Miracle Control

[Dzra]

Everyone keeps talking about people learning how to play against miracles. That already happened; miracles has been a tier 1 deck before, and fallen from that position.

Pithing Needle has always been pretty common, but I've been seeing a lot more Null Rods, Envelops, and even Dimir Charms lately as well.

[YamiJoey]

and even Dimir Charms lately as well.

So you should basically be getting free wins against people who play cards this bad, right? Why the hell are they playing Dimir Charm over Envelop? The other modes are 90% of the time useless, or strictly worse than other cards. Main decking it is too slow against the decks you need to kill Creatures against, and irrelevant when your opponent just casts a Jace.

But yes, Envelop and Null Rod are annoying. Thankfully no-one has resolved one against me.

[Dzra]

Someone was main decking Dimir Charm the other day, totally blew me out. I'm not actually sure it's good but I guess it's like a Disfigure/Envelop split card, which seems alright. Envelop is obviously better against us, but Disfigure makes it into BUG's main deck sometimes.

[twndomn]

I'm not too worried about this. I think that the delver decks make up a much larger portion of the t8 meta in a much more consistent way than miracles does. Certainly miracles has gotten more popular, but it still hasn't seen nearly the success of the delver decks. Example is that there have been top 8's made up of nearly all delver archetypes.

1. Not all miracles are from the same builds. For example, Reid Duke's running creature-less version.

2. Not all miracles pilots are at the same level. Most of the pilots are still in training, haven't get over the learn curve yet.

3. The population of delver pilots vs miracles pilots is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:1 to 5:1 in any SCG-size tournaments (estimated. based on BoM 2014). Hence, top 8 isn't all that accurate measurement for success.

[sauce]

So you should basically be getting free wins against people who play cards this bad, right? Why the hell are they playing Dimir Charm over Envelop? The other modes are 90% of the time useless, or strictly worse than other cards. Main decking it is too slow against the decks you need to kill Creatures against, and irrelevant when your opponent just casts a Jace.

But yes, Envelop and Null Rod are annoying. Thankfully no-one has resolved one against me.

Because Dimir charm's other modes are better than no other modes on Envelop. Maindecking Envelop is insane while maindecking Dimir charm has merits. It can kill a lot of small mongos while also countering Entreat/Terminus/S&T.

[TheArchitect]

Because Dimir charm's other modes are better than no other modes on Envelop. Maindecking Envelop is insane while maindecking Dimir charm has merits. It can kill a lot of small mongos while also countering Entreat/Terminus/S&T.

It's 'mill' mode is pretty good against us too. Either after we put top on top or in responce to the activation. The removal mode is relevant against 90% of the decks in the format too. It's not just 'miracles hate'. It's not necessarily good, but it's been used in esper and bug decks since it's printing.

[mike1987]

Great you liked it!

Let me know which MU you are having trouble with. I'll answer in depth on Monday, once my last exam is done :)

Greetings

Would appreciate it if you can do a simple write-up on how would you approach these match-ups,
1)shardless bug
2)jund

thanks!

[lambert101]

@Einherjer

I was trying to come up with a sideboard guide to start testing against certain match-ups with a numbered approach with notes that I thought worked.

Thanks

p.s.
The delver variants have been a pain :(

[Malakai]

Would appreciate it if you can do a simple write-up on how would you approach these match-ups,
1)shardless bug
2)jund

thanks!

He's already covered Shardless BUG in this thread, or linked from this thread. Maybe like 10 or less pages back. Additionally, I've covered my thoughts on the matchup that differ from Einherjer's fundamentally. I don't see the Jund matchup being too dissimilar to run the same strategy.

[Einherjer]

Would appreciate it if you can do a simple write-up on how would you approach these match-ups,
1)shardless bug
2)jund

thanks!

Sure, let's start with Shardless BUG. I've been writing a few lines a few days or weeks ago, so I'll just copy them in here, followed by some additional thoughts and a short analysis of the Jund-MU.

"@Shardless BUG: Glad you picked the worst MU of them all :D - Sure let's get into it.

Shardless BUG is one of the decks in the current metagame that has the best shot of supressing Miracles in the long run of a tournament - meaning it is def. possible for Miracles to displatch one Shardless BUG on its way for the Top8, but also that reaching Top8 is going to be very tough if there are many Shardless BUG players in the room, because they'll get you, eventually. Their strengths lie in the fact that they abuse many angles of attack, reaching from Tarmogoyf beatdown, to creating CA with Ancestral Vision to Planeswalkers. Dealing with one, sometimes even two angles is no problem at all. Getting to fight the war on all three angles on the other hand is a tough one, and the basic reason why this MU isn't good at all. I tested the MU against one of the best Shardless-players (Lejay) and our 20-match-test-row ended in a fashion that represents the percentage of how this MU plays out if neither of the decks is overly tuned to beat the other one. --> 9:11. I obviously tested this MU more than just 20 games, but games against masters of their deck add more value to the testing than hundreds of matches against somebody.

Due to the natura of their restrictive deckbuilding you shouldn't worry about any countermagic, with the exception of the omnipresent Force of Will. This makes resolving Entreat the Angels pretty easy, which wins the game on the spot, most of the time. Preboard they might have Toxic Deluge, however they can't afford to keep it in in the sideboarded games and will probably rely on something like Maelstrom Pulse. - so keep those Angels flashy if you can.

So let's get to how to board:

3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
4 Island
2 Plains

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Counterspell

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
1 Council's Judgement

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Entreat the Angels

SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Council's Judgement
SB: 1 Keranos, God of Storms

There is no such thing as a 100% correct boarding plan. There's a general direction that's correct and you can choose to which extent you will follow this approach, but following its direction is mandatory.

So first we are looking at the sideboard, what do we want in the sideboarded games?
Keranos is obviously very good against Shardless BUG, and very good doesn't even catch how insane he is there. Council's Judgement deals with everything but Creeping Tar Pit - sure. Vendilion Cliques pressure Planeswalkers, can kill the opponent and are able to chump-block, easy include. Disenchant will answer some evil stuff like Sylvan Library, at the very worst it deals with a Shardless Agent. Flusterstorms aren't good here. Counterspell is easily on of the best cards here, auto-include. Engineered Explosives are very potent when it comes to dealing with various threats from multiple angles. So it's correct to put them in. REBs and Pyros are very good as Jace + Vision are two of the main-threats here, whereas RIP isn't good enough. So we now have:

1 Keranos
1 Judgement
2 Clique
1 Disenchant
1 Counterspell
2 EE
2 REB
1 Pyro

That's 11 cards, which is quite a lot. Now let's look at we can take out:

Force of Will is not where we want to be, due to the nature of FoW, you all know that. Counterbalance is pretty unrelieable, not only due to Decay but mostly due to the fact that we have to deploy Counterbalance fast, in order to counter Vision, which then let's them Decay it EoT or in their Upkeep, leaving us with less ressources and therefore ensuring their Vision to resolve, which is crucial. Swords to Plowshares isn't at its best here, too, but is still a powerful tool to deal with a card like Creeping Tar Pit, which can be rather annoying to handle, otherwise.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether you want all 3 REB or only 2. Going less than 2 is no choice, as REB answers Jace+Vision, which is very crucial to our game plan. I'd go with three in the second game, and cut to two if I see enourmous amounts of Wastelands. But generally it might be correct to take all.

The next step to think about is how afraid you are of Sylvan Library and other mean enchantments/artefacts. You do have access to up to 5 answers to it, being 2 Judgement, 2 EE and 1 Disenchant. Despite the fact that EE does not deal with Null Rod it might be too much. I think that 4 is the minimum, and 5 being the maximum, with Disenchant being the 5th card, which can get the axe, depending on how you wish to board.

From all the cards that are coming out, Swords to Plowshares is the one that can stay the most, so this should be the place where fill mainboarded cards back to the sideboarded deck should you decide to not include all the possible options. So if you want to be on the safer side you can bring in less REBs and keep more Swords.

This leaves me with the following approach, but as said above, you can easily board a card more or less, the direction is all that matters here.

-4 Force of Will
-4 Counterbalance
-2 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Counterspell
+1 Keranos, God of Storms
+2 Engineered Explosives
+1 Council's Judgement
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Pyroblast

General tips for the MU:

Utilize Terminus to combat their enourmous CA.
Counter Vision with Counterspell as you can. It may not be worth countering with your Force of Will, though - at least if you don't hardcast it.
Be patient with the deployance of your game-ending threats (Jace, Entreat, Keranos)
Counterbalance can counter Ancestral Vision with a Land on top
Waste most of your effort on their Planeswalkers + Vision. Their creatures will be dealt with, eventually. (hopefully)
"

Just read it again, I think this should be enough as an general guideline.

Jund: The basic phrase I tend to describe the Jund-MU with is the following, though I fear some nuances in this statement will be lost in translation from German.
"It is me who is playing with them." - the emphasis lies on the fact, that they have very limited means to interact in a real way. All they do is discard, and drop their threats, making it very easy to calculate your plays the best you can. They have practically no way to deal with your winning cards that are Entreat the Angels and Keranos, God of Storms. All you have to do is play to your one big finisher, that will blow them out of the water.

Punishing Fire is a bitch. If they don't have it, it's actually an easy MU, if they do, it becomes more or less even. I once lost a G2 at D2 at GP Paris in about... three or four minutes, only to take back G3... but still. It's a little swingey.

So what you want from your sideboard are removal spells and big finishers, from the stock list above it'll be: 2 RIP, 1 Keranos, 1 Judgement, 2 EE and maybe 1 Counterspell, 1 Disenchant and 2 Vendilion Clique. I have to admit I didn't test/think about the fact whether or not Disenchant is needed any more, with the possibility to play 2 Judgement.

If the opponent has no Punishing Fire you can board out all your Force of Wills and your Counterbalances, and bring in 8 of those 10 candiates, possibly leaving out the Vendilion Cliques. If they do have Punishing Fire we have the following show down:

Want to bring in:
2 Rest in Peace
1 Keranos
1 Judgement
2 EE
1 Counterspell
1 Disenchant
2 Vendilion Clique
Can board out:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

- take care: I do not tell you to board out all Balances and Jaces, it's just an option. As Clique wasn't good enough the last time (easier Jund-version) it won't make the cut once more. What we do want for sure is 2 RIP, 1 Keranos, 1 Judgement, 2 EE and 1 Counterspell, making 7 cards, possibly 8 with Disenchant. Due to the fact that we cannot cut all of the cards we have to put Counterspell back into the sideboard, and the same may go for Disenchant if yo expect them to rely more on Punishing Fire than the other version did, which I expect to have more Libraries/Chains/Needles and stuff. So for the RIP version I'd suggest boarding something like this:
+2 RIP
+1 Keranos
+1 Judgement
+2 EE
-4 Force of Will
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

As mentioned several times, I am no proponent of fixed boarding plans, as you can see at my thought process. You could easily switch a few cards here and there, according to your preferences and predictions of what the opponent will bring to the table.

@lambert: I am just in the process of writing a Miracle-article for SCG. I'll def. touch on the Delver-MUs there, if you can wait a little you'll get what you asked for. In case that it's super urgent - send me a PM.

Greetings

[morgan_coke]

Hi, all new to Miracles player here. My list is somewhat different from some of the more common ones I see on here, but I think it follows the same concepts.

Punishing Miracles

Creatures - 5
1x Vendillion Clique
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
2x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1x Keranos, God of Storms

Artifacts - 4
4x Sensei's Divining Top

Sorceries - 7
2x Ponder
2x Council's Judgment
4x Terminus
1x Entreat the Angels

Instants - 14
4x Brainstorm
3x Swords to Plowshares
3x Punishing Fire
4x Force of Will

Enchantments - 4
4x Counterbalance

Planeswalkers - 3
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands - 23
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Karakas
4x Tundra
2x Volcanic Island
1x Plateau
4x Island
1x Plains
1x Mountain
3x Flooded Strand
2x Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
1x Vendillion Clique
4x Swan Song
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Rest for the Weary
2x Wear/Tear

The idea behind this list is to aim more for board control, and let Counterbalance and FoW handle the combo matchup g1 before you add reinforcements with Swan Songs and an additional Clique. I had to cut down on the number of fetches, and add more red lands to make punishing fire work, but given Pfire's effectiveness against things like planeswalkers and manlands that can normally be more of a problem for this deck, that seems like a worthwhile trade, I added Ponder's to help offset the reduced number of shuffles.

I'm really curious about changing out the fourth Terminus for a singleton Bonfire of the Damned, but I haven't tried it yet. Rest for the Weary is the sideboard card I'm most concerned about. Should it be REB? Lightning Helix? Ajani Vengeant/Elsepth, Knight Errant? Do I want Leyline of Sanctity instead? Maindeck I'm pretty unsure of Venser,

Anyways, just figured I'd post my list and some of the thoughts behind it for critique. Thanks.

[Cipher]

I've been out of it for a few months now, and I come back to Keranos being played in people's decks??? This card looks to me like Browbeat and Staff of Nin had a love-child. Of all the card advantage engines (I use that term loosely when describing a 5 mana Phyrexian Arena), why have people decided to run this one? What matchups are they running it against, and how does Elspeth or some other planeswalker not completely outclass this?

EDIT: Ok, so I see how you can control the effect if you have a Top. I suppose it's worth giving it a try.

[Adryan]

It's kind of funny how nowadays almost everyone runs Keranos. A lot of people called me stupid when i brought him up during spoiler season. I guess we all undervalued him a little bit. I even maindeck him now, because for a long time i wanted to run 3 Entreat in the MD. But it just felt too clunky.

I guess very soon Joe will also play Keranos ;)

@ Cipher

I kind of never looked back, but there were a lot of MU's where i did miss the 4th Jace. Especially against Shardless BUG, where you really need a 4th Jace.

What does that all have to do with Keranos? In my opinion he's kind of a splitcard between the 4th Jace and the 3rd Entreat.
There are a lot of MU's where you'd rather want a 4th "Jace" (f.ex the mirror) than a 3rd Entreat the Angels.

So against decks like Shardless BUG Keranos is not the 3rd Entreat, he's more the 4th Jace. One other minor thing about the 3rd Entreat is that i don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. There are cards like Pernicious Deed, Slaughter Games, Ratchet Bomb etc. where having three Entreat will feel embarassing. I cashed in a lot of tournaments (online& to some part offline) with Keranos in my 75, so give this card a shot, it won me a fair amount of games where Entreat wouldn't.

He's just very hard to deal with and can live in seas of Punishing Fires, Golgari Charms, Maelstrom Pulse and Pernicious Deed. He kills all the opponents Planeswalkers and bolts their creatures while the opp is unable to pressure or destroy him. Less powerful than Jace in a vacuum, but can't be as easily dealt with.

[Dzra]

I tried Keranos the other day and after four rounds, I boarded in three matches, had the ability to cast it four times, but was forced into other options because Keranos wouldn't have impacted the battlefield soon enough. I might give it another try this weekend because resolving it against BUG would be huge, however I'm not terribly hopeful.

[mike1987]

Sure, let's start with Shardless BUG. I've been writing a few lines a few days or weeks ago, so I'll just copy them in here, followed by some additional thoughts and a short analysis of the Jund-MU.

"@Shardless BUG: Glad you picked the worst MU of them all :D - Sure let's get into it.

Shardless BUG is one of the decks in the current metagame that has the best shot of supressing Miracles in the long run of a tournament - meaning it is def. possible for Miracles to displatch one Shardless BUG on its way for the Top8, but also that reaching Top8 is going to be very tough if there are many Shardless BUG players in the room, because they'll get you, eventually. Their strengths lie in the fact that they abuse many angles of attack, reaching from Tarmogoyf beatdown, to creating CA with Ancestral Vision to Planeswalkers. Dealing with one, sometimes even two angles is no problem at all. Getting to fight the war on all three angles on the other hand is a tough one, and the basic reason why this MU isn't good at all. I tested the MU against one of the best Shardless-players (Lejay) and our 20-match-test-row ended in a fashion that represents the percentage of how this MU plays out if neither of the decks is overly tuned to beat the other one. --> 9:11. I obviously tested this MU more than just 20 games, but games against masters of their deck add more value to the testing than hundreds of matches against somebody.

Due to the natura of their restrictive deckbuilding you shouldn't worry about any countermagic, with the exception of the omnipresent Force of Will. This makes resolving Entreat the Angels pretty easy, which wins the game on the spot, most of the time. Preboard they might have Toxic Deluge, however they can't afford to keep it in in the sideboarded games and will probably rely on something like Maelstrom Pulse. - so keep those Angels flashy if you can.

So let's get to how to board:

3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
4 Island
2 Plains

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Counterspell

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
1 Council's Judgement

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Entreat the Angels

SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Council's Judgement
SB: 1 Keranos, God of Storms

There is no such thing as a 100% correct boarding plan. There's a general direction that's correct and you can choose to which extent you will follow this approach, but following its direction is mandatory.

So first we are looking at the sideboard, what do we want in the sideboarded games?
Keranos is obviously very good against Shardless BUG, and very good doesn't even catch how insane he is there. Council's Judgement deals with everything but Creeping Tar Pit - sure. Vendilion Cliques pressure Planeswalkers, can kill the opponent and are able to chump-block, easy include. Disenchant will answer some evil stuff like Sylvan Library, at the very worst it deals with a Shardless Agent. Flusterstorms aren't good here. Counterspell is easily on of the best cards here, auto-include. Engineered Explosives are very potent when it comes to dealing with various threats from multiple angles. So it's correct to put them in. REBs and Pyros are very good as Jace + Vision are two of the main-threats here, whereas RIP isn't good enough. So we now have:

1 Keranos
1 Judgement
2 Clique
1 Disenchant
1 Counterspell
2 EE
2 REB
1 Pyro

That's 11 cards, which is quite a lot. Now let's look at we can take out:

Force of Will is not where we want to be, due to the nature of FoW, you all know that. Counterbalance is pretty unrelieable, not only due to Decay but mostly due to the fact that we have to deploy Counterbalance fast, in order to counter Vision, which then let's them Decay it EoT or in their Upkeep, leaving us with less ressources and therefore ensuring their Vision to resolve, which is crucial. Swords to Plowshares isn't at its best here, too, but is still a powerful tool to deal with a card like Creeping Tar Pit, which can be rather annoying to handle, otherwise.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether you want all 3 REB or only 2. Going less than 2 is no choice, as REB answers Jace+Vision, which is very crucial to our game plan. I'd go with three in the second game, and cut to two if I see enourmous amounts of Wastelands. But generally it might be correct to take all.

The next step to think about is how afraid you are of Sylvan Library and other mean enchantments/artefacts. You do have access to up to 5 answers to it, being 2 Judgement, 2 EE and 1 Disenchant. Despite the fact that EE does not deal with Null Rod it might be too much. I think that 4 is the minimum, and 5 being the maximum, with Disenchant being the 5th card, which can get the axe, depending on how you wish to board.

From all the cards that are coming out, Swords to Plowshares is the one that can stay the most, so this should be the place where fill mainboarded cards back to the sideboarded deck should you decide to not include all the possible options. So if you want to be on the safer side you can bring in less REBs and keep more Swords.

This leaves me with the following approach, but as said above, you can easily board a card more or less, the direction is all that matters here.

-4 Force of Will
-4 Counterbalance
-2 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Counterspell
+1 Keranos, God of Storms
+2 Engineered Explosives
+1 Council's Judgement
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Pyroblast

General tips for the MU:

Utilize Terminus to combat their enourmous CA.
Counter Vision with Counterspell as you can. It may not be worth countering with your Force of Will, though - at least if you don't hardcast it.
Be patient with the deployance of your game-ending threats (Jace, Entreat, Keranos)
Counterbalance can counter Ancestral Vision with a Land on top
Waste most of your effort on their Planeswalkers + Vision. Their creatures will be dealt with, eventually. (hopefully)
"

Just read it again, I think this should be enough as an general guideline.

Jund: The basic phrase I tend to describe the Jund-MU with is the following, though I fear some nuances in this statement will be lost in translation from German.
"It is me who is playing with them." - the emphasis lies on the fact, that they have very limited means to interact in a real way. All they do is discard, and drop their threats, making it very easy to calculate your plays the best you can. They have practically no way to deal with your winning cards that are Entreat the Angels and Keranos, God of Storms. All you have to do is play to your one big finisher, that will blow them out of the water.

Punishing Fire is a bitch. If they don't have it, it's actually an easy MU, if they do, it becomes more or less even. I once lost a G2 at D2 at GP Paris in about... three or four minutes, only to take back G3... but still. It's a little swingey.

So what you want from your sideboard are removal spells and big finishers, from the stock list above it'll be: 2 RIP, 1 Keranos, 1 Judgement, 2 EE and maybe 1 Counterspell, 1 Disenchant and 2 Vendilion Clique. I have to admit I didn't test/think about the fact whether or not Disenchant is needed any more, with the possibility to play 2 Judgement.

If the opponent has no Punishing Fire you can board out all your Force of Wills and your Counterbalances, and bring in 8 of those 10 candiates, possibly leaving out the Vendilion Cliques. If they do have Punishing Fire we have the following show down:

Want to bring in:
2 Rest in Peace
1 Keranos
1 Judgement
2 EE
1 Counterspell
1 Disenchant
2 Vendilion Clique
Can board out:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

- take care: I do not tell you to board out all Balances and Jaces, it's just an option. As Clique wasn't good enough the last time (easier Jund-version) it won't make the cut once more. What we do want for sure is 2 RIP, 1 Keranos, 1 Judgement, 2 EE and 1 Counterspell, making 7 cards, possibly 8 with Disenchant. Due to the fact that we cannot cut all of the cards we have to put Counterspell back into the sideboard, and the same may go for Disenchant if yo expect them to rely more on Punishing Fire than the other version did, which I expect to have more Libraries/Chains/Needles and stuff. So for the RIP version I'd suggest boarding something like this:
+2 RIP
+1 Keranos
+1 Judgement
+2 EE
-4 Force of Will
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

As mentioned several times, I am no proponent of fixed boarding plans, as you can see at my thought process. You could easily switch a few cards here and there, according to your preferences and predictions of what the opponent will bring to the table.

@lambert: I am just in the process of writing a Miracle-article for SCG. I'll def. touch on the Delver-MUs there, if you can wait a little you'll get what you asked for. In case that it's super urgent - send me a PM.

Greetings

Thanks, that is very comprehensive. Will put it into practice next week!

[Kanadell~]

Hi there! I've been playing miracles for about a year, but I'm new to this thread :P (although I've been reading you for quite a bit)

Have you guys seen the top8 from the Legacy Main Event of the Prague Eternal Weekend? The 2nd place is a Miracle Deck, but not a standard one! It's the "Vendilionless" version from Einhenjer, with 4 ponders and 21 lands. I've read all his thoughts and articles on the deck and I find them so helpful. Thanks for the work you're doing, Einherjer!

Returning to the deck, it lost the final vs ANT. Could it be because of the lack of spell pierces and vendilions MD? What are your thoughts on this particular matchup?

Here's the list: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14157&iddeck=104205

See ya!

[Einherjer]

Hi there! I've been playing miracles for about a year, but I'm new to this thread :P (although I've been reading you for quite a bit)

Have you guys seen the top8 from the Legacy Main Event of the Prague Eternal Weekend? The 2nd place is a Miracle Deck, but not a standard one! It's the "Vendilionless" version from Einhenjer, with 4 ponders and 21 lands. I've read all his thoughts and articles on the deck and I find them so helpful. Thanks for the work you're doing, Einherjer!

Returning to the deck, it lost the final vs ANT. Could it be because of the lack of spell pierces and vendilions MD? What are your thoughts on this particular matchup?

Here's the list: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14157&iddeck=104205

See ya!

You're welcome! I enjoy doing it! :)

Yeah, this list was piloted by a friend of mine, Tomáš Vlček. He submitted an article about this tournament at EternalCentral. Await this article to come online in the near future!

I won't tell you how the final match of the tournament went, you'll have to read it in the article!

Storm... I don't think I've talked about this in quite a while... as said, I'm rather busy with the SCG article (4500 words already, and I just covered the basics of building my style of Miracle and started to delve(!) into the Delver-MUs)... as soon as I have more time I'll drop a few hundred words on Storm!

Greetings

[Cipher]

Returning to the deck, it lost the final vs ANT. Could it be because of the lack of spell pierces and vendilions MD? What are your thoughts on this particular matchup?

I'm also interested in the combo matchup with this Snapcaster/Ponder build. More specifically how the games develop and whether you actively are racing them to set up Counter-Top, Snapcaster beatdown, etc. I remember seeing people destroy Stoneforge decks but losing to combo at that European GP, and that version was still running Spell Pierce and Clique. Do you feel that you're going even deeper into metagaming and sacrificing combo matchups to get an even higher win % against the dominant creature-based strategies that have taken over Legacy?

[Einherjer]

Alright, here we go.

Regarding Storm.

Storm has never been an easy match up, against a competent pilot, but not bad, either. Even more so, it's one of the most entertaining match ups to play, at least of all the combodecks, because who enjoys playing against Show and Tell and Belcher-esque, right?

The preboarded matches revolve around one thing. Finding Counterbalance and deploying it with one piece of leeway is where you want to be. You can also try to get them to combo while you have Force of Will/Counterspell on top of your library with Top in play, but this is rather the exception than the rule. Which deck is the best equipped to find Counterbalance? Correct, the version a full playset of Counterbalance plus four Ponder. You don't try to defend yourself with a miser Spell Pierce, which never worked, in the first place. You are rather investing all of your early game into cantripping and cantripping and cantripping. A friend of mine who was been playing my variant remarked after a tournament that it felt like playing combo. Cantripping to find what you need in order to destroy opposing decks, in this case Counterbalance. And in some instances, he is correct. My version is even less reliant on what you draw, but more on what you can find in the shortest time frame possible. As long as you don't keep a hand that instantly folds to Combo the preboarded games should be rather easy, as Counterbalance on either 0, 1 or 2 generally means you win.

The postboarded games are more insteresting by a wide margain. Not only do they gain the ability to deal with Counterbalance, but also do we have access to more useable weapons of disruption, minimizing the time we just draw the Plains+Swords+Top-hand. Let's take a quick look at what we want to board in, taking my stock list:
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
4 Island
2 Plains
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Counterspell
4 Counterbalance
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
1 Council's Judgement
2 Entreat the Angels
4 Force of Will
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Council's Judgement
SB: 1 Keranos, God of Storms

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Counterspell
2 flusterstorm
2 Vendilion Clique
(2 Rest in Peace)

are set in stone, for obvious reasons. You can also bring a certain number of Red Elemental Blasts against ANT/GS, but this approach seems to be more of a relic of my past list, where I wasn't necessarily trying to spend the first turn(s) cantripping, and those are essentially the only moments where you can/want to REB a Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain. With all these shenanigans with Young Pyromancer out of Storm sideboards boarding has gotten A LOT easier, as you now approach
both big variants, ANT and TES very very similar. Swords to Plowshares is good enough for ANT, but you want Terminus for TES. You don't need many finishers either, leading to this two boarding-versions:

ANT:
+1 Counterspell
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Rest in Peace
+2 Engineered Explosives
+2 Vendilion Clique
-4 Terminus
-2 Entreat the Angels
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Council’s Judgment
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

TES:
+1 Counterspell
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Engineered Explosives
+2 Vendilion Clique
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Terminus
-1 Entreat the Angels
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

I could def. see a few cards changing here and there, so let me know what you think and what you'd do different.

Approachng TES is a little different, as we don't want RIP and can cut on some of our late-game cards like Jace even more so than against ANT. Entreat is better against TES, as even one Angel can mess with their ADN plan, that's why I like them here more than vs ANT, where they present an I-win-button, only. Jace on the other hand is better against ANT, as they tend to go to the later game, when they cant nuts us to death. Engineered Explosives has mores uses against TES due to more Moxens and the ability to make Goblins, alongside the threat of Xantid Swarm, whereas it doesn't really contribute much vs ANT. I could definitely see bringing in Swords to Plowshares instead of Terminus against TES if you deck is less reliant on cantrips (which is a bad idea, if you ask me) but I feel that my variant can grab those Terminus fast enough to make them work like a Swords against Swarm while doubling as an answer to Goblins, should they try that route. - and don't come at me with "Why would they go for Goblins against a 4 Terminus deck" - it's happend way too often, following the reverse ideas of:Why would they keep removal if they know... (wine in front of me principle and stuff, you know)

Other than that, as long as the Storm opponent doesn't play Grinding Station which will result in a very cruel and disheartening loss for Miracles Storm is a great and enjoable even MU, which leaves both pilots with a multitude of options regarding play, boarding and bluffing.

I hope I could help, in case I left anything out or you disagree. Let me know.

Greetings

[mike1987]

You're welcome! I enjoy doing it! :)

Yeah, this list was piloted by a friend of mine, Tomáš Vlček. He submitted an article about this tournament at EternalCentral. Await this article to come online in the near future!

I won't tell you how the final match of the tournament went, you'll have to read it in the article!

Storm... I don't think I've talked about this in quite a while... as said, I'm rather busy with the SCG article (4500 words already, and I just covered the basics of building my style of Miracle and started to delve(!) into the Delver-MUs)... as soon as I have more time I'll drop a few hundred words on Storm!

Greetings

Article is up, very good read :D

http://www.eternalcentral.com/prague...y-second-best/