This is actually a serious attempt to make a viable Miracle-based decklist. If you want to just post lists that are 100% miracles or jokes, there are several threads available for that purpose, to whatever limited extent it is possible, please restrict your replies to sincere ideas and suggestions.
The best Miracles revealed so far are all in blue and white, and for the most part they lend themselves to a controllish build. There are basically two tiers of legacy playable cards that fit the "put something on top of your library" criteria necessary for use with Miracles.
Tier One:
Brainstorm
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sensei's Divining Top
Tier Two:
Noxious Revival
Personal Tutor
Ponder
Scroll Rack
Next, we'll look at what Miracles we should include in the deck.
Temporal Mastery - In this deck, it should pretty much just be Time Walk. Which is amazing.
Terminus - A strong Wrath effect, but remember, not all decks play creatures. Ability to cast it at instant speed makes it more useful.
Banishing Stroke - It's Disenchant + StP in one card. However, the non-miracle casting cost is pretty ridiculously high, and it's effect by itself isn't backbreaking.
Entreat the Angels - a very powerful finisher, but that's all it is, a win condition with limited resiliency.
Fade Away - Submerge and Banishing Stroke are essentially the same spell, but better.
Devastating Tide - Terminus is essentially the same thing, but better.
So looking at what's available both in Miracles and in their enablers, we probably want to start with the following shell:
4x Brainstorm
4x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Temporal Mastery
2-3x Terminus
1-2x Entreat the Angels
1-2x Banishing Stroke
That's a lot of blue, so we should probably also add Force of Will to that list, which takes us up to around 25 cards. We've got plenty of deck manipulation and several win conditions at this point, so the next thing we want to do is look for cards and strategies that will supplement what we're already doing and don't take us away from our control shell.
We're going to want cards that let us draw a card during our opponents' turn so that we can miracle twice per turn, once on ours, and once on theirs. Also, Wrath and Time Walk are even better when they're cast as instants. Like, dramatically so. The best cards I can think of for a deck like this in blue and white are Predict and Renewed Faith. Predict has the added bonus of working with Top/BS/Jace2, and against cards like Personal Tutor, opposing Miracles, and Noxious Revival, so at least initially, that seems like the stronger option here.
Still needed are cards that "solve" the current top decks in the format. Which basically means U/R aggro, burn, maverick, whatever insane combo deck comes out of Reforge the Soul, graveyard decks (dredge, loam) and stoneblade variants.
Kitchen Finks, Renewed Faith, and Rhox War Monk are all solid options for the lightning bolt decks, Mouth of Ronom provices an answer to GSZ --> Gaddock Teeg, which is Mavericks main plan vs. a deck like this. Game 1, you're pretty much relying on FoW vs. combo decks, while your plan vs. GY decks is essentially a well-timed terminus during their turn.
For win conditions, Sigarda is extremely hard to solve, as is elspeth who both make nice additions to war monks, entreats and jaces. Adding in the sideboard, all of this leaves us with the following preliminary decklist:
Creatures (6):
3x Rhox War Monk
2x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Eternal Dragon
Artifacts (4):
4x Sensei's Divining Top
Instants (14):
4x Brainstorm
4x Predict
2x Banishing Stroke
4x Force of Will
Planeswalkers (4):
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant
Sorceries (9):
1x Life from the Loam
3x Terminus
4x Temporal Mastery
1x Entreat the Angels
Lands (23):
2x Snow-Covered Plains
2x Snow-Covered Island
2x Mouth of Ronom
4x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
4x Flooded Strand
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Karakas
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
2x Wasteland
Sideboard:
3x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Spell Pierce
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Terminus
3x Serenity
Eternal Dragon and Emeria, the Sky Ruin are both in there strictly as pet cards of mine, they can/should be replaced with stuff that actually sees play in legacy. I'm not very high on Entreat the Angels. Mostly I see it as a more powerful version of Decree of Justice. The Wastelands are there to handle problematic lands, which given the incredible selection of lands available in Legacy now, could be pretty much anything at this point, so a catch-all answer seems reasonable. Mouth is included almost exclusively as an answer to Teeg, who, if you look at the actual casting cost of stuff in this deck is a real problem. Ponder doesn't make the cut because it's just straight up worse than top in every single possible way. War Monk was picked over Finks due to it's ability to pitch to FoW. There are 22 blue cards in the deck, which means Force should always have a buddy. Loam was included as a way to reuse wastelands and mouths, and to abuse with jace/brainstorm, and because dredging it doesn't count as a draw for miracles, and because dredging it lets you see a new three cards with top. Serves a lot of functions here. There are 13 ways to draw a card during your opponents' turn between BS, Top, Canopy, and Predict.
Some cards that didn't make it and why:
Ponder - worse in every way than SDT.
Culling Scales/Powder Keg/Ratchet Bomb/Aelopile - possibly too slow, worth testing.
Snapcaster Mage - you don't want to pay retail for your miracles.
Noxious Revival - Predict/Surgical Extraction/Scavenging Ooze, etc. Not going to be living the dream as often as you think. Also, best miracle to recycle, Time Walk, exiles itself.
Vedalken Shackles - Qasali Pridemage is in most creature based decks. In multiples. With tutors to find him.
Kitchen Finks - War Monk just seems better due to FoW pitch. Would happily run both post board though.
Anyway, that's what I've come up with for abusing Miracles so far, would love to hear from others on this topic. Thanks.
Last edited by morgan_coke; 04-20-2012 at 08:15 AM.
Why Predict over S. Top?
4 Temporal Mastery is one too many imo - I've done quite a bit of testing with it.
Sigarda is a nice dude, but at 5 mana it's quite expensive - I'd play the 4th Jace over the second Sigarda for sure.
Also I don't see a real need for green in this deck. Sigarda (too expensive), Warmonk (Kitchen Finks would work too) and Life from the Loam (a bit random without real value) do not convince me.
Where is STP? Not making room for it seems overly dogmatic & blasphemous.
Forgot to include the SDT's in the decklist. They're run alongside Predict. My bad.
You want 4x time walk. It doesn't have to be backbreaking every time you cast it. Even on t3 it's still amazing.
StP is excessively narrow given the 1 mana removal options you gain from miracles.
I can see the argument for Finks over War Monk, but that change would leave you with only 19 blue cards, which is on the low side.
Loam and Sigarda could be blue cards..Originally Posted by morgan_coke
Seriously? You write this then proceed to make a list almost identical to those lists, only worse?This is actually a serious attempt to make a viable Miracle-based decklist. If you want to just post lists that are 100% miracles or jokes, there are several threads available for that purpose, to whatever limited extent it is possible, please restrict your replies to sincere ideas and suggestions.
We already have a thread for this Right Here. It started as just a miracle deck but within a couple posts it became a U/W miracle control deck. I updated the first post to reflect that.
The extra timewalked turn will be used for what? Untap, draw, attack with Rhox, go? Really impresive.
Wow, thanks guys, great suggestions.
Cire: Let me just go back in time and unmake this because a joke thread is now posting "serious" lists that admittedly flat out lose to half the tier 1 decks.
klaus: they could, but what blue finisher would they be thats better than Sigarda? What one-of blue card could loam be that would provide the useful interactions with miracle/dredge, sdt, long term CA, and making sure that you always hit a land drop, as well as the ability to re-use wastelands and mouths?
hummpa: yeah, actually, that's a pretty accurate suggestion of what an extra turn might be used for, except you'd also get to use top a bunch, cast/use a planeswalker, play a land, etc. This isn't vintage where time walk just straight wins you the game. What it does do is put you a whole turn ahead, repeatedly. Think about how much of an advantage going first is. This is like that, but you get to do it four times. Going t3, t4 in a row isn't as spectacular as going t7, t8, but it does put you a whole turn closer to t7, t8, when you can just cast walk again.
Whats the point of multiple threads of decks that do the exact same thing? I want to work on the deck, and it's going to be annoying to go from thread to thread instead of just having one place we can talk. Also the original list was not a joke, I was just being greedy - that has since changed. The thread was up to two pages of actual substance by the time you posed this list - so that's not a real excuse. Additionally Yeah we lose to burn, combo, zoo and dredge. So does your list. Miracle lists are fantastic against creature based control that don't gold fish turn 3. I don't really know why i'm arguing with you - i just wanted to point out that a thread already exists that is talking about lists that are extremely similar to yours and IMO better.
Also after testing those lists, again IMO, temporal mastery is worse than the other U/W miracles... you can't really abuse the extra turn, it turns into a free draw pretty much.
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