All B/R update speculation.

[taconaut]

Saying Terminus is a "one-mana unconditional sweeper" seems at least mildly disingenuous, right? The "condition" is that you have to draw it as the first card you draw in a turn; you can mitigate that drawback with Brainstorm and Top, but the Miracles player doesn't always have one of those. It's not unlike saying "Infernal Tutor is literally Demonic Tutor;" sure, sometimes it looks a lot like it, but it depends on the circumstances. I often feel like Thought-Knot Seer is a two-mana 4/4 with Thoughtseize stapled to it, but other things have to happen for it to seem that way (drawing sol-lands/eldrazi lands, committing to colorless, etc).

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Playing Top isn't really a drawback honestly :^)

It's so easy to mitigate it's barely a drawback honestly.

[taconaut]

Oh, definitely agree it's not a drawback, but it is a "condition." I feel as though many people are (perhaps intentionally reductively, so maybe I'm taking the bait) making that case that Terminus reads: "W, Instant, Put all creatures on the bottom of their owners' libraries" which is plainly not true.

I used to have a much bigger problem with Miracles (I typically play ANT) until I put the deck together myself and tried to learn it. It really is a challenging deck to pilot, and while I think it is powerful, it's definitely beatable, and I disagree that winning with it is as simple as sleeving it up and showing up to the event.

It definitely does have a bit of feel-bad to it sometimes, though, so I appreciate that people might not want to play against it all the time. I'm not really sure how to mitigate that without taking out core components of the deck.

[Crimhead]

I think 4 CMC is fine. Things like pyrockasm and such are also fine at 2-3 mana being conditional. But unconditional 1 mana is pretty egregious

Cause creature creep is okay but sweeper creep is not?

WotC have been ramping up creatures for years now, while removal is getting consistently nerfed. A lot of people think that's a good thing I guess.

Saying Terminus is a "one-mana unconditional sweeper" seems at least mildly disingenuous, right? The "condition" is that you have to draw it as the first card you draw in a turn; you can mitigate that drawback with Brainstorm and Top, but the Miracles player doesn't always have one of those. It's not unlike saying "Infernal Tutor is literally Demonic Tutor;" sure, sometimes it looks a lot like it, but it depends on the circumstances. I often feel like Thought-Knot Seer is a two-mana 4/4 with Thoughtseize stapled to it, but other things have to happen for it to seem that way (drawing sol-lands/eldrazi lands, committing to colorless, etc).

This is a little to fact-based and reasonable for this thread, don't you think? Terminus is an unconditional one mana super-wrath. End of story!

I feel as though many people are (perhaps intentionally reductively, so maybe I'm taking the bait) making that case that Terminus reads: "W, Instant, Put all creatures on the bottom of their owners' libraries" which is plainly not true.

People think that they make a stronger case with hyperbolic trite like this, when in reality they just come off as ignorant or disingenuous.

[Lemnear]

This is a little to fact-based and reasonable for this thread, don't you think? Terminus is an unconditional one mana super-wrath. End of story!

Save your sarcasm.

In a deck packed with so much library manipulation, Terminus is as "conditional" as Treasure Cruise is

[Finn]

Save your sarcasm.

In a deck packed with so much library manipulation, Terminus is as "conditional" as Treasure Cruise is

I would say that is pretty accurate. But Taconaut still makes a strong point - Terminus is clearly not unconditional. I have to say this from the D+T perspective - Miracles, the deck runs on an engine that you can fuck with. In fact there are plenty of axes to attack it from. I bet that if you name a deck, we can come up with hate for its sideboard that would be strong against Miracles. The real devil is that Miracles, while "dominant" when you get down to it on an individual match basis, still only makes up 1/5 of all winning decks. That is not anywhere close to ruining a format. And it's hard to justify the narrow hate that we would recommend when 4/5 of your matches probably won't benefit from the hate cards. But if you are losing interest in Legacy because of this one matchup, it is a Very Strong Reason to pack that hate.

[Zombie]

Cause creature creep is okay but sweeper creep is not?

We've had sweeper creep:

From:



To:



Thing is, too much is too much. Some creep's fine, other creep is quantitatively so great it qualitatively banalizes the whole thing.

[Zombie]

To illustrate with cheatable fatties, since they had a meteoric rise a few years back:

From these:


To these is probably fine:


These all still markedly care about the game state and put the player overwhelmingly ahead without winning outright, barring Progenitus which is pretty tame as I Win buttons go because of how slow it is and how bad the primary cheat engine (NO) is.

This is probably just about too much:


It's telling that he was in a class of his own when he was released and people played fallback options only because killing him in a 1-turn window was reasonable but doesn't see any play anymore. People have probably forgotten he was even printed unless they play a Highlander format.

Now we have this:

Rules text: "I Win"

And this:

"The magic of High Tide now available in a single microwaveable card, ready to play"

And the almighty Griseltard, because an upgraded Bargain is definitely a good idea:


It's telling that people are usually thankful the opponent Show&Derped in an Emralolol instead of this or Omnidrool.


Terminus is to (mass) removal what Griseltard is to cheatable fatties and Tarmogoyf was to beatsticks back in the day: It is so absolute, so extreme it is devoid of much nuance and mostly invalidates every other card in the category.

[Crimhead]

Save your sarcasm.

For what, exactly? A more appropriate thread?

Fact is Miracles needs to manipulate thier top-deck to pull Terminus off, and this does have an opportunity cost because they might otherwise do other things with that manipulation.

Also, if you blow up Top, drop a Chalice, or just go too fast for them to set up (ala Infect), suddenly that condition isn't so trivial. These are real things!

Or would you rather pretend these things never happen and that Miracles always has optimal conditions (that's right, conditions). If that's how you want to roll, be my guest. But at this point your not discussing Terminus, you're whining about it.

[Lemnear]

I would say that is pretty accurate. But Taconaut still makes a strong point - Terminus is clearly not unconditional. I have to say this from the D+T perspective - Miracles, the deck runs on an engine that you can fuck with. In fact there are plenty of axes to attack it from. I bet that if you name a deck, we can come up with hate for its sideboard that would be strong against Miracles. The real devil is that Miracles, while "dominant" when you get down to it on an individual match basis, still only makes up 1/5 of all winning decks. That is not anywhere close to ruining a format. And it's hard to justify the narrow hate that we would recommend when 4/5 of your matches probably won't benefit from the hate cards. But if you are losing interest in Legacy because of this one matchup, it is a Very Strong Reason to pack that hate.

I don't question the point per sé. However, if the "drawback" or "conditionality" is mitigated by a decks fundamental mechanics, they end up being barely relevant. I remember people calling DRS' mana-ability "unreliable" and "conditional", but I think we agree that all the fetchlands in the format make it an actual no-issue, which doesn't deserve a mention in a negative context. Brainstorm and SDT also lose their conditional weaknesses by playing Fetchlands, which are natural in the format. We can make points for LED, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Therapy being conditional in storm.dec for example, but the difficulty to match their conditional criterias is laughable just like Delvers is. They are "natural fits", which doesn't deserve to be looked at some form of "drawback".

For me, the real issue with SB hate (when it comes to miracles) is, that the deck is extremely flexible; too flexible to by hated out with 1-2 angles of hate like most combo decks are. On top of that, the deck doesn't even have to pay a price for its flexibility: It can run a shitload of basic lands and everything from removal (Plow, Terminus, Wear/Tear) to counterspells (countertop, fluster, FoW) to cardselection (SDT, BS, Ponder) costs essentially 1 mana, so you can't even win from a tempo-angle

Edit:

Fact is Miracles needs to manipulate thier top-deck to pull Terminus off, and this does have an opportunity cost because they might otherwise do other things with that manipulation.

Yeah, what a drawback to pay 1 mana to setup Terminus AND the next two cards! Whats next? Wanna tell me that DRS has a huge drawback having to remove stuff from the grave? Or you wanna call it a drawback to pay a blue mana for Ancestral Recall?

[Crimhead]

On top of that, the deck doesn't even have to pay a price for its flexibility: It can run a shitload of basic lands and everything from removal (Plow, Terminus, Wear/Tear) to counterspells (countertop, fluster, FoW) to cardselection (SDT, BS, Ponder) costs essentially 1 mana, so you can't even win from a tempo-angle

And here is your problem. You think the deck manipulates itself! Terminus costs essentially 1... because activating Top essentially costs 0?

And I'd argue Infect out-tempos Miracles smartly.

Yeah, what a drawback to pay 1 mana to setup Terminus AND the next two cards! Whats next? Wanna tell me that DRS has a huge drawback having to remove a Fetchland from the grave?

Floating a Terminus means not shuffling Brainstormed crap out of hand with a fetch-land (or cracking a fetch-land at all). Limits your Ponders, and in general limits the ability to dig and filter. Holding Brainstorm is constricting as well (if you're lucky enough to draw one).

As for DRS, it is relevant that it is sometimes stunted by a drought of fetchlands/Wastelands. It is also relevant that it targets and is not a mana ability (and goes on the stack).

Or you wanna call it a drawback to pay a blue mana for Ancestral Recall?

No. But nor will I say it's free to cast because you want to be playing islands anyway.

Also, I don't know much about Vintage, but is it a coincidence that MUD/Shops isn't running Recall and also happens to be running just ~3 sources? (Serious question - I get that it might be underwhelming in a deck where it will usually cost upwards of three mana).

[Fox]

Wanna tell me that DRS has a huge drawback having to remove stuff from the grave?

That's a solid point, but there are thresholds (pun intended) of yard interactions which draw out white cards (i.e. RiP). Utilizing the yard in post-board games will always potentially carry drawbacks.

While SDT is the enabler (not the problem card itself), there is a lack of comparing yard shenanigans to top 3 cards of library shenanigans; where one of these zones isn't hate-able.

[Lemnear]

And here is your problem. You think the deck manipulates itself! Terminus costs essentially 1... because activating Top essentially costs 0?

Don't comment, if you cannot comprehend what I wrote or why I listed library manipulation seperately

Floating a Terminus means not shuffling Brainstormed crap out of hand with a fetch-land (or cracking a fetch-land at all). Limits your Ponders, and in general limits the ability to dig and filter. Holding Brainstorm is constricting as well (if you're lucky enough to draw one).

Yo, Sherlock ... considered that you don't have to draw ALL the cards you float/put back with Ponder/Brainstorm thanks to fetchlands? What are you complaining here?

Also, I don't know much about Vintage, but is it a coincidence that MUD/Shops isn't running Recall and also happens to be running just ~3 sources? (Serious question - I get that it might be underwhelming in a deck where it will usually cost upwards of three mana).

5c Staxx ran A.Recall alongside Balance and other goodies back in the days when you actually had to durdle with Welder, Crucible and Smokestack rather than brain-afk with Chalice+Lodestone like from 2010-2015.

[Barook]

That's a solid point, but there are thresholds (pun intended) of yard interactions which draw out white cards (i.e. RiP). Utilizing the yard in post-board games will always potentially carry drawbacks.

While SDT is the enabler (not the problem card itself), there is a lack of comparing yard shenanigans to top 3 cards of library shenanigans; where one of these zones isn't hate-able.

Library hate actually exists - mill. But aside from being total garbage by itself, there's no guarantee that you aren't helping your opponent by removing garbage to draw them faster into gas, especially with Brainstorm and SDT around. That's the problem.

There are also fringe cases where you force your opponent to shuffle away stuff, but again, there's not guarantee that your opponent that new cards are worse than the previous ones, at least with SDT involved.

Imho the main problem with Miracles is the sum of its parts - one of the best (if not the best) mana bases of the format, the best card selection of the format, tons of cheap, flexible removal (that can be recycled with Snapcaster), multiple cards that are very hard to answer for various reasons (Terminus, SDT, Counterbalance) and deep pool of SB cards to adapt to pretty much everything. That's why Miracles has barely any bad match-ups.

[Fox]

Library hate actually exists - mill. But aside from being total garbage by itself, there's no guarantee that you aren't helping your opponent by removing garbage to draw them faster into gas, especially with Brainstorm and SDT around. That's the problem.

There are also fringe cases where you force your opponent to shuffle away stuff, but again, there's not guarantee that your opponent that new cards are worse than the previous ones, at least with SDT involved.

Imho the main problem with Miracles is the sum of its parts - one of the best (if not the best) mana bases of the format, the best card selection of the format, tons of cheap, flexible removal (that can be recycled with Snapcaster), multiple cards that are very hard to answer for various reasons (Terminus, SDT, Counterbalance) and deep pool of SB cards to adapt to pretty much everything. That's why Miracles has barely any bad match-ups.

Yeah, but there's no cards that say "if you would look at cards in your library without shuffling, exile those cards instead." That's an effect you can't actually print since it actually just breaks the game. Miracles parasitizes and exploits that, and the problem is made all the more profound b/c effects (actual cards from hand) that would punish them generally come in at 1 cmc, and any damage they [won't] deal is undone by paying 1 mana to rearrange the top 3 (without loss of cards from hand).

It's not really the novel aspect of an archetype deriving value by deliberately being designed to sequence the top of the library that's the problem - anything that punishes discard is inherently a positive influence (because discard, especially new iterations, is not designed in such a way as to punish people for not trying to win the game when they employ it. <-- this sentiment is an opinion). What you're really identifying is that 2-drop Counterbalance is skill-lessly turning off all reasonable "this stops now" cards because the top 3 cards of library zone is too evasive without going into cmc above 3 territory (which becomes a deck construction issue).

We have a huge card pool, and there are clever ways to kill SDT atop a library...but the higher the cmc goes, the more you're talking about a braindead, new border card that only does that one thing. However, you can't actually pull that off if they tap 2 islands (no 1-drops for you). Now sure you can pretend that putting Predict/Foreshadow into your sideboard to snipe an SDT through CB is good, but it's the worst sort of gambling since any draw effect is effectively a counterspell. We can sit here and talk about 'Terminus is the real problem' or 'it's a sum of the parts,' but that's not really an excuse for understanding the primary mechanical imbalance and instead focusing on tertiary fallout.

[MorphBerlin]

Yeah, but there's no cards that say "if you would look at cards in your library without shuffling, exile those cards instead." That's an effect you can't actually print since it actually just breaks the game. Miracles parasitizes and exploits that, and the problem is made all the more profound b/c effects (actual cards from hand) that would punish them generally come in at 1 cmc, and any damage they [won't] deal is undone by paying 1 mana to rearrange the top 3 (without loss of cards from hand).

How about a 0-1 mana artifact/enchantment that is indestructable (important otherwiise its not better than needle) and reads: if a player would looks at any number of the top cards of his library, X deals 1-2 damage to that player. Seems really conditional and not good against any deck but miracles

[Dice_Box]

Seems really conditional and not good against any deck but miracles

And that's why it's not good enough. You need something like Sooze in Modern. Grave hate that's strong enough to play main.

[Fox]

How about a 0-1 mana artifact/enchantment that is indestructable (important otherwiise its not better than needle) and reads: if a player would looks at any number of the top cards of his library, X deals 1-2 damage to that player. Seems really conditional and not good against any deck but miracles

Sure you can print cards like those, or just print: Cannot be countered. Each player reveals all cards in hand, graveyard and library; remove all enchantments with in cost.
A card like that breaks overuse of B+G for Decay overnight, but at the end of the day Counterbalance just needs to go.

[KobeBryan]

I find Miracles to be just fine.

I just don't like the fact that you can play a sorcery spell on the opponent's turn. That needs to be errataed.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I find Miracles to be just fine.

I just don't like the fact that you can play a sorcery spell on the opponent's turn. That needs to be errataed.

I could see them doing something like this in the future.

Depends on if they plan on doing something involving miracle-like effects again tho (hasn't Maro mentioned they likely won't bring back miracle?)