[Deck] Gifts: The Maindeck

[Machinus]

I haven't played a Gifts deck in a big tournament yet, but I have some small time experience with it and have kept track of its developments. Kowal's thread addressed some general issues regarding the draw engine, kill condition, and sideboard of the deck. I would like to bring up more specific points about the deck, and hear from people who have experience with the deck in large tournaments. Specifically, I am interested in the "optimal" decklist for environments such as SCG, Gencon, Waterbury, etc.


I. Maindeck Bounce

I have a heard a lot of positive feedback about this. Some say that it is necessary to include a rushing river, echoing truth, or utility bounce spell of equivalent caliber to deal with random threats. What are the reasons behind this? Is this accurate? Can the sideboard include 1 or more sorcery answers to the threats the deck faces? In my build I maindeck 2 engineered explosives. Is bounce needed in addition to this?

II. Snow-Covered Islands

I read in a Gifts thread that someone said "there's no reason not to" regarding running SCI. I must disagree with this assertion. Gifts is remarkably similar to other drain decks, especially control slaver. Countering spells and establishing your manabase is the first priority of this deck, and right up until the point where I put gifts on the stack, I don't want my opponent to have an information advantage over me, which leads to disrupting my combo. Rootwater thief dealing damage can ruin your day if you dont also pack belcher or tendrils. The same goes for graveyard removal, active welder, wishing for coffin purge, or whatever else your opponent can possibly do. By laying a SCI, you are alerting your opponent to the fact that they have an additional win condition - disrupt the recursion. Now that Gifts is sufficiently established in the metagame and players know how it works, is it worth the risk?

III. Lands

I havent decided on what base I like best, but there are a lot of options. Right now I am playing with 5 fetches and 9 fetchable lands (currently only 1 non-island, a swamp). Is the deck more or less viable with a 6/8 configuration, like monoblue? With 3 colors, does using 3 of each blue fetch make your combo more reliable, since you need red to go off? Do games ever go on long enough that this ratio has a bigger effect than early game stability? With scrying and force, do life points matter? Also, are cards like Political Trickery really the most efficient answer to maze, boseiju, etc.? Will strip mine ever have a place anywhere in the 75 cards?

IV. Other Issues

I don't want to focus on these too much since there are so many of them and I know there is a lot of disagreement, but some issues that exist are: TfK vs. Scrying, and the proper ratios; Furnace vs. other (EE); how good is duress?; and what do you run in the last few slots? I include wish, FOF, mana vault, and no lotus petal.


I am hoping this discussion will lead to a solid understanding of the best choices to make in building Gifts.

[Kowal]

I. Maindeck Bounce
I really hated explosives until Chalice of the Void became played in like every deck ever for some reason.  I really don't see you having room for more than one solid removal card, especially if you want to run the Burning Wish.  I'm still going to stick with Chain of Vapor here, because it will answer a Chalice 0 even if I have no colorless sources on the board, and it's absolutely crushing and brutal on a slaver turn even against the decks that usually don't care much about mindslaver, like workshop aggro.

II. Snow-Covered Islands
It doesn't come up much, but I have had to gifts for the islands before.  In terms of snow-covered giving away unneeded information, it's totally your call.  Personally I like to put snow-covereds in every deck running islands, just to mess with people.

III. Lands
My favorite manabase is still this:

1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Basics (snow covered or not, your call)
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea

The colors show up when you need them, though the third sea or the lotus petal could easily be another fetch.  The Strip Mine has been very solid for me.

IV. Other Issues
Thirst for Knowledge is the best unrestricted draw spell in type one, and not running four of them is just whack.  Not even whiggedy whack, just regular type.  This has been argued to fucking death, so I'll just leave it at this--  I still think TFK x4 is a necessity and any Scryings is incorrect.  Take it how you will.

[Dozer]

IV. Other Issues
Thirst for Knowledge is the best unrestricted draw spell in type one, and not running four of them is just whack.  Not even whiggedy whack, just regular type.  This has been argued to fucking death, so I'll just leave it at this--  I still think TFK x4 is a necessity and any Scryings is incorrect.  Take it how you will.

I think at least one Scrying is necessary for the Burning Wish-Tutor trick. Toad has described this in detail before, here's the summary: Play Gifts, getting Scrying, Burning Wish, Tinker and Will. You likely get Scrying and Wish in hand, so you play Scrying in the same EOT, remove Will and can then Burning Wish for it. You need to do this when you have burned your Recoup already. It's an alternate Tinker-win, and works fine, too. I think you should always keep this option open, as more options give you added flexibility and thus a better chance to win.

Same goes for the Snow-Covered Island. There are games when you need to maximize every single card, and even if the necessity to Gifts for blue mana does only happen once every 100 games, it's still better.

Dozer

[Smmenen]

The first post is nonsensical.  You're talking about non-issues.  The real debate is on two issues and basically these two issues alone:

1)  the win condition

2) the draw engine.

Talking about the disruption or the mana base just isn't a worthwhile discussion when the bigger issues are so completely unresolved.

My article tommorrow discusses this in detail but I will say that I think all of the draw engines discussed so far are completely wrong in the NON-Belcher lists:

1) Thirst is weak
2) Scryings are not good
3) and Intuition/AK is not suited to the deck.

All three of those draw engines are not correct for the NON-Belcher decks.  I have designed a Gifts list which beats Fish. 

[Lord of the Goats]

IV. Other Issues
Thirst for Knowledge is the best unrestricted draw spell in type one, and not running four of them is just whack.  Not even whiggedy whack, just regular type.  This has been argued to fucking death, so I'll just leave it at this--  I still think TFK x4 is a necessity and any Scryings is incorrect.  Take it how you will.

I think at least one Scrying is necessary for the Burning Wish-Tutor trick. Toad has described this in detail before, here's the summary: Play Gifts, getting Scrying, Burning Wish, Tinker and Will. You likely get Scrying and Wish in hand, so you play Scrying in the same EOT, remove Will and can then Burning Wish for it. You need to do this when you have burned your Recoup already. It's an alternate Tinker-win, and works fine, too. I think you should always keep this option open, as more options give you added flexibility and thus a better chance to win.

Same goes for the Snow-Covered Island. There are games when you need to maximize every single card, and even if the necessity to Gifts for blue mana does only happen once every 100 games, it's still better.

Dozer

i'm not entirely sure why you wouldn't just wish for the recoup. if you've burned recoup, it's wishable... which takes a step out.... but then again, i've never played belcher. 

[dicemanx]

My article tommorrow discusses this in detail but I will say that I think all of the draw engines discussed so far are completely wrong in the NON-Belcher lists:

1) Thirst is weak
2) Scryings are not good
3) and Intuition/AK is not suited to the deck.

All three of those draw engines are not correct for the NON-Belcher decks.   

You are making an assumption that there is an "optimal" draw engine/configuration, but I don't think that this is the case. As with any deck, the correctness of the build is a function of the metagame, and even then you can use the "high risk/high reward" approach to deckbuilding. With regards to the draw engine(s) specifically, Thirsts have been ranging from "best" to "least worst" options, and it's pretty clear at this stage that at least one Scrying should be included for a number of reasons, Gifts Ungiven being at the forefront.

[Smmenen]

Actually, I think you're missing the scope of my claims.  I think that there IS an objectively best draw engine - but it almost entirely depends upon your win condition.  I said that those three draw engines are not optimal for NON-Belcher lists.  Hopefully, in my article that goes live tonight, you'll see that - I spend a good deal of time ripping apart the draw engines that were currently being employed. 

EDIT:

I also think that you are mistaken to say that it is "clear" to have a sscrying.  If there is one thing that Vintage has taught us, it's that people design with blinders.  There is a serious failure of imagination when it comes to design.  Almost nothing like that is "clear." 

[Raph Caron]

I think that there IS an objectively best draw engine - but it almost entirely depends upon your win condition.

There is probably one, but unless you have access to all the decklists being played before a tournament, it's impossible to get the perfect decklist. You can indeed build the best deck possible according to what you play, but those choices might be less then optimal when confronted to your opponents' decks, something you cannot control. I think that's what dicemanx wanted to express, but, paradoxaly, he makes the same "mistake" by indicating himself that a card - Scrying - should be played. Funny!

[dicemanx]

I also think that you are mistaken to say that it is "clear" to have a sscrying.  If there is one thing that Vintage has taught us, it's that people design with blinders.  There is a serious failure of imagination when it comes to design.  Almost nothing like that is "clear." 

Well, both theory and experience make it "clear". Keep in mind that the build you have presented is much different on a few levels in comparison to the standard Gifts.fr and the modified build that I used at SCG:Rochester. Your build is very aggressive, something that is both reflected in the manabase, running 4 Gifts, and the fact that you choose to run Misdirections. I'm not entirely convinced that this approach to Gifts is the way to go, but it might be entirely correct for certain metas. This is something I spoke about at length in my tournament report - I chose a more steady approach, opting for slower more controlling cards, more stable mana base, removal heavy main deck (Cunning Wish and Furnaces). Notice in such builds the Gifts count is at three, although the 3rd Gifts in the deck is debatable because you really don't always want to see Gifts early. In your build, its all about the Gifts, which makes it very logical to run all 4 along with the support staff (Merchant Scrolls and Misdirections).

You saying that there IS an objectively best engine is indirectly making a claim on how the deck is best played - very aggressively. Maybe you're right, maybe not, but I think its much too early to make such claims.

I will still maintain that running at least 1 Scrying is mandatory in the old Gifts builds for a variety of reasons - this claim was never disputed and I suspect it never will be - it has NOTHING to do with having "blinders" on during the deck design process. I would not entertain any ideas of running Scrying in your new build, which uses similar tools but differs mana wise and aggression.

[Smmenen]

Do you still hold that view Peter?  Hmmm?    Now that meandeck gifts is unveiled?

[forests failed you]

I would have to agree with Diceman;  I would much rather be playing his list in a varied field of decks because it has a much better match up against Workshops.  At Starcity Chicago I had a brief conversation with Godot, who was playing a Gifts list that was similar to the Meandeck version, and he told me that it rolls over to Stax.  After reviewing the Meandeck gifts list, as well as talking to players who chose to play it in Chicago, I would consider Meandeck Gifts to be an optimized version of Gifts for a Mana Drain heavy environment.  However, I think that the anti-control metagaming decision leaves the deck vulnerable against Workshops, and even to a certain extent, to decks that play Wasteland and Chalice of the Void.

[MaxxMatt]

I feel that the two versions available at now for Drain-Gifts aren't mutually exclusive.
They don't win in the areas where the other simply lose.

I love the configuration of the Gifts.dec that I'm playing now and I feel that it have a lot of capability of dealing with Fishes and MW.dec, exactly as MG has, because of his strong and new "technology".

It is slightly different from the one played by DicemanX and doesn't resemble the Steve's maindeck deck configuration too.

The "Gifted" configuration inherently have a worst matchup against MW.dec that are aware of our cards by cards configuration because we have a lot of 1cc spells, if compared with the Steve's one.
I tried to minimize them at the minimum playable, and it isn't that bad when they automatically play a cotv for 1 and I can always be able to produce spells and strong effects with my other good cards.

On the other hand, the Steve's build as a little issue on CotV for 1 while it can be stopped or slowed down by a quick cotv for 2. I'm sure that a skilled opponent would play CotV for 2 against Steve rather than playing the CotV for 1, but I'm not sure of the amount of well informed and well prepared players at now, so the "placebo" of the inherent news that this deck brings with it, is really so strong to overcome his drawbacks.

IMHO, this deck best perform against Fishes.dec of all the categories ( with Rods, with Vials, with Wizards, with Ninja, with Jiitte and so on ) and have a good matchup against Control decks if it can explode with mana accelerations and good plays in the first turns of the game.



I would like to point out that the two versions are inherently different not because of their strenght in a specific enviroment ( that can be balanced by little and smart maindeck changes by a prepared player ), but especially because of  their approach to the game, that is completely conditioned by a Dominant Early Game for the Steve's build and Dominant Mid Game for the "rest of the world's" build.


I'm sure that maindecking things like Crypts, Tormod's or Needle is really a waste of space in both of the two builds, both to have more tools against Gifts or to have more tools when playing with Gifts.

These decks win by themselves. without too many tricks or too many strange plays.
Avoid counters and hate with Skills and then go for the win in one of the better ways available in that specific game situations.
The two ( or three ) ways to win available let you to play around the commonly used hate so easily that the Needles are the only cards that I feel really necessary in the side, because they cover the only little "black point" of the deck: Dealing with Actived abilities, especially oming from lands.


MaxxMatt