help with meandeck gifts

[doylehancock]

I have been experimenting with Meandeck gifts but my metagame is pretty weak.  I win most tourneys but I plan on going to a bigger city in 2 weeks for a huge tourney.  I have some questions about the deck and hate so please help.

If you have ran meandeck gifts what kind of hate did your oponents use against you? What did you do for mirror matches?

What does everyones board look like?

How have you changed the main deck?

Thanks for all of your responses in advance.  Thanks.

[PucktheCat]

I have maindecked one Pithing Needle over one of the Misdirection.  I don't want to risk drawing more than one because many decks only have one really good target (Welder against CS, Wasteland against a number of aggro-type decks, etc.), but the one is a huge mana base stabilizer in matchups where Wasteland is an issue.  My new favorite first turn in those matchups is Mox, Pithing Needle naming Wasteland, Tolarian Academy.

Along the same lines, has anyone considered maindecking REB over one or more of the Misdirection?  Misdirection is basically a maindecked sideboard card against blue decks anyway (its most common targets, by far, are Force of Will and Mana Drain).  Red Elemental Blast is dead (or nearly so) against many Stax builds, but so is Misdirection.  Against Fish REB is a more powerful effect (Misdirection can't get anything much in that matchup other than Force).

The need to fetch a mountain shouldn't be prohibitive because the matches in which you want REB (or Misdirection, for that matter) are mostly Gifts mirror and CS.  Neither of those decks run Wasteland.  The only issue is the Fish matchup, where you have to deal with the possibility of needing to fetch a Volcanic to counter Force of Will and having it Wasted.  However, in that matchup the ability to remove a stray Meddling Mage or Rootwater Theif might be worth that risk - that's a play that you don't even have the option of with Misdirection.  Considering how weak Misdirection is in that matchup anyway, it doesn't seem a stretch to say that a card that is dead if we can't afford to fetch a wasteable land might be as good a card that is nearly always dead anyways.

I guess what I am saying is: why are we worrying about the casting cost of our Control hoser in non-Control matchups?  The card sucks in those matchups, we have already resigned ourselves to those slots being dead, or nearly so, when we draw them in non-Control matchups.  What does it matter what the casting cost of a dead card is?  Those cards could be Arcades Sabboth for all the good it would do us against Stax.

I realize the chief flaw in this line of thinking is that Misdirection can be pitched to Force in those matchups.  Still, I am not convinced that that on its own is enough to raise them over REB, which is a far better card against Force and Mana Drain.

Leo

[Ged]

Re: REB
Aside from being able to pitch to FoW and not needing a Volc, wasn't MisD's greatest strength in acting as a FoW number 5 to 7 (protecting early gifts)?

[PucktheCat]

Ged: Protecting early Gifts from what?  Answer: Force of Will and Mana Drain.  Is Misdirection the best spell for forcing your spells through a counterwall?  If it is, why do people sideboard REB against control and not Misdirection?

Misdirection is a sideboard card against counterspells that will occasionally catch another spell if you are lucky.  Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast is a better sideboard card against counterspells than Misdirection and, in the current metagame, probably has more targets other than counterspells to go for as well.  Think about In The Eye of Chaos, Meddling Mage, Rootwater Thief, Gifts Ungiven, Thirst for Knowledge, Standstill, Ninja of Deep Hours, etc.  There are a lot of blue cards in the current metagame, probably more than the number of targeted spells.

The disadvantages are that you lose the ability to just win by Misdirecting an Ancestral and you can't pitch the Blast to Force.  The former is pretty random and unreliable - its most potent application is in discouraging your opponent from casting Ancestral without protection, but you can get that benefit as long as people think that you are running Misdirection.  As long as at least some players play Misdirection, or you play Misdirection at least some of the time, you should be able to keep people from playing around your disruption correctly.  The later, the loss of ability to Force with it, is annoying but not that big a deal.

Leo