[article]out of the CAB test-pits

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Northern America is not alone. We build decks, too
I hope some of you will enjoy the deck as much as I do. It's nearly as much fun for me as The Shining was.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8671

Oh and could someone please tell me what "Epstein's mother" is supposed to refer to? I have no idea... but I'll take the extra street-cred anyway (read the text on the scg-frontpage, if you don't understand this question)

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Great Job to Mon and the rest of CAB.

Its nice to see the work of people in our community.

[bebe]

Thoroughly enjoyable read.  I tested Recoup/Gifts in my Highlander deck last night after reading your article and have been very pleased with the interactions. Now to find some other applications - Draco/Explosion?

BTW,some  North Americans are members and contributers to the European sites.

[MrZuccinniHead]

nice job on the deck.  I have been testing it and piloting it to wonderous results.

[Angel]

The phrase "Epstein's Mother" is from the American TV show "Welcome Back, Kotter", I believe. I forget actually which years the show ran, but it's rather old.

Great article. I like the deck and am going to start bringing into my testing group... It seems like a nice surprise to play at an American tournament.

-John

[sierra_gandalf]

excuse my english but im spanish and i dont know much english. I think that only 1 DSC for tinker and the decree in the SB aren't enought win conditions. i run platinum angel for more win conditions (over sundering titan, because you have a lot of dual lands). BUt the deck seems consistent and it's very good to me. Byez.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

excuse my english but im spanish and i dont know much english. I think that only 1 DSC for tinker and the decree in the SB aren't enought win conditions. i run platinum angel for more win conditions (over sundering titan, because you have a lot of dual lands). BUt the deck seems consistent and it's very good to me. Byez.

Well, if you read the article carefully, you saw that I said the exact same thing when Maxim suggested we should just remove the secondary kill-combo. None of us had problems with not being able to kill because DS C was StPed or something similar in a single game. The only thing we were missing at rare moments was an actual single turn kill, because Walk was already removed and something like Slaver-lock going active on the other side of the board next turn.

[wonkey_donkey]

I like the deck a lot. The article was an interesting read - I very much appreciated the explanations of the various iterations of the deck, what worked and what didn't etc. I felt that your writing style was very punchy - I'm one of those people who usually don't mind the additional spiel, most of which adds a little context but that's about it. This time I was grateful for something that my eyes didn't just slide over. Nice work, all told.

Tom

[Necropotenza]

It's been a great read Carsten, specially because you show the whole evolution of the deck until now.
Keep the articles/reports coming.
Congratulations!

[sierra_gandalf]

congratulations for the article, it explains very good why do you run some cards over than, for example, mind twist. I've read that, and, if you know that in your current meta will be a lot of StP, will you run another win condition?? in that case, what will you run?

[Thug]

First of all good attempt at breaking a card that has to be broken.
Second, why no Deep Analysis. Granted I have not got the experience with the deck that you have, but it seems pretty amazing with Gifts, and with 4 at least 1 DA seems a natural fit.

And 3 Volcanic seemed slightly high to me (compared to 2 Seas and 1 Tundra). This probably depends a lot on the sideboard though. But op paper chaging one of the Volcanics into something like a CoB seems pretty decent. (CoB looks like it makes you able to rely more on early Duress and a lategame Decree)

Great work,

Koen

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Thanks to everyone for congrats

Some explanations/replies:

congratulations for the article, it explains very good why do you run some cards over than, for example, mind twist. I've read that, and, if you know that in your current meta will be a lot of StP, will you run another win condition?? in that case, what will you run?

If my meta did have a ton of StP and other removal that might hit DSC, I'd quite simply put Mind Twist back into the MD, as Mind Twist is a game-winning spell all by itself, at least.
This is a Will deck, nothing else. After you've cast Will, destroy the opponents hand (either with Duress or if for some reason necessary Mind Twist) and draw millions of cards. Tinker->DS C is really just cleaning up after you have already defeated the opponent. I don't want to clog my MD with useless tools to reduce life totals.
The only games I do cast Tinker before that point, my opponent either doesn't run spot-removal or I know he can't deal with DS C thanks to Duress (+ counters in my hand for his topdecks).

Second, why no Deep Analysis. Granted I have not got the experience with the deck that you have, but it seems pretty amazing with Gifts, and with 4 at least 1 DA seems a natural fit.

Well, in my opinion Deep Analysis sucks with Gifts. To make my position understandable, you have to consider the following things:

- Gifts is not Intuition. You won't be getting multiple Deep Anals, burying at least some of them.

- I think a Deep Analysis in my hand sucks. Sorcerys with a cc of 4+ are not something I want to cast. I hated it in Tog and I'd hate it here, too.

-The goal with Gifts Ungiven is getting cards to your hand, that are as broken as possible. Deep Analysis is defintily not broken and I don't want it in my hand. Helping the opponent making decisions is bad, mmmmkay  

- If I don't search for Deep Analysis, the cards I get to my hand and can cast will win me the game far sooner than the few cards D.A would draw me for 6 mana.
 
For short, Deep Analysis in a Gifts Ungiven-pile is just being nice to your opponent. He has one easy thing to drop into your hand. I'd much rather start casting incredible broken things right now than wasting four mana to set up a good 2 mana draw 2 spell. As long as you want to play D.A. with Gifts Ungiven you have not realized, that Gifts is actually more powerful than both, Fact or Fiction and Intuition, as long as you build your deck correctly. There is only one objective to Gifted - Go broken safely.

And 3 Volcanic seemed slightly high to me (compared to 2 Seas and 1 Tundra). This probably depends a lot on the sideboard though. But op paper chaging one of the Volcanics into something like a CoB seems pretty decent. (CoB looks like it makes you able to rely more on early Duress and a lategame Decree)

Well, there are only 2 Seas because I have a basic Swamp, so I don't have to fear loosing all my black sources to Wastelands. The Tundra is for Balance and (the rare) Decree only, so having it wasted after I use it isn't much of a problem.

I can't play a mountain and I don't need red mana early, but Red mana is still of mayor importance lategame, because without Recoup Gifting away Will kills you, pretty much, so 3 real red sources is the absolute minimum I want to run.
As for the special point of replacing a Volcanic with a City, that's an option I thought about myself, too. The reason I didn't do it, yet, is simply that the manabase worked fine the way it is*, so far, and I usually tap all my lands almost every turn. That would be quite a lot of pain, if City is one of my starting lands and I simply don't see a need for that right now.

*if I was going back to boarding Seal of Cleansing I'd most definily add the City, though. I just liked E.E. better as the solution for the Enchantment-problem.
 
Well, I hope this cleared up some issues, have fun.

[sierra_gandalf]

thanks for the explanation, i will test and i will comment you all that i'll find about the deck and some cards useless and better choices

[LeRoux]

I started playing this deck a couple days ago, and I do love the results! I did have a lot of problems with Dragon in game 1 (pre-SB) but maybe he was just quite lucky. I did not have the chance to play against a wide variety of decks though, but I'm still working on that.

I just thought about something though, it's not so much of a big deal but, how would you play the deck if your opponent dropped a first turn Tormod's Crypt. You said it yourself, this deck is a Yawgmoth's Will deck, thus Tormod's Crypt stops your main tutor (Gifts Ungiven) from being effective. Would you just go heavy disruption/Tinker-DC, or try to tutor up EE to clear the Crypt, or maybe something else!

[Thug]

Well, in my opinion Deep Analysis sucks with Gifts. To make my position understandable, you have to consider the following things:

- Gifts is not Intuition. You won't be getting multiple Deep Anals, burying at least some of them.

- I think a Deep Analysis in my hand sucks. Sorcerys with a cc of 4+ are not something I want to cast. I hated it in Tog and I'd hate it here, too.

-The goal with Gifts Ungiven is getting cards to your hand, that are as broken as possible. Deep Analysis is defintily not broken and I don't want it in my hand. Helping the opponent making decisions is bad, mmmmkay  

- If I don't search for Deep Analysis, the cards I get to my hand and can cast will win me the game far sooner than the few cards D.A would draw me for 6 mana.

For short, Deep Analysis in a Gifts Ungiven-pile is just being nice to your opponent. He has one easy thing to drop into your hand. I'd much rather start casting incredible broken things right now than wasting four mana to set up a good 2 mana draw 2 spell. As long as you want to play D.A. with Gifts Ungiven you have not realized, that Gifts is actually more powerful than both, Fact or Fiction and Intuition, as long as you build your deck correctly. There is only one objective to Gifted - Go broken safely.

I tried the deck for a while and actually liked the DA pretty much, but I have an explenation for this. I played the deck as a control deck, getting card advantage through Gift's instead of winning with it. This is probably because I don't know all the ins and outs of the deck and the better Gift options.

I didn't really liked the Balance and the Mana Vault, and both Recoup and Burning Wish were far better than I expected. I actually sometimes felt that a second Recoup could be justified, what are your thoughts on this?

Koen

[Negator13]

The Chains of Mephistopheles in your sideboard really got me thinking about its interaction with Gifts. I don't have a list or anything, but doesn't a deck with FoF, Gifts, and Impulse alongside 3-4 Chains sound intriguing? It could have a win condition along the same lines as yours (Will ---> Tinker/DSC) but include the ridiculousness that is Chains.

Am I wrong or is Chains just incredibly disruptive to just about every non-Workshop deck in the format right now?

[Toggodkook]

First I want to congratulate team CAB for building a new deck. Playing staxs for such a long time now and I am tired of playing or even smelling any card thats "grey" (aka 3sphere); The "Gifted" deck is probably worth testing it.

Secondly...here are my thougts on the deck.

I don`t know whether Balance is worth the single tundra splash. I hate decks that are none-redudant. I do recognize that Balance is not that random in this deck as it can be well tutored. But I think that if you play your Gifts ungiven you want to set up the kill. Digging and gifting for situational cards is nothing pleasing to me.

Perhaps it is possible to remove the tundra? That would also have the positive effect that it can be build more "CoW-resistent". As there are nearly 30% stax-decks in my meta I would make that decision.  

At Last but not last...greetings to Karsten.  

[Gabethebabe]

The Chains of Mephistopheles in your sideboard really got me thinking about its interaction with Gifts. I don't have a list or anything, but doesn't a deck with FoF, Gifts, and Impulse alongside 3-4 Chains sound intriguing? It could have a win condition along the same lines as yours (Will ---> Tinker/DSC) but include the ridiculousness that is Chains.

Am I wrong or is Chains just incredibly disruptive to just about every non-Workshop deck in the format right now?

If you play cards maindeck that only work against control and combo, prepare for more 1st game losses against Workshop and aggro.

Besides: everybody and its mother is prepared to fight enchantments nowadays.

[Negator13]

Point taken.

Anyway, as to CAB's actual deck, I'm wondering if you can simply take a page out of Tutor TPS's book and plan on going for the usual Gifts --> Will plan: Mystical, DT, VT, Lotus. That set of cards ensures a Will the following turn, with a Lotus in yard to pay for it. It allows you to axe the Recoup for another, more useful(?) card.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I just thought about something though, it's not so much of a big deal but, how would you play the deck if your opponent dropped a first turn Tormod's Crypt. You said it yourself, this deck is a Yawgmoth's Will deck, thus Tormod's Crypt stops your main tutor (Gifts Ungiven) from being effective. Would you just go heavy disruption/Tinker-DC, or try to tutor up EE to clear the Crypt, or maybe something else!

Well, Crypt is definitly annoying. You try one of the things you mentioned, draw it out by using Recoup before burying enough brokeness to make Will useless afterwards or cast an early Will to bait it, than get Will back with the Burning Wish. The main thing Crypt does is making the deck harder to play correctly, because you can't do the basic brokeness-Gifts any more (Ancestral, Walk, Will, Recoup).

As for Dragon, I haven't seen that here forever, so there's no testing data available, sorry. With the similarities Gifted has to Shining however, I guess your control-cards should more often than not be able to hold him of enough to win before he can. There shouldn't be a lategame where the Bazaar-engine can shine.  

I tried the deck for a while and actually liked the DA pretty much, but I have an explenation for this. I played the deck as a control deck, getting card advantage through Gift's instead of winning with it. This is probably because I don't know all the ins and outs of the deck and the better Gift options.

I didn't really liked the Balance and the Mana Vault, and both Recoup and Burning Wish were far better than I expected. I actually sometimes felt that a second Recoup could be justified, what are your thoughts on this?

Koen

Well, Deep Anal is nice in the rare case that you want to go for Duress, FoW, Drain + X (Brainstorm, in my list, or something you want in the Graveyard for your Will-turn). But as you mentioned, that's a really controlish play, which I rarely feel the need to do.
This controlish playstyle is also an explanation why you didn't like Mana Vault (even though you're right, it's always on the edge of being cut).

The second Recoup was in the deck for quite some time, it's really nice utility which we liked a lot. It just doesn't solve any of the problem-cards the deck has, so we did cut it, as it is not actually necessary to have more than one Recoup for the deck to work. You just loose to not killing Welder more than to drawing F/I or explosives when you could draw Recoup.

Burning Wish was a spontaneous idea we had when we still had two Recoup, and it turned out amazing, just as you recognized, too. Even with only one Recoup.

Balance, as mentioned further down, is the global reset you need if your draw turned bad on you (as in you can't win before aggro can kill you). Because I regularly have less cards in hand* than my opponents (prior to my win(ll)-turn), it's almost always something I can easily use to turn tides when necessary. If your metagame is devoid of things that drop more than one creature, though, there might be things that are worth running in it's place. Balance is pretty much the catch all that finishes all kinds of aggro-decks where Tinker->DS C doesn't happen to help any more enough.

*mine are usually just a lot better than those in the opponents hand

As for Gifting "correctly", simply don't worry what you might bury. Just try to get broken cards into your hand, removing from your deck whatever you must. Always play as if you cast Will later on anyway. Setting that up is your goal. You'll be amazed how much faster you'll win oftentimes

Anyway, as to CAB's actual deck, I'm wondering if you can simply take a page out of Tutor TPS's book and plan on going for the usual Gifts --> Will plan: Mystical, DT, VT, Lotus. That set of cards ensures a Will the following turn, with a Lotus in yard to pay for it. It allows you to axe the Recoup for another, more useful(?) card.

Well, and what do you do if you already used one of the Tutors? Remember that this deck doesn't have Necro or things like it. In addition to that, Gifting for broken stuff directly means you get a super-FoF instead of a Lotus and a Tutor for Will. This allows you to play with far more options than the strict gameplan of going for Tutors would allow you, as well as making additional Gifts good.

The Chains of Mephistopheles in your sideboard really got me thinking about its interaction with Gifts. I don't have a list or anything, but doesn't a deck with FoF, Gifts, and Impulse alongside 3-4 Chains sound intriguing? It could have a win condition along the same lines as yours (Will ---> Tinker/DSC) but include the ridiculousness that is Chains.

Am I wrong or is Chains just incredibly disruptive to just about every non-Workshop deck in the format right now?

Chains is really cool... I don't have problems with the control-matchups, though. And the loss of Brainstorm would weaken the deck far more than the addition of Chains would strengthen it.
 
Not to mention Gaby is right, too.

I don`t know whether Balance is worth the single tundra splash. I hate decks that are none-redudant. I do recognize that Balance is not that random in this deck as it can be well tutored. But I think that if you play your Gifts ungiven you want to set up the kill. Digging and gifting for situational cards is nothing pleasing to me.

Perhaps it is possible to remove the tundra? That would also have the positive effect that it can be build more "CoW-resistent". As there are nearly 30% stax-decks in my meta I would make that decision.

Hi Benjamin, nice to see you finally got to this place, too.
The single Island you can add in place of the Tundra doesn't make a huge difference, imo. In the meantime Balance is winning games where you did have a bad draw, which is one of the main things this deck needs. A good draw is very hard to beat anyway. Also see what I responded to Thug.

As for the a Stax-dominated Meta, well, I guess you should up the SB-hate for Workshop a bit in that case. You can probably take one or two slots from the anti control- and combo-part, considering that much Workshop has to take it's room in the meta from something. It might also be a good idea to learn a lesson from TPS and add something like Rebuild to the main in place of Explosives.

[Chamelet]

well, I loved the deck. Some guys try to put it away saying it´s just "bad keeper", but it's much more.
I played the deck on a local tourney, with some random decks plus 2 mono-blues and 1 cranial assassin. I won the tournament undefeated. I lost only 1 game to a mono-blue player and because I made a mistake during the game.
I still think the deck lacks creature spot removal and enchantment removal. That said, I'm going to add a Vindicate to the sideboard, since it kills both and is wishable. (maybe I put the new sorcery disenchant from betrayers).
Another option is to add a Cunning Wish MD and a swords+disenchant to the side, but I think this isn't that good.
I'll try the Vindicate next time.

Just to point out what I'm saying about the deck, in one game I did land+mox+vault go.
he did land+mox
In the pass, I did a gifts for: Lotus+will+recoup+tinker. I tinkered next turn and won it there.
The other game, I also did a 1st turn Gifts for time walk+will+lotus+tinker (with recoup in hand). The only thing the opponent did was lay a land.

And I would like to say: DON'T take the Mana Vault out. This decks needs fast mana and every help is useful. Against a no-counter, no-3sphere deck (that's hard, I know, but you can also duress or counter them) you can win 1st-2nd turn easily.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

@Chamelet: Good to hear you like the deck. As for you're 1-2nd turn kills, those _should_ be rather rare, turn 3-4 is usually possible against the goldfish, though.
Also, Mana Vault sometimes just sucks. The speed is just often necessary, though, as you realized correctly. That's why it's still in there .

@Thug and Deep Analysis: I think I have found a good place for Deep Analysis in the deck. The Sideboard. I lately realize I sometimes want to Wish for something on turn 2-4 vs a heavy Control-deck with some mana on the table, and nothing in the SB is good by than.
And D.A. is probably the best sorcery to get vs Control if you don't have business and quite some mana (which is why you want to play Wish early, usually, as long as you mulligan correctly). It might also be actually a nice board-in vs something like Oath or MonoU where you have to fight through 12+ real counters, so that you can't be sure you're disruption actually clears all of them and want more protection before using Gifts for the win-play.

[ChaosTheory]

Good job on breaking Gifts. I was going to try but it looks like you beat me to it.
I'll have to give this deck a try.  

[Chamelet]

Deep Analysis: I don't like the card at all. Against control, I prefer a REB and a Pyroblast, which I think is better than DA. But maybe I'm wrong. But Gifting for Pyro+REB+Duress+broken stuff is great against any control. (yeah, chains would be good here...)

You didn't say anything about the enchantment-creature spot removal. Don't you think it's necessary. (maybe not the creature, but the enchantment). I know you say Explosives is enough, but sometimes it would be better to run a wishable disenchant.
(oh, I thought about a nice card against small creatures: Slice and Dice SB. Kills fish and welder, but I don't know if it's worth the slot)
I wonder if adding 61th card Cunning Wish is good. What do you think? Just because Burning Wish is also a win condition and, with tons of welders around, maybe it's not good to spend a win condition in an early game threat. I don't know... didn't happen to me, but could lose a game to it. Cunning Wish would be there as instant utility, and you could save Burning just to an extreme case. What do you think about this? Were you never afraid of Wishing then losing your colossus and not be able to win?
Anyway, I'm going to play with 61 cards and an extra win condition: Mind Twist.

My sideboard is:
1 REB
1 Pyroblast (or DA)
1 Chalice
1 Null Rod
1 BEB
1 Coffin Purge
1 Lava Dart
2 Annul (great!)
1 Engineered Plague (this is the most awesome SB tech!)
1 Blood Moon
1 Decree of Justice
1 Primitive Justice
1 Chainer Edict
1 Vindicate

(I'm not running Rack and Ruin because of a metagame call, and Chains is out 'cause I don't have it...)
I guess I could also take the Primitive Justice or Vindicate out for the new sorcery disenchant Terashi's Grasp. What do you think?