While I realize that this is a milling deck, the deck is NOTHING BUT mill. Here's the problem -- you will likely be dead, very quickly. You have absolutely nothing to stop creatures (since I doubt you will want to block with hedron crab).
Remove 12 to 16 mill cards (depends on what you want to remove, I'll leave that up to you) and replace them with defensive cards. The idea here is that rather than spamming mill effects, you have spells that will keep you alive long enough for your mill spells to work.
I agree, you are likely to get run over by pretty much any creature-based deck before you can do enough work. Sure, all you really need is a traumatize and a keening stone, but even with a few fabricate in there i think you're going to be hard pressed to race fast enough for anything. Once somebody sees what your plans are, they will likely feel comfortable sitting back and waiting to either counter your big mill spells or nuke your stone before you can get it running.
To back up mondu's advice, I would suggest you start by cutting
2 Grindclock - without proliferate or extra untaps this is going to be too slow to make a difference
1 Forced Fruition - 7 cards for every spell may seem like a lot, but without any way to stop them or respond you are just letting them find exactly what they want to shut you down
2-4 Traumatize - I tend to think that if mill is doing its job well, by the time you can cast traumatize half of the library won't seem as impressive for five mana
That opens up some space to protect yourself, but the rest of the cuts are up to you. I don't know what your budget is here, I kind of went all out when I put together my mill. For creatures I have Hedron Crab, Dimir Infiltrator, and Nemesis of Reason. I run a full four mind funeral and a full four glimpse the unthinkable. I have a few Mesmeric Orb and a few Sword of Body and Mind. The infiltrator is a beast as he can transmute for a glimpse, an orb, a counter, a kill spell, a signet, and he doubles as a blocker in a pinch and a beastly sword carrier (free glimpse plus another chump blocker? yes please). Nemesis speeds up the clock late game as he can absorb most threats and mill ten every turn. I the orb is far better than Forced Fruition I think, as they have to consider every spell, every tap ability, every attack, and unless they are a graveyard based deck (which is going to be rough to deal with no matter what) you aren't giving them any advantage compared to fruition.
I'm on the fence about Fabricate here. Without the clocks it can only find you a signet or the stone, and I feel like if you are so mana tight you need to tutor your signet you are probably already in trouble. If you love the stone too much to drop it, add 1 or 2 more and lose the Fabricates.
I admit that my list can probably use more control/protection itself, but its usually fast enough to not matter much. If you want I can post my full list, I've been meaning to get it written down anyway.
I have a mill deck and it uses slivers to wreak havock on my opponent. Screeching Sliver lets you mill for one, but multiply that times however many slivers are on the board each with that ability and it's a potent strategy.
In the late game I tend to use Mindcrank to keep milling while damaging my opponent. Here's an example of the mill deck I run.
Although some cards in this deck are good, they just really lack the punch for a solid mill deck.
Although slivers are a good type of creature, usually sliver decks are all or nothing to really get the best benefits. Instead of slivers I could see pretty big walls being a better option, such as wall of denial, Wall of Frost, or one of my personal favorite trump blockers, Kathari Remnant. Dreamborn Muse is mostly good only if your deck thrives on making your opponent mill via massive draw engines (Ontop of this, it also can mill you). As a result, I would take her out. Since your creatures aren't too oriented on dealing combat damage, you could easily take out mindcrank for something more helpful, such as a 2nd keening stone.
Admittingly, Sanity Grinding is an EXTREMELY good card, but moreso in more mono-colored decks. Depending on how you want to make your mill deck can make or break this card into something fantastic, or just another meh card. I, personally would stick with blue black and drop white. Keep the evolving wilds though since that can be a trigger engine for the crabs. A fairly solid card considering the return of flashback and other graveyard effects is Ravenous Trap, which can easily become a 0 drop with milling.
Personally, I would work the deck moreso like this...
Once again, this is just my opinion, and you are free to take what you will from it. This allows alot more emphasis on the blue aspects of the deck, let alone allows Sanity Grinding to potentially hit ALOT harder. Living Tsunami is in here to bounce lands back to your hand to play them once more to trigger hedron crab's landfall ability. Walking Atlas allows you to play lands down at instant speed. Ravenous Trap, although less useful than Haunting Echoes in terms of how mean it is, can become a 0 drop easily with mill, and as a result can get rid of any nasty stuff that's been dropped into their graveyard that could potentially hinder you. Unsummon was a preferable choice over doom blade in some ways, although not all ways. Reasons for unsummon is A. It allows you to bounce back Kethari Remnant for another cascade, let alone can be used to save him after declaring blockers, B. Can bounce other various threats on the board, and C. Helps boost the effect of Sanity Grinding. Bouncing an opponents creature, however, is only a temporary solution, so it more or less is a matter of what your favoring.
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There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
A friend of mine actually ran his in Esper colors (WUB) just to use Path to Exile and Archive Trap, which, from my own experience of getting hit by this at least once a game, it's worth it. Telemin Performance is like a Mind Control that mills the library and nets you a dude.
Evacuation does a lot more work than a normal bounce or kill spell and can buy you several turns (especially with Propaganda and counters). It's an instant and is cheaper than Damnation, so I suggested it.
Jace, Memory Adept is expensive but worth it for blue mill. Jace Beleren takes five turns to hit his milling specific ultimate (all the while giving the opponent 5 cards, which can be very bad for a control deck), but at the worst you could just use him like a one-sided Howling Mine (the -1).
A turn 2 Glimpse, a turn 3 Mind Funeral and a turn 4 Sanity Grinding can often win games by themselves. Tome Scour might not even be needed, truthfully.
Mono blue mill works just as well, by the way. I'd recommend Godhead of Awe in the event of going mono blue because Sanity Grinding does work with her. Getting hit by a Grinding that reveals two Godheads, a Grinding, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Cryptic Command and various one blue cost cards is a pain in the ass (during Lorwyn Standard I was repeatedly hit for 16-24 off Sanity Grindings on the third turn. I hated TurboFog sooooo much).
PEW PEW. You guys are great help. ok revised again with suggestions. And 4 glimpse the unthinkable really isn't in my budget that's why I decided to take them out.
Looking much better, but one thing to keep in mind with Godhead of Awe is that this also effects your creatures as well. Godhead is usually put into pump decks because modifiers are applied after they are all 1/1's (example, I have honor of the pure out, all my creatures are all 1/1's that get +1/+1 from honor). Because of this, and how your deck works, I feel that it might be wiser to have either Dominus of Fealty or Overbeing of Myth. Overbeing is a draw engine and helps support Sanity Grinding just as well as the others, whilst Dominus can be used against your opponent in a multitude of ways, although it is slightly dependent on the opponents side.
If you are going to stick with Godhead, however, it may be a good idea to include something such as Glen Elendra Liege to give a big boost to the rest of your creatures so they won't exactly be 1/1's but instead 1/1's with +1/+1 or +2/+2 if they are both of those colors.
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There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
Feldon's Cane is pretty good. Despite this, I personally prefer Elixir of Immortality, or any of the legendary eldrazi (although they are a tad expensive).
Although you are likely not to be fighting these big guys, they are the main reason why I recommended the Ravenous Trap, which is instant speed and can respond to the eldrazi's ability triggering in the graveyard. If used in response, you'd exile all their cards in their graveyard (including the eldrazi), THEN they would shuffle, which at this point there is nothing to shuffle.
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There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
If you're playing the painter's stone combo, then your deck should concentrate on bringing out the combo. Remove all the other mill effects and replace them with tutors, draw, and defensive spells.
I have a new deck idea for milling
Howling mind accelerates your opponent more than you. The additional mil or damage it provides is not worth the beatdown that you get from it. In fact, there is about 2 decks that can use howling mine -- owling mine and stasis. It does not belong it any other deck.
Avoid using cards like shield sphere, or similar wall-like spells. You are better off with creature kill spells.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
There is a blue/artifact mill deck in my deck corner, i would just copy and paste it in your thread but i am posting from my phone. It is one of my favorite decks to play with.
If you want to go Mill, go B/U, straight up. Glimpse the unthinkable and mind funeral, brutal. Archive trap (which is popular but I don't use it) and, as mentioned, Extirpate/Surgical Extraction plus spot removal and early discard if you decide to go that route. Dimir cutpurse, dimir infiltrator, consult the necrosages.
Evolving Winds X4
Terramorphic Expanse X4
Traumatize X4
Sadistic Sacrement X4
Mind Funeral X2
Dreamborn Muse X3
Grindclock X2
Sanity Grinding X3
Forced Fruition X1
Fabricate X4
Keening Stone X2
Tome Scour X4
Dimir Signet X4
Island X10
Swamp X5
Anyone have any ideas on how to possibly maximize the efficency, because when I play it, it doesnt seem to get cards out to mill fast enough. Thanks
4 Evolving Winds
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Traumatize
4 Sadistic Sacrement
2 Mind Funeral
3 Dreamborn Muse
2 Grindclock
3 Sanity Grinding
1 Forced Fruition
4 Fabricate
2 Keening Stone
4 Tome Scour
4 Dimir Signet
5 Swamp
I'm on my way out. I'll come back with some thoughts on this.
My YouTube Channel
Since you're playing blue and black, you have 6 defensive options -- (1) discard (duress, thoughtseize, and the like) (2) creature kill (doomblade, innocent blood, damnation, diabolic edict, etc), (3) countermagic (counterspell, mana leak, remand, powersink, etc) (4) bounce (echoing truth, chain of vapor, evacuation, etc) (5) board wipe (nevinyrral's disk, powder keg, (6) creature control (control magic, vedalken shackles). You can also use propaganda to delay attackers, although you're going to need more cards to support it.
Remove 12 to 16 mill cards (depends on what you want to remove, I'll leave that up to you) and replace them with defensive cards. The idea here is that rather than spamming mill effects, you have spells that will keep you alive long enough for your mill spells to work.
Remove 4 more mill cards, then add draw spells, like ancestral vision, fact or fiction, or phyrexian arena. With 8 shuffle effects, even a brainstorm would be good. jace, the mind sculptor if you can get a hold of some.
Since you're playing with Traumatize, you might want to consider haunting echoes.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
To back up mondu's advice, I would suggest you start by cutting
2 Grindclock - without proliferate or extra untaps this is going to be too slow to make a difference
1 Forced Fruition - 7 cards for every spell may seem like a lot, but without any way to stop them or respond you are just letting them find exactly what they want to shut you down
2-4 Traumatize - I tend to think that if mill is doing its job well, by the time you can cast traumatize half of the library won't seem as impressive for five mana
That opens up some space to protect yourself, but the rest of the cuts are up to you. I don't know what your budget is here, I kind of went all out when I put together my mill. For creatures I have Hedron Crab, Dimir Infiltrator, and Nemesis of Reason. I run a full four mind funeral and a full four glimpse the unthinkable. I have a few Mesmeric Orb and a few Sword of Body and Mind. The infiltrator is a beast as he can transmute for a glimpse, an orb, a counter, a kill spell, a signet, and he doubles as a blocker in a pinch and a beastly sword carrier (free glimpse plus another chump blocker? yes please). Nemesis speeds up the clock late game as he can absorb most threats and mill ten every turn. I the orb is far better than Forced Fruition I think, as they have to consider every spell, every tap ability, every attack, and unless they are a graveyard based deck (which is going to be rough to deal with no matter what) you aren't giving them any advantage compared to fruition.
I'm on the fence about Fabricate here. Without the clocks it can only find you a signet or the stone, and I feel like if you are so mana tight you need to tutor your signet you are probably already in trouble. If you love the stone too much to drop it, add 1 or 2 more and lose the Fabricates.
I admit that my list can probably use more control/protection itself, but its usually fast enough to not matter much. If you want I can post my full list, I've been meaning to get it written down anyway.
In the late game I tend to use Mindcrank to keep milling while damaging my opponent. Here's an example of the mill deck I run.
4 Glacial Fortress
10 Island
4 Plains
2 Terramorphic Expanse
// Creatures
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Screeching Sliver
2 Shifting Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Disperse
4 Mana Leak
4 Memory Lapse
4 Mindcrank
3 Spirit Mirror
3 Unnatural Selection
4 Evolving Winds
2 Traumatize
4 Mind Funeral
1 Dreamborn Muse
2 Sanity Grinding
1 Keening Stone
3 Crystalline Sliver
3 Screeching Sliver
2 Shifting Sliver
3 Mindcrank
3 Doom Blade
3 Counterspell
3 Brainstorm
2 Nemesis of Reason
2 Haunted Echoes
7 Swamp
5 Plains
4 Hedron Crab
1 Dreamborn Muse
3 Crystalline Sliver
3 Screeching Sliver
2 Shifting Sliver
2 Nemesis of Reason
1 Keening Stone
3 Mindcrank
Instants: 12
3 Tome Scour
3 Doom Blade
3 Counterspell
3 Brainstorm
2 Traumatize
4 Mind Funeral
2 Sanity Grinding
2 Haunting Echoes
Lands: 23
4 Evolving Wilds
7 Island
7 Swamp
5 Plains
Although some cards in this deck are good, they just really lack the punch for a solid mill deck.
Although slivers are a good type of creature, usually sliver decks are all or nothing to really get the best benefits. Instead of slivers I could see pretty big walls being a better option, such as wall of denial, Wall of Frost, or one of my personal favorite trump blockers, Kathari Remnant. Dreamborn Muse is mostly good only if your deck thrives on making your opponent mill via massive draw engines (Ontop of this, it also can mill you). As a result, I would take her out. Since your creatures aren't too oriented on dealing combat damage, you could easily take out mindcrank for something more helpful, such as a 2nd keening stone.
Admittingly, Sanity Grinding is an EXTREMELY good card, but moreso in more mono-colored decks. Depending on how you want to make your mill deck can make or break this card into something fantastic, or just another meh card. I, personally would stick with blue black and drop white. Keep the evolving wilds though since that can be a trigger engine for the crabs. A fairly solid card considering the return of flashback and other graveyard effects is Ravenous Trap, which can easily become a 0 drop with milling.
Personally, I would work the deck moreso like this...
4 Hedron Crab
4 Walking Atlas
4 Kethari Remnant
2 Living Tsunami
2 Nemesis of Reason
2 Keening Stone
Instants: 12
3 Counterspell
3 Tome Scour
2 Unsummon
2 Brainstorm
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Traumatize
4 Mind Funeral
4 Sanity Grinding
Lands: 22
4 Evolving Wilds
10 island
6 swamp
Once again, this is just my opinion, and you are free to take what you will from it. This allows alot more emphasis on the blue aspects of the deck, let alone allows Sanity Grinding to potentially hit ALOT harder. Living Tsunami is in here to bounce lands back to your hand to play them once more to trigger hedron crab's landfall ability. Walking Atlas allows you to play lands down at instant speed. Ravenous Trap, although less useful than Haunting Echoes in terms of how mean it is, can become a 0 drop easily with mill, and as a result can get rid of any nasty stuff that's been dropped into their graveyard that could potentially hinder you. Unsummon was a preferable choice over doom blade in some ways, although not all ways. Reasons for unsummon is A. It allows you to bounce back Kethari Remnant for another cascade, let alone can be used to save him after declaring blockers, B. Can bounce other various threats on the board, and C. Helps boost the effect of Sanity Grinding. Bouncing an opponents creature, however, is only a temporary solution, so it more or less is a matter of what your favoring.
There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
Special Thanks to Spiderboy4 at //forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=91142">High~Light Studios for making an awesome avatar in a timely manner!
Memory Erosion does decent work on it's own (I find it better than Jace's Erasure in decks that don't run Brainstorm).
A friend of mine actually ran his in Esper colors (WUB) just to use Path to Exile and Archive Trap, which, from my own experience of getting hit by this at least once a game, it's worth it. Telemin Performance is like a Mind Control that mills the library and nets you a dude.
A decent UB mill deck might look like this:
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
4x Mind Funeral
4x Sanity Grinding
4x Cryptic Command
4x Counterspell
4x Evacuation
25x Land
Evacuation does a lot more work than a normal bounce or kill spell and can buy you several turns (especially with Propaganda and counters). It's an instant and is cheaper than Damnation, so I suggested it.
Jace, Memory Adept is expensive but worth it for blue mill. Jace Beleren takes five turns to hit his milling specific ultimate (all the while giving the opponent 5 cards, which can be very bad for a control deck), but at the worst you could just use him like a one-sided Howling Mine (the -1).
A turn 2 Glimpse, a turn 3 Mind Funeral and a turn 4 Sanity Grinding can often win games by themselves. Tome Scour might not even be needed, truthfully.
Mono blue mill works just as well, by the way. I'd recommend Godhead of Awe in the event of going mono blue because Sanity Grinding does work with her. Getting hit by a Grinding that reveals two Godheads, a Grinding, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Cryptic Command and various one blue cost cards is a pain in the ass (during Lorwyn Standard I was repeatedly hit for 16-24 off Sanity Grindings on the third turn. I hated TurboFog sooooo much).
Sig and Avatar drawn by me.
4 Hedron Crab
4 Walking Atlas
4 Kethari Remnant
2 Living Tsunami
2 Nemesis of Reason
1 Dominus of Fealty
1 Overbeing of Myth
2 Keening Stone
Instants: 14
3 Counterspell
3 Tome Scour
2 Unsummon
2 Brainstorm
2 Haunted Echoes
2 Archive Trap
2 Traumatize
4 Mind Funeral
4 Sanity Grinding
Lands: 22
4 Evolving Wilds
10 island
6 swamp
2 Terramorphic expanse
If you are going to stick with Godhead, however, it may be a good idea to include something such as Glen Elendra Liege to give a big boost to the rest of your creatures so they won't exactly be 1/1's but instead 1/1's with +1/+1 or +2/+2 if they are both of those colors.
There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
Special Thanks to Spiderboy4 at //forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=91142">High~Light Studios for making an awesome avatar in a timely manner!
The legendary eldrazi are Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Although you are likely not to be fighting these big guys, they are the main reason why I recommended the Ravenous Trap, which is instant speed and can respond to the eldrazi's ability triggering in the graveyard. If used in response, you'd exile all their cards in their graveyard (including the eldrazi), THEN they would shuffle, which at this point there is nothing to shuffle.
There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
Special Thanks to Spiderboy4 at //forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=91142">High~Light Studios for making an awesome avatar in a timely manner!
4 Hedron Crab
4 Walking Atlas
4 Will-o'-the-Wisp
2 Living Tsunami
2 Nemesis of Reason
1 Dreamborn Muse
1 Keening Stone
2 Jester's Cap
2 Grind Stone
2 Painter's Servant
Instants: 4
4 Brainstorm
Sorceries: 12
2 Traumatize
4 Mind Funeral
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
2 Mana Severance
4 Evolving Wilds
12 island
6 swamp
1 Painter's Servant
1 Grindstone
3 Font of Mythos
3 Howling Mine
2 Skullcage
1 Teferei's Puzzle Box
4 Mind Crank
4 Megrim
4 Jace's Erasure
4 Underworld Dreams
Creatures: 18
2 Kami of the Crescent Moon
4 Hedron Crab
1 Dreamborn Muse
4 Walking Atlas
4 Wall of Frost
3 Shield Sphere
12 Islands
8 Swamps
4 Terramorphic Expanse
IF you're playing against another mill deck, then play gaea's blessing rather than feldon's cane
If you're playing the painter's stone combo, then your deck should concentrate on bringing out the combo. Remove all the other mill effects and replace them with tutors, draw, and defensive spells.
Howling mind accelerates your opponent more than you. The additional mil or damage it provides is not worth the beatdown that you get from it. In fact, there is about 2 decks that can use howling mine -- owling mine and stasis. It does not belong it any other deck.
Avoid using cards like shield sphere, or similar wall-like spells. You are better off with creature kill spells.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
- Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- Intruder Alarm
- Hedron Crab
-or- making it blue and black and putting in ridiculous cards such as- Sadistic Sacrement
- Mind Funeral
- Traumatize
- Glimpse the Unthinkable
. Any thoughts?2 Myr Retrievers
Sorceries: 18
4 Careful Study
2 Compulsive Research
4 Fabricate
2 Mana Severance
2 Trade Secrets
4 Mind Funeral
3 Brainstorm
2 Quicken
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
Enchantments: 6
2 Leyline of Singularity
3 Propaganda
1 Dissipation Field
Artifacts: 12
2 Grinding Stone
2 Painter's Servant
2 Krark-Clan Ironworks
2 Scrapheap
2 Genesis Chamber
2 Mind Slaver
11 Islands
7 Swamps
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the awesome banner that is better than yours
4 Cephalid Broker
[B]Sorceries: 12[/B]
4 Careful Study
4 Compulsive Research
4 Fabricate
4 Brainstorm
4 Surgical Extraction
[B]Enchantments: 8[/B]
4 Propaganda
4 Telekinetic Bonds
4 Grinding Stone
4 Painter's Servant
[B]Lands: 22[/B]
11 Islands
7 Swamps
4 Lotus Vale