Thopter Gifts (Primer Included)

Modern* Combo Control Gifts Ungiven Primer Reanimator WUB (Esper)

DarkAngel13

Land (23)

• 2x Academy Ruins
• 2x Celestial Colonnade
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 3x Hallowed Fountain
• 2x Island
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Watery Grave

Instant (18)

• 1x Cryptic Command *list*
• 3x Gifts Ungiven
• 2x Logic Knot
• 2x Muddle the Mixture
• 3x Opt
• 4x Path to Exile
• 1x Spell Snare
• 2x Thirst for Knowledge

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Karn, Scion of Urza

Artifact (9)

• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 3x Sword of the Meek
• 2x Talisman of Progress
• 3x Thopter Foundry

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Timely Reinforcements
• 1x Unburial Rites
• 1x Wrath of God

Creature (2)

• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Snapcaster Mage

---

Sideboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Disenchant
• 2x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Settle the Wreckage

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Artifact (5)

• 2x Damping Sphere
• 2x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Sorcerous Spyglass

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Timely Reinforcements

Creature (2)

• 1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
• 1x Terastodon

---

This is a Thopter Gifts deck that utilizes a combo that was a dominant force in the old days of extended with a modern twist. The combos utilize Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek in order to produce tons of life and thopters for every mana you sink into the combo in order to out value your opponents.

Combo Pieces Show

Thopter Foundry : Part of the primary combo of the deck and the most important piece to protect due to the fact that it can not recure itself on its own.

Sword of the Meek : The second part of the combo and is the main reason that this combo works at all. With both pieces on the field, you are able to sacrifice the sword to the foundry and create a 1/1 Blue Thopter with Flying and gain a life. Then due to the ability of the sword, it will return attached to the last Thopter you created. Note that this combo isn't an instant "I win" combo but it does give the inevitability to win the game.

Search Spells/Combo Finders Show

Gifts Ungiven : My all-time favorite card ever printed is one of the keys to making this deck viable. With Gifts, you can search out up to four ways in order to try to assemble the combo. Gifts Ungiven is arguably the most powerful card in the deck because it can usually give you need in order to either stabilize the board or find a way to win the game. The best part of this card is that it can search UP TO FOUR CARDS which allows you to just pick up to two cards and dump them straight into your graveyard which is great to give you different ways to grab a combo.

Muddle the Mixture : The transmute ability of this card can fetch out either Thopter Foundry or Sword of the Meek at the cost of three mana on your turn. The card also functions as its face value of being a hard counterspell for instants and sorceries to help either stall out the game until you can muster up the win or to protect your combo as well.

Thirst for Knowledge : One of the most powerful draws spells in modern, this card allows us to dig three deep into our deck and then pitch either two cards or an artifact within most cases can end up being more of an advantage than it would a disadvantage in our deck thanks to our graveyard recursion.

Spells (Instant and Soreries) Show

Path to Exile : One of the strongest removal spells in modern for one mana and minimal downside, what's not to love?

Logic Knot : This spell is really strong in this deck due to our graveyards being exceptionally large due to our gifts and various spells though can mess with our single Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk

Cryptic Command : Only a one of in the deck but does everything that you could ever want it to do. It is essentially the Swiss Army Knife of blue cards and a great one of for the deck.

Supreme Verdict / Wrath of God : Some of the best sweepers in modern and well worth against any midrange or aggro deck to try to stabilize the board. I run one of each because you need multiple targets with different names from Gifts Ungiven .

Opt : Newest addition to modern's cantrips cycle and was something that I was super excited to see included in Ixalan. It is technically better in this deck than Serum Visions , even though we scry 1 less, because of it being an instant. This allows one to hold mana up on turn one for our Spell Snare if we have one and the fact that you scry before you draw.

Unburial Rites : Technically two reanimate spells in one thanks to its flashback cost.It is a one of in our deck that can be fetched out with our Gifts Ungiven along with a fatty directly into the graveyard so that way we can instantly reanimate it the next turn or if we have four extra mana for its flashback cost.

Spells (Other) Show

Engineered Explosives : A super powerful card that has the capability to wipe an entire field of non-land permanents. This card is one of the reasons that we splash black in the deck allowing us to get more out of the sunburst cost. Plus this card is a possible soft lock with our Academy Ruins in the deck.

Oblivion Ring / Detention Sphere : Much for the same reason that we run the split with our wrath effects, the different names are relevant for our Gifts packages. The purpose is as a catch-all against non-land permanents we have a hard time dealing with, also Detention Sphere is really good against token strategies.

Talisman of Progress : A ramp spell that is also an artifact, mostly in here because of its ability to be sacrificed to our Thopter Foundry to start the combo if we already have a Sword of the Meek in our graveyard and can be pitched to Thirst for Knowledge as well.

Creatures Show

Snapcaster Mage : We run only two actual creatures in the main board and this card is worth one of the two spots. Not much to say about this card that hasn't been said before but it is a buyback on an instant or sorcery in our graveyard at instant speed and also works as chump blocker as well.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite : Card is in the deck specifically for the ability to dump it into our graveyard along with Unburial Rites in a gifts pile and reanimate directly afterward. It is hard for low to the ground fair decks to deal with. It kills a lot of our opponent's creatures and swings for 4 each turn on its own and pumps up our thopters. The only downside to this card is that it shuts down our thopter combo because our thopters are no longer entering as 1/1s for the Sword of the Meek trigger in the graveyard.

Lands Show

Celestial Colonnade : Not many lands I want to talk about but there are a couple of important ones. This is a staple in any blue-white control/midrange decks that in itself can act as an alternate win condition because of its ability to turn itself into a Serra Angel .

Academy Ruins : An extremely powerful land and arguably the best land in our deck that allows us to recur artifacts in our graveyard by putting them on top of our library for only the cost of . This helps us to protect our combo pieces that makes them hard to get rid of without an exile effect. It also is a soft lock with Engineered Explosives and is a solid pick in a gifts package to find a combo piece. The only downside is that it is legendary and does not tap for colored mana itself but is still an auto-include.

Tolaria West : Great card that also has the transmute ability on a land that produces blue. It's converted mana cost is zeros so it allows us to fetch out either an Academy Ruins or an Engineered Explosives which makes this a versatile card that is worthy of a singleton in the deck.

Snow-Covered Island / Snow-Covered Plains : The reason we run these two random basics is because of the fact that they have different names from our normal basics which allows us to pick them out in a gifts pile that also has a basic Island and basic Plains .

Watery Grave : Our only source of black in our deck that can be fetched out by our fetchlands. It is only in here because it gives us another color to pay into our Engineered Explosives and to be able to cast Unburial Rites from our hand for its normal cost.

Top Ranked	Achieved #20 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Splash colors	B
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 2 Mythic Rares 28 - 3 Rares 16 - 6 Uncommons 7 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.46
Tokens	Construct 0/0 C, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Soldier 1/1 W, Thopter 1/1 U
Folders	Modern ideas, Interesting Modern Decks, Buildable