There's been so much discussion of how broken Flash is, and one bone of contention I've purported is the fact that beating it is honestly not all that difficult with adequate preparation and experience. Since I support this angle of argument, I feel it is my duty to back this up with a solid contender list that has a very powerful angle against Flash.
Empty Gush (also known as Empty Gifts) is an ICBM innovation first majorly unveiled at SCG: Indianapolis, where it took 3 of the T8 slots with another two, including me, sitting at X-2. Not a bad record considering that was all 5 of us that piloted the deck. Without much after that, the deck stayed quiet. The deck's next major accomplishment was SCG: Chicago, where I piloted it to the T8 both days, losing day 1 in the T4 to a teammate, and losing day 2 in the T8 to a teammate after a narrow play mistake in the hour-long game 3. Chicago was a milestone for the deck in terms of Flash, as the matchup was favorable to the point where I actively looked forward to facing the deck, 2-0'ing it three times over the weekend including my day one match to make T8.
Empty Gush is a unique contender in that while it shares GushBond with the popular GAT lists as well as the new Tyrant Oath builds, it otherwise occupies a unique position as the successor to the restricted Gifts decks. As I've built and rebuilt the deck over the past months to adapt to the metagame changes, I've taken the majority of strategic input from my old work on Twilight Gifts. For those that missed it (as there was no discussion on TMD due to my bannedness at the time), Twilight Gifts was a deck designed and refined up to the point where the namesake card was restricted to be the best deck in the format. You can read about it
here. By abusing the effect the card Gifts Ungiven has on assigning roles (it allowed you to completely cheat the system of 'who's the beatdown' by going from full control to winning the game in the space of four mana), we achieved matchup results so unbelievable that we pretty much had to operate under the assumption that Gifts had to be restricted and we were correct. At one point our only matchup that could even approach 50/50 was a well-prepared SS, the deck
designed to beat Gifts in the first place.
Unfortunately that fairy tale ended in a rightful restriction, and our preparations were spoiled by the unexpected gift of Gush back into the metagame. Still, the fundamental abuse that Twilight Gifts utilized, bending the beatdown, is still somewhat workable into the current metagame. Swapping the broken Gifts engine for the somewhat less powerful but more intricate Gush engine requires a good deal of fine-tuning. Here is the current list up for discussion:
Empty Gush Mk. II: The Predator
1 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mana Drain
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
4 Thoughtseize
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Gush
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Misdirection
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Discretionary slots
The first thing you should notice is that the list is highly linear. The deck has less draw than the average list nowadays with only Brainstorm, Gush, and the Merchant Scroll engine, while being armed with a
significantly larger complement of disruption. This creates a drastic shift in the dynamic of the opening hands as opposed to GAT and Oath variants, namely in the Flash and Long matchups, in that you have a high probability of having two disruption cards active and available on your first turn. Against combo this is obviously a heavy boon when you don't have to spend your first land drop digging for an answer, but it also significantly alters the dynamic of the Gush mirror because it neatly cripples their ability to find and resolve Ancestral Recall (and thus cuts the Recall -> Will line of play out of their book), making their options more linear and dependent on GushBond, channeling their play into a predictable nature that you can focus on defeating.
For those who enjoy the great fun of role assignment, the deck's purpose can be stated as simply playing the control role and maintaining card parity while leveraging pure quality and Ancestral Recall for advantages up to the point where an endgame scenario can be reached, usually consisting of creating a number of ETW tokens that can kill your opponent before their resource accumulation can recover from the damage you've dealt it. This may occur within the first two turns of the game, generally with a number of tokens between 6 and 10, or later, generally with a lethal quantity. Against Flash, your actual primary win condition is in fact their own Pacts, as ETW should only realistically be cast at a point in which it is lethal and followed by Time Walk. Obviously against the Sliver kill version it should be used defensively pre-sideboard, but that is a no-brainer. Tendrils of Agony comes in post-sideboard in those matches where your general kill condition tends to be a lethal ETW, as it is more efficient and does not trip Oath.
I don't believe I have to go through and explain every slot, but I should note a couple issues people may bring up. Mana Drain and Chain of Vapor are utility targets for Merchant Scroll. Mana Drain as utility may seem an odd role, but it forces a dynamic shift in any matchup where the endgame involves resolving sorcery-speed spells, mainly GAT, Long, and Workshop. Mana Drain as a singleton serves the same role Cryptic Command does in many of the Standard and Block decks it sees or saw play in: assembling 1UUU serves a strategically crippling blow to the opponent where they are almost forced to throw away a relevant spell into extreme resource disadvantage. In effect, it turns anything they do at sorcery speed into Russian Roulette. Mana Drain in Empty Gush is almost a combo piece and a very amusing one at that. Circumstances have simply turned it into a 1-of lately. It can easily occupy the second flex slot for more Workshop-heavy metagames.
The Duress count has fluctuated periodically, as low as 4 and I've tested as high as 7, but 5 is the safest number from our experience. The large quantity is necessary to prevent opposing decks from sculpting their hands, while you are largely protected from their own since Thoughseize is handily Misdirectable. As per the control role, Duresses tend to take the most powerful card in their hand under almost any circumstances, not necessarily the most immediately threatening. The idea would be that if you can Duress their killers and use the rest of your control to prevent them from resolving Yawgmoth's Will (or better yet Duress the Will itself), they will not be able to overcome the card quality disadvantage.
The discretionary slots are available for virtually anything your heart desires. Use them to sharpen the decks already potent attacks towards your expected opponents. These can supplement your bounce, Duresses, even your draw or tutor base. They can also shore up the win conditions should you feel Tinker/Colossus or a maindeck Tendrils is necessary. Rebuild and/or Hurkyl's Recall help in a shop-heavy meta, or perhaps a higher utility Echoing Truth. Heck, run maindeck Tormod's Crypts if you think you're going to see a miillion Ichorids or Flashes and want help stealing game 1's.
As for sideboarding, I don't honestly feel that sideboards are relevant to the discussion. Each built board should be tuned towards your local metagame and largely meant to compensate for the opponent's sideboarding. Having a strong Duress complement maindeck helps soften the blow from anything they bring in. The only advice I would offer is to run Leyline of the Void because it is simply the most efficient graveyard disruption, and that people fearing Workshops (one of the decks more delicate matchups) should strongly consider Viashino Heretic, a highly effective and permanent solution that also helps immensely in the narrow but still occasionally seen Slaver matchup. Extra REBs, Duresses, and of course creature removal are always welcome, while having a few extra answers for Ichorid such as Yixlid Jailor or Pithing Needle never hurts.
Something important to note: I assign the deck the control role, but I guess it would best be described as contra-control on the basis that while the idea of preventing the opponent from winning is identical, it takes the opposite route from normal control which tends to emphasize resource accumulation, while Empty Gush is largely predicated on short term resources and tends to move to the prototypical control endgame significantly faster (and even occasionally simply comboing out on turn 1 or 2). As this may be an extremely foreign concept to a traditional player, there is an available modification that uses the 2 discretionary slots as well as removing the REB, Pyroblast, and third Misdirection for a set of Ponders and the second Mana Drain, allowing the deck to be played much closer to basic control-combo, almost a more versatile form of Drain Tendrils.
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I guess this falls somewhere between deck discussion and a mini-primer, but again I simply feel it is my duty to put forth the list as a solution to the Flash problem as I very much assure you from personal experience that playing this against Flash is a thoroughly enjoyable duel of skill from either side. If nothing else, it never hurts to have another archetype to discuss.
Peace and love,
The AngryPheldagrif
