The illusion of choice (Modern MTG Deck)

The illusion of choice

Modern* Combo Competitive Control Gifts Ungiven GWUB Primer Reanimator

JKRice

Land (23)

Instant (13)

Artifact (8)

Sorcery (9)

Planeswalker (4)

Creature (3)

Sideboard

Instant (5)

Artifact (3)

Creature (4)

Sorcery (3)

Maybeboard

Sorcery (8)

Enchantment (1)

1x Dress Down

Creature (7)

Artifact (1)

1x Mishra's Bauble

Land (4)

Instant (3)

This is by far my favorite deck in modern, with a combo-Control style and synergies you don’t see in any other decks. Now that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a super good deck, but it is very fun to play. Gifts control seeks to use Gifts Ungiven to generate huge advantages and force your opponent to choose the way they want to die. The thing I love the most about it is the extreme versatility of the archetype; each list is different and opts for an alternative playstyle. One could be draw-go while another could be more pressuring. This build is an attempt to put it all together into one list, so you can change how you play depending on the matchup and starting hand. If you are familiar with gifts lists, skip this first spoiler.

Keep in mind that this primer isn’t finished, so there might be some sections that are incomplete or don’t have anything in them.

Suggestions are always appreciated, this list is a work in progress.

Card Choices Show

Mainboard

Non-Lands

1: Abrupt Decay/Assassin's Trophy are the main hate removers, hitting everything from Rest in Peace to Blood Moon.

2: Batterskull is an interesting late-game finisher that is usually hard to get rid of. Some decks prefer Wurmcoil Engine.

3: Collective Brutality does just about everything we want, letting us pitch reanimation targets and haakon, all while getting rid of board threats and disrupting our opponent’s hand.

4: Crucible of Worlds is something I added as an afterthought, which allows for some graveyard shenanigans that we wouldn’t normally be able to pull off. However, three mana is a bit much for 1-2 synergies, so I am considering taking this out for Lingering Souls or some other card.

5: Damnation/Maelstrom Pulse are solid in a creature based meta, with humans, jund, affinity, and arc light decks at the forefront.

6: Dismember is (in my opinion) the best removal in modern, hitting everything that fatal push can’t.

7: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is the first of the reanimator targets, best suited for matchups with creature decks.

8: Engineered Explosives is the general answer to whatever our opponent plays, being especially good when paired with Academy Ruins.

9: Eternal Witness is in most value piles, giving you more control over what your opponent chooses with Gifts Ungiven. Some decks prefer Treasured Find.

10: Fatal Push deals with those pesky little bears, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

11: Gifts Ungiven is the powerhouse of the deck, letting us set up some pretty fun combos and locks. Note that you can look for up to four cards. Some decks add a Merchant Scroll as a 5th gifts, which I’ve need considering.

12: Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is only in here for the memes with gifts and Nameless Inversion. I keep wanting to take it out, but it’s too fun to continuously wipe the board with a Knight sorcery.

13: Iona, Shield of Emeria is the second reanimator target, meant to soft-lock combo/spell decks.

14: Jace, the Mind Sculptor was just too good not to include.

15: Life from the Loam is the main target with gifts, letting us pull off some whacky shit to be explained later.

16: Liliana of the Veil deals with everything, while letting us pitch the reanimator targets and haakon.

17: Mana Leak/Negate/Remand are the main stall cards, not meant to stop the opponent but just to force the game out a few more turns so we can get a lock.

18: Lingering Souls proved some board pressure and extra bodies for Batterskull to be equipped to. Always a good 4th card in any gifts pile.

19: Noxious Revival gives a lot more versatility to this deck, letting us loop everything we play or control our opponent’s gift choices.

20: Path to Exile are well worth the downside, hitting all the stuff push can’t.

21: Raven's Crime is a key part of the deck, when combined with Life from the Loam.

22: Snapcaster Mage lets us loop everything we play and double up on our gifts, as well as providing a body for Batterskull.

23: Unburial Rites lets us cheat out Iona and elesh norn from the yard.

24: Slaughter Pact for extra redundancy when gifting for destroy spells.

Manabase

1: Academy Ruins gives some recursiveness to the deck, letting us grab back Batterskull or loop Engineered Explosives.

2: Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge let us pull off some serious shenanigans with Life from the Loam, wiping away our opponent’s access to mana.

3: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is what we grab in the Raven's Crime pile if we don’t have enough black sources.

The rest of the lands are essentially irrelevant.

Sideboard

1: Thrun, the Last Troll and Thragtusk act as board pressure that are hard to get rid of, in case you hit a highly responsive deck.

2: Nihil Spellbomb, Relic of Progenitus, and Scavenging Ooze help to beat those pesky graveyard decks, and spellbomb can be looped with academy ruins.

3: Countersquall/Dispel/Negate if you want to go a more draw-go route.

4: Supreme Verdict is an absolute necessity against recursive graveyard decks like dredge.

5: Platium empirion provides another reanimator target for gifts. This is for matchups against decks that neither Iona or elesh work very well.

6: Chalice of the Void shuts down all the decks that Iona can’t.

7: Timely Reinforcements helps against decks that can outpace your control, giving you more time to deal with threats.

8: Bant Charm is one of the more versatile sideboard cards, useful against all three main archetypes (creature, artifact, spell/control)

Gifts Piles Show

Gifts for Combos

Note that some of these only have 2-3 cards in them, meaning you can go for a couple value cards with the combo pieces.

Before you read these, read Gifts Ungiven closely

Raven’s Crime

Raven's Crime, Life from the Loam, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and a random land

Play Urborg so that every land could potentially pay for raven’s crime. Raven’s crime’s retrace ability lets you discard the land you eat with gifts and other lands you have in our hand. Use LftL to get those lands back every turn and recast raven up to three times. This lets you strip your opponent’s hand down, usually in one turn, generating massive card advantage. You can substitute any card with the retrace keyword, but raven’s crime is probably going to be the best option. This is your go-to pile, since hand disruption hurts all decks. Do you see this played in any other modern decks? I don’t think so.

Engineered Explosives

Engineered Explosives, Academy Ruins, Noxious Revival/Eternal Witness

Once you have explosives not hand and academy ruins on the field, you can potentially play explosives, crack it, and put it back on top all in the same turn. This lets you loop explosives almost every turn, and definitely every turn once you get past 6 mana. I would call this a soft lock because you can basically hit whatever your opponent plays. You probably want this against creature/board pressure based decks.

Ghost Quarter/Tec Edge

Life from the Loam, Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge (maybe add Crucible of Worlds if you’re feeling spicy or LftL somehow got exiled)

Crucible of Worlds, Academy Ruins, Tectonic Edge, Noxious Revival/Eternal Witness

This lets you recursively kill your opponent’s lands until they don’t have any left. The second gives you more recursiveness and less tediousness in playing back tec edge or ghost quarter.

Nameless Inversion

Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, Nameless Inversion and NO MORE CARDS

You want both of these in the yard. When you play haakon, inversion can then be cast from the yard, since it is a changeleing card. This (hopefully) lets you get rid of any threats left on your opponent’s board. Honestly you’re better off just going for a lock combo, but this is just too fun not to include in the deck.

Reanimator Packages

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Unburial Rites and NO MORE CARDS

Iona, Shield of Emeria, Unburial Rites, and NO MORE CARDS

This lets you cheat out the reanimator target the turn after you play gifts. Elesh norn should be played against creature decks while Iona is better suited for locking down spell decks.

Raven’s Land Destruction

This is a combination of the raven’s crime combo and the slightly worse land destruction combo. This gives you more versatility.

Life from the Loam, Raven's Crime, Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter, random discardable land

This setup, no matter what the opponent chooses, lets you do a bit of both combos once each turn. For 4 mana a turn, you can kill a land, strip a card from their hand, and reset with LftL. If you have an extra discardable land you can strip two cards.

Explosives Land Destruction

Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives, Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter, Life from the Loam

LftL gets back ruins, which gets back explosives. This lets you set up the explosives soft-lock and strip some lands away at the same time. However, this is probably the most mana intensive gifts pile and I wouldn’t reccomend it.

Gifts for Answers

Firstly, we you need to know what functionally identical means. When two cards are functionally identical, it means they have different names but they accomplish the same task/are the same card, like Grizzly Bear and Bear Cub, or Abrupt Decay and Assassin's Trophy in most situations. The main gifts piles are going to be 3-4 functionally identical cards with snapcaster or a recursion card. These are functionally identical cards, or at least cards that serve the same purpose. This lets us force through an answer to whatever our opponent has, essentially turning gifts into a Diabolic Tutor.

For destroying creatures Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Fatal Push, Dismember, Path to Exile, Engineered Explosives, Damnation, mealstrom pulse, possibly Nameless Inversion, Liliana of the Veil, or Collective Brutality

For wiping/boardwiping: Damnation, Engineered Explosives, Maelstrom Pulse, possibly Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Counterspells: Negate, Remand, Mana Leak

Destroying Hate: Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Maelstrom Pulse, Engineered Explosives

Recursion: Noxious Revival, Eternal Witness

Discard outlet: Collective Brutality, Liliana of the Veil

Gifts for Value

Looping Gifts

The most value you can get off of gifts ungiven is to just got for another gifts or find ways to recast it. This usually involves two value spells, snapcaster, and another gifts. This lets you continually gain card advantage and constantly have answers to whatever they play.

Value Cards

This is just a list of cards/combinations that are good in certain situations

1: Getting an early Batterskull can put you really far ahead, especially because it’s so hard to get rid of. If your opponent has lots of hate, you can just go Batterskull, Noxious Revival, and Academy Ruins for a life advantage.

2: The planeswalkers are amazing toolbox cards. Both of them deal with board threats, and both have some card control/advantage as well. They are also useful as distractions for your opponent to be forced to deal with before killing you.

3: Liliana of the Veil and Collective Brutality both let you pitch haakon and the reanimator targets, which are basically useless in your hand. If you have them in your hand, and you want to discard them, go Snapcaster Mage, Liliana of the Veil, Collective Brutality and Gifts Ungiven. No matter what, you will be able to discard what you want and gifts again to finish whatever combo you just put in your yard.

4: Snapcaster Mage, Negate, Mana Leak, and Remand is a hard wall to break. This is usually something you go for game 2, after you know what deck they’re playing. For example, if you know you are against scapeshift, you would go for this when they are on 5-6 lands so you are ready to counter Scapeshift or Bring to Light.

5: almost every game, you will need to find answers before you can pull off a combo. This usually means Assassin's Trophy, Abrupt Decay, Damnation, and Maelstrom Pulse or maybe a snapcaster or another gifts in there somewhere. This is your standard answer pile. Once you have them stalled out, then you can focus on other stuff.

6: Surprisingly, Crucible of Worlds creates a huge advantage if you can stick it for a few turns. That with LftL, academy ruins, and a land is never a bad choice.

7: if you are under no pressure at all (facing control), but you need more lands, going for three lands and LftL is usually not a bad idea.

Gameplay Show

Miscellaneous Tips

This is just a list of things to keep in mind while playing gifts control.

your primary aim is to stop them from killing you and disrupt their strategy. Then you can focus on preventing them from coming back. This means go for the reanimation first and then get the soft-locks.
Gifts is an instant. You want to hold up mana for disruption and then if you don’t have to respond to anything, cast gifts on your opponent’s end step. If you just cast it on your turn, that gives your opponent the chance to get board pressure.
You will usually have a lock piece in your hand. This means you can go for the rest of the pieces of that lock and still have some slots to go for a different combo.

Actually Winning

Batterskull

The first win condition is Batterskull. The fastest way to get this out is Batterskull, Academy Ruins, and Eternal Witness. Don’t use noxious revival, because having witness on the field means you have another creature to attack batterskull to if they kill the germ.

Reanimators

Both of the reanimator targets make for heavy board pressure, especially if you can Gifts T3 and play them T4.

Planeswalkers

If left for too long, the locks in this deck mean you can absolutely use the planeswalkers as wincons. Jace is an automatic win, while Liliana allows for you to win with even a snapcaster.

Matchups

Arclight Phoenix

Gifts piles: iona on red, then go for the raven’s crime pile.

Sideboard: dispel, negate, relic, scooze, spellbomb.

Dredge

Gifts piles: elesh, then batterskull to gain back all the life you just lost

Sideboard: scooze, relic, spellbomb, and possible empirion

Spirits/Humans/Whatever creature deck is good right now

Gifts piles: definitely elesh, then explosives soft-lock or haakon wipe combo

Sideboard: Countersquall, supreme verdict, maybe abrupt decay

Ironworks Combo

Gifts piles: engineered explosives first, then ghost quarter pile, since they only play 1-2 basics

Sideboard: negate, creeping corrosion, nihil spellbomb, scooze, and relic are all options but definitely don’t bring all of them in.

Death’s Shadow

Gift’s piles: iona on black, then ghost quarter pile

Sideboard: abrupt decay, maybe Countersquall

Tron

Gifts piles: Don’t bother with the reanimation targets. Get ghost quarter/tec edge pile first. Then raven’s crime to strip away all the cards they can’t play.

Sideboard: maybe Countersquall or supreme verdict

Naya Burn

Gifts piles: elesh, then batterskull

Sideboard: Thrun, thragtusk, empirion, chalice

Red Burn

Gifts piles: Iona, batterskull

Sideboard: Thrun, thragtusk, chalice

Hollow One

Gifts piles: just go for destroy spells and board wipes early. Then go for the full explosives pile.

Sideboard: supreme verdict, empirion, chalice

Storm

Gifts piles: Iona on red, then raven’s crime

Sideboard: negate, dispel, relic, scooze, spellbomb, chalice, empirion

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Top Ranked	Achieved #41 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 2 Mythic Rares 35 - 7 Rares 12 - 3 Uncommons 1 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.57
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Soldier 1/1 W
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