@ Valtrix
Further testing has shown that MD EE is insane - being able to blow up opposing Jaces rules. I do recommend it at least as a singleton.
I've also replaced a SB Wear/Tear with a Grip. I'm aware this one-of won't show up frequently, but having a cute out against the increased amounts of CBs and Batterskulls is gravy.
I think that was me who said "blue". I was on Miracles and had one Pyroblast main (without Mountain) and I just never saw it. Played (poorly) against Junk, BUG Delver, RUG Delver, Zombardment, BUG Delver, RUG Delver and BUG Midrange, so theoretically it was good.Originally Posted by TheArchitect
I am having a really dificult time beating merfolk and goblins. Is there anything im doing wrong in these MUs? Generally i found myself looking for multiple terminus and ending up dying. I really cant find a plan to beat them effectively.
Anyone can help?
It is an obvious tradeoff but no one has brought up the opportunity cost of running pfire is no longer having room for
Karakas in the 75.
These are terrible matchups that suddenly become awesome if you have a Moat and Etutor in your SB. Moat is pretty underwhelming unless you have a lot of goblins and merfolk in your area (although its not bad against Jund or shardless BUG also). Unless they spash for green/white for 1-2 SB cards, goblins has no outs to a moat besides 1 siege gang (which you just stps on sight). Merfolk, often has zero outs to a resolved moat, but they can in theory run coralhelm or bounce spells (although these days most dont). Merfolk will probably have some combination of FoW, peirce, daze, flusterstorm, envelope and swan song post board though. So don't slam it turn 4 without protection.
If moat is not worth it in your meta (which its usually not in mine), pithing needle, EE and disenchant are key. If you can keep them off vial you have a chance. Miracles cannot deal with instant speed uncounterable creatures. Board out basically all your countermagic and CB. I keep in either 2/3 pierce/FoW if I am on the play/draw JUST for Vial and REB is obviously insane against merfolk. Both decks run caverns so don't expect to counter their creatures. If you are going to win without moat, it almost has to be with a turn 3-5 terminus followed up with an ambush viper Entreat for 2-4 the next turn, or if you must, an upkeep "activate top in response to port" entreat. Especially against goblins, you will not ever stabilize without dumb luck; ringleader is too good. You basically have to out tempo them and race with angels.
My recent win against merfolk was because of opponents errors one game, and then the plan I just described. I needled vial turn 1, wiped the board around turn ~4, dropped jace and bounced the next turn, and then entreated the next turn and raced, surviving with only 1 life left.
PS: I am also going to say this because it always gets brought up: No, humility will not work instead of moat. Both cards just happen to be 4 drop white enchantments, but they do completely different things.
Merfolk should be terribly easy--disenchant their vials, terminus their board. If you run moat, that should be an auto-win. Goblins is rough, you terminus them, then they cast a ringleader and have a lethal board again next turn. I know my outer for lands against merfolk is ensnaring bridge, which could be viable for a miracles list that's comfortable playing off the top, but then again e-bridge plus punishing fire is pretty hard for them to beat. Goblins, I think you're probably in trouble, at least lands gets punishing fire and maze of iths for a repeatable way to turn them off, for you guys it's harder since you're relying on 5 board wipes and no repeatable ways to stop them from interacting.
To win against Goblins you have to hold them down long enough, so you can make some angel tokens.
Played in a small 40-person tournament yesterday.
Round 1 against 12-Post (with Oracle of Mull-Daya)
Game 1 he starts of with a Cloudpost and I immediately cringe.. I manage to brainstorm an Entreat the Angels on top to play it in my draw step for 2 angels. I get there by countering some Crop Rotations and racing his Show and Telled Ulamog.
Game 2 is more grundy and I beat him down with a Clique and a Snapcaster Mage, while countering Crop Rotation and searching for an Entreat with a Top. Eventually I have the second Snapcaster (he has a karakas for my Clique) and beat him to death after bouncing his Oracle with Jace.
Round 2 against Jund
Game 1 we both mulligan to 6 and my hand is questionable. The game is very grindy and I can't keep up with Bloodbraid Elves and Liliana after being manascrewed for a couple of turns. Punishing Fire finishes me off.
Game 2 the game gets grindy and I finish it of with Entreat tokens.
Game 3 I manage to resolve 3 Entreat the Angels, of which the 3rd is the finisher in extra turns.
Round 3 against Jund
Game 1 she has a Confidant on board which grants her enough card advantage to take the first game. Punishing Fire finishes me off.
Game 2 I hold her off long enough to resolve a lethal Entreat.
Game 3 she has it all and I can't find my Entreat.
Round 4 against Junk
Game 1 he rushes an army of 2 Deathrite Shamans and 1 Dark Confidant into my Terminus. Jace fate seal with counter backup would finish him off if I wouldn't have found my Entreat.
Game 2 is sort of the same. Nothing special, this round was easy.
Round 5 against Ubrg Punishing Fire Control
Game 1 I scoop against his board of Jace + Pernicious Dead + Punishing Fire and Grove
Game 2 I let him blow up his Deed for a Vendilion Clique and I manage to take the game with an Entreat.
Game 3 ends up with me having a lethal angel army and him top decking his last Pernicious Deed. After that he steals the match in extra turns with Punishing Fire. Tough beats.
Round 6 against RG Goblins
Game 1 he beats me to death with a couple of goblins after removing a lot of them.
Game 2 I swords his first 2 Lackey's, terminus his board twice and end of turn Entreat for lethal.
Game 3 I swords his first lackey, block his second lackey with a Snapcaster Mage while flashback swords his Piledriver. After that I manage to make some entreat tokens and eventually I can kill him with a second Entreat.
4-2 ending up 9th out of 40.
Usually I play TES, but have switched back to Miracles since GP Paris because the meta is too hostile for storm-combo (I've played it before). I notice my experience with storm has greatly improved reading opponents and thinking ahead.
So in the wake of BoM, what are people plans for battling 4C Loam and the hateful version of D&T? I'm sure people in my area will be picking up these decks soon enough and neither seems like a decent matchup for Miracles. In fact the 4C Loam deck is probably a beating.
Legacy: Rituals
Vintage: Drains
I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that 4C Loam might be bad MU - sure there might be really random wins with Chalice 1 into Zenith for Teeg which actually locks you out of removal and wincons, but the Loam deck has a pretty low threat density, lots of clunky and dead draws and I'm sure can't beat a decently sized Entreat.
Merfolk definitely isn't a walk in the park. It's a lot like a Delver deck if instead of Ponders and Brainstorms, it just ran 8 more Delvers. Their threat density is very scary and if you don't find a Terminus fast enough or if they win the counter war over Terminus then things get rather hairy. Mutavault is also very good because good Fish players will usually just sandbag it until post-Terminus to deal those last few points. Very winnable, but not very fun.
I mean, fire/groves to blow up opposing Jaces rules :P Also, fire/groves stops batterskull pretty nicely too, which is another reason I like it. Your 6 mana vs. their 8. I can certainly see EE being useful here though, and I might consider one somewhere in the 75 with more miracles being played being able to answer balance is a must. I tend to trim my curve as much as possible, so I'm unsure where I'd be able to find room right now. That said, I keep wishing I had more detention spheres, so having access to EE could help out there a lot. I also really like entreat, but I just didn't feel like I needed the second one in my fire/groves list because of SFM/batterskull and fire/groves increasing my ways to win the game. It's certainly very powerful, but fire/groves is able to pull me out of a lot of situations where I felt entreat was the only way out before. I also really hate running more than 5 miracles, just from my personal experience, although I know the accepted number is usually more. The KGrip is pretty interesting though, it certainly is the best at its job.
I didn't mean to imply it was easy, just that it was straightforward--you lock them out of aether vial, then you attempt to boardwipe and stabilize. As far as the loam deck being a beating for miracles, I will point to my personal w/l record with 4 color lands against miracles--about 70% in tournament matches. The reason a semi-large entreat doesn't kill lands is the same way 4 color lands will fight it--with engineered explosives. Loam decks are just not a great matchup for miracles because wasteland recursion + ports is not fun for your non-existent clock.
When I was playing 4C Loam (with wishes not quite the new list) I was a little over 50% vs miracles. RIP and Entreat were the only 2 cards I cared about, and once Miracles started cutting RIP from the MD and cutting down the #'s post board it became pretty easy. PFire is a perfectly fine Win Con vs Miracles. Not only does it win the game (eventually), it makes sure Jace doesnt do much, and kills off any of your non entreat creatures easily. I'd say playing more RIP is the best way to fight the 4C Loam decks.
So I am now back from the BoM. 35th place with a 7-2-1 score is not bad, but still disappointing to me due to various reasons. As said, the list worked perfect. I am not the kind of guy that whines about "unlucky" losses but I lost G3 vs Imperial Painter due to... well - see for yourself.
It's G3, I lost the 1st after he started with Blood Moon, then I easily put town the second game. In game three I keep a hand with Top, Island, Plains, Brainstorm, Spell Pierce, Swords to Plowshares and Counterbalance. He starts with Ancient Tomb, exiles Simian Spirit Guide, exiles Simian Spirit Guide, cast Koth of the Hammer. You can guess where the game went from there, as I didn't find my Pithing Needle in time.
Yet again I got to say that the list was great, I just didn't play optimally. Outside of the tournament I did some serious testing against the best players for two of the toughest matches. I played against Michael Bonde with Death and Taxes and won pretty convincing with a score of 4-1. Then I played against Jean-Mary Accart with Shardless BUG and managed to win 2-1 after I did literally nothing in game 2. Ofc the sample size isn't too big, but this duels featured some of the best players of both archetypes on both sides, so I think they are more valid than other testing.
Throughout the tournament atleast 20 people walked up to me and asked me things about Miracles, my articles or just about my Top8 in Paris. This was such a great feeling - thanks for everybody doing that - I know a lot of you are on TheSource but I just couldn't remember all names! Thanks again!
I am sorry that my previously article is still not online. There are some serious delays for all the articles, sorry. I am working on my next one, which is scheduled on the 15th of May. I hope I manage to get it done before I leave for GP Warsaw and PT Atlanta... It might be the last article I write about Miracles for the time being.
Serious congratulations to Marcus, Tomasz and Johannes for Top8ing the BoM with our beloved deck! Very well done - but I have told you so at the tournament anyways! :)
By the way guys, please tell me that you are not serious about Punishing Fires, please just tell me that you are not.
Greetings
Even Miracles players need entertainment, Altered lands and cards can only get you thus far.
Which matchups did you encounter during the main event?
Thanks in advance
Back from BoM9!
Finished 29th with a 7-1-2 score in the Legacy main event. I started 6-1 (only an unlucky loss vs dredge..), but then had 2 draws. I was happy to win the last round for top 32, but still a bit sad about those 2 draws. Could have won 1 if I called a judge when my opponent Brainstormed after a Ponder (but I was 1-0 ahead and sure about the cards he drew (did touch his hand) and am probably to good for this world...).
Together with the 4-1 finish in the thursday Vintage trial, and the 7-1-1 top 8 finish in the Vintage main event (my first Vintage main event), I had a pretty awesome weekend! Wish there still was a Golden BoM for Legacy & Vintage. Not completely sure, but I think it could have been mine hehe.
this.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...675#post810675
Back from BOM as well! Report is up there. Hope you guys enjoy.
thanks for the writeup!
Solid list - no risks taken choice-wise and rewarded. Congratz!
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