I usually play with 3 stp, 3 terminus and 1 council's after board against Pile. STP is more for Shaman than Leo. Their manabase is so fragile that plow first shaman give us time to setup our game. Anyway, seems ok to side out more stps, but need to kp at least 3 sweepers in this matchup.Originally Posted by It Is Unfair
My biggest issue with Azcanta miracles is that this is not a "counterbalance based deck"... It's a powerful control deck that uses counterbalance... With sooth miracles i have the straight plan to abuse of counterbalance. Well, that's not really an issue but it's something important when choosing the version of miracles you want to play.
Last edited by Stefanogs; 12-23-2017 at 01:23 PM.
Thats a very weak argument. Your either trying to lock the board down while searching for your win condition or whats the point? Why is this "still" better then traditional UWX landstill or a tempo variant.
Which argument? I don't want to convince anyone to play with a particular version. I enjoy playing with counterbalance, that's why i play ss/cb. Some people enjoy real card advantage... so they play 3-4 predicts and/or 1-2 azcantas.
Though strong, standstill's shell is inferior to miracles (to be clear: i like it and played +- 600 matches with it this year). It's easy to play and strong but some flaws prevent it from being tier 1 today: the main issue is the difficult to play around delver, rishadan port or aether vial. There's also weak manabase (you cant play 3 colors, need to choose between uw, ur and ub)... Anyway it's fun an have good matchup against control and combo.
In a strategic perspective, CB is for playing a game from too being 'passive'. It is always better to present a 'threat' than sitting with a bunch of countermagic and removals. I like the filtering part of Search as well; it is definitely what the deck want in the early game while the flipped side is 'win more' for me, under my limited testings. My current config is 3 CB, 1 Search and 1 Back to Basic. Back to Basic is a blowout card against Eldrazi and 4cc, it can serve as an answer to punishing fire as well.
Regarding win cons, I have been trying 2 JTMS 1 Gideon and 4 Snap; it works for me so far. Gideon has outperformed my expectation, and his ability to close out the game fast cannot be underestimated. I would see myself to sub one snap with a mentor or EtA.
Just my 0.02.
Honest question from a BUG shadow/delver player: Are you really able to “dodge decays” nowadays withoit top? I read the miracles matchup guide on reddit by WhiteFaces. While I found the insights very true from the matchups I'm familiar with from the other side of the table this was the one thing where I thought “really?”.
So let's pretend for a moment that you're facing BUG delver with hymns and sylvan library . Because you （yes, you!）are an insane mind reader you know that I brought in all the decays I have.
Well, what now? Are you seriously considering playing the sideboarded games without counterbalance, mentor AND search?
That seems like a very weak strategy in my experience. I've lost more than 1 game because my miracles opponent landed a counterbalance without me having an answer. If he then manages to get down second proactive card I have to decay it's already gg 99％ of the time, there's almost no way I'd naturally draw two decays before you're firmly in the driver seat.
Same with search or mentor: What's the worst that could happen? Even if I immeditely have an answer it's like “whatever, let's try ask the decay question again in a few turns”. The upside of me unable to answer your question is huge: You just run away with the game be it with card advantage or an army of monks.
You don't, you just overwhelm them by bringing Blood Moon.
What does your Sideboarding-Strategy against elves look like? i came upm with something like
-2 Predict,
-1 Jace
-1 Plains
+ Containment Priest
+ Supreme Verdict
+ Councils Judgement
+ Counterbalance
Here my current deckliste for reference:
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Portent
2 Predict
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Terminus
1 Councils Judgement
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, TMS
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Counterbalance
20 Lands
Most players either dodge Decay by cutting CB, or by overloading Decay by SB-in Mentors. I'm on the side of overloading Decay. It's no secret that Delver decks cut creature removal or just removal in general against Miracles. Ever since Hans won Eternal Weekends with Tombstalkers MD and Jace SB, there're more incentives than ever to SB-in more creatures to 1) Overwhelm decay targets 2) Interact against BUG's planeswalkers.
First of all, the archetype is called Elf combo. It has the word combo in it. Yes, you might just die to creature beats, but you really need to focus on the combo aspect of it. Second, didn't other Miracles experts say never cut Cantrips? If there's such MU that should cut cantrips, this MU is definitely not it. My question to everyone is that: What does Jace do in this MU? It does nothing against Glimpse, nothing against Natural Order. I mean, you could float Jace for CB to flip a Natural Order, that's about it. Jace is not going to matter until you have at least hold off Elf player's first combo attempt. Its only purpose is to do a CMC 4 Brainstorm to put Terminus back, and you might just expose yourself to stuff like Choke by doing so.
Elves can be tricky, they attack us from a couple of different angles and both deserve respect. I'll be honest and say I don't actually know if there is or what the consensus of sideboarding vs us is, I've had players board out Natural Orders, or bring in discard like Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize to clear the way for them.
Their plans are either; clear the way for NO and Hoof us, or grind us with Visionary and Symbiote shenanigans etc usually. Nissa, Vital Force is fairly common too and can be tough to beat.
I change up the countermagic suite when boarding, but it changes based on the play/draw more than any other matchup. Their pivotal turn is usually three, sometimes four, so in respects to that I cut all Counterspells on the draw and keep all Force of Will, on the play I'll keep Counterspell and go down to two Force of Will. I generally bring in all copies of Flusterstorm, if you have three then you could probably shave a Counterspell on the play too, not 100% on this though. Although CS is technically live on their turn three, there's a good chance we need some more pieces of interaction, or cantrip to find Terminus, CS itself etc. It's not reliable enough to have naturally on turn two imo.
Predict is very good in the matchup, it can try to combat their grindy plan, but most importantly it's an instant speed way to draw a Terminus. It's not a cantrip as the poster above said, it's a CA tool with synergies in the deck. As a rule of thumb if I'm not siding out Terminus I won't side out Predict either, exceptions are something like Lake of the Dead Reanimator decks with Grave Titan I guess, there are some oddballs out there.
Shaving a Jace is good, he's great in the matchup but really as a followup to Terminus. He doesn't die often, so the two copies should be enough. As a general gameplan I'm trying to not die (heh) in the early turns, then curve into turn five with a Terminus into Jace. It sounds like wonderland, but with all our cantrips and them having to respect Terminus from us, it's not that hard to set up. It's an idea to play for at least, rather than just 'try to answer everything they do'.
I wouldn't board in CJ, it's slow and clunky, really the only good targets are Nissa and potentially Choke or Gaddock Teeg. Teeg is pretty uncommon as it hoses them a lot too, and Choke I sometimes hedge G2 by bringing in a Disenchant, depends how I feel. Priest and CB are great, good to board in, SV is fine. Bit slow, but it's a wrath vs the creature deck.
Regarding boarding out a land, I don't do it in this matchup. While they don't punish our mana at all, we can't afford to be using cantrips on hitting land drops generally imo, we need to dig for answers. I know some other players like to take out one though.
So I guess with your build, assuming you have at least two Flusters in the sb, I'd go something like.
OTP:
-2 FoW
-1 Jace
-1 CJ
-1 CS (it's fine otp as I said above, but I think the other options you have are better)
+2 Fluster
+1 Priest
+1 CB
+1 SV
OTD:
-1 Jace
-1 CJ
-2 CS
+2 Fluster (would also be bringing in a third otd if available
+1 Priest
+1 SV
There's a slight imbalance since you want the CB too, but maybe it's the card to not board in here. I'm not sure actually. Anyway, that's my thoughts on the MU, I'll get around to updating the google doc with Elves and some other matchups soon hopefully! Hope this helped.
Everyone calls it Elves...
Jaces pulls you ahead, you need to do that at some point.
I've updated the original post + subsequent posts with the entirety of Whitefaces's and ItIsUnfair's documents regarding deckbuilding theory, matchup analysis, and sideboarding, as well as including the source documents for suggestions and reference. I've also edited the original post to reflect current decklists since the prior ones were a bit out of date. In the coming weeks, I'll be adding more to the history section as well as the tips and tricks section, perhaps even doing some of my own video content to address them as I prefer that medium of communication. Let me know if anyone has any comments or concerns!
I'm currently playing with 4 flooded strands and 4 polutted deltas...why the single arid mesa?
i only have a spare scaldng tarn so can it replace that single arid mesa?
It's to have another source for basic Plains. Ideally you'd want it, but if you're not playing in any bigger events then Deltas are fine. If you're not playing this extra white fetch, then it's actually a little bit better to keep it all Deltas with no Tarn since that's another 4-of in the deck that you can sometimes hit with a blind Predict. With no basic mountain, Scalding Tarn and Polluted Delta do the exact same thing.
Fwiw if you're playing with Mentors and no Entreats then all blue fetches is better since you generally only need to be fetching out one Plains.
There's only one MU that the fetches would make a significant difference, that is against lands. In this MU, Lands would try to lockdown your white sources before they make 20/20. To go around that, in general, you want to leave Flooded Strand and/or Arid Mesa un-cracked. Say you have only one fetchland in play, you force them to have to either Port twice, or Waste-then-Port because you're cracking the fetchland into a Plains. If it's Delta or Tarn, then you're converting to a Tundra, which is more vulnerable to Wasteland. If you already have Tundra in play tapped, or if your Tundra already got Wasted, Lands player might not believe you having more Tundra in the library.
IMHO, the difference in percentage in blind Predict or in blind Needle is rather small.
actually, i think this deck can never board out more that one jace. It is likely the most powerful card in your deck, even if not the best in all matchups. Elves can grind you out like no other deck and you need something to pull ahead or they will just bury you in cardadvantage
i get why you don't like judgement in this matchup but it is the best answer to something like nissa we can get. Maybe leaving just the single judgement in and not boarding in the second is fine too. What i don't like about flusterstorm is usually that you can not hande cradle which makes it easiert for them to play around flusterstorm, but of course that would make them put more creatures on the battlefield which likely is ok for us. I will try that too.
WhiteFaces, what is your Opinion on Monastery Mentor and why do you prefer Entreat in the Maindeck?
Read this :)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...8TsiySJOQ/edit
Can someone send me an invite to the discord chat? My chat name is snowfall1186. Thanks!
Hey!
https://discord.gg/e2G7mRG
Thanks!
Don't have much experience with Miracles, either pre or post top ban, but took the below list to a weekly tournament last Saturday and went 4-0 with it, beating Eldrazi, Abzan Pox and 2 Czech Pile
3 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
3 JTMS
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Council's Judgment
3 Terminus
4 Force of Will
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Counterbalance
3 Search for Azcanta
4 Island
1 Plains
2 Volc Island
3 Tundra
9 Fetchlands
1 Karakas
SB
1 REB
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disenchant (could not find wear/tear's)
2 Rest in Peace
1 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Didn't write down notes about the tournament so won't go into huge detail on the report, but i'll give some synopsis
Czech Pile l 2-0
Both games felt pretty easy, and while my opponent is someone I know well and a good magic player, he's just gotten into Legacy recently and wasn't playing optimally. That aside, nothing in the deck aside from JTMS and DRS felt like a threat to the deck. Game one he had a t1 DRS which I couldn't get rid of until I was at 10 ish life (couldn't find a plow or terminus or judgment), but nothing else from him hit the board with counterbalance getting some nice blind hits as well as some set up ones with brainstorm. Search for Azcanta ran away with the game once it flipped. Game two felt very similar, with pyroblast getting rid of his early JTMS and Search for Azcanta outvaluing him enough for Mentor + friends to take the game. The one time he was able to land a Leovold, I karakased it and then Vclique'd it away.
Eldrazi 2-1
Game one he was on the play, and I had kept double force double blue card, so of course he's got tomb into t1 chalice on 1, turn two chalice on 1. By the time I was drawing my second card of the game, i was already out of gas. Wasn't a blistering quick game, but I could not catch up.
Game two he kept a slow hand, and i've brought in the 2 disenchants and ceremonious rejection for the 3 counterbalances. His turn 2 chalice was immediately disenchanted, and I was able to out tempo him early by plow/snap/plowing his dudes when he was trying to equip to to Jitte, as he didn't have enough lands to play more guys in those turns allowing me to stabilize and win with the Vclique I had played earlier.
Game three was very lucky I think. I had 2 plow in my opening hand so his turn 2 TKS didn't run away with the game, and a timely terminus stopped me from taking ten to the face midgame. I then hit ceremonious rejection a few turns later with a snapcaster in hand to stop two more TKS's tutored up with Eye of Ugin, with a mentor on board, and was able to close the game out before Eye outvalued me.
Pox 2-0
This did not feel like a terrible matchup, though it's not one i've played before with Miracles. Saved FoW for his smallpox's, got rid of Lotv's with Judgment's and EExplosives, and was able to close the games out with mentors and JTMS. Also had some lucky blind counterbalance hits which was nice. Search for Az was very nice here helping me to filter away what I didn't need depending on the type of disruption he was presenting (land destruction vs hand disruption)
Czech Pile 2-1
Much more experienced Czech Pile player, all the games were super tight and a lot of fun. Lost game 1 to DRS and Stryx's after again being unable to find an early plow for it. Games two and three the REB/Pyro's, 2 RiP's and Gideon came in, all of them doing a lot of work. Game two RIP stalled his value plan long enough for me to stabilize and Pyro stopped his Jace immediately, and game 3 he was unable to deal with the knight ally token army and ended up showing me two Pyro's/REB's in his hand after the game.
All in all, the list felt very solid (though I did feel very lucky to win that Eldrazi matchup). The only thing I was unhappy about was how poorly counterbalance and search for azcanta play with Engineered explosives, primarily in the Czech pile matchup. EE being able to get rid of any of their threats (and potentially multiple strix's/snapcasters) is not something I'm cutting. but I feel like losing to strix/snapcaster beats is one of the easier ways to lose to Czech pile if you can't find a terminus, as you're not wasting a plow on those. That said, you're also shooting yourself in the foot if you've got your enchantments in play. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there's a better alternative...
Also going to be adding a second ceremonious rejection to the board. Feel like it's needed in my meta. The eldrazi player is a constant and the pox player is 90% of the time on MUD. I should probably be playing a third one tbh...
I'll just be upfront about it: dislike your list. To be specific, I believe that the theoretical backing is coming from Itsunfair: you Need certain amount of cantrips to stabilize your draws, as well as making your land drop on turns. I can imagine that you will run into openings in which you rely heavily on Search to find your land. If Search did not resolve or gets decay asap, you might get stuck on 2 lands. I would recommend to add either 2 Predict or 2 Portent to boost your cantrip count, -2 Clique.
I know that I have seen this exact 3 CB 3 Search setup from somewhere else, but I don't think I have ever seen 3 CB 3 Search 2 Clique. Clique is probably better off coming from SB, if at all.
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