House Dimir Milling Co. (Help desperately needed) ((CASUAL DECK))

tav2smart4u wrote:

A few words of advice. Friends don't let friends play mill.

too true.

FNM is usually standard which means only cards from RTR block, m14 and now theros.  You'll have to limit your card selection down to those sets unless your store plays modern.  Also, it's been said many times on these forums.  You don't play "mill", you play control, with a mill win condition.  Throwing every card that says "mill" into a deck doesn't make it playable, no more than throwing everything in your fridge into a blender makes a milkshake. 

You have to have a plan.  Mill decks (while not popular and not particularly competitive or effective) can still work. At this point you'd have to be UB or Esper (BUW), you might even be able to do grixis (UBR). You must have a way to deal with opposing creatures, removal and board wipes.  You must have a way to deal with opposing planes walkers, removal and counterspells. You must have a way to deal with opposing control, card advantage and counter spells. 

You're really looking to build a list similar to this.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat … ckID=59588

and then just replace the other win conditions with a little mill.  Instead of Ætherling you'd want jace memory adept, and perahaps anotehr mill creature like consuming aberration.  This type of deck also lost a key card in standard when rotation happened. Nephalia drownyard.  You can't play that in anything but modern now, and mill really isn't a valid strategy there to win an FNM.

Auto_D wrote:

I appreciate the advice given here, but to repeat what I said to the last guy, this is a casual play deck. I've given up hope on winning anything. I have too few rare cards, and no funds.

Also, I only have one Consuming Aberration, and only two Planeswalkers: the most resent Chandra and Ral Zarek.

Well, which is it?  Casual or FNM? In my mind (and most other peoples) casual is just with friends and kitchen table magic.  FNM is a level of competition.  Not a high one, but depending on your area, it can be pretty competitive.

To the issue of budget, there is only so much you can do if you're not willing to trade and buy more cards.  You can take the advice given here and try to apply it the best you can, but the cards suggested are suggested because they're the best at what they do.  You can substitute but it won't be as good.

Also the major piece of advice still stands.  You don't play "mill" you play "control" with a mill win condition.  That's the biggest take away from your thread right now.

Cheer, up you're a nice guy.. there's someone for everyone. J/K

Uhh, chandra and ralzarek, and the blood crypt aren't doing you much good if you want to play control with a mill win condition.  I'm sure you can offer those and get some bites.  Now is a good time to trade chandra she just spiked 15 bucks.  She won't get much better.

well, speaking from experiance, if budget is a factor then you need to focus on one deck at a time.

we can view each other collections.  Otherwise what's the point of having a trading website right? 

With your selection being pretty slim, IDK what help I could offer.  Just evaluate your cards and find as much synergy as possible.

First of all, man cheers up. You don't need rares or mythics or planeswalkers to win games.

You do, however, need both a plan, and a way to achieve that plan. If we go ahead with the "I want to mill people out and play blue/black cards" plan, here's what I see in your inventory that can accomplish that:

4x Balustrade Spy
1x Breaking // Entering
2x Chronic Flooding
1x Coerced Confession
1x Consuming Aberration
2x Crosstown Courier
4x Doorkeeper
1x Duskmantle Guildmage
1x Jace's Mindseeker
1x Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
1x Paranoid Delusions
3x Pilfered Plans
1x Psychic Strike
2x Tome Scour

The thing to remember about mill is that it's a worse version of burn. While burn tries to do 20 damage as fast as possible, you're basically trying to do 53 (since your opponent starts with 7 cards in hand). Picture a deck with all Lightning Bolts vs a deck with all Tome Scours. The burn player only has to cast 7 spells, while the mill player has to cast 10-11 and then wait for the opponent's next draw step. "If I mill my opponent's bomb, though,", you say, "then I have more time!" True, but you're just as likely to mill away your opponent's five irrelevant spells and cause them to draw their bomb right away instead of five turns later, and if that happens you have even less time.

Because that'll take longer, you also need some way to stay alive while you're milling your opponent. That's where the controlling aspects come in, things that disrupt your opponent's plan and prevent you from dying.

1x Aetherize
3x Cancel
3x Claustrophobia
1x Dimir Charm
3x Disperse
1x Duress
2x Far // Away
2x Killing Glare
1x Rapid Hybridization
4x Mind Rot
1x Ultimate Price
4x Warped Physique

For this kind of strategy, I'd say anything that doesn't either mill your opponent or disrupt them and keep you alive is a wasted card. That means no Nefarox, no Notion Thief, and if you're not willing to improve your mana base, definitely no splashing red.

Before you add any card, you should be asking yourself questions like:

- How does this card advance my plan?
- Is this a good card by itself?
- How well does this card work with the rest of my deck?

Take Doorkeeper. For 2U, you get to mill your opponent for only one card. "But", you say, "if I have lots of walls out, I can mill them for way more than 1!" Yeah, that's true, but you'd need to have 5 walls in play just to get a more expensive version of Tome Scour. That doesn't seem very good, especially since while you're trying to do this your opponent is beating you with creatures and all you have to keep yourself alive is a bunch of walls.

If you're willing to accept the fact that this deck won't be very good and won't win very often, then start by picking your favourite 35 of the cards above and 25 lands (since you've got a lot of expensive spells). If you want a better mill plan, you'll have to expand out into big repeatable mill effects, like Mind Grind and Jace, Memory Adept.