Welcome back to Fighting the Format, the series in which I lay down the strategies of the best decks in the format moving into a given weekend – what they are, how they work, how they win, and – importantly – how to beat them.

A new set brings with it a new Pro Tour, and Ixalan is no exception. One caveat, however: this tournament comes not two weeks into the format, but this time a full six weeks into it’s life-cycle. With the opening SCG event of the release and the following World Championships both won by Energy, it was definitely the deck to beat last weekend. In fact, Seth Manfield decided to bring along the very deck that won the SCG event and take home the trophy! So, what Energy variant are we looking at today?

The Deck

UW Gift – Pascal Maynard, 2nd Place at Pro Tour Ixalan, November 3rd-5th

How Does it Work?

You didn’t think I was going to do another article on Energy, did you?

Let’s start with the obvious:

God-Pharoah’s Gift is a powerful Magic card. Once Bolas bestows his grace upon your battlefield, you’ll find that all your little critters – so meek and unassuming – are now horrific zombified monstrosities with a taste for blood. Gift provides an engine that nothing in Standard can really compete with, and assuming you’ve the good sense to get it into play during your precombat main phase, it pays you back the very turn you land it.

It’s clear that Gift does some dangerous stuff, but you can’t ignore that mana cost. For seven mana, you could be casting the God-Pharoah himself! Enter Kaladesh’s own twisted, artificial form of necromancy.

Refurbish is what really makes this deck tick. Other variants on Gift have used the Gate to the Afterlife to power out an early Gift, but that requires getting six creatures into your yard. That’s certainly possible, but also disruptible – Magma Spray, Vraska’s Contempt and Deathgorge Scavenger are highly played and versatile options that have the upside of really ruining that plan. Refurbish gets around this wrinkle, and cuts right to the chase. On turn four, as long as you’ve managed to bin a Gift, it’s time to keep on giving. How to do that?

There are plenty of ways. Chart a Course and Strategic Planning both provide card selection and advantage, while filling the dual purpose of stocking your graveyard with both Gifts and critters just in time for refurbishment. The evergrowing in popularity Search for Azcanta performs a similar function, while also providing a late game mana sink and tutor for your key spells. The spell suite is rounded out by a pair of Opt and Cast Out, providing further cantrips and selection while nabbing key threats from the opponent, like a timely Scarab God or Vraska, Relic Seeker.

UW Gift is very focused at finding it’s key cards, but it also needs some actual dudes to reanimate. The two key cards in this equation?

While any creature demands an answer once it crawls out of it’s tomb as a 4/4, these two are particularly troublesome. Champion offers a card filtering effect the first time it comes down; binning Gift and Gift targets; but becomes a card draw machine at four power. How does it feel playing a turn four Gift, reanimating a 4/4 Champion, then drawing four cards and discarding two? Pretty good!

Angel of Invention enjoys a similar buff, but is less interested in card advantage – the Angel is about raw power. The front side of Angel is a respectable creature in it’s own right, either as a mini-Baneslayer Angel or a small army. The back side, however? How about a bigger Baneslayer? There are few board states that an animated Angel doesn’t crush, and even when you’re extremely far behind, a quick twelve-point life swing is likely to pull you right back into it.

The remainder of the creatures offer a little utility, but are just as fierce once Bolas has had his hands on them. Minister of Inquiries helps fill your grave while offering a small speedbump for the aggro decks, while Sacred Cat offers a keyword that allows Gift to comfortably play catchup: Lifelink. Between Cat and Angel, UW does a great job playing from behind. The mana base offers the usual array of check and cycling lands, with a couple of sneaky Ipnu Rivulet thrown into the mix. Rivulet is not a card that many decks would be interested in, but when you’re as excited to mill yourself as Gift is, go for it!

The sideboard is cleverly built to take advantage of the usual board plans from midrange decks – as Duress and Negate hit noncreatures, why play noncreatures?

Angel of Sanctions and Fairgrounds Warden both offer respectable bodies attached to a Banisher Priest effect, and once your opponent is boarding out their removal, they’re pretty likely to stick.

The rest of the board features the usual staples in counter-magic (Negate and Jace’s Defeat), Wraths (Fumigate), and niche one-ofs. Gift is very comfortable changing things up post-board, and providing a variety of both creatures and spells that must be answered.  

What is it’s Plan?

Gift is a combo deck at heart, looking to assemble a graveyard with creatures, a Gift, and in-hand Refurbish by turn four. Between the huge amount of card filtering and selection, it is dangerously consistent at doing so.

That said, Gift can also play a fair game of Magic. While I’d hesitate to call it a midrange strategy, it’s cards lend themselves well to a long game, between all of the embalm costs and card draw. It’s not uncommon that Gift will stall a game out naturally to turn seven and start straight-up casting Gifts.

What Are its Strengths and Weaknesses?

Strengths

Consistency

Gift is a very, very streamlined deck. Every card in the main fits into one of three categories: a critter, card filtering, or a payoff. Because of this, it’ll get to it’s main game plan of landing an early Gift with alarming consistency if left uninterrupted.

Power

I said this above, and I’ll say it again – there is no deck in the format that is beating an unchecked Gift (aside from a copy of their own)! Gift allows the deck to get ahead on cards, ahead on board, and ahead on life all in one go, preventing the opponent from winning on any one axis.

Resilience

Even if the opponent does manage to disrupt plan A, Gift has a lot of ways to come back. Embalm creatures, card draw and a whole lot of card selection ensure that Gift is rarely flooding out or missing key pieces. If you manage to destroy the first Gift, well done – expect another in short order!

Weaknesses

Disruption

Gift can attack on many angles, but it requires a few key cards to do so. A quickly established board combined with countermagic or discard can shut the door before Gift can truly get going. Artifact and graveyard interaction achieve a similar effect.

Uninteractivity

Though Gift gets access to a lot of creature removal post board in the form of it’s various Banisher Priests, pre-board, Gift is not going to answer an early problem creature. If the opponent puts a must-kill threat into play early, it is definitely going to stick.

Slow

Gift is very adept at assembling it’s turn four play, but until then, it doesn’t do a lot, focusing on card selection and anaemic creatures. A quick flurry of threats can bury Gift and keep it that way.

Play

Aggro

Whether in the flavour of Ramunap Red or a lower to the ground Energy build like Seth Manfield’s Sultai Constrictor, early threats backed up by some disruption can put Gift on the backfoot and prevent them from standing straight again. As Gift won’t interact much in the first few turns, a Winding Constrictor/Rishkar, Peema Renegade/disruption curve should be more than enough to put the game away.

Control

Gift plays an almost entirely sorcery speed game, needing to tap four or more mana to make any meaningful plays. Control decks can exploit this, handling the few weak threats that Gift can present while countering the important spells.

Do Not Play

Midrange

While the various Energy variants are powerful in large part due to their versatility, their inability to effectively play an aggro game lets Gifts long game take over. Even after board once discard and countermagic become a factor, Gifts board plan of creatures creates a guessing game – do you leave in or take out your removal? What if your Negate meets their Angel of Sanctions, or your Harnessed Lightning their Refurbish?

Tokens

Though the different builds of Tokens have a comparable long-game to Gift – often putting eight or more power into play each turn – they are far less consistent. Without Anointed Procession (and realistically, multiples of), Tokens cannot keep up with what Gift presents, and Gift achieves this much more regularly.

Summary

And that’s UW Gift. Though there have been many different variations on the archetype, this one is about as straight-forward and focused as they come – mill some guys, animate a Gift, bring Bolas’ fury to the opponent. Whether you’ve decided to side with the draconic villain or stand with the Gatewatch, I hope this article has given you the tools you need to dominate your enemies!

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. As always, good luck!