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Thread: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

  1. #61

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    King of Jank (YT) has some interesting thought on Bruvac.

    Regards

  2. #62

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by t000 View Post
    King of Jank (YT) has some interesting thought on Bruvac.

    Do we learn anything from the King of Jank literally discussing jank?

    Bruvac is even worse than Fraying Sanity which is also unplayable.

  3. #63
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    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    He discussed janky EDH interactions. 95% of that doesn't apply to Legacy.

    But maybe you could build a Mill Stompy deck doubling Archive Trap.

    2 Archive Trap + Fraying Sanity = Mill 52 (lethal)
    Archive Trap + 2 Fraying Sanity/Bruvac = Mill 52 (lethal)
    Traumatize + Fraying Sanity/Bruvac = lethal
    Court of Cunning + Fraying Sanity/Bruvac = win in a few turns + draw cards

    Now you're trying to only resolve 2-3 cards instead of resolving a bunch of small mill spells. Much easier to assemble and protect.

    With Stompy mana you can do it as early as turn 1-2 with protection. Or you can go off slower after disruption.


    //Mana: 24
    4 Chrome Mox
    4 Ancient Tomb
    3 City of Traitors
    13 Island

    //Prison: 12
    4 Chalice of the Void
    3 Tangle Wire
    3 Propaganda
    2 Ensnaring Bridge

    //Doublers: 6
    4 Fraying Sanity
    2 Bruvac the Grandiloquent

    //Mill: 7
    4 Archive Trap
    2 Court of Cunning
    1 Traumatize

    //Planeswalker: 5
    4 Karn, the Great Creator
    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

    //Other Spells: 6
    4 Force of Will
    2 Intuition

    //Sideboard: 15
    4 Leyline of the Void
    1 Mycosynth Lattice
    1 Helm of Obedience
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Sorcerous Spyglass
    1 Trinisphere
    1 Damping Sphere
    1 Powder Keg
    1 Seat of the Synod
    3 Walking Ballista


    This is not good but should be an improvement on Turbo Mill.

    Postboard there's Leyline to shut down graveyards and Karn -> Helm for the 1-hit kill.
    Preboard Karn still finds all sorts of juicy targets to win the game.

    There are also 1-card wins via Jace or Court of Cunning, protected by Bridge, Propaganda & Tangle Wire. It won't be easy for them to get the Monarch back.
    Last edited by FTW; 08-09-2021 at 11:41 PM.

  4. #64

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Here are some of my thoughts and results through playtesing crab mill:

    - Fraying Sanity has done wounders the last weeks of playtesting. Its hard to remove (not a creature) and forces opponent to focus on a permanent removal/solution, ratern then to race for the win. I have got a lot for free mill effects, opponent feches, cast spells, mills/discards himself.. all triggers on Sanity. The 2U CC is also easy to cast, making me think of testing Ancient Tomb? Only downside is the life loss combined with all the fetchland and attacks from opponent. NOTE:
    The value of X is determined only as Fraying Sanity’s triggered ability resolves. Sanity stacks, so if you have two Sanity in play: 1 fetchland trigger on 1 crab = 6 mill + 1st Sanity = 6 mill + 2nd Sanity =12 mill = 24 mill total on 1 fetch-landfalltrigger!
    Sanity’s triggered ability alos counts the number of cards that were put into the enchanted player’s graveyard during the turn, even if Fraying Sanity wasn’t on the battlefield at the time those cards were put there, and even if those cards have left that graveyard.
    - Mission Briefing has also showed progress, been able to GY-tutor for a second og fourth Surgical Extraction have won me some games against both combo (remove critical cards) and agains SB cards against us or FoW/PloW. My plan here was to use it as a GY-tutor for Archive Trap but I haven't had the possibility or need for it. When an archive resolves (with a Fraying Sanity or two in play) its usually a win situation anyway. Since this is a conditional card, and not needed to win, it might be exchange to something else?

    - Drown in the Loch this card has shown its value over and over again in my playtesting. 8/8 flying Murktide Regent ? No problem for DtL. A UB CC "charm" saying choose one: counter spell or destroy target creature. Yes thank you!

    - Visions of Beyond has more than often showed up as a "dead-card" and ive shuffled it away with BS or accualy cast it for 1 draw. This card is only good in mid/late game, thinking of replacing it.

    - Ashiok, Dream Render becomes target for removal/damage once it hits the board, never survives more than 2-3 rounds, this again stalls the opponent, and gives ut time to win. The -1 ability with "exile GY" has come in handy several times agains GY dependent decks: Loam, flash back cards, drege/reanimator. NOTE: It does NOT interfere with our opponent-serch-enabler Field of Ruin.


    This list is what Ive been tinkering with lately:
    // 8 Creature
    4 Hedron Crab
    4 Ruin Crab

    // 4 Enchantment
    4 Fraying Sanity

    // 24 Instant
    4 Archive Trap
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Visions of Beyond
    4 Daze
    2 Surgical Extraction
    4 Drown in the Loch
    2 Mission Briefing

    // 19 Land
    6 Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Swamp
    3 Field of Ruin
    4 Prismatic Vista
    1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

    // 2 Planeswalker
    2 Ashiok, Dream Render

    // 3 Sorcery
    3 Glimpse the Unthinkable
    Regards

  5. #65
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    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by t000 View Post
    last weeks of playtesting.
    What decks have you been testing against? What is your record so far?

    Do you find you have enough disruption to stop opponents? Without Force of Will there isn't much (they can play around Daze). Drown in the Loch has to do a lot of work with no other hard counters or removal.

    Mission Briefing does a lot. It can cast Force of Will, Archive Trap, Daze, or Surgical Extraction for 0 mana.

    Visions of Beyond is probably better at 2 copies. It's only good late. The biggest reason to run 4 copies was in the lists with Scheming Symmetry for forced search, so you have more ways to get the card right away. You also need the draw 3 to make up for Symmetry's card disadvantage. Without it, just play Ponder first.

  6. #66

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    What decks have you been testing against? What is your record so far?

    Do you find you have enough disruption to stop opponents? Without Force of Will there isn't much (they can play around Daze). Drown in the Loch has to do a lot of work with no other hard counters or removal.

    Mission Briefing does a lot. It can cast Force of Will, Archive Trap, Daze, or Surgical Extraction for 0 mana.

    Visions of Beyond is probably better at 2 copies. It's only good late. The biggest reason to run 4 copies was in the lists with Scheming Symmetry for forced search, so you have more ways to get the card right away. You also need the draw 3 to make up for Symmetry's card disadvantage. Without it, just play Ponder first.
    While the disadvantage from FoW hurts like hell, it really has to go in there since the posted list loses 100% vs decks which don't fetch and if you can't get any crab-action going.

    Fraying Sanity might be nice in theory but in has an incredibly low floor, especially in a list with so little primary mill.

    Drown is nice but it seems a bit schizophrenic.
    Do you want to be a control deck that wins via mill? Then ok.
    But 8 crabs + Trap are more aggressive.
    You can't really afford to leave 2 mana open if you could mill instead.
    Hence the need for FoW.

    To me the crab plan just doesn't seem worth it in legacy.
    At least in the main deck.
    It's much too vulnerable and you need to spend too many resources to keep them alive which you could instead spent on just milling.
    Do you really want to force/daze a StP on a crab which would just be a dead card?

    The only way I could see mill work reliably is to go for a full Surgical + Extirpate angle.
    If you're a bit lucky and know how what to target you could probably cripple your opponents enough to make the mill work.
    This would need to be packaged with discard and removal where I can see Drown working.
    However this depends heavily on the meta.
    Currently, my impression is that some decks play very few real threads + value or just all threads like all the robot decks.

    I also find Mind Funeral is very underrated.
    Most decks play not so many lands and most of them are fetches.
    It's not unlikely that you hit a lot of cards and even if not, take a lot of their lands, leaving them more vulnerable to screw.

  7. #67

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    While the disadvantage from FoW hurts like hell, it really has to go in there since the posted list loses 100% vs decks which don't fetch and if you can't get any crab-action going.

    Fraying Sanity might be nice in theory but in has an incredibly low floor, especially in a list with so little primary mill.
    I agree on this. If you pay 3 mana, it needs to have an immediate effect. I could see Fraying Sanity as an one off. The if you happen to have it in your starting hand, you could adjust your playstyle and save up some traps until turn 3.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Drown is nice but it seems a bit schizophrenic.
    Do you want to be a control deck that wins via mill? Then ok.
    But 8 crabs + Trap are more aggressive.
    You can't really afford to leave 2 mana open if you could mill instead.
    Hence the need for FoW.
    agree. If you chose to pick a more controle-y approach, you can´t go half hearted.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    To me the crab plan just doesn't seem worth it in legacy.
    At least in the main deck.
    It's much too vulnerable and you need to spend too many resources to keep them alive which you could instead spent on just milling.
    Do you really want to force/daze a StP on a crab which would just be a dead card?
    Somewhat disagree. Crab is the best one drop we have. But since we have 7 other copies of it, I wouldn´t protect it. If it eats removal, so be it. In turn 2, I either play another crab and mill 3 (6 with fetchies) or I play glimpse/symmetric+cantrip etc. The crabs don´t hinder our gameplan.


    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    The only way I could see mill work reliably is to go for a full Surgical + Extirpate angle.
    If you're a bit lucky and know how what to target you could probably cripple your opponents enough to make the mill work.
    This would need to be packaged with discard and removal where I can see Drown working.
    However this depends heavily on the meta.
    Currently, my impression is that some decks play very few real threads + value or just all threads like all the robot decks.
    I think surgicals/extirpates are needed in the main 60. you can gimp an enormous amount of decks by removing key cards.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    I also find Mind Funeral is very underrated.
    Most decks play not so many lands and most of them are fetches.
    It's not unlikely that you hit a lot of cards and even if not, take a lot of their lands, leaving them more vulnerable to screw.
    I also love Mind Funeral. But it´s a bit of gambling.
    have you seen Tasha's Hideous Laughter? I wonder how that card faires. It also exiles, which is nice for some archtypes. Or do you think it´s more of an sideboard cards against all those storm/cmc 0 decks? legacy is a low curve format. I think you can easily mill 20 cards on average.

  8. #68

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by Valech View Post
    Somewhat disagree. Crab is the best one drop we have. But since we have 7 other copies of it, I wouldn´t protect it. If it eats removal, so be it. In turn 2, I either play another crab and mill 3 (6 with fetchies) or I play glimpse/symmetric+cantrip etc. The crabs don´t hinder our gameplan.
    The thing is that without crabs you don't have any targets for removal, blanking a lot of cards in certain decks.
    This allows your opponent to interact with you and slow you down.
    If you don't play crabs you can do something else with the mana.
    You could build the deck such that you put the crabs in the sideboard so that you can side them in when your opponent has sided out their removal


    Quote Originally Posted by Valech View Post
    I also love Mind Funeral. But it´s a bit of gambling.
    have you seen Tasha's Hideous Laughter? I wonder how that card faires. It also exiles, which is nice for some archtypes. Or do you think it´s more of an sideboard cards against all those storm/cmc 0 decks? legacy is a low curve format. I think you can easily mill 20 cards on average.
    I think laughter is much more of a gamble than funeral.
    Given the low land counts in the format, I'd think it would do enough on average to warrant the 3 mana.
    It can also mana screw your opponent pretty hard if you can't get too much early mill going.
    Laughter is IMO a sideboard card since it flops hard vs certain decks which is much less likely and pronounced for funeral.
    VS decks that you want to exile cards from, you will most likely want a leyline in the board anyway.
    But at that point you could just play a helm and win.

  9. #69
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    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    You could build the deck such that you put the crabs in the sideboard so that you can side them in when your opponent has sided out their removal
    From my past testing, this was the best use of Crabs. Maindeck they were just removal magnets.

    @Crab fans: Consider how much cheap removal most fair decks have to run because of Ragavan. If you run Crab, they answer it without losing tempo. If you don't, they have dead draws.

  10. #70

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    From my past testing, this was the best use of Crabs. Maindeck they were just removal magnets.

    @Crab fans: Consider how much cheap removal most fair decks have to run because of Ragavan. If you run Crab, they answer it without losing tempo. If you don't, they have dead draws.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    The thing is that without crabs you don't have any targets for removal, blanking a lot of cards in certain decks.
    This allows your opponent to interact with you and slow you down.
    If you don't play crabs you can do something else with the mana.
    You could build the deck such that you put the crabs in the sideboard so that you can side them in when your opponent has sided out their removal

    What to run in the cmc 1 slot instead?

  11. #71

    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by Valech View Post
    What to run in the cmc 1 slot instead?
    Ponder
    Fatal Push
    Thoughseize/Duress/Inquisition
    Surgical/Extripate

    Visions of Beyond sadly sucks too much.

  12. #72
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    Re: Eight Crab - The new Mill.

    Quote Originally Posted by Valech View Post
    What to run in the cmc 1 slot instead?
    Crab isn't great as a Turn 1 play anyway.

    T1 Crab go
    Opponent kills Crab
    T2 play 2 cmc spell

    Crab milled 0. All you did was trade with a dead card in opponent's hand. Casting Ponder instead digs deeper into gas while leaving the opponent with -1 card.

    Crab is better played on turn 2. But that means you need other 1 cmc spells anyway.

    T1 1 cmc spell
    Opponent can't spend turn on removal
    T2 Crab. Uncracked fetch (mill 3).
    If opponent responds with removal, fetch in response (mill 3) & play another 1 cmc.
    Otherwise you can hold the fetchland until opponent taps out.
    Or you can fetch immediately to play a 1 cmc (risks removal in response to fetch).

    This line is more likely to get value out of Crab before it dies. But it also means you need other proactive 1s in the deck.

    Edit: The point is with or without Crab you want many other 1 cmcs. Ponder & Brainstorm. Maybe Extirpate or Thoughtseize.

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