In preparation for the SCG Invitational in New Jersey, I’ve been trying out U/W/R Miracles quite a bit with the following list:

U/W/R Miracles - Legacy | Jarvis Yu

• Creatures (2)
• 2 Snapcaster Mage

• Spells (35)
• 1 Ponder
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Sensei's Divining Top
• 4 Swords to Plowshares
• 4 Counterbalance
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Council's Judgment
• 2 Entreat the Angels
• 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Terminus

• Lands (23)
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 3 Tundra
• 4 Island
• 2 Plains
• 1 Plateau
• 1 Karakas
• 2 Volcanic Island
• 1 Mystic Gate

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Enlightened Tutor
• 1 Blood Moon
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 1 Ethersworn Canonist
• 1 Council's Judgment
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Pyroblast
• 1 Red Elemental Blast
• 2 Vendilion Clique
• 1 Keranos, God of Storms
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 1 Humility

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I recruited a Legacy expert in Drew Levin to do a set of matches with me. We chose to play RUG Delver vs Miracles, since it is one of the most often seen matchups in Legacy with a lot of intricacies and lines of play.

I still firmly believe that Miracles is slightly ahead in the matchup, but there’s a lot of room to improve my play versus them.

Notes on the matchup:

• Patience is a big deal versus RUG, because they have a large number of ‘conditional’ cards. Stifle, Spell Pierce, and Daze all come to mind here.
• Your cards don’t have haste. That is, try to wait long as possible for playing cards to get around Spell Pierce and Daze.

• When casting Entreat the Angels as a miracle, try to leave two mana open to pay for Spell Pierce.

• Fetch basic Lands! Sometimes your hand already has multiple nonbasic lands, so you can’t afford to do so, but if your hand contains many fetchlands, I would go with the fetch basic lands plan since a common way to lose versus RUG is to get Wastelanded multiple times and not have enough mana to play around their soft counters.
• Versus Stifle: Wait as long as possible to crack fetchlands, or if you need to crack one, crack it during their upkeep to force them to waste some mana. In general, the longer the game goes, the worse Stifle gets versus your lands, although they can always Stifle your miracle trigger(s).

My current sideboard plan with this list is:

-4 Force of Will, -3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor, +1 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Rest in Peace, +1 Supreme Verdict, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Blood Moon, +1 Council's Judgment.

It is arguable if I should leave in one Force of Will or one Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but I think it is slightly better to have a third win condition given how much removal I will have in postboard games.

All in all, I think Miracles is quite a strong deck that takes a bit to master.

I look forward to trying it versus other decks, as well as trying different builds (including the one championed by Philipp Schonegger) as well.

Please leave any comments here or on Twitter!

Thanks for watching.

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