I'm just gonna link this. LSV's the master of not getting presents.

LSV's 5c Bringing Gifts

(Also Iona is much better than Empyrial)

sain77. Ya ive looked though his build a good bit and it was my starting place. From their ive branched off to what you see now. Also why is Iona better? Empyrial seems better against abzan(both black and white removal), zoo (burn, heavy board presence, and paths), jund (man lands), even burn to some degree (they board in 4 paths). Seems better at attacking since even on the swing back it soaks up damage. The games you loss with Empyrial seem like you would have also lost with Iona. I played Iona mainboard for a while but no body has given me a reason why its actually better than Empyrial lol. I suppose storm? But thats not a real thought at the moment.

Thank you for the link =).

Don't think of your gameplan against BGx decks in terms of the reanimation plan. It is simply not good against them. Jund is a bit in exception due to Iona locking out black being downright murderous. That is, if they do not have Liliana in play, or a scavenging ooze to disrupt you. You beat Abzan with value gifts, Lingering souls, and perhaps hard-casting your fatties at some point.

Empyrial isn't as sturdy as you might believe. Having played it at one point, it often just dies to your opponents combined board-state.

You usually fight Zoo with Norn and Timely Reinforceents. They often cannot kill Norn, and IoK can protect her from what meagre removal they have. Thragtusk is our backup plan.

Similarly, against burn, IoK will handle Path to clear Iona's way. In addition, Only Path beats Iona. 8 damage beats Archangel. If Iona gets Path'd we have Timely and Thragtusk as backup plans.

Worrying about other people's removal is often unwise. We have enough ways to win that we can risk people havng PtE, or we can simply wait and tear it out of their hand with discard.

sain77: Fair points and thanks for the reply, I was thinking of it the opposite way lol. If Empyrial gets killed then I still have Timely and Thragtusk as backup plans. I was thinking Ghostly Prison makes it a bit harder for them to kill empyrial and if they still can then they have such a strong board presence that Iona would have also not been enough to keep me alive.

Abzan/BGx may be my strongest matchup because of the value gifts package and Lilly isnt even a though with all the random tokens I have so thats not a concern. Because of that i dont really have all that much in the sb against them.

For zoo most their guys are 3 def so Norn stops the attacks but doesnt kill and they run 4 bolts and 4 lightning helex. If im high enough ya ill get Norn but some times having something like Empyrial to soak up 2 bolts and eat a creature seems best. Then stabilize with timely, souls, or thragtusk.

So far the majority of my testing has been against aggressive tempo decks and Eldrazi and against those two specific cases ive liked Empyrial more (not very relavent in the eldrazi matchup because always side it out). With Iona I have had to name red to avoid getting killed then Iona just gets vaper snagged or snap snagged. Also, surprisingly Norn hasnt seemed right in this matchup either due to burn/snag and haste creatures. However there are a tone of other decks i havent tested much against and since you have tried it out in the past you probably know the outcome better than I.

Suggestions on how to improve the painful mana base would be greatly appreciated =).

I recommend mana confluence and city of brass. It's less damage in short games than running a fetch/shock mana base. In long games you are probably casting lifegain spells anyway.

Not sure I agree Frimbleglim. That seems liike it would hurt more. I think having a less painful mana base involves less colors. I would recommend cutting red if you are not playing Bring to Light. I dislike Faithless Looting in a value deck, as it is card disadvantage, and Crumble to Dust isn't worth the splash. Your discard spells should allow yyou to backdoor into discarding reanimation targets if you need to.

A Discard my Reanimation target Gifts Pile is Raven's Crime, Unburial Rites, Land, Land.

More Birds of Paradise also helps, but I would not play more than 6 mana guys. I would also recomennd MD Raven's Crime and a couple Mana Leak to replace Faithless Looting.

sain77,Frimbleglim: Ive got Raven's Crime in my sideboard so that i can have the Loam, Urburg, Ravens crime package which is great against control. I dont have it main at the moment because with all the eldrazi/infect/affinity/burn/zoo i feel its a bit to slow in this meta game.

I know playing the 5th color for pretty much just Faithless Looting comes at a pretty high cost but ive been very very happy with it so far. Ive tried replacing it with 2 Sultai Charm's before but Faithless Looting just fixes everything whenever i feel like im flooding and works quite well with a loam. Can also throw it into gifts packages late game for even more value so i think im going to be keeping it for now. Ive also tried Mana Leak, it wasnt bad but wasnt anything that i found like i really needed.

Like your idea with adding a few more mana guys, may replace Augur of Bolas with Birds of Paradise which should help my mana a fair amount because then i wont need U till turn 3/4 so could replace Steam Vents with something else. Also going back to Iona vs Empyrial, I agree with your suggestion of Iona vs Empyrial mainly because of board wipes.

Do y'all thing a 1-2 of Gemstone Mine would be appropriate here?

Also what are your thoughts on replacing Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Grave Titan mainboard to the sideboard with Worship? Worship wins most game 1's but not after sideboard and they bring in enchantment hate. Since they will probably bring in hate regardless because of Ghostly Prison may as well get value from it game 1 right?

Lets work it out turn by turn:

Turn 1) fetch + shock = 3 life vs Mana confluences = 1 life

Turn 2) fetch + shock = 3 life vs Mana confluences = 2 life

turn 3) shock = 2 life vs mana confluences = 2 life (asuming you have a basic at this point)

Total: 8 life lost to shocks 5 life lost to mana confluences.

After turn 3 you are usually either all but dead anyway or you are in a long grindy game. If the former you will be glad of the extra life points. If the latter you will need lifegain spells for either mana base and will hit your urborg sooner or later.

I have been playing a 5 colour combo deck for the last year or so and have found mana confluence and city of brass far better for these decks.

Frimbleglim and its even a little bit better because of Urborg too. Do you think its better in this deck than Gemstone Mine?

Also Assuming i use all my mana wouldnt it go like this:

With confluence:

T1: 1 damage

T2: 4 damage (fetch + shock + confluence damage)

T3: 2 damage (fetch + basic + confluence damage)

Total 7

VS without confluence:

T1: 3 damage (fetch + shock)

T2: 3 damage (fetch + shock)

T3: 1 damage (fetch + basic)

Total 7

Actually nvm, it could go with mana confluence:

T1: 3 damage (fetch + shock)

T2: 1 damage (fetch + basic)

T3: 1 damage (confluence damage)

Total 5

so i see where you got 5 from. Either way, do you think Mana Confluence is better in this deck than Gemstone Mine?

Probably but there are 8 mana confluence cards because you can play city of brass as well. So I don't think you need to run more than 3 fetches and you shouldn't need any shocks at all with these.