you make many valid points, but still i stand by your deck wants too many different decks. modern is a t4 format - so if you cant win by turn 4, you better make sure you dont die before. your deck does neither. you have 4 answers mb (ashiok exiling a creature you can block with on t4 is too unreliable to call it an answer) and there is no possible way for your deck to cast tasigur on T2, unless your opponent is "helping" you get stuff in your yard.
the deck i listed is one that if you get a free trap, you win on t4, else its t5-6. im not in doubt that your deck can find one of your 4(+3 tasigur?) answers to threats with all the potentially dig youre running, but facing any hyperaggrisive or combo deck youre gonna get run over, even if you draw both BB. id still suggest you switch out the millpackage or at least some of it, with more removal or counters. ashiok would seem fine then as a wincon, as is jace. and even tasigur would fit nicely in. ill admit that youll have a better chance in g2-3, but g1 youre gonna have a bad matchup against prettymuch anydeck in the format except for the pure scapeshift deck (not the abvirations with through the breach etc)
ive played mill since before the trap were around (eventhough its/was more of turbofog) over all formats against all tiers of players, but besides grindstonecombos, its not been effective besides a short period in standard with UB control with drownyard as wincon, till trap came around. this is the only card that makes it possible to race any of the hyperaggressive decks. even if you have to try and force them to search with GQ and path, and they dont, you get to play with stripmine and well a removal spell thats is probably the best cross all formats.
but in any case, i dont see mill as an even close competetive atm. burn got a huge buff with the new command, so everyone's gonna run leyline which prettymuch wrecks mill as well, and theres little to none scapeshifts to prey on.
Modern is a t4 format, agreed. Current mill decks in modern are not t4. So we should give up? Heck, no.
The only way for mill to win on t4 is with an absolutely astonishing opening hand and no disruption. You are talking about an Archive Trap that fires, likely to a land crack, at least 2 Glimpse the Unthinkable and either a monster Mind Funeral or Breaking+. The level of disruption in current modern makes that very difficult and that is such an amazing draw that it is unlikely to ever occur.
On Tasigur, you are correct he only drops turn 2 with a little help from an opponent and the number of times that I get hit with Inquisition or Thoughtseize is not small. In the second case, they take Tasigur almost 100% of the time because he is a bigger perceived threat.
I do agree with your assessment of the coming meta. Dragons does nothing for mill decks. Unless there are things that we are overlooking.
theres not. mill was tier 2 (at best) back before khans, got worse with cruise, then they banned cruise and dig which helped a little, but now its terrible compared to other decks it seems.
and you dont need a godhand+goddraw to win t4 really. if trap is there its almost garentied for visions turned on in turn 2 or 3. where you mostlikely either will have sparemana for that or a path. i never liked funeral much, if i start playing mill in modern again, i would rather run trapfinder over it.
i love playing the deck, but as it is now, do like me, and wait till next set is out, see if either new cards or bans/unbans will change something that makes it viable to play.
@El Bastardo I agree, this seems to be the issue with a straight up mill philosophy. You are always one turn, or one card shy of getting there. I have tried variations that use hand destruction in conjunction with mill but the split focus hurts the deck too much.
With the variant that I played I found that my big weakness is infect, which is just too prolific at this point in time to ignore. We need something that can stem the bleeding. We also have an interesting issue with mana base, our opponents and ours. Allow me to explain.
Most decks in the current modern format are using about 23-25 land with a healthy dose of fetch to ensure that they get the proper mix. This bloated land count makes our Mind Funeral a little less effective. Statistically a Mind Funeral needs to hit at least 12 cards to be considered "value". This makes it tough to consider as a main deck option for some. In my experience, it hits an average between 8 and 15 cards when I play it, making its average strike 11.5 or slightly under "value".
I feel that there is a misconception about Mind Funeral. Funeral is not Glimpse, you don't just cast it to get it out of your hand and hit your opponent's deck. You need to assess their board, their graveyard, and their hand. You also need to make a lot of assumptions during the game unless we get to see their deck in earlier rounds or whatever. Some plays Breaking and Glimpse are fire and forget. We need to cast them immediately to impact the game and get our opponent on their heels. Look at how much land goes by, watch for visual triggers when a player draws their card(s), they may have grabbed a land and told you they drew a land. Count it all up. Funeral is best used when you can see, or surmise, about ten land (board, graveyard, and estimated in hand). This gives it a strong probability of rolling for 8 or more cards.
This leaves us vulnerable to hand destruction when holding Funeral, but we can (hopefully) get them back with Snapcasters.
One possibility for a sideboard card is Monastery Siege Dragons. It provides us a little assistance against control decks. We still struggle against quick creature decks.
I have seen Bridge and pillow fort variants for years. In the modern format, we need to be fast and disrupt quickly, as Bonfire said. Or, and this is the tactic I am advocating, we need to adjust the play style and go more offense. Force them to draw and discard with cards like Dark Deal or Careful Consideration. I am still working on this build while I attempt to refine an Orzhov Aristocrats build.
Mill is my second favorite way to win, the first being concession, so I am not done tinkering with this yet.
It's been doing pretty well at the kitchen table. I've got some Extirpates on the way that will replace the Dream Twists, but beyond that I'm trying to get ideas for where the next place to upgrade will be. The Dismal Backwaters would ideally be shocks and I'd love to have some fetches to trigger Hedron Crab, but I'm thinking the next small investment will be in some fast and/or check lands.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I don't think mill can work in any sort of competitive environment on a budget :(. I'm not saying that to be a jerk...but it's already a tough deck to win with, and when you start cutting the best cards in the deck for worse versions...it's almost as if you're battling your own deck on top of battling your opponent to seek out victories.
But maybe all you're looking for is kitchen table casual games with your deck, in which case...yeah have fun with it!
Upgrading your lands is always a safe place to start with imho.
Mind funeral would be a huge upgrade for you...though they are a bit pricey at $3.
I also think 4x Crypt Incursion is too many in your list. I'd cut it down to 2x I think.
Have you considered adding in some counter magic? Perhaps you could give deprive a try? It's not very competitive, but for casual it might work...it works well with your crab too. Evolving wilds would work well with your crabs as well.
From there...I think I'd start looking towards getting some Archive Traps...adding in some Ghost Quarters and/or splashing white so you can run Path To Exile. Archive Trap is very easily one of the best mill cards available to us, and it's only at about $4 so it's not super expensive like glimpse.
Another casual card you could consider...is twincast. I've had a lot of fun with that card :D.
Anyhow...these are just some thoughts.
I hope you continue working on your deck, and that it starts to win more and more games for you amongst your friends :D. I love working on decks slowly tweaking them and building them up to the point where they start to become very good within my group of friends I play with casually. It's a heck of a lot of fun and it leaves you feeling super proud of your deck cause it's taken so much time and thought to get it to that point.
Started out against Jund on the draw and met game one with a barrage of Thoughtseize and Inquisitions and sputtered out after making his Tarmogoyfs large enough to beat me fairly quickly. Game two was more of the same but on a mulligan to five, there was not much to say about it.
0-2, 0-1 overall
Sat down for game two vs Amulet Bloom on the draw. Opening hand had two Mesmeric Orbs, Glimpse, Darkslick, Delta, Crab, Tasigur. Quickly learning it was the Amulet deck, I deployed the Orbs quickly and played out the Ghost Quarters I had drawn. Responding to the Amulet trigger on the first Caroo land after he play Summer Bloom, only net him 4 mana and he played Azusa and passed. Playing the other Ghost Quarter, I waited for him to play another Caroo while playing Glimpses and Breakings. The turn he played the Primeval Titan, I already had two orbs out and a trap in hand. With the multiple untap triggers and the trap played, I was able to untap and cast Glimpse for the win.
Game two I boarded in combo hate and played a slow game, with ghost quarters again, milling and waiting for his big turn. I had a surgical in hand and was waiting to mill Primeval before he was able to deploy one. I eventually got a chance to Murderous Cut a Titan at the end of his turn, and with a Snapcaster Mage, Trap and Memory Sluice in hand, I was able to bait out countermagic with the trap (he was quite low on cards) and was able to surgical the Titan, then snapcaster surgical the Hivemind, stripping the other Titan and Hivemind out of his hand. He scooped quickly after.
2-0, 1-1 overall
Game three was vs Abzan on the draw. I kept game one with Trap, Glimpse, Snapcaster, Snapcaster, Delta, Ghost Quarter, Island and was Inquisitioned turn one taking a snapcaster. Inquisition on two took the second snapcaster and the mills began. I started playing out Mesmeric Orbs as he was swinging in with Lingering Souls tokens and efficient milling happening and Murderous Cuts killing Goyfs. Milled him out with a healthy life total
Game two my opponent Mulliganed to five and I was able to keep a good seven cards and he wasn't really able to do anything for quite a while after I turn one Ghost quartered his only colored land.
2-0, 2-1 overall
Round three was vs Zoo on the draw. I kept with Island, Trap, Trap, Glimpse, Orb, Breaking, Memory Sluice. I didnt draw the second land until turn three where I was at 10 or so life. I milled some cards to get a look at his deck (he knew I was on mill due to his friend being the abzan player from round 3) but we sent to game two.
Boarded in the crypt incursions and had at least 25 creatues in his yard, a Tasigur holding down the fort but slowing taking damage from him suiciding in creatures and putting me to four. I didnt draw the crypt incursion and he had played out a loam lion and kird ape to go along with his massive scavenging ooze and I died, losing chances at top 8.
0-2, 2-2 overall
Final round was vs Grixis Delver on the draw (notice how I lost all rolls ). He started out playing a Delver and flipped it on turn three. I took a few hits from Delver but ended up drawing the Cut to kill it. I had to mill myself a few times with crab to have enough delve fuel for a Tasigur and the cut but after the Tasigur landed, I was able to start milling him. I lost my Tasigur to a cut but He has fetched a land and I hit him with a Trap and drew really well hitting snapcasters and glimpses. He eventually was playing off the top of the deck and drew a bolt to bring me to two. With 14 cards left in his library and me at two life, I drew a breaking and had two memory sluices in hand and was able to conspire the sluice and get the game one win.
Game two he started out with a Serum Visions and a Probe. I kept with Darkslick, Delta, Sluice, Tasigur, Cut, Glimpse, Phantasm. After a few turns and Cutting each others tasigurs, I was able to get some good mills in before he cast a Blood Moon. In response to blood moon, I Ghost quartered my own watery grave to get a basic land, and mill him three more from crab to put him to 21 cards in the graveyard and played the last card in my hand, Visions, which drew me the Island I needed to go along with my swamp I already had on the battlefield. Few turns later and I was able to chain mills spells until he was out of cards.
2-0, 3-2 overall, 11th place
I have played many versions of the deck over the last few months with white in the deck for path and sideboard cards, with green for tarmogoyf, decay and sideboard cards but this is the closest i feel to being the most competitive version of the deck
A few changes I am looking at making is adding in a Gurmag Angler as Tasigur was very good all day but drawing the second one hurt and adding a third wouldn't help that issue. Another change i would make would be to the sideboard. I think I will be putting in a third Crypt Incursion for the fourth set adrift. Set adrift is a great answer to problem permanents (namely Leyline of Sanctity) but between Snapcasters and having three copies it should be fine to have just the three.
surely there must be something more effective than memory sluice? think possibly i would run the 3 surgicals you have in sb instead and a 3rd visions. and i think i would put in 3-4 more blue fetches. else it seems like a decent list for UB.
What deck do you need leylines against? i asume tron, but surely with 3 surgicals and crypts it should be enough? they usually dont run more than 1-2 eldrazis. the leylines are also a nonbo with surgicals. not sure if theres a moderndeck that uses the graveyard that much which you wouldnt just rather have a surgical agains, or that you dont just autowin since they help you mill themselves?
I love the deck Lumiis but I definitely agree with BONFIRE, memory sluice seems all around bad. Also I have a question regarding the creatures, how often do you win with damage? In your match report you won purely by milling which makes me question running the creatures. Did the creatures help a lot? Either by serving as blockers or by pressuring your opponent with damage which causes them to play to protect their life total? If not then I think they may not be worth adding to the deck.
As I started adding in tasigurs and phantasms, I found that I was winning with Mill most of the time and the creatures were mostly defensive. This holds true with this build and they are walls against most of the creatures in the format and saving life and getting a few extra turns is all the deck needs. I was looking for another mill spell and have constantly been disappointed by mind funeral. Conspiring on Memory Sluice came up quite a bit, and milling 8 for 1 mana is quite useful. Tapping a crab and tasigur to mill an additional four cards, and tapping two crabs is just cake.
I have cut one Sluice to make room for the Gurmag Angler, but the synergy with all the creatures that sometimes dont matter in the game cant be overlooked.
I didnt win by damage in any games but being able to play a one mana huge creature really gave me extra time to mill them out.
One benefit of dropping so much power in the mid game is that you can potentially take advantage of people paying all the life they think they can afford on fetches and thoughtseizes/probes.
The reason i put the extractions in the board was it was tired of drawing them in games I didnt need them in instead of mill spells. the sluices were main boarded instead of the extractions and i honestly liked having them SB and mill spells in their place.
random thought crossed my mind as I was looking through my cards. Any thoughts on Avatar of Woe. I am sorry if this was brought up earlier in this primer.
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Modern CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard GRGR Pummeler
What do you think about Tombstalker instead of gurmag?
I honestly dont think having the extra black mana requirement is worth the flying when we already have four 1-mana 5/5 flyers.
Fair enough
Also...
you can potentially take advantage of people paying all the life they think they can afford on fetches and thoughtseizes
I run into this quite a bit running my Mono U Tron deck. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to run into someone who is unsure of how to play against tron, and they'll expend a ton of energy early in the game trying to kill me before I get a chance to set up and recover...and often times they'll over extend with paying life for everything.
haha just a couple of days ago I played a guy who dealt 11 damage to himself with fetches, shocks and thoughtseizes within the first 4 or 5 turns. Fun stuff
random thought crossed my mind as I was looking through my cards. Any thoughts on Avatar of Woe. I am sorry if this was brought up earlier in this primer.
Oh...I like!
I don't follow this deck real closely (not planning on building outside of mtgo atm), but this idea really intrigues me! Would love to hear more thoughts on it.
Nice idea Jay
random thought crossed my mind as I was looking through my cards. Any thoughts on Avatar of Woe. I am sorry if this was brought up earlier in this primer.
Oh...I like!
I don't follow this deck real closely (not planning on building outside of mtgo atm), but this idea really intrigues me! Would love to hear more thoughts on it.
Nice idea Jay
Thank you, it is hard to argue with a 6/5 for two with creature removal
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Modern CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard GRGR Pummeler
First of all, please excuse my english. I m not a native and this post will be pretty long, so there will be language mistakes. I hope it ll be understandable for everyone and try to make short sentences. If someone is kind enough to signal me my errors, I ll gladly edit this post (and hopefully learn some english stuff).
I've been playin' mill casualy for a long time on mtgo. By a long time, I mean since first Ravnica came out and I used to get 4 Glimpse the unthinkable. I think I've tried it in every possible way. Lately, I've been bruiding a lot since I lost my old list (RIP) and I was surprised how well the deck was doing in tournament practice. So I tried some games on 2 men queue and I've established an honest record of 16-4 (!!) in my last attempt to improve the deck. TBH, I don't think I ever made this good as I m not a great player and make a lot of mistakes.
The goal of this post is primary to share the bruiding I did, so I will try to explain the process that made me build the list and improve it. I m also gonna share my analysis on the good record I did and the meta against the deck. In the end I don't think it's great, but definitely playable and that's a premiere for a mill deck since a long time (standard lorwyn anyone?).
1. General idea: mill is bad, burn is better
The general assumption, and it's been mine, is that you'd better burn then mill. The comparison is far from stupid, since mill cards spot damages to the opponent's library instead of his/her life total: in a modern game, the burn player has to do 17-20 damages to the face since we got to mill 45-50 cards. Basicaly, that means that milling spells needs to do 2.5 time what a burn spell does to be as efficient.
Let's have a look at 2 iconic cards to make myself clear:
Lightning bolt makes 3 damages for R. An equivalent mill card would deal 3 x 2.5 = 7.5 damages.
Glimpse the Unthinkable mills 10 for UB. An equivalent burn spell should do 10:2.5 = 4 damages.
Some comments on this comparison :
a. When you analyse mill cards with this in mind, you realise lots of them are pretty bad: Tome scour is basicaly lava spike that deals 2 damages. No chance a red player would ever consider that playable.
b. That said, at my knowledge, no red sorcery deals 4 damages to a player's face. I think that would make red players extatic. There are some in legacy and they are realy powerful even in that format and are regularly played.
c. That makes mill's creatures VERY difficult to approach the power level of red's cheap creatures like Gobelin Guide.
But this is a direct comparison. An experienced magic player knows the power-level of a deck is appreciated in a field. Burn decks are cheap and let's face it: they are powerful. If a player is not prepared to face RDW, then he's got a problem, since a LOT of players try to play this deck to avoid the expensive price of a dual/triple color manabase, especially on mtgo. If you want to enter the competitive portion, you HAVE your deck to pass the "burn test", or you are playing a rogue deck and know very well why you're making this bet. If gain life cards like kitchen finks or Siege Rhino are a thing, there's a reason.
And here is why you MAY have a better shot in playing mill then burn: no one is prepared to face you. No one plays cards that refill your library, except for big Eldrazi, which are a false problem since decks that play them are very easy to disrupt for mill, especialy game 1 - I ll get to it later.
So, "no!": mill might be a better choice then burn, even given the fact that they pursue very similar strategy. That said, the comparison is very important since we can use what burn decks that did well can teach us to create similar winning play condition for mill.
2. Strategy consideration and color-choice
First of all, a mill deck must be UB because of a card we already spoke a lot of on this topic: glimpse the unthinkable, which is the best incentive to play mill. That's THE corner stone of a mill deck.
The first idea that would get in everyone's mind would be to fill the deck with traditional UB control cards and revolve the kill-portion of the deck to mill.
This is a VERY bad idea and everything you want to avoid. It doesn't mean you can't use some powerful UB control cards, but if you do it, that must be with your goal in mind and thus should be: "milling before my opponent kills me", not: "take control of the game then kill him/her". If that's the case, then your strategy is bad, since devoting space for a mill kill usually take lot more space then a traditional morphling-like kill.
This is very important, because when you build, you realy need to understand you're not doing a control deck with a bad kill, but a mill deck. Actualy, your strategy is very closer to monored's then UB control's. Would monored play mana leak if he could? I guess not, or this would be an extremely surprending meta-call. Again: that's not to say you can't play leak. That's just to say that mustn't be with the goal of controling the game, but to answer a problem leak can elegantly/efficiently solve. Leak is a powerful card, but there are plenty in modern and the fact it's a control staple doesn't make it a mill staple. Actualy, I've gladly played it a lot and I now think it's a bad idea, but I ll come to it later when discussing card choice.
Another problem a mill player soon realises when testing his deck is the lack of ressources. When you play your mill spell, you have no impact on the board, and the only mill spell that realy matters is the one that mills the last card of the opponent's library. Only this spell will make every precendent spell valuable. If you overload your deck with mill-spells, your opponent will soon occupy the board and rip you appart before you finish him. You can't just ignore what your opponent's doing, because other deck are far better at it and if that's what you want to do, you'd better play them.
All in all, what mill is trying to do is really this: mill the opponent before his/her board kills you. That implies 2 things: playing rapid mill cards and spells that slows your opponent.
That makes mill a "combo-tempo" deck. It must find enough cards to "combo off" (aka: mill 45-50 cards) and also slow down the opponent. Don't make mistake: your spells have no impact on the board, and that means if the game goes long, your opponent will likely win. Your goal is to keep games short. That's typically a RDW player philosophy.
But there's an essential difference with RDW: the nature of burn spells.
Lot of their spells can either be directed to the face, but also on creatures. They also attack with creatures. These aspect give them natural board control. That's typically a problem Burn players encountered with tarmogoyf: How do you deal with a 3/4 turn 2 creature when you are burn? It will do the same amount of damages every turn and he's got very few ways to get rid of it (I already mentioned the "no 4 damages turn 2" red encounters; that's not exactly true, but spells that do 4+ damages to a creture for this mana cost don't reach players, I think).
So while trying to reach the player in a similar way, mill will have a different approach to board control then RDW does and understanding the differences and similarities in their philosophies might be very relevant when building.
OK, folks. I already post this and will continue later on, I m a bit tired and this is taking even more time then expected. List coming soon, in next update, when I ll discuss card choice.
I agree. As a burn player myself, it didn't take me long to realize that Burn and Mill have very similar philosophies: count to a certain number. Now, when building my burn deck, I tried to make sure that every single card, with the exception of lands, would equal damage to my opponent's face. And, ideally, the average damage output per card was three, which would make my opening hand lethal.
If we try to apply this philosophy to mill.... Well, we get a very singular strategy that if disrupted, can be very hard to recover from. But singular strategies are also very powerful.
With that in mind, the core of a mill deck should be:
Extirpate
Surgical Extraction
Haunting Echoes
Snapcaster Mage
Visions of Beyond
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Tome Scour
Thought Scour
Mind Funeral
The mill cards in this category are here because, frankly, they don't impress me.
The removal suite is optional, but highly useful, in my opinion:
Doom Blade
Go for the Throat
Slaughter Pact
Now, like I said, I'm a Burn player, so I could have the entire concept of Mill totally wrong. But, I think that this is valid, and worthy of discussion.
Since you replied while I was completing my post, I separated it in two.
I'm very happy with your adding to the post. I agree that milling disruption is very hard to recover. My main concern is Leyline of Sanctity, which is a real pain.
As you'll see, my deck has a very clear strategy on the way to deal with Eldrazis and other ramp decks that use them.
I m pretty happy that we agree on the cards to be selected, even if I m even harder with entering then you are. I think the card just doesn't make the cut. Indeed, it accesses the "3 manas" you look for in a burn deck, but that's skipping the fact it can't with the board. Basicaly, what we get with glimpse (aka: slightly better then the burn spell would do) is what you want, and entering is just a less good glimpse. Sure, Crab or orb could mill less, but it would be at price of tempo/cards, otherwhise they could mill even more then glimpse.
3. Card selection
So the corner stone is glimpse the unthinkable, but all by itself, teh card is not sufficient. I mean: even in the dream case where you can play one copy turn 2, another on turn 3 and both remaining on turn 4, this will be only 40 cards. That's not enough to mill someone, and it already represent 8 manas and 4 cards. And that's your best scenario.
The trick is to undestand how to deploy ressources to mill and ressources to gain time. That's a lot of ressources necessary, and different one. But you must be conscious you ll need around 6 cards and 12 manas just to mill the opponent deck.
This means you need spells that have a good reach while still costing few manas to achieve both ends: you are playing tempo and you need to make a better use of your ressources then your opponent is.
So Glimpse is in. What are the other mill spells at our disposal?
mesmeric orb is my personal favourite. The amount of cards this spell can mill when played turn 2 is absurd. That's even better then glimpse when unanswered. Maindeck responses to it are few and all at least cost the same amount of mana. Against a control deck it can close the game on its own. I want 4.
archive trap is a very good card, especially game 1 when nobody expect it. It becomes worst game 2 and 3 when people play around it. Neither path to exile or ghost quarter actually "force" an opponent to search the library and they are not stupid - most of the times. But what is hilarious is looking at people making bad plays to play around it when it s out of your deck. But in practice they are right: having 2-3 copy of this spell in hand while 1 mana creatures casted with 1-2 non fetch are coming at you isn't very efficient.
mind funeral is an ok card. It usualy mills from 8 to 16. It's arguably better when you managed to extirpate/surgical some non-basic land cards. As trap, it's even better in a format with sooooooo much fetches. I don t think it's a 4of: it's also too slow when drwn in multiple.
hedron crab is far better then goblin guide. He's a very well designed creature that simply offers both the milling potential and the body presence the deck needed. At this cost, he's insane. If such another efficient and cheap creature should see the light, mill might definitely become a good deck.
Please, PLEASE have a VERY good reason to play this little guy turn 1, especially when the opponent has an untaped mountain.
sanity grinding doesn't work in the version I propose cause there's not enough blue mana. But can be obviously considered if you try a "more blue" road with different disrupt element.
nemesis of reason is a bad card for what we're trying to achieve. Far too slow and easily respondable. That's not a tempo card, that's the "finisher" UB control might use if she had protection of some kind.
tome scour is bad. It offers a good reach in terms of mana, but not in terms of cards.
mind reversal: same reasoning. It's also valid for entering, even if these cards could be 2of. That's the multiplication of them that increses the "how many do I mill per card invested to it" that makes them far weaker then I thought. That's the type of card that make you miss the game for "just a turn". I never thought the difference between glimpse and entering would be so important. On is very good, the other is just "ok", but basicaly, the difference is as big as is the one between shock and lightning bolt.
And the problem is not the difference between both cards, but between a full set of them in the deck. 4 glimpse are 40 cards. 4 entering are 32. The difference is huge.
In my opinion, the cards that mill the more efficiently are the first four I talked about, sanity grinding still being good but specificaly designed. I think the other cards just don't make it in term of power level.
The milling set I went out with is composed of:
- 4 hedron crab
- 4 glimpse
- 4 archive trap main deck (I ll often side 2-3 out)
- 2 Mind funeral
- Wait, man! said the man in the room. You told us we needed to hit 5-6 cards to achieve a milling, and you just play 14 of them? Not even 4 mind funeral? WTF? You should play 20 to hit 5-6 regularly, and it even would be low!
- ok, ok. Let's have a look at the rest of the full deck list:
Well, again I m tired, I ll explain the choices and interactions game one tomorrow, before discussing what's still giving me headash: the sideboard.
I let you discuss at first sight (or even test it ) meanwhile. I m aware some cards seem to be in contrarium with what I explained but I ll come to it in next part. Here, what is really important is the inclusion of Shelldock Island/Snapcaster mage/Thought Scour which all offer more "reach" to the deck.
the deck i listed is one that if you get a free trap, you win on t4, else its t5-6. im not in doubt that your deck can find one of your 4(+3 tasigur?) answers to threats with all the potentially dig youre running, but facing any hyperaggrisive or combo deck youre gonna get run over, even if you draw both BB. id still suggest you switch out the millpackage or at least some of it, with more removal or counters. ashiok would seem fine then as a wincon, as is jace. and even tasigur would fit nicely in. ill admit that youll have a better chance in g2-3, but g1 youre gonna have a bad matchup against prettymuch anydeck in the format except for the pure scapeshift deck (not the abvirations with through the breach etc)
ive played mill since before the trap were around (eventhough its/was more of turbofog) over all formats against all tiers of players, but besides grindstonecombos, its not been effective besides a short period in standard with UB control with drownyard as wincon, till trap came around. this is the only card that makes it possible to race any of the hyperaggressive decks. even if you have to try and force them to search with GQ and path, and they dont, you get to play with stripmine and well a removal spell thats is probably the best cross all formats.
but in any case, i dont see mill as an even close competetive atm. burn got a huge buff with the new command, so everyone's gonna run leyline which prettymuch wrecks mill as well, and theres little to none scapeshifts to prey on.
The only way for mill to win on t4 is with an absolutely astonishing opening hand and no disruption. You are talking about an Archive Trap that fires, likely to a land crack, at least 2 Glimpse the Unthinkable and either a monster Mind Funeral or Breaking+. The level of disruption in current modern makes that very difficult and that is such an amazing draw that it is unlikely to ever occur.
On Tasigur, you are correct he only drops turn 2 with a little help from an opponent and the number of times that I get hit with Inquisition or Thoughtseize is not small. In the second case, they take Tasigur almost 100% of the time because he is a bigger perceived threat.
I do agree with your assessment of the coming meta. Dragons does nothing for mill decks. Unless there are things that we are overlooking.
and you dont need a godhand+goddraw to win t4 really. if trap is there its almost garentied for visions turned on in turn 2 or 3. where you mostlikely either will have sparemana for that or a path. i never liked funeral much, if i start playing mill in modern again, i would rather run trapfinder over it.
With the variant that I played I found that my big weakness is infect, which is just too prolific at this point in time to ignore. We need something that can stem the bleeding. We also have an interesting issue with mana base, our opponents and ours. Allow me to explain.
Most decks in the current modern format are using about 23-25 land with a healthy dose of fetch to ensure that they get the proper mix. This bloated land count makes our Mind Funeral a little less effective. Statistically a Mind Funeral needs to hit at least 12 cards to be considered "value". This makes it tough to consider as a main deck option for some. In my experience, it hits an average between 8 and 15 cards when I play it, making its average strike 11.5 or slightly under "value".
I feel that there is a misconception about Mind Funeral. Funeral is not Glimpse, you don't just cast it to get it out of your hand and hit your opponent's deck. You need to assess their board, their graveyard, and their hand. You also need to make a lot of assumptions during the game unless we get to see their deck in earlier rounds or whatever. Some plays Breaking and Glimpse are fire and forget. We need to cast them immediately to impact the game and get our opponent on their heels. Look at how much land goes by, watch for visual triggers when a player draws their card(s), they may have grabbed a land and told you they drew a land. Count it all up. Funeral is best used when you can see, or surmise, about ten land (board, graveyard, and estimated in hand). This gives it a strong probability of rolling for 8 or more cards.
This leaves us vulnerable to hand destruction when holding Funeral, but we can (hopefully) get them back with Snapcasters.
One possibility for a sideboard card is Monastery Siege Dragons. It provides us a little assistance against control decks. We still struggle against quick creature decks.
I have seen Bridge and pillow fort variants for years. In the modern format, we need to be fast and disrupt quickly, as Bonfire said. Or, and this is the tactic I am advocating, we need to adjust the play style and go more offense. Force them to draw and discard with cards like Dark Deal or Careful Consideration. I am still working on this build while I attempt to refine an Orzhov Aristocrats build.
Mill is my second favorite way to win, the first being concession, so I am not done tinkering with this yet.
Zur
Norin!
Mikaeus Zombies
4x Hedron Crab
2x Mind Grind
4x Dream Twist
4x Mind Sculpt
4x Tome Scour
4x Breaking // Entering
3x Thought Scour
4x Visions of Beyond
Utility
4x Doom Blade
4x Crypt Incursion
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Nephalia Drownyard
8x Swamp
4x Dismal Backwater
9x Island
It's been doing pretty well at the kitchen table. I've got some Extirpates on the way that will replace the Dream Twists, but beyond that I'm trying to get ideas for where the next place to upgrade will be. The Dismal Backwaters would ideally be shocks and I'd love to have some fetches to trigger Hedron Crab, but I'm thinking the next small investment will be in some fast and/or check lands.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
But maybe all you're looking for is kitchen table casual games with your deck, in which case...yeah have fun with it!
Upgrading your lands is always a safe place to start with imho.
Mind funeral would be a huge upgrade for you...though they are a bit pricey at $3.
I also think 4x Crypt Incursion is too many in your list. I'd cut it down to 2x I think.
Have you considered adding in some counter magic? Perhaps you could give deprive a try? It's not very competitive, but for casual it might work...it works well with your crab too.
Evolving wilds would work well with your crabs as well.
From there...I think I'd start looking towards getting some Archive Traps...adding in some Ghost Quarters and/or splashing white so you can run Path To Exile. Archive Trap is very easily one of the best mill cards available to us, and it's only at about $4 so it's not super expensive like glimpse.
Another casual card you could consider...is twincast. I've had a lot of fun with that card :D.
Anyhow...these are just some thoughts.
I hope you continue working on your deck, and that it starts to win more and more games for you amongst your friends :D. I love working on decks slowly tweaking them and building them up to the point where they start to become very good within my group of friends I play with casually. It's a heck of a lot of fun and it leaves you feeling super proud of your deck cause it's taken so much time and thought to get it to that point.
4x Hedron Crab
4x Jace's Phantasm
3x Snapcaster Mage
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
[Mill]
4x Memory Sluice
4x Breaking//Entering
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
4x Mesmeric Orb
4x Archive Trap
2x Visions of Beyond
3x Murderous Cut
[Land]
4x Darkslick Shores
3x Ghost Quarter
4x Island
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4x Polluted Delta
3x Swamp
3x Watery Grave
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Crypt Incursion
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Set Adrift
Started out against Jund on the draw and met game one with a barrage of Thoughtseize and Inquisitions and sputtered out after making his Tarmogoyfs large enough to beat me fairly quickly. Game two was more of the same but on a mulligan to five, there was not much to say about it.
0-2, 0-1 overall
Sat down for game two vs Amulet Bloom on the draw. Opening hand had two Mesmeric Orbs, Glimpse, Darkslick, Delta, Crab, Tasigur. Quickly learning it was the Amulet deck, I deployed the Orbs quickly and played out the Ghost Quarters I had drawn. Responding to the Amulet trigger on the first Caroo land after he play Summer Bloom, only net him 4 mana and he played Azusa and passed. Playing the other Ghost Quarter, I waited for him to play another Caroo while playing Glimpses and Breakings. The turn he played the Primeval Titan, I already had two orbs out and a trap in hand. With the multiple untap triggers and the trap played, I was able to untap and cast Glimpse for the win.
Game two I boarded in combo hate and played a slow game, with ghost quarters again, milling and waiting for his big turn. I had a surgical in hand and was waiting to mill Primeval before he was able to deploy one. I eventually got a chance to Murderous Cut a Titan at the end of his turn, and with a Snapcaster Mage, Trap and Memory Sluice in hand, I was able to bait out countermagic with the trap (he was quite low on cards) and was able to surgical the Titan, then snapcaster surgical the Hivemind, stripping the other Titan and Hivemind out of his hand. He scooped quickly after.
2-0, 1-1 overall
Game three was vs Abzan on the draw. I kept game one with Trap, Glimpse, Snapcaster, Snapcaster, Delta, Ghost Quarter, Island and was Inquisitioned turn one taking a snapcaster. Inquisition on two took the second snapcaster and the mills began. I started playing out Mesmeric Orbs as he was swinging in with Lingering Souls tokens and efficient milling happening and Murderous Cuts killing Goyfs. Milled him out with a healthy life total
Game two my opponent Mulliganed to five and I was able to keep a good seven cards and he wasn't really able to do anything for quite a while after I turn one Ghost quartered his only colored land.
2-0, 2-1 overall
Round three was vs Zoo on the draw. I kept with Island, Trap, Trap, Glimpse, Orb, Breaking, Memory Sluice. I didnt draw the second land until turn three where I was at 10 or so life. I milled some cards to get a look at his deck (he knew I was on mill due to his friend being the abzan player from round 3) but we sent to game two.
Boarded in the crypt incursions and had at least 25 creatues in his yard, a Tasigur holding down the fort but slowing taking damage from him suiciding in creatures and putting me to four. I didnt draw the crypt incursion and he had played out a loam lion and kird ape to go along with his massive scavenging ooze and I died, losing chances at top 8.
0-2, 2-2 overall
Final round was vs Grixis Delver on the draw (notice how I lost all rolls ). He started out playing a Delver and flipped it on turn three. I took a few hits from Delver but ended up drawing the Cut to kill it. I had to mill myself a few times with crab to have enough delve fuel for a Tasigur and the cut but after the Tasigur landed, I was able to start milling him. I lost my Tasigur to a cut but He has fetched a land and I hit him with a Trap and drew really well hitting snapcasters and glimpses. He eventually was playing off the top of the deck and drew a bolt to bring me to two. With 14 cards left in his library and me at two life, I drew a breaking and had two memory sluices in hand and was able to conspire the sluice and get the game one win.
Game two he started out with a Serum Visions and a Probe. I kept with Darkslick, Delta, Sluice, Tasigur, Cut, Glimpse, Phantasm. After a few turns and Cutting each others tasigurs, I was able to get some good mills in before he cast a Blood Moon. In response to blood moon, I Ghost quartered my own watery grave to get a basic land, and mill him three more from crab to put him to 21 cards in the graveyard and played the last card in my hand, Visions, which drew me the Island I needed to go along with my swamp I already had on the battlefield. Few turns later and I was able to chain mills spells until he was out of cards.
2-0, 3-2 overall, 11th place
I have played many versions of the deck over the last few months with white in the deck for path and sideboard cards, with green for tarmogoyf, decay and sideboard cards but this is the closest i feel to being the most competitive version of the deck
A few changes I am looking at making is adding in a Gurmag Angler as Tasigur was very good all day but drawing the second one hurt and adding a third wouldn't help that issue. Another change i would make would be to the sideboard. I think I will be putting in a third Crypt Incursion for the fourth set adrift. Set adrift is a great answer to problem permanents (namely Leyline of Sanctity) but between Snapcasters and having three copies it should be fine to have just the three.
What deck do you need leylines against? i asume tron, but surely with 3 surgicals and crypts it should be enough? they usually dont run more than 1-2 eldrazis. the leylines are also a nonbo with surgicals. not sure if theres a moderndeck that uses the graveyard that much which you wouldnt just rather have a surgical agains, or that you dont just autowin since they help you mill themselves?
GB Midrange HomebrewBG
Modern
Affinity X
EDH
Jarad, Golgari Lich LordBG
I have cut one Sluice to make room for the Gurmag Angler, but the synergy with all the creatures that sometimes dont matter in the game cant be overlooked.
I didnt win by damage in any games but being able to play a one mana huge creature really gave me extra time to mill them out.
One benefit of dropping so much power in the mid game is that you can potentially take advantage of people paying all the life they think they can afford on fetches and thoughtseizes/probes.
The reason i put the extractions in the board was it was tired of drawing them in games I didnt need them in instead of mill spells. the sluices were main boarded instead of the extractions and i honestly liked having them SB and mill spells in their place.
I honestly dont think having the extra black mana requirement is worth the flying when we already have four 1-mana 5/5 flyers.
CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy
GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard
GRGR Pummeler
Fair enough
Also...
I run into this quite a bit running my Mono U Tron deck. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to run into someone who is unsure of how to play against tron, and they'll expend a ton of energy early in the game trying to kill me before I get a chance to set up and recover...and often times they'll over extend with paying life for everything.
haha just a couple of days ago I played a guy who dealt 11 damage to himself with fetches, shocks and thoughtseizes within the first 4 or 5 turns. Fun stuff
.......
Oh...I like!
I don't follow this deck real closely (not planning on building outside of mtgo atm), but this idea really intrigues me! Would love to hear more thoughts on it.
Nice idea Jay
Thank you, it is hard to argue with a 6/5 for two with creature removal
CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy
GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard
GRGR Pummeler
First of all, please excuse my english. I m not a native and this post will be pretty long, so there will be language mistakes. I hope it ll be understandable for everyone and try to make short sentences. If someone is kind enough to signal me my errors, I ll gladly edit this post (and hopefully learn some english stuff).
I've been playin' mill casualy for a long time on mtgo. By a long time, I mean since first Ravnica came out and I used to get 4 Glimpse the unthinkable. I think I've tried it in every possible way. Lately, I've been bruiding a lot since I lost my old list (RIP) and I was surprised how well the deck was doing in tournament practice. So I tried some games on 2 men queue and I've established an honest record of 16-4 (!!) in my last attempt to improve the deck. TBH, I don't think I ever made this good as I m not a great player and make a lot of mistakes.
The goal of this post is primary to share the bruiding I did, so I will try to explain the process that made me build the list and improve it. I m also gonna share my analysis on the good record I did and the meta against the deck. In the end I don't think it's great, but definitely playable and that's a premiere for a mill deck since a long time (standard lorwyn anyone?).
1. General idea: mill is bad, burn is better
The general assumption, and it's been mine, is that you'd better burn then mill. The comparison is far from stupid, since mill cards spot damages to the opponent's library instead of his/her life total: in a modern game, the burn player has to do 17-20 damages to the face since we got to mill 45-50 cards. Basicaly, that means that milling spells needs to do 2.5 time what a burn spell does to be as efficient.
Let's have a look at 2 iconic cards to make myself clear:
Lightning bolt makes 3 damages for R. An equivalent mill card would deal 3 x 2.5 = 7.5 damages.
Glimpse the Unthinkable mills 10 for UB. An equivalent burn spell should do 10:2.5 = 4 damages.
Some comments on this comparison :
a. When you analyse mill cards with this in mind, you realise lots of them are pretty bad: Tome scour is basicaly lava spike that deals 2 damages. No chance a red player would ever consider that playable.
b. That said, at my knowledge, no red sorcery deals 4 damages to a player's face. I think that would make red players extatic. There are some in legacy and they are realy powerful even in that format and are regularly played.
c. That makes mill's creatures VERY difficult to approach the power level of red's cheap creatures like Gobelin Guide.
But this is a direct comparison. An experienced magic player knows the power-level of a deck is appreciated in a field. Burn decks are cheap and let's face it: they are powerful. If a player is not prepared to face RDW, then he's got a problem, since a LOT of players try to play this deck to avoid the expensive price of a dual/triple color manabase, especially on mtgo. If you want to enter the competitive portion, you HAVE your deck to pass the "burn test", or you are playing a rogue deck and know very well why you're making this bet. If gain life cards like kitchen finks or Siege Rhino are a thing, there's a reason.
And here is why you MAY have a better shot in playing mill then burn: no one is prepared to face you. No one plays cards that refill your library, except for big Eldrazi, which are a false problem since decks that play them are very easy to disrupt for mill, especialy game 1 - I ll get to it later.
So, "no!": mill might be a better choice then burn, even given the fact that they pursue very similar strategy. That said, the comparison is very important since we can use what burn decks that did well can teach us to create similar winning play condition for mill.
2. Strategy consideration and color-choice
First of all, a mill deck must be UB because of a card we already spoke a lot of on this topic: glimpse the unthinkable, which is the best incentive to play mill. That's THE corner stone of a mill deck.
The first idea that would get in everyone's mind would be to fill the deck with traditional UB control cards and revolve the kill-portion of the deck to mill.
This is a VERY bad idea and everything you want to avoid. It doesn't mean you can't use some powerful UB control cards, but if you do it, that must be with your goal in mind and thus should be: "milling before my opponent kills me", not: "take control of the game then kill him/her". If that's the case, then your strategy is bad, since devoting space for a mill kill usually take lot more space then a traditional morphling-like kill.
This is very important, because when you build, you realy need to understand you're not doing a control deck with a bad kill, but a mill deck. Actualy, your strategy is very closer to monored's then UB control's. Would monored play mana leak if he could? I guess not, or this would be an extremely surprending meta-call. Again: that's not to say you can't play leak. That's just to say that mustn't be with the goal of controling the game, but to answer a problem leak can elegantly/efficiently solve. Leak is a powerful card, but there are plenty in modern and the fact it's a control staple doesn't make it a mill staple. Actualy, I've gladly played it a lot and I now think it's a bad idea, but I ll come to it later when discussing card choice.
Another problem a mill player soon realises when testing his deck is the lack of ressources. When you play your mill spell, you have no impact on the board, and the only mill spell that realy matters is the one that mills the last card of the opponent's library. Only this spell will make every precendent spell valuable. If you overload your deck with mill-spells, your opponent will soon occupy the board and rip you appart before you finish him. You can't just ignore what your opponent's doing, because other deck are far better at it and if that's what you want to do, you'd better play them.
All in all, what mill is trying to do is really this: mill the opponent before his/her board kills you. That implies 2 things: playing rapid mill cards and spells that slows your opponent.
That makes mill a "combo-tempo" deck. It must find enough cards to "combo off" (aka: mill 45-50 cards) and also slow down the opponent. Don't make mistake: your spells have no impact on the board, and that means if the game goes long, your opponent will likely win. Your goal is to keep games short. That's typically a RDW player philosophy.
But there's an essential difference with RDW: the nature of burn spells.
Lot of their spells can either be directed to the face, but also on creatures. They also attack with creatures. These aspect give them natural board control. That's typically a problem Burn players encountered with tarmogoyf: How do you deal with a 3/4 turn 2 creature when you are burn? It will do the same amount of damages every turn and he's got very few ways to get rid of it (I already mentioned the "no 4 damages turn 2" red encounters; that's not exactly true, but spells that do 4+ damages to a creture for this mana cost don't reach players, I think).
So while trying to reach the player in a similar way, mill will have a different approach to board control then RDW does and understanding the differences and similarities in their philosophies might be very relevant when building.
OK, folks. I already post this and will continue later on, I m a bit tired and this is taking even more time then expected. List coming soon, in next update, when I ll discuss card choice.
If we try to apply this philosophy to mill.... Well, we get a very singular strategy that if disrupted, can be very hard to recover from. But singular strategies are also very powerful.
With that in mind, the core of a mill deck should be:
Glimpse the Unthinkable
Breaking
Archive Trap
Ghost Quarter
Mesmeric Sphere
Hedron Crab
Next, the more flexible, less essential cards:
Extirpate
Surgical Extraction
Haunting Echoes
Snapcaster Mage
Visions of Beyond
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Tome Scour
Thought Scour
Mind Funeral
The mill cards in this category are here because, frankly, they don't impress me.
The removal suite is optional, but highly useful, in my opinion:
Doom Blade
Go for the Throat
Slaughter Pact
Now, like I said, I'm a Burn player, so I could have the entire concept of Mill totally wrong. But, I think that this is valid, and worthy of discussion.
Since you replied while I was completing my post, I separated it in two.
I'm very happy with your adding to the post. I agree that milling disruption is very hard to recover. My main concern is Leyline of Sanctity, which is a real pain.
As you'll see, my deck has a very clear strategy on the way to deal with Eldrazis and other ramp decks that use them.
I m pretty happy that we agree on the cards to be selected, even if I m even harder with entering then you are. I think the card just doesn't make the cut. Indeed, it accesses the "3 manas" you look for in a burn deck, but that's skipping the fact it can't with the board. Basicaly, what we get with glimpse (aka: slightly better then the burn spell would do) is what you want, and entering is just a less good glimpse. Sure, Crab or orb could mill less, but it would be at price of tempo/cards, otherwhise they could mill even more then glimpse.
3. Card selection
So the corner stone is glimpse the unthinkable, but all by itself, teh card is not sufficient. I mean: even in the dream case where you can play one copy turn 2, another on turn 3 and both remaining on turn 4, this will be only 40 cards. That's not enough to mill someone, and it already represent 8 manas and 4 cards. And that's your best scenario.
The trick is to undestand how to deploy ressources to mill and ressources to gain time. That's a lot of ressources necessary, and different one. But you must be conscious you ll need around 6 cards and 12 manas just to mill the opponent deck.
This means you need spells that have a good reach while still costing few manas to achieve both ends: you are playing tempo and you need to make a better use of your ressources then your opponent is.
So Glimpse is in. What are the other mill spells at our disposal?
mesmeric orb is my personal favourite. The amount of cards this spell can mill when played turn 2 is absurd. That's even better then glimpse when unanswered. Maindeck responses to it are few and all at least cost the same amount of mana. Against a control deck it can close the game on its own. I want 4.
archive trap is a very good card, especially game 1 when nobody expect it. It becomes worst game 2 and 3 when people play around it. Neither path to exile or ghost quarter actually "force" an opponent to search the library and they are not stupid - most of the times. But what is hilarious is looking at people making bad plays to play around it when it s out of your deck. But in practice they are right: having 2-3 copy of this spell in hand while 1 mana creatures casted with 1-2 non fetch are coming at you isn't very efficient.
mind funeral is an ok card. It usualy mills from 8 to 16. It's arguably better when you managed to extirpate/surgical some non-basic land cards. As trap, it's even better in a format with sooooooo much fetches. I don t think it's a 4of: it's also too slow when drwn in multiple.
hedron crab is far better then goblin guide. He's a very well designed creature that simply offers both the milling potential and the body presence the deck needed. At this cost, he's insane. If such another efficient and cheap creature should see the light, mill might definitely become a good deck.
Please, PLEASE have a VERY good reason to play this little guy turn 1, especially when the opponent has an untaped mountain.
sanity grinding doesn't work in the version I propose cause there's not enough blue mana. But can be obviously considered if you try a "more blue" road with different disrupt element.
nemesis of reason is a bad card for what we're trying to achieve. Far too slow and easily respondable. That's not a tempo card, that's the "finisher" UB control might use if she had protection of some kind.
tome scour is bad. It offers a good reach in terms of mana, but not in terms of cards.
mind reversal: same reasoning. It's also valid for entering, even if these cards could be 2of. That's the multiplication of them that increses the "how many do I mill per card invested to it" that makes them far weaker then I thought. That's the type of card that make you miss the game for "just a turn". I never thought the difference between glimpse and entering would be so important. On is very good, the other is just "ok", but basicaly, the difference is as big as is the one between shock and lightning bolt.
And the problem is not the difference between both cards, but between a full set of them in the deck. 4 glimpse are 40 cards. 4 entering are 32. The difference is huge.
In my opinion, the cards that mill the more efficiently are the first four I talked about, sanity grinding still being good but specificaly designed. I think the other cards just don't make it in term of power level.
The milling set I went out with is composed of:
- 4 hedron crab
- 4 glimpse
- 4 archive trap main deck (I ll often side 2-3 out)
- 2 Mind funeral
- Wait, man! said the man in the room. You told us we needed to hit 5-6 cards to achieve a milling, and you just play 14 of them? Not even 4 mind funeral? WTF? You should play 20 to hit 5-6 regularly, and it even would be low!
- ok, ok. Let's have a look at the rest of the full deck list:
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
1 Muderous Cut
3 Damnation
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Archive Trap
4 Mesmeric Orb
2 Mind Funeral
2 Thought Scour
2 Vision of Beyhond
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Watery Grave
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 other black fetch
1 other blue fetch
3 Shelldock Island
Well, again I m tired, I ll explain the choices and interactions game one tomorrow, before discussing what's still giving me headash: the sideboard.
I let you discuss at first sight (or even test it ) meanwhile. I m aware some cards seem to be in contrarium with what I explained but I ll come to it in next part. Here, what is really important is the inclusion of Shelldock Island/Snapcaster mage/Thought Scour which all offer more "reach" to the deck.