4c Gifts Control

[Valtrix]

Sweet! I'm happy to hear that it worked out well for you. Any gives deck definitely requires a lot of experience, and 4c decks are really tough on mana decisions. As for burn, Iona is supposed to be your trump card in the SB. With so much discard/counters/Iona I think that managing burn should not be difficult. It's probably worth running 1 siege Rhino in the main even in the BUG version so that you at least have something to rites for against burn...Thragtusk is probably the even better choice though.

I really like the BUG version--it actually plays our pretty well I think. At the moment there's not really a "standard" build, or at least one that is really proven, so I'm messing around with a bunch of different configurations for awhile. My testing is far from intense, but testing out different conceptual configurations gives me an idea of how they play out. I really like that the BUG deck always seems to have answers, but sometimes it can take awhile to win. I think Tasigur should be a good slot into the BUG version, and want to make room for him too in my junk-beater version too.

Rhino is just so good, he's hard to not play, if only because you need answers to opposing rhinos...I think the BUG version needs to be updated to address the new meta, namely junk. I'm not completely certain what the solution to that MU is. Grave Titan? More creatures? I don't really know. But, for better or worse it's everywhere so I get plenty of chances to try against it.

I think that a more controlly BUG version is better in a more combo-heavy meta, and the Junk-Gifts version is probably better in the fair meta. I need to play more Junk-gifts though and figure out how BUG would update first though to really understand if this is the case.

[Jakobian]

Hi everyone, I've been testing/tweaking a 4c gifts control list lately. Haven't played a ton of sanctioned games with it yet, but I went 2-1-1 at a LGS weekly event with it. The draw was vs. a control matchup who was kind of slow playing and I didn't have a good way to have a fast clock on board for game 1, and he didn't do anything to advance the board state either so I didn't want to scoop. Here's the list, I'm open to feedback/criticism as long as it's warranted. I'm running bring to light so that's why the list is what it is.


3 birds of paradise
3 bring to light
4 gifts ungiven
2 Farseek
2 path to exile
1 lingering souls
1 abrupt decay
1 sultai charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Catch // Release
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Jace, Vryn's prodigy
1 unburial rites
1 life from the loam
1 raven's crime
1 engineered explosives

1 Thragtusk
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Siege Rhino
1 Eternal Witness
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Snapcaster Mage

3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 breeding pool
1 urborg tomb of yawgmoth
1 plains
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp
1 creeping tar pit
1 academy ruins
1 tectonic edge
1 ghost quarter
1 horizon canopy

Sideboard:
1 Slaughter Games
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Spellskite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Detention Sphere
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Day's Undoing
1 Bojuka Bog

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Oh crap, you get to BTL the 3cmc half of the split card and then cast the other half? Hadn't seen that yet, very cool.

Other thoughts
- I prefer caryatid for burn/zoo but I can certainly see the appeal of farseek when running 2 snaps and a Jace (not to mention the wraths)
- I'd rather play celestial colonnade over horizon canopy since the pain can be a real issue and a cycle at the cost of a land is a pretty big deal in a deck that wants to use it's mana as badly as this one does. I usually played the 2 tar-pit 1 colonnade split.
- Are 7 fetches enough? I still had problems with fixing mana at 8 fetches and only two colorless lands (25 lands total if I remember right).
- Not really a fan of siege rhino or metamorph. I would usually play dorks or high impact cards and nothing in between since the deck has a complete lack of pressure. Metamorph is an interesting BTL target but I'm having trouble imaging something that couldn't be answered by another 4 mana or less card already in the deck. What are your thoughts on including it?
- I wish batterskull was still playable in the k-command world. I used to love grinding with gifts piles of loam, ruins, EE, and batterskull.

Sweet list! I might play around with it on MTGO a little bit.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Posted in the other thread but this one works too. I went 3-1 with this deck a couple days ago, here's my current list:

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
3 Bring to Light
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Damnation
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Unburial Rites
3 Lingering Souls
1 Raven's Crime
1 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Primal Command

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Siege Rhino
4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy


4 Marsh Flats
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Blighted Fen
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt

I'm not really a fan of the Catch // Release play as being a control deck and casting a spell that loses me a Wall and Land is probably not what I want to be doing, and there are a lot of potential targets with BtL, the challenge is cutting out the ones you don't need. Siege Rhino is great as a 4 color target with BtL since sometimes you can't find red, and he's in there for the life gain. It used to be Thragtusk, but I think SR is just slightly better since it gives you the 4cmc BtL option and sometimes you can't get to 5 mana fast enough against burn. I also put in Primal Command as an all around card advantage engine, giving 7 life and a rhino against red or bouncing a land and grabbing a creature against something like tron. Jace is ridiculously good in this deck, as we play enough cards that are bad in certain matchups that he'll just filter you into the good. It's worth playing him even though he's the only one with a target on his head. Sigarda is my current choice for the grindy matchups, and is particularly good against Tron and their newer Ugin heavy strategies.

Sideboard options currently include at least: 1 Acidic Slime for BtL-> Primal Command -> bounce + grab AS. 1 Crumble to Dust as a different route depending on the situation. 1 Keranos, God of Storms for the really grindy matchups like Lantern Control or UW Control. Fracturing Gust + Creeping Corrosion and Wrath of God + Supreme Verdict. The rest is depending on what I expect to face.

[Jakobian]

Oh crap, you get to BTL the 3cmc half of the split card and then cast the other half? Hadn't seen that yet, very cool.

Other thoughts
- I prefer caryatid for burn/zoo but I can certainly see the appeal of farseek when running 2 snaps and a Jace (not to mention the wraths)
- I'd rather play celestial colonnade over horizon canopy since the pain can be a real issue and a cycle at the cost of a land is a pretty big deal in a deck that wants to use it's mana as badly as this one does. I usually played the 2 tar-pit 1 colonnade split.
- Are 7 fetches enough? I still had problems with fixing mana at 8 fetches and only two colorless lands (25 lands total if I remember right).
- Not really a fan of siege rhino or metamorph. I would usually play dorks or high impact cards and nothing in between since the deck has a complete lack of pressure. Metamorph is an interesting BTL target but I'm having trouble imaging something that couldn't be answered by another 4 mana or less card already in the deck. What are your thoughts on including it?
- I wish batterskull was still playable in the k-command world. I used to love grinding with gifts piles of loam, ruins, EE, and batterskull.

Sweet list! I might play around with it on MTGO a little bit.

I'm contemplating replacing birds with sakura tribe elder to buy a bit more time and still accelerate me (especially with all the sweepers I'm running). Might have to play around with how many basics I play if I do that though. I am on the brink of cutting the horizon canopy already, so maybe I will replace it with a colonnade. I initially had a knight of the reliquary in the list, and canopy got a bit more mileage with knight.

I haven't had many issues with the number of fetches, since I run the 2 farseeks and 3 birds of paradise for additional mana fixing. I am considering changing the flooded strand into another marsh flats or different fetchland.

Siege Rhino and metamorph are both not solidified slots in the list. I was thinking metamorph + Academy ruins can be good in some situations, and Metamorph copying any threat could be handy. Copying a thragtusk, siege rhino, baneslayer angel, or an opponent's primeval titan or wurmcoil engine. I had a really weird scenario happen where my opponent had multiple lords pumping his team, and I copied my own elesh norn with metamorph so they all momentarily got -4/-4 (which wiped their board), then I sacrificed the metamorph to the legend rule. Obviously that's not a common scenario, but there are some corner cases where metamorph doing tricks could be useful.

BTW The Catch//Release just seemed like a good answer to planeswalkers, it's sort of a pet card so I figured why not. I looked for other ways to abuse the bring to light split card interaction but I decided I probably don't want to cast Boom // Bust.

Thanks a lot for your input, it's helping me confirm some things I was sort of figuring out thus far.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I went 3-1 with the deck I posted above last night. Changes I'm going to make are:

-1 Bring to Light
-1 Primal Command
+2 Siege Rhino

and then some switches to the sideboard. Siege rhino does a lot of work against a lot of decks and is just really hard to deal with. I actually won a match off the back of Siege Rhino in 2 games in the same match. Protecting him and hitting for 7 a turn (with a Tar Pit) was enough of a clock to stop an Abzan deck going the Gavony Township + Lingering Souls late game route that I would have gotten buried under. Bring to Light is still very good, but I think I can replace 1 of them with a Siege Rhino and make the curve a bit better. I won't drop it below 2, the card had been amazing. Primal Command was just underwhelming, it was in as a swiss army knife but just ended up sitting in my hand or never being searched for.

Possibly also:
-1 Path to Exile
+1 Abrupt Decay

I'm sick of seeing mana dorks or early threats that I really want to kill give the opponent mana ramp. 2 Path is probably fine to deal with the big fat threats, and abrupt decay has better game against decks that actually use noncreature nonland permanents. I don't think costing 2 instead of 1 is going to be too big of a deal, except against the decks where my additional Siege Rhinos will help me out.

[Jakobian]

Hello again, after going 0-3 Sunday, I modified my list to what is posted below. I went 3-1 with this build yesterday and I punted a game vs the opponent I lost to, so I should have been 4-0 technically. I really really love the changes I made.



3 Sakura Tribe Elder
2 Farseek
3 bring to light
4 gifts ungiven
3 inquisition of kozilek
2 snapcaster mage
2 lingering souls
2 path to exile
1 abrupt decay
1 sultai charm
1 maelstrom pulse
1 damnation
1 wrath of god
1 elesh norn, grand Cenobite
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Siege Rhino
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Thragtusk
1 supreme verdict
1 Jace, Vryn's prodigy
1 unburial rites
1 life from the loam
1 raven's crime
1 engineered explosives


3 misty rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
1 Marsh flats
1 flooded strand
1 godless shrine
1 temple garden
1 hallowed fountain
1 stomping ground
2 breeding pool
1 urborg tomb of yawgmoth
1 plains
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp
1 creeping tar pit
1 overgrown tomb
1 academy ruins
1 tectonic edge
1 ghost quarter
1 celestial colonnade


Sideboard
2 timely reinforcements
1 Sigarda, host of herons
1 crumble to dust
1 creeping corrosion
1 abrupt decay
1 detention sphere
1 spellskite
1 keranos, god of storms
1 negate
1 Iona, shield of emeria
1 Dispel
1 bojuka bog
1 Slaughter Games