Miracle Control

If you're concerned about the mirror, the first step is making sure you have 4 Jace, the Mindsculptor in the maindeck. This is probably best, even not just for the mirror. Next, running 2 Stoneforge Mystic with a Batterskull is great against aggro, and the control mirror has trouble dealing with Batterskull if it sticks since even if they kill it they have to counterspell it eventually. Next, somewhere in your 75 you should find room for 2-3 Oblivion Ring so that you have flexibility of answers in the mirror, but in particular more ways to deal with Jace. It's also a great card in general, so it shouldn't be too hard. I think this is a good place to start at least.

Also, if you're cool like me you can run Intuition with a Worm Harvest in the sideboard.

I was looking at playing with some number of Oblivion Ring, Venser Shaper Savant, and Banishing Stroke somewhere in the 75, but I do not know the numbers or if it is even a good idea.

I'm not really sure why you think running intuition makes your deck less streamlined. I think it just gives you a ton of power for very little cost in terms of how you build your deck.

Really, I only ever had two problems with Intuition. The first was against aggro, since the typical piles of Ruins recursion or counterbalance or FOWs didn't work well. I think you can solve the awkwardnes against aggro by simply running 2x Maze of Ith because intuition for Loam + 2 mazes gives you a maze active the next turn and gets you a second one the next turn so it's doing work almost immediately and this is giving you tons of CA through 2 mazes and an active loam. The second complaint I had was that Intuition didn't win on its own. Now that Batterskull is a card, I run that as a win condition (along with some SFMs), so Intuition can actually get a win-condition now too. Furthermore, since our wrath of gods are one mana, the casting cost of intuition is much less of a liability. So, for all of these factors I actually like it better now, even though other decks have gotten new tools. I think you should give it another go.

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Can you please point to where the overabundance of 2-drops is critical for the CB/top engine to answer?
I can't spot it.

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I'll concede that I haven't played the game in quite a while, and that my understanding of the current state of the format when I posted that response may have been a little off.

Still though... I can still name a ton of problematic 2cc spells in most of those decks, and there are more than 7 decks that see play in Legacy.

Against RUG, yea the only cc you really care about is 1cc, I agree. 12 1cc spells, when 4 of those are Top (perma 1cc stoppage), is more than enough to handle 1cc spells. This has always been the case for this deck.

Against Maverick, they still 2cc stuff you want to stop. I agree that 1cc and 3cc seem more problematic, but they still have SFM, Jitte, Thalia, hardcast Teeg/Qasali/Ooze, among other things.

Against Miracles, 2cc stops opposing Counterbalances, Snapcasters, and Counterspells. If they are doing the SFM hybrid thing, it also hits SFM.

Against Show and Tell, yea I agree. You really just want a 3cc spell to float on top to secure that one. Hitting the 1cc cantrips is definitely relevant, but hitting 3cc is the main issue. My list runs 5 3cc spells, which is about as much as I can comfortably hit without cutting what I consider to be "other important spells." Of course, it's always possible to bring in some additional 3cc spells out of the sideboard (Detention Sphere sounds like a solid choice, for example).

Against Merfolk, if they have Vial or Cavern in play, Counterbalance is irrelevant regardless. If they don't have either of those, 2cc is the most relevant cc range to cover. All of their creatures, besides Cursecatcher and Merrow Reejery, are 2cc. Even Standstill is 2cc, for the lists that run it.

Against the other Tribal, yea you want to reliably hit 1cc. Against Goblins, they have such a varied curve that Counterbalance is usually bad even if they don't have Vial or Cavern. 3cc is usually the best range to hit, since it nabs their lords and Matron, but it can vary depending on their list. I board out all of my Counterbalances in this matchup anyway.

Against Stoneblade, the lists can vary alot, but you hit SFM, Snapcaster, Jitte, Counterspell if they run it, Standstill if they run it, among other things. 2cc is the most relevant spot to hit here. Now if you're talking about Esperblade, then yea, you want 1cc to hit their discard and 3cc to hit their Souls, but that doesn't make hitting 2cc any less relevant. 2cc can also hit Confidant in the lists that run him.

Against Belcher, I was under the impression that they ran a good bit of 2cc spells... two 2cc red rituals, Burning Wish... regardless, the last time I played against Belcher, 0cc was the most important target, hitting Petal/Mox/LED (their IMS and/or Belcher activators if they can't hit 7+ mana when going for Belcher). 1cc hits a few things, and is definitely relevant, but isn't 0cc and 2cc the more important range to hit?

Aside from the above... against the rest of the format, 2cc is still relevant, is it not?

As you guys might know I played Miracle and Stoneblade for quite awhile, but settled now on some hybrid-version of both:

//Lands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
2 Glacial Fortress
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
3 Mishra's Factory
//Creatures
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
//Win
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Batterskull
//Removal/Catch-all
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
//Counterspells
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
//Cantrips/Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
//Sideboard
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
3 Counterbalance
2 Meddling Mage
2 Oblivion Ring ( Detention Sphere )
2 Humility
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

It was built with the modern metagame in mind, hence the Counterbalances in the Sideboard. Detention Spheres will replace my O-rings just for being awesome in the mirror and as good as O-Ring in other MUs, with the only downside being blue - REB.

Any further criticism is welcome!

Greetings

@philipp802:
Have 3 surgicals been enough gravehate? Meta call for you?

Has the one of Elspeth been worth a spot in the Sideboard?

Also, Meddling Mage? Has he been helping as a two of?



@everyone: Should Counterbalance be in the sideboard right now? Does it not prey on enough decks to maindeck at the moment?

@Valtrix: As a long-time, diehard Intuition lover, I'd really like to see your list. Maze of Ith is my favorite land, and running alongside Intuition is always nice.

On a more general topic; does anyone have any ideas regarding this decks viability after Abrupt Decay becomes legal in the format? The card is obviously very powerful, and if it sees a lot of play; it might make Counterbalance a poor choice.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by joemauer

@philipp802:
Have 3 surgicals been enough gravehate? Meta call for you?

Has the one of Elspeth been worth a spot in the Sideboard?

Also, Meddling Mage? Has he been helping as a two of?



@everyone: Should Counterbalance be in the sideboard right now? Does it not prey on enough decks to maindeck at the moment?

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3 Surgicals are somewhat of a Metacall, yep.

The Elspeth is very useful, but nothing too special, can be switched to be sure.

Meddling Mage is great! The more you get to know the format the better you can use him. There's nothing better than naming Sneak Attack with it while having O-Ring in hand.

Counterbalance...this list is more for the post-RTR-meta...the one I expect. In this meta counterbalance is good against...RUG and the Mirror. Thats it.
I do not think this is enough, to be honest. In this version you can easily side out all creatures G3 if you saw enough creatureremoval G2...even in matches where CB isnt so good, just bring it in to blank cards :P

On the other hand - there is the possibility to play a straight Miracle MB and transform it into Miracleblade postboard...not sure which direction is better.

Greetings

@TreefolkMaster: Thats why I sideboard CB ;)

Well, Treefolk Master, you wanted a list so here you go. I had something mostly typed out with a lot more explanation for my choices, so I've included that too to make my choices a bit clearer. It's pretty long, but I tried indexing it to make it a bit more readable. It’s pretty different from most lists, not caring about utility creatures, going for more creature control elements, and using Intuition. I’ve had a lot of success with Intuition, and I really love how much flexibility and power it adds. Anyway, I’ll give the list and then give some thoughts about it and why I made it this way.


// Lands
2 [ST] Island (3)
2 [CST] Plains (2)
3 [R] Tundra
1 [LG] Karakas
2 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
4 [JGC] Flooded Strand
1 [R] Savannah
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [JGC] Windswept Heath
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [NE] Kor Haven
1 [B] Underground Sea

// Creatures
2 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic

// Spells
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CMD] Brainstorm
3 [AVR] Terminus
1 [AVR] Entreat the Angels
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [NPH] Batterskull
3 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [TE] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AVR] Terminus
SB: 1 [8E] Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [DKA] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 [PLC] Porphyry Nodes
SB: 3 [M12] Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [EVE] Worm Harvest


Note: This list is 61 cards. You can debate how awful/good you want to yourself, but don’t let that take away from the big picture. Honestly, I just like playing with 61 cards because I’m always evolving my list and it makes it just a little bit easier to find slots to test out certain cards.

Win-Conditions

First, on win-conditions. The SFM+Batterskull debate has been had for awhile, but I find it to be very effective. You really do want more win conditions, and SFM+Batterskull fits basically everything we want for a win-condition. It’s a lower mana investment on our curve compared to Jace or Entreat if you draw SFM itself, is resilient via bouncing, stabilizes the board very handily through lifelink and vigilance, and can win the game on its own. Aggro can lose to it single-handedly, and blue decks can have fits if they don’t have a counterspell for it. As such, it is more than worth the slots. I only go for 2 SFM though, because I really don’t want multiples and I generally have time to find it.

I also really like 4 Jace, because I find Jace to be more versatile and less clunky than Entreat, while helping a lot to set miracles up. Entreat can have a lot of raw power, which is why I run one, but I don’t like miracle inconsistency sometimes. It’s possible that 2 Entreat is better, but right now this works pretty well. Also, running 4 Jace lets you feel a lot better about pitching one to force of will.

Maze of Ith

Next consider Maze of Ith. (The following also applies to Kor Haven. I’m currently testing out 2/1 maze/haven over my 3 maze which I used to run to have a 23rd mana land). On the surface it might just look like creature removal that dies to wasteland. And sometimes, it does; however, that is not always a bad thing. I believe that having more lands in your deck in general makes you more resilient to wasteland. Having a very good target besides normal mana really makes it much harder for your opponent to use wasteland, because you can somewhat dictate their waste usage by how you play your lands. Even making them wonder whether they should get land or save for maze can get your advantage by them not using wastelands immediately.

More importantly is that maze of ith is the best answer to batterskull that is reasonable to run in the main. Who cares about a recurrable equipment if it just sits on the battlefield doing nothing? Thereby running maze gives you a great tool against a card which is otherwise difficult to deal with. Furthermore, mazes can gain you advantage by mucking up the board into your mass removal hitting more creatures, and maze can be uncounterable removal against decks (useful against RUG and Griselbrand for example).

Intuition

Now that I’ve justified why I like maze of ith, it’s time to talk about Intuition, probably the most controversial slots. To start, the cards you want to run with intuition are things that are all good individually (Engineered Explosives, Academy Ruins, Maze of Ith, and Life from the Loam), so I don’t believe there are any sacrifices to be made in that regard. Most of these cards give you more board presence, so the main thing you give up is stack control/tricks: spell pierce, counterspell, snapcaster mage, Vendilion Clique are the main cards that come to mind. I personally believe this is fine, although I am sure that many people would argue this point. That argument is beyond the scope of this post.

Now to talk about piles and their relative strengths.

• The aggro pile of 2x Maze of Ith and life from the loam. This is very strong, since you will get a maze online the turn after you cast intuition, and this almost immediate impact is greatly needed in aggressive matchups. In the long run you gain a ton of advantage because on top of netting 2x creature removal, you get loam to play with for the game.
• The board lock pile of Academy Ruins + Loam + Engineered Explosives. I find this pile to be less useful nowadays, but it’s still great. The upside of this is having removal every turn, which I have won plenty of games with. It’s a huge mana investment, but in any board state that you need an answer to something this does that and keeps you ahead for pretty much the rest of the game. In particular RUG has a very hard time winning through this. Also, the 4th color mana source is for EE@4 to kill Jace.
• If you just need to get a win-condition, getting Loam + Ruins + Batterskull will do it.
• Getting 3x Sensei’s Divining Top or 3x Counterbalance makes your countertop consistency way higher. Also great vs. RUG, and hurts combo quite a bit.
• The last main pile is 3x Force of Will, because sometimes you just need a counterspell that badly.

Already it’s easy to see how versatile Intuition can be. I find it not only powerful for it’s versatility, but most of the piles you get are incredibly powerful in themselves. I’ve used Intuition in control shells for a long time, and I’ve always been happy with it. It can be an instant speed demonic tutor, assemble countertop, or it can become a value-machine by setting up a loam pile. Having such versatility and power offers a lot in every matchup. Historically I felt that Intuition was weakest against aggro, but I think this is helped a ton by maze of ith. Setting up that loam + 2x Maze pile is a very strong play against them that can start working almost immediately while setting you up for the long-term win. Also with the addition of batterskull, there’s a very reasonable inevitable win-condition that the deck can make a pile for now, something that was also lacking before.

The other thing I like about putting GY abuse into your deck is that it means you have another really powerful method of attack that your opponent needs to deal with. It gives you yet another ways to attack your opponent and makes it difficult for them to combat all of them without sacrificing tools against another. Having to deal with GY abuse (and potentially EE-soft lock), countertop soft-lock, Jace as a win-condition, a hard to deal with "creature" with Batterskull, as well as an army of angel tokens are not easy to deal with in the same game.

Sideboard

The SB is not that unusual I think, although my SB philosophy is probably a bit different. I tend to just divide my SB for cards against archetypes, while not really focusing on particular decks. As such, we have a board for:

• 3 hate vs. GY strategies (2x Cage, 1x Tormod’s Crypt). Diversity is good, and crypt can be recurred with ruins. I’m always on the fence about GY hate—A lot of times I’d rather just skip it and play more hate against other types of decks, but I think this is good for now.
• 4 hate vs. combo or spell-based decks (4x Pierce). This gives you a pretty strong countersuite post board with 4x pierce, 4x Force of Will, 3x Intuition, 3x Counterbalance, 1x Counterspell, although this is down from the amount I used to run in the past because I think creature decks are a bit more prevalent.
• 4 hate vs. aggro (2x Nodes, 1x Terminus, 1x Ensnaring Bridge). Bridge is an important Intuition target post board I think, and is actually pretty good in general. Adding 4 more cards to deal with all creatures is great against aggro and makes your life much easier.
• 1 hate vs. aggro control and control (1x Worm Harvest). Aggro control/control are a huge part of the metagame right now, and while harvest is an odd choice, I think it’s actually very good here. The cost and color requirements are high, but they are very easy to reach in these slower matchups. Primarily this serves as an Intuition target, so you should be able to see it frequently. If your opponent doesn’t have GY hate, then they will mostly likely lose to card within a few turns and gives you great inevitability since counterspells are not that effective against it. Additionally, I like that this can answer snapcasters and Jace as well.
• 3 overall useful cards and vs. Sneak Attack (3x Oblivion Ring, to be Detention Sphere). I always believe in flexible sideboard cards. In fact, my current sideboard has less overlap than I like to include in general. Also, the fact that I chose 3 ORings here as my flexible cards is in fact a concession to the Show and Tell matchups. I actually bring these in for most matchups.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately I have not got to play much recently, so it’s difficult for me to judge the effectiveness of my build right now. I have played a lot of control and intuition control in the past, so I have that experience to go by, but I know that the list currently could use some work. In particular I think the main might be just a little bit too slow, with the main cards I would look at changing first would be the 3rd Intuition and the counterbalances.

So can we talk about the mirror match? I had some troubles against it today. Without adding Land Tax in, what is the best way to play that match-up?

I think Intuition dilutes the deck. Intuition/Loam is an engine that needs to be built around, just like Counterbalance/Top. You're sacrificing alot to fit in a second engine, and you aren't getting nearly as much value out of the second engine as a deck dedicated around it would. Mind you, this is based on my experiences of trying to run both in the past and my observations of your list. I haven't actually tried your list, so my opinion could very well be wrong. I'm not attacking your approach, I'm just questioning it.

At the very least, the Entreat the Angels should be cut for Worm Harvest. You might have to retool the manabase a bit to make casting Harvest more consistent, but running only 1 Entreat is incredibly random, whereas a single Worm Harvest can be tutored for with Intuition. Worm Harvest isn't as powerful as Entreat can be in the lategame, but the ability to use it multiple times will still close games out, and it has better synergy with Terminus.

Since you're already into 4 colors and running Intuition/Loam, I'd actually consider cutting some of the basics to go deeper into 4c. Without Entreat, all of your white spells only require a single white mana. Worm Harvest is alot easier to cast when you can split the cost between both green and black mana more easily.

Also, Raven's Crime is stupid powerful in control mirrors.

With all that being said though...

Abrupt Decay. This card by itself is groundbreaking enough to go 4c for, with or without Intuition/Loam. This card isn't just nuts in the mirror, it's nuts against most of the format. 2cc, uncounterable, instant, and deals with almost as much stuff as Oblivion Ring, but without the vulnerability. To top it all off, you can flash it back with Snapcaster Mage for 1UGB, which should be easy to obtain by the midgame if you build the manabase properly.

Actually, you just inspired me to go work on my old Intuition/Loam deck (The Mind Harvester). Sorry for all of my rambling. Carry on.

Any new findings on Supreme Verdict?

I haven't had the chance to test it yet..
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Edit: Why is this thread so quiet?
I feel MC. is the most exciting control deck out there plus it's super competitive. There's still room for experimental testing... so?

So, given the rise of goblins as of late, does the deck have any good answers aside from Moat?? I think we all agree that the goblins matchup is probably one of the worst ones for the deck. I've tried a variety of things from humility to peacekeeper. If they pack the full suit of wasteland + port it's actually hard to reach 4 mana before you die. Perhaps propaganda or something along those lines but it's a match up I dread and can't seem to ever beat unless I have insanely good luck.

The first thought to beat aggro is to run creature removal. Goblins is different though, because even if you run cheap mass removal like Pyroclasm on top of Terminus, I don't think it will matter. The reason that we lose against goblins is that even with mass removal, we don't have a great clock, so Goblins has plenty of time to recover with card advantage. Additionally, without a good clock, lock pieces like Moat, Ensnaring Bridge or Peacekeeper are pretty terrible because the goblins player has forever to find an answer, and most answers we can't deal with using counters (Gempalm Incinerator, Tuktuk Scrapper via Aether Vial or Cavern of Souls, or our favorite Krosan Grip).

In light of this, I think Goblins is always going to be a rough matchup, but in spite of any answers goblins may have (I'm looking at you Stingscourger), I think Batterskull is the best option against them. The lifegain + vigilance is a nightmare for them, but more importantly it gives us a clock. As mentioned, our lack of clock is what leads to failure oftentimes in that matchup, so "answers" to goblins that don't provide a clock are likely going to fail, which is why I really like SFM/batterskull in this scenario since I don't see anything else really providing that clock while also being a pain for the goblins player to play around. To support the stoneblade approach to beating goblins I would start by having 4 Stoneforge Mystic and 2 Batterskull between the main and side. This way you have a good consistency of seeing them, and if one skull is destroyed you have access to another (assuming you can live long enough to see another). I would just skip Umezawa's Jitte because it won't provide the clock we need, and almost any blocker they have will deal with any Jitte-wielding creature besides Clique.

I think possible also that siding in extra Entreat the Angels (or maybe two) is also a viable approach, although I would be concerned at Entreat's slowness and at us having too many miracles post-board. The only other useful card I can think of against Goblins is Kor Firewalker, because they literally have no answer to it, and it's a pain for them to work around (unless they run Warren Weirding). I haven't tested it though and it doesn't seem particularly good because of how narrow it is, but it's possible it could be good enough for that MU.

@Supreme Verdict: I haven't tested Supreme Verdict, but I will give my thoughts. I would never want this before the 4th Terminus because of the frequently lower casting cost. So to me, I think I'd ask whether I'd want this before Porphyry Nodes; however, like Terminus, I think 1cc is going to be relevant a lot more than uncounterable, particularly in the non-blue matchups. Also, just think about what Verdict is really dodging. The only hard counters in the matchups verdict matters are Force of Will and Envelop (which is only seeing fringe play right now). The soft counters are largely irrelevant, since when you could cast verdict, you could cast either Terminus or Nodes with 3 or more mana floating. Yes nodes wouldn't kill something immediately, but I think the fact that it could have been played whenever we had less than 3 mana sources to more than make up for that.

So, I think the more important question is what matchups do want Verdict to help anyway? I can't see us wanting its particular uncounterable trait except against RUG and Merfolk. Yet boarding in 4cc cards against those decks is not my idea of an effective boarding strategy. And, sorry for not truly answering your question, because I don't have any actual results for you, just thoughts.

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Originally Posted by Valtrix

@Supreme Verdict: I haven't tested Supreme Verdict, but I will give my thoughts. I would never want this before the 4th Terminus because of casting costs. So to me, I think I'd ask whether I'd want this before Porphyry Nodes; however, like Terminus, I think 1cc is going to be relevant a lot more than uncounterable, particularly in the non-blue matchups. Also, just think about what Verdict is really dodging. The only hard counters in the matchups verdict matters are Force of Will and Envelop (which is only seeing fringe play right now). The soft counters are largely irrelevant, since when you could cast verdict, you could cast either Terminus or Nodes with 3 or more mana floating. Yes nodes wouldn't kill something immediately, but I think the fact that it could have been played whenever we had less than 3 mana sources to more than make up for that.

So, I think the more important question is what matchups do want Verdict to help anyway? I can't see us wanting its particular uncounterable trait except against RUG and Merfolk. Yet boarding in 4cc cards against those decks is not my idea of an effective boarding strategy.

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I don't know about you, but for me, there are times when a Terminus is stuck in my hand because I don't have a Top and I don't have a Brainstorm and I need to hardcast it. So I wouldn't say that taxing conters are always irrelevant. The main matchup where I would want Supreme Verdict would be RUG. I mostly get my Tops and Brainstorms countered or my Miracle Trigger stifled against competent RUG players, so its actually not that easy resolving a Terminus against them. When the dust settles, reaching four mana with a control deck that has the best filtering available and 23-24 mostly mana producing lands with a lot of basics is not a big issue. Problably not by turn four, but hopefully still in time. Resolving a four mana spell through daze and pierce (on top of their mana denial strategy) is the problem. Verdict solves this problem for us, so I think I want at least one in the board (instead of the 4th Terminus for instance)

Me and my friend have tested the goblin-matchup and came with 2 strategies.

He tries to assemble Batterskull and Humility and actively mulligans and searches for those with brainstorm and such. He plays Esper Blade though. He went 4-1 after boarding in those cards.

I (Miracle control) remove all my counterspells, and put 2 disenchant, 1 path to exile, 1 snapcaster mage (3 total), 1 enlightened tutor, 1 moat, 1 engineered explosives (2 total), 1 terminus (4 total), 1 timely reinforcements and 2 surgical extraction in.
Counterspells are useless in this matchup, so the least you can do is replace them for less useless cards or even usefull cards.
All those cards (except for surgical extraction) are used to delay Goblins.
The strategy is to build your manabase and actively search for moat/entreat the angels from the start. Jace is decent in this matchup when timed correctly. And sometimes you can just fateseal for the win. Moat isn't an auto-win, but can delay enough to get a Jace or entreat the angels. I went 3-1 this way, but we will test this matchup some more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tom T

Me and my friend have tested the goblin-matchup and came with 2 strategies.

He tries to assemble Batterskull and Humility and actively mulligans and searches for those with brainstorm and such. He plays Esper Blade though. He went 4-1 after boarding in those cards.

I (Miracle control) remove all my counterspells, and put 2 disenchant, 1 path to exile, 1 snapcaster mage (3 total), 1 enlightened tutor, 1 moat, 1 engineered explosives (2 total), 1 terminus (4 total), 1 timely reinforcements and 2 surgical extraction in.
Counterspells are useless in this matchup, so the least you can do is replace them for less useless cards or even usefull cards.
All those cards (except for surgical extraction) are used to delay Goblins.
The strategy is to build your manabase and actively search for moat/entreat the angels from the start. Jace is decent in this matchup when timed correctly. And sometimes you can just fateseal for the win. Moat isn't an auto-win, but can delay enough to get a Jace or entreat the angels. I went 3-1 this way, but we will test this matchup some more.

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Surgical over CS?

I remove 4 FoW, 3 Counterbalance, 2 Counterspell and 2 Spell Pierce. They lose their use almost entirely, because of Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls. I'd rather have a snapcaster chumping one of his ringleaders/matrons, and surgical extract or even just get information of his hand than a counterspell or fow, that's not doing anything.
The goblin pilot will play his important creatures via Vial or Cavern anyway.
The only possible play I would make is using FoW turn1 to counter a Vial. But I don't like to 2 for 1 myself when I play disenchant in this case.

If we are bringing in Surgical against goblins I can figure out why we're having a difficult time against them.

The way to beat then is do what UW landstill would, stick a Moat or Humility. Timely Reinforcements or Lingering Souls followed up by a Humility is insane against them. Blue Elemental Blast is fine as well, as it's ok against Sneak Attack decks and storm.

Hmm yeah it seems like the goblins match-up is going to be tough no matter what. I do like the idea of maybe boarding in the stoneforge + batterskull though (I like to play straight UW miracles). Moat and waiting for a big entreat the angels is a possibility. Humility could be good if you follow up a terminus with it, but it can also do absolutely nothing if you haven't managed to clear the board or put a batterskull in play. Bottom line, I hate the matchup :)