Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by Michael Swailes

You win this round, random internet guy. I could have played better.
http://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comme...en_semifinals/

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Alright. I mean, I suppose his article was well written, but I feel like the majority of it is simply trying to justify to someone for not playing optimally. Also, I don't understand why he feels the need to lead off by calling my brief advice regarding the Shardless BUG matchup "wrong" followed by saying that he has virtually no experience against Shardless BUG.

So the game in question... guy plays a turn one Delver. I have two relevant cards in my hand plus a few turns worth of land drops. The chances are high that my opponent has a Daze or a Spell Pierce or both. Why would I be willing to throw away one of my only ways to interact? Let's compare the scenarios... and for reference.

Given my hand, I do nothing until turn three. At this point, I'm at 14. I cast Swords; he Spell Pierces; I pay; he Dazes. Alternatively, he could have led with Daze then Flusterstormed if he valued Pierce over the Flusterstorm. Either way, now I'm at 12 with 4 cards in hand (Brainstorm, Top, fetch, Clique) to his 6 cards which we don't know. We take another 3 and drop to 9 from Delver. At this point, the cat is well out of the bag for him; he has only one land so at worst we only have to consider Pierce/Flusterstorm + Daze, FoW, or REB.

On turn four (at 9 with 4 land and 4 cards in hand), we have a few choices. We can play Clique in his draw or combat step, which can get FoW'd or REB'd but plays around everything else (Clique during Draw plays around him drawing a land with double Daze while Clique during combat better guarantees that we actually tag the Delver this turn). We can play Top, which he can only FoW. We can play our fourth card (which is unknown, but if it's another Plow or an REB then he can only FoW or Flusterstorm + Daze it). And finally, we can Brainstorm and see what else we can draw (possibly playing the Top this turn as well, which gives him the option of Pierce + Dazing it).

Assuming our fourth card wasn't a Plow/REB, the play I like most is Clique during his draw. Clique gives us the best chance of stopping that Delver as soon as possible and FoW/REB isn't getting any easier to play around as the game progresses. As it turns out, he has the ability to Brainstorm, which will dig him into essentially nothing. He Dazes us and we pay to see a hand of Volcanic, Wasteland, Daze, SoFF, Flusterstorm, Meddling Mage, and TNN. We let him keep since the only reason he would have Dazed us is to put back a threat that can be cast off Volcanic (in this case it would have been Delver which is flipped by the second Wear//Tear).

Now we untap on turn five with 4 land in play, at 8 life, with 4 cards in hand (Brainstorm, Top, and 2 unknowns). We know his hand is exactly Wasteland, Daze, SoFF, Flusterstorm, MM, and TNN. Likely he will be able to play a threat when he untaps (most likely a Delver but there's a small possibly it's a Lavamancer). We are holding the two best cards in our deck, plus two more cards. At this point, we should be in full control of the game.

Now let's compare this to how the game actually plays out. It is turn five, we have just successfully vanquished that stubborn Delver. We are at 9 life, with four land in play, with 2 cards in hand (Plains and Flooded Strand). We are living completely off of the top of our deck. Our opponent still has a board of just Volcanic and a hand of Wasteland, SoFF, Daze, MM, and TNN. Are we actually that much better off after having "baited" the counters out of his hand?

In either case, he's about to draw and flip a Delver. In Michael's scenario, we will be able to see three more cards off the top of our deck before the Delver just kills us (luckily we end up topdecking an out). In my scenario, we will be able to see seven cards to deal with the Delver (more if we found a fetchland and not including the two additional unknowns in our hand). Hopefully this response is seen as insightful rather than angry, as it is not my intent to bash Michael and I'm not trying to play hindsight police. I'm simply explaining exactly how that particular game would have turned out if I had been playing it instead and why I still hold that as long as we have future land drops to make we should play around soft counters whenever possible.

Anger Detectors at Zero. Swailes is an old school poker player with a permanently etched poker face. I don't actually think I've ever seen him angry. You both offer insightful responses with their own merits. I think it speaks to the quality of player who picks up Miracles that the two of you can produce such detailed explanations for your differing views. I didn't intend to start "shit", necessarily, when I cross posted that link. But if I end up starting some intelligent discourse like this, then I'll just have to pat myself on the back for that one.

At least 3 miracle decks t8'd a ~300 person legacy tournament last night/this morning in Tokyo. Lists will probably be up today or tomorrow somewhere. I suspect the lists will be posted somewhere here or affiliated with the sites name: http://www.happymtg.com/kami_series/#legacy_kami

Edit- Think I found them: http://www.happymtg.com/coverage/21338/
When it comes to that page, google translate is apparently not running at peak efficiency.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

Given my hand, I do nothing until turn three. At this point, I'm at 14. I cast Swords; he Spell Pierces; I pay; he Dazes. Alternatively, he could have led with Daze then Flusterstormed if he valued Pierce over the Flusterstorm. Either way, now I'm at 12 with 4 cards in hand (Brainstorm, Top, fetch, Clique) to his 6 cards which we don't know. We take another 3 and drop to 9 from Delver. At this point, the cat is well out of the bag for him; he has only one land so at worst we only have to consider Pierce/Flusterstorm + Daze, FoW, or REB.

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Er, mind elaborating on this? What (on turn 1) suggests the Delver player will miss the next two land drops?

He said he didn't cast anything until turn three, in order to avoid soft counters. The delver player would have for certain played a second land if he had it by this point so that he could cast multiple spells per turn, but since he was still sitting on one land that implies is entire hand is spells.

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Originally Posted by everial

Er, mind elaborating on this? What (on turn 1) suggests the Delver player will miss the next two land drops?

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If I'm understanding correctly, the reason he's waiting till turn 3 to do anything is to play around Daze/Pierce. Nothing suggests that the Delver player will miss land drops on turn 1, but that doesn't really pertain to why he's waiting till turn 3.

On a side note, I'm somewhat new to the deck and am curious about how important it is to flesh out the curve of this deck to support Counterbalance. Is it absolutely necessary? The reason being is that my deck is extremely light on three's and I'm not sure how much importance I need to place on having more 3 drops to make Counterbalance more effective.

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Originally Posted by AnziD

If I'm understanding correctly, the reason he's waiting till turn 3 to do anything is to play around Daze/Pierce. Nothing suggests that the Delver player will miss land drops on turn 1, but that doesn't really pertain to why he's waiting till turn 3.

On a side note, I'm somewhat new to the deck and am curious about how important it is to flesh out the curve of this deck to support Counterbalance. Is it absolutely necessary? The reason being is that my deck is extremely light on three's and I'm not sure how much importance I need to place on having more 3 drops to make Counterbalance more effective.

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not that important. Most slots in the various lists are fixed anyway, your freedom on cmc 2 and cmc 3 is somewhat limited. Most people have adopted Council's Judgement and still run at least 1 Clique. It would be a mistake for Not running at least 1 Clique. If you haven't tested Council, please do try it for a bit.

What is everyone's thoughts on misdirection? I have yet to see it in a list but I think it has quite a bit of potential.

You can 2-3 a hymn to Tourach player with it instead of 2-1 yourself.

Abrupt decay is no longer unstoppable but a 2-2 trade.

REB and pyroblast can be a 2-2 if they have the right cards in play.

It works just as well as a counterspell in a counter war.

Now we all know its not a replacement for force of will but I could see people running 1-2 in the 75 for these kinda things. I think it is worth trying out. At the moment I'm running the post Paris build from the article on eternal central until I get the hang of the deck.

Also does anyone have any good articles, matches, or videos that are worth watching to help me learn this deck? I'm playing on cockatrice but could use as much info I could get to improve.


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Originally Posted by Syntex

What is everyone's thoughts on misdirection? I have yet to see it in a list but I think it has quite a bit of potential.
e all know its not a replacement for force of will but I could see people running 1-2 in the 75 for these kinda things. I think it is worth trying out. At the moment I'm running the post Paris build from the article on eternal central until I get the hang of the deck.

Also does anyone have any good articles, matches, or videos that are worth watching to help me learn this deck? I'm playing on cockatrice but could use as much info I could get to improve.


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What you wrote is incorrect. Michael Swailes pretty much ran Lossett's build like couple weeks ago MD Misdirection.http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=69453

Lossett’s Miracles article
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...-Miracles.html

PV’s Miracles article (even though his build is considered weaker)
http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...ouse-miracles/

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Originally Posted by Syntex

What is everyone's thoughts on misdirection? I have yet to see it in a list but I think it has quite a bit of potential.

You can 2-3 a hymn to Tourach player with it instead of 2-1 yourself.

Abrupt decay is no longer unstoppable but a 2-2 trade.

REB and pyroblast can be a 2-2 if they have the right cards in play.

It works just as well as a counterspell in a counter war.

Now we all know its not a replacement for force of will but I could see people running 1-2 in the 75 for these kinda things. I think it is worth trying out. At the moment I'm running the post Paris build from the article on eternal central until I get the hang of the deck.

Also does anyone have any good articles, matches, or videos that are worth watching to help me learn this deck? I'm playing on cockatrice but could use as much info I could get to improve.


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We had that discussion a couple of pages ago. The conclusion was, that misdirection is too situational and a cut between FOW und Misdirection is miserable because you sacrifice consistency. Countering a Liliana, JTMS, Vial, Infernal TuT, ETA, Show and Tell/ Sneakattack, etc. is way too important in the first game of a match.

Thanks for the tip! I see I was wrong to say no one plays MD but from the results I've seen recently I haven't seen it. Thanks for showing me those links. Ill take a look.


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Originally Posted by Syntex

REB and pyroblast can be a 2-2 if they have the right cards in play.

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Just to make sure you know, REB and Pyro are cast as one part of the card. This means that, if it was cast as counter target blue spell, it cannot be misdirected to destroy target blue permanent, and vice versa.

For those of you who run 2 Councils in the 75, I would encourage you guys to try 1 Council + 1 Personal Tutor. This experiment has been pretty nice so far. With a Top in play, converting Tutor into a Council/Terminus/Entreat is pretty flexible; and you can remove annoying opposing Planeswalker quicker, occasionally getting rid of annoying Enchantment/Artifact quicker.

How is it quicker? It will always be a turn slower and a card fewer than just drawing the Council's Judgment. If Personal Tutor were an Instant, it might be worth considering but it still wouldn't be a shoe-in. As a Sorcery, I don't think it's even worth thinking about.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

How is it quicker? It will always be a turn slower and a card fewer than just drawing the Council's Judgment. If Personal Tutor were an Instant, it might be worth considering but it still wouldn't be a shoe-in. As a Sorcery, I don't think it's even worth thinking about.

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Quicker as in, you'll be able to find whatever removal you need more frequently, cause it can serve as an extra copy of mass removal or targeted removal. Not in terms of speed.

Just lost against burn packing Guide, Grim, Eidolon and fkn Vexing Shusher. Man it sucked. How do you play/board against vs? If the game does not end fast they can just drop that and plain kill you...

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Originally Posted by Ocean

Just lost against burn packing Guide, Grim, Eidolon and fkn Vexing Shusher. Man it sucked. How do you play/board against vs? If the game does not end fast they can just drop that and plain kill you...

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You want to assemble your Top/Counterbalance combo ASAP. It really shuts them down. Hopefully, you have a StP or Terminus to deal with Shusher. It's also a good idea to fetch for basics so you don't get hit hard by Price of Progress. One card that really hurts burn is Energy Field for versions of Miracles that run it with Rest in Peace. It's a two mana answer to Burn because they don't have a way of putting your permanents (other than creatures) into the graveyard. If Burn becomes a bigger problem, I would recommend Energy Field, RIP, Helm of Obedience, and a couple Enlightened Tutor somewhere in the 75. It also helps greatly against graveyard strategies. Spell Pierce is another card that helps against Burn.

I like playing Chill in the sideboard against burn recently.
It slows them down a lot and makes them play into your pierces.

Are we actually discussing Personal Tutor and Chill? Like really?

Greetings

Been playtesting the 4 ponder build and dang is it fun. It feels more like a combo/lock deck using all the cantrips to dig for a counterbalance to stick. I am using the latest 4 ponder list with -1 snapcaster and +1 plains due to some bad play/weird interactions against rishidon port decks. I am in dire need of side board help and would be extremely grateful for any coments or tips. My board is the following:

3 Pyroblast
1 Council's Judgement
1 Disenchant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Vendelion Clique
1 Kreanos, God of Storms
2 Rest in Peace
1 Izzet staticater/3rd RIP/ Pithing Needle/ Counterspell

Great you liked it!

Let me know which MU you are having trouble with. I'll answer in depth on Monday, once my last exam is done :)

Greetings

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Originally Posted by Einherjer

Are we actually discussing Personal Tutor and Chill? Like really?

Greetings

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Yeah, why not?
Grinding burn, belcher and oops in 2mans is actually fun. :)

Anyone who has trouble against burn can pack some chills and is good to go.

That's.... that's not how deckbuilding works.

Greetings

In general SB cards should be like a Swiss Army knife. Good for a lot of situations. Chill or that other crap is just to narrow. Unless you play in a local meta with 40% burn or whatever the deck to beat is.

On another note: I was wondering about graveyardhate.
I'm currently playing 2 RIP and 1 Relic in a Flash built à la Joe Lossett. But i wonder if thats the way to go. Usually against Rug, Bug Delver and Shardless BUG I board in 1 RIP and 1 Relic. What do you think about that? Im worried about Nullrod in the BUG builds. Which could result in 5 dead cards (Top+Relic). I like relic because in an early game state you can remove cards one by one and later just cycle it if they want to decay it or if it comes in midgame or lategame.

How do ya board against Rug, Bug Delver and Shardless BUG? Should i switch to Grafdiggers Cage or are there any other good options (other MU) and just SB 2 RIP for the previous match ups?

Since burn just won a major event I expect to see more of it pop up. Now if a lot of burn shows I will be running CoP red. Chill does slow them down but a guide on t1 followed by double bolt/2xOne drops and a fireblast can seal the deal before chill is an issue. Not to mention you will most likely be fetching your life total down as well playing 9-10 fetches. I think with shusher CB is weaker but we have StP for him which they have no answer. Also when they play vortex and you follow up with the CoP red you can literally sit there doing nothing and watch them kill themselves. I think its a great answer to burn(better than chill IMHO) since it can be a tough matchup.

As for other sideboard cards I'm liking izzet Staticaster over the sulfur elemental. It hits revoker while not making stoneforge/angels hit harder and is the same cmc. It also helps vs elves and goblins. Could also kill bob and block too. I'm running one in my board for those reasons.


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Originally Posted by decan

In general SB cards should be like a Swiss Army knife. Good for a lot of situations. Chill or that other crap is just to narrow. Unless you play in a local meta with 40% burn or whatever the deck to beat is.

On another note: I was wondering about graveyardhate.
I'm currently playing 2 RIP and 1 Relic in a Flash built à la Joe Lossett. But i wonder if thats the way to go. Usually against Rug, Bug Delver and Shardless BUG I board in 1 RIP and 1 Relic. What do you think about that? Im worried about Nullrod in the BUG builds. Which could result in 5 dead cards (Top+Relic). I like relic because in an early game state you can remove cards one by one and later just cycle it if they want to decay it or if it comes in midgame or lategame.

How do ya board against Rug, Bug Delver and Shardless BUG? Should i switch to Grafdiggers Cage or are there any other good options (other MU) and just SB 2 RIP for the previous match ups?

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I'm actually playing 2 RIP and a Grafdigger's Cage, not a Relic, since it helps out against elves.

I played a lot against Burn, and i can say for sure that even without SFM it's a good matchup. If you don't think so, i think something about your play& understanding of this deck is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Adryan

I played a lot against Burn, and i can say for sure that even without SFM it's a good matchup. If you don't think so, i think something about your play& understanding of this deck is wrong.

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I wouldn't mind hearing your take on the matchup then because even getting out a Counterbalance against Burn doesn't guarantee a win. Fireblast, Hellspark, Shusher, Vortex, etc are all difficult to stop, not to mention that sometimes they can just run out a multitude of Instants and you get short on mana to rearrange Top for all of them. It seems like there are very few Burn games that end in a complete blowout in my favor.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

I wouldn't mind hearing your take on the matchup then because even getting out a Counterbalance against Burn doesn't guarantee a win. Fireblast, Hellspark, Shusher, Vortex, etc are all difficult to stop, not to mention that sometimes they can just run out a multitude of Instants and you get short on mana to rearrange Top for all of them. It seems like there are very few Burn games that end in a complete blowout in my favor.

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I just borrowed the deck to a good friend of mine on Modo and today he played 4 times against Burn in the 2mans and went 8-1 in games. I guess we both are just extremely lucky. Other possibility is that we both only played against really bad guys and the true masters of Burn who can outplay us with their amazing skillintensive and complex deck keep hiding in the shadows.

I had a post several pages ago, where i talked a little bit of how to approach the burn MU.

Man seriously are we discussing the Burn MU?^^

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Originally Posted by Einherjer

That's.... that's not how deckbuilding works.

Greetings

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While I disagree about Chill, there're really not much going on in this thread recently. I say let people experiment with cute/obscure stuff. Let us fail and then discuss it.

Rather than Chill, I would use Celestial Purge. Not only it can take care Vortex, it can also serve as an extra removal in many match-ups, especially Liliana.

http://s27.postimg.org/n099ycyzz/Screenshot_54.jpg

I played this list for fun yesterday. I think it's worth more discussing than Chill. Any recommendations?

Just play four Counterbalance and tell them to play a real deck. If we can beat Storm, we can beat the Storm deck that takes three turns to kill you.

I'm also fairly certain Sphinx's Revelation isn't good, ever since that one time I put one in as my fifteenth sideboard card and never wanted it. Ever.

I'm also getting really worried about the banned list. We're doing really well now, and we're beginning to warp the format. If Shardless BUG/BUG Delver suddenly take a hit in some way I'm pretty sure we'll see a T8 that's nearly all Miracles. We're starting to take 3-4 slots very regularly.

Also I'm playing four Jaces. I don't care how, something is getting removed. He is the best card we could ever hope to cast at basically every point in the game.

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Originally Posted by YamiJoey

I'm also getting really worried about the banned list.

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Same. Wizards considers top a mistake and hates stuff like Top that suck up lots of time*. However, counter-top was played even more 6-4 years ago and never got a ban (just look at the OP in the Ban discussion thread). Basically every blue aggro-control or control deck had 3-4 Tops and 2-3 CB. What HAS changed since then is is WoTC mindset about what magic "should be": everyone should just be turning creatures sideways and miracles does not do that. Luckily that mindset rarely effects bans in legacy.

Its also worth remember that top makes a lot of other strategies possible besides miracles: Painter and Nic Fit run 3-4 tops, and Junk, deadguy, or Esper Control often run 1-2 tops too.


*Top only sucks up time if you are slow or inexperienced with it (but not that wizards cares, look at eggs in modern). I'll shameless brag here and say that in my 50+ Games at competitive REL with miracles I have only 1 non-intentional draw and it was because my opponent was slow playing and I was tilted and didn't just call a judge. I have had probably 4 games where I went 1-0-1 though, but as far as I can remember only one 0-1-1.

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Originally Posted by YamiJoey

J
I'm also getting really worried about the banned list.

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I'm not too worried about this. I think that the delver decks make up a much larger portion of the t8 meta in a much more consistent way than miracles does. Certainly miracles has gotten more popular, but it still hasn't seen nearly the success of the delver decks. Example is that there have been top 8's made up of nearly all delver archetypes.

I was worried too, because Wotc has a lot of data on Magic Online like Matchup % etc. Maybe they could think that Miracle is too good.

But gladly nothing happened^^. It's really sad, that a ban of SDT would completely kill this deck and make it a lot weaker without hurting many other decks in the format.

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Originally Posted by Adryan

I was worried too, because Wotc has a lot of data on Magic Online like Matchup % etc. Maybe they could think that Miracle is too good.

But gladly nothing happened^^. It's really sad, that a ban of SDT would completely kill this deck and make it a lot weaker without hurting many other decks in the format.

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Honestly, given their history of poor software, I doubt they have both have the data and the technical expertise to use it.

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Originally Posted by Malakai

Honestly, given their history of poor software, I doubt they have both have the data and the technical expertise to use it.

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When they banned Seething Song they used Data they got from Magic Online (the % of how often Storm was violating the Turn 4 Rule with Turn 3 kills).

Well the thing with miracles unlike eggs is that although you will go to time you don't take an extra half hour on turns like you would eggs.

In the end miracles takes a skilled person to play it well. If the skilled players are picking it up and winning then that's fine. Now if it comes to a point where we have a it placing top 8 80% of the time for months then there may be a problem but I think its just a matter of time before people realize how to play against us. Now the deck isn't THAT old so there are still people who don't know how to handle it. Also they printed cards against us like abrupt decay which is a great answer. Overall if they don't like how well this deck does they can print more cards like decay and let the players do the work. I think delver has more to fear of a ban, if any at all, then us.


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Everyone keeps talking about people learning how to play against miracles. That already happened; miracles has been a tier 1 deck before, and fallen from that position. The only tool we've gotten is Council's Judgement, and that's too recent to account for many results. Miracles is good again because the metagame is allowing it to be good again.

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Originally Posted by Malakai

Everyone keeps talking about people learning how to play against miracles. That already happened; miracles has been a tier 1 deck before, and fallen from that position. The only tool we've gotten is Council's Judgement, and that's too recent to account for many results. Miracles is good again because the metagame is allowing it to be good again.

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We've been on a pretty decent tear in the past month, TBF. We're on 5 T8's and 2 T16 placings on the SCG circuit.

But when I say it like that it sounds less impressive, so maybe I'm wrong.