Primer Decks: Mill

[Avatar of Shadow]

This thread will be about the discussion and improvement of Mill archetype in casual.

Welcome to the world of Mill! This is my first attempt at a Primer so please bear with me and any suggestions or additions that you would like to see in this Primer please feel free to tell me. I will be more than happy to update this thread as needed.

Anyone who cruises the Casual Forums is more than likely to see a “Mill” decklist. Where does the term “Mill” come from? That can be easily answered by taking a look at Millstone. The object of any mill deck is to eliminate your opponents library.

There are a couple key factors that are established in any successful mill deck:

Card Draw::

Font of Mythos
Howling Mine
Jace Beleren

Counters::

Counterspell
Mana Leak
Induce Paranoia
Broken Ambitions
Telemin Performance
Cancel
Daze
Remand

Straight Up Mill::

Glimpse the Unthinkable
Memory Sluice
Mind Funeral
Brain Freeze
Tome Scour
Traumatize
Mesmeric Orb
Sanity Grinding
Millstone

Board Control::

Evactuation
Boomerang
Echoing Truth
Whiplash Trap
Capsize
Unsummon
Snap
Washout

Creatures:

Nemesis of Reason
Belltower Sphinx
Hedron Crab
Cathartic Adept
Raven Guild Master
Oona, Queen of the Fae

The beauty of a mill deck is that there are several ways to go about creating one. You can have “Lockdown Mill” which essentially controls the complete board until your opponent has completely drawn his library. A slow tactic, but a successful one nonetheless. Then there is a quicker route to take. You can take a Mono-B “Helm Mill”. Similar to the lockdown deck, it doesn’t completely require you to mill your deck to obtain the victory. It utilizes Helm of Obedience to both Mill the opponent and steal his/her creatures in the process. Then as a finishing touch, you can add Ensnaring Bridge + Guiltfeeder to obtain the win. Some people even run Underworld Dreams + Teferi's Puzzle Box for the victory, in addition to their mill tactics. As you can see in this type of deck Mill is just an edge over your opponent.

There are several type of decks that run aggro/mill, such as Millfolk (Merfolk + Mill). (I’m not too knowledgeable in this area of Mill, so any suggestions or sample decklists would be much appreciated)

Cards to watch out for when playing with a Mill deck:

Gaea's Blessing
Feldon's Cane - although if you play with Mesmeric Orb, then you may want run a couple yourself.


Skeleton Decklists:

Mesmeric Mill:

Mesmeric Mill
COUNTERS: 14 4x Counterspell 4x Mana Leak 4x Remand 2x Cancel BOUNCE: 8 4x Echoing Truth 4x Boomerang	OTHER: 10 4x Feldon's Cane 4x Mesmeric Orb 2x Memory Erosion

In this Skeleton build, the idea is to control the field with counters and and bounce while your opponent mills themselves. With Mana Leak it forces them to either tap and extra 3 permanents (their lands) to add more mill power to the Mesmeric Orb. Remand while not my favorite counter, allows them to tap some more mana to replay the spell, milling them more. In the end, use your Feldon's Cane to reshuffle your graveyard into your library and start over. Not my favorite build, but effective nonetheless.

More to come. Thanks to all the users that are helping this Primer grow. I appreciate and hopefully all the other users will appreciate it as well.

[Sanity's_Eclipse]

for a suite of counters:
counterspell - the classic, the feared.
mana leak - more recent alternative, easier to cast in multicolor.
daze - decent if your meta has good one drops
bounce:
boomerang - the classic, easy to get.
echoing truth - great against tokens, cards that amplify (guardian seraph for eg)

Why aren't Tome Scour and Hedron Crab there? TS is half of Glimpse, and the crab serves as a blocker + miller as you play lands.

Raven Guild Master, Cathartic Adept, Memory Sluice, Nemesis of Reason are all decent choices for mill as well.

[Blutsau]

way to short. infract me for this post, it's still true.

[Paranoir]

There are four main types of mill cards:

1) Permanent-based mill. Cards like Millstone, Hedron Crab, and Nemesis of Reason.

2) Permanent-based draw. Howling Mine, Jace, Font of Mythos.

3) Sorcery/instant mill. One-shot cards that hit for a lot. Sanity Grinding, Haunting Echoes, and Glimpse the Unthinkable.

4) Combo mill. Instantly mills your opponent's deck. Grindstone/Painter, Helm/Leyline, Solidarity, or Tolarian Academy/Stroke of Genius-based decks.

Maybe you can work off this?

[Avatar of Shadow]

Originally Posted by Blutsau

way to short. infract me for this post, it's still true.

It's okay. I'm not too bothered by your words, lol. I agree it is too short, which is why I asked for help. But I do ask that in the future, you offer advice instead of pointing out the obvious. Thanks.

[Kennethwong]

kay, i think that mind funeral should be included.

[zeromd]

the powerfull one:
Grindstone and Painter's Servant

the support one
Extirpate

cheap with paint
Oona, Queen of the Fae
also alternate win con

@others
Anvil of Bogardan
Gnat Miser

[AT_AT_commander]

Archive Trap especially with fetches back in standard.

Sanity Grinding + Twincast


For Mill-folk:
Grimoire Theif + Freed from the Real
Drowner of Secrets
Memory Sluice
Judge of Currents
Merrow Commerce

[serrasin]

Originally Posted by Sanity's_Eclipse

for a suite of counters:
counterspell - the classic, the feared.
mana leak - more recent alternative, easier to cast in multicolor.
daze - decent if your meta has good one drops
bounce:
boomerang - the classic, easy to get.
echoing truth - great against tokens, cards that amplify (guardian seraph for eg)

Why aren't Tome Scour and Hedron Crab there? TS is half of Glimpse, and the crab serves as a blocker + miller as you play lands.

Raven Guild Master, Cathartic Adept, Memory Sluice, Nemesis of Reason are all decent choices for mill as well.

I find your lack of Arcane Denial disturbing.

[Kennethwong]

mill-folk, i dont understand why dont people run stonybrook schoolmaster more. hes great with summon the school and drowner of secrets. INCREMENTAL MILL.