Miracle Control

[koten]

Not sure if I am missing something but why not just counter the parasitic strix instead?

I imagine countering the Parasitic Strix if they are going to go off would be the better plan. If you succeed in countering it, one of their two copies of Parasitic Strix ends up in the graveyard. In order to combo off again, they would need to Eternal Witness it back or find the other copy. In contrast, Cavern Harpy is more often seen as 4-of in the BUG lists.

On the hand, it makes more sense to counter Cavern Harpy if you think they're on the value plan of returning Shardless Agents or Baleful Strix to replay for value.

I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: Nicklas beat me to it.

[mike1987]

I imagine countering the Parasitic Strix if they are going to go off would be the better plan. If you succeed in countering it, one of their two copies of Parasitic Strix ends up in the graveyard. In order to combo off again, they would need to Eternal Witness it back or find the other copy. In contrast, Cavern Harpy is more often seen as 4-of in the BUG lists.

On the hand, it makes more sense to counter Cavern Harpy if you think they're on the value plan of returning Shardless Agents or Baleful Strix to replay for value.

I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: Nicklas beat me to it.

Ah yes i see, than ks for the explanation.

[Nicklas]

Been toying with Esper Miracles for a while now. It's basically a hybrid between Esper Mentor und Miracles, but I feel like it's more on the Miracle side of things and because someone else mentioned the B-Splash recently I felt I should post it here rather than in the Esper Mentor thread.
Took the following list to a Legacy Open in Vienna. 35 players, 6 rounds, cut to Top8. I made Top8, after winning the first 4 rounds and IDing round 5-6, but lost to Food Chain in the quarter finals.
Here's the list I played:

//Lands (19)
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Tundra
2 Usea
4 Delta
4 Strand
2 Marsh Flats

//Creatures (7)
3 Mentor
2 Snappy
2 Baby-Jace

//Artifacts & Enchantments (7)
4 Top
3 Counterbalance

//Instants & Sorceries (27)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Painful Truths
3 FoW
3 Daze
4 StP
3 Terminus

SB: 2 Disenchant
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Zealous Persecution
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Tasigur
SB: 1 Entreat
SB: 1 Tsabos Web
SB: 1 FoW
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict

Round 1 - Legendary Miracles - 2:1
g1: He has Cavern of Souls and CB-Top-Lock while I have nothing relevant, so I concede.
g2: My Mentor sticks and kills him quickly, before he can generate enough value out of Cavern+Karakas.
g3: Probe shows me Cavern, Karakas, Clique, Venser and stuff. Once again! Horrid! Turn 4 he casts Clique and we are off to the races. I can discard his Venser, land a Counterbalance that get's pyroblasted at one point, because I am aggressively pondering in order to find a Mentor. My first wave of Monks hits the bin thanks to Sulfur Elemental, but at 2 life and dead on the back swing I manage to hit for 12 (he was at 11) with two Monk Tokens, by making best use of Cabal Therapy and the almighty "daze my own spells". His Terminus gets flusterstormed.

Round 2 - Infect - 2:1
g1: I kill his threats, deploy the Counterbalance and win.
g2: Handled all his threats and exiled all his Blighted Agents via Surgical. Felt safe with Flusterstorm in hand, CB-Top-Lock and a flipped Baby-Jace on board (who can flashback a couple of removal spells; only sorcery speed though...). He is empty handed, but manages to draw consecutive Inkmoth Nexi. Kind of good coupled with Pendelhaven. I brick and die.
g3: I don't die in the early turns and he concedes after he is empty handed and I have all the cards.

Round 3 - DnT - 2:1
g1: We trade resources until I pull ahead with Mentor and seal the deal.
g2: Early Thalia + Vial + Karakas is super annoying. I am mana screwed anyways and two turns after his Gideon resolved I concede.
g3: I draw my SB cards, stabilize the board and eventually kill him with Mentor + Snappy.

Round 4 - BUG Reid Duke - 2:1
g1: I put him on UBg Reanimator thanks to his sleeves and Expedition Fetchies. The first spell he casts is a Collective Brutality. Shuffled all my removal away and luckily waited with my Cabal Therapy until I found a Gitaxian Probe that reveals two big Jaces in hand. I discard both of them, keep the board clear and eventually manage to ultimate the Baby-Jace. I cast a ton of spells, see basically all of his deck and win.
g2: Early Jace+Leovold are cancer and after I fail to remove either of them I concede.
g3: Stuck on two lands for quite a while, but Tasigur is a beast, hits hard and then stonewalls a couple of turns. Probe, Snappy flashback Probe does not find a third land, but a turn later I manage to trade an attacking Snappy with blocking Leovold thanks to Zealous Persecution. In the end I draw the third land, deploy a Mentor, go down to 4 life and barely kill my opponent, whose board consists of a big fat ugly Scavenging Ooze, JTMS and two Noble Hierarchs.

I played at reasonable speed and never went to extra turns, but won all my matches roughly after 45min. At this point I wanna drop from the tournament. The matches were pretty epic. Some of them were actually so interesting and close, that I am a tiny little bit sad I was never on camera. But I am really tired and had enough for today. Luckily I can ID the next two rounds and go have lunch.

Round 5 - ID
Round 6 - ID

Quarterfinals - Food Chain - 1:2
g1: He handles all my three Mentors, all the Tokens and the card count in my library is so low I am actually scared to run out of cards. Luckily he is at 4 and a Snapcaster is able to finish him off after I have to cast StP on his Eternal Scourge twice. Luckily that was no Griffin...
g2: I keep: 2 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Cabal Therapy, 1 Mentor, 3 Lands. I draw 5 lands, followed by a Terminus and then another land. At this point I am so far behind that I just die...
g3: My opponent is tapped out with 2 lands in play (he just cast a Hymn to Tourach). His hand is Brainstorm + irrelevant stuff such as Collective Brutality, Golgari Charm etc. I discard his brainstorm. He topdecks Manipulate Fate. I force. He topdecks Manipulate Fate which draws into a land and he topdecks another land, which is kind of bad for me. I try my best but eventually just die, because I am unable to find a Mentor and/or Terminus.


+ Snapcaster + Probe + Therapy is insane
+ Mentor is broken and having access to sweepers that don't kill your Mentor is really good
+ Tsabos Web is a great SB card, especially in a DnT heavy meta
+ The typical Miracle shell is good, no matter how much you twist it :P
o otp Daze is amazing, but - no surprise - it sucks big times in a lot of MUs otd
- having no access to red blasts is as bad as it sounds, but the mirror is pretty hard to win without any cc4 spell anyways...
- lacking a win-con that doesn't die to basically every removal is scary at times
- My petcard (Surgical) that normally never disappoints was only great against Infect


Would love to hear your thoughts on this take.

[Agrippa91]

How about Council's Judgement to combat current BUG lists (Leovold, TNN, planeswalker) and Miracles? Sounds way better than Daze. Also 4 Forces seems strong as you're lighter on the countermagic and tap down more often.
So yeah I'd suggest:
-3 Daze
+2 Council's Judgement
+1 Force of Will

Not sure why you need Diabolic Edict in the board: You have ways to combat Marit Lage and TNN, why would you want this (expensive) card that's just bad when your opponent has a token generator or mana dorks? Zealous Persecution is nuts, I'd suggest going up on that one.
Also have you considered a cavern maindeck for Miracles? It seems to be your hardest matchup since you don't barely have any threats and are succeptible to being locked out. Then again maybe cavern wouldn't help much if you can't cast any other spells under counterbalance anyways...

[kentheide]

How about Council's Judgement to combat current BUG lists (Leovold, TNN, planeswalker) and Miracles? Sounds way better than Daze. Also 4 Forces seems strong as you're lighter on the countermagic and tap down more often.
So yeah I'd suggest:
-3 Daze
+2 Council's Judgement
+1 Force of Will

Don't think I'd want to play 2 CJ main deck. Rather move the second to the sideboard. I'd also cut the Dazes unless the gameplan is to jam mentor and smash. In that case I would probably change up the entire deck.

[Stefanogs]

Don't think I'd want to play 2 CJ main deck. Rather move the second to the sideboard. I'd also cut the Dazes unless the gameplan is to jam mentor and smash. In that case I would probably change up the entire deck.

Been playing something similar. Took Bonanni's list from GP Lille and made splash for black to painful truths (better than predict) and some strong sideboard cards for today's meta, like leyline of the void.

// 60 Deck
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Counterbalance
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
4 Ponder
3 Terminus
2 Painful Truths
1 Council's Judgment
1 Plains
4 Island
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp


// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Notion Thief
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Back to Basics
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Spell Snare
SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Cabal Therapy

[benthetenor]

Painful Truths, Notion Thief and discard all seem very interesting, but I think there are a lot of cards you would want before Toxic Deluge. The fourth Terminus or a copy of Supreme Verdict both seem better, or in black you may be more into a card like Engineered Plague (or Dread of Night if you weren't on Monastery Mentor), depending on what you are trying to do with that slot. I also think that, while Cabal Therapy is great with Monastery Mentor, without other discard or Gitaxian Probe, you probably want to just be playing Thoughtseize, since you're only bringing it in against decks that don't tax your life total and you really, really don't want to miss.

[bigbadbern]

Not to be that guy who doesn't like black in miracles... But i thought the point of counterbalance is to stop my opponent from playing spells. Why would i run discard spells when counterbalance can counter them?

[CutthroatCasual]

There's a reason why UWr is objectively better, but people like to play black because Thoughtseize is a fun card. Though I will admit that black has stronger game against creature decks by virtue of having more removal. But because we're so good against creature decks already, it's basically wasted slots.

[Quasim0ff]

There's a reason why UWr is objectively better, but people like to play black because Thoughtseize is a fun card. Though I will admit that black has stronger game against creature decks by virtue of having more removal. But because we're so good against creature decks already, it's basically wasted slots.

it is also significantly better versus boseiju combo decks.

[Nicklas]

@Discard:

Not to be that guy who doesn't like black in miracles... But i thought the point of counterbalance is to stop my opponent from playing spells. Why would i run discard spells when counterbalance can counter them?

Why run Counterspell when Counterbalance can counter them?
Why run StP when Counterbalance can counter them?

There are few people left who still play decks that just die to Counterbalance. Everyone is prepared to beat Counterbalance.
BUG everywhere, at least in my region tons of DnT (by far most played deck) and combo decks don't mind Counterbalance as much as they used to g2/g3. Against decent Storm players its mediocre, because they will grind you out eventually. SnT plays Boseiju and 3+4 aren't easy to float on top anyways.
Discard also helps to stick a Counterbalance and combats those decks who aim to win before Counterbalance is relevant (RB Reanimator mostly).
On top of that discard punishes players who try to sculpt their hand in order to power their way through the Counterbalance or just wait for the Decay/Grip/EE/whatever.
Discard simply offers another angle of attack and at least in a Mentor Miracles build playing Cabal Therapy makes a lot of sense, because it's a pretty busted combo.

edit: Just to be clear: The R-splash is overall stronger in an open meta. That's not what this is about. Red blasts are just too good and I am not arguing against that.

[Claymore]

I think there are a lot of cards you would want before Toxic Deluge. The fourth Terminus or a copy of Supreme Verdict both seem better

Deluge can come down faster than both (minimal set up vs Terminus), and diversifies your wipes in the face of Prelate and Gaddock Teeg...and uh, Void Winnower.

Also, you can play your board sweeper and have Mentor + tokens survive thanks to Prowess.

[benthetenor]

Deluge can come down faster than both (minimal set up vs Terminus), and diversifies your wipes in the face of Prelate and Gaddock Teeg...and uh, Void Winnower.

Also, you can play your board sweeper and have Mentor + tokens survive thanks to Prowess.

I'm not saying there aren't edges, I'm probably the biggest fan of diversifying cards to make yourself less predictable. I just usually find that when I need a sweeper, I also need to not lose life to cast it. There's not a lot of reason to cast a sweeper if you've already established a Monastery Mentor, for instance, because just flooding the board with tokens is going to stop most creatures. Any situation that can be beaten by a Toxic Deluge small enough to let Mentor survive is probably a situation that is just losing to your army of 2/2s and 3/3s and 4/4s anyway. Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that you'd lose a lot more to drawing a Toxic Deluge at a low life total than you would to facing Gaddock Teeg or Sanctum Prelate and being unable to clear them off with a Swords to Plowshares, or in my world, a Karakas or just casting a Baneslayer Angel and getting busy. I know that Mother of Runes exists, I just also know that most Mother of Runes decks board them out since they're pretty bad against sweepers.

My main point is, if you're going black, Toxic Deluge is a card you probably have to play since you can't have Izzet Staticaster/Kozilek's Return/Pyroclasm/any kind of Electrickery card, so it shouldn't be seen as a reason to go black, but rather a concession. It's just worse than those cards when dealing with smaller creatures, and it's just worse than Terminus when dealing with large creatures. You can lose to some very specific situations, but you lose way more to paying life for your Wrath effects.

[AnziD]

Guys - in an effort to expand my Twitch I realized that saving the game replays would be valuable. I've gone ahead and added some videos from yesterday and the day before yesterday's stream to my YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/anzi104. I'll be adding most of my videos here, so hopefully over time this will become a good repository of data for whatever I'm playing!

[melaar]

Guys - in an effort to expand my Twitch I realized that saving the game replays would be valuable. I've gone ahead and added some videos from yesterday and the day before yesterday's stream to my YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/anzi104. I'll be adding most of my videos here, so hopefully over time this will become a good repository of data for whatever I'm playing!

Thanks AnziD, it's useful.

[hyp3r1on]

Honestly, people have been trying to make UWB Miracles work forever now and the black splash is just not worth it at all. First of all, REBs are extremely good right now as everyone is playing TNN/Leovold decks and is obviously a key card in the mirror. You want to be playing a Miracles list that is strong in mirror matches and targeted discard has dubious value - especially in the late game with Miracles' ability to hide key cards with Top. Compared to REBs where they are valuable in the early and late game. It's much more important to have the ability to counter powerful blue spells like Ancestral Visions, Counterbalance or TNNs etc than hoping to snag them with Thoughtseizes.

Secondly, Painful Truths is not as good as Predict. Nowhere close - and I never play with any copies of Predict in UWR Miracles. Painful Truths works in proactive BUG/Grixis shells as a parity breaker for grindy matchups, but this kind of effect is not good in Miracles. You get value from Predict because of it's instant speed, the ability to "reset your Top" from dead cards and is very useful at triggering Miracle cards. Sorcery speed, pay 3, draw 3 is not where you want to be at.

Silver bullet "get you" cards like Notion Thief that you get from running black are also not worth it at all. Not only is Notion Thief blastable but you will cost yourself so much value by hoping to get someone with this card by trying to hold up 4 mana and hope they slam a Jace or try to Brainstorm without protection. It's just not a realistic strategy. The only time Notion Thief was a SB card up for consideration was when Shardless was everywhere. It was a a decent SB slot for Shardless Mirrors as its difficult for that deck to straight up answer at instant speed.

Really the only reasonable cards you get from running black are for creature mirrors like Toxic Deluge or -1/-1 sb cards. However Miracles never needs a whole lot of additional sweeper effects for creature matchups because, well Terminus is great. If you want more sweepers beyond Terminus, you don't even need to look at Black cards. You can consider Supreme Verdict, Kozilek's Return or Moat, all of which fit the stronger UWR shell and accomplish just as much as Toxic Deluge does.

Off the top of my head - the only situation where I would ever want discard in Miracles is against something like Sneak and Show and facing down a Boseiju. But then you don't have efficient ways of stopping their cantrips since you're not playing REBs and they inevitably find another Show and Tell. Overall, UWB is just not anywhere close to competitive as UWR builds.

[CutthroatCasual]

In summary: Esper is a sweet color combo, just not a good one.

[Gros]

Guys - in an effort to expand my Twitch I realized that saving the game replays would be valuable. I've gone ahead and added some videos from yesterday and the day before yesterday's stream to my YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/anzi104. I'll be adding most of my videos here, so hopefully over time this will become a good repository of data for whatever I'm playing!

Thanks, that's a Greta idea! Btw I tried to watch some of your videos there from mobile and they don't work. YouTube says "this video is not available"

[Artemis90]

Since the discussion came up in one of AnziD's recent streams:

What do you guys think are the MUs where Mentor is clearly superior to EtA? At the moment I'm playing a 2/1 split of Mentor/ÉtA, but I would like to make room for more predicts (currently running only 2) in my maindeck and I wonder if 2 EtA wouldnt be the better finisher package anyway against the majority of the field.

Mentor gives the deck a way to pressure your opponent early, can stall non-flying fatties and its hard to handle for many decks.
It does a good job against some problematic fringe decks like 12Post, Goblins and Painter and its also probably better against Eldrazi.

But what about Mentor vs. EtA in the common MU's - Delver, BUG, Storm, S&T, D&T, Elves, Mirror ?
Mentor is clearly worse against the Decay-Decks and Im not sure if tapping out for Mentor on turn 3 against Storm/S&T for pressure is a good plan (Clique is much better here). Against D&T on the other hand you can sometimes play him early with force backup and simply race / overrun them - but resolving an EtA with X= 4+ against them also wins you the game on the spot, so he's not really the 'better' finisher.

Maybe its also a decision between pure control and a 'midrange approach' to Miracles BBD talked abaout in his article after Grand Prix Louisville.

In the current online metagame I prefer 2 EtA, but for an unknown tournament metagame the 2/1 split is probably better... ? Im not sure.

I would appreciate some expert comments!



And btw, THANKS to AnziD for streaming so regularly! I really enjoy watching your videos. Please keep up the good work!! :-)

[CutthroatCasual]

I don't think there's any easy way to answer that question. ETA, even if it resolves for just 2, is such an immense amount of pressure on our end once we shift from defend to attack. But even a Mentor and 2 tokens is an immense amount of pressure, as well.

I think a good general rule boils down to what cards your opponent's deck has more of: spot removal or permission. In the case of the former, where you're up against a deck that runs at least two of these cards in any number each, usually 3-4ofs each: PFires, Decays, Bolts, Fatal Push, or Swords, I think ETA is better because they'll have a more difficult time stopping it when it hits (and it will probably almost always hit since they usually don't have that much permission). So decks like: Shardless BUG and (almost) every non-blue deck. In the case of the latter, where the deck is more full of cards like: Spell Pierce, Force of Will, Counterspell, Daze, I think Mentor is better because they may not have enough permission in hand (which would usually take more turns sculpting via cantrips) if you can slam him early enough. So decks like Delver and the mirror (though the MU is pretty much still 50/50 no matter which creature-win con you use, and Jace is how you're probably going to win most mirrors). As for decks like DnT where there's really only 1 main kind of removal (STP, and to a lesser extent Flickerwisp), I think either one works as long as you can protect it from those removal effects.

Obviously, most decks run both classes of cards so another metric would be to look at the style of deck you're up against. Against aggro and fast-midrange (i.e. Elves), you'd want Mentor if only to clog up the board early enough so you can save your removal for their bombs. Against slow(er)-midrange (i.e. Maverick and BUG-based decks), I think you'd want ETA because we don't generally need to worry about losing by turn 3 to creatures turning sideways, so we can just answer all their weak pressure and then ETA for a lot. Against tempo (aka Delver), I think either one works fine, though at that point it probably depends more on your playstyle and whether you're a kind of player that likes to play aggressively (Mentor) or one that likes to sit back and bide your time (ETA).

Again, that's all a rough guideline that I use, and really it boils down to how you want to play the deck: as tap-out control (Mentor) or draw-go control (ETA).