I like Deluge sheerly for how fast it is.
EE, especially when combined with Thalia tax, can be slow to play and activate, while still not guaranteeing that you will be able to "nuke" their whole board.
Pernicious Deed is even slower and kills our own Dryad Arbor if we have had to play it. Also deed sometimes needs to wait for 1 turn to hit a TNN or something like that, and then gets Worn/Torn.
Just my $0.02
EE gets awkward with Thalia if you're trying to kill tokens especially. but otherwise, when you pay the tax, it works out. Let me explain.
You want to kill all the 2's in play and you have a Thalia. You tap a Forest (sunburst one) and a Savannah to pay the Thalia Tax (Adding White, Sunburst Two). So, you've gotten to EE for 2 using 4 mana instead of 5. Value! :P
I would see what you're trying to do, though. If you want to kill tokens (pyro), run ZP/EE. If you want to have a good general sweeper, Deluge is good.
All of the sweepers except ZP are fraught with collateral damage, since all those cards, Deed, EE, and Deluge, are really good against you.
-Matt
I think for *Miracles* that Deed is the best; because you can lay it down whenever and leave no mana open. EE is awkward because you either have to have an answer for CB in your hand when you drop it, or you have to lay it down predicting whether Angels or CB will be your problem (based off of a lot of unknown information.) Again, holding mana up all the time is a big issue.
For fair decks they're all a gamble, but I prefer Deluge unless I've built my curve in such a way that I can really take advantage of EE. Deluge helps for Big-Dude-Combo and deals with D&T/DGA decks quite well, supports the Elves MU, and myriad other good things.
An example of an EE-abusive curve I ran to use them main-deck:
4 KotR
4 Bob
4 DRS
3 Lingering Souls
4 Liliana
Most decks play lots of 2-drops; so I could set EE @2 reliably and rarely have a Bob get hit by it while being a 0-CMC for Bob. My experience with EE was largely positive with this approach and largely negative every other time I've tried to fit it even in the sideboard.
Originally Posted by Nestalim
I disagree with this assessment. I have played nic fit and miracles a lot and slaughter games is much worse in practice than it is on paper.
The reality is, drawing and casting slaughter games wastes an entire turn in puts you down a card simply to decrease the threat density of miracles. Exile entreat does not win the game. Exiling jace AND entreat does not win the game either. I have had this done to me and my opponent essentially mulled to 5 and then wasted 2 turns which let me easily win with snapcasters and cliques. Proactive answers to specific wincons is no way to beat a control deck. Proactive answers to the cards that fuel the control deck are better (needle on top, teeg, choke, etc).
If you want to beat miracles your best chance is with cards like sylvan library, pithing needle, lingering souls, choke, things that make tokens (bitterblossom, elspeth, garruk), or cataclysm (not Armageddon). Teeg and safekeeper also help a ton but like others have mentioned, this is no hardlock. The more of these cards you have in your 75 the better the matchup is going to be.
The other thing I see a lot while playing miracles is mana dorks, wastelands and STP post board. These cards are bad against miracles, you can side them out. Take out a few mana dorks, 1-3 wastes, and all your stp.
You want to ideally just play 1 creature and throw an equipment on it, jitte is still nuts against miracles for this reason. Moms and mana dorks have their uses, but often times they are just another free card to get swept away with terminus since their presence alone rarely necessitates removal.
Deed is very good against Miracles, but there is no way in hell I'm running that in a Maverick deck.
Agree with @lordofthepit - we have board presence mostly - which mean all you need to cover is special usage - like tokens from EtA, like tokens from EtW, like Counterbalance. That was the reason which I pick EE - surgical precision. If opponent try to look you with CB with cmc = 3 you can tap 2 forest more then EE cmc will be higher but sunburst will still took down CB. When you except EtA you just play EE for 0, and only count lands where EtA eot will be lethal - its really not so easy.
EE works also as 2 mana removal vs delver - which sometimes matters (he FoWed first StP / didnt draw Decay etc..) It blow out tokens and leave your creatures - which Deluge can't.
It also kill plainswalkers - which any other can't. It can easy dodge taxes from thalia - if you want to kill tokens under thalia just cast it from wasteland.
Deed is similar but destroy everything under - which mean - your presence on board too. Its also much slower - for example on draw you will loses vs 10+ tokens from EtW, with EE you can blow it one turn earlier.
This is my preferred strategy. Bitterblossom is very hard for Miracles to do much about, and comes down early enough that they haven't usually had the time to sculpt a hand full of countermagic.
Except that they board into wear and tear and can 2-for-1 you. That and council's judgement is pretty annoying. Either way this deck is an annoyance for our deck.
My SB-Plan against Miracles:
Abzan Maverick:
+1x Gaddock Teeg
+3x Thougtseize
+1x Pithing Needle
+1x Armageddon
+1x Sword of Light and Shadow/ 1x Sylvan Library
Punishing Maverick:
+1x Gaddock Teeg
+1x Pithing Needle
+1x Armageddon
+2x Red Elemental Blasts
+1x Slaughter Games
+1x Sword of Light and Shadow
In both decks I side out:
-1x Umezawa's Jitte
-1x Birds of Paradise
-1x Noble Hierarch
-4x Swords to Plowshares (keeping Abrupt Decay main in Abzan obviously and Punishing Fire in GWr for Jace, slow Angel tokens and random Vendilion Cliques/Snapcaster Mages)
The last 3 tournaments I somehow had good success against Miracles with both versions. Having seven cards to side in feels right.
@DudeItsCorey: I'm not sold on Slaughter Games. It has great theoretical upside, but in practice I don't think things translate kindly. Specifically, S.Games needs 4 mana. At that point, Miracles has already established problematic shit: Cb/Top, 4 mana of their own to drop bombs on me, has had enough manipulation to stockpile the next 3-4 draws.
TheArchitect says it best, "Proactive answers to specific wincons is no way to beat a control deck. Proactive answers to the cards that fuel the control deck are better (needle on top, teeg, choke, etc)." You need to turn off the enablers/fuel. I'll gladly let them stare at a hand full of answers if they have no mana, top, manipulation, etc. I'd like to continue this discussion to further evaluate which options post-TC make sense to run in the default sb.
I've also been in situations where late-game Miracles just out-grinds me. It can Verdict the table for the lone hero I have left and/or bring in Venser + Karakas lock OR just Jace me to death while sitting on hard-casted Forces.
I've tried Lingering Souls to extremely disappointing results. Usually they are just fodder that gets caught somewhere between Thalia (souls is now casted for 4 --> fb'ed for 3) and/or contribute very little to the game's progression (as Miracles has too much life for the nibbling to be worthwhile).
@EE: I hate this card against miracles as Teeg turns it off, Thalia makes it a pain to hold up more mana, and the opponent can just play around the card (Jace, Clique, Snapcaster) lol.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=79204
Super interesting list!
Was curious if the player/brewer is here on the forums. Would love to hear about your experience.
List seems awesome. If you've seen my previous posts, you'd know I'm a fan of the Aether Vials, and Living Wish seems like incredible gas in this deck. I would love to hear a report from this player.
I would love to hear from the player too! I do wonder if going deep into black with confidant was truly worth it. Wouldn't going creature heavy with knight and qasali be more streamlined, especially with Thalia? Very curious.
Wish for Pontiff seems interesting if you go black.
I do question the lack of 4th Thalia in the board instead of a Thorn, though. No Pridemages, even as wish target, seems weird as well.
A few interesting choices. I almost like Reclamation Sage in the SB. Same cost to blow up a art/ench but you get to keep your 2/2 afterwards. I also think a 1 Bojuka Bog in the SB is necessary. The Top 8 at the SCG tournament was full of graveyard based decks like Lands, Dredge, and Temur Delver.
I do like the Pontiff for Pyromancer, Elves, and True-Name.
What do you guys think about Punishing Maverick post-ban? And could Monastery Mentor fit in that build?
I'm going to playtest this list today:
22 creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Mother of Runes
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
15 other spells:
1 Mox Diamond
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Life from the Loam
3 Punishing Fire
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
23 lands:
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Dark Depths
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Thespian's Stage
Sideboard:
1 Cataclysm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Granger Guildmage
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Pyrobast
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
I suppose some of the choices are rather unorthodox, but that's what playtesting is for. I suspect I'll be back to something more conventional for this weekend's tournament (if I make it), but I wanted to take this brew for a spin.
Can you answer what is the point of lonely mox diamond in the list? From my point of view running Thalia + Punishing Fire as both MD isn't great, more over you are missing Sylvan Library which is MVP vs Grindy MU.
The lonely mox is basically a fifth bird, one that doesn't die to bolts and swords. It synergizes fairly well with Knight and Loam.
Fire and Thalia are good in different matchups; I expect to side one or the other out after game 1 in most matchups. If I want Thalia I'm usually very, very happy to have her; in that case, Fire most likely wasn't very good anyways. If I want Fire I'm less likely to want or need Thalia, so I'm less likely to have her in play.
I love Sylvan Library as well, but in this build I'm trying Life from the Loam in its place. I don't think I have room for both, and Loam is very nice with Fire/Grove and Sword of Light and Shadow. Also, always hitting land drops makes Thalia less of an issue if I'm on the recurring Fire plan in the late game.
You should try Loam + Library, also to Thalia vs PF - I would suggest to keep one of them MD and second in SB depends on what meta you except to having MD less dead cards.
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