Thank you for this. I don't want to prolong that discussion much more, and will continue reporting if such behavior continues.Originally Posted by Julian23
As for DiceBox's original question regarding the crucible list, TheArchitect's points are very valid, and something I forgot to mention in my original response. Other decks try to do the main deck blood moon/ruination/b2b angle as well, which is a form of what DiceBox is trying to do, so perhaps take a look at some of those as well?
To further on from Mins post: there are definitely valid reasons to play maindeck land hate. At Japanese GP Dig through Time, wasteland was played to hedge (read: be able to beat) Boseiju, or the bitch tree as it is also known. Today, the enemy is not the ability to not go toe to toe in grindy games, mentor and predict helps with that, but losing to eldrazi.
Wasteland are good against them, backed up with delver or goyf, but wasteland alone is usually not enough. B2b is likely much better, like it just shuts them down very often. B2b into anything and they are dead .
Personally, I believe mentor is just as good as combating them. A turn quick mentor is often good enough to steal a game one, if they don't have chalice.
A lot of hate seems to be centered around the difference of opinion around different versions of Miracles. Perhaps separating threads about diverging miracles strategies might help.
The issue is, I don't know where I plan to take this idea. I feel like I want to head down a kind of "Blue Stax" route. For this I think Miracles offers the best core. Counterbalance and Top, mixed with some other hard control I feel is where I will go. That's why I was asking for input now, but also said I am likely to diverge quickly away. Because I swear I will be playing Energy Field again by the end of march.
I know that's not the best plan, but it's just who I am. I want to lock down the bloody game, hell or high water. To manage this I want to be able to make a deck that has some of the powers of Miracles that I can then build upon (By build upon I mean make much worse) and build that concept I like. Think of me these days as an EDH player in Legacy. I want something and I will do stupid things to fit my theme.
I am sure this has been covered before, but I actually think Miracles can be adapted to a hard control role. Moat, Humility, RIP, Field and Counterbalance. It's like a UW Enchantress made to prove how much of an ass hole I am.
Maybe in the short term I should just play the core and build from that. I like the Back to Basics idea, mixed with maybe an Enlightened Tutor package. I will start there and see what I can make happen. I like BtB and RIP though. Your shit doesn't untap and DRS is not saving you.
If anyone likes this idea and wants to build on it with me shoot me a message.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
The results Joe has put up with Legends Miracles is better than anything anyone here has been able to do. I think he can handle his own...
This style of control deck was more popular during the UW Stoneblade days, sometimes playing Enlightened Tutor to find the right answers. Stoneblade generally defaulted to UWx builds after Tom Martell won GP Indy in 2012, but you can see a UW build that made Top 8 in the hands of Adam Yurchick at the same event (http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpind12). (Historical note: This is also the event that Di made Top 4 with High Tide, and there's a photo of the amazing original Source mat in that coverage.)
Stoneblade underwent some large shifts after Deathrite Shaman and True-Name Nemesis were printed, resulting in Deathblade, although Stoneblade builds like Martell's are still sometimes played today (Shaheen Soorani is their most vocal champion). Miracles generally abandoned Stoneforge Mystic, but it was still seeing sporadic play a couple years ago. For example: http://www.mtgdecks.net/deck/scg_pre...e_bass/132359/
Moat and Humility are control tools that predate Stoneforge Mystic but were also played alongside it when it was printed. Energy Field and Rest in Peace were commonly played in Miracles around the time of RIP's printing, and they were discussed in some depth in this thread. The conclusion was that they were a metagame call: They were right for some fields but were too clunky otherwise.
Trying to figure out a side board for Louisville.
Are 3 REB effects really necessary? I know how great they can be, but the meta is a lot less blue than it used to be. I don't love the card against the popular versions of delver either (4 color / grixis). I am playing a legends version that should already have a slight edge in the mirror if that matters.
Also, what do people think of Containment Priest right now?
I don't think anyone is questioning Joe's results. He is an incredibly skilled player.
That doesn't change the fact that his decklist was super bad at GPNJ, where his plan to fight cruise/dig decks, which all played md pyroblasts, was to play Relic of Prog.
Aluren is hard. I imagine we can all agree on that. I think I have played it more often in the past two weeks than the past two years, but that still doesn't amount to very many games. The BUG tutorless version seems to be the most common so I am going to focus on that. There are still several days before the GP, and (for myself at least) I think there is more win percentage to be gained here than anywhere else. I am not interested in changes to my deck. What I am seeking are advantages that are already there but I am not noticing.
I don't have a good feel yet as to whether Counterbalance or Force is useful. The last couple times I have left Balance in and taken Force out. My new idea is to board in Surgical and target Cavern Harpy. If the first one can get countered and Surgical'd, then you are set (maybe!). If this is valid, then things simplify. You can let Aluren resolve, counter and extract Harpy, and then just deal with some low power creatures. But it hasn't come up yet so I don't know if it is realistic to pull this off.
Anyone with another idea on how to approach the matchup? It's possible the best way to go is just counter or kill the Aluren itself, but I hope not since that's presumably what they are prepared for us to do.
Thank you for the Hammer Julian. I think new Primer(s) are really a good idea. I see two to three flavours Miracles (Legendary, Ponder and in a way Predict. Ah, and then there's these Midrange-List utilising 4 Mentor and Daze) which makes the discussion a little bit messy from time to time because they have different play-styles in my point of view. I'm thankful for everybody who's putting work in there. This thread became useless for me since GP Paris, which is really sad.
Regarding Crucible, I think this could have been me as I won a tournament last year with a build including it http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19635&iddeck=149463 Funfact: I didn't draw the Crucible the whole day and cutted it and over time the wastelands in the next months for consistency. In the end it didn't support the main game plan, lured me into misplays and I didn't encountered that many Boseiju/Manlands anyways. And Blood Moon does the trick anyways. I didn't have tested Back to Basics but I might be a good way to go in nowadays meta.
Regarding Aluren: If you face them often I would play Wear//Tear main. They didn't threaten to kill us fast or disrupt our early game and they can only win if they get Aluren resolved. So we have plenty time to build up, spare a counter for Aluren and wipe the board if it's necessary. Remember that your life is an important resource as control player, use it to buy time. Aside from Leovold and, depending on board-state and your list, DRS there's nothing we have to answer soon. Always try to create card advantage with your actions and carefully improve your position until you are in safe control, then finish them of quick with the next win-condition you have at hand (Mentor, Entreat, Jace)
I've been focusing on countering Aluren since without that they're a bad midrange deck. They usually only run 4 FoW as their protection package (where as we run 4 FoW, 1-2 CS, and then CB), so if we can stop their Aluren from resolving and then mop up their dudes with Terminus then we're set.
The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.
I think what Joe is trying to articulate is that this BUG Aluren deck isn't actually that bad of a deck without Aluren, specifically because all of their creatures create 2-for-1 situations. Think of it like a Shardless BUG deck, and you should approach it like one. The difference is that they kill you by outvaluing you normally, and Aluren isn't actually necessary.
You can call it a "bad midrange deck" but it's actually deceptively powerful. They interact often with force and/or discard, but their creatures deal chip damage and they can eventually kill you out of nowhere. You can sit on Force of Will all day, and you'll find yourself incidentally dying.
The best real way to beat them is to setup a turn where you EOT remove remove remove, untap and kill them. Pounce with Mentor or Entreat or JTMS, and don't give them to time they want to durdle, which is what they expect out of a miracles deck.
Don't use removal early, because, if they're smart, they won't deploy more than 1-2 things at a time. You should try to engineer a scenario where you play your removal, then untap and immediately do something that takes the initiative back, like mentor plus dudes, jtms, entreat, something with some POWER to it.
As for the combo itself, floating a force/blast is powerful, cb on 2 is OK, but I'm partial to taking out balance and relying on blasts vs the solely BUG version to stop the combo itself.
The Blast>surgical play is an OK option but that leaves you open to their value plan afterwards, and not something that I'm really interested in doing? Perhaps Joe's iteration is better at utilizing those spots and can afford to beat their value plan, but I think the best way to really do that is a fast entreat or mentor window.
EDIT: For reference, the BUG Aluren list we are pinpointing is this: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=14372&d=285882&f=LE
The Recruiter lists, be it white or red, are different iterations where this advice doesn't apply, obviously =P
I've played a lot vs both BUG and 4 color (red and white both) online: Bug is definatly the better deck.
I don't advice FoW against them; Their plan is almost never ever Aluren, due to just creating value all around.
Against BUG/Heavy Harpy builds, I would advice infinite REB, if possible - They are also playing a large amount of Leovold, he is basically what made that deck.
The BUG lists doesn't actually run any discard, meaning your counterspells are fine for their alurens, if they do eventually run one out. Their forces are typically spend on countering terminus/pressure.
Fwiw, I believe the four color versions are hot garbage. They are extremely potent IF they draw their spells exactly like they need to, but they rarely do. The bug lists play Ponder, which significantly increacestheir decks streamlining, making them much more scary in my opinion.
I would be more fearful of Sneak and Show than of Aluren... Aluren is like the other grindy BUG decks; Play versus them a ton of times, and you know how to manouver in the matchup. It very much comes down to familiarity.
I don't think Surgical is good versus them.
With all due respect, I believe you are wrong about surgical. Surgical is great against ANY deck looking to set up and find very particular cards. This applies to more than just combo matchups to disrupt the combo. The idea behind surgical is to disrupt their deck as a whole, not to just remove a win condition and say "I win". It doesn't work like that. You have to look at surgical as another angle of attack that will allow you to take control of the game. It's not an "i win" button and can be very effective at disrupting their deck as a whole causing them to be less consistent and run worse than you. Miracles is great at taking advantage of that.
So in the case of Aluren, if I can counter the Aluren card itself and surgical it, I can now shift my focus to removing their Creatures. If I can surgical their abrupt decays, then I'll be able to solidify my counterbalance lock against them to keep them from killing me with cavern harpy and strix. Make sense?
You were talking about discard but the list that you posted (and the one I was using as reference) doesn't run any. As for being wary of their "value" plan, Shardless BUG is a better "value" deck and we don't struggle to hard against them (40/60 at worst IMO). Aluren doesn't play the cards that make Shardless a better value deck (outside of Strix and Agent) so their value plan isn't as worrying. Of course, with Leovold in the mix things get a little trickier, but I would likely not break a sweat dealing with an Aluren-less Aluren, whereas with Shardless they have haymakers that can take over the game (Lili, Jace).
The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.
After all the abstract talk, may we get down to something more concrete, like the Sideboarding?
For example, vs. Shardless BUG:
-4 FoW
-3 CB
-1 Plains
+3 Red Blast effect
+2 Clique
+1 or +2 Wear//Tear
+1 Surgical (maybe? it's debatable, I feel it's worth the risk)
What about Aluren? What are we cutting and what are we adding? I have ideas but still want to see what others are doing.
What about Aluren that runs recruiter vs the one that doesn't run recruiter? I would imagine we don't SB the same.
I board like this:
-4 Force of Will, -4 Counterbalance, -1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Pyroblast, +1 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Wear//Tear, +1 Kozilek's Return, +3 Vendilion Clique
Last edited by drocker23; 01-03-2017 at 10:51 PM.
Sorry, that wasn't directed at anyone in particular, I was just clarifying on Joe's issue and expanding upon abstract concepts on how to fight against it. That specific list doesn't have discard but it doesn't mean that they don't, and that's simply a possible axis they can fight upon.
Why would surgical ever come in vs Shardless? Seriously, am I missing something?
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