Unburial Rites has flashback. you dont care if its in the GY

Also whenever you gifts you always fetch one threat and one unburial rites.

You ARE allowed to only find 2 cards with gifts. That's the whole point of the deck. When you only find two cards the opponent has literally no choice.

Good call, ChiefBell, I completely forgot that you could do that with Gifts. That's why I shouldn't drink bourbon and MTG.

Lol yeah, I usually only gifts for a creature and Unburial Rites at first. Late game, post board especially, if I have already done that, I have some value I can get from gifts...usually lingering souls/timely reinforcements/another Unburial rites/and another gifts...

DeJeffreLot I like the vault, it was hard finding a land to cut but I think it's good where it's at now. I'm not sure if ashen rider is better or not than terastodon for what I want him for...I'll need to do a bit more research on that

I did about 15 games worth of playtesting so far between a couple of my decks and so far my suggestions are to drop off a single Thoughtseize for some more removal in the form of Murderous Cut or Go for the Throat.

Griselbrand seems very underwhelming in most matchups and feels like more of a sideboard card, I think Esper Charm would be very good in his spot at allowing you to pitch a fatty out of your hand or to disrupt the opponent, etc etc.

The second Unburial Rites really hurts sometimes and I'd personally only play one, especially seeing how easy it can be to get a fatty out sometimes, I think this could leave you some room to up the counter spell amount with a single Spell Snare to prevent your opponent from countering your Unburial/Gifts/Polymorph.

On that note, I love Remand but in most cases Dispel has just been way more powerful at protecting your fatty and allowing you to successfully use Gifts/Morph by countering the opponents Kill Spells and Counterspells for only a single blue mana. I'd say cut down to 2 Remand and move some number of Dispels into the maindeck. Also, Countersquall is insane against decks like Control and Burn, I'd run 2 in the side in those really grindy matchups!

Goodluck mate and happy holidays! Sorry about the wall of text hahah!

DeJeffreLot thanks for the advice! It's very helpful! Can you maybe be a little more specific on any of the games/match ups that you tested etc? I made a few changes based on your thoughts, I think I agree with most of them. I like having the hand disruption, especially thoughtseize, as it can be used to pitch a fatty if I need to, and I'm not really sure how great a singleton spell snare would be. I originally ran a full playset of dispels as my only counters for the exact reasons you mentioned, but have obviously since changed that, but I'm happy I think to have a couple back in the main. I thought I was light on removal and needed at least one more of the back ones somewhere, and I completely agree on Griselbrand..while I love his hand re-fill, it's very match specific and I still lose games even if he is on the board...I have been very hesitant to run only 1 copy of Unburial rites, because if it gets counters from its flashback etc, or if my fatty dies, I have no way to return it again...but I still have Polymorphs, so that could be ok I guess with the added dispels.

Anyway, if you can give me more details etc that would be great! Thanks again! And merry Christmas!

I have some results for you here man!I did a total of around 5-9 games for each deck I'm posting below between my buddies and I online on Cockatrice. I was piloting the list you have up above before the sideboard edit and they were piloting their own decks.

Merfolk - 5/7 matches won

Game 1 is usually extremely rough, with how the opponent can easily get their islandwalkers online very quickly, leaving you really open to losing the vast majority of time before gifts/morph resolves. these are the games where more spot removal could help. Meanwhile Games 2+3 Languish pulls it's weight along with Damnation and Timely Reinforcements allowing you to quickly stabilize and go in for the win with Iona, Shield of Emeria. (I always sided out Emrakul and Elesh in games 2/3)

Burn - 4/9 matches won

Game 1 at first glance might seem like an easy win with the maindeck Iona but, I've realized that most of the time it really came down to if I was able to use Vault of the Archangel or not. The Dispels are amazing here in this matchup at buying you time and life. Remand felt very weak and operated as a 2mana cantrip all of the time. All in all, I ended up constantly losing a goodchunk of life to the manabase, Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize. Games 2+3 Timely Reinforcements + the third Dispel helped a lot, I kept Elesh in this time and dropped Emrakul instead. Sadly the 2nd and 3rd games really do come down to having a way to keep alive through counters and chumping all of the Swiftspears and Goblin Guides coming towards you.

Abzan Midrange - 1/5 matches won

Now it maybe that my piloting wasn't amazing against Abzan, but I sadly never was quite able to hit Emrakul with Polymorph right when I needed him. Outside of sometimes being able to Gifts up a Elesh Norn, most of the big fatties aren't so great in this matchup, I think this is where Grave Titan shines. On top of that, with many Abzan lists running Zealous Persecution, Golgari Charm (sometimes), Maelstrom Pulse and Abrupt Decay in the maindeck, I found it extremely difficult at keeping the tokens alive and Bitterblossom alive for long. Mana Leak turned out to be the true savior in this matchup along with Remand at taking out Goyfs and holding back Lilianas.

Opposing Scavenging Oozes and post-sideboard graveyard hate nearly make pulling Gifts off impossible sometimes without having some sort of counter and kill spell in hand.

I think maybe some sideboard tech like Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver might make this matchup a little stronger in your favor and maybe running some Zealous Persecutions of your own could help as a 2 or 1 of in the sideboard. This matchup is definitely pretty tough but could be due to my own misplays as well.

Sorry yet again for the wall of text hahah, but hope this helps you out man! There were a couple other matchups I did but both were against some pretty silly decks hahaha

DeJeffreLot hey man, thanks again! I made some changes to the 75 based on your findings, and I added a sweet artifact gifts package as well in the board for decks like abzan/Jund etc...let me know how this looks now!

I think those changes reduced consistency slightly, but gave you some nice versatility. I like mainboard Timely Reinforcements especially. And I think it was right to hedge your bets with the 2X Dispel split.

I think Batterskull isn't bad, but the rest of that package seems unnecessary, as Skull can dodge removal on its own, so the other 2 spots seem a little frivolous. Something you might test against Jund and Abzan is 1-2 Intangible Virtue. Yes, it gets hit by Abrupt Decay, but that's not a bad trade. Virtue synergizes with much of the deck, changes up the game considerably, exacerbates opponent's problems with using targeted removal, and speeds up the clock. It's especially nice since you're bringing in Titan as well. Virtue may also merit a reconsideration of Wurmcoil Engine, rather than Bskull if you decide to go with it.

Wizard_of_the_Broke the package was suppose to be BS/EE/Crucible/Academy Ruins...that way no matter what they give me it's scary for them...

I missed the Explosives. Only a few decks are really scared of that. Don't get me wrong, the package is threatening, but it's also kind of slow. Like if I were playing midrange against you, I'd probably just let you have Crucible and Explosives, resulting in your next turn putting a Bskull on top of your library or playing Explosives, which misses my Tasigurs or Rhinos.

Wizard_of_the_Broke yeah it is kind of slow...however I do have more removal now, so I could use that on Tasigurs and rhinos etc...and I get Jund has Kolighans command to deal with BS possibly if I make a mistake and abrupt decays for EE/crucible...maybe I should take it out? What decks is the package good against?

B-Skull is nice on the sideboard because no one is bringing in Artifact removal against you, and you can bounce it to your hand anyway. But it's only good in long, grindy games where your deck should already be better than average, and where you might rather just flip Emrakul and call it a day. I don't think the rest of the artifact package is all that effective.

What you really want against midrange is Snapcaster Mage, but they're obviously not cheap. The danger is that if the opponent deals with your first threat, they then topdeck better as you figure out another big play. You still have some stuff you can go to, like Tar Pit, though.

I like Intangible Virtue because it dramatically improves the quality of your topdecks, because Lingering Souls or other token producers become genuine, relatively fast threats, that spread beyond the reach of targeted removal. It also dilutes their Abrupt Decays, so they might have to make a tougher decision of you also have a LotV or B Blossom out or in hand.

But the silver bullet against midrange might be something else entirely.

Wizard_of_the_Broke I understand what you are saying about the Virtues, and I might go ahead and put them in the board and take out the artifact package, because your right and it's just too slow and I'd be better off just flipping Emrakul...as for snapcasters, I have them, but they were not in this deck because of the Polymorphs...that would really suck lol

If you have any specific numbers on how many virtues or other cards etc I should put in or take out, that would be great! With the artifact package gone that opens up 4 sideboard slots...

It would be real funny to flip Snappy, and recast Poly. Not good, but funny.

TheFoilAjani haha, yeah! not good...but funny. You have anything to weigh in here?

Mm... I think Virtue won't do enough. I can't articulate why, but that's just my feeling.

TheFoilAjani do you have any thoughts or recommendations or "feelings" lol on what will?

Just Gifts advice. Never fetch for Rites + Target + something that isn't either of those things. The person can just give you the fatty, and you know have to find a way to dump it again. I recommend just Rites + Fatty for 2 cards or Rites + Fatty + Fatty + Something Else.

I really like this deck. Probably going to sleeve up a version of this deck (will have to find replacements for liliana and the big three finishers)

I'm not sold on Polymorph and I don't like Emrakul in here at all. I am not very familiar with Esper gifts, but I know 4c gifts pretty well and I can't even imagine trying to play with it in there. Granted, 4c gifts is really an Abzan deck with blue there only for Jace and Gifts, but I still don't really think it fits this deck. I have two main problems with Polymorph. First is that you get no selection with what creature you find, which is bad because Iona and Elesh Norn are each designed to pick apart different decks. Finding the wrong one can be game-ending. Second is that tutoring a big creature is its only use, whereas with Gifts Ungiven you have a toolbox of packages to go grab. Emrakul is extra bad because it is beyond dead when you draw it and you can't send it to the grave with Gifts, so you can't use Unburial Rites on it. I know you can polymorph for it, but it really isn't worth it. Just a win-more card. Pulling Plymorph allows you to run Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip or Snapcaster Mage, which are both very good cards to run in here.

trixster87: You wanted gifts? Well I couldn't afford them! is a budget 4c gifts deck that you can try.

Good luck! I love gifts!

ToolmasterOfBrainerd thanks for the link. I had copied this deck and was starting to think the same about how polymoph limits the number and types of creatures.

Here's a link to my copied list wouldn't mind your input though I'm really staying to the esper ( I own the mana base already).

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/polyrites-ft-gifts-merry-christmas-copy-1/