Reliquary Gifts

Modern Control Discard Dredge GWUB Knights

sylvannos

Creature (14)

• 3x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
• 1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
• 4x Knight of the Reliquary
• 1x Sun Titan
• 4x Tarmogoyf

Planeswalker (3)

• 3x Liliana of the Veil

Land (26)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Celestial Colonnade
• 1x Forest
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Indatha Triome
• 1x Island
• 2x Marsh Flats
• 2x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Raffine's Tower
• 1x Spara's Headquarters
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 4x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Artifact (2)

• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 1x Soul-Guide Lantern

Instant (8)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Fatal Push
• 4x Gifts Ungiven
• 1x Nameless Inversion
• 1x Path to Exile

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Life from the Loam
• 3x Lingering Souls
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Raven's Crime
• 1x Unburial Rites

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Sideboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Thragtusk
• 1x Thrun, the Last Troll

Land (1)

• 1x Bojuka Bog

Enchantment (5)

• 3x Leyline of Sanctity
• 2x Stony Silence

Artifact (1)

• 1x Engineered Explosives

Instant (4)

• 1x Fracturing Gust
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 2x Negate

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Timely Reinforcements

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Maybeboard

Creature (6)

• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Obstinate Baloth
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid
• 1x Terastodon

Land (3)

• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Tectonic Edge
• 1x Vault of the Archangel

Artifact (1)

• 1x Nihil Spellbomb

Instant (5)

• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Squelch
• 1x Valakut Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Victim of Night
• 1x Wings of Velis Vel

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip
• 1x Emeria's Call  ^Flip
• 1x Prismatic Ending
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• 1x Turntimber Symbiosis  ^Flip

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Based on a deck by:

The_Sheriff (6th Place)
Modern Premier #7035672 on 04/28/2014

Initial Changes and how this deck works:

4 Color Gifts Control in Modern By Paul Cheon

As you can see from the link and my current deck list, this is a Gifts Ungiven control deck. The advantages of playing Gifts Ungiven is you have a one card combo, can tutor up a variety of answers, and get to play a lot of singleton, silver bullet answers.

If you don't know how Gifts Ungiven works, it can be explained by the important line that says "...up to four cards with different names." This means you can choose to find only one card, two cards, three cards, or a full four. Then, your opponent has to choose two of them to go in your graveyard. The ones they don't choose go to your hand. So if you only found two cards (like Unburial Rites and Iona, Shield of Emeria), they must go to your graveyard.

This particular deck has a few targets:

• Unburial Rites + Sun Titan / Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite / Iona, Shield of Emeria: This gives you a giant fatty for four mana on turn four (assuming you cast Gifts Ungiven off of Birds of Paradise).
• Haakon, Stromgald Scourge + Nameless Inversion: Oh look, Nameless Inversion is a Knight! Yay! Hilarity shall now ensue as I pay 1B to give a creature +3/-3 any number of times as long as I have the mana.
• Life from the Loam + any three lands: Gives you access to win conditions, removal, mana, etc.

Most Gits deck are just straight control decks that just want to counter and kill everything until they can resolve Gifts Ungiven to go get Iona, Shield of Emeria. Since this version has Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, it gets to take full advantage of Knight of the Reliquary and Liliana of the Veil for some insane synergy.

The_Sheriff's initial list has 24 lands, 4 Noble Hierarch, Sylvan Caryatid, and Temple of Deceit. Right away, I cut Noble Hierarch from this list. Not being able to tap for black meant no turn two Liliana of the Veil. The exalted isn't as important as having a faster set-up time on all cards in the deck. Plus, it lets you cast multiple Raven's Crimes, play Victim of Night over Go for the Throat, and has flying for Gavony Township shenanigans.

I also cut Temple of Deceit right away. Having lands come into play tapped is just awful in Modern unless the land does something crazy good, like Creeping Tar Pit. I replaced this with a basic Island, so the deck is less prone to getting blown out by Blood Moon, Tectonic Edge, Fulminator Mage, and Ghost Quarter.

After some playtesting both on TappedOut and on paper, I decided to up my land count from 24 to 25, ditching Sylvan Caryatid. Had too many situations where I was drawing it instead of a much needed Temple Garden or even another fetch land. With Life from the Loam and Knight of the Reliquary in the deck, I'd even be inclined to go higher. I've also considered Lotus Cobra since it both attacks (making Gavony Township all that more useful) and the deck has ridiculous amounts of landfall. Being able to go turn one Birds of Paradise into turn two Lotus Cobra, play a fetch, then Abrupt Decay or Thoughtseize or Scavenging Ooze or Mana Leak or...just bananas.

I'm still on the fence about Sun Titan, since he can also help Gifts Ungiven for Liliana of the Veil and Knight of the Reliquary. However, I've found the number of targets to be really lacking. Usually, he's just grabbing lands, which is counterproductive to Life from the Loam and Knight of the Reliquary). He could be really powerful with cards like Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring, Nihil Spellbomb, Aven Mindcensor, etc.

Thoughts? Questions? Tips? Sylvannos is a bad and should just quit MtG? Leave them in the comments!

Acquireboard:
1x Soul-Guide Lantern
1x Indatha Triome
1x Zagoth Triome
1x Raffine's Tower
1x Spara's Headquarters

Mana Symbol Count (for personal use):

20 Black
14 White/br> 13 Green/br> 9 Blue/br>

Date added	10 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 2 Mythic Rares 42 - 10 Rares 8 - 1 Uncommons 2 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.74
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Soldier 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 W
Folders	Constructed Decks, Reference decks, modern question decks