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Hallelujah! A Primer for Idiots

[Editor’s Note: This was sent to me by Hayne roughly 2 weeks before the Pro Tour. At that point, he had already designed the first draft of the deck we now know as Hallelujah!. Caplan was on board, but when the rest of the team was telling Hayne that they were having poor results with the list, Hayne decided he needed to write a primer for the team.

Remember, this is not your regular article, but the primer Hayne sent to his teammates, so keep that context in mind as you get an inside look of Team Mana Deprived’s testing. Expect a full tournament report from Hayne soon. -KYT]

Hello fellow idiots. Today I am going to teach you how to lucksack like a pro. While your opponents might think you are a mongoloid (and you very well might be), there is actually a lot of thinking to do before setting up Miracles. First of all, I recommend that you pray nightly to whichever God or Gods or Deity or other you believe in. Sacrificing a goat is suggested but not required. Also, a hollowed-out Bible is the perfect receptacle for storing this deck. But first things first:

The List:

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord”

[deck title=Hallelujah!]
[Spells]
4 Entreat the Angels
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Terminus
4 Devastation Tide
4 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
4 Thought Scour
4 Think Twice
3 Feeling of Dread
2 Dissipate
[/Spells]
[Land]
13 Island
10 Plains
4 Evolving Wilds
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Dissipate
1 Feeling of Dread
3 Witchbane Orb
1 Midnight Haunting
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Deck Analysis:

“But you don’t really care for music, do you?”

Your deck contains 16 miracle cards out of 60 cards total. That means that every first draw of a turn gives you a 26.666% chance of drawing a Miracle! How lucky. These percentages of course change slightly depending on the contents of your hand: for instance, if your hand is seven lands and you have not yet drawn a miracle spell, God simply hates you.

The main objective of the deck to gain an advantage is that it usually draws a card both on your turn and on the opponent’s turn. This maximizes the chances of drawing a Miracle. However, you can only take advantage of Miracles when you have available mana to cast them, so generally casting cantrips with mana open is a good idea (see the
section on the topic).

The strategy of this deck is to survive the early turns and to continue to buy time. Since every draw step is generally more powerful than the opponent’s, the longer the game continues, and the more draw phases that you acquire, the better your chances of victory. The more lands you have in play, the better, because then not only can you miracle [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] for more tokens, but you also can hard cast all the powerful spells that your deck contains, and you can also choose not to Miracle your cards(to be discussed in further detail in another section). You buy time by using tempo cards like [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] and [card]Devastation Tide[/card] and [card]Temporal Mastery[/card], along with removal like [card]Terminus[/card], and even Tamiyo’s +1 ability to lock down trouble permanents.

This deck wins via two different methods. The first is simple enough: [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] for a bunch of tokens is impossible for any of the linear aggro decks in the format to overcome. This plan is generally less effective against the control decks that feature either [card]Sever the Bloodline[/card], [card]Terminus[/card] or [card]Blasphemous Act[/card]. However, you can overcome these difficulties with proper play (see later section). The secondary win condition is Tamiyo’s ultimate ability + [card]Thought Scour[/card]. This plan involves you drawing lots of cards using [card]Thought Scour[/card] as an [card]Ancestral Recall[/card] with buyback zero, often until you hit your [card]Dissipate[/card], which allows you to counter all their spells, while you begin to mill them with [card]Thought Scour[/card], and have both [card]Terminus[/card] and [card]Devastation Tide[/card] with buyback zero. Both of these plans are accentuated by [card]Temporal Mastery[/card], and this allows the deck to often have an almost combo-like finish. (more on this later)

Mana:

“It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift”

Playing the wrong land on any of the first three turns of the game can cost you the whole match. So, evidently, it’s pretty important to play the right lands on the right turns.

Generally, you want to keep in mind every potential Miracle draw you have, and try to keep mana to cast as many Miracle cards as possible every turn. This means that on turn one, you want white mana (for [card]Terminus[/card]) turn two you want blue mana (for [card]Devastation Tide[/card] and [card]Temporal Mastery[/card]), and turn three you generally want a second white (for [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] for one). However, turn three can be tricky because you will play a second blue source instead if you have [card]Thought Scour[/card] in hand, because then when you [card]Thought Scour[/card] on their turn, it will be effectively like turn two with [card]Terminus[/card], [card]Devastation Tide[/card], and [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] all as potential hits.

This deck plays 27 lands because it needs to. You do not want to miss land drops. Ever. You, ideally, are playing a land every turn until turn 12 or so when you usually kill them, but more realistically you want to hit at least your first five land drops or you will likely lose. The deck is built to ensure that you have enough time to hit these land drops, provided that you play to give yourself the most time by effectively using your miracles and mana. Sometimes removal spells are used simply as [card]Healing Salve[/card] to ensure that you can continue to play lands. However, having time-buyers is not a substitute for having land drops (see mulligans), and buying time is only useful if you can use that time to hit land drops and advance your game plan (rather than simply delaying the inevitable).

Despite this being a two colour deck, the deck contains four [card]Evolving Wilds[/card], to ensure that you have the right colours of mana on the correct turns early on in the game. Since this deck often doesn’t use its mana early, aside from ‘miraculous’ draw steps, [card]Evolving Wilds[/card] costs you very little. However, do not automatically play it turn one because you are not casting anything that turn. What is most important is that you have White turn one, Blue turn two, but also have good mixes of the two colours going into the middle turns and late game. For instance, a hand with Island, Plains, [card]Evolving Wilds[/card] may be correct to lead with Plains rather than the Wilds, because this would allow you to later fetch an Island if you draw a Plains, and to fetch a Plains if you draw an Island.

In the late game, you want to have three white (besides a few very rare corner cases) and as much blue as possible. Hence the deck contains 13 islands and only 10 plains. This is because your cantrips/counters are blue and so you want to be able to cast them while keeping mana up for any potential miracles. You want triple white so that you can hard-cast any [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] that you have (“remember, at seven mana it’s a [card]Broodmate Dragon[/card]”-Noah Long).

Mulligans:

“The baffled king composing Hallelujah”

As you can probably wager from the preceding section, mana is of utmost importance to his deck. Hands with four or more lands are ideal, especially because this increases the miracle density of your deck. Hands with two or less lands are unkeepable short of extreme extenuating circumstances.

An ideal hand looks something like this:
Island
Island
Plains
Plains
[card]Thought Scour[/card]
[card]Feeling of Dread[/card]
[card]Tamiyo, the Moon Sage[/card]

This hand ensures that you hit your early land drops correctly (see preceding section), while also having a way to buy time ([card]Feeling of Dread[/card]), a way to enable early backbreaking Miracles ([card]Thought Scour[/card]), and a win condition/late game card (Tamiyo).

Not all hands are going to look like the above. Many times your opening hand will contain one or more miracle cards. Don’t despair! Contrary to what the general public might think, these are certainly not mulligans. The key point is that your hand contains enough mana for at least the first few turns. For instance, the first hand is keepable, while the second hand is borderline and very risky (this author, for instance, would mulligan), and the third hand is a snap-mulligan:

Island
Island
Plains
[card]Evolving Wilds[/card]
[card]Temporal Mastery[/card]
[card]Devastation Tide[/card]
[card]Think Twice[/card]

Island
Plains
Plains
[card]Feeling of Dread[/card]
[card]Entreat the Angels[/card]
[card]Temporal Mastery[/card]
[card]Terminus[/card]

Island
Island
Plains
[card]Entreat the Angels[/card]
[card]Entreat the Angels[/card]
[card]Temporal Mastery[/card]
[card]Tamiyo, the Moon Sage[/card]

As you can see, some Miracle cards are better in your opening hand than others. A hard cast [card]Devastation Tide[/card] is a strong tempo play, allowing you to move from the mid-game to the late game. [card]Terminus[/card] is also good if you have a way to buy a couple turns (six mana wraths have traditionally been block-playable). The surprisingly good miracle card to have in your opener is [card]Temporal Mastery[/card]. This deck often makes very good use of a hard-cast Mastery as it approaches the Endgame (see appropriate section). [card]Entreat the Angels[/card], however, is practically a mulligan, especially in multiples. Imagine it to be a seven mana finisher, which is strong if you can buy time to stick it, but it does not effectively induce your early and mid-game plans, which are key with your opening hand.

Something to realize when playing this deck is that your opening hand does not need to have lots of gas, per se, because the power of the top of your deck is immense. Hands that do nothing but play lands and ‘durdle’ are in fact the best hands. Hands with many high drops are powerful only if you can survive to cast said high drops. Even seven land hands are borderline keepable, and six landers with a cantrip are actively good. Hopefully you lucky bastards can catch the drift of this section, and not keep two landers despite how good they appear. For instance, this hand is a mulligan:

Island
Plains
[card]Feeling of Dread[/card]
[card]Feeling of Dread[/card]
[card]Thought Scour[/card]
[card]Tamiyo, the Moon Sage[/card]
[card]Terminus[/card]

However, there are rare exceptions to the ‘two land’ rule. The following is a keepable hand:

Island
Plains
[card]Thought Scour[/card]
[card]Thought Scour[/card]
[card]Think Twice[/card]
[card]Feeling of Dread[/card]
[card]Tamiyo, the Moon Sage[/card]

Since this deck can draw very powerful cards and cast them at flea-market bargain bin prices, the deck can mulligan quite well. All you need is lands to be able to cast your powerful spells. This cannot be emphasized enough. YOU NEED MANA, DIMWIT! Mana is your king, your lover, and your mother’s teat all rolled into one. Even at six cards, two landers are to be avoided unless they contain at least one cantrip and either another or a [card]Feeling of Dread[/card]. Many, many games are lost with two lander six card hands compared to three lander five card hands.

Cantrips:

“Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

This deck makes excellent use of cantrips. However, they must be used correctly or else they lose much of their effectiveness. As with your draw step, you want to use cantrips when you have mana available to cast miracles. Obvious, right? Well, to this author it sure is. There are not actually many cards in the early game that you wish to have in your hand if you have followed the guidelines in the previous section (and if you haven’t, please find an adult to assist you). You should already have the lands you need, and will likely draw more occasionally on your Miracle attempts. However, in match ups where you do not wish to Miracle early (see sections To Miracle or not to Miracle and Endgame Strategy), you want to be casting cantrips whenever you have available mana to continue to hit land drops into the very late game.

It should go without saying that casting cantrips on your own turn in the early game, or a second cantrip on your opponent’s turn is generally a bad idea. The only situations in which it is acceptable are when your opponent has a werewolf that you wish to prevent from flipping, or you simply MUST hit a [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] or [card]Dissipate[/card] to save significant damage, giving you another draw step. Also, if you have been missing land drops (please see all preceding sections, as well as a head-doctor), casting cantrips on your turn to dig for key land drops is a play that may be correct.

While the early game cantrips are rather self evident to those of us possessing brain cells, mid to late game usage is more complex. The use at this point is fairly draw-and matchup dependant, but as a general guideline, if you could hard cast any card that you draw, you may want to main-phase your draw spells.

Going into the late game, if Tamiyo is about to ultimate, holding back a cantrip is strongly suggested, as it will lead to a swift and decisive victory.

[card]Thought Scour[/card] should generally not be aimed at the opponent, as you have both [card]Think Twice[/card] and [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] that you can mill. If you have Tamiyo ultimate, or an opponent with a VERY low library or your own library is in danger of being depleted, aiming [card]Thought Scour[/card] at your adversary may be a necessary evil.

Using Tamiyo properly:

“Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you”

Tamiyo has three abilities. Hopefully you can all count to three. This deck makes good use of all of them. The most common is probably the first (+1) ability, as it protects both you and Tamiyo from attack. Also, when your opponent has no creatures, keeping their utility or limited colour source locked down is invaluable. With [card]Temporal Mastery[/card], this can lock down multiple permanents for a turn while ticking up Tamiyo’s loyalty.

Tamiyo is also the most powerful draw engine in this deck. Even against control decks, they generally have a Garruk or some other form of creature generator for you to tap down and profit from with Tamiyo’s second (-2) ability. This ability, combined with [card]Feeling of Dread[/card], either offensively (to just get more cards) or defensively (to draw a permanent answer), can be very effective. Ideally though, you plan out your turns so that you have used [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] on the previous turn rather than this turn. This leads to the next point, which is using this ability to chain turns together by drawing multiples of [card]Temporal Mastery[/card]. This can feel similar to going off with a combo deck, since you are taking multiple turns and drawing large quantities of cards with plenty of mana available. Usually after a couple of chained turns, it becomes impossible to lose. Remember that with [card]Entreat the Angels[/card], this ability can target you, though this situation tends not to occur often because either card generally turns into a win.

Tamiyo’s ultimate ability, (-8), aka The Moneymaker, is also put to good use in this deck. Often combined with [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] and [card]Terminus[/card] to protect her, and [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] to accelerate the process. The ultimate, while not in fact game ending, generally leads to victory in an overwhelming percentage of games, especially if you have planned ahead and held onto a cantrip.

Because of how powerful it is to combine [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] with Tamiyo, you often want to save them for the turn when you untap with Tamiyo (see following section and Endgame Strategy).

Choosing the correct moment to cast Tamiyo is generally fairly simple. You want to either cast it when your opponent has either one or zero threats on board, or with mana open for [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] to protect it, or following a Miracle on your draw step. Sometimes you can cast Tamiyo into a board full of opposing creatures simply as a draw spell, and others you can cast it as a draw spell, but also hoping to draw into a sweeper of some kind to cast that very turn.

Tamiyo also has an interesting interaction with [card]Devastation Tide[/card]. While this can seem a nombo at times, especially when miracled (see following section), the two cards can actually interact rather favourably together if played correctly. Tamiyo can be brought low with the second ability, drawing many cards, before being effectively reset by the Tide. Also, Tamiyo can lock down a land, be returned (along with all of your opponent’s creatures, ideally) and come back down the same turn, locking down another land. The only situations where Tamiyo + [card]Devastation Tide[/card] interacts unfavourably is when you are attempting to ramp her to ultimate while hoping to draw other protection, or when you are tight on mana (though this shouldn’t happen unless you simply have ignored the preceding sections).

To Miracle or not to Miracle:

“She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair”

Casting spells for less mana is always best, right? While this is the main point of the deck and miracle cards in general, sometimes it is simply not the time to cast the spell. More value can be obtained by waiting for the exact right moment. A simple example of this is drawing [card]Terminus[/card] on a board with no creatures. You clearly do not wish to cast it. More complex, however, is the choice to not cast a turn three [card]Temporal Mastery[/card], or a large [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] on turn seven.

While [card]Terminus[/card] and [card]Devastation Tide[/card] are obvious when to cast and when not to (see preceding section for Tide + Tamiyo), the decision to cast or not cast Entreat and [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] is a difficult one. [card]Temporal Mastery[/card], in particular, is one of the toughest cards in the deck to play correctly. Saving it for the correct turn can be the difference between winning and losing a game. While a turn three “Time Walk” is very tempting, it is sometimes correct to forgo the mana discount in favour of increasing its value later in the game (see Endgame Strategy involving control). While against aggressive decks, an ‘[card]Explore[/card]’ is excellent and generally pushes you ahead (and gives you another chance at a miracle on your next draw); the value of an extra turn with board presence (either Tamiyo or Angel tokens) is incredibly larger. It ultimately falls on the player’s judgment of whether or not a turn is more valuable now or later, or if he or she will even get to ‘later’.

There are some decks in the format that play mass-removal. As there are no other possible targets in your deck, these will often be stranded in their hands. For instance, a [card]Sever the Bloodline[/card] in response to you making a large amount of Angels in your draw step is not something you wish to occur. There are a few ways to work around this issue (see following section).

Endgame Strategy:

“And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah”

While the deck wins with Tamiyo + [card]Thought Scour[/card] or [card]Entreat the Angels[/card], how to actually make this happen requires some strategic planning. Against the majority of decks, either of these options works effectively, often in tandem, and there is not much they can do to stop you once the ball gets rolling. Against other decks, such as those with countermagic, lots of planeswalkers, or sweepers, winning the game requires much more finesse.

Against sweepers, you can either win with Tamiyo or in one of three ways with [card]Entreat the Angels[/card]. (Hint none of the three are just casting it for a ton and passing. You will get Wrathed, and you will cry like a little girl). The first way is to Entreat on their end step via Miracle from your cantrips. The second is to take successive turns and an Entreat, either by a Miracle [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] on your turn or theirs, or by amassing a huge amount of mana. This is the main reason that you may want to not Miracle [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] against control in the early game, because it is a key component to killing your opponent with either Entreat or Tamiyo in the late game. The third method is to wait and make a bunch of Angels keeping up [card]Dissipate[/card] or even two [card]Dissipate[/card]s for their potential responses.

Against counter spells, you generally want to fight back with your own counters, or try to miracle a threat at the end of their turn, such as [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] (to cast successive threats) or [card]Entreat the Angels[/card]. Since this format has only [card]Dissipate[/card] and occasionally [card]Lost in the Mist[/card]s as counter magic, it is unlikely that they can counter all of your threats. If necessary, use [card]Thought Scour[/card] on them so that you keep the maximum number of total win conditions in your deck so that in extremely long games you can ensure to stick at least one threat and ride it to victory. Thankfully these decks seem not to exist in the format, as they can potentially cause this deck major problems pre-board.

Since against control you are rarely Miracle-ing your cards early (you don’t need to wipe their board, and both Entreat and [card]Temporal Mastery[/card] are best saved for the late game), you should use cantrips differently than against creature decks. For instance, against control, casting a [card]Think Twice[/card] on turn two is an acceptable play, and is in fact encouraged. The most important thing is to continue to play land drops and to have your end-game plan in your mind and to make plays accordingly. With 27 lands and eight cantrips, you should be able to out-land your opponents, and eventually get to a point in the game where you cannot lose because you don’t give them any opening.

Planeswalkers are the most annoying type of permanent for this deck. While [card]Devastation Tide[/card] does bounce them to their owner’s hands, you often want a more permanent solution. This again often comes either from making tokens with Entreat and simply killing the walker (or the opponent), or by racing them with Tamiyo and Temporal Masteries. While you have two [card]Dissipate[/card]s, these are often best saved for later on after Tamiyo has gone ultimate rather than countering early walkers, unless they pose a significant threat to your long term plans and strategy for winning. Garruk is often even beneficial for you, since [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] and Tamiyo allow you to draw many cards from your unsuspecting adversary.

Sideboard:

“And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”

As you can see, the deck has a pseudo-transformational sideboard. As there are no creatures main deck, it is expected that opponents will be bringing out their removal after the first game. This does not generally apply to the aggressive decks whose removal is burn that is effective against you as reach since their board presence is to be constantly swept away.

Against the somewhat tougher control match ups, Delver and Geist form a tag team (along with [card]Dissipate[/card]s), replacing the almost dead sweepers as proactive win conditions. [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] combines well with Geist to clear the path for victory. Generally in these sorts of match ups the basic sideboard plan is:

BUG control:

-4 [card]Terminus[/card]
-4 [card]Devastation Tide[/card]
-4 [card]Entreat the Angels[/card]
+4 [card]Delver of Secrets[/card]
+4 [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]
+ 2 [card]Dissipate[/card]
+2 [card]Witchbane Orb[/card]

[card]Entreat the Angels[/card] is often clunky with this new, much more streamlined and aggressive plan, and continues to be awkward against mass removal. [card]Witchbane Orb[/card] is good against Liliana (stopping its second and ultimate abilities) and [card]Nephalia Drownyard[/card], as well as potential discard spells like [card]Appetite for Brains[/card].

While the deck is pretty much pre-sideboarded against linear agro decks, the fourth [card]Feeling of Dread[/card] comes in, as does [card]Midnight Haunting[/card] (to trade for their tokens), and the [card]Dissipate[/card]s come out as they are not at their best here. Example:

RW aggro:

-2 [card]Dissipate[/card]
+1 [card]Midnight Haunting[/card]
+1 [card]Feeling of Dread[/card]

Against burn-centric decks (your worst matchup game one), you want to bring in the full three Witchbanes, and go up to four [card]Dissipate[/card]s. This deck generally doesn’t have many permanents, so [card]Devastation Tide[/card] and, to a lesser extent, Terminus, are fairly weak. While this depends how non-creature centric they are, against the burn list that the Canadian team was testing should be boarded against as follows:

Mono Red Burn:

-4 [card]Devastation Tide[/card]
-4 [card]Terminus[/card]
-2 [card]Tamiyo, the Moon Sage[/card]
+3 [card]Witchbane Orb[/card]
+2 [card]Dissipate[/card]
+4 [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]
+1 [card]Midnight Haunting[/card]

Hopefully this guide has given you an idea of how to properly pilot HALLELUJAH! Now go off unto the world, my children, and may your topdecks always be miraculous.

Bonus Section! Not for novices, or the timid!

“And every breath we drew was Hallelujah”

While there is going to be a huge edge playing this deck because most opponents will have literally no clue what is going to happen, and when you topdeck miracle cards they will begin to tilt slightly. What is even better than them tilting slightly is them going on full-blown rage tilt. How do you accomplish this majestic feat, you may ask?

Simple: Learn the art of showboating. With each first draw on each turn, make sure to slowly peel the card from the top of your library, slide it slowly across the table towards you, then quickly whip it up and forwards with a flourish, and see what the card is. If it’s a miracle, a small jump in your seat would not be unwarranted. There are many ways which you can now continue to showboat the miracle. You can pause, and say something along the lines of “Wow, I really needed that!” or “Man, sometimes you play bad and still run so good!” You can tell if you are doing your job correctly by the colour of your opponent’s face. If it is bright crimson, dark purple, or green, congratulations! You have successfully cast a miracle spell with proper show-boatmanship. Sometimes, you will not draw a miracle after the slow peel and large flourish. In these cases, a tiny muttering of “Why God hast thou forsaken me” is appropriate, or perhaps a hearty discontented sigh to make your opponent feel on top of the world. That way when the inevitable Miracle does occur, they will be even more crestfallen. Ultimately, the goal is not only to provide an entertaining experience to those watching, but also to cause the largest possible mood swings for your opponent. If you do this, you will receive an additional edge.

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