I am a little surprised about shaving ALL of the wastelands...its not worth it to leave in any for a Karakas? Otherwise, very insightful post. Thank you!Originally Posted by Einherjer
I usually cut one wasteland since having some answers to Karakas/clique/venser shenanigans is good, but I think the main purpose is still to try and snipe their duals. They'll fetch more basics after they realize what you're on, but they might still draw a dual or need to fetch a volcanic for red, or a tundra for double white.
Also, don't forget to clique them with the miracle trigger on the stack. :(
Cutting 4 Wastelands is drastic, agreed. But look, my newest iteration of Miracles plays 1 land more than Team America does, and I'm not playing Llanowar Elves... eerghh Deathrite Shaman. Look, by cutting 4 Wastelands you have the option of trumping Miracles in card-quality, if you keep those 20 lands you'll get punished severly for not being able to control your draws with Sensei's Divining Top and Miracles will get the card-quality and you'll die... painfully. Unless you do everything else right, ofc :) You don't have to trust me, but you might have to agree that this logic sounds intriguing - and just test it on your own.
So, you want to keep Wasteland because you want to break up Karakas + Clique/Venser? Well, first of all Venser is bad. And Clique won't be in the postboarded deck in all lists. Thirdly Karakas is a 1of. And lastly, this "lock" isn't really devastating for you, so please don't worry about this one.
You want to keep Wasteland to nuke those Tundras and Volcanic Islands of mine? Well... there are 2 ways to develop a control-manabase when facing a Delver-Tempodeck.
1) Get those basics down: If everything goes according to plan you land Island, Plains, Island or Island Island Plains in the first three turns, followed by more basics or Fetchlands. Duals will be kept for sorcery-speed cards, will be shuffled away or will be deployed in a big fashion, so Wasteland won't save you - and it'll be too late.
2) One does not simply waste me: If your hand consists of duals only you'll just slam them one by another and fetch for additional ones - as your opponent can't have all the Wastelands. This plan crumbles to the 3-4 Wasteland-draw... but how often is this gonna happen? And while you spend your Wastelands doing kind of nothing Miracles can keep sculpting the hand/Top3.
You want to keep Wasteland for Volcanic Island in order to disable them from casting REB? Well, most Miracles-lists won't be bringing alot of REBs as long as they play no Mountain. And if they play a Mountain, well nice Wasteland once again :)
Greetings
Thank you Einherjer. I appreciate your post. You can also add the fact that you shouldnt' waste counters in stopping your creatures from dying.
I would like to explain more now that I'm in front of a keyboard so I don't constantly keep getting flamed for my ideas.
First, I am not talking about playing this guy
or some random guy on cockatrice.Originally Posted by misty rainforest View Post
Hi, everyone. This is my first time post and I apologize to my poor English.
I always use miracles deck on little tournament but I can't win against RUG/BUG delver and Shardless BUG(or something deck like using Lilliana of the Vale.)
On this MU, how do I fight to them? And what is mention to the starting hand when using this deck?
I'm talking about playing this guy:
Back to the original post, the poster asked what is a good sideboard option to play against miracles and dredge. I told him for dredge, having 4 drs, 1 cage, and 2 surgical has been sufficient for me. Then i said, do not place too many cards into the miracles matchup because its hard regardless.
Several posts later, people started suggesting bitterblossom, sinkholes, winter orbs, zurs wielding, to fight miracles, which are all great ideas, but not practical as if you bring it to a big tournament, its not going to be a helpful sideboard.
Unless you bring in ALL of these cards, you will not have a favorable matchup against miracles. Even if you dedicate your board with 4 sinkholes, 1 zurs wielding, your matchup isn't going to increase to 60%, or make it decisively in your favor. No matter what, it will still be a 40-50% matchup in miracles favor.
So in essence, its better to just go with the generic sideboard option with the charms, lilliana, and the 2 cliques instead of wasting precious sideboard space that weakens your other matchups. Its actually more favorable to win against the winnable matchup then using the flex slots that don't even get you to above 50%.
Like Einherjer said, you ain't gonna screw miracles. Better to just play with the more generic board than to bring in so much hate that its out of the ordinary and hurt your other matchups.
First of all. You are in no, I repeat myself, you are in no position to judge the skill of "misty rainforest". Don't throw bricks when you sit in a glass house, ya know?
Other than that you are wrong in both, your premsises and your conclusion, but I won't go into detail here, as I am tired of talking to you.
Have a nice day, Sir.
Greetings
Very typical of this forum to have elitist talking in here. I only see this bs in magic cards and in no other hobby.
Did you leave your account info in a public library or something?
I thought you were one of the nice guys.
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I try to...but when you get flamed by people calling u a dumbass and idiot, it pisses you off. None of them will say this in person. I dare them.
I also prefer to be on the miracles side in this matchup. The new lists with snapcaster Mage are much harder to beat. Still, I agree with almost everything Phillip said. It won't be skewed heavily either way if both players are very good.
They probably won't use those words, but they'll still say you're wrong.
Just because I don't agree with a ****** elitist, i'm now the worst player in the world.
I don't think that was his point, either; it, rather, was that your arguments for the Miracles matchup was a weak one. And indeed it was--just giving up on a matchup that will obviously be common at the higher tables is asinine.
It's difficult. Yes. Both sides have decent tools for the other, and decent answers for the other's threats, but neither have a real trump either (at least in game one), and that's the point--it comes down to skill and luck, the latter of which is mitigated by the former.
I guess my point is not to take this so serious. You have an opinion that others strongly disagree with. Sometimes that makes you wrong (as I, no offense, think you are on this matter) and sometimes it makes you right. DRS and Charm had a period of time in which they were considered bad (charm much more than DRS) and obviously that mass opinion has changed.
Just roll with the punches, man
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
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Thanks for stepping in with some real content, Einherjer. We seem to be in agreement about almost everything, so for personal vanity I'm glad to hear a good Miracles player say what you said. I'm surprised you advocate boarding out Wasteland though, fortunately you broke into it in detail.
It's a solid premise, and pretty widely accepted to board out a Bayou. You definitely think less of Deathrite than I do, but then again I'm the one playing BUG! ;) It's strong in the matchup when it accelerates us to get out ahead of Miracles, and kinda as a freebie 2 a turn isn't the worst. So lumping in Deathrite as only a mana source seems wrong, but for sure it isn't a full threat - so call it half of each.
I agree Venser is bad, but the fact is that oarsman likes it and a huge number of people follow his lead. Situationally it can be good, especially postboard when TA boards out Daze and Disfigure. I've never seen a Miracles player board out Clique against a Delver deck, but could happens, sure. But to actually address your point - sure, Karakas lock isn't enough of a reason to leave in all 4 Wasteland, although lists like oarsman's with 2 rely on it harder than lists like yours.
1) No doubt about it, Miracles has some draws where Wastelands are blank pieces of cardboard. If we're lucky, we can catch you playing sloppy by Wasting a fetch and Piercing a spell on the stack.
2) I think this is the big point where we disagree. Miracles typically plays 5-8 nonbasics vs 6-7 basics in your 21-23 lands. That means that about a third of your lands are nonbasics, and sometimes you draw one or several, and sometimes you even have to fetch duals (although good players rarely do). This implies two things - a) in a typical game, there will be at least one Wasteland target within the first 2-3 turns, and 2) some games they will be forced to play several nonbasics. Now think about Miracle's goals in this matchup: a) get up to 5+ lands, b) resolve Jace on a stable board or Entreat for 2+. With that in mind, my argument for Waste has 3 ways of looking at the same idea.
1) Every Waste sets Miracles one turn further back from those goals, and ideally the tempo deck can capitalize on that by forcing through damage.
2) Miracles doesn't have pure card advantage other than Jace and therefore can't draw both spells and lands (as an aside to BUG players, this is why Hymn is good in the matchup). Every Waste means that's one more land they have to draw to execute their goal instead of a potential removal spell.
3) Some games they just don't get to play because you can prevent them from casting (enough) relevant spells before you kill them. Put another way, free wins.
Not everyone is as greed-free as you are ;) But color-screw off red is a bit loose, just like Karakas.
So I can definitely see shaving one, but I believe they are a really important tool to punish Miracle's bad-to-average draws.
I mentioned this a couple pages back and really don't want to be overbearing, but I really just couldn't pass this juicy comment up.
I won an SCG with TA. I was on camera, and I 2-0'd Miracles in the Quarters and Semis, playing against a good player who has played Miracles for months if not years, and against one of the best players in the state. No, I didn't play against Joe, but a) he's a good player, not a god among men, and b) I'm 1-for-1 against Joe with Tombstalker. #scoreboard
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
I play BGx as my primary deck, and Miracles as my secondary, so I have some perspective from both sides.
First, it's unlikely anyone testing and playing Legacy frequently and absorbing relevant Legacy information is "the worst player in the world." Very likely, there are bad Legacy players everywhere, but we're likely not THE worst.
Second, we also have different experience bases and dissimilar access to resources. Kobe, even though your boarding plans may seem interesting, maybe they work for you against the players in your area. However, I think we can all agree that we're trying to work towards a general case in a general metagame. We cannot expect every testing partner to be the best person in the world with their respective decks. It just doesn't work that way.
I think we just really need to analyze our decisions and work towards a consensus, and quit with the bitter name calling. It's stupid and it needs to stop.
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From my perspective, I agree with Greg and Philip. The matchup really isn't super favoured in either direction, at least from my testing. It really depends on play/draw, the particular builds, and just what hands get kept. I think it's fine to say you're 8-1-1 in ten total matches or games, but where does this testing lead over 100 matches? 500? 1000? 8-1-1 can either be luck, sampling error, or skill over your opponent, and that's why we have other people to corroborate lists and results. I'm glad you're taking out Miracles with such proficiency, but not everyone is kicking ass the way you can, and we're trying to figure out a way to do so.
I think as the BUG player, you can't assume people will board out Counterbalance and not board in Rest in Peace. I don't think you can take the chance and attempt to next level them, then get screwed when they stay on Level 1. I think the punishment for attempting to next level and getting punished by a resolved Counter/Top lock isn't worth the risk. As the Miracles player, I understand where Philip's plan attacks from, but I haven't had any luck with running the deck that way.
I think Tombstalker is still a fine creature, but against Miracles, he's not as great, I'll agree. In my BUg test-deck, I'm running Tombstalker because there's only about 8.5% Miracles in my metagame, and the rest get crushed by Tombstalker.
Against Miracles, because the deck has very easy "I-win" buttons attached, you need to attack from multiple angles with different forms of hate. Non-creature forms of hate, like Winter Orb, Null Rod, Pithing Needle, Sylvan Library, and Liliana are some of the best ones because Miracles has few ways to interact with those permanents beyond counterspells and sometimes Engineered Explosives. I can't stress Sylvan Library enough because that card is Ancestral Recall in this matchup. I played Miracles recently and drew 7 cards off of it because it WAS so good. I'd actually considering 1 main and 1 side, in my opinion, but that's just my call.
-Matt
As others have said, I feel the Miracles matchup is close/favorable to them, but nothing insurmountable.
For me, I think the matchup really revolves around Top first and then Terminus second. It's funny, but it almost feels like to me that if the Miracles player gets down t1 Top, it's pretty much game over, but if the don't it's also game over (in the other way).
@Einherjer: Thanks for the input! It's always very useful to get perspective from experienced players on the other side. I do have a question though - why do you like Flusterstorm for BUG in the matchup? I don't feel that it hits anything really relevant (Top, Miracle'd Terminus, Jace), so I was wondering as to your thoughts regarding that?
"Not everyone is as greed-free as you are"
This may very well be true, but if people bring numerous REBs without running a mountain, by god - let those Wastelands in your deck and punish them for this stupidity. Yet I am under the impression that better players won't give you the possibility of screwing them effectively, be it because they play Mountain or just not bring (a lot) REBs.
"@Einherjer: Thanks for the input! It's always very useful to get perspective from experienced players on the other side. I do have a question though - why do you like Flusterstorm for BUG in the matchup? I don't feel that it hits anything really relevant (Top, Miracle'd Terminus, Jace), so I was wondering as to your thoughts regarding that? "
Flusterstorm is not good enough to board in if you have limited slots to your disposal. But as soon as those Wastelands left the deck you are free to stock up on your disruption, be it as conditional as Flusterstorm. It may hit neither Jace nor Top but pretty much everything else. It is very good at dealing with a protected Entreat, it's a good hard-to-interact-with piece of disruption and it counters Brainstorm. Plus you can punish bad players/plays for putting multiple spells on the stack - doesn't happen often, but when it does it feels so good - regardless of the deck you're playing - countering multiple spells with 1 is just unfair.
I can see not boarding out all Wastelands for a specific list, but please consider doing that before you cut Discard or Decay...
Greetings
Thank you Matt for presenting your reasoning without feeling the need to also bash someone and also calling out the stupidity that started going on in this thread. I want to say I really like how we are focusing the thread discussion on the miracles matchup since it's a matchup I've been wanting to figure out, though I really haven't had the time to do actually testing because finals are currently kicking my ass. However, do refrain from name calling and any other form of personally insulting each other. It's totally unnecessary.
I'm glad to hear from a Miracles master that you shouldn't be siding out your discard. Some people I've talked to about the matchup say they think it's correct to side out the discard because you guys have top. However, I disagree with that because from personal experience keeping the discard in has been good for me,, especially hymn to tourach.
Anyways Einherjer, I was wondering what is the reasoning behind your advice on almost never countering removal from the BUG Delver side and only trying to counter game winners like entreat, jace, or even top while also using resources to find more backup threats? Is it because you guys have so much removal? I don't doubt you are correct but I just want a more elaborate explanation.
In regards to Legacy:
You need to save your counterspells for Jace, Entreat and Terminus. Those are all much more high impact cards than Swords to Plowshares, and can function as "removal".
There are obviously cases where you counter their StP's, such as when you're using conditional counterspells, or when you can't win if you don't counter the StP's and you just pray they have stone nothing or don't hit their 4th land drop.
Hmmm...didn't think of counting Terminus along side must counters like jace and entreat. I was just counting it as another removal spell since like Phillip advises I try to deploy only one threat at a time in order to deny any potential value they can get out of terminus.
In regards to Legacy:
Okay sure, so two points:
Discard is good, no doubt. If you don't consider boarding out Wastelands you may cut Discard. But, as mentioned above it's wrong not boarding out Wastelands, that's why it's wrong boarding out discard. Unless you have the super bonkers SB adressed to crushing Miracles - but for a "normal" sideboard Discard is good enough to stay.
The point about not countering the removal is not something about BUG vs Miracles. It's a principle that underlies every general match of Tempo vs Control, be it the good old RUG vs Esper (oh how I loved to play this - before Nemesis obv) or RUG vs Miracles or BUG vs Esper/Miracles... you get the point. The typical way these MUs resolve are well known to everybody of you - but let me still elaborate on this:
The Tempoplayers takes advantage of cards like Delver/Waste/Daze/Stifle to get ahead in the critical turns and start with the beatdown. It doesn't matter which creature, all that matters is that the BUG/RUG/BURG deck is taking the initiative. All the other ressources are spent on disrupting the opponent, be it via manadenial, hand-disruption or pure stackbased stuff like Pierce/Snare whatever. After the Controlplayer is able to stabilize at first he will cast the first removalspell. As long as your hand is not 4 Spell Pierce you should be letting this resolve, as you can just deploy another threat, or cantrip into one - while still having enough means to deal with the follow up play - and this is where this principle strikes. If you let the removal resolve you still have ressources left to combat a follow up Stoneforge Mystic/Counterbalance/Liliana of the Veil. Should you decide to defend your Delver of Secrets/Nimble Mongoose you are kind of hellbent, or stranded with a Ponder or something. When you opponent lands one of the threats above, what do you do? Well, die - painfully. Your creatures can't match a Batterskull, Lilly is a removal that sticks and Counterbalance shuts off your entire deck until you draw the decay without your cantrips. (RUG doesn't have Decay - so...well)
It's all about the follow up play the Controldeck can have. And a resolved threat of a Controldeck is traditionally stronger than a mere creature from RUG/BUG/BURG.
So, as all rules there are exceptions, and BUG has not that much stackbased interaction as RUG does - but the principle is still the same, for a well mixed hand. If you have only disruption and no way to find another threat in time - go ahead and force that Terminus, but don't be surprised if I follow it up with a Jace bouncing your Delver, resulting in an inevitable loss.
Keep in mind that I played pretty much every Controldeck extensively but didn't manage to play Delver-decks for more than a few weeks - so I am simply describing the general MU Delver vs Control from a Control-perspective.
Did I make my point clear? Do you disagree? Let me know.
Greetings
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