Miracle Control

[Dat_Gentleman]

Hey guys,

I finished 41st at the open in Baltimore with miracles, going 6-3. I beat burn three times (!), lands, the mirror, and BUG control, losing to BUG delver, Shardless BUG, and Death and Taxes. I'min the process of writing a write-up for it but, in the mean time, do you have any advice for the matchups I lost? BUG is definitely the deck I struggle most against.

Thanks guys!
-DG

[MrShine]

CG MrShine!

Nice report. Now after the tournament don't you think you should give the 4 Ponder decklist a try? Trust me it works.

I do not really like your sideboarding against Miracles. There are more aproaches but you really want to keep in Forces (mabye you can siede 1 out) and you do NOT want to keep in Termini and Swords to Plowshares.
As you know if he resolves Counterbalance and Top and you have neither - it is the game - this can happen T2...

Good luck!

Tomáš

The reason I cut the 4th Ponder is that I'm just uneasy in general going below 22 lands in a deck like this. I wasn't particularly sure about the Tundra as the 22nd land, but I figured it was at least not a bad option, over the traditional Karakas in that slot. I also considered the 5th Island, the 3rd Plains, or a 11th Fetch, but just went with what would help fix my colours the best. Non-basic hate wasn't particularily prevalent (although I did get wasted out of the quarterfinals, but that was mostly due to play error, and anyway, Karakas wouldn't have helped there either).

That being said, sure, I'll try the 4 Ponder at some point, but I I've played the deck enough now to be comfortable at the 22 land mark. Call it personal preference / intuition. In any case, 3 was still quite a good number for extra manipulation.

Re: Mirror - how would/do you guys all board for the mirror? I personally think my plan was pretty decent; compared to my opponent I retained a much higher degree of card advantage. Plus, Turbo Entreat / Clique + SCM beats is one of the better ways to win the mirror, and especially if they are bringing in Keranos, I want to have access to a couple Swords post board. At least 1 Terminus, too, for an out to Entreat, although in that case you could argue for a Force in that slot to just prevent it from coming down at all, so I could see taking out all the Termini. Again; what do you guys do?

The other MU I wanted to hear from you guys about is the Painter, mono-R or RW, MU. How do you all board for this one?

Cheers, Keep Toppin'

MrShine

[twndomn]

Hey guys,

I finished 41st at the open in Baltimore with miracles, going 6-3. I beat burn three times (!), lands, the mirror, and BUG control, losing to BUG delver, Shardless BUG, and Death and Taxes. I'min the process of writing a write-up for it but, in the mean time, do you have any advice for the matchups I lost? BUG is definitely the deck I struggle most against.

Thanks guys!
-DG

Kind of undermine the value when you omit which build you were running. Ponder? Legend? BBD's Stoneforge? Hybrid?

[Adryan]

Hey guys,

I finished 41st at the open in Baltimore with miracles, going 6-3. I beat burn three times (!), lands, the mirror, and BUG control, losing to BUG delver, Shardless BUG, and Death and Taxes. I'min the process of writing a write-up for it but, in the mean time, do you have any advice for the matchups I lost? BUG is definitely the deck I struggle most against.

Thanks guys!
-DG

Philipp already wrote a good summary about the Shardless BUG MU, and BUG Delver is with UWR the most favored Delver deck for us, so i'm only adressing the Death and Taxes MU.

The most important part of the Death and Taxes MU is: Does the opponent have Aether Vial? The game changes radically if the opponent has Aether Vial. All your countermagic becomes really bad and the Death and Taxes deck is in it's full element because it can deploy threats while attacking our manabase. Thankfully the chances that a Death and Taxes player has a Aether Vial on Turn 1 are about ~40 %. Without Death and Taxes deck struggles to deploy threats while attacking our mana.

Jace is your best wincon overall against Death and Taxes. Play him, protect him, use the 0 ability every turn, kill all their creatures and then end the game somehow. The Jace "game" is a lot easier to achieve when they don't have Vial, because uncounterable Creatures with flash make him very hard to protect.

Entreat the Angels for 4 or more Angels should also end the game preboard. Postboard it's a lot different because Death and Taxes has more answers f.ex Ratchet Bomb, Cataclysm etc.

A few sideboarding tips, i'm very comfortable with:

-) Don't play Counterbalance postboard, take them out. Counterbalance is a poor card on it's own in this MU. It doesnt impact the board, is kind of bad without library manipulation in this MU. It's even worse when the opponent has a resolved Vial.

You want card's that impact the board, f.ex remove Vial, kill Creatures, create an advantage for you (Jace, Entreat, Keranos) or prevent something bad from happening to you (like a resolved Cataclysm, yes Counterbalance can counter Cataclysm but it doesn't do that as reliable as FoW or Counterspell).

-) Don't play Spell Pierce postboard. Yes it counters the Turn 1 Vial when you're on the play. But that's very bad gambling. First the opp has to have the Turn 1 Vial, 2nd you then need Spell Pierce in your hand, and if drawn later you have a superdead card that does nothing besides maybe countering a Cataclysm.

[Dat_Gentleman]

I was playing a slightly tweaked legends build. I'll post the list when i get home in a couple of hours.

[zeus-online]

You want to play land every turn... So you can trigger LT once? And then there is an Abrupt Decay. Not worth it.

honestly, that does not sound so bad.

I am trading one card that costs 1 white for abrupt decay and 3 basic lands. Sign me up.

[dte]

Among all DtB, miracles is the one which want the highest number of lands into play.
Therefore, Land Tax is not good: Delver or DRS decks, vial.decks, combos are fine with 1-2 lands.

To fetch once for lands, you could play tithe: answering your own fetchland activation, you'll be able to have 2 plains/tundra. But I really think it will be much worse than the card you'll remove for that.

[Koplinchen]

honestly, that does not sound so bad.

I am trading one card that costs 1 white for abrupt decay and 3 basic lands. Sign me up.

I wish it was THAT easy. What if you are on the play? Waht if he Abrupt Decays LT BEFORE you got anyhting from it? Will you skip landrop? Will you play Daze? Will you play Mox Diamond?

It all sounds terrible.

[Dzra]

Land Tax is horrible, next topic.

I tried out triple Volcanic and it felt pretty smooth. I'm unsure if I want to cut the 10th fetch or the 4th Island for it though.

[Adryan]

Land Tax is horrible, next topic.

I tried out triple Volcanic and it felt pretty smooth. I'm unsure if I want to cut the 10th fetch or the 4th Island for it though.

Yeah it's awesome. If you're not running legendary build Karakas is an obvious cut.

[Koplinchen]

I tried out triple Volcanic and it felt pretty smooth. I'm unsure if I want to cut the 10th fetch or the 4th Island for it though.

I play the 4 Ponder Philipp's list. Volcanic Island is the worst land in the deck. We need it because of the sidebard but we do not really want to max it. If you cut Island or fetch you significantly weakening the deck. Two VIs are perfect.

[decan]

I play the 4 Ponder Philipp's list. Volcanic Island is the worst land in the deck. We need it because of the sidebard but we do not really want to max it. If you cut Island or fetch you significantly weakening the deck. Two VIs are perfect.

I totally agree with the first part. However i do not understand why one would not play a Basic Mountain over a second Volcanic.
I guess in most Matches it does not matter but against someone who knows the Einherjer build it could, if they concentrate on wasting Volcanics.

[Adryan]

I play the 4 Ponder Philipp's list. Volcanic Island is the worst land in the deck. We need it because of the sidebard but we do not really want to max it. If you cut Island or fetch you significantly weakening the deck. Two VIs are perfect.

Philipp's list plays fewer red cards than other lists. Obviously Dzra plays more red cards and wants something more consistent than a basic mountain. The worst land of this deck's history is definetely the basic mountain.

[oarsman]

What's the opinion on Keranos now? When I played it a few months ago I didn't give it much of a chance. I think I might play it in place of the 3rd Entreat this weekend.

[Dzra]

I tried him over the course of about four 4-round local tournaments and wasn't impressed. It either didn't get cast because it wouldn't have helped enough or it got cast but was unnecessary because the game was wrapped up. The one time it did anything was when I cast it against DnT and he ended up misplaying what would likely have been a loss for me. I suppose it might depend on what you want him for, but I think if you're looking for a good BUG hoser then Blood Moon is likely the better option.

(I also realize my experience with Keranos was just anecdotal, so I could have just run into a bad string of circumstances, but I doubt I'll be trying him again anytime soon unless he starts showing up in a whole lot of top eights or something.)

[oarsman]

My instinct is that it isn't good enough, but I felt like I should give it another shot. Although doing it in the middle of the season 3 race is probably not smart. I should just run it occasionally online and see what happens. That's kind of what I did the first time around though and it never amounted to much. Bringing in an expensive sorcery speed spell that can be red blasted seems bad in the first place, but apparently the European guys like it. I guess that doesn't mean a whole lot though since I disagree with so many other things they are doing. A card that does work in their deck isn't even necessarily playable in mine since we are so different at this point.

[zeus-online]

if you're looking for a good BUG hoser then Blood Moon is likely the better option.

I have considered going two colour with maindeck back to basics

Also, has anyone tried future sight vs. shardless BUG ?
They can't remove it, and it puts you ahead in card advantage almost regardless of what they do. Oh, and it is sick with sensei's top.

[Ltj999]

My instinct is that it isn't good enough, but I felt like I should give it another shot. Although doing it in the middle of the season 3 race is probably not smart. I should just run it occasionally online and see what happens. That's kind of what I did the first time around though and it never amounted to much. Bringing in an expensive sorcery speed spell that can be red blasted seems bad in the first place, but apparently the European guys like it. I guess that doesn't mean a whole lot though since I disagree with so many other things they are doing. A card that does work in their deck isn't even necessarily playable in mine since we are so different at this point.

have you had thoughts of going back to the baneslayer angle sideboard plan?

Also I've been fooling around with my 2nd spell pierce slot and undecided wether I should leave it as is, go up to a 23rd land (which would be a 3rd plains or 2nd karakas) or put in some kind of main deck "got yah" card such as blood moon, or even the 4th counterbalance or 2nd misdirection.

My current list is as follows:

4 Arid Mesa
2 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 scalding tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 mystic gate
1 mountain

4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell

2 Vendilion Clique
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 venser

2 Entreat the Angels

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Terminus
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Council's Judgment

Sideboard:

1 Engineered Explosives
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Wear/tear
2 Rest in Peace
1 Kreanos (tons of fair decks in my meta so this seems better than the entreat)
1 Blood Moon
1 Supreme Verdict

[AnziD]

I tried him over the course of about four 4-round local tournaments and wasn't impressed. It either didn't get cast because it wouldn't have helped enough or it got cast but was unnecessary because the game was wrapped up. The one time it did anything was when I cast it against DnT and he ended up misplaying what would likely have been a loss for me. I suppose it might depend on what you want him for, but I think if you're looking for a good BUG hoser then Blood Moon is likely the better option.

(I also realize my experience with Keranos was just anecdotal, so I could have just run into a bad string of circumstances, but I doubt I'll be trying him again anytime soon unless he starts showing up in a whole lot of top eights or something.)

At first I thought that was the point of the card. Like if we weren't playing Keranos, then we'd be playing ETA right? And the purpose of ETA is to just act as a finisher, to quickly close games that have been locked up. If this were the case, then we couldn't fault Keranos as it too is a finisher - just of a different kind. But, then I realized that ETA is also incredible because it is multimodal; it has the capability to let you win games you have no business winning. Functioning at instant speed with Top is also huge. So one criteria that must be used to judge Keranos is that question itself - does Keranos have the potential to let us win games we shouldn't be winning? Is it that strong? So far, I think the answer is no. Like others have said, it IS a 5 mana sorcery spell that does very little to impact the board when cast. There are other smaller reasons (ex. the lack of interaction with Top, vulnerability to Red Blast effects, being a 5 over a 3) that don't make the card look better, but I am also thoroughly convinced that the card needs way more testing to fully flesh out all the scenarios where the card is worth playing over ETA.

Things to think about include:
1) How strong is Keranos in a simplified game state? What about a more complex one?
2) Will it being a creature ever be relevant?
3) What synergies does Keranos have with the rest of the deck? Are there cards we should be playing to create or take advantage of these synergies?
4) What functionality does this deck need? Does Keranos fit the role? Or does something like Entreat do a better job?

[Dzra]

I think that if Keranos could hit devotion more easily or if you could trigger his ability on opponents' turns with Brainstorm/Top then he'd be much more playable. As he is though, in order to be able to commit five mana to casting him, the board state has to be pretty stable already. Around the midgame when I'd want to cast Keranos, I found myself having to hold up mana for Venser, Snapcaster, Clique, (one time FoW for their Ancestral), mini-Entreat (to protect a Jace), etc.

Creatures at least can block the turn they come into play and Venser or Snapcaster can each deal with an additional creature by bouncing or flashing back removal. The fact is that Keranos does nothing against even a single Goyf or Batterskull and tapping five mana probably means that you're just going to be taking whatever they are offering for at least that turn. If DnT has a Vial and any piece of equipment in play then they can play around Keranos quite easily by EoTing a creature and just suiting it up on their turn (putting it out of Keranos range). Keranos is probably better than Jace or a mini-Entreat on an empty or nearly-empty board, but unlike Jace it can't dig for sweepers and unlike Entreat it can't provide blockers.