Eight Crab - The new Mill.

[t000]

Welcome to the new mill: Holy Crab / Eight Crab

☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆


With the release of the new crab (Ruin Crab) from Zendikar Rising, is this the final piece we needed to lift Legacy Mill to top tier?


(Source: mtggoldfish.com + wizards.com)

I. Introduction
II. History
III. Card Choices
IV. Decklist
V. Sideboarding Guide
VI. Matchup & Videos
VII. Links & other Resources
VIII. Contributors

I. Introduction

This is a currently work in progress.

This thread is reserved for the mill deck: Holy Crab / Eight Crab (Ruin Crab & Hedron Crab). There are several deck builds out there taking advantage of graveyards and "milling-effects", and then doing damage and life loss with spells and creatures. This deck primer is dedicated to building a PURE milling deck, with primary focus on winning the game by milling your opponent to 0-zero cards. We are a dedicated team of MTG enthusiast working on this deck. Please join us in this thread and contribute to the final product. All types of suggestions are appreciated: Tips and thought will be credited in this primer

The termonilogy.

Milling is a Magic slang to describe the act of putting cards from a deck into another zone to deplete the card in the opponents library. Cards that mill the opponents deck normally put those cards into the graveyard, but exiling them or putting them into any other zone in the game can be counted as milling aswell. Milling can be a successful strategy due to the fact that a player who can not draw a card from his library when he is required to, due to the library not containing any cards any more, loses the game. The graveyard is a public zone, allow the mill player to see what he got rid of and making it easier to calculate what options the defending player still has available. (Source: fandom.com)

From the Comprehensive Rules (August 7, 2020 - Double Masters)

• 104.3c If a player is required to draw more cards than are left in their library, they draw the remaining cards and then lose the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

• 10/1/2009 The landfall ability triggers whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control for any reason. It triggers whenever you play a land, as well as whenever a spell or ability (such as Rampant Growth) causes you to put a land onto the battlefield under your control. It will even trigger when a spell or ability causes another player to put a land onto the battlefield under your control (as can happen with Yavimaya Dryad’s ability, for example).
• 10/1/2009 When a land enters the battlefield under your control, each landfall ability of the permanents you control will trigger. You can put them on the stack in any order. The last ability you put on the stack will be the first one that resolves.

Types of mill.

To avoid misunderstanding while discussing this thread, we have chosen to divide the "mill-effect" into two main categories. Please try to use these two terminologies:
☆ Landfall-mill: making the opponent mill cards by activating the landfall trigger off our Crabs.
☆ Spell-mill: making the opponent mill cards by casting spells or other activated and triggered abilities.

II. History

Why is it called milling?

Well, now we get to peek behind the scenes of Magic slang and see how it gets created. Most Magic slang comes about because a card gets released that does something that no other card had previously done in Magic. People wanting to talk about that ability tend to use the card name as a shorthand for the effect as it's the most obvious thing that connects to it. If there is a keyword or an ability word or even a word used in the title of multiple cards using this ability, then Wizards have done the job to help name this ability. Often, though, the cool thing starts on a single card. The card was named Millstone. In the beginning, you "millstoned" another player, but with time "millstone" became "mill" as "mill" is actually a word, and a verb at that, so it sounded better. Now, what does a millstone - either of a pair of stone wheels used to grind or crush things - have to do with putting cards from your library into your graveyard? The answer, I believe, is this. The library represents the mental capacity of the planeswaker. The hand is what they are currently focusing on mentally. If a spell is in your library, it is something you know and eventually you'll be able to recall it (a.k.a. draw it). Milling is a mental attack where you are going after knowledge inside the planeswalker's head. Ref the wording on Millstone: "More than one mage was driven insane by the sound of the Millstone relentlessly grinding away." Discard spells, by the way, are spells that attack the player's current thoughts: "Oops, did this blow to the head make you forget what you were about to do?". The word millstone can also mean a mental or emotional burden. The Antiquities designers Skaff Elias, Jim Lin, Dave Petty and Chris Page, and yes, back then much of the naming was done by the design teams, were being clever with wordplay. The name was both a real thing and a description of an emotional upheaval.

Early days.

The history of milling actually starts before Millstone was printed. Even in the beta testing of Magic, there were decks that won by running the opponent out of cards. In the deck that Charlie Catino played where he kept using Timetwisters to keep shuffling graveyards back into libraries. He would deck you by playing Swords to Plowshares to remove all your creatures from the game, thus shrinking your library so that he would eventually deck you. And yes, the original playtesters did truly playtest the game.

No more cards in library?

This brings up the first question about milling. Why did Richard Garfield make you lose the game when you ran out of cards in your library, known in Magic slang as "decking"? Any guesses? As with any good design, the reason is quite simple. It was the easiest answer to the question "What happens if I run out of cards?" Remember, barring Charlie's deck, most games back then that came to decking dod so because they ran long. The decking rule helped keep the long games from running any longer. Once an alternate way to win existed, players were soon attracted to it as a means of winning because well, that's what gamers do. In the early days, decking was a win condition for decks that prevented anything from happening. It was a way to win without having to devote a card to actually winning the game. All this changed though when Millstone came out in Antiquities. Instead of milling being a passive win condition, it became an active one. All of a sudden, a deck could aggressively mill the opponent. The Antiquities designers were nice enough to also give deck builders a tool to make sure that they weren't decked, a little artifact called Feldon's Cane. (Source: wizards.com + Mark Rosewater)

III. Card Choices

These are mentionable cards that are undergoing furious play testing:

Artifact

Helm of Obedience
- Semi-conditional: needs Leyline for win con.
- Averages 4-6 cards every time, as a non combo.
- Alternative SB win con when SB in Leyline/RiP?
Profane Memento
Ensnaring Bridge
Mesmeric Orb
- Non-conditional, works every time.
- Brutal against Elves and other stompy decks.
Keening Stone

Creature

Hedron Crab
- Our hero.
Ruin Crab
- Our hero.
- Dodges hexproof by generalising targets "each opponent": Leyline/Veil etc.
Vantress Gargoyle
Jace's Phantasm
Hedron Crab
Thieves' Guild Enforcer
Snapcaster Mage
Phenax, God of Deception
Walking Atlas
Bruvac the Grandiloquent

Enchantment

Leyline of the Void
Rest in Peace
Teferi's Tutelage
Fraying Sanity
Drowned Secrets
Psychic Corrosion
Sphinx's Tutelage

Instant

Unexpectedly Absent
Cling to Dust
Crypt Incursion
Into the Story
Thwart
Chain of Vapor
Thought Scour
Fatal Push
Murderous Cut
Brain Freeze
Mission Briefing
- Conditional: needs cards in GY.
- Can become a 5th Glimpse the Unthinkable.
- Makes Archive Trap and Surgical to be cast for "0".
Brainstorm
Counterspell
Daze
Archive Trap
- Conditional: Opponent may avoid to search and you need to have it in hand when they search.
- Potential a free 13-mill card. Lots of fetch and tutors in legacy.
- You might mill away all fetch lands
- Late game ist a 5CMC/1 CARD/13 card mill card.
Drown in the Loch
- Conditional: need cards in opponents graveyard to work.
- The best of both worlds: counter and removal.
- Synergi with the mill-concept. Can easily destroy high CMC creatures by turn 4-5.
Visions of Beyond
- Semi-conditional: needs 20 cards in ANY graveyard, but can still be used as a EOT card draw.
- Card advantage.
- This deck needs food (cards) in order to beat faster combo/tempo decks.
- Synergi with the mill-concept. Its basically a "Ancestral Recall".
Trapmaker's Snare
Crypt Incursion
Dream Twist
- Non-conditional: works every time.
- Card advantage
- 6 mill for 3 mana.
- Possible storm counter?
Surgical Extraction
- Conditional: combo cads need to be in GY.
- With a fast-turning opponents GY, this is a good hate card against combo decks and opponents StP, AD and other creature removal.
- Works great with big GY.
- Great agaist Dredge/reanimator/loam decks. They are a bad mathc up for us, lets make it to our advantage.
Path to Exile
- Conditional: opponent may choose not to search.
- Triggers Archive Trap.
- Diss-synergi with surgical.

Land

Field of Ruin
- Non-conditional: forces opponent to search.
- Activation cost: 1 mana. You do need 2 lands to activate it, but considered that you get 1 land back untapped.
- Targets: non-basic land.
- Triggers Archive Trap.
- Triggers our Crabs, landfall.
- Side note: Replaces itself.
Shelldock Isle
Cavern of Souls
Nephalia Drownyard
Cephalid Coliseum
Ipnu Rivulet
Drownyard Temple
Ghost Town
Undiscovered Paradise
Polluted Delta
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
- Non-conditional: works every time.
- Landfall trigger.
- The non-tap activated ability makes this card dodges Wasteland/Bloodmoon/B2B etc. even if the card is tapped.
- Landfall-mill synergi: Bounce, repeat for landfall trigger.
Island
Swamp
Prismatic Vista
- Non-conditional: works every time.
- Fetch lands
- Landfall trigger.
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Ghost Quarter
- Conditional: opponent may choose not to search.
- Activation cost: 0 mana.
- Triggers Archive Trap.
- Target: all lands.
- Triggers our Crabs, landfal, if you target your own land.

Sorcery

Council's Judgment
Damnation
Pilfered Plans
Tome Scour
Mind Funeral
Scheming Symmetry
- Non-conditional: works every time.
- Triggers Archive Trap.
- Synergi with Ashiok, Dream Render.
- Opponent are forced to search.
Glimpse the Unthinkable
- Non-conditional, works every time.
- Slow speed, sorcery.
Haunting Echoes
Bitter Ordeal
Maddening Cacophony
Supreme Verdict
Fractured Sanity
- Mill 14 cards "non-target" OR mill 4 cards "uncountreable" and "non-target" + cantrip.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
- "Nnon-target". But does Legacy have enought low CC cards...?
Sanity Grinding
- Mono blue/devotion mill? Synergi with the bolt-lands as Sea Gate Restoration. Probably other "devotion" comboes/synergies? [/LIST]

Planeswalker

Ashiok, Dream Render
- Non-conditional: works every time.
- Stalls a lof of decks due to fetch lands and tutors in legacy. But again this keep opponent's do draw(mill) extra cards.
- Dis-synergy with Archive Trap, Visions of Beyond ++ (?)
- Gives us "extra-life" since the opponent most likely attacks Ashiok, instead for our life total.
- Most cases we get 4-8 mill for 3 mana and stops opponents fetches for 1-2 turns, due to opponent attacking Ashiok.
- Exile opponents library: good against Dredge, Reanimator, ANT, Goyf etc.
- Note: only stops search effects controlled by the opponent. So Scheming Symmetry, PathE, Quarter works.
Jace, Memory Adept
- Non-conditional, works every time.
- 5 CMC is heavy in Legacy.

IV. Decklist

The ORIGINAL Millstone deck, Michael Loconto, #1 prize Pro Tour in 1996.

Creature (2)
2 Blinking Spirit
Sorcery (6)
1 Balance
4 Wrath of God
1 Recall
Instant (13)
4 Disenchant
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
1 Deflection
Artifact (11)
3 Millstone
1 Feldon's Cane
2 Fountain of Youth
2 Icy Manipulator
1 Ivory Tower
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Zuran Orb
Enchantment (6)
2 Hallowed Ground
2 Land Tax
2 Control Magic
Land (24)
1 Wizards' School
4 Island
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Mishra's Factory
7 Plains
1 Ruins of Trokair
1 Strip Mine
2 Svyelunite Temple
Sideboard
1 Control Magic
2 Aeolipile
1 Jester's Cap
2 Serrated Arrows
2 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Divine Offering
2 Hydroblast
2 Sea Sprite

V. Sideboarding Guide

Hexproof

If your local meta has a lot of POX, Mill type decks there is a chance your opponent's SB in Leyline of Sanctity. Having 1 Tropical Island or Tundra main deck gives you access to Reverent Silence, Light of Hope, Allay, Feed the Swarm, Krosan Grip and Ratchet Bomb. These are all good SB enchantment removals.

VI. Matchup & Videos

More info coming soon.

VII. Links & other Resources

• Running the Numbers on Teferi's Tutelage (Redit): https://www.reddit.com/r/lrcast/comm...eris_tutelage/
• ThatMillGuy (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/c/ThatMillGuyShaf
• Star City Games: https://articles.starcitygames.com/p...rus-in-modern/ *modern

VIII. Contributors

Special thanks to @Ralf @FTW and @Zoid

☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜☆

[t000]

• 17 September 2020, reserved the thread on MTS.
• 18 September 2020, updated the II. History section and added the the original millstone deck to IV. Decklist section.
• 8 August 2021, added Fractured Sanity, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Bruvac the Grandiloquent and Sanity Grinding to the deck.

[FTW]

We were already working on UB mill in a different thread. 8x Crab makes it even better.

Archive Trap is by far the most mana-efficient mill effect, at 13 cards for 0 mana. Instant 4x of.
- Best mill-to-mana ratio in Legacy
- enabled by fetchlands and tutors
- Pitches to FoW and FoN.
- Can be tutored with Trapmaker's Snare (questionable card, but surprisingly versatile due to Mindbreak Trap vs Storm and Ravenous Trap vs GY decks)
- Can be recast for 0 mana via Mission Briefing (also works on FoW and FoN)

The biggest drawback of Archive Trap is that the opponent can avoid searches to play around it. But the card is still too powerful not to play in mill. Luckily there is an amazing enabler that forces library search: Scheming Symmetry.

Symmetry both forces the opponent to search (enabling Trap) and finds you the next mill effect, or any other situational answer you might need. The downside of Symmetry is mitigated by mill: you just mill the card they tutored for. 8x Crab has high synergy with Scheming Symmetry, because you can crack a fetch to mill them at instant speed if they try to cantrip into the card in response to other mill. Crab makes the Archive-Symmetry engine even stronger!

Ghost Quarter also enables Trap and answers problems like Dark Depths and nonbasic-heavy combo decks, which would otherwise race mill. They can choose not to search, but then you get away with running 4x Strip Mine which isn't exactly bad either.


After Trap and Crabs, the quality of mill effects drops off significantly. Some possible options are:
Glimpse the Unthinkable (UB for 10 cards)
Mind Funeral (1UB for 4-20 cards, gets better if you extract a land first)
Memory Sluice (1 mana for 8 cards if you have Conspire from 2x Crab)
Ashiok, Dream Render (3 mana for 4-20 cards, but stops fetchlands from turning on Trap)
Jace, Memory Adept (5 mana for 1-card mill wincon, but expensive)
Surgical Extraction (0 mana for 3 cards, plus permanently eliminating a card from their deck and fighting GY engines)

Most of those effects aren't that great value for the mana and card spent, or are too conditional to get consistent payoff.

Often you just get better value spending 2 mana on additional Archive Traps (2 mana for 13 cards):
1U: Trapmaker's Snare at instant speed to find Trap
UU: Mission Briefing to flashback Trap
UU: Twincast or Narset's Reversal on a Trap on the stack (timing restrictions make this the least reliable)
UB: Scheming Symmetry for Trap + blue cantrip to draw it

With that in mind, we had a rough shell like this earlier


//Creatures: 8
8 Hedron Crab

//Mill Spells: 10
4 Archive Trap
2 Trapmaker's Snare
2 Mission Briefing
2 Glimpse the Unthinkable

//Other Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
4 Scheming Symmetry
3 Ponder
3 Visions of Beyond
2 Force of Negation

//Lands: 18
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Prismatic Vista
3 Underground Sea
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Rough Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Glimpse the Unthinkable
3 Eliminate
2 Plague Engineer
1 Spell Pierce


There's an argument to have 1 Ravenous Trap main, or to run a couple Surgical Extraction main, just so you don't accidentally walk into Legacy's many GY engines in G1.

You might also want to go up to a higher land count with 10 fetchlands to make Crabs better, though Crab will eat all of their removal 100% of the time.

[Zoid]

We were already working on UB mill in a different thread. 8x Crab makes it even better.

Archive Trap is by far the most mana-efficient mill effect, at 13 cards for 0 mana. Instant 4x of.
- Best mill-to-mana ratio in Legacy
- enabled by fetchlands and tutors
- Pitches to FoW and FoN.
- Can be tutored with Trapmaker's Snare (questionable card, but surprisingly versatile due to Mindbreak Trap vs Storm and Ravenous Trap vs GY decks)
- Can be recast for 0 mana via Mission Briefing (also works on FoW and FoN)

The biggest drawback of Archive Trap is that the opponent can avoid searches to play around it. But the card is still too powerful not to play in mill. Luckily there is an amazing enabler that forces library search: Scheming Symmetry.

Symmetry both forces the opponent to search (enabling Trap) and finds you the next mill effect, or any other situational answer you might need. The downside of Symmetry is mitigated by mill: you just mill the card they tutored for. 8x Crab has high synergy with Scheming Symmetry, because you can crack a fetch to mill them at instant speed if they try to cantrip into the card in response to other mill. Crab makes the Archive-Symmetry engine even stronger!

Ghost Quarter also enables Trap and answers problems like Dark Depths and nonbasic-heavy combo decks, which would otherwise race mill. They can choose not to search, but then you get away with running 4x Strip Mine which isn't exactly bad either.


After Trap and Crabs, the quality of mill effects drops off significantly. Some possible options are:
Glimpse the Unthinkable (UB for 10 cards)
Mind Funeral (1UB for 4-20 cards, gets better if you extract a land first)
Memory Sluice (1 mana for 8 cards if you have Conspire from 2x Crab)
Ashiok, Dream Render (3 mana for 4-20 cards, but stops fetchlands from turning on Trap)
Jace, Memory Adept (5 mana for 1-card mill wincon, but expensive)
Surgical Extraction (0 mana for 3 cards, plus permanently eliminating a card from their deck and fighting GY engines)

Most of those effects aren't that great value for the mana and card spent, or are too conditional to get consistent payoff.

Often you just get better value spending 2 mana on additional Archive Traps (2 mana for 13 cards):
1U: Trapmaker's Snare at instant speed to find Trap
UU: Mission Briefing to flashback Trap
UU: Twincast or Narset's Reversal on a Trap on the stack (timing restrictions make this the least reliable)
UB: Scheming Symmetry for Trap + blue cantrip to draw it

With that in mind, we had a rough shell like this earlier


//Creatures: 8
8 Hedron Crab

//Mill Spells: 10
4 Archive Trap
2 Trapmaker's Snare
2 Mission Briefing
2 Glimpse the Unthinkable

//Other Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
4 Scheming Symmetry
3 Ponder
3 Visions of Beyond
2 Force of Negation

//Lands: 18
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Prismatic Vista
3 Underground Sea
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Rough Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Glimpse the Unthinkable
3 Eliminate
2 Plague Engineer
1 Spell Pierce


There's an argument to have 1 Ravenous Trap main, or to run a couple Surgical Extraction main, just so you don't accidentally walk into Legacy's many GY engines in G1.

You might also want to go up to a higher land count with 10 fetchlands to make Crabs better, though Crab will eat all of their removal 100% of the time.

I player UB mill for a while in modern so I can share a bit of my experience, since the deck looked similar.

You should play at least some removal because you auto lose to a resolved creature + counters.
Crabs main are kind of bad since they give your opponents targets for their removal.
I think they are better in the sideboard once the opponent has taken their removal out.

Some individual cards:

Glimpse the Unthinkable is the bread an butter card of this deck since it always works.
Mesmeric Orb - surprisingly good if you can't close it out early.
Surgical Extraction / Extirpate - would run at least a few to not lose G1 to spaghetti monsters. Can also buy a lot of time.
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds can be good to if you run out of lands.
Fraying Sanity looks good on paper but is not so good in practice unless you can get it out earlier with petal or something.
Ashiok, Dream Render sometimes actually cockblocks you depending on what you do so you have to be careful.
Mind Funeral is crazy good since land counts in legacy are low and you should have milled already enough cards to make it really painful.
Bonus: Devastation Tide is fun with Symmetry if you're in trouble.

[FTW]

I player UB mill for a while in modern so I can share a bit of my experience, since the deck looked similar.

You should play at least some removal because you auto lose to a resolved creature + counters.
Crabs main are kind of bad since they give your opponents targets for their removal.
I think they are better in the sideboard once the opponent has taken their removal out.

Some individual cards:

Glimpse the Unthinkable is the bread an butter card of this deck since it always works.
Mesmeric Orb - surprisingly good if you can't close it out early.
Surgical Extraction / Extirpate - would run at least a few to not lose G1 to spaghetti monsters. Can also buy a lot of time.
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds can be good to if you run out of lands.
Fraying Sanity looks good on paper but is not so good in practice unless you can get it out earlier with petal or something.
Ashiok, Dream Render sometimes actually cockblocks you depending on what you do so you have to be careful.
Mind Funeral is crazy good since land counts in legacy are low and you should have milled already enough cards to make it really painful.
Bonus: Devastation Tide is fun with Symmetry if you're in trouble.

Good points.

When I tried testing UB mill in Legacy (moderate success, but never got that far), I ran 0 Crabs main and boarded in 4 Crabs postboard when their removal comes out. Otherwise like you said, maindeck Crab just soaks up their otherwise dead removal. The problem is with 8Crab that is not easy to do. You lose too much SB space. To play 8Crab at all, I think you need Crab main.

Maybe with 8 Crabs main it will be harder to answer all? Even if they have an immediate answer, the failcase is "U: Mill 6" with a fetchland, which is better than most other mill effects still.

4x Glimpse is probably correct. With Crabs main I moved the other 2 Glimpse to the SB (extra mill once they start playing around Archive Trap), but main may be better.

I don't like Mind Funeral in Legacy. It has potential, but this is also a faster format with combo decks that win before you hit 3 mana and tempo decks with Wasteland, Daze, Spell Pierce, FoW, Veil, Thalia, Port... It is just too easy to have that card blown out to invest 3 mana in one effect.

Devastation Tide looks like good silver bullet tech. Sadly you can't Miracle it off a cantrip that same turn, which means the opponent gets to draw their card first (if you didn't have a Crab to mill it) and that could just lose you the game. It seems like another card that would be much better in Modern, with less explosive opponents and without Legacy's cantrips to draw the symmetry card this turn. 95% of the time I cast Symmetry I draw the card the same turn. That's why I have 10 1-mana cantrips plus Mission Briefing.

What creature removal would you run maindeck? Fatal Push? Eliminate? Maybe it's just correct to splash green for Oko, Thief of Crowns...

EDIT: If you go to BUG, you get
Abrupt Decay for removal that beats removal + counters and also hate pieces like Chalice
Oko, Thief of Crowns for cheese that beats fair.dec and turn Crabs into Rogue Elephants
Crop Rotation which enables dumb stuff with Crab landfall as well as 1-of Bojuka Bog main
Veil of Summer to protect Archive Trap from counters and Crab from removal and your hand from discard
It may even be correct to board in Uro as an alt win condition against control, using Crab to mill yourself for fuel.
Green is too broken until Wizards fixes things with bans

[Zoid]

Good points.

When I tried testing UB mill in Legacy (moderate success, but never got that far), I ran 0 Crabs main and boarded in 4 Crabs postboard when their removal comes out. Otherwise like you said, maindeck Crab just soaks up their otherwise dead removal. The problem is with 8Crab that is not easy to do. You lose too much SB space. To play 8Crab at all, I think you need Crab main.

Maybe with 8 Crabs main it will be harder to answer all? Even if they have an immediate answer, the failcase is "U: Mill 6" with a fetchland, which is better than most other mill effects still.

4x Glimpse is probably correct. With Crabs main I moved the other 2 Glimpse to the SB (extra mill once they start playing around Archive Trap), but main may be better.

I don't like Mind Funeral in Legacy. It has potential, but this is also a faster format with combo decks that win before you hit 3 mana and tempo decks with Wasteland, Daze, Spell Pierce, FoW, Thalia, Port... It is just too easy to have that card blown out to invest 3 mana in one effect.

Devastation Tide looks like good silver bullet tech. Sadly you can't Miracle it off a cantrip that same turn, which means the opponent gets to draw their card first (if you didn't have a Crab to mill it) and that could just lose you the game. It seems like another card that would be much better in Modern, with less explosive opponents and without Legacy's cantrips to draw the symmetry card this turn. 95% of the time I cast Symmetry I draw the card the same turn. That's why I have 10 1-mana cantrips plus Mission Briefing.

What creature removal would you run maindeck? Fatal Push? Eliminate? Maybe it's just correct to splash green for Oko, Thief of Crowns...

EDIT: If you go to BUG, you get
Abrupt Decay for removal that beats removal + counters and also hate pieces like Chalice
Oko, Thief of Crowns for cheese that beats fair.dec and turn Crabs into Rogue Elephants
Crop Rotation which enables dumb stuff with Crab landfall as well as 1-of Bojuka Bog main
Veil of Summer to protect Archive Trap from counters and Crab from removal and your hand from discard
Green is too broken until Wizards fixes things with bans

Mind Funeral is good against xerox type decks which most likely slow you down significantly.
Your deck just sucks against storm in general since you don't do anything to stop them and fuel Cabal Rituals and PiF.
Main deck the best chance is to disrupt them with Surgicals if you don't mill their 1 wincon by accident.

Scheming Symmetry in general allows for a few silver bullets which I find appealing.
Obviously given that you don't die next turn.
Allows for more diversity in the SB.
Unless you're desperate, you only Scheme if you have Traps or other mill.
Also motivates at least a 1-off Funeral as Scheme target.

For removal, probably a split between Push and Eliminate, depending on the meta.
I liked Ensnaring Bridge but that may be too slow.
Also Oko, but then again, Oko is ok.

That leads me to the point that once you start splashing green your deck just becomes just a worse BUG pile.
But that's the format I guess.
One appeal of UB is that you can actually run a lot of basics and maybe 1 USea.
If you go full crab.dec 1-2 more lands might be ok.

[rufus]

Brain Freeze is another 2cc card that can do some milling.

I wonder how far a deck can get by really leaning into the landfall end of things with ramp spells for extra triggers and lands like Ipnu Rivulet, Cephalid Coliseum or Nephalia Drownyard.

[FTW]

Mind Funeral is good against xerox type decks which most likely slow you down significantly.

Actually good in practice, or do you just mean due to their low land count it has the potential to mill a lot of cards IF RESOLVED?

The last part seems hard. With Force of Will, Force of Negation, Daze, Wasteland, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Veil of Summer what are the chances of resolving a 3-mana mill spell against Xerox? With 0-2 mana mill spells you aren't blown out as badly by a cheap answer or mana denial.

Because of that, I'd expect Mind Funeral to perform much better against Maverick or Chalice decks than Xerox decks.

Scheming Symmetry in general allows for a few silver bullets which I find appealing.
Obviously given that you don't die next turn.
Allows for more diversity in the SB.
Unless you're desperate, you only Scheme if you have Traps or other mill.
Also motivates at least a 1-off Funeral as Scheme target.

Yeah, the silver bullet angle is appealing. Before 8 Crabs was possible, the maindeck had more room without sacrificing card selection or disruption. In the UB mill thread I tried out 1-ofs main like Toxic Deluge, Ravenous Trap, Ashiok, Dream Render. Force of Despair might be good.

Scheme + cantrip is much more consistent because then you get your card before they get theirs. You can Scheme into Trap and cast it immediately, also removing the card they got.

Passing the turn with Scheme is riskier in Legacy than Modern because:
-waiting a turn to get the card could be too slow vs what they already have on board and in hand
-they can Brainstorm into the card in response to your mill. Crab+fetch fights that, but you also lose your card unless you already drew it
-they can counter your non-Crab mill with FoW, FoN, Veil, Pierce. Crab+fetch also helps fight that

Basically I think 8Crab + fetchlands gives the Scheming Symmetry engine more resilience to be more Legacy viable.

I liked Ensnaring Bridge but that may be too slow.
Also Oko, but then again, Oko is ok.

Bridge is slower in Legacy (for non-Sol Land decks). It also has anti-synergy with holding Trap and counters in hand.

Brain Freeze is another 2cc card that can do some milling.

Brain Freeze seems good to build around, especially because Archive Trap "builds storm" as a 0-mana spell.

The mill lands seem too slow, not milling enough cards fast enough for the card it costs.

[sdematt]

Too bad the Wall that mills 4 isn't good enough...

What about Drown in the Loch for removal?

[Zoid]

Actually good in practice, or do you just mean due to their low land count it has the potential to mill a lot of cards IF RESOLVED?

The last part seems hard. With Force of Will, Force of Negation, Daze, Wasteland, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Veil of Summer what are the chances of resolving a 3-mana mill spell against Xerox? With 0-2 mana mill spells you aren't blown out as badly by a cheap answer or mana denial.

Because of that, I'd expect Mind Funeral to perform much better against Maverick or Chalice decks than Xerox decks.

Yeah, the silver bullet angle is appealing. Before 8 Crabs was possible, the maindeck had more room without sacrificing card selection or disruption. In the UB mill thread I tried out 1-ofs main like Toxic Deluge, Ravenous Trap, Ashiok, Dream Render. Force of Despair might be good.

Scheme + cantrip is much more consistent because then you get your card before they get theirs. You can Scheme into Trap and cast it immediately, also removing the card they got.

Passing the turn with Scheme is riskier in Legacy than Modern because:
-waiting a turn to get the card could be too slow vs what they already have on board and in hand
-they can Brainstorm into the card in response to your mill. Crab+fetch fights that, but you also lose your card unless you already drew it
-they can counter your non-Crab mill with FoW, FoN, Veil, Pierce. Crab+fetch also helps fight that

Basically I think 8Crab + fetchlands gives the Scheming Symmetry engine more resilience to be more Legacy viable.

Bridge is slower in Legacy (for non-Sol Land decks). It also has anti-synergy with holding Trap and counters in hand.

Well, your arguments concerning xerox pretty much apply to anything.
One of the problems of the archetype is that it can easily run out of steam.
That's btw also why I would play 4 Visions.

I also remembered why Ashiok sucks most of the time:
She blocks Archive Trap.
While it's nice that the opponent can't search with Symmetry, blanking the best card in the deck seems unwise.

As I tried to say before, I would never play Symmetry if I couldn't get rid of the card he searched.
Since you don't have good cantrips in modern the draw angle doesn't exist there.
However you should keep in mind that the deck might not have enough lands in play to support UB + whatever in 1 turn.
Most of the time I want to go for Trap anyway since that's your plan.
Having effectively 8 Forces is also nice even though the deck really doesn't want to pitch anything.

I just mentioned Bridge because it fit better in the modern deck and is an option depending on the meta.
You also shouldn't underestimate how quickly you hand runs empty if you can't create any card advantage ever.

A thing to not about Symmetry is also that it's super good against idiots.
A lot of my opponents took way too long to catch on to the plan and not put any of their good cards on top.
It might be difficult against Brainstorm decks however if you can not back it up with another mill to make sure he doesn't get the card.

[Mr. Safety]

I feel like there is a SpongeBob pun somewhere in the works to name this deck...Krabby Patty? Mr. Krabs? Krusty Krab?

[t000]

I feel like there is a SpongeBob pun somewhere in the works to name this deck...Krabby Patty? Mr. Krabs? Krusty Krab?

I like your thoughts Mr. Safety :)

[ronco]

I also remembered why Ashiok sucks most of the time:
She blocks Archive Trap.
While it's nice that the opponent can't search with Symmetry, blanking the best card in the deck seems unwise.

Kind of a nitpick, but it doesn't blank Symmetry, the opponent still must search (since it wasn't their ability that caused it). This keeps trap live for those instances, but yes, in others without symmetry it does prevent them from searching on their own.

[FTW]

Brazen Borrower might help with other problems, maybe SB. A lot of the creatures we worry about racing are 20/20 or 15/15 or weenie flyers that get ambushed by a 3/1 flash. Crabs already block ground dorks.

Well, your arguments concerning xerox pretty much apply to anything.

Well, anything that costs 3+ mana. With 0-2 mana spells you only invested 0-2 mana. I don't run other 3-mana mill spells either.

It hurts more to have an expensive spell countered than a cheaper spell countered. The expensive spell is also more likely to be stopped by Daze, Wasteland, Spell Pierce, Thalia etc., while you might be able to dodge the tax with the cheap spell. If a cheap spell gets countered, you may still have resources to play disruption or cantrip into more gas, while the expensive spell probably tapped you out and Time Walked you.

It's the reason Legacy Burn doesn't play 3-mana burn like Ball Lightning. Great damage output for 1 card, but if it gets disrupted you get blown out too badly. High variance. Tempo matters much more in Legacy than Modern.

Basically Mind Funeral is just a very high variance card, both because of its own ability and because it's a 3 mana sorcery.

One of the problems of the archetype is that it can easily run out of steam.
That's btw also why I would play 4 Visions.

I ran 4 Visions in some of my builds. It's great sometimes but weak early, and it's arguably not better than the 4th Ponder. Brainstorm and Ponder are better than anything in Modern and already help a bit with the gas problem compared to Modern. Modern has terribad cantrips so of course 4 Visions would come in first. Visions is also garbage postboard when bringing in gravehate, so I board it out a lot.

I also remembered why Ashiok sucks most of the time:
She blocks Archive Trap.
While it's nice that the opponent can't search with Symmetry, blanking the best card in the deck seems unwise.

Ashiok, Dream Render only blocks their own effects (fetchlands, GSZ). It doesn't block forced searches from your own effects like Symmetry and Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile, meaning you can still force through Trap with Symmetry. Still, losing the free Traps from fetches is a relevant drawback.

Edit: ronco Ninjitsu'd me with Ninja of the Deep Hours

As I tried to say before, I would never play Symmetry if I couldn't get rid of the card he searched.
Since you don't have good cantrips in modern the draw angle doesn't exist there.
However you should keep in mind that the deck might not have enough lands in play to support UB + whatever in 1 turn.
Most of the time I want to go for Trap anyway since that's your plan.

Most of the time I played it I would search for Trap. Trap costs 0, so you just need UB+0, which is pretty easy. FoW/FoN/Surgical are also free, and Surgical also shuffles away their top card.

Anyway I was talking about the cases where you need a silver bullet answer like Devastation Tide. Those are game states where you're way behind. In those states, you may not always be able to resolve a mill effect through their disruption and potential draw effects. So if you're running 1-of slots like that, it's relevant if they're still good even when you can't mill the opponent.

It might be difficult against Brainstorm decks however if you can not back it up with another mill to make sure he doesn't get the card.

Brainstorm is 50% of Legacy... We need a plan for that. Brainstorm was one of the biggest issues we had in earlier UB Mill tests. 8Crab could be a clean answer to that.

Edit: OP, nice beginnings of a primer
For Landfall-mill you might want to look at some green land enabling cards too like
Crop Rotation
Summer Bloom
Life from the Loam
Knight of the Reliquary
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Ramunap Excavator
Mystic Sanctuary

[Zoid]

Yeah the Ashiok comment is a fail on my side.

Anyway, after a bit more thinking, I suppose that there are 2 decks here which do slightly different things.
One is a spell based turbo mill, while the other is a grindier crab deck.

This is the crab thread so let's go maximum sideways scuttle.



Since your plan is now sea food based, you have to identify the natural predators.


(Interesting what you can find if you put some work into your shitposts.)

These include:

• Any removal
• Counters
• Chalice 1
• Losing in general

So how to prevent this?
The package 4x (FoW, BS, Ponder, Daze) seems to be set since crabs are also blue.
Daze can also be used to recur lands.
You can either focus on more counters (Spell Pierce or maybe Disrupt) or protection (e.g. Dive Down).
A 1-off Volrath's Stronghold could maybe be used to recycle crabs.
Shapers' Sanctuary can help you find protection or more crabs in case you don't have a counter.
One might want to consider Cavern of Souls to not autolose to Chalice.
This has the upside (???) of also enabling Iceberg Cancrix (maybe with snow basics and astrolabe) and giant enemy crabs (Charix, the Raging Isle).

The next topic is the ecosystem.
As our crabs flourish from landslides we have to work on that.
Fetchlands are an obvious choice.
Exploration could be cute to also accelerate.
Crop Rotation allows for utility that can also prevent you from dying like Glacial Chasm and Life from the Loam can recur the fetches.
On that note, Ipnu Rivulet might be playable.
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clounds seems always useful in case you have spare land drops available.
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath might be a bit expensive but he also assists in not perishing while providing a backup plan in case your crustaceans go extinct.
Mystic Sanctuary is fetchable and reuse some mill spells.
The problem is to balance the deck so that it synergizes with the crabs but is not crap without crabs.

That also leads into the question of how much we want our crabs to settle in more muddy habitats.
Scheming Symmetry seems too good to not play as it enables Archive Trap and searches for more mill cards.
Glimpse the Unthinkable is the 2nd best mill spell which probably want to run as well.
Mind Funeral can have a lot of variance but if you go for lands you could probably afford to cast it. Depending on the matchup and the previous milling efforts it might be lethal.
Extirpate seems more like a sideboard card but could be handy against decks with low threat diversity.
Surgical Extraction doesn't require black and I would heavily encourage a non-zero number in the main deck to not lose to mom's spaghetti monster.
Black in general provides removal which you probably need for your crabs to reach maturity.
Abrupt Decay also helps with party poopers like Chalice.

If you don't want to run black you probably should look into Field of Ruin since it forces a search to activate your trap card and excites your crabs as well.
Not running black comes with the bonus of allowing for a more robust mana base with more utility slots.

At this point, most of the available side dishes have been already discussed.
We have probably run of slot halfway through this pile of crab.
I'm also low on ideas and contextual maymays.

[Zoid]

Zoid out

[t000]

Since your plan is now sea food based, you have to identify the natural predators.


(Interesting what you can find if you put some work into your shitposts.)

Oh wow Zoid! You just lifted this tread up to a whole other level Glad you, FTW and the rest of the guys joined us!

Our current results shows us that runnning 8 crabs and protection, might be more efficiant than running Arcum's Astrolabe and Iceberg Cancrix. As these cards are some what conditional. Iceberg Cancrix has a 2 CMC and only works with Snow Lands and Astrolabe. Phantasmal Image is also an option. Its main goal is a Crab, so it might then be a "dead" card in hand for a couple of rounds, but can as a last resort target opponents creatures. Thus its brutal against S&T and Reanimator decks.

We have been play-testing with different types of "Crab Protection", either hexproof or bounce. If we dont have any Crabs on the beach, the Hexproof cards might be a "dead" card in hand for a couple of rounds. Bounce cards can always be used as a last resort on opponent´s combo pieces or big creatures. Chain of Vapor beegin our current favourite: we can sac our own lands to bounce more Crabs. If we bounce opponents non-land permanent they can sacs lands, getting our Crabs bounced, which is no big deal. Only dangerous against Cascade and ETB abilities.

Maby we can find some ETB cards to abuse?

Any thoughts on this?


// Hexproof/Shroud (protection)
Robe of Mirrors
Diplomatic Immunity
Lightning Greaves
Lazotep Plating
Dive Down

//Bounce (protection)
Chain of Vapor
Curfew
Rescue
Saving Grasp
Vapor Snag
Boomerang
Call to Heel
Echoing Truth
Winds of Rebuke


PS: Bounce cards can also handle our worst nightmare the Crab Pot (Leyline of Sanctity).


(Source: howstuffworks.com)

[Zoid]

Oh wow Zoid! You just lifted this tread up to a whole other level Glad you, FTW and the rest of the guys joined us!

Our current results shows us that runnning 8 crabs and protection, might be more efficiant than running Arcum's Astrolabe and Iceberg Cancrix. As these cards are some what conditional. Iceberg Cancrix has a 2 CMC and only works with Snow Lands and Astrolabe. Phantasmal Image is also an option. Its main goal is a Crab, so it might then be a "dead" card in hand for a couple of rounds, but can as a last resort target opponents creatures. Thus its brutal against S&T and Reanimator decks.

We have been play-testing with different types of "Crab Protection", either hexproof or bounce. If we dont have any Crabs on the beach, the Hexproof cards might be a "dead" card in hand for a couple of rounds. Bounce cards can always be used as a last resort on opponent´s combo pieces or big creatures. Chain of Vapor beegin our current favourite: we can sac our own lands to bounce more Crabs. If we bounce opponents non-land permanent they can sacs lands, getting our Crabs bounced, which is no big deal. Only dangerous against Cascade and ETB abilities.

Maby we can find some ETB cards to abuse?

Any thoughts on this?


// Hexproof/Shroud (protection)
Robe of Mirrors
Diplomatic Immunity
Lightning Greaves
Lazotep Plating
Dive Down

//Bounce (protection)
Chain of Vapor
Curfew
Rescue
Saving Grasp
Vapor Snag
Boomerang
Call to Heel
Echoing Truth
Winds of Rebuke


PS: Bounce cards can also handle our worst nightmare the Crab Pot (Leyline of Sanctity).


(Source: howstuffworks.com)

It's good to see that my quality post has been appreciated.
Feel free to reuse anything if you want to.

Cancrix was mainly for the meme because I also think it's not good enough.

Phantasmal Image has the large downsides of not doing anything on it's own and dying to removal, regardless of what you do.

In my opinion counters are more flexible than protection since they can also do things if you're currently crabless.
Bounce however can be really good situational to bounce certain avatars or angler fishes.

Lazotep Plating costs 2 but at least also shields from combo and discard so it might be worth a shot.

Bonus: Leyline only works against the older, crustier crab, the new one mills each opponent.

[t000]

- So where does the Crabs want to go? To the Forest, Swamp, Plains, Mountains or just keep dancing on the Island? *ref Zoid post.

We are pretty convinced that mono-u-crab will miss out on a lot of good cards, therefore we have started testing both UB and UW packages. The UB package didn't have room for Ashiok, but we have been testing 2 of him in UW as he can be cast for 1UU. Yes missing out on Glimpse the Unthinkable by going UW seems non-responsible, but has shown to actually be pretty good. The Path to Exile and Disenchant has proven to be verry good in legacy. Path to Exile combos superb with Archive Trap and Disenchant has until now been a awsome MB protection against Crab Pot (Leyline of Sanctity) Chalice of the Void and other pesticides. So in other words, what you loose in "mill-cards" from B will save you from dying T2 S&T/Reanimator/Eldrazi and keeping the deck pretty consistent in both sustainability and the mill efficiency (due to Trap synergic). Rest in Peace can also give us a SB Helm-combo, but we have not seen the need.

package:
//MB
Fatal Push
Drown in the Loch
Scheming Symmetry
Glimpse the Unthinkable
// SB
Leyline of the Void

package:
//MB
Path to Exile
Disenchant
Ashiok, Dream Render
+ some more U cards
// SB
Rest in Peace
Swords to Plowshares

This will need more testing. You guys have any thouhgts? Any cards you can think off?

[Zoid]

- So where does the Crabs want to go? To the Forest, Swamp, Plains, Mountains or just keep dancing on the Island? *ref Zoid post.

We are pretty convinced that mono-u-crab will miss out on a lot of good cards, therefore we have started testing both UB and UW packages. The UB package didn't have room for Ashiok, but we have been testing 2 of him in UW as he can be cast for 1UU. Yes missing out on Glimpse the Unthinkable by going UW seems non-responsible, but has shown to actually be pretty good. The Path to Exile and Disenchant has proven to be verry good in legacy. Path to Exile combos superb with Archive Trap and Disenchant has until now been a awsome MB protection against Crab Pot (Leyline of Sanctity) Chalice of the Void and other pesticides. So in other words, what you loose in "mill-cards" from B will save you from dying T2 S&T/Reanimator/Eldrazi and keeping the deck pretty consistent in both sustainability and the mill efficiency (due to Trap synergic). Rest in Peace can also give us a SB Helm-combo, but we have not seen the need.

package:
//MB
Fatal Push
Drown in the Loch
Scheming Symmetry
Glimpse the Unthinkable
// SB
Leyline of the Void

package:
//MB
Path to Exile
Disenchant
Ashiok, Dream Render
+ some more U cards
// SB
Rest in Peace
Swords to Plowshares

This will need more testing. You guys have any thouhgts? Any cards you can think off?

White seems super bad.
Path not only requires your opponents to play creatures but is also an optional search.
The only way I can see Path to be ok if you have already assembled a team of crabvengers and one is about to be boiled.

Ashiok not only costs 3, but she/it (?) also doesn't defend neither itself or you.
She may crab you opponent by the balls and block his searches but then you really need a Symmetry or Field of Ruin.
The mill is also slow and stops both Surgical like effects as well as Visions.

I would maybe start of with something like this:

Crab Rotation.dec

4 Hedron Crab
4 Ruin Crab
2 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3 Exploration
4 Crop Rotation
4 Archive Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Ipnu Rivulet
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Field of Ruin
2 Life from the Loam
2 Scheming Symmetry

Can't be bothered with tags.
Might be a bit slow and can't deal well with things it can't counter but might be more resilient.