Hey there, Peisistratos.

First thing, you have a good mill deck. But I don't understand when you say Modern Mill can't be competitive like all the other deck types out there. If you'd like check out the videos from a similar list and his own deck from Corbin Hosler, an associate editor at magic. A special thanks goes to him for his brilliant Modern UB Mill Deck that has won. I used to play mill back in the past and will go with it again. I am not trying to prove you wrong or say this deck is better than yours by any means...it seems every mill player has their own take on the game and I respect that. I am super excited to be getting back into MTG here locally and definitely going to give mill another go round since I've seen this video and seen it be successful. All I am making is a valid point that Modern UB Mill is viable in competitive magic. Have a great day.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13331&writer=Corbin+Hosler&articledate=6-13-2016&utm_source=tcgplayer-yt&utm_medium=tcg-yt-video&utm_term=&utm_content=magic&utm_campaign=tcg-yt-corbin-hosler-%20modern-blue-black-mill-videos

One final note: Everyone here at my local gaming store even the owner says: Modern Mill is not viable in competitive MTG...so in a sense, I am out to prove everyone wrong that says it's not a viable choice. To me, Modern Mill UB is a great choice and quite fun to play.

Sidrahlin, I appreciate the comment.

Still, I have some remarks to make. Objective arguments are not a matter of 'anyone's take': we certainly base our arguments on knowledge and experience, but we nonetheless do it in order to compare them and accomodate our very informations. So either Corbin Hosler's list or mine in wrong; but actually is possible that this is not the case, since we could have built them envisioning different metagames: and I think this is true, unfortunately making any speaking in terms of 'right' or 'wrong' misplaced since our ends were different.

On the competitiveness of Mill: Mill cannot be competitive in any way with the actual Modern pool. First: other decks are too fast, so we have to run some defence yet not a great amount of it because or the risk of making our mill-power so weak that we cannot win in the time gained by our defence. Our need of defence collides with the fact that if the opponent draws a piece of countermeasure, we are straight dead: there is an obvious (and fatal) asymmetry there. I can evoke some recent examples of the resilience and efficency of some other Modern decks. In a game against Infect, I cast four removals in my first 3 turns of the game only to see my opponent win on his 4th turn (I was on the draw). Another instance: against Kiln Fiend, again, I resolved (yes, resolved!) three removals and yet he won on his turn 3! My opponents were not lucky: this is the trend. We cannot compete. Second: there is too much hate, intentional or incidental (in addition to unbeatable decks like Infect and Burn). Nearly all the creatures from Hatebears, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Leyline of Sanctity and lesser threats (but enough for us to lose the game) in Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon, Tarmogoyf (it kills in 3 turns and comes along with discards and removals), Knight of the Reliquary.. And if ever Mill became better, their sideboard is easily adjustable by sideboarding Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Progenitus: we cannot disrupt their main plan AND treat those cards.Third: we tend to disregard the fact that if our opponent has no/too few means to search her library we must give up an important piece of our deck in Archive Trap (that we should play regardless, as I argumented in my description). It is not really replacable by sideboard cards, even if we try to do it.

Summing up: build your own deck according to the meta; and Mill cannot be competitive.

How about Ghost Quarters to make them search their deck? Even though like every deck in modern runs fetches they could just not crack them in order for you to not be able to cast Archive Trap.

Also how does it work against fast aggro decks such as infect or Kiln Fiend aggro? Even though you have a fog spell I'd still want something more reliable to keep aggro in check like Ensnaring Bridge.

I don't think Shriekhorn is what you really want, it mills 6 in 3 turns and takes the 1 cmc spot alongside Hedron Crab which is what you really want on turn one.

Something else I'd recommend is Mind Funeral which really punishes land light decks. I think a Extirpate is a must in your sideboard against certain decks with a lot of graveyard interaction.

Otherwise it looks like a cool deck, just do a bit more work and it'll probably be able to beat those high tier competitive decks, maybe. Also cut down on the description would ya? XD

Sciencebean thanks for your suggestions, but they have been already ruled out.

Ghost Quarter is bad, I have talked at lenght of what implies for us the possibility of our opponent not cracking her fetches, Infect is impossible to win against, Ensnaring Bridge is not good enough, Shriekhorn is not wonderful but still covers a lot of roles we need to be covered, Mind Funeral is bad, Surgical Extraction and the like are bad. If you are interested in my arguments, you can read my primer; but you are clearly not interested. I wrote this guide for those who are interested: if you are not, you are free not to read it. My primer is meant to be informative, not enticing; and it being long is part of it being informative.

His description, is more like a primer to all modern mill decks, its very detailed and it took me a while to read but it was worth the information that it covers.

Ghost Quarter is only good game one, if your opponent doesnt know youre playing mill. Turn 1 crab usually gives it away though. Many times in games 2 and 3 my opponent would treat it like Wasteland and not search. making trap usueless till 5 mana.

Ensnaring Bridge is good if you can dump your hand, its really hard for mill to do this efficiently.

Mind Funeral is a gamble. some decks its great like tron. Ive had games where it hit 4 lands off the top. Once I got 14. Its not consistent enough when you need to mill set numbers. Breaking will always hit 8 for one less mana. making it way more consistent and more efficient.

Surgical Extraction helps in some games, mainly vs emrakul nahiri style decks, slight help vs dredge, great vs tron and valakut. but if those decks arent at you lgs its just a wasted spot.

@Peisistratos i did splash white for path but i will be taking them out for Fatal Push i did enjoy playing Seek in the sideboard along with Authority of the Consuls / Fragmentize (for leyline of sanctity). Ive also thought about adding AEtherspouts but 5 mana is rough sometimes.

frogkill45 thanks for your support.

I have only a couple of notes. The real problem with Mind Funeral is that for 3 mana it mills 9 in average, while Breaking / Entering which competes for the same slot mills 8 for one mana less; however, this shouldn't matter if, like Darkness, when it is 'good' it is also back-breaking. Unfortunately, against fast decks you cannot really cast it and live (without much support, that you should NOT have): the curve is already full and comparable in the mill-efficiency regard; and against 'slow' decks with few lands Mill is already very very favoured (as we are in general against slow decks not sporting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Leyline of Sanctity). Thus I advocating going for Breaking / Entering, which is not so good but still way better than Mind Funeral.

About Surgical Extraction: Tron and Valakut are already easy-wins (pretty much the only ones) and we don't need Surgical Extraction at all. Dredge is very favourable, and we only get better with any graveyard hate we would already have in the sideboard for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn-decks. Finally, against Emrakul, the Aeons Torn-decks Surgical Extraction is actually the weakest graveyard-hate card against them: once you conceivably use your whole hand to get rid of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (that is, if you manage to dodge countespells which Surgical Extraction is expoused at) it is a losing proposition to race Snapcaster Mages, Lightning Bolts and Celestial Colonnades. And againt random combo decks we are good enough (graveyard-hate, Set Adrift, milling them, spot removals and fogs). I argue for employing other kinds of graveyard hate.

About the other cards, I too will play Fatal Push but in the sideboard: maindeck spot-removals are not enough, as I argued in the primer. Hide/Seek is good but only against Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and it is not worth the splash (either Nihil Spellbomb or Lost Legacy does the same thing - which also happen to have a wider range of application). Fragmentize is wonderful, and the only reason I see for a White splash (together with Timely Reinforcements, perhaps): but in my list Set Adrift is much better, and you should splash and play Fragmentize too only if you really want to beat Leyline of Sanctity. AEtherspouts is not good, even if it costed 4: as I argued, people can afford to play around mass-removals. Lastly, I don't understand what Authority of the Consuls is for: can you elaborate please? What can it do that a spot-removal or a Drown in Sorrow can't already? :)

Authority of the Consuls is great life gain against any aggro decks like zoo, shuts down grisshaolbrand, was also very effective for me when played vs eldrazi, (drowner, tokens, skyspawner and smasher)slows down elves a few turns. My meta is usually aggro heavy so it helped reason i tossed it in. I was actually filling for it at the time to get some Ghostly Prison. but im most likely going to be removing the white. emrakul has been played less in my lgs and with fatal push i most likely wont need path. i will also be swapping breaking back in for mind funeral. too many bad experiences of milling less than 8.

frogkill45 I think that incidental answers like spot-removals or graveyard-hate are overall better than Authority of the Consuls against those decks, even if the latter certainly has some utility. Anyway, thanks for the clarification and the feedback. Have a good mill! :)

This is not a Critic, but your description is very big, although it may be a complete analysis of the strategy behind the deck i find it very hard to navigate your thought progress.

+1 for the sheer hardwork you put into this. love mill, love hard thought decks.

DHWorlds thanks for the upvoting.

You'll forgive me if I quote from the very first lines of this primer: "This article is long because it is meant to be complete and thorough, not appealing. You are free not to read it if you think you don't need to".

Nice deck! Have a very similar deck myself

Snapcaster mage in the sideboard maybe? after game 1 they take out all of their creature removal then you side in snapcaster to reuse your spells and block a bit.

horatio13 this way Snapcaster Mage seems to be a dedicated sideboard card against Jund or Grixis, which keep removals post-side (Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay, Lightning Bolt, Kolaghan's Command..). But those deck are not a problem. Against other decks it is too slow and inefficient to be useful.

Found your thoughts on Shriekhorn interesting. I am a modern mill player myself, but have never used the card. Your thoughts on how it works with Set Adrift are interesting.

I considered turning to a fog focussed deck myself but my concern was the control match up and that you have to draw multiples. When facing decks like dredge, boggles or reanimator it seems easier to Surgical Extraction away their artifact removal.

I found that Mind Funeral rarely hits enough to be worth it so I tended towards the artifact strategy of Mesmeric Orb which you have covered in detail and I have paired this with Manic Scribe. I did use to run Trapmaker's Snare x 2 for grabbing Archive Trap or Ravenous Trap from the board, and it worked well, I just found I needed more utility.

A card that is worthy of a look due to its versatility is Dimir Charm. I have found a number of times keeping up the two mana for this card has been worth it.

Good to find another competitive mill player.

+1

plusmental thanks for your comment.

As for the control matchup, it is so good (a good reason to play this deck, actually) that what defence card you run is not relevant: you can easily afford to have 7 dead cards (your fogs) in the matchup, and you can still switch them post side.

Of what you have to draw multiples? Of mill spells against control? That is not a problem, since they hardly put any pressure and they cannot run a lot of counters. Of fogs against aggro? The deck should be built so as to win after the first fog (or to cast another one, in case).

It is impossible to lose against dredge with all your fogs and grave hate. I see an argument for Ensnaring Bridge against reanimator, but a fog against Griselbrand is pretty effective and at 3 mana you also have Crypt Incursion, but you should be dead in any case on turn 3 (you should not be able to cast Ensnaring Bridge in any case.

Aura is quite even preside, and near impossible post side. I understand you have Ensnaring Bridge and they need to draw a removal fo it, but you (almost surely) need to draw your own removal for Leyline of Sanctity meanwhile: it is at best even post side and Aura is not widely played, so it not really a great reason for running Ensnaring Bridge. As for playing Surgical Extraction on their answer to Ensnaring Bridge, you are assuming that they are not diversifying their answer, that you are milling (against a Leyline of Sanctity), that you mill a specific card played in few copies, that they haven't drawn it meanwhile and already destroyed your Ensnaring Bridge, all thi assuming too that you drew an early Set Adrift and an early Ensnaring Bridge with sufficient lands (and a mill spell for Set Adrift). These requirements are not realistic.

In general against other decks, even when the stars align and you meet the relevant conditions I just remebered, pointing Surgical Extraction at their answers to Ensnaring Bridge only works half of the time because near half of the aggro decks run Ancient Grudge. So this plan is heavily flawed, and we have better to do anyway.

Mind Funeral is a concession to all the Jundish decks in the metagame; the mere possibility of milling more than 5 (i.e. more than Tome Scour) is worth the steep cost against those decks.

I find Archive Trap pretty underwhelming on its own; I would never pay 2 mana more for this effect.

Dimir Charm. I have an hard time figuring how to make a 2-mana defence card work since you have that spot on the curve crowded. And it does not solve any problem at all.

Hope you have a good mill. ;)

I believe my meta may be very different than yours - boggles is around regularly, having said that your points do seem valid.

Not multiple mill spells against control, multiple fog effects to stay in the game.

Dimir Charm for example won me several matches the other night against Gifts Ungiven - having the extra counter sorcery spells in there really saved me the match, I was able to force Iona into her hand rather than have it hit the grave, it also kills 90% of what I saw at my most recent tournament (so many combo decks), but I suppose in saying that I must concede that Darkness would be better in slot than ensnaring bridge. Guess I need to get my hands on some.

The decks I played against at the most recent tournament were Melira combo, Gifts Ungiven, Affinity and Bant Company. Jund isn't a thing at my LGS, it was middle of last year, but not any more. Having said that many of these decks were fetching, or in the case of Affinity, runs few lands which makes them better targets for Mind Funeral, I just worry at how frequently it was hitting for 5 as I said.

You find milling 13 for 2 at instant speed underwhelming!? Dang!

"You find milling 13 for 2 at instant speed underwhelming!?"

No. I find underwhelming playing a card the only use of which will frequently be getting an Archive Trap - which is dead against some decks and against basically everything is dead past your opponent's turn 2 in any case.

I'm no expert at mill, at maybe drop a mind funeral for a fourth crypt incursion just to make sure you won't die on turn 4?

Sgt.Pickles thanks for your suggestion.

Unfortunately, the second Crypt Incursion you draw in the game is a dead card: you can cast it with the effect of gaining another turn only if you are already winning by a lot of margin. And you already have some dead card in the early game Visions of Beyond and in the mid-late game Archive Trap, so you really want to minimize the chances of drawing useless cards in any way you can. Playing 3 Crypt Incursion is already risky, and fortunately sufficient; playing four is unneded.

Makes sense :P thx for the reply :)

Great decklist and one of the best primers I've ever read, amazing job! Your train of thought and the logic behind playing mill has already helped me win a lot of games. Keep up the good work!

Thanks SurpriZe! I'm really glad to hear that!

At RowdyMagic18, whom I thank for suggesting the addition of Consuming Aberration: unfortunately, I can't see how that could help. We should manage to stay alive so long as to cast cast it and use it the following turn, all for a creature that if it doens't die immediately gets easily chumpblocked (since I'm sure you're not suggesting to block with it). And, most importantly, there are no defence cards that if played in only few copies (as we need to keep defence cards at a minimum) allow you to stay alive that long AND spend turn 5 doing nothing; certainly you couldn't resort to fogs. And you should up the land-count by 2 at least, cutting other cards. I already deem casting Archive Trap for its real cost unrealistic, so I don't need another spell at 5 mana; and if I needed any, I would turn to Jace, Memory Adept before than to anything else.

This decklist looks incredibly solid(for mill) and the primer was very thorough and I, with my admittedly somewhat limited experience, agree with most of what you said. I have one possible suggestion for either the main or sideboard, although it might not fit in either. Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is expensive and mana-specific, but could potentially be quite useful. He can typically at least be a Tarmogoyf with hexproof, which is a pretty handy blocker to have. Foremost, he gives you an auto-win if you mill an Emrakul while he's on the field, possibly allowing you to beat a lot of decks you would have no chance against. Probably not a good pick for the mainboard as he is expensive and does not actively mill, but maybe for the sideboard vs Emrakul decks to give yourself a chance?

Whiskerbro thanks for your contribution.

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is indeed a unique card, that theoretically can do a great job at solving one of our most frightening issue: combating Emrakul, the Aeons Torn-deck. However, once you manage to exile Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, those deck are quite easy to beat, so that there is not a great difference between games when Lazav, Dimir Mastermind becomes a Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and games when you exile Emrakul, the Aeons Torn early/inevitably. So the game, as usual in these cases, revolves around resolving your 'answear' to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (so the fact you could keep your mill spell in hand until you are sure Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is not a problem is not an argument), and unfortunately Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is very bad at allowing you to do that: against Jeskai, at 4 mana it is very susceptible to counterspells (any other graveyard-hate at least cost less), and against Boros its super-specific mana requirements make it impossible to cast it against Blood Moon and it does nothing against their Leyline of Sanctity or other hate-pieces. Against Tarmogoyf-decks: Lazav, Dimir Mastermind would be a very late and difficult-to-cast and very-conditional blocker, and would achieve its utility-condition (milling a Tarmogoyf with Lazav, Dimir Mastermind in play) only when you would be already on the winning path (making it quite unnecessary); and it still dies to Liliana of the Veil, so that it could not block indefinitely: even when becoming a Tarmogoyf, it is a Tarmogoyf with a timer on its head. So Lazav, Dimir Mastermind unfortunately fits nowhere in the list.