T1T Vs Gifts ungiven control

[Wildthing]

I wonder what are your thoughts about this matchup
I read Smmenen say that gifts colossus variant is one of the true weaknesses of tog (with fish). Despite agreeing with the statement about fish, I am not agree about gifts colossus being one of the true weaknesses of tog. I have tested the matchup during 3 days and the results were 50-50 more or less. For reference here are the decklists I played:

T1T:
4 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
7 Solomoxen
1 Library of Alexandria
 
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Deep analysis
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Psychatog
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Duress

SIDEBOARD:
1 Fling
1 Firestorm
1 Lava Dart
1 Stifle
1 Mystical tutor
1 Shattering Pulse
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Rushing River 
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Misdirection

Gifts ungiven control:
Artifacts
3 Phyrexian Furnace
8 Solomoxencrypt

Artifact Creatures
1 Darksteel Colossus

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force Of Will
3 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Skeletal scrying
2 Thirst For Knowledge
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fact or fiction

Sorceries
1 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Recoup
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Basic Lands
2 Island
1 Snow-covered Island

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

Legendary Lands
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Mind twist
1 Engineered explosives
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Rack And Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Duress
1 Primitive Justice
1 Pyroclasm
1 Lava dart
1 Tendrils Of Agony

Out of 17 games Tog won 10, 2 games were won due to first turn library and in the rest duress and deeps were golden. I only feel gifts deck to be strinctly superior in the topdecking game when a resolved gifts ruins you the game. But surprisely tog has more draw and more answers to the threats.
Tog strenghts: more flexible maindeck, more answers in form of cunning wish, less dead draws and full set of ReB in the side
Gifts strenghts: more broken spells, can win from nothing and boseiju

EDIT: the gifts deck only had 1 skeletal and I forgot crypt

[Rico Suave]

Your Gifts deck runs 23 mana sources, including no Mana Crypt, no Library of Alexandria, no Mana Vault, no Lotus Petal, and ultimately not a single bit of acceleration above and beyond what the Tog deck has.  You have to keep in mind that the Gifts deck is much, much faster than Tog and the mana base must support this.  Boseiju is also questionable in a deck that can't afford to wait for it to untap before casting its key spells.  I'm guessing that many of Gifts losses came from the deck either mulliganing too much or not having enough mana to do its thing. 

It also runs 3 weak cards in Phyrexian Furnace, questionable choices like Vampiric Tutor and Skeletal Scrying, and an unfocused SB.

If these things are remedied, then perhaps you may experience different results.  The fact Gifts took 7 games with that build is surprising enough.

[Outlaw]

Your Gifts deck runs 23 mana sources, including no Mana Crypt

8 Solomoxencrypt

[Revvik]

I'd be interested in seeing some results from testing these two decks, with the fixes proposed, but more importantly with some changes to the 'Tog deck.  Specifically, using the four-color build  .

[Rico Suave]

Your Gifts deck runs 23 mana sources, including no Mana Crypt

8 Solomoxencrypt

When I posted, there was no Crypt, and it was edited in after my initial post.

[Toad]

Boseiju is also questionable in a deck that can't afford to wait for it to untap before casting its key spells.

This is a Control mirror. Boseiju is a card I want to see in 100% of my oppening hands against Tog because It simply wins the game. LoA is crap when you can run Boseiju.

It also runs 3 weak cards in Phyrexian Furnace

Phyrexian Furnace is very good against Psychatog because Intuition for 3 Accumulated Knowledge to draw 2 cards or Intuition for 3 Deep Analysis to get a single Deep Analysis in the graveyard to flashback is rather weak when compared to Gifts Ungiven.

questionable choices like Vampiric Tutor and Skeletal Scrying

Vampiric Tutor is incredibly strong in the deck, because It's another Tinker or another Gifts Ungiven if needed. It should be sideboarded out against Psychatog though.
Skeletal Scrying dominates Thirst for Knowledge in Control mirror and there is no comparison there. Thirst for Knowledge gets +1 card and is Blue, Skeletal Scrying gets at least +1 card and is not blue. I would actually cut one of the 2 Thirst for Knowledge to play a second Skeletal Scrying, and consider cutting all the Thirst for Knowledge for a strong 3 Skeletal Scrying, because It's the best draw spell you can run there. The fact that It owns active Welders when you Tinker up Darksteel Colossus is a good bonus.

and an unfocused SB.

His sideboard is actually pretty strong and very well designed.

If these things are remedied, then perhaps you may experience different results.  The fact Gifts took 7 games with that build is surprising enough.

No comment...

Keep Phyrexian Furnace because It hinders their draw engine.
Keep Boseiju because you win the game if It untaps.
Play more Skeletal Scryings because they are superior to Thirst for Knowledge.
Your sideboard is strong.

The overall matchup is indeed about 50/50. And because many players on TheManaDrain criticize Tog without even playtesting It, Yes, Psychatog is a good deck. You should consider going to 4 Cunning Wish and down to 3 Duress for your Tog list.

[Rico Suave]

This is a Control mirror. Boseiju is a card I want to see in 100% of my oppening hands against Tog because It simply wins the game. LoA is crap when you can run Boseiju.

You may play it like a control mirror, but when I play Gifts I play it like a combo deck against something like Tog.  That is why I do not fear Tog.

The reason I do not like Boseiju is because when testing Boseiju against Gifts, Boseiju would come into play, then the opponent would effectively win before it untaps because their land came into play untapped and thus they could use it to cast Gifts and win.

As for Library being crap, of the games Tog won, 20% were won through first turn LoA.  I am glad I now know what your definition of "crap" is.

Phyrexian Furnace is very good against Psychatog because Intuition for 3 Accumulated Knowledge to draw 2 cards or Intuition for 3 Deep Analysis to get a single Deep Analysis in the graveyard to flashback is rather weak when compared to Gifts Ungiven.

Even without Phyrexian Furnace, Intuition is weak compared to Gifts. 

I never said that Furnace is a bad card, or that it is bad against Tog.  I'm saying there are better things to play in those slots.  It's like, you could play Opt in the deck too, but that doesn't make it optimal. 

Skeletal Scrying dominates Thirst for Knowledge in Control mirror and there is no comparison there. Thirst for Knowledge gets +1 card and is Blue, Skeletal Scrying gets at least +1 card and is not blue. I would actually cut one of the 2 Thirst for Knowledge to play a second Skeletal Scrying, and consider cutting all the Thirst for Knowledge for a strong 3 Skeletal Scrying, because It's the best draw spell you can run there. The fact that It owns active Welders when you Tinker up Darksteel Colossus is a good bonus.

I have never needed Scrying to get around an active Welder.  I do not run Furnace either. 

As for comparing Scrying to TFK, the key is efficiency.  For 3 mana you see 3 cards, whereas Scrying only lets you see 2 cards for the same mana.  Additionally, being blue is a bonus because it can pitch to Force and is in a primary color, thus letting you still draw cards even in the face of Wastelands and other non-basic hate without having a fear of losing your mana base.  This is important when considering that TFK is not the primary engine and is instead used as set-up. 

TFK is not conditional.  This is huge.  When the entire point of the slot is to dig and set up Will, the fact TFK can be cast first turn is an advantage that Scrying simply cannot make up for.  Scrying can hardly ever be cast first turn, and if it is then it is most likely at the cost of something like Black Lotus, Ancestral, Time Walk, or some other card that you do not wish to remove.

Furthermore, TFK is yet another way to dispose of a DSC in hand.  This is very important considering how much emphasis you place on being able to Tinker it up.  On top of that, let us say that somebody is playing Furnace against you and your graveyard is thin on cards.  Would you rather be sitting on a TFK or Scrying?  Your Scrying will not only be limited, but it will rape any possibility of getting off a successful Will, which is important to consider because it is a deck based on Yawgmoth's Will.

His sideboard is actually pretty strong and very well designed.

If by "well designed" you mean 14 different cards and lacking cards against difficult matches, then yes.

[Wildthing]

Thanks for our help, I am playing gifts right now making some changes to the maindeck from the first list posted:
-1 Vampiric tutor
+1 Snow covered island
+1 Skeletal scrying (I don´t know why the original list have 59, bad editing)

I removed vampiric because is a card I don't want to see in the control mirrors especially now running 2 skeletals, Rico was right about the mana base so I added another island

Skeletal scrying is huge, much better than thirst now I am playing 2 of each and I think It is right. The fact that i can remove artifacts from the graveyard is very important against control slaver and drawing more cards and being antiReb are also important features. This time I am with Toad

The sideboard is full of 1´s because of gifts and the chainer´s edict slot will change depending of the metagame, last time I played it was an spawning pit/goblin bombardement (I don´t know which one is better, maybe bombardement)  because oath was very prominent, it can be a tsabo´s web if bazaars are prominent or even a coffin purge

Now my biggest problem is sideboarding, against tog I am doing something like
-3 Furnaces (they are good but 3 rebs are better in most situations)
-1 Gifts/thirst (I don´t know what to side out)
+3 Reb and pyroblasts
+1 Duress
Against slaver i have no clue at all, can be
-1 Gifts
-2 Thirst for knowledge
-1 Mana crypt (??)
-1 Furnace/burning wish (:S)
+3 Reb/pyro
+1 Gorilla shaman
+1 Duress
And against oath:
-3 Furnaces
-1 Gifts
+1 Duress
+2 ReB/pyro
+1 Goblin bombardement
Maybe rack and ruin too if its chalice oath

[Toad]

Even without Phyrexian Furnace, Intuition is weak compared to Gifts.

Intuition comes online faster than Gifts Ungiven, which means Tog is often able to resolve Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge by the turn you actually want to cast Gifts Ungiven.

I never said that Furnace is a bad card, or that it is bad against Tog.  I'm saying there are better things to play in those slots.

Phyrexian Furnace is a very very good card in the build, the comparison with Opt is really bad. Without Phyrexian Furnace, you are litteraly destroyed by every single deck playing Bazaar of Baghdad (Dragon, Control Madness or Zombie Infestation), and you have to counter all the Goblin Welders. Phyrexian Furnace is also good against Psychatog and decent in the mirror match. It is also surprisingly good against TPS. Considering the fact that all these deck are almost all Top decks in T1, running maindeck Phyrexian Furnace is a strong metagame call. All the players I usually talk about T1 with who were skeptical about Phyrexian Furnace and actually tested it afterwards instead of theoretically speaking tend to come to the very same conclusions.

As for comparing Scrying to TFK, the key is efficiency.  For 3 mana you see 3 cards, whereas Scrying only lets you see 2 cards for the same mana.

This is just true by turn 2 (with a Mox) or 3. After turn 3? Skeletal Scrying is much more efficient than Thirst for Knowledge after that. Furthermore, a Mox discarded to Thirst for Knowledge is a Mox you won't be able to use to get the crucial 7 mana threshold. There are no artifact you actually want to discard to Thirst for Knowledge, aside from Darksteel Colossus. This is the reason why I cut ALL the Thirst for Knowledge from my build, for 3 Skeletal Scrying. That change made every single matchup slightly better due to the added raw drawing power.

Additionally, being blue is a bonus because it can pitch to Force and is in a primary color

I'm running enough Blue cards already, so I'd rather have a draw engine that is not hit by Red Elemental Blast.

On top of that, let us say that somebody is playing Furnace against you and your graveyard is thin on cards.  Would you rather be sitting on a TFK or Scrying?

I don't really care about Phyrexian Furnace because It's a rather bad card there. All the turns spent by my opponent with the inherent card disadvantage Phyrexian Furnace gives are to my advantage. Smart players will cycle Phyrexian Furnace early on. Anyways, pointing the weakness of a card by mentionning an other card is rather pointless. I can return the question : let's say that somebody has a Red Elemental Blast against you. Would you rather be sitting on TFK or Scrying?

it is a deck based on Yawgmoth's Will.

My build is a Tinker build. Most of the games, I use Yawgmoth's Will as a bait on Gifts Ungiven, because going Time Walk Recoup Tinker, Recoup Time Walk is far far better than playing Yawgmoth's Will. Skeletal Scrying will hardly hinder Will anyways, because you are not planning on playing 2 Duress, 1 Mana Drain, 1 Force of Will, 2 Polluted Delta and 1 Underground Sea out of the Will. There are only 3 cards you want to keep in your graveyard for Will : Recall, Walk and Tinker. All the other cards are Scrying food, and I don't even care If I'm removing Black Lotus.

If by "well designed" you mean 14 different cards and lacking cards against difficult matches, then yes.

His sideboard is almost identical to the one I've been playing and to the one the Germans have been playing too. I hardly see which difficult matchups have been omited there. I'm interested in knowing which matchups I'm ignoring.

[Kowal]

Phyrexian Furnace is a very very good card in the build, the comparison with Opt is really bad. Without Phyrexian Furnace, you are litteraly destroyed by every single deck playing Bazaar of Baghdad (Dragon, Control Madness or Zombie Infestation), and you have to counter all the Goblin Welders. Phyrexian Furnace is also good against Psychatog and decent in the mirror match. It is also surprisingly good against TPS.

I have to interrupt you guys here.  If you can't race junk like Zombie Infestation and TPS, like more than half the time, you're doing something wrong.  Dragon can keep up, but the rest of those decks are slooooooooooooooow.  Also, Zombie Infestation and Control Madness are not seeing play anywhere outside of Europe except in casual circles, so they are not a top deck for a lot of the people in this thread.  In terms of dragon, just to add a differing test result to the pool for those of you not on major teams, we watched Dragon kick the everloving shit out of the Oath build running maindeck Phyrexian Furnaces like 8 games in a row.  This is amusing, because Oath usually kills faster, has far more counters, and often didn't have anything better to do than play a furnace.  The one game Dragon actually lost was to a first turn double furnace, and even then there was a game there.  Even against dragon I think I'd rather resolve Thirst for Knowledge, and just counter animates until I can shoot people in the face with a belcher, or slaver him out.

All the players I usually talk about T1 with who were skeptical about Phyrexian Furnace and actually tested it afterwards instead of theoretically speaking tend to come to the very same conclusions  ...  I don't really care about Phyrexian Furnace because It's a rather bad card there. All the turns spent by my opponent with the inherent card disadvantage Phyrexian Furnace gives are to my advantage. Smart players will cycle Phyrexian Furnace early on.

When we tested Furnace, we came to the conclusion it's often a two mana goggles.  (They do nothing!)  While grave hate is great and all that, in every single scenerio (aside from dragon) casting a draw spell was about a hundred times better.  You can chalk this up to bizarre phenomena, differing opinions, distorted playtesting, or whatever you want, but it's certainly not fact, and it is disputable. 

My build is a Tinker build. Most of the games, I use Yawgmoth's Will as a bait on Gifts Ungiven, because going Time Walk Recoup Tinker, Recoup Time Walk is far far better than playing Yawgmoth's Will.

How you win is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is that if you resolve Tinker or Will, you have no business losing unless your opponent plays with Twincast.

I really don't want to get involved in this argument because I know it'll turn in to a flame war eventually, but I had to put in my two cents.

[Rico Suave]

Intuition comes online faster than Gifts Ungiven, which means Tog is often able to resolve Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge by the turn you actually want to cast Gifts Ungiven.

Intuition-AK is 5 mana, Gifts is 4.  Also, the fact that the Gifts deck should run more acceleration means that it will get 4 mana on the board sooner than a deck with less acceleration, namely Tog.

Phyrexian Furnace is a very very good card in the build, the comparison with Opt is really bad. Without Phyrexian Furnace, you are litteraly destroyed by every single deck playing Bazaar of Baghdad (Dragon, Control Madness or Zombie Infestation), and you have to counter all the Goblin Welders. Phyrexian Furnace is also good against Psychatog and decent in the mirror match. It is also surprisingly good against TPS. Considering the fact that all these deck are almost all Top decks in T1, running maindeck Phyrexian Furnace is a strong metagame call. All the players I usually talk about T1 with who were skeptical about Phyrexian Furnace and actually tested it afterwards instead of theoretically speaking tend to come to the very same conclusions.

The comparison with Opt is very appropriate, considering much of the time P.Furnace is only a cantrip.  Opt is often better because at least it only takes up 1 mana instead of 2 to do the same thing.

Um, even without P.Furnace, Gifts runs over Dragon.  You have problems against Dragon?

Furnace may be a metagame call, but that does not mean it is better than other things that could go into the deck.  You seem to have missed that point.

This is just true by turn 2 (with a Mox) or 3. After turn 3? Skeletal Scrying is much more efficient than Thirst for Knowledge after that. Furthermore, a Mox discarded to Thirst for Knowledge is a Mox you won't be able to use to get the crucial 7 mana threshold. There are no artifact you actually want to discard to Thirst for Knowledge, aside from Darksteel Colossus. This is the reason why I cut ALL the Thirst for Knowledge from my build, for 3 Skeletal Scrying. That change made every single matchup slightly better due to the added raw drawing power.

Firstly, I don't care which one is better after turn 3 because by that point the game is often decided one way or the other.  Secondly, even after turn 3 TFK is still more efficient than Scrying by letting you see 3 cards for 3 mana.  Scrying will never be able to do that.

I'm running enough Blue cards already, so I'd rather have a draw engine that is not hit by Red Elemental Blast.

You say this as though there aren't plenty of targets for REB already.

I don't really care about Phyrexian Furnace because It's a rather bad card there. All the turns spent by my opponent with the inherent card disadvantage Phyrexian Furnace gives are to my advantage. Smart players will cycle Phyrexian Furnace early on. Anyways, pointing the weakness of a card by mentionning an other card is rather pointless. I can return the question : let's say that somebody has a Red Elemental Blast against you. Would you rather be sitting on TFK or Scrying?

Wow, this is priceless.  You just explained perfectly for me why Furnace is a poor choice in the deck.

Anyway, I would rather them REB my TFK than REB my Gifts...

My build is a Tinker build. Most of the games, I use Yawgmoth's Will as a bait on Gifts Ungiven, because going Time Walk Recoup Tinker, Recoup Time Walk is far far better than playing Yawgmoth's Will. Skeletal Scrying will hardly hinder Will anyways, because you are not planning on playing 2 Duress, 1 Mana Drain, 1 Force of Will, 2 Polluted Delta and 1 Underground Sea out of the Will. There are only 3 cards you want to keep in your graveyard for Will : Recall, Walk and Tinker. All the other cards are Scrying food, and I don't even care If I'm removing Black Lotus.

Playing Will leads into playing Tinker and Walk several times.  On top of that, it can also do things like lead with Duress to hit their REB, then Tinker and Walk twice freely.  Really, do you have problems winning after Will?

His sideboard is almost identical to the one I've been playing and to the one the Germans have been playing too. I hardly see which difficult matchups have been omited there. I'm interested in knowing which matchups I'm ignoring.

Tell me how that SB performs against your own teammate Ashok's Fish list.  Or against Cron's Stax.

[Toad]

Intuition-AK is 5 mana, Gifts is 4.  Also, the fact that the Gifts deck should run more acceleration means that it will get 4 mana on the board sooner than a deck with less acceleration, namely Tog.

Tog is always able to resolve Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge sooner than Gifts is able to resolve Gifts Ungiven. By the time Gifts wants to tap out to play Gifts Ungiven (turn 3 or 4), Tog can go Accumulated Knowledge for 3 in response because of Intuition turn 2 and still have UU open for Mana Drain.

The comparison with Opt is very appropriate, considering much of the time P.Furnace is only a cantrip.  Opt is often better because at least it only takes up 1 mana instead of 2 to do the same thing.

I can think of about half a dozen matchups where Furnace is kept on the board as long as possible. All these are against considered top Tier decks. This is hardly a simple cantrip.

Um, even without P.Furnace, Gifts runs over Dragon.  You have problems against Dragon?

Yes, Dragon destroys Gifts decks pre board, and still have a heavy advantage post sideboard. That's something all the players I've been talking with have found too. I think Diceman noticed that too, and he's obviously not a bad Dragon player...

You say this as though there aren't plenty of targets for REB already.

That's not a reason to add more, right? Post board Skeletal Scrying is awesome in Control mirrors. If I had room in the sideboard to go up to 4 post board, I would do it.

Wow, this is priceless.  You just explained perfectly for me why Furnace is a poor choice in the deck.

No, I just said It was a rather bad card against me. Re-read what I said.

Tell me how that SB performs against your own teammate Ashok's Fish list.  Or against Cron's Stax.

I have never had problems against Fish, including Ashok's list. In 3 tournaments with the deck, I still have to lose a match to Fish. Null Rod builds, Chalice builds, Rootwater Thief build, etc... Darksteel Colossus dominates there, and sideboarded Flametongue Kavus (which are so so much better than Old Man of the Sea) are awesome too. I've never tested against Cron's Stax because no one plays that there.

[Vander]

I am running a list with furnaces and TfK and I have some real problems against U/W-Fish. It has some mainboard-cards that are able to disrupt me very good and they are not the Swords against the Colossus:

- Null Rod: affects all my speed-mana, so i get vulnerable to...
- Mana Disruption: Stifle, Hatchlings, Strips
- Meddling Mage: before casting Gifts, it normally says Gifts or Tinker, which makes my play way less flexible, after Gifts (say it can counter some stuff or can disrupt my mana-base well enough to steal one more turn, which happens too often for my taste) it says Recoup which ends in my gifted cards all the time

@discussion about furnaces: They are great against so many archetypes and are not bad in every match, so why not playing them? Compared to the cards I had to cut for them (4th TfK, 3rd Duress and something I cannot remember), I think they are stronger than these in a lot of matchups, though many of you will cry out loud now for cutting Duress nr3. Duress is great Turn1 and then again in the Will-turn. And I play Mind Twist main, too, which allows some really broken turns. One thing I have to admit about furnaces is that it is a meta-call. In metas where no Bazaar.decs or Welder.decs are played, they are crap! But where are you playing when these decks are no Tier1-contenders?

[Wildthing]

@Deathisforyou:
Gifts is a combo enabler and fact or fiction is part of the draw engine, you use gift for the combo when you reach 7 mana. Before you have facts, thirst and skeletals to gain card advantage and mana acceleration
@Discussion about furnaces:
I don´t know any other metagame card which is good in so many matchups, and you have enough draw engine so what are you going to use in these slots?(Mana severance + charbelcher and/or big attifacts are usually dead draws). Post lists if able
@Toad:
How does you sideboard/maindeck looks like currently, I have never like kavus, they are only good against shitty aggro and Im not sure about their utility against fish.
@Intuition and gifts:
Tog has the same acceleration than gifts unless you use non permanent mana acceleration like petal or mana vault, so normally intuition will be played a turn earlier, if you have another list with vault petal or rituals that can change but that means you will lose card advantage against control

[Methuselahn]

Phyrexian Furnace is very good against Psychatog because Intuition for 3 Accumulated Knowledge to draw 2 cards or Intuition for 3 Deep Analysis to get a single Deep Analysis in the graveyard to flashback is rather weak when compared to Gifts Ungiven.

So, Furnace is good because Gifts is better than Intuiton?  please clarify.  This quote is especially confusing to me because of a follow-up quote:

Tog is always able to resolve Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge sooner than Gifts is able to resolve Gifts Ungiven. By the time Gifts wants to tap out to play Gifts Ungiven (turn 3 or 4), Tog can go Accumulated Knowledge for 3 in response because of Intuition turn 2 and still have UU open for Mana Drain.

Considering both decks, Tog and Colossus-Gifts, are both known to run Duress, Force, and  Mana Drain, not to mention your deck runs Furnace to nab those graveyard AKs and Tog runs Wishes,  it seems highly impractical to make such blanket statements such as Tog being able to resolve Intuition before a Gifts deck is able to resolve a Gifts Ungiven.  Alot of your theory seems like it was taken from theoretical game play set in a vacuum.  One of your above quotes assumes that Furnace will be out eating graveyard AKs while another says that Intuition can draw you three cards via AK because it is faster than Gifts.  So, is there a Furnace on the board when all of this goes down, or not?

There are no artifacts you actually want to discard to Thirst for Knowledge, aside from Darksteel Colossus.

Phyrexian Furnace is an artifact, last time I checked.
Regarding fishy decks:  I'm not sure how you are winning all of these matches.  My luck (or maybe playskill) at tournaments with your deck has been poor versus fishy tempo decks.  Are there times/variants where Belcher is the obviously the better gameplan? Maybe Ashok's build?

I'm interested in knowing which matchups I'm ignoring.
...
I've never tested against Cron's Stax because no one plays that there.

Perhaps you don't face alot of Stax personally, but the archetype is played in the States.  Not only that, but by your own teammates!  Perhaps you could advise those new to the deck how to approach this matchup.

Thanks.

[Rico Suave]

Tog is always able to resolve Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge sooner than Gifts is able to resolve Gifts Ungiven. By the time Gifts wants to tap out to play Gifts Ungiven (turn 3 or 4), Tog can go Accumulated Knowledge for 3 in response because of Intuition turn 2 and still have UU open for Mana Drain.

If Tog casts Intuition turn 2, it will be the one walking into Mana Drain.  I thought you would have experienced that in testing, but I guess you may not have.

I can think of about half a dozen matchups where Furnace is kept on the board as long as possible. All these are against considered top Tier decks. This is hardly a simple cantrip.

Perhaps you are content running Furnace.  When I played the card, I played against decks that either ignore it (Fish, Gifts), or decks that force you to pop it asap (Welder decks) and in those circumstances it is basically a 2 mana Cremate and that is terrible in this format.

Yes, Dragon destroys Gifts decks pre board, and still have a heavy advantage post sideboard. That's something all the players I've been talking with have found too. I think Diceman noticed that too, and he's obviously not a bad Dragon player...

In our testing the Gifts deck would often outrace the Dragon player.  Perhaps this is because we play Gifts like a combo deck.  Perhaps it is because we run card draw where you run Phyrexian Furnace.  I can't say for sure.

That's not a reason to add more, right? Post board Skeletal Scrying is awesome in Control mirrors. If I had room in the sideboard to go up to 4 post board, I would do it.

Just because your opponent plays an answer to TFK does not mean you should play a sub-optimal card in its stead. 

No, I just said It was a rather bad card against me. Re-read what I said.

That is exactly my point.  It is a bad card against me too.

I have never had problems against Fish, including Ashok's list. In 3 tournaments with the deck, I still have to lose a match to Fish. Null Rod builds, Chalice builds, Rootwater Thief build, etc... Darksteel Colossus dominates there, and sideboarded Flametongue Kavus (which are so so much better than Old Man of the Sea) are awesome too. I've never tested against Cron's Stax because no one plays that there.

A combination of Rootwater Thief, Waterfront Bouncer, Meddling Mage, and Chalice of the Void make the DSC plan very poor.  Other builds of Fish do not give Gifts problems, but Ashok's build destroys it.  It is one of the most lop-sided matches I have seen in a long while.  Maybe Ashok would be able to shed a little light on this subject for us.

Nobody near you plays Cron's Stax near you?  How about any good version?  Perhaps people are too busy playing Tog and whatnot. :\

[Hi-Val]

Perhaps you don't face alot of Stax personally, but the archetype is played in the States.  Not only that, but by your own teammates!  Perhaps you could advise those new to the deck how to approach this matchup.

Thanks.

If you are playing Gifts, the best gameplan is to pray. Kevinstax annihilates Drain decks, and the only hope for this one is getting an early tinker before you get locked out.

[Vander]

We tested yesterday some considered bad matchups for Gifts, here is the list I ran:

// Lands
    1 Library of Alexandria
    1 Snow-Covered Island
    3 Volcanic Island
    3 Underground Sea
    2 Polluted Delta
    1 Island
    2 Flooded Strand
    1 Tolarian Academy
    1 City of Brass

// Creatures
    1 Darksteel Colossus

// Spells
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Fact or Fiction
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Burning Wish
    1 Recoup
    2 Duress
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Time Walk
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Force of Will
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Tinker
    1 Goblin Charbelcher
    1 Mana Severance
    2 Gifts Ungiven
    1 Mind Twist
    3 Thirst for Knowledge
    3 Phyrexian Furnace
    1 Lotus Petal

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 1 Chainer's Edict
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Rack and Ruin
SB: 1 Lava Dart
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Fire/Ice
SB: 1 Primitive Justice
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
SB: 1 Kaervek's Torch

Some things about this list:
- yes, there is no Black Lotus, reason: I do not own it and no proxies allowed here
- the board looks random and it is, consider it under construction

1. "Worst matchup ever" UW-Fish
Not the American list, we tested against Meddling, Null Rod, Hatchling, as it is played here. I rolled over them, without an early Null Rod, Fish was not able to compete with the brokeness I could produce. Colossus and hand-destruction was golden here.

2. "Considered to be beatable" Staxx
Phew, did I really think I have a chance? This matchup is really hard... More than hard, it destroys me... One thing can rescue my day: 1st or 2nd turn Tinker on Colossus as the Staxx-player cannot get any fast beatdown on me. This was the plan in every match: Cast Tinker and counter Wire and Welder. What can I do against this? Especially considering that postboard Jester's Cap is played?


Generally said, we have not found any worse matchup than Staxx and this archetype should not be ignored, even here in Europe it is played. I cannot say much about the meta in France as I was only there once and that was Paris a month ago, but here in Germany a lot of players come to tournaments with Staxx and one has to have a way to beat it, when hoping for good positions. Which leads to the question: What can I, as a Gifts-player, do against it? Kill welders does not do the whole thing, imo stealing time by destroying Wires and Smokestacks could do the job, but how can that constantly be achieved? Any suggestions?

[Hi-Val]

If you are really fearing Stax, you can cut Edict, Boseiju and Kaervek's Torch from the board for 3 more Rack and Ruins. I've found that heavy racking of their board leads to a win usually. It's really kind of a prayer matchup though.

[MaxxMatt]

I like the Toad vs. Rico dialectic contrast but I have to add a couple of ( maybe important ) things.

GIft.dec and Tog.dec, while being a control-combo decks, usually win when the  "inevitability" of having played the control-role take place.

I played both Atog and GIft in a lot of different situations.
Both Intuition and GIfts are not only worth of considering as "the-draw-enabler" of those decks, but the really good thing that they tend to consistently do  is "avoiding" bad topdecks in the middle game, because they usually let you to take out of the decks more cards than any other spells.

Intuitions take out 3 cards and usually let you draw 5-7 cards in a row, with a very little mana investiment.This sound great, if not ANYONE with AK can recover or brutally annihilate the opponent's ability with luck on draw.
Gifts take out 4 cards in a row and those cards usually let you draw/tutor/shrink the deck a lot, but with major mana investiment. OTOH, the card chosen are the result of YOUR ability and it usually win more games for a talented player rather then anything else.

I see those two decks doing the same things but with different cards.
Both have discards and counters as control elements.
Both have a draw engine enabler ( Gifts and Intuitions )
Both have a lot of drawers to fetch
Both have a couple of configurations of spells that force the opponent to concede the game after being out-played.

Why anyone that I hear here was ( almost ) claiming that Gift.dec win sooner then Atog. :shock: While it COULD win faster, why it SHOULD win faster? Especially the control matchup?
In a control mirror, I tend to NEVER resolve Gifts for anything less that a good configuration of Discard/Drawers leaving the bombs and the solutions to a second or a third gift IF NEEDED.
I ALWAYS win resolving "something" ( Tendril, DSC, Y Will, anything ) but ONLY when I'm sure that my opponent would never UNTAP anymore. Gifts leave you ( as Intuitions and Deeps and AK ) the possibility to outplay opponents and you ALWAYS would use their strength.

Resolving Tinker for REcoup for Y Will for blablabla, trying thsi route as soon as you can ( or as soon as you have a lot of mana ), usually leave a LARGE window to be used by the smart opponent. Why fighting on a Gifts If I know that my opponent would play his Tinker for DSC after playing that damn GIfts instead of taking out all my resources AND THEN do that strong game plan? I keep my defences in hand to bouce it back if needed.
Have you ever Intuitioned for Atog, Demonic, Lotus during turn 3-4 with Atog.dec? I hope not...
Playing those decks in a "combo way", is really hard to think that is the right move, aside when playing against bad.aggro.goldfish.dec...


OTOH, A lot of games that I played Gifts vs. Atog, were decided by SPEED.
Intuitions come only during turn 1-2 while Gifts are resolved usually during turn 2-3 with a whole turn of differences. This is usually a draw back, especially because ALL you drawers are mana intensive.
While a lucky Atog player can try to resolve Intuition AND one his drawers both during his EoT, really rarely I made those things with  a resolved GIfts. I have to untap, wait, realize how good the hand of my opponent is, try to Duress him as many time as I can AND then, try to resolve a couple of spells ( Skeletals and/or TFK usually ) both in different situations, to enhance my ability to protect them.

The gifts.dec his ENOURMOUSLY more mana intensive than the Atog.dec.

OTOH, Gifts have more utilities and tutors that usually can made the differences and A LOT of his key spells are Blue. Gifts by itself put the opponent always in a bad situations because when it resolve, it gave at least two cards from which he should protect himself and not one.

The imprevedibility of a resolved Gift is usually ANOTHER key move that the smart Gifts-player should use. Intuitions rerely grab anything that it is not a drawer. Gifts, because of his the "intuition+1-effect" can always grab different cards, according to the specific hand you have.

It is a "Tutor.dec" but not a Vacuum-one. There are A LOT of things that find bombs and a lot of bombs to set-up astonishingly strong wins.

I tend to prefer Gifts.dec almost for those reasons. A flat game plan ( the Atog's one ) tend to transform me into an automa, while the ever fresh Gift.dec game plan is always a challange and a discovery.




I appreciated a lot of comments about the two deck's configurations proposed. The Atog one is really good and the Toad's comments are really accurate.

About the Gift's one I tend to disagree on different fronts.
The side, while well designed, cannot help you winning against TPS, which is ( aside with Bazaar.dec ) one of your worst matchups. Without Chalices of the Void, you cannot think about winning more than 30-40% of the times. They are key and needed against SX-Storm combo too and they can abused against some aggro, aggro-control.dec IF NEEDED.
The maindeck Phyrexian FUrnaces, while good in mirror ( but especially against Dragon ) and synergic with TFKs are "bad" when maindecked. I tend to side them out too much to find space to different cards. Even played against good decks like TOgs and Dragon, they can be circumvented by a smart opponent ( Stifles, Multiple threats, Rods and so on ) and I tend to put them into my sideboard.

I play this side at now.
3 CotV
2-3 Furnaces
1 Primitive Justice
1 R&R
1 ReB
1 BeB
1 Dart
0/1 Decree ( Worst card of the side )
1 Cranial ( #2 Worst card of the side )
1 Edict
1 Piroclasm
1 Duress

While CotV for 1 is not synergic with my own deck, it is always gamebreaking against tps.
Having 13-14 protections instead of 8-10 is usually better against this EXPLOSIVE deck.

As you can have noticed, I play with white, almost for Balance maindeck. It is THE BOMB, the reset, the additional mindtwist the sweet-passive-active card, with the cheapest cc that you would always would into your hand.

I have Balance, F/I and Mindtwist instead of the 3 Furnaces.
They works always less situationally than the Furnaces
I side them in especially against Dragons but against Atog ONLY if I went first.
My Atog's opponents showed my a lot of times that a first turn Furnace, while slowing down the game, almost signify nothing more than a needle if observed in a long terms sight, and the ENTIRE game would be decided ALWAYS by drawers, duresses and Y Will.
Furnaces aren't good against TPS. If you opponents are going to win with Y Will more than 50% of the times they aren't good TPS players.





MaxxMatt





EDIT: I play with both Skeletals and TFK. I'm testing Deep Analysis too in the TFK#2 spot, but it isn't so impressive at now, excluding the situation when I Gifts for 4 drawers. And other spells are better on their own. So I think that I continue playing 2x TFK AND 1or2 Skeletals.

[Vander]

And are you playing TfK or Skeletal Scrying as draw?

[Rico Suave]

I see those two decks doing the same things but with different cards.
Both have discards and counters as control elements.
Both have a draw engine enabler ( Gifts and Intuitions )
Both have a lot of drawers to fetch
Both have a couple of configurations of spells that force the opponent to concede the game after being out-played.

I agree wholeheartedly.  Tog and Gifts are very similar decks trying to do the same thing, except with different cards.  So what sets them apart?  Speed.

Firstly I would not compare Gifts to Intuition.  I compare Intuition to TFK.  For the same mana, TFK has much more impact and is far better for the investment.  Gifts can cast TFK at the end of turn, untap, and the next turn it can use all of its mana to cast those new cards it just drew whereas Tog must spend an additional 2 mana on AK, and by that point it will be 2 mana behind the Gifts deck.  This makes Tog much more reliant on cards like Force of Will than Gifts, because Tog has trouble keeping up due to the tempo difference in TFK vs. Intuition.

Then when the Gifts player is ready to cast their Gifts, the Tog player is still sitting on that Deep Analysis because they haven't had the time to play it yet.  The fact that Gifts will often find mana acceleration only further improves the tempo lead that the Gifts player has achieved at that point. 

On top of all this, the Gifts player is able to run more acceleration such as Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Lotus Petal, Academy, and several other cards that Tog cannot afford to play.  This will provide the more efficient cards in the Gifts deck with more ways to play them sooner.  Clearly we can see that both decks can play the control role, but only one can play both the control AND the combo role at the same time.  It can play both because it has the mana advantage to do so.

This is why I never understood when people play Skeletal Scrying.  It is an entire turn slower than TFK at the very least.  If Tog is able to cast Intuition before the Gifts player can play Scrying, then they are able to keep up with Gifts in terms of speed and card advantage, and that is just not the gameplan that Gifts wants to follow. 

[MaxxMatt]

Skeletal is THE tool.
It let me have another way of Tinkering for DSC AND not losing to an active Welder, without using my best Winner: Y Will.
It let me enable a Gift for 4-Drawers exactly as Intuition can grab AKs or Deeps in the Togs build.

Then when the Gifts player is ready to cast their Gifts, the Tog player is still sitting on that Deep Analysis because they haven't had the time to play it yet.  The fact that Gifts will often find mana acceleration only further improves the tempo lead that the Gifts player has achieved at that point. 

My worst losses against Tog come out one of my teammates. He resolved a 4th turn Y Will with all the restricted in his grave and after having mulliganed to 6 WITH a DSC in his hand. He might have been extremely lucky, but speed is a thing that TOg has in his DNA EXACTLY as Gift.dec has in it, with the statistical difference that playing a 4cc spell during his 1 or 2 turn is usually less probable than resolving a 3cc spell. Intuition is less versatile but more efficient from this perspective.
TOg's builds that we are going to face in Italy packed all the 0-cc permanent mana accelerations. Again, statistically speaking, I won games against TOg ALMOST ONLY when he unlucily doesn't resolve a 1 or 2 turn Intuition. He can do it more than 60% of the times.

Again, if you opponents play with the clunky cards in theirs hand, I suggest to play against more "efficient" players. An opponent that taps him out to resolve a Deep without one or two possible backups, is usually a loser, even if playing Deeps two times is gamebreaking.
Brainstorms are both defensive and offensive spells in a lot of decks. THey do game breaking things especially in this deck, Atog, when you have to produce nasty things with the few possible amount of mana.

Firstly I would not compare Gifts to Intuition.  I compare Intuition to TFK.

While this comparization is intriguiging because it is counter-intuitive, I think that it cannotbe considered valid after a bit of logical thinking.

-Gifts tutor for specific  things.
-Intuitions tutor for specific things.

-TFK usually gave you 2 fresh cards, adding more sinergies if you have a Welder out.
-AK usually gave you at least 3 cards, if correctly used. If you recurr them in the right way, you can draw more cards than any other spells.

If I want to play in an enviroment where :
1) I have to win the hueg prices
2) There aren't a lot of AK or more talented players

I would probably prefer playing with the simplest of those two decks: Atog.dec. His winning plan is both so clear and so standard not to be discussed.

If I wantto play in an enviroment where :
1) A lot of people play decks that can beat Control-Mirror ( Bazaar, TPS, Welders, Fish,  and so on )
2) There are a lot of AKs and more talented players

AT NOW, I would probably play the Gift one.
It is resilient to hate.
It have a couple of different path of victory.
It can be played in at least 3 or 4 different ways, without losing too much raw power.


Compare TFK with FoF.
Compare Intuitions o Gifts.
The amount of needed mana didn't count AS MUCH as the usethat anyone do of these spells.
The impact of TF is brute as much as the FOF ones, Sometimes I ruin my mind trying to set-up a nasty and unusual Gifts, whiel I could have simply played a FoF with FAR MORE troubling results. Casuality soemtimes play a better role than Causaliity.

OTOH, what you wan to resolve are key spells. A lot of players would let you play your drawers but they would counter the"Engine" ( both Intuition or Gits ). TOgs and Gifts would win when the deck can explode of one of their "engines". All the other draw spells are a funny background to their victory and nothing more.

MAxxMAtt

[Hi-Val]

This is why I never understood when people play Skeletal Scrying.  It is an entire turn slower than TFK at the very least.  If Tog is able to cast Intuition before the Gifts player can play Scrying, then they are able to keep up with Gifts in terms of speed and card advantage, and that is just not the gameplan that Gifts wants to follow. 

I understand your concern over Scrying and TFK. I found that Scrying was one of those little cards in a control mirror that is a pain in the ass for the opponent. Their REBs don't hit it and if it resolves, it swings the game majorly in your favor. Basically lategame off the topdeck, it's a Draw-7 just for you. TFK has a few inherent risks in it as well though, sometimes involving not having the artifacts to pitch. If you're running DSC, I can definitely see a need for TFK as it can drop that bad boy from your hand. However, I don't think I'd play completely without Scrying; even one lets you Gifts for Scrying, Ancestral, TFK, Duress or some other combination in a control mirror. I don't see the cards as mutually exclusive.

[Wildthing]

@MaxxMatt:
I am having a tournament next week and I think I will play tog, The list is pretty standard as posted above but how many duress/deeps/cunning do you use to play? I have 4duress/3deeps/3wishes but I am not sure if Its the right move

After playing gifts against a wide variety of control decks I don´t see the reason not to play 2 or 3 skeletals at least in a competitive environment. They are definitely much stronger than the thirsts in the middle-late game.

Anyways I see the match against oath as a big problem for the deck so I am considering a few changes in the maindeck, what do you think of this match?

[Toad]

The Oath matchup is favourable as long as you really do what you are doing. The Chalice+Furnace build is obviously the thoughest of the two Oath builds. 3 maindeck Duress are strong weapons in the matchup, and the Darksteel Colossus combo kill is even enough to race an active Oath of Druids. If you are expecting lots of Oath matchups and only a few Slaver and Dragon, you can cut maindeck Phyrexian Furnace for Engineered Explosives, as a versatile weapon to fight Oath. Aether Spellbomb is rather bad, especially post board. Post board, bring the 4th Duress if you have it, additionnal Engineered Explosives and Red Elemental Blasts. Skeletal Scryings shine in this matchup because you want to keep all your artifacts on the board (Mox for acceleration and EE for removal), hence Thirst for Knowledge is weak.

[Rico Suave]

Skeletal is THE tool.
It let me have another way of Tinkering for DSC AND not losing to an active Welder, without using my best Winner: Y Will.
It let me enable a Gift for 4-Drawers exactly as Intuition can grab AKs or Deeps in the Togs build.

But you don't need anything beyond Will to beat Welders.  Scrying is a crutch for that purpose.

Secondly, I think the reason you are not destroying Tog is because you are treating Gifts like a 4 mana Intuition when it should be used as a combo enabler. 

Again, if you opponents play with the clunky cards in theirs hand, I suggest to play against more "efficient" players. An opponent that taps him out to resolve a Deep without one or two possible backups, is usually a loser, even if playing Deeps two times is gamebreaking.
Brainstorms are both defensive and offensive spells in a lot of decks. THey do game breaking things especially in this deck, Atog, when you have to produce nasty things with the few possible amount of mana.

When did I say anything about a Tog player dropping their defense to cast DA?  I said they didn't have the time to play it.  This goes without saying and is an elementary point in playing any control deck. 

Also, I don't get what Brainstorms do for Tog that they do not do for Gifts.

-TFK usually gave you 2 fresh cards, adding more sinergies if you have a Welder out.
-AK usually gave you at least 3 cards, if correctly used. If you recurr them in the right way, you can draw more cards than any other spells.

TFK gives you 3 fresh cards.  I don't even use Welder either, and my count is 4 TFK, 0 Scrying.  TFK is just simply more efficient and a better deal for the price. 

OTOH, what you wan to resolve are key spells. A lot of players would let you play your drawers but they would counter the"Engine" ( both Intuition or Gits ). TOgs and Gifts would win when the deck can explode of one of their "engines". All the other draw spells are a funny background to their victory and nothing more.

Tog can do nothing to set up Intuition other than Duress/Drain/Force, and Gifts has all of those options already plus it has TFK to set up Gifts.  Scrying, however, does not set up Gifts since in order for it to fall earlier on the mana curve it is only going to be drawing 2 cards which is really quite weak. 

I understand your concern over Scrying and TFK. I found that Scrying was one of those little cards in a control mirror that is a pain in the ass for the opponent. Their REBs don't hit it and if it resolves, it swings the game majorly in your favor. Basically lategame off the topdeck, it's a Draw-7 just for you. TFK has a few inherent risks in it as well though, sometimes involving not having the artifacts to pitch. If you're running DSC, I can definitely see a need for TFK as it can drop that bad boy from your hand. However, I don't think I'd play completely without Scrying; even one lets you Gifts for Scrying, Ancestral, TFK, Duress or some other combination in a control mirror. I don't see the cards as mutually exclusive.

Firstly, REB is only a SB card.  If your opponent is going to C.Wish for it, then that is 4 mana and TFK is 3 so it hits earlier (or just do it in response to C.Wish).  Secondly, lategame I'd rather draw a Gifts than a Scrying.  Thirdly, Gifting for 4 card drawers is, in my opinion, a poor play.  If I wanted to do that I would Gifts for TFK, Ancestral, Gifts, Demonic Tutor.  That right there is all you need, and even then I hardly ever Gifts for that because there are just simply better things to put in a Gifts.