this is a deck that i have tinkered with for a while. looking to see if anyone wants to give it a look-over and see what i need to tinker with. thanks everyone!

http://deckbox.org/sets/621870

So the customary first comment, milling is making your job three times harder than it normally has to be. Typically doing 20 damage is a lot easier than trying to mill the opponent for approximately 50 cards...

That being said, a few questions and thoughts:

1) I'm assuming you're looking to keep this standard legal? Is this for casual play or are you aiming for competitive play like FNM?

2) How are you building a mill deck without Phenax, God of Deception in some quantity?

3) You've left out some of the most promising mill cards in the format. Breaking // Entering anyone?

4) From a build that I've tinkered with a bit (http://deckbox.org/sets/481277) I've found that U/B control with the splash of mill is a far better option than trying a more creature centric route like you have.

5) Many of the creatures you're sitting on really just don't get the job done when compared to other threats and in some cases are even counter-productive (i.e. Wight of Precinct Six has promise, but keep in mind that Ashiok and Nightveil Specter exile stuff, keeping it from hitting the yard).

Anywhom, I hope some of this is productive or helpful. Milling is certainly a fun route in the kitchen table, but in a more competitive format it really just doesn't get the job done unless it's executed perfectly.

I havent been able to get ahold of the god yet. I know a couple of people who have them. I just need to trade for them. I have a couple of Breaking/Entering in my side board but i didnt know if i should main board them or not. I decided not to do Wright Precincts because of the exile cards. I did have some Deathcult Rogues to combo that with Parinoid Delusions.

Paranoid Delusions really is just too fragile as even if you put it on a rogue, it can still be lost via any removal the opponent has. You're much better suited with Breaking // Entering in the main as it manages to mill more than 2x Delusions for the exact same mana cost (and if you splash red, you could even cast the entering side of the spell too!).

my .02... this is just about mill as a strategy and not about problems with your deck specifically... IE: 20 lands in this style of deck is asking for problems.

Mill is an alternate win condition that some decks can employ, but it's not "how" you win the game. You can't just mill your opponent to death and nothing else. It's a bit like a burn deck, but it's much less efficient. Here's some comparisons. If you assume their deck is their "life" total then best case you go first and they start at 52 life... So we'll compare cards in a dimir mill deck and a RW burn deck.

so 52 = 20 , cards in deck (CID) vs actual life (AL). here are some comparisons of mill cards vs direct damage cards because really that's what you're doing, you're attacking their life total directly.

Comparisons of like costed cards: mill vs burn


Shock, 1 CMC > 2 damage, 2/20 = 10% of their AL.
Tome Scour, 1 CMC> mill 5 , 5/52 = 9.6% of CID

Lightning Strike, 2 CMC > 3 damage, 3/20 = 15% of AL
Paranoid delusions, 2 CMC > mill 3, potential to cipher for more 3/52 = 5.8 % of their CID
Edit: i'd just like to say that the amount of creatures you need to run to make this effective are counter productive to the strategy and they're also very subject to removal. Mutavault is actually a decent target for a cipher effect, but all the ciphers cost to much and are garbage in general.

(boros burn doesn't play any 3 CMC bur spells, so i chose an efficient creature the use)
Chandra's Pheonix, 3 CMC > 2 damage, 2/20, 10% of AL
Pilfered plans, 3 CMC > mill 2, 3.8% of CID
Edit: you draw 2, sure, but the pheonix's ability is more relevant to the game plan they're employing. You're going to draw more mill that does nothing against their plan.

Storm Breath Dragon, 5 CMC > 4 damage, 4/20, 20% of AL
Jace, Memory Adpet, 5 CMC > 10 mill, 10/52, 19.2% of CID

if you look at it this way, even in my examples only a couple of the cards come close to providing the same "life total" reduction you get with straight burn. Here's the kicker though... all the spells I mentioned also, impact the board, you can't remove or block opposing threats with any of these mill cards except jace, but he just dies to opposing creatures.

So in order to "burn" your opponent to death with mill you have to include a bunch of cards that don't impact or interact with the board at all. Not to mention that, decks like UW control run elixir of immortality and just do a better ob of control than your deck does. Aggro decks won't care if you mill them they're going to beat you before get there and your counter spells come online too late to stop their big threats with no board wipes.

So how do you "win" as mill? You _have_ to control the board there's no other way to do it, and employ a powerful mill card to "finish" the game and be able to protect it. Esper is the only deck can do that right now, and you _must_ run the UW shell in order to appropriately control the game and then use ashiok/jace to finish the job with mill... also keep in mind that cards like psychic strike while moving your mill plan forward do nothing to help you find answers to the next threat like dissolve does... I can't tell you the number of times i dissolved a threat only to scry away a land and top deck another answer.

Mono black splash U "might" be able to do this strategy with ashiok/phenax, but you'd be sacrificing some of the 1-1 answers it uses to grind out the game for alternate win condition it doesn't need to employ to win.

TLDR: If you want to have fun games at the kitchen table with mill, by all means go ahead... but know that mill is a bad strategy, mill cards are bad for the value they provide and they don't do anything for your board.

friends don't let friends play mill... the more you know...

elpablo wrote:my .02... this is just about mill as a strategy and not about problems with your deck specifically... IE: 20 lands in this style of deck is asking for problems.

Mill is an alternate win condition that some decks can employ, but it's not "how" you win the game. You can't just mill your opponent to death and nothing else. It's a bit like a burn deck, but it's much less efficient. Here's some comparisons. If you assume their deck is their "life" total then best case you go first and they start at 52 life... So we'll compare cards in a dimir mill deck and a RW burn deck.

so 52 = 20 , cards in deck (CID) vs actual life (AL). here are some comparisons of mill cards vs direct damage cards because really that's what you're doing, you're attacking their life total directly.

Comparisons of like costed cards: mill vs burn


Shock, 1 CMC > 2 damage, 2/20 = 10% of their AL.
Tome Scour, 1 CMC> mill 5 , 5/52 = 9.6% of CID

Lightning Strike, 2 CMC > 3 damage, 3/20 = 15% of AL
Paranoid delusions, 2 CMC > mill 3, potential to cipher for more 3/52 = 5.8 % of their CID
Edit: i'd just like to say that the amount of creatures you need to run to make this effective are counter productive to the strategy and they're also very subject to removal. Mutavault is actually a decent target for a cipher effect, but all the ciphers cost to much and are garbage in general.

(boros burn doesn't play any 3 CMC bur spells, so i chose an efficient creature the use)
Chandra's Pheonix, 3 CMC > 2 damage, 2/20, 10% of AL
Pilfered plans, 3 CMC > mill 2, 3.8% of CID
Edit: you draw 2, sure, but the pheonix's ability is more relevant to the game plan they're employing. You're going to draw more mill that does nothing against their plan.

Storm Breath Dragon, 5 CMC > 4 damage, 4/20, 20% of AL
Jace, Memory Adpet, 5 CMC > 10 mill, 10/52, 19.2% of CID

if you look at it this way, even in my examples only a couple of the cards come close to providing the same "life total" reduction you get with straight burn. Here's the kicker though... all the spells I mentioned also, impact the board, you can't remove or block opposing threats with any of these mill cards except jace, but he just dies to opposing creatures.

So in order to "burn" your opponent to death with mill you have to include a bunch of cards that don't impact or interact with the board at all. Not to mention that, decks like UW control run elixir of immortality and just do a better ob of control than your deck does. Aggro decks won't care if you mill them they're going to beat you before get there and your counter spells come online too late to stop their big threats with no board wipes.

So how do you "win" as mill? You _have_ to control the board there's no other way to do it, and employ a powerful mill card to "finish" the game and be able to protect it. Esper is the only deck can do that right now, and you _must_ run the UW shell in order to appropriately control the game and then use ashiok/jace to finish the job with mill... also keep in mind that cards like psychic strike while moving your mill plan forward do nothing to help you find answers to the next threat like dissolve does... I can't tell you the number of times i dissolved a threat only to scry away a land and top deck another answer.

Mono black splash U "might" be able to do this strategy with ashiok/phenax, but you'd be sacrificing some of the 1-1 answers it uses to grind out the game for alternate win condition it doesn't need to employ to win.

TLDR: If you want to have fun games at the kitchen table with mill, by all means go ahead... but know that mill is a bad strategy, mill cards are bad for the value they provide and they don't do anything for your board.

friends don't let friends play mill... the more you know...

SECOND!

My thoughts...

If you are looking to keep it standard, don't listen to me, and just don't read this post.

However, the mill deck I run for modern/casual play consists of cipher control/mill cards such as Paranoid Delusion and Hands of Binding plus Trepanation Blades on Invisible Stalkers. Then I have some Guard Gomozoas for some defense. Thats the core.

Additional cards include
Traumatize
Corrupted Conscience
Consuming Aberration
Psychic Intrusion
Mind Funeral
Dissipation Field
Encrust
Sleep
Jace, Memory Adept
Nighthowler

Thats the idea, its just the meanest mill/control you can find plus some damage too, all unblockable via the stalkers.

Another thing to consider is that in a more casual setting mill actually tends to get worse, because often players feel free to include more than 60 cards in their deck where as in competitive games players feel restricted. More cards means its like fighting an opponent that starts at 25. Not fun.