[Discussion] Aggression vs Control with Gifts

[kedi]

I've been tinkering about [Meandeck] Gifts build. Playtesting, and more tinkering. I guess I've a few words to talk about it. For reference, here's your everyday MD Gifts build:

//Mana
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
3 Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Snow-covered Island

//Direct Card Advantage + Tutoring (18):
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Fact Or Fiction
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Recoup

//Control (11):
1 Echoing Truth
4 Force Of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection

//Win Condition
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

//Misc
2 Rebuild
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

First of all, I would like to say; whatever I'm writing here is based on my playtests and opinions.

Taking my first look at the deck without having any other information, I just figured it was an aggressive deck. There are 18 tutors, 4 of them bring out the win condition. But deck's defense was poor -8 hard counters, 2 dependable counters and a misc bounce. I figured that counters were there not to gain card advantage, but rather to protect the win condition and prevent opp from playing it's finest bullets.

Because 8 hard counters usually mean that. It seemed to me that deck had just too many draws etc, and really few control bullets, thus figured tutoring and card drawing should be made towards bringing out the Tinker, rather than a Mana Drain.

I took the deck, merged into counter wars / build up for the combo early turns, almost everytime I played it in the beginning. I would usually cast Gifts on 3rd turn, and would have the counters to protect the combo. My usual gifts picks were Tinker, YawgWill, Recoup, Gifts/Recall/Etc if I'm short on counters, or Time Walk.

Deck awarded me for aggressive playing. In a mirror match, opp went off with gifts first, going for Card Advantage. I went off with a Trio + Recall (although I already had a FoW in my hand), casted the Tinker, brought out DSC. He tried to bounce DSC, I casted Recall which he countered, I casted FoW on bounce later on, discarding a Brainstorm while keeping another in my hand.

That was a random game which I've won.

But after a while, I was playing with a friend of mine, who's more expert on Vintage than I am. He told me that aggressive game wasn't meant for Gifts, that I was playin the deck wrong. I was confused. I knew how many games I've won, and how he could be right. I've took the same deck, and played it with focusing on card advantage and control.

I lost pretty fast. It almost always seemed to me that I was just drawing more card draws that would draw me more card draws. 8 Counters were never enough.

It could be just me, my luck that won me my aggressive games and made me lose others. But I doubt it.

I wonder what's your approach to Gifts builds, and how do you play them. If you have a modified deck list, please post them and say why you've felt you needed to make those edits.

I run almost the exact deck list as this, the only difference being playing a single Crop Rotation and having the mana base to go with it.

[Necrologia]

The way you play the deck depends entirely on the match up, your playstyle, and your opening hand. Sometimes the deck just gives you the Island/Crypt/Tinker/Double Force hands and to hold back on it would be ridiculous. Othertimes your opener has 2x Mana Drain or the Like and little acceleration. Such a hand forces you to play the control role, at least until you can drain into a Gifts or even just a Merchant Scroll.

The trick to mastering Gifts, aside from the various Gifts piles themselves, is deciding when to play which role. This is the first deck I've done some extensive playtesting with that hasn't features Dark Rituals in a while, so I probably play it closer to how you play it, rather than someone who's been playing with Drains continuously since 1996. I know for a fact I win more games through the SB Tendrils than Tinker, but I'm trying hard right now to make sure I don't pass up any obvious chances to just Tinker for the win in my pursuit of that insane Will/Wish turn. Turn 1 Tinker is also considerably better against FCG than against something like Slaver that can open with turn 1 Welder, totally wrecking your game plan.

The changes you've made to the deck don't sound that promising to me. Adding a whole other color will really start to cut into your basic count. Drawing too many duals in your opening hand is rough against Stax and other decks that pack tons of Strips. Additionally, the Crop Rotation isn't really doing anything that the deck doesn't already do. I play Academy almost every game after Gifting for it, then usually playing it off Will. Othertimes they hand it to you rather than Tinker, Will, or whatever other broken stuff you have left in the deck.

Really the best advice I can give is just keep playing it. Try slow playing it if the correct hand presents itself to you. Always be on the lookout for new plays with this deck, all the tricky little interactions are one of the things that make Gifts decks great. I remember the first time I realized I could Gifts for Misdirection, Force, Tinker, and Will in response to an opponent's recall, rather than just Draining it. Gifting for a MisD in response to a targeted spell is simply excellent.

[doylehancock]

when I first started with MD gifts I also played agressivly (just like Steves first article said).  I won games and won a lot.  But once I switched to a control combo rather then aggro combo I won almost every single game.

The trick that I have learned it I can out counter all other decks.   I can just flat out win and counter anything they try.  This is why I merchant scroll for counter a lot or gifts for draw.  I do agree gifting for the trio on turn 3 is cool but its still going to take out a turn or 2 to get the win.  WHy not just wait and gifts on turn 5 and win on turn 5.  Mana drain is what makes this deck tick and scrolling for mana drain is a huge part of wining.

[rvs]

when I first started with MD gifts I also played agressivly (just like Steves first article said).  I won games and won a lot.  But once I switched to a control combo rather then aggro combo I won almost every single game.

The trick that I have learned it I can out counter all other decks.   I can just flat out win and counter anything they try.  This is why I merchant scroll for counter a lot or gifts for draw.  I do agree gifting for the trio on turn 3 is cool but its still going to take out a turn or 2 to get the win.  WHy not just wait and gifts on turn 5 and win on turn 5.  Mana drain is what makes this deck tick and scrolling for mana drain is a huge part of wining.

This might be true against bad players / bad decks (take your pick!), but it isn't true against good players. Winning when you can (aka: NOW) is INFINITY times better than doing stuff and then winning.

[Dozer]

This might be true against bad players / bad decks (take your pick!), but it isn't true against good players. Winning when you can (aka: NOW) is INFINITY times better than doing stuff and then winning.

I very much agree. Playing the Gifts aggressively, for a winning combination instead of just card advantage, puts your opponent in the same tight spot that you gained an advantage. The only difference is: card draw doesn't kill him. I think the potential to use Gifts much more aggressively is a big part of the success of the TfK-Gifts builds a la Brassman. They can curve out with TfK -> Gifts instead of Merchant Scroll -> Gifts, which gives them more card advantage while simultaneously allowing to leave Drain Mana open on turn two more easily. When you have a powerful card drawer like TfK available, there is no need for a card-advantage Gifts. That's also the reason why the Brassman Gifts-builds can work with less than 4 Gifts, because they don't rely on it as much as MG does.

To clarify: If Gifts is your only engine, you have to play four and you will sometimes have to play it as a card-advantage spell. But since using Gifts for broken stuff is far superior in terms of actually winning, always playing the card aggressively will win you more games than always playing it for CA. As Necrologia mentioned, the most important thing is to find the correct balance between the two.

This is why I merchant scroll for counter a lot or gifts for draw.

Merchant Scroll for a counter is often fine, but I try to minimze the situations where I actually have to "burn" a Gifts for defense. If I had the chance to play an early Gifts for CA (because my mana doesn't even remotely allow for any combo), I usually try to play Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll instead to make the Gifts count hard. That's why I have switched to a TfK-build which better allows for that playstyle.

Dozer