@slovakattack: We changed something in our Midrange list. We changed Knight of the Reliquary to Kitchen Finks. Thoughts?

I think that Finks will serve you better in the long run, as you don't really need it to be an alternate win-con so much as a stall tactic until your man-lands/Elesh Norn/Grave Titan/Batterskull can get to em.' To that end, I think Finks are just fine as a budget Goyf.

Let's talk about the Thragtusks. What do you think of Siege Rhino in that slot? (maybe 2 of, not 3 of.)

@slovakattack: We actually discussed that just last night. I like that Siege Rhino is a huge body with a Lightning Helix ETB, and trample to boot. However, my co-deckbuilder likes that Thragtusk requires two removal spells to get rid of. That was also his main reason for replacing Knight of the Reliquary with Finks. I personally am okay with both Thragtusk and Siege Rhino, I just feel the Rhino would be better.

Fulcrum: Think about it like this: Thragtusk is more mana efficient, but slower. Siege Rhino is less mana efficient, but a threat that can't be bolted away, and puts a ludicrous amount of pressure on your opponent.

Thragtusk you can chump block with a token. Siege Rhino requires more immediate answers. This is important in a meta that has Young Pyromancer as a star player (U/R delver) and means that Lingering Souls isn't really an answer to the rhino.

@slovakattack: You bring up some great points. I personally prefer the Rhino, and hopefully these points will persuade my friend. If not, I'll let you know his reasons and see what you think.

GlistenerAgent: Based on some recent testing (I've actually been testing it a lot lately), I find that resolving a T2 Sylvan Caryatid is extremely consistent with me winning- so to that end, I'm throwing a fourth in instead of a 25th land.

One thing that I've been having a little trouble with lately is Tron. It's not really a huge part of the meta atm so I'm not to worried about it in general, but are there any sideboard cards that you would suggest?

I think I'd try to play 25 lands and four Sylvan Caryatid. You may (not sure) be underestimating how important mana is in a control deck.

I wouldn't worry about Tron. The goal there is to remove the 7-8 relevant spells they have (usually 3 Wurmcoil Engine and 4 Karn Liberated) and assemble the Life from the Loam engine as fast as humanly possible. A third Path to Exile will help, as will access to a second Maelstrom Pulse.

As for the sideboard, Stony Silence is your best option and already seems to be there. Again, I wouldn't worry too much.

The only thing I can think of against Tron is to Ghost Quarter them every turn. Maybe Surgical Extraction to get rid of one of their tron pieces permanently?

My problem with the 25th land is that I am very rarely mana starved (once you add the fact that I can theroretically reuse all my fetches if I get a Life from the Loam, and that I lost a game recently that I could very easily have won had I not drawn 8 lands in a row.

Love where the deck is right now, although I'm really not a fan of Iona being in the board, have you just had too many bad experiences against delver? Maybe swap Titan for Iona?

PlattBonnay: I just have lukewarm feelings about Iona, honestly. She locks out games, yes, but unless you know you're good for the bumrush gifts-rites strat, she just isn't all that useful.

That being said, it may be better to have her -in- G1, then sideboard her out for Grave Titan on G2-3, when your opponent has the graveyard hate to make bumrushing Gifts-Rites a dangerous proposition.

To be honest, I haven't actually tested her yet. All of my tests have been done with Grave Titan and Elesh Norn so far- I've found that Elesh Norn does a great job stopping aggro decks like U/R delver, RDW and Affinity just with her ETB effect. (never mind the fact that those decks really have no way to reliably remove her, save for Vapor Snag.

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.