Miracle Control

[December]

Wow, was Wilson responsible for all those accounts?

Don't you dare accuse our glorious Wilson for such a thing. He is way to occupied with winning tournament to spend unnecessary time here.

[Whitefaces]

It was funny at first, pretty boring now though.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I am being trolled hard, props.

[lordofthepit]

Please respect other Source members who are looking to have a productive discussion by not trolling. Some of us donated good money to contribute to this site, and such shenanigans and general tomfoolery undermines things for everyone.

[Misersoneof]

Vendilion Clique is a great card. I believe that blanking the opposing removal is a fairly dead concept at this point, the most common removal spells are abrupt decay and lightning bolt which both already have other good targets against us and they could also just brainstorm dead removal back, in the end I'm actually quite happy about trading 1 for 1 after getting the etb trigger in their end step. At first this spot was a Spell Snare, during the mtgo legacy challenge, another fairly good card. This can be seen as the extra blue spot that would otherwise be the 4:th terminus, and I believe that Vendilion Clique works well as both a bonus card for the mirrors and other non creature deck, and I'm also not to unhappy with just trading it off against a delver if I need to.

The 3 Terminus was a result of a lot of testing and discussions. The idea behind it was that in matchups where it's bad with white cards, like the mirror or combo, I wanted as much blue as possible, and against most creature decks I didn't need all the removal, but I could win with less assuming the other cards I draw instead weren't dead weight, for example I felt that I often wanted to cut 1 stp or 1 terminus post board against shardless anyways. The card wasn't cut because it was bad, no terminus is amazing and I could absolutely see 4 being better than 3, but I have played a lot with only 3 recently and I keep winning against the creature decks, and even when I lose it's rarely because the lack of terminus. It could be considered a metagame decision, for example in a world where elves is the biggest deck I wouldn't do this, but the most common creature decks are delver and those have fairly low creature counts and rarely overextend past snapcaster + stp range. Or rather, it all depends on how you look at it, if you default to 3 or 4, I do think that the 4:th terminus is a meta game decision and that the current meta game don't require me to go that far. If that makes any sense.

Keep in mind that I absolutely wanted this list to be a mirror killer list. I wanted to be happy and to fall back comfortably in my chair if my opponents opened on basic plains + sensei's divining top, or bayou + deathrite.

Regarding From the Ashes. I personally didn't board it in that often considering the matchups I got in this event, but the two friends I had put on the same list managed to play against both eldrazi and lands multiple times and I think they were happy with it there, I did board it in against both my shardless opponents, but it didn't change much because at the points that I drew it I was already winning by a ton through other means.

I can't say I would change anything yet, I know that I'm low on graveyard hate, but it's also the effect that I have found with testing (I record every match I play in a google spreadsheet) that I board in the least often. I do have the Swedish Nationals coming up in two weeks and it's possible that I will play a different list there if anything. I'm probably going to play a lot on mtgo in the next few days, possibly stream some, and that might change my list.

During the friday I played the exact same 75 that Anders did (who also got top 8), but the morning of the main event I decided to change 2 cards in the sideboard. -1 EE +1 W//T -1 Containment Priest +1 Vendilion Clique. It's possible I'll try to play around with those kinds of changes, but in general I think those cards fill a similar role.

Thanks for your response. This is all very helpful. I do have one more question, when you board in the SB mountain, what would you usually take out for it? Would you go up to 21 lands and board out a force or would you cut another land to replace with the mountain?

[Poron]

I am testing the list now and I feel so not comfortable with it.

No Boseiju, no Thoughseize. I always have the terror to cast SnT because I have no idea what he has in his hand.

Monastery Mentor instead is as stellar as usual

Good for him it carved its way up the top8 there

I still retain this opinion, but with 3 Vendilion and 2 Karakas this deck has both a solid plan B maindeck and SB (with mentor).

Really to go off without a good Thoughtseize or EOT Vendilion makes me totally uncomfortable

solid concept anyway

Karakas also help a lot with the rampaging BR reanimator and we should also start considering how much that deck will shift the meta (because it will).

That deck doesn't play and doesn't fear both Stifle and Wasteland, but it totally fears Taxes effects and Chalice.

Eldrazi and DnT will have the upper hand (also because they can play Priest) while Sultai and Temur Delver will not..

We should consider Bridge for Eldrazi and Reanimator?

What would you play to improve your matchups against those?

[It Is Unfair]

Thanks for your response. This is all very helpful. I do have one more question, when you board in the SB mountain, what would you usually take out for it? Would you go up to 21 lands and board out a force or would you cut another land to replace with the mountain?

I board in the mountain very often, basically every time I board in red cards. As a rule of thumb I tend to board out some other land if my opponents deck has only 1 or fewer play sets of mana denial (daze, wasteland, port) but go up to 21 if they have at least 2 play sets of such cards.

For example against D&T I go up to 21 lands. Same against all delver decks that have Wasteland. Here I value the ability to play additional lands very highly.

Against Shardless I board out 1 Scalding Tarn.

Against the mirror, show & tell or storm or such I board out a basic plains.

Against UR Delver I board out a Scalding Tarn.

Against Grixis control, grixis tezzerator or most stoneblade decks I board out an Arid Mesa.

Against UR Painter I board in red cards but not the mountain, same against Aluren or Food Chain for example, since in all these matchups I can reliably use my volcanic islands instead and might need the 2 basic plains since blood moon could be boarded in either by me or my opponent (depending on matchup of course, and also depending on how my opponent plays & fetches).

The reason I usually board out Scalding Tarn before Arid Mesa is that most often I want to be able to fetch for 1 plains and 1 island as early as possible, and and after that don't really care much about what fetches I draw. And then by boarding out a Tarn instead of a Mesa I get closer to a 50-50 ratio of fetches for each basic (6 white, 7 blue), basically the normal "I rather draw 1 copy each of 2 different cards than 2 copies of any single one of these cards". The exceptions are matchups in which the white cards are fairly unimportant compared to blasts, but I want to keep all the basics in the deck for things like CJ or ETA, here I usually want to fetch for a mountain and a island first, and then later get the plains.

[CutthroatCasual]

Didn't do as well as I would have liked at EW, but I think it's a great result considering I haven't played any competitive Magic in over 2 months. Started off 0-2, then 1-2, then Roland Chang beats me to 1-3, and then I win the next 5 rounds to go 6-3. I was with a buddy and I wasn't going to have him wait for me to see if I would make top 64 (to get $100 in store credit lmao no thanks) on breakers at 7-3, if I even would have won that round, so I just dropped and went to go get food.

R1: 4c Loam, a MU I have plenty of experience with but just didn't go my way. I mulled to 5 g1 and was stuck on 2 lands for 3 or 4 turns, PLUS he had the turn 1 CotV that needed to be Forced and followed up with a natural Teeg and I don't draw into any cantrips or even a Top. GG. G2 opponent opens with CotV which I FoW, then he follows with Library which I can't answer, then DRS, then GSZ into KotR which I have to Swords, then Teeg, then GG. 0-1; 0-2

R2: DnT, I actually went 1-1-1 here and g3 went to turns and I wasn't dead to boardstate or his hand (he had 2 Flickerwisps in hand, and the only creature on the field was my SCM, and I had 2 Terminuses in hand + I was hitting every land drop so would have been able to hardcast them.) However, my opponent seemed like he would have had a better chance doing well (he was a pretty good DnT pilot) so I conceded to him so he'd be 1-1. I talked to the guy after round 8 and he was 6-2 at that point so hopefully he was able to cash. 0-2; 1-3-1

R3: Chaos Elves, guy was fairly new to the deck so he made misplays that benefitted me. But NO Elves is just better anyway so why would anyone play Chaos Elves. 1-2; 3-3-1

R4: Roland Chang on Grixis Delver, it was sweet talking to him he's a great guy, the best guy. Very, very nice guy. The nicest guy. Grindy g1, quick g2 after I establish an early-ish CB, and g3 was another grind with both of us on top deck mode and he had Surgical'd my Tops after countering one (misplay by me; I jammed it into a Daze when I really didn't need to). Eventually he draws enough DRS to get there. 1-3; 4-5-1

R5: Eldrazi, went 2-0 since I've played this MU enough to know what matters and what doesn't, and my opponent didn't draw enough gas to keep up with my Terminuses. Games were closer than the round score makes them seem (g2 I stabilized at 1). 2-3; 6-5-1

R6: Burn, the quickest game I played all day (finished in like 30 minutes), went 2-0 after my opponent saw the Terminus off a Goblin Guide and still jammed a Fireblast into it when I had CB on the field so that was a punt for him g1. Then g2 he didn't recognize the Judge art on my Karakas and went to kill my Clique with a Fireblast and I just bounced Clique. 3-3; 8-5-1

R7: DnT, always grindy games buy I ended up winning 2-0. Deck just decided to cooperate with me that game with timely blind-Miracle Terminuses and all the removal at all the right times. Also, infinitely Brainstorming with Jace is busted and should be banned. 4-3; 10-5-1

R8: UR Burn, g1 he was only showing me mono blue Delver but I figured that there's no way someone is at the 4-3 table playing a mono blue deck that's not Merfolk, so I bring in Pyroblasts, and I'm right: g2 he gets early damage in with Stormchaser. I end up stabilizing at 2 which at one point put me dead to any burn spell when I tapped out for a Jace (after I untapped there was no way I was going to lose). Turns out my opponent sided out 4 Chain Lightnings and 2 PoPs and had he drawn anything other than his SB cards (which were the card(s) he drew instead) so I dodged one there. Jace -12 gets me the win. 5-3; 12-5-1\

R9: Grixis Delver, time to redeem myself and I do, getting timely Miracle Terminuses (I guess I used up all my luck this weekend) g1 and g3 (and a hard-cast WWW{1}{1} ETA for a single 4/4 that did work on defense and got me the win g1), eventually locking out the game with CB and Top and Jace. Misplay of the day: g2 I Pyroblasted a Daze because I'm dumb, but it didn't matter because he had a Young Pyro + goblin tokens on the field that I couldn't answer which killed me. 6-3; 14-6-1.

It was here that I dropped and gave my R9 opponent the win anyway so officially my record was 5-4 but it was actually 6-3 into drop.

All in all, minus the misplay that led to losing my Tops to Surgical Extraction R4 and Pyroblasting the Daze because I'm dumb in R9, very happy with my play/result.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Monastery Mentor, and Kozilek's Return were my top 3 cards.

[CutthroatCasual]

This deck is going to get banned because of this knob on cam right now

[fluuu]

This deck is going to get banned because of this knob on cam right now

Link please?

[CutthroatCasual]

https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan

[twndomn]

I am writing this without any senses of regret or apology.

Watching Eternal Weekend is giving me heartburn.

If you pull the top 3 cards from SDT activation, then shuffle those 3 cards, then set them in order, then put them back, you're the reason people want to ban SDT. F this Miller guy. How about understanding your own stack manipulation to dodge Port properly so you can Entreat, instead of doing irrelevant actions? I hope that Miller guys is reading this.

[CutthroatCasual]

i am writing this without any senses of regret or apology.

Watching eternal weekend is giving me heartburn.

If you pull the top 3 cards from sdt activation, then shuffle those 3 cards, then set them in order, then put them back, you're the reason people want to ban sdt. F this miller guy. How about understanding your own stack manipulation to dodge port properly so you can entreat, instead of doing irrelevant actions? I hope that miller guys is reading this.

But how else will you next level your opponent?

[chaosjace]

I am writing this without any senses of regret or apology.

Watching Eternal Weekend is giving me heartburn.

If you pull the top 3 cards from SDT activation, then shuffle those 3 cards, then set them in order, then put them back, you're the reason people want to ban SDT. F this Miller guy. How about understanding your own stack manipulation to dodge Port properly so you can Entreat, instead of doing irrelevant actions? I hope that Miller guys is reading this.

When you have too much mana and don't want to remember your top 3 cards.

[MiraclesWizard]

I am writing this without any senses of regret or apology.

Watching Eternal Weekend is giving me heartburn.

If you pull the top 3 cards from SDT activation, then shuffle those 3 cards, then set them in order, then put them back, you're the reason people want to ban SDT. F this Miller guy. How about understanding your own stack manipulation to dodge Port properly so you can Entreat, instead of doing irrelevant actions? I hope that Miller guys is reading this.

wait, what happened exactly? which match?

[filln]

wait, what happened exactly? which match?

Probably referring to game three of the finals vs. Turbo Depths. Starts around here: https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98040029?t=5h9m35s

Commentators and chat call him out on it too.

[CutthroatCasual]

Okay because we're not allowed to call out slow playing, let's try again: https://www.twitch.tv/cardtitan/v/98040029?t=3h54m25s

There's a difference between calling out Slow Play and needlessly being an ass about it. Your post was deleted because you did both. And you know that. -Julian23

[MiraclesWizard]

well apparently judging was out to lunch during this match?

[MiraclesWizard]

The Miracle of Science is Greg Mitchell aka Phazonmutant's creation. It combines the Show and Tell + Omni win condition with the CounterTop lock with a few miracles and mentors thrown into the mix. His record with the deck as actually quite good. He's a good friend of mine, and he keeps winning with the deck, no matter how much I make fun of him:
https://deckbox.org/sets/786823

any chance Greg played this during Eternal weekend?

[Minniehajj]

any chance Greg played this during Eternal weekend?

He most certainly did! I believe he finished with an x-3 record which is quite respectable. He lost to Miracles once, but I'm not sure what his other 2 losses were.