Originally Posted by
DNSolver
GQ is not a forced shuffle. Surgical is, but it won't resolve vs Counterbalance most of the time.
Keys to the Miracles matchup are not tapping out on your turn generally. That's the biggest mistake I see - letting them play Jace. This is also true against Grixis - don't let them play Jace. If you commit to this plan vs Miracles, you can board out your Pithing Needles and that makes room for your good cards. Usually you want Decay + Trophy to make sure you can answer B2B or Mentor.
You can save discard to make sure that your important spells resolve, but balance this against the chance of letting them cast something big. Depends on how many cards they have in hand vs you. Discard generally takes cards that answer your cards (Swords to Plowshares if your hand is combo-centric or if you can Surgical them, Council's Judgment vs Library/Safekeeper), cards that win them the game (B2B, Mentor), and then cards that give them card advantage or pressure (Snapcaster, Clique, Predict sometimes, Brainstorm). Leveraging discard correctly can be very scary for them. If you're playing on MTGO, take your time on these decisions to plan out your next few turns.
Sylvan Library and Sylvan Safekeeper are very important. Protect them if possible, and value hands with them pretty highly. It can be good to wait a bit before casting them if you have other things to do or if that allows you to not tap out (see above). Depending on what they have in hand that can beat these (Engineered Explosives, Council's Judgment) you can leverage your information advantage by playing cards only when you want to. Information is very key here. Obviously if you have Boseiju + Rite, that gives you a different plan that is much more straightforward.
Bringing in Surgical is good vs Swords to Plowshares. However, Miracles generally has other instant-speed effects that can also hit Lage - Celestial Purge, Path to Exile, instant speed blocking with Clique -> Jace bounce. So it's not game over if you can Surgical plow.
Hope this helps.