I signed up to tappedout just to say how much I've enjoyed playing this deck, cheers! I'm not 100% sure I agree with cutting cyclonic rift though - It's pretty much the only thing in the deck that can offer you a reprieve from artifacts and enchantments once they've hit the field. If I'm playing a particularly awkward amount of gy hate I'll side in Duress , bounce them with the rift, and then duress the offending item out of the hand.

It's innefficient, but saves having to splash a colour, and duress is otherwise pretty handy for seeing what you're up against.

What could you put as a side board for a card such as Elixir of Immortality ? I don't think Pithing Needle works against this card?

Blklist

@ k22k -- I'm glad this made you sign up! Becoming an active member is extremely beneficial to expanding your card knowledge and opening your mind to synergies that you may never have thought of. I highly encourage you to check out more of the site. Regarding Cyclonic Rift -- that is true. I didn't think about bouncing non-creature permanents, so that makes the decision even more difficult to make. My problem with Duress is that it needs the Rift to be effective, and I cannot rely on that level of combination with this deck.

@ Blklist -- I think Elixir of Immortality is shut down by Pithing Needle ? Then again, I'm very bad with the different types of abilities. That's definitely something to get clarified in the Q&A section.

Did surprisingly not completely terrible at fnm with a few small variations, but I'm starting to think grisly spectacle is sacrificing actual utility for mill in terms of cost - for the same mana you can have a board wipe with mutilate, or two ultimate price/victim of nights or something similar. Mill is definitely going to see some improvement in terms of its meta performance when all the current standard pieces rotate out, but at the same time loses Jace's phantasm as its mvp, and i don't think wight of precinct six as a millgro allstar is going to cut it quite the same.

I'd be interested in seeing how well this deck does with the focus shifted from mill to kill. Consuming Aberration is incredibly powerful when protected, and doesn't even need a heavy support base of other mill cards - it mills whenever you cast anything. JacePhan works really well early game. The Codex Shredder , Dimir Charm , and Psychic Strike are very versatile, too.

With the focus on consuming aberration you can add essence drain for altternative kill and to gain life against aggro, for control I would definitely use far/away, you can use it to save your aberration or delay aggros wich are my main concern when using my variation of mill deck, the fuse also counts as two cards and triggers aberration twice. Ive also tried with undead alchemist wich works great, cleans the graveyard against reanimators and makes lots of blockers for you, my main combo now is aberration, undead alchemist and undercity informer, plus blood mage and the rest is control, far/away, cyclonic and tragic slip, its turning into a creature based deck tho and far from the original plan. And I rarely win by mill since I kill with blood artist and essence drain.

@ k22k -- Agreed. When it rotates out, Jace's Phantasm will be greatly missed. I hope something of equal merit will be printed in the sets to come. Thought Scour will also be a loss, but Pilfered Plans can somewhat replace that if need be.

@ dragonsong -- Changing to a kill focus would completely change the deck, which I am not willing to do. Dimir kill decks can be very powerful though.

@ acceleratum -- What do you think about changing out Cyclonic Rift for Far / Away ? I've been debating this change for a while. On a side note, linking the cards using double brackets on either side helps with the reading.

@ ducttapedeckbox + acceleratum, I believe that Far / Away should replace a kill card instead of Cyclonic Rift because of the fact that Cyclonic Rift deals with ANY non-land permanent, i.e. planeswalkers, enchantments, and artifacts outright.

the best way to apply either would be to bounce using Far / Away /Cyclonic Rift then Whispering Madness + Notion Thief

@ feyn_do_alduin -- How about dropping a Cyclonic Rift , a Dimir Charm , and a Grisly Spectacle for three Far / Away s?

sure you could, but I would keep 3 Cyclonic Rift , as a rule because of it's board-wipe ability, it is a win-con -- a staple in this deck. Instead remove a Codex Shredder , at least this way you have less consistency issues.

imo, Codex Shredder is a utility card to retrieve any spell for 5 mana that you probably can't use 'till your next turn, and as such isn't a win con or even close to that, even if it marginally accelerates your mill.

Also, I would add a Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker and drop a Consuming Aberration for more consistancy as well.

Have you thought of Heartless Summoning ?

@ feyn_do_alduin -- Hmm, I like the utility of Codex Shredder , so I'm not sure if I'll drop it. I also think that Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker reduces consistency; the Aberration mills whenever I play something while Mirko must do damage. Last but not least, why Heartless Summoning ? It would only affect four cards in the entire deck.

I'll let you decide as far as mirko goes.

Heartless Summoning allows you to drop both Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker and Consuming Aberration as early as turn three which is VERY significant. I think that most decks would have a hard time dealing with them this early into the game. which is why I thought you may consider it.

There is an obvious downside to this though, because it also affects your Jace's Phantasm s. so I guess play it by ear when you use it.

another reason I suggested it was the fact where I continually get burned by only drawing 1 aberration and nothing else for a game and never being able to play it.Also I play like 12 creatures in my deck.

T1: drop an island, on your opponents turn play Thought Scour

T2: drop a black source: play Heartless Summoning

T3: drop a land: play Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker /Consuming Aberration

T4: drop a land: play Mind Sculpt /alternate mill and keep 2 land open for a Negate or something

and play as you normally would

@ feyn_do_alduin -- The ability to drop either the Aberration or Mirko Vosk early in the game is nice, but it's essentially a combo - Heartless Summoning only helps when you have one of only four cards in the deck in hand. If you don't have one of the four, it's a dead draw. It's also a dead draw late-game, when you already have the Aberration of Mirko Vosk out. I'm trying to limit this deck to cards that work whenever I draw them in order to keep up with the current decks.

which is why I would limit Heartless Summoning to 2 in the deck at most... if at all.

@ feyn_do_alduin -- I'm not sure it's worth it to include a card that's going to be a dead draw most of the time. I'll definitely test it though.

Awesome budget mill deck +1, based my Mill deck Not you're run of the mill deck off of this and the article by KrazyCaley mentioned above. I have made and still am making modifications to it but so far i am very pleased it has done way better then I ever anticipated it would. Thanks again guys...

I tried adding some Deathrite Shaman for ramp and denial/removal magnets, and results are interesting - that and they give you a bit more room for shenanigans early game, but I can respect they might break the budget a bit. It's unfortunate that sideboard hate for one of the popular archetypes (re-animator) kind of encompasses mill, but it's quite exciting to start looking at spoilers, etc. and look at steps to fill out the gaps post rotation.

This deck is fantastic. I've been looking to run a mill deck and i really like this set up.

What about Duskmantle Guildmage ? His first ability could really put the hurt on the opponent. Duskmantle Guildmage + Breaking / Entering = 8 dmg

Have a missed it, or what about Paranoid Delusions ?

DeathscytheDK -- If the Guildmage had some evasion, or a decent body he'd be in here in a heartbeat. With the low count of creatures, I need to make sure each one can stand a fight in most combat scenarios.

@ Aggroman -- It isn't reliable enough. I've avoided the cipher mechanic because it's best used with unblockable creatures, which I'm not running. Also, once you cipher a spell onto a creature the opponent is more likely to use removal on it, and milling 3 cards isn't worth the loss of a creature for this deck.

I understand why the card isn't in your deck it makes sense, but i was curious on your thoughts of Whispering Madness ? For re drawing up to 7 cards, it isn't too pricy, the cipher is more of a bonus imo, i was wondering if you'd thought of it in conjunction with Cyclonic Rift , return all of their cards to thier hand, make them discard all (such as good creatures they'd choose not too) and then the'd have to draw more cards just to discard, could help you also if you found yourself low on hand cards, or hand something like Reliquary Tower or Psychic Spiral

@ Pyroshade -- I've tried to avoid the cipher mechanic because it isn't very effective without unblockable creatures. This deck also runs a lot of control, and having to cycle through my hand each turn would make it extremely difficult to plan out a win. I've also dropped Cyclonic Rift for the time being and replaced it with Far / Away . Overloading the Rift just costs way too much to be useful.