Ive seen a ton of people talking about mill on here recently, and mill isnt too good right now, but there is a way to make mill good. I think the cards people are missing are
Mill decks run these cards in the sideboard, but I think they would really be the best used proactive in the main board. these should be run as four ofs, I think four of both main deck. Heres the reasons why
- super grave hate vs cards like linguring souls
- mills three cards if you hit there four ofs
- can rip cards out there hand if your lucky on a blind guess or have seen their hand
- more mb hate vs cards that prevent the win off mill
- can kill combos in early turns hitting a grapeshot or something
- can get rid of problem cards that you know you cant deal with
- using enough of them can change the land to creature ratio in there deck
- you get too see library and hand
I think a good mill deck would be good with 2 sets of there cards mainboard, what do you guys think.
Mill is not good because it's not good. And filling your deck with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction isn't going to make it even remotely better. In fact, you're making it worse by interacting with the board even less than you already are. Which is only going to let Modern's other creature decks beat you that much faster.
Take my word for it, kids: Mill is a trap. Unless you have Vengevine in your deck and your username is ZX_XZ, you should not be milling anyone. Pass on it and learn a real deck. It'll pay off in the long run.
Mill is not good because it's not good. And filling your deck with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction isn't going to make it even remotely better. In fact, you're making it worse by interacting with the board even less than you already are. Which is only going to let Modern's other creature decks beat you that much faster.
Take my word for it, kids: Mill is a trap. Unless you have Vengevine in your deck and your username is ZX_XZ, you should not be milling anyone. Pass on it and learn a real deck. It'll pay off in the long run.
No one said mill was good but all these people want to try it, they atleast should know how to do it right
Outside of Painter's Servant + Grindstone and Brainfreeze which end the game on the spot, mill is an absolute joke. It takes longer to mill out 53 cards than it does to do 20 damage. In every format.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
If you're playing mill in this format, you have to mainboard something like this. Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, and Relic of Progenitus are all fine choices, probably the latter two are the best. Emrakul and Ulamog are cards in this format, and Tron makes up a reasonable percentage of the meta that you should be playing them. You can't afford to lose game 1s because of this. Even if you mill an Emrakul and hit it with Surgical, they do still get the trigger, which is quite devastating. I'd tell you to play Stifle (I can't remember the one this format has, it's 1U with split second and cantrips), but at this point, we're just going overboard.
That said, mill is awful. The problem is trying to balance creatures and counters into the mix of making them lose cards from their deck. You can't just aggressively mill, that combo is worse than Pod or Storm, but at the same time, you have to mill aggressively enough that you get things done. Yeah, you might be able to beat combos if you mill the right cards, but then how do you beat fair decks? If I go turn 1 Steppe Lynx, turn 2 Helix, turn 3 Geist of Saint Traft, how is this race going to look? Hit you for 10 on turn 4, you're dead on turn 5? Mill can't race that, but at the same time, they can't actually make mill a control deck, because control isn't great in the format to begin with, and mill isn't a good win condition with Emrakul floating around.
I do agree it's best that people realize they need to play these cards, but even so, I still think the deck isn't worth a damn in this format. When people play Emrakul, not much you can do with mill, and since there's no reasonable Stifle, this deck just falls to bits.
I meant Trickbind. Squelch only does half of Stifle with a cantrip, and besides, Trickbind is basically a strictly better Squelch. I'm not going to go over the small cases where being able to use some ability again is beneficial, but suffice to say, it's basically just always better.
I meant Trickbind. Squelch only does half of Stifle with a cantrip, and besides, Trickbind is basically a strictly better Squelch. I'm not going to go over the small cases where being able to use some ability again is beneficial, but suffice to say, it's basically just always better.
If you're playing mill in this format, you have to mainboard something like this. Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, and Relic of Progenitus are all fine choices, probably the latter two are the best. Emrakul and Ulamog are cards in this format, and Tron makes up a reasonable percentage of the meta that you should be playing them. You can't afford to lose game 1s because of this. Even if you mill an Emrakul and hit it with Surgical, they do still get the trigger, which is quite devastating. I'd tell you to play Stifle (I can't remember the one this format has, it's 1U with split second and cantrips), but at this point, we're just going overboard.
That said, mill is awful. The problem is trying to balance creatures and counters into the mix of making them lose cards from their deck. You can't just aggressively mill, that combo is worse than Pod or Storm, but at the same time, you have to mill aggressively enough that you get things done. Yeah, you might be able to beat combos if you mill the right cards, but then how do you beat fair decks? If I go turn 1 Steppe Lynx, turn 2 Helix, turn 3 Geist of Saint Traft, how is this race going to look? Hit you for 10 on turn 4, you're dead on turn 5? Mill can't race that, but at the same time, they can't actually make mill a control deck, because control isn't great in the format to begin with, and mill isn't a good win condition with Emrakul floating around.
I do agree it's best that people realize they need to play these cards, but even so, I still think the deck isn't worth a damn in this format. When people play Emrakul, not much you can do with mill, and since there's no reasonable Stifle, this deck just falls to bits.
I posted this as a public service anouncment for new players. Allot of new players want to try mill, and I awlays see these cards in the sb, but these two cards are your most powerful mainboard cards
I posted this as a public service anouncment for new players. Allot of new players want to try mill, and I awlays see these cards in the sb, but these two cards are your most powerful mainboard cards
First off, "allot" is actually spelled "a lot". Just had to point that out, it was bugging me.
Anyways, they are important MB cards. In a format where grave interaction is important (Emrakul, Snapcaster, Grapeshot, Past in Flames, Murderous Redcap, Kitchen Finks, Mindslaver, etc), the graveyard becomes important enough that you should MB these cards. Being able to hit something very important to a deck is very powerful. Not to mention that Extirpate has Split Second, so they have to just accept it. And those cards are just ones that work out of the grave, there are tons of other cards, like Kiki Jiki, which would be devastating for certain decks, or even Tron lands, which you can hit. And of course, Extirpate and Surgical both mill, which is important to remember. They don't mill in the traditional sense, but there's a decent chance you're hitting cards in their deck, and considering you're getting that card advantage there, it can't really hurt.
I still say Archive Trap is their best MB card, it's just so good in this format. Fetch lands, Tron, Pod, it's hard for it to not be free.
Mill is not good because it's not good. And filling your deck with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction isn't going to make it even remotely better. In fact, you're making it worse by interacting with the board even less than you already are. Which is only going to let Modern's other creature decks beat you that much faster.
Take my word for it, kids: Mill is a trap. Unless you have Vengevine in your deck and your username is ZX_XZ, you should not be milling anyone. Pass on it and learn a real deck. It'll pay off in the long run.
Vengevine is horrible xD.
and yeah idk that mill will ever be viable, but I'd run extirpate/surgical MB.
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I posted this as a public service anouncment for new players. Allot of new players want to try mill, and I awlays see these cards in the sb, but these two cards are your most powerful mainboard cards
These two cards *belong* in the sideboard. Not the main deck.
Surgical extraction and extirpate are the best cards? Two cards that mill 3-4 cards if you're lucky? That's not even remotely good mill. They are only useful for eliminating threats to your strategy. Hence, sideboard cards. They aren't even chosen because they mill specifically, it's just a nice bonus. Anyone talking about mainboarding these isn't considering the fact that, most of the time, they'll be *guessing* to try and eliminate threats the first time.
I think you're just basically neglecting the fact that these cards are useful period, but not specifically useful to mill. You can apply most of what the OP said to any deck running these cards. If you do that, realize what it means, then read the "mills three cards" bit - you can tell for yourself how blah this really is for the overall mill strategy.
The only successful "Mill" decks I've ever run or seen where it was the primary win con used discard, light milling et to power up Haunting Echoes. If you can strip their counters, get 20-25% of their library in the yard and resolve an echoes normally you win because their deck has 1 of's and land and you beat them down with enablers.
Thing is, Tron could still beat that strat in a couple of different ways.
What's nice about the new mill card is it doesn't try to win by decking and that's important. Decking is an off hand strat for 40 card formats or reserved for old school prison decks. (Stasis was unplayable due to time concerns).
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The only successful "Mill" decks I've ever run or seen where it was the primary win con used discard, light milling et to power up Haunting Echoes.
When I think about building a mill deck, I don't even usually think about using black. I have always built mine out of White, blue, and green in the past. Black is not really a first choice. I like the life gain in green and white to supplement the mill strategy.
Turbo fog is the last really awesome mill deck that I can remember. It's been a while since I played it, though. Some had alternate win conditions, if memory serves.
I only see mill as being a fun deck and even then I would play the old one from the lorwyn block with sanity grinding, twincast, etc. That one was loads of fun.
These two cards *belong* in the sideboard. Not the main deck.
Surgical extraction and extirpate are the best cards? Two cards that mill 3-4 cards if you're lucky? That's not even remotely good mill. They are only useful for eliminating threats to your strategy. Hence, sideboard cards. They aren't even chosen because they mill specifically, it's just a nice bonus. Anyone talking about mainboarding these isn't considering the fact that, most of the time, they'll be *guessing* to try and eliminate threats the first time.
I think you're just basically neglecting the fact that these cards are useful period, but not specifically useful to mill. You can apply most of what the OP said to any deck running these cards. If you do that, realize what it means, then read the "mills three cards" bit - you can tell for yourself how blah this really is for the overall mill strategy.
Cards that help you win but don't specifically mill aren't "great milling cards." They're just good cards.
To be fair, you don't want to have to play these MB, and never would if you could avoid it. That said, the format is at a point where you more or less have to.
Tron is a popular enough deck, and it's playing a guaranteed Emrakul, maybe an Ulamog, and depending on the build (the lesser ones in my opinion, playing Tooth and Nail or Through the Breach), you've got as many as 4 Emrakuls. That card is killer for mill, since it basically reads "let's start over". If you're NOT playing Extirpate or something of the sort in the deck, you simply scoop.
Realistically, you don't want to scoop to a deck in game 1 if you can avoid it. We can at least now consider MBing a card like Extirpate, though we ideally don't want to. We need to consider what value we get in an average matchup that it is worth making our deck worse off because of it.
In a Standard environment, certain cards are more powerful than others, but by no means does hitting one or two cards completely kill a deck. However, that's not the case in Modern. With the amount of combo available, hitting one or two cards DOES completely kill a deck. Hitting Kiki in Pod or Grapeshot in Storm WILL kill the deck, to a point where they may as well scoop. And if I consider combo to be 25% of the meta, how good does it sound to have cards in the MB reading "beat a deck". If you consider calling Tron combo, then you get so much more value.
I find that Modern has a meta where, if you play enough, know what to hit in a deck. I can guess a deck on the first or second turn fairly easily, or at least narrow it down fairly well. If I know what deck they're playing, I know what cards I want to avoid, and what their best cards are, along with a shell of a deck list. It's not hard for me to know exactly what I want to hit with Extirpate.
In the end, it's really just extra value that we mill. Do we really want to play a format where we will lose something like 15% of game 1s because of our strategy? Pretty sure Storm and Tron can't be beat if we can't interact with their graveyard; Storm will thank us for binning spells, Tron will laugh at us with Emrakul. I play UW Tron, it can't really beat RG Tron, but the fact that it could is something. If you wanted to beat RG Tron, you'd have to just hope they drew Emrakul with no way to bin it in time. This is aside from the fact that decks like UW Tron might manage to bin Unburial Iona, or Snap gets good value, or whatever else you can come up with.
I find that Modern has a meta where, if you play enough, know what to hit in a deck. I can guess a deck on the first or second turn fairly easily, or at least narrow it down fairly well.
Yes, I'm aware of this. But you're confusing the use of surgical extraction as a generally good card vs. a *milling* card. If your strategy is to mill them down, then surgical extraction is merely a passable card to mill with. You should be using surgical extraction to eliminate *direct* threats to your milling strategy. You can't just take a guess to do that. The deck they are playing will not tell you about that. Leave the actual milling work to cards like howling mine, font of mythos, archive trap, etc. etc. Milling 4 cards to your one card isn't good at all if you're hoping to mill them out.
A card is only ultimately useful if it supports your overall strategy. Surgical extraction is very good at removing certain threats in your path, but as for the ultimate goal of milling your opponent, it's only so-so. A good card, yes, but not an auto-include.
And filling your deck with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction isn't going to make it even remotely better.
That's pretty much what I'm saying. We all know that you can identify decks based on the meta game, but surgical extraction would be used to eliminate cards that reshuffle graveyards into libraries, etc.
Milling 4 cards after the opening hand gets you around 8% closer to your goal. That's equivalent to doing 1.6 damage to someone. It's nothing special.
Mill is not good because it's not good. And filling your deck with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction isn't going to make it even remotely better. In fact, you're making it worse by interacting with the board even less than you already are. Which is only going to let Modern's other creature decks beat you that much faster.
Take my word for it, kids: Mill is a trap. Unless you have Vengevine in your deck and your username is ZX_XZ, you should not be milling anyone. Pass on it and learn a real deck. It'll pay off in the long run.
This is so going to be sigged.
EDIT: People wanting to make mil halfway decent should make mill not their only wincon. An entire deck shut down by Leyline of Sanctity is not really a deck.
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Ive seen a ton of people talking about mill on here recently, and mill isnt too good right now, but there is a way to make mill good. I think the cards people are missing are
Mill decks run these cards in the sideboard, but I think they would really be the best used proactive in the main board. these should be run as four ofs, I think four of both main deck. Heres the reasons why
- super grave hate vs cards like linguring souls
- mills three cards if you hit there four ofs
- can rip cards out there hand if your lucky on a blind guess or have seen their hand
- more mb hate vs cards that prevent the win off mill
- can kill combos in early turns hitting a grapeshot or something
- can get rid of problem cards that you know you cant deal with
- using enough of them can change the land to creature ratio in there deck
- you get too see library and hand
I think a good mill deck would be good with 2 sets of there cards mainboard, what do you guys think.
I was playing Modern Mill with those cards maindeck back in 2011. Not a new idea. Still not good either.
I just realized that both of these only mill after the card goes into the graveyard. I guess that means that they mill 3 cards max, each. There's no guesswork either because you've already seen the card to exile. That makes these barely useful as mill cards, and not even useful at eliminating threats to the mill strategy (because the threat would have probably been used first).
Why wouldn't you just run Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace and completely avoid the shuffle trigger from ever happening off of a milled Eldrazi titan? Even if you extract the titan after it hits the graveyard the cards would still shuffle.
I do think mill is at least viable in the FNM setting. With a bit of interaction in Thoughtseize, Damnation and Boomerang as general answers and Snapcaster for extra value. Then Archive Trap, Mind Funeral and Glimpse the Unthinkable and maybe some others like Mind Sculpt would be enough to get you there fairly regularly. Not hyper competitive but good enough.
No, you should not play all eight (Surgical and Extirpate) because you don't want to draw too many of them. Four Surgical is good and you could have Extirpates in the sideboard.
Mill is not a good deck but it can be built properly. Ensnaring Bridge works well with a mill strategy. I recommend the following package to make sure you can stop attacks for longer times.
-Ensnaring Bridge
-Welding Jar
-Mox Opal
-Darksteel Citadel
This accelerates your game and helps you dump your hand faster to hide behind Bridge. From there you tee off with mill cards until the opponent runs out of cards. you'll need more artifacts to enable Mox Opal. Executioner's Capsule and Mesmeric Orb are fine candidates. Orb could potentially be much better in this setting because it helps with metalcraft and it can be protected by Welding Jar. Capsule is just additional creature removal in the form of an artifact. If you're going for artifacts, Trinket Mage is very good. You can run a small toolbox in your 75 next to the standard kit. Put a Chalice in there to put at 2 to stop Ancient Grudge, which takes care of Bridge/Jar.
Essentially you'll be preying on combo decks (by having 8 extirpate effects in your 75) and you'll be playing the prison strategy against aggro/midrange decks by landing Bridge + Jar. From there you need to draw like 4 or 5 mill spells to win the game.
This is all theorycraft but might be worth looking into. It certainly seems fun.
Mill decks run these cards in the sideboard, but I think they would really be the best used proactive in the main board. these should be run as four ofs, I think four of both main deck. Heres the reasons why
- super grave hate vs cards like linguring souls
- mills three cards if you hit there four ofs
- can rip cards out there hand if your lucky on a blind guess or have seen their hand
- more mb hate vs cards that prevent the win off mill
- can kill combos in early turns hitting a grapeshot or something
- can get rid of problem cards that you know you cant deal with
- using enough of them can change the land to creature ratio in there deck
- you get too see library and hand
I think a good mill deck would be good with 2 sets of there cards mainboard, what do you guys think.
Mill is not good because it's not good. And filling your deck with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction isn't going to make it even remotely better. In fact, you're making it worse by interacting with the board even less than you already are. Which is only going to let Modern's other creature decks beat you that much faster.
Take my word for it, kids: Mill is a trap. Unless you have Vengevine in your deck and your username is ZX_XZ, you should not be milling anyone. Pass on it and learn a real deck. It'll pay off in the long run.
No one said mill was good but all these people want to try it, they atleast should know how to do it right
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That said, mill is awful. The problem is trying to balance creatures and counters into the mix of making them lose cards from their deck. You can't just aggressively mill, that combo is worse than Pod or Storm, but at the same time, you have to mill aggressively enough that you get things done. Yeah, you might be able to beat combos if you mill the right cards, but then how do you beat fair decks? If I go turn 1 Steppe Lynx, turn 2 Helix, turn 3 Geist of Saint Traft, how is this race going to look? Hit you for 10 on turn 4, you're dead on turn 5? Mill can't race that, but at the same time, they can't actually make mill a control deck, because control isn't great in the format to begin with, and mill isn't a good win condition with Emrakul floating around.
I do agree it's best that people realize they need to play these cards, but even so, I still think the deck isn't worth a damn in this format. When people play Emrakul, not much you can do with mill, and since there's no reasonable Stifle, this deck just falls to bits.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
You're mixing two different cards:
Squelch and Trickbind
I meant Trickbind. Squelch only does half of Stifle with a cantrip, and besides, Trickbind is basically a strictly better Squelch. I'm not going to go over the small cases where being able to use some ability again is beneficial, but suffice to say, it's basically just always better.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Yeah, I know.
But I'm just saiyan.
You mixed Squelch in with Trickbind.
I posted this as a public service anouncment for new players. Allot of new players want to try mill, and I awlays see these cards in the sb, but these two cards are your most powerful mainboard cards
First off, "allot" is actually spelled "a lot". Just had to point that out, it was bugging me.
Anyways, they are important MB cards. In a format where grave interaction is important (Emrakul, Snapcaster, Grapeshot, Past in Flames, Murderous Redcap, Kitchen Finks, Mindslaver, etc), the graveyard becomes important enough that you should MB these cards. Being able to hit something very important to a deck is very powerful. Not to mention that Extirpate has Split Second, so they have to just accept it. And those cards are just ones that work out of the grave, there are tons of other cards, like Kiki Jiki, which would be devastating for certain decks, or even Tron lands, which you can hit. And of course, Extirpate and Surgical both mill, which is important to remember. They don't mill in the traditional sense, but there's a decent chance you're hitting cards in their deck, and considering you're getting that card advantage there, it can't really hurt.
I still say Archive Trap is their best MB card, it's just so good in this format. Fetch lands, Tron, Pod, it's hard for it to not be free.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Vengevine is horrible xD.
and yeah idk that mill will ever be viable, but I'd run extirpate/surgical MB.
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These two cards *belong* in the sideboard. Not the main deck.
Surgical extraction and extirpate are the best cards? Two cards that mill 3-4 cards if you're lucky? That's not even remotely good mill. They are only useful for eliminating threats to your strategy. Hence, sideboard cards. They aren't even chosen because they mill specifically, it's just a nice bonus. Anyone talking about mainboarding these isn't considering the fact that, most of the time, they'll be *guessing* to try and eliminate threats the first time.
I think you're just basically neglecting the fact that these cards are useful period, but not specifically useful to mill. You can apply most of what the OP said to any deck running these cards. If you do that, realize what it means, then read the "mills three cards" bit - you can tell for yourself how blah this really is for the overall mill strategy.
Here are examples of useful milling cards: Mind Sculpt & Archive Trap.
Cards that help you win but don't specifically mill aren't "great milling cards." They're just good cards.
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Thing is, Tron could still beat that strat in a couple of different ways.
What's nice about the new mill card is it doesn't try to win by decking and that's important. Decking is an off hand strat for 40 card formats or reserved for old school prison decks. (Stasis was unplayable due to time concerns).
When I think about building a mill deck, I don't even usually think about using black. I have always built mine out of White, blue, and green in the past. Black is not really a first choice. I like the life gain in green and white to supplement the mill strategy.
Turbo fog is the last really awesome mill deck that I can remember. It's been a while since I played it, though. Some had alternate win conditions, if memory serves.
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To be fair, you don't want to have to play these MB, and never would if you could avoid it. That said, the format is at a point where you more or less have to.
Tron is a popular enough deck, and it's playing a guaranteed Emrakul, maybe an Ulamog, and depending on the build (the lesser ones in my opinion, playing Tooth and Nail or Through the Breach), you've got as many as 4 Emrakuls. That card is killer for mill, since it basically reads "let's start over". If you're NOT playing Extirpate or something of the sort in the deck, you simply scoop.
Realistically, you don't want to scoop to a deck in game 1 if you can avoid it. We can at least now consider MBing a card like Extirpate, though we ideally don't want to. We need to consider what value we get in an average matchup that it is worth making our deck worse off because of it.
In a Standard environment, certain cards are more powerful than others, but by no means does hitting one or two cards completely kill a deck. However, that's not the case in Modern. With the amount of combo available, hitting one or two cards DOES completely kill a deck. Hitting Kiki in Pod or Grapeshot in Storm WILL kill the deck, to a point where they may as well scoop. And if I consider combo to be 25% of the meta, how good does it sound to have cards in the MB reading "beat a deck". If you consider calling Tron combo, then you get so much more value.
I find that Modern has a meta where, if you play enough, know what to hit in a deck. I can guess a deck on the first or second turn fairly easily, or at least narrow it down fairly well. If I know what deck they're playing, I know what cards I want to avoid, and what their best cards are, along with a shell of a deck list. It's not hard for me to know exactly what I want to hit with Extirpate.
In the end, it's really just extra value that we mill. Do we really want to play a format where we will lose something like 15% of game 1s because of our strategy? Pretty sure Storm and Tron can't be beat if we can't interact with their graveyard; Storm will thank us for binning spells, Tron will laugh at us with Emrakul. I play UW Tron, it can't really beat RG Tron, but the fact that it could is something. If you wanted to beat RG Tron, you'd have to just hope they drew Emrakul with no way to bin it in time. This is aside from the fact that decks like UW Tron might manage to bin Unburial Iona, or Snap gets good value, or whatever else you can come up with.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Yes, I'm aware of this. But you're confusing the use of surgical extraction as a generally good card vs. a *milling* card. If your strategy is to mill them down, then surgical extraction is merely a passable card to mill with. You should be using surgical extraction to eliminate *direct* threats to your milling strategy. You can't just take a guess to do that. The deck they are playing will not tell you about that. Leave the actual milling work to cards like howling mine, font of mythos, archive trap, etc. etc. Milling 4 cards to your one card isn't good at all if you're hoping to mill them out.
A card is only ultimately useful if it supports your overall strategy. Surgical extraction is very good at removing certain threats in your path, but as for the ultimate goal of milling your opponent, it's only so-so. A good card, yes, but not an auto-include.
That's pretty much what I'm saying. We all know that you can identify decks based on the meta game, but surgical extraction would be used to eliminate cards that reshuffle graveyards into libraries, etc.
Milling 4 cards after the opening hand gets you around 8% closer to your goal. That's equivalent to doing 1.6 damage to someone. It's nothing special.
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This is so going to be sigged.
EDIT: People wanting to make mil halfway decent should make mill not their only wincon. An entire deck shut down by Leyline of Sanctity is not really a deck.
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It's the only mill deck that MIGHT possibly be competitive when Gatecrash is released.
Wizards in relation to modern.
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Not sure if trolling or just very stupid.:fry:
I was playing Modern Mill with those cards maindeck back in 2011. Not a new idea. Still not good either.
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In short, these are pretty ho-hum choices.
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I do think mill is at least viable in the FNM setting. With a bit of interaction in Thoughtseize, Damnation and Boomerang as general answers and Snapcaster for extra value. Then Archive Trap, Mind Funeral and Glimpse the Unthinkable and maybe some others like Mind Sculpt would be enough to get you there fairly regularly. Not hyper competitive but good enough.
Mill is not a good deck but it can be built properly. Ensnaring Bridge works well with a mill strategy. I recommend the following package to make sure you can stop attacks for longer times.
-Ensnaring Bridge
-Welding Jar
-Mox Opal
-Darksteel Citadel
This accelerates your game and helps you dump your hand faster to hide behind Bridge. From there you tee off with mill cards until the opponent runs out of cards. you'll need more artifacts to enable Mox Opal. Executioner's Capsule and Mesmeric Orb are fine candidates. Orb could potentially be much better in this setting because it helps with metalcraft and it can be protected by Welding Jar. Capsule is just additional creature removal in the form of an artifact. If you're going for artifacts, Trinket Mage is very good. You can run a small toolbox in your 75 next to the standard kit. Put a Chalice in there to put at 2 to stop Ancient Grudge, which takes care of Bridge/Jar.
Essentially you'll be preying on combo decks (by having 8 extirpate effects in your 75) and you'll be playing the prison strategy against aggro/midrange decks by landing Bridge + Jar. From there you need to draw like 4 or 5 mill spells to win the game.
This is all theorycraft but might be worth looking into. It certainly seems fun.