All B/R update speculation.

[Zombie]

Your formula is off.

( Tempo > Combo > Midrange > Tempo ) < Miracles

The point was to demonstrate that killing Miracles wouldn't turn the format into Comboland as per:

I was on hiatus from playing magic, but do you honestly believe that the meta will just revert back to what it was like in 2012 or whatever year it was that Miracles broke out? Combo/noninteractive decks have become more streamlined and harder to disrupt. Having a hard control deck keeps that in check. Proof? The entire Modern format.

They could ban pretty much any of the core cards depending on how much they wanna push back Miracles. Obviously Brainstorm or Sensei's Divining Top would kill the entire deck outright; which in my opionion wouldn't be a bad thing to begin with. Terminus probably wouldn't kill it but probably push it back deep into tier2.

Doesn't Pyroclasm still just kill most of the format?

[BTY]

They could ban pretty much any of the core cards depending on how much they wanna push back Miracles. Obviously Brainstorm or Sensei's Divining Top would kill the entire deck outright; which in my opionion wouldn't be a bad thing to begin with. Terminus probably wouldn't kill it but probably push it back deep into tier2.

What a lot of people are missing is that a lot of the "No bad matchups" quality of Miracles comes through access to Entreat the Angels. Seeing Entreat go, a lot of matchups would become outright bad instead of just "unfavorable"; this includes but is not limited to Death & Taxes and Shardless BUG.

If it was up to me though, I will still opt for Top. It's just a miserable card to have in any environment.

I don't want top to go mainly because it would significantly hamper decks like 12 post, Nic Fit, and Doomsday. I think banning entreat is the way to go, since it makes it so that BGx midrange decks and death and taxes can actually beat miracles a lot of the time. If there was no entreat then I think miracles would still be ok enough to play and that there would be some natural predators of the deck to keep it in check. Entreat has the added bonus of being in literally no other relevant deck (that land tax+scroll rack pile of garbage is not even close to tier 3, let alone tier 2 or 1.5) so the ban wouldn't really harm other decks in the format.

[YamiJoey]

Entreat is not a problem card. I have cut Entreat for Mentor. The power comes from Countertop and Terminus. If you ban Terminus, the deck's still good.

[nedleeds]

the "No bad matchups" quality of Miracles comes through access to Entreat the Angels.

It's pretty rare in Magics history that the best control deck in a format actually had an out of nowhere win condition. Even more insane that can reside floating on the library. Even Psychatog or BSC in type I has to pass the turn barring time walk.

[Lemnear]

Miracles is likely, S/S maybe, too. (Two of the biggest format oppressor gone? That would be a gift for the format.)

But the claim that Tempo dies seems ludicrous. They would probably have to run 1-2 more lands, have Preordain instead as second cantrip of choice, Delvers are slightly less likely to flip and that's it. God forbid tempo players have to plan their turn instead of sitting on their ass keeping until bad things happen. The basic strategy of the deck (cheap threats who get there while you disrupt the opponent in the meantime) is completely unaffected by that.

It's not unaffected. If you ever played tempo you'd notice that prime tempo cards like Daze, Stifle, Pierce Wasteland, etc. drastically lose value at a certain point and that drawing those past turn 3 is likely a blank. The fact that Brainstorm is an instant also benefits those deck for keeping mana open for cards like Pierce, Stifle, etc. while still being able to exchange potentially dead or redundant cards on demand without the either/or decisions sorcery-speed cantrips require.

Ergo, these typical Tempo cards suffer the same issue like some from SneakShow or Miracles: Drawing them at an unfortunate time renders them complete blanks, which you also, hopefully, would consider an absolute no-go for constructing a tournament deck.

We're back to my old conclusion I mentioned several times in regards to the nonsense of including highly conditional cards like Daze, Stifle, Terminus, etc. in tournament decks post-Brainstorm: You simply do not. You'll opt for decks with far less conditional cards and kill-mechanics like my repeatingly mentioned SFM+TNN package for that purpose, thus my pointing to blue midrange meta.

edit:

I don't want top to go mainly because it would significantly hamper decks like 12 post, Nic Fit, and Doomsday. I think banning entreat is the way to go, since it makes it so that BGx midrange decks and death and taxes can actually beat miracles a lot of the time. If there was no entreat then I think miracles would still be ok enough to play and that there would be some natural predators of the deck to keep it in check. Entreat has the added bonus of being in literally no other relevant deck (that land tax+scroll rack pile of garbage is not even close to tier 3, let alone tier 2 or 1.5) so the ban wouldn't really harm other decks in the format.

I have seen Miracles players killing their opponents with Mentor, with Jace, with Elspeth and with Baneslayer Angel for example. Chopping the wincon is pointless

[Julian23]

It's also a unique situation in the history of Legacy that the dominant control deck also has a good combo matchup. Both UW Landstill and BUG Control (MM era) had pretty bad matchups against the premier combo decks of their times.

[BTY]

Entreat is not a problem card. I have cut Entreat for Mentor. The power comes from Countertop and Terminus. If you ban Terminus, the deck's still good.

There are a lot of ways to deal with a 2/2 for 3, including but not limited to discard spells, abrupt decay, lightning bolt (sometimes), swords to plowshares. The thing with entreat is that you have to have a counterspell for it because you don't draw the card until you cast it at instant speed. It's a lot easier to deal with a 3 cmc creature that you will have in your hand a good percentage of the time than it is an instant speed army of 4/4s. Even a deck like RUG Delver can race Mentor, but its hard to race entreat since it shits out a bunch of flying creatures that are bigger than most playable creatures in the format, and a double block is easy enough to kill things like Tasigur or a big goyf.

[Lemnear]

There are a lot of ways to deal with a 2/2 for 3, including but not limited to discard spells, abrupt decay, lightning bolt (sometimes), swords to plowshares. The thing with entreat is that you have to have a counterspell for it because you don't draw the card until you cast it at instant speed. It's a lot easier to deal with a 3 cmc creature that you will have in your hand a good percentage of the time than it is an instant speed army of 4/4s. Even a deck like RUG Delver can race Mentor, but its hard to race entreat since it shits out a bunch of flying creatures that are bigger than most playable creatures in the format, and a double block is easy enough to kill things like Tasigur or a big goyf.

Imo ignores the fact (wonder how this is possible) that SDT+Counterbalance protect the Mentor from all but Decay.

[BTY]

Imo ignores the fact (wonder how this is possible) that SDT+Counterbalance protect the Mentor from all but Decay.

Well I'm just assuming its not on the table since counter top hampers most decks enough you can win with something a lot worse than mentor.

[Lemnear]

It's also a unique situation in the history of Legacy that the dominant control deck also has a good combo matchup. Both UW Landstill and BUG Control (MM era) had pretty bad matchups against the premier combo decks of their times.

SDT + Counterbalance + Terminus pretty much cover everything from fighting Creatures to fighting Combo to creating virtual & actual cardadvantage.

Personal 0.02$: Disable SDT; disable the Deck *shrug*

edit:

Well I'm just assuming its not on the table since counter top hampers most decks enough you can win with something a lot worse than mentor.

that's why I mentioned Baneslayer and Elspeth for example and argued against targeting Entreat

[nedleeds]

It's also a unique situation in the history of Legacy that the dominant control deck also has a good combo matchup. Both UW Landstill and BUG Control (MM era) had pretty bad matchups against the premier combo decks of their times.

Well they could rarely beat one Duress effect. Countertop changed all that, you have a permanent based counterspell if you can make it to turn 2. You don't fold to Duress into Derp like many control decks did post-saga. The 'new' one mana counters also help, though in fairness Disrupt was always criminally underplayed.

Edit: not in favor of banning the worse card though ... banning top leaves us with a blue tempo vs. blue 2 card derp 48 card format. I'd rather run my ball sack down a belt sander than play that for another 3 years.

[Lemnear]

Well they could rarely beat one Duress effect. Countertop changed all that, you have a permanent based counterspell if you can make it to turn 2. You don't fold to Duress into Derp like many control decks did post-saga. The 'new' one mana counters also help, though in fairness Disrupt was always criminally underplayed.

Edit: not in favor of banning the worse card though ... banning top leaves us with a blue tempo vs. blue 2 card derp 48 card format. I'd rather run my ball sack down a belt sander than play that for another 3 years.

Is this arguing for SDT + S&T then, or do you still opt for Blade.format? ;)

[BTY]

that's why I mentioned Baneslayer and Elspeth for example and argued against targeting Entreat

Well against decks like BUG delver or Shardless BUG that can realistically keep counterbalance from sticking Entreat or Jace are usually the biggest problems. The difference between Jace and Entreat is that you can actually kill Jace in combat, and even an entreat for 3 is a huge problem against those decks. Entreat makes it so that the Control deck can just race the Midrange decks with abrupt decay or just randomly flip entreat in a game they are behind to instantly pull ahead, and maybe just win.

[Julian23]

I don't think Entreat needs to go. It's not even a very good card in the first place. It just happens to fit incredibly well into the one hole Miracles' game plan has.

I still think either Top or Terminus should go. Counterbalance isn't a problem at all in nowadays Legacy. Unlike with the first CounterTop decks of the 2009/2010 era, Counterbalance is just a tool, not a devoted strategy.

[btm10]

Imo ignores the fact (wonder how this is possible) that SDT+Counterbalance protect the Mentor from all but Decay.

Not sure that this matters, but Mentor is pretty anemic in the face of Dread of Night/Night of Souls' Betrayal/Engineered Plague in much the same way that Young Pyromancer is. While answering a control deck's win condition is seldom a good plan, the source of Miracles' unfavorable but not bad matchups against Shardless and Jund largely stems from instant speed Entreats.

None of this should be construed to suggest that I think a card needs banned at this point.

Edit:

Well against decks like BUG delver or Shardless BUG that can realistically keep counterbalance from sticking Entreat or Jace are usually the biggest problems. The difference between Jace and Entreat is that you can actually kill Jace in combat, and even an entreat for 3 is a huge problem against those decks. Entreat makes it so that the Control deck can just race the Midrange decks with abrupt decay or just randomly flip entreat in a game they are behind to instantly pull ahead, and maybe just win.

Delver struggles a bit against Entreat for 3, but Shardless answers it pretty well between Pulse, Planeswalkers, Decay, Strix, and Goyf. While I'm a big advocate of letting most Terminuses resolve and countering most Entreats when playing Shardless, I'd be suspicious of countering an Entreat for 3 in a lot of scenarios.

[YamiJoey]

Banning Top would be like banning Manamorphose in Modern; it makes the format overall better because the card is completely broken, but plenty of people love th card too much and would quit playing the format almost immediately.

If Top got banned I'd sell most of my collection and buy into Vintage on MTGO.

[dte]

Honestly it would be ridiculous to whine about how overpowered are the blue cantrips, with many people arguing quite hotly (without having the decision power) on the brainstorm ban and on the blue powerlevel, and to ban the only very good colorless card selection tool.

SDT is such a very interesting card, enabling miracle, but also doomsday, and some bob.decks (jund/junk). If the problem is CB/top, why not to ban the CB? Make much more sense to me, remove a car which would be useless anyway (without top) than one which can still see some play.

And if I had to make a bet, I would say that DTT will probably go at the next Ban/unban in July.

[Dark Ritual]

Banning Top would be like banning Manamorphose in Modern; it makes the format overall better because the card is completely broken, but plenty of people love th card too much and would quit playing the format almost immediately.

If Top got banned I'd sell most of my collection and buy into Vintage on MTGO.

Yeah I agree if top was banned in legacy I would just rage as doomsday is unplayable without the card barring potentially crazy innovation that might be possible but is still very unlikely.

If I had to ban one card out of miracles it would be counterbalance. Miracles should really just be referred to as countertop + instant speed wrath for W. Without countertop it isn't locking anyone out short of jace fatesealing someone out of the game and the problem with that is that jace dies to blasts, most soft countermagic since he costs 4, and doesn't counter every spell the opponent plays.

Combo dominant if miracles became unplayable? I sincerely doubt it. There's still tempo decks that are strong against combo like canadian thresh/a deck that is arguably better than miracles against combo because they have a significantly faster clock and lots of disruption still.

[BTY]

Delver struggles a bit against Entreat for 3, but Shardless answers it pretty well between Pulse, Planeswalkers, Decay, Strix, and Goyf. While I'm a big advocate of letting most Terminuses resolve and countering most Entreats when playing Shardless, I'd be suspicious of countering an Entreat for 3 in a lot of scenarios.

Maelstrom Pulse is usually a 1 or 2 of, shardless also doesn't play much counters. Strix can be anywhere from 0-4 of depending on the deck as well. I have more experience with Jund and Junk decks than Shardless and those have a tough time answering it, shardless can at least dig pretty deep with its cantrips. Anyway the real problem with entreat is coming in on the endstep, swinging for lethal (or 12 in the 3 angel token scenario) and if they pass back with a counter or even plow the that maelstrom pulse isn't going to save you.

[rufus]

...
If I had to ban one card out of miracles it would be counterbalance. Miracles should really just be referred to as countertop + instant speed wrath for W. Without countertop it isn't locking anyone out short of jace fatesealing someone out of the game and the problem with that is that jace dies to blasts, most soft countermagic since he costs 4, and doesn't counter every spell the opponent plays.
...

Counterbalance is certainly stronger than some of the cards currently on the ban list (though that's not really saying all that much.)