You're 90% certain we win every game RIP resolves? Agreed. A weaker version of Grafdigger's Cage taking it's place could change things. Joe's last game on Stream against Bahra he would have lost even with Cage in play. Relic was what saved him.
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You're 90% certain we win every game RIP resolves? Agreed. A weaker version of Grafdigger's Cage taking it's place could change things. Joe's last game on Stream against Bahra he would have lost even with Cage in play. Relic was what saved him.
So the deck plays 15 lands and 0 draw Spells. You have 4 Sacrifice outlets. Our deck still contains 8 1-mana removal Spells.
Priest is worse than RiP against Dredge, that's a given, but it doesn't matter, because it still practically wins us the game on the spot. It's actually probably better, as you can't Claim it.
Four of those 1 mana removal spells kill Priest, though, and allow dredge to continue it's gameplan.
It isn't hard for them to reach two to three mana and just dredge into a Thug or Imp and just make a bunch of zombies and win through. Also, their deck plays plenty of draw spells.
Dredge plays as many as 16 draw spells if you count Coliseum. It also has the dredge mechanic which lets it draw up to 6 cards a turn. It's the only deck in Magic that worries about decking itself as early as turn 5.Quote:
Originally Posted by YamiJoey
In the end, this is a silly argument. People will just have to run Priest and see if they feel RIP is no longer needed.
So yesterday i played a tournament and lost 2 matches even though my list is pretty awesome (own brew). Some of the losses were pretty bad. I realize now that some of my seven card hands were too risky/greedy (thats probably why i lost). Do you guys have a rule of thumb when to mulligan?
Also at one point against ur-delver i was under pressure and had to brainstorm. It was quite early in the game and i was at like 10 life facing a delver and a Pyromancer which was just cast. Opponent had three cards in hand. My board was 3 lands and one fetch. before putting cards back and fetching my hand was something like
-counterbalance
-fow
-Jace
-entreat
-Brainstorm
-Blue blast
-Swords.
I know there are a lot of other things that have to be considered, but what would you guys put back? would you fetch? I would like to hear some responses then i will tell you what actually happened. :eyebrow:
Your first mistake is having Force in post board. What step/phase are we in?
You are right, that was a red elemental/pyro blast. i did board out all of my forces obviously. Hard to relive all of these things without detailed notes. it was end of his turn. I didnt know any of his cards in hand, he had one volcanic untapped and his graveyard was like 6-7 cards. and the delver was flipped by a ponder which he cast the turn before.Quote:
Originally Posted by YamiJoey
{{{This post did not get finished}}}
Opponent:
~3 Lands, one untapped Volc.
Delver (Fliiped + Attacked?) + Young Pyromancer (Sick)
3 CiH
Only play for the turn was Land(?) Swing, Pyro, correct?
You:
3 Lands + 1 Fetch
Hand: Counterbalance, Jace, Entreat, Brainstorm, Brainstorm (?) (Assuming this as there are 3 removal/counters in hand during the Brainstorm, which I assume you drew from them or else you wouldn't be Brainstorming at this point).
Cast Brainstorm: Swords, Red Blast, Blue Blast, Jace, Entreat, Balance, Brainstorm. I would put back Jace, Entreat, and/or Counterbalance. That would leave us with 3 1-mana removal/counterspells, and a Brainstorm, + whichever card we keep. At 9, we are very close to dying to everything they do.
If they have 1-mana Counterspell + Force + Blue card, we are losing this whole fight, and we have to be finding a Terminus. I would start by attempting to kill the Pyroman, and not fighting any counter war. If they generate a token from it, we're way to far behind for killing it to matter anymore, but if they can't save it, it puts us in a completely different position. We're now Vs a lone Delver, and they have zero interaction. Suddenly we don't need Terminus to not die. In face, Jace -> -1 is a very legitimate Tempo Play we could make here, as all we need to do is find some land drops and keep our head above water. Once we untap with the Jace, the whole game is over, and if we keep the Blue Blast, we can hope to find a Land, then fight an opposing Red Blast on Jace. If we don't find a Land, this line is way riskier, and I'd just kill the Delver in my Main Phase.
So, Line 1:
Cast Swords to Plowshares on Young Pyromancer.
If they have no responses, I would fetch, untap and draw.
{{{At this point I gave up}}}
Currently I'm super ill, and I can't tell but I think I went around in circles on myself there. I deleted this post about four times. This was my attempt at figuring the situation out. I figured I'd leave it here, as I want to know if I've got the initial situation right or not, and then there's some of my working below. I want to engineer them on 1 guy, Jace bounces it, or if they swarm with Pyroman, just start digging for a Terminus turn. (Either with the Brainstorm, or using Jace as a Fog, but that sounds pretty weak.)
Thats a pretty good answer already. My line of thinking was similair to what you suggested. unfortunately i made one big mistake.
I put back entreat and Brainstorm and thought i could clean the board one for one at the worst, then resolve CB/Jace and win from there. So i fetched for the chance of an improbable Terminus. This left me with a hand of:
-Counterbalance,
-Jace
-Blue Blast
-Red Blast
-Swords
My draw was an island. So i blue blasted the Pyromancer to prevent more tokens. then passed the turn.
He Bolts me, i sword his delver. and he ponders i think. board empty, at six life and i topdeck a terminus then flooded with lands. Inbetween i tried CB and Jace. Long story short: I die to a swiftspear a couple of turns later.
I thought my hand was so good that i didnt need the brainstorm. This happened a couple of times before but i wasnt punished for it. Could you guys imagine a scenario without a top in play in which fetching a BS away is the right play? Was my line just stupid or completely ridiculous?
Generally i think i've become a decent player with miracles however after like 40% of the games (win or lose, more often lose) i feel like i made a mistake or there was a better line of play. I know miracles is a very challenging deck thats why i still wonder if you guys like Einherjer or other miracles experts feel like you make mistakes that/quite often, or should i play more slowly/thoughtfully (no unintentional draws in a long time)?
Also the Mulligan question, keep a hand of top, plains, BS, CB, SCM; Jace, CB on the play against unknown opponent?
just won a small, 4 round cut-to-top-4 SCG OT with ponder miracles, wanted to make a few remarks about it while its fresh on my mind. ran something very close to Phillips GP list, without the pyro/reb main (a bad choice, but i only had one black bordered REB and i didnt want any more white cards in my deck).
round one - played against small pox. he wasnt able to get enough pressure and they cant beat the top of the deck. game 2 kept 4 land ponder, 2 top. worked out perfectly as he rit/hymned the first top and blew up a few lands, but i got to keep on playing
1-0, 2-0
round two - played against stoneblade. game one ended up taking 40 minutes, he cruised 4 times (3 resolved) and generally i never was able to get on the front foot against him. game 2 he played frustratingly slow (although not enough to call a judge on him, he just didnt have incentives to play and a quick pace. ended t5 with 4 angels in play, swords + judgement in hand while he had a SFM, and his one card in hand was the bskull. it happens
1-1, 2-1
round three - played against reanimator. game one i had the hard lock of cb+top with 2 cspells in hand and a jace ticking up. game two i boarded wrong as i expected her to name white if she rezzed an iona. game 3 clique + snapcaster were enough to keep her disrupted and then beat her down.
2-1, 4-2
round four - played against UWR stoneblade, guy made some questionable plays and had some bad draws. at one point he cast a SFM and forgot the trigger. put himself on tilt and never could recover.
3-1, 6-2
semis - played against a member of the testing group, running BBD's UWR stoneblade list. game one i got out ahead with jace to keep card advantage going against his treasure cruise, got some value with counterbalance before it got REB'd, and eventually brainstormed into countertop leaving 1&2 on top until jace ulted. game 2 he was tired and made a few poor plays, playing into spells he knew i had, and i was able to clean it up.
4-1, 8-2
finals - played against SnS. game one i kept a respectable hand and drew a second force, but couldnt beat show and tell with force back up to clear out my forces, then another show on the following turn. games 2 +3 i boarded into a disruptive creature package, kept sketchy landlight hands, with lots of gas and simply got there, both games through over 4 combined copies of show &/ sneak attack. i question how i boarded here, but at the time i though best to board out all swords and terminus, along with judgement and a few jaces, to bring in all the counter / disruption i could find. i figured if a fatty resolved i didnt have good odds to fight back, so i went all in on stopping that from happening.
5-1, 10-3
overall the deck ran well, but i definitely need to find some FBB or beta REB's so i can run the proper lists with a few in the main.
I'll throw it doen like this: Brainstorm is the best card in the whole deck. Everything else is there to make Brainstorm even better. Ponder, Miracles, Counterbalance, it all just makes Brainstorm the most important thing you could be doing. You already burned one trying not to die, so never ever ditch the second. Especially when you have no more Lands and are drawing blind next turn. This is actually almost certainly the reason you lost, but I can't exactly tell you that for certain, there's a whole game to be had. Counterbalance without Top is just sort of bad, unless you have Jace and a backup Brainstorm.
As far as that mulligan goes: I'd ship it. If it was an Island I'd be way more tempted to keep. You have no real castable Spells, but an Island puts you at 17 Lands making your whole hand live, with both Top and Brainstorm looking for them. I would also T1 the top, and Main Phase the Brainstorm if you don't see a land, pretending the Plains in the opener was an Island.
I was wondering if you guys have any specific tips for the differences in play style between the ponder build and the legends build? I've been playing the legends for the past handful of months up until GP NJ. I'm trying out the ponder build but I'm having very mediocre results.
It's clearly a lot better against aggro decks like UR Delver or Infect, but in games that are grindier I find myself struggling if I get behind on cards or if any "difficult" card resolves. I find myself having trouble with overly interactive games relative to legends, and feel like I have no closing power. Losing an Entreat to discard or a counter is a beating and a half, and I feel like I struggle to close when I don't have counter-top completely locking down. I just don't really know what I'm doing wrong or how I need to prioritize spells differently from me or my opponents.
1. grindier gamesQuote:
Originally Posted by Dat_Gentleman
What do you mean by behind on cards or difficult card resolves? Hard to speculate in a vacuum, can you give specific card names? When a game goes long, as long as you have SDT active, how behind can you be? Sure, not able to counter a Treasure Cruise is annoying, but is that what you mean by behind on cards? When you mention difficult card resolves, my obvious guess would be Liliana, opponent's Jace, Revoker, or maybe Aether Vial, are those cards what you're referring to? If not, what exactly are you referring to?
2. build issue?
The struggle you're describing sounds universal, are they even related to the difference in Ponder vs Legend build specifically? I would understand if you are annoyed by the fact that Snapcaster cannot kill a 3/3 Mongoose while Clique can, that's something specific to the builds themselves.
@Dat_Gentleman:
Having played both versions of Miracles (4-Ponder and Legendary), I understand your dilemma. Personally, I have a lot more experience with the Ponder version and much less with Legendary, so keep that in mind. The strength of the Ponder version lies in its consistency. Very few games you'll go without assembling the CounterTop lock or finding a bunch of interactive spells. Variance is still a thing, but the extra smoothing from 4 Ponders (in addition to 4 extra shuffle effects) and the 3 Snapcasters means you'll seemingly always have the right tool at your disposal. With that being said, it's main weakness is it trades some "wincons" in the 3 Cliques main, which can have an effect on G1. Most Ponder lists run 2 Clique's SB, which means that you can add those in against combo or as just additional evasion threats for G2/G3. Another big difference in the two lists is the land count, with Legends builds running ~23 and Ponder builds running ~21. I was worried at first that losing two lands would make it harder to find them when needed, but again with 4 Top/Ponder/Brainstorm and 3 Jace, you have plenty of digging power. In fact, I found I'd often start with bad, land-heavy hands or flood out with the Legends build whereas the Ponder build feels just right, good openers in general and very few mana screw games.
That being said, the Legends build does give a whole additional layer of interaction (Clique/Venser + Karakas) which can be useful in bouncing troublesome permanents/spells and repeatable hand ripping, I've just not found that it fits my particular playstyle. As far as playstyle for each deck goes, mid-late game they seem almost identical. Early game, I find myself digging heavily with the Ponder build to assemble CounterTop or find a bunch of relevant spells and can keep poorer openers. Early game with Legends, I found you were very dependent on your opener and early draws to carry you into the mid-late game. So, in summary:
TL;DR-
Ponder Build
Pros: Very consistent, good level of interaction, high digging ability and shuffle effects, Snapcaster always seems to have good targets
Cons: Relies more heavily on "hard" wincons (Jace, Entreat) than combat damage, no Legend + Karakas interaction, weaker to Sneak & Show and Reanimator
Legends Build
Pros: High raw power, high interaction
Cons: Less consistent, has a higher tendency to produce clunky openers, has a higher tendency to flood, less digging and shuffle effects
correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the ponder build usually run an extra Jace over the legend build, which should give you easier access to raw card advantage over your opponents? In theory that should help you keep up against stuff like a resolved TC.
Nope, Joe just started testing 1 dig over 3rd Jace a week ago or something. Basically everyone runs 3 Jace.
I am certain Ein will comment on your question and most people including me will take his words as the final words. In case he's away, I am not even certain if I buy into your logic of 1 more JTMS means easier access to raw CA. Feels like you're asking 2 questions that are not directly related. First is how does Miracle keep up with the CA when opponent resolved a TC? Second, does the 3rd JTMS in any builds count as a way that can keep up CA?Quote:
Originally Posted by amalek0
Assume you already have CB-T in play with life total greater than 3, how important is it to keep up the CA if your opponent resolves a TC? If it's a BUG deck resolving TC, it's likely he'll draw into Abrupt Decay, what if it's just UR Delver? My point is that the game really centers around the timing of first TC. If you can stop or delay the first TC and the game gets into mid/late game, I'm certain that your board presence and the card quality provided by SDT will put you in a great position to just undermine the second TC.
I very much agree with your assessment. The list I was looking at when I made that comment, regarding someone else asking about keeping up with TC, was an older list that only ran two jaces in the legend build. Regardless, I won't pretend to be knowledgeable about the legend build at all, as *when* I diddle around with something faster than lands, it's usually Ein's latest list sans whatever I don't have/can't borrow.Quote:
Originally Posted by twndomn
I would imagine just from a theoretical perspective that TC resolving from a BUG deck is more backbreaking than a UR delver deck, if only because the delver list packs no answer to the virtual CA offered by the counter-top lock, while the BUG deck not only has answers, but is in the business of overwhelming you with CA in some form most of the time. That alone is a reason I would think for the gameplan against BUG to be blanking Abrupt Decay entirely anyway.
On an entirely different track, I have a group that wants to do a fairly casual legacy tournament to drum up some local interest down here at school, so they've arranged for a sunday night casual (free) tournament with random old FNM foils and stuff as prizes. I don't want to take something cutthroat since the idea is to encourage those modern players to jump into a better format, so I was thinking of jamming some kind of four-color miracles build for funsies, to nab abrupt decay, krosan grip, and trygon predator. I know for a fact that nobody around here at school plays a wasteland deck, I expect it to mostly be modern delver with brainstorms etc, maybe some affinity builds with actual artifact lands, one guy on UW miracles who's both very experienced and yet makes the most unbelievably bad play mistakes every game, every format, and a couple of people who were working on MUD lists, in various stages of completion. So, my first thought was to jam straight RUG delver since I can borrow the goyfs, volcs and forces, but then I decided that would be against the spirit of sucking other people into the format. I then landed on the idea of durdling with some kind of 4-color awesomeness that would never hold up in a real metagame.
Off the top of my head, I think I'm gonna try and jam the following:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 tops
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
4 Terminus
3 Jace
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Krosan Grip
as a mainboard. I expect to basically see one real UW miracles build, piloted by what amounts to functionally a brand new legacy player who happens to know what every card ever printed does but can't play around any of them, and a mix of modern affinity upgraded with some lands, modern UR delver with added dazes and brainstorms, and some MUD decks, possibly a bloodmoon build and then 1 or 2 pretty colorless builds. I don't expect any wastelands, so I threw together a manabase prioritizing the ability to fight through blood moons as I fully expect those to be most of the nonbasic land hate.
Just to be clear, I know one of the decks in this small event to contain 3 ancient tombs, lotus petals, and stuff like solemn simulacrum and everflowing chalice. It's NOT a competitive field. I'm going to sideboard a mix of Trygon Predator, Krosan Grips, flusterstorms and a counterspell in case someone here has a storm deck I wasn't aware of or something, and some generic grave hate, probably a RIP and a cage or two. In particular, anybody have ideas for some fun, splashy sideboard cards that don't see much play but could shine in a meta like this? I'm trying to play a bad deck that imitates a good deck in a fun way, so as to make games interesting against a field of scrubs. I know this isn't necessarily productive discussion in the vein of competitive miracles, but I thought it might bring up some relevant discussion on sideboard tech for small, relatively restricted metagames.
Quote:
Originally Posted by amalek0
As fun as counterbalance, an instant speed army of angels and an instant speed wrath of god for 1 mana are for us, most people, especially new players, do not like playing against them. CB is especially frustrating for new players since they feel like they are playing against a prison deck (which is something they do not appreciate usually). I would recommend just making some kind blade deck, or 3/4 color goodstuff turbo-delve deck. You can still be interactive, but without giving the newbies the feeling that that their deck is a pile of garbage because you get to just counter all their things for free and kill all their stuff for 1 mana.
There were some good answers from a lot of different people! Well done! I don't need to add too much at all :) (though I might write a very long post / article one day where I go into the super deep details between Legends + Ponder)
The short version: No. Both variants play between 2-4 Jaces, even though 4 is hardly justifiable with the rise of UR. If you play 2 you are kind of forced to include Dig Through Time which is a good card and valid inclusion, I just don't think that it's good enough. Additionally, I don't buy the argument of "You don't need three Jace, you'll find one of your two with the Dig."Quote:
Originally Posted by amalek0
Playing 2 Jace 1 Dig is fine if you expect a very well known metagame where you face blisteringly fast decks round after round. As this isn't the case at a GP or at any local tournament that I attend I havn't really seen the use of Dig, as of now. I also don't think that it's a build specific topic, to be perfectly honest. Both variants don't have too many flexible slots though I guess that if one of the variants could include Dig without suffering too much, it would be Legends as they don't need to include 4 Ponder, which, on the other hand, is an excellent tool to fuel a kind of early Dig.
So no, there is no general answer which version runs more Jace's, nor does it have anything to do with any other strategical consideration.
Sorry for the short answer but I'm just working on a pretty long (and hopefully epic) strategy article that talks about all things UWR. I hope I could help, nontheless and thanks again for the good answers that have been given to the last couple of questions!
Greetings