Should Gifts be Restricted? An outsider's perspective.

[Thegreatgonzo]

It's the end of my turn 3. My opponent manage to resolve gifts because :

- he managed to develop a manabase.
- he's about to win the counter war.
- he's not dead yet
- he have acces to a graveyard.

Well... I certainly deserve to lose this game, anyway. Gift is not the problem here. I'm far more afraid of merchant scroll (wich should be restricted, in my opinion), or basic island (but you can't really restrict basic lands, can you?). Type one is quite boken. If you manage to resolve a 4cc spell, you're probably winning anyway. Wether it's gift or something else doesn't matter. Gift is just a way to turn a win into a kill.

Post scriptum : I'm in love with this card, so maybe I'm not quite objective here 

[Harlequin]

Type one is quite boken. If you manage to resolve a 4cc spell, you're probably winning anyway. Wether it's gift or something else doesn't matter. Gift is just a way to turn a win into a kill.

You can extrapolate that logic onto plenty of restricted cards.  Yawg's will, Yawg's Bargin, Mind's Desire .... Does it mean just because it costs 4 mana means it shouldn't be restricted?

[zeus-online]

Type one is quite boken. If you manage to resolve a 4cc spell, you're probably winning anyway. Wether it's gift or something else doesn't matter. Gift is just a way to turn a win into a kill.

You can extrapolate that logic onto plenty of restricted cards.  Yawg's will, Yawg's Bargin, Mind's Desire .... Does it mean just because it costs 4 mana means it shouldn't be restricted?

Off-topic:
Sounds more like he's saying that cards costing 4 mana or more should be auto-restricted :lol:

i honestly believe that these cards will end up restricted, unless will gets banned:
Merchant scroll
Gifts ungiven
Grim tutor

I'm more of a fan of "Ban will" then starting to restrict cards right and left because we have a 2B card that just breaks half the restricted list.

/Zeus

[Thegreatgonzo]

Gifts.decks are quite broken, and a resolved gift ends the game. But we should'nt blame gifts ungiven for this.
He is a combo enabler, much like food chain, nothing more, nothing less.

The main difference between food chain and gifts ungiven is the "shell" around them. In order to kill with food chain, you need a threshold number of goblins. You need to play red and green. With mountains and taïga. Arcbound virus needs a threshold number of "not so broken" artifacts to fonction correctly, along with stupid lands that die to null rod. These are good decks, but fair decks.

In order to win with gifts (or with any combo enabler in a U/B tendrils.deck), you need a threshold number of tutors, draws, and accelerant. You need to play with polluted delta. How inconvenient! That's why those decks are unfair : they're faster than pure aggro decks, without any significant drawbacks, and with better protection.
They're unfair because brainstorm and merchant scroll are useful on their own, where goblin marshal is a dead draw.

Restricting Gifts ungiven won't change the fact that some shells are stronger than others.
The solution could be to print something that makes other shells viable again.

[Evenpence]

Restricting Gifts ungiven won't change the fact that some shells are stronger than others.
The solution could be to print something that makes other shells viable again.

Yeah!  Unrestrict Trinisphere, so I can deal with all the Gifts decks!  Everyone gets what they want.  Especially me.

[Moxlotus]

Top 8 of Gencon and most recently the top 16 of the European 8 lotus tourney fully support my claim. 

Wasn't there 1 Gifts deck in the top 8 of GenCon?  8 Gifts players in 1 top 8 is meaningless.  Oath took 4 slots in the 2nd SCG tournament.  Slaver was routinely making half or more of top8/16s for a long time and people weren't bitching a fit about Welder (well, some were).  Gifts is a deck that is powerful, its true.  But the deck can easily be held in check by other decks that have good games against the format like Fish and Stax if they are built properly.  Honestly, the Milwaukee metagame has a very high concentration of players and its getting close to a majorithy of the players at the 30 person tournaments have made top 8 at an SCG tournament--yet Gifts is putting up an average of 1 or 2 (sometimes 3) players into the top 8.  Metagaming isn't that terribly difficult.  A deck with Spell Snares and Black Vise beat the crap out of a few Gifts decks along the way...the deck can't be that good.

It's the end of my turn 3. My opponent manage to resolve gifts because :

- he managed to develop a manabase.
- he's about to win the counter war.
- he's not dead yet
- he have acces to a graveyard.

I completely agree.  If your opponent fires off an early Gifts, its because your deck failed at doing what it was supposed to and their deck succeeded.  That's nothing special.

[hitman]

I think the topic is basically "Is Gifts so demoralizing to new players that it should be restricted for the health of the format"?  I don't think so because making people sad isn't a good enough reason to restrict a card.  The only reasonable argument for it's restriction has come from Dave Feinstein.  He's wrong though.  A lot of new decks have come up that consistently beat it.  Mono Blue actually is pretty good against it.  Fish and UbaStax have good games against it.  It isn't dominating the field.  People with bad experiences against it have made good decks to beat it.  It's mana intensive and skill intensive.  I think the more appropriate discussion would be "Should Yawgmoth's Will be banned"?  I really like Yawgmoth's Will though so I don't want to go there.

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

I'm going to have to follow up with Feinstein in my agreement with Gifts, the better people get with the card the more potent it becomes.

I'm currently 5-1 vs. Gifts in tournament play, I should probably be 1-5 if my opponents weren't nitwits. And thats with a vast variety of underpowered control decks like GAT, Drain EBA, and Bomberman.

The problem that is developing and a lot of us are seeing it, we are all building decks now that has a main priority at least in theory, this card + this card smash Gifts. I know I'm throwing in tons of anti-Gifts cards into my decks, I haven't thought about a Goblin Welder...

And when I play a deck without Yawgmoth's Will....I better hope a good chunk of my deck screws up a Yawgmoth's Will plan. Just look at fish, thats all it can basically do, stop your opponent from casting Yawgmoth's Will so they are helpless, it is just like Legacy where if you don't have a solution to Goblin Lackey you auto-lose unless you combo off, same deal here.

[Dxfiler]

The only reasonable argument for it's restriction has come from Dave Feinstein.  He's wrong though.  A lot of new decks have come up that consistently beat it. 

I never said it was unbeatable.  It's definitely beatable.  That doesn't mean it's healthy for the format.

Mono Blue actually is pretty good against it.

Show me a recent tourney over the past 3 months with over 20 people where it's performed well, even one top 8.  I can't count mono blue as a valid deck to battle it if there's absolutely zero results to show for it (and people do still play it... Kowal got pwned using it at SCG Boston). 

Fish and UbaStax have good games against it.

UBA Stax has a decent match against gifts if it goes broken quicker.  If they lock the gifts player, it's over.  If they don't, gifts will more often than not have plenty of time to win.  That's what watching games at Waterbury and SCG showed me.   

Fish?  Fish does NOT have a good game against gifts these days.  I think I'm more qualified to speak on that matchup than just about anyone.  I've played  over 30 tournament matches against gifts with fish (and around 300 playtest games), and the only reason I've done well against it in the past was because the majority of my opponents didn't know how to play with the card.  Now people have a clue, and fish just can't touch the power level of gifts if the opponent has a clue. 

And just to reiterate: PLAYING WITH A CLUE IS NOT THE SAME THING AS PLAYING WELL.  :p

Now, if you want to build some steaming pile of gifts hate geared at just that deck, then go for it.  Just hope you get paired against it alot.

Metagaming isn't that terribly difficult.  A deck with Spell Snares and Black Vise beat the crap out of a few Gifts decks along the way...the deck can't be that good.

If you're resorting to "bad type 2 cards" to deal with this deck, and then crossing your fingers that you hit it multiple times... I'd say that's a case of you being forced to overly metagame to compensate for the overwhelming power of the deck.  By playing these very narrow cards aimed at the deck, you're just making a case for how strong the deck is. 

If you're not packing all that ridiculous amount of hate maindeck, what do you think your odds are of beating gifts?   

That brings me back to my original point.  The days where you could just beat most gifts players because they were donkeys is over.  The majority of pilots have a clue, and many more are catching on.  If the format was invaded by pros, the card would have most definitely been restricted by now.  As the months go on, Gifts proliferation in tourneys will only grow.  It took players longer to catch on here than 4 FOF or 4 GUSH GAT because it wasn't as blatantly obvious in terms of broken.  People have now caught on.  The card only takes a little practice to win an absurd amount of games with.  Put that little bit of time in and you're off to the races... of who can resolve Gifts Ungiven first.

- Dave Feinstein

[dandan]

Gifts isn't restricted because doing broken things on turn 3 or later is not as frowned upon as doing broken things on turn 1. I do find it strange that FoF is restricted whilst Gifts isn't, due to comparitive power levels and don't really buy the whole 'well, the second FoF is better than the second Gifts' (after all, I wouldn't want to put forward the unrestriction of Will as the second will would be weaker in the unlikely event that the game made it to a second Will) but can live with it as both as cards that if unrestricted should always be considered for restriction and if restricted could be considered for unrestriction (as compared to Lotus, Will, Recall, etc)

[Zarathustra]

Fish?  Fish does NOT have a good game against gifts these days.  I think I'm more qualified to speak on that matchup than just about anyone.  I've played  over 30 tournament matches against gifts with fish (and around 300 playtest games), and the only reason I've done well against it in the past was because the majority of my opponents didn't know how to play with the card.  Now people have a clue, and fish just can't touch the power level of gifts if the opponent has a clue.

I think this is the big problem.  People at one point thought Fish was the deck that would put Gifts in check.  I have nothing wrong with Fish, but it's just not what most everyone thought it would be(Colby thought it was downright amazing...).  And I agree, Fish just get's beaten by Gifts.  There's no other way around it.

There are the few, like you, who post results at large events.  But, the point is, Fish isn't broken.  And when more people play a nonbroken deck, the power level of Gifts is off the chart(admittedly, Gifts is rather broken even when not compared to Fish).

If the metagame shifted again to Power Vs Power, instead of Fish Vs Power, things would probably seem a bit more fair.  As it stands now, most people still feel Fish can just decimate Gifts or Long for that matter and they simply can't do it.

-DShell

[dicemanx]

Maybe Fish "can't beat Gifts" because people are enamored with their Vials or they still insist on running less than 4 Null Rods. There were also some promising ideas like the Rod/CotV WW aggro or OFM that never really caught on but had good track records against Drain archetypes. Also, the playskill argument can go both ways - as the Gifts player skill increases, maybe the Fish players have to make efforts to match it. We should also keep in mind that Drain decks are usually favored by strong players because they exacerbate the difference in playskills the most; that is, we might perceive there to be format dominance which is actually just player preference.

Plus, who ever decreed that there has to be a deck that beats Gifts consistently? Gifts' strength lies in the fact that it has no bad match-ups, but the trade-off is that it doesn't really overwhelm any of the top tier archetypes. Perhaps the deck will prove to be a problem down the line, but we're not there yet in terms of dominance. If anything, my suggestion is to nip Merchant Scroll to make MDG a little less efficient, and take it from there.

[forests failed you]

It costs four to play!!!!  What is the problem here, no four casting cost Tutor/Draw spell should ever need to be restricted (Gush doesn't count!).  You pay four Mana and you don't actually  make any impact on the board.  There are plenty of ways to deal with Gifts, hand disruption, mana denial, graveyard hate, countermagic, meddling mage, et cetera.  The key is you have to have a plan, so when you get paired against it you know what to do, have relvevent things to do, and you know what you are working for.  A prepared Gifts player who has a plan for beating you, when you are trying to mise is going to pwn you every day of the week.  If there is a lot of Gifts in your area, or you know the good players in your region are going to be playing Gifts, test a plan that works and know what to do. 

Gifts is a turn four to five Drain based combo deck.  That gives other players plenty of time to do something.  If your Jotun Grunt deck gets its face smashed by Gifts it is nobody's fault but your own.  After all you were the one who thought playing Fish was a good idea.  I'm sure the Stax player you crushed the round before thought it was mighty unfair that you played Kataki in game one.

Vintage players sometimes overlook that fact that there is supposed to be a rock scissors paper dynamic to the game.  Certain kinds of decks are supposed to have favorable or unfavorable match ups against other kinds of decks.  In Vintage the cards are so powerful and tempo shifts so quickly, turn to turn, that much of this is simply lost.  People seem to feel that their Fish deck, Slaver deck, Gifts deck, Stax deck, should for some reason unbeknown to me have 60-40 matchups acrossed the field.  I have a newsflash for everybody...  Everydeck can't have a 60-40 match up against the field.  If your deck has a bad Gifts match up, utilize your board, make sacrifices in other match ups to improve your preboard game, and figure out why you are losing and what you can change to fix the problem.  Magic is a problem solving game, both in play and during deck construction pre tournament.  Whining about whether Gifts is too good because good players get an advantage, or beats aggro, or whatever seems like a poor solution to the problem; if the problem is that you are trying to find a way to top eight in Virginia next weekend. 

Cards tend to get banned when they are dominating the format, ie the format is polarized in such a manner that it is Deck A, and then decks that can beat Deck A.  That isn't even close to what we have going on in Vintage right now.  There are a ton of competitive decks, a lot of innovation in the format going on, a whole new set to explore, Foil Japanese Tormod's Crypts to get, et cetera.  For the first time we are perhaps finding that the Vintage metagame has diversified to the point where there is a rock scissors paper dynamic taking place (just as a result of how many different styles of decks exist), and perhaps people are not used to that. 

I do not find Gifts to be a deck that is dominating the format by any stretch of the imagination.  It is a very very good deck, but it is difficult to pilot.  Far and away the deck I see more than any other at proxy tournaments tends to be Fish and Stax.  If Gifts were really the stone cold nut high, I think we would see a much higher percentage of Gifts in the Metagame.  For instance, when 3sphere Stax was popular 4Shop, 43sphere were in half of the decks in a given field.  Gifts hasn't reached anywhere near the kind of epidemic that 3sphere did.  Nor is turn three Gifts, even turn 1 Gifts even half as degenerate as Turn one Trini.  IMO

[Zarathustra]

It costs four to play!!!!  What is the problem here, no four casting cost Tutor/Draw spell should ever need to be restricted (Gush doesn't count!).  You pay four Mana and you don't actually  make any impact on the board.  There are plenty of ways to deal with Gifts, hand disruption, mana denial, graveyard hate, countermagic, meddling mage, et cetera.  The key is you have to have a plan, so when you get paired against it you know what to do, have relvevent things to do, and you know what you are working for.  A prepared Gifts player who has a plan for beating you, when you are trying to mise is going to pwn you every day of the week.  If there is a lot of Gifts in your area, or you know the good players in your region are going to be playing Gifts, test a plan that works and know what to do.

It costs four, but it's essentially a double Demonic Tutor.  Sure, it has no immediate effect on the board, but most tutor effects don't.  Yeah, there are plenty of ways to deal with Gifts, but the most effective ways are to either stop them from casting Gifts altogether(which won't always matter) or just out-tempo them.  Oddly enough, both of these have the same effect.  If you out-tempo them, you essentially shut off Gifts Ungiven along with most of the deck.

Gifts is a turn four to five Drain based combo deck.  That gives other players plenty of time to do something.  If your Jotun Grunt deck gets its face smashed by Gifts it is nobody's fault but your own.  After all you were the one who thought playing Fish was a good idea.  I'm sure the Stax player you crushed the round before thought it was mighty unfair that you played Kataki in game one.

I disagree.  Gifts is not a Drain deck, whatsoever.  In fact, I have found that Mana Drain is the worst card in the deck.  That's no lie.  Sure, the card is amazing.  Especially when you have turn 1 Drain mana open.  But, in most cases, it's a counterspell that can potentially end the game(Chances are the card you're protecting with Drain will win the game for you).

Cards tend to get banned when they are dominating the format, ie the format is polarized in such a manner that it is Deck A, and then decks that can beat Deck A.  That isn't even close to what we have going on in Vintage right now.  There are a ton of competitive decks, a lot of innovation in the format going on, a whole new set to explore, Foil Japanese Tormod's Crypts to get, et cetera.  For the first time we are perhaps finding that the Vintage metagame has diversified to the point where there is a rock scissors paper dynamic taking place (just as a result of how many different styles of decks exist), and perhaps people are not used to that.

I agree.  If this were the case, we'd see "Gifts" and "HatinOnGifts.dec".  And please, don't tell me that Fish is Gifts hate, because it really isn't.  At all.

I do not find Gifts to be a deck that is dominating the format by any stretch of the imagination.  It is a very very good deck, but it is difficult to pilot.  Far and away the deck I see more than any other at proxy tournaments tends to be Fish and Stax.  If Gifts were really the stone cold nut high, I think we would see a much higher percentage of Gifts in the Metagame.  For instance, when 3sphere Stax was popular 4Shop, 43sphere were in half of the decks in a given field.  Gifts hasn't reached anywhere near the kind of epidemic that 3sphere did.  Nor is turn three Gifts, even turn 1 Gifts even half as degenerate as Turn one Trini.  IMO

Well, the problem is, Gifts players are getting better.  I know Dave Feinstein mentioned that and I agree.  And they don't even have to be amazing Gifts players in order to smash face.  Mediocre to good Gifts players win games.  Great Gifts players are sweeping the floor with everyone.

I agree, Fish and Stax are quiet popular.  People should think a little bit.  Gifts is not dominating.  But, Gifts is one of the premier decks right now.  If the metagame is predominatly Fish and Stax(This may not be the case everwhere, but I know everyone is playing Fish)...and Gifts is doing well... maybe it's time to switch decks.  Again, I think other broken decks have a better shot at beating Gifts, because they have the same tempo or more than Gifts does.  It's not always a matter of making your deck better.  Sometimes, it's admitting your deck cannot combat another thread and evolving past that.

-DShell

[brianpk80]

Maybe Fish "can't beat Gifts" because people are enamored with their Vials or they still insist on running less than 4 Null Rods.

Ouch... step back there for a second.  Dave Feinstein is an avowed knight of the Null Rod.  Any concessions he makes here to Gifts apply exclusively to that (very popular) Null Rod sub-archetype of (UW) Fish.  I still maintain that AEther Vial is the best turn 1 play one could make against Gifts aside from Tormod's Crypt, which should be run maindeck in Vial Fish anyway.  The difference between Vial Fish and Null Rod Fish is even more pronounced than the differences among the various incarnations of Gifts.  Gifts may be one of the most powerful decks in the format right now.  But, if you're looking to beat Meandeck Gifts (which is the variant most players are aligning with these days even if there may be "better" optimizations), Vial Fish with maindeck Crypts and flexible Colossus answers (Bouncer, Drake, Proctor, or even Welder, Wayfarer -> Maze, and Stormscape) is the way to go.  

There were also some promising ideas like the Rod/CotV WW aggro or OFM that never really caught on but had good track records against Drain archetypes.

An important point to consider is that Null Rod and Chalice of the Void are not the best responses to a dominant deck packing a maindeck Rebuild/Hurkyl's and on average 10-11 (!) ways of tutoring it up.  The fact that most Gifts players run so many basic Islands weakens Wasteland drastically and further diminishes the mana denial approach in this match-up.  Wasting an odd Underground and beating down with Isamaru, Hound of Konda isn't going to cut it anymore.  The key to beating Gifts (as played/designed by most players today) is to cut off the graveyard and neutralize the Colossus.  This is where Vial Fish steps in to bridge the gap that Null Rod Fish may no longer be able to fill.  

Post-sideboard, Massacre and Pyroclasm are mere hiccups v. Vial Fish where they outright decimate their Null Rod kin.  A skilled Gifts player's arsenal of Pthing Needles or a transformational sideboard are the only real threats Vial Fish has to watch out for post-sideboard.  Granted, a more controlling Gifts build (one with maindeck Needles and Thirst for instance) is going to give Vial Fish some extra obstacles but as far as these "4 Scroll" Meandeck clones go, a well designed Vial Fish list only loses to its own bad draws, Gifts' God-draws, or unanticipated sideboard maneuvers.  

That said, I don't advocate the restriction of Gifts Ungiven when it's essentially a mere prelude to the cards I find as the real problems in this format: the Will/Tendrils interaction and to a lesser extent, Tinker.  

-BPK

[Evenpence]

I disagree.  Gifts is not a Drain deck, whatsoever.  In fact, I have found that Mana Drain is the worst card in the deck.  That's no lie.  Sure, the card is amazing.  Especially when you have turn 1 Drain mana open.  But, in most cases, it's a counterspell that can potentially end the game(Chances are the card you're protecting with Drain will win the game for you).

So umm...what kind of deck is it?

What on earth is your classification based on?

Is Slaver not a Drain deck now too or something?

Your analysis of what Gifts does is the epitome of what a drain deck does, particularly this sentence:

But, in most cases, it's a counterspell that can potentially end the game(Chances are the card you're protecting with Drain will win the game for you).

Isn't it obvious this is what Drain decks are trying to do?

[AmbivalentDuck]

The difference between Vial Fish and Null Rod Fish is even more pronounced than the differences among the various incarnations of Gifts.

Quoted for strong agreement.

And the Myriad Red Deck Wins build is arguably a variant of Fish, as is Sullivan solution, etc.  Fish is a concept, not a stack of cards.  Fish is best in a focussed or narrow environment where it can bring brutal disruption to bear reliably.  If Gifts is truly broken and format-defining, Fish is by definition the deck to rise to the challenge because it's essentially a steaming pile of hate that gets upgraded to sexy pile of hate when in the hands of an expert metagamer.

That said, I don't advocate the restriction of Gifts Ungiven when it's essentially a mere prelude to the cards I find as the real problems in this format: the Will/Tendrils interaction and to a lesser extent, Tinker.  

Here I have to disagree for "slippery slope" reasons.  Even if Will is the most blatant offender in the format, we all have the option of running graveyard hate and Extract but choose not to.  

[Dante]

Vial Fish with lots of answers to Colossus and no Null Rod begs to lose to a turn of: play a couple spells, bounce all my artifact mana, Tendrils you, without needed access to anything from the graveyard.

True Believer and Meddling Mage are probably much better options than "Bouncer, Drake, Proctor, or even Welder, Wayfarer -> Maze, and Stormscape". 

Dante

[Zarathustra]

Ouch... step back there for a second.  Dave Feinstein is an avowed knight of the Null Rod.  Any concessions he makes here to Gifts apply exclusively to that (very popular) Null Rod sub-archetype of (UW) Fish.  I still maintain that AEther Vial is the best turn 1 play one could make against Gifts aside from Tormod's Crypt, which should be run maindeck in Vial Fish anyway.  The difference between Vial Fish and Null Rod Fish is even more pronounced than the differences among the various incarnations of Gifts.  Gifts may be one of the most powerful decks in the format right now.  But, if you're looking to beat Meandeck Gifts (which is the variant most players are aligning with these days even if there may be "better" optimizations), Vial Fish with maindeck Crypts and flexible Colossus answers (Bouncer, Drake, Proctor, or even Welder, Wayfarer -> Maze, and Stormscape) is the way to go.

Oh, come on...

Dave has gotten T3 with his Fish deck.  And he can still admit Fish has it's downsides.  Just because you play with Vial and Crypt doesn't mean you automatically have a better game than his deck.  Unless of course you've also T8'd at a large event with your deck.  

So umm...what kind of deck is it?

What on earth is your classification based on?

Is Slaver not a Drain deck now too or something?

Your analysis of what Gifts does is the epitome of what a drain deck does, particularly this sentence:

But, in most cases, it's a counterspell that can potentially end the game(Chances are the card you're protecting with Drain will win the game for you).

Isn't it obvious this is what Drain decks are trying to do?

Colby, it's a control-combo deck.  Since I play Gifts quiet often, I've found that Drain is the least threatning card in the deck.  It's also the least fetched card.  Drain is very rarely used to counter something on your opponents turn, this is poor resource management in Gifts.  Players also know how to play around Drain during their turn.  Drain is better left to force a spell through that will potentially win the game.  However, Force of Will does this just as well.

-DShell

[Moxlotus]

Drain is better left to force a spell through that will potentially win the game.  However, Force of Will does this just as well.

What?  Most of the time in combo-control decks you drain their random shitter to get the mana, then win.  Using Drain to force a spell through is not taking advantage of its power of mana stealing.  If using it to force through your own spells was its chief purpose, why aren't Gifts decks including 4 MisDs instead of Drains--like Pitchlong?  PitchLong (and 4 Gush GAT) used its counters to force through its stuff which is why it uses FoW and MisD.  Since Gifts uses a full set of Drains and less than a full set of MisDs, it is clear that it isn't to protect its own spells.

[dicemanx]

Ouch... step back there for a second.  Dave Feinstein is an avowed knight of the Null Rod.  Any concessions he makes here to Gifts apply exclusively to that (very popular) Null Rod sub-archetype of (UW) Fish.

Who's to say he's playing the best versions? I come from a meta that spawned some amazing Fish variants over the years that had a lot of tourney successes locally and in the US and yet received little acknowledgement. Who's to say what's best against the current field now?

But, if you're looking to beat Meandeck Gifts (which is the variant most players are aligning with these days even if there may be "better" optimizations), Vial Fish with maindeck Crypts and flexible Colossus answers (Bouncer, Drake, Proctor, or even Welder, Wayfarer -> Maze, and Stormscape) is the way to go.

Really? On what basis do you make these contentions? Speculation? Personal results? If this was indeed true, are the Null Rod Fish players, including the apparent foremost expert on Fish, playing the wrong version according to you? You are making very bold assertions, but other than your word results from tourney play have not reflected this.

An important point to consider is that Null Rod and Chalice of the Void are not the best responses to a dominant deck packing a maindeck Rebuild/Hurkyl's and on average 10-11 (!) ways of tutoring it up.  The fact that most Gifts players run so many basic Islands weakens Wasteland drastically and further diminishes the mana denial approach in this match-up.

An important point to consider is that even if the opposing powered decks play artifact bounce, you still need to go with your strengths or otherwise play a different archetype - Fish is essentially a Prison archetype with mana/resource denial backed by a clock and countermagic. Even with 4 Scrolls and a Rebuild/Recall, its not that easy to resolve a bounce spell in time or have it matter. If the opponent is investing time and resources to find bounce, he's not necessarily progressing with his own gameplan and won't automatically win even if that bounce spell resolves. I think you're drastically oversimplifying things here.

[brianpk80]

Vial Fish with lots of answers to Colossus and no Null Rod begs to lose to a turn of: play a couple spells, bounce all my artifact mana, Tendrils you, without needed access to anything from the graveyard.

I've heard this argument many times before.  It's the classic "Ha! then I'll just kill you with Rebuild."  Let me say from experience that this strategy is a lot more persuasive in theory than it is in practice. 

As for "Vial Fish with lots of answers... and no Null Rod," there's a pretty straightforward reason that Vial Fish does not use Null Rod.  Null Rod shuts down AEther Vial, Tormod's Crypt, and the colored artifact mana sources that are often critical to the types of three-color builds that tend to support Vial.   

True Believer and Meddling Mage are probably much better options than "Bouncer, Drake, Proctor, or even Welder, Wayfarer -> Maze, and Stormscape". 

Why would you think Vial Fish wouldn't use True Believer and Meddling Mage in addition to Colossus answers?  Unlike Null Rod and AEther Vial, Meddling Mage and Waterfront Bouncer are not mutually exclusive. 

Really? On what basis do you make these contentions? Speculation? Personal results? If this was indeed true, are the Null Rod Fish players, including the apparent foremost expert on Fish, playing the wrong version according to you?

Personal experience.  And yes, I have no qualms saying that Fish players relying on Null Rod and cheap beaters (Isamaru, Lions) are not going to outrace Gifts.  If you've been following Dave Feinstein's posts here and elsewhere, you might recall that he's branching away from the Null Rod based Fish designs having determined that they are as optimized as they can possibly be with little room for growth. 

Additionally, referring to anyone as the "foremost expert on Fish" is disingenuous.  Fish is the most variable archetype we have and your label here strikes me as analogous to naming a "foremost expert on Drains."  Would that be you?  Rich Shay?  Ben Carp?  Steve Menendian?  The Canadians?

An important point to consider is that even if the opposing powered decks play artifact bounce, you still need to go with your strengths or otherwise play a different archetype - Fish is essentially a Prison archetype with mana/resource denial backed by a clock and countermagic. Even with 4 Scrolls and a Rebuild/Recall, its not that easy to resolve a bounce spell in time or have it matter. If the opponent is investing time and resources to find bounce, he's not necessarily progressing with his own gameplan and won't automatically win even if that bounce spell resolves. I think you're drastically oversimplifying things here.

Vial Fish is neither a prison archetype nor an archetype that emphasizes its clock.  It is slow, controlling, and wins with cheap foils to dominant strategies rather hedging its bets on an opponent not drawing sufficient mana.  Aside from a few shared individual features (like the inclusion of Force of Will and Meddling Mage) Vial Fish and and Null Rod Fish are as night-and-day, if not more so, as Meandeck Gifts and Control Slaver.  Taking lessons learned from one and applying them broadly to the other is a recipe for failure.  I am dismayed that Vial Fish is so poorly understood here. 

-BPK

[Dxfiler]

Ouch... step back there for a second.  Dave Feinstein is an avowed knight of the Null Rod.  Any concessions he makes here to Gifts apply exclusively to that (very popular) Null Rod sub-archetype of (UW) Fish.

Who's to say he's playing the best versions? I come from a meta that spawned some amazing Fish variants over the years that had a lot of tourney successes locally and in the US and yet received little acknowledgement. Who's to say what's best against the current field now?

Alright hold on a second.  I have no problem with people using me as examples in this argument, but don't attribute me with things that I have never stated.

I never said I was playing the best version of fish.  There is no such thing as 'the best version,' as I've said dozens of times.  I do play a popular version, which has had significant game against gifts in the past but is now significantly less effective because of the sheer number of players out there who realize how strong Gifts is.

An important point to consider is that even if the opposing powered decks play artifact bounce, you still need to go with your strengths or otherwise play a different archetype - Fish is essentially a Prison archetype with mana/resource denial backed by a clock and countermagic. Even with 4 Scrolls and a Rebuild/Recall, its not that easy to resolve a bounce spell in time or have it matter. If the opponent is investing time and resources to find bounce, he's not necessarily progressing with his own gameplan and won't automatically win even if that bounce spell resolves. I think you're drastically oversimplifying things here.

I think you're overestimating the clock that modern fish has these days.  Fish, while by design is considered by many to be aggro, it's technically 'aggro-control.'  It doesn't just swarm you to deth on turns 3-5.  More than likely it wins in the mid-game, once it has acquired enough pressure and fired enough disruption the opponent's way that it can squeak through the win.  Fish, in my experience, rarely has 'blow-out' games.  This is mainly because of its power level.  Gifts can easily work around vial/rod AND chalice these days because the majority of gifts players pack more than one bounce spell.  When I lost to Mike Pies in the smies of SCG Boston, he had rebuild + hurkyl's+chain, and he fired off all three in one game for the win because I simply didn't have enough pressure to beat him. 

I bring this up because quite frankly, it's very easy for the gifts player to just bounce the artifact threat and win.  You aren't racing to a turn 3 kill like goblins. 

Before anyone else takes what I say out of context, let me state that I'm not for restricting gifts because fish has a hard time against it.  I've always been in the camp of, if something's dominating, you find a deck that beats it.  The issue is being forced to create complete and total hate decks to deal with one card.  In the days of slaver, I ran RG beats with tons of hate.  The deck was a total piece of crap, but it beat slaver more often than not.  I had no problem playing this deck for a period of time because slaver was the flavor of the season, and it was only a matter of time before something else took over.  I never felt anything needed to be restricted in slaver.

Now gifts is 'all the rage,' but the issue is that since the card came out it was putting up results.  Brassman and his team dominated the scene with SSB, then flame/vault.  People thought the deck would be totally dead after time vault was errata'd... yet here it is, still putting up incredible results, arguable better than ever before.

Gifts has always evolved because it's been allowed to play four gifts ungiven.  If you take away some key piece to the deck, it will just come back in a different form because 4x gifts gives near unlimited flexibility.  This is why I believe banning yawg will does NOTHING in the long run to solve the problem of gifts.  The card is so good that people will find a home for it in decks that aren't even built around it.  Slaver builds regularly include the card.  TK ran it at SCG boston on day 1, and DeMars has included it in all of his latest builds as well. 

It costs four to play!!!!  What is the problem here, no four casting cost Tutor/Draw spell should ever need to be restricted (Gush doesn't count!).  You pay four Mana and you don't actually  make any impact on the board.  There are plenty of ways to deal with Gifts, hand disruption, mana denial, graveyard hate, countermagic, meddling mage, et cetera.  The key is you have to have a plan, so when you get paired against it you know what to do, have relvevent things to do, and you know what you are working for.  A prepared Gifts player who has a plan for beating you, when you are trying to mise is going to pwn you every day of the week.  If there is a lot of Gifts in your area, or you know the good players in your region are going to be playing Gifts, test a plan that works and know what to do.

Arguing that the spell shouldn't be restricted mainly because it costs 4 is utterly ridiculous.  FOF had the exact same casting cost.  Granted, gifts is a tutor based spell instead of a draw based spell, but unlike FOF, you're handpicking the cards for your opoonent.  If you're at least competent with the deck, those 4 cards should all be ones your opponent won't want to choose from.  As Dshell already stated, a four mana double tutor is pretty damn good.  In addition, the two cards that make its way to the graveyard are often more of a bonus than a drawback. 

Stating that Gifts  has no immediate impact on the game is also false.  There are scenarios, given enough mana, where a gifts cast immediately can end the game the turn it's cast.  Not everyone casts it end of turn to setup for the next main phase, although that's the more typical play.  Even under that play, people are setting up to win THE NEXT TURN.  That's pretty damn impactful.  Instead of Yawg Will, where you win immediately when it's cast, Gifts often reads 'Win on your next main phase.'

- Dave Feinstein

[dicemanx]

Vial Fish with lots of answers to Colossus and no Null Rod begs to lose to a turn of: play a couple spells, bounce all my artifact mana, Tendrils you, without needed access to anything from the graveyard.

I've heard this argument many times before.  It's the classic "Ha! then I'll just kill you with Rebuild."  Let me say from experience that this strategy is a lot more persuasive in theory than it is in practice. 

As for "Vial Fish with lots of answers... and no Null Rod," there's a pretty straightforward reason that Vial Fish does not use Null Rod.  Null Rod shuts down AEther Vial, Tormod's Crypt, and the colored artifact mana sources that are often critical to the types of three-color builds that tend to support Vial.   

Really? On what basis do you make these contentions? Speculation? Personal results? If this was indeed true, are the Null Rod Fish players, including the apparent foremost expert on Fish, playing the wrong version according to you?

Personal experience.  And yes, I have no qualms saying that Fish players relying on Null Rod and cheap beaters (Isamaru, Lions) are not going to outrace Gifts.  If you've been following Dave Feinstein's posts here and elsewhere, you might recall that he's branching away from the Null Rod based Fish designs having determined that they are as optimized as they can possibly be with little room for growth. 

My point is that you're pretty certain about best ways to handle Gifts, when results in actual events don't exactly back you up (yet). Now for all we know you might turn out to be correct, but lets avoid the speculation in a thread where many have expressed the idea that Gifts is too difficult to contend with until its actually verified in a tourney setting.

An important point to consider is that even if the opposing powered decks play artifact bounce, you still need to go with your strengths or otherwise play a different archetype - Fish is essentially a Prison archetype with mana/resource denial backed by a clock and countermagic. Even with 4 Scrolls and a Rebuild/Recall, its not that easy to resolve a bounce spell in time or have it matter. If the opponent is investing time and resources to find bounce, he's not necessarily progressing with his own gameplan and won't automatically win even if that bounce spell resolves. I think you're drastically oversimplifying things here.

Vial Fish is neither a prison archetype nor an archetype that emphasizes its clock.  It is slow, controlling, and wins with cheap foils to dominant strategies rather hedging its bets on an opponent not drawing sufficient mana.  Aside from a few shared individual features (like the inclusion of Force of Will and Meddling Mage) Vial Fish and and Null Rod Fish are as night-and-day, if not more so, as Meandeck Gifts and Control Slaver.  Taking lessons learned from one and applying them broadly to the other is a recipe for failure.  I am dismayed that Vial Fish is so poorly understood here. 

Then why are we even talking about Vial Fish then? We might as well start talking about UbaStax or WGD. The idea of "Fish" has always revolved around mana/resource denial backed by a clock. I would also challenge any notion that cutting relevant mana disruption pieces in favor of luxuries like Vial isn't exactly very convincing as far as sound strategies to beat Gifts are concerned. Also, the idea of focusing on attacking Gifts' win conditions sounds like a typical flawed approach. I can only hope that my opponents choke their main deck with Trickbinds and Wipe Aways or mostly inconsequential stuff like Bouncers or Apprentices.

I think you're overestimating the clock that modern fish has these days.  Fish, while by design is considered by many to be aggro, it's technically 'aggro-control.'  It doesn't just swarm you to deth on turns 3-5.  More than likely it wins in the mid-game, once it has acquired enough pressure and fired enough disruption the opponent's way that it can squeak through the win.  Fish, in my experience, rarely has 'blow-out' games.  This is mainly because of its power level.  Gifts can easily work around vial/rod AND chalice these days because the majority of gifts players pack more than one bounce spell.  When I lost to Mike Pies in the smies of SCG Boston, he had rebuild + hurkyl's+chain, and he fired off all three in one game for the win because I simply didn't have enough pressure to beat him.

A "clock" doesn't have to mean that you're winning on turns 3-5 on average. Consider it a way of distinguishing a deck like Uba Stax and Fish, which both try to focus on mana/resource denial but Fish trades some lock pieces for creatures that can attack.

I also don't know what to make of your anecdote. Is it backing the notion that if your opponent plays solutions, you shouldn't be playing your best mana/resource denial spells? No one is claiming that all you need to do to win is cram your deck full of CotVs/Rods, because Gifts decks *can* win through that. However, like I said, you need to be playing to your strength here, otherwise there is little point in playing this archetype.

Alright hold on a second.  I have no problem with people using me as examples in this argument, but don't attribute me with things that I have never stated.

I never said I was playing the best version of fish.  There is no such thing as 'the best version,' as I've said dozens of times.  I do play a popular version, which has had significant game against gifts in the past but is now significantly less effective because of the sheer number of players out there who realize how strong Gifts is.

I understand that you've never claimed to be playing the best versions, but you did state (which you're repeating here) that Gifts has (or at least would have if it had a competent pilot) too good of a game against your Fish decks. This is what prompted me to say that perhaps you weren't playing the best versions against this archetype, so its hard to make an argument against Gifts and say it it is too difficult to handle or that GU is restriction-worthy. Gifts players increasing in skill levels and the subsequent increase in the frequency of Gifts is a relatively new thing, and we should give the environment an opportunity to adjust. If it turns out to be too difficult to contain after all, then we can talk about restricting it.

[Zarathustra]

Most of the time in combo-control decks you drain their random shitter to get the mana, then win.

Yeah, I realize this.  If the opportunity presents itself, this is what you do.  But, in most cases the Gifts player has used most of his mana during his turn.  Furthermore, one of the most fetched blue spells(besides Ancestral), is Force of Will, not Mana Drain.

And to this end, I still say, Mana Drain is the worst card in the deck.

-DShell

[kirdape3]

In my considered opinion on the Gifts v Fish match, Fish is mostly dependent on a couple of factors:

1) Multiple and varying lock pieces - You'll need any two lock pieces of various types to stunt Gifts' ability to go off before you just die to their first bounce spell.  You'll also need these lock pieces very quickly - generally before Mana Drain can come online.  If you just have a bunch of Chalices and Rods, you'll bite it to Hurkyl's Recall or Rebuild before you actually generate enough pressure.  Unless you're highly lucky though, you won't have double Believer or Believer/Mage before the opposing Gifts Ungiven deck has Mana Drain operational.  While you can afford to toss a one-mana spell into a Mana Drain the vast majority of the time, good luck if you get a two-mana spell Drained.

2) Offensive strength of the Fish list - If you can get a hot draw with a bunch of Lions/Isamarus/Jotun Grunts (if you can get them before Drain comes online), you can just blow Gifts out of the way with one piece of disruption.  One piece isn't enough if you have probably less than four power on the board - they'll have sufficient time to regroup, find their bounce spell, and go off in your face.

3) Quality of the Gifts Ungiven player - This last one is a huge X factor, as it's not really quantifiable.  If you play against a competent opponent with a Gifts Ungiven deck, your draw has to greatly outweigh theirs and you can't throw any opportunities away.  If the draws are even, the Gifts player will most likely utterly destroy Fish as any quality Gifts Ungiven deck is more capable of winning the game than the Fish deck actually is. 

The reason that Fish is favored against most Gifts Ungiven decks is that the Gifts Ungiven players are simply incompetent.  Steve lost a couple of games to me last night because he simply played like an idiot.  Every game that he failed to do so, he blew me out - and my deck has a significantly higher quantity of disruption than every Fish list I've seen.  (My list is public on StarCityGames from Rochester 2005).  If you can metagame Fish better than I can against Gifts Ungiven, you're more than welcome to do so.  At best right now the advantage is only slightly better than even and that's due to game ending mistakes from my opponents.

Peter, when I played against the Canadian Fish list at that tournament I simply destroyed him.  My draws weren't even substantially above average and he had maindeck Old Man of the Sea... but it wasn't even close.  Maybe the list has changed, but personally I was not impressed at all.  It's very clunky and slow to me.  It might be capable of beating Drain decks, but I wouldn't want to try it because of all the high-cc spells in there.

The notion that Fish is just a variation on the Stax theme is one however that most of my teammates have agreed upon, however.  Instead of just playing more artifacts, I play disruption pieces that attack without benefit of Karn, Silver Golem.  It's worked in the past for a lot of people.

And now, back on topic...

Gifts Ungiven may very well end up restricted.  It is however the card with the highest actual skill level in a format not known for it's upper-level quality of play.  How many games with or against Gifts Ungiven have been decided because of a mistake in choosing the four cards for the Gifts split?  Right now that's probably the hardest choice in the entire format.  If people could make that choice correctly every time, I would feel very confident that Gifts would be sitting on the restricted list like Fact or Fiction did.  Fact put the burden of skill more squarely on the opponent, so you could take advantage of him being bad.  This is still possible with Gifts Ungiven, but Fact or Fiction only required you to make one choice when resolving it.  Gifts requires four separate choices, plus a convoluted endgame to win with.  As Gifts players actually finally learn how to play their decks, this skill level requirement is likely to become less of a factor - leading to another upsurge of Gifts Ungiven being really, really good.

[Moxlotus]

As Gifts players actually finally learn how to play their decks, this skill level requirement is likely to become less of a factor - leading to another upsurge of Gifts Ungiven being really, really good.

Don't you think its then possible for fish/stax/whatever players to become better deckbuilders then and not be able to rely on their opponents handing them wins?  Why does nobody think that this is possible and that Gifts players are becoming better and nothing can stop them besides 60cardhate.dec?

[brianpk80]

My point is that you're pretty certain about best ways to handle Gifts, when results in actual events don't exactly back you up (yet).

(emphasis added by BPK)

This is a fallacious form of ad hominem argument that (with, ironically, no disrespect meant towards you personally) needs to be debunked definitively here.  The fact that post-graduate education and serious relationships have prevented both me and my brother to indulge the opportunity to drop an entire weekend and drive X hours to Southwest Virginia or New England has no bearing on the insight either one of us bring to the table.  After the first few months, we won or Top 3-ed just about every tournament we entered.  I won a Mox Ruby in Northeast PA and a Juzam in Frackville, PA back when it could be traded straight up for an Ancestral Recall, which I did the next day.  I Top 8'd expansion pre-releases in New York and New Jersey.  I've won so many random singletons (Moat, etc.), boosters, store credit, in my time playing I can't even begin to recall most of it.  I'm also a member of a highly analytical profession in real life.  Does this give me more credibility to speak on the Vial Fish v. Meandeck Gifts match-up?  It shouldn't. 

Whether or not a person has performed well or even participated in a recent well-publicized event is independent of that person's acumen to understand the dynamics of the metagame and contribute accordingly.  Even if a member has never participated in a single tournament in his/her life, attempting to counter that person's analysis solely by reference to lack of experience fails to refute any claims or arguments raised.   

I will go out on a limb here and say that one learns a lot more while testing match-ups with friends, teammates, or relatives, either in person or online, than one does in the daze of a tournament experience.  How many tourney reports have we read here that begin with a disclaimer a la "well, I didn't get much [or any] sleep this weekend, so I made several mistakes and..." or "I can barely remember the match except that he Tinkered really early and..."? Sure, variables like sleep deprivation, hunger, distracting sounds/odors, and exhaustion are important factors in considering how one's own individual tournament performance will play out.  But when comparing the intrinsic strengths and weaknesses of one deck v. another, they're irrelevant.  A calm more casual atmosphere enables a player to more readily absorb and focus on the exact information we're concerned with here, that may ultimately translate into tournament success.  But that knowledge comes from the testing and exchange of ideas, not the tournament itself. 

When one says "Oath of Druids has a great match-up against Slaver because Oath's threat density quickly overcomes Slaver's early defenses..." and another responds, "Ha! You really wouldn't know because you didn't Top 8 at Gencon or any SCG in 2006," there's a transparent form of character assassination taking place.  I've been playing various forms of Vial Fish for almost a year now.  I've authored a very dense article on a slightly modified Vial Fish variant in the Vintage Forum and have had the last word on every legitimate criticism raised there.  I am surprised that you attempt to discredit my perspective because of a consuming occupation with state exams, an editing job, and a serious relationship, meanwhile demonstrating such knowledge of the sub-archetype in question that you mischaracterize it as a clock-driven quasi-prison.  This tactic concerns me because your posts here otherwise uphold a very high standard of discourse and I've always considered you an articulate voice with a penetrating understanding of many subtleties that escape the average player.  For further discussion, let's stick to the substance of the decks and card choices themselves and avoid the thinly guised ad hominems. 

Then why are we even talking about Vial Fish then?

Not a good question.  We're talking about Vial Fish because you brought it up:

Maybe Fish "can't beat Gifts" because people are enamored with their Vials or they still insist on running less than 4 Null Rods.

I am confidant that if someone made a comment about a weakness in Gifts decks and attributed it to its pilots being "enamored with their Thirsts for Knowledge" you would be well within your prerogative to address that.  I'd commend and encourage your input there.  I never claimed to be the SCG-circuit leading expert on Vial Fish, but I know a heck of a lot about it.  When I see the archetype mischaracterized or poorly understood, I'm inclined to speak up. 

The idea of "Fish" has always revolved around mana/resource denial backed by a clock.

The term has evolved to include just about any aggro-control deck that carries a team of small critters to do its dirty work.  Compare it to a term like Stax, which stands for "The Four Thousand Dollar Solution" but has grown to include any Workshop based deck running Smokestack. 

I would also challenge any notion that cutting relevant mana disruption pieces in favor of luxuries like Vial isn't exactly very convincing as far as sound strategies to beat Gifts are concerned. Also, the idea of focusing on attacking Gifts' win conditions sounds like a typical flawed approach. I can only hope that my opponents choke their main deck with Trickbinds and Wipe Aways or mostly inconsequential stuff like Bouncers or Apprentices.

Your criticism here is very detached from a realistic Vial Fish v. Gifts setting.  AEther Vial is not a "luxury" occuping four lavishly wasted slots.  It is critical and efficient instrument that bereaves opposing countermagic of any real consequence, negates bounce, and converts grizzly bears of all stripes into instant responses that both shock and decimate the active opponent's strategy.  AEther Vial + Tormod's Crypt + Stern Proctor/Waterfront Bouncer in opening hand v. Gifts = "I win" (usually) where Null Rod + Wasteland + Savannah Lions = "I get to deal 6 damage and then I lose to Chain of Vapor." 

I'll explain how it plays out generally from the Vial Fish perspective v. Meandeck Gifts, because I suspect this is a progression with which many players are very unfamiliar.  Assume for simplicity's sake that Fish plays first.  Opening hand: Polluted Delta, AEther Vial, Stern Proctor, Tormod's Crypt, Children of Korlis, Meddling Mage, Tundra.  Nothing too fanciful and like most mana-stable Fish hands, it's playable so: "Keep"

Turn 1: Fish lays Tormod's Crypt.  There's a 40% chance Gifts can Force it, but probably doesn't want to begin the game with what would amount to a casting cost Hymn to Tourach for the opponent.  Out of principle, it usually slides by.  Once in a while an eager opponent with Yawgmoth's Will in the opening hand will pitch a business spell or another counter to stop it.  In that case, I look at my hand and say "Ok, he's going to Will... I'll either keep the Vial @ 1 and pop the Children after Tendrils of Agony or see what develops and bump Vial up to 2 for my Mag or a Believer/Voidmage that comes along." (Remember, it doesn't matter how low your life is after Tendrils or how high the Gifts players' is, so long as they've blown their load and you are still alive).  If Crypt gets countered then it's a safe bet AEther Vial will resolve.  But since we're focusing on both key cards today, Crypt and Vial, we'll assume they both resolve.  It helps that in reality, they often do.  Fish: lay Polluted Delta, fetch Underground Sea, play AEther Vial.  Pass the turn.

Turn 1(b): Gifts lays a Polluted Delta, fetches an Island, drops Mox Ruby and casts Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall.  ("Haha, I'm going to outdraw this lowly Fish player and kick his stupid 2/2's in the face!") Pass.

Turn 2: AEther Vial @ 1.  Draw -> Dark Confidant.  Play Tundra.  Pause for a few seconds.  Say "Hmmm" and pretend to be thinking.  Play the Confidant?  We really want to start drawing here, but Vial in play says "no" and 6 cards in opponent's hand says "no" but the lack of Drain says "go for it."  I hate losing draw-critters in this match-up to FoW and he's both free and uncounterable next turn, but sometimes I want an extra card.  I could justify an answer either way.  Today I'll play it.  "Ok?" Gifts mulls it over.  A bluff? "Ok."  It resolves.  Pass the turn.

Turn 2(b):  Gifts draws and, now confident in his/her FoW/MisD back-up, plays Ancestral Recall.  It resolves.  ("Haha, Fish doesn't have any FoW, Ooooh I'm gonna go wild.")  Unfortunately, that Ancestral is doomed to the RFG zone, never to be seen again, but why rain on the parade so soon.  Proudly, Gifts lays down a Mox Sapphire and a second Fetch-land.  Mox Ruby tapped for Sol Ring.  By all outward appearances, Mana Drain is online.  EoT Gifts and/or Fact or Fiction are online as well.  It looks pretty good for Gifts, no?  Pass the turn, and EoT, Children of Korlis. 

Turn 3: AEther Vial @ 2.  Dark Confidant reveals True Believer ("gulp").  Down to 17 life.  Draw -> Mox Sapphire.  The appearance of multiple options in hand goes a lot further than a Sapphire on the table so I refrain from playing it.  Attack for 3 with the Bob and the Kids (sounds like a sitcom about a suburban Fish family).  Pass the turn.  Between the deterring effect of Tormod's Crypt, Children of Korlis in play, and a known True Believer in hand with Vial @ 2 (And remember friends, according to some prominent Gifts players, Dark Confidant is "terrible" because your opponent gets a free Peek), Gifts Ungiven is out of the picture and a well-executed Will followed by Tendrils is almost hopelessly foreclosed.  The gymnastics of bouncing and Wishing for everything, with the Crypt to prevent duplication of bounce unless it's the first target, just isn't attractive or realistic.  But never fear, Gifts has Tinker!  And with four mana on the table, Gifts performs one of the best raw maneuver it could hope for in this situation.  That lucksack topdecked Fact or Fiction. 

Gifts taps out to play it.  "Hmmm..." (pretend to be thinking) and it resolves.  Right now, Gifts wants to forget any of these nuisance critters ever happened and end the game with the Iron Man and some consecutive turns.  I wouldn't know this from the Vial side but let's assume Gifts has Time Walk in hand with both Mana Drain and MisD back-up and wants to Tinker that Sol Ring into something better ASAP.  Fact or Fiction reveals: Underground Sea, Mystical Tutor, Recoup, Brainstorm, and Mana Drain.  How to split?  Well, it's easy to think Recoup is garbage because of the Crypt in play, but never underestimate the power of an opposing maindeck Rebuild/Hurkyl's to throw all the timing off.  I have an active Vial so Mana Drain is actually the most dead card here.  Pile Split: Mystical Tutor + Mana Drain v. Underground Sea, Recoup, Brainstorm. 

Fast forward to next turn... Whether Gifts grabbed the Mystical and summoned up Tinker the old fashioned way... or whether he/she opted for the Brainstorm, unsuccessfully baiting the Crypt with Recouped Time Walks/Merchant Scrolls or some other combination of cards in hand that haven't been disclosed yet, Tinker resolves. 

(Whenever) Fish: Tap AEther Vial, put Stern Proctor into play, return Darksteel Colossus to owner's hand, and that's all she wrote.  Too many goodies are gone for Gifts and my opponent here is going to soon concede.  Using Gifts to search for answers is pointless because I'll Vial out TB in response (no target for Gifts Ungiven) even if opponent responds with Chain of Vapor on TB the best searches will be tossed into Tormod's Crypt (along with the Chain, so good luck getting storm to ~15 to kill me with at least 1 Children in play).  Rebuild here is going to be really hard to set up here without Gifts and it isn't going to kill me cause I'll Vial out True Believer and use Crypt in response (so long, Tinker, Recoup, Brainstorm, Sol Ring, Ancestral, etc.).  The desperate idea of Burning Wish for Pyroclasm/Massacre is futile with Gifts Ungiven deactivated as a non-mana search tool, Ancestral and FoF gone for good, and being in the unenviable position of having a really annoying Darksteel Colossus sitting in hand.  Gifting for acceleration (knowing the Academy and Lotus will end up RFG) to hardcast Colossus is futile with zero Mana Drain targets, a while to go before hitting that 11 mana benchmark (especially with one acceleration piece Tinkered away), and an opponent who, if seeing it coming, will put out an uncounterable, unbounceable Meddling Mage on DSC if necessary.  Skip the idea of contortions: Meandeck Gifts now can't function properly and Fish will bring it home in about three turns. 

I believe this hypothetical is a very realistic and typical example of the match-up and I hope it has helped to clarify the interplay between Vial Fish and Meandeck Gifts.  Mind you, we all get bad draws and I'll lose from time to time to Gifts having a stellar opening, but this scenario should help to animate many of the types of situations one can expect to encounter in this match-up. 

Now, compare the above to EoT, Hurkyl's Recall on Null Rod-packing Fish, untap and win.  So yes, Gifts is beatable, but artifact based mana denial is absolutely not the best strategy to be pursuing here.  Tormod's Crypt is cheaper, comes down more quickly, and its damage usually cannot be undone with bounce.  The same goes for AEther Vial.  If players adopted these strategies, I could see there being a less compelling need to restrict Gifts Ungiven.  Having played Vial Fish for nearly a year now, I find that card, Gifts, to be quite strong but not definitely worthy of restriction.  It will almost always give an opponent at least two or three turns to prepare, which cannot be said for Pitch Long openings, Workshop->Trinisphere, or the lucky first-turn protected Tinker.

-BPK

[zeus-online]

Excuse me, but that stern dude is a one-off in your deck if i remember correctly.

And i'm pretty sure that most fish decks do not run T. Crypt maindeck, and after board things get easier with pyroclasm/massacre to take care of your horde.

/Zeus

[brianpk80]

Excuse me, but that stern dude is a one-off in your deck if i remember correctly.

He's a two-of, but it really doesn't matter whether the card in question is a Proctor, a Gilded Drake, or a Waterfront Bouncer, so long as it directly addresses the Colossus.  A good Vial build should have several contingency plans for a Darksteel Colossus because without them, there will be carnage.  Running so many flexible DSC answers (flexible meaning they are good if not great in other match-ups as well) means drawing them is going to be common. 

And i'm pretty sure that most fish decks do not run T. Crypt maindeck

They don't; Null Rod shuts off Tormod's Crypt.  The point here that current incarnations of Null Rod Fish can't address the most popular Gifts variant.  Vial Fish with maindeck Tormod's Crypt is an alternative which at the very least is a strong anti-Gifts skeleton that can be modified as needed. 

, and after board things get easier with pyroclasm/massacre to take care of your horde.

In case you missed it, there was some commentary about the difference in degree of impact you can expect to get out of those strategy hosers in Null Rod v. Vial Fish.  Half the time, Vial Fish keeps its best creatures in hand (Voidmage, Believer) so a card like Massacre isn't going to give you as much mileage. 

-BPK