[Deck Discussion] - Gifts Control 2006

[MaxxMatt]

On the wave of the renewed interest for Gifts.dec and the good posts made until now, I would like to argue about the "other" Gifts.dec available at now:

I took the skeleton of the first Gifts.fr list, modified it thanks to Toad and Brassmann experience and produced what seems to me a good tool to play at now.

I like the TFKs and their interaction with the whole deck.
I like Gifts Ungiven and their game ending impact against almost anyone.
I like to have maindeck tools and answers to tutor and play in specific situations.
I would like to play this deck as a better "control deck" instead of as a "control.combo" oriented one.

I found, during these months, that there is a stable and usually unchangeable skeleton available with 5 or 6 cards left to player's playstyle and needs





Gifts Control 2006

(25)
3 Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Snow Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault

(8)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain

(12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Konowledge
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction

(7)
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Burning Wish

(4)
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Recoup
1 Time Walk
1 Darksteel Colossus

(4)
1 Rebuild
1 Tormod's Crypt / Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
1 Stripmine / Cunning Wish / Pithing Needle ( it is usually Pithing Needle#1 )

Sideboard - (15)
2 Rack & Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Hurkyll's Recall
2 Pithing Needle / Tormod's Crypt
1 Sundering Titan
2 Pyroclasm
1 Duress
1 Tendrils or Agony
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Deep Analysis



I played infinite games with it and I have, at now, only a single slot that really unsatisfies me because I cannot find the right card for it ( you can see my last temptatives and choices for it ).

While the maindeck is fairly standard excluding the bolded choices, I would like to point out why I choose those cards instead of other ones.



Darkblast is singlehandly the best tools available for creatures removal. It completely shut down all the nasty */1 with abilities that are commonly used by aggrocontrol decks and welder based ones. I left a couple of possible slots opened in my maindeck especially because of the different metagame shifts. Some choices are chained to other and magnify their insertions, leaving little to no space to the remaining options.

If I'm going to face more Wastelands, Mishras and Critters rather than Drains, Rituals and Welders, I would play with Needles maindeck. They would always name Wastelands on their first appeareance, assuring me a lot of time to find and develop my own mana base, without losing the possibility to fetch the duals and my good tools for their critters. This route is often a winning one.

Infact, I won a lot of games against fish and other aggrocontrol decks because of only those two cards and the high number or tutors into the deck.If needed,  can be easily chained into anything more useful and your hypercosted cards would not be stopped by their denial at all.


Rebuild is my most preferred "combo enhancer". If I would not fear CotV for 1 more than the plague, I would have played Chain of Vapour too, but, when I can Rebuild back all my artifacts and all opponent's CotVs and Rods and Lock Components, it would be usually enough for me to build up a solid win.

The lack of the secondary maindeck win condition is another thing that I think that should be applied to any deck playing a skeleton similar to than one. Any game played with the goal of finding one of the two F-F-Vault combo pieces, would be usually better invested into anything else. In a short term plan, the high number or tutors and the instant win that F:F:Vault would give to you is really temptative. You can win with them with ease only again unfrequent topdecks again tier1 or again aggro or non blue based decks. Any deck that usually pack counters or discard effects or good maindeck tools for BlueBasedDecks should be faced in other solid ways: cards advantage and superior plays.

On this issue, the high number or blue instants and my usual long term plan, elected a couple of Merchant Scrolls as better choices.
They gave you a better access to the other key cards of the deck, they can be used as Tutor for Bombs or for Drawers or for Answers. It is really flexible and quicker on doing anything better than C. Wish or B. Wish. I hate Imperial Seal for being a bad sorcery Vampiric Tutor and they cover his role better than anyother tried tutor ( Diabolic Vision, Grim Tutor ). They are blue and give me the quality that seems to lack in other decklists.

I play with 12-13 maindeck artifacts plus a couple of cards that can be trashed into the grave with ease ( Darkblast and Recoup ) so the total number or cards that can be sacrified to TFK is really high. Post side, I can add other artifacts and other tools to support that strategy, but sometimes, the deck only need to see 3-6 more cards to win rather than grabbing them into my hand. The porpouse of being able to Y. Will anything back even in the first two or three rounds of the game can perfectly feed this strategy.

I realized that both Gifts and FoF are precious tools to use and I maindecked them all without exclusions.
While I have a better access to each one of them ( thanks to Scrolls and the good number of drawers ), I found them not mutually exclusive. Both usually can give me the same things but sometimes I need the Gits' "quality" while in the other situations I'll hope to resolve FoF for his "quantity". There are plenty of situations where I can have MerchantScrolled for Gifts but I left it into my deck choosing to resolve FoF. While the opponent usually have more troubles resolving those piles, in the early game, resolving a FoF is statistically more game breaking than resolving Gifts, because of the unstable mana development and the difficulty of predicting the opponents' future moves. I can't cut it from my deck, yet.

LoA have been choosen because I usually play a lot of control matchups that are far more easy to win with it. It is the best answer to the opponent's LoA and the presence of TFK and a lot of mana accelerators would usually optimize a lot a good plays without barring yourself always behind UU open.
LoA+TFK+Tutor can let you play aggressively almost any match. You can shift up and down 7 cards seeing a lot of fresh cards every turn and your maindeck answer can let you think to save your Drains for the crucial plays. Those "Quantity effects" can be really satisfying against a lot of different opponents.



Tormod's Crypt is one of the last minute perfect addition to my maindeck.
I want to both power up my TFKs' interaction and screw the opponents' plans with a single card.
The frequent graveyard interactions that are going to be used during these weeks forced me to think that Crypt is the best choice available, regretting my first love, Phyrexian Furnaces, for being far too slow.

I think that his presence, aside with other cards in my sideboard, would revaluate the impact of Vampiric Tutor in the game, too. I can grab a lot of things that could usually be tutored only with Demonic. Stripmine, Needles, Crypt, Black and red cards are usual targets of this undervaluated tutor and his presence stretch the range of possibilities available with Gifts' itself.

The sideboard is highly metagamized and I cannot assure you that it would be commonly used everywhere.

I used Needles/Crypts against Dragon and Welders.dec
I choose to play with Titan, Duress and D.A. because of the high number of Mirror matches in my area.
These sorceries are my favourite B.Wish targets when I'm going to kill my opponent with DSC while S.Titan is the best post side Tinker target.
Pyroclasm are swapped in during the aggrocontrol matches and can rule all the commonly used fish.dec, especially is they are coupled with Needles
ReBs/Pyro/R&R/H.Recall/ToA are commonly used cards and the quantities are almost a stylish choice. I could have switched some quantities if needed, but my metagame and the personal choices forced me to create this equilibrium.


My last results with a deck almost equal to this one are really good and there are a lot of matchup during which I would have lost with any other deck.
If the opponent isn't smart enough to foresight your plays, a lot of the things that are usually his best weapons, could even not be countered.
You can surf through your deck with ease.
You have plenty of drawers, shuffle and thinning effects.
My games usually end with not more than 10-12 cards left into the deck and this process isn't so much long or so much difficult to accomplish.
The natural propension of the deck is to build up strong midgame wins without needing extraordinary mana developments during the first two or three turns of the match. 3 or 4 mana are enough to produce constant threats and counter opponents ones in the first steps. In the early game, Draining 2cc spells is my best job, because it leave me open for TFK + other spells during the next turn and it is usually a good strategy that would not stress or consume the deck too much.

 
I can elaborate a lot more about the matchups' analysis and this would be my next step.
Critiques and suggestions or corrections are welcome.
Enjoy!:)

MaxxMatt

[Yare]

Correction:

My games usually end with not more than 10-12 cards left into the deck and this process isn't so much long or so much difficult to accomplish.

I suspect by this you actually mean "My games usually end with not than 10-12 cards left in the deck..."

Otherwise, a very good read.  Thank you for your detailed analysis.

A few small points:

1. I see that you also included Strip Mine, like Steve.  Any particular reason for this inclusion?  By itself it does not seem like it would be all that effective.

2. I am not certain that I understood the precise meaning of your section concerning a second win condition maindeck.  And, kind of following that, how would you feel about maindecking 1 Tendrils of Agony?  Or is it just completely unnecessary?

[Eddie]

I'm playing a list that's following the same strategy, and very similar to your list. (Actually, I started with almost card for card the same list, except for darkblast which wasn't legal at that time). The biggest difference is that I started off with 4 thirsts like you, but I went to 3 and I'm currently running 2 thirsts (and 3 gifts - 1 fof). Part of this is due to the fact that I'm only playing 1 Pithing needle, next to the artifact mana and the colossus. I feel thirst is not spectacular, but not that bad either. I can't think of a draw spell to replace it with.

Some questions about your list:

Darkblast is singlehandly the best tools available for creatures removal. It completely shut down all the nasty */1 with abilities that are commonly used by aggrocontrol decks and welder based ones. I left a couple of possible slots opened in my maindeck especially because of the different metagame shifts. Some choices are chained to other and magnify their insertions, leaving little to no space to the remaining options.

Darkblast is the best removal for */1 creatures, no doubt about that. However, I don't think it is the best choice main deck. a Fire/Ice is better IMHO, certainly if you run 2 merchant scrolls. Not only does it kill the most annoying creatures, but it also taps permanents. I believe I'm certainly not the only one that had a game where 2 colossus where facing each other. Merchant Scrolling for fire/ice to tap theirs wins games. Also, we have the standard stuff of ice being blue en cantripping thus not being dead against storm combo, but that's pretty basic. All in all, I believe fire/ice should be main, whilst darkblast is a strong sideboard choice.

1 Rebuild
1 Tormod's Crypt / Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
1 Stripmine / Cunning Wish / Pithing Needle ( it is usually Pithing Needle#1 )
....

I hate Imperial Seal for being a bad sorcery Vampiric Tutor and they cover his role better than anyother tried tutor
....

I think that his presence, aside with other cards in my sideboard, would revaluate the impact of Vampiric Tutor in the game, too. I can grab a lot of things that could usually be tutored only with Demonic. Stripmine, Needles, Crypt, Black and red cards are usual targets of this undervaluated tutor and his presence stretch the range of possibilities available with Gifts' itself.

So you are basically running a little toolbox here. Wouldn't it be better to run an Imperial Seal over the second Merchant Scroll? Certainly if you run the 1 tormod's crypt / 1 pithing needle configuration? It has great synergy with burning wish and recoup. It is certainly not worse than vampiric tutor in this deck. Both have their advantage and disadvantage here. You can always board it out, and it's still available in the side getting you everything you need. Maybe you should try it as a Burning Wish target in the side? Don't misunderstand me: merchant scroll is a great card. But it gets worse if you run less blue cards, and more toolbox stuff. And it's fun to cast seal, recoup it, then wish it back

Sideboard: 1 Deep Analysis

How often do you wish for it? I always tend to keep Burning Wish, until I have to use it for kill (now, or in the next 2 turns), or to make sure that I'm not killed. When I first started playing the deck, I often made a mistake to burning wish to soon for board control, and thus choosing the wrong target. Well, not wrong at that time, but I was severely limiting my options when I used it. You can only burning wish once in a game, and it's your secondary kill.
Related to this: how often do you side in Tendrils of Agony? I only side it in if we have like 10 minutes left in the round and I need a quick kill, or against caps/extracts. If I side it in more, then the Burning Wish can be used faster for stuff like the Deep Analysis. Also, I have a duress in the side like you, and it's a bomb to wish for. I haven't needed the deep analysis when I have duress available. When I burning wish, I want to kill, or make way to kill in the next turn or so. Deep Analysis isn't bad, but it's too slow for this goal.

[dicemanx]

Here is an interesting analysis from hydra:

Interesting topic, makes me glad to see someone other than Peter and myself champion the cause of the full control version of the Gifts deck.

What I think should be addressed up front, however, is that while some of the card choices have been influenced by Andy's Flame Vault Gifts lists, I personally feel that the two lists shouldn't be categorized at all together.  The changes made to deck by including a second main deck win condition outside of Burning Wish (which MaxxMatt seemed to forget IS the second win condition in the list he posted when he compared it to FV) change the dynamics a bit on how the deck is played, and influence the overall effectiveness of cards in both the main deck and the sideboard.  I would go more into the differences, but this topic is about the list MaxxMatt posted, and there are other people (Kowal, namely) who are far more qualified to address the differences and the dynamics of the Flame Vault Gifts lists.

The main thing I'd like to address in terms of this style of Gifts is the "optional" slots present in the deck.  In his version, Maxx lists 6 slots, but from my personal experience with the deck the Fact or Fiction slot is also optional, although I'd highly recommend having a card drawing tool in there, be it Fact or Fiction, another Gifts Ungiven, or even something like Skeletal Scrying.

To me, the best use of these slots is to break them down into generalizations first.  Does the deck need more tutors?  What about card drawing?  Metagame answers?  Once you have it broken down, it becomes far more easier to determine what card would be best suited in the main deck in one of those slots.  The general formula I personally try to follow is:

1-2 Card drawing
2-3 Tutors
3 "Answers"

Maxx's slots break down into this, with 1 card drawer (FOF), 3 Tutors (2 Scroll and a Vamp), and 3 metagame dependent answers. Of course, this doesn't need to be adhered to absolutely, as those optional slots are always to one's play preference, but generally that's the formula I adhere to, as it gives me a concrete framework to test ideas with.  Some examples of different uses for these slots could be:

1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Imperial Seal
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Darkblast
2 Pithing Needle

2 Duress
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Gifts
3 Pithing Needle

1 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts
3 Pithing Needle

It's important to remember that the choices made for the cards to play in these slots are influenced heavily by the metagame in your area.  It isn't wise, for example, to main deck Pithing Needles if Stax and Fish aren't popular in your area.  Likewise, if there is a distinct lack of Control Slaver and Fish in your area, then Darkblast probably doesn't belong in the main deck either.

How one addresses their metagame slots also has an effect on how one constructs their mana base.  Choices such as Duress, Rack and Ruin, and other colored spells may force you to go more heavy with a certain dual land, or perhaps run a basic of a certain type in order to give yourself a stable source of mana of that type.

Popular decks also have effects on the mana base one runs.  For example, if you were in an area heavy in Stax, particularly lists with Chalice, you may want to run more basic lands and cut both Mana Vault and Vampiric Tutor for an Island and a Merchant Scroll/additional bounce spell to combat the effectiveness that a Chalice set at 1 could have on your deck.

These things all need to be addressed before playing the deck in a tournament setting.  That may seem like a "well, duh" comment, but I've seen far too many people (including good players) just try to play Gifts without addressing these things and fail miserably.    Playing the wrong cards can lead to you essentially "mulliganing" every other game because you drew useless cards, and even a deck as powerful as Gifts can falter when you do that to yourself.

[Gabethebabe]

I would only run Vamp in Gifts if I was playing the Flame-Vault kill.
Maybe you like it because of your toolbox.

I think that 1-2 bounce spells is enough.  Darkblast, Crypt, Cunning Wish make you stray from your Gifts path.
Gifts is very good at what it does and you don´t need to take a defensive position "keeper style".

Just kill them, that is the best answer to whatever your opponent may drop on the table.

[MaxxMatt]

I would only run Vamp in Gifts if I was playing the Flame-Vault kill.
Maybe you like it because of your toolbox.
I think that 1-2 bounce spells is enough.  Darkblast, Crypt, Cunning Wish make you stray from your Gifts path.
Gifts is very good at what it does and you don´t need to take a defensive position "keeper style".

I keep in V.T. only for a couple of general porpouses:
1) Additional 1cc ( and consequently first turn) tutor for Ancestral/Tinker/Gifts
2) Tutor for Needle or Crypt
3) Tutor for Non-Blue Game Ending cards
4) Quicker access against aggro-control to my "non-blue" bombs

I have a good side that unluckily for me should be backupped by a good amount of tutors for cards that are almost NON-blue. Aside of D.T., I would like to have another Non-ReBable tutor for them.
I tried Imperial Seal too, but I have no affinity at all with it.
The Instant aspect of V.T. made it at least "tricky" and only a "partial" waste of time.
Merchant#2 come in replacying I.Seal.
On the other hand, I would like to play with the possibility to fill a Gifts Ungiven with Tutors, and negating me a V.T. could be too constraining.

While I'm continuing to play with it, I'm not blind or dumb. I realize that it is the "weakest but the more flexible" among the tutors. Simply, I cannot found a better replacement for it

Just kill them, that is the best answer to whatever your opponent may drop on the table.

This is so true but so abused that I expected to hear it from anything but you
You are a wise man, Gabe!.
I cannot think about you being addicted to "simply win".
This deck ( as some others proposed with a similar structure ) minimize the number of things that the opponent can do to prevent you from winning.
I'm not so brave to play without a couple of single tools for that little percentage of unwinnable situations.
If the opponent can win against me, it would not do it abusing of bugs of my deck.
To be able to win, he must outplay me or simply die.

First of all, thanks for the thoughts about the deck.
As you pointed out, my referral about F.F.V. as secondary win condition of a Gifts.dec, implies that I consider B.Wish SO CRUCIAL for this deck that I'm only boundarily referring to it strictly as a "winning condition".
I won through ToA so frequently that sometimes I forget about ALL the other uses that B.Wish usually have, but, talking about "things that are used ONLY WHEN you are going to win", I can consider only DSC and F.F./Vault.

From my point of view, the American TFKs.based.Gifts.dec have 2 different winning conditions PLUS that extraordinarily good card that is called B.Wish.
IT IS THE deck-defining card ( aside with Gifts and Y.Will ).

Now, if you reread my whole sentences, you can easily realize that there are a lot of arguments that can be used both to defence or to support the use of another additional way to win ( the third one ).

This is my experience and my thoughts.
I want a deck that would not clunk itself against control and combo decks with stupid winners in hand.
Additional ways to win are extraordinary good against Aggro and Aggro control decks, against which you can try to race their pressure with a couple more lethal winners.
It is usually a good strategy to use against decks that are not so well equipped to take care of quick and well focused single attacks.

Try to compare their usage against T1T or a C.Slavery and then thier frequence against fcg or fish.
You are going to use them almost only against the latters.
If I'm going to face them, I want to think about "the card to use to win" only in the end.
Usually you can be sure of winning against them only racing their cards' advantage war and not trying to dodge their defences with quick wins.

This is not only "playstile".
I'm sure that the path that I'm going to follow is far more safer that the other one.
I risk to have LESS dead cards DURING the game.
It is crucial for a correct development of the game.

A strong TPS build usually not packs more than 2 ToA
A good UR-Stacks build usually not play with more than a single Karn and a single Triskelion.
A winning Atog deck don't play his winner in more than 2 copies.

All the OTHER cards in the deck would help you "on winning" and they are the reasons of you victories, while your winners are only the "instruments" that you use to win.
If you agree with me, you are aware that, the more cards you consider "winners", the less cards you would find "useful" on putting you on the winning side of the table.

I realized that the winners themselves usually don't win nothing.
More winners are usually directly connected to unfrequent wins.

To me, the best use of these slots is to break them down into generalizations first.  Does the deck need more tutors?  What about card drawing?  Metagame answers?  Once you have it broken down, it becomes far more easier to determine what card would be best suited in the main deck in one of those slots.  The general formula I personally try to follow is:

1-2 Card drawing
2-3 Tutors
3 "Answers"

Your skematic approach to my reasoning behind some cards' choice is really insightful and I usually naturally try to build decks with a general skeleton for the "free cards" exactly with that structure.
Good point!

Talking about the cards that I found "good" or "replaceable" in the list that I proposed, I found me about being totally unsatisfied by C.Wish ( and Stripmine ).
That last slot is tormenting a cursing me since a couple of weeks and the large variety of different matchups against which I'm testing now, doesn't help me at all.
Playing almost against any kind of deck and focusing on building a deck prepared for specific matchups isn't a good move at all.

Tormod's Crypt is really good.
The only other card that satisfied me as much as it, was Pithing Needle, both for his impact on the game, both for his inherent sinergy with TFK.
I think that I would re-add Pithing Needle#1 in my maindeck for my next tourney.
I would try to fit Needle#2 and #3 somewhere in the side to power-up the Fish matchup.


Talking about the possible configurations available that could be "used" for specific metagames, I would have played really ( during my last toruney ) in a better way with:

4 Duress
1 Darkblast
1 Gifts
( naturally adding the basic Swamp to support all that black ).

A configuration with SO MUCH control is undeed the best way to kill Control and Combo decks.
They are my curse and my most feared opponents, so it is natural for me to think about killing them with ease.
On the other hand, a configuration like this, would be really "hard if not impossible to play" in a Fish or MW filled metagame.

De gustibus non disputandum est ...as much as the metagame choices

It's important to remember that the choices made for the cards to play in these slots are influenced heavily by the metagame in your area.  It isn't wise, for example, to main deck Pithing Needles if Stax and Fish aren't popular in your area.  Likewise, if there is a distinct lack of Control Slaver and Fish in your area, then Darkblast probably doesn't belong in the main deck either.

You are perfectly right.
I added Darkblast because I have not so many Welders to kill, but I'm flooded by both D.Confidant based decks and Fish.decs. Among those ones, I can find Fishes caracterized by all the colours available and all the D.Conf.based decks abailable. Sometimes, both Welders and Shamans ( and random aggro ) make their appeareance, so having a good Darkblast to recurr every turn is MVP.

Popular decks also have effects on the mana base one runs.  For example, if you were in an area heavy in Stax, particularly lists with Chalice, you may want to run more basic lands and cut both Mana Vault and Vampiric Tutor for an Island and a Merchant Scroll/additional bounce spell to combat the effectiveness that a Chalice set at 1 could have on your deck.

You are soooo right about Mana Vault.
I hate and love it almost any game.
I like it when I'm holiding a couple of 4cc spell during my first two turns of the game.
In a lot of other situations, it is awful and a bad colorless DarkRitual
I would like to play with U.Sea#3 if I would see more denial based decks.
During my last tourney, I play with this mana base configuration

5 fetch
4 island
3 u.sea
3 volc
9 solomoxcrypetal
1 academy
1 loa

for a total of 26 mana fonts.
I flooded only once ( during the semifinals ) but I outplayed any fish and stacker's opponents wihtout too much difficulties
A bit less acceleration and a couple of additional land's drops made my deck FAR more resilient to hate

I'm playing a list that's following the same strategy, and very similar to your list. (Actually, I started with almost card for card the same list, except for darkblast which wasn't legal at that time). The biggest difference is that I started off with 4 thirsts like you, but I went to 3 and I'm currently running 2 thirsts (and 3 gifts - 1 fof). Part of this is due to the fact that I'm only playing 1 Pithing needle, next to the artifact mana and the colossus. I feel thirst is not spectacular, but not that bad either. I can't think of a draw spell to replace it with.

I can be with you with the argument that playing with too few maindeck's artifacts can support an unpleasant feeling towards TFKs. For this reason, I added a couple more artifacts or discardable cards.
Until now, I could not find ANY OTHER good repleacent for them

I tried both Deeps, Skeletals and Impulses.
I referred to you all, here on TMD, about my experiments with those strange "drawers stacks" during the last months, but noone really satisfied me.
I went 3TFK-1Skeletal-1FoF, 2TFK-1Deep-1Skeletal. Then I tried 3TFK-3Gifts-1Impulse and so on.
A lot of cards are the perfect fits against specific decks.

Deep shines against PureControl decks without Mis-Ds
Skeletals is perfect against mirror matches of any kind
Impulse are really good against aggrocontrol decks
And so on...

In each ones among those specific situations, TFK is MEANLY comparable to all the other choices.
It doesn't shine particularily during anyone of them, but in the end, it is overall better.
I simply prefer it because it is IN COLOR, CHEAP and INSTANT

Darkblast is the best removal for */1 creatures, no doubt about that. However, I don't think it is the best choice main deck. a Fire/Ice is better IMHO, certainly if you run 2 merchant scrolls. Not only does it kill the most annoying creatures, but it also taps permanents. I believe I'm certainly not the only one that had a game where 2 colossus where facing each other. Merchant Scrolling for fire/ice to tap theirs wins games. Also, we have the standard stuff of ice being blue en cantripping thus not being dead against storm combo, but that's pretty basic. All in all, I believe fire/ice should be main, whilst darkblast is a strong sideboard choice.

I missed to add that option in the last posted list.
Good shot, Eddie!

I would try to re-try again F/I in the C.Wish spot during these days.
I'm going to check any one of the possibilities available for a good "2x1" or "2forX" answer.
I'm sure, that the ability of being hecked via M.Scroll his huge.
On the other hand, after more than 3 years of heavy use of M.Scroll in every deck I played, I'm going to value it "as not so good" in the current metagame...
Anyway, it would be far more useful than C.Wish for sure ( especially with a sideboard not so well equipped for it )

So you are basically running a little toolbox here. Wouldn't it be better to run an Imperial Seal over the second Merchant Scroll? Certainly if you run the 1 tormod's crypt / 1 pithing needle configuration? It has great synergy with burning wish and recoup. It is certainly not worse than vampiric tutor in this deck. Both have their advantage and disadvantage here. You can always board it out, and it's still available in the side getting you everything you need. Maybe you should try it as a Burning Wish target in the side? Don't misunderstand me: merchant scroll is a great card. But it gets worse if you run less blue cards, and more toolbox stuff. And it's fun to cast seal, recoup it, then wish it back

In real life, I blindly buy an I.Seal, strong about the fact of being able to use it almost forever and wherever.
After an entire month of gameplay I completely change my mind.
It is so slow that I swapped it back for Merchant#2

While topdecking Merchant make me happy, playing I.Seal WITHOUT another draw effect would make you cry and roll the table over your opponent face! It is sadistic to announce to your opponent that you are going to do something nasty BUT not quicker than the next turn...
Sigh...

I'm very conservative with my B.Wish, too.
I rarely use it for "answers" during Game 1.
On the other hand, there are a lot of situations where I found useful to gain advantage toward my opponent and I would try to draw 4 cards without any hesitance, even burying my opportunity to Storm and win.
DeepAnal is my reset button for "stalled" matches.
It is unfrequent to check for it against Aggrocontrol or MW.based decks, but it is really good against Control decks.
When you are going to draw almost all your deck, you can win EVEN with a stupid and hardcasted 11/11.
DeepAnal could help you reaching that winning point.

A few small points:
1. I see that you also included Strip Mine, like Steve.  Any particular reason for this inclusion?  By itself it does not seem like it would be all that effective.

I give it a try as additional tool to wish against opponent's Bazaars or MW or Academy
I 'm not too much convinced of it.

2. I am not certain that I understood the precise meaning of your section concerning a second win condition maindeck.  And, kind of following that, how would you feel about maindecking 1 Tendrils of Agony?  Or is it just completely unnecessary?

I usually bring in ToA during game 2 and 3.
I test the effectivness of playing the "Storm-Game" against my opponent rather than winning with DSC
A lot of games and matches are won by Y.Will.
Almost in any ones of these games, I thought about bringing in ToA.

Toa + DSC are not mutually exclusives.
If I have additional space, DSC can remain even if Tinker is sided out.
You can both hardcast it or B.Wish for Tinker if needed.

On the other hand, when I choose HOW I 'm going to win a game, I usually try to minimize the number of dead cards. I think that I played with DSC AND ToA WITHOUT Tinker, maybe only twice in my life.
But, hey.. it can happens


MaxxMatt

Last Edit--> Fixed Some Errors