Hey guys! I just saw UB Mill played at a FNM level tournament yesterday and I really liked what i saw, I dunno many cards that would work with this strategy, but I would love to hear your opinions. Seem like nobody likes Jace here? Well, my "Streamlined" version of the deck does as follows.
So... is it really necessary to sacrifice the 2 color mana base (less painful and more consistent) and Ghost Quarters for White for Path to Exile + Sideboard? options?? I saw a UB version with maindeck Surgical Extraction destroy Scapeshift.
Surgical Extraction is why I'm a fan of Echoing Truth. It's fun to bounce an annoying permanent of which you've milled a copy, then hit it with Surgical before your opponent gets a chance to recast it.
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Rules Advisor (as of the last time they offered that certification).
Quote from "William Lyon Mackenzie King" »
There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. I admire him in my heart, because time and again he has had the courage to say what lays on his conscience, regardless of what the world might think of him. A man of that calibre is an ornament to any Parliament.
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Mill has been mentioned in an article by Craig Wesco today on TCGplayer. I haven't read it yet but the title was 'Relevant Modern Decks' I think. At work or I would have read it.
Edit: The recent MODO League list is the one that was mentioned. Nothing more than giving mill the slightest acknowledgment.
-Twincast works as a pseudo counterspell as well as a tool to double our own mill effects. Remanding a Remand (or getting a 6/6 creature land off of a copied Part the Waterveil) is pretty tasty when it means the game just like copying a triggered Archive Trap for a face-melting 26 card mill. Twincasting an opponent's Living End or killing off a Monastery Swiftspear/Goblin Guide with a copied Lightning Bolt can be a real leg up in those MUs. Against storm (Grapeshot may tie the game) (and Living End to an extent [which we already have a relatively good MU against {with this list, at least}]), Twincast will win you the game. Adversely, I'd take it out for a few MUs like tron and infect. My point is that Twincast is a Six Demon Bag that can have great advantages based on your hand and opponent's deck.
-Surgical Extraction is a card that I've advocated for a long time. It poops on combo. Simple as that. You need to know what combo you're pooping on and how to go about pooping on it (aka what to extract once you've milled it), of course, but it's nearly an auto-include with discard spells and Cryptic Command. You may not think Cryptic Command doesn't ALWAYS do work every time you cast it no matter what the situation is, but you'd be thinking incorrectly. No matter what it is; creature(s), incoming spells, card advantage, Cryptic Command is there to help. Since we play mill and this build has discard spells, you should have a general idea of your opponent's hand every game (Surgical Extraction, Thoughtseize, and Inquisition of Kozilek all give us hand information). If you pop off a late game Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek and you see something in your opponent's hand that is also in their graveyard, you can pick something else for the Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek and then Surgical Extraction the thing you saw for a 2-for-1 effect (at 1 or 0 mana to boot). You can do the same with the counter/bounce effects of Cryptic Command. Surgical Extraction is unbeatably good in the right build just like it is unbeatably good against combo decks (which are rampant).
-Ensnaring Bridge (in the SB) is a tough sell, but I highly suggest keeping them ready for mid-range. I see a lot of Abzan, infect, and tron. Ensnaring Bridge works to stop the right decks.
Ixrixis, I am thinking of running one twincast just to test it out. How does nephalia drownyard do for you? I have 2 and was thinking about tossing one in but I have a feeling it may just sit there being a colorless source.
Ixrixis, I am thinking of running one twincast just to test it out. How does nephalia drownyard do for you? I have 2 and was thinking about tossing one in but I have a feeling it may just sit there being a colorless source.
@Ixrixis, I like your list. It is somewhat similar to what I am thinking of running but mine would be more focused on counterspells. I am actually considering running 6-8 counterspells consisting of a combination of Spell Snare, Remand, and Mana Leak. My idea is to be heavy on control and mill them out late game. I'll post a list once I am done testing online.
So I have been trying out Ghostly Prison over Ensnaring Bridge MB pairing with the 4 Mesmeric Orb and it doesn't feel near as clunky. I've never been a fan of Ensnaring in this archetype and the synergy between Ghostly Prison and Mesmeric Orb is incredible.
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"In response.. Mana Leak?"
"Every game loss is due to your inability to interact with your opponent"
So I have been trying out Ghostly Prison over Ensnaring Bridge MB pairing with the 4 Mesmeric Orb and it doesn't feel near as clunky. I've never been a fan of Ensnaring in this archetype and the synergy between Ghostly Prison and Mesmeric Orb is incredible.
I will say that bridge has saved me in games where prison/orb would have been laughed at. Last fnm bridge forced zoo to use burn to kill me which it did very well(correcting for that for this week) and shout down boggle cause he did not see it coming and had no answers for it.
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Modern CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard GRGR Pummeler
Yes if it means me the game and Cryptic Command is in a fantastic position to save my butt on nearly all fronts. You can usually predict when a combo is going to go off or when some big fat game changer is going to hit the field. I'm not saying you can always figure out what threat is coming, but Cryptic Command buys you time every time.
@Ixrixis, I like your list. It is somewhat similar to what I am thinking of running but mine would be more focused on counterspells. I am actually considering running 6-8 counterspells consisting of a combination of Spell Snare, Remand, and Mana Leak. My idea is to be heavy on control and mill them out late game. I'll post a list once I am done testing online.
I've been toying around with the idea of Disrupting Shoal. No one sees it coming and it won't lose you the game like Pact of Negation. With access to a range of spell cmcs that are mostly blue (sans my discard-heavy list), I think Disrupting Shoal is the counterspell this deck needs..?
What about countersquall? Another great counter for dimir colors. What is everyone's sideboard looking like these days? I feel cards such as Hurkyl's Recall, Crypt Incursion, and Echoing Truth are always my auto includes when it comes to mill...for me anyway.
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Modern: B 8Rack RX Goblins BG Elves (Attempting) UBW Mill G Stompy UB Tezzerator
Legacy: W Stax
Concerning Manic Scribe, I simply can't get on board. I understand the "dies to bolt" argument is about as valid as the "any creature that dies to doom blade/(insert typical removal spell here) is bad" argument. Buuuuuut bolt is absolutely everywhere in modern, making the scribe a much easier problem to deal with than Mesmeric Orb. I've seen the argument that we can simply shoot one of our mills spells at ourselves in order to turn delirium on. Unless it's being accomplished through the orb (which happens all by itself) you are shooting yourself with what? A Glimpse the Unthinkable? So you just blew gasoline on milling yourself so your scribe can make up for that loss over the next 4 turns and THEN start producing value? Hoping that he doesn't get spot removed the whole time?
I'm in no way saying that an archetype variant can't come up where he is appropriate. Hell, the first mill deck we've seen come across a top 8 in as long as I can remember ran 4 of them. But it needs to be a deck built to go the long haul to try and derive as much value as you can out of him.
Surgical Extraction remains as the most difficult card to allocate between main deck and sideboard for me. With the new Nahiri/Emrakul deck starting to gain traction, I see a lot more spaghetti monster in our short term future. And yes, it wrecks combo. But beyond that it is dead as a doornail in our hand. Unless your'e comboing off of other stuff to peek at their hand and see if you can't get hand destruction value out of it. But even then, fast decks and attrition decks (like Jund and Grixis) just laugh it off and play whatever other super value-full cards they're sitting on.
I've been toying around with the idea of Disrupting Shoal. No one sees it coming and it won't lose you the game like Pact of Negation. With access to a range of spell cmcs that are mostly blue (sans my discard-heavy list), I think Disrupting Shoal is the counterspell this deck needs..?
I'm not a fan of Disrupting Shoal, I've played against it before, and sure, no one expects it but the 1-2 isn't great, most of the time it will be a Mana Leak, especially in a deck where the main strategy is to stall early game. It's great in a deck with lots of CA but we don't have that privilege.
What about countersquall? Another great counter for dimir colors. What is everyone's sideboard looking like these days? I feel cards such as Hurkyl's Recall, Crypt Incursion, and Echoing Truth are always my auto includes when it comes to mill...for me anyway.
In an esper shell, I'd take Negate over this, the 2 life isn't relevant if you want to mill them and if you want to kill them you probably have better plays.
Concerning Manic Scribe, I simply can't get on board. Surgical Extraction remains as the most difficult card to allocate between main deck and sideboard for me.
I agree with you on both cards. Manic Scribe is something I have a hard time justifying, Lightning Bolt is everywhere so we always want to consider it, Doom blade isn't. The question is whether you want to play him or something else, I think I always have something better to play. Surgical Extraction is something you can play to remove their biggest threat to you if you're not facing combo. The only problem is if you're planning on milling and you see Emrakul, then it's game over. Right now I think it's a good MD card because of the surge in Nahiri/Emrakul/Kiki decks.
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Modern
Competitive: GW Hatebears - UG Infect - BGW Liege Rhino
Casual: GR Titan Ramp - BR Aggro
WIP: BUW Control Mill
I'm not worried about Emrakul hitting the battlefield, I'm worried about it hitting the graveyard. It screws up with the entire mill plan.
I play the full four copies of Trapmaker's Snare for precisely this reason--I can run a maindeck Ravenous Trap, plus a second in my sideboard. When Emrakul hits the yard, I can exile their entire graveyard for free. When I play against graveyard decks, it's almost always the first thing I grab with Snare.
That said, when I am facing a deck with Emrakul, I have to be careful and caution my opponent that I may have responses to reshuffle triggers so that he doesn't just automatically assume the trigger will resolve.
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Rules Advisor (as of the last time they offered that certification).
Quote from "William Lyon Mackenzie King" »
There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. I admire him in my heart, because time and again he has had the courage to say what lays on his conscience, regardless of what the world might think of him. A man of that calibre is an ornament to any Parliament.
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
I'm telling you guys, mainboard beatdown mill that sides into control mill based on the mu is the way to go, I have a positive win/loss at the shop and people are literally dedicating board pieces against me.
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“I am confident that if anyone actually penetrates our facades, even the most perceptive would still be fundamentally unprepared for the truth of House Dimir.”
You should make room for an Oboro, Palace in the Clouds if you're going to run Hedron Crab. Surgical Extraction does destroy combo. It's good like that
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is cute, but you should drop it and one or two Mind Funerals for some (any) disruption. I suggest Thoughtseize, Liliana of the Veil, Cryptic Command, or Damnation (or Dismember if you're a gamblin' man/woman).
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Edit: The recent MODO League list is the one that was mentioned. Nothing more than giving mill the slightest acknowledgment.
Signature by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures
"In response.. Mana Leak?"
"Every game loss is due to your inability to interact with your opponent"
2 thoughtseize
3 inquisition of kozilek
3 breaking // entering
4 visions of beyond
2 mind funeral
4 hedron crab
4 archive trap
4 surgical extraction
3 twincast
3 cryptic command
4 watery grave
4 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
3 ghost quarter
1 oboro, palace in the clouds
1 nephalia drownyard
2 island
2 swamp
4 leyline of the void
3 crypt incursion
1 ashiok, nightmare weaver
2 damnation
3 hurkyl's recall
2 ensnaring bridge
Notes:
-Twincast works as a pseudo counterspell as well as a tool to double our own mill effects. Remanding a Remand (or getting a 6/6 creature land off of a copied Part the Waterveil) is pretty tasty when it means the game just like copying a triggered Archive Trap for a face-melting 26 card mill. Twincasting an opponent's Living End or killing off a Monastery Swiftspear/Goblin Guide with a copied Lightning Bolt can be a real leg up in those MUs. Against storm (Grapeshot may tie the game) (and Living End to an extent [which we already have a relatively good MU against {with this list, at least}]), Twincast will win you the game. Adversely, I'd take it out for a few MUs like tron and infect. My point is that Twincast is a Six Demon Bag that can have great advantages based on your hand and opponent's deck.
-Surgical Extraction is a card that I've advocated for a long time. It poops on combo. Simple as that. You need to know what combo you're pooping on and how to go about pooping on it (aka what to extract once you've milled it), of course, but it's nearly an auto-include with discard spells and Cryptic Command. You may not think Cryptic Command doesn't ALWAYS do work every time you cast it no matter what the situation is, but you'd be thinking incorrectly. No matter what it is; creature(s), incoming spells, card advantage, Cryptic Command is there to help. Since we play mill and this build has discard spells, you should have a general idea of your opponent's hand every game (Surgical Extraction, Thoughtseize, and Inquisition of Kozilek all give us hand information). If you pop off a late game Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek and you see something in your opponent's hand that is also in their graveyard, you can pick something else for the Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek and then Surgical Extraction the thing you saw for a 2-for-1 effect (at 1 or 0 mana to boot). You can do the same with the counter/bounce effects of Cryptic Command. Surgical Extraction is unbeatably good in the right build just like it is unbeatably good against combo decks (which are rampant).
-Ensnaring Bridge (in the SB) is a tough sell, but I highly suggest keeping them ready for mid-range. I see a lot of Abzan, infect, and tron. Ensnaring Bridge works to stop the right decks.
UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
It's good as a one-of, but nothing more. I like to think of it as reach a lot like Oboro, Palace in the Clouds with Hedron Crab.
With the recent surge of Nahiri, the Harbinger + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn combo/control decks, I think we might need to up our Surgical extraction count in the MD though my personal approach would be to run 2 Crypt Incursion MD and 2 Hide // Seek SB. Against any Emrakul deck, you wont need you crypt incursions so side them out for the hide and seek.
Competitive: GW Hatebears - UG Infect - BGW Liege Rhino
Casual: GR Titan Ramp - BR Aggro
WIP: BUW Control Mill
Signature by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures
"In response.. Mana Leak?"
"Every game loss is due to your inability to interact with your opponent"
I will say that bridge has saved me in games where prison/orb would have been laughed at. Last fnm bridge forced zoo to use burn to kill me which it did very well(correcting for that for this week) and shout down boggle cause he did not see it coming and had no answers for it.
CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy
GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard
GRGR Pummeler
Gonna drop 3x wight of precinct six even though he's like a black tarmogoyf at times, but I'm just looking for more of a turbo mill plan.
@RoKnRuiN1
I'm liking how ghostly prison interacts with mesmeric orb. Very nice synergy. Let us know it works out in tournament play.
UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
Yes if it means me the game and Cryptic Command is in a fantastic position to save my butt on nearly all fronts. You can usually predict when a combo is going to go off or when some big fat game changer is going to hit the field. I'm not saying you can always figure out what threat is coming, but Cryptic Command buys you time every time.
I've been toying around with the idea of Disrupting Shoal. No one sees it coming and it won't lose you the game like Pact of Negation. With access to a range of spell cmcs that are mostly blue (sans my discard-heavy list), I think Disrupting Shoal is the counterspell this deck needs..?
Modern:
B 8Rack
RX Goblins
BG Elves (Attempting)
UBW Mill
G Stompy
UB Tezzerator
Legacy:
W Stax
I'm in no way saying that an archetype variant can't come up where he is appropriate. Hell, the first mill deck we've seen come across a top 8 in as long as I can remember ran 4 of them. But it needs to be a deck built to go the long haul to try and derive as much value as you can out of him.
Surgical Extraction remains as the most difficult card to allocate between main deck and sideboard for me. With the new Nahiri/Emrakul deck starting to gain traction, I see a lot more spaghetti monster in our short term future. And yes, it wrecks combo. But beyond that it is dead as a doornail in our hand. Unless your'e comboing off of other stuff to peek at their hand and see if you can't get hand destruction value out of it. But even then, fast decks and attrition decks (like Jund and Grixis) just laugh it off and play whatever other super value-full cards they're sitting on.
I'm not a fan of Disrupting Shoal, I've played against it before, and sure, no one expects it but the 1-2 isn't great, most of the time it will be a Mana Leak, especially in a deck where the main strategy is to stall early game. It's great in a deck with lots of CA but we don't have that privilege.
In an esper shell, I'd take Negate over this, the 2 life isn't relevant if you want to mill them and if you want to kill them you probably have better plays.
I agree with you on both cards. Manic Scribe is something I have a hard time justifying, Lightning Bolt is everywhere so we always want to consider it, Doom blade isn't. The question is whether you want to play him or something else, I think I always have something better to play. Surgical Extraction is something you can play to remove their biggest threat to you if you're not facing combo. The only problem is if you're planning on milling and you see Emrakul, then it's game over. Right now I think it's a good MD card because of the surge in Nahiri/Emrakul/Kiki decks.
Competitive: GW Hatebears - UG Infect - BGW Liege Rhino
Casual: GR Titan Ramp - BR Aggro
WIP: BUW Control Mill
I'm not worried about Emrakul hitting the battlefield, I'm worried about it hitting the graveyard. It screws up with the entire mill plan.
Competitive: GW Hatebears - UG Infect - BGW Liege Rhino
Casual: GR Titan Ramp - BR Aggro
WIP: BUW Control Mill
I play the full four copies of Trapmaker's Snare for precisely this reason--I can run a maindeck Ravenous Trap, plus a second in my sideboard. When Emrakul hits the yard, I can exile their entire graveyard for free. When I play against graveyard decks, it's almost always the first thing I grab with Snare.
That said, when I am facing a deck with Emrakul, I have to be careful and caution my opponent that I may have responses to reshuffle triggers so that he doesn't just automatically assume the trigger will resolve.
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Modern:
B 8Rack
RX Goblins
BG Elves (Attempting)
UBW Mill
G Stompy
UB Tezzerator
Legacy:
W Stax