[Deck] Plymouth Rock - BGu Gifts/Explorer Rock

[dontbiteitholmes]

Plymouth Rock
B/G/u Gifts Rock with Veteran Explorers

// Lands
1 Academy Ruins
1 Scrubland
3 Swamp
4 Windswept Heath
2 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Bayou
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Forest

// Creatures
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Grave-Shell Scarab
2 Eternal Witness
1 Genesis
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Shriekmaw
1 Gigapede

// Spells
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Damnation
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Smallpox

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Extirpate
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Plains
SB: 4 Circle of Protection: Red
SB: 1 Zur's Weirding

Veteran Explorer {G}
Creature — Human Soldier
When Veteran Explorer is put into a graveyard from play, each player may search his or her library for up to two basic land cards and put them into play. Then each player who searched his or her library this way shuffles it. 1/1


The recurring theme you'll notice in good control lists, and this is true of any format, is that they run control, not simply so they can say they're playing control, but to get to the late game. The late game is the heart and soul of a control deck. Why? Most decks aren't prepared for it. Goblins has SCG, and Threshold sometimes has Mystic Enforcer or Fledgeling Dragon, but that's about it, and compared to the bombs a good control deck wants to have at it's fingertips, like anything starting with "Decree of", these aren't that amazing. The late game is an ocean, a good control deck is a shark, and most poor mother fuckers can't even swim. A control deck that doesn't have ways to dominate the late game is a control deck that should not exist.

Why should I play this deck?

Seriously the best reason I can give you is that this deck can beat anything. 9 Discard spells, 9 Removal spells, 8 beefy creatures, the utility of Gifts, recursion of answers in Stronghold, Ruins, and Witness, and the innovation that makes this deck different from any deck seen before, Veteran Explorer... As the quote at the beginning of this primer correctly states control decks exist for the late game. So what defines the late game? Not turn count but rather game state. If it's turn 2 and you have 4 lands in play and your opponent has no hand, welcome to the instant late game. Cabal Therapy + Veteran Explorer makes this possible allowing for some of the most broken turn 2 plays this side of storm combo. Turn 1 Explorer, turn 2 Cabal Therapy, flashback, get 2 lands, Hymn? Smallpox? Explosives? Tarmogoyf? Sure why not? Please don't take that to mean that this deck relies on popping off an Explorer to win because your discard/removal package is almost 1/3 of the deck making it quite easy to make it to the mid/late game on your own time, Gifts is another card people might get confused by, seems like people see it and assume the deck revolves around it when in fact it's just another tool, not the centerpiece. This deck is hard to pilot and requires vast amounts of knowledge of Legacy to play optimally, but that being said it rewards your skill by giving you a strong game against most of the meta.


Card Analysis

Lands - 24 lands may seem low for a control deck but you have to take into account that Veteran Explorer can chump or be sacced for 2 untapped basics. Colored mana is occasionally an issue but you have a virtual 15 green sources and 16 black sources so you are rarely denied the mana you need to a crippling extent. As for the Scrubland that has more to do with the COP:Red sideboard then the coincidental synergy with Explosives. To put it plainly Burn is probably your worst match-up and that's what the COPs are there for because Burn exists in abundance where I play but if you are blessed to be in a Burn light meta then It'd be a basic Swamp and 5 SB spots would be put to much better use and I'd be much happier, then again if you are netdecking sideboard strats from an international Legacy website you probably don't have the skills to pilot this deck.

Academy Ruins - Recurring Explosives is hot against the best deck in the format and thats all there is to say about that.

Volrath's Stronghold - Recurs threats and Shriekmaws, Genesis #2/3.

Veteran Explorer - Awesome. Few decks are as well equipped as you to take advantage of the sudden land explosion especially after a little discard. It's all about the late game people.

Ravenous Baloth - Singleton, just not what he used to be but still a solid drop. He's good beats and recurring life gain if needed making him a solid Gifts pickup.

Grave-Shell Scarab - Hard to kill, solid beater, unswordsable, puts the game in late game.

Eternal Witness - Solid in Gifts, recurs threats/answers, yeah synergy with Gifts...

Genesis - Gifts is in this deck.

Tarmogoyf - Best creature in the game, beats all except other Goyfs, comes down early, auto-include.

Shriekmaw - Genesis or Stronghold with this dude is just stupid good. He kills 90% of relevant creatures and dodges Counterbalance.

Gigapede - Self recurring beats. When you need to apply the pressure Gifting in Gigapede and Scarab is solid.

Cabal Therapy - Best discard in the format in the right deck, this is one of those decks. Awards knowledge of Legacy by raping your opponents hand and of course the insane swing you get by flashbacking Explorer.

Gifts Ungiven - Toolbox time, between this and Therapy this deck is not for amateurs. I'm not gonna list off Gifts stacks like you might expect because simply put there are thousands and depending on exact game state I can't tell you what to Gifts for. This swings the game like no other.

Thoughtseize - Good ol' retard proof discard, can't beat that. Also sets you up for Therapy.

Hymn to Tourach - Destroys opponents hand setting you up to take advantage of superior threats.

Pernicious Deed - Control deck + Bayous = Auto-include.

Damnation - One for Gifts stacks but solid none the less.

Engineered Explosives - Nukes pretty much any relevant threat and can be recurred.

Haunting Echoes - "Hey whats up turn 10?"
"Not much oh, um, Haunting Echoes."
(Initiate scoop phase.)

Smallpox - Solid removal, one for Giftage, marginal synergy with Explorer.



Sideboard - I'll get to that later, still not a finished product.

Match-up Analysis - Later.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Space saved for match-up analysis.
Also note this deck is still a work in progress and thus very fluid and original decklist subject to edits.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Some things that stick out immediately for me:

Where's Wonder? I don't think you can afford not to run it--it puts Gigapede over the top.

Why Gifts over Intuition? Intuition costs less, and allows you to nab more than one of the same card, which also allows you to smooth out the deck because you won't need four different cards that do the same thing. As the author of a very similar deck, I can say that the aptly-named (By Bardo, if memory serves) "Oh Shituition" is one of the best reasons to run the card period.

How about running a single (or two) Life from the Loam? You don't need to reconfigure the deck to max out its utility, but I do think that it makes for an important foil not just against LD, but one that allows you to cast Gifts/Intuition for utility lands (like Ruins or Stronghold) with impunity.

Circle of Protection Red? Is it really worth running this in the SB over some kind of storm combo protection? As far as I can see, this is here to protect against Burn, but Therapy and company are more effective against Burn than Storm combo.

Likewise, my experience with TarmoTog leads me to ask about your storm combo matchup. You do have a significant amount of disruption, but does it come online fast enough? This isn't a criticism, by the way--it's a real question. Do your threats come online fast enough after the disruption to be as effective as they need to be? It seems like a rather heavy reliance on the Tarmogoyf in this case.

Lastly, another real question: how is the lack of a draw engine treating you? Do you ever find yourself wishing for the good ole Divining Top?

[dontbiteitholmes]

Some things that stick out immediately for me:
Where's Wonder? I don't think you can afford not to run it--it puts Gigapede over the top.

I don't really see that so much, sure it's cute but I can't see myself stacking in Wonder with Gifts since it would obviously go straight to my hand, thus being not good and I don't really see it making it reliably to my graveyard in any way where I wouldn't just rather draw any other card in my deck instead. Am I missing something here?

Why Gifts over Intuition? Intuition costs less, and allows you to nab more than one of the same card, which also allows you to smooth out the deck because you won't need four different cards that do the same thing. As the author of a very similar deck, I can say that the aptly-named (By Bardo, if memory serves) "Oh Shituition" is one of the best reasons to run the card period. I won't dilute my deck to play answers to things that might not even be problems in the first place had I not diluted my deck with unneeded cards. I run quite enough removal anyways and Gifts is a tool not a crutch.


How about running a single (or two) Life from the Loam? You don't need to reconfigure the deck to max out its utility, but I do think that it makes for an important foil not just against LD, but one that allows you to cast Gifts/Intuition for utility lands (like Ruins or Stronghold) with impunity.
Not a bad idea in theory but I don't run Wasteland, Hmmm maybe that's another idea I'll have to test.

Circle of Protection Red? Is it really worth running this in the SB over some kind of storm combo protection? As far as I can see, this is here to protect against Burn, but Therapy and company are more effective against Burn than Storm combo.

Likewise, my experience with TarmoTog leads me to ask about your storm combo matchup. You do have a significant amount of disruption, but does it come online fast enough? This isn't a criticism, by the way--it's a real question. Do your threats come online fast enough after the disruption to be as effective as they need to be? It seems like a rather heavy reliance on the Tarmogoyf in this case.
Well as I noted my meta is heavy Burn and if it wasn't the COP would not be there and would of course goto something that fought combo since that is the deck I am most dead against G1. Right now in my meta Burn is heavily played and storm not really at all, but then again who netdecks a sideboard? Right now I have Extirpate in from side vs. Combo which is not so good in reality but then again no one plays me with Combo so it wasn't really a concern. Simply put it's everyones job to build their own sideboard based on the meta they play in.

Lastly, another real question: how is the lack of a draw engine treating you? Do you ever find yourself wishing for the good ole Divining Top?Never really missed it to tell you the truth. I ran Top for a while and found it to suck, in fact suck is an understatement for how I found it. I regularly had to choose between casting spells and topping and it was just clunky and stupid usually and when not it was just a win more card, not to mention reverse synergy with Stronghold and Ruins. Without drawing things are fine to tell you the truth, seems like if I'm not drawing business I'm playing graveyard tricks, not to mention I only barely splash Blue and would rather fetch Bayou turn 1 90% of the time and need/want to keep my basic count high for Explorer and to counteract non-basic land hate so I don't scoop to Wasteland recursion.

[Isamaru]

Great job on the deck, dontbiteitholms!

I don't have much to say now other than to compliment you on your work so far.

I was just discussing Zur's Wierding in Legacy with a friend the other day, and I think it could be great in the right deck. You could almost sideboard in the Quiet Disrepair + Wierding combo, but I don't know whether it is effective/good or not.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Great job on the deck, dontbiteitholms!

I don't have much to say now other than to compliment you on your work so far.

I was just discussing Zur's Wierding in Legacy with a friend the other day, and I think it could be great in the right deck. You could almost sideboard in the Quiet Disrepair + Wierding combo, but I don't know whether it is effective/good or not.

Thanks for the support, I hope that you will bring more attention to this type of deck since it seems to be widely ignored right now (this is the 3rd time I've posted it in the forums and 5 replies total). In spite of Quiet Disrepair I could certainly set up a recurring Baloth/Weirding just as easily (read not that easy but doable). Just to toot my own horn real quick and prove I'm not a total random I've played since Revised Starters were $7.50, I've top 8'd a large Legacy tourney with Enchantress GW/r (Starcity Duel for Duals in 06ish), and I'm also in the top 4 rated players on Magic-League for both Legacy and Other formats (thus showing my knowledge of Legacy as a format and my skills on building decks basically from scratch). I know I'm not a big name in Legacy or anything (possibly since I've only played 5-6 Legacy tourneys IRL ever) but given this and conceding that M-L is scrubish, can my deck get some goddamn attention now? I mean just everyone pretend for one second I was Eldariel or InfamousBearAssassin or Nightmare and give this deck atleast another look because I think it could evolve into a contender given some real input (hence the purpose of the CANGD contest in the first place), or does your deck only get attention if you say you are 60+% vs. all the decks to beat?

[Isamaru]

Yeah, that's pretty much how a lot of us feel. *shrug* It's human nature, in both roles.

As for the deck, I still don't have anything to say/complaints/issues (which is technically good). You'll have to first see how often Zur's Wierding locks down a game / games before devoting more time, and deckspace to it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Yeah, that's pretty much how a lot of us feel. *shrug* It's human nature, in both roles.

As for the deck, I still don't have anything to say/complaints/issues (which is technically good). You'll have to first see how often Zur's Wierding locks down a game / games before devoting more time, and deckspace to it.

The original decklist was far more devoted to the Weirding/Baloth lock running more MD Baloths and of course MD Weirding. Then of course Solidarity became popular, then Flash, and when I remade the deck I took out the lock noting that it's really only good vs. Control and Combo (provided you have the luxury of time but still worth siding in one card on the chance to close out the game).

[scrumdogg]

Neat deck, we ran Veteran Explorer in Rock around here a couple of years back. It is such a versatile card - especially if your opponent is basic land light or you have a decent LD package (or can just plain use the land better than they can...). Ultimately gave up on the deck, although we weren't running blue. Also, the awesomeness that is Tarmogoyf & Shriekmaw had yet to see light of day. Hierarch is just not as scary, nor does it come down as quickly nor provide the punch that those 2 do. Having Witness, Genesis, & Stronghold made it extremely difficult for opponents to get rid of critters - but we plain did not have the options available today.

I do have the same question about Gigapede - given your level of built in recursion, why not either run him with an evasion option ior run something else instead? Fetched in a Gifts or Intuition with Wonder, Gigapede will eventually end up in play and Wonder will be in the yard, which seems pretty good ( see also, flying Goyfs...) Have you tried an LD package yet? You already have a Smallpox (also pretty decent with Explorer & Witness/Genesis & Stronghold) which in multiples gets even sillier with LftL. Even singletons with Gifts or Intuition make for some horrendous lose/lose decisions for your opponent....and as we remember from Fact or Fiction, any time you can put pressure on your opponent and give them the opportunity to make an abominable choice, life is good :cool:

The sideboard in a deck like this is extremely flexible, which is comforting. Given that the deck has blue, if storm combo is expected, it would be fairly simple to craft options out of more discard, Stifle effects, and Extirpate.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Neat deck, we ran Veteran Explorer in Rock around here a couple of years back. It is such a versatile card - especially if your opponent is basic land light or you have a decent LD package (or can just plain use the land better than they can...). Ultimately gave up on the deck, although we weren't running blue. Also, the awesomeness that is Tarmogoyf & Shriekmaw had yet to see light of day. Hierarch is just not as scary, nor does it come down as quickly nor provide the punch that those 2 do. Having Witness, Genesis, & Stronghold made it extremely difficult for opponents to get rid of critters - but we plain did not have the options available today.

I do have the same question about Gigapede - given your level of built in recursion, why not either run him with an evasion option ior run something else instead? Fetched in a Gifts or Intuition with Wonder, Gigapede will eventually end up in play and Wonder will be in the yard, which seems pretty good ( see also, flying Goyfs...) Have you tried an LD package yet? You already have a Smallpox (also pretty decent with Explorer & Witness/Genesis & Stronghold) which in multiples gets even sillier with LftL. Even singletons with Gifts or Intuition make for some horrendous lose/lose decisions for your opponent....and as we remember from Fact or Fiction, any time you can put pressure on your opponent and give them the opportunity to make an abominable choice, life is good :cool:

The sideboard in a deck like this is extremely flexible, which is comforting. Given that the deck has blue, if storm combo is expected, it would be fairly simple to craft options out of more discard, Stifle effects, and Extirpate.
Once again thank you for the support of this deck, I seriously contend that this deck will end up one of the finalist of CANGIII with the input of the serious Legacy community. As for Gigapede to tell the truth its one of the innovations I got from similar blue tutor decks. I included it mostly for the synergy with Genesis/Gigapede/Grave-Shell Scarab/XXXX Gifts stacks (or maybe just Scarab/Gigpede/XXXX/XXXX), which is quickly becoming the default "I've dealt with your threats now time to administer the beats" Gifts stack. I see where people are coming from, kind of, with the "Add Wonder" business but seriously the thing I am missing is...
#1: Wonder is better in the GY then in play or in my hand, how does it get to my GY seamlessly? Note in a vacuum (IE not taking possible cards in hand/GY into account) I see no way to Gifts 4 cards so that Wonder is in the GY and there is not a better stack available.
#2: Given the problem of question #1 what would I cut to add Wonder that would be better then the card I cut?
The way I see it Wonder is kind of a "win more" card given that it is hard to get into GY, I mean if your opponent looks at a Gifts stack and puts Wonder to GY either they suck at Magic or you suck at stacking Gifts, so I will probably forgo testing unless someone points something out to me that I am missing.

The way I see it the next evolution of this decklist is most likely gleamed by testing Wasteland in the Stronghold #2 slot and adding Loam, making more nasty Gifts stacks possible and taking into account Loam's synergy with GY games and Wasteland (While also noting the possible anti-synergy of Wasteland and popping a Veteran Explorer). Then taking into account that in most peoples metas Burn is not really present and making a solid sideboard strategy for a blind meta noting that most people should be more concerned with combo then Burn (once again in a vacuum). Noting once again for people who don't take the time to read all the posts that Gifts and Explorer are tools in this deck NOT CRUTCHES. Given all that though, Loam at least deserves solid testing.

[scrumdogg]

They are going to put Wonder in your hand, no doubt, but you either also have Gigapede in hand and ready to cast or you have Gigapede in the yard. Assuming Gigapede in hand, it gets played and proceeds to beat face. Either it tears off 5 a turn or it meets, greets & trades with something...at which point you trade it for Wonder, rinse, lather & repeat (without the the opponent having relevant blockers probably...). You also run Smallpox, Genesis, & Eternal Witness...the possibility of extremely bad Gifts stacks for your opponent are fairly simple to envision :cool: Adding in Lftl & Wasteland only increase the disturbances in the Force....

Is Ravenous Baloth included over Loxodon Hierarch for the ability to avoid STP & non-reliance on white mana? Because otherwise Hierarch seems strictly superior.

[dontbiteitholmes]

They are going to put Wonder in your hand, no doubt, but you either also have Gigapede in hand and ready to cast or you have Gigapede in the yard. Assuming Gigapede in hand, it gets played and proceeds to beat face. Either it tears off 5 a turn or it meets, greets & trades with something...at which point you trade it for Wonder, rinse, lather & repeat (without the the opponent having relevant blockers probably...). You also run Smallpox, Genesis, & Eternal Witness...the possibility of extremely bad Gifts stacks for your opponent are fairly simple to envision :cool: Adding in Lftl & Wasteland only increase the disturbances in the Force....

Is Ravenous Baloth included over Loxodon Hierarch for the ability to avoid STP & non-reliance on white mana? Because otherwise Hierarch seems strictly superior.

I'm still not seeing the whole Wonder thing as a good idea. Wouldn't I rather just stack say Gigapede/Scarab/Genesis/Witness over 90% of the time Wonder would be in the stack. Heirarch is a loss because I don't want to go the white route and would gladly cut it if Burn wasn't a meta concern not to mention the occasional need for Baloth + recursion tricks (albeit seldom but still he's worthy of inclusion). If I had to pick one reason though I'd say lack of stable white mana is the reason he doesn't make the cut.

[Illissius]

I don't have anything substantive to say, just that I think the name you chose is fucking awesome.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I don't really see that so much, sure it's cute but I can't see myself stacking in Wonder with Gifts since it would obviously go straight to my hand, thus being not good and I don't really see it making it reliably to my graveyard in any way where I wouldn't just rather draw any other card in my deck instead. Am I missing something here?


Yup. Gigapede/Scarab aren't half as good or problematic when they're grounded. You already run Gensis without a particularly reliable means of putting it to your graveyard, and Wonder is really an amazing target. I think what you're missing is that this is essentially pointing towards Intuition as a better choice than Gifts. With Intuition, putting Wonder or Genesis into the graveyard is an easy task, so long as you fetch out Gigapede as well. Gifts, on the other hand, costs one more mana, forces you to fetch four different things (thus limiting your options and effectively weakening your play), and puts two to your hand--making it difficult to make use of your graveyard toolbox. It looks to me--from my experience with a very similar deck--like Intuition is simply a better card choice over all. And believe me, Wonder is worth testing. If you dismiss it, you dismiss it--but let me tell you, flying Gigapedes have only seldom failed to win my games. Grounded Gigapedes, on the other hand, are easily blocked with vanilla 1/1 tokens. Ditto Tarmogoyf, really--Wonder beefs up your mid and late games significantly by increasing your inevitability. It's not just a win-more card; it's a win-card, period.




I won't dilute my deck to play answers to things that might not even be problems in the first place had I not diluted my deck with unneeded cards. I run quite enough removal anyways and Gifts is a tool not a crutch.

I think you missed my point: the fact that you have to search for four different cards with Gifts already means that you're diluting your card pool in order to be able to fetch out those answers you need. If you need mass removal, for example, you can't just fetch out Deed or EE, nor even a combination of the two--to guarantee that you get one you have to run a single Wrath, or go fetch out Eternal Witness. While these aren't bad plays by any means, I don't think they're the best or most effective. Being able to fetch multiples of a card is an important advantage that shouldn't be dismissed. Likewise, being able to do so as early as turn two in some circumstances thanks to Veteran Explorer (three in most; as opposed to turns three and four for Gifts) is not anything to sneer at.

I appreciate that you don't want the deck to revolve around Gifts/Intuition--but I strongly feel that this aspect of the deck needs to be optimized. There's a difference between using Gifts or Intuition effectively and using it as a crutch; the two are not one and the same. Even in my own deck or its variants (most of which have been entered for this contest), Intuition isn't a crutch--it's an extremely useful and strong play, but hardly essential. I worried about it being a crutch as well, at first, but then I realized that it's just too amazing not to play or not to optimize. You don't need to build the whole deck around it, and you don't want to get too techy--but maximizing your gains with Intuition is an easy feat that takes very few slots--especially considering how many slots in the deck are already devoted to cards that help this strategy (Genesis, Gigapede, Grave-Shell Scarab, Eternal Witness).


So again, I wonder if you could explain why you feel that Gifts is so much better than Intuition in this slot. I'm not trying to be patronising or anything of the sort; I just don't see how Gifts does more than Intuition can.



Not a bad idea in theory but I don't run Wasteland, Hmmm maybe that's another idea I'll have to test.

You might be able to get away with Wasteland with Veteran Explorer, but I don't recommend it. That would give you four lands that produce no coloured mana in a deck that's really mana-hungry: I don't see this ending well for your opening hands or mulligans. As an Intuition target, however, Loam will certainly help you combat hate directed at your manabase, which is an important factor.

You could certainly cut a Stronghold for Wasteland, and that might work better with your larger manabase--it's something you'd have to test, however. The real danger of crutches comes with LftL, really: it becomes tempting to run cards like Academy Ruins, Maze of Ith, Wasteland, manlands, etc. What you have to decide is the card's role in your deck, and stick to that. I use it to reinforce the manabase and to help avoid topdeck mode (with Coliseum); that's not the best use (which is with cycling lands and the like), but it's a strong use for it in its specific role. Similarly, you don't need to go for the whole caboodle just to reinforce the manabase.

Actually, that brings me to ask about Ruins/EE: it's a cute trick, and I'm glad to see it stops at EE, but how useful is it really? I mean, you've got Witness for spell recursion already, and Ruins will eat a draw and doesn't help with the coloured mana. With the larger amount of mana that you have, it probably balances out OK--but is the combo more than just a cute trick that wins more? (Again, a real question; it's not rhetorical.)


Well as I noted my meta is heavy Burn and if it wasn't the COP would not be there and would of course goto something that fought combo since that is the deck I am most dead against G1. Right now in my meta Burn is heavily played and storm not really at all, but then again who netdecks a sideboard? Right now I have Extirpate in from side vs. Combo which is not so good in reality but then again no one plays me with Combo so it wasn't really a concern. Simply put it's everyones job to build their own sideboard based on the meta they play in.

All that's fine, but aren't Extirpate, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, Hymn to Tourach, and Smallpox enough against burn? Looks to me like it should be, since burn isn't particularly tricky. That would open up significant SB space for you. Besides, it's good to have a generic sideboard that addresses a deck's weaknesses and can then be tweaked for specific metagames afterwards. When you write up your matchup analyses, I'll be interested to see what happens with storm combo.

[TheLion]

Intuition/Gifts:

With Gifts Ungiven you can, if you want, search for only two (!!) cards, which come into the graveyard for sure then. So if you really need Wonder in the graveyard, it is possible with Gifts!
This is possible due to the restriction, that the cards must fullfil the criteria of having different names.

I am not sure, if this is also possible with Intuition, since there is no such restriction.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Intuition/Gifts:

With Gifts Ungiven you can, if you want, search for only two (!!) cards, which come into the graveyard for sure then. So if you really need Wonder in the graveyard, it is possible with Gifts!
This is possible due to the restriction, that the cards must fullfil the criteria of having different names.

I am not sure, if this is also possible with Intuition, since there is no such restriction.
Yeah I don't have time right now to respond to that whole last long post but in this deck it's a given that Gifts is better then Intuition because the one extra mana is a minimal drawback and getting 3 of the same card is not as good as getting 2 cards in hand or being able to set up a broken Gifts engine and I'm basically able to get what's important when it's important.

So I'm at the point where I'm ready to test Loam and I'm thinking -1 Stronghold, +1 Wasteland but what do I take out for Loam, hmm. Still not going to test Wonder, it sucks without Gifts (What card do I take out then wish I didn't when I draw a Wonder?) and there are usually better things to Gifts for. Putting Wonder in is the point the decks starts to turn into "Fuck synergy, let's make Gifts as broken as possible". The difference with Loam being it's never a bad draw if there's land in the GY.

[scrumdogg]

Of all the cards in your maindeck, Smallpox would seem to be the least useful/most conditional for a swap with LftL. Honestly, which one is a better topdeck or Gifts target? -1 Stronghold +1 Wasteland seems like the starting point there but I'm still not seeing the difficulty in the Wonder decision tree. You are going to Gifts on their EOT unless I'm missing something....with 4 mana (minimum) in play & the 5th either in play or in hand because otherwise why would you even consider Gigapede & Scarab as options? An offering of Gigapede/Wonder/Genesis/Witness guarantees a Gigapede in hand & whichever incarnation of choice in graveyard on the upkeep. Doing Genesis first to leave Gigapede as a blocker (no haste) either shuts down that ensuing combat phase completely or guarantees the other incarnation headed to the yard...while not screwing with your draws & setting up Witness recursion at the same time. Witness back into Gifts, again, should be disturbing since that is truly the engine in the deck if it gets going. To be fair, I have no idea what to replace for Wonder except possibly one of the Windswept Heaths. We ran 24 land in our incarnation as well & found it to be too much too often.

In defense of Academy Ruins, that + EE is devastating against many decks. Ruins also provides another source of blue (nice with Gifts & EE) and a Wasteland distraction (better this than any number of duals or Stronghold). It also allows for (possibly) silver bullets out of the sideboard - things like Mindslaver, etc etc.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Wonder at this point sucks without Gifts. Remembering that I only run 3 Gifts what would you recommend I cut for Wonder taking into effect that given I'm not always going to Gifts for it, at very least 1/3 times I'm either seeing it as a topdeck or in an opening hand. I'm very shaky on cutting down to 23 lands in a deck as mana intensive as this.

As far as the other guy saying Intuition is just better then Gifts like it's a fact, you're wrong. The ability to get 2 cards in hand or stack only 3 cards and run a Intuitionish stack far outweigh the ability to tutor up Deed and Tarmogoyf (on the condition that there are still 3 in the deck). The one extra mana is an insignificant drawback in this deck.

[Kundalini]

I love this deck. I loved gifts rock in extended, and its legacy version always fascinated me. Too bad I was never able to build a competitive gift rock deck because it always turned to be too slow.

My build used to run unearths and a lot of 3-cc creatures (golgari brownscale for lifegain in place of baloth) to improve speed.

Veteran Explorer is what the deck really needs to accelerate into midgame. And, for the debate intuition/gifts... well there are ways to maximize one or another card's pros, but in my opinion gift is way better for this build, and in general. It is all about card advantage: filling your hands and graveyard with up to 4 cards total is definitely another power level.

Can you please post your most recent build? I would like to have some testing with it..

[diffy]

I actually really like this deck... but I question some of your choices.
First of all, Smallpox seems like a no go as you have to sack a land to it which makes it worse than any other removal in the earlygame.
Also, you don't have a realible way to get Genesis into your Graveyard so I'd rather play Volrath's Stronghold only for recursion (if you're reccuring something, it is the best possible play in that situation so loosing a draw is no problem).
Also, if your meta doesn't have incredible amounts of burn in it, I don't see a reason to play Ravenous Baloth as you could just recur a Shriekmaw in its place or just drop Tarmogoyfs which basically fullfills the same role but better.

This is my take on this:



/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Lands (23 + 1)
1 Maze of Ith (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/114.html)
1 Academy Ruins (http://magiccards.info/ts/en/269.html)
1 Volrath's Stronghold (http://magiccards.info/sh/en/137.html)
1 Wasteland (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/340.html)
1 Cephalid Coliseum (http://magiccards.info/od/en/317.html)
2 Forest (http://magiccards.info/apac1/en/1.html)
2 Snow-Covered Forest (http://magiccards.info/ia/en/347.html)
2 Swamp (http://magiccards.info/apac1/en/5.html)
1 Snow-Covered Swamp (http://magiccards.info/ia/en/351.html)
1 Island (http://magiccards.info/apac3/en/2.html)
2 Bayou (http://magiccards.info/be/en/279.html)
1 Tropical Island (http://magiccards.info/be/en/299.html)
4 Polluted Delta (http://magiccards.info/on/en/321.html)
2 Windswept Heath (http://magiccards.info/on/en/328.html)
1 Wooded Foothills (http://magiccards.info/on/en/330.html)

// Beaters (5)
4 Tarmogoyf (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/153.html)
1 Gigapede (http://magiccards.info/on/en/264.html)

// Stuff (10)
4 Cabal Therapy (http://magiccards.info/fnmp/en/60.html)
4 Veteran Explorer (http://magiccards.info/wl/en/86.html)
2 Garruk Wildspeaker (http://magiccards.info/lw/en/213.html)

// Engine (7)
1 Life from the Loam (http://magiccards.info/rav/en/172.html)
1 Regrowth (http://magiccards.info/be/en/123.html)
2 Eternal Witness (http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/86.html)
3 Gifts Ungiven (http://magiccards.info/chk/en/62.html)

// Removal (14+1)
4 Pernicious Deed (http://magiccards.info/ap/en/114.html)
2 Engineered Explosives (http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/118.html)
2 Innocent Blood (http://magiccards.info/od/en/145.html)
2 Ghastly Demise (http://magiccards.info/od/en/139.html)
2 Shriekmaw (http://magiccards.info/lw/en/139.html)
1 Chainer's Edict (http://magiccards.info/tr/en/57.html)
1 Damnation (http://magiccards.info/pc/en/85.html)

/// Sideboard (15 cards)
1 Darkheart Sliver (http://magiccards.info/pc/en/155.html)
1 Offalsnout (http://magiccards.info/mt/en/71.html)
1 Maze of Ith (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/114.html)
1 Life from the Loam (http://magiccards.info/rav/en/172.html)
1 Crucible of Worlds (http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/114.html)
1 Viridian Zealot (http://magiccards.info/ds/en/90.html)
2 Krosan Grip (http://magiccards.info/ts/en/202.html)
4 Engineered Plague (http://magiccards.info/ul/en/51.html)
3 Extirpate (http://magiccards.info/pc/en/71.html)


Now Life from the Loam is very awesome in this deck as it does amazing things with Gifts basically turning it into a quadriple Demonic Tutor as soon as your next turn. It also lets you play juicy one offs like Maze of Ith (uncounterable removal), Wasteland (lock people) and Cephalid Coliseum (awesome draw engine) while giving you easier access to your other two recursion engines (Stronghold and Ruins).
For discard, I've only kept Cabal Therapy in because its enough to force your Gifts Ungiven through and counters and has notable synergy with Veteran Explorer. I just want to minimize the amount of bad draws that don't change the board in control decks and so really don't like Hymn and Thoughtseize. You could try a singletone Augur of Skulls (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/63.html) for insane recursion though.
Also, Garruk Wildspeaker (http://magiccards.info/lw/en/213.html) is nuts in here. He produces mana which is always nice because all your tricks are quite mana intensive and he functions as an alternative wincondition. In the very worst case he pumps your Tarmogoyfs.
I'm not sure about the best removal configuration yet but I really like Shriekmaw as only a singleton because he is quite a bad removal when not recurred (can't hit Dark Confidant and the like). I really like Innocent Blood though because it's an additional sacrifise outlet for Veteran Explorer.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I actually really like this deck... but I question some of your choices.
First of all, Smallpox seems like a no go as you have to sack a land to it which makes it worse than any other removal in the earlygame.
Also, you don't have a realible way to get Genesis into your Graveyard so I'd rather play Volrath's Stronghold only for recursion (if you're reccuring something, it is the best possible play in that situation so loosing a draw is no problem).
Also, if your meta doesn't have incredible amounts of burn in it, I don't see a reason to play Ravenous Baloth as you could just recur a Shriekmaw in its place or just drop Tarmogoyfs which basically fullfills the same role but better.

Now Life from the Loam is very awesome in this deck as it does amazing things with Gifts basically turning it into a quadriple Demonic Tutor as soon as your next turn. It also lets you play juicy one offs like Maze of Ith (uncounterable removal), Wasteland (lock people) and Cephalid Coliseum (awesome draw engine) while giving you easier access to your other two recursion engines (Stronghold and Ruins).
For discard, I've only kept Cabal Therapy in because its enough to force your Gifts Ungiven through and counters and has notable synergy with Veteran Explorer. I just want to minimize the amount of bad draws that don't change the board in control decks and so really don't like Hymn and Thoughtseize. You could try a singletone Augur of Skulls (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/63.html) for insane recursion though.
Also, Garruk Wildspeaker (http://magiccards.info/lw/en/213.html) is nuts in here. He produces mana which is always nice because all your tricks are quite mana intensive and he functions as an alternative wincondition. In the very worst case he pumps your Tarmogoyfs.
I'm not sure about the best removal configuration yet but I really like Shriekmaw as only a singleton because he is quite a bad removal when not recurred (can't hit Dark Confidant and the like). I really like Innocent Blood though because it's an additional sacrifise outlet for Veteran Explorer.

Well this is some of the best feedback I've gotten on the deck so far. Basically the way I'm beginning to see it this deck's true awesomeness comes from it's amazing ability to metagame well, meaning the maindeck is very workable. Basically the meta I currently test in is very random. The MD I worked out works well for this meta but I mean...
Lot's of Control, or Combo, or both, take out removal, add discard.
Lot's of Aggro, add removal as needed.
Of course just a basic map, I mean there are so many metagame calls MD, it would be easy to set this deck up to play well in many metas. It's especially tunable depending on the amount of Threshhold you might see (add discard, removal in forms of 'Maw and Explosives, and GY tricks) while still remaining relevant vs. the rest of the field in the form of whatever Loam/Removal/Wonder/Whatever tricks need be.
The current list I'm testing is the same as the current list...

-1 Stronghold
-1 Scrubland
-1 Shriekmaw
-2 Thoughtsieze
-1 Smallpox

+1 Chainer's Edict
+4 Ancestral Visions
+1 Polluted Delta

Not much of a change I agree but it works well against the decks I play. Like I said before though this deck has lots of potential for metagaming. Ancestral Visions has been awesome in testing so far but it still needs more testing. Basically it gives me twice as many explosive first turns.

[Vindicator101]

Recently I have been testing this deck and I really feel it has potential. Minus combo every matchup seems at least winnable to an extent. Also all the basics Non-basic hate that seems to be running rampant isn't actually all that much of a problem even with 3 colors especially if you see an explorer early.


My list as of Now: (not optimal and based off Der Imagine's list)

Spells: 24
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Damnation
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Chainer’s Edict
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth

Creatures: 13 (Things would be much easier if I owned Goyfs)
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Genesis
2 Eternal Witness
3 Ohran Viper (Kills goyfs and draws cards as I dont have my own :frown: )
2 Shriekmaw
1 Gigapede

Lands: 23
1 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Windswept Heath
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Bayou
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Forest

I feel like the main problem with this deck is if you don’t see an Explorer early to ramp your mana and find all of your basics to avoid hate such as bloodmoon and back to basics things become a lot more difficult. Also the second problem I see is the deck becomes a bit ruff if you don't see a gifts. I have tried to counteract that with the Vipers so you at least see more cards and with genesis/stronghold it becomes recurable card advantage/removal (not many people will attack into or block it :laugh:. I’m hoping this can generate a little more discussion as it really seems like it has potential.

[chokin]

As far as removal goes, my current configuration has been going alright. 1 Maw, 1 Damnation, 1 Smallpox(maybe Edict or Innocent Blood?), 3 Deeds and 2 Explosives.

I'm not sure how I feel about Hymn, but Auger+recursion=sexy. I don't know if it's worth the setup or not though.

Unearth looks okay when I first looked at my friends Rock update, but it should be more business spells IMHO. It's nice having CreatureX#5-8, but with Genesis and Stronghold, I think this is rather excessive.

[diffy]

I've been tinkering with this a little as of late, this is my current version:



/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Mana (23+1 Lands + 4 Acceleration)
1 Academy Ruins (http://magiccards.info/ts/en/269.html)
1 Volrath's Stronghold (http://magiccards.info/sh/en/137.html)
1 Wasteland (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/340.html)
1 Cephalid Coliseum (http://magiccards.info/od/en/317.html)
4 Polluted Delta (http://magiccards.info/on/en/321.html)
2 Windswept Heath (http://magiccards.info/on/en/328.html)
1 Wooded Foothills (http://magiccards.info/on/en/330.html)
2 Bayou (http://magiccards.info/be/en/279.html)
2 Tropical Island (http://magiccards.info/be/en/299.html)
2 Forest (http://magiccards.info/apac/en/11.html)
2 Forest (http://magiccards.info/guru/en/1.html)
2 Swamp (http://magiccards.info/guru/en/5.html)
1 Snow-Covered Swamp (http://magiccards.info/ia/en/351.html)
1 Island (http://magiccards.info/guru/en/2.html)

4 Veteran Explorer (http://magiccards.info/wl/en/86.html)

// Beaters (5)
4 Tarmogoyf (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/153.html)
1 Gigapede (http://magiccards.info/on/en/264.html)

// Removal (13+1)
1 Maze of Ith (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/114.html)
3 Innocent Blood (http://magiccards.info/od/en/145.html)
1 Ghastly Demise (http://magiccards.info/od/en/139.html)
1 Chainer's Edict (http://magiccards.info/tr/en/57.html)
1 Shriekmaw (http://magiccards.info/rep/en/14.html)
4 Pernicious Deed (http://magiccards.info/ap/en/114.html)
1 Damnation (http://magiccards.info/pc/en/85.html)
2 Engineered Explosives (http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/118.html)

// Card Advantage (14)
3 Cabal Therapy (http://magiccards.info/ju/en/62.html)
4 Brainstorm (http://magiccards.info/mm/en/61.html)
1 Life from the Loam (http://magiccards.info/rav/en/172.html)
1 Regrowth (http://magiccards.info/be/en/123.html)
1 Eternal Witness (http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/86.html)
4 Gifts Ungiven (http://magiccards.info/chk/en/62.html)

/// Sideboard (15 cards)
1 Maze of Ith (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/114.html)
3 Cabal Therapy (http://magiccards.info/ju/en/62.html)
1 Darkheart Sliver (http://magiccards.info/pc/en/155.html)
2 Yixlid Jailer (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/93.html)
2 Trygon Predator (http://magiccards.info/di/en/133.html)
1 Crucible of Worlds (http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/114.html)
4 Engineered Plague (http://magiccards.info/ul/en/51.html)
3 Extirpate (http://magiccards.info/pc/en/71.html)


It works pretty nicely especially since it has a high amount of basics (you aren't that colour intensive so that you can afford not playing a lot of duals) which is tech with all those decks preying on bad manabases nowadays.
I've cut down the Shriekmaws and the Ghastly Demises to the absolute minimum (one for recursion via Stronghold, the other for Gifts piles) because they've been less than stellar lately not hitting anything scary (Dark Confidant, Shadowmage Infiltrator, Tombstalker...).
I also like this list because it is rather streamlined: you don't have any useless one offs that aren't good when you don't have your engine going which makes the deck work quite smoothly even without Gifts. You aren't even reliant on Veteran Explorer as without him, you're still basically a dilluted The Rock which can hold it's weight until you find your buisness. Things like Genesis just aren't that good, especially if you can replace them with something that isn't dead outside of its thought use. Also, you actually don't need so many different sub-engines for Gifts to shine (e.g.: Augur of Skulls). Academy Ruins + Engineered Explosives and Life from the Loam + utility Lands (Maze of Ith, Cephalid Coliseum) is enough to win any war of attrition - especially if you still have other useful things to recur like Eternal Witness and Shriekmaw.

The most radical change is the introduction of Brainstorm. Although he strains your manabase quite a lot, he's definitely worth it as he literally fulfils every roles you want a card to: he digs for lands early and is broken Card Advantage in the lategame.

I'm still not playing any additional discard to Cabal Therapy (which is a sac outlet for Veteran Explorers which makes it quite good) because I don't think that it belongs in here: it is a dead draw in the lategame most of the time and early and early it fulfils the same role as a random removal in nine cases out of ten. Also, you don't have to be too afraid of any non-creature permanents because you play Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives to take them down.
Against control, to resolve your Gifts Ungiven, Cabal Therapy is enough discard too as it has to be countered twice which basically increases your virtual discard count to 6.

The deck is not bad, but I'm ditching it as it is pretty much worse than a controlling Survival build most of the time: your engine is just too expensive and doesn't win on the spot as well as forcing you into a third colour that doesn't add too much to your overall game plan (control stuff). Also, the engine doesn't do anything to change your pretty slow clock.

[dude 666]

Sorry for the necro everyone, this is just a really fun deck i recently picked up. I have made a few personal adjustments to be less reliant on veteran explorer, but the idea remains the same.

This is my list:

Lands:
4 Polluted delta
3 Windswept Heath
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Wasteland
1 Volrath's stronghold
1 Academy ruins
4 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Island

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Veteran explorer
3 Sakura-Tribe elder
1 Gigapede
1 Eternal witness
1 Shriekmaw

Removal:
4 Pernicious deed
2 Engineered explosives
2 Innocent Blood
(1 Shriekmaw)

Card Advantage:
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
2 Intuition
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Life from the Loam
3 Cabal Therapy

I'm not sure I have the ratios correct, but Ancestral Vision and Brainstorm have been nothing but great to me. Intuition is very useful, but only if I need a specific engine. Fact or Fiction is basically draw 5 with all the recursion this deck provides. So far I have been beating the shit out of control, aggro/control, and any decks with a very limited strategy. On the other hand, combo has been raping me pretty hard, but aggro isn't bad at all surprisingly.

It feels like playing Truffle Shuffle, except trading swords to plowshares for a shitload of card advantage spells. It's been a great trade-off so far. Please, if you have any comments on this deck, it would be great to develop it further (I mean the Gifts/Explorer Rock deck, not necessarily this specific decklist).

[TheLion]

Considering the rise of Giftstill (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20926), which won the Dutch Legacy Champs, I think this deck should deserve new consideration, since it is very similar.

Also the Raven's Crime / Life from the Loam engine has not yet been discussed for this deck, although it seems made for it.

EDIT: Sorry, Giftstill didn't win, but made Top8.

[Illissius]

Fleshbag Marauder is also recurring Edict + good with Explorer.

[Waikiki]

too bad TES won the dutch legacy champs, gift still got T8 but didn't reach the finals. It's also a different deck then this. It just also runs gifts.

[Duyster]

Hi all ,

After stumbling upon veteran explorer I decided to Build a deck with it . This version does not run Gifts ungiven but Intuition and Liliana make up for that . Time warp might seem like a strange choice but in testing it has proven its worth to me. Combined with (preferably recuring) E.witness it adds a certain combo flavor . There are several cards in this deck that i am unsure about ( quantity and quality wise ) , so i could really use any tips / sugestions .


4 Veteran explorer
2 Eternal witness
2 Tombstalker
1 Trinket mage (searches EE & top + Sb goodies )
2 kitchken finks
1 Garruk wildspeaker
1 Liliana vess
1 Vedalken shackles (Despite the low island count , this card remains a beating)
1 Engineered explosives
2 Pernicious deed ( should probably be a 3 off )
2 Innocent blood
4 Cabal therapy
1 thoughtseize
2 Sensei's top
1 Lftl
2 Intuition
2 recurring nightmare
4 Brainstorm
1 Time warp

+23 lands
1 Phyrexian tower
1 Academy ruins
1 Stronghold
1 barren moor
1 Lonely sandbar
4 Poluted delta
3 Trop isle
1 Ug sea
2 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Forest
4 island

My sideboard looks like this :
2 krosan grip
2 Trygon predator
1 raven's crime
1 engineered explosives
1 zuran orb
2 Tormod's crypt
3 hydroblast
Duno about the last 3 yet.


Ps. English isnt my native language (as u might have noticed ) so I'm sry if I wrote something wrong .