Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by technofox

Hi everyone,

I am trying to build Miracles deck, since I like control and Angels, haha... Anyway here is my first attempt at it. I know I am running some budget lands like Steam Vents and Hallowed Fountain, but overall I am trying my best to get the deck built to play at my LGS. Here is the general meta at my LGS:

Miracles
Death & Taxes
Burn
Delver (Grixis & Rug & Blue Red)
Lands
Eldrazi
Either some form of combo (Oops All spells, Manaless Dredge, etc)
Occasionally High Tide, Merfolk, and Doomsday
Jund

Here is my deck list:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/miracles-v10/

I would appreciate any advice or help you all provide. I can't wait to get my deck built to play. I used to loathe miracles as a delver player, but after seeing Edwin Pena's deck list that only used basics, it caught my interest as someone who is trying to go to a cheaper deck, but one that is still competitive. I only play once a month for paper and then rely on xMage for practicing and play testing.

Here is Edwin Pena's deck list if you are interested:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/452595#paper

I have obviously heavily modified my version, but I think it's more suitable for where I play.

Thank you in advance for your help.

- Technofox


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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So I think you may have same issue I had at first, which is not knowing which rout to go in regards to win conditions. The better players will correct me if I am wrong, so take what I'm about to say with a large bowl of salt:

Basically, the 3 big versions of the deck is Mentor, Entreat, and Legends. I'm sure there are more versions, and mixes of versions, but as a beginner new it is easier to play a deck with a straightforward strategy than to try to get fancy because there are less crucial decisions with a straightforward list.

I personally play the Mentor version. This runs 4 Mentor in the main as its win condition. Mine runs 4 anyway. It is more assertive, and wins faster.

The Entreat version is slower in the sense that you are using Entreat as a win condition, so you want to be able to cast a big Entreat while having an out to a counter spell or 2. This means you need more mana on board, which means it generally takes longer to wait for the perfect time to Entreat.

I cannot give you any accurate information about the legends build since I have no experience with it. Definitely look to the other members for advice on that one.


With your list, if you want to play the strictly Mentor version, cut the Entreat and a Counterbalance for 2 mentors. There is also an argument for cutting the Council's Judgement for a Predict. This recommendation is only because I have not seen a list yet with only 1 Predict. I'd say that it's really good at 2. That's what I play, and it's nice. The other way you could go would be to not cut the Council's Judgement at all and just cut the Predict.

In the Mentor version, I feel like pure card advantage)(Predict) is less important because you have a faster clock.

For the Entreat version, I'd definitely play 2 Entreat. It's your win con and you don't want to durable for the whole game waiting for it. For this version, I'd recommend cutting the 2 Mentors and the Council's Judgement for a Predict, Entreat, and a Jace.

Jace is more important in the Entreat version than the Mentor version because it is a way to dig for your win con, whilst also being a win con. It makes the threat density of your deck higher while increasing consistency.

I have seen a lot of Entreat lists with a single Mentor in the main. You would have to look to the more experienced members for advice on that, but if you want to play Mentor in the Entreat build, all hope is not lost.

I wish you luck, and I hope this was helpful. REMEMBER, I am also a beginner at this deck, but I feel I can give this advice because I've experienced some of it and I always ask a bunch of questions on here. So if some of what I said is inaccurate, I'm sorry, and I'm sure the better players on here will correct me. But hopefully I've saved them some explaining.

Hi guys, I'm a newbie about this deck. I have a simple question that runs in my mind from a couple of months. Is red still good as splash?
Basically, for my knowledge of the deck, red is splashed mainly for REB, against Jace and to be in advantage with counter wars. But looking at the hate all decks bring to miracle, I see also pithing needles, winter orb, null rod.... isn't green with krosan grip better? Look also at the mirror: krosan on SDT is brutal. I know, the problem with green is that you have to deal with Jace in the mirror. Can this be handle somehow with Thrun, the Last Troll? No counter, no STP, no jace's bounce, basically only terminus removes it. Personally I really like also Display of Dominance, but I think it's very limited (also if it protects counterbalance against decay.......).
For counter wars there is always flusterstorm.

I know that with REB you solve a variety of problems with one card, I just find it very weak in a lot of situations.
I also assume that if no one splashes to green there is a reason XD, please helpe me to find this out! ahahahah

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Originally Posted by Morden

Hi guys, I'm a newbie about this deck. I have a simple question that runs in my mind from a couple of months. Is red still good as splash?
Basically, for my knowledge of the deck, red is splashed mainly for REB, against Jace and to be in advantage with counter wars. But looking at the hate all decks bring to miracle, I see also pithing needles, winter orb, null rod.... isn't green with krosan grip better? Look also at the mirror: krosan on SDT is brutal. I know, the problem with green is that you have to deal with Jace in the mirror. Can this be handle somehow with Thrun, the Last Troll? No counter, no STP, no jace's bounce, basically only terminus removes it. Personally I really like also Display of Dominance, but I think it's very limited (also if it protects counterbalance against decay.......).
For counter wars there is always flusterstorm.

I know that with REB you solve a variety of problems with one card, I just find it very weak in a lot of situations.
I also assume that if no one splashes to green there is a reason XD, please helpe me to find this out! ahahahah

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Red is also for Wear//Tear. That solves most of those problems. The combination of Wear//Tear and REB covers everything, while the Green splash is weak to counter magic.

Makes sense. Thanks for the reply!

So I have been playing the 4 mentor no jace version of miracles for a month now and the lack of jace has not been a issue for me. However this is because my locals has zero lands decks in the meta. I was wondering how this version of miracles fares against lands since in the past I have have mainly won my games against lands thanks to jace. Currently my list has the two predicts no preordains in the main with multiple cliques in the board and no nonbasic land hate. This question has been in the back of my mind for a while but I felt like I should ask the people who have more experience with this version now considering I have a tournament coming up where I know there will be a number of lands players. To be more specific, I was wondering if the matchup is approached a bit differently because mentor obviously has some vulnerability to P. Fire but also tabernacle. Also does the extra 20+ life that stping a marit lage results in make closing games with mentor more difficult. I understand that counterbalance should still be really good along with surgical from the board and mentor is still decent. Overall I guess not having jace for lands combined with my inexperience for the lands matchup is something that I feel I need to learn more about.

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Originally Posted by ThanhHa

So I have been playing the 4 mentor no jace version of miracles for a month now and the lack of jace has not been a issue for me. However this is because my locals has zero lands decks in the meta. I was wondering how this version of miracles fares against lands since in the past I have have mainly won my games against lands thanks to jace. Currently my list has the two predicts no preordains in the main with multiple cliques in the board and no nonbasic land hate. This question has been in the back of my mind for a while but I felt like I should ask the people who have more experience with this version now considering I have a tournament coming up where I know there will be a number of lands players. To be more specific, I was wondering if the matchup is approached a bit differently because mentor obviously has some vulnerability to P. Fire but also tabernacle. Also does the extra 20+ life that stping a marit lage results in make closing games with mentor more difficult. I understand that counterbalance should still be really good along with surgical from the board and mentor is still decent. Overall I guess not having jace for lands combined with my inexperience for the lands matchup is something that I feel I need to learn more about.

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Yeah, this is something I'd like to share my experiences with! When I first posted my edits to Wilson's original list with 2 Predict and no preordains and stuff, lands was not a matchup I'd taken into mind. My experiences were mostly with the MTGO meta and cutting some of the cards that I did didn't really fix the lands matchup. I ultimately decided that Wilson's list (and subsequent edits) were more aligned with what an open field would represent so I reverted my testing back to what his list was, including the edits that he suggested after the GP (-2 Predict +1 Preordain +1 Counterspell) and 2nd Clique instead of spell pierce in the sideboard. This has the correct amount of hate for a metagame that includes lands and DnT that aren't quite as represented on MTGO as they are IRL.

Hope that sheds some light!

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Originally Posted by Morden

Hi guys, I'm a newbie about this deck. I have a simple question that runs in my mind from a couple of months. Is red still good as splash?
Basically, for my knowledge of the deck, red is splashed mainly for REB, against Jace and to be in advantage with counter wars. But looking at the hate all decks bring to miracle, I see also pithing needles, winter orb, null rod.... isn't green with krosan grip better? Look also at the mirror: krosan on SDT is brutal. I know, the problem with green is that you have to deal with Jace in the mirror. Can this be handle somehow with Thrun, the Last Troll? No counter, no STP, no jace's bounce, basically only terminus removes it. Personally I really like also Display of Dominance, but I think it's very limited (also if it protects counterbalance against decay.......).
For counter wars there is always flusterstorm.

I know that with REB you solve a variety of problems with one card, I just find it very weak in a lot of situations.
I also assume that if no one splashes to green there is a reason XD, please helpe me to find this out! ahahahah

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The green experiment never really gets past the early planning stages because a lot of what green offers is shaky and non-synergistic with the rest of the deck. Krosan Grip is as good as it gets, but pound-for-pound red is just better.

K-grips don't kill Delvers, counter Show and Tell, stop Delver, prevent Ancestral Visions, prevent Snapcasters, Snapcast at a reasonable cost themselves, target just anything for a Mentor trigger in a pinch, kill Jaces, 2-for-1 vs. Force of Will, and to top it all off they don't look as cool as Pyroblast (either old or new art).

Green's other traditional strengths (mana control and creatures) also don't add a ton of value to the deck. Aside from Thrun, whose cost is prohibitive, most green dudes don't compare particularly favorably to the white creatures we've always had access to, like Baneslayer Angel or Monastery Mentor. As for mana, Life from the Loam doesn't play nicely with Miracle spells and Top activations. You can try Exploration, but this messes up Engineered Explosives and doesn't really go too well with the mass of basics that Miracles usually runs.

If you really want to go in this direction, however, here are some Shardless Bant decks from 2014 that worked OK at least at that time.

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...hardless-bant/
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...ant_with_.html

...I don't know what's wrong with me, I've never been able to get Monastery Mentor (in Miracles) to be a card my opponents were frightened of. I've won a few games with him, sure, but he's never gotten me out of situations that a regular old Entreat wouldn't have. He was my mainstay all-star during the DTT days when he did all manner of work in an Esper shell.

Today will be my last attempt to make use of this creature, and this is being done totally on my faith in all you guys that this card is, in fact, good in Miracles (as it seems it must be). I'm going to try that Stoneforge Mystic version from the Brainstorm Show at the weekly in lieu of my own personal brand of enchantment Miracles, which at this point is so outlandish that one might reasonably respond "Is that even a real deck" upon viewing the decklist.

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Originally Posted by Lormador

The green experiment never really gets past the early planning stages because a lot of what green offers is shaky and non-synergistic with the rest of the deck. Krosan Grip is as good as it gets, but pound-for-pound red is just better.

K-grips don't kill Delvers, counter Show and Tell, stop Delver, prevent Ancestral Visions, prevent Snapcasters, Snapcast at a reasonable cost themselves, target just anything for a Mentor trigger in a pinch, kill Jaces, 2-for-1 vs. Force of Will, and to top it all off they don't look as cool as Pyroblast (either old or new art).

Green's other traditional strengths (mana control and creatures) also don't add a ton of value to the deck. Aside from Thrun, whose cost is prohibitive, most green dudes don't compare particularly favorably to the white creatures we've always had access to, like Baneslayer Angel or Monastery Mentor. As for mana, Life from the Loam doesn't play nicely with Miracle spells and Top activations. You can try Exploration, but this messes up Engineered Explosives and doesn't really go too well with the mass of basics that Miracles usually runs.

If you really want to go in this direction, however, here are some Shardless Bant decks from 2014 that worked OK at least at that time.

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...hardless-bant/
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...ant_with_.html

...I don't know what's wrong with me, I've never been able to get Monastery Mentor (in Miracles) to be a card my opponents were frightened of. I've won a few games with him, sure, but he's never gotten me out of situations that a regular old Entreat wouldn't have. He was my mainstay all-star during the DTT days when he did all manner of work in an Esper shell.

Today will be my last attempt to make use of this creature, and this is being done totally on my faith in all you guys that this card is, in fact, good in Miracles (as it seems it must be). I'm going to try that Stoneforge Mystic version from the Brainstorm Show at the weekly in lieu of my own personal brand of enchantment Miracles, which at this point is so outlandish that one might reasonably respond "Is that even a real deck" upon viewing the decklist.

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The only problem that I have with Mentor is they you can't do it during your opponent's turn. It is nice to float an Entreat on top and hold up mana to counter stuff, then make a bunch of Angels at the end of their turn. With Monk, you have to dedicate a turn to casting it and making sure it doesn't die.

But the one thing I can say about the Monk build is that it is just faster. When you drop that Monk, you are going to win in the next couple turns if they don't deal with it. The Monk/Top interaction is just sooooooo good. I like the idea of being able to use our Top for some extra value on top of the ridiculous value it already has.

Honestly, I'm debating each build every time I play. But the Monk build is aggresive, which fits my play style so I feel entitled to go that rout.

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Originally Posted by Lormador

The green experiment never really gets past the early planning stages because a lot of what green offers is shaky and non-synergistic with the rest of the deck. Krosan Grip is as good as it gets, but pound-for-pound red is just better.

K-grips don't kill Delvers, counter Show and Tell, stop Delver, prevent Ancestral Visions, prevent Snapcasters, Snapcast at a reasonable cost themselves, target just anything for a Mentor trigger in a pinch, kill Jaces, 2-for-1 vs. Force of Will, and to top it all off they don't look as cool as Pyroblast (either old or new art).

Green's other traditional strengths (mana control and creatures) also don't add a ton of value to the deck. Aside from Thrun, whose cost is prohibitive, most green dudes don't compare particularly favorably to the white creatures we've always had access to, like Baneslayer Angel or Monastery Mentor. As for mana, Life from the Loam doesn't play nicely with Miracle spells and Top activations. You can try Exploration, but this messes up Engineered Explosives and doesn't really go too well with the mass of basics that Miracles usually runs.

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thanks to all guys, now I'm fully conviced :D. The power of Krosan sounded very appealing to me, but the REB variety is probably more important.

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Originally Posted by Morden

thanks to all guys, now I'm fully conviced :D. The power of Krosan sounded very appealing to me, but the REB variety is probably more important.

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Stupid question, but what does REB mean?


I am totally new to miracles and I have been working on the hybrid build.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by technofox

Stupid question, but what does REB mean?


I am totally new to miracles and I have been working on the hybrid build.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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It's short for Red Elemental Blast, and often also includes Pyroblast (as they are nearly identical effects).

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Originally Posted by technofox

what does REB mean?

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Red Elemental Blast

PS: There is No stupid question. Fear of asking is stupid.

Next question, why do people use 2 REB and 2 Pyroblast? Is it because of dodging surgical extraction?

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Originally Posted by Gazillah

Next question, why do people use 2 REB and 2 Pyroblast? Is it because of dodging surgical extraction?

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Yes, and also to dodge Cabal and every thing that try to prevent you to play a card by naming it.

I've never had that come up though... is it an archaic strategy at this point?

Good point. When would an opponent name a blast with Therapy or Surgical? If they don't have a juicier target like a threat or a control piece, wouldn't they just sit on their disruption until given a better opportunity? Furthermore, would tempting them to name Blasts actually help protect impactful cards like Top, Terminus, Mentor, etc.?

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Good point. When would an opponent name a blast with Therapy or Surgical? If they don't have a juicier target like a threat or a control piece, wouldn't they just sit on their disruption until given a better opportunity? Furthermore, would tempting them to name Blasts actually help protect impactful cards like Top, Terminus, Mentor, etc.?

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It happened to me that a very experienced storm player during a storm turn named pyroblast with cabal to resolve Bs in resp to a Led Crack to Tendrils me to death, I had a Reb and a Pyro, I won.
There are also some Bug control (Jace Landeed) that boards in extirpate vs. US and he extirpated my pyroblast to resolve a Jace with Deed in play, pyroblast took care of it.
Another my opponent plating stoneblade resolved a Meddling mage naming Pyroblast to protect his next turn Jace play.
These are obviously corner cases, but sometimes a corner case makes the difference from winning or losing a match

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Originally Posted by Gazillah

Next question, why do people use 2 REB and 2 Pyroblast? Is it because of dodging surgical extraction?

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99% of the time won't matter.

The most common setup is actually 2 Pyroblast and then 1 REB, few run 2 REB. The reasoning for running more Pyro than REB is because you can play Pyro targeting anything to generate monk token assuming Mentor is in play.

Hi folks, I'm new around here but have been playing for many years, on and off so be gentle :smile:

I've been watching playing/watching a ton of Vintage and Dack Fayden seems absurdly strong in that format but I can't help but think that with people possibly leaning into Death & Taxes more with recent printings, would he be worth a singleton or sideboard slot against Stoneforge/Aether Vial. There's a ton of value steals across the meta and the synergy with Pyroblast IF you ever get to ultimate is so powerful.

I don't have a large Legacy scene where I'm from so I could be off the wall on this one, just wondering if anyone's been able to test it.

Apologies if I'm resurrecting a settled debate.

Someone come to Ireland and play Legacy please...:tongue:

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Originally Posted by eoinmoners

Hi folks, I'm new around here but have been playing for many years, on and off so be gentle :smile:

I've been watching playing/watching a ton of Vintage and Dack Fayden seems absurdly strong in that format but I can't help but think that with people possibly leaning into Death & Taxes more with recent printings, would he be worth a singleton or sideboard slot against Stoneforge/Aether Vial. There's a ton of value steals across the meta and the synergy with Pyroblast IF you ever get to ultimate is so powerful.

I don't have a large Legacy scene where I'm from so I could be off the wall on this one, just wondering if anyone's been able to test it.

Apologies if I'm resurrecting a settled debate.

Someone come to Ireland and play Legacy please...:tongue:

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Question is why would you want to steal Aether Vial when you can Wear//Tear it? Wear//Tear is way better in the CB curve in addition to being a target for Snapcaster Mage so you can just wear and tear like a boss.

Also the ultimate is more of a nice to have than need to have. The deck is stronger if you stick to the gameplan. Think that pretty much sums it up in terms of good ol' Dack.