Have you considered cutting Jace for Mentor in this list?
The more you dilute the library manipulation engine (adding Predict, cutting Entreat, etc.) the more it seems like you lean on deck velocity. Mentor seems like a better payoff card in this scenario. Jace isn't great at setting up counterbalance and got a lot of his power from Entreat the Angels, and the traits you just mentioned that make Predict good all synergize with Mentor.
I guess my logic is that the original Miracles began as a prison-style control deck, which didn't actually draw extra cards but generated a lot of virtual card advantage through Counterbalance soft-locks and floating Terminus. In the "harder" matchups (the ones where Terminus is dead), there might be a point where your deck has replaced so many interactive spells with cantrips that you're better off clocking combo than putting a lock together with Jace. Just looking at a list with only 4 Snapcaster, the matchup against things like Storm/Show and Tell seems difficult. Of course, I've always been biased towards those matchups, which is why I maindeck Cliques and took forever to stop running Spell Pierce.
streaming again with predictable miracles! sideboard changed slightly. come watch at twitch.tv/anzi104
So how do I board against lands, and what is a general strategy to employ for the matchup? Is there a post from another page you could refer me to if this question has been recently posed? Thanks for your time and effort.
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Stage 1: Deflecting tutor effect while looking for CounterbalanceOriginally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
Do not allow the Land opponent to find Loam via Gamble, or Crop rotate for quick 20/20 ambush. This should not happen at the early stage of the game. If they happen to just have Loam in their opening, try to find your CB ASAP. This is urgent because Lands will try to apply lockdown via Port and Wastes, even if we are fetching Basic lands. If Land’s locking happens too soon because they have an explosive start, it’s not always easy to find the free UU/fetch to land your CB.
Stage 2: Protect your White source
Once you've passed stage 1, from Land’s perspective, they’ll just try to tap down your White sources, then make 20/20 token at your EoT. Hence it’s important to leave a fetchland intact, but that’s not even certain because they can Stage-copy for more Ports. When you’re certain that you have locked out Crop rotate, Loam, and maybe Crucible in some builds, you can go for Angels or Jace.
Keep in mind, it’s almost 99% certain that Lands will SB-in Abrupt Decay for our Rest in Peace. I tried to SB-in Snapcasters And Rest in Peace, which has actually worked out quite well. We don’t necessarily have to put RiP into play if we don’t see Loam or PFire engine.
As far as SB, I like the overload approach, overload Decay targets. You need the CB and float 2 to shutdown Loam and PFire. You would also anticipate Lands trying to blow you out with Choke.
+1 ~ +2 RiP - self explanatory
+1 ~ +2 Disenchant or Wear//Tear - Choke/Crucible in some builds/Chalice/Sphere of Amethyst
+1 Clique - Timely Clique can get rid of Loam, also emergency 20/20 blocker
+1 Needle - Shutdown Port or Stage
What to take out depending on which Miracles build. To start, I would take out at least 1 JtmS. Landing a JtmS early doesn't mean much, and you expose yourself to Choke. The key is still about denying the Loam engine early game while you look for your CB-T lock. Jace also doesn't help if you're trying to free yourself from Port lock, or you suspect you're about to get 20/20 ambushed.
So is Blood Moon not good here or am I the only one still running it?
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I play it because while it doesn't hose BUG and managreedy decks (ie Lands, Loam) decks, it definitely helps. It just feels bad when you turn off your own fetches so you should bring in more creatures. Basically, we turn into the aggressor if that card lands since we need to kill them before they can remove it.
It's not a bad idea at all, but the issue with cutting down to 1 Jace is that..well, it's Jace. We have a lot more velocity, sure, but when you're looking at cards that "turn the corner" so to speak, I'd rather play Jace than mentor, especially since Jace just draws you more cards forever. We've tried moving the 4th snapcaster to the board and having 1 mentor main, and it works out just fine that way. We've reverted back to the 4 snapcasters main overall, but doing that change is something that you can for sure do if you're worried about not having a decent payoff card. I wouldn't cut the Jace though.
Unfortunately I don't think that's an option. Yes, by playing cheaper draw spells you can lean more on deck's velocity but I don't think that the potential increase in velocity equates to the power drop you sacrifice when you swap out Jace for Mentor. Mentor is extremely vulnerable compared to Jace and doesn't have any of the added benefits, like being able to reset Terminus, etc. Jace is definitely a better "control" card then Mentor. I think if this deck played Mentor over Jace it would have to function more similarly like Mentor Miracles, though I could be wrong about that. If you get a chance to test it out, I'm curious to know how it performs.
RE: Clocking combo - I don't really agree with this point. I think G1 the other "interactive spells" (Clique? Spell Pierce?) are not as powerful as the lock as most combo decks are resilient enough to pummel through a few pieces of hate but not through the CT lock that recurs every turn. Additionally the "interactive spells" are not great against the rest of the field either. Assuming these are correct, I'd rather just have more pieces of the lock or ways to find them. Also clocking combo is not so great because the time you spend developing your clock is time you're spending not preparing for their combo, which gives the combo player the advantage when they go off.
I don't understand the interactive spells; may you be specific, which interactive spells are not great against the rest of the field? Spell Snare?
Let's be specific here. In other words, you prefer to not clocking combo (storm, sneak and show) with Clique or Snapcaster, and you rather "prepare" for their combo. If I were the Sneak and Show player, I would sculpt my hand using cantrips until I can find Boseiju (yes, some MD them as well as SB), since you're not putting threats on the table.
Feel free to clarify.
My reasoning was that in the majority of games where I don't open with Counterbalance + Top, Jace v. Mentor means I can either:
1) play Jace on turn 4, and Brainstorm + play cantrips over the next few turns to find Counterbalance.
or
2) Play Mentor on 3 and play attack + play cantrips to kill them in a few turns.
I'm assuming that Mentor would kill them before Jace would set the combo up, on average. I don't know whether that's actually true, hence the disclaimer. Jace also functions as a "bad Top" in some scenarios where you have Counterbalance, so there's also that.
Really, I was just looking for more payoff cards that can turn games around where you have low resources. Miracles originally had 10 of these (4, CB, 4 Jace, 2 Entreat), and now Ponder lists have gone down to 8 and you as low as 6. Predict is kind of a incremental value card that opens up on the third turn, similar to Snapcaster; Divination isn't much of a payoff. Just re-reading that, I guess it would be stupid to cut Jaces for Mentors, and Snapcaster would make more sense.
Two nitpicks:
1. Mentor is a payoff card, but it is only when you aren't low on resources.
2. It sounds like you just shouldn't play the predict version based on how you want your games to play out. If you want more payoff cards in your list, the obvious cuts from the predict version are the predicts themselves. The somewhat standard 2 mentor euro build is completly fine and you can continue playing it.
All that said, I've felt really good playing the predict list -2 snare +1 plains +1 ETA. I unfortunately learned how good predict can be in a match on MODO with grixis delver when predict bugged with wear//tear and only gave me one card and 10 turns later I needed one more card to turn the corner. Also lol, we've gotten x2 predict up to 30% on mtggoldfish.
How many Miracles players here board out some amount of removal vs. Reanimator? I was told that Miracles often boards out some number of StP at least, and I was wondering how true this is.
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Take out all white cards against reanimator, rely on fighting on the stack.
That would be mzfrozte's good work, also part of our discussion group (along with Mackan and AnziD) =P.
Agreed with all of your points here, especially number 2.
Predict leads to a more controlly build of miracles, especially if you're planning on building around and abusing the card.
For the third point, (you're change) I like it, but after playing with snare in this build I think I'd miss it too much overall. Haven't found ourselves needing ETA a lot, since our sideboard hedges against the matchups where we missed the ETA.
For the record, this is about what we're on atm:
4 Snapcaster
4 Counterbalance
4 Ponder
4 Terminus
4 Brainstorm
4 Plow
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
2 Predict
2 JTMS
4 Top
1 Mountain
4 Island
2 Volc
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
SB:
1 Blood Moon
2 Pyroblast
1 REB
2 Clique
1 Mentor
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Wear//Tear
2 Surgical
3 Flusterstorm
The sideboard is pretty flexible, and where all of us vary the most in, but the biggest necessity in the sideboard is to "fix" the matchups where we miss ETA and the second basic plains, without conceding too many percentage points to the way the deck is constructed.
Hey,
I'd say that an overwhelming majority of experienced Miracle players will not have any removal left vs Reanimator. But there's more to it than just saying that white cards are bad here.
The mindset of not having white cards left is closely interconnected with the idea of beating their most likely 60 cards with the highest amount of reliability. This means that a transition away from removal and towards more counterspells, red blasts and flash creatures is very well suited when you're fighting against Reanimator as you'd expect it to behave: Reanimate+Show and Tell. There's no question about it that removal spells are very bad in this very scenario, which is due to two points. 1) Many cards do not allow you to perfectly assess the situation beforehand, just imagine Show and Tell. You don't really know which creature will enter the battlefield, therefore opening the possibility to draw a wrong conclusion based on your weak premises is a threat. 2) Dealing with Griselbrand once he entered the battlefield is no pleasure at all, no matter how many removal spells you have left in your deck. This is not a scenario you want to engage in with your white cards. Additionally, not all removal spells deal with each threat.
Now, it's not like white cards are bad by nature in this very match-up. They're not. Having Terminus to deal with Inkwell Leviathan or any removal to get rid of the new Jace or, god forbid, Pack rat is an enticing thought. It is therefore not wrong to have white cards left in your deck under one circumstance: You don't have more good cards in your sideboard, like Flusterstorm, Rest in Peace, Red Elemental Blast..., you get the idea. Most sideboards are built the way that a removal of all white cards + Plains (don't forget to board out that card) is beneficial due to the high amount of great cards in the sideboard that are better in most scenarios.
To summarize: White cards (Terminus in particular) are not bad. But most decks are constructed in such a way that they can incorporate superior cards that will allow them to win the majority of games more reliably while accepting to lose vs the occasional: Land+Lotus Petal --> Pack Rat while your hand consists of Flusterstorms and Red Elemental Blasts.
I hope this answered your question. If it didn't, just let me know.
Greetings
Try running From the Ashes instead. In exchange for one extra mana, you get an almost game-ending spell against anything that isn't running enough basics, and that can't be Decayed or Krosan Grip'd. My testing group has found it better in almost every situation.
Not this discussion again
Anyway, I'm not going to do that (from the ashes). 4cmc is a lot for something not named Jace in my opinion.
@Einherjer: thank you for your time, that was illuminating. I now understand.
How important is it to play some number of Meddling Mage?
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Meddling mage is competing for the same slot as most other graveyard hate (not the same slot as Clique like popular opinion suggests). If you're more afraid of Sneak and Show and Storm, play meddling mage over anything else. Else, play surgical, RIP, relic, etc.
The reason for this is other gy based decks that we want hate for, like Lands, 4C Loam, Reanimator, can be attacked from different ways that are just as effective. For the first two, you can meddling mage, naming punishing fire (or molten vortex, the new tech, if it's not already in play), and for reanimator, we are extremely adept at fighting them on the stack. Consider meddling mage to be graveyard hate on legs. I personally am not running them, favoring surgical extraction since my group and I are playing 4 snapcaster mages. AnziD is still on 2 Meddling mage on that slot, etc.
Curious why you wouldn't name Loam with Meddling Mage?
I just redid my sideboard and almost put one in. I was thinking that whatever card I ran would have to synergize with Counterbalance and ended up going with Enlightened Tutor. Meddling Mage naming a combo piece, or Abrupt Decay/Krosan Grip if I have Counterbalance in play, was the other option.
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