Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by SageShadows

What do you guys think about the Death and Taxes match-up? I went against two yesterday and one a few weeks back. I've succeeded in drawing the first two and getting face stomped in the win and in yesterday. I don't know if I'm just playing poorly or if it's a genuinely hard match-up. Non-pyroclasm related thoughts? =P

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I hadn't had too much trouble with it. I treat it like a lot of the fair midrangey MUs and board in extra bombs like Entreat and Elspeth. Counterbalance really isn't bad against them if you can stop their Vial. Needles, more sweepers, and extra artifact hate are also solid. I feel like it's an easier Maverick since they can't shut you down with Teeg. Watch out for mana denial and don't walk into Cataclysm. What about the MU in particular was giving you trouble?

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Originally Posted by Dzra

I hadn't had too much trouble with it. I treat it like a lot of the fair midrangey MUs and board in extra bombs like Entreat and Elspeth. Counterbalance really isn't bad against them if you can stop their Vial. Needles, more sweepers, and extra artifact hate are also solid. I feel like it's an easier Maverick since they can't shut you down with Teeg. Watch out for mana denial and don't walk into Cataclysm. What about the MU in particular was giving you trouble?

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Revoker on Top with no Swords in hand sucks.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Revoker on Top with no Swords in hand sucks.

-Matt

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Yeah true. Revoker on Top is a pain. Still, it's infinitely easier to deal with that instead of a Pithing Needle.

I've always found D&T to be difficult. Revoker, Thalia, Vial, Mana denial, etc. Also Cataclysm post-board is unbeatable if it resolves.

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Originally Posted by SageShadows

What do you guys think about the Death and Taxes match-up? I went against two yesterday and one a few weeks back. I've succeeded in drawing the first two and getting face stomped in the win and in yesterday. I don't know if I'm just playing poorly or if it's a genuinely hard match-up. Non-pyroclasm related thoughts? =P

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It really depends on the skill of DnT player. If you really want to go after that deck, Porphyry Nodes is one option. Just be aware of Thalia and Mother at all times. Oh, don't forget about Cataclysm. It caught me off guard once.

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Originally Posted by L-Luck

I'm running the following list to decent local success. It's mainly designed to destroy RUG, Elves and random decks and that's what it does.

Just make sure to keep enough win conditions in in matchups where you board out Jaces (RUG ie.). If there was a single card solution to make the bad Goblins matchup better, I would be open to suggestions. Everything else feels at least even. I guessainly because nobody plays those weird decks you apparently never win against here like 12 Post or Enchantress.

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If you are focusing on RUG delver, I would suggest at least 1 Supreme Verdict. When you want to mass removal, you just want to do it outright, why bother with the risk of Spell Pierce or Stifle Miracle trigger? Better yet, Verdict would also work against Goblins.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

I hadn't had too much trouble with it. I treat it like a lot of the fair midrangey MUs and board in extra bombs like Entreat and Elspeth. Counterbalance really isn't bad against them if you can stop their Vial. Needles, more sweepers, and extra artifact hate are also solid. I feel like it's an easier Maverick since they can't shut you down with Teeg. Watch out for mana denial and don't walk into Cataclysm. What about the MU in particular was giving you trouble?

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Pretty much everything. Vial on turn one happens a lot more than expected and Cavern of Souls always rears its head. Every card that they draw is essentially a threat to me that I need to deal with (for example, Mother of Runes basically makes you use a StP on her or wait until you have two, etc...). Mana denial hits pretty hard as well and is sometimes unavoidable (especially if you're trying to Wear/Tear an artifact), along with Thalias so I can't really get any defenses going. Revoker on Top, like someone said earlier, locked me out of a Terminus on the top. You really don't have an option to not walk into a Cataclysm because you need mana to Entreat and fight through Ports/Wastelands/Thalia/Mangara (although I actually tied a match because the guy Cataclysmed at the wrong time...). Granted, I've lost only 1 match against them, but the other times, I couldn't find for the life of me how to finish games on time and actually win instead of finishing Game 2 with 3 minutes left.

Also Flickerwisps show up a lot in taking out Angel tokens...

Regarding the DnT matchup, sulfur elemental takes out moms, Thalias, mangaras, flickerwisps (though they still can flicker something) at instant speed, so you can do it in response to port or wasteland activations on your red sources. They also can't save their legendaries with karakas or give something protection one last time with mom. If you're on the red splash, sulfur elemental is probably one of the best cards you can bring in against them.

Against Death and Taxes red prooves once again, why it is the best splashcolor for the Miracle-Archetype. Pyroclasm can be maindecked, but is a very strong sideboardcard by itself too. Even though Mother can protect her fellows from Clasm it still is a cc2-wipe-the-board. But if I'd construct a manabase for a metagame, with DnT as a sure component I would defintiely consider more red sources mainboard, or even a Mountain. In addition to Pyroclasm, which has many applications besides the white men - not to forget it's strength when combined with RIP - red offers, as pointed out earlier, Sulfur Elemental. This card is more narrow as it is only geared towards DnT, Maverick, Lingering Souls.dec but stronger than Pyroclasm in this very matchup. Instant, a body, unprotectable and permanent sweepeffect is just that great.
Plus Sulfur Elemental serves another purpose. I once played in a win-and-in-match for Top8, opponent was Junk (without Mother of Runes + Lingering Souls - so Elemental wouldn't hit a creature). I won the first game after 30 minutes, G2 I died quickly to manascrew and I started G3 with about 10 minutes or so on the clock. Could I win this? Well sure, I boardet out slow cards and boardet in all possible creatures I had, all removal, and all spells that could be used as removal - Jace. I started with Top, T2 Mystic (had 2 mb), T3 Clique, T4 Elemental into the win. 2 Minutes on the clock when he was dead. This possibilty is not to be overlooked. Little tricks like this and my way of playing (fast as lightning - though obv. never without flaws) enabled me to draw only one single match of sanctioned Legacy with the Miracles Archetype.


One topic I want to bring up once again is how you build your manabase. The manabase I played at GP Strasbourg (to be seen in my signature) was greedy...very greedy. But it worked out well over the course of two days. How do you structure your manabase? If I had to I'd define the following options:

1) 23-24 lands. Quite some utilitylands, couple of basics, couple of duals, lots of fetches. This is probably the strongest manabase in the meaning of what it can do. Different utilitylands open up new possibilities in lategame and the more fetchlands you have the better does your Top get.
2) 21-22 lands. Alot of basics, Duals and Fetchlands. Probably 0-1 utilitylands. A very stable way of deploying mana is laying out lands that tap for U/W. Though there always is the possibility to stumble on landdrops on T4/5.
3) 20-21 lands. Plays either Cantrips and/or manadeploying cards like Land Tax or Tithe. You will probably never get flooded early, but once again - may stumble on landdrops in the midgame. Though a low landcount enables drawing more bombs lategame it may seem dangerous.

-- this point of view is largely simplified, but should demonstrate the different opinions when building a manabase. Which do you prefer?

I always played with about 23 lands, and some utility-stuff for the lategame. The high landcount stems from the simply reason, that I tested alot against a very good tempopilot. Though I reached a point where my deck could manage to squeeze out win after win it was mostly due to the high land count and the strong maindecked cards like RIP/Verdict. Playing with less lands always ended in a disaster for me. Stumbling on landdrops. wasting of Brainstorms and stuff like this make it very hard for me to play less than 23. If I had to play 22 I'd probably play a 100%mana-manabase. Only Duals, Fetchlands and Basics. I don't even know if I'd play one or two wastelandable plains.

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Originally Posted by Einherjer

1) 23-24 lands. Quite some utilitylands, couple of basics, couple of duals, lots of fetches. This is probably the strongest manabase in the meaning of what it can do. Different utilitylands open up new possibilities in lategame and the more fetchlands you have the better does your Top get.
2) 21-22 lands. Alot of basics, Duals and Fetchlands. Probably 0-1 utilitylands. A very stable way of deploying mana is laying out lands that tap for U/W. Though there always is the possibility to stumble on landdrops on T4/5.
3) 20-21 lands. Plays either Cantrips and/or manadeploying cards like Land Tax or Tithe. You will probably never get flooded early, but once again - may stumble on landdrops in the midgame. Though a low landcount enables drawing more bombs lategame it may seem dangerous.

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Great breakdown and a very good topic. I have played and thoroughly enjoyed a lot of UW Miracles (no splash) and found the magic number of lands to be exactly 22, which I split between a utility land (sometimes a second Karakas) and another fetch, or two extra fetches. I started with a 20 land list with 4 Ponders and found through several matches that 20 lands put you in danger territory, even if you have 4 additional filter/draw/shuffle effects and an active Top.

In my experience even with Top in play you can get 3 really shitty cards coming up (sometimes for several turns) with no shuffle effects and Ponder requires a single blue mana, which in the early stages of your match you really need for counterspells. I replaced 2 Ponders with 2 fetches to give me the extra possibilities for land drops and have preferred it, all the while knowing that I'm playing a format where Wasteland and Stifle are played.

I think 24 lands is excessive with the amount of cantripping and filtering you can do, but I understand if you are running more lands specifically for utility and less for more mana.

Back to Ponder: I have not regretted cutting 2 of them in my list, and I totally get that A. It's a filter, cantrip, AND possible shuffle, B. It can help you get what you need RIGHT AWAY, and C. It ups your blue count for Force of Will. I just found way too often that I was looking for lands with it, possibly more than 90% of the time.

4 Brainstorms, 2 Ponders, 4 Sensei's Divining Tops, and 3 Jaces is probably enough, I think, and 22 lands is enough to get reliable land drops and less of a chance of drawing lands late game when you really don't need them. But by then you should be winning and have a Top in play, etc...

Also, I fully acknowledge that it has been proven on this thread that the difference between 20-21-22 lands is very marginal, but when those extra lands are fetches I feel it shores up a major weakness of this deck: überdurdling.

With storm on the rise do you seem UWr becoming even stronger / more popular?

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Originally Posted by kingsey

With storm on the rise do you seem UWr becoming even stronger / more popular?

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Why would this particular version wield any significant advantage? Pyroclasm and Blasts?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Why would this particular version wield any significant advantage? Pyroclasm and Blasts?

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I think he just means the Miracles archtype in general... but perhaps he's referring to ANT's higher dependence on cantrips and the fact that ANT has seen a lot of publicity lately? (although I think TES is both scarier and better positioned in the meta)


Also, that Miracles list that top 8'd SCG recently looks familiar. Congrats if it's one of us! I think the higher number of Death and Taxes (and any trend that hinders Shardless BUG) is good for Miracles.

ha ha ha~~

Christopher Hawker's RiP Helm
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=58693

I find Chris's version's very cute. Tutor for Seat of Synod? 1 Karakas but no legendary creature, blind anticipating opponent's legendary creature.

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Originally Posted by twndomn

Tutor for Seat of Synod?

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I've actually thought about this before and there have definitely been games where I wish I had one (to be fair though, I still just prefer an Island).

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Originally Posted by twndomn

ha ha ha~~

Christopher Hawker's RiP Helm
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=58693

I find Chris's version's very cute. Tutor for Seat of Synod? 1 Karakas but no legendary creature, blind anticipating opponent's legendary creature.

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Seat:

I've played with it and I like it. It's never negatively impacted me, but being able to tutor for my fourth land has won me several games. There's also the infrequently-relavent-but-still-there possibility to put a 0 on top to counter lotus petal, LED, Ancestral Visions, etc.

Karakas:

I'm not playing any legenedaries, so I finally dropped my Karakas. I figure that in order to draw it often enough to be useful, I probably need more than one and in those matchups, Karakas probably isn't the best thing I could be doing anyway.

e.tutor for seat is also nice if you want to dump the hand and hide behind ensnaring bridge (allthough it's not in his list)

Or to grab a tutorable zero for Counterbalance if you've already blown EE.

Also, this happened yesterday at a 95-man. This is why you run Red: to blow Jund out with Blood Moon. Then, you bend them over a table with EE on 2, apparently:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psa18e99c8.jpg

Nice 4 for 1, Curt.

-Matt

Back to Basics would work without splashing red

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Back to Basics would work without splashing red

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I think that if you're going to go the route of interfering with an opponent's manabase then it's worth going for the absolute lock of Blood Moon. This strategy is the most advantageous for Miracles in the matchups against the BGx decks of the format, which also pack Deathrite Shaman and, most importantly, Abrupt Decay. With Back to Basics the BGx decks still have live draws into their Abrupt Decay/Deathrite Shaman colours, and they can relatively easily fight their way back.

It isn't nearly as easy for those decks to combat Blood Moon. If you resolve Blood Moon on a board that doesn't have a Shaman then you force them to have the Decay (and the available mana open to play it) or the game is basically over. Even with a Shaman online all it takes is a removal spell or a Rest In Peace to secure the lock. I run 2 Blood Moons (sideboard) with 2 Enlightened Tutors and found that I consistently put down a Moon early enough to severely cripple my opponents.

I feel like I can count the number of games that I've lost to BGx decks after resolving a Blood Moon on one hand. It's the best. Play multiples.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Back to Basics would work without splashing red

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Not the same. Anyways, Blood Moon is not the reason to splash red, and tipically only an careless Jund player lets himself get caught by a Blood Moon.

Wow, just wow, I'm on life tilt after this evening. How on earth do you beat Shardless BUG with UWr miracles? I lost 0-6 to a friend of mine and 2 of those were with sideboard.

Even with a resolved Counterbalance that does not get removed with decay I still loose to the deck, incredible. Do you have any suggestions on lines of play, sideboarding here? I run a 3 swords, 3 terminus, 2 ponder main and after board I have 2 pyroclasm, 2 supreme verdict, 2 RiP and 3 reb's on top of that. I board out FoW, Counterspell and 1 clique and 1 venser and what else should I take out? (have two of each main) Is this the wrong way to go?

I know this is probably the wrong forum to ask this since we are all amateurs at some point, but I would appreciate a pep talk since I am to play this deck in 4 days time in a huge tournament and feel crushed right now. Even to the point where I feel maybe Patriot is the deck I should play instead... zzz.. hate tempodecks but still.

I can say with some confidence that you do not want to be taking out Clique and Venser. Clique is good at attacking planeswalkers and clearing up your hand of uncastable Miracles. Venser is just about the best card possible against Liliana. If your opponent is playing those then you must leave it in. Bringing in Pyroclasm and Supreme Verdict might be too much removal.

Shardless BUG isn't easy; the matchup favors them. But not by a lot. You should be able to take a reasonable number of matches off them.

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Originally Posted by useL

Wow, just wow, I'm on life tilt after this evening. How on earth do you beat Shardless BUG with UWr miracles? I lost 0-6 to a friend of mine and 2 of those were with sideboard.

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I'm not the most experienced BUG Agent player, but I'm something like 75% against alphastryk when we've tested the matchup. The best two ways to win are Blood Moon if I tap out or an Entreat for 3+. Sometimes Jace gets there. Rest in Peace usually buys a few turns.

Seems like the only real plan is all Blood Moon, all the time

You also might want to consider playing Misdirection somewhere in your 75. They're great against Shardless BUG (Just think about all of those targets you can Misdirection, including Ancestral Recall, Hymn, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize in a pinch) and do pretty well against any Abrupt Decay deck and any decks where you will expect a large counter war.

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

...all Blood Moon, all the time

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That's the best plan...

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Originally Posted by useL

Even with a resolved Counterbalance that does not get removed with decay I still loose to the deck, incredible. Do you have any suggestions on lines of play, sideboarding here? I run a 3 swords, 3 terminus, 2 ponder main and after board I have 2 pyroclasm, 2 supreme verdict, 2 RiP and 3 reb's on top of that. I board out FoW, Counterspell and 1 clique and 1 venser and what else should I take out? (have two of each main) Is this the wrong way to go?

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Joe's right, do Not board out Clique and Venser.

1. Misdirection/Divert is required. Ancestral Vision/Abrupt Decay/Hymn are all good targets.

2. Have at least 7 creature removals, in any combination of StP, Terminus, and Supreme Verdict. Try to conserve StP on Tarpit, cause it's not easy to trap BUG's Tarpit via Terminus.

3. If you really want to improve this match-up, consider Notion Thief.

Why not trying to be the aggressor instead of trying to handle the field with Terminus, Supreme Verdict and other reactive cards? What about increasing the count of Cliques, Venser and ... most important ... Entreat the Angels to force your opponent into a upside-down-position?

I remember that Carsten once promoted a Miracles-Build without all the boardwipe but more Entreat to solve Delver and Co. with 4/4 Angels rather than throwing 4cc solutions like Supreme Verdict at 1cc-3cc threats.

Did anyone test the idea?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Why not trying to be the aggressor instead of trying to handle the field with Terminus, Supreme Verdict and other reactive cards? What about increasing the count of Cliques, Venser and ... most important ... Entreat the Angels to force your opponent into a upside-down-position?

I remember that Carsten once promoted a Miracles-Build without all the boardwipe but more Entreat to solve Delver and Co. with 4/4 Angels rather than throwing 4cc solutions like Supreme Verdict at 1cc-3cc threats.

Did anyone test the idea?

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Someone Top 8'd with a Quad-Entreat Miracles deck where they said the Entreats were just as good as sweepers in surprising the opponent. Here it is:
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/56070

I personally feel like Terminus is just too good to cut. It's a 1 mana board wipe that can totally catch people off guard. For match ups like DnT, Terminus is very very important when you can't resolve a big Entreat due to mana disruption. Other times, it can be hard to fight through Spell Pierce/Daze/Wastelands/Ports.

In my experience, Swords is almost always reserved for Tar Pit. REB needs to hit Jace, Ancestral, or Tar Pit.

Blood Moon of course is very good if it can be dropped early or onto a clean board. There are some board states where Blood Moon does nothing or even hinders you as well though.

RIP is pretty good for resetting Goyfs and Deathrites, but expect it to receive an Abrupt Decay. Recently I'm considering boarding out the Helm and just leaving 2-3 RIPs in the deck solely for stalling purposes.

Entreat and Elspeth are both very good and probably your main wincons, along with occasional Venser/Clique beats. Elspeth jumping your Venser is particularly nice since they have practically no answer for that. Like Carsten and Lemnear mentioned, if you have the opportunity to be the aggressor in this MU then take it.

I've found bringing in all the Leylines of Sanctity to be overkill since they likely board out some of their hand disruption, but I like bringing in a mise Leyline to tutor for if they threaten Liliana.

You probably don't need a ton of extra sweepers, especially sorcery speed ones because Tar Pit and Jace are also huge threats that are just as likely to kill you as their multitude of value weenies. You can bring in like one extra Supreme Verdict if you want or maybe a Pyroclasm, but more is overkill and won't help you against their planeswalkers and Tar Pits.

I would expect them to board out most of their discard and to bring in Lilianas, Maelstrom Pulses, and Golgari Charms. Some of the better Shardless players I've seen will leave in FoW against Miracles since our best routes to victory against them are our big bomby cards, so expect that.

The feeling I got when playing these games was that they came down to the same thing. My hand was empty and his hand was full, he landed threats (deathrite, goyf, bob) that I needed to take care of quite soon. He kept his hymns in and took out his fow's and every game he landed atleast one hymn early, stripping me of venser/jace/clique/lands that I needed to handle his t3/t4 threats. Every game preboard I felt that I struggled to find an entreat and never found it in time to close the match. The counterbalance hardly did anything since he got things on the board before it resolved most of the time and just waited for a decay/pulse and then took care of it.

After board I could see myself board 3 reb, 2 blood moon, 1 verdict, 2 misdirection and that being the optimal sideboard, but then on the other hand, he slams a bob and goes to town and I cant find the plow fast enough. Just one little card can turn the whole game if I dont have the right answer for it.

I will try your sideboard changes this friday and hope it helps.

To me the matchup vs Shardless BUG is about beating their cardadvantage from Visions and Jace. Their clock is not very fast so I wouldn't worry to much about their goyfs and shardless agents beating down.
Miracles have Entreat so the super-late-game will favor us from about any boardposition. Because of that the Shardless-BUG opponent is often forced to be proactive. Thoughtseize, Hymn and liliana serves that purpose and normaly bury us in cardadvantage/disadvantage before we can entreat for the win. From time to time there might be a few FoW left in their deck post-board but I wouldn't worry so much about that. I personally think FoW is better than Hymn like Dzra mentioned but it's still a fair and very beatable card.

I think we can all agree that FoW is bad vs Hymn to tourach. But I would rather shrug Hymn of than try to fight it with Divert/Misdirection. Because our gameplan is to Entreat we don't want conditional topdecks on our way to the super-late-game. All those conditional cards only makes their otherwise dead discard live again. As long as you keep their blue cards (and liliana) out of the way you will get virtual CA from the fact that they draw a worthless hymn every now and then when you have no hand (and perhaps a top and a jace in play). I would go with Lemnear's advice and increase the number of Entreats (or other "bombs") post-board instead of trying to fight their discard. The best card by far versus them are red blasts. If you send me your list we can discuss that. In general I would advice against keeping situational cards and keep reactive, discardable, cards to a minimum.

I normally board;
-4 fow -4 Stp -2 snare
+4 blasts +1 needle +2 rip +1 EE +1 entreat +1 verdict

If they also have bob I would keep stp and remove terminus instead and keep spell snare over CS. He matters that much.

Keep all creatures with flash as they are the best way to fight lilly.

Notion thief must be killed on sight so STP is ok to take heat of your overworking red blasts.

Red is indeed important at fighting Shardless BUG, as you guys clarified above. But even white offers good cards they don't want to see.

1) Elspeth, Knight Errant: A big white Bomb, protects itself, offers a fast clock and a very useful ultimate.
2) Baneslayer Angel: Can't be Decayed, is big enough to block most of their threats, only Tarmogoyf might be a problem if we happen to have no RIP, Lifelink for stalling purposes, 5 dmg in the air for killing purposes.
3) Timely Reinforcements: Easily castable, stabilises on both, board and lifetotal, offer a good possibility to threaten opposing planeswalkers (just like Lingering Souls would), card lives to it's full potenial in Snapcaster Mage's build.sadly they are strictly worse than either RIP or Legend ones)
4) Entreat the Angles: Opponents don't play taxing counters, hence the card lives up to it's full potential, smashes hordes of attacking creatures, threatens opposing Walkers and offers a fast way to victory.

Your plan should probably evolve about your own Walkers, wipe the board, smash Elspeth/Jace. As long as they don't have 1-2 Visions going off you should be in a good position. If they have those Visions? Well, everybody gotta die somewhen. This is not a good MU, but no reason to run around screaming or anything. Prepare for them, smash them. Lack answers in your sideboard? Well, guess who's fault it is, you aren't winning?

Oh and yes, REB + Moon is awesome.

Greetings

Does anyone have some advice for the matchups vs the MUD decks? I have not faced it yet, but after thinking about how the matchup goes and potential sideboard plans I have no idea what to board. I use Joe's list and I think - 1 flusterstorm -1 counterbalance -1 misdirection -3 FOW -1 RIP + 2 EE +1 entreat +1 needle +1 wear//tear +1 venser is how i would board.
Does anyone have advice and/or suggestions for this matchup?

A friend of mine plays MUD, and on our way to Top64 at GP Strasbourg we battled each other in Round 9 of D1. I didn't play the MU a lot but probably more than others - cause I actually have played it yet :D

I lost the said game in R9. 0-2. How I think you should approach the MUD-MU?
Keep Forces in, max the Forces. Their stuff is unfair. You don't want a Karn to resolve, you don't want a Chalice to resolve, especially when you are OtD. Keep those Forces. Max on Removal. It is a very easy game, basically: He deploys threat, you handle it. It gets tough when the opponent starts to manascrew you WHILE deploying threats. That's how I lost at the GP. But they don't have everything all the time. Plan on smashing Jace T4 - that's your goal #1. Jace acts as permanent removal and grants you enough time to draw into removal. In the sideboard you want Disenchant/Wear//Tear and Humility. Keep in Spell Pierces too. Board out the RIP/Helm and the Counterbalances.

I hope I could help you something.

Greetings

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Originally Posted by SageShadows

You also might want to consider playing Misdirection somewhere in your 75. They're great against Shardless BUG (Just think about all of those targets you can Misdirection, including Ancestral Recall, Hymn, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize in a pinch) and do pretty well against any Abrupt Decay deck and any decks where you will expect a large counter war.

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This.

It's not that Counterbalance can't handle Ancestral Visions and more Entreats mean more 3cc cards to flip to CB :/

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Originally Posted by Einherjer

Keep Forces in, max the Forces. Their stuff is unfair. You don't want a Karn to resolve, you don't want a Chalice to resolve, especially when you are OtD. Keep those Forces. Max on Removal. It is a very easy game, basically: He deploys threat, you handle it. It gets tough when the opponent starts to manascrew you WHILE deploying threats. That's how I lost at the GP. But they don't have everything all the time. Plan on smashing Jace T4 - that's your goal #1. Jace acts as permanent removal and grants you enough time to draw into removal. In the sideboard you want Disenchant/Wear//Tear and Humility. Keep in Spell Pierces too. Board out the RIP/Helm and the Counterbalances.

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Yeah, pretty much this. I'd take out Counterbalances and some number of RIPs. Leaving in one and Helm isn't awful if you don't need the room, but if you can find stuff to board in, I would. Like Einherjer said, max out on counter magic (especially FoW) and max out on removal of all sorts (Terminus, Verdict, Swords, ORing, DSphere, EE, etc). Venser is really great for bouncing their expensive guys or even just for stalling them. Clique is pretty solid since they have a lot of dead draws. Pithing Needle is recommended mainly to name Karn or Forgemaster, but they have a ton of Needle targets to hit. Entreat is also pretty hard for them to deal with, especially if they've hit themselves with Ancient Tomb a couple times.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

It's not that Counterbalance can't handle Ancestral Visions and more Entreats mean more 3cc cards to flip to CB :/

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Counterbalance really isn't bad against BUG, it's just unreliable. Yes, it will always trade one-for-one or better, and sometimes they won't find the Decay for a while and you'll get some good value. A lot of the time though, you'll have a Counterbalance + Top and are feeling good facing down one counter left on their Ancestral Visions only to have them Abrupt Decay during your end step. All that said... I'd leave in the Counterbalances if I had room, but I'd rather board in bombs and hope to win by going over the top. Just accept the fact that you will likely go into topdeck mode (either through discard or their multitude of 2-for-1s) and work to set up the quickest, biggest Entreat that you can.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

Counterbalance really isn't bad against BUG, it's just unreliable. Yes, it will always trade one-for-one or better, and sometimes they won't find the Decay for a while and you'll get some good value. A lot of the time though, you'll have a Counterbalance + Top and are feeling good facing down one counter left on their Ancestral Visions only to have them Abrupt Decay during your end step. All that said... I'd leave in the Counterbalances if I had room, but I'd rather board in bombs and hope to win by going over the top. Just accept the fact that you will likely go into topdeck mode (either through discard or their multitude of 2-for-1s) and work to set up the quickest, biggest Entreat that you can.

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I feel like boarding in as many targets for the Abrupt Decays is best. Though I haven't played enough games to say with any certainty, Joe explained that you want to overload them with as many Abrupt Decay targets as possible. If you can get even one enchantment to stick (hopefully Rest in Peace), you'll be ahead of the game. Don't side out things to allow their Abrupt Decay to hit your most powerful things. Definitely try to set up Entreat though; that card is bloody amazing and an Entreat with a REB backup for any Forces is great.

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Originally Posted by SageShadows

I feel like boarding in as many targets for the Abrupt Decays is best. Though I haven't played enough games to say with any certainty, Joe explained that you want to overload them with as many Abrupt Decay targets as possible. If you can get even one enchantment to stick (hopefully Rest in Peace), you'll be ahead of the game. Don't side out things to allow their Abrupt Decay to hit your most powerful things. Definitely try to set up Entreat though; that card is bloody amazing and an Entreat with a REB backup for any Forces is great.

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Actually, I'm not even sure with RiP = will be ahead statement. It is still possible to get your life total chipped to death by Tarpit and Shardless.

The problem is not protecting your Entreat. If I had REB at some point in my hand, I would have probably spent it on Ancestral Vision or Jace or Tarpit, if not getting discarded by Liliana and others already.

I've been really digging Misdirection in my build lately and have been testing 1-2 maindeck. It's just so good against BUG and Jund and can function as a pseudo-counterspell is so many situations.

I'm playing a UWr build with 3 MD RIPs and 1 Helm, so Misdirection is really necessary.