this deck is cool but idk about the best mill in modern, check out my verison of jace milling its super fun and surprisingly competitive Jace's Time control

I play tested against a semi-mirror (my mill deck) and I handily won 2-0 (even with you going first both games). You have some pretty slow cards in there--why are you using Tome Scour ? The mill 5 on turn 1 is definitely tempting but then what? I'd much rather have those 4 spots for something else--something more utility. You have no counterspells (neither do I so that doesn't really matter) but more importantly you have no removal, and when you play modern and all other decks rely on beating you to a pulp, you're going to need it (whether that removal comes in the form of actual kill spells or hand removal i.e. Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize if you can afford some.

Best mill? Not even close.

@saints4774 - Cool deck. How's the Dismember work out? I like the Howling Mine idea... I'm gunna toss in my maybeboard :P

@NJJohson9 - Well best is a relative term in Magic lmao I do think this is definitely among the best though. Others do other things, but this deck is about a race to the end of the opponents library! I still think it needs a lil more something... just haven't quite found what I'm looking for...

@iamacasual - Well the idea is to concentrate on mill. I named it best because I am trying to get it there. The problem is not being able to play much. However I hardly think 2 simulations is proof of much :P

I do have Tome Scour in there as a fast mill and also for it's being cheap. how can you say it's no good when it's exactly half of the best mill card out? turn 4 I can play 2 Tome Scour & a Glimpse the Unthinkable and mill 20 cards for 4 mana? Slow? How so?

Though the using it for 4 of something else is tempting... this deck aims at speed and replacing mill for anything else means not milling as much!

I have had my eye open for a suitable removal method. I do like Darkness as previously suggested for that purpose. Though it's not actually removal, it's cheap. Haven't found a removal cheap enough for my needs.

Removal is very good against every deck in modern, to an extent. And Dismember hits almost every creature in the format. Plus it has flexible mana for the situation. It's the second best straight removal besides Path to Exile in the format.

Think about card advantage. You're playing 3 cards to mill 20 when you could play 2 and do the same. By playing more cards at once you're losing out on options you can use.

Card advantage is not an easy thing to get a grasp of, sure took me a long time to get the gist of it and what it means and I still are not fully versed in it. Here's what my friend, who gives out great Modern advice, told me about card advantage (it's a long read but well worth it):

Him:

so let's give an example of card advantage

you cast a spell,

and I counter + draw using Cryptic Command

I've gained +1 card advantage

off you

because we've both expended a card, and I've drawn a new one

clearly I come out on top.

card advantage dictates how much better you can control the game

since you have more options available to you

take mulliganing for example

If I mulligan down to 6, I'm already down 1 card.

if I mulligan to 5

I'm down two.

the further down on cards you are, the harder it is to beat the opponent

since you have no options.

Mill decks and burn decks both have the same problem of 'running out'

Me:

does that hold true even for a mill deck?

Him:

yes

Me:

what sort of options would i be losing out on

Him:

so take glimpse the unthinkable for instance

Me:

k

Him:

you mill ten of their cards

technically you haven't 'hurt' them at all

you've not impacted their field presence

you've not done damage to their hand

you are inherently -1ing off that

in the hopes you can close out the game fast enough

or that you can play visions of beyond later

and draw more.

the option that you're missing out on

by the way

is the ability to cast cards on later turns.

Me:

and by putting myself -1 on cards in hand, how does that affect my overall strategy? why would i not want to play cards as fast as possible?

Him:

because if you're not efficient

Him:

you're not playing cards later

let's say you run tome scour

turn one

you rip five cards from their library

turn two you take out 10 cards

turn three, you take out another five cards, and another ten from a glimpse

that's three lands, four tome scours, and a glimpse

you now have 0-1 cards in your hand

Me:

and now it's their turn to attack

Him:

sure you've milled them 30

but will you really be able to get that last 20 or so cards to mill?

probably not before they've done something crazy

Me:

right because now i need to miracle draw my glimpses

Him:

mm

this is why tome scour's bad

of course you'd like to play your cards early and quickly

but not at the cost of you playing more worthwhile spells later

i.e. let's say you instead have four glimpse the unthinkables

along with a visions of beyond

turn one you do nothing, which seems really bad

but turn two you glimpse them

which in actuality almost catches you up on the mill front

then on turn three you glimpse again, and then draw three

from visions

suddenly you've still got 7 cards in hand

and you've milled them twenty

and you're still capable of milling them more later.

so that's why card advantage is important

the reason why Jund is so good

is because they play cards that inherently 2-for-1 the opponent

they play cards like Liliana

sacrifice your creature

then you have to use a spell to kill Liliana

otherwise she'll threaten a discard, then another sacrifice.

blightning is the same

it doesn't even matter what cards you're getting rid of

you're just killing them through card advantage

Me:

right because on their turns they have less things they can do

Him:

right

you also run Dark Confidant

which, yes, hurts your life points

but you draw cards off of it

there are discard-heavy jund decks

that use dark confidant to draw them inquisition

then you're trading 1-for-1

but you're getting 'free' cards off of dark confidant

Me:

but they still have draw step

Him:

yes

Me:

pretty much 0 for 1

Him:

yeah

so card advantage

is one way of looking at the game

seeing how many cards a player has on the hand/field combined

versus another player

Me:

would you consider it a matter of pacing?

Him:

it's not about pacing your plays

Him:

it's about

building a deck

that paces your plays for you

that's why you don't run tome scour

see?

with his deck, it's impossible -not- to run out of cards

I used to run Tome Scour then I learned the advantages of not needing to use 2 cards to do the job of 1. Pace yourself when milling--sometimes you need to play spells on your opponents' turns.

@iamacasual - I'm aware of card advantage, though I haven't heard it explained like that.

Fair enough... I think the best move here is -3 Tome Scour , +1 Breaking , +1 Mind Funeral & +1 Visions of Beyond

I hate that that will raise my Avg CMC slightly though

It's better that way.

only thing that would make this deck better, add some library fetch, and Jace, the mind fucker(sculptor) :D

@KungPowBacon - Thanx.

What fetch cards would you suggest? I had Fabricate & Diabolic Tutor but Fabricate only draws Artifacts (Which I don't have enough of0 & Diabolic Tutor costs too much to be useful enough.

I have mixed thoughts on the Sculptor...It's 1 mana cheaper, but it's really expensive lmao. It would help to get the cards I need faster & control the board (Which is needed), but doesn't really mill (4 cost and it needs 5 turns to kick the only ability that effectively mills. The game should be long over by then)

I'll go ahead and toss him in the maybe board though :P Thanx for the suggestion

"Best Modern Mill" should include a heavy amount of control, which this deck is lacking. Modern is too fast of a format for you to get half your spells off without control. Modern Mill/Control is a good example of control with a mill win condition.

@Saljen - See... but just as the name implies... that's not a Mill deck... it's a Mill/Control Deck.

I stick to my point that this deck is dedicated to milling lightning fast. Any attempts to add control will slow it's milling potential.

That deck may very well manage to last long enough to mill out an opponent, due to it's heavy control elements. However, it's not going to achieve a turn 5-6 mill win like this deck can.

That's the hard part about playing mill: protecting your spells. Mill is killed by Spell Snare and Mana Leak and Cryptic Command . In my deck, I have 3 Dispel to protect Glimpse the Unthinkable . Yes, it puts me down on card advantage since I'm trading 2 for 1, but I'd rather do that than time walk myself since every spell counts that much more in mill.

diabolic tutor is the best standard library fetch, but there are a lot of better library fetch for modern, extended, and legacy... so... mind sculptor is really expensive (moo lah wise) but he is the best planeswalker for a reason... that final affect man... :D

@iamacasual - I don't get to play this deck enough to make that decision yet :(

@KungPowBacon - So, which fetch cards would you suggest?
I do agree on Sculptor being really good.He just isn't fast enough to do what he needs to do in this deck :(

Sculptor is banned in modern, just a heads up.

Hey. Thought I'd check back in on my milling buddies today. I like the changes you've made since the last time I was on, but I'll have to disagree with some of the recent comments. I do agree that control-mill is different than burn-mill. For the same reason that it would be unwise to run counterspells in burn, I believe it is unwise to load up on counters for pure mill. We actually win the counter war eventually because our deck is so redundant. If they have to hold up mana every turn to counter our mill spells, then they aren't doing anything to further their own gameplan. Once both players get enough mana to cast 2 spells a turn, then you'll see the control player's hand start to empty quite fast, because they'll eventually need to play out a threat in order to win themselves.

Let me give a recent example: The other week I was playtesting my modern mill deck against U/W/R (american) delver control. I won game one simply because of my redundancy. Once I knew I was playing against a control deck, I started playing my less-optimal spells first to test if he had the counters. So he ended up countering 2 of my Breakings but failed to counter the next 2 Glimpses and Mind Funerals. Since I maindeck Surgical Extraction , I attempted to extract one of his Lightning Bolt s from the yard and he responded by playing the 2 he had in his hand. I was down to 5 life now, but I saw what he had left in his hand and knew that he wouldn't be able to counter anything else (or win for that matter) unless he drew a another threat (or 2 in the case of Lightning Helix ). So after Thought Scour ing into Shelldock Isle range and blasting him with a 3rd Glimpse and the Archive Trap that I hid with Shelldock, I won. The important thing to remember with this style of mill is knowing that you have more mill than they have counters.

To make this all relevant to your current deck, you already employ a bunch of 'uncounterable' milling in the form of (resolved) Hedron Crab , Mesmeric Orb , and Jace. The comment above discussing card advantage is important, so what I'd do is replace some of your lands with either cantrips like Thought Scour or proactive milling like Surgical Extraction . When you're drawing enough extra cards and removing their biggest threats, having only 22- 21 lands works. Many games I feel flooded and I only have 21 lands in my deck! Since you've mentioned that you want to win by turn 5, Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is too slow for the maindeck. He would be a very good SB card to bring in against control decks however in G2-3. I would always MD one Crypt Incursion , to shore up the aggro matches, but it just depends on who you play against, and using only 1 only works if you have enough card draw to get it most games. For me that means using the full sets of Thought Scour , Visions of Beyond , and 3 Peer Through Depths . (*Note that they also get me other answers like Darkness or more gas in the form of mill spells, which is why card draw is better than putting more 'answer' cards in the deck in this instance). The only thing I'm unsure about is how it will all work out with Mesmeric Orb. I'm surprised you're using it and not running any Snapcaster Mage or to a lesser extent Dream Twist . 1 or 2 Dismember go a long way if you're worried about goyfs or other problem creatures. Anyway, only testing will prove how well your deck does. Hope some of my rambling has helped!

Playing elements that protect your deck and that increase its consistency will always be better than being faster. Consider legacy. Belcher, Manaless Dredge, and other landless or almost landless combo decks are the fastest in the format. But when is the last time you saw an article explaining why you should play Goblin Charbelcher at the next GP or Open. ANT and Sneak and Show are combo decks that decrease their goldfishing speed in order to increase consistency and decrease the value of disruption. The Epic Storm is an example of in between. It doesn't use nearly as much protection as ANT does, uses a riskier manabase, and is therefore faster, but at the same time less consistent in regards to disruption. The only successful mill decks as of late have run cards that while prolonging their win, increase the stats in your favor. They have been of the Howling Mine variety, which speeds up your draws by giving you more opportunities to draw the best card possible. Damnation is very good in that deck because as your opponent empties their hand, you erase this with a sweeper and are ahead in resources and closer to winning the game without getting pummeled by Kird Ape into double Goblin Guide, or even Deathrite Shaman and Tarmogoyf. In my opinion, consistency over speed is much more valuable in a format like Modern where decks tend to play either a ton of counterspells or hand disruption. Milling is your combo. Protect the combo.

Also, Oboro isn't worth it because of the prevalence of Tec Edge

And I may note, that having card draw increases consistency of ANY deck. Even filtering your spells with cards like Shelldock Isle really helps. I tested some more Modern yesterday with some people after I dropped out of the standard 5-round TNM at my LGS. Shelldock Isle hands down won me a few games. I faced 2 pretty good aggro decks- zombie tribal and Gruul beatdown. I use 3 MD Darkness to stall while I mill them out. Surgically Extracting Gravecrawler is a big win, as was extracting lightning bolts from the Gruul deck. The Gruul deck used loads of fetches, so I was able to activate Archive Trap pretty easily. I also gained 33 life off of one Crypt Incursion against the Gruul player, which allowed me breathing room for 2 turns to lock in the win. That wouldn't have helped though, without the Thought Scour s and Visions of Beyond drawing me cards and the activations of Shelldock Isle that hid 2 Archive Trap s and a Mind Funeral for me over the course of those matches. The whole point I'm trying to make, is that you can play a burn-like mill as long as you can stave off your opponent for an extra turn or 2, in my case using Darkness and Crypt Incursion . Even legacy burn sides in Ensnaring Bridge against aggro opponents while they topdeck that last burn spell they need. (Note that Ensnaring Bridge would help in mill as well!)

As far as not using Oboro, that is false. DO use 1 Oboro if you're running Hedron Crab . Nobody is going to choose to axe Oboro if you have Watery Grave or any other dual land out, plus as long as you have 1 open mana you can just return it to your hand if they try.

Sorry I missed Crab in the decklist. I've been going off some mill decks that Top 8'd some MTGO events. Oboro is WOMBO COMBO

@iamacasual - Yeah, good point. I had forgotten that.

@GeminiSpartanX post#91 - Thanx and thanx. Honestly I had begun to doubt myself and it was quite refreshing to have you agree with my line of thinking :P

To clarify, I don't mean to say that control has no place in mill. Of course it does. That's just not what I'm going for here. This is what I see people call "Burn-Mill" or "Turbo-Mill". I understand it has little options in the way of defense, but the goal is to beat decks to the final punch.

I'm definitely considering pulling some lands or otherwise finding a way to squeeze in some Thought Scour or Surgical Extraction /Extirpate ! I'm just worried on pulling lands, because much of this deck is based on the crabs.

I guess I kind of agree on Circu, I just feel like I need more presence of creatures that support my milling, or give card advantage. ...though I wonder if that means I should swap at least one of the Jaces?

I had pulled Crypt Incursion for my use of Wight of Precinct Six , Jace's Phantasm & Consuming Aberration , which I have all kicked out lmao... I think it's probably plenty safe to add Crypt Incursion back in :P I also like Darkness as well!

Mesmeric Orb is perfect for this deck, IMO. It's a huge time clock, esp as the game gets towards the end or against agro/token/ramp decks dropping a lot of permanents. It would be beneficial in a self-mill deck, but in a deck like this it's still worth it, because I don't have many permanents triggering it. If I get several out early, it's amazing. For example, Say I drop 2 early on. for 4 mana I could be milling 6-10+ cards on their third or fourth turn, and milling more all the time as they tap cards. This also can discourage tapping things :P

Snapcaster Mage I don't like because he only works once and his 1 toughness doesn't do me a lot of good. Now, if he could cast the card without it's cost, repeat his use somehow OR even was a 1/2, I think I'd be much warmer to him lmao As far as Dream Twist , I think that goes back to the card advantage thing and gets the same reasoning as to why I kicked the Tome Scour s. I DO like Dismember however. It's just hard to find room for it. I think I would prefer to add Darkness because of the cost.

@saints4774 post#92- Sorry, but I'm still a bit new to a lot of magic, namely the "professional" side of things. I don't know much at all about well known decks, so I don't really recognize the deck names you posted. I also don't know much about legacy :( I have tried to find a board-wipe for this deck but I feel like most are just slightly to expensive. I suppose Damnation would still work @ 4 mana. I guess it would likely be too early to board-wipe on my third turn anyway lmao I just realized that:P

I do understand your point about protecting combos, but like GeminiSpartanX pointed out... I outnumber their counters. I can simply play another. Also as he stated because I have so many, I can sort of mislead them with lesser spells. In my mind it's like this... There's 2 methods... first, I can use 2 cards to land a mill spell, by making it "safe", though the "safety card" is wasted if I don't need it. OR I can use 2 cards to land a mill spell and either card will always do what I want even if one is countered. Also as stated, if he's countering me, he's not doing anything else for himself! It's not exactly "speed" I'm after in this choice. It's consistency. The speed comes from choosing all low cost spells and making sure they all do what I need.

@ post#93 - I'm not sure what "Tec Edge" is... I'm assuming you aren't referring to Wright Brothers Institute, which is what googled turned up lmfao

@GeminiSpartanX - I'm starting to warm up to Shelldock Isle lmao. Again, the main problem in using it, is with my lands and use of the crabs (mainly because it enters tapped). I'm going to add the Ensnaring Bridge to my maybe board.

Yeah, I really liked the idea of Oboro :P Someone suggested it and immediately I knew it was perfect for the crabs :P

@saints4774 post#95 - What do you mean you've been going off some mill decks that top 8'd?

I had to look up wombo combo lmfao

Ok, so I did some swapping...

(Overall: -2 Lands)

Swaps:
-2 Marsh Flats - I would likely keep one of these if there was a B/U one.
-2 Evolving Wilds
-1 Circu, Dimir Lobotomist

+2 Shelldock Isle
+1 Crypt Incursion
+1 Damnation
+1 Darkness

So, atm, I'm really liking things...
Only thing I'm thinking now is that I'd like to replace Augur of Bolas ...
I really think I need a good creature here

Augur is a good chump blocker and helps you get an extra spell for later--and it doesn't have to be a mill spell, mind you. It could be a board wipe or a Fog effect or an Ancestral Recall.

I have 2 of him in my deck. He's worth keeping.