Against Tron lists a good call is to Extract some missing Urza land ASAP too. Many of them got stuck long enough for us to find other Extract thanks to Augur of Bolas or just Snapcasting it when we happen to find their Emrakul.
Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace were both decent solutions, but RIP shut off any Snapcaster tricks, and Leyline was inconsistent. One-shot effects like Relic or Crypt were problematic because sometimes you would face down multiple Eldrazis, forcing you to come up with multiple answers. At least Leyline/RIP handled it once and for all once they resolved (of course, both are themselves answerable with O-Stone and/or Decay).
So overall, the deck is both ill-positioned currently and lacking some critical piece.
I think that Leyline of the Void is really the only viable option. The deck requires tempo. If you're investing one of your turns into casting Rest in Peace, that's all the opponent needs to get a foothold and what he needs on board to get where he's going. You need to be doing something each turn. Surgical Extraction should be mainboarded anyways since you will mill crucial aspects of the opponent's deck and insta-gibbing them is necessary.
I personally have always through the UB Mill version was much stronger though. UW wants more of a controlling-grindy game and I just think mill is never strongly suited for that playstyle in competitive where all the opponent needs is 1 turn to blow you out.
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
I think that Leyline of the Void is really the only viable option. The deck requires tempo. If you're investing one of your turns into casting Rest in Peace, that's all the opponent needs to get a foothold and what he needs on board to get where he's going. You need to be doing something each turn. Surgical Extraction should be mainboarded anyways since you will mill crucial aspects of the opponent's deck and insta-gibbing them is necessary.
I personally have always through the UB Mill version was much stronger though. UW wants more of a controlling-grindy game and I just think mill is never strongly suited for that playstyle in competitive where all the opponent needs is 1 turn to blow you out.
To clarify, I have been running a UBg version of Mill that splashes green for some Nature's Claim action out of the board. Claim was just the best catch-all solution to both Affinity and Leyline of Sanctity, but I'm not wed to it and so was open to trying out white instead.
Here is my most recent list, although I haven't worked on it in a few weeks. My plan had been to run either this or Restore Balance at GP Detroit, but recent plans prevent me from going, so my deck developments have slowed of late:
Snapcaster Mage: Snappy was just too good to avoid. He's an awesome topdeck and is incredibly versatile, especially when using cards out of the board.
Crypt Incursion: Initially, I had 4 in the deck in anticipation of a creature-heavy metagame. But with the rise of BG Midrange and UWR Control, I was comfortable going back down to 2. You might even be able to justify cutting all of them for IoK or something similar, but that's a metagame call more than anything else.
Darkness: This card basically solved the aggro matchup, especially in tandem with Snappy. Fog effects are at their best when you are stalling towards a goal. Mill often needs just 1-2 more turns to seal a game, and Darkness buys you that time at just 1 mana. Unlike Incursion, which doesn't work against either Infect or Affinity Inkmoth beatdown, Darkness always stops creatures and buys you that extra turn. It even works against Twin (and Griselbrand Reanimator, to a lesser extent).
Hurkyl's Recall: Affinity makes up probably about 8-10% of the metagame, and it's a matchup we just can't afford to punt. With the Claims (versatile answers to a lot of threats), Darkness (also versatile for aggro), and the Recall (Affinity specific), we are much better positioned to take this matchup.
I'm not wedded to most of the choices and card quantities, so any suggestions and ideas are welcome. Whenever I played this deck, I felt like it was missing something that would make it good. In my ideal world, that would be a 3 CMC Grisly Spectacle - Cards like Thought Scour that increase our tempo by milling while providing an additional effect. Something like Broken Ambitions that actually works in our deck (Psychic Strike feels too weak in my testing).
Darkness seems interesting. Maybe I should test it in place of the edicts in SB. It helps against Infect, Affinity and those lists with solo finishers where usually Incursion can't get enough life for us.
I guess it was really what I was looking for to be honest ! - do wonder alongside Snapcaster as well.
Darkness really is something against a variety of matches: Infect/Affinity/Tempo.. basically every match which Incursion doesn't shine so much. Great SB card !
I actually played a really, really tough UW(b) mill deck last year. I was running Living End which mill is kind of laughable, but he had me clocked out in five turns.
He had just the right amount of counter magic, traps and mill effects to make it happen.
This deck is very fun to play, when we playtest we love the matches that come out
As for decks like tron, or uwr that have counted "finishers", can bitter ordeal be a viable SB option? gravestorm counts the permanents put in all graveyards, so there's a good chance to exile 2-3 good cards every time (bye bye emrakul)
Correct me if I am wrong, when you mill they are "cards" that go to the graveyard. They are only permanents while on the battlefield. Hence they would have to be on the Battlefield and then go to the Graveyard to count as a Gravestorm counter.
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My Modern decks: B/R/G Living End G/R/B G/R Tron R/G U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Spellskite seems good to keep our Crabs on board and passes the bolt test while doing this. Redirect some Path to him while Crab trigger his landfall normally may be fun as well.
Secondarily he can prevent burn to hit us with some U open, while surviving most of their spells.
Speaking about lists, my current SB since I playtested Darkness is:
04 Leyline of the Void
04 Darkness
04 Echoing Truth
03 Hurkyl's Recall
My plan against Leyline of Sanctity is to either land asap some Orb to eventually mill a copy of the enchantment then bounce + extract it, or to simply bounce it asap and quickly dig for some copy in their grave to extract as well. Too many pieces to work and not so effective =/
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I wish I had a tournament report regarding how the deck ran, but - even though I know of at least a half dozen people in my area going to GP Detroit - only 4 people decided to show for the GP Trial. Those were the people I carpooled with.
I don't like Ashiok; the overall design is crap (I can elaborate, I just prefer not to compose an essay at this time). I'm not sure if it's better or worse than Tibalt, though I'm leaning worse.
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Darkness is a nice call-I hadn't even thought of it. I had thought of trying out PtE to turn on the Archive Traps, but I'm running green currently for NClaim.
Not sure about the new Walker, what would it replace?
The problem with Ashiok is that he doesn't solve the main problems that this deck currently faces.
1) Doesn't deal with RG Tron
Tron is a big deal on MTGO right now, and that's bad news for Mill. You tend to see 1 Emrakul and 1 Ulamog, although even just 1 Emrakul is a big problem. Ashiok can't reliably hit that card, nor can he reliably steal creatures from RG Tron generally; the deck only runs 4-5 creatures total, so we generally get no mileage out of the -X. In my testing against RG Tron with Ashiok, he almost always gets killed around turn 4-5 by a Karn or an O-Stone. If he lasts longer, he is really easy for the Tron player to ignore until they cast something game ending.
2) Doesn't deal with Affinity
Affinity is just as big a deal on MTGO as RG Tron, which is worse news for Mill. The deck is fast, explosive, and can get around life gain through Infect. Even if you resolve big Incursions, Affinity can often brute force you back down to low life with just Plating and Overseer/Pest alone. Ashiok doesn't really address any of these issues in the Affinity matchup. He steals creatures, sure, but Affinity can either fly over the stolen creatures or just run them over with sheer numbers. None of those little guys will swing the game if we take it for our team. Theoretically, Ashiok buys us time if the Affinity player hits him instead of us, but any competent Affinity pilot will just ignore the low-impact walker and just go for the win.
3) Anti-synergistic with numerous Mill staples
Although Ashiok generally synergizes with our milling win condition, he doesn't synergize with some of our best cards. Surgical Extraction and Crypt Incursion rely on cards hitting the graveyard to work. Visions of Beyond also relies on a full graveyard. Ashiok doesn't help in any of those regards.
4) Only improves our already favorable matchups
Ashiok is very solid in the control matchup, where he provides strong inevitability at loyalty levels that you can't just burn away. He's also solid in the midrange matchup, where he mills cards and stalls out the game by stealing high value creatures. The trouble with this is that I already am winning those matchups before adding Ashiok. Sure, he makes those matchups even more favorable, but that comes at the expense of being terrible against the two most played decks on MTGO: RG Tron and Affinity.
The only way I can see Ashiok working is if he improves our control/midrange matchup so much that we can take out other cards to improve the aggro/tron ones. For example, if we ditched the 4 copies of Breaking for 2-3 Ashiok, that frees up 1-2 slots for other cards (the theory being that 2-3 Ashiok gives us more mileage against control than 4 Breaking). This could be a way to shore up our strong matchups while freeing up slots for weak ones.
But, and this is what I fear, Ashiok's inclusion could also just make our weak matchups even weaker.
Trapmaker's Snare is a great card indeed, but in my tests having a Surgical Extraction was almost always better than tutor some Ravenous Trap for graveyard issues.
Also, we don't play with permission/mana open given the major number of sorceries we run, so the scenario where we tutor some Archive Trap in response to some fetch land is unusual.
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I'm considering run Darkness MD instead of Crypt Incursion. Both do almost the same job - which is to delay the game time enough for us to surpass opponent's clock - however Darkness is way less mana expensive/circumstantial too.
The only 2 situations I'd see Incursion doing better are against some creature-heavy aggro, when we need more than a single turn to win and we can be assured to extract at least 15+ life points to stay a live for 2~3 turns more, or against grave-based lists (but then again, I'd prefer to have some Surgical Extraction instead of Incursion anyway). Darkness doesn't depends on what we milled to be effective and can stop Infect/Twin/Reanimator while we still mill them out, since it's way easier to keep one mana open than three sources.
Trapmaker's Snare is a great card indeed, but in my tests having a Surgical Extraction was almost always better than tutor some Ravenous Trap for graveyard issues.
Also, we don't play with permission/mana open given the major number of sorceries we run, so the scenario where we tutor some Archive Trap in response to some fetch land is unusual.
Ravenous Trap helps a lot against RG Tron. Emrakul is a nightmare for this deck. If you can bin him only after 1-2 mill spells and then fire the Extraction, he isn't that bad. But if you catch him after 3-4 spells, that reshuffle is just such a blowout even if you have the Extraction handy. And many RG Tron decks are packing Ulamog alongside Emrakul, which is basically game over on the spot. We just can't afford to waste 4 spells to then have the opponent's "life total" effectively reset. And Snare is a way to tutor up Ravenous, get more mileage out of Snappy, and get more consistency out of Archive.
I'm considering run Darkness MD instead of Crypt Incursion. Both do almost the same job - which is to delay the game time enough for us to surpass opponent's clock - however Darkness is way less mana expensive/circumstantial too.
To be honest, I have switched all of my Crypt Incursion to Darkness. The only matchup where I miss Incursion is Burn, but even there a) you can often prevent some 4-6 damage attacks from the creatures and b) the Incursions just aren't very big anyway. The fact that Darkness buys an extra turn against Twin is particularly important. It also gives us game in the Infect matchup (rare) and the Inkmoth win condition of Affinity (much more common). So I'm rocking 3 of them in the maindeck and 1 more in the board.
The biggest problem with Incursion, as you identify, is that awful mana cost. Turn 3 is a critical turn for this deck. If we can get off our turn 3 Breaking or Glimpse, then there is a very good chance that we can use Shelldock and/or Vision on turn 4. We can also potentially mill enough lands from the deck on turn 3 to guarantee a fatal Funeral on turn 4. But all of that is contingent on using our mana to win the game on turn 3. Incursion forces us to tap out which is a massive tempo blowout. Darkness, at one mana, completely gets around that. And with Snappy in the mix, you can actually use it again on turn 4 and STILL have mana for Vision/Crab/Scour. Incursion couldn't even be flashbacked until turn 5 and, when it was flashbacked, your effect was comparably minimal because you already exiled all the critters.
The biggest issue with Crypt Incursion I've found is that after the first one, setting up a second one takes a bit of effort. In my testing, I can get a healthy incursion for maybe 18 or 21 life sometimes, but after that playing a second one becomes a subpar play. At that point of the game they've got a board established and can be swinging in for much more than they did previously.
I'm in agreement, Darkness is quite the card. That and it's two mana cheaper. Holding off on 3 mana for an incursion rather than dropping a Glimpse + Darkness just doesn't compare.
Ravenous Trap helps a lot against RG Tron. Emrakul is a nightmare for this deck. If you can bin him only after 1-2 mill spells and then fire the Extraction, he isn't that bad. But if you catch him after 3-4 spells, that reshuffle is just such a blowout even if you have the Extraction handy. And many RG Tron decks are packing Ulamog alongside Emrakul, which is basically game over on the spot. We just can't afford to waste 4 spells to then have the opponent's "life total" effectively reset. And Snare is a way to tutor up Ravenous, get more mileage out of Snappy, and get more consistency out of Archive.
Well, if you run Trapmaker's Snare of course you should run a singleton Ravenous Trap, but still I believe the disruption Extraction gives us is considerably better in a majority of MU's.
It's so unusual for us tutoring some Archive Trap when we play tapped out for the first 3~4 turns that I almost never managed to catch some dude while fetching some land, but I can see how it could work - specially alongside Snappy.
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So, you cut off Incursions or put them on SB alongside the 4th Darkness copy ?
Well, if you run Trapmaker's Snare of course you should run a singleton Ravenous Trap, but still I believe the disruption Extraction gives us is considerably better in a majority of MU's.
It's so unusual for us tutoring some Archive Trap when we play tapped out for the first 3~4 turns that I almost never managed to catch some dude while fetching some land, but I can see how it could work - specially alongside Snappy.
I agree, but you will notice that Horo is using both Extraction and Snare/Ravenous. If he cut the Extraction for Snare/Ravenous, that would be a stupid mistake. But using both might be an improvement, and it certainly helps out the RG Tron matchup.
So, you cut off Incursions or put them on SB alongside the 4th Darkness copy ?
I have 2 Incursion in the board along with the 4th Darkness. I'm also running 4 Nature's Claim as a catch all against Leyline, Affinity, and Blood Moon, plus 4 Leyline of the Void as our means of reliably beating Emrakul and not inadvertently fueling GY strategies. That leaves 4 flex slots for metagame calls.
I made a tiny splash (1 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Godless Shrine + 2 Marsh Flats) for Leave No Trace in SB and eventual hard cast of Leyline of Sanctity: we suffer a lot from hand disruption, so it seemed right to add in SB.
Slaughter Pact to dispose off some key creatures for free at critical moments and Hurkyl's Recall for Affinity.
Some of the interesting inclusions include 3 maindecked Path and 3 maindecked Orb. He's also running Crypt Incursion in lieu of Darkness, which I suppose is to be expected given how much we see Incursion online (still think Darkness is mostly better in most matches). His Esper tech versus Tron appears to be Rest in Peace out of the board. He's also got Disenchant and Echoing Truth as some other bullets. I transcribed his list, to the best of my abilities, below:
I disagree with some of those slots from my testing, but maybe there was a justification for the cards. Pros sometimes test their lists extensively before events, but other times they whip it together in a few sessions or even hours. So there's nothing "sacred", persay, about the deck (Except probably the basic Mill suite).
I think that Leyline of the Void is really the only viable option. The deck requires tempo. If you're investing one of your turns into casting Rest in Peace, that's all the opponent needs to get a foothold and what he needs on board to get where he's going. You need to be doing something each turn. Surgical Extraction should be mainboarded anyways since you will mill crucial aspects of the opponent's deck and insta-gibbing them is necessary.
I personally have always through the UB Mill version was much stronger though. UW wants more of a controlling-grindy game and I just think mill is never strongly suited for that playstyle in competitive where all the opponent needs is 1 turn to blow you out.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
To clarify, I have been running a UBg version of Mill that splashes green for some Nature's Claim action out of the board. Claim was just the best catch-all solution to both Affinity and Leyline of Sanctity, but I'm not wed to it and so was open to trying out white instead.
Here is my most recent list, although I haven't worked on it in a few weeks. My plan had been to run either this or Restore Balance at GP Detroit, but recent plans prevent me from going, so my deck developments have slowed of late:
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Watery Grave
1 Swamp
3 Shelldock Isle
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Breeding Pool
Creatures: 6
4 Hedron Crab
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Peer Through Depths
4 Visions of Beyond
4 Thought Scour
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Mind Funeral
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
2 Crypt Incursion
4 Archive Trap
4 Breaking/Entering
2 Mesmeric Orb
2 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Nature's Claim
3 Darkness
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Leyline of the Void
A few notes about the card choices:
Snapcaster Mage: Snappy was just too good to avoid. He's an awesome topdeck and is incredibly versatile, especially when using cards out of the board.
Crypt Incursion: Initially, I had 4 in the deck in anticipation of a creature-heavy metagame. But with the rise of BG Midrange and UWR Control, I was comfortable going back down to 2. You might even be able to justify cutting all of them for IoK or something similar, but that's a metagame call more than anything else.
Darkness: This card basically solved the aggro matchup, especially in tandem with Snappy. Fog effects are at their best when you are stalling towards a goal. Mill often needs just 1-2 more turns to seal a game, and Darkness buys you that time at just 1 mana. Unlike Incursion, which doesn't work against either Infect or Affinity Inkmoth beatdown, Darkness always stops creatures and buys you that extra turn. It even works against Twin (and Griselbrand Reanimator, to a lesser extent).
Hurkyl's Recall: Affinity makes up probably about 8-10% of the metagame, and it's a matchup we just can't afford to punt. With the Claims (versatile answers to a lot of threats), Darkness (also versatile for aggro), and the Recall (Affinity specific), we are much better positioned to take this matchup.
I'm not wedded to most of the choices and card quantities, so any suggestions and ideas are welcome. Whenever I played this deck, I felt like it was missing something that would make it good. In my ideal world, that would be a 3 CMC Grisly Spectacle - Cards like Thought Scour that increase our tempo by milling while providing an additional effect. Something like Broken Ambitions that actually works in our deck (Psychic Strike feels too weak in my testing).
I guess it was really what I was looking for to be honest ! - do wonder alongside Snapcaster as well.
He had just the right amount of counter magic, traps and mill effects to make it happen.
From what I recall he was running these cards:
The guy rocked it like a pro. He had the full set of fetches and only splashed a small amount of B just for the sideboard and Mind Funeral.
He'd even let me Living End so he could Path to Exile for additional Archive Trap freebies. Once Visions of Beyond started resolving I was sunk.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Correct me if I am wrong, when you mill they are "cards" that go to the graveyard. They are only permanents while on the battlefield. Hence they would have to be on the Battlefield and then go to the Graveyard to count as a Gravestorm counter.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Secondarily he can prevent burn to hit us with some U open, while surviving most of their spells.
Speaking about lists, my current SB since I playtested Darkness is:
04 Leyline of the Void
04 Darkness
04 Echoing Truth
03 Hurkyl's Recall
My plan against Leyline of Sanctity is to either land asap some Orb to eventually mill a copy of the enchantment then bounce + extract it, or to simply bounce it asap and quickly dig for some copy in their grave to extract as well. Too many pieces to work and not so effective =/
It will surely get a leg up Vs aggro.
"OH GOD MY BRAIN IS EXPLOADING AT HOW BAD THE ART IS ON MY OWN CARD"
-A friend's first impression of Ancestral Recall
10/10, I tapped.
I don't like Ashiok; the overall design is crap (I can elaborate, I just prefer not to compose an essay at this time). I'm not sure if it's better or worse than Tibalt, though I'm leaning worse.
Not sure about the new Walker, what would it replace?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=292409
The problem with Ashiok is that he doesn't solve the main problems that this deck currently faces.
1) Doesn't deal with RG Tron
Tron is a big deal on MTGO right now, and that's bad news for Mill. You tend to see 1 Emrakul and 1 Ulamog, although even just 1 Emrakul is a big problem. Ashiok can't reliably hit that card, nor can he reliably steal creatures from RG Tron generally; the deck only runs 4-5 creatures total, so we generally get no mileage out of the -X. In my testing against RG Tron with Ashiok, he almost always gets killed around turn 4-5 by a Karn or an O-Stone. If he lasts longer, he is really easy for the Tron player to ignore until they cast something game ending.
2) Doesn't deal with Affinity
Affinity is just as big a deal on MTGO as RG Tron, which is worse news for Mill. The deck is fast, explosive, and can get around life gain through Infect. Even if you resolve big Incursions, Affinity can often brute force you back down to low life with just Plating and Overseer/Pest alone. Ashiok doesn't really address any of these issues in the Affinity matchup. He steals creatures, sure, but Affinity can either fly over the stolen creatures or just run them over with sheer numbers. None of those little guys will swing the game if we take it for our team. Theoretically, Ashiok buys us time if the Affinity player hits him instead of us, but any competent Affinity pilot will just ignore the low-impact walker and just go for the win.
3) Anti-synergistic with numerous Mill staples
Although Ashiok generally synergizes with our milling win condition, he doesn't synergize with some of our best cards. Surgical Extraction and Crypt Incursion rely on cards hitting the graveyard to work. Visions of Beyond also relies on a full graveyard. Ashiok doesn't help in any of those regards.
4) Only improves our already favorable matchups
Ashiok is very solid in the control matchup, where he provides strong inevitability at loyalty levels that you can't just burn away. He's also solid in the midrange matchup, where he mills cards and stalls out the game by stealing high value creatures. The trouble with this is that I already am winning those matchups before adding Ashiok. Sure, he makes those matchups even more favorable, but that comes at the expense of being terrible against the two most played decks on MTGO: RG Tron and Affinity.
The only way I can see Ashiok working is if he improves our control/midrange matchup so much that we can take out other cards to improve the aggro/tron ones. For example, if we ditched the 4 copies of Breaking for 2-3 Ashiok, that frees up 1-2 slots for other cards (the theory being that 2-3 Ashiok gives us more mileage against control than 4 Breaking). This could be a way to shore up our strong matchups while freeing up slots for weak ones.
But, and this is what I fear, Ashiok's inclusion could also just make our weak matchups even weaker.
Also, we don't play with permission/mana open given the major number of sorceries we run, so the scenario where we tutor some Archive Trap in response to some fetch land is unusual.
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I'm considering run Darkness MD instead of Crypt Incursion. Both do almost the same job - which is to delay the game time enough for us to surpass opponent's clock - however Darkness is way less mana expensive/circumstantial too.
The only 2 situations I'd see Incursion doing better are against some creature-heavy aggro, when we need more than a single turn to win and we can be assured to extract at least 15+ life points to stay a live for 2~3 turns more, or against grave-based lists (but then again, I'd prefer to have some Surgical Extraction instead of Incursion anyway). Darkness doesn't depends on what we milled to be effective and can stop Infect/Twin/Reanimator while we still mill them out, since it's way easier to keep one mana open than three sources.
Ravenous Trap helps a lot against RG Tron. Emrakul is a nightmare for this deck. If you can bin him only after 1-2 mill spells and then fire the Extraction, he isn't that bad. But if you catch him after 3-4 spells, that reshuffle is just such a blowout even if you have the Extraction handy. And many RG Tron decks are packing Ulamog alongside Emrakul, which is basically game over on the spot. We just can't afford to waste 4 spells to then have the opponent's "life total" effectively reset. And Snare is a way to tutor up Ravenous, get more mileage out of Snappy, and get more consistency out of Archive.
To be honest, I have switched all of my Crypt Incursion to Darkness. The only matchup where I miss Incursion is Burn, but even there a) you can often prevent some 4-6 damage attacks from the creatures and b) the Incursions just aren't very big anyway. The fact that Darkness buys an extra turn against Twin is particularly important. It also gives us game in the Infect matchup (rare) and the Inkmoth win condition of Affinity (much more common). So I'm rocking 3 of them in the maindeck and 1 more in the board.
The biggest problem with Incursion, as you identify, is that awful mana cost. Turn 3 is a critical turn for this deck. If we can get off our turn 3 Breaking or Glimpse, then there is a very good chance that we can use Shelldock and/or Vision on turn 4. We can also potentially mill enough lands from the deck on turn 3 to guarantee a fatal Funeral on turn 4. But all of that is contingent on using our mana to win the game on turn 3. Incursion forces us to tap out which is a massive tempo blowout. Darkness, at one mana, completely gets around that. And with Snappy in the mix, you can actually use it again on turn 4 and STILL have mana for Vision/Crab/Scour. Incursion couldn't even be flashbacked until turn 5 and, when it was flashbacked, your effect was comparably minimal because you already exiled all the critters.
Darkness. The way of the future.
I'm in agreement, Darkness is quite the card. That and it's two mana cheaper. Holding off on 3 mana for an incursion rather than dropping a Glimpse + Darkness just doesn't compare.
Well, if you run Trapmaker's Snare of course you should run a singleton Ravenous Trap, but still I believe the disruption Extraction gives us is considerably better in a majority of MU's.
It's so unusual for us tutoring some Archive Trap when we play tapped out for the first 3~4 turns that I almost never managed to catch some dude while fetching some land, but I can see how it could work - specially alongside Snappy.
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So, you cut off Incursions or put them on SB alongside the 4th Darkness copy ?
I agree, but you will notice that Horo is using both Extraction and Snare/Ravenous. If he cut the Extraction for Snare/Ravenous, that would be a stupid mistake. But using both might be an improvement, and it certainly helps out the RG Tron matchup.
I have 2 Incursion in the board along with the 4th Darkness. I'm also running 4 Nature's Claim as a catch all against Leyline, Affinity, and Blood Moon, plus 4 Leyline of the Void as our means of reliably beating Emrakul and not inadvertently fueling GY strategies. That leaves 4 flex slots for metagame calls.
I made a tiny splash (1 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Godless Shrine + 2 Marsh Flats) for Leave No Trace in SB and eventual hard cast of Leyline of Sanctity: we suffer a lot from hand disruption, so it seemed right to add in SB.
Slaughter Pact to dispose off some key creatures for free at critical moments and Hurkyl's Recall for Affinity.
Esper Mill by Dean Bilz
Some of the interesting inclusions include 3 maindecked Path and 3 maindecked Orb. He's also running Crypt Incursion in lieu of Darkness, which I suppose is to be expected given how much we see Incursion online (still think Darkness is mostly better in most matches). His Esper tech versus Tron appears to be Rest in Peace out of the board. He's also got Disenchant and Echoing Truth as some other bullets. I transcribed his list, to the best of my abilities, below:
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
3 Darkslick Shores
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Shelldock Isle
4 Marsh Flats
3 Island
Creatures: 4
4 Hedron Crab
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Breaking//Entering
4 Thought Scour
4 Archive Trap
3 Mesmeric Orb
2 Mind Funeral
Utility/Other: 13
3 Crypt Incursion
3 Path to Exile
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Visions of Beyond
3 Rest in Peace
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Echoing Truth
2 Stony Silence
2 Disenchant
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crypt Incursion
I disagree with some of those slots from my testing, but maybe there was a justification for the cards. Pros sometimes test their lists extensively before events, but other times they whip it together in a few sessions or even hours. So there's nothing "sacred", persay, about the deck (Except probably the basic Mill suite).