Explorations #1 - Twin Milling

Steve Gargolinski

What is Explorations?

I'm a huge fan of the casually competitive side of Magic.  Just like many of you, I have a busy life.  I don't regularly have twelve hours on a weekend to devote to eight or nine hours of Swiss at some PTQ ten hours from my house.  With all of that being said, I absolutely love playing Magic - I just need to be more creative about how I game.  MTGO is the absolute perfect solution to this problem.  I can always find a match no matter how late at night it is, and there are always thousands of cards at my fingertips.

Premier events and other tournaments still take huge chunks of time all at once, so I don't particpate in those very often - but the casual room has everything I'm looking for.  I love the laid back setting, the strange and diverse blend of decks, playing against cards that you never expect to see in a serious list, and the overall low intensity level.  I love user run tournaments, playing weird formats, and chatting with my opponent about how to improve our cool deck creations.

The goal of this column is to explore that line between casual and competitive.  I will focus largely on the construction, exploration, and development of different rogue decks.  Expect to see game reports, tips on playing these decks, proposed alternate builds, and budget options for players on a tight ticket count.  We'll explore aggro, control, combo, and everything in between.  Every type of deck is fair game - as long as it lies outside the well accepted, top-level metagame.

In addition to rogue decks, this column will explore alternate formats and keep up with the latest MTGO news from a casually competitive point of view.  I plan on evolving this series as time goes on - all feedback is welcome!  I'm really excited about this, and hope we can work together to turn Explorations into something worthwhile.

Please note that most deck test games will take place in the Casual Room of MTGO.  Tournament reports and such will obviously often take place in other areas of MTGO, but rogue deck testing will stick to the Casual Room.  I used to test in the Tournament Practice Room, but far too many of the players there just aren't interested in playing against rogue decks.  These players are there to test against the current metagame, and don't want to play against my wacky creations.  The Casual Room provides a wide variety of decks and players, and should provide a perfect testbed.  Every matchup has something to teach us.

Time to get started!

Introduction

Let's see if we can spot the over-twenty-fives out there.  How many of you remember this decklist?

U/W Millstone Control

Know who made this deck? - Old School Standard Legal

Creatures 2 Blinking Spirit 2 cards Other Spells 1 Feldon's Cane 2 Fountain of Youth 2 Icy Manipulator 1 Ivory Tower 1 Jayemdae Tome 3 Millstone 1 Zuran Orb 1 Balance 4 Disenchant 2 Hallowed Ground 2 Land Tax 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Wrath of God 2 Control Magic 4 Counterspell 1 Deflection 1 Recall 36 cards

Lands 4 Adarkar Wastes 4 Island 4 Mishra's Factory 7 Plains 1 Ruins of Trokair 1 Strip Mine 2 Svyelunite Temple 1 Wizard's School 24 cards Sideboard 2 Aeolipile 1 Control Magic 1 Jester's Cap 2 Serrated Arrows 2 Circle of Protection: Red 1 Divine Offering 2 Hydroblast 2 Sea Sprite 2 Steal Artifact 15 cards

It may be tough to believe, but in 1996 Michael Loconto piloted that tight sixty-two card list to $12,000 and first place in the first ever Pro Tour.  If you're surprised that a list like that could win a Pro Tour, it's important to remember that things were very different back then.  Things were different enough that one of the better players in the world concluded that his blue/white control deck wanted just a single (not yet resticted) Strip Mine and two copies of Fountain of Youth.  Our first Pro tour champion concluded that his mana base needed Wizard's School.  I realize that he needed to squeeze five cards from Homelands into his list, but are you kidding me?  Many of the deck building concepts that we take for granted today were either fledgling theories or completely nonexistent during the days of the first Pro Tour New York.

Pro Tour 1 Championship Tech

With all of that being said, Michael pulled off something pretty amazing - he won a Pro Tour without ever reducing a single opponent's life total to zero.  This might be his legacy, but Michael did much more than just win a Pro Tour; he gave hope to every kitchen table player with a Millstone deck and the dream of winning via Magic's most popular alternate win condition.  Up until the Weatherlight expansion (and the printing of Gaea's Blessing) Millstone remained the kill card of choice for blue/white control decks.  Post-Weatherlight green mages gained the ability to shuffle their graveyard back into their library for zero mana and control players went back to taking out opponents the old fashioned way. The Millstone strategy remained only borderline competitive at best up until 2003 or so and the printing of Brain Freeze.  The Storm mechanic proved powerful and degenerate.  Combo decks were created with the goal of stringing together a bunch of spells followed up by something with Storm, usually Tendrils of Agony, Mind's Desire, or Brain Freeze (and later Dragonstorm thanks to the printing of Bogardan Hellkite).  It became possible to mill away your opponent's entire deck in a single shot - a strategy still used today across multiple formats.

Here are two quick examples of popular tournament decks that employ this strategy:

Heartbeat of Spring

Steve Gargolinski - Extended Legal

 

Creatures 4 Sakura-tribe Elder 4 cards Other Spells 4 Heartbeat Of Spring 1 Brain Freeze 4 Cunning Wish 3 Early Harvest 3 Fact Or Fiction 4 Gifts Ungiven 2 Moment's Peace 1 Deep Analysis 4 Mind's Desire 4 Nostalgic Dreams 3 Rampant Growth 1 Revive 34 cards

Lands 12 Forest 10 Island 22 cards Sideboard 3 Brain Freeze 1 Chain Of Vapor 1 Early Harvest 1 Fact Or Fiction 3 Mana Short 1 Memory Lapse 2 Moment's Peace 1 Naturalize 1 Stifle 1 Words Of Wisdom 15 cards

Solidarity

Steve Gargolinski - Legacy Legal

 

Creatures 0 cards Other Spells 4 High tide 4 Reset 3 Turnabout 3 Meditate 4 Impulse 4 Brainstorm 2 Flash Of Insight 2 Peek 2 Opt 1 Twincast 4 Remand 4 Force Of Will 2 Brain freeze 3 Cunning wish 42 cards

Lands 3 Flooded strand 12 Island 3 Polluted delta 18 cards

Both of these decks revolve around resolving a whole bunch of spells in one turn followed up by Brain Freeze with a ton of storm copies.  Heartbeat of Spring ramps up in mana to power out a number of spells and then hopefully Mind's Desire.  Mind's Desire chains into a whole bunch more spells and then hopefully Brain Freeze.  Solidarity uses High Tide and the Legends card Reset to build up tons of blue mana alongside powerful card-draw spells like Meditate and Flash of Insight to keep the spells coming en route to a lethal Brain Freeze.

Now it's obvious that comboing off and cleaning out an entire deck at once is a far cry from grinding two cards away at a time over twenty turns, but Brain Freeze and Millstone both accomplish the same basic task - force your opponent into a situation where he is unable to draw a card while required to do so.

Now that our history lesson is out of the way, let's get down to business.

Deck Construction

In Eventide, Wizards printed a card that has the potential to mill away a huge number of cards for just three mana.

Here's the down and dirty on Sanity Grinding:  UUU reveals ten cards from the top of your deck.  Each blue mana symbol sends one card from your opponent's library into their graveyard.  In the right deck, Sanity Grinding is a vast improvement over classic Millstone and definitely the most powerful mill component printed since Brain Freeze.  Here's a formula to give you a rough idea of how many cards will be milled away during an average Sanity Grinding:

average Sanity Grinding mill quantity = (number of blue mana symbols in deck / number of cards in deck) * 10

Just to get an idea of what Sanity Grinding is capable of, let's say that we're running a deck of sixty cards and twenty-four land.  Just for kicks, we'll start off with this decklist:

Sanity Grinding Math Example

Steve Gargolinski - Obviously not legal in very many formats

Creatures 32 Godhead of Awe 32 cards Other Spells 4 Sanity Grinding 4 cards

Lands 24 Island 24 cards

This deck has a total of 172 blue mana symbols - 5 for each Godhead of Awe, and 3 for each Sanity Grinding.  There are 60 cards in the deck.

average Sanity Grinding mill quantity = (172 / 60) * 10
average Sanity Grinding mill quantity = 28.66

An average activation of Sanity Grinding in that fantasy decklist will mill away somewhere around twenty-nine cards!  Obviously our real decklist won't be able to run thirty-two copies of Godhead of Awe, but there sure are plenty of powerful cards in Standard these days with lots of blue mana symbols in the cost!  It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to come up with a list that consistently mills somewhere between fifteen and twenty-two or so cards per Sanity Grinding.  If Millstone was strong enough to win a first Pro Tour, then Sanity Grinding should definitely be powerful enough to win a couple of games in the ol' Casual Room.

Gaea's Blessing is still around, and that card contributed greatly to the death of the original Millstone decks - so we're going to make sure that this deck isn't completely reliant on the millstone strategy.  Our deck needs to be capable of at least one other winning end game scenario.  With all of this in mind, here's a brainstorm list of cards to consider for the first version of this deck:

Twincast Combines alongside Sanity Grinding creates a huge five mana millstone effect.  This two card combo comes close to winning most games all by itself, assuming that each Sanity Grinding knocks off somewhere eighteen or so cards.  Also works well with many of the other cards we're going to want to play in this list. Cryptic Command Not only has lots of blue mana symbols, but is also just one of the straight up most brutal cards around.  Control likes this card, aggro likes this card, everyone likes this card.  Some people really hate it, but just about everyone wants to play it.  I can't think of a heavy-blue deck that doesn't want at least a few copies of this spell.  Since we're planning on usually implementing a Millstone strategy, it's important to survive into the late game - something that Cryptic Command is excellent at helping us do. This deck actually wants Cryptic Command to cost UUUU.  Fantastic Twincast target. Boomerang Boomerang has been a powerful card in years past, with a variety of uses.  We can't Boomerang a Ravnica bounce-land any more, but still strong against a whole bunch of different strategies.

Shelldock Isle
The hideaway land custom made for our deck.  Trades a point of mana early for minor card and significant mana advantages once our plan starts working.

Jace Beleren
The planeswalker custom made for this deck.  Provides short term card advantage and a long-term super-Millstone ability.  Getting him up to ten loyalty counters seems like quite a chore.

Broken Ambitions
Conditional counterspell with some Millstone-action attached.  The clash helps to set up a Twincast/Sanity Grinding combo - hopefully more than it helps out our opponent.

Grimoire Thief
Seems like a solid way to mill some cards while also keeping control of the game.  The problem is that unless we come up with some novel way to tap the Grimoire Thief, this guy needs to go into the red zone in order to get the job done.  I don't think our deck is going to want to attack very often.

Dream Fracture
Sort of like Arcane Denial in the old Millstone/Stasis-lock decks.  I'm not sure if this card is better or worse than Cancel, but when it's good it's REALLY good.  We're talking Cryptic Command five through eight good - for one mana less and with it's modes preselected.

Plumeveil Fantastic defense.  Lots of blue mana symbols.  I'm really surprised that you don't see this guy in Standard more often.  Very few creatures want to attack into him and lots of the time they don't even have the choice as he comes down with flash. Oona, Queen of the Fae Overbeing of Myth Godhead of Awe Ghastlord of Fugue Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir These are the five giant, scary monsters with lots of blue mana in their cost that have some particular synergy with our deck.  Overbeing of Myth and Oona, Queen of the Fae are both alternate win conditions that also push along our primary plan.  I love cards like that!  Godhead of Awe neuters any sort of opposing offense, assuming that we live to hit five mana.  The Ghastlord provides inevitability and protection, and Teferi does pretty much everything that a blue deck wants. Memory Sluice Potential mill for eight at just one mana, but requires two creatures.  We don't even want to really consider this card unless we end up running at least thirteen or fourteen creatures.

Drowner Initiate
Requires a mana investment throughout the game, but mills for two for each blue spell cast - and we'll be casting a lot of spells.  Can always be used as a chump blocker in the late game.

Dreamborn Muse Closer to the traditional Millstone than the theme of this list so far.  Costs four mana, which is a lot compared to what you get for five in this deck - and is just a fragile little creature that needs to stay alive in order to do any good.  Might be worth it if we need options for redundancy, but we don't want to lean to heavily on this girl. Wistful Selkie Lots of blue mana symbols, cantips, holds down the ground, chump blocks late - just a solid all-around card. Ponder Strongest early-game option available to set up our hand/combo.  If it's good enough to be banned in Vintage, then it's going enough for my Sanity Grinding deck! Terramorphic Expanse Clears lands out of our deck to increase the potency of Sanity Grinding.  The effect of this is fairly minimal, but some people are into this sort of optimization.  Mana Severence this is not.

Mulldrifter
Chump blocks a flier, provides card advantage, reusable with Evacuation or Boomerang, attacks if we really need him to.

Evacuation
I had forgotten that this card was still around in Tenth Edition.  Bouncing all creatures seems very strong in this aggro-heavy world.  If we play some creatures with comes-into-play abilities, then we can get double use out of them.

Initial Decklist

For the first shot at this deck, I'm going to forego all of the more traditional long-game milling strategy cards above and instead focus on the sweet Sanity Grinding + Twincast combo.  This means that cards like Drowner Initiate, Broken Ambitions, and Dreamborn Muse are going to be left out of this list.  There's definitely a version of this strategy that plays those cards, but it is not this deck.  With all of this in mind, here's my first shot at a decklist:

Twin Milling

Steve Gargolinski - Standard Legal

 

Creatures 2 Godhead of Awe 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae 4 Plumeveil 7 cards Other Spells 4 Boomerang 4 Cryptic Command 2 Evacuation 2 Jace Beleren 3 Overbeing of Myth 4 Ponder 4 Sanity Grinding 4 Twincast 4 Wistful Selkie 31 cards

Lands 18 Island 4 Shelldock Isle 22 cards

This list seems strong to me.  It's got the explosive Twincast + Sanity Grinding move, as well as plenty of protection for the early game.  Overbeing of Myth, Godhead of Awe, and Oona, Queen of the Fae are alternate win conditions in case we get taken off of the millstone plan.

It's mathematically pretty easy to figure out the mill potential of Sanity Grinding using the formula detailed above.  Here's the current breakdown of blue mana symbols for each card in my list:

So that totals up to 104 blue mana symbols spread across 60 cards for an average of 1.73 blue mana symbols per card.  Sanity Grinding reveals 10 cards, so 10 x 1.73 = 17.3 cards milled per Sanity Grinding.

If you want to do a little more math then you can remove 3 lands and one Sanity Grinding from those numbers to simulate the bare minimum that you need to resolve your spell.  With this taken into account, our numbers adjust to 101 blue mana symbols spread across 56 cards.  This leads to 1.80 blue mana symbols per card and about 18 cards milled per Sanity Grinding.  Pretty sweet for just UUU, huh?  Sure beats 2 cards milled for 4 colorless mana.  This gives you an idea of just how quickly you can run down your opponent's library.

Running close to these numbers, it'll take somewhere between two and three resolved copies of Sanity Grinding to mill away a sixty card deck.  It's not immediately obvious to me the best way to manage our four copies of Twincast and Sanity Grinding.  Ideally we'd do something like Sanity Grinding + Twincast on turn five, followed up by an Overbeing of Myth to draw us into another Sanity Grinding, or Godhead of Awe to control the game until our opponent runs himself dry.  After running through a bunch of test games, hopefully I'll have a better idea.

Test Games

Game 1 vs Mono White My opponent starts off by tucking a few cards under double Windbrisk Heights, I start off by tucking Twincast under Shelldock Isle.  I try to set a curve up with Ponder, but end up with triple Overbeing of Myth in my hand!  I play out Jace Beleren and use the Planeswalker for some card advantage.  My opponent plays Magus of the Disk and takes out Jace. Sanity Grinding leaves thirty-six cards in my opponents library, but he is able to come back with Divinity of Pride.  I Boomerang the big guy to stall for a turn, and then cast Evacuation after my opponent casts Twilight Shepherd.  Conveniently, he casts the Shepherd BEFORE combat, which helps me out quite a bit. I Cryptic Command to counter Twilight Shepherd and then start to rebuild with Wistful Selkie.  I use double Plumeveil to ambush a new Twilight Shepherd, and then use Cryptic Command on Divinity of Pride.  I bring Oona into play to finish off this game, but my opponent wipes the board with Austere Command.  I respond with Godhead of Awe and then cast Sanity Grinding to reduce my opponent's library down to twelve cards.  Austere Command again wipes the board, but I get a second Shelldock Isle with a hideaway Sanity Grinding that I'm able to trigger for the win.

Game 2 vs Mono White Control

I am a bit land flooded early, and cast a turn three Wistful Selkie - which gets locked out by Prison Term.  I bring Jace Beleren into play, but Oblivion Ring takes out the Planeswalker.  Double Shelldock Isle hides a Cryptic Command and Sanity Grinding.  My opponent casts Ajani Goldmane.

Oona, Queen of the Fae hits the table and my opponent swaps the Prison Term over.  Wistful Selkie starts attacking Ajani Goldmane, and my opponent drops Glorious Anthem.  Kind of weird since I haven't seen him cast a single creature yet?  Overbeing of Myth hits the table and starts drawing me some cards.

Double Kithkin Rabble come into play as 8/8s, but I've got plenty of blockers.  I draw a Twincast to go along with my Sanity Grinding and mill my opponent down to four cards.  I've got another Sanity Grinding under a Shelldock Isle which I use for the win.

Game 3 vs Blue Control I accidentally keep a hand of:  Island, Jace Beleren, 2x Boomerang, 2x Wistful Selkie, and Twincast.  My opponent starts off with Ponder and Cursecatcher, which is kind of a beating considering my deck and draw.  Thankfully I topdeck some lands and I'm able to Ponder my way out of my stupid misclick a little bit.  I hideaway Oona, but my opponent locks me down for a few turns by tapping my lands with Pestermite.  I take a beating from those stupid 2/1s. I cast Jace Beleren, mostly to draw some fire from the creatures that are killing me - which I guess works out as planned.  My opponent casts out double Plumeveil - good thing I'm not planning on attacking.  I'm down to eight life and things are not looking good.  I have to Boomerang a Pestermite just to buy another turn, and am pretty relieved when my opponent counters it with Cursecatcher. I topdeck Plumeveil, which is pretty huge.  I ambush one of the Pestermites and then stabilize the board.  I'm down to two life, but there's no sign of my opponent getting that last bit of damage through.  I cast out double Wistful Selkie and then Cryptic Command away Ghastlord of Fugue.  I draw into Sanity Grinding and then Twincast it for the win.

Game 4 vs BG

I start off with a Shelldock Isle and see:  Boomerang, 3x Island.  Nothing exciting.  My opponent stalls on two lands for a turn, but draws out of it and then gets Civic Wayfinder.  I play Wistful Selkie against Ashling the Extinguisher, and then lay down Godhead of Awe.  Jace hits the table for some immediate card advantage.

Creakwood Liege comes into play alongside Nantuko Husk, but the Godhead of Awe is keeping any of this from being a real problem.  I play out a few copies of Plumeveil while sitting back on double Cryptic Command.  My opponent plays out Elvish Warrior, Llanowar Elves, and Rendclaw Trow - but has nothing to deal with the Godhead of Awe.

Eventually I play Sanity Grinding and Twincast, milling my opponent down to seven cards.  I stall for a bit and my opponent draws himself out of cards.

Intermission

I really like this deck so far.  It definitely shows that milling is a casually competitive strategy in type 2 right now.  This list plays a lot more like a combo deck than anything else.  String together Sanity Grinding plus Twincast (or double Sanity Grinding) successfully and chances are it's a win - or really close to it.  This play has a strange parallel to six spells plus Empty the Warrens!

With that being said, I think that this list is a bit light on land.  There have also been a few cards that just haven't worked out as well as I thought they would.  Time for version 2.

The main issue is that Jace hasn't been good at all.  The most value I've gotten out of him so far is:  draw two cards over two turns.  There are obviously much better card-drawing options available if that's what we're going for.  I'm going to make a pretty small change here:

Out:  2x Jace Beleren
In:  1x Island, 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Twin Milling v2

Steve Gargolinski - Standard Legal

 

Creatures 2 Godhead of Awe 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae 4 Plumeveil 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 8 cards Other Spells 4 Boomerang 4 Cryptic Command 2 Evacuation 3 Overbeing of Myth 4 Ponder 4 Sanity Grinding 4 Twincast 4 Wistful Selkie 18 cards

Lands 19 Island 4 Shelldock Isle 23 cards

These are fairly small changes, but I really feel that they tighten up the list considerably.  The single Teferi might seem strange, but in several games I've had my opponent milled pretty far down while I wait him out.  In this situation it seems fairly common to have Overbeing of Myth (or two) in play with a hand full of cards.  Teferi is really powerful in this situation, cutting off lots of potential paths to victory while allowing me to sit on Cryptic Commands and still drop huge monsters.  People forget just how awesome Teferi can be.

More Test Games

Game 5 vs GW

My opponent gets a quick start with Figure of Destiny, Wooded Bastion, Gaddock Teeg, and then Shield of the Oversoul on Teeg.  I bounce Gaddock Teeg with Boomerang and then Ponder shuffle away triple Island.  I use Cryptic Command to take out Chameleon Colossus, which gives my opponent the chance to drop a backbreaking Oversoul of Dusk.

I've got two copies of Plumeveil in my hand, but they do little good.  I dig in desperation for Evacuation (the only card in my deck that can deal at all with Protection from blue), but go down quickly to the 5/5 beater.

Game 6 vs Mono Blue

I play Ponder three times in the first two turns.  My opponent Boomerangs one of my lands and then taps out for Mulldrifter.  I counter with Cryptic Command (also drawing a card), untap, and then draw Twincast.  I mill away forty-five cards with Sanity Grinding + Twincast and my opponent concedes.

Thankfully I played first that time!  If I had been on the draw then I would have still been sitting on four lands, without a way to counterspell the Mulldrifter.  Without the Cryptic Command then I wouldn't have been able to draw into Twincast against a tapped out mono blue opponent.

Game 7 vs Green Battle-Axe Warriors I start off with Ponder on turns one and two and end up with a hand full of Overbeings of Myth and Godheads of Awe.  My opponent plays out Llanowar Elves, and then Obsidian Battle-Axe - dropping a scary Bramblewood Paragon AND Nettle Sentinel on turn three.  I take six and go down to fourteen. Tower Above untaps the Nettle Sentinel and turns the Paragon into a scary beater.  I drop Plumeveil and trade with the 5/4 Nettle Sentinel, but still take seven from the Paragon and one from the Elves and go down to six life. I Cryptic Command to bounce the Battle-Axe and tap down my opponent's team.  I flash out another Plumeveil and trade with a new (3/3) Bramblewood Paragon.  I take two from the other Paragon and one from the Elves to go down to three. Overbeing of Myth finally comes on line...  two turns in a row!  Giantbaiting puts me in serious trouble though - I'm caught off guard and forced to trade both Overbeings for two Giantbaiting tokens in order to stay alive.  Thankfully I'm left with plenty of gas in my hand while my opponent is in topdeck mode.  I cast out Godhead of Awe, who is able to hold down the fort alongside Plumeveil while I combo off with Sanity Grinding and double Twincast for the win.

Game 8 vs Blue Green Big Mana?

I start off with double Shelldock Isle, putting away Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Overbeing of Myth.  My opponent plays Terramorphic Expanse for Forest, then Rampant Growth, Coalition Relic, and then Howling Mine.  I cast double Wistful Selkie, and my opponent hard casts Mulldrifter.

My opponent taps out for a new Mulldrifter and Civic Wayfinder on the same turn, and so I play the Sanity Grinding + Twincast combo to mill him down to twelve cards.  Teferi and the Overbeing come into play, and one of my three draws on the next turn is a new Sanity Grinding for the win.

Ways to Evolve the Deck

One of blue's traditional strengths is the ability to run counterspells.  Twin Milling is probably best described as combo-control, and runs exactly four counterspells (the playset of Cryptic Command) - not exactly familiar ground for a mono-blue control deck.  Here's a potential alternate configuration of the deck that focuses more on countering spells than it does on busting stuff up once it has hit the table:

Out:  1x Island, 4x Boomerang, 2x Evacuation, 4x Wistful Selkie
In:  4x Rune Snag, 4x Broken Ambitions, 3x Dream Fracture

Counter Twin Milling

Steve Gargolinski - Standard Legal

 

Creatures 2 Godhead of Awe 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae 4 Plumeveil 8 cards Other Spells 4 Rune Snag 4 Cryptic Command 3 Overbeing of Myth 4 Ponder 4 Sanity Grinding 4 Twincast 4 Broken Ambitions 3 Dream Fracture 30 cards

Lands 18 Island 4 Shelldock Isle 22 cards

Another aspect of the deck that I'm not sure if I got right is the 'big creature' package.  Right now it currently stands at 1x Teferi, 3x Overbeing of Myth, and 2x Godhead of Awe.  These numbers are not scientific and definitely open for interpretation.  Try out some different combinations and see what you like the best.  There might also be other options for the 'big dude' slot.  I went with the options I did in order to keep the number of blue mana symbols as high as possible, but this isn't a hard and fast requirement.

Here's a rough breakdown of the cost to build Twin Milling v2 from scratch, using prices from mtgotraders.com

Total cost = $51.66
Total cost with paypal discount = $51.66 - ($51.66 * 0.12) = $45.46

Twin Milling currently comes in at around $45, which isn't terrible for a complete deck.  The most expensive component here is Cryptic Command - by a wide margin.  Cryptic Command makes up about 60% of the deck's cost, and removing the playset brings the total cost down to around $20 - not bad at all.  The downside of this idea is that Cryptic Command is probably the MVP of the deck; it fills in as a perfect solution to any number of problems. 

 Two different combos, two different kinds of brutal

If you can't afford a playset then there are definitely other options.  First off it's always possible to swap out Cryptic Command for a card that reproduces one (or two) of it's four modes.  Of course it's the versatility that makes Cryptic Command so amazing, but not playing it means that we need to make some choices. As an aside, if you're going to invest in expensive cards, then Cryptic Command is exactly the type of expensive card you should invest in.  It's in a good color, it's powerful, versatile, and fits right into many different strategies.  The only downside is that it requires such a heavy blue commitment.  Anyways, back to card choices. Familiar's Ruse moves this list more towards control, while providing some potential synergy with Wistful Selkie.  Ghastlord of Fugue adds a stong 4/4 body with evasion that is another alternate win condition along with a way to take a look at your opponent's hand and clear the way for a Sanity Grinding + Twincast combo.  If you're looking for a crazier option, Memory Plunder adds four blue mana symbols and can potentially be backbreaking against the right deck - especially alongside Twincast.  That's a good one to toss in your sideboard and then bring it in as some "super secret tech" if your opponent is running something spicy. Major props if you manage to Memory Plunder targeting Cruel Ultimatum out of an opponent's graveyard, but I'll promise ten tickets to the first person who sends me a real screenshot and legitimate gamelog of them using Memory Plunder and Twincast to make two copies of a Cruel Ultimatum in their opponent's graveyard.  Worst beating ever!

It doesn't get much worse than this.

For an alternate view on this strategy, here's a deck that Patrick Chapin came up with during the Eventide spoiler season with some different choices:

Chapin Sanity Grinding

Patrick Chapin - Standard Legal

 

Creatures 4 Drowner Initiate 2 Drowner Of Secrets 4 Grimoire Thief 4 Silvergill Adept 14 cards Other Spells 4 Wistful Selkie 4 Broken Ambitions 4 Cryptic Command 4 Memory Sluice 4 Ponder 4 Sanity Grinding 24 cards

Lands 18 Island 4 Shelldock Isle 22 cards

This list is focused on using lots of creatures with Merfolk-ish millstone abilities complimentary to Sanity Grinding.  With that many creatures, Memory Sluice is usually a mill of eight for just two mana and the full eight cantrip creatures help to clog up the ground in the early going.  One thing that this deck really lacks is an alternate end game to the Millstone strategy.  I'm not sure what it does about Gaea's Blessing - I guess the backup plan is to tap blockers down with Cryptic Command and swing in with a bunch of two power guys.

Lessons Learned

Personally, I was very surprised (and happy) to find out how much this list ended up playing like a combo deck.  Instead of using a degenerate mana engine or something, Twin Milling attempts to stall long enough to assemble a fairly simple two or three card combo.  Twincast is useful as both a combo piece and as a situationally powerful spell.  Even in a creature-heavy metagame, there are usually plenty of instants and sorceries flying around that you don't mind paying UU to copy.

It's very important with this deck to know when to 'go off'.  This deck ends up milling away about eighteen cards per Sanity Grinding.  If you resolve three copies, then you will almost certainly empty out your opponent's library.  If you only resolve two copies, then your opponent will most likely end up with somewhere around ten or fifteen draws left.  A lot of the time this is the correct play, especially if you have a copy or two of Shelldock Isle in play.  Assuming you've hidden some gas under your hideaway lands, there's a pretty decent chance that you'll be able to stall for the win from this position.  If the gas under Shelldock Isle happens to be Sanity Grinding, then you can just win right there.

Firing off two or so copies of Sanity Grinding is often the correct play, and not just because it activates your hideaway lands.  Depending on your opponent's strategy, it's definitely possible for their plans to go out the window after you mill away forty or so cards.  They might just not be able to accumulate the damage necessary in the number of turns remaining - especially through your significant resistance.  Not only that, but it also gives you tons of information about what you need to do to close out the game.  Pay attention to the cards hitting the graveyard, and get a better idea of the proper path to victory.  Finally, leaving your opponent with ten or so cards in their deck has a psychological effect on them.  The end is near, and they can feel it.  It's not uncommon for players to start making more mistakes than usual during this phase of the game.

I definitely prefer the Brain Freeze or Sanity Grinding + Twincast method of "dump most/all of your library into the graveyard at once" over a gradual Millstone/Ambassador Laquatus/Scalpelexis approach.  It's pretty satisfying to see your opponent go from a generally favorable position to ten or fewer cards left in his library all in one shot.  I think that people generally expect something like that from a combo deck, but not from something that plays so much like a control deck. I didn't need to beat down with Overbeing of Myth or Godhead at all in any of the test games, but it was good to know that my deck wasn't an auto-loss to Gaea's Blessing or someone running a 500 card deck in the casual room.  While playing this deck, make SURE that you start off every game by checking your opponent's library size.  I didn't face any huge decks this time, but they are definitely out there. If you're up against Gaea's Blessing or a five-hundred card deck, your strategy needs to change drastically.  Forget about hiding away Overbeing of Myth or Godhead of Awe and instead leave it in your deck - you'll need it to have any shot at winning.  Forget about using Twincast on Sanity Grinding and instead focus on Twincasting a Cryptic Command (or one of your opponent's spells).  Control the game as best you can until you can stick a huge Overbeing of Myth, Teferi, or Oona.  Cryptic Command turns into a offensive weapon, helping you get your big guys through unblocked.  That card can do it all.

Sanity Grinding is definitely the most powerfull Millstone variant printed since Brain Freeze.  It's capable of cleaning out your opponent's deck on around turn five or six without a whole bunch of prior investment above a deck filled with blue mana symbols.  If you're feeling nostalgic and feel like returning to a simpler time of sixty-two card decks and Fountain of Youth, then find an old issue of the Duelist or something.  If you feel like going from sixty to zero in under ten turns, then pick up a playset of Sanity Grinding.

Thanks for reading!  Feedback is always welcome!

Steve Gargolinski
spgmtgo@gmail.com