Legacy Locals | Miracles Tournament Report

On July 13, 2026, I played Miracles at the Legacy weekly at Gamestoria in Astoria, Queens, NY. Across four rounds, I won some, I lost some, but most importantly, they all taught me how I might improve my ever-evolving Miracles deck. Here's the list I played:

Miracles

Instants

4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Erode
4 Predict
1 Unexpectedly Absent
3 Brainsurge
1 Thwart
4 Force of Will

Sorceries

4 Ponder
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Force of Negation
1 Witness the Future
4 Terminus

Enchantments

4 Counterbalance

Lands

4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Mystic Sanctuary
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Meticulous Archive

Sideboard

4 Extract
3 Hydroblast
2 Force of Negation
2 Erode
2 Disenchant
1 Tsabo's Web
1 Surgical Extraction

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The Extract experiment in the sideboard was a way to combat the cards that otherwise don't have a way to reasonably combat them. The targets were removing Thassa's Oracle since there is no viable out to Cavern of Souls, narrowing the avenues to victory for Storm to win in their maindeck so more fights can happen over Burning Wish, a way to strip utility pieces like Bojuka Bog and Boseiju, Who Endures from Lands' Crop Rotation package, etc.

Brainsurge by Liiga Smilshkalne

Leaning harder on Brainsurge is a nod to The Fantasticar making -drops more desirable for Counterbalance. The issue with that is Brainsurge is soft-banned in an Orcish Bowmasters economy, which is Legacy. Orcish Bowmasters' stock might be down online since the incentives are to play more combo to speed through leagues. In paper, however, Orcish Bowmasters is still prominent. Suffice to say, its a risk for matchup lottery.

Round One vs. Phelia | W

This match is extremely grindy, but Miracles is favored game one since cards have text. There were compelling nuance timing considerations for when my opponent should use their Stifles and Consign to Memory to fight over Miracle triggers.

Ultimately, the game boils down to whether or not Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd sticks on the battlefield. That's pretty much the entire game. Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd is among the cards I think of as snowball-engine slop cards, in that they solo games without asking for anything. Other cards in this category include Up the Beanstalk, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, The One Ring, Cori-Steel Cutter, etc.

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd by Rudy Siswanto

With that in mind, I expended as many resources as necessary to keep a Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd off the table and eventually a massive Entreat the Angels overwhelm any number of Quantum Riddlers.

Round Two vs Reanimator | L

My opponent was on the build that splashed for Faithless Looting and Stronghold Gambit post-board, as well as for Show and Tell post-board. The build is so redundant and flush with the same universal effects that I realized I could choose an opening seven-card hand, and it would be insufficient to beat them.

The issue is their deck contains three effects aside from mana: big creatures, reanimation spells, and discard. Faithless Looting is the only outlier. Given that only one reanimation effect needs to resolve and the game ends on the spot because of what Griselbrand and Atraxa, Grand Unifier do, game ones for control seem impossible.

Because of their redundancy post-board becoming even more flush with Stronghold Gambit and Show and Tell, the match devolves to either find a sufficient hate piece and protect it or lose. These types of combo matchups are unfortunate to pair into as an interactive deck because interaction is insufficient, so you have to become a hatepiece.dek.

Containment Priest by John Stanko

In this case, against this version of reanimator, the only viable option is Containment Priest. Without them in my board, my maxing out of Force effects was not even in the ballpark of competitive.

It made me consider a card like Noxious Revival, which I've tested previously to middling results. Its benefits are functioning defensively to counter a reanimation effect or proactively with Counterbalance to free counter whatever they cast.

Typically, there are also moments where it is obvious they are missing a particular piece (i.e., the reanimation effect or the cheat to put a creature into play), and Noxious Revival can blank their draw step. I'll explore builds with it in the board again in the future.

Round Three vs. Cutter | W

Cutter games have three distinct phases where specific cards matter:

One-mana threat plus Daze
Cori-Steel Cutter
Reloading with Flow State to support Murktide Regent

Lining up Counterbalance in the latter two phases is often strong enough to secure a game if you can get through the first phase, which is pretty much always Dragon's Rage Channeler.

Dragon's Rage Channeler by Martina Fačková

Dragon's Rage Channeler on turn one, as is the case with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer before it, has to be dealt with before accruing too much advantage for the latter two phases of the game. As a result, the Miracles build has to be redundant enough with removal to trade with the expected Daze as well.

Playing around Daze, especially on the draw, is not impossible but typically an unaffordable luxury. If your control build has sufficient density of removal, playing into Daze is more often correct for two reasons:

If they don't have it, great. Their threat is removed, and they have to decide whether to deploy another one-drop to maintain the first phase or to develop into the second phase.
If they have Daze, setting themselves back a turn from entering the second phase can offer a turn of reprieve to cantrip accordingly.

So more often than not, I'm not playing around Daze in the first several turns of the game.

Cori-Steel Cutter is a snowball slop card. Keep them off the table and expend whatever resources necessary to do so. It's the way design is these days, and without a matching snowball slop engine, you can't beat a snowball slop engine, so keep them off the table as best you can.

Cori-Steel Cutter by Xabi Gaztelua

Counterbalance has a ton of value in phases two and three of the game. In stage three, Counterbalance can't fight over the Murktide Regent, but it can fight over the spells that protect it. Typically, stacking a Force of Will or a -drop on top of the library for Force of Negation before picking a fight over the Murktide Regent is the plan. This is why boarding out all your Force of Wills is incorrect.

Round Four vs. Tempo | L

This matchup is immensely difficult because its entire shell is snowball slop engines sandwiching Orcish Bowmasters. Similar to , there are three phases of the game, albeit less obvious:

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
Orcish Bowmasters
Kaito, Bane of Nightmares

Orcish Bowmasters is challenging out of non- decks but not impossible to beat since removal is likely to resolve against it. Against Dimir, however, a protected Orcish Bowmasters blanks cantrips, which are operationally necessary to align appropriate removal against various threats.

Without the ability to cantrip to align answers to threats, you are at the mercy of having more removal than they have countermagic. If you cantrip for removal, the Orc Army will grow large enough to become a must-answer threat, but the Orcish Bowmasters is locking out the ability for control to operate. It's a catch-22 position that requires nothing of the Orcish Bowmasters pilot, including never having to expose the Orcish Bowmasters to sorcery-speed removal.

Orcish Bowmasters by Tyler Jacobson

Any of Dimir's snowball threats with any protection will solo games by themselves. A reasonable build must have enough answers for these cards specifically. It is why I have included four Erode in my 75 since its release.

I played it as a 2-2 main-board split on this night but am likely to return to the playset of Erode in the main since Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is ubiquitous enough in the format and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares doesn't have reasonable answers otherwise. Erode can function as redundant Swords to Plowshares when fighting over Orcish Bowmasters. It's not the hero we deserve, but it's the hero we have for now.