Now that Jund and Storm are nerfed because of the bannings, it leaves Mill a lot stronger because it naturally wins against Pod, Valukut, and Twin. The lists you guys are posting do not include Mesmeric Orb which is a mistake - test with the card and you will see it mills more than any other card.
I always run 4 visions, you just have to know when you want to cantrip instead of wait.
I read most of posts here, but really do not undesrstand why most of you forget about Howling Mine and Font of Mythos.
This cards are huge draw engine and milling at the same time. Plus it is permanent. Plus, i'm sure that most meta do not have artifact-destroy cards. The only problem of this cards, that you draw your opponent, but hey, you are in UB. Get some more control and just counter everything, cause, again, this cards drawing you too. And to be honest in mid/late game you just need some epic draw to renew your hand. So i bealive this cards will help you.
About mesmeric orb. I do not bealive that this is good choice, cause you milling your self. This kinda wrong option, cause in early game you milling all your answers to your opponents moves, and mid game you just milling yourself. IMO not best option for control mill.
I know, you gonna say: "Why? Why you not playing Glimpse the unthinkable?". My answer is that it... is... sorcery... Glimpse was good only in 1st ravnica Standart with twincast and traumatize. Modern is more aggresive and have much more quiz's to solve. So IMO in Modern your first goal to survive. All mill cards must be cheap abilities of permanents or must somehow helping you to control. But again, this is only my opinion.
Coming back to this deck after reading through some ideas I saw in Legacy and sadly we don't have the mill power that they do, Brain freeze for game on turn one is possible for them. But we still have the power to hamstring our opponent's with Surgical Extraction and rip through their deck after.
I feel this deck might be possible with the potential rise of Scapeshift and Tron since we can Extract their non- basics and mill away possible useful spells. I think the deck can be a combo counter deck if timed right.
@gadiner I respectfully disagree with the need for the howling mines and fonts. Playing such would more likely put ourselves at liberty to be burned and trampled than give us a second chance to control the board.
Ex. You play font, enemy plays out creatures, you play a board wipe, they play more creatures, you have three board wipes left but you didn't draw one.
It's just never been my style to play the mine sort of cards because of how I could play against them when I faced such decks.
Ok this deck has the chance to win on turn two but only with a godhand and the opponent not disrupting but it's basically me throwing asside the princples that I had for my control mill deck and it goes balls out to mill the opponent.
The turn two kill is actually including you getting off a Savor the Moment to get one more turn of milling. But the landfall power of the Crab is nasty with Crucible and Summer Bloom.
that's 6 triggers of landfall for 3 life which can also fuel the Cobra for a massive Mind Grind for 4-7 if you can afford the life and after hitting them for 18 milled before hand you could very well end the game with that depending on the land clumping.
I almost feel like I should play Urban Evolution instead of Rite of Flourishing with the Cobra since it would refill my hand and give me a second land drop.
Ok i kinda feel like that any good mill deck should have snapcaster mage in it, you get to flashback a mill card who does not want to flashback a glimpse the unthinkable?
"A prince must imitate the Fox and the Lion, for the Lion cannot protect himself from traps and the Fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a Fox to recognize traps, and a Lion to frighten wolves." -- Machiavelli
I don't want to change the basics of mill decks, I don't want you to swap out mill cards for these artifacts.
However I propose a hybrid for stalling purposes, these cards could benefit enormously on the stalling department by letting you fix the tops of libraries after every mill card.
Example: You play glimpse, then after the opponent mills if a threat is on top of their deck you use codex or bell to put it on their graveyard. So it works in different ways to protect you from threats, to stall and it even helps you mill. You could even use it to mill lands off your top to find more mill spells.
My deck concentrates on locking the opponent and controlling the top of libraries, I don't run mill spells because once I lock I have sort of a mill guarantee, so I don't rush the mill with glimpse or the traps, etc... But mill decks that need to mill fast while stalling could really benefit from that combo, that way you can take out the inferior mill spells and some removal.
Just tossing ideas cause I'm wondering why mill decks don't run the lantern.
I need some ideas for a SB. What cards are good against aggro? And what does UB have to combat RDW?
Thanks
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"A prince must imitate the Fox and the Lion, for the Lion cannot protect himself from traps and the Fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a Fox to recognize traps, and a Lion to frighten wolves." -- Machiavelli
I think Mill is a real deck in Modern. Not Tier 1 or anything but it is very capable of giving some of the top decks fits, especially Scapeshift and Pod etc. And Scapeshift is everywhere right now, at least on MODO.
Would love to see if we could get some discussion going on this intriguing archetype.
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"A prince must imitate the Fox and the Lion, for the Lion cannot protect himself from traps and the Fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a Fox to recognize traps, and a Lion to frighten wolves." -- Machiavelli
Agreed. The fact that it hits non-basics is crazy good, and it only gets better post Damnation, Glimpse, etc....
Twincast is actually pretty fun in this deck. I've actually won games by flinging opponent's spells back at them. Being able to double up on an Archive Trap at EoT for 2 is pretty stellar also.
I also think its pretty powerful... it pretty much shuts a game down when used on T4 and left without a response. (considering you used a glimpse and maybe a T1 Hedron crab)
I feel like for a tapping-out five mana investment in the mid game that it should be doing more than maybe shutting them down maybe not hurting them. Many decks will ignore the act, many will have a simple counterspell to not have to worry about it, and many will already have a board state that favours them greatly (Not to mention you run Jace's Phantasm in your Mainboard and this card hoses him so you would lose all board presence at the same time).
In short, if you're going to tap out and cast a five mana spell, it better be winning the game. They'll still have several turns of action before their dead, most likely, and I think that most competitive decks (key word, competitive! It would do just fine against many janky kitchen table or home brews) would survive a Haunting Echoes just fine.
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
You are missing the point. You don't just blow off Haunting Echoes willy nilly, but when you do cast it, it DOES win you the game. It might not win outright that turn, but if you take away one of their combo pieces, half of their mana base and a few of their answers, they really can't come back from it. If you hit Scapeshift, Valakut, Kiki-Jiki, Restoration Angel, Melira, Splinter Twin, Deceiver Exarch, any Urza land, etc... and it's the same as winning. And sure, it doesn't resolve if it gets countered, but the same can be said for most of the win conditions in the format, so that point is rather moot.
You are missing the point. You don't just blow off Haunting Echoes willy nilly, but when you do cast it, it DOES win you the game. It might not win outright that turn, but if you take away one of their combo pieces, half of their mana base and a few of their answers, they really can't come back from it. If you hit Scapeshift, Valakut, Kiki-Jiki, Restoration Angel, Melira, Splinter Twin, Deceiver Exarch, any Urza land, etc... and it's the same as winning. And sure, it doesn't resolve if it gets countered, but the same can be said for most of the win conditions in the format, so that point is rather moot.
I understand completely what you are saying. I am saying that it is a lackluster card with an outrageous mana cost for what it does. If you win the game by casting that card, then one of three things occured:
1 - You played against a sub-par deck.
2 - The other player got a wretchedly horrible draw.
3 - The other player played poorly.
There is no other reason why it would do well. There is a reason that Haunting Echoes has not been in a deck that has placed at any tournament of any format in the past five years or so.
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Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
You say the card has an outrageous mana cost at 5 cmc, even though it appears you have never even played with or against the card. I would say you need to see it in action before you simply brush it off as unplayable.
Now if I won because I cast it, it does not mean one of three things that you assumed.
1. I was not playing against a sub-par deck. Echoes beats half of the established decks in the format. I've already given several examples, which you seem to have overlooked.
2. People don't have to have bad draws for milling to win. No deck is guaranteed to win with a good hand. In fact, I see people with good hands who lose because they get outplayed on a regular basis.
3. Just because someone loses does not mean that they were playing poorly. There are games where you can play everything right, and still lose.
And you never saw Haunting Echoes in the only Milling deck with placements in the last 5 years, because the only one that was good enough in a single format was TwinSanity (Twincast + Sanity Grinding), which Haunting Echoes has poor synergy with.
The problem with Mill in Modern isn't the card choices, but rather that the strategy is poor against several decks. Tron, Dredgevine, Unburial Rights, etc... all capitalize off of, or care less about the milling strategy.
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I always run 4 visions, you just have to know when you want to cantrip instead of wait.
This cards are huge draw engine and milling at the same time. Plus it is permanent. Plus, i'm sure that most meta do not have artifact-destroy cards. The only problem of this cards, that you draw your opponent, but hey, you are in UB. Get some more control and just counter everything, cause, again, this cards drawing you too. And to be honest in mid/late game you just need some epic draw to renew your hand. So i bealive this cards will help you.
About mesmeric orb. I do not bealive that this is good choice, cause you milling your self. This kinda wrong option, cause in early game you milling all your answers to your opponents moves, and mid game you just milling yourself. IMO not best option for control mill.
So what do we need:
Howling mine - 4
Fonts of Mythos - 2-3
Archive trap - 4
Counterspells - 8-12
Removal - 4-8 (including mass removal)
Snapcaster mage - 3-4
Leylines of the void/rest in piece - 3-4
Nephalia drownyard 2-3
Other cards are preety private choice for your metagame.
This is my list. I didn't play with him, cause i need a bit more time for collecting those cards. But still he is preety good.
4x Drowned Catacomb
2x Ghost Quarter
4x Island
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Nephalia Drownyard
1x Scalding Tarn
3x Swamp
1x Verdant Catacombs
4x Watery Grave
4x Archive Trap
4x Go for the Throat
4x Mana Leak
4x Remand
Sorcery (7)
4x Damnation
3x Serum Visions
Artifact (6)
2x Font of Mythos
4x Howling Mine
Enchantment (3)
3x Leyline of the Void
Creature (4)
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Echoing Truth
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Leyline of the Void
4x Negate
4x Surgical Extraction
I know, you gonna say: "Why? Why you not playing Glimpse the unthinkable?". My answer is that it... is... sorcery... Glimpse was good only in 1st ravnica Standart with twincast and traumatize. Modern is more aggresive and have much more quiz's to solve. So IMO in Modern your first goal to survive. All mill cards must be cheap abilities of permanents or must somehow helping you to control. But again, this is only my opinion.
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Damnation
4 Mana Leak
3 Cryptic Command
3 Vision of Beyond
4 Surgical Extraction
4 Archive Trap
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Misty Rainforest
6 Island
3 Swamp
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Nephilia Drownyard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Damnation
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Liliana of the Veil
Coming back to this deck after reading through some ideas I saw in Legacy and sadly we don't have the mill power that they do, Brain freeze for game on turn one is possible for them. But we still have the power to hamstring our opponent's with Surgical Extraction and rip through their deck after.
I feel this deck might be possible with the potential rise of Scapeshift and Tron since we can Extract their non- basics and mill away possible useful spells. I think the deck can be a combo counter deck if timed right.
@gadiner I respectfully disagree with the need for the howling mines and fonts. Playing such would more likely put ourselves at liberty to be burned and trampled than give us a second chance to control the board.
Ex. You play font, enemy plays out creatures, you play a board wipe, they play more creatures, you have three board wipes left but you didn't draw one.
It's just never been my style to play the mine sort of cards because of how I could play against them when I faced such decks.
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Oracle of Mul-Daya
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Summer Bloom
4 Savor the Moment
4 Rites of Flourishing
3 Mind Grind
2 Noxious Revival
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Watery Grave
3 Overgrown Tomb
4 Breeding Pool
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
The turn two kill is actually including you getting off a Savor the Moment to get one more turn of milling. But the landfall power of the Crab is nasty with Crucible and Summer Bloom.
that's 6 triggers of landfall for 3 life which can also fuel the Cobra for a massive Mind Grind for 4-7 if you can afford the life and after hitting them for 18 milled before hand you could very well end the game with that depending on the land clumping.
I almost feel like I should play Urban Evolution instead of Rite of Flourishing with the Cobra since it would refill my hand and give me a second land drop.
Here is my take on the deck
4tome scour
4mind sculpt
4Hedron crab
4thought scour
4dream twist
4glimpse the unthinkable
4mind funeral
3 or 2Jace memory adept
4snapcaster mage
4archive trap
4 Hedron Crab
4 Duskmantle Guildmage
4 Invisible Stalker
Planeswalker (3)
3 Jace, Memory Adept
Spell (21)
4 Mindcrank
2 Sword of Body and Mind
4 Thought Scour
4 Dimir Charm
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
3 Mind Funeral
4 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Naturalize
2 Izzet Staticaster
4 Terminate
3 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Curse of Death's Hold
4x Hedron Crab
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Phantasmal Image
INSTANTS
4x Psychic Strike
4x Thought Scour
4x Archive Trap
SORCERY'S
4x Tome Scour
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
ENCHANTMENTS
3x Leyline of the Void
2x Jace, Memory Adept
LANDS
4x Watery Grave
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Ghost Quarter
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs
3x Nephalia Drownyard
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Leyline of the Void
3x Illness in the Ranks
2x Disperse
4x Surgical Extraction
3x Torpor Orb
2 Hurkyl's Recall
Current Decks
Standard : WB Orzhov Vampires BW GUB Sultai Constrictor BUG
Brawl : GB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons BG
Modern : GB Golgari Elves BG GR Atarka Goblins RG
Pauper : W Heroic W GB Delve BG
Can you post SB for this deck?
I was looking for Mill strategy and not the combo as main win con.
I was wondering about the possibility of adding maybe a set of Glimpse the unthinkable or mind sculpt with noxious revival, milling miself to ''tutor'' the combo cards with noxious.
It uses absolutely 0 mill cards. It mills with a combo lock consisting of cheap artifacts: Lantern of Insight, Codex SHredder, Ghoulcaller's Bell
I don't want to change the basics of mill decks, I don't want you to swap out mill cards for these artifacts.
However I propose a hybrid for stalling purposes, these cards could benefit enormously on the stalling department by letting you fix the tops of libraries after every mill card.
Example: You play glimpse, then after the opponent mills if a threat is on top of their deck you use codex or bell to put it on their graveyard. So it works in different ways to protect you from threats, to stall and it even helps you mill. You could even use it to mill lands off your top to find more mill spells.
My deck concentrates on locking the opponent and controlling the top of libraries, I don't run mill spells because once I lock I have sort of a mill guarantee, so I don't rush the mill with glimpse or the traps, etc... But mill decks that need to mill fast while stalling could really benefit from that combo, that way you can take out the inferior mill spells and some removal.
Just tossing ideas cause I'm wondering why mill decks don't run the lantern.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
Thanks
1 Breeding Pool
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Watery Grave
3 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Hedron Crab
3 Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 Archive Trap
4 Breaking/Entering
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Surgical Extraction
4 Thought Scour
2 Thoughtseize
2 Crypt Incursion
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Crypt Incursion
2 Go for the Throat
2 Infest
1 Damnation
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Nature's Claim
1 Thoughtseize
I think Mill is a real deck in Modern. Not Tier 1 or anything but it is very capable of giving some of the top decks fits, especially Scapeshift and Pod etc. And Scapeshift is everywhere right now, at least on MODO.
Would love to see if we could get some discussion going on this intriguing archetype.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Haunting Echoes literally wins every time I ever played it in my past Mill decks.
EDIT: Hell, I haven't put together a list in a while. Here it goes!
4x Hedron Crab
Other Spells: 32
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
4x Archive Trap
2x Trapmaker's Snare
3x Damnation
2x Haunting Echoes
3x Visions of Beyond
2x Cryptic Command
4x Mana Leak
4x Dream Twist
4x Psychic Strike
3x Marsh Flats
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Scalding Tarn
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Watery Grave
4x Island
4x Swamp
1x Nephalia Drownyard
It's really too bad that decks like Tron and Dredgevine exist, as this strategy would be playable in environments without those decks.
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Twincast is actually pretty fun in this deck. I've actually won games by flinging opponent's spells back at them. Being able to double up on an Archive Trap at EoT for 2 is pretty stellar also.
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I feel like for a tapping-out five mana investment in the mid game that it should be doing more than maybe shutting them down maybe not hurting them. Many decks will ignore the act, many will have a simple counterspell to not have to worry about it, and many will already have a board state that favours them greatly (Not to mention you run Jace's Phantasm in your Mainboard and this card hoses him so you would lose all board presence at the same time).
In short, if you're going to tap out and cast a five mana spell, it better be winning the game. They'll still have several turns of action before their dead, most likely, and I think that most competitive decks (key word, competitive! It would do just fine against many janky kitchen table or home brews) would survive a Haunting Echoes just fine.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
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I understand completely what you are saying. I am saying that it is a lackluster card with an outrageous mana cost for what it does. If you win the game by casting that card, then one of three things occured:
1 - You played against a sub-par deck.
2 - The other player got a wretchedly horrible draw.
3 - The other player played poorly.
There is no other reason why it would do well. There is a reason that Haunting Echoes has not been in a deck that has placed at any tournament of any format in the past five years or so.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Now if I won because I cast it, it does not mean one of three things that you assumed.
1. I was not playing against a sub-par deck. Echoes beats half of the established decks in the format. I've already given several examples, which you seem to have overlooked.
2. People don't have to have bad draws for milling to win. No deck is guaranteed to win with a good hand. In fact, I see people with good hands who lose because they get outplayed on a regular basis.
3. Just because someone loses does not mean that they were playing poorly. There are games where you can play everything right, and still lose.
And you never saw Haunting Echoes in the only Milling deck with placements in the last 5 years, because the only one that was good enough in a single format was TwinSanity (Twincast + Sanity Grinding), which Haunting Echoes has poor synergy with.
The problem with Mill in Modern isn't the card choices, but rather that the strategy is poor against several decks. Tron, Dredgevine, Unburial Rights, etc... all capitalize off of, or care less about the milling strategy.
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