INTRODUCTION
Mill has historically been a casual archetype. Although the deck has enjoyed some small success in Modern over the summer, it has rarely (if ever) been a major win contender in any Standard format. Even when milling cards have been included in decks, such as Nephalia Drownyard of Innistrad Standard, or Jace, Memory Adept in current control boards, it has always been as a secondary or tertiary path to victory. A mill-focused deck is all but unheard of.
Not anymore. With the printing of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver alongside a number of other blue and black cards in RtR block and Theros, Mill has become a potentially viable strategy in Standard. Its viability is both a function of individual cards at its disposal (such as Psychic Strike and Grisly Spectacle), and a metagame that is polarized towards creature-based win conditions. This gives Mill both the strategic and contextual conditions it needs to try and succeed in the format. This primer discusses the rationale for playing Mill, card choices and deck list, its matchups, and my history with the deck.
As a final note, I know that lots of you are probably thinking stuff like "LOL NOOB. MILL SUCKS", "...sigh...Ashiok is already good in real control decks not garbage like this", "cute but can't beat aggro", and other disparaging remarks. I address all of that and more below, so hear me out and keep reading on.
BACKGROUND AND GAMEPLAN
I started tinkering with this list the day that Theros got fully spoiled, mostly on a personal bet. When I first saw Ashiok, even before the whole set was known, I was furious at the UB heir to Tibalt. I raged all across the interwebs, including here on this forum, and generally lamented the demise of intelligent card design at Wizards. In fact, I was going to link to those posts as a bit of humor, but they are so embarrassingly venomous that I’m trying to forget them. This Mill deck was an attempt to prove myself wrong and see if Ashiok had a unique home, and it already has two FNM successes behind it with more to hopefully come.
DECK STRENGTHS
Strong control matchup
Standard control is packed with removal and is very light on actual win conditions. This makes it very difficult for them to interact with our high volume of milling threats, and makes our milling extremely effective at just putting opponents out of the game on the spot. For example, UW Control is running only a handful of win cons, and a single Traumatize can wipe out the lone Aetherling and Elspeth pair in one swoop. Some Esper lists are only running 2 Aetherlings, which can easily be wiped out by a single mill (and we run many throughout the deck). Our versatile maindeck answers such as Thoughtseize and Strike give us a lot of game in keeping their threats off the table, and it is almost impossible for control decks to reliably answer the one-two punch of turn 2 TS followed by turn 3 Ash.
Good midrange matchup
We play the perfect combination of efficient spot removal, active and inevitable threats, and disruption/protection to keep the midrange matchup strongly in our favor. Most midrange lists are heavy on removal, which is basically useless against our deck. Those strategies also tend towards threat quality instead of threat quantity, so they don’t have enough dudes to overrun our own removal. Lacking a fast clock and with all their tools useless against our own strategy, these decks just can’t interact with our win condition and find themselves blown out by our top of the curve spells. The danger in these matchups, specifically BWR and BR, is getting blown out by hand disruption, but if you are smart with your own discard and countermagic, you can avoid this.
Difficult to interact with our win condition
Mill completely forgoes creatures because a) the milling creatures in Standard are god awful and b) it nullifies a ton of removal in opposing decks. Life gain doesn’t do anything against our win condition, nor does spot removal and sweepers.
High degree of inevitability
In the game of attrition when you and your opponent can answer any threat one-for-one, Mill always wins. 11 of our standard control spells have a milling effect tacked on, which guarantees that our decks will always be larger than our opponents’. Because our mills will often get rid of threats in low-threat-density decks (e.g. Esper Control, UW Control), we will always be able to last out a game. Even resolved finishers like Aetherling can effectively be fogged out turn after turn using removal spells as the opponent draws himself to death.
DECK WEAKNESSES
Weaker aggro matchup
This matchup is not unwinnable, even if it isn't great. Crypt Incursion and maindeck Verdict are unbelievably strong against aggro. Incursion especially will often buy you 30+ life in a single resolution, which forces an aggro player to overextend creatures into our sweepers. Unfortunately, it makes the deck very draw dependent. You will lose games just because you don't draw one of these 5 cards in game 1, or one of the 8 in games 2/3. And then you are just going to lose. It's improbable that you won't draw one or more copies of the cards, however, so this matchup still remains about 45/55.
Planeswalker dependent
This deck’s best possible play is turn 2 TS into turn 3 Ash. That kind of inevitability is really hard for opponents to deal with, and if you have countermagic or backup Ashes in hand, your opponent is going to waste a lot of time trying to deal with him. On the other hand, if you get your inevitable walkers removed, countered, or run over with dudes, this deck loses a lot of luster. BWR and BRx style decks generally will cause problems with their Dreadbore and Downfall arsenal, not to mention early Thoughtseizes ruining your fun.
Heavily nonbasic manabase
To reliably cast a turn 4 Verdict, we need to go heavy on the nonbasics. That’s fine in a control matchup, especially when you can drop Temple on a slow turn, but scary against fast decks. Chances are that you will either take at least 2-4 damage in any given game from untapped shocklands. You might even miss a critical turn 4/5 drop because of a land that enters play tapped. And don’t get me started on Burning Earth.
CARD CHOICES
Wizards loves milling cards. Every set always has a half dozen nods to the UB kitchen table miller who has been playing Millstone since 1994. But with even just a cursory glance, you can quickly see that the majority of Standard mill cards are bad. Well, let’s be honest; in many cases, they are truly wretched. But hidden amongst the crap like Crosstown Courier and Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker are some playable mill cards that make this deck tick.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD MILL CARD?
Good mill cards have one or more of the following three qualities. If they don't have any of these three, then they aren't getting a second thought:
Unlike in Modern, Standard Mill doesn't have the raw milling power to just blast heedlessly towards its goal. We need to interact with our opponent's game plan while also furthering our own milling objective.
Good mill cards are easily reusable
It's a basic principle of Magic that reusable effects have high potential to be stronger than single-shot ones. That's especially true in a burn or mill deck that is racing to knock down an opponent's life total, as it guarantees that you never have a dead turn. Cards like Millstone itself are too slow/expensive to fit this criterion, but guys like Ashiok or the almighty Hedron Crab of Modern are not.
For a card to get played in a mill deck, it needs to meet one or more of those criteria. There are a lot of Standard mill cards that got cut just because they don't pass those tests. Tome Scour, for example, is excluded because it doesn't mill nearly enough for one card. Consuming Aberration gets cut because it doesn't reliably mill in turns after it hits play, nor does it reliably stay alive to even have its effect. Breaking almost mills enough in one hit to be worth it, but because it doesn’t have additional effects and interactivity, it’s not something we want to topdeck in a lot of matchups. With all that in mind, here are the justifications for the individual cards in the deck.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I hated this guy when I first saw him. He had no immediate board impact, didn't mill enough at a time, was too inconsistent in stealing creatures, and had one of the least threatening ultimates of any planeswalker in the game. I raged against him on this forum and with my friends. Then I started playing with him in this deck. For one, he's reusable Mill that costs 0 mana to use every turn. That alone is strong but not strong enough (poor Curse of the Bloody Tome had a similar problem). The real strength is in his ability to stall out games. When backed up with removal, Ashiok will draw games out well past turn 10, which gives him all the time he needs to keep his clock going. He's also hilariously difficult to kill, ticking up 2 loyalty per turn and coming down on turn 3. If you can land Ashiok on the play, he will often be at 7 loyalty or higher before your average midrange or control deck can start to threaten him. At that point, he becomes almost unremovable by most decks in the field. His ultimate, although not a guaranteed win unlike other walkers, is nonetheless strong against slower decks.
Jace, Memory Adept
Jace the Mill Sculptor ends games in a hurry. Killing a threat on turn 4 to drop this guy on turn 5 is terrifying, and even if your opponent spends 2 turns killing it, you have still milled for 20 and cast a double Fog, all for 5 mana. He’s a sick topdeck against slower decks as well, and is always a card you want to see after turn 7 or so. Make sure to save your Thoughtseizes if you draw them later to cast in advance of a JMA drop.
Traumatize
If someone had told me that this card was good, I would have laughed at them and told them to come back when they had played some real games. Then I tested it. Dropped on turn 5, you are almost always going to mill at least 22 cards in one go, which puts your opponent on a very short clock with any other milling backup. More importantly, this is a card that invariably wipes out a large portion of an opponent’s threats. You will often see a single Traumatize take out all the Elspeths and Aetherlings in a deck, which completely destroys an opponent’s inevitability. It’s also, strangely, the way I most often win against aggro. In games 2/3, hitting this in advance of a Crypt Incursion will always give you more than enough life to finish out the game.
Mind Grind
Still not 100% sold on this card, but it’s a great topdeck towards the end of the game. One of the issues in Standard right now is mana flooding. I regularly have at least 10 lands out by turn 10-11 with the game stalled out and both me and my opponents locked in a topdeck battle. Mind Grind can break those stalemates wide open with gigantic mills. Like Traumatize, this is a card that will usually wipe out opposing win conditions or just win the game outright (Always be sure to count lands in exile/GY/play before using it). It might be win more, but I have been happy with it in probably 75% of the games where I draw it.
Psychic Strike/Pilfered Plans
The only reason this deck works is because of these cards. These small mill effects definitely add up over the course of a game and guarantee the deck’s inevitability. Strike and Plans are also particularly strong in a metagame dominated by the Scry Lands. For us, Plans is a strictly better Divination; we can’t afford the life loss of Read the Bones anyway, given our manabase. Strike is better than Dissolve for us because of its less prohibitive mana cost and because the additional mill will always add up over the single scry.
Doom Blade
This card was initially Grisly Spectacle, and although I prefer Spectacle in the midrange matchup, there is just too much fast aggro and RG ramp around to justify it. Being able to cast Ashiok on turn 5 with DB backup is very strong, and Spectacle was a bit too expensive for its cost, even if I still like its effect. DB is a hyper-efficient removal spell that will hit most of what you want, the BWR and BR matchups excepted.
Hero’s Downfall
Best spot removal in the format. I’d run 5 if I could. Knowing when to Downfall and when to Strike a creature/planeswalker is a tricky question that all control players have to ask, but given the flexibility of this card, it’s hard to go wrong.
Thoughtseize
There aren’t a lot of decks that want to run maindeck TS, especially 3 of them. But we are one such deck because it makes our control/midrange matchups so much better. The TS/Ash combo on turn 2/3 is gigantic. Getting the turn 4 TS into a turn 5 Traumatize/JMA is even more devastating, albeit rarer. I’m biased towards this card in part because of my Modern experience; Jund continues to dominate there based in no small part on the sheer power and versatility of this card. It finds a nice home here.
Crypt Incursion
This is the best card in the deck for beating aggro and the Naya Midrangey/Aggro decks in the format. These decks run way too many creatures for their own good, which is great for their threat density, but bad if they are staring down an Incursion. Each creature you remove or counter gets added to the bin alone, so you are looking at a turn 5-6 Incursion for probably 12 life on just removal alone. When you add in a JMA activation or a single Traumatize, not to mention the collateral damage from Plans/Strike, you are looking at Incursions that gain you upwards of 30 life for just 3 mana. Of course, if Skullcrack starts to catch on in sideboards, we are going to need to increase our Thoughtseize and/or Duress count to have a good shot at resolving this card. But if it resolves, it buys us multiple turns to stabilize and forces our opponents to overcommit to try and race us.
Supreme Verdict
It’s sad that this is the only Wrath in the format. I tried to run this deck without it but going 20/80 to aggro is just not acceptable. Verdict goes a long way to making this deck work against aggro. A smart opponent will play no more than 2 creatures before turn 2 in anticipation of the Verdict. If they have a grip full of threats, they might play 3. Either way, that turn 4 Verdict is going to buy you a turn to drop your turn 5 Traumatize or spot remove into a turn 6 Ash/JMA. It’s a crap draw against control, but even against Midrange, you will sometimes catch opponents with 2 creatures out. The only reason to lower this from 4 to 3 would be if you were particularly worried about Rakdos Keyrune and/or Mutavault, in which case you would want an additional removal spell (Away likely).
Sphinx’s Revelation
A theme of this deck is lategame topdecks, and Revelation is an awesome one. You probably won’t lose a game to midrange/control if this resolves, and even if it doesn’t, you can almost always follow it up with an equally powerful threat on your main phase. It’s also a nice maindeck stall against aggro, especially if you can Verdict and spot-removal stall a game past turn 5.
SB: Jace, Memory Adept/Mind Grind
The theme of these sideboard cards is topdecks. In games 2 and 3 against control (and midrange too, to lesser extent), we want to increase our topdeck quality to guarantee wins past turn 7. When it’s turn 10 and the game is stalled out, the last thing on earth that you want to draw is a Thoughtseize or a Downfall. But a Mind Grind for X=8 or another JMA will be very welcome. Given the low quality of Standard countermagic, it’s impossible for most control decks to answer your threats one for one if you pack in so many.
SB: Ray of Dissolution Burning Earth is a nightmare for this deck, and at least 3-4 of the tier 1 decks in the format are playing it. Ray is the best way to stop Earth and you will often preemptively board it in just anticipating the Earth from your opponent, even if you aren't 100% sure he has it. It also has some additional functionality against Spear, Whip, and Hammer, if you start to see those. Ray is also very strong in the Esper and UW matchups, where it hits opposing Spheres at instant speed at the end of an opponent's turn. Most control decks don't have enough efficient countermagic, or enough spells period, to counter an EOT Ray and then counter the walker cast on the next turn. Finally, some sideboards are packing Bow of Nylea, which can be a problem for Mill-based decks; this is just another answer to that card.
SB: Pithing Needle
The biggest problem I had in game 2 and 3 was trying to answer midrange threats one for one. It’s really easy to fall behind when you get a turn 3 Keyrune/TS into a turn 4 Chandra into a turn 5 Obzedat/Elspeth. Trying to answer that 1 for 1 with removal isn’t going to get you very far and will probably just get you blown out by a Rakdos’s Return on turn 6. Needle solves most of those problems by PROACTIVELY preventing some serious threats at a low cost with an early investment. It’s particularly awesome against Mutavault. I had these maindecked for a while but ended up ditching them for the Syncopates. In general, the goal of Needle is to stop walkers. A turn 2 Domri is unanswerable if you are on the draw, and once he is out there you cannot let him hit 7 loyalty. Wasting a Downfall on Domri is a bad idea because then you can’t take out the Polukranos or Smiter staring you down. And god forbid you spend the mana and then have another Domri take his place. At 1 mana, Needle stops all subsequent Domri’s for the rest of the game.
SB: Glare of Heresy
Glare is here for three reasons. First, it screws with Mono W and WR aggro, and that’s never a bad thing given that these are some of our worst matchups. In particular, it takes out Heliod and his stupid Spear, both of which will make your life miserable if they resolve. Second, Glare takes care of Detention Sphere, which is the most common answer you will see to our walkers. Third, it handles a number of threats in the format that we don’t want to stare down (e.g. Elspeth, Reckoner, etc.), and it’s always nice to have redundant removal.
SB: Detention Sphere
Versatile answer to a lot of threats. Most importantly in the aggro matchup, it removes opposing gods which we otherwise can't deal with if they resolve. Sphere also hits resolved walkers, which can be very nice if you want to save your Needles for something like Vault or Keyrune.
SB: Dimir Charm
Initially, I wasn't going to use Dimir Charm because it was widely regarded as a weak card. But then I saw that Last Breath was seeing sideboard play, and in our deck, this is almost a strictly better Last Breath. It certainly has better synergy with Crypt Incursion, and its other modes will see use depending on your matchup. Unlike Breath, it's never a dead draw, and you can either use the combined mill/fateseal on your opponent or use it on yourself to dig for an answer.
STRATEGY, GAMEPLAY, AND BEATING AGGRO
At its core, Mill Control is really just a control deck with some explosive mill cards thrown in as win conditions. That becomes a coherent game plan only because of the supporting cards that mill in addition to their usual effects. Because of that, all of the usual advice for control players applies here. But there are some specific things that I want to share from my experience which can hopefully help you pilot the deck.
Turn 1 Scry, Turn 2 Thoughtseize/Syncopate, Turn 3 Ash/Plans
If there is any “standard opener” for this deck, this is it. It’s pretty familiar for most control players, but I do want to emphasize the importance of resolving that Ashiok on turn 3 and not a turn later. Ash is your inevitability. Against Midrange, he is also your first line of defense when the big dudes start coming into play on turn 4. For Ash to reliably steal creatures to hold the line, he needs to be at 10+ loyalty to not be blown out by a burn spell or a big attack. He also needs to start milling ASAP to maximize your clock. All of this means that you must drop him on turn 3 whenever possible. If you have countermagic and removal that could be played on turn 3 to stop, say, an opposing Reckoner or Domri, it’s not worth it. Ash is your priority. We play so much removal that we can almost always draw into it after dropping the Ash, although as I am going to talk about next, you also need to know when Ash will live and when he will die.
Know when Ashiok is in lethal range
Ashiok starts out at 5 loyalty effectively. 5 loyalty is a lot of loyalty and, for most decks, will put him totally out of range of an attack. But this gets tricky in certain matchups. You need to know your opponent’s burn spells and how those interact with their board state. A single creature in WR can kill Ashiok with Boros Charm backup, and even though that’s 1 card and 1 attack traded for your walker, your opponent still emerges on top of that exchange because your Ashiok is way more valuable than those cards. Similarly, a lone Ooze with no creatures in the yard can take out Ash on the heels of a Lightning Strike. Mono Red has both 4 Shock and 4 Strike, in addition to 4-8 creatures with haste, so make sure you account for that when you drop Ash. As a related point, don’t drop Ash blindly against decks that you know are packing countermagic, Sphere, or Dreadbore. Wait for a TS, a second Ash, or a counterspell of your own.
Know when to use Ash to mill, to steal, and to ult
When in doubt, you want to use Ash to mill. We win by milling, not by beating an opponent to death, so a good bet is always to keep on milling away. But there are times when you will need to use Ash for other purposes, and that’s where a careful assessment of the board comes into play. Using the -10 is pretty easy. Anytime you are against a control deck with 4+ cards in their hand, and they have no Mutavault or other crap in play, you are going to use the Identity Crisis. You will generally not Crisis against other decks because their hand is less valuable than a stolen creature or more milling.
But what about stealing? Against White aggro, you never, ever want to steal a creature until you can guarantee that Ash will have 5 loyalty AFTER the theft. Why? Because you need to ensure that your creature can defend Ash. Going up to 5 loyalty on Ash against WR aggro and then stealing a dude, going to 3 or 4 loyalty, opens you up to all the burn and all the Brave the Elements that they have. Heck, a simple Spear drop will screw up your math. 5 loyalty is a much better cushion if you also have a blocker, and at that point they would probably need to commit 2-3 creatures and 2-3 spells to kill him; that’s a trade you can make. Also, don’t forget that you can backup your Ash with spot removal to either keep him alive or make an opponent overcommit resources to his death.
What about against decks like GR Monsters and Naya? Here, the big cards to worry about are Stormbreath Dragon and burn, both of which will completely mess up your math. In general, I would never steal a non-flying creature against these decks UNLESS you also have removal backup in your hand. Even then, make sure you are stealing creatures with 5+ toughness. Mizzium Mortars is a dead draw in these games unless you are careless enough to steal a creature that they can kill with it.
Know when to Strike, when to Downfall, and when to Spectacle
This is more of a control lesson generally than one specific to this deck. It’s really hard to know when to use what spell to accomplish what goal. That’s especially true if you only have 2 such spells in your hand and anticipate dealing with 3+ threats. To do this, you need to know what spells are scariest and what spells you can probably deal with later. Let’s use Esper Control as an example. We’ll use the version by Andrew Davis from the recent SCG because it has the most threats and we always want to assume that our opponent is heavy on threats. In general, the scariest threat in a control deck is probably Aetherling because he closes a game in 2 turns and can’t be removed, so we might be tempted to counter a card like that. Obzedaddy is similar because the only way to remove him is on an opposing player’s turn, which opens us up to followup spells once we are tapped out. But for us, by far the scariest threat is Blood Baron. He will end the game in probably 3 attacks and we actually can’t remove him once he lands unless we still have the Verdicts. That’s a card you need to save Strike for. All the others can be dealt with using removal, and it feels very good to Grisly Spectacle a Ghoust Council.
Generally, save Strike for cards that you can’t let resolve. Rakdos’s Return, Blood Baron, and Spear of Heliod are in this category. Use Spectacle on any creature with more than 3+ power. Downfall is a last resort for creatures and, if you use it, that creature should have been at least equally threatening as a planeswalker that could come down in 1-2 turns.
Switching from control to clock
You can’t out-control aggro for the entire game. That’s hard to do for “real” control decks with stabilizers like Blood Baron and Obzedat, let alone a deck like ours without that kind of stabilization. Instead, you need to learn when to switch gears from controlling the game to clocking your opponent. Generally, this happens around turn 5 when you can drop Traumatize, JMA, or Ash on the heels of a Verdict. But sometimes, you will need to wait; dropping a JMA into 2 creatures and a burn spell is a bad idea. Unlike most control decks, you can win games in a hurry with our high-end mill spells. But to do so, they need to survive for 2-3 turns. So don’t drop them against 3+ creatures or 2+ creatures and a probable burn spell. Don’t drop them without removal backup (turn 6 Ash + Downfall). And definitely don’t drop them if you are about to die yourself.
Beating Aggro: How the **** does mill win this matchup?
With 2 FNMs in the books, I have a better grasp on how this deck does in the aggro matchup. Most players are probably skeptical of Mill precisely because it appears to punt the aggro matchup, and that's a problem in a metagame where Mono Red is one of the three decks to beat (let alone Mono White, WR, RG Monsters, etc.). My initial version of the deck, with just maindecked Verdict, was wholly dependent on drawing one of those 4 copies to have even a chance of winning aggro. And even then, Mono Red could just win through Phoenix recursion or better, more aggressive topdecks. Crypt Incursion changes everything. Combined with DB replacing Spectacle, this deck now has much better game against aggro, so here are some tips to make sure all your aggro matches are at least 45/55 or better.
Scry for your bullets
In most games, you are going to use your Scry lands to just make sure the top of your library is decent. But facing aggro, you only want to see 2-3 cards. Either a Verdict, an Incursion, or a power mill to set up the Incursion. Deprioritize everything else because spot removal and countermagic won't win you this matchup. Good aggro players will reserve threats in hand to dodge sweepers, so are never going to trade them one for one with Downfall and DB. Verdict is strong, but if they see your manabase, chances are they won't extend past 2-3 creatures, one of which might be a Muta or a Phoenix. So instead of playing that game, use scry to dig for the 10 or so cards you really need: Incursion, Verdict, JMA, Traumatize.
Incursion forces an opponent to overextend
Once you have tested this card out, you will see just how much life you can gain from it. A turn 5 JMA into a turn 6 Incursion, especially if you had some spot removal and mill before that, will regularly gain you 20+ life. Aggro can try and chisel away with that using a small team of Verdict-proof guys, but then you can use the extra turns to recover and win through milling. This forces aggro to overextend, much like Jace, Architect of Thought does in other decks. Once they overextend, it opens them up to subsequent Verdicts.
Turn 5 mill into turn 6 Incursion
Never use Incursion too early. Incursion for 12 sounds good on paper, but Mono Red can punch through that in 2 turns. Incursion for 45, however, is almost impossible for aggro to overcome if you are playing the deck right. This means that you need to sometimes be risky and let them get you down to frightening life totals. It also means that you often need to tap out on turn 5 to play a big mill spell, so make sure your turn 2-3 plays count to set you up for this.
Use Planeswalkers as Fogs
Both Ash and JMA are vital to our win condition, so in most games we want to protect them. But against aggro, they also double as Fogs with an added mill effect. If an opponent ignores them, these walkers will do very bad things to your opponent and rapidly win you the game. JMA alone, if ignored on turn 5, will mill 20 in advance of an Incursion, which all but guarantees a 30+ point life swing. And Ash, as I'll talk about below, will steal creatures that are very hard to deal with. So don't be afraid to drop a walker just to Fog, IF you have something big you are stalling for like an Incursion.
Ashiok will steal your way to victory if unchecked
Boros Reckoner and Ash Zealot are too mainstays of aggro in this format. They are also two cards that your aggro opponent does NOT want to see on the other side of the board. Whenever Ash gets a chance to steal first striking creatures of this quality, especially at this low mana cost, you are almost always going to go for it. Attacking into a Reckoner is very dangerous for a Mono Red deck, especially if you can back him up with removal. Just be careful for Firefist Striker who lives to mess up your blockers; if you can't remove him, don't steal creatures. MATCHUPS
Standard is still evolving so I will try and keep this section updated as I face new decks and new decks get added to the metagame. For now, these are the decks that I have either played and won/lost against or the decks I have tested against.
UW Control/Esper Control: Highly Favorable
These decks have a lot of dead draws against us and not enough countermagic to reliably answer our topdecks. They also don’t pack enough win conditions, so you can often win the game on the spot with a lucky mill that takes out most of an opponent’s threats. An argument could be made that our removal is also dead against them, so our dead draws cancel out theirs. That’s not entirely true because at least Spectacle can be used to stall against a rampaging Aetherling. Sure, Verdict is dead, but that’s just 4 slots as compared to the 15 or so slots lost by the opposing player (Essence Scatter, Verdict, Eviction, Far/Away, Blade, Charm). In games 2 and 3, ditch out removal for more topdeckable threats and some answers to their own threats. Generally, we win this matchup because of the inevitability of our game plan and the fact that nearly every topdeck contributes to that inevitability. SIDEBOARDING: -3 Verdict, -3 Doom Blade, -3 Incursion, +1 JMA, +3 Pithing Needle, +2 Glare of Heresy, +1 Detention Sphere, +2 Ray of Dissolution
BWR Midrange/BR Midrange: Favorable
These matchups would be straight up highly favorable if it weren’t for Dreadbore. That card is a serious pain, especially when backed up by Thoughtseize and Downfall. When you lose this matchup, it’s because you get your hand blown apart by TS/Return or you can’t stick a walker long enough to make an impact. But even so, our topdecks are still going to outclass theirs, because crap like Devour, Anger, and Shock are going to buy you time. It’s also very easy for us to answer threats on a one-to-one basis. Just don’t open yourself up to a turn 5 or 6 Return and you will be fine. The game gets a lot easier post-board when your Needles can eliminate the clock from Mutavault and Keyrune. Dimir Charm doubles as a counter to Dreadbore and Return, as well as removal on Mutavault. SIDEBOARDING: -3 Verdict, -3 Doom Blade, +3 Pithing Needle, +1 JMA, +2 Dimir Charm
GR Monsters/Naya Midragne: Neutral
On the one hand, you will get games where you are run over by turn 5. This tends to happen if you don’t draw a Verdict or if you don’t draw 2 spot removal spells by that time. If you can stabilize until then, or stick an Ash on turn 3 uncontested, you have a much better chance. The big danger here is wasting too much removal on creatures and letting a Domri tick up to a game-over emblem. That and just getting flattened by creatures if you can’t keep Ash up or don’t draw into removal (which shouldn’t be much of an issue given that we are running 11). Once you hit games 2 and 3, you can bring in the full Verdict/Incursion package to stall games, and Needle to handle Domri. SIDEBOARDING: -1 Mind Grind, -3 Thoughtseize, -2 Psychic Strike, +1 Crypt Incursion, +1 Verdict, +2 Needle
Mono Red Aggro, Mono White Aggro, WR Aggro: Unfavorable
There’s no avoiding it: Aggro is a bad matchup. It’s worse for us than most control decks, but as said earlier, we try and compensate that with a better midrange/control matchup than most control decks have. If you don’t draw Verdict or Incursion in game 1, you are definitely going to lose, but thankfully we pack a total of 6 copies of the spells. Game 2 improves because we can pack in a lot of anti-aggro spells. If you are lucky enough to hit a JMA or a Traumatize the turn before, that Incursion will easily gain you 30+. Board in Ray to handle Earth, Spear, and Hammer. SIDEBOARDING: -3 Thoughtseize, -1 Mind Grind, -2 Psychic Strike, +1 Crypt Incursion, +1 Verdict, +2 Dimir Charm, +3 Ray of Dissolution
TOURNAMENT HISTORY
Two FNM successes so far, both at 3-1 (2nd place both times). The reports are done in Spoiler boxes below to save space:
Round 1 vs. UW Control Game 1: No countermagic for my opponent and he gets out a double Mutavault clock on me. I TS out a Sphere to drop Ash, but he topdecks another Sphere to stop it. On turn 5 I fire a Traumatize and he starts the muta beats. Turn 6 sees me drop JMA ticking him to 5 to survive the vaults, but he just keeps going straight for me, bringing me to 4. I mill with JMA and then Spectacle a Vault to stay alive. He counters, I Downfall, and he scoops.
Game 2: We exchange some countermagic until, on turn 7, my opponent resolves JMA with Negate backup on my Downfall. Now I'm on the milling clock! With my opponent tapped out, I fire Traumatize for 23 and drop a Needle naming Jace, which sadly shuts down the one in my hand. Sphere takes out the Needle and I see my library dwindle down to 25 cards. With Needle out of the picture, I Thoughtseize (Dissolve) and then drop my own JMA (24 cards in my deck, 12 in opponents). The race is on. My opponent drops yet another Sphere on my JMA and mills me down to 14. I draw Plans (13) and use Plans to draw into a Heresy (11), which I use to kill the Sphere and get back my JMA. Opponent mills me down to 1, but I have 2 Ashiok in hand. I mill with JMA and cast both with back to back exiles, ending the game.
Round 2 vs. BWR Midrange Game 1: An early Thoughtseize saves me from a grip with 3 lands and 4 serious threats, bringing that count down to 3 and letting me trade 1 for 1 for the next 4 turns. Strike, Downfall, Spectacle, and Syncopate answer everything he throws, including a TS of his own. I overextend with a turn 8 Traumatize with removal backup, but he resolves Obzedat while I have no instant speed removal. Thankfully, I drop a JMA which he hast to kill with Obzedat or risk getting milled out before he can kill me, which buys me the time I need to Plans into a Downfall. I run out of Mill and slowly watch his library fade away but he topdecks a Return that sends me to 5 with no cards in my hand. A topdecked Ash ends the game.
Game 2: My turn 2 TS turn 3 Ash play gets blown apart by a topdecked Dreabore. He lands an Underworld Connections which rapidly starts to put him ahead. My turn 5 Traumatize connects for about 22, but he lands an Obzedat while I am tapped out. I drop JMA and bring him down to 12 cards but his Connections pay off and he fires another Dreadbore at JMA. Obzedat swings and is joined by Beast for a guaranteed win. I Pilfered Plans for another JMA (please?) but can't finish the game.
Game 3: I get the turn 2 TS into turn 3 Ash again, but this time he can't answer it. Ash ticks up over a few uneventful turns before he drops a TS of his own into Elspeth on turn 6. I Plans into a Downfall to answer Elspeth, but his Keyrune and 3 tokens are a serious clock. Thankfully, he doesn't add anything to his horde so I fire off a Traumatize and steal an Obzedat to buy time. The Obzedat eats a Dreadbore and I drop down to 8. On his next attack, I Spectacle the Keyrune bringing his library into the teens. I tick up Ashiok, and pass back, where he swings and tries to Shock for lethal (I'm now at 2). I untap, play my land, tick up Ashiok, and Mind Grind for 8. His last card revealed is the 8th land, so I win by a hair.
Round 3 vs. RG Monsters Game 1: He resolves the turn 2 Domri but I answer with Ash followed by a Downfall on a Hydra, a Verdict on an Elves/Ember, and a Downfall on Domri. A topdecked JMA fires off two mills before he can use Rampager and a SCooze to kill the JMA, but his library is too low. He tries to tick up Ooze for a lethal attack, but I spectacle it and mill him for 10. Ash finishes the job.
Game 2: Turn 2 Sylvan leads into a turn 3 Elves and Burning Earth. That Earth basically ends the game the moment it hits, but I drag it out for a while. Turn 4 sees a Polukranos (Downfall), then Domri/Elves/SCooze (Verdict), Ember/Domri (Strike on Ember), followed by yet another Polukranos and SCooze. I probably take 10 damage from Earth this game. He still has about 35 cards in his deck when I get my face smashed in by the creatures.
Game 3: This time I Syncopate the turn 3 Earth, so already I'm off to a better start. He gets Domri out but I Needle and then Strike an Ember. I drop Ash without removal/countermagic backup, and Stormbreath brings him to 1 loyalty. I draw an Incursion and switch gears, using Ash to steal a lowly Mystic (killing Ash) and then firing Traumatize for about 23. I take some hits next turn from a rampager-powered Dragon (ouch), but then start off my turn with a Pilfered Plans into an Incursion for a whopping 33 life. By the time he chisels it down, I have fired off a second Traumatize and he has only 10 cards left in the deck. The bad news is that he drops an Ooze which threatens to end the game on the spot. The good news is when he tries to go in for 6 damage I Spectacle the Ooze. He tries to follow up with a Lightning Strike pair for lethal, but I strike one, eat the other, and end out the game at 3 life.
Round 4 vs. WR Aggro Game 1: I don't even remember what happened. The only thing traumatizing about this game was how badly I got murdered. Double Soldier on turns 1 and 2 with mutavault support. I used Verdict on turn 4. He boros charmed, dropped Spear, and finished out the game on turn 5.
Game 2: Things started off promising with lots of removal, a turn 4 verdict, a turn 5 traumatize, and a turn 6 ash with downfall backup. I had the Crypt Incursion in my hand ready to gain 30 life. It was not to be. Spark Trooper charges across with Boros Charm double strike. I Downfall. He braves the elements. I get wrecked.
Final Score: 3-1
Overall not a bad run. Anything short of the Spark Trooper/Charm/Brave combo wasn't going to kill me, so I don't feel too badly about losing that one. The tournament showed that the deck had a lot of potential and, if nothing else, was a hell of a lot of fun to play. I'll be running it at more events in the future.
PENDING
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I would love to hear criticisms, suggestions, ideas, and general feedback on the deck. I know that many of you are still skeptical or outright hostile towards the idea of competitive milling decks, especially ones using cards like Traumatize and Mind Grind. Some of you are probably wondering why I put so much time into a primer on a dang MILL deck of all things. So fire away! Constructive criticism and input is always welcome. But before you do, definitely try the deck out and see how it runs. If nothing else, you will have a lot of fun watching your opponent as you mill your way to victory.
Suggestion for a card Breaking / Entering, 2 mana mill 8. Seems to fit well here.
I gave it a try early on, but it was only good in very specific situations. It's good against aggro on the leadup to a Crypt Incursion, and it's good against Control if you are trying to finish out a game. But it's a terrible midgame topdeck against midrang and aggro, and I found myself wanting other cards. It could be something in the board for more ammunition in those specific situations where it can shine.
I know a lot of people are skeptical about this deck, but I have continued to have success with it. My aggro matchup, the matchup that looks the weakest, is actually a lot better than we might suspect thanks to maindecking 3 copies of the almighty Crypt Incursion. Primer updated with a section talking just about beating aggro. Check out the new list and the tech!
It seems like a favorable season for Mill, I'll test your list and post some impressions later man.
I made some changes to the list in preparation for this week's tournament. The big one is -1 Mind Grind and +1 Far//Away. I'm not sure if I like this because Grind was such a good topdeck past turn 8 or so, but with all the GW I expect to see, I need the extra removal. The sideboard also has +2 Far//Away for that same matchup.
So far, the only matchup that is legitimately bad is GW Aggro. Crypt Incursion is a lot worse there because they run too many spells (12 token generators between Call, Charm, and Advent) and not enough creatures to guarantee big Incursions. Mono Red has actually become neutral leaning towards favorable because Incursion is such a blowout against them. I'm going to post a matchup update later based on my experience over the past 3 weeks with the deck.
I don't really think Traumatize is a card that you want. The problem with Traumatize is that it can never win the game by itself, and actually gets worse the longer that the game wears on. It is a hideous card to topdeck when you just want to end the game.
I think you would be much better off with Mind Grind in this slot. Casting Mind Grind for 3 will probably be milling away comparable amounts of cards a lot of the time, and the major upside is that very late it just flat out wins. This is a deck that is designed to draw out games to be long, so Mind Grind seems like a better fit.
I don't really think Traumatize is a card that you want. The problem with Traumatize is that it can never win the game by itself, and actually gets worse the longer that the game wears on. It is a hideous card to topdeck when you just want to end the game.
I think you would be much better off with Mind Grind in this slot. Casting Mind Grind for 3 will probably be milling away comparable amounts of cards a lot of the time, and the major upside is that very late it just flat out wins. This is a deck that is designed to draw out games to be long, so Mind Grind seems like a better fit.
That's a good point. I don't think that Grind for 3 mills nearly as many cards as you might expect, especially in a metagame where most decks are rolling with 25 lands. But I also hate topdecking Traumatize in the late game; it's main function is as a mill spell on turn 5 in anticipation of a turn 6 Incursion. But for all intents and purpose, JMA is just as good at that as Traumatize. So I think I might go -2 Traumatize, +1 JMA, +1 Mind Grind and see how that works. I'd rather have JMA than Grind on turn 5, and he's an awesome topdeck all game. I'd rather have Grind on turn 10, so it can pick up that last slot.
- Thoughtseize is one card that I really want to cut. It's overall a terrible topdeck, not good against aggro and just ok against midrange. Since it shines the most only in control MUs then I'd like to exchange it for Duress, or maybe even cut the discard plan;
- Something seems wrong about Crypt Incursion in this list. Besides a perfect timing sweeper we don't have any way to fill their grave before turn 5 (with Jace or Traumatize), even if accounting our removal set it isn't enough to make it worth;
- During my tests I got a bit disappointed with Traumatize. It's a mid-game spell that just got worse as the game goes to late-game. It's a poor topdeck that can't win the game no matter what. The more we already mill, the more it's 5cmc worth less to mill only 12~15 cards;
- Mind Grind is gold. As far as the probability of being stuck early game with 2~3 copies of it goes, it still deserves the slots because it's the better mana sink we can expect to topdeck;
I know that I'm just criticizing some card choices with no replacement ideas, but I'll start to make some adjustments and post here how it feels.
- Thoughtseize is one card that I really want to cut. It's overall a terrible topdeck, not good against aggro and just ok against midrange. Since it shines the most only in control MUs then I'd like to exchange it for Duress, or maybe even cut the discard plan;
- Something seems wrong about Crypt Incursion in this list. Besides a perfect timing sweeper we don't have any way to fill their grave before turn 5 (with Jace or Traumatize), even if accounting our removal set it isn't enough to make it worth;
- During my tests I got a bit disappointed with Traumatize. It's a mid-game spell that just got worse as the game goes to late-game. It's a poor topdeck that can't win the game no matter what. The more we already mill, the more it's 5cmc worth less to mill only 12~15 cards;
- Mind Grind is gold. As far as the probability of being stuck early game with 2~3 copies of it goes, it still deserves the slots because it's the better mana sink we can expect to topdeck;
I know that I'm just criticizing some card choices with no replacement ideas, but I'll start to make some adjustments and post here how it feels.
Let's see how far Mill can go in Standard now.
Thanks for the feedback. Went 4-0 tonight at FNM with a modified version of the list. My big takeaway was cutting the Traumatize for Grind at the suggestion of MTGPhreak, and that was a move that paid big dividends over the course of the night. I was also down to only 2 Thoughtseize, but I still love my Incursions. I can definitely see sticking the TS's in the board and ditching them from the maindeck.
The first thing I did was to cut Traumatize for Mind Grind and Jace also.
My adjustments from your thread list:
-3 Thoughtseize
-2 Traumatize
+2 Mind Grind (gold)
+1 Jace, Memory Adept (threat density)
+1 Doom Blade (in midrange matches you don't want to spend your Hero's Downfall in creatures, so..)
+1 Supreme Verdict (with so many tokens and 2 for 1 creatures it's crucial to have a sweeper when needed)
Also, my SB is a bit different too
03 Pithing Needle (PW hate, land hate, God hate and so on)
03 Detention Sphere (same as above, except for lands)
04 Cyclonic Rift (good against PW, Gods and their tokens - even against Midrange this card restart their board while we keep our clock).
03 Duress (in place of Thoughtseize)
02 Glare of Heresy
B: Dimir Charm
Initially, I wasn't going to use Dimir Charm because it was widely regarded as a weak card. But then I saw that Last Breath was seeing sideboard play, and in our deck, this is almost a strictly better Last Breath. It certainly has better synergy with Crypt Incursion, and its other modes will see use depending on your matchup. Unlike Breath, it's never a dead draw, and you can either use the combined mill/fateseal on your opponent or use it on yourself to dig for an answer.
I think you 100% completely missed why Last Breath is played. Hint hint: exile. Exiling a certain pesky 2/2 doesn't give them a giant Elemental Token.
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
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The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
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So, I face a Grixis mill control deck and that was actually very hard to play against. He had great removal with Downfall and dread bore and some burn with magma jet. It used pretty much the same walkers too. It also used Breaking // Entering which was very powerful since he could turn tides and bring a large beater to his side as defense and offense if needed. I also saw one Sire of Insanity in his deck, which pretty much locked the game if it came out and he had a walker in play.
It's main draw spell with Steam Augury which was very effective. The main spell that destroyed me was 4x Slaughter Games. I got hit by it 3 times in one game and it absolutely melted my deck and it's ability to respond to anything on top of all the mill.
Something to consider instead of the white splash.
I think you 100% completely missed why Last Breath is played. Hint hint: exile. Exiling a certain pesky 2/2 doesn't give them a giant Elemental Token.
Yep, got too excited about the card. I've been wanting it to be good since it came out but, yet again, it just isn't worth it. It's been removed as an embarrassing oversight.
Yes i'm one of the kitchen table miller, and i'm not ashamed of it .
@ktkenshinx: What are your thoughts about Psychic Spiral
I just never have enough cards in my GY to be worth it. Our best top of the curve mill is definitely Mind Grind and/or JMA. I had been using Traumatize for a while, and although it's awesome on turn 5 or 6, it's a horrible topdeck past then. I fear that Spiral has all the problems with Traumatize without even being a consistently strong play on that critical turn 5. I'll probably stick with Grind for now.
So, I face a Grixis mill control deck and that was actually very hard to play against. He had great removal with Downfall and dread bore and some burn with magma jet. It used pretty much the same walkers too. It also used Breaking // Entering which was very powerful since he could turn tides and bring a large beater to his side as defense and offense if needed. I also saw one Sire of Insanity in his deck, which pretty much locked the game if it came out and he had a walker in play.
It's main draw spell with Steam Augury which was very effective. The main spell that destroyed me was 4x Slaughter Games. I got hit by it 3 times in one game and it absolutely melted my deck and it's ability to respond to anything on top of all the mill.
Something to consider instead of the white splash.
I like red a lot in this metagame, but I'm always worried about just flat out losing to a card like Burning Earth. But then again, as the PT results are showing, enchantments really aren't as prevalent as I might be worried about. Indeed, the huge amount of non-red aggro at PT Dublin suggests that this might not be important, and that more removal-based colors are needed.
From my admittedly limited testing with him, he's just not a guy I want to see on turn 5 or later. I'd much rather spend 5 mana on a Jace, who immediately mills just as much as Mirok does a turn later, can't be blocked, can't be hit by creature removal, and generally closes out a game faster. If Mirko had 5 toughness instead of 4, thereby making him immune to Mortars, he would be a better addition. Or if he cost 4 mana instead of 5. But his current package is just less appealing than Jace I think. I also generally like being creatureless just because it blanks so many cards in an opponent's deck.
First off, Long time supporter of your mill posts, Kenshin. You make me wanting to make a good mill deck not feel alone online
Some questions I have. One of them being, do you believe that we should the mill solely to Pilfered plans, psychic strike, ashiok, JMA, and mind grind? If so, how much of the control elements should we implement(ie dissolves or cyclonic rift)
Also, I'm really torn between splash red and splashing white. White gives me more card advantage and red gives me more removal.
Finally, should we implement some scry in this style of deck outside of temple's? Like voyages end or griptide?
First off, Long time supporter of your mill posts, Kenshin. You make me wanting to make a good mill deck not feel alone online
Hurray! Glad to hear that we millers remain united in solidarity!
Before I answer your individual questions, I do want to say that the deck needs to undergo some changes to handle this post-PT Dublin metagame. On the one hand, with most deck rocking 25+ creatures, Crypt Incursion buys us a LOT of time. On the other hand, if you don't resolve your Incursion or Verdicts, you just get run over. So the deck needs to evolve with the metagame to stay competitive (I'm expecting to get run over this week at FNM).
Some questions I have. One of them being, do you believe that we should the mill solely to Pilfered plans, psychic strike, ashiok, JMA, and mind grind? If so, how much of the control elements should we implement(ie dissolves or cyclonic rift)
Some control elements are inevitable. There's no milling Verdict, for example, and as much as I liked Grisly Spectacle against midrange, it's god awful against aggro. So that means Doom Blade in its spot. But where possible, we want to use a milling alternative to a non-milling card. Dissolve is worse than Psychic Strike in a deck that uses Crypt Incursion. The same is true of Plans over Divination.
Also, I'm really torn between splash red and splashing white. White gives me more card advantage and red gives me more removal.
I'm actually trying to move away from a third color and straight into UB. The problem is that Verdict costs WW, and Anger costs RR, neither of which we can consistently resolve on turn 4 or 3 respectively. The other issue is the manabase, which often demands a few free shocks to resolve cards in time. Going UB would really smooth out the manabase and eliminate a lot of incidental damage. It would also make Burning Earth a lot worse against us, so we wouldn't even need to worry about enchantment removal in white. Sure, there are still Gods and their weapons, but those can be dealt with through Needle, countermagic, discard, or by removing the other dudes that turn them into creatures.
If we went UB, we would have to find alternatives to our sweepers. I'm trying out Aetherize, but it's expensive, even if it's strong against GW. Shrivel is a much worse Golgari Charm, but it's an option against Mono U Devotion. And there's always Ratchet Bomb and Trading Post as some catch-all colorless answers.
Ultimately, UBr or UBw might be necessary just because of the sweepers they have, but the manabase really brings me down.
Against Blood Baron of Vizkopa, which card do you guys believe to be stronger ?
Devour Flesh or Cyclonic Rift (considering Esper/Dimir lists).
Cyclonic Rift just delays it, but maybe time enough for us to counter afterwards or do something about. As a plus, Cyclonic Rift works against some other threats and its Overlord is a better sweeper when against Midrange/Control than Verdict itself.
Devour Flesh is cheap instant speed Edict effect, I believe that 85% of the times I saw this vamp on board it was alone. We don't care about life points so it seems like a good SB card also.
Against Blood Baron of Vizkopa, which card do you guys believe to be stronger ?
Devour Flesh or Cyclonic Rift (considering Esper/Dimir lists).
Cyclonic Rift just delays it, but maybe time enough for us to counter afterwards or do something about. As a plus, Cyclonic Rift works against some other threats and its Overlord is a better sweeper when against Midrange/Control than Verdict itself.
Devour Flesh is cheap instant speed Edict effect, I believe that 85% of the times I saw this vamp on board it was alone. We don't care about life points so it seems like a good SB card also.
I've been having pretty decent success with what I call Azorious Mill. U/W Control with Traumatize/Psychic Spiral as the win-con.
Why U/W?
Board sweeps are a thing, having the ability to 4x Supreme Verdict and 2x Planar Cleanse allows me to keep not only creatures off the board, but all the enchantments and planeswalkers that everyone is stacking in their decks at the moment.
Traumatize itself cannot win games, though backed up with 2x Psychic spiral main deck makes for a quick end game.
I've been debating splashing black into the U/W deck of mine in order to gain access to spot removal and thoughtseize though I haven't crafted it quite yet.
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Traumatize itself cannot win games, though backed up with 2x Psychic spiral main deck makes for a quick end game.
I've been debating splashing black into the U/W deck of mine in order to gain access to spot removal and thoughtseize though I haven't crafted it quite yet.
If you are playing a control shell willing a slightly splash I'd recommend you Mind Grind. Much more efficient than Psychic Spiral or Traumatize, and the B cost isn't prohibitive also.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mill has historically been a casual archetype. Although the deck has enjoyed some small success in Modern over the summer, it has rarely (if ever) been a major win contender in any Standard format. Even when milling cards have been included in decks, such as Nephalia Drownyard of Innistrad Standard, or Jace, Memory Adept in current control boards, it has always been as a secondary or tertiary path to victory. A mill-focused deck is all but unheard of.
Not anymore. With the printing of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver alongside a number of other blue and black cards in RtR block and Theros, Mill has become a potentially viable strategy in Standard. Its viability is both a function of individual cards at its disposal (such as Psychic Strike and Grisly Spectacle), and a metagame that is polarized towards creature-based win conditions. This gives Mill both the strategic and contextual conditions it needs to try and succeed in the format. This primer discusses the rationale for playing Mill, card choices and deck list, its matchups, and my history with the deck.
As a final note, I know that lots of you are probably thinking stuff like "LOL NOOB. MILL SUCKS", "...sigh...Ashiok is already good in real control decks not garbage like this", "cute but can't beat aggro", and other disparaging remarks. I address all of that and more below, so hear me out and keep reading on.
BACKGROUND AND GAMEPLAN
I started tinkering with this list the day that Theros got fully spoiled, mostly on a personal bet. When I first saw Ashiok, even before the whole set was known, I was furious at the UB heir to Tibalt. I raged all across the interwebs, including here on this forum, and generally lamented the demise of intelligent card design at Wizards. In fact, I was going to link to those posts as a bit of humor, but they are so embarrassingly venomous that I’m trying to forget them. This Mill deck was an attempt to prove myself wrong and see if Ashiok had a unique home, and it already has two FNM successes behind it with more to hopefully come.
DECK STRENGTHS
DECKLIST
Updated 10/25/2013
4 Temple of Deceit
3 Watery Grave
4 Temple of Silence
3 Godless Shrine
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Island
4 Swamp
Power Mill: 13
4 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
3 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Traumatize
4 Breaking
3 Psychic Strike
4 Pilfered Plans
Removal and Utility: 16
3 Thoughtseize
2 Doom Blade
2 Ultimate Price
1 Sphinx’s Revelation
4 Hero's Downfall
4 Crypt Incursion
1 Jace, Memory Adept
3 Pithing Needle
4 Detention Sphere
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Far//Away
4 Temple of Deceit
3 Watery Grave
4 Temple of Silence
3 Godless Shrine
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Island
4 Swamp
Power Mill: 8
4 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Traumatize
4 Psychic Strike
4 Pilfered Plans
Removal and Utility: 15
3 Thoughtseize
3 Doom Blade
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Hero's Downfall
3 Crypt Incursion
1 Far//Away
1 Jace, Memory Adept
3 Pithing Needle
2 Ray of Dissolution
2 Detention Sphere
1 Crypt Incursion
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Dimir Charm
2 Far//Away
CARD CHOICES
Wizards loves milling cards. Every set always has a half dozen nods to the UB kitchen table miller who has been playing Millstone since 1994. But with even just a cursory glance, you can quickly see that the majority of Standard mill cards are bad. Well, let’s be honest; in many cases, they are truly wretched. But hidden amongst the crap like Crosstown Courier and Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker are some playable mill cards that make this deck tick.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD MILL CARD?
Good mill cards have one or more of the following three qualities. If they don't have any of these three, then they aren't getting a second thought:
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I hated this guy when I first saw him. He had no immediate board impact, didn't mill enough at a time, was too inconsistent in stealing creatures, and had one of the least threatening ultimates of any planeswalker in the game. I raged against him on this forum and with my friends. Then I started playing with him in this deck. For one, he's reusable Mill that costs 0 mana to use every turn. That alone is strong but not strong enough (poor Curse of the Bloody Tome had a similar problem). The real strength is in his ability to stall out games. When backed up with removal, Ashiok will draw games out well past turn 10, which gives him all the time he needs to keep his clock going. He's also hilariously difficult to kill, ticking up 2 loyalty per turn and coming down on turn 3. If you can land Ashiok on the play, he will often be at 7 loyalty or higher before your average midrange or control deck can start to threaten him. At that point, he becomes almost unremovable by most decks in the field. His ultimate, although not a guaranteed win unlike other walkers, is nonetheless strong against slower decks.
Jace, Memory Adept
Jace the Mill Sculptor ends games in a hurry. Killing a threat on turn 4 to drop this guy on turn 5 is terrifying, and even if your opponent spends 2 turns killing it, you have still milled for 20 and cast a double Fog, all for 5 mana. He’s a sick topdeck against slower decks as well, and is always a card you want to see after turn 7 or so. Make sure to save your Thoughtseizes if you draw them later to cast in advance of a JMA drop.
Traumatize
If someone had told me that this card was good, I would have laughed at them and told them to come back when they had played some real games. Then I tested it. Dropped on turn 5, you are almost always going to mill at least 22 cards in one go, which puts your opponent on a very short clock with any other milling backup. More importantly, this is a card that invariably wipes out a large portion of an opponent’s threats. You will often see a single Traumatize take out all the Elspeths and Aetherlings in a deck, which completely destroys an opponent’s inevitability. It’s also, strangely, the way I most often win against aggro. In games 2/3, hitting this in advance of a Crypt Incursion will always give you more than enough life to finish out the game.
Mind Grind
Still not 100% sold on this card, but it’s a great topdeck towards the end of the game. One of the issues in Standard right now is mana flooding. I regularly have at least 10 lands out by turn 10-11 with the game stalled out and both me and my opponents locked in a topdeck battle. Mind Grind can break those stalemates wide open with gigantic mills. Like Traumatize, this is a card that will usually wipe out opposing win conditions or just win the game outright (Always be sure to count lands in exile/GY/play before using it). It might be win more, but I have been happy with it in probably 75% of the games where I draw it.
Psychic Strike/Pilfered Plans
The only reason this deck works is because of these cards. These small mill effects definitely add up over the course of a game and guarantee the deck’s inevitability. Strike and Plans are also particularly strong in a metagame dominated by the Scry Lands. For us, Plans is a strictly better Divination; we can’t afford the life loss of Read the Bones anyway, given our manabase. Strike is better than Dissolve for us because of its less prohibitive mana cost and because the additional mill will always add up over the single scry.
Doom Blade
This card was initially Grisly Spectacle, and although I prefer Spectacle in the midrange matchup, there is just too much fast aggro and RG ramp around to justify it. Being able to cast Ashiok on turn 5 with DB backup is very strong, and Spectacle was a bit too expensive for its cost, even if I still like its effect. DB is a hyper-efficient removal spell that will hit most of what you want, the BWR and BR matchups excepted.
Hero’s Downfall
Best spot removal in the format. I’d run 5 if I could. Knowing when to Downfall and when to Strike a creature/planeswalker is a tricky question that all control players have to ask, but given the flexibility of this card, it’s hard to go wrong.
Thoughtseize
There aren’t a lot of decks that want to run maindeck TS, especially 3 of them. But we are one such deck because it makes our control/midrange matchups so much better. The TS/Ash combo on turn 2/3 is gigantic. Getting the turn 4 TS into a turn 5 Traumatize/JMA is even more devastating, albeit rarer. I’m biased towards this card in part because of my Modern experience; Jund continues to dominate there based in no small part on the sheer power and versatility of this card. It finds a nice home here.
Crypt Incursion
This is the best card in the deck for beating aggro and the Naya Midrangey/Aggro decks in the format. These decks run way too many creatures for their own good, which is great for their threat density, but bad if they are staring down an Incursion. Each creature you remove or counter gets added to the bin alone, so you are looking at a turn 5-6 Incursion for probably 12 life on just removal alone. When you add in a JMA activation or a single Traumatize, not to mention the collateral damage from Plans/Strike, you are looking at Incursions that gain you upwards of 30 life for just 3 mana. Of course, if Skullcrack starts to catch on in sideboards, we are going to need to increase our Thoughtseize and/or Duress count to have a good shot at resolving this card. But if it resolves, it buys us multiple turns to stabilize and forces our opponents to overcommit to try and race us.
Supreme Verdict
It’s sad that this is the only Wrath in the format. I tried to run this deck without it but going 20/80 to aggro is just not acceptable. Verdict goes a long way to making this deck work against aggro. A smart opponent will play no more than 2 creatures before turn 2 in anticipation of the Verdict. If they have a grip full of threats, they might play 3. Either way, that turn 4 Verdict is going to buy you a turn to drop your turn 5 Traumatize or spot remove into a turn 6 Ash/JMA. It’s a crap draw against control, but even against Midrange, you will sometimes catch opponents with 2 creatures out. The only reason to lower this from 4 to 3 would be if you were particularly worried about Rakdos Keyrune and/or Mutavault, in which case you would want an additional removal spell (Away likely).
Sphinx’s Revelation
A theme of this deck is lategame topdecks, and Revelation is an awesome one. You probably won’t lose a game to midrange/control if this resolves, and even if it doesn’t, you can almost always follow it up with an equally powerful threat on your main phase. It’s also a nice maindeck stall against aggro, especially if you can Verdict and spot-removal stall a game past turn 5.
SB: Jace, Memory Adept/Mind Grind
The theme of these sideboard cards is topdecks. In games 2 and 3 against control (and midrange too, to lesser extent), we want to increase our topdeck quality to guarantee wins past turn 7. When it’s turn 10 and the game is stalled out, the last thing on earth that you want to draw is a Thoughtseize or a Downfall. But a Mind Grind for X=8 or another JMA will be very welcome. Given the low quality of Standard countermagic, it’s impossible for most control decks to answer your threats one for one if you pack in so many.
SB: Ray of Dissolution
Burning Earth is a nightmare for this deck, and at least 3-4 of the tier 1 decks in the format are playing it. Ray is the best way to stop Earth and you will often preemptively board it in just anticipating the Earth from your opponent, even if you aren't 100% sure he has it. It also has some additional functionality against Spear, Whip, and Hammer, if you start to see those. Ray is also very strong in the Esper and UW matchups, where it hits opposing Spheres at instant speed at the end of an opponent's turn. Most control decks don't have enough efficient countermagic, or enough spells period, to counter an EOT Ray and then counter the walker cast on the next turn. Finally, some sideboards are packing Bow of Nylea, which can be a problem for Mill-based decks; this is just another answer to that card.
SB: Pithing Needle
The biggest problem I had in game 2 and 3 was trying to answer midrange threats one for one. It’s really easy to fall behind when you get a turn 3 Keyrune/TS into a turn 4 Chandra into a turn 5 Obzedat/Elspeth. Trying to answer that 1 for 1 with removal isn’t going to get you very far and will probably just get you blown out by a Rakdos’s Return on turn 6. Needle solves most of those problems by PROACTIVELY preventing some serious threats at a low cost with an early investment. It’s particularly awesome against Mutavault. I had these maindecked for a while but ended up ditching them for the Syncopates. In general, the goal of Needle is to stop walkers. A turn 2 Domri is unanswerable if you are on the draw, and once he is out there you cannot let him hit 7 loyalty. Wasting a Downfall on Domri is a bad idea because then you can’t take out the Polukranos or Smiter staring you down. And god forbid you spend the mana and then have another Domri take his place. At 1 mana, Needle stops all subsequent Domri’s for the rest of the game.
SB: Glare of Heresy
Glare is here for three reasons. First, it screws with Mono W and WR aggro, and that’s never a bad thing given that these are some of our worst matchups. In particular, it takes out Heliod and his stupid Spear, both of which will make your life miserable if they resolve. Second, Glare takes care of Detention Sphere, which is the most common answer you will see to our walkers. Third, it handles a number of threats in the format that we don’t want to stare down (e.g. Elspeth, Reckoner, etc.), and it’s always nice to have redundant removal.
SB: Detention Sphere
Versatile answer to a lot of threats. Most importantly in the aggro matchup, it removes opposing gods which we otherwise can't deal with if they resolve. Sphere also hits resolved walkers, which can be very nice if you want to save your Needles for something like Vault or Keyrune.
SB: Dimir Charm
Initially, I wasn't going to use Dimir Charm because it was widely regarded as a weak card. But then I saw that Last Breath was seeing sideboard play, and in our deck, this is almost a strictly better Last Breath. It certainly has better synergy with Crypt Incursion, and its other modes will see use depending on your matchup. Unlike Breath, it's never a dead draw, and you can either use the combined mill/fateseal on your opponent or use it on yourself to dig for an answer.
STRATEGY, GAMEPLAY, AND BEATING AGGRO
At its core, Mill Control is really just a control deck with some explosive mill cards thrown in as win conditions. That becomes a coherent game plan only because of the supporting cards that mill in addition to their usual effects. Because of that, all of the usual advice for control players applies here. But there are some specific things that I want to share from my experience which can hopefully help you pilot the deck.
Turn 1 Scry, Turn 2 Thoughtseize/Syncopate, Turn 3 Ash/Plans
If there is any “standard opener” for this deck, this is it. It’s pretty familiar for most control players, but I do want to emphasize the importance of resolving that Ashiok on turn 3 and not a turn later. Ash is your inevitability. Against Midrange, he is also your first line of defense when the big dudes start coming into play on turn 4. For Ash to reliably steal creatures to hold the line, he needs to be at 10+ loyalty to not be blown out by a burn spell or a big attack. He also needs to start milling ASAP to maximize your clock. All of this means that you must drop him on turn 3 whenever possible. If you have countermagic and removal that could be played on turn 3 to stop, say, an opposing Reckoner or Domri, it’s not worth it. Ash is your priority. We play so much removal that we can almost always draw into it after dropping the Ash, although as I am going to talk about next, you also need to know when Ash will live and when he will die.
Know when Ashiok is in lethal range
Ashiok starts out at 5 loyalty effectively. 5 loyalty is a lot of loyalty and, for most decks, will put him totally out of range of an attack. But this gets tricky in certain matchups. You need to know your opponent’s burn spells and how those interact with their board state. A single creature in WR can kill Ashiok with Boros Charm backup, and even though that’s 1 card and 1 attack traded for your walker, your opponent still emerges on top of that exchange because your Ashiok is way more valuable than those cards. Similarly, a lone Ooze with no creatures in the yard can take out Ash on the heels of a Lightning Strike. Mono Red has both 4 Shock and 4 Strike, in addition to 4-8 creatures with haste, so make sure you account for that when you drop Ash. As a related point, don’t drop Ash blindly against decks that you know are packing countermagic, Sphere, or Dreadbore. Wait for a TS, a second Ash, or a counterspell of your own.
Know when to use Ash to mill, to steal, and to ult
When in doubt, you want to use Ash to mill. We win by milling, not by beating an opponent to death, so a good bet is always to keep on milling away. But there are times when you will need to use Ash for other purposes, and that’s where a careful assessment of the board comes into play. Using the -10 is pretty easy. Anytime you are against a control deck with 4+ cards in their hand, and they have no Mutavault or other crap in play, you are going to use the Identity Crisis. You will generally not Crisis against other decks because their hand is less valuable than a stolen creature or more milling.
But what about stealing? Against White aggro, you never, ever want to steal a creature until you can guarantee that Ash will have 5 loyalty AFTER the theft. Why? Because you need to ensure that your creature can defend Ash. Going up to 5 loyalty on Ash against WR aggro and then stealing a dude, going to 3 or 4 loyalty, opens you up to all the burn and all the Brave the Elements that they have. Heck, a simple Spear drop will screw up your math. 5 loyalty is a much better cushion if you also have a blocker, and at that point they would probably need to commit 2-3 creatures and 2-3 spells to kill him; that’s a trade you can make. Also, don’t forget that you can backup your Ash with spot removal to either keep him alive or make an opponent overcommit resources to his death.
What about against decks like GR Monsters and Naya? Here, the big cards to worry about are Stormbreath Dragon and burn, both of which will completely mess up your math. In general, I would never steal a non-flying creature against these decks UNLESS you also have removal backup in your hand. Even then, make sure you are stealing creatures with 5+ toughness. Mizzium Mortars is a dead draw in these games unless you are careless enough to steal a creature that they can kill with it.
Know when to Strike, when to Downfall, and when to Spectacle
This is more of a control lesson generally than one specific to this deck. It’s really hard to know when to use what spell to accomplish what goal. That’s especially true if you only have 2 such spells in your hand and anticipate dealing with 3+ threats. To do this, you need to know what spells are scariest and what spells you can probably deal with later. Let’s use Esper Control as an example. We’ll use the version by Andrew Davis from the recent SCG because it has the most threats and we always want to assume that our opponent is heavy on threats. In general, the scariest threat in a control deck is probably Aetherling because he closes a game in 2 turns and can’t be removed, so we might be tempted to counter a card like that. Obzedaddy is similar because the only way to remove him is on an opposing player’s turn, which opens us up to followup spells once we are tapped out. But for us, by far the scariest threat is Blood Baron. He will end the game in probably 3 attacks and we actually can’t remove him once he lands unless we still have the Verdicts. That’s a card you need to save Strike for. All the others can be dealt with using removal, and it feels very good to Grisly Spectacle a Ghoust Council.
Generally, save Strike for cards that you can’t let resolve. Rakdos’s Return, Blood Baron, and Spear of Heliod are in this category. Use Spectacle on any creature with more than 3+ power. Downfall is a last resort for creatures and, if you use it, that creature should have been at least equally threatening as a planeswalker that could come down in 1-2 turns.
Switching from control to clock
You can’t out-control aggro for the entire game. That’s hard to do for “real” control decks with stabilizers like Blood Baron and Obzedat, let alone a deck like ours without that kind of stabilization. Instead, you need to learn when to switch gears from controlling the game to clocking your opponent. Generally, this happens around turn 5 when you can drop Traumatize, JMA, or Ash on the heels of a Verdict. But sometimes, you will need to wait; dropping a JMA into 2 creatures and a burn spell is a bad idea. Unlike most control decks, you can win games in a hurry with our high-end mill spells. But to do so, they need to survive for 2-3 turns. So don’t drop them against 3+ creatures or 2+ creatures and a probable burn spell. Don’t drop them without removal backup (turn 6 Ash + Downfall). And definitely don’t drop them if you are about to die yourself.
Beating Aggro: How the **** does mill win this matchup?
With 2 FNMs in the books, I have a better grasp on how this deck does in the aggro matchup. Most players are probably skeptical of Mill precisely because it appears to punt the aggro matchup, and that's a problem in a metagame where Mono Red is one of the three decks to beat (let alone Mono White, WR, RG Monsters, etc.). My initial version of the deck, with just maindecked Verdict, was wholly dependent on drawing one of those 4 copies to have even a chance of winning aggro. And even then, Mono Red could just win through Phoenix recursion or better, more aggressive topdecks. Crypt Incursion changes everything. Combined with DB replacing Spectacle, this deck now has much better game against aggro, so here are some tips to make sure all your aggro matches are at least 45/55 or better.
Standard is still evolving so I will try and keep this section updated as I face new decks and new decks get added to the metagame. For now, these are the decks that I have either played and won/lost against or the decks I have tested against.
UW Control/Esper Control: Highly Favorable
These decks have a lot of dead draws against us and not enough countermagic to reliably answer our topdecks. They also don’t pack enough win conditions, so you can often win the game on the spot with a lucky mill that takes out most of an opponent’s threats. An argument could be made that our removal is also dead against them, so our dead draws cancel out theirs. That’s not entirely true because at least Spectacle can be used to stall against a rampaging Aetherling. Sure, Verdict is dead, but that’s just 4 slots as compared to the 15 or so slots lost by the opposing player (Essence Scatter, Verdict, Eviction, Far/Away, Blade, Charm). In games 2 and 3, ditch out removal for more topdeckable threats and some answers to their own threats. Generally, we win this matchup because of the inevitability of our game plan and the fact that nearly every topdeck contributes to that inevitability.
SIDEBOARDING: -3 Verdict, -3 Doom Blade, -3 Incursion, +1 JMA, +3 Pithing Needle, +2 Glare of Heresy, +1 Detention Sphere, +2 Ray of Dissolution
BWR Midrange/BR Midrange: Favorable
These matchups would be straight up highly favorable if it weren’t for Dreadbore. That card is a serious pain, especially when backed up by Thoughtseize and Downfall. When you lose this matchup, it’s because you get your hand blown apart by TS/Return or you can’t stick a walker long enough to make an impact. But even so, our topdecks are still going to outclass theirs, because crap like Devour, Anger, and Shock are going to buy you time. It’s also very easy for us to answer threats on a one-to-one basis. Just don’t open yourself up to a turn 5 or 6 Return and you will be fine. The game gets a lot easier post-board when your Needles can eliminate the clock from Mutavault and Keyrune. Dimir Charm doubles as a counter to Dreadbore and Return, as well as removal on Mutavault.
SIDEBOARDING: -3 Verdict, -3 Doom Blade, +3 Pithing Needle, +1 JMA, +2 Dimir Charm
GR Monsters/Naya Midragne: Neutral
On the one hand, you will get games where you are run over by turn 5. This tends to happen if you don’t draw a Verdict or if you don’t draw 2 spot removal spells by that time. If you can stabilize until then, or stick an Ash on turn 3 uncontested, you have a much better chance. The big danger here is wasting too much removal on creatures and letting a Domri tick up to a game-over emblem. That and just getting flattened by creatures if you can’t keep Ash up or don’t draw into removal (which shouldn’t be much of an issue given that we are running 11). Once you hit games 2 and 3, you can bring in the full Verdict/Incursion package to stall games, and Needle to handle Domri.
SIDEBOARDING: -1 Mind Grind, -3 Thoughtseize, -2 Psychic Strike, +1 Crypt Incursion, +1 Verdict, +2 Needle
Mono Red Aggro, Mono White Aggro, WR Aggro: Unfavorable
There’s no avoiding it: Aggro is a bad matchup. It’s worse for us than most control decks, but as said earlier, we try and compensate that with a better midrange/control matchup than most control decks have. If you don’t draw Verdict or Incursion in game 1, you are definitely going to lose, but thankfully we pack a total of 6 copies of the spells. Game 2 improves because we can pack in a lot of anti-aggro spells. If you are lucky enough to hit a JMA or a Traumatize the turn before, that Incursion will easily gain you 30+. Board in Ray to handle Earth, Spear, and Hammer.
SIDEBOARDING: -3 Thoughtseize, -1 Mind Grind, -2 Psychic Strike, +1 Crypt Incursion, +1 Verdict, +2 Dimir Charm, +3 Ray of Dissolution
TOURNAMENT HISTORY
Two FNM successes so far, both at 3-1 (2nd place both times). The reports are done in Spoiler boxes below to save space:
Round 1 vs. UW Control
Game 1: No countermagic for my opponent and he gets out a double Mutavault clock on me. I TS out a Sphere to drop Ash, but he topdecks another Sphere to stop it. On turn 5 I fire a Traumatize and he starts the muta beats. Turn 6 sees me drop JMA ticking him to 5 to survive the vaults, but he just keeps going straight for me, bringing me to 4. I mill with JMA and then Spectacle a Vault to stay alive. He counters, I Downfall, and he scoops.
Game 2: We exchange some countermagic until, on turn 7, my opponent resolves JMA with Negate backup on my Downfall. Now I'm on the milling clock! With my opponent tapped out, I fire Traumatize for 23 and drop a Needle naming Jace, which sadly shuts down the one in my hand. Sphere takes out the Needle and I see my library dwindle down to 25 cards. With Needle out of the picture, I Thoughtseize (Dissolve) and then drop my own JMA (24 cards in my deck, 12 in opponents). The race is on. My opponent drops yet another Sphere on my JMA and mills me down to 14. I draw Plans (13) and use Plans to draw into a Heresy (11), which I use to kill the Sphere and get back my JMA. Opponent mills me down to 1, but I have 2 Ashiok in hand. I mill with JMA and cast both with back to back exiles, ending the game.
Round 2 vs. BWR Midrange
Game 1: An early Thoughtseize saves me from a grip with 3 lands and 4 serious threats, bringing that count down to 3 and letting me trade 1 for 1 for the next 4 turns. Strike, Downfall, Spectacle, and Syncopate answer everything he throws, including a TS of his own. I overextend with a turn 8 Traumatize with removal backup, but he resolves Obzedat while I have no instant speed removal. Thankfully, I drop a JMA which he hast to kill with Obzedat or risk getting milled out before he can kill me, which buys me the time I need to Plans into a Downfall. I run out of Mill and slowly watch his library fade away but he topdecks a Return that sends me to 5 with no cards in my hand. A topdecked Ash ends the game.
Game 2: My turn 2 TS turn 3 Ash play gets blown apart by a topdecked Dreabore. He lands an Underworld Connections which rapidly starts to put him ahead. My turn 5 Traumatize connects for about 22, but he lands an Obzedat while I am tapped out. I drop JMA and bring him down to 12 cards but his Connections pay off and he fires another Dreadbore at JMA. Obzedat swings and is joined by Beast for a guaranteed win. I Pilfered Plans for another JMA (please?) but can't finish the game.
Game 3: I get the turn 2 TS into turn 3 Ash again, but this time he can't answer it. Ash ticks up over a few uneventful turns before he drops a TS of his own into Elspeth on turn 6. I Plans into a Downfall to answer Elspeth, but his Keyrune and 3 tokens are a serious clock. Thankfully, he doesn't add anything to his horde so I fire off a Traumatize and steal an Obzedat to buy time. The Obzedat eats a Dreadbore and I drop down to 8. On his next attack, I Spectacle the Keyrune bringing his library into the teens. I tick up Ashiok, and pass back, where he swings and tries to Shock for lethal (I'm now at 2). I untap, play my land, tick up Ashiok, and Mind Grind for 8. His last card revealed is the 8th land, so I win by a hair.
Round 3 vs. RG Monsters
Game 1: He resolves the turn 2 Domri but I answer with Ash followed by a Downfall on a Hydra, a Verdict on an Elves/Ember, and a Downfall on Domri. A topdecked JMA fires off two mills before he can use Rampager and a SCooze to kill the JMA, but his library is too low. He tries to tick up Ooze for a lethal attack, but I spectacle it and mill him for 10. Ash finishes the job.
Game 2: Turn 2 Sylvan leads into a turn 3 Elves and Burning Earth. That Earth basically ends the game the moment it hits, but I drag it out for a while. Turn 4 sees a Polukranos (Downfall), then Domri/Elves/SCooze (Verdict), Ember/Domri (Strike on Ember), followed by yet another Polukranos and SCooze. I probably take 10 damage from Earth this game. He still has about 35 cards in his deck when I get my face smashed in by the creatures.
Game 3: This time I Syncopate the turn 3 Earth, so already I'm off to a better start. He gets Domri out but I Needle and then Strike an Ember. I drop Ash without removal/countermagic backup, and Stormbreath brings him to 1 loyalty. I draw an Incursion and switch gears, using Ash to steal a lowly Mystic (killing Ash) and then firing Traumatize for about 23. I take some hits next turn from a rampager-powered Dragon (ouch), but then start off my turn with a Pilfered Plans into an Incursion for a whopping 33 life. By the time he chisels it down, I have fired off a second Traumatize and he has only 10 cards left in the deck. The bad news is that he drops an Ooze which threatens to end the game on the spot. The good news is when he tries to go in for 6 damage I Spectacle the Ooze. He tries to follow up with a Lightning Strike pair for lethal, but I strike one, eat the other, and end out the game at 3 life.
Round 4 vs. WR Aggro
Game 1: I don't even remember what happened. The only thing traumatizing about this game was how badly I got murdered. Double Soldier on turns 1 and 2 with mutavault support. I used Verdict on turn 4. He boros charmed, dropped Spear, and finished out the game on turn 5.
Game 2: Things started off promising with lots of removal, a turn 4 verdict, a turn 5 traumatize, and a turn 6 ash with downfall backup. I had the Crypt Incursion in my hand ready to gain 30 life. It was not to be. Spark Trooper charges across with Boros Charm double strike. I Downfall. He braves the elements. I get wrecked.
Final Score: 3-1
Overall not a bad run. Anything short of the Spark Trooper/Charm/Brave combo wasn't going to kill me, so I don't feel too badly about losing that one. The tournament showed that the deck had a lot of potential and, if nothing else, was a hell of a lot of fun to play. I'll be running it at more events in the future.
PENDING
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I would love to hear criticisms, suggestions, ideas, and general feedback on the deck. I know that many of you are still skeptical or outright hostile towards the idea of competitive milling decks, especially ones using cards like Traumatize and Mind Grind. Some of you are probably wondering why I put so much time into a primer on a dang MILL deck of all things. So fire away! Constructive criticism and input is always welcome. But before you do, definitely try the deck out and see how it runs. If nothing else, you will have a lot of fun watching your opponent as you mill your way to victory.
I gave it a try early on, but it was only good in very specific situations. It's good against aggro on the leadup to a Crypt Incursion, and it's good against Control if you are trying to finish out a game. But it's a terrible midgame topdeck against midrang and aggro, and I found myself wanting other cards. It could be something in the board for more ammunition in those specific situations where it can shine.
I made some changes to the list in preparation for this week's tournament. The big one is -1 Mind Grind and +1 Far//Away. I'm not sure if I like this because Grind was such a good topdeck past turn 8 or so, but with all the GW I expect to see, I need the extra removal. The sideboard also has +2 Far//Away for that same matchup.
So far, the only matchup that is legitimately bad is GW Aggro. Crypt Incursion is a lot worse there because they run too many spells (12 token generators between Call, Charm, and Advent) and not enough creatures to guarantee big Incursions. Mono Red has actually become neutral leaning towards favorable because Incursion is such a blowout against them. I'm going to post a matchup update later based on my experience over the past 3 weeks with the deck.
I think you would be much better off with Mind Grind in this slot. Casting Mind Grind for 3 will probably be milling away comparable amounts of cards a lot of the time, and the major upside is that very late it just flat out wins. This is a deck that is designed to draw out games to be long, so Mind Grind seems like a better fit.
That's a good point. I don't think that Grind for 3 mills nearly as many cards as you might expect, especially in a metagame where most decks are rolling with 25 lands. But I also hate topdecking Traumatize in the late game; it's main function is as a mill spell on turn 5 in anticipation of a turn 6 Incursion. But for all intents and purpose, JMA is just as good at that as Traumatize. So I think I might go -2 Traumatize, +1 JMA, +1 Mind Grind and see how that works. I'd rather have JMA than Grind on turn 5, and he's an awesome topdeck all game. I'd rather have Grind on turn 10, so it can pick up that last slot.
- Thoughtseize is one card that I really want to cut. It's overall a terrible topdeck, not good against aggro and just ok against midrange. Since it shines the most only in control MUs then I'd like to exchange it for Duress, or maybe even cut the discard plan;
- Something seems wrong about Crypt Incursion in this list. Besides a perfect timing sweeper we don't have any way to fill their grave before turn 5 (with Jace or Traumatize), even if accounting our removal set it isn't enough to make it worth;
- During my tests I got a bit disappointed with Traumatize. It's a mid-game spell that just got worse as the game goes to late-game. It's a poor topdeck that can't win the game no matter what. The more we already mill, the more it's 5cmc worth less to mill only 12~15 cards;
- Mind Grind is gold. As far as the probability of being stuck early game with 2~3 copies of it goes, it still deserves the slots because it's the better mana sink we can expect to topdeck;
I know that I'm just criticizing some card choices with no replacement ideas, but I'll start to make some adjustments and post here how it feels.
Let's see how far Mill can go in Standard now.
Thanks for the feedback. Went 4-0 tonight at FNM with a modified version of the list. My big takeaway was cutting the Traumatize for Grind at the suggestion of MTGPhreak, and that was a move that paid big dividends over the course of the night. I was also down to only 2 Thoughtseize, but I still love my Incursions. I can definitely see sticking the TS's in the board and ditching them from the maindeck.
My adjustments from your thread list:
-3 Thoughtseize
-2 Traumatize
+2 Mind Grind (gold)
+1 Jace, Memory Adept (threat density)
+1 Doom Blade (in midrange matches you don't want to spend your Hero's Downfall in creatures, so..)
+1 Supreme Verdict (with so many tokens and 2 for 1 creatures it's crucial to have a sweeper when needed)
Also, my SB is a bit different too
03 Pithing Needle (PW hate, land hate, God hate and so on)
03 Detention Sphere (same as above, except for lands)
04 Cyclonic Rift (good against PW, Gods and their tokens - even against Midrange this card restart their board while we keep our clock).
03 Duress (in place of Thoughtseize)
02 Glare of Heresy
I think you 100% completely missed why Last Breath is played. Hint hint: exile. Exiling a certain pesky 2/2 doesn't give them a giant Elemental Token.
Yes i'm one of the kitchen table miller, and i'm not ashamed of it .
@ktkenshinx: What are your thoughts about Psychic Spiral
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
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The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
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with R i'll burn you and with B youll'be maimed
It's main draw spell with Steam Augury which was very effective. The main spell that destroyed me was 4x Slaughter Games. I got hit by it 3 times in one game and it absolutely melted my deck and it's ability to respond to anything on top of all the mill.
Something to consider instead of the white splash.
3 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
3 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Breaking // Entering
1 Mind Grind
Counter
4 Psychic Strike
Removal
2 Magma Jet
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Hero's Downfall
4 Dreadbore
2 Slaughter Games
2 Thoughtseize
3 Steam Augury
Lifegain
3 Crypt Incursion
Land
4 Watery Grave
4 Temple of Deceipt
4 Steam Vents
3 Blood Crypt
1 Mountain
5 Swamp
3 Island
2 Aetherling
2 Pithing Needle
1 Crypt Incursion
3 Counterflux
1 Mindgrind
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Slaughter Games
Might need more draw, couldn't find a great way to work in Pilfered Plans, but I would like to get 3-4 in there.
Thoughts?
Yep, got too excited about the card. I've been wanting it to be good since it came out but, yet again, it just isn't worth it. It's been removed as an embarrassing oversight.
I just never have enough cards in my GY to be worth it. Our best top of the curve mill is definitely Mind Grind and/or JMA. I had been using Traumatize for a while, and although it's awesome on turn 5 or 6, it's a horrible topdeck past then. I fear that Spiral has all the problems with Traumatize without even being a consistently strong play on that critical turn 5. I'll probably stick with Grind for now.
I like red a lot in this metagame, but I'm always worried about just flat out losing to a card like Burning Earth. But then again, as the PT results are showing, enchantments really aren't as prevalent as I might be worried about. Indeed, the huge amount of non-red aggro at PT Dublin suggests that this might not be important, and that more removal-based colors are needed.
From my admittedly limited testing with him, he's just not a guy I want to see on turn 5 or later. I'd much rather spend 5 mana on a Jace, who immediately mills just as much as Mirok does a turn later, can't be blocked, can't be hit by creature removal, and generally closes out a game faster. If Mirko had 5 toughness instead of 4, thereby making him immune to Mortars, he would be a better addition. Or if he cost 4 mana instead of 5. But his current package is just less appealing than Jace I think. I also generally like being creatureless just because it blanks so many cards in an opponent's deck.
Some questions I have. One of them being, do you believe that we should the mill solely to Pilfered plans, psychic strike, ashiok, JMA, and mind grind? If so, how much of the control elements should we implement(ie dissolves or cyclonic rift)
Also, I'm really torn between splash red and splashing white. White gives me more card advantage and red gives me more removal.
Finally, should we implement some scry in this style of deck outside of temple's? Like voyages end or griptide?
Hurray! Glad to hear that we millers remain united in solidarity!
Before I answer your individual questions, I do want to say that the deck needs to undergo some changes to handle this post-PT Dublin metagame. On the one hand, with most deck rocking 25+ creatures, Crypt Incursion buys us a LOT of time. On the other hand, if you don't resolve your Incursion or Verdicts, you just get run over. So the deck needs to evolve with the metagame to stay competitive (I'm expecting to get run over this week at FNM).
Some control elements are inevitable. There's no milling Verdict, for example, and as much as I liked Grisly Spectacle against midrange, it's god awful against aggro. So that means Doom Blade in its spot. But where possible, we want to use a milling alternative to a non-milling card. Dissolve is worse than Psychic Strike in a deck that uses Crypt Incursion. The same is true of Plans over Divination.
I'm actually trying to move away from a third color and straight into UB. The problem is that Verdict costs WW, and Anger costs RR, neither of which we can consistently resolve on turn 4 or 3 respectively. The other issue is the manabase, which often demands a few free shocks to resolve cards in time. Going UB would really smooth out the manabase and eliminate a lot of incidental damage. It would also make Burning Earth a lot worse against us, so we wouldn't even need to worry about enchantment removal in white. Sure, there are still Gods and their weapons, but those can be dealt with through Needle, countermagic, discard, or by removing the other dudes that turn them into creatures.
If we went UB, we would have to find alternatives to our sweepers. I'm trying out Aetherize, but it's expensive, even if it's strong against GW. Shrivel is a much worse Golgari Charm, but it's an option against Mono U Devotion. And there's always Ratchet Bomb and Trading Post as some catch-all colorless answers.
Ultimately, UBr or UBw might be necessary just because of the sweepers they have, but the manabase really brings me down.
Devour Flesh or Cyclonic Rift (considering Esper/Dimir lists).
Cyclonic Rift just delays it, but maybe time enough for us to counter afterwards or do something about. As a plus, Cyclonic Rift works against some other threats and its Overlord is a better sweeper when against Midrange/Control than Verdict itself.
Devour Flesh is cheap instant speed Edict effect, I believe that 85% of the times I saw this vamp on board it was alone. We don't care about life points so it seems like a good SB card also.
why dont you use both? Far//away
Why U/W?
Board sweeps are a thing, having the ability to 4x Supreme Verdict and 2x Planar Cleanse allows me to keep not only creatures off the board, but all the enchantments and planeswalkers that everyone is stacking in their decks at the moment.
Traumatize itself cannot win games, though backed up with 2x Psychic spiral main deck makes for a quick end game.
I've been debating splashing black into the U/W deck of mine in order to gain access to spot removal and thoughtseize though I haven't crafted it quite yet.
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I see, but individually Far is way worse than Cyclonic Rift, while Away is most of times worse than Devour Flesh also.
How much having the 2 worse effects worths in comparison to pick one from Rift/Flesh ? (or maybe even find the slot for a 2/2~3/3 split).
If you are playing a control shell willing a slightly splash I'd recommend you Mind Grind. Much more efficient than Psychic Spiral or Traumatize, and the B cost isn't prohibitive also.