Standard - Arena UR God-Pharaoh's Gift

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26 12 0 22

     Izzet God-Pharaoh's Gift is a very interesting and fun to play deck. The strategy of the deck is to get several creatures into your graveyard early, either through combat or sacrifice abilities like Fanatical Firebrand, and get value from it through Gate to the Afterlife. You want to keep up the pace with your opponent until you pop Gate and cheat out God-Pharaoh's Gift, which will let you chain Combat Celebrants, Glorybringers, Warkite Maurauders and Champion of Wits as 4/4s and overwhelm your opponent in a few turns, or even a single turn. Cards like Search for Azcanta, Strategic Planning and Champion of Wits help you dig for your key pieces like Gate and Combat Celebrandt, as well as meet the graveyard requirement for Gate. 

     Try to get a starting hand with a few lands and early plays, and try to curve into Champion of Wits. Against control, be careful about playing Gate to the Afterlife, and if you can hold until they're either tapped out or at least don't have any blue open. If you have a Gate down, you can afford to take unfavorable blocks, as its going to allow you to graveyard your Combat Celebrants and Glorybringers and cheat God-Pharaoh's Gift out. Once you have a Gift out, the game is pretty much over for the most part, as you can do combos like chaining a Combat Celebrant into a free Champion of Wits embalm, Glorybringer, or even another Combat Celebrant.

     This deck is pretty spell light, and you do have to get a bit creative with your removal outside of Glorybringer. One useful combo is to attack with Warkite Maurauder, and then kill the 0/1 with a Fanatical Firebrand, or just kill it if it has any damage on it from a previous combat phase. This will allow you to deal with Rekindling Phoenix, The Scarab God, dinosaurs like Ghalta and Etali, and any lords that are on the board. Another useful interaction is playing and popping a Gate during your first main phase for five total mana, giving you two free creatures, even more if you can hit a Combat Celebrant.

     Gift is a great deck to play, but don't expect many easy matches. Most of the work the deck does is in a turn or two, turning your board state from a couple creatures and down life to four or five 4/4s in a single turn. Even so, you will struggle with your board if you can't find a Gate to the Afterlife early enough, and will have to stall until you can get and pop it. A thing to watch out for is exile based removal, such as Magma Spray, Cast out, Ixalan's Binding, and Vraska's Contempt, as they can hurt your graveyard count and ability to pop Gate early. Most matchups are relatively even, relying heavliy on both you and your opponent's early plays, and how much you can stall the game for.

     I would say you have a generally favorable matchup against control decks like U/B, U/R and U/W as long as you watch their mana and play Gate at the right time. Even if they counter or destroy creatures, it only serves to up your graveyard count. Additionally, if you resolve a Gate, popping it for Gift doesn't count as a cast, and can't be countered. Finally, you have a relatively robust set of tools for dealing with The Scarab God, Enigma Drake and any other creature bombs they run through Warkite Maurauder.

    Aggro, such as RDW and RB Pirates, is a bit worse of a matchup, and if they curve out while you don't, you pretty much lost. However, if you can match them with an early Slither Blade or even just lose the life until you get Gate out, you can start taking bad blocks, which will graveyard them and any creatures you have in your hand, which will hopefully net you a Gate pop in the next turn or two, and let you turn the tables and kill them in a single turn if they're all tapped out, or establish a good enough board position to survive long enough to hit Combat Celebrants and Glorybringers and win the game. Midrange decks like GB Merfolk, WB Vampires, GW Cats, BG Explore, and Tokens play similar, with a bit more leeway if you have a worse start. 

     Overall, God-Pharaoh's Gift is a powerful and fun deck. It is relatively expensive to build for a new player, but that can be aleviated by running substitutions like Shipwreck Looter, Storm Fleet Spy, Battlefield Scavenger, Ahn-Crop Crasher, and any other creatures with similar costs and good ETB triggers. Any input is appreciated, thanks for reading. I'll try to update for Dominaria, but I don't think much will change for most of the deck.

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Last Updated: 27 Apr 2018
Created: 25 Apr 2018
1341 132 0

Mainboard - 60 cards (17 distinct)

Creature (26)
$3.78€3.790.02
$0.35€0.230.02
$0.60€0.390.02
$0.20€0.110.03
$0.29€0.210.03
$0.41€0.460.03
$0.58€0.290.02
$0.66€0.360.02
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (12)
$0.50€0.350.02
$0.25€0.170.03
$0.19€0.090.03
$3.29€2.730.02
Land (22)
$0.32€0.350.04
$0.30€0.210.03
$0.33€0.220.03
$0.35€0.240.03
$1.49€0.800.02

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