Iona, Shield of Emeria is THE card. I played Esper gifts for a year and she simply blew out every deck. Very few decks have 2 separate colors of removal, and 2 swings in seal the deal.

Wurmcoil Engine also served very well against aggro and decks without Path. A solid mb choice IMO.

Cryptic Command is your bread and butter. Yes, UUU, but you have fetches and a resilient manabase.

I don't think you need Birds of Paradise , by the way.

Jp3ngu1nb0y: Iona's efficacy really depends on what meta you're playing- but yeah, I agree she's amaaazing. That's why she's in the sideboard- to be thrown in at a moment's notice.

I really like the idea of Birds, as it's the difference between a T4 Iona and a T5 Iona, buuut... what would you suggest I add if I take them out?

What do you think about Blazing Archon in this deck? Works in a hilarious combo with Dovescape .

Wow, combos for days. I think that you should put Thragtusk into your main board, the amount of stuff you could do with it and Unburial rights could really swing the game in your favor

Hahaha, It's funny because I was thinking about making a gifts deck :P

I was even looking for Elesh Norn and Griselbrand for it :P

Speaking of, Since you are running Elesh you should try and squeeze in some Lingering Souls for the token spawn (with the flashback as a bonus).

Dread Return is cheaper/better I find though than Unburial Rites

And since your running academy ruins you should run the Mindslaver lockdown as an alternate win con, Since you can just rinse and repeat to take all their turns =D I love that combo.

Also, the best gift ever I find = Iona, Shield of Emeria <3

Nvm what I said about Lingering Souls . We're on the same page already there :P

I really like the changes you've made to the deck. My thinking is that your alternate win condition out of the sideboard should be Mindslaver instead of Wurmcoil Engine , since it allows you set up the sweet Gifts Ungiven for Life from the Loam , Academy Ruins , Mindslaver and something else. You may also want to play more lands, since you are a very mana-hungry deck and want to cast big spells consistently alongside removal. 25-26 seems about right.

I'll post again in a little while, I'm just feeling incredibly tired as of now.

@ Caligula Dread Return is banned in modern.

I feel like Noxious Revival is missing here. It makes gifts piles WAAAAY more complicated.

Noxious Revival is a beautiful card. I play it in Gifts Scapeshift , where it synergizes well with Remand and the fact that you need only one card to win, but I feel it isn't the best in this deck for a couple of reasons. Noxious Revival doesn't synergize particularly well with the rest of the cards, because a lot of them can be cast from the graveyard anyway. You'd rather be Snapcaster Mage ing back the card anyway, instead of waiting until next turn to cast it.

Fair enough. I only run two Snapcaster Mage s in my build. I like the cost of the revival off a EOT gifts so you just end up drawing what you want at an extra cost of 2 life. Unless they put the revival in your graveyard, then you've probably got them anyway.

I've always felt that Gifts Ungiven should play four Snapcaster Mage s. In this particular deck, Eternal Witness is the fourth Snapcaster just as a different card to Gifts for, but I think that Gifts control is the best control deck at putting cards into the graveyard, and you need to take advantage of that as much as possible.

That's fair. Having consistent ways to get your cards back is important. I've always felt like too many Snapcasters become redundant though. Part of the "gifts pile" is giving them too many options so they're forced to give you what you need anyway, even if it's in a roundabout way.

Noxious Revival can be played immediately if you end up with it in your hand, rather than having to wait a turn (or two) to get what you need with Eternal Witness . I'm not saying don't run Eternal Witness I'm saying even that 2-4 mana you have to spend with Snapcaster can slow you down a lot.

Either way, with Gifts you need options, running smaller numbers of certain recursion pieces means you can pick the appropriate ones out when you want them. It doesn't hurt to draw Snapcasters though.

General response: I'm seeing a lot of love for Iona here, and I get that. I don't really want to have her -and- sun titan -and- Elesh norn in here, though. You think I should just take Sun Titan out?

In response to Mindslaver suggestions: That's a great lock- what would I take out, though? In general, I don't really want to go over 2-3 win con cards in this deck. Any more, and you start running into crap starting hands.

THINGS I NEED YOU GUY'S HELP WITH:

The 4 Birds of Paradise : I like the ramp and I like the mana fixing. However, kicking the playset would open up a lot of options for me. (+2 lands and +2 other cards)

What are your thoughts on that?

Second: The Snapcaster Mage s: From what I see, they can serve two seperate functions: One (as a whole set) is to simply maximize recursion.

Or, (as a 2-of) they are simply used as Value X cards. What are your takes on which aspect of them is more helpful in this deck?

nosoyyucateco: That's a hilarious combo, but Dovescape can't be played with Unburial Rites , and it's the kind of card that's really bait for Thoughtseize . A lot of control decks would just pick the combo apart before it ever gets out :c

MindAblaze!: I like the idea of Noxious Revival . I will def. try to find a place for it. I think it gets a little bit of a bad rep, as you can do some truly mean things with it (such as put an opponent's land on top of his library when he's topdecking. That's basically a time walk right there :P)

thispersonisagenius: Wurmcoil Engine isn't really there as a win-con so much as a beatdown vs. aggro, but I see what you're saying.

Just drop out one snappy for the Mindslaver happy fun time.

And why not, I think switching the Sun Titan for iona, I think she'd work quite well in here.

I like the birds where they're at and you won't find a cheaper better mana fix than that, unless you wanna run Utopia Sprawl 's just to keep opponents from blowing up your mana. Which I could see working out in the deck.

I also feel like Lili is a little out of place in here, I feel like the turn you take to get her out would be a turn better spent on other cards.

Maybe this is where you can make some room

Caligula: I'm going to have to heavily disagree with your opinions on Liliana of the Veil in this deck. She offers 2 basic things that the deck needs:

1. Control. This deck is at it's best when both you and your opponent are top-decking. If an opponent has a hand full of counter-spells or removal, you're basically stuck where Gifts are concerned. Being able to force them to top-deck is key to surviving a long, arduous grind-fest. (especially considering the myriad recursion combos and the ability to tutor with gifts mitigate the disadvantages of her +1 greatly.)

2. (even more importantly!) Consistency. You need to be able to get Unburial Rites + Iona/Elesh Norn into your graveyard. Simple as that.

I think it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that the deck wouldn't be able to function w/o her.

I think Solar Flare Gifts is the place for Sun Titan as strong as some of the recursion tricks you've got going here are. By the time you're attacking with a 6/6 vigilance, recurring the majority of your three drops is going to be win-more I think.

That being said I run Iona, Norn and 3 Titans in my Solar Flare deck and it wrecks my playgroup preboard. There is space for all three I think, but the Sun Titan wouldn't be your win condition...just good value.

MindAblaze!: Ahh, I hear that. I'm not so sure about having all 4 in the deck tho. (Iona, Sun, Elesh, Mindslave)

I'm also not sure what to take out, either. I can probably get away with -1 snapcaster and just using him as a value card... The next thing to go would be the birds, I suppose?

Ah well when you put it like that, It makes sense..

I just refuse to believe it because she's so damn expensive.I hate making decks that hurt my wallet =(... My MBD deck is already taking it's tool and I haven't even completed it yet, or posted it for that matter!

But you are right-O.

Caligula: I hear that, man. Luckily, I managed to complete my set of Liliana a few weeks ago, so I've got that going for me, at least :3

You can never cut Birds of Paradise . If anything, play Sylvan Caryatid . Your game plan is focused on casting a four-mana instant, which means you need to ramp to cast it before you die to infinite Pestermite s. This deck is very mana hungry, as you need to animate manlands, remove creatures, and above all that cast Gifts Ungiven and the sometimes unwieldy cards you search for with it.

Put two wincons in the main and two in the board. Currently, since Affinity and Pod are big, I recommend Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Iona, Shield of Emeria in the maindeck and the other two cards in the sideboard. You can cut Wurmcoil Engine and put Mindslaver in its slot.

Snapcaster Mage should never go below two copies, and I personally would always play at least three. Once again, you need to remove creatures that try to kill you while you cast your four mana instant and durdle, and you want to cast your four mana instant a bunch of times. Plus, there's synergy with plenty of cards in the deck

thispersonisagenius: Makes sense. How do you feel about -1 Sun titan, -1 Snapcaster Mage , -4 Birds of Paradise , +3 Caryatid, +1 Thragtusk , +1 land, +1 Iona

That actually sounds fine. You still get to cast Gifts Ungiven on turn 3, and satisfy the mana-hunger in general while playing an extra value card.

One thing to remember when playing the deck is that you don't always have to Gifts Ungiven for packages. You can simply play a "value Gifts" and get four cards like Lingering Souls , Snapcaster Mage , Explosives, Thirst for Knowledge and try to gain more card advantage. A lot of people don't know what to do with their Gifts once they tried Unburial Rites and had it fail, so keep that in mind.

thispersonisagenius , MindAblaze!:

I hear what you guys are saying, with Mindslaver over Wurmcoil Engine , but... It really skeeves me out. Mindslaver needs a total of 13 mana to complete the 'lock' (10 to cast, 3 to throw it back on your library). I only have 14 castable mana in the deck! (not including Ghost Quarter )

That just seems like it would be a really difficult win-con to get out, especially with all the aggro decks out there.

The advantages to Wurmcoil Engine is that it drills aggro a new one, so to speak, on top of being it's own win-con if I can use the recursion combo with Academy Ruins . (Wurmcoil dies-> get 2 tokens, it's back. That's as much of a win-con as I need, especially with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in the mix.

What are you're guys thoughts on this?

Yeah, that was my initial concern but it seemed fine to do it every other turn or something like that. I think the Wurmcoil Engine Academy Ruins combo will be better in the long run, but I'm not sure you want Ruins in the first place. It's a colorless land in your four-color deck, and only synergizes with two cards, one of which comes out of the board.

I dont personally like Mindslaver either.

I think Wurmcoil Engine is the epitome of value. A 6/6 that they will want to path before it gets an attack in, otherwise you gain 6 life and potentially kill a creature. Then if it does die, it just splits in half to further complicate things.

A singleton Academy Ruins in 4 color gifts is probably ok. With access to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth , Life from the Loam and Raven's Crime you'll put pressure on them either way.