When you mill someone's library, you're effectively giving them information; information on what cards they -won't draw-. You're actually helping them a little, because they'll have a better idea what cards they -will- draw.
It's irrelevant that your putting the cards from their library in the graveyard. Cards in the library are useless until drawn or fetched; you might remove some of their key cards, but they'll simply draw other key cards from what's left of their library.
Milling is a high risk/reward situation for a number of reasons; which is the main reason there really hasn't been any format breaking "Mill" decks.
The immediate "reward" of milling is obvious: put useful cards from your opponent's library into their graveyard. The long-term "reward" of milling comes when your opponent realizes that he can't draw another card and says "oh no".
The "risks" of milling are more subtle, and are usually learned the hard way by players experimenting with a new "mill" deck idea. Unfortunately the risks almost always outweigh the rewards. The biggest "risk" you face when milling an opponent is that there's a chance he may have a card that can bring a card from their graveyard to their hand (Promised Kannushi). In this case, you're essentially searching your opponent's library FOR him, and doing all the dirty work to do it. Along the same lines if you didn't happen to mill anything good out of their library, you're thinning their deck for them, increasing the probability that he'll draw something useful on each of his successive turns.
The other "risk" in a mill strategy is that it takes awhile to actually deck your opponent. As was mentioned before, Dampen Thought needs to be spliced over and over again for it to be worth playing. Time is a very very precious resource in this game. It's hard to jusitfy using entire turns 3, 4, and 5 to mill your opponent while he's dropping 3/3 and 4/4 creatures and actually doing damage to you. It's unrealistic to believe that you can win while ignoring your opponent's threats. If you spend your turns milling, you can't control the board. If you spend your turns controlling the board, you can't mill.
By going all-out milling with just a touch of board-control (all-out milling is necessary if you hope to mill out all 52 cards), you're taking the risk that your small amount of control can handle what your opponent throws at you before he loses steam. Like I said, very high risk/reward strategy.
The proper way to use this card s to hold it until you can mill your opponent to death. If you cast it turn 2, you are retarded. If you cast three of them on turn 6, on the other hand, you probably just got very close to winning the game. Especially if you managed to do any milling at all before that...say, a turn 5 traumatize.
At UU or even 1U, this would be a fair sorcery. I wouldn't even have a problem with it as an instant if it were UU.
What I'm really hoping for is for this to be the rare end of a cycle, like this:
@Jobie, this card (as currently speculated) is NOT a good Limited card by any means. It does nothing. How many limited games end with fewer than 10 cards in the library? Almost none. You mentioned that you have maybe a 1/3 chance of eliminating their best card -- that also means you have a 2/3 chance of bringing them 10 turns closer to their best card! Meanwhile, you've wasted a card for absolutely nothing, so even if you eliminate some of their good stuff, it's done nothing to actually win you the game. It just helped you not lose.
Go ahead and "hate draft" this card if you're at the table with me, because that's one fewer deck I have to worry about...I won't even go into how hate drafting ruins your deck, but you can read about it in the Limited forum.
This as a Sorcery and Uncommon are fine in Limited. It has no other effect, doesn't really do anything by itself, and can hurt more than help, unless...
Maybe they are pushing the importance of using your library as a resource. This set may have more creatures that mill YOU for effects, a la Arc-Slogger, making mill as much a cause of concern as damage. The U/B guild sounds like the one that would do that kind of thing.
Swampsewer Apprentice 1UB
Creature - Human Wizard
Remove the top 10 cards of your library from the game, Tap: Draw a card.
2/1 "Waste is a terrible thing to mind."
Wow. I am suprised they would push Decking this much. Nice though. Ravnika is shaping up nicely so far. Thatnks R_E, and random source #324534.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx Cube
As a sorcery... Well I just hope somebody doesn't make a witness/shard combo using this card that's even more lame. I don't think it'd be nearly as good which makes me happy, but I am becoming interested in an arcane milling deck. Dampen Thought and now this! Thank the lord for cheap arcane spells!
Altough, there is a "feldons cane" in Kamigawa block. And im sure like GB will have the anti-this card with something like
~name~ GB
Shuffle 10 cards from your graveyard into your deck.
or even "all" your cards.
This card would be too overpowered, unless there is a way to uh...counteract it, which im sure there is something (perhaps many) that will deal with the above "supermill" card.
Wow. I am suprised they would push Decking this much. Nice though. Ravnika is shaping up nicely so far. Thatnks R_E, and random source #324534.
Note that the blue epic spell originaly had the following effect: Target player puts the top two cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. If one of them has the same name as another card in that graveyard, repeat this process. Maybe we'll see the non-epic version of this card one day, if wizards really's gonna push Decking to the limit. [/speculation]
Thanks to lampdwellr (and his source, of course) for the info and to R_E for its confirmation. I like this card a lot.
*edit*
@MykeXero2: Reminisce will be back in ninth. I think that's a pretty good milling-hoser.
I don't see this card by itself pushing an arcetype in Standard. If you could fit 4 of them into a Dampen Thought control deck, then MAYBE it could work, but that waters down the deck a bit.
haha yeah, Tog players are jumping for joy in extended right now. Man...that deck just gets all the love, at least affinty doesnt seem to get much more powerful sexyness. eh?
Stress: Yes, I totally forgot, Reminisce will kinda render that card rather useless, if it decides to become its own archetype, Remmy will kinda stop that dead in its tracks.
One thing though, Im liking the power level of the cards ive seen so far leaked (including this one). Its verrrrry intresting to see how power levels wont have alot of decks that end games on turn 2 or 3 (like in Urzas block).
Note that the blue epic spell originaly had the following effect: Target player puts the top two cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. If one of them has the same name as another card in that graveyard, repeat this process. Maybe we'll see the non-epic version of this card one day, if wizards really's gonna push Decking to the limit. [/speculation]
And those Epic spells are just AWESOME!
I mean really, they are just unplayable at those costs. What suprised me about this card is it's playability. (Read: Low mana cost)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx Cube
I mean really, they are just unplayable at those costs. What suprised me about this card is it's playability. (Read: Low mana cost)
Sure, the epic-spells arent playable unless you use them for some kind of fun-deck. But the Milling-version mentioned could have had at least a chance to be played, since it could immediately (well, not immediately, but i doubt your opponent will be able to win until his next draw step too often) end the game and would have been a nice lategame-card for a milling deck. Of course, the casting cost would have had to be somewhat reasonable.
A non-epic spell with that effect (if ever printed) would not be that much worse since it still can be very powerful lategame.
The thing is: will it really cost :symu::symb: or will it cost {U/B}, {U/B}?
Making it guild mana would be bad, and make the card infinitely more powerful than it is.
The fact that it is a true gold card allows for it to be more powerful than the usual Blue mill card.
That was kind of why I thought it was gold.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
News and spoiler contributor for GatheringMagic.com
- I now have a cornerstone to build my T2-Legal Mill Deck once Rav comes out: THAT. BU? Let's see:That, Dampen, Millstone, Cranial, some other cards........ gets insane!
I really hope they print an anti decking card or this might become the next raveger.
i'm a big fan of the whole milling play model, i just like to win the game in a variety of different ways... but let me say with absolute fact that this card will NOT be the next Ravager.
Ravager was a spike card from the word go. undercosted and overpowered, and it existed in an environment that WANTED to be abused by the Ravager ability.
this card just confirms for me that wizards wants me to make another Traumatize / Haunting Echoes deck...
It took me a sadly long time to figure out why 'Tog wanted this..
:-P Don't feel to bad. I didn't even think of it until someone posted it. I never see those things until way after I should have. :-(
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx Cube
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Milling is a high risk/reward situation for a number of reasons; which is the main reason there really hasn't been any format breaking "Mill" decks.
The immediate "reward" of milling is obvious: put useful cards from your opponent's library into their graveyard. The long-term "reward" of milling comes when your opponent realizes that he can't draw another card and says "oh no".
The "risks" of milling are more subtle, and are usually learned the hard way by players experimenting with a new "mill" deck idea. Unfortunately the risks almost always outweigh the rewards. The biggest "risk" you face when milling an opponent is that there's a chance he may have a card that can bring a card from their graveyard to their hand (Promised Kannushi). In this case, you're essentially searching your opponent's library FOR him, and doing all the dirty work to do it. Along the same lines if you didn't happen to mill anything good out of their library, you're thinning their deck for them, increasing the probability that he'll draw something useful on each of his successive turns.
The other "risk" in a mill strategy is that it takes awhile to actually deck your opponent. As was mentioned before, Dampen Thought needs to be spliced over and over again for it to be worth playing. Time is a very very precious resource in this game. It's hard to jusitfy using entire turns 3, 4, and 5 to mill your opponent while he's dropping 3/3 and 4/4 creatures and actually doing damage to you. It's unrealistic to believe that you can win while ignoring your opponent's threats. If you spend your turns milling, you can't control the board. If you spend your turns controlling the board, you can't mill.
By going all-out milling with just a touch of board-control (all-out milling is necessary if you hope to mill out all 52 cards), you're taking the risk that your small amount of control can handle what your opponent throws at you before he loses steam. Like I said, very high risk/reward strategy.
peace
Actually, as cerberos said, damage only matters when you're on your last point of life.
At UU or even 1U, this would be a fair sorcery. I wouldn't even have a problem with it as an instant if it were UU.
What I'm really hoping for is for this to be the rare end of a cycle, like this:
li'l miller U
Sorcery
Target player mills 3
Middle Miller 1U
Sorcery
Target player mills 5
Big Ol' Miller UU
Target player mills ten
Go ahead and "hate draft" this card if you're at the table with me, because that's one fewer deck I have to worry about...I won't even go into how hate drafting ruins your deck, but you can read about it in the Limited forum.
Maybe they are pushing the importance of using your library as a resource. This set may have more creatures that mill YOU for effects, a la Arc-Slogger, making mill as much a cause of concern as damage. The U/B guild sounds like the one that would do that kind of thing.
Swampsewer Apprentice 1UB
Creature - Human Wizard
Remove the top 10 cards of your library from the game, Tap: Draw a card.
2/1
"Waste is a terrible thing to mind."
Name -
Sorcery (R)
Target player puts the top ten cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
We just don't have the name.
Adding it to the partial spoiler!
EDIT: They changed the password on me again, but I'll make sure it gets added soon.
.
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx
Cube
Me, Turn 2: Isochron Scepter, Retarded Mill Card, go.
You: ****.
As a sorcery... Well I just hope somebody doesn't make a witness/shard combo using this card that's even more lame. I don't think it'd be nearly as good which makes me happy, but I am becoming interested in an arcane milling deck. Dampen Thought and now this! Thank the lord for cheap arcane spells!
Altough, there is a "feldons cane" in Kamigawa block. And im sure like GB will have the anti-this card with something like
~name~ GB
Shuffle 10 cards from your graveyard into your deck.
or even "all" your cards.
This card would be too overpowered, unless there is a way to uh...counteract it, which im sure there is something (perhaps many) that will deal with the above "supermill" card.
Note that the blue epic spell originaly had the following effect:
Target player puts the top two cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. If one of them has the same name as another card in that graveyard, repeat this process.
Maybe we'll see the non-epic version of this card one day, if wizards really's gonna push Decking to the limit. [/speculation]
Thanks to lampdwellr (and his source, of course) for the info and to R_E for its confirmation. I like this card a lot.
*edit*
@MykeXero2: Reminisce will be back in ninth. I think that's a pretty good milling-hoser.
<Qzilla> losing to girls at magic is such a high
Stress: Yes, I totally forgot, Reminisce will kinda render that card rather useless, if it decides to become its own archetype, Remmy will kinda stop that dead in its tracks.
One thing though, Im liking the power level of the cards ive seen so far leaked (including this one). Its verrrrry intresting to see how power levels wont have alot of decks that end games on turn 2 or 3 (like in Urzas block).
And those Epic spells are just AWESOME!
I mean really, they are just unplayable at those costs. What suprised me about this card is it's playability. (Read: Low mana cost)
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx
Cube
Sure, the epic-spells arent playable unless you use them for some kind of fun-deck. But the Milling-version mentioned could have had at least a chance to be played, since it could immediately (well, not immediately, but i doubt your opponent will be able to win until his next draw step too often) end the game and would have been a nice lategame-card for a milling deck. Of course, the casting cost would have had to be somewhat reasonable.
A non-epic spell with that effect (if ever printed) would not be that much worse since it still can be very powerful lategame.
That is all.
Twitter
Making it guild mana would be bad, and make the card infinitely more powerful than it is.
The fact that it is a true gold card allows for it to be more powerful than the usual Blue mill card.
That was kind of why I thought it was gold.
Twitter
- I now have a cornerstone to build my T2-Legal Mill Deck once Rav comes out: THAT. BU? Let's see:That, Dampen, Millstone, Cranial, some other cards........ gets insane!
Turn 1, welder
Turn 2, this, weld.
Granted the t1 player will just cast a thrist for knowledge eot 2nd turn of their opponent...but this car garunteees a juicy artifact.
Boston Magic: The Gathering Examiner - Please read my articles!
And the correct answer is.... DING! Hooray for reading!
.
i'm a big fan of the whole milling play model, i just like to win the game in a variety of different ways... but let me say with absolute fact that this card will NOT be the next Ravager.
Ravager was a spike card from the word go. undercosted and overpowered, and it existed in an environment that WANTED to be abused by the Ravager ability.
this card just confirms for me that wizards wants me to make another Traumatize / Haunting Echoes deck...
-Cannibal-
_______________________________
[L1 Judge|Add me to your ignore list]
|Molten Sentry count - 1002 (34*)|
:-P Don't feel to bad. I didn't even think of it until someone posted it. I never see those things until way after I should have. :-(
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx
Cube