Gifts in the new meta - What do you do?

[yatagirlofchaos]

This may or may not seem very relevant now, with Gifts restricted et all, however this situation came up in my playtesting and I would like to hear the opinion of the vintage community. Here is the situation:

You are playing in what you know is a CS mirror. You are on the draw, and have just mulliganed into delta, volcanic, drain, drain, thirst, and fact or fiction. Your opponent kept his opening 7 and played island, mox jet, mana vault, and confidently announced gifts ungiven. He fairly quickly looks through his deck and shows you the following cards: tinker, time walk, black lotus, and academy.

What do you give him? Briefly (or not) explain your thinking.

Edit-

I realized that the decklists matter, so FYI we are both playing this:

Mana: 25
[1] Tolarian Academy
[3] Polluted Delta
[2] Flooded Strand
[4] Volcanic Island
[2] Underground Sea
[3] Island
[1] Sol Ring
[1] Black Lotus
[1] Mana Crypt
[1] Mana Vault
[1] Mox Sapphire
[1] Mox Jet
[1] Mox Ruby
[1] Mox Emerald
[1] Mox Pearl
[1] Lotus Petal

Win: 10
[3] Goblin Welder
[2] Mindslaver
[1] Triskelavus
[1] Darksteel Colossus
[1] Yawgmoth's Will
[1] Tinker
[1] Time Walk

Disruption: 11
[4] Force of Will
[4] Mana Drain
[1] Echoing Truth
[2] Tormod's Crypt

Draw: 10
[4] Thirst for Knowledge
[1] Fact or Fiction
[1] Ancestral Recall
[1] Brainstorm
[1] Ponder
[2] Sensei's Divining Top

Tutors: 4
[1] Demonic Tutor
[1] Merchant Scroll
[1] Mystical Tutor
[1] Gifts Ungiven

Thanks for your input!

[meadbert]

I would give him Walk and Lotus.

Tinker is pretty much out of the question.  You definitely have a lot of outs with Force, Welder, Sapphire, Lotus and Petal all being options but if he Tinkers out DSC or Titan next turn then you could have a lot of trouble.  Also Vault negates the draw back of Tinker.

Academy seems better than Lotus here since it will produce UU the turn you play it and stay out there.  That he grabbed Academy suggests that he has at most 1 land in hand right now.  In fact his pile suggests to me that he has no more mana in hand.

By giving him Lotus and Walk you are essentially nullifying Time Walk since I believe he has no land in hand.  The Cantrip ability of Walk is not nearly as important as untapping permanents and gaining a land drop.  With no land the land drop will not matter.  Since he will have to use all available mana (other than Lotus) to cast Walk untapping mana is a wash.  All he gets a cantrip which he pays 1 life for thanks to Vault.

Note that even if your opponent is holding a land Walk is not THAT powerful since he is only getting to use 1 land twice and it is still fairly likely that he will miss a land drop on turn 2.

Lotus is a good card for sure, but I would not dare give someone Walk + Academy since that is asking for trouble.

[Aneurysm]

I'm going to go with Bert here and give him Lotus and Walk.

[AngryPheldagrif]

You give the Lotus and Tme Walk, no question about it, but unless your opponent is a complete idiot or your next card is either Force or non-land blue source, you lose since he obviously has access to Will, meaning you lose no matter which two you give him. Sorry to say, but this is a fairly cut-and-dried scenario with no appealing option.

[edit]: My reasoning that he has access to Will is that otherwise he would have put Ancestral and/or Demonic Tutor into the pile in place of one of the mana sources.

[StarOrc]

If you give him Tinker and Walk does that limit what he can do with Will if he doesn't have another Mana Source in hand or on top of his library? If you assume both reads are correct that he has Will but no land then giving him the mana to play Will seems like a mistake. It seems like because your options are all poor, then at least forcing your opponent to have the third mana for Will seems better than giving him the win with you needing to rip FoW, Sapphire, Lotus, or Petal.

This definately could be wrong, but its just a thought.

[Blovdek]

This deck is just so much more broken.....


3 goblin welder
1 triskelavus
1 memory ar
1 platinum angel
1 mindslaver
1 tormodys crypt
1 sensei divining top


1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 mox emerald
1 mox parl
1 mox jet
1 mox sapphire
1 mox ruby


4 thirst for knowledge
4 force of will
4 mana drain
1 ancestral recall
1 merchant scroll
1 echoing truth
1 timewalk
1 tinker
1 mystical tutor
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 brainstorm
1 gifts ungiven
1 recoup
1 ponder
1 mind twist
1 wheel of fortune
1 yawgmoths will


1 tollarian academy
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
3 underground sea
4 volcanic island
1 island
1 snow covered island

[Blovdek]

Sorry this is the right list:

3 goblin welder
1 triskelavus
1 memory ar
1 platinum angel
1 mindslaver
1 sensei divining top


1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 mox emerald
1 mox parl
1 mox jet
1 mox sapphire
1 mox ruby


4 thirst for knowledge
4 force of will
4 mana drain
1 ancestral recall
1 merchant scroll
1 echoing truth
1 timewalk
1 tinker
1 mystical tutor
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 brainstorm
1 gifts ungiven
1 recoup
1 ponder
1 mind twist
1 wheel of fortune
1 yawgmoths will


1 tollarian academy
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
3 underground sea
4 volcanic island
1 island
1 snow covered island

SB:
1x island
1x DSC
2x thoughtseize
2x extirpate
3x rack and ruin
1x darkblast
3x tormodys crypt
2x REB

It should be pretty obvious that this is against the rules here.  Read the rules before you post again please.  This is your verbal warning.
-Kowal

[TheBrassMan]

Wow, I'm a little at a loss here as to what you guys are thinking.  There are six possible 2 card combinations you could give the Gifts player here, and Time Walk, Lotus is the worst.

I agree with Angry Phel that the Gifts pile is a strong tell he has Will, or a tutor for Will.  If your opponent does have Will, Lotus-Time Walk is the ONLY out of all 6 options that gives you 0 outs to it.

With ANY option besides Walk-Lotus, the Gifts player has to pass the turn, he doesn't have the mana to make any other plays.  With Walk-Lotus, he can walk this turn, and have Will mana up before you can do anything.  That would make the play wrong anyway, but is made especially horrifying by the huge amount of outs the Slaver deck has.  With a Drain in hand, you could draw Sapphire, Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, one of 4 Forces, or 2 Tormod's Crypts.  If those 9 outs aren't enough for you on a mull to six, you could draw Ponder, Ancestral, Brainstorm, Mana Crypt (to play thirst), or one of 2 Divining Top into one of the 4 Forces, Lotus, or 2 Crypts.

If he does have Will, Lotus is Amazing, Tinker and Time Walk are just about as good as each other, and Academy is no better in hand than it is in the graveyard.  On Will, Academy + Walk or Academy + Tinker are the best options.

If your opponent *doesn't* have Will, I can't figure out what serious threats he could have besides the Tinker. The only threatening things he could cast on turn two would be a 6 or 8 drop robot, which is only even possible if he has both it and another Mox (and giving him other gifts piles doesn't make this scenario better).  Without a turn 2 threat, your so-so mulligan hand turns on and becomes totally solid.  What is your opponent going to to against Drain Drain Thirst Fof.  Play draw spells? Play Robots?  In a will-less scenario, This makes Tinker the worst choice there, Time Walk and Lotus about the same, and Academy the best card to give them.

Together that makes Academy + Time Walk the best possible option... unless of course I'm missing something... post away


Blovdak- it's really bad form to post lists when no one asked for them, especially in a thread with a very specific topic and direction.    You can definitely start a new topic if you want to discuss your list

[Anusien]

If he's getting Academy, isn't he pretty much unconstrained by mana anyway?  It seems like if you give him Academy + Lotus, that minimizes the amount of damage he can.  Time Walk and Black Lotus are nearly equivalent here in mana but Time Walk is slightly better with Academy than Lotus would be.  If he has Will, I don't see Time Walk being better for you than Lotus since it gives him two cards.  He only has 3 cards left in hand, and he's going to draw a random card off the top.  It seems like the only way you can win here is to draw Sapphire, Lotus, Force, Tormod's Crypt, Petal (BrassMan did a much better job analyzing the outs than I did).  In other words, even if you split the Gifts pile optimally, you still need to get lucky to win.  That said, why not give the opponent the pile that gives him one fewer card.  If he draws into a counter he can stop you no matter what you do, so don't give him Time Walk, because he'll cantrip off it.

Edit: The problem with that plan is that the extra mana on the pre-Walk turn is only relevant if they have one of 9 cards that cost 2 or less to abuse with it.  If you give them both mana sources, it's more likely they can cast TfK or something pre-Will to tutor up a counter.  Plus, if they actually have Will in hand, they'll just tutor up Colossus that turn (Will, Lotus, Tinker) and your hand can't race that.

[meadbert]

With ANY option besides Walk-Lotus, the Gifts player has to pass the turn,

Anusien, I think Brassman is right.  The problem here is that if he has Yawg and we give him Lotus then he can go Lotus, Yawg, Lotus, Tinker and pass the turn with DSC in play and crucially no artifact in the yard.
Even worse, my split gives him Walk in hand so he can win next turn.  If you instead give him Academy then he does not win next turn but he does have a lot of mana although getting 4 is not that important given the list he is playing and the fact that he already cast Gifts.  I can see that Academy, Lotus is better than Lotus, Walk with Yawg in hand, but both have the fatal flaw that they allow him to Tinker for DSC with no artifact in the yard now.
This leaves Echoing Truth as basically our only out.

All this only matters if he has Yawg in hand.  I do not think that a Tutor for Yawg really does enough unless he is holding more acceleration which is unfortunately entirely possible.
If he really has Yawg in hand, then I am not sure I understand having Academy in that pile.
With Vamp or Demonic in hand Academy still does not make much sense to me since he would need BB in order to tutor up and cast Yawg and he will not have that unless he is holding Petal or uses his land drop to find B.  Why Academy?

Academy makes most sense in conjunction with Mystical Tutor.  Academy allows him to use Island to Mystical for Yawg on upkeep.  Then Academy + Jet are all that is needed to Cast Yawg on the next turn.

Although I agree with AngryPheldagrif and Brassman that this pile implies access to Yawg I think that Academy implies that the access to Yawg is provided by Mystical Tutor.

Which split makes the most sense if your opponent is holding Mystical, rather than Yawg?

1:  Lotus, Walk - If he is holding another mana source then he goes Lotus, Walk, Mystica-Yawg, turn 1.b, Yawg, Lotus, Tinker.  If he has no more mana then this option forces him to wait a turn.  If he has Drain then he can Drain our turn 1 play and then Mystical for Yawg.  Next turn he uses Drain mana + Jet to cast Yawg and then casts Lotus, Tinker, Walk.  Little does our opponent know that we likely have no turn relevant turn 1 play that he can Drain usefully.  Basically only Brainstorm and Ponder would be relevant and generate enough Drain mana.  Note that Sapphire, Lotus, Petal, Tormod's Crypt and Forces are all nice cards for us to draw here.
2:  Lotus, Tinker - This allows for an immediate Tinker, but at least there will be an artifact in the yard and no access to Walk so Welder will answer.  If he waits a turn he can Mystical for Yawg and then Tinker out Vault for Petal and play Yawg and Walk.  This might be worse.
3:  Lotus, Academy - Next turn he Mystica's for Yawg and then casts Yawg with 6 mana available allowing him to Tinker, Walk and Mystical for Drain.  Ouch.  Note that if he is holding Drain he could have had Drain backup when he cast Yawg.
4:  Walk, Tinker - If he draws or has mana then he can Tinker and then Walk.  If he has no mana then he must Walk next turn and hope to draw mana.  This may actually be the best split to give him and he may have counted on the fact that no one wants to give someone Walk and Tinker.
5:  Walk, Academy - He passes the turn, Mysticals for Yawg on upkeep and drops Academy and plays Yawg, Lotus, Tinker.  Next turn he Walks.  This is not that bad.
6:  Tinker, Academy - Next turn he Mysticals for Force on upkeep and then Tinkers for DSC.

#1 and #5 mean that our opponent likely passes the turns and then casts Yawg without counter backup (unless he is already holding Force.  We are screwed anyway if this is the case)
#4 If he has no land then this is the best option.  If he has another mana source then it is equivolent to #6 because he can Walk and Mystical for Force and then Tinker on turn b with Force backup.
#6 means he Tinker with Force backup next turn.
#3 means he casts Yawg with Drain backup next turn.
#2 means he Tinkers right now!

My conclusion here is that Brassman is still right.  The best split is to give him Walk and Academy and hope that you draw Force, Sapphire, Petal, Lotus or Tormod's Crypt.  Lotus and Academy is slightly worse because if he is holding another mana source he can Tinker now.

Finally, Tinker and Walk might work out if he is counting on drawing into more mana.  Since this is a game we are likely to lose either way, perhaps this gamble is best.