Originally Posted by
amalek0
I've found I've had a very solid matchup with miracles over the long-term, probably as high as a 70% match-win. First thing is that I'm on a 4c build with mainboard crucible, eex2, zuran orb. Second thing is that I still run a ghost-quarter. As such, My plan has pretty much always been to move to quarter and waste their mana base game one to prevent large entreats. I run a creeping tarpit as a jace-slayer MB as well. Because they're set up to be very counter-heavy game one, and don't have any relevant interaction short of a resolved jace + countertop lock at 2 and entreats, if you can disrupt their mana base early to prevent them from resolving jace or getting an entreat for more than 2 angels, you can hide behind bridges and grind out their mana base before going for a win-con. Post-board, I have a pithing needle for top, and then I usually either have access to intuition for urborg + raven's crime + loam to strip their hand early, or geist of st. win. Game-plan post-board is therefore to needle their tops, usually by k-gripping the counterbalance(s) first then slamming needle. Biggest priority postboard is probably to not let them have a Jace active without a response, because they don't have a way to win a long-game without him unless they manage to exile all of your punishing fires, your tarpit, and your DD/Stage's. It's by no means a free lunch of a matchup, but I've been playing lands all the way through since countertop/landstill was a thing, so I've got a good intuition for what the best line of play is for me in a given game.
The biggest thing with miracles players is that they're in general used to being reactive and controlling, and it takes a very experienced miracles player to recognize that in this matchup, they're the beatdown since lands (with ghost quarter) has the ability to restrict their mana base much harder over the long term than any delver, D&T, or pox deck. I can't count the games I've stolen off of miracles players who chose the control role and then lost to a quarters-lock while they scrambled to find a win-con while they still had lands available.
