Miracle Control

[PhyrexianLibrarian]

If you are not playing a mountain, it doesn't matter what your 4 non-white fetch-lands are right? 4 Scalding tarn seems industry standard but I'm thinking that it does not really matter since you will only be using the Island half of your tarns. Would it be better to play some deltas to get around needle/extraction, or will an informed opponent see the delta and then aggressively wasteland your volcs since they know you don't have a mountain? Or are the margins for all of this stuff too small and I'm wasting my energy thinking about it?

I'm running Rainforests over Tarns because I don't feel like shelling out another $200 for a playset. But yeah, I think the margins on next-levelling your opponent are pretty small, and if you're going to try and play around a Needle on a fetchland, you may as well go all the way and run a 2/1/1 split between Delta, Tarn and Rainforest. But even then, they'll just target Flooded Strand instead, and if they're wasting Needles and Extractions on your fetchlands instead of on your win conditions, I think you're already in good shape.

[sdematt]

You only name fetchlands if it eesolves with uncracked fetchlands and you want to goon your opponent.

[CutthroatCasual]

For anybody trying a sideboard Cavern of Souls in the legendary build - what do you think of playing a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir out of the board? Previously I found it too slow to matter against most decks in the format, but right now it seems the number of Miracles and OmniTell decks is pretty high. Against the mirror you can resolve your Jace without contest and turn every counterspell into Last Word, against Omni if you use Cavern to cast it they are forced to Cunning Wish on the spot or during their main phase to get Wipe Away (which might not even work if you've set up Counterbalance lock), and against Shardless BUG it can shut down Cascade and is difficult to kill outside of Liliana of the Veil and Maelstrom Pulse. The downside to it obviously being that it costs a lot of mana, and you can cast more generically powerful spells at that point on the curve.

I want to hear this answered, too. Personally, I feel that Teferi is too slow like you said. There are so many better options against OmniTell that having him as another option doesn't really do much. Against OmniTell I have:

2x Clique
1x Venser
2x REB
1x Wear/Tear
1x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Flusterstorm maybe

[AnziD]

I want to hear this answered, too. Personally, I feel that Teferi is too slow like you said. There are so many better options against OmniTell that having him as another option doesn't really do much. Against OmniTell I have:

2x Clique
1x Venser
2x REB
1x Wear/Tear
1x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Flusterstorm maybe

Why is Flusterstorm a maybe?

[goblinsplayer]

Why is Flusterstorm a maybe?

Agree. Flusterstorm is probably one of the best counters you have against Omni due to it being very hard for them to counter back.

[twndomn]

Agree. Flusterstorm is probably one of the best counters you have against Omni due to it being very hard for them to counter back.

Unless they in response, Cunning wish for their own Flusterstorm.

[AnziD]

Is the Grixis Control deck just a really bad matchup for us? Or am I playing against it very poorly? They always just seem to have way more countermagic than me.

[sdematt]

Pretty sure that deck was built to dethrone Miracles.

-Matt

[Dragonslayer_90]

Pretty sure that deck was built to dethrone Miracles.

-Matt

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. The deck has game against Miracles for sure, but I think a good Miracles pilot with enough knowledge of the MU has a pretty good chance. I think the MU is 50-50 at worse for Miracles given the Miracles pilot knows what they are doing. Counter Top is just so good against the deck, and Miracles I think is still inherently more powerful in the end so if you play tightly you should be able to over power them at some point. This is a topic I have discussed with other fellow Miracle players. I will write about what we discussed in detail within a day or so. For now, I need to get back to writing my undergraduate senior thesis...

[CutthroatCasual]

They run SIX counterspells main. That's NOTHING.

Cabal Therapy certainly is strong against counter-light Miracles lists, though.

AnziD it might depend on your list.

[TheArchitect]

Pretty sure that deck was built to dethrone Miracles.

-Matt

At almost every local tournament for over a year I inevitably have had to play against Eli Kassis or Ed Dommico playing that deck. I have not beat either of them. Granted both are great players, but grixis (with delver/stifle or the more controling deck), are terrible for miracles. Literally all of their cards are good against us in both pre and post board games. And they make SB for us very awkward. You kind of have to cut some removal, but you also often need to answer pyromancer immediately. And you need to keep answers for their PW and hate cards like null rod. It is definitely a bad matchup, and as far as reasonable deck choices go (I am ignoring you 12post), it is the matchup I want to dodge the most. I would much rather play against shardless BUG.

[Zllig]

Is the Grixis Control deck just a really bad matchup for us? Or am I playing against it very poorly? They always just seem to have way more countermagic than me.

In my experience I have crushed the Grixis control decks with Young Pyro and Dack soundly. It's a grindy match up that is for sure, but they are basically just a strictly worse control deck than us. Once you answer their Pyros and one of Tasigur/True-Name they have no more win cons and you can just lock them out from there. It can be a tough match up, but realistically they can't ever beat Counterbalance lock.

[Poron]

Pyroclasm is your best card in that matchup. Everything dies to it but Nemesis

[AnziD]

I feel like postboard they have as much countermagic as us but also Force on top of that. I have had a very hard time resolving CB against them, postboard especially. Any tips?

[Poron]

the usual rule against counter heavy decks: Vendilion Clique them heavily, then you know how to move

[CutthroatCasual]

I like to bait them with spells that they don't necessarily need to counter but would set them back if they let them resolve, like a Terminus w/ just Pyro and 1 Delver out. I'm okay if they counter the Terminus because I have other answers to their creatures, and it gives me a free opening to play CB, or at the very least fight a counter war over it, at the cost of 6-7 life, which is fine, because they're almost never going to resolve another spell for the rest of the game.

[Quasim0ff]

I like to bait them with spells that they don't necessarily need to counter but would set them back if they let them resolve, like a Terminus w/ just Pyro and 1 Delver out. I'm okay if they counter the Terminus because I have other answers to their creatures, and it gives me a free opening to play CB, or at the very least fight a counter war over it, at the cost of 6-7 life, which is fine, because they're almost never going to resolve another spell for the rest of the game.

If they have a Delver and a Pyroman out, and they actually protect them from a terminus, you are actually in trouble, no matter if you resolve cb or not. That's an incredibly fast clock...

[Poron]

Grixis, Esper, Jeskai. All the same, all grindy matchup.

Pyroclasm helps us hugely against these matchups imho. Liliana and TNN are the worse we can find there

[TheArchitect]

I went 4-0-2 (IDs) at a local 1k with the list I posted earlier. I was seeded 1st but we just split and enjoyed the rest of the nice day. My matchups were the mirror, GB pox, Mono-Red Sneak Attack and UR Delver. The list felt solid.

My match in the mirror reminding me of some good advice to reiterate: as others have said before, counterbalance is the most important card in the mirror. A lot of people thing top is and will force of will over it. This is not worth it, you need to save your FoW for the fight over CB. In both the games that I won against him, he fought over top and then eventually lost to the CB I resolved.

Another tip, if your short on time and winning, stop trying to win more. I won with a Jace fateseal with about 10 seconds left on the clock, but I was only able to do this because for the previous 6 turns I did not spend more than 2 seconds spinning top each turn and I discarded 5 ponders, snaps or brainstorms instead of wasting time casting them.

Here's the list I have been running lately:
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island

4 Brainstorm
1 Council's Judgment
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
1 Dig Through Time
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Force of Will
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
2 Vendilion Clique

Sideboard:
2 Containment Priest
1 Council's Judgment (Change to an EE)
1 Disenchant
1 Force of Will
2 Meddling Mage
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Spell Pierce
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Blood Moon

[presquepartout]

My match in the mirror reminding me of some good advice to reiterate: as others have said before, counterbalance is the most important card in the mirror. A lot of people thing top is and will force of will over it. This is not worth it, you need to save your FoW for the fight over CB. In both the games that I won against him, he fought over top and then eventually lost to the CB I resolved.

I played the mirror on Friday night, and while I lost the match, this was 100% the case. In G1 I drew the blue part of my deck, and he drew the white part, so I won. He won both post-board games, but I was still very happy with how I played. He FoW'd my Tops, and I didn't fight over it, which let me win the CB fights. Unfortunately, I struggled to find cantrips, so I had a hard time protecting my naked CBs (which was able to take care of with Council' Judgment). Eventually, he drew more CB and I had nothing.

Anyway, I like the list you posted, and am going to try something similar later today.