After recently participating in my first FNM, going 2-3 with a Budget Defender Ramp Mill, I decided that I should try to make a better mill deck to play at FNM more often (without spending too many pretty pennies).
This deck was made to use cards from the upcoming M14, using Lay of the Land + Darksteel Ingot to get early mana, and combining Traumatize + Consuming Aberration to mill out many cards at once. Grisly Spectacle + Putrefy are used to kill off key creatures while also having Fog + Aetherize to protect against larger crowds. Usually, the winning move is to either mill the opponent out or use Jarad to fling Consuming at the opponent for massive damage.
The side board may feature some odd options, so I'll try my best to explain. Crypt Incursion provides an attempt to hamper with Junk Rites as well as to take advantage of any decks that relies on a large creature base. An extra Grisly Spectable, Aetherize, and Psychic Strike were added based on what is possibly needed against a deck, if I need an extra creature hate or counter spell. The Mind Grinds are in case I play in multiplayer to hit all my opponents at once (it may not sound like a good idea, but Consuming Aberration already draws everyone's attention, so why not capitalize on the already obtained board hate) or if my opponent has a smaller land base. The Tricks of the Trades are there to potentially give me another win route. Finally, Doom Blade may seem odd to have in the side board rather than the main board, but with black seeming to be so common (Junk, Golgari, Aristocrat, Jund, Dimir, BUG, and Mono-black), I question if I should main board it or not.
I question if I should stick with the defender ramp instead of trying Lay of the Land+Darksteel Ingot. I could put Gatecreeper Vine in the side to use over Lay of the Land for situations that I need an early wall in exchange of costing 2 mana instead of 1. I also question if Tome Scour is better than Thought Scour (3 extra mill or drawing a card). Finally, I wonder if Dying Wish or Alpha Authority would be decent side board options for when I face decks with a lot of creature hate to discourage killing Aberration.
Thank you for reading all of this, and I would enjoy some constructive criticism. :)
