All B/R update speculation.

[Julian23]

I like Anders a lot, but when it comes to Miracles I think he's holding one of the least informed opinions with regards to the problems Miracles presents for the non-Miracles decks. Since I know not all of you are on reddit, I'll post my response here as well:

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We will for example never be able to cast it against Death and Taxes and versus some Delver draws we won’t be able to cast it before we’re dead.

Welcome to the way the rest of the format plays. You of course already mentioned in your article that your suggestions are selfish in nature, but it's really pushing it when you mention the fact you would sometimes just lose was an actual argument after all. I'll quote myself from my AMA two days ago where someone asked about Miracles and how I think it dissolved the cool, traditional way of playing vs Control decks:

[Miracles] has also completly taken away the art of playing Aggro vs Control where interacting with the control player's Lands, hand and Wrath where core concepts of properly playing Aggro. Discard, Wasteland and e.g. Regeneration or graveyard recursion are very weak angles of attack vs Mircales.

That leads to the sentinment in Legacy that the way to beat Miracles is to play otherwise terrible cards/decks. It's not like the format didn't have access to cards that were good against Miracles; it's that it's in general not worth to play those cards since as per the nature of Legacy you're not facing the specific deck you want those against (Miracles) often enough. Since the otherwise generally present tools of fighting Miracles are often not good enough, this leads to a meta where most decks just play an insufficient amount of hate for the matchup, leading to most commentators from the Miracles side thinking the format just wasn't "trying hard enough to adapt". The problem arises when you realize that the real adaption is to switch decks, which is always a very dangerous and frustrating thing to promote in Legacy. Short, critical emergency periods like Flash or MM aside, in the history there has only once ever been this much pressure on people to give up their decks: when DTT pretty much killed non-blue midrange.

Regarding Terminus and why having such an uninteractive Wrath is bad for deck construction:

I think creatures, artifacts and lands will probably never be a good way to fight Miracles unless they have some kind of built-in mechanic that makes them untouchable by StP and Terminus and preferably also uncounterable. But that's already a pretty stupid and annoying design. But so is Terminus. When the premier Wrath of the format is so highly uninteractive and "stupid", it's asking R&D for cards on the same level of crazyness to properly fight it. By pushing the power level standard for our Wrath so insanely high, R&D really dug them into a shithole that is hard to come out from through just card design

Something I'm also missing is at least a mentioning of the decks Miracles has pushed out of the format that used to exist in Legacy. We've talked about this before and while it's ok that you've not personally experienced them and thus have no opinion on them, it only weakens your position if you don't even acknowledge or mention counter-points to your point of view.

The one thing I agree with is banning DRS. The format has pretty much turned into UWr vs BGx, with the occassional Chalice-variant. That's pretty fucked up and also quite boring, from both a tactical as well as strategic point of view. I'd be happy to see DRS and either Terminus, Top, Counterbalance go.
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[Mr Miagi]

The view from a Miracles player on the B&R lsit

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...the-kingmaker/

I hope you enjoy it!

Sib

I did not enojoy it guess i'm weird or sth

[H]

The one thing I agree with is banning DRS. The format has pretty much turned into UWr vs BGx, with the occassional Chalice-variant. That's pretty fucked up and also quite boring, from both a tactical as well as strategic point of view. I'd be happy to see DRS and either Terminus, Top, Counterbalance go.

Like my post above yours begged the question, is the issue really Deathrite? Or the fact that any deck with Black simply feels priced into running Green for Decay, so also priced into running Deathrite as well?

In other words, what is the root cause of so many Deathrites? I don't think the answer is as simple as "Deathrite is too good" but that might be my bias showing.

[Megadeus]

Yes Deathrite is that good. If miracles got banned tomorrow deathrite would definitely still be around in those black decks. It's an absurd card, and in the mirror often whoever wins the deathrite war wins the game. There is a reason it is banned in modern.

As for Lemnear saying survival would warp all mid range green decks into survival decks, so what? Basically all aggro decks have been warped into Delver decks, and all control decks have warped into miracles at this point.

[Barook]

Joe Lossett said this week on if something of Miracles gets banned (whatever it is), then DRS should probably go as well. That's something I can fully agree on.

Like my post above yours begged the question, is the issue really Deathrite? Or the fact that any deck with Black simply feels priced into running Green for Decay, so also priced into running Deathrite as well?

In other words, what is the root cause of so many Deathrites? I don't think the answer is as simple as "Deathrite is too good" but that might be my bias showing.

DRS and Abrupt Decay are too good. But the problem is that the splash into green is too easy with DRS since it fixes mana and makes punishing greedy manabases alot harder. Blood Moon and Wasteland are fair game against BUG with DRS out of the picture.

If you're in green or black and run creatures in any form, there's zero reason to not run both AD and DRS (which also doubles as GY hate and tripples as wincon).

[H]

Fair enough. As I said, I am certainly biased and I do think that Deathrite is a largely fair card. There are some decent ways to fight DRS, like Rest In Peace, that are now only seen on the fringes. Why is that? Because most of the decks that run RiP are cold to Counterbalance and so we are right back where we started...

[Mr Miagi]

Salty miracle players trying to drag down DRS if something gets banned from their decks.. that kind of attitude makes me wanna womit.

Yes, DRS is stupid good, but at least give give him some time post miracle ban to see if he is really that opressive in new meta. If yes, than ban him, no problem, but calling for immediate DRS ban before even miracles is touched is just a knee jerk reaction in my eyes.

[Stuart]

I've heard that same idea thrown around in Vintage (e.g. restrict Probe to diversify blue and weaken Shops). Has WotC ever made bans in that way? As far as I can remember, they tend to just go after the problematic deck/card itself.

[Barook]

Fair enough. As I said, I am certainly biased and I do think that Deathrite is a largely fair card. There are some decent ways to fight DRS, like Rest In Peace, that are now only seen on the fringes. Why is that? Because most of the decks that run RiP are cold to Counterbalance and so we are right back where we started...

Decay can also easily get rid of RIP, which is part of the problem.

[Barachai]

DRS feels kinda like mental misstep, it fits into way too much and the player with more in hand "wins". It's not quite as stupid as MM, but I would hardly be unhappy seeing the card go.

Miracles also feels kinda stupid; kinda feel that one missed point is that it is very easy for miracles to play Engineered Explosives, and even easier for them to run an academy for teh valuz. Regardless, Wrath of God does not need to cost one mana for control to be viable, that's just weird.

[H]

Decay can also easily get rid of RIP, which is part of the problem.

I have been on the receiving end of many a RiP and even with Decay in hand, it still does most of it's work.

I'm not trying to say that Deathrite isn't really good. It is. But I don't think stiflingly so. I think what is stifling things is the pressure to be in GB/X due to the fear of Counterbalance.

I mean, you don't really see BUG decks dominating top 8's because there are a number of decent decks that are just flatly great against them, even with Deathrites.

[CptHaddock]

Like my post above yours begged the question, is the issue really Deathrite? Or the fact that any deck with Black simply feels priced into running Green for Decay, so also priced into running Deathrite as well?

In other words, what is the root cause of so many Deathrites? I don't think the answer is as simple as "Deathrite is too good" but that might be my bias showing.

The whole DRS vs Decay argument just sounds like a giant which came first the chicken or the egg situation. I think it's pretty obvious that DRS is an insane card, it's a 1 mana win condition and a birds at the same time. If decay wasn't printed i'm pretty sure people will still be playing DRS and vice verse.

As for the article i'm convinced that the majority of people that argue for miracles haven't played for longer than the deck has been alive. Control decks have mostly done well in Legacy (atleast while i've been playing), with Balance decks being a top deck in the the format 2009ish and then blade decks from 2010 - 2012ish. These decks while top decks in the format didn't seem to dominate the format like miracles does now,.

[H]

The whole DRS vs Decay argument just sounds like a giant which came first the chicken or the egg situation. I think it's pretty obvious that DRS is an insane card, it's a 1 mana win condition and a birds at the same time. If decay wasn't printed i'm pretty sure people will still be playing DRS and vice verse.

Right, that's kind of my point. I think it's worth seeing which is driving the other, or if it's really not dependent on Counterbalance at all.

[Tittliewinks22]

Right, that's kind of my point. I think it's worth seeing which is driving the other, or if it's really not dependent on Counterbalance at all.

I'm inclined to believe that the playability of DRS and decay is not dependent on counterbalance. Both these cards were 36%+ of the meta back when DRS was legal in Modern... and Counterbalance was non-existent.

[ToadFlinger]

It feels kinda silly to say that Deathrite Shaman is needed in the format so that decks can play Abrupt Decay. If Abrupt Decay is a must-have for every deck, so much so that a greedy mana base is too high a price to pay, then there is something wrong with the argument and/or the format. I don't think a turn one mana accelerator with a goblin-killing booty, maindeck graveyard hate, lifegain, AND Grim Lavamancer should be necessary for a deck to splash a color. I don't play Deathrites, but I play against them all the time. Is BoP not a "fairer" option?
Also, one mana wrath is definitely fair...

[H]

I'm inclined to believe that the playability of DRS and decay is not dependent on counterbalance. Both these cards were 36%+ of the meta back when DRS was legal in Modern... and Counterbalance was non-existent.

A fair point, but the kind of decks that can really punish BUG decks, like fast Blood Moon, X-Post, Burn and even Death and Taxes either don't exist in Modern or are significantly weaker. I'm not really saying that Counterbalance is what makes both playable, I'm saying it might be part of what makes them played as often as they are, in as many "different" decks that they are.

I'm not saying that DRS might not have to be banned eventually, but I don't think it should be a right-off-the-bat kind of thing.

[Lemnear]

The view from a Miracles player on the B&R lsit

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...the-kingmaker/

I hope you enjoy it!

Sib

This is the most ridiculous and farfetched point of view I have read in regards to the topic and the arguments have no ground whatsoever. Wow ...

Edit:
I can see arguments in regards to DRS but those are in no way related to Miracles. In a nutshell, I actually like having some non-blue staple cards in Legacy.

@Julian
Very special thanks for writing and quoting the passage here.

[JDK]

A fair point, but the kind of decks that can really punish BUG decks, like fast Blood Moon, X-Post, Burn and even Death and Taxes either don't exist in Modern or are significantly weaker.

Tron punished Jund (DRS Deck #1) hard. It's Twin MU was terrible, but it was there (and still is). :]
To be fair, I get what you are saying.

[H]

Tron punished Jund (DRS Deck #1) hard. It's Twin MU was terrible, but it was there (and still is). :]
To be fair, I get what you are saying.

Yeah, true. I honestly don't play, or really follow much, Modern because no one shows up to Modern events right here. We play Legacy for a reason.

[Noctalor]

The view from a Miracles player on the B&R lsit

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...the-kingmaker/

I hope you enjoy it!

Sib

Honestly, this shit does not deserve a good and well written response.