Miracle Control

I think I would leave in one snare. So like 3 Pierces, 1 Snare, 2 Counterspell as the package, maybe having the 4th Pierce in the board. The problem with Snare is drawing 2 in matches where its horrible. There is virtually no match where Spell Pierce is bad.

Dismember was good, I only cast it three times in the tournament.Once was to kill a Dark Confidant that got in under countermagic.I actually held it on top a lot for a 3 drop. Diabolic Edict worked well, and is good in some of your tougher matchups. It also kills Mongoose. Having 4 Lingering Souls feels like too much. Its a decent way to close a game or kill a Planeswalker, but you only ever really want to draw 1, mb 2 in a really grindy match or if they have their own Lingering Souls.

Elspeth isn't as good as she was before Lingering Souls was printed. Before she was virtually unkillable and could aggressively clock opponents and their Planeswalkers. Now Lingering Souls blocks her Token down, and she can be killed back, plus Spell Pierce and Sulfer Elemental are cards your opponents should be bringing in anyway,so after board its even worse. I haven't test Sorin, so he might be awesome.
Counterspell is a fine card, but having 4 is clunky. You have Snapcaster to buy it back when its the nuts, but your real goal should be to land a Counterbalance on the third or fourth turn, usually backed by Spell Pierce.
I did miss the last Force of Will, but the card is so bad in so many matchups these days. How many cards in Soulblade or Maverick do you really want to Force?
Your combo match-up is reasonably good with Spell Pierce, Snare and Counterspell and obviously Counterbalance. I don't really think all four are necessary, drawing 2 in some matches is pretty bad, drawing 3 will lose you the game.

The Enlightened Tutors were a hedge. I wanted to have 6 Counterbalance vs Ad Nauseum or Elves. I wanted to have 6 graveyard hate pieces vs Dredge and I wanted to find Warmth in every match against Burn, preferably by Turn 2. PLaying 4 Warmth is stupid, playing 6 Counterbalance is illegal, so I hedged with Enlightened Tutor. Initially the board also had a Serenity, but that was cut for the Engineered Explosives.

When I look at your list I feel like your playing a lot of late game bombs. Vindicates, Sorins, a ton of Souls. Counterbalance-Top is your late game bomb. Plus the selection of Top and Fetches allows you to find the bombs when you need them, so you dont need to play a lot. Play the game in a way to keep the board close so that Jace or Balance can win it. The Darkblast is pretty sweet with Lingering Souls though. I might implement that.

Glad you liked the article.

Very nice article indeed! Looking forward to part 2! :)

While I haven't gone the UWb route yet, I think with black mana available, trying out Sorin might be good, even as a 1-of. Hanni's list is good reference.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MJL

I think I would leave in one snare. So like 3 Pierces, 1 Snare, 2 Counterspell as the package, maybe having the 4th Pierce in the board. The problem with Snare is drawing 2 in matches where its horrible. There is virtually no match where Spell Pierce is bad.

Dismember was good, I only cast it three times in the tournament.Once was to kill a Dark Confidant that got in under countermagic.I actually held it on top a lot for a 3 drop. Diabolic Edict worked well, and is good in some of your tougher matchups. It also kills Mongoose. Having 4 Lingering Souls feels like too much. Its a decent way to close a game or kill a Planeswalker, but you only ever really want to draw 1, mb 2 in a really grindy match or if they have their own Lingering Souls.

Elspeth isn't as good as she was before Lingering Souls was printed. Before she was virtually unkillable and could aggressively clock opponents and their Planeswalkers. Now Lingering Souls blocks her Token down, and she can be killed back, plus Spell Pierce and Sulfer Elemental are cards your opponents should be bringing in anyway,so after board its even worse. I haven't test Sorin, so he might be awesome.
Counterspell is a fine card, but having 4 is clunky. You have Snapcaster to buy it back when its the nuts, but your real goal should be to land a Counterbalance on the third or fourth turn, usually backed by Spell Pierce.
I did miss the last Force of Will, but the card is so bad in so many matchups these days. How many cards in Soulblade or Maverick do you really want to Force?
Your combo match-up is reasonably good with Spell Pierce, Snare and Counterspell and obviously Counterbalance. I don't really think all four are necessary, drawing 2 in some matches is pretty bad, drawing 3 will lose you the game.

The Enlightened Tutors were a hedge. I wanted to have 6 Counterbalance vs Ad Nauseum or Elves. I wanted to have 6 graveyard hate pieces vs Dredge and I wanted to find Warmth in every match against Burn, preferably by Turn 2. PLaying 4 Warmth is stupid, playing 6 Counterbalance is illegal, so I hedged with Enlightened Tutor. Initially the board also had a Serenity, but that was cut for the Engineered Explosives.

When I look at your list I feel like your playing a lot of late game bombs. Vindicates, Sorins, a ton of Souls. Counterbalance-Top is your late game bomb. Plus the selection of Top and Fetches allows you to find the bombs when you need them, so you dont need to play a lot. Play the game in a way to keep the board close so that Jace or Balance can win it. The Darkblast is pretty sweet with Lingering Souls though. I might implement that.

Glad you liked the article.

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I'm looking forward to Part 2 as well.

I'll have to test out your changes for

1) Maindeck Dismember/Edict - though Darkblast seems better than Dismember

2) 3 Lingering Souls instead of 4 - it seems like I would almost always be happy drawing Lingering Souls and it provides additional 3 drops for the curve

3) Cutting Elspeth/Sorin - I agree with this. With Lingering Souls, Delvers and Sulfur Elementals around, Elspeth is badly positioned right now. I may go to 3 Jaces instead.

4) Cutting Counterspells from 3 to 4 - I find that cutting Counterspells reduces my two-drop curve. It would then be only 3 Snapcasters, 4 Counterbalance and 3 Counterspell, which is 10 and insufficient. I really want to find a way to increase the two-drop slot and the thought of two cc removal like Edict is...not too appealing.

5) Spell Pierce - definitely agree on this. I want at least two in the maindeck, three would be ideal. There have been many instances where I wanted to land Counterbalance with Pierce backup against opposing Snares.

6) Going to a 3-of for Force of Will. Maybe with the increased number of Spell Pierces, we can afford to cut a FoW.

7) Etutor in the board - I'm not a fan of it. I'd rather board in actual hate cards. Eg. against storm, I'd rather have the Pierce that I board in instead of the Etutor which I board in.

8) Did Engineered Explosives pull its weight? I'm preferring Vindicate over it. As Hanni argued, it blows up my own things...which is somethign I don't want.

Based on your views, I'm going to try out my list with:

-2 Sorin
-1 Force of Will
+2 Pierce
+1 Jace

In the board, I would

-2 Pierce
+1 Force of Will
+1 Fact or Fiction

Anyways, its time for me to sleep - got a long day at the office tomorrow. How long do you have left until your degree finishes? I'm wonder what its like to practice in America.

Force of Will

I like the idea of reducing this card's number, it's like challenging the status quo of it always being a set on every blue-based control deck. Putting the 4th in the board is a good start.

Enlightened Tutor

If you're a fan of this card, I think you should put this in main, and let it do its work there. From time to time I try to squeeze in one of these to virtually increase chances of setting up cb-top, but then i remove them in place of card draw (e.g. Predict). The other thing against enlightened tutor is it's another 1cc card.

Counterspell

I wouldn't go below 3 for this deck in particular. Aside from the 2cc for the curve, it's a hard counter. Very dependable especially when our counter combo is not yet online and/or we don't have the cc available for the flip. It's like...insurance.

So with the regards to the latest articles I've been doing some testing myself. This is my current list:


// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
5 [UNH] Island
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [UNH] Plains
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [R] Tundra
2 [R] Underground Sea
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [U] Scrubland

// Creatures
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage

// Spells
2 [AP] Vindicate
3 [DKA] Lingering Souls
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
2 [IA] Counterspell
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
1 [NPH] Dismember
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [DKA] Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [ARE] Diabolic Edict

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ARE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [5E] Wrath of God
SB: 2 [ROE] Inquisition of Kozilek
SB: 2 [CST] Disenchant
SB: 2 [6E] Perish
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 [LRW] Thoughtseize

So some noteworthy changes are that I'm no longer running path to exile, that card simply feels obsolete from the fact that it wasn't ever the ideal removal, and shroud effects (mongoose says hello) demanding some sort of alternative removal.

I'm also only running 2 counterspells which has been working surprisingly good I think. There is a common misconception that counterspell is an early-game spell. This simply isnt true, especially in a deck that runs 3 colours. I seldom find myself having the resources to support it. 4 counterspells is definately too much, 3 might work.

I'm also running spell pierce in main. Spell pierce has the advantage of being useful early, and combined with a plenty amount of removal, the drawback of spell pierce isn't that great. It cant be stressed how important it is to land counterbalance, and spell pierce helps greatly with this just like the article stated. The more I play with the idea, I just can't figure out why we haven't tried spell pierce in main earlier on...?

I do not agree on running spell snare. Spell snare is too narrow I think, and removal + spell pierce deals with those occassions where it is useful.

I have to applause the initiative to cut fow. Fow can surely be overrated at times and the more we splash the deck, the harder fow becomes to support, therefore limiting deck design. I think that there definately are match ups where fow is a liability, but being such an establishes staple it is surely considered sacrilege to cut them. Cutting a fow or two from the main deck might prove enlightening!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jackehehe

So some noteworthy changes are that I'm no longer running path to exile, that card simply feels obsolete from the fact that it wasn't ever the ideal removal, and shroud effects (mongoose says hello) demanding some sort of alternative removal.

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I agree.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jackehehe

I'm also only running 2 counterspells which has been working surprisingly good I think. There is a common misconception that counterspell is an early-game spell. This simply isnt true, especially in a deck that runs 3 colours. I seldom find myself having the resources to support it. 4 counterspells is definately too much, 3 might work.

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Four was feeling a bit clunky and three feels just right. But going to three means the 2cc of the curve for Counterbalance is insufficient. I considered going to a four-of for Snapcaster but that may be too much.

At the moment, you only have 9 2cc and this may not be enough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jackehehe

I'm also running spell pierce in main. Spell pierce has the advantage of being useful early, and combined with a plenty amount of removal, the drawback of spell pierce isn't that great. It cant be stressed how important it is to land counterbalance, and spell pierce helps greatly with this just like the article stated. The more I play with the idea, I just can't figure out why we haven't tried spell pierce in main earlier on...?

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Spell Pierce does seem like a good idea the more I think about it. In the late game, we can Top it away. It stops one of Counterbalance's weaknesses – big bombs that cannot be handled by Counterbalance like Show and Tell, Natural Order, Elspeth or Jace.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jackehehe

I do not agree on running spell snare. Spell snare is too narrow I think, and removal + spell pierce deals with those occassions where it is useful.

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Agree, Spell Snare also raises the 1cc curve of Counterbalance which is not what we want (we already have 4 Brainstorm, 4 Swords, 4 SDT, Pierces and for me, Darkblast).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jackehehe

I have to applause the initiative to cut fow. Fow can surely be overrated at times and the more we splash the deck, the harder fow becomes to support, therefore limiting deck design. I think that there definately are match ups where fow is a liability, but being such an establishes staple it is surely considered sacrilege to cut them. Cutting a fow or two from the main deck might prove enlightening!

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This definitely needs testing – leaving a FoW in the board may be a good idea though.

Terminus
Can this replace Wrath of God in our SB? Is it maindeck material? I'm thinking it doesn't belong but I could be wrong.

Just for reference I actually ran 10 2 drops; 4 Counterbalance, 3 Snapcaster Mage, 2 Counterspell and a Diabolic Edict.
The other recommendation is to get all the non-blue producing lands out of the decks. For every time you want to have a Scrubland, Plains or Swamp, there are going to be three or four times where you cannot keep an opener because its only has one of them, or you cannot land a turn 2 Counterbalance, or you cannot cast Counterspell and Counterbalance on the same turn...etc. This take constantly demands double blue on turn 2 and triple blue on turn 3, sometimes quad blue on turn 4.
Sensei's Top also demands a lot of fetch lands, I ran ten and was almost never unhappy to see one.
I don't actually like Enlightened Tutor in main decks, so many matches are about trading one for one quickly, some matches however are about finding very specific cards, that are worth 3 or 4 cards when you land them. Wheel of Sun and Moon vs Dredge or Counterbalance vs Storm. These are the matches where Enlightened Tutor shines.

Part two of my SCG Phoenix tournament report is up, you should all check it out.
http://www.azmagicplayers.com/articl...report-part-2/

"The second game of my match against RUG presented an interesting decision. I have 4 lands in play, including Tundra and an Underground Sea. My hand is Jace, Perish and Counterspell. My opponent also has three lands and 3 cards in hand. He has four cards in his graveyard, his board consists of two Nimble Mongoose. He currently has one untapped Volcanic Island and a fetch land. I’m on a healthy 12 life. Do I cast the Perish? Do I cast the Jace? If I cast the Jace, what do I do with it?

My concern was running my Perish into an opposing Spell Pierce. Since he was on the draw I assumed that he had boarded out his Dazes, so that should not be a concern. I decided to catch Jace, if it drew out a Spell Pierce then I could resolve Perish next turn. If it resolved and I got to brainstorm it seems likely I could find another land and back up my next play with Counterspell.

This proved to be a mistake, my opponent Red Elemental Blasted my Jace, than cast Brainstorm at the end of my turn. He then untaps and plays two Lightning Bolts, getting threshold and killing me exactly.

Despite what happened I think my line was probably correct, I would be interested in your thoughts in the comments section."

Although its easy to say in hindsight that you should have watched out for REB, I believe the chances of Spell Pierce in RUG are just as probable. They typically run a two-two split of Spell Pierce and REB in the board.

I don't think your line of reasoning and your play was incorrect - it was solid. But I personally would have waited (you are the control deck and you have the inevitability in the matchup) and actually have done nothing. The Mongeese were not threats yet - and you could save Counterspell mana for anything else in their hand (Burn).

"Chris comments that my line with Jace is weird, but I think it’s correct. When you’re tapped out, it’s easier to defend Jace by mana-screwing your opponent, but when you have untapped land, it’s easier to defend Jace with countermagic. Being able to play Spell Pierce and Counterspell, versus only Force makes a huge difference on the decision to brainstorm versus fateseal."

This not an incorrect line of play - I've done it before myself and your reasoning was the same reasoning I had.

Re Dredge

Sorry to hear about your disappointing loss to Dredge - I think this deck really needs to dedicate at least 4 graveyard slots in the sideboard to deal with it as it is our worst matchup. And it will only get worse with the increase in Dredge numbers due to the LED/Faithless Looting interaction.

I'm thinking if we are going up to 4 graveyard hate slots - we may as well run Leyline of the Void even though I dislike the card for a number of reasons. Firstly, its 4 slots for a narrow card. Secondly, you may need to mull to oblivion finding it and once you find it, the rest of your hand may be terrible. Thirdly, if they deal with it, its all over for u.

Re Spell Pierce

This card has turned out to be awesome and what we needed in the maindeck.

Re Sideboard

You've also convinced me to go to a 1-of for Disenchant as anything I wish to Disenchant may also be dealt with with Spell Pierce.

All in all, a wonderful series of articles/reads - it's great to hear such a detail report from a Counterbalance player.

I especially like MJL's report part 3. I think it showed what the deck needs to work on (battling dredge), and also showed its capacity to combat dominant decks like Maverick.

I'm thinking Nic Fit is a natural problem for a Counterbalance deck since the threats range from 4-6cc. I guess Jace can save the day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sarapfish

I'm thinking Nic Fit is a natural problem for a Counterbalance deck since the threats range from 4-6cc. I guess Jace can save the day.

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I have not tried this matchup yet, but it actually doesn't seem like much of a problem. Just float a 3 and 1 (or have access to a top) for the game, and only use hard counters and swords on their few big bombs. With more traditional UW lists, one explorer dying I dare say is actually good for us as being able to spin + play cards early is huge.

With the new esper list, v.explorer is much more 1 sided, but black sideboard options are much stronger than UW's options for this matchup.

Anyway,
@MJL: excellent writeups, I appreciate someone showing their CBs some love and doing well!

A few questions for people with some experience with the deck :


@MJL How important has warmth been from your experience? Isn't it generally better to use tutor to assemble the missing part of CB + top? I guess I'm answering my own question, warmth seems decent in case you have neither pieces, but still, is it worth the slot?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yutang

Sideboard

1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Path to Exile
3 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Disenchant
2 Wrath of God
2 Engineered Plague

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How has engineered plague been treating you? Do you really feel that they're superior to zealous persecution?


With lingering souls making its way into most lists, maybe it's time to put humility on the table again? The card requires a few adjustments to be played in the MD, something along the lines of droping SCM and playing a small ET package such as 1-2 tutor(s), 1 humility, 1 EE, possibly 1 nihil spellbomb (at worst it cycles), an o. ring or even a jitte. My main concern with this strategy is that it makes the deck too light on 2cc spells for CB, and a bit light on the U count for FoW too. Any advice on this? Guess I'll just try to fit in a few predicts.

Warmth is more powerful against the red decks than Counterbalance, especially when your on the draw. Warmth doesn't require mana to be good, nor does it require a Top. Plus its oracle text reads that even if you counter the spell, you still gain the life.
I mostly decided on Warmth because Phoenix has a very Burn heavy metagame and it seemed like a better hoser than just playing another blue blast. Conditions were somewhat unique, although the card is probably good enough to bring in agains the U/R Delver variants as well.

I think Counterbalance decks are in the best position to properly utilize the Miracle mechanic. We normally plan our draws and manage what goes on top of the library. We even Predict what we want to throw away to replenish our hand.

With that, we probably should try out the following:

Entreat the Angels - for Lingering Souls and/or for Elspeth. It's a sweet 3cc too for Counterbalance.

Terminus - like Wrath of God, we will use this to get out of very bad situations, so we may need to test it out on different scenarios. Wrath of God is something we normally just hold on to until we need to reset the board. Terminus has to be Miracle-Drawn, or be a 6-mana Wrath. If it's consistently reliable, then we got a pretty good sweeper in our hands, improving our "control" game plan.

I'm not sure if we can accommodate Temporal Mastery, as we are tight on slots and have a lot of CC counts to maintain.

I don't even see a reason to try accommodating Temporal Mastery. We get nothing out of it other than another planeswalker(s) activation. And if they're on the board, using their offensive activations already, you're probably not losing. And if you're on the defensive, then you're paying to set up and then pay :2: for either a brainstorm or a 1/1. Seems miserable.

It's not even good early in CB because the first few turns you are trying to establish the lock which means at least tying up :1: a turn for top/brainstorm/etutor, so you won't be casting it. And regardless of the fact that you can brainstorm it away, you don't want a dead card in your opening 7, especially with the speed of the format. Before any "Blah blah, pitches to force", cool, you're dumb.

Most importantly, what do you flip it to counter aside from opposing TMs?

Engineered Plague hasn't come up for me in testing yet. It was put in as a pre-emptive against people who wanted to try out the new Cavern of Souls in tribal decks like Goblins (which we previously struggled with but has recently died down). I don't believe Cavern of Souls will have a big impact on Legacy but people will play it anyway...

I tested Temporal Mastery in other decks and it's not as good as hyped. I think Terminus is the best card out of AVR for this deck to warrant some sort of testing.

If Entreat the Angels is to be included, it would replace the slot of Jace 2.0, which I don't think it can.

@Yutang

Why Jace's slot? He's a great help to make the miracles work. Shouldn't it take the other planeswalker's slot (Sorin/Elspeth) since they are also token generators?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sarapfish

@Yutang

Why Jace's slot? He's a great help to make the miracles work. Shouldn't it take the other planeswalker's slot (Sorin/Elspeth) since they are also token generators?

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I forgot to mention that Lingering Souls has already replaced Elspeth/Sorin in my build. It's more explosive than planeswalkers and not as vulnerable to opposing Souls.

Hence it competes with Jace's slot as a wincon.

Here's something I brewed up on MWS - currently going through rounds of testing. Suggestions appreciated!



// Lands
4 [JGC] Flooded Strand
3 [ZEN] Plains (3)
9 [DPA] Island (3)
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Tundra

// Spells
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 [CST] Brainstorm
2 [AVR] Entreat the Angels
3 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
3 [DD2] Daze
4 [BRB] Swords to Plowshares
2 [M10] Ponder
3 [AVR] Temporal Mastery
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [M11] Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 3 [HOP] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [WL] Peacekeeper
SB: 2 [LG] Moat


Entreat and temporal are pure testing- so far I've been amazed how well they work. Drew one? No problem, just brainstorm or JTMS it back onto the top of your deck.

Sideboard is a mess. Only thing I know is relic>tormods due to counterbalance, and meddling is always good.

Looks good, although I would cut the Dazes for Counterspells, you cannot afford to lose a land drop when you're trying to cast Jaces, Eslpeths, Entreat the Angels and Shackles.

I personally consider Mastery to be overrated, but only time will tell... I think Snapcaster might be better...

I'd look into fitting Terminus somewhere in the 75 though, perhaps 1 MD and 1 SB.

3 Shackles feel like too much to me. 2 is the right number I think.

I'd look into fitting O. Rings in the SB.

What's the reasoning behind Mages and Leylines? I think Pierces/Vendilions might be better.

Peacekeeper + Moat seems a bit overkill. If you're running shackles, swords and terminus MD, I'd look into:

1 Moat
1 Terminus
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique

I'm not sure, but has anyone tried running some fat dudes post board? Ideally, the opponent will take out removal, so you bring in something like Baneslayer Angel. Or maybe the Stoneforge package (Jitte + Batterskull).

Thoughts?