Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by twndomn

Meanwhile, Das, or AnziD was featured on camera round 1 vs Duke's elves. To no one's surprise, Predictable Miracles predictably lost and missed day 2.

https://www.twitch.tv/scglive/v/77109593?t=0h16m0s

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This comment is hostile and unnecessary and completely unwarranted. All sorts of players get unlucky and have bad tournaments. We are trying to foster a healthy and growing community on the source and you say stuff like this? Anecdotal comments about how someone is good or bad and missed day two because of their deck selections are simply baseless and do nothing to further discussion.

Predictable has not only proven it's power and worth as a sub-archetype, but also has spread across every medium and peoole understand it. I'm tired of people randomly hating on Predict when they provide no evidence of why it's not good, or at least substantiate it with claims that have evidence behind them. Anuraag got very unlucky in that camera match and none of it had anything to do with Predict.

You need to seriously watch what you say in this regard. Predictable miracles isn't for everyone and just because you don't seem to understand why it's good doesn't mean it isn't. It's results across both Magic Online and IRL tournaments speak for themselves.

In a world of Trinisphere and Chalice to have control over permanents is better than controlling the stack and to play through cantrips.

Vendilion and Venser are totally careless of Thorn, Chalice, Trini and if you have a way to deal with Wastelands Cavern and Karakas make everything unbeatable.

Time for Entreat and Clique, when the meta will be much more cantrips-favourable, we will play back Mentor and Predict.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Joe is the only 9-0 after Day 1. Damn, he is a god of Legends Miracles.

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I think you can say he is the god of Miracles....

Hello everyone, I am playing Miracles for about ~1,5 year. Lately i did not play as much Legacy, because i did not have time and because i was more focused on playing Modern.

That means i am still running an old list:

4x Flooded Strand
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Tundra
3x Volcanic Island
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Arid Mesa

2x Monastery Mentor
2x Snapcaster Mage

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Force of Will
2x Counterspell
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Counterbalance
3x Jace, the Mindsculptor
1x Entreat the Angels
1x Council's Judgment
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Terminus

SB:

3x Pyroblast
2x FlusterstRom
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Rest in Peace
1x Containment Priest
1x Engineered Explosivs
1x Izzet Straticaster
1x Blood Moon
2x Wear//Tear


As i Looked Through Some Decklists on mtgtop8.com, i noticed, that almost every List Is running Predict, that there are no Council's Judments anymore, that now there are 3 Snapcaster instead of 2, that the Vendilion Clique dissapeard from the Sideboard, that there are only 2 Jace left, that Entreat has been cutted from most lists and that only 20 Lands are played now.

So my question is, what Is the reason for cutting and replacing all those cards, and what are the benefits we receive.

I hope someone Is able to help me.

Best regards,

Alessandro

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Originally Posted by Alessandro

Hello everyone, I am playing Miracles for about ~1,5 year. Lately i did not play as much Legacy, because i did not have time and because i was more focused on playing Modern.

That means i am still running an old list:

4x Flooded Strand
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Tundra
3x Volcanic Island
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Arid Mesa

2x Monastery Mentor
2x Snapcaster Mage

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Force of Will
2x Counterspell
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Counterbalance
3x Jace, the Mindsculptor
1x Entreat the Angels
1x Council's Judgment
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Terminus

SB:

3x Pyroblast
2x FlusterstRom
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Rest in Peace
1x Containment Priest
1x Engineered Explosivs
1x Izzet Straticaster
1x Blood Moon
2x Wear//Tear


As i Looked Through Some Decklists on mtgtop8.com, i noticed, that almost every List Is running Predict, that there are no Council's Judments anymore, that now there are 3 Snapcaster instead of 2, that the Vendilion Clique dissapeard from the Sideboard, that there are only 2 Jace left, that Entreat has been cutted from most lists and that only 20 Lands are played now.

So my question is, what Is the reason for cutting and replacing all those cards, and what are the benefits we receive.

I hope someone Is able to help me.

Best regards,

Alessandro

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Please read the last 10 pages on this thread, they'll answer most of your questions.

If you want to understand what Predict brings to the table, I'll refer you to my short primer here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post956685

Where i can find the top8¿ and joe losset list¿

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Originally Posted by fluuu

Where i can find the top8¿ and joe losset list¿

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Of what?

Joe is 9-0 and day two just begun at SCG.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joe Lossett

Should Sensei's Diving Top be banned in Legacy?
Really, that's the question this week? Miracles is beatable if you have good cards in the board and play well.

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Someone buy this man a beer.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Someone buy this man a beer.

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If you are going to make a statement like that, at least give credit to the individual so we may do so. [emoji6]

Hi

I was just wondering if there's any guidelines to what cards to keep and Mulligan.

As in general guideline for the first game, where we don't know what your match up is and then a guide for certain match ups.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gazillah

Hi

I was just wondering if there's any guidelines to what cards to keep and Mulligan.

As in general guideline for the first game, where we don't know what your match up is and then a guide for certain match ups.

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Decklist?

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Originally Posted by Minniehajj

Predictable has not only proven it's power and worth as a sub-archetype, but also has spread across every medium and peoole understand it. I'm tired of people randomly hating on Predict when they provide no evidence of why it's not good, or at least substantiate it with claims that have evidence behind them. Anuraag got very unlucky in that camera match and none of it had anything to do with Predict.

You need to seriously watch what you say in this regard. Predictable miracles isn't for everyone and just because you don't seem to understand why it's good doesn't mean it isn't. It's results across both Magic Online and IRL tournaments speak for themselves.

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Unlucky? As in it has nothing to do with how the deck is built, cutting CB to 3 for example; it's all just luck, am I right?

Spooky, are you trying to read my mind as to what I do or do not understand? What results? MO is Not paper Magic, Magic IRL has no timer for each player. Looking at GP Columbus, only Wilson Hunter and Dan Musser run 2 Predicts and finished in the Top 16. The other 6 out of 8 in the Top 16 are either Legend or Hybrid (running 1 Predict doesn't classify). Looking at Worcester, there're Zero finishes in the Top 32 running 2 Predicts.

Maybe, perhaps just maybe, instead of reading pages and pages about the so-called Predictable Miracles, listen to Wilson Hunter's the brainstorm show and ask for his SB approaches might be better off. If Musser has a podcast/article, maybe all the predict pilots should get a hand on that also. I'm not trying to pretend that I'm an expert of this sub-archetype or care to, but at least I know where and who to look for guidance.

I'm sure few cares, but I personally run something similar to Sam Roukas, except I don't run Spell Snare, and yes I have Mentor in the SB.

Funny side story, on Hoogland's last MO stream, he's mentioned that he'll stream paper magic as an experiment in the future. He said he felt the lone Red Blast in the SB is somewhat mediocre. Then bunch of people including me suggested that he should run Boil, and he agreed. When he casted Boil game 2 against Lossett, I was thinking: What have we done!?

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Originally Posted by twndomn

Unlucky? As in it has nothing to do with how the deck is built, cutting CB to 3 for example; it's all just luck, am I right?

Spooky, are you trying to read my mind as to what I do or do not understand? What results? MO is Not paper Magic, Magic IRL has no timer for each player. Looking at GP Columbus, only Wilson Hunter and Dan Musser run 2 Predicts and finished in the Top 16. The other 6 out of 8 in the Top 16 are either Legend or Hybrid (running 1 Predict doesn't classify). Looking at Worcester, there're Zero finishes in the Top 32 running 2 Predicts.

Maybe, perhaps just maybe, instead of reading pages and pages about the so-called Predictable Miracles, listen to Wilson Hunter's the brainstorm show and ask for his SB approaches might be better off. If Musser has a podcast/article, maybe all the predict pilots should get a hand on that also. I'm not trying to pretend that I'm an expert of this sub-archetype or care to, but at least I know where and who to look for guidance.

I'm sure few cares, but I personally run something similar to Sam Roukas, except I don't run Spell Snare, and yes I have Mentor in the SB.

Funny side story, on Hoogland's last MO stream, he's mentioned that he'll stream paper magic as an experiment in the future. He said he felt the lone Red Blast in the SB is somewhat mediocre. Then bunch of people including me suggested that he should run Boil, and he agreed. When he casted Boil game 2 against Lossett, I was thinking: What have we done!?

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http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=12671&d=273452&f=LE

Are you cluesless?

Nicholas Tholance (Twirl) made top 2 in Prague with 20 lands predictables. With 3 counterbalances. 2 Predicts.

I would like to come back to the match between Reid Duke and Anuraag Das.

I found this match very interesting but there are some plays from Das that i would like to comment. Maybe it would lead to some nice discussions.
Please look at this steam https://www.twitch.tv/scglive/v/77109593 .

32:25: Keeping a second fetch (5th land) instead of a Jace in hand which would have been a possible great follow up to Terminus next turn (as Andrew Boswell said) doesn't seem right.

35:16: He has Jace on Top and no Terminus in sight. Terminus or SCM+Stp is what you are looking for. Fetching to look for those cards seemed better. If Jace was that important, why didn't he keep it three minutes ago ?

36:35: Taking the Mentor route is risky but probably right but if you commit to it, why don't you use top to draw a card before brainstorming to replay it after to have an additional token ?

39:10: After Mentor got blown away rendering this play useless, he was desperatly looking for a Terminus. He chose to fetch, play Jace to find a Terminus or a Fetch instead of looking to the third card, fetching, top looking at the 3 new cards. Considering what he could have done with his SCM, both choices were very quite close imo but i don't have the time or envy to run the math.

42:05: After hesitating two minutes, he realized that his only out was Terminus, he fetched and got lucky to see it. He should have realized that sooner and look for this play during Reid's upkeep to cut Reid from having extra mana with Gaea's Cradle (you don't what can happen with his 3 cards (Choke (countered by FoW) into NO for Ruric Thar or a blue counter etc...). Of course, i won't matter in 99,9% of the cases but you can be 100% sure that Reid won't play another creature not to run into Terminus with a 2 turns clock so it's a better play.

After 45:30: The game is basically locked up now but you can still lose to a NO into Behemoth. Not looking for a counter as soon as possible with Ponder at 45:38 doesn't seem great.

57:15: You are looking for a Terminus (again) here, do it during the upkeep (or at least before damage) and not EoT. 5 damage can matter a lot.

58:34: This StP was awful. In response to the second untap effect of the second Wirewood Symbiote would have avoided him 2 damage...

In all cases, looking at the top3 before deciding what to do was better.

100:28 to the end: Because he took 2 useless damage from shaman, he can't fetch or fow anymore... risking a lethal attack and ... yeah he basically lost because of that or at least he would have had a good shot at finding a terminus, StP, SCM, Mentor (and so winning) if he could have fetched.

So, maybe some arguments are wrong and i would be very happy to debate about it but when i read "Anuraag got very unlucky in that camera match", i don't think that is very accurate. He was reasonably lucky (mainly with that Terminus game 2) but he played far from optimally and deserves to lose to the better player.

Bad pun ending: My critisim has nothing to do with Predict. I like the Predict version as well as Häagen Das.

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Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

Decklist?

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Main Deck (60)

Creatures (5)

3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor
Spells (35)

1 Engineered Explosives
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Counterspell
2 Predict
4 Counterbalance
1 Entreat the Angels
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Terminus
Lands (20)

1 Arid Mesa
1 Karakas
1 Volcanic Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
4 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard (15)
1 Wear // Tear
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Pyroblast
1 Containment Priest
2 Meddling Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Blood Moon
2 Monastery Mentor

My deck is not optimal. Replace the volcanic island with a 'Steam Vents'. =( I don't have it yet. I will slowly build into the more optimal build with 2 volcanic islands. I know already that mirror match ups are very poor and that one wasteland can take away my only red source. Oh well, I will slowly build into the optimal miracles build.

Play a Mountain in your SB (or MD) and your problems of red mana against Delver, DnT and BUG Shardless will be over. You will also notice that your win pourcentage will increase. Having a reliable source of red against those decks is one of the keys to victory ;).

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Originally Posted by Shaka1333

Play a Mountain in your SB (or MD) and your problems of red mana against Delver, DnT and BUG Shardless will be over. You will also notice that your win pourcentage will increase. Having a reliable source of red against those decks is one of the keys to victory ;).

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Yeah that's true. I was discussing this with a mate and we were talking about if it was in your opening hand. It strains the mana base when you really want to be playing a blue mana source first turn (for brainstorm or ponder)and try to get double blue for cards like counter balance. Sure mountain can get a top turn one. But I won't be able to get a counterbalance next turn. Would it be more optimal to be slower one turn?

I guess I will try one mountain out. Thanks for the tip!

I've been doing some testing and I gotta say, spell queller has potential in replacing x amount of CS in standard miracles list. It gets around cavern of souls extremely well and hits even eldrazi thought knots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by twndomn

Unlucky? As in it has nothing to do with how the deck is built, cutting CB to 3 for example; it's all just luck, am I right?

Spooky, are you trying to read my mind as to what I do or do not understand? What results? MO is Not paper Magic, Magic IRL has no timer for each player. Looking at GP Columbus, only Wilson Hunter and Dan Musser run 2 Predicts and finished in the Top 16. The other 6 out of 8 in the Top 16 are either Legend or Hybrid (running 1 Predict doesn't classify). Looking at Worcester, there're Zero finishes in the Top 32 running 2 Predicts.

Maybe, perhaps just maybe, instead of reading pages and pages about the so-called Predictable Miracles, listen to Wilson Hunter's the brainstorm show and ask for his SB approaches might be better off. If Musser has a podcast/article, maybe all the predict pilots should get a hand on that also. I'm not trying to pretend that I'm an expert of this sub-archetype or care to, but at least I know where and who to look for guidance.

I'm sure few cares, but I personally run something similar to Sam Roukas, except I don't run Spell Snare, and yes I have Mentor in the SB.

Funny side story, on Hoogland's last MO stream, he's mentioned that he'll stream paper magic as an experiment in the future. He said he felt the lone Red Blast in the SB is somewhat mediocre. Then bunch of people including me suggested that he should run Boil, and he agreed. When he casted Boil game 2 against Lossett, I was thinking: What have we done!?

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Do you have any results to back up your thinking? MODO? Big tournaments? Did you forget that there was a GP in Prague the same weekend as Columbus? Here's some actual data. I know it's weird to see people that actually compete and win at Magic, but they're right there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shaka1333

I would like to come back to the match between Reid Duke and Anuraag Das.

I found this match very interesting but there are some plays from Das that i would like to comment. Maybe it would lead to some nice discussions.
Please look at this steam https://www.twitch.tv/scglive/v/77109593 .

32:25: Keeping a second fetch (5th land) instead of a Jace in hand which would have been a possible great follow up to Terminus next turn (as Andrew Boswell said) doesn't seem right.

35:16: He has Jace on Top and no Terminus in sight. Terminus or SCM+Stp is what you are looking for. Fetching to look for those cards seemed better. If Jace was that important, why didn't he keep it three minutes ago ?

36:35: Taking the Mentor route is risky but probably right but if you commit to it, why don't you use top to draw a card before brainstorming to replay it after to have an additional token ?

39:10: After Mentor got blown away rendering this play useless, he was desperatly looking for a Terminus. He chose to fetch, play Jace to find a Terminus or a Fetch instead of looking to the third card, fetching, top looking at the 3 new cards. Considering what he could have done with his SCM, both choices were very quite close imo but i don't have the time or envy to run the math.

42:05: After hesitating two minutes, he realized that his only out was Terminus, he fetched and got lucky to see it. He should have realized that sooner and look for this play during Reid's upkeep to cut Reid from having extra mana with Gaea's Cradle (you don't what can happen with his 3 cards (Choke (countered by FoW) into NO for Ruric Thar or a blue counter etc...). Of course, i won't matter in 99,9% of the cases but you can be 100% sure that Reid won't play another creature not to run into Terminus with a 2 turns clock so it's a better play.

After 45:30: The game is basically locked up now but you can still lose to a NO into Behemoth. Not looking for a counter as soon as possible with Ponder at 45:38 doesn't seem great.

57:15: You are looking for a Terminus (again) here, do it during the upkeep (or at least before damage) and not EoT. 5 damage can matter a lot.

58:34: This StP was awful. In response to the second untap effect of the second Wirewood Symbiote would have avoided him 2 damage...

In all cases, looking at the top3 before deciding what to do was better.

100:28 to the end: Because he took 2 useless damage from shaman, he can't fetch or fow anymore... risking a lethal attack and ... yeah he basically lost because of that or at least he would have had a good shot at finding a terminus, StP, SCM, Mentor (and so winning) if he could have fetched.

So, maybe some arguments are wrong and i would be very happy to debate about it but when i read "Anuraag got very unlucky in that camera match", i don't think that is very accurate. He was reasonably lucky (mainly with that Terminus game 2) but he played far from optimally and deserves to lose to the better player.

Bad pun ending: My critisim has nothing to do with Predict. I like the Predict version as well as Häagen Das.

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This is possibly the best post I have seen in this thread ever. I'm at work right now, but I will definitely take the time to walk through this, timestamp by timestamp.

EDIT: Nah, this post is too great. Work can wait.

32:25 – I agree that Jace is a great follow up to Terminus. My plan was to hide Jace on top from Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy and then cast it the next turn. At the end of the whole sequence my hand was Scalding Tarn, Counterspell, Brainstorm, Monastery Mentor, with Terminus and Jace on top. I drew Terminus for turn and passed, holding up Counterspell. Given that he had Visionary and Sentinel in hand, the expectation was that he’d play Visionary, draw a card, then use Cradle to play another 1 drop, which I would counter. Then, Jace could come on to the board, bounce his one guy, and I’d untap with Jace vs whatever he’d play the next turn. Unfortunately, that’s not how it panned out. The Glimpse was fine, since his mana was bottlenecked. I’d counter Glimpse, he’d play 2 one drops (probably a Sentinel), I’d bounce the Sentinel, Jace would go to 1 and I’d untap and be in a better position. What was harder to beat was the Birchlore Ranger that followed. It allowed him to commit more than 2 creatures to the board, making Jace weaker. The fifth land was also fine. Mana is good and it’s an extra three cards to find Terminus.

35:16 – For what its worth, I had no intention of shuffling the Jace away. I think the card is pretty good against Elves in that once you’ve swept the board it allows you to keep up with the constant flow of dudes they will topdeck. However, discard is something to be aware of, and I am pretty sure Reid is powerful enough to punish me (maybe with Cabal Therapy?) if I don’t leave the Jace on top. If Jace was taken away, I think I would have been in a much worse position, as far as longevity goes. I did have the Brainstorm in my hand to hide the Jace from discard, but I didn’t want to be locked in to trading my Brainstorm for his discard spell, as Brainstorm in this situation is worth way more. In terms of whether or not its okay to draw Jace in face of Reid’s growing board, I think that he didn’t play any extra guys while having Sentinel and DRS in play signals his 2-card hand is probably out of 1-drops. He might be sandbagging to untap his Sentinel next turn, but he already has the Elvish Visionary for that. So, I kept the Jace and played on.

36:35 – I wanted to save a fetch for Brainstorm, and also keep open the potential of drawing Terminus off Brainstorm and cast it on Reid’s turn while also developing my board to stem the bleeding. Mentor was pretty unnecessary in that scenario, so I would have been fine having it swept up if it saved me a point or two of damage.

42:05 - !punt

45:30 – I was fairly certain Reid didn’t have Natural Order postboard, since its usually an all-in card that puts you at the mercy of Terminus. Most high-end Elves players I follow dislike Natural Order postboard (Julian, can you confirm?) and with the game basically over, I just wanted to finish as soon as possible. Also not casting the Ponder allowed me to hold up Snap-Plow and Snap-Brainstorm in case Reid had another Abrupt Decay.

57:15 – see 42:05

58:34 – !punt. This was really bad. I’m pretty sure Reid also looked at me when I did that and probably thought “ur dumb”. I’m not especially good at Magic, I just play Miracles a lot. It’s mostly that I’ve run into a lot of situations and scenarios and know what to do the second time after failing the first. I don’t think I’ve ever run into this scenario before so it didn’t really occur to me instantly that I could remove the DRS before it untapped. Can guarantee 100% it won’t happen again.

In summary, I think the lines I agree I could have played better are searching for Terminus on upkeep and that bad bad bad bad bad bad bad Swords on the DRS. I don’t necessarily know if the other lines are correct or not, but we’re discussing that and I’d love to keep doing so.