[Bologna - 25/05/05] - Report - 2° Place with MyGifts.dec

[MaxxMatt]

Hi all,

I'm here to write ( as soon as I can, according to my special ability of forgetting anything precious about magic games after 5 beers ) a brief report of our tourney, today,  here in Bologna.

I played ( for the first time since I own my P9s ) a Gifts-Based deck instead of some Keeper-esque-Like-deck.

I playtested this build since exactly I came back from Paris for two reasons: My own ( Old ) 3C-Control got smashed by the LemannRuss-KarstenKotter' build without any difficulties ( even considering my POTENT maindeck hate for gifts and welders ) and I feel that it is the new frontier for the control decks.

Another good reason that I found to play this deck instead of ANY other control deck is the high skill that it requires to gain control of the game and the high possibility to out-play any opponent with key plays, most of which are often not so obvious and really mind-hurting.

It has obvious game plans based on Gifts or based on Out-drawing any opponent AND it has a lot of subtle plays and huge mini-sinergies that can let you go through dfferent bad situations.

The tourney consists on 22 players, with only 9 of them un-powered.

I made 4-0-1 with this score:

1) Landstill - Win
2) TPS - Loss
3) Dragon - Win
4) GoBBo - Win
5) 3C-Decree-Control - Win

Turn 1 - Landstill
Game 1
He laid a land and passed the turn, while I played Land Mox, Sol Ring and a Duress. I noticed that he had 3 Strip effects on his hand, but only a F/I, a Brainstorm and an Echoing Truth in his hand. I discarded his "engine". Luckily for me I had more lands than his Strip effects to protect my game breaking Gift-Plan. He Wasted my land and passed the turn. I topdecked one of my Brainstorms which perfectly feed chess-playing-game-plan by  giving me other accelerations. I resolved a standard Gift with Recoup, Time Walk, Tinker and Demonic, that my opponent translated in a Walk, Demonic for Y Will, Recoup for Walk, Walk, Y Will for Tinker, Demonic for Burning for Walk, Walk with at least two counters backup.
I  wasn't aware he was playing Landstill. I sided as if he was playing Fish. Doh!
Game 2
He played a first turn Standstill which I forced and which he Forced back. I held an Ancestral and a Brainstorm. I waited a bit doing anything ( two turns ). He quickly mopped the board with Mishra's and Conclaves. I Brainstomed during his EoT breaking the Stanstill, hoping to force him to discard some spells. He did nothing but drawing 3 cards. I responded by Ancestralling backupping it with my lone ReB. He had no couters ready excluding a sigle ounterspell so my spells resolved. This time I have less acceleration than the game before, but I Walked and resolved a TFK that discarded for me my own DSC directly back into my deck. Really pleased by seeing all my spells going on and resolving with ease, I tried a perlustrative Gift with Duress, Therapy, Mindtwist and Recoup, holding other drawers into my hand. When I saw that he, unluckily for him, had an hand with a lot of Stifles and F/I as maior defences, I went for the throat, resolving an huge FoF that showed me other broken spells and he conceded soon after my second Gift.

1-0-0

Turn 2 - TPS-UBr
Game 1
This time I played against one of my teammates. We showed our deck to each other in order to inform us about our new "techs". What a fairplay! I showed him my entire new deck and he showed me his own additions to his not so standard TPS build. He added red and Recoup in the maindeck ( with LoA and a different drawers configuration ) and some red spells in his side ( ReBs and R&R ). Astonishingly enough for me he didn't play with Wheel of fortune, but he won against me two times, so he would have been be totally right about his choices!
I went second and after mulliganing to six; I kept and hand with a second turn peak of potentials: Drainx2,Brainstorm and a Gift.
Unluckily for me he didn't gave me so much time.
He played this NOT-SO-BROKEN-FIRST-TURN: Land, Crypt, Ritual, Jar.
I played only an useless Land, Mox go.
He broke the Jar during his upkeep, holding 8 new cards during his first mainphase. He Duressed me only to be sure of not losing to some of my possible counters and then he played a Gift which gave him tons of mana which powered for him a monstruosus 13-spells Mind's Desire which showed me double Tendrils coupled with other broken things.
Game 2
I sided in 3 CotVs and Cranial Extraction, leaving out a Gift, a Brainstorm, F/I and a Skeletal.
I started with a common Land, Duress that showed me an hand consisting of Ritual,  Bargain, Y Will, Sol Ring, a Brainstorm and two Blue mana sources. I opted to slow him down taking out Brainstorm. He didn't draw his black mana source so I have a Drain ready to be played on the next turn. He found the black mana source after I played my own Cotv for one and this move gave me the needed time to Tinker for my DSC and win with it, with him with 3 or 4 bombs into his hand, but without the right mana configuration to resolve any one of them.

I would force anything that is reading this report and that could think about winning against TPS with CotVs and Gifts, that I'M SURE THAT I WON THIS GAME ONLY because he was hit by his own colorscrew A SINGLE TURN more than needed. In any other cases, he could have resolved a Y Barain or Y Will or both of them for the win with ease regardless my own defences. TPS would rule anywhere it doesn't scrub-out by itself!

We chatted a bit about which cards we could have sided against each other ( obviously without revealing them to each other to add more skills during the game ) and I confessed him that my own deck would not have substained more than 3 or 4 cards without losing raw power and abilities to win. OTOH, he could have sided in 9-10 cards among the ones he had in his side. I don't know how many he sided in against me, but, after seeing what he played,  I noticed that he packed in Tormod's Cryptx2 and Defence Gridx2 for sure. Maybe he added a ReB and a Mis-D too. He opted not to over-side against me. I feel a bit the possibility to play with Wishes and/or Stifes, when backupped with Duresses, Drains and FoWs


Game 3
He smiled a bit after looking at his hand. I have a good hand with a FoW backup, a Duress, a Braistorm and a Mystical. He played Duress off his Jet ad then resolved a clearly broken sequence of spells: Tormod's Crypt, Black Lotus AND Necropotence .  I looked at my hand sadly, recognising that it is too slow to react to a first turn Necro with broken backups. I played land and Duress, but his hand had 3 bombs ( Gift, Y Will and Ancestrall plus the mana to resolve at least one of them each turn ). I continued playing but he resolved another Mind's Desire for 14-16 spells during my third turn of this sad game

1-0-1




Turn 3 - Dragon
Game 1
He emptied his entire hand during turn one and Entombed a Dragon without doing nothing really game breaking. I had a good hand with a 1° turn Duress, a 2° Drain and a 3° turn winning Gift. Who cares what he did during my few playing turns?
Game 2
He managed to Draw this game Entombing a Dragon again and going infinite with his looping only because my second turn DSC was beating him down
Game 3
He started iper-accelerated again Demonic Tutoring for broken spells which I, sadly for him, Duressed away. I stabilized with my own Furnaces during the mid-game and I squeezed one of my Gifts through his discards and FoWs during the additional turns. Recoup, Walk and Y Will stealed him all his additional turns and I won playing a Solo-Game.

2-0-1



Turn 4 - GoBBo
Game 1
I feared a bit his speed coupled with his mana denial effects. My deck showed me that I should not fear aggro too much. He kicked me with a Furious Goblin and he tried to resolve a Lackey which I FoWilled. I Ancestralled and Time Walked one time, with two Drain ready to be used. I Gifted for mana on turn 3 and  I Gifted for the win o  turn 4 thanks to my own Drains. I played the two winning turns with him holding useless Goblin Granades into his hand and a couple of additional Goblins.
Game 2
I feared Rods and Moons and ReBs. So I sided in R&R, Pyroclasm, Lava Darts and BeBs.
I don't need any one of them, because I started with a first turn Gift, thanks to my own Lotus and it chained me things like Brainstorm, Ancestral, Vampiric, Demonic and other additional mana. Broken thing happened again. So I won a turn faster than the game before.

3-0-1



Turn 5 - Uwr-Control-Deck
Game 1
Another teammate against me. I perfectly know about his deck and he knew a bit of this deck after having lost 2-1 against Toad during the Paris tourney. He had a strong denial component ( Shamans pls Strips plus CoWs ) coupled with a good engine consisting of TFK and the obvious restricted spells.
This was a couple of tought games. He started first with a Brainstorm. I didn't remember exaclty my following chain of spells, but I remember Gifting things through my grave after a couple of Duresses, because he was really well protected. Now I have a lot of gas between hand and play, but he disturbed me a lot with a Wasteland and a CoW followed by another Wasteland. I went around his locking strategy stealing him a turn with my own Walk and then going crazy with Recoup recursion thanks to my Tutored Tolarian Academy. I resolved both Tinker and Burning Wish which let me play a bit undisturbed, leaving my way open through my victory.
Game 2
I had an hand consisting of Land, Mox, Gift, Brainstormx2, Ancestral and FoW. While he started with Land, Mox Sol Ring, Brainstorm and Walk, I tried to responde with my own Ancestral Recall, which get Drained and then Misdirected to him. He locked me down with a CotV for 1 and I had at least 5 turns of draw-go, without seeing a single land. He Cicled a Decree for 2 and a CoW and some cheap spells. During all this time, I tried to topdeck something to recover. I tried to Balance the things but he countered me. I tried to Gift when my lands started to show to me but he countered it again. At some point I have two Drain but with no things to do because of the CotV for one on table. Of course, I owned my static DSC into my hand AND my own Tinker. I tried to Tinker for Lotus because I was planning on Recupping my own Balance to Balance out all his lands and his cards. He feared my own DSC so he countered Tinker too. He tried a CoW but I Drained it. On the subsequent turn I topdecked nothing and I took burn damages. Astonishingly enough for me, he thought about me not having any counters so he completely tapped himself out trying to HARDCAST his own DSC. I Drained it AND I resolved my own DSC with his beatiful 11-colorless-mana. I won two turns after. I won an unwinnable game in such a not-elegant way... .

4-0-1

I have not so many problems playing against other decks and I won with them
I feared TPS and I lost to it. No CotVs stopped him from winning.


This is my list.

(25)
2 Polluted
2 Flooded
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 City
1 Tundra
2 Volcanic
3 Underground
1 LoA
1 Bosejiu
1 Academy
1 Mox S
1 Mox R
1 Mox P
1 Mox E
1 Mox J
1 Lotus
1 Vault
1 Crypt
1 Sol Ring

(3)
1 Balance
1 F/I
1 DSC

(11)
1 Demonic
1 Vampiric
1 Mystical
1 Tinker
1 Walk
1 Recoup
1 Burning
1 Y Will
3 Gifts

(9)
1 Ancestral
1 FoF
1 Skeletal
2 TFK
4 Brainstorm

(12)
4 Drain
4 FoW
2 Duress
1 Therapy
1 Mindtwist

(15) - Sideboard
1 Cranial
1 Duress
1 Tendrils
1 Pyroclasm
1 Chainer Edict
1 Decree
2 Furnaces
3 Cotv
1 BeB
1 ReB
1 R&R
1 Dart


I'll have to study other interactions all around the deck, but I fear that it would be really interesting to play by far.
It is late.



See you all!
MAxxMAtt

 




 




 





@?!?!?!?!??!?!
 

@Maxx. Who wrote those "faces".? Ahhhhh My account have been possessed by some unknown and nastyyyyyy superentitiessssssssssss



EDIT#1 I fixed the list with the missing Academy. I cut-copy an old list. Thanks for the attent look.

[astre]

just a quick question:

thanks to my Tutored Tolarian Academy

I just can't find any tolarian in your list.

anyway, did you thought about adding sword to Plow to your deck?

[JACO]

Matt,
Great report, as usual. I had a question about your list; specifically, how good were the 2x Thirst for Knowledge? I don't see Deep Analysis anywhere, and with 3x Gifts Ungiven in your deck, at least a single copy of Deep Analysis almost seems like an auto-include.

Also, you said you had 'potent' main deck hate for Welders, but all I see is Balance and Fire/Ice. Is there something I'm missing? Along the theme of Gifts, I would think that if you're worried about Goblin Welder (or even Xantid Swarm), Lava Dart would be much better than Fire/Ice.

Congrats on a solid performance, and let me know what you think about my questions.

[rvs]

Matt,
Great report, as usual. I had a question about your list; specifically, how good were the 2x Thirst for Knowledge? I don't see Deep Analysis anywhere, and with 3x Gifts Ungiven in your deck, at least a single copy of Deep Analysis almost seems like an auto-include.

Also, you said you had 'potent' main deck hate for Welders, but all I see is Balance and Fire/Ice. Is there something I'm missing? Along the theme of Gifts, I would think that if you're worried about Goblin Welder (or even Xantid Swarm), Lava Dart would be much better than Fire/Ice.

Congrats on a solid performance, and let me know what you think about my questions.

Deep Analysis would be quite horrible, since you will always get it in your hand. Why fuck around with Deeps when you can also just get cards that win?
The real potent hate against welders is Phyrexian Furnace. Every self-respecting control / combo-control deck should run it.

[MaxxMatt]

@Rudy.
Hi man, how is going with Rubinia Soulsinger?
Is she troubling you too much?
Is she satisfied enough by my signature?


Back on topic,
Maybe you read my Parisian report and you noticed for sure that I played with all those pesky Furnaces in my maindeck of the old 3C-Control deck. Now they are in side in multiple copies.
Why?
While they are stellar against Welders and Dragons, they missed their weight when those decks are not predominant and most of all when I considered/tested/proved to myself that they wasted me too much space.

For now I don't have to face a lot of mirror. They could be used with a lot of useful results especially in Gifts' mirrors. If they would grow in number because of the rise of this deck, I can consider maindecking them again.

The space that they freed into my maindeck, let me play with Balance, F/I and an additional discard effects, al things that I HAVE to consider playing in a field filled with Aggro, Aggro-Control decks with denial plans and Combo and Contorl-Combo decks.

While my choices could have been considered subjective and not "staples", I found that each of those cards revealed his valor during this little tourney. While playing I realized that this deck without at least one or two reset buttons or additional "tempo-gainers" could find himself "lost" in a lot of situation, especially the ones when you aren't so hyper-accelerated by all the artifact mana and all you need is to gain "a little" of tempo before winning the game with ease.



@JACO.

I toyed swapping in and out that damn Deep in the TFK#2 slot for a least an entire week. I decided to play without it at the last momentum, because I saw a lot of "quick-decks". If the opponent is going to hurt you with a fast and deadly strategy as soon as he can, all you need is to preserve your ability to react as fast as you can too. TFK instant's speed is far superior if compared with the sorcery speed and the possibily Hyper-Costed cc of the non-flashbacked Deep. I found myself Gifting a lot for 4 drawers if I have to outdraw my opponent before  resolving my key spells and I can Gift for them even without playing Deep ( I have Ancestral, FoF, TFK, Skeletal and at worst I can add to this Gift another Tutor or Discard effect or another broken spell to Recoup later ).
Choosing to play Deep instead of another istant speed drawers, could be compared ( In my mind of course... ) on playing 3 Drains and a Counterspell or 3 FoW and a Disrupting Shoal. They are all extremely synergic choices, but you are clearly depowering the entire deck and considerin too much the deck as a Gift-dependant one.

Some times, the "PlanB" ( that usually consist on playing broken spells/Drawers/tutors behind the portection of 12 cards ) can be applied with the same facility and results of the ift-based one.
Compare this deck with Atog. Sometimes, Atog can simply play spell after spell without needing Intuition to win. Gifts are Atog's Intuitions and my broken spells are his broken spells.

@About the potent hate.
Sorry for being a little cryptic sometimes.
In those lines I was referring to my old 3C-Control with 3 maindeck Furnaces, the one that I played in Paris two weeks ago.

I prefer to have F/I instead of Lava Dart for many general reasons:

1) I need only a single red mana to kill a couple of creatures
2) It taps out opponent's DSC and it can be recurred with Y Will and Y WIll#2 thanks to Burning Wish if needed
3) It is blue
4) It isn't stopped by CotV for 1 ( which is usually an autoplay against a deck with Brainstorms and Duresses )
5) I usually don't use it into my Gifts, so the flashback ability that Lava Dart have is usually useless

On the other hand, I have a single lava dart into my side to squeeze in to kill Welders/Swarms but only in those specific matchups



@Astre.

I mumbled a lot about StP. I always played it into my Keeper.dec. OTOH it is a different deck.
I consider it being good especially against Oath, Welded Fatties and opponent's DSC.
I feared a lot CotVs too, especially for the high number of 1cc spells of the deck ( luckily for me, not a single one of them die to CotV for 1 ), so I decided to leave the deck with 2cc answers to it, for obvious statistical reasons. While StP is stronger against fatties, what I noticed playing this deck, is that it can usually don't care about the opponent's offences, especially when DSC come into play for the two needed winning swings. At this time, a F/I could gave me a better tempo-gaining tapping things wthout giving precious life points to my opponents. When they are uneeded, F/I and Balance are ALWAYS more useful than StPs. While StPs can ONLY kill creatures, both of them usually do MUUCH MOOOOORE than this when properly used.









@I have a couple of questions to all the ones that are playing a practing with this deck before me.
I played with that side, but I feel a bit unsatisfied by Decree and Cranial.

I resolved a Cranial against TPS... the turn before he played a zillion of spells, decking me out thanks to Wish and Brainfreeze.

I sided in Decree only two times. The first time, when I feared the opponent Cranial Extraction and the second against GoBBo, hoping that it could give me the needed tempo di kill with DSC, if needed.

In both of those cases, those cards were redundant and focused on .. "nothing". They wasted me at least one slot if not two.

Maybe I can add Primitive Justice or Meltdown to the side against Artifact.dec and/or Null Rod.dec while I can add OR CotV#4 OR Furnaces#3 OR Pyroclasm#2 OR F/I#2 into the last slot.

What do you think about them?

As you could have noticed, I played with 61 cards. I got mana-screwed only one time into the entire tourney and I won this match. So the land/spells rate seemed to work fine ... at now.

What do you think about the Therapy addition?
What do you think about the mana base?
What do you think about playing with white ALMOST for Balance
Are there any cards that I don't consider, that can, instead, be used in some slots?





I confess to you all that I'm testing this configuration ( for the protections ):

3 FoW
3 Drain
1 Shoal
1 Counter
1 Duress
1 Therapy
1 Mindtwist
1 Mis-D

AND 4 Gifts.
Until now the times which I missed the two 4of have been a lot, but not "SO MANY" to force me dropping the idea and preventing me to show it to you as well



MAxxMAtt