I keep seeing people say that Mill is unplayable in EDH, and I just have to disagree. So I figured I would at least try to prove my point and list some cards you guys should look at, and maybe test out a bit.
Now, I will NOT deny that Mill has a hard time of it. Three players to be milled is quite difficult to pull off, but no more so than say, X based burn spells. I just want to point out that Mill has the tools it needs to win.
Pros:
-Out of these three, Phenax is the most oriented toward Combo.
-Doesn't need to connect to mill, just turn him sideways.
-Indestructible Enchantment Creature; can be hard to remove.
Cons:
-Countered by Eldrazi.
-Can not be a creature at very inopportune times.
Out of them, my favorite is Mirko, simply because he has a set amount he's trying to mill out; If by turn five (Assuming no ramp) each opponent has five lands out, that's five less he has to worry about per opponent. Most EDH decks only run 40, so each land they play gets him closer to victory via mill.
Szadek, however, becomes HUGE quickly. While Mirko is no slouch with Double Strike, Szadek just brings the pain, exponentially. Assuming no other boosts, a Szadek with Double Strike ends the turn at 20/20 and only gets bigger.
Phenax, though. Oh Phenax. Eater of the Dead loves him so much, as does Undead Alchemist, both of which can easily mean instant mill-out. Considering a lot of high toughness creatures are low CMC, it doesn't take him long to set up, either.
2) The Eldrazi Problem.
Let's just get this out of the way. There are so many ways to deal with Eldrazi in Blue/Black before they even hit the field. Extract, Sadistic Sacrament, Denying Wind, Jester's Cap, just to name a few, will get rid of the Eldrazi, Blightsteel Colossus, or any other Shuffler before they become an issue (Note; none of those cards require you to name a card before searching. If they don't have the Eldrazi or similar, simply get rid of other power cards (Or, if Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker, just get rid of lands. No deck lasts much longer after playing 12 lands and having fifteen removed from the game after Sadistic Sacrament))
While niche, Surgical Extraction can be used to exile the Titan in question before it has a chance to shuffle the deck, and Planar Void is a cheap case of "It stays gone, guys...."
3) You can still kill people via Damage.
While only two cards, Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage both offer the amazing "Whenever a card is put into an opponents graveyard, they take 1 damage.". Szadek hitting for 120 but can't mill out due to Eldrazi? One of these will end it for you.
4) You are still Black and Blue.
Black and Blue are the best colors for Counterspells, unblockability, and other such Shenanigans. Every high powered creature in the opponents graveyard can be reanimated to act as a blocker/finisher (Or in Phenax's case, miller). You have access to Black and Blue's tutors, so getting what you need is not a problem.
While I haven't covered everything, I do hope some of you will look at this and at least be a little more open minded. Heck, maybe even give it a try.
I didn't include Oona because while she gets rid of cards in the Library, she Exiles and makes dudes. She's not entirely seen as a "Mill" commander.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Oona is by far the most viable Mill commander because she does not feed your opponents' graveyard effects and she bypasses Eldrazi entirely. She also swarms tokens which can help you live until you do the deed.
Not to mention, infinite mana is an automatic millout, and she doesn't need to get anywhere close to connecting or even lose summoning sickness in order to mill.
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Oona is by far the most viable Mill commander because she does not feed your opponents' graveyard effects and she bypasses Eldrazi entirely. She also swarms tokens which can help you live until you do the deed.
Not to mention, infinite mana is an automatic millout, and she doesn't need to get anywhere close to connecting or even lose summoning sickness in order to mill.
I think that her main problem is that she will take all your mana in order to keep milling. All the other ones can start milling on their own, and you can do whatever with your mana - such as control the board. That's not saying she's worse, though. I think she's better because she also gives you a backup plan.
My mimeoplasm deck isn't really a mill deck, but mill is a powerful resource supplier for the deck, so there is plenty of it in there. I often kill at least one opponent with mill in the games I win. Since the deck isn't dedicated to it, I don't have any answers to Eldrazi, so that is usually annoying for me (I actually hate that they are worded as they are because it was completely unnecessary for preventing reanimation). Since the deck also likes milling itself, I threw in psychic spiral, which has gotten me many kills/saved my butt many times.
oona isnt really a mill general, she's a combo general who happens to win via "milling" opponents out.
I've always wondered why ambassador laquatus doesnt crop up more, but I guess it's probably because oona is a strictly better option for the combo mill strategy.
oona isnt really a mill general, she's a combo general who happens to win via "milling" opponents out.
I've always wondered why ambassador laquatus doesnt crop up more, but I guess it's probably because oona is a strictly better option for the combo mill strategy.
I've milled people out with Oona in a non-infinite manner in several decks.
One was a Damia deck that generated stupid amounts of mana and took multiple untaps with Seedborn Muse effects. I've cleared a table in one round by milling each person for ~80 on their upkeep with Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Deserted Temple, Vesua, Seedborn, and Awakening (back in the days of good ol' Primetime)
The other had Oona at the helm. I had themed it as a Supervillain deck where the aim of the game was to cast Doomsday with Hive Mind on the battlefield. Oona would then generally clean up the remaining cards in each players' library.
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No love for Lazav? I like him most because, while he himself doesn't mill, he can become a huge threat out of nowhere if you're milling while he's out. Mirko Vosk has to connect, and Szadek gets absolutely destroyed by blink effects.
Sorry to derail but I lost all ability to pay attention when I saw "Supervillian theme" and "cast Doomsday" such a cool idea...The thought of the "badguys" (phyrexian doods, Griselbrand, etc) constructing doomsday devices (Tower of Calamaties, Lux Cannon, Decimator Web, etc) for the win is just amazing.
Anyway back to the topic at hand. I always assumed mill would just be too hard to do in Commander. I would have liked to do a Millgro deck and I think Szadek could be neat in that but I ended up running Lazav and don't run any dedicated mill just like "mill as you go effects" such as Psychic Strike, et al. That being said you have definitely given me faith that it can at least hold its own in any "fair" meta. I had not considered the impact that such powerful milling abilities can be especially since they are attached to the commander. Blue offers plenty of options for protection from Mizzium Skin to counterspells not to mention generic options like Ring of Evos Isle (good for Szadek), Mask of Avacyn, boots, etc.
At the very least its a good challenge and I'm sure the sweet satisfaction of pulling it off is nigh unto the flavor of the God's own ambrosia.
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No love for Lazav? I like him most because, while he himself doesn't mill, he can become a huge threat out of nowhere if you're milling while he's out. Mirko Vosk has to connect, and Szadek gets absolutely destroyed by blink effects.
Lazav isn't so much a Mill general, since you can focus on Discard or countering with him, and still have a creature go to the graveyard for him to copy.
Mirko and Szadek are both in the colors for unblockability and protection affects
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Maybe if they actually print some EDH viable mill cards in a commander product I won't have to bash a strategy I like so often. Not likely.
Not to nay-say or nitpick but I wonder what that would be like? I would imagine it would have to be almost OP to even be considered playable by EDH Mill standards. I mean Archive Trap and Glimpse the Unthinkable vs all opponents could be good but is that what you mean? I would say that Consuming Aberration comes pretty close to a viable EDH mill enabler. (Obviously one card is not enough) Hedron Crab that hits all opponents? How many cards would it need to mill? (I'm legitimately curious)
As a foundation I look at it this way, in 60 card formats Tome Scour = a worse Lightning Bolt and Mind Sculpt is strictly worse than Lightning Strike based on the metric that 20 life for burn = 60 life for mill.
Mathematically: LIFE 3/20 = 15%, 3/40 = 7%
CARDS 5/60 = 8%, 5/99 = 5%
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Actually, Mill in 60 Card formats start with 53 "Life" they must go through, not 60.
Then it quickly becomes a choice between "Mill" (General cards to Graveyards) or "Grind" (Go till you hit a land). Because the two are VERY different beasts; Mill has 53 cards to get through, Grind only has 19-26 (Depending on lands in deck)
Also, with the opponent drawing cards, the amount of "Life" a Mill deck needs to go through is lowered quite fast, especially against blue decks (Which like to draw more than one card a turn). It's the equivalent of a Burn Decks' opponent starting the game with a Curse of the Pierced Heart (Albeit a much weaker version).
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Maybe if they actually print some EDH viable mill cards in a commander product I won't have to bash a strategy I like so often. Not likely.
Not to nay-say or nitpick but I wonder what that would be like? I would imagine it would have to be almost OP to even be considered playable by EDH Mill standards. I mean Archive Trap and Glimpse the Unthinkable vs all opponents could be good but is that what you mean? I would say that Consuming Aberration comes pretty close to a viable EDH mill enabler. Hedron Crab that hits all opponents? How many cards would it need to mill? (I'm legitimately curious)
As a foundation I look at it this way, in 60 card formats Tome Scour = a worse Lightning Bolt and Mind Sculpt is strictly worse than Lightning Strike based on the metric that 20 life for burn = 60 life for mill.
Mathematically: LIFE 3/20 = 15%, 3/40 = 7%
CARDS 5/60 = 8%, 5/99 = 5%
Mill spells are too small and too limited. You need to mill 350+ cards without help. The bolded is the part that gets ignored. When using damage you generally have multiple players dealing damage. There is usually only 1 player milling so that player needs to do all of the work by themselves. Add in that the "good" mill cards if you even want to call them that are few in number and do little else besides mill.
So, if you want to mill you will accept:
A) Limited card pool.
B) Sacrificing utility for niche cards.
C) You do all the work.
D) Irrational hate from a large portion of players.
E) You help all graveyard based decks win the game. This can tie into D as well.
F) The game does not support mill as much as damage.
So sure. Play mill all you want. But players need to stop lying to themselves and others by saying it isn't garbage. All the "But x anecdotal evidence" is meaningless and delusional.
Actually, Mill in 60 Card formats start with 53 "Life" they must go through, not 60.
Then it quickly becomes a choice between "Mill" (General cards to Graveyards) or "Grind" (Go till you hit a land). Because the two are VERY different beasts; Mill has 53 cards to get through, Grind only has 19-26 (Depending on lands in deck)
Also, with the opponent drawing cards, the amount of "Life" a Mill deck needs to go through is lowered quite fast, especially against blue decks (Which like to draw more than one card a turn). It's the equivalent of a Burn Decks' opponent starting the game with a Curse of the Pierced Heart (Albeit a much weaker version).
I knew my percentages looked wrong from the last time I ran them. My concept was right but the numbers were wrong.
Mill spells are too small and too limited. You need to mill 350+ cards without help. The bolded is the part that gets ignored. When using damage you generally have multiple players dealing damage. There is usually only 1 player milling so that player needs to do all of the work by themselves. Add in that the "good" mill cards if you even want to call them that are few in number and do little else besides mill.
So, if you want to mill you will accept:
A) Limited card pool.
B) Sacrificing utility for niche cards.
C) You do all the work.
D) Irrational hate from a large portion of players.
E) You help all graveyard based decks win the game. This can tie into D as well.
F) The game does not support mill as much as damage.
So sure. Play mill all you want. But players need to stop lying to themselves and others by saying it isn't garbage. All the "But x anecdotal evidence" is meaningless and delusional.
I was actually hoping you might have an example of a card design that might help to enable the strategy in EDH. As I mentioned I think Consuming Aberration is in the right design space. Hedron Crab is too minus the fact that it only hits one player at a time. The idea is that both of these cards enable you to mill by rewarding you for doing something you want to do anyway (play spells and drop lands) and the Aberration even gives you an alt win con via making a huge dood to turn sideways. For me that is exactly what EDH needs to make mill viable. At the same time its just one card, we would need more like it but the concept is sound. The thing I worry about is if Wizards were to print something like:
UB
Mega Mill
Each opponent puts the top 13 cards of their library into the graveyard.
While acceptible for EDH it is GROSSLY overpowered for any other format. It is my concern that this is what Wizards would try, or rather, for fear of doing this they will not try at all or whatever they do print will still be far too weak to actually work in EDH.
UB
Land Slam
Each opponent puts a card from the top of their library into the graveyard until 4 basic lands have been removed this way.
Maybe something more along the lines of this? EDH decks tend to cram tons of fetches, man lands, utility lands, and jank lands of all flavors but in the end basics still fill in a huge portion of any given decks mana base, at least half in most cases I would imagine. This lets you grab a lot but would be less powerful in 60 card formats. Would you consider something along these lines to be acceptible?
The thing is I always see people mention how mill in EDH is unplayable and a lot of the things you mentioned cannot be solved by card design with inexplicible hate from the player base being among the key offenders. I would like to believe mill for things like Nighthowler, Wight of Precinct Six, and Lazav would be less hated because at least its mill with a purpose not just mill to be a jerk. All that aside what kind of cards do you think Wizards needs to print to make mill viable in EDH?
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So, if you want to mill you will accept:
A) Limited card pool.
B) Sacrificing utility for niche cards.
C) You do all the work.
D) Irrational hate from a large portion of players.
E) You help all graveyard based decks win the game. This can tie into D as well.
F) The game does not support mill as much as damage.
A) A Good Mill deck in any format keeps the board clear until late game, where it has the board on lockdown and can mill without getting slapped back. No different in Commander.
B) What utility are you losing by including niche cards? Losing Counterspells? Just Extract the problem away. Any spell you can use to get rid of Eldrazi could easily be repurposed to get rid of Tooth and Nail, Consecrated Sphinx, Akroma's Memorial, or any other card that could cause problems. Your opponents can't cast spells they don't have, and none of the good Extract cards force you to choose before searching.
C) In all things, it's a poor plan to rely on someone else to do something for you.
D) Not as much hate as Azami (Who suddenly doesn't have Mind over Matter), Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, or any of the other super annoying commanders. Also, since you are a "Mill deck" and "Mill is weak in EDH", people don't really focus on you.
E) You mean someone who makes their library smaller than you? Keep their graveyard and Library cleared of threats, "help" them out with getting stuff into the Graveyard, it's all a game of politics, just like EDH.
F) Game also doesn't really support Graveyard -> Library, it's just that a large portion of that small pool is the ever popular Eldrazi. Other than the big three Eldrazi (One of whom is banned in the format), there are about six or seven cards that will invalidate your work, maybe one of which will be played in Commander. Seriously, other than Eldrazi or Blightsteel, how often do you think about being Milled out in Commander?
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I was actually hoping you might have an example of a card design that might help to enable the strategy in EDH.
Nearly impossible. Any decent mill card in EDH would need to be overpowered in another format. The only way around this would be to reference the command zone or general tax.
Psychic Spiral could very easily have been made to say "Opponents" instead of "Target Player", which wouldn't have changed it's power in any other format other than Casual, and it would become a back breaking EDH Mill card.
I'm not saying that that should have been the case, but it does show that a tiny change can make it good in EDH, but not any better in a 1v1 scenario.
EDIT: It would have lost it's Innistrad Self Mill abilities, but if you had enough cards in graveyard to make it worth it, and didn't have a good creature to reanimate from that.....
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Nearly impossible. Any decent mill card in EDH would need to be overpowered in another format. The only way around this would be to reference the command zone or general tax.
What about a card that milled based on the number of players? It would scale to EDH and make it better if you played against 5 instead of 3 since you have more heavy lifting to do in that case.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Your opinion of mill in EDH from a theoretical perspective is irrelevant to the games of EDH I actually play. In practice, mill constitutes a viable strategy for less competitive groups. (Certain forms of mill or at least exiling libraries also work in competitive combo decks - Bitter Ordeal with infinite gravestorm, for example.)
which is a possibility, of course. They could easily make a general that does this,
Millie Milhouse 1UB
Legendary Creature - Moonfolk Ninja
When you cast Millie Milhouse, if you cast it from the command zone, each opponent puts the top 15 cards from their library into their graveyard.
1/2
My thoughts exactly (not the card, though, lol). If they made a powerful mill general in a precon, they could push mill as a strategy with that. Imagine Consuming Aberration was legendary. That'd be and awesome mill general.
"Mill X cards" and "Grind until X lands" both have the fatal flaw of being, essentially, lava axes. They do nothing to the board state, and in multiplayer, they have to either hit all opponents (which many do not), or you have to lava axe each opponent to death, one at a time. There's a reason that no one runs a deck with just burn spells - it would be a terrible deck in 4-player multiplayer (with extra life to go through as well).
The best to enable mill is to print more cards like mesmeric orb and make an actual good, legendary mill creature (to be run as a commander).
I keep seeing people say that Mill is unplayable in EDH, and I just have to disagree. So I figured I would at least try to prove my point and list some cards you guys should look at, and maybe test out a bit.
Now, I will NOT deny that Mill has a hard time of it. Three players to be milled is quite difficult to pull off, but no more so than say, X based burn spells. I just want to point out that Mill has the tools it needs to win.
1) Commander Choice:
Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
Pros:
-Enemies have a set amount of "life" in the form of lands.
-Enemies want their lands out of the library as much as you.
-Built in Evasion.
Cons:
-Countered by Eldrazi/Graveyard to Library effects.
-Each enemy has their own "life/land" total.
-Must connect to the enemies face to mill.
Szadek, Lord of Secrets
Pros:
-Carries the work done on one opponent to the next.
-Built in Evasion.
-Can mill a quite a few cards in short order.
Cons:
-Countered by Eldrazi/Graveyard to Library effects.
-Must connect with the enemies face to mill.
Phenax, God of Deception
Pros:
-Out of these three, Phenax is the most oriented toward Combo.
-Doesn't need to connect to mill, just turn him sideways.
-Indestructible Enchantment Creature; can be hard to remove.
Cons:
-Countered by Eldrazi.
-Can not be a creature at very inopportune times.
Out of them, my favorite is Mirko, simply because he has a set amount he's trying to mill out; If by turn five (Assuming no ramp) each opponent has five lands out, that's five less he has to worry about per opponent. Most EDH decks only run 40, so each land they play gets him closer to victory via mill.
Szadek, however, becomes HUGE quickly. While Mirko is no slouch with Double Strike, Szadek just brings the pain, exponentially. Assuming no other boosts, a Szadek with Double Strike ends the turn at 20/20 and only gets bigger.
Phenax, though. Oh Phenax. Eater of the Dead loves him so much, as does Undead Alchemist, both of which can easily mean instant mill-out. Considering a lot of high toughness creatures are low CMC, it doesn't take him long to set up, either.
2) The Eldrazi Problem.
Let's just get this out of the way. There are so many ways to deal with Eldrazi in Blue/Black before they even hit the field. Extract, Sadistic Sacrament, Denying Wind, Jester's Cap, just to name a few, will get rid of the Eldrazi, Blightsteel Colossus, or any other Shuffler before they become an issue (Note; none of those cards require you to name a card before searching. If they don't have the Eldrazi or similar, simply get rid of other power cards (Or, if Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker, just get rid of lands. No deck lasts much longer after playing 12 lands and having fifteen removed from the game after Sadistic Sacrament))
While niche, Surgical Extraction can be used to exile the Titan in question before it has a chance to shuffle the deck, and Planar Void is a cheap case of "It stays gone, guys...."
3) You can still kill people via Damage.
While only two cards, Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage both offer the amazing "Whenever a card is put into an opponents graveyard, they take 1 damage.". Szadek hitting for 120 but can't mill out due to Eldrazi? One of these will end it for you.
4) You are still Black and Blue.
Black and Blue are the best colors for Counterspells, unblockability, and other such Shenanigans. Every high powered creature in the opponents graveyard can be reanimated to act as a blocker/finisher (Or in Phenax's case, miller). You have access to Black and Blue's tutors, so getting what you need is not a problem.
While I haven't covered everything, I do hope some of you will look at this and at least be a little more open minded. Heck, maybe even give it a try.
I didn't include Oona because while she gets rid of cards in the Library, she Exiles and makes dudes. She's not entirely seen as a "Mill" commander.
Not to mention, infinite mana is an automatic millout, and she doesn't need to get anywhere close to connecting or even lose summoning sickness in order to mill.
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I think that her main problem is that she will take all your mana in order to keep milling. All the other ones can start milling on their own, and you can do whatever with your mana - such as control the board. That's not saying she's worse, though. I think she's better because she also gives you a backup plan.
My mimeoplasm deck isn't really a mill deck, but mill is a powerful resource supplier for the deck, so there is plenty of it in there. I often kill at least one opponent with mill in the games I win. Since the deck isn't dedicated to it, I don't have any answers to Eldrazi, so that is usually annoying for me (I actually hate that they are worded as they are because it was completely unnecessary for preventing reanimation). Since the deck also likes milling itself, I threw in psychic spiral, which has gotten me many kills/saved my butt many times.
BBB Two Hundred Zombies BBB
Duel Commander
WR Tajic, Wrath of the Manlands RW
BGW Doran Destruction WGB
Commander
GUB Mimeoplasm, Screw Politics BUG
BR Mogis, God of Slaughter RB
RGW Marath, Ramp and Removal WGR
WUBRG Karona, Jank God GRBUW
I've always wondered why ambassador laquatus doesnt crop up more, but I guess it's probably because oona is a strictly better option for the combo mill strategy.
UBRThe MindrazerRBU
UUUSpymaster of TrestGGG
GGGThe South TreeGGG
RRRHuman AscendantRRR
I've milled people out with Oona in a non-infinite manner in several decks.
One was a Damia deck that generated stupid amounts of mana and took multiple untaps with Seedborn Muse effects. I've cleared a table in one round by milling each person for ~80 on their upkeep with Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Deserted Temple, Vesua, Seedborn, and Awakening (back in the days of good ol' Primetime)
The other had Oona at the helm. I had themed it as a Supervillain deck where the aim of the game was to cast Doomsday with Hive Mind on the battlefield. Oona would then generally clean up the remaining cards in each players' library.
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Anyway back to the topic at hand. I always assumed mill would just be too hard to do in Commander. I would have liked to do a Millgro deck and I think Szadek could be neat in that but I ended up running Lazav and don't run any dedicated mill just like "mill as you go effects" such as Psychic Strike, et al. That being said you have definitely given me faith that it can at least hold its own in any "fair" meta. I had not considered the impact that such powerful milling abilities can be especially since they are attached to the commander. Blue offers plenty of options for protection from Mizzium Skin to counterspells not to mention generic options like Ring of Evos Isle (good for Szadek), Mask of Avacyn, boots, etc.
At the very least its a good challenge and I'm sure the sweet satisfaction of pulling it off is nigh unto the flavor of the God's own ambrosia.
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Lazav isn't so much a Mill general, since you can focus on Discard or countering with him, and still have a creature go to the graveyard for him to copy.
Mirko and Szadek are both in the colors for unblockability and protection affects
Not to nay-say or nitpick but I wonder what that would be like? I would imagine it would have to be almost OP to even be considered playable by EDH Mill standards. I mean Archive Trap and Glimpse the Unthinkable vs all opponents could be good but is that what you mean? I would say that Consuming Aberration comes pretty close to a viable EDH mill enabler. (Obviously one card is not enough) Hedron Crab that hits all opponents? How many cards would it need to mill? (I'm legitimately curious)
As a foundation I look at it this way, in 60 card formats Tome Scour = a worse Lightning Bolt and Mind Sculpt is strictly worse than Lightning Strike based on the metric that 20 life for burn = 60 life for mill.
Mathematically: LIFE 3/20 = 15%, 3/40 = 7%
CARDS 5/60 = 8%, 5/99 = 5%
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Then it quickly becomes a choice between "Mill" (General cards to Graveyards) or "Grind" (Go till you hit a land). Because the two are VERY different beasts; Mill has 53 cards to get through, Grind only has 19-26 (Depending on lands in deck)
Also, with the opponent drawing cards, the amount of "Life" a Mill deck needs to go through is lowered quite fast, especially against blue decks (Which like to draw more than one card a turn). It's the equivalent of a Burn Decks' opponent starting the game with a Curse of the Pierced Heart (Albeit a much weaker version).
Mill spells are too small and too limited. You need to mill 350+ cards without help. The bolded is the part that gets ignored. When using damage you generally have multiple players dealing damage. There is usually only 1 player milling so that player needs to do all of the work by themselves. Add in that the "good" mill cards if you even want to call them that are few in number and do little else besides mill.
So, if you want to mill you will accept:
A) Limited card pool.
B) Sacrificing utility for niche cards.
C) You do all the work.
D) Irrational hate from a large portion of players.
E) You help all graveyard based decks win the game. This can tie into D as well.
F) The game does not support mill as much as damage.
So sure. Play mill all you want. But players need to stop lying to themselves and others by saying it isn't garbage. All the "But x anecdotal evidence" is meaningless and delusional.
btw; I don't think you have read Mindcrank correctly. It does not turn mill into damage, it's the other way around... (lifeloss into mill).
BRGWTana and TymnaBRGW
RTeneb, the EternalR
UBRNekusar, Mind RazerUBR
Rakdos, Lord of Riots
BGWGhave, Guru of SporesBGW
Aurelia, the Warleader
BDrana, Kalastria BloodchiefB
WBROros, the AvengerWBR
I knew my percentages looked wrong from the last time I ran them. My concept was right but the numbers were wrong.
I was actually hoping you might have an example of a card design that might help to enable the strategy in EDH. As I mentioned I think Consuming Aberration is in the right design space. Hedron Crab is too minus the fact that it only hits one player at a time. The idea is that both of these cards enable you to mill by rewarding you for doing something you want to do anyway (play spells and drop lands) and the Aberration even gives you an alt win con via making a huge dood to turn sideways. For me that is exactly what EDH needs to make mill viable. At the same time its just one card, we would need more like it but the concept is sound. The thing I worry about is if Wizards were to print something like:
While acceptible for EDH it is GROSSLY overpowered for any other format. It is my concern that this is what Wizards would try, or rather, for fear of doing this they will not try at all or whatever they do print will still be far too weak to actually work in EDH.
Maybe something more along the lines of this? EDH decks tend to cram tons of fetches, man lands, utility lands, and jank lands of all flavors but in the end basics still fill in a huge portion of any given decks mana base, at least half in most cases I would imagine. This lets you grab a lot but would be less powerful in 60 card formats. Would you consider something along these lines to be acceptible?
The thing is I always see people mention how mill in EDH is unplayable and a lot of the things you mentioned cannot be solved by card design with inexplicible hate from the player base being among the key offenders. I would like to believe mill for things like Nighthowler, Wight of Precinct Six, and Lazav would be less hated because at least its mill with a purpose not just mill to be a jerk. All that aside what kind of cards do you think Wizards needs to print to make mill viable in EDH?
https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/86097
A) Limited card pool.
B) Sacrificing utility for niche cards.
C) You do all the work.
D) Irrational hate from a large portion of players.
E) You help all graveyard based decks win the game. This can tie into D as well.
F) The game does not support mill as much as damage.
A) A Good Mill deck in any format keeps the board clear until late game, where it has the board on lockdown and can mill without getting slapped back. No different in Commander.
B) What utility are you losing by including niche cards? Losing Counterspells? Just Extract the problem away. Any spell you can use to get rid of Eldrazi could easily be repurposed to get rid of Tooth and Nail, Consecrated Sphinx, Akroma's Memorial, or any other card that could cause problems. Your opponents can't cast spells they don't have, and none of the good Extract cards force you to choose before searching.
C) In all things, it's a poor plan to rely on someone else to do something for you.
D) Not as much hate as Azami (Who suddenly doesn't have Mind over Matter), Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, or any of the other super annoying commanders. Also, since you are a "Mill deck" and "Mill is weak in EDH", people don't really focus on you.
E) You mean someone who makes their library smaller than you? Keep their graveyard and Library cleared of threats, "help" them out with getting stuff into the Graveyard, it's all a game of politics, just like EDH.
F) Game also doesn't really support Graveyard -> Library, it's just that a large portion of that small pool is the ever popular Eldrazi. Other than the big three Eldrazi (One of whom is banned in the format), there are about six or seven cards that will invalidate your work, maybe one of which will be played in Commander. Seriously, other than Eldrazi or Blightsteel, how often do you think about being Milled out in Commander?
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge merits a mention here. I actually lost to mill just the other night when playing my Intet dragons deck against Jeleva and Melek, Izzet Paragon.
This is that anecdotal stuff I was talking about.
Nearly impossible. Any decent mill card in EDH would need to be overpowered in another format. The only way around this would be to reference the command zone or general tax.
Millie Milhouse 1UB
Legendary Creature - Moonfolk Ninja
When you cast Millie Milhouse, if you cast it from the command zone, each opponent puts the top 15 cards from their library into their graveyard.
1/2
UBRThe MindrazerRBU
UUUSpymaster of TrestGGG
GGGThe South TreeGGG
RRRHuman AscendantRRR
Psychic Spiral could very easily have been made to say "Opponents" instead of "Target Player", which wouldn't have changed it's power in any other format other than Casual, and it would become a back breaking EDH Mill card.
I'm not saying that that should have been the case, but it does show that a tiny change can make it good in EDH, but not any better in a 1v1 scenario.
EDIT: It would have lost it's Innistrad Self Mill abilities, but if you had enough cards in graveyard to make it worth it, and didn't have a good creature to reanimate from that.....
Your opinion of mill in EDH from a theoretical perspective is irrelevant to the games of EDH I actually play. In practice, mill constitutes a viable strategy for less competitive groups. (Certain forms of mill or at least exiling libraries also work in competitive combo decks - Bitter Ordeal with infinite gravestorm, for example.)
My thoughts exactly (not the card, though, lol). If they made a powerful mill general in a precon, they could push mill as a strategy with that. Imagine Consuming Aberration was legendary. That'd be and awesome mill general.
"Mill X cards" and "Grind until X lands" both have the fatal flaw of being, essentially, lava axes. They do nothing to the board state, and in multiplayer, they have to either hit all opponents (which many do not), or you have to lava axe each opponent to death, one at a time. There's a reason that no one runs a deck with just burn spells - it would be a terrible deck in 4-player multiplayer (with extra life to go through as well).
The best to enable mill is to print more cards like mesmeric orb and make an actual good, legendary mill creature (to be run as a commander).
BBB Two Hundred Zombies BBB
Duel Commander
WR Tajic, Wrath of the Manlands RW
BGW Doran Destruction WGB
Commander
GUB Mimeoplasm, Screw Politics BUG
BR Mogis, God of Slaughter RB
RGW Marath, Ramp and Removal WGR
WUBRG Karona, Jank God GRBUW
From a min/Max point of view, it's a fair but misleading way to think.
From a reality point of view, your doing something wrong if you are the arch enemy constantly and having to eliminate everyone and do all the work.
It's safer to assume you need to mill out 2 players a round on average, more then you do 3 in a 4 player game.
Piggy backing of other players work is just smart. That's why I think well rounded mill lists still need creatures that work well turning sideways.
Does that make your list not pure mill? Maybe, but most lists are hybrids of some sort anyway.
RW Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas