Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

RGCL is combo/control. Too many quick combo wins for me to consider it hard control. A hard control deck is defense first and has a hard time doing anything else in a timely manner.

RUG Lands (the version I usually play) I would consider hard control. I get fast combo wins, but they are by far the exception.

It's good we have a tier one prison deck (if you believe RUG Lands is tier one). But it's nice to have a more reactive (hard) control deck too. I can't see Landstill coming back.

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At that point I think it's a little too demanding though. Not all playstyles have been serviced with the tier 1 treatment and I don't think it's fair at all to say draw-go is getting the raw end of the deal compared to everything else when it's been ages since we've even had a true aggro deck at tier 1.(ironically because of miracles and stoneblade) Before miracles legacy had been a cyclical format where tiers and "the best deck" shifted more frequently as a result of trends and you could never be sure your deck would stay at tier 1 simply because the meta would shift toward decks that could beat the current best deck; I think that's a healthy play environment and I don't think it's fair to expect 1 deck to remain immobile at tier 1 when every other DTB has shifted in and out for the past several years, simply because it fits the very specific niche of a handful of players.

Here's what I have so far, and would love testers and feedback.

4 scalding tarn
4 flooded strand
1 arid mesa
3 tundra
2 volcanic island
2 plains
4 island

4 snapcaster mage

2 jace, the mind-sculptor
2 entreat the angels
2 scroll rack!?
4 swords to plowshares
4 terminus
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
2 portent
4 predict
4 force of will
2 counterspell
1 spell pierce
1 spell snare

2 from the ashes
2 surgical extraction
2 pyroblast
2 red elemental blast
1 mountain
3 flusterstorm
1 wear // tear
1 engineered explosives
1 council's judgment

So the play pattern for this deck is similar as previous iterations but what you are allowed to Predict away changes. Early you generally want your Ponders and Portents to find you lands in general instead of trying to specifically aim to find SDT. What you want to do with your Ponders and Portents is to continue looking for other cantrips and Predicts a la Hatfields.

Scroll Rack is an expensive concession to the fact that you do not have Top anymore but thankfully only requires a single activation before it gets Decayed. Think of them as Brainstorms #5-#6. Scroll Rack isn't something you actively want but isnt bad at all. It fixes problems and is no way a terrible asset to have in play. Sometimes your recovery ceiling would be higher with Scroll Rack thanks to the fact that you could find more than 3 cards and is even more cards if you have an extra fetchland in play.
I might consider running a 3rd copy and including 3x Counterbalance in the SB for the combo and Lands MU.

Full set of Snapcaster Mages have been included because of heavily this deck leans on Predicts and Brainstorms now. Am seriously considering a Riptide Lab.

Spell Snare and Spell Pierce felt looser now than I have usually felt about those cards before the banning. Spell Pierce had been helpful for fighting counter wars because of how expensive setting up Terminus had became. You could move the CJ and EE back into the maindeck which might be an infinitely better idea going forward and adding two Pyroclasms into the SB. Pyroclasms sweeps BUG Delver decks pretty well as well as a cost efficient way to sweep threats off the board vs Czech Pile. Also quite good vs Elves and DnT. I have seriously considered Electrolyze to be included.

Your combo match up is still decent post board. Scroll Rack is your best card vs Storm. Just hid infinite counters under your Scroll Rack to play around Therapies + Probe and punish them accordingly with your critical mass of counters.

Edit. Hatfields, where are they?

I testing Soothsaying (try 3 soothsaying, 3 CB, and 3 terminus, plus Supreme veredict and moat main deck), and in my opinion its a good replace for SDT. It's really slowly, but can do combo with CB very well. Ita worse in early game, but OK in mid and late game. We can activate terminus with brainstorm or predict. I test a few rounds yesterday, and I win against Jeskay Control, Grixis Delver and BR reanimator, and lose for big eldrazi.
I think its a card can make this deck viable again, become a tier 2 or 3, but its playable.

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If you are playing scroll rack, I think now may be the time for Land Tax.

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Soothsaying once it is in play is too mana intensive for it to be useful. Paying 3 mana for Soothsaying is much worse than paying a single mana for Top. At least with Scroll Rack the mana efficiency is still there, provided, you set it up via cards in hand.

I was in the middle of building Mentor Miracles when the ban dropped.

Monastery Mentor is one of my favorite cards printed in a recent set, so if I still want to play with my copies in Legacy, what's my next best option? I've been looking at some Esper Mentor stuff and trying to come up with a good list, but most of the posts on that deck are from 1-2 years ago, so I have no idea if it's even still relevant in the current or upcoming meta.

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Originally Posted by silly

I was in the middle of building Mentor Miracles when the ban dropped.

Monastery Mentor is one of my favorite cards printed in a recent set, so if I still want to play with my copies in Legacy, what's my next best option? I've been looking at some Esper Mentor stuff and trying to come up with a good list, but most of the posts on that deck are from 1-2 years ago, so I have no idea if it's even still relevant in the current or upcoming meta.

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Put them in the Sideboard of Tin Fins.

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Originally Posted by pateuglow

Put them in the Sideboard of Tin Fins.

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I'm sure you can have some "getcha" moments where you make your opponent look silly for siding out all their removal, but that's not really playing with Mentor. He's more like a plan B, and not even a good one at that since he only comes out against certain decks. Surely there must be a better option than that (I'm certainly hoping so because if Tin Fins is really the best Mentor deck right now I will be very sad).

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Originally Posted by silly

I'm sure you can have some "getcha" moments where you make your opponent look silly for siding out all their removal, but that's not really playing with Mentor. He's more like a plan B, and not even a good one at that since he only comes out against certain decks. Surely there must be a better option than that (I'm certainly hoping so because if Tin Fins is really the best Mentor deck right now I will be very sad).

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Look into Esper Deathrite Mentor. A much stronger deck now that it doesn't need to run a fourth color for Acrupt Decay nor does it have to worry about Terminus, at least for now.

This may be a rather bad idea in the end but for years I've wanted to test a Miracles Bant deck with LfrL, Cycle Lands to draw, Noxious Revival, Intuition, etc. I've never tested it and SDT would have been included but I always seemed bogged down by the Countertop package when drawing up the configurations and this may provide the space to tune the plan A. I think the list would be more combo control and include maybe 4x Entreat and Terminus (I think there was a point when a few European players were overloading on Entreats similar to ANT players who play multiple Tendrils). Maybe no JTMS or even Counterbalance but these could theoretically play a role. Also, it has potential to play Wasteland, Mox Diamond, and Legacy's new best card -- Deathrite Shaman, but I have no testing to report. Anyway, food for thought in transition (even if it's junk food). Best of luck!

[QUOTE=gh0st_b1rd;1003549]Here's what I have so far, and would love testers and feedback.

*Scroll Rack List*
[QUOTE]

I actually think that it might be viable to utilize a loam engine with the scroll rack for card advantage and utility lands (wastes/mishra's). Obviously, red has to go and the combo matchup may prove to be terrible, but this direction might be worthwhile as a dedidcated board control deck with a small i-win button in entreat.

For the past few days all I have been seeing here is that Miracle Control is dead. I refuse to believe that you know why? Because there are times that we win games without SDT.
So Miracle Players will adjust to this and we will make it great again.

I have a deck build in mind. I will post it once it is working.

Regular LftL seems fine. I cant imagine cycling lands working though. The draw engine is already very mana intensive and the pay off is very nebulous. Like you had theorized, Scroll Rack is the most efficient way to leverage a hand size.

I will continue working on Predict-Scroll Rack because Predict fits into the game plan naturally. Scroll Rack doesnt add anything by itself but Predict just helps you make meaningful land drops early and just strictly finds you gas later. When later does come with Predict Miracles, Scroll Rack is the perfect add-on.

Edit. To everybody trying to bring Miracles back from the dead: welcome to the masochist faction.

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Originally Posted by ScottW

This may be a rather bad idea in the end but for years I've wanted to test a Miracles Bant deck with LfrL, Cycle Lands to draw, Noxious Revival, Intuition, etc. I've never tested it and SDT would have been included but I always seemed bogged down by the Countertop package when drawing up the configurations and this may provide the space to tune the plan A. I think the list would be more combo control and include maybe 4x Entreat and Terminus (I think there was a point when a few European players were overloading on Entreats similar to ANT players who play multiple Tendrils). Maybe no JTMS or even Counterbalance but these could theoretically play a role. Also, it has potential to play Wasteland, Mox Diamond, and Legacy's new best card -- Deathrite Shaman, but I have no testing to report. Anyway, food for thought in transition (even if it's junk food). Best of luck!

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i quite like the LftL, Cycling land, scroll rack engine. Enables EOT entreat and terminus as well.

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Originally Posted by gh0st_b1rd

I will continue working on Predict-Scroll Rack because Predict fits into the game plan naturally. Scroll Rack doesnt add anything by itself but Predict just helps you make meaningful land drops early and just strictly finds you gas later. When later does come with Predict Miracles, Scroll Rack is the perfect add-on.

Edit. To everybody trying to bring Miracles back from the dead: welcome to the masochist faction.

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Happy (well, really, very sad, but you know...) to join the masochist faction.

I just finished Miracles a few months ago. Due to work / life / etc., I only had a chance to play it in even a 'FNM' setting a handful of times. I didn't build it because it was the best deck, but because it was, to me, the most beautiful, in its interactions, playstyle, etc. I'm making plans for what deck to play next (leaning towards Storm, just because screw WotC trying to force me to play creatures; I'll show them!), but am also really interested in trying to keep the dream alive -- mostly just because I didn't get to play the deck for as long as most of you.

I've read through this thread for a while, but never had much to contribute, since I was always 'catching up'. Well, no more... :(

I may make a longer version of this post on Reddit's Legacy forum as well (under a related but different screen name; kudos if you get the reference), but in my mind there are a few things lost with the banning of CounterTop (IMO, they go together; Counterbalance doesn't seem worth it without Top; even Scroll Rack doesn't help, IMO, since it's too conditional on having enough cards in hand):

1. We lose the 'soft lock'
2. We lose a lot of filtering
3. We lose the ability to set up miracle cards
4. We lose the ability to activate miracle cards at will (i.e., on the opponent's turn)

Regarding #1, I really am not quite sure how to resolve that. And maybe that alone is the death knell for a non-CounterTop UW Miracles deck. But to be stubborn and masochistic, let's carry on. :-/

#2 and #3 can be solved with additional cantrips, Scroll Rack, etc. Portent seems like the most likely candidate. Preordain could also work, but I imagine there are better options. One thing I'm not a huge fan of with Scroll Rack is that it doesn't work very well with few cards in hand, and it seems like we'll probably be short on cards in hand in general. I suppose it's basically a tool to pay {1} to put a card back on top, but that's a bit unexciting. :-/

#4 is a bit tougher. I like that Portent at least gets us to miracle on the opponent's turn (ok for Terminus; so-so for EtA, since we'd rather do it at the end of turn). Another option I've considered here is Quicken [U Instant: You can cast your next sorcery as if it were an instant. Draw a card.]. Yes, it costs a mana, but it cantrips, and it can at least allow you to hold up Counterspell mana and then Ponder/etc. on the opponent's turn. I'm not sure it makes the cut, but it's an idea.

Another card that I find a bit intriguing is See Beyond [1U Sorcery: Draw 2, then shuffle a card from your hand into your library.] Without the constant filtering Top provides, it seems more likely we get stuck with a Terminus / Entreat / Jace in hand when we don't want it there. See Beyond is a little bit like Predict in that it gets rid of a card (from the hand rather than on top) to draw two. It's worse, no doubt, but similar. Again, not sure it makes the cut.

I wonder if we might be able to craft some sort of 'knife's edge' UW Miracles deck along these lines. We lose the CounterTop lock, but if we replace Counterbalance and Top with cantrips and maybe some extra counterspells, it increases the deck's velocity, so maybe we can try to survive long enough to win with Entreat, rather than locking up the game.

A rough sketch I came up with is:

4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm
4 Portent
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
1 Council's Judgment
1 Eng. Explosives
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
21 lands


I'm hoping to test a bit with a friend on Thursday, but feedback before then would be welcome. I'm by no means the best player (hardly an average one, really), so maybe this is complete bollocks. If it is, feel free to say so, but gently please.

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[Edit] Preliminary solo testing (somewhat meaningless for a deck like this, but whatever) shows that this is almost certainly far too much 'air'. Lots of looks between fetchlands, Ponders, and Portents, but not enough action in the hands. :-/

[Edit 2] Revised the list above after a bit more testing. Added VCliques for combo matchups and for hand management / miracle triggering, and more countermagic to compensate for the lack of Counterbalance. This feels better, but still lacks the power of CounterTop Miracles.

I doubt Predict is still playable honestly.

I was half-trying to pick up Tundras and the Miracle cards so i could play this deck. Shipped off the CBs to buylist already and stuck with a set of Tops, but w/e. Can we find room for Land Tax and Squadron Hawk in the Scroll Rack lists please? If not, I'm sticking with some BUG/(x?) monstrosity. I only have one Tundra but if there's a sweet Scroll Rack list, I'll have a reason to get a playset.

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Originally Posted by TheArchitect

No one else in any format, but us miracles players, has been able to play the same deck while it was the best deck for as long as we miracles have. We have been very spoiled.

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I'd be interested in the analysis, but don't think the facts back this claim up. Affinity jumps to mind.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

If you are playing scroll rack, I think now may be the time for Land Tax.

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that could lead you to a parfait-esque build..you might wanna look into that..

Just going to toss out a list because loam is pretty insane with scroll rack (it reminds me of how much I enjoyed loam+jace in bugstill when mental misstep was around). Once you stabilize, it's literally an ancestral a turn (actually better b/c you put back dead cards from previous draws as well). I tried land tax, card is pretty terrible in this shell--it's dead late game and you want to be ahead on land drops, not behind. This deck obviously lacks counterbalance, making the combo matchup atrocious, but at least its something to build on. I personally might take the deck towards a stoneblade route because the lack of counterbalance makes it hard to stabilize vs burn decks. This plays a lot more like old school landstill style draw go if you don't have the engine going.

Lands (22: can't cheat on lands anymore w/o the top :cry:)
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
2 Wasteland

Removal (12)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Council's Judgment

Cantrips/Miracles Setup (12)
3 Scroll Rack
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library

Counter Magic (5)
3 Force of Will
2 Counterspell

Card Advantage/Win Cons (9)
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Life from the Loam
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Snapcaster Mage

SB: 3 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 3 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Counterbalance