All B/R update speculation.

[Lemnear]

This unbeatable deck with no weaknesses still seems to lose a lot.

Is that so? I see Joe Losett T16/8 all the time and so did Philip when he was actively pushing Miracles. Maybe we should acknowledge that the player is a factor??

[iatee]

I mentioned that a few pages ago. We act like Miracles is this deck that appears out of nowhere and wins a tournament on its own. Almost everyone who showed up to the last Open with Miracles did poorly. Only a handful of people did very well with the deck and they've been playing the deck nonstop for years. To me that seems like exactly what you'd want out of a T1 deck.

[Barook]

Amen. Just check out those SCG Open results. 4 copies in the top 32, only 1 top 8'd and it was the master himself. Also, they were all pretty different. Heck, the list Harlan Firer ran was almost an aggro deck...

Joe placing in the Top 8 with 7 Miracles total on Day 2 is within the range of reasonable (12.5% vs 14.3%). But celebrating the number of Miracles is wrong when you look at field percentage that placed. 3 out of 7 placed in the Top 16 (42.8%) and 4/7 in the Top 32 means 57.1% representation. Given the low numbers, there's a certain margin of error, but it certainly isn't underrepresented at the top tables like you try to imply, but rather overrepresented, if anything.

As for good players playing good decks, Tom Ross is the God of Infect, yet we don't see pros putting up a 15+% Infect meta like it's the case for Miracles.

The latest Legacy Challenge also featured 3 Miracle decks in the Top 8, with the second time having Truckis on Miracles win/split the finals. Although I'm still not sure whether his bitching on Twitter that Top should be banned is genuine or ironic.

[rufus]

Having no weakness is not the nature of a control deck.
In the history of MTG control decks always had something they just couldn't handle, Landstill had troubles dealing with Vials, Landeed had an unwinnable burn MU, stoneblade had problems dealing with punishing fire, Lands if considered a control have a hard MU agaijnst combo, can get hated out the game, shardless scoops to moon, has to deal with denial.
...

The nature of control decks is that the control elements protect and support the win conditions, so that there's a lot of inevitability once the deck has turned the corner.

[sdematt]

Miracles is a powerful deck, but I'm all for an unbanning first over a banning to try to correct it all.

But one thing I agree if Joe did say people aren't really boarding for Miracles as much as they should. If you're not running Needles, Rods, Boils, etc. then I'm not sure how you think you're winning those games.

Maybe we should do an anti-Miracles podcast.

[Barook]

Maybe we should do an anti-Miracles podcast.

I would still wait and see what happens on Monday. While I doubt anything is going to happen, there's a chance.

[Dice_Box]

Does anyone have info on how well Miracles went in the Legacy Gauntlet? It would be interesting to know seeing as you would not get to choose to play it and no small amount of those players would have been less that optimaly skilled with it.

[Richard Cheese]

The issue with that is not that people are pointing to Prague alone. DTB stats, Miracles has been the undisputed top dog since Feb 14. Nothing in that time (Save for one very lackluster month where there were no events played) has done anything to put any kind of roadblock in the decks growing popularity.

Saying "One event does not make a trend" does cut both ways, but the trend I do see has been ongoing for two and a bit years. So while a single event like Prague may have been held up a little higher than it should have (Thought I would add that Columbus was held up higher) it's not without ongoing issues that make people point fingers. No one is commenting that Goblin Stompy made top 8. Its not an issue. No one is seeking to defend or condemn it. There is no fuel on that fire. But there is fuel elsewhere and not without merit.

Regardless of where you stand, and these days I stand with just making sure the data is right, the data does support a trend. Brainstorm, for those who wish to masterbate over that arugmunt is the undisputed top dog when it comes to cards played. Has stayed that way every month as far back as I can find Data for. Miracles is the undisputed top dog when it comes to decks played, but in it's defence it at least does not always keep the spot of "Most effective deck last month".

Data wise, people seeking to defend the deck have an uphill battle to say that everything is a-ok. Thats just on the data. Not even talking about personal views. People said Eldrazi would kill it, data does not support that claim. Data says that the two largest decks over the last 5 years have been Maverick and Miracles, with Miracles holding the most points in a month title for 2 of the top 3 data sets. Mav taking the third back in 2012. So that point of Data I am not sure is relevant any longer.

How far back can I push the data? 2009. Though 09 is not of great use to anyone. In that time what can I see? The fall of aggro (March 2010 top decks are Zoo, Bant, Fish, Goblins and ANT.) and the rise of the Tempo-Control meta. In this new Meta two decks have stood above all else, one of those decks has fallen, reinvented itself and then risen again (Delver) and the other has never fallen at all.

So I would argue that it is not that people come out of the woodwork when an events like Columbus-Prague happen, I would argue people get bored and stop watching, then bitch that this is happening again. A point they have every right to make.

Why are people still talking about single events and how a deck seems to be doing when Dice had the correct answer 4 pages ago? I think the real question is "what is the correct data to use?" Only events with 50+ people? 100+? Top 8 only? Top 16? Maybe top x as a percentage of total participants, or some kind of weighting system based on total participants? I'm honestly not sure what TCDecks uses to calculate "No. of Tops"

[Dice_Box]

This application it's a way to determine the tier decks of a selected month. This system gives each archetype one point for each round of the tournament based on it's asistance and one point for each round won in the top 8.

[ahg113]

That's true, but it's also the nature of control decks.

hmm, not really. In the way-back time-machine, of rock paper scissors, control didn't have the same end game. It wasn't until Morphling was printed that control got an "unfair" beat stick, and it's only gone up from there. Give me back the days when the control finisher was Air Elemental.

[PirateKing]

...

So winning a 9 round tournament gets you 13 points?

[Barook]

So winning a 9 round tournament gets you 13 points?

12, actually. 9 rounds + 3 matches in the Top 8.

[Richard Cheese]

Ah ok, I was looking at the "Tier Decks" under "Metagame", which just seems to go by "no. of tops" for each deck. I just saw the line you're talking about, and I'm guessing they mean "based on it's attendance", not "asistance". That's still a little vague, do you get more than one point per round in large tournaments, or do you just get more points by virtue of there being more rounds?

[H]

I always get confused now, we find out this coming Monday right? The Monday after the Prerelease?

[Mr Miagi]

monday after pre-prelease, so the shitstorm in this thread has yet to peak

[H]

monday after pre-prelease, so the shitstorm in this thread has yet to peak

Fantastic, there are still a few things that could possibly come off the list that I don't currently have a playset of, so I might just pick up some stuff in the next few days.

[MGB]

SENSEI'S DIVINING TOP -

BANNT!

*roars of approval from the masses*

[PirateKing]

I guess the metric that has always escaped me is some derived value that takes into account a deck's performance weighted to favor longer tournaments as compared to the number of those decks present at the tournament. Saying a specific archetype constitutes half the top 8s is only half the picture, if half of the tournament is playing that archetype then claiming the deck is OP is misleading. I always got the sense, especially in the days of weekly SCG tournaments, that the netdeck flock mentality caused this circular logic by which 1/3 of the tournament would be playing something, and with those numbers one inevitably got somewhere in the top 8, reinforcing that it was "good" and causing more people to play it. It took a large upset to force people to reconsider what the next "best" deck was, they'd copy the list and the cycle would repeat. With Miracles now, I feel we're stuck in that cycle. I mean absolutely it's a solidly good deck, but that it's kind of ridiculous to call for bans on cards that have been in the format for years now. Countertop is 10 years old this month. The Miracle mechanic is over 4 years. If people say the deck is a problem now, the argument can't point to something that's nearly as old as the format. I get the dissatisfaction from the deck, but it seems to be more because half the people at my shop play the deck, and at any large tournament it's statistically unlikely you'll avoid it.

[Lemnear]

With Miracles now, I feel we're stuck in that cycle. I mean absolutely it's a solidly good deck, but that it's kind of ridiculous to call for bans on cards that have been in the format for years now. Countertop is 10 years old this month. The Miracle mechanic is over 4 years. If people say the deck is a problem now, the argument can't point to something that's nearly as old as the format. I get the dissatisfaction from the deck, but it seems to be more because half the people at my shop play the deck, and at any large tournament it's statistically unlikely you'll avoid it.

Miracles, with all the additions the deck got in Wear/Tear, councils judgement, Mentor, Snapcaster and more, has slowly driven out all the aggro decks of the format and is the top perfoming archetype for more than 3 years now. Survival was legal for more than 10 years before it got banned due to the supplementing creatures getting too good and the same is true for SDT+CB. The time people stalled opposing aggro with V.Shackles and their own Tarmogoyfs is long gone. Its fair to consider that between Entreat/Terminus and Mentor, SDT became a bit too good

[Crimhead]

So i would say if you want to kill the deck ban top, if you want to weaken it ban CB/Terminus.

A CB ban wpu;d also kill thew deck. Without that card (and sufficient ability to control the top-deck), Miracles simply lacks the defensive resources to survive till the late game.

The fundamental question here is still, if you want to argue that Miracles has more issues setting up Terminus/Entreat with Ponder/Brainstorm/Jace rather than with SDT in addition than a deck like Reanimator has to setup their wincondition with Karakas or Leyline of the Void on the table?

Holy bold text, Batman!

The big difference is that Miracles, unlike any other deck, needs to constatntly fix their top deck, lest Entreat will not be an issue because they won't last that long. One-shot cantrips and a 4cc walker just won't cut it.

Without SDT, Counterbalance is completely inviable. These cards live for each other. If you can't counter 2+ spells with CB, it's no better than playing Counterspell, right?

Most decks have an aggressive approach to (most) matchups; Miracles doesn't. It's build defensively, which means it has a ton of cards it doesn't use well, but are needed.

This, and this! Counter-Top is the heart of Miracles. Without such synergy the deck dies, or would be modified beyond recognition (most probably via the addition of more aggressive elements).

If you want to hurt this deck without killing it, ban Terminus, or possibly Mentor. If you want to rub it out entirely, ban CB or Top (preferably CB, as there would be a tonne of splash damage from banning Top but not whatsoever from a CB ban).

I think most people know my opinion on whether the deck should get a ban, and if so what. I also don't think anybody really cares. In this post, my only intent is to discuss the impact of various bans on the deck - I'd rather not discuss whether or not there should be a ban, nor whether such a ban should aim to kill the deck or not. Not much more to say about that at this point.