Simple rule - playing miracle mean playing Terminus (this is the strength of this deck) playing Terminus along with creature which doesn't bring CA on enter the battlefield mean doing 2-1 so don't try to play them both.
Speaking of non-value creatures... lol... I haven't been a big fan of them in the past, but lately I've been reconsidering Geists as an option against GBx. In conjunction with Leylines (to stop Liliana) and RIP (to stop Goyf), perhaps Geist from the board is worth looking at again?
Is there anywhere I can find a general sideboarding guide for this deck?
Finding cards to bring in is easy, but it is never knowing what to cut.
What decks would you take out Helm? Would you ever cut the number of entreats to bring in more answers? Against a deck with 4 DRS but no other grave use, do you still need 3 RIP or can you cut one?
These are just the things that come off the top of my head.
Someone probably needs to update the primer one of these days...
Against combo, you can side out Swords and some Terminus (depending on what). Depending on what they are and how much you have to bring in, you can board out some or all of the RIP package.
Against combo you leave in Force and against tempo and hard control I'll leave in a couple FoW, but against everything else you can pretty much board them out.
Against decks with a lot of burn or redundancy, you can board out Cliques.
Occasionally I'll board out a RIP if they don't use the graveyard at all or are only somewhat reliant on it. I like leaving it in more often than not though because RIP -> Energy Field/Helm still gets you a lot of mileage.
You can board out Counterbalance against decks like Fish, MUD, Dredge, and BUG (depending on how much you have to board in), but I'd leave it in most other places and don't particularly like boarding it out.
A lot of times Detention Sphere and/or Energy Field can be boarded out for being too clunky post-board.
That should cover most stuff, you can message me if you want about a particular MU.
If I find free times in the next days I could update the primer - would anyone mind joining me in doing so?
Greetings
If you are referring to MU against BUG, Mirran Crusader is simply better than Geist. If you want a generic solution against BUG and Jund, then Geist would come out on top.Originally Posted by Dzra
man but how do we deal with Terminus then?
we lose our best man for Mirran Crusader (a WW creature, btw).
We lose Pyroclasm and Terminus.
Is Crusader worth the loss?
I just don't think Crusader is really worth running in this deck. Maybe it is more useful in non-RIP versions, but between RIP, Swords, and Terminus you should be able to clear the field of any Goyfs or other threats enough to be able to get in there with Geist. Crusader here is only ever a 5, possibly 4 turn clock. Geist is pretty consistently a 3 turn clock. Mirran Crusader also gets abysmally tempo'd out if they already have or play a Jace. Geist still gets in there.
And yes, they both die to our mass removal, but the sweepers are still good at clearing the field. I could be wrong, but I don't really see Geist as a "jam it on t3, hope to get there" sort of card for us. I think I'd rather have them eat a Terminus and then use Geist to close out the game before they can recover. Though I suppose that would make me have to ask myself, is a t4/5 Geist better at closing the game out than t7/8 Entreat? Maybe not... maybe just more Entreats is still the right call, although they certainly can clutter up a hand a lot worse than Geist.
I'd be happy to help with that. I have some stuff written up already if that helps out.
I disagree. Do you realize how many tourney reports and SCG coverage have we seen, when the Miracle players dug using SDT and failed to find any removals to save his life?
In my testing, I have not only promptly blocked Goyf to buy me time, I have also blocked Batterskull token as well. If it were Geist, it would just block and die, buy me exactly 1 turn. In a deck like this, it's not about 3 turn clock vs 5 turn clock, it's really a struggle for board control. Sure, your game plan is to Terminus and then drop your bomb, but that's a big conditional and we all know what to do if we have Terminus on deck. The difference is when you don't foresee mass removal and you need an answer, which card would help you to turn this board position around? a vanilla 2/2 blocker that would just die (no karakas), or a double strike hoser that can block almost every creature BUG has (non-delver version).
just killed twice on second turn Dredge and TES (Ill-gotten Gain version) with a single RiP
RiP like condom :D, never without
This is my first time commenting on The Source. I was encouraged to contribute after I started playtesting the Punishing Fire build kaosjr, oarsmen and Shawn were discussing. I've been playing configurations of Miracles for a year now (RIP/Helm, Miracle Blade, you name it) and I've been extreely impressed by the Punishing Fire list.
I have found that it helps immeasurably in the fair matchups, particularly the BGx matches. Fire easily combats Deathrite, Confidant, Delver, Stoneforge, Strix etc.. and handles opposing planeswalkers too (especially relevant after the rules change). Lilianna is a joke against Punishing Fire. While I recognize that maindeck RIP has lots of value in shrinking goys and gaining incidental wins (against dredge for instance), I think the additional control engine in Punishing Fire is too good to pass up. Seriously. Try it.
Inarguably, the manabase in the Pfire list is a little less stable, but it is still resilient enough. To this point, I routinely play against a B/G Pox player who ravages my resources, and the Punishing list has held up just fine. In fact, it is the first Miracles list I've run that consistently beats his deck (when he was mono black it was a cake walk).
I've also switched to the Stoneforge/Batterskull package as a replacement for the RIP/Helm combo I was running. I'm not sold on it yet, but it has been effective in the fair matchups, and it presents a tricky threat for BGx decks (they often end up Decaying the mystic or germ token, which takes heat off of our counterbalance).
Here's my list:
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Batterskull
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Terminus
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Island
1 Karakas
2 Plains
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tundra
3 Misty Rainforest
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Venser, Shaper Savant
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Pyroblast
This is the strangest mana curve I have ever used. Generally I run a standard mana curve (15+ one drops, 8 two drops, 3-4 threes etc..) but I figured I'd just run with a boosted count of twos and see how it works for now (we can always tap the top to counter a 1cmc, right?)
I'd love to get some more input on the Punishing Fire build, so let me know what you guys think after some playtesting.
I will never understand 50% of your lists.
1 Blood Moon SB
1 ET SB?
probability to get the Moon on the field? 2%?
that just doesn't work. in the BUG matchup were I want to have RiP + Moon online I play 3 ET 3 RiP and 2 Moons
that's all another reliability.
Planeswalkers? the only planeswalkers that see actual play are Jace and Liliana. Jace, is rid by Pyroblast. The only problem is Liliana (which gets rid by Leyline)
And I want 4 Leylines anyway, because of Hymn to Tourach, Thoughtseize AND Liliana.
I'm also trying a version without Planeswalkers because Energy Field (which is a bitch against Dredge Merfolk and Goblin) doesn't protect Planeswalkers..
Ensnaring Bridge + Planeswalkers (but then the CA from Jace, might be dangerous)
or
Energy Field + hard lock (or better as hard as possible while waiting for Entreat the Angels / Helm of Obedience) ??
the question of my week
edit: the planeswalkers-less version also allows us moves like Pithing Needle on Jace (which would become #1 target for his Abrupt Decays, saving our main bombs: Moon and RiP)
may be SB change:
-3 Divert
+3 Pithing Needle
but Ensnaring Bridge is the first test to do now...
because yes, Moat is just superior in 99% of the cases but Ensnaring Bridge would allow us to play Sol Lands. Which definitly are another thing to test
Thanks for your input.
The odds of seeing either Tutor or Blood Moon by turn 4 are closer to 25% than 2% (and that's without digging with top/fetches). I'm comfortable with that number. Plus, to get back to my original point, the Punishing Fire tech is impacted by Blood Moon so I don't want to go all-in on Blood Moon. Blood Moon has been good for me in the BGx matchups but not outstanding, so I'm happy with the numbers I run in that regard.
Leyline is great against Lilianna but it doesn't remove her. Miracles has trouble with non-creature permanent removal (Detention Sphere is a sitting duck for Abrupt Decay), and I don't want my opponent to keep their Lilianna, making me discard every turn, only for them to lay a Maelstrom Pulse on the Leyline and then use Lilianna's ultimate (has happened numerous times to me). I recognize that Miracles can play around Lilianna as long as she doesn't come down early game but I think it's important to give Miracles access to removal, and Punishing Fire does it brilliantly, doubling as excellent creature control. Also, Punishing Fire is an easy discard to Lilianna (just pops back to your hand every turn). You're right, of course, that Pyroblast is great against Jace. So is Punishing Fire. I run both. I'm a Jace killing machine, yo.
Last night I was playing against Stoneblade. I was able to completely negate a Batterskull (the only threat my opponent could stick, because his Confidants and Deathrites are dead against Pfire) for many turns by just hitting it twice with Punishing Fire. This gave me the time to dig with top/fetches and find a Jace or Entreat for the win.
I am actually quite surprised you have not made the move to playing 1 cascade bluffs in the p.fires list
My 12 Post Videos - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...Q65OWRL5my7utn
Have you gone to college yet? The correct mathematical modeling for Magic is Hypergeometric Distribution. http://www.gatheringmagic.com/chrism...-distribution/ Please do some homework before you post comments related to numbers.
My problem with Punishing Fire Miracle Blade is that it would flat out lose to Show and Tell variants. That's the difference when you ditch Spell Pierce, combo decks make you pay for it.
While this is unnecessarily arrogant, it is also pretty correct. Here is another quick resource that is pretty useful: http://radsuara.zzl.org/lands.html (though it's designed to calculate lands, you can just replace the numbers and calculate whatever you'd like)
I think that Punishing Fire hurts against Wasteland decks more than anything really. I find that Spell Pierce doesn't particularly make or break the Show and Tell MU. Against SNT, you really need Counterbalance and a 3cmc on top. Anything less is pretty sketchy. The biggest way that Punishing Fire hurts against SNT is the lack of Enlightened Tutor to up your virtual 3cmc count and the lack of RIP/Helm to steal wins from a resolved Show and Tell.
Yeah, you guys are definitely right that Punishing builds sacrifice some game against combo decks pre-board. It might just be the fact that my meta is saturated with BGx fair decks that encourages me to make the sacrifice, but I also feel like I can somewhat shore up my weakness post-board. With the addition of 3x Blasts, Venser and Clique for Show and Tell, Leylines and RIP for Storm combo plus my 4 main deck counterbalances I think Punishing lists can salvage most combo match ups, barring a nut draw on the opponent's part. Playtesting will tell..
come on, my 2% didn't want to be mathematic, it was just sarcasticly meaning the probabilty to see (and resolve) it are very low -___-''
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