Thirst in Gifts - Unfinished Article

[Smmenen]

Examining Brassman’s Gifts

Andy Probasco, the Brassman, recently wrote an article about the role of Thirst for Knowledge in Vintage Gifts Ungiven decks http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10360.html entitled the Case for Thirst For Knowledge in Gifts.  The only thing he needed to do make a “case for Thirstâ€� was to remind the world that he made second place at the Vintage Championship with his Shortbus Severance Belcher list while the half dozen Meandeck Gifts players, myself included, did not. 

However, I was disappointed by the reasoning presented in his article.  At times I was intrigued, but most of the time I was just baffled because I felt his article didn’t really deal with the criticisms I’ve already leveled at Thirst or failed to explain the things I found baffling about his deck.  I’m going to go through his article, point by point, and do my best to explain where I agree, disagree, and, in all honestly, explain what I don’t understand.

Andy’s points will be in italics when I quote him.

Andy said:

Forget Goblin Charbelcher. Once you cast that Yawgmoth's Will, the rest is incidental. You want to win with Grim Monolith/Power Artifact? Be my guest. There's one huge reason why the Gifts list that got second at Gen Con Champs is different, nay, better than the more popular "Meandeck Gifts" variant, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Volcanic Island counts as a mountain. 

So most people are running 4 Gifts Ungiven and 4 Merchant Scroll. They're great cards, I run two of each myself. Personally, I feel that Gifts isn't something you want to see turn one every game, and when you do cast it, it should be for keeps. As for Merchant Scroll, past the first one that grabs your Ancestral Recall Scroll is just too much of a tempo loss in an environment that's becoming more and more about mana management. Don't agree? Well cut something, because you need to be running four Thirst for Knowledge.

Andy is not really exaggerating that much when he says that, to him, the win condition doesn’t matter.  I believe I either read about or heard about Andy running Mishra’s Factories as the win condition in one variant of his deck early summer.  For reference, Andy’s Shortbus Severance Belcher used to run multiple Goblin Welders, the Belcher, the Mana Severance, and four Thirsts for Knowledge. 

In my conversations with him early in the summer, Andy expressed the view that my preference for Tinker -> Colossus was merely a metagame choice.  My teammate Carl Winter took another teammates decklist, Gifts.fr, and took it to top 8 of the Waterbury.  The debate then began about which Gifts list was better.  I expressed my view that Colossus was not a metagame choice, but a question of correct or incorrect. 

In my article introducing meandeck Gifts, I analyzed three components to the deck after listing all the variants that had come before.

First I took a look at the draw engine (which is the primary of point of contention between me and Andy) and the focus of this article.  Second, I took a look at the disruption and counterspell suites.  Third, I took a look at the win condition.   All three sections were quite extensive, so I’ll link you to them: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9963.html 

 Although I said that I thought running Belcher was wrong – all of my argumentation basically supports the argument that Colossus is superior.  I never actually entertained the notion that you could run both for the simple reason that I like a deck to be focused as much as possible.  Because I thought it was an either or choice, I felt that Colossus was the way to go for the extensive reasons I have discussed in that article.  Evidently, Andy agrees that Colossus needs to be in the deck because he conceded the point and is now playing it. 

However, I do not agree that you can just run any win condition.  Yawgmoth’s Will is a tremendous tempo boost – the biggest in the game, there is no doubt about it.  It will put you, many, many turns ahead and if your deck isn’t terrible, you should be able to leverage that advantage to keep control even if it takes 20 turns.  However, I wouldn’t push your luck.

Sure, you can win with Mishra’s Factory.  But why would you increase your risks of losing when you can just win now?  If you aren’t winning, in Vintage, there is always a chance that you could lose.  But his article and my article isn’t about debating the win condition.  It’s about Thirst and comparing it to the alternatives.

Andy has created a configuration close to one I originally entertained.  Since this article is going to focus almost exclusively on the draw engine, let me go back to what I originally had to say about the various draw engines in my article from May.  In http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9963.html “Finding the Gifts Deck,â€� I explained the process I went through in building the new Gifts list. 

I started with Andy’s Shortbus Severance Belcher, and as I explained, I found Thirst for Knowledge to be the real problem and the incentive for me to make radical design changes.  Here is what I wrote:

1) Thirst For Knowledge
The second thing I found to be irritating about both Gifts lists was Thirst for Knowledge. At least the Severance Belcher list had some more artifacts to discard. Matthieu's list just had the Colossus and the several Furnaces aside from artifact accelerants.
First, discarding a Mox to Thirst is not acceptable. Period. The only place I want Moxen is in play. This deck is voraciously mana hungry. Gifts Ungiven itself is not only expensive - but the combo requires as much mana as you can muster to go off as quickly as possible. Trading off a moxen for a card is not a great plan. Specifically, discarding an artifact is "Teh Suck" when the vast majority of your artifacts - in fact all but one - are mana accellerants that when added to the board enhance your game plan enabling you to play more spells at the right time.
Second, discarding two cards to Thirst is not acceptable. Period. Matthieu's list often did this. The more I pared and tuned the deck, the worse Thirst became in this regard. With Welders and more artifacts, I can see Thirst being a legitimate component. But in Matthieu's list, you are forced to run jank like Furnace. And in Andy's list, you still have to hold back a bit with the Thirsts. If you are running Belcher and Colossus, I don't think that having two non-accelerants to discard justifies playing Thirst either.
The primary problem with Thirst, in my view, is the requirement that you discard an artifact. To take full advantage of it, you need to go the Slaver route and run Pentavus, Slaver, and the like. This fills the deck up with cards that you really don't need. It's so much easier to just win with Colossus and Time Walk. That leaves us with a dilemma. We can run a tried and true draw engine or we can sacrifice the draw engine for a more elegant and suitable win condition.
The primary complaint I had with SSB - apart from Welder - is the same complaint I have playing Slaver lists: I want every card to be immediately awesome. Sometimes you'd have really janky draws of Pentavus, Recoup, black cards, and Welders and cards that aren't very good together. In a tight control mirror or against any good deck, having dead cards in your opening hand that become good with Thirst is just not good enough for me. I hated drawing Welders and expensive artifacts. Granted, these janky cards become a lot better when you run them all together with Thirsts and Welders. There are also enough jank in the deck as is: particularly if you want to run Burning Wish. Ever draw a hand with Burning Wish, Recoup, Mana Severance, and Mindslaver? I have.
Thirst makes a lot more sense in a deck where discarding an artifact is a huge threat: such as Slaver. If you were to include the Slaver or Titan combo into the deck, this would make a potent threat and would be a deadly secondary kill. But without relying on Slaver or using lots of Furnaces, I simply do not like Thirst. I don't like Furnace either, so this card is basically down to discarding Colossus and artifact mana in my list.

Thirst has a high price to play it without giving, in my opinion, much in return. If you aren't running the Slaver kill with Welders, I see no value in Thirst. Playing Thirst to draw three and discard two is unacceptable. There has to be a better draw engine. And there is.


At that point I went through and analyzed the alternatives.  I discussed Skeletal Scrying, Intuition/AK, and Merchant Scroll and various permutations of the above mentioned cards.  If you are curious what I said, you can go back and read the whole section.  In the end, I decided to go with Merchant Scrolls and four Gifts alone. 

As you can see, the primary argument against Thirst that I put forward:

1) Discarding a Mox to Thirst is not acceptable

2) Discarding two cards to Thirst was not acceptable

Here is what Andy has to say about that:


Little known fact: Thirst actually draws three cards.

So does Ideas Unbound….

Go ahead; read it, you might be surprised. Just because when it's all said and done your hand isn't much bigger doesn't mean you didn't draw anything. If anything at all in your hand is less than optimal, the discard is all but negated. Thirst turns excess lands, dead win conditions, and incorrect answers into gas, which is something an extra Gifts can't actually do. If your hand is just bad, Thirst is an Ancestral Recall. Thirst is amazing for the same reason Brainstorm is friggin' insane.

So his first point is that if you have chaff in your hand, then Thirst is helping out.  He is correct.  But part of the design process I went through with Meandeck Gifts was an exercise is focus.  I tuned and tweaked the deck from what Andy originally had until there was only the most minimal amount of chaff.

Andy’s original list had Goblin Welders, Belcher, Severance, Recoup, and other dead cards.  My list only has three supoptimal cards in the opening hand:  Recoup, Burning Wish, and Darksteel Colossus.  As I said in a previous article describing how to play Meandeck Gifts, if you draw any one of those three cards in your opening hand, it is like having a forced mulligan.  If you draw any two of them, then you might as well mulligan.  Andy ran all of those cards in addition to the Belcher, Severance, and some more artifacts.  Even assuming that you are holding a Recoup or a Burning Wish, you would still have to discard a non-terrible card to get the full Thirst effect.  The only way it would be completely worth it is if you discard two of those three cards or happen to be holding the Colossus.  I consider everything else in the deck to be optimal.  I don’t want to discard land because the deck is built to make land drops without having too many.  Brainstorm puts back the unnecessary land and you definitely do not want to discard a Mox.  The moxen accelerate your ability to play Gifts. 

If you do discard an optimal card when you didn’t have to, you have to ask, was it worth it?  In order to really make Thirst good enough you need a certain density of cards that you can afford to discard.  Andy made some new additions to compensate in that regard… which I’ll get around to in a moment.

Furthermore, we're talking about Vintage here, we all know the graveyard is just a convenient place to keep things on the table so we don't have to hold them. If your hand is so good you don't want to get rid of anything, and Thirst draws you three more cards that are too solid to let go of, why are you complaining? Gifts would have only drawn you two good cards, and you don't even get to keep the Will.

Gifts may only give you two, but Gifts gets the two you want.  Andy is right that the graveyard is not the worst place for some of your cards, but I do not want to discard a Mox that can help me cast a broken and early Gifts Ungiven. 

[Machinus]

I don't speak for Brassman here, but I can say that the styles of these two decks are very different.

The Gifts deck that I currently play (and that has been largely influenced by Brassman's lists) is not trying to cast Gifts every game. It is trying to win as quickly as possible every game, but trying to do this by forcing the Gifts execution ends up being a weak strategy. By running the maindeck combo, lots of draw spells, and more disruption (in the form of needles, bounce, darkblast, rack and ruin, etc.), it has more freedom to fight over basic resources. Merchant Scroll is not a draw spell, it is an enabler for the mana -> gifts -> recursion strategy. The Gifts deck I play doesn't seek to execute that strategy every game. If you are also playing cards like Pithing Needle, Thirst for Knowlege is an extremely strong draw spell, both for EOT and FMP, and you don't have to try to force development of your manabase and the resolution of gifts. By playing a more generally controlling game, the Gifts deck with Thirsts is more flexible, and by spending its resources accumulating card advantage instead of trying to set up a game ending gifts, it can just combo out while still maintaining control over the game. The deck takes less risks in going for the win, but at the same time is not seeking to get there as quickly.

This fundamental difference is clearly apparent in the fact that you praised Misdirection as a card to protect the early actions of this deck. Currently, the best Gifts decks would never play this card because it is so antithetical to the plan of the deck. Gifts wants to maintain control of the game while drawing cards and attempting to assemble its combo. Thirst for Knowledge supports both plans by 1) being cheaper and 2) providing basic card advantage, instead of being harder to utilize and more oriented towards assembling win conditions, as Scroll and Gifts are. The Gifts decks that have had the most success are those that pursue general control instead of faster exeuction of the combo.

[Purple Hat]

Andy’s original list had Goblin Welders, Belcher, Severance, Recoup, and other dead cards.  My list only has three supoptimal cards in the opening hand:  Recoup, Burning Wish, and Darksteel Colossus.  As I said in a previous article describing how to play Meandeck Gifts, if you draw any one of those three cards in your opening hand, it is like having a forced mulligan.  If you draw any two of them, then you might as well mulligan.  Andy ran all of those cards in addition to the Belcher, Severance, and some more artifacts.  Even assuming that you are holding a Recoup or a Burning Wish, you would still have to discard a non-terrible card to get the full Thirst effect.  The only way it would be completely worth it is if you discard two of those three cards or happen to be holding the Colossus.  I consider everything else in the deck to be optimal.  I don’t want to discard land because the deck is built to make land drops without having too many.  Brainstorm puts back the unnecessary land and you definitely do not want to discard a Mox.  The moxen accelerate your ability to play Gifts.  

if you're playing 4 gifts and 4 Merchant scrolls I'd tend to say that You've got some fairly suboptomal cards in your deck in lots of situations.  I'm not trying to argue that gifts and scroll  themselves are suboptomal, but rather that they become worse and worse with each copy resolved.  Scroll #2 isn't anywhere near as good as Scroll #1 and Scroll #3 is pretty bad.  A similar statement can be made about gifts if gifts #1 goes for a mana stack, and gifts #2 goes for a win stack and at some point you've seen 3 gifts this game wouldn't you be better off pitching that to thirst?   if you drop to a 3-2 gifts scroll configuration and run 3 thirsts you now see more cards every game helping to diminish the effect of removing some of your tutoring power and giving you the ability to rebuild and dig deeper while looking for answers if you get in trouble.

Hale

[Smmenen]

Andy’s original list had Goblin Welders, Belcher, Severance, Recoup, and other dead cards.  My list only has three supoptimal cards in the opening hand:  Recoup, Burning Wish, and Darksteel Colossus.  As I said in a previous article describing how to play Meandeck Gifts, if you draw any one of those three cards in your opening hand, it is like having a forced mulligan.  If you draw any two of them, then you might as well mulligan.  Andy ran all of those cards in addition to the Belcher, Severance, and some more artifacts.  Even assuming that you are holding a Recoup or a Burning Wish, you would still have to discard a non-terrible card to get the full Thirst effect.  The only way it would be completely worth it is if you discard two of those three cards or happen to be holding the Colossus.  I consider everything else in the deck to be optimal.  I don’t want to discard land because the deck is built to make land drops without having too many.  Brainstorm puts back the unnecessary land and you definitely do not want to discard a Mox.  The moxen accelerate your ability to play Gifts. 

if you're playing 4 gifts and 4 Merchant scrolls I'd tend to say that You've got some fairly suboptomal cards in your deck in lots of situations.  I'm not trying to argue that gifts and scroll  themselves are suboptomal, but rather that they become worse and worse with each copy resolved.  Scroll #2 isn't anywhere near as good as Scroll #1 and Scroll #3 is pretty bad.  A similar statement can be made about gifts if gifts #1 goes for a mana stack, and gifts #2 goes for a win stack and at some point you've seen 3 gifts this game wouldn't you be better off pitching that to thirst?   if you drop to a 3-2 gifts scroll configuration and run 3 thirsts you now see more cards every game helping to diminish the effect of removing some of your tutoring power and giving you the ability to rebuild and dig deeper while looking for answers if you get in trouble.

Hale

In my view, the maginal utility of the second Scrol should be just as high as the first.  In fact, that's why I run four.  I think anyone who runs less four doesnt undersatnd how to use it.

Here is a quote from an article I wrote on gifts that shows how to use Scroll in the control miror, for example:

Let's say your hand is:

Mox Pearl,
Island,
Polluted Delta,
Mana Vault,
Brainstorm,
Merchant Scroll,
Force of Will, and
Gifts Ungiven.

Given this position, you have the opportunity to play a turn 1 Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall and play both Ancestral Recall and Gifts Ungiven on turn 2. I believe this seeming intuitive play to be incorrect in the Control Slaver match, game one. Why? Because you only need one bomb. Here, you have two. The idea behind using two is to double your chances of resolving a bomb, chances which are further increased by the fact that you have Force of Will to protect them. But at what cost? You are sinking many resources into these plays that you don't need to spend. Moreover, you are giving up the chance to stop your opponent from Tinkering or resolving Thirst for Knowledge on their second turn. The result is that the game becomes a race that you lose if they can get Mindslaver into play or into their graveyard with Goblin Welder in play.

In my view, the proper play is to Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain. Therefore, on turn 2 you will be holding up Mana Drain with Force of Will backup.

So the game will look like this:

Turn One:
You play: Mox Pearl, Island, Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain

Turn Two:
Play the Fetchland and pass the turn.

[forests failed you]

I definately agree with Steve here.

The reason most people are not sucessful with MD Gifts is because they don't understand the fundimentals of how to play the control mirror match correctly.  Control mirrors are seldom about going broken and blindly trying to draw more cards;  they are about accumulating slight advantages over the course of the game.  True, it is possible to just go nuts with Slaver or Gifts and blow your opponent's doors off.  However, if you opt for this kind of play one open's his or herself up to two things:  Firstly, your opponent blowing your doors out first;  secondly, your opponent having sufficent counter magic to stop you cold and then controling your game.

I have two insights on the hand Steve has provided and why getting Drain is the correct call.  Firstly, it allows you to win any counter war until at least turn four that your opponent instigates by being the agressor.  You are protected from a quick Tinker for Titan; or if they resolve a turn one Welder, you can stop their TFK... Untap and resolve Gifts with mana floating.

Secondly, if you get the Drain as protection for your spells and make your land drops;  You still have three scrolls left in your deck and a Recall to fetch with them.  This means that when you resolve your first Gifts if you are not immediately in a position to win you can put a Merchant Scroll in the pile , with a Gifts, which ensure that you can find a second Gifts, and/or Ancestral Recall.

I think that Steve's assement that the intuitive play is to get Recall is the number one major reason nobody plays MD Gifts.  They can't win with it because they don't have a strong enough understanding of how a control mirror works to play the deck correctly.  Brassy Gifts is much easier to play because it has more cheap draw spells which allow one to compensate for mistakes;  because the deck just chains into more draw spells that are easier to resolve than a Gifts Ungiven.

The poor play that I see more often than not when I am playing the control mirror are my opponents tutoring for more draw when they already have  a hand full of gas.  Tutoring for protection is where its at ladies and gentlemen, it allows you to win the game later;  As opposed to gambling and trying to win on the spot.

[The Atog Lord]

Steve, I'd actually be interested to hear what you think about Compulsive Research. Research is, in many ways, a draw engine which is similar to Thirst but fixes the problems you described. While acceleration is a requirement for the deck, land isn't so key so long as you can play one per turn. Further, while Merchant Scroll into Ancestral is 1UU for 3 cards, Research is 2U for two cards plus discard. While it is sorcery speed, 1U of the Merchant Scroll also is. And 2U is an easier thing to cast than 1UU. And further, you aren't removing Ancestral from your library when you cast Compulsive Research. I discussed this card with Brassman, and he rejected it because of its sorcery speed. But if you put it up against Scroll, it is at least interesting.

That being said, I'll repeat what I have said so many times about your Meandeck Gifts list: Strong but narrow. I play a ton of "situational" cards in my Control Slaver builds, and they do make cards like Gifts and Brainstorm crucial to managing the deck properly. However, one of the side effects of doing so is that the deck becomes very difficult to hate out, because it is hard to stop the deck by hitting it from any one particular angle.

[dicemanx]

Control mirrors are seldom about going broken and blindly trying to draw more cards;  they are about accumulating slight advantages over the course of the game.

Its interesting how you indicate in the other thread that "once CS starts chaining their draw spells they cannot lose", and yet when Gifts does it they are "blindly drawing trying to draw more cards". Having a good flow of draw spells can very easily trump "accumulating small advantages". That it can mask mistakes underlines the power of such an approach, rather than detracting from it. How curious that we're underestimating the power of card drawing in its contribution to winning Drain mirrors.

Steve's example of Merchant Scrolling for Mana Drain over Ancestral Recall highlights a more general problem that Drain players have handling the early game in a control mirror. Control decks have evolved from the days of 4CC and have incorporated combo finishes - beatdown plans that can trump card advantage strategies, so long as there is enough of a window of opportunity before the card advantage can be translated into establishing control through sheer number of disruption spells. The Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain play is recognizing that potential to simply lose the game in the first three turns despite having an overwhelmingly strong card advantage-generating hand. However, the error lies in the assessment that such a play will result in some sort of gain in the control mirror. This is nothing more than maintaining parity, while giving yourself better defensive options so you can get out of the opening phase and into the midgame alive.   Thats it. Your Drain opponent also has bombs and counters in his deck, so you're merely gearing up for the long struggle ahead by pre-empting the slim possibility that your opponent will wreck you with some ridiculous bomb within 2-3 turns - you haven't actually made any gains yet.

However, I absolutely challenge that Scrolling for Drain over Ancestral is superior. With FoW offering some measure of control already, it can be a very fine gambit to attempt to set yourself up with 2 bombs and press for the generation of card advantage at the cost of temporarily exposing yourself to the opponent's "nuts beatdown hand" (along the lines of FoW + blue card + TfK turn 2 + Welder + one of 2 big artifacts to pitch) within the first 2-3 turns. It's difficult to consider Gifts as something of an overwhelming bomb that having it backed by two disruption spells gives you better chances at winning. To suggest that Gifts gives you "2 cards you want" over BMGifts' TfK which merely draws three "random" cards is a shallow piece of analysis. Every card I draw with BMGifts, I WANT. I don't play bad spells. Gifts is pure muscle, a deck with nothing but card drawing, disruption, and bombs. It is a deck ideally suited for a strategy involving mass card draw, and chaining draw spells.

Note that BMGifts doesn't necessarily have to struggle with such early game decisions. It has Needles vs CS as a back up option to stop the early nuts beatdown plays, so that it too can make it into the midgame and try to outdraw and outcounter CS there. Needle is more of a contigency plan here in case something goes wrong, and not what many mistakenly believe is part of the central core strategy in defeating CS. I'd sooner pitch Needle to TfK if it means drawing enough counters to stop opposing TfKs and making Welders 1/1 vanilla beaters in the process, rather than playing Needle to deal with Welder pre-emptively.   

To label Scrolling for AR as a mistake in this example as an illustration of the fact that players "don't use Merchant Scroll properly" to account for MDGifts lack of popularity is a little extreme. I'd be more than happy to take that hand in 50 test games, and fetch AR over Mana Drain turn 1 against any Drain deck out there (CS or otherwise), to try to prove that it cannot be so clearly labeled as an inferior play.



 

[Smmenen]

Alot to respond to, and I promise I'll get to it, but I wanted to direct your attention to my article on the Control Slaver v. MD Gifts match from which i pulled the example above:  http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10315.html
 I want to remind Peter that hand actually game up in a game in testing before Gencon when I was focusing - I spent two weeks on the Slaver v. Gifts match in the time before Gencon.  What I wrote in that article followed from that. 

EDIT: I am 100% convinced based upon my testing against Slaver that the hand I posted was the correct way to play it.  You def. Scroll for Drain and not AR.

[The Atog Lord]

Steve,

I just read your article you linked to. Nicely written.

I wanted to comment on the scenario you presented in which you got Mana Drain instead of Ancestral Recall. I think the resul of that decision is the following:
1. You will likely resolve Gifts Unigiven, since you have double backup for it.
2. However, you will need a decent bit of mana to explot that resolved Gifts, more than the three you will have after its resolution. The "combo" tends to require both Red and Black mana, of which you would have one and not the other. This is of course to say nothing of colored mana requirements. So, you will likely end up in a position where you need to draw more mana to win than you start with in your opening hand. In other words, resolving that Gifts alone won't be likely to win you the game.

The most common argument I have seen for Gifts builds in general, and the most flawed, is that Gifts Ungiven is a single card combo. It is only insofar as Fireball is a single card combo. Gifts translates having a lot of mana into victory, much as Fireball does. The reason to include draw in Gifts builds is not because the draw helps you resolve Gifts per se -- Steve, your Meandeck Gifts build is wonderful at finding and resolving that one blue spell. Rather, the reason to run a Brassman style Gifts build is that in truth the deck needs to assemble a robust mana base before it can exploit the power of a resolved Gifts, and card draw is the best way any of us have found to get a mana base onto the board.

[Outlaw]

Hasnt it just been proven with sheer numbers that Our list (Brassman and I's) was superior then that of meandeck gifts?  Meandeck gifts has won a very small amount of power while lists with Thirst have won a great amount? I believe the control mirror is won with a steady stream of card advantage.  Having a gifts in hand turn one is like knocking your hand size down one because personally I dont want to invest so much into resources to create card advantage so early when I can chain thirsts together to sculp a perfect hand.  Thirsts get you into a position to win the game while casting an early gifts (without mana drain accelerant) may put you into position to win the game. 

[Smmenen]

Hasnt it just been proven with sheer numbers that Our list (Brassman and I's) was superior then that of meandeck gifts?  Meandeck gifts has won a very small amount of power while lists with Thirst have won a great amount?

A) That's not true at all.

Take a look at the actual stats:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11200.html

Meandeck Gifts has outpaced Brassy Gifts in the world of statistics

B) Brassy and Kowal are early and huge popularizers.  When I put down Gifts to focus on other decks, Brassy Kowal and you kept playing Gifts.  Thus, the primary designer of one variant put down the deck because I like to innovate, while you guys continued to tune your list.  As a consequence, you continued to perform well and put your deck into top 8s where it was visible.  What that means is that the best remaining gifts players played a particular variant.

C) If I had continued to play MDG, i'm sure I could have made a case for its competitiveness.  The only exception was at Gencon where I screwed up my sb design and it cost me my fish matchup which is why I only got top 16. 

I believe the control mirror is won with a steady stream of card advantage.

That’s only part true.  You could have the most insane card advantage in the world, but its much better to have tempo as well.  A solid mix of card advantage and tempo is the key to the control mirror.  It didn’t used to be that way.  Time Walk often sucked ass in Keeper mirrors.  But think about how friggen insane Time Walk is now in control mirrors.  Why?  Because tempo is freakin’ huge. 

Having a gifts in hand turn one is like knocking your hand size down one because personally I dont want to invest so much into resources to create card advantage so early when I can chain thirsts together to sculp a perfect hand. 

See, that’s the flawed thinking I’m attacking.  Gifts isn’t JUST a source of card advantage.  It’s tempo as well.  I wish I could just refute your point with a simple counter example, but Gifts are even more context dependent than Doomsday Stax.  I will just note that Gifts piles should be heavily broken and often involve Time Walk. 

The problem with Thirst is that it does not sculp your hand perfectly.  To do so, you have to slow it down a tad so that you can keep the Moxen (I HATE discarding Moxen). 

Thirsts get you into a position to win the game while casting an early gifts (without mana drain accelerant) may put you into position to win the game. 

Gifts does precisely what you claim thirst does.  Gifts isn’t just a game winner, its an insane source of tempo and card advantage.  It’s the second best unrestricted card (after Grim Tutor).

Steve,

I just read your article you linked to. Nicely written.

I wanted to comment on the scenario you presented in which you got Mana Drain instead of Ancestral Recall. I think the result of that decision is the following:
1. You will likely resolve Gifts Unigiven, since you have double backup for it.
2. However, you will need a decent bit of mana to exploit that resolved Gifts, more than the three you will have after its resolution. The "combo" tends to require both Red and Black mana, of which you would have one and not the other. This is of course to say nothing of colored mana requirements. So, you will likely end up in a position where you need to draw more mana to win than you start with in your opening hand. In other words, resolving that Gifts alone won't be likely to win you the game.

The most common argument I have seen for Gifts builds in general, and the most flawed, is that Gifts Ungiven is a single card combo. It is only insofar as Fireball is a single card combo. Gifts translates having a lot of mana into victory, much as Fireball does. The reason to include draw in Gifts builds is not because the draw helps you resolve Gifts per se -- Steve, your Meandeck Gifts build is wonderful at finding and resolving that one blue spell. Rather, the reason to run a Brassman style Gifts build is that in truth the deck needs to assemble a robust mana base before it can exploit the power of a resolved Gifts, and card draw is the best way any of us have found to get a mana base onto the board.
 

As usual, your general comments about how Meandeck Gifts is strong is accurate and you are correct in your observations of its limitations – Meandeck Gifts is narrower.  That’s precisely how it was designed: to be focused.  However, you are underestimating the power of Gifts.

Let’s go through the scenario I presented:
Turn One:
You play: Mox Pearl, Island, Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain
Turn Two:
Play the Fetchland and Mana Vault off Pearl and pass the turn.
The tricky part comes up when you try to break your fetchland. The timing of fetchland breakage is really important.
If on their endstep you play Brainstorm, then they have an opportunity to play Thirst for Knowledge without your ability to Mana Drain it. The probably stronger play is to simply hope that you draw a land on the second or third turn so that you can drop it into play and Brainstorm with Mana Drain up. However, you also want to maximize your Brainstorm by having a Fetchland up. This is tricky situation that depends almost entirely upon what your opponent does. I have found that use of the mana base in the early game is very important. You need to weigh all your options before coming to a solution. You need to consider the consequences of breaking fetchlands on their first mainphase, second mainphase, attack step, end step, your upkeep and even your draw step. Mana Vault, by the way, is a card that you will likely want to continue to hold to Brainstorm back into your library.
Now here is the thing:
Let’s assume your Gifts resolves on your opponents endstep after your third turn.  What should you gifts for?  It depends on if you Drained their counterspell – so let’s assume that you Forced and Drained them.  It also depends on if you’ve used the Brainstorm yet.  Let’s assume that you have not. 

Here is probably what I’d get:
a) Ancestral Recall
b) Time Walk
c) Recoup
d) Yawg Will

So, if I haven’t used the Brainstorm yet, I’m very confidant that the Time Walk + Brainstorm will buy me plenty of time to go off.  I could make other gifts piles for other situations to show that Gifts really isn’t like a Fireball.  You are right that it’s a single card combo.  But it’s a lot more like Mind’s Desire than Fireball.   

Steve's example of Merchant Scrolling for Mana Drain over Ancestral Recall highlights a more general problem that Drain players have handling the early game in a control mirror. Control decks have evolved from the days of 4CC and have incorporated combo finishes - beatdown plans that can trump card advantage strategies, so long as there is enough of a window of opportunity before the card advantage can be translated into establishing control through sheer number of disruption spells. The Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain play is recognizing that potential to simply lose the game in the first three turns despite having an overwhelmingly strong card advantage-generating hand. However, the error lies in the assessment that such a play will result in some sort of gain in the control mirror. This is nothing more than maintaining parity, while giving yourself better defensive options so you can get out of the opening phase and into the midgame alive.   Thats it. Your Drain opponent also has bombs and counters in his deck, so you're merely gearing up for the long struggle ahead by pre-empting the slim possibility that your opponent will wreck you with some ridiculous bomb within 2-3 turns - you haven't actually made any gains yet.

Peter, your post is quite perceptive in terms of its analysis, if not in terms of its conclusions.  The problem though is that you are focusing on the wrong thing.  Sure, that play is parity.  But the goal isn’t about how do I do X or Y, it’s how do I win?  Magic decks are relative.  What matters isn’t how I build the superior deck in the abstract sense, but how do I win?  I have analyzed VERY VERY closely the dynamics of the MDGifts and Slaver matchup and I can tell you that this parity move will create a midgame shift that will win you the game while sealing up the only weakness.

I have an obsessive compulsion mono blueness when I play magic.  I like to try and seal up as many holes as I possibly can.  That way I minimize the risks I make when I play magic.  This series of plays does that by ensuring that Slaver doesn’t asplode in my face.  If I did the Ancestral + Gifts play, I would face a HUGe risk of letting Rich or Brian slave me before I get another turn.  I need to make sure they can’t do that.

That’s how I play the control mirror.  Remember BBS?  BBS played EOTFOFYL.  That’s the same principle.  Parity, parirty, parity, eotfofylgg.  That’s the proper way to play that match. 

Note that BMGifts doesn't necessarily have to struggle with such early game decisions.

I don’t consider it a struggle if you simply learn the matchup.  No one in Vintage should be playing matches they don’t understand because they haven’t tested.

To label Scrolling for AR as a mistake in this example as an illustration of the fact that players "don't use Merchant Scroll properly" to account for MDGifts lack of popularity is a little extreme.

No actually its not.  Taken out of context, I would agree with you.  But what’s the first thing I say in the article?

The biggest obstacle to success with Meandeck Gifts is knowing which role to assume. The primary engine of the deck is composed of tutors: Merchant Scroll and Gifts Ungiven. As a result, there are many decisions to be made in any given game which shape and determine the role one assumes. Each card tutored for can create a more defensive or aggressive posture depending upon what it was. Choosing the wrong role leads to game loss. Knowing which role is "proper" can be difficult to see.

The proper role is CONTROL.  Getting Ancestral signals that you don’t understand that fact.  It’s really that simple.

[PucktheCat]

A couple of points that haven't been made yet:

1.  Thirst often discards artifact mana that is weakened by mox hate (Chalice, Null Rod, Shaman).  There are a number of decks out there where moxes are weak cards on any turn other than the first and the last.  In those matchups turning a Thirst and a dead Mox into a land and two other spells is very, very good.

2.  Pithing Needle is a good card on its own, not just a necessary evil to support Thirst.  3x Needle makes the deck virtually immune to Goblin Welder as a threat, lets the deck play the long game in matchups with Bazaar decks, and generally provides options no other card can.  I have had opponents give me Black Lotus from a Gifts rather than give me Pithing Needle.

3.  Once you include Pithing Needle in your build, Thrist becomes a much more attractive option.  Obviously.

I suppose I occupy a sort of middle camp in this debate.  I like Thirst enough to play it, but I do think of it as one of the weakest cards in the deck.  It simply does something that nothing else does - it draws you cards on your second turn without interfereing with Drain mana - and I like having something in that role.

Merchant Scroll is not without its problems.  Against any deck with Chalices first turn Scroll for Ancestral is a very risky play.  And, in spite of what you say Steve, I feel that Merchant Scroll is pretty sub-par when Ancestral is off the table.  Scrolling for Gifts and bounce are decent if you are in a position to do something broken, but not great if you are trying to get into a game.  Scrolling for counters is marginal in many matchups.  I would far rather play Mana Leak than routinely Scroll for Mana Drain.

I like to try and seal up as many holes as I possibly can.  That way I minimize the risks I make when I play magic.  This series of plays does that by ensuring that Slaver doesn’t asplode in my face.  If I did the Ancestral + Gifts play, I would face a HUGe risk of letting Rich or Brian slave me before I get another turn.  I need to make sure they can’t do that.

You don't specify whether this scenario is happening pre- or post-sb, or what CS build you are facing, but a first turn Duress absolutely destroys you if you have Scrolled for Drain.  You are so afraid of the possibility that CS will have an explosive start that you are dramatically slowing yourself down and reducing your options to deal with that possibility.

[Hi-Val]

I hear over and over that all Merchant Scrolls after the one that gets AR are suboptimal. I cannot believe this. Here are cards that Scroll gets:

Force of Freaking Will
Mana Drain (scrolling for Mana Drain is an incredibly strong play)
Rebuild
Chain of Vapor
Fact or Fiction
Brainstorm
Mystical Tutor
Gifts Ungiven
Fire/Ice

...and the list goes on. Every Scroll past the first getting AR is still good because the second grabs Drain and the third grabs Gifts and then you win if you have not already. I absolutely love drawing a Merchant Scroll at any point in the game. Having two in my opening hand is gravy because if I have a mox, I can have FOW up on the first turn and then follow it up with a Scroll for AR or Drain or another FOW or whatever I want. Merchant Scroll lets you run four more of the best cards in the deck for a very cheap cost.

[dicemanx]

But the goal isn’t about how do I do X or Y, it’s how do I win?  Magic decks are relative.  What matters isn’t how I build the superior deck in the abstract sense, but how do I win?  I have analyzed VERY VERY closely the dynamics of the MDGifts and Slaver matchup and I can tell you that this parity move will create a midgame shift that will win you the game while sealing up the only weakness.

This isn't incosistent with my claims, and I'm not looking at BMGifts in a vacuum. My goal is to win, and I plan to achieve that by outdrawing my Drain opponent. You might be structuring your approach as "parity, parity, Gifts I win", while the alternate approach that I'm claiming is superior as far as functioning as the *better* control approach is to try to *break parity right away* (TfK, Gifts I win). Otherwise, like I said, you're merely gearing up for the struggle ahead because your opponent is *also* playing counters and bombs and parity has yet to be broken.

I don’t consider it a struggle if you simply learn the matchup.  No one in Vintage should be playing matches they don’t understand because they haven’t tested.

It's more of a struggle for MDGifts in the sense that BMGifts can be more reckless with its pursuit of card advantage because it has resources other than counterspells to stop bombs, and is also far less bothered if it has random draw spells FoWed or Duressed. What I mean is, you have to play much more carefully (not breaking parity) to have equal opportunity in the early game (and the stress is on EQUAL), while BMGifts can begin its assault from turn 1. The better control deck is the one that can break parity successfully first, which is why my contention is that BMGifts is the superior control deck. The operative word here is "successfully", and that covers the ability to weather the early brokenness.

The other issue is that you are preceeding your card advantage with mana explosion, but like TAL stated, mana explosion usually comes as a consequence of card drawing. Notice:

The probably stronger play is to simply hope that you draw a land on the second or third turn so that you can drop it into play and Brainstorm with Mana Drain up. However, you also want to maximize your Brainstorm by having a Fetchland up. This is tricky situation that depends almost entirely upon what your opponent does. I have found that use of the mana base in the early game is very important. You need to weigh all your options before coming to a solution.

You make TAL's point beautifully. You aren't playing a good control deck in this mirror. You are playing hope magic, and no hand waving in the world and ambiguities such as "you have to weigh your options" will change this fact. You are mana shorted for what it is that you want to accomplish, because your "control plan" is impeding your flow of cards and opportunity to draw into enough blue sources. If the best solution is to hope for mana development because your deck lacks the explosive card drawing to make that development happen, then you're in trouble. And mind you that the hand you presented doesn't get any more ideal. You have an *awesome* Gifts hand, with FoW, Drain (via Scroll), BS, and Gifts. And yet, you're on the verge of possibly making a critical error because your conceivably best play is to hope for land topdecks.

I stand by my contention that Scrolling for AR is as good if not the superior play here. Your turn 2 is better spent potentially seeing 6 new cards (playing BS ahead of AR to maximize your fetch) if the situation warrants it. This isn't inconsistent with playing the "control" deck. You are making a sacrifice in the short term and conceeding when your opponent has the nuts, but you put yourself in a far stronger position in the longer term (turn 3 onwards) as a control deck because you broke parity early.

The assignment of roles is a bit silly for Gifts decks specifically turn 1. Control and beatdown are so intertwined - they both feed off each other. You cannot hope to maintain control consistently if your Drain opponent sees more cards than you (your best chance is to go for instakills before the window of opportunity permanently closes), and by the same token you cannot entertain the beatdown option if you're not generating card advantage to some degree. Assignment of roles with a turn 1 play of Scrolling for AR over Drain is a misunderstanding what "assignment of role means" in my opinion. You lack sufficient information, because the information is not contingent on mere archetype. Here's the way I would look at it:

1) Priority lies in beatdown in Drain mirrors, owing to the current power of the threats themselves. This is a relatively new concept for control decks. The first deck that can establish the beatdown wins. However, the risk in assuming the beatdown role is a function of what your opponent is playing and a function of the investment involved/expenditure of resources involved in the beatdown. From your opponent's end you must assess what cards are in play and what threats he's representing - this tends to be a function of time, so as the game moves past the first few turns the window of opportunity closes and its no longer worth the risk. From your end, how costly the beatdown plan is in terms of resource spending is very critical. For instance, it would be at the height of foolishness to go all in with a Tinker DSC plan turns 1-2 against CS, unless there are compelling reasons to do so (double back up of FoW and Needle for example might mitigate the risks involved).

2) If beatdown isn't a safe enough option, or if its unnecessary to go "all in" early, then your goal is to be the superior control deck. To achieve this, the first deck that can break parity, or the deck that has the means of breaking parity first has the better chances. The exception to this is if your opponent is the weaker player, where holding parity might be enough to win as you can exploit errors via opponent's inaccurate play.

Scrolling for AR is consistent with both plans 1 and 2. It is based on an assessment that the relative risk is minimal; there is no information available yet to indicate if your opponent has game ending beatdown potential. Even if he does, the UU you represent will highly discourage him. For example, if CS has a god turn 2 beatdown draw of TfK, Welder, and 1of 2 big game ending artifacts, he will strive to *ensure* that the TfK resolves. He will never cast TfK with your UU open, not even as a bait spell (if its a bait spell, his hand was even more amazing). The fact that you're holding AR over Drain doesn't affect the early game situation here, so long as your opponent is following the protocol outlined above. He's electing not to strive for beatdown, since the UU represents a grave danger for him. He's already invested 2 cards that will otherwise be meaningless if that TfK doesn't resolve (Welder and Titan/Slaver), so he has to strive to ensure that he doesn't engage in a counterwar that he will lose - if he loses, you've broken parity by rendering some of his cards useless. Now granted if you're getting Drain because you deem your control player to be inferior because he's far too agressive, then by all means get the Drain instead of AR to hedge against his early shenanigans so that your parity situation will be enough to outplay him later. However, against competent players there will be no such guarantee of success starting from parity.

Now this just represented your worst case scenario. In the better (and more likely) scenario, your opponent doesn't have the fing nuts, so that Mana Drain is containing an illusory beatdown threat that won't materialize until a little later. You've then missed out on the opportunity to break parity asap in order to wrest the control role from your opponent and any attrition wars you engage in favor you moreso than your opponent. Like I said before, by getting Drain you've transitioned from "potential to lose in the first 3 turns" to "parity with good defensive options", but you haven't made any strides yet. The battle still awaits. By getting AR you're announcing your intentions of wresting the control role by breaking parity, and possibly even getting a quick knockout via beatdown (mana explosion accompanied by Gifts for your winning YWill pile).

And incidentally, contrary to other constructed formats such as T2 or Extended, you absolutely cannot pre-emprively assess a role correctly in T1 between any two decks if you understand the match-ups very well. For instance, if anyone claims that they have "solved" the CS-Gifts match-up and recognize that Gifts (for example) needs to assume the control role, they are severely limiting themselves and are not going to be flexible enough in their play. Proper assessment is a function of the gamestate, not the match up. Its a fair assessment to claim that Gifts tends to adopt more of the control role, but this is a matter of statistics and is contigent upon how the game develops. 

I hear over and over that all Merchant Scrolls after the one that gets AR are suboptimal. I cannot believe this. Here are cards that Scroll gets:

I think you're perhaps misinterpreting the assessment of Scroll. The first criticism is that Scrolls are used over draw spells and hamper the flow associated with chaining your draw. What Scroll offers comes at a price, where your early game potential for development and opportunity to break parity are replaced by mid-late game flexibility. Scroll also tacks on 2 mana to the cost of the spells you want to see in your hand, which is sometimes unacceptable. There's also this mistaken notion that "blind card drawing" is somehow inferior to using cards like Gifts or Scroll to get specific cards in hand.
     

[Liam-K]

When you see a Merchant Scroll in your hand, you need to ask yourself "what card do I need in my hand to win?"  This should go withou saying, but people blindly scrolling for Recall shows that the thinking going on is incorrect.  Recall is good, and sometimes what you need is to draw 3, but it is by no means automatic.  I haven't/can't read Smmenen's example, but I agree with him that analysing your hand in the context of "where do I want to go with this" rather than "what's the fastest way to do something cool" is much better.

Because I play them this way, I tend to hold my scrolls until there is something concrete that I want.  I won't lie, Recall is most often the first target, but I rarely feel like a jackass having blown my scroll for Recall last turn when someone goes welder, thirst, pass.

[MaxxMatt]

I like the way Dicemanx and Steve contrapposed each other, talking about things that can conduce both of them to victory, with similar cards but in a different way.

I would like to pose the attention on a couple of statements done by such two heroes that can underline *how* different is their own vision about the other *other* deck that they are not going to support.

I stand by my contention that Scrolling for AR is as good if not the superior play here. Your turn 2 is better spent potentially seeing 6 new cards (playing BS ahead of AR to maximize your fetch) if the situation warrants it. This isn't inconsistent with playing the "control" deck. You are making a sacrifice in the short term and conceeding when your opponent has the nuts, but you put yourself in a far stronger position in the longer term (turn 3 onwards) as a control deck because you broke parity early.

That’s how I play the control mirror.  Remember BBS?  BBS played EOTFOFYL.  That’s the same principle.  Parity, parirty, parity, eotfofylgg.  That’s the proper way to play that match.

What a delight am I feeling, while I think about myself going to weight the subtle but terrible differences of their own approach to the game.

What are they going to discuss?
They Persecute the same goal with two perfectly different patterns.



Which meaning can be summarized by the Dicemanx words?
I would like to win the most difficult among my own matchups by outplaying my opponents thanks to Tempo and Unfocused Quantity

Which one can be realized by reading the Steve's lines?
I would like to win the most difficult among my own matchups by outplaying my opponents thanks to Tempo and Focused Quality

While the first one would like to build his win through a not too easily recognizable and predictable pattern of plays, step after step, chaining strong plays one after an other in order to reach a "peek of inevitability", the second one precisely try to foresight not only his own future moves, but even the possible number of plays to do to dodge the opponents' ones and force him to follow tightened constrains that would limit his own moves, bringing him to the "inevitability of the victory".


Both of them, are trying to reduce the opponent to a simple mouse in their own labyrinth.

In the described game situation, Dicemanx consider subpar to choose Drain with M.Scroll, because he is frigthened by the possible opponent's "inevitability", thinking that it could not be enough to sustain his spells. He saw Steve's choice too reductive and too focused on "winning" soon or "winning with too many cards left in his own deck". More cards Steve would leave into his deck, more opportunities he burned on killing the opponent in a long term and safer plan. A long term plan is considered *safer* because the entire game is constructed with the goal of winning in *that* point of the game.

On the other hand, Steve's eyes, quickly tried to moved ahead in time, with a foresighting perspective. The path to follow is choosen after seeing up to 10-12 cards. The moves are perfectly calculated posing as much attention as he can on the time needed to accomplish his own deadly plan. The more he occured to win, the more his predictions would be less accurate. A plan, builded as this one, is considered *safer* because the entire game develop itself by followin precise moves.

Who win?

The ones that reduced his opponent to death in the most efficient way by playing all the matches as a gigantic climax or the one that tried to disarm all the tools that the opponent would use against him?

Only if you  know enough about the opponent that you are going to face, you could have some relief while reasoning on this issue.
The only thing that matter is speed.
Quick threats would need quick answers to be solved.

I see a lot of quick tools both in MD-Gifs and Gifted-Control.
Control mirrors are slow to end but quick to build.
While C-S can be neutralized both by winning the entire game or completely outplaying the opponent, I'm not used to think about a control matchup, as a think that can be easily won or lost.

Steve's plan involve only perfect choices and good hands.
Dicemanx's plan involve an increasing number of cards in hand coupled with a good mana development.

While the first one can win a couple of counter wars more than the other, the latter can handle situations simply by not involving himself into continue counterwars towards opponent's weapons.


Every word spent talking about those two decks, can reassume itself by stating that "only good and well played hands" would let you have an edge over the opponent.

You cannot predict well anything and you cannot try to overcome anything.
Both the approaches have little and subtle bugs.
Even MaoTzeTung stated that every system bring with itself his own sin of decadence.
Even Dorian Gray usually talk about himself and his won picture as the two best ways to approach the life.

Met the truth in the middle.
Play both the decks at their best without thinking too much about playing the best one.


Prosit,
MaxxMatt

[Smmenen]

But the goal isn’t about how do I do X or Y, it’s how do I win?  Magic decks are relative.  What matters isn’t how I build the superior deck in the abstract sense, but how do I win?  I have analyzed VERY VERY closely the dynamics of the MDGifts and Slaver matchup and I can tell you that this parity move will create a midgame shift that will win you the game while sealing up the only weakness.

This isn't incosistent with my claims, and I'm not looking at BMGifts in a vacuum. My goal is to win, and I plan to achieve that by outdrawing my Drain opponent.

Fair, but this begs the question: which list has a better "outdrawing" engine?  I believe mine does.

We have all been ignoring the opening post and my criticisms of Thirst.  I tried Thirst.  Thirst forces you to run crappy artifacts that may or may not be good depending on the metagame (see Needles).  Thirst forces you to discard a card.  It is clunky without Welder.  It doesn't sculpt a perfect hand.  Scroll does provide a nice burst of card advantage and is extremely flexible.  Remember, I analyzed all of the draw engines.  People keep asserting that Thirst is better at all of this without dealing with what I've said is problematic about it in the first post.

I'll out draw you not just because I play card that say "draw X cards" more frequently, but because I'll resolve mine more and Will first.

You might be structuring your approach as "parity, parity, Gifts I win", while the alternate approach that I'm claiming is superior as far as functioning as the *better* control approach is to try to *break parity right away* (TfK, Gifts I win). Otherwise, like I said, you're merely gearing up for the struggle ahead because your opponent is *also* playing counters and bombs and parity has yet to be broken.

The key word is "try."  More on that in  a bit.

I don’t consider it a struggle if you simply learn the matchup.  No one in Vintage should be playing matches they don’t understand because they haven’t tested.

It's more of a struggle for MDGifts in the sense that BMGifts can be more reckless with its pursuit of card advantage because it has resources other than counterspells to stop bombs, and is also far less bothered if it has random draw spells FoWed or Duressed.

Both bold assertions that are not supported at all.  I would counter that both are false. 

What I mean is, you have to play much more carefully (not breaking parity) to have equal opportunity in the early game (and the stress is on EQUAL), while BMGifts can begin its assault from turn 1. The better control deck is the one that can break parity successfully first, which is why my contention is that BMGifts is the superior control deck. The operative word here is "successfully", and that covers the ability to weather the early brokenness.

 I would say that MDG is just as good at breaking partiy first, if not better, since I have more countermagic and can find and play Ancestral sooner and better protect it. 

The other issue is that you are preceeding your card advantage with mana explosion, but like TAL stated, mana explosion usually comes as a consequence of card drawing. Notice:

The probably stronger play is to simply hope that you draw a land on the second or third turn so that you can drop it into play and Brainstorm with Mana Drain up. However, you also want to maximize your Brainstorm by having a Fetchland up. This is tricky situation that depends almost entirely upon what your opponent does. I have found that use of the mana base in the early game is very important. You need to weigh all your options before coming to a solution.

You make TAL's point beautifully. You aren't playing a good control deck in this mirror. You are playing hope magic, and no hand waving in the world and ambiguities such as "you have to weigh your options" will change this fact. You are mana shorted for what it is that you want to accomplish, because your "control plan" is impeding your flow of cards and opportunity to draw into enough blue sources. If the best solution is to hope for mana development because your deck lacks the explosive card drawing to make that development happen, then you're in trouble. And mind you that the hand you presented doesn't get any more ideal. You have an *awesome* Gifts hand, with FoW, Drain (via Scroll), BS, and Gifts. And yet, you're on the verge of possibly making a critical error because your conceivably best play is to hope for land topdecks.

As I pointed out to TAL, he is underestimating the power of Gifts.  I said it was more like Desire than Fireball.  Also, you miss the point that I was talking about in that paragaph, which isn't about needing land so much as determining when to play Brainstorm so that you can be assured to coutner Thirst - an example that applies equally to both this list and BMGifts.

I stand by my contention that Scrolling for AR is as good if not the superior play here. Your turn 2 is better spent potentially seeing 6 new cards (playing BS ahead of AR to maximize your fetch) if the situation warrants it. This isn't inconsistent with playing the "control" deck. You are making a sacrifice in the short term and conceeding when your opponent has the nuts, but you put yourself in a far stronger position in the longer term (turn 3 onwards) as a control deck because you broke parity early.

That's where we disagree.  It doesn't take the "nuts" for slaver to win there.  It takes a decent hand.  Not the nuts.  It takes a tutor, gifts, thirst plus some tutor, Time walk plus thirst, any number of cards can win.  What you call the nuts, I call 40% of the time, at least.

The assignment of roles is a bit silly for Gifts decks specifically turn 1. Control and beatdown are so intertwined - they both feed off each other. You cannot hope to maintain control consistently if your Drain opponent sees more cards than you (your best chance is to go for instakills before the window of opportunity permanently closes), and by the same token you cannot entertain the beatdown option if you're not generating card advantage to some degree. Assignment of roles with a turn 1 play of Scrolling for AR over Drain is a misunderstanding what "assignment of role means" in my opinion. You lack sufficient information, because the information is not contingent on mere archetype. Here's the way I would look at it:

1) Priority lies in beatdown in Drain mirrors, owing to the current power of the threats themselves. This is a relatively new concept for control decks. The first deck that can establish the beatdown wins. However, the risk in assuming the beatdown role is a function of what your opponent is playing and a function of the investment involved/expenditure of resources involved in the beatdown. From your opponent's end you must assess what cards are in play and what threats he's representing - this tends to be a function of time, so as the game moves past the first few turns the window of opportunity closes and its no longer worth the risk. From your end, how costly the beatdown plan is in terms of resource spending is very critical. For instance, it would be at the height of foolishness to go all in with a Tinker DSC plan turns 1-2 against CS, unless there are compelling reasons to do so (double back up of FoW and Needle for example might mitigate the risks involved).

2) If beatdown isn't a safe enough option, or if its unnecessary to go "all in" early, then your goal is to be the superior control deck. To achieve this, the first deck that can break parity, or the deck that has the means of breaking parity first has the better chances. The exception to this is if your opponent is the weaker player, where holding parity might be enough to win as you can exploit errors via opponent's inaccurate play.

Scrolling for AR is consistent with both plans 1 and 2. It is based on an assessment that the relative risk is minimal; there is no information available yet to indicate if your opponent has game ending beatdown potential. Even if he does, the UU you represent will highly discourage him. For example, if CS has a god turn 2 beatdown draw of TfK, Welder, and 1of 2 big game ending artifacts, he will strive to *ensure* that the TfK resolves. He will never cast TfK with your UU open, not even as a bait spell (if its a bait spell, his hand was even more amazing). The fact that you're holding AR over Drain doesn't affect the early game situation here, so long as your opponent is following the protocol outlined above. He's electing not to strive for beatdown, since the UU represents a grave danger for him. He's already invested 2 cards that will otherwise be meaningless if that TfK doesn't resolve (Welder and Titan/Slaver), so he has to strive to ensure that he doesn't engage in a counterwar that he will lose - if he loses, you've broken parity by rendering some of his cards useless. Now granted if you're getting Drain because you deem your control player to be inferior because he's far too agressive, then by all means get the Drain instead of AR to hedge against his early shenanigans so that your parity situation will be enough to outplay him later. However, against competent players there will be no such guarantee of success starting from parity.

Now this just represented your worst case scenario. In the better (and more likely) scenario, your opponent doesn't have the fing nuts, so that Mana Drain is containing an illusory beatdown threat that won't materialize until a little later. You've then missed out on the opportunity to break parity asap in order to wrest the control role from your opponent and any attrition wars you engage in favor you moreso than your opponent. Like I said before, by getting Drain you've transitioned from "potential to lose in the first 3 turns" to "parity with good defensive options", but you haven't made any strides yet. The battle still awaits. By getting AR you're announcing your intentions of wresting the control role by breaking parity, and possibly even getting a quick knockout via beatdown (mana explosion accompanied by Gifts for your winning YWill pile).

And incidentally, contrary to other constructed formats such as T2 or Extended, you absolutely cannot pre-emprively assess a role correctly in T1 between any two decks if you understand the match-ups very well. For instance, if anyone claims that they have "solved" the CS-Gifts match-up and recognize that Gifts (for example) needs to assume the control role, they are severely limiting themselves and are not going to be flexible enough in their play. Proper assessment is a function of the gamestate, not the match up. Its a fair assessment to claim that Gifts tends to adopt more of the control role, but this is a matter of statistics and is contigent upon how the game develops. 

There are a huge number of mistakes in your reasoning.

First, you are assuming that I make that play unreflexively.  Obviously, I assume that my opponent didn't mulligan to 5, etc or other circumstances which would warrant the safe play.  If the risk isnt' there, then you make the AR play. 

SEcond, you seem to be missing what i mean by control role.  I'm not talking about just playing countermagic for the sake of playing it.  I'm talking about a) protecting yourself from all risks and then winning and b) the fact that you only need one threat.  The gifts will win the game by itself, as I explained to TAL. 

Your play doesn't make sense in this example because you are willing to open yourself up to a risk when you simply don't have to do that.  Why take risks if you don't have to?  The safe play is the smart one.  You say against competent players, my plan isn't assured success.  I would disagree.  Parity is broken by tempo.  The EOT play will create a nice window or opportunity that they are very unlikely to succeed in stopping. 

I also strongly disagree that this is a ridiculous gifts hand.  This is a better gifts hand, but hardly ideal.  I get hands like that as a matter of course playing MDG. 

[dicemanx]

We have all been ignoring the opening post and my criticisms of Thirst.  I tried Thirst.  Thirst forces you to run crappy artifacts that may or may not be good depending on the metagame (see Needles).  Thirst forces you to discard a card.  It is clunky without Welder.  It doesn't sculpt a perfect hand.  Scroll does provide a nice burst of card advantage and is extremely flexible.  Remember, I analyzed all of the draw engines.

This might come as a shocking revelation to you, but there are other people that tried different draw engines too, and have different perspectives on their strengths and weaknesses. What the heck kind of argument is "I analyzed all the draw engines". Does that have sort of point?

As I pointed out to TAL, he is underestimating the power of Gifts.  I said it was more like Desire than Fireball.  Also, you miss the point that I was talking about in that paragaph, which isn't about needing land so much as determining when to play Brainstorm so that you can be assured to coutner Thirst - an example that applies equally to both this list and BMGifts.

I got the point fine, thanks. You scrolled for Drain over the opportunity for breaking card parity, and possibly have painted yourself into a corner if you assess that you need to keep your Drain mana up based on the circumstances which stunts your mana development.

That's where we disagree.  It doesn't take the "nuts" for slaver to win there.  It takes a decent hand.  Not the nuts.  It takes a tutor, gifts, thirst plus some tutor, Time walk plus thirst, any number of cards can win.  What you call the nuts, I call 40% of the time, at least.

Maybe if you'd play a deck that's better equipped to cope with your opponent's threats, you wouldn't feel that CS has hands that win 40% of the time. And no, I don't believe playing more Merchant Scrolls to find Drain/FoW is being better equipped.

There are a huge number of mistakes in your reasoning.

First, you are assuming that I make that play unreflexively.  Obviously, I assume that my opponent didn't mulligan to 5, etc or other circumstances which would warrant the safe play.  If the risk isnt' there, then you make the AR play.

SEcond, you seem to be missing what i mean by control role.  I'm not talking about just playing countermagic for the sake of playing it.  I'm talking about a) protecting yourself from all risks and then winning and b) the fact that you only need one threat.  The gifts will win the game by itself, as I explained to TAL.

Your play doesn't make sense in this example because you are willing to open yourself up to a risk when you simply don't have to do that.  Why take risks if you don't have to?  The safe play is the smart one.  You say against competent players, my plan isn't assured success.  I would disagree.  Parity is broken by tempo.  The EOT play will create a nice window or opportunity that they are very unlikely to succeed in stopping.

I also strongly disagree that this is a ridiculous gifts hand.  This is a better gifts hand, but hardly ideal.  I get hands like that as a matter of course playing MDG.

There are a number of mistakes in your reasoning.

I am not making an assumption that you play reflexively. I simply feel that you're making what are very contentious statements and passing them off as truth, with perhaps the intention of criticizing anyone that can't cut it with your deck because they "don't play it correctly" or they "misassign role".   

Secondly, I am not equating merely "playing counterspells" to playing the control role. I certainly do challenge the contention that you need only one threat. I was unaware that there was some errata issued on Gifts Ungiven to say "you win the game". If you contend that you can counter counter WIN off one "draw" spell that doesn't even put what you want precisely into your hand, then either you're exaggerating (grossly I might add) or I haven't got a clue how to play Gifts at all. There's a need for quite a bit of preliminary work before Gifts Ungiven escalates to the level of YWill game ending threat. You also seem to conveniently exclude the fact that your opponent gets to play stuff too, and that the attrition wars tends to favor the one who managed to generate card advantage.

And my play doesn't make sense to you because I feel you have a distorted perspective of what falls under the definition of threat and the necessity of having answers in hand. Your question of why take the risk at all is a very curious one, because it heavily underestimates the power of breaking parity right away. It assumes that its simply a case of risk vs no risk, when in fact its allowing an early window of opportunity for your opponent under specific circumstances (busted draws) in exchange for improving your chances in the midgame. You seem to view control matches with Gifts as simply an exercise in stopping your opponent's early bombs, and you will simply win starting from parity (the counter counter WIN plan). That quite frankly smacks of arrogance.

When you see a Merchant Scroll in your hand, you need to ask yourself "what card do I need in my hand to win?"  This should go withou saying, but people blindly scrolling for Recall shows that the thinking going on is incorrect.  Recall is good, and sometimes what you need is to draw 3, but it is by no means automatic.  I haven't/can't read Smmenen's example, but I agree with him that analysing your hand in the context of "where do I want to go with this" rather than "what's the fastest way to do something cool" is much better.

He didn't just make the statement that we need to carefully consider what to fetch with Merchant Scroll. That advice is about as useful as saying "Gifts is complex". The claim here is that there is an optimal card to fetch in the scenario presented, and that card specifically is Mana Drain. I happen to not agree with the reasons, but I would of course agree that using Merchant Scoll for AR is not automatic. What I do believe is that there better be a very compelling non-trivial reason for not getting AR as the first target. I wasn't compelled, and I'm also annoyed at the implication that those who would make the error of not getting Drain are "misassigning role" and by extension likely don't know how to pilot the deck properly.

[Smmenen]

We have all been ignoring the opening post and my criticisms of Thirst.  I tried Thirst.  Thirst forces you to run crappy artifacts that may or may not be good depending on the metagame (see Needles).  Thirst forces you to discard a card.  It is clunky without Welder.  It doesn't sculpt a perfect hand.  Scroll does provide a nice burst of card advantage and is extremely flexible.  Remember, I analyzed all of the draw engines.

This might come as a shocking revelation to you, but there are other people that tried different draw engines too, and have different perspectives on their strengths and weaknesses. What the heck kind of argument is "I analyzed all the draw engines". Does that have sort of point?

Yes it does.  I have presented in the first post and throughout this thread a number of reasons that I find Thirst to be suboptimal.  But that alone is not enough.  What matter is not just that you show that a card is suboptimal, but that you convince people that there are better alternatives.  No one seems to really refute the key points of contention when I throw them out there, the stumbling block seems to be the suggestion that there is a better alternative.  I know that you have said yourself that you aren’t sure what the proper configuration is.  At Rochester you ran a hybrid list that was approx 50% meandeck gifts and 50% BMG with an Oath SB.  What I want is a more introspective dialogue weighing the merits of the various options.  I have already articulated a comprehensive list of reasons why I find thirst to be not just suboptimal, but unacceptable.  In fact, that’s the title of this thread and the motive behind this unfinished article.  Rather than just write an article, I felt that a dialogue would be more productive.  Yet, we seem to continue to talk at each other than with each other.  I would like to see a better analysis.  I’ve put what I had to say on paper.  I was really disappointed that the commentary I provided in most of my SCG articles on Gifts draw engines has not been refuted by words, but people in the United States have nonetheless tended to reject it (although in Italy they play MDG). 

As I pointed out to TAL, he is underestimating the power of Gifts.  I said it was more like Desire than Fireball.  Also, you miss the point that I was talking about in that paragaph, which isn't about needing land so much as determining when to play Brainstorm so that you can be assured to coutner Thirst - an example that applies equally to both this list and BMGifts.

I got the point fine, thanks. You scrolled for Drain over the opportunity for breaking card parity, and possibly have painted yourself into a corner if you assess that you need to keep your Drain mana up based on the circumstances which stunts your mana development.

You were underestimating the limit that put on my deck.  You called it hope magic.  It wasn’t hope magic.  I wasn’t going to simply lose if I couldn’t do what I wanted.  More importantly, the context is a discussion comparing two gifts list.  The implication is that one deck could overcome that weakness while another couldn’t.  Or that scrolling for AR wouldn’t have that problem.  You still would.  I would probably not immediately play AR in that position. 

As a side note, I think that playing Brainstorm before AR is a questionable play, in any case.

That's where we disagree.  It doesn't take the "nuts" for slaver to win there.  It takes a decent hand.  Not the nuts.  It takes a tutor, gifts, thirst plus some tutor, Time walk plus thirst, any number of cards can win.  What you call the nuts, I call 40% of the time, at least.

Maybe if you'd play a deck that's better equipped to cope with your opponent's threats, you wouldn't feel that CS has hands that win 40% of the time. And no, I don't believe playing more Merchant Scrolls to find Drain/FoW is being better equipped.

I don’t see how my sense that Slaver is explosive is related to whether I use Scroll or not.  I could see how the lack of Pithing Needle might make me feel that way, but tog never had Pithing needle and neither do a number of other decks.  I just think that good Slaver decks are extremely explosive – esp. when piloted well.   Esp. now that they all run Lotus Petal and Mana Vault – as they should.

There are a number of mistakes in your reasoning.

I am not making an assumption that you play reflexively. I simply feel that you're making what are very contentious statements and passing them off as truth, with perhaps the intention of criticizing anyone that can't cut it with your deck because they "don't play it correctly" or they "misassign role".   

Remember, I drafted that example hand nine months ago.  Therefore, there is no reason to suggest that I created that hand to criticize people who can’t cut it with my deck.  I drafted that hand to help people beat Slaver with my deck.  I would agree that that it would appear that I made up that scenario to criticize people, except that I came up with it in August.  Its like when Travis accused me of attacking him in an article when I wrote the article before the events in question.

Secondly, I am not equating merely "playing counterspells" to playing the control role. I certainly do challenge the contention that you need only one threat. I was unaware that there was some errata issued on Gifts Ungiven to say "you win the game". If you contend that you can counter counter WIN off one "draw" spell that doesn't even put what you want precisely into your hand, then either you're exaggerating (grossly I might add) or I haven't got a clue how to play Gifts at all. There's a need for quite a bit of preliminary work before Gifts Ungiven escalates to the level of YWill game ending threat.

Sadly, it might be the latter then.  I contend, as I explained to Rich, that that Gifts will result in you winning the game.   I would be happy to explore this specific scenario in more depth with you to show you how.  If you would like to construct some more hypos to bound it, I would craft some gifts piles to show you what I’d get.

You also seem to conveniently exclude the fact that your opponent gets to play stuff too, and that the attrition wars tends to favor the one who managed to generate card advantage.

This is a loaded statement.  If anything, I’m the one who is accounting for my opponents capacity to play other spells.  Remember, I’m the one who suggests we get Drain, not AR?  The AR play opens yourself up to your opponents spells, while my play takes account of their ability to play threats and seeks to defend against it.  Secondly, why do you assume this has anything to do with a war of attrition?  This example is a combination of a tempo swinging play designed to wrest control of the game in a game breaking move.   Third, although I have no quarrel with some of the content of this statement in the context here because I think it isn’t clear that it applies, I don’t know that I even agree with this in the objective sense.  Remember Groatog?

And my play doesn't make sense to you because I feel you have a distorted perspective of what falls under the definition of threat and the necessity of having answers in hand. Your question of why take the risk at all is a very curious one, because it heavily underestimates the power of breaking parity right away.

Not at all.  The play I suggested is based upon extensive testing against Slaver in which I found that that play would, in an inordinate number of games, result in a loss where the play I made results in a win.  As an experiment, take the hand I made and play it against Slaver 10 times and see what happens.  I would contend that 2-4 games out of 10 you will lose with the AR play.  Whereas the Drain play would win.  And the AR play might win you 2-4 more games, but the Drain play would win at least 3 of 4 of those games anyway. 

It assumes that its simply a case of risk vs no risk, when in fact its allowing an early window of opportunity for your opponent under specific circumstances (busted draws) in exchange for improving your chances in the midgame. You seem to view control matches with Gifts as simply an exercise in stopping your opponent's early bombs, and you will simply win starting from parity (the counter counter WIN plan). That quite frankly smacks of arrogance.

Not arrogance, but the power of Gifts.  The power of design.  Gifts is one of the best cards in the game.  See how I play Four gifts when no other Gifts list at the time did?  That’s because I assert it is the new Fact or Fiction, in a sense.  If I can resolve my gifts eot, I claim I will win.   Not arrogance, but power.  I wouldn’t be claimed to be arrogant if I could resolve Necro and get another turn.  Why is it arrogance in this case?

When you see a Merchant Scroll in your hand, you need to ask yourself "what card do I need in my hand to win?"  This should go withou saying, but people blindly scrolling for Recall shows that the thinking going on is incorrect.  Recall is good, and sometimes what you need is to draw 3, but it is by no means automatic.  I haven't/can't read Smmenen's example, but I agree with him that analysing your hand in the context of "where do I want to go with this" rather than "what's the fastest way to do something cool" is much better.

He didn't just make the statement that we need to carefully consider what to fetch with Merchant Scroll. That advice is about as useful as saying "Gifts is complex". The claim here is that there is an optimal card to fetch in the scenario presented, and that card specifically is Mana Drain. I happen to not agree with the reasons, but I would of course agree that using Merchant Scoll for AR is not automatic. What I do believe is that there better be a very compelling non-trivial reason for not getting AR as the first target. I wasn't compelled, and I'm also annoyed at the implication that those who would make the error of not getting Drain are "misassigning role" and by extension likely don't know how to pilot the deck properly.

To be fair, it is a lot more than simply miassigning role – it is about the particular dynamics of the Slaver v. Gifts match.  I was putting it in terms of role so that my readers would better get the point, because that’s the language we, as magic players, use.  But the particular dynamics of the Slaver match and my testing supports the contention that this is the correct play.  I think one problem is that we have different views of the match.  You seem to underestimate both the power of Slavers ability to win in this position and secondly, the game ending effect of Gifts resolving in this position.   Since you disagree with my statement that I only need to resolve on threat, it is understandable that you disagree with my conclusion.  Take a look at the gifts pile I showed to Rich and show me how it wont win and then we’ll go from there. 

[PucktheCat]

Wow, reading your approach to the Slaver match Steve, I feel like I finally understand why people think Tormod's Crypt and Duress are the nuts against Gifts.  I always found those cards to be simply adaquate in the matchup, but if your entire plan is to go all in on an early Gifts I can see how getting that Gifts picked or losing the possibility to combo Gifts could ruin your day.

Regarding your "low-risk" Scroll for Mana Drain play, I see a number of risks that are, in my mind, at least as severe as an explosive start from Slaver:

1.  You won't topdeck:  In order to get the hand you want for a second turn Gifts with double counter you have to draw a blue source quickly.  In order to keep the Brainstorm available like you want to you will have to find another blue card to Force with as well.  You also need to find one more colored source to Recoup Will, since you only have the fetch in your opening hand.  That's a fair amount of stuff that needs to go right for your plan to even get off the ground.

Ancestral Recall pretty much gaurantees that these conditions are met if it resolves, and if it doesn't resolve you have picked a counter from their hand, which increases the odds of Gifts resolving as much as Drain backup.

2.  Your Will won't be that good:  If you Drain a Drain on your EOT Gifts you will untap with Recoup, Time Walk, four mana on the table and two in your pool, and Ancestral and fetches in the 'yard for your Will.  The only thing you are gauranteed to get off a Will at that point is an extra land and an Ancestral.  If you topdeck well you could find more acceleration and really go broken, but, again, you are taking a risk by playing for a topdeck to put the game away.  You could just Time Walk and hope to do better next turn, but then your Drain mana goes away.

Scrolling up Ancestral puts more gas in your graveyard, letting you put Lotus or Academy in your combo Gifts so you can ensure that luck has no role to play when you go off.

Ancestral recall is a 3-for-1 that costs one mana.  The Gifts->Yawg. Will you are setting up in your hypothetical is perhaps a 5-for-1, but it costs you pretty much all your mana for two turns.  If you topdeck nicely your Will will win you the game, but then, the same can be said of the Ancestral.  If you don't topdeck, you will be tapped out and passing the turn, or will never be in a position to resolve Will at all; neither of those are good outcomes for you.

I don’t see how my sense that Slaver is explosive is related to whether I use Scroll or not.  I could see how the lack of Pithing Needle might make me feel that way, but tog never had Pithing needle and neither do a number of other decks.  I just think that good Slaver decks are extremely explosive – esp. when piloted well.   Esp. now that they all run Lotus Petal and Mana Vault – as they should.

I think you hit the nail on the head - Pithing Needle greatly reduces the potential for Slaver to overwhelm you in the early game.  Gifts with Needle can use its early game tempo to advance its game plan, rather than sitting on UU out of fear of an early TfK.  That's a huge advantage in the matchup.  Heck, you yourself side in 3 Needle against Gifts, presumably for just that reason.

This is a significant part of what makes TfK work.  Pithing Needle is good enough that it should be included in Gifts builds with or without Thirst.  Once you reach that conclusion TfK starts to look a lot better.

[The Atog Lord]

Steve,

Instead of just continuing to disagree with you over whether a single resolved Gifts Ungiven will or will not end the game, I'd like to examine the your scenario a bit.

Mox Pearl,
Island,
Polluted Delta,
Mana Vault,
Brainstorm,
Merchant Scroll,
Force of Will, and
Gifts Ungiven.

Turn One:
You play: Mox Pearl, Island, Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain

Turn Two:
Play the Fetchland and Mana Vault off Pearl and pass the turn.

Alright. Now, let's say that I'm on the other side of the table. You've just gotten Mana Drain off Merchant Scroll. And let's suppose that my opening hand has a Tormod's Crypt with counter backup in it. Does that mean that your plan fizzles? You can't hit my Crypt with double counters, so it resolves. And as much as you love Gifts Ungiven, it isn't going to defeat me while Tormod's Crypt is sitting in play on my side. In other words, you've used your Merchant Scroll to go all-in on your Gifts Plan. However, on my first turn, with what isn't even considered to be a stellar draw, I've invalidated that plan. And you haven't given yourself a second plan in case the first failed. On the other hand, let us suppose that you had gotten Ancestral Recall. Then you'd be able to get right back in the game with it, because in addition to everything else, it gives you a perfectly fine backup plan.

Now, let's get back to the scenario you described. Let's say things are going according to plan this time, and I don't have a Crypt or anything. Let's suppose that fortune smiles upon you and you get yourself a second island, and pass your third turn with the following in play:
2 Islands, Fetchland, White Mox, Mana Vault. Now, happy to say, on my endstep you tap Mana Vault and Island to cast Gifts with Drain mana open, and it resolves unopposed.

You'll be going into your turn with a tapped Mana Vault, 2 islands, a fetchland, and a White Mox. I didn't walk into Mana Drain in this situation, but you did draw the third land you needed. I don't have Crypt or anything scary. My question is, what do you get to for certain prevent me from getting another turn, even if we allow the assumption that I'll cast no countermagic to stop you on your turn?

[Smmenen]

Steve,

Instead of just continuing to disagree with you over whether a single resolved Gifts Ungiven will or will not end the game, I'd like to examine the your scenario a bit.

Mox Pearl,
Island,
Polluted Delta,
Mana Vault,
Brainstorm,
Merchant Scroll,
Force of Will, and
Gifts Ungiven.

Turn One:
You play: Mox Pearl, Island, Merchant Scroll for Mana Drain

Turn Two:
Play the Fetchland and Mana Vault off Pearl and pass the turn.

Alright. Now, let's say that I'm on the other side of the table. You've just gotten Mana Drain off Merchant Scroll. And let's suppose that my opening hand has a Tormod's Crypt with counter backup in it. Does that mean that your plan fizzles? You can't hit my Crypt with double counters, so it resolves. And as much as you love Gifts Ungiven, it isn't going to defeat me while Tormod's Crypt is sitting in play on my side. In other words, you've used your Merchant Scroll to go all-in on your Gifts Plan. However, on my first turn, with what isn't even considered to be a stellar draw, I've invalidated that plan. And you haven't given yourself a second plan in case the first failed. On the other hand, let us suppose that you had gotten Ancestral Recall. Then you'd be able to get right back in the game with it, because in addition to everything else, it gives you a perfectly fine backup plan.

Now, let's get back to the scenario you described. Let's say things are going according to plan this time, and I don't have a Crypt or anything. Let's suppose that fortune smiles upon you and you get yourself a second island, and pass your third turn with the following in play:
2 Islands, Fetchland, White Mox, Mana Vault. Now, happy to say, on my endstep you tap Mana Vault and Island to cast Gifts with Drain mana open, and it resolves unopposed.

You'll be going into your turn with a tapped Mana Vault, 2 islands, a fetchland, and a White Mox. I didn't walk into Mana Drain in this situation, but you did draw the third land you needed. I don't have Crypt or anything scary. My question is, what do you get to for certain prevent me from getting another turn, even if we allow the assumption that I'll cast no countermagic to stop you on your turn?

Ok. 

I'm sitting down in a tournament.  It's first round of top 8.  I'm playing agianst Rich Shay.  It's game one, so I do not have Pithing Needles in my deck.  That is critical.  I also do not have Red Elemental Blasts, etc. 

I draw up my hand. 

It's Pearl, Vault, FOW, Scroll, Island, Fetchland, Brainstorm, and Gifts and I'm on the play. 

I announce I'll keep and Rich, you do the same.

I play Mox Pearl.  It resolves.  I play Island.  I tap Island and pearl and I announce Merchant Scroll.  I find Mana Drain and I pass the turn.

You draw a card and look at me and put Tormod's Crypt on the table.  I grimace and think.  I have just found Mana Drain.  If I FOW your Crypt, I'll have to pitch Gifts, Drain, or Brainstorm. 

If it resolves, I'll have to bounce it with Chain of Vapor or Rebuild, or try to get you to use it on me before I can win without lots of crazy contortions.  On the other hand, if I counter it, and you drop Welder, you'll have it back asap. 

If Crypt resolves, my plan becomes to play complete control role - i.e. do everything to stop you from winning.  Thus, my entire game plan becomes countering your THirsts and draw.

On the other hand, if I counter your Crypt, and my counterspell resolves, I'm probably able to combo out sooner.

In all honesty, I think I'd just let your Crypt resolve and just continue in the roll I've already chosen.  My game plan becomes simple: counter your draw.

This is all highly hypothetcial after that point, but assuming that the game progresses as planned, my Gifts would probably be for: Gifts, Fact, Brainstorm, and Scroll or some combination of cards not too unlike that,  Perhaps I'd put a bounce spell or a counterspell in there as well.  Hard to tell without a very specific set of circumstances.

Gifts is probably the most context specific card I've ever played with that I can think of - at least compared to the major big decision cards like Doomsday, Grim TUtor, etc.

So, in summary, I'd probably just let your Crypt resolve and now use FOW.

HOWEVER, since you want me to play along wiht your scenario, let's assume that I have countered it and I've probably then pitched Brainstorm.

You FOW back up.  I untap,

I play Fetchland and I play Vault off the Pearl.

Then you untap and play land and a Mox (that way you are threatening Thirst).

Then, according to your scenario, I assume you do not have Drain or ability to FOW (highly unrealsitc), but I draw another Island.

In all honesty Rich, I would probably just pass the turn.  Then on your endstep, I'd play Gifts Ungiven for the following cards:

WARNING THIS IS OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD AND NOT FOR SURE:
Demonic Tutor, Rebuild, Merchant Scroll, and Mystical Tutor?. I haven't put too much thought into it, but that's probably the four cards I'd get - or at least, cards along those lines.

I'd feel very confidant about winning the game still. 

IN sum though, I probably would not try to counter your Crypt. 

To play through this scenario Rich, I put together that hand in real life so I could pretend like I was actually in a tournament playing this out.  That's how I have ot think about these things to make it as realistic as possible.

EDIT:
One note, if this is game two, then I'd let Crypt resolve without even hestiating since I have two Needles in my deck.  If you want me to go through that and explain why I can. 

[Smmenen]

Wow, reading your approach to the Slaver match Steve, I feel like I finally understand why people think Tormod's Crypt and Duress are the nuts against Gifts.  I always found those cards to be simply adaquate in the matchup, but if your entire plan is to go all in on an early Gifts I can see how getting that Gifts picked or losing the possibility to combo Gifts could ruin your day.

I could parse out your sentence here, but my game plan is not to go "all in" on an early gifts in the sense that you are using it.  My game plan is to resolve a Gifts, but I don't consider that any different than BBS resolving Fact.  I don't have to go "all in."  What it does though is create card advantage.  You are assuming that I am going for the most aggressive gifts possible  WHat if I got the one I got against Rich in the scenario I just posted?  I'm confideant that that would take me all the way to the Win.   Substitute Mystical for the Walk and see what happens .

Therefore, I do not think that my deck is that affected by Duress or Crypt as much as people seem to think. 

I believe that Gifts can be used in mdg like a draw spell to create an advantage that good players can milk into Teh Win.  It doesn't have to be "all in."

Regarding your "low-risk" Scroll for Mana Drain play, I see a number of risks that are, in my mind, at least as severe as an explosive start from Slaver:

1.  You won't topdeck:  In order to get the hand you want for a second turn Gifts with double counter you have to draw a blue source quickly.  In order to keep the Brainstorm available like you want to you will have to find another blue card to Force with as well.  You also need to find one more colored source to Recoup Will, since you only have the fetch in your opening hand.  That's a fair amount of stuff that needs to go right for your plan to even get off the ground.

Well, I was assuming that Rich was threatening THirst.  What if he doesn't?  Then I coudl brainstorm.  If he just has two Islands in play, I can brainstorm all day.  Another thing: I don't have to topdeck asap.  If I'm on the play, he can't double drain me until after my fourth turn. I can play draw go for one more turn and still keep all my advantages.  Finally, who said I have to resolve the Gifts asap?  I can play the parity game as long as I'd like.

Ancestral Recall pretty much gaurantees that these conditions are met if it resolves, and if it doesn't resolve you have picked a counter from their hand, which increases the odds of Gifts resolving as much as Drain backup.

I don't believe in losing a counterwar over Ancestral.  Honestly.  I think if you are going to play ancestral, you better well damned get it to resolve, much like Yawg Will.  Its too important to just write off as "well" they lsot cards, so I got card advatnage out of it.  Not acceptable to me.

2.  Your Will won't be that good:  If you Drain a Drain on your EOT Gifts you will untap with Recoup, Time Walk, four mana on the table and two in your pool, and Ancestral and fetches in the 'yard for your Will. 

Wait.  You don't think I'm going to not win after that?: 

At Origins, I played turn one Scroll for Ancestral, turn two Ancestral, turn three Yawg will just to replay Ancestral against a 4cc player.  Guess what?  About turn 8 I burning Wished for Will and asploded in his face.  I'll Yawg WIll just to replay Ancestral and a Land ALL DAY.  I believe I'm good enough to win off that.

The only thing you are gauranteed to get off a Will at that point is an extra land and an Ancestral.  If you topdeck well you could find more acceleration and really go broken, but, again, you are taking a risk by playing for a topdeck to put the game away.  You could just Time Walk and hope to do better next turn, but then your Drain mana goes away.

If I recoup, Will, fetch, Ancestral, then I can play the other land and still TIme Walk right?  Even assuming that I can't, I'l just recoup the Walk and walk next turn and by then I'll have seen four more cards than my opp.  I'm confideant I can milk that into the win.

Scrolling up Ancestral puts more gas in your graveyard, letting you put Lotus or Academy in your combo Gifts so you can ensure that luck has no role to play when you go off.

I believe that control mirrors are won through tempo and card advantage.  I also believe that MDG is a pefect deck to milk slight card advantage into the win because it is so tightly designed.  There are only two red cards in the deck, two black cards (no vamp even), and only one bad artifact to draw: DSC. 

Ancestral recall is a 3-for-1 that costs one mana.  The Gifts->Yawg. Will you are setting up in your hypothetical is perhaps a 5-for-1, but it costs you pretty much all your mana for two turns.  If you topdeck nicely your Will will win you the game, but then, the same can be said of the Ancestral.  If you don't topdeck, you will be tapped out and passing the turn, or will never be in a position to resolve Will at all; neither of those are good outcomes for you.

This is really important: the only reason I went for the Will there is because of the specific scenario I constructed.  There are lots of other ways I could construct that situation in which I would get a much different gifts.  Perhaps:

DT, TIme Walk, Merchant Scroll, and Mysical Tutor - that sounds like fun

I don’t see how my sense that Slaver is explosive is related to whether I use Scroll or not.  I could see how the lack of Pithing Needle might make me feel that way, but tog never had Pithing needle and neither do a number of other decks.  I just think that good Slaver decks are extremely explosive – esp. when piloted well.   Esp. now that they all run Lotus Petal and Mana Vault – as they should.

I think you hit the nail on the head - Pithing Needle greatly reduces the potential for Slaver to overwhelm you in the early game.  Gifts with Needle can use its early game tempo to advance its game plan, rather than sitting on UU out of fear of an early TfK.  That's a huge advantage in the matchup.  Heck, you yourself side in 3 Needle against Gifts, presumably for just that reason.

This is a significant part of what makes TfK work.  Pithing Needle is good enough that it should be included in Gifts builds with or without Thirst.  Once you reach that conclusion TfK starts to look a lot better.

I just straight up disagree.  I think that PIthing Needle is not good enough to run in Gifts on its own.

In fact, I think that Brassman Gifts should be maindecking a Tormod's Crypt, but honestly, that's only because it uses thirst.

I don't think that any artifact that isn't a mana accellerant is objectivley strong enough to warrant a slot in the maindeck unless you are using thirs.  That doesn't make thirst good enough, that makes thirst bad because it forces you to run suboptimal cards. 

[PucktheCat]

I don't think that any artifact that isn't a mana accellerant is objectivley strong enough to warrant a slot in the maindeck unless you are using thirs.  That doesn't make thirst good enough, that makes thirst bad because it forces you to run suboptimal cards.

And this, ultimately, is the crux of the issue.  As long as you don't like any artifacts beyond 10 accelerants and DSC, Thirst is a mediocre card that warps the rest of the build.  As soon as you find 3 or so more artifacts that you like, Thirst becomes a synergistic draw engine.

I do think you are closer to right about Pithing Needle now than you have been in a while.  The metagame (at least around here) has shifted a bit post-Richmond towards storm-combo and Gifts, the two matchups where Needle is really a bad card.

The rest of this post (and most of this thread) is about a seperate issue entirely, which is how to play Merchant Scroll in particular hand.  I had a long detailed response, but what it ultimately comes down to is that you would rather play a 2cc spell that at best trades with your opponents spells over a 1cc spell that at worst trades with your opponents spells.  I really don't mind using Ancestral as bait in this situation, because it virtually ensures that Gifts will resolve and makes the Gifts more powerful at the same time.  The hand you have listed is too powerful to let your opponent have a lot of turns to bleed off your countermagic and then win.  If your opponent starts with a hand similar to your own, with two threats and a Force all they have to do is bait with one threat EOT the follow up with a mainphase threat backed by Force and you lose.  You have a hand that can establish an overwhelming advantage before they set up if you play it right.  Why let them test spell you to death?

[Smmenen]

This is still a really important issue, which is not resolved at all.   Rich,you didn't even reply to my answer to your post!

[The Atog Lord]

Steve,

Sorry for the slow response. Before responding, I thought it would be a good idea to test Meandeck Gifts myself so that I could get a good feel not only for playing against the deck, but also for how it feels to play the deck. I may only play one deck in tournaments, but I do test a lot of decks. The best way to understand how to play against a deck is to play that deck and learn what makes it tick.

Before responding to your post itself, I’d like to spend a minute recounting my observations of the deck. Meandeck Gifts is quite likely better than any other drain-based deck at using and abusing tempo. More than most decks, it taps out every turn and uses every last bit of its mana. This spend-all-my-mana-every-turn concept is what made GAT tick, and Meandeck Gifts does that very well. It isn’t about single-card-combos or anything of the sort -- tempo, I think, its the strength of the deck.

How does Meandeck Gifts accomplish this? It has a very high proportion of cards which, when cast, chain into other cards. While a Pithing Needle resolves and then does nothing to put additional cards into your hand, most of the cards in Meandeck Gifts give you other cards in hand. Even Rebuild cycles. This means that the deck usually has something to do with its mana, and thus it has the advantage of usually having a spell to cast. This is not unlike considering a “mana curve� when building your draft deck.

So, that is I think the strength of Meandeck Gifts, and it is no small strength. In my testing the deck, I also discovered certain weaknesses. The first is that Meandeck Gifts is not set up to play the control role especially well. Meandeck Gifts, much like TPS, is designed to win quickly and not let the game progress beyond a certain point. If your plan is to get the game finished before the midgame, why bother to include cards which aren’t good until the midgame? Cards like Rack and Ruin and Triskelion don’t fit the every-card-replaces-itself theme of Meandeck Gifts, and aren’t usually early-game cards anyways. Excluding cards like that does help the deck with tempo and give it a much better chance at winning earlier. However, the downside of their exclusion is that unlike Control Slaver, Meandeck Gifts is not especially wonderful at pretending to be Keeper and playing a control game. Meandeck Gifts would much rather beat someone before the midgame becomes an issue; Control Slaver would much rather get things to the midgame, where it is strong. If Meandeck Gifts is forced to assume the control role, it isn’t nearly as happy.

The other negative comment I’ll make about the deck is that it is more fragile than Control Slaver. Tormod’s Crypt comes to mind. For around a year, I’ve been saying that Tormod’s Crypt beats Meandeck Gifts. It seems that other people are finally starting to see how good that card is, but that’s another matter. If you were to cut off Control Slaver’s graveyard, while annoying, Control Slaver is flexible enough to be able to shift roles and play a different game. I’ve come back from being Capped because Control Slaver’s ability to shift roles means that it doesn’t have a single narrow gameplan to stop. Meandeck Gifts, on the other hand, seems to only have a single, narrow gameplan.

In the end, the positive that I mentioned is quite a considerable one. It was what made GAT the best deck in the format for a long time. The concept of mana curve is one of the fundamental concepts in designing a good deck, and Meandeck Gifts is better at curving than any other Drain deck. It makes the deck very fast, often able to get established before the opponent is online. Yet, perhaps the deck’s strength is also its weakness. Perhaps being so good at the early game means excluding cards that would make the deck stronger later on, and also excluding cards that would allow the deck to claw itself out from a pit. I suppose that if a deck were as good at the early game as Grim Long and as good at the midgame as Control Slaver, we’d all be playing it.

Now, let’s get to the specific situation. I’ve just put Tormod’s Crypt on the stack.

In all honesty, I think I'd just let your Crypt resolve and just continue in the roll I've already chosen.  My game plan becomes simple: counter your draw.

If Crypt resolves, my plan becomes to play complete control role - i.e. do everything to stop you from winning.  Thus, my entire game plan becomes countering your THirsts and draw.

I’m pretty sure that if Tormod’s Crypt resolves I’m not going to lose. As you yourself said, if Crypt resolves, you are forced into a position where you will need to assume the control role against me and use your countermagic to prevent Control Slaver from working. And that is exactly the position Control Slaver wants to be in. If you want to beat Control Slaver, either beat me before I get online (like you did so well at SCG), or make my deck collapse in on itself by making my mana base implode (like Evenpence did, and like Fish decks do). Those are the two main ways to make Control Slaver lose. Attempting to get into a drawn-out draw-go war with Control Slaver is likely not going to go too well because that is exactly what Control Slaver is designed to do well. In other words, at that point, you are playing the game Control Slaver wants to play and making all of my unweildly cards suddenly very strong.

[Smmenen]

I’m pretty sure that if Tormod’s Crypt resolves I’m not going to lose. As you yourself said, if Crypt resolves, you are forced into a position where you will need to assume the control role against me and use your countermagic to prevent Control Slaver from working. And that is exactly the position Control Slaver wants to be in. If you want to beat Control Slaver, either beat me before I get online (like you did so well at SCG), or make my deck collapse in on itself by making my mana base implode (like Evenpence did, and like Fish decks do). Those are the two main ways to make Control Slaver lose. Attempting to get into a drawn-out draw-go war with Control Slaver is likely not going to go too well because that is exactly what Control Slaver is designed to do well. In other words, at that point, you are playing the game Control Slaver wants to play and making all of my unweildly cards suddenly very strong.

You say multiple times that forcing Gifts into the control role is precisely what you want too do simply "because that's what slaver is designed to do well." 

I would argue that the only correct role against Slaver is the control role.  If you have gifts players playing you aggressively, I would argue they are playing the deck wrong.

Look at what I said:

If Crypt resolves, my plan becomes to play complete control role - i.e. do everything to stop you from winning.  Thus, my entire game plan becomes countering your THirsts and draw.

On the other hand, if I counter your Crypt, and my counterspell resolves, I'm probably able to combo out sooner.

In all honesty, I think I'd just let your Crypt resolve and just continue in the roll I've already chosen.  My game plan becomes simple: counter your draw.

This is all highly hypothetcial after that point, but assuming that the game progresses as planned, my Gifts would probably be for: Gifts, Fact, Brainstorm, and Scroll or some combination of cards not too unlike that,  Perhaps I'd put a bounce spell or a counterspell in there as well.  Hard to tell without a very specific set of circumstances.

Gifts is probably the most context specific card I've ever played with that I can think of - at least compared to the major big decision cards like Doomsday, Grim TUtor, etc.

Your hand is one card less becuase you put Crypt on the table.

My game plan is quite simple then: turn off your Thirsts and Fact.

i don't see how you can be so confideant that that plan is def. going to win you the game.

Think about it: you have tons of dead cards.  Welders are much worse if I can counter eveyr thirst and fact.  Your huge artifacts are weaker draws.  My draws are all very strreamllined. 

Put simply: i will become mono blue control and i'm completely comfortable, in game one, playing that role.  I admit that I can play that role indefinately, but I can use Gifts and Scroll to create marginal card advantage that I will try to use to sustain me through the rest of the game.

I am pretty sure that letting crypt resolve on turn one is correct.  I will then have FOW and Drain in hand to facilate my shift into the control role while you have less cards in hand to overpower me. 

[Smmenen]

I forgot to mention that alot of this debate is beside the point in one key respect: is T. Crypt significantly stronger against MDG than Brassy gifts?  Because the issue presented in this thread is whether gifts should run Thirst or not. 

[The Atog Lord]

Steve, you raise two points which I will address.

The first question you raise is whether Control Slaver is good against Draw-Go. It is the best Drain deck against Draw-Go I have ever seen. It is a common fallacy to assume that Control Slaver only functions by dumping artifacts into the graveyard via Thirst. This is the quickest way for Control Slaver to function, but by no means the only way. In fact, a draw-go strategy gives me more time to fall back on Plan B, which is to just hardcast my expensive artifacts. Mindslavers and Goblin Welders are by no means dead draws against an opponent whose plan is to out-counter me. Rather, after getting a Goblin Welder onto the board,all I need to do is get a Mindslaver in hand and ten mana on the table. Or six and a turn. Then all the counters in the world won't matter. You say that you can out-control Control Slaver by simply shutting down Thirst and Fact. This only works if you are going to kill me before we hit the midgame. Once the midgame hits, those "dead-draw" Goblin Welders and "dead-draw" mindslavers become game-ended, Thrist or no.

Now, on the matter of whether Brassman's deck is better equipped to deal with Tormod's Crypt. Tormod's Crypt is very strong against Brassman's deck, and I can tell you that from play experience. However, his deck is still stronger against Tormod's Crypt than Meandeck Gifts. Why? First, he has Pithing Needle, which is a clear answer to the card. Second, he is much better than Meandeck Gifts at switching to his Plan B of Timevault/Flame once the graveyard has gone. WIth his heavy tutor base, this is a more resonable plan than defending a Colossus for two turns or accumulating ten points of storm without using Yawgmoth's Will.

[Smmenen]

I know, I know - I knew you were going to say all that in the first pargarph, I was speaking generally and didn't want to qualify.

In 2003 I played mono blue at Gencon.  In testing mono blue, I played extensively against Control Slaver.

I found exactly what you said: mono blue could have complete control, but a single welder meant that on turn 6 or 7ish Slaver or large man would be hardcast and that would resolve in Welder returning him.

What i discovered was that mono blue could still win even if it coudln't play Keg.  How?  The trick was to establish control, slow down their mana with kegs and b2b so that being able to play Slaver and Panty, etc was harder  and took twice as long and then win with morphlign in the window before they can slaver you.

I did that lots of times in testing.

so, i say all that not to say that draw go beats slaver, but to get that out of the way so we are on the same page that I know what you are talking about.

This is a different situation though. 

MDG is not mono blue control, but I can play the control role for a little while and find the necessary bounce spell, I think before you can win.  It's not going to be easy.

A while back I was playing a game with mono blue against Justin Timmony.  My hand was like:

Library, Mox, Island, Mana Leak, Phidian, Force of Will, counterspell

Justin was on the play and he goes:

Turn one:

Island, Petal

He taps the Island and plays Ancestral recall

Now:

a) If I Force of Will and he FOWs back, I won't be able to my library at all. 

bIf I let it resolve, hes goign to have sweet shit in his hand.  But I'll be able to turn one library and turn two Leak + FOW and then turn three seal up the whole game.

I force of willed the ancestral and he REbed me.  I never recovered.

The point is that neither option is really that great.

But if you step back and look at the game as whole, you'll see that option b is by far the better play.  If I can survive turn two without tinker resolving or something insane, then I'll probably win the game.

However, there is a high chance I'lll lose, but my chances are better under b.

Now, I think this analogous in two ways.

First, your Crypt is not exactly my favorite card to see.  It does give you a nice strategic advantage by narrowing my tactical options. 

Second, it is partly about role.  If I had been playing the control role or thinking about role against TImmony, I would have realized that the control role as my best route to victory entails letting Ancestral resolve exposigin myself to two turns of weakness in exchange for a very very solid turn three plus game.  Simply playing tactcally without thinking ahead led me to make a play that was not fitting with the proper role.

At one time I compeltely agreed with you that the way to beat Slaver with MDG was to be very aggressive.

In my testing before Gencon, I was losing.  I used your teammates salver deck and I was losing a good 60% of my games against his slave rdeck.  It was extremely frustrating.  I decided to try to play the control role.  Once I did that, I started winning again. 

Slaver had adapted to the speed of Gifts and I now had to switch to the contro lrole.  I'm comfortable that your resolution of T. Crypt, if properly played agianst, gives me a fair chance to win the game.  It isn't a great option either way, but I don't agree that i'm locked out at all. 

To follow this up, I'll take a close look at the matchup once again in the near future.