Mechanical Memories - A History of Gifting
December 26, 2023 by
Jubilee Finnegan 
(Blim, Comedic Genius | Illustrated by Jason A. Engle)
Gift Exchange
We’ve all gotten that gift that turns into more of a burden. A shirt that’s a size too small. A video game for a system you don’t have. A giant wooden horse from which an army of Akroan soldiers march forth. Or maybe that was just me.
Happy holidays from EDHREC! To celebrate, I’m looking back at the development of gift effects in Magic design. These are abilities that allow an opponent to gain control of something you own. Some cards like Role Reversal act as a theft effect wearing a gift costume, those aren’t our focus. Instead, I want to examine the history of true gifts. Sure, sometimes those gifts turn out to be accursed contracts with a quadruplet of Demons from across the multiverse. But isn’t the spirit of the holiday about the act of gifting?
Drawbacks and Design
Before we get to gifting, we have to look at things being gifted. Early Magic design tended to lean towards adding drawbacks to cards, even if they didn’t need them. Juzám Djinn is a prime example. A four mana 5/5 is a fine card today, but back then it was an absolute haymaker. To counteract this, the Djinn pinged you on each upkeep. Phyrexian Dreadnought still sees moderate Legacy play due in part to its easily abusable drawback. Here we can see the folly of this style of design. Cards from this era had their drawbacks take effect when they had already resolved. Phyrexian Dreadnought could still be cast, even if you had an empty board. To contrast that with similar designs from today, look at Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. The Elder Giant’s ability checks if it escaped when it was cast. There are ways to essentially trick the game to keep your Kroxa around, but modern drawbacks tend to collect as part of the resolution, not after it. Effects with “if you cast” as a clause are a response to the manipulation of early drawbacks.
Time goes on until, in Ice Age, we received Illusions of Grandeur. Mono-blue lifegain, very in color pie. This card offered an upfront lifegain swing at the cost of taking that life back once the cumulative upkeep wasn’t paid. Players weren’t willing to risk the card’s retribution until Urza’s Destiny with the printing of Donate. Mark Rosewater, as explained on his blog, once played a deck revolving around Sleeper Agent. The card’s design inspired Donate (Rosewater 2014). Donate plus Illusions of Grandeur spawned a new archetype which was coined ‘Trix.’ Old Magic deck names were weird. Etymological origins aside, Trix went on to become a powerful archetype, taking down GP Philadelphia in 2000 (Jahn 2005).
“At full power—meaning with Dark Ritual, Necropotence, and Mana Vault all—I put Trix as the single most devastating deck in the history of tournament Magic.” — Mike Flores, 2008
Flores assessment led to a mentality within design that pushed back against Donate effects. The ability to confer a card’s drawback to an opponent while still gaining its benefits disrupted gameplay. It also led to feel bad scenarios where the opponent couldn’t outplay the drawback, such as a mono-white deck being unable to pay Phyrexian Etchings’s upkeep cost. As time went on, it seemed like design wanted to phase out gifting effects in favor of upkeeps, a trend marked by Demonic Pact from Magic Origins. While similar effects had been seen on cards like Lich, this put a timer on the enchantment. Also, Liches are their own article, so stay tuned!
Zedruu, Innistrad, and Liches
But in Commander? Why, that’s a different story. The first set of Commander precons in 2011 featured five decks, each one based around a wedge. The Jeskai deck was helmed by Zedruu the Greathearted, who currently helms 5,484 decks and is the fourth most played Jeskai commander. Zedruu’s ability was intended to play into a political strategy, offering other players boons in exchange for card advantage. While many Zedruu decks follow this, we can also see the emergence of contemporary gifting strategies. With 74% of decks playing Nine Lives, they aren’t donating that as a gift of damage prevention. Instead, the gifting ability of these commanders is used to push these drawbacks on opponents in the vein of Trix decks.
Commander’s expanded card pool allowed for the emergence of gifting strategies. As the format had access to cards like Donate from the inception, it was able to apply these to the new drawback cards like Demonic Pact. Donate’s reserved list status kept it from becoming a more prominent strategy, but that all changed with the printing of Harmless Offering in Eldritch Moon. This color shift of Donate not only opened red up to gifting effects, but also opened the door for this to expand into modern Magic. Bazaar Trader had been printed, but this was a no limit gift effect on a sorcery!
We can see a massive uptick in gift effects in the years following, particularly in terms of legendary creatures. Zedruu had existed for many years at this point, but she was much more of a value engine commander. Expanding beyond simply passing off a dangerous enchantment, gift effects on cards like Assault Suit or Tahngarth, First Mate let your opponents do the attacking for you! It was clear that it wasn’t just gift effects that were being expanded upon, it was also what could be gifted. Hive Mind, when used alongside the Pacts from Future Sight, was gaining legs in Modern as a powerful combo. That combo lives on in decks like Michael Celiani’s Twelfth Doctor build, a commander which uses the demonstrate mechanic to gift spells to opponents.
While we were certainly getting more cards that could gift or act as powerful gifts, there wasn’t a prime ‘bad gift’ commander. As mentioned, Zedruu’s value engine effect meant you didn’t want to gift instant loss cards since that would prevent you from drawing cards. In addition, the deck did not have access to black, the color most associated with heavy drawback cards. Rotting Regisaur, Abyssal Persecutor, and Lich's Mastery were all off limits to the Jeskai Minotaur. However, Commander Legends’s printing in 2020 meant high demand commanders finally had a place to be released, meaning we got our wish. A wish which was granted by a certain Imp.
Blim's Benevolent Boons
Blim, Comedic Genius is a hilarious member of the Cult of Rakdos known for his very funny jokes. Don’t think they’re funny? Then you might be on the receiving end of Demonic Lore or any other of the many malicious gifts he has. With 2,582 decks to his name, Blim leans more Krampus than Santa, garnering him a reputation as a powerful commander. Taking a look at his page, he plays a solid mix of harmful gifts and generic control exchange cards. Humble Defector is a common sight across red decks, but this card does even more when it's part of Blim’s arsenal. Grid Monitor, Steel Golem, and Midnight Oil can lock you out of the game if you aren’t careful. From the outside, this might look like just the thing design feared when looking at Trix decks dominating Extended. But I don’t think that’s the case.
Take a look at your average Blim, Comedic Genius deck and you’ll notice the high risk, high reward element of his strategy. Sure, you could stick an Immortal Coil on someone and give them a rough time, but that’s assuming that they aren’t able to spit it right back at you before you can gift it. Rakdos decks play with this daring mindset, getting just up against the edge of death so that you can push your opponents over. Part of what made Trix so dominating was the access to blue’s suite of control spells. Force of Will and Counterspell made it effectively impossible to fight through their combo, taking all the risk out of gifting. By placing these gifts within red’s risk heavy mindset, it provides a nail biting gameplay experience without demoralizing the opponent. That is, until the Demonic Pact comes to collect.
I wanted to take a crack at building Blim, Comedic Genius with my own spin. His ability to strip cards from opponents’ hands was enticing, but could quickly run out of steam if you aren’t careful. In order to get the most out of forcing our opponents to discard, I wanted to keep opponents’ hands stocked with cards. Classic group hug cards like Howling Mine alongside obscure ones like Hithlain Knots allow the whole table to benefit off our permanents. But Blim likes to play favorites, and we like to play politics. Instead of honing in only bad gifts, why not send some pointless or even beneficial cards towards the players we want to befriend? Howling Mine is the exact same no matter what player controls it, and gifting an Aura like The Sound of Drums is inconsequential. This is because even if another player controls the Aura, you still control the creature it enchants. The Master would be proud.
While Blim is trying to be nicer, he still keeps up on his mean streak with some harmful hexes. Blim, alongside cards like Fateful Handoff or Harmless Offering, can put your opponents in a bind with Demonic Lore, a card which is sure to take massive chunks out of their life. I avoided some of the aforementioned lockout pieces I mentioned alongside Zedruu for one main reason: It kind of kills our ‘Play Favorites’ plan. We can drain and maim our opponents all game, but the second we start preventing them from performing game actions, we look like those blue Trix players. That’s not the nice guy look Blim is going for.
I wanted to mention one card in particular: Carnival of Souls. This card is so bad that The Resleevables has the “Carnival of Souls Award” for worst card in a set, and we’re going to make good use of it. Only 9 Blim decks run this card. Only 9! Play this right before the Adeline, Resplendent Cathar player quadruples their board or the Ezuri, Renegade Leader deck spits out a dozen creatures and show them who is boss. Carnival of Souls may have been bad for its drawback, but it isn’t so bad when someone else has it!
Mechanical Memories - A History of Gifting
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Gifting bad cards to people is fun, but you know what the real gift is? Your fellow Magic players! Cheesy, I know, but I want to give a shoutout to all of the cool folks that make this game amazing. As we close out the year strong and 2024 approaches, be sure to thank the Magic player in your life. Happy holidays from EDHREC! See you next time!
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Jubilee Finnegan
Jubilee Finnegan (they/them) is English literature student and writer based out of Southern California. They got hooked in Magic with Throne of Eldraine and haven't stopped since. When not deckbuilding, they're working on poetry, gardening, or trying some new artistic endeavor. They can be found on Twitter at @finneyflame or on Instagram @jwfinnegan.
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