Gifts Archetype
In my last two drafts, I've seen the rise of Simic Gifts as a distinct powerhouse archetype. Well, at least half an archetype - the UG decks I'm talking about focus heavily on tutors and recursion (with extremely good gifts piles) but usually have some other archetype grafted on top which give them unique flavor or wind condition. I was going to post the decklists, but first I feel compelled to share some wisdom from other Riptiders.
This is a quick encapsulation of what I had in mind. In my particular cube, the Simic archetype focuses on cards like:
Black and white both seem like natural directions to extend the theme (safra's post instantly sold me on Profane Command - maybe also Cryptic Command). One can imagine UW, UB, or Esper versions although I think I'd want to expand my overall recursion suite a little - EWit and Regrowth are both so good.
Completely unsurprising to me, inscho has also been thinking along the same lines but with more of a midrage/combat focus. He posted a detailed breakdown of options in BUG:
This looks like a perfectly reasonable direction that the archetype could go. In my cube, I could imagine this taking the Seasons Past, Demonic Tutor loop direction where Gifts and extra recursion would really shine as an absurd value engine. Dom suggests another creature-themed direction which is even more my jam:
Frank Karsten's first place deck from worlds 2005 is already like something straight out of my cube. Two weeks ago for example, I played a Rector/Pattern/Yosei deck:
You can easily imagine adding blue for Gifts, adding some extra recursion or counter magic, and having Greater Good instead of Carrion Feeder. Looking over some of these posts has given me plenty to mull over as I push to support these shenanigans more. In fact, I want to push more recursion across all colors because it makes the combo games much more back-and-forth and exciting. I think I've mentioned this before, but when you're playing storm and get duress'd twice, it forces you to dig deep to find clever and roundabout ways to recur back your key pieces. This works fine if you managed to grab the Eternal Witness every drafter is fighting for, but if the whole cube were more suffused with recursion, then I could generally up the power of removal and disruption without worrying that pure control decks would take over.
Anyway, on to the two Simic Gifts decks from my own cube that sparked this whole post:
The first was this Intruder Alarm, Paradox Engine combo deck that stormed off with creatures. Basically the goal was to slowly get to the point where you could Retraction Helix, make infinte mana, draw your deck, and kill them with Aetherflux Reservoir. Gifts was an absolute monster - by far the scariest and most consistent card in a list that already naturally wants Regrowth and Greenwarden for resilience.
The second example, puts Gifts in a more reactive prison deck instead of dedicated combo:
There's a lot going on in this list, so the Gifts packages were kinda hard to sort out. You could go for a lock out with Stasis, Winter Orb, Fatestitcher, Wilderness Reclamation when the coast was clear, or go grab bounce, counterspells, reclamation sage, recursion and/or card draw when your opponent was trying to do something scary. Very very fun to play.
I think at this point I'm ready to replace Deep Analysis with a second copy of Gifts. Any recommendations on solid recursion spells across the color wheel? Any thoughts on other directions to take the Gifts package or more dedicated Gifts archetypes?
In my last two drafts, I've seen the rise of Simic Gifts as a distinct powerhouse archetype. Well, at least half an archetype - the UG decks I'm talking about focus heavily on tutors and recursion (with extremely good gifts piles) but usually have some other archetype grafted on top which give them unique flavor or wind condition. I was going to post the decklists, but first I feel compelled to share some wisdom from other Riptiders.
This is a quick encapsulation of what I had in mind. In my particular cube, the Simic archetype focuses on cards like:
Black and white both seem like natural directions to extend the theme (safra's post instantly sold me on Profane Command - maybe also Cryptic Command). One can imagine UW, UB, or Esper versions although I think I'd want to expand my overall recursion suite a little - EWit and Regrowth are both so good.
Completely unsurprising to me, inscho has also been thinking along the same lines but with more of a midrage/combat focus. He posted a detailed breakdown of options in BUG:
Gigapede is a old favorite of mine, but is pretty bad these days....
I was actually thinking of writing a big post on this archetype I've been working on, but since the pede came up, and I will likely never sit down and commit to a full archetype analysis, I'll just dump this here:
To fetch any of:
Additional support:
(Plus any other relvant emerge, delve cards, or flashback....there's obviously a lot of options to adjust to fit your environment. )
The resulting deck being akin to teachings or the old nether-go decks that were a lot of fun in the past: https://archive.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010212a
I like the idea of incentivizing this type of control deck, and felt that Mystical Teachings was just a little too anemic for my environment.
This looks like a perfectly reasonable direction that the archetype could go. In my cube, I could imagine this taking the Seasons Past, Demonic Tutor loop direction where Gifts and extra recursion would really shine as an absurd value engine. Dom suggests another creature-themed direction which is even more my jam:
Frank Karsten's first place deck from worlds 2005 is already like something straight out of my cube. Two weeks ago for example, I played a Rector/Pattern/Yosei deck:
Rector Sacrifice Combo
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You can easily imagine adding blue for Gifts, adding some extra recursion or counter magic, and having Greater Good instead of Carrion Feeder. Looking over some of these posts has given me plenty to mull over as I push to support these shenanigans more. In fact, I want to push more recursion across all colors because it makes the combo games much more back-and-forth and exciting. I think I've mentioned this before, but when you're playing storm and get duress'd twice, it forces you to dig deep to find clever and roundabout ways to recur back your key pieces. This works fine if you managed to grab the Eternal Witness every drafter is fighting for, but if the whole cube were more suffused with recursion, then I could generally up the power of removal and disruption without worrying that pure control decks would take over.
Anyway, on to the two Simic Gifts decks from my own cube that sparked this whole post:
Gifts Alarm Storm
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The first was this Intruder Alarm, Paradox Engine combo deck that stormed off with creatures. Basically the goal was to slowly get to the point where you could Retraction Helix, make infinte mana, draw your deck, and kill them with Aetherflux Reservoir. Gifts was an absolute monster - by far the scariest and most consistent card in a list that already naturally wants Regrowth and Greenwarden for resilience.
The second example, puts Gifts in a more reactive prison deck instead of dedicated combo:
Stasis Lands Gifts
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There's a lot going on in this list, so the Gifts packages were kinda hard to sort out. You could go for a lock out with Stasis, Winter Orb, Fatestitcher, Wilderness Reclamation when the coast was clear, or go grab bounce, counterspells, reclamation sage, recursion and/or card draw when your opponent was trying to do something scary. Very very fun to play.
I think at this point I'm ready to replace Deep Analysis with a second copy of Gifts. Any recommendations on solid recursion spells across the color wheel? Any thoughts on other directions to take the Gifts package or more dedicated Gifts archetypes?
