Reaching the Density - Milling Strategies

[Jeff Kruchkow]

It would appear that wizards is loving on mill lately as yet another playable mill card has been printed and, as after every new good mill card is printed, I'm here to ask whether or not we have yet reached that critical density of good mill spells to allow it to become at least a tier 2 deck type in legacy.

To date for playable mill we have:
1cc:
Tome Scour
Memory Sluice
Extirpate(kinda)
Vision Charm

2cc:
Glimpse the Unthinkable
Brain Freeze(if you cast 1+ other spell it becomes good)

3cc:
Mind Funeral
Jace Beleren

4cc:
none yet

5cc:
Archive Trap (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/55)
Haunting Echoes

I think that about covers the decent ones. That being said, while the deck isn't near as efficient as burn yet, it also has access to better support such as Force, Dark Confi, Phyrexian Arena and such goodies. Also, the fact that your opponent draws 1 a turn also helps.

Since I'll get a bitching at if I don't heres a list for reference:

4 Vision Charm
4 Tome Scour
4 Extirpate
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Brain Freeze
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Mind Funeral
4 Jace Beleren
3 Archive Trap
3 Haunting Echoes
22 Lands

So, does mill have what it takes to enter at least mediocre deck status? Discuss.

[Tacosnape]

First of all, apart from everything else wrong with this, what good does Jace Beleren do you in a deck with absolutely zero ways to stop them from offing Jace at will? It's a bad draw spell at best.

Secondly, the answer's probably still no, despite the new Trap. It puts it a little closer to Turbo Mill being viable, but not close enough.

Although how hilarious would an opening hand of four Traps be if they led with a cracked fetchland?

To expand on all of this though. Mill needs to be better than Burn. Burn is dealing about 3 damage per card against a resource of 20. So each good burn spell is dealing 3/20, or 15%, of what it needs to do to win, excluding self-damaging decks, lifegain, etc.

Mill has to hit 53 instead of 20, though it's realistically lower as the longer the game goes, the less they have to mill. To get the same 15% on 53, each mill spell needs to be rolling 7.95. Adjusted for time, each mill spell needs to be hitting still over 7 cards apiece. At current, not many of them do this quickly.

[Apex]

I'm thinking that's why they made it 13.

But I guess you can add Twincast to that list like the Sanity Grinding deck in standard.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

First of all, apart from everything else wrong with this, what good does Jace Beleren do you in a deck with absolutely zero ways to stop them from offing Jace at will? It's a bad draw spell at best.

Secondly, the answer's probably still no, despite the new Trap. It puts it a little closer to Turbo Mill being viable, but not close enough.

Although how hilarious would an opening hand of four Traps be if they led with a cracked fetchland?

To expand on all of this though. Mill needs to be better than Burn. Burn is dealing about 3 damage per card against a resource of 20. So each good burn spell is dealing 3/20, or 15%, of what it needs to do to win, excluding self-damaging decks, lifegain, etc.

Mill has to hit 53 instead of 20, though it's realistically lower as the longer the game goes, the less they have to mill. To get the same 15% on 53, each mill spell needs to be rolling 7.95. Adjusted for time, each mill spell needs to be hitting still over 7 cards apiece. At current, not many of them do this quickly.

Jace is there to do 2 things. 1: let us both draw milling them faster and getting me more mill. and 2: if they attack him to kill him, its less damage aimed at me. Although hes kinda a filler.

Anyway, i have run the numbers and am fully aware of the difference in efficiency. However, other factors need to be taken into account.
First: many legacy decks (non aggro) run very low on threats meaning that milling threats away is far more meaningful. For example, tempo thresh runs 8 threats that stay around, milling 3-5 of them is a huge blow to them especially when paired with extirpate.
Second: while the 1cc mill spells do not meet the 7 card efficiency limit, glimpse, archive and especially echoes go far over this number to help even it out. In fact, echoes almost single handedly wins games if you can resolve it after a mill spell or 2.

And yeah, you are likely right in that mill is still bad, however, the deck is incredibly close, so you never know what will push it over the edge.

[morgan_coke]

Actually Taco, I'd say it's pretty close now.

Using your breakpoint of 8 cards, we'll combine Trap, Glimpse, and Brainfreeze (assume you cast in on their turn for 2, so we'll call it a six) and we have 12 spells with an average mill of 9.66 cards. You would need to resolve four-five of them to win on average. This is fewer than the number of spells burn has to resolve, but the CMC on the mill spells is also slightly higher.

I think the real question is does the bonus you get from being in blue offset the disadvantages you get from a slower clock and giving the opponent more graveyard resources to use before you kill them?

If Burn is an "all in aggro" approach to death by Sorcery and Instant, the Mill would be the "aggro-control" approach to that strategy.

The best solution might be something more similar to an FT shell, except with mill cards in place of the combo spells. Something like (and this is completely off the top of my head)

4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
4x Mindbreak Trap
4x Brain Freeze
4x Tomb Scour

4x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Spell Snare/Thoughtseize

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Vision Skeins
2x Words of Wisdom

4x Polluted Delta
4x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
2x Unstable Geyser
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
3x Island

Sideboard
4x Pyroclasm
4x Submerge
4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Pyroblast

[Otter]

I'm guessing that it's still not going to quite "get there," but if they print a few more cards at this power level over the next few years, I can see it happening. The card at least shows that Wizards is willing to try printing a legitimately powerful mill spell.

[ClearSkies]

Isn't Painter's Servant + Grindstone the best mill strategy right now?

The decklist above doesn't really have much answers for the creatures/permanents already in play either.

[ssilver]

I have been playing a mill deck in a random format (237 for those of you in-the-know), and in my searching for viable mill options I stumbled across Trade Secrets. Yes, this card is bad, however, in a mill deck like this that only needs ~4 of the win cards to resolve (and can even profit from your opponent going crazy with brain freeze) I think it could be useful. True, the card advantage is only 2 if your opponent plays wise and stops the chain, but if they continue, you can go through your deck till you find the 4 Archive Trap cards and just win, plus it cuts down on the amount of mill you have to play to win. Against combo it's suicide, but against other decks it is a pseudo instant-win if they continue the card chain. Just an idea, but check it out.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Isn't Painter's Servant + Grindstone the best mill strategy right now?

Thats like saying, "Isnt just playing one Fireball for 20 better than a deck full of burn?" Yes painterstone is really freakin good at milling people. On the downside, it folds to like, every piece of hate ever and if its your only win con, they just hold onto answers. The advantage of a deck full of mill is that it makes it possible for them to counter stuff and you just drop more mill and kill them.

[Aggro_zombies]

Thats like saying, "Isnt just playing one Fireball for 20 better than a deck full of burn?" Yes painterstone is really freakin good at milling people. On the downside, it folds to like, every piece of hate ever and if its your only win con, they just hold onto answers. The advantage of a deck full of mill is that it makes it possible for them to counter stuff and you just drop more mill and kill them.
So what happens if, say, the opponent sticks a Counterbalance against you? Or a Tarmogoyf? Or worse yet, both?

Turbo Mill is worse than Painter-Stone and Solidarity in many, many ways. Painter-Stone can go in any deck, is easily tutorable, doesn't require the deck to be built around it (allowing room for backup plans, or even a main plan with Stone as backup), and takes up very few slots. Solidarity has the advantage of being very hard to disrupt once it starts going off, and it is capable of keeping hate cards off the board for long enough to set itself up. This deck is like Burn, but it sets itself up to fail by going after a harder-to-deplete resource while not being as good at keeping the board clean. One Tarmogoyf and a Spell Snare or two is likely going to be able to go all the way against this deck and dropping mill cards for draw and protection, as m_c suggested, just draws the game out longer by diluting your "win condition."

Really, if you're set on doing it this way, Sanity Grinding and Twincast need to be in there, since Grinding hits for a lot in a deck like this and Twincast has a lot of general utility. It's still not a very impressive deck outside of casual circles, though.

[Otter]

Painter + Grindstone isn't a milling strategy, it could read "you win the game" or "target player loses 400 life" instead and nothing about it would change. I'm not saying that milling is good or better than painterstone decks, but calling painterstone milling is like comparing ANT to Tempo Thresh because they both win via dealing 20. Its stupid, pedantic, and of zero relevance to the discussion of the new card.

[Hanni]

After I read the OP, I was going to reply the same way Taco did. He beat me to the punch, but I'd like to clarify a bit more.

Rather than a resource of 20 life, the opponent has a resource of 60 cards. Of course, the initial 7 drawn drops it down to 53, and each card drawn skews the numbers a little more. Since burn as a turn 3-5 clock, lets for now (for an easy figure) assume that we are attempting to mill 50 cards from the opponent (this number can also average in mulligans). Decks that run alot of draw or cantrips also skews the numbers, so let's not take those into account just yet.

Tome Scour mills 5 cards for U. If we do the math, 50/5=10. In comparison with life totals, 20/10=2, so we're looking at Tome Scour being the same as Shock. With Vision Charm, your doing 1.6 damage for U. Glimpse does 4 damage for UB (solid). So on and so forth.

The only spectacular mill spell you have is the new Trap card, since most decks will search via Fetchlands, and 0cc for 13 mill is equivilant to 5.2 damage for 0 mana. This alone will not push the deck into competitive territory.

So, to me, this means that we're still pretty far off from this being comparable to Burn. In addition, Burn has the versatility of hitting creatures, like a Goblin Lackey, that need to be answered in order to race. Fundamentally, this strategy is just flawed in comparison.

Running non-mill cards seems counterproductive, unless it's simply Brainstorm as the only spell. You don't splash blue into Burn to create Counter Burn for a reason; its clock is slowed and it's power level is diminished. Why run Counter Burn when you can splash green guys and play Threshold. Same thing here.

They need to print a few more mill cards that are close enough in cost to mill ratio for this approach to be viable. If you insist on playing mill though, Grindstone/Painter might as well be in the list, since Grindstone on it's own gives you a solid mill engine should your 1-shot mill effects not go the distance, and the combo together is an autowin if unanswered. Plus, it gives you the option of SB Blue Blasts (maybe MD, but again, you'd be diluting your mill clock).

I'd say this would be the general direction to go with:

U/b Mill

Lands (19)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
6 Island
1 Swamp

Creatures (8)
4 Painter's Servant
4 Street Wraith

Spells (33)
4 Brainstorm
4 Tome Scour
4 Vision Charm
4 Memory Sluice
1 Extirpate
4 Brain Freeze
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Archive Trap
4 Grindstone

Sideboard (15)
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Hydroblast
3 Extirpate
4 Chalice of the Void

Haunting Echoes is retarded. Burn doesn't play any 5cc burn spells, and Mill shouldn't play any 5cc mill spells. Mind Funeral and Jace Beleren are both crap. Memory Sluice and (2) Painter's is decent. Brainstorm and Street Wraith should help filter you enough. The rest of the deck, sans Painter, is devoted to the most cost efficient mill available (Grindstone aside, but meh, what you gonna do).

Still, seems much worse than Burn.


Anyway, i have run the numbers and am fully aware of the difference in efficiency. However, other factors need to be taken into account.
First: many legacy decks (non aggro) run very low on threats meaning that milling threats away is far more meaningful. For example, tempo thresh runs 8 threats that stay around, milling 3-5 of them is a huge blow to them especially when paired with extirpate.
Second: while the 1cc mill spells do not meet the 7 card efficiency limit, glimpse, archive and especially echoes go far over this number to help even it out. In fact, echoes almost single handedly wins games if you can resolve it after a mill spell or 2.


Your first point is completely flawed, and is more eloquently articulated in an SCG article I read a while back, although I forget the name of the article and the name of the author. Extirpate is a different story, but mill in general does not change a damn thing when it comes to getting rid of certain cards (in your case, win conditions).

[arebennian]

Mesmeric Orb?
2 turns = 6 cards minimum usually

[THEchubbymuffin]

Mesmeric Orb?
2 turns = 6 cards minimum usually

Horrible topdeck when compared to other spells.

[godryk]

I just find beautiful how 13*4=52 which is the number of cards left in a deck after drawing your seven and cracking a fetch. ¿Infernal Tutor or something? However, although blue burn is a cool idea it's hardly viable.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

After I read the OP, I was going to reply the same way Taco did. He beat me to the punch, but I'd like to clarify a bit more.

Rather than a resource of 20 life, the opponent has a resource of 60 cards. Of course, the initial 7 drawn drops it down to 53, and each card drawn skews the numbers a little more. Since burn as a turn 3-5 clock, lets for now (for an easy figure) assume that we are attempting to mill 50 cards from the opponent (this number can also average in mulligans). Decks that run alot of draw or cantrips also skews the numbers, so let's not take those into account just yet.

Tome Scour mills 5 cards for U. If we do the math, 50/5=10. In comparison with life totals, 20/10=2, so we're looking at Tome Scour being the same as Shock. With Vision Charm, your doing 1.6 damage for U. Glimpse does 4 damage for UB (solid). So on and so forth.

The only spectacular mill spell you have is the new Trap card, since most decks will search via Fetchlands, and 0cc for 13 mill is equivilant to 5.2 damage for 0 mana. This alone will not push the deck into competitive territory.

So, to me, this means that we're still pretty far off from this being comparable to Burn. In addition, Burn has the versatility of hitting creatures, like a Goblin Lackey, that need to be answered in order to race. Fundamentally, this strategy is just flawed in comparison.

Running non-mill cards seems counterproductive, unless it's simply Brainstorm as the only spell. You don't splash blue into Burn to create Counter Burn for a reason; its clock is slowed and it's power level is diminished. Why run Counter Burn when you can splash green guys and play Threshold. Same thing here.

They need to print a few more mill cards that are close enough in cost to mill ratio for this approach to be viable. If you insist on playing mill though, Grindstone/Painter might as well be in the list, since Grindstone on it's own gives you a solid mill engine should your 1-shot mill effects not go the distance, and the combo together is an autowin if unanswered. Plus, it gives you the option of SB Blue Blasts (maybe MD, but again, you'd be diluting your mill clock).

I'd say this would be the general direction to go with:

U/b Mill

Lands (19)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
6 Island
1 Swamp

Creatures (8)
4 Painter's Servant
4 Street Wraith

Spells (33)
4 Brainstorm
4 Tome Scour
4 Vision Charm
4 Memory Sluice
1 Extirpate
4 Brain Freeze
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Archive Trap
4 Grindstone

Sideboard (15)
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Hydroblast
3 Extirpate
4 Chalice of the Void

Haunting Echoes is retarded. Burn doesn't play any 5cc burn spells, and Mill shouldn't play any 5cc mill spells. Mind Funeral and Jace Beleren are both crap. Memory Sluice and (2) Painter's is decent. Brainstorm and Street Wraith should help filter you enough. The rest of the deck, sans Painter, is devoted to the most cost efficient mill available (Grindstone aside, but meh, what you gonna do).

Still, seems much worse than Burn.



Your first point is completely flawed, and is more eloquently articulated in an SCG article I read a while back, although I forget the name of the article and the name of the author. Extirpate is a different story, but mill in general does not change a damn thing when it comes to getting rid of certain cards (in your case, win conditions).

Burn dosnt play any 5cc spells because no 5cc burn spell says deal 20 to a player. Haunting echoes singlehandedly will mill everything but basics almost every time. Mind funeral seems bad but given how few land most legacy decks run, it mills between 12 and 18 most often.
Also, if you remember that article, id like to read it.

[GreenOne]

You can also play Sanity Grinding and Twincast.

Twincast on the trap can be quite juicy.

[georgjorge]

Merchant Scroll could also fit in - the problem is that on turn two on the draw if they know you're holding the Trap, they can probably afford not to crack another fetchland. You can also tutor up Glimpse in those situations though (plus last-resort-stuff like Submerge, which combines nicely with milling).

[Van Phanel]

I'd say this deck wants Howling Mine more than anything. You get reloaded and it helps your plan by making you faster.

[hungryLIKEALION]

Burn dosnt play any 5cc spells because no 5cc burn spell says deal 20 to a player. Haunting echoes singlehandedly will mill everything but basics almost every time. Mind funeral seems bad but given how few land most legacy decks run, it mills between 12 and 18 most often.
Also, if you remember that article, id like to read it.

It would certainly seem like that would be the case, but take it from someone who has been haunting echoes'd many a time; There will still be plenty of stuff left in their library for them to kill you.

[Alfred]

Mesmeric Orb certainly seems to warrant a spot in this deck. It's a repeatable form of milling that doesn't require mana to activate, meaning that it's value increases as the game continues. Mind Funeral also isn't "trash" in this sort of deck, because if you consider the fact that most decks run around a 20:40 spell to land ratio, it will on average mill about 12 cards when you cast it, or because it's more like 23/37, about 10-11, which is still around 4+ "damage".

Char may not cut it for burn, but in a deck that is likely struggling for playables, it doesn't seem that bad. Plus it has "win the game" on it when you are playing against Charbelcher decks :P

[Alfred]

Merchant Scroll could also fit in - the problem is that on turn two on the draw if they know you're holding the Trap, they can probably afford not to crack another fetchland. You can also tutor up Glimpse in those situations though (plus last-resort-stuff like Submerge, which combines nicely with milling).

You can't tutor up Glimpse, because Glimpse is a sorcery.

[Shugyosha]

A quick search for Gaea's Blessing has revealed no hits in this thread...

Although you can Stifle it in a :u:-based Mill deck the opponent also has to counter only the Stifle (or gravehate) and not one milling spell.

A mill deck like this is too easy to hate. Maybe not on large events as an underdog but anywhere else. I constantly put 1 Blessing in my board in local tourneys because of a painter deck and it won several matches.

On a sidenote: Milling obviously makes Goyfs bigger which is a huge problem a deck like burn hasn't.

[(nameless one)]

A quick search for Gaea's Blessing has revealed no hits in this thread...

Although you can Stifle it in a :u:-based Mill deck the opponent also has to counter only the Stifle (or gravehate) and not one milling spell.

A mill deck like this is too easy to hate. Maybe not on large events as an underdog but anywhere else. I constantly put 1 Blessing in my board in local tourneys because of a painter deck and it won several matches.

On a sidenote: Milling obviously makes Goyfs bigger which is a huge problem a deck like burn hasn't.

Ichorid decks also get the benefit of slowly milling their decks...

[Jeff Kruchkow]

A quick search for Gaea's Blessing has revealed no hits in this thread...

Although you can Stifle it in a :u:-based Mill deck the opponent also has to counter only the Stifle (or gravehate) and not one milling spell.

A mill deck like this is too easy to hate. Maybe not on large events as an underdog but anywhere else. I constantly put 1 Blessing in my board in local tourneys because of a painter deck and it won several matches.

On a sidenote: Milling obviously makes Goyfs bigger which is a huge problem a deck like burn hasn't.

I can also activate Crypt/Relic with the trigger on the stack. Or start the game with leyline.

[Alfred]

I was just thinking, due to your signature, whether or not this new trap belongs in Solidarity. It certainly reduces the amount of cards needed for a lethal Brainfreeze, and it ups the storm count for free.

[Shugyosha]

I can also activate Crypt/Relic with the trigger on the stack. Or start the game with leyline.

As I said, you only have to deal with Stifle/Gravehate instead of countering other stuff. Relic/Crypt/Leyline can all be neutered by Krosan Grip before it even matters.

Leyline has to be in your opening hand to be really effective while Blessing has to be in the library to be effective. But regardless of Leyline effectiveness, would you board it in or play it even main against every deck?

[emidln]

Actually Taco, I'd say it's pretty close now.

Using your breakpoint of 8 cards, we'll combine Trap, Glimpse, and Brainfreeze (assume you cast in on their turn for 2, so we'll call it a six) and we have 12 spells with an average mill of 9.66 cards. You would need to resolve four-five of them to win on average. This is fewer than the number of spells burn has to resolve, but the CMC on the mill spells is also slightly higher.

I think the real question is does the bonus you get from being in blue offset the disadvantages you get from a slower clock and giving the opponent more graveyard resources to use before you kill them?

If Burn is an "all in aggro" approach to death by Sorcery and Instant, the Mill would be the "aggro-control" approach to that strategy.

The best solution might be something more similar to an FT shell, except with mill cards in place of the combo spells. Something like (and this is completely off the top of my head)

4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
4x Mindbreak Trap
4x Brain Freeze
4x Tomb Scour

4x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Spell Snare/Thoughtseize

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Vision Skeins
2x Words of Wisdom

4x Polluted Delta
4x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
2x Unstable Geyser
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
3x Island

Sideboard
4x Pyroclasm
4x Submerge
4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Pyroblast

This is worse than just including Helm + Brain Freeze or Painter+Grindstone in a Doomsday list or including Brain Freezes in a more Ad Nauseam-centric build. Both of these are worse than what Ux combo already has. Instead of trying to resolve 1-2 spells at a total cost of 4-6 mana you're trying to resolve 4-5 of these spells at a cost of 3-6 (not counting cantrips that might be necessary to make Brain Freeze useful). Your card quality engine is miles worse and you play worse protection.

[Kuma]

I've been testing this:

4 Underground Sea
5 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand

4 Vision Charm
4 Brain Freeze
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Mind Funeral
2 Memory Sluice
4 Tome Scour
4 Mesmeric Orb
4 Howling Mine
4 Sanity Grinding
4 Twincast
4 Archive Trap

I'm not sure about Sanity Grinding since it only hits eight cards on average for three mana. They could be Jace Beleren, or maybe Brainstorm, Ponder, Mystical Tutor, or Force of Will.

Also, Brain Freeze is nuts in here. If you can't get nine cards with it, you're not really trying.

The burn comparison is sort of misleading since there are far more hate cards in the meta for burn than for milling.

This deck wins on turn five on average in a goldfish bowl. Probably not fast enough yet.

[Hanni]

This is worse than just including Helm + Brain Freeze or Painter+Grindstone in a Doomsday list or including Brain Freezes in a more Ad Nauseam-centric build. Both of these are worse than what Ux combo already has. Instead of trying to resolve 1-2 spells at a total cost of 4-6 mana you're trying to resolve 4-5 of these spells at a cost of 3-6 (not counting cantrips that might be necessary to make Brain Freeze useful). Your card quality engine is miles worse and you play worse protection.

I never said it was better.

In all probability, it's probably better to drop Painter/Grindstone to add a few more mill cards, but there's nothing else that stands out.

Regardless, I was just showing the route I'd go if playing this deck, which I wouldn't do in the first place.

@ Haunting Echoes

Burn wouldn't play a 5cc burn spell that did 20 damage. By the time burn has 5 mountains in play, the opponent is either dead, or within lethal range. If not, you should be scooping anyway. There is asbolutely no reason to run Haunting Echoes in a deck that wants to play a fundamental turn of 4.

[emidln]

I never said it was better.

I was entirely referring to morgan_coke's post about trying this in an FT shell.

[morgan_coke]

emidln,

a couple of points:
1) the protection doesn't need to be as good because a spell getting countered isn't the end of the world, you have more.
2) redundancy makes the selection engine less important, so it doesn't have to be as good
3) the "FT shell" started out as the thresh shell, except with a combo kill/protection package replacing the win conditions. It has evolved substantially since then, but when I said "FT shell" I was referring to the blue cantrip/counter base. I should have done a better job of explaining this in the original post.
4) As I stated in my post, that's a completely off the top of my head list. It's not meant to be ideal/fixed perfection. It's a brainstormed starting point.

Shugyosha,

yeah, blessing is incredible hate for mill decks. So is COP for red, and Crypt/Relic/Leyline for graveyard based decks. Or chalice/3sphere for thresh-style decks. Or CB/Top for combo. There's hate for everything. Especially creatures. Doesn't stop them from winning most games though.

[Amber VII]

Thanks Wizards. Archive Trap is exactly the card I was looking for. I just hope this doesn't become a money rare like Glimpse the Unthinkable.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Sadly, Sanity Grinding makes running Duskmantle impractical. You should still run Cephalid Coliseum, however.

I don't know, I think the idea has potential. It's worth testing. There's no reason why it can't work, there's just the math problem, same as burn. But the numbers are different.

I would run Leyline + Helm of Obedience in the sideboard. Leyline is your best answer to Gaea's Blessing that also happens to take out a lot of decks from Ichorid to Loam. And the Helm just provides additional sauce.

I would run at least Brainstorm. Normal burn doesn't pack draw spells. But then, they don't have access to Brainstorm, which is just, really. A silly card. Running Force or Daze, though, seems to be missing the strategy you're going for.

[Happy Gilmore]

I hate to agree with Jack but he is spot on. There is no reason not to give this a shot, and I don't thing the idea is an unreasonable one. I even like that sb idea. I would also think that the Orb would be a sure inclusion in this deck, functioning as it's "Sulfuric Vortex." If the deck runs both top and CB it can also find its mill cards quite a bit faster by tapping lands each turn. Doing a "controlled mill" if you will

[Nidd]

That Mesmeric Orb + SDT sounds quite good to me.

I always had big problems with Aggro when running Mill. They goldfish on turn 4 on average and that has always been too fast for me. I think we need more spells like Glimpse and Mind Funeral.
But yes, Twincast and Brain Freeze are awesome. And if you manage to survive some time, I would imagine you could have quite some fun with 2 SDT and Brain Freeze...

[georgjorge]

Not 100 percent confirmed, but if it's true...



Mill Crab U
Creature - Crab

Landfall - Mill for 3

0/2

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=185067

Dies to everything, but playing it on turn 2-3 and following up with a fetchland gives you 6 cards for U, which is at least better than Vision Charm.

[Humphrey]

It gives ur opp a target for their removal. i think its crap.

BUT

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7116/tgb66g8aqden.jpg

Add R Splash for this nice card will make ur spells go crazy.
Mesmeric Orb anyone?

[gustha]

I don't know if I'm going off topic, but i'm currently testing a milling deck inspired by archive trap. Though, from testing, archive trap revealed itslef not as good as at first I though it was. I the decided to squeeze in some comboes to give the deck more versatility and a little more consistence, though the result is not obvious perfetc:

Obiedience dreaded patinerstone 1.0

// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [TSP] Academy Ruins
3 [B] Underground Sea
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
7 [UNH] Island
2 [R] Volcanic Island

// Creatures
4 [SHM] Painter's Servant
3 [FD] Trinket Mage
2 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 [UL] Goblin Welder

// Spells
4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
2 [TE] Grindstone
2 [AL] Helm of Obedience
3 [NE] Daze
3 [TE] Intuition
1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [VI] Vision Charm

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 4 [R] Red Elemental Blast


The 3 main wincons are:
-painter grindstone combo;
-helm/obedience combo;
-beatdown plan.
The manabase is optimized to speed up a t1 painter, and minimizing the time required to pay and activate the verious combo. (life loss shouldn't be relevant a that point). On the other hand, chalice@1 is TOTALLY wrecking for the deck, it should have some EE or other to contrast. Leyline maindeck is positive vs any deck abusing gy, and comboes with obedience. I chose intuition as the best draw engine, fully abusing of the power of Academy ruins. Eventually, the singleton welder is used for tricks if all the other things fail. The sb has to be arranged, this is just a draft.

Still undecided if running 4 vision charm + welder instead of 4 stifle + trickbind/welder: far more good against storm combo, and having a stifle to stifle a fetch on t1 is always good to slow down opponent.

[leander?]

It gives your opponent a target for their removal. I think it's crap.
Combined with a fetchland it always mills 6 for :u: , even if your opponent has a Lightning Bolt in his hand, an untapped land and really wants to shoot your Crab. You won't need to pass priority after Crab resolves so you can drop the land and crack it before the opponent can do anything. And if he hasn't got the removal, you mill for 0-6 after every turn he fails to find removal.
Furthermore, it gives your opponent a much harder time to SB, becouse he can't just board out his creature removal without thinking.

[Infinitium]

He can still bolt it with the fetch on the stack, meaning it'll always mill for 3. If you've got a land in hand that is. Crap.

[ScatmanX]

And the opponent has 1 less bolt to kill you, giving you more time.

[Guy I Don't Know]

there is a card 1U instant search your deck for a trap that was spoiled. 4 archive traps now = 8 Archive traps!

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Yeah. The only problem I see with that is that Archive Trap would be the deck's Price of Progress; often a home run, but sometimes just dead. Doubling up on that risk could be dangerous, but it also has potential payoffs.

Also makes Mindbreak Trap more attractive as a sideboard option, though.

[matamagos]

Just to mention it:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardscans/MAGFUT/bitter_ordeal.jpg

[rockout]

I like what the person above me posted. You might want to try running energy field. Cast energy field when your hand is nearly depleted and sit behind it for a few turns while you draw into something decent, that or ensaring bridge.

[CopperLeaf]

http://www.wizards.com/global/images/magic/Judgment/Guiltfeeder.jpg

Gives you another win condition without altering the deck too much.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Guilt Feeder was a hilarious, oddly competitive kill condition in T2, but it's too slow and clunky to work beyond that. If it costs five mana, doesn't provide card advantage and can't even kill a Tarmogoyf in a fight, it's probably no good.

[Eatatjoes]

Could a mill deck with green and blue be any good? I like hedron crab with veteran explorer and archive trap, not sure what else to play. Seen alot of players try to fully abuse veteran explorer. But what would we be accelerating to? If they search, you hit them with archive trap, and thats 15 out of there library, if they dont, your up 2x lands, and if you have crab out, its 2 land fall triggers. Fuck it, if im going to play mill, might as well play grindstone/servant.

[keys]

Just to mention it:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardscans/MAGFUT/bitter_ordeal.jpg

Seems better than Sanity Grinding, but since you need to mill before playing it to really have any substantial effect, I feel like Haunting Echoes is even better here.

[Otter]

How do you expect to get 10+ permanents into a graveyard on a single turn in order to make it better than Sanity Grinding?

[Tivon]

You get to pick the exact cards that get removed.

[Otter]

You get to pick the exact cards that get removed.

If you're trying to mill them to death, stripping out a few key cards is far worse than just milling a lot of cards. It's much better to mill ten cards with Grinding than to mill from one to three specific ones with Ordeal. If you want to strip something specific out of their deck, why not just use Cranial Extraction? For one mana more, you're guaranteed to actually hit every single copy, including the ones in their hand.

[Alfred]

Guys, guys. PERMANENTS. That means things in play, not cards from the library.

[keys]

Guys, guys. PERMANENTS. That means things in play, not cards from the library.

Permanents only exist in play? How does Nature's Spiral work then? Wouldn't it say "for each permanent put into the graveyard from the battlefield..."

Someone check the rules because that's not my area of expertise.

[quicksilver]

Nature's Spiral says "permanent card."



702.66a Gravestorm is a triggered ability that functions on the stack. “Gravestorm” means “When you cast this spell, put a copy of it onto the stack for each permanent that was put into a graveyard from the battlefield this turn. If the spell has any targets, you may choose new targets for any of the copies.”



110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. A permanent remains on the battlefield indefinitely. A card or token becomes a permanent as it enters the battlefield and it stops being a permanent as it’s moved to another zone by an effect or rule.



110.4a The term “permanent card” is used to refer to a card that could be put onto the battlefield. Specifically, it means an artifact, creature, enchantment, land, or planeswalker card.

[keys]

Ahhh then the oracle text on magiccards.info needs to be updated with the battlefield wording. Thanks for the clarification.

Looks like it's worthless after all.

[Gocho]

Could a mill deck with green and blue be any good? I like hedron crab with veteran explorer and archive trap, not sure what else to play. Seen alot of players try to fully abuse veteran explorer. But what would we be accelerating to? If they search, you hit them with archive trap, and thats 15 out of there library, if they dont, your up 2x lands, and if you have crab out, its 2 land fall triggers. Fuck it, if im going to play mill, might as well play grindstone/servant.


Veteran explorer it's too much advantage for the opponent. If you can't mill the entire deck, two more lands in play would give him a turn less to kill you.

In place of Veteran explorer I would place Ghost Quarter. With Hedron Crab you can break your own lands and without it you can break opponent's Mishra's, Duals, etc... It give to him less advantage that Veteran and you can do almost the same tricks.

As nobody post a deck in a while, here I go:

Density
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
8 [ZEN] Island (1)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Underground Sea
4 [DIS] Ghost Quarter

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Hedron Crab

// Spells
4 [US] Energy Field
4 [ZEN] Trapmaker's Snare
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [RAV] Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 [ARB] Mind Funeral
4 [SOK] Twincast
4 [SC] Brain Freeze
4 [ZEN] Archive Trap

I'm not sure about Twincast, Trapmaker's Snare and Brain Freeze slots, but I think that everything else it's ok.

- Archive Trap, Glimpse, Mind Funeral. Best mill cards.
- 8 Fetchlands + 4 Ghost Quarters give you enough lands to play with Hedron Crab. 24 lands gives you mana to play Traps hardcasting them.
- Hedron Crab: The little guy can mill 6 cards for every fetch you play and 3-6 for every Ghost Quarter. It's the CC1 card that would mill more cards. Use it carefully because he can mill 0 too if you are unlucky but can block lackey and other small critters all the day or buy you a turn vs a big goyf.
- Energy field buys time for you to fill your hand. As Swords it's the most played kill card in Legacy, you can play Crabs and lands while draw and keeps mill spells vs a lot of decks.
- Brainstorm: with 12 fetch effects you must play brainstorm :)
- Twincast, Trapmaker's Snare and Brain Freeze: the "I want more mill cards and doesn't have anything better" cards.

I goldfish a little and 4 Twincast are too much. I'll drop 2.
Trapmaker's Snare abuse of Mindbreak trap, but it needs that your opponent plays fetchlands or search with Ghost Quarters.
Brain Freeze would mill 6 or 9 cards. If you compare it with the others mill spells, cc of 2 it's a lot.

[majikal]

4 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
I think you mean Archive Trap.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

One could run Mystical Tutor and cantrips or top to both allow for better consistency of good mill spells and sudden trapping. It would further the issue of card disadvantage, but it is an option.

[sdematt]

I've been running a mill deck lately, and it has been doing very, very well. It runs:

Hedron Crab
Force of Will
Daze
Spell Snare
Archive Trap
Glimpse the Unthinkable
Mind Funeral

Lands

In a game against goblins, it was about even. Sometimes I could mill before they swung in to kill, sometimes not. Most other decks I faced, including Dreadstill, the Rock, and a few others, died. Is it amazing? No. Is it better now that Zen is out? Oh yes.

[Otter]

Is Hedron Crab useful as your only creature? It seems like it'd just bite a Plow every time it hit play.

[whienot]

We just had a mill deck top 8 a 32 player tourney. The only game I saw involved double Hedron Crab and lots of fetches. He won the game after his opponent walked into double Archive Trap and he Pathed one of his dudes. I know he also ran Wall of Denial. He ended up losing to 4c Countertop inthe Semis.

[Gocho]

I think you mean Archive Trap.

Yes, my fault.

[DrJones]

Is Hedron Crab useful as your only creature? It seems like it'd just bite a Plow every time it hit play.Note that once it hits play, you get back priority and can play a land before the opponent can do anything about it.

[Alfred]

Note that once it hits play, you get back priority and can play a land before the opponent can do anything about it.

Problem is, is that he'll die before a fetch puts a land into play, meaning he's usually a "mill 3" for U (not good). I don't know if targettable creatures are all that great in this deck TBH.

[sdematt]

Sometimes he bites the dust, but he also blocks a first turn lackey. Also, he's not my only creature, I also play random crap that I'm embarrassed to even mention. Also, I'd usually counter it, as I usually mull INTO Hedron crab. :D