Can this deck taken back from hell?
Is the Doll worth his use?
Are there any other way to optimize that build?

Feel free to add here your comments.


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Hello all,

during these weeks, I tried to build some new decks and revamp old mechanics adding new cards

This is the first experiment that I'm going to show you, today.
I had a lot of success during these months with my own gifts build and I would like to toy for it with the new printed artifact from TimeSpiral:



Stuffy Doll
5, Artifact Creature - Construct 0/1
As Stuffy Doll comes into play, choose a player.
Stuffy Doll is indestructible.
Whenever damage is dealt to Stuffy Doll, it deals that much damage to the chosen player.
: Stuffy Doll deals 1 damage to itself.
Illus. Dave Allsop



Look at this PuppyDoll only in conjunction with another bad card:


Guilty Conscience
W (1), Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, Guilty Conscience deals that much damage to that creature.
Those who most feel guilt don't need to, while those who most need to feel guilt never do. -Order proverb
Illus. Christopher Moeller


Despite their name, the illustrations and their overall useless playability, I looked at these card as combo pieces for a control-combo deck.



Did you remember Flame Fusillade+Time Vault and their extremely good impact on the game in any Control-Gifts.dec?

Which is the new goal, here?
You have to resolve the 5cc artifact in some fashioned way, then enchant it and Walk into a new turn, when you will be ready to tap the Doll and instantly kill the previously chosen opponent.


There are little and subtle differences between FlameFusillade+TimeVault ( FF/TV ) and StuffyDoll+GuiltyConscience ( SD/GC ).
This is a summary of mixed pros. and cons. that can be valued.

1) The total cost for the combo is exactly the same ( 5W against 5R )
2) The combo is a bit off color in a standard Gifts.dec ( white needed )
3) It can die under Null Rod
4) You have to use Green for Regrowth instead of Recoup.
5) Stuffy Doll is as much Tinkerable as Time Vault
6) In any single case analyzed by me, Regrowth is better than Recoup. Sadly it is Green.
7) In any single case analyzed by me, Balance is better than Pyroclasm. Sadly it is White.
8) You can gain some advantage from the addition of White and Green but you lose Red, because a 5cc control deck is usually bad.
9) There are thousands ways to fizzle your combo, exactly as there were a lot of possible spells to stop the old FF/TV.
10) The deck can use the old ControlGifts.dec structure in order to win in the same old way ( Tinker+DSC OR ToA ) plus the addition of this cool feature.




****
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Friendly users Interface:

Write (*,*) General Porpouse Ask: "Would you have played FF/TV in the past?
If ( Yes ) then Continue Reading
else Stop Reading Anymore
Stop
End

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This is the revamped Maindeck used to accomplish this porpouse:

Stuffy Gifts 2006

Cool Things would let you do Cool Things - (25)
4 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Undeground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt

Feel free to feel protected - (12/13)
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Rebuild
1 Balance
0/1 Engineered Explosives

The skeleton of your victories - (11/12)
4 Brainstorm
3/4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ancestral Recall

Useless things until winning - (3)
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Guilty Conscience
1 Stuffy Doll

Useful things before winning - (8)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard
Work in progress on quantities but my current insertions are:
3/4 Duress
2 H Recall
0/1 B.Freeze ( if C.Wish would be maindecked )
1/2 E.E.
1/2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sunderign Titan


I'm toying about different sideboard's strategies, too.
I have some ideas and a lot of things to write about these possible insertions and choices.

On the other hand, before choosing sideboard slots, I have a couple of questionable things maindecked that should be discussed first:
--Imperial Seal could be C.Wish for strategical porpouses?
--one among Gifts or TFKs should be a "4of"!
--the lack of LoA!
--is the combo needed?
--is the deck stable enough against MW.dec or Fish.dec?
--are you going to find the combo pieces as fast as FF/TV?

Feel free to write here or contact me in PVT for further hints.
Thanks in advance.
Maxx


Edit> Typo error fixed


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@Namingway

I thought about adding C.Wish, but it doesn't solve the J.Caps' problem, if added in single copy.
More than one would be really difficult to add to this tight maindeck and I feel that the risk of being Capped can be run, in the proper metagame.

I would not risethe number of TFKs, yet.
Not because 3 is the correct number, but because adding 3, would force me to add more artifact to balance TFK's discarding effect.
At now, those artifacts are good maindeck additions even without TFKs, so I feel that more than them, would be only a waste of space. So TFKs, without further testing, would remain 3.

This deck seemed to me to be able to benefit from additional counterspells such as Remands.
The time gaining and the temporarily counterspells effect, would be really huge, epsecially during the first turns of the game, when both players have a small mana development.



@Harlequin
While Argivian Find is instant speed, so no Recouppable, I think that the addition of Green is crucial even from a non-gifts perspective angle. Because of "Summoning Sickness", will be really important to Walk-Regrowth-Walk-Y.Will-Walk.
This process, without B.Wish would be impossible to accomplish.
I think that Recoup could be used too, but with minor impact on the game.
Regrowth can replay directly Guilty Conscience ( playing a different role from Recoup ) and functionally be a Recoup for Y.Will.
During the match, it can be used in thousand of ways ( Ancestral, Walk, Demonic, Permanents sideboard cards and so on ):

If you stack: Recoup, Tinker, Demonic, Y.Will, maybe, you are going to win anyway:
Tinker on Doll, Demonic for Guilty.
On the other hand, during this process, you consume a lot of resources, a lot of mana and maybe only with the goal of resolvig the combo.

Adding Regrowth, it seems to me that add more resilience to maindeck for general porpouses and you can simply put combo pieces in the gifts' stack without fearing not to be able to replay them fast

Darkblast needs to be countered only once, after Doll is in play.
I think that Doll, differently from T.Vault, should be played only when you are going to win and not during th eearly game.

Opponent's Welders are hard to kill with my maindeck configuration but you can add a single Darkblast to power up his defences ( Balance, P.Needle, E.E., side options ).


@Gort32
You are a control deck.
If you feel that the things to protect are too many or the defences are too few, then think with me how to improve them.
On the other hand, even DSC needs to be protected the turns that it enters play.

Don't see this additional combo only as a quick kill. You can build up the game in order to win safer but 2 or 3 turns later.


@Red instead of Green.
You can play with Recoup instead of Regrowth and B.Wish instead of anything else ( maybe I.Seal ).
This changes would make safer to resolve Y.Will but harder to combo without it.
For these reasons, grave hate would hurt you more than needed.




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I'm very happy about your positive attention. Thanks.
I tried the same arguments in Italy, in our Forum, but I felt wasting my time too much.

A lot of things that you said, have been revaluated and revaluate my position toward the combo itself too.

I tested the 4C-version with mixed results.
A lot of gaming situations ( if correctly taken ), made the addition of the 4th color, a good thing.
Maybe, the evidence of it being "uneeded", let me look at the deck in a slightly different manner.
And, I have to thanks Gabethebabe because our old chats towards Gifts.decs, for the deck that I'm going to propose ( changed ) now.

Hypothesis:
Cut Colours
Add Consistency
Increase Flexibility
Doll or not, you have to resolve Gifts.
...Follow the voice of your spirit...

Thesis
No need to Green
White addition is good because of consistency reasons
White addition is good because of Balance
I can use tricky play and combo out without Regrowth or Recoup.


Needed cards:

Tutors
Protections
Drawers

and more precisely

Gifts
Guilty Conscience
TomBombadil's Doll
Balance
Tinker plus DSC


This is a good 3 color start:


Stuffy Gifts 2006 version 2.0

Mana - (25)
10 Artifacts
5 Fetchland
4 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tolarian Academy

Needed Useless Cards - (3)
1 Guilty Conscience
1 Stuffy Doll
1 Darksteel Colossus

Protections - (10)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Balance
1 Rebuild

Drawers - (12)
4 Brainstorm
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact of Fiction

Tutors - (8)
3 Cunning Wish
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker

Best cards ever printed - (2)
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk

Sideboard - (15)
3 Duress
2 Sacred Ground
1 Sundering Titan
1 Swords to Plowshares / 1 Darkblast
1 Gifts Ungiven / 1 Gush
1 Brain Freeze
1 Rebuild
1 Misdirection
1 Shallow Grave
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Argivian Find /

Anylize a sample Gifts pile:

Demonic, C.Wish, Guilty, Mana/Tutor/ComboPieces/Walk.

After Gifts, Guilty could be always considered in hand.
If not you could be able to win with the othre cards in hand or, later with Y.Will.
C.Wish could grab V.T., if you need to instantly find Doll/Guilty/Walk/Anything else and they put Demonic into the grave.
Demonic, on the other hand, could grab single pieces or Y.Will.
As much as C.Wish for V.T. for Y.Will or another Gifts, too.
If they put the Doll into the grave, you can animate if through C.Wish for Shallow grave and try to combo out that same turn.

The Tutor/Drawers ratio is really balanced.
You have a lot of drawers, tools for quality searches and some fixers too.

You could play it simply as a control deck that sometimes ( I found "often" ) has the tools to kill opponents soon.
It is not a game ending version of the deck, but, despite the previous one and the other one that SiegeX proposed, it try to evaluate at his maximum, the impact of White in Gifts.
...A non trivial porpouse, I suppose.

On the other hand, I read your comments and I found that the questions:
Is this better than MDGifts or Is this better than Control.Gifts or again, is this combo needed, are completely unanswered, because of the lack of actual tourney results and spread test's matches.

I tested only against other control decks and ( as you can see from the addition of Duress in side ) against Combo decks. The latter, post side, are doomed easier than pre.side, where the strenght and the speed your "tools" is completely dependent on your own mana development.

Let me see if you like it!
Enjoy!

Maxx


After Lunch Edit:
*burp*

I noticed that my last sentences seemed to be connected only to that Gifts' pile.
It should be considered only as one of the possible other ones can let you search/fetch/resolve both "the-combo" or "anything else".
The 3-c-old-fashioned-style seems to intrigue me most, at now.
IMHO, Red is strong but a lot of players seemed to addicted to staple decisions or cards' combination to look at different ones.
If you realize that the only thing to do is resolve "Gifts Ungiven", then, in a mirror match or in a well known field, the "surprise factor" could play a crucial role.
Any Gifts could be interpreted in a billion of ways but only one configuration is played now, especially because of Net-Deck.
Net_Decking and playing against Net_Decked ones, usually means that you can acquire a good advantage over opponents simply playing good but different cards against which they are not fully prepared.
Wisdom... My bijoux...
*burp*


####
Again:
I'm convinced about White.
Now, more than before.
Guilty Conscience force you to play the deck differently from staples deck configurations.
I tried Green some days ago.
You all correctly freezed me about the 4th colour.
Now Red desappeared from my deck, aside with Green and I would not miss it at all.
If you need more possible plays and more possible cards, to convince yourself about White, I think that you can try and find really a pletora of available ones ( Dust to Dust, Dismantling Blow, Exalted Angel, Meddling Mage, Jotun Grunt (...OOOOOOOOPSSS! ), Disenchant, Allay and so on... ).
####



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For the ones arrived here, I can link the remaining text on TMD.
Click here to read all the previously written and thought comments.