Miracle Control

I have cut Entreat for Mentor. It's doing really well for me, and has had an immediate impact on matchups that were a little sketchy, such as omni. You win so much faster. I have skewed some card choices specifically to make sure it is better, but not too far. I am back up to the full 4 Force of Wills in the maindeck, and maindecked Spell Pierce (over the sideboard Flusterstorms). It makes the deck significantly faster against things like MUD, where we can really struggle, and gives us earlier pressure against combo decks, where Entreat causes problems in the early game. It ends the game almost as fast, and is still a very resilient card.

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Originally Posted by YamiJoey

I have cut Entreat for Mentor. It's doing really well for me, and has had an immediate impact on matchups that were a little sketchy, such as omni. You win so much faster. I have skewed some card choices specifically to make sure it is better, but not too far. I am back up to the full 4 Force of Wills in the maindeck, and maindecked Spell Pierce (over the sideboard Flusterstorms). It makes the deck significantly faster against things like MUD, where we can really struggle, and gives us earlier pressure against combo decks, where Entreat causes problems in the early game. It ends the game almost as fast, and is still a very resilient card.

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This is interesting. Assuming you have 2 Entreats or 2 Mentors, are you actually likely to kill your opponent with Mentor faster than finding a Brainstorm or Jace for your Entreat? If you Entreat for 3 on turn 6, they die by turn 8. If you cast Mentor on turn 3, is a 5 turn clock not likely?

I think people overreact to miracle cards in their opener, is all I'm saying.

It allow you to not only cast a Mentor on 4 with many forms of protection, and then expect a kill very shortly after (T5?), but it also allows you to just make earlier value plays against decks like Shardless. Against fairer decks, just flooding the board with Creatures keeps things like Mongoose at bay, and stops Mirran Crusaders and other random garbage from putting you too far over the edge too quickly. One of the problems with DnT is just not having the ability to sit there and do nothing because they made a Cave or a Vial. Mentor lets you just happily chug along and block every turn. A lot of the time it just blanks them from attacking at all. A swift Brainstorm to the face means you get a few Mentor tokens that can trade off for all sorts of things. The only thing you're left cold to are Delvers, and big finishes like Gris which don't really count when we look at Creatures, anyway. It also forces your opponent to make blocking decisions. If you attack with a couple of 3/3's with Prowess because you cast a Top and a Ponder, suddenly you're looking at a lot of damage, but a block could mean losing their Goyf. There's also been an upswing in cards like Pyromancer being played, which are really frustrating to deal with. Mentor gets you there against those strategies as well, as they can't even just attempt to trade off tokens and keep the board small.

This is my list. I was attempting to write up a report of my win a box. (I came 9th on breakers after a draw in R2 and a loss to T1 Chalice for 1 against MUD in R4. ¬_¬)

Permanents: 13
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Spells: 26
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Terminus
4 Dig Through Time

Lands: 21
1 Plains
4 Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
2 Path to Exile
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Counterspell
2 Pyroclasm
1 Wear // Tear
1 Terminus
1 Counterbalance
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Keranos, God of Storms

The main points I will make:
3 Terminus seems fine with the fourth in the board. People play around Terminus really well, generally. It's rarely the blowout it once was, and it's also slightly worse with the Mentor plan.
4 Dig Through Time was actually too many. I've been upping the numbers, but I think I may have pushed too far after playing with Omnishow and just casting Dig on T3 every game. I would definitely like to cut one, and it is either for a Counterspell or for a Land.

2 Path to Exile in the board was excessive. With the additional Terminus, I probably never brought the second in, but the first was definitely invaluable. (I may have boarded both in against MUD.)
Pyroclasm is awesome with Mentor. <3
3 Vendilion Clique is also a tad on the high side. I only ever brought two in.

I think I would like to cut the Dig for a Plains, and have access to cards like Council's Judgment out of the sideboard. There were a lot of problem permanents that I feel I never had answers to, but I think that with a slightly better prepared sideboard, I may not have needed them anyway. I'll be working on it and seeing if I can avoid WW outside of a hardcast Terminus.

Play of the day. My opponent casts a Show and Tell. I Clique in response (with just 3 Lands) and see Omniscience and Spell Pierce. I let the Show resolve and put in a Snapcaster Mage. Untap, REB the Omniscience. MWAHAHAHAAAA!

Didn't realize the tokens had Prowess. Still think killing the opponent the turn after you cast is ambitious, but that definitely makes it stronger.

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Originally Posted by YamiJoey

Play of the day. My opponent casts a Show and Tell. I Clique in response (with just 3 Lands) and see Omniscience and Spell Pierce. I let the Show resolve and put in a Snapcaster Mage. Untap, REB the Omniscience. MWAHAHAHAAAA!

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Nice kill, but don't get complacent. A good OmniTell player wouldn't go for it without protection unless they were 1) under pressure or 2) had something to cast off of Omniscience in order to at least get value out of it. If you only had 3 lands, there was no reason to go for it, so it was a blatant misplay on part of the OmniTell player.

The thing about ETA I prefer over Mentor is flying. But I will definitely try out Mentor and see how it works, will write back in like 2 months :P

I was going to win no matter what play I made, but REBing an on-board Omni was just so much fun I had to share it.

If you make a Mentor with around 6 lands in play, you will often be killing two turns later with countermagic until they die. With less lands (ie. t3) you are running a higher risk, but if you know you can go for it, then you're going to dominate the board at a much earlier point, and whilsy you might not win on T4, there's no way you're losing if you untap. It may not be faster when you play it later, but it's so much cheaper and more flexible. It does something other than win the game, and that's what I want from my win condition.

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Originally Posted by YamiJoey

I was going to win no matter what play I made, but REBing an on-board Omni was just so much fun I had to share it.

If you make a Mentor with around 6 lands in play, you will often be killing two turns later with countermagic until they die. With less lands (ie. t3) you are running a higher risk, but if you know you can go for it, then you're going to dominate the board at a much earlier point, and whilsy you might not win on T4, there's no way you're losing if you untap. It may not be faster when you play it later, but it's so much cheaper and more flexible. It does something other than win the game, and that's what I want from my win condition.

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I can dig that. Not sure that Mentor is the best way, but it certainly is intriguing, though have you found that it tends to turn on your opponents removal too much and you have to spend your counterspells to defend it being an issue? With Miracles being something like 10-15% of the meta, it seems like a fragile win-con in the mirror match.

Mentor is fine against spot removal, as you'll basically never play it without getting one at least one trigger unless you're playing against a deck that doesn't interact. As for the mirror, if people are keeping Terminus in post-board to deal with Mentor, that's fine by me.

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Originally Posted by YamiJoey

If you make a Mentor with around 6 lands in play, you will often be killing two turns later with countermagic until they die. With less lands (ie. t3) you are running a higher risk, but if you know you can go for it, then you're going to dominate the board at a much earlier point, and whilsy you might not win on T4, there's no way you're losing if you untap. It may not be faster when you play it later, but it's so much cheaper and more flexible. It does something other than win the game, and that's what I want from my win condition.

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Another thing I don't like about Mentor is that it forces you to expend resources to make it good. This means Brainstorming and Pondering at "bad" times. If you get blown out, you've wasted cantrips that otherwise would have helped you stabilize.

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Originally Posted by presquepartout

Mentor is fine against spot removal, as you'll basically never play it without getting one at least one trigger unless you're playing against a deck that doesn't interact. As for the mirror, if people are keeping Terminus in post-board to deal with Mentor, that's fine by me.

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I feel like a huge advantage of Miracles in the first place is that your opponent's pre-board removal suite is really bad, so making it live on one of the deck's already few win conditions seems like a huge risk. If they remove it after even one trigger, now you've spent 4 mana (Mentor + some spell since you can't assume it'll be FoW) and you have a 1/1 Prowess Monk, instead of spending 4 mana on 2 4/4 Flying Angels. Mentor only seems like the better option if you're "going off" with two Sensei's Tops, and if that's the plan I'd rather bring it in from the side in games where I know that will be a real option.

I've been enjoying mentor in the sideboard for matchups where removal is coming out. People side to fight the grindy game and don't have the best plan for a T3 mentor.

Recently I've been playing against a lot of shardless and punishing jund. I've been having decent success against shardless but jund has thrown me through a loop. It seems like everytime I play they pick my hand apart with hymns and other discard and I'm left on the entreat plan. The trouble is when I finally land an entreat I rarely have protection from pulse. What are you guys doing in the matchup and what are you boarding in against them, also what is your opinion on CB in the MU. I'm have mixed feelings about it because while they do have abrupt decay they lose the numbers game by not having card selection.

I just played Jund at an event last weekend, here's what I did (from memory, I think this is right). At the time, I was running the stock Ponder version (2 Dig, 3 Jace, 3 Snaps) with this sideboard:

1 Blood Moon
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Counterspell
2 Flusterstorm
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Council's Judgment
1 Disenchant
2 Rest in Peace
1 Keranos, God of Storms

General strategies:
- Don't cast Entreat until you can end-step for lethal, as leaving them on the board opens you up to Maelstrom Pulse as you say
- Save your Brainstorms for playing around discard
- Dark Confidant is probably the only kill-on-sight creature
- Floating a CMC2 with Top effectively shuts off their Punishing Fire
- My opponent made a pretty good play by Thoughtseizing me, letting me flip my Top to counter it, then Wastelanding my fetchland to get rid of the Top permanently. I chose not to crack because I think the Top lock was way more important.

G2 changes:

-4 Counterbalance
-2 Jace
-2 Dig Through Time
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Counterspell
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Council's Judgment
+2 Rest in Peace
+1 Keranos, God of Storms

Between Abrupt Decay and Krosan Grip, Counterbalance would never stay in play anyways. You could probably make a case for cutting 2 StP instead of 2 Jace, but I felt like removing the Deathrites and Dark Confidants right away was important, and I suspected he'd be bringing in REB anyways. The rest is anti-graveyard, anti-Liliana, and Keranos because this game is going to go REALLY long. I won this match 1-0-1.

(Against Shardless BUG, the strategy is similar except you also bring in your REB/Pyroblasts, and board out the Entreats and FoW in addition to the Counterbalance. A resolved Jace is much harder for them to answer than attempting to tap out for Entreat).

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Originally Posted by PhyrexianLibrarian

- My opponent made a pretty good play by Thoughtseizing me, letting me flip my Top to counter it, then Wastelanding my fetchland to get rid of the Top permanently. I chose not to crack because I think the Top lock was way more important.

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I imagine the Wasteland was in his hand during the Thoughtseize? I'm wondering if the right move there would have been to respond by fetching a basic before flipping the Top. Does a wasted shuffle opportunity (if he doesn't have Wasteland) hurt more than being down a land (if he has it)? I imagine it's partially based on how likely he is to have a Wasteland based on the number seen up to that point.

I'm not trying to criticize here, as I'm just a new Miracles player trying to learn. Thanks for the thoughts on the matchup! :cool:

Testing has shown that Jund still isn't a nightmare matchup for Miracles. There are cases and cards where you get totally mucked, but, Jund not having enough manipulation means it loses to itself more often than you think. I can't say the specifics because I'm part of a testing team, but Jund is a deck that's very alright, in general, at the moment. My Jund list has more manipulation and more dedicated Miracles hate in the board, and I think if anyone isn't running it as a Jund player, they're sadly mistaken.

-Matt

Edit: Matt, are you going to SCG Worcester? I'm a big fan of the podcast and would love to say hi :)

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

I imagine the Wasteland was in his hand during the Thoughtseize? I'm wondering if the right move there would have been to respond by fetching a basic before flipping the Top. Does a wasted shuffle opportunity (if he doesn't have Wasteland) hurt more than being down a land (if he has it)? I imagine it's partially based on how likely he is to have a Wasteland based on the number seen up to that point.

I'm not trying to criticize here, as I'm just a new Miracles player trying to learn. Thanks for the thoughts on the matchup! :cool:

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This was game 1, it was the first Wasteland I'd seen, and he already had it in play, actually. He was using after the Top activation but before the Counterbalance trigger had resolved in response to his Thoughtseize. If I had cracked the fetch, not only would I have lost my Top, but there's no guarantee the Thoughtseize would have been countered. I can't remember what I had in my hand, but I knew I was going to be drawing into more land soon, so I decided re-establishing the soft-lock was worth being temporarily down a land.

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Originally Posted by PhyrexianLibrarian

This was game 1, it was the first Wasteland I'd seen, and he already had it in play, actually. He was using after the Top activation but before the Counterbalance trigger had resolved in response to his Thoughtseize. If I had cracked the fetch, not only would I have lost my Top, but there's no guarantee the Thoughtseize would have been countered. I can't remember what I had in my hand, but I knew I was going to be drawing into more land soon, so I decided re-establishing the soft-lock was worth being temporarily down a land.

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I definintely agree on the softlock. What i'm talking about is a stack like:

Fetchland
Top's second ability
Counterbalance Trigger
Thoughtseize

You'd grab your basic, put Top on library, resolve Counterbalance trigger, and counter Thoughtseize. Alternately, resolve fetchland then put Top's ability on the stack above Counterbalance.

I'd love to since I'd get to see a bunch of friends, but school is brutal. I should be studying for exams, but instead, I'm foruming. Any questions, comments, concerns, etc.? Hit me up.

-Matt

How could you not SB-in Disenchant or Wear//Tear against Jund? Is EE alone enough to stop Choke?

Keranos is not that good here, as supposed to BUG. Jund certainly would SB-in Red Blasts. Dodging discard and Red Blasts to get to 5 Mana for Keranos is almost a futile attempt.

I prefer the overloading strategy against Jund, as in both CB and RiP. You might not need all 4 CB, but I would rather give Jund enough AD targets to deplete his resources.

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Originally Posted by twndomn

I prefer the overloading strategy against Jund, as in both CB and RiP. You might not need all 4 CB, but I would rather give Jund enough AD targets to deplete his resources.

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This. Just because you fear Decay doesn't mean that they'll always have it. Countering even just 1 spell with CB is already value, giving you time enough time to sculpt your hand to the point that by the time they find an AD, you'll be able to have 4 Angels or some other wincon established.

Disenchant, RIP, and Council's Judgment are the only cards I'm scared of. You obviously have to run the gambit through STP and Terminus, but it can be done. Between Choke, Sylvan Library, Slaughter Games, REB, and the Punishing Fires engine, those are the cards that disrupt you the most. What are you cutting to keep Counterbalance in?

-Matt