In this experiment, we celebrate the holidays by giving our opponent a ton of presents.

The First Present

In 2006, Wizards of the Coast gave out their first holiday promo card. Fruitcake Elemental is an indestructible 7/7 for . The downside is that it deals 7 damage to its controller at the end of its controller’s turn, so there will be a constant struggle to not control the Fruitcake Elemental. How do we get rid of it? Well, it has the built-in ability to be given away for 3 mana.

Vitaspore Thallid is around to let it attack the turn we cast it (though that won’t be turn three since we’ll have to build up spore counters first). But Evil Presents, the 2008 holiday promo, will let us give our opponent the Elemental without ever having to cast it. Of course, our opponent can spend his or her turn paying 3 to make us take it, but we can do that right back. The first player to blink will take 7 at the end of his or her turn—in addition to the 7-point attack from the Elemental attacking its own controller.

And with Vitaspore Thallid, we can use the haste-granting ability to make our opponent attack him or herself even through a gifting war: If our opponent gives us the Elemental after we share it with Evil Presents, we can pay 3 to gift it back and give it haste. Normally, that changing of controllers would mean the Elemental couldn’t attack that turn.

The Second Present

Fruitcake is a great gift, but the 2012 holiday promo Naughty // Nice lets us give and receive even more gifts. With Naughty, we can search our opponent’s library for a card and take it, which could be handy, but we can’t plan our own deck around our opponent’s. Nice lets us search our own deck for a card to put into our opponent’s hand. Is there anything we can do to take this kind gesture and make it a bit more menacing?

Well, if we put Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into our opponent’s hand, he or she will be unlikely to be able to cast it. The worst thing he or she can do is happen to be playing Sneak Attack, and after that, a Brainstorm or Merfolk Looter effect could mess up our plans. But if our opponent just sits around for a while with Emrakul in his or her hand, we have a few more presents to leverage this first gift.

The Planeswalker’s cycle from Apocalypse lets us look at a card at random from an opponent’s hand and turn the converted mana cost of that card into an effect. So while we may not always hit Emrakul for the big 15, it’s an exciting prospect. Normally, these cards have been not too strong because we can’t count on our opponent having anything with too high a mana cost, and while this multi-card combo probably doesn’t actually make everything worthwhile, it’ll still be exciting.

Planeswalker's Favor can give a creature +15/+15, Planeswalker's Scorn can give a creature -15/-15, and Planeswalker's Fury can just hit our opponent in the face for 15.

Sometimes when we give gifts, they have to be taken away. Another way to leverage putting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into our opponent’s hand is casting Treacherous Urge to put it into play on our side—one attack for 15 with annihilator 6 should be plenty.

The Third Present

It may be hard to time the spell in a way to prevent the opponent from paying 3 to give away the Elemental, but since the Word is an instant, we do have some options. Word of Command should also provide a good amount of disruption to our opponent’s plans while we’re setting up our own.

A good plan might be to cast Word of Command during our opponent’s upkeep to spend his or her mana on something ineffective. Then, pay 3 to give him or her Fruitcake Elemental. If it was put into play with Evil Presents, do it before combat and then give it haste with Vitaspore Thallid. Otherwise, wait until after combat.

Self-Gifting

There are a couple more cards to keep things together on our side.

First is Snow Mercy, the 2010 holiday promo. When Fruitcake Elemental hits us for 7 at the end of the turn, it may not be so bad, as it means it’ll pick up a globe counter. Then, on subsequent turns when our opponent controls the Elemental and wants to attack us with it, we can shake the snow globe to tap the Elemental. Of course, it should be effective against other creatures of our opponent’s as well while we’re setting up. This is a lot like a card I enjoy called Aurification, but with the distinction that we don’t have to tap the creature when we don’t want to. (And we can use it to tap down potential blockers, which Aurification can’t do since it just turns things into Walls.)

And the last card, also a gift to ourselves, is Battlegrace Angel. I knew I wanted the ability to give Fruitcake Elemental lifelink somehow, and this seemed to be a solid option. Equipment won’t work great because it can be carried over to our opponent’s side if we don’t reequip it, and Auras won’t work for similar, but worse, reasons. If we attack with the Elemental alone while the Angel is around, it’ll have lifelink just for our turn, leaving us free to give it away to our opponent.

Why would we want lifelink on Fruitcake Elemental, you ask? Well, at first, it’s obvious: It will attack for 7, dealing 7 damage and gaining us 7 life. But at the end of our turn, if we control it, that damage it deals to us will also gain us 7 life, meaning our life total won’t actually change. That means it can be safe to let the Elemental sit around on our side. And even though our life total didn’t change, it still counts as dealing damage, so the Elemental can still pick up a globe counter that way for us to shake it up later with Snow Mercy.

Oh, and if we do Nice Emrakul and then Treacherous Urge to attack while we control Battlegrace Angel, gaining 16 life is another way to make it worth it . . . right?

Gift of Synergy ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (15)
• 4 Battlegrace Angel
• 4 Fruitcake Elemental
• 4 Vitaspore Thallid
• 3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

• Spells (21)
• 2 Word of Command
• 4 Treacherous Urge
• 4 Evil Presents
• 4 Naughty // Nice
• 1 Planeswalker's Favor
• 1 Planeswalker's Scorn
• 2 Planeswalker's Fury
• 3 Snow Mercy

• Lands (24)
• 4 Forest
• 4 Plains
• 4 Swamp
• 4 Fetid Heath
• 4 Twilight Mire
• 4 Wooded Bastion

Buy This Deck

So if you’ve been a Wizards of the Coast employee since 2006 and haven’t figured out anything to do with these, if you love anything and everything fruitcake themed (or flavored), or if you just needed something to do—regardless of cost—with your Planeswalker’s cycle, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com