Writing articles can be difficult if you are lacking in inspiration, as I do now. For the last few weeks I have been struggling to find something to write about. Nothing has seemed exciting enough to give you, the eager and dedicated readers, something worthy to make your brains tick. All I have been working on since the fading of my too often talked about Blue Tron from the irrelevant Standard scene has been Extended. However, I doubt it would do my team justice to talk about my preparations for LA, so what can I say about this new and interesting format?
Before Ravnica came out it looked very stagnant, as MODO ensured that there were lots of very good, though well known archetypes. After we ran them against each other it seemed very old news. Then the bannings came and Aether Vial and Disciple of the Vault disappeared from the scene. All of a sudden the very dominant Ravager deck nearly vanished and Goblins seemed to take a knee to the groin. Tog and Scepter Chant decks reared their heads at the thought of being able to Counterspell threats again. The Vials elope left a lot of good tier two decks from working like WW and other aggressive creature decks.
When all seemed lost, Ravnica shook its mane and roared. It brought, in its very first and very early preview, the new dual lands. Temple Garden and its Ravnica brethren opened doors to the golden realm of old where everything and its imaginary friend were not only viable but a very dangerous threat. The return of Bayou, Savannah, Plateau and Underground Sea, albeit it expensive forms, combined with the fetchlands of Onslaught allowed any deck to run a healthy mana base that left incredibly flexible deck construction options. A first turn Flooded Strand, which will become a common play in LA I assure you, will give one access to all of Magic’s five colors. O brave new world, that hath such land in it.
Ted asked us if anyone would like to cover Constructed articles for States. He needed someone to do a deck in each of the viable archetypes, pleading for someone to brave control. Recently the thought had occurred to me that far too many people have no idea exactly what it is they should do when they cast a Gifts Ungiven. They just do what they read people often go for, or they screw up really bad. It’s normally the latter on the PTQ scene. I wanted to talk about how to play Gifts correctly by really explaining how the card works, but Jitte block has become a thing of the past and Gifts no longer looked particularly relevant any more. So I accepted the onerous task of trying to bring a good Gifts control deck to a metagame that I knew nothing about and in a format that I knew nothing about. Josh Ravitz quickly sorted me out with what sets would be playable and I was left to myself to figure out what Mirrodin rotating out and Ravnica slotting in would do to change the format. What was now good, what was lost and what would Ravnica bring?
My exact first thoughts were: “All Tron based decks suddenly have nothing to do with their mana, Shackles has gone – kicking Blue in the teeth, Red has been crippled, Jitte and Gifts are the best things since sliced bread, WW is hot and Ravnica will do some crazy stuff with dual land.” I just copy and pasted that from mIRC. Looking back at them to see how right they might be, I don’t think they’re actually that far off. The first part of this article is being written prior to Ravnica’s release so all musings as its effect are, for now, purely theoretical. One big thing that Gifts has lost is Eternal Witness, what it has in its stead is Recollect. We might have to throw a bone to Reclaim if I cannot think of anything better soon. We get Wrath of God, Mana Leak, and even Persecute might get a nod. All in all, Ninth doesn’t seem to have had much effect on Gifts. Wrath might not be reason enough to be White.
Whilst I peered my way back through the Ravnica spoiler keeping an eye in mind purely for States here is what caught my eye: Compulsive Research, Remand, Telling Time, Golgari Thug, I have to admit that Helldozer made me smile evilly, Last Gasp, Moonlight Bargains, Necroplasm, Sins of the Past, obviously Birds, Carven Caryatid, Civic Wayfinder, Elves of Deep Shadow, Farseek, Life from the Loam, the afore mentioned Recollect, thoughts of Dimir Lobotomist and Sensei’s Divining Top in a mirror match amused me, Dark Heart of the Wood left me wondering if would be as good as its successor-come-predecessor Overgrown Estate, would Grave-Shell Scarab be able to contend with the Kamigawa crew, Loxodon Hierarch, was Perplex good and what could it fetch, omfg Putrefy (one can dream of a Jitteless world…), Vulturous Zombie, Dimir Guildmage, Plague Boiler, and, mmmm, dual land.
Those are quite a few cards. I imagine I can dismiss most quite quickly. Only Dredge, Telling Time, Putrefy, Birds of Paradise, Recollect, and potentially some duals look worthy of inclusion. Wow, I just said only; that was plenty cards to go on along with Ninth. The most important thing about Standard right now is that is has the best mana base Standard has had, ever! All of the pain lands, four duals, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kodama’s Reach, BoP and many more helpers. That is more mana consistency than Extended has sometimes had. I just could not be more excited.
Putting Ninth to one side, the most interesting mechanic that seems to find a happy home in Gifts is Dredge. Giftsing for Dredge cards is almost as good as tutoring for them. The Dredge cards that catch one’s eye are the already hyped Life from the Loam, Grave Shell Scarab and Golgari Thug. Unfortunately, Life from the Loam doesn’t have too much to do in Standard, with only Quicksand doing anything vaguely exciting and there is no way that is going to be included due to the deck’s already heavy mana constraints. It does, after boarding, let you effectively tutor up a near unstoppable Boseiju, Who Shelters All but with Recollect and Reclaim this may not be an necessary option. Golgari Thug is interesting; by itself it is not too powerful, given that it has to die to trigger and then it skips you yet another draw step (assuming you dredged it the first time), but he provides infinite creature recursion all by himself, so combined with Kagemaro (a handy way to put the Thug in the bin…), he has the potential to be powerful. I think the Scarab is just an auto inclusion. He recurs all by himself – just throw him into a Gifts mix and he’s all yours.
There are really two ways Gifts can go now: it can follow the Splice/Hana Kami route of Block Constructed, or you can dare to do something more innovative with new cards. The problem with keeping the splice engine is that one has to keep the Arcane count high enough for it to be effective, restricting the number of Putrefys and other new goodies you might have otherwise been able to play. I shall be giving lists on both versions, but focusing more on the non-Splice version as it is newer, more fun and I harbor a sneaky suspicion that it might well play a fourth color; plus everyone and their favorite grandma knows what to do with a Hana Kami.
There are several assumptions that I will be working under that will guide how the decks come together. The first and most important is that I assume the metagame to be almost purely aggressive. The maindeck will be built primarily to beat creature decks and the sideboard will look to more beat the control game. I will be veering away from cards that seem borderline and are new because I do not have enough time to test them all, so forgive me if some cards do not make it. Telling Time will fall into this category, as it just doesn’t seem as good as Top and I am tight enough on slots as it is. The third and final assumption goes against my very nature. I will neglect to take the mirror into account as much as I normally do. My reasoning for this is similar to why I am focusing on beating man-decks, insofar as I do not expect much control and Gifts is a difficult enough deck to play as it is! After much consideration, here is my tentative and loosely tested version of non-Splice Gifts:
Thugathon:
Creatures (15)
- 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
- 3 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
- 1 Golgari Thug
- 1 Grave-Shell Scarab
Lands (23)
Spells (22)
And now for the oh so unsurprising card choice breakdown:
The Goodfellas:
The core sixteen. These guys are never getting cut, they form the rock upon which the rest of the deck is built. With no Splice engine of note, Kodama’s Reach is handily upgraded by the addition of Birds and the rest need no explanation.
The Arsenal:
The removal contingent happily sports its new instant speed Vindicate look-alike, shaving on the number of Hokori-ridding Shoals as their Arcaneness ceases to really matter. The Boiler is one of the more interesting cards the deck has to offer, mainly due to its awesome power against WW and the fact it is the only way of dealing with enchantments main deck; Field and Glorious Anthem mean that the first Gifts will quite probably be to find something like Exile, Boiler, Reclaim and Recollect.
The Bigfellas:
Meloku and Ink-Eyes represent the cream of the crop that the Kamigawa legends had to offer. The Blue Beast is in high contention for the best creature ever and was unfortunately not chosen to be covered in my earlier tribute series. The Scarab means this deck will never run out of gas and for those who have yet to notice some of the sneakiness this deck has to offer, combines rather nicely with Miren to give you a constant stream of life if the situation presents itself. Another combo is Scarab and Top. If you stack the draw effect of the Top and then manipulate the top three you can use the draw effect to Dredge away an unwanted card whist still leaving the Top for the subsequent turn’s draw. Sneaky.
Graveyard goodness:
Recollect and Reclaim are there to be thrown into the Gifts where you desperately need a specific card from the deck: be it Boiler, Laughter, Putrefy, Leak or anything else that grabs your fancy. The deck might want one more Recollect but the card hasn’t proven itself useful enough to be in testing to warrant a third copy – unless you draw a Gifts its power is far from stellar and if you do draw a Gifts then what the hell are you complaining about, the game is already yours! Golgari Thug is probably the most bizarre card in the deck. It is also certainly the weakest as it has few targets to return. It is there primarily to set up an infinite assault of Black Maros and can be used on demand if you have raw dogged the Miren. It gives the deck the late game card advantage that the old Splice engine used to offer. Its Dredge can be used to fill the graveyard full of saucy Recollect targets and might even Dredge your way to on of the decks other men, maybe even the Scarab!
Mana Leak:
This is by far the most questionable card choice. Not only does it put a strain on the mana base, its contribution to the war effort is only subtly appreciated. It was far stronger when I ran Telling Times, as you often left instant mana open but what it still does is give the deck ways of dealing with some of the problem cards the deck has to face – Wildfire, Thoughts of Ruin, Razia’s Purification, Suppression Field, Hokori and the likes. It is also a great utility card that is never frowned upon in an opening hand along with the power sixteen. If I have missed anything in testing, it is likely that these will be the first cards to go. If you are wondering why the Oboro got the nod over an Island, it is yet another card that can be Gifted for and works well with Kagemaro and Exile, and as an extreme, can let you cast a main phase Gifts and then return and play for counter mana (okay, maybe a little far fetched…).
This is by no means a definitive listing. Many cards not present here can make a good argument for their inclusion. For example, White can be squeezed into the deck to improve it against Red. A quick approximation would be -3 Leak, -2 Shoal, -1 Laughter, -1 Kagemaro, +4 Loxodon Hierarch, +2 Wrath of God, +1 Farseek/Kodama’s Reach and the addition of some Temple Gardens and a Plains. Or maybe +3 Hierarch, -1 Kagemaro, –Putrefy, -1 Shoal. The permutations are endless; that last one may even be a very viable sideboard option. One thing though that I will not be doing is describing how to play all of the matchups. Why? Because Standard decks are not yet defined well enough but mainly because all of the decks out there are in some way a spill over from block: WW, Red Deck Wins, Mono Blue and Black Hand. All of these matchups have been covered extensively and in great detail in other articles. The way the deck works has changed so little, even with the omission (in this case) of the Splice engine as the Regrowth substitutes work in a similar way. One thing of note is how powerful Suppression Field is against the deck. Almost all WW decks will be running it, rendering your Tops useless and harming other parts like the Elders, Kagemaros, Meloku, Scarab and Boiler much less effective.
My sideboard, that I shall tentatively suggest in a minute, is by no means definitive as firstly I have played no sideboarded games with the deck (just establishing how it worked main was plenty enough for me) and secondly the format is not yet known.
Sideboard:
3 Carven Caryatid
3 Cranial Extraction
2 Hideous Laughter
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Life from the Loam
1 Naturalise
1 Ragged Veins
1 Plague Boiler
1 Ghost-lit Stalker
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
It looks fairly self explanatory to me, but for those of you who are befuddled I help this brief explanation helps. The Laughters, Boiler and Caryatids are against creature rush decks. The Life from the Loam (also useful to get the Miren to get the Thug engine working), Boseiju, Stalker and Extractions are for tricky control/combo matches. The Disenchant effects are there to Disenchant things (duh!). This leaves us with the Meloku, by far the most subtle card in the board because it comes in in almost every match. Normally if a card does this it should warrant automatic inclusion in the main, but in this case there are often excess redundant cards to board out and not enough to bring in and the Meloku is a nice coverall for those games you are not too sure about, or when you need to win quickly or for when your opponent is playing something so rogue you have no clue what you should be doing!
Here is an untested list that still uses the Splice engine for those of you not brave enough to try the Thug engine. It has to make certain sacrifices though, like Reachs over BoPs and Wear Away over the Boiler, just to keep the Arcane count up. It is also very tempting to include the Reclaim but this seems like overloading the power of a Gifts, which is often unnecessary as you normally win once you cast it (apologies for restating this obvious fact). It is sadly very similar to what the deck used to look like in Block, but I do not think that can be helped. Those decks were tested to infinity and beyond and proved incredibly effective time and again.
Gifts Returned:
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Sensei’s Diving Top
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
4 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Putrefy
1 Hana Kami
1 Soulless Revival
1 Death Denied
1 Goryo’s Vengeance
1 Recollect
1 Exile into Darkness
1 Hideous Laughter
1 Wear Away
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Grave-Shell Scarab
1 Myojin of the Night’s Reach
3 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Llanowar Wastes
5 Forest
4 Swamp
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Island
Earlier I said I wanted to explain how exactly it is Gifts Ungiven works. First it is necessary to understand what it is the card actually does. You tutor for four different cards. Your opponent then chooses which two he does not want to give you and you get to keep the other two. Once more it sounds like I am playing you for the fool, but I want to highlight one very specific of what I last said “Your opponent then chooses which two he does not want to give you.” Herein lies all of the skill of Gifts. You have to put yourself in your opponent’s shoes. The way he has played the last few turns should give you some idea of what he has and what he does not have in his hand. The way you have played recently should also have given him similar information. When you choose what you go for, it is important to look at the four cards from his perspective. If you got up and sat on the other side of the table which two cards would you bin? Often, in the example I used earlier – Exile, Boiler, Reclaim and Recollect – your opponent will almost always give you Reclaim and Exile because the Exile would (normally) come back anyway and he (the WW opponent) wants to slow down the Boiler as much as possible. So why give the Reclaim over the Recollect? It wastes a draw meaning that you will have one less card in your hand to return the Exile in the future.
When you cast a Gifts, you are normally trying to achieve a very specific goal, and as the deck is often on the defensive with little time to achieve that goal, it is very important that you get what you want so you do not die. The cards that you have in your hand at the time of casting the Gifts are very influential on what you present. Let’s say you are playing Thugathon and need to kill a freshly cast Hokori and are very light on mana. After the Gifts you will have only GG untapped. Unfortunately, you have already cast your one Hideous Laughter and it is lying uselessly in your bin. It is your opponent’s end step and he has WW untapped and you suspect an Otherworldly Journey having seen him use one earlier. Luckily for you the cards in your hand are a Sickening Shoal and a Swamp but you are on low enough life that unless you kill the walking Orb within a turn you will die to his men. What do you go for?
Hopefully this situation is not too complex and I imagine that to the right you will see a lovely Yawgatog-styled image detailing the scenario (on a side note, Yawgatog is a master). Here are some of the things that should be going through your head: Depending on what you go for, you may signal to your opponent that you already have a Shoal in your hand. You need to end up with a second way of killing the Hokori, otherwise you will lose to a Journey.
The first card you choose should be a Putrefy as it kills the critter all by itself. The second card is a little more subtle but fulfils the duty of not giving away that you already have a Shoal: the second Sickening Shoal! It is very unlikely that your opponent will give it to you, as it is one of your best outs in this situation, especially if he does not have a Journey as you can untap a Swamp and lay the one in your hand and manually Shoal it. These two cards will almost certainly be what I like to call the sacrifice – they are the ones that your opponent will not give you so it is now your task to find out what other two cards you have that will allow you to win the game. Plague Boiler and Kagemaro are too slow, the Laughter is already gone, which is a pity as it was perfect and you do not have enough mana for Recollect. The third card should be very obvious – Reclaim. It is cheap enough to get back the Putrefy and still leave you enough mana to cast it thanks to the Swamp in your grip.
Those of you paying attention have worked out what it is the fourth card is required to do, but the actual card choice needs to be slightly more exact. You need to find a Black card of casting cost two or more to remove to the Shoal. The contenders are Scarab, Ink-Eyes, Exile and Kagemaro. If you choose either of the first two, then your opponent might figure you out as they have no relation to the board position and could only be to remove to the Shoal that you have in your hand. It is an overly cautious choice given that there is a Shoal in the Gifts mix already but it is attention to the little details that separates the great from the good. I think I would choose a Kagemaro, the Scarab, or the Exile to fill the last slot. If the Scarab, then only because it sucks against WW and I would rather have the other cards left in my deck for the rest of the game. If the Kagemaro, your opponent might just be bad (never rule this out (they might also be a genius, never rule that out either)) and be on auto pilot for WW where seeing the Kagemaro, he would automatically bin it out of general fear for the card. Or he might panic and put you on another Putrefy in your hand and resign his Hokori to death and then bin the Kagemaro and give you the Putrefy. However there is a much more relevant reason – he may just not have the Journey, in which case you will be left with a Kagemaro, which I hear is a good thing against little men. Similarly, if the Exile and if not a Journey, then you will be left with the Exile. However, you should always cater for the worst-case scenario if you can realistically play around it, which is where he has the Journey, so you would have to remove the Kagemaro from the game. Here is where the Kagemaro is greater than Exile choice is made because it leaves you with more potential for a better Gifts later in the game if you need it, because you might want to Gifts for Exile and Kagemaro or given his build, the Exile may just be the better card versus his deck. Again, I am not being persnickety, it is this attention to the nitty-gritty that keeps your games mistake free.
In conclusion, you Gifts for Putrefy, Sickening Shoal, Reclaim and Kagemaro. He will almost certainly give you the latter two. You will Reclaim the Putrefy, untap a land, make a Swamp and in his upkeep, with the Hokori trigger on the stack (let’s play around a Blessed Breath too…), Putrefy it. If he has the Journey, you respond with the Shoal removing the Kagemaro. If not, you have the Kagemaro win with.
One last note about casting Gifts – whilst you are thumbing through your library pulling out your options and reflecting on them, keep them hidden from your opponent! Put them face down on the table whilst you mull over your options and when you finally settle on the exact four give them a little shuffle so he cannot work out your thought processes. This last bit is even more crucial on MODO where as you select the four cards they appear one by one to the opponent; most people select the two they want first and then the “random” two last making it very easy to decide, so when you select them work out all four in your head and then as randomly as you can click on them. It is important to give your opponent as little information as possible. Once more – minutia!
I hope the advice has made sense and that some of you have learnt something from it. I also hope that I haven’t missed some blatant card from Ravnica or Ninth that either should have made the deck or destroys it.
Best of luck at States y’all,
P.S. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
O.M.F.G! This came out on DVD in Japan very recently and many of you will never have heard of it. It is a completely computer generated movie following the storyline of FF7 two years after the end of the game. It keeps most of the central characters from the game and has millions of tiny details from the game that will enthrall die hard fans (like me). It also clears up some of the confusion that many people had concerning the game’s storyline. For those who have not played FF7, one of the best games ever made, the film still makes sense thanks to the first few minutes of historical background.
However, it is not its association with FF7 that makes me mention it here. The film is the most impressive display of computer generated graphics and animation ever made and will leave most viewers with a sense of awe and beauty akin to some of the greatest pieces of art the world has to offer. The animation is so fluid and believable at times you forget it was all done on computer and not reality. I watched the film four times with the first twenty-four hours, it was so good. It takes one’s breath away. The fight scenes are comparable with the Matrix for sheer phenomenal insanity.
I’m sure that it will have made its way onto the internet and I thoroughly advise everyone to watch it. It is the nuts. The grail. So good!