Miracle Control

[Poron]

pre DTT Omnitell was with Cunning Wish, Meditate, Dream Halls and Enter the Infinite.
everything dealt perfectly by Rebs, Pierces and Flusterstorm, Clique and Wear/Tear

Nowadays difference would be Young Pyromancer and their rebs.

[alphastryk]

So, in general, this ban seems great for us. We reset by a year but gain Containment Priest to combat Sneak and Show? Sign me up!

Here's a quick attempt to get back to where I was then (probably not right, but where I'm starting from):


4 Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Karakas
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Spell Pierce
4 Counterbalance
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Counterspell
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Council's Judgment
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Terminus


Sideboard:
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Wear // Tear
1 Containment Priest
1 Rest in Peace
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Counterspell
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Meddling Mage

[CutthroatCasual]

Did you play against Omni pre-Dig? It's not very good.

I did. Was a much easier MU.

And while Canonist is nice against Storm, it's already a positive matchup. Against both decks, you're fine with the normal sideboard options (Flusterstorm, Clique, REB against Omni, and Grave hate against ANT).

Canonist is also solid against Shardless, which will also no doubt be on the rise again.

[Anselm]

Just one quick question, I'm just starting out with the deck. When would you sideboard in Mentor? Against mirror and all combo decks? Thanks.

[Poron]

I wait to see if red really runs away from the format and then I play 3 Jaces, 3 Clique, 2 Venser (just for strange/corner situation) and 2 Karakas in the 75

Mentor has always been a card not for Miracle. In the very latest builds we stopped even playing every Miracle card (Quasimoff totally shifted to another deck).

So glad to play Jace again

[Bragi]

Poron please keep your thoughts to yourself. You nonsensical "contributions" to the thread are insulting at best.

[Poron]

Bragi, can you share your decklist?

thanks

[TheArchitect]

Canonist is also solid against Shardless, which will also no doubt be on the rise again.

No one really played cannonist pre-DTT, and for good reason. Omnitell was an easy matchup and storm was not too bad without cannonist. Canonist is NOT solid against shardless. Remember, shardless agent is an artifact creature...

[twndomn]

No one really played cannonist pre-DTT, and for good reason. Omnitell was an easy matchup and storm was not too bad without cannonist. Canonist is NOT solid against shardless. Remember, shardless agent is an artifact creature...

I understand your point, but... in principle canonist is not a horrible choice. When you design your SB, you want to diversify your hate in general. While counters are important against combos, hate-bears become a strong option after you have made some land drops.

Now, if the concern is Shardless, Canonist is not the primary hate bear. A better permanent based hate for that MU would be Blood Moon, in which this thread already had discussion on.

On a separate topic, really? People are back to the Entreat plan already?

[Whitefaces]

Poron please keep your thoughts to yourself. You nonsensical "contributions" to the thread are insulting at best.

While his contributions may not be the best, he is at least actively discussing relevant topics on miracles. I've not seen you say anything constructive.

[TheArchitect]

I understand your point, but... in principle canonist is not a horrible choice. When you design your SB, you want to diversify your hate in general. While counters are important against combos, hate-bears become a strong option after you have made some land drops.

I agree that hate bears are awesome, but meddling mage or Clique are much better choices than canonist, which is only good against 2 decks that are already positive matchups.

[PhyrexianLibrarian]

Canonist is also solid against Shardless, which will also no doubt be on the rise again.

Ugh, that's such a specific case! I'm going back to Mages, the matchups that you'd want Canonist against are either already good, or Canonist seems like a way too narrow and niche solution. And yeah, Meddling Mage on Abrupt Decay (or Liliana) is much closer to where I want to be against BUG.

Edit: I'm actually considering going back to Blood Moon, as the prevalence of mono-U in my area made it a constantly dead card. Everything old is new again!

[Quasim0ff]

I wait to see if red really runs away from the format and then I play 3 Jaces, 3 Clique, 2 Venser (just for strange/corner situation) and 2 Karakas in the 75

Mentor has always been a card not for Miracle. In the very latest builds we stopped even playing every Miracle card (Quasimoff totally shifted to another deck).

So glad to play Jace again

That was due to decks just Digging better than we did (and mainly the ability to play Jace, Vryn's Prodigy (Or as he is called: Jace, Wunderkind von Vryn (aka Wonderchild))), as well as playing Lightning Bolts, which are my favorite card.

Miracles is pretty clearly well positioned again, due to the Dig decks losing their ability to outgrind miracles with Dig. They can't anymore, which means Terminus and Angels are suddenly super-strong again.

* People suggesting REB isn't maindeckable anymore - Get real. The card is still excellent, as the format is still blue.

[Poron]

Hymn, Tarmogoyf, Bob, Counterbalance, CotV, Library, Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Snapmage.

They all come down with 2. Against BUG it can be wise to play Spell Snare instead of Flusterstorm/Pierce/Reb. To be tested at least..

2 Counterspell in any of my lists are definitly a staple now

[Gros]

Is in your opinion Ethersworn Canonist still necessary? Would Surgical extraction still be viable?

[presquepartout]

If you're only playing 2 Volcanic Islands and are generally more afraid of mana denial strategies, I would advise swapping the Wear // Tear for a Disenchant.

[twndomn]

21 Lands: I think that after the ban, denial strategies could be more viable again (aka it's worthless that people try to discard cards from hands and destroy lands if they fuel Dig) so i think 20 land lists becomes a little risky.

1 Entreat the Angels: This card has the potential of win a grindy game singlehandedly on the spot, expecially games vs. Jund and Shardless Bug, then i don't want to limit the number of angles of attack of the deck.
2 Monastery Mentor: Well this is a new angle of attack that the deck has, it opens up a little desperate matchups, and give a deck a total new dimension, we can now try to race, and adds to the deck an "oops i won" element, btw it overloads a little our opponents decays even from main deck.

Sideboard:

Is in your opinion Ethersworn Canonist still necessary? Would Surgical extraction still be viable?

Agree, actually 21 might be as low as you can get away with. I would actually do 22 to be on the caution side. Wastelands win games. Wasteland + stifle can deny some more.

The common wisdom is that people would SB-out creature removal against miracles in SB games, hence Mentor shines. However, people also SB-in Top hate, in which case your mentor + double Top combo will not work. The plus side for MD mentor is that there's nothing opponents can do about the Mentor + Top abuse game 1, other than instant speed creature removal.

2 Canonist is no longer applicable post banning. Canonist is good against food chain, aluren, storm, and elves. Certainly we are slightly favored against elves already. I would still have 1 in the SB for the argument of diversifying combo hate, but running other hate bear like MM sounds legit as well.

[raistlinim]

Do we want spell Pierce again? We had DTT to come back against discard but now we don't? Thoughts?

[PhyrexianLibrarian]

Do we want spell Pierce again? We had DTT to come back against discard but now we don't? Thoughts?

I think this is a local meta-call; I try to make room for 2 Pierces where other decks posted here run 2 Pyroblasts, because my local shops are FULL of non-blue decks, and that's just going to get worse now.

Relevant spells that Pierce hits but Pyroblast doesn't:
- Thoughtseize/Inquisition/Cabal Therapy
- Sylvan Library
- Chalice of the Void
- Glimpse of Nature
- Aether Vial
- Rituals/Mox Diamonds
- Gamble/Exploration

Relevant spells that Pyroblast hits but Pierce doesn't:
- True-Name Nemesis
- Delver of Secrets

[raistlinim]

I'm just considering because we ran spell Pierce before Dtt and now that it's gone should we bring it back. The early disruption can now actually do that to us. Hymm, Thoughtseize, and Liliana are actually good again.