Okay so im new here and if this isnt the right place for this please let me know. But this deck isnt exactly for competitive. Its mostly just to play mondern/standard with friends and maybe the occasional local tournament but I do want some advice/opinions on it.
Sorcery
4 tome scour
4 glimpse the unthinkable
3 mind funeral
2 increasing confusion
Planeswalker
Jace, the memory walker
So as of play style n combos
jaces phantasm not a main card but a high potential for an easy 5/5 flying one drop by turn 2-3
Now I'm not 100% on this one so if someone could give me feedback on it.
Duskmantle guild mage+glimpse the unthinkable+fraying sanity. Saying they dont counter glimpse, the idea is on turn 5 I cast glimpse, stack duskmantle's first effect so they lose 10 life at the end step fraying sainty effect kicks in which mills another 10 cards and if I'm correct will also lose another 10 life winning the game
Drowned secerts is in there due to the fact every card i can cast is blue one way or other.
Undead alchemist will exile creature cards and bring out 2/2 blue zombie.
Hmmm I'll have to check everything status again thanks for that.
As for the mana ive been debatin on more mana but I dont really have an issue so far with test run on the deck builder app I'm using, especially since my the majority of my cards are 1-2 drop
Welcome! As pointed out above, there are cards in your deck that aren't in Standard (currently Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria, M19 and Guilds of Ravnica). You have laid out the deck very nicely and should be able to convert it easily to use decktags (technically required, described here or mouse over the editor widgets and play with it). I am not sure whether to move this to casual or Modern, but I think you should get some decent feedback in Casual, so I will try that. - hoser2
Jace's Phantasm actually doesn't play that well in mill. It splits your win condition and is a dead draw. There's basically three types of mill decks with only two of them being viable.
2. Control with Incidental mill. Think Thought Scour if the cards in graveyard matter to you, or Winds of Rebuke to get some extra value. This is where I put Phenax, God of Destruction as he allows you to play defensive creatures (often with defender) and then tap them to mill at the end of the opponent's turn. Look up "lantern control" if you want to see this on a competitive level. Fraying Sanity can be played in these decks as a way to turn board wipes into mill cards.
3. Aggro Mill. This is where you start playing cards that only mill the opponent and don't have other value. The issue is that many of these cards are just worse than playing mono-red and going after life total. To win with mill you usually have to get rid of around 50 cards. Compared to the starting life total of 20 that means you need to hit 2.5 cards per point of life that a card of that cost would hit. Lightning bolt is one mana for three damage. At that ratio, a one mana mill card should burn 7-8 cards. Tome scour only removes five. At 2-3 mana burn is usually hitting for 4, for an equivalent 12 cards milled. Glimpse the unthinkable is only 10. This count makes Traumatize look really good, but 5 mana is a huge investment in a card that won't win you the game. You can't race other decks on those numbers. Burn is often the deck that sets the speed of the format, and you need some sort of game against it. I think the only mill card that really holds up here is Mind Funeral.
So lets talk Jace's Phantasm. This card doesn't achieve the strategy of winning through mill. It does however have tremendous upside. If you want to play it I recommend moving to more incidental mill, (winds of rebuke, thought scour, predict) and play more cards that card about the size of the opponent's graveyard. If you play a tempo deck with Delver of Secrets and Jace's Phantasm you can use other removal to clear the way and discard to fill their graveyard more. Visions of Beyond can also give you a bit of late game.
Lastly a note about the biggest weakness of mill as a strategy: The graveyard is a resource. It is far easier to interact with your graveyard than your library. Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Tombstalker, Treasure Cruise, Anger, Bridge From Below, and Dread Return all punish mill heavily. If you want to play mill, pack graveyard hate. Leaving stuff in the opponent's graveyard is a losing strategy, get it to exile afterwards if you haven't killed them yet.
3. Aggro Mill. This is where you start playing cards that only mill the opponent and don't have other value. The issue is that many of these cards are just worse than playing mono-red and going after life total. To win with mill you usually have to get rid of around 50 cards. Compared to the starting life total of 20 that means you need to hit 2.5 cards per point of life that a card of that cost would hit. Lightning bolt is one mana for three damage. At that ratio, a one mana mill card should burn 7-8 cards. Tome scour only removes five. At 2-3 mana burn is usually hitting for 4, for an equivalent 12 cards milled. Glimpse the unthinkable is only 10. This count makes Traumatize look really good, but 5 mana is a huge investment in a card that won't win you the game. You can't race other decks on those numbers. Burn is often the deck that sets the speed of the format, and you need some sort of game against it. I think the only mill card that really holds up here is Mind Funeral.
Really good point that needs to get emphasized more.
Mill isn't inherently bad. Wizards just nerfed the power level of mill cards compared to burn cards, so there aren't great options for going "aggro mill" (casting spells to mill your opponent's library as fast as possible until it's all gone).
They print Lava Spike and Lightning Bolt vs Tome Scour. To match Lava Spike in power level, Tome Scour would need to mill 7-8 cards instead of 5. To match Lightning Bolt in power level, it would need to read "Instant. Choose one - Target creature gets -0/-3 until end of turn; Put the top 7 cards of target player's library in his or her graveyard; Remove 3 loyalty counters from target planeswalker." Lightning Bolt just has so much utility. It can burn opponents, but it can also kill creatures and hurt planeswalkers, and it's an instant. Clearly Lightning Bolt is just so much better than any mill card ever printed, which is just unfair to the mill player.
Looking at the above math, Glimpse the Unthinkable is fair. If mill needs to be 2.5 times as much as burn and you can burn 4 for 2 mana (e.g. Boros Charm), then Glimpse is fair milling 10 = 4 * 2.5. The problem is Glimpse lacks flexibility. Boros Charm is an instant and also has 2 other modes, while Glimpse is a sorcery and can only mill. It's like the Lightning Bolt vs Tome Scour comparison above. Lightning Bolt and Boros Charm just do so many more things other than just attack the opponent.
These are the mill spells I would consider efficient for their mana costs: Archive Trap (0 mana -> mill 13) Hedron Crab (1 mana -> can mill 12+ over the course of the game) Memory Sluice (1 mana -> mill 8, if you have 2 cheap creatures) Glimpse the Unthinkable (2 mana -> mill 10) Trapmaker's Snare (2 mana -> mill 13, by getting Archive Trap) Mind Funeral (3 mana -> mill 8-14 ish, depending on how many lands they play) Sanity Grinding (3 mana -> mill 20+, but you have to build around it)
Lands
4 drowned catacombs
4 sunken hollows
8 islands
4 swamps
Creatures
4 Jaces phantasm
4 duskmantle guildmage
2 riddlekeeper
3 undead alchemist
2 consuming abberation
Enchantments
4 fraying sanity
2 drowned secerts
Instant
4 thought scour
2 archive trap
Sorcery
4 tome scour
4 glimpse the unthinkable
3 mind funeral
2 increasing confusion
Planeswalker
Jace, the memory walker
So as of play style n combos
jaces phantasm not a main card but a high potential for an easy 5/5 flying one drop by turn 2-3
Now I'm not 100% on this one so if someone could give me feedback on it.
Duskmantle guild mage+glimpse the unthinkable+fraying sanity. Saying they dont counter glimpse, the idea is on turn 5 I cast glimpse, stack duskmantle's first effect so they lose 10 life at the end step fraying sainty effect kicks in which mills another 10 cards and if I'm correct will also lose another 10 life winning the game
Drowned secerts is in there due to the fact every card i can cast is blue one way or other.
Undead alchemist will exile creature cards and bring out 2/2 blue zombie.
But a quick critique is that there's not enough lands. You will need at least 24.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
As for the mana ive been debatin on more mana but I dont really have an issue so far with test run on the deck builder app I'm using, especially since my the majority of my cards are 1-2 drop
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
1. Combo mill. This is anything that deals with the opponents library in a single turn. Leyline of the Void + Helm of Obedience, Painter's servant + grindstone, Mindcrank + Bloodchief Ascension, self mill also often falls under this category with Labratory Maniac.
2. Control with Incidental mill. Think Thought Scour if the cards in graveyard matter to you, or Winds of Rebuke to get some extra value. This is where I put Phenax, God of Destruction as he allows you to play defensive creatures (often with defender) and then tap them to mill at the end of the opponent's turn. Look up "lantern control" if you want to see this on a competitive level. Fraying Sanity can be played in these decks as a way to turn board wipes into mill cards.
3. Aggro Mill. This is where you start playing cards that only mill the opponent and don't have other value. The issue is that many of these cards are just worse than playing mono-red and going after life total. To win with mill you usually have to get rid of around 50 cards. Compared to the starting life total of 20 that means you need to hit 2.5 cards per point of life that a card of that cost would hit. Lightning bolt is one mana for three damage. At that ratio, a one mana mill card should burn 7-8 cards. Tome scour only removes five. At 2-3 mana burn is usually hitting for 4, for an equivalent 12 cards milled. Glimpse the unthinkable is only 10. This count makes Traumatize look really good, but 5 mana is a huge investment in a card that won't win you the game. You can't race other decks on those numbers. Burn is often the deck that sets the speed of the format, and you need some sort of game against it. I think the only mill card that really holds up here is Mind Funeral.
So lets talk Jace's Phantasm. This card doesn't achieve the strategy of winning through mill. It does however have tremendous upside. If you want to play it I recommend moving to more incidental mill, (winds of rebuke, thought scour, predict) and play more cards that card about the size of the opponent's graveyard. If you play a tempo deck with Delver of Secrets and Jace's Phantasm you can use other removal to clear the way and discard to fill their graveyard more. Visions of Beyond can also give you a bit of late game.
Lastly a note about the biggest weakness of mill as a strategy: The graveyard is a resource. It is far easier to interact with your graveyard than your library. Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Tombstalker, Treasure Cruise, Anger, Bridge From Below, and Dread Return all punish mill heavily. If you want to play mill, pack graveyard hate. Leaving stuff in the opponent's graveyard is a losing strategy, get it to exile afterwards if you haven't killed them yet.
Hope this helps!
Really good point that needs to get emphasized more.
Mill isn't inherently bad. Wizards just nerfed the power level of mill cards compared to burn cards, so there aren't great options for going "aggro mill" (casting spells to mill your opponent's library as fast as possible until it's all gone).
They print Lava Spike and Lightning Bolt vs Tome Scour. To match Lava Spike in power level, Tome Scour would need to mill 7-8 cards instead of 5. To match Lightning Bolt in power level, it would need to read "Instant. Choose one - Target creature gets -0/-3 until end of turn; Put the top 7 cards of target player's library in his or her graveyard; Remove 3 loyalty counters from target planeswalker." Lightning Bolt just has so much utility. It can burn opponents, but it can also kill creatures and hurt planeswalkers, and it's an instant. Clearly Lightning Bolt is just so much better than any mill card ever printed, which is just unfair to the mill player.
Looking at the above math, Glimpse the Unthinkable is fair. If mill needs to be 2.5 times as much as burn and you can burn 4 for 2 mana (e.g. Boros Charm), then Glimpse is fair milling 10 = 4 * 2.5. The problem is Glimpse lacks flexibility. Boros Charm is an instant and also has 2 other modes, while Glimpse is a sorcery and can only mill. It's like the Lightning Bolt vs Tome Scour comparison above. Lightning Bolt and Boros Charm just do so many more things other than just attack the opponent.
These are the mill spells I would consider efficient for their mana costs:
Archive Trap (0 mana -> mill 13)
Hedron Crab (1 mana -> can mill 12+ over the course of the game)
Memory Sluice (1 mana -> mill 8, if you have 2 cheap creatures)
Glimpse the Unthinkable (2 mana -> mill 10)
Trapmaker's Snare (2 mana -> mill 13, by getting Archive Trap)
Mind Funeral (3 mana -> mill 8-14 ish, depending on how many lands they play)
Sanity Grinding (3 mana -> mill 20+, but you have to build around it)
Memory Sluice is pretty good with cheap reusable mill creatures like Hedron Crab and Grimoire Thief (and Conspire taps it!).
Sanity Grinding is good if you fill your deck up with a lot of blue mana symbols. Cards like Ghastlord of Fugue, Overbeing of Myth, Dominus of Fealty, Cryptic Command, Nightveil Specter, Counterspell, Tempest Djinn. It's hard to make that work in a pure mill deck, but you could just make a blue devotion deck with Sanity Grinding as a mill win condition.