Tired of Chainwhirlers? Bored of playing Control? This Gift deck took down GP Singapore this weekend and made it into top 8 at GP Pittsburgh!

Now I am a big fan of this deck as I have played an earlier version of this extensively, as a matter of fact, the only mainboard difference is 3 cards. This deck is explosive, with a high chance of just running away with the game at turn four when you play Refurbish and slam the Gift on the battlefield. Turns out a 6/6 Angel with vigilance, lifelink and haste is quite a handful to deal with that early in the game. So how does one play this deck?

To understand this deck lets go through one of our potential best starts that happens more often than you would expect: 

Turn1: Play Minister of Inquiries.
Turn2: Chart a Course and the use the ability of the Minister. This puts four cards in the graveyard and gives you two new cards.
Turn3: Play Champion of Wits, use the ability of Minister. Gives you two new cards and puts 5 cards in the Graveyard.
Turn4: Play Refurbish get Gift from Graveyard, make a 6/6 angel with Vigilance, Lifelink and Haste.

In turn 4 you would have filtered through four cards, Have 9 cards in the Graveyard with good chances of having a Gift and a creature in there. This is not even your best starting hand. 

The speed this deck goes through cards and fill up your graveyard is amazing. Coupled with playing bodies that not only act as chumpers but also helps you filter cards to find your combo makes this deck really strong. Red decks have a hard time keeping up with this speed, after sideboards they have a really hard time with all the hate you bring in. 

With control, you have no problem going the long game and it is all about getting bodies out and hitting them making them tap out on removal and creature hate, only to resolve a gift and get them back again. Your Cast Outs are really important in this matchup. Be very careful in the next round, they usually side in graveyard hate so do not throw everything you have into the graveyard.

All in all, it feels like this deck has no real enemies, the matchup is good and in many cases, you just run away with the game without them doing anything. I have included some gameplay highlights of playing this exact list.

Here follows a generic sideboarding list, it is open to adjustments but is based on my matchups so far in the current meta.

VS UW Control

In: 
3 Negate
3 Angel of Sanctions
1 Jace's Defeat 
1 Disallow

Out
4 Minister of Inquiries
2 Sunscourge Champion
2 Fumigate

VS Esper Control
I do not like Jace's Defeat in this matchup because it has a lot of dead targets, I would rather take in a Fairgrounds Warden instead.

In: 
3 Negate
3 Angel of Sanctions
1 Fairgrounds Warden
1 Disallow

Out
4 Minister of Inquiries
2 Sunscourge Champion
2 Fumigate

VS Monored

Out
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Minister of Inquiries
2 Angel of Invention
2 Chart a Course
1 God-Pharaoh's Gift
1 Strategic Planning

In
1 Authority of the Consuls
2 Fairgrounds Warden
2 Sunscourge Champion 
3 Angel of Sanctions 
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Thopter Arrest

VS BR Aggro
The BR Aggro matchup is a bit different from the monored matchup as they have more creatures that stick better to the board and also tend to run vehicles that make Fumigate a bit less useful.

Out
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Minister of Inquiries
2 Angel of Invention
1 Chart a Course
1 God-Pharaoh's Gift
2 Fumigate

In
1 Authority of the Consuls
2 Fairgrounds Warden
2 Sunscourge Champion 
3 Angel of Sanctions 
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Thopter Arrest

VS Gift Deck Mirror

Out
2 Angel of Invention
2 Sunscourge Champion
1 Strategic Planning

In
3 Angel of Sanctions
2 Fairgrounds Warden

VS Midrange decks

Out
1 Search for Azcanta
2 Sunscourge Champion 
3 Angel of Invention

In
2 Fairgrounds Warden
3 Angel of Sanctions 
1 Thopter Arrest

Nuts & Bolts Spike spends his energy looking within. He tries to understand his own internal flaws and works to improve them.

I run Team Aether and stream MTG Arena on Twitch.tv/andreliverod, playing both Standard and limited. Stop by and say hello!
Not interested in live streams? Here is my Youtube channel: Youtube.com/c/andreliverod