MTG Salvation

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When I decided to sit down an build a UB deck, I knew from the outset that it’s theme was going to be milling. I knew that chances were small that the deck would be very competitive, but I also knew that any wins I was able to pull off would be epic. It was also a way to build a deck with cards that would otherwise never see the light of day again.

It’s good to note right up front that I normally eschew infinite combos in my decks, and this deck is not any different. You will find no Helm of Obedience+Leyline of the Void, no Temple Bell+Mind Over Matter, no Bloodchief Ascension or Duskmantle Guildmage to combo with my Mindcrank, no infinite mana combos with Power Artifact, Rings of Brighthearth, or Palinchron, etc. I may try and put together a dedicated infinite combo Oona deck one day, but this deck is most certainly not it.

One other thing to note is that the deck is good for milling out 1-2 people, but you are going to need to deal with more than that in some other way. If someone is low on life, let the others take that player out with damage and use your milling spells on someone else (It’s also good to remember that Oona is a 5/5 flyer that spits out a bunch of 1/1 flyers, and that you have big creatures like Consuming Aberration andUlamog, the Ceaseless Hunger that can pack a punch damage-wise). Milling the player with the highest life total will often win you friends, and often people will leave you alive because they want you to finish that player off with mill-effects and you aren’t an imminent threat to them. Of all the decks I play, this one needs politics more than anything.

Updated through M19 – 7/6/2018 (deck list)



As you can see by the long list of recent cards and themes that have gone in and out of the deck, this was not an easy build. Milling cards are a lot like direct damage that can’t hit creatures; not very effective until you mill the last card (or do the last point of damage). Needing to mill between 70-80 cards per player in order to win is very difficult, especially given that it is very likely that your opponents will not be helping you in the task (in theory; more than likely, if someone is drawing tons of cards they are in fact helping you an awful lot).

So it becomes a delicate balance of having enough milling cards in the deck to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time versus not going overboard on the milling and ignoring your opponents threats. With that in mind, you need to choose your cards carefully. I decided to go for cards that exiled cards from the library where I could to avoid feeding graveyard shenanigans, but you can’t go with exile on everything (if you try, you miss out on some powerful cards).

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With all of that in mind, the card choices break down like this:

Synergy with Oona

• Sage's Row Denizen
  
• Undercity Informer
  
• Phenax, God of Deception
  
• Altar of the Brood
  
• Altar of Dementia
  

Whenever you activate Oona and generate some Faerie tokens, Sage's Row Denizen and Altar of the Brood will trigger multiple times. The tokens can then be tapped to Phenax, God of Deception, or sacrificed to Undercity Informer or Altar of Dementia for more milling.

One nice thing to note is that this deck doesn’t rely on having Oona in play at all, so it was important to make sure any cards I played were not dead cards without the Queen of the Fae on the battlefield.

Direct Milling cards

• Startled Awake
  
• Traumatize
  
• Fascination
  
• Increasing Confusion
  
• Mind Grind
  

Of all the card types to not go crazy with, this one is it. I tried to cut this class of cards down to what I felt were the absolute best from a “most cards milled per card” versus a “cards milled per mana cost” standpoint, and the X-spells scale up well if I have Cabal Coffers going. There are many, many good single-shot milling cards (Archive Trap, Glimpse the Unthinkable, Mind Funeral, etc.), but they unfortunately just don’t cut it here (note to WotC: print more mill cards that affect all opponents).

Repeatable Milling Effects

• Hedron Crab
  
• Riddlekeeper
  
• Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
  
• Dreamborn Muse
  
• Consuming Aberration
  
• Extractor Demon
  
• Sire of Stagnation
  
• Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
  
• Memory Erosion
  
• Sphinx's Tutelage
  
• Forced Fruition
  
• Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
  
• Mindcrank
  
• Keening Stone
  

This is the meat and potatoes of the deck and where most of the milling actually occurs. Some of these are repeatable due to triggers caused by your opponent and some are caused by triggers due to things you do, so you really need to be paying attention to what is going on so you don’t miss triggers.

Removal

• Withered Wretch
  
• Nihil Spellbomb
  
• Cyclonic Rift
  
• Ætherize
  
• Wash Out
  
• Æther Gale
  
• Toxic Deluge
  
• Damnation
  
• Crux of Fate
  
• Decree of Pain
  
• Dregs of Sorrow
  
• Propaganda
  
• Collective Restraint
  

The deck can probably use a few spot removal cards, but in general the deck plays all the best mass-removal in the two colors, in addition to two Propaganda effects and a few graveyard removal spells just in case. I’d love to run Leyline of the Void, but it’s a “non-bo” with too many good milling cards (Keening Stone and Consuming Aberration being the big two). If cards like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth are prevalent in your meta, then you can pull those for Leyline and something like Planar Void.

Countermagic

• Spellstutter Sprite
  
• Glen Elendra Archmage
  
• Counterspell
  
• Arcane Denial
  
• Psychic Strike
  
• Disallow
  
• Soul Manipulation
  
• Induce Paranoia
  
• Cryptic Command
  
• Mystic Confluence
  

The deck has as many or more counters than any other deck I play, and for a deck like this you are going to need them. The key is to save them for mostly non-creature threats, defending your board, or protecting a key Wrath or Windfall effect.

Card Advantage

• Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
  
• Mulldrifter
  
• Archaeomancer
  
• Pilfered Plans
  
• Windfall
  
• Whispering Madness
  
• Treasure Cruise
  
• Jace Beleren
  
• Howling Mine
  
• Anvil of Bogardan
  
• Dictate of Kruphix
  

There are a few other cards in the deck that perform other functions that allow you to draw cards, but these are the ones in the deck strictly for card draw. Again, I’d like to squeeze in a few more, but it is hard to find room.

I put the Howling Mine effects here because they really help fuel what you are doing while accelerating your opponent’s demise is just a bonus. I’ve tried overloading on this kind of effect with things like Font of Mythos, Kami of the Crescent Moon, Temple Bell, Otherworld Atlas, Seizan, Perverter of Truth, and even Well of Ideas. It’s a fine line to dance between accelerating your opponent’s demise versus fueling your own…

One of the great equalizers to running Howling Mines is that you also run Windfall and Whispering Madness. If the opponent’s hand size is big enough, these cards can not only “mill” tons of cards but you also net a ton of card advantage.

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Combos and Synergy
The deck doesn’t run any infinite combos, but there is plenty of things that synergize with one another in the deck that bear pointing out:

Oona Combos
Oona, Queen of the Fae + Sage's Row Denizen = Mill an additional 2 cards per Faerie token created.
Oona, Queen of the Fae + Undercity Informer = Sacrifice the Faerie tokens for more milling.
Oona, Queen of the Fae + Phenax, God of Deception = Tap the Faerie tokens for more milling.
Oona, Queen of the Fae + Altar of the Brood = Mill an additional one card for each opponent per Faerie token created.
Oona, Queen of the Fae + Altar of Dementia = Sacrifice the Faerie tokens for more milling.

Other Synergy
Mass-Bounce + Windfall or Whispering Madness = Massive Library cycling
Mass-Bounce + Dreamborn Muse = Massive amounts of milling
Windfall or Whispering Madness + Sphinx's Tutelage = Massive amounts of milling
Fascination + Sphinx's Tutelage = You actually use the draw side of Fascination for mass-milling
Wrath Effect or Altar of Dementia or Undercity Informer + Extractor Demon = Massive milling
Riptide Laboratory + Archaeomancer or Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Spellstutter Sprite or Sage's Row Denizen or Circu, Dimir Lobotomist or Glen Elendra Archmage = Wizard recursion, which is especially good pre-Wrath effect.
Wrath effect + Phenax, God of Deception or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger = Both creatures have indestructible and will survive everything except an exceptionally-sized Toxic Deluge
Mass-Bounce + Memory Erosion or Forced Fruition = Put everything back into player’s hands and make them play them again to trigger your enchantments.

After talking with some people and playing the deck a little more this weekend, I started to tweak the deck and shift some of the card focus:

+1 Dark Deal, +1 Jace's Archivist, and when Amonkhet comes out +1 Commit to Memory - I wanted to pursue the Windfall theme more. I'm using Wheel and Deal as a placeholder for Commit//Memory.
+1 Evacuation - The deck needed one more mass-bounce spell.
+1 Kami of the Crescent Moon, +1 Temple Bell, +1 Font of Mythos, +1 Seizan, Perverter of Truth - The Howling Mine effects needed to be reinstated.

-1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - A nice alternate win-con that still fits the theme, but it doesn't do enough and is hard to protect
-1 Pilfered Plans - You don't get enough when compared to a Windfall effect
-1 Increasing Confusion - I didn't need this much high-end and this X-spell didn't hit all opponents
-1 Decree of Pain - Pulled for the much cheaper and more synergistic Evacuation
-1 Coalition Relic - I had a glut at 3 mana and the window to play this is often very small
-1 Hedron Crab, -1 Memory Erosion - Great little milling cards, but they pale in comparison to the effectiveness of the Mine Effects + Mass Bounce + Windfall plan
-1 Treasure Cruise - This seems crazy, but with all the other stuff going on the deck rarely needs dedicated draw.

EDIT:
-1 Collective Restraint - removed to put into another deck, plus one Propaganda effect is enough.
+1 Raven Guild Master - Exiling 10 cards per hit seems good enough to be great here.

I like your deck, I too play a non-infinite version of Oona but mine tends much more towards a mono-black theme. One card I added awhile ago and absolutely love is Dire Undercurrents. Every faerie Oona makes draws you a card and makes someone discard a card. Plus it makes all your other random creatures do one or the other or both as well.

Geth, Lord of the Vault and Memory Plunder would also be great here. Since you're milling people out you'd have tons of options to bring things back! Diluvian Primordial, Sepulchral Primordial, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep follow the same thought process and could be fun.

With all your extra draw / wheel effects did you consider Notion Thief? Might be a bit too feel bad for the themes your decks seem to go for but it could be very strong in this type of deck.

Lastly what about Sword of Body and Mind? It is usually the last sword anyone wants to play but this deck seems perfect for it.

Quote from Patryn »

I like your deck, I too play a non-infinite version of Oona but mine tends much more towards a mono-black theme. One card I added awhile ago and absolutely love is Dire Undercurrents. Every faerie Oona makes draws you a card and makes someone discard a card. Plus it makes all your other random creatures do one or the other or both as well.

I like Dire Undercurrents a lot. When I first built this deck a few years back, it a much more of a Faerie-tribal theme and I played Dire Undercurrents as basically a draw spell with upside. I also played it in a Nicol Bolas discard-themed deck. As good as it potentially could be, I'm not sure it meshes well with the deck's current dynamics. I want my opponent's hands big and fat to maximize the amount of damage my Windfall effects will have, so I would have to play things very differently. It makes for an interesting Plan B to bounce an opponents stuff, then make them discard it all to Currents. I would also be drawing a lot of cards, so perhaps a big Windfall would still be possible. I'll have to think about what to cut to try this out, but I'm at least intrigued.

Geth, Lord of the Vault and Memory Plunder would also be great here. Since you're milling people out you'd have tons of options to bring things back! Diluvian Primordial, Sepulchral Primordial, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep follow the same thought process and could be fun.

The main issue here is deck size. My thinking is that if I'm going to kill people through milling then I need to use my card slots primarily focused on just doing that. If I have to kill one player through damage, there are already a few heavy-hitters in the deck that can finish someone off so I don't feel like I really need to add to that aspect of the deck.

With all your extra draw / wheel effects did you consider Notion Thief? Might be a bit too feel bad for the themes your decks seem to go for but it could be very strong in this type of deck.

I considered it, but the issues are A) gameplay-wise, this is right up there with Leovold, Emissary of Trest + wheels, and B) strategically, I actually want my opponents to draw all of those cards...

Lastly what about Sword of Body and Mind? It is usually the last sword anyone wants to play but this deck seems perfect for it.

This is a good idea, but one I've already mostly gotten away from. At one time I had lots of cards that depended on combat to mill the opponents; Nemesis of Reason, Scalpelexis, Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker, Lord of the Void, and Szadek, Lord of Secrets were all in the deck at one point. I could potentially see SoBaM going into the deck for Raven Guild Master which is the only card that is still in the deck from this class of cards. With the Sword i nthe deck, even a Faerie token becomes a milling machine. I could also potentially see me getting away from the Howling Mine effects and putting all these cards back in as a way to change things up every once and a while.

Thanks for the suggestions!

More updating of my decks:

Commander 2017
Galecaster Colossus - With nine other Wizards in the deck (including Oona herself), this seemed like a nice potential add to the bounce arsenal.
Taigam, Sidisi's Hand - A very interesting repeatable removal spell, but if I wanted this I would just use Visara.

Ixalan
Fleet Swallower - I removed many of the cards that required combat to attack triggers to mill opponents, but none of them were this effective. Half a person's deck is a lot of cards and if well worth the 7-mana cost. I also like that the person you attack is not necessarily the person you mill.
Navigator's Ruin - This seems a lot like Fraying Sanity but without any of the huge upside.
Primal Wellspring - The deck runs a lot of instants and sorceries, and some of them are backbreaking when copied.

Rivals of Ixalan
Induced Amnesia - If I can load someone up on cards with mass-bounce or Howling Mine effects, this can become a semi-wheel. I can also bounce it, then replay it again immediately for some real shenanigans.
Kumena's Awakening - So the Howling Mine effects are there in order to keep opposing player's hand sizes high, so often once you Ascend you may still want your opponents to draw the extra card but the choice is mandatory. Since getting the City's Blessing is relatively easy in this deck, this ends up becoming a drawback rather than a feature.

So I decided that I would do the following:
+1 Fleet Swallower
+1 Primal Wellspring
+1 Induced Amnesia
-1 Mulldrifter - So this deck just doesn't need much in the dedicated card draw department, so this can be safely pulled.
-1 Anvil of Bogardan - I like that this card is cheap to play, but it just isn't very impactful.
-1 Riddlekeeper - Not a bad effect, but its too easy to play around and not very good in the long run.

There were some neat M19 cards that I really want to try in this deck, so it seemed like a good time to do another update:

Dominaria
Demonlord Belzenlok - I would get to draw an additional card off of 29/63 non-land cards in the deck, which seems okay but it's just not what this deck is all about.
Diligent Excavator - So like Hedron Crab this only mills players one at a time, but unlike Hedron Crab it only mills two for each trigger and not three. There are 20 cards in the deck that would trigger it, but that isn't good enough here.
Homarid Explorer - If I had a reason to run a blink engine I could see this getting some screen time, but I would have much preferred a 1/4 for 3 mana here. As it is, it is too expensive and poorly positioned for my deck.
Naru Meha, Master Wizard - I've since learned with Primal Amulet that this deck doesn't really want/need spell-copying.
Weight of Memory - Getting card draw and milling in one card can be nice, but like Pilfered Plans you just don't get enough to justify a card slot.

Battlebond
Morphic Pool - I think a 2-color, non-green deck like this is the perfect place for these dual lands.
Zndrsplt's Judgment - I really like this card, but it just doesn't seem to work out here; there just isn't enough things to copy.

M19
Patient Rebuilding - This is somewhat interesting in that it is milling plus card draw, but even though its an effect that you can get multiple uses out of it I don't think it does enough to justify the cost.
Psychic Corrosion - If I had designed a card that I specifically wanted printed for this deck, this is it. With all the Windfall and Howling Mine effects, this card is absolutely going to be bonkers. It hits all opponents, only costs 3 mana, and plays exactly into what the deck is already doing. Slam dunk!!!

So with that we are doing the following:
+1 Psychic Corrosion, -1 Primal Amulet
+1 Morphic Pool, -1 Swamp
+1 Fetid Pools, -1 Swamp
+1 Sunken Hollow, -1 Swamp

EDIT:
I forgot that I also swapped in Dread Summons to replace Startled Awake. Dread Summons hits all players and can generate some chump blockers or fodder for Phenax, Undercity Informer, or Altar of Dementia, where Startled Awake costs too much to recur as I never actually recurred it.