MTG Salvation

With the devil Temur energy in the hamper, it seems like Fraying Sanity mill might have more of a fighting chance. It's been a few months since I pushed a deck together, and I'm not sure if I should do a slow energy grind deck (with Minister of Inquiries and Shielded Aether Thief or try to combo deck with Bloodlust Inciter and Fleet Swallower.

What do you think? Does blue have the chops to slow down aggro deck enough to win at this point, or should I dip into red/white to stem the tide?

Bounce spells, Induced Amnesia and Release to the Winds seems like a fun way to go about milling, and can fit in with the other mill strategies too.

Minister is probably he more consistent of those two strategies. I think there's still too many GY strategies for mill to be a winner, though.

I'm working on an Induced Amnesia list, but I just thought, what about Navigator's Ruin? It's repeatable mill, as long as we can keep attacking. I think that addresses one of the weaknesses of the Minister strategy, that being Minister is one of our only creatures in the deck and there is very much 1 for 1 removal in standard right now. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking something like this?

Quote from L0ng5h0t »

I'm working on an Induced Amnesia list, but I just thought, what about Navigator's Ruin? It's repeatable mill, as long as we can keep attacking. I think that addresses one of the weaknesses of the Minister strategy, that being Minister is one of our only creatures in the deck and there is very much 1 for 1 removal in standard right now. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking something like this?

Navigator's ruin seems like a lot of work very little reward. I feel like Fleet Swallower would be less work.

(Yeah, I totally just copied / pasted this but at least I added card links and I just typed it up...)A pile o' jank I'm working on for fun. After building this I goldfished it a few times and realized it probably wasn't going to work the way I hoped it would but during my playtest night it was still in sleeves so I gave it a spin. It didn't do amazing but it didn't do as bad as I thought it would either so I'm putting it up to play with a bit.



The general idea is to mill your opponent with Fraying Sanity + Minister of Inquiries , Fleet Sallower, Ipnu Rivulet, Compelling Argument (+Flood of Recollection). With a bit of graveyard hate built into the Scavenger Grounds.



This can take a while, so it's helpful to have a small handful of chump blockers (burnt out ministers & Legion Conquistador), some life gaining ability (Sanguine Sacrament & Azor, the Lawbringer ) and a little bit of disruption ( Spires of Orazca, Settle the Wreckage) to help you stay in the game.


Sanguine Sacrament is bonus because it keeps returning to your library. Evolving Wilds, Legion Conquistador & Thaumatic Compass, all offer opportunities to search your library for specific cards (mostly land) you will need, thinning out your deck and to shuffle those Sanguine Sacraments (and any Opt-ed over scrys) back into the mix (from the bottom of your library). This'll all make opt a little better too as you're pulling out cards (for the most part, lands) that you need to do stuff and leaving in your library more stuff to do, opt things things out with your scry if you don't like it then draw. If and when you get Azor out, you've likely sifted through your deck a bit and have at least 6 lands on board, an attack with him and the cost paid you get to draw more cards to do stuff and get some life.



Anyhow, it's a work in progress. Let's see how it goes...

So far the best (as in win the most games) Mill decks I've seen are the desert control decks, like Bant or Sultai deserts. They normally have a main win condition, like Approach, but it seems like half the time they get the mill win. The combo mill decks are too inconsistent (since you pretty much have to have Fraying + Sanity AND get an attack in) and the turbo mill plan just isn't turbo enough.

Yeah I agree with Rnnie and i would make a desert control deck

atm i play a 4 color hour of promise approach deck and i get a mill win a decent amount of the time against slower decks.

I don't think a straight up mill deck is feasible

There's no denying desert control is an effective mill strategy. My only issue with it is it's SUPER slow lol. In a competitive match, you're looking at going to time most of the time.

Tinkered with this a bit more, play-tested it out last night. It seems to work better. I managed to beat a couple top-notch decks against a good player with it but still wound up at maybe 50% wins for it. It's really inconsistent but works way better than my first iteration. Any thoughts?

your deck is a control deck with 2 win conditions. Mill and Attacking with a big flyer. The big flier is the more effective strategy which makes the mill seem like it's taking up space.

Other than the desert control decks, I'm not sure what mill strategy is going to get higher than the win percentage you're already experiencing. Wizards just hasn't made mill good in a long time for standard.