You're not curving 1 to 3, you're curving 2 to 4. Turn 1 is for discard, removal or a tapped land.

Burn is rough. Matchup is fine because you can reanimate Iona T4, but generally you'll need some luck and sideboard cards to win.

So my friend wants to build a budgeted gifts deck for around $500. My current attempt at a deck list is Budget Gifts Ungiven. I'd love your opinion on it. I'm currently working on the sideboard, and I'm worried about the affinity matchup.

Thanks! Too bad lili and jace are so expensive.

cool deck have you ever considered going red for a Molten Vortex version?

Another question: have you considered Bring to Light gifts? I don't really like BTL to be honest, but I do see some potential with it and gifts, giving you more access to your toolbox and more copies of gifts. BTL is sorcery speed and 1 more mana than gifts, but as a 1-2 of could see potential. Thoughts?

I've been asked that before Figag, I'm not sure what Slovak thinks of it but I'm personally not at all a fan. In the more control versions of gifts it basically grabs Damnation or Gifts Ungiven for 5, and those are your only decent options. It gets better in the midrange style lists with things like Siege Rhino and Knight of the Reliquary though, where you have way more options than two spells (technically more, but why pay 5 mana for a Path to Exile at sorcery speed?)

@Figag: To answer the question on Birds of Paradise vs. Sylvan Caryatid, it's because people will always turn one Lightning Bolt your mana dorks. Playing a dork lets you cast Gifts Ungiven on turn three, allowing you to lock the game on four when you Wrath of God, Unburial Rites, Life from the Loam + Raven's Crime, etc.

So, you need the hexproof to execute your plan. The 0/3 body also chumps Goblin Guides, Dark Confidants, etc.

You can play Gifts Ungiven without mana dorks, but it means you have to have more early game removal and disruption to make it to turn five (since you're casting Gifts Ungiven on the end of their turn four). U/W/B/g really lacks in unconditional removal in comparison to red (which gives Lightning Bolt, Terminate, Dreadbore, etc.). Since we don't want to splash a fifth color (and lose to random Blood Moons), you have to rely on the mana acceleration to race the aggro decks.

Thanks, those both make a lot of sense.

Up until recently I had heard of gifts but never played with or against it. Then yesterday my friend proxied up this exact decklist and we did a couple of games. Now I am obsessed with the archetype because it is one of the most interesting decks to play I have ever seen. My friend decided he'd build gifts if he could afford it. I'd say between cash and trades he has around $500, but that doesn't get Jace or Lili, which are pretty important. He'll likely build mono-U tron instead, which makes me sad because this is so much cooler. Any help on a budget version that's better than mono-u tron would be greatly appreciated; my first attempt at a list is Budget Gifts Ungiven.

Anyway, great job with the deck!

@Figag: You can play Gifts Ungiven in Mono-Blue Tron easily. The package you grab is Crucible of Worlds, Academy Ruins, Mindslaver, and Buried Ruin. You can also grab wrath packages in the form of Oblivion Stone, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Cyclonic Rift, and AEtherize.

There's some sweet lists out there for Tron decks with Gifts Ungiven. U/W Tron with Gifts Ungiven used to be one of the better decks in the format when Modern first started, I'd start by looking there.

P.S. I hope you don't mind me spamming up your comment section, slovakattack.

That's true, but I have to say my favorite parts of Gifts are the various Life from the Loam shenanigans and the reanimator aspect. Gifts tron doesn't have the same 'I'm going to do broken stuff now and there's nothing you can do about it' feel. The artifact package is fun, but loam and reanimation are my favorites.

Thanks!

sylvannos: No problem, man. I've been super swamped with work lately, so it's actually super helpful to have someone answer the pertinent questions :D

Figag: Thanks for taking a look at the deck! I totally get what you mean when you say that Gifts has a unique fun factor to it- it's why I play it, after all :p

Unfortunately, Liliana of the Veil is pretty key to the deck's success (even if Jace isn't). She does multiple things for the deck, not just removal (she gives value out of otherwise dead cards, like an Iona in your opener.)

Most of the cards in the deck are replaceable, but... Liliana just isn't :c

Can I get by on 2 lilis and 0 jace? I think I can make cuts to the deck to accommodate for that. Or better question, can the deck get by on $500 period? Normally I'd say it's not possible to turn a $1300 deck into a $500 deck and keep it competitive, but I did that with my own modern deck, so I think it's possible, although it won't be easy, if even possible, to transform an already tier 2 deck when full grown into an FNM competitive deck at less than half price.

Thanks for the help!

Figag: I wouldn't recommend it. (A minimum of 3 Lili 0 Jace would be what I would say the deck would need to function.)

If you're looking for parts to shave from the list, I've included budget alternatives to a lot of the cards in my 'card choices' section. Off the top of my head, though:

Batterskull can be a Thragtusk, and Damnation can be a Wrath of God. If you're cutting Batterskull, then you can also cut Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins to save a good 35 bucks as well. (I'd replace explosives with a sweeper of some kind)

Edit: And any time! Don't forge to experiment. This list is meant to be a basic list that you can tweak to your meta/what you like to do!

I dunno.... I've found my favorite package to be Life from the Loam + Academy Ruins + Batterskull + Ghost Quarter. It allows the most effective grinding in my ~24 hours of experience with the deck. Lol I've only been playtesting with mirror matches because it's so much fun, and that's probably not a good indication of the full meta and how it will play. But vs tron, control, and BGx I'd grab something similar to that package in a heartbeat. I wouldn't want to play the deck without the artifacts.

I also played vs my own deck, but a resolved Iona kills my hand, and a resolved Elesh Norn kills my board. The double entomb slaughters my deck, so gifts has a favorable matchup vs me. Lili doesn't help gifts very much against my deck, so that's not a good reference point.

I know lili's good. I know lili's amazing. I know the discard is needed to ditch wincons in the hand, the edict to helps keep the opponent's board smaller, the ult is a great wincon in a stalemate board, the discard can run away with the game vs some decks, and many other things, but the deck might be able to function without it. I feel mildly crazy and more than mildly stupid in attempting it, but I think no lilis no jace should work fine. I'll end up fine-tuning the list for quite awhile to make it work without, but I think it's possible. For flavor and play style I can't bring myself to cut any of the packages. If you could take a look at my list so far Budget Gifts Ungiven, I would love your opinion on it.

Thanks for all the help!

I understand. I'll take a look at your list, and comment there.

Have you tested using Sultai Charm yet?

DeJeffreLot: I tested it a long while back, and I found that it was 'cute,' and certainly versatile, but at the end of the day, I'd rather just have another Path. There's something to be said for quality.

ToolmasterOfBrainerd Did I ever comment on your deck?

sylvannos: Made some updates. Did some playtesting, and found that the biggest blowouts to the deck are when an opponent lands a Blood Moon (obviously), and when a control player is able to keep your Gifts Ungiven on lockdown with counterspells. I've put 2 spell pierce in the main to rectify this, and they've helped me immensely in those situations. (I cut a colonnade and a dismember for them. Dismember isn't awful by any means, but when I'm running 3 of both path and abrupt decay, I feel like I'm getting diminishing returns for running it.)

I've also cut a Batterskull for a third Lingering Souls, due to the huge popularity of K command. Not 100% sure if this is the right call yet, as Bskull just wins certain matchups, but I'm leaning toward it being not too useful at the moment. The artifact package is still preserved with Life from the loam+Academy ruins+engineered explosives+land.

I'd like your opinion on the changes!

You did. I changed my username about a month ago. It was Figag. You were very helpful. Thanks!

@slovakattack: Yeah the way to play around Blood Moon is to basically land a mana dork and either a basic Forest or Swamp, then Abrupt Decay at the end of their turn.

I haven't been a fan of counters in Gifts (especially with Liliana of the Veil, but I also never thought of playing Spell Pierce. It's low enough in cost that it doesn't get stuck in your hand (like Cryptic Command), then later it just gets pitched.

Have you ever played with 4x Lingering Souls? It gets really dumb when you Gifts Ungiven up Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or have an active Gavony Township. You can win a lot of games that route...just make a bunch of doods, then beat face and play removal. Gifts Ungiven is then used to refill your hand once you're out of gas.

It's especially useful against control because you get 1/2 a card up on them if they counter it. Remand on the flashback is the best they can get. Mana Leak et al are pretty garbage vs. Lingering Souls, but sometimes I found my opponents biting the bullet due to being in range of a couple tokens + manlands + random creatures.

sylvannos: Blood Moon is actually why I like Sylvan Caryatid so much. Having a mana dork that can't be bolted is -so- important in so many matchups. Often times, a resolved Caryatid can let you win, even through a Blood Moon.

I agree with your assessment: counters aren't great in gifts. However, I do feel that in many matchups, they are a grim necessity. I've tried Mana Leak in the past and found it underwhelming; same thing for Dispel (although it can come out of the side in certain matchups, of course.)

Spell Pierce being at 1 mana is a huge win for it, and it does deal with everything that we care about. Gifts typically doesn't need to counter opposing creatures, as it has a ton of spot removal, and there are few creatures out there that have ETBs strong enough to ruin the deck.

Lingering souls is a really interesting card. It's incredible good against certain matchups (affinity) and just a dead card against others (fast combo decks). It's also a win condition with Elesh Norn in play, but I don't see what I would cut for a 4th one. As you said, we can always tutor them if we need them, and having multiples in hand with no Liliana means that we won't be doing much.

Have you considered running 1 Snapcaster Mage and 1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip? Being able to take a Gifts package with Snap in it is really nice, but Jace's loot is also good, so why not run both? Or 1 Snap and 2 Jace? I really think there should be a 1-of Snap in here.

ToolmasterOfBrainerd: Hey, sorry about the lack of response. My computer's been broken for a couple of weeks, and things have just been generally shitty.

You're probably right about the Snap. I do like Jace as essentially Liliana OTV 5-6, and I think that they do different things than snap. However, the lack of ability to fit them into a gifts package is pretty troublesome.

It's possible that Tasigur would be a better card to remove in favor of snap, but I'm not sure. I guess it depends how heavily you value the 6th liliana/card advantage. I could very easily see putting snap in one of the Jace's places.

Thoughts on Iona under our new colourless overlords? Tron, Eldrazi, and Affinity kinda just laugh at her, and continue to kill you anyways.

I only have two lils because I am not a billionaire. Gifts has been my dream deck ever since I left the yu-gi-oh phase and realized that you could make a extremely good deck by buying cards and that doing so wasn't actually cheating. However, I just recently finally, after god damned ages, managed to complete my full shock/fetch base allowing me to start considering modern as a format. The one card I need is the god damn lil, but honestly I just want to make the deck and I can't think of a good replacement.

Ninjadude51: That's going to be rough. Lili's expensive for a reason, you know? If you have Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip then those can be substituted, buuut I wouldn't get your hopes up for a Lili reprint in Shadows over Innistrad. MM3 is far more likely. Still, having 2 Lilies is waaaaay better than having none. you can make that work for you.

PlattBonnay: She's pretty awful... which is one of the reasons I think Gifts isn't crazy good at the moment. I can't really think of any reasonable replacement for her, either, which is a real shame. I guess Grave Titan/Sphinx of the Steel Wind do work.