Gifts Ungiven is a card that is always at the back of people's minds when it comes to this format. Previously, it was seen as "too slow" for combo applications, and I agree with that assessment. For one mana less, you get Intuition, which gets you one less card, but the increase in speed makes up for it. But Vintage makes great use of Gifts (or used to, at least) and there have to be alternatives in Legacy that could make it viable.
For reference:
Gifts
+Card Advantage
+Enables more "single card combos"
-Costs more, harder to protect
-Requires different names
-Recursion needed to make it a true Demonic Tutor
-Overall, less utility in dedicated Combo decks
Intuition
+Cheaper Cost, plays around Daze/Spell Pierce marginally easier
+Can get 3 cards of the same name, which lets it play as Instant Demonic for 3/4-ofs as well as enabling graveyard synergies (Vengevine, Loam, Lingering Souls)
-No real card advantage for 3 mana
-Harder to make it win the game for you on the spot
-Therefore, less utility in control decks.
I'm proposing that some blue-based Control and Prison decks might make good use of a Gifts package over an Intuition one. With the rise of Miracle Control we finally have a real control deck in Legacy, so let's try to build another type of Control. The obvious reason to run a deck like this would be primarily control but with a combo finish to close the game: instead of relying too heavily on Jace and Clique/Entreat, we would be able to Gifts with sufficient mana to close the game on a subsequent turn.
In any Gifts deck, we can Gifts for 4 of any spell effect as long as we have Snapcaster and two spells with different names. All decks have access to counterspells and white decks can run a variety of sweepers and spot removal. In a green splash shell, we have access to Life from the Loam, Academy Ruins, and any artifact. You also have Eternal Witness, but that card seems very slow unless we're in some sort of Gifts Rock/Veteran Explorer shell. Red offers Recoup and Past in Flames, but I'm not sure what you'd really want that badly except rituals to Storm off, and it seems like that's a much slower way to Storm combo. Black offers the most potential, as you can use it as a setup for Reanimator, but this also seems probably inferior to the straight combo version of Reanimator.
Can anyone think of Gifts piles that are concise (2-3 cards that would not be otherwise ran) and win the game pretty much instantly, or are resilient to hate?
The real problem with Gifts Ungiven is that it costs four mana to durdle for a turn. And, unless you've ground the game out super long, it probably will be a full turn: you will need to pass with almost all of your mana up, hope the opponent doesn't do anything too threatening, and then Gifts on their EoT. In comparison, Jace TMS also costs four mana but has much more immediate impact; even if you cast him and unsummon something, you're paying four mana to force the opponent to waste some amount of his own mana (or walk his guy into a counter if you've got one) and then change his attacks to account for Jace. Scavenging Ooze also makes Gifts worse, since you will likely lose the two cards the opponent didn't give you, and then whatever careful recursive loop you were trying to engineer is gone. At that point, you've got a very finnicky Inspiration, and Inspiration is a wee bit underpowered in Legacy.
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 08-06-2012 at 12:26 AM.
The Unburial Rites combo with it is okay, but that's really more of a Modern thing.Originally Posted by HammerAndSickled
The comparison between Jace TMS and Gifts Ungiven is a bit off, 2UU and 3U is a world of difference in their mana costs in a format where Dark Ritual is legal, the main problem is that there isn't a cost efficient combo for Gifts Ungiven on the same power level as there is in Vintage.
Casting Dark Ritual to cast Gifts Ungiven is a complete waste. Unless you're some sort of really bizarre storm deck, you shouldn't be running Dark Ritual in a Gifts Ungiven deck - which is why the comparison is relevant. Terrible temporary boost cards like Ritual directly clash with the sort of long game encouraged by Gifts.
We actually developed a reasonably well performing Gifts list during the last months, haven't played it in a tournament myself, but 2 mates managed to get it top 16 in a 60ish man tourney and top 8 in a 30ish man tourney a little while back (the deck only saw tournament play 4x in that period) so i wouldn't say it's bad.
List for reference:
Land (24)
1x Tropical Island
1x Academy Ruins
4x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Nephalia Drownyard
1x Plains
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
3x Tundra
3x Underground Sea
1x Wasteland
1x Tolaria West
Enchantment (1)
1x Moat
Planeswalker (3)
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Instant (22)
3x Counterspell
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Gifts Ungiven
1x Noxious Revival
3x Spell Pierce
4x Swords to Plowshares
Sorcery (4)
1x Vindicate
1x Unburial Rites
2x Black Sun's Zenith
Artifact (3)
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Engineered Explosives
Creature (3)
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
2x Snapcaster Mage
Sideboard (15)
2x Meddling Mage
1x Humility
2x Porphyry Nodes
2x Flusterstorm
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Thoughtseize
2x Vendilion Clique
Did you play Dark Ritual Gifts Ungiven combo in Vintage when Gifts Ungiven and Merchant Scroll were unrestricted? There's nothing wrong with combining Gifts Ungiven and Dark Ritual in the same deck, you can't judge a strategy and an enabler based on the card itself, it has to be based on the available combos it can assemble.
I mean, Survival of the Fittest was "fine" until Vengevine showed up, I imagine Gifts Ungiven will be "fine" until a new card puts it in the spot light again.
I recently went Top8 on a GPT with the decklist listed above by Viridia. Gifts is actually not a bad card due to the interaction with Unburial Rites. The only problem we kept having was the Threshold matchup, but adding the two Engineered Explosives did really help the matchup.
The only downside of Gifts is the fact that it costs 4, but it gives you the awesome play of Unburialing Iona (or Elesh if you feel like it). Just like Entreat it's an "oops, I win" card sometimes. Also it's a must-counter spell and following it up with Jace is just awesome.
Giftsing for Revival + Snapcaster + 2 cards you want is cool as well, slow but cool.
Jeroen van Beeck
DCI: 8210489125
Mentor | Blade | LandStill
That's a pretty interesting list. Why is BSZ played over Damnation/WOG? Caused it's shuffled back and can be used repeatedly?
The card Life from the Loam has never been worse. Gifts Ungiven tends to give rise to long, grindy strategies (because otherwise it's a 4 mana draw 2). Loam is the champion of those.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Care to clarify? The deck posted seems quite capable of closing the game.
The BSZ are indeed because they get shuffled back and it's usuable a turn earlier to get rid of Mongoose, MoR, etc. Aswell as being easier to cast to get rid of Thalia.
"Capable of closing a game" is sort of irrelevant. Every deck can close the game out, even Stasis. The question is whether you want to position yourself as the long-term deck or the near-term deck, and the realities of the format are such that near-term decks are better right now. Anusien's point about Loam is true on multiple fronts: cards that reward you for thinking long-term, either by providing incremental advantage that only adds up over multiple turns or requiring a multi-step process to be effective, are bad right now. The current format just does not reward dicking around.
Consider this: if it's closers we're talking about, Gifts is essentially the first step of a way to win the game. Compare this to Jace the Mind Sculptor, who is a win condition all by himself and as such will almost always be better. Sure, Gifts can find non-winning cards, but casting Gifts so you can durdle some more seems terrible both when compared to Intuition (guarantees the card you want when under pressure, and for less mana) or the format at large (durdling is easily punished).
Gifts Ungiven may be a fine card, but there are plenty of cards in this format that are merely fine, and many of those reward you far more than Gifts does for building around them (see: LftL).
By the way, in the UBx control deck listed before, wouldn't Intuition be a better choice, as you could easily add a Gigapedeand make your pile look like Unburial Rites, Iona, Gigapede. You could also play some more G and Loam.
While I love the card, specially if played in control builds, I find Gifts terribly hard to cast if the deck to beat is Thresh.
Are you into Jazz? Have a look at the Lp's I have for sale on Discogs!
RUG was indeed not a great matchup, but with the adding of BSZ and EE it actually became quite abit better.
Intuition isn't Card Advantage tho, and while the Unburial rites pile might be nearly the same, you need both another slot in your deck that doesnt do anything else, aswell as being much worse when trying to get answers, like Gift Piles for Snapcaster - Revival - Jace - BSZ is quite common and insanely strong.
A four-color deck with a 4-mana engine that does not win the game outright. Yikes. It's too greedy fellas. You may be surprised to see how underwhelming Iona or Jace will be after you spend 4+x turns getting it together.
Graveyard hate hurts you - a pure control deck
Aggro has to be tough if they have their own counter suite
I'm seeing a lot of dead cards against storm
Mana denial is a desperate problem. Black Sun's Zenith?
The reason Gifts is not a thing in Legacy is because Legacy decks don't let you get away with any of this stuff.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
I think there's a little margin there, piles that win with 1 or 2 mana could certainly work in a format that features Ad Nauseam and Time Spiral in competitive decks. Though, I suspect that if those piles existed, we'd see them in the wild.
Unless your opponent screws up, most of the win the game piles are worst case 4 mana (or worse). If they screw up, you can often win for 6 total (4 for gifts + 2), but I wouldn't count on my opponent being bad at math. This often means you're paying 8 to win the game vs the following decks:
tutor->pif: 7
ad nauseam: 5
wish->etw: 6
doomsday: 4-6
gifts: 6-8
The downside is that tutor, ad naus, and wish all fuel the same deck. Doomsday, wish->etw, and etw can be paired up too. Gifts might work in a slower ritual shell with the main plan of tutor->pif, but such a list would probably need to run more lands than it'd be worth (and, tbh, most of the time you'd rather just cast some Preordains anyway to skimp on lands.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
This.
Vintage arguments are mostly irrelevant because... this is Legacy. There's a big gap between 3U in Vintage and 3U in Legacy.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
