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BBD got around 4 feature matches and or cuts to his match playing miracles with 2 sfm md, 2 sfm sb at the most recent invitational and the next day legacy open.
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Hey,Quote:
Originally Posted by Rush80
the lack of Spell Pierces is def. a slight loss in the SneakAttack-MU, which was super hard in the preboarded MUs anyways. But the addition of Counterbalance makes up a a lot in the Storm-MU, because preboard Balance is very very good there. Playing less Spell Pierce goes hand in hand with the plan to cast a cantrip in your first turn to then have Balance or Counterspell. In this very Combo-MUs its often correct to even Brainstorm T1, depending on the situation, ofc.
So yeah, the Combo-MUs might have gotten a little worse over the field, but this change made already tough preboard matches just harder. ( I have yet to drop a match against Sneak at Competitive/Prof. REL - but I think I only won a single preboarded game, though. -on the back of Counterbalance, to make things more hillarious-)
I wish I could play 2 Pierce alongside 1 Judgement in the 4 Ponder list, but trust me - it is not possible. I wraped my head around this config - and there is no way. (essentially cutting a Swords for a Judgement like suggested by you is no way either, I am sorry) You could easily take my old GP list, because an inclusion of Judgement alongside 2 Pierce and 2 Ponders (the absolute minimum I could imagine) is possible.
Good to see so many new names in the thread, welcome! You could easily build a "cheap" UW Controldeck, if you wanted to. And if you cannot spend more money on Legacy I'd do that - because decks that are cheap "by accident" are way better than generally superior decks like Miracle, but budgetized. Coincidentally though, my version doesn't cost that much, and is on the lower end of playable Miracle builds.
I have to agree that Preordain is inferior to Ponder. And if I wanted a 9th or 10th blue cantrip I'd actually go with Portent and/or Predict. And I fear I have to repeat myself that I don't think that Personal Tutor is good, sorry. Enlightened Tutor was at least instant and could therefore make up for its CDA due to Counterbalance. Personal Tutor can't really do that. Other than that it's just not powerful enough.
I have to admit that I didn't test Mystics in the SB AND in the MB at once, though I've obv. played with Mystics in either, MB or SB. They are powerful and certainly a valid approach, I especially like to see 2 Batterskulls. I've used this tech in the past but didn't stick with it, love it, to be honest. But before playing 2/1 - 2/1 I'd just play the 3-card-sideboard-package, to be honest.
Did I forget to answer any questions that you'd like to know my opinion about? Let me know.
Greetings
Yah your list does cut down on some of the more pricy things bit. Whats the consensus on subbing a plateau for the volcanic? My on red sources are 2 wear/tear and 3 blasts in the board. running one mountain in the main + some other red land?Quote:
Originally Posted by Einherjer
The second Volcanic Island is clearly superior to any alternative. Some lists that do play more than 21 lands are capable of supporting a third red source. As a Mountain loses most of its value in addition to two Volcanics I could certainly see you adding a Plateau instead of the third Volcanic, if your build relies on white a little heavier than the traditionals do. I still wouldn't rate Plateau as superior. It's equal, at best, if your list is, as I said, more white.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ltj999
So the best red-configs are probably:
1 Volcanic + 1 Mountain
2 Volcanic (low land count)
3 Volcanic (higher land count)
and maybe as a more or less valid alternative:
2 Volcanic 1 Plateau - with a heavy reliance on both, red and white
Greetings
Yea my manabase at this point is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Einherjer
4 tarn
4 mesa
2 strand
2 mystic gate
4 island
2 plains
1 mountain
1 volcanic
2 tundra
I'm considering buying a pleateau instead of the volcanic as a budget alternative. Because man are those volcanic's pricy.
You'd be better off with a steam vents than a plateau I think. You will be fetching basic mountain against tempo or wasteland decks and against combo/control the life loss won't matter, but tapping for blue AND red will. Of all the budget cuts you could make in this deck vents over volc might the one with best badness-to-costsaving ratio.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ltj999
Steam Vents is easily better than the Plateau and might be better than the Mountain, depending on your setup. The more Ponders you run, the worse Mountains and Mystic Gates get. Even with double Karakas, two Mystic Gates is probably too many. One Mystic Gate is fine but it again conflicts with Mountain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ltj999
I am running the following setup:
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Karakas
I still haven't decided if the Mountain is worth it… I run 4 SB red blasts in my 75. I am thinking about SBing the Mountain and adding an Island main for consistency, but I don't know if that is worth it.
Been playing some more on MTGO and I find the biggest issues are
1. The clock. Being new to MTGO and Miracles it can be hard to win 2/3 games with the 25 minute timer. Opponents don't make it any easier and play out after Jace ultimate to run down your clock. I guess practice will help with this.
2. Burn. There seems to be a lot of it on MTGO and outside of quick Top- Counterbalance the match up is pretty miserable. The new Eidelon is super annoying. If you don't have the Plowshares or Terminus to kill it immediately it does quite a bit of damage and even then you take 2 damage if you Plowshares it. Sulfuric Vortex is also pretty annoying if it resolves. Council of the Absolute helps somewhat. Stoneforge for Batterskull isn't as effective as I thought it would be between lots of burn to kill Stoneforge and if you actually get Batterskull in play there is artifact destruction and as well as Sulfuric Vortex and Skull Crack.
3. Misclicking and clicking F2 to many times etc. I am still learning the MTGO interface. Its pretty clucky for the beta client and it really should list the top of the stack that X is about to resolve click ok if its ok to let it resolve. I guess this would come with practice also.
4. BUG Delver there is a decent amount of this online and Dark Confidant unless you counter it or remove it immediately it lets them quickly run away with the game. Hymm and Liliana are pretty annoying with Abrupt Decay hitting your Counterbalance. After board they get Null Rod or Needle to stop your Top which leaves you in top deck mode when they might have a Dark Confidant or Sylvan Library in play.
Any suggestions on how to improve the Burn match up outside of playing Leylines of Santity in the board which I think actually is not that great because you have to mulligan for them?
Also what suggestions do you have for the BUG Delver match up?
YamiJoey:
I disagree. Ponder is better then Preordain in that you get to see 3 cards and if you don't like any of them can shuffle. There is a reason Ponder is restricted in Vintage and Preordain is not.
I also like the main deck Mountain instead of the second Volcanic.
Bloodmoon would be nice in some match ups but you have to run multiples to draw one or the aweful card disadvantage Enlightened Tutor which takes up too much side board space anyway.
Sereon:
I tried Brian's list with the SFM main and a minor tweak to run Ponder instead of his Preordain and Mountain instead of the 2nd Volcanic. Stoneforge does have its benefits with less clunky hands with multiple miracles you have to mulligan and stoneforge for batter skull gives you an early path to victory and is better against burn but if your Batterskull gets countered you have a problem. Mid to late game Entreat the Angels is more powerful and a quicker win when there might be creatures on the ground.
I like your list other then no Council's Judgement main deck. I been finding it so good since it kills Jace, Liliana, Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Sylvan Library.
How do you like Spell Snare instead of Spell Pierece. I am pretty afraid of early Liliana which Spell Pierce can hit.
Against Dredge I really want 3 Rest in Peace to increase the chances of drawing one.
Einherjer:
I suppose you could cut Spell Pierce for Council's Judgement since it does kill most things Spell Pierce hits other then I dislike getting hit by Hymm to Torach which Spell Pierce does deal with along with early Plainswalkers. Spell Pierce also is good against fast combo.
I been running the sideboard package of Stoneforges for a bit and like it. I tried a Brian's list with the main deck ones too and I like it but I actually miss Entreat the Angels since I usually have both still in after board with the build I was playing before.
I prefer Volcanic + Mountain for my Red sources. Don't like my Red source getting wastelanded and not being able to cast my Red Blast or Wear / Tear.
Don't like multiple Karakas either. I suppose if you play a lot of Show and Tell and Reanimator it might be but being Legendary Karakas are not good in multiples. We actually want each and every land to be able to Entreat for more Angels or play Jace/Batterskull with mana up for Daze/Spell Pierce.
My mana base is
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Mountain
1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
Ltj999:
Plateau might be fine instead of Volcanic if your not running a Karakas. You really don't want to many lands that don't make blue since you want double blue early for counterspell sometimes.
Patrunkenphat7:
I feel Mountain is worth it don't like wasteland preventing me from playing a Red Elemental Blast or Wear and Tear.
Hey all,
So, I've been playing straight UW miracles for the last month or so, and now I finally got a hold of some Council's Judgments to try out. So it's time to change things around a bit. Thanks to all of you for your analyses on the card. I'm going to start out with 1 main 1 side, but since I don't play red I'm thinking I might even want to go up to 3 in total. Anyway, I also have some other changes in mind that I'd like some feedback on. So, my list until today is:
Creatures
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Terminus
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Entreat the Angels
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
2 Tundra
1 Karakas
7 Island
3 Plains
Sideboard
2 Flusterstorm
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Back to Basics
2 Pithing Needle
1 Disenchant
1 Detention Sphere
3 Rest in Peace
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Baneslayer Angel
This set up has been working nicely lately, with Back to Basics pulling an amazing amount of weight (I won a match against 12post!). However, I want to make some room for the Council's Judgments, and I think that warrants some additional changes.
The metagame I'm playing in is currently devoid of combo. I'm not sure why this happened, but in the last 4 tournaments I haven't met a single Storm or Show and Tell Deck. This, plus Einherjar's analysis above, convinced me that I should be OK to remove the 2 spell pierces (which quickly become the worst card in the deck after a few turns). I've liked Counterspell a lot, so I'll be happy to try:
-2 Spell Pierce
+1 Council's Judgment
+1 Counterspell
In the board the change is easier. Detention Sphere can easily go out for the second Judgment
-1 Detention Sphere
+1 Council's Judgment
So far so good. But now I'm thinking that these changes lead to some other changes I might want to make. Specifically, I think I want more snapcasters. When I first put together this list, I thought that I didn't have enough targets for Snapcaster to be truly good (especially since I don't run REBs). However, in the last little while, I've loved seeing my single snapcaster pretty much every time. My thinking is also that the addition of a third counterspell and 1 to 2 CJs (as well as the 2 flusterstorms, which I added recently) can justify more snapcasters. The question is how many?
I've been trying out Venser lately, and I haven't been as impressed with him as I would've liked. He's been OK, yes, but I always found myself a bit too short on mana to really do what I wanted to do with him. Either that, or I had him without Karakas and he was less than impressive. Plus, since I play 3 entreat, I find myself going for the win instead of something like a Venser lock. I feel like playing Venser requires some more commitment to that plan, in the form of a second one in the board and 2 Karakas. I'm not willing to do that, so I think Venser can come out for Snapcaster number 2.
As for the possible third Snapcaster, 1 of my 2 mainboard Vendilion Cliques jumps up as a possibility. As said before, currently combo is very very low around these parts, and Clique is more lackluster against the fair decks. Furthermore, as I said before as well, running 3 maindeck Entreats means that the clock aspect of Clique is less crucial. I'd still like to keep the 2nd clique in the board though, since when it is good it is very very good. I think I will remove the third Rest in Peace from the board, since I haven't boarded all 3 in a while (and I have a single tutor in the board for the matches where it really matters). So this leaves me with:
Main
-1 Venser
-1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Snapcasters
Side
- 1 Rest in Peace
+1 Vendilion Clique
So the final list then looks like this:
Creatures
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
4 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Counterspell
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Entreat the Angels
1 Council's Judgment
Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
2 Tundra
1 Karakas
7 Island
3 Plains
Sideboard
2 Flusterstorm
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Back to Basics
2 Pithing Needle
1 Disenchant
1 Council's Judgment
2 Rest in Peace
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Vendilion Clique
OK, that was a long post, but I just wanted to go through my reasoning and get feedback on that. Thanks for reading if you got this far, and I look forward to any comments!
43
So I've been looking a reid duke's list. What are your thoughts about no main deck creatures and the two main deck relics? Was he really expecting so many graveyard based decks to main deck hate for it?
There might be something there. But I think what is more likely is that its just Reid Duke. He could have top 8ed with 59 forests and a grizzly bear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ltj999
Burn is actually quite easy and i like to play against it. Maybe you board/ play wrong against it. SFM in the SB is the nail in the coffin in this MU. Just don't play him early if you have other plays available and/or can leave countermagic up. They won't save any Lightning Bolts for SFM and will throw them in your face. Play him when they have few cards left, which are then very likely artifact destruction and Blasts or whatever. I really like it when they board Artifact Destruction because they are super dead cards normally and when you have an active SFM and 5 mana you can play around it, even without Counterspells. Just don't feel like you are on a rush to slam that Batterskull down when you are at f.ex 10 life. Instead enjoy the timewalks when your opponent doesnt utilize his full mana every turn because he wants to leave 2 mana for the artifact removal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianeira
Burn is pretty simple with access to SFM, but without SFM it's definitely a MU I'd rather avoid.
Draw dependent matchup.they just loose with an active counterbalance and top in payQuote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
I have to admit i always feel kind of bad when i plow Goblin Guide :( Giving so much card advantage away feels kind of bad^^
First bunch of altered arrived today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Einherjer
Hopefully later this week I'll have more cards to show. I apologize for the bad quality of the picture.
http://i60.tinypic.com/eirp01.jpg
Eidolon easily pushes Burn's power level up a notch or two. Possibly good for the format as a whole, but it's definitely annoying for us. I'm not certain that Leylines are that backbreaking for Burn either.
Burn is a tricky one. Calling it a good MU is wrong. Calling it a bad MU is wrong too. It's one of those MUs that tend to be overly swingey. You could curbstomp all those Burndecks 2-0, but very well never manage to squeeze a win. The preboarded games are ridiculously draw-dependent. If you're having an early Top+Balance they're dead. If you don't, then they'll grind you out unless you manage to delay them long enough to Entreat for three or more.
All different lists have things that are very good, and others that are very bad against Burn.
My current 4 Ponder - version has the playset of Counterbalance, which is obv. bonkers - but the lack of Spell Pierces hurts a lot. A list packing many flash creatures and Karakas has the option to chumpblock a lot more while also threatening a quick change of tides concerning the eventual Sulfuric Vortex, Clique is actually pretty good at preventing this card from happening, and is pretty good at racing this thing, too. (pretty good as in "as good as it gets) But yeah, this version has no Ponders, so it is def. lacking this extra quality package of finding the right cards. And maindecked Blasts are obv. super bad too.
I think the list I like the most in this MU is the standard one, with like 2 Ponder and 2-3 Spell Pierce, alongside a healthy amount of Counterbalances and a mix of Snapcaster Mage and Vendilion Clique.
I think that Councils Judgements influence is pretty high in this very MU, as it acts as an out to Sulfuric Vortex, which is huge. You should be boarding in all your counterspells, additional removal and artefact/enchantment removal while removing clunky spells and shaving numbers here and there. Using Goblin Guide to your advantage is key too, as additional cards equal an enourmous overflow of additional countermagic. So it's probably correct to not kill it on sight. If you are super hasty with your decisions (but remember - patience is key in pretty much everything) you can atleast net one trigger out of the Goblins by Swordsing it after you've drawn that land of yours.
Entreat the Angels is actually pretty good, even though it's clunky and slow. But if they are very well prepared for Counterbalance the 2mana enchantment won't win the game on the spot for the sideboarded games, so you actually need to close out games on the spot, and this is what Entreat is for.
Be aware of Price of Progress at any time. I still remember all that anger and that hate of those Burn players I've defeated with my different incarnations of UW after showing me their PoPs. I'd try to not even play a single non-basic, as 2 mana for 2 dmg isn't good - but might be enough for the lategame. And remember: PoP threatens Jace, aswell. - But if it isn't avoidable you shouldn't really stop after the fourth non-basic any a PoP will be lethal anyways and does present itself as a must-counter.
I don't think that this MU should be too troublesome. Neither from a standpoint of how the games play out, nor from the amount of Burn that runs around at tournaments. It might still happen, you can never escape variance to 100% but I think this small percentage is surmountable. Oh, and most Burn players suck anyways, so
Oh, and Terminus counters Fireblast via Counterbalance! :P
And... very nice cards Andreas Schnaas! Love them! It's a first step :D
As usual, let me know whether you agree or not!
Greetings
I've been somewhat mixed on Entreat in the MU. It will allow you to steal some games, especially if there's a Vortex on the field. At the same time, it can easily be lethal to tap too much mana against Burn; casting it EoT is no help either since many of their spells are Instant. Clique has been very good and I usually board out my Jaces. In my experience, your game plan almost always has to be CounterTop lock or bust and hope that you're able to quickly kill any Shushers they might draw. Perhaps with the addition of Eidolon, Entreat becomes better though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Einherjer