Is it just me, or is on the play Chancellor into Thoughtseize into Surgical Extraction a really solid play? I get to see ~25% of their deck, and toss something from their hand, even Surgical a land if I am lucky, or nail a key creature or even a wincon.
The problem, of course, is what to do with 4 dead cards in your deck. In 3 weeks, maybe we can pitch them to Force of Will? Who knows?
The problem with splashing white is turning it into a control/mill deck which is too slow for the meta. Being a swiss army knife of a deck slows the milling by a lot which will cause us games.
I realized how bad of an example that was as soon as I post it. The thought behind it was sometimes it’s better to drop a Rest In Peace and continue on with our gameplan than spend resources to strip out specific threats. I was three sheets to the wind when I wrote this up, I’m amazed it made any sense at all.
I agree with your sentiment about not crossing the line into a control deck. We need to keep velocity since we don’t have the necessary tools to truly control into the late game like other control decks. What I’m proposing is not to add white control elements but rather supplement or replace the black spells that we’ve been relying on for survival. For instance, making the switch from Fatal Push to Path to Exile, Bontu’s/Damnation to Settle the Wreckage, etc. In spirit it’s the same deck, it’s just lining up different answers for a different meta game.
I’ve been using this to great success both online and in paper:
I recently won a local tournament with this build. I faced Humans, ElectroBalance, BW Gideons, and Tron. The deck felt great.
Biggest challenge to Esper is the mana base. I found that the fourth Field of Ruin was too strenuous and I’ve been going back and forth between lists that include and exclude Oboro...honestly if you’re turtled up to the point where you can win by bouncing Oboro then you can probably win by drawing into mill spells.
I’ve also been changing my mentality about how to play surgical extraction in a shell that runs exiling effects. It’s lead me to dig deeper into decks I don’t play in an attempt to understand them better; to understand what cards enable their game plans. Now, I try and focus on stripping out the card you need to get your threats online instead of the threats themselves. It sounds odd, but I feel like it’s forced me to make smarter plays with my surgicals.
Of course, everything is anecdotal and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you, but if your looking for something to freshen up your mill life, I suggest a revisit to Esper.
I’ve also been changing my mentality about how to play surgical extraction in a shell that runs exiling effects. It’s lead me to dig deeper into decks I don’t play in an attempt to understand them better; to understand what cards enable their game plans. Now, I try and focus on stripping out the card you need to get your threats online instead of the threats themselves. It sounds odd, but I feel like it’s forced me to make smarter plays with my surgicals.
I've often wondered about a deck focusing on land removal. Modern runs very few basics. Run Surgical on their Fetchlands, and then hit them with Mind Funeral. Not consistent enough, though. You always run into that mono color deck that ruins your day.
There’s certainly some space to brew there. I’d be curious to see what you come up with.
In terms of targeting lands with Surgical Extraction, it’s definitely one of the weapons we have in our arsenal. It really shines against a deck like Tron (where a Mind Funeral or two out of the sideboard can be great), but I think it should be an option in the back of your mind for other match ups as well. Before using a surgical I like to ask myself “what does my opponent need right now to beat me?”. Sometimes the answer to that question is a specific land. I don’t suggest doing this blind, but certainly after you’ve gotten a peak at their library or if your familiar with their deck. Humans is an example of a match up where sometimes targeting their mana base can be very effective.
Surgical Extraction is one of the most important cards in the meta right now and Mill is arguably the best deck that runs them as part of their primary strategy. I’m confident that if more pros played this deck it would be seeing top 8 finishes. Or maybe I’m just crazy.
With Modern Horizons looming, there are 3 cards on my watch list.
Rumor has it that Horizons will promote tribal strategies of Goblins, Elves and Merfolk. Some even think, due to a comment by MaRo recently, it may also have Faeries. If so, we can expect Cavern of Souls to rise sharply, and become a strong competitor with Scalding Tarn for most expensive land/card in Modern.
Secondly, with Neoform threatening to be a T1 or T2 deck, Surgical Extraction will become even more necessary. That could also spike yet again to as much as $100 a card. If you do not have your playset for mill yet, I'd jump on it. Expect Extirpate to also see a rise to even greater heights. There are some other lesser options people may look to such as Lost Legacy, Sadistic Sacrament and Bitter Ordeal, but these are truly not optimal. They may see increase in use in sub-optimal builds, or niche cases.
Counterspell is widely considered a lock to be included in Horizons, so you may want to pick up your preferred versions. Force of Will and Daze are often mentioned, but considered unlikely. The format could use Force of Will to combat the super fast decks, but since those were not in the meta when the set was designed, it is almost a 0% chance.
But the most important card for us, is clearly Surgical Extraction and his lil bro, Extirpate. Barring reprints, those 2 could see crushing increases in price if you do not have them.
I've started playing the deck a bit again and there's a few things I've noticed.
With the inclusion of Mission Briefing, the mana base is a little bit tight now, heavily favouring islands. A Field of Ruin in the opening hand slows you down a bit, but two plays havoc on your manabase especially if the opponent is running monobasics. I've actually dropped down my playset to 3 copies.
Tron is typically a great match-up ever since they stopped using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, but with Karn, the Great Creator they're a much bigger threat I've found. The match-up is still favoured to us but it's no longer 90/10 once we extract a Tron piece. The Mycosynth Lattice combo and the overall utility-box strategy Karn allows is pretty threatening.
I've been toying with the idea Blast Zone since that card is so good, but it's difficult to fit in especially given the high mana requirements of Mission Briefing. Has anyone else used Blast Zone? How has it been with having to compete with Field of Ruin?
Has anyone else used Blast Zone? How has it been with having to compete with Field of Ruin?
I’ve been running a singleton lately. It’s awesome to have access to this kind of removal but it does certainly strain your mana base. Archive Trap puts a heavy demand on your deck. One of those demands is Field of Ruin. There’s certainly value in Blasting Zone, but finding a balance between your colorless mana sources has been a challenge.
I'm having a really hard time seeing the utility of Blast Zone. You have to tap 2 mana AND BZ to put a counter on it. Then to activate it, you have to tap 3 mana and BZ.
If all you are doing is getting Blast Zone online, methinks you are dead. Blast Zone strikes me as a mana sink for control decks that want to react to your actions. That's not Mill. Even if you never add a counter to it, and just activate it for all the 1 drops, that's still not happening before T4. By then, cards like Aether Vial have loaded the Humans board, Noble Heirarch has ramped sufficiently, and it's more Ensnaring Bridge that is called for. Engineered Explosives or one of it's related cohorts might be better for what you need. Barring that, you have Fatal Push or Ensnaring Bridge to lock out their creatures. If you need aught else, 2 copies of Spell Pierce, Force of Negation or some other counter of your preference will be the order of the day. Hell, if it's Karn/Lattice you fear, just put 4 Hurkyl's Recall back into the sideboard.
I think it’s pretty obvious that when we bring up cards like Stream of Thought and Winds of Abandon we’re talking about them in contexts outside of the average UB mill builds.
Considering Archive Trap is arguably the best mill card in modern, not keeping an eye on Esper possibilities is a mistake considering most search clauses exist in white.
So far I don’t see UB mill getting any notable pickups from this set.
the forced search on the sorcery path is at least debatable. It is better than fatal push in multiple matchups and triggering a trap that otherwise would have been dead against a deck that doesn't search like humans and affinity could be the difference of winning and losing. You can also get punked by end of turn coco/vial etc... and never get a chance to cast the card OR your opponent plays a card that fatal push can't kill. I think that card at least has a viable claim to be tested whereas a 1 mana mill 4 or 5 mana mill 8... Just play Breaking/Entering.
I don't think mill was even known to be a deck back when this set was designed so you're probably right.
I do think both Force of Despair and Force of Negation could be played in the 75 for the right meta.
My doubt is that in a UW deck your defenses will be the same as UW Control, so it will eventually evolve into a UW Control deck or into a crippled version of it...
I really like the UW turbo trap version. It doesn't need very many cards to win (2 archive trap + fraying sanity is enough, for example), and the redundancy lets you punish decks that stumble or aren't fast. The main limiting factor was forced search. I think Winds of Abandon is that extra card the deck really needed to hit a true proper consistency threshold. Both in forced search, and protection. Here's a version I used to play which was really fun, modified to include winds of abandon:
I have a similar build. I may try yours out for a spin. I think the Orbs are replaceable though. The deck functions so fast that Orb doesn't quite pay off as much and I think you can make room for some other cards. I'm curious why no Mission Briefing since it works so well with the Archive Traps. I also think 4 Merchant Scroll is a bit much. I would probably try 2-3 Mission Briefing and 2-3 Thought Scour and see how that works.
I haven't played in awhile. At least one Mission Briefing would be good (especially since you can use it on Words of Abandon Now). But honestly, merchant scroll being able to dump mana before the turn you want to end the game is pretty useful. Especially since you'll need at least 2 mana on your kill turn (for field of ruin or words of abandon). Multiple Mission briefings are especially bad in this deck.
I didn't like Thought Scour in this deck because you generally mill in such big chunks the effect doesn't really matter. I have run Sleight of Hand, which is nice for consistency, but with with Words of Abandon it feels less necessary.
Mesmeric Orb is definitely something I've gone on the fence about it. The extra consistency is nice though.
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Is it just me, or is on the play Chancellor into Thoughtseize into Surgical Extraction a really solid play? I get to see ~25% of their deck, and toss something from their hand, even Surgical a land if I am lucky, or nail a key creature or even a wincon.
The problem, of course, is what to do with 4 dead cards in your deck. In 3 weeks, maybe we can pitch them to Force of Will? Who knows?
I realized how bad of an example that was as soon as I post it. The thought behind it was sometimes it’s better to drop a Rest In Peace and continue on with our gameplan than spend resources to strip out specific threats. I was three sheets to the wind when I wrote this up, I’m amazed it made any sense at all.
I agree with your sentiment about not crossing the line into a control deck. We need to keep velocity since we don’t have the necessary tools to truly control into the late game like other control decks. What I’m proposing is not to add white control elements but rather supplement or replace the black spells that we’ve been relying on for survival. For instance, making the switch from Fatal Push to Path to Exile, Bontu’s/Damnation to Settle the Wreckage, etc. In spirit it’s the same deck, it’s just lining up different answers for a different meta game.
I’ve been using this to great success both online and in paper:
Maindeck (60)
4 Hedron Crab
4 Path to Exile
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Visions of Beyond
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
3 Mission Briefing
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Settle the Wreckage
4 Archive Trap
3 Mesmeric Orb
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Detention Sphere
2 Fraying Sanity
3 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
2 Shelldock Isle
1 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
Sideboard (15)
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Fragmentize
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
2 Negate
2 Crypt Incursion
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Torpor Orb
2 Rest in Peace
I recently won a local tournament with this build. I faced Humans, ElectroBalance, BW Gideons, and Tron. The deck felt great.
Biggest challenge to Esper is the mana base. I found that the fourth Field of Ruin was too strenuous and I’ve been going back and forth between lists that include and exclude Oboro...honestly if you’re turtled up to the point where you can win by bouncing Oboro then you can probably win by drawing into mill spells.
I’ve also been changing my mentality about how to play surgical extraction in a shell that runs exiling effects. It’s lead me to dig deeper into decks I don’t play in an attempt to understand them better; to understand what cards enable their game plans. Now, I try and focus on stripping out the card you need to get your threats online instead of the threats themselves. It sounds odd, but I feel like it’s forced me to make smarter plays with my surgicals.
Of course, everything is anecdotal and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you, but if your looking for something to freshen up your mill life, I suggest a revisit to Esper.
I've often wondered about a deck focusing on land removal. Modern runs very few basics. Run Surgical on their Fetchlands, and then hit them with Mind Funeral. Not consistent enough, though. You always run into that mono color deck that ruins your day.
In terms of targeting lands with Surgical Extraction, it’s definitely one of the weapons we have in our arsenal. It really shines against a deck like Tron (where a Mind Funeral or two out of the sideboard can be great), but I think it should be an option in the back of your mind for other match ups as well. Before using a surgical I like to ask myself “what does my opponent need right now to beat me?”. Sometimes the answer to that question is a specific land. I don’t suggest doing this blind, but certainly after you’ve gotten a peak at their library or if your familiar with their deck. Humans is an example of a match up where sometimes targeting their mana base can be very effective.
Surgical Extraction is one of the most important cards in the meta right now and Mill is arguably the best deck that runs them as part of their primary strategy. I’m confident that if more pros played this deck it would be seeing top 8 finishes. Or maybe I’m just crazy.
Rumor has it that Horizons will promote tribal strategies of Goblins, Elves and Merfolk. Some even think, due to a comment by MaRo recently, it may also have Faeries. If so, we can expect Cavern of Souls to rise sharply, and become a strong competitor with Scalding Tarn for most expensive land/card in Modern.
Secondly, with Neoform threatening to be a T1 or T2 deck, Surgical Extraction will become even more necessary. That could also spike yet again to as much as $100 a card. If you do not have your playset for mill yet, I'd jump on it. Expect Extirpate to also see a rise to even greater heights. There are some other lesser options people may look to such as Lost Legacy, Sadistic Sacrament and Bitter Ordeal, but these are truly not optimal. They may see increase in use in sub-optimal builds, or niche cases.
Last card that has been mentioned to keep an eye on is Spell Pierce. It is noted it kills an amazing number of key cards on T1. Mox Opal, Aether Vial, Amulet of Vigor, and the list continues. About the only key cards it does not hit are mana dorks like Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves, Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise. It even continues working past T1 with Engineered Explosives type threats. Basically, it kills the non-creature curve.
Counterspell is widely considered a lock to be included in Horizons, so you may want to pick up your preferred versions. Force of Will and Daze are often mentioned, but considered unlikely. The format could use Force of Will to combat the super fast decks, but since those were not in the meta when the set was designed, it is almost a 0% chance.
But the most important card for us, is clearly Surgical Extraction and his lil bro, Extirpate. Barring reprints, those 2 could see crushing increases in price if you do not have them.
Spoilers start in ~2 weeks.
With the inclusion of Mission Briefing, the mana base is a little bit tight now, heavily favouring islands. A Field of Ruin in the opening hand slows you down a bit, but two plays havoc on your manabase especially if the opponent is running monobasics. I've actually dropped down my playset to 3 copies.
Tron is typically a great match-up ever since they stopped using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, but with Karn, the Great Creator they're a much bigger threat I've found. The match-up is still favoured to us but it's no longer 90/10 once we extract a Tron piece. The Mycosynth Lattice combo and the overall utility-box strategy Karn allows is pretty threatening.
I've been toying with the idea Blast Zone since that card is so good, but it's difficult to fit in especially given the high mana requirements of Mission Briefing. Has anyone else used Blast Zone? How has it been with having to compete with Field of Ruin?
This is a powerful print for Mill. I for one, will be brewing with this and leaning heavy into a Trapmaker’s Snare and Archive Trap build.
I’ve been running a singleton lately. It’s awesome to have access to this kind of removal but it does certainly strain your mana base. Archive Trap puts a heavy demand on your deck. One of those demands is Field of Ruin. There’s certainly value in Blasting Zone, but finding a balance between your colorless mana sources has been a challenge.
If all you are doing is getting Blast Zone online, methinks you are dead. Blast Zone strikes me as a mana sink for control decks that want to react to your actions. That's not Mill. Even if you never add a counter to it, and just activate it for all the 1 drops, that's still not happening before T4. By then, cards like Aether Vial have loaded the Humans board, Noble Heirarch has ramped sufficiently, and it's more Ensnaring Bridge that is called for. Engineered Explosives or one of it's related cohorts might be better for what you need. Barring that, you have Fatal Push or Ensnaring Bridge to lock out their creatures. If you need aught else, 2 copies of Spell Pierce, Force of Negation or some other counter of your preference will be the order of the day. Hell, if it's Karn/Lattice you fear, just put 4 Hurkyl's Recall back into the sideboard.
Another force search, this time in white. Could this replace or augment Field of Ruin in Esper decks? Does this make Esper more viable?
This. It's slow and bad.
Considering Archive Trap is arguably the best mill card in modern, not keeping an eye on Esper possibilities is a mistake considering most search clauses exist in white.
So far I don’t see UB mill getting any notable pickups from this set.
I don't think mill was even known to be a deck back when this set was designed so you're probably right.
I do think both Force of Despair and Force of Negation could be played in the 75 for the right meta.
// 4 Artifact
4 Mesmeric Orb
// 4 Creature
4 Hedron Crab
// 4 Enchantment
4 Fraying Sanity
// 16 Instant
4 Archive Trap
4 Trapmaker's Snare
3 Visions of Beyond
1 Echoing Truth
4 Path to Exile
// 24 Land
4 Field of Ruin
4 Tolaria West
4 Island
2 Ipnu Rivulet
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Winds of Abandon
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Stony Silence
2 Porphyry Nodes
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
1 Echoing Truth
I didn't like Thought Scour in this deck because you generally mill in such big chunks the effect doesn't really matter. I have run Sleight of Hand, which is nice for consistency, but with with Words of Abandon it feels less necessary.
Mesmeric Orb is definitely something I've gone on the fence about it. The extra consistency is nice though.