Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by kentheide

Could be controversial and me swearing in the church, but do you really need Mishra's Factory in this list? Honestly? When you've got a few standstills under your belt and fired off your cantrips in between you should be so further ahead on cards that you should be able to just slam a Mentor and ride it home. I might be wrong, but with Mentor, I just don't see the Factory and vice versa.

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We were going through a thought experiment focused on what would happen if we changed certain cards in the 'stock' topless miracles list, ultimately challenging the list to ensure it's ideal. One of those thought experiments was the cantrips discussion you've seen playout above: Portent vs Preordain. Another, which I think is still playing out, is the removal question: UA vs EE vs CJ. The third is the question of card advantage / draw. One of the options I am interested in is Predict vs Standstill, which may be relegated to the UW Standstill thread, but Stefanogs posted his list which abuses the later. So to answer your question, Mishra's factory is not needed and is not part of the 'stock' topless miracles list. However, once you start exploring Standstill it starts to make more sense...

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Originally Posted by Minniehajj

I've changed my mind about the necessity of Portent vs. Preordain. I think Portent is better in a control shell for a few reasons:

• Preordain is a good card on its own, but also creates a great scenario when going off with Mentor.
• Portent is not super great as a raw card, but it controls the rest of the deck and sets up your engine.

You essentially need to figure out what you value most, and that controls how many copies of Predict/Terminus you're able to run, and which direction and style you're shifting to.
This valuation system might create a bit of a schism in deck development, and you might be moving towards a different deck than what most would consider "Miracles" or a "control deck" and that is totally okay!

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This is the exact reason why I still choose to play Portent despite all the good reasons I can come up with to play Preordain. Portent just makes the deck run smoother even though it's, in theory, a "worse card" objectively speaking. I also think one often downplays the aggressiveness of the alternate uses Portent has once you are pulling ahead.

After three medium tournaments (one with 5 round and two with six swiss round) my actual score Is 17 win ,1 draw, 0 lost. The deck seems so strong, it has more speed, expect for the draw I never go to time and I always finish with 25/15 minutes left.
I saw people speaking about portent and I wanna had a couple of things regarding this cantrip, in a meta where leovold Is quite played having a cantrip that makes you draw is a good thing cause we could continue to dig for an answer, second Is that sometimes we go in control of the game and portent the opp Is a really smart move, and if we are holding a predict too we can predict the only problematic card we find in the opp deck.

This is my actual decklist:
// 60 Maindeck
// 1 Artifact
1 Engineered Explosives

// 5 Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor

// 21 Instant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Predict
4 Force of Will
2 Unexpectedly Absent

// 20 Land
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

// 2 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// 11 Sorcery
3 Portent
4 Ponder
4 Terminus


// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Creature
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest

// 9 Instant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return

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Originally Posted by Wiky

After three medium tournaments (one with 5 round and two with six swiss round) my actual score Is 17 win ,1 draw, 0 lost. The deck seems so strong, it has more speed, expect for the draw I never go to time and I always finish with 25/15 minutes left.
I saw people speaking about portent and I wanna had a couple of things regarding this cantrip, in a meta where leovold Is quite played having a cantrip that makes you draw is a good thing cause we could continue to dig for an answer, second Is that sometimes we go in control of the game and portent the opp Is a really smart move, and if we are holding a predict too we can predict the only problematic card we find in the opp deck.

This is my actual decklist:
// 60 Maindeck
// 1 Artifact
1 Engineered Explosives

// 5 Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor

// 21 Instant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Predict
4 Force of Will
2 Unexpectedly Absent

// 20 Land
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

// 2 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// 11 Sorcery
3 Portent
4 Ponder
4 Terminus


// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Creature
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest

// 9 Instant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return

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Great results Milky! How were the two UA? Any changes you'd make?

When a deck has 100% winrate I find hard to make change.
UA in this new shell Is just overpowered, cause we could have finally a great answer to PW, chalice and vial.it is another engine for predict and it hepls saving pieces like snap/ mentor and Jace.

I am on the same list as you except for -1 EE +1 JTMS. I have to go back on what I said about UA. Council has been so underwhelming in testing I start to think that it was played with cb pretty much for the cc3. I might try a split of 1 UA 1 EE. I don't want to cut jtms ATM as it's too good in this deck to only play 2.

Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Wiky

After three medium tournaments (one with 5 round and two with six swiss round) my actual score Is 17 win ,1 draw, 0 lost. The deck seems so strong, it has more speed, expect for the draw I never go to time and I always finish with 25/15 minutes left.
I saw people speaking about portent and I wanna had a couple of things regarding this cantrip, in a meta where leovold Is quite played having a cantrip that makes you draw is a good thing cause we could continue to dig for an answer, second Is that sometimes we go in control of the game and portent the opp Is a really smart move, and if we are holding a predict too we can predict the only problematic card we find in the opp deck.

This is my actual decklist:
// 60 Maindeck
// 1 Artifact
1 Engineered Explosives

// 5 Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor

// 21 Instant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Predict
4 Force of Will
2 Unexpectedly Absent

// 20 Land
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

// 2 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// 11 Sorcery
3 Portent
4 Ponder
4 Terminus


// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Creature
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest

// 9 Instant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return

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Great results. I will have to try it (except with AoZ in the SB). Do you have trouble winning in time? With only 2 JTMS and Mentor, winning quickly seems unlikely.

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Originally Posted by Wiky

After three medium tournaments (one with 5 round and two with six swiss round) my actual score Is 17 win ,1 draw, 0 lost. The deck seems so strong, it has more speed, expect for the draw I never go to time and I always finish with 25/15 minutes left.
I saw people speaking about portent and I wanna had a couple of things regarding this cantrip, in a meta where leovold Is quite played having a cantrip that makes you draw is a good thing cause we could continue to dig for an answer, second Is that sometimes we go in control of the game and portent the opp Is a really smart move, and if we are holding a predict too we can predict the only problematic card we find in the opp deck.

This is my actual decklist:
// 60 Maindeck
// 1 Artifact
1 Engineered Explosives

// 5 Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor

// 21 Instant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Predict
4 Force of Will
2 Unexpectedly Absent

// 20 Land
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

// 2 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// 11 Sorcery
3 Portent
4 Ponder
4 Terminus


// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Creature
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest

// 9 Instant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return

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Nice! Doesn't that just mean that you won all 3 of the tournaments? Nice list you've got there too.

To clarify, in case people don't remember, Wiky is Angelo Cadei :)

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Originally Posted by Drzed

I am on the same list as you except for -1 EE +1 JTMS. I have to go back on what I said about UA. Council has been so underwhelming in testing I start to think that it was played with cb pretty much for the cc3. I might try a split of 1 UA 1 EE. I don't want to cut jtms ATM as it's too good in this deck to only play 2.

Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk

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I would recommend doing the following: move the EE to the SB, cut the 2nd Disenchant. I've spoken to Angelo about this and I think he has too much anti-bullshit cards, but he prefers it :) So if you are going to make that cut, I would recommend doing that.

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Originally Posted by Wiky

When a deck has 100% winrate I find hard to make change.
UA in this new shell Is just overpowered, cause we could have finally a great answer to PW, chalice and vial.it is another engine for predict and it hepls saving pieces like snap/ mentor and Jace.

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17-0-1 is insane. Good work. Have you played against any Lands or Post-style decks? How do you find those without Blood Moon?

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Originally Posted by Minniehajj

I would recommend doing the following: move the EE to the SB, cut the 2nd Disenchant. I've spoken to Angelo about this and I think he has too much anti-bullshit cards, but he prefers it :) So if you are going to make that cut, I would recommend doing that.

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I think it depends alot on the meta you have around if u want the EE main or not. I always loved EE in an open field but ATM in my area there's alot of reanimator so I might be unable to test it properly. As I already said i love 4 terminus even if the setup cost is heavy as playing 4 allow you to topdeck them more so it's not really bad. I'll give the list a try and see how it works [emoji16]

Yes, I split the three finals. I don't think is hard finish the game in time, the deck without top Is more fast.
I play ee instead of third jace just because I fear more losing by chalice or vial in g1, but it is reasonable to play the third jace.
Expect in test I never found lands, when I understand I could beat it without moon I cut the card immediately (I simply dislike it), in this way my sideboard is more complete to fight all the field.

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Originally Posted by Wiky

Yes, I split the three finals. I don't think is hard finish the game in time, the deck without top Is more fast.
I play ee instead of third jace just because I fear more losing by chalice or vial in g1, but it is reasonable to play the third jace.
Expect in test I never found lands, when I understand I could beat it without moon I cut the card immediately (I simply dislike it), in this way my sideboard is more complete to fight all the field.

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The argument for EE replacement has to be something that can also take care Chalice and TNN, hence CJ would be that candidate. But if EE works fine, no need to flashback this spell, then why change at all?

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Originally Posted by Wiky

After three medium tournaments (one with 5 round and two with six swiss round) my actual score Is 17 win ,1 draw, 0 lost. The deck seems so strong, it has more speed, expect for the draw I never go to time and I always finish with 25/15 minutes left.
I saw people speaking about portent and I wanna had a couple of things regarding this cantrip, in a meta where leovold Is quite played having a cantrip that makes you draw is a good thing cause we could continue to dig for an answer, second Is that sometimes we go in control of the game and portent the opp Is a really smart move, and if we are holding a predict too we can predict the only problematic card we find in the opp deck.

This is my actual decklist:
// 60 Maindeck
// 1 Artifact
1 Engineered Explosives

// 5 Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor

// 21 Instant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Predict
4 Force of Will
2 Unexpectedly Absent

// 20 Land
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

// 2 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// 11 Sorcery
3 Portent
4 Ponder
4 Terminus


// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Creature
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest

// 9 Instant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return

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Take win-rates like this with a grain of salt, folks. A majority of that can be attributed to specific match-ups, opponent strength/experience/decision making, lack of proper side-boarding by opponents, intrinsic knowledge of opponents' own decks, etc. I know folks do this all the time to sell points, and while results are very important, it's more important to rationalize the choice of specific cards within the confines of any deck as opposed to a streak of wins in a local, inbred meta.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

Take win-rates like this with a grain of salt, folks. A majority of that can be attributed to specific match-ups, opponent strength/experience/decision making, lack of proper side-boarding by opponents, intrinsic knowledge of opponents' own decks, etc. I know folks do this all the time to sell points, and while results are very important, it's more important to rationalize the choice of specific cards within the confines of any deck as opposed to a streak of wins in a local, inbred meta.

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I'm not selling anything, just quoting my experience with the deck. For knowledge the three tournaments take place in 3 different city in a range of 250 km. So with completely different player from an area to another.
I didn't write after 2 tournaments undefeated, After the third I was thinking I just want to share what my test reach.
I just wanna replace miracle in the tier 1 position, but with people that are so negative it's hard to do. And hard to let me find will to write again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wiky

I'm not selling anything, just quoting my experience with the deck. For knowledge the three tournaments take place in 3 different city in a range of 250 km. So with completely different player from an area to another.
I didn't write after 2 tournaments undefeated, After the third I was thinking I just want to share what my test reach.
I just wanna replace miracle in the tier 1 position, but with people that are so negative it's hard to do. And hard to let me find will to write again.

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This.
Quote.

Anyway thank you so much for the sharing: good info for the community obv.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

Take win-rates like this with a grain of salt, folks. A majority of that can be attributed to specific match-ups, opponent strength/experience/decision making, lack of proper side-boarding by opponents, intrinsic knowledge of opponents' own decks, etc. I know folks do this all the time to sell points, and while results are very important, it's more important to rationalize the choice of specific cards within the confines of any deck as opposed to a streak of wins in a local, inbred meta.

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Cadei is probably the best Miracles player in the world, so this statement is condescending towards someone that has a pedigree of talent and results behind him. Discounting this information is a gross sin.

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Originally Posted by Wiky

I'm not selling anything, just quoting my experience with the deck. For knowledge the three tournaments take place in 3 different city in a range of 250 km. So with completely different player from an area to another.
I didn't write after 2 tournaments undefeated, After the third I was thinking I just want to share what my test reach.
I just wanna replace miracle in the tier 1 position, but with people that are so negative it's hard to do. And hard to let me find will to write again.

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Please don't let one or two strangely negative responses dissuade you! I'm sure the vast majority of people in this thread, including people who never even post, value your insight and comments.

* * *

Not nearly as impressive, but I just had the chance to play 7 rounds of Miracles on Saturday at a local 1K. Unfortunately, I did fairly poorly, finishing 3-4. My losses were to BUG Standstill, Storm, BR Reanimator, Dredge; I won vs. UWr Stoneblade, BG Hexdepths, and Storm. I made a couple large mistakes (including losing a won game 3 in round 2). In my defense, it was only my second 'real' Legacy tournament (i.e., not FNM-style), and I'm still learning the deck and format, but I'm still disappointed I didn't do better -- and disappointed I didn't face many 'fairer' decks (I didn't face a single Delver!). The deck generally felt great, though, and was a lot of fun to play. There's another 1K at the same store in August, so I'm excited to try again, schedule permitting.

I could post a write-up for anyone interested, but I think most people here are better players than I am, so I don't imagine anyone would want to read it. Instead, I'll ask a couple questions, if I may:

1. What is our strategy against Dredge? Mulligan to Surgical / Containment Priest, keep a reasonable hand with cantrips hoping to hit Surgical / etc., or what? Am I correct that Bridge from Below is the primary target for Surgical Extraction? It seems like the most problematic card, since Narcoemebas are a slow clock, Ichorid can be Plowed, etc. Any other thoughts on this matchup? It feels fairly bad to me, but perhaps I just don't have the knowledge to do well.

2. Any tips on playing against Standstill? It felt like waiting to break the Standstill didn't work. My opponent drew too many cards and even though he had to discard he just discarded lands/etc. And it also felt like trying to aggressively break a Standstill and land a threat didn't work, as my opponent had Decay for Mentor and countermagic/Pyroblast for Jace, and if I used resources fighting for a threat, he just resolved another Standstill. Again, I feel like a lack of experience in the matchup really hurt

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Originally Posted by AppallinglyDull

Please don't let one or two strangely negative responses dissuade you! I'm sure the vast majority of people in this thread, including people who never even post, value your insight and comments.

* * *

Not nearly as impressive, but I just had the chance to play 7 rounds of Miracles on Saturday at a local 1K. Unfortunately, I did fairly poorly, finishing 3-4. My losses were to BUG Standstill, Storm, BR Reanimator, Dredge; I won vs. UWr Stoneblade, BG Hexdepths, and Storm. I made a couple large mistakes (including losing a won game 3 in round 2). In my defense, it was only my second 'real' Legacy tournament (i.e., not FNM-style), and I'm still learning the deck and format, but I'm still disappointed I didn't do better -- and disappointed I didn't face many 'fairer' decks (I didn't face a single Delver!). The deck generally felt great, though, and was a lot of fun to play. There's another 1K at the same store in August, so I'm excited to try again, schedule permitting.

I could post a write-up for anyone interested, but I think most people here are better players than I am, so I don't imagine anyone would want to read it. Instead, I'll ask a couple questions, if I may:

1. What is our strategy against Dredge? Mulligan to Surgical / Containment Priest, keep a reasonable hand with cantrips hoping to hit Surgical / etc., or what? Am I correct that Bridge from Below is the primary target for Surgical Extraction? It seems like the most problematic card, since Narcoemebas are a slow clock, Ichorid can be Plowed, etc. Any other thoughts on this matchup? It feels fairly bad to me, but perhaps I just don't have the knowledge to do well.

2. Any tips on playing against Standstill? It felt like waiting to break the Standstill didn't work. My opponent drew too many cards and even though he had to discard he just discarded lands/etc. And it also felt like trying to aggressively break a Standstill and land a threat didn't work, as my opponent had Decay for Mentor and countermagic/Pyroblast for Jace, and if I used resources fighting for a threat, he just resolved another Standstill. Again, I feel like a lack of experience in the matchup really hurt

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1) No, actually, you need to target their recursive threats, ichorid, narcomoeba, and so on, more so than Bridge because they can still "grind" you out by attacking with their recursive threats. Surgicaling bridge is fine, but it's all rather context dependent. You also absolutely need to mulligan towards hate. The matchup is for sure rough but you do have the tools you need to interact.

2) Watch this video: https://youtu.be/B-5C_H2uleI AJ is a great analyst and explains in great detail what you need to do to play against Standstill.