I think he's decent if you can get him to stick around for 3 turns. Otherwise you're left with energy you don't really have a use for.
For other Minister of Inquiries. If the first dies the second mills four times. Besides that, the efficiency is good: 6 cards milled per mana, better than glimpse that is 5 mill/mana.
Yea, I hear ya. But if they take out the first one, you gotta hope the second one sticks around for 4 turns instead of 2. If you could do it without tapping (or tap once and mill 3 per energy you wanna spend perhaps), I'd be all about that.
I'm not running many creatures (4 x crab, 4 x snapcaster), so my opponent is usually sitting on creature removal in hand anyway.
You could say Hedron Crab is 20x better, mills 60 cards for 1 mana. But he needs to stick around long enough for you to drop 20 lands, which is a non-trivial cost in terms of time.
I think he's decent if you can get him to stick around for 3 turns. Otherwise you're left with energy you don't really have a use for. I don't currently run a Manic Scribe cuz I don't run Orbs.
Would be sweet if they gave us some energy-based milling instants in the next set.
U - Energy Grind
Gain 4 power, then spend X power to mill X cards
Rest in Peace because it exiles graveyards when it comes down, so you can hold onto it until you need to take out the graveyard. Depending on your deck you might not want to take out all graveyards (I run Snapcasters and Visions of Beyond, but I guess they'd be SB out in those matchups)
If you don't get LLotV in your opener it's kinda dead; I'd expect to have milled at least some of my opponent's graveyard threats into the graveyard by turn 4.
I like some of your choices there, and the Mindcrank Guildmage combo is something I think has some legs but would require significant modification of my deck. Cards I think are a bit out there are Wrench Mind and Haunting Echoes. If possible, cutting those and getting +1 Mind Funeral, +2 Glimpse, + 1 Crab and + 1 Visions would make your list a bit tighter.
Also, if you're into it long term, I'd definitely try and pick up a playset of Polluted Delta while KTK is still fresh and they're relatively cheap. Fetch lands in general are an absolute house with a Hedron Crab or two on the table.
Your choice of Bloodchief Ascension (since removed I guess) makes me think of trying Glimpses in a Grixis-type shell. I have a Rakdos haste-burn deck in modern that often gets my Bloodchiefs active early (Gut shots to add 1 extra damage when they fetch-land kicks it up a notch), and to land a Glimpse onto it would be game ending.
A two card combination that mills 1 everytime you get attacked or a creature comes into play. I get that the Orb will also activate from lands used to cast spells, but I think we can put more efficient cards in the deck than use up slots on those. But like I said, I go for less controlling builds and aim to be fast like burn.
Mesmeric Orb is great against control decks, but I think we have the edge on most control decks anyway since they're designed to lock out creatures and gain life, rarely to stop being milled out. The only trouble I have is against decks that include Emrakul 1.0, so Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, Crypt Incursion, and Hide // Seek are key in that matchup.
It slows down any decks with haste creatures, sure. But regular creatures aren't attacking you the turn they come into play. This just prevents people casting creatures as blockers, and given that we're not attacking anyone it doesn't really help us much I don't think. The life gain is alright I guess, but even a 1/1 quickly outpaces the life we gain from it entering the battlefield.
I saw it and considered it briefly, but I don't think I'm sold on it. I don't think I'd pay 3 mana for essentially "Gain 5 life" (saves 3 from the bolt, 2 for life gain). Your opponent losing life is pretty unimportant. If it was an X/4 I think I'd be considering it more. Crypt Incursion works wonders for life gain against burn already, most burn decks are running at least 12 creatures, sometimes up to 20, and being instant speed is huge.
That said, I aim to be on the aggressive side of mill, in a more controlling deck it could be worth it.
I played a Modern Tournament at a local store last night and went 2-2 for the night. But generally did better than I expected, so I was pretty happy! I made a couple modifications to my deck posted above - took out Dispels (left 1x SB) and Mesmeric Orbs and I'm mainboarding 3 Twincasts, an Ensnaring Bridge, and 2 Crypt Incursions, with 2 Surgicals main and 2 in the side. I lost all my dice rolls all night so started on the draw almost every game!
Match 1, Mono U Tron (2-0)
G1: He had TKS come down and exiled my Visions of Beyond instead of Ensnaring Bridge. I dropped the Bridge and kept 2 cards in hand (2 x Damnation). Second TKS came down, but he had no answer for the Bridge still. Surgical Extraction on one of his Tron pieces put an end pretty quick. I was lucky he wasn't playing Emrakul
I forget what I sideboarded... I think I took Crypt Incursions out and put some more Hide // Seek in.
G2: He got 2 Tron pieces naturally, Expedition Map for the third, but it allowed me to Twincast an Archive Trap on him, then Inquisition to look at his hand. He was on no coloured mana, the only spell he had was some +3/-3 colourless thing that could've killed my Hedron Crab, and a couple counter spells. Took the kill spell away from him and it was GG.
Match 2, BWU tokens (2-0)
G1: He had T1 IOK, took out Ensnaring Bridge. I saw 3 crabs early, and he couldn't deal with them. Landed 2 fetch lands with double crabs for 12 cards a pop. He flashed back some Lingering Souls but it wasn't enough before I milled him out. I didn't watch his graveyard closely to see how I should sideboard against him... oops.
G2: Similar pattern with some crabs and the same IOK on Bridge. It still wasn't enough, I extracted his Lingering Souls (and saw Tasigur in graveyard!). He was swinging at me with a Snapcaster til I was down to 5 life, but a Crypt Incursion for 24 life put me out of reach.
Match 3, Ad Nauseam (1-2)
G1: Recognized Ad Nauseam from all his cantrips. Used Seek to take out his Lightning Storm combo piece, but didn't see any Surgical Extractions to get his Ad Nauseam. He used it once to go down to 9 life (he needed an Angel's Grace and got it 4 cards in). I had him down to less than 20 cards in his library and went to trigger Mind Funeral from my Shelldock Isle, but he Ad Nauseamed as a fast effects... had the second Lightning Storm in his hand and JUST enough land in his deck to hit me for 19. Close call, almost had it! Being able to mill with the Crab after he scryed was nice to break up his flow.
G2: Sideboarded 2 more extractions in, a Dispel and some Spell Snares, took out Paths and Damnation since he didn't have many creatures. Rolled out a Seek and saw 3x Leyline of Sanctity which I needed gone. Also saw only 1 Lightning Storm, so he must've had one in hand. Took one with the first seek, then Twincast a second seek to get the others. Also +12 life from the 3 of them, not too shabby. Oboro cycled well with my crabs and got 12 cards himself. Managed to grind him down with me having 22 life left.
G3: Got the Mills in Early, landed 2 Visions of Beyond to keep me steaming, AND managed to Extract his Ad Nauseam. He cast Monastery Mentor, and then Laboratory Maniac (a Russian edition that I couldn't read, but I should've remembered what it was...) He was swinging at me with tokens and the Maniac, and then a misplay by me! I should've flash-blocked with a Snapcaster in my hand, but all I saw was the Glimpse in my graveyard ready to be flashed back for the win. D'oh. I milled him out and he was like "Do you have the Slaughter Pact?" "Ummm... no?" "Oh. You forget about the maniac?" "Yup. GG." Unfortunate - I could've had him I think! I had boarded out Damnations and Paths though, so didn't have an immediate answer for the Maniac anywhere else in my deck.
Match 4, Blue Moon (0-2)
G1: IOK by me on T1 and saw 2 x Bolts, a Remand, Steam Vents. Figured I was against Jeskai Nahiri. He drew into the moon and slammed it T4... crap. Locked me out all game, wasn't even close.
Sideboarded in more Surgicals, more Hide // Seek.
G2: IOK on him twice in the first 6 turns and didn't see a Blood Moon... nice. Milled 2 Moons into his graveyard but didn't have a Surgical for the life of me. He cast Sleight of Hand "Ooo, Yup, I could use this". Slammed a Blood Moon. Another misplay by me - I should've floated white from my Hallowed Fountain and after Blood Moon resolved I could've added a Red from another non-basic to cast the Hide in my hand. But nope, I overlooked it and that was game. He slammed a few Goblin Dark-Dwellers and beat my face in.
Overall I did better than I expected! I think I had the answers that I needed but a couple crucial misplays by me cost me some games. Some more practice needed against a wider variety of decks.
General Thoughts:
Ensnaring Bridge, love it. Going to try and grab a second one and use them instead of Ghostly Prison. Probably 1 main and 1 SB.
Surgical Extractions are super useful for problem cards. I like the 2 main and 2 SB, but I boarded them in almost every matchup.
I should've tried a match putting my Phantasm's in to beat down - might've worked well against the Blue Moon. I need to learn how to sideboard better, definitely another skill.
Sunken Ruins might get the cut. I ended up with 2 of them in play at one point and left me stranded unable to cast a Visions of Beyond EOT cuz it only makes colourless. That and not being fetchable, I might put a basic Plains and another Watery Grave in there instead.
Whoops, my bad. Totally correct. Dredge has more stuff like Bloodghast, Narcomoeba, Vengevine it looks like? What would be their biggest threats? A well timed Surgical Extraction might be able to handle some of their threats, or no?
Played against buddies again last night, 3 matches:
Jeskai Nahiri (1-2)
Emrakul is tough to deal with, lost first game when he shuffled the graveyard back into library.
Game 2, sideboarded 2 more Hide//Seek, got countered the first time but I snapcastered it back the following turn. Used Jace's Phantasm to keep Nahiri in check for two turns before a path, but that bought me enough time to mill him out.
Game 3 I didn't get an answer for Emrakul or Nahiri. Mesmeric orbs worked too slow to get my Visions into range.
Dredge (0-2)
Ugh. Jace's Phantasm on T1 on the play, Glimpse turn 2, swing 5 in the air. He did turn 2 Tasigur, turn 3 Gurmag angler. A second Jace's Phantasm just floated around as a 1/1 flyer... yay. Chump blockers at least, but no visions and no 5/5 flying. I got him down to 8 life at least...
Game 2 was pretty similar. Bad matchup, might be worth putting some Rest in Peace in the sideboard and cutting out Phantasm and Visions for this matchup, especially since Dredge is making a resurgence. Side in more Surgical Extraction and extirpate to hit Tasigur or Angler hopefully.
Shadow Unblockable (2-0)
A friends non-modern legal deck mono black creature deck (shadow creatures, equipment like Jitte, Swords etc).
Game 1 was tight, I was milling him (drew 3 crabs during the game!), he was bashing my face, until I hit a crypt incursion for 48 life and he was done.
Game 2 he ran into an unfortunate conundrum. He put down a Gatekeeper of Malakir and equipped with Lightning Greaves to get me. Next turn, 4 mana, throws down a Jitte, but Greaves gives his guy shroud so he can't equip it. He has no other creature he can equip his greaves to to get around that. Casts a Vault Skirge, equips greaves, but not being able to get Jitte equipped hurt him. Damnation by me next turn, followed by a hard cast Archive Trap (no fetch lands in his mono black) sealed it for me.
Couple thoughts:
Jeskai Nahiri and Dredge are both problem decks that are prevalent in the meta. Damn.
Crypt Incursion does some serious work against fair/linear decks. I might up it to 4 in the mainboard.
Mesmeric Orb is too slow, thinking about cutting them.
It wasn't a fair test for Jace's Phantasm, I'll try him some more perhaps. But I'm also thinking about putting Twincasts back in instead. T4 Twincasted Glimpse or T5 Twincasted Mind Funeral can be game over for a lot of decks, and if you can hit it into an Archive Trap for free, it's glorious.
Thanks for the response, Greg! I'm playtesting weekly with my buddies, we've got our eyes set on a Modern tournament coming up in our town early next year, hoping a mill deck could surprise some people. My current deck is here, but I like some of your suggestions.
I think my lands could use a little work somehow. Part of me wants to put more fetch lands in (I only currently have one Flooded Strand but would go up to more), but I run out of lands that I can actually fetch sometimes. I like Sunken Ruins cuz often what I want to cast requires very specific colours (twincast on glimpse for example) and filtering is nice. Shelldock Isle usually hits, but comes into play tapped and usually only casts a Mind Funeral. So one mana (comes in tapped) plus 2 mana (one blue, and tap Shelldock) means the 3 CMC spell is not really getting any discount.
Hide // Seek I also use in conjunction with a Steam Vents as my anti-artifact/enchantment spell, so it's not just to strip Emrakul out with Seek. But yea, bad against burn for sure, the biggest drop I usually see is 3 or 4. Currently at 2 main and 2 SB.
Snapcaster with Mesmeric Orb is pretty bomber, snapping back a path or visions at EOT can be clutch, even stuff in my graveyard that just got milled there instead of being played. It's been great for me.
Re: Mind Funeral vs Startled Awake, I think I prefer Mind Funeral. Yea, inconsistent at times, but in decks running lots of fetch lands, I bet 4 lands averages out to 12-13 cards anyway, and 3 vs 4 CMC means snapping it back is more convenient.
I used to run 4 twincasts, and while it's a big hitter, it's expensive like you said, and often coloured mana dependent. I've been pulling them out slowly in favour of other stuff but am left with a one of still.
IOK works nicely with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction I find. Undecided which I like better, it depends if the other player has counters (Extirpate) or not (Surgical cuz it's "free")
Dispel is alright, thinking about subbing for Spell Pierce or Remand though, just because sometimes there's non-instants you want to hit. The 1 CMC is nice cuz unlike most blue control decks, we don't run many cards that can be cast at EOT, so it sucks to hold your mana back without a backup plan to spend it on.
Your thoughts on Phantasm made me stick 4 of in the SB, I'm pretty intrigued now. I'm going to stick them mainboard to start my next match (likely -Twincast, -Dispel, -2x Mind Funeral) and see how it works for me. I had brief thoughts of throwing a 4x Geist of Saint Traft in SB, which would let me sub in a heavy beatdown package for game 2 after they sub out their creature control once they see I'm a mill deck. Element of surprise. But pulling cards out is tough
I had 4x Thing in the Ice previously SB for Zoo/burn creatures, but found him to be mostly ineffective, though I did transform him once (instant speed Visions and Extraction) to bounce my opponents creatures pre-combat which led to a win.
That mention of Spellskite intrigues me too, I've only got a one of in my collection. I haven't playtested against infect yet.
Medium-time lurker, first time poster here. I love Mill, been playing it for awhile now and just trying to tune it for modern!
A couple areas my list differs from those here:
Why no Snapcaster Mage in these lists? I definitely prefer him over Jace's Phantasm, he lets us flash back Visions, or a Glimpse, or a Path if needed. I feel like Phantasm gets us away from our strategy, which is to get them milled down, though I do see it's utility as a blocker at least. Snapcaster just has synergy with Mesmeric orb, it puts my spells in my graveyard. And don't forget about instant speed blocker for a pesky Geist of Saint Traft and stuff like that. He's a 4-of for me.
I run 2 x Damnation in the main board as a sweeper for midrangey decks that has been an all-star for me.
One of the guys in my playgroup uses Jeskai Nahiri with an Emrakul and a bunch of counters in his main board - that Emrakul is annoying. I run 2 Hide // Seek in the main as well as 2 Surgical Extractions (with Extirpate in my SB in case). If I can mill a Nahiri and Extract it, I'm sitting pretty decent.
I haven't seen anyone speak up about Twincast either. Hitting a twincast on a Glimpse (or even Visions) can be a huge swing mid game. And it works well with Archive Trap costing 0 as well. I think both Mind Funeral and Twincast are better than Startled Awake
I'm looking forward to partaking in some good discussions with everyone in here, there's been a LOT of good suggestions made! My deck was previously UB, but I threw the white in there based on this thread (Hide // Seek, path, and Ghostly prison in SB are too good to pass up).
Yea, I hear ya. But if they take out the first one, you gotta hope the second one sticks around for 4 turns instead of 2. If you could do it without tapping (or tap once and mill 3 per energy you wanna spend perhaps), I'd be all about that.
I'm not running many creatures (4 x crab, 4 x snapcaster), so my opponent is usually sitting on creature removal in hand anyway.
You could say Hedron Crab is 20x better, mills 60 cards for 1 mana. But he needs to stick around long enough for you to drop 20 lands, which is a non-trivial cost in terms of time.
Would be sweet if they gave us some energy-based milling instants in the next set.
U - Energy Grind
Gain 4 power, then spend X power to mill X cards
If you don't get LLotV in your opener it's kinda dead; I'd expect to have milled at least some of my opponent's graveyard threats into the graveyard by turn 4.
Also, if you're into it long term, I'd definitely try and pick up a playset of Polluted Delta while KTK is still fresh and they're relatively cheap. Fetch lands in general are an absolute house with a Hedron Crab or two on the table.
Your choice of Bloodchief Ascension (since removed I guess) makes me think of trying Glimpses in a Grixis-type shell. I have a Rakdos haste-burn deck in modern that often gets my Bloodchiefs active early (Gut shots to add 1 extra damage when they fetch-land kicks it up a notch), and to land a Glimpse onto it would be game ending.
Mesmeric Orb is great against control decks, but I think we have the edge on most control decks anyway since they're designed to lock out creatures and gain life, rarely to stop being milled out. The only trouble I have is against decks that include Emrakul 1.0, so Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, Crypt Incursion, and Hide // Seek are key in that matchup.
That said, I aim to be on the aggressive side of mill, in a more controlling deck it could be worth it.
Match 1, Mono U Tron (2-0)
G1: He had TKS come down and exiled my Visions of Beyond instead of Ensnaring Bridge. I dropped the Bridge and kept 2 cards in hand (2 x Damnation). Second TKS came down, but he had no answer for the Bridge still. Surgical Extraction on one of his Tron pieces put an end pretty quick. I was lucky he wasn't playing Emrakul
I forget what I sideboarded... I think I took Crypt Incursions out and put some more Hide // Seek in.
G2: He got 2 Tron pieces naturally, Expedition Map for the third, but it allowed me to Twincast an Archive Trap on him, then Inquisition to look at his hand. He was on no coloured mana, the only spell he had was some +3/-3 colourless thing that could've killed my Hedron Crab, and a couple counter spells. Took the kill spell away from him and it was GG.
Match 2, BWU tokens (2-0)
G1: He had T1 IOK, took out Ensnaring Bridge. I saw 3 crabs early, and he couldn't deal with them. Landed 2 fetch lands with double crabs for 12 cards a pop. He flashed back some Lingering Souls but it wasn't enough before I milled him out. I didn't watch his graveyard closely to see how I should sideboard against him... oops.
G2: Similar pattern with some crabs and the same IOK on Bridge. It still wasn't enough, I extracted his Lingering Souls (and saw Tasigur in graveyard!). He was swinging at me with a Snapcaster til I was down to 5 life, but a Crypt Incursion for 24 life put me out of reach.
Match 3, Ad Nauseam (1-2)
G1: Recognized Ad Nauseam from all his cantrips. Used Seek to take out his Lightning Storm combo piece, but didn't see any Surgical Extractions to get his Ad Nauseam. He used it once to go down to 9 life (he needed an Angel's Grace and got it 4 cards in). I had him down to less than 20 cards in his library and went to trigger Mind Funeral from my Shelldock Isle, but he Ad Nauseamed as a fast effects... had the second Lightning Storm in his hand and JUST enough land in his deck to hit me for 19. Close call, almost had it! Being able to mill with the Crab after he scryed was nice to break up his flow.
G2: Sideboarded 2 more extractions in, a Dispel and some Spell Snares, took out Paths and Damnation since he didn't have many creatures. Rolled out a Seek and saw 3x Leyline of Sanctity which I needed gone. Also saw only 1 Lightning Storm, so he must've had one in hand. Took one with the first seek, then Twincast a second seek to get the others. Also +12 life from the 3 of them, not too shabby. Oboro cycled well with my crabs and got 12 cards himself. Managed to grind him down with me having 22 life left.
G3: Got the Mills in Early, landed 2 Visions of Beyond to keep me steaming, AND managed to Extract his Ad Nauseam. He cast Monastery Mentor, and then Laboratory Maniac (a Russian edition that I couldn't read, but I should've remembered what it was...) He was swinging at me with tokens and the Maniac, and then a misplay by me! I should've flash-blocked with a Snapcaster in my hand, but all I saw was the Glimpse in my graveyard ready to be flashed back for the win. D'oh. I milled him out and he was like "Do you have the Slaughter Pact?" "Ummm... no?" "Oh. You forget about the maniac?" "Yup. GG." Unfortunate - I could've had him I think! I had boarded out Damnations and Paths though, so didn't have an immediate answer for the Maniac anywhere else in my deck.
Match 4, Blue Moon (0-2)
G1: IOK by me on T1 and saw 2 x Bolts, a Remand, Steam Vents. Figured I was against Jeskai Nahiri. He drew into the moon and slammed it T4... crap. Locked me out all game, wasn't even close.
Sideboarded in more Surgicals, more Hide // Seek.
G2: IOK on him twice in the first 6 turns and didn't see a Blood Moon... nice. Milled 2 Moons into his graveyard but didn't have a Surgical for the life of me. He cast Sleight of Hand "Ooo, Yup, I could use this". Slammed a Blood Moon. Another misplay by me - I should've floated white from my Hallowed Fountain and after Blood Moon resolved I could've added a Red from another non-basic to cast the Hide in my hand. But nope, I overlooked it and that was game. He slammed a few Goblin Dark-Dwellers and beat my face in.
Overall I did better than I expected! I think I had the answers that I needed but a couple crucial misplays by me cost me some games. Some more practice needed against a wider variety of decks.
General Thoughts:
Ensnaring Bridge, love it. Going to try and grab a second one and use them instead of Ghostly Prison. Probably 1 main and 1 SB.
Surgical Extractions are super useful for problem cards. I like the 2 main and 2 SB, but I boarded them in almost every matchup.
I should've tried a match putting my Phantasm's in to beat down - might've worked well against the Blue Moon. I need to learn how to sideboard better, definitely another skill.
Sunken Ruins might get the cut. I ended up with 2 of them in play at one point and left me stranded unable to cast a Visions of Beyond EOT cuz it only makes colourless. That and not being fetchable, I might put a basic Plains and another Watery Grave in there instead.
Jeskai Nahiri (1-2)
Emrakul is tough to deal with, lost first game when he shuffled the graveyard back into library.
Game 2, sideboarded 2 more Hide//Seek, got countered the first time but I snapcastered it back the following turn. Used Jace's Phantasm to keep Nahiri in check for two turns before a path, but that bought me enough time to mill him out.
Game 3 I didn't get an answer for Emrakul or Nahiri. Mesmeric orbs worked too slow to get my Visions into range.
Dredge (0-2)
Ugh. Jace's Phantasm on T1 on the play, Glimpse turn 2, swing 5 in the air. He did turn 2 Tasigur, turn 3 Gurmag angler. A second Jace's Phantasm just floated around as a 1/1 flyer... yay. Chump blockers at least, but no visions and no 5/5 flying. I got him down to 8 life at least...
Game 2 was pretty similar. Bad matchup, might be worth putting some Rest in Peace in the sideboard and cutting out Phantasm and Visions for this matchup, especially since Dredge is making a resurgence. Side in more Surgical Extraction and extirpate to hit Tasigur or Angler hopefully.
Shadow Unblockable (2-0)
A friends non-modern legal deck mono black creature deck (shadow creatures, equipment like Jitte, Swords etc).
Game 1 was tight, I was milling him (drew 3 crabs during the game!), he was bashing my face, until I hit a crypt incursion for 48 life and he was done.
Game 2 he ran into an unfortunate conundrum. He put down a Gatekeeper of Malakir and equipped with Lightning Greaves to get me. Next turn, 4 mana, throws down a Jitte, but Greaves gives his guy shroud so he can't equip it. He has no other creature he can equip his greaves to to get around that. Casts a Vault Skirge, equips greaves, but not being able to get Jitte equipped hurt him. Damnation by me next turn, followed by a hard cast Archive Trap (no fetch lands in his mono black) sealed it for me.
Couple thoughts:
Jeskai Nahiri and Dredge are both problem decks that are prevalent in the meta. Damn.
Crypt Incursion does some serious work against fair/linear decks. I might up it to 4 in the mainboard.
Mesmeric Orb is too slow, thinking about cutting them.
It wasn't a fair test for Jace's Phantasm, I'll try him some more perhaps. But I'm also thinking about putting Twincasts back in instead. T4 Twincasted Glimpse or T5 Twincasted Mind Funeral can be game over for a lot of decks, and if you can hit it into an Archive Trap for free, it's glorious.
4x Polluted Delta
2x Marsh Flats
1x Flooded Strand
3x Island
1x Swamp
1x Steam Vents
2x Watery Grave
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Godless Shrine
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2x Shelldock Isle
2x Sunken Ruins
Spells:
4x Dispel
1x Extirpate
1x Surgical Extraction
4x Visions of Beyond
4x Path to Exile
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
2x Hide // Seek
1x Twincast
4x Mind Funeral
2x Damnation
4x Archive Trap
4x Hedron Crab
4x Snapcaster Mage
Artifacts:
2x Mesmeric Orb
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Extirpate
1x Surgical Extraction
4x Jace's Phantasm
2x Hide // Seek
2x Ghostly Prison
2x Crypt Incursion
2x Leyline of Sanctity
I think my lands could use a little work somehow. Part of me wants to put more fetch lands in (I only currently have one Flooded Strand but would go up to more), but I run out of lands that I can actually fetch sometimes. I like Sunken Ruins cuz often what I want to cast requires very specific colours (twincast on glimpse for example) and filtering is nice. Shelldock Isle usually hits, but comes into play tapped and usually only casts a Mind Funeral. So one mana (comes in tapped) plus 2 mana (one blue, and tap Shelldock) means the 3 CMC spell is not really getting any discount.
Hide // Seek I also use in conjunction with a Steam Vents as my anti-artifact/enchantment spell, so it's not just to strip Emrakul out with Seek. But yea, bad against burn for sure, the biggest drop I usually see is 3 or 4. Currently at 2 main and 2 SB.
Snapcaster with Mesmeric Orb is pretty bomber, snapping back a path or visions at EOT can be clutch, even stuff in my graveyard that just got milled there instead of being played. It's been great for me.
Re: Mind Funeral vs Startled Awake, I think I prefer Mind Funeral. Yea, inconsistent at times, but in decks running lots of fetch lands, I bet 4 lands averages out to 12-13 cards anyway, and 3 vs 4 CMC means snapping it back is more convenient.
I used to run 4 twincasts, and while it's a big hitter, it's expensive like you said, and often coloured mana dependent. I've been pulling them out slowly in favour of other stuff but am left with a one of still.
IOK works nicely with Extirpate and Surgical Extraction I find. Undecided which I like better, it depends if the other player has counters (Extirpate) or not (Surgical cuz it's "free")
Dispel is alright, thinking about subbing for Spell Pierce or Remand though, just because sometimes there's non-instants you want to hit. The 1 CMC is nice cuz unlike most blue control decks, we don't run many cards that can be cast at EOT, so it sucks to hold your mana back without a backup plan to spend it on.
Your thoughts on Phantasm made me stick 4 of in the SB, I'm pretty intrigued now. I'm going to stick them mainboard to start my next match (likely -Twincast, -Dispel, -2x Mind Funeral) and see how it works for me. I had brief thoughts of throwing a 4x Geist of Saint Traft in SB, which would let me sub in a heavy beatdown package for game 2 after they sub out their creature control once they see I'm a mill deck. Element of surprise. But pulling cards out is tough
I had 4x Thing in the Ice previously SB for Zoo/burn creatures, but found him to be mostly ineffective, though I did transform him once (instant speed Visions and Extraction) to bounce my opponents creatures pre-combat which led to a win.
That mention of Spellskite intrigues me too, I've only got a one of in my collection. I haven't playtested against infect yet.
Cheers!
Medium-time lurker, first time poster here. I love Mill, been playing it for awhile now and just trying to tune it for modern!
A couple areas my list differs from those here:
Why no Snapcaster Mage in these lists? I definitely prefer him over Jace's Phantasm, he lets us flash back Visions, or a Glimpse, or a Path if needed. I feel like Phantasm gets us away from our strategy, which is to get them milled down, though I do see it's utility as a blocker at least. Snapcaster just has synergy with Mesmeric orb, it puts my spells in my graveyard. And don't forget about instant speed blocker for a pesky Geist of Saint Traft and stuff like that. He's a 4-of for me.
I run 2 x Damnation in the main board as a sweeper for midrangey decks that has been an all-star for me.
I have Ghostly Prison but haven't tried it out in the deck yet, but I agree that it's preferable to Ensnaring Bridge
One of the guys in my playgroup uses Jeskai Nahiri with an Emrakul and a bunch of counters in his main board - that Emrakul is annoying. I run 2 Hide // Seek in the main as well as 2 Surgical Extractions (with Extirpate in my SB in case). If I can mill a Nahiri and Extract it, I'm sitting pretty decent.
I haven't seen anyone speak up about Twincast either. Hitting a twincast on a Glimpse (or even Visions) can be a huge swing mid game. And it works well with Archive Trap costing 0 as well. I think both Mind Funeral and Twincast are better than Startled Awake
I'm looking forward to partaking in some good discussions with everyone in here, there's been a LOT of good suggestions made! My deck was previously UB, but I threw the white in there based on this thread (Hide // Seek, path, and Ghostly prison in SB are too good to pass up).