A Predictable Report, Part Deux: GP Columbus and the Super Sadness Series!

Welcome all! My name is Minhajul Hoq, a Columbus local and a Miracles player for many years. I’ve been fortunate over the past year to accelerate my learning of the archetype by learning from many people that are far better than me, such as Mackan, AnziD, LordofthePit, Dragonslayer_90, Exallium and still many more. For GP Columbus, I felt as prepared as ever. I don’t travel to a lot of magic events, so I knew my issues would be mental taxation and I needed to remain conscious of that. The list that my “team,” for want of a better word, and I prepared is as follows:

4 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
1 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
3 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
4 Terminus
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Predict
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Snapcaster Mage
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Predict

For those that don’t know, I’m one of the original innovators of the streamlining of Miracles, and utilizing the card Predict as an engine of sorts, instead of a splashable effect a lá Reid Duke. For more information regarding the archetype, I’d recommend reading this post by Mackan from a few months ago, which prefaces the design of the original version of the deck: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post921438

Since this original variant of the deck came into creation, the idea of “Predictable Miracles” has thoroughly exploded across the planet, with much criticism attached to it as well. But, we just kept winning with the deck. From Mackan crushing Danish Legacy masters, AnziD demolishing MTGO Legacy leagues with the deck, and so on, it was bound to start making a larger splash. Eventually, many prominent pro players, such as Brian Braun-Duin took up the Predictable mantle (thanks for the shoutout in your article about it!) and started preparing their iterations of the deck for their respective GP’s.
I am of the school of thought that the deck was powerful enough on its own, so that the “more of the same” approach is what I went with in deckbuilding. Exallium, AnziD, and I registered the above 75 for the main event. But enough semantics, we’re here to talk about the event!

Exallium, LordofthePit, and my friend Will were all going to stay at my place, so I went and gathered them Thursday night, to get ready to head to the tournament center to play in gauntlets and grinders. I still wasn’t properly set on a list, but I had no byes going into the event so I wanted to keep that in mind. I decided I’d sleeve up BBD’s list for my first and only grinder on Friday and see what would happen. I won my first round uneventfully, and then completely got curbstomped in my second round against Grixis Delver. I decided I’d just play what I was most comfortable with on Saturday, Anzi’s list.
LordofthePit won a grinder and got his byes for the following day, so that’s the victory for that one! We also met up with some friends from the Dayton area and played their proxy gauntlet for a little while, just to shake off the nerves. We then went and had dinner at BD’s Mongolian Barbecue (great place around Columbus, pretty close to the convention center if you’ve never been). Finally, bed time and preparing for the main event:

Main Event Report:

I had no byes going in, but I was ready to grind it out. LordofthePit gave me a Mickey Mouse Fantasia Wizard hat to wear, calling it lucky. It was a bit constricting though ._. so if you saw me there, I was wearing a weird wizard hat thing… Spoiler alert, it doesn’t bring good luck at all =P. I also want to mention that my memory of day one was a bit hazy, as I didn’t take notes at all, so this will mostly be verbatim and I don’t claim any accuracy here

Round 1: Patrick on Depths12PostLoam.dec
I wasn’t positive what my opponent was on, but he seemed nice enough. He actually said he thought he knew me from somewhere and then said… oops, I apologize in advance…:
“Turn one, cloudpost, go”
Oh.
He quickly locks up game one with loaming for cloudpost while I can’t find a mentor to save my life, I die to Eye for Emrakul.
Game two, I land a turn three mentor, he has to crop rotation for Glacial chasm to not die, but he doesn’t find anything to do.
Game three, he gets a fast loam exploration cloudpost chain going, and I find nothing to do. I eventually find a mentor, but he finds an Eye of Ugin first and I proceed to die to Emrakul once again.

0-1, 1-2 in games

Round 2: Benjamin on Shardless BUG
Game one: He suspends vision on turn one and I smile a little bit. I am fairly confident in our shardless matchup with this iteration of the deck, unless there are multiple hymns involved in a game. Game one, however, I get a pretty heavy dual land draw and get wastelanded out of the game while getting pressured by multiple goyfs. 2 terminus wasn’t enough.
Game two: He starts with a deathrite shaman, I plow, he plays nothing and passes and I get to cantrip for free for a few turns. A resolved top let’s me set up my mana base and take over the game with Jace and Mentor with him not able to answer either permanent efficiently. He decays mentor but two tokens are easily enough to lock up the game. Opponent resolved one vision out of a total suspended three.
Game three: Much in the same way of game two, I find plenty of necessary removal in order to stay alive and them am able to slam a Jace with blast backup, taking over the game once again. This time, opponent suspends 4 visions and none resolve, although he did try to notion thief me (didn’t work out for him)! Very pleasant opponent though!

1-1, 3-2 in games

Round 3: Cole on BUG Delver
I don’t honestly remember much about this match but I believe I had mentor plus dude every game and it just was good enough each time, I had plows for delvers and deathrites at the right time.

2-1, 5-2 in games

Round 4: Neil on Shardless
Neil is a good friend of Exallium’s, so we chat happily and get ready to play some magic! I don’t remember too much about this match either but Neil definitely cast 8 force of wills in two games as well as at least 6 hymn’s in 2 games. I got demolished

2-2, 5-4 in games

Round 5: Aaron on Omnitell
Game one: My opponent plays Delta, fetches Island, and casts Ponder. I put him on Storm, miracles, or Sneak and show and I immediately regret my keep of white cards in hand. I play a turn three mentor and hope it’s good enough. Turns out it wasn’t =P.
Game two: I am terrified of Boseiju and since I overload heavily on countermagic post board, I start countering cantrips as quickly as possible and trading one for one while developing my hand. I eventually use two snapcasters to flashback brainstorms and beat in, and it gets me there.
Game three: Repeat of game 3 except there was a clique involved too, he didn’t get off the ground

3-2, 7-5 in games

Round 6: Greg on UR delver
Game one: My opponent played a blue fetch and passed, so I didn’t know what to put him on, but I went turn 1 Top, he fetched a basic island and dazed. I was super surprised. Perhaps this was that new UR delver deck I’ve heard so much about? He resolved a delver and a swiftspear, a timely terminus sweeps them up and I stick a mentor plus a top to make a token. He drew bricks and also played a main deck Blood moon(!!). Thankfully, my manabase was already established with basics since I was at 6 and fearful of PoP.

Game two: Almost a repeat of game one, except mentor dies and the tokens mop it up. I race a t3 vortex this game.

4-2, 9-5 in games

Round 7: Michael on Death and Taxes
This was probably my favorite match of the day, but also the one in which I punted the most. I was starting to feel exceedingly tired and just couldn’t stay focused, and it cost me the match.
My opponent was SCG Grinder Michael Derczo, a prominent DnT player in the states and I recognized him immediately. I was not at all confident because I had, historically, not done well vs DnT; I just didn’t have the experience against it that I needed, and I knew this match would be difficult. He was also the most pleasant opponent I had all day, and I genuinely enjoyed our match, regardless of my awful play.

Game one: He starts off with a turn one vial and I know this game will be an uphill climb. He does the whole port thing and constricts me heavily on my mana development. I manage to deal with 3 Thalia’s, but I’ve pissed away 3 brainstorms at this point and was struggling to develop much. He eventually found a stoneforge mystic to find Sword of War and Peace, and this was my first out of focus punt of the day: I thought the sword was a Sword of Fire and Ice, like most of my prior DnT opponents have in their Main deck, and I stupidly allow the equip happen on a flickerwisp. I tried to plow it, but then realized the horror of my mistake. I ate 10 damage to the face, and proceed to lose a few turns down the road because of this.

Game two: I get stuck on two lands for a few turns and ports kill me.

4-3, 9-7 in games.

Round 8: Travis on Maverick
At this point, I’m exhausted and start to feel rather sick, but I want to keep trucking on, believing that I can make it through the day still.
Game one: My opponent leads off of Forest, Deathrite Shaman, and I mentally cheer in my head. I plow it, he does more things and I easily kill him with some mentor tokens within a few turns.

Game two: I develop my mana a bit and kill a Knight and a Mother of Runes. My opponent then chokes me, but I only have 1 tapped island that’s effected by it, and more lands, a plains, and an active top so I feel pretty confident. My opponent then proceeds to top deck lands for a few turns while I make my hand unbeatable. I finally find a wear//tear and win the game with a Jace within a few turns.

5-3, 11-7 in games.

Round 9: Jeff on UWR Miracles
Okay, one more win and I’m in! I sit down happily across from my opponent but the fatigue is still there. We wish each other good luck and he wins the die roll.
Game one: Turn 1 top, turn two counterbalance. I force, he forces back, I force back again, he forces back again. DEAD.

Game two: He plays a turn three mentor that gets around my lock and I die to it :(.

Dead for day two :(. I’m disappointed in my finish overall, but I was happy for my friends both here and across the ocean in Prague that did make day two. I also met some people that I had networked with earlier this past week, Wilson Hunter and Philip Braverman, and talked to them about their own Mentor Miracles build, which was a bit different from our own approach. I had promised them earlier that day that if I didn’t make day two, I’ll test out their 19 land Mentor Miracles deck in the Super Sunday Series, so that would be my goal.
Many of my friends made day two, so I’d be happy to cheer them on! We go and grab dinner at a local Mexican food place called Guachos, and get ready for the day ahead.

The list for the Super Sadness Series:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Predict
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
1 Counterspell
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Island
2 Plains
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
SB
1 Mountain
4 Pyroblast
2 Wear//Tear
2 Blood Moon
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce

The nuances of this list can be found on the Brainstorm Show, the podcast of Phillip Braverman, Wilson Hunter, and Paul Michel: http://www.thebrainstormshow.com/
I decided that I needed to focus on cleaning up my technical play instead of trying to worry about my card choices, as most of the work for this particular deck had already been done for me. So I simply focused on keeping my stamina up with some bread all day long, and just fixing my technical play.

I decide to abandon the fantasia wizard hat for this event, focusing on technical play and all that =P.

Regardless of this, I may have missed my own draw step twice in the tournament...

Round one: Joe on Painter’s Servant Natural Order.dec
Game one: My opponent leads with fetchbasic forest, Deathrite Shaman, so I place him on elves or maverick. My turn one Ponder leads to me setting up a terminus in two turns, so I think that will be pretty good and pass back, drawing a Force of Will off of the Ponder. My opponent’s turn two was comprised of Ancient Tomb, Painter’s Servant (which I let resolve), naming Green. Ooooookay. I had no idea what was happening here, but I quickly beat him with Terminus>Mentor.

Game two: I am still not certain what’s happening, but I keep in EE and bring in wear//tears, as well as surgical extraction. My opponent lands an early Uba Mask on me, and I have to awkwardly play around it, getting in a few hits with a mentor. He then follows up with an ensnaring bridge, and has a top in play (which I manage to predict away so he can’t filter his draw steps). I eventually draw the Wear//Tear I need to win the game. Super pleasant opponent though! Turns out his deck was a deck based around Painter’s Servant to turn everything Green, then using Natural Order to get out giant things like Emrakul, Progenitus, etc. Pretty cool deck, but Mentor punishes fringe strategies pretty easily.

1-0, 2-0 in games

Round 2: Carl on Grixis Delver
My first Grixis Delver opponent of the day! I don’t recall much about this match, but I do remember that I drew both MD EE’s in both games, and they were utterly soul crushing for my opponent. Monastery Mentor also very quickly outclassed Young Pyromancer.

2-0, 4-0 in games

Round 3: Carlos on Grixis Delver
This round’s opponent was someone I recognized from..somewhere. I wasn’t sure where, exactly, but I do know that he had an air of familiarity around him.
Game one: He starts off of fetch, pass, and I’m a bit afraid of stifle, so I mirror him. He fetches EOT (in response I also fetch) and brainstorms. Then, on his turn, he Probes and casts two ponders. Gulp. I fear storm, and I kept a pretty white-card-heavy hand. I suddenly realize where I remember my opponent from. His behavior and usage of cantrips kind of peg him as a storm player by trade and, funnily enough, he’s the storm player that I beat in round 4 or 5 of GP NJ, a few years prior! Cool, small world! On his next turn, he casts a Delver of Secrets, and my heart sinks (I had brainstorm, shuffled my white cards away) and I very quickly die to his now stacked hand. He casts 4 Force of Wills on the removal spells I did end up finding, and lose very quickly to the Delver plus my liberal usage of fetch lands ._.

Game two: He goes turn one Delver, turn two Delver, and has 3 Spell Pierces and 4 Force of Wills, and I get nothing going. He’s a very solid opponent though!

2-1, 4-2 in games.

Round 4: Jakob on Reanimator
Game one: My opponent leads off with Lotus Petal, Entomb, Underground Sea, reanimate. I scoop up immediately without playing a card.

Game two: I have infinite counterspells post board and feel very good, keep a hand full of soft counters and a force and utterly demolish him. Ambush Viper beats!

Game three: He gets nothing going as I aggressively counter his cantrips while beating in with Snapcaster Mages.
3-1, 6-3 in games

Round 5: Corey on Sneak and Show
Game one: I keep a turn 3 mentor plus force of Will hand, including some cantrips and a top, and win the die roll. My opponent leads off with basics and some cantrips and I put him on either the mirror or Sneak and show. I make a crucial misstep here: The turn before I cast my mentor, I had Brainstormed and put back a superfluous top and a plains, instead of putting back the terminus in my hand. This plays around the following turns Show and Tell  Emrakul that my opponent had, but I don’t think I was going to be winning this game regardless.

Game two: I aggressively counter cantrips again, as I’m fearful of Boseiju, stick a Mentor and Surgical his Show and Tell. I find out that he has only one Boseiju, so my plan turned out to be correct, and Mentor kills him a few turns later.

Game three: My opponent turn 2 Blood moon’s me (I had boarded out basic plains ….. ) but I fetch for a basic Island and have a second one in hand so I feel okay. I only counter his enablers because he no longer has access to Boseiju. A snapcaster mage and a Clique take it home for me!

4-1, 8-4 in games

Round 6: Patrick on MUDPost
Game one: I keep a turn three mentor hand plus some disruption and an EE, and I hope it’s good enough. My opponent wins the die roll and leads off of Ancient Tomb, Chalice for 1, and I’m ecstatic that I get to trade with it via EE. He then plays Cloudpost,Grim Monolith and I realize I have to kill him ASAP. I land Mentor on T3 and ride it to an easy victory.

Game two: This game was pretty much decided my opponent having a turn one Trinisphere. I got to play some magic, but eventually he just gets a lot of Cloudposts into play and Ulamogs me.

Game three: Turn 3 Blood moon, turn 4 Mentor, turn 6 kill.

5-1, 10-5 in games

Round 7: Andrew on RUG Delver
At this point, I’m feeling quite good, as the best 15 pointer and getting paired vs someone that’s undefeated. The deck has been running like HOT FIRE and I feel much better than the prior day.

Game one: He wins the die roll and plays a fetch and passes. I have a one land hand (arid mesa) plus a ton of cantrips and a Mentor and I’ve resigned myself to die to stifle. He has the stifle =P. I want to keep playing though so I don’t
concede and he plays a delver and passes back. My next three draws were land and my hand is unlocked. I easily win the game off of EE to eat his delver and mongoose, and Mentor tokens demolish him.

Game two: Much the same as the first game, except both EE’s trash his board. First one gets two delvers, the second one eats a Goyf and a Winter Orb(!!!).

6-1, 12-5 in games

It’s the last round and I am pretty drained, and the top two tables draw. I’m the number 5 seed in the standings at this point, getting paired vs the number 7 seed (number six was Carlos, my round 3 opponent) and my opponent believes that we can draw in and make top 8. During this period, I wanted to go watch the main event’s top 8 so I just draw with him and walk away, thinking that if I didn’t make top 8, it wouldn’t be the end of the world?
This was a huge misstep though, as it caused a whole weird nonsense of tiebreakers going on, and I met Matthew Tickal at this point. He told me that I was absurdly ridiculous drawing in that spot and gave me a quick lesson on tiebreaker math. He showed me that I basically just drew myself into 9th…. T.T. So I just think to myself, oh well, I’ll never make that mistake again, resigning myself to my fate, but….

PLOT TWIST! The number one seed has to drop out to catch a flight and I sneak into the top 8! =D. Sometimes fate has a way of rewarding you.

Top 8: Justin on DnT
I don’t remember much about this match, but we were both playing super quickly and a lot of decisions were made. I eventually die to an unanswered Flickerwisp and Mother of Runes w/ Sword of Fire and Ice. During the second game, I get stuck on two lands for 10+ turns and die unceremoniously

Thus ends my weekend, and I’m pretty happy overall! We also got to witness many others from our Miracles group do exceedingly well, even putting two guys into the Top 8 of both GP’s!
Our group grabs dinner at another Columbus classic: Melt Bar & Grilled and depart the convention center for home.

What an awesome weekend!
Props:

-Wilson Hunter, Aaron Kasprzak, and Nicolas Tholance for making Top 8! Wilson’s list was inspired from our original Predict deck usage, Aaron was simply part of our Miracles group, and Nicolas played the list that our team actually took to the GP!

-Food! Columbus food is always good and I’m glad I got to share that with the people staying with me!

-Predict! Predictable Miracles solidified its place as a stalwart sub-archetype of Miracles and did extremely well in both GP’s. I’m very happy to have been one of the main innovators of this archetype, and I pride myself on being a deck builder. I’m very happy to see the archetype do as well as it did, and tons of people recognized me at the event!

-PES! PES gets a lot of flak for running poor events but this event was almost flawless! The online pairing system crashed a bit in early rounds, but otherwise the rounds went very smoothly and the turnover rate between rounds was minimal.

-Monastery Mentor! Mentor was the best card in both decks that I played this weekend, and I can’t see myself not playing the card in the future.

-Wilson and Phillip for creating what I believe to be the most optimal deck currently utilizing mentor. Let's see what we can do to break it further, shall we?

Slops:

-Myself, for losing my stamina so quickly during the main event. I definitely want to grind more and alleviate this issue for future events, I can’t let my concentration falter!

-Skipping Draw steps during some matches! I played a ton of magic this weekend and I play at a blistering pace, sometimes even skipping my own draw step in the process =P.

Overall, I would call the weekend a definite success and I’m so happy to have spent time with some awesome friends and played the best format!

Thanks for hosting, and it was a great pleasure to meet you in person.

Now I must introduce you to a theme among our Seattle buddies. When the group collectively does well, we goin' Sizzler!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o5NweFWjAw

Hey Minhajul, I was your Round 6 opponent in the Super Sunday Series event. Congrats on doing well. I was just wondering what your thoughts are on that matchup (Miracles vs. MUD) from your perspective.

Game 1 I didn't draw enough gas and you had Force for critical pieces, but I had the mana. Game 2 was, as you said, decided by early Trinisphere. Game 3 I think was decided by Blood Moon, because if it wasn't for the Blood Moon I would have had enough mana to search for TKS and later Ulamog/Kozilek with Eye of Ugin that I had in play.

I like to pride myself on having a great Miracles matchup with that version of the MUD deck I was playing so losing to any Miracles deck made me feel pretty bad, but I think the Mentor Miracles build with Blood Moon in the side probably has the best matchup vs Legend MUD of any Miracles build. Any thoughts on what I could do to improve the matchup or if I made any obvious misplays that you noticed?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Thanks for hosting, and it was a great pleasure to meet you in person.

Now I must introduce you to a theme among our Seattle buddies. When the group collectively does well, we goin' Sizzler!

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You've never taken me to the sizzler :( .

Anyways, good job on the results, and thanks for dealing with my craziness for roughly ten minutes (I was lordofthepit's drunk friend who couldn't decide if I wanted to go to dinner with you Saturday night or not). I've heard from a few other people just how good the 4 mentor list is, also, 4 pyroblast?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nocley

You've never taken me to the sizzler :( .

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No one's taken me up on that. :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MGB

Hey Minhajul, I was your Round 6 opponent in the Super Sunday Series event. Congrats on doing well. I was just wondering what your thoughts are on that matchup (Miracles vs. MUD) from your perspective.

Game 1 I didn't draw enough gas and you had Force for critical pieces, but I had the mana. Game 2 was, as you said, decided by early Trinisphere. Game 3 I think was decided by Blood Moon, because if it wasn't for the Blood Moon I would have had enough mana to search for TKS and later Ulamog/Kozilek with Eye of Ugin that I had in play.

I like to pride myself on having a great Miracles matchup with that version of the MUD deck I was playing so losing to any Miracles deck made me feel pretty bad, but I think the Mentor Miracles build with Blood Moon in the side probably has the best matchup vs Legend MUD of any Miracles build. Any thoughts on what I could do to improve the matchup or if I made any obvious misplays that you noticed?

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Mentor changes a ton about the matchup, honestly. Blood Moon stops you and mentor kills you super fast. Mentor miracles now gives miracles a very easy way of beating MUD overall IMO, and it changes and tilts the matchup in their favor. With an already high level of consistency, mentor crushes any fringe deck. It was great to meet you! I didn't notice any obvious misplays. You have to have some sort of answer for mentor, otherwise you absolutely will die.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nocley

You've never taken me to the sizzler :( .

Anyways, good job on the results, and thanks for dealing with my craziness for roughly ten minutes (I was lordofthepit's drunk friend who couldn't decide if I wanted to go to dinner with you Saturday night or not). I've heard from a few other people just how good the 4 mentor list is, also, 4 pyroblast?

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4 Pyroblast to get free value off of Monastery Mentor, which Red Elemental Blast cannot do, and it comes up a few times. I'm still deciding if I like 2-2 or 4 pyroblasts. And yeah, it was great to meet you sir!