Miracle Control

I'd like to address several issues :

1. Show and Tell sb hate
.Most of the decks play 2 Ethersworn canonist in that slot. It's nice, because it blocks yp, provides a clock early, and is useful in the Storm MU, but :
a. doesn't prevent from Show into Omniscience into Emrakul (and show into Emrakul if they play probe)
b. get sudden shocked
Shouldn't we diversify the hate ? (like 1 canonist 1 venser, which does the "opposite" of Canonist (no early clock, bad vs yp, but deals with a and b -it doesn't matter if it gets sudden shock- , also good vs lili for lists without council))
. The YP Problem :
Izzet staticaster takes reb unfortunately and costs 3, so it's hard to ge it into play. What's your opinion about it ?

2. Mentor in the "Blank Decay" strat.
Now that most of the lists have only 1 entreat Main, how would you board vs Jund and Shardless ? Without Council, Mentor seems to have to be there post sb for lili. Then, do you keep CB post side in these MU ?
In the Jund MU, most lists don't have Rip anymore. Would you have Keranos SB instead of a second Entreat ?

3. Mentor and Sulfur Elemental in the Miracle Mirror.
I see lists running both in the sb. Would you board in both in this MU ? Would you prefer Izzet staticaster instead of sulfur Elemental ?

4. 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Wear/Tear or 2 Wear/Tear
With the Rise of Null Rod, most lists chose to abandon EE. The problem with 2 Wear is that it s very specific, and can be flashbacked anyway with scm. Thoughts ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dragonslayer_90

Please do. I'm intrigued at using Stoneforge Mystic in Miracles as I think it might help the deck in some areas, especially the Grixis Control MU, probably the worst match up among the Tier 1 decks. I just haven't put much testing into it and not sure I will have much time going forward to do much testing in general.

---

The list:

Lands (22)

1 Arid Mesa
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island (prob -1 Island, +1 Tundra in the future)
1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Polluted Delta (budget choice, will be Scalding Tarn)
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island (might be -1 Volcanic Island, +1 Mountain with Scalding Tarn)

Artifacts / Enchantments / Planeswalker (11)

1 Batterskull
3 Counterbalance
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures (7)

2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Sorceries (5)

1 Entreat the Angels
4 Terminus

Instants (15)

4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
1 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
3 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard (15)

1 Blood Moon (will probably -1 Izzet Staticaster, +1 Blood Moon)
1 Council's Judgement
1 Disenchant
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Pithing Needle
3 Pyroblast (should be a mix of Pyro / Redblast)
2 Rest in Peace


With that list, I'll sideboard as follows against Grixis:

Out:

1 Dig Through Time
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Force of Will
(1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor) - only if boarding in CJ
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Terminus

In:

(1 Council's Judgement) - only if I see / assume TNN
1 Disenchant
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Flusterstorm
1 Izzet Staticaster
3 Pyroblast
2 Rest in Peace

So far, this has worked pretty well. But like I said, the sample size is pretty small. It's also not completely accurate as I'm missing two weeks that I didn't record, based on learning the deck (on MTGO) and acustomizing myself with MTGO. I'll update my progress to see where the deck has problems and which matchups should be watched closer here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...Statistic.xlsx

I had a testing session with my friends yesterday for GP Lille, with a stock 4-Ponder lists (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/11-06-15-miracles-test/). Since some of us lack experience and are trying to get the feel of the format, we ran "tournament-like", 2 out of 3 games instead of intensive testing of a specific matchup.

I'm looking for feedback on specific mistakes I could have made in sideboarding, as well as input on my sideboard for an open field :

Current SB is :
1x Containment Priest
1x Flusterstorm
2x Meddling Mage
1x Monastery Mentor
1x Pithing Needle
1x Pyroclasm
3x Red Elemental Blast
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Rest in Peace
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Wear / Tear

Round 1 : Patriot/Rakka/Jeskai Delver, 2-0

I didn't find the matchup to be too hard. First game, he got me down to 3 before I managed to both Terminus away his True-Name Nemesis and establish a firm Countertop lock.

I boarded out 4 FOW and one plains (he didn't have Wasteland) for 3 REB, Mentor, Wear/Tear. Post-side game was uneventful since my opponent mulliganed to 5 before starting with Delver followed by SFM, which I had no problem handling. After the initial onslaught, I calmly made my land drops and patiently waited before deploying threats.

Round 2 : High Tide, 2-1

Second round was against High Tide (not the list I'm accustomed to, a custom creation of a friend). We agreed to play two pre-board games and only one post-board. I won the first one with Counter-top lock which he couldn't escape from.

Second pre-board game, I kept a disruption-light hand and played a T1 Top (I had Top and a couple of fetches) which got countered by Swan Song ! I then decided to go full Aggro by playing an Ambush Viper/SCM and attacking with it and the Swan token, hoping to either draw disruption quickly, or force him to start comboing too early and risk fizzling. This didn't work out too well as he drew plenty of gas when he started comboing and froze my brain. It was definitely a close game, though.

Last game post-board was a disaster for him, with me having the absolute nut draw with both Countertop lock and Meddling Mage in my opening, with FOW backup (I sided out all white removal for 2xMeddling Mage, 2xClique, 3xREB, Flusterstorm, Mentor)...

Round 3 : Death&Taxes, 2-1

Last round I played was against Death&Taxes, a matchup I find even, but not in the good, skill-intensive sense, as it seems to revolve more about one deck or the other having a draw the other deck can't beat (my perception may be way off, though). G1, although he got Vial and good hatebears (Thalia, Mom...) I managed to setup 3 Terminus, which all managed to clean multiple creatures.

I boarded out one Jace and 4 Counterbalance for Pyroclasm, Wear/Tear, Pithing Needle, Mentor, Containment Priest.
Game 2 was horrible for me, since he had 2 Vials and the whole circus parade of hate bears (Thalia, Phyrexian Revoker for Top, Aven Mindcensor from Vial in response to "last chance fetch..."...). I got absolutely creamed.

Game 3 he kept a hand that was not disrupting enough and tried not to overextend in Terminus with just Spirit of the Labyrinth and Serra Avenger, and I resolved an Entreat for 2 tokens during his attack phase. He tried to put me on a clock with a Mirran Crusader and Brimaz, but I setup a second Entreat and won from there.

Thanks in advance for any and all feedback. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

Then ignore him, and hope you meet him at a tournament and get a defwin.

Sendt fra min LG-D802 med Tapatalk

---

correct.

Overall I find their answers totally not consistent with real matches. The worst move an Omnitell player can do
is SNT Emrakul overall in G1 with 4 staple Terminus...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jizz

I'd like to address several issues :

1. Show and Tell sb hate
.Most of the decks play 2 Ethersworn canonist in that slot. It's nice, because it blocks yp, provides a clock early, and is useful in the Storm MU, but :
a. doesn't prevent from Show into Omniscience into Emrakul (and show into Emrakul if they play probe)
b. get sudden shocked
Shouldn't we diversify the hate ? (like 1 canonist 1 venser, which does the "opposite" of Canonist (no early clock, bad vs yp, but deals with a and b -it doesn't matter if it gets sudden shock- , also good vs lili for lists without council))
. The YP Problem :
Izzet staticaster takes reb unfortunately and costs 3, so it's hard to ge it into play. What's your opinion about it ?

2. Mentor in the "Blank Decay" strat.
Now that most of the lists have only 1 entreat Main, how would you board vs Jund and Shardless ? Without Council, Mentor seems to have to be there post sb for lili. Then, do you keep CB post side in these MU ?
In the Jund MU, most lists don't have Rip anymore. Would you have Keranos SB instead of a second Entreat ?

3. Mentor and Sulfur Elemental in the Miracle Mirror.
I see lists running both in the sb. Would you board in both in this MU ? Would you prefer Izzet staticaster instead of sulfur Elemental ?

4. 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Wear/Tear or 2 Wear/Tear
With the Rise of Null Rod, most lists chose to abandon EE. The problem with 2 Wear is that it s very specific, and can be flashbacked anyway with scm. Thoughts ?

---

That's like 4 separate topics..., sigh.

1. Canonist
Actually, for 1a, it does.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Ca...verseid=174931
"This effect takes into account spells that were cast earlier in the turn that Ethersworn Canonist entered the battlefield, including any spells still on the stack. However, any spells on the stack as Ethersworn Canonist enters the battlefield have already been cast by that point, so they're not affected by it." Unless they SnT into Emrakul, Canonist works, but that's a risky move for Omni-tell due to Terminus and Karakas.
1b. You could, but that's a risk for you as well.

2. Mentor
Keranos is mediocre against Jund. You know Jund would pack in Red Blasts in SB games, it will most certainly gets discarded if you have it early. I disagree with the RiP, people should still have at least 1 RiP, and there is no reason to skip RiP completely. The problem against Shardless has nothing to do with Mentor. Shardless is just very good at overwhelming miracles with CA, via multiple angles. I personally like to overload Decay targets in this MU, but people have no consensus on this. If you go for the overload approach, Mentor does fit.

3. Mirror
The mirror is always about CB. Staticaster is useful against storm, elves. Sulfur is cute, but no thanks. I wouldn't bother with both cards in the Mirror. They make more sense if you're convinced of the Cavern approach, as in Staticaster via Cavern. Sulfur can just split second anyway.

4.
people skip EE not because of null rod. Sure, you see lots of bug deck running null rod, that's not related to why people skip on EE. There's no evidences to suggest null rod is the reason. We all know EE is a versatile solution to permanents. However, I find it very inefficient and slow. Sometimes I just wish EE could take out 2 creatures like Pyroclasm. If I want to 1-for-1 opponent's permanent like Lili, I rather just have Council than EE.

I sense your reasonings about the cards in general don't really correlate, as in you're trying to make connection that doesn't exist.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Poron

last pages were a bunch of totally useless answers like, play venser then counter the rest in case they are stupid enough not to have more Instant cantrips to own the stack.

or Venser is good because it's helpful against SFM. Just how? a StP at that point is just better. Wear/Tear against anything but Batterskull is better again and can be flashbacked.

Venser is good for a reason: it dodges Pierces and Flusterstorm. It can be bounced back with Karakas and can be uncounterable with Cavern.

Very good points. Really. And it is a good SB card against MUD and Lands (Marit Lage). In any other case Clique is just better imho

---

OK, I'll try to explain again why Venser is good in those matchups. Note that this does not mean that I will play Venser in my Ponder-Miracles list, but it explains some of the reasoning behind playing Venser in the Legends build.


Against OmniTell:

They cast Show&Tell, and you have Venser in hand. You let S&T resolve and put Venser face down on the table.
- Case 1: they put Emrakul into play. Your Venser trigger bounces it back to their hand. Their Show&Tell was wasted, and you have a 2/2 on the table.
- Case 2: they put Omniscience into play, planning to cast Emrakul with it. Your Venser trigger goes on the stack, targeting the Omniscience. They have priority, but they cannot play Emrakul, because it's a creature, and you can't play non-instant spells unless the stack is empty. Your Venser trigger bounces Omniscience to their hand.
- Case 3: they put Omniscience into play, planning to cantrip / wish into the kill. Your Venser trigger goes on the stack, targeting Omniscience. Until this trigger resolves or is countered, they are limited to casting instants. This means they can try to Wish for a Trickbind, in which case they just "wasted" a wish on your Venser trigger, and now need some other Wish/cantrips to find their kill. Or, they can try to Wish for Firemind's Foresight, and try to go for a Release the Ants kill. But it's not 100% guaranteed they will find a high-CMC spell to put on top of their library, since they are limited to instants (Ponder / Probe / Preordain are blanks as long as the Venser trigger is on the stack).

Note that case 2 can become case 3 if they have a wish in hand in addition to their Emrakul.

In case 2 and 3, Venser is "free", leaving your mana up for other counterspells, and forcing them to respond to its trigger by cantripping / wishing for a kill or a Trickbind. If you have counterspells, you can counter their wish / DTT.

Of course, Venser won't stop everything. If they have a god hand with Show&Tell + Omniscience + Wish + tons of counterspells, Venser won't be enough, unless you also have tons of counterspells...

Note that what I said about your opponent being limited to casting instants while the Venser trigger is on the stack, also applies to Clique. For example, if their plan is to S&T --> Omniscience --> Emrakul, and you put a Clique into play, you can REB the Omniscience with the Clique trigger on the stack. If you don't have Clique, they have priority immediately after S&T resolve, and can play Emrakul...

Against Stoneforge:
When Joe stream Legend Miracles, what often happens is the following:
- Opp plays SFM for 1W, fetches Batterskull
- Next turn, opp activates SFM for 1W, putting the equipment into play (often at the end of your turn)
- Next turn opp attacks with SFM + Batterskull, trying to deal 5. Before declaring blockers, you cast Venser, bounce the Germ token, and block SFM, killing it.
- Opp now needs to invest 3 mana to bounce Batterskull back to his hand, and 5 mana to replay it (at which point you'll probably have a Counterspell / Jace, or a Karakas to replay Venser)

So opp invested 12 mana over 3-4 turns to play a Batterskull, and you now have a 2/2 on the battlefield.

If you had StP instead, you would need to immediately swords the SFM, and opp could brainstorm away the Batterskull, or wait to have 5 mana to play it... So opp invests only 7 mana to get a Batterskull..

Same thing applies to SoFI.

only in the incredibly corner siuation that you opponent is such a good player to attack with SFM against a flashy deck O_O

in the normal case, where they just attack with BS, you Venser it and they play it again for nothing.

I find my 3 Cliques to be much superior to Venser against SFM.

Against Omnitell, yes, Venser is superior because it is always good in front of a SNT. Corner case that you couldn't play a Clique or a Containment Priest or a Meddling Mage on SNT..

anyway, opinions and playstyle: i prefer 2 creatures x 5 damages on the battlefield to dig his life with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Don't waste your effort on him. He's going to come back with some BS about how his opponent has 4 FoWs for Venser.

---

Yeah I guess... BTW, your post just made me think about another advantage of Venser against Show&Tell:

If your opponent has Show&Tell + Omniscience + Emrakul + 5 counterspells (but no Wish / instant cantrips), dropping Venser just wins. Had Venser been a counterspell, you would have lost.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Poron

only in the incredibly corner siuation that you opponent is such a good player to attack with SFM against a flashy deck O_O

in the normal case, where they just attack with BS, you Venser it and they play it again for nothing.

I find my 3 Cliques to be much superior to Venser against SFM.

Against Omnitell, yes, Venser is superior because it is always good in front of a SNT. Corner case that you couldn't play a Clique or a Containment Priest or a Meddling Mage on SNT..

anyway, opinions and playstyle: i prefer 2 creatures x 5 damages on the battlefield to dig his life with.

---

They don't play it again for nothing. They need to pay :3: to bounce it, then :1::w: to replay it. If you have Karakas, you can bounce it again.

I agree though that Clique is indeed pretty good against SFM. That's why the Legends build usually plays 3 Cliques + 1/2 Venser. The first Venser is usually better than the 4th Clique, due to Clique being a Legend.

Seriously: This is perhaps the most cancerous thread on the entire internet.
Jesus christ, people. As soon as some1 less skilled/smart/whatever comes and don't follow in line, you straight up go to rude remarks?

Yes, IF the opponent actually attacks his stoneforge into your FOUR OPEN MANA, he is incredible bad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

Seriously: This is perhaps the most cancerous thread on the entire internet.
Jesus christ, people. As soon as some1 less skilled/smart/whatever comes and don't follow in line, you straight up go to rude remarks?

Yes, IF the opponent actually attacks his stoneforge into your FOUR OPEN MANA, he is incredible bad.

---

Why? The number of miracle decks actually playing Venser is pretty low. So if he hasn't seen Venser yet, why would he not attack with SFM and a token? Every one damage counts and that attack is only bad if you have a 1off. With every other spell it doesn't matter if he attacks or not, so the downside of not attacking with SFM is really, really low.

Uuuuuugh. Okay, I've cleaned up some of the more recent stuff going on in this thread.

@Poron: Please stop posting in this thread for a bit. You are causing problems. Lurk for a while and then start posting again when you have a better feel for the deck's basics and the tricks it can pull off.

@Everyone else: If a user is consistently derailing/spamming/making poor-quality posts in a thread, don't be an asshat about it. I know that can be hard sometimes, but the forum has a very handy Report Post function for when you're too frustrated to continue engaging someone constructively. Ignore the offending user or report their post(s), but don't flame them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mort-

Why? The number of miracle decks actually playing Venser is pretty low. So if he hasn't seen Venser yet, why would he not attack with SFM and a token? Every one damage counts and that attack is only bad if you have a 1off. With every other spell it doesn't matter if he attacks or not, so the downside of not attacking with SFM is really, really low.

---

Trading SFM for something like Snapcaster seems generally bad for them as well - I've rarely seen good Stoneblade players make that attack at all, regardless of how much mana I do or don't have up.

Indeed, one point of damage isn't worth losing it to a Snapcaster. That feels terrible.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mort-

Why? The number of miracle decks actually playing Venser is pretty low. So if he hasn't seen Venser yet, why would he not attack with SFM and a token? Every one damage counts and that attack is only bad if you have a 1off. With every other spell it doesn't matter if he attacks or not, so the downside of not attacking with SFM is really, really low.

---

I can't imagine that extra 1 point of damage is worth losing your SFM to any of the flash creatures Miracles may or may not run. Even leaving it up to bluff a Jitte or SOFAI seems better and forces a real choice if the Miracles player draws a Swords to Plowshares.

New Miracles player here. Finally got this deck build few weeks ago and wen last night at local small tourney 1-2-1 and have few questions. What should be my game plan against Loam Pox? I had Jace on board and kept using +2 ability and he attacked it with Factory every turn while he used +1 on Liliana and the situation felt kinda helpless on that point. I managed to win one match with Snapcaster taking down one Factory, but it ended on draw since the games lasted forever with Lilly and Jace sitting on the board.

Not an expert, but given the Loam Pox strategy of "make you discard and sacrifice everything, then kill you with Bloodghasts and Mishra's Factories", here's a few things I can think of:

- The deck doesn't actually have that many ways to kill you, mostly Mishra's Factory and Bloodghast/Nether Spirit, and they're all recurable. So Entreat the Angels might be the better kill as it's harder for them to deal with a bunch of 4/4s.

- Topping a Terminus during their attack step hits their animated Factories as well. I'd save your StP for the actual creature cards.

- Jace's +0 ability has the extra advantage of giving you a card that you can draw and cast without having to discard it. As you found out, you aren't going to kill them with a Jace ultimate before they can deal with it.

- Sideboard cards to bring in: Rest in Peace, Containment Priest, Grafdigger's Cage, Blood Moon (maybe). I don't think you want Force of Wills here. Do whatever you have to do to avoid Chains of Mephistopheles, that card sucks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PhyrexianLibrarian

Not an expert, but given the Loam Pox strategy of "make you discard and sacrifice everything, then kill you with Bloodghasts and Mishra's Factories", here's a few things I can think of:

- The deck doesn't actually have that many ways to kill you, mostly Mishra's Factory and Bloodghast/Nether Spirit, and they're all recurable. So Entreat the Angels might be the better kill as it's harder for them to deal with a bunch of 4/4s.

- Topping a Terminus during their attack step hits their animated Factories as well. I'd save your StP for the actual creature cards.

- Jace's +0 ability has the extra advantage of giving you a card that you can draw and cast without having to discard it. As you found out, you aren't going to kill them with a Jace ultimate before they can deal with it.

- Sideboard cards to bring in: Rest in Peace, Containment Priest, Grafdigger's Cage, Blood Moon (maybe). I don't think you want Force of Wills here. Do whatever you have to do to avoid Chains of Mephistopheles, that card sucks.

---

I might not be familiar with the Pox archetype anymore, but if it's anything close to resembling the (Small)pox engine of earlier, entreat might be pretty hard to make for more than 1 angel - Where liliana and Innocent Blood is pretty bad.

The matchup should be much better after board, if you're playing mentor.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

I might not be familiar with the Pox archetype anymore, but if it's anything close to resembling the (Small)pox engine of earlier, entreat might be pretty hard to make for more than 1 angel - Where liliana and Innocent Blood is pretty bad.

The matchup should be much better after board, if you're playing mentor.

---

Against Pox/heavy discard/landy decks, you really want a top in play early, as the game invariably gets to a state where both players are top decking. They have a very slow clock, so games tend to go long.

Once you get a countertop going, you would have most likely won. i think it's a pretty decent matchup for miracles. Oh yea, and try to fetch basic lands, and protect them if possible.

post board all your soft counters such as pierce and flusterstorms are pretty good. you can board in RIPs, but do keep snapcasters in. Ambush vipers can be pretty good against factories.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KZhang

Against Pox/heavy discard/landy decks, you really want a top in play early, as the game invariably gets to a state where both players are top decking. They have a very slow clock, so games tend to go long.

Once you get a countertop going, you would have most likely won. i think it's a pretty decent matchup for miracles. Oh yea, and try to fetch basic lands, and protect them if possible.

post board all your soft counters such as pierce and flusterstorms are pretty good. you can board in RIPs, but do keep snapcasters in. Ambush vipers can be pretty good against factories.

---

Yeah, Countertop is pretty excellent also.

The problem, however, is that most Pox strategies can go turn 1 liliana, which is pretty backbreaking if you don't have a FoW.