UW Miracles in Modern with Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Wizards has really done it now. They took our beloved format, and turned it on its head, unbanning not only Bloodbraid Elf, but also the most powerful planeswalker ever printed in Jace, the Mind Sculptor. There was a huge mix of emotions following the announcement, ranging from outrage to pure excitement, and I for one am happy to have some new cards to brew with. Will Jace completely destroy the format we all hold dear? Eh, maybe. But I’m going to make the most of my time with our wallet-sculpting friend here. I honestly don’t think anyone seriously expected Jace to come off the banned list. In fact, you might even say that him being unbanned was a miracle. And coincidentally, that’s exactly the deck we’re taking a look at this week, courtesy of Reddit user counterbalancetop. The list can be found here, or you can just scroll down the page a little bit.

    This Miracles list runs very similarly to a normal control list, with removal, filtering, a suite of counterspells, and of course Jace. The deck aims to stall out the game by countering and removing threats until it can turn the corner by deploying its wincon, then quickly winning after that. We have Remand, Negate, Logic Knot, and Cryptic Command for permission, with Cryptic Command having the added utility of bouncing permanents, drawing, and tapping down the opponent’s team to either stop a lethal attack, or clear the way for your own alpha strike. Serum Visions, Telling Time, and Opt help filter your draws, with Serum Visions and Telling Time being able to set up miracles for us, and Opt allowing us to draw miracles on the opponent’s turn.

 Snapcaster Mage gets us extra use out of our spells, rebuying Opts and Path to Exiles early game, and potentially even getting an extra Terminus later on if needed. Vendilion Clique can act as a mini-discard effect on your opponent, can filter out unwanted cards in your hand, and can trigger miracles on the opponent’s turn. It’s important to note, for those of you who don’t know, that miracle can trigger if it’s not your turn, and you can cast spells with miracle this way on your opponent’s turn, even if the miracle spell is a sorcery. This makes Clique a versatile threat, with a lot of utility before considering that it brings along a 3/1 flying body.

For the miracles themselves, we have a pretty small selection. Looking to Legacy, we see that some of the cards people often want to play, most notably Temporal Mastery, aren’t played at all. Unfortunately, most of the miracle cards just aren’t good enough, so we have to stick with the two that have been tested time and again: Terminus and Entreat the Angels. Terminus gives the deck probably its strongest component, something that no other deck has access to: a one-mana boardwipe. And at instant speed, no less. Terminus is one of the biggest draws to playing Miracles, and even hurts dredge since it doesn’t put the creatures into the graveyard. Entreat, as our second miracle, is a fantastic finisher, often producing enough angels to kill the opponent in a single swing, and sometimes on the opponent’s end step. It can also give you a handful of blockers in a pinch, coming out of nowhere to stop just about any attack your opponent will throw at you.

For spot removal, we have access to Path to Exile to deal with creatures, and Cast Out to hit anything else that might be giving us issues. Flash here makes this a very potent answer to artifacts, enchantments, and opposing Jaces, and Cycling means that we can use it to whip up a Terminus or Entreat if we don’t need the removal. We have Search for Azcanta to help us dig for answers, fill up the graveyard for Snapcaster Mage and Logic Knot, and ramp us later on. Our mana base is pretty straight-forward for UW control, with fetches, shocks, basics, Celestial Colonnades, Field of Ruin, and Ghost Quarter.

 The sideboard is also pretty straight-forward, giving us access to Blessed Alliance and Kor Firewalker for burn, Disdainful Stroke and Meddling Mage for Tron, Stony Silence and Disenchant for Affinity and Lantern Control, and Rest in Peace and Surgical Extraction for graveyard-based decks like Dredge. We also get tools to help us fight Humans, Storm, and other big mana decks like Titanshift, and the extra Vendilion Clique is perfect for killing an enemy Jace thanks to flash.

Tips:

• Be careful with Jace. Don’t feel pressured to drop him on-curve, since this can often leave him wide open to die next turn. Try to have some way of protecting him before playing him, unless you know the deck can’t deal with him (game two, most decks can deal with him)
• Another Jace tip: Don’t be afraid to get rid of a Jace on top of your deck with Search for Azcanta if you’re behind. Jace is a beating if you’re ahead or at parity, but often just ends up being a four-mana brainstorm if you’re behind, and you’re better off getting the random card below it.
• Use your fetches conservatively with Jace. You can use the shuffle effect combined with the Brainstorm to get rid of unwanted cards and find new ones. In the same vein, don’t accidentally shuffle away a miracle you set up.
• Clique can be used on the opponent’s draw step, immediately after they’ve drawn but before they get their main phase. This allows you to get more information on what you’re taking from the opponent.
• Be careful with Field of Ruin. Your opponent gets the land untapped, so try to avoid giving them extra mana to work with.
• When drawing cards, make sure you look at the card before letting it touch the rest of the cards in your hand. As soon as it touches, you often lose the opportunity to cast it for its miracle cost.

Extra Spice:

If you want to focus more on the miracle plan, you can add in Banishing Stroke and Vanishment for spot removal, or throw in Devastation Tide for an extra board wipe. You could even go Jeskai for Bonfire of the Damned, which serves as a board wipe and win condition rolled into one.

Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and Geier Reach Sanitarium are both lands that can allow you to miracle on the opponent’s turn, which is a fantastic utility to have. The downside here is that both of them also give the benefit to your opponent.