Tried out the following list borrowing from an AnziD 5-0 with tweaks for a local meta where I expected an overrepresentation of:
Fast graveyard strategies - br/ub/tin-fins/mana-dredge
Bug Delver, midrange, shardless
DnT
So far 13-6 with one top 8 in a larger mid-sized event and reasonably happy. Losses were:
UB reanimator - I mull some no landers and don't have adequate permission to stop him through discard
Eldrazi - He curves out with cavern of souls and overpowers my removal
Bug midrange (strix/leovold plan) - Grindy 3 game match at end of day with nothing on line, make some mistakes, winnable
Miracles - Lose in a paper top8 to clean play from lordofthepit + a few errors on my end + excellent luck for him at a few key moments
Grixis delver - Opponent plays slowly and loses a 25 minute g1, I don't pressure him to play faster but do pick up pace to try to conclude match, make some strategic errors by underestimating stifle count and lose close 3 gamer, should have pushed opponent on slow play
Burn - Far too little permission/answers to deal with his draws, die in non-interactive fashion
Looking for some feedback on sideboarding strategy.
Rough SB plan:Code:4 Flooded Strand 4 Scalding Tarn 1 Arid Mesa 4 Island 2 Plains 3 Tundra 2 Volcanic Island 3 Snapcaster Mage 4 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 3 Predict 1 Counterspell 3 Counterbalance 4 Force of Will 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Council's Judgment 1 Engineered Explosives 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Terminus 2 Entreat the Angels SB: 1 Containment Priest SB: 1 Back to Basics SB: 1 Blood Moon SB: 1 Rest in Peace SB: 3 Flusterstorm SB: 2 Pyroblast SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast SB: 2 Surgical Extraction SB: 1 Wear // Tear SB: 1 Mountain
Miracles
Out: 4 stp, 2 terminus, 1 plains, 1 jtms
IN: 4 reb effect, 3 flusterstorm, mountain
DnT:
Out: 2 FoW
In: Wear//tear, containment priest
- Pretty loose on this board plan, likely changing up numbers to have another wear//tear or possibly including disenchants. Matchup feels reasonably favored against local players without much sb tech.
Bug Delver:
Out: 4 FoW, 3 CB, CS
In: 4 reb effect, b2b, blood moon, wear//tear, mountain
If it were stifle bug delver would need to think more, but have not seen anyone running anything but hymn plan for a while.
Midrange Bug (Boarding same vs. strix and tnn lists)
Out: 4 FoW, 3CB, s2p
In: 4 reb effect, b2b, blood moon, wear//tear, mountain
RB Reanimator:
Out: 3 terminus, CJ, 1 s2p, plains, EE
In: 2 surgical, rip, containment priest, 3 flusterstorm
Tin-Fins:
Out: 4 s2p, 1 terminus, CJ, EE
In: 3 flusterstorm, RiP, containment priest, 2 surgical
- 3 terminus stay in because local players like to go on mentor board and there is some minimal equity vs. Emrakul lines.
Grixis Delver:
Out: 4 FoW, Jace, Counterspell
In: 3 reb, b2b, mountain, wear//tear
- Unsure about the above plan, do we need force for the tempo? Is reb being dead against most of their threats a liability? I have not had the chance to test this m/u much with predict lists.
Truncating here since these are the mus I'm most interested in seeing other ideas. Also open to changing any board slots or main deck selections. There has been less BR in the last two weeks so wouldn't hate swapping gy hate for slots that help with miracles and dnt (some mentors?). RiP has felt awkward since it is slow, and often I see snaps and have surgical or flusterstorm in yard in matchups where it is good.
That's wrong. If you could FoW a turn 1 Vial, you would 100% of time, correct? FoW a Gideon, Catalysm on a later turn makes a lot of sense. Why are you keeping 4 CB against a Vial deck? That makes little sense.Originally Posted by neverhasit
Jace is one of the best cards in the mirror as you can just drown your opponent in CA. Why are you bringing in the mountain? To cast 3 REBs in one turn? I doubt that's going to be happening a lot if at all.
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.
Hi there, I've also been playing a similar list to AnziD, taking it to a top 8 at Card Kingdom. My SB plan is slightly different from yours, thought I'd share in case it's helpful :)
You probably don't need the mountain in the mirror, and going down to 19 lands is pretty normal. I'd leave the mountain in the board and keep the second Jace in.
This is a matchup where I'd want the mountain! With all the taxing we want to be able to make all our land drops, and with W//T we want to be able to fetch basic mountain. Also, we need FOW for turn one Vial and late game Plainswalkers. Should be removing your three Counterbalace for these cards.
Land hate isn't the axis I like fighting delver on. I'd turn BM and B2B into Flusterstorms.
Hope this helps!
Agreed. I'm usually happy to cut Force against D&T in a wide variety of decks, but there's no way I'm cutting it before Counterbalance. I'm no miracles expert (in here because I'm trying to learn), but from other experience vs D&T I feel like I'd rather have the basic mountain over counterbalance. Even just tapping for colorless can be relevant vs Thalia. So yeah I'd keep all the forces and cut 3 counterbalances.
Like I said above I'm new to miracles, but is Jace really all that good when you can basically assume they'll be bringing in 4 pyroblast? Obviously Jace is amazing beyond all reason when he's working for you, but how likely is that to actually happen in the mirror?
This is correct, a lot of people leave in Jace in the mirror and I think it is a mistake. Jace is great in game 1, in game 2/3 casting a 4 mana blue sorcery is a liability. When you get super lucky and he is able to resolve in a game 2/3 obviously your in a good spot, but if you can resolve a 4 CMC blue sorcery you probably are already winning that game. He also, just dies if your opponent finds a snap/blast later in match.
I am seeing a lot of questions about SB choices lately, I recently just re-mapped out my SB for personal use, but I might as well share my plans. Feel free to comment on the document, or in this thread and I can explain my rational behind the choices. I am pretty happy with the 75 and most of the plans, but anything I am unsure about I marked "?", so take those choices with a grain of salt.
It's a ton of text if I copy/pasted it, so use this link below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
One thing to note - I have only 3 CB in main - but that doesn't change your point. I could be convinced here - I've been approaching the match as one where I need to attrition every card they play and so am actively not interested in the 2-1 force results in. With the current list I don't have enough answers post-board to reliably kill all the vials though. Taking a step back - I should probably just give up on Eldrazi (especially since locals are now running moon stompy variants instead) and cut b2b/moon, then cut RiP as well and add cards for BUG delver/DnT like mentor, Kozilek's return, disenchant || wear tear, or EE. CB does seem awkward and hard casting force late game is real. I'm still stuck on my old plan when I ran a 2-1 mentor entreat split and blanking whatever s2p they kept in was relevant. I think the matchup may be pretty favorable if I were to switch up board tech, leave 3-4 force in to catch one offs that get through the answers, and board out CB.
One interesting thing, there is a local player who used to run 2 b2b, and 4 ee/disenchant effects. He would bring them in + keep all counterbalance in and swore that DnT playtesting results skewed heavily in miracles favor on that line. Plan was blank vial and cavern, then lean on CB to lock most of their plays. Playtesting 3-4 postboard games + an actual match with me piloting DnT certainly did seem like this plan works, although it's hard to say because often entreat for 3 on turn 5 was the decider.
You can definitely win some games on Jace and it provides a desperation line if they assemble the lock. That said, the predict mirror seems to mostly come down to end step predict/snap fights and a 4 cmc blue card is a liability when everyone is running 3-4 predict, 3-4 snap, 4 reb, 3 flusterstorm. Are other people not cutting Jace? Seems like an easy cut to me.
My thought on plains cut mountain in is that we never cast CJ, terminus, or entreat until late, and we always do this off of duals. We regularly want access to turn 1 reb on the draw in case they go for yolo CB though, so we get some marginal equity pickup for being able to lead on mountain instead of plains when we naturally draw no fetches. It increases the probability of having access to 2 red sources in games where we get to a late midgame counter stack as well. -1 land +1 jace makes a lot of sense to me, it pitches to force and provides another line, and we are reasonably good at continuing to hit our lands. That said, naturally drawing lands is pretty good because it lets us save ponder for gas and not tap out. On balance I think I like 19 lands 2 jace postboard enough to try it.
Vs. DnT, yeah - the mountain does want in as just a basic colorless source with marginal upside, sold there.
What do you guys think about same board but -1 b2b, -1 moon, -1 rip, -1 wear//tear, +2 disenchant, +1 snap, +1 ee. Here our plan is to not have to fetch for red sources vs. bug and DnT and to have an additional answer for vial and winter orb. If prepare4robots is right and we don't want the nonbasic land hate vs. bug delver more than we want flusterstorm vs. their hymns and cantrips, we really have no business running the land hate at all. May also want to Mzfroste and shove mentors in there for counter matchups.
Saw this after posting - thanks for sharing, I notice you bring mentor in for almost all matchups. At what point do we consider overloading maindeck threats?
For what it's worth, entreat out, mentor in seems like a fairly significant error vs. BR. Anything that does damage will work as a wincon, and mentor is both sorcery speed and a reanimation target for them after discard in some lines.
This sounds like flawed logic to me. You'd rather not have access to a sorcery-speed 4CMC win-con and instead play a card that wouldn't win you the game? If I was in a position where I could resolve a Jace and just take over the game and the card that I took Jace out for was in my hand instead, I'd be pretty pissed because now my opponent has time to draw their way back into the game. Just because you've put yourself in a winning posiiton doesn't mean you've actually won.
If your opponent has the answer for your 1 Jace, now what? You have lost one win-con and now need to rely on ETA or Mentor. What if they have answers to those? It's better to diversify your threats to force your opponent to have multiple answers for multiple threats than to cut them for do-nothings. So they REB'd a Jace. Well that's one less REB for my Counterbalance (or other Jace or FoW for fighting on the stack).
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.
So if you and your opponent are in top deck mode Jace is great. This is true. At basically any other point of the game, jace is a blue card to pitch to FoW because tapping out to cast him means you will probably lose. This is where I think there is a misunderstanding. Tapping 4 mana on your turn when both players have cards in their hand is how the matchup is lost. With 1 red mana your opponent can counter jace, and then untap and resolve a counterbalance without much resistance since you tapped 4 of your lands. If that CB sticks, it doesn't even matter if your Jace somehow DID resolve, the odds are now against you.
The way you win the mirror is by resolving a counterbalance, seeing the most snapcasters and predicts, or getting lucky with an entreat/mentor. They way you lose is by tapping out too soon and letting any of those things happen to you.
Mentors are much better post-board since people are taking out removal. Pre-board this list is a very slow hard-control deck, mentor is better when you are playing like a mid-range control deck. 4 mentors is certainly viable though.
I prefer mentor against BR reanimator because it puts a clock on faster than entreat, and helps us not lose to Stronghold Gambit. I would not worry too much about mentor getting discarded and reanimated. It's a rare line, but if there's no way for us to interact with that, we are probably pretty dead anyways.
I'll buy the reasoning that if we can't stop discard->reanimate we are already in trouble. Less convinced by clock + gambit, experienced BR pilots shouldn't really want to bring in gambit for fear of snap, clique, mentor and will instead board decays and silences / keep their maindeck mostly intact. This is what I've experienced at least.
I'd be ready to accept that my thinking on this is biased by running 4 sb gy hate slots + 3 fluster though, since with that configuration you can afford to go a lot longer.
As a DnT player I would like to chime in that Jace is pretty good against us.
If the Miracles player has an answer to SoFI Jace pretty much keeps the Miracles player in the game. Its not the best card against us but its certainly not worth boarding out. Jace buys you so much time and/or resource advantages that a EtA follow-up spells the end of the game for DnT.
Tangibly speaking other factors do need to be at work. If the DnT player doesn't have an active Vial Jace's Unsummon effect is very, very powerful against us. The situation in which the DnT player's overall game plan of riffing off an early Cavern rather than a Vial is more common than you think and actually makes tempo wars between the two parties more even. DnT isnt a Brainstorm deck therefore the likelihood of an early Vial vs Miracles probably only occurs around 1.5 times per match assuming there's a third game involved (somebody correct me am not a math expert).
That or it's anecdotal bias on my part: every game I can count that I have lost vs Miracles involves a Jace being on the board.
Also you should keep some number of FoWs in. Forcing an early Vial is worth the card disadvantage. Also if you can engineer a board state where the DnT player plays a SFM and fetches a SoFI, and you can spot remove the SFM, consider FoWing the SoFI. Doing this will significantly cut their clock in half. Of course if you would ideally Wear // Tear it. Using EE to take out an early SoFI is troublesome compared to just FoWing.
Not sure i agree with you here. You aren't suppose to cast Jace until
1) you have established your CB lock
2) your opponent is close to being in top deck mode
You also do not have to cast Jace on turn 4.
What is the point of boarding a mountain? Obviously the answer is for when you bring in your red cards and vs wasteland and port. However, since the decks that play these cards are seeing play in high numbers why would you want to short yourself a mana source in game 1? Especially with 2 Entreat the Angels in the deck it seems bad to be short a mana source and waste precious sideboard space. How can 20 lands be enough?
You are far less likely to be able to get CB your lock before your opponent does, if you've had a Jace stuck in your hand while you fight over CBs.
The issue isn't that Jace is dead in the mirror, it is that there are 11-13 cards better than Jace in our sideboards. How would you board differently to keep Jace in your deck?
Against any non-waste deck where the game super slow/grindy or where all the 4+ drops have been cut 19 lands is enough (mirror and combo).
Against any mid range deck where you want to hit lands 4-7 in a game but dont need to worry about wasteland 20 lands is just right.
Against any Wasteland deck 21 lands better.
I change the land count in my deck in almost every matchup, I don't think a land is a "waste of SB space", it might be one of the most valuable slots there. Dating back to 2012 20 lands has been pretty standard for 4 ponder miracles. For a while when wasteland was >50% of the field, main decking 21 lands was probably right, but now with wasteland decks making up around 40% of the field, and now running 3 predicts, I feel fine sticking with 20.
hi,
i have a question. how do you guys deal with a midrange metagame?
Most of my metagame is Nic Fit, Death and Taxes, Eldrazi, random Tezzerator builds, loam and only 1-2 delver.
As for Combo there is sneak show and Rb reanimator.
Leaving the Rb reanimator decks aside (i always feel its just a coinflip on who draws the better 7 most of time its my opponent), i always fail
to kill or lock out the game in time. obviously counterbalance is not at its best with cmc 3-4 flying around, but even if i manage to terminus away their
threats once or twice (its usually just 1-2 creatures anyways so they rebuild the turn after) i always fall short on finding my winoptions in time or i am short on mana.
Currently i am running 2 entreat the angels for win options. I am looking to switch over to mentor but that feels like a nonbo with the moat in my board, which has been pulling its
weight so far.
Details about my list aside: how do you guys manage to win against midrange decks in time? Most of the miracle players in my meta seem to fail as well, so i am curious on what i/we are doing wrong? might it just be the meta being that hostile towards the deck? If so: Will that ever change?
Sorry for these general questions i am just wondering since i am usually making decent decisions throughout the game and still end up 1-3 meanwhile i seem a lot of 5-0 for miracles online.
Seeing miracles '5-0 a lot' is a combination of a few things.
A) mzfroste and anziD play a LOT of MTGO. They don't 5-0 every league, but they play enough that 5-0ing is inevitable.
B) as a result of this, they are extremely practiced with their deck, which makes it more likely for them to 5-0.
C) just 'number of 5-0s' isn't a very good metric to base how good a deck is.
well i too realised that it is mostly 2 players putting up these results. Then again does that mean that overall Miracles is currently not in a good spot? On the other hand there are decent results for miracles at major tournaments like gp louisville. that what keeps me wondering whether it is just me making mistakes or the deck not being good at the moment.
good players will win with the deck because the ceiling is so high. Miracles is in a fine position, not bad, not excellent but OK'ish. The deck doesn't have any loopsided matchups anymore, meaning you have to play extremely well to do well consistently.
Tell that to all the Nic Fit players
Which is a good thing because it's still the *best* deck in the format, but now it's less likely to get banned
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.
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