Miracle Control

[jraniga]

GP Louisville on January 6th

Ahh thanks, I was looking at events for this year and couldn't fine anything. Shame I'm only in Louisville till the middle of December

[icedagger]

Hi!

Newbie Miracles player here. I started off using a Legends list similar to Joe Lossett's and have been playing it for a few months now.

Lately I've been experimenting with using Mentors as a win condition, which hasn't exactly been working out for me. I was wondering if anyone has had any success using Mentors in a Legend Miracles shell?

[MrMonday]

Personally, I would say that there isn't really room to fit Mentors into the Legends build. It leaves you with too many clunky, high average CMC hands. I'm shuddering just imagining drawing a hand with a Clique, Mentor and Venser in it.

[twndomn]

Hi!

Newbie Miracles player here. I started off using a Legends list similar to Joe Lossett's and have been playing it for a few months now.

Lately I've been experimenting with using Mentors as a win condition, which hasn't exactly been working out for me. I was wondering if anyone has had any success using Mentors in a Legend Miracles shell?

Miracles come with different flavors, I would discourage you from running the Legend build in the archetype. Often you're forced to do the Clique + Karakas dance, which is pretty much stalling, and sometimes that would result in a draw.

To answer your question, you should have no problem replacing a Entreat with Mentor, or two. What exactly has not been working out? If you're losing more, are you sure it's because of this replacement of win-con? Or is it because of something else?

[Quasim0ff]

BoM top 8.

Three miracles lists in the top 8, two of them only playing three terminus.

http://bazaar-of-moxen.com/en/urlrw,...vent=23&evt=23

[icedagger]

Personally, I would say that there isn't really room to fit Mentors into the Legends build. It leaves you with too many clunky, high average CMC hands. I'm shuddering just imagining drawing a hand with a Clique, Mentor and Venser in it.

Well, I was actually trying to replace Entreat with Mentor in order to reduce the clunkiness. I think the hand you describe would be a lot worse if the Mentor was an Entreat instead. ;)

Miracles come with different flavors, I would discourage you from running the Legend build in the archetype. Often you're forced to do the Clique + Karakas dance, which is pretty much stalling, and sometimes that would result in a draw.

To answer your question, you should have no problem replacing a Entreat with Mentor, or two. What exactly has not been working out? If you're losing more, are you sure it's because of this replacement of win-con? Or is it because of something else?

I think the reason turned out to be a mix of my inexperience with using Mentors, and the fact that most of my practice the past week were preboard games against RG Lands and Shardless BUG. I was having trouble deploying Mentor properly as it kept dying to Punishing Fire/Abrupt Decay or getting discarded before I could get any value from it, and I kept finding myself in situations where I'd top and find a Mentor that would have won me the game if it were an EtA. However after playtesting on a wider field (with both pre and post board) it definitely does make some matchups easier.

Anyway, I'm currently using the following list, and would like to get a second opinion on it, particularly on the sideboard and if there are any weaknesses I should be aware of. So far it seems to cover most of what I encounter locally, but I'm wondering how to improve it for a more open meta. I'm hoping to take the list to my first GP so any feedback would be appreciated. :)

4 Island
2 Plains
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Karakas
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa

3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Counterspell
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Predict
4 Counterbalance
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Monastery Mentor
1 Entreat the Angels
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Force of Will
4 Terminus

Sideboard:
2 Flusterstorm
2 Wear and Tear
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Pyroblasts
1 Red Elemental Blast / Blood Moon / Back to Basics / From the Ashes (Flex slot; One of the 4 depending on the meta)
1 Blood Moon / Back to Basics / From the Ashes (Flex slot; 1 of the 3 depending on the meta)
1 Moat
2 Rest in Peace
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Mountain
1 Pithing Needle

[kravkenov]

Here is a "Legend build with Mentor" that top8 at BOM Paris this weekend :

7th place : Yohan Dudognon - Miracles

1 Cavern of Souls
1 Karakas
1 Plains
1 Volcanic Island
2 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
4 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, the Mind Sulptor
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
1 Predict
2 Counterspell
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Terminus

Sideboard
1 From the Ashes
1 Blood Moon
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm
1 Mountain
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Pyroblast
2 Rest in Peace
2 Wear // Tear
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

[CutthroatCasual]

I wouldn't call it a "Legend w/ Mentor", more like a hybrid list taking parts from all builds.

[twndomn]

BoM top 8.

Three miracles lists in the top 8, two of them only playing three terminus.

http://bazaar-of-moxen.com/en/urlrw,...vent=23&evt=23

Dudognon has posted on the source before, I'm sure you can just search for his post and PM him if you want him to clarify his card choices.

The take-away:
1. 0 MD Entreat, Europeans don't like this card in the MD for some reasons.
2. 1 Blood Moon + 1 From the Ashes, is this the new typical setup?
3. Cheats on graveyard hate. Other than Dudognon, just 1 Surgical and sometimes 1 Containment Priest; therefore reanimator became the winner.

[Quasim0ff]

Dudognon has posted on the source before, I'm sure you can just search for his post and PM him if you want him to clarify his card choices.

The take-away:
1. 0 MD Entreat, Europeans don't like this card in the MD for some reasons.
2. 1 Blood Moon + 1 From the Ashes, is this the new typical setup?
3. Cheats on graveyard hate. Other than Dudognon, just 1 Surgical and sometimes 1 Containment Priest; therefore reanimator became the winner.

1: A lot of people do that. A lot of people like the mentor approach game 1, and want something like Angels postboard against decks like Death and Taxes as well as various BUG decks.

2: "New" and "Typical"? No to either. It's good, though, much more than Back to Basics.

3: That is confirmation bias. BR Reanimator is good, and super fast. If you actually saw the matchup, he'd need to have two surgicals in hand t1 in order to be able to survive.

[Poron]

and just because Chancellor of the Annex didn't show up, else not even that would have done anything

[gdtpara]

hello, quick report

Made 28th at eternal week end with a non jace list :

4 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Predict
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Terminus

sideboard
2 Blood Moon
2 Flusterstorm
4 Pyroblast
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Wear // Tear
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Mountain

I met (Not in order of rounds) :
6W-2L-1D

Cloudpost 0-2
Death and tax 2-1
Death and tax 1-0
UW blade 1-0
Grixis tempo 2-0
Grixis tempo 2-0
Infect 2-1
Miracle 1-1-1
Miracle 0-2

[CutthroatCasual]

How often did you miss Jace in the mirror? Or in games that went super long?

[Whitefaces]

How often did you miss Jace in the mirror? Or in games that went super long?

Probably not a lot? Since people are running three to four Pyroblasts now he's very bad after game one in the mirror.

[gdtpara]

How often did you miss Jace in the mirror? Or in games that went super long?

In fact i lack experience in mirror. My opponents kept 2-3 terminus (me 0), 1 swords(me 0), and i played mentor with too light backup. The game never went super long against them^^. I think we should play at least 1 somewhere in 75.

[kravkenov]

And how did you fell with this 19 Lands list ?

[Cipher]

Probably not a lot? Since people are running three to four Pyroblasts now he's very bad after game one in the mirror.

Everyone says this, but most of my wins in the mirror are from Jace or Entreat. Oftentimes going over the top of Counterbalance + Top. The common logic in this thread is that both these cards are terrible in the mirror...

[Whitefaces]

Everyone says this, but most of my wins in the mirror are from Jace or Entreat. Oftentimes going over the top of Counterbalance + Top. The common logic in this thread is that both these cards are terrible in the mirror...

I like Entreat as it's a non-blue win con that can be used EOT, but tapping low for Jace is a window for the opponent to resolve a CB. From there they can set up pretty easily and blast the Jace. CB invalidates most of the CA he produces. This is my experience anyway.

[gdtpara]

And how did you fell with this 19 Lands list ?

It looked like storm cantrip engine. That was pretty cool playing it. Didn't felt low on land. Dig dig dig and create the situation you want

[Misersoneof]

I'm not playing any WW spells, so i'm less reliant on plains plains, but I've been playing a 2 tundra/2 volc, 4 island, mountain, plains, 10 fetches manabase and it's been excellent.

This seems like a pretty good balance. I'm gonna have to test this.

Try this one, it's very stable and you dont really need 4 Island.

4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain

The problem comes when you need to cast two or more blue spells in a turn and you're forced to fetch duals. Three Islands is even pushing it in my opinion. I agree with Quasimoff, this is very weak to Delver decks, Lands even more so.

I like playing counterspell. I agree that 3 sometimes feels low and 2 just seems crazy to me.