Black/Blue Mill is worthless against Mono-Green with bunch of Elves?
Deck Help forum
Posted on June 21, 2013, 5:38 a.m. by RageQuit4Life
I've built my black/blue mill deck equipped with:
--Creatures--
2x Consuming Abberation
4x Fog Bank
3x Wight of Precinct Six
2x Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
2x Jace's Phantasm
3x Duskmantle Guildmage
2x Kraken Hatchling
2x Undead Alchemist
--Instant--
4x Thought Scour
4x Cancel
4x Breaking / Enter
--Artifact--
2x Codex Shredder
--Sorcery--
2x Mind Grind
--Land--
4x Drowned Catacomb
2x Dimir Guildgate
2x Nephalia Drownyard
7x Swamps
8x Islands
I thought this deck is a pretty good mill deck but I'm struggling to overcome my friend of mine's deck. He got a mono-green deck with elves fest. He got a lot of mana acceleration effects from his elves creatures. He always produce ridiculous amount of mana. I feel like it's impossible to slow him down before he used one of his OP mythic card that will get himself an instant win. Basically he got 3 kind of cards that he can get an instant win.
He got (as far I can remember):
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Archdruid
4x Arbor Elf
3x Elvish Visionary
3x Gyre Sage
3x Ivy Lane Denizen
2x Soul of the Harvest
2x Craterhoof Behemoth
2x Primal Surge
2x Akroma's Memorial
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Pithing Needle
2x Elixir of Immortality
That's all I can remember. He always put out his a lot of mana acceleration creatures in a few turn then use his Elvish Archdruid to produce a load of mana to cast one of his mythic rare card to win the game. He sometimes cast pithing needle to alter my Undead Alchemist to prevent me from spawning a load of 2/2 zombies whenever a creature is put to graveyard from opponent's library. I find his deck is very frustrating to overcome with a slow mill deck. I would need some of your help to give some ideas which cards that can slow him down and win the game.
MagicalHacker says... #3
Slycne is correct about Pithing Needle .
My simple fix: AEtherize . However, Murder and Ultimate Price would also help.
Also, your mill deck could be made faster with a playset of both Mind Sculpt and Increasing Confusion , more Undead Alchemist s, and 4 Jace, Memory Adept .
As a side note, this thread has somewhat an air of poor sportsmanship and lack of appreciation for your friend being able to produce large amounts of mana and have a deck built around Primal Surge . His deck beats yours because it is better, and I think you should recognize that instead of calling his cards "OP" and unfair. His deck may be frustrating, but being a great magic player is about admitting defeat when you come up against a superior deck/player/etc.
June 21, 2013 6:36 a.m.
If you are really eager to go mill then you could try Psychic Strike . I agree with mstancea on the need for some removal. Maybe Grisly Spectacle would be a worthwhile card to go along with Murder / Ultimate Price .
June 21, 2013 8:13 a.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #5
If you want to build a creature-based mill deck, like you seem to be above, you're going to want to abuse the combo between Undead Alchemist and Undercity Informer . This combo will allow you to build up a small army to stand up against all of his elves.
Ideally you don't want to run any creature, or card for that matter, that doesn't have a mill aspect to it, to help focus your deck. Psychic Spiral and Grisly Spectacle are great, and Dimir Charm works wonders.
June 21, 2013 10:05 a.m.
Just a quick note, your opponent has a couple of Elixir of Immortality s. If you are designing your deck specifically to beat him, putting in a Tormod's Crypt or an equivalent may prevent him from coming right back after you mill him out.
You probably don't need the Kraken Hatchling
s against this particular deck. They will be too small when he gets his mythic cards and if he isn't attacking you in the early game much anyway, they are basically useless.
June 21, 2013 10:52 a.m.
Killabeetle says... #7
Check out my mill deck for some idea's if you like it has beat green aggro an other aggro combo's. one time with only 3 mana all game lol Cypress Mill - Illusions, it is quite different then your deck but you might find some useful cards there. +1 for my mill brotha...
June 21, 2013 10:54 a.m.
RageQuit4Life says... #9
Thank you for giving me some advice, I'm really appreciated it. I will take look at your card suggests. Thanks for helping me to become as a better player! :D
June 21, 2013 7:13 p.m.
RageQuit4Life says... #10
@mstance
Sorry if I'm sound like poor sportsmanship, but I'm really applause at his first attempt deck and came out as a good deck. I'm sure that his deck is not that difficult to build one, since it's his main goals to put out his creature as fast as possible and produce a lot of mana and it's works. Mill deck is a kinda complex deck to make, have to know which cards that will fit in. Thanks again for helping me out.
June 21, 2013 8:02 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #11
That is true, your deck has more decisions whereas his is 2 Primal Surge , 2 Akroma's Memorial , 4 Craterhoof Behemoth , and then any creature that can make mana.
Good, now I know you are not a douchey magic player, but it might have been your username that threw me off ;)
In all honesty, from building mill standard these are my observations:
- Undead Alchemist finishes games. Period. Need 4.
- Jace, Memory Adept 's -0 ALSO finishes games. Need 4.
- Consuming Aberration is also good at finishing games. I recommend 4...
- If you have Undead Alchemist and are running black, the combo with Undercity Informer is ridiculously good. Need 4.
- If you have Jace, Memory Adept and are running black, Duskmantle Guildmage can end the game with 6 mana. Need 4.
- With Consuming Aberration , the combos with Paranoid Delusions and Whispering Madness are amazing, plus the latter can dig for the above combos.
- Since all of these except for one are 4-6 CMC, need some mana dorks, most notably, Deranged Assistant .
- Since he mills you as well, take a look at these flashback cards: Increasing Confusion , Dream Twist , Chill of Foreboding .
- To better mill yourself and your opponent, use Ghoulcaller's Bell .
- This gives you the option of using Deathrite Shaman as a mana dork as well.
This leads to the following decklist:
- 4 Deathrite Shaman
- 4 Ghoulcaller's Bell
- 4 Deranged Assistant
- 4 Paranoid Delusions
- 4 Undercity Informer
- 4 Duskmantle Guildmage
- 4 Increasing Confusion
- 4 Undead Alchemist
- 4 Jace, Memory Adept
- 4 Consuming Aberration
Because you can't fit everything, I decided that Dream Twist should be dropped because it doesn't do enough in spite of being a cheap card, Whispering Madness should be dropped since it risks your opponent getting an answer, and Chill of Foreboding should be dropped because it is too expensive to use.
That deck list requires a bit more swamps than islands because the lower drops require black and the high drops require blue. Optimally, 4 Watery Grave and 4 Drowned Catacomb would be best, but this deck is not going to suffer horrendous game losses without them.
That is the scariest and most efficient mill deck in standard that I can see.
June 21, 2013 9:26 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #12
Then again, I forgot that mana ramping can be replaced with cards that will help you last late game. If that would be preferred, replace Deathrite Shaman , Ghoulcaller's Bell , Deranged Assistant , and Increasing Confusion with Murder , Ultimate Price , Jace's Phantasm , and Fog Bank .
That would work MUCH better.
What was I thinking?
Slycne says... #2
Well for starters Pithing Needle won't do anything against Undead Alchemist . Pithing Needle works against activated abilities like Frilled Oculus 's pay 2 for +2/+2 until end of turn, but Undead Alchemist has a replacement effect and a triggered ability.
If you want to slow him down you need cards to interact with his board, elves is basically a combo deck and you're doing nothing to stop the combo, so he's got plenty of time every game to find all the pieces he needs. Has nothing to do with OP mythics, he could kill you with any number of cards at that point. A few kill spells to take out some of his key pieces or a sweeper to knock out a bunch of the little elves would go a long way.
June 21, 2013 6:10 a.m.