Mind Funeral is bad vs control decks due to the high land count. Ashiok is really good vs control.
Also for sideboard you could shave like 1 copy of Damnation and 1 bridge etc... rather than just completely cut a card.
Snapcaster might be an interesting sideboard card as like a 2x. It's basically the best blue card in modern and is never really bad in any matchup as opposed to cards like Needle, Bridge, Spellbomb, etc... I know Keith and maybe a few other posters play it mainboard.
I think I agree with the sideboard not having enough non creature cards when you play 4x Push 4x Memento main deck. Spell Pierce is my favorite counter from past experience. Bridge has such a big role in the matchups where it shines that I think I'd want to keep those over Damnation but Damnation is wider in use so it's definitely a tough call.
After playing with Echoing Truth more I don't see it as card disadvantage as much as I used to but it is definitely a very skill intensive card.
I haven't had much testing with Sorceror's Spyglass because I'm not playing needle or that card in my SB but when the Spyglass is seeing consistent legacy play an argument can definitely be made that it is the better card or that a split of Spyglass and Needle is correct.
I tried the 21 and 22 land builds and ended up going back to 23. 21 is definitely not correct even if it top 16'd a SCG tournament.
He ran his mill deck in a computer simulation to determine the fastest goldfish. It's the reason he plays cards like Fatal Push and Darkness because he doesn't count turn 1 if he has Fatal Push in his opening 7 and he thinks Darkness is a 1 mana time walk because that is the logic you need to use when you are goldfishing. Cards like Ensnaring Bridge won't appear in his deck because you can't quantify if the card is going to work when you are just playing against yourself. Every other card in the deck either mills cards or draws cards which can be run in a simulation. He doesn't play any games with the deck but pretends to be an expert.
I tend to agree with the cherry picking comment but he would point out at the beginning of the match if he was a huge dog or a solid favorite and also in the final deck review he goes over the bad matchups. He talked about a horrible burn matchup but the match we saw he drew 2 of his 3 sun droplets to win so yea probably some cherry picking and definitely a higher sample size of games. BUT... He also said he had like an 80% win rate, which is crazy. Yea you heard me, he said he was winning 80% of his matches.... Even if he's lying how much worse could it be? I guess I could imaginie a 70% win rate as being 80% but certainly not a 50-55% etc... His list was basically 4x of every good mill spell and fraying sanity with some Phantasms, visions, bridges, and crypts.
I think he was playing 1 on 1s and not competitive leagues too where the drop off in play is considerable. Infect missed an attack step by accident and that would have been lethal and the terrible storm deck that couldn't goldfish a kill by turn 6 was just weird (that match felt cherry picked). The storm matchup is definitely not that easy and you normally need Surgical Extraction G1 to win and sideboard grave hate to compete. Also, the online meta game does not have much Devoted Druid combo because it's super annoying to loop the combo but in paper the deck is a lot more popular and that matchup can be anywhere from kinda bad but winnable to nearly unwinnable based on your build. He also didn't show any matches against merfolk, death and taxes, or elves but said the matchup was hard which makes sense when you play zero removal. Other than that though... he kind of just beat everything else with a bad mana base and some dubious lines or just misclicks.
The list obviously isn't 80% due to level of competition etc... but it wasn't bad either.
Dismember is probably better, just wanted to make you aware there were cards specific to black threats without the 4 life penatly.
Memento is an absolute house against Affinity, confirmed. I've actually been playing Damnation maindeck and it has been great. Everyone's default plan against mill is to race and just flood the board. Nobody ever plays around Damnation. I've been playing 23 lands though so there is definitely deck building restrictions to play the card but it has been amazing in this Humans/go wide infested meta. Other random things I've noticed.... I think fetchlands 5-8 should all be Marsh flats or some other fetch that can get basic swamp (UB builds). With Oboro and Shelldock and playing 1 extra island than swamp I find myself always wanting basic swamp and it's frustrating to shock with your flooded strand. I think a 1x Sunken Ruins is very good and by far the best non basic land you can play after your 2-3 Watery Graves. Darkslick Shores coming in tapped is a huge pain not allowing you to cast double spell or Trap if it's your 5th land and Drowned Catacomb is very bad early game if you draw it with Shelldock Isle or some other non basic land in your opening 7, especially Shelldock Isle. The only case time you get burned with Sunken Ruin is if your draw it with your GQ/Field of Ruin and you weren't going to be able to cast Glimpse with either of those anyway.
I just noticed you don't play any Ravenous Trap sideboard. So much synergy with Trapmaker's Snare!
Also... Not sure if anyone else has seen them but on youtube if you type "Fraying Sanity Mill" mtgforge did a bunch of matchups with the deck. His mana base is not good (flooded strand instead of polluted delta, etc...) and he doesn't always make what I believe to be the optimal play but he basically wrecks the entire meta game with his deck outside of infect/burn/affinity. Anyone who has ever wondered why mill plays Jace's Phantasm should watch all of those matches and see the power of Phantasm and how it just wins games by itself. It also shows the power of Fraying Sanity if for some reason you haven't read the last 5 or so pages of this thread. And lastly it's just a bunch of videos of mill just wrecking the modern format, very enjoyable.
I'm actually surprised you said it did so well against burn considering they only play 12 creatures. Maybe I just had some bad luck with it when I boarded it in. Against those other decks though... Nothing feels better then going T1 Memento and T2 Orb against a go wide deck.
Maybe Memento main deck is correct? Mill is good enough against most decks that aren't all in aggro to take games 2 and 3 when it can sideboard out all of its bad cards like push/crypt/bridge etc... I kinda like the idea of having the main deck geared to beat aggro game 1.
All of the burn hate cards are extremely narrow. Crypt Incursion only works once and if you're playing a good burn player it will work zero times. Every configuration of mill will be a dog to burn. The only hate card for burn that I can think of that isn't only good against burn is Leyline of Sanctity and that puts you at the dilemma of playing Esper or being a complete psychopath. 4x Leyline in the sideboard gives you a 45.5% chance of getting one in hand if you always mull to 6 without one in your opening 7. Even when you draw Leyline in your opening 7 it doesn't even mean you have an auto win because they could just beat you down with creatures and eidolons. Assuming you lose game 1 to burn you need to win post sideboard games 70% of the time in order to make it a 50% matchup. Sven Restel plays white Leyline in his sideboard in UB/Esper and he went 8-1 day 1 at a GP which is where I got this idea but I still feel like it only turns your abysmal matchup into a 40%ish matchup. I also tinkered around with Gurmag Angler/Death Shadow/Tasigur and it fell on its face. Collective Brutality didn't do a lot for me but I only drew it a couple times against them due to only playing 2 copies so the sample size is super small. Spell Pierce is another option that you can use against multiple decks but is very low in power level.
If you want a dedicated anti burn card in UB I think Sun Droplet is your best option after a 3rd Crypt Incursion but it's still going to be a garbage matchup and you're using 3-4 sideboard slots on a card that only comes in against burn when your deck has problems against White Leyline, Emrakul, go wide strategies, Storm, all in creature decks like infect, and Eldrazi (depending on your build). Now that I think about it maybe Spellskite might do some work against burn and gives you a good card against Infect as well, especially not having to pay life to redirect since we're a blue deck.
If you look at the metagame for that Toybird deck there was only 3 copies of affinity/burn/infect in the top 32. His top 8 matchups were Jund, Eldrazi and Taxes, UW control. I'm not surprised in the least that he only dropped 1 game in that top 8. If Toybird posts here I'd be interested in knowing what his rounds 1-7 matchups were. I'm assuming they were all great.
With all that being said playing Manic Scribes and specifically Jace's Phantasms has seen the most results for me. If you play a no removal spell deck or don't draw one of your fatal pushes Phantasm beatdown is one of the few ways to beat a T2 Eidolon. From my experience I haven't been successful in racing burn. I've had multiple games where when I try to race burn via mill they have 0 cards in library and just burn me out in their upkeep.
These are just my thoughts though. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this. If you decide to scroll through all the pages (even the earlier ones) there is some conversation on the burn matchup.
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 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).
Also for sideboard you could shave like 1 copy of Damnation and 1 bridge etc... rather than just completely cut a card.
Snapcaster might be an interesting sideboard card as like a 2x. It's basically the best blue card in modern and is never really bad in any matchup as opposed to cards like Needle, Bridge, Spellbomb, etc... I know Keith and maybe a few other posters play it mainboard.
After playing with Echoing Truth more I don't see it as card disadvantage as much as I used to but it is definitely a very skill intensive card.
I haven't had much testing with Sorceror's Spyglass because I'm not playing needle or that card in my SB but when the Spyglass is seeing consistent legacy play an argument can definitely be made that it is the better card or that a split of Spyglass and Needle is correct.
I tried the 21 and 22 land builds and ended up going back to 23. 21 is definitely not correct even if it top 16'd a SCG tournament.
I think he was playing 1 on 1s and not competitive leagues too where the drop off in play is considerable. Infect missed an attack step by accident and that would have been lethal and the terrible storm deck that couldn't goldfish a kill by turn 6 was just weird (that match felt cherry picked). The storm matchup is definitely not that easy and you normally need Surgical Extraction G1 to win and sideboard grave hate to compete. Also, the online meta game does not have much Devoted Druid combo because it's super annoying to loop the combo but in paper the deck is a lot more popular and that matchup can be anywhere from kinda bad but winnable to nearly unwinnable based on your build. He also didn't show any matches against merfolk, death and taxes, or elves but said the matchup was hard which makes sense when you play zero removal. Other than that though... he kind of just beat everything else with a bad mana base and some dubious lines or just misclicks.
The list obviously isn't 80% due to level of competition etc... but it wasn't bad either.
Memento is an absolute house against Affinity, confirmed. I've actually been playing Damnation maindeck and it has been great. Everyone's default plan against mill is to race and just flood the board. Nobody ever plays around Damnation. I've been playing 23 lands though so there is definitely deck building restrictions to play the card but it has been amazing in this Humans/go wide infested meta. Other random things I've noticed.... I think fetchlands 5-8 should all be Marsh flats or some other fetch that can get basic swamp (UB builds). With Oboro and Shelldock and playing 1 extra island than swamp I find myself always wanting basic swamp and it's frustrating to shock with your flooded strand. I think a 1x Sunken Ruins is very good and by far the best non basic land you can play after your 2-3 Watery Graves. Darkslick Shores coming in tapped is a huge pain not allowing you to cast double spell or Trap if it's your 5th land and Drowned Catacomb is very bad early game if you draw it with Shelldock Isle or some other non basic land in your opening 7, especially Shelldock Isle. The only case time you get burned with Sunken Ruin is if your draw it with your GQ/Field of Ruin and you weren't going to be able to cast Glimpse with either of those anyway.
I just noticed you don't play any Ravenous Trap sideboard. So much synergy with Trapmaker's Snare!
Also... Not sure if anyone else has seen them but on youtube if you type "Fraying Sanity Mill" mtgforge did a bunch of matchups with the deck. His mana base is not good (flooded strand instead of polluted delta, etc...) and he doesn't always make what I believe to be the optimal play but he basically wrecks the entire meta game with his deck outside of infect/burn/affinity. Anyone who has ever wondered why mill plays Jace's Phantasm should watch all of those matches and see the power of Phantasm and how it just wins games by itself. It also shows the power of Fraying Sanity if for some reason you haven't read the last 5 or so pages of this thread. And lastly it's just a bunch of videos of mill just wrecking the modern format, very enjoyable.
Maybe Memento main deck is correct? Mill is good enough against most decks that aren't all in aggro to take games 2 and 3 when it can sideboard out all of its bad cards like push/crypt/bridge etc... I kinda like the idea of having the main deck geared to beat aggro game 1.
If you want a dedicated anti burn card in UB I think Sun Droplet is your best option after a 3rd Crypt Incursion but it's still going to be a garbage matchup and you're using 3-4 sideboard slots on a card that only comes in against burn when your deck has problems against White Leyline, Emrakul, go wide strategies, Storm, all in creature decks like infect, and Eldrazi (depending on your build). Now that I think about it maybe Spellskite might do some work against burn and gives you a good card against Infect as well, especially not having to pay life to redirect since we're a blue deck.
If you look at the metagame for that Toybird deck there was only 3 copies of affinity/burn/infect in the top 32. His top 8 matchups were Jund, Eldrazi and Taxes, UW control. I'm not surprised in the least that he only dropped 1 game in that top 8. If Toybird posts here I'd be interested in knowing what his rounds 1-7 matchups were. I'm assuming they were all great.
With all that being said playing Manic Scribes and specifically Jace's Phantasms has seen the most results for me. If you play a no removal spell deck or don't draw one of your fatal pushes Phantasm beatdown is one of the few ways to beat a T2 Eidolon. From my experience I haven't been successful in racing burn. I've had multiple games where when I try to race burn via mill they have 0 cards in library and just burn me out in their upkeep.
These are just my thoughts though. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this. If you decide to scroll through all the pages (even the earlier ones) there is some conversation on the burn matchup.
Also, if you're trying to improve burn/affinity the card to cut for Jace's Phantasm would be Remand/Surgical in my opinion.
I've been thinking about mainboarding a Set Adrift or 2 just to have a few outs against Leyline, Gideon or Chalice game 1.
If you do decide to cut the crab do you think you need more than the 4-5 fetches?
How have Eldrazi-Tron and Grixis Death Shadow gone for you with this new build?
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?
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).