UWR Miracles

[Avatar of Bro]

Good morning Sourcers,

As we all know, the state of a Modern isn't good right now. It's overrun with Jund and some kind of Pod variant won the last few Modern Grand Prix... blue hasn't gotten much love lately and I'm thinking that with Theros being released soon, that might change things.

While we don't have the help of Sensei's Divining Top to help us along, we do have a number of playable cards with Scry that might help us along. We have Magma Jet, Serum Visions, Dissolve, and the new Temples to help in library manipulation.

UW gives us a number of cards to help in defeating other archetypes, such as Vendilion Clique, countermagic, Terminus and Meddling Mage. The point of the matter is that I want Jund off the map as quickly as possible, and I'm not sure how much UWR Miracles have been looked at.

I came up with the following list -

Land (23)----------------

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
3 Temple of Triumph
3 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Plains

Spells (25)----------------

3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
3 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
4 Serum Visions
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Bonfire of the Damned

Dudes (12) -----------------

3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Spellheart Chimera
2 Vendilion Clique

Sideboard ------------------

3 Meddling Mage
3 Rest in Peace
2 Terminus
2 Torpor Orb
2 Wear / Tear
3 Swan Song

In looking at Theros cards, Swan Song got my immediate attention; it counters Twin and many other cards with a rather minor drawback. Spellheart Chimera also got my attention as a potentially huge flying creature with Trample, something blue's needed for a while but hasn't had much access to. Huge flying creatures can be a real issue to deal with, so for me it's an auto-include.

Terminus in the sideboard is almost better than Wrath effects because of decks like Pod that care a lot about graveyards to trigger their effects. Living End also doesn't like it but we also have Rest in Peace to take care of that as well.

Scapeshift is weakening by the set, therefore I'm not entirely worried about getting past it. I'm aware that Boseiju is a card, however, but I don't see it much.

With the rather irritating rise of Jund, Tron has reduced it's numbers dramatically. If it starts to rise again we can look at Sowing Salt in the sideboard replacing possibly Meddling Mage, but I'm not certain of its return for at least a little while.

Any suggestions or comments would be really appreciated! This is not a final list by any means and I'm open to discussion, of course.

Thanks for reading!

- Dave Rehm
twitter.com/avatarofbro

[dsck]

Nice list, I may try out something similar in the future!

Have you tried Telling Time?

[Avatar of Bro]

Telling Time could actually be a decent add somewhere in here because it does reach a third card off your library, whereas Serum Visions or Magma Jet can't; it also does replace itself like Visions.

Very nice call on that! :D

[YamiJoey]

The problem is that most hands with a miracle are an auto-mulligan. You both have a dead card, and a full card less in your deck that is good.

Also, this is entirely the wrong shell. You need to have an out in case you draw them. That out needs to be Lands to play these cards. That means you should play Snaps, Cliques, and Termini, with 25+ Lands.

I would just throw some Miracles at a hardline control shell and see what sticks, but with no Brainstorm or Jace it gets rather messy.

[Avatar of Bro]

Thanks for not only answering, but using the term "Termini." :)

While I'm aware that most hands with miracles in them are an auto-mulligan, you mentioned something about a "wrong shell." Is the real solution here just to bump Clique to four? That's pretty much the only viable out to a bad opening hand. There's gotta be a reason it isn't working now and if traditional control shells don't work, then something has to change.

[YamiJoey]

In Modern there is zero good library manipulation. You are attempting to play a deck based around the top of your library.

Miracles are bad in Modern. You need to use them as the Spells they are with random upsides. Attempting to set them up leads to you being blown out.

[Lemnear]

There's no point in playing modern Miracles without Clique, See Beyond and Preordain. Not having SDT is a massive backbreaker for the concept

[DragoFireheart]

That Chimera is trash. Dies to Decay, dies to Bolt, and is made smaller by DRS and Ooze.

[Avatar of Bro]

"Dies to Bolt" and "Dies to Decay" is a pretty blanket statement. LOTS of things die to those, does that mean they shouldn't be played? C'mon man.

[Tanith]

I love Miracles and I really want to play them in Modern. But it is completely true without SDT and Jace its really difficult (but not impossible). Without good library manipulation, it won't be Tier 1, but I see quite competitive.
Here is my 75, it lacks red though...

Land (25)

4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Glacial Fortress
3 Seachrome Coast
3 Hallowed Fountain
5 Island
3 Plains

Spells / Artifacts / (30)

3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
4 Path to Exile
4 Telling Time
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Terminus
3 See beyond
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Crystal Ball
2 Think twice

Creatures (6)

4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

Sideboard (incomplete yet)

3 Meddling Mage
3 Rest in Peace
1 Terminus
2 Torpor Orb
3 Swan song
1 Supreme Verdict
X?

I found really useful crystal ball. Guess without SDT/CB package will be really hard to wait until we can really "control" de board. I would like to include another win condition since only 2 entreat the angels seems poor to me. As said, without Jace, the mind Sculptor we lost a really important manipulator AND win-con...
Thought about splashing black lingering souls since they have demonstrate their effectivity lot of times. Maybe Sorin would be a good addition, since i think is quite forgotten how useful can be having a guy putting tokens with lifelink.

[JDK]

Why don't you play Celestial Colonnade? You've got one of the #1 contenders for going to time, so you should definitely include another win-option.

[Tanith]

o.0 True... Don't know how didn't think on it. I guess I will play the playset of Colonnade by removing seachrome coast and 1 hallowed fountain possibly. Nice point on that ;)

Edit on 10/10: How about adding two Thassa to the MD? that scry for 1 EVERY turn seems awesome, and she cannot be destroyed. The only problem would be: path to exile.

[Timber]

Edit on 10/10: How about adding two Thassa to the MD? that scry for 1 EVERY turn seems awesome, and she cannot be destroyed. The only problem would be: path to exile.

Path to Exile doesn't hit Thassa, God of the Sea because she's not a creature until you hit the Devotion limit. I think she's super powerful in this deck for scry and reach.

[Mr. Safety]

Getting Jund off the map? Aww, you're so cute...

I think the main problem of Miracles is that you have roughly the same early game (Mana Leak, Bolt, Helix, Path) but your mid-game is less reliable (Terminus, Entreat) than just jamming high-quality planeswalkers like Elspeth, AVengeant, or Gideon Jura. I think Magma Jet and Telling Time are great cards...to enable Delver of Secrets. If you're going for hard control I think the better route is to simply play some sort of cheap early dude like Omenspeaker or Sage Owl that can block while setting up a potential Terminus/Entreat.

Just some thoughts. I think with cheap scry like Magma Jet it's better to just go aggressive with Delver/Snapcaster/Young Pyromancer myself.

[Tanith]

Path to Exile doesn't hit Thassa, God of the Sea because she's not a creature until you hit the Devotion limit. I think she's super powerful in this deck for scry and reach.

Yes I know. I supposed I didn't have to explain why was path to exile a problem.