B/R Gifts hate

[orhms]

Since I started building decks based on some understanding of the metagame (1997 or so) I have always taken great pride in building a deck that can beat the dominant deck in the format. A brief example is when I started main decking 2 Rust because the best deck at my local tournament killed by using City of Brass during it’s upkeep to go down to 0 life with a Mirror Universe to switch life totals. The rest of the deck was discard effects so they wouldn’t have a Spellblast for the Rust . I realize that in the current type 1 environment no top deck can be completely shut down, but I would really like to build something that has a good chance of stopping the gifts deck. Here in New England all of the top players seem to be playing that or some other Tendrils combo deck that rely heavily on the graveyard as a resource. Well, this is my answer so far. This deck also does pretty well against Fish. I have a few open slots still and I’d like some more beatdown creatures.

4   Dark Confident
4   Withered Wretch
4   Grim Lavamancer
4   Duress
4   Bloodmoon
4   Mox Monkey
2   Engineered Explosives
2   Lightning Bolt
1   Demonic Tutor
1   Vampiric Tutor
4   Bloodstained Mire
1   Polluted Delta
4   Badlands
4   Mishras Factory
5   Swamp
1   Black Lotus
1   Mox Jet
1   Mox Ruby
4   Dark Ritual
1   Lotus Petal

The Wretches, Blood Moons and Monkeys can hopefully slow them down enough that the 20 creatures can beat them down. I initially had Mogg Fanatic as the other creature because it’s good against fish (and it’s one of my all time favorite cards) but that is ultimately to slow. I figure to board in REB’s against Gifts and some simple creature removal against Fish (maybe I can finally play my Beta Terrors!). I fully admit that I don’t play the Gifts deck anywhere close to optimally but a first turn duress and a second turn Wretch really slows me down. It almost forces me to go with the tinker/Colossus kill. Now if that actually resolves and I still have a double digit life total, the game is over because the Blood Moon deck simply has no answer for a big fattie. But if I can’t find Tinker fast enough (and if the EE’s and the Monkeys leave me with any artifacts) it’s been a very tough game so far. I have not tested post board as yet. Any thoughts?

[wethepeople]

In order to hate out Gifts, I would start by cutting those Lightning Bolts, and Mishra's Factories. Factories and Blood Moons contradict one another, so it's not best to run both.

In replace of Factories, add four Chalice of the Voids. They are insane versus Gifts, Combo, etcetara. Lightning Bolt just sucks in all matchups, besides Aggro.

In those remaining slots, find room for Red Elemental Blasts and/or Pyroblasts. Both are great versus Gifts, and other Drain decks. They also prove well versus most Fish builds.

A very under-rated card in decks like this is Pithing Needle. Since you run different fetchlands than the average deck. (Bloodstained Mires) You have the advantage of calling Needle on things like Flooded Strand, and Polluted Delta, without it hurting you much at all. Needle shuts off atleast one card in every matchup. Versus Stax, you can call things like Goblin Welder, or Bazaar of Baghdad.

Cabal Therapy could be strong in here. You run a good amount of creatures, and if called correctly, you are bound to hit one of their key spells, at hand. Extirpate, a similar card, should also be looked into. It is made for a deck like this.

Lastly, add Strips. Both Wasteland, and Strip Mine.

[Bill Copes]

Dead // Gone could possibly be useful in this deck, as it serves as an answer to fish creatures and a way to get rid of a tinkered colossus.

I would play null rods in this deck over chalices, because you can really only play it at 0.  It shuts off Engineered Explosives, but there is probably a better solution to Empty the Warrens (slice n dice, for instance)

I also recommend moving Blood Moon to the sideboard, rather than maindeck, as it shuts down your factories and fetches.

[wethepeople]

I would play null rods in this deck over chalices, because you can really only play it at 0.  It shuts off Engineered Explosives, but there is probably a better solution to Empty the Warrens (slice n dice, for instance)

Not necessarily. If you use Wastelands, Factories, Strips, etcetara, you can just use colorless mana to raise EE's CMC, although, no Sunburst tokens would be applied. Null Rod shuts down Engineered Explosives too, by the way. For the Aggro mirror (Fish), I would suggest running Flametongue Kavu, or the traditional Umezawa's Jitte, in the sideboard. However, Jitte is shut down by Null Rod, a card found in almost all Fish decks, so FTK may just be a better choice.

Slice and Dice is good, but it is more than likely to kill all of your creatures, in addition to the ETW tokens. Lavamancer, Monkey, and Confidant all bend over to Slice and Dice. I still prefer EE, because at it's least, it will blow up a few Moxen, all for just two colorless mana. It is far more versatile, also, because if there happens to be an opposing threat on the board, you can very easily use EE for it's disposal.

Another card that I have been considering for ETW, and Aggro, is Echoing Decay. I used to use it for creature removal in my older decks, though, it works perfectly to take card of Goblin tokens. It is a great alternative for Echoing Truth, especially in a deck like this- limited to / .

[Seraphim3577]

I would play leyline over wretch.

It is a devestating card vs most tendrils storm decks and has the benefit of hurting control slaver, ichorid, oath, stax, and bomberman, too.

Its start in play affect is awesome in combination with discard, too.

[Guevara59]

if you run a strip/wastes and board the blood moons, try running a couple of Crucibles, they can really put a deck into a lock after you kill the mox w/ the Monkey

[hazard]

One popular fattie answer in your colors is Diabolic Edict.  Innocent Blood would be a less popular choice.

[orhms]

I would play leyline over wretch.

It is a devestating card vs most tendrils storm decks and has the benefit of hurting control slaver, ichorid, oath, stax, and bomberman, too.

Its start in play affect is awesome in combination with discard, too.

I agree that Leline is sweet, but it's more expensive and it's not a creature. To make it effective you need to run 4 and that only gives you like a 40% chance of having it in the opening hand? After that it's pretty dead. The deck is supposed to be aggro/controlish so it can slow them down while putting them on a clock ala Fish.

It's also hard to justify Bloodmoon in the sideboard because what am I gonna put it in against, anything with non-basic lands? I appreciate the suggestions but I definitely want to see how effective the moon can be before cutting it. I know it seems to be silly with the Factories but those are only in there because I felt I had enough red mana and they do damage.

So right now I am going to take out the 2 bolts and add 3 Extirpate and 3 Chalice (original list was 56 cards) and see how it goes. I also like the FTK in the board, good idea.

[orhms]

After much testing against gifts and pitch long, I am liking the Chalices and Extripates. I have also found that Bloodmoon isn't useful. It's too slow and those decks run at least 3 basic lands anyway so it's pretty dead most of the time. Another thing that was bothersom is the lack of a clock. There simply isn't enough damage in the deck. Assuming I can get them on their heels in the furst two turns, I need to immediately get a serious threat down before they can stableize. So after reading the W/B hate thread I decided to splash white (and damn it this is going to turn into TMWA but whatever) and add Bazzars. Without Bloodmoon and with the addition of the Grunts, I figure Bazaar is pretty solid. New List:

Creatures: 18
4 Dark Confident
4 Withered Wretch
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Grunt
4 Mox Monkey

Sorceries: 9
4 Duress
3 Extripate
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawg Will

Instants: 6
1 STP
1 Vamp Tutor
4 Dark Ritual

Artifacts: 9
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Lotus Petal

Lands:  18
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
4 Badlands
4 Bazaar
4 Scrublands

It seems pretty sweet. I can't wait to test it. The average mana cost per card is down to .783 as far as the Confident goes (or .789 assuming you have 2 lands and Confident already in play). The sideboard is going to need some work. Right now the plan is this:

3 REB
1 Pyroblast
3 STP
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Jitte
1 EE
1 Lavamancer

I decided against FTK in the board now that I can run plows instead, FTK hits me for 4 with Confident and I'd rather give my opponant 4 life than me lose 4.

[Guevara59]

This is most likely irrelevant but Extirpate is supposed to be in the instants column, correct?

[orhms]

This is most likely irrelevant but Extirpate is supposed to be in the instants column, correct?

Yes, my mistake.

[Harlequin]

Any reason you prefer Chalice over null rod?  What do you set chalice at... because it seems like @1 would cut off most of your disruption, and @2 would cut off all your win conditions.

I understand that It would hurt your Explosives, but again, it seems like the only real use of explosives is for setting @ 0 (and you have 4 monkies).  So if your looking for answers to ETW then maybe those explosives would be better as Echoind Decay or even Engineered Plagues?

[orhms]

Any reason you prefer Chalice over null rod?  What do you set chalice at... because it seems like @1 would cut off most of your disruption, and @2 would cut off all your win conditions.

I understand that It would hurt your Explosives, but again, it seems like the only real use of explosives is for setting @ 0 (and you have 4 monkies).  So if your looking for answers to ETW then maybe those explosives would be better as Echoind Decay or even Engineered Plagues?

I find that a first turn Chalice for 0 makes it very hard for combo to go off. They usually have to spend a turn to tutor up a bounce spell and then go off the turn after that. It buys me 1 turn in which to get a Wretch or Extripate to mess with them. Null Rod does the same thing but it's not as easy to play turn 1. For example if I have 1 Dark rit and no moxes along with confident/wretch and a duress, Chailce is WAY better than Rod. Basically, it comes down turn 1 every time you have it in opening hand while Rod may not. I do like Echoing Decay but the only other deck that it's good against is fish and EE is better. Also, Chailce at 1 after initial disruption slows down the recovery of combo (no brainstorm) and it improves the odds of your beaters killing them before they recover. Against fish, a game 1 Chalice at 2 CAN be lethal in the right situation while null rod is just dead. Obviously either one gets boarded out. EE can be useful at things other than 0 (and at 0 it also kills tokens which Monkey doesn't). Against fish it can be major card advantage at 1 or 2. And it isn't COMPLETELY far fetched to play it at 3 and kill a Crucible and/or Tanglewire/Trinisphere vs stacks. So while I generally like Rod over Chalice, I think the Chalice/EE combo gives you more options than the Rod/Echoing Decay combo in this deck. But thanks for making me actually go through and think about why I felt that way. It's always good to question an assumptionn every now and again

Quick rules question, if there is an artifact in play with a casting cost of X (i.e. Chalice) is it's casting cost considered 0 if I want to kill it with a Monkey or is it what cost was actually paid (so it's casting cost would be 2 if played with 1 counter)? I'm pretty sure it's 0 but I wanted to double check. Thanks!

[Guevara59]

For the rules question: X is the converted casting cost, it counts as 0, not 2.  2 is just what you paid to play it.

[Harlequin]

I think you are vastly overestimating chalice.  First off, it's only going to stop rit-combo if you are on the play -and- if you start with it in your opening hand.  Null Rod is perhapse slower, but at least you can Vamp for it turn 1 and still have it be relevant on turn 2.  Also your only running 3... so right there if you -only- goal of the card is to stop turn 1-2 moxen then you really have to run 4.  Null Rod however is optimal (imo) at 3 maindeck and the 4th boarded.

The fish arguement is realatively far fetched.  Against fish, setting it @1 is probably the only option unless your ahead on the creature race.  Setting it @2 will only really work if they have no creatures in play, and you have creatures in play.  If you play this on an empty board then you're cutting off essentially all your win-conditions.   If you play it into a loosing board its suicide.  Now I'm not going to sit here and say that null rod is good against Null Rod Fish... but again chalice seem equally terrible (against Null Rod fish).  However, there are plenty of Vial/Equipment fish decks running around where Null Rod could be useful.

The final agruement I simply disgree with.  Banking on you getting to 6 mana before a personal playing Mishra's Workshop gets to 3 is simply a delussion of grandure.  Against stax, the biggest threat to you is Triskellion ... or even worse recurring Triskellions.  Once triskellion is in play, all of your creature disruption bets are off. 

[Sam Best]

Yes. I agree with the Chalice of the Void. They "can" slow down Gifts long enough so that you can beat them, but Gifts can play around it. They have the bounce and what not. They can also just play Moxen just to get storm count up when needed and cast Empty the Warrens and probably punish that deck. Really you need hate for the empty the warrens. I see you run Engineered Explosives, but that can be handled by gifts because they would have mana by the time they actually get empty the warrens off. I really do not believe that Extirpate is worth while in the main deck. I would think that running Cabal Therapys would be better like in TWMA. I also think that Null Rod is a lot better. I can still play Sol Ring and mana Vault through Chalice for zero. Null Rod stops all of that. They only difference is they go into play.

Also on the side note, they chalice could only be set at zero. If they set it for 1 then it would stop more then half of the deck. Extirpate, Dark Ritual, Duress, Gorilla Shaman, Vampiric Tutor, and Grim Lavamancer could not be cast.

Also you do not run a solution for Empty the Warrens if you actually chalice for 0. You have no colorless mana source to play the Engineered Explosives so how do you plan on handling Empty the Warrens for like 12+ goblins?

Also this is really just a copy of The Mountains Win Again

[orhms]

I think you are vastly overestimating chalice.  First off, it's only going to stop rit-combo if you are on the play -and- if you start with it in your opening hand.  Null Rod is perhapse slower, but at least you can Vamp for it turn 1 and still have it be relevant on turn 2.  Also your only running 3... so right there if you -only- goal of the card is to stop turn 1-2 moxen then you really have to run 4.  Null Rod however is optimal (imo) at 3 maindeck and the 4th boarded.

The fish arguement is realatively far fetched.  Against fish, setting it @1 is probably the only option unless your ahead on the creature race.  Setting it @2 will only really work if they have no creatures in play, and you have creatures in play.  If you play this on an empty board then you're cutting off essentially all your win-conditions.   If you play it into a loosing board its suicide.  Now I'm not going to sit here and say that null rod is good against Null Rod Fish... but again chalice seem equally terrible (against Null Rod fish).  However, there are plenty of Vial/Equipment fish decks running around where Null Rod could be useful.

The final agruement I simply disgree with.  Banking on you getting to 6 mana before a personal playing Mishra's Workshop gets to 3 is simply a delussion of grandure.  Against stax, the biggest threat to you is Triskellion ... or even worse recurring Triskellions.  Once triskellion is in play, all of your creature disruption bets are off. 

I am aware that Chalice for 3 is almost never going to happen, but like I said, I don't think it's completely far fetched, just mostly I think the tone of some of my arguments didn't really come through. Both Chalice and Null Rod suck against fish, I just think that Chailice sucks slightly less as there are situations (like if I have a creture out and they don't) where it can help out. If we're in mid game and I have a lavamancer out and then drop Confident/Wretch/Grunt, Chailce actually does something to help ensure a win while Rod is dead. Obviously you don't want to draw either and in reality its just going to be discarded to the Bazaar anyway. 

[orhms]

Also you do not run a solution for Empty the Warrens if you actually chalice for 0. You have no colorless mana source to play the Engineered Explosives so how do you plan on handling Empty the Warrens for like 12+ goblins?

That is a very good point, I never thought of that. I think that probably spells the end for the Chalice/EE combo. I think the EE now has to be an Echoing Decay. I think I'll stick with Chalice for now. It hasn't hurt me yet and it has been VERY useful in beating combo so far. If I see situations where I wish it was a Null Rod than I'll make the change and try that.

Also this is really just a copy of The Mountains Win Again

I think I already said that 

[madmanmike25]

but I would really like to build something that has a good chance of stopping the gifts deck.

Try Cabal Therapy: Name Gifts/Scroll you run critters so you can flash it back.  Not to mention you already run Duress and can see what to name.

Shadow of Doubt:  Stops Gifts/Scroll/Tutor/Fetch lands and draws a card as well.  It is BB though.  I usually put em in my U/B builds of Fish.

[wethepeople]

Also you do not run a solution for Empty the Warrens if you actually chalice for 0. You have no colorless mana source to play the Engineered Explosives so how do you plan on handling Empty the Warrens for like 12+ goblins?

That is a very good point, I never thought of that. I think that probably spells the end for the Chalice/EE combo. I think the EE now has to be an Echoing Decay. I think I'll stick with Chalice for now. It hasn't hurt me yet and it has been VERY useful in beating combo so far. If I see situations where I wish it was a Null Rod than I'll make the change and try that.

I don't understand why you don't just run Wastes, Factories, et cetera. Those are the cards that make decks like these strong, and if you are worried about contradictory EE's, and Chalice of the Voids, running these colorless-mana lands would be yet another reason to use them.

Cabal Therapy is probably the greatest cards I have seen recomended yet, in this thread. TMWA runs it, with much success, and it certainly appears to be good in here. You can trash it for Bazaar, and still cast it afterwards using flashback, same applies to Darkblast, a card I personally think should be run in the sideboard to fight aggro, as well as feed Grunt for even longer.

You don't necessarly have to run a full set of Wastelands, but Strip Mine does in fact need to be in here. Mishra's Factories seems good in here to Flashback Cabal Therapies, get EE by Chalices, and swing for two each turn.

I also can't seem to understand why you still run Dark Rituals, and Yawgmoth's Will. Will just sucks in here, at your best, you can recur a Rit and re-cast a Tutor, or something. In a 3c deck like this, Rituals won't provide you the colors you actually need. In replace of Yawg Will, I would recomend using Enlightened Tutor, along with a smaller-toolbelt of cards like Chalice (3-4), EE (1-2), Tormod's Crypt (1), and Pithing Needle (1).

[orhms]

Ok, so after testing it seems that TMWA is probably just better. However, I never really liked playing that deck so I'm going to work on a UBW deck. I think it's going to wind up like Fish but with no countermagic. Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and help!