Re: The Situation Room: Gifts Ungiven

I didn’t want to start a new thread but the themanadrain.com suggested it. I think it’s great though to reference the thread for a glimpse back at kind of where we started.

I’ve been taking a break since the restriction but I’m happy to say I’m back now to continue working on this deck. Last week, thelastgnu put up top 4 with basically the same list. This week he top8ed again, while I played in my first challenge in months and went 2-1 before running into some mtgo interface issues.

The deck is still strong. Seeing how Shops and Mentor were two of the marquee matchups, and they both got worse, then it’s safe to assume that Gifts should dominate. The Shops aggro approach actually works as an advantage for Gifts because the nature of the deck allows you to win on a dime without a Sphere effect to work around.

Here’s the list that thelastgnu has used and then I’ll share some of my opinions:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/825549#paper

1. 2nd Snapcaster is better than JVP. Speed.

2. Empty the Warrens is a great sideboard card. Rising tide of Fish decks. Increase number of Phyrxian Metamorph to negate Tinker. Redundancy of win conditions is always strong for a combo deck.

3. Regrowth is great because it allows you to play Ancestral three times in a game. As well as having more ways to get what you want with a Gifts.

@desolutionist Oh man... Regrowth, Ancestral, and 2 Snapcasters. lets you play Ancestral 4 times in a game. Live the dream!

(Or do we want to play 4 Timewalks?... these are hard choices people.)

One improvement I want to make it to target Oath more directly. It had been a little bit of a tricky matchup before but it was such a small part of the meta that I didn’t worry about it. Thanks to champs, the prevalence of the Oath deck has increased quite a bit. (A slow Baral hand is not great against Oath)

Any updates to Gifts as of recent?