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whienot
08-16-2011, 11:24 PM
Gifts RUG is an aggro control deck that leverages Gifts Ungiven to help control the board. It's a very customizable deck with access to efficient answers to aggro, control, and combo.

Creatures
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Tarmogoyf
3x Vendilion Clique
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Dryad Arbor

Spells
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Spell Pierce
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Punishing Fire
4x Preordain
3x Gifts Ungiven
2x Life from the Loam

Artifacts
2x Engineered Explosives
1x Sword of Feast and Famine

Lands
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Scalding Tarn
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
2x Breeding Pool
2x Steam Vents
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Academy Ruins
1x Island
1x Mountain
1x Forest


Sideboard(Just an idea)
2x Sower of Temptation/Vedalken Shackles/Threads of Disloyalty
3x Firespout
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Tormod's Crypt(maybe a split with Relic of Progenitus)
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Gaddock Teeg
2x Kitchen Finks


The deck is fairly straighforward. Gifts Ungiven will typically grab Punishing Fire, Grove, Loam, and Ghost Quarter. Alternatively, there is EE, Academy Ruins, Loam, and Dryad Arbor (Or swap EE for Sword of Feast and Famine if the situation fits). Certainly, there will be times where you may want to grab 4 different creatures, or burn and sweepers. You also have the option of double entombing with Gifts (to grow a Goyf before damage, perhaps).

Ghost Quarters are the main defense against 12post and serve as a recursive threat against the greedy manabases in the format.

Birds of Paradise over Noble Hierarchs: Originally I had Firespouts in the main and wanted to limit how much Spout would effect my board. They make red mana which are a big help when trying to Punishing Fire multiple times a turn. They fly (Birds with a Sword, on my).



The sideboard is a work in progress.

Sower vs. Shackles vs. Threads. I haven't settled on one. They each have their strenghs and weakness. Shackles seems to play better with the rest of the deck, but the island count is pretty low.

Surgical Extraction and Crypts are a nod toward Melira, Sylvok Outcast combo, Protean Hulk, and Dredge. Crypt also shrinks a Knight of the Reliquary and recurs with Ruins.

Ancient Grudge is for opposing equipment, affinity, and has value against the random Forgemaster deck. Grudge also combos well with Gifts.

Ensnaring Bridge is for 12post and other decks with giant creatures. It also plays well with Gifts and Ruins. Against an unprepared opponent, you can sit behind a bridge and Punishing Fire them out of the game.

Gaddock Teeg is for combo. Zenithable and castable off Birds of Paradise. I'm not sure if he's worth it. Combo should have a plan for Gaddock Teeg and with only Spell Pierce, it is questionable. If combo becomes a real presence, Negate should be worked into the sideboard.

Kitchen Finks are for generic aggro/burn. Goblins will be tried and Boros will be a deck.

I think the idea has legs. Share you ideas and run with them.

Kich867
08-17-2011, 03:47 AM
I believe I mentioned in my PM to you that I was working on a list that veered away from the aggro components to an extent and focused more on ensuring that gifts happen and lean more towards a burn/control deck. However the largest problem I see with focusing on counters and burns is that there just isn't good enough counters in the format. Counterspell doesn't exist, Mana Leak doesn't cut it, Mental Misstep is banned, the only actually "good" counterspell is Spell Pierce and it can't hit creatures.. Cryptic Command is nice, but expensive and hard to play in a 3 color deck (birds certainly help).

On the flip side, only being able to counter non-creature spells seems less important when you can repeatedly EE, fire, and lightning bolt things. So it may not be relevant. It just feels odd only really playing 4 counters.

However the more I try to do that, the more it becomes apparent that the deck would be less than stellar, as the control elements available aren't strong enough. Maybe when Jace 2.0 gets unbanned.

In regards to your list, I like it a lot better than mine. I slimmed down a lot of the deck here and there to fit a playset of Merchant Scroll. I think being able to tutor for Repeal, Gifts Ungiven, and other cards like Hibernation (a sideboard option against elves or other green decks) to be rather useful and add consistency. It would effectively let you run 7 Gifts Ungiven.

My list looked something like this afterward:

Creatures: 9
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Tarmogoyf
1x Thrun, the Last Troll

Spells: 27
3x Gifts Ungiven
4x Spell Pierce
4x Merchant Scroll
4x Ponder
1x Repeal
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Punishing Fire
1x Life from the Loam
4x Green Sun's Zenith

Artifacts: 2
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Sword of Feast and Famine

Land: 22
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Scalding Tarn
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
2x Breeding Pool
2x Steam Vents
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Academy Ruins
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Island
1x Mountain
1x Forest

(copy-pasta on your land base since mine was bad and for some reason didn't take into account that it would be very unlikely to not have a R/G dual somewhat early)

The sideboard would carry a few extras of certain things like another EE etc. Basically yours but maybe drop the Sower slot for 1x Engineered Explosives and 1x Life from the Loam in case they're running graveyard hate.

However I'm not thrilled with the list that I made: I want to fit merchant scrolls in somehow, but wedging them in like that feels clunky and not-so-great.

Ultimately I think your list is better, as it pulls from too much to fit the scrolls in.

(PS: I hate not having room for Grim Lavamancer in here T_T )

ivanpei
08-23-2011, 02:29 AM
Gavin highlighted plenty of interesting decks on his SCG articles, some surprising, some expected. The usual suspects like Zoo, Junk, Jund, Bant and 12 post are pretty straightforward. What I was looking for was a solid Blue control deck that survived the Jace 2.0, Mental Misstep and Ancestal Visions bannings. Blue may appear severely weakened but I held out hope that some enterprising fellow would come up with a strong list. Gavin's Next Level Gifts is a port from the Old Extended Next Level Blue decks. The core is pretty much the same with Shackles, Cryptic, cheap counters, Tarmogoyf and Cliques. The deck is pretty much "Good Stuff' where you just counter stuff, kill stuff and win with a Goyf/Clique or a Shackled Creature. This is Gavin's list:

Next Level Gifts
Featured by Gavin Verhey on 2011-08-28 (Modern)

Artifacts
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Vedalken Shackles

Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf

Enchantments
1 Threads of Disloyalty

Instants
4 Cryptic Command
2 Dismember
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Punishing Fire
4 Rune Snag
3 Spell Snare

Legendary Creatures
1 Vendilion Clique

Sorceries
1 Life from the Loam
4 Preordain

Basic Snow Lands
6 Snow-Covered Island

Lands
2 Breeding Pool
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Tectonic Edge

Legendary Lands
1 Academy Ruins

Snow Lands
1 Mouth of Ronom

Gifts Ungiven is probably the last Blue Engine that survived the Bannings. Sure you still have stuff like Thirst of Knowledge or Mystical Teachings but those are pretty inefficient and slow compared to Gifts IMO. I did some testing with the list and made a few changes:

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Cryptic Command
3 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Leak
3 Spell Snare
4 Preordain
1 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Punishing Fire
2 Dismember
1 Life from the Loam

2 Grove of the Burnwillows
7 Island
2 Breeding Pool
2 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruins

Gavin's Article here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/modern/22625_Everything_You_Need_To_Know_About_Modern_Part_II.html

Firstly, why just 3 Gifts? The deck has too many 4 drops and Cryptic is always excellent to draw while Gifts is a mid-end game card and drawing double Gifts is pretty bad. So I trimmed a Gifts to make the deck less clunky. I also prefer Mana Leak over Rune Snag. The 1 mana can make a difference. In the blue mirror or against any kind of blue deck, players usually like to keep 2 mana open for Remand/Mana Leak/ Rune Snag. It's pretty common for players to play with 2 mana open so Rune Snag is honestly not my cup of tea. I also agree with Gavin on Preordain over Ponder as fetches have to be carefully played/planned to minimize lost of life from shocklands. In Legacy we usually hold back fetches to shuffle for Brainstorm/Ponder but in Modern, we do not have the Luxury. We run out fetches whenever we have the opportunity to land a shockland tapped to conserve life. Thus, using fetches to shuffle is a pretty suboptimal play.

I play only 2 Punishing Fire because outside the combo with Grove, Fires is a suboptimal burn spell. Most of the Major Targets that we worry about in Zoo have a toughness of 3. Wild Nacatl, Loam Lion and Kird Ape all have backsides that are 3 and out of Fire's reach. I felt that a split between Fires and Bolt is probably a better idea to deal with Zoo's dudes. I play 25 lands as opposed to Gavin's 26 as I trimmed the non-essential lands. 4 Groves was too much IMO as nothing you need is double red or double green. I'm playing an extra Island to up the blue count to 19, which is plenty for Cryptic and Shackles. Gavin left out the single Stomping Ground which is unwise as you will find that Island, Island Fetch hands are quite common. A single copy of Stomping Ground is useful in that situation. I'm not a fan of Mouth of Ronom, the card is cute in a Gifts pile, but way too slow. I'm a big fan of this list and any help on tuning is much appreciated.

perm
08-23-2011, 02:33 AM
4-6 creatures? I feel uneasy about that.

GGoober
08-23-2011, 02:53 AM
Why is it called NL-Gifts when the format is brand new and there has never been a Gifts.deck played to be evolved to NL-Gifts? It kinda resembles Next-level blue but the name of the deck bugs me. I really like the list though, although I strongly feel that 1-2 Batterskulls in a Gifts.dec with Academy Ruins is almost neccessary to have a backup plan in games where you are clinging too low on life. Batterskull is great in Gifts pile with Ruins, and it's a strong win-condition/stabilizer when you are gaining back in control.

ivanpei
08-23-2011, 04:16 AM
@ perm, the old next level blue decks run 4-6 creatures too. Usually with shackles, you should not have trouble winning in time.

I'm not sure about the naming of the deck, gotta ask Gavin that. As for batterskull in a gifts pile, sounds like a good idea, even without sfm, it's a strong card. Probably cut a cryptic or threads/shackles? Threads seems like the weakest card there so I'll replace that with Batterskull. I'm going to be testing this alot since I love blue decks and will try to play blue in any format.

phonics
08-23-2011, 08:47 AM
The deck should be called bionic gifts or something (We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better...stronger...faster). In that article, it seems like decks are either all creatures or have very few (clique and bob/other utility creature), this deck feel like it is similar to those u/w scepter control decks that recurred explosives and used scepter with stp. Have you looked at a 1 of Isochron scepter? I also think batterskull would be a good (possibly persistent) threat in games that you have to grind out, or if life becomes relevant, and maybe going 3goyf 3 clique 1 bskull would be better, but I dont know how fast goyfs grow in modern.

ivanpei
08-23-2011, 08:57 AM
Goyfs still grow pretty fast in Modern, I won't play less than 4 ever. As for Sceptors, they are worth testing, probably a better board card though since getting 2-1ed by a pridemage/maelstrome pulse is pretty devastating. I tested this list against Tribal Flames Sligh Zoo. Though that deck is fast as hell, I'm above 50% against them.

This deck runs so much cheap counters and removal that it's hard for opponents to get any sort of creature presence down to clock quickly. Once Shackles/Gifts/Fires combo comes down, the game is over. The card I hate most is Dismember. I lost a game because the 4 life I lost to Dismember + fetches and shocks cost me the game. I think Dismember is probably a necessary evil against Mid range KOTR/Goyf decks so they're staying in for now.

Against control/combo, this decks has 11 counterspells + 2 cliques. Thats alot of disruption and pretty hard to top in the long game slugfest. I need to get some testing in against 12post, but my aggro matchups have been stellar, so I'm pretty happy.

I also love setting up these "panic button" piles in the mid game:

Aggro: EE, Shackles, Threads, Bolt/Dismember/Fire.
Combo Control: Cryptic, Spell Snare, Mana Leak, Clique.

Gifts is never bad to draw, even when you are under pressure. I will definitely run the 4th in the board, that card is just GG when it resolves.

4eak
08-23-2011, 10:52 AM
RUG Gifts threads merged.

-4eak

Mr. Safety
08-24-2011, 08:29 AM
Anyone looking at using Rewind? It seems like it's the only 'free' counterspell in the format, and allows you to counter a spell AND play Gifts the same turn.

Tech or not?

ivanpei
08-24-2011, 08:54 PM
I would say it's ok but it'll probably be 4 drops 9-10 as I'd rather have both cryptic and gifts ahead of rewind. Also I'm having trouble dealing with kotr. Any ideas? I'm thinking of playing sowers in the board since shackles has a hard time grabbing giant knights and dismember for not kill knight all the time. My board looks like this:

1 ancient grudge
2 natures claim (grip is too slow vs affinity and no misstep in this format)
1 tormods crypt
3 firespout
2 sower of temptation
3 spell pierce
3 sowing salt/ bribery (hot anti cloudpost tech)

What are the best anti cloudpost cards? Sowing salt is game over if they only have 1 post on the table. If they have 2 they can use vesuvas to make more posts. Bribery is game over vs 12post if you don't die before casting it.

DFY889
08-24-2011, 09:43 PM
I also cut mouth of ronom, since I played a bunch of games on magic online and never activated it once. It's sort of neat, but you never want to main-phase it and we have so much better things to do on end-step. I stuck with 26 land and added a tectonic edge in place of the mouth out of respect for the 12post matchup.

I agree multiple gifts can be sort of clunky, but I think 4 is probably needed since we basically can't beat 12post without a resolved gifts (usually tec edge, ghost quater, loam, random business spell). Also, people should probably be running a split on regular and snow-covered island if we have gifts ungiven in our deck.

DFY889
08-24-2011, 09:53 PM
I would say it's ok but it'll probably be 4 drops 9-10 as I'd rather have both cryptic and gifts ahead of rewind. Also I'm having trouble dealing with kotr. Any ideas? I'm thinking of playing sowers in the board since shackles has a hard time grabbing giant knights and dismember for not kill knight all the time. My board looks like this:

1 ancient grudge
2 natures claim (grip is too slow vs affinity and no misstep in this format)
1 tormods crypt
3 firespout
2 sower of temptation
3 spell pierce
3 sowing salt/ bribery (hot anti cloudpost tech)

What are the best anti cloudpost cards? Sowing salt is game over if they only have 1 post on the table. If they have 2 they can use vesuvas to make more posts. Bribery is game over vs 12post if you don't die before casting it.

I've been running 4 Stone Rain and 3 Annex as my board for 12Post, 7 cards is a lot, but the deck is all over modo, and the board plan is pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised with the game one match-up against both blue and green variants of 12post. The lists probably aren't quite optimized yet, but game one seems to be like 40-45%, which isn't great to be sure, but it also isn't as bad I had feared. It seems like tectonic edge is so much better than ghost quarter that I've considered dropping ghost quarter all together.

After board it obviously gets better as you can attack their mana base much more aggressively while still having the loam-tec edge engine from game 1. I thought about sowing salt, but if I was willing to commit to 7 LD spells, I wanted ones that were consistently good and not blanks if drawn too late even if it gives up some potential to mise wins. I guess the LD spells are blanks against a resolved emrakul, but I actually have 2 mindbreak trap in the board more as a concession to combo, but they definitely come in. I definitely wanted a sick 3cc spell, and stone rain was the obvious choice. Sowing Salt could be better than annex, but annex is soother on the mana and is still a pretty big beating.

Mr. Safety
08-25-2011, 12:39 PM
I would say it's ok but it'll probably be 4 drops 9-10 as I'd rather have both cryptic and gifts ahead of rewind. Also I'm having trouble dealing with kotr. Any ideas? I'm thinking of playing sowers in the board since shackles has a hard time grabbing giant knights and dismember for not kill knight all the time. My board looks like this:

1 ancient grudge
2 natures claim (grip is too slow vs affinity and no misstep in this format)
1 tormods crypt
3 firespout
2 sower of temptation
3 spell pierce
3 sowing salt/ bribery (hot anti cloudpost tech)

What are the best anti cloudpost cards? Sowing salt is game over if they only have 1 post on the table. If they have 2 they can use vesuvas to make more posts. Bribery is game over vs 12post if you don't die before casting it.

I am also using Nature's Claim over Grip...the split second clause is becoming more and more irrelivant as spells get just plain BETTER.

Dealing with Cloudpost is tough...I would say keep a Ghost Quarter (maybe 2) in the maindeck to deal with early posts, and Sowing Salt looks hot...but will it land in time?

As far as Knight of the Relquary goes, I think Sower is your best bet...I personally use a BUG list so Shriekmaw, Dismember, and Deathmark are my removals of choice.

You're in red, so why not DeadGone??? It kills mana dorks or can bounce Knight. I would give this the nod over Echoing Truth, simply because of the utility.

Without black or white, your heavy-duty removals are limited. You can splash for Doom Blade, Deathmark, Terminate, or Go for the Throat. But in all seriousness, why hasn't Explosives been taking care of Knights?

ivanpei
08-29-2011, 08:39 PM
Explosives have been really great, I think I'll cut a dismember and run a pair of EEs instead. Cheers for the heads up. I also think Bribery is really slow vs 12 post. I sometimes stall on 4 lands and end up short of 5 mana for 2/3 turns. Stone Rains and Spell Pierces from the board are good enough to stall out the game until you can get your gifts engine online. There's going to be weekly modern in my LGS. YESSS AND ETERNAL FORMAT WITH WEEKLY SUPPORT, FINALLY!!!

I'll be rocking this deck alot. I've played Zoo, Rock and Gifts control, this deck is the most solid I've played so far.

Mr. Safety
08-30-2011, 08:17 AM
Have you considered running 4-colors, similar to the CounterTop decks that legacy is sporting? I'm debating a 4th color to shore up weaknesses...but the mana-base starts to look really sketchy. Red gives me Grims or Grove/Fires (G/F being the better of the 2) and white gives me Path, Tidehollow Sculler, Qasali Pridemage, and Knight of the Reliquary. Black would give you Maelstrom Pulse to work with Explosives, and also allow for some Terminates/Deathmarks/Shriekmaws/Doom Blades/Smother's out of the sideboard.

I'm basically making up for the lack of a 4th color by using the Mannequin/reanimator strategy, along with Fauna Shaman. I'm not using Vengevines...because I dont' want to be completely f-ed when a graveyard hoser goes off, lol. I also really want to focus on the Gifts/Mannequin engine.

For your list, I would probably try out Flame Slash, or the aforementioned Dead/Gone. Slower, but keeps you on color and avoids the 4-life loss from Dismember.

I'm also playtesting Tumble Magnet in my sideboard...it can stall emrakul for 3 full turns while you find an answer (for me, it's a reanimated Angel of Despair or Shriekmaw)