Ensnaring Bridge is a really dumb magic card. It’s one of those cards that lets you win games you have no business winning. Sure, it gets removed sometimes, but when that happens just ask yourself how much sooner would you have died without it at all?
The real problem is speed. Mill simply doesn’t have the card pool to play like burn which means we need some form of survivability. You’ll be hard pressed to find a card that does more to add to your survival with as little of an investment than Ensnaring Bridge.
Take a look at the most recent Grand Prix in Portland. Out of the entire top 8, only 3 decks have mainboard answers to a resolved Ensaring Bridge, and only 8 answer cards between those 3 decks (cryptic, atrophy & repeal). That’s 8 cards out of 480 being played game 1. Anecdotally, I know how much it sucks to feel like your opponent somehow always has the perfect answer the turn after you play bridge, but if you look the numbers objectively, the odds look pretty damn good.
but if you look the numbers objectively, the odds look pretty damn good
I dont think you are objective here. Why do you count answers for a resolved bridge? Isnt Thoughtseize a card? Spellstutter Sprite? Jace, the Mind Sculptor fateseal? Spirits play 4-of Spell Queller and a set of Cocos to find them, all of these castable by t3. Looking at top16 I dont see a single deck that folds to bridge like Merfolks or Bogles do. The closest is Izzet Phoenix, but when will bridge become active? By turn 4-5. This deck wins by t4. If you stabilize at 5-10 hp, chances are they will just burn you because they have about 23 burn points main and half of the deck diggs for new cards and discards lands. Also Bridge is blank vs 4 out of 16: Storm, KCI, Abzan Evo.
I dont want to say Bridge is a bad card. But saying top decks only have 8 cards out of 480 to answer it is misleading.
For sure should of included thoughtseize, and while queller and sprite surely can stop a bridge cold, playing around those cards is something we’re cognisant of in those match ups so I didn’t classify them as “answers” to bridge. They make it harder to land a bridge, but once you do there’s little they can do about it. The fact still remains that with all but nut Trap draws, we’re a turn slower than most so we need something to help us survive until we can finish the job. Bridge definitely doesn’t cover the entire meta, but what other card will do it’s job better?
Darkness gets a little more enticing with a full play set of Mission Briefings, but I never felt like it was more powerful than Ensnaring Bridge in general.
Alright... so have been playing mill off and on for some time and took this new "Extraction heavy" build for a ride last night for FNM. Had a great time with it and definitely felt Mission Briefing was a LOT better in this shell than any other I've seen/tried.
Big question I run into is what to do against BGx decks. In my meta, it's mostly straight BG or traditional Jund builds. Not sure what the real strategy here - haven't found a real solution as of yet. Extraction didn't seem a solid solution as the threats are so diversified. May be that it's a bad match for mill on the whole... every deck strategy has at least one...
Using the standard UB list popular right now, against BGx you generally want to take out your creatures, your artifacts, and your brutalities and bring in everything except for more brutalities, bridges, and night of soul's betrayal
What do people think green offers outside of Assassin's Trophy and Nature's Claim? Goyf + Phantasm could be a sb man plan, but I don't think in today's modern that would actually beat too many decks. Curious if there are some good green options for the deck as I think trophy/claim really fill a hole in answering enchantments and planeswalkers.
Trophy is the biggest draw. Unconditional removal that hits literally everything on the battlefield. Not too much out there you need Claim for that you can't already deal with, but having a couple in the board is an okay plan. If I were to consider any other green splash it would be for a Maelstrom Pulse, just for the value to hit many things at once
How does this deck beat lantern? There are a few people at my store that plays lantern and I can never beat them. With Witchbane orb and Leyline things are rough. I can see a sultai version being an option or an esper version but the black version of the deck runs so good right now.
You have a pretty decent match against Lantern, even more now with Mission Briefing I would say.
Mesmeric Orb is a must deal card for them, and it even gets through Witchbane Orb.
Any mill you get through puts them very behing, you can draw 3 with visions, shuffle quite a ton with extractions and fetches and field, etc...
Mill definitely is favored against Lantern, it's just Witchbane orb and Academy Ruins that could be somewhat annoying. I like to play 1 of Ipnu's Rivulet since it is a useful little mill when flooding or needing to activate Shelldock/Visions, but it's also instant speed milling to break soft locks like Academy Ruins.
If you're too worried about Leylines/Orb you can always play 1 Echoing Truth maindeck, or some Manic Scribes that mill without targeting.
To bridge discussion:
I recently played RG Ponza and faced Mill
Ponza is supposed to fold against resolved Bridge because aside from little burn the only way to win is attack with creatures
But my opp resolved bridge both games and lost both thanks to Blood Moon
Also milling your opp that plays Ancient Grudge is quite bad for your bridges
That wasnt the case but he went for Ancient Grudge with t1 Inquisition. I flashbacked it to kill his Orb and he landed Bridge later but that didnt help.
This case kinda proves nothing just to showcase that bridge isnt nuts even vs such a dumb deck like Ponza which only win condition being creature beatdown
You have a pretty decent match against Lantern, even more now with Mission Briefing I would say.
Mesmeric Orb is a must deal card for them, and it even gets through Witchbane Orb.
Any mill you get through puts them very behing, you can draw 3 with visions, shuffle quite a ton with extractions and fetches and field, etc...
Mill definitely is favored against Lantern, it's just Witchbane orb and Academy Ruins that could be somewhat annoying. I like to play 1 of Ipnu's Rivulet since it is a useful little mill when flooding or needing to activate Shelldock/Visions, but it's also instant speed milling to break soft locks like Academy Ruins.
If you're too worried about Leylines/Orb you can always play 1 Echoing Truth maindeck, or some Manic Scribes that mill without targeting.
I understand what you are saying but with the lantern plus codex shredder they are pretty good at getting the needed cards off the top of your deck. For some reason, I am just struggling with that deck. I know things differ from every card store but I may try a different angle like Jace's Phantasm for sideboard for that deck.
So I am going to run this deck tonight, it is basically a U/B mill deck I ran last week that did very well but with a splash of green. The turn 1 inquisition followed by a surgical or trap followed by surgical was so powerful. Well here is the deck list if you are interested.
So I am going to run this deck tonight, it is basically a U/B mill deck I ran last week that did very well but with a splash of green. The turn 1 inquisition followed by a surgical or trap followed by surgical was so powerful. Well here is the deck list if you are interested.
Let me know what you think. My list is very close to this one (-4 Visions, -2 IoK, -1 Push, +3 Brutality, +1 Trophy, +1 Bridge, +1 Orb, +1 Murderous Cut) and I've been very happy. I do have the IoK on the SB. I am just more of a fan of Brutality + Bridges over Visions, in general
I'm not a fan of this type of control/mill lists... I still prefer the older decks with more milling spells and less but more powerful removals like damnation etc..
So I am going to run this deck tonight, it is basically a U/B mill deck I ran last week that did very well but with a splash of green. The turn 1 inquisition followed by a surgical or trap followed by surgical was so powerful. Well here is the deck list if you are interested.
Let me know what you think. My list is very close to this one (-4 Visions, -2 IoK, -1 Push, +3 Brutality, +1 Trophy, +1 Bridge, +1 Orb, +1 Murderous Cut) and I've been very happy. I do have the IoK on the SB. I am just more of a fan of Brutality + Bridges over Visions, in general
Sorry I had to change my display name but the deck ran well, I did go 2-2 but one win was a bye. I will say the mission briefing and assassin trophy is a little weird together with how the mana works but the search on assassin trophy worked out a few times. Well this is how my games went
Match 1,1-2, Jund, L
I won the game pretty easily then the next two he was just able to get out a threat that I couldn't find an answer for. Liliana got me game 2, he ultimate her and have three color base makes things easier for the opponent. game 3 he was able to land a goyf that I couldn't answer.
Match 2, 1-2, BG rock
First game was a breeze then other two games I literally got him down to 5 cards in the deck but he got me. I will say sometimes this deck runs out of a little gas on the milling.
Match 3, 2-0 Gruul Pelt collector deck
First game he got me to one but main board ensnaring bridge was huge. Assassin trophy was really nice in this game to take away threats. Game 2 he didn't even stand a chance, turn 1 he searches I follow up with 2 archive traps and 2 surgical extraction. I had pulled out 32 cards in his deck and destroyed his hand.
So am I happy with this deck, yes it was fun and assassin trophy is fun. Especially turn 1 breeding pool and they are thinking infect then turn 2 drop a black land to cast a glimpse.
I know trophy can hit any permanent but path hits only creatures but it does play a little easier with mission briefing and you get leyline if needed. I still think U/B is still the best version. Maybe with so many surgical's in the deck maybe thought scour is a little more useful. Also if you are playing U/B I think a 1 of set a drift would be nice to have.
Also if I am going to play with trophy I may cut down one mission briefing and look to add something else.
First off, 4 Assassin's Trophy main is where you want to be. Sometimes you can get trap off after they search for land and sometimes you just get a two mana, land destruction spell, which is even more devastating on the play rather than on the draw, or especially after they miss a land drop. This gameplay wrecks Tron, and, to a lesser extent, Scapeshift decks, so an auto 4 of seems obv.. I'd cut one Mission Briefing and 1 Fatal Push for the 2 other A. Trophies.
I'd also be pushing for the 4th Field of Ruin because its ability is not a may effect. They HAVE to sesrch. Take advantage of that.
Play 4 Assassin's Trophy. Hitting land is all the rage against Tron and Scapeshift decks. I'd cut 1 Mission Briefing and 1 Fatal Push. Don't forget that Field of Ruin is not a may effect. They HAVE to search.
I'll disagree and say that in my opinion going Sultai for Assassin's trophy is not what the deck needs at all.
Hitting lands is a very corner case, we don't need any extra tools against Tron or Valakut like Jund did, and we have 4 Fields of Ruin if we need to check some creature-land (and fatal pushes).
We don't really need what Trophy brings, and while sure, it might be nice to trigger traps from time to time, it's just like Path was in Esper Mill, if your opponent knows what he's doing, it likely won't trigger when you need it.
The 3 color mana base is a huge downgrade from UB and brings in a lot of bad opening sevens and lifeloss, not to mention the main reason I don't buy it, the HUGE tension with Mission Briefing. Mission Briefing is the cool toy for mill GRN brought, not Trophy, and the UU goes really bad with BG.
I'd recommend Sqlut's list, my own was a couple cards off from it (I played 2 Fraying Sanity instead of 2 Inquisition and 1 Azcanta and 1 more Mesmeric Orb in place of 1 Crypt Incursion and 1 Land), but with him being an actual Hareruya Pro that has tested intensively and posted VERY good results with it, I guessed I'd better stick with his choices. Played it last week to a 3rd place in my LGS, with my loss incredibly being to Amulet Titan, after beating Phoenix, Grixis DS and a Waste Not deck.
You can watch his stream in Twitch, he also has a pretty detailed sideboard guide, definitely the top content available for the archetype.
Agree with crowd, why add third color (inconsistency and life loss) arguing that it improves our 90% matchups
Also hitting lands with Trophy isnt a good strat in general, since they immediately allowed to search for replacing basic. Thats like Pathing a mana dork.
The real problem is speed. Mill simply doesn’t have the card pool to play like burn which means we need some form of survivability. You’ll be hard pressed to find a card that does more to add to your survival with as little of an investment than Ensnaring Bridge.
Take a look at the most recent Grand Prix in Portland. Out of the entire top 8, only 3 decks have mainboard answers to a resolved Ensaring Bridge, and only 8 answer cards between those 3 decks (cryptic, atrophy & repeal). That’s 8 cards out of 480 being played game 1. Anecdotally, I know how much it sucks to feel like your opponent somehow always has the perfect answer the turn after you play bridge, but if you look the numbers objectively, the odds look pretty damn good.
I dont want to say Bridge is a bad card. But saying top decks only have 8 cards out of 480 to answer it is misleading.
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
Darkness gets a little more enticing with a full play set of Mission Briefings, but I never felt like it was more powerful than Ensnaring Bridge in general.
Big question I run into is what to do against BGx decks. In my meta, it's mostly straight BG or traditional Jund builds. Not sure what the real strategy here - haven't found a real solution as of yet. Extraction didn't seem a solid solution as the threats are so diversified. May be that it's a bad match for mill on the whole... every deck strategy has at least one...
Trophy is the biggest draw. Unconditional removal that hits literally everything on the battlefield. Not too much out there you need Claim for that you can't already deal with, but having a couple in the board is an okay plan. If I were to consider any other green splash it would be for a Maelstrom Pulse, just for the value to hit many things at once
Mesmeric Orb is a must deal card for them, and it even gets through Witchbane Orb.
Any mill you get through puts them very behing, you can draw 3 with visions, shuffle quite a ton with extractions and fetches and field, etc...
Mill definitely is favored against Lantern, it's just Witchbane orb and Academy Ruins that could be somewhat annoying. I like to play 1 of Ipnu's Rivulet since it is a useful little mill when flooding or needing to activate Shelldock/Visions, but it's also instant speed milling to break soft locks like Academy Ruins.
If you're too worried about Leylines/Orb you can always play 1 Echoing Truth maindeck, or some Manic Scribes that mill without targeting.
I recently played RG Ponza and faced Mill
Ponza is supposed to fold against resolved Bridge because aside from little burn the only way to win is attack with creatures
But my opp resolved bridge both games and lost both thanks to Blood Moon
Also milling your opp that plays Ancient Grudge is quite bad for your bridges
That wasnt the case but he went for Ancient Grudge with t1 Inquisition. I flashbacked it to kill his Orb and he landed Bridge later but that didnt help.
This case kinda proves nothing just to showcase that bridge isnt nuts even vs such a dumb deck like Ponza which only win condition being creature beatdown
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
I understand what you are saying but with the lantern plus codex shredder they are pretty good at getting the needed cards off the top of your deck. For some reason, I am just struggling with that deck. I know things differ from every card store but I may try a different angle like Jace's Phantasm for sideboard for that deck.
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Mesmeric Orb
Creature (4)
4 Hedron Crab
Instant (22)
4 Archive Trap
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Crypt Incursion
3 Fatal Push
4 Mission Briefing
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Visions of Beyond
Sorcery (6)
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Breeding Pool
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Field of Ruin
1 Forest
3 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
2 Shelldock Isle
2 Swamp
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave
1 Assassin's Trophy
3 Collective Brutality
1 Crypt Incursion
1 Damnation
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Extirpate
2 Nature's Claim
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Set Adrift
1 Surgical Extraction
Let me know what you think. My list is very close to this one (-4 Visions, -2 IoK, -1 Push, +3 Brutality, +1 Trophy, +1 Bridge, +1 Orb, +1 Murderous Cut) and I've been very happy. I do have the IoK on the SB. I am just more of a fan of Brutality + Bridges over Visions, in general
Sorry I had to change my display name but the deck ran well, I did go 2-2 but one win was a bye. I will say the mission briefing and assassin trophy is a little weird together with how the mana works but the search on assassin trophy worked out a few times. Well this is how my games went
Match 1,1-2, Jund, L
I won the game pretty easily then the next two he was just able to get out a threat that I couldn't find an answer for. Liliana got me game 2, he ultimate her and have three color base makes things easier for the opponent. game 3 he was able to land a goyf that I couldn't answer.
Match 2, 1-2, BG rock
First game was a breeze then other two games I literally got him down to 5 cards in the deck but he got me. I will say sometimes this deck runs out of a little gas on the milling.
Match 3, 2-0 Gruul Pelt collector deck
First game he got me to one but main board ensnaring bridge was huge. Assassin trophy was really nice in this game to take away threats. Game 2 he didn't even stand a chance, turn 1 he searches I follow up with 2 archive traps and 2 surgical extraction. I had pulled out 32 cards in his deck and destroyed his hand.
So am I happy with this deck, yes it was fun and assassin trophy is fun. Especially turn 1 breeding pool and they are thinking infect then turn 2 drop a black land to cast a glimpse.
I know trophy can hit any permanent but path hits only creatures but it does play a little easier with mission briefing and you get leyline if needed. I still think U/B is still the best version. Maybe with so many surgical's in the deck maybe thought scour is a little more useful. Also if you are playing U/B I think a 1 of set a drift would be nice to have.
Also if I am going to play with trophy I may cut down one mission briefing and look to add something else.
I'd also be pushing for the 4th Field of Ruin because its ability is not a may effect. They HAVE to sesrch. Take advantage of that.
Hitting lands is a very corner case, we don't need any extra tools against Tron or Valakut like Jund did, and we have 4 Fields of Ruin if we need to check some creature-land (and fatal pushes).
We don't really need what Trophy brings, and while sure, it might be nice to trigger traps from time to time, it's just like Path was in Esper Mill, if your opponent knows what he's doing, it likely won't trigger when you need it.
The 3 color mana base is a huge downgrade from UB and brings in a lot of bad opening sevens and lifeloss, not to mention the main reason I don't buy it, the HUGE tension with Mission Briefing. Mission Briefing is the cool toy for mill GRN brought, not Trophy, and the UU goes really bad with BG.
I'd recommend Sqlut's list, my own was a couple cards off from it (I played 2 Fraying Sanity instead of 2 Inquisition and 1 Azcanta and 1 more Mesmeric Orb in place of 1 Crypt Incursion and 1 Land), but with him being an actual Hareruya Pro that has tested intensively and posted VERY good results with it, I guessed I'd better stick with his choices. Played it last week to a 3rd place in my LGS, with my loss incredibly being to Amulet Titan, after beating Phoenix, Grixis DS and a Waste Not deck.
You can watch his stream in Twitch, he also has a pretty detailed sideboard guide, definitely the top content available for the archetype.
Also hitting lands with Trophy isnt a good strat in general, since they immediately allowed to search for replacing basic. Thats like Pathing a mana dork.
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!