MIll Refinement

[ElFuzzy]

Hay guys! I could use some help on refining a deck. I'm starting to get into magic,
partly to LRR and partly to my school, and have always loved the concept of mill. So I
went out and started to gather a collection and started this deck off a Dimir Dementia
intro pack.

Creatures
1x Invisible Stalker
1x Jace's Phantasm
2x Deathcult Rogue
2x Balustrade Spy
2x Tormented Soul
1x Wight of Precinct Six
1x Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
1x Haunter of the Nightveil
2x Duskmantle Guildmage
2x Dinrova Horror
1x Consuming Aberration
1x Undercity Informer
1x Mindeye Drake
1x Lilana's Shade
1x Harbor Bandit

Sorcery
1x Mind Grind
1x Pilfered Plans
1x Rise from the Grave
2x Far//Away
1x Hands of Binding
1x Paranoid Delusions
1x Whispering Madness
1x Midnight Recovery
1x Coerced Confession
1x Trait Doctoring

Instants
1x Thought Scour
3x Grisly Spectacle

Enchantments
2x Deaths Approach
1x Curse of the Bloody Tome

Land
10x Island
10x Swamp
2x Dimir Guildgate

Sideboard
1x Vedalken Entrancer
1x Spectral Prison
1x Warped Physique
1x Sage's Row Denizen
1x Hired Torturer
1x Index
2x Mortus Strider
1x Woodlot Crawler
1x Incursion Specialist
1x Shadow Slice
1x Totally Lost
2x Last Thoughts
1x Niblis of the Breath

Wishlist
Destroy the evidence
Trepanation Blade
Jace, Memory Adept
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Nightveil Specter
Dimir Charm
AEtherling?
More Paranoid Delusions
All the Mirko Vosk!!

So the plan is mill, with secondary win conditions death by big creatures and/or tap tap concede. I usually try to get cipher running on rogues to give the Consuming Aberration a fighting chance. After that it's just proc Consuming Aberration as much as possible. I feel like I have a few unnecessary cards, liliana's shade for one, I think I mistook it for Tormented Soul. I also have problems determining a proper mana bases in general.

I kind of envision this deck as taking the NME's library, arcing it from one hand to the other over my head (like cartoon magicians do(By the way, what is that even called?)) Handing it back, and informing them that's now their graveyard. Shakehands, GG

Thanks for any and most suggestions!

[Volafortis]

Jace, the Mind Sculptor's ultimate literally does exactly what you envision (although their exile pile, not library). That said, it's probably a suggestion that's entirely outside the realm of reasonability.

If you want it to remain standard legal the most important thing to not about mill is that you really want it to be done in large chunks. Small, incidental mill doesn't affect the opponent, and can often help them, if they have flashback or other means of graveyard interaction.

Stuff like Jace, Memory Adept, Breaking (half of Breaking // Entering), Mind Grind and Mind Sculpt are your best tools for this (in standard).

Nephalia Drownyard is also good, as it doesn't actually cost you any cards to mill.

Outside of standard, things like Mind Funeral, Glimpse the Unthinkable, Hedron Crab, and Archive Trap are all great.

Also, there are combos made to mill an entire deck in one shot: Painter's Servant + Grindstone is one, Helm of Obedience + Rest In Peace is another. I'm sure there are more, but those are the big two that come to mind (Both are only Legacy legal).

[tamaness]

What format are you building for? Modern, Standard, Legacy, or "completely broken?"

[Lemegeton]

the first thing you want to do is add nephalia drownyards to your land base. you also do not want to run guildgates in a standard deck. you are only in 2 colors here so mana fixing is not really a 'major' concern. if you can replace the guildgates with either watery grave, or drowned catacomb.if you cant get them just run extra islands and swamps.

you should be running at least 3 consuming aberrations in this deck. by running 1 in a 60 card deck you chance of drawing it is too small and its by far the biggest weapon in a deck like this. its a far more efficient mill card than mirko vosk. when you play mirko he needs to first survive until your next turn, and then you need to get the damage through to the player to trigger the mill. and more often than not after you play him he will either get with with removal or your opp will play something that can block fliers. whereas consuming aberattion might just grind for 1 each turn, its a "guaranteed" mill every turn and repeatable.

in general the deck lacks focus. running just 1 of any card is standard is just not efficient cos you wont draw it enough times. you also have too many cards that do the same thing. your stalker, tormented soul and rogues are all there to get cipher on to but the rogues and soul are too easy to remove. if you drop the rogues and soul and run 4x stalkers then your cipher guys are now much harder to kill and you will get more value from your cipher cards. also some of your cards like mindeye drake need other things to happen to get the value out of them , and on its own a 2/5 flier for 5 mana is awful.

and take out trait doctoring. its unplayable.

[ArchieO]

This will be no help if you are building for standard but my commander deck runs some infinite mana combos eg: Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt monolith to deck people with my commander Oona, Queen of the Fae, if this is a just for fun deck then thats a possibility

[ElFuzzy]

I'm trying to build this deck for standard atm and I have looked up Oona. I've seen other decks mention Watery Grave but nephelia is new. Most anything I have one in the deck is because it's my only one, though Consuming Aberration have put in a surprising amount of work for being my only one. I understand that Mirko has issues staying Alive and I mainly have him because I do recognize that Mill needs to be done hard. I tried to find any and all cards in standard that said something along the lines of mil til you hit a land. I also have a major fear of flying creatures because they are always a pain in the ass, thus the Mindeye just in case, though I guess with the Balustrade I shouldn't worry as much. Thanks for the help so far!

P.S. How does one lose to mil? What I mean by that is when does the defeat take effect? Is it immediately upon hitting zero cards in the library, because I distinctly remember milling someone out on duels of the plainswalkers and then they managed to finish me when the turn went back to them.

[Lemegeton]

Ok Mill exists as a win condition because the rules state that during a players draw step, if they have no cards in their library they lose the game.
so if you mill them out and they have 0 cards they could still possibly win if they have an instant speed spell or ability that can hit your life total directly available.
so when the turn passes they enter phase 1 and untap their lands , then enter phase 2 which is their upkeep, during which they have the option of casting an instant or activating the ability of a permanent. if they have nothing like this available then when they hit the draw phase they lose.

so in your game your opp must have hit you with something in their upkeep phase

[korvys]

Ok Mill exists as a win condition because the rules state that during a players draw step, if they have no cards in their library they lose the game.
so if you mill them out and they have 0 cards they could still possibly win if they have an instant speed spell or ability that can hit your life total directly available.
so when the turn passes they enter phase 1 and untap their lands , then enter phase 2 which is their upkeep, during which they have the option of casting an instant or activating the ability of a permanent. if they have nothing like this available then when they hit the draw phase they lose.

so in your game your opp must have hit you with something in their upkeep phase

Not quite. You lose if you try to draw when you have 0 cards in your library. This could happen in your draw step, or if you try to draw a card some other way, or if you are forced to draw a card by, say, Jace, Memory Adept making everyone draw 20.

[ElFuzzy]

Is it just me or does it seem like Traumatize + Memory Adept is GG by the time you get it off?

[korvys]

Is it just me or does it seem like Traumatize + Memory Adept is GG by the time you get it off?

I think it would be about the same as just using his +0 instead.

Assuming no mana acceleration, against a 60 card deck, playing first:
Turn 1: They have 53 cards in their deck
...
Turn 5: They have 49 cards in their deck. You play Jace, and +1 him (5 counters). They have 48 cards.
Turn 6: They have 47, +1 Jace (6), they have 46.
Turn 7: They have 45, +1 Jace (7), they have 44.
Turn 8: They have 43, Traumatize, they have 22, +0 Jace, they have 12
Turn 9: They have 16, -7 Jace, win.
If they have drawn more than 2 cards in this time, then -7 on turn 8 would do it.

Without Tramatize

Turn 5: 49, play Jace, +0 Jace, 39
Turn 6: 38, +0, 28
Turn 7: 27, +0, 17
Turn 8: 16, +0, 6
Turn 9: 5, +0, 0, win on their draw.

[ElFuzzy]

Hmm... Curious... I will keep that in mind. As for now, I just ordered 2 Aberrations, 4 Mind Sculpts, and 2 Drowned Catacombs for the Gates as suggested. I feel like Consuming Aberration is just as likely to be targeted as Mirko for removal so I'll probably keep him. Tossing the rogues is a good idea once I get a hold of the stalkers, so should I add more paranoid delusions for the cipher or is there another spell I should use?

Thanks again for all you time, YOU CAN NEVER HAVE IT BACK

p.s. here's hoping they still has buttons!!!

[ElFuzzy]

Update! I was talking with a friend just now and he suggested I splash for Melek, Izzet Paragon for extra value on Consuming Aberration and cards light Mind Sculpt and Thought scour. I believe this does trigger properly or CA and I figure I can get full value off of Breaking and Entering if I do splash black or even go full Grixis. Thoughts and suggestions?

[ElFuzzy]

Need moar halp.

So with m14 coming around I believe some of the cards I'm running will jump outta rotation for standard. My deck is currently:

Click to Expand

3x Heartless Summoning
Curse of the bloody Tome
Mirko Vosk
2x Psychic Strike
2x Coerced Confession
2x Nephalia Drownyard
3x Consuming Aberration (1 foily!!)
2x Dinrova Horror
4x Mind Sculpt
3x Balustrade Spy
2x Grisly Spectacle
4x Undead Alchemist
2x Drowned Catacomb
Haunter of the Nightveil
4x Though Scour
2x Far//Away
2x Pilfered Plans
Spell Rupture
Mind Grind
9x Island
7x Swamp

If I'm right I'm losing the Summonings, Curse, Drownyard, Mind Sculpts, Alchemists, Catacombs, Thought Scours. As mentioned previously I wanna update it for m14, however there's not a lot of good mill it seems. I looked around and this is my thoughts on replacements.

Click to Expand

2x Mirko Vosk
2x Psychic Strike
3x Consuming Aberration (1 foily!!)
2x Pilfered Plans
3x Balustrade Spy
3x Grisly Spectacle
Haunter of the Nightveil
2x Far//Away
2x Spell Rupture
3x Mind Grind
2x Millstone
3x Memory Adept
3x Mindseeker
4x Tome Scour
3x Traumatize
10x Island
10x Swamp
4x Dimir Guildgate

Sideboard:
3x Doomblade

Thoughts and suggestions?

EDIT: Talked with a friend who gave suggestions and altered accordingly. He pointed out that I might have too high a curve which is probably true now that I look at it.

[Juliamon]

Looks somewhat similar to my friend's mill deck at the moment, but yeah, your curve's a bit too high. Consuming Aberration may not have the flying capability of the Mindseeker, but cipher a Paranoid Delusions on it and you're in mill city, population: your opponent. Heck, you can even throw in a Zephyr Charge if you really want the flying. But you probably won't need it if you have enough low-cost spells to get that Aberration going.

I'd personally recommend an Elite Arcanist or two to maximize the usefulness of the counters.

[ElFuzzy]

I have a cipher deck in the works, so im trying to keep cipher out of this one as much as possible. I do have 2 chronic floodings which i use but seem to have misplaced in a friends deck.

I looked into a lower curve and found some possibilities

Wight of Precinct six, took em out because of Alchemist

Undercity Informer,sac cost makes it less appealing

Wall of Frost, more control

Crosstown Courier, I feel like it synergies with cipher more.

Tenacious Dead, chumps now and again

Deathrite Shaman, for lawls if not full value

I really enjoy mill and more often than not don't pressure with damage. I'm hear to crush your hopes and dreams, not break your bones. The cipher I'm offandedly building is more for the lols of ciphering cards.

[ElFuzzy]

So I've been kicking around the idea of abusing Kruphix with Mind Grind ever since he was spoiled. Then the recent Academy draft pointed out Voyaging satyr and Market festival so I figured I'd try now that I have a Kruphix to start the deck with.

Here's my first draft: The First Draft

Suggestions?

The win con is gonna be Mind Grind so I was thinking of just trying to do everything in my power to get Kruphix and keep him around until I can OTK.

[Phosphatide]

I was going to say you could attempt to pull off the underdog combo that showed up in Pro Tour JOU that involved a Voyaging Satyr untapping Nykthos that was enchanted with Market Festival, using that mana to activate Thassa's Ire and untap Voyaging Satyr again, and thus produce infinite mana as long as you can actually make that much mana with every Nykthos untapping...

... and then I realize that having enough permanents of a particular devotion to pull that off might be a little tricky with your game plan. Unless you shove more blue permanents into the deck I guess.

As for actual advice, I don't know if Unexpected Results would be useful in this deck. More than half of your nonland cards are either counterspells or removal, and I doubt you want to hit them when you're playing Unexpected Results.

[ElFuzzy]

True, I had that in before all the Counterspells. I was considering Elite Arcanist but idk if that would slow the deck down too much as I would be super shields down if I did that turn 4. Or do I want some sort of enchantment search for Kruphix and Market Festival?

[ElFuzzy]

So I took out the Unexpected results for Fogs. Now I'm trying to figure out a way to balance the mana base on this thing without just running 4-ofs shocklands.

Any thoughts? Scry-lands are probably a must and I can use gates in place of them.

[tamaness]

four-ofs on scrylands is pretty good. It gives you card selection and fixing, and a deck like this usually doesn't care about having mana available early.

[ElFuzzy]

Four-ofs for each scryland?

[tamaness]

Caveat: in the right colors if you're trying to stick to Standard, scrylands are awesome.

They aren't a must-have, but having fixing and selection on the same card is awesome. In BUG it's 4x Mystery, 4x Deceit, and 4x Malady. Since you're light on B, maybe 3x Deceit and 3x Malady?

If you don't have them already, then don't worry about it too much, but keep it in mind for trading.

[ElFuzzy]

Oddly, I have the 3 Maladys already. I can start looking for trades on the others. only the 1 deceit, but I think I can sub Gates in the meantime.

[ElFuzzy]

Alright I've tossed in the scry lands to see if I've still got the mana balanced. Thoughts on that AND I'm gonna run Swan Song in place of Judge's familiar. Which is better?

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