It seems a little upsetting to me that you aren't utilizing gifts to its full potential. Having options to choose 4 cards when things like Leyline of the Void are in play is something I think gift decks should be able to do. I'll just drop a bunch of cards you can consider, feel free to choose to add none, just suggesting them in case they've never crossed your mind in a gift deck.

Noxious Revival - quite powerful with snapcaster

Nameless Inversion + Haakon, Stromgald Scourge - reusable removal

Makeshift Mannequin + Eternal Witness - the blocker that never dies, or you can reanimate something else. I opt to use it in place of Unburial Rites mainly because the 2 card fetching feels overused to me.

Pulse of the Fields - idk, it just seems to work well with really slow decks in my experience. Sure, it sucks against things like infect, but Darkblast is always an option against the decks that like to flood 1/1s.

Just some cards to consider, some more niche than others.

nbarry223: I'm not really sure what you mean by not using Gifts to it's fullest potential. From my experience, all the packages are solid, and none of them survive Leyline of the Void. Haakon, Inversion and Revival wouldn't make it any better with Leyline of the Void in play.

That being said, I have experimented with a lot of what you've suggested already. Great minds think alike, :3

Noxious Revival- at the end of the day, I found it to be too slow. If it was in your hand, it'd be a different story, but, I never really had good luck with it. I also cut Eternal Witness for being too slow, so there ya go.

Haakon is pretty awesome, and I actually built a for-funsies deck around him, but he really doesn't do enough to justify how much of a dead card he is if he isn't in the graveyard. The opponent will choose to allow me to have Haakon every time, and he's janky AF if you don't build around him.

Makeshift Mannequin is neat, but the Unburial Rites combo is overused for a reason. It's awesome. EOT Gifts into the combo can often instantly close out a game. The problem with Mannequin is that you'd need to search for Mannequin + Witness + Creature for it to work, and your opponent can easily pick apart that package. (Searching for just Mannequin and Creature will dump them both- useless unless you already have Witness in your hand.)

Pulse of the Fields is pretty awesome- I use Timely Reinforcements in it's place, due to the lack of double white in it's casting cost. I take a lot of damage from 'sieze and shocks/fetches, so it's rare that I have a higher life total than my opponent. Same for creatures.

Darkblast is actually something I'm considering for the sideboard. It's awesome, no bones about it, and it may deserve a mainboard spot in this meta. What do you think I should take out for it?

If you were going to take out anything for Darkblast, I would say Dismember. You might be able to get away with going down on Abrupt Decay. By the way, congratulations on 50 upvotes.

What I meant was some of the recursion cards let you choose 4 cards, and you can basically guarantee you can cast any, not just instants/sorceries. For example, Liliana of the Veil + Snapcaster Mage + Noxious Revival + Batterskull lets you net the Batterskull and Liliana of the Veil no matter what they choose, even though it might be slower.

I understand nothing I suggested deals with Leyline of the Void, that's a different problem. I just meant that your deck seems to be very graveyard oriented. It may be a good idea to have some finisher beyond Batterskull and Grave Titan that doesn't require seeing the graveyard to win. If you have a third, and possibly fourth card, then Gifts Ungiven doesn't go offline when they side in the inevitable grave hate. Sorry if my poor wording confused you.

@nbarry223 No one sideboards Leyline of the Void, though.

I feel that playing things like Noxious Revival takes away from the control aspect. Other recursion engines in the deck have more impact in my opinion. The Haakon + Inversion interaction is cool, but the wraths do a good job in that role.

I know you love having the playset of caryatids, but I might suggest adding a single Birds of Paradise or Noble Hierarch to get the possible T1 ramp, so that T2 has a lot more options, like a discard or path and a caryatid.

I've decided to go with hierarch mainly because of the exalted, I will often only have 1 beater down, and the +1/+1 always helps. If you think having a consistent black mana source is better, then go with the birds. It's all in personal preference though.

Sauron_: In my opinion, the debate between Carytid-Birds/Hierarch has no right answer. They each provide something unique, and it usually comes down to personal preference.

I don't think that 1 Hierarch is particularly useful, as there are better things to do with a 1-of slot. I am not opposed to using them, though. If I did, I would build the deck around 4x Birds, 4x Hierarchs. There's little consistency otherwise, and you'll want a backup considering your mana dorks are 1/1s.

I prefer Carytids due to their longevity, but that's not to say a T2 Liliana OTV isn't appealing...

If DRS gets ever unbanned, I'll probably switch over to the 4-4. Until then, I like how Carytid dodges Drown in Sorrow, and the hexproof. It also blocks Goblin Guide, which is quite nice.

vault: I like the way you think... Imma try me some Darkblast shenanigans, even if only in the sideboard. Seems like it'd be good against Pod, which is currently a 'meh' matchup for me at best.

I guess it does come down to meta preference, mine is more combo-heavy, and I need the quicker control, and a T2 liliana is great for hand disruption.

Anyways, if you think there's anything I need to do to my deck, could you please say so. I have switched to the 4 Juliana OTV, and it has helped a lot. Removing karn made all the difference.

I'm surprised you haven't had any issues with grave hate. I know I always build my decks with some grave hate, every color has access to solid choices, especially since Relic of Progenitus is colorless. There's things that are coincidental grave hate too, like Noxious Revival, Wheel of Sun and Moon, Scavenging Ooze, etc. where they are usually meant for something else.

Anyway, another option for cheap removal might be Murderous Cut since you do run a control shell. A couple of the newer delve cards might be worth looking into, since you tend to aim for longer games.

Hey slovakattack! This might be a newbie question, but why do you run Ghost Quarter rather than Tectonic Edge?

Also, I recently acquired 4x Gifts Ungiven in a trade, and I'm not certain what I'm going to do with them, but I like control. Is there any way we could confer and potentially break Gifts in either straight Esper Control or Jeskai (this sounds fun, but not viable)?

Jeskai isn't possible because of how much it just lacks due to the loss of green and black (removal, mainly). The deck becomes more focused on burn and damage with the red, as opposed to more early control. Also, you lose a whole range of cards to get with Gifts so the choices become more lackluster and the quality of the deck suffers as a result.

Concerning Esper, I've seen some variants around but none that are as good as four color. You don't get the ramp and the extra color for Engineered Explosives can be important. There's also some important removal lost in Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse. The deck is certainly viable but not as competitive.

nbarry223, TheAnnihilator: Sorry for not responding sooner, my college is a little weird, and I actually have finals next week. Fun, right?

nbarry223: Grave hate is annoying, but look at my deck: I have 2 snapcasters, and nothing else (other than the wombo combo/1 or 2 gifts packages) that really rely on it. By the time I combo off, the opponent is usually topdecking. If he isn't, I wait it out.

I've had some problems with Leyline of the Void, as that's more of a punch in the pants, but It's still not that difficult to control my way until I topdeck and play my wincon (Grave Titan costs 6, Batterskull 5, and in a vaccum either of them close out a game in a few turns.)

Of course, it sucks to be relying on the heart of the cards, but if the rest of the plebs can do it, so can I. Really as it steads, grave hate is just too prevalent in Modern for me to do anything but "deal with it." And I do, by making my list as little reliant on said graveyard as possible.

Of course, if you wanted to counter this list, I would indeed recommend graveyard hate. It may not kill it outright, but it'll slow it down. On another note, I have considered Murderous Cut, and may be putting it in the list. I'm still testing, but that's a great suggestion, thank you =)

bigguy99 said it right. While Jeskai Gifts lists do exist, they are vastly inferior to both Esper Gifts, and 4C Gifts. I (and many others) are of the opinion that 4C Gifts is simply the best, but Esper Gifts is certainly playable, if you don't want the trouble of having 4 colors to manage/like having only cheap fetchlands in the list.

I just thought of a decent choice for the third slot of your face beater cards when facing the grave hate. Sun Titan - if you choose liliana and it also, they end up giving you powerful options regardless of which two they choose. Allowing you the Sun Titan also forces them to use their grave hate. Just a thought.

I'd probably try to fit it in the sideboard if you think it's worthwhile.

nbarry223: Early versions of this deck had Sun Titan in it, but he eventually got cut for something- I forget what, it was quite a while ago. He's certainly an awesome piece, but I feel that he's more powerful in Esper Gifts, than 4C Gifts, for some reason.

Oh yeah, I remember now. I cut him because I wound up running only 2 snappys, and it made him very lackluster with graveyard hate. In practice, he rarely got to 'double tap' Liliana... although admittedly when he did, it was absolutely glorious.

Hm. Sun Titan seems pretty powerful in my build. He can bring back Finks, Lili, and Birds if nothing else. Think it's a better option than Grave Titan for me?

vault: I would take out a Thragtusk in your build instead, Grave Titan is stronger in a vacuum.

I'd also look to get rid of your other Thragtusks, you already have 4 finks, and with a mainboard Sun Titan, you'll be absolutely fine for blockers and lifegain. I'd also -1 Unburial Rites, and +1 Thoughtseize, +1 Abrupt Decay and +1Path to Exile to round out your removal. Or you could grab a second Sun Titan, and see how that works out for ya. 3 Sun Titans are too much, don't try it. The Thoughtseize is non-negotiable, the games where you pay 5 life to fetch a shock to Thoughtseize will be the ones you win.

It's hard to add in more removal while keeping it the midrange build it was designed to be. I think once I get enough expendable cash to finish up my own build, I'll probably adapt it more into a control build.

vault: I hear that. If you wanted to expand it to be more Midrange, I would suggest Noble Hierarch and Tarmogoyf as cards to spec into.

@slovakattack: I've already made a decision not to buy Tarmogoyf while it's over $100. So I may well never buy them. Unless I win the lottery. I'll also be changing the Birds to Caryatids once they rotate out and drop to a couple bucks each, that way I can justify not playing Hierarch. By the way, how does a single MB wrath work for you?

vault: It works just fine. It doesn't really jank up my deck if I don't need it, and works well if I draw it. It's easily sideboarded out on G2-3.

Also, changes I may be planning on making: Darkblast instead of Dismember, and 2x Nature's Claim in SB, removing 1x Chalice of the Void and Drown in Sorrow. WHAT ARE YE THOUGHTS?

GlistenerAgent halp me.

I think I heavily prefer Sun Titan to Grave Titan in your current build, especially when you can cheese the hell out of people with Liliana of the Veil. The card advantage provided by Sun Titan is far more relevant for this deck than Grave Titan in my opinion.

I do think you should be playing either Darkblast or Murderous Cut (probably not both). I'd be cutting a Thoughtseize for whichever one you choose to include, likely leaning to Murderous Cut because it is more versatile. Darkblast does have more synergy, though, so it's a toss-up.

I'm not a fan of Noxious Revival in the least. Eternal Witness is far better if you want that sort of effect.

I'd consider 1 Nature's Claim and 1 Unravel the Aether, just for the versatility of being able to deal with Keranos, God of Storms specifically.

GlistenerAgent: Here's my thoughts on all dat stuff.

First off, we are in agreement on the Noxious Revival front. It's cute, but mostly yawn-worthy.

Of the two (DB and MC), I prefer Darkblast, especially if I am cutting out Thoughtseize. This deck does not have a whole lot of T1 moves, and darkblast can very efficiently deprive Pod of their mana dorks, and Delver of their Delver. (add that to the fact that you can dredge and pay another for -2/-2 if it's on your upkeep...)

I've never actually had a problem with Keranos. Then again, I've never played against a Keranos. That kind of thing is very meta-dependant.

Now for the big one: Sun Vs. Grave. This is a pretty agonizing decision for me, since they're both so full of shenanigans. First thing's first: My above list is actually a lie. I have Grave in my SB and Iona in my MB on G1, as she can be a free win against unsuspecting decks.

G2, I usually face a lot of graveyard hate, which is when I sideboard in Grave Titan. This leads to the reason I run him in the first place: He is a massive beater who scales multiplicatively with Elesh Norn (tokens), and is wholly graveyard-independent.

Him being graveyard independent is why I have him in my SB in the first place, and it has worked out very well for me. Against graveyard hate, Sun titan is much less promising.

THEN AGAIN, I haven't really playtested a thorough Sun Titan build, as I really see him to be better in an Esper shell. Do you think it's worth trying out?

The plan to counteract graveyard hate is very reasonable, now that I think about it. I do think it is worth the testing in place of Grave Titan, as even with the added green cards Sun Titan is still a house, and very few people are playing real graveyard hate (Scavenging Ooze is relatively easily dealt with).

Your reasoning on Darkblast is also solid, as it is much better against Delver. Depending on how that matchup generally goes, it could be the better choice. You do have a great deal of sideboard space devoted to beating the deck, so I'm not sure if you need to hedge more.