The Apprentice Workshop - Episode 3
The Apprentice's Workshop
KrazyCaley
17 August 2010
1593 views
17 August 2010
1593 views
Today we're having a look at Jace the Deck Destroyer by Carn13. Let us begin.
Sorcery (13)
2x Acquire
3x Bribery
3x Extract
1x Mimeofacture
1x Mind Funeral
1x Traumatize
Enchantment (2)
Instant (2)
2x Cryptic Command *list*
Creature (16)
3x Augury Adept
3x Augury Owl
Land (23)
14x Island
3x Swamp
Planeswalker (4)
People who know me will tell you that I love a good mill deck, and a not-insignificant portion of my duffel bag full of decks are milltastic. Let's get to work on this bad boy.
Let me begin by restating one of the most important principles of MTG deckbuilding: focus. A deck should find the BEST cards it can, use them in large quanities, and thereby ensure that it runs consistently and smoothly, with a predictable and powerful set of cards to draw from.
This means that you do not want lots of different cards in your deck. If a 60-card normal-rules deck has more than 10-13 unique non-land cards in it, you probably need to think about stripping some of them out and adding in more copies of the ones that work better. Otherwise your deck will be an inconsistent mess. Let's start our engineering on Carn's deck by looking at the sorceries.
Let's keep in mind that this is a mill deck; it's supposed to win by milling. Acquire, Bribery, and Extract, and Mimeofacture all technically do mill- for one card. Now, of course they all get you a permanent of some variety or another too, and Bribery in particular can be nasty if you're facing the right opponent. However, what I don't like about all these cards in a mill deck is that they're not efficient and reliable. They're wildly inconsistent- sure, Bribery might get you Emrakul, the Aeons Torn one time, but it's not going to do you much good against that elf deck, is it? The other cards all face the same problem. Let's scrap all these steal-a-permament-from-the-library cards and see if we can replace them with reliable mill staples.
Mind Funeral is a brutal mill card that is a serviceable replacement for the very-expensive Glimpse the Unthinkable in a legacy mill deck. While Glimpse would probably be better, it costs a fortune, so let's stick with Mind Funeral, which mills more cards on average (usually around 13 against a normal deck) than Glimpse for only one mana more.
Next up is Sadistic Sacrament. This card used to be mostly shunned except as a sideboard card, but with all the Eldrazi floating around these days, it can be worth mainboarding. Let's leave it for now.
Traumatize is a tricky card to use properly. The earlier you cast it the better, but it costs a full five mana, including double blue in this blue-black deck. I'll tentatively leave it, but may cut it later depending on how the math goes with our other cards.
Tunnel Vision is almost impossible to turn into a good card. With the help of Sadistic Sacrament it can be serviceable, but otherwise it's nearly impossible to make the card work well at all; even WITH perfect knowledge of the opposing deck, you have to be lucky for the card to do any work at all. Scratch.
So that gives us 10 extra card slots now that we're done with the sorceries.
Next up we have the creatures. With the exception of Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, none of them are particularly mill-related. To be sure, being able to see the top card of your opponent's library is always fun when playing with a mill deck, but these creatures just don't justify themselves. Most of the time, Carn is going to want to draw a mill card instead of one of these guys, Circu included. However, Circu can be helpful, so let's keep him and see what else we can find. Everything else I'm scratching, bringing us up to 25 free slots.
A mill deck generally wants one of two things out of its creatures- it wants either defense or mill. On the defense side, I note that most of Carn's mill stuff is going to be pretty heavy, mana-cost wise, so we want some short-range defense. I suggest Oona's Gatewarden, a very serviceable little early game blockade that kills small creatures dead and whittles down bigger ones so that they hurt less. Plus she doesn't particularly hurt to have late game, especially if you've got a Circu out. I'll add in 4x of her and take us back down to 21 free slots.
Now, one creature that is both a nasty mill threat and a nice hefty blocker is Nemesis of Reason. He'll butt up against Traumatize in our mana curve, which makes Traumatize an even more promising candidate for removal, but Nemesis serves this deck too well to exclude- he mills a LOT, he blocks well, and he activates Circu twice. So in goes 4x Nemesis of Reason, taking us to 17 free slots.
That's probably enough creatures. I'm not a fan of putting tiny millers in here- there's probably not quite enough land in this fine-tuned mill deck to make Hedron Crab worthwhile, and Cathartic Adept is pretty sad. Circu is fun too on many occasions, so let's add one more of him and then move on to enchantments.
Enchantment wise, we've got two singletons- Jace's Erasure and Memory Erosion. Both of these are pretty meh- Jace's Erasure doesn't do much for this deck even when we had more draw mechanics, and Memory Erosion, while a great psychological warfare card, actually doesn't mill that much on average. You know what I think? I think that a better way to mill more cards would be to make sure your nasty mill creatures stay alive. I think that Robe of Mirrors or whatever isn't quite good enough since all the creatures we have (other than the expendable Gatewarden) are expensive. I think it's time for TOTEM ARMOR. Specifically, the instant-speed Eel Umbra is our best answer to removal, as it can be put on our creatures safely to avoid Wrath, etc. if our opponents are tapped out, and it can also be cast in response to a spot removal spell. Let's throw in, say, 2x Eel Umbra to protect our Circus and our Nemeses, taking us down to 14 free slots. On to instants!
All we have here are 2x Cryptic Command *list*. Far be it from me to doubt one of the best counters in the game, but Cryptic Command *list* is perhaps unnecessary here. How about a millin' counter? The two best options are Dream Fracture and Broken Ambitions. Dream Fracture sort of mills your opponent for one and replaces itself, hopefully with a nasty mill card. Broken Ambitions can net you four milled cards and counter something at the cost of being a Power Sink-style counterspell. Both are serviceable options for this deck, and since we've got a bunch of free spots, let's scratch the Cryptics and add 4x of each of these bad boys, taking us to 8 free spots and giving us a nice set of answers to enemy threats.
4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Well. No changes necessary here.
Finally, let's bring Mind Funeral up to 4 slots. Then let's add two more Sadistic Sacrament. Cutting Traumatize gives us some room to spend on more good solid mill cards to put us over the top. Tome Scour is ok, but not as good as Archive Trap. Worst-case, it mills a reliable 13 for 5 mana, which is respectable. Best-case, it mills 13 for no mana, which is flat-out filthy- and folks search their libraries PLENTY in this game. Let's add in 4x Archive Trap, and since we've got a bit of space, 2x Tome Scour just to make sure we've got some extra millin' juice.
The land is going to need a tune-up- we're going to need LOTS of both blue AND black for the deck to function properly. That means dual-lands. Creeping Tar Pit and Dimir Aqueduct are both good, and both are relatively inexpensive, so let's cut 4 islands to add two each of these guys. There's no good reason not to add in 4x Jwar Isle Refuge either. I would also recommend Drowned Catacomb if budget allows. We should cut 7 islands and one swamp to fit in these duals. And really, perhaps we might need one more land given our 5-out mana curve, so let's cut one of those Oona's Gatewardens and add in another Island. We are now ready with a final decklist
Sorceries (9):
4x Mind Funeral
2x Tome Scour
Creatures (9)
Enchantments (2):
2x Eel Umbra
Instants (12):
4x Archive Trap
Planeswalkers (4):
Land (24):
5x Island
3x Swamp
60 total cards.
So there we are. Mill-tastic enough? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.
KrazyCaley says... #2
It is possible, though you have to run red/black/blue just for Thought Hemorrhage if nothing else. Runs a lot of Extirpate , Quash , etc.
August 17, 2010 10:22 p.m.
I prefer Induce Paranoia to Broken Ambitions . You are playing the right colors anyway and no chance of losing the clash.
@ eze01 - I like that idea a lot. tear a deck apart from the inside out.
August 17, 2010 11:36 p.m.
tear a deck apart from the inside out, you say? Sadistic Sacrament , Cabal Coffers , Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth , draw, and tutor. GO BUILD IT.
but seriously...i like this. the $100 bills actually work pretty well - the opponent flips out, goes nuts trying to kill him and you just brainstorm and slam him for a dozen or so cards off the top.
I would suggest maybe for a sideboard some Leyline of the Void . Leyline of Anticipation could be funny too - during your upkeep mind funeral?
August 18, 2010 12:12 a.m.
exarkun809 says... #6
It might clash a little with our counterspells, but I love casting Kathari Remnant as a staller/blocker in mill decks into a Mind Funeral. Telemin Performance is also a great sideboard card here against many decks. I've tried mainboarding Sadistic Sacrament in my mill decks, but I always find myself taking it out... just a thought.
August 18, 2010 12:36 p.m.
I think it's worth saving up for those Glimpse the Unthinkable s... Ten cards for two mana is just too good to pass up.
August 18, 2010 1:52 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #8
@SirNips- Usually I'd agree with you on the aqueduct, but in this deck, which needs lots of mana, but can't afford to put too many cards towards land, it makes sense.
eze01 says... #1
This rebuild of the deck might be a bit better but what if the point of the deck is to reach in and take their deck out from under them. Not sure if that is a possibility but it would be pretty cool.
August 17, 2010 9:33 p.m.