You also didn't play against Thalia/Arbiter, Devoted Druid/Ezuri, Electromancer/Baral, Kiln Fiend, Infect creatures, Azusa?, or Eidolon (not sure if he matters, the matchup is so miserable). Basically the decks where if the creature sticks around you die. Getting rid of spot removal entirely definitely hurts your matchups against the above decks. Thankfully infect/kiln fiend don't see a lot of play but all the others are top 10 played decks.
I also noticed no surgical in the sideboard. Have you missed it against Tron/Ad Nauseum/Storm/etc...?
If you are going to play JVP then he needs to be in a build where you are playing 10+ creatures or else he just dies the turn he comes into play.
What cards would you bring in against 8 rack? You didn't seem to like anything you mentioned in your post.
For Storm I have the mindbreak traps. I would not say I missed surgical vs tron but I am thinking if fitting 2 in the side. Go wide decks, damnation is good, so is crypt incursion. I gain 51 life off of incursion vs the monogreen deck I faced.
I agree that JVP needs to build around to survive. In another on demand event I was joined I faced another mill deck with Search for Azcanta. Mill mirror he had no issues flipping it and it did filter cards for him really well but I am not sure about it in the long run. I would run Azcanta over JVP cause I like what Azcanta can do and it is a little harder to remove.
No idea about 8 rack
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I'll answer some questions, not quoting since I'm in mobile and it's a pain, sorry.
Bontu's no untapping has been annoying, yes, and I'm not keeping it. I'll likely use Damnation or Ratchet bomb in its place, I'm not usually in a hurry to cast it t3, but the lost turn afterwards is brutal unless they went all in and got completely wrecked.
Since I see concern for 8rack, I used to run Ratchet Bomb as the sweeper before Bontu's. As a sweeper it was not as effective, since you only swipe 1 CMC and unless you draw it early it's too slow, but usually picking 1 or 2 CMC did enough work that I could pull through. It was also helpful to clear some other annoying permanents, so I liked it a lot.
Ratchet bomb is GREAT against 8 rack, play it and charge to 1, next turn blow up any Afflictions and Racks he had. I haven't had much trouble against 8 rack, since getting rid of removal and playing Sanity gives my deck a lot more hellbent power.
Regarding Darkness, if you haven't, please try it in place of Pushes. I'm not saying it's strictly better, but try the mental exercise of switching them in your mind whenever you draw one and at least for me, I've much more frequently preferred Darkness over Push. I won versus Infect the other day (still a terrible matchup for my list since I have no removal) on the back of 2 of them, making him waste a lot of pump and buying enough time.
I tried JVP for a while some months ago, getting him to stick was just impossible. Love the card and would've loved to play him, but he usually was dead before flipping, or if he flipped, soon after since I couldn't protect him properly. Never got value for all that trouble, I would play snapcaster before him if I wanted recursion.
I love Search for Azcanta and got the playset along with my Fields of Ruin. I don't think it will be good in our deck, unless we turn way more controlish, at which point mill as the win condition is going into unnecesary trouble, better finish them with a colonade or something like that. But I do love the card, both sides.
jay2rockusa, don't you miss some card draw? I like the idea of playing some more mill spells and going full on burn mode for earlier Bridges, though I would use some worse 1 or 2 mana mill spell in place of mind funerals so I could cast my hand faster.
I can never get behind now wanting ancestral recall, haha. I will cast visions to draw 3 even with a bridge out unless I'm super screwed, ancestral recall is not something you pass on!
I want to test Mana Leak instead of Remand though, while I love the extra gas of Remand and I think I will miss it, getting rid of a threat for good might be better than that drawing sometimes...
You could probably find room by cutting the 2nd copy of Mindbreak and Ravenous. You have the snare to find them and how often do you need a 2nd trap to win (I'm actually not sure about mindbreak since I've never played it).
Quartz, I am not locked into some of the auxiliary cards like bridge, push or even the rav trap. I was playing thought scour for a while, so I may still play around Visions.
One of the shops I used to play in had a lot of nahiri decks with very few creatures and emrikul, even one guy siding 2 copies of gaea's blessing just to stop mill. I do not like the idea of a game 1 auto loss and crypt incursion just did not do enough, thus my like for ravenous trap.
In the mana leak vs remand debate, it all depends on mana availability, cmc of card, and mesmeric orb. The tempo/draw of remand is nice with higher cmc with orb in play. Mana leak is good early but not as much later.
Dosequiguy, I also have never even brought in Mindbreak, I just got them and with the snares i may only need the one out of the board or even one rav in the main. I did not really think about that as I was retooling.
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Has anybody tried Commit // Memory over Set Adrift out of the side. Two mana less vs the hard cast, give us more time to mill the card away or can be used as a counter. Memory would never be cast but commit seems decent.
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Nope, haven't tried it.
I barely have cast Set Adrift a few times, but the "U" mana cost has always been relevant, since it was against t0 leylines.
I don't know if 3U would've made it, and the upside is barely noticeable (they could have only 1 thing tapped with Orb in play, or tap 1 thing to mill 1 and draw it again, or so on).
The latest card I've been testing and loved it so far is Yaheeni's Expertise. Bontu's last reckoning was very underwhelming as I said, since the no untap is killer. Ratchet bomb has some upsides, but against a curved deck picking 1 mana cost to wipe can be hard, plus it's slow.
Yaheeni's has worked nicely so far since it doesn't stop the milling, and whatever survives the -3/-3 usually can be stopped by bridge (which I once dropped for free after playing the expertise, haha).
So far it's been good, I'll try replacing the Darkness with it, and putting Darkness in the sideboard (I still think it's great, but the combo of wiping the board and playing a Bridge/Sanity/Incursion is just soo good. We'll see.
Yaheeni's has worked nicely so far since it doesn't stop the milling, and whatever survives the -3/-3 usually can be stopped by bridge (which I once dropped for free after playing the expertise, haha).
So far it's been good, I'll try replacing the Darkness with it, and putting Darkness in the sideboard (I still think it's great, but the combo of wiping the board and playing a Bridge/Sanity/Incursion is just soo good. We'll see.
hi everybody, this is my first post on mtgsalvation, but i've been lurking a few days/weeks now. especially this thread!
i stopped mtg ~10 years ago, played legacy & vintage back then, but since upgrading my (out of date) legacy life.deck (daru / en-kor combo) would force me to add blue and buy playsets of duals/fetchies/fow etc... long story short, its way too expensive for me atm. so i went through most of my cards and realised that a modern mill is in my budget since most expensive cards are already in my collection (fetchies, glimpse, bridges etc...)
i always loved the method of milling your opponent to death (played solidarity before swapping to life) so i went to my local store and the owner couldnt believe that i was coming back 10 years after i stopped mtg (what a nice chat i had with him), bought most of the cards i was missing and even more and play-tested it.
since i am back on the mtg-drug and my competitive mindset is kicking in again, i am looking for some feed-backs, suggestions etc... especially on the sideboard! Decklist
please be gentle if i made any huge mistakes at creating this deck and feel free to comment my list
much love, HGB
Im not a fan of plying white just for 3 mainboard spells that dont advance your gameplan
Im not a fan of playing Extirpate main, a trap card in my opinion and too many people get caught. Its like playing Gain_Life spell main, it will probably win you a game against Burn but most of the times its mediocre at best. Also I think Surgical is just better
Everyone is excited about Fatal Push, not using it seems bad
Bridge is a narrow card that has high fail rate, I would play 2 main max or move them entirely to side.
If you decide to use bridge you want your curve to be low compared to land count and use more mana sink utility lands (like 4-5?) to spend superflous mana
I think your decklist is fine. All of your cards are the most common cards played in mill decks that have put up results. The one key card you aren't playing is Jace's Phantasm and are playing path in its place which is better than push in many scenarios and if you re-read through this thread there are many posters who swear by the card. Both phantasm and path have matchups where you want one card over the other. Playing esper and specifically basic plains is an absolute beating when you draw it early in a deck that needs UB on turn 2 and UBUB ideally on turn 4. You also take a lot of damage from your lands. After seeing the Birmingham list that plays path in the side I've been timkering with a build that only plays hallowed fountain and godless shrine as white producing with a healthy number of islands and swamps and then using path in the side with no spot removal in the main.
Bridge is good against shadow and eldrazi (the two most played decks). Path/push are best against annoying creatures like Thalia and baral etc... and crypt incursion is best against affinity and zoo/Merfolk etc... the best mix of these spells is meta dependant in my opinion.
Surgical and Phantasm also have very polarizing matchups where they are either the best or worst cards in your deck. It's tough to find the right balance among all these cards. The advantage of playing surgical main is it gives you a chance to beat storm game 1 and improves combo matchups and death shadow. I used to think surgical was bad against shadow but their win conditions are so light that a turn 0 trap into surgical extracting death shadow etc... can win the game a lot of the time.
Looking at your main deck with no phantasm. Your burn/affinity matchups will take a hit so make sure you have a sideboard plan for those matchups (these matchups usually stink anyway so you should have a plan for these regardless but even more so here).
First, I will freely admit that I haven't read through all of the recent posts (much less the whole thread), so I may have missed a prior discussion on this topic, but I have a question for the U/B Mill community.
Has anyone had success, even in testing, with a more control-ish version of the deck?
Perhaps focusing on sculpting a hand dependent on Fraying Sanity + Archive Trap as a win condition.
I have found recently that playing the deck as "burn for their deck" doesn't keep up with the rest of the aggro or combo decks in the field. ... That's a generalization, but I hope you get the point. It turns the deck into, at best, a tier two deck.
Is there a chance that mill is viable as a control deck?
At least 2 copies are a must. Once Fraying is on, you need a safe way to consistently combo with Archive trap and Field of Ruin. I really love that deck, mine is very similar and with the extra Fatal Push and Crypts I guess you can hold the aggro back.
That is the approach I've been taking as well, I play Bridges maindeck instead of Pushes, but I will try switching them since Bridge is frequently too slow, and while it wins some matches on its own, frequently a Fatal Push or two is enough.
I don't think the 2 Mind Funerals are worth it, I've been pretty happy with Yahenni's Expertise so far, but that's playing Bridge that handles bigger threats that have survived it, so maybe the extra gas is worth it. I think I would still go +1 Breaking and +1 Snare for extra gas, or bring in some more interaction in those slots...
He has 4 Crabs in place of my 4 Remand/Mana Leak, which I'm not sure of, but I'll take any excuse to give the Crabs another shot, and having the Fatal Pushes serves that basic initial interaction that my counterspells provide, so maybe it works out nicely. I still think enabling all their creature removal is not worth it, but well, he won a Modern Challenge, haha.
I DO think Modern is so diverse right now that it becomes a bit random, and matchups play a big part on the results. There's just no way to account for all the competitive decks out there, so with a bit of luck, decks like Mill can get very good results. We're not susceptible to most sideboard cards, except maybe leyline. The lack of Echoing Truth in his SB and only Set Adrift makes me think he got lucky with that, which might be the correct approach, just resign to t0 leyline rather than waste sideboard slots to come back from it)
It also is clearly very susceptible to planeswalkers, but as I said, you have to pick your battles in Modern, so I guess he decided to drop those for low cost protection against burn/affinity/elves in Profane Memento
IMO mill is one of the very few archetypes where its main structure depends on your local metagame. It has so many variants that may strongly shift the deck towards different directions that it will always depend on your current match ups as we can read across this discussion.
All I can say, just make a deck you feel confortable with and always keep a deep reading on your current meta. The only way we can have some sort of supreme build is with the addition of new cards (just look how Sanity/Fields of Ruin improved this deck).
32 entries isn't my definition of a big tournament. I was referring to GPs SCG opens/classics. After viewing the 32 entries it was quite the meta game for mill with 2 copies of affinity, 1 copy of counters company, 1 storm, and 1 burn, 0 infect... I'm not surprised that he won in a field like that regardless of whatever build you have... the matchups you get punished for not having Phantasm scribe etc... weren't in the tournament.
Clearly there is more than 32 people and I'm just being dumb, being a 7 rd tournament... I still can't find a tournament field # but I guess this qualifies as a 1 of (and hopefully more to come). How many people do Modern challenges get? 100? 200?
I also noticed no surgical in the sideboard. Have you missed it against Tron/Ad Nauseum/Storm/etc...?
If you are going to play JVP then he needs to be in a build where you are playing 10+ creatures or else he just dies the turn he comes into play.
What cards would you bring in against 8 rack? You didn't seem to like anything you mentioned in your post.
I agree that JVP needs to build around to survive. In another on demand event I was joined I faced another mill deck with Search for Azcanta. Mill mirror he had no issues flipping it and it did filter cards for him really well but I am not sure about it in the long run. I would run Azcanta over JVP cause I like what Azcanta can do and it is a little harder to remove.
No idea about 8 rack
CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy
GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard
GRGR Pummeler
Bontu's no untapping has been annoying, yes, and I'm not keeping it. I'll likely use Damnation or Ratchet bomb in its place, I'm not usually in a hurry to cast it t3, but the lost turn afterwards is brutal unless they went all in and got completely wrecked.
Since I see concern for 8rack, I used to run Ratchet Bomb as the sweeper before Bontu's. As a sweeper it was not as effective, since you only swipe 1 CMC and unless you draw it early it's too slow, but usually picking 1 or 2 CMC did enough work that I could pull through. It was also helpful to clear some other annoying permanents, so I liked it a lot.
Ratchet bomb is GREAT against 8 rack, play it and charge to 1, next turn blow up any Afflictions and Racks he had. I haven't had much trouble against 8 rack, since getting rid of removal and playing Sanity gives my deck a lot more hellbent power.
Regarding Darkness, if you haven't, please try it in place of Pushes. I'm not saying it's strictly better, but try the mental exercise of switching them in your mind whenever you draw one and at least for me, I've much more frequently preferred Darkness over Push. I won versus Infect the other day (still a terrible matchup for my list since I have no removal) on the back of 2 of them, making him waste a lot of pump and buying enough time.
I tried JVP for a while some months ago, getting him to stick was just impossible. Love the card and would've loved to play him, but he usually was dead before flipping, or if he flipped, soon after since I couldn't protect him properly. Never got value for all that trouble, I would play snapcaster before him if I wanted recursion.
I love Search for Azcanta and got the playset along with my Fields of Ruin. I don't think it will be good in our deck, unless we turn way more controlish, at which point mill as the win condition is going into unnecesary trouble, better finish them with a colonade or something like that. But I do love the card, both sides.
jay2rockusa, don't you miss some card draw? I like the idea of playing some more mill spells and going full on burn mode for earlier Bridges, though I would use some worse 1 or 2 mana mill spell in place of mind funerals so I could cast my hand faster.
I can never get behind now wanting ancestral recall, haha. I will cast visions to draw 3 even with a bridge out unless I'm super screwed, ancestral recall is not something you pass on!
I want to test Mana Leak instead of Remand though, while I love the extra gas of Remand and I think I will miss it, getting rid of a threat for good might be better than that drawing sometimes...
One of the shops I used to play in had a lot of nahiri decks with very few creatures and emrikul, even one guy siding 2 copies of gaea's blessing just to stop mill. I do not like the idea of a game 1 auto loss and crypt incursion just did not do enough, thus my like for ravenous trap.
In the mana leak vs remand debate, it all depends on mana availability, cmc of card, and mesmeric orb. The tempo/draw of remand is nice with higher cmc with orb in play. Mana leak is good early but not as much later.
Dosequiguy, I also have never even brought in Mindbreak, I just got them and with the snares i may only need the one out of the board or even one rav in the main. I did not really think about that as I was retooling.
CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy
GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard
GRGR Pummeler
CEldraziTron, UBMill, GWBogles
Legacy
GUInfect, CEldrazi
Standard
GRGR Pummeler
I barely have cast Set Adrift a few times, but the "U" mana cost has always been relevant, since it was against t0 leylines.
I don't know if 3U would've made it, and the upside is barely noticeable (they could have only 1 thing tapped with Orb in play, or tap 1 thing to mill 1 and draw it again, or so on).
The latest card I've been testing and loved it so far is Yaheeni's Expertise. Bontu's last reckoning was very underwhelming as I said, since the no untap is killer. Ratchet bomb has some upsides, but against a curved deck picking 1 mana cost to wipe can be hard, plus it's slow.
Yaheeni's has worked nicely so far since it doesn't stop the milling, and whatever survives the -3/-3 usually can be stopped by bridge (which I once dropped for free after playing the expertise, haha).
So far it's been good, I'll try replacing the Darkness with it, and putting Darkness in the sideboard (I still think it's great, but the combo of wiping the board and playing a Bridge/Sanity/Incursion is just soo good. We'll see.
This deck got 2nd place in SCG Modern IQ in Glassboro.
Interesting approach with the 3 Fatal Push and Jaces Phantasm.
this has been testing pretty well
2x Drowned Catacomb
3x Field of Ruin
1x Ipnu Rivulet
5x Island
2x Marsh Flats
4x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
4x Watery Grave
4x Fraying Sanity
2x Crypt Incursion
3x Fatal Push
2x Trapmaker's Snare
4x Visions of Beyond
3x Breaking
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
2x Mind Funeral
2x Yahenni's Expertise
4x Mesmeric Orb
2x Collective Brutality
2x Crypt Incursion
3x Darkness
1x Echoing Truth
4x Leyline of the Void
1x Set Adrift
2x Surgical Extraction
Im not a fan of playing Extirpate main, a trap card in my opinion and too many people get caught. Its like playing Gain_Life spell main, it will probably win you a game against Burn but most of the times its mediocre at best. Also I think Surgical is just better
Everyone is excited about Fatal Push, not using it seems bad
Bridge is a narrow card that has high fail rate, I would play 2 main max or move them entirely to side.
If you decide to use bridge you want your curve to be low compared to land count and use more mana sink utility lands (like 4-5?) to spend superflous mana
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
Bridge is good against shadow and eldrazi (the two most played decks). Path/push are best against annoying creatures like Thalia and baral etc... and crypt incursion is best against affinity and zoo/Merfolk etc... the best mix of these spells is meta dependant in my opinion.
Surgical and Phantasm also have very polarizing matchups where they are either the best or worst cards in your deck. It's tough to find the right balance among all these cards. The advantage of playing surgical main is it gives you a chance to beat storm game 1 and improves combo matchups and death shadow. I used to think surgical was bad against shadow but their win conditions are so light that a turn 0 trap into surgical extracting death shadow etc... can win the game a lot of the time.
Looking at your main deck with no phantasm. Your burn/affinity matchups will take a hit so make sure you have a sideboard plan for those matchups (these matchups usually stink anyway so you should have a plan for these regardless but even more so here).
Has anyone had success, even in testing, with a more control-ish version of the deck?
Perhaps focusing on sculpting a hand dependent on Fraying Sanity + Archive Trap as a win condition.
I have found recently that playing the deck as "burn for their deck" doesn't keep up with the rest of the aggro or combo decks in the field. ... That's a generalization, but I hope you get the point. It turns the deck into, at best, a tier two deck.
Is there a chance that mill is viable as a control deck?
Legacy - WRG Lands, WR Shortcake, RR Burn, UBRG Delver
Trapmaker plan seems viable with fraying mills
That is the approach I've been taking as well, I play Bridges maindeck instead of Pushes, but I will try switching them since Bridge is frequently too slow, and while it wins some matches on its own, frequently a Fatal Push or two is enough.
I don't think the 2 Mind Funerals are worth it, I've been pretty happy with Yahenni's Expertise so far, but that's playing Bridge that handles bigger threats that have survived it, so maybe the extra gas is worth it. I think I would still go +1 Breaking and +1 Snare for extra gas, or bring in some more interaction in those slots...
He has 4 Crabs in place of my 4 Remand/Mana Leak, which I'm not sure of, but I'll take any excuse to give the Crabs another shot, and having the Fatal Pushes serves that basic initial interaction that my counterspells provide, so maybe it works out nicely. I still think enabling all their creature removal is not worth it, but well, he won a Modern Challenge, haha.
I DO think Modern is so diverse right now that it becomes a bit random, and matchups play a big part on the results. There's just no way to account for all the competitive decks out there, so with a bit of luck, decks like Mill can get very good results. We're not susceptible to most sideboard cards, except maybe leyline. The lack of Echoing Truth in his SB and only Set Adrift makes me think he got lucky with that, which might be the correct approach, just resign to t0 leyline rather than waste sideboard slots to come back from it)
It also is clearly very susceptible to planeswalkers, but as I said, you have to pick your battles in Modern, so I guess he decided to drop those for low cost protection against burn/affinity/elves in Profane Memento
All I can say, just make a deck you feel confortable with and always keep a deep reading on your current meta. The only way we can have some sort of supreme build is with the addition of new cards (just look how Sanity/Fields of Ruin improved this deck).
Check Toybird's deck. Got 1st and you dont see any MS or Phantasms.
Clearly there is more than 32 people and I'm just being dumb, being a 7 rd tournament... I still can't find a tournament field # but I guess this qualifies as a 1 of (and hopefully more to come). How many people do Modern challenges get? 100? 200?