This is a deck I made to combat a heavily monocolour metagame, which Iona just kills.
REMOVAL - 14 x 1x Smother : For gifts packages. Maybe Dismember is just better, and I've been testing Dismember instead of Smother. 4x Bolt : Never bad. Burn and it hits almost all relevant creatures. 3x Path : For everything else. The fourth is in the board, but G1 I like Bolt and Helix instead; for most decks, drawing one Path is just fine.1x Helix : A fifth bolt, really. I keep looking for slots for more Helixes, but 14 is about the right number of removal spells, so it's had to stay singleton. 1x Cyclonic Rift : A catch-all removal spell. Really here to hit the odd blood moon, but good against a lot of things. Functions as a sweeper in a pinch. This would be Cryptic Command if the manabase could support UUU consistently. 4x Electrolyze : Maybe the best card in this deck. In my meta, a consistent 2 or 3 for 1. Maybe in other metas this wouldn't be a four-of, but I love Electrolyze so much in mine.
3x Sweepers Really, nothing to note about each of them. They're good in slightly different contexts. I often board one or two of them out, but against some decks T4 Gifts into T5 boardwipe is just necessary.
4x Counters 1x Spell Snare : This is an odd inclusion. I always feel like it should be something else, but I've tested the deck with 0, 1 and 3 snares. When I had 0 (for a Mana Leak) I always missed it, and when I had 3 (Taking out removal) I felt like it clogged up my lategame. I guess in this deck spell snare is your best card if you get it in your opening hand, but you'd rather never have it lategame, so singleton seems fine. (Suggestions would be appreciated!)2x Mana Leak : Great card; counters aren't so good in the current meta, so I don't want to run more than four total. Four means I usually have a counter if I really need one. I would run the third Mana Leak, but I need another all-purpose counterspell for Gifts piles. 1x Counterflux : The all-purpose counterspell for Gifts piles. Edge over Dissipate because of the work it does against decks like Storm, and graveyards are being hated out enough by other decks that most spells you would want to counter are fine in the yard.
Walkers x2: 1x Liliana of the Veil : I like her a lot. She can discard Iona to the yard if we draw her, functions as removal, and in lategame races she just wins the game. I want more of her, and I've been considering taking out some removal for her. 1x Ajani Vengenat : Here, he's kind of a win condition that we can use as a removal spell. Often he taps down a pesky attacker until he ults, and then we usually just win. Other times he helixes, and that's fine too. One is fine because he's mainly here for a diversity of win conditions.
Creatures x3
SNAPPIES x2 : Excellent cards, they make gifts so much better and you have an amazing number of spells. They're never bad. Sometimes they're just ok, and we have enough dig for them through Gifts, so two is a good number.
Geist x1 : When he's good, he just wins out of nowhere. He's mostly here as another win condition against removal-heavy decks, and usually worst case he's a 1-for-1. When he's bad, he's bad and I side him out (Maybe should be a second Vengeant).
Gifts Engine 4x Gifts : Obviously. This runs the deck. Gifts on T4 into Rites, Iona just wins so much of the time (And creates a ton of judge calls, heh). Rites package x21x Iona -- The target. In the board we have some more targets but G1 she usually is enough, and if she isn't someone's spent a lot of effort removing her, and that's fine too. 1x Rites Artifact package x2This isn't really a package. Usually you only search for one of them as a threat that you have the other. 1x Academy Ruins1x Engineered Explosives : Unlimited removal of 4cmc or less targets seems good to me, and it usually wins the game if Iona can't. ETC.Sphinx's Relevation x1 : Throw this in any gifts package. It people give it you, you usually just draw so much that you win. If they don't, you can always Snapcaster it lately.
LANDBASE :The landbase is a mess. It works well enough, it could be better and I'm working on that. Probably I want to add a few more fetches.
MATCHUPS:Really, I've only played a ton of Soul Sisters, brews and Burn. Against those, so far out of a few events, the deck is undefeated. Again...it's very targeted to my small, local metagame. I am trying to test it to see if it's good elsewhere, but that is in process.
AGANST GY HATERest in Peace: Not so bad. They wasted a turn to play it, probably out of the board, and if you expected it you can simply side out the Rites package and play more lke a straight UWR deck. I've experimented with simply bringing in enchantment hate for Blood Moon and RiP G2, and I kind of like it. Maybe that's a better answer.
Deathrite and Ooze : Usually you want to bolt these anyway, so just bolt them and they won't eat much of your yard.
BOGLES : This seems like a really bad matchup. Even more reason for enchantment hate in the board.
SIDEBOARD : Ignore it, pretty much. A work in progress.
