All B/R update speculation.

[lavafrogg]

For the sake of proper history:

Before Miracles, Legacy had been without a pure control deck for many years. Wrath of God fell out of favor quickly when people discovered that Goblins could delay it some games and vial out a recovery plan in others. Once Tarmogoyf was printed you often had to spend four as a sorcery for this one threat that cost 2 (backed up by free counter magic). It was spectacular to see the control players of the day lament how poorly this icon of pure control was faring in the young Legacy format. Once Wrath was not able to reliably reset the board, Landstill slowly faded away. By the end of 2008, zoo was on the scene and that was that. Lavafrogg tried to get Landstill to work with cheaper sweepers, but the players' imagination was unable to work with that. There was a brief period when there was a deck called CounterTop, but it's control was dubious, and it was occasionally went aggro when it went turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Tarmo.

I recall being refreshed when we finally had a viable control deck again.

1. I remember this deck very clearly.

2. Why am I always on the outside of players imaginations...#oneday

3. Control was Tarmogoyf.dec for years. I played Counterbalance in the board of my UGw threshold deck for the advantage, but Swords, Goyf and Force was how you played control for a very long time. The benefit was you were technically playing an aggro control deck in the combo matchup, but you were the control deck against everything else.
I firmly believe that if Terminus was a 1 mana wrath as opposed to a 1 mana tuck, we could deal with Miracles as recursion would be on the table and a viable strategy.

4. I won a set of Goyfs with a UW Counterbalance/Enlightened tutor landstill deck that was actually viable based on the power of counterbalance, actually this was the deck from #1, as the only creature that was really bigger than Mishra's Factory at the time was goyf who you swords to plowshared on sight.

[Lemnear]

Miracles often has to operate from a position of parity (or from behind) in terms of tempo and card quantity against some midrange and most other control decks, making EOT Entreats a big part of the strategy for those matchups, and a major source of 'free' wins, especially preboard. If Miracles is forced to use Mentor or Jace to win games against BGxy decks that it can't reliably bury under CA from Predict or lock out with Counterbalance, then people playing those decks can both know (or reasonably anticipate) what they're playing against rather than sideboarding at least partially in the dark and being forced to hedge against what is essentially a combo backup plan that doubles as a normal win condition. The whole point is that hitting Entreat does the absolute minimum to the deck and to the format while hopefully weakening Miracles enough that it's not as oppressive as it is now. It doesn't make aggro or combo better against Miracles, but the point is precisely that Entreat is the least intrusive option, and that's something that a lot of people favor.

First of all: Thanks for the lengthy response. Appreciate.

I however want to disagree on the part of being behind on card quantity as the whole point of Miracles is creating actual and virtual cardadvantage with SCM, Jace, CB, SDT, Brainstorm, Terminus, etc.. Miracles goal is to grind out the opponent of options to attack or defend. I have seen games decided against midrange by Jace, SCM beatdown, Mentor, etc due to the opponent simply being defenseless at some point and that's why I think, that the killcondition is pretty irrelevant in a similar way it is in Reanimator. The next best option is still good enough. I also have a tough time to consider a 1-off in most lists a vital tool to counter certain strategies as the access to that card on demand isn't guaranteed. Sure it works as some lategame Alpha-Strike, but that's the moment pretty much any other option would do too.

The talk about terminus & Entreat just made me realize, that banning either would not wield a solution at all. As previously mentioned by a dear commentator, Miracles can use ETA to wall itself with 2-3 Angels, so if Terminus was banned, the deck could simply run 3-4 ETA to create some 4/4 blockers at instant speed against aggro to achieve a similar, yet less powerful, effect. The advantage for the metagame however was that manadenial works against ETA unlike against Terminus

[Dpogo]

I genuinely think the best outcome is for Terminus and Deathrite Shaman to hit the road.

Terminus ban for obvious reasons, but Deathrite is probably a lot harder to justify.

I read an article from the site "Library at Pendrell Vale" basically explaining that Deathrite is the card that is letting Miracles be so good. And he's right if you think about it:

What reason do you have to NOT play Deathrite, if you are playing either green or black? NONE! Bant Stoneblade isn't good because splashing black for Deathrite Shaman's drain ability is too good (not to mention leovold, but that would still be difficult if you didn't have 4 guys to tap for any color). Same goes for why 4-Color, BUG, and Grixis are all better delver variants than RUG right now, Deathrite is too good to justify NOT playing.

Now the issue is that it turns any black OR green deck now must play this card, which basically makes midrange a MUST, and makes the decks one turn slower for the sake of a much MUCH better turn 3+. However, Turns 1, 2, and 3 are the turns in which Miracles is at its weakest, and so "wasting" (although I hesitate to say that getting a deathrite online is a waste) those turns suddenly closes your window for beating up on miracles.

Deathrite also single handedly killed one of Miracles worst matchups: Goblins. Turn one Lackey? Okay. Turn one Deathrite. I knew it was bad when I saw lists running Pendelhaven just so that lackeys can kill opposing deathrites.


Conclusion: Do I think Deathrite SHOULD get banned? I don't know. Would it be good to get banned? Probably. WILL it get banned? Probably not. Regardless, those are my thoughts.

[ESG]

I read an article from the site "Library at Pendrell Vale" basically explaining that Deathrite is the card that is letting Miracles be so good.

This may be the most clueless thing I've ever read on The Source. There are a lot of reasons that Miracles is the best deck, but trying to blame it on Goblins' underperformance is comical. The format is a lot deeper than Miracles vs. Goblins. At least look through the Established section to see decks that don't play Deathrite Shaman. Obviously it's a really powerful card and, as such, it will be a default for green and black decks. But the biggest reason Deathrite is so widely played is to fix mana to run Abrupt Decay. And the reason for that is because Legacy is a fast format and naturally soft to Counterbalance.

[Gheizen64]

Since we're close, my bets:

Legacy:
Mind Twist is unbanned

Rant about how mind twist is super strong but wotc after a careful consideration that lasted years will let this card enter the format and we should all be excited to brew with it, but be careful! It may break the format!

The real question: will it be played more than Black Vise?

Fantasy dreamland wishlist:

Legacy:
Mind Twist, Earthcraft, Recruiter, and Survival are unbanned.

Then if format is still obscenely blue and said cards are unplayable (which they might be tbh, i have some hope in survival making GUx/GWx/GBx goodstuff lists able to actually have a good MUs vs miracle but it's a long shot imho)

Legacy:
Lotus Petal is banned.
Frantic search and Yawgmoth's bargain are unbanned.

Petal is a stupid card that enable too many T1 lists. Having to run SSG or ESG in its place would hit storm lists, but more specifically it would make T1 show and tell close to impossible (chrome is nowhere as good in SnT decks as petal is), and would kill things like belcher and oops that require all the possible non land mana starter sources they can. With basically no T1 wins possible anymore in the format beside pile decks, non-force of will catchall answers could become much more viable, in particular thoughtseize/thalia, and in turn, blue shouldn't be as required as it is now. With Petal banned, we could see more interesting combo cards unbanned, and i see both frantic and even Bargain possibly off the list as cabal rituals are much weaker without petals to both accellerate further and fuel threshold. Bargain is an absurd card, but it being better than griselbrand is entirely dependent on the ability of decks to play it off rituals (unlike grizzly). With cabal nerfed from having no petals , bargain would be usually be a T3 and later affair, which is to mean, probably acceptable in the format (especially with leovold around). Frantic Search is both possibly an accellerator (with sol lands) and a card-filtering engine, but is also card disadvantage and require you to either run lot of sol lands (not an option in most storm lists that need UB) or high tide (which is awesome ) or even wild growth effects.

What i dislike about petal is also that:

- is not iconic like duals, wasteland, LED, Dark ritual or force or will are in legacy (just look at the banner on top of this page if you don't believe me!)
- It pose no significant deckbuilding restriction nor it does have an interesting enough drawback imho. Consider other 0-mana accellerators that exist in the format.
Chromes is card disadvantage and are mostly average in combo lists even if they're free mana because they need all the card they can get. Chromes are playable in extremely redundant lists and aim to play said cards as fast as possible without particularly caring about card advantage-> stompy. Chrome also promote monocoloring because it's generally a bad fixer.
Diamonds are generally bad but you can counteract the card disadvantage with land recurring cards, making it a player in loam-based decks. Also better in lists with lots of 2 drops and little 1 drops (again, lands).
Opals are close to unplayable in the format because of their steep drawback, but they still make artifact based lists better, like Tezzerator.
The spirit guides are almost as boring as petals, but 1. giving only R or G make them not auto-includes in decks that want fast mana since they don't fix and 2. being creatures come up often in stompy lists where they are played and make the card playable where they wouldn't be were they straight dead topdecks.
LED is a black lotus, but require some careful construction of your deck to be playable. Because of that, the card is playable only in infernal-tutor combo lists, and could be borderline playable in madness/vengevival lists.
I'd like to also cite dark ritual despite not being a 0 mana accellerant, since even it as the quintessential combo card pose a lot more deckbuilding constraints , by not being a starter by costing B and not 0, by not fixing your mana but only giving BBB, and by being one-shot like ESG and SSG.
Lotus petal on the other hand, is playable in every combo deck and has no secondary restriction aside from being one-time. Whenever you have a deck that need fast mana and don't mind the oneshot nature, petals are always correct. Card has no card-disadvantage that you need to recover in some way (chrome, diamond), it fix your mana (ssg, esg, ~chrome), it does not impose other kind of restrictions that you have to overcome (LED, opals) and neither has secondary uses (ESG SSG). Card singehandedly make SnT/Belcher/Oops lists borderline playable by itself existing.

Just let it go.

If format is still too blue after this:

Legacy:
Ancestral Recall is banned.

I understand taht the card is a signature of the format (like SofT was tbh). But if the format were still obscenely blue, there's no other reasonable culprit. 4x AC is busted. Ban it. And fuck the prisoner's exchange too.

[Lemnear]

I read an article from the site "Library at Pendrell Vale" basically explaining that Deathrite is the card that is letting Miracles be so good. And he's right if you think about it:

That article is biased bullshit. Period

What reason do you have to NOT play Deathrite, if you are playing either green or black? NONE! Bant Stoneblade isn't good because splashing black for Deathrite Shaman's drain ability is too good (not to mention leovold, but that would still be difficult if you didn't have 4 guys to tap for any color). Same goes for why 4-Color, BUG, and Grixis are all better delver variants than RUG right now, Deathrite is too good to justify NOT playing.

Bollocks. More decks play BG due to the need for Decay, not for DRS. If the format wasn't so reliant to get rid of Counterbalance, neither Decay nor DRS would but up such Insane numbers. Its blatant ignorance to not realize that various BGxy decks do not run DRS, but splash colors mainly for Decay.

Deathrite also single handedly killed one of Miracles worst matchups: Goblins. Turn one Lackey? Okay. Turn one Deathrite. I knew it was bad when I saw lists running Pendelhaven just so that lackeys can kill opposing deathrites.

Historical nonsense. Goblins was dead before DRS was even printed. The deck couldn't even fight the SFM decks at their time. Its pretty ridiculous to blame a creature you could remove with a simple tarfire for the demise of goblins, while batterskull, Elves, Terminus, Griselbrand, Emrakul, Lands.dec, storm, etc all kicked goblins around for years. At this point you could blame that Nettle Sentinel, Mother of Runes, etc. or starting games on the draw for goblins poor position as well. The deck has the same fundamental issues as Zoo and vanished for the same reasons of turn-vanilla-creatures-sideways-and-let-opponent-do-what-he-wants not being a successful Strategy.


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@ todays announcement

I dunno if I should expect anything anymore. The eternal Formats are so poorly managed that I have no hope. I thought that Vise would have more of an impact, but the unbanning overlapped with the vanishing of pure tempo archetypes and rise of BGx. I would expect a prisoner exchange at best with something marginal like Earthcraft coming off IF anything gets banned. Would not like to see Mindtwist to be unbanned as the card has the potiential to create blowouts and the formats doesn't need more of those.

[Julian23]

Yeah, I don't think Goblins will really come back no matter what. The deck was already down and out in early/mid 2011 when Maverick started dominating.

[Stevestamopz]

Historical nonsense. Goblins was dead before DRS was even printed. The deck couldn't even fight the SFM decks at their time. Its pretty ridiculous to blame a creature you could remove with a simple tarfire for the demise of goblins, while batterskull, Elves, Terminus, Griselbrand, Emrakul, Lands.dec, storm, etc all kicked goblins around for years. At this point you could blame that Nettle Sentinel, Mother of Runes, etc. or starting games on the draw for goblins poor position as well. The deck has the same fundamental issues as Zoo and vanished for the same reasons of turn-vanilla-creatures-sideways-and-let-opponent-do-what-he-wants not being a successful Strategy.

Esper Stoneblade was literally Goblins best matchup. I can't ever recall being sad to play that matchup as it basically equated to a bye. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I can only assume that you weren't playing Legacy in 2012/3 either.



http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10732

U/W/x Control
This is one of Goblins' best matchups. Between Jim and myself, we played against the deck countless times during the Invitational and Legacy Open, losing only once I believe. I am lumping together the Miracles decks with the Stoneforge decks because a lot of the cards are the same, but in reality the Miracles matchup is easier.

[Julian23]

Lemnear and I are referring to GW Maverick, not Esper Stoneblade.

[jandax]

If they ban something out of Miracles and then Thopters becomes a thing again, I will lose about 10kg thanks to the dancing I would do. I would still be fat, but I would feel no shame as I humiliate myself.

[Lemnear]

Lemnear and I are referring to GW Maverick, not Esper Stoneblade.

Indeed. Maverick, as the successor to Survival, was tearing Goblins and Zoo apart mid/end of 2011 and before Thalia was even printed (Feb 2012) with its Hierarch, SFM, Pridemage, Mother of Runes, StP early game. If I remember correctly Jacob had even a top finish with the deck at the time.

[Crimhead]

3. Control was Tarmogoyf.dec for years...
...Swords, Goyf and Force was how you played control for a very long time.

Still people wonder why some of us want a genuine control deck.

[Lemnear]

Still people wonder why some of us want a genuine control deck.

Who says that Lands.dec or UWx is unplayable, if Miracles' chokehold is broken (in case we talk about non-creature-control)?

[Dice_Box]

Still people wonder why some of us want a genuine control deck.

Miracles has as much a "Right" to exist as Zoo does. You know some of us want a genuine Aggro deck, sadly that's not an option any more.

[mistercakes]

I think that Miracles is still a very strong deck if counterbalance is removed. The deck would adapt, but I've lost plenty of games to miracles where they never even resolved a counterbalance. It's the real problem card here, as much terminus is strong...you can still recover. Counterbalance eliminates most potential to have a second chance.

[Stevestamopz]

Lemnear and I are referring to GW Maverick, not Esper Stoneblade.

That was literally the definition of a 50-50 matchup, with Goblins being overwhelmingly favoured if they played Krenko. The reason I loved the 2012 metagame was because of how even it was across the topdecks.

Anyway, tldr Goblins haven't cared about Stoneforge anywhere near as much as we've cared about DRS. That card negates everything Goblins does. Stoneforge just gets something which forces Matron to get Hooligan. The end.

[Crimhead]

Miracles has as much a "Right" to exist as Zoo does. You know some of us was a genuine Aggro deck, sadly that's not an option any more.

Yes! Please WotC reverse the unjust ban that destroyed Zoo.

I agree. If we were discussing a ban that would potentially drive the last aggro deck out of the format, absolutely I would argue against such a ban - it would hurt (play-style) diversity.

Losing an entire play-style (aggro) to years of tempo and midrange creature power creep is a hard pill to swallow. Losing a play-style to a ban is impossible to swallow.
You talk as if you genuinely don't comprehend the difference. Every time it comes up. I think you can do (much) better.

No deck has a "right" to remain good despite years of printings.
But this has sweet fuck all to do with a banned list philosophy and you know it.

Also, maybe "some of us" should play more Burn? With more pilots (particularly experienced pilots) pushing the deck it could do quite well I think.

BGx Storm?

This is an unbiased and accurate description of a deck which splashes

Your intellectual honesty is wasted in this thread.

I don't think the format has a problem with too much BUG. D&T, Infect, Eldrazi, Storm, S&T are doing very well, with Burn, Elves, and Lands still quite relevant. Only the good-stuff decks are hung up BUGx colours.

[Dice_Box]

You talk as if you genuinely don't comprehend the difference. Every time it comes up. I think you can (much) do better.

No, I do just fine. I am not here giving a deck a "Get out of Goal free card" because it happens to play a certain way. People don't want to lose access to a deck style that was itself dead for years? Ok. I sympathise, but that doesn't give you a free pass. Lest we remember this style of deck has died before.

You argument appears to be "For the good of those who like this style of control deck, the rest of the format can eat shit." I think you can (much) do better.

[CutthroatCasual]

Miracles has as much a "Right" to exist as Zoo does. You know some of us want a genuine Aggro deck, sadly that's not an option any more.

This seems to be hinting at "Miracles pushed aggro out of the format" and that's just not true. Bigger midrange creatures pushed aggro out of the format. Delver pushed aggro out of the format considering Delver is essentially a tempo/aggro deck. Why would you play an aggro deck that does nothing but vomit x/2s when you can play a less-aggro deck that can also answer threats your opponents play?

Plus, with Miracles gone, aggro will still need to keep up with Eldrazi and Reanimator and SnS and we all know that's not going to happen (don't forget that GBrand was introduced with AVR as well).

[Crimhead]

You argument appears to be "For the good of those who like this style of control deck, the rest of the format can eat shit." I think you can (much) do better.

My argument is This:

1. Less that 1/6 of the meta is Miracles, and that is the format's only hard control deck.
2. Forcing control out to make space for a wider variety of midrange (an archetype not currently lacking representation) will be a net loss of diversity (by measure of viable play-styles).