zga

I answer to this very paradox in the introduction to the section "Crucial consideration". In short, I believe everyone trying to build a more controlling shell of Mill is simply wrong and very dated on how the assumption about the deck should be made, assumptions which the new techs overtly destroy.

I answer to this very paradox in the introduction to the section "Crucial consideration". In short, I believe everyone trying to build a more controlling shell of Mill is simply wrong and very dated on the assumption about how the deck should be made, assumptions which the new techs overtly destroy.

I would recommend some Leyline of the Void in the sideboard

Guildsofravnica Leyline of the Void is not needed in any metagame. In fact, we can usually beat graveyard strategies simply overlapping the effects of our other defence cards. Probably Dredge would be the sole reason to play Leyline of the Void (and only because of Creeping Chill ), but there's a chance we don't really need it even there.

Awesome mill deck! I tried to make one at one point, but it was garbage.

Sorin_Markov_1947 Thanks!!

Can you talk about what you're siding out? I'm guessing Mesmeric Orb in the faster matchups, and obviously swapping Fraying Sanity when you need Crypt Incursion, but what else?

zga sure! I'm currently on the following guidelines. However, be aware of your opponent game biases (aggressive, controlling..). This is more relevant to sideborading than you might think.

Burn: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Darkness +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Fatal Push +1 Set Adrift . But really, side as you want. You can't win even sideboarding 15 dedicated cards. I tested the matchup extensively with any possible combination of cards.

Infect: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Breaking +4 Fatal Push +4 Set Adrift . Still the matchup is desperate, don't hope to win even a single game.

Hatebears, Humans, Spirits: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Darkness +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Fatal Push +1 Set Adrift . Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Unsettled Mariner are Public Enemies Number One. We can usually play around the rest, nonetheless those matchups are really really hard.

Jund: -4 Darkness -1 Field of Ruin +4 Fatal Push +1 Crypt Incursion . The matchup is hard, there is no question their cards are better than ours. After thoroughly testing it, I can surmise their only ways of winning quite always involve an early unanswered Tarmogoyf , a rain of discard spells followed by a Tarmogoyf , or that same stream of discard spells followed by us flooding out. Crypt Incursion seems strong at a first glance, but we are usually forced to cast it too early because of the pressure imposed by Liliana of the Veil or Scavenging Ooze . What's left of their deck is often quite irrelevant (feel free to swear at me, Jund players of the world: it's the truth, against Mill your other cards are too much situational).

Death's Shadow: no changes. The matchup surely is difficult, but not one that we cannot emerge victorious from.

Eldrazi Tron: -4 Darkness +3 Crypt Incursion +1 Set Adrift . The matchup is quite even. If we manage to stem a chancely aggressive start, we should race Karn, the Great Creator .

Hardened Scales: -3 Fraying Sanity -4 Visions of Beyond +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Fatal Push . Just time your Darkness correctly and win on top of it as the plan wisely prescribes. The matchup is probably played on equal terms as for winning odds.

Dredge: -4 Breaking -3 Fraying Sanity +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Surgical Extraction . We cannot win game 1 because of Creeping Chill . If you manage to insulate yourself from it, game 2-3 become fairly easy. Just wait for them to mill themselves or lose time while you set youself up.

Storm: -4 Fraying Sanity +4 Surgical Extraction . You cannot win game 1, but game 2-3 if you manage to extract Past in Flames with the aim of fogging Empty the Warrens the game becomes pretty straightforward.

Urza: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Darkness +4 Surgical Extraction +4 Set Adrift . Game 1 revolves around them playing Urza, Lord High Artificer in time, game 2-3 are pretty easy for us. Set Adrift is not really needed, but so are so many card advantage sources: we play it just in case we can sneak it in to delay them mostly out of sadicity.

Control: -4 Darkness +4 Surgical Extraction . Just get rid of their counterspell or Snapcaster Mage 's targets. If they are going nuts with too many copies of Teferi, Time Raveler , Narset, Parter of Veils or Gideon of the Trials , add some copies of Set Adrift for Mind Funeral s in quantity depending on their mix of those spells. Narset, Parter of Veils nerfs down Visions of Beyond , Teferi, Time Raveler completely neuters Shelldock Isle and Gideon of the Trials wins by itself making ourselves uncapable of winning. Just ignore anything else. The matchup goes to unlosable to unwinnable depending on their list.

Tron: -4 Darkness +4 Surgical Extraction . Game 1 is pretty easy for us, and post board they can hardly win any game.

Valakut: -4 Darkness +4 Set Adrift just for show. They really cannot beat us.

Amulet: -4 Darkness +4 Set Adrift . They usually cannot assemble the whole combo (haste+double attack) because we're milling them, so we just need to get rid of Leyline of Sanctity in game 2-3 and win before they do.

zga Mesmeric Orb is certainly your worst card in fast games like the ones against Neobrand or Burn, but when you wouldn't want it either you're bringing it Crypt Incursion or Set Adrift , all of which get much better with the otherwise poor Mesmeric Orb - so much that I almost never get to cut it.

Thanks that's a great guide. I suspected linear combo like Burn, Infect, and Neobrand are difficult.

I had an idea for a mill deck and since you have already crunched the numbers maybe you would know if this is something worth considering? It is a card that will come out with Throne of Eldraine called Wishclaw Talisman. I thought this might be a good pairing with archive trap, voltaic key (which might be a little too cute) and scheming symmetry. Any thoughts as to how this might fare dropping the most suboptimal mill cards and replacing some of them with these?

I should clarify my previous comment... The DREAM here is to get a Key and Talisman in your opening hand. Turn 1 play key, turn 2 play talisman, turn 3 activate talisman, activate key with talisman ability on the stack, reuse talisman, then pass your opponent a talisman with 1 counter, tutoring up 2 archive traps for yourself.

Adameus2012 It doesn't seems like a game winning plan o me.. that sequencing is far worse than tutoring some Archive Trap s and then have your opponent to search just one time, at the time you need them to and before all forcibly. Give a read at the paragraph Exploring Modern card pool->Bad Plans->Maindeck strategies->Fraying Sanity all-in combo.

Have you tried playing Mission Briefing at all? It can flashback mill spells (including Archive Trap ) and Darkness as well.

hungry000 have you tried reading some lines of this page at all? Casting a 3 mana Darkness is worthless under any circumstances (see the entries about Darkness , Crypt Incursion and Snapcaster Mage ). As for an analysis of Mission Briefing itself, there is an apposite entry.

Yeah the lines of play do seem bad, but I was also wondering if between that new talisman and scheming symmetry that a gameplan could be made to have some silver bullets in the deck that would be tutorable, and while both of these effects either would guarantee archive trap to be castable at 0 (symmetry), or at least giving you a good shot at it (talisman). But I'm pretty sure you're right that the mill strategy at this point in time probably can't be made actually "viable" in a competitive sense. Either way, maybe this could potentially be part of a build that might have some legs someday...

I did read your summary as well as the panels in the 'Crucial Considerations' section, and seeing no mention of Mission Briefing in those parts that I read, thought you might've overlooked it and decided to inquire about it. If my comment sounded reproachful, I apologize as that was not my intention, but the condescending rebuttal was uncalled for. Good day to you.

hungry000 I didn't mean to appear unpolite, but one would expect that if someone says that something is missing after having read only parts of a writing, that someone is actually saying something out of place.

Adameus2012 Talisman seems good, if only there weren't better options both for a turbo mill strategy and for a list centered around Archive Trap , as I have shown.

But thanks for chiming in here nonethele

I don’t think the 4 Fraying Sanity is worth it (i’d recommend just running 1-2). I’ve found drawing a second one to almost always make winning much, much harder. So much so that I ended up only running a single copy in my deck for quite some time - and I still think a 1-of is the optimal number. Drawing any more than one just leaves your hand far too empty and slow, causing a game loss far too often.

wallisface That's the case only if you sacrifice redundancy for the defence department, which I don't recommend. Secondly, how is it that the second copy is bad? A double Fraying Sanity quadruplicates any spell, which means you can win with your worst card ( Breaking ) coupled up with anything else (even a Mesmeric Orb on turn 2). On the other side, with a double Fraying Sanity you can with with a single Archive Trap or an average Mind Funeral (based on the remaining land cards in your opponent's deck given the late state of the game). Bear in mind that in an average game you need to resolve 5 mill spells in order to win. The first copy of Fraying Sanity allows you to decrease that number to 4 (dramatically increasing your turn-4 wins), while your second copy simply counts amount those remaining 3 mill spells left to be cast. Thanks for allowing me to clarify this point.

Peisistratos The issue isn't with the first one, which is fine, because it effectively counts as a mill spell in-of-itself, as you already mentioned.

The problem with the second copy is that you'll be casting that on turn 4 (after using all of T3 to cast the first), at a time which is already a precarious position for mill - you either want to be winning on turn 4, or else preventing your opponent from being able to close out the game - being able to accomplish either of those usually puts mill in a very strong spot. And this second Fraying Sanity does neither. It also eats up 3 of your at-most-4 mana, so your other options for the turn become limited. Sure, if you have an Archive Trap and the opponent for some reason decides to search that late in the game without being prompted, then fine. But that's unlikely. And considering how low the opponent deck is by T4 anyway, the vast majority of the time using a millspell instead of that second enchant would have closed the game out in your favor.

Looking at the mill decks run competitively on MtgTop8 (i only checked the first 7 lists: Link ), none of them are running any Fraying Sanity, except for 1, which is running only a single copy. Now, i'm not saying that is conclusive by all means, but hopefully this will at least offer some food for thought before dismissing my suggestion so abruptly.

Anyway, good luck with the milling, and if you disagree then go for whatever works best for you. The one remaining thing I would suggest, from reading your response, and then looking through the comments above, is maybe try to be a little less-abrasive with your replies. We're all just trying to help each other here and this community loves supporting and helping each other get better. While you might not be trying to come across as rude, it does read pretty aggressively.

wallisface It surely isn't my intention to be rude or hurt someone's feelings.

"The problem with the second copy is that you'll be casting that on turn 4 (after using all of T3 to cast the first), at a time which is already a precarious position for mill - you either want to be winning on turn 4, or else preventing your opponent from being able to close out the game - being able to accomplish either of those usually puts mill in a very strong spot." This is exactly (or nearly so, actually) what I am trying to say along the wholeness of my article. That's what fogs are meant for: allowing you to unfold your bad development in that game (e.g. we are not winning on turn 4, but merely casting another Fraying Sanity ) by giving you an high probability of gaining another turn after that one. Against combo the games develops in an utterly different way, against control we have no issue at reaching later turns of the games and against grindy decks you win mostly by means of redundancy, not by cute defence cards like Fatal Push or Crypt Incursion (even if we often swap them in for Darkness with in all honestly a similar result).

I felt free to adapt part of your comment to implement my Fraying Sanity entry. Thanks a lot for that.

.... ok so good work on ignoring completely the link of competitive mill players who probably know better, and a great effort on twisting my words to justify running some cards (i’m including Darkness as well here) that no other established mill decks do.

Your confidence would be more believable if the deck were putting up solid win results - however in your own description you imply it isn’t. But it appears all you’re after for here is for an echo-chamber, and writing a small-novel to solidify/reinforce questionable choices.

wallisface I didn't mean to twist your words, just to rectify your argument. I never said I agreed with you.

Also, at the beginning of the section 'Crucial consideration' I clearly explained why I completely ignore such 'established' shells.

Well, i guess we can agree to disagree then. Good luck with your brew!