The Plague Engineer is by far the most exciting card for me. Night of Souls' Betrayal did absolute work but the 4 mana cost and double black requirement often was a turn too slow or you just never got double black in matchups where you think it would be great like affinity, humans, even infect. Also, infect was boarding in Nature's Claim so it wasn't even a lock. This new guy costs 3 mana and is a creature so even if Thalia is in play you will cast this guy on turn 3. Infect only plays spell Pierce and often no removal so this guy won't get countered in that matchup and he can chump block and trade with glistener elf if you are desperate while killing all Blighted Agents and Noble Hierarchs (both human). Against UW control he can pressure planeswalkers and shut out snapcaster mage and vendillion clique (wizard). Normally UW boards out removal for counterspells and such so this guy is another must kill threat which helps crabs/scribes stay alive if you are on a creature build. Also, having deathtouch is relevant against creatures like Gurmag Angler and big Champions/Lieutenants or Glistener Elf. Either they trade off or don't attack giving us more time to mill them.
I can't stress how often I've lost games with Night of Souls' Betrayal because it cost 4 mana instead of 3. I still play the card because when it sticks it is just that good but at 3 mana this guy feels like an amazing addition to the sideboard.
On top of that... 3 drops are very clogged up. If you are running Ensnaring Bridge you can only run a couple 3 cmc spells in addition to bridge or else you never empty your hand in time (don't forget you are playing 4x Archive Traps). You also have high impact cards like Fraying Sanity and Crypt Incursion so you need to ask yourself if you'd rather have Psychic Corrosion than one of the above.
What mill really needs is another high impact 1 drop like Hedron Crab.
Blessed Alliance can be brought in against burn. It is good against infect/boggles/kiln fiend etc... It's just a more flexible card.
Bridge is mainly for Death Shadow/Angler and TKS/Reality Smasher for the tier 1 decks... It hoses other random decks like Boggles and even Humans. You should be boarding them out vs fast decks that go low like Affinity/Elves/Merfolk/Zoo/burn etc... It definitely sucks to play Bridge main deck along with 4x Mesmeric Orb because it makes all artifact hate good cards to bring in. It's just one of those swingy cards where if you have it for the right matchup it is the best card in your deck... or the worst.
Every mill deck plays either Surgical or Extirpate. Surgical is the only card maindeckable in my opinion. Across the field it is a better card but Extirpate will win you games that Surgical can't such as UR Breach. It's also a lot better vs GDS because they can't stubborn denial it. Most lists will usually combine one of those 2 cards with either Leyline of the Void/Nihil Spellbomb/Ravenous Trap. Sometimes you will see 1-2 Trapmaker's Snare mainboard which leads to Ravenous Trap in the sideboard. Don't play Fraying Sanity if you plan to use Leyline of the Void sideboard. Out of the 3 options mentioned above Leyline of the Void has the most impact but only on turn 0. You need to mulligan aggressively for it against some matchups or you just won't win. As of now I'm playing 2 Surgical Mainboard and 2 Extirpate and 1 Surgical sideboard.
Jace's Phantasm is awesome in our bad matchups (burn/affinity/infect). Non Crainial Plating draws will stop affinity from attacking for several turns often winning you the game. Infect will need to waste 2 pump spells or 1 pump spell and their creature to get it off the board. One of your best draws to beat burn is 1 Glimpse and 2+ Phantasms and you go for the beatdown plan. You can also trick burn players into casting bolts on Phantasm in which you can Archive Trap in response to get em'. The two main ways you beat burn are Crypt Incursion and Phantasm beats. If you hate playing against Ponza and want the blood moon land destruction player to get salty at you then play Jace's Phantasm. The Ponza deck can't beat a 5/5 flier. I have won several games against them with zero lands in play and only casting 2 spells against them (Phantasm and Glimpse). Phantasm is bad against decks that play a lot of removal. I would make him the first cut against All of the 3 color "fair decks" and Death Shadow. If you play Leyline of the Void sideboard you should just board out Phantasm for it since they are nonbo.
Manic Scribe is good against burn and fast decks with a lot of 2 power creatures. At the beginning of the game he is an 0/3 mill 3 that can usually stall an attacker or at least get in the way. He's also good against grindy decks where you just need a constant source of milling. Later in the game you will have delirium and he accumulates a lot of value. He gets around Leyline too so if your opponent is locked out with Bridge you can win the long game with him even if the Leyline is out in play. He's kind of worthless against Affinity because all their creatures fly and the matchup isn't about grinding them out. You usually don't have enough good cards to bring in so he stays in against nearly every deck. I think it is very important for you to play 10+ creatures if you plan on using Scribe because your opponent killing your creatures is the key for turning on delirium for him. Also having more threats allows your guys to stay on the board. If they don't answer phantasm he will just kill them and if they answer phantasm it usually means your Scribes are milling 3 a turn or your crabs are able to stay alive and mill 10+ cards a game. My current build runs 4x Crab/Scribe/Phantasm. I have not gotten around to testing Jace Vryn's prodigy much but would echo the sentiment that he requires a high creature count or else he will just die as soon as he enters the battlefield.
As for the best mill list. Still up for debate because none of them are really good. You have the Esper list from the SCG classic that plays 12 anti creature cards main deck (path/push/bridge/incursion/damnation). You have the Scribes/phantasm/orb list from GP LA and GP Birmingham. Then you have the Fraying Sanity build from Toybird that went 10-0 in a Modern Challenge a few months back and Quartz has a similar list. For the most part all mill decks will be one of those 3 builds. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. The Esper mana base it very painful and will cost you games against decks like burn and affinity that UB will have more equity against. White gives you a clean answer to Leyline of Sanctity with Disenchant/Fragmentize and path to exile mainboard which makes your death shadow and random combo matchups like Devoted Company a lot better. The matchups where you want creature removal in your deck are better for Esper because they have more playable removal spells. Esper can't beat Blood Moon, UB can. Once you get used to playing with Set Adrift and Echoing Truth you learn how to play against Leyline of Sanctity and can win games against a T0 Leyline. It all depends what you want to beat and what you enjoy playing.
Just thinking about the deck it plays so many cards that are either great or horrible based on the matchup (Surgical, Jace's Phantasm, Ensnaring Bridge, Crypt Incursion, fatal push). Being able to discard these dead cards for value makes me think Collective Brutality should definitely have a home. There was a new 5-0 list that mainboarded 2 copies. Collective Brutality can also enable delirium for a Scribe or get rid of an uncastable trap or extra lands for your Ensnaring Bridge. I probably need to play more games with this card.
The only time that has come up for me is against burn when they kill you in their upkeep with zero cards in library. Generally it's a non factor from my experience.
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I can't stress how often I've lost games with Night of Souls' Betrayal because it cost 4 mana instead of 3. I still play the card because when it sticks it is just that good but at 3 mana this guy feels like an amazing addition to the sideboard.
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What mill really needs is another high impact 1 drop like Hedron Crab.
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Bridge is mainly for Death Shadow/Angler and TKS/Reality Smasher for the tier 1 decks... It hoses other random decks like Boggles and even Humans. You should be boarding them out vs fast decks that go low like Affinity/Elves/Merfolk/Zoo/burn etc... It definitely sucks to play Bridge main deck along with 4x Mesmeric Orb because it makes all artifact hate good cards to bring in. It's just one of those swingy cards where if you have it for the right matchup it is the best card in your deck... or the worst.
Every mill deck plays either Surgical or Extirpate. Surgical is the only card maindeckable in my opinion. Across the field it is a better card but Extirpate will win you games that Surgical can't such as UR Breach. It's also a lot better vs GDS because they can't stubborn denial it. Most lists will usually combine one of those 2 cards with either Leyline of the Void/Nihil Spellbomb/Ravenous Trap. Sometimes you will see 1-2 Trapmaker's Snare mainboard which leads to Ravenous Trap in the sideboard. Don't play Fraying Sanity if you plan to use Leyline of the Void sideboard. Out of the 3 options mentioned above Leyline of the Void has the most impact but only on turn 0. You need to mulligan aggressively for it against some matchups or you just won't win. As of now I'm playing 2 Surgical Mainboard and 2 Extirpate and 1 Surgical sideboard.
Jace's Phantasm is awesome in our bad matchups (burn/affinity/infect). Non Crainial Plating draws will stop affinity from attacking for several turns often winning you the game. Infect will need to waste 2 pump spells or 1 pump spell and their creature to get it off the board. One of your best draws to beat burn is 1 Glimpse and 2+ Phantasms and you go for the beatdown plan. You can also trick burn players into casting bolts on Phantasm in which you can Archive Trap in response to get em'. The two main ways you beat burn are Crypt Incursion and Phantasm beats. If you hate playing against Ponza and want the blood moon land destruction player to get salty at you then play Jace's Phantasm. The Ponza deck can't beat a 5/5 flier. I have won several games against them with zero lands in play and only casting 2 spells against them (Phantasm and Glimpse). Phantasm is bad against decks that play a lot of removal. I would make him the first cut against All of the 3 color "fair decks" and Death Shadow. If you play Leyline of the Void sideboard you should just board out Phantasm for it since they are nonbo.
Manic Scribe is good against burn and fast decks with a lot of 2 power creatures. At the beginning of the game he is an 0/3 mill 3 that can usually stall an attacker or at least get in the way. He's also good against grindy decks where you just need a constant source of milling. Later in the game you will have delirium and he accumulates a lot of value. He gets around Leyline too so if your opponent is locked out with Bridge you can win the long game with him even if the Leyline is out in play. He's kind of worthless against Affinity because all their creatures fly and the matchup isn't about grinding them out. You usually don't have enough good cards to bring in so he stays in against nearly every deck. I think it is very important for you to play 10+ creatures if you plan on using Scribe because your opponent killing your creatures is the key for turning on delirium for him. Also having more threats allows your guys to stay on the board. If they don't answer phantasm he will just kill them and if they answer phantasm it usually means your Scribes are milling 3 a turn or your crabs are able to stay alive and mill 10+ cards a game. My current build runs 4x Crab/Scribe/Phantasm. I have not gotten around to testing Jace Vryn's prodigy much but would echo the sentiment that he requires a high creature count or else he will just die as soon as he enters the battlefield.
As for the best mill list. Still up for debate because none of them are really good. You have the Esper list from the SCG classic that plays 12 anti creature cards main deck (path/push/bridge/incursion/damnation). You have the Scribes/phantasm/orb list from GP LA and GP Birmingham. Then you have the Fraying Sanity build from Toybird that went 10-0 in a Modern Challenge a few months back and Quartz has a similar list. For the most part all mill decks will be one of those 3 builds. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. The Esper mana base it very painful and will cost you games against decks like burn and affinity that UB will have more equity against. White gives you a clean answer to Leyline of Sanctity with Disenchant/Fragmentize and path to exile mainboard which makes your death shadow and random combo matchups like Devoted Company a lot better. The matchups where you want creature removal in your deck are better for Esper because they have more playable removal spells. Esper can't beat Blood Moon, UB can. Once you get used to playing with Set Adrift and Echoing Truth you learn how to play against Leyline of Sanctity and can win games against a T0 Leyline. It all depends what you want to beat and what you enjoy playing.
Just thinking about the deck it plays so many cards that are either great or horrible based on the matchup (Surgical, Jace's Phantasm, Ensnaring Bridge, Crypt Incursion, fatal push). Being able to discard these dead cards for value makes me think Collective Brutality should definitely have a home. There was a new 5-0 list that mainboarded 2 copies. Collective Brutality can also enable delirium for a Scribe or get rid of an uncastable trap or extra lands for your Ensnaring Bridge. I probably need to play more games with this card.
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Go back to your cave troll...