Speaking from my experience with repeal in gifts not Gush-Storm, you rarely ever need to repeal anything above 2 mana.  For 3 mana or less you can repeal: meddling mage (just about any fish creature really), chalice, null rod (not as important), Quirion Dryad, your own moxen (for storm), opposing fastbonds (stop a gush chain), and haste sliver to name a few cards.  The card is extremely flexible and replaces itself as making it an all around good card, it can also be used with dark rit to get mindcensors and such but they have flash so that's not too exciting.  Repeal is also a blue card and is obviously more synergistic with tendrils then a dryad.

My roomate played the agaisnt Elias about 8-9 times the day before with GAT and the matchup is fairly rough for GAT.  YOur only reasonable outs are very early fastbond Gush chains or psychatog any slow hands can often get overrun.  Obviously the better you are with GAT and at the match the more this percentage could change but currently it appears to be unfavorable without some tweaks to GAT.

The tournemant was great I had loads of fun, and I can't see picking up a book as a good reason to miss such a great event like this.  Especially with the way the SCG's are shaping up this year (not many and there all so far away).  I look forward to the next TMD Open.

I just picked up the book a few days later and got it at 40% off . 

Mike H

Very nice report good job on the top 4 sadly Brassman on day 1 and then Rich on day 2 were both to much for me and I was not able to break into the really good prizes.  I know we've been in at least 3 top 8's at the same time (SCG Boston, Roanoke and the recent Waterbury day 1) but I don't think we've ever faced before.  Probably a good thing for me

Mike H

Magus, Mindcensor, and Auriok Salvagers to name a few creatures that threads doesn't hit.  It’s also an instant since this deck doesn't look like it wants to tap low on its turn in the mid-late game that can be pretty important.  Also REB will undoubtedly be board in against this deck and while it counters both, it can't remove Dominates effect once it resolves whereas it can destroy threads.  Also it’s a blue instant as pointed out by Mon.

I didnt mean to say that GAT and fish were the same deck I was just pointing out that he has board for Fish but next to nothing against GAT, with edict being the only reasonable card to bring in against GAT.  Edict is a reasonable card to bring in but GAT often wins by snowballing card advantage with a dryad on board, which means even if you deal with one dryad its often very easy to replace them, especially if thedeck is under minimal pressure. 

Which brings me to another point this deck has no effective way to put an opponnent under pressure, javelineers are too small to be a real threat and there are only 4 mages.  So while this deck can create a tempo advantage with Remand, Root Maze, Null Rod, and waste effects it has no way to capitalize on the weakness this generates and will often give the opponnent alot of time ot recover.

You also might want to think about addressing the inneffectivness of tinker in this deck you have very few artifacts, simply swtiching lands for moxen is probaly the best way to increase Tinker's reliability, I would recommend swapping out the 3 Gemstones mines for 3 more moxen.

Actually you don't.

Why remand duress seems way better. You might also want to fit in the other on color moxen or just cut tinker since you have very few cards to tinker away.  You seem to be playing all 5 colors but your not really focused and you certainly aren't getting much value from some of you colors like the welders, which are not going to be that great against stax and you get almost no benfit from them since you have a grand total of 7 artifacts between md and board.

Your sideboard seems to be pretty random things like Shadow of Doubt are really slow in you deck since you only have 3 accelerants so holding up 2 mana means you can't play anything until like turn 3-4.  Massacre seems great against fish and all but what about GAT which is just a broken version of fish and barely even notices massacre (doesnt run plains or care about -2/-2).  Diabolic Edict seems very weak, oath's barely a factor these days unless your playing in a unpowered environment. 

This list is dated, and is Erik Williams's from day 2 of the last waterbury:

2 Aether Spellbomb
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt

Creatures
3 Auriok Salvagers
4 Dark Confidant
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Trinket Mage

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force Of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Night's Whisper
1 Time Walk

Basic Lands
2 Island

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Chalice Of The Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Energy Flux
2 Darkblast
2 Swords To Plowshares
3 Trickbind

I know my friend has run the list more recently w/o night whispers and Misdirection I think for md Mages (ups the blue count and gives more disruption).  But this is a decent list for the more disruptive fish like builds of Bob-Bomberman.  The sideboard and maindeck obviously needs to be retooled as FS, the unrestriction/restrictions and unerrata of flash has completly changed the metage since this was last played.  But on board disruption like mage, and potentially mindcensor are quite strong against combo, especially flash if you can get them down turn 1-2.  They have minmal ways to remove them.

The biggest problem with clamp in the deck your suggesting is that you don't want to kill your creatures, since most of them are either card advantage (confidant, ninja) by themselves or lock pieces (meddling mage, mindcensor) so in reality you are using clamp as +1 power boost to some of your creatures or pre-emptive defense against removal.  Yes you are going to face things like massacre, and pyroclasm postboard the decks that are running these are often going to need only a single turn to kill you after resolving these especially in the case of massacre.  In place of clamp you could be running null rod with is very strong and fish (obviously not very good with clamp) and better finishers like Jotun Grunt.  As far as your new list of the deck, it has removed a lot of fishes stronger elements like chalice (which is great with trinket mage) and replaced them with mediocre cards like Shikari which do nothing on there own and don't even have very impressive stats. 

Basically you seem to be fighting the wrong battles with this deck as the format currently seems to be evolving towards fast combo like Long and Flash, and powerful aggro/aggro control strategies like Ichorid (practically combo) and GAT.  While I wouldn’t recommend clamp in this particular deck that’s not to say there isn't a good deck out there to abuse it, but if you choose to go the fish route I recommend a more traditional build of UWB fish or one with salvagers combo added.

I disagree, having played a version very similar to to MDG against my roomate with 2.5 color long(very close to GWS) even after board when I got to bring in 4 duresses the matchup only ever felt 50/50 at best just because of the high threat density of the deck.  Yes Duress is good against them but the card you Duressed is something they didnt even spend resources on (unless they tutored for it) and they will almost always have another threat.  Also Misdirection is almost completly dead in that match, only really a card to pitch, and something that forces the opponent not to play Ancestral Recall.

The poisonous ability stacks so 3 slivers getting through with 4 copies of posionous 1 each would give the oponnent 12 posoin counters thus killing them.

The biggest problem with having only 1 Gifts is the inability to force Gifts through by the simple fact of having multiple Gifts not to mention being able to get Gifts with Gifts in the card advantage package.  Now seeing as Vintage is really fast right now this is not the end of the world but finding Gifts is a much slower process now, which does hurt alot.  Intuition can work as a pseudo replacement but its not as powerful and a pretty different card functionaly.  Things like AK are at a premium with Intuition wheras they suck with gifts.  It seems like Gush is the midrange card drawing card of choice right now in Vintage but only time will tell.

I compare Rector Flash to Gifts because it is capable of playing for the long game.  For instance the version probasco ran had Therapy Duress and FOW if I rember correctly.  Hulk Flash on the other hand is straight control and has very little advatage for playing the long game since several of its cards are dead right up until you win (i.e. pacts, hulk, and win conditions).  It's definitly doesnt havea as strong a game as Gifts but most of its cards remain functional throughout the game (exculding bargain if you at low life but thats why it runs profusion).

It's really a difference of deck types; Hulk Flash is a very fast combo deck with lots of disruption but due to the pacts is kind of a one shot deal, Rector Flash is more control oriented with a combo finish.  Rector Flash is kinda like Gifts and Hulk Flash is more like Belcher with a ton of disruption.

We'll looks like Gifts is dead  , they finally gave gifts axe.  The deck will probaly have to morph into something Long esque with only 1 gifts or disappear altogether, seeing how fast the other combo decks are now being forced to tutor for you 1 gifts to setup the win seems to slow.  Oh we'll looks like it's time ot find a new deck, Flash looks promising.

Mainly Street Wraith is in the deck strictly to find out if it's any good, to be honest I love Repeal in Gifts alot more then most people and just wouldn't feel comfortable without them.  So my Wraith's will probaly be cut at some point but I just wanted to see how good they were.


2 Rituals is probaly too many I agree, like I said it's a fairly rough list.  As for cutting red although I do not like Recoup and I am probaly cutting it, I do love red, for how much it improves the fish matchup(clasm, ETW, REB, and FTK), blue control(REB), heck even stax can be improved with red(Rack and Ruin) so I do not forsee myself cutting it and most likely I will cut the second Ritual and add a third Volcanic (back up to 15 lands) since the matches where you most want red all have wasteland.

I think the reason I prefer FOW to Drain is I use FOW to force through Gifts, and quick Ancestrals which easily allows you to recover any disadvantage from pitching a card to FOW.  After board I bring in predominatly red cards like ETW, REB and Clasm in which case drain is useless since I don't actually care about any of Fish's threat except maybe null rod and sometimes chailce, but that is what bounce is for and it answers Chalice and Rod more effiecently then Drain which is to slow to stop either of those often.

When playing agaisnt fish, I've found that good players will often let you counter there threats like Meddling Mage and Null Rod so long as they have 1-2 more threats and will save there Forces for your spells, which is were Drain is very clunky since it is hard to cast a Threat and have Drain mana up against a deck with Wastelands Chalice and Rods.

As far as shop decks go, I'll give you Drain is your single best card against them, but Shop is not to prevelant where I live and it usually doesn't put up a large showing to most major events (at least not in comparision to Fish, Combo, and Gifts).

I'm looking to update Gifts with the new additions from Future Sight,  The first list is from  ELD's Mox V tourney and incorporates Street Wraiths into Gifts which seem like one of the strongest additions to Gifts,  In addition they run a very Fishesque sideboard with FTK, Jailer, and Mindcensor to Hose specific matches as well as possibly being good against fish just on the basis of being creatures (haven't tested it yet).

Stefan Ellsworth Gifts
2   Flooded strand
3   Polluted delta
2   Volcanic island
2   Underground sea
1   tolarian academy
2   Snow-covered island
1   library of alexandria
2   Island
1   Darksteel collosus
4   Street wraith
4   Force of will
3   gift's ungiven
4   Mana drain
4   Brainstorm
1   Recoup
1   Lotus petal
1   Black lotus
1   mox emerald
1   Mox jet
1   Mox pearl
1   Mox sapphire
1   Mox ruby
1   Sol Ring
1   Demonic tutor
1   Ancestral recall
1   Time walk
1   Yawgmoth's will
3   Merchant scroll
1   Mana crypt
1   Tendrils of agony
1   vampiric tutor
1   Mystical tutor
1   tormod's crypt
1   Hurkyl's Recall
1   Timetwister
1   Tinker
1   Chain of vapor
   
SB
3   Aven mindcensor
1   Tundra
3   Duress
1   Rebuild
2   Empty the warrens
3   Yixlid jailer
2   Flametongue kavu

One card that has been underperforming for me recently has been Recoup, I realize that it is for the late game but I almost never want to see the card.  If Recoup is cut that decreases the reliance on Drains since flashback recoup targeting will, will is one of the more expensive plays in the deck.

Recoup's strengths
Works well with Will and Gifts
Provides strong protection in the event will gets Duressed
Gets better the more mana available

Weaknesses
Bad early game draw
Very expensive
Doesn't work with jailer out (minor point)

The card always feels like the weakest card in the deck so I’m going to cut it and see what happens not saying this is right and I haven’t had a chance to test my new list yet since most of my friends went home for the summer.

Anyway here is a tentative list:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Creatures
4 Street Wraith

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Dark Ritual
4 Force Of Will
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Duress
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Empty the Warrens

Basic Lands
2 Island

Basic Snow Lands
1 Snow-covered Island

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy


One card I’m sad to see go is repeal but having both repeal and Wraith in the same deck seems like overkill, although I certainly will miss my repeals.

Like I said above, this deck is still untested but I think it has some potential even if it’s a little rough around the edges.  The Darksteel Collussus win could be superior since street Wraith doesn’t enhance storm but I’m not sure, I just tend to prefer Empty the Warrens.

Timetwister is one card that has gained popularity in Gifts and I think with the recent additions Ichorid gained it’s probably even more warranted then before.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Here is the version of gifts I played about a month before FS became legal (currently working on a post FS build):

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Dark Ritual
4 Force Of Will
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
3 Repeal
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Recoup
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Empty the Warrens

Basic Lands
2 Island

Basic Snow Lands
1 Snow-covered Island

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
Varies


Meddling Mage cannot be duressed true, but at the same time if your facing Meddling Mage then Mana Drain is by far your worst card.  I always board out all my drains against Fish and board in some combination of more ETW's, Pyrocalsm, REB's, or FTK's depending on what is in my board at the time.  In addition Repeal is an excellent card in the Fish match and bounces Meddling Mage quite well.  While until a couple of month's ago I was playing Tinker/DSC and I still think it has merits (biggest strength is the ability to run Sunder Titan in the board) I have switched over to ETW for it's ability to enhance Fish and Stax while not being very difficult to enable 8 or so Goblins.

Duress is much more valuable against any variety of Long just because they can go off very reliably by turn 2 and possibly Flash although I haven't tested agaisnt them.  But if Pact of Negation becomes more popular then Duress might become even better since Duress can't be Pacted very easily.

Gifts can be built to be more control then combo in which case Library is better, but I prefer a more combo oriented version not as much as ritual gifts but still pushing the speed of the deck while marinating most of it's control power.

I could not see myself running just 2 Scrolls it's to powerful as a way to find Ancestral, Gifts, or Permission.  It can also be put into Gifts piles as an Ancestral without having to waste your Ancestral (obviously you can do this with just 2) but against control I often find myself string Gifts and Scrolls together to overwhelm there disruption, and then cast my will or just storm out with enough cards.

As far as running 3 win conditions instead of 2 I think that is mostly unnecessary with the presence of Street Wraith, which if it can be successfully incorporated into gifts provides an alternate win condition and might only require Tendrils to one main now
.

I disagree Gifts can still be a strong control deck with 3 Drains and even 2.  Drains have to be played around or its more then likely the opponent will lose to drain on a 3 or more mana spellif there not prepared for it, Having 3 means that you will usually draw only 1 which is all you usually want 2 is just too clunky, and the deck runs 4 Scroll which makes the inclusion of Drain that much more powerful if you reach the midgame (turn 4ish).  Drains can also be supplemented with Duress which gives you valuable information on which spells have to be countered etc…

- I would recommend running the ETW over tinker collussus as it is much more powerfull and it is more difficult to disrupt as well as being 1 card instead of 2. 

- Dark Ritual is almost a must these days just because of the speed of the format and I could easily see 2, although I only use 1 mostly becasue of deck constraints. 

- I would recommend agaisnt Library of Alexandria mostly because the speed of the format is so fast these days you can't afford to spend even one turn to get LOA online.
 
- As for bounce I actually run 2-3 repeals and then a Rebuild usually depending on the meta I expect, the repeals are pure gold agaisnt fish and synergize nicely with ETW.

- I think mana drain's power has been dropping recently and I only run 3 now(I'm thinking of going to 2), the speed of the format and the fact that the average player now knows how to play around them has made them less useful.  Duress is a more powerful alternative because it comes online turn 1 and gives you better information.

Those are just some of my thoughts on gifts, I haven't played Type 1 for about 2 months but I have won several pieces of power with Gifts and have been playing it for almost as long as I've been playing Type 1.