[Deck] Quick Help: Pepper Mill

[goldenj]

I'm trying to finish off a mill deck for a friend who was not going to be able to play tonight but now can. So please help with quick improvements. He doesn't need to win the tournament, but would like the deck to play nicely with others.

Pepper Mill

Mana
11 Swamp
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
1 Forest

note also the Twisted Abominations

Disruption
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Pernicious Deed

Critter Defense
4 Innocent Blood
2 Mutilate
3 Dance of the Dead
1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer

Milling equipment
2 Gaea's Blessing
4 Mesmeric Orb
3 Haunting Echoes
1 Debtors' Knell

Uitility
4 Twisted Abomination
2 Eternal Witness

SB: 3 Naturalize - monkey wrench. always play these in a deck with G

vs. control - for Bloods and Mutilates
SB: 3 Phyrexian Arena
SB: 3 Hypnotic Specter

vs. Aggro - for duress, one hymn, one orb, one echo
SB: 3 Contagion
SB: 3 Spinning Darkness

Issues:
a) 61 cards
b) not much game vs. deadguy. Debated on dark ritual for help.
c) mana base dicey vs. wasteland recursion. Hard to keep a green out.
d) dance of the dead vs. animate dead.
e) find room for crucible of worlds or life from the loam?

The deck plays surprisingly well so far. The orbs set up some devastating echoes, and you can win without an echo thanks to the blessings. The blessings have occasional other uses as well. There's some splash damage from all the anti-graveyard stuff, but that seems to be made up for by the help from echoes vs madness and threshold. The abominations have been swell -- cycle, reanimate is a nice early anti-aggro play. The debtor's knell is probably excessive, but it is an "I win" card when it resolves.

Quick advice most appreciated
--John

[quicksilver]

My suggestion is not to try to win by milling since that is very slow, try doing more of a rock build, maybe even have some spirit mongers in there.

[goldenj]

Milling is by far this guy's favorite kill method. He's not interested in BG per se. Rockish builds would undoubtedly be better in a quantitative sense, but not qualitatively to Dave.

[Durahan]

My suggestion for this would be to try tangle wire. It slows down aggro pretty well and can force them to tap things for the mesmeric orb. Also, to cut it down to 60 cards i'd just take out that debtor's knell or one of the lands.

I would also take out the Llanowar Wastes for basic lands. In my opinion, you should be able to get the mana you need between fetches and duals. No need for additional non-basic lands in a 2 color deck.

[freakish777]

Dance of the Dead and Kagemaro seem weak.

Try:

-3 DotD
-1 Kagemaro
-4 Llanowar Wastes (you shouldn't really need more than 4 Bayou's + fetches to fix your colors)
-1 Debtor's Knell

+1 Night of Souls Betrayal (beats up on random aggro)
+1 Decree of Pain (usually you cycle it, again beats up on aggro)
+3 Exploration/Mind Stone/Guardian Idol/other artifact mana acceleration (Mind Stone becomes a card when you no longer need it, Idol is a blocker if that's more important than the mana)? Life from the Loam would work here if you'd prefer it. I'm not sure I like Dark Ritual, also, Leyline of the Void I assume wrecks you game 1 from Iggy...
+1 Black Fetch
+2 Forest
+1 Swamp

[Son_Gozen]

my friend is playing a mesmeric orb mill variant with the combination BGW looks like this:

4 Mesmeric Orb
4 Vindicate
3 Putrefy
3 Mortify
3 Jötun Grunt
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Mox Diamond
3 Wrath Of God
3 Gaea´s Blessing

that´s what i know don´t know the missing cards but it´s kind of cool...

[dahcmai]

Easy enough, may I refer you to a deck along the same lines, that is quite fun to play also.


http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3816

[goldenj]

I like Truffle Shuffle and I'm sure that was in mind when I designed.

He ran the deck last night pretty much as listed in the first post. He didn't do well: part deck and part his rustiness. He did get the foil Slide for newbies though.

His first matchup was Solidarity. Not nearly enough disruption fast enough. The Orbs, however were great, and were a serious drag for the Solidarity player. Not a good welcome back to Magic IRL, though.

He said in later matches the deck was pretty effective vs mid-range aggro and poorly built control. He got killed by ManLands in one match, and Jotun Grunt limited him in another. His ultimate assessment: the milling was too inconsistent.

The Dance of the Deads were pretty good, though anti-synergistic with the Deeds. I think I would replace them with Sakura-Tribe Elders, which in turn replace the Twisted Abominations. The Kagemaro we could cut to get to 60. Then there's the 4 slots from the abominations, and the three slots from Dance of the Dead. One should go to a Witness, which were great. Maybe a red splash for burning wish, or a white splash for vindicate. The Knell was fun, and responsible for one of his few game wins. I think I'd move the arena's main, or flirt more with the idea of dark ritual. Turn three is too late for action in 1.5 these days.

There was some criticism of the mana, but it worked out well with GG available for the witnesses whenever needed.

Thanks for the suggestions.

The orbs plus echoes wrecked randomness (other randomness), by the way. But any half-way decent deck should do that.