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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pdingo
So i played a weekly yesterday on our local store and did 3:1..
2:1 Grixis Delver
1:2 °Aggro loam(really close one but on the 3th i cant find more lands and he had the garruk and i the council judgment but not the lands to cast it..
2:1 Goblins
2:0 Grixis Controll
I was unsure how to board against aggro loam..
What do you think about the match up? How do you board?
This is a short excerpt from Phillip's article on aggro loam
Aggro Loam / Punishing Blue / 4C Control
The last match-up that we are going to address is AggroLoam/PunishingBlue/4C-Control which you can read here!
OUT: 1 Terminus, 1 Counterbalance, 1 Force of Will
IN: 2 Wear // Tear, 1 Surgical Extraction
Now this match-up is very interesting on multiple levels. While the first game relies heavily upon the very early game it kind of changes when you move into postboarded games. In the first game Force of Will is crucial at dealing with a fast Sylvan Library or Chalice of the Void but once you move to G2 and G3 your density of cards that can answer such a play is increased due to Wear // Tear enabling you to shave the 4th Force of Will. Couple this with the fact that the opponent is also very likely to reduce Mox Diamond, setting you both up for a slow and grindy game rather than the swingy one that the preboarded one seems to be
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CutthroatCasual
And I'd probably board something like this:
+1 Meddling Mage
+2 Monastery Mentor
+3 Pyroblast
+2 Wear / Tear
+1 Kozilek's Return MAYBE if they're on the Imperial Recruiter or Recruiter of the Guard build and not the Leovold build (though the Leovold build IMO is objectively better so there's no reason they should play either of the Recruiter versions)
-1 Council's Judgment
-2 to 3 Terminus
-4 Counterbalance
You realize that StP is borderline useless when Aluren decides to combo off, correct? Unless You're on Daze Mentor tempo plan, keeping Terminus is necessary against mid-range value plan.
If you lose to Aluren, one obvious occurrence is Therapy -> Baleful Strix -> Flashback Therapy, maybe Strix would find him another Therapy. Once your hand is shredded, Aluren feels it's safe to combo off. To counter that, try to have SDT floating a Red Blast effect. However, it's possible Aluren to bring in Needle/Null Rod hate.
I would give Surgical a try. I'm not suggesting Surgical on Aluren as the first option. Countering Recruiter and then Surgical that would cripple Aluren, by a lot, and I would consider that first. No matter he goes mid-range value or combo route, he needs Recruiter. If he's on BUG Recruiter-less, then the Surgical choice should be even easier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nicklas
As someone who plays Esper Miracles I can assure you, that not having access to any red blast is a huge downside, especially in the mirror match. Counterbalance and JTMS are your biggest enemy (and friend of course) and having an answer to both of them at the cost of just 1 (or 3 with Snappy) mana is amazing.
I think you need very good reasons to give up on red and play black instead. What strong SB cards did you think of?
The cards I can find attractive would be: Notion Thief and Engineered Plague/Dread of Night.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CutthroatCasual
Responses are not necessarily answers. Spell Pierces, Spell Snares, and Counterspells aren't going to stop hatepiece if you don't already have them in hand and are able to cast them when you need to. Believe me, I used to share the same train to thought, especially regarding the Spell Pierces, when it came to noncreature spells that I didn't want to resolve in the early game (Chalice, Library, Vial, etc.) but I realized that Pierce was just too narrow of a response, even if it was a "better" one in those situations. Plus, Pierce is really, really bad after turn 3 or 4. So that's why I cut it for an Engineered Explosives, which doesn't hit 4-drops (by design since we're not a 4c deck) but is almost never a dead draw since it's so versatile.
I do very much like your 1 MD Karakas, as I run one myself as a pseudo-removal spell. And with Sneak Show and Reanimator becoming more popular, I think Karakas's utility is scaling up. Though I'd never run a 2nd one, especially not in a non-Legends Miracles build.
It is absolutely true that Wear//Tear is a better answer to Null Rod. I agree completely. I'm not really leaning on Spell Pierce/Spell Snare/Counterspell to fight Null Rod or Pithing Needle or anything in particular, because they are narrow in the sense that they can't beat a resolved card, by their design. That being said, they are in the deck, and they do answer the cards in question at least some of the time, so it makes sense to me to count them among the answers. Given that I have Spell Snared a Sylvan Library in a post-board game before, for example, it would be silly to say that Spell Snare doesn't count as an answer to Sylvan Library since it can and does function that way. I'd call it a weaker answer than, say, Wear//Tear, but I also think that it can be worth playing a variety of answers rather than just a few very targeted ones. In the same way that I'd rather play a Hydroblast effect against Sneak Attack over a Wear//Tear, (though I think I currently am priced into playing both, but given the choice...), sometimes a counterspell is better than removal, and sometimes it is not. I prefer to have a variety of kinds of answers because it makes me much more difficult to play against. It's the same reason why I play exactly one Karakas, because sometimes they can beat everything but Karakas. I'm not leaning on Karakas to beat the Sneak and Show. I also have REBs, BEB, Spell Pierce, Force of Will, and potentially things like Pithing Needle and Terminus and Supreme Verdict and Council's Judgement. I think the deck is better when the opponent has to play around five or six cards instead of one or two.
The real take-home point is that, since Miracles is reactive, and since Miracles has extreme control over what is in hand or on top of the deck at any point, Miracles will always have the advantage when the opponent is unsure about what to play around. To extend this example even further, if Sneak and Show is trying to beat Terminus, the answers are Force of Will, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, or Sneak Attack and more than one creature. If it is trying to beat Supreme Verdict, the first 3 answers don't do anything, but Sneak Attack is much, much better. Same for Karakas. If it is trying to beat Hydroblast, Sneak Attack is pretty much the only card that is bad. If it is trying to beat Spell Pierce, it has to go late, and even then Sneak Attack is always going to be worse than Show and Tell, though sometimes it will be negligible. If it is trying to beat Jace the Mind Sculptor, it has to go fast, and Show and Tell is always going to be worse than Sneak Attack. If it is trying to beat any two of those cards (Karakas + Hydroblast, for example), then the path they are forced down gets extremely narrow, if not disappears altogether. All of these situations are drastically different, and a lot of the time the Sneak and Show player will not know exactly what to play around when sculpting with cantrips, particularly since Miracles is also sculpting with cantrips and rapidly changing hands. That puts Sneak and Show at a disadvantage because all of their lines of play are answerable in one form or another, and because Miracles is just better at swapping out answers, and because Miracles will likely have all of it's mana available when the fight comes, whereas Sneak and Show has to invest some of it to begin things. That is not to say that Miracles wins 100% of the time against Sneak and Show, but when you build your deck with a wide variety of answers, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the opponent to play around or play through a dozen different scenarios instead of just two or three.
I would also say that Spell Pierce's value and shelf life varies dramatically based on what kind of deck you are playing against and what kind of cards you are trying to answer, which is why it is split between the main and sideboard. I've cast effective Spell Pierces against a lot of different decks, on turn 1 and on turn 15. In just this tournament, I cast it turn 12 or 13 against a BUG Delver opponent trying to hardcast a Force of Will. It just depends on the situation. It is fair to say that it is less likely to be good later in the game, but I think it is an oversimplification to say that it is bad across the board past turn 3 or 4. The real reason why it is in the deck is to answer a thousand different cards, rather than to be the perfect answer to one specific card. That gives it a lot more value and a lot more situations where it is live, and leads to fewer situations where I have mismatched answers, like holding a Disenchant against a Liliana of the Veil or an Engineered Explosives against a Null Rod. And, as a zero-to-two of, depending on matchup, it is very easy to shuffle away when it is not needed, and there is value to flexibility in Legacy. We're discussing Aluren, for instance, which up until a month or two ago was fairly fringe. Spell Pierce has got to be way better against Aluren than Flusterstorm, even though Flusterstorm is the "better" card in a vacuum. But Spell Pierce is less focused, so it's a better card at beating random craziness, which has always been a part of the fabric of Legacy.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mike1987
This is a short excerpt from Phillip's article on aggro loam
Aggro Loam / Punishing Blue / 4C Control
The last match-up that we are going to address is AggroLoam/PunishingBlue/4C-Control which you can read here!
OUT: 1 Terminus, 1 Counterbalance, 1 Force of Will
IN: 2 Wear // Tear, 1 Surgical Extraction
Now this match-up is very interesting on multiple levels. While the first game relies heavily upon the very early game it kind of changes when you move into postboarded games. In the first game Force of Will is crucial at dealing with a fast Sylvan Library or Chalice of the Void but once you move to G2 and G3 your density of cards that can answer such a play is increased due to Wear // Tear enabling you to shave the 4th Force of Will. Couple this with the fact that the opponent is also very likely to reduce Mox Diamond, setting you both up for a slow and grindy game rather than the swingy one that the preboarded one seems to be
Did the same but boarded in 2 clique's as well, for eot garruk/lili beat or to take a card in his hand..also the contaimnent priest would be a choice in my sb..
But still unsure if it's necessary?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Just a small little report from the Teams tournament at SCG Baltimore. I’m Aaron Kasprzak and our team finished in 10th. My personal record in the tournament was 12-2-1. Decklist is at:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=111738
R1: 2-0 v BR Reanimator
R2: 2-0 v Infect
R3: 0-1 v Brian Braun-Duin on Miracles. We just started G2 when my teammates lost their matches. Pretty crazy game 1 though, where I dug myself out of his Jace, Countertop, Mentor vs my naked Counterbalance to setup my own Countertop. Died to his Jace -12, which I couldn’t find an answer for.
R4: 2-0 v Ben Feingersh on 4C Loam
R5: 1-1-1 v BUG Delver. Draw should never have happened. Opponent was playing super slowly and wasted a ton of time, i.e. asking me “Cards in hand?” every single turn when all I did was play land and said go. I had the game 100% locked up and Entreated for 1 less than I should have forcing a draw.
R6: 2-0 v Enchantress
R7: 2-1 v Miracles
R8: 2-0 v Max Tietze on 4C Loam
R9: 2-0 v BUG Control with a maindeck Pithing Needle (Had to call a judge on this lol)
R10: 2-0 v Burn
R11: 1-0 v Anuraag Das on Miracles (He made a couple of misplays in Game 1. My teammates won their matches while we were in our Game 2, which he would have won against me)
R12: 0-2 v Sam Pardee on Reid Duke BUG (Got run down by Jace Game 1. Game 2, he needled my Top and I desperately needed to find a Brainstorm for about 4 turns and found it on the turn I was facing lethal).
R13: 2-0 v Dylan Donnegan on BUG Delver (Feature match for Round 13. I know a lot of people are going to knock Rudy for his sloppy play on camera, but he got pretty sick on Day 1 and did a lot to help me carry the team on Day 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQf68A-P3E
R14: 2-0 v Patrick Sullivan on Burn (4 SB Exquisite Firecrafts lol. Scary)
R15: 2-1 v Sneak and Show (Definitely the most stressful match of the tournament. All 3 of us were 1-1 going into our third games simultaneously. I aggressively fought his cantrips during all postboard games)
Obviously, was hoping we could have done a bit better than 10th but the tournament was a tonne of fun and hopefully they do more of these in the future. Had some good talks and pickup games with Anzi after the event and I think with the state of the Legacy metagame, going forward I would certainly advocate a full set of 4 Rebs in the sb.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
hyp3r1on
Congrats!
Who were your teammates and what was your team name?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lordofthepit
Congrats!
Who were your teammates and what was your team name?
I've heard from fairly reliable sources, that 2/3rds of his team is part of one of the quickest expanding religions in the world, where one of them even holds a rather high position in said clergy.
I also heard from... mostly everyone else, that the last team member is a Foe of said clergy.
Congratulations patrunkenphat7 (aka Marbles) aka Aaron kzrzrzraty, on your excellent finish!
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
twndomn
You realize that StP is borderline useless when Aluren decides to combo off, correct?
If your opponent only has 1 Harpy, you can hit Strix with Harpy cast on the stack provided they don't have a Stalker (though a 2nd STP would stop that as well). Unless there's an interaction somewhere I'm not seeing. Of course, a good Aluren player would wait until the coast is clear, but as a Miracles player it's your job to prevent the coast from being clear :cool:
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
hyp3r1on
Just a small little report from the Teams tournament at SCG Baltimore. I’m Aaron Kasprzak and our team finished in 10th. My personal record in the tournament was 12-2-1. Decklist is at:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=111738
R1: 2-0 v BR Reanimator
R2: 2-0 v Infect
R3: 0-1 v Brian Braun-Duin on Miracles. We just started G2 when my teammates lost their matches. Pretty crazy game 1 though, where I dug myself out of his Jace, Countertop, Mentor vs my naked Counterbalance to setup my own Countertop. Died to his Jace -12, which I couldn’t find an answer for.
R4: 2-0 v Ben Feingersh on 4C Loam
R5: 1-1-1 v BUG Delver. Draw should never have happened. Opponent was playing super slowly and wasted a ton of time, i.e. asking me “Cards in hand?” every single turn when all I did was play land and said go. I had the game 100% locked up and Entreated for 1 less than I should have forcing a draw.
R6: 2-0 v Enchantress
R7: 2-1 v Miracles
R8: 2-0 v Max Tietze on 4C Loam
R9: 2-0 v BUG Control with a maindeck Pithing Needle (Had to call a judge on this lol)
R10: 2-0 v Burn
R11: 1-0 v Anuraag Das on Miracles (He made a couple of misplays in Game 1. My teammates won their matches while we were in our Game 2, which he would have won against me)
R12: 0-2 v Sam Pardee on Reid Duke BUG (Got run down by Jace Game 1. Game 2, he needled my Top and I desperately needed to find a Brainstorm for about 4 turns and found it on the turn I was facing lethal).
R13: 2-0 v Dylan Donnegan on BUG Delver (Feature match for Round 13. I know a lot of people are going to knock Rudy for his sloppy play on camera, but he got pretty sick on Day 1 and did a lot to help me carry the team on Day 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQf68A-P3E
R14: 2-0 v Patrick Sullivan on Burn (4 SB Exquisite Firecrafts lol. Scary)
R15: 2-1 v Sneak and Show (Definitely the most stressful match of the tournament. All 3 of us were 1-1 going into our third games simultaneously. I aggressively fought his cantrips during all postboard games)
Obviously, was hoping we could have done a bit better than 10th but the tournament was a tonne of fun and hopefully they do more of these in the future. Had some good talks and pickup games with Anzi after the event and I think with the state of the Legacy metagame, going forward I would certainly advocate a full set of 4 Rebs in the sb.
Hi Aaron, congratulations on your finish! Great to see someone taking the traditional list for a spin. The reason why you recommend a full playset of rebs would presumably be cause of the rise of TNN BUG? The matches i foresee bring a playset of them in will only be against show and tell, mirror and TNN BUG. Will you board 4 rebs against delver decks? or will you decision change if you play a basic mountain?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mike1987
Hi Aaron, congratulations on your finish! Great to see someone taking the traditional list for a spin. The reason why you recommend a full playset of rebs would presumably be cause of the rise of TNN BUG? The matches i foresee bring a playset of them in will only be against show and tell, mirror and TNN BUG. Will you board 4 rebs against delver decks? or will you decision change if you play a basic mountain?
Hey, thanks! I've always been an advocate of the traditional style lists and have been playing them forever. Traditional delver decks don't really exist in the meta anymore. It's a lot more common to play against BUG Delver decks with access to postboard Jaces, "Jarvis Delver" style decks, Noble BUG or other BUG Control style decks that are interested in playing long. Grixis still exists, it's just a lot more uncommon.
I was actually testing a list with a sb mountain fairly heavily before scg Baltimore but decided against it last minute because I didn't have enough reps in with it. Having a stockpile of rebs and the mountain really allows you to play a strong reactionary game vs bug decks, stopping all their big plays of tnn, leovold, jace, snapcaster etc. This sb plan is also obviously big game vs the mirror, snt etc.
The only issue I have with the sb mountain is it feels like a waste of a sb slot a lot of the time and I think md mountain is very, very bad.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
hyp3r1on
Hey, thanks! I've always been an advocate of the traditional style lists and have been playing them forever. Traditional delver decks don't really exist in the meta anymore. It's a lot more common to play against BUG Delver decks with access to postboard Jaces, "Jarvis Delver" style decks, Noble BUG or other BUG Control style decks that are interested in playing long. Grixis still exists, it's just a lot more uncommon.
I was actually testing a list with a sb mountain fairly heavily before scg Baltimore but decided against it last minute because I didn't have enough reps in with it. Having a stockpile of rebs and the mountain really allows you to play a strong reactionary game vs bug decks, stopping all their big plays of tnn, leovold, jace, snapcaster etc. This sb plan is also obviously big game vs the mirror, snt etc.
The only issue I have with the sb mountain is it feels like a waste of a sb slot a lot of the time and I think md mountain is very, very bad.
There's a lot here that I've found to be true in my limited time with this deck, too. I played against three BUG decks in the recent tournament, and every time I felt like I could never have enough REBs. I also feel like the Mountain is a wasted SB slot, but I think I'm of the opinion that it's a necessary evil, just because I don't want to play with more than two Volcanic Islands, and even that is pushing it for me. I hate drawing Volcanic Island in any wasteland matchup, but without access to at least three red sources (or two when one is a basic Mountain) it feels very unstable. But I agree completely that a maindeck Mountain feels terrible, though depending on what Ponder/Land combination I was playing it was something that I tried a few times.
I will say that the Mountain was one of the best cards for me against BUG Delver decks, just because it took away all of the timing issues of trying to keep up REB while working around Wasteland. I could just fetch when I knew they didn't have Stifle (which was most of the time for those decks in particular, but I always had to have it on my radar) and have red mana for the rest of the game. It just feels so bad to have a land in the sideboard, but I guess I'm more immune to that than most since I've played a lot of Vintage where that's a pretty common sideboard decision against Stax. It helps me a lot more to think of the 3 REBs and the 1 Mountain as a package that is very strong against Wasteland blue decks, rather than to try and rationalize away the Mountain. I find that when I'm only bringing in Mountain when I need more red mana, it's rarely actively bad, and seeing it as a part of the plan against Wastelands makes me feel much better about what sometimes feels like a wasted slot.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CutthroatCasual
If your opponent only has 1 Harpy, you can hit Strix with Harpy cast on the stack provided they don't have a Stalker (though a 2nd STP would stop that as well). Unless there's an interaction somewhere I'm not seeing. Of course, a good Aluren player would wait until the coast is clear, but as a Miracles player it's your job to prevent the coast from being clear :cool:
This would be true but a good Aluren player will never cast Harpy with Strix on the battlefield.
What actually happens is Aluren casts Harpy with the Strix in their hand and then when Harpy enters the battlefield they flash in the Strix in response to the bounce trigger. If you try and Swords the Strix here the Aluren player just pays 1 to return Harpy and by flashing it in again they bounce Strix to dodge Swords.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kombatkiwi
This would be true but a good Aluren player will never cast Harpy with Strix on the battlefield.
What actually happens is Aluren casts Harpy with the Strix in their hand and then when Harpy enters the battlefield they flash in the Strix in response to the bounce trigger. If you try and Swords the Strix here the Aluren player just pays 1 to return Harpy and by flashing it in again they bounce Strix to dodge Swords.
I don't have much experience with this matchup, so how do we stop the chain in the most effective manner?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mike1987
I don't have much experience with this matchup, so how do we stop the chain in the most effective manner?
Countering the Harpy is your best bet in scenarios like this, with Pyroblast/RB, Snare, CS, FoW etc. As kombatkiwi pointed out, StP is incredibly ineffective at stopping a good Aluren player.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Want to watch 5 rounds of Miracles action on Youtube with commentary..... ?
https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...-video-series/
Hope you enjoy it!
Sib
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kombatkiwi
This would be true but a good Aluren player will never cast Harpy with Strix on the battlefield.
What actually happens is Aluren casts Harpy with the Strix in their hand and then when Harpy enters the battlefield they flash in the Strix in response to the bounce trigger. If you try and Swords the Strix here the Aluren player just pays 1 to return Harpy and by flashing it in again they bounce Strix to dodge Swords.
That's what the 2nd STP (or REB) is for, though REB would have been used on either of those two birds on the stack.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Whitefaces
Countering the Harpy is your best bet in scenarios like this, with Pyroblast/RB, Snare, CS, FoW etc. As kombatkiwi pointed out, StP is incredibly ineffective at stopping a good Aluren player.
So if we want to fight this MU exclusively on the stack, do you suggest keeping in CB?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CutthroatCasual
So if we want to fight this MU exclusively on the stack, do you suggest keeping in CB?
That's not what I said at all? I honestly don't know about leaving in CB, I haven't played the MU enough.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Whitefaces
Countering the Harpy is your best bet in scenarios like this, with Pyroblast/RB, Snare, CS, FoW etc. As kombatkiwi pointed out, StP is incredibly ineffective at stopping a good Aluren player.
Not sure if I am missing something but why not just counter the parasitic strix instead?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Harpy is super scary coupled with Glint, Agent or even Baleful Strix. And it protects Leovold as long as their Aluren sticks. They'll easily find another PS if they got their Harpy.
Parasitic Strix on it's own sucks.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mike1987
Not sure if I am missing something but why not just counter the parasitic strix instead?
I imagine countering the Parasitic Strix if they are going to go off would be the better plan. If you succeed in countering it, one of their two copies of Parasitic Strix ends up in the graveyard. In order to combo off again, they would need to Eternal Witness it back or find the other copy. In contrast, Cavern Harpy is more often seen as 4-of in the BUG lists.
On the hand, it makes more sense to counter Cavern Harpy if you think they're on the value plan of returning Shardless Agents or Baleful Strix to replay for value.
I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit: Nicklas beat me to it.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
koten
I imagine countering the Parasitic Strix if they are going to go off would be the better plan. If you succeed in countering it, one of their two copies of Parasitic Strix ends up in the graveyard. In order to combo off again, they would need to Eternal Witness it back or find the other copy. In contrast, Cavern Harpy is more often seen as 4-of in the BUG lists.
On the hand, it makes more sense to counter Cavern Harpy if you think they're on the value plan of returning Shardless Agents or Baleful Strix to replay for value.
I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit: Nicklas beat me to it.
Ah yes i see, than ks for the explanation.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Been toying with Esper Miracles for a while now. It's basically a hybrid between Esper Mentor und Miracles, but I feel like it's more on the Miracle side of things and because someone else mentioned the B-Splash recently I felt I should post it here rather than in the Esper Mentor thread.
Took the following list to a Legacy Open in Vienna. 35 players, 6 rounds, cut to Top8. I made Top8, after winning the first 4 rounds and IDing round 5-6, but lost to Food Chain in the quarter finals.
Here's the list I played:
//Lands (19)
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Tundra
2 Usea
4 Delta
4 Strand
2 Marsh Flats
//Creatures (7)
3 Mentor
2 Snappy
2 Baby-Jace
//Artifacts & Enchantments (7)
4 Top
3 Counterbalance
//Instants & Sorceries (27)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Painful Truths
3 FoW
3 Daze
4 StP
3 Terminus
SB: 2 Disenchant
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Zealous Persecution
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Tasigur
SB: 1 Entreat
SB: 1 Tsabos Web
SB: 1 FoW
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
Round 1 - Legendary Miracles - 2:1
g1: He has Cavern of Souls and CB-Top-Lock while I have nothing relevant, so I concede.
g2: My Mentor sticks and kills him quickly, before he can generate enough value out of Cavern+Karakas.
g3: Probe shows me Cavern, Karakas, Clique, Venser and stuff. Once again! Horrid! Turn 4 he casts Clique and we are off to the races. I can discard his Venser, land a Counterbalance that get's pyroblasted at one point, because I am aggressively pondering in order to find a Mentor. My first wave of Monks hits the bin thanks to Sulfur Elemental, but at 2 life and dead on the back swing I manage to hit for 12 (he was at 11) with two Monk Tokens, by making best use of Cabal Therapy and the almighty "daze my own spells". His Terminus gets flusterstormed.
Round 2 - Infect - 2:1
g1: I kill his threats, deploy the Counterbalance and win.
g2: Handled all his threats and exiled all his Blighted Agents via Surgical. Felt safe with Flusterstorm in hand, CB-Top-Lock and a flipped Baby-Jace on board (who can flashback a couple of removal spells; only sorcery speed though...). He is empty handed, but manages to draw consecutive Inkmoth Nexi. Kind of good coupled with Pendelhaven. I brick and die.
g3: I don't die in the early turns and he concedes after he is empty handed and I have all the cards.
Round 3 - DnT - 2:1
g1: We trade resources until I pull ahead with Mentor and seal the deal.
g2: Early Thalia + Vial + Karakas is super annoying. I am mana screwed anyways and two turns after his Gideon resolved I concede.
g3: I draw my SB cards, stabilize the board and eventually kill him with Mentor + Snappy.
Round 4 - BUG Reid Duke - 2:1
g1: I put him on UBg Reanimator thanks to his sleeves and Expedition Fetchies. The first spell he casts is a Collective Brutality. Shuffled all my removal away and luckily waited with my Cabal Therapy until I found a Gitaxian Probe that reveals two big Jaces in hand. I discard both of them, keep the board clear and eventually manage to ultimate the Baby-Jace. I cast a ton of spells, see basically all of his deck and win.
g2: Early Jace+Leovold are cancer and after I fail to remove either of them I concede.
g3: Stuck on two lands for quite a while, but Tasigur is a beast, hits hard and then stonewalls a couple of turns. Probe, Snappy flashback Probe does not find a third land, but a turn later I manage to trade an attacking Snappy with blocking Leovold thanks to Zealous Persecution. In the end I draw the third land, deploy a Mentor, go down to 4 life and barely kill my opponent, whose board consists of a big fat ugly Scavenging Ooze, JTMS and two Noble Hierarchs.
I played at reasonable speed and never went to extra turns, but won all my matches roughly after 45min. At this point I wanna drop from the tournament. The matches were pretty epic. Some of them were actually so interesting and close, that I am a tiny little bit sad I was never on camera. But I am really tired and had enough for today. Luckily I can ID the next two rounds and go have lunch.
Round 5 - ID
Round 6 - ID
Quarterfinals - Food Chain - 1:2
g1: He handles all my three Mentors, all the Tokens and the card count in my library is so low I am actually scared to run out of cards. Luckily he is at 4 and a Snapcaster is able to finish him off after I have to cast StP on his Eternal Scourge twice. Luckily that was no Griffin...
g2: I keep: 2 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Cabal Therapy, 1 Mentor, 3 Lands. I draw 5 lands, followed by a Terminus and then another land. At this point I am so far behind that I just die...
g3: My opponent is tapped out with 2 lands in play (he just cast a Hymn to Tourach). His hand is Brainstorm + irrelevant stuff such as Collective Brutality, Golgari Charm etc. I discard his brainstorm. He topdecks Manipulate Fate. I force. He topdecks Manipulate Fate which draws into a land and he topdecks another land, which is kind of bad for me. I try my best but eventually just die, because I am unable to find a Mentor and/or Terminus.
+ Snapcaster + Probe + Therapy is insane
+ Mentor is broken and having access to sweepers that don't kill your Mentor is really good
+ Tsabos Web is a great SB card, especially in a DnT heavy meta
+ The typical Miracle shell is good, no matter how much you twist it :P
o otp Daze is amazing, but - no surprise - it sucks big times in a lot of MUs otd
- having no access to red blasts is as bad as it sounds, but the mirror is pretty hard to win without any cc4 spell anyways...
- lacking a win-con that doesn't die to basically every removal is scary at times
- My petcard (Surgical) that normally never disappoints was only great against Infect
Would love to hear your thoughts on this take.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
How about Council's Judgement to combat current BUG lists (Leovold, TNN, planeswalker) and Miracles? Sounds way better than Daze. Also 4 Forces seems strong as you're lighter on the countermagic and tap down more often.
So yeah I'd suggest:
-3 Daze
+2 Council's Judgement
+1 Force of Will
Not sure why you need Diabolic Edict in the board: You have ways to combat Marit Lage and TNN, why would you want this (expensive) card that's just bad when your opponent has a token generator or mana dorks? Zealous Persecution is nuts, I'd suggest going up on that one.
Also have you considered a cavern maindeck for Miracles? It seems to be your hardest matchup since you don't barely have any threats and are succeptible to being locked out. Then again maybe cavern wouldn't help much if you can't cast any other spells under counterbalance anyways...
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Agrippa91
How about Council's Judgement to combat current BUG lists (Leovold, TNN, planeswalker) and Miracles? Sounds way better than Daze. Also 4 Forces seems strong as you're lighter on the countermagic and tap down more often.
So yeah I'd suggest:
-3 Daze
+2 Council's Judgement
+1 Force of Will
Don't think I'd want to play 2 CJ main deck. Rather move the second to the sideboard. I'd also cut the Dazes unless the gameplan is to jam mentor and smash. In that case I would probably change up the entire deck.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kentheide
Don't think I'd want to play 2 CJ main deck. Rather move the second to the sideboard. I'd also cut the Dazes unless the gameplan is to jam mentor and smash. In that case I would probably change up the entire deck.
Been playing something similar. Took Bonanni's list from GP Lille and made splash for black to painful truths (better than predict) and some strong sideboard cards for today's meta, like leyline of the void.
// 60 Deck
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Counterbalance
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
4 Ponder
3 Terminus
2 Painful Truths
1 Council's Judgment
1 Plains
4 Island
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Notion Thief
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Back to Basics
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Spell Snare
SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Cabal Therapy
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Painful Truths, Notion Thief and discard all seem very interesting, but I think there are a lot of cards you would want before Toxic Deluge. The fourth Terminus or a copy of Supreme Verdict both seem better, or in black you may be more into a card like Engineered Plague (or Dread of Night if you weren't on Monastery Mentor), depending on what you are trying to do with that slot. I also think that, while Cabal Therapy is great with Monastery Mentor, without other discard or Gitaxian Probe, you probably want to just be playing Thoughtseize, since you're only bringing it in against decks that don't tax your life total and you really, really don't want to miss.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Not to be that guy who doesn't like black in miracles... But i thought the point of counterbalance is to stop my opponent from playing spells. Why would i run discard spells when counterbalance can counter them?
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
There's a reason why UWr is objectively better, but people like to play black because Thoughtseize is a fun card. Though I will admit that black has stronger game against creature decks by virtue of having more removal. But because we're so good against creature decks already, it's basically wasted slots.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CutthroatCasual
There's a reason why UWr is objectively better, but people like to play black because Thoughtseize is a fun card. Though I will admit that black has stronger game against creature decks by virtue of having more removal. But because we're so good against creature decks already, it's basically wasted slots.
it is also significantly better versus boseiju combo decks.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
@Discard:
Quote:
Not to be that guy who doesn't like black in miracles... But i thought the point of counterbalance is to stop my opponent from playing spells. Why would i run discard spells when counterbalance can counter them?
Why run Counterspell when Counterbalance can counter them?
Why run StP when Counterbalance can counter them?
There are few people left who still play decks that just die to Counterbalance. Everyone is prepared to beat Counterbalance.
BUG everywhere, at least in my region tons of DnT (by far most played deck) and combo decks don't mind Counterbalance as much as they used to g2/g3. Against decent Storm players its mediocre, because they will grind you out eventually. SnT plays Boseiju and 3+4 aren't easy to float on top anyways.
Discard also helps to stick a Counterbalance and combats those decks who aim to win before Counterbalance is relevant (RB Reanimator mostly).
On top of that discard punishes players who try to sculpt their hand in order to power their way through the Counterbalance or just wait for the Decay/Grip/EE/whatever.
Discard simply offers another angle of attack and at least in a Mentor Miracles build playing Cabal Therapy makes a lot of sense, because it's a pretty busted combo.
edit: Just to be clear: The R-splash is overall stronger in an open meta. That's not what this is about. Red blasts are just too good and I am not arguing against that.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
benthetenor
I think there are a lot of cards you would want before Toxic Deluge. The fourth Terminus or a copy of Supreme Verdict both seem better
Deluge can come down faster than both (minimal set up vs Terminus), and diversifies your wipes in the face of Prelate and Gaddock Teeg...and uh, Void Winnower.
Also, you can play your board sweeper and have Mentor + tokens survive thanks to Prowess.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Claymore
Deluge can come down faster than both (minimal set up vs Terminus), and diversifies your wipes in the face of Prelate and Gaddock Teeg...and uh, Void Winnower.
Also, you can play your board sweeper and have Mentor + tokens survive thanks to Prowess.
I'm not saying there aren't edges, I'm probably the biggest fan of diversifying cards to make yourself less predictable. I just usually find that when I need a sweeper, I also need to not lose life to cast it. There's not a lot of reason to cast a sweeper if you've already established a Monastery Mentor, for instance, because just flooding the board with tokens is going to stop most creatures. Any situation that can be beaten by a Toxic Deluge small enough to let Mentor survive is probably a situation that is just losing to your army of 2/2s and 3/3s and 4/4s anyway. Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that you'd lose a lot more to drawing a Toxic Deluge at a low life total than you would to facing Gaddock Teeg or Sanctum Prelate and being unable to clear them off with a Swords to Plowshares, or in my world, a Karakas or just casting a Baneslayer Angel and getting busy. I know that Mother of Runes exists, I just also know that most Mother of Runes decks board them out since they're pretty bad against sweepers.
My main point is, if you're going black, Toxic Deluge is a card you probably have to play since you can't have Izzet Staticaster/Kozilek's Return/Pyroclasm/any kind of Electrickery card, so it shouldn't be seen as a reason to go black, but rather a concession. It's just worse than those cards when dealing with smaller creatures, and it's just worse than Terminus when dealing with large creatures. You can lose to some very specific situations, but you lose way more to paying life for your Wrath effects.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Guys - in an effort to expand my Twitch I realized that saving the game replays would be valuable. I've gone ahead and added some videos from yesterday and the day before yesterday's stream to my YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/anzi104. I'll be adding most of my videos here, so hopefully over time this will become a good repository of data for whatever I'm playing!
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AnziD
Guys - in an effort to expand my Twitch I realized that saving the game replays would be valuable. I've gone ahead and added some videos from yesterday and the day before yesterday's stream to my YouTube channel :
https://www.youtube.com/user/anzi104. I'll be adding most of my videos here, so hopefully over time this will become a good repository of data for whatever I'm playing!
Thanks AnziD, it's useful.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Honestly, people have been trying to make UWB Miracles work forever now and the black splash is just not worth it at all. First of all, REBs are extremely good right now as everyone is playing TNN/Leovold decks and is obviously a key card in the mirror. You want to be playing a Miracles list that is strong in mirror matches and targeted discard has dubious value - especially in the late game with Miracles' ability to hide key cards with Top. Compared to REBs where they are valuable in the early and late game. It's much more important to have the ability to counter powerful blue spells like Ancestral Visions, Counterbalance or TNNs etc than hoping to snag them with Thoughtseizes.
Secondly, Painful Truths is not as good as Predict. Nowhere close - and I never play with any copies of Predict in UWR Miracles. Painful Truths works in proactive BUG/Grixis shells as a parity breaker for grindy matchups, but this kind of effect is not good in Miracles. You get value from Predict because of it's instant speed, the ability to "reset your Top" from dead cards and is very useful at triggering Miracle cards. Sorcery speed, pay 3, draw 3 is not where you want to be at.
Silver bullet "get you" cards like Notion Thief that you get from running black are also not worth it at all. Not only is Notion Thief blastable but you will cost yourself so much value by hoping to get someone with this card by trying to hold up 4 mana and hope they slam a Jace or try to Brainstorm without protection. It's just not a realistic strategy. The only time Notion Thief was a SB card up for consideration was when Shardless was everywhere. It was a a decent SB slot for Shardless Mirrors as its difficult for that deck to straight up answer at instant speed.
Really the only reasonable cards you get from running black are for creature mirrors like Toxic Deluge or -1/-1 sb cards. However Miracles never needs a whole lot of additional sweeper effects for creature matchups because, well Terminus is great. If you want more sweepers beyond Terminus, you don't even need to look at Black cards. You can consider Supreme Verdict, Kozilek's Return or Moat, all of which fit the stronger UWR shell and accomplish just as much as Toxic Deluge does.
Off the top of my head - the only situation where I would ever want discard in Miracles is against something like Sneak and Show and facing down a Boseiju. But then you don't have efficient ways of stopping their cantrips since you're not playing REBs and they inevitably find another Show and Tell. Overall, UWB is just not anywhere close to competitive as UWR builds.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
In summary: Esper is a sweet color combo, just not a good one.
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AnziD
Guys - in an effort to expand my Twitch I realized that saving the game replays would be valuable. I've gone ahead and added some videos from yesterday and the day before yesterday's stream to my YouTube channel :
https://www.youtube.com/user/anzi104. I'll be adding most of my videos here, so hopefully over time this will become a good repository of data for whatever I'm playing!
Thanks, that's a Greta idea! Btw I tried to watch some of your videos there from mobile and they don't work. YouTube says "this video is not available"
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
Since the discussion came up in one of AnziD's recent streams:
What do you guys think are the MUs where Mentor is clearly superior to EtA? At the moment I'm playing a 2/1 split of Mentor/ÉtA, but I would like to make room for more predicts (currently running only 2) in my maindeck and I wonder if 2 EtA wouldnt be the better finisher package anyway against the majority of the field.
Mentor gives the deck a way to pressure your opponent early, can stall non-flying fatties and its hard to handle for many decks.
It does a good job against some problematic fringe decks like 12Post, Goblins and Painter and its also probably better against Eldrazi.
But what about Mentor vs. EtA in the common MU's - Delver, BUG, Storm, S&T, D&T, Elves, Mirror ?
Mentor is clearly worse against the Decay-Decks and Im not sure if tapping out for Mentor on turn 3 against Storm/S&T for pressure is a good plan (Clique is much better here). Against D&T on the other hand you can sometimes play him early with force backup and simply race / overrun them - but resolving an EtA with X= 4+ against them also wins you the game on the spot, so he's not really the 'better' finisher.
Maybe its also a decision between pure control and a 'midrange approach' to Miracles BBD talked abaout in his article after Grand Prix Louisville.
In the current online metagame I prefer 2 EtA, but for an unknown tournament metagame the 2/1 split is probably better... ? Im not sure.
I would appreciate some expert comments!
And btw, THANKS to AnziD for streaming so regularly! I really enjoy watching your videos. Please keep up the good work!! :-)
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Re: [DTB] Miracle Control
I don't think there's any easy way to answer that question. ETA, even if it resolves for just 2, is such an immense amount of pressure on our end once we shift from defend to attack. But even a Mentor and 2 tokens is an immense amount of pressure, as well.
I think a good general rule boils down to what cards your opponent's deck has more of: spot removal or permission. In the case of the former, where you're up against a deck that runs at least two of these cards in any number each, usually 3-4ofs each: PFires, Decays, Bolts, Fatal Push, or Swords, I think ETA is better because they'll have a more difficult time stopping it when it hits (and it will probably almost always hit since they usually don't have that much permission). So decks like: Shardless BUG and (almost) every non-blue deck. In the case of the latter, where the deck is more full of cards like: Spell Pierce, Force of Will, Counterspell, Daze, I think Mentor is better because they may not have enough permission in hand (which would usually take more turns sculpting via cantrips) if you can slam him early enough. So decks like Delver and the mirror (though the MU is pretty much still 50/50 no matter which creature-win con you use, and Jace is how you're probably going to win most mirrors). As for decks like DnT where there's really only 1 main kind of removal (STP, and to a lesser extent Flickerwisp), I think either one works as long as you can protect it from those removal effects.
Obviously, most decks run both classes of cards so another metric would be to look at the style of deck you're up against. Against aggro and fast-midrange (i.e. Elves), you'd want Mentor if only to clog up the board early enough so you can save your removal for their bombs. Against slow(er)-midrange (i.e. Maverick and BUG-based decks), I think you'd want ETA because we don't generally need to worry about losing by turn 3 to creatures turning sideways, so we can just answer all their weak pressure and then ETA for a lot. Against tempo (aka Delver), I think either one works fine, though at that point it probably depends more on your playstyle and whether you're a kind of player that likes to play aggressively (Mentor) or one that likes to sit back and bide your time (ETA).
Again, that's all a rough guideline that I use, and really it boils down to how you want to play the deck: as tap-out control (Mentor) or draw-go control (ETA).
