Miracle Control

[twndomn]

Pyroclasm aside, the biggest attraction to red for me is Blood Moon.
If BUG can't answer it immediately or have Deathrites already in play, then they can't cast any more spells (except maybe a Jitte or Dismember).
Likewise for Jund, if they didn't prepare for it by fetching what few basics they have.
RUG can't cast much under a Blood Moon either; and so on.


There's a danger in your argument. Sure, if you drop Blood Moon as early as turn 3, you can achieve your mentioned effect. However, if you drop it on turn 10, after goyf, after cascading, after jace, after basic lands have hit the table, how much impact can it possibly have? Now, you might not even have the correct land types yourself on turn 3, are you sure you want to voluntary give up your capability of breaking fetchland and look at library with Top by playing Blood Moon?

Sure, you might intend to run some volcanic just to use pyroclasm as extra mass removal. Not only it will not work against RUG Delver, it just make their Wasteland that much more powerful. Of course, feel free to stare at the pyroclasm in your hand, when creeping tarpit is beating you to death.

[ThoSha]

twndomn has a point here. I've considered Pyroclasm in Joe's(oarsman) list many times.
Arguments for doing so were using the redsplash already in the main, having extra cheap mass removal and a solid 2 for Counterbalance, which this deck kind of wants.
But in reality it is kind of lackluster. Hitting for 2 will not always clear the board, as beaters like Goyf or Knight will just not care about it. What they care about is the reason to waste you out of the game because you just threw away a fetchland for 1 card which is in fact underwhelming most of the time. Against Delverdecks it is as dead as it could be, as it requires to be played early to have an advantage over Terminus/Verdict. GL on not getting stifled turn 2 or Pierce'd/Daze'd. Sure you can wait for turn 5, but at this point a Goyf with at least an ass of 3 has emerged probably.
Against Maverick variants, Mother of Runes protecting Teeg from red sucks too. I dont see myself getting anywhere with 'Clasm..
It could be good versus Goblins and Weenie decks, but in my meta thats a minority.

To make another point about the mass-removals..
I've found myself having trouble with the singleton Supreme Verdict also. It seems really slow and vulnerable to discard.
When you open a hand with 4 lands + Verdict it doesn't seem like a good plan to me.
Sure, it is uncounterable, which seems appealing against half of the field, but it hasn't done much good for me on the other half lately.
Had a game against Dark Maverick last time where i faced down a Thrun with a lot of other dudes, and the only way I could have won this was finding entreat or a sweeper.
So i found myself the singleton Verdict instead of Terminus and Thrun wrecked me next turn.

If you are reading Joe, do you think going back to 4 Terminus might be better?

[matunos]

There's a danger in your argument. Sure, if you drop Blood Moon as early as turn 3, you can achieve your mentioned effect. However, if you drop it on turn 10, after goyf, after cascading, after jace, after basic lands have hit the table, how much impact can it possibly have? Now, you might not even have the correct land types yourself on turn 3, are you sure you want to voluntary give up your capability of breaking fetchland and look at library with Top by playing Blood Moon?

Sure, you might intend to run some volcanic just to use pyroclasm as extra mass removal. Not only it will not work against RUG Delver, it just make their Wasteland that much more powerful. Of course, feel free to stare at the pyroclasm in your hand, when creeping tarpit is beating you to death.

Shardless BUG doesn't run any basics.

Jund tends to run few basics, and they often don't fetch them against Miracles, unless they're expecting the Blood Moon. It's usually the only non-basics hate that Miracles offers.

Of course I never proposed Blood Moon as a card that can bring you back from way behind on the board. If you're facing down a Jace plus Goyf without some answers in your hand, then you have bigger concerns than locking
out their mana base, and of course keeping an ability to fetch is important there (also, FWIW, a red blast would probably be nice in that situation). But having cleared the board threats, Blood Moon can lock BUG out better than Counterbalance.

I haven't played (or advocated) Pyroclasm, but if I did, I wouldn't bring it in against RUG, or probably even BUG. Consider: BUG often runs Massacre from the board, so they're not exactly afraid of sweeping the board of x/2 creatures.

As for vulnerability to Wasteland, we're talking about a deck that plays around 6 basics and 9 fetches. If you're losing to Wasteland consistently with that mana base, you're doing it wrong.

[oarsman]

Thosha, I like Supreme Verdict. The only deck I can think of that has discard and a special vulnerability to Verdict is BUG delver, and there isn't a ton of that going around right now as far as I can tell. If there was somehow room, I would run a second one before the 4th Terminus. In fact, supposing I was able to add removal to the 75 I think my priority list would approximate this (keep in mind that I came up with this list in about forty seconds).

Supreme Verdict
Moat
Humility
Swords to Plowshares
Terminus

If Sphere of Law counts as removal, it would be between Moat and Humility. You can probably tell from my choices that I am more concerned with tribal and delver decks than I am with Maverick. I do not think four mana is too much to pay for a powerful anti-agro card. But you can't run many of them, because you need the cheaper ones to keep you in a comfortable spot until you get the expensive one on the board.

[L-Luck]

I'm running the following list to decent local success. It's mainly designed to destroy RUG, Elves and random decks and that's what it does.

2 Vendilion Clique
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Rest in Peace
3 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Terminus
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Counterspell

5 Island
3 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
2 Volcanic Island
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta

SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Rest in Peace
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Seal of Cleansing
SB: 1 Counterbalance

Just make sure to keep enough win conditions in in matchups where you board out Jaces (RUG ie.). If there was a single card solution to make the bad Goblins matchup better, I would be open to suggestions. Everything else feels at least even. I guessainly because nobody plays those weird decks you apparently never win against here like 12 Post or Enchantress.

[Ocean]

Hi there. I want to build this deck and I have a stupid question for you. How do you use Clique? It confuses me, I don't know if I should include it or not.

[useL]

Hi there. I want to build this deck and I have a stupid question for you. How do you use Clique? It confuses me, I don't know if I should include it or not.

Here are some good plays with Vendilion Clique:

Play it to check if opponent can counter your important spell.
Play it to kill opponents jace/liliana when they pass turn etc
Play it to prevent Aether Vial from putting in shizznizz
Play it to put preasure on opponent
Play it in response to combodecks going off
Play it to get rid of cards in your own hand
Play it to block Nimble Mongoose

[Dzra]

If there was a single card solution to make the bad Goblins matchup better, I would be open to suggestions. Everything else feels at least even. I guessainly because nobody plays those weird decks you apparently never win against here like 12 Post or Enchantress.

Lately I've been fine against Goblins with RIP/Helm and 2 Entreat MD and able to board into a 3rd Entreat. This deck doesn't have trouble slowing Goblins down for a time, but you will almost certainly lose the long game. I've had the most success with Entreat, but sometimes you are able to get a fast Helm online. I don't like Humility much here since it nullifys Entreat. Moat is good against them, and has the plus side of shutting down almost all of BUG's threats (unfortunately BUG likes bringing Golgari Charm against us).

12-Post is beatable with Blood Moon. Get an early CBTop to slow down their land tutoring and then be ready to protect Blood Moon against bounce.

Enchantress is actually pretty easy. They can't beat Jace outside of tutoring an ORing. Spell Pierce and Counterbalance are both amazing against them. Treat them like the slow combo deck they are.

[alphastryk]

The Pyroclasm argument is silly - it is good because you can cast it early without a setup card. Neither Verdict no Terminus can do this.

[SageShadows]

What do you guys think about the Death and Taxes match-up? I went against two yesterday and one a few weeks back. I've succeeded in drawing the first two and getting face stomped in the win and in yesterday. I don't know if I'm just playing poorly or if it's a genuinely hard match-up. Non-pyroclasm related thoughts? =P

[Dzra]

What do you guys think about the Death and Taxes match-up? I went against two yesterday and one a few weeks back. I've succeeded in drawing the first two and getting face stomped in the win and in yesterday. I don't know if I'm just playing poorly or if it's a genuinely hard match-up. Non-pyroclasm related thoughts? =P

I hadn't had too much trouble with it. I treat it like a lot of the fair midrangey MUs and board in extra bombs like Entreat and Elspeth. Counterbalance really isn't bad against them if you can stop their Vial. Needles, more sweepers, and extra artifact hate are also solid. I feel like it's an easier Maverick since they can't shut you down with Teeg. Watch out for mana denial and don't walk into Cataclysm. What about the MU in particular was giving you trouble?

[sdematt]

I hadn't had too much trouble with it. I treat it like a lot of the fair midrangey MUs and board in extra bombs like Entreat and Elspeth. Counterbalance really isn't bad against them if you can stop their Vial. Needles, more sweepers, and extra artifact hate are also solid. I feel like it's an easier Maverick since they can't shut you down with Teeg. Watch out for mana denial and don't walk into Cataclysm. What about the MU in particular was giving you trouble?

Revoker on Top with no Swords in hand sucks.

-Matt

[Dzra]

Revoker on Top with no Swords in hand sucks.

-Matt

Yeah true. Revoker on Top is a pain. Still, it's infinitely easier to deal with that instead of a Pithing Needle.

[alphastryk]

I've always found D&T to be difficult. Revoker, Thalia, Vial, Mana denial, etc. Also Cataclysm post-board is unbeatable if it resolves.

[twndomn]

What do you guys think about the Death and Taxes match-up? I went against two yesterday and one a few weeks back. I've succeeded in drawing the first two and getting face stomped in the win and in yesterday. I don't know if I'm just playing poorly or if it's a genuinely hard match-up. Non-pyroclasm related thoughts? =P

It really depends on the skill of DnT player. If you really want to go after that deck, Porphyry Nodes is one option. Just be aware of Thalia and Mother at all times. Oh, don't forget about Cataclysm. It caught me off guard once.


I'm running the following list to decent local success. It's mainly designed to destroy RUG, Elves and random decks and that's what it does.

Just make sure to keep enough win conditions in in matchups where you board out Jaces (RUG ie.). If there was a single card solution to make the bad Goblins matchup better, I would be open to suggestions. Everything else feels at least even. I guessainly because nobody plays those weird decks you apparently never win against here like 12 Post or Enchantress.

If you are focusing on RUG delver, I would suggest at least 1 Supreme Verdict. When you want to mass removal, you just want to do it outright, why bother with the risk of Spell Pierce or Stifle Miracle trigger? Better yet, Verdict would also work against Goblins.

[SageShadows]

I hadn't had too much trouble with it. I treat it like a lot of the fair midrangey MUs and board in extra bombs like Entreat and Elspeth. Counterbalance really isn't bad against them if you can stop their Vial. Needles, more sweepers, and extra artifact hate are also solid. I feel like it's an easier Maverick since they can't shut you down with Teeg. Watch out for mana denial and don't walk into Cataclysm. What about the MU in particular was giving you trouble?

Pretty much everything. Vial on turn one happens a lot more than expected and Cavern of Souls always rears its head. Every card that they draw is essentially a threat to me that I need to deal with (for example, Mother of Runes basically makes you use a StP on her or wait until you have two, etc...). Mana denial hits pretty hard as well and is sometimes unavoidable (especially if you're trying to Wear/Tear an artifact), along with Thalias so I can't really get any defenses going. Revoker on Top, like someone said earlier, locked me out of a Terminus on the top. You really don't have an option to not walk into a Cataclysm because you need mana to Entreat and fight through Ports/Wastelands/Thalia/Mangara (although I actually tied a match because the guy Cataclysmed at the wrong time...). Granted, I've lost only 1 match against them, but the other times, I couldn't find for the life of me how to finish games on time and actually win instead of finishing Game 2 with 3 minutes left.

Also Flickerwisps show up a lot in taking out Angel tokens...

[Aetherick]

Regarding the DnT matchup, sulfur elemental takes out moms, Thalias, mangaras, flickerwisps (though they still can flicker something) at instant speed, so you can do it in response to port or wasteland activations on your red sources. They also can't save their legendaries with karakas or give something protection one last time with mom. If you're on the red splash, sulfur elemental is probably one of the best cards you can bring in against them.

[Einherjer]

Against Death and Taxes red prooves once again, why it is the best splashcolor for the Miracle-Archetype. Pyroclasm can be maindecked, but is a very strong sideboardcard by itself too. Even though Mother can protect her fellows from Clasm it still is a cc2-wipe-the-board. But if I'd construct a manabase for a metagame, with DnT as a sure component I would defintiely consider more red sources mainboard, or even a Mountain. In addition to Pyroclasm, which has many applications besides the white men - not to forget it's strength when combined with RIP - red offers, as pointed out earlier, Sulfur Elemental. This card is more narrow as it is only geared towards DnT, Maverick, Lingering Souls.dec but stronger than Pyroclasm in this very matchup. Instant, a body, unprotectable and permanent sweepeffect is just that great.
Plus Sulfur Elemental serves another purpose. I once played in a win-and-in-match for Top8, opponent was Junk (without Mother of Runes + Lingering Souls - so Elemental wouldn't hit a creature). I won the first game after 30 minutes, G2 I died quickly to manascrew and I started G3 with about 10 minutes or so on the clock. Could I win this? Well sure, I boardet out slow cards and boardet in all possible creatures I had, all removal, and all spells that could be used as removal - Jace. I started with Top, T2 Mystic (had 2 mb), T3 Clique, T4 Elemental into the win. 2 Minutes on the clock when he was dead. This possibilty is not to be overlooked. Little tricks like this and my way of playing (fast as lightning - though obv. never without flaws) enabled me to draw only one single match of sanctioned Legacy with the Miracles Archetype.


One topic I want to bring up once again is how you build your manabase. The manabase I played at GP Strasbourg (to be seen in my signature) was greedy...very greedy. But it worked out well over the course of two days. How do you structure your manabase? If I had to I'd define the following options:

1) 23-24 lands. Quite some utilitylands, couple of basics, couple of duals, lots of fetches. This is probably the strongest manabase in the meaning of what it can do. Different utilitylands open up new possibilities in lategame and the more fetchlands you have the better does your Top get.
2) 21-22 lands. Alot of basics, Duals and Fetchlands. Probably 0-1 utilitylands. A very stable way of deploying mana is laying out lands that tap for U/W. Though there always is the possibility to stumble on landdrops on T4/5.
3) 20-21 lands. Plays either Cantrips and/or manadeploying cards like Land Tax or Tithe. You will probably never get flooded early, but once again - may stumble on landdrops in the midgame. Though a low landcount enables drawing more bombs lategame it may seem dangerous.

-- this point of view is largely simplified, but should demonstrate the different opinions when building a manabase. Which do you prefer?

I always played with about 23 lands, and some utility-stuff for the lategame. The high landcount stems from the simply reason, that I tested alot against a very good tempopilot. Though I reached a point where my deck could manage to squeeze out win after win it was mostly due to the high land count and the strong maindecked cards like RIP/Verdict. Playing with less lands always ended in a disaster for me. Stumbling on landdrops. wasting of Brainstorms and stuff like this make it very hard for me to play less than 23. If I had to play 22 I'd probably play a 100%mana-manabase. Only Duals, Fetchlands and Basics. I don't even know if I'd play one or two wastelandable plains.

[Kyle]

1) 23-24 lands. Quite some utilitylands, couple of basics, couple of duals, lots of fetches. This is probably the strongest manabase in the meaning of what it can do. Different utilitylands open up new possibilities in lategame and the more fetchlands you have the better does your Top get.
2) 21-22 lands. Alot of basics, Duals and Fetchlands. Probably 0-1 utilitylands. A very stable way of deploying mana is laying out lands that tap for U/W. Though there always is the possibility to stumble on landdrops on T4/5.
3) 20-21 lands. Plays either Cantrips and/or manadeploying cards like Land Tax or Tithe. You will probably never get flooded early, but once again - may stumble on landdrops in the midgame. Though a low landcount enables drawing more bombs lategame it may seem dangerous.


Great breakdown and a very good topic. I have played and thoroughly enjoyed a lot of UW Miracles (no splash) and found the magic number of lands to be exactly 22, which I split between a utility land (sometimes a second Karakas) and another fetch, or two extra fetches. I started with a 20 land list with 4 Ponders and found through several matches that 20 lands put you in danger territory, even if you have 4 additional filter/draw/shuffle effects and an active Top.

In my experience even with Top in play you can get 3 really shitty cards coming up (sometimes for several turns) with no shuffle effects and Ponder requires a single blue mana, which in the early stages of your match you really need for counterspells. I replaced 2 Ponders with 2 fetches to give me the extra possibilities for land drops and have preferred it, all the while knowing that I'm playing a format where Wasteland and Stifle are played.

I think 24 lands is excessive with the amount of cantripping and filtering you can do, but I understand if you are running more lands specifically for utility and less for more mana.

Back to Ponder: I have not regretted cutting 2 of them in my list, and I totally get that A. It's a filter, cantrip, AND possible shuffle, B. It can help you get what you need RIGHT AWAY, and C. It ups your blue count for Force of Will. I just found way too often that I was looking for lands with it, possibly more than 90% of the time.

4 Brainstorms, 2 Ponders, 4 Sensei's Divining Tops, and 3 Jaces is probably enough, I think, and 22 lands is enough to get reliable land drops and less of a chance of drawing lands late game when you really don't need them. But by then you should be winning and have a Top in play, etc...

Also, I fully acknowledge that it has been proven on this thread that the difference between 20-21-22 lands is very marginal, but when those extra lands are fetches I feel it shores up a major weakness of this deck: überdurdling.

[kingsey]

With storm on the rise do you seem UWr becoming even stronger / more popular?

[Lemnear]

With storm on the rise do you seem UWr becoming even stronger / more popular?

Why would this particular version wield any significant advantage? Pyroclasm and Blasts?

[Dzra]

Why would this particular version wield any significant advantage? Pyroclasm and Blasts?

I think he just means the Miracles archtype in general... but perhaps he's referring to ANT's higher dependence on cantrips and the fact that ANT has seen a lot of publicity lately? (although I think TES is both scarier and better positioned in the meta)


Also, that Miracles list that top 8'd SCG recently looks familiar. Congrats if it's one of us! I think the higher number of Death and Taxes (and any trend that hinders Shardless BUG) is good for Miracles.

[twndomn]

ha ha ha~~

Christopher Hawker's RiP Helm
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=58693

I find Chris's version's very cute. Tutor for Seat of Synod? 1 Karakas but no legendary creature, blind anticipating opponent's legendary creature.

[Dzra]

Tutor for Seat of Synod?

I've actually thought about this before and there have definitely been games where I wish I had one (to be fair though, I still just prefer an Island).

[thecrav]

ha ha ha~~

Christopher Hawker's RiP Helm
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=58693

I find Chris's version's very cute. Tutor for Seat of Synod? 1 Karakas but no legendary creature, blind anticipating opponent's legendary creature.

Seat:

I've played with it and I like it. It's never negatively impacted me, but being able to tutor for my fourth land has won me several games. There's also the infrequently-relavent-but-still-there possibility to put a 0 on top to counter lotus petal, LED, Ancestral Visions, etc.

Karakas:

I'm not playing any legenedaries, so I finally dropped my Karakas. I figure that in order to draw it often enough to be useful, I probably need more than one and in those matchups, Karakas probably isn't the best thing I could be doing anyway.

[Mackan]

e.tutor for seat is also nice if you want to dump the hand and hide behind ensnaring bridge (allthough it's not in his list)

[sdematt]

Or to grab a tutorable zero for Counterbalance if you've already blown EE.

Also, this happened yesterday at a 95-man. This is why you run Red: to blow Jund out with Blood Moon. Then, you bend them over a table with EE on 2, apparently:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t226/mattandgeoff/MiraclesJundMirkwood_zpsa18e99c8.jpg (http://s161.photobucket.com/user/mattandgeoff/media/MiraclesJundMirkwood_zpsa18e99c8.jpg.html)

Nice 4 for 1, Curt.

-Matt

[Lemnear]

Back to Basics would work without splashing red

[blacknapkins]

Back to Basics would work without splashing red

I think that if you're going to go the route of interfering with an opponent's manabase then it's worth going for the absolute lock of Blood Moon. This strategy is the most advantageous for Miracles in the matchups against the BGx decks of the format, which also pack Deathrite Shaman and, most importantly, Abrupt Decay. With Back to Basics the BGx decks still have live draws into their Abrupt Decay/Deathrite Shaman colours, and they can relatively easily fight their way back.

It isn't nearly as easy for those decks to combat Blood Moon. If you resolve Blood Moon on a board that doesn't have a Shaman then you force them to have the Decay (and the available mana open to play it) or the game is basically over. Even with a Shaman online all it takes is a removal spell or a Rest In Peace to secure the lock. I run 2 Blood Moons (sideboard) with 2 Enlightened Tutors and found that I consistently put down a Moon early enough to severely cripple my opponents.

I feel like I can count the number of games that I've lost to BGx decks after resolving a Blood Moon on one hand. It's the best. Play multiples.

[Piceli89]

Back to Basics would work without splashing red

Not the same. Anyways, Blood Moon is not the reason to splash red, and tipically only an careless Jund player lets himself get caught by a Blood Moon.

[useL]

Wow, just wow, I'm on life tilt after this evening. How on earth do you beat Shardless BUG with UWr miracles? I lost 0-6 to a friend of mine and 2 of those were with sideboard.

Even with a resolved Counterbalance that does not get removed with decay I still loose to the deck, incredible. Do you have any suggestions on lines of play, sideboarding here? I run a 3 swords, 3 terminus, 2 ponder main and after board I have 2 pyroclasm, 2 supreme verdict, 2 RiP and 3 reb's on top of that. I board out FoW, Counterspell and 1 clique and 1 venser and what else should I take out? (have two of each main) Is this the wrong way to go?

I know this is probably the wrong forum to ask this since we are all amateurs at some point, but I would appreciate a pep talk since I am to play this deck in 4 days time in a huge tournament and feel crushed right now. Even to the point where I feel maybe Patriot is the deck I should play instead... zzz.. hate tempodecks but still.

[oarsman]

I can say with some confidence that you do not want to be taking out Clique and Venser. Clique is good at attacking planeswalkers and clearing up your hand of uncastable Miracles. Venser is just about the best card possible against Liliana. If your opponent is playing those then you must leave it in. Bringing in Pyroclasm and Supreme Verdict might be too much removal.

Shardless BUG isn't easy; the matchup favors them. But not by a lot. You should be able to take a reasonable number of matches off them.

[phazonmutant]

Wow, just wow, I'm on life tilt after this evening. How on earth do you beat Shardless BUG with UWr miracles? I lost 0-6 to a friend of mine and 2 of those were with sideboard.

I'm not the most experienced BUG Agent player, but I'm something like 75% against alphastryk when we've tested the matchup. The best two ways to win are Blood Moon if I tap out or an Entreat for 3+. Sometimes Jace gets there. Rest in Peace usually buys a few turns.

Seems like the only real plan is all Blood Moon, all the time

[SageShadows]

You also might want to consider playing Misdirection somewhere in your 75. They're great against Shardless BUG (Just think about all of those targets you can Misdirection, including Ancestral Recall, Hymn, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize in a pinch) and do pretty well against any Abrupt Decay deck and any decks where you will expect a large counter war.

[alphastryk]

...all Blood Moon, all the time

That's the best plan...

[twndomn]

Even with a resolved Counterbalance that does not get removed with decay I still loose to the deck, incredible. Do you have any suggestions on lines of play, sideboarding here? I run a 3 swords, 3 terminus, 2 ponder main and after board I have 2 pyroclasm, 2 supreme verdict, 2 RiP and 3 reb's on top of that. I board out FoW, Counterspell and 1 clique and 1 venser and what else should I take out? (have two of each main) Is this the wrong way to go?


Joe's right, do Not board out Clique and Venser.

1. Misdirection/Divert is required. Ancestral Vision/Abrupt Decay/Hymn are all good targets.

2. Have at least 7 creature removals, in any combination of StP, Terminus, and Supreme Verdict. Try to conserve StP on Tarpit, cause it's not easy to trap BUG's Tarpit via Terminus.

3. If you really want to improve this match-up, consider Notion Thief.

[Lemnear]

Why not trying to be the aggressor instead of trying to handle the field with Terminus, Supreme Verdict and other reactive cards? What about increasing the count of Cliques, Venser and ... most important ... Entreat the Angels to force your opponent into a upside-down-position?

I remember that Carsten once promoted a Miracles-Build without all the boardwipe but more Entreat to solve Delver and Co. with 4/4 Angels rather than throwing 4cc solutions like Supreme Verdict at 1cc-3cc threats.

Did anyone test the idea?

[SageShadows]

Why not trying to be the aggressor instead of trying to handle the field with Terminus, Supreme Verdict and other reactive cards? What about increasing the count of Cliques, Venser and ... most important ... Entreat the Angels to force your opponent into a upside-down-position?

I remember that Carsten once promoted a Miracles-Build without all the boardwipe but more Entreat to solve Delver and Co. with 4/4 Angels rather than throwing 4cc solutions like Supreme Verdict at 1cc-3cc threats.

Did anyone test the idea?

Someone Top 8'd with a Quad-Entreat Miracles deck where they said the Entreats were just as good as sweepers in surprising the opponent. Here it is:
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/56070

I personally feel like Terminus is just too good to cut. It's a 1 mana board wipe that can totally catch people off guard. For match ups like DnT, Terminus is very very important when you can't resolve a big Entreat due to mana disruption. Other times, it can be hard to fight through Spell Pierce/Daze/Wastelands/Ports.

[Dzra]

In my experience, Swords is almost always reserved for Tar Pit. REB needs to hit Jace, Ancestral, or Tar Pit.

Blood Moon of course is very good if it can be dropped early or onto a clean board. There are some board states where Blood Moon does nothing or even hinders you as well though.

RIP is pretty good for resetting Goyfs and Deathrites, but expect it to receive an Abrupt Decay. Recently I'm considering boarding out the Helm and just leaving 2-3 RIPs in the deck solely for stalling purposes.

Entreat and Elspeth are both very good and probably your main wincons, along with occasional Venser/Clique beats. Elspeth jumping your Venser is particularly nice since they have practically no answer for that. Like Carsten and Lemnear mentioned, if you have the opportunity to be the aggressor in this MU then take it.

I've found bringing in all the Leylines of Sanctity to be overkill since they likely board out some of their hand disruption, but I like bringing in a mise Leyline to tutor for if they threaten Liliana.

You probably don't need a ton of extra sweepers, especially sorcery speed ones because Tar Pit and Jace are also huge threats that are just as likely to kill you as their multitude of value weenies. You can bring in like one extra Supreme Verdict if you want or maybe a Pyroclasm, but more is overkill and won't help you against their planeswalkers and Tar Pits.

I would expect them to board out most of their discard and to bring in Lilianas, Maelstrom Pulses, and Golgari Charms. Some of the better Shardless players I've seen will leave in FoW against Miracles since our best routes to victory against them are our big bomby cards, so expect that.

[useL]

The feeling I got when playing these games was that they came down to the same thing. My hand was empty and his hand was full, he landed threats (deathrite, goyf, bob) that I needed to take care of quite soon. He kept his hymns in and took out his fow's and every game he landed atleast one hymn early, stripping me of venser/jace/clique/lands that I needed to handle his t3/t4 threats. Every game preboard I felt that I struggled to find an entreat and never found it in time to close the match. The counterbalance hardly did anything since he got things on the board before it resolved most of the time and just waited for a decay/pulse and then took care of it.

After board I could see myself board 3 reb, 2 blood moon, 1 verdict, 2 misdirection and that being the optimal sideboard, but then on the other hand, he slams a bob and goes to town and I cant find the plow fast enough. Just one little card can turn the whole game if I dont have the right answer for it.

I will try your sideboard changes this friday and hope it helps.

[Mackan]

To me the matchup vs Shardless BUG is about beating their cardadvantage from Visions and Jace. Their clock is not very fast so I wouldn't worry to much about their goyfs and shardless agents beating down.
Miracles have Entreat so the super-late-game will favor us from about any boardposition. Because of that the Shardless-BUG opponent is often forced to be proactive. Thoughtseize, Hymn and liliana serves that purpose and normaly bury us in cardadvantage/disadvantage before we can entreat for the win. From time to time there might be a few FoW left in their deck post-board but I wouldn't worry so much about that. I personally think FoW is better than Hymn like Dzra mentioned but it's still a fair and very beatable card.

I think we can all agree that FoW is bad vs Hymn to tourach. But I would rather shrug Hymn of than try to fight it with Divert/Misdirection. Because our gameplan is to Entreat we don't want conditional topdecks on our way to the super-late-game. All those conditional cards only makes their otherwise dead discard live again. As long as you keep their blue cards (and liliana) out of the way you will get virtual CA from the fact that they draw a worthless hymn every now and then when you have no hand (and perhaps a top and a jace in play). I would go with Lemnear's advice and increase the number of Entreats (or other "bombs") post-board instead of trying to fight their discard. The best card by far versus them are red blasts. If you send me your list we can discuss that. In general I would advice against keeping situational cards and keep reactive, discardable, cards to a minimum.

I normally board;
-4 fow -4 Stp -2 snare
+4 blasts +1 needle +2 rip +1 EE +1 entreat +1 verdict

If they also have bob I would keep stp and remove terminus instead and keep spell snare over CS. He matters that much.

Keep all creatures with flash as they are the best way to fight lilly.

Notion thief must be killed on sight so STP is ok to take heat of your overworking red blasts.

[Einherjer]

Red is indeed important at fighting Shardless BUG, as you guys clarified above. But even white offers good cards they don't want to see.

1) Elspeth, Knight Errant: A big white Bomb, protects itself, offers a fast clock and a very useful ultimate.
2) Baneslayer Angel: Can't be Decayed, is big enough to block most of their threats, only Tarmogoyf might be a problem if we happen to have no RIP, Lifelink for stalling purposes, 5 dmg in the air for killing purposes.
3) Timely Reinforcements: Easily castable, stabilises on both, board and lifetotal, offer a good possibility to threaten opposing planeswalkers (just like Lingering Souls would), card lives to it's full potenial in Snapcaster Mage's build.sadly they are strictly worse than either RIP or Legend ones)
4) Entreat the Angles: Opponents don't play taxing counters, hence the card lives up to it's full potential, smashes hordes of attacking creatures, threatens opposing Walkers and offers a fast way to victory.

Your plan should probably evolve about your own Walkers, wipe the board, smash Elspeth/Jace. As long as they don't have 1-2 Visions going off you should be in a good position. If they have those Visions? Well, everybody gotta die somewhen. This is not a good MU, but no reason to run around screaming or anything. Prepare for them, smash them. Lack answers in your sideboard? Well, guess who's fault it is, you aren't winning?

Oh and yes, REB + Moon is awesome.

Greetings

[Jin Gitaxias]

Does anyone have some advice for the matchups vs the MUD decks? I have not faced it yet, but after thinking about how the matchup goes and potential sideboard plans I have no idea what to board. I use Joe's list (http://blog.mtgdeals.com/miracletek/legacy-uwr-miracles/) and I think - 1 flusterstorm -1 counterbalance -1 misdirection -3 FOW -1 RIP + 2 EE +1 entreat +1 needle +1 wear//tear +1 venser is how i would board.
Does anyone have advice and/or suggestions for this matchup?

[Einherjer]

A friend of mine plays MUD, and on our way to Top64 at GP Strasbourg we battled each other in Round 9 of D1. I didn't play the MU a lot but probably more than others - cause I actually have played it yet :D

I lost the said game in R9. 0-2. How I think you should approach the MUD-MU?
Keep Forces in, max the Forces. Their stuff is unfair. You don't want a Karn to resolve, you don't want a Chalice to resolve, especially when you are OtD. Keep those Forces. Max on Removal. It is a very easy game, basically: He deploys threat, you handle it. It gets tough when the opponent starts to manascrew you WHILE deploying threats. That's how I lost at the GP. But they don't have everything all the time. Plan on smashing Jace T4 - that's your goal #1. Jace acts as permanent removal and grants you enough time to draw into removal. In the sideboard you want Disenchant/Wear//Tear and Humility. Keep in Spell Pierces too. Board out the RIP/Helm and the Counterbalances.

I hope I could help you something.

Greetings

[Kyle]

You also might want to consider playing Misdirection somewhere in your 75. They're great against Shardless BUG (Just think about all of those targets you can Misdirection, including Ancestral Recall, Hymn, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize in a pinch) and do pretty well against any Abrupt Decay deck and any decks where you will expect a large counter war.

This.

[Lemnear]

It's not that Counterbalance can't handle Ancestral Visions and more Entreats mean more 3cc cards to flip to CB :/

[Dzra]

Keep Forces in, max the Forces. Their stuff is unfair. You don't want a Karn to resolve, you don't want a Chalice to resolve, especially when you are OtD. Keep those Forces. Max on Removal. It is a very easy game, basically: He deploys threat, you handle it. It gets tough when the opponent starts to manascrew you WHILE deploying threats. That's how I lost at the GP. But they don't have everything all the time. Plan on smashing Jace T4 - that's your goal #1. Jace acts as permanent removal and grants you enough time to draw into removal. In the sideboard you want Disenchant/Wear//Tear and Humility. Keep in Spell Pierces too. Board out the RIP/Helm and the Counterbalances.

Yeah, pretty much this. I'd take out Counterbalances and some number of RIPs. Leaving in one and Helm isn't awful if you don't need the room, but if you can find stuff to board in, I would. Like Einherjer said, max out on counter magic (especially FoW) and max out on removal of all sorts (Terminus, Verdict, Swords, ORing, DSphere, EE, etc). Venser is really great for bouncing their expensive guys or even just for stalling them. Clique is pretty solid since they have a lot of dead draws. Pithing Needle is recommended mainly to name Karn or Forgemaster, but they have a ton of Needle targets to hit. Entreat is also pretty hard for them to deal with, especially if they've hit themselves with Ancient Tomb a couple times.


It's not that Counterbalance can't handle Ancestral Visions and more Entreats mean more 3cc cards to flip to CB :/

Counterbalance really isn't bad against BUG, it's just unreliable. Yes, it will always trade one-for-one or better, and sometimes they won't find the Decay for a while and you'll get some good value. A lot of the time though, you'll have a Counterbalance + Top and are feeling good facing down one counter left on their Ancestral Visions only to have them Abrupt Decay during your end step. All that said... I'd leave in the Counterbalances if I had room, but I'd rather board in bombs and hope to win by going over the top. Just accept the fact that you will likely go into topdeck mode (either through discard or their multitude of 2-for-1s) and work to set up the quickest, biggest Entreat that you can.

[SageShadows]

Counterbalance really isn't bad against BUG, it's just unreliable. Yes, it will always trade one-for-one or better, and sometimes they won't find the Decay for a while and you'll get some good value. A lot of the time though, you'll have a Counterbalance + Top and are feeling good facing down one counter left on their Ancestral Visions only to have them Abrupt Decay during your end step. All that said... I'd leave in the Counterbalances if I had room, but I'd rather board in bombs and hope to win by going over the top. Just accept the fact that you will likely go into topdeck mode (either through discard or their multitude of 2-for-1s) and work to set up the quickest, biggest Entreat that you can.

I feel like boarding in as many targets for the Abrupt Decays is best. Though I haven't played enough games to say with any certainty, Joe explained that you want to overload them with as many Abrupt Decay targets as possible. If you can get even one enchantment to stick (hopefully Rest in Peace), you'll be ahead of the game. Don't side out things to allow their Abrupt Decay to hit your most powerful things. Definitely try to set up Entreat though; that card is bloody amazing and an Entreat with a REB backup for any Forces is great.

[twndomn]

I feel like boarding in as many targets for the Abrupt Decays is best. Though I haven't played enough games to say with any certainty, Joe explained that you want to overload them with as many Abrupt Decay targets as possible. If you can get even one enchantment to stick (hopefully Rest in Peace), you'll be ahead of the game. Don't side out things to allow their Abrupt Decay to hit your most powerful things. Definitely try to set up Entreat though; that card is bloody amazing and an Entreat with a REB backup for any Forces is great.

Actually, I'm not even sure with RiP = will be ahead statement. It is still possible to get your life total chipped to death by Tarpit and Shardless.

The problem is not protecting your Entreat. If I had REB at some point in my hand, I would have probably spent it on Ancestral Vision or Jace or Tarpit, if not getting discarded by Liliana and others already.

[Kyle]

I've been really digging Misdirection in my build lately and have been testing 1-2 maindeck. It's just so good against BUG and Jund and can function as a pseudo-counterspell is so many situations.

I'm playing a UWr build with 3 MD RIPs and 1 Helm, so Misdirection is really necessary.

[Lemnear]

Can anybody enlight me why I see so damn many Miracle/RiP-Helm hybrids with partly complete random quantity of pieces (like 2-off CB, RiP, 1 Entreat)?

Doesn't 4/4 Flyers and 1-mana-WoG's suddenly handle Tarmogoyfs, Nimble Mongoose and DRS anymore?

[YamiJoey]

Can anybody enlight me why I see so damn many Miracle/RiP-Helm hybrids with partly complete random quantity of pieces (like 2-off CB, RiP, 1 Entreat)?

Doesn't 4/4 Flyers and 1-mana-WoG's suddenly handle Tarmogoyfs, Nimble Mongoose and DRS anymore?

I basically play 4 Miracles in any given build, so I play 3 Terminus, 1 Entreat. I've been looking into the 4 Entreat version, but I'd like to try this out for this coming Sunday.

Apart from that, I play 4 Top, 4 Balance, and 2 RiP. The RiP's I'm still unsure about as to how effective they are overall on their own with no support, but my friend plays 3. He also only plays 3 CB, which I think is basically suicide, but whatever. I then play mostly 1-ofs for my Helm, Blood Moon, D-Sphere, and Energy Field, as you can just fetch them with my double E-Tutor. I'd like to go up to 3 RiP, but I'm still unsure about it. Playing two means I do have to board a third, though.

The beauty of playing Top, though, is that you can find anything in your deck incredibly fast. Two shuffle effects and a Brainstorm later and you've seen twenty cards by turn 4 ish, and have the ability to just counter anything they do in the meantime.

Also, I do think the Shardless BUG and Jund MU's are heavily favoured. We have so many things they MUST Decay, and CB allows us to cheat against their Cascade effects. RiPs deal with DRS and 'Goyf, and then they're basically dead at that point. Jace is also pretty good at making sure we always have answers and/or threats, and Blood Moon is alright at making sure they can never cast any of their Spells ever again, which usually helps.

[Kyle]

Can anybody enlight me why I see so damn many Miracle/RiP-Helm hybrids with partly complete random quantity of pieces (like 2-off CB, RiP, 1 Entreat)?

Doesn't 4/4 Flyers and 1-mana-WoG's suddenly handle Tarmogoyfs, Nimble Mongoose and DRS anymore?

Don't know why anyone would want to play only one Entreat (sooooooo good), but I personally play 3 RIP, 3 CB and 2 Enlightened Tutors MD (also for the Tutor package SB).

Are a lot of these lists you're seeing running ETs? That might explain the random numbers for MD enchantments. Also, it's been discussed before: ET is stupid good with an active CB and one open white mana.

[YamiJoey]

Don't know why anyone would want to play only one Entreat (sooooooo good), but I personally play 3 RIP, 3 CB and 2 Enlightened Tutors MD (also for the Tutor package SB).

Are a lot of these lists you're seeing running ETs? That might explain the random numbers for MD enchantments. Also, it's been discussed before: ET is stupid good with an active CB and one open white mana.

Because it costs a lot of mana. It's a 3-mana not quite as good as StP, plus set up costs in a lot of situations. Sometimes it just wins you the game, but I prefer to have as many control cards as possible. You can push the single Entreat until you need it.

[Lemnear]

Because it costs a lot of mana. It's a 3-mana not quite as good as StP, plus set up costs in a lot of situations. Sometimes it just wins you the game, but I prefer to have as many control cards as possible. You can push the single Entreat until you need it.

On the other side, I hate not being able to close games or having to go into the extra turns every round because I can't find the Entreat or Jace ticks up too slow, neither do I like to trade Terminus' for single creatures instead of just walling/pushing with 1-2 Angels.

The 4 Entreat build needs a lot of foresight to play efficiently, but I'll give it a spin.

[Dzra]

Lately, I've been maindecking 4 CBalance, 3 RIP, 2 Etutors, 1 Helm, and 2 Entreats with a 3rd Entreat in the board. I can't stress enough how nice it is to have multiple Entreats when playing against Shardless (or any fair deck with minimal interaction). Against Shardless, I'd still recommend boarding out Counterbalance and boarding in as many bombs and flash creatures as you can.

I really dislike the 4 Entreat, 0 Terminus versions. Even if you up the Entreat count, there is really no need to cut Terminus. Jace, Clique, and Brainstorm solve cluttered hands and if you push to late game, Terminus isn't unreasonable to hard cast.

[thecrav]

Today's tournament report:

Today was stupid. I drew all land and no business or all business and no land all day. The only game where I did anything, I still lost because I didn't know how combo elves worked well enough.

I'm gonna go drink now.

[useL]

I posted a report from my last tournament. I would like to thank those of you that came up with good advice on how to beat the BUG matchup, especially einherjer that made me suck it up and whine less.

Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26640-Hoping-for-miracles-at-L-I-G-G-in-Stockholm&p=747569#post747569)

[Dzra]

Today's tournament report:

Today was stupid. I drew all land and no business or all business and no land all day. The only game where I did anything, I still lost because I didn't know how combo elves worked well enough.

I'm gonna go drink now.

Had a rough Saturday night Legacy myself. >_> I mulled at least once every round and had to go to five twice, even running 23 lands. The last round I played against ANT...

Game 3 I'm on the draw and open up a hand of land, land, Leyline of Sanctity, Top, Counterbalance, Counterbalance, Jace. Possibly one of the best hands I've seen against ANT. T0 Leyline is followed by him hardcasting a Probe (targeting himself). I play a land and play Top. He untaps and plays a land then proceeds to play LED, LED, LED, Infernal Tutor (cracking two LEDs for R and B), and finding Ad Nauseam. I draw with Top looking for a FoW but finding a Tundra. His Ad Nauseam takes him down to 4 before he finds his miser Chain of Vapor and enough mana to Tendrils me out. He tells me afterwards that his hand was completely bricks and discard until he top decked the Infernal Tutor on T2. Wah waaah... -_-

[ivanpei]

Anyone put any thought into Thasa from Theros?

The scry is useful in this type of deck. Getting to devotion 5 is a challenge and usually winmore. However in am aggressive style deck with cliques and Counterbalance, the devotion shouldn't be hard to achieve. Probably too winmore.

[Dzra]

Anyone put any thought into Thasa from Theros?

The scry is useful in this type of deck. Getting to devotion 5 is a challenge and usually winmore. However in am aggressive style deck with cliques and Counterbalance, the devotion shouldn't be hard to achieve. Probably too winmore.

I think you'd have to ask yourself if Scry 1 every turn is worth 3 mana and a card because getting to 5 Devotion is not going to be something you are doing often or within any reasonable amount of time.

[sauce]

ivan, i think the only good thing about that card is that it costs 3 and is blue so you could exile it immediately to force of will.

[Dzra]

ivan, i think the only good thing about that card is that it costs 3 and is blue so you could exile it immediately to force of will.

Also, it's an Etutorable 3 cmc (that doesn't die to Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse). BAM!

[ivanpei]

Yes it's not a card that slots directly into the deck. As card quality in this deck fantastic with top, the usefulness of this enchantment is limited. It seems good in a faerie stomps style deck though.

[twndomn]

Thasa is more suitable for Merfolk, since these UU Lord/Trident/Coralhelm can boost devotion quickly. Since Merfolk use Vials to play creatures anyway, they can actually spend mana to play Thasa.

[Lemnear]

Thasa is more suitable for Merfolk, since these UU Lord/Trident/Coralhelm can boost devotion quickly. Since Merfolk use Vials to play creatures anyway, they can actually spend mana to play Thasa.

Why spend mana? You can vial it in...

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Back to the deck, because Merfolk is atrocious and only really for people who don't own Jace...

I'm just curious as I have never tested it, but what about that Miracle card that gives extra turns (Time Walk for 1U Miracle)? Frankly, even if it only gives you an additional draw and Jace-Storm, isn't that fairly good?

-ABC

[SageShadows]

Back to the deck, because Merfolk is atrocious and only really for people who don't own Jace...

I'm just curious as I have never tested it, but what about that Miracle card that gives extra turns (Time Walk for 1U Miracle)? Frankly, even if it only gives you an additional draw and Jace-Storm, isn't that fairly good?

-ABC

I like Merfolk, and I own Jaces...

And the Miracle card is atrocious. It doesn't alter the board state in any way to justify being stuck with it in your hand. What else are you going to cut for it? I would much rather see another Entreat or Terminus in its place or hell, even another Jace.

[Lemnear]

Back to the deck, because Merfolk is atrocious and only really for people who don't own Jace...

I'm just curious as I have never tested it, but what about that Miracle card that gives extra turns (Time Walk for 1U Miracle)? Frankly, even if it only gives you an additional draw and Jace-Storm, isn't that fairly good?

-ABC

It still sucks as it did in the Tempo decks which can Profit even more from that effect, 'cuz it's a blank until turn 3 and at this point still the effect is rather marginal for the cost. It's not that Miracles run's many creatures to squeeze out additional damage or so.

[Jimp]

Hey everyone, here's a link to a tournament report I've written following round 3 of the Dublin Legacy Series:
http://captainforgetfulness.blogspot.ie/2013/09/mission-technically-accomplished-dublin.html
I ended up going 2-3 with a bye which is pretty poor but I still learned a lot along the way. My deck was tweaked for the local meta which is very heavy on creature based decks and I think the changes worked out well. I maindecked two Pyroclasms and a single basic Mountain and they performed well throughout the day.

[twndomn]

Hey everyone, here's a link to a tournament report I've written following round 3 of the Dublin Legacy Series:
http://captainforgetfulness.blogspot.ie/2013/09/mission-technically-accomplished-dublin.html
I ended up going 2-3 with a bye which is pretty poor but I still learned a lot along the way. My deck was tweaked for the local meta which is very heavy on creature based decks and I think the changes worked out well. I maindecked two Pyroclasms and a single basic Mountain and they performed well throughout the day.

I would like to hit the dislike button if there is one, due to the fact that you did not reveal your updated deck list. Based on your old list, the MD Blood Moon is pretty useless, especially your meta is full of mono-color Vial decks. Regardless which versions, running less than 2 Entreat is just not a good idea. Celestial Purge is weak, might as well run CoP:Red or Sphere of Law.

[Jimp]

I would like to hit the dislike button if there is one, due to the fact that you did not reveal your updated deck list. Based on your old list, the MD Blood Moon is pretty useless, especially your meta is full of mono-color Vial decks. Regardless which versions, running less than 2 Entreat is just not a good idea. Celestial Purge is weak, might as well run CoP:Red or Sphere of Law.
The updated list is detailed in a previous blog post which is linked to at the start of the tournament report. I forget if I posted it here or not, but here it is now anyway:
http://captainforgetfulness.blogspot.ie/2013/08/reflecting-on-uwr-miracles.html
Basically the E-Tutors and Pyroclasms swap places and the Blood Moon became an extra Clique. The Celestial Purge in the side is a concession to Lilliana of the Veil which the deck can't really deal with once it's resolved.
I've considered a second Entreat but I find casting Entreat more difficult than usual since my manabase is missing the U/W fetches. To hit the double white I'd often end up fetching a Tundra which is something I try to avoid doing given the large Wasteland presence in my meta. If I had U/W fetches I would absolutely find room for a second Entreat.
It's possible that the deck needs to focus a bit harder on something in particular, either on the anti-dudes plan or the enchantment based control plan. At the moment I can't really tell as I don't get to play the deck much outside of some solo testing and these monthly events.

[somethingdotdotdot]

I'm currently trying a slightly different spin on miracles. Bit of a throw back really. I've been trying to fit lingering souls into the main as a way to both protect jace and pressure opposing walkers. This where I'm currently at

3 Vendilion clique
3 lingering souls
2 stoneforge mystic
1 batterskull

4 swords to plowshares
4 brainstorm
4 sdt
4 counterbalance
3 force of will
2 spell pierce

3 jace
3 terminus
2 entreat

4 flooded strand
4 scalding tarn
1 marsh flats
3 island
1 plains
4 tundra
2 underground sea
2 karakas
1 creeping tar pit

Sb:
2 meddling mage
2 ethersworn canonist
3 rest in peace
3 thoughtseize
1 force of will
2 disenchant
2 open

[Shawn]

I messed around with Lingering Souls in Miracles for awhile (day 2'd Denver with UWb Lingering Miracles), but ended up tossing it out in favor of Punishing Fires. It does what you want Souls to do: battle planeswalkers and stall versus tribal, but better. This is especially true against the decks with Jitte which can make your own Lingering Souls embarrassing. It's nice against a couple of decks and has good synergy with Humility but for most matchups you are better off running PFires or the legendary creature suite.

I was always happy with Creeping Tar Pit and discard sideboard out of the black splash, though.

[Lemnear]

If you want more tokens to pressure your opponent and his walkers, run more Entreats! The Stoneblade/Miracle Hybrids just doesn't make sense if you pair creatures with Terminus'

[thecrav]

tl;dr - I like yer style, dude, but your curve seems bad for Counterbalance flips


I'm currently trying a slightly different spin on miracles. Bit of a throw back really. I've been trying to fit lingering souls into the main as a way to both protect jace and pressure opposing walkers. This where I'm currently at

{DECKLIST HERE}


While I like the idea of a lot of these things individually, I think the mana costs associated with having them all together is questionable. My main concern is not casting, but flipping to counterbalance - given that you're playing 4 CBs, I assume that flipping to CB is something you want to do frequently. Your curve is:
0: 17
1: 14
2: 6
3: 8
4: 3
5: 5
6: 3

My main concern is the lack of 2s. To give an idea how important that number is, I ran some quick stats on the most recent SCG top 8. Not including dredge (because I'm only counting decks that play magic) - On average, decks played 13.29 / 17.86 2 drops main / side (drops to 12.29 / 16.43 if you don't count the uncounterable Abrubt Decay)

I do really like V Clique and Souls at 3 right now with Show and Tell so rampant, but I really feel something has to give to get your 2 count a bit higher.

[Lemnear]

How is L.Souls an out for Show&Tell? If you want to have an edge here, run Venser

[somethingdotdotdot]

I had previously tried a punishing fires build and it was fun because it was a complete board control deck. I may go back to it at some point, but for now, I'm trying to make the black splash work. The main problem that I had with the fires build was that I didnt have a good way to assassinate opposing jaces. Fires would basically mean they weren't ticking up, but I usually couldn't fire twice a turn to start ticking him down that well. The tar pit has been kinna amazing though. Kind of a ninja planeswalker assassin versus bug. The main thing is that souls represents a pretty legitimate clock, while fires does 1 dmg for 3 mana.

As for the creatures/tokens+terminus. I've been playing around with the deck and the stoneforge mystics are just kinna there to find the batterskull once you get to the late game. I'm not sure whether theyre completely necessary at this point; I find myself shuffling them away turn 2-5 in favor of more removal. However, the souls have been performing well. The main thing is that it just does what it did in the old esperblade lists. It stalls like nothing else. Either they extend further onto the board, or you basically get 2-3 turns of blocking to find an answer.

[Lemnear]

Stalling into answers? Then why just not start to run more answers first? It's not like you can't run counterspell or more Entreat/Terminus.

Why you think Batterskull is a better lategame option than an EoT Entreat?

[thecrav]

How is L.Souls an out for Show&Tell?
They cast Show and Tell. You reveal lingering souls to your counterbalance.

(C'mon man, my entire post was about how much things cost and how flipping to counterbalance is important)

[Lemnear]

They cast Show and Tell. You reveal lingering souls to your counterbalance.

(C'mon man, my entire post was about how much things cost and how flipping to counterbalance is important)

Entreat is also cmc 3, kills Walker, stalls against creatures, but in addition to all that you can create pressure yourself and finish games in time.

[somethingdotdotdot]

I suppose I could cut the pierces for just good ol' counterspells. Not completely sure on that. However, I should note that the counterbalance really serves as a chalice on 0 and 1. The main reason I have it as a 4 of is because its great at countering ancestral visions. Its also pretty good at shutting down combo's cantrips and their enablers (high tide, show and tell, etc). That being said, I do like a counterbalance lock as much as the next person (as long as I'm not being locked out) so I might tweak the numbers a lil bit. I'm also considering cutting all of the forces md just to see how it does without them.

Edit:
The problem with entreat and all miracle cards in general is that they are powerful but clunky as all hell. Using entreat to the pressure walkers is fine, but then you run into the draws where you have 2x miracles in hand a lot more often. Entreat is definitely kind of the big-daddy token maker, but it takes a bit of setup and is far more vulnerable to taxing counters. Lingering souls doesn't suffer from the same problem--you just kind of cast it when you have 3 open mana. Even if it gets countered, it comes back for round 2.

[Lemnear]

Yes, Miracles can be clunky, but understand my concern, if your plan is to continuously tap-out for SFM, Jace and Lingering Souls in that archtype to jumpblock attackers and pressure opposing Walkers before playing more "removal" in form of Clique/Venser/Terminus/Entreat

[somethingdotdotdot]

Well the sfm has basically been batterskull 2-3 for when you already have the game wrapped up or need someway to gain life. I don't really ever tap out turn 2 for the sfm. The souls are also played pretty reactively. When I need blockers or require a way to pressure the opponent, I'll play it out. Otherwise, it'll just sort of be there for when I have 4 mana so I can hold pierce up. That being said, I'm considering cutting the sfm's for 2x counterspells and 1x Moat md.

[Dzra]

Entreat sometimes gets put on duty pressuring Planeswalkers sure, but really I think they can usually just afford to dome. Celestial Colonnade (tech courtesy of sauce) is another alternative to Creeping Tar Pit that is more on-color and can easily double as defense as well as Planeswalker assassinating... although I'm still skeptical about CiPT lands in this deck.

Also, Moat doesn't seem bad right now, but then again I wouldn't want to get caught thinking I was safe only to have it Golgari Charmed out from under me EoT.

[twndomn]

If you run both lingering soul and stoneblade, you're just lying to yourself, you are actually playing a horrible version of Esper Stoneblade, disguising as Miracle. You're already on that path, you might as well take the last step: add black and drop red.

There's little synergy between Terminus and lingering soul, why not just drop Terminus and be all the Esper Stoneblade can be?

Again, there're 4 versions of Miracles: punishing fire, snapcaster, legend-angel, and rip-helm. Miracle-blade has fallen and consequently become rare, since it's not even that good.

[Adryan]

Hi! I've playing this deck for quite a while on Magic Online, because i want to find the best possible Controldeck (I'm also playing with BUGstill and BUGloam).

Finally i've assembled the deck in real life and i really enjoy playing it and i really want Miracle to be the best Controldeck ( All BUG Control variants are losing to Burn, and i hate Burn), but i just can't stop the voice in my head that whispers that U/W Miracle is not better than BUG Control. I hope some of you guys can make that voice go away :) ^^


I'm playing the Oarsman list (with some minor changes not worth mentioning), because i don't like the HelmCombo version because it's clunky and i have to rage a lot when i play it.
I also think that Vendilion Clique is absolutely necessary to pressure an early Liliana. T2 Liliana or T3 Liliana on the draw is devastating and i always have Nightmares of Liliana when i play Miracle (Liliana is not a big threat against my BUG Control decks). Are there other SB options besides Celestial Purge and Pithing Needle? Or do you recommend some specific strategies against a T2/T3 Liliana i maybe did not recognize?


I also played this deck a lot against a really good and experienced D&T pilot on Magic Online. The matchup is tough but i have the feeling it's negative, which is quite suprising for me..... because can we really lose against Creature decks?
One thing the many games against D&T made me realize is that this deck can be really powerful with an active SDT, but without it sometimes feels underpowered and clunky. One option would be to reduce the number of Miracle cards, but i think playing less than two Entreat the Angels is not acceptable in a wide and open metagame. So many decks fair decks can't beat this card.

So i thought about adding 1-2 Ponders. Do you think cutting 1 Venser and 1 Counterbalance is worth the loss when you gain more consistency? I could also cut a land but i really don't want to waste Cantrips to dig for lands.

Any comment(s) would be highly appreciated.

[Dzra]

T2 Liliana or T3 Liliana on the draw is devastating and i always have Nightmares of Liliana when i play Miracle (Liliana is not a big threat against my BUG Control decks). Are there other SB options besides Celestial Purge and Pithing Needle?

Flash creatures are probably your best option against Liliana. Also, I've liked being able to Enlighten Tutor into a miser Leyline of Sanctity, which shuts down most of Liliana's relevant abilities.


I also played this deck a lot against a really good and experienced D&T pilot on Magic Online. The matchup is tough but i have the feeling it's negative, which is quite surprising for me..... because can we really lose against Creature decks?

While I wouldn't say I've played against any exceptional Death and Taxes players, I've played against the deck a number of times and don't find it terribly difficult. It is a lot about mana development and timing your Terminus or Entreat. They aren't a very fast deck and don't have any reach, so don't worry about taking some beats in order to set up the best Miracle you can.


One thing the many games against D&T made me realize is that this deck can be really powerful with an active SDT, but without it sometimes feels underpowered and clunky. One option would be to reduce the number of Miracle cards, but i think playing less than two Entreat the Angels is not acceptable in a wide and open metagame.

The Miracle cards are probably the best cards in the deck, right behind Top. I would and have been more inclined to add ways to find Top (ETutor) rather than cutting Miracles. A single Ponder isn't a bad idea either, but you don't want to clunk up your hands too much with random cantrips.

[somethingdotdotdot]

D&T is a pretty hard matchup without the punishing engine or some number of engineered explosives. The main problem is that their whole deck pretty much negates miracle's strategies. Its very common to see a mom+revoker on top, which basically neuters this deck since the deck is basically left with 3 terminus to deal with the board state (which become much harder to find without top).

D&T also ignores a large swath of the cards in this deck: pierce, counterbalance, counterspell, and fow if drawn too late. That's about 10 cards that are essentially dead.

From playing against my friend's D&T deck, the best card was basically engineered explosives and disenchant. EE on 1 was a great way to usually sweep a mom+vial and usually got me ahead enough to take control. Disenchant was just another answer to their vial and equipment which are both essential to their strategy. Another option would be engineered plague--it helps both of the terrible creature matchups: d&t and goblins.

[Polish Tamales]

Hey there, I've noticed oarsman on MTGO's been doing great in the dailies. Anyone got his stream channel name on Twitch?

I'd love to get his 2 cents in with Thassa.

[Aetherick]

Hey there, I've noticed oarsman on MTGO's been doing great in the dailies. Anyone got his stream channel name on Twitch?

I'd love to get his 2 cents in with Thassa.

http://www.twitch.tv/oarsman79

[Polish Tamales]

http://www.twitch.tv/oarsman79

Awesome! Thanks!

[Dzra]

D&T also ignores a large swath of the cards in this deck: pierce, counterbalance, counterspell, and fow if drawn too late. That's about 10 cards that are essentially dead.

I agree that EE is a great card against D&T, but I wouldn't say that Counterbalance and Counterspell are dead cards against them. D&T's big trump post-board is to Cataclysm us. I would definitely not board out all of my counter magic.

Counterbalance really isn't so bad either. They have only Mangara and ORing as a way to remove it. They have only 4 (sometimes 5) ways to get around it with Aether Vial and the occasional miser Cavern of Souls. Vial likely won't come down after Counterbalance, so you only have to Needle, remove, or bounce a Vial that landed before your Counterbalance. After that, a CMC 3 on top will most likely lock them out of the game.

Clique, Entreat, and ORing/DSphere all are 3 CMC and all happen to be very good against D&T.

[useL]

I agree that EE is a great card against D&T, but I wouldn't say that Counterbalance and Counterspell are dead cards against them. D&T's big trump post-board is to Cataclysm us. I would definitely not board out all of my counter magic.

Counterbalance really isn't so bad either. They have only Mangara and ORing as a way to remove it. They have only 4 (sometimes 5) ways to get around it with Aether Vial and the occasional miser Cavern of Souls. Vial likely won't come down aDont. Counterbalance, so you only have to Needle, remove, or bounce a Vial that landed before your Counterbalance. After that, a CMC 3 on top will most likely lock them out of the game.

Clique, Entreat, and ORing/DSphere all are 3 CMC and all happen to be very good against D&T.

Dont forget Blood Moon which also works wonders on their frail manabase och is a 3 cmc

[Einherjer]

I Top8-ed the Austrian Legacy Championship 2013 / Legacy Invitational. 29 people qualified themselves over the year, 25 turned up for the Final. I expected RUG + Combo to be the majority of the field, followed by Shardless at third place. I started my list with 4 RIP + 4 Balance cause it's good vs RUG/Combo. Then I added 4 Flusterstorm, cause those rock too against this two decks. In the process I cut red and the tutorbox (from my GP Strasbourg-list which still functions as a perfect deckbuilding-basis for me). Then I quadlazered all of this list and ended up with this:

//Lands
4 Tundra
5 Island
2 Plains
2 Karakas
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
//Quad
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Rest in Peace
4 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshaes
4 Terminus
//Stuff
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Helm of Obediance
//Sideboard
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Entreat the Angles
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Vendilion Clique

Swiss-Rounds:

1) 2-0 vs Sneak Attack (camera-feature-match)
2) 1-2 vs Deathblade and the eventual tournament winner and therefore Legacy Champion 2013 (camera-feature-match)
3) 2-0 vs TES
4) 2-0 vs Death and Taxes
5) ID

Top8)
0-2 vs Deathblade


Despite me not winning the title it was a good feeling to be back at Miracles, my true pet-deck since GP Ghent+Strasbourg :D I really liked the list, especially the Sideboard, which may be more useful for others than my pretty meta-tuned mainboard. I really liked 4 Balance and the Cliques. Starting to dislike Helm, a 4th Jace would have been better. Even though RIP didn't have a lot of options to shine at this very tournament I am still overly confident in playing 3+ of them. Flusterstorm was worth his gold.

Greetings

[useL]

Where can we watch the feature matches? Point us in the right direction please.

[Einherjer]

They are being uploaded right now - this process will probably be completed at Friday. I will post links as soon as all of the Championship is online.

Greetings

[Malakai]

Splashing vs. D&T gives you such hits as Dread of Night and Izzet Staticaster, both of which are easy to resolve against their manabase assault.

[phazonmutant]

Won $60 going 4-0 at CardKingdom's weekly. We got around 30 players this time. Lordofthepit was curious about my decklist, so thought I might as well post it and a brief recap on The Source.
I bought some alpha basic Plains in St. Louis on my way to Seattle, figured it was time to give them some love. Also the field seemed ripe for Miracles with a bunch of combo decks and few BG/x Decay decks and W/x hatebears decks.

My list is what I scrambled to put together in 10 minutes from memory of alphastryk's list. It's a bit budget, I only have 3 Flooded Strands and one Blood Moon from The Dark.
// 39 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ponder
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Spell Pierce
3 Counterbalance
3 Rest in Peace
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Blood Moon
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
3 Terminus

// 21 Lands
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Karakas

// Sideboard
1 Blood Moon
1 Pyroclasm
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling Mage
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
2 Flusterstorm

R1 - U/R Burn
Game 1 I finally stabilized at 1 life with CB-Top and Jace fatesealing. Game 2 I was so close to stabilizing, but couldn't find an answer to his top-decked Goblin Guide. Game 3 we went to time, but he conceeded to CB-Top, Jace, and Force, Pierce, Flusterstorm in hand with me at 7. Jace was boss, I had forgotten how fun he is.
1-0

R2 - Jund
Game 1 he wisely Thoughtseized my Enlightened Tutor after I led on Top, but I ripped another and set up a turn 3 Blood Moon. He unfortunately had the basic Forest to cast Goyf, Goyf, Bloodbraid, Deathrite over several turns. I Plowed Goyf, Forced Bloodbraid, then found RiP and eventually Helm to seal the game at 4 life. Game 2 he had a slow start but I was having trouble finding lands. I Purged his Liliana and dropped a couple RiPs but he had another. I Entreated for 2, he Decayed both then ultimated Lili, piling Island, Island, Plains in one, Mountain, RiP, RiP in the other. Obviously took the 3 lands. Found an O-Ring soon after, and eventually found my way into the third RiP and a Helm.
2-0

R3 - Canadian Thresh
Game 1 he was representing Stifle pretty hard so I led on a fetch to try to get him if he tapped out. He didn't, and he Wasted my next two land drops - Tundras. Fortunately he didn't have any pressure. I went for a Counterbalance, he Dazed. Went for the ambitious Rest in Peace on 2 lands, resolved. From there I had enough time to resolve Top, find lands, E-Tutor, and a Force. Decided to go for it with 5 lands in play, Force backup with me at 8 and 2 Mongeese on the board - good thing I did! He had Force, Daze, double Bolt in hand for lethal next turn. Game 2 I resolved a naked Counterbalance pretty early and accrued card advantage until I won with Helm / <irrelevant>.
3-0

R4 - Lordofthepit playing Elves
I thought he was on zoo, so I kept a hand with Brainstorm, Terminus, Terminus, and lands. Turns out he was on Elves. Yeah that hand is pretty good. Also Topped into the third Terminus like a champ. Elspeth + Jace + Counterbalance + Top won the game. Game 2 I brought in 2 more wraths. I Jaced him out I think. Not really relevant.
4-0

I had forgotten how sweet Miracles is. The Jund matchup felt very hard, I was lucky to escape alive. Quick Blood Moon is good, but not enough. I was very very happy to have the combo-kill as a way to just win out of nowhere against those decks with a lot of reach. I think I would play a second Pyroclasm over the Verdict though.

[SansSerif]

@ phazonmuant

Congratulations on the finish! I moved out of the Seattle area over a year ago and I miss Card Kingdom, but I am glad they still have a healthy legacy scene.

How does UWr Miracle fair in the Shardless BUG match-up?

While I currently play Shardless BUG, a lot of people in my meta are moving toward this deck and I do not like the idea of playing multiple mirror matches per tournament. My experience playing with Shardless BUG against Miracle Control is limited to the UW variety, but in those matchups, I felt like BUG is favored. If I were playing UWr Miracles with Blood Moon, REB, and Misdirection in the sideboard I am not so sure.

[twndomn]

Won $60 going 4-0 at CardKingdom's weekly. We got around 30 players this time. Lordofthepit was curious about my decklist, so thought I might as well post it and a brief recap on The Source.
I bought some alpha basic Plains in St. Louis on my way to Seattle, figured it was time to give them some love. Also the field seemed ripe for Miracles with a bunch of combo decks and few BG/x Decay decks and W/x hatebears decks.


// 21 Lands


I stop reading when I see the number 21, next to the word Lands. You should visit LV, apparently you've survived Wastelands and Stifles like they are nothing.

[lordofthepit]

Phazonmuant, thanks for the list.

I really like the Blood Moon and the Enlightened Tutor package (especially for cards like Rest in Peace and Canonist), although I also like various aspect of oarsman's build since it seems stronger against a resolved Liliana.

I am a bit concerned about the low counterspell count and the 21 lands, one of which is a basic Mountain, but I guess you can't have it all.

I might try running something similar one of these days. :-)

[thecrav]

@ phazonmuant
How does UWr Miracle fair in the Shardless BUG match-up?

While I currently play Shardless BUG, a lot of people in my meta are moving toward this deck and I do not like the idea of playing multiple mirror matches per tournament. My experience playing with Shardless BUG against Miracle Control is limited to the UW variety, but in those matchups, I felt like BUG is favored. If I were playing UWr Miracles with Blood Moon, REB, and Misdirection in the sideboard I am not so sure.

The matchup is certainly interesting.

The blood moon is obviously insane against Shardless as many lists are running zero basics. Combine that with RIP to negate their Deathrite, and they're just about out of ways to interact with you.

After that, it seems to be that their biggest threats are the ability to cascade and the hand distruption. A lot of that can be negated with stuff from your sideboard. Leyline of Sanctity stops all the discard except liliana. Rule of law stops them from being able to cascade (or do much of anything.

One other thing to keep in mind is that having a land on top of your deck isn't a bad thing in this case - revealing a 0 to counterbalance stops their Ancestral Recall for :0:

[lordofthepit]

I stop reading when I see the number 21, next to the word Lands. You should visit LV, apparently you've survived Wastelands and Stifles like they are nothing.

While you may be right about the land count as a weakness, I appreciate the time you took to pen this snarky message. When I first read phazonmuant's post, more than anything else, I was dying to know whether twndomn read the report.

[phazonmutant]

@ phazonmuant

Congratulations on the finish! I moved out of the Seattle area over a year ago and I miss Card Kingdom, but I am glad they still have a healthy legacy scene.

How does UWr Miracle fair in the Shardless BUG match-up?

While I currently play Shardless BUG, a lot of people in my meta are moving toward this deck and I do not like the idea of playing multiple mirror matches per tournament. My experience playing with Shardless BUG against Miracle Control is limited to the UW variety, but in those matchups, I felt like BUG is favored. If I were playing UWr Miracles with Blood Moon, REB, and Misdirection in the sideboard I am not so sure.

Thanks! We had this discussion a few pages ago, here's a little blurb:

I'm not the most experienced BUG Agent player, but I'm something like 75% against alphastryk when we've tested the matchup. The best two ways to win are Blood Moon if I tap out or an Entreat for 3+. Sometimes Jace gets there. Rest in Peace usually buys a few turns.

Seems like the only real plan is all Blood Moon, all the time

Haven't played against BUG Agent with Miracles, but I've played the other side. Seemed like everyone agreed it wasn't favorable and that Blood Moon is an acceptable plan, although not enough if you can't clear the board within a turn or two.



I really like the Blood Moon and the Enlightened Tutor package (especially for cards like Rest in Peace and Canonist), although I also like various aspect of oarsman's build since it seems stronger against a resolved Liliana.

Can't claim credit, alphastryk has rebuilt the deck in front of me so many times that I could (mostly) recreate it from memory. You're probably right that oarsman's build is better against a resolved Liliana, but I'm not sure that it's stronger overall, even in that matchup. Celestial Purge was sweet once, 2 copies aren't unreasonable, and Leyline of Sanctity as a 1-of isn't bad either. Also, RiP-Helm can kill them literally out of nowhere, and you can pretty easily catch them tapped out or force them to burn Decays on other hateful permanents. But I haven't played the deck nearly as much as most of the people in this thread, so those are just gut feels from playing against Miracles a lot and playing those matchups once or twice.



I stop reading when I see the number 21, next to the word Lands. You should visit LV, apparently you've survived Wastelands and Stifles like they are nothing.

4-0'ing a 30-man is pretty irrelevant as far as stastical or experiential significance goes. But if I remember right, you have never once even hinted that you've done well with the deck at any sort of tournament. I know for a fact that other people have called you out for being a parasite before. I would hardly describe you not reading my recap as heartbreaking.

[Lemnear]

Right after dismembering a few Grixis Delver, UBG Delvers and such last night in our LGS with tight play, Ponder and quadruple Entreat, I wonder why a lot of the available cheat-tools to secure landdrops don't make a comeback?

I'm a 100% sure I will shock my next tournament opponents with Land Tax + Path to Exile + 4 Entreat!

Woooooooo!!!

[twndomn]

4-0'ing a 30-man is pretty irrelevant as far as stastical or experiential significance goes. But if I remember right, you have never once even hinted that you've done well with the deck at any sort of tournament. I know for a fact that other people have called you out for being a parasite before. I would hardly describe you not reading my recap as heartbreaking.

If you pay me or give me some benefits, I might consider writing reports.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Right after dismembering a few Grixis Delver, UBG Delvers and such last night in our LGS with tight play, Ponder and quadruple Entreat, I wonder why a lot of the available cheat-tools to secure landdrops don't make a comeback?

I'm a 100% sure I will shock my next tournament opponents with Land Tax + Path to Exile + 4 Entreat!

Woooooooo!!!

You have my attention. Would you please elaborate? This is quite interesting....A sample build (not necessarily what you have going) would be a good start.

-ABC

[kingtk3]

...
R3 - Canadian Thresh
...
Decided to go for it with 5 lands in play, Force backup with me at 8 and 2 Mongeese on the board - good thing I did! He had Force, Daze, double Bolt in hand for lethal next turn.
...


I'm curious to know how the Canadian player played this.
If I were him I would assume you have some protection in hand and play to make you tap your last land to prevent you to go off this turn: therefore I would have played daze because even if you have FoW you would almost always pay 1, otherwise you would be dead to my FoW or spell pierce.
It's also legit since with this board state your only dead if I have double bolt with 4 cards, which is not as frequent as double counter.
If you pay for the daze then I have to draw a blue card to pitch for my FoW, so even if you have your FoW I can still win.

This plan is based on the canadian assuming you have fow and hoping to draw a blue card next turn, but I think it's the best strategy in this situation: what do you think?

[Lemnear]

You have my attention. Would you please elaborate? This is quite interesting....A sample build (not necessarily what you have going) would be a good start.

-ABC

I will give you more insight about the land-tax list after work.

For yesterday evening, I really enjoyed running 4 Ponder on 22 lands to secure landdrops, dig for Swords to Plowshares/Counterbalance and setup 2 Terminus / 4 Entreat.

I noticed the need to play off strong topdecks with all the massive discard in the metagame and if you constantly hit your landdrops (to foil Daze/Spell Pierce/Wasteland/Stifle) and play your deck off the top with SDT, Ponder and Brainstorm, most Tempo-archtypes (including Variants with Tombstalker and Goofy) cannot get a grip on the match or handle the confusion, if you flip over the roles in this matchup and suddenly play "Angel Stompy" with 1-2 Tokens against a single Delver, Tarmogoyf or Young Pyromancer.

Reid Duke once tried to make Land Tax work with Daze, but setting back yourself on lands was bad. If you want to run more Entreats I figured out that you want to do the opposite and picked up an interaction a local writer once mentioned aka using Path to Exile to either grant your opponent another Land to turn on the Land tax or make them refuse to find a land, turning PtE into an unconditional removal against fair decks and almost all tempo-variants (which usually don't run basics).

More to come.

[YamiJoey]

If you pay me or give me some benefits, I might consider writing reports.

I don't post on this thread often, but when I do it's to point and laugh at people.

I am currently thinking of upping myself to 10 Fetchlands. I currently play 4 Blue Fetches, 4 Strands, and a Mesa, alongside 4 Tundra, 1 Fortress, 1 Volc, 5 Island, 3 Plains, and a Karakas. Ditching a Tundra for another Misty etc. seems like it might work out well for me. I'm also interested in working in the Mountain from a previous list. Wasteland is less of an issue for me than it may be for some players and some decks, but when my opponent is playing them I always feel like my Blood Moon is actively trying to get me killed. I need to crack my Fetch, and if I don't get a Volc I have no Red for Blood Moon later on. If I do, they can just Waste it. Getting a Mountain would often solve some of these problems, but I would then be running an effectively colourless Land. Which is lame.

[useL]

If you pay me or give me some benefits, I might consider writing reports.

Can I pay you for not posting in this thread?

[Einherjer]

Can I pay you for not posting in this thread?

I'd be in too, we could create some kind of foundation...

On a more deckspecific topic: On how to approach Deathblade. I am talking of a more common build of Deathblade - 3-4 Force, no Geists, no Souls, Confidants.
My recent games got me thinking. My opponent was a better player than I am, that said but all the games were close, it was probably my fault only that I lost - or his fault for not misplaying a single bit :D
Anyways, how to approach this MU anyways... I think of Deathblade as another Deathrite Shaman Creature Deck. Jaces are their trumps but not their main winning condition. Following this points I board in all of the removal I have access to --> 4 Swords 4 Terminus plus the sideboarded Verdicts/or any other removal. Forces out, and probably Spell Pierce (from a more generic Miracle-List) too? But with cutting Spell Pierce you can't handle a hardcast Skull or a Jace any more? If I cut the cc1-counters I am certainly bringing in anti-bgx bombs like Blood Moon, Elspeth and Baneslayer. Going this route, 0 counterspells, enables us to handle their threats first, then establish either Balance-lock or drop big white Bombs onto the battlefield. Not bringing the bombs and keeping in Pierces forces us into a 100% reactive gameplan with balance+top as our only way to win, besides a big entreat. But there also is the (high) possibility that we are getting outclassed on the battlefield by creatures like Confi/mystic - we can't just counter / kill everything.
Postboard we might have to deal with Geist anyways, so more removal is needed here too.


To sum it up:
I am for boarding out all spellbased interaction and bring in all the white/red cards like Elspeth, Baneslayer, Blood Moon and more Entreat the Angles. Additionaly I opt for more removal against their creatures at the cost of only a few jace-specified answers like REB...

How are you doing it?

Greetings

[Lemnear]

@Einherjer

As I mentioned before, trying to keep up with all their discard on the sole back of Counterbalance (which is often dismembered by A.decays) is an uphill battle against discard.

I'll remove my counters (FoW, Pierce, Counterspell) for Path to Exile and Terminus out of the board with already 4 Entreat Main, taking full Profit from the Supreme Miracle-threats/solutions while blanking their discard.

[useL]

@Einherjer

I guess the battle is a bit different pending your 75. I would go +2 baneslayer, +1 wear//tear , +2 reb (jace is a dangerous card), +1 supreme verdict + 1 EE (one in main already), +1 blood moon. Then remove 9 cards, 3 fow, 2 pierce, 1 counterspell, 1 enlightened tutor (card disadvantage) and probably one ponder (running 2).

I have a feeling I will be leaning against going +2 misdirection in my sideboard within a few weeks and then those would be boarded in against abrupt decay maybe? They are so bad against the majority of a deathblade deck after they have sideboarded (they probably board out their discard if they know what they are doing)

[Lemnear]

What is the point about Baneslayer and Misdirection aside A.Decay, which I pretty much ignore ever and rather go aggro with Entreat, instead of sitting behind the balance for 10 turns. :/

[YamiJoey]

I love Misdirection. It does a lot to disrupt the decks we have problems with. Mainly Shardless. I don't like Baneslayer Angel at all. You know what I'd want to do with 5 mana? Make 3 Angels, not 1.

[alphastryk]

Good stuff phazonmuant. That's pretty darn close to where I'm at. I would recommend Wear // Tear over Disenchant these days though. ;)

I played in a 25-man SCG IQ this past Saturday, going 3-0-2 but losing in Top8 to Jund with the following list:


4 brainstorm
1 ponder
4 swords to plowshares
4 sensei's divining top
1 spell pierce
1 flusterstorm
2 enlightened tutor
2 counterbalance
1 counterspell
3 rest in peace
1 energy field
1 vendilion clique
2 entreat the angels
1 oblivion ring
3 jace, the mind sculptor
1 helm of obedience
4 force of will
3 terminus
2 tundra
1 volcanic island
1 karakas
4 scalding tarn
4 flooded strand
1 arid mesa
2 plains
1 mountain
5 island

sideboard:

1 Blood Moon
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Celestial Purge
1 Wear // Tear
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Meddling Mage
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Humility
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Pyroclasm
1 Leyline of Sanctity


Quick summary - re-added the field because I expected a lot of aggro at a store that doesn't usually have a lot of Legacy, pushed the moon to the board, tried a flusterstorm main which was great all day.
I'll try to post a report from that and possibly also from tonight's weekly when I get home tonight and can look at all of my notes.


Edit: In reference to certain people, there is a feature on this board that lets you ignore certain posters, hiding all the posts they make...

[twndomn]

1 oblivion ring


As much as you want to complain and whine, you are doing exactly what I've written pages back.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I will give you more insight about the land-tax list after work.

[...]

More to come.

Please Sir, I want some more...

Seriously though, I'm keen on this idea...

-ABC

[thecrav]

I'm a 100% sure I will shock my next tournament opponents with Land Tax + Path to Exile + 4 Entreat!


Playing Daze? Scroll Rack?

[Einherjer]

Where can we watch the feature matches? Point us in the right direction please.

Here is the link to the YouTube-Page of the store. As of now R1, R3 and R4 are up already. You can see me playing at R1 and R2 (which should be up somewhen soon, probably tomorrow). Enjoy, and if you catch anything you would have done differently, especially R2 let me know! The videos are called "08.09. Legacy Invitational..."

https://www.youtube.com/user/SpielRaumWien

Greetings

[Lemnear]

Please Sir, I want some more...

Seriously though, I'm keen on this idea...

-ABC

Lastest list:

4x Jace TMS
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterbalance
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Entreat the Angels
4x Path to Exile
3x Land Tax
4x Vendillion Clique
3x Terminus

2x Karakas
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
2x Plains
6x Island
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta


That's right, there are only FoW and Counterbalance as countersuite in the mainboard! I'm used to have 3 flusterstorm in the side among other goodies for combo. The Mainboard is made to battle Tempo decks and massive discard therefore I focused on solid mana and topdecks. Cliques are to assist Brainstorm in getting Miracles back into the deck, keeping Delver in check and to mess with Show&Tell and Infernal Tutor. The combination with Karakas is disgusting ;)

This deck is still in development and I might switch to Tithe instead of Land Tax for the immediate effect, but having free Ancestral Recalls off Land Tax (especially in combination with Brainstorm and Jace) made me trying to solve the mana issue with Tax first and Tithe in a second session after having played the deck with Ponder instead, but both white cards look more promising because of the cardadvantage tacked onto.

Keep you updated. I consider a red-splash

[Cipher]

On a more deck specific topic: On how to approach Deathblade. I am talking of a more common build of Deathblade - 3-4 Force, no Geists, no Souls, Confidants.
My recent games got me thinking. My opponent was a better player than I am, that said but all the games were close, it was probably my fault only that I lost - or his fault for not misplaying a single bit :D
Anyways, how to approach this MU anyways... I think of Deathblade as another Deathrite Shaman Creature Deck. Jaces are their trumps but not their main winning condition. Following this points I board in all of the removal I have access to --> 4 Swords 4 Terminus plus the sideboarded Verdicts/or any other removal. Forces out, and probably Spell Pierce (from a more generic Miracle-List) too? But with cutting Spell Pierce you can't handle a hardcast Skull or a Jace any more? If I cut the cc1-counters I am certainly bringing in anti-bgx bombs like Blood Moon, Elspeth and Baneslayer. Going this route, 0 counterspells, enables us to handle their threats first, then establish either Balance-lock or drop big white Bombs onto the battlefield. Not bringing the bombs and keeping in Pierces forces us into a 100% reactive gameplan with balance+top as our only way to win, besides a big entreat. But there also is the (high) possibility that we are getting outclassed on the battlefield by creatures like Confi/mystic - we can't just counter / kill everything.
Postboard we might have to deal with Geist anyways, so more removal is needed here too.


To sum it up:
I am for boarding out all spellbased interaction and bring in all the white/red cards like Elspeth, Baneslayer, Blood Moon and more Entreat the Angles. Additionaly I opt for more removal against their creatures at the cost of only a few jace-specified answers like REB...

How are you doing it?

Greetings
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/56918

How good is Counterbalance against these BGx decks, anyway? 2 is the hardest CMC to hit off Counterbalance, and that's the number for most of their threats. If you're going to windmill slam permanents, would spell pierce not help better than Counterbalance? Maybe Force of Will, even? I guess Counterbalance just seems best to me in matchups where Top is going to lock them out of their deck (cantrip-combo) or where things are so slow that you'll invariably get it set up and utilize brainstorm to stack your deck (mirrors, UW, etc.).

You did say yourself that you were focused on their creatures, not their spells.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

As just previously mentioned to your post, why not play one or maybe two Scroll Rack? Grab your lands, Scroll Rack them back in, shuffle effect, wash, rinse, repeat for insane card advantage? Works well in conjunction to Top. I don't know if I agree with a couple of the 4-ofs, namely Jace and Entreat. I understand both choices, but I think for myself I would play them both as a 3-of, and a singleton Entreat in the board. If it's about synergy, I think Scroll Rack hits that word on the head in this build. I really like it. This looks like fun.

-ABC

EDIT::: Scroll Rack is also a good choice against heavy discard builds, at least in my experience. Between Top and Rack alongside heavy basics, you stand a good chance to lose nothing of any value.

[useL]

I love Misdirection. It does a lot to disrupt the decks we have problems with. Mainly Shardless. I don't like Baneslayer Angel at all. You know what I'd want to do with 5 mana? Make 3 Angels, not 1.

Most decks with abrupt decay or swords to plowshares as their dedicated removal cant handle a baneslayer. Baneslayer also blocks things that gets thrown against you with jitte on, takes care of griselbrand, gives you life and can be cast around gaddock teeg, thalia and other annoying sorceryhating stuff. They are also a fast clock once online and I usually side them in against decks that tend to not be able to handle them at all. Ofc they are bad against decks that rely on jace or liliana as their line of defense.

[YamiJoey]

Lastest list:

4x Jace TMS
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterbalance
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Entreat the Angels
4x Path to Exile
3x Land Tax
4x Vendillion Clique
3x Terminus

2x Karakas
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
2x Plains
6x Island
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta


That's right, there are only FoW and Counterbalance as countersuite in the mainboard! I'm used to have 3 flusterstorm in the side among other goodies for combo. The Mainboard is made to battle Tempo decks and massive discard therefore I focused on solid mana and topdecks. Cliques are to assist Brainstorm in getting Miracles back into the deck, keeping Delver in check and to mess with Show&Tell and Infernal Tutor. The combination with Karakas is disgusting ;)

This deck is still in development and I might switch to Tithe instead of Land Tax for the immediate effect, but having free Ancestral Recalls off Land Tax (especially in combination with Brainstorm and Jace) made me trying to solve the mana issue with Tax first and Tithe in a second session after having played the deck with Ponder instead, but both white cards look more promising because of the cardadvantage tacked onto.

Keep you updated. I consider a red-splash



Tithe seems generally worse. 1-mana combos into a draw 2 is mostly fine, but it basically costs you 2-mana, and a fairly specific suite of cards. It doesn't seem all that strong. I like having Land Tax to do stupid stuff, but it feels like once you et into the position where these cards are good you should be onto the 'Finding a way to kill you' plan, rather than getting a random +1.

[Dzra]

It doesn't really seem like the format is in a good place for Land Tax + value sorts of plays. The last SCG top 8 was Elves, Reanimator, Sneak and Show, Goblins, TES, Maverick, Dredge, and Team Italia (plus Deathrite). Nowhere in that list do I feel the need to durdle and eek out value. I'm not saying Land Tax is bad... but until the format slows waaay down, that isn't where I'd want to be.

[Lemnear]

As just previously mentioned to your post, why not play one or maybe two Scroll Rack? Grab your lands, Scroll Rack them back in, shuffle effect, wash, rinse, repeat for insane card advantage? Works well in conjunction to Top. I don't know if I agree with a couple of the 4-ofs, namely Jace and Entreat. I understand both choices, but I think for myself I would play them both as a 3-of, and a singleton Entreat in the board. If it's about synergy, I think Scroll Rack hits that word on the head in this build. I really like it. This looks like fun.

-ABC

EDIT::: Scroll Rack is also a good choice against heavy discard builds, at least in my experience. Between Top and Rack alongside heavy basics, you stand a good chance to lose nothing of any value.

I will test the Racks in some of the Clique spots.

@Dzra
Tbh, playing with 3-4 RIP + 2 card-disadvantage-tutors + random "toolbox" is by far more durdling than Tax & Tithe in regards to most of your mentioned decks like Elves, TES, OmniTell or even Goblins. RIP are nearly worthless here.


@YamiJoey
Why is Tithe a 2-mana-card? Why should an unconditional 1cc card needs a "specific suit of cards"? Tithe and Tax are awesome early to secure that you even make it to 4+ lands and being able to drop your finishers. Why do you think I'm on 4 Entreat atm, if I wouldn't want to find a finisher asap as I have access to 4+ lands then? Do you want to tell me that 1cc cards which can create cardadvantage, make up for mulligans and fight Manadenial and Discard aren't worth testing? Your post, especially the part about "Tithe and Tax are only good in situations in which you rather want an Entreat" doesn't make any sense to me

[Dzra]

@Dzra
Tbh, playing with 3-4 RIP + 2 card-disadvantage-tutors + random "toolbox" is by far more durdling than Tax & Tithe in regards to most of your mentioned decks like Elves, TES, OmniTell or even Goblins. RIP are nearly worthless here.

I'll concede that perhaps I'm underestimating the value of Land Tax in making an earlier, more consistent Entreat, but it just seems like Top or even more Ponders already accomplishes that in a tighter way. Also, RIP into Helm definitely doesn't qualify as durdling (especially when your opponent has no Abrupt Decays to disrupt you). It might not be the best option for every field, but a potential T5 kill is pretty fast for a heavy control deck like Miracles. That isn't to say that I disagree with all your Entreats. I love Entreat.

[Lemnear]

I'll concede that perhaps I'm underestimating the value of Land Tax in making an earlier, more consistent Entreat, but it just seems like Top or even more Ponders already accomplishes that in a tighter way. Also, RIP into Helm definitely doesn't qualify as durdling (especially when your opponent has no Abrupt Decays to disrupt you). It might not be the best option for every field, but a potential T5 kill is pretty fast for a heavy control deck like Miracles. That isn't to say that I disagree with all your Entreats. I love Entreat.

The idea still needs a lot of testing and possibly that I come back to the secured mana of Tithe or Ponder, which I played before, but I just wanted to revisit the idea which was previously dropped because of the focus on Counterbalance and Daze which turned out questionable.

[phazonmutant]

Lastest list:

4x Jace TMS
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterbalance
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Entreat the Angels
4x Path to Exile
3x Land Tax
4x Vendillion Clique
3x Terminus

2x Karakas
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
2x Plains
6x Island
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta

Interesting to see the direction you went with the deck. Looks like a reasonable extension of Carsten's plan of all Entreats all the time. Other people have already mentioned the things that I had issues with (Cliques, Tax) so I'll just say thanks for posting. Something to try out.



Quick summary - re-added the field because I expected a lot of aggro at a store that doesn't usually have a lot of Legacy, pushed the moon to the board, tried a flusterstorm main which was great all day.
I'll try to post a report from that and possibly also from tonight's weekly when I get home tonight and can look at all of my notes.

Oh! I completely forgot about EField. Now that I think about it though, not sure when I ever would have wanted it. It's another bomb against Thresh I guess, but seems like Blood Moon is more widely applicable right now. I'll have to try the Flusterstorm main. You're really not a fan of Counterbalance, are you?



I'm curious to know how the Canadian player played this.
If I were him I would assume you have some protection in hand and play to make you tap your last land to prevent you to go off this turn: therefore I would have played daze because even if you have FoW you would almost always pay 1, otherwise you would be dead to my FoW or spell pierce.
It's also legit since with this board state your only dead if I have double bolt with 4 cards, which is not as frequent as double counter.
If you pay for the daze then I have to draw a blue card to pitch for my FoW, so even if you have your FoW I can still win.

This plan is based on the canadian assuming you have fow and hoping to draw a blue card next turn, but I think it's the best strategy in this situation: what do you think?

I guess I should give some more detail about the scenario: I'd had RiP and Top in play for a couple turns as well as a fetch. He had 4 cards in hand and I had Force, REB, and an E-Tutor in hand. I decided to go for it, so tapped Top to draw a Brainstorm, cracked the fetch, tutored. He let it resolve pretty quickly, found Helm. He kinda grimaced so I slammed Helm with a Mountain up - I'm pretty sure that I'd been representing REB for a few turns, but it can be hard to tell with Miracles. So that's the scenario. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure after the game he showed me one Bolt and a land in his hand and flipped the top card and it was a Bolt, so he didn't necessarily know that he had lethal.

I agree that it's a reasonable play to just Daze and hope that I pay since I'm likely to have some protection considering I shuffled my Top. On my side, if he did that I think I'm locked into Forcing any counterspell, even Daze, because I have to play around double Bolt. If he has a tax + Force + a U card + Bolt and topdeck Bolt then I can't win with my line, but otherwise he doesn't have enough cards for 2 counters and also lethal.

[Lemnear]

Hmmmmm ... the Land Tax won't make it into the second round of testing ... it's pretty lackluster against decks that operate on a low landcount and compared with Tithe I often had to end a turn without a landdrop running Tax while Tithe would have given me the landdrop. I'll continue with Tithe from here ...

The moment you get Tax + Rack going, you have already control over the game. Chopped it after 8 games

[YamiJoey]

I will test the Racks in some of the Clique spots.

@Dzra
Tbh, playing with 3-4 RIP + 2 card-disadvantage-tutors + random "toolbox" is by far more durdling than Tax & Tithe in regards to most of your mentioned decks like Elves, TES, OmniTell or even Goblins. RIP are nearly worthless here.


@YamiJoey
Why is Tithe a 2-mana-card? Why should an unconditional 1cc card needs a "specific suit of cards"? Tithe and Tax are awesome early to secure that you even make it to 4+ lands and being able to drop your finishers. Why do you think I'm on 4 Entreat atm, if I wouldn't want to find a finisher asap as I have access to 4+ lands then? Do you want to tell me that 1cc cards which can create cardadvantage, make up for mulligans and fight Manadenial and Discard aren't worth testing? Your post, especially the part about "Tithe and Tax are only good in situations in which you rather want an Entreat" doesn't make any sense to me

I agree that it's fine on a mull, but I find myself rarely mulliganing with this deck, whatever I'm playing against (unknown or otherwise) so I find that a moot point. If you want to be using Land Tax/Tithe plays early on, you MUST have a Brainstorm and Fetch, or else you are just adding Lands, which isn't getting you anywhere if your opening Spells consist of Tithe and RiP or blind CB and they just make guy into yet more guys. I don't really feel like we need to have "Add some lands" in a deck that plays fifteen cards that see the next three cards in your deck at a bare minimum. I'd rather play either Ponder, or more Fetches to make my Tops and Storms slightly more efficient.

As has been mentioned, I don't see why we want to add more stuff to just do for the sake of doing. Against some decks it's really bad and you'll take it out, and against the decks where we have that time - short of the mirror match -we just don't need it. I agree that in the mirror it's probably excellent, but then again Path isn't exactly stellar in those matches, and they will thank you for the Land and probably the shuffle effect if you do happen to hit their Clique etc. I'd rather make yet more angels, and establish one of the various combos. It's not like they're going to be packing Blood Moon in G2.

If you're playing 4 Entreats I'd rather just play more Cantrips and 24 Lands. I think the build I have is very prepared for Entreats, and I may look into finding room for additional ones, but generating lands isn't what I'm after as a part of that. I would love to say "Land Tax is the shit here", as it's totally my card and could've designed it as an invitational, but we just don't need it. I'd rather play Ponders in those slots. Unless you go all in on it end up playing 4 Top, 4 BS, 4 Ponder, 3 CB, 4 Entreat, 4 Terminus, X Land Tax/Tithe, X Rack, and just play to either CounterLock people, or just multiple sweepers/StP's into an Entreat for 4 guys. "You can't win" into "Angels" seems like a decktype all of its own, and I like Land Tax in that strategy, but I feel it's a different plan, and I don't feel like it's better than what we are already doing by just playing some Entreats in an Enchantments-Lock deck.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

To be sure, you say you dropped Scroll Rack, Land Tax, or both?

-ABC

[Lemnear]

To be sure, you say you dropped Scroll Rack, Land Tax, or both?

-ABC

Both. Tricks with Tithe and Fetchlands are insane

[Lans89]

Have you guys seen the Italian lists? They don't play Counterbalance but Miracles wins a lot of events overthere.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11682&iddeck=85509

[Lemnear]

Have you guys seen the Italian lists? They don't play Counterbalance but Miracles wins a lot of events overthere.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11682&iddeck=85509

We've tested with such lists yesterday and lemme tell you, that you lose against too many crap without balance (like Burn.dec, Zoo, Elves, storm, belcher, etc) because you have no way to create cardadvantage aside Jace and simply are too slow

[survival]

Hi guys, I'm new to this deck and I'm gonna try it in a local medium sized tournament on saturday so if you guys could give me your opinion on my list it'd be greatly appreciated.


UNCLE SAM miracles

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

4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
1 detention sphere
1 rest in peace
1 engineered explosives

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
2 enlightned tutor
1 ponder

3 Terminus
3 Entreat the Angels

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard
3 leyline of sanctity
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 supreme verdict
1 enlightned tutor
1 batterskull
1 pithing needle
1 blood moon
1 ethersworn canonist
1 humility
1 oblivion ring
1 counterbalance


also, how is the match-up against deathblade?

[klaus]

We've tested with such lists yesterday and lemme tell you, that you lose against too many crap without balance (like Burn.dec, Zoo, Elves, storm, belcher, etc) because you have no way to create cardadvantage aside Jace and simply are too slow

EE, Terminus, Snapcaster, and Crucible (though this inclusion is debatable) are still CA spells.
Actually I like the idea of blanking opposing Decays by excluding CB.

Tempo is a complex matter, but from my personal standpoint I wouldn't say the inclusion of CB makes up for us being slow, plus it's seems you're missing the fact that those Italian guys upped the amount of cheap counter spells (Pierce & Snare). I could totally see this working especially alongside 3/4 EtAs. Finally two top8s (one of them winning the event) in a nearly 200 player competition is nothing to sneeze at.
I have been a bit unhappy with CBs performance lately anyway, so I'll gladly give this approach a spin and see out it fares. :)

[Zllig]

EE, Terminus, Snapcaster, and Crucible (though this inclusion is debatable) are still CA spells.
Actually I like the idea of blanking opposing Decays by excluding CB.

Tempo is a complex matter, but from my personal standpoint I wouldn't say the inclusion of CB makes up for us being slow, plus it's seems you're missing the fact that those Italian guys upped the amount of cheap counter spells (Pierce & Snare). I could totally see this working especially alongside 3/4 EtAs. Finally two top8s (one of them winning the event) in a nearly 200 player competition is nothing to sneeze at.
I have been a bit unhappy with CBs performance lately anyway, so I'll gladly give this approach a spin and see out it fares. :)

Ive tried out not playing Counterbalance in the main to blank Abrupt Decay, I replaced them with Standstills to try and get some hard CA in the deck. It did not turn out very well, Counterbalance is so good against so many decks that it doesn't warrant trying to blank a few cards out of a couple of decks. Maybe playing more action cards versus Standstill will warrant the exclusion, but I'm not convinced.

[twndomn]

Tempo is a complex matter, but from my personal standpoint I wouldn't say the inclusion of CB makes up for us being slow, plus it's seems you're missing the fact that those Italian guys upped the amount of cheap counter spells (Pierce & Snare). I could totally see this working especially alongside 3/4 EtAs. Finally two top8s (one of them winning the event) in a nearly 200 player competition is nothing to sneeze at.
I have been a bit unhappy with CBs performance lately anyway, so I'll gladly give this approach a spin and see out it fares. :)

no.., don't. It's hard match-up for sure. However, just watch some of Oarsman's archived videos on his stream, you'll notice a thing or two regarding these match-ups. I'm pretty sure he has CB in there, even in SB games.

[Polish Tamales]

no.., don't. It's hard match-up for sure. However, just watch some of Oarsman's archived videos on his stream, you'll notice a thing or two regarding these match-ups. I'm pretty sure he has CB in there, even in SB games.

His videos are very valuable. I've learned more watching his streams than any article on SCG/CFB/ETC. Oarsman's choice for double EE is sound in so many match ups, I haven't regretted it since adding more to the SB.

Also, has anyone here tried testing Chandra, Pyromaster in the SB? I've tested a few games with her and I'm pretty happy with the options she gives mid-game, especially with Top in play.

[YamiJoey]

Chandra is my new fourth Jace. Not tested her, but that's one of the best ideas I've heard for this deck.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

So...You must have some uses in mind, scenarios where she will be better than Jace and serve relevant purposes. I suppose the +1 does do quite a bit, taking out Cliques, Snappy, Bob, Lavamancer, Y. Pyromancer, and more. The 0 ability looks odd. How exactly is that helpful? I don't really understand. The final ability is...good, but to what capacity in this deck, I am uncertain as your win conditions are nixed as options. What else would you possibly want? Are you going to use a 4cmc planeswalker as a 1-of just for something Punishing Fire typically does better? I mean, granted you have to worry about wasteland. I guess what I'm trying to say in all this is, how is it a better option than JtMS number 4 or Elspeth #1...

-ABC

[Aetherick]

@ chandra discussion. Her +0 lets you get through those lands that are stuck on top of your deck (with top putting it in the right position). However, jace also does this with scry (albeit without actually getting the land) and it ramps him up to a wincon.

Double red on chandra also seems pretty loose considering most miracle mana bases are just a splash for 2 (wastelandable) volcanics.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I have been enjoying Tithe as a way to not fumble over the land issue, but I can see where you are coming from there. I fully agree with the double-red problem (aetherick), and think that's the main setback of Chandra's playability. I can overlook the fact that Jace doesn't net me the land when I have the option of manipulating my opponents library and draw as well as my own.

-ABC

[Polish Tamales]

My Miracles list uses a single mountain (something I picked up from playing Modern) as one of he basic land package, including the 2 Volcanics. While it does feel a bit spotty and Oarsman has pointed this out in his streams a lot (double red being a pain for SB options), it is possible without screwing up the mana base that much. My SB consists of Humility/Blood Moon, so this could be a thing since I have an Enlightened tutor main. Decent option for toolbox SB set ups, could be?

I dunno, the new Chandra seems to do a decent job clearing the board and providing options afterwards, especially after a Terminus.

[Lemnear]

My Miracles list uses a single mountain (something I picked up from playing Modern) as one of he basic land package, including the 2 Volcanics. While it does feel a bit spotty and Oarsman has pointed this out in his streams a lot (double red being a pain for SB options), it is possible without screwing up the mana base that much. My SB consists of Humility/Blood Moon, so this could be a thing since I have an Enlightened tutor main. Decent option for toolbox SB set ups, could be?

I dunno, the new Chandra seems to do a decent job clearing the board and providing options afterwards, especially after a Terminus.

How is chandra better than Jace after a Terminus? Because IF the opponent drops x/1 creatures? Please...

I feel that you guys miss the whole Chokepoint about Miracles: Getting 4-5 mana asap to setup Jace, Terminus and Entreat while blanking the tempo counters and manadenial in the meta! Discussing options past the 4-5 mana barrier like Elspeth, Chandra, Helm, Baneslayer is pretty pointless imo. Tithe has been awesome in regards to ensure the first 3-5 landdrops, drop a Jace/cast Brainstorm to setup your Miracles and just win the game

[Polish Tamales]

How is chandra better than Jace after a Terminus? Because IF the opponent drops x/1 creatures? Please...

I feel that you guys miss the whole Chokepoint about Miracles: Getting 4-5 mana asap to setup Jace, Terminus and Entreat while blanking the tempo counters and manadenial in the meta! Discussing options past the 4-5 mana barrier like Elspeth, Chandra, Helm, Baneslayer is pretty pointless imo. Tithe has been awesome in regards to ensure the first 3-5 landdrops, drop a Jace/cast Brainstorm to setup your Miracles and just win the game

Funny, that never really happens in real games. Just saying. I've watched enough Oarsman streams to know it's never that simple, otherwise he'd be 4-0 every time. I haven't found games to be straight forward and simple like that.

As for the Chandra slot, it's more of a SB slot, not the MB slot. Not sure how you would adamantly feel it's competing against a MB Jace slot when I never stated so. I'm just running through the MTGO dailies to see the results of Miracles, and there seems to be a few slots in the SB that gives the deck wider options. I'm pretty happy with my current SB, but I'm just running through other options given how Young Pyromancer could be the next big thing. Here's the SB list I'm using atm:

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Flusterstorm
1 Divert
1 Wear//Tear
3 Pyroblast
1 Rest in Peace
1 Blood Moon
1 Humility
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Terminus (This is the slot currently in discussion, which would be Chandra)

There's an Enlightened Tutor in the MB to fetch the specific hosers from the SB. So, would a slot in the SB against a meta full of x/1s be best with either Izzet Staticaster, Terminus, Pyroclasm, Supreme Verdict, etc.

[Lemnear]

1) Did you just take "MTGO" to describe "real games"?

2) Given that we are discussing 4cc-boms out of the SB it's inevitable to compare it to Jace and I don't see how Chandra advances your gameplan in any state where a wide range of other options isn't clearly better.

3) How does Humility make sense in a deck that opts to kill with 4/4 flying Angels? Moat is a million times better...

4) "Funny" is that you take "an Enlightend Tutor in the MB" to justify running an enchantment/Artifact toolbox in the SB

[twndomn]

Lemnear 0 - Polish Tamales 1

1) Did you just take "MTGO" to describe "real games"?
How about Oarsman's SCG Open recordings? Is that good enough for you?

2) 3) 4)
"Funny, that never really happens in real games. Just saying. I've watched enough Oarsman streams to know it's never that simple, otherwise he'd be 4-0 every time. I haven't found games to be straight forward and simple like that." Polish Tamales has already answered that.

[Eternal]

I think really Miracle's list need to drop counterbalance lock.

Just watching on that event http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=5637&d=232677 : 2 Miracle top 8 and 0 counterbalance.

The card is bad versus decay/vial.dec. The right place for CB is in sideboard now : like Raphael Lévy did it at GP strasbourg.

What do you think about that ?

[Lemnear]

Lemnear 0 - Polish Tamales 1

1) Did you just take "MTGO" to describe "real games"?
How about Oarsman's SCG Open recordings? Is that good enough for you?

2) 3) 4)
"Funny, that never really happens in real games. Just saying. I've watched enough Oarsman streams to know it's never that simple, otherwise he'd be 4-0 every time. I haven't found games to be straight forward and simple like that." Polish Tamales has already answered that.

Oh, did Oarsman run Chandra and dropped a line about Humility during the stream? Never heared that watching Bryant Cook makes you an TES expert at itself...


@no Counterbalance
You'll just loose to storm, Burn, Zoo and other crap. Getting CB decayed is only a problem of you try to be the Hardcore-control-deck without a way to swing the pendulum

[Polish Tamales]

1) Did you just take "MTGO" to describe "real games"?

2) Given that we are discussing 4cc-boms out of the SB it's inevitable to compare it to Jace and I don't see how Chandra advances your gameplan in any state where a wide range of other options isn't clearly better.

3) How does Humility make sense in a deck that opts to kill with 4/4 flying Angels? Moat is a million times better...

4) "Funny" is that you take "an Enlightend Tutor in the MB" to justify running an enchantment/Artifact toolbox in the SB


Yo, I didn't post here for a dick measuring contest. Back off, especially with this Min/Max bullshit when we all know there's several builds for this deck and there hasn't been a finalized list everyone agrees upon to net deck.

Sides your rep as a Storm player... what is your rep exactly? Right, a local Storm player in Europe. Ok, Cause Reid Duke started off in MTGO and look where he is now. A lot of pro players use MTGO as a testing grounds, so I wouldn't exactly talk shit about the community there.

[YamiJoey]

Yo, I didn't post here for a dick measuring contest. Back off, especially with this Min/Max bullshit when we all know there's several builds for this deck and there hasn't been a finalized list everyone agrees upon to net deck.

Sides your rep as a Storm player... what is your rep exactly? Right, a local Storm player in Europe. Ok, Cause Reid Duke started off in MTGO and look where he is now. A lot of pro players use MTGO as a testing grounds, so I wouldn't exactly talk shit about the community there.

Reid Duke didn't make his name in a format that is comletely warped and almost non-existent on MTGO.

[Polish Tamales]

Reid Duke didn't make his name in a format that is comletely warped and almost non-existent on MTGO.

He got his start there with the basics and deck building theories. He does have decent runs here in the states when he does brew Legacy lists for SCG events, streaming on MTGO and articles, so I wouldn't discredit a player with strong fundamentals in most sanctioned formats that includes Standard/Modern/Legacy, something not many people here in the forums can say.

As for Legacy's lack of presence on MTGO, it's a smaller community than say some parts of Europe and folks in the Mid-East in the States, but there's more higher level players there than your typical first round opponent at an SCG event.

[Jimp]

On the topic of Land Tax + Scroll Rack, LSV recently posted a series of videos where he plays a UWb Tax-Rack style Miracles deck on MTGO:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL04lbfeNAaS-EAZxqaK86xSgCiwVj2PWs
The decklist seemed pretty bad, but the Tax-Rack engine was impressive at times. At the end of the series though it seems that the deck wasn't as strong as a regular UWx Miracles deck, but possibly worth testing 1-5 slots in an Enlightened Tutor build. What does everyone else think?

[Polish Tamales]

On the topic of Land Tax + Scroll Rack, LSV recently posted a series of videos where he plays a UWb Tax-Rack style Miracles deck on MTGO:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL04lbfeNAaS-EAZxqaK86xSgCiwVj2PWs
The decklist seemed pretty bad, but the Tax-Rack engine was impressive at times. At the end of the series though it seems that the deck wasn't as strong as a regular UWx Miracles deck, but possibly worth testing 1-5 slots in an Enlightened Tutor build. What does everyone else think?

It's difficult to say. It's really slow to set up from the videos. I'm not sure how his games will be against more aggressive lists, but once he gets where he wants, it locks up the game most of the time.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I didn't like his playstyle. It didn't exactly speak to get control, win game. He durdled around a lot more than I think I would have in his place. He didn't even recognize the uses of Daze within the build right at first. Anyone besides Lemnear testing Tithe? How's that going for ya, Lem? Still good results, or has it plateau'ed?

-ABC

[YamiJoey]

Moving on; I've recently upped to my additional Fetchland, and I'm loving it. After having some more practice against Maverick so I can learn to play around Thalia, I realised just how good Teeg was against us. I always assumed it was just annoying, but it's game-breaking. Especially with the Mum he had out at the time. I may look into playong a second Karakas somewhere. If I do, then I might want to find room for some Cliques to help with the combo MU, too. (And against some slower decks it's just sweet to pick a dead Top with them.)

I've also cut back to 4 FoW main, and just the 1 Misdirection in the board, but I'm still not sure about any of it. Against Decay I want two MD's, but against everything else I hate them, and I'm just running out of room in the board at this point.

Also I'm currently playing Ethersworn Canonist as a Storm disruptor. Should there be another card I am aware of, because it seems pretty loose?

[bjholmes3]

As for Cannonist, other things Storm hates that this deck runs are CB (obviously), RiP, Flusterstorm, Mindbreak Trap (this one gets a lot of flak, mainly because it's usefulness is limited). I don't know how helpful this is, but just in case, you know?

Oh yeah, hang on to your Brainstorms, too. They save you from discard and stuff. Also, if I had a dollar for every time someone BSed into a FoW when I tried to combo off in desperation, I'd have enough to buy one of my very own.

[Lemnear]

The ridiculousness ends here. Why am I not surprised that a guy from Paris and a German guy quoting a European tournament result and worshipping another European named Levy?

You European Miracle players cut corners, that's a fact. You guys cheat. You completely ditched Rest in Peace, try to join the bandwagon of graveyard utilization by Snapcaster Mage. Some of Europeans cheat less by having RiP in the SB, but the info you posted had 1 Relic, O-N-E. Yes, in a smaller localized meta filled with non-dredge combo decks, Snapcaster is fine. However, stop applying that as the universal truth, when clearly lots of people don't care what's going on in your European cities.

Then, you two Europeans again try to use the same fallacy on Counterbalance.

I am not dismissing Levy or that Biava guy blindly. I am sure they've made some intelligent choices based on their local meta, arriving at the conclusion that Snapcaster is a go and Counterbalnce is no-go, as his approach to his LGS. You two are parading your European builds way out of proportion. At your rate, you might as well evangelize your European builds on TV, type Spanish or French in other European Legacy websites or something.

I expect you to talk about Klaus as "german guy" here, because I wasn't ever talking about Euro tournaments, Levy or to ditch Counterbalance.

I'll ignore the whole trans-atlantic-hate nonsense here and don't think that Snapcaster is still a valid option in Miracles with all the RIP, DRS and Ooze in the metagame blanking it. I, for myself only run RIP in the side and cut all the Enlightend Tutor stuff because I had recurring issues with the card disadvantage and the still questionable toolbox-characteristics. RIP in MB is a metagame decision which isn't fitting for the current metagame I face.

Get a grip on yourself.


I didn't like his playstyle. It didn't exactly speak to get control, win game. He durdled around a lot more than I think I would have in his place. He didn't even recognize the uses of Daze within the build right at first. Anyone besides Lemnear testing Tithe? How's that going for ya, Lem? Still good results, or has it plateau'ed?

-ABC

Tax + Rack was a lot of durdling as I tested it myself. To make it short: It's slow as hell and I noticed that you can't afford skipping landdrops or such just to turn on Land Tax aside the fact, that Tax is too easy to manipulate from your opponents. Tithe however takes much less slots and is really filthy with fetchlands if you crack those, keep priority and play Tithe in response digging up 2 Tundras or Plains near every fucking time without meaningful restrictions for pure cardadvantage

If you are not that greedy (against Daze 4 example) it still ups my Virtual landcount and ensures that I don't miss my first 4-5 landdrops, therefore I made those bold Statements about dropping Jace (you are able to ignore most taxing counters with that flurry of lands) and setting up quadruple Entreat to go stompy against almost all non-combo decks. For combo I still have the Counterbalance MB and to catch removal for Jace/Angels while locking out decks like Elves, RUG Delver and more.

I upped the count of Entreats because Counterbalance isn't able to control the game endless because of A.Decay and the more various manacosts of threats in the meta. You can't catch every Tarmogoyf, SFM, KotR or Clique even if you have Counterbalance + SDT active ... that's a sad fact, but I try to become less dependent on CB. I often see my Balance decayed eot and my opponents dropping Tarmogoyf, but rarely care if I make an Army of Angels in his end-step ;)



Edit: stacking SDT's mana-ability, then fetchland, next Tithe and finally SDT's draw ability is an insane interaction to get rid of additional Tops for value

[Dzra]

Also I'm currently playing Ethersworn Canonist as a Storm disruptor. Should there be another card I am aware of, because it seems pretty loose?

Canonist really shines with Etutor as it is a proactive thing to Tutor for that is likely better than blind flipping Counterbalance against combo. Against Storm and Omnitell, it can buy you the time you need to either assemble Counterbalance + Top or Venser + Karakas, as either of those are pretty much hard locks with Canonist.

Also, I don't think dropping Counterbalance is anything close to a good idea. Counterbalance is unreliable against Abrupt Decay. That's it. In almost every other MU, it is amazing. Abrupt Decay decks generally fold to Entreat. Counterbalance and Entreat are both good cards. They do not have to be exclusive.

[Adan]

Funny enough, I talked with a friend of mine about Miracles yesterday because he was playing Miracles without Counterbalance.
I think this is a mistake. Even though Miracles itself is a bad Counterbalance deck per se, it's still necessary to generate cardadvantage, needless to say that it changes the opponent's lines of play to your favor.

Furthermore I believe that Counterbalance is one reason why you don't get wrecked by Elfball (although they now run Abrupt Decay to deal with it) beside Terminus. And yes, it happened that my friend got destroyed two times by Mono Red Burn due to the lack of Counterbalance.

I'd thus conclude that 4 Terminus and 4 Counterbalances are mandatory in your 75 (4 MD or 3 MD, 1 SB, that's what I'd do for both cards depending on the meta).

The part about Humility vs. Moat is tricky, there really is no way to tell which card is unconditionally good. In a meta with a lot of SneakShow and Reanimator, Humility is clearly superior as it blanks Snow and Tell into obesities very well.
Mind that Entreat the Angels still behaves like Decree of Justice under Humility which is very good still.

[alphastryk]

Funny enough, I talked with a friend of mine about Miracles yesterday because he was playing Miracles without Counterbalance.
I think this is a mistake. Even though Miracles itself is a bad Counterbalance deck per se, it's still necessary to generate cardadvantage, needless to say that it changes the opponent's lines of play to your favor.

Furthermore I believe that Counterbalance is one reason why you don't get wrecked by Elfball (although they now run Abrupt Decay to deal with it) beside Terminus. And yes, it happened that my friend got destroyed two times by Mono Red Burn due to the lack of Counterbalance.

I'd thus conclude that 4 Terminus and 4 Counterbalances are mandatory in your 75 (4 MD or 3 MD, 1 SB, that's what I'd do for both cards depending on the meta).

The part about Humility vs. Moat is tricky, there really is no way to tell which card is unconditionally good. In a meta with a lot of SneakShow and Reanimator, Humility is clearly superior as it blanks Snow and Tell into obesities very well.
Mind that Entreat the Angels still behaves like Decree of Justice under Humility which is very good still.

Good to see some constructive posts. :)

I agree some # of counterbalances belong, however I definitely don't think the number is 4, I personally have never wanted more than 2-3.

3 Terminus is also an entirely reasonable choice, depending on the meta. More people are prepared for it now, so having lots of sweepers is getting worse.

[DragoFireheart]

Furthermore I believe that Counterbalance is one reason why you don't get wrecked by Elfball (although they now run Abrupt Decay to deal with it) beside Terminus. And yes, it happened that my friend got destroyed two times by Mono Red Burn due to the lack of Counterbalance.

I'd thus conclude that 4 Terminus and 4 Counterbalances are mandatory in your 75 (4 MD or 3 MD, 1 SB, that's what I'd do for both cards depending on the meta).


It's amazing how bad Miracle control is against burn without counterbalance.

[Lemnear]

It's amazing how bad Miracle control is against burn without counterbalance.

I'd go a step further and say it's near horrible against anything that overloads on 1cc spells. That counts Zoo as well as storm. It's pointless to tune the deck against your round 5+ opponents if you lose your first 2 rounds to Kird Ape

[DragoFireheart]

I'd go a step further and say it's near horrible against anything that overloads on 1cc spells. That counts Zoo as well as storm. It's pointless to tune the deck against your round 5+ opponents if you lose your first 2 rounds to Kird Ape

Yes. Even decks with Abrupt Decay it's still worth having as it forces them to use it on the CB. And we need it for Storm decks. 3 is probably the minimum and 4 for more combo heavy metas.

[Valtrix]

Also I'm currently playing Ethersworn Canonist as a Storm disruptor. Should there be another card I am aware of, because it seems pretty loose?

Ethersworn Canonist is the best card to deal with storm in the sideboard. The simple reason for this is that it provides a clock. No amount of storm hate really matters if there is no clock to back it up, since the storm player will have plenty of time to pile up more anti-hate and construct the perfect hand still. Let me repeat that, preventing your opponent from winning does not mean that you have won the game. Miracles is a slow deck, and thus needs this clock. Canonist puts the storm player on the defensive, and the combat damage it will do if unanswered can win you the game directly, or even just make it increasingly hard for your opponent to use Ad Nauseam to where they no longer will be able to combo off even if they deal with canonist. For this reason, there is really no other card that can take canonist's place.

Additionally, Canonist is very strong against decks that need to resolve one crucial spell and want to protect it with counters--Omnitell or even Reanimator for example. Canonist makes it so that if they try to resolve their key spell, then they are unable to protect it with counter(s) anymore. As with storm, it also provides a much needed clock to help close the game out faster. Really, don't underestimate how far a disruptive 2/2 can go with this deck (post sideboard, of course).

Since I kind of hate being so narrow in my sideboard cards, I like to supplement my hate with Enlightened Tutor. I usually run a minimum of 2x Tutor, 2x Canonist, and 2x Rest in Peace to have 4 must-answer cards against Storm and graveyard decks, while only using up 6 sideboard slots. You can run other artifacts/enchantments to take advantage of tutor as well, depending on what you might expect for the meta.

As for the counterbalance debate, you almost always want 4 between the main and sideboard. Counterbalance is great at single-handedly winning games against a lot of random decks you might face (burn, elves, anything not in the DTB section usually...). While it's usually not quite as powerful against the decks you'll run into at the top tables, in a medium to long tournament you need the power of counterbalance to dominate the random decks that you will run into. Even in the matches where counterbalance doesn't just win you the game, it almost never is going to do absolutely nothing for you; it should always get at least one spell, whether that's removal on the balance itself or just one good flip.

The main risk for counterbalance, in my eyes, is that it can sometimes feel too slow. This can be true, but really what this means is that it puts a slight design constraint on the lists we create. We need to make sure to have enough lower cc or tempo cards in order to not get bogged down with our counterbalances. And in general, I don't think this is a problem since the core of Miracles generally will have enough cards to handle the game until counterbalance can become relevant. As a result, counterbalance is a very low-risk card to run, while having a huge reward: namely, completely stealing games that otherwise would not be winnable.

From my experiences, these games where counterbalance will single handedly win you the game are a lot more than you might expect. It still surprises me how many games I steal with counterbalance, and whenever I doubt my choice of running them I simply think back to my last tournament and compare the times when balance was completely useless (almost never) to the times it straight up won games (almost always at least once in even small tournaments).

I do not like counterbalance in multiples though, so I am happy to run 3 in my mainboard with the 4th in the sideboard. It becomes even more powerful when running multiple enlightened tutors in the board, say with canonist as talked about above, since it gives you even more ways to access coutnerbalance in the matchups it really matters.

[Nihil Credo]

Public reminder: when some people bring a DTB thread down to name-calling, please hit that report button like the fist of God.

[Eternal]

And what about land's number ?

Some list run 20 lands, other 22-23. Actually, what's perfect or better choice ?

[DragoFireheart]

And what about land's number ?

Some list run 20 lands, other 22-23. Actually, what's perfect or better choice ?

20 lands? They must be either lucky or stupid.

Anything less than 22 and I feel like I'm missing too many land drops. This deck needs to hit its land drops. I personally say no less than 22.

[Lemnear]

And what about land's number ?

Some list run 20 lands, other 22-23. Actually, what's perfect or better choice ?

22 Lands are ok if you run Ponder for fixing. I'm not even sure you can go down to 20 even if you use engines like Tithe or Land Tax to support your landdrops ...

[alphastryk]

I've said this before, but 21 lands (1 Ponder) works just fine for me, just make sure to mulligan to hands that have a plan to make plays and make land drops. I don't feel that playing lands like Mystic gate which don't function by themselves is an improvement, and don't have enough need for Karakas to consider a second (I'm close to cutting the one I do have), and I try to avoid needing both UU and WW in the deck, especially in matchups where I will need to fetch basics.

I'm also still going to disagree about 4 counterbalances in the 75 as well - I usually want a more powerful targeted card out of the board, so I'd rather have Ethersworn Cannonists, Meddling Mages, etc than a 4th CB. From my experiences playing with / against combo, having mixed hate is significantly stronger and harder to deal with.

[Valtrix]

I prefer running more lands rather than less. To start, more lands does significantly reduce the amount of times I need to mulligan for land drops. Secondly, it's usually way more likely in a game to lose because of not enough mana compared to too much mana. Just consider the following situations where a card would be that extra land you put in, or just a spell. In a situation where you might be short on mana, that land is the difference between being able to play your spells or not playing your spells. It should go without saying, but this is basically the difference between getting to play Magic and not play Magic, a pretty huge difference. If you have too much mana, that extra land is just -1 card disadvantage, something that can be overcome by the rest of your cards. (Alternatively you use brainstorm and just shuffle this extra land away.) I always choose to play Magic.

So for me, I usually choose to run 23 lands mostly because of the situations outlined above. Since I have that many lands, I usually like to run my 23rd land as some extra utility type of land, even if it's colorless. For me lately that's been Kor Haven, since the extra time to deal with a creature can be randomly helpful and my 23rd land being colorless usually isn't a liability. Some other choices (you can decide how useful they may or may not be) could be Creeping Tar Pit (For black splash), Academy Ruins (with engineered explosives), Tithe (Not technically a land, but same idea for mana consistency), or possibly even a second Karakas (For that Clique shenanigans + other random bounce).

[YamiJoey]

20 lands? They must be either lucky or stupid.

Anything less than 22 and I feel like I'm missing too many land drops. This deck needs to hit its land drops. I personally say no less than 22.

I personally play 24. I play 10 fetchlands instead of the Ponder people have been using. I generally love having access to it. (I play 5 Blue fetches, 4 Flooded Strand, and 1 Arid Mesa.)

Part of the reason I asked about Canonist, is that I kind of like Rule of Law against Shardless BUG. If they ever suspend an Ancestral Visions early, getting a Rule of Law down can just win you the game. They cast their visions on upkeep, you counter it with your CB or another Counterspell, and you just win. It's also a bit better against tempo decks as it doesn't die to a Bolt, and you can really mess with their plays. They can never be pro-active, and a lot of our work is done purely by the Top and Jace, so we don't really need to cast too many spells in one turn. Unless it'd just be better to Curse of Exhaustion them, but four's quite late for doing anything other than a Jace, really.

[TheArchitect]

I personally play 24. I play 10 fetchlands instead of the Ponder people have been using. I generally love having access to it. (I play 5 Blue fetches, 4 Flooded Strand, and 1 Arid Mesa.)

Part of the reason I asked about Canonist, is that I kind of like Rule of Law against Shardless BUG. If they ever suspend an Ancestral Visions early, getting a Rule of Law down can just win you the game. They cast their visions on upkeep, you counter it with your CB or another Counterspell, and you just win. It's also a bit better against tempo decks as it doesn't die to a Bolt, and you can really mess with their plays. They can never be pro-active, and a lot of our work is done purely by the Top and Jace, so we don't really need to cast too many spells in one turn. Unless it'd just be better to Curse of Exhaustion them, but four's quite late for doing anything other than a Jace, really.

Arcane Laboratory is the same thing except with awesome. Its a good card to have against combo, and then gets some splash damage by being good against shardless as well. Blood Moon costs the same though, and beats BUG most of the time its played.

[YamiJoey]

Well, Arcane Lab is better than Rule of Law most of the time, but RoL can't be hit by REBs that I do see in TES. Or ANT. Or whatever the hell it is that casts Tendrils to kill you and plays Red.

I think I'd like to play it so that I have an additional card against Shardless to go alongside my Blood Moon. Having Blood Moon + RoL means that if they ever get around to killing Blood Moon, they're still in a terrible position.

Also - in case anyone was interested - I traded for my Foil Chandra for this deck, and only then did I realise she cost double Red, so that's pretty lame.

[Teknique]

Snuck in there at 32 at the ATL Legacy Open going 6-2-1:

I was torn on how to build a list for this event. I have been playing a much more orthodox RIP-Helm list, but I really felt like the Snapcaster lists showing in Europe had their own thing going for them and was torn between what I wanted to do. I ended up not making the choice and jammed the two styles together the morning of the event. Theoretically, it seems that the list should have game against nearly everything in the main, and be able to make minor tweaks for any matchup via the board.


//Creatures (2):
2 Vendilion Clique

//Spells (37):
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminus
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Counterbalance
2 Rest in Peace
1 Blood Moon
1 Energy Field
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Counterspell

//Lands (22):
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Karakas
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa

//SB (15):
3 Pyroblast
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Pyroclasm
1 Terminus
1 Meddling Mage
1 Wear // Tear
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Celestial Purge


Yes, the main is 61, but I've always felt that with so many ways to see cards and in a deck that has 4-5 cards it absolutely doesn't want to see in the opener the statistical differences are negligible. That said, 22 lands to the 61 is greedy and probably incorrect, but I didn't want to cut anything for a huge unknown meta. If you know what you're walking into it shouldn't be hard to figure out which cards to shave. For example, probably cut Flusterstorm for fair metas and EField for unfair.

This is a very general outline of the matches as I took no notes other than revealed hands, life totals, round number, opponent, and deck.
I can't recall the specific instances from the day, but Misdirection was amazing. I know I cast it at least 5 times and rarely did it just sit in my hand. It seemed correct to have the 2 MisD/2 FoW split while trying to run the enchantment package in reduced numbers, because each CB or RIP is that much more valuable. Bolt was also awesome, extra reach against PWs is really something that this deck needs at speeds better than ORing, and less prone to disruption. I did honestly wish I was running a Plateau throughout the day. Looking back, with only running only 1 hate bear in the board it should probably be canonist over meddling mage.

Obviously everything is untweaked, but the deck worked quite well for the most part.

I don't have SB notes, and I almost never SB exactly the same. It all depends on what I read as my opponent's playstyle. Just assume any good strategy you've used with similar configurations is applicable. Forces come out where they're bad, removal comes in where it's good, etc... I usually left the Misdirection's in though, so many creature decks, so many targets, and a lot of hand disruption. Even though I sided the snapcasters in a lot, I don't think I saw more than 1 the whole day, and that was in RD3 where I had no removal anyway.

RD1: (2-0) RUG
G1: I play Volcanic island and pass. He plays Misty, crack, I look disappointed that I don't have the stifle and allow it. He fetches Tropical island and while shuffling a card falls on the floor, he picks it up and puts it into his hand. Game Loss, move to game 2.
G2: Pretty sure he boards against RUG, this is bad for him. I also board against RUG, this is good for me. I play around daze and flusterstorm his stifle to build mana the first couple turns, play top and drop EE for 0 incase his delver flips. I sense his sadness when he realizes he's certainly not playing the mirror. I terminus a few creatures. Clique him eot and see flusterstorm, spell pierce, daze, ship Spell Pierce so I can safely cast CB when I untap. Cast CB, he dazes, I pay, he dazes, I pay, he flusterstorms, I tell him he actually doesn't. CB resolves and he scoops.

RD2: (2-0) Affinity
G1: Lots of swords, and Termini, and then I make 4 or 5 angels and murder him.
G2: I play conservative the first couple turns and keep spell pierce and counterspell mana up instead of casting top. My reservations are justified by his failed attempts at casting cranial plating into etched champion. Then there are lots of swords and bolts for his skirges and inkmoth? End of some turn, the Little Girl tokens creep out and are promptly picked back up.

RD3: (0-2) Elves
G1: I bolt a deathrite I believe, fetch like 5 times and top and never see a swords or terminus. He never goes all in and just swings for 2/3 each turn till I die.
G2: I brainstorm 3 times, top, and even clique myself to see more cards. I never see a swords, bolt, terminus, or pyroclasm. Again, I die to 2/3 damage a turn.

RD4: (0-2) Esper Control
G1: I answer a few sets of lingering souls tokens but have to lose my top with miracle fetch shenanegins in order to survive. Neither player has a hand, I draw Entreat and make lethal angels. He draws supreme verdict. I draw a blank. Then he draws jace and fateseals me; I find nothing and lose.
G2: He brainstorms a lot. I get Elspeth, he has a Tar Pit though and some souls. I end the game with a hand of 2 pyroblasts, lightning bolt, and a pyroclasm. 2 plains and 2 island in play, no fetchlands in the yard.

RD5: (1-1-1) Nic Fit
G1: He plays t1 bayou, DRS. I play mountain, bolt Doctor S...my mind starts thinking of the most macabre ways I could end my life as punishment for playing burn. I look back to my hand, and I find comfort staring at DiTerlizzi's muse...We proceed to have a very interactive game. I misdirect his hymm. He gets a sylvan library online. I slow his plays with clique, karakas and a lot of mana. All the while he's running Recurring Nightmare and Sun Titan. I cast 4 mana unsummon, clique it away, and eventually win.
G2: I get therapied a bit, Choked early and don't remember how I managed to live for so long, my lifepad shows me going from 20 to 1 very slowly.
G3: 5 min left in the round. We both play rapidly and theres a lot of back and forth early on. I get choked again. Time is called. I have 2 plains and a mountain, jace, sdt, and the top 3 cards are land, EtA, wear//tear when extra turns are up.

RD6: (2-0) Dark Bant?
G1: He gets a jitte in play and has 3 lands. T3 I make his manabase monochrome and he says it's probably not good that he plays zero basics. I respond with yes, and he tells me he has one out. I cast Helm with no RIP. Activate my hedron crab eot, hit blank, batterskull, qasali pridemage. I assume batterskull was his out and he laughingly says yes. I kill him with pridemage beats. Figuring that gauranteeing a beater (expecting Knight or Geist) and putting a real clock down was better than waiting to draw a RIP and give him turns to find his out.
G2: I terminus some things, put together CB-Top, misdirect Abrupt Decay to his freshly cast Knight. Angels.

RD7: (2-0) Elves
G1: I have all the removal, and then CB-Top. He mentions something about me having a strange sense of fun to which I agree.
G2: I murder a lot forest folk until the God Squad arrives for clean up.

RD8: (2-0) Jund
G1: Badlands, other bad lands, remove your hand from the game. I draw and play RIP off the top. Go to 14. Draw Helm with 4 lands. Play and pray. Go to 7. Untap with no Decay response.
G2: Hand disruption makes it difficult to set up Terminus. He has 4 lands in play, only 1 untapped. I have 3 lands, brainstorm eot, draw Blood Moon, 4th land, Terminus. Put back something and Terminus. Untap, draw and cast Terminus. Land, moon, go. We take turns drawing land after land, bolt him twice to not discard, play meddling mage, kill him slowly.

RD9: (2-0) Elves
G1: Assemble CB-Top with 1 Tundra up, no knowledge of top of library. He has 4 or 5 guys out and tries to cast a dude, I flip Top to gaurantee the counter and flip terminus, cast it to clear. He fetches arbor and natural order's for the Hoof. Attacks me down to 5, I tutor for an E field and sit behind it and CB-Top for many turns. Eventually he gets a GSZ for 1, and I have no answer for it, DRS. He has a bayou in play, and I have all my nonbasics expecting I can just use Blood Moon as BS fodder G1. I guess not; I cast it so he can't activate shaman, I find a basic or two but no RIP or way to win the game. I play EE for 1 just to get a card out of my hand...and he concedes...stating, "you can kill my last deathrite, I have no way to get past Energy Field after that". I neglect to tell him how miserable that would be for me.
G2: He never over extends, but continuously plays men as I play removal. Hardcasts Hoof with 1 other elf untapped and attacks me to 8 as I swords the Hoof. Terminus on draw. Get Jace, CB-Top. Cast EtA for 3 on next draw, followed by pyroclasm during main. He concedes.

[Dzra]

Don't want to sound whiny, but I actually think the quality of discussion has decreased gradually (regardless of twmdumb) over the last months. Can we go back to quality comments like from Mr. Cairo?

Honestly, I've had the problem for a while of not having much to post about. I've been very happy with my 75 lately, and the only times I don't do great with the deck are when I make mistakes. Perhaps I should start taking notes so that I can write tournament reports. I feel like the decks to beat usually benefit more from discussion on strategy rather than card by card analysis (the exception being when there is a meta-shift or when relevant cards get printed).

I'll try to remember Saturday's tournament as best as I can...

Round 1: Deathblade (with Bobs)
G1: I go t1 Top; he plays t1 Deathrite. I pass t2, he goes Bob + Wasteland, I top and see Terminus, Counterbalance, land. T3 I draw the Terminus, play a land, and pass. He tries to play a second Bob and I FoW. T4 I play Counterbalance, stacking a Jace on top. He tries to play Jace and it gets Counterbalanced. I untap play Jace and stack a 2 cmc on top. He tries to play Mystic, it gets countered. I start Fatesealing and the game was over very quickly. Took about 10 min total.

SB: -3 FoW, -1 RIP, -1 Vendilion Clique, -1 Venser
+3 REB, +1 Elspeth, +1 Entreat, +1 Supreme Verdict

G2: I don't remember much of this game except that it was a terribly grindy affair. I do remember at some point him playing a Liliana, which got immediately ganked by my Celestial Colonnade. There was a Jace war at one point. I resolved my own then Brainstormed and REBd his Jace. I couldn't keep the board empty, however, and I eventually lost my Jace. I eventually died not finding any sweepers.

G3: With 12 minutes left on the clock, we were both playing very quickly and sloppily. Unfortunately I was the sloppier of us. The key point of this game came down to a board state of me with Top (double Swords in hand and Jace + REB on top of my deck) and him with a fresh Batterskull and a Deathrite in play. My plan was to EoT Swords the Deathrite, play Jace with REB backup (although this required losing Top) and then bounce the Germ. What actually happened was that I forgot to Swords the Deathrite, I cast Jace, he FoW'd, I drew REB and fetched a Volcanic to resolve Jace, and now I'm tapped down, with no Top, and Jace can't survive the crackback. He resolved Jace and I couldn't quite recover. I ended up resolving another Jace later (which found Helm + ETutor), but I couldn't fight his CA. I played Helm, cast ETutor, Brainstormed the RIP to my hand, then promptly died to his hardcast FoW.

Round 2: Sneak and Show
G1: I mull a hand with no lands and end up keeping a six with Plains, Karakas, Top, RIP, and some other irrelevant cards. I play t1 Top, he goes Island Preordain, so I'm mostly certain he's combo. T2 I play Karakas, RIP, and pass. He plays Volcanic and another cantrip, so I put him on Sneak and Show. T3, I upkeep Top looking for land or FoW, I don't see either, so I pass. He goes for the Show and Tell with 1 Lotus Petal open. The safer play was likely to just see what he puts in and hopefully bounce it with Karakas, but that leaves me open to his two R sources the next turn. Instead, I Top'd again looking for countermagic/Helm and found only a Clique. I drew the Clique and dropped it off SNT, but unfortunately he had the Petals into Emrakul in response to the trigger. He proceeded to wipe my board and take me to 5. We played draw go for a couple turns, and I had gotten back up to Top and 2 lands when he drew the second Emrakul for the win.

SB: -4 Swords, -3 RIP, -1 Helm, -1 Terminus
+3 REB, +1 Ethersworn, +1 FoW, +1 Oblivion Ring, +1 Vendilion Clique, +1 Venser, +1 Pithing Needle

G2: I believe that I mulled, but I don't quite remember what. He had a bit of a slow start. I ended up casting a Counterbalance on t3, which he fought, and I protected with REB. Eventually I grinded him out with Counterbalance and Jace, floating a 4 on top.

G3: I keep a beautiful hand of DSphere, FoW, Top, some lands and Blue cards. On the play he goes City and Lotus Petal into Show and Tell. I let it resolve and drop DSphere, eating a Sneak Attack. The game proceeds as planned, and he can't recover while I again Jace him out with Counterbalance backup.

Round 3: Grixis Delver
G1: Again, my poor notetaking takes a toll. I can't remember much of this game except that I resolved Counterbalance + Top and stabilized at a low life total post-Terminus. The most interesting thing in this game was that even with Counterbalance and Top in play, I let a couple Lightening Bolts resolve as they weren't very threatening and I didn't want to open myself up to Bob or Pyromancer by flipping Top.

SB: -3 FoW, -1 RIP, -1 Detention Sphere, -1 Venser
+3 REB, +1 Oblivion Ring, +1 Supreme Verdict, +1 Vendilion Clique

G2: Nothing much to say about this game. I kept a 2 lander, and despite getting a Top, I never saw the third land and died with Supreme Verdict in my hand.

reSB: -3 RIP, -1 Detention Sphere, -1 Helm, -1 Venser
+3 REB, +1 Oblivion Ring, +1 Supreme Verdict, +1 Vendilion Clique

G3: I felt like RIP was only really useful for Lavamancer, which is pretty bad against me anyways, and that FoW might help me stabilize a little earlier. I got a reasonably early Top and ended up wiping out his board of Delver and Pyromancer with a Terminus. He resolves a Sulfuric Vortex, and on my next turn I resolve a Counterbalance. We play draw go for a couple turns, with me occasionally countering his attempts to resolve a threat. Eventually I find an Entreat and make 3 Angels, leaving 1 mana open in order to play around Daze. I untap and drop to 3 life, replay Top, swing, and put him to 2. He dies on upkeep and flashes me the Daze.

Round 4: High Tide
G1: This was an atrociously long game. In hindsight, perhaps there was a point that I could have scooped earlier, but I'm fairly certain that I had outs at every point of the game. I mulled my first hand, which was mono-nothing. Over the first few turns I resolved RIP and Counterbalance, but had no Top and my only library manipulation was fetchlands. He played pretty conservatively to make sure that I didn't catch him on a blind flip. He resolved two Merchant Scrolls finding FoW then HT. Eventually, he EoT Cunning Wishes, I reveal a Swords on Top, and he finds a Wipe Away. Before he has a chance to untap, I fetch to hopefully find a 3 cmc. He untaps and plays Time Spiral. I blind flip a Terminus. Epic. I fetch again at his EoT and draw a second Counterbalance. I'm feeling reasonably well, but am now out of manipulation. He tests my CB with a cantrip and I reveal a Polluted Delta. Wah wah. He then Wipe Aways my RIP (which at the time, I thought was very odd). He plays HT and a couple draw spells before Time Spiraling. I draw nothing useful. He starts HTing, drawing more, while I have no interaction in hand and only a 2cmc on top. He eventually draws the Wipe Away again and bounces a Counterbalance before Time Spiraling again. My new 7 also contained no interaction, so I just sat there as he drew the Wipe Away yet again to bounce my last Counterbalance. At this point, I asked to see a kill or non-Time Spiral draw spell for the scoop, and he showed me Blue Sun's Zenith.

SB: -4 Swords, -3 Rest in Peace, -3 Terminus, -1 Helm
+3 Leyline of Sanctity, +3 REB, +1 Ethersworn, +1 FoW, +1 Vendilion Clique, +1 Venser, +1 Pithing Needle

G2: With about 15 min on the clock, I mull my first hand of junk and keep double Leyline, double land, Counterspell, FoW. We both durdle for several turns, with him cantriping and me finding a Top. I assume that he has very few ways to remove Leyline and most or all of those will only be accessible through Cunning Wish. My priorities are then to keep him from drawing too many cards and keep him from casting Cunning Wish. He eventually attempts to go off. I have only FoW and Counterspell in my hand, with 2 Leylines, and a Top in play. I have 2 Tundras, a Volcanic, and a Karakas untapped. I let his HT resolve to turn on both of my cards and let him resolve Turnabouts, until he casts Time Spiral with 1 card left in hand. I tap Karakas and the Tundras to hardcast FoW, he hardcasts FoW back, and I tap the Volcanic to Counterspell. I untap, find an Entreat, and set up to Entreat for lethal a turn from now (after making the next two land drops). He untaps and does something to my Top as we go into turns (maybe bounce, but I can't remember why he did this). Unfortunately, I can't reorder my library or draw the Entreat during his EoT, so I end up drawing it for my draw on Turn 1. I make 3 Angels, leaving 2 mana open to both play around Flusterstorm as well as being able to replay my Top and have open mana. Entreat resolves, I replay Top, and pass. He draws and passes, so I Top and find an Ethersworn Canonist. Turn 3, I swing and put him to 7 (choosing not to attack with my Colonnade in case I had to Top and cast something during his turn), play Canonist, and pass. He draws and scoops, as he would die on Turn 5 of turns. He said he had one out, but I have no idea what that might have been... perhaps an Echoing Truth? Swinging with my Colonnade on Turn 3 would have prevented him from Echoing Truthing my Angels, but would have also left me tapped down. I feel like I made the right play (although it didn't seem to matter).

The lessons for the day... Don't make a plan, forget part of it, and implement the rest. Assess long, grindy games better in order to decide if I'd be better served by scooping prematurely in order to have more time for the rest of the match.

[thecrav]

Well, Arcane Lab is better than Rule of Law most of the time, but RoL can't be hit by REBs that I do see in TES. Or ANT. Or whatever the hell it is that casts Tendrils to kill you and plays Red.

I was about to write a post agreeing with you, but looking over semi-recent SCG results (since June), the TES decks haven't had the red blast sideboard. It looks like Chain of Vapor is where it's at in terms of killing an enchantment like this.

edit: Yes, I know this isn't a great sample size.

[Lemnear]

It's Chain of Vapor + Abrupt Decay coming out of storm-combos SB for such Enchantments ... Reactive cards like REB doesn't make sense in a deck with Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond

[klaus]

Report
Thanks for writing this up :)

[thecrav]

I got asked on Twitter how I deal with the 12 post matchup. Being that this is a very budget deck, it's something I actually run into in the local meta fairly frequently and I'd really like to know how ya'll handle it as well.

The hardest part of the matchup is that none of our targeted removal does anything and CB/top can't get online early enough to stop their build up. I hadn't really thought about it until now, but 12 Post has the potential to be hardcasting an Emrakul on turn 4. (3 cloudposts and a candelabra = 15 mana plus whatever land you played turn 4)

Blood Moon shuts down the combo 100%. If you went first or they didn't get the nuts, you have a fighting chance to lock them out with Moon. However, this requires a very particular hand with either blood moon in your first 10 cards or spending most of a turn using enlightened tutor to find it. I run one main and one side and always bring in the second moon.

Humility is freaking sweet and I think anyone who knows me knows I love it. I think it's just too slow. Again, you need to actually get it into your hand and have double white on turn four (not that this should be a problem). Humility has the secondary problem of shutting down many of our winconditions, including Venser, Clique, and Entreat.

Ensnaring Bridge is my current favorite solution. It comes down on turn 3 with no colored mana requirement.

Terminus is freaking sweet. At the end of the turn they cast emrakul, putting it at the bottom means that their entire extra turn was spent durdling. You've effectively given them an extra land drop and nothing else

In games 2 and 3, I take out my swords and 1-of supreme verdict. Though the verdict does hit emrakul, it's unlikely Anihilator 6 will leave me with four lands.

If you're looking for stuff to bring in because you've now taken out 3-5 cards, O-ring isn't terrible. It's especially good if they play one of the 12 post variants that also has show and tell. Meddling Mage is another not-terrible option.

Any input on how else to deal with this pretty tricky matchup?

[dakkon]

12 post is a bad matchup. Humility is OK but not great. Your clock isn't fast enough before Eye of Ugin->Ulamog/Karakas takes over. Blood Moon is great vs them (Cornered Market to an extent if you don't want to splash red), but it means playing an ETutor list to find it reliably. I've had some success with Mindbreak Traps out of the board since it exiles their guys, even Emmy.

[Kyle]

New list, nothing terribly innovative, but I feel it's got game against everything. After taking a brief hiatus from the CounterTop version, it's back with a vengeance; it's just so good everywhere. I have preferred the Legends style build the most. Miracles I think has the most flexibility out of most of the decks in the format for maindeck answers that would typically be reserved for the sideboard, hence the large number of MD Enchantments. My only concern is the rather low blue count for FoW, but I think it's enough.

Sideboard of course is always changing.

//Artifacts
4 Sensei's Divining Top

//Creatures
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

//Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Enlightened Tutor

//Sorceries
1 Ponder
3 Terminus
2 Entreat the Angels

//Enchantments
3 Counterbalance
1 Blood Moon
2 Rest in Peace
1 Oblivion Ring

//Planeswalkers
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

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

////Sideboard////
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Blood Moon
1 Wear // Tear
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Rest in Peace
1 Moat
2 Misdirection
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Counterbalance

[HammafistRoob]

I got asked on Twitter how I deal with the 12 post matchup. Being that this is a very budget deck, it's something I actually run into in the local meta fairly frequently and I'd really like to know how ya'll handle it as well.

The hardest part of the matchup is that none of our targeted removal does anything and CB/top can't get online early enough to stop their build up. I hadn't really thought about it until now, but 12 Post has the potential to be hardcasting an Emrakul on turn 4. (3 cloudposts and a candelabra = 15 mana plus whatever land you played turn 4)

Blood Moon shuts down the combo 100%. If you went first or they didn't get the nuts, you have a fighting chance to lock them out with Moon. However, this requires a very particular hand with either blood moon in your first 10 cards or spending most of a turn using enlightened tutor to find it. I run one main and one side and always bring in the second moon.

Humility is freaking sweet and I think anyone who knows me knows I love it. I think it's just too slow. Again, you need to actually get it into your hand and have double white on turn four (not that this should be a problem). Humility has the secondary problem of shutting down many of our winconditions, including Venser, Clique, and Entreat.

Ensnaring Bridge is my current favorite solution. It comes down on turn 3 with no colored mana requirement.

Terminus is freaking sweet. At the end of the turn they cast emrakul, putting it at the bottom means that their entire extra turn was spent durdling. You've effectively given them an extra land drop and nothing else

In games 2 and 3, I take out my swords and 1-of supreme verdict. Though the verdict does hit emrakul, it's unlikely Anihilator 6 will leave me with four lands.

If you're looking for stuff to bring in because you've now taken out 3-5 cards, O-ring isn't terrible. It's especially good if they play one of the 12 post variants that also has show and tell. Meddling Mage is another not-terrible option.

Any input on how else to deal with this pretty tricky matchup?

12Post is definitely not a budget deck, it's quite the opposite. A good 12post pilot considers Miracles a bye matchup, it is really that bad. Blood Moon and E. Bridge are definitely your best options, as Karakas generally does nothing against them. Other than that just pray they suck with the deck (more than likely, as it's pretty skill intensive) or just hope to dodge the matchup all together.

[Aetherick]

I got asked on Twitter how I deal with the 12 post matchup. Being that this is a very budget deck, it's something I actually run into in the local meta fairly frequently and I'd really like to know how ya'll handle it as well.

Blood Moon shuts down the combo 100%. If you went first or they didn't get the nuts, you have a fighting chance to lock them out with Moon. However, this requires a very particular hand with either blood moon in your first 10 cards or spending most of a turn using enlightened tutor to find it. I run one main and one side and always bring in the second moon.

Humility is freaking sweet and I think anyone who knows me knows I love it. I think it's just too slow. Again, you need to actually get it into your hand and have double white on turn four (not that this should be a problem). Humility has the secondary problem of shutting down many of our winconditions, including Venser, Clique, and Entreat.

Ensnaring Bridge is my current favorite solution. It comes down on turn 3 with no colored mana requirement.

Terminus is freaking sweet. At the end of the turn they cast emrakul, putting it at the bottom means that their entire extra turn was spent durdling. You've effectively given them an extra land drop and nothing else

Any input on how else to deal with this pretty tricky matchup?

The problem with this matchup is that we do not have a fast clock or wastelands to set them back. Blood Moon is good and is probably the only card that will hurt them substantially. However, they do run basic islands and repeal so don't expect moon to automatically win you the game.

Ensnaring Bridge and Terminus are only good in the beginning, if they manage to slip through a show and tell for eldrazi monster or Titan (though you are very far behind with just one titan etb trigger). Late game, these cards do not do a whole lot as they can just Eye of Ugin their Emrakul for infinite turns with karakas, or find their Ulamog to vindicate all your hate.

EoT a million angels might still not be good enough because they can buy a LOT of time with glacial chasm and the lifegain posts.

In response to the other poster. I do not think it is a good idea to play very narrow cards like mindbreak trap just for this matchup. It's just not worth the sb slots. Just side in your show and tell hate and blood moons and hope for the best really...

Needle is good against candelabra and eye of ugin, although it will only slow them down a bit.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Has anyone really given Bonfire a try? Sorry for the small post, but it seems like a ringer...

-ABC

[phazonmutant]

Has anyone really given Bonfire a try? Sorry for the small post, but it seems like a ringer...

-ABC

A ringer like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8LFyyiv93s

In other words, people have asked about it and other people who have actually played magic before have told them why it's bad: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1204524

Edit: hmm, looks like the thread-search tool doesn't provide a unique link. My suggestion to anyone posting in a well-established archetype that you don't follow compulsively (like I do with too many threads :frown:) is to use the "Search Thread" tool on the upper-right side of the page. You don't even have to read the results, just skim. In this case, you would have seen over 10 posts that specifically reference "Bonfire" and most explain why it's bad.

[Shawn]

Terminus is in one of our main colors so it is far easier to cast, kills everything for (1), and if we cared about the damage we can do much better per mana with Entreat.

[sdematt]

Terminus is in one of our main colors so it is far easier to cast, kills everything for (1), and if we cared about the damage we can do much better per mana with Entreat.

I think Terminus and Entreat are better at what you're trying to do. However, if you weren't in White, then Bonfire is excellent.

-Matt

[thecrav]

Iif you weren't in White, then Bonfire is excellent.

-Matt

RUx Countertop!?

Matt, you sly devil, what have you got up your sleeve!?

[Dzra]

Thanks for writing this up :)

I'm going to try to make more of an effort to remember and write up reports when I can. Hopefully I can express the game states clearly enough that people will have things to say about different plays or at the very least about sideboarding.


Terminus is freaking sweet. At the end of the turn they cast emrakul, putting it at the bottom means that their entire extra turn was spent durdling. You've effectively given them an extra land drop and nothing else

Unfortunately Eye of Ugin makes Terminus somewhat lackluster. Blood Moon is there to help. Counterbalance + Top can be good early, but quickly loses value if they naturally draw their Cloud Posts. It's really a pretty rare deck since most people who have Candelabra of Tawnos will be playing High Tide.


Has anyone really given Bonfire a try? Sorry for the small post, but it seems like a ringer...

We talked about it a while back. I brewed up a "big RUG" Counterbalance deck that wasn't bad, although I don't know if it's still in this thread or not. Either way, it just wasn't as powerful as the W offers.

@ oarsman, I saw your match against Todd playing that weird Reanimator deck. It was pretty fun watching it from his side. Though in game 2, I'm curious why you didn't just Venser his Griselbrand instead of bouncing the Exhume. He'd get to draw 7, but drops to 1, has no more creatures in the yard, and has to produce either 2 blockers or an Elesh Norn to not die. Nice games though.

[sdematt]

RUx Countertop!?

Matt, you sly devil, what have you got up your sleeve!?

All the things. Deck's GOOD.

-Matt

[oarsman]

Dzra, the play you are suggesting sounds so much better than what I actually did that I am embarrassed. I didn't even think about that. I don't remember the exact situation, but I know I was afraid he would draw a land and be able to recast the Exhume. The best I can come up with is that against a deck with counters I probably wouldn't want them to draw seven. And since most reanimator decks have counters, I just spaced out for a second and feared that would happen.

[Kyle]

Dzra, the play you are suggesting sounds so much better than what I actually did that I am embarrassed. I didn't even think about that. I don't remember the exact situation, but I know I was afraid he would draw a land and be able to recast the Exhume. The best I can come up with is that against a deck with counters I probably wouldn't want them to draw seven. And since most reanimator decks have counters, I just spaced out for a second and feared that would happen.

Right or wrong, I would have made the same play. But it's mostly because I always have the bad luck to be against a Griselbrand who always draws a Force of Will in their first 7.

[Dzra]

Dzra, the play you are suggesting sounds so much better than what I actually did that I am embarrassed. I didn't even think about that. I don't remember the exact situation, but I know I was afraid he would draw a land and be able to recast the Exhume. The best I can come up with is that against a deck with counters I probably wouldn't want them to draw seven. And since most reanimator decks have counters, I just spaced out for a second and feared that would happen.

If you have reason to believe his deck has counter magic then the decision definitely becomes a lot tougher. Since it seemed like you were basically all in on the Venser keeping Griselbrand off the table, I think that it's still likely worth risking him drawing into counter magic rather than relying on your one draw step to prevent his incoming Exhume the following turn. Looking at the video one more time though, he does leave Badlands up, possibly representing the ability to draw into REB. Either way, you're always great to watch and I've definitely had my fair share of bloops.

[Shaka1333]

I'm sorry to ask you this Drza but after reading your last report, i was very interested to know your decklist. Unfortunately, i couldn't find it in the 40 previous pages so i gave up :(.

Could you please paste it here again or maybe send it to me by private message ?
Thank you very much.

[cschacal]

What do you think about the new counter "swan song"? do you think there is room for it in this deck?

[Adryan]

What do you think about the new counter "swan song"? do you think there is room for it in this deck?

One thing that should be taken into consideration is how bad the 2/2 Bird token really is for us. Something that can only be found out with some testing. Against S&T we want to lock them out of the game with Counterbalance or just delay their combo while beating them with Snapcaster/ Vendilion/ Venser or Combo Kill them with Entreat or Helm of Obedience. Against Storm decks Flusterstorm is always strictly superior, but Swan Song is still very good because it can counter some keycards.

On the other hand Swan Song seems very bad against RUG Delver or Jund and any additional pressure is really tough in these matchups.
Flusterstorm is still king against RUG Delver.

[YamiJoey]

Spell Pierce is probably just better. That's the conclusion I came to, anyway.

[twndomn]

What do you think about the new counter "swan song"? do you think there is room for it in this deck?

In the context of Miracle, Swan Song serves almost the same purpose as Flusterstorm, assuming your version runs it. I don't believe SS would replace the SP slot.

[YamiJoey]

But Flusterstorm is incredibly good. I'm not cutting my nigh uncounterable counterspell for 1.

[Lemnear]

Still not ignore that Swan Song would be a much better mid-/lategame card compared to Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce ... It's a real skilltester with Jace, Terminus, Entreat basically able to negate the drawback.

[sarapfish]

Still not ignore that Swan Song would be a much better mid-/lategame card compared to Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce ... It's a real skilltester with Jace, Terminus, Entreat basically able to negate the drawback.

For me, its limitations in countering plus drawback more or less puts it behind pierce. True its more useful mid to late, but by then...we should have UU already for a hard counterspell.

[klaus]

For me, its limitations in countering plus drawback more or less puts it behind pierce. True its more useful mid to late, but by then...we should have UU already for a hard counterspell.
This.
-
Swan Song has no maindeck potential imo and when it comes to SB options there are strictly better choices.

[Ocean]

Couple questions.

What do you think about playing Academy Ruins in a 22 land manabase? In my short experience I've already had trouble drawing it in my initial hand. It's nice to be able to randomly recur explosives but yeah... (cage, canonist, needle side, not playin helm).

Is V.Shackles worth it main or sb?

The list I'm testing (any kind of criticism appreciated):

1 Explosives
4 Top

2 Snapcaster
2 Clique
1 Venser

4 Balance

4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Fow
2 Pierce
4 Swords

3 Jace

2 Entreat
3 Terminus

1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
4 Flooded
5 Island
2 Plains
2 Misty
1 Polluted
1 Scalding
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic

SB:
1 Rip
1 Explosives
1 Cage
1 Needle
1 Shackles
1 Canonist
1 Blood Moon
1 E.Tutor
1 Flusterstorm
1 Wear/Tear
1 Pyroclasm
3 Elemental Blast

Not sure about the 4 Balance main or the E.tutor sb either.

[supachai]

Couple questions.

What do you think about playing Academy Ruins in a 22 land manabase? In my short experience I've already had trouble drawing it in my initial hand. It's nice to be able to randomly recur explosives but yeah... (cage, canonist, needle side, not playin helm).

Is V.Shackles worth it main or sb?

The list I'm testing (any kind of criticism appreciated):

Not sure about the 4 Balance main or the E.tutor sb either.


Just wanted to say that we play the exact same main except I'm -1 Counterspell, +1 Ponder, -1 Force, +1 Misdirection, and a slightly different mana base. I've been loving the 2-2-1 split of Snapcaster, Clique, and Venser. Some people dislike the Snapcaster in favor of more Cliques but I find that I get rolled over by aggressive strategies too often without it.

I tried Academy Ruins for a while and found that the colorless mana hurt me more often than I was able to get advantage from it by recurring explosives. Also, I think that 22 lands is a little on the low end without the extra Ponder. I know it's just one card but it has smoothed my draws countless times. I would either go 23 land or 22 + Ponder. You do not want to miss your first 3 land drops.

4 Counterbalance has been great. I used to run 3 but I haven't looked back since going up to 4. I seem to assemble CounterTop so much more often than I did before and even when the first gets Decay'd I always seems to have the second. It wins a surprising amount of matches by just locking them out faster. It also gives you a much bigger chance against Burn and Combo, especially game 1. I'd keep the 4 main.

I haven't played with Shackles or Enlightened Tutor in the board. I can see situations where Shackles would be cool, but I feel like it's more of a cute thing, especially with all the Abrupt Decay running around. I really dislike the card disadvantage from Tutor, but if you have silver bullets you like to fetch, then I'm sure it can be worthwhile. Here's my SB for reference.

3 Rest in Peace
2 Wear // Tear
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Terminus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Misdirection

[Aetherick]

MD snapcaster

3 Rest in Peace
2 Wear // Tear
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Terminus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Misdirection

Hey, do you bring in Rest in Peace against BG/x Decks with deathrite and tarmogoyf i.e. Shardless, Jund, etc. If so, do you side out the snapcasters in this situation?

Do you do the same with RUG delver?

Thanks

[supachai]

Hey, do you bring in Rest in Peace against BG/x Decks with deathrite and tarmogoyf i.e. Shardless, Jund, etc. If so, do you side out the snapcasters in this situation?

Do you do the same with RUG delver?

Thanks

Yup, these are my boarding plans against the three decks. I change it up sometimes depending on specific cards I'm afraid of, like Choke.

Shardless:
-3 Force of Will
-1 Counterspell
-2 Spell Pierce
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Pyroblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Rest in Peace
+1 Misdirection
+1 Terminus
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Jund:
-3 Force of Will
-1 Counterspell
-2 Spell Pierce
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Engineered Explosives
+3 Rest in Peace
+1 Terminus
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Misdirection
+2 Wear//Tear
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Against Jund, I will often keep the Explosives and board out a Counterbalance instead. In both these matchups, Entreat the Angels is key. Entreating for 4 tokens or more, especially in response to their attack, is usually gg.

RUG Delver:
-3 Force of Will
-1 Misdirection
-1 Counterspell
-1 Venser, Shaper Savant
-2 Snapcaster Mage
+3 Rest in Peace
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Terminus
+1 Entreat the Angels

The RUG delver match up has honestly been really easy though. Certainly much less scary than Jund and Shardless.

Hope that helps!

[twndomn]

Couple questions.

What do you think about playing Academy Ruins in a 22 land manabase? In my short experience I've already had trouble drawing it in my initial hand. It's nice to be able to randomly recur explosives but yeah... (cage, canonist, needle side, not playin helm).

Is V.Shackles worth it main or sb?

Not sure about the 4 Balance main or the E.tutor sb either.

22 lands including Ruins is greedy, not impossible. I wouldn't do it.

In most likely cases, even if you activate shackle, you are probably holding an opponent's creature as a blocker. If your opponent top-deck an Abrupt Decay, he might just kill you on that turn.

So far, only oarsman has proven that 4 CB is fine in legend-angel list. Your list is probably ok if you live in Europe. Since you're using Snapcasters not RiP, you might as well replace CB with Ponder, like other the European lists.

[Lemnear]

Yup, these are my boarding plans against the three decks. I change it up sometimes depending on specific cards I'm afraid of, like Choke.

Shardless:
-3 Force of Will
-1 Counterspell
-2 Spell Pierce
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Pyroblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Rest in Peace
+1 Misdirection
+1 Terminus
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Jund:
-3 Force of Will
-1 Counterspell
-2 Spell Pierce
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Engineered Explosives
+3 Rest in Peace
+1 Terminus
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Misdirection
+2 Wear//Tear
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Against Jund, I will often keep the Explosives and board out a Counterbalance instead. In both these matchups, Entreat the Angels is key. Entreating for 4 tokens or more, especially in response to their attack, is usually gg.

RUG Delver:
-3 Force of Will
-1 Misdirection
-1 Counterspell
-1 Venser, Shaper Savant
-2 Snapcaster Mage
+3 Rest in Peace
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Terminus
+1 Entreat the Angels

The RUG delver match up has honestly been really easy though. Certainly much less scary than Jund and Shardless.

Hope that helps!

If you board in Miracles for the whole range from Tempo to Midrange and likely control matchups (more Entreats), why don't you run more of them anyways in the Mainboard to adress these common matchups and adress combo via the SB?

Pretty much the same issue I see here with your boarding of RIP for the Snapcasters. You could pretty much MD the RIP's with that boarding habits and have a better G1 against ANT and Reanimator as well

[supachai]

If you board in Miracles for the whole range from Tempo to Midrange and likely control matchups (more Entreats), why don't you run more of them anyways in the Mainboard to adress these common matchups and adress combo via the SB?

Pretty much the same issue I see here with your boarding of RIP for the Snapcasters. You could pretty much MD the RIP's with that boarding habits and have a better G1 against ANT and Reanimator as well

You do bring up a good point. But allow me to defend my choice for a bit. It is true that Terminus/Entreat comes in against almost any deck with creatures, from Jund to Goblins to Death and Taxes. There's a couple reasons that I don't simply play 4 main yet board it in a lot.

1. First of all, there are matchups where it is almost completely dead (ANT, TES, Sneak Show, OmniTell, Burn). Playing 3 means I rarely see more than 1, which is usually easy enough to Brainstorm/Clique/Jace away. Playing 4 means I see 2 far too often, and it's stuck in my hand. I only want that many Terminus when I know it isn't going to be a dead card. RIP has the same issue of being a dead card in an even greater amount of matchups.

2. In game one, I want to have a shot at beating anything. This is why I have a wide range of counter magic in the main and yet in a lot of matchups it all comes out. While it's lackluster against a fair amount of the meta (Midrange, aggro, etc), you NEED to have them there for the unfair decks, namely combo. In other matchups it is a catch-all: it can still counter an opposing Jace or a Batterskull or even a creature if need be. Post board, we can specialize our deck to deal specifically with the threat at hand. Terminus is better at dealing with creatures than counter magic. REB is better at dealing with Jace, Wear // Tear is better at dealing with artifact and enchantments, etc.. Even in a matchup like Tempo (which is good anyway), Terminus does a lot more for us than a Force of Will (due to card disadvantage), despite not being great. This is also why I have Snapcasters main. They are a good catch all-recurring Swords against aggro and countermagic against control and combo. Of course in matchups where I need RIP more (anything with Deathrite, Goyf, Bridge from Below, or reanimation), Snapcaster comes out because there is now more specialized hate.

3. With tight play, 3 Terminus, 4 Swords, 2 Entreat, plus my creature suite is enough removal to get me through the aggro, tempo, and midrange matchups. Post-board, we simply add cards to make the matchup more generous.

Truth be told, Terminus only comes in for about half my matchups. I think that the 3-1 sideboard split is certainly justified. Has your playtesting told you otherwise?

I admit, I could probably design my MD - SB interaction better so that everything slots in perfectly, but I haven't played Miracles that extensively in each matchup to figure out the perfect build. I actually struggled a lot with the build since I realized I was boarding out Force in so many matchups. It actually makes me curious if it's better to just cut way down on the countermagic in the main and then board in all of it in in the combo matchups. Definitely could be interesting. The thing with that is, it probably guarantees our loss against combo game 1 (forcing you to win both games 2 and 3-which can be ruined by a run of bad luck), while not necessarily guaranteeing our win against Jund/BUG (two more difficult matchups imo). The way I have it set up, I have a fair shot at beating both game 1, giving me a bit more leeway games 2 and 3.

[Dzra]

It actually makes me curious if it's better to just cut way down on the countermagic in the main and then board in all of it in in the combo matchups.

I think that this is a pretty good approach actually. While I wouldn't cut FoW entirely from the MD, I think that combo has a distinct advantage game one anyways in that you probably don't yet know they are combo. Unless you know what they are playing beforehand, having anti-combo cards in hand game one is very incidental. Since you will rarely get many turns to dig through your deck to find anti-combo cards, if your FoWs weren't accidentally in your opening hand then you will likely lose the game with four FoWs floating around in your library. The different with cards like Counterbalance (and RIP) being that while good against a lot of combo decks, they are also great against a wide variety of non-combo decks and will help you make a plan when thinking about mulligans.


I'm sorry to ask you this Drza but after reading your last report, i was very interested to know your decklist. Unfortunately, i couldn't find it in the 40 previous pages so i gave up :(.

Could you please paste it here again or maybe send it to me by private message ?
Thank you very much.

No worries, I usually don't post deck lists because I think they clutter things up. If anyone ever wants my deck list, they can always just message me.


What do you think about playing Academy Ruins in a 22 land manabase?

Like others have said, I probably wouldn't run a colorless land in this deck. A ton hinges on :u::u:, and even a couple (like Elspeth and Entreat) on :w::w:. When facing Wasteland/Stifle decks, drawing a colorless land could mean the difference between a win and a loss.

[Lemnear]

I chopped down my MB countermagic to FoW and Counterbalance with Flusterstorm, Meddling Mages, RIP and Runed Halo coming in from the side for parts the anti-creature-package and some Jaces. Cliques and Venser are still solid.

Proved more successful to focus on the Tempo-/midrange-matchups and tackle combo with the SB.

[Mackan]

I would actually keep 3 Fow versus Canadian Thresh. For example;
You lost game1 and are on the play:
Play fech, fetch island, pass.
He goes land, nimble mongoose.
You fow and pitch jace.
Now he can either fow back (parity, which favors you beeing the slower deck) or let fow resolve. It's not totally unresonable that he will be out of creatures and has to dig for another. Overall you buy 2-3 turns which let you play actual magic . This leads to my next point; Side out most counterspells and get better topdecks. Counters like Counterspell, spell pierce and flusterstorm are not good in this matchup because you will often be behind on board. With the exception of sulfuric vortex you don't really care about anything that is not a creature. I rather have a high density of answers to the board than having counterspells to protect my answers from getting countered. If you flusterstorm a fow to get RiP through, then grats. what if you only have 2 lands with rip and flusterstorm in hand? what if you just have the flusterstorm? what if you have 3 mana, rest in peace and nothing more? Maybe your next draw is that flusterstorm, should you wait? Fow is bad because it's card disadvantage and easily stopped by REB. It does have the upside of beeing able to counter anything at any time though. It's great where a counterspell is _needed_ and that is to stop an early threat or to force a miracle through. Because Fow has "built in protection from Daze" compared to i.e spell pierce the card-disadvantage might actually be better. If you have cards in hand when you loose to Canadian Thresh then maybe you can keep some fow's in next time?

This is what I sideboard versus RUG;
-2 predict -2 counterspell -2 spell snare -1 jace -1 fow
+1 entreat +4 reb (I run a mountain) +2 rip +1 engineered explosives. Reb is first of all an answer to delver but can also just trade for a brainstorm.
I have tried blood moon but I think it adds to much inconsistency. Sometimes you are to much behind for it to make a difference.

When I instead of tempo face a lot of discard i still want to maximize my topdecks but I no longer care about tempo. Sideboarding versus shardless for example;
-2 spell snare -4 stp -4 fow -2 counterspell
+4 blasts +1 ee +1 entreat +2 rip +1 venser +1 clique +1 needle +1 blood moon. Here blasts are unconditional jace-removal and also stops creeping tar pit, notion thief, force of will and ancestral visions. Sometimes it's even worth killing an agent to protect jace.
I mentioned this in an earlier post but got nothing in response. Is everyone happy with Misdirection as a way to fight shardless? I can really see the upside of doing that to abrupt decay, hymn and ancestral vision... but do we really need this loopsided card to win?

Jund is less driven by CA than Shardless so I keep my plows over the blasts (but otherwise sideboard the same as I do versus shardless). If they have choke I would consider keeping a few counters.

[supachai]

I would actually keep 3 Fow versus Canadian Thresh. For example;
You lost game1 and are on the play:
Play fech, fetch island, pass.
He goes land, nimble mongoose.
You fow and pitch jace.
Now he can either fow back (parity, which favors you beeing the slower deck) or let fow resolve. It's not totally unresonable that he will be out of creatures and has to dig for another. Overall you buy 2-3 turns which let you play actual magic . This leads to my next point; Side out most counterspells and get better topdecks. Counters like Counterspell, spell pierce and flusterstorm are not good in this matchup because you will often be behind on board. With the exception of sulfuric vortex you don't really care about anything that is not a creature. I rather have a high density of answers to the board than having counterspells to protect my answers from getting countered. If you flusterstorm a fow to get RiP through, then grats. what if you only have 2 lands with rip and flusterstorm in hand? what if you just have the flusterstorm? what if you have 3 mana, rest in peace and nothing more? Maybe your next draw is that flusterstorm, should you wait? Fow is bad because it's card disadvantage and easily stopped by REB. It does have the upside of beeing able to counter anything at any time though. It's great where a counterspell is _needed_ and that is to stop an early threat or to force a miracle through. Because Fow has "built in protection from Daze" compared to i.e spell pierce the card-disadvantage might actually be better. If you have cards in hand when you loose to Canadian Thresh then maybe you can keep some fow's in next time?

This is what I sideboard versus RUG;
-2 predict -2 counterspell -2 spell snare -1 jace -1 fow
+1 entreat +4 reb (I run a mountain) +2 rip +1 engineered explosives. Reb is first of all an answer to delver but can also just trade for a brainstorm.
I have tried blood moon but I think it adds to much inconsistency. Sometimes you are to much behind for it to make a difference.

When I instead of tempo face a lot of discard i still want to maximize my topdecks but I no longer care about tempo. Sideboarding versus shardless for example;
-2 spell snare -4 stp -4 fow -2 counterspell
+4 blasts +1 ee +1 entreat +2 rip +1 venser +1 clique +1 needle +1 blood moon. Here blasts are unconditional jace-removal and also stops creeping tar pit, notion thief, force of will and ancestral visions. Sometimes it's even worth killing an agent to protect jace.
I mentioned this in an earlier post but got nothing in response. Is everyone happy with Misdirection as a way to fight shardless? I can really see the upside of doing that to abrupt decay, hymn and ancestral vision... but do we really need this loopsided card to win?

Jund is less driven by CA than Shardless so I keep my plows over the blasts (but otherwise sideboard the same as I do versus shardless). If they have choke I would consider keeping a few counters.

It might be correct to keep in Force against RUG, but it is almost certainly incorrect to Force a turn 1 Nimble Mongoose, especially when you don't know what else they have in hand. Mongoose will remain a 1/1 until turn 3-4 at the earliest. We end up taking 2-3 damage, but we have that time to dig for Explosives, Rest in Peace, Entreat, or Terminus. Force would only be for dangerous cards like Sulfuric Vortex or maybe a large Goyf when we're in a pinch. I will probably try keeping in two Forces in place of a Swords and a Terminus and see how it goes.

I think the argument can certainly be made to board in REB. I like that it stops countermagic when you really need something to resolve and hitting Delver on the side is nice. The problem I have with it is that I would need to fetch Volcanics, which can be wasted. Since you are running a basic Mountain it's probably a better choice for you, but I think I will stick with Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm.

I agree with your SB plan vs Shardless (although I'd probably still keep some Swords). I'm still unsure if I want to keep Misdirection or not. Usually snagging one Hymn, Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay, or Visions puts me far enough ahead to get there. I can't remember when I wished it were a Force.

[Dzra]

It might be correct to keep in Force against RUG, but it is almost certainly incorrect to Force a turn 1 Nimble Mongoose, especially when you don't know what else they have in hand.

I totally agree with this. I think having some FoW isn't bad against tempo, but I don't think I'd ever use it to counter their threats, especially early in the game. I would use FoW almost exclusively to stop their Stifles on lands and Stifles or other counter magic on key spells like Terminus or Counterbalance. REB is great because it can shoot Delvers (their only real threat post-RIP) as well as help you resolve your spells. I also like Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce a whole lot against tempo. Flusterstorm is especially Daze-proof. Our spells are more powerful than theirs. Use your counter magic to resolve your powerful spells, not counter their dudes that our removal covers already.

[klaus]

It might be correct to keep in Force against RUG, but it is almost certainly incorrect to Force a turn 1 Nimble Mongoose.

Take the following scenario:
* G1, turn1, on the draw
* opponent turns out to be on RUG and drops a T1 Mongoose.
* Your hand: 2 Island, 1 Tundra, 1 STP, 1 FOW, 1 Jace, 1 Counterbalance

This is why I'd FOW the Mongoose (obv. pitching Jace):
* our only 3-4 outs are Terminus and possibly a miser S. Verdict
* I don't count EtA here, since it's not only vulnerable to Stifle but also Pierce, making it an unreliable solution, plus it's an endgame spell, and thus irrelevant at that point.
* finding those 3-4 outs w/o cantrips / Top might take a while
* also our white source is wastable = not reliable
* successfully FOW'ing Goose might buy enough time to reach 4+ land drops rather unharmed

The given scenario could evolve like so:
* they FOW back (a feasible move imo) --> fair trade
* they Daze our FOW: that's kinda uncool, but at least costs them significant tempo (Dazing on turn one hurts their tempo considerably more than later on)
* FOW resolves --> great: We've just gotten rid of their meanest menace, bought some time plus get the info that they're not holding Daze.
* T2 they drop nothing and keep up their mana for Stifle --> great, we've just bought ourselves another essential turn
* and yep: I'd definitely FOW that Goose even if I didn't hold STP (making us more vulnerable to a T2 Goyf), since I prefer facing down a 3/4 goyf on turn 2-3 over a Nimble Menace on turn 1

The scenario above has many variations, of which I just considered a very small amount. The basic idea beyond my approach, and I think many of you would agree: buying time is the sole aim during the early game against fast aggro. I'm aware countering that Mongoose is not scientifically proven the correct move, but I've experienced too many games in which I took a couple of pings from one and eventually 1-2 hits by a thresh'd one and then mercilessly got burned to death.
Allowing RUG or any other opponent with a certain counter suite to resolve a hexproof guy puts them in the driver seat. All they have to do is protecting their threat against 3-4 outs, instead of finding and resolving another one.

[supachai]

Take the following scenario:
* G1, turn1, on the draw
* opponent turns out to be on RUG and drops a T1 Mongoose.
* Your hand: 2 Island, 1 Tundra, 1 STP, 1 FOW, 1 Jace, 1 Counterbalance

This is why I'd FOW the Mongoose here (obv. pitching Jace):
* our only 3-4 outs are Terminus and possibly a miser S. Verdict
* I don't count EtA here, since it's not only vulnerable to Stifle but also Pierce, making it an unreliable solution, plus it's an endgame spell, and thus irrelevant at that point.
* finding those 3-4 outs w/o cantrips / Top might take a while
* also our white source is wastable = not reliable
* successfully FOW'ing Goose might buy enough time to reach 4+ land drops rather unharmed

The given scenario could evolve like so:
* they FOW back (a feasible move imo) --> fair trade
* they Daze our FOW: that's kinda uncool, but at least costs them significant tempo (Dazing on turn one hurts their tempo considerably more than later on)
* FOW resolves --> great: We've just gotten rid of their meanest menace, bought some time plus get the info that they're not holding Daze.
* T2 they drop nothing and keep up their mana for Stifle --> great, we've just bought ourselves another essential turn
* and yep: I'd definitely FOW that Goose even if I didn't hold STP (making us more vulnerable to a T2 Goyf), since I prefer facing down a 3/4 goyf on turn 2-3 over a Nimble Menace on turn 1

The scenario above has many variations, of which I just considered a very small amount. The basic idea beyond my approach, and I think many of you would agree: buying time is the sole aim during the early game against fast aggro. I'm aware countering that Mongoose is not scientifically proven the correct move, but I've experienced too many games in which I took a couple of pings from one and eventually 1-2 hits by a thresh'd one and then mercilessly got burned to death.
Allowing RUG or any other opponent with a certain counter suite to resolve a hexproof guy puts them in the driver seat. All they have to do is protecting their threat against 3-4 outs, instead of finding and resolving another one.

As we were talking about the post-board matchup, you actually have Terminus, Explosives, and Rest in Peace. Brainstorm, Top, and Ponder can also help you dig. In my deck post-board, that's 18 cards that can potentially dig us out. We will probably see 3 more cards (not including the extra ones from Top/Bstorm) before the Mongoose gets threshed. I'd bet my chances on that and save myself the card disadvantage. Plus, if they drop a Goyf, Delver, or a second Mongoose next turn I would certainly rather have waited for Terminus, Explosives, and Rest in Peace. I'm sure in the preboard matchup, there are fringe cases where Forcing the Mongoose is correct but in general it is a play I would really not want to make unless I have to.

Part of what I learned playing Miracles is that you have to play it like a control deck. We cannot think about the deck in terms of immediate plays, but rather a long-term goal. Our plays must help us get to a position where we can win. To get the most out of our plays, we usually want to wait until the last possible moment to make it, so we have the most information and can make the most correct play. I will gladly trade the 2-3 life (sometimes I'll take even bigger hits) just to get more information before making a play. There is no need to be proactive, especially that early in the game, since we have no idea what the opponent's next move is. If I throw away a Force and a Jace to save myself 3 points of life and lose out on potential future card advantage, I'm playing a losing game.

[Einherjer]

Someone had an excellent post a while back regarding the mana base (Einherjer?) explaining the ranges of land one should use from two colors up to splash colors with specialty lands. Don't know exactly where it is on this thread, but it's worth reading and thinking about.

Thanks for the shoutout, yep it was my: Here is that post you were talking about: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20529-DTB-Miracle-Control&p=745168&viewfull=1#post745168

At the moment my manabase for Miracles (which I'll be bringing to Ovino8 this weekend) is the following:

4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas

Yes I know 4 Tundra is not what everybody else is playing but I got a few reasons behind it:

Playing around Wasteland: Many will claim that 4 Tundra will suck against Wastelands. Well it does not. Why, you may ask? Well, let's take this on a more general approach. How to play around it? First there is the way everybody knows, Island, Island, Plains, Fetchland - this'll work negating the Wastelands. But what if I start with Tundra against Unknown? Will I fetch for Island next turn, if my third land in hand is Volcanic/Karakas/Tundra? Nah, I'll be probably just getting the next Tundra, and with the next Fetchland, the 3rd one, after one or two of them being Wastelanded I'll grab another one. Our Fetchland-Configuration is not 9 Flooded Strand, according to this flaw I prefer playing a bunchload of Tundren :D

Greetings

[supachai]

Thanks for the shoutout, yep it was my: Here is that post you were talking about: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20529-DTB-Miracle-Control&p=745168&viewfull=1#post745168

At the moment my manabase for Miracles (which I'll be bringing to Ovino8 this weekend) is the following:

4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas

Yes I know 4 Tundra is not what everybody else is playing but I got a few reasons behind it:

Playing around Wasteland: Many will claim that 4 Tundra will suck against Wastelands. Well it does not. Why, you may ask? Well, let's take this on a more general approach. How to play around it? First there is the way everybody knows, Island, Island, Plains, Fetchland - this'll work negating the Wastelands. But what if I start with Tundra against Unknown? Will I fetch for Island next turn, if my third land in hand is Volcanic/Karakas/Tundra? Nah, I'll be probably just getting the next Tundra, and with the next Fetchland, the 3rd one, after one or two of them being Wastelanded I'll grab another one. Our Fetchland-Configuration is not 9 Flooded Strand, according to this flaw I prefer playing a bunchload of Tundren :D

Greetings

Have you tried a 1-of Mystic Gate or Glacial Fortress? Choke is a real card, and Mystic Gate especially allows us to generate UU with just another Plains under Choke (or when we can't find other blue mana). Has proven to be very useful. Either way, I love the Miracles mana base. 6 basics and zero colorless sources makes us incredibly stable and resilient.

[Einherjer]

I tried both of them, and yeah sure both a strictly better than a Tundra as the game progresses. But I don't need any extra power for the lategame, I need immediate power in the earlygame, where the first interactions take place. Both of them are incedribly bad as 1st land. You can't Pierce and you can't Brainstorm in T1-3, which is necessary against certain decktypes - aka Storm, End of T1 Brainstorm into Balance with a manacost of choice on Top is viable.

I have played a lot of games, both on Cockatrice and irl, local tournaments, Grand Prixs, Ovino7 and hundreds of Cockatrice battles and I died to Choke once in real life and about 10 times on Cockatrice. This is a fair percentage for a hatecard. I wouldn't wanna add a worse Tundra just for the sake of beating a Choke somewhen in the following two years to come... If the meta would warrant it, I'd def. play Mystic Gate but right now I don't see the reason for doing so. Against most Choke-Decks I still have 2 Counterspell alongside the Counterbalances. Sometimes I keep in Pierces and sometimes I bring in Wear//Tear - not like I am plain dead to this (rarely seen) card.

Greetings

[Mackan]

Thanks for the shoutout, yep it was my: Here is that post you were talking about: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20529-DTB-Miracle-Control&p=745168&viewfull=1#post745168

At the moment my manabase for Miracles (which I'll be bringing to Ovino8 this weekend) is the following:

4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas

Yes I know 4 Tundra is not what everybody else is playing but I got a few reasons behind it:

Playing around Wasteland: Many will claim that 4 Tundra will suck against Wastelands. Well it does not. Why, you may ask? Well, let's take this on a more general approach. How to play around it? First there is the way everybody knows, Island, Island, Plains, Fetchland - this'll work negating the Wastelands. But what if I start with Tundra against Unknown? Will I fetch for Island next turn, if my third land in hand is Volcanic/Karakas/Tundra? Nah, I'll be probably just getting the next Tundra, and with the next Fetchland, the 3rd one, after one or two of them being Wastelanded I'll grab another one. Our Fetchland-Configuration is not 9 Flooded Strand, according to this flaw I prefer playing a bunchload of Tundren :D

Greetings

The problem with this is that miracles do not want to miss landdrops. I like the overload on duals-approach in decks with a proactive gameplan. I advocated this for esper-stoneblade together with 3-4 wastelands a while back. If you get wastelanded having mystic/bob/delver/whatever at 1-2 mana you don't reallty care. If you miss a landdrop where your goal is jace, entreat and terminus (even at 6 mana) those cards drops ALOT as realistic plays for every land wasted. Sure, you won't get color-screwed (as you explained above) as you will not run out of white/blue sources so easily, even with just blue fetchlands but you have to consider the cost of durdling with top and resolving jace (preferably w/o range of spell pierce). As weird as it may sound I actually prefer the minimum amount of duals and max out on basics and fetches (where 9 or 10 is my "max" for not taking to much damage). As long as you don't run to low on sources for your cards this will get you a more solid manabase versus wasteland (and when you don't face wasteland you can still go easy-mode and fetch duals).

To put this approach in your example above, if you run 4 tundras the risk of having them in hand while having a fetchland in play is twice as high if you run 4 compared to 2 as I have. You will therefor not be "forced" to fetch a tundra as you "allready have another wasteland-target coming".

My manabase for reference;
4 flooded strand
3 scalding tarn
2 arid mesa
2 plains
5 island
1 mountain
1 karakas
2 volcanic island
2 tundra

18 sources for blue. 12 sources for island.
14 sources for white. 8 sources for plains
12 sources for red. 6 sources for mountain.

compared to your manabase it's +1 mountain +1 island -2 tundra.

This has served me quite well. WW can be hard sometimes but as long as you find one basic plains you can allways fetch that tundra for the one-shot with entreat.
If I want to up my count for white sources I would add mystic gate or replace an island/volcanic island for it.


edit: Also, well written Klaus.
There's also a subtle benefit from FOW-ing creatures rather than saving it to push removal through (which is basicly the same, except it takes more mana and you take more damage) and that is information. If I fow my opponent's turn 1 play (dodging daze) and he fow back I have less things to worry about from his hand, the card he pitches also tells me a lot about the rest of his cards. As long as you are 100% reactive and your opponent has no threath in play his cards gets worse and yours get better. He might even be "forced" to play more lands. Saving FOW to be able to kill two creatures is just win-more-thinking. Playing spell pierce and flusterstorm of your own does not fit in your gameplan, rather your opponent's. You basicly only fuel your opponents (otherwise dead) soft-counters! Pierce nagging a Ponder is certainly better than a lot of things but it's not Ponder that kills you and by playing Spell pierce you only make your topdecks worse.

[klaus]

As we were talking about the post-board matchup, you actually have Terminus, Explosives, and Rest in Peace. Brainstorm, Top, and Ponder can also help you dig. In my deck post-board, that's 18 cards that can potentially dig us out.
I was strictly referring to a preboard game. And yes: of course, we have cantrips, but in the hand I investigated, we didn't.


Plus, if they drop a Goyf, Delver, or a second Mongoose next turn I would certainly rather have waited for Terminus, Explosives, and Rest in Peace.
As for Goyf and Delver: we're still holding STP as an immediate answer. // EE is not a core card, which is why I ignored its existence for analytical reasons, and RiP again does not apply for G1s, unless you're going with a RiP Helm version, which I personally think is terrible in general, unless your meta consists of an extremely high amount of gy based strategies.


I'm sure in the preboard matchup, there are fringe cases where Forcing the Mongoose is correct but in general it is a play I would really not want to make unless I have to..
Just to be clear: I wasn't promoting FOWing T1 Geese as a general approach, instead I presented a scenario that made this move feasible. What fringe cases come to your mind beyond that?


I Part of what I learned playing Miracles is that you have to play it like a control deck. We cannot think about the deck in terms of immediate plays, but rather a long-term goal. Our plays must help us get to a position where we can win.
That's exactly the reasoning behind my approach to the given case. I even took it further and boiled it down to the #1 objective of surviving the early midgame as unharmed as possible against tempo decks featuring burn spells.


If I throw away a Force and a Jace to save myself 3 points of life and lose out on potential future card advantage, I'm playing a losing game. Jace is the first card I'll gladly pitch to FOW against Aggro archetypes boasting Daze/Pierce, since he's simply irrelevant during the first 6 turns (aka. the early game) - and that's exactly when the winners of most of such games are decided.
The only time I could see myself casting a Jace on turn 4-6 is when I'm facing a desperate board state and am forced to bounce a Delver or Goyf just to have Jace eat some dmg and die to survive another 1-3 turns and eventually find a sweeper.


[...] to save myself 3 points of life That's a bold understatement: Geese will cost you an estimated average of 7-10 life if resolved on turn 1, with a cantripless hand such as the one above. And let me tell you I have seen a turn 1 Goose go all the way more than once. :smile:

[Einherjer]

I understand your reasoning and I think both approaches are viable, though I see on little flaw in your argument.

You claim that your manabase is better against Wasteland in the lategame, which I think is wrong. You play 1 more real Basic Land. Basic Mountain is a whole different story. Let's just say 2 more nonwastelandable sources. Meaning you won't get Wastelanded early on but in the Midgame when you have to play Tundren. Well, I think we are both overexegerating the importance of 2 land slots at a whole. Both versions can easily play Basic Lands up to T4. Mine can do this, yours too. Both will be wastelanded after that simply because we play wastelandable sources. The main thing I see here is if you can't run out enough Basiclands soon 4 Tundra is superior, but I see your way of working around this, by simply playing more basic lands. Wasteland will get us, this or the other way, but based on testing I did last week (though it wasn't concentrated on the manabase) I got manascrewed against RUG 2 out of 16 times. One more time RUG was able to colorscrew me - making 3/16 which is fine by me. Anyways, a small one sided sample is no proof that my version is better.

My conclusion would be the following:

Wasteland does affect our deck, even though not as much as it does affect others, but we cannot play around it completely. You can either try to overload on Duals or to play more Basics. Both will grant you a way to play "around/with" opposing Wastelands. Either way it will slow you down sooner or later. It ofc is better to get slowed down by it as late as possible but being able to drop an U/W land after another turn after turn has some merit too, in the early game.


Are you fine with that or should we discuss this topic in a real way, I am fine with taking this topic serious and writing a lot more than I did if you feel like I am wrong.

Greetings

[klaus]

4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas

That's basically what I ended up with too. I strongly recommend -1 Delta +1 Arid Mesa though: getting that second basic Plains is key to setting up a safe EtA against mana denial strategies imo. Also, we're likely to fetch a basic Island with the Strands from our opening hands, making sure to have a safe mana source to cast our early cantrips.
I also prefer to go with 1 Delta, 1 Rainforest, 1 Tarn - one day some Sinkhole.dec opponent might just opt to Extirpate your Deltas - I know super fringy case, but there's no downside to splitting up those U fetches.


Playing around Wasteland: Many will claim that 4 Tundra will suck against Wastelands. Well it does not. Why, you may ask? Well, let's take this on a more general approach. How to play around it? First there is the way everybody knows, Island, Island, Plains, Fetchland - this'll work negating the Wastelands. But what if I start with Tundra against Unknown? Will I fetch for Island next turn, if my third land in hand is Volcanic/Karakas/Tundra? Nah, I'll be probably just getting the next Tundra, and with the next Fetchland, the 3rd one, after one or two of them being Wastelanded I'll grab another one. Our Fetchland-Configuration is not 9 Flooded Strand, according to this flaw I prefer playing a bunchload of Tundren :D
Basically exactly my approach. It's not a clear dogma though - of course you need more info to determine whether fetching a Tundra over a basic Island is the correct call*, but yes: more often than not I see myself going for another Tundra against Wasteland.dec, since being cut off white completely can hurt much more than being sure to keep an unwasteable blue mana source.
-
* cases that ask for this approach: holding multiple STPs or intending to set up an EtA / Moat / Elspeth / Supreme Verdict

Here's my mana base for reference:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas

[YamiJoey]

Currently playing:

3 Plains
5 Island
1 Mountain
1 Karakas
4 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Glacial Fortress

Though I can see the argument for an additional Volc here. I play the RiP/Helm build, with a Blood Moon and Engi in the Main deck. I have currently only been screwed when against Wastes when I was desperately trying to land a Blood Moon against a Maverick opponent and couldn't afford to find my single Volc. Other times I have been fine. (I played 4 Tundras at the time.) I think this mana-base is perfect for us, and I use an almost identical one in my Bant variant, replacing all Red with Green, though I am hoping to throw in Punishing Fire's and Groves at some point.

[klaus]

Currently playing:
3 Plains
5 Island
1 Mountain
1 Karakas
4 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Glacial Fortress
Though I can see the argument for an additional Volc here. I play the RiP/Helm build, with a Blood Moon and Engi in the Main deck. I have currently only been screwed when against Wastes when I was desperately trying to land a Blood Moon against a Maverick opponent and couldn't afford to find my single Volc. Other times I have been fine. (I played 4 Tundras at the time.) I think this mana-base is perfect for us, and I use an almost identical one in my Bant variant, replacing all Red with Green, though I am hoping to throw in Punishing Fire's and Groves at some point.

If your meta is full of greedy manabases, warranting a MD Moon, I could see this working. However the surprise effect probably decreases after your second tourney boasting that tech.
I would still miss those 3-4 fetches you dropped, since being able to shuffle every now and then is just golden for a deck with BS, Jace and Top.

[Mackan]

7 tundra?

[Einherjer]

Deriving from the fact that he plays 0 Flooded Strand I think this should mean:

4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra


Greetings

[YamiJoey]

Deriving from the fact that he plays 0 Flooded Strand I think this should mean:

4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra


Greetings

Blerg; this. So that's 9 fetches.

Blood Moon works against everyone. Nobody plays Wastes on Miracles, so no-one plays around that kind of thing. If you do, then I just don't make Blood Moon. It's THAT simple. Certain decks can't play around it, like 3-colour tempo, and the more midrange decks like Shardless.

[supachai]

I was strictly referring to a preboard game. And yes: of course, we have cantrips, but in the hand I investigated, we didn't.

I was simply saying that we can draw into cantrips which can then draw us into removal, even if we don't have any in our opening hand. I admit that your hand is definitely a case where Force-ing a turn 1 mongoose is a possibility but if I have any sort of removal (non-STP) or cantrip, you can bet I'm keep my Force.


Just to be clear: I wasn't promoting FOWing T1 Geese as a general approach, instead I presented a scenario that made this move feasible. What fringe cases come to your mind beyond that?

If they mulled to 6 or 5, I'd be more likely to Force, since it is less likely they will Force back or even have a backup threat.


That's exactly the reasoning behind my approach to the given case. I even took it further and boiled it down to the #1 objective of surviving the early midgame as unharmed as possible against tempo decks featuring burn spells.

We do need to survive the midgame, but being unharmed can mean different things. One way is in terms of our life total. The other way is in terms of how strong our hand is compared to theirs. If I'm at 20 life in the mid game but I'm in top deck mode while staring down a Goyf, that is probably a worse situation than if I have a hand of 3 cards and at 12 life.


Jace is the first card I'll gladly pitch to FOW against Aggro archetypes boasting Daze/Pierce, since he's simply irrelevant during the first 6 turns (aka. the early game) - and that's exactly when the winners of most of such games are decided.
The only time I could see myself casting a Jace on turn 4-6 is when I'm facing a desperate board state and am forced to bounce a Delver or Goyf just to have Jace eat some dmg and die to survive another 1-3 turns and eventually find a sweeper.

I agree, Jace is the card I'd pitch here. Just so we're clear, I'm not saying that in your situation your play is incorrect. I am just saying in general, given no other information, Forcing a turn 1 Mongoose is probably not the best play.


That's a bold understatement: Geese will cost you an estimated average of 7-10 life if resolved on turn 1, with a cantripless hand such as the one above. And let me tell you I have seen a turn 1 Goose go all the way more than once. :smile:

Yeah, sure. Sometimes Delver does what Delver does and we get rolled. But in the long run, I've found that take 2-3 hits or even 4 hits is acceptable and I can find removal in time. And if know I will find my RIP, Terminus, or Explosives in that time, then Forcing would have been the incorrect play. Anyway, let's drop this. I will concede that the specific situation you brought up there is definitely an argument for Forcing the Mongoose but it is not the correct general strategy of Miracles.

EDIT: On the whole mana base issue, I thought I might chip in mine. I'm running this 22:

4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Mystic Gate
1 Karakas

Sometimes I find that 3 Tundra is too much but there's also times where I find that 2 leaves me unable to fetch one at times. I still think that 3 is correct, supported by the miser Mystic Gate. I would never go less than 6 basics though. I really want to run the second Karakas but I don't want to cut another non-land card.

[Dzra]

Take the following scenario:
* G1, turn1, on the draw
* opponent turns out to be on RUG and drops a T1 Mongoose.
* Your hand: 2 Island, 1 Tundra, 1 STP, 1 FOW, 1 Jace, 1 Counterbalance

Given this scenario, I would rather hold my FoW almost every time. Not knowing what my draws would be, I'd plan to do something like Island go, Island go, Tundra -> Daze-proof Counterbalance with FoW backup. By this point you've likely drawn some more spicy cards, possibly even a Top or Brainstorm. Over the course of these three turns, you've taken a whopping 2 damage (3 if you count using the FoW to protect your CB). This sounds a whole lot better to me than FoWing their Goose on zero information and hoping that they don't have the Daze (which not only keeps them the Goose, but helps it Threshold faster).

[Shaka1333]

What do you guys think about a second Karakas and a Celestial Colonnade MD ?

The number of cards with a casting cost of 2 is very low in nearly all versions i have seen ( < 10 ). Don't you think it's a issue when you are heavily relying in Counterbalance (playing 3 or 4) not to be able to counter reliably at 2 ?

Is Ponder a necessity for you or not ?

Thank you.

[Lemnear]

What do you guys think about a second Karakas and a Celestial Colonnade MD ?

The number of cards with a casting cost of 2 is very low in nearly all versions i have seen ( < 10 ). Don't you think it's a issue when you are heavily relying in Counterbalance (playing 3 or 4) not to be able to counter reliably at 2 ?

Is Ponder a necessity for you or not ?

Thank you.

The 2cc slot is a problem because the Terminus, Jaces, Entreats, Venser and Cliques push into the higher cmc's. However, since the days of Tarmogoyf-staredowns behind a Counterbalance the 2cc slot became suprisingly less relevant as the more important flipped cost are 1 (cantrips, discard, rituals), 3 (Clique, Show & Tell, Choke, KotR) and 4 (Jace, NO, Elspeth) and pretty much the worst/best 2-Drops in the format are Counterbalance, Hymn, Goofy, Bob, SFM, SCM, Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish.

For those you still have hardcounters or removal that get the Job done. It's not that creatures are that backbreaking to this deck anyways and as long as you can deny storm's mana, everythings fine.

Cel.Col isn't an option imo. It's slow, fragile, mana-intense and a horrible turn 1 play. A second Karakas however proofed it's usefullness against Reanimator, Sneak & Show, Elves (Ruric Thar) and the pesty Gardock Teeg/Thalia.

[YamiJoey]

Colonnade was bad. I may be tempted by it in a non-RiP build where I can use Wasteland and Cruicible, but until then I think it's just too slow. At the point it's good, it's better as a 'Walker.

I always like Karakas, though.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

So far I've had good experiences with Colonnade. I've only run into it twice, but in those times I 1.) Won the game on it's back, and 2.) Killed Elspeth to solidify my win instead of getting punched in the face two more times via a flying 4/4 Soldier to lose the game. I'm sure that as time goes on, it will not always allow for such game-turning plays, but for a one-of, I'd say its waaaay more solid than Glacial Fortress...

Here is my current mana base:

4 Strand
3 Tarn
2 Mesa
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Mystic Gate
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Karakas
1 Seat of the Synod
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain

A little greedy, not too bad though so far in testing. It's not greedy if I don't play greedy. If I play greedy, I occasionally get uber-wrecked by wasteland. A few people won't appreciate the basic Mountain, only 3 Island, and the Seat of the Synod along with the Colonnade, and I can see where they are coming from, but I'm fairly pleased with it. The mountain may become a 4th Island, but for now it needs more testing for my own peace of mind.

-ABC

[Gros]

Hi everybody, my local metagame is moving to more and more tribals, BUG, and Deathblade, so i'm actually testing a blade version, Batterskull is awesome in all of this matchups!
the decklist is almost netdecked from a really strong italian player and is the following:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Arid Mesa
1 Academy Ruins
2 Volcanic Island
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Force of Will
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Terminus
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Spell Pierce
1 Batterskull
1 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterbalance
1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 1 Terminus
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Wear_Tear
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Sulfur Elemental

I have no simil- Glacial fortress lands because IMHO they limit the number of basics u could play, and playing Blood Moon in SB is better than have two lands that untap under Choke, i'm not too sold on the Arid Mesa, (9th fetch) because i have 11 shuffle effects with it and they migth be too much, if that wuold be replaced it would leave the MD for a Plains

I'm still testing the blood moons in SB, they are there to "easy win" some matches like Deathblade, Jund, Shardless BUG... does anyone has any experience with them?

and these are all my sb plans, i'm not really sure on them, any suggestions?


AnT 9
In 1 FoW 2 Flusterstorm 1 Reb 1 E.E. 1 Pyro 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Eta 3 Terminus 3 Plow 1 Jace


Burn 4
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear,
Out 1 Jace, 2 Terminus, 1 Eta


Canadian Threshold 7
In 1 Terminus, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Engineered explosives, 2 Relic of Progenitus 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Jace TmS, 3 FoW, 2 Vendilion


Death and Taxes 5
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 EE, 1 Sulfur Elemental, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus
Out 2 Vendilion Clique, 3 Spell Pierce,


Deathblade (Italian lists with Geists maindeck, no Confidants and 2 FoW MD) 7/6
In 3 pyro/Reb, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Blood Moon
Out 3 FoW, 3 pierce,


Elves 7
In 1 FoW, 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 E.E., 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Flusterstorm
Out 2 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Batterskull, 1 Vendilion Clique, 3 Spell pierce


Goblins 6
In 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Wear/Tear, 1 FoW, 1 E.E, 1 Sulfur
Out 3 Pierce, 3 CB


Jund 8
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus, 2 Blood Moon, 2 Relic of Progenitus
Out 3 CB, 2 SfM, 1 Bskull, 2 Vendilion


Maverick 8
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur, 2 Blood Moon, 1 Pyroclasm/1 Terminus
Out 2 SfM, 1 BSkull, 3 Pierce, 2 Vendilion Clique


Merfolks 6
In 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 1 Terminus, 1 E.E., 1Wear/Tear
Out 1 Jace, 3 Pierce, 2 Vendilion


Miracles 8
In 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Reb, 1 E.E., 1 Sulfur Elemental
Out 2 SFM, 1 Bskull, 3 Terminus, 2 Plow


OmniTell 8
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1Wear/Tear, 2 pyroblast, 1 ReB, 1 Sulfur elemental
Out 4 Plow, 3 Terminus, 1 Entreat the Angels


Patriot tempo. 7
In 2reb, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Terminus 1 Wear/Tear, 1 Pyroclasm
Out 2 Jace, Tms, 3 pierce, 2 vendilion


Shardless BUG 6
In 2 Blood Moon, 3 Pyro, 1Terminus
Out 3 FoW, 3 CB


Sneak & Show 8
In 1 Sulfur Elemental, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Force of Will, 1 Wear/Tear
Out 4 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Entreat the Angels 1 E.E, 1 Terminus

all these plans are really sketchy, if any of you see something on what give me some indications it wuold be great!

[kingtk3]

@Gros - Just a couple of observations:
Sulfuric Elemental: Did you find it good? It kills MoMs, thalia and the like, but also pumps mirrodin crusader, stoneforge and serra avenger. Wouldn't a Pyroclasm be better in its place?

Vs Canadian I would side in 2 Blood Moons, since if they haven't a creature in play and it resolves you have win.

[Gros]

@kingtk3 the real power of sulfur elemental is that is so versatile! D&T is the classic matchup in which you side it in, but is very good vs. Thresh (it kills mongeeses), Mirror (can kill opposing Jaces in greedy mode), Maverick, is a clock vs. all the combo decks that doesn't require to you to tap at sorcery speed, almost shuts down Elspeth... it basically does almost always what you wanted it to do:) ok it can pump serra avenger and mirran crusader, but it shuts off on its own Mangara Thalia Mom, in the worst scenario it can chump Mirran after doing 2x0... it seems a good deal to me! pyroclasm is also good, but if oppo has mom mystic you look at your pyroclasm and basically cry :), same thing happens vs. Canadian Thresh mongeese 3/3 make it a dead off color card vs. a mana denial opponent, snare targettable... they are different cards and covers very different roles IMHO

[Shaka1333]

Thank you for your very interesting post Gros.

Concerning your sideboard plan, there are a few things i personally don't like :

RUG : why do you side out Vendilion Clique ? It's good at blocking Goose and Delver, seeing their hand is awesome and it allows you to resolve more easily your bombs. I also like to keep 2 FoW not to lose on tempo and to be able to resolve your gamebreaking threats more easily. The issue is that you already have way to much cards to side in and few to side out in this matchup which is the sign that there is something wrong in your 75.

D&T : No love for Vendilion Clique huh ? I value it more than the second and third CB and the third FoW is this matchup.

Elves : I wouldn't blindly side in Wear/Tear (for Choke i guess ?) because very few versions have it and i would keep V. Clique (again :p) as it's a very good card in the matchup (in addition to the classics seeing their hand, removing a NO or a Glimpse and putting back your miracles in your deck, they have litteraly no way to block it, so it's also a good kill)

Jund : I don't like keeping Force of Will in this matchup and i don't understand why you side out SFM + Batterskull, Batterskull is awesome against them.

Maverick : I like to keep my Spell Pierce in because they have quite a few very dangerous targets after board (Choke, Sylvan Library, Elspeth, GSZ). SFM + Batterskull seems good too. I don't like Relic and i'm not sure about Blood Moon but it's probably good.
I would side like that : + In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 1 Sulfur, 1 Pyroclasm/1 Terminus, (2 Blood Moon)
Out : 2 Vendilion Clique ( :) ), 2 CB (they play Cavern of Soul and have ways to destroy it), 1 FoW (2 FoW)

Miracles : If they didn't see SFM game one, you may want to consider keeping it because they will probably have no way to deal with it (try to keep 3 manas open to avoid Wear). I don't like to keep to 2 StP neither.

OmniTell : Keep EoA and side out a Jace (quite bad in this matchup)

Patriot Tempo : Cliques seems better than Counterspell, EE and FoW here.

Sneak and Show : I don't really like terminus in this matchup. Sure sometimes you will win against an Emrakul but most of time you will die anyway if they have a Griselbrand or a Sneak Attack. Keeping EoA seems better because it's a 3 drop and because you need ways to close the game.

I hope this will help you and i will gladly debate about it if you think i'm wrong.

Cheers.

[Dzra]

AnT 9
In 1 FoW 2 Flusterstorm 1 Reb 1 E.E. 1 Pyro 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Eta 3 Terminus 3 Plow 1 Jace

I'd bring in the second Pyroblast over the EE. If you know it's ANT (you see Cabal Ritual), I wouldn't expect Empty the Warrens. Also, the Jace is more useful than the single Swords. It pitches to FoW and Fateseal is actually pretty good against storm decks in the late game.



Burn 4
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear,
Out 1 Jace, 2 Terminus, 1 Eta

I'd probably take out some Cliques over Terminus. 6cmc is useful and Cliques aren't very useful. Sending a Bolt effect to the bottom and having them draw another Bolt effect isn't helpful.



Canadian Threshold 7
In 1 Terminus, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Engineered explosives, 2 Relic of Progenitus 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Jace TmS, 3 FoW, 2 Vendilion

You can think about bringing in REBs since they nuke Delvers, but you already have Flusterstorms against their counters, so it's up to you. I wouldn't take out Cliques, like Shaka said trade with Delver and Goose. Snapcasters can probably come out since you're bringing in GY hate. I'd also probably rather have more Jace than the Sulfur Elemental.



Death and Taxes 5
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 EE, 1 Sulfur Elemental, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus
Out 2 Vendilion Clique, 3 Spell Pierce

Leave in the Cliques. D&T have a lot of variance draws, and Clique is also good against SFM. You can lose the FoWs probably.


Deathblade (Italian lists with Geists maindeck, no Confidants and 2 FoW MD) 7/6
In 3 pyro/Reb, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Blood Moon
Out 3 FoW, 3 pierce

Seems fine. You might think about another Terminus though.


Elves 7
In 1 FoW, 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 E.E., 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Flusterstorm
Out 2 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Batterskull, 1 Vendilion Clique, 3 Spell pierce

Since you have no Jitte in the board, SFM is agreeably lackluster here. Again, Clique seems good against their variance. I'm not sure if Flusterstorm is actually better here than Spell Pierce. I'd be inclined to say no, but I haven't experimented with it. Also, like Shaka said, Wear//Tear is meh. I'd rather board out Flusterstorm and Wear//Tear, leave in the Pierces, and if they do something like Choke, just counter it. Choke doesn't matter anyways if you have CBTop.


Goblins 6
In 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Wear/Tear, 1 FoW, 1 E.E, 1 Sulfur
Out 3 Pierce, 3 CB

I feel like CB is more useful than FoW, but I suppose it could depend whether you're on the play or draw.


Jund 8
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus, 2 Blood Moon, 2 Relic of Progenitus
Out 3 CB, 2 SfM, 1 Bskull, 2 Vendilion

Again like Shaka said, SFM + BSkull is great against Jund. I'm not sure why you want Wear//Tear. I'd do something more like this:

+1 EE, +1 Pyroclasm, +1 Terminus, +2 Blood Moon, +2 Relic
-3 FoW, -3 Pierce, -1 Snapcaster


Maverick 8
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur, 2 Blood Moon, 1 Pyroclasm/1 Terminus
Out 2 SfM, 1 BSkull, 3 Pierce, 2 Vendilion Clique

Again, Cliques and get rid of FoW. Bring in both Pyroclasm and Terminus. I'm unsure about Blood Moon. Probably leave SFM over that and something else.



Merfolks 6
In 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 1 Terminus, 1 E.E., 1Wear/Tear
Out 1 Jace, 3 Pierce, 2 Vendilion

Why Wear//Tear? Jace and Cliques are both good. You don't need FoW.


Miracles 8
In 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Reb, 1 E.E., 1 Sulfur Elemental
Out 2 SFM, 1 Bskull, 3 Terminus, 2 Plow

Leave in Terminus and take out Swords; Terminus dodges CB better if you need to resolve removal. Sulfur Elemental and Flusterstorm probably aren't as good as SFM.


OmniTell 8
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1Wear/Tear, 2 pyroblast, 1 ReB, 1 Sulfur elemental
Out 4 Plow, 3 Terminus, 1 Entreat the Angels

You can take out EE over Entreat. Leave in Jace for Blue count and potential late game Fateseals.


Patriot tempo. 7
In 2reb, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Terminus 1 Wear/Tear, 1 Pyroclasm
Out 2 Jace, Tms, 3 pierce, 2 vendilion

Probably take out FoW over Clique (trades with Delver and Geist). I'd try to leave in more Jaces too.


Shardless BUG 6
In 2 Blood Moon, 3 Pyro, 1Terminus
Out 3 FoW, 3 CB

Seems fair.


Sneak & Show 8
In 1 Sulfur Elemental, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Force of Will, 1 Wear/Tear
Out 4 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Entreat the Angels 1 E.E, 1 Terminus

I would leave in all the Terminus and take out SFM over the Entreats.

In general, I'd rather run RIPs than Relics in the board. Also, with zero Vensers and ORing effects, Show and Tell will be a really tough MU.

[UB Control]

"Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
OmniTell 8
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1Wear/Tear, 2 pyroblast, 1 ReB, 1 Sulfur elemental
Out 4 Plow, 3 Terminus, 1 Entreat the Angels

Shaka1333
OmniTell : Keep EoA and side out a Jace (quite bad in this matchup)

Dzra
You can take out EE over Entreat. Leave in Jace for Blue count and potential late game Fateseals."

I have the same exerience and oppinion like Dzra on the Omni-Tell match up. I played (UWR Miracles with Moat MD) in a tournament against Omni-Tell (which is my other favourite deck). Second turn CB-Top and later Jace gave a total lock with Brainstorm and Clique on the top of my library. I lost pre board but won both games postboard.

[Gros]

Thanks to all of you for the time dedicated to me, i will respond to Dzra because his post basically contains the UB control and the Shaka ones'

let's start :)

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post

AnT 9
In 1 FoW 2 Flusterstorm 1 Reb 1 E.E. 1 Pyro 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Eta 3 Terminus 3 Plow 1 Jace


I'd bring in the second Pyroblast over the EE. If you know it's ANT (you see Cabal Ritual), I wouldn't expect Empty the Warrens. Also, the Jace is more useful than the single Swords. It pitches to FoW and Fateseal is actually pretty good against storm decks in the late game.

you maybe right on this, maybe i'm too afraid of Xantid Swarm, refreshing this Sb plan we have this:

In 1 FoW 2 Flusterstorm 1 Reb 2 Pyro 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Eta 3 Terminus 4 Plow

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Burn 4
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear,
Out 1 Jace, 2 Terminus, 1 Eta



I'd probably take out some Cliques over Terminus. 6cmc is useful and Cliques aren't very useful. Sending a Bolt effect to the bottom and having them draw another Bolt effect isn't helpful.

V. Clique IMHO would stay in to apply pressure to the opponent, even if it's ability is obviously underwhelming but il'll test it out even if Terminus seems equally underwhelming if not for it's 6 cmc.
then:

In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear,
Out 1 Jace, 2 V. Clique, 1 Eta

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Canadian Threshold 7 (RUG Delver)
In 1 Terminus, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Engineered explosives, 2 Relic of Progenitus 1 Sulfur
Out 2 Jace TmS, 3 FoW, 2 Vendilion


You can think about bringing in REBs since they nuke Delvers, but you already have Flusterstorms against their counters, so it's up to you. I wouldn't take out Cliques, like Shaka said trade with Delver and Goose. Snapcasters can probably come out since you're bringing in GY hate. I'd also probably rather have more Jace than the Sulfur Elemental.

i really don't like siding in Rebs for dealing with Delvers since we would need to succesfully fetch on Volcanic early giving our opponent more ways to manascrew us, i boarded out cliques because IMHO is pretty hard for it to slalom between dazes, FoWs, Bolts, Rebs and succefully trade with a mongoose, i left in both Snapcasters because if we have relic online we are winning then we don't need it too much, then if we don't have relic online we'd like to draw it and use it, then Relic isn't a "hard GY card", so it can coexhist on board with snappy if used carefully Jace has been cut because of it's high cmc and because it has hard time dealing with Rebs and mongooses.
maybe i can try something like this one but i'm not totally sold on it:

In 1 Terminus, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Engineered explosives, 2 Relic of Progenitus
Out 1 Jace TmS, 3 FoW, 2 Vendilion

Death and Taxes 5
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 EE, 1 Sulfur Elemental, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus
Out 2 Vendilion Clique, 3 Spell Pierce


Leave in the Cliques. D&T have a lot of variance draws, and Clique is also good against SFM. You can lose the FoWs probably.

FoW originally stayed in because i did it so when i played 4 in MD for getting rid of vial, now that i have 3 it seems right to board them out, i found V. Clique underwhelming vs. D&T since he plays 3 karakas MD but the effect vs. stoneforge is totally worth it actually then:

In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 EE, 1 Sulfur Elemental, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus,
Out 3 FoW, 2 Spell Pierce

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Deathblade (Italian lists with Geists maindeck, no Confidants and 2 FoW MD) 7/6
In 3 pyro/Reb, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Blood Moon
Out 3 FoW, 3 pierce


Seems fine. You might think about another Terminus though.

Terminus compete with the pyroclasm's slot in here, the advantage of the first is that can easily kill Geist equipped, the latter can't, but the latter require way less setup, i think it's still debatable

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Elves 7
In 1 FoW, 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 E.E., 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Flusterstorm
Out 2 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Batterskull, 1 Vendilion Clique, 3 Spell pierce


Since you have no Jitte in the board, SFM is agreeably lackluster here. Again, Clique seems good against their variance. I'm not sure if Flusterstorm is actually better here than Spell Pierce. I'd be inclined to say no, but I haven't experimented with it. Also, like Shaka said, Wear//Tear is meh. I'd rather board out Flusterstorm and Wear//Tear, leave in the Pierces, and if they do something like Choke, just counter it. Choke doesn't matter anyways if you have CBTop.

Guess you're right in this case i ususally choose before boarding if i wanna side or not at alla vs. choke, in this case i choose i don't care 'bout it then:


In 1 FoW, 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 E.E., 2 Flusterstorm
Out 2 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Batterskull, 3 Spell pierce

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Goblins 6
In 1 Terminus, 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Wear/Tear, 1 FoW, 1 E.E, 1 Sulfur
Out 3 Pierce, 3 CB


I feel like CB is more useful than FoW, but I suppose it could depend whether you're on the play or draw.


i think that boarding out or keepin in pierces could depend if we're OtP or OtD, but in my place people usually plays Vials and cavern of Souls, and with their "strange" mana curve CB would result totally underwhelming IMHO, the motivation to keep it in is that maybe it can bait a Krosan instead of BSkull, but if our opponent is good i guess this would be really hard. The reasoning behind keeping FoWs in is the same vs. D&T, but here i board in the 4th too then i guess it may works


Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Jund 8
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 1 Pyroclasm, 1 Terminus, 2 Blood Moon, 2 Relic of Progenitus
Out 3 CB, 2 SfM, 1 Bskull, 2 Vendilion


Again like Shaka said, SFM + BSkull is great against Jund. I'm not sure why you want Wear//Tear. I'd do something more like this:

+1 EE, +1 Pyroclasm, +1 Terminus, +2 Blood Moon, +2 Relic
-3 FoW, -3 Pierce, -1 Snapcaster


i Found this sb plan totally weak to choke, no way to deal with it, and little ways to deal with Lili IMHO, i boarded out alla the decay targets to make him draw a little more dead, then i guess mistic could really hard vial in a BSkull dodging P.Fire, Decays, Thoughtseizes, Tourachs, Lilianas...

but if your suggestions are inspired by test sessions i will totally test it out even if i respectfully disagree.

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Maverick 8
In 1 Wear/Tear, 1 E.E., 2 Relic, 1 Sulfur, 2 Blood Moon, 1 Pyroclasm/1 Terminus
Out 2 SfM, 1 BSkull, 3 Pierce, 2 Vendilion Clique


Again, Cliques and get rid of FoW. Bring in both Pyroclasm and Terminus. I'm unsure about Blood Moon. Probably leave SFM over that and something else.

here i didn't explain myself well, i was referring to Punishing Dark Maverick, Fow is here because for him is a joke to play around pierces, then a resolved Elspeth or Choke can kill uson it's own, Blood moon could be a good plan, SFM vs. P. fires qasalis, krosans, and all the rest has a real hard time IMHO. Clique could be good, but there's no more cards to cut MD IMHO


Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Merfolks 6
In 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 1 Terminus, 1 E.E., 1Wear/Tear
Out 1 Jace, 3 Pierce, 2 Vendilion


Why Wear//Tear? Jace and Cliques are both good. You don't need FoW.

Totally agree, which is the precise use of Vclique here? discard resp to Vial activation?:

In 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 1 Terminus, 1 E.E., 1 Pyroclasm ?
Out 3 Pierce, 3 FoWs,

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Miracles 8
In 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Reb, 1 E.E., 1 Sulfur Elemental
Out 2 SFM, 1 Bskull, 3 Terminus, 2 Plow


Leave in Terminus and take out Swords; Terminus dodges CB better if you need to resolve removal. Sulfur Elemental and Flusterstorm probably aren't as good as SFM.

Flusterstorm was here for not letting the opponent resolves EtA because i always thought Terminus would be a dead draw, but is actually better than Plow:

In 1 Wear/Tear, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Reb, 1 E.E.,
Out 1 Terminus, 4 Plow

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
OmniTell 8
In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1Wear/Tear, 2 pyroblast, 1 ReB, 1 Sulfur elemental
Out 4 Plow, 3 Terminus, 1 Entreat the Angels


You can take out EE over Entreat. Leave in Jace for Blue count and potential late game Fateseals.


Totally right, jace is still in there:

In 1 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm, 1Wear/Tear, 2 pyroblast, 1 ReB, 1 Sulfur elemental
Out 4 Plow, 3 Terminus, 1 EE

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Patriot tempo. 7
In 2reb, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Terminus 1 Wear/Tear, 1 Pyroclasm
Out 2 Jace, Tms, 3 pierce, 2 vendilion


Probably take out FoW over Clique (trades with Delver and Geist). I'd try to leave in more Jaces too.

FoWs were there to deal with Geists, is boarding in Blood Moons a bad idea in here? again i think Vendilion is a lot fragile to get to trade with geists.. but let see:

In 2reb, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Terminus 1 Wear/Tear, 1 Pyroclasm
Out 1 Jace, Tms, 3 pierce, 3 FoW

Quote Originally Posted by Gros View Post
Sneak & Show 8
In 1 Sulfur Elemental, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Force of Will, 1 Wear/Tear
Out 4 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Entreat the Angels 1 E.E, 1 Terminus


I would leave in all the Terminus and take out SFM over the Entreats.

ok let's try this:

In 1 Sulfur Elemental, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Force of Will, 1 Wear/Tear
Out 4 Swords to Plowshares, 2 SFM, 1 BSkull 1 E.E,



In general, I'd rather run RIPs than Relics in the board. Also, with zero Vensers and ORing effects, Show and Tell will be a really tough MU.

I think RIP is totally> relic if played maindeck, but post board Relic IMHO is more versatile because it isn't so "hard", it can be played in different modes and vs combo you can make tricks like hiding Fow with BS in resp to discard effect, then draw it in resp to his tutor/AN/PiF emptying graves, plus it cicles itself on desperate moments, and it can trigger miracles at instant speed in absence ot Top and it leaves room to play Snappy, regarding the SHow and something matchups i guess you're roght what would you eventually cut MD for a Venser?


If anyone of you have some more perplexity let me know it
thanks for the help and the time

[Shaka1333]

Yeah ... now that i think more about it, Jace seems good in the OmniShow matchup because you have the CB lock factor... i was thinking about my experience with Esperblade where Jace is worst in the matchup.

[Einherjer]

Top32 at Ovino8, list and report to come.

[Einherjer]

Report is up: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26814-Top32-at-Ovino8-(Milano-Italy-Europe)&p=754702&viewfull=1#post754702
List was very good in this very meta, which consited of quite some Miracles. I liked pretty much everything, only thing I am unsure about is the amount of red sources... I might want a 3rd one somewhere.

4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Karakas
4 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Arid Mesa
3 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ponder
SB: 3 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Wear // Tear
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Entreat the Angels
SB: 1 Counterbalance

Greetings