In my opinion, you run 4 of a card you would like to see of early and often, 3 of a card you would like to see early but not often (or in multiples), 2 of a card you would like to see sometime but preferably not too early, and 1 of a card that is so good it's probably restricted (why else would you want a random card in your deck).  With that in mind, I see no reason to go less than 4 Duress and 4 Skeletal Scrying.

I like Engineered Explosives because it can help control the board and a variety of threats with only 1 card, but I would want to run 3 of them to ensure I get it early enough to make a difference.  However, I don't know the metagame, so draw your own conclusions.

I don't like Lotus Petal in a control deck because it's probably not worth sacrificing long-term board position for a possible early short-term acceleration (you probably won't draw it in the first turn).

I don't want to like Extirpate, especially maindeck, because it doesn't affect board position and it will likely miss the hand also.  However, it might be useful in some matchups, so it might be a worthy 3-of in the sideboard.

If I were to run a control deck these days, I would probably run something like this...

Lands - 17
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Library of Alexandria

Mana Artifacts - 7
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearly
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus

Counters - 8
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Disruption - 5
4 Duress
1 Mind Twist

Draw - 6
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Skeletal Scrying

Search - 4
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Cunning Wish

Filter - 4
4 Brainstorm

Board Control - 4
1 Balance
3 Engineered Explosives

Rest - 5
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
3 Decree of Justice

Hey, Umesh here.  Welcome back, Mike.  Type 1 hasn't been the same since you left.  It went from a weekly event with you to a monthly event with little following to a SCG only event with a scattering of local tournaments.  I am essentially out of Magic.  The last time I played was probably the second SCG event (how long ago has that been).  I still haven't sold my cards so if you start having tournaments again, I might have come by just to meet up with the old people even if I don't play.

I always thought it meant Gay WorkShop.  After all, didn't they form around the time when Gay Fish was popular and they were proponents for Workshop at the time.

During my limited testing, I have found that it is important to be proactive against Gifts.  Whenever I tried to play the control game, I always lost.  That's one of the reasons I cut Misdirection from my sideboard.  I stood a better chance when I force Gifts to search for counters instead of draw.  Then again, I was only able to test against myself, so it's probably not a fair test.  I did play this deck in StarCity Chicago.  I played a deck similar to gifts (but had Merchant Scrolls, Gifts, Welders, Mindslaver).  I came close that round, but made a couple mistakes that cost me the round.  I didn't do well in the tournament (2-3) because it was only my second time playing combo in a tournament and I played only like five tournaments in the last two years.  Here is the decklist.

Lands - 13
1 Tolarian Academy
1 City of Brass
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

Mana - 15
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual

Counters - 8
4 Duress
4 Force of Will

Bounce - 2
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild

Tutors - 7
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Burning Wish
3 Gifts Ungiven

Draw - 5
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm

Bombs - 13
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Mind's Desire
1 Recoup

Win - 2
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Darksteel Colossus

Sideboard - 15
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Pyroclasm
2 Skeletal Scrying
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Seasinger
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild

I stand by every card in the maindeck except possibly Echoing Truth.  This could probably be Cunning Wish if you insist upon it.  The sideboard needs work and I think has too much bounce.  I didn't test enough so my sideboarding stategy was not complete so my record wasn't so good.  I didn't expect to do well at the tournament, but I wanted to see what a SCG tourney was like (considering I live only 20 minutes away).  Against Gifts, I side out Echoing Truth, Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor and bring in Skeletal Scryings and Tormod's Crypt.  I am unsure if I also side out Desire for the second Crypt.  The Crypt may not be a good idea, but like I said, I have limited testing.  I try to force as many bombs early as possibly.  If Mana Drain is up, I might try Gifts or Scry during his first main phase.

So they are pretty much worthless.

I've looked around and I couldn't find anything, so I thought I would ask the people here.  I am planning on selling some of my extra cards on ebay and I wanted to ship the cards in toploaders so they wouldn't bend.  My question is where can I buy bulk toploaders (~100) for cheap?  Thanks for the help.

I once considered a variation of TPS that focused on resolving Cranial Extraction.  The problem is that Cranial Extraction tries to prevent you from losing while other cards try to help you win.  Cranial Extraction isn't even absolute as there are always secondary conditions.  Many times, I found myself out of gas to win only to die to a something stupid like a 1/1.  I think it is better off trying to win rather than trying not to lose.

I pile shuffle before every game followed by several riffle shuffles and overhand shuffles mixed in.  I overhand shuffle my opponents deck before the game starts.  When I shuffle my graveyard into my library, I riffle shuffle.  When I tutor, I overhand shuffle.  I prefer pile shuffle, but because of time, I only do that at the start of a game.  I overhand shuffle if it is already mixed.  I riffle shuffle if I want to mix it a little.

Very well.  I will withhold further suggestions until I actually get a chance to try out your version, make changes to incorporate Meddling Mage and probably Duress, and then try out my version.  Unfortunately, this will take me a lot of time.  I was merely trying to use some testing I already had with Gorilla Shaman where I came to the conclusion that it was really ineffective against the variety of decks you would expect to see.  This is  because their threats were already played and now I need to find an answer rather than waste time removing some of their board.

I am not saying that you should not run Pillar.  I am just trying to justify why I believe Gorilla Shaman is not that useful.  I explained earlier that it is possible to splash for both red and white especially if white is only splashed for Meddling Mage.

I am just trying to say that Welder is not the only threat out there.  There are a variety of other threats and Meddling Mage has the ability to deal with more threats than Gorilla Shaman.  Fish was effective because it went all in on the mana denial gameplan.  You need to have early threats that your opponent would care about such as Duress or Meddling Mage.

As mentioned by MrZuccinniHead, there are still other outlets.  In addition to the ones he mentioned, there is hard-casting Ninja, but obviously, the most important is Sword of Fire and Ice.  As far as artifact-hate is concerned, why do you want to hate artifacts when you can hate anything with Meddling Mage and Duress.


I don't understand the first part of the statement, but maybe "unstoppable" is the wrong choice of words.  What I mean is that Oath can play Oath, Dragon can have an active Bazaar with an Animate in hand, Combo can play a draw seven all with Force of Will backup or removed your counter with Duress.  What I was trying to say is that other decks should be well on their way to winning and if all you have done is Shaman and have the mana for Mana Drain, you really haven't tried to stop the opponent from winning.  Duress and Meddling Mage try to say that it will take them longer to try to win.

I could also say:
Turn 1 Land, Duress, Mox, Aether Vial
Turn 2 Land, Mana Drain or Meddling Mage
Turn 3 Sword or Vial Meddling Mage
Shaman is eating a mox after they already used the acceleration to cast something good.  Duress is taking that good thing out of their hands before they can use it.  Mage can be used to stop the next best thing in their hand.  Shaman eating a mox is not exactly a time walk like Fish wasting a land or casting a Spiketail Hatchling because they can hold back the mox until needed.

First, Duress and Meddling Mage are more hate than Pillar.  Second, who said you have to remove red completely.  AEther Vial helps smooth out bad mana when cast creatures.  Next, you can start running other sources like City of Brass.

For clarification on why you cannot Vial in a Meddling Mage in response to a spell, see this thread.  In short, it can be used to counter Madness.  However, Vial is mostly used to ignore colors in casting a creature.  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20907

I guess I did not do a good enough job of saying why I believe Duress and Meddling Mage is better than Gorilla Shaman.

I think we can agree that the fundamental turn is somewhere near two.  That means that decks are really getting set up to be in an unstoppable position to win by that turn.  Gorilla Shaman is useless in the early game.  It excels in the midgame.  Withered Wretch is useless in the early game.  It excels in the midgame.  Ninja of the Deep Hours is useless in the early game.  It excels in the midgame.  What is going to take this deck from the early game to the midgame?  The strength of 4 Force of Will and 4 Mana Drain?  The utility creatures that don't affect an opponent trying to win now?

Fast combo is designed to blitz through counters.  It has Duress and possibly Xantid Swarm to negate your 8 counters.  Then, its bombs are free to take over the game.  On the other hand, if you are proactive with Duress or Meddling Mage, you can prevent those bombs from being played.  None of the existing creatures are useful in this matchup.  Meddling Mage cannot be dealt with by Duress or Xantid Swarm.

Control is only archetype that Shaman is really good against.  However, there are very few pure control decks left.  Against 3cc, Wretch is the creature that prevents their drawing engine.  Duress can also prevent something like a big decree or get counters.

A control-combo deck like Gifts Belcher runs more counters than you because they have Duress, Mana Drain, and Force of Will.  By running Duress, Meddling Mage, Mana Drain, and Force of Will, you will have more control elements.  Gorilla Shaman will not hurt them if they save their moxes to play a key spell.  If people just may their moxen without really utilizing it for a key spell, then they are just playing poorly and you should not rely on that.

Against welder decks, Wretch can answer Goblin Welder as well as Shaman in many cases.  I will concede that most decks do not run Darksteel Citadel because I haven't been keeping up.  However, I believe that welder decks are sideboarding for the mirror, so you will likely see the hate intended for welders in Lava Dart.  Duress and Meddling Mage are not dead in this matchup as it can stop early card drawing or possibly name Welder.

That leaves aggro-control.  In fish, the card that hurts is Null Rod.  Both Duress and Meddling Mage stop it much cheaper than Gorilla Shaman does.  I don't have time to go over the other matchups and maybe I will discuss it later, but not now.

With Meddling Mage and without Gorilla Shaman, Ninja of the Deep Hours doesn't seem so attractive anymore.  My first thought is Ophidian or even Shadowmage Infiltrator, but it needs testing to figure out which other creatures I would round out the deck with.

Providing a better midgame is pretty useless if you cannot get to the midgame.  Duress and Meddling Mage help bring you to the midgame.

Anyways, this deck has inspired me to perform some testing on my own with some possible changes.

First of all, here is a link to the original post in the Vintage forum.  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22581

I too recently tried to make a deck starting with 4 Gorilla Shaman and 4 Withered Wretch.  However, I quickly scrapped it when I found out it was too slow to matter.  One thing that I learned was that Mox Monkey was bad against just about every deck, even Welder-based decks (because of Darksteel Citadel).  The first suggestion that I would make is to get rid of this useless creature.  I can understand that they are a useful one-drop to help the ninja, but playing a first-turn Shaman followed by a second turn Ninja is not exactly going to slow the opponent from completing his game plan.

However, I see a lot of potential in this deck.  I think it should take a page from EBA.  AEther Vial offers a lot of possibilities to improve the mana inconsistencies of that deck.  With that in mind, the deck needs to find room for 4 Duress and 4 Meddling Mage.  This offers a much better disruption base in the first couple turns.  It leaves the option for a first-turn Duress and/or AEther Vial, a second-turn Meddling Mage or Mana Drain, and an open third-turn with many possibilities including Sword or Wretch.  Speaking of Wretch, I don't think that this is a card you want to see in multiples because you are unlikely to play it and use its ability until turn 3, so there should only be 3 in the deck.

The way I see it, the deck should start with the following list.  I currently have no opinion on the other creatures because I haven't tested them yet.

3 Withered Wretch
4 Meddling Mage

4 Duress
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 AEther Vial

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

1 Lotus
5 Moxen

People are saying Sapphire is best between Sapphire, Pearl, and Twister.  If you add Recall to the mix, then it is the better than any of these.

I too question the choice of Duress.  It just feels wierd to me that Duress used to be bad in Keeper and now it is good when I don't think any of the reasons have really changed.

Aggro-control is supposed to be one of the decks to benefit from the restriction of Trinisphere.  With that in mind, I would think the number of Wastelands would go up because they act like Time Walks for these decks.  Given a choice between a first-turn Duress and Brainstorm, I would rather choose Brainstorm because it increases my mana consistency and digs deeper for Force of Will and other cards that I might need now.  Fetching an Underground Sea exposes it to Wasteland and may ruin my chances of finding a second and third land soon.  On the other hand, fetching a Swamp delays getting Mana Drain online another turn which may prove too late as I now have to rely on Force of Will at least one more turn.  A second turn Duress is also not feasible because that is when Mana Drain is supposed to be online.

Another thing to keep in mind is that everybody is running 4 Brainstorms now which lessens the effect of Duress.  It used to be the perfect strategy of Keeper against Suicide Black and now it is falling to that same trick that it used to be using.  All the good stuff are going to go back to the top of the library.  If anything, the number of Duresses should go down by at least one because you probably cannot afford to play it early.

Also, I have found Serenities very lacking against Stax in the past because of Tangle Wire.  I would much rather have the instant speed of Disenchant or Rack and Ruin (which isn't an option without red).  Another drawback that I found against the Stax of old was that Serenities have a casting cost of 2 and they always tried to resolve an early Chalice of the Void for 2.  In those instances, Rack and Ruin would have saved me because it is an instant and its casting cost is not 2.  If Serenties are the answer for Stax, I think you might have to find another, better choice.  It really needs to be an instant and not have a casting cost of 2.

I ended up on level 25 before quitting because it required me to download a better photo editor than the free Windows Paint or Imaging.  Even if the program is free, I didn't want to download it.  At least now I can end this waste of time.  I found nearly every answer by looking in the forums.

@tito
One other thing I forgot to ask is against which decks would you rather "combo" and against which decks would you rather "control".  The reason I ask is because it is more likely that you would find one of these strategies always fulfilling your needs, so why would you want to change strategies between combo and control rather than using the sideboard to strengthen your strategy with better options?

I have been trying a lot of stuff recently, but haven't really come to a consensus on any results yet.  I tried Burning Wish and Recoup.  I like Burning Wish, but I don't really like the Recoup.  I even considered a version similar to Long with only Black and Blue (with 2 Cabal Ritual, more accelerators, and 4 Death Wish).  I also like that version (using Duress and 2 Gifts) and I considered trying that version and then transforming to TPS when playing Trinisphere decks.  Signs are positive, but too early to give a final conclusion.  I also tried Wishing for bombs such as Damping Matrix, Energy Flux, Cranial Extraction, etc., but it was usually better just trying to win rather than not lose (by putting Will in the sideboard).


As far as the sideboarding goes, I do have a Tinker-friendly sideboard with stuff like Platinum Angel, Darksteel Colossus, Damping Matrix to swap for Memory Jar when the situations are correct.  I also have a Wish-friendly sideboard with stuff like Tendrils, Cranial Extraction, Duress, and Balance.  Speaking of Mana Drain sinks, Cranial Extraction is probably the card you would rather have than Mind Twist because if it resolves, it will just make winning easier.  Just think if you could take out your opponent's Trinispheres, Oath of Druids, or Tendrils.  Some things you may want for the sideboard may the following.

// Have to hate those Trinisphere decks
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Rebuild
// Tinker friendly
1 Platinum Angel and/or Darksteel Colossus
2 Damping Matrix (just a thought, haven't proven if it's worth it)
//Wish friendly
1 Tendrils of Agony (for the win)
1 Balance (creatures)
1-2 Cranial Extraction (sometimes it just wins)
1 Chainer's Edict (for a single hard to target creature)



I explained in an earlier post why I don't think Duress and Mana Drain work well together.  It is fine to replace Memory Jar with better Tinker targets for an alternate win.  Trading a bomb for another bomb like Chains may be acceptable, but I wouldn't remove Necro, Bargain, or Will as they all spell "I win".  I am curious to know exactly what you would side out and what you would side in.

I am really tempted to start a poll (probably on SCG) of whether or not actually bought the premium service and why.  The reason is because it would be interesting to find out why people do or not buy this thing.  I have been narrowing down the options to the following.  I believe there is a limit of 10 choices to a poll, but I may be mistaken.  Let me know if I should do it or not (I created a forum account there this morning with the intentions of starting this poll).  Here is a preliminary choice of options, but I am still trying to refine the choices.

1) Yes.  I wanted to support the site because they support the community.
2) Yes.  I wanted to read the articles (even if I want the quality and/or quantity of articles to improve).
3) Yes.  Other reasons.  Please specify.
4) No.  There is not enough quantity of articles in the format(s) that I care about to justify the cost.
5) No.  There is not enough quality of articles to justify the cost.
6) No.  However, I would consider paying less for a subset of the articles that I actually do read (ie categories).
7) No.  I would like to buy it, but I cannot afford it.
8) No.  I would never pay to read any articles.
9) No. Other reasons.  Please specify.

You have so much mana that I would have cast the gifts end-of-turn if possible.  You still have so much mana, that you could have also cast it during your upkeep to ensure you draw into Yawgmoth's Will (with Mystical, Vampiric, Demonic, Ritual/Ancestral).  You then draw into the Will and go from there (probably tutoring for COV on your moxes).  The only advise I can come up with if you drew into Gifts, had tons of mana and wanted to still try to win this turn is tutoring up bombs such as Bargain, Tinker, Demonic Tutor (for Will), and maybe Desire (although not in your example).

As a general rule, if I don't have enough fuel in the graveyard (fast mana such as lotus, rituals, tutors) to win off a Will, then I fetch mana (lotus, ritual, cabal ritual, lotus petal, academy, mana crypt - or pretty much anything that I can get at least two mana out of).  If I have enough fuel and protection, then I go for the win by getting the tutors for Will.  In other cases, I might try my other bombs or I'd use Gifts to get more bombs first.

What is the approximate number of articles we can expect from Smmenen each month?  The reason I ask is because although I try to read all the Vintage articles, his articles are pretty much the only articles I would pay to read.  I don't like the idea of supporting all the other non-Vintage articles there are, but it might be worth it if I get enough quality Vintage articles.

If this is a goldfish deck, I don't see why you even care about hate.  If you win the dice roll, you win first turn game one, lose if they play a first-turn hate and you don't have a force game two, then win first turn game three.  If you lose the dice roll, that is when things get interesting.  You lose game one to a first-turn hate, win the second game first turn, then try to survive past the hate again the third game.  However, you need to win this time.  That said, you should not maindeck any reactive cards with the possible exception of Force of Will.  If you are on the draw, you make sure you have force.  If you are on the draw third game, you need the force and the hate, but you should know what hate you need to worry about.  Of course, this is not factoring in the times that you die to Spoils or the few times that you cannot win on the first turn.

This is my assessment of the Gifted deck.  Forgive me if I am mistaken.  First of all, it is a control deck.  The victory condition is obtained through Tinker for Colossus or Burning Wish.  However, in most cases, it would be foolish to play it early, even if you had the chance.  This is because it needs to be protected.  The best way to protect it is with card advantage.  Gifts Ungiven is the main card that gives it serious card advantage.  This is because Gifts Ungiven will lead to Yawgmoth's Will and that leads to even more card advantage.  At that point, you should be far enough ahead that any win condition is acceptable.  In this case, they used Tinker for Colossus which is perfectable acceptable for that deck.

With my version of the deck, you have other options also such as a broken hand that leads to a quick victory such as a first-turn necro.  The only difference between this deck and other speed combo decks is that I don't plan on sharing my card drawing by giving them more cards with cards such as Windfall, Wheel of Forture.  Memory Jar is still there because they will only be able to play instants when I use so it is more one-sided.  Timetwister is there because if they duress my will, I need to recycle it to win.  Again, I would have to see if Recoup and Burning Wish can fill that role.


If you want to quote an entire post, use the "quote" button on the right side of the post.  If you want to quote anything else, put the text with a [ quote ] before it an a [ /quote ] after it (removing the space characters that I added).  It can also be done automatically if you use the "Quote" box at the top when posting a reply to start the quote and clicking on the box a second time to end the quote.  Also, by modifying it to be quote="ump", you can specify who made the quote.


On a side note, it may be acceptable to add one Cabal Ritual in the deck, not as a way to cast it faster, but to fetch for it.  With threshold, the Ritual should gain 3 mana plus another 3 after the Will.  Along with Black Lotus and Tolarian Academy, you can now have 3 sources to generate at least three mana.  In my opinion, the Cabal Ritual should replace the Mana Vault, but I don't run that, so I'd have to test it replacing Gush.

My reasoning is that the CAB version only has one path to victory - Gifts Ungiven.  This deck is more combo-ish and therefore has a lot more paths to victory - such as ritual+necro or acceleration+bargain.  With that decklist, if Gifts gets countered somehow end-of-turn, what are you going to back it up with in your mainphase?

I have been thinking last night about what role Cabal Ritual could play in this deck.  The only reasoning why Cabal Ritual should even be included in the deck is because it speeds up the deck.  A Cabal Ritual could help play the Gifts Ungiven a turn faster and power up a Yawgmoth's Will.  Cabal Ritual is not better than any existing mana with the possible exception of lands.  However, Cabal Ritual conflicts with the role of Mana Drain in this deck.  They both provide mana acceleration, but Mana Drains also provide protection and without them, you need Duress again.  I ran a scenario which I could describe if needed and the Cabal Ritual does still help get the win, but you need Duress to ensure you will win.  However, between the first turn when you use Duress and the second turn when you use Cabal Ritual to cast Gifts Ungiven a turn sooner (with a mox, two lands, and Cabal Ritual), your opponent could draw an answer or a bomb.  Also, this is now a two card combo: Duress for protection and Cabal Ritual for acceleration.  Mana Drain is that card in one.  It provides the protection and the acceleration.  The only downside is that it forces you to play slower, especially if your opponent plays around the Mana Drain.  Another upside, is that you get to see more cards in your hand (compared to Cabal Ritual and Duress) especially if you can now Brainstorm first turn instead of Duress.  Also, you get to run more bombs as you have the extra slots in the deck.  In order to run 4 Duress and 3 Cabal Riutal, I had to take out 4 Mana Drain, 1 Tinker, 1 Memory Jar, and 1 Gush.

"You need to run more lands to ensure Mana Drain" - I can't find the quote I was looking for so I paraphrased it.

You only really need three lands in your first three turns to make this deck work.  I am not sure how many lands I need to run to make that happen, but it seems to work fine right now for me.  It's not like Keeper where you don't really want to miss any land drops.  With three lands and all the fast mana, you should be able to play gifts end-of-turn and bomb main-phase.  I'll have to playtest a few games where I intentionally put Library and Mana Drain in my opening hand to see if Library should deserve a slot.



When I saw Recoup in your decklist, I just thought of it is a way to get Will.  I get the tutors that will also guarantee that I get Will.  I will have to get back on the Recoup/Burning Wish idea because I would need to test it more in this deck to see if it provides a better gameplan.

You are reading the card wrong.  It says "Even if you try to drain me when I play it end of turn, then I will win next turn."  The reasoning is that you play it end-of-turn.  If they counter it, then follow it up with a bomb on your main phase after you untap.  If they do not counter it, then you tutored for two good cards along with two more good cards that you can use when you cast Yawgmoth's Will netting you card advantage.  The main goal of a Gift's deck is to  setup the Will for the win.

As mentioned before, I don't think that there is a response to the first post as it is only a decklist (one that has been shown in several other threads).

There are 4 Gift's Ungiven in the deck, because you want it early and as soon as possible.  If there were only 2 in the deck, you would see it a lot later.  A proper gifts will give you enough of an advantage to win.  Seeing 2 gifts in the opening hand is not necessarily a bad thing.  You can use one to get mana and the second to get the will.  What would be a bad thing is seeing 2 gifts as your only threats in your opening hand.  That is why some of the other bombs such as Necro and Bargain are still in the deck.

Let's take a closer look at the difference between these two maindecks.

-1 Mana Vault
-4 Duress
-1 Tendrils
-2 Cunning Wish
-1 Deep Analysis
-1 Swamp
-1 Underground Sea
+1 Gush
+4 Mana Drain
+2 Gifts Ungiven
+1 Tinker
+1 Memory Jar
+1 Library of Alexandria
+1 Island

Let's look at the easiest differences - the mana.  It was stated in another thread and I'll restate it here.  There is no reason to play the second Swamp.  The only thing that needs the second black mana it is the Necropotence and the Yawgmoth's Bargain.  In that case, a ritual or a Sea (because it's worth letting it be wasted to resolve these spells).  Honestly, I would get rid of the other Swamp given the chance.  With that in mind, a Library early is strong in a control deck to replace the Swamp.  A Sea becomes an Island for more protection from Wastelands.  Without the Duresses, it's perfectly acceptable to fetch the Sea only ready to go off without worrying about fetching a Sea and risk getting it wasted.

What does Cunning Wish get?  A counterspell or a draw spell (or maybe removal).  It's flexible, but slow.  Gifts Ungiven is probably just as slow, but the results are game-breaking.  I believe gifts replacing the wishes is acceptable.  More about the value of gifts are given later.

I already talked about Mana Drains over Duresses.  I'll also explain this a bit more later.

I run Gush and Tinker instead of a Mana Vault and Deep Analysis.  Deep Analysis is a 4cc sorcery.  There is no way that it is being played early.  Second, there are better things to get if you are getting Deep Analysis with the Gifts Ungiven, such as gifting to win.

The last difference is between a second Tendrils and Memory Jar.  You do not need a second win condition.  Memory Jar is another threat.  If there is a better choice that Memory Jar, then I am listening.  Basically, I am looking for something to play after I try a Gifts Ungiven end of turn that gets countered.  Don't say Deep Analysis though because drawing two cards is not as good as drawing seven cards.


Hypothetically, let's say I cut Tinker, Jar, Gush, and Twister for 4 Duress.  How would I play the game?  Turn 1, I would be fetching for either a Swamp or an Underground Sea to play the Duress.  The Swamp is bad because it delays my Mana Drain by a turn.  An Underground Sea is bad because it can be Wasted again delaying my Mana Drain and setting me back by two lands (of which I don't run that many of).  Also, I disabled my Brainstorm if I need mana fixing.  How about playing Duress turn 2.  If I do that, then I am probably using one of my lands disabling my Mana Drain.  So again, that is a bad idea.  How about turn 3.  I play my Duress turn 3, but now I need 4 other mana to play the Gifts also that turn.  If I used my one-shot mana (rituals, etc.) to get will then I probably don't have the gas needed to fuel my will next turn.  If I use the Gifts to get more mana, then I still need to already have a threat in hand, in which case I probably would have played that instead of the Gifts.  If I play only Duress and not back it up with anything, it is kind of a waste as the opponent can topdeck an answer or a threat.  I can't exactly wait to play both Duress and Gifts on turn 4 or 5 without doing anything else.

Now let's take the situation with Mana Drain instead.  Turn 1, you will probably play an Island and Brainstorm to optimize mana and threats.  Turn 2, you will have a Mana Drain online.  If they play into your Mana Drain, you can use the drain mana to play either a card advantage or bomb for a reduced cost (thereby playing it sooner).  If they don't play into your drain, then play draw-go using the end-of-turn to cast Mystical, Ancestral, or Brainstorm until you get to the point to cast an end-of-turn Gifts.  If the Gifts is countered, have another threat ready during your main phase.  If it's not, look at what you have in your hand.  If you need mana, get mana.  If you need will, get will.  If you have nothing, consider playing safe and getting card advantage bombs such as Ancestral, Necro, Tinker (for Jar), or even Library.


You do not need to cast Gifts two times, once for mana and once for will.  This was only an example.  The situation varies based on what is in your graveyard (whether you have enough to go off with Yawgmoth's Will), what you have in your hand (whether you are able to force a bomb and therefore get bombs or whether you have the bombs but need to force it through - you probably want instant bombs to play multiple bombs in this case), and what you have in play (whether you have the mana to play the bombs you could search for).  These are just the most common gifts scenarios that I consider when deciding what to get.


Mana Drain has synergy with Gifts Ungiven and playing a control style early.  The storm mechanism is the kill only.  You can think of this to be similar as the Keeper-Combo decks of old.  That deck had instant-speed card advantage and sorcery speed bombs.  This is the same.  The difference is that sorcery-speed bombs are of Balance, Mind Twist, etc. are replace with cards like Necro, Bargain, Tinker.  The card advantage of Skeletal Scrying and such are replaced with the card quality of Gifts Ungiven.  The combo kill is the Yawgmoth's Will, Tendril of Agony instead of Grim Monolith/Power Artifact.  I use fast mana instead because of the quality of the bombs.

Introduction
I have been out of the country for five weeks on vacation and just got back last week, so I have been inactive lately.  Obviously, I have the Magic bug, so I could not go that long without thinking about Magic.  I had been trying to improve my version of TPS even before I went on vacation.

The deck that I am presenting is a control/combo deck that plays slower then a TPS deck, but faster and more broken than a control deck.  This deck is meant to abuse Gifts Ungiven.  Why play control/combo rather than pure combo?  Because you don't always get to go first and therefore get pushed to the reactive control role.  For example, a first turn Trinisphere forces you to play control and answer that threat.  Only then can you combo and win.  Also, playing second against another combo deck forces you to survive their threat and then win on your own.  Another point is that the control player tends to draw more cards and takes more advantage of the end-of-turn step of their opponents which is what this deck tries to do.  The reason for the combo is because this deck wants to gain the advantage as quickly as possible and then win right away.

Credits and Disclaimers
You have to love parallel development.  I have been tweaking TPS to suit my playstyle for months now.  One thing that I found out really quickly was that all my victories were coming from Yawgmoth's Will.  I tried to take out some draw sevens (I especially hated Windfall) because I wanted to be more in control of my destiny rather than rely on the luck of the draw sevens.  I've tried Meditates and so forth to be centered more on card advantage.  I've tried the green splash and abondoned that fairly quickly.  I've tested Gifts Ungiven briefly and liked it.  However, when I saw the tutor-based TPS list that the Italians made, it saved me a lot of work.  It was the direction that I was heading towards and now I had a tested deck in front of me.  It never really occurred to me to try more than one Gifts Ungiven.  I was last testing Intuition in that slot which I quickly abandoned.  There were a few other minor difference because I still had more sorcery-speed bombs instead of instant bombs.

That is when I came to an important realization.  If the game plan is to play an instant-speed card advantage followed by a sorcery-speed bomb, then, I felt that Mana Drain would be so much better than Duresses because of the game swinging effect that it created.  In effect, I could change my game plan to play the card advantage game early followed by a bomb.  However, a few things bothered me about the Italian list.  First, there were not enough instant speed card advantage spells.  Second, there didn't seem to be enough bombs (Cunning Wish, Deep Analysis, and Skeletal Scrying didn't seem strong enough).

The next big breakthrough came when I saw the Team CAB Gifted decklist.  A few things stuck out about their decklist.  First, they were using the Mana Drains that I was then testing for nearly three or four weeks.  I also liked how they could support Force of Will, Mana Drain, and Duress.  (I decided to leave out the Duresses from my decklist though in favor of more bombs).  Next, they went all the way up to four Gifts Ungiven.  This was a great substitution for the 2 Skeletal Scryings maindeck that I was testing (and was very disappointed with).

Decklist
Anyways, that brings us to this deck list.  I guess it can be called Gifts TPS, but I don't care what it is called.

Lands - 14
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Library of Alexandria

Mana - 13
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual

Protection - 8
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Bounce - 2
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild

Search - 3
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

Card Advantage/Card Quality - 13
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gush
1 Memory Jar

Bombs - 6
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Tinker
1 Timetwister
1 Mind's Desire

Win - 1
1 Tendrils of Agony

Strategy
Play the control game early gaining card advantage.  You know the style.  Turn 0 - Force of Will, Turn 1 - Brainstorm, Turn 2 - Mana Drain, Turn 3 - Bomb into victory.  If you have a chance to go broken, don't hesitate.  If you can resolve a Gifts early, you are well on your way to victory.  Here's why.  Set up the Yawgmoth's Will mana with your first Gifts.  Search for a combination of Lotus, Ritual, Petal, Academy, or Crypt.  The key is that each one should gain you at least two mana, so avoid the moxes unless you really need the black mana to get the ritual working.  They will likely give you the Ritual and the Petal (or Crypt) as the others should net more than two mana.  After playing the Will, you will have used four mana (preferrably end-of-turn) to gain at least nine mana.  If you need to get the Will, search for a combination of Mystical, Vampiric, Demonic, Ritual/Lotus.  I've even had success in testing with a land + lotus into gifts for mana and next turn use a demonic in hand to get the will for the win.  The morale is that a resolved Gifts plus any decent bomb or search (even a second Gifts) should net a quick victory.

Why play this deck instead of the other possible choices?
The Team CAB deck uses the Colossus victory.  Is it better than the Tendrils finish?  There is nothing wrong with that victory condition if you have already "won" after you have the advatage.  However, this deck has has more bombs offering more chances to get the advantage while that deck plays more control.  A Necro or a Drain into Bargain, for instance, offers a quicker, more guaranteed victory that might be set up earlier.

Is this better than the current versions of TPS?  This deck is much less reliant on luck than the draw seven versions.  How many times have you fizzled out of victory with that version of the deck or filled their hands with a counter to the only bomb that you drew?  This deck has both better instant-speed one-sided bombs and more sorcery-speed bombs than the Italian version.  Plus, Mana Drain into Gifts is very good.

Why play this slower control/combo deck instead of a fast combo deck?  Because you can guarantee your victory better with this deck.  All decks now are fast.  The ones that are more resilient will tend to win more often.

Questionable Card Choices
4 Gifts Ungiven - See it early, see it often.  A resolved one will usually ensure your victory.  This is even good in multiples as the first one can get mana while the second one can get will.

1 Tendrils of Agony - There is only one win condition.  Why would you want to fill you maindeck with dead cards?  Use the sideboard if you fear Cranial Extraction or Jester's Cap.  With the Mana Drains, hopefully you can drain into victory quicker anyways.  Don't get too careless with Necropotence along with Memory Jar as you don't want to lose your win condition.  

0 Duress - I would like the luxury to run Duress, Drains, and FOW, but this is more combo than the Team CAB deck and the Drains are more swingy than the Duresses.  Another thing that I learned is that it you don't necessarily like to fetch a Sea as your first mana for Duress only to have it wasted and ruin your chances for Mana Drain the next turn.  Also, card advantage should be played at instant-speed end-of-turn anyways, so it doesn't need to be protected as much because it should be backed up by another threat on your main phase.

Library of Alexandria - This is another broken card early in the game.  With a slower control/combo deck, you can afford to run this card.

1 Tinker, 1 Memory - You want to have enough real bombs that you can run instant-speed card advantage that it can be followed up with sorcery-speed bombs if the instant-speed is countered.

1 Gush, 1 Fact or Fiction - What would you rather run, Deep Analysis?  Instant-speed is again better than sorcery-speed in this case.  On the other hand, in my limited testing, these card have not helped me win any of those games.  So at this time, I can say that it is expendable, but I don't see a better choice at this time.

1 Rebuild - With so many Trinispheres, you need at least one maindeck answer.  This is probably the best answer.  However, in an ideal situation against Trinisphere decks, you will be able to counter threat with Force if necessary, drain their second threat, and go broken the next turn with all the extra mana.

1 Echoing Truth - I personally prefer Chain of Vapor, but Echoing Truth is used for mainly one reason - Chalice of the Void (for 1).

The decklist is in the different thread.  Here it is with sideboard.

Justin Walters
4th Place
Playing Meandeck TPS
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Night's Whisper
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Brainstorm
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Darkwater Egg
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Land Grant
1 Necropotence
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Windsweapt Heath

Sideboard:
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Bayou
1 Doomsday
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Hurkyls Recall

Try this list.  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18235