This Mechanic Created One Of The Most Iconic Moments In Magic History

An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss the miracle mechanic and its impact on the competitive scene of Magic the Gathering. Introduced in May of 2012 in the magic set Avacyn Restored, Miracle has had a lasting impact on the game. Upon its release it made waves in the Standard format with an iconic moment where Brian Kibler lost to a top decked Bonfire Of The Damned that ended the tournament for team USA. Later, in the Legacy format a deck named after the mechanic was top tier until the quintessential card, Sensei's Divining Top, was banned in the format - leading to the decks demise.
Mentioned Links:
Nikachu discussing the top deck miracle: • Luckiest MTG Topdecks ...
Hosts:
Forrest Imel forrestimel.com/
Gavin Valentine www.gavinvalentinedesign.com/
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Thumbnail Artwork: Entreat The Angels by Todd Lockwood

[@arrowrandoman]

I started with the Innistrad Block, so I still have this old habit of making each part of Untap, Upkeep, and Draw obvious. To this day, I draw, hold it in the air for a moment, and then put it in my hand. I haven't played a miracle card in years, but I still play as if I have them in decks.

[@AndrewS-vu4ji]

For some reason, even though I've never played a miracle card(yet. I have a deck that I just haven't played) I do this exact same thing.

[@kylegonewild]

The Miracle mechanic represents the ultimate reversal of fortune in the current state of game. It turns a game of Magic into a Greek Tragedy for one player and a classic underdog story for the other. It adds a bit of story and drama that taps into a different part of the brain, evoking strong responses for both the players and spectators. It's Magic theater.

[@eduardoserpa1682]

As much as I love the highway robbery moments, the level of control you get in Legacy Miracles makes it one of my favorite archetypes in the entirety of Magic, alongside mill-based control (Lantern, UBx back in original Innistrad), Delver/Faeries tempo, and possibly Second Breakfast. It feels like spinning plates.

[@vavakxnonexus]

Yeah, I've got a lot of admiration for really obtuse control decks that upend the way you think about the game like that. Lantern Control is so wild.

[@draftmagicagain1000]

Thee most iconic in Magic history occurred at Pro Tour Honolulu 2006. Top 8 semifinal match. It was Kamigawa Ravnica 9th Standard. Craig Jones Zoo vs Olivier Ruel Orzhov Midrange. Craig plays so he aims a burn spell at Olivier’s head at the end of Olivier’s turn, rather than kill one of Olivier’s creatures. Now Craig is dead on board and he Must top deck a burn spell to win. He knocks the top, and rips Lightning Helix! Everyone was watching, and it was on commentary. The announcers go ballistic, the crowd goes ballistic. (Whereas in the Miracle there is no commentary and no crowd reaction)

[@distractionmakers]

I actually changed the title because of that moment. From the most iconic to “one of” haha

[@draftmagicagain1000]

@@distractionmakers Do a video on that! It was a pinnacle of Magic being fun to watch! Craig even flips over the top card so everyone see it at the same time! Craig jumps up and down, Olivier slouches, this was game 5, Craig is through to the Finals!!! The next most iconic moment is Nassif vs Chaplin Worlds 2007 Top 8 Semifinal. They’re both playing Dragonstorm Combo, and it’s an exhilarating match!

[@PensFan96]

**Draws Card** **Holds card upright with 2 fingers, 6 inches from face** **Closes eyes and smirks** ***FLIPS CARD TOWARDS OPPENENT SUDDENLY*** 👁👄👁 *"BEHOLD!!!"* *"MIRACLE CARD ACTIVATE!!!"*

[@simplegarak]

The only true say to play.

[@megapussi]

kinda unrelated but in yugioh there is a card called Parasite Paracide, that you shuffle into your opponents deck face up (genuinely dont know how you would fairly do that) and then your opponent is forced to play it when they draw it. So uh, yeah thats a card that exists.

[@distractionmakers]

Haha that’s incredible

[@kindlingking]

There's also Grave Lure that flips the top card of opponent's deck face-up, then make them shuffle the deck (the card stays face-up). The payoff is way worse even than Paracide - when opponent draws that card, they have to send it to the graveyard. There's also a reverse of this effect in Pharaoh's Treasure that make you do the same and when you draw the card you send it to the grave and add 1 card from your grave to the hand.

[@muddlewait8844]

I gotta admit, the sobbing at the end finally got me to subscribe. Good work

[@distractionmakers]

We did it!

[@aniessays]

Y’all are by far favorite channel right now! Never really thought about game design before and it so interesting to learn about it. Been playing MTG for well over ten years, and oddly enough have found myself obsessed with Yu-Gi-Oh in recent months! Keep making great vids!

[@Nic1700]

I think the setup for Miracle is fun and interesting - the first card you draw this turn. The specifics of implementation are more dubious. They leaned into it heavily as a cost reduction mechanic. There are some that are both bigger effects at a better rate, like Bonfire, but the vast majority are same effect and just Miracle for way cheaper. They could have went different directions. Something kicker-like with cheap base effects and bigger effects for more mana on the Miracle. Symmetric effects that become one-side when you Miracle. Creatures that come in with counters or bonus effects on the Miracle. The mechanic as it exists need not be executed the way they did it. Going further, they could have exiled the card and let you cast it for it's Miracle cost this turn. All of these effects have to be good on your draw step or setup on a previous turn and that limits design space. There's a little more maintenance and memory with sorting out what happens if you don't cast it, so it's not free to do it that way, but worth considering.

[@zacparkinson900]

The editing in this episode was on point!

[@jacobd1984]

I’m fond of miracle to this day because I won a game of Innistrad limited that I had no business winning thanks to Entreat the Angels. It was one of the few times I’ve played in a tournament in 20 years playing this game.

[@hoodiegal]

I kinda wanna see a Miracle vs Lantern Control BO3 match with infinite sideboards now. I'm curious how that would play out and how the decks would change to deal with each other.

[@Rabidconscience]

15:28 loving the extra editing effort there

[@Dikkieh]

you guys should get into cube design, you'd be hooked out of your minds

[@F1llm0reSl1m]

Cube is my favorite format. It's so great.

[@otterfire4712]

In One Piece, when an attack is successful on a player's leader card, that player takes the top card of their life and adds it to their hand. If the life card has a type of effect called Trigger, you can reveal it before putting it into your hand. However if the card touches the rest of your hand then it's implied you opted to not use the Trigger. Generally, it's good practice to hover drawn cards before fully adding it to hand. Keranos does a similar thing to Miracle on a smaller scale.

[@F1llm0reSl1m]

FNM? "You Died" LOL, great moment. I love a good FromSoftware reference. Great discussion too.

[@ashemabahumat4173]

Just declare actions...

[@migBdk]

Suggestions to fix miracle design: 1 Change it to always sorcery speed, so no play on opponents turn 2 Change it so miracle cards must always be shown to opponent on draw (also if not drawn as first card) These are of cause making the miracle cards weaker, but that is not a problem as you can just turn up their power to match. Should make it more difficult (but still viable) do to deck manipulation miracle builds. And remove the cheat uncertainty / poker face problem from play.

[@robertbemis9800]

How about spells that miracle when they are milled?

[@eightywight]

Sounds good.

[@paulkothgasser6623]

Dredge says hello

[@mpl9311]

The black drain 3 spell when it it milled. What was it's name again? Chilling something? Creeping Chill!

[@Leviathan_XO]

Ooooh editing 😮

[@bluemanblue2316]

I liked and I subscribed

[@GerBessa]

Ever heard of Booby Trap ? (9th edition) It's reverse anti-miracle.

[@ForrestImel]

I actually have a Booby Trap Commander deck, now that I know more of the miracle cards I'll have to use it against Gavin next time he plays his Miracle deck.

[@simplegarak]

Speaking of digital, did you guys play Hexx any before it closed down? It has really creative digital mechanics in it. Like adding buffs to random or "the next" creature in your deck.

[@joshua_lee732]

MTG Arena is trying thos with their Alchemy format

[@Soumein]

Is that different from how Runeterra or Eternal do that?

[@simplegarak]

@@Soumein dunno, I played hexx, hadn't gotten to those yet. Or looked into who developed what first.

[@rubenmon5932]

The Storm Scale should be called the Miracle Scale. Miracle is a mechanic they're actually scared to print anywhere else but commander.

[@freddiesimmons1394]

And storm is somehow more printable?

[@TheLuckySpades]

​@@freddiesimmons1394you got new storm cards for modern after the storm scale got introduced (e.g. Chatterstorm), but not miracles for modern

[@Jawzah]

@@freddiesimmons1394 I think a bit yes.. Storm may result in broken decks and all - but miracle is kinda inherently problematic.. Say you'd draft a a miracle card and kinda forgot hawing it in deck -- not actually forgot but it just slipped your mind .. and you drew it and put it in hand - then you cast it for miracle cost - but opponent thinks you might be cheating and you had the miracle card already in hand and drew something else.. Now how do you prove you actually drew the miracle card? And if you do always keep the last drawn card separate -- you are kind of telling the opponent that you have miracle cards in the deck.. Now if you're playing to win you should not do that - why give that information? Or if you don't - you might bluff by doing it anyway -- the mere existence of miracle cards in format would affect play patterns and be kinda annoying.. Storm - does not quite have that kind of problems.

[@calebhowe7842]

Then the scale could be explained as how much of a miracle would it be to see the mechanic

[@nicolaskerenski5294]

Maybe as an interesting topic: look at the old legend of the five rings tcg. 2 decks per player is as far as i know unique. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts about Stronghholds and clans.

[@fgnsfgnsfgn]

well podcasted

[@keltonschleyer6367]

15:00 It's brilliantly hilarious to juxtapose "FNM" with "Let's play Commander" as the mindset of two different generations of players 🤣

[@emanym]

I subscribed because you said, “Please.” 😅

[@NZPIEFACE.]

If there's one thing that Magic players are going to do with a mechanic, it's break it and play it completely not as intended.

[@andrewamann2821]

If they didn't intend for us to break it, they wouldn't have given us all the cards to break it with.

[@simplegarak]

This is one of those "problems" which is easily solved by play etiquette but near impossible to solve in rules. A decent player who wants to be fair and polite would set their hand aside, then draw their card, examine it alone, and then decide whether to cast for miracle or not.

[@NicholasBalanta]

I have noticed in some casual videos Andrea Menguci, Thoralf Severin, Jim Davis and Brian Kibler for each of their draws place their hand on the table, draw their card, look at it, then pick back up their hand, add the drawn card to their hand and then proceed with their turn. They were not playing Miracle decks, so the etiquette exists and it is practiced among pro players.

[@simplegarak]

@@NicholasBalanta Not just pro-players at games, but pros at life! 🤘 #respect

[@robertbemis9800]

How about mill cards If you cast these cards outside of mill, you mill 2 and shuffle them back into your library If you mill the card you can cast it for its miracle cost

[@distractionmakers]

Iiineteresting. It is design space we have seen a little glimpse of before with narcomoeba.

[@ZackeroniAndCheese]

"What is FNM" oof Magic strays further and further from its roots of being a physical game. Magic used to own Fridays at ever game store across the world.

[@distractionmakers]

I guess those were the good ol’ days now.

[@sleepyzeph]

do digital card games really fix the issue of meta-gaming to figure out what someone has? like, i don't play any digital cardgames, but in online mahjong, the game pauses for a moment if someone makes a move that someone else can play a response to. it needs to give the responding player time to decide if they want to respond, and how. so even though it's better in terms of only letting people play legal moves, not break rules, etc, it also gives players extra info that they wouldn't have in a physical game. when someone discards a tile in mahjong and i don't have any response to it, and the game still pauses before it becomes the next player's turn, then i'm thinking "okay, someone else could have played a response, meaning they must have a set of tiles that allow a response. and they chose not to respond, which means the response wouldn't have been advantageous for them" it's just a lot of free info. does mtgo not do that? like if you play a thing, doesn't the game have to stop for a sec to ask the opponent if they want to counterspell? and then regardless of what they do, you know they had *some* sort of response?

[@byeguyssry]

I don't play Magic online, but I believe the game will pause at any moment when the opponent has priority. I'd imagine that a digital analogue of Miracle would allow you to, if it's your turn, cast it as long as you have not done any action. It's still gonna be clunky though. You're supposed to draw cards one by one, so if you play a spell that lets you draw 3 cards, and the Miracle card is first, I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to look at the other 2 cards before casting it, which definitely would be weird even digitally. Also, if you draw it during your opponent's turn, I'm not sure how the priority system works but there's probably gonna be some situation where you typically don't have priority after drawing a card. Someone who actually plays Magic online, how do they actually make Miracle work? Though of course, you don't need to make it a one-to-one recreation of Miracle if you know from the very start that it's meant for a digital game.

[@cheeseitup1971]

From what I've seen, both MTGO and Arena have ways to always take priority, and then various ways to auto pass (when you have no legal actions, until end of turn, through unusual steps). People can still try to priority check to guess if the opponent has some response, but if you obsess enough, the impact of that is reduced. Online Mahjong usually has some kind of 鳴きなし or no call option, but doesn't have any equivalent to stops or "full control" to bluff options. Since you can't disable specific calls, there will be information that doesn't have to exist irl whenever you want to call some of your options. This is mitigated by false pauses from network lag (or perhaps intentionally by the server), but of course that's not perfect.

[@MeFigaYoma]

MTGO by default prompts you to ask whether you'd like to do anything every time you have priority, regardless of whether you have anything you can play. It's the equivalent of always bluffing that you have something. It's up to the player to tell the game that they don't want to do anything. This is the opposite of most of the more casual-friendly digital card games, where the game only stops if you can play something, and you have to manually tell it to stop when you have nothing if you want to bluff. To avoid turns taking too long, there are a bunch of hotkeys for "pass without playing anything until it's my turn", "pass unless opponent plays something", "pass until opponent's end step", "allow all triggered abilities of this type to resolve but still stop on anything else", etc. Your opponent will be able to tell that you're passing everything, though, since all their actions will resolve immediately, so you have to be careful. Alternatively, you can just be quick with the "pass once" key, although you'll often need to press it 10+ times per turn. This system takes a little while to get used to, but it gives you full control. Since the match time limit is on a chess clock system, there's a strong incentive to play quickly. If you draw a Miracle for your first card in a turn, the game stops right then to ask you whether you'd like to play it. Obviously, this makes it pretty obvious to your opponent that you drew a Miracle, so there's actually a specific setting little-used setting in the client to enable "Miracle bluffing", which causes the game to stop and wait for you to hit the "ok" key every time you draw your first card in a turn (even though you can't do anything during this stop). It's only useful if you're playing a Miracle deck, and there's no reason to have it enabled if you aren't playing one. I suppose the disadvantage to this would be that if your opponent pays attention and notices that you have this setting enabled, they can be pretty sure that you're playing a Miracle deck even before they've seen any of your cards. You can turn the setting on or off in the middle of a game, but you have to go through a couple of menus.

[@sleepyzeph]

@@MeFigaYoma ah that's cool. a lot more rigid than playing in person, but giving players all the options is great. the chess clock timer sounds like a good addition too.

[@byeguyssry]

What if Miracle was reworded to: When you draw this card, if it's the first card you drew this turn, reveal it. You may then cast this card for its miracle cost. This fixes the problem of you having to try to be subtle when deciding whether to cast the Miracle card. It doesn't fix the problem of forgetting to reveal it before it touches the rest of your hand, but still

[@OrdemDoGraveto]

Should be "you MAY reveal It. If you do, you MAY cast It for its miracle cost this turn.

[@cheeseitup1971]

You can't enforce a required reveal very well. Players want to not show what cards they're drawing, and later on they can claim an unrevealed miracle was in their opener or off a draw spell. You'd need a judge watching every draw step.

[@mjhenkel1984]

i played during tempest and i don't remember a card like that what card was it?

[@distractionmakers]

It was never made. MARO pitched the idea and it never made it to print. He talks about it in his drive to work podcast.

[@tonysladky8925]

Miracle irks me because it seems like you should be able to play a Miracle at any point during the turn you draw it, but practically, you need to either play it as soon as you draw it, keep it separate from your hand until you play it (thus cluing your opponent in to watch out for, and possibly respond to, a Miracle), or convince your opponent when you cast it that you definitely did draw it as the first card this turn and hope they trust you. I don't know. None of them sound like quite how I think miraculously drawing a powerful game-winning card should feel. It wouldn't be quite the same, but I feel like "You may reveal/exile this card if it is the first card you drew this turn. If you do, you may cast it for its Miracle cost until the end of the turn" text or something would have been a more appropriate way to do this effect. Sucks to reveal that information, but does it suck more than losing because someone got away with lying and playing the Miracle they drew three turns ago for its Miracle cost?

[@brianlinden3042]

This is exactly the way Miracle should work, and I'm amazed they didn't write it this way originally, especially if they had tried and failed to implement a similar mechanic in the past. It's not really even very clunky; usually if you draw a miracle you're excited and want to show it off anyway, and the number of things an opponent can do in response to you revealing it is pretty low, since it'll usually be during your turn anyway. At worst, they know they need to not counter the thing you were planning to cast just to bait out their counterspell before you cast your miracle, anyway, and sometimes you can even use that against them: Cast the miracle first, and they have to wonder "do I counter the miracle I KNoW he has, or whatever is in his hand?" It really wouldn't make the mechanic worse in any appreciable way.

[@megapussi]

Miracle is a mechanic I feel fits well in mtgs overall system. Deck manipulation is often a key component of some strategies and deck construction is very flexible to make it work. Of course sometimes it can go too far, but rlly I think most of the time the problem cards are things like divining top and not just the fact miracle exists at all. Similar cards in hearthstone always felt kinda lame to me, mainly because you didnt have any real ways to interact with your deck and because they didnt have miracles "first card per turn" restriction, meaning they were basically just "i want you to draw a lot" / "i punish you for drawing", which is kinda just what you're already doing in a card game. Maybe things have changed tho idk, i havent played it in a while.

[@megapussi]

I will say tho, shuffling negative autoplay cards into the opponents deck did build interesting tension. Knowing each card you draw is potentially one step closer to you blowing up was a unique bit of excitement I havent had in other card games. And it lead to spectacular twitch clips like ppl drawing 4 bombs in a row or whatever lol

[@Tristanramos1]

Mark's problem is he designs cards with downside. all cards must be free all cards must win the game.

[@KingQuetzal]

I have an aminatou deck with many miracles, not a big deal. Lift the card, set the edge on top of your deck so only you can see it, add it to hand or cast it.

[@Lightning_Lance]

I feel like building your own miracle is a flavor win, you are manipulating fate. And the miracles are tied to Avacyn who was basically a fake deity put in place by someone else, so it sort of fits in the story too.

[@juter1122]

Slow play shouldn't be a fucking thing. If you came to play, PLAY

[@thembosupremepizza1827]

you should have mentioned how easily it is to lie about miracle pre comment edit: nevermind

[@klolwut]

Miracle is a mechanically clunky idea because some people draw cards and immediately start autistically flicking their cards and there is an unknown to which card was drawn. You end up in a situation where if someone has miracle in their deck, they have to act like YuGiOh every time they draw a card

[@juter1122]

Skill issue

[@guksungan1267]

Wait, so we're not supposed to act like YuGiOh every time we draw a card?!? /s

[@kphaxx]

I act like this every card draw. I'm hilarious and everybody in my pod loves it when I do this. We're all acoustic and on Spectrum Internet.

[@gabeskai]

Duro! MIRACADO!!!

[@ashemabahumat4173]

>Feels like yugioh "Its fuckin terrible and I hate it"- this guy, 20XX

[@Pers0n97]

Miracle is a fundamentally bad mechanic for a very simple reason: it ignore the fundamentals of MTG that are knowlege zones. Your hand is a restricted knowledge zone, your opponent doesn't (usually) have access to it. The process of playing a miracle require you play in a very deliberated and clunky way.

[@juter1122]

Everything you say "magic players generally" i feel like a total spien. I hate everything that magic players are supposed to like lol

[@freddiesimmons1394]

Spien?

[@FallenStarFeatures]

TL;DW: Broken bullshit from WotC's Hall of Shame.