Gifts on a comeback?

[XxtSundaybxX]

So in reviewing alot of the decklists from the Euro events, there has been alot of success with an older gifts list. There are alot of arguments about whether this deck is viable because you can only use one gifts ungiven, but in reality a single, well-timed gifts will end the game. I agree that the deck cannot play like MDG in that you cant just throw a gifts out there on turn 2 and if it gets countered just scroll up another one, however the deck plays enough control that you can just wait until the time is right to end the game. I have been testing this deck and i have gotten extremely good results. So here is the list i present to you:

Gitfs

1x Black Lotus
1x Lions Eye Diamond
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Darksteel Colossus

4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
3x Duress
4x Brainstorm
1x Dark Ritual
3x Merchant Scroll
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Tinker
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Gifts Ungiven
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Rebuild
1x Echoing Truth
1x Repeal
1x Recoup
1x Yawgmoths Will
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Timewalk

3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
3x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Island
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Library of Alexandria

There are a few cards that can be changed such as LED and Repeal and possibly even Dark Ritual, but for now they have been proving well in testing. I'm also not so sure about Library with all the wastelands but its solid.

I'm also a little skeptical about the deck with the uprising of all of the Long lists that are posting results, seeing as this deck is much slower than Long, but it has good matchups against all the matchups that Long does not such as stax and its Oath matchup is also pretty good.

So what do  you think?

[Shock Wave]

Playing Gifts doesn't seem like a horrible choice, but using LED certainly seems like one.

[XxtSundaybxX]

LED actually is not that bad, think about it, majority of the time without dark rituals to ramp mana you have a problem getting enough mana and enough storm. So LED helps with this, lets say you your gifts pile is Black lotus,LED,YawgWill and Recoup, whats the worst case scenario here?? They give you LED and Recoup? And if for some reason they give you LED and Will then you just play the LED and then play Will with your lands and then sac LED with Will on the stack. And yes there is always that question but how do you get tendrils? Well this is not always going to be your gifts pile...there is going to be games were your draw mystical early so you dont need a tutor in your gifts pile, or you might have drawn lotus earlier so you can gifts for that tutor to get the tendrils. I'm not saying LED is insane, all im saying is that in playing gifts for along time now, mana can be an issue, which is why I included the Dark Ritual and the LED. The deck can be tested and tweaked to the players liking but i feel that LED brings alot to the table.

[hauntedechos]

I would think that 4 Duress over 4th Drain would be better.. Drain decks need something to do beyond dig turn 1.  i'm sure that I could be wrong.  I don't like LED, but then it's possible that I am just not skilled enough to use the card.

Haunted.

[XxtSundaybxX]

echoes:

I can see your point about the duress, but what makes drain so good in this deck is that you can drain a spell and then on  your turn cast a Fact or Fiction for U or cast Scroll and Gifts for UU or DT for something and play it...also there are times when your just waiting for more mana to go off and drain lets you go off on your turn with an extra 2,3,4 mana which helps out extremely. I will continue to test LED and see what happens.

[Anusien]

What matchups would you prefer this deck over GAT or Drain Tendrils?  I can't imagine wanting to shuffle up this deck because of how inflexible it is.  You run 1 more control element than GAT/GushMan/Oath/whatever, but the cost is 2 more mana sources + LED and a slower draw component.

[XxtSundaybxX]

I would rather face stax with this deck than with GAT first of all...GAT isnt all that great vs Oath because your drawing creatures that arent going to do anything against an Oath of Druids, except help them. And as for Drain Tendrils, I personally would rather rather draw quality than quantity...which is what Intuition/AK gets you. The intuition/AK engine has been around longer than Gifts has been around, there's a reason people played gifts over it, and there's a reason gifts was the top deck in the format for who knows how long. I think the question is which deck would you prefer in the meta right now? Gifts or Long?

[zeus-online]

I'd deffinetly cut the LED for another scroll.

Scroll was probably the most important non-restricted spell in MDG, and i'd imagine it's the most important one in this deck aswell...

I'm not sure if you really need 3 win-conditions, i'd think EtW could be cut for an additional duress aswell...or you could cut tinker/DSC...DSC just seems good vs. random hate decks.

/Zeus

[XxtSundaybxX]

The thing about cutting LED is i think it would need to be cut for another mana source. This deck relys on a heavy amount of mana sources because its a control deck.

However this deck is NOT MeanDeck Gifts. Its a bit closer to Brassy gifts minus the Thirst for Knowledges. That being said i will not disagree and say that the 4th scroll would not be a good addition...but i dont think its necessarily NEEDED, theres enough disruption and card draw to let you draw into the 3x scroll or the singleton gifts. But i will try to fit it in

To address the 3x win condition debate, Im not really sure if 3 win conditions is too many. Theyre more there for different matchups to give the deck  better game 1 results. For example...having ETW game 1 against stax is much better than relying on tendrils. I would even go as far as saying with the new stax lists DSC is better than tendrils for a fast kill because alot of lists are not relying on welder like they used to. If i were to cut any win condition from the main i think i would choose ETW because the surprise factor for DSC is too great...where as people are playing echoing truth alot more than they used to. Ive been testing the deck and so far having all 3 win conditions maindeck has not been an issue...some people will argue and say "what if you draw both tendrils and empty in your opening hand" but thats no different than before when you could draw either tendrils and burning wish or burning wish and recoup in your opening hand. The percentage of times when that will become an issue is not great enough to not run the diverse win conditions.

[Shock Wave]

LED actually is not that bad, think about it, majority of the time without dark rituals to ramp mana you have a problem getting enough mana and enough storm. So LED helps with this, lets say you your gifts pile is Black lotus,LED,YawgWill and Recoup, whats the worst case scenario here?? They give you LED and Recoup? And if for some reason they give you LED and Will then you just play the LED and then play Will with your lands and then sac LED with Will on the stack. And yes there is always that question but how do you get tendrils? Well this is not always going to be your gifts pile...there is going to be games were your draw mystical early so you dont need a tutor in your gifts pile, or you might have drawn lotus earlier so you can gifts for that tutor to get the tendrils. I'm not saying LED is insane, all im saying is that in playing gifts for along time now, mana can be an issue, which is why I included the Dark Ritual and the LED. The deck can be tested and tweaked to the players liking but i feel that LED brings alot to the table.

Hey, if you thing LED is the nut high, then stick to your guns and play it. You seem to be highlighting its virtues in situations where you're already winning the game (ie. you've resolved Gifts). The problem is that this card is terrible when you're not winning the game. It sucks in your first hand, and in order for you to make any use of it, you have to have a spell on the stack or no cards in hand. How is that useful? 

[CHOZO]

Hey, if you thing LED is the nut high, then stick to your guns and play it. You seem to be highlighting its virtues in situations where you're already winning the game (ie. you've resolved Gifts). The problem is that this card is terrible when you're not winning the game. It sucks in your first hand, and in order for you to make any use of it, you have to have a spell on the stack or no cards in hand. How is that useful? 

With that logic Yawgmoth's Will is bad, because it doesn't do anything unless there are cards in your graveyard...

[Shock Wave]

Hey, if you thing LED is the nut high, then stick to your guns and play it. You seem to be highlighting its virtues in situations where you're already winning the game (ie. you've resolved Gifts). The problem is that this card is terrible when you're not winning the game. It sucks in your first hand, and in order for you to make any use of it, you have to have a spell on the stack or no cards in hand. How is that useful? 

With that logic Yawgmoth's Will is bad, because it doesn't do anything unless there are cards in your graveyard...

If you think I'm implying that because Yawgmoth's Will is not good in your opening hand, and because LED is also not good in your first hand, that somehow Yawgmoth's Will is comparable in overall power to LED, you've completely misunderstood my post and the "logic" I've submitted.

We can always create situations where a card is not good. What has to be considered is the overall value of the card, especially in situations where it is good. In situations where LED is good in Gifts, the Gifts player is already ahead of the game. In contrast, Yawgmoth's Will wins the game outright, during or after the midgame, and sometimes in the early game. LED does not have any such benefit in this archetype.

[kkoie]

I wonder if a singleton intuition has ever been considered added to the deck, since only one gifts can be run?  Granted playing intuition is significantly differn't than gifts when it comes to searching for the right cards, but I was curious if it had been tried or thought about?

Also I wonder, if so many consider Lion's Eye Diamond a poor choice, what would be an adequate replacement?  Another ritual or a petal?  Or something differn't all together?

[XxtSundaybxX]

It seems that no one agrees with LED. I never said it was the nuts, i strictly was stating my reasons for it being in the list. I also said i would test it and see how it turned out.

As for the question on what to replace it, I dont think the second dark ritual would be the best choice mainly because a singleton will give  you all the black sources you need and other than the turn your comboing there probably isnt going to be much use for the dark ritual. As for Lotus Petal, the problem with lotus petal is it is a one time use...so you pretty much either use it out of desperation or the turn your going off. It does however add storm after yawgmoths will, and give you access to colored mana. With all of the higher casting cost spells in the deck, im wondering if mana vault would not be a decent choice, and if not just adding another land would do the trick.

[GrandpaBelcher]

The list you posted looks similar to the Scroll Tendrils deck (The Mean Deck) that Menendian introduced just after Gush was unrestricted.  Scroll Tendrils was supposed to be the bees knees before Gush, but it wasn't expected to compete with GAT.  I've been playing around with it recently and it still does pretty well.  Here's my current list:

4x Force of Will
4x Duress
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Rebuild

4x Merchant Scroll
4x Brainstorm
2x Impulse
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk

1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens

4x Dark Ritual
1x Cabal Ritual
5x Mox
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
2x Island
1x Swamp

If you drop your Mana Drains for the fourth Duress and three more Dark Rituals, find room for the critical fourth Merchant Scroll, and adjust your mana slightly (adding Mana Vault, Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual, dropping LED and a couple of lands) you're already very close to this list.  Differences are compensated just by making the bomb cards fit your preferences.  For example, I decided to forgo the Gifts-Recoup package in favor of more straightforward options, but you could easily put it in for Fact or Fiction and an Impulse (or something).  The mana and disruption already present can support any number of "finishers": Gifts, FoF, Desire, Burning Wish, Tinker, Memory Jar, Timetwister, etc.

Though they seem like they'd conflict, Dark Ritual and Merchant Scroll rarely get in each other's way, and being able to add Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain to the mix really gives the deck some power.  Cabal Ritual is a great tutor target going into and out of Yawgmoth's Will too.

Based on your last few posts, it looks like this might be the way you're heading anyway, so it's a consideration.  This is the article where Menendian first talked about the deck.  It's free now.

[XxtSundaybxX]

@Lochinvar81

This list seems to look similar to older TPS lists. But why would you wanna play this slower list when you could just play Long with the same bombs and win faster? I could be missing something here but thats how it looks to me.