Gifts from the Loam

[Chamelet]

I've been testing the LftL + BoB engine for some time now. The first deck to prove it was worth in Vintage was the Wild Zombies aggro build. After that, a topic in this forum opened the gates to an yet unproved way to abuse the engine: in a combo-control deck: Oath.
For a little less than 2 weeks I've been working in a similar idea, but in a very different fashion. One thing LftL gives you is a full graveyard. And there's a way to abuse a full graveyard everyone knows, since it's the best card in the game.
That way, another combo-control shell was perfect for a testing.
That said, playing a new version of Gifts is something very hard. That's because Gifts has already been broken, and MD Gifts and the recent Gifts control lists, as well as Gifts Oath, are very good decks. This list has a main difference: it can go broken just as any other list, but it's objective is to disrupt a little more.
Well, let's show what I'm talking about and then I'll talk a little more:

// Lands
    4  Island
    2  Tropical Island
    1  Volcanic Island
    1  Underground Sea
    1  Flooded Strand
    2  Polluted Delta
    1  Strip Mine
    1  Tolarian Academy
    1  Bazaar of Baghdad   
    1  Riftstone Portal
    1  Lonely Sandbar

// Creatures
    1  Darksteel Colossus
    1  Gorilla Shaman
    1  Squee, Goblin Nabob

// Spells
    4  Chalice of the Void
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Lotus Petal (edit: -1 Mox Pearl)
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Life from the Loam
    4  Force of Will
    4  Mana Drain (edit: -1 Scrying, + 1 Drain)
    1  Time Walk
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Tinker
    1  Ancestral Recall
    4  Brainstorm
    1  Crop Rotation
    1  Rebuild
    1  Deep Analysis
    1  Recoup
    1  Frantic Search
    3  Gifts Ungiven
    1  Burning Wish (-1 Tendrils)

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Deep Analysis
SB: 1  Boseiju, Who Shelters All
SB: 2  Oxidize
SB: 1  Glacial Chasm
SB: 2  Ray of Revelation
SB: 1  Darkblast
SB: 3  Pithing Needle
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1  Echoing Truth
SB: 1  Rack and Ruin
SB: 1  Tendrils of Agony (-1 Darkbalast)

The decks there to use Gifts in order to: Go broken with the already known Tinker / Will / Recoup / Lotus /Time Walk pile.
Or to play a more defensive role against certain decks and go CotV and Gifts for Bazaar / LftL / Squee / D. Analysis or Strip Mine. This pile could change a lot, but basically consisting of Bazaar + LftL.
The deck can do a standard Colossus kill, or a Tendrisl kill via Will or Rebuild, or both. Remember CotV would spoil your Tendrils kill, but Tinker, Shaman and Rebuild can remove the Chalice just in time for your win. (or you can win anyway, since casting Moxen with a CotV in play also ups storm count).
Let's see the card choices:
Lands:
4 island - pretty standard

1 Volcanic, 1 Underground, 2 Tropical - You only need 1 dual of each with Loam. This was originally 1 each but I upped the Tropical because it was very boring to get your only Tropical wasted and then not being able to recur your colored mana.

Strip Mine - LftL recurring Strips is just awesome.

Bazaar of Baghdad (BoB)- I know only 1 Bazaar seems strange, but you really doesn't need anymore than this. Feel free to cut any land except Duals and Academy for a 2nd Bazaar. But I warn you it's good enough with just 1, since your goal is to fetch it with Gifts.

Rifstone Portal - This helps getting LftL online. This will probably open space for cutting the 2nd Tropical and adding a 5th island or 4th fetch. This is crucial since it makes it possible to have a high basics count. This deck relies on green to work, so having 4-5 islands is not that cool, unless you have this little baby.

Lonely Sandbar - I prefer this one over the 2 colorless one. This is really nice with Bazaar and Loam, but don't play with more than one since drawing this in your opening hand is almost always terrible.

Fetchs - only three because Gifts + Loam can get the rest. I'm currently thinking of cutting one for an island.

Creatures
Colossus - Everyone knows this one.

Gorilla Shaman - This is for extra disruption taking out opposing Moxen, CotV and specially that hated Pithing Needle for Bazaar or Strip Mine.

Squee - I tested this without Squee, and you really need one here. It helps with bazaars CA and saves you 1 land per LftL, so you can drop a land every turn. More than 1 would be overkill for only 1 Bazaar.

Draw / Search
Brainstorm, Ancestral Recall - Standard. Remember here they have a special use, since they both are LftL's activations.

Deep Analysis - Tested and this is great with Gifts. Better than FoF in this deck mainly because of BoB.

Frantic Search - Frantic Search is really awesome with Academy and Bazaar. Also helps if you need an extra colored mana from that dual. Helps with the sideboard's Boseiju also.

Skeletal Scrying - With a full graveyard, this is something you will really want. Feel free to change it for a FoF, which may even be better for the fact of being blue. I'm playing Scrying now just to test it out.

Gifts - Was Intuition originally, but became Gifts for the reasons below (see Mana Drain). Fetches the Colossus kill or the LftL engine. Can, as you all know, also get mana, counters, draw, etc, etc, etc.

Utility
Yawgmoth's Will, Recoup, Time Walk, Tinker, Mystical, Demonic - Standard

Counters / Disruption
Fow - standard

Mana Drain - This was originally Duress, but became Drains to enable easier Gifts. Intuition was not being enough, since it was being used as a smaller Gifts and 1 resolved Intuition was not winning games as 1 resolved Gifts. Duresses were also difficult to manage with only 1 Underground Sea.

Chalice of the Void - this really is the real difference in this build. Being able to pull a Chalice for 0 or 1 is deadly against most archetypes. Don't mind playing it for 0 turn one. Bazaar will cycle you useless Moxen and, when it matters, you will play them all again. Also, don't mind Rebuilding, Shaman'ing or Tinkering it away in order to play your full-of-moxen hand. Specially when you play another one right after!

Other
Rebuild - This is your defense against opposing CotV. It also enables your kill once you got your own CotV's online. Never forget it cycles.

Crop Rotation - Dodges Wasteland and gets you Bazaar, Academy, Strip or that dual you miss. Anything more?

Tendrils of Agony - This probably could go sideboard and become a MD Burning Wish. I'm currently playing it MD and never regreting it. Except when it comes in the opening hand. Anyway this isn't that bad. Remember BoB has the marvelous use of transforming useless stuff into cards. Use that.

Life from the Loam (LftL) - Again, you don't need more than one. This enables draws with Bazaars, recurring Strip Mines and Lonely Sandbars cycles. Also makes you almost invulnerable to mid-game Wastelands. Fills your graveyard with cool stuff so your Will can be even bigger.

SB:
SB: 1  Deep Analysis - for mirror controls. Probably getting cut for an Eng. Explosives or another Shaman
SB: 1  Boseiju, Who Shelters All - this shines againt controls. Always board it in against heavy counters.
SB: 2  Oxidize - Pithing Needle sucks.
SB: 1  Glacial Chasm - This land is great, since it buys you the turns you need to win. Drop it, get the land you sacrificed back with Loam, and do your stuff calmly. If it gets wasted, repeat the operation.
SB: 2  Ray of Revelation - Against Oath, of course.
SB: 2  Darkblast - I don't think I really need 2 here. Probably not.
SB: 3  Pithing Needle - You need these. Really need.
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall - Same as Rebuild, but with different CC
SB: 1  Echoing Truth - Permanent removal!
SB: 1  Rack and Ruin - self-explainable

There are somethings I tried in the deck but was not happy with:
Gush - It's nice with Will, but got cut for F.Search
Fastbond - this is awesome if you want to kill with a CotV in play. I played with it but never really used it, so it got axed for Scrying. Could go SB in the 2nd Darkblast spot.
TfK - This is nice here. the problem is that you're already discarding your hand to BoB. Adding another discard effect it not that great.
Regrowth - Couldn't find room for it. But is definetly something worth having. Probably cutting the F.Search or Scrying for it sometime.
LoA - With Bazaar, LoA is not always useful. Also it's not good to up the non-basic count.
Entomb - Entomb would be great in this deck. As Regrowth, I couldn't find the place to put it. That means it's not obligatory, but would be really nice to fetch LftL or Riftstone Portal instant speed.
Scroll Rack - Also trades extra lands for cards, Parfait style. But it's not that great since once you shuffle you lose you dear lands... It also perishes to a Null Rod, which is bad!

Playing the deck is simple: you can win with Colossus as soon as you can, standard-gifts way; or win through a large Tendrils, helped by Rebuild and /or Yawg.Will.
The first thing you should do is get your Gifts mana up. Choosing what will be the first Gifts is crucial. Against any control, the best thing it to play the LftL / Bazaar one, together with anything you think is needed (Portal for mana, Strip for disruption, DA for CA, Squee if you're going for the CA plan).
Since you got nothing MD to take Welder out, he's your main enemy. Against slaver the CotV for 1 is nice. Against Stax you probably want the 0 one before, since you will have to Rebuild to win anyway, so you're probably going the Tendrils route. Your main problem in the first game is Oath, since there's almost nothing to do to stop him if he resolves Oath turns 1-2 with Orchard. SB you have the Glacial Chasm and the Ray of Revelation. Use them.
Well, I won't go any further now 'cause it's 5am here and I'm really tired.
I'll talk about the matchups later, if you guys are interested.
That's it, hope you all can have fun with the first Green Draw Engine ever! (ok, Sylvan Library also was. Oh, and Recycle. Af, and Abundance... anyway, you got it)

[Machinus]

Gifts is so much more powerful than LftL. If you can resolve Gifts, you should just be able to win. There's no point to setting up a second card advantage engine when Gifts by itself can end the game.

[UR]

Agreed. I consider LftL to be 'a nice little extra', not a goal in itself.

Why only three Mana Drain? You are relying on this card to cast your more expensive spells and help you create some tempo.

[Chamelet]

Gifts is so much more powerful than LftL. If you can resolve Gifts, you should just be able to win. There's no point to setting up a second card advantage engine when Gifts by itself can end the game.

I agree Gifts is much more powerful. And this deck is capacle of winning right after resolving Gifts. If you've played Gifts you know that it isn't every Gifts you play a winning one. There are lots of matches when you just Gifts for mana or card drawing, etc. This deck lets you do that better. You can set the Bazaar / Strip engine, which, together with CotV and Shaman (I'm probably adding a 2nd in the SB), is a mana denial strategy that Gifts never had before. I know Gifts can win on the spot and will do so if it can, but it's just not that simple.

Agreed. I consider LftL to be 'a nice little extra', not a goal in itself.

Why only three Mana Drain? You are relying on this card to cast your more expensive spells and help you create some tempo.

Yes, LftL is not a goal.
Why 3 Drains. Well lack of room actually. The 3 slots I would cut for something right now are Scrying, DA, Crop Rotation and Frantic Search. Search is important since it's your discard when you don't have Bazaar, and generates lots of mana with Academy; DA shines in control mirrors and even in other matchups, but is kinda slow; Scrying is excelent and is better with Drain mana, but being black is something not that nice; Crop Rotation is also excellent, since this deck can get screwed by an early Wasteland, but it's also useless mid-game, when you already have LftL engine going.
That said, I can't decide right now what to take out... in fact, I'm trying to add another land to the deck. You see, this deck has 16 lands but 3 of them are not mana: BoB, Sandbar and Portal. Portal is mana actually, but you don't want to draw it in your opening hand, unless you got Bazaar and a mox with it. Drawing Sandbar on the opening hand is terrible and actually forces you to mulligan sometimes. I tought of cutting it but it so good with LftL I don't think it's worth. You should count this as a cantrip not a land. That reduces the decks lands to 15, and that's not much...

[Moxlotus]

Why Chalices.  I love Chalices when I am playing against Gifts because it slows down their Yawg Win-->Tendrils kill a ton.  How do they help you?

[UR]

My suggestion would be to cut the Frantic Search for a Drain. Frantic Search is just bad. You are trying to build a Bazaar deck... you don't need an extra discard-outlet.

I'm a Dragon player myself and I play with LftL and Bazaar (I play four though) and I never have problems with getting the right stuff in my graveyard. This is partly due to Intuition but mostly because of the Bazaar. The only reason I play Compulsion is Pithing Needle on a Bazaar (or Wasteland + Crucible).

Otherwise I would cut Skeletal Scrying. I'm wondering how many times this card is actually useful. The whole point of the card is to take advantage of Mana Drain and you aren't playing a full set of those...

[Chamelet]

Why Chalices.  I love Chalices when I am playing against Gifts because it slows down their Yawg Win-->Tendrils kill a ton.  How do they help you?

]
Nowadays Chalices are basically great against any archetype. Slowing your opp down with a 1st turn CotV for 0 is priceless. Also, this let's your combo matchup be a lot easier, and against Oath too (if you make an early 2 drop). Aside from being one of the best disruption spells in Vintage, when played by you it's almost harmless. You can take it out with Shaman, Tinker or Rebuild once you're about to win, and you can easily recicle useless stuff with Bazaar. Remember this isn't a regular Gifts deck, so winning with Tendrils with a CotV down is completely possible.

My suggestion would be to cut the Frantic Search for a Drain. Frantic Search is just bad. You are trying to build a Bazaar deck... you don't need an extra discard-outlet.

I'm a Dragon player myself and I play with LftL and Bazaar (I play four though) and I never have problems with getting the right stuff in my graveyard. This is partly due to Intuition but mostly because of the Bazaar. The only reason I play Compulsion is Pithing Needle on a Bazaar (or Wasteland + Crucible).

Otherwise I would cut Skeletal Scrying. I'm wondering how many times this card is actually useful. The whole point of the card is to take advantage of Mana Drain and you aren't playing a full set of those...

I totally agree with you about Scrying. I was just testing it and even FoF is better than that. I'm definetly cutting it.
About Frantic Search: you contradict yourself. First you say I don't need the extra discard, then you say you use Compulsion in Dragon mainly as an extra discard. I also fear Pithing Needle for Bazaar and 1 Search helps that. But the main thing about F.Search isn't the discard. It does 3 things very well: it digs 2 cards and discards; it untaps lands, generating mana with Academy, colored mana with duals, a 2nd Bazaar activation and an untapped Boseiju the turn it comes into play; and, one thing you must remember, it lets you dredge after you draw step. That's extremely important.
One thing I tested MD and it's great is Darkblast. Dredging for 6 is always good here.
I'm currently thinking of testing MD:
+ 1 Burning Wish (-1 Tendrils)
+ 1 Darkblast
+ 1 Regrowth
+ 1 Entomb
+ 1 Gush
+ 1 Fastbond
+ 1 Island
And the only things I feel I could cut are:
Frantic Search, Crop Rotation, 1 Gifts, Deep Analysis. (scrying is already a Drain)
Oh, and the Mox Pearl is currently a Lotus Petal for testing.
That said, the SB needs work. Glacial Chasm is more a test a bet. But I guess it can work. The 2nd DA is probably not that good, and could come out for a Eng. Explosives. The 2nd Darkblast is really useless and could become something like Pyroclasm if Wish goes MD.
I ask you guys to test the deck and see what you think.

[forests failed you]

How big of a problem is a single Tormod's Crypt activation for this deck?

[cryolyte]

I sleeved this up and played around with it last night, and I like it. You can just play it as you would a regular gifts deck, of course, OR if things start to go badly you can use the lftl engine to build card advantage.

@FFY: From my meager testing, I would say that Tormod's crypt would suck pretty badly. However, no decks that I know of play it maindeck, so you don't need to worry about it game one. Game Two, you have pithing needles from the board, and there's always the mighty shaman.

I'm not sure I like the chalices. Sure they are tinkerbait, and can slow down opponents if you are on the play, but I just think the 4 slots they take up may be better served as something else. Also, they make for easy sideboarding game two if you are on the draw. And I don't like Frantic Search either, because it is too situational. If you dod decide to run the 4x Chalice, I think thirst for knowledge would be alot better here. I'm going to work very hard on cutting something for an entomb. That card belongs in this deck.

[Chamelet]

I sleeved this up and played around with it last night, and I like it. You can just play it as you would a regular gifts deck, of course, OR if things start to go badly you can use the lftl engine to build card advantage.

@FFY: From my meager testing, I would say that Tormod's crypt would suck pretty badly. However, no decks that I know of play it maindeck, so you don't need to worry about it game one. Game Two, you have pithing needles from the board, and there's always the mighty shaman.

I'm not sure I like the chalices. Sure they are tinkerbait, and can slow down opponents if you are on the play, but I just think the 4 slots they take up may be better served as something else. Also, they make for easy sideboarding game two if you are on the draw. And I don't like Frantic Search either, because it is too situational. If you dod decide to run the 4x Chalice, I think thirst for knowledge would be alot better here. I'm going to work very hard on cutting something for an entomb. That card belongs in this deck.

The main thing about this deck is that CotV gives you time to abuse LftL. You can easily play through a 2 Cotv for 0 and 1 like something like GrimLong and then simply win when you want. CotV is crucial to the deck, although people tend to think it's strange. They also are tinkerbait, bazaarbait, storm uppers and academy friends.
I'm starting to think Frantic Search should be cut too. But TfK is not as good as it seems here. BoB does it's job right. I would cut it for Regrowth, Fastbond, Echoing Truth or Darkblast. Blasts may be needed MD depending on your metagame, since Welder and Shaman really hurt you.
As for Tormod's Crypt: the card really hurts, but you can dodge it easily by playing standard Gifts way. You just can't Dredge like crazy. But a Crypt's activation hurts you most only if Tinker, Will and/or lots of moxen are on the graveyard. Besides that it just cuts your LftL engine.  And remember CotV for 0 is always nice. I'm planning of adding 1-2 Annul SB too, against opposing 1st turn Chalices, Crypts, Needles, etc.

[Chamelet]

I made some recent changes to the deck.
I realized that with so many islands, I should play more blue. So Regrowth, Darkblast and Entomb would remain out.
I also realized I needed more lands.
So:
-1 Crop Rotation
-1 Gifts (3 is probably too much)
-1 Tropical Island
+1 LoA
+1 Flooded Strand
+1 Sensei's Divining Top

The top is much, much better than Crop Rotation, since late game it's also a nice draw, and it's on-color. The tropical turned into an island, since Riftstone Portal can take the green mana producing role. The other change was taking out 1 Gifts and adding a LoA. Gifts is the most expensive spell in the deck, and LoA helps you drawing lots of cards. This is the change I like the less, since maybe it would be good to cut the 3rd Gifts for a Intuition as a cheaper gifts. And LoA is in testing stage. It's not that great here, since 7 cards is hard to achieve with BoB. But after the LftL engine goes on, it's not that hard at all. Anyway, anyone playtesting this?

[cryolyte]

I am. The changes I have made were: -4 Chalice of the Void, +1 Zuran Orb, +1 Fastbond, +1 Crucible of Worlds, +1 Entomb. I haven't actually played a person with it yet, though, but it goldfishes nicely. Of course, these cards serve as an alternate kill. The only entirely dead card on its own is the Zuran orb, and I'm still struggling to make effective gifts piles. If you have one or more of these in your hand or in play, then the piles are savage: fastbond in play, gifts for will, tinker, crucible, zorb. But when you have nothing going on in that department then it would be difficult to choose which route to take. The crucible has pretty good synergy with lftl, and you siggested fastbond would also work (and it is sweet), so I thought, hey, why not throw in one more card in and make it an alternate kill condition? My teammates say it makes the deck lose focus, but I'll test it out anyway. With fastbond out, it takes a good measure of self-control to keep enough lands in yoiur hand to effectively abuse lftl. That's because I'm still a control newb, having played FCG for most of my vintage career. I'm still learning the patience required to play control and I think my tendancy to want to go balls-to-the-wall like I do with FCG is contributing to this. That said, it may also be why I cut the chalices for a combo engine. Time will tell.

[Chamelet]

I'm really not thinking of removing CotV's.
Anyway, Top is fantastic here, since it allows you to draw only cards you can play (with CotV on the table) or see exactly what you're going to dredge.
Also, Frantic Search is back. Just because TfK does almost the same thing, but F. Search is free.