MTG Salvation

The DnT player in my area is quite strong, and he’s started playing a green splash for Gaddock Teeg and even Sylvan Library.
How concerned should I be about this?

Our metagame is fairly small, and he very often pilots this deck: he is very much worthy of attention. It is quite difficult to win any local events without getting through him specifically.

Is sideboard Pyroclasm and a MD Karakas the best I can do in this situation?

Quote from Lormador »

The DnT player in my area is quite strong, and he’s started playing a green splash for Gaddock Teeg and even Sylvan Library.
How concerned should I be about this?

Our metagame is fairly small, and he very often pilots this deck: he is very much worthy of attention. It is quite difficult to win any local events without getting through him specifically.

Is sideboard Pyroclasm and a MD Karakas the best I can do in this situation?

You considered a Blood Moon lock against him? Usually Death and Taxes doesn't have to worry about Blood Moon effects because of 10+ basics, but if he is splashing green, that would be his biggest weakness. D&T thrives on being able to lockout others, but they can't play well once their locked out, this is the core reason to why most D&T players won't splash a colour.

It might be worth it to run a moat in your 75 somewhere, since he's probably cold to that (like flicker wisp and mind sensor are outs) (bit pricy so idk if you can invest in it). Is he running GSZ, cause if not you probably don't have to worry about seeing the teeg hella consistently
MD karakas would also help. idk about the clasm, could be good, maybe Volcanic fallout could be better, since its pretty great against delver and merfolk too.

Well, I do not have a Moat though I might be willing to invest in one at some point: though ironically the DnT player in question is a friend of mine who owns Moat and would possibly loan one to me (if I asked really nicely).
I’d kind of rather buy a blue dual land than a Moat though. I might be able to get a pair of Tropical Islands for that, and I consider that a purchase a better one for my particular collection. It’s the only blue dual I do not own, and 4 of those will open a variety of decks… like Post, and I could always just win that way lol.

He does not run Mindcensor or GSZ, just a few Teegs. The other problem with Moat being that it’s just another 4 CMC solution, and what he does run is Serra Avenger.

I am thinking about Blood Moon also, and it seems like that might be of some benefit, though not one without cost. I would lose my shuffle effects, and since he doesn’t run Mindcensor, I feel that I might be hurting myself almost as much as him. Volcanic Fallout looks sexy… but I’m leery of a RR sorcery against Waste/Port.dec.

Teeg shuts off so much… I can’t even E.E. against that dude, and if I drop it preemptively I invite revocation. Maybe 2 Pyroclasm, and the usual removal suite will be able to run him out of bears and close him out with angel tokens.

Maybe Prophyry Nodes or Cursed Totem?

Spell Snare seems like a good, MD-able way to fight this problem, I thank you for that suggestion. Perhaps a copy or two of that in the MD could be valuable. So many great Legacy spells cost 2, and no one ever anticipates the Snare here like they do in Modern. I can take it out of the deck when people start playing accordingly. Pyroclasm also looks like something I want to run.

Actually I think Keranos, despite his steep mana cost, might be helpful in this circumstance. He's a creature spell when on the stack, so I needn't pay that exorbitant Thalia tax, and if I keep bombing his creatures with lightning bolts I can apply a lot of pressure to the Mom / Karakas / Vial every turn of the game, and if I can clear it up a bit with Terminus and StP, there isn't a lot that will be able to stick to it afterwards. You know what they say about Serra Avenger: she hates Lightning Bolts.

Maybe run some Path To Exile's in the board, as a 1-2 off. so you have more efficient cards against the deck
Also Volcanic Fallout is an instant.
Snare is pretty great.

My latest build I personally tuned to hate on a creature heavy Meta. While you may not have Moat to add, I feel Humility is still a strong add. The other things you can do is run Porphyry Nodes or that Grove combo that just seams silly in this deck. But hell, if it works...

For the record, my current list (custom built for my Meta)

Spells:
4 Brainstorm
2 E Tutor
4 Swords
2 Counterspell
1 Entreat
4 Force
4 Terminus

Enchantments:
3 Counterbalance
2 Energy Field
3 Rip
1 Dentition Sphere

Artifacts:
4 Top
1 Helm

Walkers:
3 Jace

Lands:
Standard 22 for UWr with one of Karakas

Sideboard:
2 V Clique
1 E Tutor
2 REB
2 Wear
1 Entreat
1 Verdict
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Dentition Sphere
1 Humility
1 Moat
1 Keranos

what are the thoughts on which match-up is harder for us? Shardless BUG or DnT?

Hello guys, gonna proxy up a Miracles list to try it out as it looks like a lot of fun for a control deck (love controlling my top deck). Can somebody give me a basic build to proxy up because even after the primer, don't know what to actually proxy in the flex spots. Prefer a version without a creature spell. Thank you.

Quote from SanityLost »

Quote from Brentane »

Can somebody give me a basic build to proxy up because even after the primer, don't know what to actually proxy in the flex spots. Prefer a version without a creature spell. Thank you.

This is a fairly standard list without creatures: LINK

Once you go creature-less, you want the 4th Jace and more removal in form of Supreme Verdict and Council's Judgment. In case you don't like the Vendilion Clique in the SB, you can cut the Karakas for obvious reasons.

I'm not to sure about wanting 4 counterbalance, tho i guess it is necessary since you need more 2s without snaps.idk if it sounds to cute but with all the cruises and delve spells running around, could could try a remand. Also i am a proponent of a few more cantrips, I like 1/1 split between Ponder and Portent(it sounds weird, but its another way to set up miracles, and has late game potential in top deck wars) I'd probably run those 2 over a jace, the 2nd counterspell, or the REB, or the 2nd councils judgement. Ialso like amaindeck moat but other than that the list Sanity lost posted is solid, and I would give it a try (tho cliques and snaps are good and i don't reccomend cutting them)

They are old fashioned, and I'm pretty sure they aren't as good as the standard lists, but RIP-Helm is often creatureless. There are plenty of CMC=2 spells in RIP and Energy Field. I worked on getting it to work, but it's never quite as good as the regular flavor of Miracles.

As for the DnT problem in my local metagame, consisting of one really good player who has been piloting the deck for a very long while, I'm going to try a somewhat different tack. I've got that Path to Exile in the board now, where I expect it will do good work, and I've paired it up with a pair of Tsabo's Web rocks to test out.

If Blood Mooning a DnT player isn't a good idea, perhaps this one-sided cantripping Back to Basics will cut mustard.

It's kind of too bad, because I love Mooning people... to the point of actually playing Goblin Stompy for a sanctioned event. Once.

I used to play rip/helm with energy field but abrupt decay just ruins you, or you're forced to play misdirection, which I am not a fan of too much. Has anyone tried Dig through Time yet and if so, what have the results been?

Quote from SanityLost »

Another nice benefit of the RIP list is the fact that you can catch many decks off guard preboard, because you have that awesome build-in graveyard hate. Energy Field is also a nice lock against many decks. On the other hand, Abrupt Decay kills you and all your gameplan parts.

Actually it hasn't been the Abrupt Decay decks that are problematic. There are usually too many targets for Decay to hit. RIP is great against most of the Decay field, and Counterbalance is still public enemy number 1.

It's the other Miracles decks that cause the most trouble. They've just got more business, in the form of blasts and Snapcasters, where I'm stuck durdling with do-nothing enchantments.

Hi guys. Proxied up the decklist and found it very different to how I thought it would. The deck seems to durdle the whole game, not really providing any board presence. Also I am not liking the use of Jace as the win condition. I prefer just using him to brainstorm. How do I actually play this deck? I feel like I'm playing it wrong. I'll give it some practice games for fun this FNM and should help me see if I want to build it, but first I need to know how to play it. How do you play this deck exactly? What do I set up first?

Hmm, well, Jace is usually used as a win con when you've got most things locked up, such as having CounterTop on board with Jace, or your opponent is down to 1-2 useless cards and you slam Jace. Other than that, Jace is a ton of utility. Creature bounce is actually super relevant tempo gain.

And I don't know what you're expecting...the deck is a lot of durdle. You control everything and then try to find a win-con. It's not uncommon to go 1-0 in games for a match win due to time. In fact, against less experienced opponents, I've slow rolled the win con to do exactly that. The more experienced players concede to have time for the second game.

Why would you expect a creatureless deck to have board presence? What are you expecting? You can attempt the legends build if you want more board presence, but that's still quite limited.

I don't know if there's a general guideline to playing. You basically try to stabilize. Against creature decks, blow up big threats like Bob, sometimes Stoneforge depending on answers. Deathrite is super situational. A lot of it depends on answers. It's usually fine to take like 8 damage from useless dudes like Thalia, Tarmogoyf, Geese, Delver in order to play around Pierce and Daze. I usually consider the game stabilized when I've cleared anything over 2 power from the board and I have a Top in play. Top is super important. Don't play that into Daze, Pierce, etc, though sometimes Force is harder to play around. It's quite common for me to sandbag Top until turn 3 against Pierce decks.
There are some trains of thought against Pierce/Daze decks that you want to run removal into the counters in order to resolve more spells later. I don't personally agree with that line of play though. I'm a very conservative player and usually holds win-cons until I have protection as well, but sometimes, you just have to Entreat for 4 and hope they have no answers. Judging these situations takes experience.

Be mindful of the clock. I've said things about experienced players conceding in order to have time for 2 other games, but it goes both ways. There are games that I can drag out for an extra 10 turns or something, but the chances of winning those are slim. You want to concede those to have time for games 2 and 3. Draw bracket sucks; you play against Lands and Miracles all day if you get there. Losing a match 0-1 also sucks.


Well, this was a bunch of me splurging out thoughts. I don't know if it was helpful, and there are probably a few controversial points in there as well.

Quote from Brentane »

Hi guys. Proxied up the decklist and found it very different to how I thought it would. The deck seems to durdle the whole game, not really providing any board presence. Also I am not liking the use of Jace as the win condition. I prefer just using him to brainstorm. How do I actually play this deck? I feel like I'm playing it wrong. I'll give it some practice games for fun this FNM and should help me see if I want to build it, but first I need to know how to play it. How do you play this deck exactly? What do I set up first?

Using Jace as a Brainstorm stick is the right thing to do if you’re new to Jace. The other abilities are totally relevant also, but you’ve got to be confident that your use of these abilities will give you more value than just using +0 again.

I started my own Miracles journey with the RIP-Helm build, and actually I think that’s a really good place to start even though it’s not the best build. You get to have a board presence in the form of the enchantments. You have to assess threats with them in mind.

It’s also instructive to play mirror matches.

If you want a board presence, play Thopter/Sword combo.

but you dont want a board presence. especially not creature's because one of the strengths of the deck is terminus. if you have this funny feeling that you're just durdling, you're doing it right. keep on durdling

Anyone else having a lot more trouble with this deck now that the meta is starting to adapt to treasure cruise?

If you see a ton of blue, mirrors or TC etc in your meta, maindeck red elemental blast.

Thanks, I think I was overreacting to a few bad matches in a row. Played a few matches against some TC decks today and it didn't seem lopsided like the matches I played the other day.

For the tourney in November, I might sideboard some amount of Pyroclasm, Electrickery or Izzet Staticaster for the UR/YPyro match that is inevitable. Also has some good splash damage versus Elves match.

right now treasure cruise is dominating the format and feels like its smacking miracles face. UR delver puts us in a spot where we play around daze stifle and wasteland, and lose to their normal draws, or dont play around them and lose to daze stifle wasteland.

I haven't played a ton of matches against UR pyro but pyroclasm has been an all-star for me against them.

A lot of the UR lists don't run the mana denial package though. And, you can always main board a couple copies of Red Blast to beat Treasure Cruise. Treasure Cruise is a powerful card, but as a blue card it is susceptible to red blast effects, so don't worry too much, just play accordingly man. I would definitely be playing 4 Counterbalances if you aren't already. Keep Cliques if you rock them because she is still amazing. I know a lot of folks say Clique isn't good in every match, and I would like to ask when exactly is Clique bad in general? I don't think I have ever not wanted Clique, even against Burn decks it can still block/trade and nab an annoying card before it hits the field. I like Snapcaster too but Clique seems stronger since she can attack for three, block flying delvers, filter my hand or bin scary card.