4C Gifts Control FAQ
What does the Deck do?
The deck is a reactive control deck that uses removal to control the board and leverage a bevy of different finishers. This wide swath of finishers are good in different matchups but can be accessed via the power of Gifts Ungiven. The most common lines it uses it to reanimate an Iona, Shield of Emeria or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as soon as T4 or to grab all 3 wraths and a Lingering Souls to wrath on cue.
Everyone in the meta is packing grave hate though!
This deck has no issues with hard casting it late game finishers and the abundance of removal it uses helps to get to the late game where the midrange threats like Baneslayer Angel/Gideon, Ally of Zendikar can pose a threat or a hard casted Iona/Elesh Norn is game.
Where does the Deck Struggle?
The worst matchups for 4c Gifts is any Tron Variant. The removal sweet is geared towards dealing with creatures, and the unburial targets don’t line up with Tron’s threats. The odds of winning against Tron with this deck game 1 is so bad that you are best to not show what you deck you are on and hope to get the post board games.
Where does the deck thrive?
The best matchups for this deck are low threat density decks, small creatures and decks that rely primarily on a single color. Small Creatures and decks that rely primarily on a single color will lose to a T3/4 unburial while low threat density decks will have a hard time keeping their threat out for more than a turn.
4c Gifts control has been around for a long time, so what’s changed?
Historically 4c gifts have relied on a discard suite to make it to the late game and some have tested counter magic to some success. Counter and Discard magic are proactive ways to control the board, I have decided to go with a reactive form of control, that is I aim to control the board via removal spells. Discard and Counters can handle a lot of threats but are poor for regaining control of board states and dealing with resolved or recursive threats. Discard also has the drawback of being a Turn 1 play which leads to a higher number of Fetch+ Shock so you start at 17 or less life. With discard you don’t necessarily stop your opponent from playing a threat on their turn, merely changes which threat. Removal allows your opponent to spend their turn playing a threat which you remove, or you wrath the board netting virtual card advantage.
I want to try this deck! What should I know about playing it?
Like all control decks, you need to be aware about play speed to avoid going to time as this deck has the uncanny history of going to game 3 90% of the time. The fact that its 4 colors makes mana base management a challenge to not get color screwed, which is where Sylvan Caryatid shines. Our idea Turn 2 play is a Caryatid or a Search for Azcanta
Flip. Most often you will gifts for wraths to reset the board and should only go for the unburial when you know if Iona/Elesh Norn will win the game and won’t get countered/removed. My deck in its current build has 6 “Packages” that are a preset of cards that you gift for specific reasons/matchups, most of which are in the sideboard. Main deck only has the Unburial and Wraths, but value piles are always an option.
Why should I trust you about 4c Gifts?
I started playing Gifts Ungiven in late 2015. I moved to this 4c Variant late 2018 and have been actively testing and tweaking the deck since. This Deck has placed 3 and 4 at my LGS 2 small tournaments during that time. Overall the Deck has a 52% (89 game wins 83 Game losses) game win rate across its iterations (which has changed drastically from the first version in November2018). I have played against 31 distinct decks, probably more as my log doesn’t have deck names for the early logs as I recently started tracking the decks performance and pulled my records from Planeswalker Points.
Where Can I learn More?
You can learn more about “normal” 4c Gifts at:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/combo/220010-4c-gifts
