Phenax's Milling Machine

Commander / EDH Mill Theme/Gimmick UB (Dimir)

Romer

Land (36)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 8x Island
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City P
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse P
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Protection and Disruption (8)

• 1x Charix, the Raging Isle
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Hinder
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Sadistic Sacrament
• 1x Spell Crumple

Targeted Removal (5)

• 1x Baleful Mastery
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x King Macar, the Gold-Cursed
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City P

Board Wipes (3)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Life's Finale

Mill (15)

• 1x Consuming Aberration
• 1x Drown in Dreams
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Fraying Sanity
• 1x Keening Stone
• 1x Maddening Cacophony
• 1x Memory Erosion
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard
• 1x Psychic Corrosion
• 1x Ruin Crab
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Traumatize
• 1x Tunnel Vision

Ramp (12)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Liquimetal Torque
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Planar Atlas
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Vessel of Endless Rest
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

X/X (6)

• 1x Bonehoard
• 1x Consuming Aberration
• 1x Mortivore
• 1x Nighthowler
• 1x The Haunt of Hightower
• 1x Tree of Perdition

Graveyard Control (4)

• 1x Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1x Dimir Doppelganger
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Scavenger Grounds

Commander (1)

Combos and Win Cons (13)

• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Bruvac the Grandiloquent
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Hinder
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Spell Crumple
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Tunnel Vision
• 1x Undead Alchemist
• 1x Vessel of Endless Rest

Card Advantage (7)

• 1x Drown in Dreams
• 1x Hostile Negotiations
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sire of Stagnation
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum

Tutor (5)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Maybeboard

Other (4)

• 1x Fleet Swallower
• 1x Junktroller
• 1x Silent Arbiter
• 1x Wight of Precinct Six

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A mill deck! Because alternate win conditions are fun and satisfying.

Rude Mill Combos and Synergies

Big Mills with Phenax:

• Phenax, God of Deception and Consuming Aberration
• Phenax, God of Deception and Mortivore
• Phenax, God of Deception and Bonehoard
• Phenax, God of Deception and Nighthowler
• Phenax, God of Deception and Charix, the Raging Isle
• Phenax, God of Deception and Eater of the Dead, who can untap itself to keep milling.
• Phenax, God of Deception and Tree of Perdition. Extra deadly with Thousand-Year Elixir so opponents don't have a turn to respond.

Untap those big creatures with Freed from the Real so they can mill multiple times.

Mill opponents down to a single card with Tunnel Vision:

• Tunnel Vision and Spell Crumple
• Tunnel Vision and Hinder
• Tunnel Vision and Vessel of Endless Rest

And many other options to mill them to death:

• Syr Konrad, the Grim and Mindcrank with any mill trigger to do a bunch of damage to an opponent (or opponents).

• Bloodchief Ascension and Mindcrank with any mill trigger for instant death.

• Duskmantle Guildmage and Mindcrank for instant death.

• Duskmantle Guildmage and Keening Stone
• Duskmantle Guildmage and Traumatize

• Duskmantle Guildmage and Maddening Cacophony (kicked)

• Traumatize and Keening Stone

• Traumatize and Fraying Sanity

• Traumatize and Bruvac the Grandiloquent

• Maddening Cacophony (kicked) and Keening Stone

• Maddening Cacophony (kicked) and Fraying Sanity

• Maddening Cacophony (kicked) and Bruvac the Grandiloquent to mill all opponents out of a library.

• Altar of Dementia, sacrificing a sufficiently large Bonehoard, Consuming Aberration, Mortivore or Nighthowler to mill out an opponent.

Eldrazi Titans and Other Graveyard Reshuffle Effects

The biggest challenge in milling a player to death in EDH are spells that shuffle a player's graveyard back into their library and the Eldrazi titans of yore:

When Kozilek / Ulamog is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library.

Very problematic to our milling strat! A few solutions:

• Counterspell any spells that would shuffle an opponent's graveyard back into their library.
• Disallow the triggered ability of Eldrazi titans going to the 'yard, preventing the titan and graveyard from being shuffled back into their owner's library.
• Sadistic Sacrament can proactively exile 3 problem spells out of a library and sometimes an Opposition Agent can do this, too.

Other times, when an Eldrazi titan has already hit the battlefield, you have to play the long game:

• Wait for them to hit a graveyard.
• Exile the titan the moment it hits the 'yard with Dimir Doppelganger, Eater of the Dead, Scavenger Grounds or Dauthi Voidwalker.
• The rest of your opponent's graveyard shuffles back into their library.
• Start the milling process anew.
• Don't lose hope! You can still ruin their day.

Maybeboard contains things I'd like to add if only I could figure out what to remove to make room.

Suggestions and comments welcome!

Top Ranked	Achieved #24 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	11 years
Last updated	1 week
Exclude colors	WRG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.02
Tokens	Gold, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Commander / EDH, sweet decks, Damn, Phenax gets me all Tiery-eyed, potential deck blueprint, Cool decks, bro, Mill, Phenax mill, Mill, THinking