[Premium Article] Meandeck Gifts

[Methuselahn]

I am going to assume that a big part of this deck is that it rides surprise value to victory.  So, why did you release this deck if it fills the holes that other Gifts decks don't?  Why not save it and exploit it at a large upcoming tournament like SCG-Chicago, or something?  ESPECIALLY  if Fish "is the reason to play this deck."  Fish becomes much more powerful if it knows the opponent's deck and thus how to attack it.  Releasing the list seems somewhat sadistic to the deck.

This issue has puzzled me the most and I have not been able to come up with an answer yet.

Seeing as how I think this deck wields surprise as a new deck, I am most interested in your results versus your team and their decks.  The ones in particular are Ashok's deck with the Chalices and Mages.  The other is Kevin and his Stax decks.  Seeing as how the deck bottlenecks a lot of it's business spells at 2 casting cost,  and the fact that he would know this, don't you fear Chalice more so and doesn't it become a serious problem? 

Is 4 Fetchies really enough?  If the deck is so dependant on abusing Brainstorm for card quality,  can you up the fetches to 5, maybe cutting a Volcanic?  What's your thoughts there?  It just seems odd to me having 4 fetches and 10 fetchable lands.

Enough with 'go read the article' hogwash. If you really wish to discuss the deck in full detail here, then you would have posted your article here. This is where I could try and argue that SCG Premium literally splits TheManaDrain community into who does and does not have Premium access and how it makes TMD dependent on SCG, but I won't.

I will test it, but I will not read your article.  Sorry.

[xrobx]

Although I do slightly agree with you Methuselahn, there are many factors you have to take into consideration before assuming the release of a decklist is damning to its success.

First, I think that the meta right now is flooded with fish.  This appears very evident at many recent tournament reports and listings.  That said, many fish players will construct a sideboard to deal with the said prominant deck, as it only makes sense.  If you are playing fish, and go into a tournament expecting tons of fish, likely you will want to have a decent mirror against fish.  I believe fish is the most versatile deck right now, but at the same time, needs to construct a very relative [to the meta] sideboard in order to successfully place in the top 8.  Chances are, that against combo, fish will rely on its maindeck chalices, possibly dazes, and sideboard arcane lab or some such setup.  Other fish decks may run stifle or orim's chant and assume that is sufficient hate.

The problem here for fish, is that this deck has a good matchup against fish, meaning game 1 should be okay.  You have misD, manadrain, and FoW to deal with there stupid chalices, and vials.  Colossus is > fishes weenies.  All and all, you should have no problems with fish.

Now, back to the original question, "Why post here?  It will only make your deck less plausable, etc etc etc..."

As demonstrated, fish is going to metagame for what fish wants to metagame.  Every other deck in the format will follow suit.  Since fish is so prevalent, there are many many possibilities to build decks around right now, as aggro is usually > fish.  You may see a return of shopaggro, or even a lot of RG based hate decks.  Tog and hulk are looking promissing, as are many other aggro variants.  All and all, the format is very balanced and releasing such a decklist really doesn't affect its matchups at all, because chances are that with the number of decks around, the fish player (unless very skilled) is going to have a hard time using meddling mage to his full potential, and may make mistakes that cost games.  Let's face it, usually TPS runs duress.  This build does not, a usual good play of vialing out a mage naming duress is useless against this build, and puts you behind in card advantage when the TPuS drains your chalice for 1, and sets up a huge scroll/gifts.  TPuS laughs at the creatures on the board, and simply wins with DSC or combos out.

Case and point: your mages are not sufficient to deal with the power of this deck, even if you do know the build of ONE of the many gifts based decks.

[Smmenen]

I am going to assume that a big part of this deck is that it rides surprise value to victory.

Not at all. I honestly beleive this is the objectively strongest Gifts deck.  Fish is A reason to play this deck - but not THE reason.  It has lots of inherent power and inherent resilience provided by Merchant Scroll.  It abuses one of the best unrestricted cards in the format: Gifts Ungiven more so than any other deck and it is centrally reliant upon all five of the best restricted cards: Academy, Time Walk, Tinker, Yawg Will and Ancestral.  In any given game, you will likely play all five. 

EDIT: I agree with you, though, that Fish players will now have a bigger advantage having known about it - but it has been some time since I've open-sourced some of my best tech like this.  I think its healthy to do that once in a while - for the mana drain and the format. 

I think Whatever Works win ratios are a product of his inexperience with it most likely.  Gifts is a tricky card to play.  I havet had highly favorable matchups against whatever I played against - and most of my losses were simply due to inexperience/mistakes/miscues. 

The article does two things:

1) It analyzes in great detail the reasoning behind my crtiicism of the other draw engines
2) explains the basic logic behind the configuration

It doesn't go into detail about playing the deck - it just explains the key design choices.  So, the scope of this thread can be about questions in the article or about how to play the deck and its various matchups. 

@ Whatever Works: I also tested against TPS and didn't have any problems.  I honestly didn't have that much of a problem with Duress simply becuase of how Gifts works and becuase of Brainstorms. 

EDIT:
@ Whatever Works: I have no idea what the hell Tog list you were running because I did my Tog testing against Joe Bushman and it was no contest.  Gifts wins hands down.  At least Control Slaver can threaten to slave you on turn three - Tog can't do anything to you at all in the early game.

Against Oath, the trick is usually finishing them off with the Burning Wish - Tendrils or Time Walk play.  Often you can only get one swing in with Colossus before you just have to Tendrils finish the job. But Oath has a very high variance.  If it doesn't get the nuts immediately, it will very likely lose. 

More EDITS:

I will answer any questions you have.  If there is a question that has already been asked but has not been answered by the article or this thread, just re-post the question and I'll answer it

I also really appreciate Dozer's comments.  I feel identically about the deck.  I think my teammates were very skeptical at first until they saw how smooth it ran as I was piloting it.  I met strong resistence - the only person who beleived me was Joe Bushman because I developed this testing agaisnt him. 

[doylehancock]

Steve, I like the article.  I dont know what to say about mechant scroll.  I will playtest the deck and get a better feel for it.  Instead of merchant scroll I would run another draw engine but as you explained in your article the others dont fit with this deck.  I always thought the rule fo type 1 is whomever draws more cards will win.  Now granted that isnt always true but drawing cards doesnt hurt either.

How would you say this deck handles UW decks?  Have you tested it against UW decks?  I am worried about swords.  Granted you have burning wish but if your win condition is a creature you have a lot of issues with the deck. 

Would you run this deck in a tourney?

Again great deck and article I just have some questions.  Thanks.

[Smmenen]

Not only would I run this in a tournament, I will likely be playing this at the only Origins event I attend.

Basically, consider what I said in the article: how much does it really take to protect a Colossus if you have managed to resolve the Tinker and the Gifts?  If you can Walk in time, then it probably takes one or two, at the most, countermagic.  That is almost always the case by the time you get to that point.  If you are that concerned about Plow -  - then resolve Will FIRST to get huge card advantage.  That way, when you Tinker (after you have Willed), you're hand will be absolutely massive and no PLow + FOW will be able to stop the colossus. 

One thing I probably should have mentioned in more detail in the article about Scroll: Scroll + Ancestral is 3cc draw thiree cards.  Why do I need to keep drawing cards after that if Gifts will just win?  If you can leverage that short burst of card advantage into a winning Gifts, I don't see why its necessary to continue to draw more cards.  And even if it is, it isn't hard to use Gifts and Fact and Brainstorms to increase your card advantage and quality whatever bit necessary to get to the point where you can win.

[doylehancock]

Couple more questions:  You never really explained how quick the deck is.  What turn do you usually win on?  Do you feel 4 gifts is needed?

[Smmenen]

That's a really difficult question to answer.   It depends upon the matchup and the amount of accelleration you get.  Sometimes I'll get the land, mox, mana crypt hand and that often leads to a turn two or turn three win.  There are other ways to win that fast.  A turn one Brainstorm into a Lotus or a secoind mox with Academy.  Time Walk with Brainstorm can make you see alot of accelleration.  Two artifacts with Academy practically gaurantees that your opponent does not get a third turn (or at least a third turn of consequence). 

However, I prefer the land heavy hands against decks like Fish becuase they have no clock.  Land drops for multiple turns that become basic lands means that you can gifts on turn three or so and your game will be very strong.  The deck is about the speed and variance of the speed of TPS.  You can push it to go faster or slower depending upon the situation.  Also, this deck is much faster than most gifts decks becuase of the lack of Duress and the ways in which that disrupts your own mana. 

Not only is four gifts needed, if I could play more, I'd probably have six in the deck.  At the least, no less than five.

[PucktheCat]

Looks solid to me.  Your draw engine theory - one short burst as quickly as possible - really plays to the strengths of Gifts.  It seems to me that one of the keys to doing well with the deck must be good situational decision making with Gifts - you are relying on it as an important draw spell and tutor as well as a one card combo.  Would you mind writing just a bit about what some common Gifts configurations are for you?  I don't need the game winning arrangements; I think I have a handle on those.  I am more interested in some common situation-specific choices.

Thanks,
Leo

[Smmenen]

I don't actually know if making incredibly perfect midgame gifts is really key to the decks success.  I think it just really powerful like BBS. 

I still don't have the whole perfecting mid-game Gifts down, but what I tend to do is to mix the "combo" with other cards.  For example, I will put Yawg will and in a pile with two other cards in an attempt to get the two other cards.  So that I get some good card advantage and quality and subsequent Gifts will finish the combo off. 

I actually do the "Mana" gifts more than you might imagine - that is the Gifts of like: Academy, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring.  However, one key play I do alot (or forget to do) is actually to Tinker up Black Lotus if I'm going to just time walk and then Yawg Will.  It makes the protection of the Colossus much easier. 

The gifts I go for are even more situation specific than Doomsdays.  One Gifts I've done before is Misdirection, Force of Will, Mana Drain, and a broken spell.  But that is pretty unusual. 

The key thing to remember is that you can force an opponent to give you what you want if you put broken enough cards in the Gifts pile. 

For a while I had one Scrying in here becuase I felt that Scrying would be good in the "control" gifts - but it was pretty crappy.  I learned not to put Ancestral in a Gifts becuase you'll never get it.  Like I said, one Gifts I'll do is: Scroll, Brainstorm, Gifts and Fact and they almost always give you Gifts and Fact.  You could try different configurations as well. 

I hope that helps - it's pretty non-specific. 

[virtual]

So I have to say that I think this is possibly the best Meandeck Incarnation yet, from my minimal testing.

I would have to say this deck plays like TPS to me.  It is slightly more controllish.  The ability to go scroll->Force of Will is really nice, if you want to play control.  I think scroll->ancestral on turn 1 is a bit silly unless you have serious counter backup.  Resolving an early ancestral though does seem like a reality that is doable, and after that this can either play like "Kesler's Keeper" where having developed that card advantage you can't lose, or it can just combo out ridiculously fast. 

Enough artifact hate can be harmful, so this isn't the end-all-be-all of type 1, but it certainly is a powerhouse.  I think that a few notes might be able to come from TPS lists in order to diversify the deck a bit more, and maybe even make it faster.  Not sure yet though because it might destroy your ability to fall back on the control role. 

Gifts for mana is great.  Gifts for draw is great.  Gifts for protection is great.  Also, as a note, if you yawg, and can't timewalk (or can't timewalk twice), a fist full of pitch counters is just as good as a timewalk in a lot of ways.

-Virtual

[TimeWizzle]

In my testing of various gifts builds, I have always been a fan of this gifts stack: Merchant scroll, Mystical tutor, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric tutor.  This is for more of a YawgWill powered win, but whichever two they give you (most likely scroll and mystical) you can grab Will and go stupid (and with the other two tutors already in your graveyard from the gifts, you should be able to tutor at least twice more under the Will.)  The casting of multiple tutors is also strong if you are going for the tendrils kill. 
One question for Steve - In my opinion, FoF blows compared to the raw power of Gifts.  Although the deck is jam packed with bombs, sometimes FoF will draw nothing but crap.  Being that we can't run more than 4 Gifts, I wonder if Intuition might be better than Fact here?  3 Gifts, Scrolls, Brainstorms, pitch counters, etc. seems good to me.  Or just grabbing Will, Tinker, Time Walk when you already have recoup.  Just some thoughts.

AJOB

[Hi-Val]

Fact finds you one or two elements that make casting a Gifts much easier. I was skeptical about it at first, but FOF really puts you into things that you no longer need to Gifts for. You'll see a Scroll or a Recoup or a tutor and your job will be much easier. FOF also pulls out counterspells like nothing else.

I love that it's percieved that we released this on a conspiracy to mess with the metagame. I find this particularly funny because Steve released this list without talking about it with us first, since he won't be playing in any events for months. Some of the other team members, myself included, will be playing this until it is restricted, and I would have hoped it would have remained secret, but whatever. Now everyone gets the joy of casting three Gifts Ungiven in one turn (which happens more than you would think).

[Dozer]

I honestly beleive this is the objectively strongest Gifts deck.

I second that. As I said, I have seen quite a couple of Gifts-lists evolve, and even on paper this is the most streamlined version. I have yet to test it properly, but will do so on Friday. My Apprentice-testing today has persuaded me to sleeve the deck in any case.

I think a major factor why this is the best Gifts-list so far is because this the list that puts Gifts Ungiven in the center of its strategy. That may sound trivial, but this is no more a Tog-skeleton with Gifts and DSC instead of Togs for the win. This is not an alternate method for a Belcher kill. This is a deck that resolves one Gifts to set up and one Gifts to win. There is no fiddling around with Wishes here, no waiting for anything: seven tutors get what you need. 11 out of 60 cards are either engine themselves or get the engine (4 Gifts + 7 Tutors). So getting to the core of the deck is easy. And with this core, you access the most broken cards in the game more regularly than any other deck. This deck guarantees you an Ancestral Recall at least once every game. I have yet to play a testing game where I didn't get Ancestral at one point. Merchant Scroll + Gifts is STRONG. Again, very good call, Steve.

Like I said, one Gifts I'll do is: Scroll, Brainstorm, Gifts and Fact

That is probably the most intriguing play in the deck. I love it. It puts your opponent between a rock and a hard place even if he realizes it. Your worst-case scenario is probably Brainstorm + Scroll, and that is a powerful grip on its own. The other Gifts I've already learned to love is the one that precedes the Will-Gifts if you don't have enough mana, namely Mox, Mox, Crypt/Vault, Lotus. That is also a good setup for the Storm kill. The beauty of all this is that you are in full control of the situation: no randomness is involved in your choices, and whatever your opponent does, he is always putting you ahead. Not very many decks can control their opponent's behaviour like this.

Also, few other decks, and indeed no other Gifts build, cast broken spells as often as this one. I am not sure, though, if it is restriction-worthy. I hope that no restrtictions will be necessary, but we'll see what numbers the Gifted Merchants put up. I'll be one of them.

As an addendum: Whoever tests this deck, don't forget the obvious. It's not all about the Gifts -- if you have Land, Mox, Merchant Scroll in your opening hand, you can go straight for the Tinker. If it fails, go Gifts. If that fails, go Tendrils.

Dozer

/edit:

I am worried about swords.

Don't be. If they somehow Sword your Colossus, you gain 11 life. That gives you more than enough time to execute a Tendrils kill out of the book, and it also means that you went for the straight Tinker. With the Gifts-win, they don't have time for a Sword or (usually) run into a counter. For example, Disrupting Shoal + Brainstorm. Shoal is good.

[Whatever Works]

Further testing shows that the combo matchup is not that bad. However, I have found that when playing against a good player they can quickly learn how to play against the deck and winning is much harder. Playing this deck perfectly is almost as difficult as doomsday not in the terms of actual math, but in carfully answering several questions every turn such as do I want to cast merchant scroll to set up Y or do I want to hold off for X next turn.

Maybe I am missing something in the tog matchup. I retested it playing at a much slower pace and I found it difficult to handle turn 1 Duress taking a counter. Then draining my turn 2 merchant scroll into Intuition AK. Then all of the sudden I find myself in a situation where I am on turn 3 with a hand of about 4 while tog had 8 cards at EoT, and decided to discard a deep analysis.

The matchup isnt significantly in either decks side, but I found it to be about 45/55 for gifts. I dont have anything against the deck I just am not sure that this deck is better then the french list, and I will be interested to hear what Toad says.

Regardless, this deck has gained enough of my respect as a contender at a tournement that I have found room for an Extraction in almost all my sideboards. bye bye colossus! (yes I know tendrils kill can still happen but that is much much harder to achieve then resolving collossus and a few time walks.)

Kyle Leith

[Godot]

I think a major factor why this is the best Gifts-list so far is because this the list that puts Gifts Ungiven in the center of its strategy.

Quoted for truthery.  The existing Gifts decks have used gifts, but this deck truly abuses gifts.  It doesnt feel clunky and slow like previous lists, but the real strength comes from its versatility and ability to win through hate.  I really dont think restriction is out the question.

Regardless, this deck has gained enough of my respect as a contender at a tournement that I have found room for an Extraction in almost all my sideboards. bye bye colossus! (yes I know tendrils kill can still happen but that is much much harder to achieve then resolving collossus and a few time walks.)

Dude, seriously, you know better than this.  Naming Colossus with Extraction is a terrible play.  I think you're really over-estimating how hard it is to set up the Tendrils kill.  It only takes at the very very most 2 gifts to set an easy tendrils win and less depending on how much you've developed your mana.  If you manage to resolve an extraction against this deck hit the engine like a good player.

[Smmenen]

Re: Tog:
Whatever Works, you didn't answer my question about what Tog list you were testing.  JOe and I tested the Tog and Gifts match and we found Tog just brutally out paced. 

* The mana base: I had been thinking about fixing the mana base around a little bit and Diceman proposed: - 1 Sea - 1 Volc + 2 more fetchlands.  What do you think of that?

It sounds like some of you (Godot and Dozer in particular) are really getting the hang of it.

From now on I'll punt all questions to them becuase I'm sure in a few days time they'll be able to answer any questions I could answer except how I got to this list. 

I am studying for the bar and I'm only a month away at this point.  Youch! 

[Negator13]

Well before you start.... punting... I'd like to know what your sideboard is, or would be, for the Drain and Fish heavy metagame that is New England.

[Smmenen]

I haven't really tested it enough to be sure, but it would be a mix of Rebuild, Rack and Ruin, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroclasms with Old Man.  The misc cards would be the standard Burning Wish targets. 

[PucktheCat]

* The mana base: I had been thinking about fixing the mana base around a little bit and Diceman proposed: - 1 Sea - 1 Volc + 2 more fetchlands.  What do you think of that?

I have been testing like this and I like it a lot.  I love fetchlands.

Alternately, it is probably possible to go down 1 island for a fetch.

Much of the benefit of the nearly mono-blue deck is lost when you have 7 non-basics anyway.

Leo

Edit: good luck on the bar.

[Ferrismonk]

This is by far the most awesome gifts deck I've played with, and I've tried them all.  I took this list (with a minor tweak) to a local tournament and went 3-1.  The matches were sometimes close, but this deck can do absolutely crazy things, even when pushed to the wire.  The one loss I had was because my opponent was able to resolve an early Chalice for 2 both games.  This is a problem that everybody needs to be aware of and is probably the best reason I can think of to use Rebuild instead of Hurkyl's Recall. 

Another beautiful thing about this deck is that your sideboard is very open.  With 4 Merchant Scrolls and 4 Gifts maindeck, you have a very high probability of getting any sideboard business you bring in.

One last thing, Steve, I highly respect you open-sourcing this powerful deck.  I almost couldn't believe that you were actually giving the rest of us up to date tech.  :shock: 

[Mixing Mike]

Kyle brings up a point that I thought might be an issue when I saw the list on paper; resiliency to Duress.  What happens if they ReB/Duress the Merchant Scroll, then Drain your next spell?  That's a lot of tempo gone for you, and a lot of gas lost as well.  This happened to me against Brassman when I was playing Top.  Sure it's a different deck, however, I feel my example does explain how Scroll may not be as hot as everyone seems to be making it (because when the Scroll->Ancestral trick doesn't work, it basically loses you the game against the control mirror).

Also, you're so focused on the early game you're running 4 Gifts.  Is this bad?  Not necessarily, however, if they can deal with your Colossus or Tinker or whatever you end up doing after resolving Gifts (which is possible, and don't think that it's not), then you have 3 dead cards in your deck.  Yes, you pitch them to Force/MisD, but it's like the same thing as Oath.  Oath plays one spell, and protects the shit out of it until it wins.  This deck does the same thing.  Now, the Oath deck loses when the opponent answers that one card.  Oath comes down on turn 1, and technically avoids Mana Drain.  Gifts is a midgame card.  People can beat the Oath, and I think that recent data shows that to be true.  What makes you think they can't answer Gifts by turns 3-5?  Personally, I see Gifts as a card control decks use as a win condition.  It just so happens that the cards that it uses to win the game are already in the deck, so it takes up little room.

It looks like good old mana denial would do you in fairly well, just as it does to Sensei.

But then again that's all theory and doesn't have nearly as much weight as the endless testing you've put into the deck.  Nor can my argument withstand whatever counterpoint you make as usual.  With that said I thank you personally for revealing the deck to the public, since I hate team secrecy.  But then I think of why you would ever post a decklist that is just as amazing as you claim.  I know this isn't the real decklist, it's probably old, or you've added cards to the deck that allows you to beat them in the mirror because their cards are dead to the ones you have instead of said cards when you take it to the next tournament.  Who would EVER post free tech on SCG, or even in the premium section?

[Jacob Orlove]

if they can deal with your Colossus or Tinker or whatever you end up doing after resolving Gifts (which is possible, and don't think that it's not), then you have 3 dead cards in your deck.

That's not true at all. The whole point of running 4 gifts is that you can spend them on non-win condition piles like the aforementioned Scroll, Brainstorm, Gifts, Fact, or on mana gifts like Sapphire, Lotus, Crypt, Academy (don't forget the academy here! It's usually better than another Mox). The card is incredibly flexible, and unless you play it as such, you won't get the best results from this deck.

[Wollblad]

I would only like to add to the Tog-issue that after testing this deck against Tog (pre-sideboard) that the match-up is pretty close with perhaps a slight advantage for Meandeck Gifts. The outcome will depend on the amount of Duresses and Misdirection targets. For example, Intuition + Deep isn't the hottest play and Mind Twist cannot be aggressively played. Also, as already pointed out, this deck is very sensitive to graveyard hate. A single Coffin Purge is a huge speed-bumb. The Tog list we used was one close to that on 8:th place in the Vintage Championship in France.

[Andreas]

What sideboard strategy would you use if you would expect a decent amount of combo (mostly TPS and belcher) at a tournament?

Options I can think of:

- Duress. Against these decks fetching for an Underground Sea is not that risky as they do not run strip effects, therefore adding a few Duresses to the sideboard might help. I would run one in the sideboard anyways as Burning Wish target.

- Chalice of the Void. The problem here is that against Belcher and TPS you want to set it to 1, which will shut down your main draw engine. You will probably still be hurt far less by it than the combo deck, though.

- Arcane Lab. Will only hurt TPS, and even here it is a two-edged sword. Probably not a good idea.

- Sphere of Resistance.

- REB/Pyroblast. Again will only hurt TPS, but now that TPS runs 2-3 Gifts the red blasts might actually be good against them, and you probably run them in the sideboard anyways for the control decks and the mirror.

[Dozer]

It sounds like some of you (Godot and Dozer in particular) are really getting the hang of it.

From now on I'll punt all questions to them becuase I'm sure in a few days time they'll be able to answer any questions I could answer except how I got to this list.

Thanks for that, Steve. We'll try our very best.

I'll take the deck to further testing this weekend, and hopefully get some in-depth insight which I'll be willing to share. Before all that, two things: I've changed the maindeck to - 1 Mis-D, + 1 Disrupting Shoal, for reasons already noted. I don't like the change to the manabase with more fetches so far -- but I'll hold my judgement until after some testing.

One idea that occured to me and which I'll probably not try out yet but keep in mind is High Tide. As the deck can be extremely mana hungry, I wonder if a single High Tide which is perfectly tutorable might be the answer to Null Rod and other mana denial. That is probably for later to consider, but imagine a Will with a High Tide in your graveyard... just some food for thought.

Dozer

[Lord of the Goats]

interesting. merchant scroll is such an under-used card right now... i was wondering when people were going to start using it again. 

I've only tested about 10 games and i think the deck is very powerful, but it wants to avoid duress like the plague. duress just wrecks merchant scroll and since the deck doesn't actually run real draw to find more gas it has trouble recovering. if they combine duress w/ a little mana denial it's hell.

the misdirections are weird..... sometimes they fight a counter war and win you the game. and sometimes they're worthless or need to pitch something important. while they help win counterwars they also make loosing a counterwar a lot more backbreaking. plus, they're very poor at countering anything that your opponent plays. i find them to be very situational and so far i would have liked it better if they are duress.... but i have been testing against control

[carlossb]

One idea that occured to me and which I'll probably not try out yet but keep in mind is High Tide. As the deck can be extremely mana hungry, I wonder if a single High Tide which is perfectly tutorable might be the answer to Null Rod and other mana denial. That is probably for later to consider, but imagine a Will with a High Tide in your graveyard... just some food for thought.

It seems a good idea. It was used years ago in Extended in the first HighTide version with black (for Y.Wills, of course), where you serched for the Tides (... and Turnabouts and FranticSearch) with the Merchant Scrolls (I know it´s used in Solidarity) and replayed them with Wills.

Keep in mind that most of the time the Tide will be useless against blue players, as it gives them more mana to counter your draw-cards (unless he taps his mana, of course).
But it will improve the Aggro-Workshop match a lot.

[Whatever Works]

@ Smennen

To answer the question of what version of tog I tested I tested the newest version that splashes white for maindeck STP, Balance, etc. Probably making it the best version of tog vs. gifts, but also (maybe this is unfair of me) the least likely to be seen in the USA.

In testing this deck reminds me of a mix between old keeper and as you said SSB. Old keeper because of its incredibly high card quality and large utility, and of course the bomb factor of Gifts. I still have found that the deck has trouble recovering if an early merchant scroll doesnt resolve, but i guess thats the arguement for misdirection (which again I have found very good or bad or for a better word situational).

The deck plays out alot like oath with the acception that gifts can act as both the orchard and the oath. The only lacking component is that it wont win a counter war with the consistency of Oath.

I have found the deck can be severally hampered by graveyard hate. Testing vs. 4 REB's wasnt nearly as difficult for this deck to handle as when a deck goes turn 1 Crypt followed by chalice for 0. I found that to be almost an irrecoverable situation because of the large # of artifact 1 drops, and the reliance on tutoring for answers (which of course are going to resolve) to then have during the following turn (when chalice is out you dont have enough mana on turn 2-3 to merchant scroll for rebuild/echoeing truth, etc. and cast on the same turn) to just have the spell drained the following turn into gg.

Aside from a few critisms that have probably been adressed by your team I have a few recommendations for the deck that might help it.

For the maindeck I am not sure 3 misdirection is neccessary it typically acts as a dead card vs. alot of deck. I have replaced it with a cunning wish. By doing this I can get R@R, Rebuild, REB, and a number of other slots Even perhaps a gifts ungiven though I doubt that would be the correct play with the reliance on the card for the deck. The other change I made was droping 1 merchant scroll for either the vampiric tutor/echoeing truth (whatever the version you play doesnt run). I think Vampiric Tutor is always strictily better then scroll and can just say EoT I am going to ensure you lose next turn! Also echoing truth feels more and more like a neccessary card in the maindeck for dealing with so many extremely ennoying card.

This card probably hasnt been suggested but I have been a huge fan of it and tried it in the deck and was blown away. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant. Out of every single deck I have tried it in this is by far the easiest deck in terms of flipping this card. I know you could argue that it gets away from the strategy of the deck, but a free counter every single turn for the rest of the game starting on turn 2 is extremely good vs. control decks and possibly mirrors. Pryoclasm I also really doubt is neccessary for the board because this deck already beats fish, and if you do decide to run echoeing truth meddling mage shouldnt be to much of a problem.

@ Godot

When I reffered to extraction you must of thought i meant Cranial Extraction. I was actually reffering to the 1 blue mana equivilent "Extract". I am not directly saying that it ends the game, but I am saying that it makes it much much harder. I understand the ability to go the tendrils route, but with this deck lacking duress, and the opponent having a crystal clear understanding of what your going to try to do it isnt all that easy. Especially knowing that you HAVE to resolve burning wish (and likely yawg's will or Rebuild), or a combination of both to have the ability to confidently know it will work. Also a 2nd extract naming buring wish auto ends the game. Not to shabby for a 1 casting cost blue instant that isstarting to see more play.

Kyle Leith

[Smmenen]

I am surprised by the anti-misdirection comments... but let me say something.

I think some of your (whatever works) are playing this deck far too controlish.  Here is a situation:

Say your hand is: Mox Sapphire, Land, Land, Merchant Scroll, Gifts, Misdirection, Mana Drain

On turn one you could have Drain up or you can scroll.  99% of the time, the correct option is to Scroll.  Then on the next turn you can Ancestral with Drain up.  You must understand that Drain is here as an interactive card, not as a setup bomb. 

The reason Drain works is becuase all of your spells except Merchant Scroll are instants (much like Tog with similar exception of Deep Analysis).  If you don't get to Drain a spell, then you can just Gifts.

I also should say this: The Most Frequent Card I seem to pitch to Misdirection and Force of Will is Mana Drain.  That should tell you something immediately about how aggressively I play this deck.  Do NOT sit around waiting to Drain something.  People are very good at playing around Drain and relying on Drain will lead to horrendous tempo losses. 

I hope I get that message through to you all.

Again, I must say that Duress isn't a huge problem if you just anticipate it.  Using your Brainstorm to save the right card and responding with Gifts makes Duress pretty weak.

Duress is really bad in the metagame becuase there is so much Fish.  Duress against Fish after they have dropped Vial and Chalice is likely to see lands and creatures.  Duress is very poor against Workshops and Combo doesn't really exist becuase of decks like this.

I admit that in theory this deck has lots of trouble versus graveyard hate - but let's be honest - how much did Tog really care about GY hate and it was arguably more GY dependent than this deck.

Bringing in GY is a trade off - they are trying to trade off some cards in hand or board position for a strategy card: Tormod's Crypt.  The way you fight that is by being smart: you recognize what your plan has to be and most of the time that becomes Colossus or using Rebuild + Tendrils.

That is one of the big reasons I actually use Rebuild - becuase it combos SO WELL with Tendrils.

For those reasons, I have not found Duress or Tormod's Crypt to be that threatening.  It's about maximizing your cards and realizing the trade off your opponent is making when they use cards of that ilk.

[Lord of the Goats]

this deck is very similar to slurpy in that it runs merchant scroll-> ancestral to get a few fast cards then brainstorms into the remaining setup... then casts it's bomb. needless to say, i like it a lot

 the counter that zherbus came up with to slurpy was to run duress, i think the same logic applies here. this deck can leave it self wide open to getting wrecked by duress. in the example smemmen just gave to illustrate that merchant scroll is the better first turn play, you are left wide open to duress. like i said, it fundamentally plays in the same way that slurpy did which i'm more than familiar with

i think duress is more back-breaking than smemenenenenenenen is willing to admit.   

on grave hate: if they drop crypt then you gifts up: demonic, vamp, mystical. if there's another card i don't think really matters as long as it gets tinker or wins. anyway that gives you a tutor in hand which gets tinker.... not that this is the best play (in fact i think it's sub par). it does however illustrate that gifts still tutors up cards... which should win you the game. this deck abuses the fuck out of the grave.... but at the same time doesn't actually care because it's still tutoring up 2 cards..