How do you guys feel like it performs vs. dnt? They have only like 8-9 basics and I've found one of the main ways that we lose is white sources getting ported down. Seems sketchy vs. thalia 2.0 and vial - my guess is too expensive and likely to backfire or have no impact to bring in over other options.Originally Posted by drocker23
i don't bring it in vs Death and Taxes
Only. That's one way to put it. Which Legacy decks play more basics than that? Enchantress? Burn and budget Goblins?
I play maindeck 1-2 BtB and 2 sideboard Blood Moon, I built my manabase to support this (9 basics, 3 duals 8 fetches) and I can tell you that D&T will still regularly have more basics than I will. If you are trying to hose their wastelands, Ports, Karakas' etc you are much better off with a Blood Moon or a FtA/Ruination than a BtB. BtB is more flexible but D&T can easily play around that flexibility and you have to distort your manabase for it unless you are very consciously building the deck with that purpose in mind.
Has anyone tried Harbinger Miracles lately? Why or why not? Here is a rough list for reference:
// Deck: Harbinger Miracles (60)
// Lands
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
1 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
// Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
// Spells
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Force of Will
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
3 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Monastery Mentor
SB: 1 Izzet Staticaster
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Wear // Tear (Wear)
3rd copy of snapcaster mage; 1000%.
I don't often agree with this guy but I agree 100% here.
The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.
I thought most miracles builds, legend or mentor, run 3 copies of Snapcasters. If you run less than 3, you need to be able to justify as to why.
Isn't mentor miracles, by definition, run 0 to 2 Jace?
Miracles Challenge
This is not a riddle. Rather I'd like to see what people would do given this specific card pool.
You're playing in a Grand Prix. Your main deck is 62 cards and there are 14 cards in your sideboard. Use the following list to answer the questions.
// Deck: Miracles Project (62)
// Lands
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
// Creatures
2 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
// Spells
4 Brainstorm
1 Council's Judgment
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Force of Will
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ponder
1 Predict
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Back to Basics
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Wear // Tear (Wear)
1) Condense the main deck to 60 cards by removing 2 cards from it.
2) Add any 1 card to the sideboard to make it 15 cards. Must be Legacy legal.
3) Add Basic Mountain to the main deck without going over 60 cards main deck cards.
Explain your answer.
1) Condense the main deck to 60 cards by removing 2 cards from it: -1 Predict and -1 Arid Mesa. I think the current meta, plenty of chalice of the void or even Sanctum Prelate, requires extra generic answers like engineered explosives and council's judgement. 1-1 split seems to be working fine to top decks of GP Chiba and last Angelo Cadei's list. Maybe i would cut one STP to insert one plus land (and play with 21).
2) Add any 1 card to the sideboard to make it 15 cards. Must be Legacy legal: Vendilion clique. What is better than 2 Vendilion Cliques? 3 VC!
3) Add Basic Mountain to the main deck without going over 60 cards main deck cards: -1 Predict and -1 Arid Mesa -1 Island +1 Mountain.
Maindeck:
Mountain: -1 Tundra, -1 Arid Mesa, +1 Mountain.
You are fine playing 20 lands in a cantip heavy shell. The 5th dual is also not particularly exciting when playing a 20 lands mana base. I much rather have 7 basics than 5 duals.
That's one card cut.
-1 Jace, the mind Sculptor, -1 Entreat the angels, +1 Monastery mentor.
With a deck consisting of Mentor as the primary wincondition anyhow, you are fine with having that primarely. You aso gain the benefit of being a tad stronger to Eldrazi game one, where mentor is backbreaking, and eta is very mediocre. I don't like big mana spells in a 20 lands manabase, and jace and eta are both. You are fine with having a jace in your 60, in case you get paired vs shardless, the mirror or something like that, but imo Jace is very 'meh' in very much any other matchup. wasteland, chalice, daze is everywhere meaning Jace is much less exciting.
Sideboard:
+1 Entreat the Angels. You do want it for diversity, and sometimes you get paired vs Jund or some other fair deck, where EtA just shits them up and down the neck.
-1 Red Elemental Blast, +1 Pyroblast. Misdirection is not a card that is seeing play, and you are much more interested in playing something that might just trigger mentor.
-1 Predict, -1 Ponder. In fact, That's the exact 60 I ran at Chiba (ok, I swapped 1 Volc. for 1 Mountain), and I was able to Day 2 with it, so... take it for what it's worth.
Now, are EE and CJ necessarily? Well..., Chalice from Eldrazi is still a thing, and being able to get rid of Exploration or TNN game 1 is kind of nice.
1&3) -1 Volcanic Island/Tundra, -1 Snapcaster Mage, -1 Jace, -1 Entreat the Angels, +1 Mountain, +1 Monastery Mentor
Your land count is fine but you definitely want the mainboard mountain if you're playing EE main as well. I'm leaning towards cutting the 2nd volc for the mountain over the the 3rd Tundra as you're going to need white a lot more than red at least pre-board and you have the fetches to reliably find red. Mentor Miracles wants to be a streamlined, more proactive killing machine, Jace and Entreat are clunky especially with the number of lands you have (which is fine for a mentor build but i'd add another land for a more traditional miracles build). Both are useful but not mainboard for the style of deck you want to be playing. I'd cut a snapcaster as its good in the deck but you are already playing 3 and you have access to 9 'cantrips' (counting predict) + the tops you want to retain flexibilty and I think the 1st CJ (which is the 'last' card in) just does that better for you than the 3rd snap. Totally could see the justification for playing the 3rd snap tho so take from it what you will.
2) sideboard +1 Entreat the Angels
I really like it in the board as you can bring it in against decks that will board for you as if you are on the all-in mentor package and like Quasim0ff said it just annihilates certain decks. It's a very specific tool to be brought in against very specific fights but because you're bringing it in the power and effectiveness of that tool increases dramatically. I also don't really like clique in the board. What are you bringing it in against? Slow combo? You already have bridge and containment priest for that. The Cliques just don't really impress me as a board option. If you're running the basic mountain main you'll be playing 7 basics which is right at the edge of where I think blood moon becomes more hateful against your opponent than against you so I'd consider that. I also really like Rest in Peace a lot more than surgicals as its just a much more powerful effect.
While I agree with many of your points, I believe the 3rd Snapcaster suits the mentor plan so much. It is also incredible potent with the predict, as a whole, that you want three (at least!) in your 75, in my opinion. I have been playing the fourth in the board for close to a year, and it is almost always the first sideboard card I register; Post board most of your answers are spells already, making snapcaster than much more potent.
I also disagree heavily with RiP over surgical. Rest in peace is too slow to fight B/R Reanimator and against lands, surgical is already better, as you basically want to get rid of loams and/or dark depths.
Against B/R reanimator, Rest in peace is just awfully slow, and against tarmogoyf decks, snapcaster is your, by far, best card and neutering that in order to make their decay taxed is, in my opinion, not a good plan. Against BUG reanimator, they are suplementing their maindeck plan with show and tell already, in order to minimize the effectiveness of Rest in Peace and other cards like that. I also believe, if you did want such an effect, Relic of Progenitus might just be better overall, anyhow.
To be fair; I would also not play any jace maindeck and just mentor people to death game one. If I did want jace in the deck, I would likely play one in the sideboard, due to having an effect like Entreat in certain matchups (funnily enough in the same matchups entreat are already bonkers - Which is fair, non-blue/red matchups, ie. Jund, Esper and the likes.)
Is there anything wrong with playing Surigical AND RIP?
Now Playing:
Dark depths
Reanimator
MUD
Disclaimer: The above person does not claim to have knowledge pertaining to the following subject: anything. Thus, said person may not be held liable for any mishaps/explosions that his advice incurs.
That's what I do. Might appear to be sitting on a fence, but you don't always need the speed of Surgical.
In some MUs, Permanent graveyard hate is better than Spell graveyard hate. Against Storm, I would definitely jam RiP to cut off PiF. If you want to take the PiF route, you better spend a Decay on it; and if you do that, my CB gets to do its wonder a bit longer. In the same MU, Storm could have easily probe/therapy the Surgical, force you to target something not so relevant, and you might not even want to lose 2 life and boost Storm count as response for no good reasons.
I'll concede to your knowledge on Snapcaster as I run exactly 0 in my 75 so I don't know how good it is in the mentor build. RiP has always been powerful for me but I mainboard it so that's probably coloring my assumptions of the card (permanent based grave hate is really good when they don't have answers to it G1). I play 1 Jace in the main as an easy way out G1 against the decks you mentioned but also against Miracles. G1 is usually pretty decisive and its much easier to answer mentor than Jace G1 assuming both resolve.
@Quasim0ff
while I appreciate yours and everyone else's feedback, what you're suggesting is trying to run a different deck entirely. a lean, low to the ground all in mentor aggro deck. that changes the playstyle of the deck completely. while I would prefer to run a straight 3 snapcaster/3 jace/2 entreat build of the deck, after testing I had to cut 1 entreat and 1 jace for 2 monastery mentors because some of the top tier deck matchups are THAT bad. plus, mentor takes up a lot of room sideboard.
i want to stay on the control plan. mentor is not my favorite card to have in the maindeck, but it's better than almost any other win condition against Eldrazi. Engineered Explosives also the same idea. i don't think it's realistic to go to a grand prix and assume you'll just dodge chalice of the void. plus it helps A LOT in the death and taxes match up. 2 decks I expect there to be a lot of. It's fine against the miracles mirror if you can blow up their counterbalance and then land your own. it's another out vs. liliana of the veil. and even if it kills a couple creatures, it's almost like having the 5th terminus. it's a flexible answer to both creature and noncreature permanents. and since the amount of non-creature permanents that are good against us is increasing it only makes sense to have more answers. a lot of people cut a land and go down to 20 land. i think 20 land is too few. yeah, you have cantrips but what if they play chalice on turn 1? or counterbalance on turn 2? that's when you'd rather have more cards that actually do something.
but when you are all in on the mentor plan with 4 mentors hoping to land him on turn 3 and chain together cantrips until you find double Top, is not a strategy I would prefer to play in a tournament of this magnitude. i feel that it would limit my ability to pull myself out of bad situations.
what i think is that you still play the control game. monastery mentor exists as a necessary evil allowing you to have a way to squeak out wins against Eldrazi and Death and Taxes late in the game.
Okay so everyone so far has given what they would say, but not what you should do given your preferences and what you want to be doing.
It's fairly clear to me that you want to play the more laid back style of traditional miracles, the draw go style that was popular before Mentor got printed, and you view mentor as a necessary evil, and I totally understand that. My changes and cuts reflect that a little bit, as I think your main deck is better equipped in playing in the style that you want to play in. My sideboard changes reflect how you believe that mentor is an all star in certain matchups and can bring it in to cover a lot of bases, while also having access to a creature-based "conversion" sideboard that is good in as many matchups as you want to cover. I changed out the B2B into a From the Ashes as I believe that if you only have 1 such effect, it should be as powerful as you can allow it to be. Because of this, I also changed the wear//tears into disenchants as From the Ashes and W//T effects are often necessary in the same matchups, and I don't want the lack of basic mountain to hurt you much there.
I hope my input provides helpful.
EDIT:
Just saw this comment:
So I do understand your conundrum, but my contention is that if you setup the way you build your sideboard and make amends for the slots mentor takes up with a catch-all solution like triplicate Vendilion Clique (in much the way Angelo Cadei uses the package), I think it will cover your bases more easily while also allowing you to play the style in which YOU want to be playing. You might be slightly weaker in the mirror with this configuration, but I don't think it's noticeably so since that will often come down to leveraging skill anyway. I've seen plenty of people still lose the mirror even when playing "mirror-breaker" lists and I don't think it's because of anything special. I think these changes would help facilitate what you want to do.
It's possible that something like -1 Volc +1 mountain and then moving back to wear//tears is something that you want to do, but I personally am not the biggest fan of basic mountain in the main. I currently play 20 + 1 land configuration, with basic mountain as a sideboard "spell" but that's not common and also not indicative of what you're trying to do.
@Minniehajj
So these changes you made are exactly what I did at first. I laid out all my cards on my table with that exact same decklist and thought, what do I lose by putting mentor in the main? If you subtract 2 win conditions to plus 2 win conditions, you break even. however, mentor is much stronger vs some decks than entreat the angels so in theory, this should give you a better game 1 against certain decks and adds some flexibility to your win cons. Also it can win against Eldrazi and Death and Taxes when you're desperately trying to cling to life. By moving Mentor to the main deck, it frees up more sideboard space which is a huge benefit.
so my list currently is exactly as you propose except -1 jace, -1 entreat, +2 mentor.
because Chalice of the Void is so good against us, I also decided to cut the 4th Ponder for 1 Predict, the thought behind it being that while Chalice is on 1, I have a cantrip that can be cast still allowing me to dig deeper in the deck looking for my answer. also there are A LOT of neat tricks you can do with this card and I thought as a bonus, it might be worth having the extra flexibility.
So the main deck looks like this:
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
1 Mountain
2 Plains
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Predict
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Counterspell
1 Council's Judgment
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
looking at the sideboard now:
most Miracles sideboard strategies can pretty much be broken down like this:
2 Land Destruction/Hate
3 Pyro/Reb effects
2-3 Graveyard Hate
2-3 Anti Control/Combo
2 Grindy Matchup Cards
1-2 Anti-Creature
2 Artifact/Enchantment Removal
Using this outline, I've constructed the sideboard like this:
2 Back to Basics
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Containment Priest
2 Flusterstorm
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Wear//Tear
Some cards overlap their functions, such as Containment Priest playing the Anti-Graveyard and the Anti-Combo Role. (In some situations, even the Anti-Creature role) and Vendilion Clique can play as Anti Control/Combo or as a card to bring in for the Grindy matchups. I think the reason why some people have cut the Vendilion Cliques is to add more Anti-Creature cards like Kozilek's Return or Pyroclasm. Could be a match-up specific hate card like Yuuya Watanabe and Sulfur Elemental (Gideon, Ally of Zendikar then becomes his grindy matchup tech).
So then the question becomes, which Land Destruction/Hate cards do you plan to play and why? Depending on your choice, affects how your mana base should be built.
Assuming all Miracles land bases play at least these 20 lands (but in our build we want 21).
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Fetch/Dual/Basic/Specialty Land
For example:
If you have Back to Basics, I would think you would want Basic Mountain somewhere in your 75 so you can have access to red mana and a 3rd color for EE underneath Back to Basics. Some lists run 2 Volcanic Island 1 Mountain, and others run 1 Volcanic Island, 1 Mountain, 2nd Arid Mesa.
If you have Blood Moon, you don't care about Basic Mountain so you may want the extra fetch land to make sure you can get your basics out properly before casting Blood Moon. So this would be 2 Volcanic Island, 2nd Arid Mesa
If you have From the Ashes, I think you want Mountain somewhere, so I think the idea here is to play the nonbasics and add an extra basic in the sideboard. so this would be 3 Volcanic Island and a Mountain in the sideboard. I haven't played much with this card so I don't really know.
But here's what I still can't figure out. Players seem to be at a pretty even split between Blood Moon and Back to Basics. and as mentioned above, each card changes how our mana base is built. Also, how much red we plan on bringing in from the sideboard is a factor in playing Basic Mountain. we can assume that there are 3 major decks that play Wasteland (Death and Taxes, Delver, and Eldrazi) which makes 1 mountain enticing. With Blood Moon in play we are protected from Wasteland and if we play Back to Basics we can play Basic Mountain to avoid Wasteland.
TL;DR So which do we play? Blood Moon, Back to Basics, or From the Ashes? Each have their strengths and weaknesses. Blood Moon shut off fetches but can be a complete game ender against some decks. Back to Basics is more manageable, is still capable of ending the game, but forces you to make your mana base worse by playing Basic Mountain or having to waste a sideboard slot (if you play only 20 lands maindeck) for it. If you play Basic Mountain, how many Volcanic Island do you play along side of it? I've heard you want 3 red mana sources in your 75. Is that true?
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