Miracle Control

[Lemnear]

Philipp, i don't like you and you don't like me, but a 2nd Top 4 is impressive. Congrats!

Your list looks very good, would have played the same (if i wouldn't got sick) with some minor changes. (i don't like 3 Jaces, 1 Dig Through Time seems better than the 3rd Jace due to UR Delver& Infect ( ;) ) and i think SFM is better than Blue blasts due to it's versatility)

One last thing, I guess you found out that Infect is not a dumb creature deck and not a good MU ;)
-------


Does anyone know what 75 Reid Duke did play?

What's the adjective to describe someone giving deckbuilding advice to a player who top 4'd a ~4200 player event the day before?

[decan]

At the end of Day 2 i think we'll see Dig Throug Time Miracles > Ponder Miracles> Legendary/ RIP Miracles.

Did anyone playing RIP/ Legendary Miracles made Day 2?

yet again, lol'd at you...

Reid Duke's list was probably close to http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...2fe392777d6498.

[Asthereal]

What's the adjective to describe someone giving deckbuilding advice to a player who top 4'd a ~4200 player event the day before?

I think the word you are looking for is "inappropriate".

Anyway, after tuning my Team America list to be stronger against Miracles, and still losing badly, I feel it might be time to join the dark side. If you cannot beat them... If I wanted to play something that's solid, and gives me good understanding of the deck (so probably without fancy stuff like Helm combo or main deck red blasts), what would be a good starting list to familiarize myself with the deck?

I was thinking about something like this:

4 Senseis' Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
4 Counterbalance /20

4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Council's Judgement
4 Terminus /9

2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor /9

2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
5 Island
3 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
1 Karakas /22

Side:
???

Any and all advice is very welcome!

[Adryan]

What's the adjective to describe someone giving deckbuilding advice to a player who top 4'd a ~4200 player event the day before?

Maybe you should improve your reading skills, i didn't give deckbuilding advice. For the record i wrote what i considered as a little better option.

Side note: Making Top 4 at a non 100% skill game does only prove that you are a good player, not that all the deckbuilding choices are correct.

yet again, lol'd at you...

Reid Duke's list was probably close to http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...2fe392777d6498.

Thanks! Yeah was wrong with my prediction, but i think in the future the majority of people won't play 3 jaces anymore.

[Higgs]

Any and all advice is very welcome!

As a noobish Miracles player myself I think even the "well balanced" 2 Clique/2 Snapcaster/Pierces and no Ponders list is more complicated and harder to learn than the standard 4 Ponders list. I think the gameplan for Ein's list is more straightforward (at least pre-board) so it could be a better starting point into the archetype. That's my limited experience though so take it with a grain of salt.

[exallium]

I think the word you are looking for is "inappropriate".

Anyway, after tuning my Team America list to be stronger against Miracles, and still losing badly, I feel it might be time to join the dark side. If you cannot beat them... If I wanted to play something that's solid, and gives me good understanding of the deck (so probably without fancy stuff like Helm combo or main deck red blasts), what would be a good starting list to familiarize myself with the deck?

I was thinking about something like this:

4 Senseis' Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
4 Counterbalance /20

4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Council's Judgement
4 Terminus /9

2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor /9

2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
5 Island
3 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
1 Karakas /22

Side:
???

Any and all advice is very welcome!

Start with ein's 75 from the gp. Its super solid, and doesn't have any unnecessary frills like karakas and venser. Just good cards doing good things.

[Cipher]

I like the 2x Blue Blast in his board; I'm actually up to 3, now. I also like his thinking that Jace is just better than Dig Through Time. I still have the full playset of Jace in my list because I see it playing best to the strategy of the deck. I'm curious how Pyroclasm actually worked out for him and Braverman; I figured Blue Blast #3 was still better but Pyroclasm gives you another catchup card if you fall behind.

Looks like the Ponder Wars™ rage on. The number of Miracles subtypes is actually increasing, and they're all doing well. Even clunky RIP Miracles placed in the x-2 bracket. They guy probably just lost his win-and-in. I think this is still the best archetype in Legacy by a large margin.

[Royce Walter]

Reid Duke's list was probably close to http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...2fe392777d6498.

He was playing at least 1 maindeck Lightning Helix as well.

[L-Luck]

What's the adjective to describe someone giving deckbuilding advice to a player who top 4'd a ~4200 player event the day before?

This is plain stupid. "The list top xed a huge event, it must be perfect" is something which is just not a plausible thing to say in a game with as much variance as magic. There is an argument to be made that Einherjer is the person who probably spends most of his time thinking and playing miracles (worldwide?), so he probably is well aware of all the options and still chose to play his exact build but that's not what you implied.

[Poron]

Hi Philipp,

when you will read this post, can you, please, answer me a couple of questions?

1) How often did you side in Confinement Priest? in which matchup
2) How often did you use the Blue Blast? And for what? I totally think that your list is closest to the best possible (no Spell Pierce and 2 Red blasts, since the GP Paris, but I would have played 1x Enlightned Tutor, 1x Ethersworn Canonist and 1x Tsabo's Web or a 3x SFM package in th SB)

Thank you

[twndomn]

Congrats to Ein, this GP certainly has given us some indications as to Ponder or not.

Looking forward in the near future, I would certainly play some number of Ponders (though I've already done so), MD 2 Blasts, and have at least 2 Priests in the SB in whatever build. Call me conservative, I still won't take the risk on 21 lands.

[mort-]

Wait, so the SB Blue Blasts weren't just a metagame choice? I don't think I'd play them here :o

[zeus-online]

Your decklist

I was wondering if the lack of council's judgment in the main was ever a problem?
You have pretty much adjusted your old ponder list to a heavy delver meta, cutting counterspell, judgment (Broad, general answers) for cheaper specialized answers, and made what you feel is the correct adjustments to the mana base.
This leaves the deck a bit softer to the admittedly already good match-ups (Non-blue decks, pretty much).

[TheArchitect]

The GP was the first time I had played the 4 ponder version at anything larger than a 5$ event and it was awesome. Unless you are relying on dumb luck to steer your high variance pile to the top 8, you should be playing 4 ponders. If you are good with the deck, ponders will help eliminate a ton of variance and let your skill be the bigger determining factor in winning. For example, in my 15 rounds at the GP if I remember correctly, I mulliganed once to 5, and five times to 6, and kept two questionable 7s. That means for a lot of my rounds, all 3 games I was able to keep solid 7s. 21 lands were never an issue. Also, the basic mountain was noticeably bad twice and could be changed to 3 volcs like Philip played. However, it did help vs the wasteland decks quiet a bit.

Council's Judgment is not good vs the most common decks that are tougher matchups. Its good vs the mirror and random stuff we rarely see or already have good MU against.

The 4 ponder list has basically no dead cards in a matchup like UR delver. Yeah, FoW, jace and counterspell are a bit weak, but they are not awful. It is not like we need 10 broad cards in the SB to help with aggro matchups. This is why Blue elemental blast is good. We can afford to play some Niche cards (like RIP or containment priest). SFM is not a bad option either, but cards like Clique, SFM, etc are really just MD card we ran out of room for. BEB is a true SB card. Its the best card in your deck in the matchups you want it in. For control/combo, obviously we do want like 8-10 cards in the SB to replace all the white spells but luckily some of the broad SB cards like REB or flusterstom are good there too.

[exallium]

Hi Philipp,

when you will read this post, can you, please, answer me a couple of questions?

1) How often did you side in Confinement Priest? in which matchup
2) How often did you use the Blue Blast? And for what? I totally think that your list is closest to the best possible (no Spell Pierce and 2 Red blasts, since the GP Paris, but I would have played 1x Enlightned Tutor, 1x Ethersworn Canonist and 1x Tsabo's Web or a 3x SFM package in th SB)

Thank you

Hey,

I realize I am not Philip but we were on (nearly) the same 75 (I didn't get my 2nd containment priest in time so I played a rest in peace instead.)

I boarded in Containment Priest a lot, as there were a lot of Elves decks in the room. The card comes in against, off the top of my head, Elves, Reanimator, Tin Fins, Dredge, and Show and Tell decks. I can also see an argument for bringing them in against D&T as often you can end up punishing this manabase or slowing them to a single threat per turn.

Blue blast was also totally sweet. Honestly, its good vs. Any deck doing red things, like burn, ur delver, naya zoo (which yes, I played against), painter, and Sneak and Show. Having a hard counter or removal for sneak attack or sulfuric vortex is amazing.

I'll also say, infect is not always a rough matchup for Miracles. Tom Ross is literally the best infect player on the continent, and thus he is a rough matchup for anyone :)

Congrats on your finish Philipp! I hope to see you in Lille in July!

[ghost_tmd]

Are you guys fucking serious? Like really?

Hi Philip, I am the brazilian guy who talked to you in the top 8 coverage area. Just figured out your friend Thomas made it into top 16. So congrats Thomas, this is a fantastic result too.

I think the 4 ponder list is best one and you two keep proving this cahmp thru champ since Ovinoggedon.

[pokezel]

Hi all, I played the following list in GPNJ to a 7-2 finish on day 1 (though I went 1-4 on day 2 )

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Rest in Peace
3 Terminus

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Energy Field
2 Helm of Obedience

1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Counterspell
1 Council's Judgment

4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
6 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain

Sideboard:
1 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Batterskull
2 Flusterstorm
1 Counterspell
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Grafdigger's Cage


Matchups:
Round 1: Win v Elves (Overgrown Tombs and Regal Force)
Round 2: Loss v 12-Post (Maindeck Pithing Needle got me good)
Round 3: Win v B/W RIP/Helm Control?
Round 4: Win v Merfolk (Maindeck Chalice, this match was insane)
Round 5: Win v Burn (Energy Field is pretty insane in this matchup)
Round 6: Loss v ANT (Carpet of Flowers was good against us)
Round 7: Win v Elves
Round 8: Win v Dredge (Maindeck RIP is pretty unfair)
Round 9: Win v BUG Delver (Very close match)

Round 10: Loss v UWR Stoneblade
Round 11: Loss v Death and Taxes
Round 12: Loss v Affinity
Round 13: Win v Reanimator (Maindeck RIP MVP again)
Round 14: Loss v Death and Taxes (I think)

My list didn't feel great, but I think I played decently enough to do it justice. RIP/Energy Field/Helm were very good at stealing wins, and using them as bait for more important spells was quite useful. Also a lone Energy Field buying 3-4 turns helped several times. RIP even as a Tormod's Crypt that ate a removal spell was quite solid. Stoneforge in the board was insane, especially when opponents boarded out their removal. The 1 e.Tutor in the board was excellent in the matchups I needed to assemble a combo asap. Pyroclasm was very good the couple times I drew it. Never played against U/R Delver. I wish I had ponders in my deck. :P

Congrats to Philipp and Phillip for making top 8!

[drocker23]

Congrats to Ein, this GP certainly has given us some indications as to Ponder or not.

Looking forward in the near future, I would certainly play some number of Ponders (though I've already done so), MD 2 Blasts, and have at least 2 Priests in the SB in whatever build. Call me conservative, I still won't take the risk on 21 lands.

i'm not a fan of 21 lists with ponder either. it doesn't fit in any of the catergories i would like my cards to fall into. with 1 exception. when making MD card choices for miracles here is what i believe the catergories the cards should fall under:

1) Produce Mana

Obviously this is a given, we need mana to cast our spells. But what we want is for our mana to be consistant and be able to cast all of our spells on time. Mountain and Double Karakas don't provide us with the sufficient mana we require in the early turns of the game, and cause too many mulligans.

4 Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island

2) Shuffle Our Library

Now this is actually the category Ponder could fall under, but with the amount of fetchlands we run, I do not feel it is as necessary to have Ponder since 10 fetchlands is plenty to shuffle our library enough times to find what we need. The only card close to Ponder I'd consider as a fun-of, is Personal Tutor. But that's just for fun.

3 Arid Mesa
3 Blue Fetch of Choice
4 Flooded Strand

I'd like to make a note here that most lists you'll find 4 Flooded Strand, 4 Blue Fetch of Choice (unless they're running basic mountain then it's Scalding Tarn) and 2 Arid Mesa...but I've found that having an extra land that fetches White Mana has been pretty sweet not forcing me to fetch out Tundra more often than i would like.

3) Counter a Spell

We need to be able to stop our opponent from playing stuff simple as that. especially after we stick a Jace, or wipe their board. otherwise what we just did to clear the board is meaningless.

4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast

If you're not running MD Blasts, I think you're doing it wrong. with all the blue decks that are being played in high numbers right now, it's so easy to find a target

4) Remove Their Creatures

Most decks win with creatures, so if we keep killing all of them, they basically can't win, with a few exceptions here and there.

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
*Red Elemental Blast*
*Pyroblast*
1 Council's Judgment

Council's Judgment is awesome. It's our version of Vindicate. A catch all to Liliana, Jace, TNN and the like. A must have IMO

5) Win the Game

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Entreat the Angels

I like Jace over Dig Through Time simply because if I draw miracles or if I stash them in my hand for later, it is nice to have more than just Brainstorm to put it back on top of my library. No deck can really beat Entreat so if you cast Entreat, the game is practically over. Having 3 Entreat helps find it easier since a lot of times I see Miracles players scrambling to find a win condition before they die. Besides, have you ever cast back to back Entreat the Angels? Fantastic! Not to mention, when we play 3 that means we are able to cast the first one for 1 or 2 angels without feeling like "oh man, I just wasted a win condition". and a lot of times, casting Entreat for 1 or 2 is all you need to win, or stall out the board state until something better comes along.

After all these spots are filled all we wanna do now is round out the deck to make it more consistant.

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
3 Snapcaster Mage

These cards help us find the answer we are looking for, or give us the ability to recast it if we've used it once already.


Ponder doesn't really fit well into any of these categories. Neither does Karakas and basic Mountain. I think you'll find a higher rate of success without these cards in your Main Deck. Try my list out and see what you think! I've had pretty good success with it so far.

Just for reference I'll put my sideboard here too. It's been pretty solid all around. Not too many changes I wanna make to it other than find some room for Containment Priest possibly. without cutting all my GY hate like that guy in the Grand Prix did. I wouldn't go to an Open Series without GY hate. A GP, you probably don't have to worry about it as much. Unless Priest is just better vs all the GY decks anyway. Does anyone have any evidence to back up that claim? The role of Containment Priest vs. Traditional GY hate?

Sideboard:

1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Council's Judgment
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hydroblast
1 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Wear // Tear

[exallium]

1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Council's Judgment
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hydroblast
1 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Wear // Tear

I'd 100% take the second blue blast over hydroblast. Show and Tell has been known to run Misdirection, and a blue-blast targeting a sneak attack is very hard to misdirect somewhere else. Also, containment priest is a frigging and deserves sideboard space.

[dsck]

1) Produce Mana
Ponder is the best card for finding lands AND OTHER BUSINESS ON THE PLUS SIDE.

2) Shuffle Our Library
Ponder does that, and is pretty awesome later in the game for that effect when you have senseis top and know your top 3 are not going to cut it, you will see 4 new cards (1 drawn from ponder and new top 3 with senseis top).

3) Counter a Spell
2nd counterspell is less good in current metagame

4) Remove Their Creatures
Council's Judgment is cut for the same reason as 2nd counterspell

5) Win the Game
Which would you rather have in your opening hand, Ponder or Entreat the Angels? Ponders find you the entreat later on in the game and upgrade your %s of seeing cards, with 4 ponders you basically have 3 entreats already, not to mention the extra flexibility and the ability to see your sideboard cards G2/G3.

Ponder doesn't really fit well into any of these categories. Neither does Karakas and basic Mountain. I think you'll find a higher rate of success without these cards in your Main Deck. Try my list out and see what you think! I've had pretty good success with it so far.

Higher than what Einheijer has or the people he has shared his lists lately? I believe somebody should write an article about Ponder if there isnt one already.