but you have Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage thats an infinite combo,...

good deck though. +1

Eater of the Dead + Your General = You win.

While Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank is an infinite, I need to activate the combo to start it off and the cards are really good on their own for this deck. I'll just avoid the combo if I can, or use it as a last ditch rage win. Thanks for the input :). Eater of the Dead now needs to be in, and my friends shall hate you.

Mesmeric Orb and Raven Guild Master are both pretty sweet. Also, Horseshoe Crab , Knacksaw Clique , and Morphling could be good with your commander.

Blakkhand I think I love you. Awesome suggestions that all went into the deck. Thank you sir or madam.

Look at Your deck is going down! Literally! by Chocolate for some suggestions, it is also phenax mill

Thanks for the heads up. I added Patron of the Nezumi , Riddlekeeper , and Sadistic Sacrament from their deck.

I'd almost suggest AEtherling over Morphling .

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur could be very interesting in this deck

Archive Trap

HI! I'm Zacoly, and I made a similar deck pretty recently, Phenax is an amazing commander!!!

I can see that you wanted to control your costs when you built this deck so I'll do my best not to suggest overly expensive cards... like $10 or more

FIRST

You need to consider adding more non-basic lands:

Shelldock Isle - Jwar Isle Refuge - Minamo, School at Water's Edge - Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

You can see how these lands fit your colors and/or help you out a great deal

There are some powerful enchants that you should look at:

Intruder Alarm = Could become a very strong combo with Undead Alchemist , but generally it creates free mill everytime your opponents play a creature

Pemmin's Aura = attach this to your biggest creature and pour all your blue mana into crazy amounts of mill. Also very effective with creatures that grow in response to mill like Consuming Aberration or Nighthowler . This card will nearly always treat you better than an adorable little Horseshoe Crab .

Artifacts:

Thousand-Year Elixir = AMAZING considering your commander gives all of your creatures an activatable ability. Any further questions?

Bonehoard is worth considering when you have multiple creatures that can untap for 1 blue mana isn't it? That could turn your 1 blue mana investment into a creature that grows as you mill!!!

Creatures:

Surgespanner works great when you don't have to attack to tap it. A reusable, cheap unsummon? YES PLEASE!

Empress Galina is capable of stealing many kinds of things including commanders, lands, and Gods that haven't become creatures. That's pretty good isn't it?

Sorceries:

Lim-Dul's Vault = An amazing card that lets you set up your next 5 cards and know exactly what to expect in the near future. OR lets you dig for a wincon/response to somebody else's wincon

Cyclonic Rift = The most powerful control spell blue has to offer. PLEASE don't leave this one at home when you're making a blue EDH deck. This card's power can't be overstated!!!

.... That's about all the ideas I care to list for your potential addition to this deck for more ideas take a look at Serpent's Guile and Serpent's Fangs! and don't forget to +1 or drop me a nice comment.

Cards I disagree with:

Font of Mythos + Howling Mine = These help your opponents BEFORE they help you. They don't actually mill your opponents they help them gain boardstate, and get answers to yours Giving your opponents draw power at nearly no cost to them is a bad idea in even a semi-serious deck.

Grindstone - This card's clunky mechanic might prove to be pretty useful Vs a single color deck. But considering that few EDH deck are single color AND 1/3 of most decks are lands and that lands don't have a color I'd expect this card to fail to mill more than once pretty dang often. I don't like it. It's not a powerhouse EDH option without Painter's Servant or something similar

Mind Funeral + Glimpse the Unthinkable + Psychic Drain are all single shot, single target mill spells. They will rarely ever hit for enough to make a noticeable dent in a 100 card deck. While amazing in their standard formats these cards shouldn't be part of the EDH family. You need something you can combo with or something that has the power to grow as the game goes on. Jace's Erasure is also a very weak option until you play something like Forced Fruition . It may add up overtime but it's not a powerful effect at all. It would be if it said "ALL Opponents", then I might use it.

However I can still see using Psychic Drain if you feel like you NEED the ability to gain life.

Dear Zacoly,

How many ways can I thank you? I'm not sure. But seriously, thank you very, very much. I appreciate the time you took to help me and I will use your suggestions whilst changing/rebuilding this deck. I like your suggested cards and I understand why you suggested to remove the cards you did. Those cards were mostly there because they came to mind first while I was building. Thanks again my friend.

I wanted to point out a couple more things.

First, when you use Pemmin's Aura you could use your black mana to pump up your creature's toughness "for the rest of the turn" before you make them mill once for each available blue mana.

Wash Out is basically Cyclonic Rift 's little sister. It's much cheaper and it could cause you a bit of harm if played at an inopportune moment, but it can shut down players with big boardstates. It's worth having as a big control spell that hits multiple targets.

Someone suggested Archive Trap , I wouldn't use it. It's the best "one shot wonder" spell since it's free, but unless you are drawing a significant number of cards EACH TURN this one is going to be a bad choice because you spent a card in hand to help yourself a little tiny bit, and NOT hurt your opponents in any way. Now that I'm thinking of it you NEED to have a way to stop others from making use of their graveyards as many EDH decks do! Some possibilities include Havengul Lich (revive the dead thing in response to them trying to) - Withered Wretch (A very cheap re-usable effect to deny attempts) - Tormod's Crypt (basically sit there saying NO) .... I like the first option best because I can gain from it, it can be offensive and not only defensive, but it's up to you! I would suggest some kind of defense to graveyard effects since you will be making them more powerful.

This deck is awesome! if you want some other ideas check out my deck Great Wall of Mill

Hey, I saw one of the previous posters mention that Howling Mine and Font of Mythos are meh cause they help everyone before yourself. If you are still looking to get that effect but want to be the first one to benefit, check out the new card coming in Journey called "dictate of kruphix"

Hi,

I've played mill over the last years over and over again and build some phenax decks by my self lately.

In my local group there are may options to fear with this theme, reanimate, recollect, eternal whitness etc. so i came up to play at least 5 to 7 cards of graveyard hate. Ravenous Trap is one of the funniest ways in my point of view. Bojuka Bog is also quite helpfull and don't take any usuall cardslot. Hedron Crab is not that good in such a deck because it dies too easy and the trigger is not that powerfull because it still targets just one guy. I would run someone like Geth, Lord of the Vault . He is big, mills and is able to use the milled stuff. Most funnierst thing to find is something like Sakura-Tribe Elder or guilded lotus.

Yeah, I am also a Phenax player and I have my own deck, Not your run of the mill commander deck. Your is probably better, but I would definitely recommend Meishin, the Mind Cage and Jace's Archivist at least, they're both very good, and provide good devotion. I'd probably take out mesmeric orb and patron of nezumi, but I prefer to kill people by mill rather than damage.

Puppet Conjurer + Intruder Alarm + Grinding Station = 1 hit mill kill

Er, except you need blue mana for the dudes.

oops. plenty of creatures produce mana. it's janky and has a million moving parts but it seems fun

Ive been playing with a Phenax EDH deck since he was available and have found a few things you may find helpful to your deck that you havent quite got to yet. One of my biggest concerns with your deck is the lack of creatures. Considering your general revolves around have creatures in play to be most effective.. you should go for creature options of everything that you can and replace some of the spells/enchantments/artifacts that arent going to have as much function with your general. You also give yourself more survivability having bodies out there on top of feeding things like bonehoard and such that count creatures in all graveyards. That being said I have found Phenax to work amazingly well using creatures that will be useful on there own but become broken with him. You of course already have many of the obvious ones but missing a lot of strong options.

Havengul Lich was mentioned by someone else as well. Having access to this guy essentially turns every creature in opponents graveyards like extra cards in your hand. This card can single handedly win you the game if left undealt with.

Solemn Simulacrum /Burnished Hart Creature based mana acceleration in blue/black that doesnt require tapping to use

Draining Whelk /Glen Elendra Archmage Creature based Countermagic. There are more options for this but most are too cute. I also like to throw inDesertion / Counterflux here since 75% of the time youll be using it to counter a spell and drop a fatty at insta speed.

Coffin Queen /Dimir-doppleganger/Nezumi Graverobber /Cemetery Reaper May seam somewhat underwhelming but they can also each deal with Eldrazi type creatures extremely effectively and at instant speed

Duplicant /Surgespanner /Avatar of Woe Removal package type stuff, nothing more really to say

Diluvian Primordial /Sepulchral Primordial /Dread Cacodemon /Rune-Scarred Demon Along with other various hefty hitting ETB triggers. Want to avoid the creatures that need to tap for there effects for general purposes.

Oona, Queen of the Fae /Grimoire Thief /Rootwater Thief The ability to outright exile cards off the top of the deck can be quite beneficial in many situations. Essentially these are just more creatures playing the roles of spells. Oona.... is lovely goodness once she gets rolling.

Pili-Pala /Grand Architect An infinite combo with the general and or anything requiring mana but also very useful individually. Pili with any of the equipment can effectively untap for 1 mana each time and becomes a machine even without the architect. With so many of your creatures being blue the architects ability can be very relevant.

Mortivore /Sewer Nemesis /Nighthowler Get real big real quick. When you have creatures that grow like this the spells become irrelevant in comparison.

So not only are you not spending your mana on spells that are one shots that dont defend you but youre strengthening your general and your defenses plus forcing your opponents to spend there cards to deal with it. Non creature things id also highly recommend...

Whip of Erebos with a much larger creature base that lifelink to your team can be extremely relevant on top of giving you yet another way to retrigger ETB and or big but tappers.

Relic of Progenitus the oh crap button for when your other options at removing your opponents trouble makers from graveyards fall through and a hefty reset button if needs be.

Dance of the Dead reanimate spell that pumps and gives an abuseable untap ability... yes please!

Slagwurm Armor mostly becomes a mana sink but works very well

Glacial Chasm Oh no you cant attack?!?!?!

Speaking of... getting into the cards I would suggest cutting is any and all cards that require you to deal combat damage in order for them to be effective. These cards are nominal at best and 90% of the time theres no need to attack and leave yourself more vulnerable.

Theres more id like to add but right now im half awake. Only other thing coming directly to mind is getting rid of a lot more of the spells that can be replaced by creature ETB effects such as removal. Also get rid of mirrari and pretty much any spell thats replaceable. Only spells that should be in there are some mass removal, few exile type counterspells, rise of the dark realms and thats basically it.

Man frobolo, you're a pretty cool person. I really appreciate all the time you took typing that all out just to help me win games. You may notice that I've implemented many of your suggestions. One thing I want to avoid, though, is infinite combos, so I'm purposely leaving out the Pili-Pala / Grand Architect combo. Other than that your suggestions are just the type of thing I was looking for. Thanks again!

Traumatize would probably work really well