I tried to brew mill in Pauper a couple of years ago, but the archetype was way too linear and easy to run over, in my opinion. I think that the old "millfolk" draft strategy from Lorwyn might have some real teeth, though, thanks to some newly added Pauper cards. Really, it's wizard tribal, rather than fish, but I'm calling it Pauper Millfolk, regardless. There are three keys to the deck that I think give it legs:
The first is sheer card quality. We get to play full sets of 3 of the top 50 Pauper creatures without breaking our tribal theme. In fact, we naturally play into
Spellstutter Sprite
, since
Faerie Seer
is a cheap blue wizard we want to play turn 1, anyway! The deck naturally includes the powerful
Deprive
+
Mystic Sanctuary
combo, as well.
The second key is how well certain cards interact to mimic more powerful play patterns. For example:
Augur of Bolas
with
Mystic Sanctuary
=
Snapcaster Mage
Memory Sluice
with
Drowner Initiate
and an extra body =
Glimpse the Unthinkable
Merfolk Secretkeeper
with
Drowner Initiate
=
Doorkeeper
in Defender combo
The third key is the engines specific to this build. Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block design is the basis of the deck, and Pauper staples and a couple of recently-introduced 1-drops fill out the curve:
The first engine of the deck is built around
Ink Dissolver
. Even without stacking the deck, there are 28 hits to blind-flip into, meaning the floor is 1.5 mill per turn, but a lot of the good creatures in Pauper are blue wizards, and a lot of the best blue cards involve topdeck manipulation.
Faerie Seer
from Modern Horizons is a big boon to
Ink Dissolver
, since the sequence of T1
Faerie Seer
, stacking a wizard beneath another card, T2
Ink Dissolver
is such a smooth start. Also, remember that
Stream of Unconsciousness
is a wizard that can be stacked on top of our deck with
Mystic Sanctuary
.
Spellstutter Sprite
is another staple of the format that plays nicely with both
Faerie Seer
and
Ink Dissolver
, so we pack plenty of instant-speed action to allow holding up Spellstutter.
The second engine is the instant/sorcery package. While you don't normally want to play
Augur of Bolas
without 20+ hits, there is a little friction with
Ink Dissolver
. However, we can cheat a bit by playing
Stream of Unconsciousness
, which counts for both. Most of our spells are just cantrips to feed our other engines, but the value is real. Also,
Mystic Sanctuary
plays excellently with
Augur of Bolas
, since with 3 other bodies on the field, you can go conspired
Memory Sluice
,
Mystic Sanctuary
,
Augur of Bolas
, conspired
Memory Sluice
. That's two cards and 4 mana for a 1/3 body and 16 mill. Not too shabby.
The third engine of the deck is built around
Drowner Initiate
. It essentially adds "Kicker 1 If you paid the Kicker cost, target player puts the top two cards of their library into their graveyard," to all of your spells. This mono-blue deck is composed of cantrips, adventures, and
Deprive
shenanigans, making
Drowner Initiate
a hurricane of triggers attached to an on-tribe 1-mana 1/1. Also, note that it's whenever "a player," not just you, meaning we win every counterspell exchange, especially when looping
Deprive
with
Mystic Sanctuary
. Combined with
Merfolk Secretkeeper
, the Initiate lets you pay as little as a single mana to mill 4, or as much as 4 mana to mill 8 and get an 0/4. The deck is brimming with cantrips, as well, so while the curve of the deck is blisteringly fast, it can use up every available mana every turn for maximum efficiency.
As for the sideboard, it's built to swap the full set of
Mystic Sanctuary
out for
Radiant Fountain
against Burn (since each Sanctuary gets worse with each non-Island in the deck), sac bodies to
Abjure
against fast combo and non-aggressive decks, grind with
Sea Gate Oracle
and
Stream of Thought
, bounce bodies against creature-based strategies, and stall graveyard value for a turn without losing tempo with
Tormod's Crypt
. There's a mix of card types and effects in order to provide a little coverage against the field while maintaining our own balance of spells and tribal cards. We can change our pace of play and curve at will, which makes this deck far more versatile and fun to play than most mill strategies.
Also, it's a good budget deck- We don't need no fancy
Snow-Covered Island
, just a fishy set of Island #256!
