Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by Poron

I respect Joe and his choices, but.. when is submerge better than Swords to Plowshares?

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I started playing submerge because of infect, but it comes in against several other matchups. All else being equal, I would much rather have Submerge in my opening hand than Swords against Infect. I don't care about exiling their threat; I just don't want to die within the first couple turns. The ideal scenario is the infect player going first with Glistener Elf, and then having Invigorate + Beserk + Daze. Unless you have more Force of Wills than they do, with Swords you are dead on T2. With Submerge, they are screwed.

I no longer feel like the card is an experiment. It is a permanent part of my deck and I don't want to play without it. However, I might be forced to change if it turns out that I need different cards to help take on Eldrazi.

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Originally Posted by oarsman

I started playing submerge because of infect, but it comes in against several other matchups. All else being equal, I would much rather have Submerge in my opening hand than Swords against Infect. I don't care about exiling their threat; I just don't want to die within the first couple turns. The ideal scenario is the infect player going first with Glistener Elf, and then having Invigorate + Beserk + Daze. Unless you have more Force of Wills than they do, with Swords you are dead on T2. With Submerge, they are screwed.

I no longer feel like the card is an experiment. It is a permanent part of my deck and I don't want to play without it. However, I might be forced to change if it turns out that I need different cards to help take on Eldrazi.

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I noticed you experimented with and extra mentor main (and the 2nd Venser on the side). What made you change it back to the singleton? I like your version a lot but it's difficult to close games fast enough sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Reagens

I noticed you experimented with and extra mentor main (and the 2nd Venser on the side). What made you change it back to the singleton?

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That was only for the players' championship.

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Originally Posted by oarsman

I might be forced to change if it turns out that I need different cards to help take on Eldrazi.

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Peacekeeper comes to mind as a card good in both of those matchups. I'll admit I haven't had a chance to get any games with Eldrazi-- has anyone tried this?

truth is that Peacekeeper is good only against that matchup.. everyone else and his mother packs StP, Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Disfigure, Dismember, Sudden Shock, Warping Wail (oh sorry this is played by them as well).

Should we have been playing green, Dueling Grounds can have been a fine idea.. until they reached enough mana for Ulamog sure.. at that point no permanent would have made sense.

I think that the best cards against them are the good old sweepers. Terminus, Supreme Verdict, StP + SnapMage..

To land a Jace and Needle on Ugin also is a big part of the match..

Suddenly MUD is no more to laugh to :cool: and Serenity/Disenchant/Pulverize don't really help us.

Played a few casual matches with Eldrazi few days back and it was miserable. From chalice/trinisphere to cavern/ulamog/urza's incubator, I only won one game whereby he took many damage from ancient tomb and a mentor killed him after I terminus.

Somehow Eldrazi decks sounds like MUD on a stick, giving you very little time to react before the thought knot, smashers and ulamog gets you.

Haven't really tried playing with the sideboard though but moving forward i will probably add in a couple of blood moon(even this doesnt shut them down completely) in the hope of slowing them down.

Anyone got suggestions for this match up? Maybe playing a couple of wastelands and stuff like detention sphere in place of counterbalance is not a bad idea right now.

Since the Eldrazi MU is quite awful, Peacekeeper is a card I am testing as well. If you can get her down after Blood Moon, it is really good because they can´t no longer cast Warping Wail or Endbringer to get rid of her.

She also helps against Merfolk and Infect. But I am not sure if those 3 MUs are enough to warrant its SB slots. On the other hand, if more people figure out the strength of Eldrazi it might be necessary to run her. Other options would be Humility and/or Moat.

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Originally Posted by venice

Since the Eldrazi MU is quite awful, Peacekeeper is a card I am testing as well. If you can get her down after Blood Moon, it is really good because they can´t no longer cast Warping Wail or Endbringer to get rid of her.

She also helps against Merfolk and Infect. But I am not sure if those 3 MUs are enough to warrant its SB slots. On the other hand, if more people figure out the strength of Eldrazi it might be necessary to run her. Other options would be Humility and/or Moat.

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The deck i played against eschew against blood moon by playing ramp artifacts such as grim monolith, mind stone too. If Ulamog lands, then peacekeeper might not be a viable option too. Humility on the other hand might be one that i will consider in the future. thanks.

Against us the play between 3 and 4 Ugin.

8 mana of any kind are a piace of cake for them, at that point they sweep whatever is allowing us to survive and swype for the kill.

The sensation is worse than against 12 posts (btw they play 12 posts lands apart from utility toolbox)

Seems strange, the Eldrazi decks I encountered on MTGO leagues didn't play Ugin nor Ulamog: only prison elements and the TKS-reality smasher package + various things such as Endbringer.

I played against a lot of them (around 10 in 3 leagues I think, for a 4-6 or 3-7 record, though with slightly different lists for each league). The matchup seems extremely difficult even if nt unwinnable: the late game is for them with Eye of ugin: even if we get them to topdeck, they will get to 7 mana and chain eldrazi, so we need pressure. A lot of our cards are not good (Counterbalance), and we are forced to keep FoW post board to deal with prison artefacts (trinisphere/chalice), even though it deals with none of their threats (Yay cavern).


Every single game I won was via mentor, even though I was able to lock one with a blood moon on an empty board. Navigating through the prison stuff+TKS disruption+ fast clock is kind of difficult. However, most lists I've seen also played All is Dust which is very problematic since it can deal with all of our wincons and especially a strong board of mentor tokens, which is the main way I felt we could take control of the game. Warping wail is also annoying since it can counter terminus/ETA (I got blown out by it one time when I forgot to play around it by miracling terminus in upkeep when he was empty handed rather than during attacks)

About the sideboard, blood moon is ok but requires an empty board. Peacekeeper was not good in my testing as it is an easy target for warping wail. I also played against some Eldrazi at a LGS yesterday and they were packing Wastes (basic land) instead of city of traitors, so blood moon was not that good against them.

I'm still following this thread for impressions about the MU and ways to deal with Eldrazi :)

I'm not sure any one card can really help against Eldrazi. Here is the version I'm looking at : http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/378051#online

Our strategy just lines up very poorly against them :
- We are soft to Chalice, especially for the Ponder versions
- Our CB is worthless since their curve is so much higher

It's just a deep structural problem. I'm not sure we could be ahead of Eldrazi even with 15 sideboard cards. Peacekeeper is really meh since they have around 7 outs to it (Warping Wail and Enbringer). They also have Ratchet Bomb as a catch-all answer and Ulamog as inevitability.

One solution is to play a "tempo miracles" version with Wastelands, Dazes, and 4 Mentors. That might be enough to shore up the first few turns then kill them before they recover. We can also move on to another splash than Red since it doesn't bring anything in the match-up. Maybe play Esper Miracles to have access to Toxic Deluge and Baleful Strix ? Strix in particular is pretty appealing against a deck that wants to play Thorn/Chalice on 1 and relies on creatures to win.

EDIT : From the Ashes in red looks pretty sweet. Like Blood Moon, it doesn't do much to affect the board, but it has the added benefit of making sure they won't cast a single spell for the rest of the game. Blood Moon is susceptible to Ratchet Bomb, and that actually is a pretty big deal I think.

Inho we have just to Wrath them heavily.

With 8 Wrath effects (4 of which Terminus), if we stabilize a little, we might get out of it.

We'd need need a sort of new Terminus. Something like 3 mana for 5 damages with conditions.. or 4 mana Instant sweeper

Unban Mana Drain and the eldrazi are under control ;)

Seriously, how about Ensnaring Bridge?
Being totally hellbent is not necessary for the bridge to work against the mid sized eldrazi (or goyfs etc for that matter). Mentor can typically sneak under the bridge by pumping after attackers are declared. Of course you need to deploy your cards in an awkward sequence some times, but it might be worth the trouble.
Against infect and non-creature-dependent decks the bridge is obv. horrible, so maindeck is out of the question. Also it is soft to Ratchet bomb and Ugin and Abrupt decay.

Perhaps the deck would have to be warped too much around the bridge for it to work? Being one mana cheaper than Moat and Humility is very significant, but I'm not sure the drawbacks are worth it.

If you want to play Bridge, Moat is just better. For most Legacy decks, 3 and 4 mana might as well be a 5 mana gap. However, for us, where we don't play Wasteland nor do we play many Waste-able lands, 4 mana (off 2 Islands and 2 Plains) is pretty routine. Moat is also better against BUG decks since they can't just Decay it, and we can always counter their Golgari Charm.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

If you want to play Bridge, Moat is just better. For most Legacy decks, 3 and 4 mana might as well be a 5 mana gap. However, for us, where we don't play Wasteland nor do we play many Waste-able lands, 4 mana (off 2 Islands and 2 Plains) is pretty routine. Moat is also better against BUG decks since they can't just Decay it, and we can always counter their Golgari Charm.

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The only drawback with Moat besides the obvious cost issues is that Eldrazi plays world breaker

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Originally Posted by mike1987

The only drawback with Moat besides the obvious cost issues is that Eldrazi plays world breaker

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No. Only green iterations of eldrazi decks play World Breaker. There is no universally accepted eldrazi list out there that you can name.

Moat seems to be most relevant against the colorless lists but the problem with many of the solutions is that Thought Knot Seer may eat them starting from turn two.

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Originally Posted by Hopo

No. Only green iterations of eldrazi decks play World Breaker. There is no universally accepted eldrazi list out there that you can name.

Moat seems to be most relevant against the colorless lists but the problem with many of the solutions is that Thought Knot Seer may eat them starting from turn two.

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All the versions play at least two to three Ratchet Bombs though, which makes permanents-based disruption a little bit fragile. I will be trying one or two Retribution of the Meek in the SB this week, as wrathing on turn 3 will likely be needed more often than not.

Retribution os the Meek is too narrow.

A huge part of the format is still on 1/1s 2/1s ecc.
Pyroclasm and Staticaster are still stellar

Moat instead kills each of our creature but Clique.. Ensnaring Bridge is probably the best permanent hate card..

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Originally Posted by mr_tolkien

All the versions play at least two to three Ratchet Bombs though, which makes permanents-based disruption a little bit fragile. I will be trying one or two Retribution of the Meek in the SB this week, as wrathing on turn 3 will likely be needed more often than not.

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You should be playing Wear/Tear in your SB.

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Originally Posted by Poron

Moat instead kills each of our creature but Clique.. Ensnaring Bridge is probably the best permanent hate card..

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You should still be playing ETA.