Before the ban of Sensei's Divining Top on April 24, 2017, Miracles (which had firmly settled into a UWr build) was arguably the best deck in Legacy. It relied heavily on Sensei's Divining Top to have control over our draw steps, Counterbalance's ability to counter spells, and the timing of two key cards with Avacyn Restore's 'miracle' ability: Terminus (a one-mana Wrath of God that gets around indestructibility and prevents reanimation) and Entreat the Angels (a one-card win condition).
When Sensei's Divining Top was banned, many players thought Miracles would be unplayable: Top wasn't the most powerful card in the deck, but it was the most important, and a common view was that banning Top also effectively banned Counterbalance and Terminus. Counterbalance does seem to be unplayable, but a one-mana sweeper is too powerful to give up, and dedicated Miracles players (not me!) developed a new deck that, while less powerful than the Counter-Top incarnation, is still powerful and offers a unique experience of UWx control.
Enter Unpredictable Miracles.
Unpredictable Miracles
The new Miracles deck, which I've called 'Unpredictable Miracles' after three key cards -- Terminus, Predict, and Unexpectedly Absent -- is a 'pure' UWx control deck, relying on a suite of cantrips for card selection, various cards that can regain board parity and card advantage, and resilient, difficult-to-interact-with win conditions.
1. Key Concepts
Card Selection
Miracles relies upon three key cantrips (one-mana spells that replace themselves and offer some library manipulation) to filter its draws and find the cards it needs, whether lands, removal, or a win condition. By playing so many cantrips, Miracles sees much more of its deck over the course of a game than perhaps any other deck in the format, improving its consistency and the quality of its draws.
As an example, while Grixis Delver might spend its first two turns in a typical game like this:
T1. Land, Deathrite Shaman
T2. Wasteland, Delver of Secrets, Lightning Bolt a creature
Miracles often spends its early turns like this:
T1. Land, Ponder
T2. Fetchland to shuffle away the third card seen by Ponder, Swords, Portent
Assuming both decks were on the play, Delver saw two cards, and Miracles saw six (or more if we shuffled after the Ponder or Portent).
The downside of playing so many cantrips can also be seen from this example. Delver has a board presence, whereas Miracles has just filtered its draws. So why play so many cantrips? First, in the late game, they allow Miracles to draw more 'action' rather than dead spells. And second, they are complemented by ways to regain board parity and generate card advantage. Effectively, Miracles is trading off early-game development for stronger cards in the midgame and late game.
Card Advantage
Miracles generates card advantage in three ways: by nullifying the opponent's cards, by playing two-for-ones to the board, and by simply drawing more cards.
One of the defining features of legacy are the ABUR dual lands -- the original, best dual lands ever printed, with their iconic art and colored rectangle text boxes. Many decks run only dual lands (and Wastelands or other utility lands). However, the power of playing basic lands in Legacy is not to be underestimated! By playing enough basics that our deck can function without even needing a dual land, we can nullify the Wastelands, Blood Moons, Ghost Quarters, etc. our opponent is playing. Our Delver opponent doesn't get to deny us the ability to cast spells when we have five basic lands in play. Our Lands or Death and Taxes opponent doesn't get to Ghost Quarter us with impunity.
We can also nullify the opponent's cards by simply playing a different game than they are expecting. Many Legacy decks have a general assumption that they will either be facing a combo deck with a certain key spell to counter, or a creature deck (Delver, midrange, etc.). But Miracles is neither of these things. We don't particularly care about Fatal Push or (since Counterbalance is no longer playable) Abrupt Decay, and our opponent may well have removal spells sitting in hand without any targets.
As discussed in the section on card selection, Miracles is often playing from behind. To catch up, Miracles needs to play 'two-for-ones', and often needs these to be two-for-ones that play to the board since the opponent will have creatures in play. Terminus is a primary way of generating card advantage, as we can sweep away two or more creatures with a single card. Snapcaster Mage is another, as we can play a creature to the board and recast Swords to Plowshares, blocking and killing one of our opponent's creatures and exiling the other, thus removing two creatures with the single Snapcaster Mage (since the Swords to Plowshares had already been cast).
In addition, Miracles also wants to simply draw more cards than the opponent. Drawing more cards helps ensure that we hit land drops, draw the Swords to Plowshares and Snapcaster Mages we need, find the cantrips we need to ensure future draws, have extra blue cards to exile for Force of Will, etc. The main 'pure card advantage' engine we have is Predict. In combination with the various cantrips we play, we should be able to correctly Predict ourselves more often than not, milling a less useful card and drawing two -- which is nearly the same as drawing three cards since we avoid drawing a card we didn't really want.
Win Conditions
Our win conditions are also somewhat related to the concept of card advantage. We generally want to employ win conditions that are difficult to interact with through the 'normal' means at our opponents' disposal. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is immune to creature removal, including our own Terminuses (though he can be Lightning Bolted!), dodges Abrupt Decay, Engineered Explosives (in most cases), and Pernicious Deed. Entreat the Angels creates a small army of angels that each are immune to Lightning Bolt, outclass Insectile Aberration, and can close out a game in 1-2 attacks. Monastery Mentor is vulnerable to most creature removal, but has the ability to be cast a little more easily than Entreat the Angels, and very quickly generate an army of monks, each of which also has prowess! It's not uncommon to attack for 10+ damage in a single attack step, while creating 2-4 new monks with summoning sickness as well.
2. Card Choices
Lands
Miracles' manabase is comprised of fetchlands (which search out our basic lands and dual lands), basic lands, dual lands, and occasionally a utility land. Given Miracles' reliance on cantrips and generally low curve (especially as we don't want to play our 3+ drop win conditions on curve), we can reliably play 20 lands, though some players prefer 21 and some have tried to stretch down to 19.
Flooded Strand, Scalding Tarn, & Arid Mesa are the most commonly-played fetchlands. All fetchlands should be able to find any dual land, so the only real consideration is the our ability to fetch basics. Flooded Strand is the most important for its ability to find a basic Island or basic Plains. Blue is more important than white, so we generally want more fetchlands that find basic Island than basic Plains, which leads most players to a mix of 4 Flooded Strand, 4 Scalding Tarn, and 1 Arid Mesa -- 8 fetchlands for basic Island, and 5 fetchlands for Basic Plains. Some players have tried 10 fetchlands, adding a second Arid Mesa, while others have tried 8, usually cutting a Scalding Tarn. Also, note that if we do not play a basic Mountain, we can substitute any blue fetchland for the Scalding Tarns.
Island and Plains are our trump card against Wasteland and Blood Moon. To cast Unexpectedly Absent, we need WW, so we generally want 2 Plains. Most players seem to think 4 Islands is about right, for a total of 6 basic lands -- enough to comfortably play without any fear of Wasteland.
A single Mountain sometimes makes its way into the sideboard as a way to support red spells (in particular, Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, and sometimes Wear) against decks playing Wasteland.
Tundra is naturally our dual land of choice. Most players play 3 to allow us to fight through Wasteland (despite playing basics, we will have Tundras destroyed) and to have extra white sources to fetch against Rishadan Port when needed. If a third color is splashed, red is usually the color of choice, and thus 2-3 Volcanic Islands are often included, though they tend to function as Waste-able Islands in game one.
Cantrips / Card Selection
Cantrips are Miracles' engine, as the sheer amount of selection offered allows us to to improve our card quality over the course of a game, finding the
Brainstorm is often considered the best card in Legacy, and for good reason. With fetchlands, Brainstorm allows us to draw three cards, put two back, and shuffle them away, making it a pseuco-Ancestral Recall. Additionally, since Brainstorm is an instant, we can use it to trigger an instant-speed miracle on our opponent's turn.
Ponder is most useful for digging for cards we want to play right away -- an additional land, a win condition, etc.
Portent is a bit more subtle than Ponder, but very important to the deck. First, Portent draws on the opponent's turn -- which, because it's the first card we draw that turn, allows us to cast a miracle card for its miracle cost. Second, Portent can be used on the opponent. This is useful to prevent a Delver from flipping, nullify a Ponder, or simply control the opponent's draws. And of course it is useful with our own Predicts (and Unexpectedly Absents). Third, the fact that we don't draw until the opponent's turn means that it's not as useful for finding lands -- so if our opening hand is one land, Ponder, and Portent, it's better to play Portent first so that if we don't find a land, we can Ponder on turn 2 and hopefully hit a land drop.
Preordain is worth consideration, but given that Portent's unique attributes that are so well-suited to Miracles' varied game plans, and that Ponder sees up to 4 cards while Preordain can only see 3, Preordain is just one step below the other options available to us.
Card Advantage
Snapcaster Mage is a key component of the deck, allowing us to recast any spell (yes, even Terminus!) at the opportune moment. Often Snapcaster Mage will be used to 'ambush' an attacking creature and simply trade itself, but in this case it's almost like a 1U removal spell that also lets us recast any other spell. However, we will occasionally need to rely on Snapcaster's 2/1 body to whittle away at the opponent's life total -- or even take the opponent to 0, in some cases. In combo matchups, it can often be correct to cast Snapcaster Mage during the opponent's end step to apply pressure as soon as we have 2 mana, even if it means not flashing back a spell.
Predict is the only pure card advantage spell we play. It is instant speed, which allows us to hold up removal, Counterspell, etc. and Predict if nothing happens, or even Predict on our own upkeep if desired. Additionally, we can Predict to set up an instant-speed miracle. If the miracle card is on top, we can always target the opponent and hope to guess right -- but really, it's drawing the miracle card we care about, so anything else is just a bonus. Predict also has synergy with other cards we play, namely Portent, Unexpectedly Absent, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which help us ensure that we are Predicting accurately, whether targeting ourselves or our opponents.
Removal
Swords to Plowshares is simply the best removal spell ever printed. Exiling creatures is particularly relevant, from not allowing Reanimator or Kolaghan's Command another chance to bring a creature back from the dead, to keeping Tarmogoyf slightly smaller, to preventing Scavening Ooze from growing larger. Since we have a win condition that doesn't rely on reducing life totals to 0, and our other win conditions hit so hard, the life we give our opponents hardly matters.
Unexpectedly Absent is an interesting card. Its 'floor' is to force the opponent to miss a draw step and replay a creature (a pseudo-Time Walk). But its 'ceiling' is much higher. UA provides us with a main-deck answer to any non-land permanent, from Chalice of the Void to Liliana of the Veil to Umezawa's Jitte. And we have tools in our arsenal to make its effect more permanent. We can return a permanent and then Predict it away to draw two cards, or use Jace's +2 to put it to the botttom, or cast Portent to bury it deeper or force a shuffle. And at times, we can UA something in response to an opponent's shuffle effect: fetchlands are the most common, but Stoneforge Mystic's 'enters the battlefield' effect and Green Sun's Zenith are other examples). UA can also serve as protection for our own permanents, bouncing a Monastery Mentor or Jace to our library, or even rebuying a Snapcaster Mage.
Terminus is the reason that Miracles is still playable. The impact of a hyper-efficient sweeper that has the same general benefits of Swords to Plowshares is incredibly important for stabilizing in the mid-game and locking up the game late. And of course we are allowed to cast Terminus for 6 mana, or even Snapcaster-Terminus for 8 mana! In a deck designed to reach the late game, these plays can happen.
Supreme Verdict is another sweeper worth considering. The downsides -- 4 mana instead of 1, destroys creatures rather than putting them on the bottom of the library -- are somewhat offset by the upsides: Supreme Verdict requires no library manipulation to cast, cannot be countered at all, and can be exiled to cast Force of Will for free.
Countermagic
Force of Will is often referred to as the 'glue that holds Legacy together'. It's what protects us from fast, all-in combo decks like Oops! All Spells, and as an unconditional counterspell, it retains its usefulness in just about every matchup. However, it's also often the first card we cut against 'fair' decks, since it does put us at a card disadvantage.
Counterspell is the original all-purpose ... well, counterspell. Two blue mana to counter anything is the rate by which all other counterspells are defined (let's forget Mana Drain for a moment). Counterspell is a valuable main-deck inclusion for its general flexibility, even if there are more efficient options we can consider in the sideboard -- or in the mainboard depending on the metagame we expect to face.
Flusterstorm is more than a narrow sideboard card against Storm (where each of its copies can target one of the storm copies). Against the low-to-the-ground Delver decks, a well-timed Flusterstorm can completely dominate counterwars, countering multiple spells for a single blue mana, all while being more or less immune to Force of Will or Daze. And with the general prevalence of instants and sorceries in Legacy, Flusterstorm is never too bad.
Spell Pierce is similar to Flusterstorm, with the upside of being able to hit some key non-Instant/Sorcery targets like Chalice of the Void and planeswalkers. While worse against Storm and in fighting multi-spell counterwars, it's a close substitute, and there is a reasonable argument to be made for running both regardless of budget.
Pyroblast & Red Elemental Blast are incredibly powerful in Legacy due to the prevalence of blue spells and creatures. Being able to counter and/or destroy Delver of Secrets, Stifle, True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, Emissary of Trest, etc. is very valuable. While perhaps a bit narrow for inclusion in the maindeck, it can be reasonable, and if we have access to red mana, these are near auto-inclusions in the sideboard. There is an argument to play a mix of Pyroblast and REB to defend against Cabal Therapy and Meddling Mage, but with Monastery Mentor, the ability to cast Pyroblast at will is quite valuable.
Win Conditions
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a key component of the deck. Jace has general utility in unsummoning opponents' creatures (or occasionally our own Snapcaster Mages!) and brainstorming to gain card advantage and put miracle cards back on top of the deck. However, once the board is clear, Jace's fateseal ability combined with his 'ultimate' are a win condition in and of themselves. Jace is immune to non-damage-based creature removal, our own sweepers, and other removal like Abrupt Decay and Pernicious Deed, though he is susceptible to Pyroblast effects. Once we have a Jace in play, it can be tempting to rush toward the ultimate, but it is often correct to take a few turns to 'brainstorm' to solidify our control of the game, and only then begin 'fatesealing'. An exception is against decks with Lightning Bolt, where we want to +2 Jace first so he doesn't die to a single Bolt.
Monastery Mentor is perhaps slightly worse without the ability to use Sensei's Divining Top's draw ability in the upkeep and recast it to repeatedly make monk tokens (or loop two Tops), but with the density of cantrips in the deck, Mentor is still very capable of closing out a game quickly. It is entirely possible to cast Mentor, make 3 monks, and then swing for 20 the next turn. Mentor has a few advantages over Entreat the Angels: first, it can simply be cast on turn 3 to pressure combo decks (when we deem it's safe to tap out, for example) or attempt to steal a game against a fair deck that falters a little; second, Mentor can serve as a pseudo-Moat, preventing our opponent from having good attacks or simply buying time. This latter ability buys us time to find additional cantrips, answers, Jace, etc.
Entreat the Angels is a little more difficult to support now that Sensei's Divining Top is banned, but it is still a viable option. It has the benefit of being a very compact win condition, often able to present a one- or two-turn end to the game by the time it is cast. Entreat doesn't have Mentor's ability to 'steal' games, and because it cannot be cast normally, we generally run fewer copies, which makes it more susceptible to discard (or just not being found at all).
Of course, we can diversify our non-Jace win conditions, playing two Mentors and one Entreat in the main deck, or Entreat in the main and Mentors in the sideboard, or even Mentors in the main with an Entreat in the sideboard. The dance of nullifying our opponent's removal vs. playing a 2W 2/2 that, if not removed, will take over the game can present our opponents with difficult sideboarding decisions and opportunities to go wrong.
Sideboard Cards
These cards can, at times, find their way into the main deck, but are more often sideboard cards reserved for certain matchups.
Vendilion Clique is useful primarily against combo decks to pressure the combo player and potentially take a critical card, but is also useful against control decks where a flash 3/1 flier is a little more palatable than a sorcery-speed threat.
Ethersworn Canonist is extremely good against Storm, but also useful against other decks that want to cast multiple spells in one turn like Elves, Aluren, or Food Chain -- though beware of Abrupt Decay, Sudden Shock, etc. Additionally, Canonist can come in against Sneak and Show to invalidate their counterspells.
Containment Priest is most useful against decks cheating creatures into play (Sneak and Show, Reanimator, Dredge), but can also be brought in against Aether Vial decks (Death and Taxes, Goblins, Merfolk) or Green Sun's Zenith decks (Elves, Maverick) if we think it's better than a card that would otherwise remain in our deck after sideboarding.
Engineered Explosives is a very useful card. In addition to Disenchant and Wear // Tear, Explosives can remove Chalice of the Void. But it also can double as a pseudo-wrath against decks with many tokens (including the mirror match) and decks with many creatures of the same mana cost. Perhaps slightly better in UWr than UW, though most of the targets are going to have converted mana costs of 0, 1, or 2 anyway.
Surgical Extraction & Rest in Peace are options against decks relying on the graveyard. Surgical Extraction is probably the best option: strong against RB Reanimator, Dredge, and Lands. It can be cast before our first turn, and recast with Snapcaster Maage. Rest in Peace is perhaps a little too slow to combat the fast graveyard decks (RB Reanimator, Dredge), and shutting down our Snapcaster Mages is not a great idea in matchups where a Rest in Peace isn't an auto-win (making Tarmogoyfs into 0/1s seems nice, but not when we just lose to Liliana with a Snapcaster in hand and a Counterspell in the now-exiled graveyard).
Blood Moon, Back to Basics, & From the Ashes are strong options for non-basic land hate. We can leverage the fact that we play 6+ basics by punishing decks with greedy mana bases. Blood Moon is the strongest effect, but obviously hurts us as well. Back to Basics gives the opponent a little more breathing room since they can cast one spell off each dual land, and it can be hit by Pyroblast.
Supreme Verdict, Kozilek's Return, and Pyroclasm are additional sweepers we can add to the sideboard if desired. Kozilek's Return is less efficient than Pyroclasm, but is instant speed (allowing us to play around Port and generally time the spell more flexibly) and colorless (avoid Mother of Runes). However, both of these spells do not handle True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, Emissary of Trest, and other threats that don't die to 2-damage sweepers.
Portent's delayed draw happens regardless of what else we do afterwards, so we can continue to cantrip after casting Portent to search for Terminus / Entreat. For example, Portent -> shuffle -> Portent -> shuffle -> Ponder -> shuffle -> draw -> on opponent's upkeep, draw two (remember to miracle the first one!).
Similarly, if we have a Brainstorm or Jace and Terminus in hand, we can Portent -> shuffle/keep -> Brainstorm / Jace [+0] to put the Terminus on top, then draw it in the opponent's upkeep.
Many opponents seem to feel 'safe' if we Portent and then fail to draw a Terminus on their upkeep, so consider whether we can bait our opponent into over-committing by setting up the miracle for our draw step instead. Or, if we have an instant-speed cantrip, we could Portent into [X] [Y] [Terminus], draw X on their upkeep and Y on our draw step, then miracle Terminus on their next turn.
Unexpectedly Absent
UA for X=0 + Predict mills a troublesome permanent and draws two cards.
UA + Jace's [+2] can send a problematic permanent to the bottom of the opponent's library.
UA + Portent can force the opponent to shuffle the permanent into the library.
UA in response any searching effect removes the permanent ... permanently. UA in response to the opponent sacrificing a fetchland is perhaps most obvious, but also in response to a Stoneforge Mystic's enters-the-battlefield trigger, in response to a Green Sun's Zenith, etc.
While X=0 is most common, we can of course UA for X=1, X=2, etc. This can be useful if we want to buy time (for example, if we don't have a Predict or Portent in hand yet). If we do this, we should keep track of where the UA'd card is in case we draw Predict!
We can also use UA defensively! With a Terminus trigger on the stack, we can UA our own Monastery Mentor / Snapcaster Mage / etc. to save it from Terminus and replay it next turn. Another common scenario is using UA on our own Jace to save him from a Pyroblast.
Predict
Sometimes we need to draw the top card of our library. We can Predict our opponent to do this!
Sometimes it also makes sense to 'blindly' Predict to just dig for cards with more of an impact, even if that's a Ponder or Portent. In this case, we can either make a best guess given our hand, graveyard, and decklist (though this can reveal information!), or make a best guess given our understanding of the opponent's deck.
Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
I saw that my favorite deck was without a primer since the banning of Sensei's Divining Top, so I took the liberty of creating one. If this is in the wrong place, or if anything needs to be changed, please let me know! Otherwise, I welcome any input and look forward to discussing this deck on MTGS.
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Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
How important would you say Unexpectedly Absent is for the Entreat version of the deck? I see you're running three in yours.
I've been on two blood moon main, so I'm only running one UA because it's a bit difficult to cast.
Thanks! I should note that neither of the example decks are mine. I selected decklists from much better players than me to include in the primer. Alakazimdk is Anders Thiesen, and the UWr Mentor Miracles list was piloted by ItIsUnfair (I mistakenly copied the same decklist header twice; this has been fixed), whose name I unfortunately can't recall at the moment.
In terms of how important Unexpectly Absent is: I think the card is fairly important, though skilled players have played decks with 1 (like ItIsUnfair) or 0 copies. In my view, Counter-Top Miracles could conserve resources like Force of Will and Counterspell more easily due to the Counter-Top lock, saving countermagic for 'must counter' spells -- i.e., the spells you couldn't answer with your typical Swords to Plowshares and Terminus removal suite. Unexpectedly Absent fills that void for us by allowing us to recover from a brief lapse in control (our opponent slips a Liliana of the Veil past our countermagic; we UA it and Predict it away, or UA it and then Counterspell it). And while the old Counter-Top Miracles played more of a sorcery-speed game, 'Unpredictable Miracles' plays much more at instant speed, so the ability to hold up the option of Counterspell / Swords to Plowshares / Unexpectedly Absent / Predict is quite useful. Unexpectedly Absent also does a great job at simply buying time, which probably synergizes a bit better with the Entreat plan than the Mentor plan -- though the card is generally useful in either deck.
Of course, there's a lot of flexibility in how specifically you build your deck. For example, having access to three anti-Chalice of the Void / Sylvan Library / Dread of Night / etc. cards in the 75 is a reasonable starting point. This might be two UA in the main and a Disenchant in the sideboard. Alakazimdk has cut a Swords to Plowshares to play a third Unexpectedly Absent -- which frees up a sideboard slot (note that he has no Disenchant effects in the side). Of course, ItIsUnfair simply only has one card to deal with a resolved artifact at all.
And of course, WW is a real cost, especially when our deck filtration now costs U (Ponder, Portent, Brainstorm) rather than 1 (Sensei's Divining Top). So if you think Blood Moon warrants 1-2 main-deck slots, then cutting Unexpectedly Absent seems reasonable.
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Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
r1, 0-2 vs burn
game 1, i stabilized at 1 life but he eventually got thru my counterbalance to kill me.
SB +4 leyline of sanctity, -4 detention sphere.
game 2, i had leyline of sanctity out but he whittled me down w/creatures, flame rifts and price of progress.
r2, 0-2 vs dredge
game 1, saw him going off and scooped when he cast gitaxian probe.
SB +4 RIP, -4 detention sphere.
game 2, he went off and cabal therapied my RIP on his turn 2 (i didn't draw white source until my turn 3.)
r3, *bye*
basically went 0-2. i give up on scroll rack miracles. any comments/suggestions?
An interesting take! There was a lot of discussion about Scroll Rack right after the Top ban, and I think most people came to the consensus that it isn't quite good enough. Besides the points you mention, it requires that you have enough cards in hand to make good use of its filtering ability, and as the game goes on you'll often have fewer cards in hand to then swap around.
An option I saw mentioned is adding a green splash and playing Mirri's Guile. It can't put back cards you've drawn, or respond to a spell to put a different CMC on top (obviously you can still Brainstorm), but it lets you float a Terminus without drawing it, and lets you repeatedly put a 1/2/3-drop on top of the deck to counter whatever is most relevant in the matchup. Plus, between Mirri's Guile and Counterbalance, your Predicts (if you play them) become a lot stronger.
Regarding your list, three JTMS seems a bit much, IMO. And I would think you'd want to leverage Predict with Counterbalance and Scroll Rack -- especially so you have more cards in hand to Scroll Rack away. The lack of Snapcaster (and Counterspell) in favor of Detention Sphere is interesting. In the right meta, I assume this could make sense. But I'd also say that if you're trying to make "Counter-Rack" Miracles work, you might want to stick with an established Counter-Top list and only substitute the Scroll Racks. Cards like Counterspell, Predict, Snapcaster Mage, etc. are there for a reason, and cards like Detention Sphere are omitted for a reason. (For example, Council's Judgment was/is played instead of Detention Sphere because it can be re-cast with Snapcaster, and it can hit True-Name Nemesis as well as all the targets Detention Sphere hits. For the times when you want to hit multiple things, Engineered Explosives was generally preferred because it's a bit more flexible -- most things we want to destroy are CMC 0/1/2, and it's more often the case that we want to destroy two different things with CMC 2 than two copies of the same card. Finally, Detention Sphere is destroyed by Pyroblast effects, whereas CJ and EE are not.)
I'd certainly be interested to hear how you do with this take on the deck in the future. I think most people have decided that trying to play Counter-Top Miracles without Top (and substituting in something else, whether it's Scroll Rack or Mirri's Guile or Soothsaying) just isn't the way to go for a Terminus & Jace, the Mind Sculptor UWx control deck, but it's definitely possible everyone is just dismissing the idea too quickly.
Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
It seems to have an interesting take on the deck, with Enlightened Tutor getting you silver bullets, and having RiP & Energy Field MD gives a solid game 1 against a lot of the opposition (Burn can't handle Field, for example, & RiP shuts down a good number of 4c controlcards and wrecks Lands/Dredge).
Doesn't run any Miracle cards, admittedly, though one of those lists has a transformative sideboard that turns him into Miracles. So perhaps not Miracles-ish enough for this thread, and if so sorry, just thought I'd put it out there and see what the actual UW control players thought (oddly we don't seem to have a thread in established, though it's obviously established? weird).
I would suggest you at least try out the new version of the deck without Counterbalance. At least give it a try. There's no card that can replace Sensei's Divining Top not even close, so why force subpar choices when there's no need to.
It seems to have an interesting take on the deck, with Enlightened Tutor getting you silver bullets, and having RiP & Energy Field MD gives a solid game 1 against a lot of the opposition (Burn can't handle Field, for example, & RiP shuts down a good number of 4c controlcards and wrecks Lands/Dredge).
Doesn't run any Miracle cards, admittedly, though one of those lists has a transformative sideboard that turns him into Miracles. So perhaps not Miracles-ish enough for this thread, and if so sorry, just thought I'd put it out there and see what the actual UW control players thought (oddly we don't seem to have a thread in established, though it's obviously established? weird).
I personally think a UW-X Rip Helm list should not be on this thread unless it runs Miracles tech, but you are right UW-X control (or should that be combo/control?) should have a thread. Some sites call those decks "Rest in Peaces", taking Miracles back to the days when Rip/Helm was a valid build of UW, pre AVR, as it is now. I posted a UW-X RIP-Helm-E field/landstill hybrid on the Parfait thread recently, precisely because there was no UW-X RIP/Helm thread, and Parfait was at least an RIP/Helm Tutor deck, albiet with an odd Land tax/Scroll rack engine (and the guys on that thread are very helpful). I would suggest that you contact the Mods and write a Primer for UW RIP Helm if one does not exist- Developing has a fair few decent serious decks (Infect was here for ages, not sure if it still is), a few older decks you see from time to time, as well as some like my thread on Stasis, which is closer to a tuned Against The Odds deck, together with the obligatory chaff ("please help - my first legacy deck" etc.)
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Oh I don't have nearly enough experience with the RiP/Helm deck to write a primer of any sort; in fact I was looking to hear what people thought of it because I was thinking of buying into it sine it looked interesting and enjoyable to play. Thought I'd mention it here just because the Helm decks are lumped together with real Miracles on a lot of sites (mtgtop8 for example). Didn't seem to fit with Parfait since it didn't run tax & rack, but yeah I did see something like that in that thread.
Anyway, thank you for your suggestions, I may make a thread about it anyway on the off chance that someone else has been playing it.
For those not following elsewhere, there have been some pretty interesting innovations with Miracles lately. First, the Mentor + Daze package has been gaining popularity (which always is beneficial to players not playing Daze as well). And perhaps more interestingly, there have been some efforts to integrate Counterbalance back into the list!
One approach is to just rely on 'blind flips' and the fact that our CMC aligns with a lot of decks in the format to gain value (not to mention it helps with Predict!), with a little manipulation possible through the cantrips and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. An example is here.
I think it's very interesting to watch this deck continue to develop in the wake of the Top banning. It seems there might be more play to Counterbalance (and even Soothsaying, perhaps!) than people initially thought, at least based on this admittedly small set of results.
If I can get my hands on two or three Soothsayings, I'll probably give this a test in the next couple weeks. But I'm also planning on going to a reasonable-sized tournament in October, and unless Soothsaying overperforms, will likely stick with a UWr Mentor + UA list similar to the one in the primer since I'm most familiar with it.
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Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
I'm a long time blue enthusiast in Modern, and legacy has always been slightly out of reach financially. However, my LGS is starting a small Legacy tournament, allowing for 15 proxies at first until people find their feet. I've tested and thoroughly enjoyed this version of Miracles, even more than the R.I.P. Top version that I had a proxy deck of.
My question to you guys is this -
What are the very basics that I need to run this deck?
I've decided not to go for the red splash due to Volcanic Island's price tag. But I have most of the deck already apart from the heavy hitters.
Would, starting out, buying 4 Force of Will's and 2 Tundra's be enough to enjoy the deck? I have 1 Jace and plan on trading into another. Would you suggest I run more basics or something like Glacial Fortress/Hallowed Fountain as people usually run more than two duels?
I'm a long time blue enthusiast in Modern, and legacy has always been slightly out of reach financially. However, my LGS is starting a small Legacy tournament, allowing for 15 proxies at first until people find their feet. I've tested and thoroughly enjoyed this version of Miracles, even more than the R.I.P. Top version that I had a proxy deck of.
My question to you guys is this -
What are the very basics that I need to run this deck?
I've decided not to go for the red splash due to Volcanic Island's price tag. But I have most of the deck already apart from the heavy hitters.
Would, starting out, buying 4 Force of Will's and 2 Tundra's be enough to enjoy the deck? I have 1 Jace and plan on trading into another. Would you suggest I run more basics or something like Glacial Fortress/Hallowed Fountain as people usually run more than two duels?
Thanks in advance!
Welcome! Fortunately, UW Miracles is pretty playable with a cheaper manabase than many other Legacy decks. And straight UW without a red splash is certainly playable. An example mana base with no duals at all could be:
Force of Will: unfortunately, this is a bit more expensive, but there's really no alternative, and as a defensive deck, you really need the free countermagic.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: again, there's not really an alternative to Jace. He generates card advantage and is a one-card win condition. Two is probably the minimum, but you could start with one.
Cards that are very good in the deck that you probably want, but could play without for a while:
Predict: it's a bit more expensive, but is a very important catch-up card to help you keep up with the other deck's threats. This is probably a borderline 'must play' card.
Soothsaying and/or Counterbalance: These cards have been making an appearance in some recent lists, and are worth considering. (I'm probably going to test a Soothsaying build this week.)
Flusterstorm: Spell Pierce is an adequate substitute for a while. Note that Flusterstorm just got reprinted, so hopefully the price will go down.
Tundra: you eventually want these to not have to shock yourself or try to make lesser lands work.
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Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
Force of Will: unfortunately, this is a bit more expensive, but there's really no alternative, and as a defensive deck, you really need the free countermagic.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: again, there's not really an alternative to Jace. He generates card advantage and is a one-card win condition. Two is probably the minimum, but you could start with one.
Cards that are very good in the deck that you probably want, but could play without for a while:
Predict: it's a bit more expensive, but is a very important catch-up card to help you keep up with the other deck's threats. This is probably a borderline 'must play' card.
Soothsaying and/or Counterbalance: These cards have been making an appearance in some recent lists, and are worth considering. (I'm probably going to test a Soothsaying build this week.)
Flusterstorm: Spell Pierce is an adequate substitute for a while. Note that Flusterstorm just got reprinted, so hopefully the price will go down.
Tundra: you eventually want these to not have to shock yourself or try to make lesser lands work.
What would you consider prioritizing?
The cards I currently own from what you mentioned are:
Play sets of: Brainstorm, Ponder, Counterspell, Snapcaster Mage and Monastery Mentor (which I really want to try, I've always wanted to play Mentor).
First, I'd just order the Swords to Plowshares, Terminus, Portent, Unexpectedly Absent (if you want to play it), and (if you can afford it) extra Predicts to bring you up to 4.
Second, 2 Tundra and 4 Force of Will. I think Force is more important (its effect is less replaceable), but it's best to buy dual lands as early as you can.
Third, a second Jace.
Fourth, 1-3 Flusterstorms. You can play Spell Pierce or Invasive Surgery until the price comes down thanks to Iconic Masters (I currently only have one Flusterstorm, but it is a very, very good card, and not just for the Storm matchup. A while ago I did something like Cabal Therapy - Brainstorm - Pyroblast - Flusterstorm to counter both the Pyroblast and the Cabal Therapy, so that my opponent didn't get to cast the original spell or counter my Brainstorm, all at card and mana parity).
Fifth, a third Jace.
If you want a 9th fetch, anything that gets white would be fine in a UW deck with no splash. Play a Windswept Heath to throw people off!
Regarding additional copies of Jace: Jace is very, very strong, and functions extremely well in the deck (Brainstorm is always good, but even better when you can set up Terminus with it), but there are viable alternatives that are much cheaper. For example, you can play a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar (doesn't pitch to Force, but also doesn't die to Pyroblast), or even Daze (works well with Mentor!).
Legacy:UWR Miracles (MTGS Primer) || Modern:UWR Jeskai Control Commander:UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
Would spire owl or sage owl be any good here? It's library manipulation with a body to chump block or ping damage.
And what about counterbalance? Is it no longer viable, I was thinking with something like lantern of insight maybe to see their top card, that and clique to see their hand. Just spit balling here as I am trying to get back into legacy.
The short answer is that these cards are unplayable, bar Clique that is obviously a good card. There is room for innovation in the Miracles- you can look at UW with Back to Basics, you can fiddle with Clique, Venser, Mentor, and Entreat as wincons, other non Jace PWs even, you can try to include counterbalance or not, or play a RIP/Helm type list, but fundamentally a 2cc critter needs to do more than Sage Owl.
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I was thinking of use with counterbalance for the owls. The body was for chumping.
I've finally found most of the cards I need, is search for azcanta still something worth trying? I have a few from my modern decks.
I have soothsaying and CB's so that's the style of deck I'm putting together.
I was looking at a few copies of glasses of urza to help with information.
Currently Playing: Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me! Legacy: RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R RGBelcherRG WSoldier StompyW BReanimatorB EDH: BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
Yes they are, normally as two ofs. Volcanics gave by and large been dropped as have Explosives. Search has by and large made it and Accumulated Knowledge is the next big thing.
Sage owl and glasses of Urza.... less so, hehe.
In seriousness the fact that UW miracles is in developing and decks like Enchsntress are in established is ludicrous.
This forum also has a lot of people new to legacy asking "can my vampire/spider deck be Legacy viable" (the answer is always no) , making it hard to use.
As an aside the moderators need to consider stickying decks like Parfait, Soldier or any other non pirate stompy, Stax, Humans, Twin, Rip/helm UW, and other Rogue Corner style decks etc. whilst promoting Miracles and creating threads for Deaths' Shadow and their ilk, because there are so many posts here.
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When Sensei's Divining Top was banned, many players thought Miracles would be unplayable: Top wasn't the most powerful card in the deck, but it was the most important, and a common view was that banning Top also effectively banned Counterbalance and Terminus. Counterbalance does seem to be unplayable, but a one-mana sweeper is too powerful to give up, and dedicated Miracles players (not me!) developed a new deck that, while less powerful than the Counter-Top incarnation, is still powerful and offers a unique experience of UWx control.
Enter Unpredictable Miracles.
Unpredictable Miracles
The new Miracles deck, which I've called 'Unpredictable Miracles' after three key cards -- Terminus, Predict, and Unexpectedly Absent -- is a 'pure' UWx control deck, relying on a suite of cantrips for card selection, various cards that can regain board parity and card advantage, and resilient, difficult-to-interact-with win conditions.
1. Key Concepts
Card Selection
Miracles relies upon three key cantrips (one-mana spells that replace themselves and offer some library manipulation) to filter its draws and find the cards it needs, whether lands, removal, or a win condition. By playing so many cantrips, Miracles sees much more of its deck over the course of a game than perhaps any other deck in the format, improving its consistency and the quality of its draws.
As an example, while Grixis Delver might spend its first two turns in a typical game like this:
T1. Land, Deathrite Shaman
T2. Wasteland, Delver of Secrets, Lightning Bolt a creature
Miracles often spends its early turns like this:
T1. Land, Ponder
T2. Fetchland to shuffle away the third card seen by Ponder, Swords, Portent
Assuming both decks were on the play, Delver saw two cards, and Miracles saw six (or more if we shuffled after the Ponder or Portent).
The downside of playing so many cantrips can also be seen from this example. Delver has a board presence, whereas Miracles has just filtered its draws. So why play so many cantrips? First, in the late game, they allow Miracles to draw more 'action' rather than dead spells. And second, they are complemented by ways to regain board parity and generate card advantage. Effectively, Miracles is trading off early-game development for stronger cards in the midgame and late game.
Card Advantage
Miracles generates card advantage in three ways: by nullifying the opponent's cards, by playing two-for-ones to the board, and by simply drawing more cards.
One of the defining features of legacy are the ABUR dual lands -- the original, best dual lands ever printed, with their iconic art and colored rectangle text boxes. Many decks run only dual lands (and Wastelands or other utility lands). However, the power of playing basic lands in Legacy is not to be underestimated! By playing enough basics that our deck can function without even needing a dual land, we can nullify the Wastelands, Blood Moons, Ghost Quarters, etc. our opponent is playing. Our Delver opponent doesn't get to deny us the ability to cast spells when we have five basic lands in play. Our Lands or Death and Taxes opponent doesn't get to Ghost Quarter us with impunity.
We can also nullify the opponent's cards by simply playing a different game than they are expecting. Many Legacy decks have a general assumption that they will either be facing a combo deck with a certain key spell to counter, or a creature deck (Delver, midrange, etc.). But Miracles is neither of these things. We don't particularly care about Fatal Push or (since Counterbalance is no longer playable) Abrupt Decay, and our opponent may well have removal spells sitting in hand without any targets.
As discussed in the section on card selection, Miracles is often playing from behind. To catch up, Miracles needs to play 'two-for-ones', and often needs these to be two-for-ones that play to the board since the opponent will have creatures in play. Terminus is a primary way of generating card advantage, as we can sweep away two or more creatures with a single card. Snapcaster Mage is another, as we can play a creature to the board and recast Swords to Plowshares, blocking and killing one of our opponent's creatures and exiling the other, thus removing two creatures with the single Snapcaster Mage (since the Swords to Plowshares had already been cast).
In addition, Miracles also wants to simply draw more cards than the opponent. Drawing more cards helps ensure that we hit land drops, draw the Swords to Plowshares and Snapcaster Mages we need, find the cantrips we need to ensure future draws, have extra blue cards to exile for Force of Will, etc. The main 'pure card advantage' engine we have is Predict. In combination with the various cantrips we play, we should be able to correctly Predict ourselves more often than not, milling a less useful card and drawing two -- which is nearly the same as drawing three cards since we avoid drawing a card we didn't really want.
Win Conditions
Our win conditions are also somewhat related to the concept of card advantage. We generally want to employ win conditions that are difficult to interact with through the 'normal' means at our opponents' disposal. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is immune to creature removal, including our own Terminuses (though he can be Lightning Bolted!), dodges Abrupt Decay, Engineered Explosives (in most cases), and Pernicious Deed. Entreat the Angels creates a small army of angels that each are immune to Lightning Bolt, outclass Insectile Aberration, and can close out a game in 1-2 attacks. Monastery Mentor is vulnerable to most creature removal, but has the ability to be cast a little more easily than Entreat the Angels, and very quickly generate an army of monks, each of which also has prowess! It's not uncommon to attack for 10+ damage in a single attack step, while creating 2-4 new monks with summoning sickness as well.
2. Card Choices
Lands
Miracles' manabase is comprised of fetchlands (which search out our basic lands and dual lands), basic lands, dual lands, and occasionally a utility land. Given Miracles' reliance on cantrips and generally low curve (especially as we don't want to play our 3+ drop win conditions on curve), we can reliably play 20 lands, though some players prefer 21 and some have tried to stretch down to 19.
Flooded Strand, Scalding Tarn, & Arid Mesa are the most commonly-played fetchlands. All fetchlands should be able to find any dual land, so the only real consideration is the our ability to fetch basics. Flooded Strand is the most important for its ability to find a basic Island or basic Plains. Blue is more important than white, so we generally want more fetchlands that find basic Island than basic Plains, which leads most players to a mix of 4 Flooded Strand, 4 Scalding Tarn, and 1 Arid Mesa -- 8 fetchlands for basic Island, and 5 fetchlands for Basic Plains. Some players have tried 10 fetchlands, adding a second Arid Mesa, while others have tried 8, usually cutting a Scalding Tarn. Also, note that if we do not play a basic Mountain, we can substitute any blue fetchland for the Scalding Tarns.
Island and Plains are our trump card against Wasteland and Blood Moon. To cast Unexpectedly Absent, we need WW, so we generally want 2 Plains. Most players seem to think 4 Islands is about right, for a total of 6 basic lands -- enough to comfortably play without any fear of Wasteland.
A single Mountain sometimes makes its way into the sideboard as a way to support red spells (in particular, Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, and sometimes Wear) against decks playing Wasteland.
Tundra is naturally our dual land of choice. Most players play 3 to allow us to fight through Wasteland (despite playing basics, we will have Tundras destroyed) and to have extra white sources to fetch against Rishadan Port when needed. If a third color is splashed, red is usually the color of choice, and thus 2-3 Volcanic Islands are often included, though they tend to function as Waste-able Islands in game one.
Cantrips / Card Selection
Cantrips are Miracles' engine, as the sheer amount of selection offered allows us to to improve our card quality over the course of a game, finding the
Brainstorm is often considered the best card in Legacy, and for good reason. With fetchlands, Brainstorm allows us to draw three cards, put two back, and shuffle them away, making it a pseuco-Ancestral Recall. Additionally, since Brainstorm is an instant, we can use it to trigger an instant-speed miracle on our opponent's turn.
Ponder is most useful for digging for cards we want to play right away -- an additional land, a win condition, etc.
Portent is a bit more subtle than Ponder, but very important to the deck. First, Portent draws on the opponent's turn -- which, because it's the first card we draw that turn, allows us to cast a miracle card for its miracle cost. Second, Portent can be used on the opponent. This is useful to prevent a Delver from flipping, nullify a Ponder, or simply control the opponent's draws. And of course it is useful with our own Predicts (and Unexpectedly Absents). Third, the fact that we don't draw until the opponent's turn means that it's not as useful for finding lands -- so if our opening hand is one land, Ponder, and Portent, it's better to play Portent first so that if we don't find a land, we can Ponder on turn 2 and hopefully hit a land drop.
Preordain is worth consideration, but given that Portent's unique attributes that are so well-suited to Miracles' varied game plans, and that Ponder sees up to 4 cards while Preordain can only see 3, Preordain is just one step below the other options available to us.
Card Advantage
Snapcaster Mage is a key component of the deck, allowing us to recast any spell (yes, even Terminus!) at the opportune moment. Often Snapcaster Mage will be used to 'ambush' an attacking creature and simply trade itself, but in this case it's almost like a 1U removal spell that also lets us recast any other spell. However, we will occasionally need to rely on Snapcaster's 2/1 body to whittle away at the opponent's life total -- or even take the opponent to 0, in some cases. In combo matchups, it can often be correct to cast Snapcaster Mage during the opponent's end step to apply pressure as soon as we have 2 mana, even if it means not flashing back a spell.
Predict is the only pure card advantage spell we play. It is instant speed, which allows us to hold up removal, Counterspell, etc. and Predict if nothing happens, or even Predict on our own upkeep if desired. Additionally, we can Predict to set up an instant-speed miracle. If the miracle card is on top, we can always target the opponent and hope to guess right -- but really, it's drawing the miracle card we care about, so anything else is just a bonus. Predict also has synergy with other cards we play, namely Portent, Unexpectedly Absent, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which help us ensure that we are Predicting accurately, whether targeting ourselves or our opponents.
Removal
Swords to Plowshares is simply the best removal spell ever printed. Exiling creatures is particularly relevant, from not allowing Reanimator or Kolaghan's Command another chance to bring a creature back from the dead, to keeping Tarmogoyf slightly smaller, to preventing Scavening Ooze from growing larger. Since we have a win condition that doesn't rely on reducing life totals to 0, and our other win conditions hit so hard, the life we give our opponents hardly matters.
Unexpectedly Absent is an interesting card. Its 'floor' is to force the opponent to miss a draw step and replay a creature (a pseudo-Time Walk). But its 'ceiling' is much higher. UA provides us with a main-deck answer to any non-land permanent, from Chalice of the Void to Liliana of the Veil to Umezawa's Jitte. And we have tools in our arsenal to make its effect more permanent. We can return a permanent and then Predict it away to draw two cards, or use Jace's +2 to put it to the botttom, or cast Portent to bury it deeper or force a shuffle. And at times, we can UA something in response to an opponent's shuffle effect: fetchlands are the most common, but Stoneforge Mystic's 'enters the battlefield' effect and Green Sun's Zenith are other examples). UA can also serve as protection for our own permanents, bouncing a Monastery Mentor or Jace to our library, or even rebuying a Snapcaster Mage.
Terminus is the reason that Miracles is still playable. The impact of a hyper-efficient sweeper that has the same general benefits of Swords to Plowshares is incredibly important for stabilizing in the mid-game and locking up the game late. And of course we are allowed to cast Terminus for 6 mana, or even Snapcaster-Terminus for 8 mana! In a deck designed to reach the late game, these plays can happen.
Supreme Verdict is another sweeper worth considering. The downsides -- 4 mana instead of 1, destroys creatures rather than putting them on the bottom of the library -- are somewhat offset by the upsides: Supreme Verdict requires no library manipulation to cast, cannot be countered at all, and can be exiled to cast Force of Will for free.
Countermagic
Force of Will is often referred to as the 'glue that holds Legacy together'. It's what protects us from fast, all-in combo decks like Oops! All Spells, and as an unconditional counterspell, it retains its usefulness in just about every matchup. However, it's also often the first card we cut against 'fair' decks, since it does put us at a card disadvantage.
Counterspell is the original all-purpose ... well, counterspell. Two blue mana to counter anything is the rate by which all other counterspells are defined (let's forget Mana Drain for a moment). Counterspell is a valuable main-deck inclusion for its general flexibility, even if there are more efficient options we can consider in the sideboard -- or in the mainboard depending on the metagame we expect to face.
Flusterstorm is more than a narrow sideboard card against Storm (where each of its copies can target one of the storm copies). Against the low-to-the-ground Delver decks, a well-timed Flusterstorm can completely dominate counterwars, countering multiple spells for a single blue mana, all while being more or less immune to Force of Will or Daze. And with the general prevalence of instants and sorceries in Legacy, Flusterstorm is never too bad.
Spell Pierce is similar to Flusterstorm, with the upside of being able to hit some key non-Instant/Sorcery targets like Chalice of the Void and planeswalkers. While worse against Storm and in fighting multi-spell counterwars, it's a close substitute, and there is a reasonable argument to be made for running both regardless of budget.
Pyroblast & Red Elemental Blast are incredibly powerful in Legacy due to the prevalence of blue spells and creatures. Being able to counter and/or destroy Delver of Secrets, Stifle, True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, Emissary of Trest, etc. is very valuable. While perhaps a bit narrow for inclusion in the maindeck, it can be reasonable, and if we have access to red mana, these are near auto-inclusions in the sideboard. There is an argument to play a mix of Pyroblast and REB to defend against Cabal Therapy and Meddling Mage, but with Monastery Mentor, the ability to cast Pyroblast at will is quite valuable.
Win Conditions
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a key component of the deck. Jace has general utility in unsummoning opponents' creatures (or occasionally our own Snapcaster Mages!) and brainstorming to gain card advantage and put miracle cards back on top of the deck. However, once the board is clear, Jace's fateseal ability combined with his 'ultimate' are a win condition in and of themselves. Jace is immune to non-damage-based creature removal, our own sweepers, and other removal like Abrupt Decay and Pernicious Deed, though he is susceptible to Pyroblast effects. Once we have a Jace in play, it can be tempting to rush toward the ultimate, but it is often correct to take a few turns to 'brainstorm' to solidify our control of the game, and only then begin 'fatesealing'. An exception is against decks with Lightning Bolt, where we want to +2 Jace first so he doesn't die to a single Bolt.
Monastery Mentor is perhaps slightly worse without the ability to use Sensei's Divining Top's draw ability in the upkeep and recast it to repeatedly make monk tokens (or loop two Tops), but with the density of cantrips in the deck, Mentor is still very capable of closing out a game quickly. It is entirely possible to cast Mentor, make 3 monks, and then swing for 20 the next turn. Mentor has a few advantages over Entreat the Angels: first, it can simply be cast on turn 3 to pressure combo decks (when we deem it's safe to tap out, for example) or attempt to steal a game against a fair deck that falters a little; second, Mentor can serve as a pseudo-Moat, preventing our opponent from having good attacks or simply buying time. This latter ability buys us time to find additional cantrips, answers, Jace, etc.
Entreat the Angels is a little more difficult to support now that Sensei's Divining Top is banned, but it is still a viable option. It has the benefit of being a very compact win condition, often able to present a one- or two-turn end to the game by the time it is cast. Entreat doesn't have Mentor's ability to 'steal' games, and because it cannot be cast normally, we generally run fewer copies, which makes it more susceptible to discard (or just not being found at all).
Of course, we can diversify our non-Jace win conditions, playing two Mentors and one Entreat in the main deck, or Entreat in the main and Mentors in the sideboard, or even Mentors in the main with an Entreat in the sideboard. The dance of nullifying our opponent's removal vs. playing a 2W 2/2 that, if not removed, will take over the game can present our opponents with difficult sideboarding decisions and opportunities to go wrong.
Sideboard Cards
These cards can, at times, find their way into the main deck, but are more often sideboard cards reserved for certain matchups.
Vendilion Clique is useful primarily against combo decks to pressure the combo player and potentially take a critical card, but is also useful against control decks where a flash 3/1 flier is a little more palatable than a sorcery-speed threat.
Ethersworn Canonist is extremely good against Storm, but also useful against other decks that want to cast multiple spells in one turn like Elves, Aluren, or Food Chain -- though beware of Abrupt Decay, Sudden Shock, etc. Additionally, Canonist can come in against Sneak and Show to invalidate their counterspells.
Containment Priest is most useful against decks cheating creatures into play (Sneak and Show, Reanimator, Dredge), but can also be brought in against Aether Vial decks (Death and Taxes, Goblins, Merfolk) or Green Sun's Zenith decks (Elves, Maverick) if we think it's better than a card that would otherwise remain in our deck after sideboarding.
Disenchant & Wear // Tear are particularly useful against Chalice of the Void decks, but also have general utility against Lands (Mox Diamond, Molten Vortex, etc.), Death and Taxes, and even Burn (Eidolon of the Great Revel, Sulfuric Vortex).
Engineered Explosives is a very useful card. In addition to Disenchant and Wear // Tear, Explosives can remove Chalice of the Void. But it also can double as a pseudo-wrath against decks with many tokens (including the mirror match) and decks with many creatures of the same mana cost. Perhaps slightly better in UWr than UW, though most of the targets are going to have converted mana costs of 0, 1, or 2 anyway.
Surgical Extraction & Rest in Peace are options against decks relying on the graveyard. Surgical Extraction is probably the best option: strong against RB Reanimator, Dredge, and Lands. It can be cast before our first turn, and recast with Snapcaster Maage. Rest in Peace is perhaps a little too slow to combat the fast graveyard decks (RB Reanimator, Dredge), and shutting down our Snapcaster Mages is not a great idea in matchups where a Rest in Peace isn't an auto-win (making Tarmogoyfs into 0/1s seems nice, but not when we just lose to Liliana with a Snapcaster in hand and a Counterspell in the now-exiled graveyard).
Blood Moon, Back to Basics, & From the Ashes are strong options for non-basic land hate. We can leverage the fact that we play 6+ basics by punishing decks with greedy mana bases. Blood Moon is the strongest effect, but obviously hurts us as well. Back to Basics gives the opponent a little more breathing room since they can cast one spell off each dual land, and it can be hit by Pyroblast.
Supreme Verdict, Kozilek's Return, and Pyroclasm are additional sweepers we can add to the sideboard if desired. Kozilek's Return is less efficient than Pyroclasm, but is instant speed (allowing us to play around Port and generally time the spell more flexibly) and colorless (avoid Mother of Runes). However, both of these spells do not handle True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, Emissary of Trest, and other threats that don't die to 2-damage sweepers.
3. Sample Decklists
UWr Mentor Miracles
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
2 Plains
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
Creatures (6)
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Monastery Mentor
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Instants and Sorceries (31)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Portent
4 Predict
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
1 Unexpectedly Absent
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
2 Blood Moon
1 Entreat the Angels
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Vendilion Clique
UW Entreat Miracles
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
3 Tundra
Creatures (3)
3 Snapcaster Mage
Planeswalkers (3)
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Instants and Sorceries (34)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Portent
4 Predict
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
3 Unexpectedly Absent
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
1 Flusterstorm
1 Entreat the Angels
2 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Flusterstorm
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Monastery Mentor
3 Surgical Extraction
4. Tips and Tricks
Portent
Portent's delayed draw happens regardless of what else we do afterwards, so we can continue to cantrip after casting Portent to search for Terminus / Entreat. For example, Portent -> shuffle -> Portent -> shuffle -> Ponder -> shuffle -> draw -> on opponent's upkeep, draw two (remember to miracle the first one!).
Similarly, if we have a Brainstorm or Jace and Terminus in hand, we can Portent -> shuffle/keep -> Brainstorm / Jace [+0] to put the Terminus on top, then draw it in the opponent's upkeep.
Many opponents seem to feel 'safe' if we Portent and then fail to draw a Terminus on their upkeep, so consider whether we can bait our opponent into over-committing by setting up the miracle for our draw step instead. Or, if we have an instant-speed cantrip, we could Portent into [X] [Y] [Terminus], draw X on their upkeep and Y on our draw step, then miracle Terminus on their next turn.
Unexpectedly Absent
UA for X=0 + Predict mills a troublesome permanent and draws two cards.
UA + Jace's [+2] can send a problematic permanent to the bottom of the opponent's library.
UA + Portent can force the opponent to shuffle the permanent into the library.
UA in response any searching effect removes the permanent ... permanently. UA in response to the opponent sacrificing a fetchland is perhaps most obvious, but also in response to a Stoneforge Mystic's enters-the-battlefield trigger, in response to a Green Sun's Zenith, etc.
While X=0 is most common, we can of course UA for X=1, X=2, etc. This can be useful if we want to buy time (for example, if we don't have a Predict or Portent in hand yet). If we do this, we should keep track of where the UA'd card is in case we draw Predict!
We can also use UA defensively! With a Terminus trigger on the stack, we can UA our own Monastery Mentor / Snapcaster Mage / etc. to save it from Terminus and replay it next turn. Another common scenario is using UA on our own Jace to save him from a Pyroblast.
Predict
Sometimes we need to draw the top card of our library. We can Predict our opponent to do this!
Sometimes it also makes sense to 'blindly' Predict to just dig for cards with more of an impact, even if that's a Ponder or Portent. In this case, we can either make a best guess given our hand, graveyard, and decklist (though this can reveal information!), or make a best guess given our understanding of the opponent's deck.
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
How important would you say Unexpectedly Absent is for the Entreat version of the deck? I see you're running three in yours.
I've been on two blood moon main, so I'm only running one UA because it's a bit difficult to cast.
Thanks! I should note that neither of the example decks are mine. I selected decklists from much better players than me to include in the primer. Alakazimdk is Anders Thiesen, and the UWr Mentor Miracles list was piloted by ItIsUnfair (I mistakenly copied the same decklist header twice; this has been fixed), whose name I unfortunately can't recall at the moment.
In terms of how important Unexpectly Absent is: I think the card is fairly important, though skilled players have played decks with 1 (like ItIsUnfair) or 0 copies. In my view, Counter-Top Miracles could conserve resources like Force of Will and Counterspell more easily due to the Counter-Top lock, saving countermagic for 'must counter' spells -- i.e., the spells you couldn't answer with your typical Swords to Plowshares and Terminus removal suite. Unexpectedly Absent fills that void for us by allowing us to recover from a brief lapse in control (our opponent slips a Liliana of the Veil past our countermagic; we UA it and Predict it away, or UA it and then Counterspell it). And while the old Counter-Top Miracles played more of a sorcery-speed game, 'Unpredictable Miracles' plays much more at instant speed, so the ability to hold up the option of Counterspell / Swords to Plowshares / Unexpectedly Absent / Predict is quite useful. Unexpectedly Absent also does a great job at simply buying time, which probably synergizes a bit better with the Entreat plan than the Mentor plan -- though the card is generally useful in either deck.
Of course, there's a lot of flexibility in how specifically you build your deck. For example, having access to three anti-Chalice of the Void / Sylvan Library / Dread of Night / etc. cards in the 75 is a reasonable starting point. This might be two UA in the main and a Disenchant in the sideboard. Alakazimdk has cut a Swords to Plowshares to play a third Unexpectedly Absent -- which frees up a sideboard slot (note that he has no Disenchant effects in the side). Of course, ItIsUnfair simply only has one card to deal with a resolved artifact at all.
And of course, WW is a real cost, especially when our deck filtration now costs U (Ponder, Portent, Brainstorm) rather than 1 (Sensei's Divining Top). So if you think Blood Moon warrants 1-2 main-deck slots, then cutting Unexpectedly Absent seems reasonable.
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
artifacts (4)
4 scroll rack
enchantments (8)
4 counterbalance
4 detention sphere
instants (12)
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 swords to plowshares
planeswalkers (4)
4 jace, the mind sculptor
sorceries (10)
4 ponder
4 terminus
2 entreat the angels
land (22)
6 island
4 flooded strand
4 temple of enlightenment
4 tundra
2 academy ruins
2 plains
SB
4 leyline of sanctity
4 rest in peace
2 containment priest
2 disenchant
2 ethersworn canonist
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
card choices:
scroll rack “replaces" sensei’s divining top. scroll rack can’t:
A. hide itself from removal
B. easily counter 1 drops
C. use multiple times
D. go off in a pair w/monastery mentor
scroll rack can topdeck drawn cards for counterbalance... it’s the best replacement i know of.
detention sphere over council’s judgment, unexpectedly absent b/c:
A. there’s no snapcaster mage in my list
B. extra blue fodder for FOW
temple of enlightenment is a turn 1 scrye land. nothing revolutionary.
academy ruins recurs destroyed scroll racks.
emrakul:
A. slows down grindstone. w/jace, scroll rack and brainstorm, should never be stuck in hand.
B. can randomly surprise a show and tell player
no sensei’s divining top, no monastery mentor.
my mana curve:
1cc - 12
2cc - 8
3cc - 6
4cc - 4
5cc - 4
6cc - 4
tourney report:
r1, 0-2 vs burn
game 1, i stabilized at 1 life but he eventually got thru my counterbalance to kill me.
SB +4 leyline of sanctity, -4 detention sphere.
game 2, i had leyline of sanctity out but he whittled me down w/creatures, flame rifts and price of progress.
r2, 0-2 vs dredge
game 1, saw him going off and scooped when he cast gitaxian probe.
SB +4 RIP, -4 detention sphere.
game 2, he went off and cabal therapied my RIP on his turn 2 (i didn't draw white source until my turn 3.)
r3, *bye*
basically went 0-2. i give up on scroll rack miracles. any comments/suggestions?
limited - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkfx2kA8gok&feature=emb_logo
limited - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3RYiZJFCK0
limited - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j18HlKybrm8&feature=emb_logo
standard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiAEzfAgpbI
standard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNr_4ubfMg
standard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJcwpxraL-g
modern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8MyVNLVYNw
modern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-M5ffoArnY
modern - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_yQEBOPi_w&feature=emb_logo
extended - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLpUB9zpyr4&feature=emb_logo
An option I saw mentioned is adding a green splash and playing Mirri's Guile. It can't put back cards you've drawn, or respond to a spell to put a different CMC on top (obviously you can still Brainstorm), but it lets you float a Terminus without drawing it, and lets you repeatedly put a 1/2/3-drop on top of the deck to counter whatever is most relevant in the matchup. Plus, between Mirri's Guile and Counterbalance, your Predicts (if you play them) become a lot stronger.
Regarding your list, three JTMS seems a bit much, IMO. And I would think you'd want to leverage Predict with Counterbalance and Scroll Rack -- especially so you have more cards in hand to Scroll Rack away. The lack of Snapcaster (and Counterspell) in favor of Detention Sphere is interesting. In the right meta, I assume this could make sense. But I'd also say that if you're trying to make "Counter-Rack" Miracles work, you might want to stick with an established Counter-Top list and only substitute the Scroll Racks. Cards like Counterspell, Predict, Snapcaster Mage, etc. are there for a reason, and cards like Detention Sphere are omitted for a reason. (For example, Council's Judgment was/is played instead of Detention Sphere because it can be re-cast with Snapcaster, and it can hit True-Name Nemesis as well as all the targets Detention Sphere hits. For the times when you want to hit multiple things, Engineered Explosives was generally preferred because it's a bit more flexible -- most things we want to destroy are CMC 0/1/2, and it's more often the case that we want to destroy two different things with CMC 2 than two copies of the same card. Finally, Detention Sphere is destroyed by Pyroblast effects, whereas CJ and EE are not.)
I'd certainly be interested to hear how you do with this take on the deck in the future. I think most people have decided that trying to play Counter-Top Miracles without Top (and substituting in something else, whether it's Scroll Rack or Mirri's Guile or Soothsaying) just isn't the way to go for a Terminus & Jace, the Mind Sculptor UWx control deck, but it's definitely possible everyone is just dismissing the idea too quickly.
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16204&d=300033&f=LE
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16509&d=302086&f=LE
It seems to have an interesting take on the deck, with Enlightened Tutor getting you silver bullets, and having RiP & Energy Field MD gives a solid game 1 against a lot of the opposition (Burn can't handle Field, for example, & RiP shuts down a good number of 4c control cards and wrecks Lands/Dredge).
Doesn't run any Miracle cards, admittedly, though one of those lists has a transformative sideboard that turns him into Miracles. So perhaps not Miracles-ish enough for this thread, and if so sorry, just thought I'd put it out there and see what the actual UW control players thought (oddly we don't seem to have a thread in established, though it's obviously established? weird).
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash
I personally think a UW-X Rip Helm list should not be on this thread unless it runs Miracles tech, but you are right UW-X control (or should that be combo/control?) should have a thread. Some sites call those decks "Rest in Peaces", taking Miracles back to the days when Rip/Helm was a valid build of UW, pre AVR, as it is now. I posted a UW-X RIP-Helm-E field/landstill hybrid on the Parfait thread recently, precisely because there was no UW-X RIP/Helm thread, and Parfait was at least an RIP/Helm Tutor deck, albiet with an odd Land tax/Scroll rack engine (and the guys on that thread are very helpful). I would suggest that you contact the Mods and write a Primer for UW RIP Helm if one does not exist- Developing has a fair few decent serious decks (Infect was here for ages, not sure if it still is), a few older decks you see from time to time, as well as some like my thread on Stasis, which is closer to a tuned Against The Odds deck, together with the obligatory chaff ("please help - my first legacy deck" etc.)
Anyway, thank you for your suggestions, I may make a thread about it anyway on the off chance that someone else has been playing it.
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash
One approach is to just rely on 'blind flips' and the fact that our CMC aligns with a lot of decks in the format to gain value (not to mention it helps with Predict!), with a little manipulation possible through the cantrips and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. An example is here.
Another approach is to use Soothsaying (!?), which is both a very bad impression of Sensei's Divining Top and yet allows you to dig much deeper if you get to the late game. Stefanogs at The Source posted a couple videos of Soothsaying Miracles here: (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d_myJH5FeY; (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XerDvgpy_wM. His list is here.
I think it's very interesting to watch this deck continue to develop in the wake of the Top banning. It seems there might be more play to Counterbalance (and even Soothsaying, perhaps!) than people initially thought, at least based on this admittedly small set of results.
If I can get my hands on two or three Soothsayings, I'll probably give this a test in the next couple weeks. But I'm also planning on going to a reasonable-sized tournament in October, and unless Soothsaying overperforms, will likely stick with a UWr Mentor + UA list similar to the one in the primer since I'm most familiar with it.
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
I'm a long time blue enthusiast in Modern, and legacy has always been slightly out of reach financially. However, my LGS is starting a small Legacy tournament, allowing for 15 proxies at first until people find their feet. I've tested and thoroughly enjoyed this version of Miracles, even more than the R.I.P. Top version that I had a proxy deck of.
My question to you guys is this -
What are the very basics that I need to run this deck?
I've decided not to go for the red splash due to Volcanic Island's price tag. But I have most of the deck already apart from the heavy hitters.
Would, starting out, buying 4 Force of Will's and 2 Tundra's be enough to enjoy the deck? I have 1 Jace and plan on trading into another. Would you suggest I run more basics or something like Glacial Fortress/Hallowed Fountain as people usually run more than two duels?
Thanks in advance!
Welcome! Fortunately, UW Miracles is pretty playable with a cheaper manabase than many other Legacy decks. And straight UW without a red splash is certainly playable. An example mana base with no duals at all could be:
4 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
5 Island
3 Plains
2 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
I'd say the very basics you need to play the deck are:
Cards that are very good in the deck that you probably want, but could play without for a while:
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
What would you consider prioritizing?
The cards I currently own from what you mentioned are:
Play sets of: Brainstorm, Ponder, Counterspell, Snapcaster Mage and Monastery Mentor (which I really want to try, I've always wanted to play Mentor).
I have 1 copy of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and both Predict as well as Entreat the Angels are on their way via ebay.
I also own playsets of Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta.
I also own almost all the sideboard cards you've mentioned, except for Flusterstorm.
So basically out of the cheaper cards I'm missing:
Portent Swords to Plowshares Unexpectedly Absent and Terminus, which I intend to order as they are indeed inexpensive.
I'm trying to figure out what the best combination of cards would be the best to start playing the deck.
Would you recommend 1 Tundra, 4 Force of Will, and 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor?
Or would you value the third Jace higher than a different card?
Or even 2 Tundra and 4 Force of Will?
Thanks for all the help!
Much easier to help with specifics. My opinion:
If you want a 9th fetch, anything that gets white would be fine in a UW deck with no splash. Play a Windswept Heath to throw people off!
Regarding additional copies of Jace: Jace is very, very strong, and functions extremely well in the deck (Brainstorm is always good, but even better when you can set up Terminus with it), but there are viable alternatives that are much cheaper. For example, you can play a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar (doesn't pitch to Force, but also doesn't die to Pyroblast), or even Daze (works well with Mentor!).
Commander: UBR Jeleva/Kess Storm, UR Mizzix Combo, U Rayne/Azami Wizards
An appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company, and irrepressibly drab and awful.
And what about counterbalance? Is it no longer viable, I was thinking with something like lantern of insight maybe to see their top card, that and clique to see their hand. Just spit balling here as I am trying to get back into legacy.
I've finally found most of the cards I need, is search for azcanta still something worth trying? I have a few from my modern decks.
I have soothsaying and CB's so that's the style of deck I'm putting together.
I was looking at a few copies of glasses of urza to help with information.
Currently Playing:
Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me!
Legacy:
RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R
RGBelcherRG
WSoldier StompyW
BReanimatorB
EDH:
BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB
BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
Sage owl and glasses of Urza.... less so, hehe.
In seriousness the fact that UW miracles is in developing and decks like Enchsntress are in established is ludicrous.
This forum also has a lot of people new to legacy asking "can my vampire/spider deck be Legacy viable" (the answer is always no) , making it hard to use.
As an aside the moderators need to consider stickying decks like Parfait, Soldier or any other non pirate stompy, Stax, Humans, Twin, Rip/helm UW, and other Rogue Corner style decks etc. whilst promoting Miracles and creating threads for Deaths' Shadow and their ilk, because there are so many posts here.
Modern: (G/U)Infect (G/U)Tron
Legacy: (U/B)Tezzeret (U/B)(W/U)Miracles(W/U)(B/G)Dredge(R/W)
Commander:(U/R)Mizzix (U/R)(W/U)Sydri(U/B)(W/U)Zur(U/B)
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R