The first PTQ Honolulu of the Bay Area is this Saturday at Superstars Game Center (click there, or click here for our TO’s page).
I’m bringing a Gifts deck, which explains my recent Gifts Ungiven retrospective.
Although it’s my policy to not post my deck list until I take it to at least the first relevant event of the season, here are some of the observations that came up in testing:
Hierarchs are out
Even though Noble Hierarch is an excellent example of the exalted keyword, it doesn’t suit a control-oriented Gifts deck of the type I’m using.
Glittering Wish is still too slow
Although it makes me sad, Glittering Wish isn’t fast enough, either on its own or as part of a Gifts package. Around the time of PT Berlin, Pat Chapin said the Gifts engine isn’t powerful enough without a wish component, but in my testing to date, having the Wishes in the deck really weakens me.
This makes me sad, because conceptually, wishboards are awesome.
Shadowmoor gave Gifts some good tools
Even when you’re not wishing for hybrid cards (another cool feature of Shadowmoor vis-a-vis some Gifts decks), Shadowmoor and Eventide gave some great functional addenda to various Gifts packages. Consider, for example, the value of having Selkie Hedge-Mage as part of an anti-aggro Gifts split.
Three for me
Some Gifts decks run three copies of the eponymous cards, some run four. In my experience so far, four is one too many most of the time, as although I do want to see a Gifts by turn four or five, seeing one in my opening hand is unnecessary, and seeing two makes me a seriously sad panda.
That’s all for now. I’ll have more to say post-tournament.