Rest in Peace because it exiles graveyards when it comes down, so you can hold onto it until you need to take out the graveyard. Depending on your deck you might not want to take out all graveyards (I run Snapcasters and Visions of Beyond, but I guess they'd be SB out in those matchups)
If you don't get LLotV in your opener it's kinda dead; I'd expect to have milled at least some of my opponent's graveyard threats into the graveyard by turn 4.
Does anyone have an opinion on what is better? Leyline of the void or rest in peace? I am conflicted on which one to run. Thinking running 2-3. in sb.
Leyline doesn't hurts your graveyard and can enter the battlefield for free, but has a double black and a higher CMC.
Not getting it in opening hand kinda sucks. But when it happens it seems much better. Atleast Visions of Beyond can still be activated for more draw if you use mesmeric orb to your advantage.
With RIP you can get it turn 2 if drawn into. I'll see about getting both and I'll reply with results.
So the new set is out now. I haven't really seen anything that would make our deck better, but maybe someone else can see a few gems? Not just mill cards, but cards that stabilise the board for our wincon to function.
Anyone have an opinion about Minister of inquiries? I'm gonna try to replace manic scribe with him since he gets to come out earlier and gives us the option of using turn 2 for a glimpse or an orb.
I think he's decent if you can get him to stick around for 3 turns. Otherwise you're left with energy you don't really have a use for. I don't currently run a Manic Scribe cuz I don't run Orbs.
Would be sweet if they gave us some energy-based milling instants in the next set.
U - Energy Grind
Gain 4 power, then spend X power to mill X cards
I think he's decent if you can get him to stick around for 3 turns. Otherwise you're left with energy you don't really have a use for.
For other Minister of Inquiries. If the first dies the second mills four times. Besides that, the efficiency is good: 6 cards milled per mana, better than glimpse that is 5 mill/mana.
I think he's decent if you can get him to stick around for 3 turns. Otherwise you're left with energy you don't really have a use for.
For other Minister of Inquiries. If the first dies the second mills four times. Besides that, the efficiency is good: 6 cards milled per mana, better than glimpse that is 5 mill/mana.
Yea, I hear ya. But if they take out the first one, you gotta hope the second one sticks around for 4 turns instead of 2. If you could do it without tapping (or tap once and mill 3 per energy you wanna spend perhaps), I'd be all about that.
I'm not running many creatures (4 x crab, 4 x snapcaster), so my opponent is usually sitting on creature removal in hand anyway.
You could say Hedron Crab is 20x better, mills 60 cards for 1 mana. But he needs to stick around long enough for you to drop 20 lands, which is a non-trivial cost in terms of time.
Minister of Inquiries is the first mill-creature that does exactly what it should do: mill three times its strength in cards (60 cards = 3x 20 life). The advantage he can't be blocked is compensated by the energy requirement. Lots of mill-cratures like it and mill is even with other decks.
What im thinking of doing is pulling out the wall of omens and putting in a playset of lingering souls. Then possibly pulling out the snapcasters to put in 2x sword of body and mind.
Im thinking access to 16 more creatures with the souls and having swords available to me while keeping the mindcrank combo in the deck may be strong.
What im thinking of doing is pulling out the wall of omens and putting in a playset of lingering souls. Then possibly pulling out the snapcasters to put in 2x sword of body and mind.
Im thinking access to 16 more creatures with the souls and having swords available to me while keeping the mindcrank combo in the deck may be strong.
Constructive feedback?
I like the creature emphasis, gives you some chump blockers to help absorb some damage which seems to be one of my biggest weaknesses. And if your deck is combo-focussed, you just need to hold them off for a little bit.
From my perspective, your deck has really low CMC - it might even be worth dropping down to 21 or even 20 lands to squeeze in some more good stuff. I've removed Ghost Quarters from my deck cuz there's not much colourless mana I use. It's great against Tron and manlands, but that's a pretty small portion of my meta. Between Path to Exile and opponent's fetchlands, I never seem to have trouble getting my archive trap off (until Game 2 when they realize it's coming and let the creature die anyway).
I like Snapcasters in my deck cuz I'm pure mill and it's the best way to duplicate my best mill cards, but can see you wanting to swap them out with your more beat-down focussed strategy.
One card that I've come to love more and more with the milling is Surgical Extraction. It's super disruptive to a lot of decks if you know their win con. Extract all their Ad Nauseams, or a Tron piece, or Cranial Plating, or whatever. There's always a good target in the graveyard after you've milled 10-15 cards.
From my own curiousity, how often do you manage to pull off the Mindcrank/Guildmage combo? I'm guessing you'd drop the Mindcrank the turn before you have 5 mana so you can guildmage + ability when you drop him? And it looks like only instant speed artifact disruption could stop that? I like the idea of an infinite mill combo, just curious how effective it ends up being.
I like snapcaster too tbh but im trying to fit in stuff while leaving in important cards. I found that when i went to 22 lands the deck became more consistent. I could try again at 20 lands and drop the ghost quarters but their main purpose is to facilitate a archive trap.
Infinite combo is great. Your right in the fact i play mindcrank first and then either play a duskmantle and hope they dont kill it or have 5 mana open to activate him the turn he comes in.
Im guessing here but about 40% of the time i win i can get that off. Its good because it is a main deck answer to emrakul, beats leyline of sanctity and quite often is missed so my opponents don't understand the combo till its too late.
One of the things mill has trouble with is staying alive imho. So adding in lingering souls aims to combat that.
I like surgical/extirpate also and its possible i could just drop two ghost quarters to fit two in and run 20 lands. Its a real tough choice for me between the two since i love split second but surgical definitely has its advantages, im torn haha
I think ill pick up at least one sword of body and mind today from my lfgs and start playtesting with it and see if it works.
I like snapcaster too tbh but im trying to fit in stuff while leaving in important cards. I found that when i went to 22 lands the deck became more consistent. I could try again at 20 lands and drop the ghost quarters but their main purpose is to facilitate a archive trap.
Infinite combo is great. Your right in the fact i play mindcrank first and then either play a duskmantle and hope they dont kill it or have 5 mana open to activate him the turn he comes in.
Im guessing here but about 40% of the time i win i can get that off. Its good because it is a main deck answer to emrakul, beats leyline of sanctity and quite often is missed so my opponents don't understand the combo till its too late.
One of the things mill has trouble with is staying alive imho. So adding in lingering souls aims to combat that.
I like surgical/extirpate also and its possible i could just drop two ghost quarters to fit two in and run 20 lands. Its a real tough choice for me between the two since i love split second but surgical definitely has its advantages, im torn haha
I think ill pick up at least one sword of body and mind today from my lfgs and start playtesting with it and see if it works.
40% of the time with the guildmage combo eh... That's enough of an endorsement for me! Gonna have to try it out, in my sideboard at least. And yea, getting around Emrakul is no easy feat most of the time - huge bonus. What do you use to start the process/get a card into their graveyard? I guess Ghost quarter is good at activating that too.
I agree, staying alive is the toughest part. I main deck 2 [[Crypt Incursion]] with another 2 in the side. When it hits, it does a great job as long as you've milled something down already.
Surgical I like that it can be cast for free if necessary (Emrakul hits GY for example) instead of having to leave a black mana open for it, though most of the time I pay B for it. Split Second doesn't often come into relevance for most of my matchups, so the Phyrexian flexibility is worth it.
Here's my current version of the deck. It goes pretty aggressive on the milling
I have the Disentomb/Lab Maniac in the sideboard because it's pretty tough to get through a Leyline of Sanctity. This allows me to go to town on my own library without having to wait for enchantment removal, and I just need to draw a Disentomb, Maniac, or Snapcaster to get the Maniac onto the board.
It fares pretty well against most combo decks (mill then extract combo pieces against Tron, Ad Nauseam, etc) but Burn is a tough matchup, especially the creature heavy ones (guy in my group runs Nacatl and Vexing Devil) due to a somewhat lack of early creature control.
I'm debating switching out the [[Inquisition of Kozilek]] for a couple [[Trapmaker's Snare]] to get it a little bit quicker for the milling plan. The ability to tutor for the Archive Trap after the search has already happpened is pretty nice - it functions like a Twincast but better since it tutors for the trap too. Just a little less versatile since Twincast comes in handy with other spells, or even copying opposing counters sometimes too.
I like snapcaster too tbh but im trying to fit in stuff while leaving in important cards. I found that when i went to 22 lands the deck became more consistent. I could try again at 20 lands and drop the ghost quarters but their main purpose is to facilitate a archive trap.
Infinite combo is great. Your right in the fact i play mindcrank first and then either play a duskmantle and hope they dont kill it or have 5 mana open to activate him the turn he comes in.
Im guessing here but about 40% of the time i win i can get that off. Its good because it is a main deck answer to emrakul, beats leyline of sanctity and quite often is missed so my opponents don't understand the combo till its too late.
One of the things mill has trouble with is staying alive imho. So adding in lingering souls aims to combat that.
I like surgical/extirpate also and its possible i could just drop two ghost quarters to fit two in and run 20 lands. Its a real tough choice for me between the two since i love split second but surgical definitely has its advantages, im torn haha
I think ill pick up at least one sword of body and mind today from my lfgs and start playtesting with it and see if it works.
40% of the time with the guildmage combo eh... That's enough of an endorsement for me! Gonna have to try it out, in my sideboard at least. And yea, getting around Emrakul is no easy feat most of the time - huge bonus. What do you use to start the process/get a card into their graveyard? I guess Ghost quarter is good at activating that too.
I agree, staying alive is the toughest part. I main deck 2 [[Crypt Incursion]] with another 2 in the side. When it hits, it does a great job as long as you've milled something down already.
Surgical I like that it can be cast for free if necessary (Emrakul hits GY for example) instead of having to leave a black mana open for it, though most of the time I pay B for it. Split Second doesn't often come into relevance for most of my matchups, so the Phyrexian flexibility is worth it.
To start the process is prett easy.
The ways i look for are.
1. They fetch
2. They play a spell of any kind
3. They have no way of stopping 1 point of dmg from a source i or they control
4. They attempt to interact with the guildmage with removal ect and i activate the combo in response
5.i have a hedron crab out and play a land. Very satisfying lol
As far as im concerned unless they play artifact removal its a hard lock on them playing magic and i can go about milling them/stocking up on mana so that i can play a mill spell and leave mana open for the combo to be activated.
More often then not people dont understand the combo till its too late since its a uncommon combo.
Hey guys, first time posting in this forum. I am looking to re-work my Mill deck. I put it off to the side for a while to work on other decks but now i want to pick it back up. Looking for any advice on where to improve this, I do not have a very large budget so please keep that in mind (things like 4-of snapcaster is generally not going to be purchased) I currently have just a UB but have thought of maybe trying a UBW version, also I am not looking at SB or even land right now just MB.
I have not been totally sold on Mesmeric Orb in the Main Deck, maybe i haven't given it enough testing not sure. I was thinking of trying the Guildmage / Mindcrank combo for when i face decks with Eldrazi, or even just having 4-of Leyline of the Void (those might be best in a SB though) Manic Scribe seems lacklust especially if i do not run the Orb, but I have also thought of upping my creature count and maybe including Thing in the Ice as a blocker / powerhouse threat? If i went into UBw then i would think playing with Ghostly prison wouldn't be a bad idea, i watched some games with Ensnaring bridge and maybe it was the player but it just wasn't helping them.
I dunno, suggestions please
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UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
If you don't get LLotV in your opener it's kinda dead; I'd expect to have milled at least some of my opponent's graveyard threats into the graveyard by turn 4.
Leyline doesn't hurts your graveyard and can enter the battlefield for free, but has a double black and a higher CMC.
Not getting it in opening hand kinda sucks. But when it happens it seems much better. Atleast Visions of Beyond can still be activated for more draw if you use mesmeric orb to your advantage.
With RIP you can get it turn 2 if drawn into. I'll see about getting both and I'll reply with results.
UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
This is a late reply. But Dredge isn't as bad as you think...ok game one is bad. But Crypt Incursion, Profane Memento, Rest in Peace, and Surgical Extraction make this a much better match up in games 2 and 3.
Modern:
B 8Rack
RX Goblins
BG Elves (Attempting)
UBW Mill
G Stompy
UB Tezzerator
Legacy:
W Stax
UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
Would be sweet if they gave us some energy-based milling instants in the next set.
U - Energy Grind
Gain 4 power, then spend X power to mill X cards
Yea, I hear ya. But if they take out the first one, you gotta hope the second one sticks around for 4 turns instead of 2. If you could do it without tapping (or tap once and mill 3 per energy you wanna spend perhaps), I'd be all about that.
I'm not running many creatures (4 x crab, 4 x snapcaster), so my opponent is usually sitting on creature removal in hand anyway.
You could say Hedron Crab is 20x better, mills 60 cards for 1 mana. But he needs to stick around long enough for you to drop 20 lands, which is a non-trivial cost in terms of time.
The instant speed mill is great. Less games being lost to academy ruins.
I ordered a play set. I'll post results. I can see him doing very good, or very bad.
UR Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
WUR Narset's Coinflip Casino
Modern
UB Mill
4x Flooded Strand
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Godless Shrine
2x Hallowed Fountain
3x Island
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1x Plains
4x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
4x Archive Trap
4x Path to Exile
4x Visions of Beyond
Artifact
4x mindcrank
Creatures
4x Hedron Crab
4x Jace's Phantasm
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x wall of omens
4x duskmantle guildmage
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
What im thinking of doing is pulling out the wall of omens and putting in a playset of lingering souls. Then possibly pulling out the snapcasters to put in 2x sword of body and mind.
Im thinking access to 16 more creatures with the souls and having swords available to me while keeping the mindcrank combo in the deck may be strong.
Constructive feedback?
I like the creature emphasis, gives you some chump blockers to help absorb some damage which seems to be one of my biggest weaknesses. And if your deck is combo-focussed, you just need to hold them off for a little bit.
From my perspective, your deck has really low CMC - it might even be worth dropping down to 21 or even 20 lands to squeeze in some more good stuff. I've removed Ghost Quarters from my deck cuz there's not much colourless mana I use. It's great against Tron and manlands, but that's a pretty small portion of my meta. Between Path to Exile and opponent's fetchlands, I never seem to have trouble getting my archive trap off (until Game 2 when they realize it's coming and let the creature die anyway).
I like Snapcasters in my deck cuz I'm pure mill and it's the best way to duplicate my best mill cards, but can see you wanting to swap them out with your more beat-down focussed strategy.
One card that I've come to love more and more with the milling is Surgical Extraction. It's super disruptive to a lot of decks if you know their win con. Extract all their Ad Nauseams, or a Tron piece, or Cranial Plating, or whatever. There's always a good target in the graveyard after you've milled 10-15 cards.
From my own curiousity, how often do you manage to pull off the Mindcrank/Guildmage combo? I'm guessing you'd drop the Mindcrank the turn before you have 5 mana so you can guildmage + ability when you drop him? And it looks like only instant speed artifact disruption could stop that? I like the idea of an infinite mill combo, just curious how effective it ends up being.
I like snapcaster too tbh but im trying to fit in stuff while leaving in important cards. I found that when i went to 22 lands the deck became more consistent. I could try again at 20 lands and drop the ghost quarters but their main purpose is to facilitate a archive trap.
Infinite combo is great. Your right in the fact i play mindcrank first and then either play a duskmantle and hope they dont kill it or have 5 mana open to activate him the turn he comes in.
Im guessing here but about 40% of the time i win i can get that off. Its good because it is a main deck answer to emrakul, beats leyline of sanctity and quite often is missed so my opponents don't understand the combo till its too late.
One of the things mill has trouble with is staying alive imho. So adding in lingering souls aims to combat that.
I like surgical/extirpate also and its possible i could just drop two ghost quarters to fit two in and run 20 lands. Its a real tough choice for me between the two since i love split second but surgical definitely has its advantages, im torn haha
I think ill pick up at least one sword of body and mind today from my lfgs and start playtesting with it and see if it works.
40% of the time with the guildmage combo eh... That's enough of an endorsement for me! Gonna have to try it out, in my sideboard at least. And yea, getting around Emrakul is no easy feat most of the time - huge bonus. What do you use to start the process/get a card into their graveyard? I guess Ghost quarter is good at activating that too.
I agree, staying alive is the toughest part. I main deck 2 [[Crypt Incursion]] with another 2 in the side. When it hits, it does a great job as long as you've milled something down already.
Surgical I like that it can be cast for free if necessary (Emrakul hits GY for example) instead of having to leave a black mana open for it, though most of the time I pay B for it. Split Second doesn't often come into relevance for most of my matchups, so the Phyrexian flexibility is worth it.
1x Sunken Ruins
4x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
2x Marsh Flats
2x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Steam Vents
2x Island
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Shelldock Isle
4x Visions of Beyond
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Path to Exile
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Twincast
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
2x Hide // Seek
2x Crypt Incursion
4x Mind Funeral
4x Archive Trap
Creatures 8
4x Hedron Crab
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Chalice of the Void
2x Hide // Seek
2x Crypt Incursion
2x Damnation
2x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Disentomb
2x Laboratory Maniac
Here's my current version of the deck. It goes pretty aggressive on the milling
I have the Disentomb/Lab Maniac in the sideboard because it's pretty tough to get through a Leyline of Sanctity. This allows me to go to town on my own library without having to wait for enchantment removal, and I just need to draw a Disentomb, Maniac, or Snapcaster to get the Maniac onto the board.
It fares pretty well against most combo decks (mill then extract combo pieces against Tron, Ad Nauseam, etc) but Burn is a tough matchup, especially the creature heavy ones (guy in my group runs Nacatl and Vexing Devil) due to a somewhat lack of early creature control.
I'm debating switching out the [[Inquisition of Kozilek]] for a couple [[Trapmaker's Snare]] to get it a little bit quicker for the milling plan. The ability to tutor for the Archive Trap after the search has already happpened is pretty nice - it functions like a Twincast but better since it tutors for the trap too. Just a little less versatile since Twincast comes in handy with other spells, or even copying opposing counters sometimes too.
To start the process is prett easy.
The ways i look for are.
1. They fetch
2. They play a spell of any kind
3. They have no way of stopping 1 point of dmg from a source i or they control
4. They attempt to interact with the guildmage with removal ect and i activate the combo in response
5.i have a hedron crab out and play a land. Very satisfying lol
As far as im concerned unless they play artifact removal its a hard lock on them playing magic and i can go about milling them/stocking up on mana so that i can play a mill spell and leave mana open for the combo to be activated.
More often then not people dont understand the combo till its too late since its a uncommon combo.
4 Hedron Crab
Instant/Sorcery
4 Thought scour
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Breaking // Entering
4 Mind Sculpt
4 Mind Funeral
3 Crypt Incursion
4 Visions of Beyond
4 Archive Trap
4 Surgical Extraction
I have not been totally sold on Mesmeric Orb in the Main Deck, maybe i haven't given it enough testing not sure. I was thinking of trying the Guildmage / Mindcrank combo for when i face decks with Eldrazi, or even just having 4-of Leyline of the Void (those might be best in a SB though) Manic Scribe seems lacklust especially if i do not run the Orb, but I have also thought of upping my creature count and maybe including Thing in the Ice as a blocker / powerhouse threat? If i went into UBw then i would think playing with Ghostly prison wouldn't be a bad idea, i watched some games with Ensnaring bridge and maybe it was the player but it just wasn't helping them.
I dunno, suggestions please