well it does seem like right now including m13 the density of mill and related cards is the highest to date. so i think a competitive mill deck is at least worth thinking about. probably a good mix of fast and slow mill effects, plus control.
Take your monoblack deck, then set aside 14 swamps. Add 4 Creeping Tar Pits, 4 Darkslick Shores, 4 Drowned Catacombs, and 2 Jwar isle Refuge and add 4 Jace, the Mindsculptors. Your monoblack deck is instantly better. Better yet, drop those refuges, throw in some islands and some mana leaks, and lo and behold, you're now playing a real deck. Congratulations. Welcome to the world of competitive M:TG.
ITT: People implying mill isnt already viable (turbofog) no need for dedicated mill cards, just rites of flourishing, fogs, sweepers and jace can win you the game.
Just because it doesn't work as well against such cards doesn't mean it is a bad strategy, since that is what you're implying basicly. In any case, Moorland won't be able to race Undead Alchemist. Elixer of Immortality also dents your whole advantage engine, having to deal with a constant stream of 5 life, can be crippling, especially since you will exhaust your resources due to Moorlands exile clause. Eventually you'll run out of gas while the mill player constantly reshuffles its cards back into its library in order to maintain control.
What i'm getting at is; There will always be one deck that works decently well against another. Should that be a reason to stop brewing a certain deck? I think not. Next time it might be more helpful if you posted something more informative.
- Hiss.
It's a bad strategy because you have to play cards that don't impact the board and provide card disadvantage while also have the downside of quite possible supplying your opponent with card advantage. It's like the trifecta of terribleness.
I never said Mill was a top tier deck. Mind you. All which i'm trying to point out is that Mill can actually be a viable strategy as you've seen. Also, the shown deck is a budget deck, so the option of adding money is still open and hasn't been exploited yet.
All in all, don't write something off right away? It is pretty childish.
- Hiss.
Childish is thinking Mill is a viable tournament quality deck. The cards are all so far below the power curve it is insane. It's a perfectly viable kitchen table deck, but until every card that mills also cantrips, every card is going to be bad.
Just because it doesn't work as well against such cards doesn't mean it is a bad strategy, since that is what you're implying basicly. In any case, Moorland won't be able to race Undead Alchemist. Elixer of Immortality also dents your whole advantage engine, having to deal with a constant stream of 5 life, can be crippling, especially since you will exhaust your resources due to Moorlands exile clause. Eventually you'll run out of gas while the mill player constantly reshuffles its cards back into its library in order to maintain control.
What i'm getting at is; There will always be one deck that works decently well against another. Should that be a reason to stop brewing a certain deck? I think not. Next time it might be more helpful if you posted something more informative.
- Hiss.
see, the problem here is you're running cards like Undead Alchemist instead of things like Restoration Angel, Huntmaster of the Fells or other strong, backbreaking cards. if your plan is to beat me down with Alchemist, why not just beat me down with better stuff that actually puts me on the backfoot? what does Mill.dec do against Snaps-based tempo, reanimator strategies and extremely quick aggro? seriously, you are advocating a card that changes my life total from 20 to somewhere in the high 40s when you cast it.
by the way, I watched those videos you linked. the guy just beat up on two bad players and some guy who didn't rip removal. all those videos prove is that when you get lucky, get your nut draw and the other guy's playing unsleeved.dec, you win games. show me videos of this dude top4ing a daily against top decks with the mill list.
e: one last thing about mill decks; when you play a mill deck, you are playing a blue burn list that has to handle a life total of 53 instead of 20 at the opening of the game while the other dude just has to handle your 20 points. that is a fundamental reason why mill can't be competitive.
Take your monoblack deck, then set aside 14 swamps. Add 4 Creeping Tar Pits, 4 Darkslick Shores, 4 Drowned Catacombs, and 2 Jwar isle Refuge and add 4 Jace, the Mindsculptors. Your monoblack deck is instantly better. Better yet, drop those refuges, throw in some islands and some mana leaks, and lo and behold, you're now playing a real deck. Congratulations. Welcome to the world of competitive M:TG.
e: one last thing about mill decks; when you play a mill deck, you are playing a blue burn list that has to handle a life total of 53 instead of 20 at the opening of the game while the other dude just has to handle your 20 points. that is a fundamental reason why mill can't be competitive.
why isn't everyone playing infect then? your opponent starts at 10 points.
Restoration Angel doesn't do much on its own, either. How is Undead Alchemist not board control? It gives tokens just like Grave Titan. Same tokens can be used as blockers or finishers.
why isn't everyone playing infect then? your opponent starts at 10 points.
Restoration Angel doesn't do much on its own, either. How is Undead Alchemist not board control? It gives tokens just like Grave Titan. Same tokens can be used as blockers or finishers.
People don't play infect because you have to play 1/1 creatures for 2. The math doesn't work out well again.
And the Angel is a perfectly fine card on her own. 3/4 flying flash for 4 mana? That's a great card regardless of ability.
why isn't everyone playing infect then? your opponent starts at 10 points.
Restoration Angel doesn't do much on its own, either. How is Undead Alchemist not board control? It gives tokens just like Grave Titan. Same tokens can be used as blockers or finishers.
1) Infect Creatures as a general rule are terrible outside of having the infect ability. It is a trade off between the opponent starting at 10 and having to play terrible dudes.
2) Restoration Angel is an efficiently sized evasion creature with combat stats that are very favorably positioned in the format even if nothing else is in play. Undead Alchemist has no evasion, is NOT efficiently costed when you consider the 2.65:1 damage ratio deficiency for milling cards to real damage (he's less than a 2/2 for 4), and his combat stats are not well positioned in the format, and neither are his tokens.
why isn't everyone playing infect then? your opponent starts at 10 points.
Restoration Angel doesn't do much on its own, either. How is Undead Alchemist not board control? It gives tokens just like Grave Titan. Same tokens can be used as blockers or finishers.
The creatures don't measure up. Simply put. You have to play a bunch of pump spells that enable blow outs from vapor snag/gut shot/any removal spell which happen to be everywhere not to mention Snapcaster mage which doubles as any of the above.
Restoration Angel is a fantastic card on it's own. Not sure how you can even say that with a straight face.
Undead Alchemist doesn't control any board. Whats it going to block? Strangleroot Geist? A wolf token? Geralf's Messenger? It's a 4 drop that gets hosed by vapor snag and dismember, it doesn't provide value. It's slow. I could go on for a while.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard:
Bident Layers B Devotion RG Devotion UW Control Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod Legacy: DeathBlade RUG Delver BUG Control
Mill is a lot different than red burn. Because mill isnt that common of a strategy, there aren't a whole lot of cards that interact with it. Milling your opponent isnt as fast as burn, but theres also a whole lot less your opponent can do to stop you. As long as you have a good enough defense to stop your opponent's attacks you can take all the time you want.
Sure snapcaster mage is better against mill, but there are a whole lot of cards that are worse. Lifelink wont help your opponent. All the mana your opponent wastes on efficient blockers wont help them because you dont need to bother attacking your opponent. Pretty much any defensive card out there that protects your oppnents life total will be useless against a mill deck.
Maybe if there was a mechanic for creatures like Mindsculpt (This deals damage to players in the form of putting the top card of their library into the graveyard.)
That's probably worded terribly, but the idea is there.
I like this idea a lot. The one reason I dont expect a whole lot of mill support in the future is because of how uninteractive it is. This would be a good way to support milling but force the player to still rely on creatures and paying attention to the board.
Not sure where I stand on this debate but I'd like to point out some exceptionally bad math:
Stop saying mill starts them at 53 life. First, They'll be way closer to 45 cards or even 40 cards in their library simply from natural draws by the time you plan to win. Secondly, Mind Sculpt says 7 cards for 2 mana. That's a LOT more efficient than burn so clearly the 53 life total is hardly a good number to put down when discussing mill.
no matter how you look at it, 20 life is easier to take down then 53 cards (60-starting hand).
want to know if a card is viable. see mill cards as a comparison to life loss. 3 cards milled = 1 damage.
would you play this card?
Damage sculpt 1R
sorcery
[CARDNAME] does 2 damage to target opponent.
Mill for 2 mana usually has to hit 9+ cards to be viable.
Considering the average game takes a player 6 turns to win and starts with a 7 hand, and usually has at least 2 cards that pull cards from their deck -- (solemn simulacrum, ponder, rampant growth, etc..) Their deck is really
60 - 7 - 6 -2 = 45 Cards
This essentially makes mill 7 for two a volcanic hammer at best.
I play a Milling deck causally. How efficient a mill spell isnt important. What a mill deck usually needs is lockdown cos those mill spells dont interact with your opponent's board.
Want to win via milling either mill at breakneck speed every turn or lockdown the boards.
So how many turns will it take to mill out an opponent via infinite Glimpse the Unthinkable?
Second, most anti-mill solutions shuffle the graveyard into the library for little or no mana. In terms of 'burn', you are looking at a spell that averages at 2cmc which gains 20 life.
Third, why are we comparing Delver with this?
Best T2 play with Delver: 3/2 Flier + mana leak.
Best T2 play with Jace's Phantasm: 1/1 Flier - Mind Sculpt? (1UU, discard a card for a maybe 5/5 Flier)
Phantasm can return to a 1/1 much easier than Delver, in additional to removals.
no matter how you look at it, 20 life is easier to take down then 53 cards (60-starting hand).
want to know if a card is viable. see mill cards as a comparison to life loss. 3 cards milled = 1 damage.
would you play this card?
Damage sculpt 1R
sorcery
[CARDNAME] does 2 damage to target opponent.
That's true, but really the comparison definitely doesn't give mill justice, especially in Limited. In Limited, your opponent basically starts off with 33 cards in his or her deck; 33 "life," to stick with the analogy. Constantly, no matter what their strategy, they will play creatures that die, cast spells, draw cards, and inexorably subtract from the number of cards in their deck. They basically halve their own life total. A deck with just run-of-the-mill (see what I did there? ) control, stall, and cards like Mind Sculpt or Sands of Delirium, looks to me like jank of the viable sort, at least in Limited. As others have said, we'll have to see if mill is given a further boost in RtR.
Mill's easiest matchup is versus pod. Pod hates mill. Sword of body and mind lets you dance around pod's creatures and overall milling them gets rid of their pod options because of all the 1-2 of's. Mind sculpt is actually pretty efficient with snapcaster around. Thought scour is incidental card mill and helps you dig a little deeper for your own cards. With white for gideon, o rings and days you can at least keep the board in check. Mill is also a deck that nobody sideboards for so you have surprise factor going on. And it's not like they are running 4 elixirs of immortality so chances are you will probably mill their sb options anyway. A card that is amazing in mill decks is Chancellor of the spires. He is an efficient creature with a big butt and a very good effect once he ETB's. He can help close out the game in his own way if needed.
One problem people seem to be missing with the whole Damage to mill comparison thing is that, unlike damage, mill can deprive your opponent of resources. Burn spells do just that, burn. But mill not only "damages them" but, against anything but UW, deprives them of cards they could have used.
Ever saw the face of a person after you mill away the lands they were hoping to draw? Hell even against UW you can deprive them. Snapcaster does no good if he is in the GY. Additionally, by mainboarding Surgical Extraction, you can help yourself more. Since your milling things away you can use Surgical to get rid of problem cards as they land.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
........................
please, do it.
It's a bad strategy because you have to play cards that don't impact the board and provide card disadvantage while also have the downside of quite possible supplying your opponent with card advantage. It's like the trifecta of terribleness.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
My god people are so full of themselves.
Also they're realistic
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Congrats, he beat 3 tier 3 decks piloted by FNM players?
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Childish is thinking Mill is a viable tournament quality deck. The cards are all so far below the power curve it is insane. It's a perfectly viable kitchen table deck, but until every card that mills also cantrips, every card is going to be bad.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
However, I'd really like to see people trying it and having success.
see, the problem here is you're running cards like Undead Alchemist instead of things like Restoration Angel, Huntmaster of the Fells or other strong, backbreaking cards. if your plan is to beat me down with Alchemist, why not just beat me down with better stuff that actually puts me on the backfoot? what does Mill.dec do against Snaps-based tempo, reanimator strategies and extremely quick aggro? seriously, you are advocating a card that changes my life total from 20 to somewhere in the high 40s when you cast it.
by the way, I watched those videos you linked. the guy just beat up on two bad players and some guy who didn't rip removal. all those videos prove is that when you get lucky, get your nut draw and the other guy's playing unsleeved.dec, you win games. show me videos of this dude top4ing a daily against top decks with the mill list.
e: one last thing about mill decks; when you play a mill deck, you are playing a blue burn list that has to handle a life total of 53 instead of 20 at the opening of the game while the other dude just has to handle your 20 points. that is a fundamental reason why mill can't be competitive.
The only mill variant that could be viable is Turbofog.
why isn't everyone playing infect then? your opponent starts at 10 points.
Restoration Angel doesn't do much on its own, either. How is Undead Alchemist not board control? It gives tokens just like Grave Titan. Same tokens can be used as blockers or finishers.
........................
People don't play infect because you have to play 1/1 creatures for 2. The math doesn't work out well again.
And the Angel is a perfectly fine card on her own. 3/4 flying flash for 4 mana? That's a great card regardless of ability.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
2) Restoration Angel is an efficiently sized evasion creature with combat stats that are very favorably positioned in the format even if nothing else is in play. Undead Alchemist has no evasion, is NOT efficiently costed when you consider the 2.65:1 damage ratio deficiency for milling cards to real damage (he's less than a 2/2 for 4), and his combat stats are not well positioned in the format, and neither are his tokens.
The creatures don't measure up. Simply put. You have to play a bunch of pump spells that enable blow outs from vapor snag/gut shot/any removal spell which happen to be everywhere not to mention Snapcaster mage which doubles as any of the above.
Restoration Angel is a fantastic card on it's own. Not sure how you can even say that with a straight face.
Undead Alchemist doesn't control any board. Whats it going to block? Strangleroot Geist? A wolf token? Geralf's Messenger? It's a 4 drop that gets hosed by vapor snag and dismember, it doesn't provide value. It's slow. I could go on for a while.
Bident Layers
B Devotion
RG Devotion
UW Control
Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod
Legacy:
DeathBlade
RUG Delver
BUG Control
Sure snapcaster mage is better against mill, but there are a whole lot of cards that are worse. Lifelink wont help your opponent. All the mana your opponent wastes on efficient blockers wont help them because you dont need to bother attacking your opponent. Pretty much any defensive card out there that protects your oppnents life total will be useless against a mill deck.
I like this idea a lot. The one reason I dont expect a whole lot of mill support in the future is because of how uninteractive it is. This would be a good way to support milling but force the player to still rely on creatures and paying attention to the board.
Stop saying mill starts them at 53 life. First, They'll be way closer to 45 cards or even 40 cards in their library simply from natural draws by the time you plan to win. Secondly, Mind Sculpt says 7 cards for 2 mana. That's a LOT more efficient than burn so clearly the 53 life total is hardly a good number to put down when discussing mill.
Considering the average game takes a player 6 turns to win and starts with a 7 hand, and usually has at least 2 cards that pull cards from their deck -- (solemn simulacrum, ponder, rampant growth, etc..) Their deck is really
60 - 7 - 6 -2 = 45 Cards
This essentially makes mill 7 for two a volcanic hammer at best.
Want to win via milling either mill at breakneck speed every turn or lockdown the boards.
So how many turns will it take to mill out an opponent via infinite Glimpse the Unthinkable?
T1: Land 52
T2: Glimpse 41
T3: Glimpse 30
T4: Glimpse Glimpse 9
T5: Glimpse 0
T6: Win (nice goldfish-ing)
Second, most anti-mill solutions shuffle the graveyard into the library for little or no mana. In terms of 'burn', you are looking at a spell that averages at 2cmc which gains 20 life.
Third, why are we comparing Delver with this?
Best T2 play with Delver: 3/2 Flier + mana leak.
Best T2 play with Jace's Phantasm: 1/1 Flier - Mind Sculpt? (1UU, discard a card for a maybe 5/5 Flier)
Phantasm can return to a 1/1 much easier than Delver, in additional to removals.
That's true, but really the comparison definitely doesn't give mill justice, especially in Limited. In Limited, your opponent basically starts off with 33 cards in his or her deck; 33 "life," to stick with the analogy. Constantly, no matter what their strategy, they will play creatures that die, cast spells, draw cards, and inexorably subtract from the number of cards in their deck. They basically halve their own life total. A deck with just run-of-the-mill (see what I did there? ) control, stall, and cards like Mind Sculpt or Sands of Delirium, looks to me like jank of the viable sort, at least in Limited. As others have said, we'll have to see if mill is given a further boost in RtR.
My 360 Pauper Cube
CubeTutor
My 360 Core Set Cube
CubeTutor
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Ever saw the face of a person after you mill away the lands they were hoping to draw? Hell even against UW you can deprive them. Snapcaster does no good if he is in the GY. Additionally, by mainboarding Surgical Extraction, you can help yourself more. Since your milling things away you can use Surgical to get rid of problem cards as they land.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.