So the list I posted earlier just Top 4'd this weekend's Modern Premiere. He also 3-1'd a Daily that day.
I'm pretty convinced this deck is for real. I just wish I could find a way for a little more discard either in the board or main. As I stated earlier, counters can be annoying. I guess I just need to practice more/be a better player to play around them. I'm very excited for the future of this archetype. No disrespect to the more aggro builds, as they work quite well too...but I just love winning by straight Milling! Lets keep the discussion going and hopefully the 2 guys who had this MTGO success lately read this and have some more insight.
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"A prince must imitate the Fox and the Lion, for the Lion cannot protect himself from traps and the Fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a Fox to recognize traps, and a Lion to frighten wolves." -- Machiavelli
A huge advantage of Mill over Kill Mill is that it doesn't rely on creatures nearly as much. It's just Hedron Crab plus a lot of mill spells, effectively making it a burn deck that attacks on an axis that is not life-based. When possible, I would always want a Modern deck to use as few creatures as possible, just to avoid playing a fair game with decks packing maindeck Pyroclasm and 10+ removal spells. Kill Mill plays too fairly in that regard. Mill, however, does not. That is not to suggest that Kill Mill is bad (I have seen its MTGO performances). But I still think that Traditional Mill would be better over the course of more games or larger events.
A huge advantage of Mill over Kill Mill is that it doesn't rely on creatures nearly as much. It's just Hedron Crab plus a lot of mill spells, effectively making it a burn deck that attacks on an axis that is not life-based. When possible, I would always want a Modern deck to use as few creatures as possible, just to avoid playing a fair game with decks packing maindeck Pyroclasm and 10+ removal spells. Kill Mill plays too fairly in that regard. Mill, however, does not. That is not to suggest that Kill Mill is bad (I have seen its MTGO performances). But I still think that Traditional Mill would be better over the course of more games or larger events.
Couldn't agree more....
As far as the turn 2 kill, rage quits are the nuts!!!
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"A prince must imitate the Fox and the Lion, for the Lion cannot protect himself from traps and the Fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a Fox to recognize traps, and a Lion to frighten wolves." -- Machiavelli
Here is a video from Micheal Jacob vs scapeshift. Turn 2 win lol
That was crazy sick.
Okay, maybe the disruption isn't needed that much.
I still think I agree that the Mind Funeral's could be taken out for disruption, esp if you did something like:
-4 Mind Funeral
+1 Breaking // Entering
+3 Dismember, or some other disruption.
Also, you have to figure that if this deck takes off, we're gonna have to deal with things like Wheel of Sun and Moon eventually.
Perhaps those +3 slots could be Spell Pierce? Mill typically doesn't have a free mana up though, at the end of the turn.
Enchantment destruction is gonna be pretty tough to add. We could re-work the mana base slightly (get rid of Scalding Tarn, add the 4th Misty Rainforest, change swamp to Overgrown Tomb, maybe -1 Island and +1 Breeding Pool) and add in a couple Abrupt Decay in those slots instead?
Otherwise, you'd still have to either use a different green card (Nature's Claim) or add white for Demystify or Disenchant, or something like that to deal with it.
Speaking of Kill Mill, I at one point had a similar strategy going (Jace's Phantasm, etc...) to feed creatures and attack. My friend's Boros deck destroyed it. I just couldn't race him on the face beating, and even if I Surgical Extracted a problem card, he just had more similiar cards in the deck to beat me with.
Ultimately, this [build] is a combo deck where the combo itself is played aggressively. All we really need to do is figure out a way to protect the combo.
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currently playing Modern: U tron WG boggles EDH: GW saffi ericksdotter
Just out of curiosity, what criteria needs to be met to move up to "Established"?
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"A prince must imitate the Fox and the Lion, for the Lion cannot protect himself from traps and the Fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a Fox to recognize traps, and a Lion to frighten wolves." -- Machiavelli
Just out of curiosity, what criteria needs to be met to move up to "Established"?
I follow the MTGO decks pretty closely, looking over finishes in every event, not just those in the ones that get posted to the MTGO site. I can tell you that this deck getting finishes is not even close to meeting the criteria for "Established" status. There's a lot of rogue junk that makes showings from week to week without actually being competitive. For this list to prove its power, it is going to need some more premier finishes, and/or some paper wins.
In the testing that I do with my group, this deck has a big problem in the aggro matchup of depending 100% on a Crypt Incursion. No Incursion is game over. Against Affinity, Incursion isn't even a guaranteed save because of A) Inkmoth, B) Plating, and C) Overseer. All of those cards can either punch through gigantic Incursions or just flat out get around it.
To that end, we tried to make the deck more reliable in getting Incursion by switching out Augur for Peer Through Depths. As a blocker, Augur is terrible. The opponent either removes him with all the excess removal they have lying around, flies over him (Affinity dudes), or tramples over him (Ghor Clan Rampager). The only matchup where he shines as a blocker is against Melira Pod, which has a beatdown mode that is comparatively less powerful, but that matchup is good to begin with. Peer gives us +2 dig power in finding the critical Incursion, lets us try and find a Trap in response to an Archive activation, and lets us have more options in matchups like Twin where we need to find answers.
We also went -2 Mind Funeral for +2 Surgical Extraction. Extraction is an absolute massacre against combo decks, and it's nice to automatically win those in game 1. Twin gets demolished by this card. So does Scapeshift and Storm. It also dramatically improves our game plan against Reanimator and Gifts, both of which can asymmetrically benefit from our milling. Finally, it is relevant against the wide range of decks that use Snapcaster to generate advantage. Funeral can have a lot of raw power, especially against aggro decks, but I never found myself losing an aggro matchup because I needed just one more last mill. We were losing aggro matchups because we didn't have Incursion. Extraction also helps against decks like Affinity and Zoo by taking out their scariest cards (Plating, Inkmoth, Goyf, Tribal Flames, etc.).
We are also underwhelmed by Orb in our testing, but we haven't gotten to test against the full range of decks in the top tier. I suspect it will be a lot better in longer games.
These lists need 2-3 snapcaster mages it seems to help push out the final hit.
Snapcaster is definitely something we are testing. He is basically an extra set of Crypt Incursion, so long as you already drew 1. I don't like that he makes the deck graveyard dependent, given the coming rise of Ooze and the presence of DRS everywhere, but I do like the additional power he gives the deck. Recurring Glimpse or Funeral is brutal, and there is a lot of cool interaction that you can do with recurred Extractions.
Also, I have been testing young pyromancer as a 3 of. He offers some blockers to help you from death or he can overwhelm your opponent if the mill direction isn't working. What are your guys thoughts about him in here?
I follow the MTGO decks pretty closely, looking over finishes in every event, not just those in the ones that get posted to the MTGO site. I can tell you that this deck getting finishes is not even close to meeting the criteria for "Established" status. There's a lot of rogue junk that makes showings from week to week without actually being competitive. For this list to prove its power, it is going to need some more premier finishes, and/or some paper wins.
In the testing that I do with my group, this deck has a big problem in the aggro matchup of depending 100% on a Crypt Incursion. No Incursion is game over. Against Affinity, Incursion isn't even a guaranteed save because of A) Inkmoth, B) Plating, and C) Overseer. All of those cards can either punch through gigantic Incursions or just flat out get around it.
To that end, we tried to make the deck more reliable in getting Incursion by switching out Augur for Peer Through Depths. As a blocker, Augur is terrible. The opponent either removes him with all the excess removal they have lying around, flies over him (Affinity dudes), or tramples over him (Ghor Clan Rampager). The only matchup where he shines as a blocker is against Melira Pod, which has a beatdown mode that is comparatively less powerful, but that matchup is good to begin with. Peer gives us +2 dig power in finding the critical Incursion, lets us try and find a Trap in response to an Archive activation, and lets us have more options in matchups like Twin where we need to find answers.
We also went -2 Mind Funeral for +2 Surgical Extraction. Extraction is an absolute massacre against combo decks, and it's nice to automatically win those in game 1. Twin gets demolished by this card. So does Scapeshift and Storm. It also dramatically improves our game plan against Reanimator and Gifts, both of which can asymmetrically benefit from our milling. Finally, it is relevant against the wide range of decks that use Snapcaster to generate advantage. Funeral can have a lot of raw power, especially against aggro decks, but I never found myself losing an aggro matchup because I needed just one more last mill. We were losing aggro matchups because we didn't have Incursion. Extraction also helps against decks like Affinity and Zoo by taking out their scariest cards (Plating, Inkmoth, Goyf, Tribal Flames, etc.).
We are also underwhelmed by Orb in our testing, but we haven't gotten to test against the full range of decks in the top tier. I suspect it will be a lot better in longer games.
Thanks for sharing. Agree with most of your points.
Augur is so awesome against Goblin Guide(s) but I agree it's removal might be best though probably only digging such as Peer through the Depths should replace them.
Orb is great. Keep testing :). Three seems almost perfect, imo, though an argument for 2 could be made if for whatever reason you want a higher instant/sorcery density. Seems against every deck Orb is worth the investment and against some tapout/cantrip decks like American Control... it just wins.
*Also I'm liking x3-4 Ghost Quarters. Great for Inkmoths/etc. OR fooling your opponent into searching/using on yourself with Crab.
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
1. Ravenous Trap over Leyline of the Void? It's worse against multiple Emrakul effects, but can be hit off Augur of Bolas/Peer through Depths, doesn't turn off your GY dependent effects (Surgical Extraction/Crypt Incursion/Visions of Beyond) until the Emrakul is actually milled, and doesn't need to be in your opening hand to be efficient.
2. What's the gameplan against Leyline of Sanctity? Bounce it with Echoing Truth and then...?
For Mind Funeral, a good first order approximation for cards milled is R*4, where R is the ratio of total cards to lands in a deck. The majority of decks in Modern run 20-25 lands, so we can consider Mind Funeral as a "Mill 10-12". Take that for what you will.
1. Ravenous Trap over Leyline of the Void? It's worse against multiple Emrakul effects, but can be hit off Augur of Bolas/Peer through Depths, doesn't turn off your GY dependent effects (Surgical Extraction/Crypt Incursion/Visions of Beyond) until the Emrakul is actually milled, and doesn't need to be in your opening hand to be efficient.
I would definitely go with Trap over Leyline. You can get it off of Peer, it can't be interacted with/removed as easily, and it's often a total surprise to your opponent. Most importantly, it's a much better topdeck than Leyline and is generally more economical. Trap is always going to cost 0 mana for us. Leyline is going to cost 0 on turn 1, if we have it in our opening seven, and then 4 on subsequent turns. At least for us, Leyline is almost always going to be inferior.
2. What's the gameplan against Leyline of Sanctity? Bounce it with Echoing Truth and then...?
The best answer that my team and I found was Vanishment, at least if we keep in UB. Conventional bounce doesn't really work because we can't win on the turn we bounce Leyline, so the opponent can just recast it after we mill a few. Vanishment, on the other hand, lets us mill the offending card after we put it on top of their deck. Regular bounce could also work, so long as you combined it with Extraction, but that still forces you to have a Leyline already in the yard to target, a tall order given the fact that Leyline probably prevented you from milling at all. Nevermaker is a cheaper option at only 4 mana, but the fact that he isn't an instant is a problem. I'll keep looking around, but Vanishment seems like the best option, even if it isn't great.
Anyone want to share specific advice for Merfolk matchups? I realize Merfolk isn't exactly a popular powerhouse. But @ my LGS, I almost always have to face it and I've had good to great success in testing/playing this deck against ANYTHING other than Merfolk.
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
The deck finished 2nd in the modern premier event on MTGO this past weekend. There was another 3-1 finish in a modern daily as well. No changes to combat sanctity, but one did have Wipe Away in the s/b.
The leyline is a major problem. But, unless this deck suddenly becomes the FotM and starts getting a large portion of the decks that show up to events most people probably won't dedicate 4 slots in their s/b to Leyline of Sanctity. The deck does have the potential to sweep a major tournament, and if it does...well we know everyone and thier grandmother will be bringing it or boarding against it. The other thing to look at is how many top tier decks run white, and or can cast the leyline even if their plan is "Get leyine opening hand, hope they can't get rid of it before I win."
Adding a splash of a third color such as green or white to combat blue and black's natural lack of enchanment removal could be the key. Changing the sac lands to accomidate the fetch of two w/g searchable lands for say Ray of Revelation. It would give us two potential uses per card and we would only need to fetch for a g/w land once to get those two uses. We could go super deep and only include one w/g dual, and just change all of our fetches to Misty's (considering it appears the deck only runs 4 fetches).
The deck finished 2nd in the modern premier event on MTGO this past weekend. There was another 3-1 finish in a modern daily as well. No changes to combat sanctity, but one did have Wipe Away in the s/b.
The leyline is a major problem. But, unless this deck suddenly becomes the FotM and starts getting a large portion of the decks that show up to events most people probably won't dedicate 4 slots in their s/b to Leyline of Sanctity. The deck does have the potential to sweep a major tournament, and if it does...well we know everyone and thier grandmother will be bringing it or boarding against it. The other thing to look at is how many top tier decks run white, and or can cast the leyline even if their plan is "Get leyine opening hand, hope they can't get rid of it before I win."
Adding a splash of a third color such as green or white to combat blue and black's natural lack of enchanment removal could be the key. Changing the sac lands to accomidate the fetch of two w/g searchable lands for say Ray of Revelation. It would give us two potential uses per card and we would only need to fetch for a g/w land once to get those two uses. We could go super deep and only include one w/g dual, and just change all of our fetches to Misty's (considering it appears the deck only runs 4 fetches).
Completely agree. Looks like Azazel/others are still on x2-3 Augurs. Personally, I'm liking Peer through Depths more being Augurs seem to never block lethal damage and do very little against evasion/trample. Peer also digs deeper for Leyline/SB answers.
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
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Adding a splash of a third color such as green or white to combat blue and black's natural lack of enchanment removal could be the key. Changing the sac lands to accomidate the fetch of two w/g searchable lands for say Ray of Revelation. It would give us two potential uses per card and we would only need to fetch for a g/w land once to get those two uses. We could go super deep and only include one w/g dual, and just change all of our fetches to Misty's (considering it appears the deck only runs 4 fetches).
Did a bunch of testing against Leyline, and you are right that the best solution is to add another color. I liked Vanishment for a while, but it was just too inconsistent. If you could hardcast it for 3 or 4 then it would be fine. But at 5, it just lacks synergy with Peer Through Depths.
When looking at other colors, the obvious choice for removal is Nature's Claim. The drawback is completely negligent in our deck and it also helps out our worst current matchup: Affinity. We can grab it off Peer and we can cast it for just 1 mana. Once we bin the Leyline, all it takes is an Extraction to get rid of it for good. Ray of Revelation seems bad in the deck because it forces us to run a dead GW land. This deck has a lot of cards that cost both U and B, with very little costing colorless mana in any capacity. A Temple Garden would actually just sit around and waste a land drop. But a Breeding Pool or Overgrown Tomb would be just fine.
Completely agree. Looks like Azazel/others are still on x2-3 Augurs. Personally, I'm liking Peer through Depths more being Augurs seem to never block lethal damage and do very little against evasion/trample. Peer also digs deeper for Leyline/SB answers.
I should emphasize that Peer is just better than Augur in the deck. It digs 2 more for our sideboard answers and, most importantly, the critical Crypt Incursion. I have never (literally, never) found myself with an Augur saving the day with a clutch chump block. I'm either alive without the Augur or completely steamrolled by damage regardless of his 3 toughness. Peer is just much better with Archive Trap, Ravenous Trap, Nature's Claim, removal, and basically everything else in the deck.
Did a bunch of testing against Leyline, and you are right that the best solution is to add another color. I liked Vanishment for a while, but it was just too inconsistent. If you could hardcast it for 3 or 4 then it would be fine. But at 5, it just lacks synergy with Peer Through Depths.
When looking at other colors, the obvious choice for removal is Nature's Claim. The drawback is completely negligent in our deck and it also helps out our worst current matchup: Affinity. We can grab it off Peer and we can cast it for just 1 mana. Once we bin the Leyline, all it takes is an Extraction to get rid of it for good. Ray of Revelation seems bad in the deck because it forces us to run a dead GW land. This deck has a lot of cards that cost both U and B, with very little costing colorless mana in any capacity. A Temple Garden would actually just sit around and waste a land drop. But a Breeding Pool or Overgrown Tomb would be just fine.
I was going for the biggest bang for the buck per card. But I feel you are correct, when I re-evaluated the mana base required to run a majority of our spells, we do have a high number greedy cards mana wise. The best solution very well could be adding a Breeding pool and/or a Overgrown Tomb to the mix for Nature's Claim out of the s/b.
I also agree with your use of Peer Through Depths. This is an aggressive deck. We need to see numbers and get the kill. +2 on a dig for a kill or one of our four "extend the game" cards (Crypt Incursion) is very important. The Mill decks of old sat back played defense and slowly ground you out. We want to cast as fast as we can as much as we can every turn. Try and bait the counters with smaller mills then swing with our haymakers.
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So the list I posted earlier just Top 4'd this weekend's Modern Premiere. He also 3-1'd a Daily that day.
I'm pretty convinced this deck is for real. I just wish I could find a way for a little more discard either in the board or main. As I stated earlier, counters can be annoying. I guess I just need to practice more/be a better player to play around them. I'm very excited for the future of this archetype. No disrespect to the more aggro builds, as they work quite well too...but I just love winning by straight Milling! Lets keep the discussion going and hopefully the 2 guys who had this MTGO success lately read this and have some more insight.
Here is a video from Micheal Jacob vs scapeshift. Turn 2 win lol
A huge advantage of Mill over Kill Mill is that it doesn't rely on creatures nearly as much. It's just Hedron Crab plus a lot of mill spells, effectively making it a burn deck that attacks on an axis that is not life-based. When possible, I would always want a Modern deck to use as few creatures as possible, just to avoid playing a fair game with decks packing maindeck Pyroclasm and 10+ removal spells. Kill Mill plays too fairly in that regard. Mill, however, does not. That is not to suggest that Kill Mill is bad (I have seen its MTGO performances). But I still think that Traditional Mill would be better over the course of more games or larger events.
Couldn't agree more....
As far as the turn 2 kill, rage quits are the nuts!!!
That was crazy sick.
Okay, maybe the disruption isn't needed that much.
I still think I agree that the Mind Funeral's could be taken out for disruption, esp if you did something like:
-4 Mind Funeral
+1 Breaking // Entering
+3 Dismember, or some other disruption.
Also, you have to figure that if this deck takes off, we're gonna have to deal with things like Wheel of Sun and Moon eventually.
Perhaps those +3 slots could be Spell Pierce? Mill typically doesn't have a free mana up though, at the end of the turn.
Enchantment destruction is gonna be pretty tough to add. We could re-work the mana base slightly (get rid of Scalding Tarn, add the 4th Misty Rainforest, change swamp to Overgrown Tomb, maybe -1 Island and +1 Breeding Pool) and add in a couple Abrupt Decay in those slots instead?
Otherwise, you'd still have to either use a different green card (Nature's Claim) or add white for Demystify or Disenchant, or something like that to deal with it.
Speaking of Kill Mill, I at one point had a similar strategy going (Jace's Phantasm, etc...) to feed creatures and attack. My friend's Boros deck destroyed it. I just couldn't race him on the face beating, and even if I Surgical Extracted a problem card, he just had more similiar cards in the deck to beat me with.
Ultimately, this [build] is a combo deck where the combo itself is played aggressively. All we really need to do is figure out a way to protect the combo.
Modern: U tron WG boggles
EDH: GW saffi ericksdotter
Another money finish in a Daily......
Just out of curiosity, what criteria needs to be met to move up to "Established"?
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1284
Modern: U tron WG boggles
EDH: GW saffi ericksdotter
I follow the MTGO decks pretty closely, looking over finishes in every event, not just those in the ones that get posted to the MTGO site. I can tell you that this deck getting finishes is not even close to meeting the criteria for "Established" status. There's a lot of rogue junk that makes showings from week to week without actually being competitive. For this list to prove its power, it is going to need some more premier finishes, and/or some paper wins.
In the testing that I do with my group, this deck has a big problem in the aggro matchup of depending 100% on a Crypt Incursion. No Incursion is game over. Against Affinity, Incursion isn't even a guaranteed save because of A) Inkmoth, B) Plating, and C) Overseer. All of those cards can either punch through gigantic Incursions or just flat out get around it.
To that end, we tried to make the deck more reliable in getting Incursion by switching out Augur for Peer Through Depths. As a blocker, Augur is terrible. The opponent either removes him with all the excess removal they have lying around, flies over him (Affinity dudes), or tramples over him (Ghor Clan Rampager). The only matchup where he shines as a blocker is against Melira Pod, which has a beatdown mode that is comparatively less powerful, but that matchup is good to begin with. Peer gives us +2 dig power in finding the critical Incursion, lets us try and find a Trap in response to an Archive activation, and lets us have more options in matchups like Twin where we need to find answers.
We also went -2 Mind Funeral for +2 Surgical Extraction. Extraction is an absolute massacre against combo decks, and it's nice to automatically win those in game 1. Twin gets demolished by this card. So does Scapeshift and Storm. It also dramatically improves our game plan against Reanimator and Gifts, both of which can asymmetrically benefit from our milling. Finally, it is relevant against the wide range of decks that use Snapcaster to generate advantage. Funeral can have a lot of raw power, especially against aggro decks, but I never found myself losing an aggro matchup because I needed just one more last mill. We were losing aggro matchups because we didn't have Incursion. Extraction also helps against decks like Affinity and Zoo by taking out their scariest cards (Plating, Inkmoth, Goyf, Tribal Flames, etc.).
We are also underwhelmed by Orb in our testing, but we haven't gotten to test against the full range of decks in the top tier. I suspect it will be a lot better in longer games.
Snapcaster is definitely something we are testing. He is basically an extra set of Crypt Incursion, so long as you already drew 1. I don't like that he makes the deck graveyard dependent, given the coming rise of Ooze and the presence of DRS everywhere, but I do like the additional power he gives the deck. Recurring Glimpse or Funeral is brutal, and there is a lot of cool interaction that you can do with recurred Extractions.
Thanks for sharing. Agree with most of your points.
Augur is so awesome against Goblin Guide(s) but I agree it's removal might be best though probably only digging such as Peer through the Depths should replace them.
Orb is great. Keep testing :). Three seems almost perfect, imo, though an argument for 2 could be made if for whatever reason you want a higher instant/sorcery density. Seems against every deck Orb is worth the investment and against some tapout/cantrip decks like American Control... it just wins.
*Also I'm liking x3-4 Ghost Quarters. Great for Inkmoths/etc. OR fooling your opponent into searching/using on yourself with Crab.
1. Ravenous Trap over Leyline of the Void? It's worse against multiple Emrakul effects, but can be hit off Augur of Bolas/Peer through Depths, doesn't turn off your GY dependent effects (Surgical Extraction/Crypt Incursion/Visions of Beyond) until the Emrakul is actually milled, and doesn't need to be in your opening hand to be efficient.
2. What's the gameplan against Leyline of Sanctity? Bounce it with Echoing Truth and then...?
For Mind Funeral, a good first order approximation for cards milled is R*4, where R is the ratio of total cards to lands in a deck. The majority of decks in Modern run 20-25 lands, so we can consider Mind Funeral as a "Mill 10-12". Take that for what you will.
I would definitely go with Trap over Leyline. You can get it off of Peer, it can't be interacted with/removed as easily, and it's often a total surprise to your opponent. Most importantly, it's a much better topdeck than Leyline and is generally more economical. Trap is always going to cost 0 mana for us. Leyline is going to cost 0 on turn 1, if we have it in our opening seven, and then 4 on subsequent turns. At least for us, Leyline is almost always going to be inferior.
The best answer that my team and I found was Vanishment, at least if we keep in UB. Conventional bounce doesn't really work because we can't win on the turn we bounce Leyline, so the opponent can just recast it after we mill a few. Vanishment, on the other hand, lets us mill the offending card after we put it on top of their deck. Regular bounce could also work, so long as you combined it with Extraction, but that still forces you to have a Leyline already in the yard to target, a tall order given the fact that Leyline probably prevented you from milling at all. Nevermaker is a cheaper option at only 4 mana, but the fact that he isn't an instant is a problem. I'll keep looking around, but Vanishment seems like the best option, even if it isn't great.
The leyline is a major problem. But, unless this deck suddenly becomes the FotM and starts getting a large portion of the decks that show up to events most people probably won't dedicate 4 slots in their s/b to Leyline of Sanctity. The deck does have the potential to sweep a major tournament, and if it does...well we know everyone and thier grandmother will be bringing it or boarding against it. The other thing to look at is how many top tier decks run white, and or can cast the leyline even if their plan is "Get leyine opening hand, hope they can't get rid of it before I win."
Adding a splash of a third color such as green or white to combat blue and black's natural lack of enchanment removal could be the key. Changing the sac lands to accomidate the fetch of two w/g searchable lands for say Ray of Revelation. It would give us two potential uses per card and we would only need to fetch for a g/w land once to get those two uses. We could go super deep and only include one w/g dual, and just change all of our fetches to Misty's (considering it appears the deck only runs 4 fetches).
Completely agree. Looks like Azazel/others are still on x2-3 Augurs. Personally, I'm liking Peer through Depths more being Augurs seem to never block lethal damage and do very little against evasion/trample. Peer also digs deeper for Leyline/SB answers.
Did a bunch of testing against Leyline, and you are right that the best solution is to add another color. I liked Vanishment for a while, but it was just too inconsistent. If you could hardcast it for 3 or 4 then it would be fine. But at 5, it just lacks synergy with Peer Through Depths.
When looking at other colors, the obvious choice for removal is Nature's Claim. The drawback is completely negligent in our deck and it also helps out our worst current matchup: Affinity. We can grab it off Peer and we can cast it for just 1 mana. Once we bin the Leyline, all it takes is an Extraction to get rid of it for good. Ray of Revelation seems bad in the deck because it forces us to run a dead GW land. This deck has a lot of cards that cost both U and B, with very little costing colorless mana in any capacity. A Temple Garden would actually just sit around and waste a land drop. But a Breeding Pool or Overgrown Tomb would be just fine.
I should emphasize that Peer is just better than Augur in the deck. It digs 2 more for our sideboard answers and, most importantly, the critical Crypt Incursion. I have never (literally, never) found myself with an Augur saving the day with a clutch chump block. I'm either alive without the Augur or completely steamrolled by damage regardless of his 3 toughness. Peer is just much better with Archive Trap, Ravenous Trap, Nature's Claim, removal, and basically everything else in the deck.
I was going for the biggest bang for the buck per card. But I feel you are correct, when I re-evaluated the mana base required to run a majority of our spells, we do have a high number greedy cards mana wise. The best solution very well could be adding a Breeding pool and/or a Overgrown Tomb to the mix for Nature's Claim out of the s/b.
I also agree with your use of Peer Through Depths. This is an aggressive deck. We need to see numbers and get the kill. +2 on a dig for a kill or one of our four "extend the game" cards (Crypt Incursion) is very important. The Mill decks of old sat back played defense and slowly ground you out. We want to cast as fast as we can as much as we can every turn. Try and bait the counters with smaller mills then swing with our haymakers.