3rd in Swiss with Gifts

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Turnout was 48 people with ALOT of FCG, and randomness. Oath wasn't present, there were atleast 2 Gifts decks, multiple fish decks, and some stax.

I, ofcourse, play Meandeck Gifts. It's the same list I used for the past 3 tourneys. Only with the board of:

1 Tendrils
2 Pyroclasm
2 Old men
2 Gorilla Shaman
2 Tormod's crypt
1 Darkblast
1 Rack and Ruin
3 REBs
1 Hurkyl's recall

As always, my SB is AMAZING and won me matches. One of the most important (and fundamental) skills in vintage is constructing a good SB and knowing how to use it.

This tourney is pretty much a joke, as far as competetion goes, so I'll just make it QnD.

Round 1, John playing sui.
Game 1: I get turn 2 tinker.
Game 2: I misdirect a vindicate, then he does it again. I FoW it, then drain my force for 5 mana on my turn, and win easily from there.
1-0, 2-0

Round 2, Kyle playing FCG
Game 1: I have turn 1 scroll for mystical, which finds tinker.
Game 2: He gets the best hand I've ever seen from Goblins. His turn 1 is lotus, mountain, warchief, lackey into a goblin lord. He's holding ringleader, which finds him gas.
Game 3: He has no turn 1 play. I win easily.
2-0, 4-1

Round 3, Jeff playing CS
So, a brief history. I've NEVER beaten Jeff in constructed magic before. He's one of the BEST slaver players I've ever witnessed, and he ALWAYS wins tourneys. I'm looking forward to this match, because it's heavily in my favor, and I'm looking for revenge.
Game 1: It's a blowout. Remember what I said in that "How to win a control mirror" thread? Well, I hit 4 mana on my turn 2. GG.
Game 2: I have turn 1 blast on welder, along with a merchant scroll. I gifts to put me so far ahead in advatage, it's not even funny. Gifts for shaman/crypt/reb/reb is INSANE. I slow roll him shortly afterwards with tendrils.

I want everyone to know that I killed both times this match with tendrils, holding DSC. I didn't have to play with crap like fusillade, instead, all I needed was burning wish (which is AMAZING in it's own right).
3-0, 6-1

Round 4, Scott Limoges, playing CO dragon
We ID. He ends up in the FINALS. Way to go dude, 2 tourneys, 2 finals, great work.

Round 5, ??? playing something without force.
Game 1: Tinker->DSC
Game 2: Tinker->DSC
4-0-1, 8-1

Round 6, I draw with the guy

I realize that it's 6 and I have to help close at work, so I jet (sucks cause I'm third in the swiss). The tourney was really well run, and I hope Carl runs more in the future.

As far as Gifts builds go, I'm still a firm believer that MDG is THE optimal version, not because of my results (even though they've been amazing, 2 game losses, 0 match losses in 3 consecutive tourneys), but because of TESTING. I haven't found a deck that can take more than 50% of games vs. Gifts.

On the kill condition. I know I talked about this earlier, but I want to clarify my points. Tinker-DSC is amazing. Against random crap, it's your default win. I can't count how many times I've won by tinkering and scrolling->force. Against the better decks out there, Tendrils(burning wish) becomes your default kill. It's not hard to generate mana, or to count to ten when you resolve will. Running burning wish means you don't have to clutter your deck up with crap like fusillade. Yes, fusillade can't be reb'ed, but neither can wish. Burning wish also serves double duty, as it grabs time walk after you've RFGed it.

I know this report is a bit lacking, but I decided to post it to raise interest in the CO/NE/WY/KS area. 

-Bob

[Juggernaut GO]

I really don't mean any disrespect to you personally when I say this, but the matchups you face are the reason gifts wins games, and the reason it has succeeded so much.  Tinker colossus is the play that wins so many of your matches, but you faced 1 deck that even remotely had an answer to it and even that was a bad one (welder).  this is what boggles my mind why people think gifts is the best deck in that forum poll in the basic user area.  It is only good when you don't play against fish or uba stax.  I am still searching for the 5c stax answer to gifts, but I'll likely never find it.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

This tourney is pretty much a joke, as far as competetion goes, so I'll just make it QnD.

As far as Gifts builds go, I'm still a firm believer that MDG is THE optimal version, not because of my results (even though they've been amazing, 2 game losses, 0 match losses in 3 consecutive tourneys), but because of TESTING.

I realize that my competition is crap. But it doesn't change the fact that it's done amazing in TESTING. The fact that I've done well in local tourneys is just a plus. I've tested BrassGifts on multiple occasions, and it's just felt clunky. TFK is crap, Flame Vault is crap, etc. These issues have been discussed to death, and it seems like it won't be resolved anytime soon.

Also, Uba stax isn't as bad of a matchup as you make it. I run 3 bounce spells, 4+ ways of finding them, 6 basics, and 5 fetches. The plan vs. stax has always been wish-->tendrils. Game 1 is fairly even, but postboard, when gifts has access to more bounce/rack and ruin/pithing needle, it's a different story.

I'm very curious as to how other good gifts players play the deck. There seems to be a huge variance in testing results when it comes to Gifts vs. stax.

-Bob

[Kowal]

You told me not to use your decklist or your results as a comparison in my upcoming Gifts article, but then you say things like:

I want everyone to know that I killed both times this match with tendrils, holding DSC. I didn't have to play with crap like fusillade, instead, all I needed was burning wish (which is AMAZING in it's own right).

As far as Gifts builds go, I'm still a firm believer that MDG is THE optimal version, not because of my results (even though they've been amazing, 2 game losses, 0 match losses in 3 consecutive tourneys), but because of TESTING. I haven't found a deck that can take more than 50% of games vs. Gifts.

Running burning wish means you don't have to clutter your deck up with crap like fusillade.

The fact that I've done well in local tourneys is just a plus. I've tested BrassGifts on multiple occasions, and it's just felt clunky. TFK is crap, Flame Vault is crap, etc.

It should be pretty obvious that I'm going to be addressing these points and using you as a reference, because you've been on the forefront of claiming that the deck with better results is the inferior build, based on testing with people who play in a metagame that you admit yourself is garbage.  I don't mean to flame you guys at all, but until you post some pretty savage results outside of "round one sui, round two goblins" neither the deck nor your testing will be taken seriously at all.

[Rapalaman1]

Gifts for shaman/crypt/reb/reb is INSANE. I slow roll him shortly afterwards with tendrils.

Unless there are missing pyroblasts in your sideboard, how does this work?

[Evenpence]

I really don't mean any disrespect to you personally when I say this, but the matchups you face are the reason gifts wins games, and the reason it has succeeded so much.  Tinker colossus is the play that wins so many of your matches, but you faced 1 deck that even remotely had an answer to it and even that was a bad one (welder).  this is what boggles my mind why people think gifts is the best deck in that forum poll in the basic user area.  It is only good when you don't play against fish or uba stax.  I am still searching for the 5c stax answer to gifts, but I'll likely never find it.

In our (my friends who play nothing but 5c and Gifts against each other, seriously) heavy opinion and testing, 5c has a slight advantage over Gifts by being able to tutor for strip with crucible out.

I completely agree with your post, btw.  I've found recently that Ubastax vs. Gifts, Ubastax really does have a strong advantage - much stronger than I originally gave it credit for.

EDIT:  Obviously, that's not the only way that 5c Stax can win against Gifts, but apparently they've narrowed it down to that single lock winning the most games, as while Gifts players can recur moxen that you kill with Shaman or Karn, they can't drop 5+ Lands in a single turn.  If you can hold them to 2-3 lands for the entire game, you win in almost every case.  How you do that is different every game, but they've found crucible-strip is the best way.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

It should be pretty obvious that I'm going to be addressing these points and using you as a reference, because you've been on the forefront of claiming that the deck with better results is the inferior build, based on testing with people who play in a metagame that you admit yourself is garbage.  I don't mean to flame you guys at all, but until you post some pretty savage results outside of "round one sui, round two goblins" neither the deck nor your testing will be taken seriously at all.

Let's get one thing straight. I TEST with people playing good decks. I PLAY in a garbage metagame. There's a difference, Chet. I see NO reason why you'd use me as reference if you think my testing results are crap. I've given you reasons why I think shit like flame vault and thirst is bad, and yet all you can say is "well, you play in a shit metagame." Well, let me put it in perspective for you, I'm making these claims based on testing with good players playing good decks, me doing well is simply a side-effect of that. If you're going to write an article on Gifts and reference me, fine. But to say "your results are crap because you play in a shit metagame" doesn't accomplish shit. I've tested multiple versions of Gifts along with others, and I've found a build with wish/no TFK/4 scroll/4 Gifts to be, in my opinion the best build. Drop your bias of Meandeck and explain to me why you think your build is better. I've put Brass Gifts through the gauntlet, have you done the same with MDG? As I said, if you're going to write a comprehensive Gifts article, attacking MDG because one person who said it's good deos well in a bad metagame is pointless.

If you want my opinions on MDG instead of blindly attacking the deck, shoot me a PM.

-Bob

[Kowal]

Okay, let's start from the beginning here.

Let's get one thing straight. I TEST with people playing good decks. I PLAY in a garbage metagame. There's a difference, Chet. I see NO reason why you'd use me as reference if you think my testing results are crap. I've given you reasons why I think shit like flame vault and thirst is bad, and yet all you can say is "well, you play in a shit metagame."

What I'm saying is, if you have no tournament results to back you up, your testing results are simply you saying "it's good because I say so" which doesn't cut it when a couple hundred miles to the east there's a different build of the deck doing much better in much higher profile tournaments.

Well, let me put it in perspective for you, I'm making these claims based on testing with good players playing good decks, me doing well is simply a side-effect of that. If you're going to write an article on Gifts and reference me, fine. But to say "your results are crap because you play in a shit metagame" doesn't accomplish shit. I've tested multiple versions of Gifts along with others, and I've found a build with wish/no TFK/4 scroll/4 Gifts to be, in my opinion the best build.

I don't care how you got to that opinion.  My goal is to demonstrate why you're wrong.  If you're going to take the only concrete evidence personally, then maybe you should refrain from making outrageous claims in reports from tournaments of little to no consequence.

Drop your bias of Meandeck and explain to me why you think your build is better. I've put Brass Gifts through the gauntlet, have you done the same with MDG? As I said, if you're going to write a comprehensive Gifts article, attacking MDG because one person who said it's good deos well in a bad metagame is pointless.

This is the part that really grinds my gears.  For starters, what makes you think I'm attacking the list because it's a meandeck list?  Yes, I did test it, and I put it aside within a couple weeks given that it was having a tough time beating anything aside from Control Slaver.  I couldn't care less who develops the list.  I couldn't care less who's piloting the list.  What I care about are two things:
A) Does the deck work better than the alternative, or, does it post the best results from its class
B) Why or why not

Now in past arguments, which you referenced as neither side giving or taking ground, I've not once cited your metagame.  I didn't want to bring it up because I was above that.  I still am.  I'm telling you right now that nobody is taking you seriously if you can't cite something more reliable than an opinion.  If you want to take that as "hurr hurr, your metagame sucks" that's your problem.

For reference, here are my previous arguments on Gifts as we know it (or at least, the ones that show up when I search for my name and Gifts):

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=26973.0
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27283.0

You'll notice, if you pay close attention, that I give solutions and reasons for questions and complaints.  Every time I do this, I'm met with "I still think you have trouble counting to 10" or "I think I'm right, but I'm not sure it really matters."

While I don't mind some poking from the likes of Fuckin' Lou as referenced above, you can imagine how irritated I get when you try to refute my reasons with "because it's awesome in testing, like seriously!"

[Jacob Orlove]

There's no good way to end this debate, so I'm just going to close the thread.

Sorry, Bob.