why would you run shivan reef over fetchlands...especially with 3 crucible in the deck?

If I already have a servitor in play, can I put its ability on the stack, then use intuition to discard another servitor that will be put into play this turn?

Thanks.

if you aren't running aether vial, you should really run null rod.

Careful study??? This card should devinately not be in the deck. It's card disadvantage at sorcery speed.

I love aether vial, but you aren't really running a creature base that supports it. If you don't want to change the creature base, I would add null rod. Possibly up the fire/ice count to 4 in place of the jittes?

you can add platinum angel as another tinker target, I don't know if morphling is really worth it anymore

it's actually quite difficult. Here in southern california we have very few T1 tourneys despite there being quite a lot of people around. It got to the point that I sold my whole collection because there weren't any good T1 tourneys around and it wasn't worth sitting on (at the time) a couple thousand dollars worth of cards.

Good luck to you though.

it's ok, but I don't see it doing enough.

A control deck can usually work around it well enough. Most of their spells will be cast at the end of your turn(rack and ruin, skeletal scrying, FoF, gifts, brainstorm, etc etc are all cast at end of turn more often than not)  if they are saving mana for drain. Also, this does almost nothing to stop force. Also, fetchlands get around this pretty well.

Stacks will often be tapping out each turn for the first few turns anyway.

vial helps in every matchup.

It gives you a mana free way to play uncounterable creatures at instant speed every turn (if you have one in hand). When is that not good in a creature based deck?

First turn vial lets you use your mana to disrupt every turn after that because you pretty much never have to cast creature spells again. It is also why the deck can run with a low land count.

I find that I am often gifting more than once before killing. The first gift is very often to get either mana, or general card advantage. Due to this, getting the mana for a tendrils kill is usually not too difficult. Even facing chalice, you do have rebuild. It can be cast eot so you are free to drop moxen, or during your turn/after will so you can more easily up your storm.

The beauty of this deck is that it is typically able to use each turn to build more card/mana advantage. Once you get enough mana/cards, winning is usually inevitable since there are so many cards in the deck that help move your kill forward.

The tendrils kill is a bit harder because it requires more thought, but it is typically the way to go if given a choice.

that's often what I end up doing.

I have been testing with this as much as I can. Unfortunatly, there isn't a T1 metagame around me to speak of. If anyone in the la/orange county CA area plays T1, let me know!!!

That being said, I have been playing this mostly online when I can since I don't have folk to test with very often.

My biggest problem is in the matchups where everything is great. Against control or combo, all often want to keep all or most of the maindeck as is and simply try and add in blasts and perhaps needle if they run enough good targets for it.

Sometimes I am hard pressed to find even 2 cards that I feel comfortable bringing out for 2 blasts.

Sure, I can find stuff to take out. I will sometimes take out tinker/dsc or perhaps a drain or a scroll. Sometimes misdirection comes out if it's mostly dead. I know that steve and others have much more time with the deck than I ever will, so I will certainly ask their opinion on something as crucial as sideboarding.

If he doesn't want to give it, or wants to charge for it...that's certainly his right. We have a community here that is focused on moving T1 magic forward, and asking for help seems well within the bounds of what is appropriate.

what to side out is my biggest challenge with the deck also. I like matches where I can side out misd...cause then I can side stuff in!

I asked on these forums and basically got told to read a premium article in scg

If anyone has some useful insight as to what to side in, please share it!

I really enjoy playing this deck and I do an ok job of boarding, but more knowledge would be good.

Thanks

I have been testing md gifts a bit lately. I swapped the echoing truth/vampirit tutor spot to a cunning wish and put some instants in the board to wish for. So far it has been ok, but I haven't tested extentively with it.

At any rate, I haven't found any, or enough cards that I can see boarding out. Specifically, when I want to keep misdirection in, such as for mirror match or vs cs or other control decks. I have mystic remora, red blast, and pyro that I would like to bring in but I just can't find what to take out. I can drop 1 merchant scroll for a mystic remora but I am stumped as to what else to board out.

Can anyone shed some light on this? What would you board out in mirror match or facing a multi color control deck like control slaver, oath, 4cc, etc?

Also, has anyone else tried testing a cunning wish in that slot?

that's what I had thought, was really puzzled by people saying they could attack with negator twice

I have read a couple posts regarding using the ninjitsu ability to "attack twice" with a creature such as negator. In reading the oracle for ninjitsu, this makes no sense to me.

Can someone explain?

Thanks!

That is very helpful. I had figured that the gift cards would vary depending on the conditions of the game, but I was seeing reference to a "combo" gifts, so you cleared that up.

How about the sideboard?

Specifically, which sorcerys would be included as burning wish targets?

I can definately see pyroclasm and of course tendrils, but what else are people using?  Is it simply metagame targets, or are there more standard choices?

Thanks again, you guys have been very helpful!

I am just getting back into magic after a long break, so I am a bit slow to pick things like this up, but I have a couple questions:

1: I read about people gifting into "the combo", or just going broken with gifts.  Is this typically going for tinker/dsc, or something else...more directly, what is the first gifts usually searching for?

2: What would a sideboard look like? I saw "the usually wish targets" ...what might those be?

Thanks!