Christmas movies across time have taught us one thing. It is better to give than to receive. We are going to ensure that is true on the standard ladder by making sure nobody wants to receive what we are giving. It is time to bring bad gifts and bad trades to standard, baby!
There are some great bad gifts to give away in standard right now. They are all cards that hit the board and generate disproportionate value for their costs, but come with ticking clocks of downsides as they stick around. The three I use in my deck are Demonic Pact, Archfiend of the Dross, and Greed's Gambit:
With all three of these, your goal is to drop it down and get a ton of value for cheap, then show our opponent the spirit of giving by sticking them with the downside when it comes time.
Demonic Pact and Archfiend are essentially the same mechanic: They help you for 3 turns, and then you die.
The play pattern here is pretty straightforward - these cards both have VERY powerful effects for 4 mana, so they are going to get you ahead when they hit the board. Just ensure that you have an eject button ready for when the timer runs out. Nothing feels worse than pulling the pin out of a grenade and not throwing it - although it will happen with this deck and it will make losing more fun than normal!
These two cards help cover you against different types of decks once they are out. Archfiend is great for sticking a huge blocker down against aggro decks, and draining your opponent with each trade when they still swing in. Demonic Pact is great against control decks by generating massive card advantage via the draw and discard modes, and can snipe impactful creatures or planeswalkers with the deal 4 damage mode.
These two cards don't really do anything the turn they drop though, so keep that in mind. They both have the "dies to doomblade" problem in that respect. That said, hey, if they get removed at least you don't have a three turn clock anymore!
The third bad gift is a new card from Big Score, and it is definitely my favorite. I think it lets you be the most Evel Knievel with this playstyle. That card is Greed's Gambit.
You can tell that this card is newer because it is immediately impactful. The ETB effect is crazy strong, giving you three fliers, some life, and three whole cards for 4 mana!
That said, the drawbacks start immediately as well, as opposed to three turns later. Each of your end steps, the enchantment takes back 1/3rd of what it has given you, and if it ever leaves the battlefield, it takes it all back at once. So if your opponent hits this enchantment with a Get Lost after an end step trigger, you actually end up being down a card, 2 life, and a creature - talk about a gambit!
I like this one because you can drop it and it will help you dig for a way to get rid of it and stick your opponent with a persistent downside. Unlike the other two bad gifts, you want to own this for as little time as possible - it is all downside after the ETB. It feels the most like gambling, and as a trading card player I know that's what you are here for. It is a great design.
It also can just win a game outright - so much card advantage and the bodies alone may help you close out games with out any chicanery. That said, you came here to grift. So lets get to the chicanery.
The card I think is the secret to unlocking standard right now is Shifting Grift. It is a spree card that lets you swap creatures, enchantments, and artifacts with your opponent.
The awesome thing about standard right now is that there are always high value targets on the other side of the board to swap for. Aggro decks have mice with a million counters, control decks have overlords, and midrange decks have Sheoldred. And more overlords.
Your job as a grifter is to poop out little low-value creatures, artifacts, and enchantments in the early game to give them a bad trade. My favorites for these are Spyglass Siren, which gives you an artifact and a creature for one mana, and Hopeless Nightmare as a one mana enchantment.
These also are just great 1-drops that have impact early, and if you don't need to swap them, they can be utilized for card advantage - the map token and Hopeless Nightmare's sacrifice ability both help you see more cards.
Our other way of doling out bad gifts is not a swap, but just a donate effect: Coveted Falcon
You can play it face down for 3, then can flip it up for 2 and donate ANY number of cards you own, and you draw a card for each card donated this way. This is slower/more expensive than Harmless Offering, which is a straight up donate effect also in standard right now, but it definitely is not worth splashing red for.
I'll tell you why:
Read Coveted Falcon again - It takes back permanents you own when it attacks! That means you can play a face-up Falcon turn three, Grift on your turn four first to trade a Spyglass Siren for a Sheoldred, and then immediately swing with the Falcon and take back your Siren, leaving your opponent with nothing!
You can also play and flip it for 5 mana, which curves out right after Greed's Gambit. Don't worry if you don't have a 5th land in hand when you drop Gambit, either - draw three cards and roll those dice!
NOTE: This card is dangerous because of that same clause - don't swap a Falcon for something on your opponent's board, because your opponent can swing with the Falcon and take back whatever you stole - all you've done is donated them a Falcon!
ALSO: Beware absentmindendly swinging with a Falcon if you've given away a bad gift already. There is no "may" on that take-back, so you might absentmindedly take back a Greed's Gambit after working hard to give it away
The rest of the deck is ostensibly just dimir good stuff. You want to keep pace in the game long enough to dig for bad gifts or to swap for high value cards you opponents are playing.
Hopeless Nightmare, Greed's Gambit, and Demonic Pact are already a great start to help us see more cards or hurt our opponent's hand, but I found that the more card advantage we can get on our opponent the better. The deck is essentially just a toolbox, and for that to work we want to be digging as much as we can while disrupting our opponent's game plan.
Our main card advantage is Unholy Annex//Ritual Chamber.
It is great in any matchup except aggro, and even then it can help you stabilize if you can live long enough to stick a big demon. Since we are playing Archfiend, we can potentially curve straight into a demon next turn, and I have won many games againt control decks by getting a Chamber out early and then being able to make the 6/6 demon with the ability while they are holding Three Steps Ahead to counter any card I would be playing instead.
The deck is maybe a little light on removal, but it has worked for me so far. I am just playing Cut Down and Withering Torment to help me stabilize, and Withering Torment can be used in a pinch to save yourself from an expiring Archfiend or Pact stuck on your side of the board, or to remove an already-donated Greed's Gambit to have your opponent sac 3, lose 6 life, and discard 3 cards!
If the removal feels light, try to embrace the spirit of the grift and get it on your side of the board instead of thinking it needs to die!
I have fully embraced the toolbox nature of the deck in the sideboard. Swap pieces in and out as you need. To facilitate swapping, my recommendation is take out Pact and Unholy Annex against aggro decks, as the slow nature of them and life loss from the Annex may be too much without getting a demon out.
On the flip side, Cut Down is useless against control decks, and then you can swap out whatever you think is too big or slow to cast without getting countered or removed. I usually take out one or two Shifting Grifts as well if they are just making tokens or playing planeswalkers - nothing good to swap for!
Ghost Vacuum is great graveyard hate. It is here specifically to ruin the Omniscience or Occulus reanimator players' days
Tinybones, Bauble Burgler is super fun to put in against self-discard decks. It really ruins their days by turning off Delerium strategies, snipes Omnisciences and Occuluses, and has the added bonus of giving yourself a guaranteed land drop every turn in the process, because a lot of times these strategies are dropping lands in their yard like nobody's business.
One last thing I wanted to say: There's a bunch of three-of's and two-of's in the sideboard. The goal of this deck is to be seeing a lot of cards, so I'm more concerned with facilitating digging for what I need as opposed to consistency. It may seem janky but it has been going ok for me thus far! Apologies for any games lost to variance though.
Have fun out there, it would warm my heart to run into a mirror of this deck on the ladder. An Arena export of my deck has been included below. Go get grifting! And please sign my guestbook!
Deck
2 Archfiend of the Dross (ONE) 82
3 Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel (LCI) 63
3 Coveted Falcon (MKM) 48
3 Cut Down (DMU) 89
4 Darkslick Shores (ONE) 250
4 Spyglass Siren (LCI) 78
3 Deep-Cavern Bat (LCI) 102
2 Demonic Pact (AKR) 99
3 Shifting Grift (OTJ) 66
4 Gloomlake Verge (DSK) 260
3 Preacher of the Schism (LCI) 113
2 Greed's Gambit (BIG) 8
3 Hopeless Nightmare (WOE) 95
3 Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber (DSK) 118
6 Island (FDN) 275
6 Swamp (ZNR) 382
4 Undercity Sewers (MKM) 270
2 Withering Torment (DSK) 124
Sideboard
1 Tinybones, Bauble Burglar (FDN) 72
3 Spell Pierce (NEO) 80
2 Dreams of Steel and Oil (BRO) 92
1 Duress (ONE) 92
1 Tinybones, Bauble Burglar (FDN) 72
3 Malicious Eclipse (LCI) 111
1 Duress (ONE) 92
3 Ghost Vacuum (DSK) 248
