Are you sure that Gifts is better than Intuition, it's less mana intensive, you still get the cards you want for PiF, it can also be used as a Tutor. I would also consider a Flusterstorm to Merchant Scroll for.
Also how is this an Established Deck but Infect is in Developing.
Well, I can attest that your contributions to this thread have been exceptional.Originally Posted by Lemnear
benthetenor actually updated the first post to include Gitaxian Probe, Cabal Therapy + lands, remove Chrome Mox, and to mention Lightning Bolt in the sideboard options.
I think that benthetenor's frustrations were not directed towards you, and were directed towards previous post. One of the posters in this thread said ANT used Ad Nauseum as the primary kill, and PiF was a backup used after the opponent exhausted his resources stopping AN.
Of course, this is not correct, as the preferred and most common kill is the simple PiF loop, regardless of the meta. The 2nd most common is natural storm with or without an IT chain, and Ad Nauseum comes in at 3rd. Many ANT players run 0 Ad Nauseum in the maindeck and run 1xEmpty (e.g., nevilshute)
If Ad Nauseum actually was the best kill in ANT, this thread would be a total non-starter.
Now that being said, I understand if there are other, non-Ad Nauseum arguments to make this thread a non-starter.
I think it is valuable to have a high-casting cost Storm thread somewhere on the source.
The Gifts shell gives access to an IT target that gives an instant kill when you have excess mana while also supporting Treasure Cruise.
However, as you pointed out, Empty the Warrens allows a similar function, but at a significantly lower mana cost. (e.g, 3R instead of ~8 mana).
That being said, I think a high-casting cost Storm deck could split Empty / Gifts and even Ad Nauseum / TC somewhere in the 75, as the footprint of these cards is minimal on the decklist. I think Empty is an autoinclude in the 75, and I prefer it in the maindeck.
There are a multitude of reasons why this development is very theoretically interesting, and getting insight from storm experts will be crucial for development, so I truly hope you continue posting in this thread.
Lastly, Gifts Ungiven has received almost no mention in the ANT or TES threads, but this deck's innovation of Gifts is so potentially powerful that I may add Gifts to my ANT sideboard, so that against decks like burn or UR Delver, I'll have the Empty, PiF, and Gifts kills available.
TC in traditional Storm is not good because it makes you play without Ad Nauseam (that's ok) and makes all your cabal rituals much more weaker along with PiF (that's not ok).
For this reason, if I had to play TC into a Storm shell, I will test a build starting with 4x Brain Freeze. I know there were some lists around when PiF was spoilered and somebody even placed well sometimes. Maybe it is time to dig for them instead of going for Gifts/Reforge routes.
How can we kill via Gifts without using PiF?
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Ok, so let me get this straight: I test the deck for hundreds of games and decide that I do not like Gitaxian Probe in the deck due to the fact that it's a stronger card in a faster deck (due to being unable to support stronger cards like tutors, and thus relying on cantripping into a solid hand/setup for Past in Flames/etc.), and you don't like that and say it can't possibly be correct in spite of having never played a game with this deck. Then, I cave and decide to test Probe again, having decided that maybe, just maybe, I made a mistake and it's something that deserves a second look, and now you suggest that it means that I didn't even test the deck in the first place? I can't win with you, apparently.
The reason why I did not have Gitaxian Probe in the first deck was because, as the game goes longer, I'd much rather be casting powerful spells rather than spending life/mana to cantrip into powerful spells. Why run Gitaxian Probe when I could run more discard to both look at their hand AND advance my gameplan, or run more tutors and JUST WIN THE GAME rather than durdling around with Gitaxian Probe. I don't need the extra storm, as once I go off, I have literally never had an issue making the storm count. It amounted to paying extra life for an effect I didn't need. I am absolutely not convinced that Gitaxian Probe is correct, so perhaps I shouldn't have updated the decklist, I was just hoping to cut out some of the bitching. Guess that didn't work.
I feel you have NO AUTHORITY to claim how slow or fast this deck is having never played a game with it. If you want to know why the deck has no serious issues with Rest in Peace/Deathrite Shaman/commonly played graveyard hate that I clearly would have run into at this point, perhaps you should stop spouting theory and pick up the damn deck? I can assure you, between 7-8 discard spells, a stocked sideboard, and the ability to win on turn 1, sometimes graveyard hate just doesn't do anything. But then, you can't know how fast this deck can be without having played with it.
But perhaps it's my fault for overstating the speed comparison to ANT in the first few posts. I really hoped you'd at least pick up the deck at some point and get a feel for it yourself to see what kind of speed this deck has. It can win on turn 1, just like ANT and TES. It kills on turn 3 more consistently than ANT, thanks entirely to casting Gifts Ungiven rather than wasting the turn setting up with cantrips. Turn 2 is not difficult. In fact, the most common line of play for me is turn 1 discard spell, turn 2 cantrip and discard spell, turn 3 win. The next most common play for me is turn 1 cantrip, turn 2 discard spell and win.
I can understand a desire to understand the theoretical benefits of one deck over the other, but if you don't ever pick up the deck to test your theories, you're just masturbating.
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On Topic:
I think using Gifts in Legacy Storm is an interesting idea.
I'm not a Vintage player, so can anyone explain how one would win with Gifts using the list in the OP?
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 10-13-2014 at 03:38 PM.
Rule of thumb: search out what you lack for your combo. Example: Make a pile of DR/CR/PIF with the last slot being either IT/ToA/Discard depending on your hand. If played eot you have suddenly the Tutor + Rituals + PIF + disruption available for your turn. Biggest issue in Legacy compared to Vintage is that giving you the mana into your hand to flashback/play PIF is an obvious no-go and that you have no quick, permanent mana sources like Moxen to fuel the initial costs of Gifts & PIF
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So we should aim for Gifts at end of turn, and win the turn after.
This raises some questions:
- How do we find Gifts in the first place? Infernal won't work most of the time, because...
- Winning on the same turn as we cast Gifts costs waay too much mana. Like, Dragonstorm mana. Or do I miss something?
- (Ignore if q1 gets valid answer.) So if we don't find Gifts, why not just play a few extra? Tuning a deck around a one-of we cannot relyably search for other than with cantrips seems bad.
All of the questions you asked roll into this. I'll admit, it is satisfying to cast Gifts, but it's unplayed for a reason. There may be some brilliant plan where we all smack our foreheads and exclaim "it was right in front of us the whole time!", but this isn't it. Ad Nauseam kicks a mean dick.
1) Merchant Scroll and cantrips are really the only way to find it.
2) It does in fact cost Dragonstorm mana. Tutor+Gifts Ungiven+Past in Flames unless you cast it the turn before. Then it's only Dragonstorm mana over two turns.
3) The problem with loading up on Gifts Ungiven is the same problem that has existed all through the history of Magic. Dead cards.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
In all Fairness, Gifts isn't a business Spell, it's another Tutor which also dumps Ritual in the graveyard as a side-effect. It isn't intended to cast Gifts + PIF in one turn. Gifts interacts poorly with LED which makes it a lackluster to draw either early in the game or in combination with the poor Mans Lotus
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Right. So it's basically a grave dependent tutor that can only be used before going off, and costs four mana. That's quite a few limitations. OP, sell this to me. How is this good? What are your reaons to want this instead of the other options in Storm?
(Note: I did read the entire thread.)
Jesus Tap-dancing Christ, let's try not to turn this thread into UW Tempo: The Revengeance. Those guys got banned for a reason.
Good, so now that we are no longer in the "Established Deck" section, we can actually talk about the deck without that distraction.
Lemnear, this deck wins turn 1 much the same that ANT wins turn 1, meaning it's not something you do all the time but sometimes the opportunity is there. It involves a hand of a land, fast mana and Infernal Tutor. Really not all that difficult to set up. You just go through the PiF chain and count to 10. Not magical Christmasland. I'd say it happens roughly one game in ten or fifteen. Even when it's there, it's often preferable to wait on a discard spell or cantrip into one, but the point is that it's not a ridiculous feat. If you believe this deck to be ANT with no Ad Nauseam, then you have to accept that it will sometimes get draws like ANT.
I understand how Gitaxian Probe works to make the deck smaller. What I am saying is that running Thoughtseize and Gitaxian Probe and Fetchlands and Grim Tutor is a lot of life to give up for free, and that there are actual costs to running the card. One of those costs is that you have to cut 4 cards from an already tight 60 card list, and a lot of the cards that are on the chopping block are cards I'd like to be casting, rather than hoping that the card I would tutor for is sitting on top of the deck, for instance. There's a reason why not every deck ever plays Gitaxian Probe, and the benefits that it gives to other combo decks in Legacy (information, smaller deck, life being irrelevant, not a great topdeck, filling the graveyard) are not things I'm really in the market for with this deck as I already have it all covered very, very well. I understand that it interacts well with Past in Flames and Cabal Ritual and Treasure Cruise. I need you to understand that the cards I'm putting in in place of Gitaxian Probe interact even better because they do all the same thing while actually advancing my gameplan.
As for winning against graveyard hate, there are two different gameplans:
1) pre-board - graveyard hate is practically non-existant aside from Deathrite Shaman. In the case that I can't get DRS from hand with Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize, and that I can't win before DRS is active, the plan is to either overload DRS by having two tutors in hand when we go off, just like ANT would do in a PiF chain, or to ignore DRS with the slot currently taken up with Reforge the Soul. I know you don't like Reforge the Soul, and I agree it is much weaker than Ad Nauseam, but it's not all that difficult to wheel into fast mana, a discard spell and a tutor as that's literally all that is in the deck. I don't need to start over storm-wise as I've likely already used 5-6 storm just setting up Reforge the Soul (and will have a lot of mana floating, given that I've cast lots of rituals and LEDs), so a piece of fast mana, a discard spell and a tutor is all I need to hit off of 7 new cards for lethal, and it happens well over 80% of the time that I go for that plan. And against the decks like Jund that have DRS but no counterspells, that plan gets much, much easier since I don't have to hit or cast discard.
2) post-board - being able to board in 5-6 specific cards to deal with their hate cards, whether by guessing for game 2 or after having seen them going into game 3, goes a long way towards blanking their ability to beat me. This deck does not require threshold to be built over time, and is extremely capable of going from no graveyard to threshold in the span of one turn, so going eot bounce your graveyard hate, untap and win is the plan. Again, this is assuming I don't have a chance to hit their graveyard hate with discard spells first, and that I can't win before they get theirs down.
All of this can be easily accomplished by turn 4, turn 5 at the latest. All that is required is a bounce spell and an extra turn. That gives me plenty of time to play around Daze/Spell Pierce while still being able to win before Delver of Secrets beats me.
As for using Gifts, it is very true that it can be played eot to setup a strong kill on the next turn, but that's not how I usually use it, and Lemnear I would appreciate if you didn't tell people what kind of plays you should be making with this deck when you have yourself never played this deck. For instance, I would literally never put Tendrils of Agony into a Gifts pile. There's just no reason to expose it and there is always a more efficient card you could get. The reason why it's usually not correct to cast it end of turn is that, usually when you can do that, you actually had the ability to cast it on the turn proceeding and just win, so what you've done by spreading it over two turns is given the opponent an extra card and the ability to untap and defend himself. The vast majority of the time that I cast Gifts, I will have a hand that will look something like Gifts, LED, Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, blank x3 (cantrips or discard or lands). So what ends up happening there is I use my turn to cast LED, cast Gifts off of Dark Ritual and a land, and I set up two pieces of fast mana, a tutor and Past in Flames. No matter what they give me, my hand is still Cabal Ritual with three mana floating, threshold, and whatever other cards he gave me off of Gifts. From there winning is academic. Or if I have the tutor in hand, I'll Gifts for the big three accelerants and Past in Flames and I will always get at least one accelerant to go along with my tutor in hand. If he gives me LED and Past in Flames, I just use the LED to discard Past in Flames and cast it from the graveyard. There is literally no bad thing that can happen to me once Gifts resolves.
It's also very, very important to point out that, given that Gifts Ungiven is a one-of in this deck, this is not a Gifts Ungiven deck. The idea that I have to cast Gifts Ungiven to win is false; it is just a very, very strong tutor that gets me exactly what I need everytime I cast it. I am toying with the idea of a second one, but it's really not the most important part of the deck. My reasoning for wanting to play Gifts Ungiven in a storm deck is because it completely eliminates the chances of wanting to cast Past in Flames and not having the resources to kill from there. With ANT, there exist games where you cast Past in Flames and have to use cantrips to actually draw your way into a kill. That does not happen with Gifts Ungiven because you've already searched up everything you need and it's sitting right in your graveyard, waiting for you.
Finally, adding Gifts Ungiven to this deck does nothing to add dead cards to the deck. All of the cards I find with Gifts Ungiven are all cards I'd be playing anyway. Playing Gifts simply ensures that I will have all of those cards exactly when I need them.
You mean preceeding, I presume? I hope I have explained clearly enough in the next bits why there are only few situations where casting Gifts will win the game on the spot.
That's quite the hand. This needs serious time and cantripping to set up.
Okay so your Gifts pile is Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Past in Flames. If they hand you Tutor and PiF, you will need a lot to go off. After Gifts, going off requires R3 + B1 + BB2, plus all mana you need to cast and recast your Rituals. I wasn't kidding when I mentioned Dragonstorm mana. This requires indeed LED, Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual with Threshold. And Flashbacking both Rituals. Without these Rituals this doesn't work. Note that you probably need the Dark Ritual to cast Gifts in the first place. This is a VERY demanding set-up.
True, but all I said is that when you tune a deck to work with Gifts, and you have no way to actually find it, you may want to play multiple copies. Playing just one kind of tells us sceptics that you don't really believe in it, and that you are basically trying Gifts instead of Lim-Duls Vault/2nd Grim Tutor, as was suggested earlier. The bigger difference of your list compared to ANT is the inclusion of Treasure Cruise, which -surprisingly- has only sparked half of a discussion. Obviously TC and Ad Nauseam don't like eachother much, and Ad Nauseam is VERY powerfull, but so is Cruise, so let's focus on that.
To make Cruise -or its counterpart Dig Through Time- work, we need to fill up the yard with stuff. You mentiond you don't really like the suggested Gitaxian Probe, but let's face it, not many cards work better when you want to fill up the yard as soon as you can. I would definitely recommend 4x Probe in a Storm list that utilises the Dredge mechanic. Apart from that notion, I would like to suggest you thoroughly test TC against DTT. I feel the latter should be much better in a combo shell. You need specific cards, and getting 2 chosen cards out of the top 7 is almost always better than a random 3. The additional cost of U can be an issue, but still both are turn 3 earliest, and you should have two blue lands by then.
I was in the process of writing a post to explain the Gifts engine, but the OP addressed several of the misunderstandings.
However, I believe the way I organized my response will help explain why Gifts is in the deck. The OP didn't outline in detail the kill, which is understandable as the kill requires you to evaluate contingencies. I repeat, the deck can kill with Gifts WITHOUT ToA / IT by using Gifts to net mana and cast a free PiF, which you use to recast your cantrips. The free PiF happens to allow you to deterministically kill if you hit ToA/IT/GT in the early game, but this isn't necessary.
(note, I didn't come up with this kill, it was developed by benthetenor (the OP), I just played the OP's list and encountered it in my first game. Furthermore, I am very inexperienced with using this kill, as I only started trying this deck on Saturday. So, my detailed explanation of Gifts with mana requirements may be incorrect, as I usually play ANT).
There was a significant amount of discussion claiming that Gifts was a slow tutor that did "nothing" and "seemed bad." I implore you to read this post and the OP's recent post on Gifts, as it is completely impossible to discuss this deck without understanding the Gifts kill, which is not simple. I believe the OP requested players to play the list because seeing the way the deck can kill with Gifts isn't obvious, as one of the main things the deck does is generate BBBBBBBUUU with an active PiF, which enables you to cantrip around for your kill. (you should have TC / Ponder / BS / etc in your yard).
If I showed you a Doomsday list and didn't understand the deck, you'd think I was an idiot running cards like 4x SDT and 1x Ideas Unbound. Calling Gifts "slow" is a similar level of misunderstanding - it enables an ANT style kill. Remember, most of ANT's kills use PiF or IT Chains, not Ad Nauseum. I know we've discussed this a lot, but there seems to be a bit of confusion about how ANT operates from non-Storm players.
Summary
Gifts can be used to generate a Past in Flames kill with similar (but different) mana requirements seen in a standard ANT PiF kill. The "kill" generates around 10 mana, 3 of which is blue. If you have your kill in hand or graveyard (IT/GT/ToA), you immediately win. If you don't, you use the 10 mana to cast a cantrip/Cruise chain into IT/GT/ToA. Care has to be taken not to kill yourself by Treasure Cruising into lands w/o an LED to turn on IT.
This kill doesn't rely on the graveyard being appropriately stocked. Furthermore, Gifts has utility in situations not
What Gifts is NOT
Gifts is NOT typically a slow setup card. I have used it as such on occasion, but this is quite rare. When you do use it, you probably have a hand without rituals and are missing threshold.
This is actually a pretty awesome side effect of Gifts, as it lets a hand light on Rituals jump up to 2 Rituals in hand with +4 cards in the yard. (assuming you used a ritual to cast Gifts).
Details
As the OP explained, Gifts can be used in a fashion similar to Infernal Tutor to act as a kill spell. As the OP explained, you never actually Gifts for Tendrils during normal game play. There are several reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that you literally cannot, as your first Gifts pile should contain PiF and 3 mana sources, meaning that when you flashback PiF you've exhausted the deck's PiF. Even if you could, in storm decks of this variety you don't want to "expose" ToA (as the OP mentioned) to a card like DRS, which is an automatic loss if you're running the 0x Empty list. (which is the OP's version). Note this is how the "stock" ANT list is constructed, Slosh and nevilshute bucked this trend, but those players moved Ad Nauseum to the board and run highly unusual lists. I believe Slosh actually runs a 61 card list, and both players frequently experiment with 2x SDT maindeck. (nevilshute runs 60)
In a deck like this, finding Grim Tutor / Infernal Tutor is our surrogate for fetching ToA. The draw power of this deck is pretty extreme, so you can TC / Ponder / BS into your ToA during your combo turn (discussed later)
I think part of the problem with this thread is that the Gifts kill is a little hard to spot.
It has requirements similar to several Past in Flames requirements, but unlike the Past in Flames requirements, allows a lot of soft kills during your "combo turn." These "soft kills" involve casting draw spells (e.g., Treasure Cruise) after you've started comboing out (like traditional, non-legacy storm combo decks). So, the Gifts "kill" is really a storm machine which nets you mana and gives you a free PiF, which enables you to draw into IT/GT if you don't have it, or just win. If the deck were constructed slightly differently and used multiple PiFs/ToAs + cards Thoughtscour, you could mill a win con a little easier and use that prior to Gifting, but that isn't part of this deck's current game plan. (prior to adopting Gifts, I experimented with this strategy. CalebD recently wrote an article on channelfireball where he uses this).
Gifts is indeed a business spell in this list and has mana requirements similar to the PiF loops.
I only started playing this list over the weekend. However, in my first game playing the deck ever, I actually used the Gifts kill, which is why I am so enthusiastic about this decklist. I have played a lot Doomsday and ANT in the past, and "seeing the win" with a new storm mechanism is totally exciting.
An Example Gifts Kill with Mana Costs Similar to some ANT PiF Kills
This deck can often use Gifts during the Combo turn as variant quasi-infernal tutor, and at a similar mana cost as a standard PIF kill. Normal PiF kills require around 8 mana (obviously it drops to 7 if your yard / hand is stocked).
Here is such an example:
You have zero LEDS, but access to 8 mana.
Cast Gifts with access to 4 mana, ideally BBUR.
A note on notation: "f" means "flashback."
Gifts Pile = [PiF, DR, CR, other mana source]
(other mana source = usually LED)
If you get PiF, LED (the worst combo), you use LED to discard PiF, cast PiF floating Bx*
in detail:
Gifts: BBUR floating/access.
Allow gifts to resolve, get handed LED and PiF
Cast LED: BBUR (floating from before, LED costs zero)
Activate LED, discarding PiF: BBB BBUR (In this kill, I will exchange "x" with "U", as at this point you just need it to be blue)
Cast PiF: BU
DR: BBBU
CR: B BBBBBU
At this point, if you have anything in your graveyard like ToA / IT / GT, you win. You likely used a DR / CR to cast Gifts in the first place, but if you didn't, if you have one in the yard you can set yourself up to recast 3 Cantrips while floating around 8 black mana, meaning that if you hit your tutor / ToA you win.
Here is the rest of the sequence:
(One DR in GY)
fDR: BBBBBBBBU
fGifts: BBBBB [LED, IT, GT, CR]
If you get IT or GT, you instantly win.
If you get LED+CR, you can get to
BBBBBBBBUUU with an PiF active, and that should be enough to TC / Ponder / BS into a kill.
If you get IT / GT, you of course instantly win
Summary of the example Gifts Kill
So, if you have the ability to generate 8 mana w/ Gifts in hand, you actually have the ability to generate 10 mana with an active Past in Flames. This puts Gifts at +2 mana and a free cast Past in Flames.
For a meaningful analysis of the utility of Gifts, it's useful to compare it to IT, which we typically think of as the best tutor in legacy. (BW is good too!). This deck already runs 4 IT, so it's not like we're cutting one for Gifts, but the comparison illustrates that Gifts is actually very powerful.
Comparison to Infernal Tutor (IT)
What does IT do? IT usually uses 7 or 8 mana (depends on your hand) to generate a ~7-9 storm, then kills with Tendrils. In practice, you usually don't have to fret the storm count and easily reach the 10 storm, because the combo turn usually involves fighting over dark rituals and/or you casting Cabal Therapy (exception involves things like Batterskull). Of course, if you have enough mana, you can IT->IT before PiF, which enables the flashbacked IT for IT-> CR, which increases the storm count by 3. (of course, you can also just toss 2 mana for 1 storm at will with IT->IT).
For IT to work, you need 3 rituals/LEDs, or you need 1 CR and 1 other ritual with threshold.
For Gifts to work, you need 1 ritual ONLY, and that ritual can even be in your yard. (now, you still need 8 mana, which is a lot, which practically makes the ritual count similar between to the two kills. However, with Gifts, you can use lands, LP, or LED for as much mana as you like as long as you have 1 Ritual in the yard. This is nicer when you're up against Hymn / Thoughtseize / Ravenscrime / opposing ANT players who destroy your hand)
In summary, the Gifts kill (without other cards in hand, such as IT) allows a Tutor-less, ritual-light hand to basically generate +2 mana and flashback everything in its graveyard. Its overall cost is similar to the IT PiF cost.
On the other hand, if you have good stuff in hand or yard (IT), you get a deterministic kill with no worries. This can be really nice, as IT*2 while holding 1x DR is actually not that great, but IT+ GU with DR is insane.
An Even Cheaper Gifts Kill (7 mana, same as IT->Ad Nauseum)
(credit to Mhenlo and to the deck's creator)
If you have an Infernal Tutor in your graveyard, you lower the mana requirements by 1 mana of any color.
Cast Gifts with access to 3 mana, ideally BBR.
Gifts Pile = [PiF, DR, CR, other mana source]
(other mana source = usually LED)
If you used a DR, storm count is 2
If you get PiF, LED (the worst combo), you use LED to discard PiF, cast PiF floating Bx*
in detail:
Gifts: BBR floating/access.
Allow gifts to resolve, get handed LED and PiF
Cast LED: BBR, storm 3 (floating from before, LED costs zero)
Activate LED, discarding PiF: BBB BBR (In this kill, I will exchange "x" with "U", as at this point you just need it to be blue)
Cast PiF: B, storm 4
DR: BBB, storm 5
CR: B BBBBBB, storm 6
IT: B BBBB, storm 7
If you go for ToA, you get 16 lifeloss.
Note: if you have a disruption spell in your hand or graveyard, you hit 18 lifeloss here, and the way you made your 4UBR may involve freshly cast LP / LED, making the requisite storm likely here.
If you go for LED rather than ToA, things get exciting, as you can flashback Gifts.
At this point, we need to know the exact decklist, as having 2x GU and 2x PiF actually allows for a deterministic kill here. (fairly long solution).
Not having 2x GU + 2x PiF involves a terribly complicated scenario where you have the option to make a Gifts pile that forces your opponent to hand you an [LED,CR], meaning you'll be floating 4 blue mana (with a billion black mana) and an active PiF. At this point, playing correctly here requires a bit of research, as you're giving yourself a ton of mana and an active past in flames but at the cost depleting tutors from the deck. Rather than state the correct solution, I'll state that the possibility to do 30+ storm exists, but it won't be deterministic unless we modify the list to add +1 GU + 1 PiF.
Gifts as IT #5
In a sense, because IT and Gifts are both kill cards, you can sort of think of as Gifts as IT #5. This is different from a tutor which digs for IT. (e.g., Gifts isn't some slow clunker like Personal Tutor).
However, when you draw both IT and Gifts, Gifts allows you to stock up on Rituals and/or disruption and at instant speed.
This has some interesting advantages over multiple ITs. When you get multiple ITs, you usually IT to clone a Ritual. (a hand with multiple ITs is likely Ritual light). On your combo turn, this is a pretty cool because a common way to natural 20 your opponent is to use the spare IT to generate +2 storm>
This is HIGHLY relevant in the 2014 metagame because Delver is now dealing 2-4 damage to itself with a very high frequency, and many Delver variants are sporting good graveyard disruption in their 75.
On your combo turn, Gifts will net you mana with
[LED, DR, CR, RoF] (if you run Rain of Filth). If you don't, it'll still ensure you reach Threshold, and will certainly ensure that IT-> PiF is lethal
Gifts Interrupted - Slight Protection against Conditional Counters
One difference between Gifts and IT->PiF, is that when you're operating on exactly 8 mana, Gifts is slightly better against Daze on occasion. I had a game vs Delver where my opponent couldn't interact with me via Daze until after Gifts resolved, which is a better situation to be in than an IT chain initiating, as Gifts fueled my yard so much that a drawn ritual allowed me to resume going off on a later turn.
I believe this scenario is likely fairly rare, but did occur.
Utility with Merchant Scroll
The OP didn't explicitly mention this, but in his current decklist, he includes a singleton blue bounce spell. Because Gifts is a kill card, this means that cards that search for blue instants can do double duty and either search for a utility card or for a kill spell.
The issue of running Merchant Scroll is very controversial in this thread, and I personally prefer to start it in the board, and I am open to cutting it entirely.
However, it compresses the sideboard and makes a singleton like Hurkyl's / Rebuild or a singleton Flusterstorm go up in value. (e.g., against Storm you board in Merchant + Flusterstorm, because the games typically involve both players whrecking each other's hands, but the nature of LED/LP / graveyard thresh allows you to accumulate mana resources on the board).
Sadly, this deck doesn't really combo with SDT, which is obviously the most busted card to use with Flusterstorm in the storm mirror, but that isn't the topic for this post.
Some Implications
The Gifts kill becomes totally deterministic when you have an IT / GT / ToA in the yard. This increases the value of Thoughtscour / Mental note / other self mill cards, which in turn increases the value of making the deck graveyard dependent. Something to note when you think about this list.
Last edited by Garritano; 10-14-2014 at 04:25 AM. Reason: Clarified that the LED used to cast PiF is a result of the Gifts Pile. Fixed an error regarding mana requirements - it's BBUR if you have 0 LEDs, not BBBx
If you had that much mana wouldn't Ad Nauseam be just as good?
I'd probably run a second Past in Flames before a 2nd Gifts. Also I'd think you should have the 4th Probe over the CoV.
I'd probably run a more TNT w/ Gifts version.
-1 Grim Tutor
-2 Treasure Cruise
-1 Reforge the Soul
-1 Tendrils of Agony
+3 Burning Wish
+1 Ad Nauseam
+1 Empty
You might want to consider 1 Rain of Filth in your list for Treasure Cruise.
I think it happens more often than one would expect.
That's quite the hand. This needs serious time and cantripping to set up.
I think with this exact hand you only need 8 mana. ANT requires 8 mana in this same situation. CR+Flashback can allow you to drop to 7 mana, but 8 mana out of ANT is fine.
This deck runs the standard Storm Engine.
The reason the OP (and now me as well apparently) constantly talk about Ad Nauseum is that ANT doesn't use Ad Nauseum to win that often, it uses PiF. This deck has the PiF engine completely in tact, no cards missing. You don't need Gifts to win, period. Gifts allows you to act as IT #5 for a PiF kill in addition to providing many other things to the table.
Seriously, you could put a Kobold in the Ad Nauseum slot and ANT would still be a strong deck. Gifts happens to have combo footprint similar to IT. IT is the reason ANT is a deck, and not because IT gets Ad Nauseum...because IT gets PiF, which costs negative 2BB, adds 3-5 storm, and puts ToA in your hand.
Gifts has other advantages over Ad Nauseum. Yes, Ad Nauseum is a more powerful card, and yes, drawing it is awesome because it means you're going to turn 1 kill. However, Ad Nauseum sucks turn 3+ against a huge percentage of the field, most notably Delver. I don't know if Slosh does, but a lot of ANT players have discussed boarding -Ad Nauseum against decks like RUG Delver, and UR Delver is A LOT faster than RUG Delver.
I actually agree, and run 4x GP when I test this list.
I had the same gut reaction and tried it in Doomsday, didn't like it. I haven't tried it in the Gifts PiF shell because of the importance of UU. UU during your combo turn is crazy hard to do unless you're using an LED with PiF
Wait, whaaaat?
You have 4 mana floating after casting Gifts, and you didn't even crack LED?
You have got to be kidding me! That means the LED would net you 11 mana!
That's Wish into Dragonstorm mana!
This is a turn 5 kill consistently. Earliest.
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