Ritual Gifts

[BreathWeapon]

Comparing Ritual Gifts to Pitch Long is something of a logical misnomer, because Ritual Gifts is not a dedicated combo deck, while Pitch Long is. Ritual Gifts can still Scroll for Force or Ancestral, allowing the deck to choose between control and beatdown, where Pitch Long is forced to use Grim Tutor as a combo engine. Ritual Gifts is also stronger against hate, thanks to Scroll for bounce, and it can take advantage of the opponent's end step. But most of all, there isn't a single, god awful D7 in the entire deck, which is the deck's biggest selling point as a straight up combo deck.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Comparing Ritual Gifts to Pitch Long is something of a logical misnomer, because Ritual Gifts is not a dedicated combo deck

I think the phrase "dedicated combo deck" is a misnomer for PL.  If a deck devotes all 60 slots to nothing but the winning game state (this means no interactive cards like fow, duress, bounce) I'd call it a dedicated combo deck. 

Ritual Gifts can still Scroll for Force or Ancestral, allowing the deck to choose between control and beatdown, where Pitch Long is forced to use Grim Tutor as a combo engine

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's not overly rare for a PL players to use tutors to get pitch counters or bounce.  The frequency with which these decks tutor for interactive cards vs. engine pieces is probably roughly proportional to their ability to combo.

Ritual Gifts is also stronger against hate, thanks to Scroll for bounce

1) Scroll is a more effecient tutor (than grim) for finding answers and setting up its engine

there isn't a single, god awful D7 in the entire deck

2) A resolved Gifts...can find...specific threats compared with necro, contract, twister, jar, etc.

I like the way I said it better, however you do bring up a great point that Gifts being an instant allows greater tactical flexibility.  It wasn't uncommon when testing PL to use sorcery speed resources to set up a win next turn, only to have it thwarted by an opponent laying duress/mage/strip/etc.

[Scott_Limoges]

Hmm. Your claim of stax not being a problematic matchup would be much more believable if you didn't go on to say that you haven't tested stax.

Why play this over PL?

I'd also like to add that Gifts is unique in that it's a one card combo and really requires no setup, no investment like a full hand or rituals and tutors, and no luck of random cards - its a card that rewards good players with good choices.  What this means is that sometimes you won't spend a hand full of spells and lose to FOW.  And as Steve and BreathWeapon put it, when Gifts resolves you win the game - no random fizzling from unlucky draw 7's or putting your opponent back into the game; flexibility to tutor for the answer for 1U, and the option to switch from either the control or combo roll begining on turn 1.

Regarding 5c Stax, what I was refering to was facing enchantment hate maindeck like In the Eye of Chaos or Choke that will require multiple bounce spells over the course of a game (I should have been more specific).  These builds seem to see less play now but will be an obsticle when encountered.  The difference between 5c Stax and Uba Stax regarding significant artifact lock pieces against combo, specificlly Ritual Gifts, is minor in comparison and I have tested against these 5c builds.

[BreathWeapon]

In the current metagame, I think it's difficult to draw a distinction between what is and what isn't a dedicated combo deck, but in the case of Pitch Long, I think it is clear that it can not assume a control role, while Ritual Gifts can. Granted, it's a matter of semantics, but it's important to draw a distinction between combo, control with a combo finish and "combo-control." In a lot of ways, Ritual Gifts is on the opposite end of the spectrum as MDGifts, it's a combo deck that has adopted control elements as opposed to a control deck that has adopted combo elements, which is what makes it such a fascinating deck.

Comparing Grim Tutor to Merchant Scroll in terms of tutor->answer power isn't a direct comparison, because the difference between 1BB and 1U is significant; the amount of resources invested into Grim Tutor is proportionally much higher than Merchant Scroll, and it requires you to Fetch a non-basic, which is the last thing you want to do against Stax and/or Fish.

Theorizing aside, I think the best way to answer the inevitable "why play this over comboX.dec" is to play the deck and discern the advantages for yourself, the answer to your question will become apparent in time.

[Moxlotus]

Theorizing aside, I think the best way to answer the inevitable "why play this over comboX.dec" is to play the deck and discern the advantages for yourself, the answer to your question will become apparent in time.

In fact, a lot of posters get defensive and as a last resort decree - "test it, its good!". No. We're not going to test every idea that crosses the forums.

Before I start testing a deck, I would like to know what the supposed advantages and disadvantages are compared to a similar deck so I can see if the poster is correct or if he/she isn't.

So far, questions have been answered pretty well for me, but I just wanted to point out the fallacy of that last remark.

How can this deck sit back and play the control route while PL can't.  It has Duress as an advantage.  I'd hardly call Duress a defensive spell. 

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

How can this deck sit back and play the control route while PL can't.  It has Duress as an advantage.  I'd hardly call Duress a defensive spell. 

It runs merchant scroll. Scroll -> Force is pretty savage when all you need to do is stop 1 spell or protect 1 spell to win. Also, with Pitchlong, I sometimes find myself lacking in blue cards to pitch. It's not that pitchlong can't play a control role, it's that it's much easier for ritual gifts to do it. In this sense, you give up very little speed for a greater ability to control the game.

On a minor note, I love this deck because it runs the better rituals. I honestly hate cabal ritual, as I find myself cursing whenever I draw it in pitchlong. In this deck, I'm never upset when I draw ritual.

[Moxlotus]

On a minor note, I love this deck because it runs the better rituals. I honestly hate cabal ritual, as I find myself cursing whenever I draw it in pitchlong. In this deck, I'm never upset when I draw ritual.

I'm confused.  This deck runs the better rituals?  It runs Dark Ritual...like PL.  What does this run to replace Cabal Ritual that you like more?  More land?  If so, couldn't you try to play PL with more land?

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I'm confused.  This deck runs the better rituals?  It runs Dark Ritual...like PL.  What does this run to replace Cabal Ritual that you like more?  More land?  If so, couldn't you try to play PL with more land?

My fault. I meant that the deck only runs the "good rituals" referring to dark ritual. I did try adding more lands to PL, and it started to look more and more like this deck.

As I stated earlier, I view this as the convergence of Long variants and Gifts variants, not an extension/tweak of either deck. The cards may be similar, but the theory behind the decks is quite different. Gifts, in this deck, functionally acts as a game winning bomb, much like necro/bargain/desire.

So why play Gifts in that slot and not grim tutor? Well, the reasons are:
1) Grim tutor pushes you to run more black accelerants. I draw a hand of moxes/land/grim tutor and I can't do anything anytime soon. Replace it with a Gifts and I'm in business.
2) Gifts is a one card combo. Grim tutor -> Will DOES requires a certain amount of setup. Scott has won MANY games against me just by going EOT Gifts for LED/Lotus/Will/Recoup and just winning with a single brainstorm in his yard.
3) Once you realize that over 50% of the time you are casting GT with a ritual, you begin to wonder why you can't manage this with Gifts. Once you add Gifts to the deck, obviously the permanent mana source count has to go up, and you end up with Scott's deck.

Once you make the realization that gifts is a one-card combo, you begin cutting all the "chaff" of traditional combo decks such as draw7's. This opens up many slots in the maindeck, which Scott has used for disruption.

I have 2 problems with the deck as is:
1) The lack of the 4th Gifts. I feel this card is too important to not run, but I'm still uncertain of what to cut.
2) The lack of a 2nd bounce spell, which other people have brought up.

[BreathWeapon]

Theorizing aside, I think the best way to answer the inevitable "why play this over comboX.dec" is to play the deck and discern the advantages for yourself, the answer to your question will become apparent in time.

In fact, a lot of posters get defensive and as a last resort decree - "test it, its good!". No. We're not going to test every idea that crosses the forums.

Before I start testing a deck, I would like to know what the supposed advantages and disadvantages are compared to a similar deck so I can see if the poster is correct or if he/she isn't.

So far, questions have been answered pretty well for me, but I just wanted to point out the fallacy of that last remark.

How can this deck sit back and play the control route while PL can't.  It has Duress as an advantage.  I'd hardly call Duress a defensive spell. 

It's one thing to read a deck list and another thing to put it into practice. There are certain facets to a deck that can't be derived from theorizing and need to be determined from testing; the remark isn't fallacious, it's practical. The argument only become invalid when it is the ONLY defense of an inarticulate deck builder.

@Clown,

I agree on the 4th Gifts and 2nd bounce spell; I would cut the Misdirections.

[Scott_Limoges]

My original list played less mana and the 4th gifts; however, overtime I realized the mana base didn't provide the necessary quantity of lands.  I needed the 14th land and decided cutting a mana intensive spell to ease the flow and make more earlier game plays.  My logic for keeping misdirection over gifts was because I felt resolving a gifts earlier with misD protection attributed to more tempo than of trying to cast gifts after gifts with less protection - losing turns and advantage to an eager opponent.  The same also applies to misD resolving necro and bargin. This reasoning could be flawed in a stax or fish saturated meta but it seems sound in a controlling or comboish environment.

There's no question that a hurkyls would wreck stax knowing that this conventional build already has game against it - hurkyls essentially means autowin (slightly exaggerated), which is a good argument to include just the one copy...   Ritual Gifts is a tutor deck which means that its contents can be flexible.

[diopter]

I have been testing the hell out of Ritual Gifts, with various combinations of cards. Here are my observations:

• As others have stated, Tormod's Crypt is a problem. Scott suggested Pithing Needle, but I didn't favor that solution because Crypt can be played by possibly anybody and Pithing Needle is quite useless against a wide range of decks. I tried to analyze the alternative, non-graveyard abusing bombs, like the Draw7's (Wheel and Twister) and the black enchantments, and see if they performed against Crypt.
• The Draw7's were awful, as Breathweapon said. Drawing 7 off the top is just not enough in this deck - Ritual Gifts is just not saturated enough with acceleration or Tendrils-fetching tutors like PL is. This was true especially in the face of Tormod's Crypt, which is why I wanted Draw7's in the first place - Draw7's were often fizzling without the help of Yawgmoth's Will.
• Necro performed slightly better, but it was also not without issues. The BBB casting cost meant that I was almost always leaning on Ritual to cast it, but I found that not to be a problem. The real problem was post-Necro, again, in the face of Tormod's Crypt. Accessing Necro usually came about via Scroll->Mystical->Demonic chain. Post-Necro, however, you have exactly one Vampiric Tutor and one Tendrils left, and I was observing a failure margin of over 1/3 in retrieving one of these two cards AND assembling the requisite storm, mana, and protection. Note that this is against Tormod's Crypt - when not facing an opposing Crypt, Necro gets significantly more broken Yawgmoth's Will and Gifts Ungiven open themselves up as options.
• Bargain performed the best out of these bombs, but I was still unhappy with its casting cost. Assembling 4BB would often take up a Ritual as well as a plentiful manabase, and getting it from your library into play protected was not always possible. Still, when it resolved, it won the most games. It suffers from the same "lack of Tendrils-tutors" flaw as Necro, but building storm, generating mana, and protecting the kill were not a problem when you could use all 14+ cards you drew

After being disheartened by these results, I came to the conclusion that an alternative bomb would not do the trick. However, I was not happy with the Pithing Needle solution either. I began testing the alternative of running a second bounce spell, which actually gave positive results. The bounce spells do the double duty of either EOT solving the Crypt and then Gifting for the win, or by just enabling the Tendrils kill without the use of Will. I have come to realize that the reason the bounce spells work better than alternative bombs is that you can fetch them directly with Scroll, thus preserving the Scroll->Mystical chain to find your Tendrils.

For reference, the list I was using:

4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Force of Will
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Recoup
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will

Some differences from Scott's list, most notably the 4th Gifts, no alternative bombs, and the use of a single Mana Drain, which I have found to be quite useful. The thing about Drain in traditional Scroll Gifts that I always hated was that it was a card that was excellent sometimes. Sometimes you had your back against the wall and Drain was amazing to buy you either time or swing tempo back in your favor if you manage to counter something relevant. Other times you would be presented with what would be otherwise aggressive hands, but having Drain instead of the cheaper Duress would prevent you from executing that kill with protection. Having the single Drain to Scroll for has been good to me so far.

[dexter]

Been silent enuff for a while now but still following the thread, like stated before i do have alot of experience of playing this kinda TPS gifts kinda deck and some statements in the thread has made me confused. lets start. (yes for you who have seen the decklist i know it looks somewhat different but its just a evolution of a deck that looked very much like the one scott has posted here)

@scott

You claim to have a good matchup vs staxx, i dont really see it, ive played the staxx matchup inf with times thx to the workshop infestion we had here for the last years and with only 1 basic land in the original list i really dont see that being good. I have about 70/80-30/20 in the staxx matchup and thats alot thx to being able to fetch out 5 basics lands from the deck and then rebuilding when i have enuff fuel to win on hand in a well chosen endstep or upkeep. With only 1-2 basic land in my lists i would not have that good of a matchup, especially with only 1 maindeck 1cc bounce that doesnt wipe board.

@random

Whoever said that CotV for 0 is the better play vs this deck. CotV 0 shuts down 9 cards in the deck, CotV for 1 18, now a 3rd of the deck vs a 5th of the deck shutdown due to CotV should make it obvious which number CotV for shuold be set for. Yes you can make the argument that CotV for 0 shuts down 0cc mana acc artifacts, BUT the deck STILL has 4 rituals, Vault, Sol Ring which gives 6 accelerrants for partying, and not having enuff mana is not a issue ive faced so far.

2nd bounce spell.

Why is everyone speaking of hurkyls and from what it seems forgetting that rebuild exists? Rebuild has cycling which doesnt make it  a dead card when you dont have a board to wipe, Many times you want to be able to clear the board in upkeep when wire, staxx effects are on stack to be able to get your mana accelerants back to hand and party with them if you wanna go off. Me personally vs staxx almost as often is i clear the board endstep i clear it upkeep just to get my own mana back in buisness, its pretty often you can hurkyl through a sphere and wire endstep. And on my own part since i do run 3x draw7s (mostly due to fuel issues), rebuild + memory jar is a nice nice thing to do in some matchups, you wipe their board, they get to discard their hand incl what they had on board, and you get down the mana acc again the same round.

One other thing I kinda miss is the tinker in maindeck, yes it might not be as hot if you dont have a jar to tinker for but i think the maindeck tinker ratio is something like 60% for jar 39% for lotus, 1% for spellcount (mox, vault, ring or a crypt), And it allows you to bring in DSC after board, yes, DSC is a bad man but in some random matchups he acctually just wins the games.

[BreathWeapon]

@Diopter

Removing Necropotence from a combo deck with 4 Dark Rituals is ridiculous, Dark Ritual into Necropotence is the most absurd opening in all of Magic and Demonic Tutor or Vampiric Turn for Necropotence is ubiquitous against Tormod's Crypt.

Judging the power of Yawgmoths' Bargain and Necropotence on Merchant Scroll, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor for Yawgmoth's Bargain or Necropotence is illogical, because you should have just Merchant Scrolled for Ancestral Recall, drawn into Yawgmoth's Bargain, Necropotence or Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and saved Merchant Scroll into Mystical Tutor for Tendrils of Agony.

You could make an argument against Yawgmoth's Bargain on the basis of the casting cost, but even at 6 mana, the card is GG.

[benthetenor]

@Diopter

Removing Necropotence from a combo deck with 4 Dark Rituals is ridiculous, Dark Ritual into Necropotence is the most absurd opening in all of Magic and Demonic Tutor or Vampiric Turn for Necropotence is ubiquitous against Tormod's Crypt.

Judging the power of Yawgmoths' Bargain and Necropotence on Merchant Scroll, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor for Yawgmoth's Bargain or Necropotence is illogical, because you should have just Merchant Scrolled for Ancestral Recall, drawn into Yawgmoth's Bargain, Necropotence or Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and saved Merchant Scroll into Mystical Tutor for Tendrils of Agony.

You could make an argument against Yawgmoth's Bargain on the basis of the casting cost, but even at 6 mana, the card is GG.

I don't want to be "that guy", but I don't think that "ubiquitous" is the word you wanted to use right there.

This deck isn't as much of a strict ritual combo deck, as illustrated by the 1/3 failure rate that diopter quoted. I haven't tested that significantly yet, but it does feel like you can't push this deck as much as you would any other combo deck. That would definitely make Necropotence worse. I don't know if it's right or not to remove Necro, and I'm definitely leaning towards not, but just assuming "it has rituals, therefore Necropotence is an auto-include" is terrible.

[Disburden]

 I actually believe if you are going to cut the pure Dark Ritual based combo bombs from this deck then you're just trying to play Meandeck Gifts with more black mana than colorless mana that cost UU. I can't even understand why you would cut Necropotence from any combo deck that runs four Dark Rituals. That card wins you a game when it resolves, if you're losing after you Necro for 9 cards then you're doing something horribly wrong. Matter of fact, you may just be downright playing the deck badly. I could be wrong here, but I can't even recall losing games after I draw 9 cards for no mana in one turn and then find Yawgmoth's Will. If you lose after that then you must play with your eyes closed. This deck plays the same pattern of turns as a Long deck but with a slightly different early-mid game as other Ritual decks. That doesn't mean getting Necro + Ritual in your opening hand is going to be worse in this deck than in Pitchlong. I mean, isn't the point of running four Rituals in a combo deck is to cast Necropotence?
 
 Also, as I mentioned in the last paragraph, why not just play Meandeck Gifts if you want to cut out the combo pieces? You can easily cut the 2 Misdirections of MDG and replace them with two more Dark Rituals, then up the count of Seas. That plus the remaining single Ritual the deck runs means you're practically playing the same list. The single Mana Drain is interesting, but I like having more than that, but maybe that's just my play style. Meandeck Gifts might even be able to run only Three Mana Drains for more bounce to run with its Empty the Warrens (1-2 chain, 2 Repeal, 0-1 rebuild perhaps). That would be another thread though.

Basically my point is if you have to cut Necropotence from a Ritual combo deck, then you're doing something wrong. I say this because if it is resolving I can't see how you would lose.  Also if you're going to cut the bombs anyway it becomes more and more like MDG with a few more Rituals in it. 

Also, If I am wrong, then I'd like to know the data involved. How many games out of 50 test games did Necropotence hit the board (resolve) and then you lost anyway? I'd like to know that percentage.

[Vegeta2711]

If you resolved Necro, drew 9 and the opponent just sat there and did nothing I'd agree. However resolving and using Necro leaves a pretty big freaking opportunity for an opponent just to come across the table and smash your face in. That would explain at least some of the issue with it.

Also this:

Also, If I am wrong, then I'd like to know the data involved. How many games out of 50 test games did Necropotence hit the board (resolve) and then you lost anyway? I'd like to know that percentage.

Seems pretty unreasonable for anyone to actually answer. Nobody is going to have that much data about just Necro without specifically seeking it out 1 out of every 2 games or so.

[Disburden]

I actually don't think testing a ton of games to prove a very outrageouse point of Necro being bad in Ritual combo is unreasonable. Maybe not 50 games as I mentioned in my last post, I was being silly, but even 20 games could hold proof to how uneffective Necro is once it is used. And your point about drawing 9 cards does make sense, but that is an extreme. You can draw anything from 6-9 cards with Necropotence and win a game because the card is that powerful. I think the power of Necropotence may be overlooked due to the fact that a player may be too cautious when using it and they draw too little cards, something like 2-3 cards. If that is the case then the true potential of the card resolving wasn't even realized in the game. Even if you get Necropotence 6 games out of 50 there wouldn't be data to prove the point that the card was ineffective? Wouldn't that hold true to seeking the effectiveness of any other given restricted tool in a deck? Wasn't Time Walk tested by some combo players and was proven to be ineffective for them throughout testing and through the outcome of data? I don't see the difference in one restricted card or another in whether or not it belongs in a deck, especially when it's a pretty out of the norm idea to have a thread discussion over. That information would be much more effective than just simply stating, "I don't like Necropotence in my dark ritual storm combo deck, it's a weak card."

If you resolved Necro, drew 9 and the opponent just sat there and did nothing I'd agree. However resolving and using Necro leaves a pretty big freaking opportunity for an opponent just to come across the table and smash your face in. That would explain at least some of the issue with it.

How often do you believe that once Necropotence has been used in a given turn that you get your face bashed in actually happens? Just curious how often you think this would occur. I think it may be less than it is being given credit for right now. I am sure it does happen from time to time, but I'd rather go with it and take the risk of using the Skull.

[dexter]

talking about cutting necro is just retarded, the card is restricted for a reason!

sure you have to pass the turn but if you dont keep a hand with at least a FoW if you think you might need it for a reason and then use that FoW just to counter acctually things that might kill you then you should be safe. like someone said, if you dont like necro its just cuz you probably chicken out and draw to few cards, my own rule about necro while playing combo is to have enuff life left to survive an onboard attack, fetch once and fow once. which means its not that unusal i draw 10-13 cards with it depending on what fuel i have left on my current prenecro hand. So seriously stop talking about cutting necro, its to good. what could be cut down on is misdirections, my experience is that 10 disrupt leaves to little real fuel left in a combo deck.

[diopter]

Prelude:

Before I begin, I'd like to address something. To all the people who believe I am "not playing the deck correctly" or that "I am being too chicken with Necro" - I would not present my results in such a high-quality forum if I were not confident that my results are valid and that I am piloting the deck correctly.

@ Disburden, Breathweapon,

In my post I specifically state that I was testing Necropotence as an alternative bomb to win me the game while facing a Tormod's Crypt. Without an opposing Crypt on the table, Necro/Bargain are insane - they will win you the game. But, so would a 4th Gifts. My goal in testing such a bomb over running the 4th Gifts was to shore up the deck's weakness against Crypt.

You can draw 9-10 or even more cards using Necro, but without access to your graveyard, you will still have trouble a signicifant amount of the time (i.e. roughly 1/3 in my test games) actually assembling a hand that gives you with 9 storm + 2BB + protection, all without using the graveyard. Your post-Necro hand basically needs everything - plentiful mana accelerants, access to Tenrils, access to bounce to build storm, and protection. Not to mention that you will be needing at least 3, possibly 4 lands on the board, because you need all the blue and black mana you can get to play Scrolls->bounce + Rituals to execute the kill.

@ this deck in general, the power of the black enchantments, the place of Rituals in the deck, etc.

The reason to play this deck is to abuse the fact that Gifts assembles your entire win for you. Gifts provides you with acceleration, access to Will, and access to Tendrils all at once, with minimal help. Furthermore, Gifts works with every piece of your acceleration - Moxen help you play Gifts, Mana Crypt/Sol Ring/Vault help you play Gifts, Rituals/Lotuses help you play Gifts. This means two things: 1.) You will be casting early and busted Gifts with frightening regularity, and 2.) You will frequently have access to other cards in your hand to help protect a Gifts or recover if one is countered.

The black enchantments are great in a vacuum, don't get me wrong, they really are. Resolving Necro leads to fast wins, resolving Bargain leads to faster ones. But - and this is the crux of the matter, one which I expect will attract some flaming - Gifts does this with more consistency. Gifts will be online turn 3 at the latest, with almost 100% frequency. If you do not draw Ritual to go with Necro, or huge acceleration to go with Bargain, they're not coming down by turn 3. You can say things like "just Scroll for Ancestral and draw into your Rituals". However, if you were running more Gifts instead, you could be Scrolling for Force to protect a Mox-powered Gifts.

So, as much as it appears to be paining some people, I am suggesting that the black enchantments serve only a secondary role in the deck - as an alternative when the Gifts path is cut off. Gifting for the win becomes quite tricky when a Tormod's Crypt or similar graveyard hate is on the table, whilst the black enchantments do not depend on the graveyard (at least on the surface). But, as can be seen in the conclusions of the testing which I presented in my last post, the black enchantments were not something I could consistently depend on to win me the game in the face of Crypt.

To summarize:

• When Tormod's Crypt wasn't on the table, then Gifts could win the games that Necro and Bargain were winning, and Gifts was winning games that Necro and Bargain weren't (because they were stuck in hand while Gifts wasn't).
• When Tormod's Crypt was on the table, then I could not depend on the black enchantments to consistently win me the game.
• A more consistent way to fight Crypt was to lean on bounce, which was infinitely more accessible while fully preserving the unique game-winning strength of Gifts.

@ possible ideas to incorporate Necro/Bargain:

Imperial Seal. I haven't tested this card, but I do know that the one thing I would love more than anything is to up the number of tutors to find Tendrils - having an I-Seal in the deck would go a long way to enabling consistent graveyard-less Necro and Bargain kills.

[hitman]

I've had some of the same problems Diopter's had with Necro.  Preboard, I have to keep a Force in hand and a blue card.  That only leaves 5 cards I'm actually fixing off the Necro.  If all I'm going to do is find a Scroll, Gifts or a tutor with a maybe a couple Moxes, why not just Scroll for Gifts and Repeal or Chain the Moxes I already have?  Postboard, I have to keep a U open with Brainstorm in hand to hide the bombs from a Duress.  Bargain's always been amazing but Necro has been hit or miss for me.  Sometimes, I don't even hit any Moxes.  I think Necro's better in Long because it has multiple draw 7s it can hit off the Necro.  If they get rid of one, you can just throw another one at them with all the Ritual mana you have.  Maybe 1 Repeal would be better in this deck than Necro because it's better utilized with Scrolls, it's replayable off Will, ups storm, bounces problems and draws a card.

[Scott_Limoges]

This discussion has flown to the next galaxy.  Obviously, the debate surrounding card choices for this deck should be focussed on improving its speed, resiliency, and flexibility.  The previous posts seem to suggest directions that deviate from this.

Ok, cutting necro?  1.)The arguments in favor are supporting the idea that the 4th gifts is better in light of crypt 2.) that the 4th gifts is more stable in terms of winning faster (because necro is unfocussed in Ritual Gifts) 3.) and hosers like duress make necro bad.

It's quite simple and most experienced players have addressed the arguement:

1.) gifts is the primary reason that crypt is a problem and "fixing" the problem by adding more of the problem is, well...   I also addressed crypt above after SB where facing crypt is most prevalent - pithing needle (please reread above).

2.) Necro Is adding everything about the deck x4 more every turn.  So this means if we normally cast gifts turn 3 and win a large % of times, with necro we cast gifts turn 3 and win a Larger % of the time and FOW every relevant spell they cast, duress every relevant spell from their hand and provide outs that from random maindeck hate.  Necro speeds our plan, protects our plan, and disrupts their plan...as you put it - its the "win-more" card but it wins most, wins from no where, and pulls wins against the impossible.

3.) As addressed above, good players using necro keep FOW or prepare their cards off necro accordingly to minimize the opposing disruption that is aimed at Necro (such as keeping a gifts and a scroll incase one is duressed).  Also, good players understand that winning next turn is not necessary when their able to draw x cards per turn for x turns (x duress's and FOW's will slow the opponent down also).  And equally important, what are duress's effects against necro when were only drawing one card a turn.  By referencing "good player", I'm not assuming anyone specificly is a bad player but indicating certain plays a general good player would make.

That list also omitted Yawgmoth's Bargin...which I don't want to start to explain.

I appreciate the interest in "improving" the deck but see no clear evidence.  By posting this deck list, the original intention of this thread has been thrown off-topic.  Please create a new thread if you choose to discuss your deck list.  I'm really not trying to be rude.

[dexter]

okay, im just gonna assume, that comment about a deck being refered to for me, first off i dont get anything outta discussing my deck the only reason i mention it is cuz i dont want just be a random dude making random statements without having some experience with a similiar deck to back it up. And ok, lets make a little longer post for once then. time to list the changes i would like to make to this particualar list. with explanations to the changes aswell. Lets start with dissecting the mana base.

4  Polluted Delta
3  Underground Sea
2  Volcanic Island
2  Flooded Strand
2  Island
1  Tolarian Academy

Like stated I want more basics and from looking at your list you only have 1 maindeck red spell, thats recoup. Meaning you should be able to support that with 5 fetch, 1 red mox, lotus petal and in some cases black lotus / led. If I was to include red in the deck i would build the base something like this:

4 Polluted delta
3 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 flooded strand
1 snow-covered island
2 island
1 swamp
1 tolarian academy

Up to 4 basics which should make you fear those pesky wastelands less and still not having issues with casting that recoup, yes the SB might be effected but im coming to this later on. Snowcovered is there just for the random gifts pile when you really want a basic on the gifts pile and ppl might think you are playing some random gifts deck and adjust their gameplan for that.

Spells in maindeck i dont like:

2  Misdirection
1 Merchant Scroll

Things i want to replace theese with.

1 tinker
1 memory jar
1 rebuild.

Ait, like i said before, 10 disruption spells has been to many for me in the past in a combo deck (even 9, ran 4 duress, 1 twist and 4 fow and that was just on the edge of being to many leading to fuel issues so personally went down to 8). The case i made for rebuild can be read in a previous post so im not gonna qoute that again and as stated by many ppl in thread you seem to be in the need of a 2nd bounce spell. Now to the part were ppl probably will be confused. Yes i would like to put tinker + jar in the maindeck.

First off, i like jar, its the only draw7 i like cuz its more or less a one sided draw7 where the opponent dont really get that much out of it. 7 cards is 3 more that you get with a gifts and its usually for 3 mana less and 1 mana less even if you have to hardcast it, and should provide fuel enuff for a win. Also i miss tinker, like i said, i often myself use tinker as a tutor for lotus with a incoming will or something like that. And like said before, even if you dont win with a jar you can still do random bounce tricks for the opponent which leads to a weaker board posisiton for him even if you pass the turn after jaring. Mostly i really want to put tinker in the deck but only tinker for lotus is not enuff to support that so if you really dislike memory jar insert DSC maindeck for thoose random wins instead.

Lets go to sideboard.

1  Chain of Vapor
3  Red Elemental Blast
2  Pyroclasm
1  Hurkyl's Recall
1  Rebuild
4  Pithing Needle
1  Fire/Ice
2  Empty the Warrens

Hmmm been a long while since i saw so many cards i didnt like in a combo sideboard at once. my rebuild for this thing would probably be in the lines of something like.

1 chain
2 reb
2 masscre
1 hurkyl
2 pithing needle
2 tormods crypt
1 etw
1 DSC
1 darkblast
2 defense grid

With cutting down in the maindeck red sources i think its only reasonable to cut down on the number of red cards in sideboard aswell. 2 reb should be enuff considering you have tutor effects if u need to destroy blue permanents and like said i dont like being at 10 disruption in a deck. Massacre should do what i assume you want pyroclasm to do perhaps even better thought considering that alt casting cost. 1 EtW as alternative wincon should be enuff, its not often you want a wincon on starting hand since its dead b4 you go off anyway aka a mulligan to 6 automatic basiclly. DSC is now in the SB thx to the maindeck tinker now you can pull that beefcake out and take thoose 2-6 random games / tourney a resolved tinker for DSC acctually means even if they got r1 crypt out. Darkblast, im assuming you use the f/i that was there mostly for welder killing or random dorks killing llike bob or other X/1 creatures, well this does that aswell as having good synergies with gifts. and yes it can kill meddling mages or even in some cases even grunts . Personally im switching between dark blast and plague spitter for the random creature matchups depending on what mood im in. Defense grids. These are nice vs all kinda random kontroll makes it a little easier for you to get some breathing room while trying to do your stuff

I think thats what i can think of atm, with these changes you shoudlnt loose speed but improve the manabase, get the 2nd maindeck bounce and you now have 2 alternate wincons post board. Or even perhaps 1 alt wincon maindeck depending what your personal prefered playstyle is.

PEACE!

[Scott_Limoges]

I apologize for posting my last thoughts without taking the time to address each change fully - my mind was else where and the post is somewhat inconsiderate.  The post was not addressed at any one single person but at the direction the threat was headed in; my tone might suggested otherwise.  Again I apologize.

I'll address diopter's and dexter's points later, but now its Super Bowl time!  Everybody have fun and enjoy the event/day.

[Scott_Limoges]

[li]Bargain performed the best out of these bombs, but I was still unhappy with its casting cost. Assembling 4BB would often take up a Ritual as well as a plentiful manabase, and getting it from your library into play protected was not always possible. Still, when it resolved, it won the most games. It suffers from the same "lack of Tendrils-tutors" flaw as Necro, but building storm, generating mana, and protecting the kill were not a problem when you could use all 14+ cards you drew[/li]

I have lost games after resolving bargin but not because wouldn't completed the job, because of my bad plays.  Bargin is perhaps the best effect in vintage but it still requires skill and is not an auto win.  Often when I need to tutor for bargin, gifts is the most efficient path.  Gifting for demonic, vampiric, ancestral, and ritual will usually net a vamp and ritual to find and cast bargin.  Once bargin hits, its not necessary to win that turn if the risk of failure is high.  After passing the turn, if the opponent plays a significant spell bargin can be used to find FOW.

Some differences from Scott's list, most notably the 4th Gifts, no alternative bombs, and the use of a single Mana Drain, which I have found to be quite useful.

I have not found Mana Drain to be useful in this deck for several reasons.  At first, I tested a few drains, then cut back to one drain as a tutor target, and finally cut drain altogether because of the following reasons:

Mana Drain stops the gameplan that Gifts wants to play.  The arguement for Mana Drain in most control decks is because of the tempo that drain creates by the mana from a spell that is countered.  In Ritual Gifts and sometimes in general this is not necessarily true.

- First, Mana Drain requires tempo to come online by using two blue mana which mostly takes two turns to establish.  Therefore, if we have tempo already Mana Drain can be seen as win more.

- Second, when Mana Drain is online, it prohibits tempo by tieing up mana that could otherwise be used to cast brainstorms, merchant scrolls, Gifts, duress, tutors ect.  Often, people playing Drain will simply draw one card a turn to hold drain mana up - this is a tempo loss. 

- Third, Mana Drain's use is dependant on the opponent.  If we use drain on a spell cast EOT, we've lost the ability to use that mana for the opponents turn.  When the mana from drain becomes available, we might have lost the game already. 

- Next, Mana Drain in Ritual Gifts does not sever the purpose of protection or tempo because it does not protect Gifts Ungiven or an Enchantment.  In a game, by the time we can scroll for drain with two blue up, scrolling for another target like gifts or FOW would have won the game.

- Finally, we could use drain if we needed to fill more slots because the deck was not 60 cards and drain was the next best card.  However, my build is 61 cards and it's only playing 3 gifts (its 61 cards because I added an additional land).


Dexter - I do like the additional basic lands against fish and stax but most times 2 basics are all I really need to cast any spell.  Drawing a third land is more rare with 14 lands and saving a fetch land for the third land works similarily to a basic.  I haven't tested one volcanic but perhaps it is enough to support a revised SB in light to adding a third basic.

Adding Tinker/Jar - This has been discussed thoroughly above. In a percise tutor deck, randomness for a turn is often a waste of a turn.  When using Jar, were not able to use the cards we've crafted in hand since turn one - were simply relying on luck of the draw to find what we need.  When we resolve gifts EOT we win the game and draw 7's unfortunately do not help this.  Cutting a scroll to add tinke/Jar in this list is like cutting business.  And by adding tinker jar, we've only increased the threats by 1.  If we do increase the threads, adding another Gifts would be a good call.

[diopter]

@ Scott,

You raise an interesting point with Gifting for your enchantments. I would imagine that a pile of Demonic, Vamp, Necro, Ritual/Lotus would be absolutely devastating with any sort of protection in hand. This bears further testing.

I am also in the process of re-evaluating Mana Drain in the deck, because you do raise valid points that I have encountered sometimes (but not all the time) in testing.

[Scott_Limoges]

Yes!  This is a huge benefit to playing enchantments.  Say we have necro (uncastable) in hand and resolve a gifts:  we can search for Yawg's Will, Demonic, Ritual, and Time Walk and should receive Ritual and Time Walk to play Necro and walk FTW.

Also, theres amazing leverage when a Bargin is put in a gifts pile.

[Dakkon]

Mana Drain stops the gameplan that Gifts wants to play.  The arguement for Mana Drain in most control decks is because of the tempo that drain creates by the mana from a spell that is countered.  In Ritual Gifts and sometimes in general this is not necessarily true.

- First, Mana Drain requires tempo to come online by using two blue mana which mostly takes two turns to establish.  Therefore, if we have tempo already Mana Drain can be seen as win more.

- Second, when Mana Drain is online, it prohibits tempo by tieing up mana that could otherwise be used to cast brainstorms, merchant scrolls, Gifts, duress, tutors ect.  Often, people playing Drain will simply draw one card a turn to hold drain mana up - this is a tempo loss. 

- Third, Mana Drain's use is dependant on the opponent.  If we use drain on a spell cast EOT, we've lost the ability to use that mana for the opponents turn.  When the mana from drain becomes available, we might have lost the game already. 

- Next, Mana Drain in Ritual Gifts does not sever the purpose of protection or tempo because it does not protect Gifts Ungiven or an Enchantment.  In a game, by the time we can scroll for drain with two blue up, scrolling for another target like gifts or FOW would have won the game.

- Finally, we could use drain if we needed to fill more slots because the deck was not 60 cards and drain was the next best card.  However, my build is 61 cards and it's only playing 3 gifts (its 61 cards because I added an additional land).

When I get 2 blue mana up I play brainstorm and gifts at the end of my opponents turn. This lets me be able to counter anything threatning of theirs with mana drain or cast something at the end of their turn if they dont. I lose no tempo this way.

In other gifts lists Mana Drain serves 2 purposes of protecting and providing mana, while the ritual gifts list has to run 4 Dark ritual and 4 duress to accomplish the same purpose. Now, they are 2 totally different decks and of course duress works better in a ritual deck. If you put 4 rituals in a deck, mana drain isnt going to work as well since you always want to do other things with the mana like cast rituals and duress.

With merchant scroll, you most likely wouldnt get a Mana Drain most of the time, its like that in all drain decks, but you always have the option to do so if needed. In ritual gifts you dont have the option to merchant scroll for ritual or duress. So this seems like a moot point.

In this list you just used ritual and duress instead of Mana Drain, which is totally respectable, and mana shouldnt be added along side with 4 duress, 4 FoW and 2 misdirection. Especially since you run LED.

[Scott_Limoges]

When I get 2 blue mana up I play brainstorm and gifts at the end of my opponents turn. This lets me be able to counter anything threatning of theirs with mana drain or cast something at the end of their turn if they dont. I lose no tempo this way.

This issue with Mana Drain costing tempo in that senerio is if you want drain mana available, you essentially need 3 blue lands which will cost more tempo to establish.  A good opponent will always wait until you cast a spell at the opponents EOT when you tap the drain mana to play tempo cards.  Now you've lost mana establishing drain, its constricting your tempo cards, and a good opponent can play around drain.

With merchant scroll, you most likely wouldnt get a Mana Drain most of the time, its like that in all drain decks, but you always have the option to do so if needed. In ritual gifts you dont have the option to merchant scroll for ritual or duress. So this seems like a moot point.

Someone else was discussing Mana Drain in Ritual Gifts as a tutor target and I was addressing that point.

[Scott_Limoges]

okay, im just gonna assume, that comment about a deck being refered to for me, first off i dont get anything outta discussing my deck the only reason i mention it is cuz i dont want just be a random dude making random statements without having some experience with a similiar deck to back it up. And ok, lets make a little longer post for once then. time to list the changes i would like to make to this particualar list. with explanations to the changes aswell. Lets start with dissecting the mana base.

4  Polluted Delta
3  Underground Sea
2  Volcanic Island
2  Flooded Strand
2  Island
1  Tolarian Academy

Like stated I want more basics and from looking at your list you only have 1 maindeck red spell, thats recoup. Meaning you should be able to support that with 5 fetch, 1 red mox, lotus petal and in some cases black lotus / led. If I was to include red in the deck i would build the base something like this:

4 Polluted delta
3 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 flooded strand
1 snow-covered island
2 island
1 swamp
1 tolarian academy

Up to 4 basics which should make you fear those pesky wastelands less and still not having issues with casting that recoup, yes the SB might be effected but im coming to this later on. Snowcovered is there just for the random gifts pile when you really want a basic on the gifts pile and ppl might think you are playing some random gifts deck and adjust their gameplan for that.

Dexter, I like your proposed mana base with 4 basics and less non-basics but I don't understand why you cut a fetchland.  That mana base is only running 5 fetch lands and they are arguably almost as good as basic lands.  I like the addition of a single swamp because this deck is black hungry but I'm not sure about cutting a blue source.  Thoughts?

Spells in maindeck i dont like:

2  Misdirection
1 Merchant Scroll

I'm testing without the misdirections now considering the deck already has a good game against control and combo.  By removing the misdirections, I can finally push the deck to 60 cards and test the second bounce spell that everyone is hyping.  I'm very reluctant to remove a merchant scroll as they find virtually everything in the deck - bounce, counters, draw-engine, the "combo" (gifts), and aid in comboing out.

Lets go to sideboard.

1  Chain of Vapor
3  Red Elemental Blast
2  Pyroclasm
1  Hurkyl's Recall
1  Rebuild
4  Pithing Needle
1  Fire/Ice
2  Empty the Warrens

Hmmm been a long while since i saw so many cards i didnt like in a combo sideboard at once. my rebuild for this thing would probably be in the lines of something like.

1 chain
2 reb
2 masscre
1 hurkyl
2 pithing needle
2 tormods crypt
1 etw
1 DSC
1 darkblast
2 defense grid

With cutting down in the maindeck red sources i think its only reasonable to cut down on the number of red cards in sideboard aswell. 2 reb should be enuff considering you have tutor effects if u need to destroy blue permanents and like said i dont like being at 10 disruption in a deck. Massacre should do what i assume you want pyroclasm to do perhaps even better thought considering that alt casting cost. 1 EtW as alternative wincon should be enuff, its not often you want a wincon on starting hand since its dead b4 you go off anyway aka a mulligan to 6 automatic basiclly. DSC is now in the SB thx to the maindeck tinker now you can pull that beefcake out and take thoose 2-6 random games / tourney a resolved tinker for DSC acctually means even if they got r1 crypt out. Darkblast, im assuming you use the f/i that was there mostly for welder killing or random dorks killing llike bob or other X/1 creatures, well this does that aswell as having good synergies with gifts. and yes it can kill meddling mages or even in some cases even grunts . Personally im switching between dark blast and plague spitter for the random creature matchups depending on what mood im in. Defense grids. These are nice vs all kinda random kontroll makes it a little easier for you to get some breathing room while trying to do your stuff

To be fair, this deck is as much of a combo deck as it is a control deck - it changes rolls to meet the situation.  That is why the original SB was designed that way.  I like your SB suggestion though and think the SB will need to change with the mana base.  In the old SB, every slot was designated to fight off opposing resistance to my game-plan.  I just wanted to resolve a gifts and win, and hate cards like crypt would prevent this.  In your new SB, there are defensive cards to effect the opponents strategy - like Crypt.  Why did you like crypts and dark blast?  I ran Fire/Ice as a tutor target against fish.  Your SB also runs Defense Grid.  Grid interferes with my plan casting Gifts EOT and it effects my FOWs.  Do you assume different playstyles when SBing these cards in?  I do like Massacre but I've also run into fish varients that do not play white.  I like multiple ETW because I wanted one in hand when facing fish or stax.  What do you think?

[BreathWeapon]

It's important to build a combo, not a control, deck's SB; besides ETW and Blast, the other SB cards should be Recall, because SBing out Duress against Stax reduces the 1cc targets for Chalice of the Void, and SBing Recall either wrecks Stax or lets you resolve absurd ETWs, and Pyroclasm to wreck Fish and win the ground war against other ETWs.

Defense Grid is interesting, SBing it in for FoW pisses off Fish a lot.