Interesting assessment. What I find is that even their slow clock (Maybe Maus Wanderer, or any 2 drop) is enough to keep the pressure up. If they have a vial on board they can hold up Queller mana and still deploy threats. I'll go have a scope of the twitch video!
I had the idea for a UW list when I realized my only black spells were Glimpses, Crypt Incursion, Fatal Push and Collective Brutality, with Damnation and LLotVoid in the side, and white generally offered better stuff (Verdict and Settle, RiP, Path), and sideboard options. It definitely still needs tuning, I've probably only played about 12-15 matches with it. Also, I was mistaken - currently running no creatures. I'm still somewhat learning how to play control (I'm familiar with it since I've played MTG for 15 years) so advice on the control package would be good.
The basic plan is to slow the game down with counterspells (Cryptic is so boss) and removal (Path, Verdict), and get some combination of Trap/Briefing/Orb/Fraying Sanity down and protect. It seems to work well, your opponent seems to settle into a grindier game and then you hit them with a Trap > Briefing for most of the rest of their deck. Also, spicy haymaker in Psychic Spiral, haha, but it's an instant which is key!
Firstly, lands seem to be good colour wise, but with the prevalence of Field of Ruin around, I haven't had a Shelldock survive to activation in some time, so I'm considering cutting, or dropping to fewer than 3. Academy Ruins is great for recurring Orbs, but colourless mana (on top of the stuff from our own FoR) can sometimes be hard. I've just thought about an Ipnu Rivulet as an option too, but with no Crypt Incursion, lifegain is a little harder to come by so I'm cautious. I'm also thinking about going up to 23 or even 24, we really want to be making our first 3 (ideally 4) land drops.
The only loss to milling from taking out black is Glimpse, and with Mission Briefing doing a decent job acting as a mill spell with Archive Trap in the yard, as a 4-of with 4 Field of Ruin, it fills Glimpses slot pretty nicely.
For counterspells, I think 2 Logic Knot and 3 Cryptic give me pretty good all around coverage, and I think I should buff it out with 2 of the other options. Right now I'm testing Spell Snare (BGx was AssTrophy all over my orbs, Goyf is always a concern), but I can't decide what these 2 should be, or if I need more than 7 counterspells (up to 9?) My inclination would be mana leak or negate for these slots, perhaps 2 of each. Remand does a pretty good job at slowing them down while keeping our hand up.
I've considered Crabs and Scribes but have found them to just be a lightning rod for removal. I had my most success with my UB deck around AER release (ie: Fatal Push) by having no creatures in the main, leaves a lot of removal stranded. I've effectively used these slots to put the control package in.
One thing I've dropped is the Ensnaring Bridge - it doesn't play nicely with countermagic. Just had a thought that since I'm in white I could stick Ghostly Prison in to fill that role if need be.
I'm unsure if I need 2 Supreme Verdict AND 2 Settle the Wreckage in the main. I see it as Path handling big threats, and this handling go-wide strategies, which would otherwise be a tough matchup. Perhaps could slot 2 out for 2 Ghostly Prisons as anti go-wide.
Anyways, the list is not as out-there as you would think, it's still almost the same core mill package but with countermagic instead of creatures. White just complements the control strategy better than black does, in Modern at least. You could play similarly with a UB Control mill list, but UB control is more empty-handed, protect your threat on the board and tempo them down. But we're not really deploying a threat here, so it's not really ideal here. Being able to make your opponent tap mana into your Orbs, or holding up a Cryptic or Logic Knot (or Mission Briefing) to catch-all in the later game (where we are aiming to play to anyway) is a great place to be in my experience.
My sideboard has more than 15 cards since I'm still testing it out. A couple not mentioned that I've also considered: Spellskie, Leyline of Sanctity, Detention Sphere, Spreading Seas, Wall of Denial, Vapor Snag, Timely Reinforcements, Set Adrift
It's been talked about before, but I've been having more success with a controlly UW build lately as opposed to my UB version. Mission Briefing and Archive Trap are awesome, and let you play at instant speed to hold up your control cards, and Surgical being Phyrexian is still 3x in the main. Logic Knot works really well for us, Cryptic Command is a house, Path to Exile is awesome against creatures, and Supreme Verdict + Settle the Wreckage gives you good diversity of board clears. Hedron Crab and Manic Scribe provide additional milling. RiP and Fragmentize in the board cover our bases for Artifact/Enchantment and graveyard strategies. My meta is just my friend group though, but has an interesting array of matchups (Hollow one, Bant Spirits, BW Tokens, BG Rock, UW Control, Superfriends (usually wrecks me), Ponza, Affinity + HS Affinity). I don't have an up to date deck list online yet, but will try and add one. It needs some more tuning but I've found it to be pretty reliable, just grindy (leaning on Orbs for the win a lot of the time).
I've found Spirits to be a very tough matchup for my UB deck - Yamar, how do you do it? Spell Queller wrecks me so hard, stomping out my mill spells and Fatal pushes (or bridges when I try to land them), then flying over my head. It might just be that she knows how to play spirits vs UB Mill because of our regular matchups, but I feel it's tight but definitely unfavoured for me.
1. In a similar manner, burn spells do not really do anything until the opponent has no life left then.
2. Why are Mill spells any less legit of a win-con than damage from Colonnades? If anything, opponents are less prepared for it
3. Responses in a UW Mill deck can be the same as the responses in a UW Control deck, which is a pretty good deck right now in case you hadn't noticed. You could choose to put tempo responses into your deck (Remand, Vapor Snag, Darkness, Spell Snare) or control responses in your deck (Cryptic, Path, Verdict, Logic Knot)
There's multiple ways to build a Mill deck; Tempo, Control, Burn. For you to write off trying out a different archetype of Mill, without having tried it yourself, and that hasn't been fully explored by others is pretty short sighted. But I guess you must know best...
Tested both UB and UW last night. My UB deck got toasted by Hardened Scales, turn 4 through interaction twice in a row. He was on the play G1, started by puking 4 cards out (Land, Opal, Welding Jar, Automaton), followed up by a Ravager on T2. I dropped a Crab on 1, Orb on 2 (had Fatal Push in hand, but Welding Jar...), then Field of Ruin > Double Archive Trap > Fatal push on 3 (a pretty huge line for us). I died T4 with 3 cards left in his library. G2 I kept Fragmentize, Surgical, Push, but 1 lander (Glimpse and Orb I think?). Nothing on T1 for me, double Jar and Hardened Scales on T1 for him. I fragmentize and Surgical his Scales, but he reveals a hand with Arcbound Worker and double Steel Overseer. I don't draw a land for the next 2 turns and die to an Overseer and Ravager working together to make a huge Inkmoth for an alpha strike. I think my only hope is Stony Silence (in my UW board but not UB board...). Path would've been nice to get around the Welding Jars both games though. I think it's gotta be one of our worst matchups though, Welding Jar is super useful for protecting threats.
UW Mill destroyed UW miracle control 2-0 as I'd expect though (I think UB would do the same). Field of Ruin into Surgical on his Colonnade, then Mission Briefing to surgical his Jace (I know his deck and threats - not many) and he's left with single Teferi and Clique, and 3x Snapcasters as his win-cons. Game 1 he was stuck with 2 Terminus in hand at the end of the game too. Game 2 he tapped out end of my turn (like T11 or something) to use a flipped Azcanta, and opened up to Field of Ruin > Trap > Mission Briefing on the Trap that basically sealed it for me. Instant speed response for the win.
Dang, Drowned Secrets would've been great as a 1-drop. 2 drop is too expensive I think, and fights with our other mill 2-drops (Glimpse, Orb, Scribe).
As far as cutting Glimpse: Ya, I know it seems odd, I agree it's THE staple card. But I noticed the lack of black cards when re-evaluating my manabase and just want to see if it's possible. Plus, what's better than 10 cards for 2 mana? 13 cards for 2 mana. It also lets us play at instant speed as a control deck which can be pretty important. Path to Exile >> Fatal Push, Supreme Verdict > Damnation. Crypt Incursion is less important if we're controlling all their threats and landing a board wipe more reliably.
I've also of course got my UB shell with Mission Briefings in there too, but I think going slow and leaning more on Mesmeric Orb and control strategy. Stats say that ~66% of the time you will have EITHER Archive Trap OR Mesmeric Orb in your opening hand, and once you have one of them your Mission Briefings become live (tapping out at EOT to mill yourself with the Orb will get you a Trap in the yard pretty quickly). I don't think it's as crazy as it sounds. I think cutting Crabs and Scribes might not be correct though, but we'll see.
With Mission Briefing, I almost think it might work to have a UW control shell now that we can flash back our Archive Traps on the cheap. My only black cards currently across main and board are 4 Glimpse, 3 Push, 2 Brutality, 2 Crypt Incursion, and 2 Damnation (SB). I'm counting Surgical (3x) as colourless here. That's not a huge incentive to go with black when white could provide a lot more.
I'm thinking of:
-2 Brutality
-3 Ensnaring Bridge (Doesn't play nicely with control)
+3 Thought Scour (cantrip plus instant speed mill)
+2 Settle the Wreckage
-8 Creatures (crabs and scribes)
+7 Counterspells (right now thinking 3 Cryptic, 2 Logic Knot, 2 Negate but maybe Spell Snare for tempo?)
+1 Psychic Spiral (reach after mesmeric orbing my graveyard down. Instant speed!)
Straight (mostly) equivalent replacements
-4 Glimpse; +4 Mission Briefing
-2 Crypt Incursion; +2 Profane Memento (maybe Timely Reinforcements?)
-3 Push; +3 Path
-2 Damnation; +2 Supreme Verdict (but in the main instead of SB)
With 4 Field of Ruin and 4 Path, it should be easy enough to get them to search to activate Trap/Briefing. With field of ruin forced search, even when they don't fetch for Path we can still get them. I'm thinking 22 lands should be enough (instead of 25 like regular control uses) because we're not aiming to resolve a 5 mana Planeswalker with protection up to win the game. More just a bunch of 0 or 2 mana spells (Trap, Orb, Briefing) and then just slow them down enough to make the Orbs hurt them, with Traps being a big burn.
Anyway, I'm going to proxy up this UW list and try it tomorrow with my friends. Our meta includes Hardened Scales, Spirits, GB Eldrazi Rock, BW Tokens, UR Wizards, Burn, and UW Miracle Control. Notably no Humans (could be a bad matchup) and no Tron (UW struggles against them, but with Surgicals in my main board it's usually alright).
I totally dig it. I've loved Snapcaster in my deck, especially with Orbs. I think there's a lot of synergy with Orb, Snappy, Academy Ruins, and now this. Part of the benefit of the Snapcaster effect is also that if your opponent is hiding behind a Leyline, you can point Glimpse at your own library to hopefully hit your sideboard cards with a Snapcaster or Mission Briefing now.
I think it fits in as a replacement for Snapcaster, I'm gonna start with 2 of, but wouldn't be surprised to end up with 4 or even 6 (4 Briefing, 2 snappy probly) of these types of effects. Casting Archive Trap for 0 as flashback is huge.
So its a tempo card, the more your list tempo oriented the better is ET. For control lists, its disadvantages are big.
This sums it up exactly. If you're just looking to stall out your opponent and don't mind if the permanent (you use only Leyline of Sanctity as an example) comes back, then ET is great. If it's something you need to remove permanently, thinking Jace, Teferi, Gideon of the Trials and such, then you need actual removal, which Set Adrift usually works for. Different cards for different styles. We're not a Draw-go deck playing at instant speed, but I do see your point about being able to bounce Leyline EoT and then have all your mana open to cast spells on your turn - in this scenario it's likely that you haven't done anything on your previous turn due to the Leyline, so would have mana open.
I've been running 2x Void Snare and 1x Echoing Truth in my list lately, was hoping the one mana cheaper on Void Snare would leave me with a little bit more mana to cast spells after bouncing a problem permanent. I actually ran into double Leyline the other night against a friend, and I managed to have a Void Snare and a Set Adrift in my hand, with an Orb on the table. The plan was to bounce one, top of library the other, mill during his untap phase, and Surgical both of them away. Of course, a counterspell on the Set Adrift foiled my plans.
Has anyone done any testing with Vengeful Pharaoh in the main or the side as a form of creature control? I'm thinking it would be good against Hollow One, Tasigur, etc, that you can't Fatal Push. If you get one (or more) in your graveyard with a Mesmeric Orb out, it seems like it would decimate their army pretty quickly, and keep ending up back in the graveyard for you next turn.
I think I might shave a couple Fatal Push and try to slot 3 Pharaohs in and see how it goes
Not playing any removal is way too risky, there's many creatures that can kill you without attacking, and having a few creatures makes them easy prey for removal. Fatal Push or Dismember are a need I think, I wouldn't only rely on having Jace's Phantasm around for blocking.
That's independent of playing Fraying Sanity or not I mean.
My question remains, how do you guys prefer to play your deck? Let's make it multiple choice for those who don't want to type much, any further explanations are welcome.
1. "Burn" style: You want to have as many mill cards as possible and cast a mill card every turn, and try to race the other deck. Your gameplay isn't really affected much by what the opponent's doing.
2. "Control" style: You play a lot of answers to their threats and try to stabilize in order to finish the milling. Maybe it's more removal, or removal + discard, sweepers maindeck, bridge, etc....
3. "Tempo" style: Similar to "Burn" style, but you have more cards in the maindeck to delay the opponent's kill. Profane Memento and Echoing Truth, Darkness, Remand for example.
As I said, I favor the Tempo style, but would love to hear other people who like other approaches.
I'm with you on the tempo style, with the combo aspect of Field of Ruin and Traps in there. I think you're definitely onto something. I previously played more of a control style (AER Release GP), but found I got wrecked by fast creature decks.
What I don't particularly like is how there's just a few cards that absolutely hose us in the meta at the moment. Leyline, Blood Moon, and Emrakul all seem relatively abundant (ok, sure, not in the top deck, but in multiple other decks) and are pretty difficult to deal with on the whole. That's part of what I like about Fraying Sanity so much, is it gives us that one turn kill if we need it, or gives us the raw power to mill their deck twice in some cases (ie: Surgical on Emrakul, but shuffle trigger still goes). Without Fraying Sanity, that's basically an auto-loss. So the inevitability and speed it brings I think is really important, and I like 4 copies too. I think I'm about 8-1 when landing a Fraying Sanity in T3, 4, or 5.
Blood Moon especially ruins the day for Esper, it's what sent me back to UB. Instead of playing cards to fight it, UB lets us avoid it if we know it's coming by fetching up our basics. The best way to fight it in Esper is to run a basic plains, which always sucks to draw into. I might try UB with 1 Godless Shrine, and some Fragmentize in the board to handle Leylines and Wheel of Sun and Moon though. It sucks how much those 3 cards (and Emrakul) are such a hard defeat against us
Lots of good discussion and testing here. I haven't had a chance to get too much testing in lately (my last game I played, my buddy mulled to 4 and 5 just to find his Wheel of Sun and Moon for G2 and G3 respectively after I beat him G1... fair play I guess? I just scooped to it since I guess winning was more important than playing the game to him).
My most recent deck I removed the Orbs and put more Mill threats in (4x Mind Funeral) to have a little more velocity and some more redundancy against hand disruption. I've been on 21 lands but I'm definitely going back up to 22, which I think is the right number, but could see 23 as well. If you can drop Fraying Sanity on T3 it's pretty much a win by T4 or T5, so getting that land count up is important. If I were running 23 lands, I'd definitely go for 4 Snappies, but as is I'm on 2. He's just SO good for whatever you need at any given time.
I tried the crabs and still underwhelmed so will probably go back to creatureless. It's funny, I played the GP in February with my creatureless list and had a lot of people telling me I needed crabs in. I've tried Crabs and Scribes and Phantasms (and all 3!) and think creatureless, aside from Snap, is probably still the way to go.
Quartz, since you've had such success with the Scroll, I can't help but force myself to try it. It just seems so slow though! 2 mana sorcery speed to tutor something up that isn't even usually a mill spell just seems like it wastes a whole turn. But silver bullet for draw or sideboard answers has value for G2 and G3. Might be something for the board, since G2 and G3 tend to be slower with both players having sideboard answers in the deck.
I'm also not running either Memento or Crypt Incursion at the moment. I read Pesistratos' description again and thought that running Darkness was worth a legit test. being a 1 drop it's quite the tempo play, and with Snapcasters around it's still relatively cheap to save your life against creatures for a turn. For B it's also cheap enough to play Glimpse or Funeral while holding up mana for it.
I'd post a whole decklist but right now I've got it tight with a bunch of 4-ofs. Glimpse, Mind Funeral, Archive, Visions, Push, Darkness, Fraying Sanity, and Snapcaster, with 3 of Inquisition and Surgical. 22 Lands but will probably find a way to get up to 23. With no Crabs I think I might swap Oboro for Urborg too...
One card that I've toyed with in the sideboard but haven't really cast is Sadistic Sacrament. I think it's worthwhile since it lets you strip what you want from your opponents library. What I don't like about Infinite Obliteration and (what's the non-artifact one that's similar from a recent set?) is that you have to name the card before you search. Sacrament lets you find whatever you want, as well as see what your opponent brought in against you from the board (which is usually a 2 or 3 of anyway) so it's an effective wipeout and never whiffs. BBB is a heavy coloured cost, but it's a clean answer that's important against the cards that are such a hard lock against us... assuming they're not already down or in hand is all. Plus it's a little slow is the biggest downside. Any other thoughts on it or replacements otherwise?
Tapped out user Peisistratos wrote a very detailed primer on tappedout.net that covers a lot of card decisions, it might be worth looking at. I think the final decklist is somewhat inferior to what's been listed here, but there are some interesting points. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/competitive-modern-mill-2
He chimes in here every once in awhile to tell us that he's right and we're all wrong without actually having played many games.
That's a strong recommendation of the list. I've found Ghost Quarter and Path to be pretty effective at getting the search, it's rare when someone doesn't go for it in my experience. You didn't find that paying 2 mana for the Field plus 2 mana for the Snare was a little steep to activate Archive Trap? I guess if you're landing 2 of them it's decent.
Interesting with Darkness and Ensnaring Bridge both in there - don't you find they overlap a little bit? The bridge also seems like it would non-bo with Remand too, needing to keep them in hand. Have they been effective for you? I'd almost think something else could work better, maybe even Bontu's in the main?
I'm also surprised to see no Fatal Push or any creature control in there. What stops you getting run over with Goyf or Infect outside of Darkness?
I do like the idea of Snare in the list, but why not put some of the silver bullet traps in the sideboard? Ravenous Trap and Mindbreak Trap both seem like they would be worth having as a one-of to tutor for.
I'm definitely intrigued by your list though and am going to proxy up some field of ruins and Trapmaker's Snares to test it out.
I think the flexibility of being able to destroy artifacts is important, maybe even more important than enchantments, though Leyline and Blood Moon both mean problems for us. Fragmentize lets you do either, and it comes in for more matchups than Demystify would without too much of a drawback.
Overall what artifact are we afraid of. There are some match-up specific ones like Pentad Prism or Lotus Bloom but other than those what artifacts do we care about? I am not trying to sound attacking but I am just curious.
Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, Inkmoth Nexus, Aether Vial, Chalice of the Void, Expedition Map are all relevant and a 1 mana removal against them is pretty effective at slowing their game plan Though I did have to think hard to get a list! (and maybe I'm missing some). Comparatively, Blood Moon and Leyline are the only 2 enchantments we're really scared of, ya? They are big big problems though.
Related to Inquisition and Fatal Push, I like both. I run 3 Push, 3 path, and 2 IoK in the main in my deck - I like all of them for their own reasons. I especially like Inquisition with Surgicals, since once you have a look at their hand (via IoK) you know what to hit with Surgical once once you've milled it (T1 Archive trap?) to do the most damage.
I think the flexibility of being able to destroy artifacts is important, maybe even more important than enchantments, though Leyline and Blood Moon both mean problems for us. Fragmentize lets you do either, and it comes in for more matchups than Demystify would without too much of a drawback.
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I had the idea for a UW list when I realized my only black spells were Glimpses, Crypt Incursion, Fatal Push and Collective Brutality, with Damnation and LLotVoid in the side, and white generally offered better stuff (Verdict and Settle, RiP, Path), and sideboard options. It definitely still needs tuning, I've probably only played about 12-15 matches with it. Also, I was mistaken - currently running no creatures. I'm still somewhat learning how to play control (I'm familiar with it since I've played MTG for 15 years) so advice on the control package would be good.
The basic plan is to slow the game down with counterspells (Cryptic is so boss) and removal (Path, Verdict), and get some combination of Trap/Briefing/Orb/Fraying Sanity down and protect. It seems to work well, your opponent seems to settle into a grindier game and then you hit them with a Trap > Briefing for most of the rest of their deck. Also, spicy haymaker in Psychic Spiral, haha, but it's an instant which is key!
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Shelldock Isle
4 Field of Ruin
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
Removal
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Settle the Wreckage
3 Path to Exile
4 Archive Trap
4 Mesmeric Orb
2 Thought Scour
1 Psychic Spiral
2 Fraying Sanity
Control
3 Visions of Beyond
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Negate or Spell Snare or Mana Leak or Remand
3 Cryptic Command
2 Logic Knot
4 Mission Briefing
1 Search for Azcanta/Azcanta, the sunken ruin
3 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Echoing Truth
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Fragmentize
2 Dispel
2 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Profane Memento
Firstly, lands seem to be good colour wise, but with the prevalence of Field of Ruin around, I haven't had a Shelldock survive to activation in some time, so I'm considering cutting, or dropping to fewer than 3. Academy Ruins is great for recurring Orbs, but colourless mana (on top of the stuff from our own FoR) can sometimes be hard. I've just thought about an Ipnu Rivulet as an option too, but with no Crypt Incursion, lifegain is a little harder to come by so I'm cautious. I'm also thinking about going up to 23 or even 24, we really want to be making our first 3 (ideally 4) land drops.
The only loss to milling from taking out black is Glimpse, and with Mission Briefing doing a decent job acting as a mill spell with Archive Trap in the yard, as a 4-of with 4 Field of Ruin, it fills Glimpses slot pretty nicely.
For counterspells, I think 2 Logic Knot and 3 Cryptic give me pretty good all around coverage, and I think I should buff it out with 2 of the other options. Right now I'm testing Spell Snare (BGx was AssTrophy all over my orbs, Goyf is always a concern), but I can't decide what these 2 should be, or if I need more than 7 counterspells (up to 9?) My inclination would be mana leak or negate for these slots, perhaps 2 of each. Remand does a pretty good job at slowing them down while keeping our hand up.
I've considered Crabs and Scribes but have found them to just be a lightning rod for removal. I had my most success with my UB deck around AER release (ie: Fatal Push) by having no creatures in the main, leaves a lot of removal stranded. I've effectively used these slots to put the control package in.
One thing I've dropped is the Ensnaring Bridge - it doesn't play nicely with countermagic. Just had a thought that since I'm in white I could stick Ghostly Prison in to fill that role if need be.
I'm unsure if I need 2 Supreme Verdict AND 2 Settle the Wreckage in the main. I see it as Path handling big threats, and this handling go-wide strategies, which would otherwise be a tough matchup. Perhaps could slot 2 out for 2 Ghostly Prisons as anti go-wide.
Anyways, the list is not as out-there as you would think, it's still almost the same core mill package but with countermagic instead of creatures. White just complements the control strategy better than black does, in Modern at least. You could play similarly with a UB Control mill list, but UB control is more empty-handed, protect your threat on the board and tempo them down. But we're not really deploying a threat here, so it's not really ideal here. Being able to make your opponent tap mana into your Orbs, or holding up a Cryptic or Logic Knot (or Mission Briefing) to catch-all in the later game (where we are aiming to play to anyway) is a great place to be in my experience.
My sideboard has more than 15 cards since I'm still testing it out. A couple not mentioned that I've also considered: Spellskie, Leyline of Sanctity, Detention Sphere, Spreading Seas, Wall of Denial, Vapor Snag, Timely Reinforcements, Set Adrift
I've found Spirits to be a very tough matchup for my UB deck - Yamar, how do you do it? Spell Queller wrecks me so hard, stomping out my mill spells and Fatal pushes (or bridges when I try to land them), then flying over my head. It might just be that she knows how to play spirits vs UB Mill because of our regular matchups, but I feel it's tight but definitely unfavoured for me.
2. Why are Mill spells any less legit of a win-con than damage from Colonnades? If anything, opponents are less prepared for it
3. Responses in a UW Mill deck can be the same as the responses in a UW Control deck, which is a pretty good deck right now in case you hadn't noticed. You could choose to put tempo responses into your deck (Remand, Vapor Snag, Darkness, Spell Snare) or control responses in your deck (Cryptic, Path, Verdict, Logic Knot)
There's multiple ways to build a Mill deck; Tempo, Control, Burn. For you to write off trying out a different archetype of Mill, without having tried it yourself, and that hasn't been fully explored by others is pretty short sighted. But I guess you must know best...
Tested both UB and UW last night. My UB deck got toasted by Hardened Scales, turn 4 through interaction twice in a row. He was on the play G1, started by puking 4 cards out (Land, Opal, Welding Jar, Automaton), followed up by a Ravager on T2. I dropped a Crab on 1, Orb on 2 (had Fatal Push in hand, but Welding Jar...), then Field of Ruin > Double Archive Trap > Fatal push on 3 (a pretty huge line for us). I died T4 with 3 cards left in his library. G2 I kept Fragmentize, Surgical, Push, but 1 lander (Glimpse and Orb I think?). Nothing on T1 for me, double Jar and Hardened Scales on T1 for him. I fragmentize and Surgical his Scales, but he reveals a hand with Arcbound Worker and double Steel Overseer. I don't draw a land for the next 2 turns and die to an Overseer and Ravager working together to make a huge Inkmoth for an alpha strike. I think my only hope is Stony Silence (in my UW board but not UB board...). Path would've been nice to get around the Welding Jars both games though. I think it's gotta be one of our worst matchups though, Welding Jar is super useful for protecting threats.
UW Mill destroyed UW miracle control 2-0 as I'd expect though (I think UB would do the same). Field of Ruin into Surgical on his Colonnade, then Mission Briefing to surgical his Jace (I know his deck and threats - not many) and he's left with single Teferi and Clique, and 3x Snapcasters as his win-cons. Game 1 he was stuck with 2 Terminus in hand at the end of the game too. Game 2 he tapped out end of my turn (like T11 or something) to use a flipped Azcanta, and opened up to Field of Ruin > Trap > Mission Briefing on the Trap that basically sealed it for me. Instant speed response for the win.
As far as cutting Glimpse: Ya, I know it seems odd, I agree it's THE staple card. But I noticed the lack of black cards when re-evaluating my manabase and just want to see if it's possible. Plus, what's better than 10 cards for 2 mana? 13 cards for 2 mana. It also lets us play at instant speed as a control deck which can be pretty important. Path to Exile >> Fatal Push, Supreme Verdict > Damnation. Crypt Incursion is less important if we're controlling all their threats and landing a board wipe more reliably.
I've also of course got my UB shell with Mission Briefings in there too, but I think going slow and leaning more on Mesmeric Orb and control strategy. Stats say that ~66% of the time you will have EITHER Archive Trap OR Mesmeric Orb in your opening hand, and once you have one of them your Mission Briefings become live (tapping out at EOT to mill yourself with the Orb will get you a Trap in the yard pretty quickly). I don't think it's as crazy as it sounds. I think cutting Crabs and Scribes might not be correct though, but we'll see.
I'm thinking of:
-2 Brutality
-3 Ensnaring Bridge (Doesn't play nicely with control)
+3 Thought Scour (cantrip plus instant speed mill)
+2 Settle the Wreckage
-8 Creatures (crabs and scribes)
+7 Counterspells (right now thinking 3 Cryptic, 2 Logic Knot, 2 Negate but maybe Spell Snare for tempo?)
+1 Psychic Spiral (reach after mesmeric orbing my graveyard down. Instant speed!)
Straight (mostly) equivalent replacements
-4 Glimpse; +4 Mission Briefing
-2 Crypt Incursion; +2 Profane Memento (maybe Timely Reinforcements?)
-3 Push; +3 Path
-2 Damnation; +2 Supreme Verdict (but in the main instead of SB)
With 4 Field of Ruin and 4 Path, it should be easy enough to get them to search to activate Trap/Briefing. With field of ruin forced search, even when they don't fetch for Path we can still get them. I'm thinking 22 lands should be enough (instead of 25 like regular control uses) because we're not aiming to resolve a 5 mana Planeswalker with protection up to win the game. More just a bunch of 0 or 2 mana spells (Trap, Orb, Briefing) and then just slow them down enough to make the Orbs hurt them, with Traps being a big burn.
Anyway, I'm going to proxy up this UW list and try it tomorrow with my friends. Our meta includes Hardened Scales, Spirits, GB Eldrazi Rock, BW Tokens, UR Wizards, Burn, and UW Miracle Control. Notably no Humans (could be a bad matchup) and no Tron (UW struggles against them, but with Surgicals in my main board it's usually alright).
I think it fits in as a replacement for Snapcaster, I'm gonna start with 2 of, but wouldn't be surprised to end up with 4 or even 6 (4 Briefing, 2 snappy probly) of these types of effects. Casting Archive Trap for 0 as flashback is huge.
This sums it up exactly. If you're just looking to stall out your opponent and don't mind if the permanent (you use only Leyline of Sanctity as an example) comes back, then ET is great. If it's something you need to remove permanently, thinking Jace, Teferi, Gideon of the Trials and such, then you need actual removal, which Set Adrift usually works for. Different cards for different styles. We're not a Draw-go deck playing at instant speed, but I do see your point about being able to bounce Leyline EoT and then have all your mana open to cast spells on your turn - in this scenario it's likely that you haven't done anything on your previous turn due to the Leyline, so would have mana open.
I've been running 2x Void Snare and 1x Echoing Truth in my list lately, was hoping the one mana cheaper on Void Snare would leave me with a little bit more mana to cast spells after bouncing a problem permanent. I actually ran into double Leyline the other night against a friend, and I managed to have a Void Snare and a Set Adrift in my hand, with an Orb on the table. The plan was to bounce one, top of library the other, mill during his untap phase, and Surgical both of them away. Of course, a counterspell on the Set Adrift foiled my plans.
I think I might shave a couple Fatal Push and try to slot 3 Pharaohs in and see how it goes
I'm with you on the tempo style, with the combo aspect of Field of Ruin and Traps in there. I think you're definitely onto something. I previously played more of a control style (AER Release GP), but found I got wrecked by fast creature decks.
What I don't particularly like is how there's just a few cards that absolutely hose us in the meta at the moment. Leyline, Blood Moon, and Emrakul all seem relatively abundant (ok, sure, not in the top deck, but in multiple other decks) and are pretty difficult to deal with on the whole. That's part of what I like about Fraying Sanity so much, is it gives us that one turn kill if we need it, or gives us the raw power to mill their deck twice in some cases (ie: Surgical on Emrakul, but shuffle trigger still goes). Without Fraying Sanity, that's basically an auto-loss. So the inevitability and speed it brings I think is really important, and I like 4 copies too. I think I'm about 8-1 when landing a Fraying Sanity in T3, 4, or 5.
Blood Moon especially ruins the day for Esper, it's what sent me back to UB. Instead of playing cards to fight it, UB lets us avoid it if we know it's coming by fetching up our basics. The best way to fight it in Esper is to run a basic plains, which always sucks to draw into. I might try UB with 1 Godless Shrine, and some Fragmentize in the board to handle Leylines and Wheel of Sun and Moon though. It sucks how much those 3 cards (and Emrakul) are such a hard defeat against us
Lots of good discussion and testing here. I haven't had a chance to get too much testing in lately (my last game I played, my buddy mulled to 4 and 5 just to find his Wheel of Sun and Moon for G2 and G3 respectively after I beat him G1... fair play I guess? I just scooped to it since I guess winning was more important than playing the game to him).
My most recent deck I removed the Orbs and put more Mill threats in (4x Mind Funeral) to have a little more velocity and some more redundancy against hand disruption. I've been on 21 lands but I'm definitely going back up to 22, which I think is the right number, but could see 23 as well. If you can drop Fraying Sanity on T3 it's pretty much a win by T4 or T5, so getting that land count up is important. If I were running 23 lands, I'd definitely go for 4 Snappies, but as is I'm on 2. He's just SO good for whatever you need at any given time.
I tried the crabs and still underwhelmed so will probably go back to creatureless. It's funny, I played the GP in February with my creatureless list and had a lot of people telling me I needed crabs in. I've tried Crabs and Scribes and Phantasms (and all 3!) and think creatureless, aside from Snap, is probably still the way to go.
Quartz, since you've had such success with the Scroll, I can't help but force myself to try it. It just seems so slow though! 2 mana sorcery speed to tutor something up that isn't even usually a mill spell just seems like it wastes a whole turn. But silver bullet for draw or sideboard answers has value for G2 and G3. Might be something for the board, since G2 and G3 tend to be slower with both players having sideboard answers in the deck.
I'm also not running either Memento or Crypt Incursion at the moment. I read Pesistratos' description again and thought that running Darkness was worth a legit test. being a 1 drop it's quite the tempo play, and with Snapcasters around it's still relatively cheap to save your life against creatures for a turn. For B it's also cheap enough to play Glimpse or Funeral while holding up mana for it.
I'd post a whole decklist but right now I've got it tight with a bunch of 4-ofs. Glimpse, Mind Funeral, Archive, Visions, Push, Darkness, Fraying Sanity, and Snapcaster, with 3 of Inquisition and Surgical. 22 Lands but will probably find a way to get up to 23. With no Crabs I think I might swap Oboro for Urborg too...
One card that I've toyed with in the sideboard but haven't really cast is Sadistic Sacrament. I think it's worthwhile since it lets you strip what you want from your opponents library. What I don't like about Infinite Obliteration and (what's the non-artifact one that's similar from a recent set?) is that you have to name the card before you search. Sacrament lets you find whatever you want, as well as see what your opponent brought in against you from the board (which is usually a 2 or 3 of anyway) so it's an effective wipeout and never whiffs. BBB is a heavy coloured cost, but it's a clean answer that's important against the cards that are such a hard lock against us... assuming they're not already down or in hand is all. Plus it's a little slow is the biggest downside. Any other thoughts on it or replacements otherwise?
He chimes in here every once in awhile to tell us that he's right and we're all wrong without actually having played many games.
Interesting with Darkness and Ensnaring Bridge both in there - don't you find they overlap a little bit? The bridge also seems like it would non-bo with Remand too, needing to keep them in hand. Have they been effective for you? I'd almost think something else could work better, maybe even Bontu's in the main?
I'm also surprised to see no Fatal Push or any creature control in there. What stops you getting run over with Goyf or Infect outside of Darkness?
I do like the idea of Snare in the list, but why not put some of the silver bullet traps in the sideboard? Ravenous Trap and Mindbreak Trap both seem like they would be worth having as a one-of to tutor for.
I'm definitely intrigued by your list though and am going to proxy up some field of ruins and Trapmaker's Snares to test it out.
Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, Inkmoth Nexus, Aether Vial, Chalice of the Void, Expedition Map are all relevant and a 1 mana removal against them is pretty effective at slowing their game plan Though I did have to think hard to get a list! (and maybe I'm missing some). Comparatively, Blood Moon and Leyline are the only 2 enchantments we're really scared of, ya? They are big big problems though.
Related to Inquisition and Fatal Push, I like both. I run 3 Push, 3 path, and 2 IoK in the main in my deck - I like all of them for their own reasons. I especially like Inquisition with Surgicals, since once you have a look at their hand (via IoK) you know what to hit with Surgical once once you've milled it (T1 Archive trap?) to do the most damage.