New Fact or fiction/Intuition! Kamigawa hot off the press!

[Jacob Orlove]

Deck thinning is some good I hear

Can people stop saying this? The whole point about deck thinning is to get rid of cards that you don't want to draw (see:Fetchlands). If you are genuinely thinning your deck, then you're just spending 4 mana to get nothing very exciting. Alternatively you get 4 cards out of your deck, only 2 of which can be used. It thins your deck in a very non-beneficial way.

Sorry to be irritable.

Tom

Actually, playing this for like 4x Mox doesn't sound so terrible. That play is only going to be really good with welder or will, but the thinning is non-negligible.

[wonkey_donkey]

Actually, playing this for like 4x Mox doesn't sound so terrible. That play is only going to be really good with welder or will, but the thinning is non-negligible.

You've got a point about the deck thinning under these specific circumstances, but it's still getting you cards you want now, and getting rid of other cards that you would (presumably) not mind drawing the next turn, since you've gone for them now (if that makes any sense). It's also costing you mana to do so. I will concede that this has a certain amount of use as a deck thinner in this 1 scenario, but I can think of other 3U (or even 2U) instants that I'd probably rather be playing - especially with the fortune of having will or a welder.

To use an overused cliche (and probably to put me in a hole and still digging), I think you've fouind the exception to prove the rule.

Tom

[rozetta]

Crap, I didn't read the card properly! Yes, indeed, reading is tech. I guess I win the prize this time

[Covetous]

Again:
When is this better than intuition?  

All of the situations I keep reading about seem like times when an Intuition would work the same or better, with greater flexibility and lower CC.  True, you only get one card now, but you also can guarantee that you get a specific card.

[Matt]

Do you think monoblue is gonna care about what counterspells you're giving them?

OMG it si slightly bettar than [card]Inspiration[/card] at this task!!11!
Seriously, if your deck is consistent enough to use this card like you mention, just run some normal draw spells, which are probably cheaper. The ONLY way this will be better than something we have already is if you're fetching up cards that have significantly different abilities (i.e. not counterspell/force/drain/leak).

[Hi-Val]

Slightly better than inspiration? Play some MonoU and you'll see that you fall into two situations.

Basically, you either get the fast Ophidian and never have to worry about drawing more counters, or you end up drawing Kegs and Fetches and B2B while your opponent resolves bombs midgame.

I DARE you to find a card that will do Gift's job of finding counters better than it. This is ASSURED counters. Ones that you can count on. Impulse finds one counter, and you're lucky to be picking up counters from AKs. I'm not saying that it's the perfect card to run in monoblue. I just fundamentally disagree with what you're saying.

Edited to remove asshole tone.

[Celandro]

My first knee jerk reaction when seeing this card was "Wow, imagine how good this would be in Type 1..". Why? Because Type 1 has a huge number of restricted bombs as well as redundant spells that for all intents and purposes are equivalent.  You can fetch 4 answers, 4 sideboard cards, 4 lands (w/crucible), 4 bombs, 4 counters, 4 graveyard related spells, or any mix there of, and you get to keep 2 of them.

In many situations, the card basically reads: search for 4 cards that will win you the game, discard 2 and keep the other 2.  If you are down to less than 3 game winners in your deck, you probably werent going to win anyhow.

[Smmenen]

Edited to remove asshole tone.

That's going in my sig.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

but Steve, you wouldn't want to deceive the poor drainers.

disclaimer: not meant as flame, don't take seriously.

[Gumbyhead]

It could be decent in Mono Blue Control, but wha about control slaver/Control Titan.  You can get something in the yard for welder, get 4 moxes to get urself going, or set up 4 great cards (something like yawgwin/welder/ancestral/demonictutor? they wont give u will, but getting 2 of the other 3 insn't to bad is it?  You can also use it to get sideboard cards if u diversifize ur sideboard.  Theres also the decent idea of using it to get yawgwin/regrowth/EternalWitness/Black lotus.  You will get witess and regrowth, regrowth ur yawgwin and do a ton of broken things with an additional 3 mana from the lotus.  The 4th card could also be a timewalk if u have lots of mana availible.  No matter what your getting the yawgwin, and for 5 mana on ur mainphase (they'd be dumb to give u will, and lotus/witness is giving u 2 more mana avilible than regrowth/witness.  I think the combo idea could be promising, if someone can draft a list

[CCClark]

I can't think of a single reason of why this would be better than intuition.   Even in a crucible type deck which abuses the graveyard, intuition is still better and serves the same purpose for 1 less mana.   It's interesting, too bad it didn't come out in type 2 for the old replenish days.   I predict no use in type 1 though unless your short the $20 for the intuitions.

[glenchuy]

how bout playing it in 4CC or slaver?

4CC
ancestral recall, demonic tutor(to get yawgwin/walk), mystical tutor (to get yawgwin/walk), vampiric tutor (if you run it, to grab yawgwin/walk) or if you don't play vampiric, get wish (which grabs vampiric, which grabs will) or exalted or even just scrying.

control slaver/titan
FoF/TfK, ancestral recall, demonic tutor (for yawgwin/walk), mystical tutor (for yawgwin/walk)

or

big fat artifact, TfK, demonic tutor (for yawgwin/walk), ancestral recall-

[KitzuneNinja]

I can't think of a single reason of why this would be better than intuition.

I actually thought a bit about this and came up with these situations to
have some sort of discussion-platform (Please, do note that I dont include the mana cost in these thoughts):

Dragon:

What do you want to fetch in Dragon? (In no particular order)

1. Bazaar (Or Compulsion, but mostly bazaars) - To get going
2. Squee's to abuse the stuff in no. 1 above.
3. Worldgorger Dragon + Finisher
4. Reanimations.
(5). Force of Will / Xantid Swarm.

Intuition is in my opininon one of the best cards in Dragon as it easily fetches you pieces you want "right now". Every one of the pieces above can be fetched with intuition as a 3-of and you get the card you want. This has its good and its bad sides (Taking 3 Bazaars with Intution just to get the Bazaar wastelanded the next turn is not tech), but it works out just the way you like it. In this sense Gifts Ungiven is a lot weaker than Intuition because if you want a card you have to bait it out with a lot better cards (whitch is a contradiction really - but this is a combo deck, the best card in a given situation isnt "the decks best card") making your later draws suck balls in the long run if your plan "right now" doesnt work out the way you want it. BUT, and this is a big but, Gift Ungiven is very good when you want to reanimate in Dragon.

Gift Ungiven for against 4cc:

Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead,  Necromancy, 4th Card (Demonic, Ancestral, What ever)

This, if the spell is resolved, gives you either 2 reanimation spells or one reanimation and a broken card. This is something Intuition CANT do. So Gifts Ungiven is good, but its only good in special situations in dragon. I'd say I still favour Intuition in Dragon though I see the good in Gift Ungiven.


4cc / Ze Germbus:

Granted that 4cc doesnt play with intuition and probably doesnt want Gifts Ungiven, Im going to give some props for the spell in 4cc as 4cc has so MANY powerfull spells that your opponent doesnt want you to resolve. Imagine its the mid-end game and you GU (Gift Ungiven) for:

Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Ancestral, Mind Twist.

The tutors threats your opponent in the sense that they can turn into Yawg Will, Win Condition or something less nasty. But on the other hand its no fun to be mind twisted and watch your opponent fill upp his/hers hand again, now is it? The "bombs" in 4cc makes the GU a viable card as a "super-tutor". If you got your Crucible setup ready you can GU for:

Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Wasteland, Stripmine.

And let the carnage of the manabase begin!

Against fish you can, postboard and in a gamestate where the table is full of critters, GU for:

StP, Fire/Ice, R/B Elemental Blast, FTK. (Balance?)

GU is somewhat strong in 4cc as you can force your opponent to make some very savage decisions.

Hulk Smash:

Hulk Smash is another deck that utilize Intuition to its fullest potential, so again GU has to compete with Intuition for a place in the deck. Intuition for 3 Cunning Wish to fetch the Berzerk? Thats something GU can't do for this deck. I can see a case for fetching 4 moxen or 4 draw spells - AK, Deep Anal, Brain Storm and something else. GU isnt that strong in Hulk, Intuition is much more favorable really :/

Anyway, thats my £.02

[Evilkin]

I think its best use is probably in some kind of janky flashback deck where you can get use out of all the cards including the 2 discarded.

Although the flashback cards other then Deep Analysis might not be competitive enough for T1 play.  Might work well with Roar of the Worm, Call of the Herd, Chatter of the Squirrel, Recoup, Firebolt, Reckless Charge, Wonder, Anger, Cabal Therapy...

Well, maybe you could get some knew version of Quiet Roar or Madness out of this.  At least GU essentially would give you all 4 cards to play around with in a deck like this.  You would also add powerful cards to the deck such as Ancestral, Time Walk, Regrowth, Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will... and the last 4 can all be flashed back using Recoup.

Yes, a new idea for a potential tier 5 deck.  

[Kulminox]

I like this card.  I think the real reason it COULD be better than intuition is the fact that it actually produces +1 card advantage without casting any of the fetched spells or abusing the graveyard synergy, which it can do fairly well.  Another situation I see this being good is if you fetch yawgwill, ancestral, walk, and another gifts ungiven.  So then you are guaranteed quite a bit of snowballing card advantage, similar to how tog functions, but you don't need to have ak's, just broken cards that you would have anyway.  I guess time will tell though.

[xrobx]

why does it seem like everyone is avoiding the obvious advantages of this cards for a few particular decks? they have been touched on I guess in a few threads, anyhow, firstly weldermud benefits greatly from this card; ie.:

Gift @ eot ==> trinisphere/tangle wire/workshop/lotus

therefore, they either give you a huge tempo boost of 6 (which will help you if you're hand is setup right; even if it isn't, mindslaver mana is always helpful ) or give you 2 bombs to lockdown with.

Often times a W/MUD player finds that Thirst for Knowledge doesn't quite grab the needed card for the win, while at 4 mana, chances are you're going to have some kind of slow down mechanism before you'd cast it (ie sphere/trinisphere -> in which case you grab the needed utility (crucible/tangle wire/smokestack/etc)) and it will grab the needed victory card(s).  It's more of a one-of type card for this deck, as it's CC is fairly high, not attainable by workshops, and require a few land drops.  This generally takes away from the tempo of this type of deck, and is overlooked/not played.  Kind of like demonic consultation here, in the way that the player would decide whether or not to play it (ie it could kill me...or, it may help..alot...?...!)  Thus, under the right circumstances in the right build, it could be quite useful.

Secondly, in underpowered dragon this card is godly.  If you cannot afford bazaars, what's better than putting that needed dragon in the grave, or getting that needed animate dead/dance of the dead/whatever you animate with).  It sets off a combo, so it's definatly beneficial to this version of the deck.  The powered version may not be so needy of this card, I'm not experienced with this deck enough to make that analogy.

As a thought, control madness may also gain considerable offense from this card, as it usually packs FoW, and is wanting to trade card for card after its threats are on the table.  Doing so late game, when cards are diminishing from hand, allows a control madness player to:

eot gift ===> deep analysis/roar of the worm/AK (if ran, likely 1+ in grave)/time walk/ancestral/etc...

in this case, your opponent would likely force you to take deep analysis, and roar.  Doing so, you're ending up drawing 4 cards over the next turn(s) more than normal, and gaining atleast one 6/6 creature (casting 1 of the available 2).  Decent, but not necessarily worth the consistancy, feedback on this idea are gladly welcome, as I have yet to test its performance.

[Marton]

welder mud does not play blue, and of course, it doesnt plays thirst for knowledge. It seems like you confused welder mud with stax, which isn't exactly the same deck. I already though that adding intuition in this kind of deck was a bit risky, considering it increases the necessity to have a welder into play, as it otherwise proves itself to be quite sub-par (barring the rare cases where you dont have a welder into play, have a crucible in play, and need a strip mine). The big issue that I see with this card compared to thrist/intuition in stax, is that stax can use the gilded lotus mana to cast the thirst/intuition, while playing this card requires extra mana (for an 'advantage' that does not seems to prove to be considerably better, only perhaps good in some corner cases).

Also, I cannot see how unpowered dragon could use this. 4 mana is a lot for unpowered dragon, for an effect that doesn't really helps much to make you win. Dragon only really wants to cast one animate spell, it doesnt matters if you get to draw 2 of em. And the likeliness of having the opponent put the dragon in the graveyard is very very very slim if there isn't one in there already (in which case, why would you tutor for it anyway). You perhaps overlooked the 'only once' for each of the cards you go search, meaning you cant get 3 dragons and one animator (even so, boy does it sucks to pay 4 mana just to put a dragon in the grave). I would rather play lim-duls vault any day rather than this in unpowered dragon. Both of their effect are the same, since both allows you to tutor for whatevers missing (since at 4 mana you cannot play this AND something else; remember that you're playing a COMBO DECK). Intuition nets the dragon player the only one kill card he needs. 2 cards is just extra fluff (plus its much more messy since you cant get many times what you need, like an emergency FOW).

[KitzuneNinja]

Dragon only really wants to cast one animate spell, it doesnt matters if you get to draw 2 of em.

Scratch "cast" and replace it with "resolve". 2 > 1.

[Marton]

While what you say is true, then why wouldnt the opponent simply counter the intuition/draw2 then.

[KitzuneNinja]

While what you say is true, then why wouldnt the opponent simply counter the intuition/draw2 then.

The spells should be viewed as two different type of threats:

Intuition isnt a "must counter" - Simply let your opponent decrease the chance for him/her topdeck reanimation spells later in the game (as you pull at least 2 out if you need them) and counter the reanimation spell tutored for instead.

GU (or draw2, whitch is a rather catchy name for it actually!) on the other hand is a must counter as you otherwise need at least 2 counters to stop the incoming threat of reanimation.

[Marton]

While I do agree that it is a must counter in dragon (i mean tutor2 (hey that should be THE new name )), the problem is that we were talking about an unpowered dragon, so that means we need to get the kill quickly. It strangely resembles the age-old debate of wether building your deck should be towards speed of kill or consistency/slower kill. 4 mana seems like a lot to me for such a deck.

[KitzuneNinja]

(i mean tutor2 (hey that should be THE new name )

Agreed

the problem is that we were talking about an unpowered dragon, so that means we need to get the kill quickly. It strangely resembles the age-old debate of wether building your deck orienting towards speed of kill or consistency but slower kill. 4 mana seems like a lot to me for such a deck.

I havent seen an unpowered Dragon so I cant tell for sure how much gas it got in form of Artifact-mana, but without moxen+lotus I wouldnt really play a 4-mana tutor and instead go for the more speedy Intuition. This is of course only based on the fact that I havent tested the Tutor2 yet in any form of dragon and only fiddling with ideas.

[Jacob Orlove]

Okay, enough. No more talking about this card until you actually play it.