

Even after winning some incredible games and matches with this deck in testing, I have since moved on, so this is all I can say about the deck. I really hope that someone will like the way this deck runs and tweaks out the deck’s flaws, because it has some serious potential.

There must be a Yawgmoth's Will missing off that list

I actually disagree with you on this point, Rich.

By effectively exchanging Merchant Scroll for Oath of Druids, this Gifts hybrid does a very good job of improving matches like Fish. I don't even think Null Rod is an issue at all against this build because it no longer requires Artifact mana to go off - all it needs is an Oath of Druids. I tested against a Fish deck that contained Rootwater Thief, Meddling Mage, Chalice of the Void and Swords to Plowshares and easily took the games about 3/4 of the time. Oath of Druids gives you access to 5 cards that put Darksteel Colossus into play - no matter how strong the hate, putting DSC into play so reliably gives aggro decks fits.

I've always meddled around with RG and I think I have a few good reasons it isn't good.

Firstly, it tends to be a deck that trades 1-for-1 a hell of a lot. I guarantee that every established deck doesn't care at all if it gets traded 1-for-1 against a deck with no draw engine. Control Slaver will let you kill its Welders becaue it will Brainstorm, Thirst, Tutor, then Tinker for a Pentavus.

The deck does not have a clock. If you even try to call yourself an aggro deck, you should be able to kill around turn 4. This deck takes about 4 turns to make a 3 turn clock; this is completely unacceptable in a good metagame.

Red/Green seems to play like a really bad Prison deck and a really bad aggressive deck. Unless you can fix these two huge issues, there is no hope for the deck.

Matt

Why no Lotus Petal/Mana Vault? They seem like they would certainly add to the brokenness factor, especially since you are running Mind Twist in the maindeck. Otherwise, I absolutely love your maineck.

The Gifts pile: Fact or Fiction, Merchant Scroll, Skeletal Scrying, Gifts Ungiven is absolutely insane for card draw.

Good work

I'd like to say congratulations with the deck. This is an excellent primer to give new TPS players a look at what the deck is all about.

I've been testing the Psychatogs in the sideboard since you posted the primer. On paper, I think it really is an interesting idea, but after playing a few games with it, I decided I really don't like it. Firstly, it dilutes TPS's gameplan by either cutting out bombs or bounce. Also, fish can pretty much ignore your Tog. Unless they are ignorant, they will definitely not side out their Swords to Plowshares because every Fish deck nees a way to deal with colossus -- so this means that you will have to feed your tog cards while he is (briefly) in play, which makes Yawgmoth's Will potentially worse, and against a compotent fish player, they will either fly over, or simply attack through it.

Due to Fish's small clock, I honestly wouldn't worry about changing your gameplan too much. Make sure you can deal with Meddling Mage, Chalice of the Void, and Arcane Lab -- then the deck has very little problem against fish.

I'm also a little bit confused about how you sideboard against Gifts. Why on earth would you sideboard out Necropotence? Just in case they resolve their entire combo and only have to attack you for 22 as opposed to... 22? I'm not sure I understand your justification. I would think that Necropotence would excel in this match because they tend not to touch your life-total until they are about to win.

Dan

ps... I'll edit in more questions as I think of them until you reply

Actually he wanted a dude that could steal Wild Mongrel, something that Old Man can not do.

Wow... that was hilarious, then confusing, then really really creepy.