Judging the Judgment.
Ok, it's been a while since I promised you to give all of you my my opinion on Council's Judgement. Here we go, then.
Versatility is its strength!
The strength of Councils Judgement does not lie in what it does - it lies in what it can do, across a variety of MUs, situations and so on. There are cards to our disposal that to their job in a superior way. But we didn't have access to a card that can get rid of literally every nonland permanent, circumventing any kind of protection or tricks. That's an upgrade for sure. Whenever I talked about Miracles vs Esper I came back and tell everybody how superior Snapcaster Mage was in Esperstoneblade, being a sure 4of due to the plethory of versatile cards he could flashback. I soon became a disciple of Snapcaster in Miracles too, but ever since this card has entered the light of day it seems to be rather obvious that Snapcaster is a constant part of Miracles, giving it as much versatility as it had in good old Esper.
But Judgements versatility has another aspect to it that is pretty essential. Due to its potential to deal with literally everything you have to put the first copy of this card in your mainboard, not in your sideboard. I've been playing Counterspell in my SB ever since GP Paris and I am still under the assumption that this is the correct way to go - but before I put the 3rd Counterspell in the SB, I've had two of them in the mainboard, reaching the cards threshold of mainboarded copies. Same thing goes for Councils Judgement - leading to the next point:
How many Judgements can one pass?
It's a tricky question, to be honest - and it does depend on the build. Being harder to cast then most spells in our deck puts up limitations to this card, that's for sure. It should be pretty obvious that 4 is too much, whereas three seems pretty painful at best. I think the maximum amount of Judgements you should be having in your deck distributes as follows:
4 Ponder - build: 1-2 Judgements in your 75, at least 1 mainboard.
Other builds: 1-3 Judgements in your 75, at least 1 mainboard.
Cantrip-heavy builds have traditionally been shaving on individual copies of a card to make up for the increased consistency - so I am under the assumption that 2 is the perfect threshold for this card, whereas other variants can go up to three, but 2 should be the thresholded mark for mainboardable Judgements across the whole field.
Whats the pawn sacrifice?
One may not simply add cards to the deck without cutting some of them, as 61 cards is no option. (has never been) So what can different lists cut in order to support this spell? Should any of this lists be built in a bad way you can still cut inferior cards, should you still play them - I am referring to cards like RIP/E-Tutor/D-Sphere or whatever. Ya know, bad cards.
But what can you cut when you play a good implementation of Miracles? Two kinds of things: a) versatile ones and b) specific ones. Why is that? Well, if your list has cards that are designed to deal with a plethora of different threats it might be a good idea to switch to a card that actually deals with most of them in a superior way. I am talking about cutting cards like:
Spell Pierce
Vendilion Clique
Counterspell
Those cards aren't exactly the same, but share big parts of their area of application. They are all meant to deal with a lot of different things. While Spell Pierce excels in the early game it's Counterspells time to shine later while clique stays a powerful threat in many matchups (but not enough of them - that's why I still don't mainbeck Clique) - Judgement can easily deal with most of those permanents, with the upside of being a better draw once those permanents have entered the battlefield already.
You could also cards that are in your mainboard to deal with very specific threats. I am talking about those cards, among others:
Disenchant and Wear//Tear
Supreme Verdict
Engineered Explosives (MB)
Pithing Needle
...
Those cards had their right to be in the mainboard for some lists, in some metagames - but I think they have ceased to do so - as Councils Judgement does this job in a clearly superior way. Pretty easy cut, if you should be playing those cards.
Repositioning in a dance called metagame.
So what do I think about the impact that Judgement will have on the current metagame and our position within it? Well - simply put - this card is a clear buff for Miracles, even though other archetypes can profit from it aswell. Versatile cards that impact already resolved threats has always been a problem of UWR - it now seems to be solved, in one way or another. It will make MUs that have been close, traditionally, better. I am mostly thinking of the BG/x archetype. It's been a race to Entreat the Angels for 9 out of 10 games. With Judgement I see these MUs improving by a lot, due to the ability to delay the kind of inevtiable Liliana long enough to massacre them with an army of flashy angels.
It'll also improve the MUs against Random, admittingly though Miracles has been having the best MU against Random from most of the tier1-decks, regardlessly.
Even though it doesn't help with traditionally tough MUs like SnT and DnT it offers interesting angles of attack to this very two MUs, namely being able to get rid of Vial+SoFaI mainboard (once you've survived the mana-screw) and nuking Sneak Attack itself, if they tap out to cast it. Not really making it better - but interesting angles, nontheless.
I think this card will make Ponder an even better card, supplementing my claim that 2 Ponder is the bare minimum, with 4 being my personal (!) optimum. Being able to dig for a card that deals with everything is about as good as it can get.
Judgements affects on my list.
Based on my latest
list I will go ahead and cut my (altered) Spell Pierces. (You know how much it hurts to cut recently acquired altered cards?) Both of them, despite the fact that I will be only adding a single Councils Judgement to the mainboard. As the second card that will be cut I have decided to cut the recently added Pithing Needle in favor of the Councils Judgement. I don't think that I have to explain why I cut those two cards - just see what I wrote above about the possible cuts.
But what do I do with the one last slot in the mainboard that once was property of Spell Pierce? Playing a miser Spell Pierce doesn't sound too good - so it'll be something different. It won't be a 2nd/3rd Councils Judgement due to the color requirements and the low count of disruptive blue cards for the Combo/Control-MUs. So it has to be something blue, more or less disrupting/countering. I have been thinking about the following cards:
3rd Counterspell (moving the sideboarded one to the mainboard)
Spell Snare
Vendilion Clique
Counterbalance
Red Elemental Blast
Admittingly, I am not completly sure that this last slot is as correct as the rest of my list is, at least to me. I stand behind pretty much every single slot - with the exception of this very 60th mainboarded card. I ultimately decided in favor of Counterbalance due to the good position in the current metagame that this card has right now. Counterbalance is very good against a plethora of strategies right now, ranging from Elves over Delver to Storm and even Sneak and Show - due to this list having 3 cc3 and 3 cc4, making it a possibility to lock them out in the preboarded games.
As said, I am not too sure on this one and I would be happy to receive some opinions on this one, even though I've asked many people I trust in already. But there is no such thing as too many opinions.
Other than that, here it is - my
Judgemental Miracles-list.
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
4 Island
2 Plains
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Counterspell
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Council's Judgement
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 1 Entreat the Angels
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Council's Judgement
Greetings
Judging the Judgment.