Esper sometimes uses Mesmeric Orb as well

Tome Scour?

Duskmantle Guildmage is absolutely amazing with this deck, turns every mill card into a shitload of damage.

Come Fate Reforged, I'm interested in the possibilities of Phenax, God of Deception plus Ghastly Conscription. Your opinion?

Maybe 3Surgical Extraction on the main is too greedy, it works well against some combos but it mills 1-3 cards and don't do much against aggressive decks.

As well, as you don't have any artefact in the main you may consider Mesmeric Orb side against any control/midrange deck as it pays off a lot if game goes long and they can not remove it without the proper side. (third game side then its a mind game)

Hey, I've always wanted to build a competitive mill deck myself, but I think simply UB will not work. either a splash of green or white will help. Why? Because of Leyline of Sanctity. If they pop that up second game, u need a spell to destroy it. White also has Path to exile, to cheat an archive trap in! :P

Tome Scour you need 4 of those no doubt

What about Gitaxian Probe and Increasing Confusion? One for more draw power then with it in you could add more mill. Also confusion gives you more options when you are out of cards in your hand.

Gitaxian Probe probably isn't worth running. You're paying two life for information that you don't even need, and a new card. The probe could just be that new card instead of having a chance of drawing something actually good.

To refer to your update about whether the deck is worthy in modern, it pains me to say it but I think the answer is 'not right now'. If the new delve cards get banned, then maybe this deck has a chance again. I've been playing a lot of games against delver decks and the hatebear decks made to counter the delver decks, and they're both a beating for mill. Any mono-colored deck is tough already, but we get the backlash from Thalia, Guardian of Thraben being on the upswing since we win by casting spells instead of creatures. Delver decks are still a beating, and with mill you really need to preserve your life total against them. I feel like Snapcaster Mage doesn't do enough every time I draw him, and when I do see him I often wish he were just another 2 mana mill spell.

Mill is still very good against combo decks, specifically Twin, Jeskai Ascendancy, Living End (if anyone still plays it), Ad Nauseum, and Scapeshift. That's only if you start with a Surgical Extraction in hand though. However it seems that Modern combo decks are on the decline in favor of everyone playing non-combo Pod (Melira Pod used to be an easy matchup), Delver decks (they're doing great with Cruise and super cheap to build, excluding goyf versions), and burn (always a race. If they have a bunch of fetches you can win with an opening hand with Traps). Affinity along with other straight aggro decks are tough as they always are. Zoo only feels winnable with Traps in your opening hand or if you MD at least 1 Crypt Incursion. (Then it's an insta-win!) There are just many decks right now that are more consistant with their wins than mill (you really feel the difference using Glimpses compared to Breakings). I'm waiting for mill to get some new tech to keep up with some of these other decks. Until then if you want to be serious about mill, hope that they ban Treasure Cruise. Like I mentioned earlier, it pains me to say that mill isn't well positioned since I'm a mill-lover.

As far as your list is looking now, as always I recommend playing the 4th Breaking / Entering before the 1st Snapcaster. In this deck think of Snapcaster as a 4-mana sorcery spell, or a 2 mana instant blocker since that what he normally always is in my experience playing many games. I'd add the 4th Surgical Extraction to the MD, since that's the best way for our deck to control our opponents. In this meta, more hand disruption is a must since we don't want our spells to be countered/taxed. Hand disruption is the best reason to play black imho, and is a proactive way to control your opponent. (MOAR IoK!) Broken Ambitions is tough to use when you want to play 2-3 cost sorceries every turn, so I'd cut them in favor of the previously mentioned cards. If your meta has any aggro decks, Crypt Incursion is normally a free win against them. Nobody will convince me not to MD 1 copy because of that (it's really saved my butt against Merfolk, hatebears, zoo, and even Pod). Even if you only get 12 life out of it, that's normally an extra draw step or 2. Beware running too many Ghost Quarter. It was likely just the last few games I played, but I ended up not drawing a 3rd mana source and had to quarter my own lands just to fix colors for a turn. It's rare, but with so few lands you really need to have 2 colored sources on turn 2. Look into Ensnaring Bridge as well. It will win you games you had no business winning (mostly against aggro/Pod). Hope my insight has been helpful, although somewhat disheartening.

to add to GeminiSpartanX's comment about matchups the absolute worst matchup i can think of for mill is tron.... "mill you for 17" "hit emrakul shuffle it back" repeat til you burn your own deck in a petrol fueled fire from frustration

Tron is beatable, it just takes 2 Surgical Extractions or a SB with the right type of gravehate. I run a pair of Tormod's Crypt and a Nihil Spellbomb and activate them in response to the eldrazi shuffle. You can extract the eldrazi in response, making it so they only reshuffle once. If you've previously extracted away one of their tron lands you can win from that point. It's a tough match yes, and you need to be smart with your opening hand, but since tron functions kind of like a combo deck it is beatable via mill.

@GeminiSpartanX Thank you for well thought out reply. I've been hoping for something like that. That's what I needed to know. I can't say it's disheartening. It just means that I may need to go a different direction with my resources. Personally I hate playing decks that are "the meta". I feel like there is potential for so much more that a few decks that happen to work well...especially in a format as broad as modern. What is your input?

I agree wholeheartedly! I'm known in my meta as 'that guy' who plays a new brew or random deck-that-did-well-one-week in mtgo. (Also as 'that guy who has 20 Modern decks' lol). I've won with decks that nobody ever expected would win and after winning was told that they were garbage. My current favorites are my aggro-storm deck Face-melting Aggro-Storm!, and my prison deck Enchanting Your Face With Angels-Monowhite Prison. (Mill is also a favorite, but tough to win with lately). Nobody normally packs the required hate for these specific decks and sometimes they're just too much for other decks to handle. I also have a standard G/U Infect list and a selesnya aggro list that have performed well but are more 'meta' than the other ones. Even though I have the cards needed to make a U/R Delver deck right now, I doubt I'll ever build it since it's just not my style. Right now I'm actually testing a competitive heroic deck for modern, and it looks promising! -Heroism for the Modern Age.

So tldr; Yes, I agree that Modern is still a wide open format where more than a handful of decks can be successful if steps are taken to make the best version of the deck possible and you know how to play against your competition.

Looks pretty great! I think mill is a funny way to win. Oh and +1 for the name

A card I would maybe recommend: Consuming Aberration. Great for later game and that "cast a spell make your opponent mill" is awesome. Traumatize is always fun.

I gotta ask...why so many pain lands? Ghost quarter is perfect for your archive trap.

If you're willing to splash white even just a little I would strongly recommend Path to Exile...exile an opponents creature then play your free trap.

Good luck!

@FullmetalWes I've actually been considering adding in some white for Path to Exile. I'm just a bit hesitant because of the rather restrictive mana costs on some of the spells. (A plains and an island/swamp t2 is kinda a no go). The high number of fetchlands are there for their great synergy with Hedron Crab. It doubles the landfall triggers I can pull off in a turn.

I love the Turn 0 win deck in Modern... You're up against infect, which brags about how fast it is. So it's on the play and goes turn 1 Misty Rainforest and cracks it for a forest, during the end step you dump 4 Archive Traps, effectively pulling the turn 0 win. In modern. Before your turn. With only 4 cards in your opening hand and no mana... It never happens, but is hilarious in theory.

Snapcaster Mage is a good blocker + Additional mill/counter

Buddy of mine plays almost identical deck. He removed snapcaster out Completely and hes got 2 Creeping tar pits. Unblockable can be quite usuful for pesky planeswalkers. And in side board hes has some more removal and -3/-3 type cards. As well as mindcrank and duskmatel guildmage. He seemz to todoo pretty well. Also he is running dig through time instead for treasure cruise. Just some ideas based off of his.. his matchups that mess him up are super fast aggro. And discard control. But with creeping tar pit. Free liliana hits all the time.

+1 for the name. I love the Joker, and my commander deck is named after a Batman quote. Lego movie Batman, but still ;)

Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank I use them in my mill deck, and nobody sees it coming. +1 from me

I've tried a similiar version to this deck and agree with Gemini's feedback - the deck is fun (and I love playing it), but it isn't tier 1 competitive. Consuming Aberration is tempting, as are the other Mill/Aggro creatures (Wight of Precinct Six, Jace's Phant), but it pulls the deck in two very different directions. Plus running a lone Aberration just means that the one useless removal spell your opponent had in hand against your near creatureless deck now will have a target.

For SB against any deck that uses graveyard or Tron, I think Leyline of the Void is your best bet.

I'd say this deck looks good! But if you want to make your deck super spicy (and joker flavorable), I'd add the new card Fraying Sanity. It practically makes your Mill spells do double the milling!

Cool deck tho!

I'd add in either Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, or Jace, Memory Adept for some chaos

Cool mill deck =) check out mine!