Miracle Control

[Andreas Schnaas]

And... very nice cards Andreas Schnaas! Love them! It's a first step :D

Thank you very much, I really appreciate that!

Andreas Schnass:
Really nice alters. Would be nice if you can get a clearer picture.

Thanks to you too! Picture clearer and project updated. I hope that this pic is better than the previous one.

[lemariont]

Hi guys. I have a slot in sb and I'm looking for a card that can help in the 12post MU. Blood Moon is a good card, but there are other choices that can help in other hard MUs like Show and Tell and Reanimator. Ensnaring Bridge or Humility for example.

What of those three cards do you prefer? ?

[Gon]

Hi everyone, it's my first time posting here on The Source. Hope i can learn and contribute as much as i'd like.

Hi guys. I have a slot in sb and I'm looking for a card that can help in the 12post MU. Blood Moon is a good card, but there are other choices that can help in other hard MUs like Show and Tell and Reanimator. Ensnaring Bridge or Humility for example.

What of those three cards do you prefer?

I think i'd go with either the Blood Moon, as it can be useful against other decks with few basics; or Humility if you are really concerned about Show and Tell and Reanimator. Although it's a bit slower than Ensnaring Bridge, i don't like the latter too much as Griselbrand will be drawing them cards to find the answer they need anyway.

That said, i'd like to read your opinions about the Jund MU, as i'll play the final event of our local legacy league this weekend and i expect Jund to be the most played deck. I'm not sure it's a good MU, since Abrupt Decay, Lily and Confindant are good against us, and the Punishing Fire combo can be annoying too. I'll see if i can get my hands on a Counci's Judgement or two to fight Liliana and Sylvan Library. Although i'm not a fan of Misdirection, would it be a good idea to play 1 or 2 replacing some FoW? What would be a good sideboarding advice? Keranos looks strong here as long as he doesn't come down too late. I play a list similar to Einherjer's one, though with just 2 ponders and an extra Vendilion Clique and a land on the mainboard.

Thanks in advance for you help!

[TheArchitect]

Hi guys. I have a slot in sb and I'm looking for a card that can help in the 12post MU. Blood Moon is a good card, but there are other choices that can help in other hard MUs like Show and Tell and Reanimator. Ensnaring Bridge or Humility for example.

What of those three cards do you prefer? ?

None of those cards really stop them because they will just fetch a basics and repeal or kgrip your hate eventually. But ebridge and humility are pretty bad. The still get there etb/when cast triggers respectively. Blood moon is your best bet but even that isn't great. It also wins games to against the greedy GBx midrange decks.

[Dzra]

Hi guys. I have a slot in sb and I'm looking for a card that can help in the 12post MU. Blood Moon is a good card, but there are other choices that can help in other hard MUs like Show and Tell and Reanimator. Ensnaring Bridge or Humility for example.

Of those, Blood Moon is the best; Humility and Ensnaring Bridge do next to nothing. Still, don't plan on beating 12-Post with any consistency. You can play perfectly, draw reasonably well, and still lose. Honestly, your best bet is to add more Cliques and hope to get a Clique/Venser + Karalas lock or an early Entreat that you can guard from Repeals. Pithing Needle can also do a lot of work.

Oh yeah and nice alters, Andreas-Schnaas! I look forward to seeing the whole deck. Those Tops are particularly nice.

[Poron]

Too bad the new Jace is a "Jace"

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/ma...ving-guildpact

It would have been great as another WC (EOT Terminus, draw, Jace 3.0. 7 cards against 0 and empty board)

too bad TMS is just better

[zeus-online]

Too bad the new Jace is a "Jace"

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/ma...ving-guildpact

It would have been great as another WC (EOT Terminus, draw, Jace 3.0. 7 cards against 0 and empty board)

too bad TMS is just better

Honestly don't think it looks all that great. I don't think this would be playable even if TMS didn't exist.

[YamiJoey]

It doesn't protect itself and doesn't generate card advantage. Its ability is significantly worse than many others. Its Ultimate is powerful, purely because of how quickly it can happen, but TimeTwister/Mindtwist is probably not good enough a lot of the time anyway.

Anyway, went undefeated with only a single unintentional draw in R1 today.Played my previous list making the following changes:

-2 Preordane
-1 Spell Snare
-2 Entreat the Angels
+2 Ponder
+1 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Vendilion Clique

Board:
-1 Red Elemental Blast
-2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Spell Snare
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Rest in Peace

Played against Scapeshift Nic Fit (Draw), Smokestacks, Mirror (1-0 with a concession without G2), Shardless BUG, Burn. T4 against Stacks again, split finals with Dredge. (Because I don't care how many RiPs I have, fuck that.) Won a box of Conspiracy and 8 more packs. Got an Exploration. Woop woop. (Usually it's a dual Land. Sadness.) Deck was super sweet. Never cast REB in G1, Snare was particularly underwhelming, only really hitting a Burning Wish in the first round, and a Chalice against Stacks. I had two games where I Ultimated a Jace and then killed them with Angels before they decked. Which was really fucking sweet.

I now agree with the Ponder > Preordane. Preordane is better in ways that really just don't matter for the consistency that Ponder gives at being excellent 100% of the time. I also hate main decked Vendilion Clique, but it seems necessary for just killing people at some point. Won with Jace in around half of my games, the other half were Angels, one game was Clique, shortly followed by a pair of Angels. (Stuck on 4 Lands after being double Armageddoned.)

EDIT: Also, VS Shardless, I'm on a plan of just burn out any countermagic they have and let them do whatever they want. If you can untap with Counterbalance for a single turn to Entreat with a Force on top you should be able to end the game swiftly. Though I've had limited testing against someone who's only just started playing Legacy, when we swapped decks I still felt a lot of pressure from Angels constantly threatening to just take the game. Just board in all the Entreats, Cliques, Balances, Jaces, and everything else. Cut your countermagic. I played the Spell Snares, it was not good. The only thing I'd want is REB. G2 is all about just Terminusing and StPing things that can kill Jace, and setting up that perfect Entreat. They also often just don't have a way to kill the Balance. Also if you can find a second Top at any point in the early game you can bait them into killing your other one as if your digging for countermagic. This Decaying a Top is something most people won't turn down.

[twndomn]

It doesn't protect itself and doesn't generate card advantage. Its ability is significantly worse than many others. Its Ultimate is powerful, purely because of how quickly it can happen, but TimeTwister/Mindtwist is probably not good enough a lot of the time anyway.

Anyway, went undefeated with only a single unintentional draw in R1 today.Played my previous list making the following changes:

-2 Preordane
-1 Spell Snare
-2 Entreat the Angels
+2 Ponder
+1 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Vendilion Clique

Board:
-1 Red Elemental Blast
-2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Spell Snare
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Rest in Peace

Played against Scapeshift Nic Fit (Draw), Smokestacks, Mirror (1-0 with a concession without G2), Shardless BUG, Burn. T4 against Stacks again, split finals with Dredge. (Because I don't care how many RiPs I have, fuck that.) Won a box of Conspiracy and 8 more packs. Got an Exploration. Woop woop. (Usually it's a dual Land. Sadness.) Deck was super sweet. Never cast REB in G1, Snare was particularly underwhelming, only really hitting a Burning Wish in the first round, and a Chalice against Stacks. I had two games where I Ultimated a Jace and then killed them with Angels before they decked. Which was really fucking sweet.

I now agree with the Ponder > Preordane. Preordane is better in ways that really just don't matter for the consistency that Ponder gives at being excellent 100% of the time. I also hate main decked Vendilion Clique, but it seems necessary for just killing people at some point. Won with Jace in around half of my games, the other half were Angels, one game was Clique, shortly followed by a pair of Angels. (Stuck on 4 Lands after being double Armageddoned.)

EDIT: Also, VS Shardless, I'm on a plan of just burn out any countermagic they have and let them do whatever they want. If you can untap with Counterbalance for a single turn to Entreat with a Force on top you should be able to end the game swiftly. Though I've had limited testing against someone who's only just started playing Legacy, when we swapped decks I still felt a lot of pressure from Angels constantly threatening to just take the game. Just board in all the Entreats, Cliques, Balances, Jaces, and everything else. Cut your countermagic. I played the Spell Snares, it was not good. The only thing I'd want is REB. G2 is all about just Terminusing and StPing things that can kill Jace, and setting up that perfect Entreat. They also often just don't have a way to kill the Balance. Also if you can find a second Top at any point in the early game you can bait them into killing your other one as if your digging for countermagic. This Decaying a Top is something most people won't turn down.

Well, if you watch SCG Portland Final, it is Miracles vs Shardless BUG. The commentators were correct. It is a contest for resources and they attack Miracles from multiple angles. Their cards are all about values.

I remember Joe once said it on stream that people might consider Ajani before Keranos. Did anyone try Ajani Vengeant? Feels like resolving either one would most likely win the game.

[Dzra]

Big grats to Michael for the finish, but I wasn't a fan of how he navigated those games or how he sideboarded. I think Shardless BUG is all about value, but that's only a trap for us. We can't realistically fight their 2-for-1s and gain any value. The way we win is with trumps like Jace and Entreat. Our Jace is better than theirs, although somewhat harder to protect. I can count a full 8 or 9 cards that I'd love to board in from his list against Shardless, I'm not sure why things like Spell Pierce were still there post-board. Also skeptical on how he navigated that game three against American Delver. I don't think there was any reason to run two Plows and a Top all into soft countermagic. Second is still a great finish though.

[YamiJoey]

We don't beat Shardless if we play Magic. My post-board plan may actually just involve getting Force, Force, Blue Spell, Blue Spell, and then casting Terminus into Jace or Entreat. (Or Jace into Terminus or whatever it needs to be.) Get a bomb out there and kill them. They can't actually deal with our bombs if we throw a little bit of umph behind them once they're on the table, so all we need to do is not die.

Also bring in RiP. They will Decay it and you will not care because you will slam your second Counterbalance and ask them how much damn removal they have left, and the answer will either be 'none' or they simply won't be applying pressure, so you're winning anyway. Always just leave a backup plan for yourself somewhere, and you will find an opportunity to resolve it and take the game out from underneath them. Don't let them play real Magic. If they land a Goyf throw a Swords at it, nothing else is fast enough to let them just keep that, so you'll get 3-1's with Terminus, or you just won't care about the cards on the Battlefield.

Except Tar Pit. That's a ballache to deal with when it goes super late.

[Dzra]

Not a fan of Counterbalance though, what do you sideboard out if you're leaving that in? RIP and REB alone are 4 or 5 slots, plus Council's Judgment and any extra Entreat/Keranos stuff, maybe a Verdict or two.

[YamiJoey]

I can respect someone who exclusively plays the two best decks in the format, though. ;)

I don't pull in the Verdicts in the MU. My current plan is to cut the other countermagic for those slots, so I'm going to have to do some work on it if I intend to keep Forces in. That said, they do usually pull out all of their Forces, so I can possibly still cut a Counterspell, Spell Snare, and a Force for a pair of REBs and an Entreat to begin with, then we can look elsewhere for the other changes. I think Snapcaster Mage can come out. It's worse with RiP, but also just sort of less useful in the MU. The 2/1 does flat zero against them, but 3 REB/2 Snap does seem like a tasty combo. Like I said, I'll have to do some work on the MU and see if I can make the deck into some kind of "Hardcast Force of Will, untap to kill you" combo deck like it was when I played Helm. (Winning games by simply making a T4 RiP -> Counterspell, T5 Helm and zero other Spells was sweet.)

[Dzra]

I think most Shardless players are going to leave in their FoWs (and even bring the fourth in if it's in the SB) precisely because the way we beat them is with haymakers.

[lyracian]

I remember Joe once said it on stream that people might consider Ajani before Keranos. Did anyone try Ajani Vengeant? Feels like resolving either one would most likely win the game.

I tried Ajani once. He was a little hard to cast at times (maybe I need to try again with a basic Mountain). He can keep cards such as Creeping tar-pit tapped but most of the time he did little more than a couple of Helix's and then died.

[Malakai]

When my meta got saturated with Shardless BUG, I started bringing in 2 Redirect out of the board. It basically won the game any time I cast it. Very rarely did I feel like I wanted another card when I drew it.

Basically, my approach to the matchup is to first not die to Goyf, then just basically ignore anything they're doing. I don't try to fight their card advantage; most of the cards they're drawing simply won't matter--they're just going to draw more CA, or some small bodies, or discard. Early Liliana's have to be countered or answered, but late ones tend to have no text. I look to overload their Abrupt Decays, and seek to play as many 2 for 1s as possible.

If I'm on a list that has 3 Entreat in the 75, I doubt I'd bring in REB as we're basically just a combo deck, and I don't want to be wastelanded off of WW. In a 1 Entreat list, I'd consider REB, but again the card's real role in the matchup is to hit Force of Will. We could get rid of that Force of Will just as effectively by playing another threat or more removal. Low-Entreat lists often have Stoneforge+Batterskull, which is extremely strong especially when we're already stretching their removal.

Given this recent successful list, I'd board like so:
-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
+1 Pithing Needle (Note this also stops _all_ of DRS's abilities)
+2 Rest in Peace
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Supreme Verdict

I would feel very confident with this going into games 2 and 3.

EDIT: So basically I disagree completely with Einherjer. I would encourage you to at least try my plan out.

[Adryan]

Lol Ajani. I don't think that was serious. What does Ajani do? Tap down one land and die from one Tarmogoyf hit. Seems great.

[twndomn]

I tried Ajani once. He was a little hard to cast at times (maybe I need to try again with a basic Mountain). He can keep cards such as Creeping tar-pit tapped but most of the time he did little more than a couple of Helix's and then died.

yeah, Ajani does require us to be babysitter. However, it does allow us to gain life, which is the difference between a win or a loss sometimes. Furthermore, it costs 1 less than Keranos, sometimes 1 less is the difference between running into a Spell Pierce or not. I'm not saying I favor one or the other. If one does want to add a high impact card, I would say it's between Keranos and Ajani.

BAD NEWS for all Miracles players.


Well..., there goes the CB-T against Elves.

[janluis1]

Is siding out CB against elves correct if you know for sure they are boarding in 3x Abrupt decays !?

Im with the Snapcaster version

Cheers

[Einherjer]

Ajani? Really?

But wait, there've been some good arguments made my twndomn:

1) Ajani costs 1 less mana than Keranos, so it can't be Spell Pierced as easy as Keranos, God of Storms can.

2) And as we are still talking about the Shardless-MU, where he has been proposed: Looks like I've forgot that Shardless BUG has all those Spell Pierces.

Seems like a reasonable choice to me. NOT. What the fuck guys? Ajani? Really? He does like everything worse than Keranos, and nothing better than Jace, the Mind Sculptor too... come on. I'd play Elspeth, Knight-Errant over this guy any day of the week.


As soon as my exams are over I'll answer to the answers on my Shardless-BUG analysis in depth.

Greetings