As a player getting ready to play Bant Spirits for GP Anaheim, I'm trying to figure out some tech against UW Miracles. Frightful Delusion seems great as another counterspell players can use against the Miracle deck, from the sideboard. Also, Bower Passage seems like great tech against Entreat the Angels. I'm not too sure how to combat Tamiyo and/or Feeling of Dread, though. Bramblecrash seems terrible and there's no other aggressive hexproof creatures left to use aside from Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft mainboard. Elgaud Shieldmate being a 2/3 for 4 is meh, when you'd just rather Increasing Savagery or Wolfir Silverheart, instead to go bigger.
Not to take anything away from Alexander Hayne(he's certainly a better player than I), but all 3 of his top 8 matches got punted pretty hard by the other guy. Finkle kept a rather lackluster opening that had no pressure in game 5(after refusing to take a free win, like a true pro.) Joshua Cho in game 5 elected to do a flashy double zealous conscript play instead of the much safer play of bonfiring Hayne's board and putting him on lethal with nothing in play. Vidugiris kept a hand that relied entirely on a pilgrim and lost to feeling of dread time walking him for 4 turns.
I don't see this deck being something you want to play at any big block event, The variance is too high and it's easily hateable if it gets popular.
fair enough comments. I'm a little disappointed in Finkle not taking him down on the mis-sideboard. In the top 8 of a PT you should have that sort of mistake should cause the full consequences, in fact in the top 8 I don't think your opponent should get to let you correct without penalty, that way no one gets to blame someone like Finkle who is obviously a pretty stand-up guy. (You shouldn't be punished for being a nice guy)
As a player getting ready to play Bant Spirits for GP Anaheim, I'm trying to figure out some tech against UW Miracles. Frightful Delusion seems great as another counterspell players can use against the Miracle deck, from the sideboard. Also, Bower Passage seems like great tech against Entreat the Angels. I'm not too sure how to combat Tamiyo and/or Feeling of Dread, though. Bramblecrash seems terrible and there's no other aggressive hexproof creatures left to use aside from Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft mainboard. Elgaud Shieldmate being a 2/3 for 4 is meh, when you'd just rather Increasing Savagery or Wolfir Silverheart, instead to go bigger.
The only thing Frightful Delusion would be good against is a fully miracled entreat, and that shouldn't happen too often. Just siding in 4 dissipates and 3 wolfir avengers should do well enough I think.
(after refusing to take a free win, like a true pro.)
Just wanted to point out that this shouldn't factor into the judge's decision. It is a nice gesture but in the end it doesn't effect the ruling.
This deck does seem incredibly hard to play though. There were at least 3 games where a very slightly different line of play would have lead to a win. It's also really hard to say if those alternate lines of play were even correct considering the order of the deck was the determining factor.
When the think twice was cast on the last turn of the last game I thought it was odd, and when he drew entreat off of it I just cringed. It really was a miracle that there was a 2nd one (3rd that he saw of the game!) right under it!
There is no way this deck is the new Jund. I played a lot of ABC, which was a lot of Jund mirrors. So much so that by the end of the format, most people had 4 Slave of Bolas maindeck, essentially pre-sideboarding. One of the most frustrating things about Jund was the complete lack of playskill it took to pilot it, and most mirrors came down to who drew more Slaves and Bloodbraids. Halleluiah looks like it is incredibly punishing to any mistake the pilot makes.
Just wanted to point out that this shouldn't factor into the judge's decision. It is a nice gesture but in the end it doesn't effect the ruling.
I see this floating around a lot and I disagree wholeheartedly. In a place like the top 8 of a pro tour there is plenty of room for discretion. It's not about upholding the letter of the rules, it's about upholding the spirit of them, and since he called himself out and Finkle just wanted to play it out, it's easy to see where the judges were coming from. It's like when the refs in a pro sports game go easy on foul calls because both teams just want to play the game. A judgement call, but nothing to be bemoaned later.
Have I gotten game losses for less? Sure. Am I so bitter and jaded about that that I need to call out the judges at a pro tour for letting them play it out, when that's what they both wanted to do?
I could see it for bonfire, not so hot on thunderous for this deck type though, not sure what the change in numbers would be, deck seems fairly tight already. 4 clifftop and 4 sulfur seems nice to have access to though. You could cut feeling of dread I suppose.
Not sure exactly what you cut (devistation tide x2 or something?) but Bonfire seems great here.
what i love about this deck is it has ZERO creatures mianboard. Good to see wizards plan to powercreep creatures has still left room for a creatureless deck to win a pro tour.
Agreed.
It's refreshing to see a (non-vintage) format where you can still do well with a creatureless deck. Creatures have gotten way too good compared to spells lately. It's only the block... but hopefully this trend will continue to Standard and Modern.
For the longest of time, I've told people that, yes, 1+1=2, but otherwise 1+1=3. Funny how with one word, you can make true a statements that, hum, otherwise would be wrong.
But clearly, the miracle deck ain't so good. It only posted 3-2 records in the top 8. Weak. You only have to compare it with all his opponents much better decks. They're clearly better, since they went 2-3! Yes, 3-2 nromally is better than 2-3, but, you see, otherwise it's worse.
Anyway, it's possible to build a deck and add sideboard cards to help beat it. Unlike every other decks, which cannot, ever, have cards sideboarded against them, or have a meta grow to beat them. Only UW halleluja can be hated.
I do think, seriously, that Curse of Echoes is an interesting tech against the deck. They'd need to tide the board before playing their angels. OTOH, it's only good vs. the entreats. Echoing terminus or tide won't help you.
Some of the matches reminded me of turbofog -- Feeling of dread acted as the fogs until he could terminus or had saved up enough mana for time walks and game winning spells. A turbofog deck seems like it would be very well positioned in a top 8 without too many hellriders. Traditionally, they have 1 good run, and when their presence is known, people come prepared. I'm not sure, but I don't think we'll see too much more of this deck.
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Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
For the longest of time, I've told people that, yes, 1+1=2, but otherwise 1+1=3. Funny how with one word, you can make true a statements that, hum, otherwise would be wrong.
But clearly, the miracle deck ain't so good. It only posted 3-2 records in the top 8. Weak. You only have to compare it with all his opponents much better decks. They're clearly better, since they went 2-3! Yes, 3-2 nromally is better than 2-3, but, you see, otherwise it's worse.
Anyway, it's possible to build a deck and add sideboard cards to help beat it. Unlike every other decks, which cannot, ever, have cards sideboarded against them, or have a meta grow to beat them. Only UW halleluja can be hated.
I do think, seriously, that Curse of Echoes is an interesting tech against the deck. They'd need to tide the board before playing their angels. OTOH, it's only good vs. the entreats. Echoing terminus or tide won't help you.
The logic isn't solely based on Alex Hayne's record.
11 people played this archetype. 7 of them had the exact decklist. 1 had a record of 6-4-0 or better (the eventual champ).
Hayne also started 2-3 and had to 6-0 in the draft portion to get to where he did. The rest was history.
If you took the statistics of all decks at the tournament, the Hallelujah deck's stats were pretty underwhelming. This concept might make your little head explode, but sometimes the winning deck isn't necessarily the best deck. Especially in a multi-format tournament.
I don't think this is a deck that's going to be good for the remainder of the format, though the sample size you're working with is very uninformative. That sort of analysis works well when an archetype is broadly played, but Hallelujah is so under the radar it doesn't tell us much to look at the raw numbers.
Given the circumstances of the deck's creation, it's also possible that Hayne and his testing partner were the only people who had significant experience playing the deck, which is notable given how much the seemingly unimportant play decisions matter when playing this list. This deck is punishingly difficult to play; it's likely most of the team simply wasn't prepared to run it at that PT, so only Haynes managed to pilot it to that finish.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
It's not uncommon at all for decks to have problems on Day 1 at the PT, and then have the remaining decks fare much better on Day 2. In this case, the miracle deck was having problems with r/w humans, but since those decks were mostly gone by Saturday things got easier.
Well, this deck's topdecks are more powerful (and plentiful) than anything else in the block. And with Think Twice and Thought Scour you can topdeck on your opponent's turn as well.
The logic isn't solely based on Alex Hayne's record.
11 people played this archetype. 7 of them had the exact decklist. 1 had a record of 6-4-0 or better (the eventual champ).
Hayne also started 2-3 and had to 6-0 in the draft portion to get to where he did. The rest was history.
If you took the statistics of all decks at the tournament, the Hallelujah deck's stats were pretty underwhelming. This concept might make your little head explode, but sometimes the winning deck isn't necessarily the best deck. Especially in a multi-format tournament.
It was a next-level thing. RW humans and other pure-aggro strategies are too fast for the UW miracle deck to handle, yet the RW humans decks were getting stomped by midrange strategies like reanimator and UGrw geist tempo lists. The miracles deck didn't care about board presence, only life totals, so any deck that ends up being 2-3 turns slower than the aggro lists are going to be prime rib for UW miracle.dec. Miracle.dec preys on the decks that were built to beat the most common deck in the format (RW humans).
The deck has powerful plays, to be sure, but getting back to the OP's point, it doesn't seem like a very fun deck to play against. It's exactly the opposite of engaging, and frankly, it's a shame that even one iteration of it performed well.
Anyway, the deck is, in every way that matters, a Turbofog variant. The biggest thing it has going for it in terms of long-term viability is that the existence of Cavern of Souls discourages people from playing counterspells, but at best that means that it's the kind of deck that cycles in and out of viability (a la Dredge), and at worst is a deck that requires people to sacrifice a few sideboard slots at tournaments. Turbofog decks don't, as a rule, have the kind of resilience after sideboarding that it takes to be Tier 1. Just because this particular version is extraordinarily hard to play doesn't mean that it's extraordinarily rewarding - it'll perform as well as Turbofog ever does, but not better.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Comparing this to Turbofog is a little silly, since it has basically nothing in common with turbofog other than being a slow control deck. Turbofog wants to invalidate all of the opponent's attack steps until the opponent runs out of cards; Hallelujah wants to buy itself as many draw steps as possible, because something like 20% of those draw steps are completely ridiculous.
In many ways this is very similar to a regular tap-out control deck; the major difference is that the tap-out deck wants to buy itself untap steps (So that it can successively cast spells that trump the opponent's cards, like Day of Judgement and Elesh Norn) and Hallelujah wants to buy itself draw steps so it has as many shots as possible at casting miracles that trump the opponent's spells. I think the deck is sweet, makes for awesome spectator magic, and I'm happy it did well.
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I don't see this deck being something you want to play at any big block event, The variance is too high and it's easily hateable if it gets popular.
The only thing Frightful Delusion would be good against is a fully miracled entreat, and that shouldn't happen too often. Just siding in 4 dissipates and 3 wolfir avengers should do well enough I think.
Just wanted to point out that this shouldn't factor into the judge's decision. It is a nice gesture but in the end it doesn't effect the ruling.
This deck does seem incredibly hard to play though. There were at least 3 games where a very slightly different line of play would have lead to a win. It's also really hard to say if those alternate lines of play were even correct considering the order of the deck was the determining factor.
When the think twice was cast on the last turn of the last game I thought it was odd, and when he drew entreat off of it I just cringed. It really was a miracle that there was a 2nd one (3rd that he saw of the game!) right under it!
There is no way this deck is the new Jund. I played a lot of ABC, which was a lot of Jund mirrors. So much so that by the end of the format, most people had 4 Slave of Bolas maindeck, essentially pre-sideboarding. One of the most frustrating things about Jund was the complete lack of playskill it took to pilot it, and most mirrors came down to who drew more Slaves and Bloodbraids. Halleluiah looks like it is incredibly punishing to any mistake the pilot makes.
I see this floating around a lot and I disagree wholeheartedly. In a place like the top 8 of a pro tour there is plenty of room for discretion. It's not about upholding the letter of the rules, it's about upholding the spirit of them, and since he called himself out and Finkle just wanted to play it out, it's easy to see where the judges were coming from. It's like when the refs in a pro sports game go easy on foul calls because both teams just want to play the game. A judgement call, but nothing to be bemoaned later.
Have I gotten game losses for less? Sure. Am I so bitter and jaded about that that I need to call out the judges at a pro tour for letting them play it out, when that's what they both wanted to do?
Not sure exactly what you cut (devistation tide x2 or something?) but Bonfire seems great here.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
Agreed.
It's refreshing to see a (non-vintage) format where you can still do well with a creatureless deck. Creatures have gotten way too good compared to spells lately. It's only the block... but hopefully this trend will continue to Standard and Modern.
For the longest of time, I've told people that, yes, 1+1=2, but otherwise 1+1=3. Funny how with one word, you can make true a statements that, hum, otherwise would be wrong.
But clearly, the miracle deck ain't so good. It only posted 3-2 records in the top 8. Weak. You only have to compare it with all his opponents much better decks. They're clearly better, since they went 2-3! Yes, 3-2 nromally is better than 2-3, but, you see, otherwise it's worse.
Anyway, it's possible to build a deck and add sideboard cards to help beat it. Unlike every other decks, which cannot, ever, have cards sideboarded against them, or have a meta grow to beat them. Only UW halleluja can be hated.
I do think, seriously, that Curse of Echoes is an interesting tech against the deck. They'd need to tide the board before playing their angels. OTOH, it's only good vs. the entreats. Echoing terminus or tide won't help you.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
The logic isn't solely based on Alex Hayne's record.
11 people played this archetype. 7 of them had the exact decklist. 1 had a record of 6-4-0 or better (the eventual champ).
Hayne also started 2-3 and had to 6-0 in the draft portion to get to where he did. The rest was history.
If you took the statistics of all decks at the tournament, the Hallelujah deck's stats were pretty underwhelming. This concept might make your little head explode, but sometimes the winning deck isn't necessarily the best deck. Especially in a multi-format tournament.
Given the circumstances of the deck's creation, it's also possible that Hayne and his testing partner were the only people who had significant experience playing the deck, which is notable given how much the seemingly unimportant play decisions matter when playing this list. This deck is punishingly difficult to play; it's likely most of the team simply wasn't prepared to run it at that PT, so only Haynes managed to pilot it to that finish.
It was a next-level thing. RW humans and other pure-aggro strategies are too fast for the UW miracle deck to handle, yet the RW humans decks were getting stomped by midrange strategies like reanimator and UGrw geist tempo lists. The miracles deck didn't care about board presence, only life totals, so any deck that ends up being 2-3 turns slower than the aggro lists are going to be prime rib for UW miracle.dec. Miracle.dec preys on the decks that were built to beat the most common deck in the format (RW humans).
Anyway, the deck is, in every way that matters, a Turbofog variant. The biggest thing it has going for it in terms of long-term viability is that the existence of Cavern of Souls discourages people from playing counterspells, but at best that means that it's the kind of deck that cycles in and out of viability (a la Dredge), and at worst is a deck that requires people to sacrifice a few sideboard slots at tournaments. Turbofog decks don't, as a rule, have the kind of resilience after sideboarding that it takes to be Tier 1. Just because this particular version is extraordinarily hard to play doesn't mean that it's extraordinarily rewarding - it'll perform as well as Turbofog ever does, but not better.
In many ways this is very similar to a regular tap-out control deck; the major difference is that the tap-out deck wants to buy itself untap steps (So that it can successively cast spells that trump the opponent's cards, like Day of Judgement and Elesh Norn) and Hallelujah wants to buy itself draw steps so it has as many shots as possible at casting miracles that trump the opponent's spells. I think the deck is sweet, makes for awesome spectator magic, and I'm happy it did well.